User talk:Johncoz

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 00:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Johncoz! I guess I'm the first to post a non-automated edit to your talk page! Welcome to Wikipedia, and welcome to editing the Circumcision article. Your contributions are astute and will no doubt help improve the article. Here's some standard welcome information which may help you get oriented around Wikipedia (though you sound as if you know what you're doing already!)

Welcome!

Hello, Johncoz, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Coppertwig (talk) 19:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Word counts

Thanks for doing the word counts!! Last summer I shortened the Circumcision article (see here if curious) and had to count every word and make tough decisions about what to leave out. It's not the end of the world if it does get a little longer, but I'd rather not have it gradually grow in length and have to be shortened again. And thanks for your draft. It is much more comprehensive than the existing text. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for the encouragement, Coppertwig. Had I known what I was getting into I probably would have started my WP experience on a more innocuous topic, like Goat-rearing in Fiji, or something. However, having stepped into the lion's den, I will see it through as best I can. Johncoz (talk) 18:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of the problem

Hi Johncoz. I've had a look at the table you created, and while I think it's excellent (except for China, which is in the Prevalence article), I feel uneasy about including it because I think that this constitutes synthesis (I have to say, however, that I think it's very good synthesis, and I would love to be able to cite this if it were published in a reliable source). I think it might be helpful to get some external opinions at WP:NOR/N, and I wondered if you would help me to prepare a summary. I'd like to include a brief summary of both of our positions. Here's a rough and incomplete draft - could you edit and amend as needed?

There is a discussion at Talk:Circumcision about the possible inclusion of a sentence describing the prevalence of circumcision in Eurasia. The sentence in question uses a World Health Organisation map showing prevalence of circumcision by country and religion data from Islam by country. The resulting sentence is: "Excluding majority Muslim countries and Israel, prevalence in Latin America[5] and Eurasia[1] is generally less than 20%[6] with the notable exceptions of..." One point of view is that this constitutes original synthesis, that maps are essentially primary sources as defined by Wikipedia, which we should not attempt to analyse, and that we should instead cite verifiable, albeit less concise interpretations from published sources instead. Another point of view is that ...

Regards, Jakew (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops on China! It was 4am here (Australia), so I was probably getting a little tired. Anyway, here's my initial thoughts on wording:

- There is a discussion at Talk:Circumcision about the possible inclusion of a sentence describing the prevalence of circumcision in Eurasia. The sentence in question uses a World Health Organisation map showing prevalence of circumcision by country and religion data from Islam by country. The resulting sentence is: "Excluding majority Muslim countries and Israel, prevalence in Latin America[5] and Eurasia[1] is generally less than 20%[6] with the notable exceptions of..." One point of view is that this constitutes original synthesis, that maps are essentially primary sources as defined by Wikipedia, which we should not attempt to analyse, and that we should instead cite verifiable, albeit less concise interpretations from published sources instead. Another point of view is that: 1) this map, whose origin was from a larger document, is a secondary not primary source, being itself a synthesis of a large number of individual studies; 2) the sentence in question is therefore a prose rendering of secondary source information that happens to be presented in graphical form; and 3) is acceptable because there is no dispute about the accuracy of the sentence and that to the extent it may formally transgress WP:SYN this would be permissable under WP:IAR.

Johncoz (talk) 23:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty tired myself now (UK time), but that looks good to me. If you want to add it to the noticeboard, please do (but could you change "that maps are essentially primary sources as defined by" to "that this map is essentially a primary source as defined by"). If not, and if you don't mind, I'll do this tomorrow.

As an aside, this has already been useful in one respect, in that I now understand why you disagree with my assessment that it's a primary source. As I understand the situation, you're saying "it's a secondary source because it is the result of review and synthesis of other work" (and in that sense you're quite right). And I'm saying "it's a primary source because it is basically just data, presented without interpretation or analysis." Jakew (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Johncoz.

Jakew (talk) 10:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Circ Redraft

Good job on the redraft for Circumcision. Your analysis shows the downgrade trend quite clearly, something I felt was not being properly presented. Your addition as a Wikipedian is an added bonus. Welcome. Garycompugeek (talk) 20:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Gary. I am intending to work on some other parts of the article (and sub-articles) as time permits. Given the amount of time consumed in this 200 words, it could be a long process. Cheers, John Johncoz (talk) 20:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Circumcision techniques

Hello, Johncoz. In response to this post of yours, I'd be glad to help summarize sources and present a more comprehensive and worldwide perspective. What is there now seems a high amount of detail on a tiny few procedures used in a minority of cases, with no mention that any other techniques even exist. It's bothered me for a while, but as you say, sources on the subject seem scarce. Anyway, please feel free to involve me whatever way you believe I can help. Blackworm (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey request

Hi, Johncoz I need your help. I am working on a research project at Boston College, studying creation of medical information on Wikipedia. You are being contacted because you have been identified as an important contributor to one or more articles.

Would you will be willing to answer a few questions about your experience? We've done considerable background research, but we would also like to gather the insight of the actual editors. Details about the project can be found at the user page of the project leader, geraldckane. Survey questions can be found at geraldckane/medsurvey. Your privacy and confidentiality will be strictly protected!

The questions should only take a few minutes. I hope you will be willing to complete the survey, as we do value your insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Professor Kane if you have any questions. Thank You, BCproject (talk) 17:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject banners

Hi John (re your post at my talkpg). The problem is that when you delete the project banners, the article vanishes from the project's watchlist and remit (disappears without trace from the project's categories), so that if a project member later becomes inspired to review or fix things up they'll have a hard job determining it was ever there in the first place.

WikiProject banners can be used for all kinds of things, whether or not the ratings are kept up-to-date. For eg in WP:MESO we use them to generate & maintain article watchlists (like here) & article talkpage watchlists to keep track of what's going on in the articles we particularly care about; other projects do much the same thing.

While it's true that a lot of projects get behind in keeping up the paperwork, so to speak, having project banners with yet-to-be-assessed ratings does no harm, the ratings are mostly for the benefit/use of the wikiprojects anyways. Most wikiprojects are regularly maintained by only a handful of editors, what with everything else editors are inclined to do it's no general surprise (or concern) if it takes a while before a banner gets updated.

If an article's been recently improved then there's nothing to stop someone not from the wikiproject updating the banner's rating, or if in doubt you could leave a msg at the project's talkpage requesting a review.

Even when a wikiproject appears to have been completely inactive for months & months, someone new with an interest can easily come along at some point and seek to reactivate it. That happens a fair bit, and while a few wikiprojects may never be roused from terminal slumbers, many others do spring back into life. Truly moribund projects can be tagged with {{inactive}} and listed as such at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Inactive projects (probably best to give advance notice first at the project talkpage, just in case. Even if the project pages show little activity, project members may still be watching and working on articles in that field of interest, they are just not needing to update the project pages much).

In the case of WikiProject Mesoamerica it's very much an active one, albeit with only a handful of regular project maintainers like Simon & myself typically online during any given period, like most projects. With nigh-on 1500 articles now to keep track of it can take some time to work through. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Abraham

Hello Johncoz!

I'd like a simple favor: would you please let me know when you're done editing the article for now? I'd rather let you have at it and finish your work until I begin editing, as it would make things easier for both of us. SamEV (talk) 00:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"hack"? Hmm...

But, I don't mean just for today; I mean are you done for say, the next few days, at least? SamEV (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All right. Thank you. SamEV (talk) 00:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine, John.

I didn't edit the dates themselves, however; I unwittingly modified/misspelled "traditionally" on one of them. Thanks for fixing it. SamEV (talk) 17:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pssst

I saw this, and just wanted to make sure you were aware of WP:CANVASS, which usually advises notifying people regardless of their viewpoint. I don't mean to imply that you're violating that policy, but nevertheless I'd encourage you to notify Jayjg as well. Jakew (talk) 11:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Circ

We need to find some agreement to the pro/con paragraph in the lead. Neonatal is not the best time, and it's insulting to Muslims. I think that line misleads the reader to think there's some rush to circ. There are several studies. One finds 8 days is better than 24 hours (Schoen's rec and typical in the US), another finds 5 months better, another finds 6 years better (because there's then almost no meatal stenosis, otherwise a 7+% complication resolved with OMG meatodomy). Because meatal stenosis is so relatively common, 6 years -+ 3 years has the lowest complication (and potentially the least distruction of erogenous potential). The best is the clean clinical finding 5 months is much better than neonatal. On the other hand, I think parents are lulled into thinking modern pain control or speed mitigates a major complication of circs. In other words, I insist on removing an untrue statement (neonatal is the best time), and then have to remove the reference to pain for Jakew's "balance."Zinbarg (talk) 18:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

About your recent interest, Sri Lankan civil war

To the Johncoz the super master mind of next version. This is just to test your contextual knowledge for this task. What is the wrong with Kingdom of Rajarata article ? How many SL related articles have you contributed ? --61.245.168.37 (talk) 19:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:51, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]