User talk:Smkolins

Bahai in Italy

Ciao Smkolins, I pubished Bahai in Italy. It is not a large voice, but i had not many references. I cannot translate it as my english ( from italian to english; it is easier for me from english to italian) is very poor. If you think that it worths to be published in enwiki and you cannot translate in english I could try to translate it in my sandbox, just to give you its meaning, and then you could transalate in good english. I am continuing in translating bahai voices in italian. Ciao, Giorces --giorces (talk) 11:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Bahá'í Faith in Haiti

Hi there, I was going through some new articles and I found Bahá'í Faith in Haiti. I think it is great and have nominated for DYK. Thanks for the good work.--TM 00:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Issues have been raised on that DYK nomination. Please address at T:TDYK. Materialscientist (talk) 08:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Bahá'í Faith in Haiti

On February 25, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bahá'í Faith in Haiti, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 00:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, and thank you

Hi Smkolins. I'd love to see the sandbox, but unfortunately, my knowledge of the Bahai faith is virtually 0 - 0.1%. I only wrote the article because of the fact that I'm trying to improve Italy related articles, and 'cause my decent knowledge of Italian made be translate it. But, thanks for the message, and I'll see the sandbox soon :-)--Theologiae (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's impressive :-). But, as I said, I literally know nothing on the Bahai faith, I just started the article to make people want to continue it by translating info from the Italian wiki version. Anyway, it seems highly readible, and personally it might reach good status, so put in the info now! Ciao!--Theologiae (talk) 13:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I say you post it now. There's no reason why not to ;-) Unfortunately I don't have the material time and enough knowledge of the Italian language to actually translate it, but you can translate material from different wikis, just like I did with the Bahai article. Anyway, post it now, in my opinion. At least, tell me when you've posted it--Theologiae (talk) 16:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Bahá'í Faith in Italy

...great, :):) --giorces (talk) 23:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Susan Audé

Hi there - thought I'd drop you a friendly note on your talk page regarding this article. I can see you're clearly passionate about this biography; however, there are some pretty serious issues with the article that contributed to my choice to propose it for deletion.

• It lacks in-line citations for statements that are somewhat POV and in need of reference if they are to stay. Examples of statements that need to be sourced or removed ASAP:

• "...one of Susan’s proudest moments was bearing the Olympic torch as it passed through Columbia in 1996." "Proudest moments" is a POV statement, and there ought to be an in-line citations supporting the fact that she bore the Olympic torch in that year and that she considers it to be a proud moment.
• "Susan is equally respected for her service to the community and is a much-requested inspirational speaker and a trail-blazing role model for women and persons with disabilities." This statement may well be true, but again, these things need specific citations.
• "Susan often credits Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville, Virginia, with changing her attitude and outlook on life in a wheelchair." Again, we need a citation that shows when and where she made this statement.

• It reads like an advertisement in a few ways, notably for the subject's personal website and for the rehab center cited above.

• The two pictures included don't appear to be free images, as is claimed in their summaries; they both seem to be promotional images for the TV station where the subject worked, and although their use here may fall under the fair use rationale, this should be cited.

Again, I didn't mean to step on any toes or be a jerk, but there are some pretty serious issues with the article. I'm going to re-add a BLP citation tag to the article, because there are some highly POV claims made in the article that need in-line citations ASAP if they are to stay.

Thanks! Petitscel (talk) 01:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm only mildly passionate, though I do see it worthwhile. I don't disagree the article has problems but I'm not an editor geared by making the flags of the problems of articles. Mostly I do the work of making them better within my limited skills. Perhaps I'll spend some time on the article though there were other editors historically who've spent more time on the article. Smkolins (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

In response to you comment:

1) I think that's a mischaracterization. Look at the year worth of history in both the page edits and the comment edits.

2) Whether or not that's true, Jeff3000's undo's do not meet editing standards for WP -- he mass reverted a series of changes without even looking at them individually, and gave no rationale during his undo, and did not check the discussion page before or after.

new topic

User talk pages are not the place to have these conversations. That was a private comment between me and Jeff. I placed it in his user talk only because I was concerned with his specific behavior, even more than with the minutiae of his edits, as explained in #2 above. One can disagree on consensus and on content without being a thoughtless editor. BTW, he gave me an angry, lash-out response. I just don't think he's a very civil person. Dovid (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

funny thing is last time this happened I was angry and lashing out and he was restraining me. Uncivilly claiming to act with consensus just flies in the face of any good faith argument. Might as well make sweeping changes to any article and then claim you were acting on consensus. Tends to make interested editors angry when the rules aren't even being abided by. I thought the some of the recent activity was so egregious it merited someone being banned or at least blocked for a time. I've avoided learning too many rules and reporting procedures and general "mark it up" editor tools as basically my interest is in creating good articles and not just using rules to club up others or the work itself.Smkolins (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Again, I think that's a mischaracterization. My impression is that consensus was reached. I'm not using a club here, I'm doing what I think is right within the bounds of WP. Dovid (talk) 00:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Show me a link to a consensus. Smkolins (talk) 00:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

So I take it you can't find one? Smkolins (talk) 11:52, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

another topic

hey. is it possible you ould give me a link for Baha'i prophecies or miracles websites.? thanks in advanceJigglyfidders (talk) 19:57, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

None that I can think of as third party unless you can dig up old old newspaper accounts of things. There is already a article from a Baha'i pov of Bahá'í prophecies. There are some sources there but none really applicable in a context beyond a Baha'i oriented article. Smkolins (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

this might prove interesting: "Now Baha'u'llah turns to a prophecy similar to but more specific than his jeremiads in the Tablet of the Premier (Surat ar-Ra'is) addressed to Ali Pasha. Speaking with the voice of God (using the royal "we"), Baha'u'llah predicts that Ali Pasha, then grand vizier, will be deposed (the verb is `azala, which is used of deposing kings). He says, too, that God will "lay hold" (the verb is akhadha, to take, seize) of Sultan Abd'laziz (he is called amiruhum, literally, "their prince" or "their commander"). Although Bahá'u'llah was correct that neither of these powerful men had long at the top in 1869, his prophecy, if taken literally, actually reverses their true fates. Ali Pasha was never deposed, but rather died in office in 1871. It was Sultan Abdá'laziz who was deposed, in the Constitutional Revolution of spring, 1876, shortly after which he committed suicide. Obviously, if Baha'u'llah had merely meant to predict that eventually these two men would die, then the prophecy was not very remarkable. Rather, he seems to have believed that á'li Pasha would fall from the sultaná's favor, and that some dramatic event would overtake the sultan. Even contemporaries such as Mirza Abuá'l-Fadl Gulpaygani, who became a Baha'i in 1876 on hearing of the sultaná's fall, had demanded that the latter meet some extraordinary fate before he would accept that the prophecy in the Tablet of Fuad had been fulfilled. Taken together with Baha'u'llah's prediction in the Tablet of the Premier that turmoil would overtake the Ottoman empire and his advocacy from his early Acre years of parliamentary democracy, he does seem to have been prescient about the imminence of the First Constitutional Revolution. Indeed, the matter of Ali Pasha never being deposed seems minor in comparison."[1] by Juan Cole. Smkolins (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

how to delete unsourced material

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_footballers the above link has a list of players without sources to their religion. do you know how it could be deleted? or given a reference request please? thanks..Jigglyfidders (talk) 09:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

it's a messy business. I don't like it when people do it to articles so it's driven me to find sources even on articles I don't care about so much. It's part of life in wikipedia but if you go down that road you have to develop various skills. Among them as a starter is to use the comment line when editing. Any edit page will have a comments line just below the edit window. Near it are check boxes whether the change is minor or not. Look through article histories and you'll see comments that were made. However major changes to articles, even with comments, will attract attention and often challenge from folks who care about the article so major changes should be discussed on the talk page of the article or proactively on the talk page of frequent editors of the article in question (visible through the history.) There are also templates of flags that can be placed on pages noting that something is wrong one way or another. See Category:Article_message_boxes But too often people do that without substantiating their comments on the talk page and eventually the template warner will get deleted because it's not useful or seem to be going anywhere. So my best advise is to invest in the time to make articles better by finding sources as you contribute or make changes, followed by talking to frequent editors of pages before they come to you. After that struggle for a good character in the tests of life and keep your nose clean. A contextual aid, to give an air that you look like you know what you are doing is greater use of wikipedia programing. For example you used the full url link to the fooballers article. A much savvier way would be to use [[List of Muslim footballers]] wikilinking. Some people take to the point of using shortcuts like these regularly even when talking about wikipedia policies and such.Smkolins (talk) 15:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I should have mentioned possibly the easiest and simplest flag - {{fact}}. Smkolins (talk) 15:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Baha'i

since baha'i is an abraamic faith why did it take me (a new editor) to include Baha'i into the list of abrahaic religions? why didn't you guys include Bhaa'i in here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions ? should i edit it and change it to "four primary monotheistic faiths" instead of 3?Jigglyfidders (talk) 08:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Not yet please.

Also, since Baha'i is abrahamic, shouldn't the jerusalem article include baha'i in the [[2]] article on religious significance? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jigglyfidders (talk • contribs) 08:46, 10 April 2010 (UTC) Jigglyfidders (talk) 08:47, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I can understand what you are saying but you need to see more about things in Wikipedia. Seek out a grasp of history. Look at the talk pages. And to contribute to pages about Jerusalem we'd need secondary refs on a Baha'i stance about the city and from what I know all the refs are metaphorical. The actions of the highest order of character are to drive content based on as neutral and scholarly a reference as possible. There are several thousand articles that reference the religion even if slightly. I'm working on a project which easily outlines at least over a hundred articles yet to do and with one iteration could easily add several hundred more. I'm also working on a significant expansion of the article on 'Abdu'l-Bahá. But even these need to be drive by as neutral and scholarly a set of references as possible. If the religion gets presented by shabby references then it and wikipedia will not be served. Smkolins (talk) 11:06, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The user Deconstruthis is saying that adding Baha'i Faith to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions , means undue weight and he swiftly removed my edit, however, Baha'i is currently the 7th largest organized religion after judaism and sikhism, and peer-reviewed articles such as this one http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html claim Baha'i will overtake Judaism as the 6th largest religion in the 2030s. The only reasonable explanation i can think of for his refusal to allow this edit is that he could be a muslim who condemns the thought of another abrahamic religion after Islam. Thoughts?Jigglyfidders (talk) 19:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC) You are over-reacting. Slow down. You are looking into a future for justifying the present. Please stop. Please. Pray, listen, read what's been going and and is going on. Do not keep jumping on impulse. Smkolins (talk) 19:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, i noiced that the special number in the Quran is 19, and worship is also on the 19th baha'i month. Did i just discover a Baha'i prophecy?Jigglyfidders (talk) 14:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually you've tripped over the background of the development of the Bahá'í Calendar which has roots in the Qur'an in a number of ways. See here on page 29–30 especially and here for more. Did you get my other message? Smkolins (talk) 14:20, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

which other message?Jigglyfidders (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

oh, i seen it. but im not going to take your advice to heart sorry. i dont feel like playing around in sandboxes. I do the real thing which is editing *wink*Jigglyfidders (talk) 14:42, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Unitarian Bahaism

I've added more sources and effectively connected Mirza Muhammad Ali with the Unitarian label using a reliable source. Your Google searches for "Unitarian Bahaism" were fruitless because this is a modern term for a 120 year old sect. Please review the new revision of the article and keep in mind that more sources will likely be found in the next few days to further establish GNG. - Stillwaterising (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've responded on the article's talk. I'm very doubtful anything substantial will be found but if it does we'll apply Wikipedia standards as always. BTW I didn't limit my search to the quoted form in the followup (where I looked through over 300 hits for a link.) I'm looking forward to developing a list of communities of the Bahá'í Faith that have lasted 1 year and have 100 people according to their own numbers. Smkolins (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)