User talk:COGDEN/Archive 4

Becoming an administrator

I am thinking about applying to become an administrator. I spend a fair amount of time reverting vandalism and issuing user warning messages. I believe that being an administrator might make it easier to do this. I have read over the duties of being an administrator and believe I can handle most of those tasks fairly well, and the rest adequately. I would be interested in your opinion as to (1) do you think I am ready to become an administrator? and (2) If so, what steps should I take? Thanks in advance for your time. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 03:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be glad to nominate you, if you are interested. I think your chances are pretty good, because you've been around since 2004, and you have over 4,500 edits, and you've done great work. There is a good miniguide regarding adminship here. A more detailed guide is here. If you are interested in starting the process, I've started a nomination page here. You can accept the nomination, fill it out by answering the questions, and let me know, and I'll add it to the RfA page. You can take however long you want to answer the questions, since the nomination doesn't become effective until a link is added to the WP:RfA page. COGDEN 17:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll let you know when I'm done. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 20:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm still working on the answers, but if you get a chance, could you tell me if I'm going in the right direction? wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 03:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I could probably work on those answers forever, but I think I have enough to give people an idea of what I'm like, etc. If you think I've answered well enough, I will formally accept the nomination and we can begin the process. Thanks again for your help! wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 14:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it looks great. I've added your name to the list. You need to add your acceptance, though. COGDEN 20:54, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

What (if anything) is the advantage of Rollback over revert using popups? Does rollback revert all top changes for a given user, or do you have to do it on a page-by-page basis? I kinda like the revert with popups (partly because I'm used to it, and partly because I don't like the minor edit flag for rollback). wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 02:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Rollback just reverts all the user' top-level edits on a particular page. It's advantages, I think, are that you can do it in one click, and I believe the edits don't show up on "Recent changes". Other than that I don't think there are any other benefits. I think it's great when reverting simple vandalism without comment, but anything more complicated I use other methods. COGDEN 22:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not ask people to comment on an RfA

It's viewed very badly. And if you do it too much, people will start opposing the guy you nominated for it, which I assume you don't want. -Amarkov moo! 20:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I dropped a note to a couple of people who have worked with him and who I know would be interested in hearing about it, which I think is appropriate. I'm not doing a "mass mailing" or anything. COGDEN 21:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

If you think it's fine, then go ahead, but I'd still be worried. -Amarkov moo! 21:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Even a narrowly targeted message, if restricted to people who know the guy, could be considered "vote stacking". As of now the damage isn't too bad but be careful. —dgies^t_c 21:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

As for me, thank you. Bill had talked to me earlier and I had referred him to both you and Visorstuff (though I knew he was much less active of late). Thank you for sponsoring his vote; he will be a worthy admin that will do well. It is unfortunate that even simple notices are perceived to be evil when they are done appropriately. It is almost like guilty first and nearly off to the gallows then we will talk; very unfortunate indeed. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 21:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

What's the deal with 'First Vision'?

Yesterday afternoon I took a look at the First Vision page and sort of freaked out, and posted a bit of a rant on the talk page. 'John Foxe' said I should check with you because you were "the most influential contributor to this article". According to the edit history, 'John Foxe' is the most active editor. I see a lot of contributions from you as well, but not so much recently.

I see on your talk page that you are LDS. I am also LDS and I think the article is extremely critical and POV. Although most statements are cited they are organized in such a way as to create a very negative impression. The last section is a good example of this, it uses a quote from President Hinckley to draw the conclusion that the church is false. I want to work on this article, but I need to better understand why it is the way it is before I start. I've read thru the talk page, it seems like 'John Foxe' is trying to keep the article as negative as he can. Any insight you can provide would be appreciated. 74s181 12:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been a while since I have followed that page. I'll take a look. COGDEN 17:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Assistance on 'Bickertonite' Page

There appears to be a consensus on The Church of Jesus Christ - with Headquarters in Monongahela, Pennsylvania for it to be the legal name The Church of Jesus Christ. I know for a fact because of the disambig page right now I cannot make that change. I am not sure how to keep the disambig page and have The Church of Jesus Christ as the official name. Maybe you have more experience as an editor and could make such a proper change occur? Thank you for your assistance.Jcg5029 03:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I can do that. COGDEN 17:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I just want to personally thank you for your help on The Church of Jesus Christ. It was much appreciated JRN 17:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Glad to help. COGDEN 18:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What?!? consensus was not reached on the move?!?! This action needs to be undone. See the talk page. McKay 18:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it is that the members of said church are now in a group fighting against wikipedia policy. If you think I'm mistaken in my understanding of policy, then I think that we can discuss it, but I think the policy is pretty clear. McKay 18:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you tell me where I'm wrong then? McKay 20:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I put a response on the church's talk page. COGDEN 20:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was clear that I disagreed with the points you mentioned in several discussions after you placed that one. I have now explicitly stated my reasoning as a response to your post. McKay 20:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

McKay is not listening to any argument from any other editors. Does this call for a vote or some other proper process to get this matter resolved instead of useless debate???Jcg5029 20:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Since the article has already been moved, I think it's his impetus to call for any dispute resolution measures. If he tries to move the article, we could do something at that point. COGDEN 20:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Cutlerites

McKay recently moved the Cutlerite page without citations, consensus or a good reason besides supporting his arguments on The Church of Jesus Christ's page. This should be moved back until a consensus can be formed. Either way clearly the article is not the issue on their site. I am unsure how to change it back.128.118.246.192 21:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I think he just added a "The" to the beginning, right? If so, I think he's probably justified, because looking at the cutlerite website on the wayback machine, they capitalize the "The". I don't think that changes the arguments, though, because "Cutlerites" is such an easy disambiguator. They call themselves that, and even refer to themselves as "The Church of Jesus Christ, Cutlerites". Something similar to that is also probably the most common usage. COGDEN 21:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to agree with User:COGDEN on this. Changing it would simply be a POV and not really relevant.Jcg5029 22:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Electoral College

I noticed that on your home page you stated that you believed the "[w]orst part of U.S. Constitution: the Electoral College provision." Would the slavery portions be a runner up? -- 12.106.111.10 23:59, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Maybe I should say the best part still in force. COGDEN 01:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Support Move

McKay has proposed that those in support or opposition of moving The Church of Jesus Christ make their voice and reasons. Since you have particiapted your voice is welcome. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.118.246.192 (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

I noticed that you voted in opposition of the move, I'm curious, what is your take on the WP:D policy I've quoted on several occasions, about being much more popular than any other usage of the term. McKay 14:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The policy says "when there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate or add a link to a disambiguation page." I don't think there's any risk of confusion here. COGDEN 08:04, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

First off, let me say that I support that policy. If there is no risk of confusion, we shouldn't disambiguate. But I think it's very clear that there is a large risk of confusion. Sure, the church with its headquarters in Monongahela is larger than the Cutlerite church, but are they more important? I'd say no. Historically, Both groups started their own way, and the Cutlerite church fluxuated dramtically while the other church grew some. But is one more notable than the other? I'd think the answer is "no". But I think the real conflict is with the LDS church and the meaning of the term to refer to the people who have a faith in Jesus Christ. I've shown that there is a risk of confusion via the google test. People say "The Church of Jesus Christ" and they don't always, I would say rarely do they, in general, mean the church with its headquarters in monongahela. I think it's a far cry to say that there is no possibility for confusion. Do you think I'm mistaken? McKay 22:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard the term used to describe all people who have faith in Jesus Christ. It that were the usage, it would be "the church of Jesus Christ", not capitalized. The LDS Church does use it sometimes (though rarely), but that usage is so rare and unusual that in every case there has to be an explanation about what they mean. Also, the "of Jesus Christ" is used by the LDS Church as a descriptive modifier to "the Church", not part of a proper name. COGDEN 01:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Opinion requested

Because I respect your opinion and the way you've handled conflicts in the past, I would be interested in having your comments added to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints) on the use of "the Church" vs. "the church" when referring to Latter Day Saint denominations. I see you made comments on this some months ago on the same page, but it's flaring up again. I'm interested in your opinion regardless of your stand on the issue. Cheers, -SESmith 11:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. I thought this was resolved a long time ago. COGDEN 18:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

move

Can you move The Church of Jesus Christ back to The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), its original location. I don't think this move ever had concensus and the discussion is deteriorating. Thus I think we should move it back to the original location pending the discussion. --Trödel 02:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

There really is only one person, McKay, who has a serious problem with the name the way it is. He got involved after the change was discussed, and then made. Also, I don't think anybody is considering moving it back to the original, since the church seems to consider "Bickertonite" offensive. There have been some other suggestions, but none that everybody can live with. Personally, I'm not convinced there is a naming conflict, or any reason why having The Church of Jesus Christ point to the "Bickertonite" denomination would lead to confusion, so long as readers are directed to a disambig page for the other barely-notable groups that use this name or some close variant. COGDEN 02:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think there could be substantial confusion because The Church of Jesus Christ is also used as shorthand for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am ok with no Bikertonite - I really don't care, but for a denomination that is about the size of 4 stakes, it is barely even notable enough for an entry let alone an entry that implies it is the successor to The Church of Christ. I just think we have way too much information about minor denominations. For example, the Snowflake Arizona Stakes of the LDS Church could have an entry with more independent, reliable sources documenting the history of the Church in that area, the ties to President Kimball, the impact on the LDS Church as a whole, etc than there are for the this denomination. So I see no reason to have them have such a highly prominent title that will up the google results of their denominations website. I personally see this attempt to change the name as a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) attempt. --Trödel 18:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The LDS Church suggests referring to it as the "Church of Jesus Christ", but that practice has never caught on, even in the church's own publications. I don't have a problem with the "Bickertonite" group using their official church name, since that's what they want to be called, and if someone types "The Church of Jesus Christ", they are probably looking for that denomination. If not, they'll see that there is a disambiguation page. I'm also not worried about upping their Google standing. This won't help them, since their title is a subset of the name of the LDS Church, and the LDS Church will always show up as the first hit, since there are way more websites that discuss the LDS Church. Try typing "Church Jesus" in Google, and you get the LDS Church. In fact, if you just type "church", the LDS Church is like the third result. COGDEN 20:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

See my comments on the article talk page. --Trödel 21:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess my real concern is you say:

• if someone types "The Church of Jesus Christ", they are probably looking for that denomination

And I'm wondering what evidence you have to support that claim. I'll admit that my evidence is weak (google test), but no one has presented *any* evidence to the contrary. McKay 21:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any solid evidence, but I'd personally heard about the church long before I knew they were also known as the "Bickertonites", though my knowledge is just from talking to people who encountered the group on their mission, rather than from academic sources. The main thing is that it's by far the largest organization with that exact name, with no appended "International" or "Inc.", etc., and if someone is careful enough to type the initial "The", they probably mean that particular organization. As to just "Church of Jesus Christ", without the The, I'm not so sure. COGDEN 21:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

So looks like I am on the non-concensus side of this issue. But I thought you could help me understand something else. Why is so much effort going into protecting and keeping the articles about these minor denominations that have no real following and very little third party reference material? Why should they even be on Wikipedia? From what I can see on the page on this issue a lot of people think they should remain, but I just don't understand the reasoning. --Trödel 16:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

As to The Church of Jesus Christ, they are big enough, I think, with about 15,000 members, to merit an article in their own right. I think there's verifiable material on the group's current practices and doctrines, although I'm not familiar enough with it. As to the much smaller groups like the Cutlerites and the Strangites, I think their notability comes from their history. There used to be a lot more members, and they had significant interactions with early Mormons. For the FLDS Church, there's not much verifiable information about their current practices, but they are in the news so much that they should definitely have an article. Basically, though, I see no problem with allowing an article for any distinct religious denomination. There may not be much verifiable information, but as long as they are either in the news, or have some historical significance, or have published things, that seems notable enough for me. As to particular church buildings or single congregations of a denomination, that's probably where I'd draw the line, unless that particular church building or congregation has some special significance. COGDEN 17:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I can see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but its things more like these (judging from their wikipedia article and not from any knowledge about the denominations): Aaronic Order, Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, Church of the Lamb of God, Restored Church of Jesus Christ, Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ in Zion, Godbeites, Sons Aumen Israel. These out to be able to be categorized and have one article about several denominations like one for denominations that sprung from the 1844 death of JS, one for denominations that sprung from the Manifesto, one for denominations in the last 20 years or so, etc. Thoughts? I can't find it right now but there is one that is basically 8 women from Orlando and their family - they have a website and a "belief structure" that got me thinking about whether they really need an article. --Trödel 18:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that if an article is notable enough to be listed in a combined article, it's probably notable enough to have its own article. I think whether to keep articles on a given denomination would just depend on the level of independent media coverage each has had. I know there are some very small groups that have been covered in the media for various reasons, and should have their own articles. For example, the Church of Jesus Christ in Zion has been covered in several newspaper and magazine articles because of the founder's lawsuit against Novell, and should probably stay. The Aaronic Order has been discussed in at least a Dialogue article and a BYU thesis, so it probably should have its own article. The Godbeites are the subject of an independent book, so I'd say they can stay. Some of the groups we might want to revisit. I'm not sure if there is verifiable info about the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even if it still exists. That one probably could go, unless somebody finds a couple of sources of verifiable information on it. COGDEN 21:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll do some looking - now that I think about it - it would probably avoid some in-fighting to have each in a different article than to group some together. It really doesn't hurt anything. --Trödel 22:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Eliza Snow image

Any idea why this pic that you uploaded of Eliza Snow no longer displays on this page or in the Eliza Snow article? (at least in my Firefox browser)? --Blainster 22:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why it stopped working. I re-uploaded it, though, and now it works. COGDEN 23:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Naming Convention

Explain the reason why the naming convention page has changed. I personally feel as though it was better when it was disputed. However, since this is now no longer under dispute, why is the proper name of the organization there? Just curious to hear from someone who knows the system better than I. CSG 18:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what change you are referring to. Also, the dispute still appears to be going on at Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ. COGDEN 22:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Heavenly Mother

Did you make an mistake in duplicating the Heavenly Mother article content into Talk:Heavenly Mother, or was this somehow intentional? If it was intentional, could you please explain the purpose of this action. -- 12.106.111.10 22:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope. That was a mistake. Thanks for catching it. I'll fix it. COGDEN 22:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Latter Day Saint Movement - new template

Do you know where the discussion is on the brand new template? It looks really classy and nice, but the picture has gone back to square one without a discussion that I was aware of... Thanks a lot! Jcg5029 23:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anymore. I haven't been following it. COGDEN 00:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

July 15th reverts

I spent some time this evening largely reverting edits by User:68.186.56.239 on Mormon articles largely dealing with Missouri, i.e. Danites and Battle of Crooked River. Although the POV edits were unsourced, the anon was obviously working from some material and seemed relatively knowledgable. Without the strong pov, he/she might be a good editor to woo or may be a registered editor who did not sign in. Keep an eye out if you have a few minutes. Best wishes. And great work on the MMM article! WBardwin 06:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out. COGDEN 17:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

First Vision - time for action

I appreciate the efforts of Visorstuff to resolve the situation at First Vision. I now understand that he was hampered by his past involvement in this article and with John Foxe. No one is editing the article right now, but I believe that John Foxe's comments on the talk page demonstrate that he either cannot understand or refuses to comply with the WP:NPOV policy. I'm trying to gain a consensus on his inappropriate behavior, and I invite you, as a past contributor to this article, to add your comments to this discussion. If you think that my behavior also warrants criticism, I invite that as well. I will be posting this invitation on several other user talk pages, but with your past history on this article you might be aware of other editors who have walked away. Please feel free to let them know what is going on and invite their input at Talk:First_Vision#Time_for_action. 74s181 13:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't been following closely for a while, but I'll check things out. COGDEN 14:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFM - First Vision

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/First Vision, and indicate whether you agree or refuse to mediate. If you are unfamiliar with mediation, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. There are only seven days for everyone to agree, so please check as soon as possible.

We'd appreciate it if you'd sign your agreement to submit to the process—because your name has been listed, your agreement is needed for it to go forth (I think. I've never been involved in one before). The Jade Knight 10:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Will do. COGDEN 17:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Admin duty, please

Hi- when you get a moment, please delete an archive page User:WBardwin/Archive 4 (Jan-June 2007) I created in error. Thank you. WBardwin 06:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem. It's done. COGDEN 17:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. WBardwin 19:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation

A Request for Mediation to which you are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the mediation subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/First Vision. For the Mediation Committee, Daniel This message delivered by MediationBot, an automated bot account operated by the Mediation Committee to perform case management. If you have questions about this bot, please contact the Mediation Committee directly.

This message delivered: 16:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC).

Request for Arbitration - First Vision

I have submitted a request for arbitration with the Arbitration Committee. You are listed as a party. The arbitration process requires that all parties listed in an arbitration request must be notified. You have an opportunity to comment on the request at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration. 74s181 02:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Primary sources

I hope you can see that I am trying to show how primary sources can be troublesome and why the policy is written as it is. Which means I am particularly looking for problems on how to illustrate this, rather than looking for the solutions. I do not think that using primary sources is the end of the world, it just means extra vigilance must taken on certain issues. It very easy for even experienced people to add their own extra interpretation to primary sources. If you do not understand my explanations let know and I will try a different angle. I certainly think the you should be able to fix up any areas that stray in to OR without much of a problem. And the stuff that is non-controversial doesn't need an inline citation so as long as good secondary sources are given for the article, it can work itself out without having to argue with other editors over which source to cite.--BirgitteSB 16:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in reading some background about my objections about the primary/secondary ambiguity. Here is an archived discussion that I think covers most of the basics. Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Archive 1#Primary/Secondary Mess--BirgitteSB 16:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take a look. COGDEN 17:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Your Aug 2/07 edit to the "cite book" template

Hello COGDEN -- Is there any chance that your Aug 2 edit to the "cite book" template caused the problem I've noted over there on the talk page? Repectfully -- WikiPedant 14:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I was just coming here to ask the same thing; the cite book template went awry just yesterday, and I see yours was the only recent edit. Book references are now incorrectly fully italicized. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a temporary caching problem and just requires a refresh of the cache on your local browser (Ctrl+F5 in IE). See the talk page. COGDEN 20:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Original research/primary sources Afd question

Hello, I am involved in an Afd discusion, and an esoteric and possibily tricky discussion has reared its head. If you have the time, I'd like to invite you to read various points in the Afd, and state your understanding. I just reread the policy, and noted that you were recently involved in a discussion on the use of primary sources and original research. If interested, please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Hampshire communities by household income Thanks. 05:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use disputed for Image:Gordon B. Hinckley on Larry King Live (1998).jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Gordon B. Hinckley on Larry King Live (1998).jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our Criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to dispute this. I think it's fair use, but that's arguable, and in any event, the image is not really needed. Some other people might complain, though, if the image disappears. COGDEN 03:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Image source problem with Image:Elijah Abel drawing.jpg

Image Copyright problem

Thanks for uploading Image:Elijah Abel drawing.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.

As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 01:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Added source information after uploading a new png version at Image:Elijah Abel drawing.png. COGDEN 03:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Secondary sources

My apologies, I didn't mean to step on your toes. Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of consensus on this issue. I certainly won't engage in edit-warring over it, and I hope it stops with your last edit until we can find consensus on the issue. – Dreadstar † 05:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

MMM postage stamp

Re your ad hoc claim the lithograph of a busy MMM battle scene (digital image 1896 pixels) would be of improved clarity displayed not on a postcard but (<<< over there!) ITS STAMP: I don't buy into the idea that larger images are banned solely because they tend to be unclear, but I've thumbed through Wikipedia see small pix (for some other reason?) are the convention --GERANIUM Justmeherenow 04:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. I think about 300 px is probably clear enough. If people want to see more detail, they can click on the image and see more. I just don't want to overwhelm the viewer with something huge. COGDEN 16:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

What has become of Mountain Meadows Massacre?

What have they done with that article?! Is everything okay? Tom Haws 20:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Tom. Good to hear from you! I think the article is going okay. We've been trying to get it into good shape for September 11, but I'm not sure we can get FA status by then. It's undergone a massive amount of editing by a lot of people in the last few months, and I'm not completely sure where we are on it. Your input would be very valuable, since I and others have been working so close on various parts of the article for such a long time that we probably aren't seeing the whole picture. COGDEN 20:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Quotations

I saw this proposal today and thought you would be interested.--BirgitteSB 19:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a good proposal. Thanks for pointing it out. COGDEN 20:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AccessDate in Template:Citation

Could you please explain [this edit of yours to Template:Citation/core, which delinks the AccessDate parameter, at Template talk:Citation#Problem with accessdate? Thanks. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Re. Protection of Wikipedia:No original research

Hello COGDEN. No, I would not oppose your removing of the disputed language until there's a consensus about it. In fact, I'll try unprotecting it for a while and see if the war has cooled off (or if at least everybody is willing to discuss changes on the talk page rather than go edit warring). Regards, Húsönd 18:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you please revert your last reversion? I reverted back to your last edit before the most recent controversial content was added. Thanks. Dreadstar † 23:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the current version is the true status quo, and besides, I never use my admin privileges in articles for which I am an active editor. COGDEN 00:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

My request was made prior to the current protection - I certainly wasn't asking you to abuse your admin privileges. If I'm not mistaken, the content was present before you began disputing it. But then, it's been a confusing set of changes and reversions. Hopefully we can get this straightened out and finalized soon. Dreadstar † 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

New category?

If you ever feel like creating an LDS Intellectual Property Attorney Wikipedian user category, let me know, that will make at least two of us. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl) 05:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. You're the only other one I know about, but there's probably some other very small categories. I think I've noticed your name before in comment pages, but not for a while. It's too bad there aren't many IP issues having to do with Mormonism. I read your comments and noticed your explanation of your loss of faith on Visorstuff's talk page, and I can certainly relate. I'm personally an active temple-recommend holder, but I know where you're coming from. Faith has never come naturally to me, and my faith has never been a simple one. COGDEN 11:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

That's okay, apostasy hasn't come naturally to me either. It's been some time since I wrote that. I had a long-term research partner at BYU who was a "C. Ogden" but that is obviously someone different. As for LDS IP issues, I chatted with Sandra Tanner once about the church's copyright suit against them for posting the CHI online. But my practice is mainly with patents, and I can't think of anything patent law has to do with the church other than as a suitable profession for a general authority. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl) 07:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Workman has been in the 2d Quorum for a long time. I thought their normal term was 5 years, but he's been there since 2001, and there's another member of the Quorum who's been there since 1999. I can never follow what the current policy and structure is, they change it so often. Being a Seventy doesn't seem like quite as big a deal as it did 20 years ago. COGDEN 17:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It could be like my mission president with a companionship that were together for seven months in a small town on the edge of the mission - one of them who was a good friend of mine told me he brought it up with the president finally, and the president got a look and admitted he had totally forgotten how long they'd been there. :) - Reaverdrop (talk/nl) 17:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated subject

I couldn't help noticing your background. If you don't have qualms about talking shop, I know of some people who would eternally grateful for the unofficial opinion of someone with real training on some convoluted IP issues. We've figured out the simple stuff already and are left with the questions that are interesting (as in the curse). One small example: A suicide note is widely published in newspapers in the 1930's. It is continually repeated in different publications retelling the tale of the suicide. Is this note considered "legally published"? If it is would the lack of a renewal in the name of the original author put it in the public domain? If not can it be considered "unpublished" as in all works that were unpublished as of December 31, 2002, were released from their perpetual copyright and is in the public domain? If you don't like to spend your leisure time thinking about copyright, I completely understand. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask.--BirgitteSB 19:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. This is governed by the 1909 Copyright Act, which defines the date of publication as "the earliest date when copies of the first authorized edition were placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed by the proprietor of the copyright or under his authority" (section 26). So whether or not it was "published" depends on whether or not the author's executor authorized the newspapers to print the note, or otherwise gave consent to the publication. If the executor did, then to acquire a copyright, it would have to be published with a copyright notice, which was a requirement in those days. Also, the executor or heirs would have to renew it after 28 years. If the author's executor didn't consent to the publication, then it's a more difficult question. If the work has never been "published" with the author's heir's consent, then the potential copyright would have expired at the end of 2002. It would just depend on whether, at some point prior to 2003, the heirs of the author authorized any public distribution of the note. There's also a possible good argument, even if the author's executor or heirs never positively authorized publication, that they implied their consent by failing to object over all these years, or by participating in interviews in which the note was discussed, etc. COGDEN 19:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If they implied consent by failing to object etc., they would still have had to file the renewal to maintain a copyright claim, correct? But from what your saying, I think it would be hard to find a renewal as the title in the database could be almost anything and the renewal would not be under the (deceased) authors name but some heir or estate. And on top of that we can not even say for certain what the date of publication is and therefore which year to search for it. Not to mention the fact that the early publications could be unauthorized with the first authorized one being after the abolition of registration but before 2003. So I am thinking, while it is possible by sheer luck to come across proof that such a thing was copyrighted there is not way rule out the possibility of copyright. Could you disagree with that?--BirgitteSB 19:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. Even if they gave express or implied consent, and it was published, it was probably published without a copyright notice, as well. I think the chances of there still being a valid copyright are probably pretty remote, but it's technically possible, and it would be hard to rule it out 100%. COGDEN 20:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is a question I don't really want to ask, as it mainly philosophical. What is the better argument in your opinion, no proper renewal or "unpublished"? --BirgitteSB 20:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. If I were representing a person sued by the author's heirs, I'd probably make both arguments, then let the other side prove that there was an authorized publication with notice, or that the copyright was renewed. In the absence of any solid facts about either, it's hard to make a choice. One thing you probably could argue, however, given what you know, is fair use, since the note sounds like it was newsworthy and of historical interest, especially if it was a short note. COGDEN 20:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well we don't do fair use. It isn't very useful in context of an archive. Now I should go review my notes on the fixation of orations not composed in advance, so I can ask you intelligent questions on that subject. :)--BirgitteSB 20:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Citation broken?

It looks like something has changed with the {{citation}} template, breaking existing uses. And some well-meaning admin has protected it so I can't fix it. (I have steadfastly refused to involve myself in admin distractions.) The issue involves "location", "place", and "publication-place". Usage was inconsistent between the {{cite}} family and this, and apparently someone didn't notice. Help?! --KSmrq^T 14:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is broken? If you can give my an example, I'll try to fix it. COGDEN 19:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what all is broken, nor everything to expect. What I do expect is that "place" should be used to give the city where something was printed, not a location in the text, because that is what the documentation says. At the very least, I expect consistency. Compare:

• Doe, John (2001), My Life in Obscurity, Paris: Gauthier

  {{citation | last=Doe | first=John | title=My Life in Obscurity | year=2001 | place=Paris | publisher=Gauthier-Villars }}

• Yvon Villarceau, Antoine Joseph François (1848), "Théorème sur le tore", Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques, Série 1, 7, Paris: Gauthier-Villars: 345–347, OCLC 2449182

  {{citation | last = Yvon Villarceau | first = Antoine Joseph François | author-link = Yvon Villarceau | title = Théorème sur le tore | journal = Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques | volume = 7 | series = Série 1 | pages = 345–347 | publisher = Gauthier-Villars | place = Paris | date = 1848 | oclc = 2449182 }}

Notice that the "place" field is interpreted in two completely different ways, which is surely wrong. --KSmrq^T 00:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I've fixed this. COGDEN 00:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much. If we could also get support for the "series" field, currently ignored, that would also be appreciated. --KSmrq^T 16:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I added a "series" provision for both books and periodicals. Take a look and see if this is how you'd format it in theh above citation. COGDEN 17:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Note: For future reference, I've copied this discussion here: Template talk:Citation#Citation broken?

There still seems to be a problem which I think is related to the recent changes. Citations with an accessdate now have the (retrieved on...) smashed up against the end of the citation, with no space or punctuation in between. A representative example, from President of the University of Michigan:

• Hinsdale, Burke A. (1906), Demmon, Isaac, ed., History of the University of Michigan, University of Michigan(retrieved on 2007-08-16).

Is this also related to your recent changes? I don't recall seeing this behavior before. Sarcasmboy 23:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Your edit was made while I was writing mine. Yours is good.

But here's mine:

I think it is only necessary to look at the history of NPOV to see that the deprecation of primary sources has long been a point of contention (suggesting that such deprecation may not be representative of the consensus view.) The causative (for inserting a categorization of sources into NPOV) problem is identified above as an improper use of primary sources. I think there is close to unanimity that such misuse is improper and is, fully properly, forbidden as OR. I think there is almost total consensus (essentially everyone but the few who do such things agree) that such editing is wrong and should be removed. The problem is one of use and is not one that arises directly from the nature of the misused sources (and cannot secondary sources be similarly misused anyway?) The categorization of sources has been a constant (or at least frequent) source of contention since it first appeared as part of the NPOV policy. Isn't that fact in itself informative? (I would note that it does not appear it is the minority who commit the improper use of primary sources who are raising the objections - but I'm in no position to assert that is definitely the case. My point here is that the objections raised to source categorization are not intended to legitimize or enable the offense and are raised for other reasons. Without any source categorization language I think NPOV unambiguously forbids the type of editing that is identified as a source of difficulty. If there is ambiguity it sure looks like a different approach to removing that is in order.) --Minasbeede 18:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. I think you should still make it on the talk page. COGDEN 18:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Bigamists

Considering your involvement with LDS pages, I would be interested in getting your input HERE. Thanks. Rich Uncle Skeleton 09:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I added a comment. I think renaming to Convicted bigamists is a good idea. COGDEN 18:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for mediation

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:No original research, and indicate whether you agree or disagree to mediation. If you are unfamiliar with mediation on Wikipedia, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. Please note there is a seven-day time limit on all parties responding to the request with their agreement or disagreement to mediation.

For the Mediation Committee, Daniel 07:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Article Name: TCOJC

An old discussion has resurfaced concerning the name of The Church of Jesus Christ's page. Considering your previous involvement and efforts on this and other Latter Day Saint pages, I thought you might be interested in viewing the discussion. Jcg5029 01:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh boy. I thought we had that settled. Thanks for letting my know. I'll take a look. COGDEN 18:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Bug in Template:Harv

A curious bug was brought to my attention. A Harvard reference like

• {{Harv|Rumpelstiltskin|1812}} → (Rumpelstiltskin 1812)

will correctly produce the HTML link to anchor #CITEREFRumpelstiltskin1812; however, a reference with spaces like

• {{Harv | Rumpelstiltskin | 1812}} → (Rumpelstiltskin 1812)

incorrectly links to #CITEREF_Rumpelstiltskin_1812. Of course, we need to preserve spaces within a name, like that of Saunders Mac Lane or Charles F. Van Loan, but contamination of the link by these bracketing spaces is inconsistent with the expected behavior of templates.

Fixable? --KSmrq^T 17:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't realize that. I'll have to think about it. Thanks for pointing it out. COGDEN 00:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is caused by a "feature" of the software which took me a while to work out when I encountered it previously: initial and final whitespace is stripped from named parameters, but not from unnamed ones (see m:Help:Template#Stripping of spaces and newlines). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

That's kind of bizarre. I wonder what the rationale for that difference was? It doesn't make a lot of sense. I wonder if we can get that changed. COGDEN 18:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:No original research. For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 08:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

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User Probelms

Since you seem to be very level headed and good at mediating I want to ask you for some advice if you don't mind. I'm having some difficulty with Rich Uncle Skeleton at The Church of Jesus Christ. He has been biased, uncivil, and just a plain pain to work around. He has started a revert war of sorts and insists on changing and arguing everything I've done. I don't know how he is elsewhere on wiki but is there any good way of handling him or should I just try to ignore him??? Thanks JRN 01:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I really don't know. I believe he's pretty new to Wikipedia. He's been very active during his short time here, and he's done some good work, but he might still be learning the ropes. I've known a lot of editors who start out a little overzealous, and then mellow out a bit as they gain experience. I'll keep an eye on The Church of Jesus Christ page for a while, since I'm involved in the naming discussion anyway. COGDEN 01:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I have alot of respect for your work here. JRN 01:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me for intruding, but as this involves me I suppose I can comment. As you said, I'm a relatively new registered member at WP. I edited as an anon for quite a period of time, so I have a good understanding of WP policies, etc. My editing style has not changed since I became registered, though my editing focus has.

From my point of view, JRN is misperceiving me and my intentions. He has accused me of being a meatpuppet of another editor. The only justification for this seems to be that I have agreed with another editor on a number of issues at Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ. I don't think I have been at all uncivil, nor am I stalking JNR or "changing or arguing everything" he has done. I have challenged some of his edits, but my intention in so doing has been to maintain NPOV. He has admitted to being a member of the church in question, and the edits I have challenged have been with the intent to replace the "official church line" with NPOV material that presents both sides. No one has complained of me or my work elsewhere on WP. If he is finding me a "pain to work around", it may just be simply because I'm changing some of his edits from what I see as clearly POV to a more NPOV style. I do it on all the pages I work at, and I do it there.

Here is a comment he made to me, which I think suggests if anyone is being uncivil it is he. This was in response to my comment that I wasn't sure I understood how certain terminology that was being used could be misconstrued by readers, as some were suggesting. (He was unaware that I have read the book that was being discussed, but he assumed I had not.):

Rich Uncle Skeleton, why don't you read sources and figure out on your own. You apparently have no knowledge on this subject and are refering to sources that you have never read. If you want to make credible edits on your own you need to KNOW something about the subject. So instead of arguing every little thing. Like how long is "short" (and for you information the citation you keep refering to as official that states he joined also states "he joined the Utah Mormon Church for a SHORT space of time") So please read up before you try and argue anything. It would help your credibility. JRN 15:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

He also recently complained on my talk page that I had was engaging in a reverting war with him, but he refused to provide me with the details when I told him I had no idea what he was referring to specifically. The last edits I had made there were quite small and inconsequential and related to stylistics (my favorite area) as opposed to content.

Thanks for your time, and sorry to have this issue bother you. I really don't think it's necessary. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 02:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi COGDEN,

As Rich Uncle Skeleton's accused meatpuppeter (?) I thought I'd pop in to provide a little perspective after I noticed JRN's complaint here. Out of five other people who have been active on that page lately, JRN has leveled similar complaints against four of them. Rather than characterize them, I'll let the comments speak for themselves. Obviously a lot of context is missing here, but this gives the general idea of the burden of proof JRN weighs before deciding someone deserves to be accused of bias, incivility, ignorance, hypocrisy, and/or deceptive intent:

1. To Sesmith he has said, "Your arguement [sic] is ridiculous", followed in the very next comment by "I would ask you to discontinue your WP:PA SESmith and try to be somewhat civil here".
2. To McKay he has said: "Please just stop whining about the additions/corrections that have been made to this page. We've all heard the same junk for quite some time now"; "Keep whining"; "This page is in line with policy and procedure. No thanks to you and your POV"; and he added on McKay's talk page, "I'm sorry but I find it very hard to not see hypocrisy when you only seem to care about policy when you can use it to your advantage."
3. In his first ever reply to Rich Uncle Skeleton, he said "I think it would be suitable for parties involved to have more of a background in The Church of Jesus Christ before trying to make edits to the page. It seems unethical to make edits to something that you have very little knowledge of." In his second reply to Skeleton he said "I just get angry when individuals make edits with seemingly little knowledge about what they are editing."
4. And to me, "I hope you can see the hypocrisy in your arguements"; "I prefer associated as more official sources use that word but if you want to cry about it then I will just include a clarifying statement as not to mislead the reader. Because I'm sure the other editors here don't want to mislead the reader at all"; "Again the only reason you wouldn't want them to get the correct information is if you had an agenda you were trying to push."

I have followed Rich Uncle Skeleton's edits on other pages a little bit and he has not attracted any similar perceptions of bias or bad faith, that I have seen. Perhaps the best response is one already given by Rich Uncle Skeleton on Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ: "No personal attack is a "good" personal attack and the way to repel a perceived one is not to engage in one yourself. Pot, kettle, black—you get the idea." - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 04:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've looked over the edit history a bit, and I don't see anything other than good faith edits on either side. Obviously, there are strong personal interests involved here, but I think everybody needs to Assume good faith and be civil. There's no cause to accuse anybody of meanpuppetry. Clearly that's not the case. As long as we can be civil, though, I think it is fortunate we have JRN as an editor here. A lot of other religion pages are edited by people of different faiths, and it's hard to be sure things are presented neutrally. On The Church of Jesus Christ page, we have to be especially careful that all information is verifiable, which is hard to do when there isn't very much written about the church. Hopefully JRN can point us to some published, reliable sources on the church that we can draw from, and maybe that will help settle some of the ongoing disputes. COGDEN 22:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been having MANY similar problems with the same user Rich Uncle Skeleton. He does seem VERY biased, which is a section I started on his talk page without even knowing this section existed. He removed internal links to the Mormon page for no reason, and shelled out the page I created about the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ. I just don't know what to do with him. Please help. He'll revert edits of mine saying I can't do something, and then I'll catch him doing exactly the same thing on pages he creates/edits.--Carterdriggs 10:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

(Sigh). The article in question was 100% copyvio, so I added a DB tag. He deleted the tag. So after he added a bit more non-copyvio stuff, I deleted the stuff that was taken verbatim from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir page. I think there is just a basic misunderstanding of some WP policies. E.g., he wanted to suggest that a page I created be discussed for deletion, so he added a DB tag. When I suggested that he should start a AFD instead, he took offence and came up with a "you did it to mine so why can't I do it to you?" argument. I think I may have to delete the reference to your page from my Talk page so some of these editors stop bothering you about things like this. You may investigate if you want, but like last time—I really don't think it's worth your while. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 12:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Very recently Rich Uncle Skeleton has been ignoring Manual of Style guidelines for the Latter Day Saint movement by creating and moving pages associated with The Church of Jesus Christ to include the offensive term 'Bickertonite'. I understand he disagrees with the guidelines, but he cannot simply ignore these because of his own opinion on the matter. Whenever I try and correct his mistakes my edits are simply reverted and my suggestions passed aside. I am not sure how to correct his errors on this matter without him just ignoring me and changing it back. I am sorry to bother you on this. Jcg5029 13:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

An elm tree with a serious problem, Dutch Elm Disease; i.e., a "prob. elm".

Seeing that "User Probelms [sic]" seems to be a persistently popular section, I figured it could use an illustration:
- Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 17:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

New essay

I wrote a draft of a new essay: Wikipedia:The rules are principles. I thought you would appreciate the general sentiment, and I was hoping you would provide some feedback. You've been around a long time and probably have more direct experience with the general principle (no pun) than most active editors. I would really value your opinion. Thanks!! Vassyana 02:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I like it. I'll comment on the talk page. COGDEN 18:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

template:harvs

I've drafted a template harvard citations (harvs for short) that can be used to produce Harvard citations to several different publications by the same author. It might be possible to fix the minor bug in harv noted above by getting harv to pass its arguments to harvs; as harvs uses named parameters this will kill off spurious spaces. R.e.b. 05:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

D'oh! Patent v. copyright statutes

Gotcha! - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 06:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Dispute tag on NOR

I noticed that you added a section dispute tag to NOR. I'm writing to point out that, because previous people have used these tags to trump up disputes in guidelines that actually had consensus (like the recent article cleanup template standardization), putting up a dispute tag, and especially adding it back when it has been removed, is a lot like crying "wolf!". There are alternative ways to gather attention to the issue (like an RFC or a note at WP:VPP) that are probably better at convincing people to come comment about the issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This issue has been the main focus of the talk page for many weeks now, and it's not about gaining attention. It's about warning the user that the section does not reflect consensus. That the section is a non-consensus section is amply proven by the extreme controversy this has generated on the talk page. I think that putting up a tag is a better solution than simply deleting the non-consensus section. COGDEN 18:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been only tangentially involved with the question of whether or not that section stays (I am concerned to make sure that the policy doesn't try to claim that mathematics journal articles are not suitable sources, but beyond that I don't care). It seems to me that if there really is not consensus for the content of that section, even in spirit, then removing it is the right thing to do. If there is consensus for the spirit, but not the wording, then rewriting it would be the right thing to do. Just placing a dispute template doesn't make progress towards either of these solutions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The debate over this section is about the greatest I've seen since the WP:ATT policy (now essay) was demoted, so I think it's pretty clear there is no consensus on the section. I'd rather just delete the section until we can get a suitable replacement, but in the current heated environment, I don't think that's possible. I'm just trying to do something that has the least likelihood of reversion, and I figure that a tag is the best compromise. But it's turning out that the issue of adding the tag itself is resulting in a kind of edit war by multiple individuals on both sides. (Imagine that: heated controversy over whether the section is controversial.) The page was under protection for a while, and it will probably have to go back under protection, is my guess. COGDEN 19:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What you're seeing there with the dispute tag only making the situation degenerate has happened several other places as well. I don't understand it, but it is one of the reasons I think it's better not to spend too long focused on the dispute tag, and focus on the actual content instead. Comments on the talk page have less chance of being reverted. Maybe a suitable replacement can be developed and then dropped on top of the current section. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That's what we've been working toward for several weeks now, and sometimes I see a glimmer of hope that we can reach consensus, but it's a long process. I see the tag as a temporary measure, because editors need to be aware of the dispute, and that the section will likely change. Editors shouldn't be making decisions based on sections that are in flux, and you wouldn't know they were in flux unless you were following the talk page. COGDEN 22:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Category nomination

A nomination for renaming Category:The Church of Jesus Christ has been made and I figured you would like to weigh in your vote. See the discussion HERE. JRN 16:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

For your kind words, and suggestions for article improvement. I'm definitely going to contribute heavily to the article you mentioned, and look forward to collaborating with you on articles. Thank also for your mediation in the problems we've been having with Rich Uncle Skeleton. I'm not a petty or petulent complainer. I ask for mediation where it warrants. Anyways, happy editing! Carterdriggs 23:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Homosexual Mormons Article

Take a look at the clean-up I did on Homosexuality and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints‎. I think you'll find it to your liking, and I am of course not done. Much help is needed to perfect it. the references were a huge problem, and (Oaks 1995/97) appeared after about every sentence. IRRITATING! I consolidated those with a ref=name tag. Much better. Anyways, round up who you can, and I think we can tackle it. Carterdriggs 07:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

TCOJC Move Debate

Interested parties who voiced opinions on this in the past, read all about it - the raging debate on moving the article on the Church of Jesus Christ (a.k.a. Bickertonite, or not) has flared up again, at Talk:The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ#Requested_move.2C_take_two. Come back for more fun and games if you care to - thanks for playing... - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 05:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hanging indents for reference lists

Hi COgden. I saw your comment at Template talk:Citation that the hanging indent formatting I had been proposing for reference and citation lists could just as easily be implemented thru common.css. I decided against pursuing the changes to be applied to the citation templates themselves, and instead created a template {{ref indent}} which appears to do the job nicely enough over the entire reference list, whether or not the refs are formatted via citation templates.

I would be interested in what you might have to suggest as to how a CSS-based implementation would function. In the doco for the new template I've tried to set out the objectives of the hanging indent formatting. I make no claims to being a CSS or coding guru, so if the same effect can be achieved and optionally applied thru some CSS change then I would welcome any suggestions. Also, if you've the time would appreciate it if you could review the template for any issues or efficiencies. I put in a fix or workaround for a bullet-display problem in Firefox, but now the bullets' appearance in MSIE is a little askew. Would be glad to hear of any improvements. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll review the template. Actually, the template seems to work pretty good, and it might not be worth changing Common.css. I'll take a closer look at it, however. COGDEN 01:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Will look forward to any feedback when you're able to take a look into it. cheers--cjllw ʘ TALK 07:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Citing non-print media

Template:Citation/doc/draft is up. -- Fullstop 07:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. One question, though. Does the medium parameter affect the formatting? I can't see a difference in the formatted end-product. COGDEN 00:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to check back. I haven't implemented medium= in the sandbox code.

If specified, it should be treated as a "continuation" of Series= (if not provided, then of Title=, but not in italics), in square brackets and with only a space between it and the preceding element. Thus:

After title: Shocked, M. (1992), Arkansas traveler [CD], New York: PolyGram Music.

After series: Miller, R. (Producer) (1989), Brain Waves, The mind [Television series], New York: WNET (published 1989-10-24)

I'm sticking with APA style here. MLA would have it without square brackets and separated by punctuation.

Citation/doc/draft uses the sandbox, so tests in the sandbox should show up in the /draft examples.

On a related note: would it be worthwhile to integrate support for {{cite map}}?

-- Fullstop 22:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably. I've never used {{cite map}}, but it looks roughly similar to the APA scheme above. COGDEN 00:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Mountain meadows

I am sorry, at a quick glance the content and size of Events leading to the Mountain Meadows massacre and Background of the Mountain Meadows massacre lead me to believe that it was a double posting and I merged them. I see now that you did intend them to be separate articles. However, I note that the entire first 4 kbytes of the articles (up to ==Background==) are identical. This is a quite unnecessary repetition which I hope you will rationalise in the course of re-instating the "Background" article. My apologies again. -- RHaworth 02:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I still have to re-write the intros for both articles, which were just copied from the Mountian meadows massacre article. COGDEN 11:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate the barnstar COGDEN. I didn't realize how many scan errors there were in the existing web sources of the JoD until I started this - there isn't a fully correct version out there, and this source of information is a very important one. My goal now is to produce the most correct version of JoD, with page breaks, in Wikisource. I will eventually get it done.:-) Bochica 04:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Harvard Reference

Something seems to be going wrong in the Harvard Reference. The "place" argument after the publisher is now showing up as (for example) "written at Chicago and London" rather than, "Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press." Help! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you show me the citation that's doing this? Are you using both a place and a publication-place parameter? If so, it might be taking the place parameter as the place where it was written, rather than the place of publication. If you just include the place parameter only (get rid of publication-place), it should hopefully work fine. If you show me the citation, I'll be able to tell if there is a problem. COGDEN 16:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Same bug is evident at [Anahita]]. -- Fullstop 23:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I have just commented on the same issue at Template talk:Harvard reference. I see what the problem is. Place on the template instructions is clearly defined as city of publication. But, in the core, Place is taken to be place of writing, and there is a different parameter, PublicationPlace, for city of publication. But it's one thing to see what the problem is, and another to imagine how it might be solved. How long ago was the confusion introduced ...? Andrew Dalby 00:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Status of Wikicite?

Hi, COGDEN-

After a prolonged wikibreak, I am once again working on Wikicat/Wikicite, and should have progress to report shortly. It IS a huge undertaking, but I am fairly close to having a working prototype with some useful features in it, plus we are now looking into getting additional developers to help me out. If you are interested in Wikipedia quality control issues, I suggest getting in touch with Walkerma, as well as subscribing to the wikiquality mailing list. Thanks for your interest, and please feel free to send me more questions directly (my Gmail account is the same as my Wikipedia username).

Thanks, Jleybov 23:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's great to hear. I've been following this, and I think it would be the single best improvement that could be made to Wikipedia software. I have been considering dabbling in development, though I probably wouldn't be much help with this project until I get more familiar with the mediawiki software structure. COGDEN 18:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Over at MMM...

I got so tired of drive-by sniping that I up and replaced it by an earlier, barebones-if-more-sanitized version, splitting the replaced article (which was the end product of a thousand wikiedits making individual, informational magnifications) in halves and making each subarticles. But, anyway, of course, while the older version I plugged in is good for its simplicity...it is also bad for its simplicity; however, until someone (such as yourself?) replaces it with something that, while more informational, keeps to an "easy flow," we will be left with the redundancy of almost entirely parallel "MMM" and "Conspiracy and siege" articles.... Justmeherenow 16:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I don't quite understand what happened here, though. I don't think there's consensus to just scrap the article. I left a comment over on the talk page. COGDEN 22:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Nancy Reagan FAC

Hi there. I was just wondering if you could take a look that the Nancy Reagan FAC, where you opposed the article. I have completed seven out of the ten points you listed there, and have commented on the other three. If you could take a look at those, it would much appreciated. Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 00:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I changed to support. Good work! COGDEN 04:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Happyme22 (talk) 05:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

NOR

Re this edit: [1] Although I tend to generally agree with the direction you're going here, the current version is a compromise between those who strongly feel that primary sources have to be treated with special care and those who feel that all sources should be treated equally. It's better to get consensus on a talk page first rather than editwarring, especially on a policy page. Since it's a compromise, I think it's likely to stay pretty much as it is. And, these specific edits leave the result rather unpolished anyway. Better to work out the details on talk first. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm doing that. But there's no reason not to also propose edits on the page itself. This is not a particularly "hallowed" section anyway, since it's tagged and in a constant state of flux. COGDEN 23:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There are reasons not to propose edits on the page itself. People find it disruptive when a policy page changes frequently. If one person changes it, others may tend to copy the behaviour (just as you seem to be suggesting you're doing). Edits written into a policy page without prior discussion do not have consensus, yet their appearance on a policy page implies that they do, leading to misleading information about policy going to anyone who happens to read the page at that time. At the top of the page it says "When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." Finally, it's unfair to the many editors who would also like to make changes but who are refraining for the various reasons I've listed. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Edits might have consensus. You just don't know until you propose them. I believe there is consensus (or at least greater consensus) for every edit I've made thus far, at least Wikipedia-wide. Clearly what's there now doesn't have consensus, so even just blanking the whole section would be a consensus move. (There's always consensus for the nothing.) COGDEN 23:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

See my last note on talk:NOR, that specifically (also) addresses "edits written into a policy page without prior discussion". This is what the entire PSTS section is altogether. Only that is happened over two years ago. -- Fullstop (talk) 23:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Edits might be going to have consensus -- you don't know until you try. However, the state of "flux" in that section in the last 3 days or so apparently consists almost entirely of you making edits and then those edits getting reverted. So, it seems that they didn't have consensus. I don't think there's consensus for blanking the section. (Why would you support blanking the section, when you also want to strengthen the S and T parts?) I might support blanking the section; I'd have to think about it; but I won't spend any time on it since I'm sure others would strongly object. If certain people are somehow able to guess pretty accurately which edits are going to have consensus, or are able to consistently come up with edits that have consensus, then they tend to get to edit directly without prior talk page discussion, although strictly they shouldn't on a policy page. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening in this case. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I only want to strengthen S and T as a step toward consensus. I don't think that is actually where consensus is at. Personally, if I had my way, I'd just blank the section. It doesn't reflect consensus, and is unnecessary. If people really want a historiographic theory section, I'm not going to oppose that, my goal is to make sure that it reflects true Wikipedia consensus, and not just what a faction of editors think Wikipedia consensus should be. To some extent, my edits are proposals, which is often the way changes are made to policy pages. I just happen to have had a lot of ideas for proposals during the last few days, and I was hoping something would stick, because making proposals on the talk page hasn't really been working, as User:Vassyana could attest. Yet, over the last several weeks, I and a few other editors have successfully made small changes by making them directly to the article. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. COGDEN 00:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

Thanks for your effort in helping to direct Golden Plates to featured status.--John Foxe (talk) 02:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, too, for doing most of the final work to get it ready. I'm surprised we didn't get more comments. COGDEN 17:54, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

POV fork

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#POV fork --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I left a comment there. COGDEN 23:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

WAF

I like your edit, except for the possibly confusing "However, such publications may be suitable primary or secondary sources about the fan publication or other topics." I do get your point there, and it's clearly valid. I'm just afraid the kind of (young? inexperienced? impatient?) users who make up the target audience may be confused by that precise wording and not get the distinction you're making. I dorftrottel I talk I 04:06, December 4, 2007

I can see that. Feel free to change the wording if you can think of a better way to state it. Maybe we can just leave out that sentence, as long as it specifies that the fan publication is not a good secondary source for the original work. The rest is implied. COGDEN 04:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to think of some clearer wording (tomorrow). Actually, another user and me had started a careful restructuring of the guideline but halted it some time ago, when I somehow lost perspective and became more and more annoyed by a vocal minory who tries to fend off any stricter formulation of our core content principles (ie. within the guideline). Anyway, thanks so far. I dorftrottel I talk I 04:33, December 4, 2007

Ok, I tried clarifying it here. ¶ dorftrottel ¶ talk ¶ 05:14, December 5, 2007

I think it is enough already

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research&diff=175792148&oldid=175640702
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research&diff=175616575&oldid=175608889
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research&diff=175421463&oldid=175006474
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research&diff=173961320&oldid=173955721

≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the same thing about your reversions. It's not appropriate under any number of policies, including WP:CONS, WP:POLICY, WP:EP, and WP:OWN. Policy articles are subject to a higher standard of consensus, and it's not proper to assert your POV without meeting that standard. I don't think there is any doubt that the PSTS section has not reached the consensus level yet. We've tried dispute resolution on this before, but not all the parties agreed to mediation. I know you were not a party to that yet, but maybe you'd be amenable to trying that type of procedure once again. The issue is not going away on its own, apparently, if our faction persists, and your faction carefully excercises ownership and prevents any move, no matter how small, toward a Wikipedia consensus. COGDEN 22:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Disruption

Trying to push a major change without seeking consensus is not helpful.[2] It's even less helpful when the change misrepresent the discussion that has taken place.[3] This kind of policy editing is disruptive. Don't push your point by editing policy. Build a consensus on the talk page. Vassyana (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

At one point, you were honestly working here toward consensus, and even had your own proposal, and I'm disappointed your own work toward consensus stalled. That's why it pains me to see you now working against the principles of WP:OWN, WP:POLICY, WP:EP, and especially WP:CONS. As to disruption, none of my edits are Pointy. Each and every one of them is an honest move toward consensus, which would make the policy better than it was originally, and I do not disrupt articles with dishonest edits designed only to make a point. My edits are certainly bold, but bold in a number of creative ways, and if one approach toward consensus does not work, I try something new, hoping that some change, no matter how incremental, will stick and move us toward consensus. Some of the changes have remained for several weeks, but unfortunately, I can't do anything about the ownership problems this article has. COGDEN 22:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I still intend to work towards consensus. But, consensus isn't built by making drastic changes to the policy and hoping consensus will follow. I may revive my proposal, with a "vote count" of sorts of the previous discussion. It was mostly derailed by people refusing to participate essentially. It was certainly far from perfect, but I do believe it was a good sight more reflective of actual practice and the views raised on the policy talk page (compared to the current section). I do believe your attempts are in good faith, but I also believe you know deep down that being bold isn't going to get us anywhere with that policy. Vassyana (talk) 23:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably not now. I started being bolder when the numerous talk page proposals seemed to be going nowhere, and it was working for a while. We had some good incremental changes going which were quite long-lived. But these have been reverted, in some cases back several weeks. So maybe it's time to try other approaches for a while. Pending those approaches, however I think it's absolutely necessary that we have some sort of tag, if for nothing else than to draw casual readers of PSTS into the talk page so we can have their input. COGDEN 00:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

RFC/USER discussion concerning you (COGDEN)

Hello, COGDEN. Please be aware that a request for comments has been filed concerning your conduct on Wikipedia. The RFC entry can be found by your name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/COGDEN, where you may want to participate.

-- Dreadstar † 19:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC) . Dreadstar † 19:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to policy

Cogden, your changes to policy pages are becoming problematic. Since July, you've been edit warring to change NOR to help you with your use of primary sources in articles about the Mormon church. When you couldn't achieve the changes you wanted, you edit warred over tagging the policy as disputed. When that didn't work, you tried to change WP:POLICY to alter how policy is made, and you reverted there when someone objected. When you were challenged about needing prior consensus for the change, you went to WP:CONSENSUS and tried to alter that to help your case. Now, you are trying to change the primary source section in BLP -- a section that is important to members of the Foundation -- without any prior discussion at all.

This really isn't acceptable. Policies can't be changed to help one individual editor further his own approach on a particular set of articles.

I've asked you many times to show me an example of material in those articles that you can't use because of the current NOR wording, and you still haven't done it. Would you please consider doing that so that we can see exactly where you're coming from? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I have not been edit warring, except in a very limited number of particular instances, such as keeping the {{tl:disputedtag}} on WP:NOR. You, on the other hand, have made multiple reversions to a particular suggested change several times. As to your request for "examples", I have provided tens of them. You just need to read the talk page and archives. COGDEN 21:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You haven't provided a single clear-cut one, and you've made the talk page and archives practically unreadable, so no one can follow your arguments anymore. Please provide me with one clear example from the articles you edit about the church, where your historical research would be constrained by the current NOR policy. If there is a genuine problem, I want to see it and I want to help you, but in the six months or so you've been arguing the point, I genuinely haven't understood what you're getting at. A very clear example would help a lot. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Slimvirgin: Do you have any issues with COGDEN's editing of articles on the subject of engineering, or on the subject of law? --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: ArbCom

Thank you for alerting me to your request to ArbCom. -- llywrch (talk) 05:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Stale link, no diff, in RfAr:NOR

This issue is a big problem that needs to be heard, so I hope they don't close the case before the new Arbcom members are seated.

In your statement, WP:Requests for arbitration/No Original Research#Statement by COGDEN (section) (COGDEN 2007-12-12T23:45 diff):

"One well-meaning administrator "owner" has even suggested that [[WP:OWN|ownership]] is ''okay'' in policy pages. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research#Would_the_Arbitration_Committee_hear_this.3F]"

, the quoted section link is stale, and even after locating it in WP:NOR/archive26, it takes too long to find the referenced post without a diff. Providing both a diff link for the quote and a section link for context, are useful for holding an arbitrator's attention while making a point with proof. Here is my suggested update (wiki) text:

One well-meaning administrator "owner" has even suggested that ownership is okay in policy pages. (diff) (section)

In any organizing by hierarchy, if one owns the policy, de facto one owns whatever parts of article pages are controlled by that policy. This strategy leaves no visible proof of WP:OWN on the article itself.
Combine that with the anarchist wildfire of WP:IAR being applied for no reason at all, or if pressed, the generic reason of 'the good of Wikipedia' (AGF), and it's a formula for conflict-of-interest driven point-of-view, WP:owning of a global information resource, by perhaps 20-100 user-oligarchs whose names pop up wherever one navigates.
I hope this helps. (Please reply here if desired) Milo 19:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you, and good comments. I'll make the change. COGDEN 20:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Error in your RFC statement

I saw a minor attribution error in your RFC statement in section "Tagging the section". You can correct this by replacing my name with: <s>[[User:BirgitteSB|BirgitteSB]]</s> [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Tony_Sidaway&diff=prev&oldid=151257658] [[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway]]

I personally do not have a strong opinion about the tag. I was merely fixing Tony's mistaken null edit and the edit summary you quote is his words.--BirgitteSB 18:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I made the change. COGDEN 19:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOR

Forgive me if this has already been asked, but I'm curious anyway: Is your position on NOR predicated by your background as a chemical engineer, as a patent lawyer, as a member of the LDS church, some other background, or some combination of the above? If so, how did this background influence your position? If you have already answered this question elsewhere, can you provide me with a link? --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Your answer might help me decide on whether I want to help clean up this fine mess ;-) )

Probably all of the above. The articles I work on are generally (1) technical, which means that the PSTS language blocks me from citing peer reviewed journal articles, despite Jimbo's support for them, or mathematical texts that cannot necessarily be verified by a lay person, (2) highly controversial religious subjects such as the featured articles Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. or Golden plates, where the secondary sources are nearly all biased either for or against the credibility and truth of the speaker, and often the only way to ensure NPOV is to directly quote the primary source rather than spin-doctored versions of the primary source, or (3) legal, where the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" is very complicated since every single source is both, and the distinction between "primariness" and "secondariness" is not a principled one that has anything to do with original research. COGDEN 21:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

If true, then you would be an expert on the subject matter at hand, likely with a fairly nuanced view on the topic. From the current on-wiki situation, it appears that this view has not gotten across very well. You've been busy on this topic for a while, can you identify what you think are the main reasons that this is occurring? --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly because of the sheer volume of edits on the WP:NOR talk page. Anything I, or anyone else, has said on that page quickly gets drowned out and quickly archived. Plus, while several of us have made many arguments about application of the rule to areas of science, law, history, and philosophy, I don't think these arguments have really been looked at carefully, because they are nuanced, and it's much easier to just reject a complicated argument out of hand, rather than invest in the time to really understand it, particularly with the volume of comments we are dealing with. COGDEN 22:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a breakdown of the consensus system then. That makes sense. --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC) The only solution I know to solve such a situation is to divide the problem into sub-problems until only a sane number of comments can be gathered on each, and thus "divide and conquer" the problem, as it were as it were.

Thanks for the notification

I've added a statement to the arbitration request.

The RFC against you is a good example of misuse of the RFC idea and process. It's laughable (and pathetic.) I have embarrassed myself many times. I'd be highly embarrassed to be the author of that RFC.

Can you laugh at the RFC? I hope you can, although I don't suggest that be the full extent of your reaction. --Minasbeede (talk) 22:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It's hard to laugh, because it is a personal attack, but I see how it's laughable. I'm sure a few weeks from now we'll all be laughing. COGDEN 23:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, its nasty. But while it may smell like a dung heap as long as you're in it, there are flowers waiting to greet you when you come out on top. :) -- Fullstop (talk) 01:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom

While I personally disagree with you on many occasions, I support your right to file the ArbCom request and to have it heard fairly.

On that note, I would suggest that (if it is possible or allowed) that the reason for the request to be reformulated (maybe by striking out the original prose and replacing with new prose, and subsequent notification to everybody commenting there so far, including ArbCom members?) where the request is more restrictive, perhaps only addressing ownership and/or extended protection. As it is, myself and several others (I believe yourself even), have overcommented into other 'areas', even if they are deemed pertinent. As it is, I think the ArbCom members looking at it get easily confused by the myraid of points or positions and think it is to broad for them to address, maybe even getting into a purely content dispute. I think if the request was much more specific, maybe even multiple requests for each disputed point, it may have a better chance of acceptance. I think the more precise and concise the request is, the better the chance of ArbCom deciding to accept it as they could limit their involvement to soley that one specific point/issue.

Just my opinion. wbfergus ^Talk 13:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a good idea. I think the request can be narrowed quite a bit. COGDEN 19:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know I'm aware: I've looked at the RfA and the RfC. I've been thinking about what I might say. I might or might not comment at it/them. I need to think some more. Re diff links: I don't want to see a list of tens of links any more than you want to spend the time collecting them, but I think your statements could be improved by a small number of diffs in key places. For example, somewhere you said you had announced the intention to file an RfA before the RfC was filed. When saying that, a diff of your announcement would support your point very well. Diffs are the only really good evidence. A link to a talk page, or to a section of a talk page, doesn't really prove anything, since anyone could have edited the comments above someone else's signature. Good luck! --Coppertwig (talk) 22:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I'll see if I can find the diffs.

387 talk page edits

Thanks for taking the time and caring. --Minasbeede (talk) 05:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! COGDEN 19:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Note of encouragement

Wow. I don't think I support your views on policy entirely (I'm lately a wonk and twiddler who often cries "OR" on the biographies of living people), but I hope you stick around no matter what happens. You do great work. Cool Hand Luke 09:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. COGDEN 19:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk to Vassanya

I just wrote something to Vassanya on his talk page. I think it supports you. --Minasbeede (talk) 20:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll check it out. COGDEN 20:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Your Proposal

I have seen your proposal to give up editing of three policy pages for 3 months if several other editors will take the same pledge. It is unlikely that they will take the pledge. Here's a counter proposal: unilaterally give up editing of the policy pages for some period of time but continue, as you see fit, to participate in discussions on talk pages. While doing so be alert to violations of policy and of the spirit of Wikipedia and (in the assume-good-faith and respectful) spirit of Wikipedia call attention to them. The most heinous policy violation is the locking of the policy pages by partisans to the dispute. The most frequent (or at least a very frequent) violation of the Wikipedia spirit is the uncommunicative nature of some editors. This appears when they (a) revert without any comment or dialog and (b) when they ignore questions and points raised in the talk. There's clearly concern about PSTS, it is part of WP:NOR, the method of dealing with the concerns is, precisely, to engage in discussion on the talk page. If the proponents do not meaningfully engage in discussion then they are the ones guilty of disruption. Also, I would be remiss in suggesting that you participate in talk only if your experience there would be that every valid point or question you raised was ignored. Or even if some were ignored.

Perhaps also, in your own space, keep a running "scorecard" for the talk. There you'd list points raised (and when they were raised) and points addressed by the other side and when they were addressed. List whether there is, in your mind, resolution of each issue.

This conflict has gone on for months for the current group of those concerned with the flaws in PSTS and for years for other groups or for individuals. It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that your bold edits are responsible for the lack of progress or for the general atmosphere surrounding the dispute. I'd say that probably your bold edits were ill-advised, but not so much so as to justify an RFC against you. When the tactics of the other side can be summarized as (1) require that consensus be reached on the talk pages before making any change and (2) perpetually and adamantly deny consensus for any change that alters PSTS it should be obvious that progress will be nil.

This is not meant to imply that your proposal was a bad one. It would be quite useful if the editors you named would give up editing of the policy pages for the same period of time as you. They'd also have to give up something they should never have done: locking the page. They're partisans, they are forbidden to lock if they are parties to the dispute. Nonetheless, they do it. Minasbeede (talk) 13:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I just left a similar comment on the RfC page (in part anyway). Minas, though, please take a look and the dit history of the policy. I can't (eaasily) see where any of those 'participants' have actively locked the page, with the exception of Slrubenstein back in the Aug./Sept timeframe. I also think he handled hte isssue then pretty fairly by stating what he did, why, and how to address any concerns, and at the time I don't remember anybody really having any real heartburn with it, except maybe one or two people, and we progressed past that lock. I think all of the other locks were done by other admins (even if they asked to do so by a participating member). I think that is allowed, as otherwise how could a non-involved admin know a lock is needed, though there is also nothing preventing anybody from asking a friendly admin to do it either. wbfergus ^Talk 15:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that's correct. Slrubenstein was not really involved in the dispute prior to protecting the page, but then became heavily involved; after that, I don't think Slrubenstein made any further protections. This was brought up at one point, and I defended Slrubenstein, because I thought the actions were proper. COGDEN 16:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(Not as a contradiction) Slrubenstein was involved early on, which I saw from the history. I think he may have introduced source typing into WP:NOR. (There is part of a conversation about that on my talk page.) If not, he was a very early advocate of it. (I only mean these as informative statements.) I have no objection to the protection as protection but it did go on for a very long time in August and it does seem that page protection is a tactic rather than a neutral act meant simply to protect Wikipedia. While the page was protected (back in August) there was a decent amount of what appeared to be useful and honest discussion and that's the important thing. I think that if a partisan protects a page he should indicate on the talk page that he has done so and should probably find some means of requesting that a non-partisan admin take over the protection asap. If a partisan requests another admin to protect I think it would be good for the partisan to announce that request on the talk page. It's cleaner, it's more open, it's more respectful of the policy that does forbid partisans to lock pages.

I recall one defense having been made (maybe yours), with which I didn't agree but with which I didn't want to argue. Wikipedia is a community, needs to run as a community. I alerted members of the community to what seemed to me to be at least a technical violation of the rules (I viewed it more severely.) Having done so I was willing to let the community act or not act, with the community then being responsible for the consequences, if any. I was and am a relative newbie. If the more experienced editors don't mind having that rule broken then so be it. If they don't care if their ox is gored then I don't care, either.

Now I don't look at WP:NOR nor WT:NOR and am clearly on the downslope of the curve that shows my utility as a commenter on this matter. --Minasbeede (talk) 21:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Evaluating sources

I took the liberty of being bold and integrating your changes a bit better into Wikipedia:Evaluating sources. As I explain on the talk page, it made the intro section seem bloated and a bit confusing. However, your material was very good and I believe I've integrated all of it into the page. My disagreement was more a matter of some relatively minor wording and organization than anything else, so I told myself {{sofixit}} and made an attempt to do so. :) Let me know if the implementation of your material (or any other change I've made) is problematic or of concern. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 18:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks. COGDEN 18:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)