User talk:Causteau/Archive 2

Cushitic

The reason I'm making the changes on the Cushitic article are for clarity of wording, formatting (you keep restoring typographic errors), and to remove POV in the Theil ref. To claim that Theil demonstrates that other researchers are wrong is POV on our part unless we can cite the literature that sides with him. Also, the line taken directly from his paper misrepresents what he shows. I'm also baffled by the insistence on using the linguistically meaningless word "group". kwami (talk) 09:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Answered on my talk page. kwami (talk) 10:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, "latest research" is deprecated wording, since even if it's the latest research today, it won't be so for long.

This may be petty, but here[1] strikes me as odd. We're saying that in Theil's classification, Afro-Asiatic consists of a single branch, Afro-Asiatic. kwami (talk) 10:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Newman casts doubt on the inclusion of Omotic in 1980 and no-one picks up on it until Thiel in 2006 (I haven't seen a date for Loprieno), and from that you deduce that "many other linguists hold this view and increasingly so with more updated research coming in"? Thiel may well be right, and it would be exciting if he is (the more language families the better, IMO), but your wording ("didn't demonstrate A is true" → "conclusively demonstrated A is not true" etc.) shows that you are maybe a bit too close to this. I'm glad to have this information in the article, but am worried that you're pushing a POV that may turn out to not be justified. kwami (talk) 11:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

E1b1b

Causteau, if you have good intentions, you can answer these questions, and then we have clear answers from you at last... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Haplogroup_E1b1b_(Y-DNA)#Intertested_people.2C_please_check_if_we_have_agreement_on_the_following I believe you'll avoid such a clear and honest approach. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Causteau, the article as it now stands is the one where you reverted 5 different edits of mine, and no edits of yours. It is presently wrong, and editing should begin again. I think you even accept some of the changes that need to be made. The present situation is not one which should exist, and it can't stay that way.

I am waiting before starting editing again. In the meantime you have every opportunity to start editing in a normal fashion, or to allow others to edit in a normal fashion. I would suggest that there is only one reasonable way to start: I have been considering all your statements, and I am believe I am supposed to understand that was is central to your attempts to justify your actions is your claim that your most recent behavior is purely guided by Elonka's guidelines. With that in mind I'd like to propose the following next step. Read those guidelines. They specifically said that there should be no reverts but only normal editing (4). (In contrast they do not say that no editing may continue without unanimity first, but that is apparently how you read it.) The present version's last edit was a full revert of 5 different isolated edits, some of which had nothing controversial in them at all. By all your own accounts, you should repair that damage, as it is strict violation of Elonka's guidelines, which you have chosen to give a very high status and very strict interpretation. Your next edit does not have to be a full revert because if there are controversial edits of mine that were made on 22 August which you do not want to fully revert, then within reason that would be fine of course, as it always would be, but then post your remarks about those on the discussion page.

On the other hand there are already several subjects which are already defined by me on the talk page: Concerning those subjects I have tried to fill any gaps at all on the talk page today, and I believe I've presented all necessary justification and for the most part you've admitted enough to make the reasons for those original changes clear for anyone. So you can't ignore that and pretend these are new subjects for discussion. Specifically there are the 4 original subjects which were reasons for me changing your edits a few days earlier. And there is also the subject of whether E-M35, etc, is a standard system of nomenclature. I've also added to my statements there today, and I also believe that subject is covered. What's more in this case, you've also admitted that the nomenclature is at least important enough to be allowed on to the article. So refusing to reverse your deletions of such terminology would not be justified by anything you've written so far. If you do that, then fine, because eventually I'll be editing again and I'll fix anything which needs fixing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, no sarcasm, for keeping your edits focused and explained today. After double checking I agree that we need a better citation for the back migration theories, but both of the ones mentioned in the present article, not just one, and I'll look. To me it seems like neither of us know enough about these theories, which are indeed quite speculative. I am also contacting David Wilson who manages the ISOGG webpage you are citing for his comment.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I want to be repetitive and transparent in my thoughts and comments. Sorry if that sometimes means stating what I think you might think, because I know as a human being that it is not nice to hear strangers guess your thoughts. Once again on this occasion (it has certainly happened before) thank you for working with "detailed" edits. I don't agree with all of them, but I hope you agree that we've done about 100 times as much good work, small as it may be, i.e. improvements of any kind, than we did in the last for weeks. I do hope or think that you will also agree that this is more effective. I have no major concern with you not responding on the talk page, because you are on the editing page instead, and that was always the better place for most of our rather small disagreements concerning facts and sources, at least in my opinion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

August 2008

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA). Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Elonka 15:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks

I'm afraid that I must insist that you tone down your rhetoric. These kinds of comments are not acceptable.[2][3] Please review WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, and in the future, please keep your comments focused strictly on the article, and not on other editors. I realize that you feel that "the other guy started it," but as far as administrators are concerned, this is irrelevant. It is not acceptable to respond to incivility, with incivility. Please speak calmly, or your account access could end up blocked. The best way to work through this dispute, is for everyone to calmly and rationally discuss the article. Resorting to ad hominem attacks will do little except to escalate the situation. --Elonka 18:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Reverts

Causteau, could I please ask you to please stop using "revert" as an editing tool at the Haplogroup article?[4] It's considered somewhat uncivil, and tends to just escalate disputes. See WP:0RR. Also, just putting information back into an article, without a source, is unwise. When someone removes information from an article, it is generally not a good idea to add it back, unless you are including a specific source which verifies the information, per WP:V. Sorry, I realize that this situation is frustrating, but the best way through it is to proceed slowly, and to be as courteous as possible. When editors are just attacking each other and reverting each other, it becomes very difficult for outside reviewers to sort through things. Also, in terms of the talkpage, and I can't emphasize this enough, the more that you type, the less likely that other people are going to read it. When you and Andrew Lancaster keep reacting to each other, multiple times per day, you both end up looking the same, and the strength of your arguments can get lost in the smoke. Just because the two of you are reading the page multiple times per day, does not mean that other editors are. Many others are only going to check the page once a day (or once a week), and if they come to the page and see 200K of back and forth between two editors, they're probably not going to read any of it. So please, slow down a bit? Thanks, --Elonka 19:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Please note that this was a simple full revert, just hidden. Otherwise why on earth would you have taken the time to reverse a simple punctuation fix [like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haplogroup_E1b1b_(Y-DNA)&diff=242822914&oldid=242213015 this edit] amongst all the other things you were supposedly working on there? Hiding your reverts therefore does not fix one of the things which is so wrong about them which is the way in which you delete lots of smaller edits everytime you get involved in "editing". It is extremely frustrating to see you still doing this. I note that this has been pointed out to you on many occasions and not just involving the E3b article where I am your interlocutor. Why do you insist on reverting everything so often?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:11, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

East Africa

I protected it in the current version. Please use Talk:East Africa to sort it out. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 11:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Press TV again

Please see [5], and [6]. This looks like a resumption of soap-boxing on that page by WP:SPAs, and it is also a violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:Undue weight. If this issue was actually a notable controversy worthy of mentioning in Wikipedia, then the issue would have already been covered by neutral mainstream media outlets. What are your thoughts? --Sina111 (talk) 08:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, can you re-post your points on the talk page of the article as well? Some oversight would be needed too, as several WP:SPAs keep reverting the page, which also looks very suspicious. --Sina111 (talk) 16:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

A few admins have got the Press TV article watchlisted now, and can help with the SPAs and edit-warring. However, please be careful not to go pushing WP:3RR yourselves. Better is to stay patient, engage in discussion at the talkpage to make it clear where the consensus is, and follow other steps in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Also, please check the Michele Renouf article, and remove any WP:BLP violations? I'd do it, but I'm not entirely clear on the topic matter. It does appear that there are negative claims being made though, which are not being backed up by reliable sources, and those should be removed ASAP. Thanks, --Elonka 16:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

These three accounts [7][8][9] look very suspicious, and may also be connected to the WP:SPAS who were active on that page. All of these accounts, appeared on that page out of the blue, with no prior history there, after weeks of inactivity in Wikipedia. --Sina111 (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

It also looks like that the disruption/reverting of the page has been advertised off-wiki [10], and many of the these new and inactive users are coming from that link (see the comments section there). --Sina111 (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing me, but it's a little unkind of you to assume that I am not acting in good faith - I've been editing on and off for a while. LeContexte (talk) 22:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure what kind of character this Nicholas Kollerstrom really is, but I Googled him up, and he has not been tried for or convicted of Holocaust denial. As a result, I made this edit in accordance with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. [11] What do you think? --Sina111 (talk) 07:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

And I got reverted by one of those accounts. Surprise surprise. --Sina111 (talk) 10:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I think someone should request full protection of the page due to the continuing edit-wars, and the documented off-wiki campaign to influence the content of the page.--Sina111 (talk) 10:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Your edit was made on a false premise: in the UK holocaust denial is not a criminal offence. The claim that gas chambers are "scientifically impossible" is a standard trope of holocaust denial. LeContexte (talk) 10:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

East Africa

Use Talk:East Africa to express your concerns and quit with the WP:Edit war. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 03:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem Post

Once more, if you don't believe in the change of direction in 2004 (personally I have no opinion because I am not familiar with the newspaper), then you need to attack that statement itself, not add a blatant WP:SYNTHESIS sentence that seems to claim that the change cannot have happened because an organisation that has been called "virulently anti-Israel", "bitterly anti-Zionist" and "the most conspiratorially-minded of the anti-Israel forces" (see Washington Report on Middle East Affairs#Criticism) said something four years before the purported change. If you have presented an illogical argument, and you have been told twice why it is unquestionably nonsensical, it's time to stop. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh please. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America -- the organization that labeled the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as "virulently anti-Israel" -- has itself been described as "pro-Israel"; of course it would say that! The same goes for the complaints originating from the so-called "HonestReporting" group (a pro-Israel watchdog organisation that monitors the media for bias against Israel) and the Middle East Quarterly (a publication of the American pro-Israel neoconservative think tank Middle East Forum (MEF)). Causteau (talk) 11:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you please explain your edit summary ["restored sources; the StandWithUs source is from 2008 -- not 2004; the "change in direction" of JP after appointment of Horowitz has also been tagged as unsourced February of this year"] with which you restored sources and the statements which you supported with them. You reinstated the improper synthesis of the Washington Report source with an edit summary that pretends my date of publication objection was about the StandWithUs source.

By the way, you will be happy to hear that I just found a reliable source for the statement that you had to remove for lack of sourcing. I will update the article accordingly but leave your policy violations in for someone else to revert. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I've already told you in no uncertain terms not to talk about me but about the edits; this includes the sophomoric "calling out" you've been doing in your edit summaries (e.g. 1) => see & actually read this time WP:CIV. I also mentioned the StandWithUs source because you repeatedly removed it (1, 2) from the article with no justification whatsoever. What's more, my inclusion of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs source in the Jerusalem Post Wikipedia page is not in any way, shape or form "improper synthesis" or anything approaching it because synthesis involves piecing together information that is not directly related to the subject at hand, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article describes the Jerusalem Post point-blank as "pro-Likud" (viz. "the pro-Likud Jerusalem Post"). Causteau (talk) 11:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

What is the incivil part of my edit summary "Restoring statement with new, reliable source. Leaving Causteau's policy violations in place (I reverted them twice before)"? Wasn't I allowed to say that they constitute policy violations, or wasn't I allowed to mention your user name in this context? I can find nothing relevant in Wikipedia:CIV#Engaging_in_incivility. (Actually, I do. "Feigned incomprehension, 'playing dumb'" seems to be very applicable to what you are doing.)

My justification for removing the StandWithUs sentence was "'Pro-Israel' goes without saying here."2 Do you disagree with that? Or did you try to make a different point with that sentence, one that was lost on me?

It seems that in the meantime you have understood [12] that you had committed improper synthesis by using suggestive placement of a sentence and improper use of the word "however" [13]. For the first time since our interactions started I am under the impression that we are in a dialogue. Thank you. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

What is uncivil about calling out other editors in edit summaries is, among other things, that it prejudices new visitors to the page against that editor without said visitors having the benefit of being privy to all the facts. Wikipedia also clearly forbids this and all forms of personal attacks:

Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks will not help you make a point; they hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia.

This includes that baseless, rude and, frankly, childish strike-through phrase above.

Your stated justification for your repeated removal of the StandWithUs source (viz. "Undoing revert whose justification makes no sense and does not respond to the reasons given for the revert. Discuss on talk page first.") is also no justification at all since the article is about the Jerusalem Post and the StandWithUs quote discusses it directly. Moreover, it is not obvious to the average reader that some organization that happens to be called StandWithUs is also pro-Israel unless we state that outright. It could be a dance troupe for all they know!

And there you go again speculating on what I think, commenting on the contributor rather than the content (i.e. "it seems that in the meantime you have understood that you had committed improper synthesis by using suggestive placement of a sentence and improper use of the word "however""). I've already explained to you that my inclusion of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs source in the Jerusalem Post Wikipedia page is not in any way, shape or form "improper synthesis" or anything approaching it because synthesis involves piecing together information that is not directly related to the subject at hand, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article describes the Jerusalem Post point-blank as "pro-Likud" (viz. "the pro-Likud Jerusalem Post"). The Horowitz assertion wasn't even sourced when I added it, for cryin' out loud! I only adjusted it cause it finally is now. Ugh. Causteau (talk) 12:55, 19 October 2008 (UTC)