User talk:Veritycheck

Welcome visitors

Thanks for visiting my Talk Page. I'll try to respond to any questions left here as soon as I can. Please note I reserve the right to delete old comments or any that I find offensive. Veritycheck (talk) 10:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, Thanks for your contributions. Have you, by any chance, edited here in the past using a different screenname? You remind me of an old wikipedia colleague who I haven't seen online in quite some time. Anyhow, just curious. Have a good day! -- nsaum75 ^{!Dígame¡‎} 19:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Username

I like it a lot. Toddst1 (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Your note

Thanks for your note. You have come up to speed impressively fast! Wikipedia's policies aren't perfect, but they have been defined in response to real problems. The Verifiability policy is in response to people putting up "common sense" or "well known facts" or "reasonable inferences" (aka WP:Original Research). You'll see that WP tolerates uncited assertions if they're not controversial, but the citation business is actually quite helpful in resolving disputes.

I think you'll also find that success in writing good-quality articles requires finding fellow editors to work with. At this point, the Falafel article has attracted people like Andrew Dalby who won't put up with nonsense like claiming that the Ynet article is solid research.

That said, some things are hard to establish. It's quite clear that falafel and tabbouleh and hummus bi tahini existed in the US before the 1970's in Middle Eastern restaurants. Similarly, bagels existed in the US before the 1980's (and the explosion of bagel chains)--but only in Ashkenazi neighborhoods and delis. Croissants existed before the 1970's in specialty bakeries. But all remained niche ethnic specialties. Sometime in the 1970's in the US, falafel started expanding beyond the ethnic-food niche into more general circulation. This probably happened in different ways in different places. In Detroit, I would guess it was popularized by Arab-Americans. In New York, it appears to have been popularized by Israeli-Americans. But I have no good evidence for any of this. In the absence of good sources, we should say nothing. --Macrakis (talk) 04:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Falafel, etc.

Hey! I've been meaning to drop you a note for a little while, because I watched the discussion over at Talk:Falafel. I have to admit that I, too, suspected you were a sockpuppet of a banned account when you started the GA Review. But good on you for making such an effort. As I think is developing now, the article is being changed as a result of the points you raised. I hope you don't get discouraged by this incident and continue editing because you seem like you have a lot to add to the encyclopedia. Further, I just want to point out that on Wikipedia anything that relates at all to Israel/Palestine is especially contentious, and you just happened to walk right into the middle of it. In a food article (when I first started, I got temporarily banned over the falafel article without even violating WP:3RR and with using the talk page). Which explains (but by no means excuses) the incredibly hostile reaction you've received, which I found rather appalling. Anyway, best of luck, and I hope you decide to stick around. -- Irn (talk) 09:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Aleppo soap

Thanks for your contributions to the falafel discussion. Your good sense would be welcome on the Aleppo soap article. In my opinion, many recent edits by the SPA User:Pdacortex have been puffery and otherwise not encyclopedic, and I have trimmed them quite heavily. He reverts. Can you help? Thanks, --Macrakis (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Falafel GAR

Thanks for your message. I wasn't aware that you could close the discussion.

However, you should read the left column of WP:GAR for instructions on properly closing the review. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:00, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.

I just wanted to let you know how much I admire this comment. I have lived among Arabs for many years. I know the effect this editorial decision has on millions of readers. I believe that to deliberately, and for no significant educational benefit, insert religiously offensive images in a, possibly the, most important article to Muslims is grossly insensitive. It displays contempt for our fellow humans. It is an insult. Obviously. And I think you have expressed the situation far better than anyone so far in this debate. Thank you. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

May 2012

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, talk pages are meant to be a record of a discussion; deleting or editing legitimate comments, as you did at this page, is considered bad practice, even if you meant it well. Even making spelling and grammatical corrections in others' comments is generally frowned upon, as it tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. We hope you enjoy editing on Wikipedia!  Brendon ishere 07:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello Brendon, your talk page requests that discussions initiated there remain there, yet now you have brought it here. I'll respond to it one last time if that's what you desire. First of all, your reply was not deleted or changed. It was moved. Responses to edits that have already been replied to must come beneath them and not above them as I politely pointed out to you.

Please remember you initiated this confusion by incorrectly inserting your response above another editor’s reply. Perhaps you did not notice in doing so that you actually created a situation where your comment mistakenly became the focus of agreement by an editor who did not intend it for you. His post, which was written earlier than yours, was in fact addressing the original comment preceding his before you improperly supplanted it with your own edit. What is more, this editor appears to be against your beliefs, which made the mistake all the more distasteful and misrepresentative.

Some might have made a vandalism call on it. However, I went assuming Good Faith and pointed it out to you on your User talk:Brendon111. If you aren’t happy with where your misplaced replies are moved to, then better acquainting yourself with the correct Talk Page protocol would serve you well and negate the need for other editors needing to second guess where you want them. Again see here Help:Using talk pages. Lashing out at those who have had to move them is equally as misplaced as is saying that I deleted or edited your response which I did not do. Next time a simple apology or thanks might be the best response. Better yet, in the future simply refrain from putting your replies above comments that have already been responded to by others. Thanks Veritycheck (talk) 10:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Please refrain from repeating your comments or restoring them on my Talk Page. They have been duly noted. See Wikipedia:Don't_restore_removed_comments. Continuing to do so will be seen as harassment and be dealt with accordingly. Veritycheck (talk) 11:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

My edit summary

Hi, my edit summary here was incorrect. I checked the page history before reverting you and somehow thought I saw that you had reverted twice and this was obviously not the case, so I'm sorry for mentioning edit warring in my summary. SÆdon^talk 21:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

You have rollback

By your request, I have added the rollback permission to your account. I hope you find it useful. Regards, AGK [•] 00:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Expansion of Ban Appeals Subcommittee

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Heads-up

I ran into you the first time editing at Anti-Christian sentiment and was troubled by your edits that introduced WP:OR and WP:POV statements. I addressed it on the page there. Seeing that it is stated that you have more than 9000 edits to date as per your User:Page, I was a bit surprised and taken aback. Since then, I have begun to explore other edits you have made here at Wikipedia to see if this same behaviour has also occurred in other articles you have contributed to. The first one I checked was your edit to Bashar al-Assad: principally noting your most recent one at that time where you introduced the section: International Public Relations. Unfortunately, I found that you, again, had introduced WP:OWN and WP:POV.

Here is an example to illustrate this for you quoting your contribution:

“In order to promote his image and branding overseas, Assad hired a number of American-based PR firms and consultants, such as Brown Lloyd James.[66]”

Nowhere in the cited source that you include does it mention “Branding” or any synonym to that effect. Neither does the sourced article itself say anything along the lines of him hiring the firm to promote his image.

What it does in fact say is limited to this:

“The Syrian government hired an international public-relations firm to help coordinate a Vogue magazine profile for Asma al-Assad, Syria’s first lady.”

That is a far stretch from what you construed from it. Your misrepresentation is a clear example of WP:OR.

This brings me to the reason I’m writing to you here on your Talk page. Rather than me going through all your numerous edits on a multitude of articles, I strongly suggest that you tighten up your editing skills and refrain from such style-editing in the future. I would also ask you to go through your previous edits yourself and clean-up where you feel you may have gone astray paying close attention that your contributions stay true to the citations you have used.

I would ask you to start by looking at the following articles you have edited checking them with the cited sources you have used:

Georg Cantor

Hafez al-Assad

Sanctions against Iran

Consider this a friendly heads-up to get back on track. If you feel this feedback is unwarranted, I’d be more than happy to hear your POV. If you require further examples to convince you, just let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather lengthy post. ;-) Veritycheck (talk) 20:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

In the Bashar al-Assad article, the content comes from the NYT source, which you apparently didn't bother to read. Take it to the talkpage. If you think you can do better in summarising the content, feel free to try. In the other articles, please list what is WP:OR about the specific edits.

As for your message in general, it is a bit uncivil to write patronising comments like this on a user's talkpage. It's clear that you are annoyed that I responded to your RFC on anti-Christian sentiment. It doesn't make much sense for you to write this message, since you apparently don't in your 300 edits have experience with some basic wikipedia guidelines, such as 3RR. English is also clearly not your native language, so I have difficulty understanding some of your comments. Avaya1 (talk) 21:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

That last part was hysterically funny. I'm an English teacher by profession and I'm a Canadian to boot. I challenge you to point out any grammar or spelling mistake that couldn't be considered a mere typo. I'll show it to my students if you can to give them a bit of revenge. I'd love to see what you come up with but I suspect you are only trolling. Then again, perhaps your difficulty in comprehension says more about you than it does about me. I didn’t think I was talking above you, but I can “dumb it down” a little if you like. I would also suggest that you hone your math skills if you think I surpassed the 3 RR rule. Cross-check reverts shown on the history page with the times listed. N.B. You are welcome to take a little offence; you deserved it. No matter, you did give me a good laugh. Thanks for that!

Whatever the case, you have side-stepped the issues I raised, but I suspect that was your intention... It looks like I'll have to remain vigilant concerning your future contributions or escalate your edits to a peer review. Veritycheck (talk) 21:47, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:University of Western Ontario

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Heads-up2

I mentioned you at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification request: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Muhammad images. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC)