User talk:TruthIIPower

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Happy editing! ... Kenosis (talk) 03:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Uniformitarianism

Please do not remove cited statements without good reason; simply saying that they are "bad" is both impolite to the user who added them (Christian Skeptic, I believe, in this case) and is not useful for qualifying the changes or for improving the article. Please take your concerns to the talk page instead of reverting another time. Thank you. Awickert (talk) 04:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you didn't remove sourced material - sorry about that one. And I like some of your changes. But take it to the talk page and try to be respectful - thanks. Awickert (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do not continue to undo edits without taking it to the talk page to explain what you are doing, especially when you have been asked to take the discussion there. If you do so again, I will have to assume that you are not acting in good faith. Awickert (talk) 03:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you disagree with any change I made? TruthIIPower (talk) 03:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

No, but edit-warring is not the way to go about dealing with issues here. Thank you for taking it to the talk page. Awickert (talk) 03:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Christian Skeptic called me a vandal and threatened to ban me. If anyone is at war, it's him. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Chill, man, it's after you told him/her that their edits were "bad", and you ignored two requests (one from me, one from them) to go to the talk page. You both sound unhappy - work it out. Awickert (talk) 03:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:3RR as you are currently involved in an edit war on this article. Use caution. Vsmith (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

MurmurHash

Hi. I've been checking in on the article from time to time. I just wanted to let you know some more specific information about the templates which were placed on the article. Although there are external web links, which appear as if they might be proper citations, they seem to mostly point to websites. When you have the opportunity, you might want to read: WP:STYLE, WP:CITE and WP:REFS. Good luck with your editing. --OliverTwisted ^(Talk) (Stuff) 04:08, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. TruthIIPower (talk) 04:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Quick Links

Hello, TruthIIPower! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 04:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial • The five pillars of Wikipedia How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Community Portal • Adopt-a-user program Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • Resolving disputes Build consensus • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Pages needing attention • Peer review Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Abortion

You removed an image from Abortion. I don't consider that a "shock picture" at all, and the consensus on the talk page is that it isn't a shock picture, although inclusion isn't unanimous. The image shows a fetus after a complete spontaneous abortion (aka a miscarriage), so it illustrates the article well at that point as a medical image. I have no pro-life agenda; indeed, I am pro-choice. I can understand your edit, but I disagree with it. Please feel free to discuss this on the talk page. Fences and windows (talk) 22:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

abortion

oh trust me calling a fetus a baby will fly, fetuses are really young babies. --Manning38 (talk) 00:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Contemplative Prayer

I have removed the self-published link one more time, and posted the following on the discussion page:

It is true that you are not an expert on WP policies, then. vatican.va is the official website of the Catholic Church, so just like the words of a subject of a biography of a living person can have his/her self-published sites cited, and the Southern Baptist Convention can have it's official site cited, etc. However, when dealing with topics like "Protestantism", one cannot cite the self-published church website of any protestant church. In the same way, just because a church is interested in commenting on "Contemplative Prayer", "Penal Substitutionary Atonement", etc. does not mean that their self-published material complies with WP:V. In fact, it would not.

I will be removing this source again from the main page. I do not want to get into an edit war with you. I will also leave a note on your talk page in this regard. In this particular case, the burden of proof is on you to show that a source complies with WP:V before it can be added to the active page. If you would like to take this for a third opinion, I am open to that, but please also be aware that if you revert this again, you may be guilty of the three revert rule. I am willing to take this for a third opinion or for mediation, but please be aware that a church website will not pass muster required to be a WPV source for the reasons cited above. You are better off finding a source (independently published book, peer-reviewed journal, etc.) than trying to add in self-published sources as viable citations.

If you disagree with this action, please either request comments, a third opinion, or mediation on the discussion page. The burden of proof in adding self-published sources is on the person trying to add them. If you break the 3RR or continue in what may be construed to be an edit war, I will be forced to begin official proceedings, which I do not wish to do. Please review WP:V on valid sources and discuss this on the "talk" page before attempting to unilaterally add this back to the article.

Grace and peace to you.--Lyonscc (talk) 02:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Contributions

I've noticed that a number of your recent edits (e.g. Young earth creationism, Same-sex marriage in Vermont) are in violation of Wikipedia policies. I'm transcluding a template here with a list of some of the basic policies on Wikipedia - you may wish to review these for more information on how Wikipedia works. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You may also be interested in reading about the five pillars of Wikipedia. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

These generalities are not informative. If you believe that I have broken a specific policy, you're going to need to be specific about it. TruthIIPower (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Other users have already pointed them out on the respective talk pages or in the edit summaries undoing your edits, I was merely attempting to provide information so you could better understand how Wikipedia works in general. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Disagreeing with me is not the same as saying I broke rules. TruthIIPower (talk) 20:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

As you wish...I was just trying to be helpful. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Same Sex Marriage

My apologies, I think I confused your edit with the previous one. We're on the same wavelength. Czolgolz (talk) 12:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

No harm, no foul. TruthIIPower (talk) 00:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Concerning edit

I'm concerned with your edit here with the edit summary "rvv" which stands for "revert vandalism". I don't see how that edit could be considered vandalism by any means. Furthermore, it is disruptive and not AGF to call an established editor with whom you are disagreeing a vandal. Perhaps you could take your concerns to the talk page and discuss the matter? Just be careful who you are calling a vandal, as that word shouldn't be thrown around lightly. Just a little constructive criticism.-Andrew c ^[talk] 00:30, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me for being less established than some, but it is my understanding that intentionally editing in violation of policy is vandalism. This editor, being so much more established and having an extensive history with abortion-related articles, would be well aware of the precedent in such articles to avoid calling a woman a "mother" just because she is pregnant. This would be in violation of the neutrality policy, which is why the history shows that this usage has been repeatedly and consistently purged from Abortion and similar places, with a strong consensus of the editors involved.

If I was wrong in calling it vandalism, I sincererly apologize. But I don't think I was wrong to revert it immediately and without an extended explanation. Perhaps you could help by showing me what sort of constructive criticism I could offer Shrandit. TruthIIPower (talk) 00:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Intentionally editing in violation of policy is not necessarily vandalism, especially if it is at all possible (it generally is) for interpretations of policy to differ. We define "vandalism" very narrowly here, and we do that on purpose. "Vandalism" refers to edits that are made in order to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia.

People who disagree over how to interpret policy - even if they disagree sharply and extremely - are not vandalizing. They are attempting to make things better, according to their definition of "better". A vandal is someone who replaces an article's entire content with an unrelated image, or who inserts random vulgarities into an article, or who blanks pages. Anyone doing anything that they might reasonably think is "good," according to their own definition, is not a vandal.

We intentionally defined the term narrowly, because it is much better to err on the side of assuming good faith than to err on the side of failing to recognize it.

If someone makes edits that, to your mind, are clearly wrong, then the best thing to do, besides removing - or better, improving - the edit, is to start a section on the talk page explaining why you did what you did. This is better than simply communicating via edit summary because it allows other editors to add their opinions to the discussion without having to make an article edit themselves. More voices are always better, so documenting disputes on the talk page is the first step of dispute resolution - it creates a place for multiple voices to accrue and develop a weight, which eventually defeats any single editor's agenda. That's the first place to go when there's a disagreement.

In a case where an editor makes an edit that is clearly against consensus, the best approach is to revert it with an edit summary indicating that it is "against consensus", and to immediately document the reversion on the talk page. When you do that, it is very difficult for the other editor to credibly revert without joining the discussion - doing so looks very bad. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Is there some way to be automatically notified when I get a reply on a talk page in an article rather than here? TruthIIPower (talk) 01:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding the article to your watchlist, and checking your watchlist regularly, is probably the most popular way. Another approach I use, because my watchlist is rather large (over 10,000), is to click on "my contributions", and then I can see when my most recent edit is no longer the "top" (i.e., most recent) one. This indicates that there's something new to see there. Those (watchlist and my contributions) are the two pages I use to keep up with what's going on. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping for something easier. I already use a watchlist, but it's not small and there's a constant stream of noise from random vandalism followed by an immediate "rvv". I've used the contributions page to track down patterns of edits, but never thought to use it on myself, and I'm still not entirely sure how I could tell at a glance whether my edit is the most recent. The closest I've come to that is looking at the "diff" link to check if it's changed color, but that requires me to diff articles right after I edit them. I'm going to have to think about this some more. TruthIIPower (talk) 01:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If your edit is the most recent, then in your "my contributions" page, the word "(top)", bold and in parentheses, should occur right next to it. When the "(top)" indicator disappears, it means something has happened. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh! Hadn't noticed that, but it's easier than looking at link color. Thanks, I'll try that. TruthIIPower (talk) 01:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

See, I knew about this reply immediately! I often go straight from there to the (hist) link, to make sure it was you and not a vandal... but I should be quiet, and let you discover on your own... :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I'm all for learning at my own pace, but my pace wasn't getting me anywhere, so I'm glad you gave me a boost here. TruthIIPower (talk) 01:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI

I've asked someone to have a polite chat with you on our civility standards.--Tznkai (talk) 04:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure, and then we can ask them to talk to Shrandit about POV-pushing, edit-warring and all-but-vandalizing. TruthIIPower (talk) 04:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The trouble with not dealing with POV-pushers civilly is that it "poisons the well". We try to maintain a collegial atmosphere of mutual respect, and that means treating everyone respectfully. The harsher we are with difficult editors, the smaller the chance of making them less difficult. Our goal here is for everyone to be allowed to edit, and that sometimes means convincing people to be less combative and to respect consensus better. If someone fails to respect you, then it is entirely appropriate to seek input from some third party, but if you attack back in any way, then by the time an admin arrives, they won't be able to tell who's the POV-pusher and who isn't.

The real problem is that, in most cases, there isn't a purely right party and a purely wrong party. If you're an admin, and Editor A asks you to stop Editor B from harassing them, while Editor B asks you to stop Editor A from making edits against consensus... what do you do? Usually, both of them have partial justifications. If you're willing to always take the moral high-ground in a dispute, then it becomes much, much easier for someone like me to help you.

In this case, I'd be happy to talk with Shrandit. (It would have to wait a few hours, as I've got a funeral to attend this afternoon.) However, I won't simply present him with a list of charges and tell him to stop. My style is to work with both of you, and to deal with the problem in the context of editing articles together. If you're interested in this kind of help, then I'm confident we can deal with the problems you're talking about. Let me know what you think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I'm crossing that line into incivility, but I'm certainly not going to reward bad behavior with praise. So far, I've seen very little that might earn my respect. While I have my opinions and political views, I don't come to Wikipedia to do battle in the culture war. I don't think Shrandit can say the same. Therefore, I will offer civility, but not much past that. TruthIIPower (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about lines to cross or not. I don't care about "lines". What a bunch of nonsense. I don't know know what you're talking about, when you say, "I'm not going to reward bad behavior with praise". If anyone has asked you to do that, please let me know, so I can disabuse them of such stupidity. Like I said, if you want my help, it's offered. If you don't... cool. Whatever. My offer stands. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

From your response, I'm pretty sure I wasn't clear about my point, so I'll try again.

There is a range of behavior that is acceptable and then there's a line you cross in unacceptable behavior. Within that range, different levels of friendliness are available, so you have to choose what's appropriate.

If you look at my history, you can see that I've been very nice to some people who've made bad changes because I could tell they were acting in good faith. In others, it's pretty clear that they're not. A case in point would be Shrandit's drive-by templating of Delaware, where they were clearly more eager to have this embarassing fact removed than spend a moment to confirm whether it was true. In those cases, I stay within the bounds of civility, but I lean towards the less friendly side.

This is all I was getting at with trying not "to reward bad behavior with praise". Pretending that someone's intentional damage to an article is a simple, honest disagreement is simple, but not honest, and not effective. TruthIIPower (talk) 16:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, if you ever want any assistance that I can offer, please let me know. I don't know how you can tell that someone else's edits are "intentional damage". I can't do that. I can't see into people that way. Aside from page-blanking or obvious graffiti, I can't tell that someone doesn't really believe what they type. I have to assume that people really do think that their own point of view is "correct" in some way, and that they're motivated by that. If someone is editing against their own notion of "good," I don't know how to recognize that, nor do I understand why anyone would do such a thing.

It's very easy for me to look at someone else's edit and say that it's damaging. Saying that it's "intentionally" damaging... I don't know how to do that. I can probably help you deal with a difficult editor, but I can only do it from my own perspective, and I can't pretend to believe anything I don't believe. I hope that makes a little bit of sense. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, but I don't think these two options fully exhaust the list of motivations. Sure, some people want to put what they believe is true into Wikipedia (even when it cannot be reliably sourced) and some want to just damage it to leave their mark (or stain), but others are not so much concerned about truth or damage as they are about spin. Consider an editor who lives in a particular state and therefore feels the need to suppress anything possibly negative about it, using any amount of dishonesty to get their "worthy" goal accomplished. It's not that they believe the embarassing facts are false, but that they just don't care. They feel that they are righteous defenders of the public face and are therefore willing to do whatever it takes, truth be damned.

Sound trite and childish? Check out Delaware and see for yourself, and then look at their edit history to see how they've applied the principle of partisanship above truth to all of their edits. Then perhaps you will see what I am dealing with. TruthIIPower (talk) 17:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikiquetted alerts

[1] I've asked outsiders to comment on the current disputes. - Schrandit (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

TruthIIPower, you have been warned multiple times about etiquette. You have left a rude message on my page, accusing me of edit-warring. Please justify yourself, and take it to the moderators. When you continually insist on your own version, and it's reverted by multiple editors, they're NOT edit warring, and you're not working to consensus. DavidOaks (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have left a polite message on your page, asking you to please stop edit-warring. When you ignore consensus and just change the article to fit your biases, that's edit-warring. TruthIIPower (talk) 02:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Fact check

From the CIA. You need to get out more, spot. - Schrandit (talk) 00:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The above comment has been redacted to remove a childish insult. I've asked this person not to call me "spot" or "love" or "madam", but they persist. The next occurance will result in administrative intervention. TruthIIPower (talk) 01:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Big words my friend, big words. In any case, per the comments you left on my talk page - Islam cannot be grouped together as a single religion and none of its individual sects have more adherents than Catholicism. - Schrandit (talk) 02:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Right, Islam's not a religion at all, it's a club for men and women who like to wear robes. You figured them out. Oh, the things people due to get the tax advantages given to REAL religions, like that of the Catholics and Jedis. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think this could be solved by saying that Catholicism is the world's largest religious denomination, and Islam is the second-largest religion. TruthIIPower, I think you may have missed the point that Schrandit was trying to make about the denominations of Islam. Awickert (talk) 03:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The context was his off-hand claim, in an edit comment, that we shouldn't offend Catholics because they're the biggest religion in the world. I found this offensively self-serving, not to mention factually incorrect. His dismissal of the entirety of Islam on the basis that there's no Muslim Pope shows that he sees the world through Catholic-colored glasses. TruthIIPower (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I in no way said that and am offended by your attempts to besmirch my good name. Your ignorance of the Muslim faith is just as shameful as your ignorance of Catholicism. - Schrandit (talk) 04:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I dunno about that. Maybe it was a comment in bad taste, and I would say that Christianity (not its largest denomination, Catholicism) is the largest religion, but I think it's a bit of an extrapolation to say that he dismisses Muslims because there is no Muslim pope, especially when he has some recognition of Muslim denominations. Awickert (talk) 04:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Diplomacy

Hi TruthIIPower. I've been watching your talk page, and it looks like you're having some issues with some other users. From poking around, it seems that you have some valuable contributions to make, but that the interpersonal part is countering your efforts. I would suggest to try working with 100% politeness and 0% sarcasm for a little while - like any online community, Wikipedia can flame, and it's not fun for anyone involved. I think it would help your cause in general as well to appear more professional and less aggressive in your comments.

I'm going to look around at a couple of the ongoing debates and see if I can be useful.

Awickert (talk) 03:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That's great advice, and I'll be glad to follow it the moment a few flagrant violators of Wikipedia rules are permanently banned. Until then, I'm just going to have to work at only 99% politeness. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

99% is good. If it helps, from various issues that I've faced on global warming and radiometric dating, being nasty to POV-pushers and other violators generally aggravates issues and results in more wasted time. I'm going to check out the Catholic issue; if you want, I'm willing to be a neutral third party. Awickert (talk) 03:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from participating, particularly if they have some willingness to be objective. However, I don't really see this as a Catholic issue, even if these Catholic POV-pushers do. In specific, I consider the use of round-up terms to be base political propaganda. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

By "Catholic issue" I meant whatever is going on on the Catholic-related article; just found it a few minutes ago. Awickert (talk) 03:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, you're looking at the minor shenanigans on Catholic League (U.S.), not the major shenanigans on Religion and abortion. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

So there are shenannigans there, to, eh? I bet they're major. I'll take a look there as well. Awickert (talk) 03:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow - so I don't have time at the moment to deal with what's going on there. I'm sticking to the minor one. Awickert (talk) 03:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That's entirely up to you. Last I checked, we're all volunteers. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep it is, and I'm picking my battles. Awickert (talk) 03:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't hold that against you. Every bit helps. TruthIIPower (talk) 03:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring

You wrote on my talk page: "I've asked you to stop edit-warring. Do I need to ask again or do I need to get an administrator to ask you? TruthIIPower (talk) 03:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)" I answer that you certainly have a lot of nerve. You have been pushing a nonconsensus agenda. You have been edit-warring. By all means, bring in an administrator. I think it's high time. DavidOaks (talk) 04:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand completely: you refuse to stop edit warring. TruthIIPower (talk) 04:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:ANI

Your approach to things is getting a bit heavy-handed, so I've posted concerns about you at the ANI page. Feel free to defend yourself. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)