User talk:DarwinPeacock/Archive 1

Mexicali article
No problem, and I must say it felt real good to clean all the cruft out of the 'notable people' section too. :-) - Aerobird 14:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

i need to delete an article
Hi, i recently submitted the article "Jerome Cleary", but he doesn't want to have an article on wikipedia. I want to delete the article in it's entirety. You sent a message to me recently. Can you remove the article for me? Or let me know how I can remove it. Thanks... James Fuhrman, jimmyfuhrman@yahoo.com

my wikipedia name: JamesFuhrman James Fuhrman 15:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Leonard Sax
Note: Dr Sax does not have a "theory of sexual dimorphism". As a representative of the people who answer Wikipedia's e-mail, I am politely asking you to please not insert statements about this purported theory in the article.

Thank you. DS (talk) 05:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, whether he's controversial isn't an issue. He can't become non-controversial simply by claiming it. However, the exact phrasing "theory of sexual dimorphism" can't be used without a cite. DS (talk) 20:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Sociology
Thank you for taking care and improving this article. Could you cite refs for your changes? Following WP:V and WP:CITE would be a major step in improving this article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks -- and yes, you are right. I will try to find time to do this.  DarwinPeacock (talk) 16:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Sleepover
I have tried to find good sources for the page, but I'm not an expert in any relevant areas (e.g. child psychology, parenting, etc), so I have no idea where to start. Graham 87 07:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Ethnography page
Hi I get what you say should I just put up an ethnographics page then as other usability people are starting to use the process I created? -Karl smith 13:13, 15 Feb 2009

Regarding sociology portal bar
I know your intentions were honourable but I think your attempt to cut the sociology bar was extreme. I've gone through a lot of effort to steadily improve the bar and to squeeze things in as best as possible - I certainly wouldn't let it get any longer or wider. The benefit of the bar being comprehensive is that all pages listed on it will get more views. It surprises me you perceive the likes of positivism and critical theory as "non essential" for the sociology bar - they're about as essential concepts as it get, surely?!

I think one compromise could be to trim, or if you really insist, totally remove, the "related disciplines" part - as that is the only truly non-essential bit I can see. --Tomsega (talk) 08:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Tomsega, fair enough--I was being too rash with my edits. Looks like you've done some excellent work on the portal.  Have you verified the effect that nav bar links have on increasing traffic on the subpages?  If it is significant, that's certainly an excellent reason for keeping a much fuller navigation bar than I envisioned.


 * I think part of why we have such different visions of priorities in the discipline is that British Sociology and American Sociology have quite different cultures at this point in time, with the former drifting closer to social philosophy/anthro and the latter to applied stats/public policy/econ/psychology. Coincidentally, some substantive areas missing from this version of the nav bar (urban sociology, race, social psychology and social networks) are amongst the most important in the discipline in the States; I wonder if they are absent because they are not so in Britain? I remember all of them being on older versions of this template.


 * I think your compromise is an excellent starting point. For now I am just going to add in the major missing areas and hold off on any further cuts.  But here are some things that I think are not so essential on this nav bar.  How would you feel about removing these?


 * Military sociology. This is a tiny specialty area.  Does it deserve a link here?  I cannot think of anyone in a top-10 US department that works on it.
 * Social class, social mobility and stratification are very closely related. We need at most two of these, though I think one will suffice.
 * Critical theory and conflict theory have a significant overlap. Remove one?
 * Sociology of family and Sociology of childhood are also very close. Do we need both?
 * Public sociology was a big deal a few years ago, but it's really dying out now. As far as I know, there isn't even anyone other than Burawoy who is doing it at Berkeley any more--and that's public soc ground zero.  Perhaps this can be taken out?


 * What's your opinion?
 * DarwinPeacock (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I don't really know anything about the likes of 'Military sociology', except that it is a distinct subfield. A few days ago somebody added the 'sociology of leisure' to the bar - that seemed to me to be too small a subfield! I've campaigned to have the sociology of childhood and sociology of family articles merged for the sake of having one coherent Wiki article. Regarding the 'sociology of race', when I sat down for my ethnic relations module at university lesson one was all about exactly why it is not called the 'sociology of race' because "race" is a term broadly rejected by social scientists! Critical theory and conflict theory on the other hand are very distinct things, and at a time when philosophy and political science are chipping away at sociology as a discipline, I think it fair and important that critical theory, much like positivism, appears as a primary sociology article. It is.


 * Ultimately I really don't think the portal bar is too large or imposing now that 'related disciplines' has been removed. In fact, after removing those 6 or 7 lines in one sweep I was tempted to add more key concepts to the upper section. In most of these cases I think it just looks better to have two objects per line for the sake of symmetry. If 'social class' were kept and 'social mobility' removed, that'd negatively impact the symmetry: In effect, we'd want to remove two items a time. But as I say the length is find and the major (if any) concern is the width. Now that 'military, networks, race AND ractionalization' are all on the same line, for example, the portal is in fact much wider than it was before. It doesn't look great having one line significantly wider than the other.


 * My single bit of advice would be to remove 'rationalization' so that the width is sorted out. I'd be reluctant to, though. That article is my baby.. --Tomsega (talk) 10:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, everything you say sounds good (though it's funny for me to hear about philosophy chipping away at Soc--at least in the States, it's much more like sociologists mostly don't care about philosophy any more. You can't have a career doing social theory in a Soc department here.  This is even more the case with poli sci--their core is entirely positivist now.  Anyway, regional differences.)  As far as "race" is concerned, I think that most social scientsts (or biologists, for that matter) don't buy the idea of it as a physiological reality, but would agree that's it's a very important social construct.  What that means for the link title, I don't know.  Would be nice to have both terms.


 * Based on your feedback, how would you feel about these edits?
 * Take out military sociology, since it doesn't matter much and it messes up the bar
 * Take out sociology of childhood, since it's the longer title of the two
 * And can we nix public sociology, or do you think that is important?


 * As far as the class/strat/mobility stuff goes, it would be really nice to combine those articles into one, since class and strat articles repeat each other, and the mobility article looks like a better summary of the field of strat than the strat article. Maybe something to do this summer.  Here is my proposal for now:
 * Take out the strat link since the article repeats class.
 * Shorten the title "social class" to "class", "social mobility" to "mobility" and move both to the Sociology of section. They are indeed very important, but so are race, gender, and networks.  Which makes me think that...
 * Perhaps we should instead divide the "General aspects" section into "Social theory" and "Key subjects"? History and Research links would stay outside of either section.  Positivism, antipositivism, structure & agency, functionalism, conflict theory and critical theory would go under "social theory", while gender, class, mobility, networks, race & ethnicity and socialization would go under "key subjects"?  It would take a bit more room, but I think would be easier to navigate.  What do you think?
 * DarwinPeacock (talk) 23:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry it took me a while to reply.
 * If we were going to have one section called 'social theory' it might suggest we'd need another section entitled 'social research' with quantitative and qualitative methods in it.. but then, positivism and antipositivism are as much about theory as they are about method! I'm not sure I'd like to see any radical changes. It took ages to get consent to merge the 'social hierarchy' (and a couple of other similar) article/s into 'social class'. If you can successfully merge all these class related articles into one coherent article, as well as childhood/family, go for it! --Tomsega (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Darwin.
 * Okay, the portal is looking nice, certainly much thinner than it used to be. Now that you've added 'polical sociology' and 'economic sociology' as 'politics' and 'economics' respectively in the topics section, I thought the 'related fields' (Section 5) was again made redundant - removed for the sake of keeping the bar short. Couple of minor adjustments: making the link for Theory 'Social theory' (the 'sociological perspectives' page is a redundant with the 'outline of sociology page'). I also really think critical theory should just stay in the general theory section.


 * Perhaps as I'm trained in European sociology I don't see 'mathematical sociology' as synonymous with 'formal theory'! Instead, how about we flesh-out the research section and put mathematical sociology along with computational? --Tomsega (talk) 22:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey, ok, I think ditching the 'related fields' is cool. Glad we can shrink this more. I'll leave 'crit theory' alone too.  And the 'sociological perspective' page is not very good, so I am not committed to it.  The thing is there is lots of theory in sociology that is not considered 'social theory' by the people who do it--often that name is reserved for philosophical theory, while empirically-based theory is called 'sociological theory'.  So I think the general theory heading should link to something other than 'social theory.'  Category:Sociological theories is actually pretty comprehensive.  So I think the link should be either to it, or the heading shouldn't be a link.


 * Also, at this point there is no separate articles for social network analysis as a method and for social networks as a substantive area (the former is an applied version of the latter). So, the template presently has two links to the same article (with 'networks' under subjects).  I am going to remove the separate SNA link, but make it clearer that the 'networks' article talks about 'social networks' by renaming it.  I think the computational sociology link is great though--it's a high-quality article.


 * As for 'mathematical sociology', it is a theory in the sense of it being a bunch of abstract statements about reality. The only difference between it and standard sociological theory is that the main relationships in the theory are expressed in mathematics instead of narrative ('formal' is a synonym for 'mathematical').  For example, Burt's theory of structural holes makes a statement about how structures of social relations create advantages in capitalist competition.  This theory can then be tested with any method you wish--e.g., you could test it ethnographically if you wanted to.  I will put it on my to-do list to edit the math soc article to make this clearer.  I am going to reshuffle some things to make room for it. DarwinPeacock (talk) 01:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, cool. Going with you 95%, but I do think secularisation is far far too major a topic to omit! I'm going to attempt to squeeze this back in at some stage. Other than that, fine. Cheers.--Tomsega (talk) 17:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Service networking
I've declined the speedy for this article: it was created more than a year ago, so it's definitely not a recent creation. Have you considered redirecting it to the other article? Nyttend (talk) 00:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, sounds good. I made it a redirect.DarwinPeacock (talk) 03:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits to positivism
Hi Darwin. I think you've improved the third opening paragraph of the positivism article but it's starting to sound somewhat like own work/research. You need a reference for the sentence "In the United States, the vast majority of the articles published in the top three journals in sociology and political science follow this amended positivist position" and perhaps a couple others. --Tomsega (talk) 14:24, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey Tomsega, ok, I found some sources and adjusted the text for them. DarwinPeacock (talk) 01:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Your unfair interpretation of my edits

 * Thank you for your suggestions, but I believe you have grossly misinterpreted several of my edits without looking at them carefully enough. I do not routinely remove large blocks of text. I have done so on a few occasions, with detailed explanations and usually with discussion. I am not following Bellagio99 and have edited only a small portion of the pages on which he works, and I have already explained in the relevant talk pages why I have done so, which is to correct the same systematic self-promotion by that user. I have never been inconsiderate. I have never started or even participated in an edit war to my knowledge. I have not 'started' recently, nor have I systematically 'targeted' any sort of senior scholar. So far as I know, the only such scholar whose article I have worked on is Barry Wellman, an article that is noted here and elsewhere for its conflicts. (This is a reply to a note you left on my talk page.) Antiselfpromotion (talk) 09:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Tribalism Entry on Wikipedia Needs Some Serious Work
Hi DarwinPeacock--

I found you on the Sociology Portal. Since I'm new to editing anything on Wikipedia, I was hoping you can help me out. Tribalism is an underdeveloped entry of with no citations and no sources. I was hoping you might be able to look at this page and help me guide it in the right direction. I'm not an expert in Sociology, but I've always found tribal cultures fascinating, especially since it's a pivotal part of our human history. I want to put this entry in the correct hands, but I'm inexperienced in working with Wikipedia. I am however a writer and I enjoy editing pieces of writing. Hopefully, I'll be able to contribute to Tribalism in a productive manner.14:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philanderson1129 (talk • contribs)
 * Hi Phil, welcome to Wikipedia! I know little about the topic at hand (which I think should actually belong to anthro, not sociology), so I can only give you some general editing advice.  First of all, most wikipedia entries can use some amount of editing for grammar, narrative coherence, and fit with other articles.  Beyond that, different kinds of entries need different kinds of improvement.  Since Tribalism is an academic concept, the first thing I would do for it is make sure I have a good grasp on how it gets used in academic literature (there are a lot of citation needed tags on this one, so at least someone had doubts about how correct the present entry is).  For this purpose, general survey pieces (such as in textbooks or in encyclopedias) are probably the most useful.  For an article at this stage of development, you can make a big improvement by just clarifying their terms by using such general sources.  (Make sure to cite them using the ref tag--see WP:CITE for details.)  Then, if I was interested in investigating more specific claims--for example, the connection between tribalism and primitive communism--I would look for that combination of words in an academic search engine, such as Google Scholar, and read whatever articles seem pertinent (unfortunately, many of these will not be accessible unless you are connecting from a library or research institution, or using a university proxy--however, you can still usually read their abstracts.)  Beyond this, there is a feel for what needs to be done to wikipedia articles that you can only develop by doing a whole lot of editing.  So, be bold and get at it.  It's great to have you here, and I hope you find editing Wikipedia as rewarding/addictive as I have ;) DarwinPeacock (talk) 16:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Any progress on...
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sociology/Archive_5? I missed your reply there, I support your plan. Also, we need a logo for the new WikiProject Sociology/Social movements task force. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

(no subject)
Darwin, I have taken an interest in Sociology especially how it relates to connectivity in social networks. Small things can spur huge ideas, and seeing two people I knew completely independently of each other, years and miles apart, knowing each other aside of me, and having seen this many times, leads me to want to learn how social networking occurs and what drives it.

I find the diagram you submitted absolutely fascinating, demonstrating connectivity in a closed system on finite people. This one here.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Sna_large.png

I wanted to print it out, to show people and talk about it, but alas, it is very low resolution. Is there any way you might be able to export this at a very high resolution? I can be reached at master_schweinsberg@yahoo.com. My name is Mike. I wouldn't even mind discussion this subject if you had time. Thanks for any help you might be able to offer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.210.80.99 (talk) 19:45, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Franz Schurmann
Hi,

I made a few minor corrections to the Schurmann article. Letting you know because you made several fixes yourself.

Regards, pechmerle —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pechmerle (talk • contribs) 06:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

New Handbook of Social Network Analysis
is coming out from Sage May or June 2011. Let's both remember to put in a call-out to it, because it's all review articles re SNA. Bellagio99 (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Darwin: Willing to help with some Wikipedia-related research?
Hi! I'm a first-year PhD student working on a system to help improve the quality of Wikipedia articles on scientific topics by providing easier access to relevant scientific publications. I was hoping to speak with some editors who work on scientific articles in order to solicit requirements for my system in order to better satisfy the needs of the Wikipedia community. I noticed that you have been a caretaker for a number of pages on topics concerning sociology and social network analysis, and I would really appreciate your input. If you are interested, please let me know on my talk page (talk). Thanks! —Preceding undated comment added 23:28, 27 May 2011 (UTC).

Your Social Image
Hello there-

i live in Australia and am starting a Corporate Social Responsibility organisation called "Social Principia." I really like your social graph image and was hoping that we could use it as the logo. Can you please advise if this is a problem or under what terms you would allow that.

Cheers

2boysmum2boysmum (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Me too. I want to put it on my userbox list. Bellagio99 (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey there. I uploaded the image to Wikimedia Commons, which means that it's governed by whatever copyright exists for all those works. This definitely includes using it anywhere on Wikipedia, and you're welcome to do so, Bellagio.  As far as using it for a corporate logo, 2boysmum, I am not sure: check out what the text of the Wikimedia Commons copyright states.  But are you certain you even want to have a logo that exists as a free image on the internet?  You won't have control over who gets to use it.- Darwin/Peacock[Talk] 20:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

SNA/Net Sci
Darwin, Social network analysis started well before the current network science vogue. And goes beyond the big data focus of NetSci. Some of the best stuff has been ethnographic. Take care. Bellagio99 (talk) 15:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Middle-range theories
A couple of years ago, you included the following sentence in introduction of the article about the middle range theory (sociology): Could you provided any citation for that statement? --Pablo.ea.92 (talk) 21:35, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is currently the dominant theoretical paradigm employed in sociology, especially quantitative sociology in the United States.
 * Sure, adding now. Here's the relevant part of the article: "Forty years ago sociology possessed a plethora of broad theories, some untestable and others merely untested. Merton rightly argued that global theorizing could be premature if the middle-range groundwork were not properly accomplished. At the present time sociology possesses a plethora of middle-range theories, and is close to paralyzing fragmentation. This paper argues that the time has come for a return to classical concerns as a complement (not an alternative) to continuing middle-range theorizing." (Bailey 1991).  Also see this Amazon review by Herb Gintis: . (It is probably not a good enough source for WP since it's just an Amazon review, but Gintis is a senior scholar so it's worth paying some attention to nonetheless.) -  Darwin/Peacock  [Talk] 04:01, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Interview request
Dear DarwinPeacock, I am a graduate student of Information Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, and I am working on my master's thesis which is about Wikipedia, more specifically the Wikipedia community and how the knowledge in Wikipedia is constructed. In my research I am - among other things - going to focus on the construction of academic knowledge in Wikipedia. Since you are a participant in the, Sociology WikiProject I would like to ask you if you would be willing to do an interview about the way you work with Wikipedia, how it integrates with your daily life, and what motivates you to contribute etc. Since I live in Denmark the interview will be held through skype or a corresponding service.

If you are interested or if you would like to know more about me/my thesis, feel free to contact me at anders@thorb.org or through my talk page.

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Anders Thorborg

Andersthorborg (talk) 19:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Malakhovka
Dear DarwinPeacock,

Thank you for your valuable edit of Malakhovka, which has been reversed and restored twice. A discussion about this began on the Malakhovka talk page, and I have moved to wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia as I think it raises issues of general interest. cwmacdougall 22:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for telling me! Funny, I thought I was just fixing awkward English.-  Darwin/Peacock  [Talk] 22:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I have no interest in edit warring either. And yes, it is a standard practice revert to the version which stood before the disagreements started. I would like to point out, however, that Cwmacdougall's addition never had a consensus either, so it is illogical to remove only my edits and yours, but leave his in place (see WP:STATUSQUO). Given the fact that a legal definition is included in the lead of 99% of articles on the Russian populated places, and that none of the editors who actually work on those articles have any problem with it, I don't understand why we have to retain the unbelievably ambiguous "suburb" piece, which, to add insult to an injury, is referenced only to a tangentially related source and is directly contradicted by a bunch of other sources. Note that Malakhovka being outside the borders of Moscow is not simply a matter of the definition of a "suburb"; it's more like claiming that New Jersey is a "suburb" of New York (something for which a comparably inappropriate source can be found out there as well, I'm sure). Such ambiguity is OK in the narrative of the sections dealing with such aspects as history, economy, media, etc., but the lead needs to summarize the whole subject, preferably without dumbing it down any more than is necessary. While it is true that the term "urban-type settlement" might not be the most familiar to our readers, it is hardly incomprehensible or misleading, and it is the term of choice in the English-language literature on the subject of the Soviet and post-Soviet administrative divisions and geography. Problem is, the source used to reference the "suburb" bit are none of that. Would you use someone's biography to source an article about a populated place mentioned in it? Not unless there is absolutely no better source available! This here is the same situation. A book about cottages around Moscow is a great source to use in articles about dachas, people who lived in them, or certain historical aspects, but it is horribly unsuitable to reference a statement about what a place is. Since you are working on your Ph. D., surely you understand how the same source can be appropriate in one situation but not in the other?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 22, 2013; 19:07 (UTC)


 * Ezhiki and DP, I think it is better to continue this discussion on the Russia talk page. It is relevant to many articles (and I object to starting with the "legal" definition in nearly all) and we ought to seek consensus there.  cwmacdougall 19:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no problem if DP chooses to continue there. My comment here was with regards to DP's most recent revert in the article, the intent of which was to restore the version which existed before the argument started but which actually restored a later version. I felt it would be appropriate to clarify this on the user's talk page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 22, 2013; 20:32 (UTC)

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WP Sociology in the Signpost
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Sociology for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I hope you'll be able to take part in this interview. I think the resulting article will be of interest to ASA/ISA, too. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Ed Sociology Handout -- Feedback welcome!
Hello, I'm with the Wiki Education Foundation, and we're developing a brochure for students interested in editing Wikipedia. We're hoping that students can use this brochure as a guide for quality contributions to Sociology-related articles. As an active sociology article editor, I was hoping you might have a look at the proposed text (you can find it here) and send any feedback my way. Ideally, this would occur by the end of the week. Thanks very much!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

File:Lazarsfeld.jpg listed for discussion
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