User talk:Elonka

House of Lusignan

Translated, printed documents, with citations from which secondary source they have been drawn, aren't "primary sources": please don't delete the very material articles are required to cite. Deleting isn't editing: perhaps you'd be willing to incorporate the substance of the quotation in the text. Deleted material is often lost in the page history, unless a sharp-sighted editor catches it in time. Thank you. --Wetman 04:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Please check again. By your revert, you just put bad information and typos back into the article. :/ I've been cleaning up a series of articles that were targeted with POV pushing related to Mongol operations. --Elonka 04:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I have done so and find that you are in error. Fortunately User:Srnec corrected the very minor typo— without deleting the sourced report of |translated text from the Fordham University website, which you deleted as a "primary source". All is well now. Remember, translated, printed documents, with citations from which secondary source they have been drawn, aren't "primary sources": please don't delete the very material articles are required to cite. Thank you again.--Wetman 06:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops. My bad. Pardon me, I didn't mean to snatch up the heading when I cut n pasted it to follow up your assertion.--Wetman 20:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Guy of Ibelin

Having spent some time looking at primary and secondary sources (I have not yet found the prize-winning Lignages d'Outremer, but am optimistic), it seems that the youngest and shortest living Guy of Ibelin on the English wikipedia did not have any high title. His father Balian (who predeceased him by 6 years) and uncle Philippe (who outlived him by 10 years) were consecutive seneschals of Cyprus. The French wikipedia is unsourced. There were later Guy of Ibelins who lived longer than this one and held high office, so that might be how this rather tantalizing confusion has arisen. (It is worth noting that without this Guy of Ibelin (1286-1308), we would not have Princess Diana. since he is apparently her 39-greatgrandfather.) Mathsci (talk) 18:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Two more. Guy of Ibelin, bishop of Limassol, whose brother stabbed the king whom he had crowned; and Guy of Ibelin, seneschal of Cyprus, another good guy ("magnificus vir"). Mathsci (talk) 18:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The Ibelin pages had gotten really tangled, thanks for trying to sort things out. Keep up the good work!  :) --Elonka 18:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

joke? I'm not laughing....

This hurts my feelings. What makes you think I'm kidding?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 05:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Lots of reasons, The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk · contribs). Shall we start here?[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] --Elonka 05:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the nostalgic ride down the lollercoaster. You and I had some good times, didn't we? But now the party is over, and The Fat Man will demonstrate his candidacy is no laughing matter. It's business time, sugar.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 05:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not laughing, either. Wikipedia has enough problems without people coming in to be deliberately disruptive.[8] --Elonka 18:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

image restoring

Hi Elonka, when you get the chace, would you mind restoring a couple of images for me please? They were orphaned and deleted, but i'd like to use them again.Image:Betty.jpg & Image:Bettyturpin.jpg Many thanks GunGagdin^Moan 12:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried contacting the deleting admin? --Elonka 17:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Reverting Edits at Iran Iraq War Page

I have put forward some referenced figures as the casualties of war on the Iranian side, from academic and government sources in Iran–Iraq_War regarding the following facts:

• Iranian government estimate was around 200,00 down to around 188,000 later. (I have included English links to support the statement of "Iranian government estimate is around 200,000". However, I am sure many Persian speakers here can confirm the other links.
• Others have estimated widely.
• Prof. Brown says Iranian estimate is nearer to the real figure. He is not the the only academic source but I have not seen a well established source saying otherwise.

However, Scythian77 is reverting my edits, using not so proper language and tone. I like to reach some consensus with him. However, his attitude, including removing my discussions with him, does not reflect his readiness to any compromise. He accused me of propaganda more than once.

Could you encourage him to have a civil discussion rather than using insulting and egoistical words.

By the way, I appreciate your message regarding my discussion on his talk page. He was going to remove them anyway. It is not the first time he has been involved in edit warefare. He is also in edit war with some folks on Avicenna. If you look at the talk page of Avicenna, his attitude is so obvious.

Regards, Persian Magi (talk) 07:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Alta Partners

I'm considering nominating this at WP:AFD. It seems not to be even close to being notable. Bearian (talk)

Easier would be a prod. I can go ahead and do that, unless you'd like to? --Elonka 20:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

List of fraternities and sororities in the Philippines

Thank you for the note that I had reverted more than 3 times in the last 24 hours. After looking at the history, I agree that I have done so. However, I do not believe that it represents an edit war, with the changes that I have reverted being those that represented vandalism either intentionally or unintentionally (One of those for example deleted more than three quarters of the article.)

The Majority of the edits to this file are by non-registered users and there has been a significant amount of mutual reversion by non-registered users between those that have a version with Alpha Kappa Rho and without Tau Gamma Phi and those without Alpha Kappa Rho and with Tau Gamma Phi (two fraternities with significant dislike of each other in the Philippines).

Having recently had an AfD end with a no resolution result, I would be happy to take any suggestions that would limit the amount of vandalism and AKP vs TGF edit wars. At one point it had semi-protection, I'd like to see that returned. I'll be happy to post to the talk page a message seeking discussion, but what has been posted there has not gotten much response.Naraht (talk) 20:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, USER:71.190.2.49 just [9] reverted to his last edit. --Ronz (talk) 23:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Roz, Thanx for the revert.Naraht (talk) 00:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've taken it to AN3. I'm counting at least 19 reverts, four since his last block for edit-warring expired. --Ronz (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked the anon for 72 hours. As for Naraht, I hear what you're saying about reverting vandalism, and I agree that those kinds of reverts are exempt from 3RR. However, some of your reverts do not appear to be vandalism reverts.[10] So my advice is that unless it's really obvious vandalism, try to avoid using the "undo" button. Instead, the better course there is to follow dispute resolution procedures, or steps for dealing with disruptive editors: Bring things up at the talkpage, and explain your concern. If other editors agree with your course of action, then you can proceed "per talkpage consensus". Or, if no one replies in a reasonable amount of time, then you can go ahead and revert later, "per talkpage". At that point the burden is on the other editor in the edit war to actually engage in discussion. If they do so, then do your best to engage in good faith discussion towards finding a compromise (you may be able to find something that both of you can agree with). On the other hand, if the other editor persists in reverting without talking about what they're doing, then they may be blocked. Make sense?  :) --Elonka 02:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the block. On a side note, AN3 is not for reporting 3RR and edit-warring violations. Given how simple it is to determine strict 3RR violations, and how complicated it can be to decide if someone is truly edit-warring, perhaps there should be changes made to the report format? --Ronz (talk) 02:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not totally in the loop, but there seems to be a movement towards making things more automated. A new page/bot (still very buggy) is generating reports at User:3RRBot/bot reported disruption and 3RR violations . --Elonka 03:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The example that you give as not being vandalism [11], I *did* count as such. They inserted Scouts Royale Brotherhood, by overwriting CB, which was in the right place alphabetically. While it is true that Scouts Royale Brotherhood probably belongs on the list, it does not belong there by overwriting another one. (Whether it belongs there has to do with whether this list is college only and whether or not you consider the dominant piece of SRB to be the one which is high school only and views itself as flowing into APO or the one that is willing to recruit at the college level (I'm having a rather detailed discussion about SRB elsewhere)).

The biggest problem in discussing things on the talk page is that almost all of the recent editing which has dealt with information rather than wiki-fixing has been by IP address, what isn't is by people who have registered accounts specifically to do their fraternity and who are attempting to delete either AKP or TGF. I'm not really sure there are that many who would actually respond to a posting on the talk page, but I'll try.Naraht (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

They deleted CB, you deleted SARABA, and others.[12] From an administrator's view, all the edits are disruptive, but I wouldn't call them vandalism. See WP:VANDAL#NOT. It's definitely a content dispute though. What would have been better for you to do would be to move the SARABA info down to the correct place on the list, and then replace CB, rather than just revert and remove their information entirely. You could also add a {{fact}} tag to the SARABA entry, or any other entries that you have concerns about. It's not going to break Wikipedia if we have a few extra entries on the list for awhile, to calm the waters and give time to build consensus on how things should be handled. --Elonka 13:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I will attempt to follow your advice on this. I'm not sure this will help calm the waters, but I'll give it a few weeks before trying to request a semi-protect on editing.Naraht (talk) 15:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Jehochman

Elonka, I hope you will take this in the spirit in which it is offered. Please stop jabbing at Jehochman. The two of you had a conflict in August, granted, but that's some time ago now. You and he have both been asked by uninvolved users to stop nursing grudges. Jehochman responded positively to this thoughtful comment by User:AGK back in August, and J assures me that he has not addressed or discussed you since then, other than in self-defence.[13] (And here is a recent example where he does defend himself.) I don't think you replied to AGK back in August—I understood you were extremely busy IRL at the time, so it's not that I blame you—but surely you considered AGK's thoughts? Anyway.. please try to take a strictly neutral look at what you posted on Scott MacDonald's talk the other day. Try to see it from outside; to imagine that it's somebody talking about your integrity. Curiously enough, the post was couched as a protest against what you thought rude and inappropriate language used against Jehochman. And yet..

"Scott, you make some good points, but this language was really inappropriate.[14] I am not shy about saying that I have extreme doubts about Jehochman's integrity, but I do not support the language that you used towards him, and I hope you will consider apologizing. I see that you did refactor it, which I'm glad about,[15] but still, don't you see that there's a bit of a problem in using incivility and personal attacks, to complain about someone being uncivil? --Elonka 23:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)"[16]

Civility isn't primarily a matter of the words you use, but of what you use them for. Scott had used bad language such as calling Jehochman a "moralistic dick", and other salty phrases, yes. (I for my part have extreme doubts about Scott's self-control when it comes to pressing Save, but he often does self-revert that type of stuff, and in this case he removed the slur against Jehochman after 2 minutes[17].) Anyway, Scott's post was not nice, even after cleanup, but does it not strike you that your post—although, I'm sure, well-intentioned—actually came out worse? More uncivil, more of a personal attack on Jehochman. "Dick" is simply a non-proper, low-discourse word with a very vague meaning; it's not personal at all. Please look, on the other hand, at the way you use the dignified word "integrity". "I have extreme doubts about Jehochman's integrity". That is a terrible thing to say, in civil words, and in a purportedly neutral voice. Incivility isn't in the naughty words, it's in what you say. Please don't just tote up the bad words, Elonka; look at what they contain. You use words which are polite, taken separately, but they strike at a person's character—they attack an actual person. I think your pedagogical eagerness to emphasize the paradox you saw in Scott's post—"don't you see that there's a bit of a problem in using incivility and personal attacks, to complain about someone being uncivil?"—may have run away with you there. (Also, in the sense that Scott hadn't complained of Jehochman or anybody else being uncivil. That wasn't what Scott was on about.)

Jehochman has been avoiding conflict with you ever since August, unless I've missed something. Please drop this grudge, Elonka. It's not actually necessary to refer to J on the wiki at all (not once you've voted on his ArbCom candidacy, I mean). Is it? Bishonen | talk 23:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC).

Hi

Hi! Please note that I have filed a request for appeal here. Comments welcome! Best regards PHG (talk) 16:17, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: IP:65.9.99.42

Hey, it may be my fault the IP's block was for vandalism rather than edit warring, I filed an ARV via Twinkle, which only gives an option for vandalism (although I did explain in the comments that it was edit warring/breach of 3RR that was the reason). Maybe there is another easy mechanism I have missed for those kind of reports. Mfield (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not that big a problem... The report at WP:AIV did get admin attention and stop disruption, so that's the important thing. For future reference, it might be better to file a report at WP:AN/3RR though. As for why I spoke up, it's because I have a bit of a pet peeve when people refer to good faith edits as vandalism. See WP:VANDAL#NOT. Though the anon was definitely being disruptive, it's also very possible that rather than promoting their own site, they may have simply been trying to add an interesting link to Wikipedia, and weren't sure why it kept disappearing, so they kept trying to add it back. You did the right thing in trying to communicate with the anon on their talkpage, and a block was definitely appropriate since they weren't responding to messages. But if if that anon, 65.9.99.42 (talk · contribs), does take the time to look at their talkpage now and see that they were being accused of vandalism, that might antagonize a potentially useful contributor. Many new editors find Wikipedia very frustrating to navigate when they start off! But just because they're stumbling, doesn't mean they're vandals. Now, it may turn out to be the case that the anon really was here for just spam purposes. But I prefer to assume good faith, and give the benefit of the doubt. :) BTW, are you sure that link is inappropriate, even in the "External links" section? It seems to have some useful information, and that virtual tour is pretty cool.  :) --Elonka 18:46, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I will check out the 3RR subpage next time. I have been inviting discussion to see if a case can be made for it being appropriate, but right now we only have the owner of the sites assertion that it is notable. Sure, all virtual tours are cool, but if the tours were really sponsored by the government as alledged then they would surely be up on an official site (I shoot virtual tours myself). That does not seem to be the case. I think it is a case of the site owner wanting traffic and trying to justify it by adding text, but the only reference is to their own site. It's inappropriate as long as it is being added by the site owner and not after discussion and consensus. It would also be better if the tours were on a site that wasn't blatantly commercial with a store link above it. Mfield (talk) 18:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I'm not familiar with the sources there, so I'll leave that up to you and the other editors on the page. I do agree that it would have been better for the anon to engage in discussion at the article talkpage. Judging by the way that they kept re-inserting the information in slightly different ways each time, it probably wasn't a copy/paste, and they were typing it in by hand each time, seeing the information "appear", and then a few minutes later it "disappeared", then they'd type it in again, it'd "appear" for awhile, and then "disappear" again. And now they can't edit Wikipedia at all, so my guess is they're pretty confused right now! --Elonka 18:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

RE: Machu Picchu

Hi there,

Feel free to change the message, I'm still learning with blocking, so I might make the odd mistake! :)

The Helpful One 18:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Wilson the Volleyball

Nice job. I am happy that you were able to improve upon my contributions. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 20:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Happy to help. It's a nice article, and in my opinion, a solid contribution to Wikipedia. I hope it survives the AfD! --Elonka 21:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Article Rescue Barnstar

I'm slightly embarrassed by how much better you made the article than did I. I am however, very gratified that my sourcing and minor rewrite gave you more to work with than was present in the pre-AfD article. So this is for you...

		The Article Rescue Barnstar
		I award you this Barnstar for being able to make a silk purse out of a Sow's ear. Win or lose at AfD, your improvements are terrific! Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Aww, thanks.  :) It was really just an hour or so of work. I happened to be scanning the backlog in the "Rescue" category, and that one caught my eye for some reason. There was already a lot of good information there, I just reworked it a bit.  :) --Elonka 00:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Quite welcome. As I wrote, I did a heck of a lot of research and sourcing... and did some re-arranging to make it read better... but what you did improved it markedly. Win or lose, I am quite appreciative. - Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

JIDF link your voting recommendations

It may interest you to know that an organisation with an "interesting history" in connection to Wikipedia is linking your voting recommendations from the rolling news near he top right of thir home page [18]. In view of the history with Wikipedia, (long-term blocks of activists, block evasion, personal attacks on and off Wikipedia etc.,) you might want to place something on the linked page disassociating youself from them. --Peter cohen (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea who they are, and putting a link on my guide saying that I don't know who they are, would probably give them even more attention, so I'd rather not do that. Is the site run by a Wikipedian? I am out of the loop on any history involving the group, but if you point me to a link with a summary of any disruption, I'll take a look. --Elonka 16:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

There are tn WP:AN/I archives and one WP:AN archive which link the JIDF article. Avid followers of Wikidrama will know all about them already. This topic [19] is in the penultimate such archive. (If you have time to read the topic and all the subsections.) Basically they are a Revisionist Zionist group whose mission is to "correct" what they perceive as biases in the web. They are best known for their activity on Facebook, but they have also "corrected" articles on Wikipedia, most obviously the one on themselves, and have compiled an attack page which list of "strongly biased anti-Israel" editors (including from earlier this month myself). This list includes at least one pro-Israel editor. There are a number of blocked activist accounts of which User:Einsteindonut (and socks) is the most notorious. Of course, their opponents have also been adding to the drama and some of these too have received long-term blocks.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look. --Elonka 18:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

American Muslim Council reverts

Hello, Elonka ... I am concerned about the lack of discussion between Taz Manchester (talk · contribs) and Matt57 (talk · contribs) regarding recent edits to American Muslim Council (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ... I happen to agree with Matt57 ... can we please discuss this at Talk:American Muslim Council? Happy Editing! — 72.75.110.31 (talk · contribs) _{20:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)}

FYI

After some more insults by another sockpuppet account on your talk page and the original account, I protected User talk:Ianxp. I felt that continued access to the talk page wasn't productive. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Someone talking about a ban on my talk page

You may want to take care of this! --Enzuru 21:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Clear and present response

The latest actions don't need to be commented. I can make them speak for themselves: [20], [21], and of course [22] to which you've already responded. Those edits fit into the pattern I've experienced time and again when checking recent changes. Assuming good faith, and not biting newbies are without doubt good and necessary things. I think I never fail to do that. Yet repeatedly ignoring polite and clear messages often clearly indicate a user's intentions, and to ignore this would mean putting our guidelines first, and our policies second. My experience as well as my instinct, and the advantage of not having been involved with V. S. Naipaul before, helped me in dealing with the situation. Please take that into account when handling other possible or actual cases of violations of 3RR in the future. Let me cite this from Wikipedia:3RR#Exceptions: However, non-administrators may find reversion unavoidable before administrators can respond. Best wishes, --Catgut (talk) 22:41, 30 November 2008 (UTC)