User talk:Ubarfay

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Scepia 07:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
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December 24 2006
Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. As a member of the Wikipedia community, I would like to remind you of Wikipedia's neutral-point-of-view policy for editors. In the meantime, please be bold and continue contributing to Wikipedia. Thank you! Gzkn 08:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

how do I engage the community?

 * Engage the community in what way? A good place to start is the Community_Portal, if you are looking for interesting things, or ways to help. You could consider joining one of the IRC_channels to chat in general to the community, if you want real time conversations. Or, if you would just like someone to work with you, you can request to be adopted. Someone would be glad to make sure your questions are answered.
 * Let me know any other questions you may have. -- Sir Escher talk 09:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Sir Escher -- how do I continue this exchange with you? Are you somehow automatically notified when the page is changed? I'm mostly trying to understand how the process works when I make an edit and someone else overrides it as objectionable. I've read up a bit on the appeal process, but couldn't find a place start an appeal. Any help appreciated. --Ubarfay 01:42, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You can continue this exchange just by posting here, as I have your page on my watch list, so I will notice when it changes. For a longer term solution, to get a hold of me (or anyone else), leave a message on my talk page, and I will be notified.
 * As for editing conflicts and appeals, you can find information on the List of policies, for whatever policy you need information on. Looking at the diff of the change that you made that was reverted, I would suggest you take a look at the guidelines on neutral point of view, verifiability, and Citing sources. The reasons your changes were reverted were:


 * 1) They were not in a neutral point of view, ie someone of the Christian faith would probably find them offensive.
 * 2) They were not verifiable. When you say "widespread outrage", you need to provide facts to prove that people really were outraged.
 * 3) They were not cited properly. If you look at the page on original research, you will see that any facts stated need to be from other reputable sources, and we cannot interpret them in new or novel ways. That is best left to sites for research, which you are welcome to put your information on. Instead we collect already known information, much as an encyclopedia does.
 * At this point you probably don't need to worry about the policies on the appeal process, as I can almost guarantee that your changes would not be kept. Instead, I would read up on the general guidelines for new editors (the New contributors' help page is a great place to start). In no time, you will be making great edits that won't just be reverted out of hand. -- Sir Escher talk 02:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This is very helpful, thanks. So how does one flag an article as offensive? Specifically, the article I tried to edit is full of religious claims about apparitions and supernatural powers, notions offensive to atheists unless clearly designated as legends or myths. Is there some tag that I can use to ask for an authorized editor to review the article for neutrality? Ubarfay 22:44, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Read the page on neutral point of view. Then, if you still think an article is written with a bias, there are a couple templates a the bottom of the page you can use to tag the article or sections of it as possibly POV. You would be advised to put your reasons on the talk page at the same time, or someone may remove the tag as vandalism. -- Sir Escher talk 04:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Your advice has been invaluable. Thank you for taking the time to educate me. Ubarfay 06:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem. Have fun on wikipedia! Edit: Just wanted to add that I have taken a look at the edits you are making now, and I think that they have come a long way from your first edit to Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Great work! -- Sir Escher talk 07:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Religion edits
Ubarfay,

The only reverts I made were specific to the ranges you calculated, which fall under the WP:OR. I'm not sure what you mean by "wholesale". Can you please clarify? Again the only issue I have are with the calculation of a low estimate for Christianity which cannot be referenced because it is OR, and especially with the high estimate for non-religious which is not only based upon the low estimate for Christianity but is produced through original research that necessitates an odd assumption about how lowering the Christianity figure effects the non-religious group. Anyway, what do you mean by wholesale? I left all your other edits in tact. I rather specifically only targeted those. Please explain because i'm confused.PelleSmith 04:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * PelleSmith, Can't tell from the history if it was you or someone else who restored the changes I was asking for in the note I left on your Talk page. (When I left you the note, the article had been reverted to the version I had found when I began my series of edits two days ago -- I see that it is now back to a state that I can accept until the community resolves my RfC.) Assuming it was you, thanks. I'll accept for the time being your objection to introducing other figures to the section and won't get into an edit duel with you over it, though I still maintain that as written the section is clearly pro-religion and pro-Christian in its POV, and my arithmetic additions are not original research by the criteria on WP:OR. We can continue the discussion about the appropriateness of using single values vs. ranges; high, medium or low estimates; sources which have a clear bias; whether non-adherents should be treated as a class of adherent or simply be the remainder of the population that isn't claimed by a given religion; etc... on the Talk:Religion page. We both seem to think the thing's a mess, so may find ourselves more in agreement on the specific concerns I'm trying to raise to the community that cares about this page. Maybe you can help me understand the Wikipedia process for driving to resolution the methodological objections that I listed at the top of my RfC. So far I'm rather surprised that you're the only other person with an opinion about any of this. Thank you for engaging, happy holidays and best regards, --Ubarfay 06:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not be used as a source
Please see WP:CITE, last row in bold. You can find the verifiable reliable sources from other articles, but those have to be cited in each article, as other articles can change over time. Also from Avoid_self-references you should not state something like "From wikipedi"; quoted from that article "Avoid self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project, such as 'This Wikipedia article discusses ... '", Regards, -- Jeff3000 02:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Jeff3000, that was quick :-) -- thanks for the clarification. Here's the conundrum wrt the Islam figure of 1.4 billion. The (presumably verifiable) external source for that estimate is embedded in the body of the introduction to the Islam article, which is locked. I assume you would have no issue with using the same external reference on the Religion article? If you would not object, any idea how to unlock that section of the article (read-only) to get the full reference? Also, do you have any opinion on the RfC I have presented on the Talk:Religion page? I'm kind of surprised that only one other editor User:PelleSmith has responded, given what seems to be a large and energetic interest community for the article. You seem to be one of the most active contributors and I would value your input. Regards, --Ubarfay 03:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your question regarding it being locked. My opinion is that using Adherents.com is appropriate and an easy way to keep track of many different source of statistics.  The interested reader can easily go to adherents.com and see the sources of all the different sources.  I don't think using the 1.4 billion number is that great because it is on the high-end of the estimates.  BTW, please respond on my userpage, I don't usually look or track other people's talk pages. -- Jeff3000 03:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Encyclopaedia Britannica uses Barrett, and the World Christian Encyclopaedia, and if they are good enough for Encyclopaedia Britannica, they're good enough for me. That they don't use their own data is a good thing, they cite multiple different periodicals, academic journals and the such.
 * Any adherence methodology will be "controversial", at least adherents.com clearly states this and gives examples.
 * Any other source will have these problems compounded by making it more difficult to compare them, adherents.com allows the interested reader to go through all the statistics in one place. -- Jeff3000 04:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure, those statistics will paint a different picture, and that's the problem. A repository such as adherents.com gives statistics from many different sources and is the best way to go in my opinion. -- Jeff3000 04:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Comparison of Religious Demographics.JPG
An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Comparison of Religious Demographics.JPG, has been listed at Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page for more information if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Jeff3000 15:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

What does Ubarfay mean?
Just out of curiosity does it mean anything? Its not Pig Latin is it?PelleSmith 12:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a Turkish name: Fay Ubar. What's PelleSmith? Pelle is your first name? Ubarfay 03:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)