User talk:Magidin

Barnstars
Impressed with your catch!--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Compliment
I think it's awesome that you're watching both the Four Horsemen of the Supreme Court and nerdy stuff like Harry Potter and such. I figured nobody would be watching the Horsemen, so I watched them myself.RafaelRGarcia (talk) 22:06, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Supreme Court of the United States
I think you and I were trying to accomplish the same thing at the same time. in any case I give up, its your show now. Good Luck. Awg1010 (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Replied on my talk page. Foofighter20x (talk) 23:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey - I just saw the improvements that you made to my edit of the Supreme Court wikipage. I like your wording of the Roe v. Wade bit, better than the way I tried to do it. Congrats and thanks. Raymondwinn (talk) 17:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hugo Black
Yo.Please consider my nomination of Hugo Black as a good article. In return, I would surely review one of your own in the future. Peace. RafaelRGarcia (talk) 01:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Associate Justice Article
Magidin: Could you please amend your messages on the talk page to avoid interleavings? It makes it harder to read. I agree that the article is fine the way it is. I don't think I distorted your position, because what you wrote in correction was the same as what I understood when I read it, but, if you were concerned that what I said was not right, thank you for correcting it. In any case, I still agree with you. Non Curat Lex (talk) 05:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for clarifying, Magidin. Under my previous and mistaken belief that I had done wrong by you, I was feeling bad. There certainly are certain editors whose tone is very questionable. In this case, the suspect editor's tone is already a subject of administrative discussion. See [|here] and [|here]. I think he is skating on thin ice above the warm waters of hell. In any case, even though I can sit there and debunk his self-styled (and self-defeating) legal arguments on the "life tenure" issue, it's very costly to me in terms of productivity. I know how silly it is, and yet, if no one speaks up about it, wikipedia will bend to his will. I'm not sure what to do about it. I think I just have to hope that this guy grows up, or that he regresses so far he earns a perma block. (Note that in fact, he did get a perma block from a zealous admin, but Lar and I argued for his reprieve).


 * Thank you also for fixing up the talk page. Non Curat Lex (talk) 19:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello
Hi, I've started a page on Dalet School - a private school - and was hoping you could help since you have a lot of experience in this area. I would greatly appreciate your advice. In Citer (talk) 16:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Also I have done an article on Obadiah School which I have included references on. I would be pleased to have you as an aid for the article, thank you. In Citer (talk) 16:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply
What do you mean, ornery? Anyway, you yourself have stated that whether or not the paragraph in question was original research was disputable and that it is a basic summing up of the information in that now now horribly dull, citation ridden section. Don't let IllaZilla sway you, he's an cultural plebeian who cares more about policies than he does creativity. And don't call Verifiability Not Truth on me, that policy's a joke! See WP:IGNORE. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 19:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Frankly Maggy, you've lost me completely and it looks like I've lost you completely. Kindly refrain from insulting my creativity and superior intellect, it's patently obvious who the plebeian is in this equation and it's not me. People are making it harder and harder for me to not be insulting. I'm not actually trying to be amusing though if you find me so then I'm flattered. "Idiot" and "cultural plebeian" were actually honest observations, not attempts at creativity. Furthermore if being forthright and refusing to be bullied constitutes "making an ass" of myself then hand me the punch and let's get this party started! --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Sonny? Oh I'm writing that down. Yes, don't worry, you're free of me. I'll be taking my business elsewhere. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 08:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, Maggy, the fact is that by insulting my intelligence, you insult your own and I feel I've rather overestimated your mental faculties already. The paragraph in question belongs in that article and I will be re-adding it. People can't erase every trace of me from every article simply because they feel like it. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 15:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Removing Picture from United States Supreme Court article
I don't understand why would you remove a picture of a sitting President and Vice President pictured with SCOTUS members. It's pretty rare to see. While it's encouraged to remove or add content to the encyclopedia, please discuss drastic and "opinionated" changes like what you did on the talk page to gain consensus. Thank you.  miranda   22:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I second that point, requesting SCOTUS photo portraits. Shouldn't we have some illustrations when very appropriate? and they are such in this case. Dogru144 (talk) 00:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: My edit to James Clark McReynolds
Thanks for your friendly assistance. If I understand you correctly, does that mean that the DEFAULTSORT tags for Robert McCallum, Jr. and Brien McMahon (incidentally, not names pulled out of thin air, but, like James Clark McReynolds, former Assistant Attorneys General) are incorrect? --avocat (talk) 20:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I certainly appear to have stepped in it... I don't know whether there are conflicting standards, lack of consensus, or lack of awareness of the issue. From a glance at this page - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Living_people&from=MacAlmon%2C+Terry - it looks like the problem is pretty widespread!--avocat (talk) 03:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * *sigh* All I wanted to do was put the Assistant Attorneys General in proper alphabetical order . . . ;-)  --avocat (talk) 03:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!
I'm really glad that you're also editing Fermat's Last Theorem. I'll do my best to hold up my end, but please remember that I'm not a mathematician — you'll have to expect a few amateurish errors! Proteins (talk) 20:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

In your opinion...
Does this person strike you as incredibly similar to our old acquaintance Jupiter Optimus Maximus (aka Illustrious One, aka YourLord)? The contribution history seems very similar to me, with similar patterns (unreferenced psychoanalysis of fictional characters, adding categories related to such, concern over List of fictional narcissists, etc.). Also he identifies as being from Chester, England, and all of JOM's previous IPs trace to the same general area (Manchester, Liverpool, & Chester, which are adjacent to each other). There's enough of a similarity here for me to consider opening up a SPI, but I thought I'd ask for second opinions first. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Case opened at Sockpuppet investigations/YourLord. Comments are welcome. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

James C. McReynolds
Thanks for catching that. I was so caught up in trying ot get the substantive info right I didn't see it. FWIW, I do know better, but it was an inadvertence. Kind of like trying to drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time -- different control centers which are mutually exclusive. Cheers. 7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 17:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC) Stan
 * Mainly what I wanted to accomplish was to get a line citation to the Michael Ariens article. You moved it and that's "well and fine".  I think that paper and electronic citations can coexist, and will make the article better.  It is, BTW, a very well done article.  I have a few additions that might deal with some areas  not in the article, but I've got to leave that for another day and get back to work.  7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 17:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC) Stan
 * And actually, I was referring (at the time) to the bad grammar. 7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 17:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC) Stan
 * Magidin, Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. But paraphrasing is required here.  It really is multitasking, and limited processing power (selective focus) is an issue.  That's part of why everything needs to be rewritten, edited, rewritten.  Louis Brandeis said, "There is no such thing as good legal writing.  There is only good legal rewriting."  And that is true here, too, even on this low cal stuff.  I use editing as a way to do something, while I am processing 'in background' the stuff that pays the bills.  7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC) Stan

FYI, I fixed the broken link in James Clark McReynolds per your request. It has some good information which might be useful to paraphrase. 7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC) Stan

Flipism
I was looking at your user page, and I think you might be able to help this article. Thanks in advance. 7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC) Stan

Cardozo
Thank you for restoring all that info from the Benjamin Nathan Cardozo article! That knucklehead keeps deleting or changing the info to suit his/her own POV. I wasn't looking forward to restoring all that info as I have forgotten to copy it down elsewhere.The Original Historygeek (talk) 03:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks for the instructions. I had tried a couple of things and it didn't work.The Original Historygeek (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Cardozo to Stevens
You said, "That bit of trivia shouldn't be in the lead paragraph" when deleting the bit about the oldest of the ninth longest serving .... Isn't that claim inconsistent with the other similar superlatives or near-superlatives in the same paragraph? Cordially, Dogru144 (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Nina Totenberg
As a neutral third party, I'm curious what you think about the disagreement over the Hunt article. I can provide the relevant articles via email if you like. Gamaliel (talk) 16:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Supreme Court
I am wondering why Magidin is attempting to remove legitimate OP-EDs about the Supreme Court from the Supreme Court page...seems like a version of censorship you are practicing--please explain (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC).

Please explain the removal of a legitimate OP-ED by a legitimate author in a legitimate publication. Thank you very much. Tibet 111 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tibet111 (talk • contribs) 04:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful explanation. Appreciate it. Tibet111 (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The insertion of a OP-ED from a major national publication and written by a respected author about a paticular case of the Supreme Court seems to me to be a legitimate addition to the Supreme Court page. Your deletion of such material detracts from the goals of Wikipedia, in my humble opinion. Your comment that this article is spam is also not accurate.

In any case, you did give a thoughtful explanation about your reasons for your removal of the article about the case. I appreciate that you seem to be a reasonable person. Tibet111 (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Footnoting template?
I noted on the Supreme Court page you very quickly and efficiently converted the footnote moved to the end of the sentence into a standard format. Do you have software that gives you a template for that? I've been typing footnotes by hand, which is tedious. ElijahBosley (talk &#9758;)  19:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Use of European American and White American on U.S. Supreme Court pages
Greetings! In light of your previous work on these articles, please weigh in on the discussion at Talk:Supreme Court of the United States. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Chronology of Harry Potter Series
I noticed your comment on a recent edit you made on the Severus Snape page. Apparently, there was someone who got his panties in a wad about the non-encyclopaedic nature of the page and asked for it to be deleted. Which, of course, screws up a lot of other HP articles. Ccrashh (talk) 14:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I also contacted the admin who processed the deletion and asked if someone would scour the HP articles for mention of the now-deleted article (I assume a bot would do that). Ccrashh (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

WPHP Goals
I've posted some goals for WikiProject Harry Potter on the improvement page for this year. Feel free to add and comment! -- Glimmer721  talk  23:28, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar
Thanks!! - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 20:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
I noticed your comments on my UserTalk page regarding my recent edit to the Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the interest of avoiding a potentially-contentious debate on the article Talk page, I have self-reverted the edit in question. --TommyBoy (talk) 20:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

SCOTUS
I left you a message on the SCOTUS Talk page. Mistakefinder (talk) 07:50, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi
Thanks for taking a total amateur like me seriously over at Monomorphism. I'm trying to teach myself some advanced math and physics as a hobby, and Wikipedia is an excellent starting point.

I am writing on User:YohanN7/Group Structure and the Axiom of Choice for the fun of it. I hope it will some day be good enough to become an article. Perhapce you could have a look at it if you get the time? I'm also (more seriously) working on improvements for Representation theory of the Lorentz group. I have a draft in User:YohanN7/Representation theory of the Lorentz group to replace the current section Representation theory of the Lorentz group.

Best regards, Johan YohanN7 (talk) 21:52, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Magidin, would you like help with Sysco article?
Hi Magidin, we worked briefly together on the John Paul Stevens article, and I like to think by working together we came up with a better result than we would have individually.

Okay, about the Sysco article:

1) There's been a scandal primarily reported by NBC Bay Area in which Sysco was caught using unrefrigerated drop sites.  So, I think it's an important subject in its own right.  For example, how can such a major corporation make such a clumsy mistake?

2) And a Sysco employee has briefly participated here at wikipedia by making edits.  And so far, just fine.  I thanked this new wiki member for jumping in and helping out.  The person said they wanted to be transparent and share that they are a Sysco employee.  I told them the Conflict Of Interest policy in which a paid advocate is asked to suggest changes on the Talk page.  So far, no issue.  Their their edits did in fact help out.  But potentially for the future, I think the best solution is to invite more people into the tent.

So, if you want to help out with Sysco, please, by all means, jump in. The water is fine. :>) FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 18:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

DeMorgan
Hi Magidin, thanks for the comment. Perhaps "debunking" was a little stronger than what I meant to say, would you find "ridiculing" an acceptable replacement? Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 04:34, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I made this change moments before I saw your reply. I'd rather not weaken the statement further ... I believe that DeMorgan's intent is quite clear. I will support the current statement with an Underwood Dudley citation when I get back to my library and can look up the exact wording. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 05:24, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I did think "debunking" gave the wrong impression, but I'm willing to go along with your current wording. Magidin (talk) 05:38, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Good catch on judge
Hi Magidin, Appreciation for you good catch on the Sotomayor typo. During the last week, I have been adding the material from 3 new books on the Roberts court there and am almost done. The Sonia Sotomayor article could probably use a good top-to-bottom read through after the two or three dozen edits which I have made there during this past week. Possibly you could give it a once over when/if time allows, and only if this field is of interest to you. Cheers. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 02:25, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Magidin, My appreciation for your note from the other day. It would be a good target if you might be able to look at some of the citations on Sonia Sotomayor as you mention these, when and if time allows. This link checklinks report might also have some ideas for first order targets, etc. Cheers. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 00:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Magidin, Thanks for your comment and clarification on Talk at Sotomayor. I really thought your comment was on target; "I've been keeping half an eye on the changes; to be honest, I was planning to wait until they subsided before trying to wade in and do clean-up (from my lay-person point of view, at any rate)". My very brief update (now that things have returned back to a relative state of normalcy on that page), is that I am deeply immersed in the updates to the deadlinks in the footnotes, while all the items in the list of User:WastedTime on the Talk page of Sonia Sotomayor still need to be addressed (and many more that accumulated before I first looked at the page 3-4 weeks ago). It occurred to me that since I'm in the footnotes alone and not the text, that there is a chance for you to start in on the "clean-up" you referred to whenever time allows for you; it looked like all the Talk page participants there would like to see this. Many of the deadlinks there, I am finding, have not been updated since 2009! Cheers. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 13:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Please Contact Me
Hello! I am working on a news feature story about the use of "comprised of" in articles. I notice that you took issue with the change early in this campaign. Are you by chance in the Bay Area? Could you please reach out to me at your earliest convenience at Keltym@CBSNews.com Thank you! NOLANY (talk) 23:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Guidance
Hello Magidin,

I noted your comment on my contribution to "Talk:Limit of a function".

I'm new to using the talk pages and obviously got it wrong. Part of the problem may have been that I failed to indent (I thought this would be automatic - I have corrected it), so it may not have been obvious that I was trying to comment on the previous (unsigned) suggestion to (in effect) change "Let p be a limit point ..." to "Let p be an adherent point ..." in the section "Functions on topological spaces".

The point I was trying to make was that this change would be nonstandard and unworkable (hence a bad idea).

I'm not sure how I would make the point that it is unworkable without discussing the subject. I've removed the examples and the extraneous point at the end. Is this more in line with what you'ld expect and is it still clear (or as clear, at any rate)?

regards, Martin Rattigan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Rattigan (talk • contribs) 23:39, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Catholicism
FYI. Catholic liturgical rites. I think this list is incomplete. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 19:50, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Proofs of Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares. - Euler's proof by infinite descent - Third Part
Hi just checking if you were aware I had at the time of the edit added an additional comment to account for 9 = 3^2 + 0 in my own Talk page since there doesn't appear to be a Talk page for that topic. I feel accounting for zero squares should require more care because if we allow for zero then we could as well say that 9 is a sum of N squares as 9 = 3^2 + (0 + 0 ... + 0)(N-1 times). It also causes confusion in other area's of the proof. As for the idea that this is a quote it is a very loose one certainly not a direct translation of Euler's letter or papers. Although Integers are mentioned in the title section it is not clear whether the domain in Euler section is Integer or Natural Numbers due to the ambiguous use of the word number. Specifying that the numbers are Integers would also resolve the issue instead of my inital suggestion of changing the word from number to prime, change all instances of the ambiguous word "number" to "Integer". Personally I still think using the Domain of Natural Numbers and word prime would be a better way to go. Rhuaidhri (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

In response to your post on my talk page I hope this clears up the issue. My objection is the to the use of the ambiguous word "number". I feel a more specific term should be used either "Integer" or "prime" as would be usual in proofs of this type (both work). Instead of changing the quoted parts you could add a qualifying statement at the top of the Euler section stating the context of the quote and that the author is refering to Integers. As to the talk page link it doesn't show as a link however having checked other pages I don't see it there for them either so it must be a problem with my browser. I see from the talk link you provided (Thanks) that I'm not the first to point out the ambiguous nature of the phrasing. Rhuaidhri (talk) 19:56, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

In response to your second and third posts to my talk page. The use of the word "number" in any mathematical proof is ambiguous as there are many different types of numbers, that  is not a subjective judgement on my part. The use of ambiguous words should be avoided if possible. Perhaps you didn't understand my last post fully so let me rephrase the last part of the suggestion. Since the word number is part of a quote I suggest that before the quote you state that number in the following section means Integer or any words to that effect of your own choosing. Again let me repeat I am not saying the passage is incorrect just ambiguous. Having said that in plain use the word "number" is usually taken to mean the Natural Numbers in which case the statement would be incorrect hence the reason I feel strongly that as the ambiguity can be easily avoided it should be. Rhuaidhri (talk) 20:55, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:01, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

"The Honorable" Justices
Just by way of explanation, I added the honorific "The Honorable" to all living current and former SCOTUS justices after a series of edits to SCOTUS Justice articles by, in which they removed the honorific title (see, e.g. this edit to Chief Justice John Roberts, this edit to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and this edit to Justice Anthony Kennedy). I thought it would be a good idea to add the title back to the articles for living Justices because, prior to the edits, the title existed in the infoboxes for most living Justices. However, subsequent research has revealed that sitting SCOTUS Justices do not use the title "the Honorable," while retired Justices do use the title "the Honorable" (see this guide to etiquette and this guide to United States protocol). I had been calling sitting SCOTUS Justices "the Honorable" for years! Some law schools even advise their students to address sitting SCOTUS justices as "the Honorable." I guess this just goes to show how important it is to do your research. Cheers, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Skilful
Oops. That's [somehow] a new one for me. :) &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 19:41, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Squaring the circle, deleted link in "External links"
Hi Magidin,

you were right and I understand why you've deleted the link. Do you see any other way in which this can be properly used?

Greetings from Munich

Petrus3743 (talk) 08:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Gödel's incompleteness theorems
Sorry, did not see you undid Hewitt's change of the section title earlier. It's too long, but I agree with Trovatore that it's not worth arguing with Hewitt about (that's exactly what he wants). At least he's now no longer allowed to raise that exact same issue again. —Ruud 10:56, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

SCOTUS
Hi. In articles such as POTUS and ACLU, we don't parenthetically note that the initialism or acronym is colloquial. Do you think SCOTUS is exceptional? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:56, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * ACLU is very different, because they refer to the organization by their initialism themselves; don't know about POTUS. But the issue of the SCOTUS acronym on the Supreme Court page was extensively discussed in the past; please check the archives. In any case, your edit placed the references in the wrong place: by locating them at the end of the sentence, you were giving them as if they supported the claim that the Supreme Court was the highest court in the judiciary, whereas the citations are exclusively about the use of SCOTUS as a referent. (The reason it states that it is colloquial is that the abbreviation/initialism is actually rather rare in use). Magidin (talk) 15:17, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That Safire reference is questionable in general. I'm inclined to remove it entirely as unneeded or at least move it somewhere less obnoxious. In general, I think it looks tacky to include references mid-sentence and to include references with lead sentences. Many/most of our articles, including featured articles, avoid this. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:00, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that this has been discussed previously, at some length, I would suggest using the Talk page before simply removing because your obnoxiousness and tackiness threshold get crossed. Magidin (talk) 18:58, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * To save some time, here are the discussions on the archive. A brief mention here; a comment on removing it here; a suggestion to move it to the end of the paragraph here; some further discussion on the lede here; specific discussions here and here. I don't necessarily object to the removal, but given that it comes up many times, I think it best to discuss and establish some consensus first. Magidin (talk) 19:39, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure. Thank you for providing the archive links! I've been thinking on it more and I think we could maybe move the parenthetical to its own sentence later in the article, alleviating the concern about "SCOTUS" being featured so prominently, having a mid-sentence reference, and "cluttering" the lead sentence. I agree that the talk page would be a better venue for discussion. I'll head over there. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:19, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I put some thoughts on the talk page. If you're interested, I'd also like to discuss some of the other language used in the article. I can start separate talk page discussions for these items, of course. For example, where we say "The Court normally consists of...", I think it might be better to be more precise: "Since 19whatever and as proscribed by Congress in the something Act ...". The use of "normally" seems sort of subjective and too broad, particularly given that the Court's membership size has changed over time and didn't start as nine justices. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:35, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * For the latter, I think that the "normally" there refers not so much to the composition by statute, but rather to situations such as the one we are currently in: though the Court is supposed to have nine justices, in fact it currently consists only of eight justices (plus one vacancy). There's a more specific discussion under Size of the Court. That said: for other things it's probably okay to make a change, and only go to the talk page if there is a revert or objections (or to present a pre-emptive explanation-after-the-fact). Magidin (talk) 21:39, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Category:Antisemitism in the United States
The category Category:Antisemitism in the United States inclusion criteria states that no anti-Semites go into this category. I see that Category:American critics of Judaism (as lame as it sounds) and its parents and siblings are where anti-Semites are put. If all this sounds wrong, please take that up with the category creators elsewhere: I am just following the category structures as it exists here. ThanksHmains (talk) 23:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Magidin (talk) 00:24, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Merrick Garland and Religious vs. Ethnic Jews
This is in re: the discussion on the talk page of Demographics of the United States Supreme Court. As usually understood, religion is something that one practices in one's own life and is therefore is something which is in some sense chosen and may be changed. On the other hand, ethnicity is generally understood to be a fact about one's ancestry/background, and is thus something unchosen and unchangeable.

Jews, historically, were an ethnic group (literally, the descendants of Judah, although more generally the descendants of Jacob) who practiced a religion which was more or less limited to their own ethnic group (the Jews have never practiced proselytism). Usually when people stop practicing a religion, they stop identifying with that religion. However, since being Jewish involves both ethnic and religious senses, many people who do not practice the Jewish religion still identify as Jewish. Jews in the modern world tend to have a strong ethnic identity even when they do not actually practice the Jewish religion or hold Jewish religious beliefs. It is relatively common for someone to identify as both Jewish (in the ethnic sense) and atheist (in the religious sense). Something similar sometimes happens with Hispanic Catholics (or Italian Catholics) who may continue to identify as "Catholic" even when they no longer practice the religion (or believe it) because their ethnic identity is so closely tied to a religious culture. But notice that this almost never happens with protestants: if they stop practicing their denomination or religion altogether, they do not continue identifying as "Methodist" or "Lutheran" or whatnot.

The discussion of "Jewish" justices on the Supreme Court confuses the two different ways of being Jewish. It categorizes "Jewish" explicitly as a religious demographic and then classifies justices as Jewish based on purely ethnic evidence. The fact that someone has Jewish ancestors proves that they are ethnically Jewish, but it does not demonstrate that they should be considered to adhere to the Jewish religion. There ought to be more evidence to identify someone as Jewish in a religious sense then mere Jewish ancestry. With regard to Merrick Garland, the only information on Wikipedia (or its sources) regarding his being Jewish indicates that he is ethnically Jewish, but none of it tells us anything about his religious beliefs or practices. There might be similar problems with the identification of other justices as Jewish.

I hope that at least helps clarify the distinction between "religiously Jewish" and "ethnically Jewish" for you. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:46, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * While talking about "lapsed Catholics" is quite common, the closest parallel among Jews is "non-observant Jew" or "non-practicing Jew". Which includes them among the ranks of Jews. Common parlance does not generally distinguish between them, and the distinction that was attempted with Garland seemed to be that unless he goes to Temple on a regular basis, he should not be identified as jewish. Under that standard, you should remove Brandeis and Cardozo from the list, as well. I would also challenge your assertion about Protestants, since it is in fact quite common in my experience for people who do not practice their particular denomination to still claim to be a part of it. Thank you for the history lesson about judaism and how Jews fit in the modern world, though; it's not like I went to Jewish private School for 15 years as a kid... oh, wait, I did. (Okay, that was perhaps unwarrantedly sarcastic for what seems to be an honest attempt from you at providing context; it's just that you are assuming a level of ignorance on my part that is actually incredibly inaccurate; it comes pretty close to mansplaining.) Magidin (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry I offended you, but if you went to Jewish private school, surely you were already aware of the ways in which Jewish identity has both ethnic and religious components. Personally, I don't care if Merrick Garland goes to Temple or not; I think the relevant point is whether he thinks of himself as an adherent of Judaism the religion in any sense at all (observant, non-observant, whatever), as opposed to only a member of the Jewish people in an ethnic sense. My point was that the only evidence Wikipedia seems to have for his being Jewish deals with his ancestry and his childhood. This would be like claiming that someone is still a resident of the state they were born and raised in quite apart from any evidence of where they've lived since they turned 18 (and even that, like outward religious practice or lack thereof, would not be definitive since one may legally be a resident of a state other than the state that one seems to live in). He may consider himself Jewish (practicing or not), but he might also consider himself an atheist or as adhering to some other religion. I have no idea, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to have any idea either. And surely a hypothetical justice who was born to a Jewish family and raised Jewish but converted to and practiced some other religion as an adult would not be counted as an adherent of Judaism the religion. I just think it would be helpful for the article to confront more directly the relatively unique ethno-religious hybrid nature of Jewishness. By contrast, this concern does not seem to arise with its discussion of Catholic justices (obviously Clarence Thomas is not being counted as Catholic because of his ethnic background, and whatever complaints conservatives might have about her, Sonia Sotomayor does actually seem to identify herself as a (lapsed) Catholic). But I guess if nobody else thinks it's an issue, I can leave it. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * My main irritation here was that, since you took it to my talk page, you were addressing me and only me, perhaps asking what I found confusing, or trying to gauge my level of knowledge first would have been a bit more appropriate than simply assuming that I was wholly and completely ignorant and thus providing me with a lecture. A "confrontation" about the rather difficult and subtle issues of who is or is not "Jewish", religiously Jewish vs. ethnically Jewish, etc., is certainly not appropriate for the page on the Demographics of the Supreme Court. If anything is to be there, it would have to be at most a pointer to some source on the issue that is directly relevant to the Supreme Court and not to the general argument: think the paragraph on Cardozo in the Hispanic heading; there isn't a discussion of why sephardic jews should or should not be considered "hispanic", there is just an indication of disagreement among historians, and three citations to evidence this. Is there any citation indicating disagreement among historians or demographers of the Supreme Court on whether any of the typically-identified-as-Jewish justices (Brandeis, Cardozo, Frankfurter, Goldberg, Fortas, Ginsburg, Breyer, or Kagan) should really be described as Jewish in the religious sense or not? I am not aware of any. I was also not aware of any such disagreement regarding Garland, and most sources described him simply as Jewish; so trying to argue that he should not (or that we should question whether he should) be considered Jewish because we don't have any information demonstrating that he considers himself a "religious jew" as opposed to an "ethnic jew" one seem like OR or PoV-pushing. Compare with Gorsuch, where the discussion of whether he considers himself Catholic or Episcopalian was actually in the news and there were articles about it. Of course, whether Garland describes himself as "religiously Jewish" (a self-description that in my experience is, at best, exceedingly rare; people say "Jewish", or "Jewish background", etc) is moot. And your arguments about Garland apply just as well to Cardozo, who identified himself in later life as an agnostic who was proud of his "Jewish heritage". So, are you advocating for removing Cardozo from the discussion of Jewish justices? You are trying to engage in an ethnographic argument about just what the word "jew" should or should not mean, and neither my talk page nor the Demographics of the Supreme Court page are the appropriate location for that discussion. Magidin (talk) 20:53, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You make a lot of good points. I'm sorry for having bothered you, but I do appreciate the thoroughness of your replies and the time you took to write them. I'm pretty new to the Wikipedia editing community, so this has been a learning experience for me. Thanks for giving me some guidance. You've definitely helped me understand better both how the editing community works and how Wikipedia understands and practices its own mission. I think I've learned some lessons here I can apply in the future. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Snape
WP:LEADCITE says that it is not necessary per se to have citations in the lead for non-controversial things unlikely to be challenged, if said information shows up in the body of the article. That Washington Post review is repeated in the reception part of the article, with a citation. If you'd like, I'll go ahead and just put a citation on it. I was being lazy because I generally don't use citations in leads. --haha169 (talk) 01:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries, thanks for being thorough! I was just being lazy, it probably should have just been cited in any case. --haha169 (talk) 06:24, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

James C. McReynolds
I checked into your edits on McReynolds. You are correct that McReynolds did not clerk for Justice Jackson when Jackson was on the Supreme Court. 2600:1700:7822:6190:98AD:B7CE:DD3C:B031 (talk) 18:47, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Chinese remainder theorem
You ring please. I should have written about it. I would correct the changes. Best regards, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 17:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the bad english. I'm not going to fix anything. All the way around. I wanted to say that I could have corrected my mistakes if you had told me about it. It is a pity that Wikipedia uses very poor possibilities in depicting mathematical formulas. With the best, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 20:02, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * This option is better?

\left \{ \begin{align} x &\equiv a_1 \pmod{n_1} \\ &\vdots \\ x &\equiv a_k \pmod{n_k}, \end{align} \right. $$ With the best, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 20:34, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explanations. I didn't know. I so didn't think earlier. Is over what to think. With the best, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 23:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for taking up your time. That's my last question. I want to still achieve beauty. Following the source, don't you think it would be better?

\begin{array}{rcl} x & \equiv & a_1 \pmod{n_1} \\ & \vdots &                \\ x & \equiv & a_k \pmod{n_k}, \end{array} $$ The disadvantage of this option is that there are spaces around the congruence symbol. System congruency better to not imagine it. Again, sorry for my persistence. With the best, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 10:00, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, that option is not better because it has way too much space surrounding the symbols. You could use eqnarray instead, which does not include anywhere near as much space, but there is no point. The align environment is specifically designed for aligning equations. So that's what should be used. Look, I've been using TeX and LaTeX for over 30 years. Trust me. Magidin (talk) 17:41, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer. I got it. With "eqnarray" at me it hasn't turned out as it is necessary. As well as I promised you any more I won't disturb. Thanks, good-bye, Alpha-Gamma (talk) 20:53, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Well excuse please. I slept badly now, wanted to solve a problem. I have tried the last option? How about you?

\begin{align} x &\equiv a_1 \pmod{n_1} \\ &\ \ \vdots           \\ x &\equiv a_k \pmod{n_k}, \end{align} $$ I before it was mistakenly have sent the letter of D.Lazard. He has told that it isn't really good, but is tolerant. Therefore I have slightly improved this primitive option:

\begin{align} x &\equiv a_1 \pmod{n_1} \\ &\vdots           \\ x &\equiv a_k \pmod{n_k}, \end{align} $$ Sorry. Alpha-Gamma (talk) 19:10, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * So that's two times you said you were done but came back with minor tweaks on something that is really minor. Just to try to align the vertical dots. Really? Don't you have something better to do with your time? Magidin (talk) 22:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)


 * You — are absolutely right. Farewell. Alpha-Gamma (talk) 06:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Supreme Court of the US Talk Page
I added a section to the Supreme Court of the United States talk page that you will most likely want to comment on. BobRoberts14 (talk) 19:33, 13 June 2019 (UTC)BobRoberts14

Sotomayor article
Interestingly, the same editor (Snooghanssnoogans) who removed my mention of the "wise Latina" remarks from the lede of the Sotomayor article is making the opposite argument to include mention of sexual allegations in the lede of the Kavanaugh article. We can't have it both ways. GlassBones (talk) 14:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I tried to make my argument neutral and non-partisan; in fact, I'm a liberal. My comments and points were summarily ignored. It is patently clear to me that both you and other users involved in this particular kerfuffle are not doing so out of a desire to improve the articles in question, but simply as a proxy for partisan fights. Both your comments and those of that user are steeped in partisan, one-sided justifications. I have no interest in participating under those conditions. Magidin (talk) 16:05, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * -I appreciate your position. I am basically a libertarian who leans conservative on some issues. I guess I tend to argue more conservatively, since so many editors here argue with a very liberal bias. GlassBones (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

New Message
Hi! I have never contacted anyone on Wikipedia before, so appologies in advance if I do anything wrong. I was just reading the page on SCOTUS and I think the paragraph about justices who previously clerked for other justices is incomplete - it does not include Barrett's clerkship for Scalia. I can't edit the page but it says you were the last editor, so I was wondering if you could address it? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:80:1960:8101:A1BF:1DB3:8D1D (talk) 01:28, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * For the record, this is not how you do it. You should go to the talk page of the page in question and raise the issue. Also, if you are adding material to a talk page, add it at the bottom (use the "New Section" button on top), not at the top. Magidin (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Picture of Supreme Court
Per your comments at [], now that the new picture is on the SCOTUS website at [] are you able to upload the new photo to []. Thanks. Nerguy (talk) 17:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The new photo has been put up by another editor. It was put up 18 hour before you wrote the above. Magidin (talk) 17:37, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * My apologies I had not noticed.Nerguy (talk) 17:46, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Draft:List of United States federal judges who died in active service
If you're in the mood for a massive data-entry kind of task, I am filling in lines for these individuals and moving them to the lists at the top by chronological order of date of death. BD2412 T 21:42, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Not right now... sorry. Magidin (talk) 21:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries, and no deadline. The project has survived for 20 years without such a list. Cheers! BD2412  T 22:03, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, this is now done - List of United States federal judges who died in active service, and three subpages. Of course, immediately nominated for deletion by non-judge people, but it doesn't look like that will yield a consensus. BD2412  T 22:32, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

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