User talk:John Quincy Adding Machine/Mar2010

Passport

Hi. Could you integrate a specific reference to passports at the recent revert. Its an interesting fact as things stand, but the direct connection to passports as such is unclear. Best. RashersTierney (talk) 09:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It's in effect a passport-free international travel zone for residents of select coastal villages in PNG, which is quite unusual and interesting in itself. I think they may even be allowed to make landfall on the Torres Strait Islands (some of which are just hundreds of metres off the PNG coast), but I don't have a ref and I don't really have the time to find one right now. Feel free to take it out, or just leave it in and cn'd for now and I'll look for a ref later. —what a crazy random happenstance 13:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Will mark as CN for the moment. Will also try ref myself later. RashersTierney (talk) 22:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. RashersTierney (talk) 23:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Good on ya, as we say around here. :) —what a crazy random happenstance 00:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom/Article title

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom/Article title. DrKiernan (talk) 09:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

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Hungary-Slovakia debate; article

I enjoyed reading your constructive comments over on the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hungary–Slovakia relations page, but I have to say that your closing comment was a little insulting ("If every editor who voted Keep had rewritten just one paragraph on the nominated page, we'd have a neutral article by now. Good work, people"). I found this comment out of line because, with all due respect, if you had just changed the article instead of starting the whole AfD process, there could have been a neutral article a week ago.

On another note, the changes you made to the article today (March 28th) are very good, I hope that rational minds will prevail and they won't be reverted back. Emika22 (talk) 06:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Just so you know your Afd nomination violated several policies and was a clear misuse of process, Afd-s are for real deletion discussions and are not for threatening tactics and enforcing your will over the article. As such your actions regarding the article will receive major scrutiny now (all your edits will be viewed in the light that you wanted the whole article gone even violating policy to get there). The article is kept, and you will not be allowed to blank most of it via edits you had that chance at deletion already. You can consult WP:BLANK for more information on why your blanking attempts will not succeed, either by step by step or either by deleting the whole article at once. Hobartimus (talk) 10:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Your threats are unfounded, and the policy you refer to entirely unrelated to my actions. My edits were aimed solely at creating a neutral article, most of the contents I removed had absolutely nothing to do with the international relations between Hungary and Slovakia, and were deeply slanted. Many Keep votes agreed the article's state was unacceptable. —what a crazy random happenstance 10:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Well then you have the article's talk page to prove that case by case. We don't have to take your word for anything after you claimed that the article had problems for two years when it didn't even exist that long and the first major edit to it was less than a year ago as I pointed out previously. There is a great ignorance towards the topic on your part, at least statements like that show something like that. But why don't you try adding content to the article instead of blanking? Show us what was missing before, don't blank. But your sources will have to stand up to scrutiny after you called sources currently in "wholly unreliable" (you declined to elaborate on that ever since). Hobartimus (talk) 10:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It takes two seconds to blank an article. It took several hours to edit it the way I did, weeding out irrelevant interpersonal incidents, moving sources to retain them, and rephrasing charged sentences to conform to our WP:NPOV policy. Blank articles aren't 18kb in size. As I have told you here, I do not intend to continue debating my methodology or motivations - if you have a problem with a concrete facet of the changes feel free to raise it on article talk. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

As they say you are sitting on the horse backwards. If you want to blank 60-70% of the article you will have to justify it. Did it ever occur to you that readers might prefer more content to less? The 50 deleted sources alone would constitute a crushing blow to most articles. Hobartimus (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

In reply to your comment on the AfD page of Slovakia-Hungary relations: are you sure that you should be the one telling me that I'm biased? You see the fact that you've nominated an article with over 100 sources (even though there were "only" slightly less than 100 at the time of nomination) for deletion is a practical evidence of a huge bias in itself. It also shows your reluctance to have your objections discussed on the talk page instead in hope of reaching an agreement. Sure, you have the excuse that you don't see a point in doing that because me and all the others would keep pushing our "nationalistic, chauvinist Hungarian agenda" anyway, but does that constitute goodwill? I don't think so. To set the the record straight I think that the article is far from being perfect. Just to give you an example: I've been searching for a way to include the Cernova tragedy as well, but since I'm not paid for these edits, I haven't had the time to do that yet. You on the other hand seem to think that by "weeding out" properly sourced AND relevant paragraphs from the article simply because they don't appeal to you in a certain way makes the article more objective. So do you suggest that leaving out some of the facts leads to objectivity? How about suggesting (or adding) truthful facts to the article that would present the "other side of the trench" in a more positive way? You see I'm honestly really sorry about the facts I had to include into the article (about the Benes decrees, Slota and history falsifications to give you a few examples) but I did so in order to have the whole truth included there and possibly to prevent such fundamental mistakes from happening in the future (people who don't know about the mistakes of the past tend to repeat them). You might think that such things won't happen to you (at least in Slovakia) due to the fact that you're Slovak. But the "beauty" of all dictatorships and authoritarian ideologies is that after a while it fails to make any distinction based on race, age, nationality and even the "original" ideology itself (there were not only Jews in the concentration camps and also many communists have been jailed during communist rule as well). CoolKoon (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Look, feel free to verify all the sources even using Google translator if you have to, but none of your arguments necessitate such radical shortening of the article as you're pushing for. You think it's written in poor English? Reword it then! Uses weasel terms like no tomorrow? Point it out then! I mean this is the usual procedure for every other article on this site as well and I've seen that happen many times. And the edit war has been started by you and Knorrepoes by removing over half of the article. Just think about it! Can there EVER exist a valid point in removing >30kb of an >50kb article? Even articles sounding like an ad (and obviously written by the PR department of the given firm) usually stay and are rewritten instead in a more encyclopedic manner. And for the record I wasn't the only one doing some edits on the article. Wladthemlat did some too and he's actually Slovak, so he probably isn't biased to my side. Yet you've managed to revert his edits as well. And while we're at it, it's quite interesting that 99% of the stuff removed was something that somehow might inconvenience the Slovaks, with no regard of its truhfulness per se. Also accusing me of "flooding the page with edits in an abortive attempt to obsolete the new version" is kinda hypocritical of you, don't you think? Or haven't you done the same?

For future reference it's quite possible that you're living in Australia but that doesn't mean you don't (or can't) have some Slovak ancestry as I suspect you certainly do. Nobody else in its right mind would get involved in a revert war on an article dealing with Hungarian-Slovak relations. Especially by truncating the article and calling it a "rewrite". I mean would you seriously consider tearing several pages out of an encyclopedia just because you don't like it? Or shorten the biography of William Shakespeare for the sake of "objectivity"? CoolKoon (talk) 10:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I find your claim of zero Slovak ancestry kind of hard to believe. Even so, your edit, your whole attitude towards the article and ANY editor that doesn't share your view on it tells me an entirely different story. Maybe you don't have Slovak ancestry, yet you seem to be sympathetic to the Slovak part of the story. Could it be due to some sort of wicked panslavism? Or a very close friendship with a girl of Slovak origin? In addition to that you seem to exhibit more and more signs of heavy hypocrisy typical mostly for Americans. You talk about seemingly ignoring the fights of your ancestors (presumably in Europe), yet you seem to be actively involved in it. I mean why would you care then? At some point you keep talking like an "expert" on the topic. Are you an "international political scientist", specializing in CE/EE problematics? If you know that much about the topic, you'd know that international conflicts ALWAYS stem from incident such as the ones detailed in the article. Yet you seem to dismiss (or understate) Slota's words that have been collected by a MP of EP and has been passed around there to everyone's amusement by leaving it out. As if he was your brother-in-law or something. Not to mention the removal of the whole incident in Dunajská Streda, which has also worsened the relations. On other occasions you seem to have had the whole article "oversimplified". This further proves the fact that you know way more about the whole situation in Slovakia than you admit. You must understand that (unless that's your sole intention) that someone absolutely oblivious to the happenings in the area might not understand some (or all) of the references made to certain people, places and/or policies. Therefore by leaving them out you make the article less comprehensible to anyone but the "insiders" (who are already on each end of the barricade, so to say). Notwithstanding the fact that they are properly sources anyway and related to the topic. CoolKoon (talk) 19:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

3RR

{{3RR}} please read 3RR. Thank you. Hobartimus (talk) 11:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I have not violated 3RR. 3RR actually refers to 4 edits within the space of 24 hours, not three. I have reverted only twice. Maybe you should read it instead. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say you violated anything a notification would be worthless if you were doing so and being blocked already so it's better to give them before any violation occurs. As you may already know you can remove it anytime if you don't like it I just need the diff to show that the notification happened. Hobartimus (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Also added to user NMate. And I have asked for page protection.Knorrepoes (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Throwing a tantrum is not the solution, I have asked you to raise your concerns on the article talk. I find it doubtful an admin would page protect a highly biased older version over a briefer and more neutral newer one. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this was meant for Hobartimus ? I want the bette rnewer one ! I just added an 3RR also to NMate.Knorrepoes (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad! Though I do still think that we should take this to talk, rather than edit war about it. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say you violated anything a notification would be worthless if you were doing so and being blocked already so it's better to give them before any violation occurs. As you may already know you can remove it anytime if you don't like it I just need the diff to show that the notification happened. Hobartimus (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

A warning by an involved editor for an infringement that didn't actually happen is hardly worth the pixel-space it's displayed on. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Just Australian

Do I indeed seem to be so gullible? So nothing is possible for you to believe. Good to know this. --Nmate (talk) 12:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I simply host that userbox as part of the German Userbox Solution, I don't use it on my userpage. I also used to host a userbox saying that 'this user' is protestant, which I am not, nor am I an alumnus of USyd. Even if I was Protestant, doesn't mean I would turn transubstantiation into a biased attack page. Like I told CoolKoon, we don't work that way in Australia. Nationalism doesn't play a role. If you honestly believe my edits to the article were biased, I'm afraid there's no helping you. —what a crazy random happenstance 12:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

You already showed your extreme bias when you nominated the article for deletion. Nobody agreed with your nomination for deleting the article I repeat, nobody. This nomination in itself shows a huge problem, in the eyes of other editors. If you think that after that you can claim that you are not extremely biased, then "I'm afraid there is no helping you". Please do not think that everyone can be played for a fool, because clearly you are being seen through. Hobartimus (talk) 13:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Please enlighten me as to what I am being seen as, because I'm genuinely curious. No, really, I am. If you see me as a Slovak nationalist I'm afraid I'm going to have collapse in fits of laughter. Also, this has now crossed a line - you've stopped discussing the merit of my changes and started discussing me, personally. That is not appropriate. I have explained the rationale behind my edits several times now, and I've yet to hear a single problem anyone may have with them, other than it removes a lot of stuff. Brevity is the soul of wit, longer doesn't equal better, and there were significant problems with the previous article, as noted by just about everyone at the AfD. My problem resolves all those problems, and makes for a neutral and above all relevant article. Like I have explained to CoolKoon, to anyone with even a rudimentary perception of international politics and its prevalent paradigm - realism - that page is utterly useless, since interpersonal conflicts don't impact on international relations in the world view postulated by this majority school of thought in the slightest. If you wish to discuss hate crime incidents between the two groups - have fun - but the HUN-SK page is not the place to do so. —what a crazy random happenstance 13:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I see that you made great effort not to answer the point. The question is this: Do you see the nomination of the article for deletion/and or voting for "delete" as a move that a non-biased neutral observer would make? Also considering the full knowledge of relevant Wikipedia policies which govern the question of deletion and notability. Thanks for your answer in advance. Hobartimus (talk) 13:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Because I WAS at the time a non-biased neutral observer. I hadn't edited the article in any meaningful way, nor had I ever been involved in a single Slovak or Hungarian dispute. I am still non-biased and neutral, however I am no longer an observer, I have chosen to attempt to improve the article directly. As I have stated at the AfD, the nom was an attempt to garner interest from editors to rescue it, as often happens with AfD nominated articles, it existed in, and given your revert continues to exist in, an utterly appalling condition. I am aware of our notability guidelines, the problem is the areas covered by the article don't match up to what they're supposed to cover, quite a few of the incidents discussed have, as I have stated, exactly no bearing on the international relations between the two states. The areas that are vaguely relevant are covered in biased, charged language, laden with weasel/peacock terms, and WP:OR conclusions and implications. You accuse me of going to pains not to answer your question, yet it seems to be you who averts responding to me - what exactly is your problem with the new version? Are there areas where you would like to work on more neutral wording, are there sections you think ought not have been removed? That is the discussion that should be occurring (over at the article talk), not paranoid accusations of bias and thinly veiled (or not even) personal attacks. I am open and eager if you wish to work towards a neutral compromise version, I am not going to back down if you simply wish to revert war. —what a crazy random happenstance 13:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

"As I have stated at the AfD, the nom was an attempt to garner interest" Do you think the Afd process is there for you to advertise your issues, and as a personal soapbox for you ("to garner interest") or is there for the community to make the determination on deleting articles. I just re-read the Afd page and to great surprise I find no mention that the goal of Afd process is to garner interest, to the casual observer this might seem as an attempt to abuse process and misuse it to one's own end. And what is the problem of your version you ask. Well for starters it deletes most of the article without reason or discussion. It's basicly the same thing you wanted at the Afd and what was rejected. Your proposal was "1. Delete most of the article leave a little bit of content (through rewrite) that fits my personal preference." Now you edit and surprise surprise in a single edit. 2. You delete most of the article and leave a little bit of content that fits your personal preference. Now I think we both realize that it is the exact same thing that you argued for in the nomination that was just rejected. How would you expect that such absurdity not be immediately reverted? I don't get it, you've seen this exact proposal fail with 0 supporting votes. AND you "garnered interest" only you garnered it from multiple places including from people who potentially view your edits as very close to vandalism and a clear violation of both intent and letter of policy. Just as clear as the Afd nom was(not for advertisment, soapbox). And I see 2 more problems. You never say anything in particular, just attack the article in general ("unreliable sources" which ones???), and I don't know how much you know at all about the topic. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being a person who knows nothing apart from what he reads in the article and 10 being an expert how would you rate your knowledge of the topic of the article and surrounding topics? How much you know of the subject in your own assessment? Hobartimus (talk) 14:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The majority of keep voters noted that there were significant problems with the article - which almost everyone agrees there were. The votes to keep the article and the subsequent decision to do so was not intended to be taken as approval of the then-current version, and WP:IAR allows me to use the AfD process as I see fit - I was acting in the interest of the article. Your questioning of my credentials, aside from violating WP:NPA, also shows just how greatly you miss the point. The article is not meant to be about disputes between Slovaks and Hungarians, it's meant to be about disputes between Slovakia and Hungary. The two are very different. Not so different, however, that a biased article would be tolerated in either, as it seems to be here. Right now I'm trying to establish whether you truly do not see the bias in the article, and the utter irrelevance of most of its content, or whether you're attempting to push a POV. You're making the call increasingly less difficult. Also, you continue to avert answering my question. Please point out concrete problems you have with my version, and I will be glad to cooperate in solving them. If you're just going to continue throwing personal attacks around, we have nothing more to say to each other. —what a crazy random happenstance 09:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Please [this article] and understand that the Hungary-Slovakia relations is not between just two countries it's a relationship that is a triangle between Hungary, Slovakia and the Hungarians living in Slovakia. Also the 1995 treaty (alapszerződés) between the two countries very clearly states that anything that happens with the Hungarians living in Slovakia is NOT an internal matter of that state and therefore affects relations very much. Of course I'm sure you already knew this, of course but it's worth mentioning. And there was no personal attack in asking how much you know of the subject, since sometimes you showed different levels on one hand attempting to pretend to be an Australian who knows very little of the whole thing and other times showing considerable knowledge and a huge level of interest with all things relating to Czechia and/or Czechoslovakia. Anyway I think you know quite a lot at least Czech is very similar to Slovak so you can read a lot of the sources that are used in the article. And also possible future sources. Anyway if you are genuinely interested in the article I would do the following in your place 1) Raise issues on which everyone will likely agree example if source xy is incorrect/mistaken it obviously needs fixing. You now many times spoke of "unreliable sources" a good first step would be naming them with a short explanation on how/why they are unreliable. 2)Identify what's missing from the article read the relevant Slovak press for example for topics that are missing. I agree that the article is incomplete and a lot is missing from it but your solution (delete everything) is not a step towards a complete article but a step toward a low quality lowly sourced non-article. Imagine if after a month another editor comes along and deletes the remaining 19 000 byte from the article so the article is reducated to 3-4 sentences. How can we say to him not to do it if previously 35 000 bytes were deleted in a single edit? I hope you understand now why on wikipedia there is no such thing as deleting this large amount in a single edit. For example relations during the Dzurinda Government were much better than the Fico-Slota government if you can find the proper sources it wouldn't be that hard to add something on that. Unfortunately the internet wasn't so widespread from 98-06 as it was from 06-10 so online sources are less plentiful. Hobartimus (talk) 14:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

So in essence a more complete and better article could be achieved by adding additional information on economic relations and other issues, and by covering in detail the pre-2006 somewhat more positive period in the relations. However for this we need someone who wishes to put in the time and who can read newspapers and other stuff in Czech/slovak language. For example I'm sure Lidové noviny has multiple articles on the topic. Hobartimus (talk) 14:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree, it's quite common to greatly trim down articles, especially when they are problematic, or when they contain irrelevant gunk. A longer article not always means a better article. Also, alas, a multinational treaty doesn't redefine international politics. The treaty you mention is an element of international relations between the two states (and is interestingly omitted from both versions of article), the minorities themselves aren't, discussion of them belongs on a wholly separate article. In realism, the predominant paradigm of international relations, the interpersonal relations between Hungarians and Slovaks (incl. minorities) have almost nil bearing on the relations between Hungary and Slovakia, who, unlike the former, are legitimate state actors. Since you're editing an article within the field of international politics, I would tend assume you know this already - something tells me such a conclusion would be unwarranted. You have still not explained the concrete problems you may have with the newer version - if there was something omitted that shouldn't have been, please raise it and we'll discuss. PS: Please don't insinuate that I'm lying, I find it rather insulting. PPS: Quite a bit of what I left behind should be removed too, since it has nothing to do with state-level international relations. The version I settled on was intended as a compromise. —what a crazy random happenstance 06:45, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Look I don't insinuate anything. I've seen your user page that you deleted OK? I've seen it before it was deleted and I can remember what was on it. [1] You requested that it be deleted on 2009 August, but that wasn't that long ago. As I said do not think I am a fool, and one that can be mislead, and played. If you were telling the truth, it would be very simple to ask an admin to undelete the page and we would all see that you were a self-described "Australian" back in 2005 on your user page as well. I've seen the "this user is proud to be Czech" user box on your user page as well. It seems that you are not so proud any more. It is rather insulting that you think I'm an idiot and you can mislead me this easily. Well, you can't. P.S: We have a huge number of sources that says that these events have a huge impact (and not "almost nil") on the relations. Yes the sources actually say it plainly you just need to read them instead of deleting them (intresting idea?). Thankfully there is no need to go on a word of a wikipedia editor (you) we have actual sources describing the importance and the impact on relations.P.S2: And I've just read up on vandalism and to my surprise the first type of vandalism mentioned is blanking, "Removing all or significant parts of a page's content without any reason, or replacing entire pages with nonsense. Sometimes referenced information or important verifiable references are deleted with no valid reason(s) given in the summary. It would be amusing to see how you explain how your edits don't fit this definition of vandalism. Hobartimus (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Your inability to debate content, rather than contributor is making communication difficult. I am Australian, I have an Australian passport, I speak Australian English and I live in Australia. I do not feel nationalistic towards Slovakia, Australia, nor any other state. If you had even a basic understanding of the field of world politics, you'd know that nationalism only really came about between 1789 and the end of the 19th century, and was used as a cheap glue to hold states together in light of increasing external as well as internal pressures as a result of the Industrial Revolution. I am going to repeat myself for a third time here: the realist paradigm, widely accepted within the academic world, doesn't suggest but outright states that minorities are not a factor in international politics. You may have found a bunch of websites that say otherwise, they are not academic references and cannot be treated as such. For a summary of realism I suggest you read 'Globalisation of World Politics' by Baylis and co. I grow weary of this, I think it's quite apparent you've formed an image of me you're unlikely to change, and I am not patient enough to try. If there's some content you wish to debate, feel free to raise it, otherwise... unless you have something else to say? —what a crazy random happenstance 14:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

So you never had a "This user is proud to be Czech" user box on your user page. You don't speak Czech, you have no interest in Czechia, etc etc? Do I understand correctly that you claim this? Hobartimus (talk) 14:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I speak Czech. I also speak Japanese. I have no biases towards either. Your attempts to paint me as a nationalist bogeyman are more indicative of your POV than mine. If you're so eager to categorise people into nationalist boxes - what does that say about how you see yourself? —what a crazy random happenstance 14:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken. I don't want to paint you as anything merely understand where are you coming from. You can actually help us by reading and/or adding more Czech language sources. As Slovak is quite similar you might also verify / add more sources. In these cases accuracy of translation can be a problem. As you may have seen there are some sources in the article from these languages. Hobartimus (talk) 14:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)