User talk:Cdogsimmons/Archives 2

MZMBride
For beings sixth man in on the protection-unprotection-reprotection-re-unprotection fight after numerous warnings had been issued to stop and behave. Yes, that. I'd said I would do it, as had Jehochman and MBisanz, and so I did. Man of my word, or something like that. Wily D 17:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A few places, mostly [], I suppose, and it'd been stable for a while. There was also ongoing discussion at AE which was probably going to full protect until saturday, then try again.  Wrong Version also applies to edit warring in all its forms.  Regardless, I think if I've misstepped in this regard, we'll find out soon enough. Wily D  17:58, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war
The Sarah Palin wheel war arbitration case, on which you have commented, is now open.
 * Evidence for the arbitrators may be submitted at Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war/Evidence. Evidence should be submitted within one week, if possible.
 * Your contributions are also welcome at Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war/Workshop.

For the Arbitration Committee, Anthøny   ✉  20:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Kelly Palin Deletes

 * I am new to Wikipedia and Kelly and a few others delete my article onctributions almost immediately upon creatoin. I noticed you seem to have a similar situation.  I created articles for the two Wasilla churches and pastors just like the Reverend Wright and United Trinity Church articles.  Kelly just deleted In "September 2008 the church promoted a conference to pray for the conversion of gays to become heterosexual." From the "Wasilla Bible Church" section of the only article it is being allowed to be in for coathanger.  The two deleted Palin church and pastor sites were my first and only at Wikipedia.  I can not get a meaningful response from the deleters except, "you know already".  Still no responsse from Kelly. Can you explain why this sentence is a coathanger?
 * I am a mathematician formerly at Stanford for eleven years and to a Lay-Wikipedian like me it seems like there is simple censorship going on, but maybe I don't just understand policy and the difference between coathangers on the United Trinity article and the Wasilla church article. Why is Kelly not attacking the United Trinity Church article? Thnx EricDiesel (talk) 06:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for response. The mathematics articles might as well be "in arabic" because they are very poorly written, in comparison the nest written stuff in textbooks.  A well written article should be easy to understand to anyone.  I find that the best mathematics texts have picures for everything, so that you can "see" the idea, and do not have to understand the  language or think very hard.  But a good picture is very hard to do, and there is an aethsthetic that resulted in a boast in an advanced graduate probability textbook written by a prof at Stanford  having the "boast" that "there are no pictures in the whole book".  This is associated with the idea of "rigor" and "elegance".  It is a gray area as to whether using the 'idea' behind a diagram in a text would be an infringement on the original author's copyright.
 * Yes, I have noticed the articles I created and edited on two churches and pastors (all four instantly deleted) are the subject of much activity, most claiming "nn" (see the deletion of article discussion on Wasilla Assembly of God). It makes no sense that so many would be so concerned about a non notable church if it was really non notable (there area hundreds of news stories about the sermons of the churches, and thousands of web pages).  I wrote on the two Wasilla churches and the two controversial pastors ( a third pastor, Paul Riley, is in the news more, but is only there for his comments on Palin, so I did not create an article on him).  Actualy, i am glad for the delete pressure on my articles, since it is a very good way to learn for me, so many instantly trying to come up with a new rationalle for deleting facts that might or might not flatter Palin.
 * Kelly and a handful of the same editors, for the last four days, 24 hours a day, have been doing instanteneous deletes of lots of info with very little explanation other than a single expression like "coathanger", "nn", or "NPOV". They are very concerned to keep out coathangers, but do not make equivalent deletes on the Rev Wiright's and Untied Trinity church articles.  Is it possible "September 2008 the church promoted a conference to pray for the conversion of gays to become heterosexual." is not a coathanger, and Kelly and a few of Kelly's fellow deleters are abusing the coathanger ideas to push a point of view, or am I missing something?  Thnx.  EricDiesel (talk) 15:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Palin to Film
I left some stuff on the Film article talk page, since I was explicitly told by the "Palin Deletion Hawks" to stay away from Palin's church sites (even thuogh I am the one who created them), and anything I add to them is instantly deleted, for what seem to be arbitrary reasons. I note you listed Film as a matter of pride. (The "sin of pride" is used well by Vanessa Redgrave in Ken Russel's Devils, based on Huxley's book. I am director of the Thomas Henry and Aldous Huxley Foundation.) EricDiesel (talk) 15:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Assume Good Faith reminder
Please remember to assume good faith when dealing with other editors. Jclemens (talk) 04:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagree. I told you on your talk page not to revert the inclusion of sourced information or I would consider it vandalism. You reverted claiming it was WP:COATRACK, again, which clearly did not apply. I did assume good faith, the first time. The second time, after a warning, it's vandalism.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Really? Where does it say that in WP:VANDAL?  I get that you may consider it vandalism, but what I've done isn't.  Nor is what you've done, even though I disagree with it as well.  WP:AGF is the lubrication that keeps editors with divergent viewpoints working together; while I'm convinved that I'm right and you're not, I have not and will not assert that your edits are in bad faith.  Just because we disagree doesn't make either one of us a vandal.  Neither one of us is randomly adding profanity to articles. :-) Jclemens (talk) 05:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Your reversion of factual sourced information is under "Sneaky vandalism": "reverting legitimate edits with the intent of hindering the improvement of pages."--Cdogsimmons (talk) 05:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nothing sneaky about it--I did it, I own up to it, and I told you and the rest of Wikipedia exactly my reason for doing so on the article talk page: your addition doesn't belong, I contend. You again called my edits vandalism, which is uncivil. Such misbehavior isn't going to get me riled up or to break WP:3RR--it's just going to make you look bad to others looking in. Jclemens (talk) 05:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A spade is a spade and vandalism is vandalism. Since I warned you beforehand I don't think I was being at all uncivil. I guess we'll find out when we get a third opinion.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 05:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel free to seek one at WP:3O. I'd welcome it. Jclemens (talk) 05:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Dude, I did that before you reverted my edit for a third time like ten minutes ago.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 05:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah. I was actually thinking you'd be seeking a 3O on whether my reverts constituted vandalism, since it seems likely that the other dispute will attract people within the next 24 hours. Regardless, we'll see what folks have to say. Cheers! Jclemens (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wasilla AoG pray gays to straights, coathanger policy
I created this article as my first Wikipedia article. All my contributions are deleted "coathanger". I am trying to understand the concept. If contribution A is a coathanger for some other article B, shuoldn't the contribution deleted from A be put on A? So if "pray gays to straights" is removed as a coathanger for Palin, shouldn't it go on the Palin article if it is deleted? Sorry if my question is stupid, but I am new. EricDiesel (talk) 14:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * From what I understand of the WP:COAT argument that is being made, that would be correct. Of course Sarah Palin is Fully protected from editing and it will be impossible to enter the information. To me the Coathanger argument is faulty in the first place, it is not an official policy of wikipedia, and I don't think that this information rises to some kind of personal attack on Sarah Palin. It's just accurate sourced information that has to do with someone else, which some editors thinks reflects poorly on Sarah Palin. I took the dispute to WP:3O. If that doesn't resolve the issue, the next step I believe is to ask for WP:ARB. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Your "Unfortunate use" comment

 * I am new here, and agree with your "unfortunate use" comment.
 * I created Coatrack Deletions in response to your "Unfortunat Use of Coatrack Article" comment. (And I created the back up User:EricDiesel/Coatrack Argument for Deletions to keep it pure),
 * My background is as a retired mathematician (I turned 26 years old) and former political cartoonist (Bush could do himself better than I could, so I quit), as well as in the stuff at User:EricDiesel.
 * Some people like to think for themselves, some like to rely on authrority, or perceived authority. For example, some people do the right thing after figuring out what it is, some like to do something because "god said so" or "Simon says".  Just like Constantine et al got to write what was in the bible, now an "unquestionable" authority, and is now quoted, one can write an essay and get the same results at Wiki, like WP:COAT.
 * Since I wrote the article Coatrack Deletions, I am certain it SUCKS (no offencse meant, since I realize I wrote it after reading your comment; your comment was good). But if you know anyone else who can think, (don't let any of the Delete-Why?-"Coatrack"-Hawks know yet), and who likes MORE informaion (true and well sourced) better than less, please have them take a knife to my article, but ask that they explain themselves like in a maath class on the talk page.
 * Once it is polished and reasonable, then start citing it on religeon and intelligent design sites. Soon, it too will be "unfortunately used", hopefully to keep things IN, not out.
 * I am new to Wikipedia but always wanted a church of my own, who took my !$@%%& for gospel.
 * PS I must warn you that I have a POV and am partrisan regarding political articles. I used to be a political cartoonist, so I am an anti-"take your pick" partisan. EricDiesel (talk) 17:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion at Talk:Wasilla Assembly of God
The purpose of WP:3O is to get the perspective of an uninvolved party, sort of as a sanity check during a dispute. Of course, it is just another opinion, is confined to the question asked, is not a statement of policy, and is certainly not binding - not even remotely - so you can do what you want with it! --Regents Park (count the magpies) 18:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsolicited advice
I'd like to ask you not to do stuff like this. It's one thing to exchange less-than-optimally-civil words with another editor in the heat of a content dispute. But if another editor has disengaged and is clearly frustrated, then please don't follow them to their talk page to poke them with a stick. Let it go. There's plenty of editing to be done. MastCell Talk 22:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you are right. I will try to be more copasetic.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 23:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Coatrack Deletions
Essay regarding use of WP:COATRACK is here Coatrack Deletions. I wrote this essay incorporating your comments. I would appreciate it if you checked and see if you have any other ideas as to how to avoid disputes like are occuring on the Palin church pages. Thnx
 * Some who deleted things are trying to have essay itself deleted. You can weigh in here Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Coatrack_Deletions EricDiesel (talk) 15:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Sarah Palin's drug use
Alright, thanks for the heads-up. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  20:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Good catch
Good edit, scaling back my "trimming" of the expression/religion/speech thing. I have been so used to seeing stuff not about her official positions that sometimes I get a little simpleminded. Due to the McCain pict at the top of the Ontheissues source page, I was worried it was, er, nonneutral, so wanted to avoid having the material sounding like "motherhood and apple pie" rah rah. But it's just one page of a whole spectrum of candidate pages, so perhaps I was overvigilant (if not, feel free to correct me!). Do you think it still sounds perhaps a little too cheerleading? If so, we could paraphrase, yet keep the verbatim in the footnote. Nothing lost. Feel free to copy and reply on the talk page, but I wanted to express my appreciation of your actions. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Palin - Baptisms
I responded to your question. There has alreayd been extensive discussion that perhaps you may have missed regarding the topic of her religious experience. We created a new section to accomodate that at Sarah_Palin. The personal section is mean't to be a brief, tight, high-level discussion of aspects of her "public" private life, such as that she is married, has kids, hobbies, gies to church, etc. The mre mentioning of her religion was not an open door for all religious discussion into that section. The new section is specifically for discussing the events you are concerned about covering. Atom (talk) 06:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I see. Well, wherever it ends up, I don't think the information should just be removed from the page. It's sourced, relevant, and I believe important to understanding who Sarah Palin is. Finding a consensus on those issues can't hurt.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 06:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

There's a vote over at Sarah Palin
Please visit. LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 22:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Jclemens Edit wars
I note that there are three unrelated edit war sections on Jclemens talk page. Jclemens just did a second (or third) revert of Balloonman's extensive contrib at Wasilla Assembly of God. Do you know what the outcome was of the previous recent accusations of vandalism for Jclemens repeated deletions? EricDiesel (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Sarah Palin
Please stop. If you continue to use talk pages for inappropriate discussion, you may be blocked.  Grsz  talk  03:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm looking for clarification. Can anyone tell me why the material here that's being repeatedly removed by various editors doesn't belong there? --Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Kelly is relentless
She has declared war on me because I have fought her consistent pro-Palin POV-pushing. She may well be a sockpuppet of Hobartimus and Collect. I tried to make peace with her, but she has insisted on making it personal and is determined to destroy all editors that actually want to tell both sides of the story. I suspect she, Hobartimus, and Collect (if they're not the same person) all work for the McCain campaign. Please delete this after reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GreekParadise (talk • contribs) 03:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I delete nothing from my talk page, unless it is a grammatical error on my part or something like that. If you suspect Kelly is a sockpuppet or working for the McCain campaign then present some evidence.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Kelly is no one's sockpuppet. As to his campaign affiliations, his self-disclosure is here. MastCell Talk 03:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

RE - invite
Thanks for the compliment and the invite to Wikiproject Correction and Detention Facilities. I've joined up and am happy to help with whatever I can Bleaney (talk) 00:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

RFC
Please respond to the RFC on Clarence Thomas. Wallamoose and other partisan editors are trying to decimate the section on Anita Hill and the other women who accused Thomas of sexual misconduct. RafaelRGarcia (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Lists of laojiaos
Ok, I'll try to get the templates back up in the next couple days; I may be away from the computer for most of the weekend, but I'll get them up as soon as I can. In the meantime, should I post comments on the lists' talk pages ragarding the deletion dispute? &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 01:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks for fixing that for me. Sorry I wasn't able to help more quickly; I know it's really tedious work.  Best, &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 13:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, I just threw together a quick reply to your comments at the speedy deletion discussion. Also, I just wanted to say, thank you very much for how civil and respectful you have been in your comments&mdash;I have experienced much nastier disputes in the past, so this is a nice change of atmosphere!  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 14:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Another quick message regarding this issue: I just noticed that in addition to Reeducation through labor, there is a separate article, Laogai, which appears to be the same thing. My message on the deletion discussion linked to Laogai (through a redirect) when I meant to link to Reeducation through labor (I will go fix that link now). As far as I can tell, these articles are on the same topic. (I don't know if you're a Chinese speaker, but just in case, gai is "correct" or "improve" and jiao is "teach", and the source given in the laojiao article actually refers to them as laogai, so I'm pretty sure they're the same thing...if you already knew all that, sorry for repeating it!) I admit, part of my reason for having such negative views towards these lists and stuff was because I saw how poorly developed the Reeducation through labor article was; the Laogai article seems to be much better, and merging Reeducation through labor into that while also linking the lists to it (with  or  or something) should help a lot with establishing significance and general value to the list (or lists, depending on what the end result of that discussion is). I haven't had a chance to look at Laogai much yet, but if you want I can probably get the merge done Sunday night, when I should be "officially" back on wikipedia. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 23:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's a good point. Sorry that I didn't look through the article closely before proposing the merge.  If we can scrounge up a good source explaining the distinction, it looks like it will be fine to keep the articles separate....but this does raise the issue that the one source for all of the laojiao articles is specifically called "Laogai Handbook" and was printed by the "Laogai Research Center."   I haven't specifically read the Preface and Introduction yet, but the map given before the tables is titled "Laogai Camps of the PRC," and it seems to me that the source is probably on laogai, not laojiao (if they are, in fact, different).  This doesn't, of course, mean that the lists all need to be deleted, but it does mean they would at least have to be moved to new titles, I think.  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 02:15, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links, I'll have to check them out when I have a moment. Depending on how much "overlap" there is, I think there may or may not be merit in merging them anyway&mdash;I guess we'll just have to establish how big the overlap is and whether or not it would be most beneficial to have them merged or separated.  If they are not merged, I think each article would definitely benefit from having a small section (or at least a mini-paragraph within a section) devoted to explaining the difference between the two, because for me at least that difference was not clear in the "often confused with..." statement in the Laogai article.  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 03:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops, when I posted that message I hadn't noticed the first half or your latest comment. After noticing that, yeah, I agree with you that the articles can be separate, although I do still think they would benefit from giving a clearer explanation of the difference than what is there currently.
 * Also, this is only a minor quibble...but one of the main arguments brought up at the discussion on deleting Category: Lists of laojiao was that the original source given has many more items than what's been listed in the article, and that therefore the current list we have on Wikipedia may grow a lot...but seeing as how you noticed that not all the items in the original source are laojiao, but actually prisons or other forms of detention facilities...then is it possible that the list already includes all the laojiao given in that source? (Of course, that still doesn't make it complete&mdash;we have a lot of work to do adding useful information into the lists, and also fixing the wikilinks&mdash;currently the list is full of redlinks and non-piped links that go to pages that are probably not what was intended, so it's going to take a while to clean up all of that.)  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 03:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Merging into the prisons lists sounds great to me, especially if (as I assume is the case) the prisons lists get more use and are better-established, as well as being less orphaned, on Wikipedia. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 03:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, sorry I've been out of contact for a couple days. Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you and see if we could sum up what decisions we have come to on what work needs to be done with these articles. My impression is that what has to be done is Do you agree that these are the main tasks left to do? I hope I haven't missed anything... &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 19:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Decide whether to merge the lists of laojiao by province into the existing lists of prisons by province, keep them all in a master list of all laojiao in China (and AfD the lists by province), or keep them all in lists by province (and AfD the master list).
 * 2) Add sections to both the Laogai and Reeducation through labor articles to elucidate the distinction between the two.
 * 3) And the biggest job: flesh out the laojiao list or lists (whatever we decide to do with them) with more details from the original source (when there are details available), clean up wikilinks, bring in additional sources if possible.
 * Oh, and on a side note, the source given for the laojiao lists also has a lengthy introduction that would probably be useful for the Laogai article, if you didn't notice. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 19:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean merge the lists and delete the individual lists? I can start a discussion on the talk page (or in the category talk page) if you like.
 * Also, the list looks a lot better now after your recent edits...thanks! That cleanup must have taken forever!  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 20:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I noticed you've started adding links to locations of the camps in the list. It's probably pretty painstaking work, so if you want I can split it up half-and-half with you&mdash;just let me know which provinces/municipalities you'd like me to take, and I can probably get most of it done sometime tonight. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 22:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good!
 * When I come across entries that have some extra information (such as the ones that list what items are produced in those camps) do you want me to add that in after the location information, or are we waiting until later to add extra stuff? &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 22:34, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Should I be linking the names of the RTLs, as well as the cities and districts? I noticed you've been doing that, but I feel weird linking them since they are all redlinks and I don't know what the likelihood is that there will ever be articles created for each RTL.  I did Guangdong province without linking the names, and it's hard now to see the names as they get buried in the rest of the text...what if we bold the names, instead of linking them, to get them to stand out?  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 23:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The first half of the list is done. As I was working on putting in the locations, I started getting concerned about plagiarism issues...since we only have this one source and are basically copying what we can into the article, how will we allay plagiarism concerns if anyone brings that up? (In some instances where the article uses names that differ from what is typical on Wikipedia, such as "Shenzhen City" instead of "Shenzhen," we could alleviate that a little bit by replacing the article's wording with our own. But we are still, in essence, copying that information; also, sometimes we can't make those changes, because as someone who hasn't been to most of these places I'm not always clear on what location they are talking about within the whole Chinese system of divisions, and whether or not X district is within X city or its own thing, etc.)  &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 03:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you've already noticed this, but anyway, I started a new discussion about merging and deletion at the category talk page and the old lists' talk pages, as per your earlier suggestion. I don't think there are really many people (or any people at all) watching those articles, but I can wait a few days anyway just in case anyone has something to say; if we decide to delete, would it have to be through AfD?  (I assume we can't speedy it by blanking the page since we're not the only contributors to those pages, and as far as I can tell there's no CSD for articles or lists that have been superseded.)
 * On a side note...I agree with your comments about how we shouldn't have to worry about plagiarism concerns, but I was also thinking, while some of the entries for "location" for these camps are just a city and/or district, others are relatively specific contact information (such as a street address, and even a phone number). Should we be listing the street addresses, or only the basic city/district/town?  So far I've pretty much been listing everything from the smallest (usually a street, number, or village) up to the largest (city or county) but I want to try to avoid putting in what amount to unnecessary contact information.  Do you have any thoughts? &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 06:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I can put the redlinks back in for the names of the RTLs. Regarding the links to the towns and such...I agree that some of them should be redlinked (major or moderate districts and towns that don't have articles), but a lot of the things listed are also little more than a couple undeveloped blocks with nothing in them. Of course, I haven't been to most of these places so I don't know specifically which names refer to which places, but in general I think Chinese cities have a lot of specific placenames for very small places that have very little in them, and I'm not sure if it's productive to redlink all of them (especially things in the list that are just intersections or street addresses). I guess it would have to be a judgment on each individual location, to decide whether it's worth redlinking&mdash;a city district or town that doesn't have an article yet might get one in the future, whereas a street corner or tiny bunch of buildings just outside a city limits (which is what I would predict a lot of these places are) probably won't. What about keeping the names of the RTLs bolded? My main motivation for that was to set them off from the rest of the text attached to them. If the RTLs are all redlinked and the towns and stuff aren't, then they would already be offset and we wouldn't need to bold them...but then we wouldn't be able to redlink the towns. I guess one possibility is to have the RTLs both redlinked and bolded. Another is to put all the lists into column or table format, with RTLs on the left and locations on the right. Do you have a preference? (I think I'm leaning towards tables myself.) &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 20:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's what I was thinking for a table, if we decide to go that route:


 * Or, alternatively, one separating "big" locations from "specific" locations, with several examples:

These would, of course, have some extra formatting to fix the widths of the cells...ideally so that the widths are the same for all the provinces, just so it looks better when you scroll down. Anyway, let me know if you think either of those would be an improvement over the current layout. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 20:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, my first stab at a rule of thumb would be that anything with District, County, or City in the name should be redlinked, while anything with Village or Town probably not, and same for the ones that just give a street address or the name of a bridge or something. A lot of the names are just a Chinese name with not "village/town/etc." after it, and with those it's hard to say.  Anything ending in -zhuang probably shouldn't be redlinked (a zhuang is slightly less than a village, pretty much an alley or collection of hovels...although even then it's hard to tell, because some more notable places started out as that and have since been developed into large communities or complexes but still keep the old name).  Sometimes I can guess at how large a place is based on its name (another example: places with names ending in -shan might be somewhat bigger, as shan is hill or mountain, so such places might correspond to neighborhoods on hills, like Montmartre in Paris) but in general it's hard to tell if you're not from that area.  Chinese locations tend to be hard to figure out because there are so many different levels of divisions, and it doesn't help that this particular source wasn't fully consistent in their conventions for giving locations (they sometimes switch between "city" and "county," and it looks like they just gave as much or little detail as they wanted, rather than specifying the location at each level...plus they sometimes use County to name things that I think are technically cities, and vice versa).  I know people who have spent extended amounts of time doing fieldwork in particular areas and still can't really figure out how to locate the place on a map or specify its location to others...outside of the major cities, placenames just get really messy.
 * Anyway, if you're ok with the tables, I can start adding them in one province at a time sometime later this afternoon. I personally am partial to the second one, but let me know if you have a preference. &mdash;Politizer( talk • contribs ) 20:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So I finished all the tables a couple days ago, and now I'm looking into how we can make them better. One thing I noticed is that, according to the LRF handbook (the source for almost everything on that page), most RTL camps have both an internal name and a "public" name, so I'm thinking of adding a column to include the public names (since some industries may be unknown to WP readers by their actual RTL name, but the public name may be familiar--the public names often seem to sound like farm or factory names, and about half the time they don't include "RTL" in the name). The other thing I thought about doing is truncating all the names to "X RTL" instead of "X Reeducation Through Labor Camp," since repeating "Reeducation Through Labor Camp" over 300 times takes up a lot of space (especially if we want to be using that space for another column). Of course, if I changed all those names, they would still be piped to pages with the full name. Anyway, here is a test version of what the Shanxi section would look like if I did that (with the current version included after it, for comparison:

Let me know what you think! &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 19:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Wasilla Assembly of God
I have had consensus material up for a couple of weeks at WAoG, with no discussion by JClemens, and no discussion by others beyond a few sourcing and rewording requests, which are now met.

I requested the article "protection" block to be removed. The article is being "protected" from having well sourced neutral information go in. The block was put on because JClemens was edit war deleting info he did not want in the article. A block due to his deletion edit war only makes his edit war a success, as the info he does not want in can not go in, as his last deletion is frozen in by the "protection". On this basis I asked for it to be lifted.

Resolved, hopefully. Tautologist (talk) 14:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I never saw your user page. Nice set of interests.  I am a mathematician formerly at Stanford, and lectured on film there as a hobby for eight years, and currently am doing ecology stuff in spare time, but I had my fortune of about $20 million wiped out by a crooked judge ring over a twelve year period, so I have an aversion to lawyers.  I define "skeptic" on the fourth bullet point of my user page. Tautologist (talk) 01:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Wasilla Assembly of God
Jclemens keeps trying to censor the Wasilla Assembly of God article by deleting huge chunks of the information, and previously provoked edit wars in order to get protection for the article so no infomation could go in, and voted to delete the entire article in AFD. I created this as my first article at Wikipedia, so I am not sure how things work with someone like this. Is there anything that can be done to stop him from vandalizing the article repeatedly? Thanks. Tautologist (talk) 04:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Resolved, hopefully. Implementing Jclemens recent requirements was very burdonsome, but it made the article better, and he argued that by doing the extra work would protect it from others trying to change it by censoring or deleting things. Tautologist (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (Image:TootsieRollStarWrapper.JPG)
Thanks for uploading Image:TootsieRollStarWrapper.JPG. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 05:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Cardiff (HM Prison)
Hey there, wonder if you could help me. Ive just expanded and updated Cardiff (HM Prison) but after saving my changes, the article does not show the references or external links sections (even though they are saved as partof the article. Also, despite the fact the article is in the Category for Prisons in Wales, the article SHOWS that the category Prisons in England.

Can you help lol, im really confusedBleaney (talk) 21:37, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I got it.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Closure of WP:GEOBOT
Regrettably I have come to inform you, that this bot project will not go into operation and therefore the project will be closing down. Thanks everybody for their time and support but there is a clear reason why it failed. Dr. Blofeld (talk) 11:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of WikiProject Correction and Detention Facilities
I have nominated for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you.  MBisanz  talk 06:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Kenneth Conboy
There's some discussion on this article's notability on the talk page – you might be interested to comment? Julia Rossi (talk) 10:23, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Surveillance and Incarceration in the U.S., Russia, and China
Cdogsimmons, I haven't talked to you since we were working on List of Re-education Through Labor camps in China, so I hope everything has been going well for you since then.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I have listed the new article Surveillance and Incarceration in the U.S., Russia, and China at AfD for being an arbitrary cross-categorization (ie, the only thing these three countries have in common in this article is that they were listed as the 3 countries with the biggest incarceration systems). The AfD discussion is here. &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 08:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

FYI

 * Wikipedia_talk:Coatrack Inclusionist (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Sensationalism
Regarding your comments at the talk page of 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, are you aware of a policy that the image violates? Or is it just your aesthetic judgment that leads you to think the image should be removed?--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Since, judging by your comment on the article talk page, mere words are incomprehensible to you, I will provide you with a policy: WP:UNDUE. --  tariq abjotu  06:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow. You're an administrator? And on the Mediation Committee? Do you have a habit of insulting editors like that? My comments on the talk page were made in good faith (not to mention politely), and I challenge you to show otherwise. I will be awaiting your apology. You mentioned WP:UNDUE. I don't see anything there about controversial images. I think you are trying to make an argument about proportionality. I don't understand how an actual picture of a dead child killed in this conflict could represent a "minority view". This is the only picture on a very long article showing one of the 1000 dead Palestinians (including 300 children). --Cdogsimmons (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * For future reference, if you want someone to respond to a message, it makes far more sense to comment on that person's talk page, rather than your own. I am not watching your talk page, and didn't read your comment until now. But, no, I'm not giving you an apology. --  tariq abjotu  22:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well then....--Cdogsimmons (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

International Solidarity Movement
In re: Fraud. Please see the Rachel Corrie controversy. V. Joe (talk) 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000
Hi. I didn't delete the article, which by the way, still exists. I deleted a redirect that had quotes. Quotes should not be used that way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Your spurious accusations
I would appreciate your striking your spurious accusations regarding meatpuppetry/sockpuppetry simply because another editor and I share an opinion. The decent thing would be to take your accusations to the appropriate noticeboard rather than slandering us with vague accusations based on innuendo and wp:or. Tundrabuggy (talk) 05:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Done.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 05:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Cdog, your accusation is spurious and unfounded. I don't know what the process of "sock puppetry" is, but you sure have breached the guidelines for treating new editors - WP:NEWBIE. I don't know you or Tundrabuggy from a bar of soap, but Cdog, your behavior is simply aggressive. Betacrucis (talk) 07:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Please strike your accusations on the talk page, and since you made the accusations there publicly, that would be the appropriate place to acknowledge that you were mistaken. Thank you. Tundrabuggy (talk) 17:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For everyone else who reads this, my suspicion that there was sockpuppetry going on was found to be well-founded enough to do a check user. However, the two users checked were not socks of each other. (See )--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

"some justification to check" is hardly the same as "well-founded." If they were well-founded, they would have been correct. The accusations showed extreme lack of good faith both to me and to the new editor. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No offense, but you were blocked for being disruptive on this article. You'll excuse me if I was suspicious when a WP:SPA shows up and removes the same images that you had previously been blocked for removing. Now you accuse me of bad faith. Please reconsider doing this. It really isn't very WP:CIVIL.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkback
 brew crewer  (yada, yada) 01:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkback
a couple of 'em actually. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You maybe interested in the Article Rescue Squadron


I notice that you are part of Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians. I would like you to consider joining the Article Rescue Squadron. Rescue Squadron members are focused on rescuing articles for deletion, that might otherwise be lost forever. I think you will find our project matches your vision of Wikipedia.

Ikip (talk) 00:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Council/Proposals
Greetings! Your support for the creation of this project would be most welcome. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey you there
Hi, I haven't been involved in any way but have read this and probably most or all of what it refers to. I hope I can cheer you up a bit by letting you know that I, for one, don't think you've acted like a jerk. Of course it would have been best if you had immediately apologised for and retracted your all-caps which was close to the line, but apart from that tiny glitch I must commend your tireless constructive effort where others including myself would have either got aggressive or given up. In light of that, I think TA's tone was uncalled for. I don't want to go into the actual matter at hand, except that I failed to see any consensus for either side which makes some of the comment here a bit difficult to understand – then again, I haven't read through the entire discussion. Thank you for your contributions, and have a nice day! ☺ Wikipeditor (talk)

See also sections in SCOTUS articles
My memory is failing me. We decided to remove the "List of U.S. Supreme Court cases, volume X" links from the "See also" section and instead just have the link in the infobox, right? I tried looking in the archives, but I was still unclear. (And I don't want to make a mess. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

On making suggestions along with assessments
Would you consider making suggestions on how a given article that you have just assessed could be improved in order to justify a higher rating? I for one would be interested in making modifications to improve quality, but I often do not recognize what specifically would be useful to add. If you want to maintain privacy, you could put such comments in a message to the relevant author, rather than on the article's Discussion page -- although I don't think that it makes any difference. PraeceptorIP (talk) 19:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello! there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath and respond there as soon as possible.

Please discuss inclusion
AgadaUrbanit (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed Revision as of 00:04, 18 February 2009
 * Added (again) Revision as of 14:48, 2 March 2009
 * Consensus could change. You need to support inclusion. Thank you AgadaUrbanit (talk) 23:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK thanks, and a SCOTUS hook tutorial
You're welcome. I've done some work on SCOTUS articles, and gotten DYKs out of them. They can be challenging A legally complicated hook like that is best kept simpler (that could almost have gone for April Fool's: "...that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police that state officials are not always people?").

Usually for a SCOTUS hook (I notice you do a lot of work in that project), your best bet is something about the result or implication of the decision (These are actual hooks I got through):


 * ...that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Bronston v. United States that testimony that is literally truthful is not perjury even if it is intended to mislead the questioner?


 * ...that Thomas Geoghegan called the U.S. Supreme Court's Marquette Bank case "the most important of our lifetimes", since it led to an explosion in credit card use?


 * ...that the U.S. Supreme Court's Prima Paint case established the severability principle in contracts with arbitration clauses?

Or sometimes an ancillary aspect of the case, or its history, can generate a hook?


 * ...that the U.S. Supreme Court's Radovich v. National Football League case began with Joseph Alioto sketching a brief on the back of a cocktail napkin?


 * ...that Harry Blackmun's long history of baseball in the first section of the U.S. Supreme Court's Flood v. Kuhn decision upset his fellow justices?

Feel free to emulate and learn! Just about every SCOTUS case has something in it that can make a good hook if you do enough research. One we never used (and can't now):


 * ...that the U.S. Supreme Court's Hudson v. McMillan case quotes Frank Easterbrook's observation that "endless reruns of Space: 1999" may constitute torture despite the absence of physical damage?

March 2009
Please do not use talk pages for general discussion of the topic. They are for discussion related to improving the article. They are not to be used as a forum or chat room. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. See here for more information. You're comment wasn't wrong, but it didn't belong on that talk page. SMP0328. (talk) 04:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Responded at your page.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject United States courts and judges
WikiProject United States courts and judges is now open for business - let's get it organized and outline our tasks! bd2412 T 16:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

civic right, not civil right
I think you are mixing up two words 'civic' and 'civil'. There is a therory that the Second Amendment was viewed in the 18th Century as a 'civic right' sort of like (as some argue) the posse comitatus, or neighborliness, or trials by jury; are sometime argued to be civic duties merging into civic rights. SaltyBoatr (talk) 18:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Got it, NYT: "civil". The issue in dispute on that talk page is the notability of the "civic" hypothesis.  SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * the question we're all anxiously awaiting an answer to, however, is whether your belief that the solution was "NRA" was correct. was it? Anastrophe (talk) 19:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess I have to go buy a paper now.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * well, if the puzzle was in the wednesday edition, you'd probably need thursday's paper for the answers. in any event, it's 'yesterday's news' to borrow a phrase. Anastrophe (talk) 21:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I thought of that. I went to the library to check out yesterday's paper, but it wasn't on the rack. Somebody must have been reading it, or it was being processed or something. I'll check back later.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 21:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)