User talk:Mr. Stradivarius/Archive 1

Sig test
Testing my new sig (take 2). — Gypsy Jiver  (talk, contribs) 06:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Testing sig take 3. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 12:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Buddhism in the Philippines
Thank you for noticing the revisions that I have made on Buddhism in the Philippines as well as the incisive comments and valuable suggestions. This is my first try at writing for Wikipedia. I might work further on the citations. Csamnak —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.244.169 (talk) 11:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Anything else you want help with, just give me a shout. You might want to check the "keep me logged in" box when you log in too - it will save people from seeing your IP address. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 12:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello! I am done finally with both rewriting and proofreading of the article. It has asserted that Buddhism had been the dominant religion in the islands during the pre-colonial period based on the archaeological findings. I expect reactions to this theory because it's new to the Filipino mind. I have tried to be objective in narrating the facts, although I admit that they have been presented with a "Buddhist twist." Some editorialized lines can not be avoided because it's an interpretative history. The facts have been checked against the sources. The reference list does not contain any source that has not been cited in the article. So can the reference tag be removed now? Please, review the article if it merits the removal of the personal reflection tag. Thank you for your help in launching my Wikipedia career, hehehe. I have much to learn in this trade, but I hope to contribute to your projects in future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 23:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello GypsyJiver! You must have noticed that I'm still working on the article, which asserts that Buddhism has become the dominant religion for eight centuries during the pre-colonial period in the islands. The thesis has been defended by presenting the archaelogical finds as evidence in the next paragraphs. I have used them as my primary source material. (So the article is admittedly an original research: 1. raja-state has been used for the first time.  The Greek "city-state" has been the term's inspiration.  2. As you may know, no one has yet commented that the LCI expresses the Buddhist cardinal virtue of compassion.)  The LCI and Calatagan jar inscription and the materials of  the anthropological-archaelogical studies are the primary sources for research on the prehistoric Philippines. The earliest secondary material is the Sung Shih record on Mindoro trade in 982. There's not much research and studies on the Philippines's early history because of the scant source materials. Researchers face a dead end. I hope that the article will draw the attention of experts that can challenge the facts and which have published studies on the subject. They can provide the necessary citations that are required by a high-quality article. I'm still searching for sources for the citation-tagged lines. I have no access to source materials and have to rely on what I can find in the internet. I'm disabled and in Toronto. I hope that the article informs as well as entertains the reader on Buddhism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 12:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I must admit the article is fascinating. It's really interesting to see the effect that new archaeological findings have had on this subject. But, if you insist on including original research, I'm afraid that Wikipedia is not the place for it. You might want to have a read of No original research and WP:NOT to confirm that this isn't just my view, but the vision of the founders of Wikipedia as well. To quote WP:NOT:
 * "If you have completed primary research on a topic, publish your results in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, or respected online sites. Wikipedia can report about your work once it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge; however, citations of such reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that material is verifiable, and not merely the editor's opinion."
 * So, I'm afraid you have to stick to the sources. If you want your personal views to go in Wikipedia, you have to get them published in a respectable publication first. (And then you still have to maintain a neutral point of view.) I recommend you go through the Buddhism in the Philippines article and find the things you wrote that can already be backed up by sources. For example, I'm sure you can find a source that says that a kinnari was found there. And I'm sure you can find a source that says the kinnari was dated to the 6th century. I'm also sure that you can find a source that says that the Philippines had the second largest gold reserves in the world. However, all the stuff that you can't find sources for has to go, I'm afraid. I think you'll find that you can construct a very interesting argument, even while basing everything on existing sources. All the best. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 14:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you GypsyJiver for the challenge. I will continue working on the article and searching for reliable sources to back it up. I will let you know when I'm finally done with it for your review. Cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 18:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Dear GypsyJiver, I've fixed the footnotes section by removing the ibids there. I believe that I'm through rewriting the article, although I will go back to it once I find the page number for the reference on the second paragraph and additional citations for the article. There are a few important changes that I've made, especially on the LCI, which has been taken down and which has been restored in my version. I have interpreted the LCI as a Buddhist document and have clarified Vaisakha as a day and not a month that has been the common knowledge about it. Hence, I have placed the date of the LCI as the fourth day after Vaisakha, the holiest day for the Buddhist, which has a corresponding footnote. I expect reactions from the readers about this. You may leave the original research tag on for the helpful reader that can add citations to the article. Thank you for guiding me through my first Wikipedia article. I will take on your suggestions as I go on with my Wikipedia research. Excellent editors makes excellent writers. All the best, Samnak P.J. Concepcion —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 17:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC) Hello again GypsyJiver. Yes, the article's pre-colonial period has become too long. I got excited when I was rewriting the whole article. I'm ready to rewrite the pre-colonial part in an encyclopedic style. If there's some use for the article, then another article about the Early Buddhism in the Philippines can be created. Hope the other project managers will notice and can give some suggestions. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.244.169 (talk) 10:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello Gypsy Jiver, Thank you for your corrections that used active verbs in the past tense. I can't access the summary edits for me to write down the corrections that I've made. I will add new sentences and references as well as will change some sentences' structure that will make the noun to appear close to the verb and also add 's to possessive nouns. I will move on to the main article to make some similar changes. Ah! the footnoting is locked. I will wait for your reply before I do anything. Warm regards, csamnak — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 13:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi there. I don't understand what you mean by the footnoting being locked. nothing is locked on the page as far as I can tell. Just add the references as normal (and please clean up the strange external links while you're doing it).
 * It's not very hard to access the edits that you've made. Just click on the "History" tab at the top of the page. Select the 2 edits that you want to compare, and click on "compare selected revisions". For example, this is the latest edit. Try clicking on the "History" tab for lots of different articles. You can find out a lot about Wikipedia that way. You'll notice that some of the edits have text after them. This is the edit summary. For example, my latest edit to Buddhism in the Philippines (pre-colonial period) looks like this:
 * (cur | prev) 14:42, 10 December 2010 Gypsyjiver (talk | contribs) (15,777 bytes) (Grammar: changed "has been" to "was", etc. Also, general fixes and a very small amount of NPOV cleanup) (undo)
 * My edit summary here is "Grammar: changed "has been" to "was", etc. Also, general fixes and a very small amount of NPOV cleanup". Now your edits look like this:
 * (cur | prev) 01:26, 11 December 2010 Csamnak (talk | contribs) (15,776 bytes) (undo)
 * Notice that there is no text before "undo" here. This means the only way for someone to tell what you did is to compare each of the edits you made with the ones before them, which takes a lot of time. So please write an edit summary for every edit that you make. You can't change the edit summary for edits that you've already made, so don't worry about that. Just writing them for new edits you make will be enough.
 * About the sentence structure, I don't think you need to worry too much about the noun being close to the verb, as long as the grammar is correct! Just try and make it easy to read. If you have some time, you can try reading WP:Manual of style, which tells you Wikipedia's style guidelines. Once again, all the best. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 14:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Buddhism in the Philippines - January 2011
All the best for the New Year! I've noticed the changes in the summary box and the article itself. Re summary box: No Theravada Buddhist group or temple has existed in the Philippines when I left last June 2010, although there are a number of Theravada Buddhist followers in the country. The Thai ambassador hosts the annual Vaisakha celebration for the Theravada followers at the Thai Embassy in Makati. Over the past 15 years, the local masters have noted the significant growth of the Filipino Buddhists among the multinational Buddhist believers in the Philippines.

Re Maha Bodhi Society Zen Centre: Venerable Sunim Hwasun Yangil directed me to found the Zen Buddhist group in the Philippines. I'm the registered founder and resident Zen master of the group. Yangil Sunim's first visit was reported on 1-2 March 1997 by the Daily Inquirer, Bulletin Today and two other newspapers. His next visits were also reported in Manila's dailies. The Buddhist-Christian conference had a picture of the event published sometime in May 1997 in the Bulletin. Venerable Shifu Sheng Yen was in the picture. I was informed of Venerable Roshi Shibayama's private visit by one of the members of Sister Sonia Punzalan's group. I have left the news clippings of these events in Manila. They can be used for citation.

Re sentence structure: I'm an old-fashioned writer that follows the noun-verb-object structure and which places adverbs of time after the verb, which is placed close to the noun that the verb describes. I've deleted both when I saw the articles the __ and the __ appeared in the first line of the section on Vajrayana Buddhism of Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires. Both replaces the articles the and the. In the drafts, I've used the present and present participle tenses in the article to give its history a sense of freshness and immediacy. "Has been" has been a convenient verb when I try to avoid both "is" and "be" and when I can't think of an active verb. The final draft adheres to the principles of conciseness, coherence and clarity.

As I've said before, I'm learning the Wiki editing style that prevails in articles. Thank you.

In addition, I would like to mention that the multinational Theravada Buddhists consist mostly of the staff from the embassies of Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. During my 15-year stay in the Philippines, I've not met an Indian national that belongs to a Buddhist temple or group there. There's one Bangladeshi Buddhist in Laguna.

I think that the Tibetans must be included among the multinational Buddhists in Manila.

I've noticed also that Venerable Shifu Sheng Yen's name has been deleted in the Zen sub-section. His first visit made the establishment of the Ocean Sky Monastery in Greenhills possible. The late master brought many Filipino children with rare diseases to the Ji Shan hospital in Taipei, Taiwan for medical and surgical treatments, although his charity works were unannounced. Buddhism gets transplanted in a country through the efforts of the masters like Shifu Sheng Yen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csamnak (talk • contribs) 22:19, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Csamnak, and thanks for your comments! First of all, now that I know you're a leader of one of the groups mentioned in the article I should point out Wikipedia's policy on conflicts of interest. I quote from Conflict of interest:
 * "A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor. COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest. COI editing is strongly discouraged."
 * Of course you are still free to edit the article, I would just say that you need to be very careful when editing the parts about your own group or other groups which are competing for members with yours. Now that's out of the way, let me address your other points:
 * Looking at your comments, I think a lot of these issues would be addressed by having two sections in place of the current Buddhist Temples in Manila section. Let's make a "Main Buddhist temples" section that can list all the important temple buildings (for the whole country, not just Manila). Also, we can have a "Buddhist schools" section which can list the various activities for different schools: Pure Land, Zen, Vajrayana, Theravada, and any others.
 * Re: Theravada Buddhists, the Thai ambassador, and embassy staff -- this can go in the "Buddhist schools" section. This is much better than trying to force it into "Buddhist temples in Manila".
 * Re: Maha Bodhi Society Zen Centre: If this isn't a big temple then I think it should go in the "Buddhist schools" section. The visits by Venerable Sunim Hwasun Yangil should also go in a "Buddhist schools"-type section, not in "temples", so putting them together is a good idea in my opinion. As for the news clippings in Manila, are you sure they can't be found on the internet somewhere? If not, maybe you can ask a friend to scan them for you? Or maybe you could ask the newspapers themselves? Finally, how about getting in touch with a library in Manila? There are lots of ways you can get your hands on the source.
 * Re: sentence structure -- I'm afraid many sentences you wrote using "has been" were grammatically incorrect. It's not so much that it is 'a convenient verb when [you] try to avoid both "is" and "be"' -- it's more that "has been" suggests a different temporal relationship than the one you wanted. That said, I wouldn't worry too much about grammar. I certainly wouldn't worry about noun-verb-object and adverbs of time. Just write what comes naturally, and if it needs slight cleaning up then there are lots of other Wikipedians that can help with that. That's one of the great things about anybody being able to edit Wikipedia.
 * Re: Tibetans -- You could put this in a "Buddhist schools" section with no problem, I think. Even better, you could make a new section called "Buddhism in the Philippines by ethnicity" and include a table of statistics -- how many Tibetan Buddhists there are, how many Chinese Buddhists there are, etc.
 * Re: Venerable Shifu Sheng Yen -- I didn't realise that he was one of the founders of the Ocean Sky Monastery. The article just said that he attended the Buddhist-Christian conference. It should be no problem to add him back in under the Ocean Sky Monastery section, or you could also add his visit somewhere in a "Buddhist schools" section. I'm a little uncertain of his relationship to the monastery, so I'll leave you to add it back in.
 * For all of the above, make sure you cite your sources! A lot of the stuff that I removed was because there was no source for it. If you have a reliable source to back up your edits there's a lot less chance I'll object. Remember that Wikipedia's policy on verifiability is to require a source for anything there could be doubt about.
 * As usual, if you have any questions, just leave a message here! All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 16:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Artemis Fowl (series)
Heh, funny thing about this. It was actually correct, but you were right in removing it as it was unsourced. I'll try and fix that up (with citations) in the next few days. LegoKontribsTalkM 08:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, yes, it would have helped if I'd actually read the books. A reference to the page number of the actual book should suffice, I think. This is just a case of me being too trigger happy when patrolling recent changes - if you want to reinstate it in the meantime then I won't revert it again. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 12:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Reliable source: Lebanese population in Sweden
http://www.joshuaproject.net/countries.php?rog3=SW In response to a deleted edit and a warning posted on my talk page, I thought this will clear up the problematic error. There are 21.000 (official count) of Lebanese Arabs in Sweden according to the 2000 national census, except I was told of a higher number towards the 60 to 80,000 mark. But, the total national population of Sweden is based on the 2010 United Nations population survey. + 71.102.12.55 (talk) 00:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you very much for the welcome! --ForgottenHistory (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You're... welcome :-D — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 15:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Philosopher12 (talk) 18:02, 25 December 2010 (UTC)I'm joining to thank you for your welcome! :)

House of Anubis
Thanks, but why are all of the other AfC under the Wikipedia_talk heading instead? Thebluetrident (talk) 23:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry, it was totally a mistake on my part. :-( I've moved it back for you. I'll leave a message on your talk page too. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 01:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Money Creation
Thank you for the re-reversion for restoring clarification on Money creation. the section on relending confuses many, many people. This is a section that needed much clarification and not many people understood the concepts in relending, not many people understand what others don't understand about relending, and many people tend to act on things they think they know instead of researched positions. I made my edits based on the research many others have published about relending. So thank you for un-reverting the edits that decreased clarity of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Javalizard  (talk • contribs)  17:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome - I was just patrolling recent changes, nothing special about it really. And please sign your comments! Thanks :) — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 10:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Highest Point vs. Highest Natural Point
Highest point usually refers to a man-made object, say a TV mast. Highest natural point is the highest geological feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.198.85 (talk) 05:45, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. I see what you're getting at. The way I understand it, the highest natural point can also be the highest point as long as there are no man-made structures that are taller than it. For example, Mt. Everest is the world's highest point and also the world's highest natural point. Contrast this with somewhere like London, where the highest point is a skyscraper and the highest natural point is much lower than the height of the skyscraper. My idea is that when a place is the highest natural point but not the highest point we should call it the "highest natural point" in Wikipedia. However, when a place is both the highest point and the highest natural point we should just call it the "highest point" in Wikipedia, as adding "natural" is redundant. Would you agree with this? All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 05:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm just distinguishing between man-made objects and geological features. Check out List of tallest structures in the United States. I like this type of trivia. Most people seem to think that tallest structures always refers to a skyscraper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.198.85 (talk) 06:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, well, I definitely agree that "structure" implies something man-made. It's just "point" that I'm taking issue with here. For example, in this edit you made the wording is "point", not "structure". The way I see it, the "natural" doesn't really need to go in there, as it's obvious that Harney Peak is a natural object, and (as far as I know) there aren't any man-made structures in South Dakota that are taller than it. Does this seem reasonable to you? — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 06:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Airport Articles
Hi, Just to let you know, when we have dates in airport articles (eg: Start/End Dates) they are formatted as such: "[begins June 5]" or "[ends June 5]" or, "[resumes June 5]". Thanks! T ofutwitch11 ''' (T ALK ) 19:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. Sorry for messing things up! I saw the diff and I thought it would show up as an external link, but of course it's inside a template so it doesn't. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 05:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Aha! I get it now. External links only show up with sqaure brackets plus http:// plus any other text. You learn something new every day. Sorry again! — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 06:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No Problem, just wanted to clear it up :P! Happy New Year! T ofutwitch11 ''' (T ALK ) 14:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Some help needed
''Nb. The article in question is Sarbajit Roy''. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 20:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Mr Stradivarius Thank you for your message. I have 2 questions. 1. Is it OK to open a second account ? I already have an account at Wikipedia, but don't want to use it from Thailand where I am now. 2. Can newspaper article not available on internet be used as proof for notability ? Rajnish Pathak, Pattaya. I am using WiFi, so my IP may change, please reply on your homepage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.114.104.229 (talk) 18:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You have commented I am negative to Sarbajit Roy. He is not very popular for creating the recent controversy. But in any case Sir I shall try to make my edits from neutral point of view. 203.114.104.229 (talk) 19:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi! Here are my answers:
 * It is probably not a good idea to open a second account, as you may be accused of sockpuppetry (trying to swing discussions in your favour by using multiple accounts). If you are worried about using your account from Thailand, then it is perfectly ok to edit while not logged in.
 * Yes they can, but be careful. With newspapers you have to bear in mind the type of article and the quality of the newspaper. A news article from a large respected broadsheet is a reliable source, but a gossip column from a small tabloid is not. The point is verifiability - the large broadsheet verifies its stories through many editors checking the details, but the small tabloid might not have any checking at all. It really doesn't matter if the source is available online or not, although obviously it is easier to check sources available online. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 19:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As for the neutral point of view comment, it might be true that Sarbajit Roy is unpopular for sparking controversy, or it might not be. If he is unpopular for this, then Wikipedia's verifiability policy says you have to find a reliable source that states this, and cite it in the article. Once there is some proof of his unpopularity, it might be necessary to include other viewpoints to satisfy WP:NPOV. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 19:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article for verifiability and neutral point of view. This has meant taking lots of stuff out. Please don't take this personally - you are quite welcome to put material back in, as long as it is backed up by a reliable source. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 19:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Some help needed2
Dear Mr. Stradivarius, very sorry for my request. As you know - the road to hell is covered with good intentions. I tried to improve article Pumpable Ice Technology without realizing of strong recommendations of WIKI editing board. Now this article is under ‹ The template below (Cleanup) is being considered for deletion. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus.› Is it possible to improve situation? or to save it during several months when I'll rebuild this article. Thank you in advance. Sorry for time spent for me.109.186.51.33 (talk) 18:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi there. Thanks for your contributions to pumpable ice technology. At least, I assume it is you! I recommend that you get an account so that you always have the same username. As for the article, it doesn't look too bad. It needs a few formatting changes and then the cleanup tag can be taken down, I think. I do think that you should take a look at Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources. Some of the sources used in the article are press releases. While these can be useful for sourcing some uncontroversial claims, they are not reliable. Getting more reliable sources is the best way to improve the article right now, I think. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 20:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, the cleanup template being considered for deletion has nothing to do with the article. Even if it gets deleted, nothing will happen to pumpable ice technology. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 20:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am very appreciated from your moral and technical support. I've already uploaded images for this article. Now I am looking to put these images in PIT paper.

ThanksSwallow2011 (talk) 15:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Interlanguage (disambiguation)
Hello, I would prefer to retain the disambiguation page, since there is an additional sense 'pivot language', which I have added to the list. (In the Wikipedia, "interlanguage" also occurs in the expression "interlanguage link", but I think this does not need to be mentioned.) However, I find the disambiguation header that you have added on the page "Interlanguage" also ok, and I have not done anything to it. It has the advantage that it makes readers aware of the sense of "interlanguage" that has a longer tradition. (In the new sense of 'learner's interim language', it was introduced by Larry Selinker in 1972.) Talnat (talk) 15:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Sujana
Hello, This is in regards to the addition of Sujana in Wikipedia. I have been submitting articles with respect to this company to the business community and hence also wanted to add it on Wikipedia. The link which is mentioned from where the content is the same is owned by Sujana(Sujana School Of Business). Please Suggest what needs to be done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sujana Group (talk • contribs) 12:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi there, and thank you for the message. First of all, you should start off by reading Conflict of interest. If you have a conflict of interest with the Sujana article, it might be a good idea to not contribute to it, or at least to not make any controversial edits. If you feel you must contribute to it, then please use the guidelines in Suggestions for COI compliance. As for the article, even if you don't have a conflict of interest, and even if you can give the copyright of the present article to Wikipedia, I think the best thing to do is to delete all the text and write everything again. The problem is the article is written like an advertisement, which is not allowed under Wikipedia policy. I suggest that you read Your first article, and then start writing Sujana again from the beginning if there is no problem with a conflict of interest. Please feel free to ask me any more questions. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius  ( drop me a line ) 13:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)