User talk:Lwxrm

Hello. I am currently studying for a PhD in European Community law. Will update here as and when I can.

Welcome to wikipedia
Traditionally we are supposed to say hello to newcomers and give helpfull advice. I think I've forgotten what that is by now. Perhaps, start off editing non controversial articles. Which is not at all intended to discourage you from visiting the EU page. It needs people who know something about the subject. Experts are always usefull. I don't know if you have noticed the barney on the FA discussion for the page, but it perhaps illustrates this point. The criticisms of the page have been largely technical rather than content based. As I have become more familiar with the subject, I can more easily see some of its content shortcomings.

I think the FA people are also rather overstretched and it must be very difficult to try to give a fair judgement to such a large and rambling topic. Which might be considered as encouragement to get involved with the administrative side of wiki. It certainly needs it, if that sort of attention to rules and details appeals to you. On the other hand, you might be more of a quiet rebel, more like myself, who is interested in writing articles which seem to me valuable and informative, whatever wiki rules they run foul of.

Of course, this is a new account, but I have no idea whether you are experienced with wiki or not. So it is difficult to pitch advice at the right level. wikipedia is a horrendous jungle of red tape which I have just rambled around. It seems such a waste spending time understanding it rather than writing something. But then, most people are here just for the fun of it. So enjoy.

Don't let it get to you if people are all unreasonably stubborn. I really just came to say I was also a sceptical europhile. Welcome to wikipedia. Sandpiper (talk) 01:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Haha, just to second what Sandpiper said (I replied on my page by the way), welcome. If you are new to Wikipedia in general as well, then you'll also soon notice just how flawed the whole system is. Basically imagine you are editing an article on the wheel, and you want to write that it is in the shape of a circle. If there are two monkeys also editing that same page who argue 'we shouldnt say its shaped like a circle, we should say its shaped like a big Edam cheese', then a consensus has to be reached with them somehow, leading to odd results. Hence why the site can RARELY be trusted to deal effectively with any contentious issue, ie. the EU. Just to give one example, one editor was trying to claim at one point that Competition policy was just a minor point of the EU, and that DG Competition was just as significant as every other Commission post, ie. they didn't have a clue what they were talking about, yet for a long time didn't back down about it. So in sum, more expertise is needed on the page! --Simonski (talk) 15:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the welcome! It is greatly appreciated. I am rather unfamiliar with wiki, which is why my efforts thus far have been concentrated on the discussion page. I think overall the content of the EU article is good with a few exceptions (sport!). Plus not sure the whole internal market issue is dealt with in enough detail. Hopefully, schedule permitting, I will be able to make some contributions to help improve! Lwxrm (talk) 09:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, not the S-word! To try to explain: people have different views about what is important in an article. Some hold their views more strongly than others. Thus it may happen that while a number of people think something should not be on a page, a few determined supports may result in a compromise addition to a page, for the sake of peace. Some editors dislike edit warring on pages. In the extreme, I agree, it becomes ridiculous. But the opposite extreme is simply to let someone determined enough include anything they please on a page. While on the subject, there is a rule sometimes offered to newcomers BE BOLD! (there is another rule DON'T BITE THE NEWBIE for those already here, and for everyone, ASSUME GOOD FAITH). Just for good measure, there is a rule held in some esteem IGNORE ALL RULES, but it comes with a health warning to make sure you are right when doing so. must be thousands of others by now, and growing as fast as the number of articles.
 * I don't mind the sport bit per se. It isn't wrong, just in my view not especially relevant. The difficulty I have with it, is that wiki tries to keep individual articles to a reasonable length so they don't take forever to load (especially for anyone with a slower computer). You may have noticed a length warning if you edit the EU page. In theory at least, we should be thinking whether there isn't anything we might cut. Different people have different views on what could be left out....but even leaving that aside, one reason some sections may be considered lacking is because of this aim of summarising. A general introduction article like this one has lots of 'see also' and 'main article' tags which are supposed to be there so people can go and read a bigger piece about that particular section. But I agree there are sections which leave out important things, and include less important stuff. But some of us are quite ignorant, for example on the multiple ways of creating legislation, so it is difficult to say what is lacking or covered excessively. As someone who likes organising things, I tend to keep moaning that the article needs reorganising (like the current issue over discussing legislation in two different places). Sandpiper (talk) 23:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Four Freedoms (European Union)
Don't know if you have seen the article Four Freedoms (European Union), where the section on movement of capital is so short as to be non-existent! Sandpiper (talk) 01:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I have noticed and I am really not surprised! Capital is largely unexplored at academic level. Even the "bible" of EU law by Craig and DeBurca only has a short chapter dedicated to it and even this overemphasises the link with EMU (in my opinion) Lwxrm (talk) 14:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

EU Single market
The section has become to long. It should be trimmed by at least 2 paragraphs. When I look at the last para, it becomes clear that highly specific information has been introduced. That is too much. Lear 21 (talk) 10:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits
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Reform Treaty
Thought you'd be interested in the recent discussion on this page, particularly at the UK Reaction/Free undistorted competition section. I'm not kidding, but somebody wrote this in response to one of my comments:

''the ECJ is a court in the tradition of continental European civil law and thus can't go beyond the actual treaty text. The old Article 3(1) text is still there in binding form, there better be a damn good argument for the ECJ to change its current view about the language being used as an objective, which you haven't given a valid reason for yet.''

Yes I know, it made me laugh too. But I could use somebody else coming in and confirming how wrong that point is as I don't think this guy really knows what he's talking about. Which is a bit worrying to be honest... --Simonski (talk) 15:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

EU Denonym
Again, another EU issue I thought itd be interesting to hear your take on - head over to the EU page if you get the chance and have a look at this debate about the EU's denonym. No idea if you're the same as me but just I find it odd that its listed as "European" rather than "EU Citizen". --Simonski (talk) 15:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)