User talk:Jtdirl/Archive 4

Archive of User talk:Jtdirl

-- If you have OSX and 20 spare Euros then you are in luck. I couldn't find a download link but the GIMP is too big to dowload via a dial-up connection anyway. --mav

I don't think we're quite back at square one - we've not got name calling anyway. I have hope that this is just a little disagreement that will be amicably resolved (at any rate, the edits seem to have calmed down a bit now). Of course, I'm a hopeless optimist, and a constantly disappointed one at that ;-) --Camembert

Hi. After suffering withdrawal symptoms for the last 24 hours, I return to find that you have "sorted out" Mr Dietary Fiber. I had been thinking of appealing to you, but I didn't want to seem like a wimp. Who is he/she, then? I mistook him/her for a common-or-garden ignoramus. And do you think the name is deliberately ironic? Deb 18:16 Apr 6, 2003 (UTC)

-- I like this quotation: "After a series of dodgy edits (names wrong, screwing up titles which they obviously didn't understand (sounds familiar!) duplicating names etc) that were undone by various people, DF moved away. The whole approach they have shown sounds very suspiciously like that practiced by VC. "

You should look at Vera's past edits to New Imperialism, when he/she was preoccupied with turning an article pertaining to a very complex and debated period of history into a "list". You summed it up nicely.

I'd like to hear more about this children of Lir myth too.

172

Dietary Fiber is now on an anti-capitalism and anti-US tirade in, among other places, Talk:World War II. -- Zoe

I am? Dietary Fiber

--

I&#8217;ve made major contributions lately that haven&#8217;t edited. I&#8217;m looking forward to a historian or social scientist of you caliber looking them over. I know that they&#8217;re not within your area of expertise, but 2/3 of them aren&#8217;t within mine either.

economy of Russia, history of Brazil, Protestant Reformation

172

--- I have to admit, the personality of this latest Lir resurrection seems the most potent yet! Discussing any complicated subject with this new offspring is just as maddening and self-defeating as ever, if not more so. Susan/Adam/Lir/Vera is even is even intensifying the anarchist crusade. It reminds me of the 1860 Nihilist movement in Russia.

172

- Don't worry about it. It's hard keeping up with all the changes and conversations.

172

As you've gathered, I got the wrong end of the stick on 172 vs Vera. Sorry about that! Tannin

Ha! You had me really confused with the Whitlam picture. I thought "huh? but I just did that! Where's your beef?". Then I looked at the history, and got more confused - you seemed to have moved the image into a div and embedded it (which is what I did), but accordsing to the history you had replaced a sinple  tag. Eventually, the penny dropped - my shift of it to an embedded div was still on the preview screen. Doh!

As you can see, I'm in the process of doing a top to bottom re-write of the Whitlam entry. The only area where we are likely to disagree is the rights and wrongs of the dismissal. For now, I've moved that to the talk page. When I get down to that part, I'll replace it with a brief, NPOV outline of the positions for and against. As we discussed some months ago, this remains a highly controversial matter, and is best dealt with on a page of its own. I intend to move the dismissal stuff over to there - I think it's Australian Constitutional Crisis of 1975 - but if you prefer to take care of integrating the ex-Whitlam paras into that article yourself, please go right ahead. I've got plenty to keep me busy for one night just doing Gough Whitlam. (No doubt we will disagree over the tone to be taken by the ACC1975 entry, but that's a battle for another day.) Tonight I'm just aiming to get EGW into shape. Tannin 15:03 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

---

Hey, Jtdirl! Go raibh míle maith agat for your support on the Rachel Corrie issue. I'm especially annoyed that it was removed unilaterally from the Votes for Deletion page. Somehow, I don't think it will disappear though, at least no time soon. How odd that the most prominent victim of this bitter conflict, at least here on Wikipedia, is the blonde, blue-eyed American girl who came to "help" ... Ní thuigim. Danny


 * It's funnier than you think, because I'm actually Jewish. I did some work on Irish Jewish history, fell in love with the music and literature, and managed to pick up a few phrases, hoping one day to study the language full-time. Then again, J. M. Synge majored in Hebrew, so perhaps its not so funny after all. Danny


 * This puzzles me. Majors and minors were an invention of the US university system. I've heard the system was introduced to make up for shortfalls in undergraduates' broader general education in a tactful way. Whatever the truth of that, it only percolated to other countries slowly; what sort of education did Synge have? Outright American, or US influenced? Or did he merely "read" Hebrew (as we technically call studying a subject at a British university) and not "major" in it? I vaguely recall he was of the Ascendancy. PML.

My maternal grandfather and his brothers, whom I have mentioned before, were reputedly given what their father thought were Jewish names to avoid sectarian problems. Thus Arnold Kerney ("Arnie Carney"?), Leopold Kerney (well before Leopold Bloom) and Mario Kerney (well, he didn't know many Jews).

On a more serious note, "From what I hear about the Vatican" - I'm trying to decode some of the more cryptic allusions in Hadrian VII, a 19th century work


 * Sorry, apparently it was 1904. From a specialised bibliography at we have "Rolfe, Frederick (Baron Corvo), Hadrian VII, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1904: many later reissues)... Rolfe was a Roman Catholic convert who lived on a gondola in Venice seducing Italian men. He was also obsessed with the Church. This novel is a fantasy, written in the super-intellectual language of late Victorian educated English converts, in which the narrator - a layman - is elected pope, and what he does in that position [so to speak]."

by Fr. Rolfe Baron Corvo which might have an interest for you and of which you may well have heard. PML.

Actually I haven't. Sounds interesting. Re your material grandfather, there is another spelling of their surname, Kearney, which Kerney may be a corruption of. STÓD/ÉÍRE 01:34 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

So I gather. In fact, I had wondered if "Kerney" was a variant imposed by French misunderstandings when the family emigrated there. My mother was often mistaken for Breton when not for Dutch ("Irlandaise/Hollandaise"), since "Ker-" is a common prefix for Breton names. But records show they were Kerneys before that. PML.

Astrid and Laurent (since there are other people of those names) need serious naming convention help. Should they be moved to Astrid, Princess of Belgium & Laurent, Prince of Belgium, or what? (Actually, I think I'll move them, if you think they need some other name just move 'em there!) -- Someone else 05:06 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry if I scared you with my edit to Prime Minister. I only added a link to the List of Prime Ministers of Finland. As you can see my summary was a cut-n-paste mistake (Parts of the wikipedia disclaimer seen below the edit window, I still can't understand how I managed to paste that in the summary). -- JNi 15:32 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Your accusations on my talk page are completely misinformed. I wrote "Prime minister", with a lower-case "m" and capital "P", only when it was the title of a Wikipedia article. It is not possible with current software to begin an article title with a lower-case letter. "Computer rendering" has a capital "C" and a lower-case "r" for the same reason. I move the article from "Prime Minister" to "Prime minister" because I thought (and still think) that it's an article about prime ministers and not about Prime Ministers. Michael Hardy 02:32 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

PS: Even the article about "e, the base of natural logarithms" begins with a capital "E", which, as mathematical notation, is technically incorrect, simply because Wikipedia will not allow it otherwise. Michael Hardy 02:32 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

JTD, you might like to take a look at Australian Senate when you get a moment. Last time I looked at it there were several things that I questioned. I should imagine that you would be able to correct (or confirm) them off the top of your head. (I am lazy - I'd have to spend ages looking them up and cross-checking!) Tannin

I'm pleased to announce that my mega-history of the English/British coin Penny is now finished (at last!), and broken up into 8 parts. Onward to the history of the ha'penny! Arwel

You're being incredibly unjust: I never said anything about BNAA or the question of whether it is capitalized, let alone called it bad English. I said certain cases of capitalization by lawyers were deliberate bad English used as a tactic; I did not mention, nor have in mind, the BNAA act in that connection, nor do I object to the capital letters in BNAA. Michael Hardy 23:03 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)

-- DANGER ALERT:

Lir, this time under the incarnation of Susan Mason, might have his/her/its eyes on the history of the Soviet Union article.

172

Thank you for your resolute Vera-watching.

Hopefully he/she was only interested in criticizing the article. At least for now.

172

-- Why aren&#8217;t Susan Mason and Dietary Fiber banned right now? Dealing with these latest incarnations is simply unbearable.

172

Why not just watch the troll's contribution page, and revert all of the inappropriate changes once a day? Don't rage, don't engage, 'cause that's what this troll loves. Cyan 06:46 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

As you were involved in the edit war in some way, I preferred using a version that was not by you. The history is kept and when all issues are sorted out and the page is unprotected again any other version can be made active by any wikipedian -- JeLuF 07:35 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

Well - although there seems to be some evidence that all these people are one and the same, it's only as "Dietary Fiber" that I've seriously fallen out with him/her. I guess the proof of the pudding is in whether these people are ever logged in at the same time. If they can converse with one another, we should challenge them to produce an edit conflict. Deb 08:35 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

Look at this Lir/Vera thinks he/she's clever:

Posted on the Page of Dietary Fiber: "Hey, do you know what is the deal with zoe, 172, and jtdirl? Susan Mason"

172


 * Do you lack the ability to appreciate ordinary politenss? (Rhetorical question.)  What I said was unjust was your attributing someone else's writings to me. Now you're sidestepping that point and not denying it, but trying to change the subject and attacking a straw man. Michael Hardy 22:38 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

There are clear grammatical rules for


 * I know and care far more about clear grammatical rules than you ever will. Michael Hardy 22:38 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

-- Don&#8217;t let these people get you down. They&#8217;re just jealous. 172

-- Is Zoe practicing reverse psychology on Susan/Dietary? It might work. 172

I agree entirely that where there's controversy (was Nicholas II the last tsar? was Mikhail? was Alexis?) it's best to be non-committal  'specially in short lists. Someday I'll get a grown-up browser, too. BTW, I thought briefly about trying to straighten out the List of Saxon dukes, kings, and emperors, which is wrong in just TOO many ways, last night but was afraid it would be seized on by the resident chameleon and certainly didn't want to die the 'death by inches' that that would entail. -- Someone else 01:47 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with your analysis of who ACTUALLY was tsar. But this being Wikipedia, once that can of worms gets opened, you wind up saying Who says X was, Who says Y was, etc.  rather than who actually was.   Fortunately no one much seems to make an issue of it at present, but let someone drop in who's a rabid "Nicholas-was-a-martyr-and-a-saint-and-Alexis-is-his-one-true-heir-because-the-Fundamental-Laws-can't-be-altered-because-a-sacred-oath-was-taken-and-they-forbid-abdication" person and THEN what happens! -- Someone else

I'm on a Mac, but a very very old one, running system 8.6, so Safari is, I think, out of the question. I'm hoping to upgrade soon though, if I can conquer my fear of a new operating system long enough. -- Someone else 02:24 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

About JJ and copyright images: yes, there could be a problem. He's only been around two weeks, and he's been editing prolifically during that time, so it would be a pity to scare him off. We'll just have to see if we can talk some sense into him. -- Tim Starling 04:50 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

-- What's this Black Widow controversy? It seems stranger than that regarding Lir/Vera. 172

Beats me. Black widow seems like DW on prozac! Rude, highly opinionated but doesn't threaten to strangle people with their own guts! But beyond that, I don't know, though Black Widow does appear to be getting worse lately (maybe they need to up the strength of their tablets, or take them more often!!!) STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:40 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

I may have just opened a major war with DW. See the mailing list. -- Zoe

Huh? You mean she's not Saint Rachael? Why am I always the last to know? Tannin

Nice analysis of the Rachel Corrie worship. -- Zoe

Ditto. And, re: the "hidden message", I usually look at updates in the diff, so of course, the message was immediately obvious to me. Thus, the tin foil hat reference. ;) -- John Owens

I'm completely with you in not wanting all "cars" to become "automobiles", but don't forget that the car article is essentially a disambiguation page - the link ought to go to automobile (which is where the content is) even if the text in the article says "car" (ie, car is often the way to go). --Camembert


 * In those cases where "car" has been completely replaced and it's not an Ameircan subject I completely agree with you - I only saw your edit to Rowan Atkinson where you had (mistakenly, I guess) replaced car with car . Just wanted to point it out in case you thought car was a proper article. --Camembert


 * I'm sorry, Jtdirl -- car is at the top of Disambiguation pages with links, and I'm just trying to disambiguate. I honestly didn't mean to step on any international toes!  As Camembert said, there is virtually no information at "car", which to my understanding is a slangier and less precise word than automobile.  Does automobile not mean "car", and vice versa, in the UK?  If not, can you please add an explanation to that effect to the "car" page?  I would have appreciated some discussion on my talk page or the Talk:Car before your angry decision to revert -- I'm a reasonable and well-educated contributor, and as far as I know I've never offended you in the past.  Please respond, Catherine 23:49 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

In ordinary practice today, people in the UK will mostly understand "car" if someone says "automobile", but it will halt their flow of thought. Also, the term "car" is in fact wider than an automotive thing, as in the Duke of Wellington's funeral car, designed by Prince Albert (and it shows!). That's not a quibble since things like that are going to show up in reference places like this. One more thing: while "carriage" is the standard term for what the USA calls a "car", on a railway, there is an exception. The London Underground was heavily influenced by US engineering practices, so those are called "cars" in the trade. PML.


 * Thank you the clarification. I thought I was correct, and I'll be happy to change now that I know I'm wrong.  I really do try not to be an ignorant American. Catherine 00:07 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

I would have said DK/Black Widow, JTD. Same editing style, same writing style. Same mania for self-aggrandisment. Same sort of combination of literacy, detailed knowledge, arrogant unconcern for other users, and inability to realise error. But I haven't considered the matter carefully - sdeeing as they are all banned, the question is moot.

Wonderful bit of rhetoric on Zoe's page, by the way. I enjoyed that. :) Tannin

-- NOTICE: The following comment and labeling is inappropriate and libelous. Any further comment of this nature by you directed at me and stated herein or elsewhere will result in my proceeding immediately with all legal remedies available to me in accordance with the laws of the United States. AND DO GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. User:Olga Bityerkokoff

(cur) (last). . 00:52 Apr 16, 2003. . Jtdirl (Vandal Alert)
 * According to Tannin, a new user Olga Bityerkokoff is a banned ex-user. It might be Michael but probably is Adam. *sigh*

- The above threat has been posted on the wiki list. It is also being put on the annoying users page. DO NOT TRY TO INTIMIDATE ME, YOU ARROGANT, POMPOUS TWICE-BANNED TROLL ÉÍREman 01:50 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

In the Spectator of 12.4.03 (see also ) Mary Kenny writes asking for legal-ish background help with a book she is writing on William Joyce. In particular, she wants to know stuff about national identity and allegiance, the stuff that brought him under the jurisdiction for a treason charge.

It rang a bell; I seemed to recall reading something to that effect within the Australian Constitution or its related papers, which would mean that it wasn't thought up for the purpose but had been around for a while. But I can't track it down off hand, if indeed I am not deceiving myself, and anyway Mary Kenny would want to know the background behind that as well, i.e. how it got into the Australian Constitution in the first place.

She gives an email address, so it seems safe repeating it - mailto:maryk@dircon.co.uk - can/will you help? PML.

--- I'm going to be away for a couple of days. Sorry that I wont be able to help in this round of troll-fighting (the strangest yet).

172

On Talk:Rachel Corrie, just one leetl question: OTT = over the top? Or does it stand for something else in this context? -- John Owens

Dear jtdirl; Hi...yes, there is another Mexico City, in Missisipi or Alabama , I believe.

Thanks for asking about the matter and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Everybody Have s*x Tonight!!! Martin

-

I realize you were concerned about the legality of using Mary McAleese's official portrait. However, I e-mailed her office and got this reply:

Thank you for your e-mail of 14 April 2003 concerning President's official portrait.

I would like to advise you that there is no objection to the reproduction of the President's official portrait in a non-profit encyclopaedia article.

Yours sincerely,

Mary O'Donnell, Secretariat

As a result, I will be re-uploading and posting it. user:J.J.

On the clerical titles, JD, I think you may be confusing me with Tarquin. Either that or my memory is getting worse than ever and I have been editing entries with cardinals other than the feathered ones in them! I'll look over the titles thing in any case, being a man who is always prepared to stick his oar in to just about anything. :) Switching to your previous message, that was a beautiful bit of rhetorc on Zoe's page! And, as the best rhetoric usually is, containing a great deal of plain truth. Third point: I presume you have seen JoanB's contributions and drawn the obvious conclusion? Tannin

As you may have noticed, JT, I have my own battles to fight right now, though I did make some comments on the Rachel Corrie pictures. At least one is a copyright violation. -- Zoe

Jtdirl, even if you feel (or a lot of people feel) that a person is a troll, a jerk, or a kook, it is still not right to use profanity on the Wikipedia, except where accurate. The policies of Wikipedia include a non-combative stance against other users, and a lack of profanity. Please ammend your attitude, and get back to writing some of that WWII goodness.

Foul_language

--cprompt

More than that, there is a risk of confusion: "kook" and Hillel Kook, someone whose objective actions in support of Zionism I personally find thoroughly offensive and detrimental to the moral position of that movement. As I do those of the eponymous Bialyk who founded the Bialyk Brigade that supported Jews in Poland by means of terrorising those Polish Catholics who wouldn't shelter them. PML.

I responded to your reasons for reverting semi-presidential on Talk:Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom. If you get a minute could you assess whether adding a sentence explaining the term would improve the article? Cheers, Pcb21 09:53 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

I'm going to remove Images of Rachel Corrie from votes for deletion, now that it is a relatively uncontroversial redirect. This OK by you? Martin

Nice one, JT. -- Zoe

Looks like Susan Mason is back, in the guise of 203.109.254.40 - I don't plan to broadcast it, as long as she doesn't return to her old tricks, but you might want to watch out for her. Deb 17:03 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)
 * That IP is in New Zealand. Knowing "the user formerly known as Susan Mason", I find it unlikely that they'd be using a system or proxy in New Zealand. Any articles edited by User:203.109.254.40 that you think should be checked out?
 * --cprompt

Hi. In my experience, Arno is one of the good guys. But he's Australian, so maybe he's on a slightly different wavelength. I'm sure you/we can come to a civilised compromise. Deb 19:18 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

Abortion isn't a subject I like arguing about (or reading about), possibly because I'm a mother myself. I find, in practice, that we tend to be less judgmental on the subject than are men or unmarried or childless women. I agree that the article as it stands does ramble a little and contains some blatant non-sequiturs, and I agree with Danny's assessment of what ought to be done with it. But I'm not volunteering to participate. Deb 20:11 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

What's even worse is, there's no article heir presumptive -- Zoe

-- I&#8217;m sorry but I&#8217;m far from being informed enough to help settle the dispute on the abortion article. Good luck with traversing through that minefield. 172

I agree. Sometimes it seems as if every article which we aren't part of is dominated by Lir and his horde of trolls. It's laughable that some people think he isn't DW. Of course it is. Anyways, I just want to say that I feel the same way about you, if you work on an article I know its going to be a quality production, but if just about anybody else has worked on it...might as well delete that crap and start over. 172

HT, you wrote on Talk:Adam Will: ''Saddam is a surname. Hussein is not. The fact that many articles on wiki refer to Hussein rather than Saddam is an example of how in some areas wiki falls well short of proper encyclopædic standards.''. But, see http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=42559&query=saddam%20hussein&ct=eb, where the Encyclopedia Brittanica calls him "Hussein". Are you claiming they're not of proper encyclopedic standards? -- Zoe

--- The article is improving. Please, come by and add some content. G-man and I want to spit it in half, with one section covering 1917-1953 and the other 1953-1991 since it is both already very long and too light on content detailing the Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev years. The talk page goes over what issues are weak in the article, and we'd like your help on them. It would be a good break from values-ladden mindfields like the abortion article. 172

Blimey! I have an absolute gem of a book which is so crammed full of errors, you can't believe it ever got printed. Some of the cock-ups can be explained by the fact that it's been translated from the French, but others are inexplicable: among other things, it says that Bach's Art of Fugue was written "1750 or 1751" (Bach died in 1750!) and that Mozart hated the finale of Chopin's second piano sonata (Chopin wrote the piece in 1839, 48 years after Mozart's death!). But really, Charles I winning, George VI abdicating and a victorious de Valera are in a different class - are you sure it wasn't one of those alternative history novels? You know the sort - "what if Hitler won the war? What if Stalin was all cuddly and loved cats? What if Mussolini was actually a Peruvian pole-dancer?" ;-) --Camembert


 * Hey, we all make mistakes. I heard of a wikipedian who once wrote that the coronation of King Edward VII took place in 1911 (he died the previous year)! Deb 17:03 Apr 22, 2003 (UTC)