User talk:Dialectric

WPCD

Hi. Just to say the the WPCD 2 which you helped with is now browsable at http://schools-wikipedia.org and will be downloadable tomorrow evening. Thanks again. --BozMo talk 11:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

factory farming/intensive farming

Hi, I noticed you had some thoughts on intensive farming discussion page. There's a deadlock in progress over a plan to merge it and factory farming and industrial agriculture (which I'm against I should state). As this affects intensive farming perhaps you'd like to contribute. NathanLee 19:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

For the link on the searches. We do want to improve this aspect and I will have a look

--BozMo talk 09:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Privatization in India

...I know that the article wasn't a copyright infringement when you wrote it, but all the revisions following yours were so I tagged it as such. Seeing as the original article consisted of one sentence, I imagine you could write it again.--User:Dycedarg 09:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

-- Thanks, its not one of my priorities, but you're welcome to write it again. Dialectric (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Schools WP

Thanks for the comments, keep going. I will make sure I have been through them all before the final cut (which is going to be mid April). --BozMo talk 17:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

New front page discussion re: wikipedia selection 2008

Certainly be happy to look at any mock up, and agree what is there isn't great. The other hand made pages (subject pages, index pages) also could do with some work. The 2008/9 version is planned out end May with one addition which is "bus tours" where for pre programmed topics (say: "Tudor Britain") a little animated bus with take you through a series of articles clicking on the link from each one to the next. So we perhaps should add a bus stop... --BozMo talk 20:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The above is a first attempt at a mockup for the subject page.

• I considered using the icons from the Wikipedia:Version_0.7 / wikipedia 1.0 project, but they are somewhat inconsistent.
• the current version only has 9/10 subjects vs. the selection project's 15. Wikipedia 1.0 project uses 10:
  • 1 Arts
  • 2 Language and literature
  • 3 Philosophy and religion
  • 4 Everyday life
  • 5 Society and social sciences
  • 6 Geography
  • 7 History
  • 8 Applied sciences and technology
  • 9 Mathematics
  • 10 Natural sciences
• this is just a photoshop mockup, but I could make an xhtml if needed.

• here is a possible alternate design for the front page. The text content is unfinished/filler taken from 2007 page.
• I also have alternate versions w/o the 'buttons', which would be done in css rather than graphics.
• both ideas are definitely open to changes/suggestions.

Dialectric (talk) 14:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Olduvai theory

Were you aware of the drought related problems affecting hydro-electrical supply? www.energyshortage.org/ - Worldwide Energy Shortages - is updated daily with links to news articles listing many of the countries with energy shortages and the causes for them. You have to admit that all the evidence is suggesting that the peak oil and olduvai theories are correct. - Shiftchange (talk) 03:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a geology background, so can't make an informed judgement about 'peak oil' theory, though it seems plausible/likely. Olduvai theory, on the other hand is highly speculative, and makes predictive claims about a system (global economics) of massive complexity using limited data. As such, it seems incorrect to me, but I guess we'll see in 20 years, after the massive die-off. You might want to check out the life-boat hypothesis - environmental scientists were making similar predictions in the 1970s about die-offs resulting from exceeding agricultural carrying capacity.

The link you've posted is certainly interesting, but power shortages, like food shortages, are more often the result of breakdowns and inefficiencies in supply systems, including governance, infrastructure, etc, which are unrelated to how much power, or food, is actually available globally.

Dialectric (talk) 12:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the message

Thank you for the wisdom and advice. What I am trying to do is some major research on all of these inventions so that they can be given credibility. By incorporating in text citations, the U.S. Inventions and Discoveries page will be more credible. Thanks again! --Yoganate79 (talk) 02:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwatched

1. 1663 Charlevoix earthquake ‎
2. 1663 in India ‎
3. 1670s in piracy ‎
4. 167th Support Battalion (United States) ‎
5. 1683 in Ireland ‎
6. 16 Camelopardalis ‎
7. 16 Lyncis ‎
8. 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion, CEF ‎
9. 16th Alberta Legislative Assembly ‎
10. 16th General Assembly of Nova Scotia ‎
11. 16th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly ‎
12. 16th Tony Awards ‎
13. 17-alpha-hydroxyprogesterone aldolase ‎
14. 1713 in Ireland ‎
15. 1732 Montreal earthquake ‎
16. 173rd Surveillance Squadron (Australia) ‎
17. 1757 in Ireland ‎
18. 1759 in Ireland ‎
19. 1769 in France ‎
20. 1775 in France ‎

John Reaves 03:06, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Islamic Inventions

Hello. Sorry, saw your entry on my talk page just now. Do not know about any other articles such as these two, but I have seen that user now for over a year copying and pasting badly researched and consistently one-sided material in all kinds of articles. He has over 40,000 edits, so you know...I think his consistent misquotation and overinterpretation of sources has brought POV to a new level in Wikipedia, because people tend to believe in assertions more if thez are backed up by a footnote. They are less prone to assume that the information is taken out of context or subtly modified to suit fix preconceptions. Thats why it has been so hard to come this new method. It needs hundreds of footnotes to be checked and most third party observers do not have the time, nor the interest to completely rewrite articles which were written wrongly from the scratch. A case in point is Talk:Inventions of the Islamic Golden Age. The net result is that, while many believe the article to be POV and have tried to improve it, many dubious assertions are still there and spread their message.

PS: Just checked again Timeline of historic inventions. It is hard to find a single uncontested invention there. Too many lists just lack information to the contrary. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know. The only feasible way of stopping "devotee" POV is to have some guy tagging them all day, and the number of "devotees" of anything far outweighs the number of any would-be obssessive opponent. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts - and my experience. It is very difficult to come by this mass production of NPOV articles and entries. I feel this begins to affect Wikipedia. A more rigorous application of deleting policy may have a deterring effect. I find it frustating when people vote for keep, but then nothing ever happens in improving these articles, what needs a HUGE amount of time and patience. Better delete and give somebody other a new chance to do it better from the outset. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi YellowMonkey, I picked up on this discussion through the two related afds. I'm currently looking into one particular source used in one of the islamic science afd articles, and over 100 other articles, which seems to follow this same trend of non-neutral/revisionist history of invention: "Rocket Technology in Turkish history". I've posted it on the sources discussion board (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Rocket_Technology_in_Turkish_history) and wonder how to approach cleaning up an unreliable source that has been used in so many articles. Dialectric (talk) 15:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I'll have a look. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't think "Muslimheritage" is reliable at all, sounds more like a pride/activist website. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable Source, ongoing project

The document "The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History" by Arslan Terzioglu (2007) was/is being used as a source in a number of articles relating to technology and history. The paper has a number of major errors including incorrect citation, which cast the entirety of its facts into doubt. As such, it cannot be trusted as a source for information, and I will continue to remove it where it is listed as a reference.

see:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_27#Rocket_Technology_in_Turkish_history
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lag%C3%A2ri_Hasan_%C3%87elebi#Terzio.C4.9Flu_is_an_unreliable_source

Dialectric (talk) 00:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Overlinked

I have removed (almost) all duplicate internal links from Inventions in medieval Islam, and a few other trivial ones as well. If there are any more links you think should be removed, please feel free to do so. I will soon do the same on Medicine in medieval Islam as well. Debresser (talk) 21:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I am just a wikignome, watching a dozen of maintenance categories, including Category:Articles with too many wikilinks. Debresser (talk) 21:03, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Islamic trade and economics section

This section, which appears on a number of pages, makes a number of false claims, which I detail below. These errors are significant enough to justify the section's removal.

The origins of capitalism and free markets can be traced back to the Caliphate, where the first market economy and earliest forms of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th-12th centuries, which some refer to as "Islamic capitalism". A vigorous monetary economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organisation were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included the earliest trading companies, credit cards, big businesses, contracts, bills of exchange, long-distance international trade, the first forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), and the earliest forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital (al-mal), capital accumulation (nama al-mal), circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue, cheques, promissory notes, trusts (waqf), startup companies, savings accounts, transactional accounts, pawning, loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers, ledgers, deposits, assignments, the double-entry bookkeeping system, and lawsuits. Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independent from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world. Many of these early capitalist concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.

The systems of contract relied upon by merchants was very effective. Merchants would buy and sell on commission, with money loaned to them by wealthy investors, or a joint investment of several merchants, who were often Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Recently, a collection of documents was found in an Egyptian synagogue shedding a very detailed and human light on the life of medieval Middle Eastern merchants. Business partnerships would be made for many commercial ventures, and bonds of kinship enabled trade networks to form over huge distances. Networks developed during this time enabled a world in which money could be promised by a bank in Baghdad and cashed in Spain, creating the cheque system of today. Each time items passed through the cities along this extraordinary network, the city imposed a tax, resulting in high prices once reaching the final destination. These innovations made by Muslims and Jews laid the foundations for the modern economic system.

---

Challenges to above statements

---

Capitalism – either the definition of modern capitalism is used, situating the origin of capitalism in post-Renaissance Europe with corporations, generalized markets including a competitive labor market, investment banking, and commodity futures exchanges, or a looser standard of capitalist behavior is used, including international commerce, trade for the sake of profit, and long term credit, in which case the ancient world, as early as the 2nd millennium B.C. is the origin. Neither capitalist behavior nor modern capitalism originated in the Islamic world.( Warburton p 49)

free markets - a number of ancient Near Eastern cultures taxed grain production for revenue and did not restrict the actions or movements of merchants, who thus engaged in free markets.

market economy, merchant capitalism – markets with active profit-seeking merchants existed as early as the 2nd millennium BC in the Indus Valley, the ancient Near East, and the Agean. ( Warburton p 49)

monetary economy was created on the basis of... a stable high-value currency (the dinar)- the word dinar is derived from the Roman Denarius, which alone should suggest that Islamic society was not a pioneer in this area. Roman coinage circulated widely and was relatively stable. Silver and Shekels were widely used for inter-regional trade in the pre-Roman ancient world, and also were relatively stable. In fact, the dinar was not particularly stable, with the silver currency repeatedly debased by increased alloying from the 10th century onwards(Ashtor. p 175,176, 292)

big businesses - Corporations are a modern development, companies a development of Renaissance Italy. Ancient palaces acting as businesses were large in geographic and economic scale.(Warburton p119) Business in Muslim areas in the middle ages and up until the 19th century were in fact constricted in size and scale due to the limited scope of Islamic partnership law (Kuran p2)

contracts, long-distance international trade, credit, debt, profit, loss, capital, capital accumulation (nama al-mal), circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue - all of these were present in ancient market economies (and control/palace economies) with profit-seeking traders who keep books/records. As such, they were present in the Roman empire, and in some form in ancient near-eastern trading cultures, notably the Old Assyrians, as early as the 2nd millennium BC.(Warburton p49,51,133)

loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers – these were all present in the Roman empire, and loans were recorded in the first millennium BC under Sargon II of Assyria (Warburton .P345)

earliest trading companies, credit cards, bills of exchange, the first forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), cheques, trusts (waqf), startup companies - Although partnerships were prevalent in the medieval Islamic world, they did not originate there, since partnerships existed in Roman times (Kuran.p15). These partnerships cannot be considered (startup) companies because of the restrictions imposed by Islamic law including limiting waquf formation to an individual rather than a group or association, limiting control to the founder and founding deed, which deed was considered unalterable, and enforced by judges. The modern company emerged in Renaissance Italy.(Kuran. p19). The claim that credit cards originated in the Medieval Islamic world is not credible and needs no counter-citation.

lawsuits. the lawsuit predates Islam, and was certainly present in Roman times. “Corpus Juris Civilis, the law code compiled during the reign of Justinian I , allows the imperial treasury to sue and be sued in court.” (Kuran p5)

Organizational enterprises similar to corporations... existed in the medieval Islamic world. the modern Corporation originated in post-Renaissance Europe. If a loose definition of similarity is used, such organizations appeared in Roman times(Kuran p4,5) In fact, Kuran's paper (which was cited in this section as support for the claim to 'startup companies') points out that the Islamic world avoided organizational structures similar to the corporation until the late 19th century, instead focusing on more limited trusts.

These remain unchallenged for now, but based upon the above mis-attribution, they are on tenuous ground:

promissory notes, pawning, the double-entry bookkeeping system

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References

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Warburton, David, Macroeconomics from the beginning: The General Theory, Ancient Markets, and the Rate of Interest. Paris: Recherches et Publications, 2003.

E. Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Timur Kuran (2005), "The Absence of the Corporation in Islamic Law: Origins and Persistence", American Journal of Comparative Law 53, pp. 785–834.

I saw your note over at Talk:Ancient_economic_thought#Removal_of_Capitalist_market_economy_section_which_discussed_Islamic_Islamic_origin_of_economic_structures. I haven't looked at your sources, but it seems like you've done your homework on this. Have you talked to the person who added this material (diff). II | (t - c) 07:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

This content was added to a number of articles at various times, and I have not yet put in the time to track down and contact the original author. I see you have contacted Jagged 85, who contributed some of the material to some pages, and may be responsible for most of it, but I have not made that assumption nor dug through the history to find who authored the material. I noted (and linked to) the discussion here in my edit summary, and on the articles' talk pages, and hope that was sufficient to making my actions known to interested parties. Dialectric (talk) 12:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

My apologies to be scribbling on your talk page so frequently recently, but I noticed the discussion above and wondered if you might take a look at User:Syncategoremata/Misuse of sources and the material that I (and other editors) have gathered about this particular editor.

I would be interested if you had any other material, in particular recent edits, or if you had any advice about how to deal with this sort of issue. I am too new here on Wikipedia to have a good grasp on how to proceed at this point.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 08:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Life expectancy in the Caliphate.

Many thanks for your reply to my question to Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) about the life expectancy in the Caliphate. I've just tagged quite generally the claims made about this on Wikipedia and put some discussion at Talk:Islamic Golden Age#Claims on life expectancy. I only know enough in this area to note that the claims are badly sourced and distorted, so I'm not likely to be able to contribute much more now, other than deleting all of the claims in due course if nothing better is found to support them.

All the best. —Syncategoremata (talk) 12:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Al-Andalus repeated copyvio issue

I've just reverted your c/e'ing of the edits made by 119.155.74.177 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (along with their edits) as those appear to be WP:COPYVIO from [1]. I guess the same person did exactly that a few days ago from 119.155.74.224 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). I'll leave a note on their talk page but I guess they won't see it as they seem to be address hopping.

All the best. —Syncategoremata (talk) 19:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Tip of the tip of the iceberg

This is just the tip of the iceberg. See User:Syncategoremata/Misuse of sources and User:Gun Powder Ma/Misuse of sources for trying to make a case. If you could join in with your past experience by creating a similar list, that would be a great help. The more people voice their concern now, the better. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC discussion of User:Jagged 85

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Jagged 85 (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. -- Syncategoremata (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay but I've been meaning to thank you for signing the closing summary to this RfC/U. I'm glad that it is now behind us and I hope we never have to go through something like that again.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Syncategoremata, thank you for all the work you put into the RfC. The whole thing was handled really well, in large part due to your work, and the resolution will definitely make a positive impact on wikipedia's accuracy. Dialectric (talk) 13:54, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Removing unreliable sources

Hi,

I noticed at History of optics and on your contribution page that you've started removing the unreliable citations of Muslimheritage.com. It's a good idea but when you do so, either be bold and remove the assertions based upon those sources or at least leave a {{Citation Needed}} template to open discussion about the assertion.

Thanks, SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I am currently working to remove claims originating from Muslimheritage.com from a number of articles. Content from Muslimheritage.com / FSTC is an unreliable source, as discussed on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science. None of its publications are peer-reviewed, and its authors often exhibit a strong bias and incomplete or flawed citation practices. The site has been used as a source in numerous science and history of science articles to make extraordinary claims about Islamic invention and discovery. I am working to remove these extraordinary claims where they stem directly and solely from a Muslimheritage.com reference. Many of these claims were added by a user who has a history of using flawed sources for extraordinary claims, as discussed on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85. That page details numerous examples where claims from these sources contradict more reliable sources, on a scale which casts the entirety of the material originating from the site into doubt. If you would like to discuss this or any related removal with me, please leave a note here. Dialectric (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I applaud your reason for removing the sources, having been involved in the RfC/U, and am pleased that you are now removing them. My concern is was that you're were only doing it half way. When removing the sources, you should also do something about the claims which those sources were cited to support. Otherwise, the articles will continue to misinform the reader and will have to be cleaned up by someone else who will not have the unreliable citations to mark the unsupported claims. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I see you're marking your new edits with a {{Citation Needed}} template. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

(written before most recent reply) -->

Steve, can you give an example of what you're looking at? I've removed a few statements that seemed especially dubious, and fact tagged several more. There have also been quite a few where there were two or more sources for the claim, however questionable, and I have just removed the muslimheritage sourcing, leaving the existing source, and so the tag seemed not to make sense. Dialectric (talk) 12:37, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, the edit that had caught my eye was this one at History of optics, which I revised to add the {{Citation Needed}} templates.

I think someone mentioned that cleaning up after Jagged 85 will take more effort than it did for him to make the edits; that's why I'm concerned that the cleanup be thorough and doesn't leave a lot of dust hidden in the dark corners. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

MuslimHeritage.com

Hi, regarding this edit, you might be interested in this. Work at hand... Cheers - DVdm (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

That's an excellent tool I hadn't realised existed. I have been removing some of these links too, though right now I'm trying to get it through to Kaka Mughal (talk · contribs) to stop creating articles based on that source. At least they are editing from an account now I suppose: they were causing havoc from various IPs beforehand (or so I believe).

Anyhow, I just thought I'd hijack this message to say thanks for a link to that tool and to moan a bit.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 20:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Sync, I hijacked the tool from the first link in the template {{spamlink|MuslimHeritage.com}}, resulting in

muslimheritage.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

So there's more. On a few occations, I even have put this template on some spammer's talk page with the friendly request that they would use it to locate and remove further intances of their spam. The result was impressive -- spamming stopped. DVdm (talk) 20:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, DVdm - I didn't know about that tool, and it should speed up this process significantly as I had been primarily relying on special page -> search to locate occurrences of these sources. Dialectric (talk) 07:19, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

First fountain pen? the al-Mu'izz pen in CE Bosworth

A Mediaeval Islamic Prototype of the Fountain Pen? by CE Bosworth - Journal of Semitic Studies, 26(2):229-234 is used in a number of articles for the claim of the 1st fountain pen. This is a short (6 page) article, mostly made up of translation of a passage from al-Quadi al-Nu'man, Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat; the author of the original Arabic text is described as 'confidant and companion of the heir-apaprent al-Mu'izz.'(p229)

The passage describes a non-leaking pen with a reservoir, first described and requested by al-Mu'izz, then produced, out of gold, by a craftsman in 'not more than a few days'. There is no mention of how the pen functions, how it is filled, or what sort of ink it uses. A quote suggests that the pen only works for certain people, and has a will of its own - "it only bestows benefit on a person really desiring it, and it does not let its ink flow except for a person who has a right to summon it forth because the pen approves of him" (p233) This suggests that the account cannot be entirely factual. The question mark in the article title suggests that Bosworth may have some doubt about its veracity.

The claim that the pen used 'gravity and capillary action' is not in the cited article but has been added to the wikiarticles which reference this source. Though there is mention of turning the pen upside down without leaking, the claim of gravity and capillary action is original research, as there is no mention of the mechanism, which could have for instance, involved trigger of some kind to activate the reservoir, or could have been magical, given that from the above quote, the pen is apparently in possession of the ability to discern character.

I am not sure how best to situate this article/fact in wikipedia articles, other than to say that it may have been an early fountain pen, but point out that this single historical source seems to be the sole source of this claim, no fountain pen from this period has been found, and the mechanism remains unknown. Dialectric (talk) 23:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Even the MuslimHeritage.com article on this ("Origins of the Fountain Pen". MuslimHeritage.com.) doesn't go so far as to claim anything about "gravity and capillary action". I think that is just a copy/paste from the first sentence of the fountain pen article), to enhance the description. Would the following text be suitable?

The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen is in a 10th century source, which says that in 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. He was provided with one which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib. No further details of the construction of this pen are known and no examples have survived.

Alternatively the last sentence could just be dropped? (By the way, I've not seen the article and I'm depending here on the details I've gleaned here and elsewhere.)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 19:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Thank you for your note. I cannot see that Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science calls for an outright ban on MuslimHeritage.com, especially when what it says is just supported by other sources. The problem, as I gather, is if/when professor "Hassan's views either conflict with or are not reflected in the mainstream literature". Which is not the case here, AFAIK. If you want an outright ban on all pages of MuslimHeritage.com, then I suggest you bring it to the WP:RS-board again. (But if that should be banned, then, say, shouldn´t Jewish Virtual Library also be banned?) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is a bit of a storm in a tea-cup, methinks. The way I see it: in this, MuslimHeritage.com does not contradict other published sources. So why not keep it? Again; I cannot see the above discussion on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science as a outright ban on MuslimHeritage.com. Though I do see, ( skimming Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85) that the site has been "overused", to put it very diplomatically. Anyway; I am not going to undo my edit, however, I´m certainly not going to edit-war with you over it. Oh, and please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Links to reliable sources discussions. It seems as if quite a few sources which have been found acceptable in the past does not meet present standards...but, e.g., we still have 340 refs to FrontPageMag.com, Cheers, Huldra (talk) 00:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

collapsed subsections in Sharia definitions and descriptions

I have collapsed the structure of "Definitions and descriptions" to simplify the numbering in the Sharia article. Many of the subsections under definitions are too small to stand alone as paragraphs within the article, but they are all important points in a coherent, contextual definition or description, of Sharia. Regards Aquib (talk) 12:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for heads up

Sorry for the delay in replying (I seem to have been distracted by 'fun' elsewhere in Wikipedia) but thanks for the heads up on the evolution claims in Science_in_medieval_Islam#Zoology.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 00:04, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Swinggeek

Hi Dialectric, I just want to recommend a good plug-in software for programmers. There is no way to think about it is a spam/advert. I think all the technologies branches and released date are what we programmers are really care about. The reason why I want to try my best to save this article is already in Articles for deletion/TWaver. I will be very appreciate your time. Thank you. Swinggeek (talk) 02:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, unless you are able to provide reliable 3rd party sources, it is looking like the consensus in the articles for deletion discussion is to delete the article. This deletion would be in line with established wikipedia policy for notability, as other editors have stated there. Dialectric (talk) 08:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Science in the Middle Ages

Hello. You are invited to take part in the discussion on Science in the Middle Ages. The question is should we keep or remove the section on the Islamic world. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Shared IP I commonly use is Autoblocked

(earlier autoblock issue discussion removed)

An IP I commonly use has been Autoblocked again. This is a shared ip with well over 100 users. Also, if someone has the time, could he or she please explain why secure login doesn't get around this?

Reviewing this now. Kuru (talk) 13:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There's a fairly problematic long term abuser using the same service you are; after reviewing your edits, I don't see any indication that this was you at all. I've applied a setting to your account that will exempt it from these types of blocks in the future. Many apologies for the inconvenience. Kuru (talk) 13:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

History section - Under Floor Heat

Greetings Dialectric,

I have been doing some major edits on the Under floor heating subject and saw your participation on the history section.

I have created a new discussion item with a proposal to delete the existing history section and replace it with a time line format...data is pulled from a peer reviewed published paper in the ASHRAE Journal.

Before I do such a major edit I'm reaching out to those who have contributed in the past.

If you have time please comment.

Thanks 70.73.61.221 (talk) 00:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Travis Bean for deletion

A discussion has begun about whether the article Travis Bean, which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Travis Bean until a concensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. -FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 19:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)