User talk:-Ril-

Comments about my signature go here

I have split my talk page into 3 sections. Please respect the sections as I will ignore and delete anything not respecting them. Thanks, ~~~~

This page, nor any of the subsections, is not to be used for the preservation of articles, or talk pages, about to be deleted in accordance with a vote on VfD.

---

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON THIS PAGE, USE THE LINKS ABOVE

unless you are blocking me, in which case it is the only page on which I can respond

Blocked

I'm sorry to do this but I've blocked you for 24 hours for vandalism, violation of WP:POINT and edit warring. This is due to your edits in relation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency. violet/riga (t) 11:38, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

How is that vandalism? Those images are entirely suited to the Wikiproject. One must be aware of what it is that the project is discussing, just referring to "indecency" abstractly is too vague, illustrative examples are required.

The project is discussing "indecency" and those are images some would consider "indecent". They exist in Wikipedia, and are already used elsewhere, so I fail to see how adding them constitutes vandalism. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 11:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

If anyone is reading this, and wondering what is being referred to, see this version.

The images in question are:

"Early indecency" - to introduce the project together with

Image:Lisa Lipps.jpg "Modern indecency" (an image chosen to be specifically similar to the art piece marked as "early indecency") - also to introduce the project]]

"For example, this could go in Bedroom" - to illustrate how pornographic imagery could be used in non-pornography-related articles

Image:JenniferRoveroAndSydneyMoon.jpg"An image that could be added to Lesbian" - again an illustration of useful usage of an image in an ordinary article

File:Artful nude.jpg

"This image would be an excellent example for Shadow" - a third example - you have to admit it is an excellent demonstration of shadows

Image:Eyes_wide_shut.jpg"Full frontal nudity" - an extremely tasteful example (from the film "Eyes wide shut") to illustrate a section discussing full frontal nudity

Image for the project template - much more suitable as it hints at pornography without being indecent (the size is important - clicking on the image demonstrates how pornographic imagery can be used in a tasteful way by changing things such as the size, shading, etc.)

Oh, on a related issue, how is this edit followed immediately by this edit (note the edit summary) not a violation of WP:POINT ? ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 12:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

It is primarily a WP:POINT, but I would classify it as vandalism, yes. The images are obviously not needed there and you are just trying to disrupt the project. Just wait until the VfD is over. As for Noitall, that really couldn't be called "disruption". violet/riga (t) 12:26, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Why are they "obviously" not needed. I feel that they "obviously" are. But that is a content dispute, not vandalism. Regarding someone else's opinion over content disputes as "vandalism" is explicitely considered a personal attack (according to WP:NPA). This simply does not qualify as vandalism under any of Wikipedia's vandalism policies. I would like to see you produce the policy that allows you to block me for adding such images to location where they are in context. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 12:30, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I call "Childish vandalism", "Attention-seeking vandalism" and "Image vandalism". I also call WP:POINT, as explained above. violet/riga (t) 12:37, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear -Ril-,

I have reviewed your edits [1] [2] [3] where you have added inlined, sexually charged images to the "WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency. I find these edits to be in bad faith, and consider them to be vandalism indistinguishable from a type we see all too often. While the images may be relevant to the subject, the captions you used, the fact that they were inlined rather than linked, the fact that you pursued a sterile edit war to be sure that they remained on the page, and your lack of other participation in the page all speak to the fact that this was a mere act of vandalism rather than an attempt at reasoned discussion.

Based on this vandalism, and your substantial prior history of problems with the community 1, 2, [3], I am making your block indefinite pending the outcome of the arbitration proceeding now underway and pending any further discussion by the community, who may ban users at its discretion.

You have absolutely no authority to do so, and especially not considering your prior involvement in this matter. This appears corrupt in the extreme. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I also note that you have inlined the images here. I have de-inlined the images in accordance with the Wikipedia:Principle of least astonishment, and I am protecting your talk page so that you may not add them again. If you have any comments you wish to add to this matter, you may e-mail them to me and I will add them here promptly.

For further community discussion of this matter, see /ban.

Uncle Ed's opinion

I'm not sure why you asked my opinion, as I am not in charge on anything. I'm not a VestedContributor. But I think you are disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.

Your point might be a good one, but you're making it in the wrong way. If you want to debate the inclusion of porn-style images in what is intended to be a general-purpose encyclopedia, you are welcome to do so, but shoving those images under everyone's nose in the course of the debate is what got you blocked. I'd have blocked you myself, if UninvitedCompany (talk · contribs) hadn't beat me to it.

What you're doing is like someone saying, "You idiot, can't you see I'm not attacking you?" (which of course is a violation of WP:NPA)

Ril, or Lir (if I don't miss my guess), if you have a constructive purpose in mind, you know how to bring it up. You don't have to get yourself banned in the process. But you do have to admit that Jimbo and the committees he appointed have the right to enforce rules of civility on the servers which the Wikimedia board controls. If you don't like it, make a fork; maybe user:Wikinerd will help you. But while you're here, you have to follow the rules. Uncle Ed 00:43, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I am not Lir. Its amazing how many people don't have the skill to look beyond a simple superficial connection and actually pay attention to the details. Try learning higher criticism and lower criticism and once you have gained those skills, it should be totally obvious that I am not Lir. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Final decision

The arbitration committee has reached a final decision in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril- case. →Raul654 02:54, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

reminder

I would like to remind you that as per the arbitration committee decision at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/-Ril- you are required to change your signature to something that can be clearly distinguised as you and to stop using ~~~~ as your signature. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 21:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Pursuit

Hi,-Ril-.

I understand what you say. I wrote my opinion in "discussions" not in "articles". You know Linguistics and History. Ι don't want to bicker with you. Your comments (if well-disposed) are weightly for me. Please, don't "pursue" me.

Friendly,--IonnKorr 21:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Jayjg/Employment

I have no idea what he does, other than that he said he works in management; for all I know, he could manage a shoe store.

I had noticed long ago, after I looked at his edit history to see what could be going on with him that he was always quick to revert, often without making any effort at understanging the change he was undoing, that he often spends over 8 hours a day making around 15 edits an hour, for days in a row, week after week. This suggested to me that he either didn't work or that his job included editing Wikipedia.

Add to this that he is an unrepentent and aggressive Israel-POV pusher, and that some of the things he tries to do along this line show a level of savviness that probably very few amateurs would have, and it raised questions with me.

Wikipedia is something like an effort to put up a bunch of free-use, blank billboards along interstate highways, with the notion that artists and poets and philosophers will fill them up with beautiful things. And, obviously, what would really happen is that liquor and perfume and gambling companies would take them over, and expend some effort to preventing anyone else from disturbing their prefered content. Wikipedia, I think I saw, is now in the top ten most visited internet sites; any organization with public relations concerns that doesn't see Wikipedia's potential for both good and bad should fire its management.

There are a lot of organizations that actively promote pro-Israeli positions, and many of them are pretty well financed: AIPAC, JINSA, and two different JCPA's are some of the more important ones. Eventually, one or more of these will take an interest in Wikipedia, if they haven't already.

It is very likely that Jayjg is completely independent in his POV-pushing on Wikipedia, but there are a lot of aspects to his participation on Wikipedia that would be very consistent with him being a paid Israel-promoter here. And SlimVirgin's over-played protest against even asking him about it strikes me as being either suspect or just plain nutty.

Marsden 23:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You misunderstand wikipedia. I once thought it was a positive thing, a repository for knowledge; but what it turns out to be is a trick, a scam to present a one sided view of the facts, and have the world believe them. I think it more likely that Jayjg is a retired non-secular zionist, than working for a well financed pro-israeli pov-pushing organisation, but that is certainly a possibility. --Victim of signature fascism 14:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

No, by his own account he works "in management." At this point, given the volume and timing of his edits (to say nothing of his participation in ArbCom), given all the rancor over asking him about it, and given the careful crafting and screening of the question he eventually answered, I take it for granted that he does work for some sort of Hasbara outlet. Maybe he doesn't, but I think that for the purpose of trying to understand why he does what he does and to predict his reactions to different things, assuming that he does makes for more consistent understanding.

What I'm still up in the air about is, did Jimbo Wales get some sort of compensation for appointing him to ArbCom? Wales is apparently an adherent of Ayn Rand's "philosophy," which is all about "selfishness" and opposed to "community responsibility." So why start Wikipedia? One way to profit from it would be to make use of all of the costless volunteer effort to create something that people use, and then essentially to sell control of the content to various interested parties.

Marsden 16:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

SIIEG

Hi -Ril-, thanks for the invitation, but I'm unsure of the purpose of that group and I find the name unfortunate. But I appreciate your asking me anyway. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked

Hi -Ril- —

Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert an article to your preferred version more than three times in 24 hours (see WP:3RR). You reverted four times today at Canaan.

Siege, err, SIIEG rather

I shall not be joining, the people there are full of hate and wish to propogate that agenda. I can't shower you with their quotes if you want proof. As a group it has gone far beyond having a NPOV purpose. Thanks though. --Irishpunktom\^talk 10:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed merge

I propose merging Islamist terrorism into Militant Islam , Dar al-Harb into Dar al Islam & Offensive jihad into Combative jihad, please comment if you have thoughts on the matter . Thanks . F.a.y.^{تبادله خيال /c} 21:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Islam and Judaism controversies noticeboard

I probably won't be an active participant, but I will watchlist the page. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ril. Thanks for letting me know about that. However, I actually have quite a strong objection to this project as currently constituted. This lies in its inclusion of the Palestine conflict as an "Islam and Judaism controversy". It's nothing of the sort: it's an ethnic conflict over territory. The original Zionists weren't particularly motivated by Judaism and early Palestinian resistance to Zionism was simply a matter of self-protection, even if at time, as with Izz al-Din al-Qassam, it took on an Islamic colouring. It is still essentially a territorial conflict even though many of the most extreme elements on both sides are nowadays rather more religiously motivated. There are plenty of Christians (and atheists for that matter) involved as well. So while I understand your motivation, partcularly given that the same editors are often interested in controversies regarding Islam and those regarding Israel and Palestine, I think it's quite a problematic concept. Palmiro | Talk 22:51, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The debates tend to involve exactly the same editors, and in the larger world, exactly the same people, who claim religious motivation for what they do. So, personally, I see it as extremely strongly connected. Many people don't think transvestitism or transexual-ism has anything to do with people who are LGB (e.g. statistically transvestites are mostly heterosexual), but its still the LGBT noticeboard. --Victim of signature fascism 22:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, some of the people involved claim religious motivation, but 1. it isn't a religious problem; prior to the development of Zionism, there was no issue of the sort in Palestine despite the presence of both Muslim and (albeit small) Jewish communities; 2. it isn't a question between Islam and Judaism but between Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, and Israelis and/or Zionists; 3. most of the people involved cite national rather than religious motivations in the first place. How many controversies are there that are really Islamo-Judaic? A few purely religious questions and the status of the Temple Mount. But there are a whole host of controversies about aspects of Islam (where defenders of Israel, many of them Christian, frequently engage against Islam) that have little or nothing to do with Judaism, and get a lot of hot editing on this site.

If you want to maintain this project to cover these issues, I would suggest renaming it to "Middle Eastern and Islamic topics noticeboard" or somethig similar. Palmiro | Talk 23:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Ril, thanks for the invitation. I already left a message there. Unfortunately it had to be about [4]. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 06:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That is actually the original title of the article. Since Islamist Terrorism (or whatever it is) is discussed under the title "Terrorism", and since the episodes discussed in the article are clearly terrorist (e.g. deliberately bombing civilians), I don't see how "Zionist political violence" is anything except a POV attempt to sweep it under the carpet. --Victim of signature fascism 01:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Talrias' RfC

He filed it himself. I think such situations forego the need for two users to certify it. Pointless I know, but I think that's the way that sort if thing is normally done. --GraemeL ^(talk) 02:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I've already adjusted the detail in question. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 02:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Responss

Just letting you know that I've answered your questions on my ArbCom nomination page. Thanks for taking the interest and asking! :) --Golbez 03:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

C'est magnifique, mais c'ne'pas la gare

I'm not sure what you were driving at here, but you realize this means: It's magnificent, but it's not the railroad station. Is there any reason for mangling the Bosquet quote? -- JJay 19:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly the right translation. There are 2 famous quotes. One refers to the Charge of the Light Brigade ("its magnificent but not war"), the other is a famous witicism based on it referring to, I believe, St Pancras railway station ("its magnificent, but it's not a railway station"). --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 21:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Fine. I'm still a bit confused about why you felt the need to add that to a conversation from three months ago. You do realize that C'est magnifique is a common French expression that has nothing to do with Bosquet and did not originate with him, n'est-ce pas? -- JJay 21:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but so are many other words. As a quotation on the other hand, there are only really 2 sources. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 21:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Awnsers to Neutrality question and Censuring questions from -Ril-

Do you believe that regardless of Jimbo Wales' own views on the matter, the community should be able to strip arbitrators of their position under certain circumstances, and if so, what circumstances?

in the spirt of the wiki I belive that there should be some sort of check on Admin and members of the ArbCom I dont know how it would work or how to do it thats something for the people of this wiki to deside not myself ideas like this of made by people much smarter then I :-)

As a corollory:Do you believe, regardless of Jimbo Wales' view on the matter, that a large number of signatories (e.g. 150 requesting censure against 50 supporting the arbitrator) to an RFC against an arbitrator is enough that the arbitrator should be judged as having been rejected by the community in light of their actions, and consequently for them to be forcibly stripped of their post?

I belive that if a large number of active members are unhappy *aka no puppets* with a member of the ArbCom then there should be some sort of action taken this is something that we should sit down and figure out as I said above I dont know how this would be done but there should be checks on admins and members of the ArbCom

wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. Excepting straw men, have you ever introduced a substantial opinion or fact that contradicts your own political or religious viewpoint into an article on a topic of which you have strong opinions, and if you have, how frequently do you do so compared to your other substatial edits to articles?

For the most part im a fairly Nutral person, I have never edited a article that has forced me to change something that I feel strongly for most noteable because when I edit things I try to edit only what ive been trained to do *aka only subjects im well versed in* and that happens to be Cinema, I just added the Director Jenni Olson I dont liker her movies I saw one at sundance and thought she was a brainless hippie who talks about how her friend commited suicide off the golden gatge for 30mins * I still want my money back*, but she wasnt on the wiki and I added her and kept a NPOV juse because I didnt like her movie doesnt mean that she shouldnt be here.

--Kylehamilton 06:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration election

You know, all you, and the rest of the wiki, has to do, is ask me questions if you want to investigate me. I stood late because I had previously planned not to run, and was not aware that it wasn't too late. So I stood late. --Victim of stupidity 19:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit like having a presidential election and then Ross Perot suddenly appearing and trying to get enough votes to stand. It isn't going to happen. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

recent talk page comments

It's recently come up (via the userbox discussion) that it is bad form to mass-solicit votes/comment on a subject. While I more or less disagree with the "bad form"-ness of it, I suggest you be careful in doing such things, as it may invoke the ire of Those Who Block. Avriette 19:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It's also bad form for SimonP to completely ignore wikipedia guidelines (Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources), consensus, and two votes (Wikipedia:Bible verses and Wikipedia:Bible source text) on the subject. So why isn't anyone threatening him with the ire of Those Who Block? --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would do any good. My opinion of SimonP is well known. Avriette 01:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'll Live

I know I'm not winning. I'm just curious how many 'no' votes I scrape up now. Besides, all folks had to do was ask me questions. :p Thanks, though! Guapovia 21:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It would probably have helped you to have stood at a much earlier time in the process, e.g. back in december, so that people can question you more fully. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 21:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Bible articles

If you object to articles on bible verses, your time would be better spend merging some of the shorter or more questionable ones, than calling forth people to delete them. Just a thought. Radiant_>|< 22:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I am unable to do that due to SimonP reverting any such attempt. Hence the need to call forth witnesses that the community support such a move to merge/delete. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 22:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Please provide a link to one or more merges on your part that Simon has reverted? Radiant_>|< 22:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

For a start, the history of Matthew 5: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. Note that at least 3 different and unconnected users tried to make the change, and it was Simon reverting each time.

Simon also reverted a merge of Matthew 5 that another user tried - [12] - with the fob "this has been much discussed". --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I see. However, that was half a year ago. If you want my advice, you should discuss this with Carnildo and Pilatus; if SimonP is the lone crusader here (and I'm not saying he is, mind you), then he's probably going against consensus, which would be wrong. If necessary open an RFC on the matter. Calling a vote on it was simply the wrong thing to do; Wikipedia doesn't work by voting. Also, before doing that I'd recommend you change your signature (both parts of it), because it's hard to take you seriously with the current one. Radiant_>|< 22:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

R.e. my signature. It says "victim of signature fascism" as some people are incapable of judging something beyond its cover. That some people can't take me seriously owing to the signature just goes to show how accurate it is. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 23:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Suit yourself. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. Radiant_>|< 00:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I have steel capped shoes, so that isn't a problem. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 13:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverting 'removal of plagarism'

Hi,

I see you've reverted the changes on the Khanda article. I was going to do this myself, but researched it further and found that the information was also available at about.com:

Khanda - [13]

Brigid's cross - [14]

Flower of Life - [15]

Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

About.com is a wikipedia mirror. It has the content because we do. It copies it from us. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 22:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah I see! Thanks. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

About is NOT a Wikipedia mirror. All three edits of the articles in question above were to remove my own original About content, as is ALL Guide material from About. About's "encyclopedia" is seeded with wiki material, but no Guide site is. if you see someone's name on the site, it consists of that person's original contributions. Further, the claim that the user who reverted the removal wrote the material is patently untrue, as the material copied not only my material but all of the spacing and typographical errors. (Further, my page predates the Wiki page by about four years.)

If you would care to prove that, take it up with the copyvio team. Otherwise, bog off. You're lying. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

My copyright is easily proved via the Internet Archive- all you have to do to save yourself a hassle is LOOK. My dictionary was created years before most of these entries came into existence. The fact that the majority of pages that lift text from my site appear on pages you've edited is obviously not coincidental. There is only one liar here- you, who goes from page to page deleting histories to cover your tracks.

That is simply a lie, and I don't even have the ability to delete page histories. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 13:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Links from external sites, the internet archive, (and of course, About's records) all prove that my version existed well before this entry ever existed- and the history of the "flower of life" page, for example, clearly shows my page listed as a source, along with a word-for-word cut and paste of my text. My "Khanda" page went up in 2002, three years before Wikipedia had a page. (Note the damned date: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread161426/pg1)

No It doesn't. For a start, I know for a fact that I myself wrote, and am the originator of, parts of the "flower of life" article that you claim are plaigarism. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 13:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as "proving" it goes, that would require me to submit your violations to our legal department.

As far as "proving" it goes, that would require you to submit your claims to Wikipedia:Request for immediate removal of copyright violation. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 13:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

My claims have already been submitted. As far as your bullshit claim that you wrote that article, two points: first, the Wiki article CLEARLY post dates mine- and the copy errors were corrected immediately in the copied version. Second, you are not the originating author.

Repeating a lie wil not make it true, nor can you argue with a date stamp! Any reversions at this point will be considered willful (as I imagine you are literate and can understand the linear order of time!), and I am logging every instance of this.

I consider any reversions you do to be willful, and wikipedia is logging every instance of this (automatically). --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 16:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Internet archive for 4/2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20050303005429/altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/blsymbols.htm (fourth row, second from left)

I really don't see how you can say that is evidence for the pre-existance of any of the content about the Flower of Life. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 16:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Dated Blog entry for MY brigid's cross drawing: http://altreligion.about.com/b/a/072986.htm Again, note the date.

You lose. Get over it and keep your mitts off my stuff.

Bog off. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 16:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the picture in question. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

And I've drawn a new image as a replacement. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 16:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Matthew 1:7 and Matthew 1:8

Please verify that the information in these pages has been properly merged too Matthew 1? If it is, a redirect may be appropriate. Radiant_>|< 22:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbcom vote

Heh! FYI, I'm a biologist, and my opposition to the Evolution article being an FA at the time was basically that it was all about the evolution-creation controversy, and was kind of light on the actual science. Kim Bruning 20:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for voting!

Hello there! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to vote on my arbitration commitee nomination. Although it was not successful, I appreciate the time you spent to read my statement and questions and for then voting, either positively or negativly. Again, thank you! Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 22:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration case

I've opened a new arbitration case against you. Please comment at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. - SimonP 01:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Listing arbitration administrative pages for deletion

• Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Clerks

Please don't do this again. We do need these pages to carry out our work. If you have an issue with the decision of the Committee to use clerks, probably the best way to deal with it is to go to Jimbo Wales or directly to the Foundation, which is the only body with the power to tell Arbcom how to organise itself. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Aside from, you know, consensus. Wikipedia Is Not An Autocracy. Avriette 19:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been infinitely blocked as a sockpuppet of CheeseDreams. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 15:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I've unblocked you. See my comment on WP:AN/I#Block of User:-Ril-, and note that, in so doing, I do not endorse any particular action you may have and that my unblock is purely because of the lack of grounds: another admin may find some other reason to block you and, if they do, no matter what it is, I will not lift the block. -Splash^talk 03:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

RfD

Regarding your RfD of WP:FARC: It's also offensive to anyone from Colombia when you misspell Colombia as Columbia. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 21:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

A columbian ex-housemate of mine would not agree. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 20:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Bible verse numbering

If you have more information on differences in verses numbering between editions, it would be a good addition to English translations of the Bible. Rmhermen 18:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I can see how it would be useful, but I'm not a theologian and don't really know where to start on the matter. I only really discovered the discrepency mentioned when I watched an archaeology programme about the walls under the temple mount, and checked up on a quote it made, and discovered that it wasn't there. I'll bring it up next time I'm dining with one of the theology lecturers and see what they say. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 20:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Matthew 6:2

All the sources I use are scholarly, but that does not mean they cover everything. The alms-boxes/trumpets link seems to be an interesting one, but the sources that report it mainly seem to be older 19th century ones. Perhaps the idea has been discredited by more recent scholarship? I'll look into to this to see if I can find anything.

By far my favourite source is actually Robert E. Brown, who is most certainly not a Protestant. (I also quite like Amy-Jill Levine, who is an atheist Jew, but she has unfortunately only covered a few sections of the gospel). Also the library where I am currently doing my research for these articles is Catholic one. However, I agree that my sources are unbalanced, but this is an unfortunate consequence of the actual balance of Biblical criticism. For a considerable period the Catholic Church was strongly opposed to modern Biblical criticism, consider the case of Alfred Loisy. While the church's stance has changed, such criticism still comes far more from Protestant sources. I really want more sources, and what is really needed are people who speak other languages. While Protestant criticism is mostly English and German, and a good deal of Catholic criticism is in English, but with quite a few other languages represented. There are other schools that are almost completely closed to me. There is a vast school of Eastern-Orthodox Biblical scholarship, but hardly any has been translated into English. There is a centuries long tradition of Islamic commentary on the Bible, but almost all is in Arabic. - SimonP 22:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that the sources you use are scholarly. The example I give seems a clear piece of evidence that they are nothing more than POV motivated amateurs, even if some of them are famous in Protestant circles. Do any of them actually hold positions in the theology departments of well respected universities, for example?

I have to say that whether or not Brown is your favourite source, the ones you actually use the most are Schwiezer, Albright (a well known Conservative Protestant Christian, and advocate of Biblical inerrancy), Fowler, Hill, and France.

I don't really see what biblical criticism has to do with this, though if Loisy had something to say on the matter, why do you leave it out? This is about whether the sources you use are competent enough to even refer to the most obvious of reference works. Josephus is an extremely well known historian, and yet your sources don't even appear to have bothered to check to see if he had anything to say on the matter, prefering to guess! And even if Josephus' reference to it had been discredited, though I can't see why it would be since it was written before Matthew and he had nothing to prove by making what would at the time have been a simple and fairly insignificant observation, that Josephus and 19th century sources mention it would at least be something an academic source would mention, but your sources seem so unaware that they prefer to make stabs in the dark!

--Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 22:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The credentials of the sources I listed are quite easy to look up, but here are some of them from Matthew 6:2:

• Harold Fowler, Professor of Classical Studies - College of William and Mary
• Jack P. Lewis, Professor of Bible - Harding Graduate School of Religion
• Eduard Schweizer, University of Zurich
• William Hendriksen, Professor of New Testament Exegetical Theology - Calvin Seminary

Personally I am more willing to believe this group, than some random sites found while Googling. As to your second question Protestant and Catholics are far from monolithic on these issues. When there is an official Catholic position on a verse I mention it, but for the vast majority of debates there is no official position, and each view is only representative of the authors that have put it forward. - SimonP 23:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

A few points, first of all Raymond E. Brown was a very notable free-thinking unconventional Roman Catholic Scholar and Eduard Schweizer is very far from being a conservative source. You are stumbling into a number of important debates here - which are not settled. Quoting the Talmud does not settle them either, since the Talmud is a forth century redaction, Biblical scholars have more recently been quite cautious about assumptions that it can be used to reconstruct first-century Palestinian-Jewish practices. I don't have access to Fowler, but I suspect what is being alluded to here is in fact a criticism of earlier (somewhat anti-Semitic) scholarship that tended to read New Testament criticisms of Pharisees quite literally and assume 'that's what Jews did' regularly in synagogues. Since the work of Sanders, folk have been a lot more sensitive to the polemic of the gospels, and the specifics of Judaism of the time (ie =! later Rabbinic Judaisms), and not make those assumptions. Hence, the assumption that 'evil Pharisees' regularly blew trumpets to announce almsgiving in regular meetings in a synagogue building is unsafe. It may be that specific instances of trumpet use (possibly in the temple - given the Talmudic evidence) are being used to polemical effect by Jesus/Matthew. As for Fowler notes that some scholars argue that synagogue cannot here refer to the religious building, as charity was not distributed there, that could be worded better, but what it is probably driving at is that that the word 'synagogue' may not actually necessarily refer to a building at all. How far synagogues as Rabbinic Judaism came to know them (i.e. community buildings) existed pre-70 is hotly debated. In any case, the word συναγωγή may have had a contemporary looser meaning of 'assembly' or 'gathering', and thus the whole thing may be looser than it has been traditionally read. So it could be that a temple practices is being alluded to here (and the Temple was certainly connected with alms), the use of the world synagogue does not preclude this being the possibility of this being an allusion to one specific (and perhaps atypical) temple practice (which I suspect may be Fowler's point). --Doc ^ask? 23:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course, my suppositions and conclusions are 'original research' (all my research is naturally highly original, I wish) and for the article to carry such conclusions would be too - but it would not be original research to record somthing of the notable body of schollarship on this passage. Passages like this are very important for understanding 1) The historical Jesus 2) First-century Judaism 3) Jewish-Christian relations and polemics in the later firast century (when Matthew was written) 4) The history of the interpretation of the NT, and here allegations of alleged latent anti-semitic scholarship. But someone really needs to get a hold of Davies and Allison, which is the leading accademic work on Matthew now.--Doc ^ask? 00:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I spent the morning at the library, and researched these issues. Fowler's exact words about the trumpets are:

This is a figure of speech, deliberately exaggerated by Jesus for effect. The Pharisees would have been too shrewd to go to this limit, although the logic of their system called even for this kind of overt self-praise. Probably Jesus is taking a humorous poke at such hypocrisy in such a way as to get His audience to laugh at this caricature.

The only modern source I found that mentions the link to the alms-boxes seems to confirm that this is a discredited idea. Davies and Allison state that:

G. Klein, long ago proposed that 6:2 originally had to do not with trumpets but with the 'sophar chests' which were set up in the temple and in the provinces, and an uninformed translator did not understand the meaning of 'sophar' and turned it into the verb for trumpet. This suggestion has not met a favourable reception, and rightly so. Speculation about a mistranslation should be countenanced only if the text as it stands is problematic, which is not true of Mt. 6:2.

As to the synagogues question Fowler's wording is:

Barnes, and others, argue that Jesus could not mean the Jewish meeting place, on the ground that synagogue means any meeting place, not just the synagogue, and on the absence of any evidence that charity was distributed there.

My wording pretty much reflects Fowler's, but it is somewhat ambiguous as the there might not refer to the synagogues. The next step, I guess, is to go and see what Barnes has to say. - SimonP 19:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFAR and refactoring

As a member of the Wikipedia Clerk's office, one of my duties is refactoring requests for arbitration, which includes removing threaded discussion as it is not permitted in this discussion format. Thanks. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 23:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You have absolutely no mandate whatsoever from the community. You were not elected and no policy was ratified allowing you to have any mandate. You are nothing more than an ordinary user, and deleting people's comments from WP:RFAR when they are trying to present a case is absolutely unacceptable. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 18:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

So? Anyone can remove threaded discussion from requests for arbitration. Don't be a dick. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 19:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

No they can't. Previous cases have upheld the principle that, apart from arbitrators, deletion of comments from WP:RFAR, for whatever reason, except for obvious cases of vandalism, and where the commentor is prohibited by a prior arbitration ruling, is not tolerated. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 23:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

...And the arbitrators have explicitly asked the clerks to perform this type of cleanup. If you'd like to bring an RFArb against the clerks, I'm sure that the ArbCom would be willing to pass a statement of principle to the effect that their duly-appointed clerks are allowed perform these tasks. (Actually, that's not true. I suspect that the ArbCom would reject a case brought on this point because it would be a waste of their time—effectively rendering a summary judgement.) Of course, it would probably be easier, in future, just to place your comments in your own statement section where they belong.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Its about community approval. They have no mandate to act as anything more than ordinary editors, nor has anyone else been given a mandate to give them a mandate, and nor has any policy been ratified that gives such a mandate, and hence no-one can give them that mandate apart from the community. The community has not done so. In fact, in most of their cases, the community has very much given them the opposite. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 23:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 16:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Please check your WP:NA entry

Greetings, editor! Your name appears on Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. If you have not done so lately, please take a look at that page and check your listing to be sure that following the particulars are correct:

1. If you are an admin, please remove your name from the list.
2. If you are currently interested in being considered for adminship, please be sure your name is in bold; if you are opposed to being considered for adminship, please cross out your name (but do not delete it, as it will automatically be re-added in the next page update).
3. Please check to see if you are in the right category for classification by number of edits.

Thank you, and have a wiki wiki day! BDAbramson T 03:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Deist wikipedian

I noticed you are on the category of "Deist wikipedians". That template has been deleted, but here is what you can put on your userpage:

dei	This user is a Deist.

-- Freemarket 10:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

RfAr

I have posted a request for arbitration. Please review it. Robert McClenon 15:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Matthew 1:2

Hello, SimonP (talk · contribs) has asked me to talk with you about this article, as I closed the AfD. I don't feel like repeating what I've probably said a few hundred times, but I'll do it anyway: an AfD decision, especially if there is no consensus, is not final. A merge can be undone. A redirect can be undone. Even a decision to delete is overturnable by DRV. No decision of AfD's is permanent. It is subject to constant review. If there are some now who feel that the article should stand alone instead of remaining merged, please discuss the issue with them. Please do not use the AfD decision alone to argue your case. If the article should stay merged, there should be plenty of reasons to support this argument. Johnleemk | Talk 03:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I am well aware of the arbitration case. Saying there is consensus on this particular article just because consensus has been found on other topics where SimonP has involved himself in is a logical fallacy. If there is consensus that I am a rogue admin, and then I delete an article because of AfD consensus, does this mean there was no consensus for me to delete that article? As the admin who closed that AfD, I am telling you: There was no consensus. No consensus defaults to keep. I only merged it because I felt there was no point in keeping the article as it stood. This is an editorial decision any editor can make, not a final decision based on consensus. Therefore, reverting SimonP just because I merged the article is stupid. Full stop. Period. Johnleemk | Talk 06:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I did not say there was consensus to merge and redirect. The only decision on AfD that requires consensus is deleting. If there is no consensus to delete, then it's entirely up to the decision of the closing admin. Usually I just state the result as "merge and redirect" or whatever because I base my decision on the AfD. In cases where there was little or no support for merging/redirecting, I have specifically stated that although the decision of no consensus would have defaulted to keep, I made the decision as an *editor* (not as an admin) to merge/redirect the article. The same took place here, although since there was more support for merger, I thought I could omit the disclaimer. And anyhow, remember my earlier point stands: the consensus of yesterday does not overrule the consensus of today. Even if there was consensus to merge then, there might be consensus to keep now. I suggest you try talking to SimonP; if he doesn't listen, both of you should avoid further edit warring and confine yourselves to the ongoing RfAr. Johnleemk | Talk 09:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Euro America

Why do you want to remove my Euro America page? (XGustaX 23:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC))

Then you misread my statement to him. He admited that it was amistake because it was not intended for that article. Therefore it is not nelogism(XGustaX 23:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC))

Hey Well Its hard to find a english source about Euro America. Its mostly a word used as almost Slang. I am guessing it is a new term coming out. So I can not really say heres an article that explains it. Then again many articles on Wikipedia work like this. Whether you are speaking about Slang or not. (XGustaX 23:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril- 2

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril- 2. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril- 2/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril- 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Johnleemk | Talk 10:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You aren't part of the Arbitration Committee, so how do you justify claiming to speak for them?

You are not an arbitrator and you have no right to open cases against anyone. --Victim of signature fascism 18:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This might or might not interest you: WP:AC/C#Current_Clerks. Aren't I Obscure? 19:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

At no point did the community ever vote on a policy that gave "clerks" any right to open cases. --Victim of signature fascism 20:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ril, I would strongly recommend that you withdraw your arbitration request against Johnleemk before someone decides to block you for being a disruptive and vexatious litigant. You know full well that he's a clerk of the ArbCom and that he's acting within his established responsibilities.

The case was opened against you per the decision of arbitrators as outlined in the arbitration policy. Only four arbitrators need to accept a case for it to be taken to arbitration; this condition was met for your case. (There is no requirement for all of the arbitrators to vote or comment before a case is opened.) If you feel so moved, you may certainly request that Johnleemk not clerk for your particular case. So far, he has only been involved in the basic 'paper shuffling' side.

If you'd like to have a discussion about the role of clerks in the arbitration process, this is not the way to go about it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Abuses of blocking policy

You are now blocked, not merely for being a disruptive and vexatious litigant, but more precisely for being a reincarnation of CheeseDreams, which shows that you have been a disruptive and vexatious litigant for a long time. --Michael Snow 20:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You do realise that SimonP made that same accusation 1 month ago, and raised it with the Arbitration Committee. The ArbCom rejected it near-unanimously. --Victim of signature fascism 20:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

They rejected the case, not the accusation itself. Not all of them were convinced at the time, but they had not necessarily investigated the situation enough to make a determination. In light of your continuing conduct, I think the evidence is clear. Perhaps you would care to respond to the accusation itself, particularly with something a little more definitive than, "Who is CheeseDreams?" --Michael Snow 20:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Er, no. None of the arbitrators were convinced. 3 Recused, 1 Accepted "to determine facts", rather than supporting the accusation (and indeed is the same arbitrator that almost always accepts cases), and the remaining 6 rejected as per Epopt "while a case could be made against -Ril-, this isn't it". Even those that recused "concurred with the tenor" of what those rejecting said.

I shouldn't have to repeatedly defend myself from accusations of being one editor or another's sockpuppet. Since I have been in wikipedia, I have been accused of being

• Lir
• Slrubenstein
• Doc glasgow
• CheeseDreams
• Dreamguy
• Capitalstroader
• Jamesgibbon

The only ones of these I really know anything about are Doc glasgow, with whom I have had quite a bit of interaction, and Lir, and only then because I asked.

It is simply a waste of my time to continously have to demonstrate that I am not these people, when the onus should be on the accuser not the accused - innocent till proven guilty - one cannot be judge jury and executioner if one expects not to be accused of total corruption.

--Victim of signature fascism 20:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Right now, the only accusation is that you are the same person who operated the CheeseDreams account. None of the others you have listed is at issue, and if anybody was still arguing those I'd say they clearly must have no clue about the situation. But considering the evidence on the noticeboard, do you have any response other than yet another non-denial? --Michael Snow 20:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The fatuous claims that you have posted are simple regurgitations of those that SimonP presented 1 month ago. I responded to those then. I have utter contempt for your reposting of them, and have no intention of repeating myself by responding to them again. --Victim of signature fascism 21:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You responded to them with a non-denial in the form of a question, and apparently have decided to persist in responding with non-denials. You also conveniently overlooked the additional arguments I made, and the new evidence SimonP presented just today. --Michael Snow 21:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you would care to bother to actually read this link properly you will see I made a far more extensive statement. --Victim of signature fascism 21:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite well aware that your statement was lengthy, but with respect to the one very specific charge that is fundamentally at issue here, your response was a non-denial, and the portion of your statement that was most on point came in the form of a question. Are you trying to see how many non-denial responses you can rack up? --Michael Snow 21:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

My response was very much a result of having zero familiarity with that user, much like you would react if I accused you of being Paul1513. Lir is someone I had been repeatedly accused of being before that accusation was made to ArbCom, wheras the first time CheeseDreams was mentioned to me was when someone put a case before ArbCom accusing me of being him. --Victim of signature fascism 21:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, now that you've been repeatedly accused of being CheeseDreams and had plenty of opportunity to become familiar with that user, what response do you make now? --Michael Snow 22:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Just because I've had an opportunity doesn't mean I'd bother to find out. Nor do I much care who Slrubenstein, JamesGibbon, or DreamGuy are. They don't seem to get involved in the articles I do, and neither do they seem involved in more general discussions, and quite frankly my path has hardly ever crossed with theirs. So I have no reason to find out. Finding out about everyone I have been accused of being would be a waste of my time. --Victim of signature fascism 22:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It does tend to help if administrators actually obey the blocking policy rather than imposing unilateral blocks based on personal suspicions. --Victim of signature fascism 20:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)