User talk:Coppertwig

Haselzweig im Schnee (Hazel twig in snow)

☺

Welcome to my talk page. Messages that are welcome here:

• politely-worded criticisms of my behaviour
• calmly-expressed differences of opinion
• questions about how to edit Wikipedia
• just saying hello or whatever
• etc.; I like getting that "you have new messages" banner.

One way to leave a message here is to click on the "+" tab at the top of this page. Sometimes I reply here, sometimes on your talk page, etc.; feel free to let me know which you'd prefer.

Thank you

I have tried to actively promote civility for many years. Thank you. Phil Burnstein (talk) 12:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome; and thank you for actively promoting civility, too. I wonder what I did specifically to earn your thanks this time. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:42, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

RfC

I trust in the interest of fairness you will also file an RfC for Avi, Jayjg, and JakeW. -- DanBlackham (talk) 00:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I would consider it, if the situation seemed to warrant it. I've commented to each of the users you named about messages of theirs, but on balance I have had considerably more issues with messages posted by Blackworm. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

For my part, I'm curious about what you think of these edits in the context of this discussion. Blackworm (talk) 06:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that Wikipedians vary in their opinion of how long ago a diff can be and be considered to represent recent behaviour in some sense. I pretty much restricted myself to diffs in the last 3 months, thinking that few Wikipedians would consider more distant ones to be recent. As the Serenity prayer says, it's a good idea to accept those things we cannot change, and as a friend of mine pointed out, everything that's in the past is in that category. Another friend advised "staying in the present," which sometimes means not complaining about anything from more than a few seconds ago.

Whether a diff is relevant depends partly on what it's being used for, not only on the numerical value of how old it is. The mere fact that I pretty much refrained from using older diffs myself doesn't mean I think it's necessarily wrong for someone else to do so.

I think that if a medical association doesn't want a 10-year-old document to be cited as representing their policy, then they can issue a new statement; that if a Wikipedian doesn't want an old diff cited as expressing their views then they can state clearly that they no longer hold those views and what their new views are; and that if a Wikipedian doesn't want old diffs cited as representing their behaviour then they can state in what way their practices have changed to preclude such behaviour being repeated. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Options

Hi. Thank you for your insightful message on my talk page. It is much appreciated. I did realize I could've done something better when it became clear that I was in danger of being blocked as well. I don't fault you for filing a 3RR report, because you did what you felt needed to be done. I already spoke with another editor regarding the "rvv" edit summary, and I know that it was incorrect. It was knee-jerk, and I was mostly concerned with the page being disrupted for as short a time as possible. The additions violated WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:OR, so I did not feel leaving the content there for the sake of not violating 3RR would benefit our readers, the editors of the article, or indeed, anyone other than the IP who posted it (and I use that word because it was basically a message board rant). Next time I encounter something like this, I will initiate a talk page discussion. I just hadn't encountered anything like this before, as in my experience, whenever editors are slapped with a warning they stop doing whatever it is they're doing (I know I do). I should've known better since circumcision is a controversial topic. Thanks again. --Pwnage8 (talk) 16:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Nobody was around at the time. The awkward situation came about precisely because no one else was there. Although, another editor made the first revert, so that should've sent red flags to the user. In other words, I was the other person. I explained to the anon that the content in the article was arrived at by consensus to be NPOV, and that his edits violated that (which they did). A normal editor's neutrality is the POV-pusher's POV. If there is any POV dispute, it's that the article is too biased in favor of circumcision. --Pwnage8 (talk) 17:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Possibly unfree image

To list at WP:PUI: Image:Louis vd Watt (238x320).jpg. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Testing my signature: ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

William Green

Hello,

Why did you delete the information I posted on William Green - It's all correct.

Kind regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.217.170.15 (talk) 16:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your courteous note. I deleted some information from William Green (painter) because it was essentially word-for-word identical with information on a website (http://fp.armitt.plus.com/william_green.htm) so it may have been a copyright violation. It's fine to include facts from a website, if you write about those facts in your own words. Sentences or phrases can't be taken from a copyrighted source without permission. We generally assume websites are copyrighted. If you want to try to get permission from the copyright holder, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. Please don't re-insert the material again unless copyright permission has been obtained according to Wikipedia's requirements for such permission, and a note placed on the article talk page describing what was done (but don't post email addresses there). Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have about how to edit Wikipedia. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Battle of the Tigris

I am sorry I hurt your feelings, I ment IMPATIENT, and was not towards you, but only the 4 users that started this hole thing. Now could you let it go. Geez-o-weez! Thanks.--Ariobarza (talk) 21:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

You can strike out your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris using <s></s> and replace it with just "impatient". That would be much better in my opinion, although "impatient" is still a comment on other editors. My feelings were not hurt; I didn't think you were talking about me. I was following DefendEachOther. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Possibly unfree image

Hi, normally wp:pui would be best way for this image, since it seems permission only. But it is an image on Commons, it can't be listed here. I will list it there in the near future. Garion96 (talk) 23:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I'm not very familiar with images. I had been under the impression it was on Wikipedia, or maybe I forgot to even try to check whether it was. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

User Arilang

Coppertwig, thank you for your note about User Arilang.

I am sorry if my comments on Arilang and his edits have become over-critical. My problem with User Arilang is that his edits are quite unashamedly partisan. That is, he has admitted POV, and he has openly admitted going in to make edits based on this POV. And he refuses to be stopped.

I appreciate that he is "enthusiastic", but this kind of editing on the part of an English speaker would not be tolerated. In the case of User Arilang, it is tolerated because he is Chinese and seems able to go in and find interesting material not accessible to an English speaker. However, I don't agree that he can make better edits simply because he is Chinese. I may not be a "scholar" as Arilang discovered, but I know enough about Chinese history to realise that Arilang's edits reflect the prejudices and biases of a strongly anti-Manchu strain of thought present in certain quarters of Chinese intellectual life. As Arilang says, this has become a major issue on Chinese-language forums and blogs. He is highlighting certain issues (with very little surrounding context) because they have been highlighted on the Internet. Moreover, much of what he writes is not necessarily balanced or well-sourced; it merely represents the assorted information that anyone can pick up from an Internet debate on a controversial topic. Unfortunately, viewpoints that are taken for granted on Chinese forums are not necessarily based on fact. They are often heavily based in emotion and ideology. The kind of comment found on the Chinese Internet can be just as racist and biased as anything found in the West.

Given the type of edit that Arilang is making, I am simply unable to stand aside while he goes in and makes POV edit after POV edit based on the emotions of Internet forums. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell him that he is POV because he is so convinced of the rightness of his cause that he will not admit to it. Since he refuses to be restrained, it becomes extremely frustrating to deal with his edits.

His attitude in the face of my attempts to rein in his blatant POV is telling. I am a "white man" who doesn't understand Classical written Chinese and therefore cannot understand Confucian thinking. That apparently disqualifies me from the right to judge Arilang and his POV. He started by calling me a "scholar", and the reason is pretty simple -- I knew things that he didn't expect a "white man" to know. When I admitted that I can't read Classical Chinese, he tried to use that to discredit my attempts to stop his POV edits.

If you look closely at Arilang's edits, you will find they consist mainly of two types:

• His own summary of what he believes the accepted facts are. This is largely based on a particular POV, namely that the Manchu period of history was a kind of dark ages for the Chinese.

• Cherry-picked quotations from primary or secondary sources. These are either left to stand alone and speak for themselves, without comment, or they are prefaced with comments that reflect Arilang's views and are not supported by the wider context in the sources from which he is quoting.

I am afraid that User Arilang is going to remain a POV editor until he realises what balanced editing is about. Anyone who started editing articles about "evolution" or "Christianity" with the degree of POV that marks Arilang's edits would be drummed out of Wikipedia very quickly.

Bathrobe (talk) 04:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you say. The question is: what to do? Here's one idea. Maybe you have other ideas. I've asked Arilang to post suggestions on the article talk page for discussion before editing. Arilang has done this at least once, but I have the impression is not usually doing it. Here's my idea: whenever Arilang makes an edit to an article without discussing it specifically on the talk page first (other than something obviously appropriate, or just adding a reasonable number of "fact" tags etc.), we can revert the edit with edit summary like "please discuss on talk before editing". This can be even if there are good parts to the edit; the idea is that Arilang should put the text on the talk page and wait until people have had a chance to comment and fix up any problems, before editing. Do you think that's a good idea? If you agree with this plan and are willing to participate, then I'll ask administrators Moonriddengirl and EdJohnston whether they approve of us doing that. (They've interacted with Arilang.)

I think Arilang can contribute some useful material, but needs input from other editors to make the material acceptable for Wikipedia.

I think it's good to have people with POVs. They should not just be allowed to write their POV into the article; but they can help contribute to a NPOV article by pointing to problems where the article contradicts their POV or gives too little weight to their POV. They need to show restraint. Ideally, in my opinion, people with several different POVs will interact to form an article.

If there are problems with an editor, there are ways to respond to the problem without needing to violate WP:CIVIL. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

We can try this. Unfortunately I just don't have time to check whether his use of sources is fair or biased. He's posted material for comment at Qing. I've commented with specific criticisms, with a final comment again protesting at his POV.

One problem is that there are no qualified people ready and willing to tackle Arilang on his own ground. I notice that you've called him out on his links to pages using Chinese characters, etc. These are technicalities. But no one knowledgeable enough about Chinese history has appeared to challenge his constant slant. You may notice that he admits to being a refugee from Chinese-language Wikipedia, where he wasn't allowed to make the edits that he wanted. He complains quite bitterly about this, but has it occurred to you that they may have had good reasons for not allowing his edits?

Let me apologise; I've just noticed your guideline on not criticising other editors. I'm not sure what to do. Should it be moved to my talk page?

Bathrobe (talk) 03:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing my talk page guideline. To be honest, I hadn't noticed that it would apply in this case. I grant you an exception for the above comments. Further criticisms, if any are necessary, can be on your talk page, and we can move the whole conversation there if you prefer (but put a note here directing my attention there if you want me to start looking at your talk page).

I can recognize some things as not NPOV, such as using the word "sinister". I suppose there may be other things that someone would notice if they knew more Chinese history. Well, when someone comes along who knows more Chinese history, then they can comment. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 12:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I asked Moonriddengirl and EdJohnston about this at User talk:EdJohnston#Arilang asking for help and User talk:Moonriddengirl#Arilang. I've had a lot of discussions with Arilang at User talk:Coppertwig#Arilang1234 asking for help. I'm notifying Arilang of this discussion. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:29, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to both Coppertwig and Bathrobe's immense patience in trying to show me how to be a good editor in en.wikipedia. To tell the truth, I am still very confused about this NPOV or POV things. I know these are the rules of wiki, but exactly how it is applied and interpreted, I only have a little bit of idea. But none the less,I am willing to learn, and please give me a chance.Arilang1234 (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

On the question of NPOV and POV, well I did a fair number of edits on 2008 Chinese milk scandal, there wasn't any problems there(at least no one told me anything). My record on Revision History Statistics shows that:Ohconfucius 704, Arilang1234 152(hardly any was reverted.) And on the talk page of 2008 Chinese milk scandal, it can be seen that my co-operation with Ohconfucius was quite good, admittedly he helped me a lot in fixing grammar errors, or changing the structure of the sentence. Can someone make a comparison between Qing and 2008 Chinese milk scandal?Arilang1234 (talk) 14:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello Arilang1234. I agree with the concerns of Bathrobe and Coppertwig. You could be heading for trouble regarding POV unless you edit more carefully. When we talked before, I mentioned that some articles on Chinese topics are in need of better sources. This is an area where you could do useful work where you would not risk imposing your own POV on articles. EdJohnston (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

@EdJohnston, thanks for your comments. Again let me emphasize my lack of understanding of Wikipedia rules such as NPOV and POV. When I was doing edits on 2008 Chinese milk scandal, I simply select news reports from CNN, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Posts, plus other main stream medias, I wrote the comments, did 'cite news', and press 'save page'. Every thing went OK, no one ever said anything about NPOV or POV, and most of my edits stayed, may be only one or two got reverted. When I was working on Qing, on which I try to add new sections onto it, new sections that in my opinion(POV?), that were needed there to make it more balance, more complete, and cover different perspectives. Qing dynasty, or Manchu Empire, lasted 300 years. And many scholars, including John King Fairbank, spend years after years of precious time, writing books after books on this subject. And here I am, as soon as I put in some comments on the brutality and backwardness of the Manchu, straight away I was labeled a Han chauvinism, Manchu basher, etc etc. Do you think it is fair? Now I am reading this book The Ching Imperial Household Department by Preston M. Torbert, on page 16-18, the author gave a detail description of how Jurchens(or Manchus) obtained land by warring, and turned war captives into agriculture slaves. I would like to add this information onto Qing, but then I am afraid others might label me as a 'Manchu basher' again. Well, whatever Manchus had done had been recorded on books, and as soon as I try to add this information into wikipedia encyclopedia, I would have POV problems. Hmm, I am wondering.Arilang1234 (talk) 22:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Arilang, it's very good that you've given us the title, author, page number and what the book says, all in one place so that we know they all go together. I think you're learning how to do encyclopedia writing. Please keep on learning: there are many things to learn. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

"I put in some comments on the brutality and backwardness of the Manchu" is precisely the problem. When you edit it is very clear that you view the Manchus as "brutal and backward". Anyone reading your edits will immediately get the feeling "Wow! This article has really got it in for the Manchus!" If readers get that feeling you can be pretty sure that your POV (point of view) is showing.

To reflect the points that you want made in the article, using terms like "brutal and backward" is exactly the wrong way to go about it. If you want to present a more balanced view, you can

(1) include details of massacres, etc., with probable numbers killed; that will give readers a good idea what happened

(2) provide an objective view of the system that the Manchus introduced. For example, the Imperial Household Agency and its role is a gap in the article that you have tried to fill, which is a good thing (although you really should start out stating the year in which it was established -- after all, the administrative system did change over time). Mentioning the role of the boo-i is fine. Comments that blatantly imply that the boo-i system was far inferior to the traditional Chinese institution of slavery are not fine. Saying that the Qing emperor was a "dictator" is highly judgemental and introduces your own view very forcibly into the article (besides which you have no sources). What you could do is note that the Qing emperor had greater absolute power than emperors of past dynasties -- but this should be properly sourced -- no subjective rhetoric from Internet bulletin boards. (Just an aside here, if I understand correctly, all emperors in Chinese history theoretically had absolute power. The Qing were just more successful in imposing theirs.)

(3) include a description of the debate over the role of the Manchus in Chinese history. It's fine to say that some historians regard the Manchu period as a kind of "dark ages" for China -- as long as you can produce an authoritative academic source for this. And when you mention one side, you must always put in the opposing side, that is, the side of those arguing that the Manchus played a positive role in the history of China or dismissing the claims of the anti-Manchu thinkers. That way you get to put in anti-Manchu views (which should not be dismissed if they form a considerable tide of opinion) while maintaining the balance that is required on Wikipedia.

I hope that my suggestions may be of some use to you. As you can see, I am not opposed to your including additional information. I am merely concerned that your POV ("the Manchus were bad, bad, bad") is causing big problems in your edits.

Bathrobe (talk) 03:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Bathrobe for your help, I will try not to make my POV too obviously shown, if that is the right way of putting it. I have read the article you show me on contemporary Mongols' view on China. Well, I think this sentence says it all:

“ 驻蒙大使馆政治部主任孙洪量说的更为到位:“ 与其说蒙古恐惧，不如说他疑虑，包括蒙古在内的大多数国家，都不知道中国以后要走向何处。” ”

Translation:Sun Hongliang, the chief of Bureau of Politic of the Chinese Embassy to Mongolia once said: Instead of saying that Mongolians are in fear(of China), I would rather say they are in doubt, and in suspicion. Many surrounding nations, including Mongolia, have no idea China is heading in which direction.End of translation. Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, South East Asian countries, Australia, are all in doubt, some are in fear(Taiwan) of CHINA. Mongolia is no exception.

Bathrobe, on my user page, there were bits and pieces I collected on Matteo Ricci. One statement strikes me the hardest:

“ As Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 – 1975)( British historian) said: "at this point Christianity had a chance to become a true world religion and rejected it. Never again in history has that opportunity presented itself on such favorable terms. Had Ricci and his colleagues been permitted to continue on their way, there is certainly no question but that the history of the world would have been far different." ”

Bathrobe, Wikipedia is an excellent platform for the East to meet the West. I will try my best to stay NPOV.Arilang1234 (talk) 05:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your advices Teacher Coppertwig, I think I am getting more NPOV and less POV. But I still need your help. Please have a look at Zhou Enlai, I have put some templates there, and I would like to have your comments.Arilang1234 (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

  Arilang, I'm sorry that I was talking about reverting your edits. I guess that wouldn't be a good way to help you! Thank you for still calling me Teacher and asking for my help after that. I looked at your last edit to Chinese Milk Scandal, [1], and it looks good. Thank you for using the cite news template. There may be some small problems with the edit, but nothing bad enough to revert it. You put it in the section "On the damage caused". I don't think your edit is really about damage caused; I think it's more about criticism of the WHO etc. But I think it's not too bad to put it in that section. It's still related to damage caused.

  In my comments on talk pages, I use italics (like this) for quotes. I think in Wikipedia articles, we're not supposed to use italics for quotes. The Manual of Style ((WP:MOS) says, "For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics." This is a small problem. If you have a small number of small problems in your edits, that's OK: other people will fix them later. Sometimes you have too many small problems in your edits, though.

  I will look at Zhou Enlai.

  You said, "To tell the truth, I am still very confused about this NPOV or POV things." I have a suggestion for you: I suggest that you read the Neutral point of view (NPOV) policy, if you didn't already. You may want to look at both the English Wikipedia policy, and the Chinese Wikipedia version of the same policy. Have you read the NPOV policy? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:04, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I am having very civilised conversations with Arilang. I've fixed up some of his edits, reverted others that were misplaced and just somehow off on a tangent. The problem is that Arilang still cannot seem to escape from a polemical mentality in editing articles. Some of this may be due to lack of technical skills (i.e., the ability to take an extended passage of English and sum it up accurately and fairly in his own words). That is what leads to the heavy use of "such and such an author said" and long quotes, usually quotes that serve to make his point.

But what worries me more is that he still tends to make wild statements based on his own feelings and his own reading of the texts. For instance, at the Qing talk page, after some quotations from Preston, Arilang says: "That means slaves were all over the place. It really should be renamed as a slave regime, or slave state" -- complete with a link to the article on "slave states" before the U.S. civil war. I really feel it is an uphill battle getting Arilang to understand that his single-minded demonisation a single pre-modern ethnic group is an extreme point of view. I don't want to be accused of personal attacks, but my earlier analogy with squirrels and acorns was originally meant in this sense. Moreover, he is demonising the Manchus out of a very strong sense of historical grievance from his own particular ethnic point of view as a Han Chinese. Quite simply, he has a chip on his shoulder. I don't know how old Arilang is, but I sense an inability to attain balance or maturity in his edits.

I feel it will be difficult to continue engaging him. It is quite exhausting to constantly restrain him. I hate to say this, but he is a POV warrior and nothing that I can do to convince him to act otherwise. I'm not a high-school student, I have a job and am trying to have a life, and I don't have the time or energy to be monitoring someone who simply cannot understand how to write an article from a balanced, careful point of view.

Bathrobe (talk) 10:53, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I see that Arilang now has a new mentor who is also knowledgeable in Chinese history. I wish both of them luck and hope that good will come of their cooperation. I will be refraining from dealing with either Arilang or Qing-dynasty related articles in future. Perhaps it is better this way, both for me and for Wikipedia.

Bathrobe (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I was unable to stick to my resolution. I went in and edited Arilang's additions to the article on the Qing. I notice that suggestions offered to him to improve his edits have largely gone unheeded. For example, User Madalibi suggested that long quotations were not suitable to the article. Despite this, User Arilang has made no move to rectify this fault. When I went in and removed two quotes about the Dowager Empress Cixi, I found that at least one quite damning passage was simply taken from an unsourced, unauthoritative web site.

I now seem to be in a state of war with User Arilang. I admit to having called him a squirrel, which is an apt metaphor but should not have been used because it unfortunately suggests low intelligence. I also accused him of anti-Manchuism and Han Chauvinism. Since these are "labels" I should not have used them, but a detailed inspection of his comments and edits reveals that they are not completely off the mark. Finally, I admit that I cast aspersions on "Han Chinese editors" by suggesting that were not interested enough in Manchu culture to edit in the way that a non-Han, non-Chinese could. This was unjustified.

Nevertheless, I am rather disturbed at the racial language that came back. "White man" is one. A slur on Australian Aborigines is another. More recently, User Arilang called himself "Ching Chong Chinaman", a remark that suggests this is the kind of view that I have of him and the kind of language that I would use against him. User Arilang maintains that he only resorts to abuse when abuse is thrown at him. Personally I feel that while I have not been beyond using intemperate descriptions of User Arilang, this has mostly been based on objective observation of his behaviour. Arilang's resort to racial language and stereotypes goes quite beyond this and I'm not totally happy to be called out on my use of language when I feel that User Arilang's is worse in several degrees.

In editing User Arilang's work, it has become clear that he his not only taking material selectively to support his point of view; he is also using material quite sloppily, leaving out material and omitting important information. He is also adding irrelevant "See also" links, to "slavery", etc. in order to push his POV that the Qing was a "slave state".

I continue to find his work a matter of concern. The idea of having him post edits at the talk page first is not working. Moreover, criticisms and suggestions are not making any difference to his behaviour. He appears to be too eager to add new information to be bothered to go back and clean up his own edits. I would suggest that after each edit, he should be asked to go in and fix up his own edits based on suggestions and criticisms offered. He seems to be neither motivated to fix his own edits, nor interested in improving his mode of editing. It is hard to understand appeals to act as his "teacher" when the pupil doesn't appear willing to learn.

Bathrobe (talk) 04:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Arilang: I looked at Zhou Enlai. I think it's fine for you to put an "unbalanced" template, and to discuss on the talk page how it needs to be changed. But, please don't put a large number of "unbalanced" templates on an article. If many sections of the article are unbalanced, then there should only be one template at the top of the article. If only a few sections are unbalanced, then there should be no template at the top of the article, only templates at the tops of some sections.

You put too many "see also's". Some of them, for example to "Animal Farm", are not NPOV. This is not NPOV: "This famine was not cause by droughts or freezes, but instead by a controlled economy in the hands of a murderous dictator." I don't have time to say more right now. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

User Arilang2

Teacher Coppertwig, again thanks for you patience and help, there is some improvement at Qing, although slow, at least it has begun to move, because new and more able editors started to join in. I am beginning to learn how to upload 'image'. I copy image from Sun Yatsen, am going to upload it onto Qing Talk:Qing Dynasty#Proposed image of Dr.Sun Yatsen to be uploaded into Qing, is there going to have copy right issue?Arilang1234 (talk) 05:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Teacher Coppertwig, so many days didn't hear from you, I was beginning to think something nasty had happen to you. Good to see you are back, hope everything OK with you. I have learn a lot of thing in the last few days,(1) I am playing with 'image' now, well, a picture says a thousand words, Have to go, will be back.

I am back. (2) I have learn how to use the (hiden template), if you look at my user page, it is much better now. (3) I am getting along with user Madalibi real good. I have decided to leave all the writing(you know my English is elementary) to him, I just focus on references and sources. Have to leave it to the experts.Arilang1234 (talk) 19:41, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I'm sorry, I've been busy with other things. I hope in a few hours I will have time to look at some of the work you did. Would you please answer this question: Did you read the neutral point of view policy? You might want to read the Chinese Wikipedia version if it's too hard for you to read the English version. I'm glad that Madalibi is helping you!! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 22:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

About the image of Sun Yat-sen: I think you didn't upload that image. I think Militaryace uploaded it to Commons. If an image is on Commons, then you can use it on Wikipedia. I think the copyright is OK, but I'm not an expert on that. If it's on Commons, I don't worry about the copyright; I think the people on Commons will delete it if the copyright is not OK. You can use it on Wikipedia like this: [[Image:Sunyatsen1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Sun Yat-Sen]] You can make the "200px" a bigger or smaller number to change the size of the image.

I want to explain to you about NPOV and about closely related ideas. Many of the things you have put in articles are not NPOV and many of them are not closely related to the article topic.

NPOV means that any person can read the article and think "That's true". That's why we don't have an article that says "God exists" or "God doesn't exist". Some people would disagree with that. But we can have an article that says "Source A says that God exists, and source B says that God does not exist." Then everyone can agree, yes, it's true, those sources do say that. So the article is true from any point of view.

I think it would be a problem if you say "Zhou Enlai was totalitarian". Would Zhou Enlai think that's true? Would Zhou Enlai's family think that's true? Would the many people who grieved after he died think that's true? If Zhou Enlai said that he was totalitarian, then the article can say that. Or, if he didn't say that but all the history books say that, then the article can say that. But if some history books have a point of view that he wasn't totalitarian, then you can't say that. You can say something like "He has been called totalitarian" if some books say he was totalitarian.

If you can't say "Zhou Enlai was totalitarian" in the article, then you also can't put "Totalitarian" as a category or a link in the "See also", because doing that would imply that he was totalitarian.

That's because of NPOV. Now I want to talk about closely related ideas. Let's imagine that it's OK to write "Totalitarian" in the "See also" for Zhou Enlai. I'll tell you why you can't write "Animal Farm" in the "See also". It's because the idea of "Aminal Farm" is not closely enough related to "Zhou Enlai".

Maybe there could be a link from "Zhou Enlai" to "Totalitarian" (for example, if he said he was totalitarian). If there's a Wikipedia page called "Books about totalitarianism", then there could be a link from the page "Totalitiarian" to the page "Books about totalitarianism". And there could be a link from the page "Books about totalitarianism" to the page "Animal Farm". That's three links. The ideas are related. But "Zhou Enlai" would be three links away from "Animal Farm". The ideas are related, but they are not very closely related. Only when ideas are very closely related, then you can have a link in "See also".

Usually a page has only a small number of links in "See also", maybe three to ten links. Wikipedians think it's better to have no links in "See also", and to put all the links in wikilinks in the text. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Zhou Enlai

THanks for all the patience in explaining to me about how NPOV works, still quite vague to me, and quite subjective to me. For example, at talk page Ma Ying-jeou, some user just use POV as a means to silence other users. Whatever I add on, they would point out some words, or something they don't like, and POV. I cannot explain it very well. But then, wikipedia's success has proved that this NPOV or POV is working very well. So, what can I say.
I an happy to see user Madalibi is going for a complete rewrite of Qing. I will leave all the writing to him, just sit back and offer my advices to him whenever he needs. I think I can help him because I can do long and deep research into Chinese history books.
I am dong quite well with 'image' now.Second Sino-Japanese War, Flying Tigers please have a look.Arilang1234 (talk) 13:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Please answer my question: Did you read the Neutral point of view policy? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, not yet, I will read it soon.Arilang1234 (talk) 14:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for answering my question! I hope when you read it, you'll understand NPOV better. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

NPOV and POV

Teacher Coppertwig, I did read the article on NPOV, and sort of understand a bit more. I think at the moment I shall stick to 'talk page' interaction with other users in order to learn more on this wiki rule. My sudden and abrupt 'attack' on Qing was too immature, to say the least. There is yet another undercurrent factor involved, which you might not be aware of, is the highly-charged political and ethnic nature of the subject, even though this is supposed to be 300 years-old history, but its nowsdays' implications are real, and of live or die consequences. Sometimes it could be compared to Israel-Palastinians relation, and you know how hot those discussions can become, NPOV or not NPOV.

Well, at least I have improved a bit in the past few weeks, hopefully one day I can shake off my 'POV warrior' image. Please have a look at User:Arilang1234/Sandbox/2, and let me know what you think. Initially I did it so that user Madalibi can have easier access to my links, but when it gets bigger and bigger, I am thinking may be it could be turned into a new article, after converting all those Chinese texts into English texts first, of course. Arilang ^talk 22:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message! I'm glad to hear that you've read the NPOV policy and that you're planning to just do talk page edits for a while. I think you have improved.

About your sandbox: I can't read most of it because it's in Chinese. I'm impressed that you've collected a lot of material that's probably interesting. I understand about how things from many years ago can have live-or-die importance now.

One thing you need to learn more about is relevance – that means whether ideas are closely related. I was explaining that to you above about Animal Farm. I think probably the ideas in your sandbox can't just be made into an article. Instead, what you need to do is take each fact one at a time, and figure out which article it should go in, and which part of the article. It has to go in just the right place, where the fact is very closely connected to the ideas in that part of the article. Probably different facts from your sandbox should go in different articles.

When you have a suggestion of something to put into a particular article, let me know and I might check your English grammar and other things. Or maybe Madalibi is doing that now. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Teacher Coppertwig, I have created this article Anti-Qing sentiment all by myself! Please have a look when you have time and let me know if there is any issue on POV or NPOV. Arilang ^talk 06:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Arilang: I think the whole article is non-NPOV! I think it might not be possible to have a Wikipedia article with a title like "anti-Qing sentiment", because the article would be telling only one POV. It would be better to have an article with a title like "sentiments about the Qing," including both anti-Qing sentiment and pro-Qing sentiment. Maybe "sentiments about the Qing" isn't a very good title either; maybe that material needs to go in the Qing dynasty article or some other article.

Also, your article doesn't just talk about anti-Qing sentiment but also talks about things the Qing did that people didn't like. That's not NPOV, and I think it's not staying close enough to the topic. The article may also be too similar to anti-Manchuism; maybe the two articles need to be combined into one article.

You could try to make it clear in each article how the two sentiments are different.

If an article with a title like that is kept, I think it needs to talk more about the people who felt an anti-Qing sentiment: who were these people, and what did they say and do? That should be the main focus of the article. How were they organized? What did they write? For example, if they wrote anti-Qing books, you could talk in the article about the titles of the books and when they were written, etc.

The article should be about the people who were anti-Qing; the article should not just express anti-Qing sentiment. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:53, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Anti?

I think my Anti-Qing sentiment is OK, because under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anti-fascism, there are many articles anti- this and anti- that. Even wikipedians are allowed to be anti something. It is human nature, NPOV or not. Anti abortion is yet another explosive topic. If all those Anti articles can stay, I don't see why my Anti-Qing sentiment has to come off. Arilang ^talk 02:05, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

If you read anti-Manchuism carefully, which is about Han Chinese anti Manchus' ethnicity. The article has a racist undertone, is about Han Chinese hate Manchu race. Whereas my article is about anti Qing dynasty, about anti Qing government, anti Qing rule, anti Qing tyranny. There is distinct differences between these two articles. Arilang ^talk 02:21, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

You might be right. I see you have a distinctive new signature. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi teacher Coppertwig, first to say hello to you, next I need your help to stop the vandalism of user Yongle's repeated edits on Ming, even after many warnings posted on his talk page User talk:Yongle. I did press some button on 'reporting vandalism', but do not know the end result. Please help to stop him because he is a nuisance.
That said, recently I have created a few more articles( all the links are on my user page). If you are free, do drop by and give me some criticisims.Thanks. Arilang ^talk 04:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Arilang! I'm happy to get another message from you.

About user Yongle: this seems to be a new user, who may not know how Wikipedia works. Please be gentle with the user, and assume good faith. I see no evidence that Yongle's edits are vandalism. I think Yongle is trying to make the Ming dynasty article better. I suggest not calling it vandalism. To invite Yongle to start using the article talk page, I suggest putting arguments on the article talk page gently explaining why you don't think Yongle's edits are good, and then putting a short message on Yongle's talk page telling where the article talk page comments are. It's a good idea to say some nice things about Yongle's edits, too. Maybe you can tell Yongle that some of what Yongle is writing can be used, but that it has to be discussed and edited on the article talk page first. If you try these things and Yongle is still causing problems, feel free to ask me for help again. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I looked quickly at the articles you created. I'm proud of you! I think you've created useful articles. Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. I see some problems with the articles, too, and I'll try to fix them or comment on them in the next few days. I'm sorry that the text of the Charter 08 had to be blanked with a copyright template, until we can find out for sure about the copyright. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Arilang needs help, again

Arilang requesting urgent action

in regard to article Massacres and Atrocities committed by Manchu rulers see talk page Massacres and Atrocities committed by Manchu rulers

Quote: This has nothing to do with being a Manchu apologist or anything like that. I will put up this page for AfD this afternoon. Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 04:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)Unquoted.

I have agreed with your proposal of moving to my user page for further development, looks like user Madalibi is going to do something which is in contrary to your specific instruction. Could you stop him from taking up further action, which is uncalled for? In my opinion, he needs to explain (1) why he act like an admin when he is not? (2) Why he want to move the article after I have agreed to your proposal (3) the style and his tone and chose of words does not match with the claim that he is a 'new editor', and my suspicion is that he is actually an admin from other wiki, possible an admin from zh:wiki in disguise?

cc to user PBS Arilang talk 05:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] user Madalibi putting words into my mouth

I am protesting against user Madalibi as he is putting his words into my mouth. Quote:But you have to stick to what your sources say: you cannot use scholarly sources that make points "A" ("the Shaanxi population dropped dramatically in the late 19th century as a result not only of famines and epidemics, but also of wars") and "B" ("before 1911, Sun Yat-sen called the Manchus 'barbarians'" [or "Tartar caitiffs" for da lu 韃虜]) to argue for point "C" ("the Manchu barbarians committed genocide against Shaanxi Muslims"). I'm not arguing that "point C is false": I'm saying that point C is your point, not a point you can find in the scholarly literature you are citing. No matter how reliable your sources ae, if you blend them in this way you are making a (forbidden) synthesis of published material which advances a position:Unquoted.

"point "C" ("the Manchu barbarians committed genocide against Shaanxi Muslims"). I'm not arguing that "point C is false": I'm saying that point C is your point" my answer: point C may be my point, but I have drop the issue of 'genocide' many hours ago, he knows I have dropped it because he knows I have changed the names of the article. Why he is accusing me of something that I no longer fighting for? I therefor like to say that he is not saying the truth, and he is fabricating something, and I am disputing all his claims, or accusations, or whatever it is. Arilang talk 05:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC) As you can see from above, in my opinion user Madalibi is making up his own wiki rules , and he is trying to move the article created by me into AfD. Please help me if you can. Arilang ^talk 07:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I have cc to other admins. Arilang ^talk 07:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello Coppertwig, I am User: madalibi. If you are interested in understanding the context of my words and the origin of Arilang's complaint (and if you have time for all this!), you should consult the talk page of the now-deleted wiki "Massacres and Atrocities committed by Manchu rulers," which can now be found in Arilang's Sand box. (Even broader context can be found in the talk page of Genocides in history.) I think Arilang became very nervous because he thought I could unilaterally delete his wiki (which is not what AfD means) and that only administrators could put up pages for AfD. I'm not completely sure, but he seemed to think that if the content of his wiki was moved to his sandbox, the wiki would not be deleted (see "Requesting AfD" in the talk page). If you have time, maybe you could read through these talk pages and let me know if you think I made a mistake somewhere, if I "made up rules" or "fabricated" anything, and if I owe Arilang an apology. You actually don't have to respond to this message. I just wanted to contextualize Arilang's accusations. I appreciate and try to emulate your constructive style as an editor. Keep up the good work! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 03:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Arilang. Only admins can delete articles, but anyone can put an AfD tag on any article at any time. (Well, at least in theory. They should have a good reason, and follow all the instructions at WP:AfD so that the discussion is listed in all the right places. I can give you advice and help if you want to do that some time.) AfD means starting a discussion about whether to delete the article or not. Usually the discussion lasts for 5 days. I think the name of the article wasn't NPOV, so it was probably a good idea to delete the article. Maybe you can put parts of the material from the article into other articles.

If Madalibi said that you said some things and it was wrong, please assume good faith: that means, please think that Madalibi was trying to do what was right. Maybe Madalibi made a mistake about what you said. The thing to do next is probably to put a message under Madalibi's message, calmly and politely saying something like "No, I didn't say that. What I said was ..." ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Genocides in history

Teacher Coppertwig, thanks again for what you are doing for Charter 08. If you have time, please have a look at Talk:Genocides in history (new discussion open again). Somehow the fonts have become small, is it possible to make it normal, as small fonts are hard to read. Thanks. Arilang ^talk 19:48, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig. I have solved the font problem already, so don't worry about it. But my exchange with Arilang on the said talk page is now taking a bit of a strange turn, especially here. I'm not making any request: I just thought you might be interested. All the best, Madalibi (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Seasons greetings from Arilang

Merry X'mas and Happy New Year to teacher Coppertwig. Arilang ^talk 04:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Professor's another email:User talk:Arilang1234#Message from Perry Link

Hi, I have just received an e-mail from en-permission saying that GFDL liscence for Charter 08 is granted. As I am not familiar with this operation, please have a look when you have time. Thanks. Arilang ^talk 11:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Concerted attack

Hi teacher Coppertwig, I think some sort of coordinated attack is underway regarding the article I created:Differences between Huaxia and barbarians, which is an ancient Chinese historical term(not used in modern time anymore, as it was clearly stated in the article). What my worry is if someone decide to put a AfD tag on it and aim for a quick delete, how am I going to prevent it from happening? Arilang ^talk 10:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Arilang1234. Please assume good faith. I see no reason to think there's a "coordinated attack". I agree with many of the things people are saying about the article, so if people agree with each other, you don't have to think that it's "coordinated". I'm sorry, but on Wikipedia people work together, so we can't just write whatever we want and keep it. If you want to keep all your articles, you can post them on your own private website. On Wikipedia, anyone is allowed to put an AfD tag on an article. When there is an AfD tag, then there is a discussion, so if many people think it's a good article, it will stay.

I think you may be able to save the article by making it more clear what the article is about, and changing it to be more NPOV.

You need to explain better. I don't understand. I think many readers won't understand. You need to change the article to be more clear. I can help, but first you need to explain it to me.

What is the article about?

Is the article about a phrase in Chinese? What is the phrase? (pin-yin or Wade-Giles please.)

If the article is about a phrase, probably it should only use sources that talk about that phrase.

The article probably needs to be renamed. The title sounds racist. Maybe it's also too racist on the Chinese Wikipedia: or maybe it's OK there, because maybe people recognize the phrase as being an old phrase and they know what the article is about. Maybe the title could be changed to something like "The Chinese concept of (pin-yin) (Differences between Huaxia and barbarians)". (with the actual pin-yin for the phrase instead of "(pin-yin)".) I suggest that you discuss on the article talk page about renaming it. You can suggest there the title I just suggested, if you think it's a good idea.

Usually there is more than one way to translate something. If the article is about a phrase, then it's about that exact phrase in Chinese. There may be more than one way to say it in English. If it's about the exact Chinese phrase, then it's not about the English version of the phrase. The title and first paragraph of the article need to make it clear what exactly the article is about. Maybe it's about the idea behind that phrase, not about the exact phrase?

I think the last 3 sections are not closely related to this article. Those things probably needs to be moved to other articles. Can you explain how they're related? Do the sources for those things mention the phrase? If they are related enough to stay, then they need to be changed so that the reader can easily see how they're related. The first sentence of each section should make it clear how that section is connected to the subject of the article.

Maybe the article should be merged with Sinocentrism.

I hope these comments are helpful. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

A bit more explanation

Teacher Coppertwig, maybe you have read my explanation on other talk page, I like to explore a bit more on the subject.

Differences between Huaxia and barbarians pinyin:hua2 yi2 zhi1 bian4華夷之辨 is a very important ideology of Han Chinese civilization. It also carry a lot of meanings through 3000 years of history. Sinicization and Sinocentrism are quite close, but not good enough. For example, Chinese food, when cooked and consumed in China always taste better. If you live in the UK, or USA, or Singapore, you still can taste Chinese food, but it is different, because it is not the real thing.

And Differences between Huaxia and barbarians pinyin:hua2 yi2 zhi1 bian4華夷之辨 is a cultural thing, a civilization thing. This ideology can explain why countries like Japan, Vietnam, Korea, all of them follow Confucius teachings, all of them trying to be Huaxia. When you have read more about Confucius teaching, you would know that how East Asia was(and is still) influenced by Han Chinese civilization and Confucius teaching.

And Differences between Huaxia and barbarians pinyin:hua2 yi2 zhi1 bian4華夷之辨 can explain the cause of the two Sino-Japanese Wars, which were two wars that changed East Asia completly. Sinicization and Sinocentrism can explain these two wars to some extents, but not as good.

I know you have put in a lot of efforts to get Charter 08 into wikisource, for that alone, future Han Chinese will always remember you for a thousand years. This article is just as important as Charter 08, but in a different way. Little bit like the Christian idea of God vs Devil, but yet different, in that Civilized people vs Barbarians were interchangeable, whereas God is God, Devil is Devil. And God is absolute, can never become devil, whereas Han Chinese can become Barbarians, and vice versa. I hope my crude analogy would not confuse you further. Arilang ^talk 09:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Detail explaination on talk page

Please check my talk page. Arilang ^talk 07:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Suspecting sock puppet

Teacher Coppertwig, I think user Albert584 is a sock puppet. Please check Talk:Differences between Huaxia and barbarians.

cc.to user Moonriddengirl Arilang ^talk 11:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Just noting that I've responded to this one at my talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't see this section on my talk page. I already replied at Moonriddengirl's talk page, anyway. I hope I didn't miss seeing any other sections you created on my talk page, Arilang. If I don't answer, feel free to remind me: I might not have seen your message, or I might have forgotten to reply. Or I might be busy. It may be better to put new sections at the bottom of my talk page so I'll see them, or use three equals signs "===" to make subsection headings instead of a whole separate section. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Third AfD tag in a matter of days

Like I have expected, User Mabalibi slammed another AfD tag on Differences between Huaxia and barbarians, clearly in violation of one of the wiki rules Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Focus on content Quote: When you find a passage in an article that you find is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not easily possible, and you disagree with a point of view expressed in an article, don't just delete it. Unquoted.
I think his behavior is very un-Wiki, if there is such a word. Arilang ^talk 07:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Arilang. I'm sorry, but I think there's nothing wrong with Madalibi's putting an AfD tag on the article. Anyone can add an AfD tag to an article (although I suggest you ask me or someone else for advice before you add an AfD tag to an article). The part of dispute resolution you're quoting is about deleting words from articles, not about deleting whole articles. Deleting articles is a normal and frequent process on Wikipedia. Before putting up the AfD tag, Madalibi discussed the article on the article talk page (although people can also put up AfD tags without discussing first). I only see one AfD tag. I'm not sure whether the other two tags you're talking about are the other tags on the article (which are not AfD tags but some other kind of tag), or AfD tags on other articles. The AfD tag has a link to the discussion here; usually AfD discussions are for 5 days, and at the end either the article is deleted, or the AfD tag is removed. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 17:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

AfD tag

Hi, me again. On Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Differences between Huaxia and barbarians, I have provided 10 new references in English; even though the English is machine translation instead of human translation, readers can still work out the basic idea.
The main accusation is original research, and my new references have proved that this article is not original research. The rest of the accusations do not hold any water, so I am quite confident that this article would not be deleted. Please let me know what you think. Arilang ^talk 23:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but "original research" is not the only problem. Hong Qi Gong has a concern that the sources only mention the concept, they don't talk about it. You then provided a reference that talks about it, but it's just an encyclopedia, not the type of source Wikipedia usually relies on. Several good sources would probably be needed.

You said that the article is not racist, but you didn't say why it isn't. It looks racist to me. Even the title looks racist. If not racist, then putting people of one culture ahead of others, instead of people of one race.

Other problems with the article have been mentioned, including that much of the material is not closely related to the topic and should go in other articles. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

Teacher Coppertwig, if the final decision is deletion then let it be, at least I have put up a good fight

.One thing I would like to know is who shall be making the final decision, a single admin or a group of admins?

By the way, user Bathrobe has agreed with me that the article is not racist. Arilang ^talk 05:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A single admin, acting impartially, determines what the consensus of the community is as reflected by the discussion, and posts something at the top of the page stating what the result is and that the discussion is closed. The admin deletes the page if that is the outcome. Good luck. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Refactor?

Coppertwig, I've read your excellent comments here, and I agree with many - if not all - of your points. In order to make it easier to respond, I was tempted to refactor your comments into three (this being an arbitrary figure) subsections. I just wondered if this would be acceptable, and/or whether you'd prefer to do that yourself? Jakew (talk) 13:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Greetings, Jake! Thanks for the compliment. OK, I'll do it. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you see, on another article I was editing, someone was complaining that people shouldn't be editing the article without having read the whole article first. So I figured it would be a good time to re-read the Circumcision article. And of course, being the type of person who would become a Wikipedian, I don't usually just read something without finding things to change. I was going to just quickly read the Circumcision article as the first item on my to-do list for yesterday; I pretty much just finished in time to log off. At least I restrained myself and didn't fiddle with things inside the quotes (as I think you've caught me doing in the past). ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Email

I've replied. Sorry about the long delay, everything is explained. Regards and apologies, Caulde 15:55, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Coppertwig. You have new messages at Moonriddengirl's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Revisit That Mucoid Plaque Article?

Greetings Coppertwig. Would you like to revisit that mucoid plaque article? Most recently, another fair-minded skeptic has made complaints on the talk page and edits to the article. Take some time to study the mucoid plaque talk page, my recent revision, as well as the edit history. I welcome you to come aboard and add your two cents. Heelop (talk) 17:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ancient Persian problems

You recently contributed to an AfD discussion on an article about ancient Persian history. I have been reviewing the contributions of the editors who have been involved in these and other related articles, and have found a considerable number of issues - bad writing, original research, lack of sourcing or citations, and POV problems. I have posted the results of my review at User:ChrisO/Ancient Persian problems (it's a work in progress, as I'm still going through the contributions). Please feel free to add to it as you see fit and leave any comments at User talk:ChrisO/Ancient Persian problems. I would be interested in any feedback that you might have. Thanks in advance. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Dispute

This edit is probably the most major dispute we have, although I'm not sure why you're asking. (Link to full discussion.) I am not sure if it is a violation of conduct policy or guideline, but it seems to me that opposing an edit for the reason you give in your first sentence, which I reproduce in full below, is perplexing:

Coppertwig: "Oppose. I changed my mind, for the following reason. While I still think it would be a slight improvement to have this article named "Male circumcision" with "Circumcision" being a redirect to it if it remains a redirect, nevertheless I now realize that what would probably happen in practice is that it would not stably remain a redirect but a variety of people would keep coming along and trying to be helpful by changing the redirect into a disambiguation page or a short article, leading perhaps to edit wars and to instability in the way readers would be able to find this article, and being a disservice to the reader who, in the majority of cases I believe, would have to find the right link and do another page load before arriving at the desired information, and who in many cases might abandon the search before arriving at this article."

You opposed an edit apparently not because you thought it wasn't a better edit (indeed you expressed your opinion that it was), but because of what you thought "would probably happen in practice." Wikipedia is specifically set up to make what happens in practice correspond to consensus. A further change would have required this consensus. I believe this position seems like a failure to believe in the ability of WP:CONSENSUS policy to generate an appropriate organization of a topic. What you seem to be suggesting, is that the presentation and organization of the information that you agree are more appropriate than what is there, will cause a consensus to develop that actually supports a new presentation and organization. You then object on the grounds that the article "would not stably remain." Change (i.e., an edit) is not to be opposed on the mere basis that it is change. That seems akin to not having faith in the collective ability of Wikipedia editors to find the best organization through a series of small improvements (or blunders to be corrected), discussion and consensus. Perhaps that is seen as acceptable in Wikipedia, I don't know. It doesn't seem acceptable to me. It doesn't seem like it's primarily an editorial opinion arrived at through an objective and neutral view. I lost a lot of confidence in your judgement and ability with the above edit, as you argued so eloquently for the supporting view throughout the long, arduous discussions, gaining the respect of those who agreed with you, and possibly also that of those who did not. To seem to turn around and then distance yourself not from your arguments, not from your agreement with the preference of the editors who supported the move, but from the idea of an further, undiscussed edit that would have required a new consensus, is again completely perplexing to me. You do this without stating that you are opposed to that further edit, but again only on the grounds that stability is preferable -- a sort of status quo for the sake of the status quo. You seem to resist the idea of letting Wikipedia work according to its principles, in essence, inadvertently casting a shadow over a current disputed edit by invoking a larger shadow of some undesirable future edit. I do not understand the motivation for the continuation of your position after this objection has been presented to you. It seems to me to be in contradiction with your expressed interpretation of policy -- a logical flaw. I understand that you may view that your comment was in conformance with policy, but if so I'm forced to disagree, by my reading of it. Blackworm (talk) 03:59, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you do state your opposition to the future, looming (in your apparent view), edit -- I overlooked that possibly because I believe that objection, apparently based on the user experience rather than encyclopedic validity and neutrality, would be invalid if the further edit were to be proposed, as WP:NPOV policy solidly outweighs concerns about the user experience (and whatever MoS or other guidelines you may feel inspire those concerns). Blackworm (talk) 05:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

How this dispute is made related to conduct by your comments about people

My comment above assumes that, as you suggest, "a variety of people would keep coming along" and they argued a redirect from circumcision -> male circumcision was not WP:NPOV enough, requiring a disambiguation. The climate at circumcision does seem to me to prevent that from happening. With regard to the RfC/U you filed regarding me, I'm repeat that I disagree when you suggest the problematic climate you refer to is primarily because of my edits. Consider edits like the following, which all occurred before I made any edits related to circumcision. One editor from that time (but not apparently currently active) seems to echo my current concern and fatigue:

• Zandrous (10:44, 20 February 2007) "Forgive my sharp comments, long observation of this page has led me to become somewhat cynical about the process." [2]

Others make stronger accusations:

• Orpingtonian (08:34, 22 February 2007): "The [reaction] to Michael's edits just goes to show that some, here, are blinded by a wholly irrational, and quite obsessive, need to promote what they themselves believe in." [3]

• The Blend (06:31, 26 February 2007) "Mr JakeW, just because you don't like something doesn't mean its wrong. Let's please be honest and mature and everything here. Thank you."

• The Blend (06:37, 26 February 2007) "I guess if youre pro-circ you don't have to be neutral. Avi, nothing in this article is neutral so please don't give me the neutrality talk." [4]

The response in the case of The Blend seemed authoritative, and reassuring, if also somewhat dismissive, and similarly lacking substance:

• Avraham (16:06, 26 February 2007): "Blend, please CAREFULLY read WP:NPOV. [...] The fact that on this page we have people claiming that this article is BOTH too pro- and to anti- circumcision means that the primary editors are actually doing something correct" (A "smiley" image appeared at the end of the quoted sentence.) [5]

But sometimes, things are made personal.

• Avraham (14:51, 2 March 2007) "When you create the Michaelopdiea, you can do what you wish." [6] Compare this recent edit: Avraham (18:17, 26 September 2008) "However, this is wikipedia, not Blackwormapedia, and thus we need to discuss these issues as respectfully and as neutrally as possible, [...]." [7]

And often, the accusations fly.

• Avraham (21:38, 14 March 2007): "Michael, your zeal to place anything that will even tangetially cast circumcision in a poor light is potentially troubling. Are you certain you can edit this article neutrally? What are your motivations with this, Michael?" [8] (Edit summary: "Think about your motivations, please.")

• Jakew: (13:20, 16 March 2007) "Michael, the concern being expressed is not about inclusions that "even tangetially cast circumcision in a poor light," but your "zeal" to insert such text." [9]

• Avraham (12:10, 15 March 2007) "No one denies you your right to feel that circumcision is the worst [thing] since mass murder--but you may not edit the article with intent to color it that way [...]" [10]

• Avraham (18:24, 18 March 2007): "You have not even answered the questions here, and you resort to adding more tangential information to push your own anti-circumcision agenda." [11] (Edit summary: "I begin to see.")

• Jayjg (16:19, 29 March 2007): "According to whom is it a significant issue? According to Michael Glass, anti-circumcision activist?" [12])

Humour is used, then when the humour is rejected, communication breaks down.

• Avraham "Michael, I was using tongue-in-cheek humorous sarcasm when I said "worst thing…". Your edit history here implied to me that you were perceptive enough to understand that and had enough of a sense of humor (remember Furphy?) to crack a smile. I see that I was wrong on both counts." [13] (Edit summary: "I apologize for assuming that you would understand my humor.")

Assumptions of good faith are required according to some, and not required according to others.

• Jakew (13:21, 3 March 2007) "Michael, please review WP:AGF. There is little point in holding a discussion about the application of Wikipedia policy if you view it as a weapon in an ideologically-driven dispute." [14]

• Avraham (03:29, 18 March 2007): "However, remember that the assumption of good faith is not required where there is contrary evidence. No less than three people have asked for your motivations, Mr. Glass, and your silence does nothing other than act as a tacit admission, I am afraid." [15]

And some, in the face of this, can only respond with apparent disbelief, before all but disappearing completely from the article and Wikipedia.

• Michael Glass: (16:33, 18 March 2007) "Avi, I refused to answer your questions because they are put in such an uncivil and hostile way, and they make accusations that I totally reject. You have accused me of not explaining my edits in a NPOV way. You have said that there is strong evidence that I have not acted in good faith. You have accused me of repeatedly and persistently making edits that are either blatantly or subtly NPOV. Then you turn round and accuse me of not responding to your civil questions!" [16]

• Michael Glass, to Avraham (04:50, 19 March 2007): "When it comes to edits, let's try to put our personal beliefs about each other to one side and, as we say in Australia, play the ball and not the man." [17]

Now I don't vouch for these other editors' edits, or ultimately even state that their disappearance is a "problem." But the climate in circumcision and related articles seems that of the stern enforcement of a double standard, put quite simply; and I believe your focus on me with the RfC perpetuates that double standard. I applaud your efforts to curb this by proposing strict observation of civil and appropriate conduct from all, as a remedy. Unfortunately, as I believe we've observed, your presentation may cause some editors to be quick to condemn me without looking at all the evidence. I object to your focus on me, and your identifying me as a primary cause of the conflict, and believe the above edits show that a destructive and disruptive climate existed before I arrived. This does not excuse any past behaviour, or current incivility; but a one-sided focus is similarly inexcusable. I will take your proposals to heart in hopes that others can apologize, strike out, step back, be courteous, and abide by those proposals as well -- however as recent edits also show, the climate is not better today. Blackworm (talk) 08:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Re "I'm not sure why you're asking": I'm as perplexed as you are. You had said, "...by demanding dispute resolution on the content (demands that are ignored by all)". I thought this might mean that I had ignored a demand by you to participate in dispute resolution. I wanted to correct that if that were the case, so I started with step 1 of Thomas Gordon's six-step problem-solving method: 1. Define the problem. Actually, I wasn't thinking of Thomas Gordon, but following some sort of common sense: if there's a dispute or a problem, then in order to take steps towards solving it, I first need to find out what the problem is.

Oh. Wait. I think I see what's going on. Maybe from your point of view, I'm currently, in an ongoing way, carrying on a dispute with you about the title of the Circumcision article. I suppose that's a reasonable interpretation of what's happening, but that's not how I feel about it.

Actually, I tried to back out of the dispute some time ago. I don't much care one way or another what the title of the article is. However, my attempt to withdraw my earlier stated position somehow became the beginning of a new discussion on the topic, and I was uncomfortable with that dynamic.

Still, I have opinions on the issue, and might express them in future discussions (started by people other than me, I hope) so if you would like to discuss it with me, I guess that's OK.

You said, "Wikipedia is specifically set up to make what happens in practice correspond to consensus." I disagree. Actually, Wikipedia is set up to allow almost anyone to edit almost any page, and to be encouraged to "be bold" in doing so. For experienced editors such as you and me, knowing that we're working on a heavily-edited article such as Circumcision, yes, it's set up to make what happens correspond to consensus. But for someone coming upon a redirect and deciding to make it into an article, Wikipedia is not necessarily set up, in practice, to be able to tell that person that there's a previously established consensus, that further discussion would be required to transform it into an article, and that therefore this isn't the time to be bold. You said, "A further change would have required this consensus." In practice, I don't think so. I think people would change it, then afterwards be told about the previous discussion, perhaps then realize that there were good reasons they hadn't known about not to change it, and allow it to be changed back.

After having written that comment you dispute, it occurred to me that a comment could be put in the wikitext asking people not to change it without first considering the discussion. There's a comment like that in the Che Guevara article, for example (in the wikitext, near the top): "<!-- Note: Please do not change birth date June 14 without discussing on talk page first. -->". So, maybe something like that would be enough. Or, maybe it wouldn't.

There's another concern: currently, a Google search for "circumcision" brings up the Wikipedia article at the top of the search. I'm concerned that changing the name might lower its position in such searches. I don't know how Google handles redirects.

You said, "I believe this position seems like a failure to believe in the ability of WP:CONSENSUS policy to generate an appropriate organization of a topic." Here you seem to be speculating incorrectly about what I believe. Perhaps part of the confusion is because you and I have different opinions about what are (more or less) appropriate ways to organize the topics related to circumcision.

I think it's valid to take a number of things into account when deciding what to name an article. I've seen others in other discussions taking into account the likely future editing dynamics. For example, someone might oppose the creation of an article with a given name on the grounds that it will tend to collect a lot of spam while being neglected by regular editors. I think it's OK to oppose the creation of an article on such grounds even if one believes that ideally, if there were fewer spammers and more regular editors with enough time to look after such an article, it would be better to have such an article. In fact, the whole idea of deletion of articles on grounds of lack of an adequate level of notability is somewhat similar to that argument, I believe. Ideally, for every obscure fact we would have an article displaying it, but in practice obscure topics get overrun by vandals, so we don't have them beyond a certain level of obscurity.

You said, "What you seem to be suggesting, is that the presentation and organization of the information that you agree are more appropriate than what is there, will cause a consensus to develop that actually supports a new presentation and organization." Thank you for telling me what I seemed to you to be suggesting, so that I could correct your impression. No, that isn't at all what I was suggesting. If things were to work out that way, that would be fine (if the new organization settled on really is better, or is believed better by enough people to be called a consensus, even if it doesn't include me). That's not my reason for opposing. Instead, my reason for opposing is that there might be a lot of editors being bold and turning it into an article, without a new consensus developing to have an article there; that the new article might be reverted each time; and that it would waste the time of these editors, who could feel discouraged, and would also be disruptive because of the lack of stability, i.e. a redirect frequently changing into an article and back. I don't think it's accurate to say "that you agree are more appropriate". I certainly don't agree with your position that NPOV requires renaming the article. I see a number of weak arguments for one name or the other, some making one name better (or possibly one could say "more appropriate"), and some the other name.

You said, "You then object on the grounds that the article "would not stably remain."" Yes, I think I did say that. It seems OK to me to take that position.

You said, "Change (i.e., an edit) is not to be opposed on the mere basis that it is change." That's a straw man argument.

You said, "That seems akin to not having faith in the collective ability of Wikipedia editors to find the best organization through a series of small improvements (or blunders to be corrected), discussion and consensus." Ah. Maybe you think it would be better to have the occasional bold editor come along and change a redirect into an article, because it might eventually lead to a new way being found of organizing the articles, and development of a new consensus. That's a valid reason too, in my opinion, and I hadn't thought of it that way. However, when you say "That seems akin to not having faith..." I think you're misunderstanding the way I'm thinking. Actually, I have a lot of optimism about Wikipedians working together. I don't think it's necessary for you to interpret a disagreement between us as to what's the best way to name the article, and a disagreement about what are or are not valid reasons for preferring one way or another of naming the article, as indicating a lack of faith on my part in the collective ability of Wikipedian editors etc. It's just a difference of opinions and of values, I think, and not a lack of faith or optimism. One source of confusion might be that when I express agreement with you on some point, you may be assuming I feel as strongly about it as you do, or assuming I draw some of the same logical conclusions based on that point that you do.

You said, "It doesn't seem acceptable to me. ... I lost a lot of confidence in your judgement and ability with the above edit, ..." I'm sorry about that, and I hope that it was only because of misunderstanding, which I hope I've corrected with my comments above. If not, I'd like to discuss this further because I hope that if you understand clearly what I meant you might not lose so much confidence in me.

You said, "as you argued so eloquently for the supporting view throughout the long, arduous discussions..." I guess you may have felt as if I was pulling the floor out from under you when I changed my position for what seemed to you invalid reasons. Maybe it would help if I describe what things looked like from my point of view.

You had started a thread on my talk page with some arguments, quoting policy or guidelines, for renaming the page. I guess I was convinced by your arguments, and I said, "I'm fine with renaming it, but I don't think it makes sense to change the content to focus around a differently centred topic." (Note that I changed my mind at that time, and later changed my mind back. I think we should be allowed to change our minds.) You then asked me to state my position on the article talk page. I figured it would be unfair of me to refuse to do that, since I had argued a different position previously. So I went to say something on the talk page; but I was somewhat embarrassed about it. Basically, my position was neutral. "I'm fine with renaming it" was meant as a neutral statement: in other words, if you want to do that I don't oppose it, not that I necessarily support it. It seemed odd or awkward to state a neutral position on the article talk page out of the blue: "I have an announcement! Everybody: please note that my position on X is neutral!" So, consciously or subconsciously, I made a stronger statement than I would normally have expressed. Someone else then put a section heading over this statement and it became the beginning of a discussion. I wasn't comfortable with that. Then, during the discussion, other related issues were raised, and I thought about implications of renaming the page, and thought of other reasons and changed my mind again, which was not difficult since I had only been at most weakly supporting renaming anyway. When I had been arguing in favour of renaming, I had only been stating the arguments that occurred to me and disagreeing with what I saw as illogical statements by others; I had not been arguing for something I strongly believed in, as perhaps you were, and maybe you thought I was.

I don't understand the meaning of the section header, "How this dispute is made related to conduct by your comments about people": maybe you could explain it to me.

You said, "...as you suggest, "a variety of people would keep coming along" and they argued a redirect from circumcision -> male circumcision was not WP:NPOV enough, requiring a disambiguation." No, I don't think I suggested that. That is, I may have said "a variety of people would keep coming along", but I don't think I said that they would argue that having the redirect was not NPOV enough. That's not what I meant. That would be a different situation, and if that happened, then likely some other new consensus would develop, as you suggest. No, what I was imagining is that a bunch of new editors would come along, and somewhat as I did when I first started at Wikipedia, think that major topics were simply missing, and assume that "circumcision" was a mere redirect simply because nobody had written an article on that topic yet, and try to be helpful by writing it. And be disappointed when their work is deleted.

You said, "The climate at circumcision does seem to me to prevent that from happening." People who change a redirect into an article without looking at any talk page first might not be affected by the climate.

You said, "I'm repeat that I disagree when you suggest the problematic climate you refer to is primarily because of my edits." I didn't suggest that. I implied that some problems were caused by your behaviour, not that a "problematic climate" or "the problems" were caused by your behaviour. I wasn't saying anything about whether there were or were not also other problems not caused primarily by your behaviour. I would appreciate it if you would strike out these words, because they seem to me to be an inaccurate representation of what I said. You could use a direct quote instead.

On your talk page, you said, "and not the sole [primary -BW] cause of the problems as you allege in your RfC". Thank you for refactoring, but it still isn't an accurate representation of what I said or of what I meant. I've changed the wording in the RfC to better reflect what I meant, and I apologize for wording it badly the first time. However, I don't think what you wrote here is an accurate representation even of my first wording, at least not of what I meant by that wording, and I would appreciate it if you would strike it out. What is meant by "the problems"? I meant to refer only to any problems caused by your behaviour. I didn't mean to refer to some general set of problems and then assert that they were all caused (primarily or otherwise) by your behaviour. This is quite an important point, because it relates to the whole purpose of the RfC. As I see it, the purpose of a user conduct RfC, in general, is to focus on problems caused primarily by the behaviour of one editor. The focus is important: solving all problems at once may be too big a task. Other problems can be looked at at the same time in other fora; that's fine; but I think it's important to be able to focus on some problems long enough to make some progress without the distraction of bringing in other problems into the discussion.

Re some of the diffs you quoted: please note the request at the top of my talk page. I see some of this material as being essentially criticism of other editors. It may be appropriate somewhere on the wiki, perhaps on your own talk page or some other user talk page or user conduct RfC etc., but because of the request at the top of my talk page (which you might not have noticed) I don't think this is an appropriate place for this sort of thing. I'm not asking you to delete it, and I'll answer it, but if you want to give me that kind of message in future, please consider posting it on your own talk page and putting a note on my talk page asking me to look at it there. Politely-worded criticism of my own behaviour is always welcome on my talk page. This may seem like an overly fine detail, but I think it's nevertheless important. When criticizing the behaviour of other editors, how and where it's done can make a big difference in how it's received.

OK, I see your point that there's been a problematic atmosphere at the circumcision article from before you were involved in it.

When did you start editing the Circumcision article? It must have been a rather short time before I did, I guess. Or about the same time.

I like the expression, "play the ball and not the man". Sounds as if it's referring to soccer (er, football in some countries).

You said, "But the climate in circumcision and related articles seems that of the stern enforcement of a double standard, put quite simply; and I believe your focus on me with the RfC perpetuates that double standard." If it does, I'm sorry about that aspect of the situation, but still hope that the RfC will also do some good as intended. If there's a sternly enforced double standard, that's a problem, and maybe I can help solve it. If you would like to work on this, I would like to suggest as a first step step 1 of Thomas Gordon's problem-solving method, defining the problem, and as a first step towards defining the problem, I suggest that you state in more detail (a sentence or two, perhaps) what the nature of this double standard is and how it's being enforced. (I could guess, but for a couple of reason I'd prefer that you begin describing it first.)^{(01:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC))}

You said, "I object to your focus on me" and "but a one-sided focus is similarly inexcusable." I'm sorry, but I think that when someone says the kinds of things you've said to other editors, they should be ready to expect that someone might start an RfC focussing on them. That's currently normal Wikipedian procedure. You can try to get policies changed and eliminate RfCs as an option, substituting some more effective procedure instead I hope, but for now they're the normal and accepted, even in a sense required, procedure according to things like WP:DR. So I don't see any valid grounds for objection. Actually, this may be a fundamental difference in our approaches. I generally approach behaviour problems by focussing on specific problematic behaviours by specific people, trying not to allow the discussion to be distracted by discussion of other problematic behaviour by other people, which can be taken care of in separate discussions. If you have a different approach which you believe is effective, perhaps you could explain to me how it's supposed to work.

You said, "...and your identifying me as a primary cause of the conflict," I think this was a misunderstanding, as I've tried to explain above, and would appreciate it if you would strike out these words.

"I will take your proposals to heart in hopes that others can apologize, strike out, step back, be courteous, and abide by those proposals as well..." Thank you. I really appreciate that.

" -- however as recent edits also show, the climate is not better today." I'll have a look. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Jan Grootboom

Hi, I restored the reference in the Jan Grootboom article as it appears that the page it links to is not under copyright in South Africa where it is hosted (life of author plus 50 years = 1991), or in the US where Wikipedia is hosted (pre-1923). It is only just in copyright in the UK (life of author plus 70 years = January 2011), but I think that UK jurisdiction is not relevant here. Regards, Zaian (talk) 07:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Great. Thanks! I'm sorry I deleted it, then. Thanks for restoring it. It's a nifty story! I was thinking maybe it should be listed as "Further reading" or something rather than just as a reference, so that readers would be more likely to follow the link. What do you think? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not sure. "Thus the laws of the originating country of a work determine whether something is copyright protected at all, and if so, the Berne Convention ensures that it is automatically copyright protected in all other signatory countries, too, under their respective laws (§5(1) of the Berne Convention)." (Wikipedia:Public domain); also note that that page says that when a copyright expires, it expires at the end of the year (so if life of author plus 70 years is January 2011, it will expire January 1, 2012). Was this book first published in the UK? (or whatever the UK was called back then :-) Aha, it was: "Sir (later Baron) Robert Baden-Powell, My Adventures as a Spy (London, 1915)," is mentioned in [18] Mobilization for Total War By Nándor F. Dreisziger, footnote at bottom of p. 90. So perhaps the UK laws would hold if we were to put a copy of the material in the article; but putting a link to it may be fine since the website is hosted in South Africa. Or maybe not. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I think you were right to remove the lengthy quote from the article, but leaving a link to the page in South Africa seems fine. Zaian (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Coppertwig. You have new messages at Moonriddengirl's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Second Intifada

As there was a long back-n-forth about this, I think the possibility of a misunderstanding (i.e he meant to write "hadn't" instead of 'hasn't) is remote enough as to be an impossibility. When someone makes an obviously incorrect statement, and repeats it several times, despite being taken to task for it, here is nothing wrong in pointing out that this is disingenuous. It is certainly no worse than accusations that I am 'Parachuting into multiple articles to do mass reversions without discussion', and as long as you are handing out friendly warnings, you might consider putting one on that editor's page as well. As for me - see this note - I've decided to avoid this article for a while. NoCal100 (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry you're avoiding the article. Everyone ought to feel free to edit every article without being subjected to unpleasantness. I've put a comment on the talk page of the other editor whose comment you linked to. Re AGF: in my opinion the intention of the loophole in the AGF guideline is that you can stop AGF when there's evidence that would convince a typical objective observer, not just when there's evidence that convinces you; and I think you used the word in question before the long back-and-forth. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 17:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Choice of words

I read your message to me. Please don't be offended by my removal of the message from my talk page. Please see the header notes on my talk page for various reasons why I do this. Feel free to leave other messages though. I do read them. My removal implies nothing. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 17:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Heyo

Thanks for your concerns here. I'm not sure that my comment was personal, as I requested a fair response from Timeshifter who was a bit undue-ly harsh on my content edits. I've read your comment and while I'm not sure my comment was much of a personal comment, will certainly try to keep your this concern in mind in future comments.
Cheers, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio work

I just wanted to say that the assistance you've been giving with copyright concerns is much appreciated. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm happy to help, and happy to hear that it's appreciated! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

... Although, as I've said, what I'm doing at WP:SCV is small compared to what you're doing at WP:CP! Mostly I'm busy with a number of other things, but am trying to put some time into it. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 20:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For your contributions with copyright issues, particularly at Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations. Thank you for your valuable time. :) Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic Mediation

Unfortunately, you are somewhat mistaken that "the primary purpose of [the] page was to try to find a compromise on the SM-is-OR dispute". In fact, we have been told that we are not supposed to mention that general SM is OR, based on a tangentially related RfC. While I believe you have strived to stay very neutral on this issue, do you mind stating whether you have a stance on the issue? I feel like you have made a comment about it before, but there are thousands of diffs, and your stance may have changed since then.[struck:found it in the aforementioned RfC] DigitalC (talk) 04:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Here are references that show spinal manipulation is directly related to chiropractic.[19][20][21][22] QuackGuru 04:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that is relevant to this discussion, but I'll leave that to Coppertwig. DigitalC (talk) 04:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, DigitalC; could you give me a diff of where you were told that? What do you think the purpose of the page is? I'm not convinced; I still think the primary purpose of the page is to try to arrive at a compromise on the major longstanding dispute. If someone said we can't mention something, that person might not necessarily have been right. We may need to mention some things in order to discuss effectively how to edit the article. On the other hand: QuackGuru, we've already established that spinal manipulation is related to chiropractic. There was an RfC on that, in which I agreed. So it seems unnecessary repetition to restate that. Note that this is a different question from whether results about the effectiveness of SM can be included in a chiropractic effectiveness section or whether that would be OR. "A is related to B" is not the same as "A is equal to B"; "related" is not really a transitive relationship; at least, "closely related" isn't. There's a distance involved. Spinal manipulation is related to chiropractic, but are studies of spinal manipulation relevant to effectiveness of chiropractic? It's not clear. One of the arguments, I think, is that maybe 5% or more of the practitioners were non-chiropractors, using techniques which chiropractors allege are not the same. In that case, there is the possibility that the techniques by non-chiropractors could have had a much higher rate of adverse side effects, swamping the results. If the researchers don't state in their conclusions that their results say something about chiropractic, this possibility could be the reason why; and if they aren't willing to make that statement, then maybe we shouldn't either. On the other hand, I also see reasonable arguments on the other side: that we need not always require certain precise words to be present in a source if we know that some things are essentially synonyms, and that the defining characteristic of chiropractors is generally thought to be that they perform spinal manipulation.

DigitalC and QuackGuru: can you think of some methods of working towards compromise? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC) Striking my comment; much of it is irrelevant now that I've seen Shell's review. See my comments at Talk:Chiropractic and Talk:Chiropractic/Mediation. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I do not understand your point with this comment. I provided references that show spinal manipulation is directly related to chiropractic. When SM is directly related to chiroppractic it means we are complying with WP:OR. We can conclude when we use SM research we are complying with OR. If editors have concerns then point them to the policy or guidelines on Wikipedia. QuackGuru 17:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

You stated that "As Eubulides has shown, sources discussing chiropractic spend a fair amount of time addressing the question of effectiveness, and examine this effectiveness by examining the effectiveness of SMT. So it would violate WP:UNDUE to leave that material out". I believe that I have shown the opposite. Just because many of the most referenced articles using the word Chiropractic are on the topic of the effectiveness of Chiropractic, does not negate that only 15% of articles that mention Chiropractic discuss effectiveness at all, and only 3% discuss effectiveness "by examining the effectiveness of SMT". DigitalC (talk) 23:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

DigitalC: Oh, how do the others examine effectiveness? Eubulides was giving me the impression that there aren't many good studies looking at effectiveness except those that include some non-chiro SMT.

QuackGuru: I disagree with this statement: "When SM is directly related to chiroppractic it means we are complying with WP:OR." I don't think the second half of the sentence necessarily follows from the first half. I hope that explains what you didn't understand about my comments.

If A is directly related to B, and B is directly related to C, then A still might not be directly related to C. So, if an article is directly related to SM, and SM is directly related to chiropractic, the article might not be directly related to chiropractic. See also ZayZayEM's quibble in the RfC. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Other examine effectiness by explicitly stating they are examining "Chiropractic", or "Chiropractic therapy".examples. I agree with Eubulides that the quality of these sources may not be as good. However, we are bound at Wikipedia by rules such as WP:NOR, which states that we must not "go beyond what is expressed in the sources", and to use sources that "directly support the information as it is presented" (emphasis mine). There is nothing in the sources that expresses that the intent of the source was to discuss Chiropractic, and to present it in an article on Chiropractic is does not support the information as presented in the source (if they source is not discussing Chiropractic). To take this further, if there was enough content to turn Chiropractic#Effectiveness into a sub-article, WP:NOR would say "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about the topic". (The article topic being the effectiveness of Chiropractic). Yet, using these sources for a subsection in the Chiropractic article is approved by some editors and admins. DigitalC (talk) 00:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• I wonder why you are not explaining specifically what A, B, and C is in accordance with WP:OR. I do not see a conclusion C. SM research is A and chiropractic is B. But there is no conclusion C. QuackGuru 01:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

In the analogy I just made, A is an article, B is SM and C is chiropractic. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

A and B are the same thing. Where in WP:OR does it say A is an article, B is the research directly related to the topic (SM)? I still don't see conclusion C. We are drawing conclusions about SM which is directly relevant to chiropractic. QuackGuru 01:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The C you're talking about is from a different analogy. Anyway, I'm not sure whether we need to continue this discussion: it seems to be about something where my position is neutral and it's already been decided by an uninvolved admin anyway. If you would like to continue discussing it with me, please explain how the discussion relates to article content under the current circumstances. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 20:22, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Note: Your threories on correct interaction between users are not being followed by Administrators

Please note [this] exchange. Apparently, some editors feel entitled to throw the words "POV pushing" around, effectively labeling editors as POV pushers, and when the inappropriateness of this behaviour is pointed out, in the most civil manner possible, thse editors feel entitled to claim that accusing editors have no right to communicate when them via their Talk page. Note that User:Cailil is a Wikipedia administrator. Is there "no excuse" for this? Will you join me in correcting User:Cailil's behaviour, or is this user not seen to be at the root of "problems?" Blackworm (talk) 05:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm truly sorry, Blackworm. It's more complicated than that.

There are different things referred to as "consensus": some with the support of 99% or more of Wikipedians, some with the support of 90% or 60%. In many situations, it doesn't work to treat these all the same.

The Wikipedian consensus system is a bit like a shifting quagmire. You may sometimes be able to support your weight on a piece of driftwood, but you can't build a structure without constantly checking how the foundation is holding up. It's not like logic, where once something has been established to be true you can build on it as much as you like, without having to remember how it was established to be true.

I proposed having everyone editing the Circumcision article and related articles avoid terms like "POV-pushing". I might have gotten that idea from you; I'm not sure; but in any case it seemed to me that given the particular people who usually edit there and the types of interaction that usually happen, that it would be both likely feasible and beneficial to try something like that there. I'm not proposing it for the whole of Wikipedia.

I would like to distinguish two types of users:

• A) A user believes that, to make an article conform to NPOV, greater weight has to be given in the article to POV X.
• B) A user is trying to promote POV X by increasing its prominence in articles without caring that this violates NPOV.

A common problem, I believe, is that another user, finding it difficult to imagine that someone can actually believe certain things, sees the behaviour of a user in category A and mistakenly thinks they are in category B. This is where AGF is needed and I believe is what the WP:POVPUSH section is talking about when it says it's uncivil to call someone a POV-pusher.

However, there are also actually some users in category B. If there's evidence that would convince a strong majority of objective observers that a user is in that category, then the user may need to be blocked, and in such a situation, although it's always possible to discuss things by referring to behaviour and not labelling the person, I think it would probably be counterproductive to criticize people for using the convenient term "POV-pusher".

You are not like Parthasarathy B. You discuss things with other users and acknowledge that others have points of view that differ from yours. From Parthasarathy B's talk page it appears that the user doesn't discuss things, doesn't respond to requests, and may soon be blocked.

The page you referred to in your message to Cailil, WP:POVPUSH, is not a policy or guideline, and I'm not convinced that this statement of yours is true: "... are considered by the Wikipedia community to be incivil and unnecessary."

Re user talk pages: I would generally advise users, both for their own good and for the good of the project, not to ask other users to stay completely off their talk pages. My own talk page has a message at the top welcoming politely-worded criticism of my behaviour. I think that's important, and I think is a primary purpose – perhaps the primary purpose – of these pages.

However, not everyone agrees, and when someone does ask another user to stay off their talk page, I don't criticize them for it. When someone asks me to stay off their talk page, except in some cases including obvious vandals, I generally comply with the request. If I think it's important to criticize the user's behaviour, I find some other channel: perhaps I use an article talk page (briefly and apologetically to other users for taking up space there); perhaps I bring a complaint to an administrator or to AN/I or some other forum.

These days, I'm trying hard to always comment on it when I see what I recognize as an uncivil comment directed towards an editor. Some things that others consider uncivil I don't necessarily consider uncivil.

I followed the link you gave, but I don't see anything in Cailil's behaviour that I would offer a comment on. The fact that Cailil is an administrator seems irrelevant to me, given that admin tools were not used in the situation referred to.

I'm sorry for these complexities, which you might perceive as being unfair. On Wikipedia, to some extent, different people have different ways of doing things, and different situations are not necessarily always handled in the same way. Others might see what they consider to be important distinctions between two situations, which you might not consider important. It sometimes happens that someone goes to criticize someone for breaking what they thought was a firm rule, only to discover that that behaviour is generally tolerated and even perhaps that criticizing the person for it would be considered an offense. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I suppose I am sensitive to editors referring to "povpushing" (whether edits or editors, which I consider equivalent in that case). While I believe a consensus exists that calling someone a POV-pusher is always incivil, it appears labelling edits as such is more murky. From looking at Cailil's Talk page, however, it appears that anyone commenting and in any way disagreeing is met with the same response (paraphrasing): "don't comment on my Talk page again, if you have a problem take it to AN/I, RfC or DR, your edits are povpushing and disruptive, beware that further disruption will lead to blocks and/or a ban." That, and the weight of networked groups of like-minded editors (WikiProjects), seems extremely effective in reducing any opposition to Cailil's edits -- I should try it, I suppose, especially if Admins are encouraged to behave that way. It should also perhaps be noted that Cailil has posted to my Talk page since asking me to not post to his;[23] a position that seemed to indicate a desire for an open avenue of communication. I believe it petty, one-sided, and inconsistent of Cailil to call on me to hold on to an agreement to not post to his Talk page, which I made six months before that exchange (which I welcomed). But hey, I guess that's that kind of editor Wikipedia wants, judging by the community approval given Cailil (adminship). Blackworm (talk) 20:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: this edit, I think you are completely off the mark. Nowhere above do I indicate that I believe Cailil intentionally desires to harm the project, and I challenge you to point out exactly where I said or implied that, in your view. Regardless, your edit highlights the limited usefulness of WP:AGF guideline, since as I've said before, when one party accuses another of having failed to AGF, as you have done, one party is definitely violating AGF guideline; it just isn't clear which party that is. Blackworm (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, the community consensus I refer to above is demonstrated here. I concur with the majority of editors in that discussion, and the recognized consensus. I go even further, claiming that the recognized incivil act of calling an editor a POV pusher is essentially the same as calling an edit POV pushing. The phrase "POV pushing" implies bad faith on the part of an editor, i.e., an explicit and intentional desire to advance, despite resistance ("push"), the editor's POV rather than write articles with a neutral POV. An editor making an edit that happens to violate WP:NPOV isn't necessarily doing so in bad faith, and thus to refer to an edit as "POV pushing" seems a clear failure to assume good faith in the editor. It's unfortunate that it seems our views on this are very much in contrast. Blackworm (talk) 01:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have replied here before or at the same time as editing the RfC. I very much appreciate the thanks to me with which you began your message.

However, I'd rather you didn't use my talk page as a place to post criticisms of other editors. I'd appreciate it if you would strike out your two messages about Cailil, or at least the part where you allegedly paraphrase from Cailil's talk page. I find paraphrasing can be useful in discussions in order to ask someone whether one has understood what they meant. It's not so great, though, when criticizing someone; then, precise quotes are better. I looked at Cailil's talk page and most recent talk page archive and except for the message to you didn't find anything that seemed to me to resemble your paraphrase at all. I wonder whether you saw my long reply to you in a thread above; maybe my replies are getting too long. But there, I pointed out to you that there's a request at the top of my talk page to please not post criticisms of other editors here.

Per C3, I urge you not to imitate the worst behaviours of other editors, or what you consider to be their behaviours. There are all sorts of problems with that. Just because something is done by an administrator doesn't necessarily mean it's an action condoned by the community. Are you aiming for the best possible behaviour, or the worst?

I'm not sure if it's relevant exactly, but on the topic of (allegedly) uncommunicative administrators you might be interested in this post of mine last March.

I don't understand your logic about AGF: could you explain it, please? Why couldn't it happen that there is a misunderstanding, one editor believes in good faith that the other is not assuming good faith, when the other actually is assuming good faith? What do you think of as bad faith: must it mean harming the project? Or do you consider failure to assume good faith to itself be a form of bad faith? I guess I was considering "petty, one-sided and inconsistent" to define a form of bad faith.

I guess you misunderstood Cailil's request: you apparently saw it as a temporary but complete cutoff of communication, while apparently Cailil saw it as an indefinite cessation until further notice of use of his talk page, but not of other channels of communication. He didn't tell you to stop communicating with him; he said to use AN and RfC instead of his talk page. I see nothing petty or inconsistent about his request: it seems simple and straightforward to me. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't find anything inconsistent about A asking B never to post to A's Talk page again, then months later A posting on B's Talk page and being granted a civil discussion in reply (rather than mere reciprocity); then, again months later, when B posts on A's page, A saying, "Also I will remind you are not welcome on this talk page as has been the case for nearly 11 months."[24] (??!?) Seriously, Coppertwig, we don't seem to see eye to eye on this issue at all, if you don't even recognize inconsistency in that. It is "inconsistency" at best.

Your replies are indeed getting too long. All this time, we are focusing on editors. I too have been called "petty," been accused of making edit decisions "all" from a distinct POV (would that count as "one-sided?"), and been accused of holding inconsistent positions -- by some of the editors certifying the basis of the RfC/U dispute you initiated. Again, if the other parties are to fall under scrutiny in this, as called for by WP:RFC, and you're a neutral party merely resolving a conduct dispute spanning multiple editors, why not nudge the RfC when editors supporting your complaint apparently violate the spirit of the proposed remedies, as you yourself apparently recognized? Will you note on the RfC where they also have done so? Do you think it appropriate for me to do it, given that policy calls for their conduct to be scrutinized? (WP:RFC) You seem to assert that I am not the focus when I claim that you are unfairly focussing on my conduct, but then assert that I am the focus when I point out that my conduct only highlights the gravely aggressive climate and double standards in conduct expectations in circumcision and related articles.

I'd appreciate if you struck out the allegation that I failed to abide by C3. But I do not consider it a requirement that you do so.

I'd also like to say that you may be also be in a minority in your apparent view that WP:IAR is "the primary Wikipedian policy."[25] If that were so, one would wonder why you continually ask me to strike out my comments, and not your supporters who you seem to admit engage in the same conduct, apparently causing "problems," especially when these supporters happen to agree with each other on virtually all NPOV issues, which let's face it, is not all that surprising given the fact that one is a published advocate for circumcision and two others primarily edit articles on a religion that requires it. What you write suggests you prefer that editors who encounter opposition "[invite] others to revert [their] actions," and then "[say] [they] will not dispute." Interesting, but apparently a standard that you do not hold others to as intently, with no apparent justification.

Please feel free to strikeout or remove any of my comments on your Talk page. Please consider adding [Struck out by Coppertwig] if and when you do so. Blackworm (talk) 05:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry, I don't follow many of the things you say. If you want to explain them further, it would probably help if you provided diffs. Where your comments involve criticism of editors other than myself, please move the discussion somewhere other than my talk page; I'd be happy to continue the discussion on your talk page, for example.

I think you misunderstood why I was giving that link to the arbitration request talk page from last March. I was certainly not implying that others should do the same things that user did. That link is an interesting and unusual situation and was more to show my own reaction. If you're going to imitate something the other user did, please choose "raising his level of civility", which I think you've been doing, thank you.

No, I see nothing inconsistent about Cailil's request: it's specifically about his talk page. It's somewhat similar to my own request, which is also specifically about my talk page.

When it says at RfC that other editors may come under scrutiny, I think it means don't be surprised if your behaviour is scrutinized, for example in a later Arbitration case; I don't interpret it as inviting people to comment on other editors. It's my understanding that a request for comment is specifically requesting comments on the conduct of one editor. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:06, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you, Coppertwig, for your kind comment on my talkpage. I understand the frustration of the poster and how passionate he feels about his subject. I find that the WP Code of conduct as expressed in WP:Pillars is a great way of conducting oneself both in WP and outside of it. If we were always civil, there would be no Israel-Palestinian conflict, :) Tundrabuggy (talk) 14:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree heartily! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:SCV

Hey, I've noticed you popping up on Moonriddengirl's talk page and SCV a lot of recent, and let me just say; it's nice to see you helping out there! It can get backlogged very quickly, and many of the problems take much longer to solve than to occur, so there can never be too many cooks, so to speak. With regard to pages which are similar to other articles on Wikipedia, you should check that the newer article has given attribution in the Edit History to whichever article was used as a base.

• For example, this article is fine, as the creator did exactly the right thing in the edit summary. In this case, these articles can be removed from SCV list.
• Looking at the history of this article, it looks like the original author just wants to redirect to the original page, but isn't familiar with how it works, given that they are replacing the page with the whole CSB tag (instead of just "# Redirect" etc.) - so we can redirect it and remove from the SCV list.

In a case where an article has been used as a base without being attributed, but isn't just a redirect, you can either do an extensive rewrite, or add a message such as "This page incorporates content from Article." in a notes section at the bottom of the page. I hope this helps, and it's again nice to see a new face over at SCV, especially now that I don't have as much time to help out. It can be tedious and time consuming, but it is important! Best, – Toon^(talk) 20:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I've seen you there too! Hurray for teamwork! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Location map USA North Carolina

Hi Coppertwig, I'm contacting you because you're listed at Wikipedia:Editor assistance. I was wondering if you've any idea how to fix the image in this article. I've been fiddling with Template:Location_map_USA_North_Carolina but to no avail. I appreciate you may be too busy and thanks for your time. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 00:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I have to leave in a minute or two but I'll see if I can do anything quickly! 00:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, all I'm able to find out for now is that things went wrong apparently when you did this edit: [26] What's that edit supposed to do? How about just reverting it? Can you find other location maps for other places that you can compare to? Note: if you change the template, you may need to "purge" in order to see the change right away on other pages. (I forget how to do that, though.) I hope I've been a tiny bit of help. You can try the help desk. I might be able to help more tomorrow. I know some things about templates, but not about these location maps. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I don't think I broke it (though admittedly I could have made the problem worse) but I was actually trying to fix the template with that edit. The image wasn't displaying when I came across Mount Mitchell, so I attempted to format the template along the lines of Template:Location_map_Alabama. Normally I'd simply preview my edits but it's wasn't really possible to see if they'd work in this case. Anyway, I've reverted all my edits now. I had a go at purging too (apparently adding ?action=purge to the URL does it) but it's still broken. Thanks very much for replying so quicky. And don't worry too much if you're busy, I'll try helpdesk tomorrow but I should probably go to bed now. Best wishes --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 00:43, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it!!! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:50, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you! --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 13:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for having blamed the problem on your edit. Thank you for bringing this problem to my attention; it was affecting the display on multiple articles. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 16:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I also put a message at User talk:Obersachsebot. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 16:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

That's ok: I didn't revert when I'd finished and I suppose I rather gave the impression I was asking you to fix a problem I'd created - it was a reasonable assumption. Anyway, I'm glad it's sorted. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 16:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Request

Would you mind taking a look at this issue Talk:Che Guevara (photo)#Quote Farm, and including your opinion. Thanks.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 16:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

In another episode of "As the world turns" :o)   Redthoreau (talk) RT 19:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I read the first few sections of the article, and in my opinion the quotes were not excessive. They're a small fraction of the total text, and they generally demonstrate unique POVs which are relevant to the context.

I agree with Damiens that even a very short quote, a phrase or maybe even a single word, can be called a quote.

Instead of "the daily routine of both of us reverting each other 2 times a day," which is not the way things are supposed to work on Wikipedia and could get you blocked temporarily or indefinitely, I suggest being patient, avoiding repeated reverting, trying harder to reach an understanding with Damiens, and following the steps of dispute resolution.

In your talk page comments, to promote collaboration, I suggest being careful to avoid saying things that might bother the other person. Think about whether what you're saying about the other person is NPOV: would the other person say it in those words? I'm thinking of things like "hysteria", "dreaded",[27]

Re "when you have continually displayed bad faith with me..." and "that you seem determined to continue & exacerbate." and "Since it is obvious to me that you enjoy this ‘personal tug of war’ too much to refrain from continuing it," I suggest assuming good faith, or at least talking respectfully to Damiens as if you do; I think the two of you will be more likely to reach agreement if you do that. If you've both been reverting, perhaps there's little or no reason to see Damiens' motives as being any worse than your own: you're both intent on improving the encyclopedia. I see no evidence of bad faith.

Re "pestering" and "rant": I suggest using the preview button, or better yet leaving your draft comments overnight and/or asking someone to look them over before you post, and changing words where there's a way of saying something that will be better received by the other person. See User:Coppertwig/Techniques for handling emotions when editing.

I suggest being especially careful to make your edit summaries NPOV, i.e. to avoid wording that might offend the other person, since edit summaries can't be edited.

"You seem to pretend that your actions exist within a confined bubble, ..." Actually, if I understand correctly, I think that's a better way to do things. Rather than considering the whole "quasi-feud" every time something happens, it's often better to look only at what the person just did, try to see it in a positive light, and try to cooperate with the person. If the other person also responds positively, this can start you both off in a new, more positive direction. [28]

Joke: If quotes are too close to the original, then how about replacing the photo of Che with an encyclopedic description, collaboratively wiki-edited by Wikipedians, containing any factual information the reader could be presumed to need or want about the photo? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

thanks for your help and instructions

thanks for your help and instructions - LocodeMaster (talk) 20:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• already wondered how you found it. Good that someone like you is working on SCV. LocodeMaster (talk) 20:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks!! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 20:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Please update DYK

I think the update-time has been extended to 12 hours from 6 due to recent spate of lack of hooks, you can check on that or post to WT:DYK. Cirt (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Belated thank you

For your kind note on my talk page 17 October urging me not to leave. I had one foot out the door for awhile, and things got much worse, but I'm still here so I guess you were persuasive. Tomorrow, who knows...but today I just want to say thank you. The info on WP:CoI was very useful. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 22:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

To Jayjg

Re this edit: Please note this earlier comment by Blackworm about talk page formatting.

Also, I'm not sure whether you had seen my last message to you in an earlier thread. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 03:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I'm sure Blackworm feels that way, but I don't find his view to be convincing, or reflect common practice. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ari

Regarding [[29]]

I completely disagree with your analogy and stand by what I said. Ari was quite short with Tip and considering their history and him being an Admin I expect a little more patience from him. Garycompugeek (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

not to mention reverting Usergreatpower without explanation which he said was a mistake and apologized for. You should recognize that I am trying to keep the playing field equal and fair, what you yourself have purported to do. Garycompugeek (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that I overreacted. Anyway, it's good that we have the same goal. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Relevant facts

The topic is rediculous; significant facts have been removed, it's poorly written, and frequently misleading (propaganda). It is gotten worse! Why not just help add missing information?TipPt (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, TipPt!

In my opinion it's OK that significant facts were removed. In shortening the article, I struggled to fit as much as I could into a small number of words and had to make difficult choices about what to take out and what to leave in. If readers want all the significant facts, they have to go to the subarticles.

We disagree about the quality of the writing and whether it's misleading or whether information is "missing" (which I take to mean you think it ought to be included).

You need to convince me that changes are needed in the article. I suggest that you formulate your arguments as I describe here: User:Coppertwig#The "What, Where, Why" method of content discussion. You've provided the "what"; now you need to provide the "where" (where exactly in the article are you suggesting putting those words?) and more importantly the "why", for each of the passages you want to add. For the "why", you may want to refer to WP:UNDUE and to major reliable sources, similarly to the way Jakew did here.

I also suggest that you check whether the various information is already included in the subarticles, and if not, put it in. Ideally, the subarticles should be developed along with the summary article. If the material is to be added, it should either go only in the subarticles, or else in both the subarticles and the summary article, probably in longer form in the subarticles. Either way it needs to go into the subarticles. When you add the material to the subarticles (or propose it on the talk pages of the subarticles) I may notice it on my watchlist and have a closer look, and I may have comments at that time supporting or opposing adding it to the subarticles. At first glance, the material looks verifiable and good to add to the subarticles, but I haven't had time to look closely.

You need to explain clearly what words in the article you consider to be "propaganda" and why, and what other words you suggest substituting instead. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Quick ?

I was interested in expanding the Che Guevara infobox, to include {collapsible) sections on "influenced", "influenced by", "notable ideas" etc - similar to the one used on Jean Paul Sartre - but it doesn't have to exactly mimic it. First what do you think of such a proposal? and second would you be willing to assist me in this? as I seem to have awful luck when it comes to info boxes, and can never properly formulate adding a new section. Thanks old friend, and I hope life for you is well. As an aside, I was engaged a in a heated discussion recently, and heard your "wise and calm ghost" whispering to me from one shoulder, and it helped me remain civil. Copper's spirit lives! ;o)   Redthoreau (talk)RT 02:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, nice to hear from you.

I seem to be pretty busy these days. I suppose it's OK with me to expand the infobox like that, and I may be able to help with formatting it and getting it to work. You'll be the expert on the contents, I suppose.

That's really cool about my ghost! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Potential assistance?

Hi. :) You've been invoked at User talk:Arilang1234#Written by a group of 300, where I am talking with Arilang about requesting GFDL permission for text in that article. If you have any interest, please feel free to participate. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Art Christmas

Hello;

Thank you so very much for your help...As you know by now I am an old retired musician who has this website which I keep in memory of my father. I have changed the release which appears at the bottom of my site http://www.artchristmas.com/art1.html. I think it is now worded correctly and I hope will solve this copyright problem. To see this article on Wikipedia is a thrill for me and my family and I know that there are still thousands of fans around the world of the Big Band Dance Era and much interest in musicians like my father who starred during the 1920's to 1940's Any further help you could personally give me to get the article in question back up and running would be also greatly appreciated.

Regards

~~Art Christmas Jr~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artxmas (talk • contribs) 14:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems it's all been worked out: see Talk:Art Christmas. Good, and I'm sorry for the earlier frustrations and confusing stuff. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 16:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Holiday spam

Moonriddengirl ^(talk) wishes you peace!

Spread peace and goodwill by adding {{subst:WikiPeace}} to other's talk pages with a friendly message.

Thank you so much for all the work you do on Wikipedia, especially in re: copyrights and some of the folks who come by my talk page occasionally in need of assistance. You're a valuable colleague, and I appreciate you. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:38, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Favor

If you should happen to be online and notice that my "notice" (one of the bottom sections of my talk page) is moving up to where it might not be noticed by inexperienced contributors, could you please move it back to the bottom if you have time and opportunity? I'd be grateful. :) I know it's redundant to the top, but last time I went away I found out that a lot of people don't notice. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:13, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, happy to help; or, at least, that is, I'll try to remember. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Wishing you the very best for the season. Guettarda (talk) 01:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Holding down the fort :o)

I will be on vacation (and not able to post) till January 4th -and- thus was wondering if you would be kind enough to keep my user page, talk page, etc on watch for me. Additionally, I trust your judgment to speak on my behalf at the CG article until my return. Thanks and I hope you had a nice holiday season.   Redthoreau (talk)RT 05:58, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

moons page

Please see my post on moon's talk page. thanks again for putting your 2 sense in all this. (Movieman2008 (talk) 09:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)).

I saw your post and will try to find time to respond later. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear Coppertwig,

Wishing you a happy new year, and very best wishes for 2009. Whether we were friends or not in the past year, I hope 2009 will be better for us both.

Kind regards,

Majorly talk 21:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear Coppertwig,

Wishing you a happy new year, and very best wishes for 2009. Whether we were friends or not in the past year, I hope 2009 will be better for us both.

Kind regards,

Majorly talk 21:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Differences between Huaxia and barbarians

An article that you have been involved in editing, Differences between Huaxia and barbarians, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Differences between Huaxia and barbarians. Thank you. Madalibi (talk) 07:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I re edited the page check it nd tell me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucocorticoid_remediable_aldosteronism tell me if you have any comments and thank youMaen. K. A. (talk) 21:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for responding to my comments and editing the article. I think you've added more detail than necessary about the normal physiology. In general, rather than having two Wikipedia articles containing several paragraphs of the same material, it's better to have just one of the articles contain the material, while the other can contain a short summary of the material and a link to the other page. You don't need to say everything about aldosterone synthesis: only the facts that are relevant to the current article. I would keep one sentence about the normal function of aldosterone, for example (how it affects the kidneys).

My questions on the article talk page still aren't answered. It seems to say that in normal physiology, aldosterone synthesis is increased in response to ACTH. So how is the pathological condition any different from that? This isn't explained.

When you copy information from one Wikipedia article to another, it's important to mention in the edit summary when you do that the fact that it's copied from the other article, and name the other article. See WP:Splitting. This is required in order to comply with copyright requirements by giving attribution to the Wikipedian editors of the other page.

I'm sorry if I sound abrupt at the moment: I'm feeling tired. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all feel free to edit the normal physiology to exclude the information you see unnecessary i ll review that and check if that changes the quality of the article, about the ACTH stimulating the synthesis, in normal subject the ACTH only accelerates the first step of the synthesis, which does not involve the aldosterone synthase but in this disease, ACTH activates Aldosterone synthase, thats why we call it ACTH sensitive aldosterone synthase, i ll include a picture for the synthesis pathway it will be more useful, to understand the process, and the breakdown of normal physiology in the disease. please check the normal physiology and give me some comments or remove what you see unnecessary, and i ll review that :-) thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Madhero88 (talk • contribs) 09:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll try, but am pretty busy. Do you mean that even when the abnormal aldosterone synthase molecule has already been produced, that this molecule becomes (more) active in response to the presence of ACTH? In the presence of ACTH, is the abnormal aldosterone synthase more active than the activity level of aldosterone synthase in normal subjects? In the absence of ACTH, is the abnormal aldosterone synthase equally active as it is in normal subjects?

I suggest adding a passage like the following to the article. I don't think I'll add it myself because I haven't read the sources and verified that it's true, but you can if I've got it right and if you know it's verifiable: "Although in normal subjects, ACTH accelerates the first step of aldosterone synthesis, ACTH normally has no effect on the activity of aldosterone synthase. However, in subjects with this condition, ACTH also increases the activity of existing aldosterone synthase, resulting in an abnormally high rate of aldosterone synthesis."

I suggest saying something about the symptoms of the condition, giving enough information for people to get a rough idea of how serious it is. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:51, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually i added the sentence you said, its good addition and clarifies the pathophysiology, i ll add something about the symptoms and so soon, thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Madhero88 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe you don't need to add anything about the symptoms. You have a link to hyperaldosteronism, which lists the symptoms; it may be better to just leave it at that. Again, better not to have too much repetition of the same material in different articles. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I added the symptoms and am working on a digram to summarize the —Preceding unsigned comment added by Madhero88 (talk • contribs) 12:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

Hi, you may want to have a read of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mattisse 3, as you are mentioned in it. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I saw it already: RfC/U is on my watchlist. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much for responding as you did. You could have trashed me and you did not. Do you know that I offered to help Redthoreau out the other day when he was blocked. The blocking admin through a clinker in the deal so it didn't work out. But I did try to accomplish something positive for him. Thank you again for not kicking me on the way out! Warmest regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 04:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

In the RFC I am blamed for the Che Guevara FAR mess and maybe more (I can't make myself read through it all). Please tell me truthfully if I was mostly responsible? I want to know the truth. Don't hold back but call it as you see it. Thanks, —Mattisse (Talk) 04:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

You can thank Ottava Rima, whose comment inspired me to respond as I did. I didn't get the impression that you were to blame for Che Guevara being defeatured. As far as I remember, the main issues were NPOV and formatting. Re Redthoreau: I'm happy to hear of the positive interaction. It's good to get positive energy circulating. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

		The Mensch's Barnstar
		This belongs to someone of noble character, rectitude, and dignity, with a sense of what is right, responsible, and decorous. That means it is yours. -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)