User talk:Newport

Archive 1

New articles

Hi. When creating an article about a person, you should tell more than "John Doe is a U.S. chemist", otherwise the article could be deleted because it fails to explain why the subject is notable to have a wikipedia entry. bogdan 10:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Ditto about Joseph Keller. He may be quite famous, as I spy an AMS Notices interview with him, but it would really help out if you just list one of the reasons you create a bio in the first place...something which is liable to indicate some notability. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 08:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Lawrence Weiskrantz

Hi, thanks for expanding the article, and making clear the notability. As you have discovered - bio-stubs tend to get attacked pretty aggressively :) Keep up the good work. Megapixie 12:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sum of all human knowledge

Hi Newport -

the point I was making was precisely that the category was non-sensical in ways that are not shared by, say, "Great Yiddish writers" or "Mediocre British Zoologists". If you want to propose a vote for the deletion of "British zoologists", though, be my guest. I would probably vote "weak delete". Hasdrubal 21:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Newport -

as it happens, I have a PhD in mathematics, and I do not know of any mathematicians who call themselves scientists - at least in English. (Your mileage may vary in other languages, due to the lack of Baconian criteria.) Mathematics is simply not about finding out contingent facts about the natural world by means of experiment and observation. - Hasdrubal

Isaac de Sequeira Samuda

Hi Newport. I moved Mr. de Sequeira Samuda's decent information down in the article. Was he born in England/Britain/UK? How do you use this guys last name?? Hopefully this works. See the talk page for why or drop me a line if you want to discuss further. This is also helpful for biographies, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies). Cheers! --Tom 16:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Jewish bio stubs lists

As you're particularly interested in working on biographies may I recommend a pair of compendia I've found useful:

• Category:Jewish biography stubs
• Category:Jewish history stubs (that includes numerous biographical topics)

This works both ways: you can find an article there, or add one from your own (extensive) list, tagging as a Jewish history stub to alert other editors. Overall, I've found it useful to check in with the Jewish History WikiProject as a focal point and source of internal links in these topics.

(Of course, if you know all this already, please pardon my rookie's enthusiasm -- just want to encourage and facilitate your activity :-) Cheers, Deborahjay 20:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Olah and Hevesy

Maybe I should have been more specific on why I removed categories for these two names; I've put some reasoning on Talk:List of Hungarian Jews. Note that Georg Bekesy isn't listed as Jewish but George Hevesy is. This plus the fact that not all Jewish Nobel Prize sites list him brought it to my attention that Jinfo (the main source for this guy) doesn't say why they assume he is Jewish.

Off topic: a question I've always wondered: why is the Welsh language so complicated yet Welsh surnames so simple? (Jones, Evans, Williams, etc) 70.146.15.71

List of Western European Jews#Ireland

why delete

• Otto Jaffe Lord Mayor of Belfast 1899 and 1904
• David Marcus author, editor, broadcaster in both English language and Irish-language

?? ClemMcGann 14:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the restore ClemMcGann 21:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again, in particular because I wrote the article on Otto Jaffe. I intend to expand the stub Charles Bewley. I would appreciate your opinion. I have a draft at User:ClemMcGann/bewley. In particular I need to refine the description of his anti-semitism. As the stub correctly states "He disapproved of the anti-Semitism practised by the Nazi party". Just, if you have a moment. (and feel free to edit). Regards ClemMcGann 18:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I have let Charles Bewley out, its not perfect, the tone is nearly there, the ending is weak, but, perhaps he is better out , regards ClemMcGann 01:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for Gustav Wilhelm Wolff ClemMcGann 16:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Lord Kalms

Hi,

Re Lord Kalms:

"He spent his entire career from 1948 working for Dixons, and took over the running of these companies from his father Charles Kalms in 1962."

This is incorrect; the only company-running Mr. H.S. Kalms could have taken over from his father in 1962 was Dixons Photographic Ltd. Currys at the time were an independently quoted public company in which Dixons had no stake. The Link and PC World (Dixons subsidiaries) did not come into being until more than 20 years later! Mr Charles Kalms died in February 1978.

List of Czech Jews

I know that you are a reasonably experienced user, and I know that you have been involved in the article that is now at List of Czech Jews. There seems to have been a cut-and-paste move; also, the talk page associated with the article is a double redirect. Is there any chance I could prevail upon you to sort out what happened and what should go where? If necessary, I can do the admin-only stuff necessary to fix the cut-and-paste move, but I've only been semi-involved with it, and I'd really appreciate if you would sort out what is going on instead of me having to piece together the history. Thanks in advance. And if you can't or won't take this on, can you suggest anyone else reasonably experienced who has been involved? - Jmabel | Talk 19:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your attempt, and at least now there is a reasonable article title, but it looks like you compunded the problem I was most concerned with by making yet another cut-and-paste move. The article is completely divorced from its history. Please see Wikipedia:Fixing cut-and-paste moves. As I said, I can do the admin-only stuff necessary to fix the cut-and-paste move, but I'm not sure I understand the sequence of what was done, so I'm not sure where the history may be scattered. - Jmabel | Talk 20:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what's happened to the history either, I'm afraid. I only did the cut and paste because I couldn't find correct versions to restore. I couldn't do it by renaming because that would have meant renaming to a page that already exists.--Newport 21:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That is why you should have asked an admin to do the move. As it says on Move page: "Please request a page move on Wikipedia:Requested moves if you cannot do so, but please do not just copy and paste the contents (doing that destroys the page's edit history)." I do suggest that you read Wikipedia:Fixing cut-and-paste moves so you understand the issue. - Jmabel | Talk 21:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Justine Levy

Thanks for the ref! And in French, too :) Mad Jack 17:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Kelly Osbourne

She is described as "non-Jewish" by TIME magazine, and in Season 2 Episode 10 of the Osbrournes actually says "I'm not Jewish" on TV [1]. Udzu 19:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

שנה טובה to you too! Udzu

Michael Rossmann

Hi, I added information to the Michael Rossmann article which I noticed you started. I just wonder - if Rossmann is born in Frankfurt, can he be considered British? Also, he's a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, as stated on his online CV http://bilbo.bio.purdue.edu/~viruswww/Rossmann_home/people/cv/cv.html. So I omitted the "British" references. Hope that's ok with you. Haonhien 14:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Physicists articles

Hey, thanks for clearing up behind my bot and adding your assessments, that's terrific. One little thing, you've been using importance of "medium" but it has to be "Mid" (Low, Mid, High, Top importance; Stub, Start, B, GA, A, FA class). Cheers! (no reply needed). --kingboyk 16:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Your email to Amatulic

Thanks for the letter. All I can say, if you believe someone is a sockpuppet and can gather evidence of violations using m:CheckUser policy, then you can tag the offender's userpage appropriately; see Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. Remember, however, there are valid uses of sockpuppets. The individual in question, as far as I can tell, has been civil and able to defend his position, but willing to listen to arguments if presented logically and without criticising him directly, so at this point I can't fault him. In the case of Georg Cantor, his Jewishness may be relevant, in which case insisting otherwise would indeed a violation of WP:NPOV. However, if there are sourced disagreements on that point (and the sources are reliable, even if obscure) then I think the disagreement deserves to be mentioned while keeping the relevant assertion in place — thereby displeasing all points of view equally. :-) -Amatulic 22:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Amatulic: thanks very much for this. Cantor's Jewishness is highly relevant, because it influenced perceptions of his work both in his lifetime and subsequently (especially in Nazi Germany). I shall copy your comment to Talk:Georg Cantor.--Newport 22:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Vote request

Please Vote, as per wiktionary the correct spelling is Wiktionary:anti-Semitic NOT Antisemitic. 67.70.68.51 12:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Vote

Please vote 67.70.71.160 10:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

David Malcolm Lewis

Can you try making the article look like an article, instead of a CV? We're an encyclopedia, not a resume site. Might help. Fan-1967 16:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Not all professors are necessarily notable, even at Oxford, per WP:PROFTEST. Whether FBA automatically confers notability is debatable. Fan-1967 17:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Biographical articles

I hope you don't mind but I've cribbed the format of biographical articles I've been writing from you and I think that I've even written an article that you were going to. Hope that is OK.--R613vlu 13:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Itche Goldberg Talk

Thank you for pointing out my eror. Mwinog2777 05:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Moving List of German Jews

Unless it is scheduled to combine List of Austrian Jews with List of German Jews, it is not a wise choice to not move the list. The name is in line with List of Jews from the Soviet Union because the Jewish settlements are not well-defined in either regions. Ok? Mehmeda 00:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Set up a Vote (like a deletion vote but not)?? I don't know how to do one for an article. We can each put our reasons for wanting/not wanting the move. Mehmeda 00:39, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Ukraine / Russia

Could you please see (& respond to) my comment at Talk:Jacob Pavlovitch Adler#Ukraine / Russia? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 03:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I don't think Adler ever thought of himself as British. I've read his memoir (and a good deal else about him) and even though he spent 6-7 years in London, he was quite an outsider there. I'm pretty certain he never took citizenship. He was, in one sense, well-connected there, in that the Grand Rabbi was a relative, but from the point of view of an Orthodox rabbi, Jacob Adler was quite the black sheep. Not a big point, and I won't press it, but thought I should remark. Thanks on the Russia/Ukraine issue. - Jmabel | Talk 05:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Paul Edwards

Hello Newport,

you asked to avoid POV. That's fine.

Re the life of Paul Edwards I relied upon the obituary by Peter Singer, who was a personal friend of Paul Edwards and knows better about his family background than a NYT journalist. This is Singer's text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Edwards_%28philosopher%29&oldid=31342763

There you can read:

"His family was of Jewish descent, and although neither they nor Paul himself were religious, when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, that made no difference."

Edwards was a humanist atheist all of his life. There may be still people who'd call him Jewish because some of his ancestors had been Jewish. But I think we shouldn't do this. OK?

--Nescio* 14:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleting Categories of Jewish Athletes

Hi. I believe this is related to an issue that has interested you in the past. At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Category:Jewish_fencers some people are suggesting that Jewish athletes, beginning with Jewish Fencers, should be deleted. I do not think that is the correct approach, or consistent with wiki policy, and thought that others might want to weigh in on the discussion. Tx. --Epeefleche 13:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)--Epeefleche 13:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)--Epeefleche 13:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)--Epeefleche 23:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Spire

You caught me in the middle of my writing on the talk page. Spire is listed twice. Mehmeda 00:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

But good job on the sources for Claude Sarraute and Jean-Jacques Schuhl. Those were very hard to find. I am still skeptical of the addition of the two Polish chess players. What makes them French? Many chess players lived in France during their lives. Mehmeda 01:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that if anyone lives for most of their lives in France, they can be classified as French.--Newport 01:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with you somewhat, but I think others might not. This is why it would help if we could find some place that says they are French. Do you speak French? Mehmeda 01:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Crazy nationalists

Hello Newport ! Look at "List of Polish Jews", please. It seems that such a crazy Polish nationalist as Beaumont intends to remove from the list the following persons: Barak, Begin, Ben-Gurion, Peres, Rendel, Shamir, etc. He has already removed Adam Daniel Rotfeld from "List of Ukrainians". Please contact with an admin Runcorn to stop this anti-Semitic maniac.

For example: Menachem Begin (Belarusian-Polish heritage)

Shimon Peres (Polish heritage)

Moses Blackman

The reason I asked for the citation at Moses Blackman about his father is that the given appellation "Rev." implies that he was a Reverend. I had only seen this used by Christians, so I checked Reverend first to see if it was used by Jewish people too. In this context, does it mean that he was a Rabbi? I suggest an update to Reverend. Thanks for looking at the article so quickly. David H. Flint 11:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the education. I did know about Chazzanim. Unfortunately, I can't speak for sure as to what the practices are here with regard to it. However, having read the article on Chazzan, and with my own limited experiences, it seems likely that it would also be the case here that Chazzanim are not usually Rabbis. However, I doubt that they would style themselves Reverend, though they might be referred to as a Minister. Certainly, when a lay person serves as Chazzan, they would probably not use either appellation. In general, I believe we treat "Reverend" more strictly and formally here, with it usually signifying ordination in a particular denomination of Christianity. David H. Flint 12:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Otto Lilienthal

I recommend you do not revert as you have done on List of Jewish inventors and List of German Jews without knowing all the facts on TALK:Otto Lilienthal. Had you have have read this page, you'd know there are as many as five official published accounts that say Lilienthal is not Jewish (two of which say directly that he is "erroneously" identified as Jewish, and three which are official biographies). You can verify the first two with directions I gave on TALK:Otto Lilienthal. The biographies are not available unless you can read German and find snippets on the database that the German wikipedia article has here.....but you can actually e-mail the author of one at the Otto Lilienthal museum and "verify" it this way. Either way, your statement that there are no reliable sources to "three?" (which I'm not sure how you derived not having read TALK:Otto Lilienthal) reliable sources is just flat-out wrong. Please do not revert again. Usedup 21:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not mean to appear condescending; this is just the way words come across when typed instead of said. The reason I believed you have not read TALK:Otto Lilienthal and the reason I still believe you have not read TALK:Otto Lilienthal (at least not completely) is because you still purport that I wish to use an e-mail as a verifiable source, when I have mentioned numerous times on that talk page that the e-mail is simply a way to verify what the BIOGRAPHY I wish to use a source says (because the biography is probably not readily available to everyone who wishes to verify it). You do this by e-mailing the Otto Lilienthal Museum (the "curator" happens to be the author of the biography). Secondly, you still appear to ignore the easiest of verifiable sources I presented.."Jewish Social Studies Journal" which you can look up for yourself on google books. This source was indeed published predating the Nazis as well. I don't know where you get this impression that by 'which was written in order to straighten the records of many people whose backgrounds were completely obfuscated during the Nazi Era' you assume that Otto Lilienthal's background was said to be Jewish then and only then. I never said or implied that. In fact, the Nazi Era likely tried to establish Lilienthal as a gentile (much in the way they tried to establish Nicholas Copernicus as a normalized German). Kaznelson, who himself is a Jew I believe, has the list to straighten records on everyone (including Lilienthal) who many believed actually was Jewish but was "supposedly falsified" as a gentile. The truth being that Lilienthal was thought to be gentile even before the Nazi aggressor. This statement is covered in the Journal of Jewish Social Studies with the statement "even before the Nazi menace, Lilienthal's geneology was recorded and his ancestors were revealed to be of Swedish descent. [sic]" "Lilienthal, Bizet, Saint-Saens" are written to be "people once widely mistaken as Jewish." Another statement I copied early here was "Lilienthal, often erroneously identified as Jewish [sic]" You can look these statements up. If you want to abide by WP:A, then you must abide by the late WP:NPOV which is now part of it and now policy. That means falling back on the default when so many contradicting sources are in play. Asserting he was Jewish by putting him on List of German Jews is not defaulting the manner. Zivb has already agreed to this and judging from the silence of everyone else who participated in the talk, so has everyone else. Why do you not? Usedup 05:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

MedCab case

Hi all. I'm currently mediating this case.

Every editor can see how's going the mediation and voice his opinion here.

For a successful mediation, I need to hear every position and its arguments.

In order to keep mediation-related stuff all together, I prefer if we discuss on the mediation page rather than here.

I'm at your disposal for every question.

Happy editing,

--HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 21:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I'll be taking over your mediation case. If you have any questions, leave a message on my talk page! mcr616 _Speak! 20:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Cairo Codex

What exactly does the Hebrew U volume on Ezekiel say about the manuscript? It is clear that its characteristics are those of Tiberian masoretic manuscripts. Dovi 05:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, saw your ref., sorry. There must be a reference there to the article with the "recent proof." Can you add it? Thanks. Dovi 05:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

On the inclusion of Raquel Partoy in List of Argentine Jews; I deleted it not because I didn't consider her Jewesh, but because I didn't consider her relevant to the encyclopedia (we are not going to list all 300.000 Jews in Argentina, are we?) Please, try to see if you would consider her notable enough for the listing. Thanks, --Mariano(t/c) 16:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Leonard Feather

There are times when I begin to think that no-one uses edit summaries or gives sources for their edits any more — but then I see edits like yours, and my spirits are raised. Thanks. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

List of Iberian Jews: a case has been opened at WP:COI/N

Hello Newport. Your name has been mentioned in this discussion on the COI noticeboard. You are welcome to add your opinions there. EdJohnston 20:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

wiki smile

I would have sent the big wiki-smile but I think the smaller ones look better. . Mehmeda 21:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Joss Stone

Are you sure she is a Jew? Where did you see that? Funk Junkie 21:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I've untagged Joss Stone as Jewish until you can come up with a source confirming it. A quick Google showed nothing for me. —Wereon 23:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar of Diligence

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		It's so good (and increasingly rare) to see someone who actually explains what she's doing; this is overdue. Mel Etitis (Talk) 10:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi

Can you please have a look at Einstein's talk page (the poll about his ethnic entry and the opposing the poll sections) and at Stephan Schulz talk page (at the bottom of it) and to share me with your thougtes about his suggestion? Best --Gilisa 12:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer!--Gilisa 15:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Attempt to delete category of Jewish athletes

Well, they are trying to delete a category of Jewish athletes again. This time, figure skaters. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_April_14#Category:Jewish_figure_skaters . I pointed out to the originator of the attempt that we had addressed this general issue already with Jewish fencers, where the attempt failed (due in part to your help). Still, they insist on trying to delete this category. Any help by your weighing in on the issue would be appreciated. I will do so as well once I have a chance to write something up. Thanks again. --Epeefleche 20:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)