User talk:Coppertwig/Archive 8

RFA

Good luck on your RfA -- ₮inucherian ^(Talk) - 06:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 11:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Back

This owl is in no way related to Moonriddengirl

Not that you don't know that, but it occurs to me that I haven't officially said hello since my return. :) While I'm very busy unpacking and getting affairs in order (oi! the state of my lawn!), my body clock is so out of whack that time seems to just melt away and nothing really gets accomplished. Is it really the 8th already? It doesn't help that I can't seem to stay coherent past 9:00 p.m. or asleep past about 4:00 a.m. (my time). I'm a morning person by nature, but I can't really regard 4:00 a.m. as morning. It seems much more fitting a time for the fellow to the right.

Thanks for helping out at the drawing board in my absence! While I've gradually come to understand that Wikipedia can survive just fine without me, I do always feel a bit regretful about not helping out there. Elipongo is excellent at it (and often comes up with things that don't occur to me!), but he has indicated that time constraints sometimes delay his response and so often the people there are new and a bit anxious. :)

I'm eager to get back into routine. I'm glad that I don't have to travel often. I'm absolutely not cut out for it! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back!! I'm sorry I forgot to check the drawing board very often, and didn't even think of watching over your talk page until a couple of days ago; looks like you have other helpers, though.

I have trouble with time zones, too. What I usually do is I either continue sleeping on my home time zone schedule while I travel, (which is feasible if going a few hours west and expected to be up during working hours), or else I start months ahead of time gradually shifting to the time zone of the place I'll be travelling to. Shifting to a later time is much easier than shifting to an earlier time. (This may apply more to me than to you but is a general trait of diurnal (daytime) animals such as humans. (as I remember from reading this book years ago.)) Last time after coming home after travelling east, I easily shifted back to my home time zone but forgot to re-institute discipline after a few days of letting myself sleep in later and later, and overshot and had trouble re-shifting back again. I also stayed up too late at a party shortly after coming home, not fully realizing how very late my body would consider it to be, and practically got sick.

Anyway, it's great to have you back. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 11:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Request that you intercede to stop harassment of me by your supporter

User:Redthoreau continues to place threatening and harassing messages on my user page because I have publically expressed my view regarding your nomination for admin as well as your desire to mentor User:Iantresman. He has added more to my user page within the last hour. I request that you intercede to plead that he stop. I am merely presenting my views in public forums. Sincerely, –Mattisse (Talk) 19:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting interpretation on reality ... both of the only messages I have left for you on your talk page have been in relation to your attacks on me, and practice of following me around (which you were already warned about) and attempting to "game the system". The one who needs to stop here is you Mattisse ... something you have shown you can't do after returning from your vacation.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 19:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

from your own archives

Incivility by Redthoreau [1] An/I acknowledgment that I am being put to the test on Che Guevara, from your own archives. It makes your onesided behavior all the more inexplicable. I don't expect an answer from you as there have been answer galore since. –Mattisse (Talk) 02:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

My peace offer to Mattisse

Just so you know Coppertwig, I have offered peace to Mattisse and will no longer be discussing any issues regarding me and him/her. I hope you can respect this. Thanks. ---> My peace offering.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 16:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Please consider taking the AGF Challenge

I would like to invite you to consider taking part in the AGF Challenge which has been proposed for use in the RfA process [2] by User: Kim Bruning. You can answer in multiple choice format, or using essay answers, or anonymously. You can of course skip any parts of the Challenge you find objectionable or inadvisable.--Filll (talk) 17:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Plus, it's fun! :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Interesting and challenging questions! I had intended to do this early in my RfA, but as it turned out I didn't have time. In effect, the time I could have used for this I used instead to write this essay on NPOV, which attempts to address concerns raised in my RfA. I'll likely do the AGF Challenge, essay-question style, some time in the next few weeks. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Your help

Thanks for your explanation about the deletion. It's just a little strange that the deleted article was recreated. There was a tag on it saying please move it or something (can't quite remember) so as this person didn't seem notable i moved it to a place name.

But I'll ask the person who deleted it - thanks Fynci Mynci (talk) 14:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Signature! Psst!

After your last comment at your RfA. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! ☺ 14:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Rfb participation thanks

Hello, Coppertwig.

I wanted to personally thank you for taking part in the project-wide discussions regarding my candidacy for bureaucratship. After bureaucratic discussion, the bureaucrats decided that there was sufficient significant and varied opposition to my candidacy, and thus no consensus to promote. Although personally disappointed, I both understand and respect their decision, especially in light of historical conservatism the project has had when selecting its bureaucrats. While it appears that you too may soon share that astringent taste of a failed RfX, please take heart and don't let it dissuade you from another attempt down the line! Also, I owe you special thanks for your detailed and thoughtful support rationales, together with your mathematical defense of me :) If you have any further suggestions or comments as to how you think I could help the project, please let me know. Once again, thank you for your support. -- Avi (talk) 18:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in the Philippines

Hi Coppertwig, Thanks a lot for taking a look at the article. Your comments help me to improve this one as well as the other articles. I just changed some things and posted answers to your suggestions. Greetings! --Kerres (Talk) 13:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I translated some articles from Spanish to English, but now I write my own articles. The articles which I translated are all about water supply and sanitation in Latin American countries. So far I have written four articles on my own, which you can see on my user page. I am now beginning to write the fifth one about water supply and sanitation in Benin. Your reviews are always welcome! You can choose from the articles on Ghana, Bangladesh and the one which I just concluded, Water supply and sanitation in Uganda. Thanks a lot for your help! Kerres (Talk) 08:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well Deserved

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		I am continually impressed with your unshakeable civility, kindness, objectivity, fairness, and indomitable will to remain "above the fray" regardless of how many times others snipe at you. Your decorum and resolute commitment to polite discussion, exemplifies how every Wiki editor should behave.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 22:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for adminship

I have closed your RFA as unsuccessful. Raul654 (talk) 04:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

A bit sad to see that your RFA this time was unsuccessful. But dont worry. Take a break and come again. Wish you all the best -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 05:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I consider it Wikipedia's loss. Also I am perplexed why 68/44 is not concensus ?   ♣ Redthoreau (talk) RT 15:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

First, I like Coppertwig's mannerisms and I supported his RfA as part of the silent majority. However, consensus is not majority rules. If the vote had been 9999/44 it still would not have been consensus. 44 Wikipedians expressed some concerns and if that many people have or agree about concerns that stand up to analysis then consensus has clearly not been established.

"Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision." (emphasis added)

Wikipedia needs more people like Coppertwig, but when 40+ people express real issues then it becomes his job to carefully analyze those issues and see what options exist for changing their concerns -- ie: "to resolve or mitigate" them. Certainly he will not win over everyone, but he needs to seriously reduce the number of folks who are able to express valid concerns. Had he been able to do so in the RfA he would have eliminated those views and consensus would have occured.

If people say he should not be an admin because he has been doing "XX" then he has three choices: (1) stop doing XX, (2) keep doing XX but give up the idea of being an admin, or (3) convince objectors that XX is really a good thing.

Whatever XX is for Coppertwig there is one more thing he should keep in mind: Sometimes it is not one's actions that are the issue, sometimes it is the perception of those actions that is the real issue. There is one editor here who I often disagree with and when I first encountered him I was angry at his rudeness. Eventually I learned that he wasn't so much rude but rather was a stickler for the rules. I think if he could have been more tactful I probably would never have been angry at all. Coppertwig is the soul of tact but obviously something about his actions is causing concerns among his peers. Is it the actions or the perception of the actions? Because of this he needs to look at his own actions and decide if he made an error in his actions/judgements or if he just needs to change the manner he takes his actions (or both).

Looking at the RfA the major issue seem to be questions of judgement. He vigorously defended one editor and some folks think that was a bad decision. Was it? He supported certain subject matters and some folks think that was a bad decision. Was it? Were these items of defense/support a case of standing by his convictions or a case of not willing to retreat from a battle? And were these items truely worth his support by the standards of Wikipedia? If he can honestly look at himself and find meaningful answers then he may become an admin yet. I would be glad to support him again. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for closing my RfA and for letting me know, Raul654.

I plan to post individual thank-you messages to all participants here on my talk page, probably later today. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 08:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Redthoreau, in order to ensure that admins are people who are generally trusted by the community, conventionally RfA's do not succeed when the level of support is less than something like 80%. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Tinucherian has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and happy editing! . I hope this will bring a smile back on your face - -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 05:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Why, thank you, TinuCherian. How thoughtful. Don't worry: I'm doing fine. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 08:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey Coppertwig, I'd like to offer my condolences on your RfA, and also commend you for remaining very civil throughout, even in the face of (in my opinion) some very weak arguments against you. It's unfortunate we had a negative interaction; after looking through your edit history and seeing what others had to say about you, I can only assume that it was a blip, a fluke. If anything, you seem to be a little too civil at times. From what I've seen, you're definitely a future admin. Again, I'm a bit surprised you didn't succeed this time, as I didn't see many very good oppose rationales (no offense to anyone). Keep your head up, and I look forward to supporting next time around. Cheers, faithless (^speak) 21:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. On your RfA, I think it was a combination of some sort of misunderstanding or difficulty in communicating, plus my occasionally forgetting not to try to hold others to the same standards of civility that I try to maintain myself, plus a strong tendency to vote "oppose" which I had especially in the first few RfA's I participated in. It's always easier to find one thing to criticize than to find reasons to support someone. I'm glad it didn't prevent you from receiving your adminship.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Low Sea, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Ah, perceptions.

One of the things I love about Wikipedia is that you can go to an article you've never edited before and just start editing it, and nobody will complain. They won't say "Hey, who are you? Why are you editing this article?"

However, I've learned that there are occasional situations where it is a good idea to introduce oneself, to give people some idea of why you're there, what you expect to do, whether you're there briefly or in the long-term, etc. In recent months I've done this occasionally where it seems appropriate, for example here.

Perhaps one of my problems is that too often I assume that others will assume good faith, so I see no need to explain why I'm doing something. One example is with questions. I tend to assume that if I ask a question, it will be obvious that the reason I'm asking is that I would like to receive information. However, sometimes that doesn't work.

Because you brought up the topic of perceptions, I posted an explanation at the top of my RfA thanks section, which I probably would not otherwise have included. It may seem obvious to me why I'm doing something, but that kind of explanation given ahead of time can prevent problems before they happen.

Perhaps some of the problems that arose on this RfA were due to my not explaining at the time my reasons for doing things. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I do sincerely hope that this little blip hasn't fazed you unduly. Your RfA failed for the very best of reasons in my view; you were perceived to be too trusting, and too likely to assume AGF. Neither of those are shooting offences, and I'd be very surprised if those same issues were to re-surface at your next RfA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Malleus. I'm feeling fine. I'm heartened by the many people who took time to participate. It was quite an experience. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Low Sea, I appreciate your support very much. I do try to stand by my convictions, but I think you're right that there may also have been some misperceptions about what I was doing. If I had explained the reasons for my actions at the time, then I might have been correctly seen as trying to collect information in order to develop my opinion so that I could contribute a more informed opinion to a discussion. I'm not sure which article you're thinking of in terms of defending subject matter, but there's often confusion between arguments about article content and arguments about a subject matter. I'm usually focussed on article content as well as preventing personal attacks and edit wars and usually say nothing about my views on the subject matter. Perhaps if I'd explained my reasons at the time I wouldn't have been seen as trying to make an argument in the domain of the subject matter. There's no point arguing about subject matter on Wikipedia since all significant points of view have to be represented anyway. Again, I really appreciate your message and will try to keep the idea of perceptions in mind: I think it will be very helpful for me. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

"Beret"Star

		The Che 'Beret'star
		"Hasta la Victoria Siempre" For your dilligent and "revolutionary" commitment to improving the quality of Che Guevara.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 17:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for participating in my RfA.

I appreciate the time and effort that each of you has taken to participate in my RfA, which was closed as "unsuccessful. No consensus to promote" with 68 Support votes, 44 Oppose and 18 Neutral. I realize that what is usually done is to post messages to the talk pages of participants. However, that practice has also received some criticism, and even if most people prefer it, posting a large number of messages would almost certainly include a few to people who would rather not receive them, so I thought I would try something different this time and list the messages here. I believe I've included everyone who participated; please tell me if I you notice I forgot anyone. (List is in alphabetical order. If your signature has a surname separated with a space from the first name, it's probably under the surname. Otherwise probably under the first letter of the username.) ☺ Coppertwig

• Merci beaucoup to Achromatic for contributing your skeptical opinion. Danke schön.
• Thanks to Ali'i for your supportive comments in the Discussion section.
• Thanks to Antelan for pointing out the distinction between short-term and long-term abuse, giving me something to think about.
• Thanks to Apis for a detailed oppose rationale covering several topics. I plan to study and carefully reflect on the feedback I've received.
• Thanks to Arkyan for your brief but agreeable contribution.
• Thanks to Asenine for letting me know which areas to focus more attention on.
• Thanks to Ashton1983 for contributing your voice to the discussion.
• Thanks to Avi, for being the first to award me a barnstar and the first to offer to nominate me for RfA. Your faith in me has been a great source of encouragement. Thanks for the time you were able to find for me even when you were going through RfB.
• Thanks to Avruch for not spelling your username quite exactly the same as Avi, ☺ and for your astronomical support.
• Thanks to B for participating. Thanks for your work at WP:3RRN, too, where I look forward to continuing to work with you.
• Thanks to Badger Drink for seeing two sides to the issue and for clearly having thought things over carefully.
• Thanks to Baegis for participating in my RfA and for expanding on your rationale. The Che Guevara page has been a learning experience for me, both in terms of compliance with the MOS and in terms of responding to disruptive user behaviour. It's clear that I still have a lot to learn in both those areas. Thank you for reminding me to focus on continuing to learn, and for helping me learn to be more diplomatic by pointing out that a statement I made about evidence was overly demanding.
• Thanks to Barkjon. Welcome.
• Thanks to Bedford for offering your opinion and reminding me to be careful.
• Thanks to Bearian for contributing a unique perspective.
• Thanks to Bfigura for calling my contributions impressive.

• Thanks to Blackworm for your wonderful compliments. It's a pleasure working with you.
• Thanks to BozMo for contributing reflective thoughts to the RfA process.
• Gratias tibi ago, Anthony.bradbury, for your sense of perspective.
• Thanks to Brewcrewer for taking time out of your graduate school work to participate in my RfA
• Thanks to Cailil for explaining your perspective. I would be interested in further discussion and elaboration to try to figure out why we see the situation so differently.
• Thanks to Cameron for thinking things over. I'm sorry if you wanted me to elaborate something which I did not; feel free to ask me questions even now.
• Thanks to Canyouhearmenow for visiting my RfA and commenting. I like your AGF userbox.
• Thanks to User:Cardamon for providing a specific oppose rationale, and for including a compliment in it.
• Thanks to User:Casliber for your balanced contribution.
• Thanks to CharlotteWebb for your brief but much appreciated contribution to my RfA and for your incisive thoughts on your userpage: quite true! LOL! ☺
• Thanks to Cla68 for agreeing to disagree. ☺
• Thanks to Cyclonenim for a contribution from Nottinghamshire.

  Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,

  Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,

  Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,

  And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

  Alfred Noyes

• Thanks to Dan Beale-Cocks for taking the time to think things over and to look at diffs. I very much appreciate all the time everyone has put into this.
• Thanks to Dank55 for finding something different to respect me for, and for helping straighten out the issue of the use of the word "claim" in fringe articles.
• Thanks to DarkFalls for considering the evidence. I like your John Steinbeck quote.
• Thanks to Davewild for having faith in me.
• Thanks to Dihydrogen Monoxide for supporting me and for having a refreshingly scientific username.
• Thanks to Dlohcierekim for weighing the pros and cons.
• Thanks to Dorftrottel for your moral support. I will be thinking over the various points raised in this RfA.
• Thanks to Dragon695 for supporting me in spite of my faults. I don't quite get how your shortcut page works, but I do something similar: For my own navigational convenience I have User:Coppertwig/links, which I sometimes transclude at the top of my user or user talk page, and sometimes set my browser home page to get to it. In Mozilla you can have a bookmark bar which is like having more than one home page. Thanks again for visiting my RfA; I found it very encouraging to get those last few support votes right near the end.
• Thanks to east718 for giving me a specific homework assignment for my next RfA.
• Thanks to Editorofthewiki for asking a good question. I very much appreciate your support rationale submitted in the final hours.
• Thanks to EJF for taking time to participate in my RfA in spite of being busy studying for exams.
• Thanks to Epbr123 for your enigmatic support and for your Style and prosechecklist, which looks as if it may come in handy.
• Thanks to faithless for being more levelheaded on my RfA than I was on yours.
• Thanks to FeloniousMonk for contributing your perspective to the discussion, always with the best interests of Wikipedia at heart.
• Thanks to Filll for the AGF Challenge: very interesting and challenging questions. I regret not having had the time to do it during the RfA, and hope to do it some time within the next few weeks.

Twig in spring (almond blossoms)

• Thanks to Firsfron of Ronchester for providing your valuable opinion, and for giving me a laugh by calling your own username "absolutely ridiculous". Now, that's a Firs. ☺
• Thanks to Folantin for valuing neutrality highly.
• Thanks to GlassCobra for offering to nominate me. I'm sorry I couldn't include all the people who offered. Thanks for saying I remain civil in any situation. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it is not. I do lose my temper at times, even if it might not necessarily be evident on-wiki.
• Thanks to Guettarda for making observations, thinking things over and contributing to the discussion with the interests of Wikipedia at heart.
• Thanks to Heimstern; I'm delighted to have your trust in me.
• Thanks to Hiberniantears for giving your perspective on the Iantresman case. Perhaps with further discussion at User talk:Raul654/Civil POV pushing the different perspectives can be reconciled. It gives me food for thought, in any case.
• Thanks to Icewedge for calling my talk page "dotted with Thank You's": I think the number of them will go up a bit when I post this! ☺
• Thanks to InDeBiz1 for your brief but sincere contribution.
• Thanks to iridescent for contributing your perspective from your own unique set of experiences.
• Thanks to Jacina for taking the time and trouble to participate.
• Thanks to Jakew, one of the editors I most highly respect even while we frequently disagree, for an extraordinarily positive support statement. I look forward to continuing collaboration and intellectually challenging discussion with you.
• Thanks to Jayjg. Your support means a lot to me. Thank you again for helping me raise my standards of civility by setting a good example for me.
• Thanks to jbmurray for observing and assessing.
• Thanks to jc37 for some excellent questions. Consensus is a complex, sensitive and fundamental process; I found that question quite challenging and enjoyed reflecting while answering it. I appreciate the reminder not to become over-confident.
• Thanks to J.delanoy. This is my message of thanks to you for participating in my RfA. (Feel free to make fun of me for stating what is as obvious as what you state on your userpage.) I certainly hope that promotion of myself to adminship would not result in a sudden increase of vandalism or trollism in the project and see no reason why it would, but thank you for contributing one of many opinions to the important process of RfA.
• Thanks to Jehochman for providing information leading to me being given the Iantresman sockpuppet evidence which I was then able to post on Iantresman's user page, and thanks for participating in my RfA.

• Thanks to Jim62sch for your contribution to the discussion, and for a very interesting userpage. I enjoyed trying to understand the quote about the Sibyl; my Greek and Latin isn't as advanced as yours. LOL re Flying spaghetti monster.
• Thanks to JodyB for taking the time to contribute your thoughts in detail.
• Thanks to EdJohnston for helping me from the beginning. It's been a pleasure to work with you on 3RR.
• Thanks to jonny-mt for contributing your insight.
• Thanks to JoshuaZ for underscoring NPOV. It's been good to focus attention on one policy for a while, reflecting on and clarifying some of the distinctions it involves; I'll continue to pay particular attention to this policy.
• Thanks to Jossi for valuing good judgement, the core policies and careful selection of admin candidates.
• Thanks to Jpmonroe for your willingness to trust me with the tools.
• Thanks to Keeper now. / You told what you think's best for / Wikipedia.
• Thanks to KillerChihuahua for bringing up the interesting topic of the NPOV policy. Because of thoughts that occurred to me in response to comments on this topic by you and others and because I know that I've misunderstood parts of this policy at times in the past, I've written an essay on NPOV, in the process of which my understanding has deepened; I will continue to think about it.
• Thanks to KojiDude for your temporary, underworldly, heterodox contribution.
• Thanks to Kralizec! !. Thanks for noticing some of my AN/I work. Re a message on your user page, on the contrary: I assure you, I am neither bored nor lost. Some of your userboxes are quite interesting. I'm not sure that I've personally run into a conflict between immediatism and eventualism on Wikipedia often enough to get a feel for which I support: some linear combination, probably. May His Hoodly Appendage touch you daily.
• Thanks to Krimpet for a more than usually unusual userpage – and for your support.
• Thanks to Lankiveil for trusting me.

Twigs in twilight

• Thanks to Lar for reading and considering various comments and for providing your own contribution.
• Thanks to Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles for noting my contributions to various Wikipedian discussions. Evidently I oppose exclusionist anti-pumpkin wording as much as you. ☺
• Thanks to LessHeard vanU. I appreciated very much your support rationale about the scientific method, the fundamental idea of which you seem to understand very well.
• Thanks to Low Sea for supporting my RfA as part of the silent majority and for your very helpful, and very perceptive, comment about perceptions.
• Thanks to Lradrama for taking the time from a busy life full of many interests such as drama to share your insights on my RfA.
• Thanks to Majoreditor for looking in. Gratias tibi ago.
• Thanks to Malinaccier for having seen me around. (waves hello) ☺
• Thanks to Malleus Fatuorum for your contribution. I agree that there need to be limits to what behaviour is tolerated from users.
• Thanks to MastCell for your kind words. I was particularly curious as to what position you would take in this discussion, and I was very pleased to receive your Weak Oppose parts of which sound almost like a Support. Thank you also for replying to Realist2 about my unblock request essay. I have great respect for you and look forward to continuing to work with you even if we often have to "agree to disagree".☺
• Thanks to a certain user I've been asked not to name, for participating in my RfA. I still leave open my offer to provide help if you ask for it, for those types of help I'm reasonably able to provide, and I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia and that your Wikipedian experience from now on will be relatively problem-free.
• Thanks to Adam McCormick for appreciating the work I put into Che Guevara.
• Thanks to Merkin's mum for noticing my efforts at calming disputes, and for helping at AN/I.
• Thanks to Merzul for your comments, and especially for giving me your perspective from the opposite side of the WP:ATT debate.
• Thanks to J Milburn for again re-emphasizing an area a number of editors feel I have room for improvement in.
• Thanks to Mojska for emphasizing the importance to the community of the various issues raised in the RfA.
• Thanks to Moonriddengirl for your advice; but more especially thanks for your support; but even more than that thanks for being a friend.

"I've tried the new moon tilted in the air

Above a hazy tree and farmhouse cluster

As you might try a jewel in your hair.

Robert Frost.

☺

• Thanks to MrPrada for taking the time and effort to review 1000 of my contributions as well as the whole RfA.
• Thanks to MSJapan for giving me feedback on my handling of an issue that arose on the WP:3RRN noticeboard.
• Thanks to Naerii for your ebullient preemptive support.☺
• Thanks to TheNautilus for trusting me to stop and think before taking action. I try to be careful.
• Thanks to Jitse Niesen for coming to my RfA and supporting me and for reminding me that there are all those math articles out there waiting for me to work on one of these days.
• Thanks to Natalya who apparently likes dancing as much as I do and who has refreshingly cool userpage images, for contributing your thoughts.
• Thanks to NiciVampireHeart for adding your voice to those concerned about my understanding of NPOV. I will continue to reflect on my understanding of this core policy.
• Thanks to Orangemarlin for contributing your opinion to the discussion and for your willingness to elaborate on that opinion and provide a diff.
• Thanks to Pete.Hurd for contributing your opinion. I see you've worked on Evolutionarily stable strategy; an interesting topic: maybe I'll edit that page one of these days.
• Thanks to Philosopher for your contribution and for an interesting quote about time travel on your userpage.
• Thanks to Phoenix-wiki for contributing a comment about the difference between sense and nonsense, and getting me thinking about clarifying more often whether we're talking about a debate between Wikipedians or a debate among the reliable sources.
• Thanks to Pigman for carefully weighing the pros and cons.
• Thanks to Prashanthns for recognizing that, as WP:NPOV says, "All editors and all sources have biases"
• Thanks to QuackGuru for bringing the chiropractic article to my attention again. I look forward to participating there and hope that we will reach common understandings about both content and behavioural issues.

Twigs against the sky. (European birch)

• Thanks to Queerbubbles for visiting my RfA, and for seeing two sides like some of the other Neutral participants. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I like the name "Queerbubbles": it reminds me of blowing bubbles with soapy solution and a wand. Once I made a soap bubble with the topology of a Möbius strip. I hadn't been sure it would be possible. Now, that would be a queer bubble, wouldn't it?
• Thanks to Raul654 for closing my RfA. I appreciate your time and effort and the opportunity to receive a definitive result in a timely manner.
• Thanks to Raymond arritt for contributing your insight to my RfA and giving me a perspective which I will be thinking over carefully.

O wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursel's as others see us (Robert Burns)

• Thanks to Razorflame for making clear which policies I still need to demonstrate an understanding of.
• Thanks to Realist2 for reconsidering in response to feedback.
• Thanks to Redthoreau for your kind words. I look forward to continuing to edit alongside you.
• Thanks to Relata refero for your careful review.
• Thanks to Rudget for being your unique self, for being here and for writing such a tremendously positive nomination that I felt that after reading that, I could survive any number of oppose votes without feeling discouraged. Thanks for looking after me by replying to selected comments, and especially for thinking of my feelings.
• Thanks to RyRy5 for having a cut-and-pastable signature, for liking my answers, for trusting me and especially for wishing me well.
• Thanks to Pat (Scarian, my friend) for encouraging me to "RfA soon". It's been an exhilarating experience.
• Thanks to Siva1979 for support from a fellow inclusionist. ☺
• Thanks to Skinwalker for clarifying two distinct areas in which I still need to demonstrate to the community a sufficiently developed level of understanding.
• Thanks to SmithBlue for a long though infrequent association and for remembering and summarizing your impressions of me.
• Thanks to Spencer for using your intuition.
• Thanks to Squeakbox for contributing your perspective and for defending my display of an unblocking advice essay.
• Thanks to Stifle for thinking I was already an admin.
• Thanks to Stormtracker94 for expressing the regretfulness of your oppose. Don't worry: I feel fine, but I appreciate your consideration for my feelings.
• Thanks to Swatjester for your good wishes.
• Thanks to SWik78 for your praise. (It's easy to talk about SWik78 because he considerately tells people on his userpage which pronoun to use.) ☺
• Thanks to Al Tally. I am "majorly" pleased to have you participate in my RfA.
• Thanks to Tiggerjay for envisioning the future and contributing your thoughts to this discussion.
• Thanks to Tim Smith. Good to see you again.
• Thanks to Tinkleheimer for having the faith to assume that Assuming Good Faith is good. ☺
• Thanks to Tiptoety for trusting me with the tools; for giving me a laugh again with the "What Wikipedia has become" image on your userpage, and for having a link to global account creation – I didn't know that had been implemented yet!
• Thanks to Tool2Die4 for clearly expressing what's problematic for you on this wiki.
• Thanks to Trusilver for impressive contributions to Wikipedia including starting the League of Copyeditors project and making an effort to participate regularly in RfA's, including mine.
• Thanks to KleenupKrew for admitting that not quite everything deserves to be deleted.

• Thanks to SheffieldSteel for thinking things over carefully, for looking at my contribs, for finding some nice things to say about me – and for adding to my collection of nicknames.
• Thanks to Vassyana. Remembering you from the WP:NOR policy debates, I was extremely pleased to receive your Strong Support.
• Thanks to Walton One for your perceptive comments in the discussion section. I agree that the interaction of editors of differing viewpoints can be an important ingredient in the crafting of a NPOV article, and I share your puzzlement as to where the idea of me being "anti-science" came from.
• Thanks to weburiedoursecretsinthegarden for your thoughtful support.
• Thanks to Wisdom89 for contributing your opinion. Maybe I'll edit vasodilator one of these days and run into you there.
• Thanks to Wizardman for including a contribution to my RfA among your 40,000+ edits.
• Thanks to Yaf for calling me "quiet and reflective". I like that.
• Thanks to Yilloslime for a contribution to my RfA from a fellow scientist.
• Thanks to Zginder for bringing up an interesting point re non-self-noms and cabalism. I think your point has considerable validity; nevertheless, there are probably also advantages on the other side; it would be interesting to participate in a community discussion on the issue. I'm sorry I didn't have time to participate in your RfA. I was incredibly busy all week, with matters arising from the RfA added to the usual responsibilities on- and off-wiki, in spite of giving RL short shrift this week.

Sincerely, Coppertwig (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

A brief note..

Hi, Coppertwig. While I did not find myself able to support your RfA this time around, I do commend you for taking the time to write a brief note of thanks to everyone who participated in the process, rather than pasting a generic "thank you" template-like message on each talk page. To me, that shows a good amount of maturity and/or sincerity, which I can certainly appreciate. Please keep me informed of any future RfA attempts, as I will be more than happy to reconsider you in the future. Best regards, --InDeBiz1 (talk) 23:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, InDeBiz. It took a lot of time to write all those messages, but much less I'm sure than the time the participants put into the discussion, and it was satisfying to do. It made me realize how very much of peoples' time in total goes into one RfA. I feel privileged to have been the subject of such an extensive discussion and pleased with the amount of support I got: although obviously I was hoping for more or I wouldn't have started the process.

Unfortunately, per WP:CANVASS I don't think I'll be able to inform you of the date of any future RfA. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

InDeBiz1 (and everyone else), you can always just add Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Coppertwig 2 to your watchlist. :) faithless (^speak) 01:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, hadn't considered that yet... I've done so and look forward to it, whenever it may arise! --InDeBiz1 (talk) 03:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Some of us do try to personalize most of the messages we send. What makes Coppertwig so smart is that by posting it this way, I am certain it took fewer hours than page-by-page messaging :) -- Avi (talk) 01:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Avi. If that's the case, I don't know how people ever find the time to do it the other way!

And thanks for that watchlist idea, faithless.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Just for this, I will stay back in Wikipedia for an extra year! If and when I am bored and disillusioned, I will remember that there was an editor who did this! Touched indeed, Coppertwig. You are a good person. Cheers. Prashanthns (talk) 07:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

How kind of you to say this, Prashanthns! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to thank you to. It just goes to show what the community missed out on. Rudget (Help?) 15:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Rudget. Thanks for your support. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

RE: RfA

I think you misread my actions completely. First off, removing the !vote and placing it on the talk page was to avoid drama, not create more (and to be honest find it rather offensive to be accused of trying to create drama). Instead of leaving it on the RfA mainpage to be read and ultimatly allowing others to continue to post would only further the drama that was not meant to be there in the first place, and if I would have placed a link from the RfA mainpage to the talk page, it would have read pretty much like “To continue in the drama fest, click here” and "drama" would have only continued in the talk page. Understand that my intention, whether the candidate does not mind at all was that simply !voting for the heck of it, and stating that you may remove it is completely un-expectable. And after asking if she would remove it, I did so myself. I hoped that it would limit any more !votes like that, which can in fact hurt newer or less confident candidates. RfA is not a place to play around, or at least not in the way that user went about it. Also, understand I would never remove a !vote from an RfA, or any content for that matter, and always move it to the talk page. Tiptoety ^talk 04:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I didn't make my message clearer. I certainly didn't intend to accuse you of trying to cause wikidrama, Tiptoety. I never thought you were trying to cause wikidrama; and you may be right – the total amount of wikidrama that did actually occur could be less than what would have occurred if you'd done as I (with hindsight) suggested. I suspect that once the vote was indented or struck out, few additional comments would have been added to it – especially if someone had posted a comment asking people to stop commenting. We'll never know unless we visit an alternate universe.

I still think it's better not to move a vote from a page without leaving a note in its place stating that the vote has been moved. However, perhaps from now on it will immediately occur to me to look at the talk page if I see that a vote seems to no longer be present on the project page, so perhaps I can be convinced that that practice is just fine. It would depend partly on how many users, as unfamiliar with the practice as I was, would not think of looking at the talk page.

Perhaps it was a mistake for me to have posted that comment on your talk page. It only added to the wikidrama and needlessly criticized you for something that's in the past anyway and therefore can't be changed. It would have been better for me to wait until I saw a general discussion somewhere about how to move votes, and put my opinion in there. I'm really very sorry for the misunderstanding, for criticizing unnecessarily and for any hard feelings caused. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I agree with you that the fact that a candidate does not mind a joke vote does not make the joke vote acceptable. I think it's fine to discourage joke votes and to have them discounted. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, please understand that the comments you made earlier on my talk were made in good faith too, and for that reason there is really no apology needed though it is greatly appreciated. I say we move on, and put this all behind us. So yes, I accept your apology. Cheers :) Tiptoety ^talk 14:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Hello!

Thank you for the smiles, Coppertwig!Kitty53 (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Cites

Lurking, I noticed a request for citation tools. See Wikipedia:CITE#Tools, I use WPCite and find the Google Scholar page useful for making refs. DigitalC (talk) 03:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 03:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

my RfA - Ta!

Gwen gleans, wending keen by the wikirindle.

Thanks for almost :P showing up in time to support my RfA, which went through 93/12/5. I'll be steadfast in this trust the en.Wikipedia community has given me. Cheers! Gwen Gale (talk) 01:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: Your red smiley thingy is cute. You might want to know, in Firefox running on FreeBSD it's tiny, about the height of this: t , while in Firefox on a MacBook pro running OS X it's BIG, overlapping some into the line above. Fonts! Gwen Gale (talk) 07:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations again on your RfA. Thanks for the lovely image again, and thanks for the font info.

I post the smileys various sizes and colours, for variety; as I see them displayed they often push the line down, forcing a bigger interline spacing. I try not to make them so big they're disruptive, especially on busy pages. Here's one of my bigger ones: ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:22, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The Barnstar of Aqueous Service

Hi Coppertwig. Thanks a lot for the Barnstar of Aqueous Service and the very original text which you withdrew from your brain!! Kerres (Talk) 08:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Thanks – I had fun writing that! You deserve it. I hope to find time in the next few days to look over another of your articles. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 11:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

CSD edits

I have noticed a lot of CSD templates recently edited by you with no actual content change, but with the edit summary (Contributors to the new versions of CSD templates of March 24 were Moonriddengirl, Happy-melon, Coppertwig and Od Mishehu.) It sounds like you are claiming ownership of the templates, and if not, why did you make the 'edits'?  Asenine  19:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, dear. I guess I didn't word that very well!! What it's supposed to mean is that we took the old templates and edited them, producing new versions. The earlier editors should also be credited. The earlier editors appear in the edit summaries in the page history. I added those null edits because the contributors to the development of the new versions from the older ones didn't appear in the page history; their edits were to files such as Template:db-a7/new (which will need to be deleted, or their page histories merged; I'm planning to do something about that but haven't had time yet) the contents of which were copied and pasted to the regular templates. I was trying to make the templates conform to GFDL. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Pointer to thanks

Those who participanted in my RfA, please see Thank you for participating in my RfA. I'm going to try to keep this section at the bottom of my talk page, so please add other sections above this one, but don't worry about it too much – you can add sections below if you want and I or someone else can move this section back to the bottom again later. I expect to be on Wikibreak from approximately now until approximately May 20. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

current versions

The acceptance you see here (supp. 75 / opp. 120). regards Rauenstein (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I replied at de:Benutzer Diskussion:Rauenstein. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How to be a Sichter

Hi CT. Thanks for correcting my statement in the thread. I'm responding here rather than there because I don't want to edit such a huge thread, and I'm afraid adding section breaks might be controversial. Your understanding is that:

1. all admins on de.wiki are Sichters,
2. anyone who has at least 200 edits can *apply* to be a Sichter,
3. anyone who has 500 edits after some date in May (plus a few other things) is automatically a Sichter
4. Sichter ability can be taken away for misuse?

I still believe your translation project (of the poll) is worthwhile. I'd care more about the comments that revealed some actual usage of the system, and (in my copious spare time) I was going to go through and look for such comments. It did appear that there has been at least one sighting edit war!

I think Rollback might be Zurücksetzen, but I'm not sure. I don't know if they have rollbackers there. Have you noticed? This picture makes zurücksetzen look like our 'undo.' EdJohnston (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, EdJohnston! Thanks for your comment.

"Jeder angemeldete Benutzer wird automatisch nach 60 Tagen, 500 Artikel-Bearbeitungen (Edits, vorläufig noch gezählt ab einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt im Mai 2008, später gezählt ab Benutzerregistrierung), Existenz einer Benutzerseite, bestätigter eMail-Adresse und leerem Sperrlog zum „Sichter“. Stimmberechtigte Benutzer (d. h. bereits ab 200 Artikel-Bearbeitungen) können auch hier das Recht auf Sichtung beantragen." (from de:Hilfe:Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen#Wer kann sichten?)

Apparently Stimmberechtig means 200 edits and 2 months. Other than that I think what you're saying is correct. I don't know about taking away Sichter status but I suppose that's how it works.

Sighting edit war? Does that mean that a sighted edit can be marked as unsighted again? (unlike new page patrol.)

I seem to have posted way too many comments at the flagged revisions discussion -- so my actual proposal is hidden in there somewhere. I'll try to hold back and not post anything else except more translation. I posted in German at de:Benutzer Diskussion:Rauenstein and de:Wikipedia Diskussion:Umfragen/Akzeptanz des neuen Verfahrens «Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen»#übersetzen auf Englisch.

Thanks for saying the translation is worthwhile. It's just as easy (or difficult) for me to translate as to just read the discussion: I have to look up many words anyway. I'm curious about what they say, especially the opposes. Besides, it's fun using my German.

By the way, I'm trying to keep up with the discussion at Talk:Chiropractic, plus some other things such as this Flagged Revisions stuff, so I might not have time for 3RR. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi there,

1. not all admins on de are Sichter
2. sighted (gesichtete) articles can be marked as unsighted (ungesichtet)
3. sighting edit war exists, look at this [3] ("entfernte eine Markierung von" means: has unsighted the article)

If you have further questions, feel free to ask... —YourEyesOnly (talk) 03:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Cite button

Hi Coppertwig,

I totally forgot about your comment on my talk page regarding the cite button. Do you require any more help or is it resolved? Cheers. CorticoSpinal (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC) Addendum: I know there is a lot to review on the talk page at Chiropractic, but I personally feel a defining thread of the dysfunction at that article is this one. Any comments, criticisms, insights, suggestions would be appreciated. Feel free to pass on the link to neutral editors who might be able to help us resolve this particular dispute. CorticoSpinal (talk) 17:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello, CorticoSpinal! ☺ Thanks for your message. Don't worry about the cite button: DigitalC replied to me above at User talk:Coppertwig#Cites, so I think I'm all set. I'm afraid I'm a couple of days behind on Chiropractic but hope to catch up in the next day or two; I'll look at that thread you're mentioning. Coppertwig (talk) 23:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If the chiropractic article is declared fringe, we will edit accordingly. See WP:PARITY. QuackGuru 02:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the comment you left at my talk page has come into surprisingly quick fruition. Interesting timing too, just as the landmark RfC:chiropractic=fringe is getting underway. Looks like an attempt to muzzle me (and my arguments re: civil POV push Ernst and chiropractic is fringe). Hopefully the admins will see through this ploy and consider the context and timing of such an ANI. Any comments would be appreciated. Cheers. CorticoSpinal (talk) 18:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

RfC - Chiropractic

Hi Coppertwig. I noticed that you recently made a comment about WP:FRINGE on Talk:Chiropractic. There is a new RfC on whether it (the entire article) is Fringe. Perhaps you want to move your comment to there? Talk:Chiropractic#Challenge. Cheers, DigitalC (talk) 04:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I saw that shortly after I'd posted my comment. Probably too late to move it now. Thanks for the idea, though. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the discussion about whether chiropractic is fringe would not change article content. If we decided chiropractic is all fringe or decided chiropractic is not fringe at all, what would be the difference in article content. Problably nothing. We write according to what the sources tell us. Not whether we think it is fringe or not. QuackGuru 18:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The discussion about fringe seems to be irrelevant. Some editors want to include or exclude source based on fringe. Some editors will even say Ernst, a leading researcher, is fringe. However, we have WP:MEDRS guidelines. For example, take a look at the cost-benefit section. I wrote the entire cost-benefit section in accordance with WP:MEDRS. The section relies highly on reviews and not primary sources. But to fill in the blanks where reviews were not available on a specific topic (example: health care costs (PMID 15477432) is covered using a primary source), I used some primary studies to balance out the section. QuackGuru 18:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Your note

Hi CT, thank you for your kind note, which has made me very happy. I accept your apology of course, although there's no need for it. I understand how hard it can be to find the right words to mend fences when there has been a complex dispute about policy or content. The important thing is that we all intended to benefit the project; we just disagreed on how best to do it, and that's the nature of Wikipedia. I also owe you an apology for not finding a more constructive way to work with you, and for being too abrasive about criticisms of the proposal. The abrasiveness is something I'm working hard on to reduce.

I very much hope we can work well together in future, whether on policy or elsewhere. Again, thank you for reaching out. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's great! I didn't know anything I could say could make you very happy, or I would have said something earlier. I'm so glad to have worked things out that I've added to this talk page a bouncing ball (which I've had previously, but I see you also have one somewhere on your talk page), and an "ignore all rules" banner (which I put up temporarily from time to time, when I feel like it) and a happy face at the top. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Gesichtete Versionen, de-WP

Hi Coppertwig, you asked here for a conclusion of the discussion. I tried to do it here, see No. 128 – perhaps it will be interesting for you. Unfortunately my english is to bad for a translation. Greetings from Berlin --Lienhard Schulz (talk) 09:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Db-u1

At some point, you and a few others standardized these templates, which broke {{db-u1}}. It should require a rationale parameter when used on User_talk: pages. Please fix it. Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'll look into it. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Gesichtete Versionen 2

Hi CT.

1. I like your idea of 'more stable reversion points'. This seems like a low-weight change. Allow people to set their preferences so that they see the stable points rather than the current version, if they prefer to do so.
2. The de.wiki discussion is full of complaints from editors who were disenfranchised when sighting was introduced. We might avoid this by 'grandfathering' existing editors, with a low cutoff like 100 edits. Then over time, the threshold for sighting might creep up to 500. Nobody who qualified originally would have sighting taken away, but new accounts would see a gradually-increasing threshold.

What do you think? EdJohnston (talk) 01:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Ed! Nice to hear from you. I'm not sure what you mean by "more stable reversion points": I don't remember using that phrase. Do you mean allowing people to set the deafult in their preferences as to whether they see the current version or the last sighted version?

One interesting idea I got from translating the German discussion is the idea that people could use a "Cookie" to set their preferences, even without logging in. I assume that's technically possible; I'm not sure if it's against wiki philosophy or anything. It sounds like a great idea to me. I think the person viewing the page should be in control of what they see. To avoid the ruckus at the German Wikipedia, though, at least at first the default default should be the current version.

Grandfathering existing editors may avoid a lot of complaints when it's introduced, (though you might get very loud complaints from those who had, say, 80 edits at the time it was introduced), but won't solve the fundamental problem. If people feel that not being a sighter feels like not being allowed to edit, then there will be fewer new editors joining in. Why should people do 500 edits that are no fun to do? They don't even know what it feels like to do real, visible edits so why should they do all that work to gain the dubious privilege? Grandparenting existing editors but shutting out the rest of the world would not be good wiki-strategy.

Another strategy: allow autoconfirmed to sight edits, but require 2 sighters in addition to the original editor. Those with, say, 200 edits and a clear block log could sight by themselves, i.e. one such sighter in addition to the original editor. And then admins (and maybe rollbackers) could automatically sight their own edits. I predict that if people are allowed to sight edits, then even though their own edits may not be immediately sighted, they won't feel like second-class citizens. Besides, if there are lots of sighters, then edits may get sighted quickly.

I've been thinking. I haven't quite come to conclusions, but I've been thinking.

From the point of view of someone browsing the encyclopedia, almost all articles have the sighted version equal to the current version (I predict, and is the case at de.wiki IME for articles except those that have never been sighted at all.) So for the reader, it makes little difference which version is presented as default.

But from the point of view of the editor, they want to see their edit displayed immediately. So to them, it does make a huge difference which is displayed. I mean, if you edit 5 articles, and try to view each one a minute after editing, you're probably going to see the wrong version almost every time.

So, why not display what the editor wants, then?

But on the other hand, for fighting vandalism: even if vandalism is very rare, when it does happen it can potentially have huge effects, such as leading a parent to never allow their child to read Wikipedia.

So maybe displaying the sighted version as default could be a good option even if it rarely makes any difference to the reader.

But on the first hand again: maybe for the vandal-fighting it's good enough to display the current version, and the red exclamation marks in the watchlists will help reduce vandalism below what it is now, which is already not bad.

And prudish parents could set their kids' preferences to see the sighted version.

Anyway, there are supposed to eventually be several levels of flagged revisions. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any ideas why non-sighters are so upset on de.wiki? Don't they have their preferences set to display the latest, not the last sighted? So from one day to the next, doesn't it look to them that they are editing the real Wikipedia? And I agree with you that during the trial period, we could choose the default to be the latest version even for readers, to avoid complaints. EdJohnston (talk) 02:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, one of the German comments (that I translated?) was that at first, the person thought they were still editing the real encyclopedia: since they saw the most current version, they just ignored the whole sighted version feature and kept editing. But then later they realized that most readers weren't seeing their edits, and they felt cheated. They felt as if they hadn't been editing the real encyclopedia all that time, and had been given the illusion that they had been.

I imagine that part of it is the distinction between the classes of users. I mean, I'm suggesting that if everybody is equal, then people may not mind even if their edits aren't immediately visible.

Actually, I share your puzzlement. They're talking as if their edits aren't visible or they aren't really editing, when anyone can see the edits by clicking on "zu aktuellen Version".

I don't really get why it's so important to them that their changes be visible immediately. But I think it's a sense of powerlessness: they have no idea whether their edits will be sighted in a few minutes, a few hours, or weeks or months, and they can't do anything about it. They don't get the sense of satisfaction of seeing their work finished.

Huh. I wonder if it would help if people could somehow ask to be automatically notified when their edits are sighted. Maybe via a watchlist feature. Otherwise, do they have to keep going back to the article or a log or something to check? And if they check several times and it hasn't been sighted yet, they could feel powerless and frustrated. But if they're automatically notified, then they could not worry about checking until they get the notification, and then they would feel good. (As opposed to without the notification, when if they do check and see that it's already been sighted, they may feel frustrated that they hadn't checked at an earlier time.)

Maybe if I translate more comments we'll get a better idea.

I think the current version should be the default, not only during a trial period but longer than that. Later when we're comfortable with the whole thing we might consider changing that, or changing it for some articles. It would not make sense to do one thing during the trial period, have people approve of it, and then spring something else on people, something that's been complained about so much on the German Wikipedia.

Actually, I was thinking of proposing something like this: the initial proposal would allow articles which were fully-protected before implementation to have their default version set to be the sighted version, but no other articles could be set that way unless there's another huge poll. (That way, Jimbo might get his wish of having the Main Page unrotected – which would really help in the new-user department, I think, since it's really confusing having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit that nobody can edit.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, limiting the sightable articles would be good, though picking just the ones under full protection sounds scary. You'd be piloting flagged revisions in the very places where the most painful conflicts tend to arise. See Category:Protected due to dispute just for an idea. What about that suggestion to start applying sighted versions on articles nominated for Good Article status? There would be better feelings there, and probably a lot of editors helping out. EdJohnston (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstood: I never intended to suggest implementing sighted versions on only some articles. I would like to see it implemented on all articles. I was just talking about which version would be displayed as the default default. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Neuer Überschrift

Hi CT. I'm not sure that is one of the technical options in the software that now exists. I thought that the decision to show the latest rather than the sighted had to be chosen globally for each Wikipedia. Since you're rather technical, take a look at [4] and see if you can find an option that matches what you have in mind. Requiring more than one person to sight an edit (as you have proposed) also sounds like a challenging enhancement. The system would have to remember that some versions have one vote for sighting, but not yet two. EdJohnston (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I looked. You're probably right: it probably can't be done per-page, either implementing flagged revisions only for some pages, or setting the default default display. With this version of the software, anyway, apparently. Oh, well. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

You know you're a Wikipediholic when ...

It happened more than once.

I was riding my bicycle, and turned my head to the left to look for traffic coming from behind me. Well, there's this bright orangish-yellow line down the middle of the road.

For an instant, I thought I was seeing my "you have new messages" banner.

Come on, people – send me more messages. I try writing messages to myself, but it doesn't work: the banner doesn't appear.

(Although I admit I've been busy recently and haven't responded promptly to some messages – I'll get to them soon.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a little scary, I'm afraid. :O I thought wikilinking e-mails was bad. ;) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL! ☺ Then there was the time I got up at 3AM and started editing, and clicking around, and found the "Are you a Wikipediholic?" questionnaire which had something like 767 questions. There was the question something like "Do you eat with one hand on your plate and one hand on the keyboard? ... Do you eat with one foot on your plate and both hands on the keyboard?" As someone who was up at 3AM I was killing myself laughing. It was too close to the truth. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I think my experience on Wikipedia has influenced me to be friendlier in traffic situations. There's the POV thing: "Probably from that person's POV, the way they're handling this traffic situation is correct." There's the volunteering thing: if someone makes me wait a few seconds, I figure that what I would be using that time for is to edit Wikipedia, the purpose of which is to help people, so why shouldn't I help that person right now by smiling at them instead of getting mad at them for making me wait? And there's the consensus thing: if I see someone riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, rather than criticizing them I'll think "There's no consensus that it's dangerous to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in that specific situation." ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:33, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The ultimate wikipedian answers themselves on their own talk page ;-) I've done that several times. Once I've pushed the button, I answer my own question, so I go ahead and answer it. Good to see I'm not the only weird one :-D -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

And again...

You write: "Here, the topic is male circumcision. [...] A Wikipedia article has no obligation to explore all topics that relate to all definitions of a word." But an article does have an obligation to have its title reflect its topic non-ambiguously: WP:TITLE states, Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(precision) states, This page in a nutshell: Be precise when necessary; don't title articles ambiguously when the title has other meanings. The incredibly strong resistance to renaming circumcision (i.e., the article which discusses male circumcision titled by a word that could apply to males and females) to male circumcision is based on circumcision advocacy, not policy or guideline. Blackworm (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message! I'm fine with renaming it, but I don't think it makes sense to change the content to focus around a differently centred topic. I think the thing about ambiguous titles is more complicated: if there's a book named "The Orange Tree" you can have a page named that, and only when someone wants to write another page about a film by the same name do you make one of them "The Orange Tree (film)" or whatever. So I think that rule about not being ambiguous is not absolute. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, if you're fine with renaming it, why not express your support for that suggestion on Talk:Circumcision? Regarding "The Orange Tree," I don't accept the analogy as valid. I couldn't write an article about female circumcision if I wanted to -- editors would insist it must be under the female genital cutting article. This, despite the fact that reliable sources state the two things are not the same. I don't see your opinion above about the WP:TITLE official policy being "not absolute" as valid without invoking WP:IAR. If you can cite policy refuting or weakening WP:TITLE that you believe justifies our waving it away in this instance, please cite it. As I've said, clearly Jakew's misinterpretation of WP:UCN guideline is invalid, not holding up to WP:TITLE and WP:NPOV policies. If WP:IAR is what the people insisting on the non-neutral POV in the title and organization of circumcision and circumcision-related articles ultimately rest on, I want to please hear it specifically, so I can stop attempting to convince people that my opinion on this matter is firmly grounded in policy (as it would be irrelevant in that case). Blackworm (talk) 04:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Circumcision#Nameing Conventions.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:25, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Chiro

Wow, you're the first one I know ever read that FAQ. Glad to help on chiro where I can without knowing the subject (: ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Task force recruitment

Hi, I'm commenting here because I remember your work on adding the "pregnancy rate" wording to Template:Infobox Birth control, and on the birth control article. I've proposed a task force to provide a discussion place for articles on methods of birth control, and was hoping you would be interested in joining. If you're interested, please add your name to the proposal: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces#Reproductive medicine. Lyrl^Talk _C 00:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:RSUE

You may be interested in this proposal to revise the text for articles using non-English sources. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay in reply. Absolutely no offence taken :) All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

SMT

I don't understand this. While SMT is generic, and Adjustments are the chiropractic version of SMT, no chiropractor worthy of the name doesn't use it. The profession is defined by their use of it, and are legally limited and required in many states and by Medicare to use Adjustments for the "correction of vertebral subluxations" in order to get paid at all! (That legalizes a fiction, which has a very interesting history. A trap was laid for chiropractic by the AMA, and an ignorant Congress unfortunately took the bait and legalized a fiction. The story was told to Stephen Barrett by the AMA player himself. The AMA's trap ended up backfiring.) You can read it here. [5][6]

You may wish to avoid giving SMT/Adjustments too much coverage in the chiropractic article, but that doesn't make it necessary to deny the dominating role of SMT in chiropractic. The coverage should just be done in the Spinal manipulation and Spinal adjustment articles. The chiropractic article can still mention and give plenty of weight to SMT/Adjustments, but shouldn't waste space on details and research. That belongs in the respective articles. -- Fyslee / talk 05:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not denying it; I'm just saying I don't know. Dematt says activator technique etc. don't count as SMT. I tried some web searches and didn't find clarification on that. As far as I know we don't have any sources stating whether activator, Cox method, manual adjustment etc. count as forms of SMT or whether SMT is a specific treatment possibly used only by a minority of chiropractors. The Wikipedia articles are not very clear as to whether spinal manipulation is a subset of spinal adjustment or the other way around etc. and I haven't seen sources clarifying these things. I haven't seen sources stating that the majority of chiropractors use SMT. I haven't read most of the sources cited in the article, though. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 05:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Spinal manipulation (SMT) is a subset of spinal adjustments (chiropractors use SMT as well as other "adjustments"), and treatments using the Activator, as well as Cox and manual adjustments are all billed as "adjustments" by chiropractors. True SMT (IOW not Activator, which moves nothing) always involves real movements of the joints, the most common technique used being variations of High Velocity, Low Amplitude (HVLA) thrust. These can be general (over several joints) or specifically applied to single joints in very specific directions. SMT is generic and used by DCs, PTs, DOs, and MDs, and predates chiropractic. I'm a PT and have been trained in these techniques, besides studying the subject and history of chiropractic for many years (as a skeptic). -- Fyslee / talk 06:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, so according to you, SMT is only a subset of the spinal adjustments chiropractors do. Unless we find out what fraction of chiropractic patients experience SMT, we don't know how relevant SMT is to chiropractic.

You say that the activator moves nothing. I disagree. It delivers an impulse to the spine. According to the laws of physics this implies forces within the spine, therefore at least some deformation in the spine; and since the spine is not rigid like a brick wall but has flexible parts, a perpendicular force is going to cause some perceptible movement. We can also infer from patient satisfaction studies and other studies that it has an effect. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough, which is a distinct possibility! SMT (spinal manipulation) is experienced by practically all chiropractic patients at each visit. Any chiropractor can confirm this. Chiropractors are educated to do so, "otherwise you will have to waste time explaining why you didn't do it." It is their core technique, and they generally won't get paid by Medicare if they don't do it. The profession is based upon it and wouldn't exist without it. State and federal laws define chiroractic by its use of spinal adjustments, and by their philosophical reasons for doing so "to correct vertebral subluxations." It is a rare exception for a patient not to receive some form of spinal adjustment at any given treatment. Of course there are exceptional DCs who might not do it every time, but they are exceptional!

As far as the Activator goes, well, when the Activator is adjusted to give it's strongest tap, it can be felt, but there is no evidence it moves the spine enough to do anything therapeutically speaking. It might be possible to measure some slight, but very weak, vibration. It's like snapping your finger against a pillow and expecting a soccer ball touching the other side to move. The evidence just isn't there, nor is the anatomy. The structures are just too deep. It takes much more to affect the spine. As far as patient satisfaction goes, there are many other explanations for why patients believe and are satisfied with such care. -- Fyslee / talk 06:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

There may be a shortage of published evidence about the activator, but I'm not convinced that it doesn't move the spine or that it has no therapeutic effect, whether set at a moderate or its strongest setting; you imply that it can only be felt when set at its strongest setting and I'm not convinced of that either. The anatomy seems clear to me: a row of rigid bones joined by less rigid structures: when pushed, they will move. There's no particular reason why we should assume that it's necessarily the other explanations, rather than a direct on the spine, that leads to patient satisfaction; there are studies showing benefit, including controlled studies as well as clinical studies.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you consider the activator technique to be a form of SMT, Fyslee? Are you talking about the Medicare situation in the U.S., and do chiropractors get paid by Medicare in the U.S. if they use only the activator technique? I believe there are many chiropractors who use the activator as their usual treatment method. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No, the Activator can also be felt on the skin at the lower settings. It's just that it takes the higher settings to give a good "tap". Since the spinous processes are covered by skin, fat, and other tissue, that tap (if applied directly over one, which isn't always the case) gets diffused into the tissues and not much but vibration will go much further at all, and certainly not have any significant effect on deeper spinous tissues like intervertebral discs or spinal nerves. There is no scientifically proven therapeutic effect known and accepted by mainstream biomedical science. If good research of such effects exists, I'd like to see the PubMed references.

I don't consider the Activator a legitimate form of SMT since it doesn't produce the claimed effects. Even the Canadian chiro association I mentioned considered it undocumented and unscientific quackery. I'm pretty sure that myriad American chiropractors get paid by Medicare when using the Activator, but without Medicare realizing that it is the Activator, and not legitimate hand performed SMT that was being used. According to Medicare laws and many state laws, such billing is improper. Many states and (at least originally) Medicare only pay for "adjustments" performed by hand, not by instruments. Maybe things have changed recently. -- Fyslee / talk 04:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like your contributions to the chiropractic page, some of which I agree with and some of which perhaps I don't; but I respectfully disagree with some of what you're saying here. You say "certainly not have any significant effect": I don't see how that could possibly be proven. You say "There is no scientifically proven therapeutic effect known and accepted by mainstream biomedical science." That may well be. However, there may be some individuals who are validly convinced of benefits as a result of having experienced things like their pain disappearing at the moment of adjustment; if this happens on a number of occasions it can be statistically significant and convincing to the individual, who naturally applies some intuitive approximation of statistics, although it would tend to be difficult to measure and record in such a way as to be convincing to the scientific community. Practitioners observing such reactions in their patients may also be validly convinced without necessarily having publication-quality data. Re Medicare: "It was a real struggle, but we obtained a letter from Medicare qualifying the Activator instrument." (Alan Fuhr, Dynamic Chiropractic, Dec 17, 2005 according to this web page: [7]). Coppertwig (talk) 22:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the article link. That was news to me, and probably to many others. It is still considered a quack device by some chiros and all chiroskeptics. I see it comes from DC, which is an advertising rag, but a significant one in chiropractic. We have just been discussing it at the chiropractic talk page. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, as it involves just how far we are willing to allow anecdotal evidence to be used to justify treatment. That's a long and tiring philosophical, moral, and legal discussion, and I just don't have the inclination to get involved in it at this time. If I run across anything relevant, I might pop back in here. Thanks for your interest and your good help in putting out fires and keeping us on track. -- Fyslee / talk 23:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

reference improvements

I explained on the talk page to fix the references first by using the properly formatted ref from draft 7 but you ignored what I wrote on the talk page. You removed a ref from the sentence "In the U.S., chiropractic schools are accredited through the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE)." You also removed a direct link to CCE-I and replaced it with a link an earthlink page. You edit was blindly replacing the correct version of the refs and dumping in the wrongly formatted ref from version 8.[8] I fixed the publisher with the ref. publisher=Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards The publisher was removed from more than one ref. I made some general fixes and ref improvements. QuackGuru 18:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for checking my work, QuackGuru. At least one person had said there were too many refs, and I didn't see any discussion asking to include any specific refs that weren't in draft 8. I guess I removed 3 refs; I'm sorry that when I wrote the edit summary, I forgot that and gave the impression I was only removing one. I saw that you had suggested using draft 7, and I went through a diff of draft 7, checking the refs as well as the text, and using both draft 7 and draft 8 to try to form complete versions of the refs, also adding some information from the web pages of the refs; however, apparently I made a number of mistakes, and I'm glad you caught them. I just checked over my diff just now and as far as I can tell, you caught all my mistakes: well done, and sorry to have made work for you. I had put "Greeley, CO" into the wrong ref by mistake, for example. "curricula" was not a typo but is a correct plural form of curriculum; "curriculums" also exists but sounds wrong to me and has far fewer Google hits than "curricula".☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Warning on my talk page

Please have the book (Magnum Crimen) in your hands and join to discussion on the talk pages--72.75.24.245 (talk) 12:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Che Guevara

The request to explain. Mister anarchist has achieved the, i.e. that that the fact, mismatching its representation about Guevara, are cleaned. Though they have been supplied by authoritative sources, and cleaning authoritative sources, how much I know, contradicts rules of Vicipedia. What should be my actions that them to restore? Sfrandzi (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for helping to edit Che Guevara.

I suggest you put a message on Talk:Che Guevara, talking about the edits you want to put in: tell what you want to say in the article and why you think the article would be better with that information. I suggest waiting a few days for comments and discussion. If the people discussing it on the talk page agree that the edits are good, then you can put them in. Maybe people will want to change them. I might say something too. I haven't had time to look at the edits carefully yet. Maybe people will keep some parts of your edits and not other parts.

Not all material from authoritative sources can stay in articles. We choose the material so that the article follows the policies WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, etc. For example, sometimes adding material will violate WP:UNDUE.

If you edit an article and someone reverts your edit, I think it's a good idea to make the next step a post on the talk page, explaining why you think your edit is good. You can wait for comments from other editors. It usually helps to get more people talking about it. You can sometimes get more people just by waiting. You can get more people by putting a message at WP:3O, WP:RfC, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography etc. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I and have acted. If you have time and desire - I would ask you to look, express the opinion yes by the way to correct my English☺ Sfrandzi (talk) 20:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Please, glance once again on page of discussion Che Guevara. As it seems there will reach a consensus on all sources, except for one. It is the important primary source to which refers Farber. Farber is accepted by my opponent as unconditional authoritative source. And nevertheless the opponent insists on inadmissibility of citing of this source. As it seems, in this dispute both of us motivate our political views. Therefore it would be good, if absolutely extraneous person has interfered with it's moot point. Besides if to you it is not difficult - ..... And, during coordination I has strongly changed the text, and the grammar again requires improvement :) Sfrandzi (talk) 12:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've been looking at the discussion and reading some of the references, and I will write some comments soon. I've edited the Che Guevara article before and I have a small number of books about Che Guevara. Thank you for waiting. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool RfA thanks

That has got to be one of the coolest RfA thanks that I've seen! I'm sure everyone appreciate the personal touches that you put into it. -- Natalya 21:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)]

Thanks -- and thanks again for your contribution to my RfA! Much appreciated. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For the good info and links...lord knows I need all the help i can get ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ParrotBSD (talk • contribs) 18:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

RE: Saad Hariri

Coppertwig, Hiram111 removes heavily sourced large criticism sections he doesn't like. He calls them "unreferenced" in his edit summaries. I don't go around Wikipedia removing criticism sections I don't like in articles about politicians I support because that would be disruptive and in violation of policies. How can anyone consider what he's doing anything less than disruptive vandalism? GreenEcho (talk) 18:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I've replied at Talk:Saad Hariri. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Coppertwig for your message actually the issue is turning into and edit war between me and the User:GreenEcho and this user is taking it personal because of other disputes between me and him.

So he will not "assume good will" concerning my edits and will engage in Edit warring as he did previously and taking this to the “notice board” might increase his hostility, I hope as a more experienced “Third Party” you will asses if his edits should be reverted concerning Walid Jumblatt and I’m sorry for any inconvenience but this issue had been going for days.

I discussed the controversial edits that violates WP:living policy on the Article's talk page. Hiram111 (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. I'll look at that article. Please note the instructions at the top of my talk page re criticisms of other editors (which I just edited, but it's the same idea). Also please note the WP:CANVASS guideline. (Sorry, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned WP:CANVASS here._{00:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)}) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps of interest to you.

Hi Coppertwig. I think I remember you asking about sources that clearly consider the topic of circumcision to be inclusive of male circumcision and female circumcision (forgive me, I don't recall your exact words). Would it be alright if I start posting them here as I run into them again? I'll begin with this one. If this isn't of any interest, let me know and I'll stop posting to this section with links. Blackworm (talk) 09:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I did ask something like that, and feel free to post such references here if you like, but I don't think that one is what I'm looking for (or else you would have to tell me which part of the article you're talking about). Something that says something about male circumcision, then the word "and", then something about female circumcision in the same sentence is treating them as two concepts, not one, in my opinion. You did have at least one or two other references that treated them as one concept. Even if there are a number of such references, they might be enough for a page on male and female circumcision, but not, in my opinion, enough to make that page sufficiently important that readers typing "circumcision" should be redirected there. Peace. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

What else would "a page on male and female circumcision" be called, other than "circumcision?" Very confusing. I don't see "male masturbation" and "female masturbation" as two concepts separate from an ambiguous concept of "masturbation," to be treated in different articles, even though masturbation procedures are necessarily not the same for both sexes. I don't see why anyone feel that way replacing "masturbation" with "circumcision," given that plenty of sources exist that are gender-inclusive in the discussion of the topic of circumcision. If the "masturbation" article described only male masturbation, with "female masturbation" treated as some separate concept and forked off in the hatnote (possibly linking to an article called something different, like female genital self-stimulation), I'm sure the non-neutrality would be clear to most. I feel like the same thing is going on in these articles, with the only exception being that some more specialized sources seem to presently equate circumcision and male circumcision. Most probably, however, circumcision (which in many tribes is per-formed on both sexes) was connected with marriage, and was a preparation for connubium. (Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911 [9]). In which article could the following sentence go, given the current organization: Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) states that circumcision is performed on both sexes in many tribes. It can't go anywhere, because we begin the discussion of circumcision by asserting that no such singular concept exists. We deny the possibility that the source is correct with our definition of "circumcision," (and implicit assertion that circumcision of females is really a misnomer, better described as "female genital cutting"). Thus, the inclusion of the above sentence anywhere in circumcision-related articles, despite being obviously well summarized, attributed, and sourced, creates a logical contradiction. (I believe the E.B.1911 actually contradicts itself, perhaps reflecting the confusion between definition/description, since its definition of circumcision initially also seems exclusive to males.) Blackworm (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

A page could be called "Circumcision (general)" or "The general concept of circumcision" or "Circumcision (human)" or "Circumcision (male and female)" or "Circumcision in society" or other things. Perhaps those sentences could go in one of the existing articles, and perhaps they couldn't go anywhere. Perhaps the information in those sentences could be rewritten into separate sentences emphasizing male or female, and written into the existing articles. The existence of some sentences that can't go anywhere isn't an imperative that we must change the article structure. Only if they represented a significant amount of important (notable) encyclopedic information would it be necessary to change the structure: although if different arrangements are being compared, even a small amount of such information should be considered as a factor. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Unacceptable editing of others' comments.

Coppertwig, I do not authorize you or anyone to edit my posts, and I'm greatly disturbed by your sudden adoption of User:Jayjg's new initiative in editing the discussion posts of others on Talk:Circumcision. WP:CIVIL states: Only in the most serious of circumstances should an editor replace or edit a comment made by another editor. Only in the event of something that can cause actual damage in the real world should this be the first step [...]. Blackworm (talk) 21:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

For the record: I apologized here a few hours after the above post. Coppertwig (talk) 01:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for the welcome; I'm afraid I don't have the time to really return. But I keep an eye on what happens here, and was sad to see things getting if anything worse. All the very best.Gleng (talk) 08:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

References section problem

At the end of this section I have a references section with code. Somehow it isn't working. Can you figure it out? -- Fyslee / talk 16:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hah! Are you clairvoyant or what?! ☺ I was just already in the middle of trying to figure it out when I got your message! I think it's some code in the page somewhere above the reflist template; I'm trying to narrow down where. Coppertwig (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I suspect you're right (about the placement of the problem, not the "clairvoyant" part ;-). Sometimes I can figure such things out, but other times I can't, simply because I'm not a coding expert. Thanks for trying, because it should be working. -- Fyslee / talk 17:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is the Reflist template itself, I believe. I'm trying to fix it, and don't understand why I can't get it to work consistently. Meanwhile, always supplying either colwidth= or a first parameter (which is interpreted as number of columns) will work. colwidth= is better, because the number of columns changes depending on the width of the window someone is viewing the page in. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 17:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Or, apparently, it will work if you just put {{Reflist|}}, i.e. if you put a pipe, even if there are no parameters after it. See also Template talk:Reflist#Multiple template bug. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Matt Lewis...

Matt Lewis posted the following message at User talk:Coppertwig/Archive 7#British Isles:

He took the time to falsely slur someone, Coppertwig - don't thank him for it. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't add messages to my talk page archives. You're welcome to add messages here on this talk page; however, please follow the procedures at the top of this page regarding the posting of information critical of other editors. I don't know what you're talking about. If you wish to clarify, please follow the procedures at the top of this page. I'm free to thank someone if I choose to do so. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't expect this... In explantation, Wotapalava leaves a trial around about me - bringing in my name as if I'm a troll (even when I'm not the subject of conversation). I have only had the one recent block (I had an earlier one - brought about by Wotapalava himself - that was quickly removed by admins after reconsidering of the facts). The block I had after was because an admin simply followed these kind of tracks that are laid after me: I can't afford to let that happen again. These pages are stored in Google, and I've started using Google to find things, as others do too. I have a right to respond to a slur about me like this one. People are fooled by it - after all, what did you do? You thanked him for his 'update'! Maybe you were being polite, but you allowed his slur. If you have a right to do that, then I should have a right to respond. I'm doing it now, as he made his comment after I retired in complaint of my block, and you archived it. I have returned after taking a month off.

I don't wish to see things stirred up here (I'm sure Wotatpolava would not respond to the archive - he hasn't to the other corrects I'm made in live Talks in the past) - so I'd be obliged if you would replace (or allow me to revise) the comment that clears my name, and perhaps remove this section, which looks a little inflammatory (I thought you would either remove my comment to the archive, or leave it in - I didn't expect this). At very least, re-label this section "Matt Lewis.." so it is not "British Isles" (which is a very contentious subject, and this matter is not specifically about that). I'd be very much obliged, regards, --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't post information critical of another user on this talk page; please follow the requested instructions at the top of this talk page. I changed the section heading here. I'll reply further on your talk page. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

OK. In case you find it too involved, I'd be happy if you just inserted the line "Matt Lewis wished to say he was only blocked once, is contesting it, and is not the kind editor Wotapalava claims that he is". Thinking about it - I should have just asked you to do that instead of editing myself, but it didn't occur to me at the time, unfortunately. Because of this, I've actually made the decision to get my block looked at again 'in retrospect' (or whatever the term is - I initially resigned instead of contesting it) - I think I'm allowed to do it, and it would be a weight off my back now I've decided to return. --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I was starting to write a reply on your talk page and got distracted – sorry. I think you left out the word "of" after "kind" – is that right? How about changing to pluperfect tense: "Matt Lewis wished to say he had only been blocked once, is contesting it, and is not the kind of editor Wotapalava claims that he is". If you agree with that I think I'll be willing to edit it into the archive; I'd rather do it myself. Thank you for not writing anything critical of other editors in the above message. I'm sorry, but I have a strong tendency not to delete comments from my talk page. If you have a good argument why this thread or part of it should be removed, feel free to tell me and I'll consider it; if it contains information critical of other editors please remember to put that information elsewhere, e.g. your talk page, and you can put a link from here to there if you like. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes "kind of"! Not the best word to miss out! I'd really appreciate it if you did that (add the line you suggested), and apologise for not asking you to do it. I rashly gave an edit a shot while I was still angry after reading it. I could kick myself actually - asking you was obviously the right and polite way to go, but I guess I'm still a bit raw, despite the month break I gave myself. I guess I just have to find some kind of closure with that block via the admins, then I can do some archiving myself, and properly move on. Regards, --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem. It's all fine. I did the edit. Good luck to you. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Matt Lewis (talk) 01:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

infoboxes

Thanks for helping me out on the jake's usertalk page. But I wasn't quite understanding the loading part. I started a "Template: Infobox XXX" and was editing it, but the stuff wasn't coming out. Then I tried the documentation, I didn't understand what to install in there.

I was wondering if it's possible, perhaps, that I create the infobox and in the Template: Infobox XXX format and then can you install it on the server?

I just asked someone else, but then I thought that you may know too so I decided to ask here as well

Thanks, Lihaas (talk) 00:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I can probably help you, but I'm not sure I understand the problem. Are you able to create the code that's supposed to go in the template, but not able to create a new page? You could post the code on your own talk page, if you can, and tell me it's there, and I could create a new page and put it there for you. Or, you could tell me a bit about what you're trying to do, and I could try going through the steps of creating an infobox. I've never done it that way. If I wanted to create an infobox, I would take an existing infobox, click "edit this page", copy the wikitext, then create a new page and paste it in, and edit it to make changes for what I wanted the new infobox to do. What do you want your infobox to look like? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait -- I had it all wrong. I didn't understand what was going on. OK, the "Template:Start infobox page" is just something you can put at the top of your wikitext in an infobox to help format the documentation. First create your infobox, just by creating a page Template: Infobox XXX. Then later if you want to format the documentation nicely you might use {{start infobox page}} at the top and {{end infobox page}} at the bottom, inside noinclude tags, as instructed. Does that make sense? By the way, for testing, it's better to create a page in your userspace. You could create a page with a name like "User:Lihaas/Infobox XXX". It will still work even if it doesn't have "template" in the name. you can use it like this: {{User:Lihaas/Infobox XXX}}. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Survey request

Hi,
I need your help. I am working on a research project at Boston College, studying creation of medical information on Wikipedia. You are being contacted, because you have been identified as an important contributor to one or more articles.

Would you will be willing to answer a few questions about your experience? We've done considerable background research, but we would also like to gather the insight of the actual editors. Details about the project can be found at the user page of the project leader, geraldckane. Survey questions can be found at geraldckane/medsurvey. Your privacy and confidentiality will be strictly protected!

The questions should only take a few minutes. I hope you will be willing to complete the survey, as we do value your insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Professor Kane if you have any questions.

Thank You, BCeagle0312 (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Your kind note

Thank you, your kind words are much appreciated. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello Coppertwig. Thank you for your kind note. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 02:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Isaac Brock notes section

Hi CT. Yes, if you want to wikilink the notes section, that would be a big improvement! The FA review has been extended on the grounds that work is still being done on the article, so now I have to finish all my planned improvements that were on the back burner.. They must do this just to get more work out of us :-). EdJohnston (talk) 15:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess I will. I had a disappointment: I was writing a program so I could add the links using semi-automated editing. I can preserve the special characters and everything while copying the wikitext onto a computer and running it through a Perl script, but I haven't found a way to copy it back onto Wikipedia without messing it up. I may have to wait until I have a private Linux account working again in order to do semi-automated edits fully-automated edits using pywikipedia. Meanwhile, I'll add them by hand. Not difficult for the one article, but if I can do it automatically or semi-automatically I may be able to do a lot of articles. Thanks for the reminder. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, done, at least for the Tupper refs. I'm not sure if any others need to be done, unless maybe they're re-arranged to have only a short note in the footnote. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

That was fast! Article looks good now. Since I have a Mac which runs Unix and Python, maybe I could do pywikipedia from here. Consider offering your Perl script for others to look at; you could put it on a user subpage. EdJohnston (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It's nothing much yet. It will need lots of tweaking to work well on a variety of articles. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

QuackGuru

Good luck with your communication attempts, and thanks for the help. --Elonka 16:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) You're welcome! Thanks for your message! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppetry

There is this IP adress, 81.109.11.33, which makes a series of edits on Dharma that I revert. A user by name user:Langdell reverts my edits to the IP address's version, and then the series of edits from the IP address continue. I think that Langdell may be masquerading here justo show that more than 1 people agree with his version of the article. This has been happening in the Revision history of Dharma since 19 July 2008. Can you just check it out ? Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The total number of edits by the IP and by Langdell is small, so I don't think it's a problem at this point in time. Even if it's the same person, maybe Langdell simply forgot to log in. Forgetting to log in is allowed as long as it's not used to gain advantage. Even the IP and Langdell combined are nowhere near 3RR.

I notice that you haven't explained on the talk page the reason for your edits. I suggest doing that. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That I have done, in the section right above Langdell's created one. But the pattern that I talked about has occured twice :- An IP address makes a series of edits. Then I revert them, only to be reverted back by Langdell. After this, the IP's edits continue. If this repeats, I'll let you know. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 08:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where you explained your edits. Are you talking about Talk:Dharma? Could you give me a quote of a few of your words so I can find the section you're talking about?

You said "Hence, this direct upfront attack by questioning or demanding my identity in this manner, is a crass attempt at a personal attack. This desperation..." I suggest avoiding words that are likely to evoke negative emotions. If you think there's a personal attack, you can ignore it or you can say "personal attack", but there is no need to say any more: no need to say "direct" or "upfront" or "attack" (repeating the word which also appears in the phrase "personal attack"; saying it once is enough) or "crass" or "desperation". I think it's also better to discuss personal attacks in a friendly way on the user's talk page, not on the article talk page. ☺ 10:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I've discussed the article here, [10] which is now archived (I did not realise this earlier).

Your suggestion about "avoiding words that evoke neg emotions" is noted. But Langdell has used such language too like, "disruptive interventions of IAF" and later going on to question/demand my identity - a discussion that's nothing to do with the article's topic. Even if devoid of some adjectives, this was equally if not more evocative of "negative emotions".

Earlier too I have very politely requested this user on his talk:page here [11] sometime in December last, urging him to discuss the article instead of posting 'warnings' and threats on my talk page. Even at that time he was simply reverting my edits without a word of explanation on the talk page. So his behavior is all the more un-wikipedia like. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 07:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Noted. (However, please see the request at the top of this talk page about how to post comments critical of other users.)☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic

Your comment avoided answering the question.[12]

Did you comment on Dematt's talk page to deflect attention away from my question?

Here is a reply to your question. It would be inmpossible to suggest a wording that everyone agrees upon. There is no need for attribution which would water down the sources.

Here is the question below.

This edit by Levine2112 was inaccurate because it was more than Keating.[13] What do you think about the misleading edit. QuackGuru 18:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"What do you think about the misleading edit" is a leading question, therefore I won't answer it directly. There is no need to answer this question directly. If the text in the article is misleading, it can be changed to different text. There's also no need for me to comment on the current text in the article, as I've already commented on it and as there are currently negotiations going on to change it to something else. Gleng's suggestion, which I mentioned, takes care of the complaint that there is more than one source, not just Keating. I answered at Dematt's talk page for several reasons: because you had posted something there which I felt required a response in the same place; and because I thought you would be likely to see a reply there; and because I thought you might not know what part of Talk:Chiropractic the edit I was referring to had been suggested in; and because I thought you might not see a comment if I posted it in that section of Talk:Chiropractic since many people have trouble keeping up with all the discussions there and I didn't think you had been posting recently in that section. By replying to your post on the same page as your post I certainly didn't intend to deflect attention from your question; in fact, I've been trying to get you to post about these things at Talk:Chiropractic so we can all discuss all sides.

When I say a version everyone will accept, I don't mean necessarily a version everyone will be happy with, but at least a version that everyone can accept as a compromise and not keep reverting. I think that's quite possible; and that WP:CONSENSUS urges us to try with good faith to reach that type of solution. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

You wrote: If the text in the article is misleading, it can be changed to different text. There's also no need for me to comment on the current text in the article, as I've already commented on it and as there are currently negotiations going on to change it to something else.

The discussion on the talk will water down the text even more. It might help this matter if it was reported to the neutrality noticeboard for outside commentary.

There is a need to comment on the current text when it is misleading and a violation of one of Wikipedia's core policy, NPOV.

When NPOV violations continue there is a need to continue to discuss it per WP:DR.

Changing it to something else as suggested on talk will water down the source even more.

The current text is an NPOV violation and can be discussed. Do you agree it is misleading to state that it was just Keating when it was not.[14] QuackGuru 19:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Instead of commenting on the disputed wording, I've suggested another alternate wording here. (And my later correction.) Please help to find the wording which will evoke the smallest amount of objection from Wikipedian editors considering policy etc. Please comment there and suggest other alternate wordings. I see no need to report anything to a noticeboard at this time (other than the SYN question we've been working on) because discussion is proceeding and seems to me to be getting somewhere, but if you wish to report to a noticeboard I have no objection to your doing so. Please make your concerns about watering-down part of the discussion if you haven't already, and please suggest some alternate wordings that you don't consider to be watered down, trying to accomodate the other objections at the same time if you can. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

[15]The word researchers does not imply all researchers. If we are going to use attribution then researchers is the most accurate and neutral. Removing the attribution would also resolve this too. QuackGuru 01:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

First we need to figure out which sources support the statement. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Your edit was an NPOV violation to claim it was only Keating.[16] QuackGuru 16:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

We have a 3RR noticeboard. Maybe a new noticeboard called something like 3RR NPOV violation noticeboard would resolve issues like this quickly. If there are 3 NPOV violation edits to the same specific content then it would be reviewed when editors consider it an easy to identify NPOV violation. This is clearly an NPOV violation. We can start a draft for a new noticeboard and admins can take action against NPOV violations. In the beginning the focus would be on the edit and not the editor. QuackGuru 18:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think NPOV is best enforced as it is now, by consensus of editors at the page and with occasional RfC (article content) and questions at noticeboards etc. I think we need to be wary of any system that would allow admins to make rulings on article content. Nothing wrong with admins, but the number of them is smaller and I think NPOV is better served by consensus among a larger number of people. See User talk:Ronz#Discussion. Anyway, it's good that you're thinking about how the system could be better designed.

I'm working on posting a list of quotes from the references, on which we can perhaps base a re-written version of that sentence.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

When edits like this stick in mainspace there is clearly a problem with the system. If it is not broken don't fix it. But the system is broken at this point. We are not going to get agreement on the text that is NPOV. NPOV is not enforced. Something needs to change. Misleading information on Wikipedia is allowed to remain in the chiropractic article. QuackGuru 19:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

See my reply above. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

So far the NPOV violation continues to remain in the article. The chiropractic article is broken. It should be fixed. Attribution waters down the text. QuackGuru 01:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

See if you can think of a good wording that won't be considered to require attribution. I'm just going to try to think of a new suggested wording now. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There is already a good wording. Attribution is unnecessary and is currently misleading. We can't attribute text just because some editors don't like what the reliable sources say. How long will the misleading information remain in the article. The longer it remains in the article the more broken Wikipedia has become. QuackGuru 01:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you think is the good wording? Do you understand what others object to about it? Can you explain their/our POV about that? Can you find wording causing the minimum amount of objection from all Wikipedian editors? I'm just trying to think of some wording now. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing the misleading attribution is good wording. Others object because they don't like what the source says. We are here to write an encyclopedia and not a promotional ad. How many days will the misleading text remain. This does not look good for the editors who added the misleading information against NPOV. QuackGuru 01:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

How is attribution "misleading"? If someone said something, it's true to say that they said it. We've been discussing on the talk page wording that acknowledges that more than one person said stuff. And I'm trying to think of other suggestions. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The current attribution claims it was only Keating. It is more than one researcher. QuackGuru 02:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Please comment on my new suggested wording, which I just posted at Talk:Chiropractic#Antiscientific: suggested wording of sentence. Please help tweak it. Please comment there. (Here too if you like.) This suggested wording doesn't imply only one researcher. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You asked how long the information would remain in the article. One answer is: until we get a consensus or rough consensus on new wording, at least as strong as the rough consensus that supported the current wording. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Your new suggested wording is difficult to understand and flows poorly. I disagree with a rewrite.

We don't need a new wording and you don't have consensus for the current wording. Dematt claimed he has not decided yet and you claimed there is more than one researcher to verify the text. I can provide the evidence if needed. QuackGuru 02:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you suggest we do? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:50, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you are going to do what you want despite me explaining you don't have consensus or you are watering down the text or adding hard to understand text.[17] QuackGuru 17:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

If you make specific suggestions for improvements, especially in the appropriate section of the article talk page, they can be considered along with everybody else' in forming a compromise or consensus version. I don't know how to translate "watering down" or "hard to understand" into specific different words for the article; it would be better if you would suggest alternative versions of the sentence.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

What you added to the article was very poor writing. I don't understand the text. It would be better if you reverted your edit and removed or fixed the misleading text saying it was only Keating. I strongly object to your edit. It was not an improvement. You written over quality text and now it is much worse. The text was fine except for the Keating part. I did not see any reason for a rewrite and the rewrite makes no sense. QuackGuru 01:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Your new proposal is understandable. I made my suggestions at chiro talk.[18] Do you have any specific suggestions for the middle of the spectrum. QuackGuru 18:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we can take this edit to the NPOV noticeboard unless we can come up with a compromise.[19] Outside editors can review both versions and decide which is closer to NPOV. QuackGuru 23:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Logicus

Coppertwig, as someone who has tried to convince User:Logicus to avoid personal attacks in the past, would you be willing to explain to Logicus why edits like this (see the end, especially) constitute personal attacks? I've asked him to be civil and avoid personal attacks (see User_talk:Logicus#Please_be_civil), and rather than let it go, he demands that that I provide the same details I've already provided to him about what constitutes a personal attack or "withdraw" the claim that he has made personal attacks. Cheers--ragesoss (talk) 19:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.--ragesoss (talk) 02:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Analog hole

Hi Coppertwig. It seems that the user you interacted with a few month ago - 71.100.x.x - is back at analog hole, and this time, inserting links to his wikibooks:analog hole article, which contains some of the exact links that were removed previously. The editor has some personal issues with me ([20]) due to an AfD ([21]), so I'd like your opinion on the WikiBooks issue before this turn into an edit war. Thanks! --Jiuguang (talk) 21:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I read parts of the discussions at the links you give. I'm not sure if I want to give an opinion on the content dispute. May I suggest WP:3O? Or WP:Dispute resolution. Note that the editor has a right to edit the article and I'm not aware of any reason why the user shouldn't insert links. Please state your case very clearly on the article talk page, and maybe give me a link to where you do that. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful than that right now. However, feel free to ask again if the situation gets worse. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - see bottom of Talk:Analog hole. I'm try not to have a repeat of User_talk:Coppertwig/Archive_7#Message_to_71.100.x.x. --Jiuguang (talk) 01:49, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Dharma

Hello coppertwig. Thankyou for your attempts to harmonise the edit on the subject of the article dharma. It may be true that editors choose anonymity but please be kind enough to take time to look at User:IAF's talk page. If you do not do this I am afraid that we cannot get anywhere. Please also note that I am the principal editor of Ajahn Munindo's last book 'Unexpected Freedom'. Ajahn Munindo is a senior representative of the Theravada Buddhist religion in the West. He is the abbot of Aruna Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery. I can assure you that a teacher of Ajahn Munindo's eminence would not invite and then request assistance in putting a book together from someone who did not know what he was talking about. I hope (and assume) that since you have intervened you have some knowledge of this subject yourself. In order to improve the article I need the assistance of someone who actually knows something about this subject. I am very sorry but I shall be unable to enter into any dispute with the user in question. He has more than adequately demonstrated his true colours in the past. My only desire is to further knowledge of this subject because it is one in which I just happen to have a better than average understanding. The User:IAF has a long history of anti-social behaviour. You can only know this by seeing how many times he has been blocked. If you would like to help me improve the article dharma, you are most welcome. Best wishes.Glenn Langdell (talk) 18:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Welcome, Glenn. It's good to have an editor knowledgeable of the subject. Actually, I know nothing of the subject. I think the page came to my attention at the 3RR noticeboard and I've been acting sort-of like a neutral referee, not making judgements about which version is better. I might or might not continue to do that.

Please treat IAF in a respectful manner. If the other user doesn't reciprocate, that will be obvious. Also, please see my request at the top of this talk page about how to post criticism of other users.

According to the verifiability policy, material should be supported by reliable sources. I hope you'll be able to add more references to improve the article.

Feel free to contact me again. I'll try to remember to keep an eye on the article. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Look, from personal experience, most editors who have a "gudge" against my edits bring up the issue of past warnings and "past behaviour" to further their view-point. I don't think that that is applicable while editing articles because an article's discussion must contain content solely about the articles improvement or furtherment. A User's identity, his User:page being blank, past block-log etc. are totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

So I request you that whatever decision you make further about the [Dharma] article involving me and Langdel/anyone, it should ONLY involve my (and the other user's) recourses to action that are taken for that article only. Any other aspect/attribute should not be entertained or taken as a mesure of forming opinion or enforcing something. In my case, I have previously invited Langdel quite respectfully to enter the negotiation round, and have put forth a detailed reason for my edits (now in the archives). Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I have no special authority to make decisions: decisions are made by consensus. However, I agree that a discussion about article content should be only about article content (and about what the references say, how reliable they are etc.) and not about user conduct, and that if user conduct is to be discussed (usually on that user's talk page and other venues, not the article talk page in my opinion) that past behaviour or behaviour at some other article are generally not relevant to decisions about that article. Editors should work together and try to reach consensus. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 11:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

thank you

Actually, they weren't rhetorical questions at all and I appreciate your help. Those were the kind of questions that stymied the article in question. ChrisO, being an administrator and knowing the ropes, was able to search for more individuals to lend weight to his view, and when there was no consensus proceeded to tie the article up with these complaints. This is not a good way to proceed. I did not know one could do an RfC on article content. Perhaps that would be the way to proceed with this article. Thanks again for your guidance. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, without knowing much at all about the article, but from the RfC and stuff, I have the impression that RfC (article content) and questions at reliable sources noticeboard would be an excellent way to proceed. I'm not sure if I've ever done one of those, actually, but I'm willing to help you figure out how if you like. There are probably straightforward instructions. Part of the key is writing a clear, concise question; if the question is too long or convoluted you might not get anyone answering. Sometimes (usually?) people work together on the article talk page beforehand to agree on the wording of the question to be asked. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've replied

I've replied at my talk (with another question, of course!). Thanks for your message. Antelan 02:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Block duration

Hi. Just wondering, did you at this comment for the benefit of the IP because it wasn't explicit in my note? No problem, just interested if there was another reason. Cheers TigerShark (talk) 14:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was primarily to assist the blocked user, since no duration was specified in the block template. I believe there have been one or two times when users didn't know their blocks had expired until I told them; they may have been expecting a notice to be posted when the block expired and assumed they still couldn't edit. It could also be informative to anyone else who looked at that talk page. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. TigerShark (talk) 15:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Mentorship

Hi, Coppertwig. Are you currently mentoring for QuackGuru? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I see you left a comment on QuackGuru's user page. I'm generally happy to look into situations when asked, for just about any Wikipedian, insh spare time. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:35, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please review this discussion when you have the time. You'll see a general consensus to includes the text at Atropa belladonna. The dispute is mainly between myself and ScienceApologist, but several other editors have been involved in the months-long discussion. QuackGuru has never participated in the discussion. However, he has three-times reverted me with less-that-accurate edit summaries. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I read that discussion. I see that there seems to be consensus to include one neutral sentence on homeopathy in the article. However, your edit was changing from one sentence about homeopathy to a different sentence about homeopathy, or even (I forget; you could put a link here to your edit for convenience) to more than one sentence about homeopathy. I see no evidence that there was consensus for your change. I consider that a normal way of doing things at Wikipedia is bold, revert, discuss, and it seems to me that that's what QuackGuru is following: you've been bold and made a change, QuackGuru has reverted it, and now it's up to you to begin discussing and justifying that specific change; since as far as I've seen you haven't done that yet, then QuackGuru is justified, in my opinion, in reverting it again if you put it in. The discussions I saw were about whether homeopathy is mentioned at all, not about the difference between one version mentioning homeopathy and another version mentioning homeopathy. After you provide justification on the talk page for your edit, then in my opinion QuackGuru should not do any more reverts unless either QuackGuru or others have refuted your arguments on the talk page; preferably, in my opinion in this situation, there would be a discussion leading to a mutually acceptable or compromise version.

Perhaps there's a misunderstanding: perhaps each party sees their version as being NPOV and therefore supported by the discussion asking for a "neutral" sentence, and doesn't understand that the other doesn't see it that way. This would need to be made explicit in talk page discussion.

The three reverts you linked to were spread over a period of many weeks.

Re "vendetta": Please follow the request at the top of this talk page when posting here; and please assume good faith.

I hope the discussion will go well; and I hope you'll feel free to ask me to look into the situation again if things deteriorate. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

First, thanks for the long, well thought out reply. Second, let me assure you that conversation about the context of the included text has been ongoing for nearly six months now. The most recent conversations can be found here. QuackGuru has never participate in any of these conversations. My issue here is that QG has a tendency to follow me around to random articles just to revert my edits without participating in discussion. He did it again today [22]. I don't think this is about who's version is more correct and I don't think QG is practically interested in this. His goal seems to be one of annoyance. But that's just my opinion. I really respect you as an editor, Coppertwig. I hope you can at least see where I am coming from here, even if you don't agree with me and let your mentee know how his tactics are being perceived. Anyhow, I appreciate your time and input always and if there is something in this matter which you think I can improve on, please don't hesitate to tell me. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Levine2112, for taking my post in a positive spirit. However, in the section you link to there, I don't see any mention of the specific edit in question. I suggest that you quote, on the talk page, the entire previous version of the sentence and the entire new version, and in the same post state reasons for changing one to the other. I think it's a good idea to try to put a complete, well-organized argument into one post; then later you can link back to that post if you need to.

I'm under the impression that you didn't read the part of my post that's in small font, which directed you to the request at the top of my talk page. I've just edited the top of my talk page to make the request clearer: it now says "Please don't post any criticisms of other editors on this talk page." You may post such criticisms on your own talk page and provide a link to them here.

I suggest re-reading WP:DR and discussing the matter diplomatically, and in a manner which shows that you are assuming good faith, with QuackGuru on QuackGuru's talk page. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sound advice once again. Thanks. Please note that I have removed some text above per the top of your talk page. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Sorry, I forgot: you've already posted a message on QG's talk page. No need for more such messages unless problems continue. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is another example of QuackGuru reverting one of my edits on an article in which he has never participated in discussion. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 05:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I think what QuackGuru did was OK: QG posted to the talk page shortly afterwards, and anyway QG had referred to talk page discussion (by others) in the edit summary; although the discussion didn't particularly support QG's position, in my opinion. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Note also there is currently a RfC and a WP:FTN for the article. --Ronz (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, take a look at some of the refs.[23] There are some refs that are unreliable and extremely old which is a violation of WP:MEDRS. This reminds me of chiro talk. The older refs have been removed. Higher quality refs are available. This is unduly self-serving to use primary sources that are an opinion in a controversial topic. The text needs a rewrite. For now it should be deleted or moved to the talk page. At chiropractic we don't use chiropractic studies to explain the effectiveness of chiropractic. We use various higher quality studies. It starts with the higher quality studies first. Self-pub sources are being used in an unduly self-serving way. QuackGuru 17:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Template talk:Db-blankcsd/new

Seems misplaced.... --MZMcBride (talk) 02:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Template talk:Db-blanktalk/new too. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

There are many templates "db .../new". They are listed at Template talk:Db-blankcsd/new. Only two have been deleted, and their talk pages still exist. Please don't delete Template talk:Db-blankcsd/new because it contains a list of all the other templates, which will assist in deleting them; but the other talk page can be deleted because its associated template has been deleted. I see I made a mistake with all the links to the talk pages, though. (fixed.) Soon I may put in a TfD to discuss deleting all the /new templates, though maybe not if one of the major contributors to those versions of the templates prefers to keep them. See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 30#Deleting "new" templates, which are no longer needed. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Rationale for deleting these:

• T3: In my opinion, they could be deleted under CSD T3 if they were tagged for 7 days. They were hardcoded copies of the same templates as the standard templates, and are now redirects from unlikely names.
• Two already deleted: Template:Db-blankcsd/new was speedy-deleted as "(G6: Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup: db-r3)", and Template:Db-blanktalk/new was speedy-deleted as "(csd r1)". Rather than gradually speedy-deleting these one at a time as users happen to discover them and request speedy deletion, I suggest it's more efficient to delete them all at once.
• Not needed: The GFDL is already satisfied because of null edits that were done to the standard templates listing the contributors to the /new templates. I don't think there's anything in the links from discussion to these templates significantly more interesting than, for example, a statement that draft templates have been created to be worked on. While I think ideally their page histories will be merged with the standard templates, this can, I think, still be done after they're deleted anyway if anyone has the time to do it.
• General rationale for deleting things: One could argue that deleted pages still take up space on Wikimedia's servers, but the important thing is editors' time, not the small amount of space these take; and as far as space is concerned, deleted pages can be completely deleted by developers if they need space, while undeleted pages take up space not only on Wikimedia's servers but also on many mirrors and in many download dumps of Wikipedia. Pages can also be targets of vandalism, and may take up peoples' time when they run across them on "what links here?" and wonder what they're for. Coppertwig (talk) 16:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

As one of the contributers to the new CSD template system, I have no objection to the deletion. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I also have no objection - tidying up exercises like this are long overdue. I'll G7 all the templates that we are the only contributors to, we can TfD the rest. Happy‑melon 11:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Opinions

There's no such thing as a "non-admin opinion". The opinions of all editors count. Comments that are insightful and backed by evidence may count more, but who makes the comments is not relevant (unless it's a single purpose account, a sock puppet or a banned user). Jehochman ^Talk 01:56, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. However, when I was helping on the 3RR noticeboard I found it very helpful to let people know I was not an admin; otherwise they assumed I was, and it made a difference because admins could do things I couldn't. I had a feeling a similar situation might arise with the particular comment I made on Elonka's talk page. I prefer to try to proactively avoid receiving comments like this. I don't usually append those words to my comments, though, even on admin noticeboards. Logically, a "non-admin opinion" is simply the opinion of someone who is not an admin. However, I appreciate your comment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Generally, when people start saying "I thought you were an admin" or "Why aren't you an admin," that's when you should stand for RFA. At some point the admins will think you're a bother going to them for service and say, "Here, do your own mopping up." Being a non-admin is a luxury. Jehochman ^Talk 02:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Stopping by

Moonriddengirl ^(talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hadn't crossed your wikipath in a while, so thought I'd stop in and say hi. :) And also comment how strange I find it that the drawing board has practically dried up! For a while there, I didn't feel like I could go on wikibreak without asking somebody to babysit the board (as you know, since you kindly pitched in). We used to get multi-questioners a week. Now we're down to multi-questioners a month. Wonder why?

Hope you're well. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:29, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Must be a link somewhere that's been changed. Can the Drawing Board be found somehow from the Main Page? I don't know if you want it more easily found or not.

Speaking of Drawing Board, though, I'm working on three draft articles at the bottom of my sandbox. (I-message, Federation of Women Teachers' Association of Ontario, and Caroline Andrew.) Well, I'm not sure if I need any specific help, but if you feel inspired feel free to comment or contribute. The main thing I'm wondering is whether I have sufficiently reliable sources for I-message, but I'm just doing the best I can do there. (Haven't really started writing the text yet for that one, except the first sentence.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Hello and greetings; replying to the message you left on my talk page. A twig that will grow into a shrubbery will make an adequate replacement for a shrubbery. BTW, from a brief perusal of your pages, I'm guessing we live in the same country; can't narrow down our proximity further. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for participation in User:Abd/RfC

Because my participation as a Wikipedia editor has been questioned, and if I continue as I have in the past, I can expect future challenges as well, I have begun a standing RfC in my user space, at User:Abd/RfC. There is also a specific incident RfC at User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block. I understand that you may not have time to participate directly; however, if you wish to be notified of any outcome from the general or specific RfC, or if you wish to identify a participant or potential participant as one generally trusted by you, or otherwise to indicate interest in the topic(s), please consider listing yourself at User:Abd/RfC/Proxy Table, and, should you so decide, naming a proxy as indicated there. Your designation of a proxy will not bind you, and your proxy will not comment or vote for you, but only for himself or herself; however, I may consider proxy designations in weighing comment in this RfC, as to how they might represent the general community. You may revoke this designation at any time. This RfC is for my own guidance as to future behavior and actions, it is advisory only, upon me and on participants. This notice is going to all those who commented on my Talk page in the period between my warning for personal attack, assumptions of bad faith, and general disruption, on August 11, 2008, until August 20, 2008. This is not a standard RfC; because it is for my advice, I assert authority over the process. However, initially, all editors are welcome, even if otherwise banned from my Talk space or from the project. Canvassing is permitted, as far as I'm concerned; I will regulate participation if needed, but do not spam. Notice of this RfC may be placed on noticeboards or wikiprojects, should any of you think this appropriate; however, the reason for doing this in my user space is to minimize disruption, and I am not responsible for any disruption arising from discussion of this outside my user space. Thanks for considering this. --Abd (talk) 02:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Response to old archived thread at Circumcision

In response to this comment: Jayjg, please comment on content, not on the contributor. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I shouldn't be talking about things from so long ago; I only mentioned this because it was brought up here. I'd like to add a further comment in response to this: Blackworm, you could have made your point more diplomatically. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Golan Heights

I replied to your comment on the source at talk:Golan Heights. AreaControl (talk) 13:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I replied there. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey versus study

The first published study is in the US in 1990. Note the patients were "elective," which means without medical reason.[24] The second cite is a published survey, written by a mohel and urologist [25]... both qualified as a source.TipPt (talk) 19:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Would you help me out here, please: for the second citation, you've provided a link to a page of letters to the editor. Would you please explain which letter or letters (or other things on the page) you're referring to? Thanks. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Che Guevara

No problem about the citation! I'm reading Ramonez' book right now so I might contribute more to this article. Maybe you could comment on my suggestion on the talk page. Zatoichi26 (talk) 01:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I already did! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Socks

I've removed my uncivil comment at the Sockpuppet case in question. GoodDay (talk) 18:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User Fipplet

Greetings. Would you please do me a favor and look at the PNA edit history? (I'm in a rush.) It looks like Fipplet has ignored our warnings, plus violated 3RR (in content edits, if not "reverts" per se). I suspect a brief block is in order. Thanks muchly, HG | Talk 15:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, since you're already working to smooth out the battlefield on I-P articles, maybe you'd be willing to join the cooperative wikiproject WP:IPCOLL? See membership table. It'd be great to have you on board! HG | Talk 15:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Another coincidence! I was just in the middle of adding to the report at WP:3RRN, which was started by RolandR, when I received your message. And thank you for your invitation: it's very nice to know that my efforts to smooth things are recognized as such!! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

PNA/Fipplet

I noticed your amendment to my 3RR report, and have added yet another (subsequent) revert. That makes eight by my count, seven by yours. I am well aware that I cannot again re-revert; but I hope someone else does, and that we can stop this disruption. RolandR (talk) 15:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your suggestion

Thank you for your suggestion. Unfortunately the extremely high volume of edits to that article makes it impractical for me to find the link to the version of the article that existed before people started adding in the bit about the Alaska Independence Movement. It was time-consuming enough to compile the diffs for the report as it is. I am hopeful that whichever admin handles my report will recognize that user as having violated the spirit, if not the letter, of 3RR. Mike R (talk) 16:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Semi-automated edits

Replying to Moonriddengirl who suggested Ship Ahoy (album): OK, sorry, I should have described better the type of article I'm looking for. I don't think that's it. The citation system I'm putting in is useful in articles where the same source is cited more than once, but with different page numbers. See Che Guevara for example. On the article you're suggesting, some references are used more than once, but there's no change in page number of anything, so there's no need for a separate "Notes" and "References" section. Generally, medical articles won't usually need the two separate sections, but history articles often will. So I'm looking for articles that need to have a separate References section added, or that have one but need links to it. Or to put it another way: if you'd like something done to that article, what would you like done? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I probably don't have too many of those. :) Most of the books I use are encyclopedic themselves and hence only cover the topic in a page or so. The only one that I can think of at the moment that conforms to your needs would be West Side Story (soundtrack). As to the article I mentioned, don't worry about it. It may or may not need anything, but I mentioned it only because it seemed you were looking for test cases. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put in the citation links in a sandbox version of Georg Cantor.

Articles I've converted so far: manually: Che Guevara, Isaac Brock and Temple Sinai (Oakland, California); semi-automatically: 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt and I-message.

Load times: I don't think this makes any noticeable change to load time. I believe load time is usually approximately a function of the number of ref tags (counting all of them, including "<ref name=.../>" as well as "<ref>...</ref>" pairs.) In doing these conversions, I haven't changed the number of ref tags. I've compared load times before and after on several of these articles and they seem to be the same.

This conversion has received a supportive response on two article talk pages (Temple Sinai and Isaac Brock) and an oppositional response from SandyGeorgia, who mentions load times repeatedly (among other things) although I don't think load time is an issue. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Those semi-automated edits looked good! Jayjg ^(talk) 02:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

regarding arthashastra

thank you for the message you left me. however we both know that what i want to add is not going to be allowed up because of my disagreement and apparent war with User:CalendarWatcher. It is sad really that small editors like myself have to avoid using a registered name because of people like CW. I have been trying for months to get someone to understand my perspective, however that is not going to happen because User:CalendarWatcher has a history on here and i am fairly new. Please take notice however that i have never made a malicious edit to wikipedia. perhaps after my cyber stalker moves on or grows up i will use my account again and start editing again. Until then i am done trying to make a difference or do the right thing.98.222.196.27 (talk) 21:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

You said "we both know", but actually, I don't agree with you. I don't think that's the reason. I think the reasons the edit you want is not going to be allowed in is because it's not very relevant and because you haven't put any arguments on the talk page saying why it should be included. Whether you use a registered name or not is up to you. One advantage of a registered name is privacy: it hides your IP address so that people can't trace what computer you're using. I'm not aware of any threatening or inappropriate behaviour by CalendarWatcher. If there is any, feel free to bring it to my attention (although I'm not an administrator) or to an appropriate noticeboard. You say you've been trying to get someone to understand your perspective, but I don't see any edits by you on the article talk page. I suggest trying there. Opinions of new users are valued too. However, one individual can't force an article into their preferred version. It has to be by discussion and compromise. You say you've never made a malicious edit but I think you're mistaken: the edit summary here is a personal attack. Note that Wikipedia policy is against personal attacks. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

i expected such response.. User:CalendarWatcher has on many occasions warred with many people and no action has ever been taken. but forget about it its not a problem. also.. i apologized for the "attack" i made on that douche bag.98.222.196.27 (talk) 02:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Please respect the request at the top of my talk page about where to post criticisms of other users. Many people have warred repeatedly. Most of the time, if there is no 3RR violation or it's not reported properly at the 3RR noticeboard, no action is taken; even if 3RR is violated, often no action is taken. You can take action yourself by warning the person and discussing the situation with them in a friendly manner. People are more likely to be blocked for editwarring if they're also uncivil. I think you've just nullified your apology by making the above comment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 07:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

nullified huh? yea.. maybe theres a hidden message there.. if there were such a message it would prolly read "i dont give a rusty eff word". but there may not even be a message.. anyways it was not MY edit to begin with i just get tired of CalendarWatcher playing God all the time and no one standing up to him.. Oh i saw it was you being nosey and 3rr'd me. you can piss off too now. later!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.218.171 (talk) 18:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

PSTS Policy & Guidelines Proposal

Since you have been actively involved in past discussions regarding PSTS, please review, contribute, or comment on this proposed PSTS Policy & Guidelines.--SaraNoon (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Arilang1234 asking for help

Thank you very much user coppertwig,you are very kind and gentle.I guess I got carried away a bit,please forgive me for far too many silly mistakes I have made.To tell you the truth,my Wiki knowledge is minimum,my English is hardly passable,but I still have the desire to learn and to improve.And I am very passionate about Manchu and Ming dynasty history,Opium War,Matteo Ricci etc.In my heart,I have this urge,to share my knowledge with others,and at the same time to learn from others.That is why I spend so much time on that page alone,because the more I google,the more facts resurface,and I wish I could have ten pairs of eyes,with ten pairs of hands to record them all onto wiki,so that others can read them,without going through the world wide web like I did. While I was typing away,I completely forgot about others.I hope you,and other editors can understand and forgive me at the same time. I do like the idea of having my own user's page,can you kindly help me to set it up ?If so how to let others know of my user's page? Many thanks.Arilang1234 (talk) 21:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi,its me again.I have managed to put something on sandbox,here is the link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox. Please help me by pointing out all my short comings.ThanksArilang1234 (talk) 21:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks.Arilang1234 (talk) 22:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose you are referring to Matteo Ricci,Johann Adam Schall von Bell , Ferdinand Verbiest，the three most famous missionaries that went to China in the 16 century.So just to inner-link them within wiki is not enough? So I have to provide outside reference ?I have just learn how to use the ref tag today,it is ok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arilang1234 (talk • contribs) 22:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

http://home.newadvent.org/cathen/13034a.htm catholic encyclopedia Arilang1234 (talk) 22:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I have just did two ref tag,it looks ok,but I can't find the foot note.Don't know where is it.Arilang1234 (talk) 22:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Harry G. Gelber's book is the source of all the info on "short term cause".I am working on a project to examine the two Chinese dynasty Manchu and Ming;so this kind of info should be relevant. Thanks for pointing out my short coming.I can change the wordings and the tone.About Chinese point of view,they are of complete opposite to the western point of view.Do I need to put them alongside the western point of view too? Arilang1234 (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I have modify my article a bit and put it on my user page(not sandbox).Please have a look when you got time.I will keep on experiment on it to improve my skill.Arilang1234 (talk) 13:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I have put up more ref links,please have a look and tell me how you feelArilang1234 (talk) 23:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't have time for a full answer now. I'll look at it more carefully later. But it's good that you've made changes to make the words more NPOV. Well done. Yes, it would be good to use some sources written by Chinese authors. If different sources say different things, the Wikipedia article should describe all the points of view. See for example the "perspectives" section in the Boxer Rebellion article. One small thing: Whenever you put a comma or period ("," or ".") you should put no space before it, and a space after it. Same with ref tags: no space before, but a space after the </ref>. Please give more complete bibliographic information about your sources. If it's a book, you should give author, title, year, name of publisher, city or location of publisher, and ISBN number. See the references at the bottom of Boxer Rebellion for examples. For a web page, try to find information like the name of the organization that put up the web page, and the date it was last updated. Also the title. Sometimes there's information at the top and bottom of the web page. I'll tell you more later when I have more time.

• Thanks very much for your comment. I really appreciate your helps. I have asked many editors to help me, but none of them came. Arilang1234 (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Me again. About Chinese source. Most of the Chinese internet web page are blogs, news sites, or bbs forums,and wiki may class them as unreliable.Unlike English source, there ain't that many university web sites. And where I live,there ain't that many Chinese history text books either. I know how and when to use external links and ref now,but I don't know anything about foot note.Can you explain when you have more time? I would like to name my article "Boxer Rebellion, Opium Wars and Beyond." What you think?Arilang1234 (talk) 15:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, long time have not heard from you. Must be busy. My used page have new theme now, please go have a look when you have time?Arilang1234 (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm busier than usual. I'm sorry I haven't had time to answer! About the name of the article: the name you said is like poetry. It would be good as the title of a book or magazine article. But names of Wikipedia articles are not like poetry. They have to describe one topic. A name with "and" usually sounds as if it's describing two topics. Maybe a name like "Events leading up to the Boxer Rebellion" or "Westerners in China" (but also put the range of dates that you're talking about in the title) or something else. I'll answer more some time in the next few days.

I like helping you, Arilang1234, because you're enthusiastic, and because you find interesting information to add to articles, and most of all because you're learning. There are many things to learn about how to edit Wikipedia! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you have written a lot!

There is already an article Jesuit China missions. Do you think your material would be good as part of that article? Or do you think a separate article is needed?

I think you're doing better with the spaces around the commas and periods. (That is, there should be no space before, and one space after). There are still some with the wrong spacing, though. May I suggest you read carefully through your user page and change any that aren't right? After you think you've found them all, tell me and I'll see if I can still find any that need to be fixed.

It's impressive that you can put Chinese characters into your text. But, I think they're not needed. I think at the beginning of each article, we have the Chinese characters for the title of the article (if it's a Chinese word or name), and in the rest of the article we don't put the Chinese characters usually, because most readers of English Wikipedia can't read them, and because they can click on the link to the article on that word or name, and see the Chinese characters there. So I suggest taking almost all the Chinese characters out of your writing. Sorry if that make it less fun!

Would you like me to edit your user page to fix grammar?

There's already an article on Matteo Ricci. Do you think your material would go into that article? Where would be a good place in the article for it to go? Or would different parts of it go in different places?

If "FATHER MATTEO RICCI'S DIARY" is going to be the title of an article or section, it should not be in all capital letters.

You need to do some more work on the footnotes. Each footnote should have the title, author and other information. For example, instead of writing "Euclid's Elements", write the title of the web page the link goes to: "Matteo Ricci, S.J. (1552 to 1610) and his contributions to science in China".

I will probably have some more things to say later. I'm sorry I've been so busy. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind reply. It is good to have a teacher like you. (1)To all the Chinese, all over the world, Matteo Ricci was, and is, the Saint who tried to fuse Confucianism and Christianity together.Though the Jesuit priests failed in their effort, because the Pope put a stop to it, that did not make Matteo Ricci any less important to Chinese. (2) I am writing Matteo Ricci from a Chinese's perspective.More precisely, from a Ming Dynasty's perspective.To me,and also to many Chinese, Ming Dynasty was being skillfully smeared by the barbaric Manchu tribal slaves owners who ended up ruling China for 263 years, and this 263 years represented the Darkest era in Chinese history. Ming Dynasty is still under a pile of rubbish. I would like to bring the glory of Ming to the surface again. (3) Do you think the time has come for my article to be transfer to a proper page, instead of my user page? If so, please help me. (4) About Chinese characters, if possible, I like to see they stay as it is. My reasons:(a)Ricci was a scholar of many talents, including the use of Latin, Italian, and Chinese.So it is only natural to include these 3 languages in my article. (b) Many Chinese can read both English and Chinese. (C) I hope one day my article will be translated into Chinese wiki. (5) Please feel free to edit my page anytime, not only grammar, anything you think not right, you can change it. You are my teacher. (6) Matteo Ricci is more than a Jesuit priest. He was the Ambassador of Culture between Europe and China in the 16 century.Arilang1234 (talk) 02:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply. Sorry for not being able to answer you more fully, because I am really completely ignorant on many aspects of Wiki, and with only minimum of internet web blogging.But I am passionate about Christianity and China.The following quote sums up my feelings:"As Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 – 1975)( a British historian) said: "at this point Christianity had a chance to become a true world religion and rejected it. Never again in history has that opportunity presented itself on such favorable terms. Had Ricci and his colleagues been permitted to continue on their way, there is certainly no question but that the history of the world would have been far different." Arilang1234 (talk) 02:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

That's OK! I understand that some things may be difficult. Would you like to work on the footnotes? You can choose one, and tell me whether the reference is a book, or a web page, or what, and then we can try to fix it. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi,me again. I have repair some footnotes, but not all. Question:When one web page is being referred to more than one times, is the title still remains the same?Arilang1234 (talk) 04:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• Hi, me again. I have left something on China Media Project talk page, you may have a look when you got time. By the way, I am working on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Weishi, can you also have a look and give me some advice on how to tidy up things? Thanks.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. Convenient link for me to follow: China Media Project Talk:China Media Project ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• China Media Project is under Creative Commons.

In early September I was given a 3 R warning on Boxer Rebellion. I am now more experience( please check 2008 Chinese milk scandal, I did a lot of work there.) Can I go to Boxer Rebellion and do a bit of editing there?Arilang1234 (talk) 11:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I wrote some comments at Talk:Yuan Weishi. About editing Boxer Rebellion: anyone can edit any page. However, I suggest that before editing the article, you put your changes on the talk page and see whether people agree with them; and it may be better, before putting your changes on the talk page, to put your changes on your user page or another page in your user space (sandbox), and ask me to look at them. If you do that, please mark clearly which page you want to put the changes on. I mean, on your user page you can write "The following are suggested changes to the page Boxer Rebellion", then quote or describe the changes, then write "(end of suggested changes to Boxer Rebellion)"; or any other way to make it clear which page the changes are for. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your prompt reply. I did put some comments on Boxer Rebellion talk page.

One new question I like to ask is: there are some articles on zh.wikipedia that I like to translate them into English and put it on en.wikipedia. Can you advice me on how to do it ?Arilang1234 (talk) 13:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Translating would be helpful! First, make sure the articles you want to translate satisfy the policies: that they have references which support the information (WP:V), they are written from a neutral point of view, etc. Choose good articles to translate. While you are translating, when you have translated part of the article but you haven't finished, you can keep your translation on your own computer, or in your user space; or you can keep it in article space, but then it may look strange because it's only part of an article, so that may not be as good. Actually, I'm doing that right now. I'm translating Safavid art from French, so only part of the article is there. Anyway, in the edit summaries you can write "translating from zh Wikipedia" or something like that, or put a message on the talk page to let people know you're translating. After you translate, you can ask me or another native English speaker to check the grammar. I suggest in the References section, state that the article is based on the article from the zh Wikipedia (as is done at Hellenistic Art, where it says it's based on the French Wikipedia article.) If there are some words you have difficulty translating, you can put a message on the talk page about it, and also try to find someone who can help. (I did that on the pages I translated.)

See also Wikipedia:Verifiability#http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Non-English_sources. Remember, the zh Wikipedia article is not considered a reliable source; the references must be other published material. Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! I'll look at your Boxer Rebellion comments and I'll comment there. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have made BIG changes to Boxer Rebellion. I might get into troubles for doing that. Please have a look when you have more time.Arilang1234 (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  I looked at your changes. They look OK to me! I mean, I think that you shouldn't get in trouble for those changes. Other people might want to change them, though. I didn't look at the sources to see whether what you're writing is accurate. However, because there have been problems in the past, I think it would be better if you put your changes on the talk page and wait until someone agrees with them, or wait until a day or two have gone past with nobody disagreeing, before putting them in the article. When I say those changes look OK, I only mean I don't see problems. I'm not an expert on the Boxer Rebellion. I suggest you wait for people interested in that article to comment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  Please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_Quanshu#Notes. I created the 'Notes' which was copy and paste from http://baike.baidu.com/ which is a Chinese copy of Wikipedia(they are using different software.) My intention is to translate Chinese text on the 'Notes' then put the English translation onto the main article. The question is: would en.Wikipedia accept http://baike.baidu.com(all in Chinese) as a reliable source for the English translation?Arilang1234 (talk) 21:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

  I can't read Chinese. I hope you've found some good information. But, you shouldn't put Chinese information in the article like that. Maybe putting it inside a footnote might be OK, if the translation is there too. I suggest that you revert your edit. Do you know how to revert your edit? Then, after you translate it into English, maybe you can put the English in the article.

  No, Wikipedia will not accept a copy of Chinese Wikipedia as a reliable source. Does the Chinese Wikipedia article use reliable sources? If it does, you can use those. If it doesn't, then probably it isn't useful to translate that article. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

  Do you mean if I put the text from a Chinese on-line Enclcyclopedia into the footnote, translate it inside the footnote, then put it on the main article, it is ok?

To answer your another, all Chinese Encyclopedia (including zh.wikipedia) use Chinese source, they never use English source.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• Put it this way, as far as I know, there are 3 to 4 Chinese on-line Encyclopedia which are free to the public, including zh.wikipedia. For some reasons( mainly self-sensorship), the content of zh.wikipedia is small(may be only 20%) when compare to other Chinese on-line encyclopedia. So I have to use Chinese on-line Encyclopedia to get my stuff if I am going to do any meaningfull works. If en.wikipedia do not accept online Chinese Encyclopedia as reliable source, that will make it very hard.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  Is the Chinese encyclopedia a copy of Wikipedia, or is it a different encyclopedia? If it is not a copy of Chinese Wikipedia, and it is a different encyclopedia, then it might be OK as a source for English Wikipedia. Maybe there are better sources.

  Chinese sources are OK, if there is no English source for the same information.

  If the information is good information for this article, you can do this: first translate it; then put both the Chinese and the English translation in a footnote in the article; or you can put the English in the article and the Chinese in a footnote, if it's the right kind of information to put in the article. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  Your answer has solved most of my headaches. There are tons of data on various Chinese on-line Encyclopedia that are good for en.wikipedia. Now the question is I am alone, I can only translate limited amount per day. Is there anywhere I can recruit some more zh-en translators?Arilang1234 (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  Another question, so when I put relevant text into a footnote, is not regarded as a vandalism?Arilang1234 (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  I have started on Qianlong Emperor, please have a look when you have time, and give me some advice.Arilang1234 (talk) 06:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  Wait! We also have to think about copyright.

  • You may translate articles from Chinese Wikipedia and post the translations on English Wikipedia. You may do this because Chinese Wikipedia is under a GFDL license. However, if the articles are not very good they may be deleted. If they don't have references they may be deleted.
  • You may not translate articles from other encyclopedias and post the translations on English Wikipedia; but you may if those encyclopedias say that they use a GFDL license (or other acceptable license).
  • You may write new text, not just translations, using ideas from Chinese sources, and post it to articles using those sources as references. But the text must be relevant to the article, and follow all the policies, including NPOV.
  • You may not use Chinese Wikipedia as a reference. However, if you translate from Chinese Wikipedia, I suggest listing it in the references section of the article. (I'm sorry if that's confusing!)
  • If you are trying to make Wikipedia better, then I don't think it's vandalism. But putting relevant text into a footnote may be considered disruptive if the text is in Chinese only. English Wikipedia needs English text. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language). I suggest that for all changes you want to do to articles, you put the change on the article talk page first, and wait a couple of days for comment. Later when you have learned more about how to edit Wikipedia, if people usually like your changes, then you may be able to edit articles without talking on the talk page first. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  --snip--You may write new text, not just translations, using ideas from Chinese sources, and post it to articles using those sources as references. But the text must be relevant to the article, and follow all the policies, including NPOV.--snip-- @Coppertwig, this single rule is good enoughArilang1234 (talk) 19:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  No, that one rule is not enough. You must follow all the rules. If you don't know a rule you can be bold, but if someone has told you a rule you must follow it; and you should spend some time reading policies and guidelines so you know the rules.

  If you want to follow just one simple rule, please follow this rule: Before editing an article, write a message on the talk page of the article saying that you want to edit. In the message, put exactly the words you want to change (or the words you want to add). Wait 2 days or more for comments. If people agree with you, or if nobody disagrees, then you can do the edit.

  But following just one rule might not be enough. You need to learn about how things work on Wikipedia.

  Please revert your edits at Qianlong Emperor. Maybe some of the changes are good; I don't know. But you have put a lot of Chinese text in. That's not right. This is English Wikipedia: material must be in English. Please take out the Chinese.

  Sometimes some Chinese text can be in articles, but only in some situations. Ask on the talk page first. And there must always be an English translation too. You can't put in Chinese text without an English translation.

  It says "7th: Princess He Jing [固伦和静公主]". That's six Chinese characters. I think "He Jing" would probably only be two characters. So there should only be two characters. If it says more than just "He Jing", then the rest of it should also be written in a way that English-speaking readers can pronounce.

  You added this to the article: "The accusation of individuals began with the absolute authority's twisted interpretation of the true meaning of the corresponding words" That is probably not NPOV. You added this: "then evolved into a sinister and barbaric 'system'." That is certainly not NPOV!

  You added "Qianlong was the worst offender". That is probably not NPOV.

  You added "One high ranking scholar Hu zhongjou wrote a poem '一把心肠论浊清'." If you give the name of the poem in Chinese characters, you must also give the name of the poem in letters that an English speaker can pronounce (pinyin or Wade-Giles or translation into English, or more than one of these). You may not put Chinese characters by themselves like that.

  I haven't read the whole thing. There may be other problems. Please revert your edits. Then put the changes you want to make on the talk page. Fix all the problems that people have told you about. Try to make it all NPOV. Then you can ask me to look at it again, and I might fix the grammar or find other problems. You can also wait for comments from other people.

  Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! I hope we will fix the problems and that some of your changes will go into the article! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  I have listen to your advice and put most of my edits onto the Qianlong talk page. I left "Censorship" there, I think that one should be OK. I have insert a lot of {{}} asking for citation verification, and a lot of Who? .You think OK? I am not vandalizing, just pointing out all those errors.

What will happen after 2 or 3 days, and nobody care to comment at all? What about the big churn of Chinese text in the foot notes, can I leave it there?Arilang1234 (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you for reverting! I think the "Censorship" section may be OK. (When I say something may be, it means possibly (maybe and maybe not).) I think that adding {{fact}} tags is OK. I think that the {{Who}} template means something different from what you think. The Who template is for weasel words, which means things like "Everybody thinks that..." or "Experts agree that ..." without saying who those people are. I think you want to mark the word "Chinese" because you think it should be replaced by a different word. I'm not sure if there's a template for that; maybe the "unbalanced" template at the top of the article is already good enough for that, and you don't need any template next to every word "Chinese".

  If you post a change on a talk page and nobody comments for 2 or 3 days, then I think you can put the change into the article.

  Please take the Chinese text out of the footnotes. You can't put Chinese text without an English translation (or for names, at least pinyin or Wade-Giles) anywhere in a Wikipedia article.

  Thank you! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  I have remove the Chinese text on footnotes.

Question(1)If nobody comments and I got to put back into the article, what about 'cite'? {{cite---news}} or {{cite---web}} ? So as long as I can translate between zh and en, and I can cite Chinese online encyclopedia, and I stick to all these WP rules, then I can work on any WP article I like?Arilang1234 (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Whenever you add material to an article, you should always include references. You can format the references with "cite news" and "cite web" etc. I can help you format them (put them into the "cite web" template etc.), but you must always tell us where you got the information.

When you put information on a talk page that you want to put into the article, you should put the references there too ("cite web", etc.)

Online encyclopedias might not be good sources. Usually we use secondary sources and some primary sources. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources. But encyclopedias are much better than no sources.

Every time you work on an article, you should try to follow all the rules. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks teacher. I am now looking at Qing and looking at ways on how to improve it. By the way, when I click on 'history', there is a page called 'Page view statistics', and if I click on Qing's 'page view statistic, its visitors are thousands per day. How to find out which WP articles have the most numbers of visitors?Arilang1234 (talk) 21:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh! I never noticed page view statistics! Maybe it's something new. I'm sorry, I don't know where to find out which WP articles have the most visitors. You could try asking at the help desk. If you find out, please tell me!

When you are editing articles that have a large number of visitors, you need to be even more careful. Maybe wait longer for comments on the talk page before editing, and please make sure you don't edit the article without asking on the talk page first. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I am beginning to stir the hornet's nest at Qing. I want to see what kind of responses will be thrown at me. Eventually I want to put {{--unballance--}} on all the Manchu related WP pages.Because they need to be cleaned up.Arilang1234 (talk) 23:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Good news, I have got another teacher, user Bathrobe, after a long chat on talk page Qianlong, I think he is kind of agree with me.Arilang1234 (talk) 05:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

For your information:Wang Xiuchu is the author of a 8000 words book 'The record of ten days in Yangzhou', an eyewitness account of ten days of mass murder suffered by Yangzhou civilians after their city was sacked by the Manchu.Arilang1234 (talk) 08:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Another reference on the mass murder:Dodo, Prince Yu Arilang1234 (talk) 08:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

http://stats.grok.se/en/top Top 1000 of most visited wikiArilang1234 (talk) 13:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Another topic need to be included is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queue_Order#cite_note-5, which is very much missing in all those so called B class Manchu article. It was officially declared by the Manchu:To keep your hair, you lose your head. To keep your head, you lose your hair. This rule alone, millions of Chinese Han were murdered.Arilang1234 (talk) 22:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• One very important question:Can a translation of a zh.wikisource article be accepted by en.wikipedia?Arilang1234 (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Good, I am glad you have two teachers now!

You need to learn how to tell me about references. You said that Wang Xiuchu was the author of a book, and you told me some things about the book. But, you did not tell me which of the things you wrote have ideas from that book. So telling me about the book is no use.

Every time you write something that you want to put in a Wikipedia article, you should say something that means, "these ideas come from this book: ..." and tell the name of the book, author, etc. That's what "reference" means. "Cite" means the same thing as "reference".

I don't understand why you call "Dodo, Prince Yu" a "reference". That's a link to a Wikipedia article about Prince Yu. A Wikipedia article can't be used as a reference.

Can a translation of a zh.wikisource article be accepted by en.wikipedia? I don't know! Why don't you put the article in en.wikisource? That would probably be better. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You mean zh.wikisource article(in Chinese) is accepted by en.wikisource? If that is the case, can en.wikisource article(in Chinese) be used as a source in en.wikipedia?Arilang1234 (talk) 02:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not what I mean! en.wikisource accepts articles in English. en.wikisource also accepts translations into English. I meant: you can translate something that is in zh.wikisource, and put the English translation in en.wikisource. But, if there is a published translation, it would be better to use it instead (if there is no problem with copyright). See wikisource translation.

You may use anything in en.wikisource as a reference.

I think you can also use Chinese text in zh.wikisource as a reference for English Wikipedia. See WP:Verifiability#Non-English sources. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• Now I understand a bit more. (1)Priority No.1, the source must be reliable, zh, en, or any others also OK.(2)If the reliable source is not in en, still OK, just put the original text into footnotes, then translate into en. Have I understood it correctly?Arilang1234 (talk) 02:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

  I think that's right. Thank you for asking whether you understood right. It's good to make sure we understand each other. A few more little things, though: I'm not sure exactly what the rules are. I think maybe you can use a Chinese source as a reference by just giving information like the title, page number, etc. But I'm not sure: maybe you can't. You can put quotes in footnotes with both the Chinese and an English translation (which can be translated by you). I don't think you need to translate the title of the book or whatever it is, but I think you should give it in pinyin or Wade-Giles; you can give it in Chinese characters too. (Do you know how to read Chinese characters and write them in pinyin or Wade-Giles?)

  In the article Leaders' debate on women's issues during the 1984 Canadian federal election campaign, for example, for the first footnote I only gave the title of the newspaper article and other information about the newspaper article (author, what page it's on, etc.); I didn't give a quote from the newspaper article. I think this is OK but I'm not completely sure. I didn't translate the title of the newspaper article. I don't think that's necessary; but the title is in letters than an English speaker can pronounce, not characters. For the last footnote, I gave a quote in French and also a translation, written by me, into English.

  If it's about a very simple fact, it may not be necessary to give a quote. For example, that first footnote was used to verify that the debate was the first debate of that kind. That's pretty simple and I don't think anyone would argue about whether that newspaper article says that. So I didn't put a quote. But for the things you want to do, a lot of it is about different points of view. Different people with different ideas about history might read the same thing and think it means something different. So in many cases, it's probably a good idea to give a quote in a footnote and translate it into English. I think it would be useful to do that.

  But if you give quotes, the quotes should not be too long; not too much quoting from the same source, because it could violate copyright. Short quotes are allowed even if the source is copyrighted, but long quotes might violate copyright.

  I'm sorry this isn't simple!!! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

  One more thing: I suggest you put everything you want to put in the article onto the talk page: text for the article, and footnotes too. Then I and others can check whether it looks right. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• I am putting 'Requesting consensus discussion' on 3 different talk pages, waiting for other editors to discuss different view points.
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Qing_Dynasty#Requesting_consensus_discussion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wang_Xiuchu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Qianlong_Emperor#Requesting_consensus_discussion

I am slowly figureing out all these wiki rules, and I will make sure that all rules are being taken care of.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:04, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• I shall use the following external links for reference:
  

(1)Ebrey, Patricia (1993). Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. Simon and Schuster.
(2)http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm#2b Chinese population charts in 1000 years.
(3)http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#Manchu17c Han murdered when Manchu defeat Ming
(4)McFarlane, Alan: The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap, Blackwell 2003, ISBN 0631181172, ISBN 978-0631181170
(5)http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/580815/Taiping-Rebellion
(6)http://www.archive.org/index.php
(7)http://www.encyclopedia.com/searchresults.aspx?q=Manchu+atrocity
(8)http://baike.baidu.com/
(9)http://www.hudong.com Arilang1234 (talk) 00:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you, Arilang1234: you're a good student! Thank you for putting messages on the talk pages. And thank you for giving information about your references. You will still need to tell us which information came from which reference. I looked at the Qing dynasty talk page and put some comments there. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• Teacher Coppertwig, I have good news for you. I have managed to find a Chinese on-line encyclopedia using GFDL or GNU. Now there is no more copy right problem! http://www.wiki.cn/wiki/%E7%BB%B4%E5%AE%A2:%E7%89%88%E6%9D%83%E4%BF%A1%E6%81%AF .This wiki is not zh.wikipedia, is it OK?
• At last a Chinese encyclopedia with GFDL license has pop up. According to one of the wiki rule, a reliable non-en source can be used, as long as the original text is inserted into footnotes. My question is, if I need to use a lot of text from the reliable source, does it mean I need to put a lot of non-en text into the foot note? If this is the case, that means only editors, moderators, and admin who are able to understand both Chinese and Enlish, are then able to edit, any person who does not know Chinese, has no hope of judgeing my article. To complicate things further, Chinese is divided into common simple Chinese, and classical Confucius Chinese. And most of the Qing dynasty and Ming dynasty Chinese were written in classical style, a bit of like Latin and modern English. I can see a lot of editors will have a hard time. WP:Verifiability#Non-English sources.Arilang1234 (talk) 07:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Quote:"Non-English sources Policy shortcuts: WP:RSUE WP:VUE WP:NONENG

Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, editors should use English-language sources in preference to sources in other languages, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly. Where editors translate any direct quote, they should quote the relevant portion of the original, non-English text in a footnote or in the article. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors." UnquoteArilang1234 (talk) 07:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• Teacher Coppertwig, please have a look at Qing the 'External links' section. I have put most of my 'source' as 'link', and put them all under 'External link', to show that I mean business. The bulk of the 'raw data' would have to be from here:Yangzhou Ten Days of mass murder committed by Manchu soldiers, which is a GFDL web site, in Chinese text, that means I shall have a lot of translation to do. Now the question is, because it is under GFDL, so no copy right problem, so do I still need to include the original Chinese text into Qing, if the answer is yes, where? If the answer is 'Foot notes', then the 'Foot note' will become a huge foot note.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

That Chinese encyclopedia says "Wiki". So I guess it's a wiki, like Wikipedia. If it's under GFDL like Wikipedia, then you can use it in the same ways you can use Chinese Wikipedia. You can translate from it, but you can't use it as a reference. You don't have to include the Chinese text; just say that you're translating from that wiki, and give a link to it. But that link doesn't count as a reference. You still need references. If that wiki gives references, you can use those. If it doesn't give references, then don't translate from it. You need references. Thank you for keeping on trying! I hope we figure this out soon!! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Arilang asking help(2)

• If the 'reference' is a book in Chinese text, and not yet being translated into English, would that be counted as a reference?Arilang1234 (talk) 07:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

• New text has been put into Qing, please check when you have time.Arilang1234 (talk) 21:22, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you may use a book in Chinese text as a reference. I think you don't need to translate quotes from it; I'm not sure. I think it's probably a good idea to translate a few short quotes, and put the original Chinese and translation in footnotes. I think you can also take simple facts from the book and just tell the page number, without translating anything.

Some books are good books to use as references. Some books are not very good. See WP:RS#Scholarship.

If there is an English-language book that gives the same information, it's better to use the English-language book. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone has removed the B class status of Qing andQianlong, looks like some moderator or Admin are on my side. Hehe.Arilang1234 (talk) 03:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Please have a look at Boxer Rebellion and let me know your opinion.Arilang1234 (talk) 03:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, Arilang! You are doing very well. You did these good things at Qing dynasty:

• You put the text on the talk page first, so that people could comment.
• You asked me for help, so that I could fix the grammar before you put it into the article.
• You included references.
• You wrote "the alleged number of victims was closed to 800,000.(though some scholars doubted it's accuracy)": this looks like good NPOV, telling more than one version of what happened.

Well done! And now your material has not been reverted. But Bathrobe says some should be moved to another article. I suggest that you work with

Bathrobe on that.

Question: You had put some sentences in the cite news and cite web templates. Are those quotes from the sources? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

(1)The reason I put sentences in the {{cite/news/web}} is for the convenience of me and others. Without these mini 'summery', one has no way to know the content of the web page. With a bit of 'summery', the web page can be used as source for other articles.

(2)May be you have noticed I use template 'cquote' quite a bit, please tell me if I have overuse it or not.
(3)Qing, Qianlong, Boxer Rebellion, Wang Xiuchu are all interrelated articles, and I am doing revisions on them at the same time, because I think they all need to be more NPOV.Arilang1234 (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

A bit of argument between me and Bathrobe on Qing talk page. Could you have a look and give some NPOV comments?Arilang1234 (talk) 09:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

More argument between me and Bathrope with him mention the word 'revert' my editions. Could you have a look at talk page 'Qing' and help me out a bit?Arilang1234 (talk) 04:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Arilang! You are a good student who learns, but I think you are also a student who forgets! You learned to put new text on the talk page before editing, but I think maybe you've forgotten that and you've been putting text into the article without discussing it on the talk page first! Please always put your suggested changes on the talk page first, until some Wikipedians tell you you've learned enough rules to edit the article directly. For one thing, you can ask me to fix the grammar when it's still on the talk page. That helps. Remember when I said if you only learned one rule, it would be to discuss it on the talk page first?

Read what I said on the Qing page, starting "To decide how much space to give each part of the article, look at how much space is given to them in the sources...." Do you understand? Before you put something in the article, put an argument on the talk page about how much space is in the sources about it.

User "Bathrobe" has the last two letters "be", not "pe".

This is not NPOV: "The Manchu not only sin against all the Chinese(all 56 races), they had sin against the whole human race. Lets not forget that." This is also not NPOV: "Well, "absolute ruler" says it all, and we all know 'absolute power brings absolute corruption'."

However, user 123.121.239.111 said that they put some of your material into the Boxer Rebellion article. You should be happy about that!!

About zh wikipedia: Here are some suggestions. You don't have to do this. It's just suggestions. I suggest that, because you are getting along with people better on English Wikipedia, that you edit only English Wikipedia for a couple of months. Try to learn many rules of English Wikipedia and get in the habit of following them. For example, don't put messages on article talk pages talking about what it's like editing zh Wikipedia. On article talk pages, talk only about the article. On user talk pages, like this one, you can talk about more things. That's why I'm answering here. Get used to following many rules here. When you learn to follow a rule, keep on following it. Learn how to write with NPOV. Most of the rules are probably the same on zh Wikipedia. After a few months when you're doing better here, then I suggest you try again at zh Wikipedia. I suggest you follow all the same rules there: put things on the talk page first, etc. Also, I suggest you make small changes first (but discuss those small changes on the talk page first), e.g. a few words or one sentence. Also, I suggest you assume good faith and don't call people "thugs". Then maybe next time you will get along with people at zh Wikipedia. Good luck. Again, these are just suggestions. You don't have to do it that way. But I think it will help you if you do. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much Teacher Coppertwig. Give me another few months I shall be quite good. With your help of course. To decide how much space to give each part of the article, look at how much space is given to them in the sources. this I understand, but in the case of An Account of Ten days at Yangzhou, which is a book, and the whole book is about the massacre at Yangzhou, or near 90% of it, how do I decide what percentage is what?Arilang1234 (talk) 03:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

That book is about the massacre, so if you're writing about the massacre, you can use that book to help decide how much to write about each part of the massacre. If the book has 10 chapters, and 5 of them are about one part of the massacre, and one chapter is about another part of the massacre, then in the article about the massacre, you can write half the article about one part of the massacre and a small part of the article about the other part.

If you're writing a section of an article, where the article is about something else but that section is about the massacre, then half that section would be about the part that has 5 chapters in the book, and the part that has only one chapter might be only one sentence, or half a sentence, or you don't mention it at all in that section.

If you only have one book, you can use it like that, but other editors who have other books may change what you do. It's better if you have all the books you can find. (Good books. If they're published by a university they're probably good, for example.) Some books might have more material on one thing and other books might have less; you can do something between those.

To decide how much space in an article should be about the massacre, you need other books, I think. To decide how much material in the Qing article should be about the massacre, it would be good to have one or more books about the Qing dynasty. Then you can see how much of that book is about the massacre.

You can read parts of many books here: http://books.google.com For example, here's a book about the Qing dynasty: [26] I think that book is a reliable source because it's published by Westview press, and the Wikipedia article about Westview press says "publishes textbooks and scholarly works for an academic audience." You can read the table of contents. That tells what the chapters are about. So that can help decide what the Qing article should talk about.

If you want the Qing article to talk about comparing the Qing dynasty with Yuan or Ming or something, you need to find one or more sources that have a good amount of material comparing them. If the sources about the Qing dynasty don't talk about comparing it with Yuan or Ming, you can't put it in the Qing article. If you take one source about Qing and another source about Yuan and you think of ways to compare them, that's original research, as 123.121.239.111 told you. You can't put it in Wikipedia, but you can make your own web page or publish your own book about it. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Arilang3

Teacher Coppertwig, how are you? The revision on Qing is coming along OK, can you have a look at talk page Qing and let me know your opinion?Arilang1234 (talk) 02:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

On Talk:Qing Dynasty, you wrote "May be it is the result of you being living in China for too long, or may be you are plain too lazy to try to understand other people's view points?" Please don't say things about other editors that they might not like. You said, "And why do you hate people who hate Manchus? Don't tell me you have Manchu or Mongol blood in your veins?" and" you are a white man". Please don't ask editors where they live or what ethnicity they are, or say things like that. Please don't say that an editor hates some people; I don't think the person said that they hate people. Editors should talk about what the sources say and what the article should say. Editors should not talk about what editors believe. You said, "You can throw whatever kind of insults at me, it is ok, I had insulted others with much harsher words." Actually, you should not insult people and they should not insult you. See WP:Civility, WP:No personal attacks, User:Coppertwig#Civility and DefendEachOther. You said, "you need to get out of this narrow-minded thinking of yours." Please comment on content, not on the contributor. I also gave a message to Bathrobe at User:Bathrobe#Arilang.

Bathrobe said, "I don't have time to be constantly cleaning up this kind of thing". Arilang, you need to be careful not to make difficult work for Bathrobe. I think if you always put your material on the talk page for discussion first, it will help a lot.

Where is the text that you want me to check the grammar of?

When you put material on the talk page for discussion, you need to say clearly that it is material you are suggesting putting into the article, and you need to say exactly what part of the article you want to put it into. I don't see anything like that on the Qing talk page, so I don't know what you want me to check the grammar of.

You mentioned a sentence with the word "zenith" that you say is not NPOV. I think you are probably right. I suggest that you put a different version of that sentence on the talk page for discussion.

I hope I'm helping you. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks teacher Coppertwig. The 'debate' that me and Bathrobe were having was long and boring and all over the place. This is one reason the Qing talk page has become such a mess. I will tidy it up somehow, as best as I can. You probably had read from beginning to the end. The one thing I like to say is Bathrobe does not possess the same 'Teacher' quality as you do, and he wrongly stressed on my Han chauvinism, which in itself is a questionable article

“ This article was nominated for deletion on 23/12/06. The article still lacks references, so I've tagged it. It also contains many statements that are off topic. —Babelfisch

• By the way, notice how biased and irrelevant the sources are? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 6

This topic is highly inflammatory and has not being supported by facts. POV!!!! Super POV! A blatant racist attack on Han civilization(comment by Arilang)

”

The above quotation is cut-n-paste from talk page Han chauvinism. It look a very long time for Bathrobe to see that I am not a Han chauvinist, only after repeating protests from me. To be fair, all I did was adding information that previous editors forgot to supply, though my editing was(and still is) often messy, but I will try to improve. Just because I was editing Qing and I was wrongly labeled a Han chauvinist, that was the only reason why my retorts were so sharp and irritating. I want to both appololize to you and him.
Now things seems to have resolve, I will try my best to tidy up any mess I have left on Qing.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Arilang1234. I accept your apology. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your positive response in the other section of this talk page. You said there: "Now I am reading this book The Ching Imperial Household Department by Preston M. Torbert, on page 16-18, the author gave a detail description of how Jurchens(or Manchus) obtained land by warring, and turned war captives into agriculture slaves." Again, I suggest that you propose this change on the talk page, telling exactly how you want to change the article. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear Coppertwig

Mr. Coppertwig, Regarding the 3RR "report" filed against me, I feel that you have failed to perform the necessary due-diligence to examine this particular case beyond the skin-deep level. The reporting individual is highly skilled at masking his own incitement and violation, and craftily reports a revert when his own inappropriate material is adjusted, changed, altered or removed. Please email me, or allow me to email you to discuss this further offline. I have been highly upset and disturbed by the nature of these other users. I am a retired professional, and gentle soul, with many high-quality contributions, and livlihood which backs my contributions. Most Sincerely, Grayghost01 (talk) 03:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't have time to reply right now; I'll plan to look into this later. You may email me if you wish. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at Grayghost's user/talk pages and his comments on discussion pages and you will understand how extreme his own POV issues are. (His Lincoln comments are a real howl.) At any rate, there was a 3RR violation by him earlier and I mistakenly assumed good faith (see his talk page). I won't repeat the error. Red Harvest (talk) 14:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Would both of you please respect my request at the top of my talk page not to post criticisms of other users here. (I just made the font bigger etc.) I've run out of time just now, sorry, but I plan to reply properly later. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to your query, I've looked in more depth at the article, article history and talk page.

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It's certainly good to have interested and knowledgeable people like yourself contributing. It seems to me that you, North Shoreman and JimWae have all contributed good material. (I didn't look at other contributors in this analysis.) I encourage you to work collaboratively with other editors and try to compromise. An article written by several editors is almost always better than one written by one editor. It can be difficult for one editor alone to achieve a truly neutral article.

Regarding the warning I posted on your talk page: I hope you won't worry about it too much. Essentially, it's primarily to make sure you're aware of the three-revert rule, and secondarily to let others know that you're aware of it. It's not intended to be punitive, and it can be posted on talk pages of users that have come close to violating 3RR even if they haven't violated it, to let them know they're coming close, as a courtesy. In any case, at the time I posted the warning, you had recently done 4 reverts in a 24-hour period. During the same 24-hour period, North Shoreman had done 3 reverts (if consecutive series of edits by one editor are counted as one edit, as is usually done for 3RR purposes), and JimWae had done 4 edits, of which only 2 seem to me to be reverts. I could have posted a warning to North Shoreman too, because as I said the warning can be posted if an editor is coming close to a 3RR violation, but in any case, North Shoreman had mentioned 3RR in an edit summary, so clearly North Shoreman was aware of the policy and no warning was needed. Three reverts in a 24-hour period is not a 3RR violation, though one can still be blocked for editwarring even if not violating 3RR.

If you ever notice a situation where another editor has recently violated 3RR, you can report them at the 3RR noticeboard. I frequently help format reports at that noticeboard, so feel free to ask me for help formatting a report if you like; if I have time and agree that a report is warranted, I may help. Such a report is only useful if an edit war is currently in progress; if editwarring seems to have stopped, administrators will probably do nothing in response.

If you and other editors are having difficulty reaching a compromise, it can help to get more editors involved. If you're in a disagreement with only one other editor, third opinion can help. If more editors are involved, request for comment (article content) can help, or posting a message at a related article or wikiproject (which is allowed under the WP:CANVASS policy). See also dispute resolution.

It seems to me that it's probably not NPOV to say that sentiment suddenly changed in Virginia, or to state that it changed for one specific reason. The phrase "radical abolitionist" strikes me as likely not NPOV either.

Re your comments: "You are purely diversionary, and have no true interest in what the history of Virginia is, nor do you care anything about the state and it's various wiki-pages on its history."[27] "I predict you have no intent to discuss or cooperate."[28], "that you are so hot and heavy to ram into..."[29]: please comment on content, not on the contributors. I suggest reviewing WP:Civility and WP:OWN. And re "The reporting individual is highly skilled at masking his own incitement and violation, and craftily ...": in your comment above: please respect the request at the top of my talk page about not criticizing other editors here. Coppertwig (talk) 01:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and time. Terms like "radical abolitionist" are historical and of old use. If you found that on a wiki article, then it likely is found in its correct context of referring to abolitionists who were willing to either commit murder or insurrection in the name of abolition. There is a whole wiki article devoted to these people at Radical Republican (USA). So ... some editors who have been dabbling in the American Civil War, I've noticed, get wrapped around the axle slapping "POV" on items thinking there is a problem, when in fact there is not. In my particle case, one example of what upset these other editors was the word "invasion" that I must have put on an article about 2 years ago, and which they recently observed. These fellows cried "POV". I tried, to no avail, to explain that this is a purely military term. We, the United States, invaded Normandy (see Invasion of Normandy). The word "invasion" as you see in this main wiki article is not a POV.

Now, while geographic location of one's residence is not normally an issue ... it can be a cause of POV in certain cases, such as the American Civil War. So these other editors "provoke" edit battles by deleting or inserting items which either reflect their own POV .... or which incorrectly assumes a POV on something like the word "invasion" or perhaps "radical" as you pointed out. Its a form of vandalism, because the TRUE spirit of wiki's intent is not meant. I say that because these editors have received many warnings. In tracing through their many edits, they have left a trial of being provoking and warned in other articles. If anyone resists their efforts, they jump on them with 3RR "attacks". These two also work in tandem, cooperatively with each other, to form a perception of "false" consensus on talk pages. Most people are unaware they are working together.Grayghost01 (talk) 22:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Grayghost01: I apologize for the delay in replying.

Re "radical abolitionist": If this is a generally accepted term in the reliable sources – if sources from both perspectives use the term – then its use may be NPOV. That's why I didn't change it myself but just brought it to your attention for consideration.

I'm wondering in what context the word "invasion" was challenged. In the context of a civil war, the word could imply a POV as to whether two different countries were involved or two parts of the same country.

Please avoid using the word "vandalism" to describe content disputes; and please respect my request at the top of this page about not criticizing other editors in messages on this talk page.

People are allowed to edit articles regardless of where they live. Combining the opinions of several editors about how to fulfill the NPOV policy usually leads to a better article than any one could write alone. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:15, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The words "invade" or "invasion" are used extensively in historical books, signs, brochures, lectures and etc on the topic of the American Civil War. Lee's "invasion" of Maryland is a typical description by both southerners and northerners. No one takes any beef with it. I've never seen anyone write any dissenting opinions on the use of "invade" or "invasion". In a small, minor, background statement on Winchester in the Civil War, I added that the decision by Lincoln to raise and army and "invade" the southern states was a huge turning point for Virginia and very pro-union areas (like Winchester), and the key is that this is how THEY viewed it, and WHY they changed their minds toward secession support. The point is that these areas had no desire to secede for other reasons prior to that. This fact about Virginia's secession is well documented. So much so, that Jedediah Hotchkiss spends many pages explaining the history of Virginia in regard to slavery, her requirement that the Ohio Valley lands she ceded to the U.S. "had" to be free states, and etc, and how Gov. Letcher's letter of response to Lincoln explained the beef, which is the nature of how I present Virginia history, or used to (before the edit-nazis descended). The person who deleted "invade" from the article, I have discovered, cruises the articles doing this type of thing, arguing with other editors, and tweaking articles with tid-bits of citations from a very selective sub-set of historians, some of which are seen as "revisionists". This persons deliberate tactic is to offensively attack people with 3RR or other warnings. I have checked this out in his history.Grayghost01 (talk) 00:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

And a P.S., there are Wiki articles on the Invasion of Normandy, Baghdad invasion, etc. The censorship is applied specifically to the American Civil War, despite historical references.Grayghost01 (talk) 01:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see an article titled "Baghdad invasion". Surely the invasion of Normandy was not considered part of a civil war. Do you have examples of articles where the word "invasion" is used in the context of a civil war in some country? Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is how the sources represent it. From the above, it seems that you're admitting that there are some sources ("revisionists") that don't use the term "invasion". I suspect that "invasion" is not a NPOV term in the context of a civil war. Regards, ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Unblockery

Thank you for your kind comment. Although the autoblock got in the way for a wee while, it was not a problem. I'm not one of those folks who throws toys out of the pram if access to Wikipedia editing is impeded, because I have some form of life outside of this beast. It was the actions of the reporting editor that caused me problems - haunting my contribs and such like. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL: I like the word "unblockery". Thanks for your message. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It is an awesome word. Right up there with "gratuitous blockery" (which sounds like a serious plumbing issue). -- Scjessey (talk) 12:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wait: there's really a Real World out there? And you spend time in it? What's it like? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You don't want to know. --Abd (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC) Monitors: this editor has mentioned the unmentionable, per the unmentionable rule, oversight this comment and the ones preceding it, ASAP, they imply there is something worth doing other than editing Wikipedia.

Template:Db-g8

Hi Coppertwig (nice name). I just noticed that Happy-melon is "off to distant lands, and will be editing sporadically – if at all – until September 25, 2008." Would you please revise the Db-g8 template I requested at Template:Db-g8. Thanks. Suntag (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Nifty quotes by Tznkai

• "How something is done is at least as important as why."[30]
• "I am operating completely editor blind, and deliberately so."[31]

Stuff from other people

• ...and nifty pictures about building trust, on Kelly's talk page: [32]

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Coppertwig (talk • contribs) 10:38, 10 September 2008

• ...and a nifty quote by WAS 4.250: "I would just like to reflect here on how far off the initial path we have come. The free culture movement began with copy left software and now has Wikipedia as its most public example. The opposite of free culture is called in the movement "permission culture". Stop asking permission. Create." [33]☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI the pictures are not from me.--Tznkai (talk) 14:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they were. (I added the subsection heading "Stuff from other people" when I wrote that.)^{(10:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC))}☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Abd; and also by Abd: "If a decision has supposedly been made "by the community," with whom do you discuss it?" [34] Coppertwig (talk) 01:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

RfC on conduct of User:Abd, comment requested

Thank you for expressing interest at User:Abd/RfC/Proxy Table in my standing userspace RfC. The first questions to be addressed are at User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block, which is a page for the questions and (later) a summary of consensus. Comments and discussion have been begun, by me, at User talk:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block. Because the first questions address the warning issued to me by Jehochman before the block on 8/11, and should not involve extensive research, I have several times asked Jehochman to comment, but he has declined so far. I have also asked Carcharoth, as suggested by Jehochman, to look at it, but so far he hasn't found time; perhaps he will in the next few days. If you are able to look at the pages ref'd above, and comment regarding the questions, or otherwise as you see fit, it would be appreciated. I am waiting to see if these questions can be resolved and a preliminary consensus found, without going to a wider forum, such as the Village Pump, AN, or a standard user RfC. Thanks for any time you can give this. --Abd (talk) 21:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to find the time. I'm a bit backlogged at the moment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

People should not become involved in this user-controlled RFC - we have an RFC process, Abd has so far found nobody willing to become involved in his illegitimate version of the process. You should tell him (as everyone else has over the last month of him spamming people) that you will be happy to be involved in a real community controlled RFC, not his sham version. He wants to use the results of it to attack a number of dedicated administrators. It could be harmful to your standing as an editor to be seen to be involved in such an attack page. Send him a clear message instead - set up a real RFC. --87.115.22.127 (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, 87.115.22.127. Do I know you? Are you an editor of the Wikipedia encyclopedia? Please respect the request at the top of my talk page regarding criticism of other editors. I see nothing "illegitimate" about Abd's process. See also Lar's admirable design of a "modified RfC" here. Where do you suggest centralized discussion in response to your messages take place? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The IP and behavior is definitive for banned User:Fredrick day who, half the time, claims I'm obsessed about him and who spends the other half of this time tracking my contributions and popping up whenever he thinks it's possible it will stir up some shit. Yes. He's an editor, and probably an administrator, Fredrick day was a blatant bad hand account, built for aggressive deletion and to express incivility that would get him blocked were he to do it openly. And, of course, eventually did. But he's very careful, probably uses independent ISPs so that checkuser won't catch him. Let me put it this way: I know I'm doing something right when it attracts the dedicated attention of someone like this. --Abd (talk) 05:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Abd, I will try very hard to find time to participate in your RfC and will very probably do so by the end of this weekend. Please respect the request at the top of my talk page about not posting criticism of other editors here. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for any offense from the "criticism" re Fredrick day, though it's generally consensus (except that the probability that he's got an admin account hasn't been discussed widely). In any case, while he was involved in the incident, not in the part that is first examined. It should really be pretty simple; the warning was mostly based on a single edit in my Talk, in response to an administrator. The edit -- actually a pair of edits -- is long, but the question is only whether or not it matched the warning, so, I'd suggest, the warning should be read first. The issue is not whether or not the warning was made in good faith, it may have been, but was it correct? If so, as I've said, I'm probably out of here, I can't trust myself. If not, then I could move to the next step, examining my subsequent behavior; did it justify the block that was based on the warning? My goal is twofold: personally, block log annotation clearing me of the charges involved in the block; but secondly, to demonstrate a minimally disruptive process to deal with user behavioral problems: start with a process under the control of the user, to get non-binding advice as to how to proceed; it presently happens, but not in a coherent, deliberative manner. There are then other possible applications as well. Notice that I set up a "standing RfC." The same structure could deal with any behavioral problem; I get accused of disruption or the like with reasonable frequency. If it were just for the immediate personal aspect, I'd not bother. I'm unblocked, I don't have to do this. In spite of Freddie's protestations, he is the only one who has participated in the actual RfC process, so far, with questions apparently intended to disrupt it; but I extracted what might be general questions from that and included them. I have no intention of excluding anyone, but of maintaining order and civility.--Abd (talk) 14:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Re whether the warning was correct: you've requested comments on your own behaviour, and I expect to give such comments after studying the situation. As far as I know, the person giving the warning hasn't requested comments on their behaviour, so I don't plan to comment on whether the action of giving the warning was "correct" or not. You might want to rephrase the question. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 17:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The questions in the RfC are phrased correctly. The fourth subquestion was about the propriety of the warning, though, and I've changed that one to focus on the warning as an effective one. I.e., if I was warned, but uncivilly, it might excuse my disregard of the warning. (And it would, of course, raise other questions as well, but that's not the point.) --Abd (talk) 18:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Db doc

Hi Coppertwig. Apparently, {{db-g7}} now requires a rationale for all posts. Would you please revise Template:Db doc to remove the most basic form of the template at Template:Db-g7. Also, I think db-g7 is used alot by the authors themselves. Thus, would you please add the example,
{{db-g7|rationale=For this page, I am the author of the only substantial content and request deletion of it in good faith.}}
to Template:Db doc so that it only appears at Template:Db-g7. I came up with all this via this post. Thanks. -- Suntag (talk) 18:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Suntag. I looked at the source code for db-g7 and tested it, and I don't believe it requires a rationale for all posts. The link you provided doesn't seem to work. I think it's all fine as it is.

Your username is nice, too: is it a day in some language? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Quick favor

Hey Copper, I had a favor to ask. I recently added a few citations and references to the CG page, and was wondering if you could go through the references and combine them how you did the others in the past (I haven't quite mastered that yet) ? I would greatly appreciate it. :o) Thanks old friend and I hope life is well.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 09:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm definitely planning to do that. I'll probably get to it sometime this weekend. After I do that, I'm planning to format references on a bunch of other pages (see User talk:Coppertwig#Semi-automated edits). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI

Just so you know, I just reverted a comment on your talk page from an IP editor. The IP is an incarnation of User:Nangparbat, a banned user who keeps hopping IPs to make biased edits to articles and harass users who disagree with him. I've been trying to get Abuse Reports to talk to his ISP to get this to stop, but it's not getting anywhere so far. There's more information in several sections of my talk page and User:Hersfold/Vandal watch#Nangparbat if you're interested. Cheers. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes

Thanks! It was a complete (but pleasant) surprise that it was on the front page. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

breast feeding

I welcome your edits on the breastfeeding article, I don't know if my methods are in line with wikipedia rules or not, but I tend to remove items that are unsuitable, hoping that they will be added in a more suitable way, rather than leaving them intact and waiting for them to be modified.

Of course the "how to" issue is relevant on the article, but also even if it is not a guide, are the items in the how to section actually notable? I am sure that it could be re-written in a manner that does not make it look like a guide, that part is easy, but make sure the items are actually notable. I personally don't think that having every single feeding position is notable - perhaps a link to a site that lists them would be better.

Sennen goroshi (talk) 05:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

When a section is unsuitable but can be improved to be suitable, I would suggest rather than just deleting it, moving it to the talk page so the information isn't forgotten. I'm pretty sure that's suggested in some policy or guideline somewhere but I forget where.

I was thinking of perhaps shortening the material about positions, possibly as short as a single sentence.

I think most of the material in that section is notable, basically summarizing information that's provided in numerous books.

I'm a bit busy so it may take me a few days to get around to it, but I'm definitely planning to continue to edit the section. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Efficient milk removal depends on correct maternal positioning and latching and normal infant suckling dynamics...

Breastfeeding and human lactation Coppertwig (talk) 12:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Civility RFC question

I have a question about your support comment at Wikipedia talk:Editing restrictions/Civility restrictions#Proposal A.2: Low level incivility is a serious problem. You said you disagreed with my comment, then explained "It's a mistake to ignore incivility until the victim complains." I argued that ignored incivility should still be dealt with, even if there is little apparent effect, which would seem to agree with your statement. I was wondering if you had misread my comment, or if I just don't understand the disagreement. Pagrashtak 16:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I see what's going on. You had said, "If someone engages in a pattern of low-level incivility, but the target of that incivility simply ignores it and continues with whatever he is doing, I would say that the incivility had little effect, but should still be dealt with." Perhaps I agree with the "but should still be dealt with" part of this sentence, though I'd have to know more about how it would be dealt with. However, I disagree with the first part of the sentence. You would say that the incivility had little effect; I disagree with that, and would say that it may or may not have had a tremendous effect on the victim, an effect which is however not visible on-wiki because of the advice in WP:NPA to ignore attacks against oneself in many situations. In my comment supporting A2, I stated that I disagreed with Jim Miller and with you. The first sentence following that explains my disagreement with Jim Miller's comment and makes no sense in response to your comments. The next two sentences after that explain my disagreement with your comment. The order of the sentences is the same as the order in which I mentioned you and the other user. I hope that clears things up. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. We don't disagree, although it's not clear from my comment. I was pointing out a counter-example, not making a blanket statement—saying it is possible for someone to ignore incivility, (meaning truly ignore, not building internal anger) thus giving it little effect. You are correct that it is also possible (and more probable) for incivility to have little observed effect, but great actual effect. Pagrashtak 18:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see: you meant the person really ignores it. OK. It was just a matter of how I interpreted your comment. We don't actually disagree. If you like, I can post an explanation/clarification on the discussion page, but I think it's likely simplest to just leave things as they are. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and I can see how it would be interpreted that way. I clarified my own comment in case that's how others were reading it. Feel free to leave yours as is if you want. Thanks, Pagrashtak 18:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for the barnstar! It is much appreciated. Kindest regards,AlphaEta 23:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration Request

Thanks for adding the signature. I've never done a request for arbitration before (probably evident by the history log of the page). I didn't think I needed to sign the section for Cmmmmm's statement, as I thought that as the filer of the request, and the text used, that it would be evident that I put it there.

I'm not an expert either! However, I think normally a section titled "statement by Cmmmm" would be added by Cmmmm, and I thought it would be useful to clarify and to provide the time so people could find the diff if they wanted. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

True, and if Cmmmm would actually make any statement relating to the specific issues raised, I would have included it. Or rather, I would have gone for a mediation request instead. However, the user simply won't discuss the specifics. (Also, the user in question has specific statements on their user page explicitly indicating bias against JWs.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

3RR

Thanks Coppertwig, the heads-up is much appreciated. I suspected I might be, but the reverts are simply me undoing removal of proper sources, so if it does result in admin intervention I'd frankly welcome it. Prophaniti (talk) 00:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the removal of my block warning: That genuinely wasn't an attempt to hide/shift it, simply because I'd over-looked the part saying it shouldn't be removed until the block expires. Cheers. Prophaniti (talk) 23:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem! I think that's just so that if you do a second unblock request, the admins can easily notice the first one. That didn't really come up this time, as such, anyway. Welcome back. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning

I very much appreciate it.GreekParadise (talk) 03:04, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks for taking it in a positive spirit! Although it seems my warning may have been somewhat redundant!! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic 2

You have not explained your revert.[35] Improvements were made to the vaccination section. You did not explain it. Improvements were made to the Gallup poll text. You did not explain your removal of reliable references. You added Simon-says text that went against WP:ASF policy. We can assert it when no serious dispute exists. Please provided evidence of a dispute. QuackGuru 18:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I'll try to find time for a proper reply later. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

In the interim, your edit may be reverted due to the unexplained revert per Coppertwig's edit summary (unexplained revert). You reverted an editor because you felt it was unexplained. However, you did the same thing. You have not explained your revert. QuackGuru 21:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of my partial revert of 23:09 17 September 2008 at Chiropractic with edit summary "Partially reverting unexplained revert; possibly user mistook it for vandalism?":

• Capital V on "vertebral": unimportant (part of piped link; invisible)
• restoring the word "considered" in "sustained by ideas such as subluxation that are considered significant barriers to scientific progress within chiropractic": see diff of 21:36 17 September Note that Levine2112 and Fyslee replied to this with "Agreed"; and see diff of 22:42 20 September 2008.
• Re the Gallup poll: see diff of 19:03 17 September and diff of 22:50 20 September. I suggest that we wait until we've agreed on the wording before inserting this.
• Restoring the words "what are characterized as" in "and was hampered by what are characterized as antiscientific and pseudoscientific ideas that sustained the profession in its long battle with organized medicine": See diff of 21:36 17 September 2008 and diff of 22:42 20 September 2008.
• Restoring the words "what is considered by many chiropractic researchers to be" in "among chiropractors; the other end employs what is considered by many chiropractic researchers to be antiscientific reasoning and unsubstantiated claims,"; this has been much discussed, and as I said in the diff of 21:36 17 September 2008 I oppose deleting those words for similar reasons as the others; feel free to ask about this specifically if you'd like an answer for this specific edit.
• Re my opposition to changing "have been called" to "are" in "that have been called ethically suspect when they let practitioners maintain their beliefs to patients' detriment." Again, this has been much discussed. See diff of 21:36 17 September 2008.
• Re nbsp: I don't know what the correct or best format is; I reverted this by accident along with the substantive changes.
• Vaccination section: Oops! I think I thought my revert wasn't changing anything in this section, but perhaps I did revert stuff there. I'd have to catch up with the talk page discussion to figure out which version I think is better. I apologize for the confusion caused by my reverting the addition of a blank line at the top of the section, making it harder to compare diffs. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:ASF, we can assert it as fact when no serious dispute exists. Please provide evidence of a serious dispute such as references. QuackGuru 23:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Serious dispute of what? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Please provied evidence of a serious dispute of the text that you added atrribution to. Per WP:ASF, when no serious dispute exists, we can assert it. QuackGuru 23:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

No, you provide evidence that these are "facts" about which there is "no serious dispute". I dispute that claim. Some of these are clearly opinions, not facts, as is obvious just from reading them. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC) Oops! I'm sorry about the tone of this comment. I'll review Techniques for handling emotions when editing. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The text is referenced and not disputed among the sources provided in the article. The article provides evidence there is "no serious dispute" from the references in the article. It is irrelevant you dispute the claim. We should stick to the sources and not let personal opinion go against WP:ASF policy. You have admitted you personally dispute the claim among reliable sources. You disagree with the text. We don't add attribution because you disagree with the experts or reliable sources. See WP:ASF, we can assert it as fact when no evidence of a serious disputed is presented. Now, please provided evidence of a serious dispute. QuackGuru 23:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

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Absence

Hi Coppertwig! Sorry, I've been offline for some months. I just moved to Amman in order to do my MSc. Unfortunately, I won't have much time for Wikipedia for the next months, but I wanted to thank you for all the help and support you gave to me and the WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country. If you find the time, I suggest that you adopt Anunezsanchez instead of me. She did a number of excellent articles mainly on irrigation and water resources management. Thanks again for all your help and greetings from Jordan! --Kerres (Talk) 15:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Nice to hear from you! I hope you enjoy your time in Jordan and learn lots of interesting things! You've made valuable contributions to Wikipedia and I hope you'll be back at some later stage. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

CSD G8 help

Hello! As you have worked on {{db-g8}}, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind working on it a little more? Specifically, there was discussion at WT:CSD about broadening G8 to cover subpages and such. This is not a problem, but then I wanted to preserve the history of the templates as they were, so I moved the original {{db-g8}} to {{db-talk}} and {{db-t4}} to {{db-subpage}} as specific instances of G8, with a new template at {{db-g8}} (a modified copy of the original). I hope this is not making you cringe. Everything works fine, but obviously the way that these specific instance templates are handled is more delicate than that, as I realized when I saw {{db-disambig}}. I would greatly appreciate your help in adjusting the template code wherever necessary so that these worked as elegantly as they did before I got involved. Note that I have not touched the R1 templates, even though this CSD was merged with G8, as two editors objected after the merger. Even though it was discussed before and R1 is now clearly redundant, I don't wish to irritate anyone any further at this point, so I am awaiting a reply before proceeding with that. Thanks for any help you can give. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:43, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion

Thanks for your kind suggestion on the article Gaogouli County! I have been expanding the article. And I found that the Gaogouli County was not always part of Xuantu Commandery. It's in some era not part of Xuantu Commandery, but part of Liaodong Commandery, ect. So I think the redirection is not right. Thanks again and best wishes! -Dicting (talk) 12:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

On personal attack, the boundaries.

I just noticed this: [36]. In the light of our discussions, what do you think? I agree that there was a level of incivility involved in the situation diff'd. However, it didn't rise, apparently, in the judgment of the community participating, to personal attack as in WP:NPA. --Abd (talk) 18:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Shortly after you posted this message, I posted a message to one of the users involved. I'm sorry I didn't get around to answering your question. I was going to look further into the situation. I'll just answer now based on what I know.

I think this is what happens: someone complains about a personal attack against themself. One tends to exaggerate how bad an attack against oneself is, so the person figures that it's a very bad attack and expects others to "do something" about it: after all, there's a policy, so there must be some sort of enforcement. Well, the others see someone complaining about an attack against themself, and figure that the person is trying to get ahead in a content dispute by getting the other person in trouble. They figure their only options are (1) block the attacker, or (2) argue that the attack is mild. In order to block the attacker a bunch of conditions would have to be met, and having the situation presented to them by the attackee doesn't tend to be a factor in favour of that decision. So they argue that the attack is mild and that the person should ignore it. This is very unfortunate, because the attacked person feels abandoned, unfaired-against etc. and might leave Wikipedia as a result. The people at the noticeboard completely forget that there are other options beside blocking the attacker or supporting the attacker: they can gently suggest to the attacker not to do that; and/or they can offer sympathy to the attacked and apologize that they can't do any more than that.
I find that on Wikipedia, complaining about an attack against oneself doesn't tend to get a beneficial response. It doesn't have to be that way. However, since it is: well, at least instead of telling someone the attack is mild and they should ignore it, it might be better to explain nicely that on Wikipedia, we don't usually get anywhere by complaining about attacks against ourself and we do well when we DefendEachOther. If we don't explain this, people might get the impression that they're supposed to not only ignore attacks against themself, but also ignore attacks against others; and then what happens to enforcing the civility policies? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This analysis is pretty accurate, however, there is an additional factor that I've seen in operation ever since I was a conference moderator on the WELL (virtual community)in the 1980s. The person who has been abused and attacked, if they make a fuss, will be presumed to be the problem. After all, the other editors didn't have a problem until this person started complaining. A number of things were new about computer conferencing. One was that there was a complete record. "He said, she said," wasn't legitimately a matter of controversy. Except it still was! People wouldn't look back, they relied on their impressions, often formed after the fact based on loyalties, general affiliations, etc. It still happens here. It still happens even if a writer lays out diffs with complete evidence for what they are claiming. It takes a very tight environment to overcome this, or luck, i.e., that admins or editors do take the trouble to investigate. The theory is that a closing admin, for any process that results in a significant decision (delete, block, restrict), the admin is supposed to independently review the evidence, the community has merely blazed a path. However, too often, the admin just relies on whatever arguments they like, or on the preponderance of !votes. It usually works. Unfortunately, when it fails, it can make quite a mess. AN/I is particularly hopeless. It works for certain things. But it's no place to take any true controversy. It should be like 911. You don't call (or at least shouldn't call) 911 for anything that requires complex legal judgment, a decision of guilt, etc. Rather, you call 911 to stop immediate harm or likelihood of harm. The police do not decide guilt, they only go so far as to decide probable cause for action, and their primary function is protection, not judgment. Without a court order, the police won't repossess a car, as to matters of disorder, they may order someone to stop something, they might even arrest a person, but they make no decision about final disposition on all these things.

We have generally, in modern societies, rigorously separated the executive power (which includes the police) from the judicial power (which decides fact). The executive only decides fact where necessary for immediate action. I.e., if they see a robbery in progress, they don't have to get a court order to stop it. So, here, administrators can and should use their tools to stop abuse. If it appears to an administrator that someone is causing disruption, they should, in my opinion, immediately warn and block quickly, maybe even skipping the warning (with a short block). Yes, that includes me. But such blocks should create no presumption of guilt or wrong-doing on the part of the editor who is blocked. Rather, that should require some judgment, and admins should have no specially privileged position in respect to that. (Unless we really do decide that those buttons are special, a "big deal.")

Wikipedia grew like Topsy. Some really excellent thinking and experience went into it. But parts of it became rather crystallized and rigid and highly resistant to change, I'd say, prematurely. The structure wasn't scalable without damage. There are ways to fix this, but they will unfortunately challenge certain constituencies which like things the way they are. They don't mind that Wikipedia is fouling its nest, building up reservoirs of ill-will out there, needlessly. They think of those offended people as vandals, POV pushers, fanatics, fringe theorists, promoters of fancruft, etc. There is such, and there will always be such, but we create much more than would happen naturally. Random vandalism from adolescents who think it's wonderful to replace pages with "PENIS" will always happen. But that's not controversial, even these vandals understand that their stuff is going to be removed. My suspicion is that if we look back at long-term vandals, we'll find an editor who was abused in some way, and who decided he wasn't going to take it and go away quietly. Not always, I'm sure, the world is vast and there will be all kinds of people attracted here. But commonly. And what I've found, talking with experts in various fields, is that they have a very low opinion of Wikipedia. It does not need to be that way. And the problem isn't fancruft, that doesn't create any problem with experts. It creates a problem with fans! We don't have mechanisms for soberly looking at the real problems, coming to some very well-considered and well-informed judgment, and then maintaining that judgment, with narrow exceptions. ArbComm isn't designed for this. We need deliberative mechanisms that are scalable. ArbComm members do realize the problem, a number of them were working on proposals for a Wikipedia Assembly, to take on this kind of task. However, they are likely to recreate political systems that will weaken or destroy the wiki model; it's classic when direct democracies face the problems of scale. There is an alternative, it's been proposed, and I was astonished to see the violence with which it was rejected.... That it would be rejected, the first time it was proposed, did not surprise me, that's normal. It's a new idea. That efforts were made to eradicate the proposal is what surprised me. See WP:PRX which did not deal with actual proposals for structural change, it would merely have started up an experiment to see what editors would do with the ability to easily assign a proxy. WP:PRX didn't change any policies, proxies would have had no special powers, they wouldn't be allowed to !vote for others.... but it would start to become possible to analyze vote counts to see how representative they were of the general editorial community. And just the possibility of that, one might suspect, was seen as quite a threat by some. --Abd (talk) 20:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Re:Thanks for supporting another editor

Replied on my talk page. Bstone (talk) 02:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just FYI

I'm planning on stalking your edits for the next few days.--Tznkai (talk) 02:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You're quite welcome to do so. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Jewish dates

Hi, C-Twig. This may help: http://www.hebcal.com/converter/ -- Avi (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Extra eyes

You seem levelheaded and intelligent. I'd like your input on WP:AE#Domer48.--Tznkai (talk) 23:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! I'll try, but I'm rather busy. I may have more time on the weekend. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I read over the discussion but didn't have anything to add. The people involved seemed to be coming to a consensus on how to handle the situation. Arguments about flags should refer to reliable sources, though: I might comment about that later. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

QuackGuru 2

Thanks for your comment at Talk:Chiropractic#Topic_ban, could you comment there on exactly what you'd like to change? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:05, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I saw that question. I might reply another day. Sorry, I'm rather busy and that would take time to think through.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, no problem, I'm not going to make any decision this weekend. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig. I just noticed your message at QG's talk page. I basically agree with it all. It's a common tactic he uses. The first part applies even more to Levine2112, so it might be a good idea to also give him the same warning, just with an added "not": "Repetition of the argument that spinal manipulation is NOT related to chiropractic." He is the one who is pushing his OR twisting of Ernst's statement to make that point, and QG is responding to him. (This is no defense of QG.) You need to read this. It will give you some background to understand what Levine2112's up to. -- Fyslee / talk 07:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I was clarifying a warning made by Lifebaka, not making a warning on my own initiative. I haven't had time to follow the discussions at Chiropractic much recently. If you think a warning to Levine2112 is warranted, I encourage you to be bold. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

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Battle of Jenin copyvio

Hi, Coppertwig. I've done some editing to this section, including copyediting and using other sources. I have said so on the talk page, but you did not respond, so I thought I'd notify you here. In the meantime, another user has reverted, which I don't like and have said so on the talk page, but I don't want to edit war without clear consensus. Anyway, here is the new version on the temp page. If you approve, can you retract the request for arbitration? Thanks. -- Nudve (talk) 18:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I saw your message but haven't had time to look at it yet. Hopefully within a couple of days. I'm not sure what the procedure is: not sure if I can retract it once it's listed at WP:CP. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Well, I suppose it was all done in good faith. I guess the thing I'm upset about is the waiting period. Nobody really knows how long it's going to be before an admin actually looks at it. I'm not sure I understand this policy. You never really asked me, and instead simply blanked most of the section, which made it pretty much a one line section. -- Nudve (talk) 15:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe I followed Wikipedia policy in a reasonable way. (See copyright policy and instructions at the copyright noticeboard.) I spent some effort paraphrasing, shortening and reworking the section so that it would no longer be a copyright violation; I figured that this was a first step and hoped that others, or possibly I myself, would add information from other sources to round out the section. Display will vary from one computer to another, but as it displays with the current settings on the computer I'm using, the Report section I wrote is about 7 lines.

Wikipedia policy is clear that copyrighted material is not supposed to be displayed in our articles without permission from the copyright holder or a fair use rationale. Displaying copyrighted information could leave Wikimedia open to lawsuits which could potentially bankrupt the Foundation, compromising the ability to display millions of pages of information, so I see following the copyright policy as being much more urgent than providing the ideal information to the reader for a period of time in any one article.

In future, if someone identifies something as a copyright violation or potential copyright violation, please don't restore the disputed text to the article before it has been established by rough consensus or by an uninvolved admin that it is not a copyright violation. What you could have done instead in this case is replace my shortened version by a writing longer version which was clearly not a copyright violation. Regards, ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Further explanation of policy: Usually the template is used to blank an entire article. It's done that way so that the potentially copyrighted text is not displayed during discussion: this is a priority. There's a 7-day wait period after listing an article at WP:CP, which is to allow time for editors to rewrite a non-copyright-violation version (as we've been doing), or to obtain permission from the copyright holder to display the text. Normally, I would also have notified the editor who contributed the material, so that they would have had a chance to do one of those things; however, I believe you were the one who introduced the disputed text and you were clearly soon aware of the situation, so I figured I could skip that step. After 7 days, an admin will look at it (when some admin has time to do so), and figure out how to handle the situation. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:17, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Fine, but there's another (and better, IMHO) version waiting to be inserted instead. There's no objection to it so far, so what's the point in waiting? -- Nudve (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think the idea is that the admin who handles the listing will judge whether the new version is also a copyright violation or not. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Busier than usual

Approximately Oct. 8-10 I expect to be busier than usual in real life. I won't be able to keep up with most of the things I'd like to do on-wiki, and might actually have to resort to setting priorities. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Circumcision comments

In this case Blackworm explicitly asked why I would be more qualified to judge these matters than him (though he stated it in a more insulting way). As such, I'd pretty much have to discuss him and me, wouldn't I? Jayjg ^(talk) 19:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily; perhaps only if you wanted to argue that you're more qualified; and your answer wouldn't necessarily have had to be given on an article talk page, and in the middle of a thread whose purpose was discussion of some specific article content. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

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Reply to Interpretation of "be bold"

[37] Here is my reply. A few editors disagreed with improving the article but the goal was to improve the article. It was better to improve the article than to wait six months to improve the article. Levine2112 is still discussing OR issues when there never was any OR. Levine2112's improvements are indirect. For example, he proposed a hypothetical question. The result was a real proposal to improve the article. Levine2112 improves the article indirectly. The more Levine2112 resists the more the article improves. How ironic. BTY, I could not find any specific Wikipedia policy that reflects the template at the top of the chiro talk page. Sometimes it is best to ignore all rules to improve the article. See WP:IAR. QuackGuru 04:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Please don't use the phrase "improve the article" when talking to someone who doesn't consider those edits to be improvements. It's more polite to use a phrase such as "what I consider to be improvements to the article" or "improve the article, in my opinion". I don't agree that the edits you're referring to were improvements. I think maybe some were improvements and some weren't. I think that a collection of edits which include some improvements and some things which are not improvements are (usually) collectively not an improvement. I think it's better to wait until there's a rough consensus on the talk page before making substantial changes. I don't think anyone "disagreed with improving the article". What they disagreed with was changes which you consider to be improvements to the article, but which they don't consider to be improvements. I think it's misleading to say that people "disagreed with improving the article" unless they actually said those words; please don't say that about people. Instead, you can say "disagreed with changes which, in my opinion, improve the article".

Please don't say "there never was any OR" when talking to someone who has expressed a neutral position on whether there was or was not OR. It would be more polite to say "there never was any OR, in my opinion". As I think I've said before, my position on that longstanding OR issue is neutral.

Please express your comments in a way which shows awareness of and respect for the variety of opinions about article content which exist among editors. See WP:CONSENSUS. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, please see Respecting others' opinions (section of an essay in my userspace). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Theses are the bold edits I was mentioning. According to Levine2112 there is still no concensus for the mass improvements* (in accordance with NPOV according to QuackGuru*). I remember explaining to you consensus can be misused. Editors can block imnprovements* by saying no consensus without a logical reason. The effectiveness section contains general spinal manipulation research. Top researchers outside of Wikipedia are doing the same thing I did on Wikipedia. When we are following the experts it is clear it can't be OR. If I tried to add the effectiveness section today it would be reverted again. The greatest respect is to improve* the article and ignore editors who make bogus arguments. If Larry Sanger ran this place, there would be a policy called WP:NEVERASSUMEGOODFAITH! In the real world, AGF is extremely dangerous. I can be WP:HONEST with the situation.

The template at the top of the page is not directly part of any Wikipedia policy. I don't see different rules for different articles. I could not find any policy on Wikipedia that mentions the template.

Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source. If an old BLP article was linked to from Wikipedia it would be considered a BLP violation. Editors get blocked for removing a BLP violation. The way things work on Wikipedia is sometimes backwords and completely wrong. If someone wants to be an admin they should not be honest. And always keep to oneself and stay away from too much conflict. A person should always remain quiet and don't speak up. The more I did what was right the more I got blocked. Funny how things work (or don't work around here). Lol! QuackGuru 17:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, sometimes editors block consensus. They may have a reason that seems valid to them. According to WP:CONSENSUS, "Minority opinions typically reflect genuine concerns..." However, before editing substantial changes into the Chiropractic article, there should be at least rough consensus and there should have been a reasonable amount of time for discussion.

There may not be a policy specifically describing that template, but its meaning is obvious. In my opinion, the policy that applies here is WP:CONSENSUS. If the template is there and has been there for a while, we can assume that there is consensus for having it there and that editors should follow its instructions. If you don't want to follow those instructions, you can suggest removing the template, and can remove it if, after a reasonable length of time for discussion, there is consensus for removing it. However, at the moment you may still need to follow similar instructions based on the warning from TimVickers even if the template is removed. It's not a good idea to leave the template in place and ignore what it says, because then different editors would be following different rules. I think that the situations in which I think you ignored the template are exactly the types of situations that the template was designed to be used in, so using IAR in those situations is not a good idea. (See WP:WIARM.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Supporting harassment is not right

An editor accused me of vandalism not once but twice.[38][39] It was clearly bad faih for that editor to accuse me of vandalism. I remember a while back an editor was blocked for accusing another editor of vandalism.

I was not giving that editor a hard time The editor falsey accused me of vandalism and made reposts on my talk page.[40][41] You have made a false statement. Please stop with your bad faith allegation against me. QuackGuru 19:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:HUSH,

Placing numerous false or questionable 'warnings' on a user's talk page, restoring such comments after a user has removed them, placing 'suspected sockpuppet' and similar tags on the user page of active contributors, and otherwise trying to display material the user may find annoying or embarrassing in their user space is a common form of harassment.

User pages are provided so that editors can provide some general information about themselves and user talk pages are to facilitate communication. Neither is intended as a 'wall of shame' and should not be used to display supposed problems with the user unless the account has been blocked as a result of those issues. Any sort of content which truly needs to be displayed, or removed, should be immediately brought to the attention of admins rather than edit warring to enforce your views on the content of someone else's user space.

This was harassment[42][43] which you supported. My edits were not vandalism. QuackGuru 00:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that your edits were not vandalism. My comments, to which you give a link, were not intended to support actions by Grsz11 or anyone else. I apologize for the long delay in responding to the above comment. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

You explained you did not see evidence of bad faith[44] but the editor accused me of vandalism.[45][46] You agree that my edits were not vandalism. Do you think it was bad faith when an editor accused me of vandalism when my edits were clearly not vandalism. QuackGuru 03:49, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I see no evidence of bad faith. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 21:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Please show and not assert your view would be more helpful

Your comment is not backed up with any references to support your view of original research. However, another comment has provided evidence that chiropractic is directly related. I am having trouble understanding your agreement with Surtuz's statement when no evidence of orginal research has been presented. Consensus is based on good faith comments and editing. You have not shown there is any WP:OR. QuackGuru 19:23, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Fyslee proposed a very specific question and insisted that people only answer that specific question, not any broader question. My comment means that when the result of the poll is used, then it should be used only in the context of that specific question, not interpreted as applying to any broader or different question. My comment is based on the way the question and poll were constructed; I see no need to prove that there is or is not OR in order to support that comment. Thank you very much for drawing Eubulides' reply to my attention. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Editors have provided evidence that there is no OR and we are doing what reserachers are doing outside of Wikipedia but you are unable to provide any evidence of OR.

Coppertwig wrote in part: My comment is based on the way the question and poll were constructed; I see no need to prove that there is or is not OR in order to support that comment.

I am asking for any evidence of OR. We should not continue a discussion when OR does not exist. Continuing the OR discussion when editors can't provide any evidence of OR is not productive. QuackGuru 19:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, you have properly stuck to the subject of the RfC. The OR business is another matter, so don't let QG sidetrack you. Keeping the OR matter and this RfC separate is a good idea. Just because some editors didn't do that is no justification for QG to demand that you also get involved in that discussion in the context of this RfC. -- Fyslee / talk 16:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have responded to your comment and other comments. I have noticed you are unable to provide a single reference that demonstrated general SM is not related to chiropractic but editors have provided evidence that it is directly related. QuackGuru 22:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If you currently believe there is any OR in the article then I request you provide evidence such as a reference to support your position. QuackGuru 16:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

There never was any OR in the chiropractic article IMHO. Editors asserted but have not shown any evidence of OR. After about six months, editors have been given plenty of time to provide evidence of OR. It's time to remove the OR tag. QuackGuru 01:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you think there is any OR in the chiropractic article? QuackGuru 23:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

During the time that you put some of these messages on my talk page, I was neither replying to them, nor editing the Chiropractic article nor editing its talk page. In such a situation, I suggest that a single message would suffice; further messages could be placed on the article talk page, to be read by anyone with the time and interest.

I think you have things backwards: editors who want to remove something because they allege it's OR don't have to provide proof or a reference showing that it's OR. Instead, those who want to keep the material in the article have to provide a reference backing up the assertions or implications, in order to demonstrate that it isn't OR. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I want to move things forward. I provided references to demonstrate that it isn't OR. QuackGuru 01:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

You said those were references to show that SM is directly related to chiropractic, not to show that something (what exactly?) isn't OR. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:OR: Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or arguments. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented.

I provided the evidence that SM is directly related. According to OR we can use references that are directly related to the topic. QuackGuru 02:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Notification

The RFC was very clear. There was consensus that spinal manipulation is relevant to chiropractic. Editors should avoid arguing on the grounds that there is OR in chiropractic based on general SM research. If editors still have concerns about OR it should not be based on claims that SM is not related when there is a clear consensus that SM is related according to the closing administrator. Editors need to abide by the closing of the RFC. Here are more comments from the closing administrator.[47][48] Please abide. QuackGuru 22:30, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Spinal manipulation is directly related to chiropractic according to the references presented. SM is a technique strongly associated and directly related to chiropractic.[49][50] Per WP:OR, when SM is directly connected to chiropractic it is okay to cite research that has a direct connection. QuackGuru 16:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This comment was inappropriate. Please don't treat a woman like that again. Editors have been informed that SM is related to chiropractic.[51] QuackGuru 01:58, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I see that I misspelled the username. That was unintentional, and I'll edit it. The first three sentences of my comment are intended as a reply to Eubulides' comment, and only the fourth and last sentence is intended as a reply to Crohnie. My comment consists mostly of questions, which I've asked in order to encourage others to give information about their opinions. I wonder whether you've misunderstood it somehow? Could you please explain what, if anything, other than the misspelling of a username, you consider to be inappropriate? If it's unclear I may need to refactor it. Thanks. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 02:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

See here. QuackGuru 03:49, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Timotheos Evangelinidis

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 00:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry! Apparently that website licenses its material under GFDL, so there's apparently no problem with copyright. See my message at Talk:Timotheos Evangelinidis. Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Coppertwig (talk) 17:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks mate. J Bar (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

No problem! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Simple Wikiquote

Please the read second paragraph of the bottom of this. Thank you. -- American Eagle (talk) 22:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Better check it again - you may remove it. Thanks -- American Eagle (talk) 03:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Removal of comment

Blackworm claims that a comment I made a year and a half ago is how I "really" feel about a current issue. That's an abusive misuse of my statements, and in any event is a personal comment having nothing whatsoever to do with article content. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Now I understand why you consider it misleading. I agree that a comment from so long ago can't necessarily be assumed to represent your current position. I also agree that it's a personal comment not directly related to article content. May I suggest discussing it politely with Blackworm on his talk page? I'm willing to act as a sort-of mediator. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg, per Wikipedia policies which have been quoted, please don't edit or delete another editor's comments (except under certain circumstances such as vandalism, BLP etc., which have not arisen here). Since you consider the comment to be misleading, I suggest you ask Blackworm to modify it. I think it would help if you state how your current views differ from the views you expressed in that diff. Although I said above I understood why you consider it misleading, I only understand that your views might have changed, but don't know how they might have changed or even whether they've changed; I think it would help to clarify this. Also note my suggestions re the quotation marks around the word "really". You linked to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Behavior that is unacceptable. That guideline states, "When describing other people's contributions or edits, use diffs." Blackworm did use a diff. The guideline also states, "As a rule, do not edit others' comments, including signatures." (Related discussions: User talk:Jayjg#Comment on deletion; User talk:Blackworm#User_talk:Jayjg#Comment_on_deletion.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, Jayjg; when I said, above, that I understood, maybe I didn't actually understand correctly. I thought you meant that your views had changed; but maybe you meant that you had been commenting on one situation, and Blackworm was stating that the diff showed your views "on that", which seemed to refer to a different situation. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 17:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

1. The comment I made 1.5 years ago was about a different situation. Blackworm has no right to misrepresent it as a comment about a current situation, per WP:TALK.

2. The comment Blackworm made had nothing whatsoever to do with article content, but rather was about me, violating both WP:TALK and WP:NPA.

That's why it won't be staying on the Talk: page. If he insists on playing games instead of trying to improve articles, I'll simply revert him. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for calling my edits "good faith edits". I'll reply more later. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Re (1.): I agree that Blackworm has no evidence that views you expressed in the past, in a different situation, apply to a particular more recent situation. However, Blackworm may have been intending the word "that" to mean something more general and abstract than the recent situation, and may not have intended his comment to be interpreted as asserting that the comments applied to the recent situation.

Re (2.): I agree that the comment was not about article content and was therefore inappropriate on an article talk page.

However, apparently you and I disagree on how to respond to inappropriate comments. I consider that an appropriate first step is either to resolve to (permanently) ignore it, or to discuss it with the editor on their talk page. Rather than modifying or deleting another editor's comments, the usual accepted practice, in my opinion, is to try to persuade the editor to modify their own comments.

If you would like to persuade Blackworm to retract, delete, modify or strike out the disputed edit, I suggest that it would likely help if you would strike out some or all of the following words in the discussion preceding the disputed edit: "that might help clear up your confusion"; "as opposed to over 50% of yours."; "rather distasteful"; and "(though he stated it in more dramatic way)". These words don't seem to me to be discussing article content, and seem to me to be unnecessary to the discussion; some of them seem to me to be about another editor, and all of them could be considered to be essentially about another editor rather than about article content.

Re "or pursuing absurd and petty vendettas."[52] and "if he insists on playing games " (in your comment above): I don't think Blackworm would describe his behaviour in those terms. Please assume good faith, or at least formulate your comments as if you do. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Well done Teacher Coppertwig!

		The Adopt-a-User Barnstar
		For services above and beyond the call of duty in welcoming and coaching User:Arilang1234

I have read through a large part of your correspondence with User:Arilang1234 and I'm amazed at your patience. You may not realize that (assuming they are actually Han) Arilang1234 calling you Teacher Coppertwig is a real sign of respect on their part, and it's encouraging to see the improvements in their editing. Well done!Matt's talk 08:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)