User talk:Wikimedes

If you find me taking things too seriously, please whack me with a trout.

Welcome!

Hello, Wikimedes, 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 messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! RJFJR (talk) 21:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
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Why you couldn't name and re-use that citation in Invasion of Tibet (1950)
Hi Wikimedes. You must have been working in a Microsoft editor and then cutting, pasting into the browser. That one Goldstein citation had Microsoft funny-quotes in it instead of ASCII /UTF-8 standard quotes "". I've fixed it. Thanks for doing that work on the new section. Bertport (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * HI Bertport. That was the problem.  Thanks for fixing it.Wikimedes (talk) 10:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Areas taken from the Tibetan Government following the Invasion of Tibet (1950)?
You have it right. There are no large areas of land which were actually controlled by the old Tibetan government in 1949 but were not also included in the TAR. The area around Chamdo (a fairly large and quite populous area), which was controlled by the old government prior to the invasion, was removed from its control during the 1950s. It was governed instead by a Chamdo Liberation Committee. This may have been motivated by the fact that Chamdo was nominally part of the province of Xikang, although it had never actually been ruled by the ROC or affiliated warlords. The Chamdo Liberation Committee was represented on the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region (PCTAR) and it was merged back into the main Tibetan region when the TAR was established.&mdash;Greg Pandatshang (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Tibetan naming conventions
A while back, I posted a new proposal for Tibetan naming conventions, i.e. conventions that can be used to determine the most appropriate titles for articles related to the Tibetan region. This came out of discussions about article titles on Talk:Qamdo and Talk:Lhoka (Shannan) Prefecture. I hope that discussions on the proposal's talk page will lead to consensus in favour of making these conventions official, but so far only a few editors have left comments. If you would be interested in taking a look at the proposed naming conventions and giving your opinion, I would definitely appreciate it. Thanks&mdash;Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 16:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I might not know what I'm doing
In the process of fixing these page moves by I messed up Shishapangma. Can you straighten this out for me and I will stay out of the way of you or anyone else who is actually sure they know what they are doing in fixing these pages properly. Thanks in advance.--Racerx11 (talk) 00:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Also would you be so kind as to check my contribtions to make sure the other moves were done correctly. Just not sure now. Sorry about all this, but I was just trying help fix the mess. Hope I didn't make it worse.--Racerx11 (talk) 00:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Cho Oyu was my first redirect, but I'll take a look at Shishapangma. Thanks for taking care of Lhotse, it looks like it turned out fine.--Wikimedes (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * ok great. I am trying to get rid of the "hats" over the letter "a"s, but it wont let me make the move because it thinks its the same name.--Racerx11 (talk) 00:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks like a bot created a double redirect. Thats what Im not sure of, how are the redirect pages handled?--Racerx11 (talk) 00:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Renaming the page to something completely different and then naming it to Shishapangma without hats might work. 虞海 seems to have done the first step.  (I don't think the inability to remove the hats is a double redirect problem.  Moving_a_page talks about how to handle redirects immediately after a move.  "Toolbox"-->"What links here" on the left of the page will allow you to get to redirect pages at other times.  Sorry if I'm giving you information you already know.)--Wikimedes (talk) 00:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that the idea should work. Thing is, its really my fault by accidentally introducing the hats that this page got so screwed up. Unsure if I'm going about this correctly and the opposition encountered by the original editor, I'm hesitant to anything right now. I called upon a seasoned editor who has dealt with stuff like this in the past. Hopefully he shows up and can do something to fix this. Thanks--Racerx11 (talk) 02:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I found 28 post-1993 atlases that use "Xixabangma", none for the alternate spellings, see Talk:Xixabangma. Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 05:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
––虞海 ( Yú Hǎi )  ✍  14:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Dhaulagiri VI times two
Hi W/M - I addressed the problem with Dh vi double-listed in the article and its talk page. LADave (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Please see these discussions as you work through Xixabangma
,

--Mike Cline (talk) 11:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Taking a wikibreak. Back on Friday (West coast US time)
Hi All. Yu Hai's action here and to a lesser extent here have left me with 2 options 1) Waste a colossal amount of time studying wikilaw so that I can report him, or 2) Take a wikibreak. I've opted for 2. Maybe after a few days and some more sleep, it will look less to me like he changed a Wikiproject rating in order to influence an ongoing naming discussion. His statement here indicates that he has not understood most of the discussion on polling and is not aware of the current state of the discussion, which presents its own difficulties. I'll be back on Friday to see how things are progressing and to either help organize or participate in the poll. Have fun.--Wikimedes (talk) 05:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Re Xixabangma Poll
Be sure and notify both the Tibet and China projects about the poll. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I notified all 4 projects. Thanks for the reminder.  Now on to the participants.  You get one too, Even though you obviously know about it.--Wikimedes (talk) 00:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It might be useful to put a proposed closing date on the poll, something like 2 weeks, so that when you do close it, it doesn't appear to have been done arbitrarily. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. I wondering about when and how to close, thanks for the advice.  Should I be the one to close, or should it be a more neutral third party?--Wikimedes (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * If you can enlist a neutral admin to assess the poll, I think you'll get much more cooperation out of all the interested parties. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you be willing to close the poll?--Wikimedes (talk) 01:07, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I will be happy to close the poll on Friday when I return from my current trip. The first thing I'll do is tabulate the votes and ask for confirmation from the participants as to whether the tabulation is accurate.  Once that occurs, I'll close it with a recommendation. Thanks for your patience. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedes - well unfortunately your patience and the patience of others on this is being tried again by 虞海. If you haven't already noticed, he short circuited the poll with a unilateral move to Shisha Pangma claiming the poll results indicated that. I left him a terse note on his talk page about my personal displeasure here, but moving forward, I don't want to see this thing turn into an edit war over the title. Thus I've move protected the page for 30 days. I can't immediately tell whether there's any move/redirect/history repair needed, but the bots will help sort that out. I really appreciate your patience and work and its ashame we couldn't bring this one to a better fruitition. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikimedes - I am trying to bring in another admin with History merge expertise to help us fix this. Let's be patient here--Shishapangma wasn't built in a day.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no deadline, and I appreciate your work in cleaning up this mess. I think we eventually had a good discussion and concensus was reached, even though it was a long and windy road.  It looks like everything is fixed except the discussion archive, which is still missing.  Unfortunately we can’t move protect every article, and Yu Hai has gone on another rampage      .  I’m currently out of town on vacation, so I will happily leave dealing with it until I get back (or perhaps leave it entirely).--Wikimedes (talk) 07:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

“It looks like”
Sometimes I do assume bad faith. Well what I can say is that sometimes I cannot prevent myself from thinking that way. Indeed when Pseudois said "then please do it consequently" I thought he was accusing me again as if he told me "if you don't do that, you're self contraditory and doing systematic opposition". I admit that after his severe accusition to me, which successfully changed User:Quigley's idea from pro-Xixabangma to becoming disinterest about the result as long as conflicts not being intensified so that I wouldn't be banned, I didn't work well with him.

Anyway, whatever the result, everyone engaged in the discussion have becoming more sedate except for skilled arguer like you and Hike397. I believe I learned a lot from the discussion, and with I comparison I find that Pseudois' argument style has changed, too.

Due to my inadequate English (still I'm not sure whether it is inadequate English or selective receiving, in that each time when I read something carefully enough, I may understand it), I sometimes omit some critical point in arguments, e.g.: For example, it looks like Yu Hai is saying “Pseudois, you fool! You fell right into my trap! Muahhahahahahaha!!!!!” Because I used the phrase, “it looks Like”, (and the 5 exclamation points at the end) no one would think that I am quoting Yu Hai directly. Someone could then respond: “Wikimedes, your attempt at humor is unhelpful (and unfunny). at a first reading I read it as (not diliberately) You are no difference to say “Pseudois, you fool! You fell right into my trap! Muahhahahahahaha!!!!!” And such humor is unhelpful (and unfunny). another example, Pseudois': In addition to the arguments developed by Wikimedes, the pronuciation of "Shishapangma" does ... at a first reading I read it as My point is, the pronuciation of "Shishapangma" does ... and so on. I've realized this before, but not realized its severity (I mean, both the severity of my selective receiving and the severity of its result). Since the day I realized it perhaps one years ago, I've not succeed to reach a way to solve it, because Wikipedia comments are often long and careful reading simply take lots of time. Even when doing word-by-word reading, one may unconsciously skip one or several words.

––虞海 ( Yú Hǎi )  ✍  18:41, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Li Xiannian
I don't understand why you delete my edits about Li Xiannian and his role in Great Leap forward?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koroknait1 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I moved them to article’s talk page. Your edits were mostly about the end of the Great Leap Forward and its aftermath, so they didn’t belong in the 2nd paragraph of the lead.  The lead is supposed to summarize the article, and if I recall correctly, Li Xinnian’s role in the GLF and his subsequent fate are not mentioned in the body of the article, so they shouldn’t have been in the lead at all.  Also, it was inserted between the previous sentence and its citation so it appeared that the citation was being used as a reference for your addition as well.  Often this is done by mistake, but it’s hard to tell so I asked about it on the article’s talk page.
 * On the other hand, the information seems reasonably accurate, so I moved it to the article’s talk page for future inclusion in the article. I suppose I could have used it to start a section on the end of the GLF and its aftermath, but this topic is much broader than Li Xinnian’s role.  For example, I don’t think it would be right to cover Li Xinnian without also covering Liu Shaoqi.  Adequately covering the end of the GLF will take a lot of work, so I stored your edits on the article’s talk page.
 * In the meantime, I see you’ve been blocked as a sock puppet of User:Ana Sušac who has been blocked for improperly uploading images. From the little I’ve seen of your work, it looks like you have knowledge that would be valuable to Wikipedia.  I hope you can figure out the rules of the game so that you can contribute in the future.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for Rating of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
Hi Wikimedes, I'm trying to find people working on Wikiproject China (like you) who would be willing to re-rate my article Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. You can make comments on this review page. Any help would be much appreciated! P.S. I think your wikiname is great. best, -Darouet (talk) 00:29, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Tibetan sovereignty
It is pretty obvious that you are trying to push the point of view that China had nothing to do with ruling Tibet before the 1950's which is dishonest, and not the view of a consensus of scholars, or even the current Dalai Lama.

I cannot see any other plausible explanation for your continued removal of any comment about China with regards to the Yuan and Qing dynasties, or for your original supposedly neutral wording which gave 1 sentence to the modern Chinese position and 6 sentences describing the position of Tibetan independence activists.

If you actually read any neutral content about the Yuan dynasty (e.g something about Marco Polo) it highlights both its Chinese characteristics (e.g. its Chinese capital and its mandate from heaven) and its Mongolian descent and Mongolian summer capital. You also seem to be confusing the Yuan dynasty from the previous purely Mongolian rule of China, which everyone, including the current Chinese government, seems to manage to accept.

If the British government had moved its capital from London to New Delhi apart from in the summer, and gave themselves a name like other Indian dynasties and started exams in India for the running of its entire empire, then to claim the entire Empire was at that point entirely British would be dishonest - even if the King/Queen of Britain was still in charge.

With the Qing dynasty while it is clearly of Manchu origins, it is also clearly a typical Chinese dynasty with a capital in China, the mandate from heaven and the imperial examinations etc. etc. - and while of course sources will mention the dynasties Manchu origins I think it is highly likely to be similar to mentioning the House of Hanover's German origins. which is of course entirely reasonable. It doesn't mean that the British empire magically became German because the Empress was technically of German descent.

All in all I have added the term "Chinese" before the mention of the Qing dynasty, which while not entirely accurate cancels out the fact that the Yuan dynasty wasn't in fact entirely Mongolian. But if you want we can escalate the issue to a noticeboard or similar, or we can go back to my previous wording, which I prefer, as it highlights the Yuan dynasties Mongol origins without ignoring that it was at least partially Chinese. If there is a better way of highlighting the Yuan dynasties Chinese tendencies and its Mongol origin that is more reasonable I am also open to doing that. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 20:53, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, another ad hominem jump to conclusions. Since this is a user talk page and not an article talk page, I’ll waste some words on an ad hominem defense.  Objecting to the claim that Tibet was "generally considered to have been ruled by China" during the Yuan Dynasty is clearly not the same as saying that “China had nothing to do with ruling Tibet before the 1950's”.
 * I have already acknowledged the undue coverage in the original wording of my lead suggestion. If you take a look at my second suggestion you will find that it contains one sentence on the PRC’s view, one sentence on the ROC’s view, one sentence on the TGIE’s view, one (admittedly long) sentence on the views of 7 academic sources, and one sentence on what is agreed by all.  This is still just a draft.


 * On the other hand your words and actions have consistently been “more China, more China, more China!”. Your initial addition to the lead made the lead less neutral, not more, and you have repeatedly reverted attempts to make the lead’s treatment of the Yuan Dynasty more neutral.  In one case you wrote a message on an IP’s talk page accusing them of adding non-neutral content,.  This borders on biting, especially since the IP’s change appears to have improved accuracy.  Your comment here is of particular concern.  Do really think of everything as being either “the Chinese view” or "the non-Chinese view”?  Do you allow for the possibility of other types of views?  Verifiability?  Historical accuracy?


 * In terms of escalating, that’s something I’m not quick to do (a perfect record of zero escalations so far). We’ve actually made some progress.  You’ve given up trying to claim general agreement on Tibet being Chinese during the Yuan Dynasty, you’ve started reading sources (Met, British Museum, Grunfeld), you’ve finally read the article the lead is supposed to be summarizing (the last sentence of this comment indicates that you hadn’t at that time), I’ve been reading lots of sources, and you’ve helped make my suggestion for a lead paragraph more acceptable.
 * It's not accurate to call the Qing Dynasty Chinese, since neither the ruling Manchus nor the Chinese of the time considered the Manchus to be Chinese. Simply calling it the Qing Dynasty is neutral enough.  If you are on a mission to mention  China as prominently as possible in the lead, "Sinicized Qing Dynasty" would be accurate.  Descriptions of the Sinicization (and lack thereof) of the Yuan and Qing Dynasties would be great material for the body of the article, but may need to be too detailed for inclusion in a neutral lead.  If you think you have a concise and neutral way to present it, let’s take a look.  It may be better to write out the details first, and then try to summarize for the lead.  I’m working on it, but it won’t be finished for a month or so.
 * So, it’s been slow and sometimes painful progress, but probably not too bad for a POV minefield like the Tibetan Sovereignty Debate.  If you feel the need to escalate, go ahead, but my conscience is clear.  I’d rather be reading sources to help refine my idea of what neutral really is.--Wikimedes (talk) 02:11, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * With respect I don't call people out for pushing a point of view lightly. The view you were presenting was very close to the view of Tibetan independence people which tries to say that China never had any hand in ruling Tibet which is about as neutral as saying China has ruled Tibet for 700 years.
 * Maybe that is your opinion, and that isn't a problem, you are entitled to think whatever you like, but it was really coming across to me like you wanted to remove all mention of China from the lead. That is certainly what the IP editor you mentioned appeared to be doing - although some of their content probably was an improvement (e.g. the comment on the Ming).
 * When I initially took a look at this article I wanted to add something that was roughly down the middle between the Tibetan independence people and the pro-China people, which I felt my wording did. I certainly haven't always been "more China", "more China" - I clearly wasn't initially sufficiently unbias about the Yuan dynasty which is why I was happy to add quite a lot of content about the Mongolians to balance it.
 * I think you are right that it is a big POV minefield, probably more than I originally thought and I apologise for being rather quick to jump to conclusions.
 * I also appreciate the progress and compromises you have made. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:16, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * One of the reasons I read history is to immunize myself against propaganda, regardless of whose propaganda it is. I do work to keep Wikipedia articles from turning into propaganda pieces, but just because I complain about new inaccuracies that favor the PRC POV does not mean that I want inaccuracies favoring the TGIE POV, or any POV, or even completely neutral inaccuracies.  You may recall that early on I said that it was probably not correct to claim that all sides of the debate agree that Tibet was de-facto independent from ~1912-1950.  I apologize for not responding to your query on that.
 * I have another revision to my suggestion for the lead that I think you may find to be more neutral, and mostly I’m ready to go back to discussing things on the article talk page, but there are a few more things I want to touch on first.
 * Compromise is discouraged on Wikipedia. Saying something inaccurate and pro-PRC like “It is generally agreed that Tibet was part of China during the Yuan Dynasty” and then balancing it with something inaccurate and pro-TGIE like “It is generally agreed that Tibet was de-facto independent from ~1912-1950” makes the lead doubly inaccurate, not neutral.  Trying to balance it by saying “Mongol Yuan Dynasty” instead of just “Yuan Dynasty” doesn’t make it more accurate or neutral either, unless you also remove the claim about Tibet being part of China at that time or correctly label it as the PRC’s claim.
 * If this were an article about the history of Tibetan inclusion in and independence from China, the majority of the article would comprise what the majority of the reliable sources say about that history. PRC and TGIE claims that are at odds with that history would get a brief mention as notable minority opinions.  But this article is about the debate about those relations, so the article, including the lead, should be about the debate.
 * It’s a good idea to have a reference for everything in an article that’s a POV minefield, even in the lead. Until you have a reference, it’s pretty much just your opinion, and someone else is bound to have a different opinion.  Also, there’s plenty of propaganda on highly controversial topics, and making sure that what you say is backed up by a reliable source (or several) is a good sanity check to make sure that you haven’t fallen for someone’s propaganda.
 * Having someone who generally takes “the other side” of a discussion look at your work is another good sanity check. You see me as pro-TGIE and have said that I’m entitled to my opinion.  I appreciate that.  I see you as pro-PRC, and you’re entitled to your opinion as well.  Maybe we can keep each other honest.
 * --Wikimedes (talk) 17:14, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * We are now definitely discussing the article so I think we should switch to the talk page :).
 * The key point you have made about compromise I don't agree with, it is impossible to make each and every clause neutral without making it totally convoluted and thus make it lack brevity. Some bias in some clauses in the lead is inevitable I think. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:32, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure some local bias can be inevitable, but it should be avoided if possible or at least minimized, yes?
 * I agree it's time to go back to the article's talk page for most of the rest.--Wikimedes (talk) 06:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Tibetan independence de-jure independence
The NPOV section is getting rather long and unwieldy - therefore I have moved our comments on de-jure independence into a new section, I hope you don't mind. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Thank you.
 * In the Removal of well sourced materials section, Pseudois had described the removal of my edit on de jure independence as a removal, not it's inclusion as a distortion. I realize that you disagree, but it's probably better not to put it in the other section, as it distorts his original statement.  My suggestion would be to have one section describing both types of dispute, but it's more his call than mine.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello
You have been trouted for: Just saying hi.

WikiBear userbox
Since you wrote the WikiBear article I thought you might be a WikiBear and hence you might want to share the WikiBear userbox I made.  K . Bog  03:26, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for making the box! I added it to my userpage.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:27, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

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South
Thanks, but I'm really not a professional historian. The only books of that type that I'm personally somewhat familiar with are The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861 by William W. Freeling (ISBN 978-0-19-505815-4) and The Slaveholding Republic by Don E. Fehrenbacher (ISBN 0-19-515805-9). AnonMoos (talk) 20:29, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The Road to Disunion may be just what I'm looking for. Thanks.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
You're very welcome. Thank you for the barnstar.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

October 2013
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=577180270 your edit] to Mao Zedong may have broken the syntax by modifying 2 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just [ edit the page] again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/BBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/BBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=BracketBot%20-%20&section=new my operator's talk page]. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 20:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Book recommendation
In reference to your statement here about Mao's pre-1958 legacy, you may be interested in Frank Dikotter's latest book The Tragedy of Liberation. I'm reading it now. It is wrenching and extraordinary. Homunculus (duihua) 14:45, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the recommendation. I'm trying to get out of the habit of studying 20th century homicidal maniacs, but I may take a look at it someday.  I am aware than Mao murdered several million people prior to 1958 and have a bit of an inkling of the failures of the early collectivization attempts.  On the other hand, I think that the first several years of Mao's rule were an improvement over the previous decades of civil war and the Japanese occupation.  Given China's illustrious past, and the depths to which it had sunk in the first half of the 20th century, this is not really much of complement to Mao.--Wikimedes (talk) 15:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

"Knee-jerk"
I saw your "rant" (your own words) but a word of advice: what you have to say would be received better if it wasn't laced with ad hominems and sweeping slurs against other editors motives such as "pride" and the like. And if you want to make a personal observation on an editor then please name them, otherwise all will think you mean them. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed the ranting bits. I felt I had to say it, but no need to leave it there where it doesn't do anyone any good.--Wikimedes (talk) 02:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't agree that you had to say it, you could have used the same amount of bytes to source one of the articles. But all the same thank you for toning it down. If I may comment on the actual substance, perhaps consider that very minor French and German "conte de..." family names have WP Royalty and Nobility stubs on en.wp, wheras Chinese feudal state names (and resulting family names) don't have stubs. That doesn't mean that French/German surnames/nobility are inherently more notable than Asia ones, it just shows that en.wp has more editors contributing European family/nobility/genealogy articles than Asian ones. It doesn't make anyone who thinks that Chinese feudal state family names are notable a "fanatic." No hard feelings In ictu oculi (talk) 03:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that.
 * Continuing on, if all the effort that has gone into defending the existence of the Li stubs had actually gone into improving them (even in name space or the parent Li surname page), Wikipedia would have several more good articles. I notice that you actually have been working to improve the Li (郦) page, so hats off to you for that.
 * I don't know anything about the French and German family name stubs, but I generally don't think that the fact that other crap exists should be a reason for Wikipedia to have more crap.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

No Gun Ri confusion
, I’ve had a chance to look over the changes to No Gun Ri Massacre, in hopes that some tinkering might fix several newly introduced errors and misunderstandings, and then we could deal with the documents links, perhaps consolidating them in one place. But I find the new structure – the reshuffled sections – has confused things considerably.

The original laid out facts in a logical, chronological order: the war’s background, the events of July 1950, the survivors’ efforts to get at the truth beginning in 1960 (the “Petitions” section) and their final rejection in 1998, followed by the journalistic investigation confirming the killings in 1999, then the official investigations of 2001, followed by post-2001 revelations in the “New evidence emerges” section and the resulting “Continuing appeals” section. Eventually, the article reached the “No Gun Ri’s repercussions’’ section involving the T&R Commission, which did not investigate No Gun Ri and should be kept separate.

With the reshuffling, we now have the early “Petitions” section dropped down toward the bottom, after all the investigations that came afterward, even though it was that section that led naturally and necessarily into the “Associated Press story” section. We have the T&R Commission section plunked into the middle of the NGR investigations material, to which it does not relate, standing ahead of and separating the “Legal framework” section from the investigations, even though the investigations and legal framework are integrally linked. (In fact, some might see it as discussing the “legal framework” of the T&R Commission.) And then there’s suddenly a new section down below, “Possibility of investigations into other killings,” material that was pulled from the T&R Commission section and now makes little sense standing alone, out of context.

Similarly, the now-orphaned lines about Sloyan of Newsday and Kim Taewoo make no sense, and have been misunderstood and contorted. Sloyan’s news story was not an “additional investigation of air attacks.” Rather, he simply reported that the Army NGR investigators did not include the incriminating elements of the Turner Rogers USAF memo in their final report. Other newly introduced errors include an incorrect reference to “claims by the South Korean compensation committee,” misspelling of the ambassador’s name, and a syntactical problem or two.

I’m sure this article could benefit from some reorganization (but it would benefit far more from contributors’ taking an active interest in undoing the defamations, untruths and deletions inserted and perpetrated by one POV warrior). However, I think this reorganization started down the wrong road, producing a very confused article, and the only way out is to revert and start over, perhaps with the documents links, which I'll be happy to discuss further. Charles J. Hanley 21:27, 28 March 2014 (UTC) Cjhanley (talk • contribs)


 * Replied at talk:No Gun Ri Massacre--Wikimedes (talk) 12:31, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Twinkle.
Just letting you know about a tool called Twinkle, which allows you to basically do menial tasks like Afd or requesting page protection or reporting a user incredibly simply. (I saw you manually request page protection, which is why I'm telling you about it.) However do note that anything you do with it is your own responsibility. Feel free to revert/ignore this message if you already knew about it. ^^ Tutelary (talk) 16:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. I tend to be pretty low-tech in my editing and haven't done much in the way of administrative tasks (I think that was my first formal page protection request), but I'll keep Twinkle in mind if I move into areas where it will be useful.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:08, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

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NGR peer review
Hi, hope all's well. I was wondering if you could help me out in looking over No Gun Ri Massacre, which has seen some very intense disputes in the past. I believe uninvolved editors are badly needed on this particular article, especially given the sort of debate over sources and deep hostility that marred the editing process. Thanks very much; I appreciate your time. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 20:37, 20 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, I really appreciate the professional way you dealt with the article earlier. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 21:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)


 * There weren't any hostilities, Hanley just had a cow because the article didn't reflect his work 100%. Why he wasn't blocked from editing it over a clear COI is beyond me. WeldNeck (talk) 21:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Sure. What do you have in mind?  (Do you plan on on filing a formal WP:Peer review, should I go over the article and make changes/suggestions, do you want me to join the discussion on comments and suggestions you're going to make...?)--Wikimedes (talk) 04:08, 21 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your prompt response. I would appreciate whatever contributions you could make. My particular concerns are a possible overuse of primary sources without outside interpretation (OR), and the many new revelations that have seriously changed the understanding of NGR (Muccio et. al). If I am overreacting and the article looks to be in good shape, please tell me. If the major issues have been resolved, then I don't want to change it a whole lot either. Just given the history of the page, I am happy to see a stable version has been attained. Once again, thanks. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 13:29, 21 May 2015 (UTC)


 * No problem. The use of primary sources in the article is pretty unconventional for Wikipedia.  At least in the "Additional criticisms of the U.S. report" section, I think that the secondary sources cover the claims made and the primary sources are more for the interested reader to go back to the original documents to verify the claims.  This is not standard Wikipedia practice (maybe partly because it looks so much like original research?) and could use improvement.  I haven't actually read the secondary sources - you may want to check them for yourself.  Revising this section will be the first thing (or nearly) I'll try.  Thank you for working on the article.--Wikimedes (talk) 07:46, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I've had difficulty finding some of the sources, some of which are unavailable without subscription or lack URLs. This is obviously a problem. Any scholarly journals we could find would be a real boon, and it looks like there are some already cited. The more credible information, the better; unfortunately, what exactly constitutes "credible information" was argued over extensively.


 * In addition to pay walls, I expect some sources are only available in print. It's perfectly acceptable to use these sources in Wikipedia, and it is often the case that such sources are essential to the article.  It's part of what makes scholarly research challenging.  Do you have a university near by?  A university library is often a good place to find sources and get online access to journals.--Wikimedes (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Very good idea. I will see if I can find anything else helpful in the library. I have already applied for access to JSTOR, which would make my editing job a lot better. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 00:11, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I was very hesitant to get involved in editing this article at all, thanks to the long and heated dispute that I observed in the talk archives. Once I made some comments, another minor flare-up occurred. It is as follows: Me: Cjhanley: Me: WeldNeck: Me: WeldNeck:

Understandably, I was quite skittish while editing this article, fearing I would reignite the dormant dispute which had led to cordial exchanges such as the following:

I think these are highly representative of the past situation on the page, which really does have me worried of some sort of resurgent edit war. More contributors are needed to defuse the tension.

My apologies for this lengthy rant, but I greatly appreciate your helpfulness.

GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Yep, the talk page has been heated. With any luck we'll be able to get some stuff done before things degenerate to an intolerable level.  Completely off topic, but have you seen this article Octopus wrestling?--Wikimedes (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I have not seen the article. Why do you ask? :) GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 00:11, 25 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, my favorite edit war remains the Beevor/Russian historians/Soviet atrocities dispute in Battle of Berlin. Hours of entertainment right there. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 00:16, 25 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, my No Gun Ri-sense is tingling... I think there may be some developing mayhem there now on the talk page. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 17:30, 25 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Well that didn't take long to degenerate. I'll check in next weekend to see if the dust has settled enough to work on the article.  Regarding octopus wrestling - I thought the article was pretty funny and I saw your user box stating that the octopus was your favorite animal, so I thought you might get a kick out of the article.  Cheers.--Wikimedes (talk) 02:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

No Gun Ri-documents
Thanks for your efforts thus far on No Gun Ri Massacre. At this point, because I sense some confusion, and a natural lack of background on the subject, I'm urging all who are taking a hand in this to, please, review the documents at the Wikimedia page Category:No Gun Ri Massacre, here []. It can be a quick run-through. I've just discovered there's no link at the WP page to this compilation. I can't remember how it was configured previously, whether someone deleted it etc. But this is really a must. Thanks. Cjhanley (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Seeking assistance with mediation
Hi,

I'm sorry to both you once more, but I fear that things are becoming unmanageable over at No Gun Ri Massacre. We need to work on depersonalizing this dispute: each source and "viewpoint" has become too closely associated with each editor. If there's any way you could help -- anything at all -- I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 17:57, 17 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Once in a while, I take a look at the article, its talk page, and the talk pages of the contributing editors and come up to speed on the soap opera that is No Gun Ri. Last night I nearly made comments on CJHanley's umpeenth attempt to have sources excluded and proposal #8.  Generally after wasting a few hours thinking things through and deciding what to write I once again come to the conclusion that the current attempt at mediation, laudable though it is, is not going to solve the fundamental problems of the article until there are more subject matter experts with different points of view.
 * Now that you're thoroughly conversant with the Wikipedia issues of the article, my best advice is to leave the article for a while (however long it takes - there is no deadline) and really delve into the published sources on the No Gun Ri Massacre. Then you'll be in a much better position to evaluate what weight to give to which sources.  At that point it might be a good idea to rewrite the article how you think it should be written off wiki or in your sandbox. That way you'll have some idea of what the finished product should be and you can get right to to fundamental changes that need to be made.  Or, perhaps your new version of the article will be seen as a net improvement on the current article and replace it, or become a working model for rewriting the article.
 * The same advice applies to User:WeldNeck and anyone else who is willing to put serious time into improving the article. CJHanley has a several year head start on this, and has already made clear what he thinks the article should look like in his multiple attempts to convince other editors to revert to his earlier version of the article.
 * I'm more of an occasional editor and not a subject matter expert, so about all I can do is make occasional suggestions or play devil's advocate and see if these make sense to editors more knowledgeable on the subject. There needs to be a few more subject matter experts with a few more points of view before this can be valuable.
 * My two cents.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:03, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Quite a valuable two cents -- thanks for your advice. Sorry if I seemed desperate; it's not an especially critical situation, I just want to try and resolve this long-standing issue. I will definitely do some reading. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 00:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

NGR, again
Just wanted to give you a heads-up that Iryna Harpy is reviewing the whole No Gun Ri dispute, and will (hopefully) be submitting to ANI in the near future. Lest I be accused of canvassing, I'll leave it at that. However, I think this is probably the best chance we have of resolving this situation.

Thanks for your help,

GAB (talk) 23:05, 20 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye out for it.  Whether or not I'll participate is another matter; in all the controversies I've been involved with on Wikipedia over the years, I think I've only posted to two ANI threads.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

A Belated Barnstar

 * You deserve this far more than I do, but thank you.--Wikimedes (talk) 07:42, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much. However, I could not disagree more: I've just talked and tried to mediate, while you have actually succeeded in mediating and -- critically -- improving the article's content. GABHello! 13:38, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

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Season's Greetings


GABHello! is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas6}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Best of luck to you,

GABHello! 01:15, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Happy Holidays and best of luck to you as well.--Wikimedes (talk) 21:30, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Gongga Mountain
You can see this website, http://www.summitpost.org/minya-konka-gongga-shan/150812 There is a detailed list of all ascents of Gongga. There is no record of ascent in 1981. 七战功成 23:02, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. I've added this citation to the sentence in question to avoid further confusion.
 * While you're here, I was wondering about this edit . There are different ways of calculating the death rate.  In the interest of WP:Verifiability, could you explain your method and data source at Talk:Eight-thousander?--Wikimedes (talk) 23:38, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

New requested move
Have you seen this new requested move?A ri gi bod (talk) 01:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

fish section of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event page
Although I'm not an expert just an enthusiast, I edited the fish section of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event page. I'm not a native speaker, so maybe the language cleanup request still applies, but I think the inconsistencies are gone. To be honest, I'm not quite sure if this is the correct way of denoting a change, but as far as I can see you was the one who asked for some cleanup, so I decided to write to you.

Regards Hzsm (talk) 07:46, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the improvements. Usually the article talk page is the place to discuss changes to the article, but it is nice that you notified me and we can continue here.


 * I think I understand what happened at the family level now. Could the information on the family level extinctions, now spread over 2 paragraphs, be combined?


 * "Within cartilaginous fish, approximately 7 out of the 41 families of neoselachians (modern sharks, skates and rays) disappeared after this event; 3 of 28 shark families and 4 of 13 of batoid (skate and ray) families."


 * And was this all covered in reference 52 (Kriwet and Benton)?


 * What happened to genera and species is still not clear to me. Is it that of the 47 surviving neoselachian genera, 40 (85%) were shark and 7 (15%) were batoid?  If so, does this really represent a low survival rate for batoids?  For all I know, batoids only made up 15% of neoselachian genera before the extinction event.  Also, it seems strange that almost all batoid species disappeared after the K/T boundary, but 9 of 13 families survived.  Could this be clarified?
 * Regards --Wikimedes (talk) 08:40, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Wikimedes, I wish I never touched this article! :) This was the first time I've ever tried to improve something here, and now I'm in trouble. Maybe you're right, it would be feasible to combine the two paragraphs about neoselachians, but I think the original author's intention was to show the differences between the survival rates of teleosts and neoselachians so I tried to change as little as I could. Here is a little summary table I put together from Kriwet and Benton about the whole story. I think it will answer some of your questions about the generic and species level. (It answers one question for sure; all this info comes from K & B) The numbers are: total(sharks,batoids)

Family           Genus          Species Maastrichtian: 41(28,13)       107(61,46)      216(130,86) Danian:       37(27,10)         78(57,31)      130(98,32) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Extint:         7(3,4)           60(21,39)      182(99,83) Originated:    3(2,1)           31(17,14)       96(67,29) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Survived:      34(25,9)          47(40,7)        34(31,3)

As you can see some groups vanished, and some emerged around the K/T boundary, so one can play with this numbers endlessly. The original author used the same data, but sometimes wasn't clear enough about which numbers he refers to. So as I tried to clarify the picture I decided to speak strictly about the extinctions. Unfortunately the original paper is erroneous at the Danian genera, 57+33 yields 88 for total, however their table clearly shows 78. The paper also tells about some contradictions at the species level, so I tried not to mention anything but the families and keep as much of the original wiki text as I could. Yes, the result is far from perfection, but I think it's a bit clearer than the original was. Hopefully I can improve it a little further, but I have to look behind these pesky numbers before. Regards Hzsm (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Hzsm. Well, I'm glad you are working on the article.  Because of your work it's already better than it was.  Other than enjoying looking for fossil sharks' teeth (and finding the occasional ray plate) on the Chesapeake bay when I was younger, I don't know much about ancient sharks.  I just have the bad habit of picking at things that I don't understand.--Wikimedes (talk) 02:08, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Slug Moth!
Wow, what a gorgeous answer! μηδείς (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you!--Wikimedes (talk) 03:59, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Stu
Kindly refrain from edits that might appear to possibly refer to the above named person. The above named individual would prefer to not have reference to his personage described in a derogatory fashion by users such as the party to whom I am speaking. Your cooperation in this matter would be appreciated by the requestor and various other unnamed parties familiar with the ongoing communications. 2600:1003:B12D:77EB:81BC:AABB:B395:68A6 (talk) 00:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

RTG and RDMA
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is RTG and RDMA. --Jasper Deng (talk) 14:10, 20 December 2019 (UTC)