User talk:Kim Bruning

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Hello! Note that I am away. Please append your message at the end of the page, though I can't promise I'll do anything about it atm.

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[edit] Discussion on Jimbos page

I am awake and waiting for your counterarguments. Prandr 11:09 CEST, 14 May 2007

[edit] Super datatool!!!

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hauptautoren. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eloquence (talk • contribs)

[edit] Wikipedia has a second Carlos admin

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[edit] Governance reform and AGF challenge

Hi! I've been reading through some of your comments on WT:Governance reform. I find hard rules and binding decisions as appealing as the next person, but I also find your arguments very compelling.

Working within a corporate hierarchy, I see first-hand the tension between being bold to get things done, and waiting for the formal decision-making process to complete. When I do employee performance reviews there are usually questions on the form about display of management skills. Non-manager employees almost always skip these questions on the grounds that they simply have zero opportunity to exercise management skills. I tell them that the true test of management skills is exercising influence over others when you don't have a manager title, or when they don't report to you. I guess this corresponds to building consensus.

I followed the link to WP:Lectures, and I'm sorry to find that I missed the session on Fill's AGF challenge. I'm sure that you're really busy, but I'd appreciate any feedback you might have on my answers. Cheers, Bovlb (talk)

[edit] Ottava Rima

I saw your comment on ANI, and I think you might be incorrect in some of your assumptions about Ottava.

Ottava may have the material in front of him when he writes, but he subjectively lifts passages and interprets what is being said by sources, instead of simply stating what the source says. See as an example Talk:A Song to David#What Rose States. Ottava tries to justify what he added to the article by ignoring the context of what is being said in the source in favor of simply taking the parts that suit his conclusion (as I show). His response is to claim that in the source, the author is "mocking" dissenters, and bases it on interpretation because he supposedly knows the author (which is COI), at which point there was no point in continuing the discussion.

Fundamentally, this started out as a question of whether or not Christopher Smart was a Freemason, and whether his book A Defence of Freemasonry was notable enough to be included in the WikiProject. As far as I can tell, Arthur Sherbo wrote many articles on Smart in the 1960s in which he definitively claimed Smart was a Freemason. Rose, writing in 2004 or 2005, is not as sure. Ottava claims records were lost (on what basis I don't know), and then suddenly "finds" sources he can't actually produce to verify his claim. What he's doing is flailing around in a subject area he knows nothing about (Freemasonry) and refuses to be corrected by people who have more experience in the field.

This is all evidenced in the thread noted on ANI, and it's the only way I can explain Ottava claiming a book I never heard of (Defence of Freemnasonry), which was related to an event I most definitely have heard of (the Antients-Moderns split in English Freemasonry in 1717), had an effect to cause another event 48 years later (the reunification in 1813). It's also the only way I can explain why Ottava claims an appearance of the book title in a footnote in a so-called "Masonic history" whose reliability is possibly questionable makes it notable, and the only reason I can think of why Ottava would claim "Phoenix Lodge No. 9 is authoritative on British Freemasonry" (a group I've never heard of) when in fact Quatuor Coronati 2076 has been researching Masonry for almost 120 years, and has an established record of requiring a scholarly background to write for them in the first place (they require an MA at minimum).

So it's definitely unrepentant, incivil, and tendentious editing on Ottava's part, and I don't believe there's anything to be gained in discourse. He simply will not take no for an answer if it isn't what he wants to hear.MSJapan (talk) 07:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, this will probably be the last time I look at a case for quite a while. :-)

I can't apologize for Ottava Rima's ham-handedness for him, of course, he's going to have to do that himself. Even so, I have been explaining to him where he's going wrong. He didn't want to listen to me before; now that he has been blocked by some rather experienced admins, he's starting to realize maybe he should have listened. I figure it's never too late to learn ;-)

Possibly this ham-handedness has made you prejudiced towards what he has been saying. It's always important to doublecheck oneself when one is irritated (which is wont to make one yet more irritated, of course :-P ) <scratches head> Let's see...

Which sources has Ottava Rima failed to produce? Unless I've been told stories (unlikely, but it does happen), perhaps I can obtain them for you?

You're telling me you haven't read one of the sources which Ottava Rima referenced. Could you get that out of the library and check?

Two sources you mention both did similar research to what Ottava Rima did, and one reported that Christopher Smart was definitely a Freemason, and the other reported he was uncertain, correct?

I'd take that to mean that the topic isn't quite cut-and-dried, but instead that there is some room for interpretation, at the least. It certainly means you can't dismiss claims that Christopher Smart was a Freemason out of hand. Am I reading this correctly?

I've gone and done some own reading, and the very first reference I find with some meat to it is The arcane schools, John Yarker, Page 478 (And checking John Yarker shows that he was a freemason in the 17th century) . I'm admittedly not an expert on the subject, but apparently the 1765 document in question was one of several that came out at the same time, criticizing certain practices and supporting others (ancients vs moderns?). Reading onwards a bit, it does look like people took the criticism to heart and set off some chain of events. Whether or not this is a chain of events that lead to (or contributed to) the reunification of 1813 you speak of, I do not know at the moment. But just from a random google search, it seems that at least some of what Ottava Rima is saying (and you are contesting) has some grounds in sources.

Oh, right. I'm sure that my answer wasn't quite what you wanted to hear from me, of course. ^^;; Sorry about that. Still, do you have access to a library where you can obtain the 1765 document? It seems central to the current dispute, and might be worth checking then.

In the mean time, I'll keep whacking Ottava Rima over the head with a cluebat. ;-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

There is some room for interpretation of Smart's status, yes, but I tend to put more weight on newer research that is uncertain, especially since the claims Sherbo makes are not provable reliably (because Sherbo's Masonic info is from at best a secondary source, and that source is not always considered credible by Masonic scholars. The problem with earlier Masonic scholarship is that it tends to be fanciful and uncritical. Yarker was a late 19th century Freemason, and an irregular one at that; I'd have to see the contents of the source to see if it's credible given what is factually known.

Given that Smart's contemporaries have records, if he was a member, he should have a record somewhere. Records are extant in England from the formation of the first Grand Lodge in 1717, so the idea that Smart's in particular were "lost" doesn't really hold water.

The book I can't get a hold of easily is the Masonic Records book, though it may be obtainable; I have to check the library next week. I know it has the 1765 work. I'll get back to you on these.

As far as books go, there have been all sorts of books written. I would need to find a paper on the schism itself (which surely exists) to discover the chain of events, though the records reprinted in Gould's History of Freemasonry seem to indicate constant growth until 1813 in both Antient and Modern camps, which would not be indicative of a change in opinion (which is what Ottava's claim rests upon). There are remnants of it today, however - the appellations AF&AM (Ancient Free and Accepted) and F&AM (Free and Accepted) for lodges are indicative of this. MSJapan (talk) 18:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This is getting seriously out of hand - Ottava is doing whatever he can to create the impression that I don't know what I'm talking about every time I disprove his sources. If this isn't POINT, I don't know what is. MSJapan (talk) 03:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"Don't disrupt wikipedia to make a point" is where you deliberately follow a rule in a manner that disrupts wikipedia, to prove that the rule is indeed broken. Can you show me how that applies here?

My personal view is that it looks like you're both convinced that you're right, but you're somehow talking past each other. That's why I proposed to at least postpone the discussion for a while. It might be helpful to see what other people have to bring in, for one.

Also, I should probably talk with each of you separately, to see where the discussion is going wrong.

It could be that the issue is all on Ottava Rima's side, or it could be something else. Either way, I can then report to Ottava Rima what he is doing wrong, and I can report to the wiki community which of you is actually right. :-). --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, but I would request that the block remain in place for the time being; otherwise Ottava is simply going to revert everything to what he wants it to be. Either that, or topic ban him from Christopher Smart until the dispute is resolved, because it will solve the problem in the short-term while we solve it in the long-term. MSJapan (talk) 05:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to start a Wikiproject for 18th and 19th century Literature and you will help me. K? Kay. I'm glad thats settled. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 16:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)