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Fun with anagrams

From the internet anagram server:

--user:Ed Poor (deep or sour)

global warming - a lamb growling, a grim ballgown
Kyoto Protocol - coy pork to loot
Antarctic Survey - try Satanic curve

George Bush (senior) and his wife: ego bugs her
George W. Bush and Boston winning the World Series: Hub egos grew
George W. Bush and the Internet: hugs Gore web, or begs we hug

Dick Cheney and his daughter: needy chick

Mary Cheney: Yeah, men cry

John Ashcroft: chant for Josh

John Kerry: horny jerk
Teresa Heinz: erase zenith (is teen hazer)

John Edwards: red dawn, Josh (Jews nod hard)

Surfer dude

Ya need to wake up and smell the fresh salt air
 and hear the seagulls calling and the surf rushing to the shore; 
Feel the sand beneath your toes and more;

Ever questing for that perfect balance between wave and board;

Swimming out eager for a thrill and riding happy homeward.

Pre-election stress

Come back soon, Ed. While obviously you've got hot-button issues like the rest of us, your normally even-tempered mediative (or should I say meditative?) personality is extremely valuable and encouraging to many of us. Good luck destressing....I imagine you'll feel a lot better on Wednesday morning, even if some other Americans wake up a little crestfallen (I admit, I don't share your political viewpoint, but I respect our mutual right to disagree amicably). And if you should wake up to bad news, well, come back here and edit away your blues. :-) See you soon, I hope. Jwrosenzweig 21:44, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good work

Hehe, October surprise - I just sat down to write it myself, when I saw you had beaten me to it by a few hours :) →Raul654 23:53, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Keep up the good work

Don't let the mailing list tempest get you down, you're doing great work on Wikipedia. Jayjg 16:06, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

Thanks for the support, you all. I'm not a saint, and I get discouraged just like anyone else. I've been having a lot of mood swings since mid-October, and I predict there's an even bumpier road ahead. -Ed

Another editing tip

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity." (Albert Einstein)

Current talk

Help with mediation?

Hi there. Would you be willing to facilitate a mediation between myself and User:Cautious? The situation is described on WP:RFM, but basically Cautious thinks that I am using an anonymous user to attack him (I am not). Its a simple miscommunication, but the situation is a bit uncomfortable as Cautious has attacked me on the vandalism in progress page, the talk page of at least one admin, and several times my own user page. I think that this is a situation that can be easily resolved and conflict is really unnecessary, and Cautious has agreed to mediation. I think both of us would be grateful if you could help us out. THank you very much, GabrielF 18:01, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your comments on my talk page

Thanks for your comments. What is the name of your church?

And just incidentally, can I try this (original) thesis on you:

The conflict between the Isrealis and the Palestinians is purely about land. Religion is not the issue, it is a mere slogan and pure propaganda. The Israelis show none of the hospitality that is central to Judaism, and the Palestinians none of the care for innocent life that is central to Islam. The tragedy is that members of neither of these religions seem able to criticise those who are bringing the names of their respective Gods to shame, and so the propaganda stands largely unchallenged. The covert secularism of both sides, and its wide implicit acceptance by those both inside and outside these and other religions, is key evidence of the crisis of 20th century spirituality which continues into the present.

Tom Lehrer put it very well in his song on nuclear proliferation: Israel's getting tense, wants one in self defense, the Lord's our shepherd says the psalm, but just in case we better get a bomb.

Food for thought? Don't get too stressed about it. God's in control. Andrewa 19:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your thesis. My church is Unification Church. Thanks for the anti-stress pep talk! (Anything's better than poisoning pigeons in the park) --Ed

And maybe we'll do in a squirrel or two... Andrewa 21:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Missing explosives in Iraq

Re your mailing list message, there appears to be a past version of the article written by you here. I don't know if it's the last version you wrote, but at least it might be something. Proteus (Talk) 16:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Feedback

I would appreciate your feedback on my comments I left at Talk:Current_events. Thanks! - Dejitarob 19:43, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Winter Soldier

Thanks. I would like to mention that I belive that this user is a VVAW member, and had been battling SEWilco for quite some time on this. The POV nature of his version is without question, and no ammount of evidence can change his mind. Perhaps I can, and I am willing to go through a long and lengthy debate, but I feel he will only come to the table if forced to do so. TDC 20:52, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Well, now you can discuss it on the talk page. Maybe Cecropia will unfreeze the page in a day or two. Good luck, and stay cool! --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 20:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've been trying to get user TDC to the discussion page for a day and a half now. Please see his comments and his threats of never ending revert wars on the discussion pages. And no, I'm not a member of the VVAW. Sheesh. -Rob

Well, he's got no choice now. And don't think I'm siding with him, I flipped a coin before protecting the page. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 20:57, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, you have locked in a POV article. This is all I got from him in response to my requests for discussion:

TDC - can you please explain why you have removed the formatting of sponsored events from the article? -Rob

You never explained your sweeping changes originally. The last stable version was by SEWilco [5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War&oldid=6080456), and your following edits were never explained. Do so now, or this edit war will never end. That I can promise you. TDC 19:41, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Please try to maintain a productive attitude here. Your threats and ultimatums are unwarranted. The version you cite by SEWilco is very old by several edits. What changes, besides formatting, do you take issue with? -Rob

Gee, I dont know, everything. TDC 20:02, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War"

Exactly how is a person supposed to deal with an attitude like that? -Rob

Long term, or short term? I've given him some rope, and if he hangs himself with it, we'll see about that on Monday. Meantime, if you two can work it out, Cecropia or any of the other dozens of admins can unlock the page. Think "cool", and have a nice weekend! :-) --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 21:04, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, Uncle... I'd gladly take that advice, if it weren't for one particular problem: The 2 articles in question are being referenced frequently over the next 4 days due to their relevance to political campaigns this year. Letting the POV mess stand for the next 3 of those 4 days while TDC hangs himself doesn't seem to be an acceptable solution. I hope you can understand my position on this. -Rob

Election

Ed, is it your understanding that "October surprise" means something that has been media-managed and deliberately sprung by partisan journalists at the appropriate moment, or can an October surprise be any unexpected news event? Would the bin Laden tape count? Evercat 18:46, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it is indeed 'deliberately sprung', but not necessarily by journalists themselves. That is, the journalists don't have to be the ones behind the manipulation of the electorate. Influencing an election is a sport with many players.

Does the article give the impression that only the media are behind October surprises? If so, then the wording is a bit off and should be tweaked. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 16:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ed, request

Hi Ed, I would like to respectfully request that the RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/IZAK be closed finally as many "48 Hour" deadlines have passed since its inception almost one month ago. I will also ask User:Cecropia. Thanks again for all your help. IZAK 02:21, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fine with me. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 14:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Update

Ed: Thanks for your interest, please see the update at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/IZAK#Seems basically resolved between Sam Spade and IZAK. On the basis of that alone the RfC should be closed by now (another reason is that the original "48Hours" deadline has expired many times over, during the past month.) Thanks again. IZAK 08:37, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Factoids looking for a home

Global warming theories

climate models generally predict an increased warming rate with height (outside of local polar regions). Neither the satellite nor the balloon records can find it. [1]
the National Research Council of the National Academies said on Jan. 12, 2000 that "The Earth's surface temperature has risen about 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Celsius ? or 0.7 to 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the last century... But data collected by satellites and balloon-borne instruments since 1979 indicate little if any warming of the low- to mid- troposphere ? the atmospheric layer extending up to about 5 miles from the Earth's surface. Climate models generally predict that temperatures should increase in the upper air as well as at the surface if increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are causing the warming." [2]

Misleading hockey stick graph

This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called "Monte Carlo" analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape! [3]
- Please don't create M&M. Ross McKitrick and McI already exist.
  - No worries, mate - me turned it into page o' links

Iraq War

The US invasion of Iraq and the swiftness of the American victory has taken the Arab and Muslim worlds by surprise, despite the well known superiority of Western arms. The effects of this upheaval have not been completely assimilated in the Middle East, and probably will not be totally evident until the success or failure of the Americans in their war aims becomes apparent. There are signs that it has produced both stirrings of democratization and a desire to appease the USA, and a counter-reaction of resentment and growing discontent. [4]

The US effort to gather support for an attack on Iraq faced opposition on the following grounds:

Arab countries and supporters who claimed that any action against Iraq is an action aimed at all Arabs, and serves Israeli interests.

Those who believed that the inspections should be renewed and continued.

Those who believed that the US should not act without UN backing. Many people of this opinion also opposed a UN resolution. [5]

Reverting 67.175.84.210

It was my pleasure. --David Iberri | Talk 19:19, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Boston meetups

Hello Ed, will you be in Beantown the weekend of the 20th? See Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston. It would be great to see you again. +sj + 21:19, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ko

That would be great. Ko could really do with some more Korean-speaking admins. Angela (a non-Korean-speaking admin) 22:28, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

LOL, I'm an English-speaking admin who can (barely) touch-type in Korean, with my 850-word vocabulary! My only hope is in recruiting. --user:Ed Poor (pre-US rodeo) 22:32, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

AMA

Do you know what's up with the AMA? I was an election official with Jwrosenweig, and there was originally supposed to be an election every 6 months. My election results message is still on the main page, and I was wondering if the AMAs were still even truely around. I would have sent this to Alex, but he's apparently rather infrequent these days. Anyway, my vote tallying services are open for business if needed. -- user:zanimum

See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":

See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":

Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Palestinian_terrorists and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Palestinian_terrorist_organizations and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Middle_East_terrorists and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Terrorist_organizations and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Islamic_terrorist_organizations and this one too: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Jewish_terrorist_organizations

IZAK 10:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't know where to make the following suggestion, but: Let's just have a terrorism category. That's enough. The sub-categories smack of partisanship.

While I personally side with Israel and tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic I try hard NOT to imbue my edits with this perspective. My goal here is not to present an objective view of reality -- since the consensus required for this on political and historical matters is patently unobtainable. I'll settle for NPOV: an accurate, unbiased recounting of the major points of view. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 12:58, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Dubious page?

I'm considering putting Muslims for Israel up for VfD on grounds of unverifiability and non-notability. Any thoughts? - Mustafaa 19:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ed, I really think VfD is the way to go here. Jayjg 19:41, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If any other sysop wants to restore it, they can. I think it's a fake. Did you visit the website? Did you Google for references? Did you note the orthodox Jewish spelling of Allah as "G-d"? It fails to meet Wikipedia standards for inclusion.

This is not a the world's blog, it's an encyclopedia. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 19:46, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. "Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product, or a business." (that's policy)

I'll concede that someone has started a website called Muslims for Israel -- like the website Arabs for Israel - but that doesn't mean there's a real organization behind it. A guy in my church likes to hand out business cards saying "New Revolution Productions" - but there's no company behind it, except in his mind. Should I make a Wikipedia article about the company he dreams of founding? --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 19:55, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

You might also be interested in Arabs for Israel, since you mention it above; I'm sceptical, though not as sceptical as the other one, since it at least mentions one person... - Mustafaa 02:28, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See Nonie Darwish and its talk page. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 15:26, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Regarding IZAK

Hi Ed, please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IZAK. Thank you. IZAK 10:00, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Look, IZAK, I've advised you repeatedly to avoid personal remarks on talk pages. When are you going to wise up? --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 15:59, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

As for the "port of call" - it was more wishful thinking than anything else to recommend yourself as a dedicated arbitrator. I'm still interested in someone who can rapidly intervene in non-stop reverting and bickering over those miserable IPC (Israeli-Palestinian conflict) pages. Sometimes I actually participate, but generally I avoid that very dark zone of Wikipedia... JFW | T@lk 17:06, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Krill factoids

How much krill have been lost? Was it 80% worldwide, or just 80% of one small area near Antarctica?

But the British Antarctic Survey has found a dramatic drop in krill populations in the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, a region with half of all the Southern Ocean's krill stocks. The agency compared krill records gathered by nine countries since 1926. "We found in that sector, there was a large scale decline. It was about, very roughly, an 80 percent decrease in krill abundance in the last 30 years," said British Antarctic Survey marine biologist Angus Atkinson. He is the leader of the krill study that appears in the journal Nature. (emphasis added for Wikipedia talk) [6]

- (William M. Connolley 20:59, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)) If you're interested in this I very strongly recommend you actually read the original Nature paper rather than any dubious PR-type summaries. And we're not an agency, we're a Survey.

If you'll e-mail a copy of the article, I'll take a stab at reading it. Barring that, I trust you to summarize it in layman's terms for us lesser minds here at Wikipedia. And thanks for the quick answer. Do you have my talk page on your watchlist, or what? ;-)

- Sorry I don't have a copy. I do't see any obvious reason for it to get into wiki though. Yes this is on my watchlist - I think it happened automatically when I edited it...

Dore Gold

You wrote: I'm not sure why so many contributors want to censor Jato Sam & his "illegal acts of war... atrocities" criticism. Putting it in the article does NOT endorse the JATO view.
The Talk:Dore Gold page makes it quite clear why "so many" (4) want to remove an off-topic quote about Israel on a page about Dore Gold. The criticism is not related to Dore Gold but to Israel. The Dore Gold page is about Dore Gold -- it is not a soapbox for criticizing Israel. Should we include criticism of America by Osama bin Laden on the George W. Bush page? Please respond on my talk page or on Talk:Dore Gold. Thank you. --Viriditas 00:24, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Michael Fumento, Fred Singer

I just took a look at some of your watchlists. The Michael Fumento and Fred Singer pages need some serious work, as they are currently biased and far from neutral. --Viriditas 02:50, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Despite my admiration for figures like Fumento and Singer, I will never be satisfied with any article which is biased -- for or against. (Your name reminds me of veritas, Latin for "truth" ;-) --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 12:47, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

("Viriditas" actually means "Green-ness" -- but you already knew that.) -- Derek Ross | Talk

(William M. Connolley 13:48, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I've responded on t:FS. For Fumento, I've added a nice link to Tim Lambert's work. The Fumento article is clearly far from neutral: it doesn't really have any meaningful criticism of his junk :-)

Middle East factoids

Could this possibly be true?

Islam allows no rights whatever to born Muslims who leave the faith?formally, murtadd fitri?including the right to life. [7]

Wikipedia:cooperation

Aloha. This page looks interesting. Do you think it has potential? --Viriditas 06:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Singer

(William M. Connolley 22:05, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)) We had Singer give a talk today. Pretty much what you would expect. But: at the end, he was asked, how come you are associated with a web site (http://www.sepp.org) that is naked propaganda? His reply: its not a science web site. But (he was pressed) what about the lack of balance. Well, its not a science site, sez S.

Just thought you'd like to know.

That I'd like to know what? That he was attacked with leading question that used loaded words? And that he responded diplomatically instead of launching into a tirade or engaging you in acrimonious debate?

(William M. Connolley 13:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)) You seem to be assuming it was my question. It wasn't. "naked propaganda" is hardly a leading question: its a direct assult on the credibility of the site. The point I was trying to make was that Singer failed to say: thats unfair. Or, indeed, any defence of it at all.

Whover said "associated" was making as ass of himself. Singer isn't "associated with" the SEPP website: Singer CREATED and runs SEPP. Saying he's associated with it makes it sound like it's someone else's project and asking "why" he's involved insinuates that he should "disassociate himself" from "those people".

(William M. Connolley 13:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)) Noted.

And I'd like to hear a sound bite or read a transcript. I'm not sure what you mean by quoting Singer as saying his web site (the one someone said he's "associated with" but you and I know he CREATED and RUNS) is "not a science site". Are you trying to put words in his mouth to the effect that he "admits" his site is only propaganda?

(William M. Connolley 13:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I'm telling you driectly that he was given the opportunity to deny it, and made no attempt to.

I thought you had some commitment to the truth, but were only a bit batty. If you can't give a good account of this incident, I might have to revise my opinion of you. Don't make me stoop to that level -- I have a bad back ;-) --user:Ed Poor (talk) 16:03, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 13:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I've told you something you don't like, and you're trying to wriggle. Quite why you think (oh holier-than-thou-complainer-about-personal-insults) that calling me "only a bit batty" is a mystery to me.

Sorry about the "batty" thing, William. *blushes, extends hand in apology* -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:39, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

VFD - alarmists

Dear Ed, whatever you think, you seem interested in the global warming debate. On VFD there is a vote whether "global warming alarmism" (and alarmists) should be deleted. --Lumidek 12:42, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We should keep the alarmists around -- they write such amusing articles ;-) but the global warming alarmism article ought to be merged with global warming controversy. I rarely "vote" at vfd. It's usually a waste of everybody's time. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 13:19, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Beckman

Hi Ed! Peter Beckman - if written this way - does not sound terribly Czech. The Czech version of Peter is "Petr" and Beckman is not Czech at all. To summarize, I don't remember him... Have you met him in person? All the best, Lubos --Lumidek 15:16, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I meant Petr Beckman, and he *is* from Czechoslavakia. He first came to my attention with his contention that every nuclear power plant which goes offline and is replaced by a coal-burning power plant, kills dozens (hundreds?) of people annually due to air pollution. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 15:04, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards

I have drafted a proposal for a new voluntary association on Wikipedia (joining groups like the Wikipedia:The Business and Economics Forum and the Wikipedia:Harmonious editing club) to promote discussion of a sort of system of expert review on Wiki. Please take a look and add your ideas. 172 02:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wonderful idea! I have joined. I will let some others know. Thank you. IZAK 03:32, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Palestine map

Given your interest in the boundaries of Palestine, you might be interested in a map I downloaded lately:

. - Mustafaa 00:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

the region of Palestine seems to extend beyond the Jordan River to include quite a bit of territory to the east of it, if "Filistin" means "Palestine". Interesting, also, is the placement of the word "Jordan".

Honestly, I don't suppose the disputes over who gets what will ever be resolved by determining "who was there first". I think the problem goes back to the battles described in the Book of Joshua; and then even further to the incident in Genesis when Abraham's wife told him to kick out Ishmael and Ishmael's mother. I daresay the pain of being disinherited, er, lingers on and can even be magnified over the centuries.

Only a parental heart can heal this wound, but alas! Wikipedia has no article about that... --user:Ed Poor (talk) 14:42, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

"quite a bit of territory to the east of it": quite a small bit, relative to the size of Jordan (or even to the size of Israel), but yes, it extends in to Gilead. "Jordan", of course, was being used in a rather different sense than it's used today, but it makes sense; Galilean dialects of Arabic are rather more Levantine than Palestinian Arabic "proper" is. And as you say, determining "who was there first" in some ultra-long-term historical sense is utterly irrelevant; but of course, according to Islamic theology, neither son was disinherited. - Mustafaa 15:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikinews demo up and running

Hi!

I'm writing to let you know that the Wikimedia Board of Trustees has approved the first stage of the Wikinews project. There's now a fully operational English demo site at demo.wikinews.org. This will be used for experimenting with various review models and basic policies before the site is launched officially in about a week. demo.wikinews.org will become the English version later.

You voted for the Wikinews project, so I'm asking for your participation now. Everything is open, nothing is final. What Wikinews will and can be depends in large part on you. There already is a global Wikinews mailing list for discussing the project. If you are interested at all, please subscribe -- coordination is of key importance. There's also an IRC channel #wikinews on irc.freenode.net. Realtime discussion can help to polish up articles.

If you're looking for something to do, check out the articles in development and articles in review. Or start a new story in the Wikinews workspace, or ignore the proposed review system - it's up to you. I hope you'll join us soon in this exciting experiment.--Eloquence * 01:59, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'm there, Eloquence. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 16:04, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Ockham

You added a redirect FROM Ockham's razor TO Occam's razor.

The article clearly states that the principle is named after william of Ockham. Therefore the principle is "Ockham's Razor", and other spellings are typographical errors.

No, they are not. They are alternate spellings. Many citations of the principle William expressed are spelled Occam's razor, and a minority are spelled Ockham's razor. This was settled over a year ago.

Demographics of terrorism

All terrorists are Islamic? What's that supposed to mean?

--user:Ed Poor wrote on Nov 5, 2004 (UTC): " While I personally side with Israel and tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic I try hard NOT to imbue my edits with this perspective."

Okay, you seem to be confused. Here is the definition of the word terrorist:

"One that engages in the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

That definition (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000) does not require a person to practice Islam to be a terrorist. Many people who do not follow Islam are terrorists. Are you saying that Timothy McVeigh was not a terrorist? Is the United Liberation Front of Asom, the group responsible for the recent bombings in India, not a terrorist organization? That's like saying that all pedophiles are Catholic, or that all stockbrokers are Jewish. This idea you have that "all terrorists are Islamic" is chauvinistic, and it is perfectly reasonable for someone to interpret that statement as a direct attack against the religion of Islam. It is never a good idea to blame problems on a general group of people.

Please, see Islamophobia.

I do not see how a person who holds the belief that "all terrorists are Islamic" would be able to edit an article about Yassir Arafat or Ariel Sharon with an acceptable level of neutrality.

--NoPetrol 00:10, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suggest that openly bigoted Wikipedians like Ed "all terrorists are Islamic" Poor just need to be kept a close watch on. I defend him in the sense that I don't think he should stop editing articles about Israel/Palestine, just that people should be aware of his troubling views - Xed 01:01, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's three personal attacks in less than 30 minutes on two different pages, directed at two different users, Xed. --Viriditas 01:09, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personal attack? It's an accurate assessment of Ed Poor. Are you the other person I made a 'personal attack' on - because I exposed you as a liar? Aren't you the (person) who said that I "claimed (Vanunu) was a scientist to bolster his credibility" and then you denied an interview with him took place? It's difficult to take seriously comments from liars - Xed 01:18, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Calm down and stop making personal attacks. Asking you for evidence in the context of your news headline is in no way shape or form "denying" an interview exists. Apparently, you did the same thing to Uncle Ed, when you took his comments out of context as well. --Viriditas 10:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You calm down and tell me where I "claimed (Vanunu) was a scientist to bolster his credibility" - Xed 14:36, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You keep ignoring my "nuanced qualifiers". Why does Kerry get a pass, and not me?

By tend to agree (as I said before) I meant not that I agree that the generalization is true in all cases, but that there was a "tendency" or "trend" that goes that way. I already explained this a couple of times. What part of "tend" don't you understand?

'tend' does not wipe out 'all'. All the sophistry in the world will not make it so. - Xed 01:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is a logical distinction between all X is Y and all Y is X. For example, "all pedophiles have child pornography in their car, in their house, and on their computer" is a generalization that police captains and FBI agents go by. (Of course by "all" they mean "nearly all" - that's the nuanced qualifier thing again, okay?) But cops and prosecutors and lawyers know that the reverse generalization cannot be inferred. That is, mere possession or viewing of pornography is not legal proof that a person has molested a child.

Now you compare Muslims to pedophiles - and you're an admin! - Xed 01:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps what's bothering you is that you feel "all terrorists are Islamic" implies that "all Islamic people are terrorists". Uncle Ed can help you out here. Let's go back to the original quotation which I paraphrased so poorly: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims." There, that explains everything. Feeling better now? --Uncle Ed 13:29, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

No that's not the problem. It's the inaccuracy, idiocy, and bigotry of your original statement. There's no need to make up another statement so you can pretend we thought you meant that. How can you "tend to agree that all terrorists are islamic"? The terrorists of Colombia alone (FARC, NLN, AUC etc) make up over 30,000 people. The Tamil tigers have around 10,000 members. In contrast, 'fighters' in Al-quaeda videos are often hired for the day and told to bring their own weapons. In the UK, 664 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since 9/11. Only 3 people have have been convicted of having any association with any Islamist terrorist groups, none of whom were actually involved in a terror plot. The majority of people convicted under the Terrorism Act since September the 11th have been members of Irish terrorist groups like the UVF or the Real IRA. How can you "tend to agree that all terrorists are islamic"? - Xed 01:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you should say, "...terrorists in the Middle East tend to be Islamic," or "...the people who are responsible for the violence in the Middle East are mostly Islamic" instead. Those are still wrong, in my opinion, (because it is clear that the Israeli army and the United States military initiate a great deal of the violence over there as well), but I think they make a little more sense. --NoPetrol 23:46, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I ran out of gas on this one. But I agree with NP's first suggestion. And I'm going to ask my press secretary to screen all my posts from now on, or I'll never get elected again.

Anyway, given the stridency and extremism of my views, isn't it amazing that so many Wikipedians consider me to be an expert on NPOV policy. If it could be measured, I would bet that I have the lowest ratio of (reverted edits) to (extreme positions held) of anyone at Wikipedia. And that's because I know well the difference between "I'm sure this is true" and "This statement is unbiased."

Under which heading does "i tend to agree all terrorists are islamic" go under? - Xed 18:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not planning any major revisions of my opinions, but I'm always open to new and better ways to express differences of opinion and disputes over the facts in Wikipedia articles. (Did you know I won an award for "least troll-like user" earlier this year? ;-) --user:Ed Poor (talk) 15:01, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Modest too. Another admin pats himself on the back. It is indeed amazing that anyone regards you to be an expert on NPOV policy. A miracle. Perhaps you're just naturally gifted - Xed 18:28, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see no need to modest about my natural gifts. Now do you want to keep me on as Mediator with you and Jay, or not? I want to settle this thing before Thanksgiving, or know the reason why not. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 18:36, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how a person with such strange opinions could be qualified as a mediator for anything. You seem better qualified for asking me if I want fries with that. - Xed 18:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

LOL, actually I worked at both McDonald's and Burger King. Do you want the meal or just the sandwich? ;-)

No, I want you withdraw your statement and apologise, or back it up with figures. - Xed 19:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was wrong to say that "all terrorists are Islamic". I hereby officially withdraw that statement. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:07, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

It's not "overgeneralizing" (see your edit summary) to say all colors tend to be yellow. It's simply wrong. It's taken you nearly 2 weeks to apologise. I think that shows the sincerity of your apology. In leaving "I tend to believe that" out of your apology and saying "i was wrong to say", you've given yourself a get-out. Only last week you stated that Islamic terrorists make up around 90% of the total number of terrorists, and others are " exceptions to the rule". Either you pulled that figure out of a hat due to ignorance/bigotry, or you have the sources to back that up. - Xed 20:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, he's said he withdraws his statement. Perhaps we should drop it now. Why don't you edit that post, mister Poor, so that people don't get angry anymore. It seems like someone has italicized the words "all terrorists are Islamic", anyway. (By the way, I bet I can guess who did that in two tries.) --NoPetrol 20:49, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All terrorists are Islamic

Please provide figures for this assertion of yours. - Xed 15:02, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's not my assertion. I merely "tend to agree" with it. By which I meant that -- in the context of the Middle East -- nearly all terrorists are Muslims. Give it a rest, okay?

You made the statement, so you back it up. Please provide figures for your assertion that "all terrorists tend to be Islamic". I see your new 'nuance' is to imply you said "in the context of the Middle East" originally. No doubt you will soon be saying "I only meant all terrorists from Muslim countries called Muhammed are Islamic".

What I object to is the inaccuracy, idiocy, and bigotry of your original statement. How can you "tend to agree that all terrorists are islamic"? The terrorists of Colombia alone (FARC, NLN, AUC etc) make up over 30,000 people. The Tamil tigers have around 10,000 members. In contrast, 'fighters' in Al-quaeda videos are often hired for the day and told to bring their own weapons. In the UK, 664 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since 9/11. Only 3 people have have been convicted of having any association with any Islamist terrorist groups, none of whom were actually involved in a terror plot. The majority of people convicted under the Terrorism Act since September the 11th have been members of Irish terrorist groups like the UVF or the Real IRA.

So how can you "tend to agree that all terrorists are islamic"?

- Xed 18:15, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whether I do or don't, I can write an unbiased article about it, and you're going to help. See demographics of terrorism. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 18:55, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Oft-expressed? Unbiased? The article is irrelevant, it's your original statement which is at issue. - Xed 19:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Looks like it's going to be deleted anyway, in an action initiated by User:Lance6Wins, a user who has been banned from editing certain subjects due to his extreme pro-Israel position - Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lance6wins#Remedies. Maybe he shares your strange assertions. - Xed 02:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just delete the damn statement so we can forget about this. --NoPetrol 20:52, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried to X it out, but it unXpectedly was restored. It wouldn't stay Xed out. Should I try again now? --user:Ed Poor (talk) 21:02, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Look, Xed, it was a fact that he messed up. He mistakenly beleived that all terrorists are Islamic. He now realizes that that statement is false. Let him delete it. --NoPetrol 21:24, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can delete it from my own talk page, but I'd also like to delete from the other article talk pages where Xed copied it.

And by the way, the italics were in the original.

And I'm also sorry for saying that I tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic; I hereby withdraw that statement as well.

For the record, I do not believe any of the following:

that all terrorists are Islamic
that all terrorists are Muslim
that 90% of terrorists are Muslim or Islamic

However, I still do believe that attacks on Israel and the US have been predominately funded, planned and carried out by countries in the Islamic cultural sphere and/or adherents of Islam (the religion).

For what it's worth, however, I am open to new information which will cause me to revise my opinions. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 22:01, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Why does it take two weeks to withdraw such an obviously untrue statement? What kind of prejudices must one have to believe something so obviously false in the first place? What kind of parochial mentality confuses terrorism against 2 countries (1% of the worlds countries) with the whole world? - Xed 23:26, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lance6Wins

Lance6Wins is banned from editing Isr-Pal articles? He's been doing plenty... - Mustafaa 15:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can revert any such edit of his. An admin can give him a "slap on the wrist" (i.e., block him for a short period of time). --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:28, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Apparently it took him a while to hear about the "decision". Nothing "bad" since Nov. 15th though. Are we over-reacting a bit?

"P.S. Lance6Wins did add incidents and references for those incidents to Violence against Israelis (various pages) today, before seeing this decision." [8]

These are my edits since I saw the decision:

19:51, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Current events (factual error not a Commander, a rank that does not exist in the army. an officer.)
15:47, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Talk:Current events (Running human evolution theory)
14:48, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Zachary Baumel (External links) (top)
14:40, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) International Solidarity Movement (add citation to an example of this. correct English "access ... is controlled")
14:32, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Demographics of terrorism
14:32, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Wikipedia:Votes for deletion
14:11, 18 Nov 2004 (hist) Demographics of terrorism
22:00, 17 Nov 2004 (hist) Current events (November 17 2004)
20:01, 17 Nov 2004 (hist) Iran's nuclear program (Timeline)
20:00, 17 Nov 2004 (hist) Current events (November 17 2004)
19:43, 15 Nov 2004 (hist) User:Lance6Wins (top)
19:38, 15 Nov 2004 (hist) User:Lance6Wins (Final decision)
19:10, 15 Nov 2004 (hist) William Safire
19:09, 15 Nov 2004 (hist) William Safire

Which ones are we talking about here?

Current Events: Factual error...please see the commander link that i replaced with officer...commander, indeed, a naval rank for an army officer. Please note that no one has been fit to revert the factual correction....at this time.

Zachary Baumel: missing Israeli soldier believed captured by Syria. Nor has this been changed.

International Solidarity Movement: International organization not a party to the conflict, lest they wish to declare themselves combantants, in which case they can be shot on sight per Geneva. Is this an issue? Mirv did revert this. You may want to look at the diff. You might prefer the edits that I made. I believe the reference is useful and the English is better, for what that is worth.

Help me understand which one(s) are a problem. This is new ground for me. Lance6Wins 20:22, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

One could certainly argue the ISM one, but fair enough if he hadn't see the decision yet. - Mustafaa 20:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

One could certainly argue that the ISM, being as it is in Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is within the terms of the injunction—which is why I reverted it. —No-One Jones ^(m) 20:55, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

One could argue that. Are you saying that the ISM is a party to the conflict? Lance6Wins 22:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bahsten Sundaze

I know you're busy all weekend, but just wanted to note that we're planning to meet tomorrow evening in Cambridge. Let's plan another meeting for next month, when you'll be free. Cheers, +sj + 17:59, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How about Dec 5 (Sunday eve), or sometime the following week (Thursday night)? +sj +

It will take me 5 hours to get to Boston, and I'd like to bring Danny, too. I'm reluctant to make a 10 or 11 hour roundtrip just for an evening of drinks -- although I'm sure it will be a very convivial evening.

I'm more interested in a conference, with breaks. Anything shorter than, say noon to 7 P.M., seems like a missed opportunity. We have much more to do than merely meet each other. Please help me create an agenda. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 21:15, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Factual Inaccuracy

Please see: Talk:Two-state_solution Lance6Wins 22:34, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're right to comment to comment on this page. Ed Poor is a expert in factual inaccuracy. He's also a self-styled expert in NPOV - Xed 22:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Are you going to follow me around and make personal remarks forever? ----user:Ed Poor (talk) 14:19, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

I see you've created a couple of articles to support your contention that "all terrorists are islamic" - Xed 14:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[chuckle] Actually it's two versions of one article. Demographics of terrorism will be replaced by Terrorist profile. And, once again, it's not MY contention, but a generalization which I had once upon a time "tended" to agree with. If less than 50% of terrorists are Muslim, then not only is all terrorists are Islamic false, but so is most terrorist are Islamic. I'm only concerned with WHAT is right, not WHO is right. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 14:53, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

After taking two weeks to withdraw an obviously untrue statement, and then immediately starting two articles to perpetuate the lie, it seems you are not particularly concerned with either WHAT or WHO is right. - Xed 15:10, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am curious about why you are spending more time "proving me wrong" on talk pages than working on the articles in question. Do you like chatting more than working, or what? --user:Ed Poor (talk) 15:15, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Opposing bigots IS work. Hard work too sometimes. Also, it's better to pull the weeds out with the root rather than wait for the garden to be filled with them. Dealing with a Wikipedia filled with articles based on the idea that "all terrorist are islamic" would be harder than dealing with the source - Xed 15:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I get it. I'm sort of a project for you. But really Wikipedia is not a place to oppose bigots. It's not even a place to oppose bigotry. People who espouse holocaust denial aren't going to change their mind, no matter what words of wisdom we add to articles or spout on talk pages.

I'm not really interested in teaching via Wikipedia. I only want the articles to be accurate; or failing that, at least unbiased. If I've added anything untrue to an article, I hope you will delete it - thus restoring the article to its intended ideal of accuracy. And if I unbalance an article by providing too much POV of one side, I hope you will re-balance it by providing an additional, contrasting POV. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 15:43, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Reminding and challenging

I consider those descriptions to be reminding Alberuni to follow the 3 revert rule, and expressing my frustration at his consistent contempt for that and other Wikpedia rules. That said, I'll take your comments seriously. Jayjg 16:37, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Better to post a comment on his talk page, like, "Please follow the 3 revert rule." (I can joke around with Dr. William Connolley because we're friends -- teasing is okay amoung friends. YOU, on the other hand, CANNOT joke around with Alberuni.) --user:Ed Poor (talk) 18:53, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, Ed, if you're serious about this issue, why don't you take a look at his latest revert on Lynching. I provided a paragraph fully linked to articles by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, BBC, and even a pro-Palestinian site, which he promptly reverted (for the 4th or 5th time) as "Zio POV". Jayjg 16:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your arbcom candidacy statement

Hey Ed, I noticed you declared your candidacy for the arbcom. Cool, but I also noted your statement definitely exceeds the maximum number of words for a statement — 250. I suggest you move it to your user page and leave a highly condensed version there, like I did with mine. Just letting you know. ;-) Johnleemk | Talk 20:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 20:33, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Bnai Israel vs Bnei Yisrael

Ed, how does one address this? I have left the following on the talk page. That page seems rather inactive, may never be noticed.

The page is called "Bnai Israel". I do not believe that this is either English, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, or Latin (and its Romance derivatives). What language is this term? If it is supposed to be Hebrew, I would have expected to see "Bnei Yisrael" perhaps with additional marks to indicate letters that the English alphabet lacks (stops of various sorts).

Can someone explain the name or can we rename it to be a more reasonable transliteration into English? 69.138.236.221 22:41, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The correct transliteration should: B'nei Israel, or Bnei Israel (meaning: sons of Israel). The use of "Yisrael" could be thought of more accurate phonetically (although I would disagree), but "Israel" is perfectly accurate and of a more contemporary use . --Zappaz 15:48, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sources of Terrorism

Just saw this on Current Events thought that you might be interested. The summary, shown below, has some problems. In addition to level of politial freedom, geography (topography), and linguistic fractionalization have a significant effect (paper says "powerful predictors of terrorism" for geography and "where fractionalization indicies are included...the coefficient of log [sic, should be natural log] GDP...becomes statistically indistinguishable from zero..."). The terrorists gotta have somewhere to hide and train. Difficulties of communication (? == linguistic fractionalization) breeds attitudes that may lead to terrorism.:

Alberto Abadie, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University finds that the level of political freedom, not poverty, explains terrorism. Areas with intermediate levels political freedom experience the most terrorism. Both societies with high levels of political freedom and authoritarian regimes have low levels of terrorism. (PDF) (Harvard Gazette)

So, where does this fit in Wikipedia, if anywhere. Lance6Wins 13:23, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I dunno, how about Alberto Abadie for a start? --user:Ed Poor (talk) 21:22, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

you've sparked my curiosity

In User talk:DavidWBrooks, you mentioned celebrities on Wikipedia. I'm curious whom the others you've noted are. Ground 17:56, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

One of your friends?

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(assistance)#Muslims_took_over_all_Islam-related_Wikipedia_content - Perhaps you should invite them to be an administrator. - Xed 13:46, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you want. Please translate the sarcasm into plain English, and I'll take a look. Otherwise, I'm going to ignore the matter. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 14:43, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Sarcasm? I don't know what you mean. I'm just happy to bring together people of similar viewpoints in the spirit of international friendship. - Xed 18:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

LOL, if humor could save the world I'd vote for Robin Williams as the next General Secretary of the UN.

But I don't subscribe to the POV called "Orientalism", which asserts that only Muslims can understand Muslims. I think non-Muslims can also write good encyclopedia articles about Islam. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 18:57, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Do you include your friend in that? His views seem remarkably consistent with yours - [9] ?

I investigated, and I think his IP should be blocked for 3 days. On the other hand, I think he's lost interest and the block would be useless. So I will take no admin action at this time. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:53, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

A Message to my Fellow Candidate

Friend,
The Arbitration Committee elections are almost here. I humbly ask for your vote in this election cycle. I have been a user of Wikipedia for over a year. I was here before the Community Portal, categories, or <tt>{{stub}}</tt>. I know how Wikipedia operates, and I am prepared to do my part to deal with problematic accounts. I wish to cut out the bureaucracy that makes our website stagnate. We need solutions to our problems now. If you want an arbitrator who believes in action, frankness, honesty, and fairness in every case, I am your arbitrator. Thank you for your time. You are under no obligation to answer this message.

--Paid for by Mero. for ArbCom

Mediation request

Hi Ed. You've been mentioned as a possible mediator between Reene and Everyking. Are you available? The request is at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#User:Reene_and_User:Everyking. I hope you can help. Regards -- sannse (talk) 19:00, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wille Soon

(William M. Connolley 21:54, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Ed - you're an admin. Can't you just delete Wille Soon? It seems useless. I'm assuming you created it by mistake.

Côte d'Ivoire

Seems I have bumped into a revert war - Oops!! The re-direct (of course) works, the question is the official name of the article. I (actually) don't care, but reviewing the combatants, maybe it matters. I am taking no further part in the discussion. Respect. Wizzy 22:07, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

I also don't intend to get too much further into the naming debate at Talk:Côte d'Ivoire, but in light of your present ArbCom candidacy I (and other voters) would certainly welcome an explanation of your apparent misunderstanding on said talk page of what constitutes a consensus. ~leif (talk)[[]] 06:04, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, you said on that talk page:

"This is not the international Wikipedia (we decided not to have one) - but the English-Language Wikipedia"

When was this decided?! As far as I know this encyclopedia is edited by and for an international audience. Obviously, this is the english-language branch of it, but there is nothing un-international about it, is there? ~leif ☺ _HELO 12:24, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hate Group and NRMs

Care to comment on the dispute about Hate_group#Hate_groups_and_new_religious_movements. That section is now in RfC. Thanks. --Zappaz 01:19, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ed, please contact me. Danny 22:10, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

RFC pages on VfD

Should RFC pages be placed on VfD to be deleted? I'm considering removing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Slrubenstein, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jwrosenzweig and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/John Kenney from WP:VFD. Each of them was listed by CheeseDreams. Your comments on whether I should do this would be appreciated. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:36, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I trust your judgment; go ahead and delete them. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 21:14, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Mediation stuff

Hi Ed, I tried to mail you, but got an out-of-office. there are a few mediation issues around at the moment - one is a mediators meeting I'm trying to set up, another is updating the status and archiving your current mediation. Could you get in touch with me if you are around. Just trying to be tidy :) -- sannse (talk) 23:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image tag

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Ed poor head.bmp

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status?

You can use {{gfdl}} if you wish to release your own work under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{PD-self}} if you wish to release your own work to the public domain, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use of someone else's work, and so on. Click here for a list of the various tags.

If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the image from, and I'll tag it for you. (And if you know exactly what this means and are really tired of the constant reminders, please excuse me. They will stop once the tagging project is complete.) Thanks so much. Denni ☯ 03:47, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at Wikipedia:Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Image tag

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Ed poor head.bmp

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status?

P.S. You can help tag other images at Wikipedia:Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

VVAW and Winter soldier

Ed, sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this topic, but due to a partialy severed finger, which makes typing difficlut, as well as work I have been preoccupied.

After some diffing I have found that large ammounts of both articles have been plagarized from several sources.

from the VVAW article:

The veterans, who held 110 purple heart medals between them, had enlisted the help of the aptly named Philadelphia Guerrilla Theater Company and also volunteers from Nurses for Peace to go ahead of the march and plant themselves in the villages and towns along the march route. Sweeping through the rural back countries of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania, the vets wore as much of their combat fatigues and battle gear as they had been able to scrape together. Their "infantry company" was realistically armed with toy rifles.

Word for word taken from [10]

On June 1, 1967, the six men gathered in Barry's apartment to form Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Another vet associated with the early days of VVAW is Carl Rogers. Rogers held a press conference upon his return from his Vietnam service as a chaplain's assistant announcing his opposition to the war. Barry recruited him and he later became "vice president" of VVAW. Other early influential members of the group are John Talbot, Art Blank, Steve Greene and Frank (Rocky) Rocks.

Word for word taken from [11]

from the Winter Soldier Investigation article

The gathering of testimony had begun under the aegis of CCI the previous summer, and it took almost two months of on-site planning in Detroit to put the conference together.

Word for word taken from: [12]

With legal assistance from the Center for Constitutional Rights they were able to conclude that the armed forces could not try veterans for alleged crimes committed while they were on active duty

Word for word taken from: [13]

Despite this meticulous documentation, many of the Midwest papers, such as the Detroit News, tried to discredit the hearings by questioning the authenticity of the veterans who testified; with all their digging, not one fraudulent veteran was discovered.

Word for word taken from: [14]

There was also a special panel of psychiatrists, several of whom had served in Vietnam, discussing the impact of the war on American society. The first public testimony about the potential toxicity of Agent Orange was given by Dr. Bert Pfeiffer of the University of Montana. Midway through the hearings, the organizers insisted that no one make statements on behalf of the Vietnam veterans except for vets. It was presumed by reporters that this was to separate the participation of veterans from that of people like Mark Lane.

Word for word taken from http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/blackj/column68a.html

These are just a few examples , I am sure that after some more digging I could find that most all of the anon uses contributions are plagarized as well. I would also like to point out that after a cursory glance at The New Soldier, there are also a number of passages taken from that as well. TDC 00:37, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Can you help in mediation?

Hi,

Can you help in mediation, your name was recomended by User:Fred_Bauder on the page of Talk:Arab-Israeli_conflict#Mediation_by_Fred_on_State_Terrorism.3F

Zain 13:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I'm willing to help. Here is my offer.

Thank you very much for your help. Please I require your mediation in State Terrorism

Zain 02:05, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ed, I saw you left a note on Talk:Arab-Israeli conflict regarding Zain's request for assistance. This is just to let you know that Zain's posts to the Talk page are either on Talk: Arab-Israeli conflict or Talk:Arab-Israeli conflict/Archive 4. As you'll see, it's not an unfriendly discussion, just confusing. Best, Slim 22:29, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Please have a look

Hi,

Once more our paths cross. You once worked on the article Present-day_proponents_of_establishing_cooperative_relationships_between_humans_and_horses and you may even remember how the article grew as various people put things in. Somebody has taken strong exception to the material on Monty Roberts, thinks I have written it, and has engaged in what I regard as an ad hominem attack against me. Personally, I take a rather cool view of Roberts. I think that he had made one great discovery, that his discovery should be given due credit, and that is the end of my positive axiological reaction to him. But a new user seems to think I am... Well, I won't characterize it. Read for yourself if you care to.

I'm primarily concerned that this person not highjack the article and make it a "Monty Roberts is a Big Rat" article (as do some of the citations this user has provided). Monty Roberts may well not be an angel, but any comment on that score should, IMHO, go into a biography. Otherwise we should just say: This is the psychology that Roberts claims to have discovered and this is the practical method that he has developed on that basis.

I just reverted a raft of links. Some of the links were useful, but some of them IMHO belong with the worst tabloids. Possibly this reversion will start an edit war, which is something I would like to avoid. Right now nobody else is taking part in the discussion, so the new contributor may feel that he can say anything he want to say "to me." I've asked him not to resort to ad hominem attacks, but I haven't seen any response to that.

Thanks for bearing with another long thingamajig from me. P0M 06:32, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll take a look tomorrow. No ad hominems should be tolerated, of course (whether Roberts is a rat or a star). --user:Ed Poor (talk) 22:09, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Could someone please start mediating? - Andre Engels 16:02, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Call for AMA election

AMA Member Advocate,

There's a poll currently in the AMA Homepage about making a new AMA Coordinator election. Please, cast your vote there (though it's not mandatory). Any comments you have about this, write it on the AMA Homepage talk page. Cheers, --Neigel von Teighen 18:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

AMA Membership Meeting

As AMA Coordinator I am requesting that suggestions be placed on Wikipedia:AMA Membership Meeting plans for our first membership meeting, to be held in the near future, (hopefully before any election occurs.) Since we have never had any kind of "official" meeting we need to discuss how this will occur (i.e. Wiki pages or IRC channel), how it will be structured (i.e. meeting agenda) and if there will be any "chair" to supervise the meeting and meeting "secretary" to write up minutes or keep some kind of official record of what transpires. Thanks in advance for your input and your continued work as an advocate. — © Alex756 19:43, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OFFICIAL MEETING NOTICE

The first AMA Membership meeting will be held on Sunday January 23, 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 2 PM Eastern NA Time, 11 AM Pacific NA Time, and 8 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend. — © Alex756 19:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent Design

After reading repeated "bigot" accusations backed by other users on the page, I submit that there is no discussion to get back on track, and there never was any dicussion. Ungtss is there to push a POV, and make sure that information he does not like is pushed far down the page. Silverback and LA are there to back him - since they never, ever, ever complain about his statements. This is not a matter of individual edit warring, but of basic bad faith on the part of the ungtss and his supporters who are trying to drive other editors from the page. Stirling Newberry 19:21, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, nobody likes to be shut out of a discussion. Perhaps if you respond to my "faith: good and bad" remarks, we can kick-start the discussion process. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:34, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

It would help if you started with yourself. The book you site is written by an apologist for the "New Discovery Institute" who covers religion for the Washington Times and writes articles which are high sympathetic to ID. [15] is merely one example. I destest dishonesty, you have been dishonest with me, and for a clear partisan purpose. Stirling Newberry 02:08, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see how Witham's associations or sympathies make me "dishonest" in your mind. Are you assuming bad faith on my part? And if so, why?

Have you read By Design? It describes the pro-evolution side in the most sympathetic and lucid terms of any source I've yet to come across. None of the info I've copied from his book has ever been challenged, let alone deleted, from any of the Creation/Evolution articles at Wikipedia. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 14:18, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I am disappointed, but not really surprised that you gave no reply to my questions. I found the following quote in an Amazon.com review of Witham's book:

"If you are interested only in one pole's case against the other, this may not be the volume you're looking for. There will be certain materialists who will derisively call Witham a fundamentalist merely because he allows ID scientists their view." [16]

Asbestosis Compensation and Liability Disputes

Ed, I'f you get the chance I'd welcome your input on [17] and the preceeding (now archived) VfD debate archive . (There was a bit of a heated debate at the outset, but it seemed to calm down and the community vote decided on keeping a standalone article).

IMHO, the article has undergone reasonable revision (both during the debate itself , and subsequently), and maybe the time would be ripe to reconsider the NPOV and CLEANUP tags. What do you think? Wikityke 21:12, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Ed. I've included a few references to research in this field (hopefully a "balanced mix"), as you suggested. Wikityke 13:22, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again, for your valuable contributions, cleaning-up the article. Wikityke 23:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

==Minimum Exposure Limit?==

I'm not so sure about your latest edit, Ed (20:27, 27 Jan 2005). - Ok, they admit that there's still no universal consenus (frankly I doubt there ever will be!!) but the HSE are generally very conservative from what I've seen (hence their admission of lack of consensus). Maybe we should at least keep something on the fact that the evidence shows ("seems to indicate"?) that any minimum "cut-off" must really be at a very low level. What do you think?

With, or without a partial revert along these lines, I vote to remove the NPOV and CLEANUP.

Wikityke 22:05, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Logs of first AMA Membership meeting

You may view the log of the first meeting on the following two pages: Wikipedia:AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) (first hour) and Wikipedia:AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) Pt II (remainder of meeting). If you are interested in commenting on the agenda of the meeting please do so here:Wikipedia:AMA Meeting (suggested topics).

OFFICIAL SECOND MEETING NOTICE AND REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

"The second AMA Membership meeting will be held on Sunday January 30 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 2 PM Eastern NA Time, 11 AM Pacific NA Time, and 8 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend." The coordinator is requesting that members submit the following information for the upcoming coordinator’s report:

How many individuals did you help as an advocate
What is the maximum amount of time you put into a case
Do you feel your work as an advocate was successful?
How can the advocacy program of the AMA be improved?

Thank you. Please submit your responses here: Wikipedia:AMA Coordinator/January 2005 Survey

OFFICIAL AMA MEETING NOTICE

OFFICIAL THIRD MEETING NOTICE AND REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The second AMA IRC Membership meetingwas held on Sunday January 30, 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode.net IRC channel #AMA. Attending were Wally, Metasquares, Anthere, Sam Spade, and alex756 (coordinator). The log of the second meeting can be found here: Wikipedia:AMA IRC Meeting log (1-30-05).

"The third AMA Membership meeting will be held on Saturday February 12, 2005 at 17:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 12:00 Noon Eastern NA Time, 9 AM Pacific NA Time, and 6 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend.

Category:Palestine possible changes

Hi Ed: Could you look at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#January 15 [18] concerning many naming conventions relating to the "Palestine" issue. Please give this matter your attention soon. Thank you. IZAK 08:11, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

banana ear

what is the deal with the banana in my ear article? Lethe | Talk 07:01, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Question on refusing mediation

I would value your response to the following question. Under what circumstances would it be acceptable to refuse mediation? A broad question, yes, but nevertheless there must be some guideline on this, somewhere. Your opinion/view would be appreciated. - Robert the Bruce 13:04, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mediation is pointless when one party is clearly in the wrong. A schoolboy being bullied by older boys demanding his lunch money, for example: "conflict resolution" techniques would not be appropriate; teachers should scold or expel the bullies. But at Wikipedia, many apparently irreconcilable problems have been solved via mediation. Often it's mainly a matter of helping one or both sides to UNDERSTAND the other's point of view. Of course, if understanding isn't the issue, and one side is just determined to violate Wikipedia rules, then it becomes a case for the arbcom. --user:Ed Poor|Uncle Ed (talk) 14:35, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. How would you approach a "conflict" which is based on "ideological" differences which impact on content and lead to continual edit wars? - Robert the Bruce 05:17, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Ed this is about a current arbitration case. Robert's conflict with exploding boy, fvw, tony sidaway, and me for that matter has nothing to do with ideological differences and everything to do with Robert's behaviour. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 06:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Robert, that's a very interesting question. In the long term, courtesy & patience along with a desire to describe those ideological differences fairly and clearly will have the best results. Please note that not all sides in a dispute may want their ideology described clearly. Only the most confident of advocates are willing to expose their mostly deeply cherished desires and beliefs to the "marketplace of ideas".
Theresa, if this is already in arbitration, please advise me if I need to "butt out". I want to smooth things over, but not at the cost of interfering and making your job harder (knot snake?).
Best wishes to both ... --user:Ed Poor|Uncle Ed (talk) 19:19, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
Ed you can never make arbitration harder by simply trying to smooth things over. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 07:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Ed. I can see where you are coming from with respect to some groups not wanting the "mask" to slip (so to speak) but then with something like the pro-choice/pro-life debate where on earth does one find some (or any) common ground at all? - Robert the Bruce 16:57, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
And yes ... don't worry about Theresa ... although she has recused herself she just can't resist taking the odd cheap shot. Sad really. - Robert the Bruce 16:57, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think pro-choice and pro-life have ANY common ground, unless it's concern for the well-being of the mother. Their point of disagreement, of course, centers on whether the mother has the "right" to terminate the fetus at will.

Pro-choice: Why not? It's just a blob of tissue. Who gave YOU the right to control women's bodies, you oppressive scum?!
Pro-life: No way! It's a human being, you murderer!

So how does one manoeuvre through that minefield towards achieving NPOV in related articles? - Robert the Bruce 03:36, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree

The problem wasn't so much with how you did it (I took it as being humorous), I simply didn't want this to become an established practice on that page. Otherwise we'll soon have separate categories for protected articles relating to communism, gaming websites, US foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. I just happened to see it because I was updating the list anyway; I suppose perhaps I might have left it up a little longer for others to enjoy the joke. --Michael Snow 22:05, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Charges that the Dresden bombing was unjustified

The article already has all the informaion you are adding. Apart from the fact that it was the USAAF not the USAF. In the section heading you have changed see:

Before the war its main industries were china production, cups and saucers, as well as cigarettes. However the United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden[6]. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights). The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radar and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich".[2]

Also see the section "Reasons for the attack"

The intention to use the strategic bomber forces in a tactical air support role was similar to that for which Eisenhower had employed them before the Normandy invasion in 1944. He was counting on strategic airpower in 1945 to "prevent the enemy from switching forces back and forth at will" from one front to the other. The Soviets had had several discussions with the Western Allies on how the Strategic Bomber force could help their ground offensives once the eastern front line approached Germany. The US ambassador to Russia, W. Averill Harriman, discussed it with Joseph Stalin as did Eisenhower’s deputy, British Air Marshal Arthur W. Tedder in January 1945, when he explained how the strategic bomber could support the Soviet attack as Germany began to shuffle forces between the fronts.

The article goes into depth about the number of dead see "Impact of the attack" and the "footnotes" which lists the bogus figures of Irving, the Nazis and the communists.

The Referece you gave is already in the References and is used in the section above as reference 6. Changing the section header breaks an internal link in the first paragraph. If you want to bother to reply to this please do so on the Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II--Philip Baird Shearer 20:26, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fair Trade

glad we can make progress on an important article. Stirling Newberry 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation meeting

Template:Mediation-meeting Please edit the side box here (be brief) to update when you might be able to attend. Thanks. -==S V 22:05, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dresden

Ed, I've done a copy edit of Dresden, and have looked around for a source to balance out the war-crime allegation, which I agree is not neutral as it stands. I've found this, [19] written by a historian, which I'm going to add one or two quotes from, if that's okay with you. Best, SlimVirgin 19:26, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, yes, the Guardian review of Taylor's Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945 goes down rather well. Thanks! -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:44, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome, Ed. I inserted a quote but I don't know whether it's in the article now, as Philip has twice made partial reverts of my edits while I've been editing, leading to edit conflicts when I tried to save. And so, because I no longer know which version of the article I'm editing, I reverted my own last edit, if you follow what I'm saying. *sigh* He seems to have taken ownership of the page. I'm too annoyed to do any further work on it at the moment, or I shall end up saying something I later regret. I currently have what I believe David Gerard has referred to as an exploding head. ;-) SlimVirgin 20:25, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well people get really worked up over great injustice -- and there's plenty of injustices to get worked up about in this world! Maybe we all pick on the US and its allies because democracies are the only nations with a conscience? I just hope we don't fall into the trap of agreeing to a double standard whereby the Allies become the primary villains of the last two centuries while all the dictatorships and tyrannies get a pass. (!) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 21:12, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, but it shouldn't mean the articles contain inaccuracies. The first sentence of Dresden is false. It says the city was firebombed between Feb 14 and 15, 1945. It wasn't. It was firebombed the night of Feb 13-14, starting on the 13th, not the 14th. There was a wave of American bombing of the railway on the 15th, but I don't think it was firebombing. I've just changed it, but I don't know whether Philip will allow my edit to stand. We'll see. SlimVirgin 22:54, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

We seem to be working at cross purposes.

I edited the pages in good faith at 17:35, 10 Feb 2005 not knowing that SlimVirgin had not finished his edits. In making the changes I did at that time I incorporated the changes which he had made that I agreed with. He reverted my page and asked me to wait until he had finished his changes. I did.
When he posted to the talk page "That's about it for now. Philip, please do discuss these and don't just revert. SlimVirgin 18:52, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)" It was at that point I edited the changes he had made. I saved those changes at 19:27, 10 Feb 2005 in other words it took me the best part of an hour to make the changes. The major change was the reinstatement of the section "The attacks" which had been accidently deleted during the mammoth edit session by SlimVirgin, and moved half the Oxford quote into the justification section, deleteing the second half because its content repeated what was alreay included in the justification section. If you look at T:SlimVirgin(Dresden) I have tried to explain the changes to him in more details and why I had made them. His correspondence on this is at T:PBS(Dresden).
at 19:49, 10 Feb 2005 SlimVirgin attempted to save another version and complained I had made changes. Well yes I had because he had posted to the talk page that he had finished. My changes had been saved for 22 minutes when he tried to save. Which is hardly an edit clash.
<winge on> I am a little bit miffed at SlimVirgin's accusations of dates. It is not I who was insisting on any particular dates and as you will see from this page history link it was he who changed the description of the dates in the introduction from "over two days on February 14..." to "over over two nights on February 14..." I had taken day to mean 24 hours not daylight (But I would not argue if you said that the previous use of the word day was confusing). But the change to night would imply after dark on the 14th which is clearly wrong. If he had thought them wrong and was willing to change it from day to night, why not put them to what he thought was correct dates instead of then implying that I made the mistake and would not fix it or allow others to fix it? <Winge off>
The fact that the night error was in the introduction text he had edited and saved and that I did not notice it, is proof that I was editing the version SlimVirgin had saved and not reverting as he says I was on the T:BofD page.
Since the save at I made at 19:27, 10 Feb, no one has made any major changes they have all been small incremental one. The majority of incremental change I have made are an attempt to fix problems which SlimVirgin identifed it the text, and a couple of other minor co-edits.

So if you will please explain to me what it is that you want me to co-operate over, you will find me quite co-operative over most things. Philip Baird Shearer 20:55, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Philip, first of all, I'm a she, not a he. My point was simply that, after the first edit I made, you reverted. I therefore left a note for you on the Talk page asking you please not to revert again. From that point onwards, I don't know what happened, because sometimes my edits went through, sometimes you changed them, most of the time I got edit conflicts, including when I tried to change the dates. (My changing it to "nights" was only the first step in the process of change, by the way.) I would simply like to echo Ed's comment about wanting to work with you, not against you. Best, SlimVirgin 21:32, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I will reply to you this once on another persons page (because I want him to see the reply) but if you wish me to read any reply you make please use my talk page. Sorry for addressing you as he not as she. No offence meant and I hope none taken. I did not revert anything. I edited your changes. Between asking me not to "revert" I did not change anything until you said you had finished. "sometimes you changed them" should read "you changed them twice, once before I asked you not to and not again, until I posted that I had finished the co-edit". You made the day night edit at 18:03 you then made four more edits over the next half hour and I did not change the page for an hour after that. So you had 4 saved edits + an additonal hour to make any additional changes to the dates. Something you did not choose to do. Philip Baird Shearer 01:55, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Kant and Bentham

Ed, thank you for sending the link to that article. I haven't seen a Unification interpretation of Kant or Bentham before, so I found it very interesting. I appreciate your thinking of it for me. Best, SlimVirgin 01:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

re: Bureaucratic Blundering

I am going to raise a question about arbitrary extension by some of what VfD can forbid. This is basically what is all fuss about.

I have no particular editorial interest in the article in question (Jewish ethnocentrism). I stumbled upon it at VfU. I checked the history and I agreed with deletion of the article as it was. However the term is in circulation; what is more, it is used in a wikipedia article. No one can say the term is invisible. It doesn't matter that it is evaluated as racist. We have an article on blood libel, don't we?

Hmmm. Perhaps the Jewish ethnocentrismarticle should begin by discussing the term itself, e.g.,

The term "Jewish ethnocentrism" refers to the tendency - imputed to Israelis or Jewish people in general - to emphasize Jewish or Israeli interests. Many writers use the term to impliy that this emphasis is excessive (see ethnocentricism). Others evaluate this claim, as well as the term itself, as "racist" (see racism). -- Uncle Ed (talk) 17:58, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

I replaced the article first by redirect to Culture of Critique and then by a brief explanation of the usage of the term. I was accused of violation of deletion policy, namely, of recreation of a deleted article. I stand I did not recreate the article. I wrote a totally new one, and a 120% neutral one, too. I stand that forbiding certain article titles, rather than articles is an outrageous violation of the liberties. The only applicable policy to this case is in speedy deletion: #5:Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikipedia deletion policy. The fact is I did not repost the content, even modulo alterations.

I see nothing wrong with resurrecting a dead article. I do it myself, from time to time. Often when Wikipedians get upset about a rule violation, it's not the rule itself they're objecting to. Sometimes it can be a desire to suppress information. But I haven't read "Culture of Critique" yet, so perhaps my comment is premature? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:03, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Another policy could be Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. But IMO none of it's "not"s is applicable.

Fortunately, I cannot be accused of anti-Semitism. History of my edits shows my respect to Jewish culture and history. Therefore I feel have moral rights to defend freedom of speech in this touchy area.

Not sure what you mean here: Wikipedia's devotion is to "neutral writing" - not "free speech" in general. For controversial topics, our goal is a fair summary of the dispute; the articles should not take sides. If a point of view (POV) is being suppressed, then to the degree it has a significant bearing on an article that POV should be described. (Obviously it can be tricky to get the phrasing just right! :-) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:10, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

My additional position is pragmatic. Wikipedia's articles have high rank in google. Culture of Critique article contains significant criticism of the Jewish ethnocentrism notion. Lacking this wikipedia article, google search puts me right into neo-nazi pages.

Also, I find it improper to extend the meaning of VfD votes. There are two basic decisions: to delete' or to keep. All other, e.g., "merge", "turn into redirect" options are suggestions of ways of salvaging the article, and they are not binding. If among 60 voters 2 voted to make a redirect this should not be interpreted as this vote forbids making a redirect. No one really voted about a redirect. It is a separate issue, apart of deletion. if someone wants to forbid a redirect it must vote explicitely do not turn into redirect, which is a kind of practice now, although not formalized in policy. In any case, the rules of the game must be kept simple, as was the original intentions: To delete or to keep. Otherise there will be lots of confusing and misunderstanding. Mikkalai 17:26, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here is where we might really part company. I've never felt that the deletion or retention of a page should be determined by a vote. Wikipedia is not a democracy but a benevolent tyranny. Sure, the committees are voted on -- now -- but their original members (a) were all appointed and (b) serve at the pleasure of the website founder. Jimbo has NOT turned over this project to the public - not completely, not on paper (I follow these things rather closely, you see).

If an article is of general interest, then it should be in the Wikipedia even if the vote goes 60 to 1 to delete it. However, a given version of an article might be so bad that the only way to save it is to "kill" it and start over. I'm a big fan of starting over, due to my computer programming background. Sometimes a software module is so poorly designed, so "bug-filled" and unreliable that any attempt to fix it is doomed. A fresh start can be of big help here.

Hmmm, I think I'll finish my comments later - probably at the talk:Culture of Critique or talk:Jewish ethnocentricism page. (And by the way, I'm Jewish and a big supporter of Israel's "right to exist".) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:20, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, as usual you and I agree on everything not directly related to myself. You rock, Ed Poor. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 22:06, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Log compiling

Hi Ed, VfD List maintainer here. I maintain the hourly discussions for VfD List, and from time to time I look at some of them. What surprised me was the reappearance of the article on VfD... and additionally, the shortening of the section by someone who normally doesn't maintain VfD. I took it upon myself to compile the logs together on one page. Please see: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jewish ethnocentrism/Logs for your reference. -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Life is very short, and there's no time

For fussing and fighting, my friend.

I have always thought that it's a crime,

So I will ask you once again.

Try to see it my way,

Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.

While you see it your way

There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long.

We can work it out,

We can work it out.

(guitar solo and fade)

Xed block

Probably best thing to do for stuff like this is to put it to WP:AN or WP:AN/I and see what other admins think. Any that think it's grossly unjust would probably reverse it there. WP:AN is very useful as a sanity check - David Gerard 21:46, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of sympathy with Xed, having unfortunately interacted with him in the past. But, looking at this exchange in isolation, the block doesn't seem evenhanded. After all, Rubinstein telling Xed he has a "small, petty mind" is without a doubt a personal insult as well. Just my 2 cents, I'm not going to get all worked up over it. Wolfman 22:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

He's unblocked and I'm calling it a night. You can all gang up on me tomorrow, ok? ;-) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:42, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Poignant - XED.talk 22:47, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ed, I just wanted to clarify - I didn't unblock Xed because I in any way agreed with or condoned his comments; in fact, I don't, and I have advised him to be less rude. I wouldn't mind seeing personal attacks of that nature being 24-hour blockable offences. But they aren't at current... BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:03, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Da, horror show. Space ball. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 14:22, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

(thanks)2

I appreciate your calling attention to Xed's behavior. I added a comment on the Incidents page -- but he also sent me an e-mail that is even more insulting. I forwarded it to the list-serve and hope you will comment there too.

Also, thank you for your explanation on Cultural Relativism -- now I see that it was a misunderstanding and I am sorry I was curt. I responded to you on the talk page and hope you will continue the conversation, Slrubenstein | Talk 22:53, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

NPOV and Dresden

Thanks for your note, Ed. The header change was one of the few edits of mine that have "taken." I stayed away from the article for a few days but I'm going to start editing it again as there were quite a few errors in it. If you're still interested, your views would be welcome. SlimVirgin 01:33, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Ed, you asked my views on whether Churchill approved the bombing. I've also left this for you on the Talk page. My understanding is that Churchill had qualms about area bombing both before and after Dresden, but he did support it, yes, or else it wouldn't have happened, as he was prime minister. What I dispute about Philip's edits is the wording, and the claim that Churchill changed his mind about Dresden in response to public pressure. But I have no problem whatsoever with that claim if a credible published source is cited. That is the position with all my objections here. I don't mind if we say Churchill believed the moon was made of cheese, so long as that belief is relevant to the article and we cite a credible published source. Thank you for your help with this. This is the first time most of my edits to the Points of view section have "taken." SlimVirgin 21:54, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I can't take all the credit. I've asked for help; I'm a big "believer" in asking for help.

Also, the quote in the article makes it look like Churchill responded to public pressure, even if his respones didn't indicate an actual "change" in POV. It's reminiscent of, say, George W. Bush choosing to boil down his half dozen reasons for overthrowing Saddam into one main talking point: they seem to be on the verge of deploying WMD.

The media took that to mean that was his main reason. But Bill Sammon's book makes it clean that it was only one of the top three reasons, and certainly not the sole reason. I wonder if the Churchill quote is being used in the same way, and why? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:04, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly, and my point is we shouldn't have to wonder: the source should be quoted when an edit is disputed, and that's what concerns me. I've been disputing this for over a week, I believe, and still he won't quote his source, which makes me wonder whether he has one. As I said on the talk page, I don't mind if we claim that Churchill believed the moon was made of cheese so long as (a) the claim is relevant to the article, and (b) we provide a citation to a credible source. I've asked 172 if he will help as I believe he's an academic historian, and I've put a notice on the Village Pump also asking for a historian. If you know of any others, in case 172 can't help, it might be helpful to ask them. Finally, I have just deleted Philip's war-crime argument again, because I assumed it was Philip who had reinserted it, then I saw it was you. Sorry about that. However, I would very much prefer that it stay out of the article until a source is found, if you don't mind. Again, as he's been asked for a source for over a week, and hasn't produced one, that may suggest there isn't one. I've said more on the Talk page. Thanks again. SlimVirgin 22:52, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Stirling has made a huge improvement to Dresden. I would say the issue of the disputed paragraph is now a moot point, thank goodness. Your edits have improved it too. Thanks for doing that, and for putting out a call for help. SlimVirgin 22:01, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Aw, shucks, that's what we old bureaucrats and mediators are here for. I'm not actually that interested in Dresden; I just wanted to smooth things over a bit. Have a nice weekend, and I'll see ya Tuesday! :-) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:07, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Vote on Talk:Gdansk/Vote

Hi. Since you have edited on pages with disputes about the names of Polish/German locations, I would invite you to vote on Talk:Gdansk/Vote to settle the multi-year dozens-of-pages dispute about the naming of Gdansk/Danzig and other locations. This current vote has a much better turnout already than the previous vote, and hence much more credibility. I really hope that this vote will settle a lot of things. The vote has two parts, one with questions when to use Gdansk/Danzig, and a second part affecting articles related to locations with Polish/German history in general. An enforcement is also voted on. The vote has a total of 10 questions to vote on, and ends in two weeks on Friday, March 4 0:00. Thank you -- Chris 73 Talk 04:32, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Killian

Ed, I wonder if you could take a look at Talk:Killian_documents#A_poll. You've demonstrated some interest in that page before. Although I am on the opposing side, I want to make sure that AnonIp's position gets a fair hearing. And since you're both well-respected and unlikely to be accused of liberal bias, your opinion would be valued. Thanks, Wolfman 02:35, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of Classical definition

The Wikipedian community has saw fit to delete The Classical definition of republic. I found more corraborating evidence and, on the Votes for Undeletion, They are still voting to keep it deleted. I think this is highly unfair. Is there a cabal going around voting things off that they don't like? I have put external link to Wikinfo:Classical definition of republic and they delete that also. It has been deleted twice from Republic. What's going on here? Wikipedia is not "Free and Open-Content". There is a group controlling what gets said around here. I have been reading about "Republics" all my life. I even quote from a Modern Scholary work that used the term "Classical Republic". And they still delete. Something is not right here. WHEELER 14:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the" classical definition of "republic". Is there a particular published definition you have in mind? In what way is it classical? Who supplied that definition?

If Plato or some other particular author has their own definition of what a republic is (or should be), then there should be no problem putting that in Wikipedia. The question would just be: What is the best place for it? (I'm thinking of Definitions of republic.

But if you as a Wikipedian are asserting that the definition you have in mind is the proper (or best or only) way to define a republic in the classical sense, then there's no way I can help you. And I think you know why... -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:23, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

Defend your article?

(William M. Connolley 22:21, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)) Hi Ed. Are you going to defend "your" article? See: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Global warming skeptic.

And BTW... you've been insulted (and maybe I have too :-): JonGwynne thinks your one of my "idealogical supporters"... [20] (point 5).

Actually, that's no insult to either of us. We are both members of the climate change team, and as such we are pursuing a common agenda. Each team member subscribes to the ideology that articles on climate change should describe all the science and scientific disputes fairly and accurately, without Wikipedia endorsing any particular conclusions.

And if anyone wants to delete the article, let's just hope they merge with global warming controversy first. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 23:04, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Kevin B. MacDonald article

Ed, please finish your cleanup of this article. As it is you've left a huge mess, and it's extremely tempting to just revert it back to the state it was in before you interevened, which was definitely better than what's there now. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:14, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your block and it's consequences

Since your provocative block on me led to all the fireworks, I'm surprised you haven't commented on my Request for Arbitration. As everyone agrees - see User_talk:Theresa_knott#Unilateral_block - the block was unjust. Now your block, and my understandable reaction, has led to a great deal of wasted time, and I will soon be under some sort of parole. Was it me who unjustly blocked someone? No, it was you. You have a responsibility to sort it out. -XED.talk 18:08, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just saying "hi"

Hey Uncle Ed,

Just stopped by to revert some stuff for old time's sake (just kidding). But I just wanted to say that I miss you guys -- especially you, ant, angela, and sannse -- and hope you're well. I hope to be back someday in the not-too-distant future....

Peace, BCorr|Брайен 22:00, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Global warming - thanks

(William M. Connolley 22:23, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)) Thanks for unblocking GW. I'll make a special effort to be even nicer than usual :-) on the talk page.

(William M. Connolley 22:59, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)) OK, I have just put a nice long summary of how this is from my POV on the talk page. And again, thanks for unblocking (and even more so for the reason), I appreciate it.

Hi - could you maybe take a look at Global warming again. Stirling Newberry just pulled a fast one. Did an unannounced revert and some how locked the page??? Thanks, Vsmith 03:38, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:51, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Sigh yes. 172 has locked the page again [21] this time wothout even troubling to put the protect tag on it. Would it be in order for you to unlock it? I've started a poll - well two - on the GW page: should the page be locked; and what should be the "base version".

Well, he DID leave a comment in the Protection Log:

03:09, Mar 1, 2005 172 protected Global warming 
(It looks like the edit war has resumed without abatement.)

I'll take a look and then leave a comment at GW talk. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 14:43, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 18:13, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Well thanks for looking, but I can't thank you for your solution. The talk page is now so overburdened with words I'll copy what I wrote here:

Ed, I'm sorry, but what you've done isn't going to work. *Please* just unprotect the page, and let us work on it. I think there is evidence that Stirling Newberry and 172 are working together on this, and using sock puppets, and that 172's conduct is far below the level to be expected of an admin (see his bad-faith unblocking of himself for 3RR). This page has already generated truely vast quantities of discussion. It doesn't need more. We all know where we stand on these issues. What we need is a page that we can work on. SN is running to 172, and Cortonin is arguing for the protect, because they know full well that the majority here won't accept their views.

I'd like to expand on 172's flaws: I seriously do believe that, whatever virtues he may have had elsewhere and in the past, at the moment he is behaving very badly.

172 is currently the subject of an RFA: [[22]]. As required, Netoholic put a note on his talk page, which 172 has reverted [23] (thats a diff to current, so may stop working). I don't know the virtues of the current RFD but clearly 172 feels beleagured and I think it is affecting his judgement.
172 was recently banned for 3RR, and (regardless of the virtues of that), was very wrong to unban himself. Note, incidentally, that it was Silverback who brought the complaint to 3RR: which might explain 172's bias against "my" version.
And finally, to the global warming page history.
- SN reverted the page at 3:05 on 1st March. 172 protected the page at 3:09
- Sockpuppet WikiWarming reverted the page at 20:31 on 25th Feb. 172 protected it at 20:33.
Protecting only minutes after reverts to SN's version, twice, looks like collusion to me.

This protect is wasting vast quantities of peoples time (including mine, and some of yours). Note also that, subsequent to 172's last protect, SN has not troubled to come and discuss any of this.

I don't like 172, don't think he should have been made an adim, and consider him a big time-waster at this project.

But the real issue is NPOV writing. Too many of us have blind spots. I've managed to stay out of trouble at Wikipedia by listening to trusted friends who inform me of my blind spots; I stay away from those topics.

How about you and me start fresh and actually DO what we proposed with the climate change team? Forget all the others, make our own "cabal". I could call in a few favors from other admins and make it stick. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:20, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 19:23, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Well you can't do anything at the moment cos you've restricted yourself from editing :-). I suspect you'll get a firestorm from your de-sysopping... but good luck. For what its worth, I have no complaints about Geni, Snowspinner or Chris 73; only 172. Meanwhile... yes, the issue is NPOV writing. But we cannot achieve this on a blocked page. Look at the size of the talk on global warming: I've read almost all of it; perhaps a few others have; but not most people (I strongly suspect you haven't). Its not practical. This idea of forcing us to discuss it sounds nice, but it won't work, we're just wallowing in words.

(William M. Connolley 19:23, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Let me make a counter suggestion: what the page needs is a fresh start from all this talk. Unprotect the page, archive all the discussion. If you unprotect, I and Silverback and Vsmith will start back at "our" version *and will be reasonable about changes to this*. BTW, if you haven't realised, Silverback is a skeptic - and I have edit wars with him to prove it :-). But faced with SN's irrationality (and Cortonins too) we are pushed together into the centre.

(William M. Connolley 19:23, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Climate change team. Fair enough: but... look who signed up. Though since JG is now gone, things might work out. I am, now and always, prepared to have a reasonable discussion about the content. But the talk page of GW already contains everything I have to say about the current situation. I could start repeating myself (for the second time in numerous cases), but whats the point?

Arbitration

I've requested arbitration against you. Snowspinner 19:09, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough; thanks for the warning. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:14, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Just a quick technical question: Did you do the desysoppings through the Special:Makesysop interface? I didn't know that was possible, and if it is, some policy and how-to pages need updating. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 19:22, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes I did, and I'm not sure (a) whether that's the right place to do this or (b) whether in this case I was right to do this. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:31, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ed_Poor&oldid=10678864"

Revision as of 19:23, 1 March 2005 view source William M. Connolley (talk \| contribs) Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers 65,808 edits →‎Global warming - thanks: Comments and another proposal. ← Previous edit		Revision as of 19:31, 1 March 2005 view source Ed Poor (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers 59,055 edits to Mirv Next edit →
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	Just a quick technical question: Did you do the desysoppings through the [[Special:Makesysop]] interface? I didn't know that was possible, and if it is, some policy and how-to pages need updating. —[[User:Mirv\|Charles]][[User talk:Mirv\| P.]][[Special:Emailuser/Mirv\| <sup><small>(Mirv)</small></sup>]] 19:22, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)		Just a quick technical question: Did you do the desysoppings through the [[Special:Makesysop]] interface? I didn't know that was possible, and if it is, some policy and how-to pages need updating. —[[User:Mirv\|Charles]][[User talk:Mirv\| P.]][[Special:Emailuser/Mirv\| <sup><small>(Mirv)</small></sup>]] 19:22, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

			:Yes I did, and I'm not sure (a) whether that's the right '''place''' to do this or (b) whether in this '''case''' I was right to do this. [[User:Ed Poor\|-- Uncle Ed]] [[user talk:Ed Poor\|(talk)]] 19:31, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Revision as of 19:31, 1 March 2005

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