User talk:AuthorityTam

Hello, AuthorityTam! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes ( ~~~~ ); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! — Mikhailov Kusserow (talk) 03:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources 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 Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Typo redirect Sen. John McCain

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Sen. John McCain, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Sen. John McCain is a redirect page resulting from an implausible typo (CSD R3).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Sen. John McCain, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ceremonial first puck

The term "first puck" is virtually unused in hockey. So, despite your rationale, the term "ceremonial faceoff" is correct. Unless you can provide reliable sources that refer to a ceremonial dropping of the puck under the name "ceremonial first puck". Wikipedia is not in the business of coining new terms. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 16:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: Even your sources use the term "ceremonial opening faceoff". -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 17:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC) writes...

No, "first puck" is actually quite widespread throughout hockey. The overwhelming preponderance of actual "reliable sources" supports AuthorityTam rather than long-winded and imaginative complainant. See Ceremonial_first_puck#Related_terms--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

References

Thanks for supplying references to Jehovah's Witnesses literature. Please note that whilst information in Wikipedia articles should be sourced, it is not necessary to provide a quote from the original publication, unless the exact wording is particularly notable. If the source is quoted, superfluous details (such as 'Jehovah blessed the change') can be replaced with an ellipsis ("..."). Also, references should follow punctuation - that is, commas and periods should be before the ref tag.--Jeffro77 (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You are continuing to add lengthy quotes from Watch Tower publications on the dubious basis that they are adding context to "balance critical POV". Great care is being taken to ensure these articles are presented in a neutral way. If you can identify points of view in the articles that detract from their neutrality, then discuss or change. Loading articles up with slabs of quoted material from The Watchtower doesn't help at all. LTSally (talk) 23:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Warning on edit warring

Your edits at Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses are becoming vexatious and appear to be the start of an edit war. You have yet to produce any evidence in support of the edits you are making regarding the exclusive salvation of Jehovah's Witnesses and are ignoring the references cited by other editors that prove you wrong. You are also deleting, without sufficient justification, reference to the WTS survey of elders that produced adverse comments about the pressure placed on Witnesses, and seeking to insert the wording "a former prominent Witness" in what I can only assume is an attempt to belittle the source of the material and detract from its importance. It is better to seek consensus on the talk page rather than simply reverting these changes. Thanks! LTSally (talk) 12:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC) writes...

The complaints of user LTSally are illogical and factually incorrect. While I (that is, AuthorityTam), happen to believe a thirty-year-old 'opinion study' is out of place in an article about a group's current beliefs, I certainly have not repeatedly deleted references to the supposed study. Furthermore, does LTSally contend that the phrase "a former prominent Witness" is nonneutral or factually incorrect? Either reason might exclude it, but neither reason applies to its usage here.

Regarding the matter of salvation, the fact remains that officially, JWs certainly DO believe that non-Witnesses will be saved (see quote below, from their official website). Far from "many WT articles" or "multiple references", there are NO references which contradict this view, and certainly none newer than their current website.

Incidentally, the edits of User:AuthorityTam have tended to include elucidatory information rather than hide it (by contrast, it is clear that certain others have actively worked to hide information, including actual quotations, that merely balances anti-JW criticism). "Light is the best antiseptic.", no?

The FACTS and VERIFIABLE REFERENCES plainly contradict the unfounded notion that it is "ludicrous and untenable" (per LTSally) to assert that the official position of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the great crowd includes "presumably others with whom God will find favour" (to use the exact phrasing of LTSally). Skeptics should note the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses, arguably the MOST CURRENT position of the faith:

As Retrieved 2009-04-14

"Do you believe that you are the only ones who will be saved? No. ... Many now living may yet take a stand for truth and righteousness before God's time of judgment, and they will gain salvation. Moreover, Jesus said that we should not be judging one another. Humans look at the outward appearance; God looks at the heart. He sees accurately and judges mercifully. God has committed judgment into Jesus' hands, not ours."

In conclusion... I do not believe JWs contend the following, but even IF Jehovah's Witnesses in the future happened to contend that there is "no evidence" that non-Witnesses will survive Armageddon, that is a different matter than asserting that non-Witnesses CANNOT survive Armageddon or WILL NOT survive Armageddon. Insisting otherwise seems incompatible with the standards of Wikipedia. Please, avoid nonneutral assertions, avoid unwarranted over-interpretations, and avoid hiding elucidatory quotes from the official publications of Jehovah's Witnesses in an article entitled "Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses".--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:PEACOCK

Are you familiar with WP:PEACOCK? "Renowned" is on the list of terms to avoid in that guideline. Croctotheface (talk) 01:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the random act of wikience. To my recollection, I've not yet used "renowned" in any article.--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

[1] Croctotheface (talk) 16:02, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!--AuthorityTam (talk) 18:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Disassociated Witnesses

I reverted your most recent edit to the Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses article relating to the treatment of Witnesses who voluntarily quit the religion. There are two points here.

The first is that the Watchtower article I had cited, Questions From Readers, July 15, 1985, page 31, unequivocally identified any person who "willfully and formally disassociated himself from the congregation" as an apostate. The article stated that "such ones willfully abandoning the Christian congregation thereby become part of the ‘antichrist’." Your insertion of the words "with apostates among them" is therefore quite inaccurate. Your edit summary that "JW consider apostates part of antichrist (not all who disassociate)" is wrong. Your edit summary suggesting that the 1991 WT article makes clear that "not all disassoc are apostate (since 1991)" is also wrong. The 1991 WT does suggest that elders approach disassociated ex-Witnesses to invite them back into the fold. It does warn elders against approaching "certain expelled ones, such as apostates, who ‘speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves'" But the article in no way changes the doctrine established in the September 15, 1981 WT, and reinforced in the 1985 WT cited above, that all who voluntarily quit are apostates and part of the antichrist.

The second point is that your explanation of your edit should not be inserted in invisible comments within the article. Please start a new section on the talk page for these issues. And please stop inserting long quotes from the Watchtower in the references. Thanks. LTSally (talk) 05:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC) Talk:Beliefs_and_practices_of_Jehovah's_Witnesses#Former_does_not_equal_Apostate--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Anna Baltzer

Want to briefly thank you for your honest comment on the Talk:Anna Baltzer page, and ask that please vote to "*Keep" the article in the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna Baltzer project page. There will be further references to support the article in the near future. Thank you for your help. Henry Delforn (talk) 21:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Quotes

Please note that a brief description of circuit overseers doesn't need "a century of background". Such lengthy quotes can usually be summarised and simply cite the source if they are particularly important to the subject being addressed, within the scope of the article. In this instance, the information in the quote is not of particular notability or relevance to the current circuit overseer arrangement, and the import of the quote would be more relevant to an article about the gradual development of JW procedures, though this level of detail probably wouldn't be notable even in the History of Jehovah's Witnesses article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Shunning

Please do not include entire paragraphs in comments in the article just to prove your point about the suitability of references. This kind of thing belongs in Talk.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd have guessed that including the actual quote from the actual reference would have avoided pushback. Amazingly, it hasn't.

Invisible_comment#HTML_tags, as of 4/28/09

[quote]Invisible comments to editors (<!-- -->) appear only while editing the page.

* If you wish to make comments to the public, you should usually use the talk page.[end quote][emphasis added]

--AuthorityTam (talk) 13:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Several paragraphs of unnecessary material do not constitute a 'note'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:58, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Holy Spirit

I addressed your issues about the introduction to Holy Spirit on the talk page. Someone 19:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Please make sure you are aware of the Wikipedia:Three revert rule at Holy Spirit. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

JW publications

I have created Jehovah's Witnesses publications for youths and Jehovah's Witnesses reference works per your suggestion. I have also replaced the independent relevant articles with redirects to the new articles.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)