User talk:John K/Archive 6

Oil for food

Hi there, would you help us with the oil for food article? There are serious problems, mainly because two users have extreme disagreements and no one else helped. Bcorr now suggested a peace-plan, and I thought you might be willing to help? Get-back-world-respect 19:10, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Viscount Taaffe

Many thanks. Now we can say Wikipedia has info the CP lacks! I'm guessing that Francis has online access to The Times...sigh. How good is that! - Nunh-huh 21:06, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

JC

John, I hope my comments did not seem too snippy. I'm not sure why I even bothered to post it. I think there is just something about the way ChessPlayer seems to have been playing around on that talk page that has rubbed me the wrong way, and I felt compelled to disagree with him. I'm sure there is probably a way to work the academic fields and titles into the article in an unobtrusive manner that would really not be such a big deal. older ≠ wiser 02:27, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you are quite right that the article is lacking something. It jumps right into a sort of theological quagmire about which religions accord him what status. A simple bio, starting with the more or less certain (probably just a few sentences, really--he lived about such period, was an apparently influential religious leader, was executed by the Romans--things that most everyone would agree most likely did happen). And from there describe the more "mythic" versions of his life. I think the Gautama Buddha article might make be good one to use as a general idea for balancing theological and historical aspects.

I agree it would be more appropriate at simply "Jesus" rather than "Jesus Christ". older ≠ wiser 03:05, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your plan sounds quite reasonable. I can sympathize about mixed feelings over the religious aspects, being raised a strict Lutheran and having read the Bible several times over before venturing off into eastern religions and now settling into a sort of tolerant (or perhaps just lazy) agnosticism. older ≠ wiser 03:25, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Peerage Tables

I agree with your plan to create a MediaWiki table. Perhaps "Peerage of England," etc, could be moved to "List of peers of England" to be consistent. As for individual peerage pages, I'm not sure how we would do it, for there are so many titles that exist: surely, all of them could not fit in one table? -- Emsworth 19:44, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at that list of lists, I think we should move List of Dukes in order of precedence, etc., to List of Dukes, List of Marquesses, etc. Although we could probably think up some other amusing ways of sorting them (List of Dukes by number of castles owned perhaps), the order of precedence should surely be the default. (Plus it would make it much easier to type out...) Proteus (Talk) 20:53, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think the only real difference between the two lists is that List of N in order of precedence excludes extinct titles. Mackensen 21:54, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps List of extant dukedoms and List of dukedoms would make more sense? john 21:55, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think that a page called "List of Viscountcies" (say) would have to include those subsumed by higher titles, whereas a "List of Viscounts" would only include those peers whose highest titles are Viscountcies. (Technically of course, anyone with a Viscountcy is a Viscount, but in common parlance they are not.) Both types of page have their uses. Thus, the way it is at the moment makes sense to me. (By the way, what do you think the capitalisation should be? I tend to capitalise "Duke" and "Dukedom" etc all the time, but I know it's not universal practice...) Proteus (Talk) 22:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, I've heard the Duke of Norfolk referred to as being both the premier Duke and the premier Earl of England... john 22:19, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps the subsidiary titles could be included in the List of Dukes series, in italics or something to distinguish them. Proteus (Talk) 22:25, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Eh, I think it's fine. Subsidiary titles are listed on the individual peerage page. john 22:27, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, I've been toiling away on List of Baronies, originally working from this list and adding more as I found them. Just the English ones so far. Mackensen 00:17, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. I've made a point to double-check all of that with hereditarytitles.com. Mackensen 00:28, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Oh yes, they're definitely anglocentric, but that reflects both the expertise of the Wikipedia peerage contributors and the anglocentricity of the vast majority of peerage information on the internet. I wouldn't even know where to go to get a list of French or German nobles (of course it'd be very hard for German ones, because there's thousands of them), short of searching on atr until I found something. (Actually, doing just that, here and here might be a start.) Even then, I wouldn't know where to start in writing about them, as I know practically nothing about them except for various snippets that I've picked up from atr (like the insanity of French courtesy titles and the title-inflation that French nobles seem to get away with all the time). I don't think the page titles at the moment are a problem, though: List of Ducs and List of Herzogs (or whatever the German plural is - I don't speak German) might be more appropriate for the non-British ones, and "the Peerage" means "the British Peerage" in almost all cases, so the French one could safely go at French Peerage, with a disambiguation notice at the top. Proteus (Talk) 00:57, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Not that I know of. However, my only knowledge of the nobility of small European countries is what "Correct Form" has in the back about them. Of course, we should really have articles on them all, even the ones that aren't "Peerages", at Belgian Nobility or what not. Proteus (Talk) 10:28, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Abkhazia

I apologise for adding these entries. I was going through alphabetically and hence will not draw you into a lengthy discussion on the rights of the people of Abkhazia. --OldakQuill 10:26, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

As for Abkhazia under the Ottomans and Russia, I don't really know what should be done with it. I'm just going to stop adding them for now, and will move the ones I have added when we decide where Ottoman and other dependencies go. -- Jonel 20:17, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Poll: New York City

You expressed interest in the name of the New York City article on its Talk page. Could you please vote in the poll there? Thank you. --Lowellian 00:03, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

Peerage: References

As you might have noted, the articles under Peerage have numerous references. I was wondering about whether you would suggest that paranthetical references should be included in the text. (Presently, they are not included; with the large number of references, however, it might be difficult to determine what information each reference involves.) Then again, I would not want the article to seem like a research paper, instead of an encyclopedia article. So either paranthetical citations, or the use of footnotes, or neither, would be possible: what would you suggest? -- Emsworth 21:03, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well, the references were not intended as external links, in which case consolidation would be possible. Rather, they are intended as a "Works Cited" list - the problem is that nothing is cited. That is why I wished to ask if paranthetical citations would be advisable. -- Emsworth 00:03, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think that the policy of the encyclopedia is found at Wikipedia:Cite your sources - which is not explicit about whether or not the actual paranthetical citations must be used. I am leaning towards using them only when direct quotations or close paraphrases are involved; this would make sense since the quotation would need a source. -- Emsworth 00:18, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Congo Free State

I just noticed that on April 25, you protected Congo Free State without listing it on the Wikipedia:Protected_page. Protected pages should be listed there to prevent protected ad infintum. I have since unprotected it, but thought I'd drop you a note just to make sure you know. →Raul654 18:37, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Compton Mackenzie

His page says it's "Sir Edward Montague, or Compton Mackenzie" not and. Can you shed some light?--Samuel J. Howard 02:33, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

I'll move him there then and fix his article.--Samuel J. Howard 02:38, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm...actually I won't move it, but I will try to fix the links and citations of him as EM.--Samuel J. Howard 02:39, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Fascism

Your comments re WHEELER's latest claims in Talk:Fascism are welcome AndyL 18:48, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

message

Please do not leave the wiki you are a valued contributor (i.e you are in short supply) do not let trolls dictate your actions like other valued contributors have. stay strong. GrazingshipIV 04:48, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Ok cool, we just lost a few good ones recently. Yeah take a wiki-break, I assure you sanity and low blood pressure eventually return. ;) GrazingshipIV 04:59, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

John, I find the politics pretty frustrating myself. As I said before, let's just hang out with the peers. No one seems to bother them much...Mackensen 05:47, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

John, thank you for your interest and yes I listened to your concerns. I look forward to working with as soon as possible on this matter. I am actually pulling an all nighter studying for an upper level western civilization final. I will propose a reformat soon, I promise. thanks GrazingshipIV 06:38, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

on Fascism

Quote from Prof. Sternhell's book: "(Fascism) was not a reactionary or an antirevolutionary movement in the Maurrassian sense of the term. Fascism presented itself as a revolution of another kind, a revolution that sought to destroy the existing political order and to uproot its theoretical and moral foundations." pg 7.

I put this in the article, It was deleted by AndyL.

I quote from the Doctrine of Fascism: "It is not reactionary but revolutionary." AndyL knows more about Fascism than does Gentile and Mussolini.

Quote from Prof. Sternhell's book: "Futurism, thanks to Marinetti, became a political force in the strict sense of the term." pg 234 "Marinetti the Bergsonian futurist" pg239 Prof Sternhell writes: "To this combination of revoltuonary revisionism and integral nationalism was added, in about, l910, a third element, Futurism. pg 28. Marinetti wrote a Futurist Manifesto. pg 28. Lagardelle, writes of a new culture. pg 27

Andyl deletes my lines of futurism in the Fascist article.

I quote from the Doctrine of Fascism: "Activism: that is to say nationalism, futurism, fascism". Futurism is tied to Fascism.

I am sorry. but I cannot believe AndyL who doesn't know anything about Gentile, Lagardelle, Sorel, Peguy, Marinetti, D'Annunzio, Bergson, or Proudhon, and reverts edits that are found in the Doctrine of Fascism is qualified to do anything and has come to be the so-called "Fascist" and "Nazi" expert and Comissar of reverts on this site is laughable. WHEELER 15:28, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Message for you: If you have cooled down; do you happen to know the name of the wife of the 1st Earl of Halifax. I think she was called Ruth Primrose, but would like to be sure, before somebody reverts my article and irritates me to death. I would appreciate it. Ragussa 09:28, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi

Thanks for that. I've found that my Ruth Primrose married the 2nd. Earl of Halifax. She belongs to an article I wish, I had never started to correct on: Mentmore Towers. The links have gone everywhere, and people have started to redivert my stuff to all manner of places, some of them complaining while they do it. Trouble is, I know I'm right!!!! At the end of the day, the peerage is not my subject, its not my fault I know a little bit about it. I sympathise with your feelings expressed above.

Regards

Ragussa 19:32, 6 May 2004 (UTC)~

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John,

Please take a look at this. Hanpuk's changes to these articles are all problematic, but I like the idea of those two acting as censors. Hanpuk may be what Adam accuses me of being, but IMHO that still gives Adam no night to impose a one-man ban on this user. 172 06:56, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I too got so totally fed up with wikipedia but drop in occasionally to see how it is. But already I have had the experience of looking at an edit and screaming "agh. What the f**k!" and got all annoyed over it again. I think I will be an occasional visitor. FearÉIREANN 16:42, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Allard Lowenstein

Having known Allard Lowenstein personally, I have to ask on what basis you would refer to him as "crazy." -- Jmabel 07:46, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you opened more of a can of worms than you meant to here, but I still would like an explanation of what you did mean by calling Lowenstein crazy. You've now said what you didn't mean. -- Jmabel 08:10, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

On the gerrymander: I don't remember the details (I worked on his '70 campaign, but I was only 15 years old at the time; as in '68, it was a bit of a children's crusade, though a very well-run children's crusade), and I don't know how general the redistricting was, but they managed to remove the liberal "Five Towns" (centered on Hewlett, if I have the geography right) from the NY 5^th Congressional District and substitute Massapequa, home at the time to more members of the NYPD than any other Long Island community. The Republicans wanted him out; because he had led the "Dump Johnson" movement, the Democrats didn't care to defend him, and probably were willing to lose a seat off of their then-large majority in the House to be rid of him. Nonetheless, he ran a spirited, celebrity-studded and issue-heavy campaign, and he only lost by narrow margin (about 1.5% if I remember correctly). (As for celebrity-studded, I will never forget hearing my classmate Pat Donnelly on the phone at campaign HQ saying, "Are you really Elliot Gould? The Elliot Gould?") -- Jmabel 08:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

JMabel, can I assume from your most recent response that I've satisfied you with respect to Allard Lowenstein? john 09:09, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I've been known to go off half-cocked, too, just wanted to know what I was dealing with here. -- Jmabel 19:40, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

& I remembered the story in the gerrymander: this was right after the Supreme Court decided that elections must be "one man, one vote" and that rather than follow traditional geopolitical boundaries, districts needed to be, as nearly as possible, equal size. This forced redistricting in many (maybe most?) states. (Among other things, prior to that the NY State Senate worked along lines similar to the US Senate and was equally disproportionate in terms of rural vs. urban representation.) -- Jmabel 19:47, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Papua and Daeron

Daeron seems to have so much to get off his chest that it's hard for him to discuss one issue at a time, and his advocacy is as extreme as I've seen anybody express at WP (after reading some of his commentary, I next expect to hear that everything in Western civilization was actually stolen from the West Papuans by the evil Indonesians :-) ). The trick in mediation is going to be to get him to look at himself objectively, and to think about how other people are going to react to things that he says. Stan 06:35, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Elections in the United Kingdom

Sorry, I figured out what you did almost as soon as a posted the comments :) Deus Ex 21:24, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Mediation

Hello John, I'm afraid Daeron has declined mediation at this time (via e-mail). I'm not sure whether you have tried Requests for comment yet? Perhaps that would be worth a try. If you want us to try again to initiate mediation at a later date, please let us know. I'm sorry not to be of more help. Regards - sannse (talk) 22:17, 12 May 2004 (UTC) (mediation committee)

The page has been listed on requests for comment. Perhaps I should list Daeron himself, given that he has just accused me of a) plagiarizing his work because I took some material he had added to his version of the article and moved it over to the version that I've been reverting to; and b) being an anti-semite (maybe, I'm not too clear if that's what he was doing). Ga, this is a pain. john 22:21, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Hello john. I've just updated Wikipedia:Requests for mediation to confirm that Daeron has declined to participate in mediation. Again discussion was via e-mail. Sorry it took me a while to do this, I was away for a couple of days. Regards -- sannse (talk) 12:38, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

---

Would you be able to unprotect Augusto Pinochet, or at least take a look at what's going on? With Veriverily's preferred version protection, there's no discussion (other than attacking me), and it looks like it's set to be protected indefinitely. 172 08:27, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Facts on what "New York, New York" means

"True indeed. Which is why the fact that using city, state conforms to postal usage is not a very good reason that we should use it."

But "New York, New York" in the mailing usage actually does refer to the city, and not New York County! Brooklyn was a part of New York County until 1914, when it was separated into Kings County. WhisperToMe 05:16, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm meaning New York, New York in the postal usage - If New York county covered what is now Brooklyn and Manhattan, but Brooklyn and New York City had separate mailing addresses, than the USPS mailing address could not refer to the county.

I bet that there is usage of "New York, New York" to refer to the county, but I don't know who does - People in my area always state a county as "XXX County". WhisperToMe 05:22, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

On second thought, the Manhattan article says that New York county was coextensive of what is now New York City - but doesn't this conflict? WhisperToMe 05:24, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, New York City ate up the Bronx before 1898. WhisperToMe 05:35, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

You missed a few

You missed a couple of Franz Josef's in Franz Joseph of Austria (2nd paragraph especially). I'd have changed them, but I got stumped on what to do with Franz Josef Land: it gets many more Google hits by that name than as Franz Joseph Land...And there are a few mystifying "Josef"'s in the article that are in other languages. - Nunh-huh 06:14, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I expect there will soon be rabid camps of de-ph'ers. <sigh>. - Nunh-huh 06:20, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Part of Delaware Valley (Philadelphia Metro Area) IS in Maryland

John Kenney, one county of the Delaware Valley (the Philadelphia Metro area) is in Maryland. And you know that one county is enough for it to be listed on the Maryland mediawiki, don't you? WhisperToMe 02:39, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Even if a county seems largely rural, it is still included in the CMSA.

http://www.bls.gov/ro3/cexphl.htm

This page specifically says that Cecil County is in Philadelphia's CMSA. WhisperToMe 02:54, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

We go by the defined CMSA's when we talk about United States metropolitan areas. This is proved by United States metropolitan area. WhisperToMe 03:09, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry, I restored it. :) WhisperToMe 03:12, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

hey

I feel that my comments were a bit harsh. I apologize for that. Kingturtle 05:00, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

---

John,

With all due respect, did you notice who the users reverting my changes were on NLF? It's clear that they were really interested in picking a fight. 172 07:17, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Do you want to make some comments at Talk:Augusto Pinochet#Another poll? 172 15:03, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Admin actions

For the sake of sanity and containment, why don't we leave it up at admin actions, make a comment to Irismeister on the user page indicating that RfC is the proper place to bring this up, and then if (As I suspect will happen) iris refuses to bring it up there, the discussion gets deleted? (The basic principle here being "It's always best to give someone enough rope to hang themselves) Snowspinner 19:37, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Do you think that we'd be able to follow the same procedure for unprotection followed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fascism/_archive8#Poll:_Should_the_Soviet_Union_and_other_communist_states_be_listed_as_fascist_regimes_in_this_article? at Talk:Augusto Pinochet? I'm hoping that this poll will settle everything. Thanks for taking a look at the page, BTW. 172 00:52, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, Talk:Holocaust is getting me down too. I've already been called an "armchair historian" because I distinguished between concentration camps and death camps. It's frustrating, but I am keeping an eye on it. Danny 10:55, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Foreign Minister of Germany Keep an eye out on User:Burschenschafter. He's making similar changes in many articles. We have our hands on another Jor- and Cantus-type. Wik and I can deal with him, given that you probably have your hands full at Holocaust. 172 20:18, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

The VfD/Prof E-Mal

Nah, I'm not that worried about it. The e-mail is publicly available - I just didn't want her to get nailed by spam collecting robots. It's now hard enough to find that I'm not worried. And it's my preference that something that goes on VfD stay there for the full seven days, so I'd rather it not get deleted too. Snowspinner 06:04, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

John, there is absolutely no way to argue against IZAK regarding the Holocaust. Not only does he not know anything about it, the narrative he is attempting to impose is informed by a mystical leit-motif of Amalek, "Esav sonei Yaakov" (the Talmudic adage of "Esau hates Jacob," expressed in terms of his asinine comments regarding Browning), and an iconographic view of the Jews of Europe (no, most Jews in Europe were not familiar with the Talmud). It is unfortunate, but it is another example of how a persistent individual can hijack an article to make it POV. Since this is my field, I am a more than a little distraught, but I don't believe that arguing with people whose historical knowledge is rooted in ideology can be in any way productive. Danny Wool

Cantus

Yeah, you're right. I misread what he wrote. I've rebanned him as Cantus.  :) RickK 23:24, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Would you be interested in nominating User:AndyL and User:Markalexander100 for admin? I'd do so, but my nominations of Mark and Andy failed a while ago because some people said that they were too new (I was told by a couple of people at the time that someone else should re-nominate them in the future.). BTW, I just found out that User:Mirv hasn't become an admin yet. He should be nominated soon too. 172 04:03, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. We can wait until June. 172 10:58, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

La Page Française

Le lien ne marche pas. -- Emsworth 19:26, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

In need of community support

I'm in need of community support.

Right now, I am on the verge of being driven away from Wikipedia through the relentless efforts of a single problem user on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/172, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, and Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/172 vs VeryVerily.

The same user who refuses to accept the results of the Augusto Pinochet poll (see also [1]) goes through my user history every time he logs on and then starts reverting things that I've written arbitrary. He manages to divert attention away from the articles onto ad hominem attacks, thus poisoning the well against me. [2]

He has been doing nothing else for the past couple of months, other than making some minor changes to pages that he finds through the random page feature. Meanwhile, I've been working on articles such as Empire of Brazil, Dollar Diplomacy, and Franco-U.S. relations. I'm tired of letting a problem user define my contributions to the encyclopedia, as opposed to my work.

I may have said some regrettable things in the past, but my editing practices are scholarly and methodical. When I make an edit, my choice is based on a consideration of the quality of the encyclopedia. Unlike the user who avowedly admits to trying to escalate a personal feud (see, e.g., [3]), I do not decide which pages to edit and what changes to make on the basis of personality feuds, emotional POV whims, or a desire to get attention.

Although this user shows little evidence that he understands the content of the articles, I have shown considerable restraint, given my professional expertise. [4]. Only through community support (i.e. lobbying the arbitration committee)will this user be stopped. Otherwise, Wikipedia will die unless we stop vandals and clueless POV-pushers from running rampant and driving away valued contributors.

Please feel free to direct questions and comments to my talk page or e-mail at sokolov47@yahoo.com.

Sincerely,

172 01:42, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Categories

Neat discovery on alphabetization of Categories! (Categories:playwright|Wilde, Oscar). Is there a list of syntax somewhere that I've missed? Is there a way to make William Congreve (playwright) appear as William Congreve? - Nunh-huh 07:06, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

We shall have to wait till someone stumble on to it then<G>. - Nunh-huh 07:11, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Images on pages

John, for articles with pictures, (such as Alfred Tennyson), the manual of style explicetely says that the image tag should come before the text. →Raul654 08:03, 31 May 2004 (UTC)