User talk:Jayjg/Archive 38

Israel Shamir

The Israel Shamir´s biography was totally rewritten by a couple of wackos (probably Shamir himself):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shamir

It's highly unlikely it was Shamir himself who re-wrote it. And while I think the article now completely misses just about everything that Shamir is notable for, User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry and User:Off2riorob are not "wackos". Jayjg ^(talk) 03:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Shamir is a non-Jew nazi that has lived in Israel for a short time.Evengee (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Ebionites RfC

FYI. John Carter has initiated an Ebionites RfC and is back to deleting sources he doesn't like. Since you are the mediator for content disputes, I thought you should know. It would be helpful if you (and Slim) could weigh in with an opinion. Ovadyah (talk) 22:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Update. John Carter had the article locked, after making all his edits. Things are out of hand. Please advise. Ovadyah (talk) 02:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what I can do at this point; John Carter has abandoned the mediation. Perhaps you could get a wider audience to assess Tabor's reliability in this context? Jayjg ^(talk) 05:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've responded to John Carter's comments on your Talk: page. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. Ovadyah (talk) 22:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Tabor on Ebionites

If you read the "Misrepresentation of Tabor" section of the talk page, you will find that the material which was deleted completely fails to meet even minimum verifiability standards, as determined by a reading of the book by both myself and uninvolved administrator Llwyrch. Restoring unverifiable material representing a living person, in this case misrepresenting his words, is I believe a fairly clear violation of WP:V and possibly WP:BLP, and I believe that the irrational restoration of such material without making any effort to see to it that it does actually reflect anything like what the author actually said in such regards is sufficient basis for a final warning. John Carter (talk) 16:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Correction. All references to Tabor were removed from the recently restored John The Baptist section, even though I explicitly provided page numbers and direct quotes from Tabor's book the Jesus Dynasty on the talk page in support of the content. diff diff This is a transparent attempt to suppress any citations by Tabor of primary sources that contradict a conservative Catholic POV. Ovadyah (talk) 19:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

And those "quotes", although I don't see any verbatim quotations, were generally not relevant to the deleted citations, and are as such, I believe, irrelevant to the citations deleted. I had wondered on the article talk page whether Ovadyah would directly respond to the point about the material not being verifiable, or whether he would do other things to circumvent them. I guess I got my answer. I can't help but get the impression someone is getting desperater and desperater. John Carter (talk) 21:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, it appears that laying out material on the talk page, along with sources, page numbers, and quotations, will never be accepted. Therefore, I will copy the John The Baptist section of the article to the mediation page where we can detail the sources supporting or arguing against inclusion, just as we did with the James vs. Paul section. Ovadyah (talk) 22:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I would oppose that proposal. However much certain parties are trying desperately to distract people from the fact that several sources they have added are according to others completely unverifiable, and others refusing to acknowledge that there is now a source specifically stating that Eisenman's theory has been rejected by the academic community (the full quote, if the book is available tomorrow, will be added then), someone seems to think that the matters of policy raised by these facts should be ignored. I would as an individual much more favor having the discussion out in the open, where other editors can contribute as well. Mediation is not, and should not be, an attempt to try to avoid dealing with matters of policy and guidelines. The non-verifiable quotes clearly violated policy, and I don't think mediation is relevant in such matters. Due weight concerns regarding a theory which has no been explicitly stated to have been rejected by the academic community are also matters which can also be handled in the normal manner. I will continue to request input from other editors regarding this substantive matters on the article talk page in any event, because I believe there is no reason to limit the discussion to only a few regarding these serious matters regarding policies and guidelines. John Carter (talk) 22:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

John, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "unverifiable" - do you mean the source cannot be found, or the material/quote cannot be found in the source? That's what "unverifiable" is. Or do you mean the material is not relevant in that article/context? If so, that's not "unverifiable", it's original research or even "irrelevant". Can you clarify? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

As per the section "Misrepresentation of Tabor" on the article talk page, both Llwyrch and I went through the book, particularly reviewing the page citations indicated, and found that none of them supported the claims made. The Ebionites are (as far as I can remember today) only mentioned twice in the entire book. John Carter (talk) 22:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

"none of them supported the claims made" in what sense? In the sense that the material on the page said completely different things than what was in the article, or in the sense that the material on the page was not about Ebionites, but about, say, early Christians? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It varies. Some of the pages cited to support the Ebionites being related to James talked about nothing other than the crucifixion, mentioning neither the Ebionites, James, or really anything else even remotely related to the article. And he also, at the end of the book, again, so far as I can remember at this point, indicates that the Ebionites appeared substantially later (I think around 150 CE, I don't have the book here today), and on that basis such statements as "James was the leader of the early Jerusalem church", and there is something to that effect on page 4, aren't really applicable to the Ebionites who didn't show up as a distinct group until several years after his death. Tabor regularly refers to the Nazarenes as being the early Jerusalem church, and there are about four or five lines of reference citations in the index to that group, but they are not considered by Tabor to be the same of the Ebionites. Does that help, or are you asking me for verbatim quotations from the book? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to ask the people seeking to include the information to do that? John Carter (talk) 22:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

No, that's what I was looking for. So, some of the material didn't support the statements is was claimed to support, and other material referred to different groups (e.g. Nazarenes, not Ebionites), or simply did not refer to the Ebionites. Is that correct? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:55, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Some of the pages had nothing whatsoever to do with the article text they were being used to support, and some of it, while dealing with the subject being discussed in a broad way, neither mentioned the Ebionites directly or mentioned the subject in such a way that it would be reasonable to conclude the statements applied to the Ebionites. Overlong, I know, but the answer is, basically, "yes". John Carter (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, the page numbers don't match the claims made for the trivial reason that the hard cover and paperback editions don't have the same page numbers. Michael Price added page numbers based on the paperback edition while John Carter and Llwyrch have the hard cover edition. I also have the hard cover edition, and with a small amount of effort, I was able to track down the relevant pages. diff diff John Carter is well aware of this discrepancy and his claims that the material doesn't support the statements made is basically fraudulent. They don't support the statements made in his edition. I recommended on the talk page that we re-number the pages to agree with the hard cover edition. diff That is not a good reason to delete all the references to Tabor, especially when he could have easily fixed the page numbers himself. Ovadyah (talk) 23:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ovadyah, your claim that someone else has to do your work so you can keep your material shows to me just how weak your connection to anything remotely resembling reality is. And this constant prattling about the Slavonic Josephus wasn't, so far as I can tell, even mentioned in the article. These were the changes made, and Josephus didn't figure in any of them, although direct reference to the "Ebionites" in the article text often is. At this point, I am finding myself forced to wonder whether (1) Ovadyah actually knows what he is talking about regarding this in any way, or (2) whether he is continuing to hammer away on a completely unrelated point for the purposes of distraction. John Carter (talk) 23:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken as usual. This is the disputed content that I moved to the talk page. diff As you can see, Slavonic Josephus was mentioned in the article, and the source was previously discussed at length on the talk page before it was added. Tabor references Slavonic Josephus in the footnotes of his book. diff Ovadyah (talk) 23:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

And you have avoided directly dealing with your own failure to act according to policy, as per usual. In your world, it is everyone else's responsibility to do Ovadyah's work for him. If you could stop the endless commentary and actually do what is required of you for the material to be included instead, the problem would be over. Instead, you continue in this useless commentary. Every time you indulge in these little asides of yours as opposed to doing what is required, which I think in this case now would reasonably be providing exact verbatim quotations of the source material used, only further contributes to the impression that you are unable to do so. John Carter (talk) 23:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

You overlook the fact that I didn't add any of the Tabor material to the article. It is as much your responsibility to fix page numbers when you encounter a problem as it is mine or any other editor. However, your preferred method of editing, like Marcion, seems to be deletion of content you don't like. Ovadyah (talk) 23:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ovadyah, what I did was remove content which cannot meet policy requirements. If the material cannot be verified, it should be removed. It is not my obligation to do the work of including unverifiable information because others want it in. Apparently, you find it impossible to grasp that fairly simple point. Yes I don't like content that can't be verified. You, on the other hand, seem to have the arrogance to insist that material be kept in despite you yourself being completely unwilling to do what is required to keep it in. If you insist on acting like a child, can you really object to having people treat you like one? Both myself and one other administrator went through the book and could not verify the content. That is all we were required to do. No one has any obligation to ensure that material which cannot be verified by them be kept in because someone too lazy to provide the verification says it can be. You still are refusing to do the only thing which I think anyone with even a slight degree of sense would do in this situation, and prove me wrong by exact quotations from the source. I cannot for the life of me imagine a single good reason why anyone would do that. And, no, despite your implicit understanding, it is not anyone else's work to do things for you because you can't be bothered to do it.

If, as you seem to be rather incoherently implying, all the material that was deleted was somehow references to footnotes which refer to the Slavonic Josephus, why on earth could you never say so in the first place? Are you so incapable of coherent writing that you cannot make it clear to anyone what it is you are talking about? In any event, if you bothered to familiarize yourself with wikipedia guidelines and policies regarding things like footnotes, you probably would have noted that saying something which Tabor said was from Slavonic Josephus came from Tabor himself is not acceptable. Or is it also my fault that I am unable to read your apparently less-than-clear thoughts, and thus not be able to understand something you never bothered to say clearly in the first place? John Carter (talk) 00:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, this should go to AN/I. John Carter was aware of why there was a discrepancy in the page numbers, he deleted the references anyway, and then locked the article so that no one else could fix them either. He abused his power as an admin in doing so, and he should have his admin privileges revoked. Ovadyah (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Still refusing to face reality, huh? No, Ovadyah, despite your now seeming to claim mind-reading abilities for yourself, after having apparently demanded others read your own, I was not and still am not aware of it, because there has been no direct proof of it. All of this could be avoided if little Ovadyah could be bothered to say something, almost anything, actually useful, instead of this endless hissy-fit of yours. If, as you say, the material can be found, then just produce exact quotations to that effect, and if they can be verified, there will be no problem. This is all you would have had to do from the beginning. Instead, you seem to belief that simply because you, in what I can only describe as delusional arrogance, have only to say "it is so" and others are then obligated to do things for you. I still maintain my original point. The material could not be verified, and on that basis was removed. I still honestly am not sure it can be verified, nor am I obligated to do the verification because you are unwilling to do so. If what you say is true, and I still am not convinced it is, all you would have had to do at any point was provide quotations, which, despite all your childish accusations, you still have not done. The fact that is apparent is that you are unwilling to do what is required as per WP:V to verify that information you want to see included in the article, and I think that if anything your blatant and ongoing refusal to do anything productive, and continue to indulge in these childish accusations, may well result in disciplinary actions against you. John Carter (talk) 00:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Bring it. We'll see who is subject to disciplinary action. Ovadyah (talk) 00:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

So the real issue here with "unverifiable" material was that the citations were to a paperback version of the book, which had different page numbers than the hardcover version? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Jay, there are two issues as I understand it. One is the page numbers. For example, John Carter deleted the Tabor reference from the John The Baptist section that I just restored to the article. The reference is to the Gospel of the Ebionites, so it is obviously about the Ebionites. Michael originally had the page numbers for the paperback (or a PDF) version, and I have just changed it so that the pages match the hard cover version used by myself, Llwyrch, and John Carter. The second objection is more complicated. John Carter is arguing that unless a secondary source explicitly mentions the Ebionites then it is not about the Ebionites, even if the source is obviously talking about Jewish-Christianity. I think this is what John is saying is a violation of WP:V. For example, in the James vs. Paul section that we reviewed in mediation, Tabor mentions three early primary sources that say James was the Overseer of the Jerusalem Church. One is an early Church Father, Clement of Alexandria, and the other two are Jewish-Christian sources, the Clementine Recognitions and quotations by Eusebius of an early Church Father, the Jewish-Christian Hegesippus, that are probably based on the Gospel of the Hebrews. There is nothing internal to these texts that identifies them as specifically Ebionite, so their provenance is disputed. Bart Ehrman explicitly identifies the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies as Ebionite, but some other scholars prefer the more general term Jewish-Christian. However, Tabor's point in citing these various sources was to show that it was generally acknowledged by Orthodox as well as Jewish-Christians that James was the undisputed leader of the Jerusalem Church. So, the question of whether this violates WP:V is a very nuanced one. I won't get into the other Tabor references because I didn't work on them. Hope this helps. Ovadyah (talk) 04:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. The first issue, then, was differing editions of the Tabor book, which is really just a citation issue more than anything else. The rest is not a WP:V issue at all, but really a WP:NOR/WP:SYNTH issue, as I suggested above. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. SlimVirgin came to the same conclusion. diff That's why I moved some of this disputed material to the talk page in the first place. Str1977 and I thought the James vs. Paul section was close enough to fix it in place. As long as we are clear about who said what on the talk page or on the mediation page there should be no problems. Yet, we continue to have intractable problems because John Carter regards all of Tabor's book to be a violation of WP:V, and not just The Jesus Dynasty, but all of Tabor's work. There was more than one Tabor source in the article. That's why he deleted all the Tabor references in the article without bothering to check them. Ovadyah (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, Michael just informed me that there is a difference in page numbers in the UK hardcover version he is using. I am correcting the record about why the page numbers are different. I mistakenly thought he had a paperback version. Ovadyah (talk) 12:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the book. First, there are no footnotes in the book at all. There are endnotes from pp. 321 to 344. There are a total of two references to the Ebionites in the body of the text. The first is on page 303, in which it indicates that the diaspora of Jewish Christians after the Bar Kochba revolt "were subsequently known as Ebionites." On page 316, he says "The prophet Muhammad was in contact with Christian groups in Arabia, and there is evidence that they were closer to the Ebionites in their beliefs than to the Western church." Regarding endnotes, the word appears in only three. The first in note number 9 for part three, indicating the material is derived from the Gospel of the Ebionites. The second in note 24 of part 3, which indicates that Schoeps' book is a good source for material on the Ebionites. The two mentions in the main article space are linked to two endnotes. The first is note 23 of part three, indicating the material linked to is derived from Eusebius. The second is note 24 already mentioned above.

Regarding Ovadyah's insistence that the Slavonic Josephus be mentioned, I read the material available in the various editions I found and there is nothing in that translation to indicate that the word "Ebionites" or anything similar was in use in the original, and there is nothing which explicitly refers to Christian groups in ways which are indicative of a joining.

My ultimate cause for concern, particularly regarding Ovadyah's behavior in particular, is how the person who first involved me in this discussion, requesting my input in dealing with Michael's insistence on Eisenman's material, is also the person who raised the ArbCom case against Michael on that basis. Now, that same person, Ovadyah, is defending the inclusion of material derived from Eisenman, in a total about-face from his previous behavior. This is even after we have found a reliable source saying explicitly that Eisenman's central theory has been rejected by the academic community, and with no additional support of the Eisenman than only one really non-negative review, that by Robert Price, who is coincidentally the only member of the Jesus Seminar who has explicitly stated that he thinks Jesus never existed. When I try to think of reasons for this remarkable literal turnaround, the only reason I can think of is that there might have been an agreement of some sort between the two that they would work together to ensure that no one else would be able to adjust material that they wanted included, whether by content guidelines the material belonged or not. A review of Ovadyah's recent history, including his statement that he was upset Tabor would not be included in the lead, can be seen by someone so inclined as providing support for that premise. That total and complete turnaround about a source he previously condemned with apparent cause, and now supports for inclusion despite clear quoted evidence that the subject has been rejected by the academic community, cannot help but raise eyebrows.

And this comment from Ovadyah, who has just lectured me on my talk page regarding behavior, "Yet, we continue to have intractable problems because John Carter regards all of Tabor's book to be a violation of WP:V, and not just The Jesus Dynasty, but all of Tabor's work," is itself both an unsusbtantiated accusation and an explicit violation of the conduct guidelines he himself believes he can arrogantly lecture others about. It is completely and utterly incorrect, and obviously intended to be prejudicial, and thus itself a violation of the guidelines he, who insists on saying "I hate you" on article pages, has the unimaginable gall to lecture others about. This is to my eyes further indication that my hypothesis is right and he is, in fact, trying to ensure that anyone who would raise questions about dubiously relevant material he favors is either harassed of the page or otherwise kept from noting that his favored material, which is not adequately sourced or clearly relevant, be included in the page. Again, his remarkable turnaround in now defending Eisenman when he previously wanted help removing that material is very, very strange. John Carter (talk) 20:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I have said very little about Robert Eisenman since 2007. There is an ongoing RfC that includes an evaluation of Eisenman as a source, but I have not participated in it, so far. My recent thoughts on Eisenman's books on James The Just are contained in this diff where I said, Eisenman's first book is useless. "James The Brother of Jesus" has a lot of controversial things to say about James The Just, but practically nothing about the Ebionites, that is unless you are into the conspiracy theory that Essenes = Nazarenes = Ebionites. We hashed this out on the article talk page long ago. Does that sound like I am "defending the inclusion of material derived from Eisenman"? Please stop misstating my words. Ovadyah (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Jay, I have nothing to say about the "I hate you" stuff, except that I thought I had seen it all on Wikipedia, but you learn something new every day. Ovadyah (talk) 21:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

While you insist on doing the very same thing yourself? And, despite your assertion on the talk page that the Gospel of the Ebionites is clearly linked to the Ebionites, there is a source quoted in that same section of the talk page saying it isn't. Please conduct yourself in an acceptable manner, if it is even possible for someone who insists on having hissy fits and ignoring sources already present on the same page to do so. And, just out of curiosity, considering you never edit anything but Ebionites, where else do you see such clearly unaceptable comments not only made on article talk pages, but even restored by the editors who make them after they are removed? Clearly, a few things you don't see "every day", or apparently ever looked at, is behavior guidelines. Would it be asking too much of you to maybe hope you could learn to behave at some point? John Carter (talk) 21:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The so-called Gospel of the Ebionites (modern name) is associated with the Ebionites because Epiphanius states in his Panarion that it is the gospel the Ebionites used. Some scholars have speculated, Zahn, Klijn, and others, that this may be a reference to the lost Gospel of The Twelve mentioned by Origen. Is there a point to all this? Ovadyah (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I am stunned Ovadyah actually responded directly, although he still cannot comment without insults. A review of the sources indicate Epiphanius is counted as unreliable in general, particularly about a subject which some scholars think he made up material on, and there is already another article on the [[Gospel of the Ebionites[]] which it is a better fit for. Granted, neo-Ebionites, who cite Epiphanius as their source for their being vegetarians consider this extremely important, and that may well be a motivation here, but is there any reason to give this one comparatively minor point a disproportionate and WP:UNDUE whole section while at the same all but ignoring so much material which modern scholarship, which is supposed to be the basis of content, raises? I would be stunned to get two direct responses in a row, given the history of the above editor, but hope springs eternal. John Carter (talk) 15:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

This discussion should be taken to the article Talk page, as it is about article content rather than process. Thanks. Ovadyah (talk) 15:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Please revert this yourself

You restored Musar literature and Musar movement to the double "s" spelling, in disregard of the talk page discussion and the move made by an admin (Wikipedia:Administrators#Wheel_war). Please revert yourself. Debresser (talk) 17:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I was unaware of that discussion, and in any event moving the article did not require any admin tools. Even if it did, reverting one admin action is not a "wheel war"; please review carefully the material at the link you provided above. It would only become a "wheel war" if you actually undid my actions in turn - something I'm sure you would never do. In any event, it's not relevant because, as I said before, I didn't use any admin tools to restore the article to its original name. If you want to move an article to a new name that contradicts WP:COMMONNAME, you should probably have a larger discussion than just you and a new WP:SPA. I suggest an WP:RFC. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

If you could add to the conversation at talk page discussion, though, that would be helpful. I'm not sure it's obvious which spelling is best, but I offered some thoughts for why I thought that Musar with one "s" was a better spelling. Your response there would be appreciated. Moreh405 (talk) 23:38, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with your suggestion to start an WP:RFC. However, since, as you admit, you made this move while being unaware of that talk page discussion, I still think it would be the correct thing to do if you would first undo your move. Debresser (talk) 04:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Since you do not reply, I made the move back. A shame you weren't around to dothat yourself. Debresser (talk) 08:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Blood Libel

Would you take a look at recent history at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blood_libel&curid=4941&diff=381675453&oldid=381673825 ? I find the goodfaith clause nearly exhausted.--Galassi (talk) 19:33, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite tied up this week, but hope to be back to more regular editing next week, and will take a look then. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the conflict there; why do you object to "myth" as opposed to "false accusation"? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Because the suffering inflicted due to the myth was real and well documented. My impression is that Steinberger is attempting to dilute the issue.--Galassi (talk) 10:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the article now has "false" in it as well, but with a request for citation - why not just add back the citations you were using before? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I did. So far Steinberger didn't revert it. He is good with legalisms, and is behaviorally correct. But the content advocated by him seems to be intended to create a possibility of justification of BL.--Galassi (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

After your comment, he apparently did revert again. I've added a few reliable sources, re-written parts of the lede and article to accurately reflect them; let me know what you think. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Troy was a myth. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand the point you are making. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Kent, Ohio FAC

Hello- Thanks again for your comments on the FAC for Kent, Ohio. As I mentioned there, I wrote a religion section, but wasn't too excited about it because it is mostly a very brief history of religion in the city and then seems more like a list of the churches, which I'm not sure is that encyclopedic (which is why I have hesitated to add it into the article). If you could give it a look and let me know what you think of it, I would very much appreciate it. The section is located at User:JonRidinger/sandbox#Religion and might seem a bit jumbled as far as the picture goes because of other things in my sandbox (depending on your browser and window size). --JonRidinger (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a more detailed look at it soon. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That is a very nice section, I think you should add it! Jayjg ^(talk) 03:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess I will go ahead and do that... --JonRidinger (talk) 03:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion for the wrong reason: just a remark

I am not going to make too much of because the passage you have removed from E1b1b and E1b1b1a had other issues (as will be seen from E1b1b archives), but I do want to remind you that a source's profession or University degree is not relevant at all to any comment they make in an editorial about what the media says. I could imagine an amateur source being questioned on a technical matter (questioned, not deleted automatically, one of the most cited authors in this field, Stephen Oppenheimer, is not a geneticist for example) but reporting what the media writes is not such a technical point. To repeat though, the meaning, relevance and notability of the passage were a source of much debate anyway. I wanted to contact you and explain what I think partly because I noticed that you deleted the comment from E1b1ba not long after you were involved in an RS debate using very similar words to the ones you used in your edit summary. During that discussion, although you did not like it I think, I did show how the JOGG as a journal has a verifiable reputation for fact checking in the relevant scientific community. (Just for your interest, whether you like it or not, it has in fact become standard practice for "real" population geneticists to cite sources who are "hobbyists" in this field, most obviously the ISOGG website. This trend progressed further this month with the publication of a major breakthrough paper which openly states that their starting point was information supplied by the genetic genealogy community. Myres, Natalie (2010), "A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene effect in Central and Western Europe", European Journal of Human Genetics)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The jogg website is not The New York Times orThe Washington Post. It's not a media outlet, it's an amateur website run by non-professionals. It fails WP:RS. As a contributor to that website, you have a natural interest in protesting that fact. Are you claiming to be a professional geneticist? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You were involved in the RS discussion concerning JOGG where that type of vague and irrelevant innuendo rightfully failed to convince anyone other than you. The other uninvolved editors were User:Jmh649 and User:DGG. (By the way I have done other things in my life than have one review article published in JOGG, but so what? Are you saying my qualifications and/or publications would count against me or for me?) To remind you, the basic problem is that your way of saying that a whole source can simply fail RS in an absolute way, even if it has a reputation for fact checking, is quite blatantly opposed to normal WP practice and policy. I am confident that you also already know that being a professional journalist or a professional geneticist also has nothing to do with Wikipedia policy except in special cases. RS discussions which involve very specific demands like the two different ones you are now giving here (your edit summary did not say Coffman-Levy needed to be a professional journalist, and indeed that would have looked odd) have to be based upon something specific to the content, so in future all I ask is that please try to frame your explanations that way, noting what it is in the deleted text which you think requires special sourcing, so that reasonable discussion can be had where necessary. I believe what I am asking is just standard policy on Wikipedia? If you think not, can you please explain in a way which does not ignore what I hope you know to be my good faith WP-policy-based explanation? WP:RS states that "Proper sourcing always depends on context".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not want to be misunderstood, so I'll add that another way of stating the concern I just wanted to raise is that it does not look like you even read and comprehended what you deleted in the context it was deleted from. And I'll explain why I say that...

The passage you deleted had several quotes, but (if you actually read E1b1b almost all of these were simply repeating statements already in the article with better sourcing. So those particular parts of the paragraph obviously needed no new special sourcing, but if it had been the ONLY source given for those facts, it would have been questioned harder. (To remind you, I DID question this quote quite hard, and the way it was used, but not in the context-insensitive way you did.)

Here is the quote you deleted:-

In a study about the complexity of Jewish DNA, {{Harvcoltxt|Coffman-Levy|2005}} wrote that although E1b1b1 "arose in East Africa," it is "often incorrectly described as 'African'" in the sense that it creates a "misimpression regarding the origin and complex history of this haplogroup", and that such misinformation about this haplogroup continued to pervade the public and media at least until the time of writing in 2005. She cites E1b1b as one of several examples of Y haplogroups (including also [[Haplogroup J1|J1]], [[Haplogroup J2|J2]], and [[Haplogroup G|G]]) too simplistically associated with a particular geographical or ethnic background.<ref group="Note">{{Harvcoltxt|Coffman-Levy|2005}}: "Unfortunately, misinformation about these haplogroups continues to pervade the public and media. Haplogroup E3b is often incorrectly described as “African,” leaving a misimpression regarding the origin and complex history of this haplogroup. Haplogroup J2, as previously discussed, is often incorrectly equated with J1 and described as “Jewish” or “Semitic,” despite the fact that it is present in a variety of non-Jewish Mediterranean and Northern European populations. And haplogroup G is rarely discussed in depth; its origin and distribution remain poorly understood."</ref> In particular, she writes that "various branches and sub-branches of haplogroup E had very different evolutionary histories and distinct migration patterns" while, as will be discussed below, "certain sub-clades appear to have been present in Europe and Asia for thousands of years".

The ONLY parts of this paragraph and footnote which are not already in the E1b1b article with better sourcing are:

• The assertion that the media describes E1b1b as African. For this you need no degree.
• The synthesis that describing it as simply African is an over-simplification which ignores the complex history (already cited better in the rest of the article where some parts of E1b1b have been outside of Africa for thousands of years). This synthesis is a fairly trivial and uncontroversial synthesis, at least the way the paragraph eventually came to be written, so I did not believe it could easily be dismissed using WP:REDFLAG. Furthermore it was correctly presented as one person's opinion.

OTOH I believe the notability of the synthesis is however more open to question, particularly given the time which has elapsed since this statement about what was once in the press. I hope this clarifies what I mean. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Please read this carefully. jogg is a hobby website, run by non-geneticists. It is not a media organization, and therefore cannot be cited as such. Nor is it a professional journal of genetics, therefore it cannot be cited as such. It does not qualify as an WP:RS, as noted by the uninvolved editors at the WP:RS/N board, including me, User:Abecedare, User:MarmadukePercy, User:Dougweller, User:Crum375 and User:Hans Adler, despite your incredibly lengthy, WP:ICANTHEARYOU defense of the site at WP:RS/N. Coffman-Levy is a family lawyer who has only been published on this hobby website she helps run; therefore she does not qualify as an "established expert", per WP:V. She is also not a reporter working for an established media organization, who published her comments in an established media outlet (e.g. The New York Times). As far as can be ascertained, you also do not qualify as an "established expert". You do, however, have a WP:COI regarding this website, since you have had material "published" by it. I'm not going to re-argue the consensus at WP:RS/N with you on my Talk: page. Nor am I going to discuss the contents of a specific article here. To re-iterate:

1. jogg is a hobby genetics website, that fails WP:RS.
2. jogg is not an established media organization.
3. You have been "published" on the jogg website, and therefore have a WP:COI regarding it.
4. Coffman-Levy is a family lawyer, and does not qualify as an "established expert" on genetics.
5. You apparently also do not qualify as an "established expert" regarding genetics.

Please do not make further comments here that simply re-iterate your previous arguments rejected at WP:RS/N and elsewhere. Accept Wikipedia's policies and move on. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, I want to follow WP policy, which includes trying to work with others to build consensus, and my trying to discuss this is done in good faith. I understand from the above tone of response that this effort to communicate has failed miserably now. (Honestly, it seems you simply have not read anything I've ever tried to write about this. Your comments about me are also apparently intended to be unpleasant although you clearly don't know me.) That happens I suppose. But anyway we have no practical case to hand, and maybe if we did things discussion would also be more focused. So I'll leave it as requested. But for the record, just to complete the inventory of things we disagree on for now, your recital of what happened in the RS/N case is very obviously wrong. Thanks for your time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, I don't mean to be unpleasant, but I'm also finding it a bit wearing at this point. I've read your statements, but I basically don't agree with them, or agree that they have an impact on whether or not the website is a WP:RS. Do you not recognize that your view of the site might be biased by the fact that you, like the site's maintainers, are a non-expert in genetics writing papers on genetics, and have had your paper uploaded to this website? Do you not consider it at least a bit odd that this website claims to be a peer-reviewed source on genetics (a scientific discipline), but that essentially none of the website's maintainers or authors are professional geneticists? That professionals all publish instead in established peer-reviewed genetics journals? If a family lawyer, economist, law-student, and biologist created a "peer-reviewed" website on quantum physics or pharmacology or some other scientific discipline, with themselves as the editors, and similar non-experts as contributors, do you think it would be considered a reliable source by Wikipedia? Jayjg ^(talk) 18:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. I will assume from this that you don't mind if I respond to what you've just written, because it contains questions and implied accusations. As there is no practical case open, please take your time and indeed I require no response unless you see a problem you think worth remarking to me. It is certainly not my intention to attack you or pressure you or waste your time. I'd just rather get this stuff discussed while there is no urgent need to, and before some sort of misunderstanding builds up any further.

First the (implied) accusation: Of course you can now claim that I might be driven by a conflict of interest, but such proposals (i.e. assuming bad faith) are easy to make for any given Wikipedian, and the more a Wikipedian does, even if what they do is good, the easier it is. No discussion is possible if this is all we have to discuss. So no offense intended, but I believe the only possible way to work on Wikipedia, with people you do not know, is to focus on the merits of the cases, not mental images about the people in the discussions. (Hopefully evil plots will be exposed by a slips of the tongue or inconsistent actions, but if the baddies successfully act good the whole time then actually that will be good anyway!) I hope you can agree.

(If I may defend myself though:- The RS case was for me just a small episode in a larger series of edit wars most of which did not involve JOGG, and I believe my consistent actions show my intentions.)

1. Putting aside good faith questions, the discussion we've had so far comes down mainly to the distinction "hobbyist versus professional", terms which seem to relate to who pays someone's salary, and me saying that if we are going to be serious we need to convert these into definitions that relate to WP policy. There is nothing about salaries in WP policy for example.

• What makes a person or source cite-able on WP is pretty simply whether they are taken seriously elsewhere, outside of Wikipedia, by people or organizations with reputations for fact checking in the relevant area. (Maybe this is what you really mean by professional?)
• "Citations" is the question where the RS discussion went after you apparently left it, with all sides admitting that JOGG and particularly some of its authors, have some level of recognition in the relevant academic (or if you want "professional") peer-reviewed journals. After that it became a relative question rather than an absolute one.
• By the way, you have pushed the question pretty hard so I'll answer that I have been published in the European Journal of Human Genetics. Perhaps more relevant is another example: the Russian author whom interests wanted filtered out of R1a has been published and cited in a big name "professional genetics" journal also (Human Genetics). Both these examples were just letters, but both replied to by "bigger names". I do not want to make any point of that or claim to be the most cite-able person on earth, and remember I did not cite myself or anyone I agree with during any of these discussions. (Honestly that is really not my interest in life. I really like trying to be neutral. But I do think that it would be silly to imply that being a bit better informed than the average WP is just a bad thing because it implies COI.) The real point is that relatively speaking at least, it is citations like this which in principle can at least potentially be used by Wikipedians to discuss whether someone might be cite-able in WP, not who pays their salary. In other words having at least this amount of citation would seem to me to make it impossible to dismiss a source in an absolute way and without discussion, just because anything about genetics is mentioned, as you apparently proposed.

2. WP:RS rules not only require a source to be known for fact checking, but also to be relevant to the field in discussion in case it is specialized. Your response to this has again been straightforward, and again focuses on wording which I tried to discuss with you. Although you had the least to do with any of the articles involved you proposed very confidently that we were simply discussing "genetics". (To me that was a bit wrong of you to be honest. Surely this needed to be part of the case being proposed, not something an outside party should be defining everyone. And to me it at one point it even seemed like you actually tried to stop people talking about it.) Here also, the RS discussion got to grips with trying to convert back to the reality of the real cases where JOGG might be cited, not worst case scenarios, after you seemed to leave it. Part of what I consider to be the final agreement was that JOGG is not a great source for the really primary technical stuff. It turned out that no one had ever been claiming that. Once this distinction came into the conversation discussion became more practical and easy.

The question raised here is relevant to the Levy-Coffman quote and my point to you about it not being "genetics" in a technical sense but just a comment about what is in the media. You replied in a way which actually raises questions about your previous replies. When you say that Levy-Coffman would have to be writing in the New York Times or Washington Post you show that we agree that not all mention of the word genetics requires the same level of "professional" citation, but you also seem to make up a new rule out of thin air. For an uncontroversial comment like this, which can be verified just using Google (to check if the media really talked about it), WP has no such demand. This question about whether something less than the New York Times can be used to say what the media says was of course never part of the RS case, but I think there are many like it every day and the answers are easy to predict.

It seems to me that one maybe the "established" is important, as in established media. JOGG is not very old. But what happens when a new source develops? Does Wikipedia reject all sources younger than 5 years old or something like that? No. WP has clear guidelines on how to determine if a source is known and taken seriously outside Wikipedia in the appropriate way. Wikipedia tells us not to decide that ourselves.

Once again thanks for your time, and once again please do believe that my intentions are good.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, getting a letter to the editor published in a peer-reviewed journal is not what Wikipedia means by a "work", when it says an "established expert" is someone "whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Having a paper on the topic published in a such a journal would qualify as a "work". While such letters to the editor may well be edited (typically to reduce their length), they are not in any sense peer-reviewed for accuracy - and it is peer-review (and acceptance) by experts that gives an author credibility as an expert. So too, getting one's letter to the editor published in a newspaper does not mean that the author of that letter now has the same reliability as a reporter for that paper. In addition, the whole point about having an established media outlet publish something is that such media outlets have experienced editors (and lawyers) who comply with journalistic and legal standards, and fact-check articles for accuracy. The jogg website does not claim to be a media outlet; rather, it claims to be a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is obviously not the former; it's not an online newspaper reporting "all the latest genetics news". It's also obviously not the latter, since the people involved in adding material to the website are all amateurs, whose expertise lies in fields other than genetics, such as economics, family law, mathematics, computer science, engineering, library science, etc. And finally, there is no exemption to WP:RS for "an uncontroversial comment... which can be verified just using Google." Verifying by Google is original research, and if a comment is truly uncontroversial, then some actual reliable source will have made it. jogg.info is what I and many other editors have already explained to you many times; a hobby website, run by non-experts, that fails WP:RS. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:34, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg, really, if I am misunderstanding you then you have my apologies and please explain my errors. But the following is a reply to you the only way I can understand you. My apologies for yet another post...

• This type of "Letter" in this type of journal is peer-reviewed in a long slow process. It is basically a short academic article. It is not a "letter to the editor" but a letter to the field. These letters are part of the literature of the field and are frequently cited like any other peer reviewed article. The letter is just a side issue of course, in response to your probing and innuendo, but frankly, your response strongly implies that you are not familiar at all with how publication in this field works.
• If a person like Stephen Oppenheimer, a good example from outside our discussion, is widely cited outside Wikipedia as someone who knows about genetics, he can be potentially be cited by Wikipedia in articles about genetics. Wikipedia policy does not tell us exactly when to use him, but it certainly does the opposite of telling us to delete mention of him only because of who pays his salary or what he did at University which is what you appear to be insisting? If you know of a real WP policy which says otherwise, and tells us that salary source or undergraduate history are more important than citations in the field then please cite it? Otherwise we are indeed talking in pointless circles.
• In exactly the same way, if a publication is treated as a source of news, then it can potentially be used as a source of news. And again, if the people working for the newspaper are unpaid, and even if you as a Wikipedian think their degrees were wrong, this has no relevance to WP policy. It is how the outside world views them that counts. Once again please cite a real policy in a clear way if you really know of one which disagrees.
• Verifying a source using google as a bit of back-up research during a talk page discussion about a source does NOT come under WP:OR rules, and indeed nothing on talk pages does. Using google while considering a sourcing case is common on RS/N, and by the way internet searching was used (in a specific way which policy has actually been written to advise against) by the person whose arguments you say convinced you, in the RS case we were discussing.

Frankly, you seem unable to give this subject the attention it requires in order to be able to have worthwhile things to say about it, not the science, nor the WP policy questions, nor the Wikipedia articles involved, nor the positions stated by fellow Wikipedians (even including the ones you think you agree with). I would leave it that, but please understand my real and not my imaginary interest in this, which is that between the lines your way of insisting on your recent edit summary seems to be reserving some right to take absolute sides in content debates about genetics article without reading or understanding the content? If you really insist on that extreme position, which is way outside of WP norms or policies, then I think we strongly have to consider taking it to a bigger forum to get a community reading on it before any damage is done. There has been a lot of work done on genetics article to stop edit warring, mostly ethnic-based, or OR driven, which specifically often uses non-neutral ("cherry picking") source selection. My insistence on trying to make all editors justify their source deletions in terms of CLEAR WP policy is neutral and has been recognized by fellow editors and admins over-looking multiple cases as working well, and the RS case that your were involved was recognized by all or most involved parties to be a small part of that bigger story. The edit summary you've recently made, if you insist it was acceptable, would threaten to reverse a lot of that work.

If on the other hand you want to discuss the fine points of the real question of how to get the "inclusionist" balance right in genetics articles, that is another discussion and I'd be happy to have more people thinking about it in terms of real WP policies such as WP:DUE, WP:Neutral, WP:NOTE, WP:REDFLAG, etc. I am really not an inclusionist by faith, and remember that my calls for clear policy related explanations of deletions has been universal, not favoring any theories. I am just an editor who found that some types of article need more inclusionist approaches than others in order to get past never-ending edit wars and try to achieve WP:CONSENSUS.

Salaries and university degrees are not a relevant subject according to WP policy. And yes, if some biologists start a journal which starts getting cited by physicists as a physics-related source then WP does indeed tell us that this journal thus becomes a potential source for physics subjects, depending partly upon the way it is cited by the physicists and what it is being proposed for in WP. We on Wikipedia definitely do not get to tell those hypothetical physicists they are wrong on the basis of salaries or qualification.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, all letters to the editor are, in fact, a letter to the reader of whatever publication they happen to be in. Are you seriously suggesting that they undergo the same peer-review process as an article in a scientific journal? That they meet the same standards? In addition, you keep making the odd argument that the jogg website is a media outlet, but it simply isn't, and no amount of rhetoric will turn it into one. It doesn't claim to be one, it claims to be a peer-reviewed scientific journal. When it changes its website to read "Jogg.Info - all the latest genetics news", ot "Jogg.info - your favorite genetics news portal", and refers to its contributors as "reporters", then Wikipedia can assess whether or not its a reliable "media outlet". Until then it will be assessed on what it claims to be. You cannot bring a source that claims to be one thing, but then insist it be assessed on the standard of something it does not claim to be. And while people use Google to confirm all sorts of things, one cannot insert a claim into an article based on the notion that it's "an uncontroversial comment... which can be verified just using Google." All claims in articles that are challenged, or likely to be challenged, must be cited to reliable sources. And finally, your comments here have been far too personal; in the future, if you reply, comment only on jogg.info, and say nothing whatsoever about me. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

No: I never called the letter a letter to the editor; I never made any argument about WP policy concerning "media outlets" (however you define that); and I did not say that you can use google as a source for a claim which is challenged. Unfortunately you are "answering" concerns and comments that you are making up for me, not the ones I have written myself. (Fact of the matter is that you did not say anything in the Coffman-Levy quote was controversial, nor engage in conversation about why you think it would be when offered. Nothing in your discussion so far shows evidence you have read and understood what you deleted. That's the point.)

Basically I am reminding you very simply that if you delete sourced material you can expect to be reverted according to the real WP policies if...

• You can show no sign of having read and understood the context of the content you removed. (You can not claim to be removing controversial material if you have not done this, and you can not claim to have considered the sourcing properly according WP policy if you have not done this. WP:RS says clearly that this always has to be content specific.)
• You can not cite a real WP policy which would apply, rather than a wording developed yourself. (There is nothing about salaries and degrees and job titles being more important than citations, verifiability and reputation for fact checking in Wikipedia for example.)

If you want, I can write a draft RS/N post to see if we can agree on what we actually disagree about? In fact I would be interested to see if we can even agree what our disagreement is. There are several difficulties I am having discussing this deletion example with you:-

• You do not respond to what I really write. I keep trying to bring it back to terms of WP policy as it is really written, but you introduce your own terms, as if we were discussing them, or as if they are in the WP policies, when they are not.
• I can never see any clear definition of what your arguments really are. You switch from one subject to another, pushing me about my qualifications, or whatever, but keep away from the core. Just saying "X fails WP:RS" is not an argument at all and "X is not a media outlet", "X is not a professional journal" etc are not conclusive arguments only points which may or may not be relevant once you define them and put them together in an argument which refers to WP policy. (What's the WP-policy equivalent of your terms "professional", "media outlet" etc, and does WP say these are the only possible ways a source can be acceptable, etc.)

Please understand that as long as a deleting editor can state a reasonable case in terms of real policies no long discussion is necessary. I watch these articles and react neutrally to visiting editors who delete sourced materials, whether I agree with those sourced materials or not. Cherry picking of sources without such explanations is definitely a frequent practical tit-for-tat problem on genetics articles and can't simply be ignored. I'm only asking you to accept WP policy as it is really written.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:49, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

DRAFT for RS/N. Please comment about whether it is accurate. Maybe just trying to define our disagreement will help though.

• This question is not about any current editing disagreement, but about how sourcing-based deletions should be explained, especially when questioned. There is a disagreement on this, and concerning what WP policy is about this.
• A sourced passage was deleted by User:Jayjg on E1b1b several times, and re-inserted by other authors and this is apparently now a slow edit war. I am not involved but I have the article on my watchlist. I do not find the passage particularly notable or important or controversial the way it is currently worded. However I know other editors do, and that it has been the subject of edit wars before. I have raised concerns about the quality of the deletion justifications with the deleting party because genetics articles often have visitors who cherry pick sources, for good or bad reasons, and start tit-for-tat edit wars. See talk page. There is disagreement about whether better deletion justifications are needed.
• A list of Jayjg's deletion edit summaries:-

• remove WP:REDFLAG material by family lawyer on hobby website [1]
• remove WP:REDFLAG material by family lawyer written on hobby website [2]
• Coffman-levy practices family law. her degrees are in law, not genetics. [3]

• As can be seen, the initial claim justifying deletion is WP:REDFLAG which implies that the quote being deleted makes "exceptional claims" about genetics. However when read in context, the quote being deleted only makes the following claims, which were reported as personal opinion in the deleted passage, and are uncontroversial or even trivial points concerning what the media says...

• ...That the media tend to describe E1b1b in a correct but simple way as "African".
• ...That this description might be wrongly understood to imply that E1b1b outside of Africa left Africa in recent millenia.

(Uncontroversial sourcing already exists in the article for the facts that E1b1b originated in Africa, but that non African E1b1b has for the most part been out of Africa for millenia.)

• The deletions started not long after Jayjg participated in a RS/N case concerning the journal (JOGG) where this source comes from, the Journal of Genetic Genealogy the RS discussion concerning JOGG. He does not normally edit on any genetics related articles. I remark this firstly to point out that the term "hobby website" is a polemic term with a history, and not uncontroversial, and secondly because that case is raised by both parties on the talk page discussion again. Just quickly:-

• The deleting party believes deletion can be justified in this case without reference to anything in the specific deleted material, just based on the journal it appeared in.
• I believe that nothing in the conclusions of that previous RS/N discussion show any clear and absolute guidance about what to do about this one edit, and certainly isn't clear enough to justify the kind of deletion where the content of what is being deleted can be ignored out of hand and not mentioned as part of the deletion justification.
• Jayjg and I do not agree on who agreed with what in that RS/N discussion, even though it is on record. That happens I suppose.

• A secondary reason that discussion is apparently going bad is because Jayjg has now implied that he believes my attempts to discuss this can be assumed to be bad faith, because I had a review article once published in the JOGG, which he sees as a conflict of interest. Rather than treating me as a Wikipedian with a good history of neutral editing on this and similar articles, he has asked for more information about my qualifications, and then when told I also had a Letter published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, which I say is irrelevant anyway, responded that this is just a letter to the editor. In other words, conversation is failing to stick to WP policy. Hence the need for a bigger forum.
• Note: nothing I have published is involved even indirectly in this discussion. The deleted material is material I've raised other issues with, especially notability, and the request for better deletion discussions is not even attached to a request for a reversion of the deletion.
• QUESTION 1. Is it correct to cite REDFLAG, specifying that a high level of genetics qualification would be necessary, in order to summarize what the media says about a minor uncontroversial point?
• QUESTION 2. Shouldn't a deleting party citing REDFLAG, if questioned, be willing to show they have an argument about what way they believe deleted material was controversial?
• QUESTION 3. It is a concern of mine that one of the ways discussion is getting stuck is the constant use of very absolute remarks such as "JOGG fails WP:RS" with no qualification. Am I not correct to say that WP:RS says that all arguments against a source should say be content-relative, in other words "fails WP:RS for subjects of type X, Y, Z"? (That's what is says at the top of the RS/N noticeboard.)
• QUESTION 4. Is it ever possible to argue that WP:RS tells us that we on Wikipedia may judge the University qualifications, current job descriptions, or salaries of people doing peer review and decide here on this basis only, that we can delete citations from a source even if the source is cited favorably in uncontroversially professional academic literature?
• QUESTION 5. Is there any aspect of WP:RS which says that an author who is paid to write is a better source than an author who is not paid to write?
• QUESTION 6. Coming from the talk page discussion as a secondary point: is it true that in order to cite JOGG as a non-technically-specialized source, just commenting on something in the media, that it would need to call its authors "reporters" and change its website to say that it is a "news" source?
• QUESTION 7. The way I read WP:RS, statements of position such as "X does not have paid journalists, so X fails RS" are not complete because they are only stating that a source is not something, and that something is not the only type of acceptable source. Do others agree?

Comment requested.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:11, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

It's far too long, and too much about content, rather than sources. It's also inaccurate - there is no "slow edit war" going on here - I removed it in May, and removed it again at the end of August. That's not a "slow edit war" by any stretch of the imagination. Also, many of your questions refer to REDFLAG, based on an edit I made in May - that's old news, and irrelevant at this point. In addition, many of your comments misconstrue, misunderstand, or take out of context statements I've made here - for example, I never made the claims you allude to in Questions 4, 5, 6 or 7. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Length. Yes the whole discussion is longer than I like it too, of course. Is it possible to shorten it to a core issue or two do you think? I would be interested to hear what you think. My problem is partly that I can not quickly state your position, and what we disagree upon. If I could state it quickly on my own we wouldn't have the circular discussion we've had.
• Content. I am thinking this is a fundamental point where we disagree about WP policy, and therefore it was a point I felt we should ask others about. WP:RS says very directly that all sourcing reliability is context dependent, and for example also states that "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact without attribution". The RS/N board also states at the top that any cases being made should explain the content. During the JOGG RS/N you actually appeared to want to close the discussion very quickly before anyone had attempted to discuss types of content, and during discussion with me you've similarly seemed to think that sources which be treated with as little consideration of the content that might be sourced as possible.
• Slow edit war. It is borderline in my opinion. I see your point, but I also know the history of this article and similar ones. As part of trying to maintain such articles, it is my hope to eventually be able to post on the article talkpage with a brief summary, hopefully based on an agreement between us, showing that an argument for this deletion can and should be given in an uncontroversial form. It want it clear that it was not non-neutral cherry picking, and does not give the green light for non-neutral cherry picking.
• Old news. If REDFLAG is no longer your reason for deletion then this is progress for me because I did not know that. It is still not clear to me what your justification can be, based on anything in WP:RS or other policy pages you've cited. See next.
• If 4, 5, 6, and 7 misconstrue you then it strikes me as potentially very useful if you say why. To you it might be obvious, but it is not to me and it certainly won't be to a lot of people, and that is the problem. If you would explain, that might break the circle in our discussion and even finish it. Remember all I am asking for is uncontroversial policy based reasons for any major deletions of (apparently) sourced material on genetics articles. (If I think 4, 5, 6, and 7 are your position, at least how you've explained it so far, then we can't say we're succeeding in this yet.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• RS/N discusses the reliability of sources; while sources are reliable in a given context, this does not, however, mean that the board makes complicated decisions about which content in an article is more accurate.
• Removing an IP insertion once in late August, after removing it over 3 months earlier is not a "borderline slow edit-war" by any stretch of the imagination.
• The reason for removing Coffman-Levy in particular, and the jogg.info website in general, is that it fails WP:RS. Whenever the source disagrees with what reliable sources in peer-reviewed journals say, it also fails the WP:REDFLAG test.
• Regarding question 4, someone can qualify as an expert in a number of ways - one can, for example, publish a peer-reviewed article in a relevant journal, one can write books on the topic publish by a University press, one can teach the material as a University professor. One could even try to claim to be an expert based on having a PhD in the relevant subject. Coffman-Levy, as an example, fails on all of these counts. It turns out that her education is in a different field, she is not a University professor in that field but a practitioner of a completely unrelated discipline, etc.
• Regarding question 5, I've never made that claim. Show where I do.
• Regarding question 6, I've never made that claim. Show where I do. What I have said is that jogg is not a "media outlet", and does not claim to be one - it claims to be a peer-reviewed journal. To qualify as a "media outlet", it would have to at least claim to be one - then Wikipedia could examine that claim, and assess the source accordingly. One assesses the reliability of peer-reviewed journals differently from media outlets.
• Regarding question 7, I've never made that claim. Show where I do, and also review the response regarding question 6 above.

In general, you seem to be cherry-picking small parts of a complete argument I've made, misconstruing them, and then asking "questions" based on that for claims I have never asserted in the first place. In general, if you can't quote me saying it, as part of a complete in-context sentence, then I haven't said it. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• In answer to questions about why something fails WP:RS, why do you keep repeating things like "it fails WP:RS"? I know you are an experienced good faith editor. Surely you know this is not a real answer? I do not want this to be taken the wrong way, but I imagine you also are not enjoying the circularity of the discussion. Obviously such answers, if they continue, will make everything very difficult. You might want to compare to the examples in WP:TEND just for perspective.
• I would be very happy to read that you have actually got a reason for saying that the Coffman-Levy quote was exceptional as per WP:REDFLAG. But as someone who knows the literature reasonably well, it is not obvious what you mean. What you deleted seemed extremely uncontroversial. Just an observation about the way 2 different ways of describing something can lead to misunderstandings. IIRC it was once argued in the history of E1b1b that such a comment did not even need sourcing. But, most importantly can you let me know in what way the quote disagreed with "what peer reviewed journals say"? Thanks in advance. (I must admit that I have had thoughts that you were deleting "on principle" without actually having considered the deleted content and whether it really was exceptional.)
• Q4. So, assuming there is some specialist character to the deleted material, which I do not see myself, what about if a source is cited approvingly in the specialist literature? Can we really delete "on principal" something from a journal that has been cited like that? Citations which demonstrated that JOGG had been cited approvingly were of course the turning point of the previous RS/N discussion. You never commented at the time and I am still not sure if/why you would disagree with the seemingly clear facts which convinced nearly everyone during that discussion. (On the other hand, if you really have a basis for invoking REDFLAG, that's different. JOGG is not a strong specialist source for most REDFLAG material I would say, and this was also what was discussed in that RS/N case.)
• Q5.Q6.Q7. You ask me to quote you giving an explanation in each case. You do not give explanations which are clear to me as I've already said, and that's why I am checking a draft with you. But as I said, the above is the only way I could put together what you've written. You repeat explanations about not being professional, not being a media outlet, as if these are your argument. Doesn't this imply that my wording is correct?
• Do you have any pointers about how you would re-write the draft? In other words what do you think we are disagreeing about?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

FYI

I know this is getting old, but I thought you should be aware of this request for assistance with an SPA here. diff What should I do, if anything, to prepare for this? Thanks. Ovadyah (talk) 15:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

AN/I: False accusations of vandalism

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Ovadyah (talk) 00:02, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Ovadyah forgot to sign the above. He has acknowledged the comment in passing on this page above, so I have to wonder how it is now that is that he has forgotten it. I cannot at present find the comment on the article talk page, but I am in the process of checking it. I should have enclosed the links of course, because it has become rather obvious that the comment has been removed from the history. I specifically remember that there was an edit summary to the effect, "No, John Carter, you don't get to do that," when I saw that he had restored the comments I had removed, and now I find that edit summary to be missing. I find this frankly bizarre. The fact that he seems to have acknowledged it above, however, would seem to be important as an indicator of his having knew of it before, in any event. Given that I am certain, and regarding this I am certain, that the comments existed, even if they have now somehow seem not to exist, I wonder how the situation arose. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that, somehow, contacting Cirt and mentioned that I would make full copies of all the encyclopedia articles, which if presented on the article talk page, would force a substantive change in the content of the article, I guess might have caused sufficient fright in the part of someone to somehow alter history. Although I have never done so myself, it occurs to me that somehow the edits involved may have been deleted from the history, and I would welcome someone looking into that. John Carter (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless you are able to produce the edit(s) in question, you should probably refrain from making the accusation. If you think an administrator has inappropriately deleted edits from article history, you should take that to WP:AN/I.Jayjg ^(talk) 05:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom

Hello, I've reviewed the above article and it's now on hold. Thanks, Aiken Drum 18:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I've responded at the review page. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The Day the Music Died (film)

Hello, per the deletion request of the page The Day the Music Died (film), I want to include the news article from IMDb authorized film news source HeyUGuys UK: http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/09/01/first-poster-and-images-from-the-day-the-music-died/

Furthermore, included here is the IMDb Pro page that gives all info http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt1576473/ including its high movie meter it's had and news article from Access Hollywood. I now believe this is a valid Wikipedia entry.

Thanks for your time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irun25 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia would not consider either of those to be reliable sources. If you feel the article should be undeleted or recreated, please feel free to propose it at WP:DRV. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Rewriting history by noleander?

I don't get the point of those (2) pages (Jews and slavery) by noleander, it an 1) attempt to minimize the main Arab Islamic part in the slave trade by finding baseless (on infampous Jew-hater L Farakhan's NOI and some unkown writer) isolated jews among the Arabs? 2 There was no organized Jewish slavery, which is why the entire page is null and void.Evengee (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Kohen

I have left a message on the Kohen discussion page. Additionally, you claim that only English sources are accepted. Yet there are many accepted pages where old Hebrew sources are accepted even though Wikipedia is "not a yeshiva". For example see the Wiki Kashrut page which has the following sources. It has the Igerot Moshe, Yoreh De'ah and the philisophical opinion about Kashrut from Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed. Yet, when I try to quote the exact same sources on the Kohen Wiki page they are removed.

^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 83 and 84 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 85 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 87 et seq ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 1–65 ^ Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah 66–78 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, 318:1 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, 431–452 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 114 ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 113 ^ a b Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 115 ^ Many rely on lenient rulings by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in Teshuvot Igrot Moshe. Yoreh De'ah 1:47 and other 20th century rabbinic authorities who rule that strict government supervision prevents the admixture of non-kosher milk, making supervision unnecessary. See also Rabbi Chaim Jachter. "Chalav Yisrael – Part I: Rav Soloveitchik's View". Retrieved 2007-12-02. ^ Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 112, Orach Chayim 603 The Torah does not state reasons for most kashrut laws. Many varied reasons have been suggested, including philosophical, practical and hygienic. The Guide for the Perplexed, by Maimonides addresses this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ventura488 (talk • contribs) 21:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I haven't claimed that only English sources are accepted, I've said that one cannot use ancient primary sources. Other articles that use them probably shouldn't be doing so. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Rivadavia class battleship

The article was just promoted. At the talk page, I've asked Ed for help with dealing with your comments. Thanks for your excellent comments. (Watching) - Dank (push to talk) 12:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, and congratulations. I've made a few example edits regarding inflation which I think will be helpful. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

That works, and I found the template I was looking for, {{CURRENTYEARYY}}, feel free to tweak it. - Dank (push to talk) 02:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I just use "today" for brevity, but your way is good too. :-) Jayjg ^(talk) 03:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

FAC comments

Hi Jayjg, the FAC was archived before I got a chance to address your comments, so if it's alright with you, I'll try to address the remainder here.

Comments

• which paid for a massive 1904 $31,250,000 - "massive" is usually used for something physical, and appears colloquial here. Another word would likely be better.
  • NocturneNoir got this one. (Thanks!) - Dank (push to talk) 21:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
• came as an abrupt shock to the Argentine and Chilean navies - they weren't really a shock to the navies themselves, were they? And what is meant by "abrupt shock"? This should be re-worded to indicate more clearly that the strength of these ships vastly exceeded those in the Argentinian and Chilean navies, or perhaps that their strength shocked the navy commands or hierarchies - or both.
  • I've reworded this along the strength factor, because most of the Argentine and Chilean ships had been built in the 1800s. I know that it's 1906, but the advances in armament and armor (in terms of caliber and placement on the ships) from 1900ish and continuing until 1918 gave the dreadnoughts ridiculously more powerful than the older ships. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• The cabinet was in favor - Which cabinet? The government at the time should be described here in a couple of words.
  • Ed, wasn't the new Argentine government more socialist than the previous one? Jay, is that what you want us to include? - Dank (push to talk) 21:31, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
    • No, I meant which specific government/party was in power and in cabinet, and who was the leader? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Using Wikipedia, the National Autonomist Party was in power. Not having a specific date, I'm not sure what president was in power. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• "the most up-to-date practice[s]", "a general machinery overhaul" - these quotations should probably be paraphrased, or cited if the sources are significant.
  • Done. - Dank (push to talk) 21:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
• While both Schenia and Livermore explicitly state that the commission threw out all the bids twice,[14][20] neither makes it clear when this occurred. Livermore only goes into detail about one of these occasions, of which it is not clear if it is the second or third round.[19] - this kind of detail is valuable, it is essentially editorial comment by the article author, and is much better suited to a footnote than to the main article text. The main article should avoid discussing differences between the sources editors have chosen to use, particularly if this dispute is not itself discussed in reliable sources.
  • • • NocturneNoir got this one. - Dank (push to talk) 21:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
        • NoctureNoir only put part of the paragraph in a footnote, I really think all of it should be there. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:50, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
          • NN got it. - Dank (push to talk) 23:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
            • Thanks guys! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• prompt American diplomacy granting various assurances regarding recent events between the United States and Brazil - the specifics of those "assurances" and "events" would be helpful in a footnote.
  • Added Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• After Brazil sold Rio de Janeiro to the Ottoman Empire, Argentina began to actively seek a buyer for their two ships - you might want to give a bit more context here - e.g. why did Brazil sell the ship - and discuss the Argentine view that their own dreadnoughts were therefore no longer required.
  • Added. The Brazilians had no money left, and so the Argentines only needed to counter Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• destroyers had to be sent from Argentina to escort them home, as the Second World War had broken out during their stay. - this is unclear, why would destroyers have to be sent to escort them home? They were powerful dreadnoughts in their own right.
  • Changed to "were sent". A single lucky plane or torpedo could take out a battleship, then and now, so ships tended to travel in packs in wartime. - Dank (push to talk) 22:07, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
• In general, have you considered using Wikipedia's inflation function to provides values in today's dollars?
  • SHIPS people generally don't, but I don't know why. I'll leave a note on User:Protonk's talk page asking about the relative merit of the figures used, he's an economist. - Dank (push to talk) 21:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
  • {{Inflation}} would give accurate conversions for this year, as the US has especially good price data (or good extrapolations) ranging pretty far back. Other countries (Russia & Italy come to mind) would not be conducive to a smooth conversion from an arbitrary point in the past to the present day and SHIPS articles outside US/UK/DE would have to convert using alternate sources. My guess is that SHIPS uses measuringworth.com in order to standardize references and presentation across their articles. On the subject of measuringworth.com, the website is supported by the Economic History Association, a serious scholarly association with a strong governing board, a few conferences, and a good (though not great) journal. I happen to be a member of the association (though not one of any consequence). They don't provide too many calculators outside of the US and the UK (China, Japan and exchange rates are included). One advantage measuringworth provides is a transparent conversion scheme. All (almost all) of their conversion pages have a short paper explaining the methodology and data sources--helpful background for a curious or adversarial reader/editor. Protonk (talk) 21:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
    • As all prices are given in (then-current) $US, wouldn't the inflation function work for all of them? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Thanks Protonk. I don't have a preference, Jay; if we use a static figure, we could always run a bot to update the figures in future years. I have some reservations about using a template that works for some countries but not others, but I'll use it if there's consensus. - Dank (push to talk) 22:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Well, in this case it will work for all countries, since all prices are stated in one currency. You should use the function, which updates itself annually. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
      • For the US (and especially the UK, as the inflation template simply pulls figures from measuringworth) the two are identical, with the only difference being auto-updating. Since the updating is yearly, I am inclined to view the choice between the two as a matter of preference and presentation. Since I suspect that SHIPS (like MILHIST) places a premium on standard presentation, my guess would be that a source used by the majority of their articles would be preferred, but I don't know for certain in this case. Protonk (talk) 22:24, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I don't mind using {{inflation}}, but I'm not a template guy; how do I get the current year to show up automatically in the text? (I wouldn't want to say "in current dollars", because the reader would logically assume that was "current" when I wrote it, not when they're reading it.) - Dank (push to talk) 23:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
        • I certainly don't mind either; I didn't even know it existed (I think). I don't think there is a standardized conversion for ship articles. In the WP:OMT articles I'm aware of, British articles use pounds, German use marks, and American use dollars. This was an interesting case because it involved so many countries. I used only dollars and pounds because the sources I consulted used one or the other, but I could have tried to use all five (dollars, pounds, marks, francs, and lira); I thought that many would be overly convoluted and complicated. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I've made some of the more minor copyedits myself. Overall, a well-written and referenced article, and an interesting read. I'd like to see the issues above addressed. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your in-depth comments. It's reviews like these that make me want to come back to FAC. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)