Treehappy

Hello, Treehappy! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! PeaceNT 04:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial • The five pillars of Wikipedia How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Fair use • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Community Portal • Adopt-a-user program Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • Resolving disputes Build consensus • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Pages needing attention • Peer review Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

external links and conflict of interest

Hey tree, thanks for your question at the help desk. Please take a moment to read through Wikipedia:Conflict of interest before continuing to add your links. If you still believe them to be appropriate according to the community guidelines on external links, please add them to the bottom of the list, rather than the top, out of courtesy to prior editors. Feel free to drop any questions my way! Stick around ;). ∴ here…♠ 04:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Emerald Tablet. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policy for further explanations. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Thank you. ; Also Tree of life (Kabbalah) ∴ here…♠ 04:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

copyrighted material

Hey again tree, thanks for your continued efforts to improve wikipedia. Your recent contributions to Alchemy have been reverted as the material you added was copied directly from [1], which is copyrighted information. Also, you removed a large amount of useful information from the article introduction, without explanation. Please take another look at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest as well as Wikipedia:Copyrights and consider proposing your desired changes on the Alchemy talk page at Talk:Alchemy. Thanks! ∴ here…♠ 02:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Oops!.. I added your introduction modification back in.. looks fine ;). ∴ here…♠ 02:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Point One: copyrighted material. As I am the author of the original articles on www.tree.org, I thought I had the right to offer selected portions for inclusion in Wikipedia. (I am also sole proprietor of The Evanescent Press, holder of record of the copyrights.)

Point Two: a link to an original translation of the Emerald Tablet is inappropriate to an article on Alchemy??

Point Three: the reason I added that line of introduction was to clarify the previous editor's incorrect usage of "spagyric," which does not refer specifically to "plant alchemy" but is a general term referring to alchemy in general. That is why I edited his link to read "spagyric pharmacy" instead of simply "spagyric," which makes no sense in that context.

(Point Four: as I try to understand the discussion, I see that the point about removing "a large amount of useful information from the article introduction" has been deleted. Of course I did not remove anything.)

John Stahl, treehappy, tree@tree.org

Thanks for the response. The changes you made can be seen here: ( 1st edits , 2nd edits ).

• • In the first case, adding multiple external links to your own site is almost never appropriate considering Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. This may be a rare exception, but please propose the links on the talk page and allow someone else to add them to the article.
  • In the second case, the text may be appropriate for the article -- although it seems a bit long for the scope of the article. Perhaps a new article with a more specific title would be appropriate to link from Alchemy? If you do decide to use this material after reviewing Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, please cite the source accurately following the text. Also realize that, by releasing your material for authorized use in this project, the content will be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that other individuals will be legally able to republish the text, and also sell it for profit! ...you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the copies of materials that you place here; these copies will remain under GFDL forever. See Wikipedia:Copyright for more information.

Thanks again for your contributions, stick around and help improve/maintain these articles. Feel free to drop any further questions my way. ∴ here…♠ 06:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional notes:

The Emerald Tablet—my translation was made in 1972, thirty-five years ago, and thousands of copies have been distributed since that time by The Evanescent Press, with early copies produced by letterpress from hand set type, and some later copies on my own hand made paper, also letterpress printed. Later on, a low cost edition was widely distributed. I have studied Latin for four years, and alchemy all my life. Since it is a fairly literal translation, it is not surprising that it is very similar to other translations.

My proposed article on Hermetic Alchemy contained more substantial information, both historically and philosophically, than anything else in your present Alchemy article. I also publish a complete explanation of Hermetic Philosophy and Metaphysics (Patterns of Illusion and Change, www.tree.org/patterns2.htm — quarum modus est hic), but I do not offer this for inclusion in Wikipedia, as I prefer to exercise my claim to copyright on that one, although I would permit a link to my work.

I am sorry that I don’t have a lot of time to devote to this project—I am quite content to walk away from it.

John Stahl

Thank you for your constructive thoughts. I am sure you will return over the years, enjoy. ∴ here…♠ 07:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)