User talk:StevenJ81/Archive 1

Noach
Introductory Note. This section was getting too long, so I'm organizing it a little. I haven't taken anything out, or even actually reordered anything. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

First Discussion Thread
Thanks for participating in the discussion at Articles for deletion/Noach (parsha). I appreciate your input. --Dauster (talk) 02:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)


 * My pleasure. I'm sorry I got a little frustrated on the last round.  Assuming everyone is acting in good faith, I think the main problem is that the notability sources you and I take for granted are simply not accessible to a lot of those guys.  They also don't understand that it isn't always obvious what constitutes the discussion of the topic and what constitutes the discussion of the parsha; they're related, but not identical.  That said, you might consider whether or not Wikipedia, or some other project, is the best location for your full, elaborate articles.  I noticed that the classic Jewish Encyclopedia did not have articles on the individual parshiyyot.


 * PS: I live in NJ now, but grew up at Har Shalom in Potomac, back when it was a little, itty-bitty place instead of the great big place it is now.  StevenJ81 (talk) 04:12, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Please note, StevenJ81, that the Jewish Encyclopedia had 15,000 articles and was printed on paper. English Wikipedia has almost 4,000,000 articles and has no such paper limitations. Scholars with access to that encyclopedia also had access to separate Torah commentaries. Wikipedia may be the best consistent, broad study tool available for people in remote areas. There is plenty of room in Wikipedia for these articles.  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  05:15, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There is room, but all articles must meet our criteria for notability and be written according to our policies and guidelines. And Steven, there is a good faith problem when we have so many new accounts and IP arriving and singing Dauster's praises. I hope my SPI gets acted on soon so that if Dauster isn't involved he is cleared, but if he is.... Dougweller (talk) 06:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Doug, let me comment separately by saying that based on the Jewish doctrine of Lashon hara, as well as on WP:GOODFAITH, I categorically assume that there is no sockpuppetry involved here. If there is, I would be sad and hurt, but that issue has not affected my analysis or opinion whatsoever.


 * To tell you the truth, in my view a flood of truly random, new IP arriving and singing Dauster's praises has a perfectly reasonable alternate explanation. I assume there are a lot of Wikipedia readers that are not registered (or at least rarely sign in) and that do not normally edit.  If some of them have come to enjoy the weekly parsha summaries, they might very well be motivated to say something, even if they do not register and do not normally edit.  Parsha is the normal structure for Torah (here meaning specifically Pentateuch) study by a large portion of the observant Jewish world; why shouldn't people react if they feel that resource will be taken away from them? (That is another argument in favor of notability, by the way.)


 * Please feel free to read my following suggestion to Cullen and Dauster. For the moment, it is not for including back in the general discussion on this topic.  Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * 3 options. (1)A bunch of new editors (never edited before) just by coincidence stumble upon this and praise Dauster, calling him Bill. (2)Someone creates some new accounts and also edits as an IP, etc. (3) - someone canvasses people who have never edited before pointing them to the AfD. (1) seems pretty unlikely. Dougweller (talk) 08:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Structurally, I appreciate the need to do a sockpuppetry investigation. Still, I ran into the whole thing in the first place by seeing your notice on the WikiProject Judaism discussion board.  That is a pretty basic place for inexperienced people to find where information on Judaism lives in Wikipedia.  Why wouldn't others with an interest in Judaism and Torah not do that?  I'm only suggesting that your (1) is not necessarily as unlikely as you make it out to be.


 * Separately, if it is unlikely this will actually be deleted, was an AfD the right process? Reasonable people can disagree on questions around the specific content and scope, whether the forking is legitimate or POV-forking, and so forth.  But an AfD is a bit of an extreme approach, and at least a priori implies a questioning of notability. And that is where I am really having trouble assuming good faith.  Someone wants to ask people to clean up notability references or verifiability references, fine.  To say that they don't exist or aren't good enough?  I guess I have a hard time seeing how anyone justifies that in this case.


 * Clearly, there are places in Wikipedia where the presumption is for notability even if in the individual case the notability is questionable. Are all past US Representatives, US Senators or even Vice Presidents really notable? So too, here.  There isn't a Jew in the world who is remotely knowledgeable about the Torah who would assert that weekly Torah portions are not notable.  And personally, I think if my previous sentence is correct, that is sufficient to demonstrate notability.  But within the Wikipedia process, why is that not at least sufficient to presume notability, with a request to fix things up?  StevenJ81 (talk) 14:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm very disappointed that there was no CU - that will always leave a bit of a cloud there. I knew that the IPs would not be compared with anyone, but wasn't sure if there was some way that they could have been the same person, geolocation or not. Dougweller (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion/Proposal for Cullen's and Dauster's Consideration 11 July 2012 15:00 EDT
Believe me, Cullen, I'm on your/our side. I would keep the pages in Wikipedia, and would keep them substantially intact. What's the problem, really? It's not as if we are "running out of space," or "worried about printing costs." And I really especially wonder why there aren't more important articles to worry about deleting than this/these.


 * I am frankly especially troubled by the discussion around notability here. You have done a great job on this, Cullen.  But if we take a step back and look around, what we really see is this:


 * A number of people on the "delete" side of the argument do not appreciate the significance of sources already cited—sources which to us seem to demonstrate obvious notability. Those sources are not familiar to them, and in many/most cases are in languages they do not understand.  I appreciate that there are rules around affirming notability, but just because an editor or administrator does not understand or appreciate the sources offered does not mean they are not valid.


 * What we then end up with is that many people arguing this case are more impressed by a list of currently published books, regardless of their provenance, than they are by classical, centuries- and millenia-old sources that are far more important and significant in the long run.


 * What I'm really worried about is that this will never end. There will always be someone who doesn't understand.  There will always be someone whose approach to the text will be informed only by a secular/academic or Christian approach to the text, and who therefore cannot understand that other approaches to the text can be valid.  (If I were Muslim, I would be concerned.  According to the idea in the main deletion thread that contents of pieces of work are less valid for inclusion than full works, what of a Sura?)

Considering all that, I'm wondering if the approach of the era of the Jewish Encyclopedia isn't right: Encyclopedias are encyclopedias, and encyclopedias are not the place for a full-blown Torah commentary.

I don't know much about Wikibooks as a project. And all of what I am about to suggest depends heavily on the idea that Wikibooks is (effectively) just as accessible to people as Wikipedia is. It also depends heavily on (a) our retaining a reasonable "footprint" for the parashiyyot within Wikipedia itself, and (b) people inside Wikipedia—people of the kind making suggestions that led to the deletion request—are not going to try to inhibit liberal linking from said "footprint" to any content in Wikibooks.

Still, I can see some real merits in moving this to Wikibooks, subject to the caveats above. In particular:
 * We are not arguing about notability or verifiability any more.
 * WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT and WP:POVFORK are no longer in play.
 * We can describe the parsha and its flow at any level we want. We don't have to worry about whether any of the material is duplicative. We don't have to decide what material is about "topics in the parsha" and what material is about "the parsha itself," or "its flow," or the like.

I think it's a separate question, just between us, as to whether there is a separate agenda here from some of the people suggesting deletion. This whole exercise, in some ways, feels to me as if the Jews are being driven out, and I don't like that a bit. But based on concepts of Lashon hara and WP:GOODFAITH, I think we have to assume favorably (דן לכף זכות, if you will). And frankly I'd rather spend more time learning and less time arguing.

So I would propose the following to you:


 * The general approach is to move the Parsha articles, in all their richness, to Wikibooks.
 * In order to get there in one piece, and in a way that preserves both content and access to content, the request for deletion is to be formally suspended while we set up a mechanism to make this happen.
 * I'm inclined to think the following will need to happen, per parsha, to make this work:
 * Copying (not moving) of "everything" (whatever that means) to Wikibooks.
 * Preparation of a highly-condensed summary version of the parsha article. The summary article surely includes a prominent link to the rich article on Wikibooks.  (Probably a nice template should be written for that.) I'm flexible as to exactly what the summary should have, but I'm thinking:
 * the extent of the parsha and its aliyot
 * a description of the main subjects and stories within the parsha and the aliyot
 * any key aspects about the parsha as a parsha worth noting
 * anything relating the parsha to the time of year when it is read
 * identification and equally brief summary of its haftara/ot, and why they were selected
 * The full, rich article is replaced in Wikipedia by the summary article
 * Since I have no idea how long this would take per parsha (and wouldn't even know how to do it), I would suggest a one-or-two parsha pilot period so we can figure that out.
 * We then return to the request for deletion, and request its resolution by consensus, along the following lines:
 * The notion of the parsha, or Weekly Torah Portion, is notable in general.
 * There will be an agreement to stop trying to determine if certain individual parashiyyot are notable, while others are not. Two general approaches in combination supporting this:
 * Some Vice Presidents, some Senators, some Representatives are objectively notable, while others are not. But in cases like those we give the benefit of the doubt.  Same here.
 * In the case of notability, whenever a clear consensus against notability cannot be established, you have to judge in favor of notability. WP:SNOW that such a consensus could be established here.
 * Based on the time the pilot takes (with some room to spare), the various articles on each Parsha will be switched over.
 * Until the process is complete, for each parsha, the material will remain in wiki space, not user space, to ensure availability. (That can be changed if the process falls behind.)
 * As a matter of explicit agreement in this dispute resolution, the inclusion of a link within Wikipedia parsha articles to the corresponding Wikibooks article is considered appropriate. The same is true for other places currently featuring links to the current parsha.
 * The final disposition of how the remaining summary parsha articles will appear in Wikipedia will depend on WP:LENGTH. My hunch is that one article per parsha will remain, and I'm certain that one article containing all 54 summaries would be ridiculous. Depending on how the articles look at the end, I might be open to the idea of five articles.  But there must be either five or 54; combining in some books of Chumash but not in others is simply too awkward for reader access.

As I said above, I'm not entirely happy making this suggestion, because we are as entitled as anyone else to our place in Wikipedia. Still, I think an approach like this is actually far better for what we are trying to accomplish than a continued fight is.

StevenJ81 (talk) 21:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Although I have great respect for the amount of thought you've put into this, StevenJ81, I respectfully disagree with some of what you are saying. Here's what I think:


 * I believe that the 54 individual parashot are notable, and that all 54 articles should be kept. This is the fundamental point and I will not willingly accept any conclusion to this matter that results in the deletion of the individual parashot articles from English Wikipedia. I believe that any compromise on this is a big mistake.


 * If people want to work on similar or related articles on any other Wikimedia project, that is fine with me. But I am an English Wikipedia editor who also contributes to Wikimedia Commons in support of English Wikipededia. I don't contribute to the other projects or even use them much. If I sincerely believe a topic to be notable by our standards then I will advocate to keep those articles here.


 * I have already stated that the existing articles can be improved and do not oppose editorial changes. Particularly, I believe that the Talmudic and classical rabbinic sources are reliable sources for these articles, but that they should be cited to specific modern translations using inline sources. I also believe that commentary by contemporary writers should be included, with proper referencing of those sources. I would concede that line by line commentary should be avoided in favor of commentary on broader thematic issues. I also believe that commentary on each parashot as a literary work or a specific text should be emphasized, and discussion of the content as content de-emphasized. However, and this is a most important point to me, an AfD debate is not the place to cut those kind of deals. The AfD discussion ought to focus on whether the topic is notable and whether the article in question should be kept or deleted. I am a strong advocate of keeping these articles, and I think discussion about improving them should take place elsewhere (such as here).  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  21:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I hear you loud and clear. FWIW, one reason I organized the proposal the way I did was to leave at least some article in place for each parsha.  In practice, I would be prepared to consolidate on LENGTH grounds, as I said, but it wouldn't be my preference.  (Analog:  Tu B'Av.  I'm not sure I think it's actually inherently notable by Wikipedia standards. But even if it is, I'm not sure there's enough to say about it to merit an own-article.)  In any event, I think we may have turned the corner last night.  At least I hope so.  StevenJ81 (talk) 14:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you, my friends, for your thoughtful discussion of the parsha pages. I plainly feel that they are notable, and have become quite invested in them over the past 7 years.  I am open to changes to the articles to address concerns, like, for example, the improvement of Talmudic citations to make clear to the lay reader that they are actually sources.  In the meantime, I have also begun to map out space in Wikibooks for a book on The Torah, as a kind of insurance.  I can tell already that any move or transition would cost a tremendous amount of time, and a regrettable diversion from the study.  I will pray that the editors let me continue the work.  Thanks again. -- Dauster (talk) 01:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Hidden agendas?
The suggestion that anyone !voting delete is trying to keep Jews out it an extremely serious charge and taints all who !voted delete. I'd like to see it withdrawn or pursued. I think the AfD was in good faith but confused. For me the issue has always been the quality of such articles (including as I said Suras, where there has also been a lot of OR. The only way I've become involved in these articles is through involvement with editors with problems in other places. Cullen's suggestions seem good. Dougweller (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * When I got close to making that actual charge on the actual debate page–and I don't think I got quite all the way there, but I was a little too close–I backed off and apologized. In the comment above here, I was speaking in what I take to be a more private forum, I made no specific and personal claim, and bssed on WP:AGF and Lashon Hara, I wouldn't.  I said some, because I meant some, not all.  But let me be very clear about where I stand right now.


 * My problem at this stage of the game is not with a "Delete" !vote per se. And for that matter, my problem isn't really (very much) about the notability or verifiability questions that came up right at the top when we first started discussing this. My problem is that people who continue to cite notability now are not doing even minimal due diligence.


 * Tell me you'd like the verifying citations more accessible.
 * Tell me you'd like parsha articles shaved down to text issues, with other content moved elsewhere.
 * Tell me that if the parsha articles really shrink a lot, they should be bundled into five articles instead of 54.
 * Even if I disagree–and I do–I understand things like these completely.


 * But don't tell me there is a notability problem. At this point in the debate that should not be a question any more.  In my view, anyone still bringing it up at this point in the debate is insulting. Or has an agenda. Or is ignorant. Or something.  I don't know what.


 * I hope that clarifies my comment above. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

geshem
[Moved to talk page of my sandbox.] StevenJ81 (talk) 13:50, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Chol Hamoed
You added Chol Hamoed to Template:Jewish and Israeli holidays. You added it after Sukkot. But there is also a Chol Hamoed after (in) Pesach. Perhaps we should rethink the placement of Chol Hamoed? Debresser (talk) 08:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I thought about putting it in both places, and Isru Chag, too, for that matter. Does it start getting too cluttered? I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. Do you have a different idea altogether? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really. I was hoping you might have an idea. Debresser (talk) 18:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If the template stays organized this way, then we should probably put each of them in twice. If we want the template to look cleaner we could name one of them (in the template) Chol Hamoed Pesach and the other one Chol Hamoed Sukkot, but have them both point to the same place.  Or not.  Not a big deal to me.
 * But if I start to think about rearranging it slightly, then we could have an additional-level-down list (like the "High Holy Days" list) called "Three Pilgrimage Festivals." Inside, we would organize it starting with "Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah," which are the actual festivals, and after that include all the "other observances" related to them.
 * I just don't know if that's really any better.
 * PS: We should probably add "Ten Days of Repentance" into "High Holy Days," while we're at it.
 * Chag Sameach. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Both these ideas sound good to me. Debresser (talk) 18:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I put a copy of the template in my sandbox. Have a look and tell me what you think.  Thanks.  StevenJ81 (talk) 16:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Jewish religious year
Archived 16:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

November 2012 thread
The listing is more or less based on the articles included in the Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Mircea Eliade and Lindsay Jones, which from what I have seen is very highly thought of by the academic community. Basically, I copied the article titles from their articles in compiling the list - hey, it was the easiest way to go. I honestly don't know that much about this particular topic, but I do note that I have access to the original encyclopedia article online from a subscription databank. If you would want to drop me an e-mail so that I could forward the article to you, I would be more than happy to let you review the content of the article and see which, if any, article we have is most closely relevant, and possibly add at least some of the information from that article (not so much as to violate copyright or close paraphrase, of course) and tag whichever article that is as "Top" importance for Religion, so that we can know where that content is placed. I think some of the other Judaism related articles are available on that site as well, again, under the titles from the list. If any of them interested you as well, I could forward the articles from that book or any other articles on a given topic that they have that would interest you.

Also, if you do have any sort of specific ideas of maybe some comparatively achievable goals for religion related material, which I hope would include Judaism, Islam, and the others as well, please feel free to say so. John Carter (talk) 17:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * It should be in your e-mail now. John Carter (talk) 20:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay in responding. Computer problems, and a hellishly long download of updates starting last night, believe it or not. I can easily see how the authors/editors for the EoR might have chosen one article rather than multiple for this broad topic due to space considerations. And, of course, we have editors who create content on a rather random basis, so it probably makes sense that they might have created separate articles for the subtopics separately. And, yeah, it might be the case that someone consulted a larger reference work specifically dealing with Judaism, like Encyclopedia Judaica, which had them as separate articles. Honestly, in a case like this, I think tagging all of them as Top importance to Religion might be the best way to go. They have a few spacial problems we don't, but if they covered the separate topics significantly in their content, I can't see any reason why we shouldn't do the same. Given the number of comparatively minor league ministers and religious people of all faiths we have separate articles about around here, we can probably afford to be generous in that regard.
 * And, FWIW, I personally am going to at least try to upload a lot of the old Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics to WikiSource in the comparatively near future. Some of the articles in that book were called the best articles ever written on the topics in reviews of the later EoR, and in some cases better than the EoR articles. That is a really long work, admittedly, but it is almost all public domain now as well, and we could use some of the articles they have we don't pretty much word-for-word for at least beginning articles. And I am going to try, probably next week given the holiday, to create a slightly broader list of the articles in one of the smaller Judaism encyclopedias as a starting point for indicators of what topics we do and don't have here already. Wigoder's one-volume Encyclopedia of Judaism is probably the one I'll use there.
 * Thank you very much for your extremely quick action in this matter. Sometimes, looking over the sources, I (and lots of others I think) feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work still needing to be done. Seeing matters raised and addressed this quickly and this well is one of the few real inspirations we sometimes have to keep ourselves going. John Carter (talk) 22:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind words.
 * I fully agree with what you've said about space, what articles to include, and so forth, but would still ask you to be mindful of one thing. Most ostensibly religion-neutral, Western approaches to religion use what feels to me, at least, like a fairly Christian vocabulary in approaching the subject.  I am not necessarily suggesting an intentional, non-neutral POV in, say, EoR.  But that the very vocabulary being used would be heavily influenced by concepts from Christianity in any such work coming out of Europe or the Americas is practically inevitable.
 * In that light, consider the following idea: the editors writing Jewish holiday and Hebrew calendar weren't writing content on a random basis. Instead, they were writing separate articles on what, to someone Jewish, are two separate subjects–related subjects to be sure, but separate subjects.  It's their concatenation into one article in EoR that feels conceptually forced to me–I just don't think of the subject in those terms at all.  Unlike most Orthodox Jews, I do understand the concept of a (Christian) religious or liturgical year, but I was frankly taken by surprise that Christian holidays redirects to liturgical year.  It's just a different way of looking at things.
 * So in the future, don't be surprised if I (or someone else) uses redirects or list articles to try to address the red links on the Religion articles page. Much of the content is probably here already, but not necessarily in the terms you would think to use.
 * PS: Do you want me to tag Jewish holiday and Hebrew calendar as Top Importance for WikiProject Religion?
 * I will mark Jewish holiday as B-class (which is what it is for WikiProject Judaism and WikiProject Holidays). I haven't gotten WikiProject Israel to re-evaluate, and am about to change it myself, even though I'm the principal editor at this point, because it's clearly no longer a Start-class article.  (It is a little superficial, but is intended to be a survey article, not a detailed article.)
 * Hebrew calendar has a mix of B-class and C-class. I'm almost inclined to vote C-class, because I think it could be tightened up a lot, but I could go either way.
 * StevenJ81 (talk) 02:18, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

December 2012 thread
Steven, per your note on my talk page, I've removed the ref tag and added your cited reference to the article, all in good humor and a spirit of contribution. All best. --Lockley (talk) 21:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That works. Thanks very much.  StevenJ81 (talk) 19:47, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Zmanim
I saw your feedback on the article Zmanim. Thanks! -- ypnypn (talk) 22:44, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Indentation
Hey, you added indentation to paragraphs in the Hebrew calendar article that were tangential to the topic of the section that they were in. I removed them, and commented in my edit removing them that indentation is not typically used that way on Wikipedia; instead paragraph ordering and subsection structure is used. You simply added the indentation back. You did not respond in your edit summary to my reasons for removing them. Did you see my edit summary? Could you respond here? — Eru·tuon 18:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't see your edit summary. I was still in the middle of editing myself, so our edits must have crossed; I assumed I had accidentally deleted the indents myself, so I restored them.  My apologies for that.
 * On the main topic: just because indentation is not "typically" used that way doesn't mean it can never be used that way. I specifically did not want to use subsectioning here. I wanted to improve and tighten the "Structure" section, in part as a response to a comment on the talk page. I wanted to keep the description of the calendar's structure clean, while minimizing minutiae, if you will—though with generous links to details elsewhere.  Leaving out the issue of indentation, I hope you'll agree it's a clearer and more concise summary.
 * With respect to the two indents I added:
 * The Shabbat/week-cycle paragraph. The reality is that the Hebrew calendar incorporates two separate cycles:  the lunisolar month-year cycle and the seven-day week/Shabbat cycle.  So if you want to avoid explicit subsectioning, there are two ways to cover these two coexisting cycles.  One is simply to do the whole month-year portion first, and then the week/Shabbat portion second.  Instead, I chose the other:  to summarize each of the two coexisting cycles first, and then to provide further details.  I used indentation because it's a low-intensity way of distinguishing ideas without fully going to subsections—and because one easily sees that the third paragraph moves back in the direction of the first paragraph.  (I'll fully admit:  one reason it approach works is because the week/Shabbat cycle doesn't have, or need, further elaboration.  It's structurally a cul-de-sac.)
 * The Rosh Hashanah rules paragraph. I feel less strongly about this one, but here is what I was thinking.  The previously existing version had a single paragraph giving the lengths of the months, including "Marcheshvan (29 or 30), Kislev (29 or 30)."  But this description conflates two separate issues going on.  (1) The basic structure of the year requires alternating 29 and 30 day months to stay in line with the 29.5 day synodic month.  Changing around Cheshvan and Kislev has (just about*) nothing to do with that.  (2) Changing Cheshvan and Kislev is (pretty much*) about implementing "Rosh Hashanah postponement."  I thought it would be clearer to separate those issues so people could see (1) the basic structure of the calendar around lunar months in the year, and (2) Rosh Hashanah postponement, as the separate issues they are.  And again:  The basic structure of the year continues down the margin, while the Rosh Hashanah postponement issue is a brief cul-de-sac.
 * The asterisks above: Turns out that mean synodic month is 29.53 days. In reality Cheshvan is lengthened to 30 days slightly more often than Kislev is shortened to 29 days, and this difference covers the extra 0.03 days.  But that's REALLY more detail than this summary needs.
 * I'd courteously request that we leave things as they are now. However, if you feel strongly about it and really want to "unindent" the second of the two I won't object.  I fully appreciate that one should not ignore the style rules, but I don't think they are cast in stone, either.  StevenJ81 (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Einstein and Marx
Hi :-) There is a vote/discussion on the topic now. Guitar hero on the roof (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Siddur and Mazhor (or however they're spelled)
Pages moved. Also reassessed both of the direct child articles as of top importance to Religion, as they basically constitue half each of one of the Top importance articles. John Carter (talk) 17:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much.
 * (I thought you might change the importance assessments to "Top". I gave them "High" at first because WikiProject Judaism only ranked them as "high",  not that my humble opinion was asked.) StevenJ81 (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Top or High?
[subheader added 16:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)]
 * FWIW, I am going to get around and make an article list like the one at WikiProject Anglicanism/Encyclopedic content and other similar lists for other religion projects, for Judaism, based on one of the more reputable, shorter, reference works. Unfortunately, they take a few days to prepare, and those lists are based on having availability of a given reference work for several days, and I just haven't gotten to it yet. But I think when such a list is presented to the Judaism WikiProject, that might help some organization of the material. John Carter (talk) 18:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I doubt, for example, that WikiProject Judaism would ever find Tekhines as "Top Importance".  StevenJ81 (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Right now, I've got only an early edition of the EoR, and it appears that article was added for the second edition, so it probably is a bit less important than some of the articles in the first edition. Part of the question here is determining how broad to make "Top" importance. My own opinion is that if a subject is an article in a major, widely-regarded, truly encyclopedic or universal encyclopedic source, it probably does qualify as "Top" or "High" importance. Basically, we should follow the other existing most reliable sources. I did find a lot of content regarding religious art and music had been earlier counted as less important, but in the encyclopedias I've checked so far those topics have substantial coverage in like all of them, so they evidently are considered to be more important than we had earlier considered. Again, for my own opinion, "Low" importance would be something the churches or synagogues in some small town in Wyoming, for instance. The kind of subject that's nice to have content on, but not something you'd expect to find discussed, or even mentioned, in a short reference work on the church itself. Following that line of thinking, which really is consistent with the assessment criteria, that would push a lot of subjects of broader importance up a little. But the shortest Judaism encyclopedia that I've seen so far that looks useful to me is about 1000 pages long, and it will take a lot of time to go through that. John Carter (talk) 23:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to go along with "... it probably does qualify as "Top" or "High" importance," but I think we can use a little bit of judgment regarding distinguishing between "Top" and "High" for our own purposes. We don't exactly know what the editors' criteria were for EoR, especially early on, but I think we can be pretty certain that there is some range of importance within their own work.  Restricting myself to Judaism, for example, I feel pretty confident that "Passover" is more important than "Tekhines," and was, even to them.
 * Also, do we know that they weren't thinking 'Let's be sure to get "tekhines" in here because maybe people will lose track of that otherwise; no danger of that with "Passover"'? If that were the case, our classifications need to be different:
 * In my view, and it's only MHO, "Top" are things that we would want to be absolutely, positively sure are correct because they are of unquestioned importance. To that end:
 * If a "full Wikipedia" were ever committed to print and "they" have to pick and choose religion articles, "Top" are the articles that "they" absolutely must print.
 * In comparison, and parallel to EoR, maybe "High" are the articles "they" would pick if they are publishing a "Wikipedia of Religion."
 * In any case, I'm of the opinion that we should really let "Top" be things that our consensus says are "Top."
 * StevenJ81 (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, one other thing:
 * Some of these "encyclopedic sources" have their own biases in them, so once we find them we're entitled to our own spin on their importance. For just an example, the old Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906, an enormously important piece of scholarship, is (of course) simply hopelessly out of date in many respects, not least of which is anything having to do with Israel, European Jewry, or the Holocaust.  But even if you leave its dated-ness out of it, it has a bias toward Ashkenazic practice and custom, and information on parallel Sephardic practice is sometimes missing or incomplete. If you click over to that article, you can start getting a sense of why that happened; that it happened doesn't for a moment decrease its importance as a reference work and a piece of scholarship.
 * Still, some of the missing or incomplete information on Sephardic practices is, by any reasonable and objective standard, as important or more so than some of the things that were included in the Encyclopedia. If they had limited themselves to twelve volumes of approximately the same size, they would have had to remove some things to include others.
 * To minimize those sorts of bias, I'm more inclined to use "inclusion in the current edition of EoR, or Encylopedia Judaica, or whatever, as criteria for "Top" or "High," more than "inclusion in the public-domain version."
 * 17:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Luni-solar or lunisolar?
[conducting discussion on the talk page of User:] StevenJ81 (talk) 15:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Volf Roitman
Hi Steven, I did appreciate your article on Volf Roiman. I am ding a research on this artist to complete à PHD research on Latin-American Concrete Art, that will be followed by a publication on the topic and i would be grateful if you could help finding more information on this artist. My email is alexandrinepereira@gmail.com, please do contact me. with many thanks and best regards, A — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.205.195 (talk) 18:43, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

LAD User SUL Box (was Re:Thank you)
Again, welcome! and sure, let's work on it! --Maor X (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * So look at this section of my sandbox: User:StevenJ81/sandbox.  I put two potential version of the SUL box in.  One would let you translate the box into lad using both Latin characters and Hebrew characters; the other would just let you do Latin characters.  I think the former would be cool, but I can hardly insist, can I?  But if you can translate the rest of the box text into lad, then we'll have a userbox!  StevenJ81 (talk) 18:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it is ready. I'm not an expert at writing Judaeo-Spanish with alefbet, but I think it is OK now :-) --Maor X (talk) 07:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * So cool! I think we're close to done now.  So a couple of things:
 * You can test it out (on en, not lad) by transcluding .  Parameter |1=xx gets the 2 or 3 letter language code of the home wiki (e.g., en, lad, fr, he).  Parameter |2=xx gets the project code of the home wiki (e.g., w, wikt, b, commons, meta).  For parameter 3|=:  If there is any value in place, the box appears with both Latin letters and Alef-Bet.  If it is missing, only Latin letters.
 * In order to go live, I think we need directions in Ladino for the above. You can see what I did at he:תבנית:User SUL Box.
 * The template "Userbox" (which this uses) doesn't exist in lad. Is it worthwhile for you to import it from here? May be worthwhile, but I worked around for this purpose. 16:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * שבת שלום.
 * StevenJ81 (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It is awesome :-) Can you please create the directions in English? I'll translate them into ladino :-) --Maor X (talk) 19:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Please check :-) --Maor X (talk) 20:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think we are done now :-)

Thank you ...
... for the falafel and the kind wishes. All the best, — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:44, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd
Dear Deb, Dude, the page was contributed by me about one of the largest marketing research company of India (esp. in Bangalore). It was also having many references from the top newspapers of India. I hope Wikipedia will reinstate that piece. Best regards, --/Suneet87 (talk) 05:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You need to consult about that one.  I had nothing to do with it.  StevenJ81 (talk) 13:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

For Malik re (a) Walk Tall ... (b) Talmud
I suspect where he's going is that no one declared war on Israel because no one ever recognized Israel. So for people like you potentially adjudicating the neutrality or correctness of the statement, does a declaration promising to "wipe out the Zionist entity" constitute a de facto declaration of war on Israel, even if Israel's existence de jure is not recognized? Just a thought for you ...

Separately: Haven't seen any trouble on Talmud recently. You can unwatch if you want, and I'll let you know if trouble flares up again. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:31, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you may be right about Walk Tall Hang Loose.
 * I'm glad there haven't been any problems at Talmud. I'll continue to keep an eye on it. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Droit de modifier des pages du wikipédia francophone
Bonjour, vous avez compris un peu le français que je suis francophone, merci pour le message à propos de 1635 in Quebec dans ma discussion.

Je voulais modifier des pages du wikipédia francophone, mais mon adresse IP 204.237.12.81 est bloqué pour 2 ans jusqu'à la fin du mois de novembre 2014, mais au mois de novembre 2012, mon adresse Ip est débloqué pendant environ 6 mois, j'ai modifier des pages et quelque jours plus tard, il m'on bloqué, je ne faite aucune vandalismes, mais peut-être que j'ai des fautes d'orthographes dans la plupart des pages, j'ai envoyez des messages à tout les jours de mon courriel et wikipédia francophone m'a pas répondue, ni envoyez un message.

Je vous demande s'il y a un moyen de me débloqué mon adresse IP du wikipédia francophone, parce que je connais des nouvel événements et des personnalités décèdes pour la page 2013 au Nouveau-brunswick, le voici :

Événements
 * 11 mars : L'ancien premier ministre Shawn Graham quitte ses fonctions de député de Kent.
 * 15 avril : Le chef de l'Association libérale du Nouveau-Brunswick Brian Gallant remporte l'élection partielle de Kent avec .59 % du vote contre 26% pour la néo-démocrate Susan Levi-Peters et 13% pour le progressiste-conservateur Jimmy Bourque.

Décès


 * 6 mars : Stompin' Tom Connors, chanteur.
 * 27 mars : Martin J. Légère, homme d'affaires.

Et aussi je pourrais crée une nouvelle page la 28e élection générale saskatchewanaise que ma mère a traduit celle de la page anglophone 28th Saskatchewan general election, le voici :

La 28e élection générale saskatchewanaise, devrai eu lieu le 2 novembre 2015, afin d'élire les députés de l'Assemblée législative de la Saskatchewan.

Date

Sous la section 8.1(2) de l'Assemblée législative et l'acte du comité exécutif de 2007 (Saskatchewan), cette élection doit avoir lieu le premier lundi du mois de novembre, dans la quartrième calendrier annuelle à chaque élection. Comme la dernière élection de 2011, la prochaine élection sera le 2 novembre 2015. Par contre, la loi permet aussi que la couronne a le pouvoir de dissoudre le parlement, par exemple lors d'une motion de non confiance.

Si Wikipédia francophone ne me répondai pas encore à mon courriel, je vais envoyez à tout les jours que je fesais pas des vandalismes et qu'il laisse une chance pour moi, alors faite votre mieux StevenJ81 si vous pouvez trouver quelque chose un moyen que je peux modifier des pages francophones du wikipédia français.

Bonne soirée et journée! Godinpédia (talk) 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Vous avez fait les additions sous le nom Monapédia, n'est-ce pas? Si votre modifications ne seront pas problématiques, vous n'aurez pas de problèmes non plus, je pense.
 * Est-ce que vous allez faire la modification que j'ai suggéré? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oui, c'est bien mon utilisateur Monapédia et que j'ai mis les événements que je vous aie montrer, j'ai créer un utilisateur à une des maisons pendant quatre jours et quand je voulais connexion chez moi, je peux plus modifier et j'aimerais si vous pouvez faire quelque chose à débloqué mon adresse IP, je pourrais ajouter d'autre événements dans les pages des années au Canada, au Nouveau-Brunswick et au Québec et j'aimerais créer quelque pages des députés provinciales, territoriales et fédérales. Alors, faite votre mieux à me débloqué de mon adresse IP 204.237.12.81 du wikipédia francophone. Godinpédia (talk) 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Vous avez une grande histoire de faux-nez. Voyez ici:  fr:Wikipédia:Faux-nez/M-A92.  Ce me sera difficile convaincre les admins vous débloquer.  Il me semble que fr:Utilisateur:Letartean essaie de vous aider, mais vous devez lui entendre.
 * Si vous ne laisserez pas tomber Wikipédia francophone jusqu’à Novembre 2014, vous devez promettre aux admins là:
 * De ne modifier qu'employant un seul nom utilisateur
 * D’écrire un français courant, pas une traduction logicielle. Croyez-moi:  il faut utiliser un français acceptable.
 * Avez-vous fait une requête aux administrateurs? Ou bien seulement un courriel?
 * StevenJ81 (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * J'ai bien compris, je vais juste un seul utilisateur, mais j'aimerais change de nom de Monapédia et Godinpédia et je vais faire de mon mieux des mots francophone acceptable et non un traduction logicielle, mais j'ai pas faite une requête aux administrateurs, mais j'ai envoyez des messages du wikipédia francophone de mon courriel. Godinpédia (talk) 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Vous devez faire une requête aux administrateurs. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * J'était entre dans la page francophone WP:RA, donc il faut que je fasse un message aux administrateurs du wikipédia français, si c'est ça que vous me demander, mais je peux pas modifier c'est bloqué et croyais-vous si vous me donne des exemples quand je pourrais modifier des pages sur Wikipédia francophones avant mon adresse IP 204.237.12.81 sera débloqué dans quelque jours pendant le choix des administrateurs, au lieu au mois de novembre 2014. Godinpédia (talk) 30 April 2013 (UTC)