User talk:Jdavidb/Archive4

Happy Christmastide!
Hi, Jdavidb, I'm really here to wish you a happy Christmastide (since I'm too late for Christmas Day, having spent less time than usual at the computer in the last two days), but I thought I'd also direct your attention to this page, since I know that the spamming for votes issue is one that you feel quite strongly about. (That being the case, you probably won't agree with what I wrote there!) Also, I want to thank you for bringing me to Wikipedia. I think it was you, wasn't it, who posted something on some blog last April, appealing for people to come to Wikipedia if they were prepared to respect NPOV. I had used Wikipedia before that, to look up information, but had never tried editing, and I have found it very fulfilling and have made some very nice friends here. So I wish you and yours a very happy and peaceful Christmas season, and I know that to you, at least, I don't have to say "Happy Holidays". A Saviour is born for us. Alleluia! AnnH (talk) 16:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Dear David, I hope you had a merry Christmas and that you will have a happier new year! Sincerely, Johnski 19:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost updated
Issue 51 of the Wikipedia Signpost has been published. (And sorry for not posting last week; it was kind of hectic last week with last minute Christmas shopping, etc.) Ral315 (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed remedies
I have an arbitration process question. Are proposed remedies to be proposed only by arbitrators, or may participants (and/or other interested parties) propose them? Are those who requested the arbitration expected to propose remedies? Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 13:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone may propose remedies on the /Workshop page. They may or may not be responded to or used on the /Proposed decision page. Anyone includes the parties or interested users. Those who requested the arbitration as well as the defendant could help themselves and the arbitrators by making proposals. If they are good they can be used, if not they serve to communicate. Fred Bauder 13:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Questions on RogerD's RfA
I have posted answers to your questions on Requests for adminship/Rogerd (2nd) --rogerd 16:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * You mentioned on my RfA that "I do not know the candidate", but did you forget this? --rogerd 04:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost updated.
Volume 2, Issue 2 of the Wikipedia Signpost has been published. Ral315 (talk) 04:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Homeschool project
Hello, My name Master Scott Hall (you can call me Scott). I am relatively new contributing to Wikipedia, though I have been a user of it for some time. I am currently soliciting for interest in a Wikiproject that I have proposed on the subject of homeschooling. Before finding Wikipedia, my wife and I were seriously considering, but not quite convinced, to home educate our children.

After discovering the depth, scope, and long-term goals of Wikipedia, as well as the individuals driving it, I am convinced that WP has the potential to revolutionize homeschooling. I am also convinced that home education is the right choice for my family. I have, however, been somewhat discouraged by the oversight of home education in most of the education related projects on WP. There are many potential reasons for this discrepancy, but I have resolved to try to do something about it.

Although I personally have very limited experience in building complex Wikiprojects, -templates, -portals, etc., I am confident that the right team can be assembled to tackle these issues. I would like to invite you to join this effort to make Wikipedia the resource for the home education of our children. If you are interested, please visits the temporary project page I have set up. Thank you --User:Master Scott Hall 23:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Project Launch. The Homeschooling project has moved to its new home at WikiProject Alternative education. Please visit the project page at your earliest convenience. If you have already discovered the move, please disregard this message. Thanks, Master Scott Hall 16:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Project Update: Our WikiProject Alternative education is going well. A large number of relevant articles have been assembled, evaluated, and sorted for the Adopt an article list. Alternative education (talk) and homeschooling (talk) have been selected as Focus articles. Please add them to your watch list so you can keep track of the latest changes, contributions, and discussions.


 * We want everyone wants to to stay as involved as they want, no matter how little time they have to contribute. If you've got a lot going and you simply can't find the time for regular contributions, just drop in from time to time to add your input to ongoing discussions. More input makes it easier for more active editors to make sure that their efforts are working toward consensus. If you feel that you don't have enough background in the subject at hand to make material contributions, you can still help by proof-reading and checking for readability. So, stay in touch, stay involved. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 07:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

WPSPAM
I smiled when I saw [your edit] to the project. I was afraid you disapprove what I did to your page (a takeover?). I hope the project is becoming what you have in mind. --Perfecto 03:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated
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DOM
Dear Jdavidb, I finally added something that I was sure Davidpdx would like but he reverted it without reason. I found where CBS related that the State department called DOM a fraud, etc., but he would not have it, just because it was from me. Is that fair? Can you help me with this? Johnski 05:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Johnski Arbitration Case
Just a quick update on the arbitration case, two new arbitrators voted and there now might be enough votes to close the case finally. We need to keep an eye on this and make sure whatever solution that passes is fully implemented.

I'm pushing for a little bit tougher outcome, but realistically it's probably not going to happen. If you have time, please make some comments at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Johnski/Proposed decision. Hopefully, semi-protection will be enough. Davidpdx 12:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Only just noticed...
...your very kind comment left on the clerks page. Thank you so much; the feeling is mutual. · Katefan0(scribble)/ poll 20:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

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Thanks
Thanks for putting me right about the NPOV thing - its good to have someone correct if your going wrong ;). If ever you come across me misinterpreting things again, give me a message. Thanks again! Ck l o stsw o rd|queta! 17:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Response (again): I agree, but the website was Doug's. I'll drop him a line anyway, although there are a number of trolls on the evolution talk page who I think may have discouraged him from editing other pages. I always find extremely strong opposition on that page. Thanks for your prompt response. Ck l o stsw o rd|queta! 17:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Johnski
This request for arbitration is closed. Dominion of Melchizedek and associated articles, shall be semi-protected. If necessary,, or any other editor believed by an administrator to be a sockpuppet or meatpuppet of Johnski, may be blocked indefinitely by any administrator. The article may be unprotected (and reprotected) at the discretion of any admin who deems it safe to do so.

For the Arbitration Committee, --Ryan Delaney talk 04:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Sir William Blackstone
Hi there,

Seems we both share Sir William Blackstone as a relation. Like you I'm also not a direct descendant, and in addition I don't have Blackstone as a surname.

His mother, Mary Bigg (1687-1735), is my 6th Great Grand Aunt.

How crazy is that! --BMR789 09:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:BEANS
Thanks for the link. Just when I think I've read all the Wikipedia essays, I find a new one. --M @ r ē ino 18:19, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack
It's hardly the first, or last, or even the worst. User:TheUnforgiven, a sockpuppet of User:ScapegoatVandal, had rather strong views about all things he assumed to be Jewish. Jayjg (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Deletion
Got it. Just over eager. Thanks! Smylere Snape 19:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Good. I really should be working now, but patrolling for vandals is strangely addictive. Smylere Snape 19:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

npgallery
Thanks for blocking User:Npgallery, but before that he started Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-02-06_Pschemp. Nationalparks 21:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for February 6th
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Block of Darwiner111
He's been sockpuppeting like mad, and editing disruptively with all his sockpuppets, which include User:1929Depression, User:1989Love, User:Jordain, User:PatrickA, User:VeryGood, always on the same topic. I don't think there is any issue with what you did. Jayjg (talk) 21:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Neuro-linguistic programming
You are a mentor! Please familiarize yourself with the case and conflict. I've posted notices to the article's talk page and AN. You may want to introduce yourself to all the parties (though that's a lot). Again, thank you. Dmcdevit·t 10:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your compliment on the talk page. It's much appreciated. I'm glad you are a Christian because we will need God's help. :) Hopefully we can bring some semblance of sanity to the dispute. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 13:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Mediator section
It's locked, so I can't add it in, but I wanted to mention that if you look in the archives, Headly Down DID accept my mediation. It's the entry that starts off "Hmm. Well your cred seems to check out...". As a neutral party, I'm not making any judgements here, but I do feel it important to mention that Headly did accept my mediation. If I can offer my advice: In my time dealing with that thread, I found out that the sides are so firmly entrenched that neither one wants to accept anything by the other side as acceptable. Further, some of the participants (most notably the NLP opponents) deem any mediator or administrator's pointing out policy violations such as personal attacks to be "biased". I strongly believe that a heavy hand is going to be needed to solve this issue, or at least some big gun administrator powers that I didn't have access to (nor would have right to use as a mediator due to conflict of interest.) Cheers, I'll be monitoring the thread myself. ⇒   SWAT Jester     Ready    Aim    Fire!  00:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Abuse of Admin Rights
Jdavidb abused his admin power by banning npgallery claiming so-called spam links were still being added, yet NO links had been added since receiving a ban warning from another admin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs) 2006-02-08 19:31:16

Signpost updated for February 13th
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Eulogy
Hi, thanks for your message. I looked at the edit, and I agree with it. I've also added Eulogy to my watchlist, with a view to adding something to it at some stage.

The Catholic Mass is divided into two parts: the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The first part consists of introduction, penitential rite (saying the confiteor, the Kyrie, etc.), Scripture readings, homily, creed, and prayers of the faithful (petitions). The second part consists of the Consecration of the bread and wine, and then Holy Communion.

The homily must be given by an ordained priest or deacon. Unfortunately, that rule, like many others, is often ignored. Unlike a sermon, it has to have as its theme a part of that day's Mass. It should normally focus on one or more of the scripture readings, but it would also be completely appropriate for the priest to preach about what the Mass means, or the Our Father (which is said during the Mass), or some part of the Creed, or the meaning of the day's feast (Christmas, Assumption, etc.). Since a funeral is a Mass for the Dead, it would be appropriate to preach about death in the light of the Christian message.

There are two possible abuses of liturgical law with regard to eulogies at funerals. One is that the priest, instead of giving a homily in keeping with my explanation of homily above, gives a talk about Billy and what a great guy he was, and how he used to like going to football matches etc. A priest also often tells the congregation that Billy is in heaven now, which is also not supposed to be part of the homily. I presume that Purgatory is not part of your faith, but for Catholics, we are not supposed to take it for granted that anyone other than a martyr or a newly-baptized person goes straight up. These kind of eulogies have led to prayers for the dead almost disappearing. We don't think of praying for Aunt Emily, because the priest tells us she's in heaven and says nothing about praying for her.

The other "abuse" is when the priest invites a family member or friend to talk about Uncle Billy during the Mass. It's particularly inappropriate if the priest doesn't give a homily and Susie talks about Uncle Billy during what would have been the homily, as then it looks as if Susie is giving the homily, and blurs the distinction between the ordained priesthood and the priesthood of the faithful. (Again, that's a distinction that may not exist in your faith.) It's not so bad if Susie gives a brief, dignified address (maybe thanking people, and saying that Uncle Billy was so grateful to all those who visited him when he was ill, but not a pile of jokes about his support for a football team). Really, though, any anecdotal account of the person's life should not be given during the liturgy. It might be more appropriate at the wake, if there is one. Anyway, according to liturgical law, the priest's homily should not be a eulogy about the dead person, and any addresses by lay people should be brief and should not take the place of the homily.

Another abuse that often happens at funerals is that secular objects associated with the dead person are brought up in the offertory procession. So, in addition to the bread and wine, you have people carrying up Uncle Billy's pipe, his football, and his favourite newspaper. (And then, at the end of the Mass, you see the family members rushing up to the altar to retrieve these objects that were supposedly "offered" to God!) My mother has frequently said that when she dies, she wants me to be 100% in charge of organizing the funeral to ensure that there won't be any liturgical abuses. Unfortunately, a lot of Vatican instructions are completely ignored.

Thanks for your recent message. You'll be hearing from me again soon. I love the pictures of your little boy, especially on the first page. And I was delighted to read that Baby Mi is on the way. AnnH (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Quailtard
I've closed the AfD for this article, and explained my reasoning in the closing note. If you or anyone else want to bite me for being a bit too WP:BOLD, you can. I do think it was clearly the right and common-sensical thing to do.

Adrian~enwiki (talk) 03:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for February 20th
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Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop
I have just done a massive refactoring of Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop, in order to
 * remove personal attacks, irrelevant comments, and bickering
 * make the page readable and usable for the arbcom, as at its previous size of 183KB, it was not.

As your words appear on that page, I'm letting you know so that you may review the changes. I have tried not to let any bias or POV I may have color my summaries; however, it's a wiki, so if you think I've misrepresented your words, please fix them. Wearily yours, Mindspillage (spill yours?) 08:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Lew Rockwell
Would you mind taking a look at the dispute going on over the Lew Rockwell entry? I've asked a couple of other folks to offer their perspective as well. Thanks. Dick Clark 19:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for February 27th
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Again
Unfortunately the issue here won't seem to go away. Can you log into meta and add your comments here to help lock down the issue with the least additional wasted time? Thanks. - Taxman Talk 14:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

OneWorld Country Guides
dear Jdavidb

I recently added links to OneWorld Country Guides as External Links on the corresponding Wikipedia country pages. You deleted them, pointing out that advertising is not permitted.

The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago with a different User (Khoikhoi) and I explained to him that, as our Guides are non-commercial and produced entirely by volunteers, we have some kinship with the Wikipedia philosophy, certainly more so than many of the other external links. Khoikhoi accepted my argument and agreed that I could restore the links.

I attach below my mail to Khoikhoi explaining the subject matter of OneWorld Guides - and then his reply. Please would you reconsider your position on this and also advise how we can communicate to others who may misunderstand these additions.

Thankyou

Bill Gunyon 13:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC) - I see where you are coming from in deleting all the external links to OneWorld Guides but have you checked the content carefully? The Guides focus on poverty, human rights and environmental issues in each country, topics which are largely missing from the Wikipedia country Content templates currently in place. By drawing attention to these issues in the description of the Guides, I hope to create value for the many users who are concerned about these topics.

I don't have the resources, nor presumably the authority to refashion the country templates on Wikipedia. OneWorld Guides are neither commercial nor private websites - they are produced by a regulated non-profit independent organisation in the UK (OneWorld) which has a mission to promote human rights and sustainable development. I feel that the Guides have as much credibility for an external link as the BBC Country Profiles, CIA factbooks and the US State Department profiles which each have a near universal presence on Wikipedia country pages. The BBC profiles duplicate the Wikipedia template far more closely than OneWorld and these particular US sources are viewed by much of the English-speaking world with some degree of reservation.

and the reply:

Hi Bill,

I checked out your website and I have to say that I'm extremely impressed. It looks very interesting. I'll let you re-add the links, but keep in mind users are encouraged to add content to the actual articles, not through the external links. Anyways, sorry about reverting your edits and you are welcome to re-add them if you want.

--User:Khoikhoi

Linkspam criteria
I wish you had not merged the "suspicious edits" and "edits which should be reverted" sections. It's been a bit obscured, but the distinction between those two sections was supposed to be edits which might be spam as opposed to edits which almost certainly are spam. With all the content added in between, it has become confused. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Jdavidb. I'll take a look and try to separate them out again.  Feel free to make any edits you wish.  The project page was in need of a little TLC so I thought I'd try and polish it up a bit.  [[Image:Monkeyman.png]]Monkeyman(talk) 15:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Linkspam
Hey Jdavidb,

Thanks. I guess it wasn't a good idea to let Bill add his links as I now understand what you're saying. If it's not a website that users would add by themselves, why use Wikipedia as a place to promote your site? Although Bill's intentions were not promotion, I still believe that it's not notable enough. I'll remember that next time. ;) --Khoikhoi 01:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I see the point that you guys are making but I don't follow how BBC Country Profiles and US State Department country pages survive your criteria. They appear on the majority of Wikipedia country entries.

Bill

NLP
We need your help as the workshop discussion is getting out of control again. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom G. Palmer
I was wondering if you might take a peek at the revert wars going on at Tom G. Palmer. Thanks Dick Clark 20:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for March 13th.
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Signpost updated for March 20th.
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3rd person needed - "Bill Lawrence"
David,

You might look at this and give a 3rd party POV edit, as I might be considered partisan. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Lawrence&curid=1667318&diff=44923210&oldid=40758668 Carltonh 23:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for March 27th.
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Signpost updated for April 3rd.
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1WW Refactor
Please see Refactor and New discussion.

You were gracious enough to comment on 1WW; as you may know there are now seven competing proposals. On April 6 I suggested that I be permitted to refactor the proposal page into a single, unified proposal. It's my belief that most of us are tending toward the same or a similar restriction on wheel warring. I think it's unwieldy, though, as it stands. A fair number of editors have commented on these distinct versions but (precisely because they are so similar) no single one has gained undisputed consensus. I suggest that a single, improved version may fare better on its way to policy.

Just as I proposed the refactor, an editor brought to our attention yet another competing proposal, which I merged into the others, using the same format. Still another proposal has since been added, bringing the total to 7. The two new proposals are encountering an indifferent reception but they, too, have some merit.

At the time I suggested refactor, I also put myself forward as the editor to write the initial draft, based on the plurality of support for "my" version. Since the two new proposals have been added, this plurality has held.

I don't for a moment feel that this gives me any special right to dictate terms; rather I hope to draft a proposal uniting the best features of existing proposals. Unlike any of the seven currently competing versions, this refactor will be open to editing immediately by any editor. I will ask editors to refrain from supporting or opposing the new draft for the time being; instead, to edit the proposal to reflect their specific concerns. I believe the true consensus policy will then emerge, in true wiki fashion. After all, we're not so far apart.

I come to your talk page today to ask for your comment on this refactor. Clearly this will be a major change to the proposal page and I don't feel comfortable being quite that bold without some expression of interest in the idea. Once the new draft is in place, I hope also for your participation to polish it into a true expression of our values. Let's move forward with this complement to WP:3RR. John Reid 04:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)