User talk:JimWae/Archives/2008

Queens

I had to revert back for these reasons, which I briefly explained in the edit summary but will expand on here:

1. "Overlinking?" -- There's tons of overlinking in the article already, so what's the problem?

2. "Solitary years have very low-value as links" -- Please explain why you believe that. There is nothing wrong with linking years.

3. "The former Town is NOT the county seat, Jamaica is" -- No matter which way you slice it, the county seat is still WITHIN the town of Jamaica, even today. Borough Hall and the new State Supreme Court building are both in Kew Gardens, part of the original town as a village ([1]), not to mention the other court buildings which are in downtown Jamaica (the former Village of Jamaica).

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Rollosmokes (talk) 09:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

---

• 1 & 2
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Autoformatting_and_linking
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlinking#Overlinking
• 3 TOWN has a specific meaning in NY - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_subdivisions_of_New_York_State#Town
  • There is no longer any Town of Jamaica, so it cannot be the county seat. Just leave it as Jamaica (or Jamaica & nearby areas).
• 4 see the Mineola article - it is in TOH & TONH. TOWN has specific meaning in NY
• 5 why put 1870 between 2 early events about # of towns??
• Please do NOT stick to your story - please revert yourself and stop keeping me from getting to sleep --JimWae (talk) 09:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Breaking it all down

*1 & 2 [2] [3]

*3 TOWN has a specific meaning in NY - see [4]...There is no longer any Town of Jamaica, so it cannot be the county seat. Just leave it as Jamaica (or Jamaica & nearby areas).

Just the mere mention of this is redundant. And I did use the word former when I re-wrote that Jamaica became "county seat" again post-consolidation. Next...

*4 see the Mineola article - it is in TOH & TONH.

Wrong. Check your maps, because Mineola's southern border is Old Country Road -- the dividing line between the towns of Hempstead (Village of Garden City) and North Hempstead. A technicality: the Nassau County seat is Mineola, but the county buildings are all on the south side of Old Country Road, in Garden City!

*5 why put 1870 between 2 early events about # of towns??

Oversight on my part, the numbers screwed me up.

I also noticed that you may not be from New York. So if you aren't you really have no clue as to what is real around here. That was a professional criticism, so don't take it personally. Rollosmokes (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

---

I am glad to see you have now considered what I have pointed out & made some appropriate changes. Please have the courtesy in future to consider changes made before blindly reverting to a version you had made - which had numerous problems.

• Note that when I changed the location of Mineola to "now a village in Nassau County", the article had previously (only & probably erroneously) stated Mineola was in Town of Hempstead. The Mineola article still says it is in 2 towns, (I have made corrections to the town articles) - However, I never ever sought to include that (its being in 2 towns) in the article. I think it would be more meaningful to those not from LI to point out that Mineola is now in a different county & that this point could easily be overlooked if the emphasis is on what town it was in.
• Regarding your linking of solitary years
  • from Overlinking#Overlinking

    Overlinking in a webpage or another hyperlinked text is the characteristic of having too many hyperlinks.[1][2] It is characterized by:... Links that have little information content, such as linking on specific years like 1995, or unnecessary linking of common words used in the common way, for which the reader can be expected to understand the word's full meaning in context, without any hyperlink help.

  • date links are so that user preferences will work. From WP:Date#Autoformatting and linking:

    Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted by inserting double square-brackets, as for linking. This instructs the MediaWiki software to format the item according to the date preferences chosen by registered users.... Wikipedia has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic. Piped links to pages that are more focused on a topic are possible ([[1997 in South African sport|1997]]), but cannot be used in full dates, where they break the date-linking function.

  • Surely you cannot mean that every year link deepens the user's understanding about Queens.
• Btw, Mineola (ToNH) is the county seat even tho' many county offices are in Garden City (in ToH). Jamaica became county seat again in 1898 even though some of its offices are now (but likely NOT in 1898) in Kew Gardens.
• I assure you that you are completely wrong about what you think you have "noticed". You will find I have made significant contributions to many, many article about "Greater" Long Island, NYC, & NY. It is also rather inhospitable for you to suggest that people who are "from" a place have any privilege to drive away those who are not "from" a place. I have also lived in places far from LI, and from that perspective it is clear that saying the former county seat is no longer in that county is more meaningful than what town it was in (with the reader having to figure out that that same town is no longer in that county). It is the residents of LI who most likely to be confused about which places are in which towns. Outsiders couldn't care enough to get confused about it --JimWae (talk) 21:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand EB Online http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9052827/Mineola says Mineola is in 2 towns - of course it also gives the wrong date for its being county seat --JimWae (talk) 07:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Then there's the Post Office issue --JimWae (talk) 07:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

"About 1 out of every 20 places with a Mineola mailing address are not in Mineola. These places that have a Mineola mailing address but are not in Mineola are in the Village of Garden City in the Town of Hempstead, and at the same time, there are places in the Village of Mineola with a Williston Park or a Carle Place mailing address." http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/NYNASSAU/2004-08/1093051529

Looks like ToH has at least one building in "Mineola" too - http://toh.li/content/rc/museums/loc_mineola.html#nassaupolice --JimWae (talk) 07:32, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Copied here because user deleted it from his talk page

• I have added 5 or 6 references to the article that demonstrate clearly that not all of Queens County got to vote on consolidation - the above "history" can only be described (without tending to invective) as "inventive". No part of present Nassau County ever even voted on consolidation.
• Regarding "coterminous", you changed the fact regarding the date upon which it happened. It did not happen "with consolidation" in 1898, it did not happen UNTIL Nassau County was formed in 1899. THe fact that you still do not understand this, makes me doubt you have read anything I wrote, and indicates the level of frustration I have had to endure in communicating with you --JimWae (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• I have spent far too much time on this already, but I will sign off with one last remark - it is extremely contrary to co-operative work for you to repeatedly remove requests for citation. Your version of the history on consolidation was never sourced & now the sources show your version to be almost entirely in error. Removing requests for citation are not "minor" edits, as so many of yours were marked - they are extremely significant edits - moreso than many content edits. It is extremely insulting to other editors to so blithely remove them. --JimWae (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• While all this was going on, your responses to me were almost entirely directed at me personally, rather than the issues. I probably did go a bit overboard by placing so many tags -- I regret that, but they all did apply & frankly I was running out of ways to get you to respond to what I was actually saying. You tell me how you would have handled someone putting unsourced error in the article, deleting all requests for citations (and also requests for a 3rd opinion and accuracy tags), and responding almost entirely with either personal attacks or by being completely dismissive --JimWae (talk) 19:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

---

I found the relevant section of the MoS WP:Citing sources#Where to place ref tags

Some words, phrases or facts must be referenced mid-sentence, while others are referenced at the end. Frequently, a reference tag will coincide with punctuation and many editors put the reference tags after punctuation (except dashes), as is recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)....

--JimWae (talk) 02:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

MoS

Wow, I must have misread the MoS a couple of months back—you're the first editor to correct me. Thanks for pointing it out. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 10:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

As a matter of interest, has this changed in the past couple of months, or has it always being like that? Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 10:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Units of measure

Thanks for what you did to Litre. If you look at my user contributions you will see that I have been trying to ensure that unit articles are consistent and clear. I would welcome your thoughts. Take a look at Talk:Metre for an ongoing discussion. Bobblewik 18:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Two Three comments - I think the reference to hours, minutes, and days as other "accepted units" makes it clearer just how well accepted they are. I also think it would be helpful to note which derived units are used often (mL & perhaps kL being about it, with dL being used in some engineering). Lastly, though it is only a multiple x 1, it can be helpful to show (& highlight) where in the table the base unit (Litre) fits.--JimWae 20:40, 2005 September 9 (UTC)

Jim, are you distinguishing between North American spelling (liter) and the spelling used elsewhere (litre)? Tony 04:51, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I agree with you that it could say that litre is in the same category as hour. This would add value. However, I think that belongs lower down e.g. after the definition. A lot of these unit articles were getting too detailed too early. I wanted to simplify them and make them consistent for the reader that just wants to know something simple. Perhaps there should be an explicit section within the accepted units stating which of the three types of accepted unit it is.

As far as 'used often' is concerned, I am not sure how we would define or measure that. This may have been the reason why there was no consistent number of articles about prefixed multiples. The attempt to look official and comprehensive by individual articles was incompatible with the lack of editor motivation to go beyond multiples 'used often'. The solution could be to mention the multiples that are common, somewhere within the main article, as I think you suggest.

Highlighting the unit within the table of prefixes is a good idea. The table could be revised to be more compact.

To Tony, I am not sure what you mean. I do not know the history of things. The BIPM does not mandate spelling, but I understand that Wikipedia SI articles use the spelling that happens to be used in the BIPM SI brochure. The American spelling is mentioned in the first sentence of the article. I think most Wikipedia articles mention spelling variants very early in the article. Did you overlook that sentence?

In summary, I made these edits of several different units to demonstrate an approach. I am sure it is an improvement and I am sure that it can be improved further in a variety of ways. Bobblewik 11:24, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

It's not that I disagree with you, the 'units of measure' part of Canadian English has almost nothing to do with language, I'm at least as guilty as anybody else, it's just that in Canadian supermarkets you buy fruits and vegtables by the pound(with the metric price in smaller print). You may often find 450 gr of butter instead of 454 gr, but it's almost impossible to find 500 gr or 400, and cans of pop are 355 ml not 350 or 400 or 300. Often high grade carton juices are 961ml instead of 1L, etc. et et naseaum. At fastfood restaurants cups are measured in ounces(and people talk of 16oz drinks and 21oz drinks, and people - young and old - talk largely of pounds of butter or apples or bananas when talking about their grocery bills, although 20 somethings will usually talk of 355 cans of pop or concentrated juice). if there is a units of measure section and it talks about food, some of these things should be mentioned(again not disagreeing with your explanations of your edits, and if a units of measure section can not be made to talk mostly about language I'm not opposed to scrapping it) Jethro 82 (talk) 03:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

Under ten is universal for newspapers, but for books and magazines it's under one hundred. Babajobu 19:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Best I can do

This got removed from the atheist talk page. I wanted to make sure you saw it. No the quote does NOT conclude that religion is necessary for morality. The quote says religion is an "aid" to morality. From what I have learned from my own limited curiousity and experience all human wisdom, whether in ethics, religion, science, mathematics, etc. is subject to fallibility and modification.

When I was a child the milky way was the only galaxy, the United States Government stereotyped the Japanese soldier as being less than human, radium was hand painted on the numbers and hands of watches, there was negro satire in children's cartoons and high school minstrel shows, the pin-up girl was socially accepted, the baby Jesus was drawn in colored chalk on blackboards in U.S. public schools at Christmas time, what today is known as an affair was known as adultery, you crouched beneath your school desk to avoid being vaporized by an atomic bomb, only hillbillies sang and played guitars, Catholics worshipped statues, the South was segregated for blacks and whites, free cartons of cigarettes were sent to wounded soldiers in hospitals, there was no such thing as a supermarket, shops and stores closed on Sunday, on wednesday nights women were given dinnerware in movie theatres, horses still pulled ice wagons in major cities, cancer victims were on their backs in iron lungs, and convicted criminals were hanged and electrocuted. That's the best I can do.Kazuba (talk) 06:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC) Thanks for your help.

• I am not sure what to respond to, but I am glad things worked out OK. Whether religion is NECESSARY for morality is a persistent topic - and seems to be what the Durants were considering in their (fuller, yet still incomplete) quote. It is unclear from the quote whether they ever attempt to give an answer, but from even the extended quote, the suggestion seems to be that it IS. T. Jefferson, eg, seemed to agree with Washington & publicly supported Xty, even though he was very much at odds with its churches --JimWae (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OldStyle Dates

I don't understand your change to Benedict Arnold: the difference is 11 days, not a year. Tedickey (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

In Old Style, the year number did not change on Jan 1 - it changed on Mar 25 - so from Jan 1 to Mar 20 it was still the "old" year. It would be neat if the template could detect that too - but it also Breaks date preferences as it now exists - at least MY date preferences of YYYY-MMMM-DD --JimWae (talk) 23:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

George Washington

Exactly which citation edits are you talking about? My referencing to the MOS was for the images, and I'm not sorry if I did not state that as well as I should have. --Happyme22 (talk) 05:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I got the two confused. I'm not one for excuses, but it was later at night for me and I'm sorry. Haha - nothing there was per the MOS. I was aligning the images, and making the ref format into horizontal rather than vertical. If you and other editors prefer vertical, please keep it. Again, my appologies for my stupidity and confusion. --Happyme22 (talk) 18:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration on Dominion issue

I've made an arbitration case on the nagging Dominion issue on Canada and related pages. There might be a need for you to comment. Thanks. --Soulscanner (talk) 11:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Request

Care to go to the mediation request page for Dominion? Could us someone to support the request. Maybe this will work. --soulscanner (talk) 20:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy assassination GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I have reviewed John F. Kennedy assassination and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left this message on your talk page since you have significantly edited the article (based on using this article history tool). Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix. I have also left messages on the talk pages for other editors and a related WikiProject to spread the workload around some. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

RFC discussion of User:Quizimodo

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Quizimodo (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Quizimodo. -- soulscanner (talk) 05:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Persecution of Hindus

JimWae, as you have major contribution in the Religion in the United States article, so I have come here to you with a request. This is about the section Persecution_of_Hindus#United_States in the article Persecution of Hindus. I think the article has several POV concerns. The "United States" section in the article tells:

“ The rise of the Indian American community in the United States has brought about some isolated incidents of attacks on them, as has been the case with many minority groups in the United States. Attacks directed specifically against Hindus in the United States stem from what is often referred to as the "racialization of religion" among Americans, a process that begins when certain phenotypical features associated with a group and attached to race in popular discourse become associated with a particular religion or religions. ”

I think the entire paragraph suffers from WP:UNDUE. The entire paragraph is based on the opinion of Khyati Joshi. I have google searched many times to know about this person and found that she is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education of Fairleigh Dickinson University. But she is not notable person[5]. Especially in an article, which depicts religious persecution, why so much importance is given only in one person? Any person can hypothesise anything, can give any opinion, can write a research paper on his/her opinion, but why that is given too much importance in this article about a country? The theory presented in this paragraph, i.e. "racialization of religion" in the context of United States seems bit confusing to me, seems not to be notable theory. Google books give only 28 hits [6], and many of them are not in US context. Writing an entire paragraph like this based on one person's (who is not notable) opinion seems like WP:UNDUE, I think the paragraph should be deleted per WP:UNDUE. Could you please investigate the matter. Thanks. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 12:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

• Well, the use of "often referred to as..." is not justified. Instead, "has been referred to by one writer as..." The editor does seem too quick to adopt the author's view. As for the entire paragraph, itself, it is pretty short & the USA should be covered if there is persecution there. Incidents are mentioned - but not supported. It is also not persecution in any official sense, but by by self-appointed hooligans --JimWae (talk) 09:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Canada

The number of asterisks before a comment is meant as a way of threading the discussion; the degree of indentation indicates what is being replied to. Putting a different type of bullet before my comments doesn't "separate authors"; it misrepresents what comment I'm replying to. Anything other than a single asterisk makes it look as though I'm replying to you, rather than the reality that we were both replying to Don in close succession. The signature at the end of a comment is what keeps one editor's comments distinguished from another; the indentation at the beginning indicates which prior comment I'm replying to. Bearcat 07:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

• that's ONE way of looking at indentation. Another is that I was using *s & you were using :s. Yet another is that level of indentation indicates who is speaking

- some discussions have no indents at all

• The signature does not come until the end and putting *s under *s without an extra line feed makes it look like separate points all in one reply --- I do really not care - as long as it is not the way described in this point
• There was an edit conflict & then an intervening edit I did not even see, so to me indenting with a big extra line feed was preferable to all in one
• Anyway, no need to battle each other when we agree on the content issue --JimWae 07:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Canadian Population clock. The automatic update wasn't always that accurate. But have it your way if it means that much to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.212.198.87 (talk) 15:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It is EXACTLY accurate (in terms of co-inciding with the Canada population clock) once a day at precisely 00:00 UTC - rounded off to the nearest hundred. If you do not round off, it would be accurate for only a few seconds --JimWae (talk) 19:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

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Irreligion

Hello JimWae. Can you please explain me about the changes you made at Template:Irreligion? Now, thanks to you, we must also include UFO religions like Raëlism in the template because it is a non-theist religion. And, how can you make comments like 'irreligion is not neutral, it carries a strong negative connotation'? I respect you views; however, please stop making such comments. I am an irreligious person and I have used that label for years. Please change the name to irreligion. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 05:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the name. If you disagree, feel free to discuss. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 06:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

You didn't wait long- AND you removed Bright's movement. Whatever label you might feel comfortable with is not necessarily an indication of how a word is actually used in the world. As I have outlined on the appropriate talk page, the term irreligion has more negative connotations than neutral ones. I WILL continue to make such comments - on the talk page for the article - where I HAVE felt free to continue the discussion & have waited already 5 times longer than you did AND have been discussing this recently since Jan 16 & previously since Sep 9 (one day after the creation of the template). --JimWae (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I should have waited longer than I did. However, I didn't removed Bright's movement. Yes, you are right— the term irreligion has more negative connotations than neutral ones. In fact, I have removed 'irreligion' from my user page because it might offend some users. Irreligion is viewed as hostile to religion and it will offend religious people. What about Nonreligion? I also think that the name of the article Irreligion should be changed to Nonreligion. I would like to know your views. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 13:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:Csa5-3.gif

Another editor reverted your correction of the image. I'm reverting it back to the one you posted from the archive. This way I don't have to delete the whole image from the CSA article as being inaccurate. Red Harvest (talk) 03:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Series Solution to Zenos Paradox

Why do you keep removing the external link to this article. Regardless of what your personal views are on the matter, both Zeno and Aristotle were mathematicians and the mathematical argument is a valid one. The argument presented on Wikipedia involving the use of time is a flaccid and devoid argument for the problem was not proposed in that dimension. It was proposed with infinitely divisible intervals and the only way to represent infinite intervals is with the concept infinity, divided by the subset of each interval. The proof presented is not historically incorrect, it is not semantically incorrect and it is more relevant then the philosophical debates which are linked to regarding this topic. I can only presume that you have no grounding in calculus or have wish to continue the philosophical debate as a matter of course to add some sense of mystique to Zenos ideas.

If you prefer, I can incorporate the proof into the article with a reference to the proof, if this will satisfy your incessant need to undo edits which are relevant to the matter at hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.186.25 (talk) 18:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• I removed it ONCE as part of other vandalism, the second edit removed the word BLOG from the title for the link. BLOGs are NOT reliable sources. Additionally, nobody can disprove "the existence of the Dichotomy Paradox" - as your "My Philosophy" blog states. So, yes it should be removed entirely from the article, and I will do that soon. If you think the content of the blog includes relevant, reliably-sourced material missing from the article, then by all means add it --JimWae (talk) 19:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
• Btw, as the article points out, while being able to derive a mathematical sum is an achievement, it is not at all clear that doing so nullifies Zeno's argument. If it were that simple, then saying "Nevertheless, Achilles DOES catch the tortoise" would nullify his argument with much less need of math. That is why we call them paradoxes of motion and not disproofs of motion. Btw, I have taught calculus. --JimWae (talk) 19:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Why are there other blogs included in there with philosophical discussions of Zenos paradox if they are not reliable sources. You are showing your own bias as your previous reverts on other peoples edits have shown. Why are you not picking up on things like the fact that electrons don't jump quanta, they are located in a probability cloud, therefore not discreet. I have a mind to flag this article as bias based on the fact that the mathematical solution that has been shown is in fact two centuries old. Even in quantum mechanics the subatomic particles are in motion. They are not static. Motion is inherent in these particles so the the argument that we cannot predict motion at the quantum level because of the uncertainty principle does not lend any credibility to the fact that Zeno's conjecture is that we cannot move in the first place.

To settle the argument, I will reproduce the series proof with a link to the original and then it can be left up to philosophical debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shamoz Shah (talk • contribs) 20:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• See WP:SPS, stop making this a personal, emotional issue (I did not even delete the link last time) - and consider creating an account and please sign your comments with 4 of these tildas ~ --JimWae (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
• and again: we call them paradoxes of motion and not disproofs of motion.--JimWae (talk) 20:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
• You are attributing bias to me and you do not even have your facts straight about the editing history of this article --JimWae (talk) 20:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
• Mathematical solutions were devised about 2000 years ago, not 200 - please read the paradox article --JimWae (talk) 20:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
• a proposed solution using mathematical series notation is already contained in the article. do you find anthing missing fom it? --JimWae (talk) 20:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Alright, let's start again.
  • WP:SPS applies to materials which are sourced. The particular method I am proposing has been published by others. I am merely reproducing it as I have not seen it done anywhere else.
  • I may have my facts wrong, but we both have bias along opposite ends of the spectrum here. You're approaching from a purely philosophical standpoint and I'm approaching from a purely mathematical one. The reality is somewhere in the middle.
  • This particular solution is calculus based which originated in the 1900s.
  • The proposed solution is inaccurate because of the factors involved. Firstly it adds time to the paradox where time was not originally a factor. Secondly, it says that infinite divisions of a distance can be summed in infinite time, yet we do not know if the universe is an open or closed interval. The method that I have used to sum the series works for both open and closed intervals leaving the semantic problem of whether such an interval can be summed. Shamoz Shah (talk) 20:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• • I have reworded the solution to make clear my meaning behind it. Check to see if it agrees with you. I think we are roughly on the same page.Shamoz Shah (talk) 21:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Chronology of Jesus

If you want to add tags that say "see talk page", you need to open a topic on the talk page, explaining in detail the concern you think should be discussed. Will you do that? Tb (talk) 20:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Common Era again

JimWae, Christian Religious Ideology does not constitute a Neutral point of view! You have been reported to the Administrator Edison. I will continue to revert your edits where you are using Christian Ideology in replace of historical fact. If you want B.C to mean before Christ and A.D. to mean after death, than I suggest you add these comments to the Christianity page and leave them there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lanitrix (talk • contribs) 02:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi JimWae,
You modified the BCE-CE article with edit comment "chronologically equivalent - if they were "equivalent" there's be no difference at all". I'm afraid you do not grasp the meaning of 'equivalent'. It is not a synonym for 'identical' or 'equal', but it means literally 'of equal value', which implies there must be a difference. Your rephrasing as "alternative names for" is not WP:NPOV because it rather suggests that BCE-CE are alternatives for what then must be the real thing, BC-AD. You had also re-introduced the year zero of ISO 8601. That would require a very good source. To which year would that correspond? As far as I know, that iso standard does not set some new calendar, but only defines date formatting, mainly to overcome the 06/02/2007 problem for Americans being June and for Europeans Februari, and making it easier to sort dates by consequently going from longest period on the left to shortest period on the right. There may be a notation as 0000-00-00 for an unknown or unspecified year-month-date, but no time in history was iso's year 0. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 05:27 (UTC)

• I am & was aware that equivalent has a technical meaning in mathematics, though I had temporarily not considered it. I am not convinced that the technical mathematical meaning is the one true English meaning that all must or will recognize. It is not enough to say without qualification that they are equivalent. Further, saying "the sets of abbreviations are equivalent" appears to be jargonese. I cannot immediately think of any other abbreviations within the same language that would be candidates for equivalency - though perhaps you have one in mind. Abbreviations are not mathematical expressions and I think these are not equivalent abbreviations anyway, as they evaluate to different words entirely. (Btw, Saying "Kid is an alternative term for child" does not imply either is more real.) I have, however, not reverted to my edit, but instead (several hours before your note above?) revised to use the term "correspond" for the abbreviations - which I think can apply both to mathematical expressions & linguistic ones - since it is a term applied to sets in general. Cheers --JimWae 05:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• Equivalent sets have the same number of elements - I am not sure that is what needs to be said in this article --JimWae 06:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• As for ISO & year zero, I once took your position. While the standard never stipulates a year zero, following research I was convinced (by others, despite my reluctance) that it is implied. Year 3 BCE becomes year -2, implying that 1 BCE was year -0 --JimWae 06:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• see page 27 of http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/4021199/ISO_8601_2004_E.zip?func=doc.Fetch&nodeid=4021199 ISO 8601:2004(E) from ISO (zip-pdf, 228KB) --JimWae 06:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• The equivalent sets have nothing to do with mathematics (rather the use of these terms in mathematics follows more or less the normal usage in English). I'm sure you can recognize "equivalent" to contain the same token as "equal", "equilibrium", etc. I think it's from the Latin for even/equal. And "valent" is like "value", "valence" etc. The compound term never means two things being identical, but two different things having a same worth, or can be used for the same purpose. In normal usage, it does not necessarily imply having a same number of elements (at least not in case counting or distributing are not an issue). Any other usage of the term in English is just as wrong as it is in any other language (many have a corresponding term that looks quite like it).
  The use of "set" is the normal English usage of consisting of things that go with each other, should not be mixed with the items from another set. That is what the article had not clearly enough mentioned in the lead section earlier: if one uses CE, one must also use BCE if such early date occurs; if one uses AD, the early date must have BC. One should never mix e.g. BCE and AD in a same text. But I must ask you never to use double quotes if you rephrase something, and most certainly not if you criticize the quote. I never put "the sets of abbreviations are equivalent" in the article. It stated: "The set of abbreviations CE and BCE, are taken as an equivalent to the set formed by AD, anno Domini (or Anno Domini), and BC, Before Christ, respectively."
• You again modified the article, this time with edit comment "set of abbreviations are equivalent" is jargonese - starts to make article appear to be about the abbreviations". Starts? What do you think came first? Why do you think there are three versions of what CE-BCE would stand for? The idea had simply been to replace BC and AD that too clearly referred to a Christian Lord. Because AD is not normally used, we assume a year to be AD if no abbreviation or 'in the year of the Lord' is present, the practical change would simply be adding an "E" from Era (obvious, isn't it) to the "BC" and then one had to come up with something that would no longer say 'Christ' but of course by holding on to the preexisting BC the interpretation as Before Christ was easy. As "B" stood for 'before', and '"E" for era, consequently one can use the same notation without the "B" to replace an "AD" notation, but one counted on that not being necessary very often. In fact, for 'normal' years expressed with the "AD" properly in front of the year (following the Latin e.g. 'anno Domini MLXVI' for the Battle of Hastings), one has to move the abbreviation to the end, as one cannot rightly say 'in the year of the Common Era 1066' but must say 'in the year 1066 of the Common Era', hence in short 1066 CE. Thus in practice, you will find only very few occurrences of the CE. I even assume that most introductions of AD were done more to deliberately and devotely refer to the Lord, rather than to disambiguate between years more than a thousand years apart when "AD" became first introduced. And apart from texts about the date notation, so far I did not yet read a text with a year number and fully written-out name like Common Era. But obviously, as 'Common Era' is the common part of CE and BCE, that had to be the name of the 'new' notation system. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 06:57 (UTC)

This next paragraph with my initial line of thought on iso-8601 is incorrect. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 21:44 (UTC)

• You misinterpret the iso (it might have been clearer in that table though):
  

−00020412

−0002-04-12

Expanded; four digits to represent the year. The twelfth of April in the second year before the year [0000]

The table shows negative dates (iso does not use BC[E]), thus allowing calculations for which one has to count from 0 for -0002 to correspond to 2 BC[E]. Or from 0 for [+]0002 to correspond to AD 2 CE. -0001 is 1 BC[E], +0001 is AD 1 CE. Hence, it does not mean there actually was a year 0, when would that have been? You should rather interpret is as the infinitely small moment 0.

• — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 06:57 (UTC)

I do not think we can assume any year, not even year 0, is but a moment. Look here too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:ISO_8601#Before_0001 --JimWae 07:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Your phrase '(Btw, Saying "Kid is an alternative term for child" does not imply either is more real.)' inserted at 06:26 in the section with time stamp 05:59, is pure demagogy: the person we call a kid is as real as the (possibly identical person) we call a child; the year we call 1066 CE is as real as the (certainly identical) year we call AD 1066. But the term "kid" is not the real, the equally proper and generally applicable term for a young person, as the term "child" is. Thus stating that 'BCE-BC are alternative terms for BC-AD' does indeed suggest the latter to be the proper terms and the first something that should only be used under certain circumstances. The term kid is definitely not equivalent to to term child. The set of terms BCE-CE are equivalent to the set of terms terms BC-AD.

Hereunder my initial line of thought on iso-8601; but see also underneath this greyed-out text. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 17:27 (UTC)

The Wikipedia chatbox section of the talk page your latest comment goes to, comes to a hoax conclusion by picking and citing quotes out of context and personally building on such. E.g. I quote Joe Kreiss who finally quotes, '"Consecutive calendar years are identified by sequentially assigned year numbers." (3.2.1) This means the years before [0001] must be sequential, specifically [-0001], [0000], [0001]. A jump from [-0001] to [0001] is not permitted.' In fact, the full quote from the iso specification is this:

3.2.1 The Gregorian calendar

This International Standard uses the Gregorian calendar for the identification of calendar days. This calendar provides a time scale consisting of a, potentially infinite, series of contiguous calendar years. Consecutive calendar years are identified by sequentially assigned year numbers.

That says "This International Standard uses the Gregorian calendar (...). This calendar provides a time scale consisting of (...) contiguous calendar years." Notice that it never calls the iso standard 'a calendar', thus "This calendar" can only refer to "the Gregorian calendar" that preceeds it in the sentence and that is the title of the section starting with that sentence. And of only that Gregorian calendar is said that its years are identified by sequentially assigned year numbers. Unless you can find a decent source that gives the Gregorian calendar a year 0 that lasted for twelve months, there is not going to be one in the iso standard either.

The hoax is only further fed by starting to talk of "a year 0" as you do in denying that "any year, not even year 0, is but a moment", as if there would really be "a year 0".
The iso never talks about "a year 0" but tries to mention in the little space available in the in my earlier comment cited table, that one should work from year [0000]. It does not explicitly say that such is a fictional 'year', in fact a mere representation to arrive at the iso standard representation of years, because it must have appeared all too obvious for people clearly setting a standard to represent dates and times, who were never trying to create a new calendar and did not foresee the wild assumptions on a WP talk page; the iso drafters are used to set out dry rules for people without a galloping fantasy. It just means, when we represent years, we do so by adding the number of the year at hand to the year representation '0000', and signing the representation according to the year at hand being one before the start moment of the Gregorian calendar or one after that moment, thus '0000' + 376 gives the required 4-digit absolute value '0376' which becomes '-0376' for a year BC[E] or '[+]0376' for one AD/CE.

— SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 13:20–13:50 (UTC)

(Temporary note: will follow up in a moment, food's on the table) — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 17:27 (UTC)

• The iso gives no specific guidelines on how to deal with years before [0001] - but makes a multitude of references to the year [0000]. Nowhere does it say the year [0000] is a momentary fiction. Please reconsider your statment that I am denying a statement I neither made nor discussed in that logical form. You will need more support before you can so assuredly call this a hoax
• Article content should be discussed on article talk pages - not on a user talk page --JimWae 17:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Final note: As this user suddenly could not wait a few minutes after my I having shown a very clear intention to clarify a few things, and now goes on at the above tone and is not interested in a further discussion here, there is no point in my spending more time at this. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 17:45 (UTC)

• I was preparing the above AS you made your entry. Article content discussions are not very productive as 2-person messages, and I wanted to encourage you to continue to talk in the article talk pages - unless of course you are prepared to abandon your position. Strangely, I detect far more "tone" coming from your end. Your demagoguery attribution to me (on a user talk page, no less) is indicative of something more than concern with content, no?--JimWae 17:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• This is all rather sad that we are fighting already - and I had made a special effort early on to not be overly-critical. Ironically, I think we are both supporters of usage of CE, no? Was it my reciprocated use of "should"?--JimWae 18:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Upon saving after a new entry had been saved, you might have read that entry before saving across the edit conflict you should then have noticed. I had just wanted to replace the word "clarify" in my 'final note' into "thoroughly reconsider" (as you will have guessed by my retracting the entire long paragraph on the iso 8601 year standard). Your tone after this and my introduction of the 'temporary note', was then pedantic and your sending me towards the public talk page as soon as you see you're going to be victorious, while you start your talk page with "If you post a message on this page, I'll reply on this page to avoid fragmenting the discussion. (...) If appropriate, I will move talk from here to relevant article talk page, so that everyone can share in the discussion." makes your 17:31 remark most uncivil. Hence my tone. After two edit conflicts, I'm now once again trying to save this reply. No hard feelings, I assume the edit conflict you had encountered may not have made very clear what I had done, but it had definitely not appeared that way when I was cutting this off by my the 'final note'. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 18:11 (UTC)

• To make a long discussion short, 1 BCE is indeed a full year 0000 in the iso 8601 standard. This is shown clearly in e.g.
  [7] (in German),
  [8].
  Hence I was preparing the links etc when food appeared on the table... You're right about there being a real year 0000. Also by your assumption of my preference for BCE-CE as I do not see the point of coercing a Christian emphasis by terminology onto the entire world, devoted Christians should be happy enough with their belief's basis becoming the 0-point of a worldwide calendar, and by not having to adopt another calendar themselves. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 18:23 (UTC)

• In the Common Era article, the part introduced by "thus" in the (2nd?) paragraph does not follow from the preceding. Also the part about year zero seems to be becoming the main topic of a sentence, increasing the chance of confusion there. I am going to make some changes. --JimWae 18:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• 1. The anno Domini is also an unclear terminology: Thai people write in English text about the Lord Buddha. Their date system has at present the year 2550 (though their current New year is on (also) our January 1 while it had been on April 13 a few generations ago). That is the 2550th year after the Enlightenment of the Buddha (allowing the end of the cumbersome series of consecutive lives, the final stage, or his death if you prefer). Thus to Thai people, the year of the Lord would appear to be their traditional year, currently 2550, and not currently 2007 of the Lord Christ. Since at least a decade, both year notations occur simultaneously, for instance some banks' excerpts are in traditional years, other banks print transactions in CE years.
• 2. About your last remark, I'll have a look. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 18:37 (UTC)

I see you've reverted me & returned to "equivalent". "Corresponds to" is much clearer. Do we have to debate that all over again? --JimWae 19:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently. 'Equivalent' is the most appropriate term, 'corresponds to' is reasonably close. But a lead is not supposed to be a series of paragraphs of one or two short sentences. It is supposed to have two to four paragraphs of some length, with related topics brought together. That made me not revert you but undo the splitting of the paragraph by which you had reverted me. Both our contributions were edits, not reverts. I had indeed maintained your proper reintroduction of iso 8601 and as that prescribes a year format of 4 digits, shown that as well. And I made clear that your earlier statement of "thus" not being proper, and which you had lifted out of the article, had been mistaken. I did so by rephrasing the sentence in a shorter and more readable way that clearly makes the second part of a sentence a consequence of the first part, hence with "thus". And it had required to use the term "correspond" because here it much more explicitly has to mean that BCE corresponds to BC and CE corresponds to AD. Here "equivalent" would be misplaced. I hope you notice the difference. Even for style reasons alone (repetition of 'correspond'), that required to reintroduce "equivalent" where that is the proper term (BCE-CE is equivalent, of a same worth for a same purpose, for BC-AD, where it does not as much needs to explain which term on the left corrsponds to which term on the right, as that is done by the final word, "respectively"). Hence my edit. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 21:12 (UTC)

What does it mean to say that 2 sets are equivalent?

• In set language, it means they have the same # of elements - this adds nothing to the article
• if you mean, as you seem to suggest here in talk (but give no hint in article text) they have some kind of equal value (social? moral?), then that is a POV statement. CE advocates would say it has more value, CE detractors would say less. Please consider my recent edit as a proposed way to avoid all the issues you have raised above--JimWae 03:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
• The only thing the lede needs to say about year 0 is that it is not used (in either system) - anything further belongs in main body or in separate article--JimWae 03:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not commenting here, it went on at the article's talk page. I just saw that an earlier most unfortunate copy/paste-or-so mistake had created a ridiculous and misleading statement, I just inserted "allowing" in my comment mentioning the Enlightenment of the Lord Buddha: the reaching of the highest stage of awareness allowed him (years later in that same life) to reach the end the long series of consecutive lifes that according to his teaching are considered full of unhappiness, suffering. — SomeHuman 14 Sep2007 00:55 (UTC)

Bethpage Purchase

I've been travelling and just had a chance to check out the Bethpage Purchase page. I think it's terrific. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.I had been thinking for a while that it needed it's own page, you beat me to it though. I'll take a closer look at it in the next few days. ButtonwoodTree (talk) 19:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK: Bethpage Purchase

On 18 April, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bethpage Purchase, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--PFHLai (talk) 02:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Space

With all due respect. This isn't a 'can considered to be' this is an 'is'. The shape of space depends on the local gravity field. There's no fabric (so far as anyone knows anyway), but the shape is curved, and this isn't a matter of 'consideration', GR has very good experimental support, and that's what it predicts. GR is part of the standard model of physics.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Agnosticism

Hello JimWae. How are you? Some people are including the views of Joseph Ratzinger in the article agnosticism. I strongly oppose that. Please help me. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• The agnosticism article needs to deal with points raised against agnosticism. Wiki guidelines state this ought to be done throughout the article, rather than all in one section (in this case, a section named Ratzinger). See the atheism article for an example of how to deal with criticisms throughout. Some of the criticisms are the same for both. The agnosticism article also needs more historical origins context, especially needing to deal with Kant & how Kant changed how people understood any claim to know anything metaphysical - including any deities. None of Ratzinger's criticisms are original with him, and attributing them to him is both an appeal to authority and grandstanding. Much of what is in the Ratzinger stuff is unsourced synthesis that is published only on blog-sites. I suspect much of it is a misinterpretation of Ratzinger. Ratzinger's essays are about relativism - which he attributes to certain people influenced by Kant. While R is aware of the importance of Kant, and while he attacks Kant's conclusions (without attacking his arguments), it appears R does not realize just how much he himself agrees with Kant. R does not understand the difference between philosophy & science, he misrepresents Kant and agnosticism, then the blog sites misrepresent R (see http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.2/ratzinger.htm for a non-blog source), then the blog content gets copied to wikipedia --JimWae (talk) 05:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Jim, noting this and your contributions to Christianity, among others, I wonder if you could have a look at Cafeteria Christianity. It looks to me like a bit of a POV mess, and yet I can't quite put a finger on what's wrong with it - I have flagged the Papal quotes as original research (since they do not refer to the phrase, but may be said to refer to the concept). It would be useful to have another perspective on this. Any thoughts? --Rbreen (talk) 12:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Space

Hi Jim,

When you get a moment it would be great to have your response to my comments here. Thanks Andeggs (talk) 08:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

How can the zip code "not" signify that Forest Park is part of Woodhaven, Queens. Isn't that the purpose of zip codes? Thanks for all your input in this article. Its looking better than ever. Since I have included all of the bus routes, is it possible if you can add hyperlinks to them? I wanted to just tell you that I need to be aware of small typos. I can't seem to clearly see what I am typing because of the small size of the font.

• Let's do any furthEr discussion at Talk:Woodhaven, Queens--JimWae (talk) 15:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

More fun on dominion page

I took up your point on pre-1907 usage with an etymology section and altering the lead to reflect this usage. Please comment, if you have time. --soulscanner (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Joseph Ratzinger at Truth

Thanks Jim for asking for the quotes. I have placed them at the talk page for you. Marax (talk) 10:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln

So why do you doubt Lincoln said that? TheBlazikenMaster (talk) 08:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

- because 1> there is no source that says he said it & 2> he was not a member of Congress that year--JimWae (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union

Hello JimWae, thanks for making several clarifying changes to this article.Odin 85th gen (talk) 20:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like there will need to be even more talk on the article talk page --JimWae (talk) 22:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the section Historical importance should be dropped, lest it become a battle ground about the legitimacy of a federal government! It was intended as a compromise, but is now repeatedly being subject to wholesale rewrites with POV and OR. This Article is not the right place to focus very heavily on the secession debate or the civil war. I simply referred to Lincoln's interpretation to draw out the historical relevance of the Articles concerning the evolution of the Union. PhilLiberty has since gone all out to prove how one-sided and wrong the argument is and in his enthusiasm he has taken the issue way beyond the scope of the article. In any event, you are doubtless right that using the talk page to remind of basic WP criteria and focus may help. Odin 85th gen (talk) 23:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Religion in the United States

Hi JimWae! Thanks for your contribution, have you added this article to your watchlist yet?

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 03:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection and block user

• I think you should asked admin to block this article in 2 weeks. Avoid hidden IP address and new cock puppetry accounts (Cassandraduress and WesKagle) of IbrahimMC. I've reported this user's violations in 3RR. Now, I think you must called admin to block this user forver at WP:SSP because I don't know how to do it. Thank you!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 01:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

John Adams

Jim, Please see Independence Day talk page. Thanks Lperez2029 (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

DOI

Your summary here is odd - the disputed text does not appear in the given source. That's why I deleted the entire paragraph rather than toning down the POV Tedickey (talk) 18:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• The link the other guy gave is to a page with a link to where the AoC text is. I deleted the entire paragraph because it is not clear that the reference is to DoI rather than other events of that year. At first, DoI was not particularly noted. The 1777 AoC at http://uscode.house.gov/pdf/Organic%20Laws/artconf.pdf does refer to "the second year of independence ..." AND yes, I now see the other text he put in is not there either--JimWae (talk) 19:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

right - I added a note on ANI - don't really want to argue with someone who's making up his own facts. Tedickey (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Well, the quote he has is just missing an ellipsis - but there is no reason to include the last part anyway. My objection is that it supports a year - but is only suggestive of a date within that year - and the suggestion is not strong enough to be included the way it is (& previously was: "A clear indication that the date of the inception of the United States was upon the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.") Without that overblown assertion, the relevance for inclusion is weak. The paragraph also begins with a nonsequential & disjointed "In addition..." --JimWae (talk) 20:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The part of the quote " and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." isn't in the introduction and rationale, but comes from Article II. I believe it takes more than an ellipsis to splice together two separate parts of the document as though they were one statement. Tedickey (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• agreed - However, I could be wrong, but I do not think he is even aware that part is there. I think there'd be a dispute even if that part were omitted --JimWae (talk) 20:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There probably would be a dispute, since the non-quote portion is expressing a POV. But without a reliable (and pertinent) source, there's nothing in the paragraph which belongs in the topic. Tedickey (talk) 21:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Minus zero

Just for info, the term "-0" is unique to computing. Some operating systems don't have a sign bit so theoretically they can't hold negative numbers. They solve this by using twos complement notation, where '111111111111111111111111111111111' has the same meaning as 0, except that it is "minus zero"! --Red King (talk) 19:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for helping me with the Zeno article. I'm more enthusiastic then skilled, and I'm grateful that someone else seems to care. Le Blue Dude (talk) 20:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Yeh, the article needed a drastic cut - have to be cautious about re-adding things. --JimWae (talk) 01:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Jim Wae,

Thanks for the link re: blogs as sources for wikipedia (on the BCE page). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.163.90.5 (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

edit war

Does he ever violate 3RR? This is the safest and surest mechanism. I have encountered the type you describe, it borders on trolling but most admins would not say htis justifies a block. You could flag this at the Admin's noticeboard ... I am not absolutely sure but I believe there is a category for people who make disruptive edits, or who are non-collaborative. You may also be able to do an RfC. The point is, what you need at this stage is to get the attention of many other people, and many admins. I am going off-line soon but will look at what is going on there myself, later. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If he makes one edit a day, the easiest method is this: just revert him once a day ... or even once a week. You have been here forever and will be here a long time; you will likely win any waiting game. If you can put up with one revert a day I bet within a month he goes away - or seriously escalates to a point where you can call for an RfC or post something to AN. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks

I merged your comment there into another section where we have been discussing the opening sentence of the article. I'd prefer not to have the same discussion in two places. I hope that's ok with you. Cheers! Ice Cold Beer (talk) 06:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Fine. I was addressing one specific, lame proposed change & the previous title "tv-episode" did not seem like the right place. There's more than "renaming" the article afoot --JimWae (talk) 07:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles of Confederation

I have worked on a referral to the Administrators under the guidelines of Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. I will pull the trigger on that if Phil continues his edit warring. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

FYI I just made my second referral on 3R at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. The first one got lost in the shuffle. The recent referral is on United States Declaration of Independence. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 01:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

NowCommons: Image:BenjaminFranklinGrave.2005.JPG

Image:BenjaminFranklinGrave.2005.JPG is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:Image:BenjaminFranklinGrave.2005.jpg. Commons is a repository of free media that can be used on all MediaWiki wiki's. The image(s) will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case: [[Image:BenjaminFranklinGrave.2005.jpg]]. Note that this is an automated message. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 15:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Confederate States of America

I saw that you put an Undue Weight claim on the article in the Religion, Slavery, and Secession. Hence, as I mentioned on the the discussion page, I will not remove my NPOV tag until the Undue Weight (which also falls under NPOV) is settled. Are you raising an objection to my future removal of the NPOV tag? If so, I will postpone removing it. The removal of it falls under MY responsibilty as I volunteered to remove it when all NPOV issues (including your Undue Weight claim) is resolved. --Coviepresb1647 (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The discussion about your claim of generality and undue weight is taking place.--Coviepresb1647 (talk) 00:43, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV Problems

I think you have a history of problems with NPOV. Let's leave the Confederate States of America page alone. If you feel compelled to revise history, write a book.Grayghost01 (talk) 20:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is a co-operative project. Telling people to "go away" is no solution. The problem in this case is your wanting to present Confederate POV as fact --JimWae (talk) 21:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Central Railroad of Long Island

Are you working on an article for the Central Railroad of Long Island by any chance? If so, my list of stations is always available for the taking. ----DanTD (talk) 02:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Just an FYI

Although the charges are baseless, you were reported on Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#COI on sensitive issues and articles for the American Civil War by User:Grayghost01, in case you are interested in responding there. older ≠ wiser 10:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the "final trigger" thing

I was trying to fix other things in the same section.Jimmuldrow (talk) 20:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Lincoln

I looked-up that you've made the most edits to the Abraham Lincoln article. I've made a few changes, mainly prettifying. The main obstacle to GA is the usual laborious task of adding inlines. Anyway thought i would let you know, kind regards Tom (talk) 22:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Read the dictionary, read the acts of congress

at [www.dictionary.com]:

readmit - To admit again; to give entrance or access to again. rejoin - to join together again; reunite.

admit defined as "entry", so readmit is synonymous with "reentry".

join is "bind", so rejoin is synonymous with "rebind".

Thus, I basically said Virginia "rejoined" or "rebinded". You say that is not NPOV, and your "readmit" or "reentry" is, because it supposedly doesn't imply that Virginia left. However, Virginia MUST have left if they need to be admitted again, or enter again. Whereas I used rejoined to infer the more sublety of binding again, that is to rebind. Thus the word I used means what you say you want it to mean, but you changed it to a word that you accused me of meaning.

Given the lack of fluency demonstrated, here, in the English language ... please consult some dictionaries before you embark upon future harrassment and provoking edits. And if you want the sentence to mean rebind vice reenter, you'll need to go undo your own goofy edit.

Finally, you might want to check the U.S. Congressional language. You seem to be unaware that acts of Congress were involved approving a NEW constitution for Virginia, as well as other things, so your goofy edit that congressmen were merely readmitted to the Congress is completely out-to-lunch compared to what actually happened historically. This historical fact is required learning for school kids in Virginia's Standards of Learning. It helps to have grown up here, because the locales know the history a little better than those from New York.

Please quit editing in your self-made Pseudo-History into the wiki articles, and go do some research first.

Thank you. Grayghost01 (talk) 02:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

1st Vandalism Warning

Please stop your disruptive editing. If your vandalism continues, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. .

If you care to discuss items on the talk page, that's fine. Meanwhile this is your first official warning. The Great Train Raid article is about that topic. Quit inserting your POV about Lincoln and Fort Sumter into that page. Go edit the Lincoln and Fort Sumter pages. That said, if all remains unvandalized, we can move some front end material into the Virginia page, however, your vandalism is occuring there too at the present moment. Thank you. Grayghost01 (talk) 01:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

2nd Vandalism Warning

Please stop your disruptive editing, such as the edit you made to Virginia in the American Civil War. If your vandalism continues, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.

Strike 2. Grayghost01 (talk) 01:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply

• Go take a long walk. My edits are not vandalism --- AND I did not even edit any articles between your 2 warnings. You are abusing the process & it is you who is being disruptive to wikipedia --JimWae (talk) 02:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• Here are my recent edits to that article. Nobody in their right mind would consider any of that vandalism. Accusing me of vandalism for such edits amounts to a personal attack --JimWae (talk) 02:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI

I have filed a request at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding User:Grayghost01. I mentioned your name and provided diffs relating to his response to you in the request. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Date formats after autoformatting

With the recent deprecation of date autoformatting, "raw" dates are becoming increasingly visible on Wikipedia. Strong views are being expressed, and even some edit-warring here and there. A poll has been initiated to gauge community support to help us develop wording in the Manual of Style that reflects a workable consensus. As you have recently commented on date formats, your input would be helpful in getting this right. Four options have been put forward, summarised as:

1. Use whatever format matches the variety of English used in the article
2. For English-speaking countries, use the format used in the country, for non-English-speaking countries, use the format chosen by the first editor that added a date to the article
3. Use International format, except for U.S.-related articles
4. Use the format used in the country

The poll may be found here, as a table where you may indicate your level of support for each option above. --Pete (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Marion

This (not very long) article is currently undergoing a Military history A-class review. Would you have time to give a quick read through and see what could be improved as the main editor wishes to take it to featured article next? The prose could do with a massage too, especially the intro. Sorry to contact you out of the blue like this but I remembered your good work on the American Civil War article, which I have also edited. All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your comments. Much appreciated, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ontology

My reply:

• Sorry, you feel that way. Yes, the article is a mess - but so is much of the literature on ontology. You will see that very few article on wikipedia quote specific dictionary definitions - and those that do, ought not to. The entry just repeated what came before, but in fewer (and less explanatory) words - though I doubt, given the history of ontology, the article will ever clearly explain what ontology is --JimWae (talk) 02:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
• Do you really want to invest much of yourself in something taken from a dictionary? --JimWae (talk) 06:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

3RR warrning for Atheism

Just a friendly reminder since you approach the limit

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. -- man with one red shoe (talk) 01:52, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

• Just how many days do you think 24 hours is? I HAVE used the talk page, YOU have not --JimWae (talk) 01:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Runteldat sockpuppetry

There's a question about your edits to User:Runteldat at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Confusing_series_of_edits. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi

I can see that it was a misquote on the agnostic term and I changed it. I am however of the oppinion, that we cannot exclude from agnosticism the fact that some agnostics believe that it is different from theism - atheism. (Jazzdrummers (talk) 09:52, 14 November 2008 (UTC))

A thought

As someone who has considerably more experience than I on Wikipedia, I do not need to tell you that there are hypersensatives out there. Phrases like, "Anyone with a modicum of sense should . . . " may be satisfying (and even accurate), but they probably do little to move discussion forward. I've had some pinheads seriously accuse me of violating WP:ATTACK for less. It's just a thought.

Now as to the matter at hand, Continental United States: I've left some comments over at the talk page. Catch you later. Unschool (talk) 05:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think that there is any evidence that anyone took offense. I was just speaking from past experience. I used the exact same defense that you just employed, saying that I not only meant to offense toward anyone, but that I had not even checked the edit history to know who had written what. But it didn't matter, I was accused of violating WP:ATTACK because I was talking about people, not articles. Bunch of crap, I'm sure you'd agree. Unschool (talk) 06:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Atheism

I'm not sure what the matter is with the source I used in the section on Positive Atheism. The source states: "positive atheism has since been redefined to exclude Gora's secular aspect, becoming a form of atheism that encourages peaceful cohabitation with religious individuals." Anyway, I have edited the article to now read "The term no longer includes Gora's secular aspect and is now used to describe a positive philosophy alone."

Please review and consider removal of the dubious tag.

Please use the Talkback tag to notify me of your response here. Dorkins (talk) 01:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see you've decided that the source I used is a wiki. It's not - rather, it is a site anyone can write a 'Guide Entry' for. I'll wait until there's an 'Edited Guide Entry' and then reference that instead. Dorkins (talk) 16:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• The meaning of "secular aspect" is completely unclear. From my quick read of the wiki, what the author means (& says, later in the article) is that militancy is no longer part of it. However, the author gives no source & his own credentials as an authority on Gora (or anything at all) are not established - this is a concern with all wikis - edited or not. Furthermore, the atheism article is not the place to go into detail on somebody else's (unsourced) changes to Gora's system. If you can find a reliable source saying something meaningful about militancy being dropped by his chief followers, you would have a better case. --JimWae (talk) 17:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Further: According to the Atheist Center website: Atheist Centre is also actively engaged in Secular Social Work activities for comprehensive rural development and rendering assistance to the people to develop an alternate way of life on secular and humanist lines. --JimWae (talk) 18:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

THANKS (Counties table in Arizona page)

Thanks for improving that table. I am still trying to learn how to manipulate that template, and your assistance was a good help.Raymondwinn (talk) 23:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Suffolk County

Jim i try to add some color to the wiki sight but It seem my creative input is pushed around a bit ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Praiseandworship (talk • contribs) 05:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Photos (ESPECIALLY, but not only, those that early in the article) should advance the readers' exposure to the article topic. I like photos of the sea - but they are mostly artistic & do not distinguish locations well. Please sign your comments (helps avoid edit conflicts with bots) --JimWae (talk) 05:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You see I have a lot of experience with all the outdoors of Brooklyn Nassau Suffolk Ive lived in each place We would travel as Kids by the dozens to city concerts Parks Etc Major town outings with the likes of lindenhurst Massapequa Babylon Bensenhurst Sheepshead bay Graves end Coram patchogue Lots of great times with long Island Bands Fire Island water skiing Calming Fishing surfing Ive swam in all points of the Island I Love NY —Preceding unsigned comment added by Praiseandworship (talk • contribs) 05:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Islip

Hello. Re your edits to New York: Technically you're correct that Islip is not a "city" but there are no major cities on Long Island, just huge townships. But the others listed are not "airports". There is no "New York Airport". Were the temps collected at LaGuadia or JFK, or more likely at Central Park in the city, not the airport? I doubt all the others are airport names too and in any case there's no citable evidence the temps were taken at airports and not "cities" as the source claims. As you know, the criterion for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. I see where you're coming from, but I think the change to link Islip to MacArthur Airport is good enough. Another option would be to take out the Islip line altogether (although I don't see a real benefit to that), or maybe footnote it to mention it's not technically a city. Let me know what you think. Station1 (talk) 07:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

We are not obliged to repeat the errors of our sources, when there are alternatives - which I why I changed cities to localities. As far as Islip is concerned, the only weather station is at the airport. I would not have noticed any of this except that somebody had substituted the LI city of Long Beach in -- an unlikely location for a weather station given that JFK is moments away --JimWae (talk) 07:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

"Locations" is OK. I didn't see that, only noticed your edit summary. I saw you changed Long Beach - good catch. Station1 (talk) 07:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Seattle edits

Sorry about the various reverts, but it looks like we both were misreading the sentence in question. The second sentence in the lead is about the Seattle Metropolitan Area, which covers pretty much all of King County, Snohomish County, and Pierce County. In the case of comparing metropolitan areas, Seattle is about 1.5 million larger than the Vancouver metropolitan areas.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:40, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Image source problem with Image:Stuart.Hodgson.jpg

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Image tagging for File:Stuart.Hodgson.jpg

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Jefferson and religion

I'm getting ready to have a go at Thomas Jefferson and religion. please see comments in Talk:Religious_affiliations_of_United_States_Presidents#Thomas_Jefferson. Mangoe (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been working on a separate article myself. I put a start at Thomas Jefferson and religion. I took a thematic approach rather than a strictly chronological one, though themes are organized by their earliest appearance--JimWae (talk) 07:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll start looking at your sub article today. Mangoe (talk) 13:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)