User talk:Prignillius

The Great Schism(s)
You have been a little overbold in your edit summaries on the meaning of the phrase "The Great Schism." While you clearly have a strong opinion on the matter, the blunt fact is that many people who use this phrase use it to mean the East-West Schism (the term you prefer), not the Western Schism or any other. There is nothing wrong with disambiguating a term which has multiple meanings; but it is impolite and disrepectful of the work of other editors to use such harsh language as you have been using, just because other editors use this phrase differently. Calling the 1054 split the Great Schism is not wrong; it may be imprecise, but the usage will be found (among other places) in the OrthodoxWiki, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and in many other sources. Please show a little more tolerance for differing usages among editors. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  14:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments. I am a newbie at editing Wikipedia pages.  Before I address the subject at hand, I am confused as to where your comment appears.  It looks to me like it appears on the Prignillius User Page, which doesn't exist.  Could you please explain this to me?  Thanks!
 * Prignillius 17:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you'll look at the top of the page, you'll see that we're at the page User talk:Prignillius. The page User:Prignillius awaits your creative touch. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  17:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * So the Talk page isn't automatically associated with a "main" page? Or is this User talk:Prignillius page associated with a "phantom" User:Prignillius page?Prignillius (talk) 03:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * When you registered for an account, the potential existed for a userpage and a talk page. The first time anyone posted to the address for your talk page, it was created. The same thing will happen when somebody posts to your user page; but that somebody should normally be you; it's yours (within Wikipedia guidelines). Until somebody posts to those addresses, they are redlinks because there is no content (although there is an address). Contrast my talk page with my userpage. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  04:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I remember seeing you on "Win Ben Stein's Money." Prignillius (talk) 16:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Two questions
It seems to me that there are two issues to discuss here (besides my technical questions), namely, my behavior, and factual issues about the Great Schism. If you don't mind, I'd like to discuss them separately. To facilitate this, I've created 2 more topics below. Thanks!

Prignillius's Boorish Behavior
In order to further separate what I consider two different issues here, let's create a hypothetical example. Let's say I come across a Wikipedia page titled, "Christoper Columbus." Let's say that, on this page, I see the statement, "Before 1492, everybody thought the world was flat."

I don't think this statement should be challenged with a Fact template. (For an example of where I did this, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarai_%28city%29 and its associated talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sarai_%28city%29) Rather, I think the page ought to be changed.

How do you advise me to handle a situation like this? Thanks for any help you can give me.

(You may also want to have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28assistance%29, the heading Very Confused, the first paragraph, which I posted before I saw your comment.

Heh, I guess you already did! ) Prignillius (talk) 04:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Prignillius and The Great Schism
You say, "Calling the 1054 split the Great Schism is not wrong; it may be imprecise..." At first I thought this meant, "It isn't wrong, it's merely inaccurate," which to me seems oxymoronic.

On further thought, I decided you must mean, "it isn't wrong, it is just general (as opposed to specific)." If this is the case, I must disagree. Stating that the term "Great Schism" by itself can correctly refer to the East-West Schism of 1054 is like saying "robin" by itself means a sequential turn-taking, because that's what "round robin" means.

I do have strong feelings here, but they are not really about The Great Schism. That is more like what we call in the U.S. a "pet peeve." What I have strong feelings about is the propagation of misinformation and urban legend, which the net is particularly prone to. One person says something that is incorrect, and 1,672,005 web pages suddenly say the same thing. I think Wikipedia is particularly susceptible to this, just because it so widey mirrored and copied.

That's why your statement that many people refer to the 1054 event as "The Great Schism" carries little weight with me. My response would be, "they all do so incorrectly." This leads to the controversy between prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries, which I refer to as, "do it wrong enough times and it becomes right." While this is probably true with languages (even the OED has now become descriptive), I hate to think it should be true with a reference source. I really don't like the idea of facts becoming subordinate to, or, worse yet, subsubmed by, popular belief.

I am much more concerned with what people who know the facts about it state. My claim that The Great Schism, without a modifier such as "The Great East-West Schism" or even "The Great Schism of 1054," can only refer to the Rome-Avignon split is supported by not only what I was taught. In Encyclopedia Brittannica, 1949 edition, the only entry in the Index for "Great Schism" is the Rome-Avignon one. This is also true with the Columbia Encyclopedia on-line.

While you are disturbingly correct about some usage in the Catholic Encyclopedia, they avoid the issue by not having a main entry for Great Schism at all. American Heritage Dictionary, one of the few remaining prescriptive dictionaries, also takes this avoidance route.Prignillius (talk) 04:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleting single edits
Hi. User:Kevin Murray approached me about the question you left on his page regarding the removal of a single edit from a page history. It is unusual but not impossible to eliminate an edit, and I may be able to help you with this privacy concern depending on the history of the page and the nature of the edit. Any removal done by a typical administrator will be visible to other administrators and may be later restored by an admin. There is a process by which you may request the permanent removal of the edit in such a way that even most administrators would not have access to it. This is set out at Requests for oversight. I have never observed the process, and I do not know how likely it is that your request would be granted. I believe this is usually invoked in situations where more substantial privacy issues appear, but it is possible that the oversight committee would view the visibility of the IP as sufficient. If there are other means of addressing this concern, I am unfamiliar with them, and you may wish to ask at the help desk or at the assistance section of village pump for other input. It's possible that one of the volunteers there will have encountered this concern before.

I have watchlisted your page. If you believe that I can be of assistance, please let me know, and I'll be happy to discuss it further. Otherwise, good luck resolving your situation, and happy editing. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Moonriddengirl! While there is some degree of personal danger here, I don't think it's that extreme.  Besides, it's my own stupid fault.  I think it would be fine to have you delete it.  What I changed on the page, I immediately undid, so all I'm really after is the removal of both entries from the History page.  It should be basically a no-op from the point of view of the content of the article page.  The page is Egyptian cobra.  Thanks a lot! Prignillius (talk) 16:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I have deleted the page and restored it without those two edits. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Orange Mike - Your Question On Village Pump
I saw your question on Village Pump. I think your characterization of me is neither fair nor accurate.

First, I apologize for coming off in such a way that you could perceive me in that manner.

I am quite willing to conisder authorities, as I indicated when I said I value what people who know something say over sheer numbers. I have not asserted I am right, although I have said I believe I am right. I cited two reference works that I consider fairly authoritative as examples that support my assertion. The only references you have offered to support your challenge, that you claim I am ignoring, are: weasel words by the definition on the Help pages ("many people"); a reference that weakly supports your assertion, (the Catholic Encyclopedia), although it does not support it enough to actually define it that way -- and which I did not discount, but said that it was disturbing, i.e. that it cast some shadow on my assertion; and something with Wiki in the title, which I did not check out, as it seemed from that to be more popular opinion than a reference source.

That is hardly "I'm right because I know I'm right and the rest of the world be damned!" It seems more like it's, "I believe I'm right, I have authoritative sources to back me up, and you have offered no direct refutation of my assertion." Prignillius (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Prignillius, I don't know where you might have gone to school or what history sources you consult, but the Great Schism has always largely referred to the division between Eastern and Western Christianity, and only more recently the competition between the French and the Italians to control the Catholic papacy. But if you check the encyclopedias on the Internet, such as Britannica (which is peer-reviewed by professional scholars) Stevenmitchell (talk) 12:36, 28 April 2017 (UTC)