User talk:Richwales/Archives/2011-12

Why on Earth erase what I wrote?
With all due respect I can see no reason on Earth that my posting about Supreme Court Decisions that have been made is a rehash of Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) when it goes to the heart of the Natural Born Citizen Clause. This was one of four cases I cited along with Vattal. I am running for President of the United States and am in the middle of deciding this issue in the court systems. There is no way on Earth that anyone could exclude Minor v. Happersett and say they have covered it in its entirety. It is going to be my opinion the to exclude this is an act of a personal attachement to the people who are preventing the term Natural Born Citizen ship from being understood. By removing an accurate post you are promoting a usurper who is violating a Constitutinal requirement to be President. I did not elaborate to any degree on any one issue. I gave people the opportunity to link to a more in depth discussion of the actual case law. Even if I were to agree that Minor Vs Happersett has already been hashed out what makes you the final arbitrator of what has been discussed too much. From what I understand this is not a discussion board. It is a pseudo encyclopedia. You present facts in an Encyclopedia. I am respectfully asking that you repost at least everything before Happersett until it can be determined if you inappropriately removed a legitimate post. I can assure you I have thousand of supporters who will see what I posted and the remark you made back to me. Being a Presidential Candidate who posted verified facts about past Supreme Court cases, I would imagine that the press would be interested in the obvious bias one individual showed in censoring a legitimate explanation in Wikipedia. I hope that I do not have to escalate this issue. Thank you John Albert Dummett Jr. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jadummett (talk • contribs) 07:47, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This user has has made good on his threat. --Weazie (talk) 17:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. The web site in question (The Post & Email) is a "patriot blog", as best I can tell from reading its "About Us" page, so it would not be usable on Wikipedia as a reliable source (except perhaps at Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories in order to show the kinds of objections that some people are raising).  So Dummett's having "escalated" this controversy to that site is probably of no consequence here on Wikipedia.  And the article doesn't appear to contain any legal or other threats against either Wikipedia or any of its contributors, so my impression at this point is that there's really no need to take any sort of action.  —  Rich wales (talk) 18:23, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That web site is a birther blog. I draw it to your attention only in case you wish to pursue a complaint against this user, i.e. WP:MEATPUPPET.  --Weazie (talk) 18:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

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Northern Cyprus
Richwales, I notice that you brought the issue of the lead up on the Project Cyprus noticeboard. Is the membership of that group fairly balanced between Greek and Turk POVs? If not, perhaps it should also be mentioned on the project Turkey noticeboard as well? We want to make sure that notices are either to balanced groups or to both sides of a dispute. I'm not familiar with the membership and direction of the Project Cyprus group, so that's why I ask. Cheers. --Taivo (talk) 09:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I notified that group solely on the basis of the subject matter. I confess I don't really know the membership of the group or how diverse it is.  You obviously make a good point about balanced notifications; I'll go ahead and notify WikiProject Turkey as well, and I'm open to notifying (or having other people notify) other groups in an effort to get wider, balanced participation.  FWIW, I had also considered posting a notice on the talk page of the "Greek and Turkish wikipedians cooperation board", but since the most recent posting there is from 2008, I regretfully assume that group is inactive.  —  Rich wales (talk) 15:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rich. It looks like we might have come up with some acceptable wording, so hopefully things die down there.  --Taivo (talk) 15:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

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Hey!
Hey Richwales! It has been a long time (schoolwork got ahead of WP activities), but I wanted to stop by. If you remember, I did a GA review on one of your articles about a year ago. :)

Now that I'm back with time to spare, I'm trying to beef up my favorite article, Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez. Before I proceed with the arduous process to get it to FA-status, I wanted to see if you could offer any suggestions after having gone through it yourself.

As always - Best Regards, Lord Roem (talk) 01:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi. Yes, I'll take a look at Velasquez and get back to you.  BTW, one of my articles (United States v. Wong Kim Ark) is currently having its second consideration for becoming a Featured Article.  If you have any time to take a look at it and offer any constructive feedback, it would be appreciated (and it might give you an idea of what you'll be dealing with yourself soon).  —  Rich wales (talk) 01:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I read through your article just now (not attempting to look up references, just reading the text and looking at the list of references). My main thought is that the bulk of the article text could benefit from more references to secondary sources — try as much as you reasonably can to base the text on what legal scholars (law review articles) and newspaper/magazine editors have said, and keep anything that could be called your own original research or synthesis out.  The more you rely on citing the actual text of the Supreme Court's opinion, the more open you are to suggestions that you're violating WP:OR or WP:SYNTH.  And yes, I do see that you have a sizable section of the article devoted to analysis and commentary — but see if you can make more use of those secondary sources to back up what is being said in the first half of the article.


 * One "nit" I saw early in the article is that it's generally improper to say that someone "appealed" their case to the Supreme Court. Appealing implies the exercise of a legal right to force a review of one's case by a higher court — and technically, there are almost no scenarios any more where a losing party can legally demand that the Supreme Court must consider their appeal.  Instead. virtually all cases taken to the Supreme Court come via what is called a "request for certiorari" — basically, asking the court to take the case (as opposed to claiming such review as a right), followed by acceptance of the case by the court (or denial of certiorari, which means that the Supreme Court allows the lower court ruling to stand without ruling on its merits or creating any nationwide binding precedent).  This was not always so; for example, in the Wong Kim Ark case, the law in the 1890s said that when a lower court found a federal law to be unconstitutional, the government had a right to take the case on appeal to the Supreme Court (which, in turn, was obligated to consider it).  The fact that the rules for appeals vs. certiorari were different back then prompted one reviewer of Wong Kim Ark to raise this same objection which I'm describing, and to ask for a source confirming that Wong Kim Ark was indeed literally taken on "appeal" — though she eventually conceded that the Supreme Court opinion's own wording to this effect was OK in the absence of any mention of the issue in law reviews, etc.  —  Rich wales (talk) 04:44, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Firstly, let me thank you for looking over the article. I certainly agree that source-cites can be bulked up. As to appeal v. certiorari -- yes, I am aware of that. However, I was not aware that the terminology was different based on the rule (mandatory v. discretionary) so thanks for pointing out that distinction. I suppose the language would then be "petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case"?
 * Cheers, Lord Roem (talk) 04:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My impression is that "appeal" is commonly used in colloquial parlance . . . but if you say this in a Wikipedia article that you're trying to get promoted to FA, you'll surely get called on it. "Petitioned (or, asked) the Supreme Court to hear the case" should probably suffice in the text — though it couldn't hurt to use the word "certiorari" when describing the prior history of the case in the infobox.


 * Another worthwhile resource to review, as you prepare this article for FAC, would be Roe v. Wade — which is, as far as I know, the one and only US Supreme Court case article currently recognized as a Featured Article.  —  Rich wales (talk) 05:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

User:GeorgianJorjadze
[copied from talk page of ]

Hi. I see you blocked for disruptive editing at Georgia (country). I just wanted to be sure you had noticed that this user did finally start participating at that article's talk page (see [ here]). — Rich wales (talk) 20:40, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, in that case, to unblock or not to unblock? - F ASTILY  (TALK) 20:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I would unblock him now, but with a stern warning that he needs to continue engaging in discussion on the talk page or he'll probably have to be blocked again. Note, too, that he's already reached the 3RR limit on this particular article, so he needs to slow down and concentrate for the time being on discussing rather than editing/reverting.  FWIW, I was on the verge of blocking him myself, but decided not to after seeing that he had participated on the article's talk page (you blocked him just as I was finishing [ my comments] on his talk page).  I would say his talk page participation shows a reasonable likelihood that he got the point, so a further block (especially an indefinite block) doesn't seem IMO to accomplish anything useful, and we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.  —  Rich wales (talk) 21:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, user unblocked. Regards,  F ASTILY  (TALK) 21:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Birther concerns and The Schooner Exchange v. M'Faddon?
[copied from talk page of ]

Hi. Are you aware of any "birther" fascinations with the 1812 Supreme Court case The Schooner Exchange v. M'Faddon (also popularly known as The Exchange)? I wanted to double-check this point because someone insisted last September on mentioning this case in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark article. Wong Kim Ark is being considered a second time right now for FA, and I'm working on cleaning it up — and FWIW, the editor who pushed for bringing up The Exchange recently retired from Wikipedia. I did find some passing evidence that some people have tried prooftexting The Exchange in support of the notion that natural-born citizenship requires "full and complete" jurisdiction (i.e., born in the US of American citizen parents), though the case itself seems to me to support the opposing view (and, in any case, doesn't actually deal with citizenship issues at all, and it predates the 14th Amendment by decades). Your thoughts? — Rich wales (talk) 18:31, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This case is rarely cited, and then usually by anti-birthers. Apuzzo once quoted it.  --Weazie (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Any other comments on how The Exchange is [ currently being mentioned] in the article — and/or any other thoughts you might want to express at the article's current FAC discussion page — would be gratefully appreciated.  —  Rich wales (talk) 20:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with the edits removing "relying heavily." Without a WP:RS, the previous language had WP:NPOV and WP:OR issues.  --Weazie (talk) 21:32, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the existing source (Immigration Stories, current footnote #41) does use the exact phrase "relied heavily". Even so, I'm reluctant to use such strong language in the article on the basis of only one source — though I can see the possibility of someone insisting on reinstating it on the grounds that my paraphrase is supposedly mischaracterizing what a reliable source says.  That was why I wanted to know if this case might be a darling of the birthers or the anti-immigrants.  —  Rich wales (talk) 00:47, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It does seem more popular with the anti-immigrant crowd than with the birthers. But even then, it is cited less often than the "usual" sources.  --Weazie (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I do know this article has attracted attention from people who have objected to language that did not, in their view, obsess sufficiently on the fact that Wong's parents were legal residents of the US — an issue which, to the best of my understanding, simply wasn't in the forefront of people's minds in 1898.  —  Rich wales (talk) 16:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The language regarding the legal status of Wong Kim Ark's parents is dicta. I don't know if there's a WP:RS saying that, but it is obvious because no discussion of the case ever references that fact, let alone says it was necessary to the outcome.  --Weazie (talk) 18:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The court's point in mentioning the parents' legal status was to establish that they were not Chinese diplomats. This is, IMO, the only interpretation that makes sense in the context of the court's short list of exceptions to jus soli.  Of course, fringe theorists love to engage in prooftexting and tend to have a hard time understanding or accepting the difference between holdings and dicta.  —  Rich wales (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2011 (UTC)