User talk:Jmabel/Archive 41

Would like to hear your opinion ...
Hello Jmabel -- Someone has just performed a major re-write on the lead section of CG. This person did not discuss any of the changes on the Discussion page before making them. His contributions have caused the lead section to expand by about 4-5 times. I think that much of the material he has inserted is redundant as it is covered in the body of the article and doesn't belong in the lead section, but I would appreciate it very much if you could take a look and decide what, if anything, should be done. Many thanks! -- Polaris999 00:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

History of the Jews etc
The user who deleted the link has appeared again, this time as User:Webville. See. Dahn 01:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't see much to do here so far except keep an eye on the situation. - Jmabel | Talk 01:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess so. Dahn 02:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Sendero
I kind of flew off of the handle with that diatribe, didn't I? --Descendall 23:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleted article
There is no problem with creating another article about that topic and using the information in the deleted one. But don't undelete the deleted one. When a user is banned from the site they are not allowed to contribute to it. It has long been policy to revert any edits done by their sockpuppets on sight, to revert edits and if they were the only ones who contibuted to an article, to delete it irrespective of quality of content. The reason is simple: in the past when banned users were allowed edit, through turning a blind eye, they invariably abused that toleration. Two of the most notorious were DW and his many many socks (most recently, he is suspected of being Ted Wilkes) and Lir. Banning didn't work if it could be manouvred around. A rigid policy of delete/revert on sight, usually drove the vandals away in time, when they got fed up working on articles only to find that all their work, good bad or indifferent, was binned unread.

So however you use the text, don't do so in a way that resurrects the edits of the banned user. Edit them yourself in a way that makes them yours and doesn't make them think they have gotten away with creating articles while banned. FearÉIREANN \(caint)|undefined 20:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 21:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Vlad Ţepeş
In fact he is a Rumanian figure. He was born in Sighişoara, but giving the fact that all his purpose in life was to reign over Wallachia, you could say that he was a historic Wallachian figure. And considering his family background … There are a lot of Rumanian books on him, but I’m afraid that your language skills must develop before you can get a first raw biographic material. If you have questions about historic Rumanian figures, I’m open to answer. Koga, 10 August 2006
 * I have no idea what this is with reference to. Did I ever express doubt that he was Romanian? Şi pot să citesc limba română, dar nu fară dificultăţi; am fost şase luni la Bucureşti (nov 2001-mai 2002). -- Jmabel | Talk 16:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Cum zici tu şi mai luăm o bere. Koga, 14 August 2006
 * Bine. Cu răbdare şi tutun… (dar eu nu fumesc…). - Jmabel | Talk 16:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Revisionism ?
Hello! I'm having some troubles with User:Maria Stella, who insists on deleting whole parts of the Herero and Namaqua Genocide (and moving it to "Herero & Namaqua Uprising", which I can't seem to be able to revert any more), all this without any discussions. She also repeatedly deleted parts of Lothar von Trotha without leaving any comments (the paragraph accusing him of leading the genocide). Some messages have been posted on talk pages, but she also removes templates I've put on her page to warn her from deleting content without previous discussions. If you don't mind having a look... Lapaz 02:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I don't expect her to listen much to anyone, but the Herero article is not really on many people's watch-list... Lapaz 02:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Lapaz is the worst troll and POV pusher I've ever seen on Wikipedia, routinely adding extremist and racist POV rant and deleting serious content from articles. There's really no sense in wasting more time on this person who seems only dedicated to damage Wikipedia to push his nationalist POV. Maria Stella 00:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've seem quite a few of Lapaz's edits and have no idea what country he is from. On the other hand, I cannot remember ever seeing an edit from Maria Stella that did not scream out that it was an edit by a German. This is not the pot calling the kettle black. This is the pot calling the apple black. - Jmabel | Talk 00:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I know the lies of people of your sort. Everyone knows I am not German, but dedicated to neutrality. I doesn't matter which country Lapaz is from. He is an obvious anti-German POV pusher, which may be found in several countries, as may be seen from his edits (examples at the Herero Uprising talk page). Maria Stella 00:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

People of my sort? And what "sort" would that be? "Everyone knows I am not German"? Please, most people simply don't know you from Adam's off ox. I have encountered about half a dozen of your edits; every single one was a complaint of anti-German bias. If you are not German, I apologize for thinking so, and if these were atypical of your edits, again I apologize. Could you point me at a place where you have either criticized something for being overly favorable to Germans or Germany, or where you have made similar complaints about bias against, say, the Poles or French? If these exist, then my remark was ill-founded.

If you believe you have a genuine grievance either against Lapaz's behavior or mine, I suggest that you start an RFC. Otherwise, I suggest that you stop making attacks on either his character or mine. - Jmabel | Talk 00:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Lasalle, Bucharest
Hi. Can you reference the Lasalle quote? Because it is copied verbatim from some site, and, as a direct quote, it should have a place in which to be found. I had erased it from the "History of...", and replaced it with quotes I could reference. Also, let's face it: Lasalle would have described many cities along those lines - his isn't exactly netral testimony, and other travellers do not seem to care as much about this aspect as they do about prostitution and wooden houses. 07:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, the quote is placed directly after reference to Bucharest's expansion after 1866, but Lasalle died in 1864! The man was referring to the period of the Regulamentul Organic. Dahn 07:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can find either a source for that, or some equivalent quotation. Bucharest was singled out by quite a few observers for its extremes of wealth and poverty, probably as dramatic in the late 1800s as those in London and, by most accounts, not really shrinking at any time during the years of the kingdom. - Jmabel | Talk 07:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I didn't want to imply that they would've been shrinking. But Lasalle was referring to a time when boyars in kiftans were being carried by servants on unpaved streets, etc. and it would be misrepresenting to say that the divide was caused by the same things in the 1860s. I have no relevant citation for the 1870s myself. Now, I may be a leftist, but I have huge doubts about Bucharest being the way you said it was in, say, the 1880s: beside the fact that boyars no longer existed, it was a relatively prosperous town, without much industry, sanitized, with space to develop and dominated by private land ownership (gardens, etc), and the worse it got within its confines was the mahala. The social divide until WW1 was, more likely, between city and country than inside the city itself. Dahn 07:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, there may well have been a reprieve from shortly after unification until WWI. To be frank, it is an era I don't yet know nearly as well as what came before or after; I need to do more reading on that. But the boyars didn't exactly cease to exist: think of Prince Ştirbei's influence clear into the 1920s. - Jmabel | Talk 07:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the boyars as a class were "cancelled" by Cuza's reforms. Of course people continued to be rich, but they no longer relied on a "captive" population of peasant workers for their subsistence (at least, not until ca.1880, or, in some cases, 1907). Despite the persistance of the term "boyar" in slander and satire, they lacked the basic element for being boyar. In fact, the influence of people like Ştirbei is relevant for the amassed failures of boyars: the man was one of the few, and the few had to either have immense land properties which they could afford to have worked by others, or rely on something else completely (which would make them "boyar" only by family tradition). In a sense, it is like saying "feudalism has not disappeared in England - think of the Magna Charta". Dahn 07:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have a real disagreement here, but I think it would be more like saying "feudalism has not disappeared in England - look at the land politics of the New Forest." About which I notice our article has little to say, it seems to focus more on the picturesque aspects. - Jmabel | Talk 07:55, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting. But I think the main trait of feudalism is not that a person may own large (huge) plots of land, but that the persons working the land cannot leave, cannot sell to or buy from anybody else, owe stuff to the man owning the land for simply being there, and those equal to the land owner in status have the duty to defend him and him only in war. Dahn 08:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The New Forest today or in living memory is not truly feudal, but I spent a little time there about 25 years ago, and the class system was like something from another century; enormous amounts of land were commons; and there was a place where an old manor house a good kilometer from the sea had the ancient inherited right to cut down all trees that would block their view. It wasn't feudal, but you could easily see that it had once been so, in a way you would never know in most of the rest of the country. - Jmabel | Talk 17:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. Sorry for not keeping in touch, but I was out of town for a couple of days, and only handled some stringent articles. Back on the original topic: the quote is ill-placed, and gives a distorted image. We do need to do something about that. I would support moving it (with adequate rephrasing) to the 1830s section, or finding out something else altogether for a later period. The adequate later period seems to me as after ca.1910 or even Great Depression-ish: note that Giurescu, who speaks at length about such Communist watersheds as the 1918 riots in Bucharest and the creation of the Social-Dem. Party (although, surprisingly, not a word on the Grivita Strike), fails to note a social divide as obvious in 1866-1914. We should not give our readers a wrong impression (I just think that the ills of Bucharest in that period reside in other traits - a city of incompetent public officials and whoring perhaps, but also a city with little industry and room to grow). Tell me if you agree with my points and point out which solution you find to be the most fair. Thanks. Dahn 20:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Fine by me on moving the Lasalle quotation. And eventually I'll try to find something else for the '20s-'30s. - Jmabel | Talk 20:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok then. Thanks. Dahn 20:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the heads-up...
as you can tell from my user info, kiki & herb was my first real attempt at writing a wiki article, so i'm still getting the hang of the whole thing.

i am in contact with kiki & herb's publicity agency, and got a verbal go-ahead from one person there, so i'll contact them for some written permission on the image.

as for the talk page, thanks for the help—i didn't know that we were supposed to keep that silly "welcome to wikipedia" thing there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Abrahamjoseph (talk • contribs) 13 August 2006.

Re: Talk pages
Agh! I missed the talk: bit and just saw it as a WP namespace page. Thanks for the note, I'll remember not to do talk pages next time ;) --jam  es (talk) 05:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Xueta
Me temo que no puedo aportar mucho en este tema. Ciertamente, el articulo es muy confuso. Creo que una traducción al inglés del articulo en catalan o español (son la misma fuente) seria mejor. Tal vez te interesen estos enlaces,,. Saludos, --Joan sense nick 02:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Grácias. Ahora misma, falto el tiempo para traducirle, pero creo que sea una buena idea. - Jmabel | Talk 02:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Two songs
Right, thanks! ---Yury Tarasievich 12:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Naveed Afzal Haq
You raise an interesting point at Talk:Naveed Afzal Haq about the article describing Haq's parent's prominence in the local muslim community but not their sorrow over the incident. As it happens, I added the information about Haq's parent's background to July 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting a couple of days before Haq's parents made their statement. I don't think any information about their reaction was available when I was editing that article. I've been too busy to make any significant contributions since than. Clearly, there are editors working on this article who are out to push a POV, but I think that what you are commenting on specifically has more to do with the fact that different editors work on articles at different times and with different information that any kind of systemic bias. GabrielF 03:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:TechReg
Thanks for pointing me to the template page. I took a pretty good look and I'm afraid I don't understand the syntax for crafting a new template. I was not able to find a how-to page. Have you any suggestions? Thanks! --Scheinwerfermann 03:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * (answered on his user talk page) - Jmabel | Talk 15:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Did as you suggested, posted parameters of what I'm after. Zero assistance has been forthcoming. --Scheinwerfermann 22:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Mallorca
HI thanks for the praise no most of the work is my own knowledge but I posted some of the info from the history of Palma article because it is actually more important on the Mallorca page for its overall history. Actually most of the work on everything else is common sense- I used the map to cite the municipalities and I actually browsed wiki commons using their info on pictures to create Mallorca articles with quality photos. Not bad eh? James Janderson 08:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

HI I don't think so bu tthe page is really developing now. Really the article should already be a lot better. I have started areas on transport, culture and sport on the Mallorca island and even the cuisine which I think is important. ALl of the beaches and mountains need listing and of course the geography of the island needs writing in detail. Its looking better anyway. James Janderson 08:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your contribution to the Moldova page
Thank you for editing my edits of Moldova Page. --Maxim Masiutin 20:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

isurvived.org
Sorry, you are quite correct. I interpreted User:Phr's comments here to indicate that it was policy to automatically remove spammed links. However, it's clear that at least that page is a useful resource. I'll look over the others that I removed sometime tomorrow. I guess I was a little over-zealous there. -Elmer Clark 07:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that's a good way of doing it, but that disclaimer seems a little long. Perhaps something more concise such as "Note: portions of this site (not including the linked page) are in dispute by the historical community" would work.  I wonder if there have been any precedents where a useful portion of an overall dubious site was cited... -Elmer Clark 07:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll go back over it (and the other isurvived links) tomorrow. Thanks for pointing this out. -Elmer Clark 07:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Louis Charles of France
The summary already includes the name of the painter of the portrait of Dauphin Louis Charles of France -> painter: Alexander Kucharsky (Author)-Caro1409 10:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC
 * OK. I suspected that the page Louis XVII of France was wrong in saying that it was Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. I'll fix it. - Jmabel | Talk 17:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Judaism
If I id, it was unintentional. My intent was actually to restore a comment someone had deleted. I will go back an try to fix it, Steve —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 19 August 2006.
 * I long since fixed it, I just thought you'd want to know that your browser is sometimes cutting off the ends of long pages when editing. - Jmabel | Talk 17:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Osip Mikhailovich Lerner
The article about him clearly states in the first paragraph that he had converted from Judaism to Christianity, and even gave a cite to a book. Hope that answers your question. 65.28.2.218 18:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

oops
In your correction to the Talk:Jew you accidently mixed up user and date resulting in
 * The preceding unsigned comment was added by 15 August 2006 (talk • contribs) 71.247.44.253.

The template ussage is name then date. Jon513 23:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I do hundreds of these. Occasionally I screw up. - Jmabel | Talk 00:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Pete McCloskey
Hi, Thanks for the query. Hope this is the right place to reply. The reason for piping a Mc name in a category to Mac is so that it is listed before the rest of the M's in the category listing. This is correct sorting in Scotland where there are so many surnames starting Mc and Mac that it is effectively treated as a separate letter - see Scottish BT Phone books for this explanation. Then even if someone does not know how the name starts, they can look down a single list, sorted by the later letters (also Mackenzie|MacKenzie to appear in order as sorting considers case, but the mind does not). My edit should not have changed what appears on the screen, only the position in listings. I now realise that Pete McCloskey is a poor example for me to pick as most of the categories he is in, mainly consist of other Mc's! I will need to change many others (or revert to the earlier form) - any advice? I might limit myself to piping to "surname, forename" and avoiding problems (including foreign names as it is difficult to guess where people will look in a lonk list. Hope that is clear. I'm not sure how to explain it in a one line comment! I am afraid that most of my recent edits have been minor, like this one. Finavon 17:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice. I will leave things as they are for now, watch the Pete McCloskey page and try to obtain a more authoritative source for Mac sorting before posting on the Talk page you suggest. I agree there are far more important things in life.Finavon 17:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

em-dashes
Please point to a Wikipedia guideline page that includes recommendations to use Unicodes vs. HTML codes such as &amp;mdash; for &mdash;.

Regardless of Wikipedia guidelines, I would point out:


 * Editing in Wikipedia is done in a fixed-width font, so, while editing, the visual distinction between hyphen, en dash, and em dash is certain when using HTML codes, and uncertain when using Unicodes.


 * Wikipedia's own Unicode and HTML page refers to and uses &amp;mdash; to discuss and display the em dash.


 * I seem to recall reading somewhere off Wikipedia that browsers are more likely to render &amp; codes correctly than they are to render Unicode characters correctly. I don't know if this is true with the browsers of 2006.

In general I replace &amp;ndash; codes and single and double hyphens with &amp;mdash; codes. I do not replace Unicode-coded em dashes with &amp;mdash-coded em dashes except perhaps in the course of fixing the other stand-ins for em dash. Anomalocaris 21:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Category for pro-Israel organizations
You wrote (→See also - rm what appears to be a random grouping of other media watchdog organizations. This is what categories are for.). I suspect that Category:Pro-Israel organizations would be rather controversial. Is that what you are proposing? We have Category:Non-governmental organizations involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could be subdivided into the two (or more) sides. But we'd just get revert wars. --John Nagle 22:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The organizations listed were not (or at least not mostly) pro-Israel in any sense. That is why I found this content useless and removed it. It was an apparently random listing of a few miscellaneous media watchdog groups of various politics. - Jmabel | Talk 23:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)