User talk:Mudwater/Archive 6

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Pulled Tags

Hi, I am not mad at all, but please don't pull my cleanup tags unless you fix the problem or I am completely out of line. We can both agree that article needed cleanup, and removing the tag simply because its a unspecified general cleanup tag is unfair and does nothing to better the article. Next time, why don't you tag it with a more general reason. Tags are ment to guide the community to articles in need of repair and I stand by my call. Hope you have a good day Zzaffuto118 (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that sometimes articles get a general {{Cleanup}} tag when it's not at all obvious, to me anyway, what needs to be cleaned up. The person who put the tag on probably had one or more specific things in mind, but unless an article is really bad, or has a really obvious issue, other editors might not be able to tell what they were thinking. The recent case is an excellent example, and I couldn't fix the problem because I didn't know what the problem was. So what I think is that editors who put the general Cleanup tag on articles would often, or usually, be doing a lot more of a service if they started a talk page section explaining what they had in mind, even if the explanation is brief. That, or use a more specific tag, as you did when you put the Sections tag on. Of course a different approach would be to fix the article instead of just tagging it, but that's another story. Anyway, I don't mean to be argumentative, but I think that removing a general Cleanup tag and requesting an explanation on the Talk page, like I did, is appropriate and even helpful if I can't tell why the Cleanup tag was put on the article. Like I said in my edit summary, "feel free to re-add if you provide an explanation [on the talk page]". I hope this makes sense, and feel free to reply here. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Jerry Garcia

I don't know what was going on there, but when I loaded the page the graphic was ginormous. Like 2x my screen size. It was screwing up my browser, so I fixed it assuming it would screw up other people's browsers too. I don't know what was going on, but my intention was to fix it not break it. Thanks for the link to the info on the templates, but at the time I was having a hard enough time loading the edit page let alone looking up attribute definitions. erielhonan 06:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Hopefully the image looks okay on your computer now. Sometimes if things start to look strange you can fix it by reloading the page, or by clearing the cache on your browser. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:25, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:CallMeBurroughs.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:CallMeBurroughs.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk) 04:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Thanks for the assist on the Matthew Kelly (speaker) page. Very much appreciated! Yobbo14 (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I haven't really done all that much with the article, but thanks for the nice note. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

re: David Bromberg (album) release dates

Hi there, Mudwater. Thanks for your recent talk − I've replied on the article's talk page about early '72 release for the DB album. Cheers ... JG66 (talk) 14:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

You betcha. I have the article on my watchlist, and I've replied there, at Talk:David Bromberg (album)#Release date. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 14:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Greetings!

I was just thinking of you yesterday! Glad you pointed out the lack of disambiguation for David Gans, who has been a friend to the Wikipedia allowing us use of his photos, as well as being such a nice guy with a storied past of his own. I need to email him again for a photo if him for his page here. While I'm thinking, I should have offered this here for you:

It truly would bring me joy to see you climb around some outside your (our) comfort zone! With honest affection, --Leahtwosaints (talk) 10:37, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:TakeTwoCDCover.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:TakeTwoCDCover.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk) 05:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Wally Hedrick / Jerry Garcia

Dear Mudwater, I hope you are well.

Many years ago (23:30, 21 October 2007) I wrote to you and thanked you concerning your editorial input concerning some important materials on the incredible Jerry Garcia wiki page. At that time you gave your full support and wrote that you were happy to help out [1]-- thank you!

Upon returning to the page recently I discovered to my horror that all the material was deleted. I might add, as you certainly understood at the time, that this material is not your ordinary or peripheral material: This material is essential for the Jerry Garcia wiki page in order for the reader to get a comprehensive and detailed understanding of Jerry's early (1) artistic, (2) music, and (3) psychological development.

Here is the original paragraph [2]:

During the following summer, Garcia took up an art program at the San Francisco Art Institute in order to further his burgeoning interest in the visual arts.[16] At the SFAI, Garcia studied with Wally Hedrick and Elmer Bischoff. It was the only school Garcia would ever be proud of attending. [22] Hedrick, a seminal artist and California countercultural figure in San Francisco in the 1950s, was instrumental in introducing him to the city's bohemian scene.[23] Hedrick served Jerry as a model not only as a painter but as an expositor of a way of life. [24] Hedrick thought Garcia bright and hip, and advised Garcia to attend poetry readings at the North Beach coffee houses, such as the Co-Existence Bagel Shop, the social centre of the Beat community. [25] To Garcia, Wally Hedrick was a genuine beatnik; even keeping a ‘job’ ironically posing as a bohemian sitting at the bar at Vesuvios, a famous hangout in San Francisco’s North Beach, and it was Hedrick who turned the young Jerry on to acoustic blues [26] and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and all its attendant attitudes. On the Road changed Garcia’s life forever. [27] Wally taught me that art is not only something you do, but something you are.” [28] While music soon became his main focus, Garcia never stopped drawing and painting.

Could you offer me any suggestions on how I can get this important information back in the webpage -- and how to prevent it from being deleted? Thank you -- --Art4em (talk) 16:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

PS: Sorry, I forgot to attach your initial permission to me in 2007 in the [Jerry Garcia] discussion page for my addition [3]:

It looks good to me, especially since you've included a number of references. Thanks for suggesting this addition to the article on the Discussion page first, that's sometimes the best approach. My suggestion would be to go ahead and add this new material to the article. You could wait a while more and see if anyone else responds here, but in my opinion it would be fine to just go for it right now. Don't worry, if anyone doesn't like it they'll just edit it some more. — Mudwater 23:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

--Art4em (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Art4em. By going back over the history of the article, I found that the material you're talking about was removed, or rather, significantly reduced, with this edit, in 2008, about eight months after you added it. The simple answer to the question of how to get the information back into the page is that you can just put it back yourself. That is, you can copy the wiki-text from the old version of the article, then edit the current version of the article, and paste the rest of the paragraph back in there. So, feel free to do so. But, things may not be quite that simple. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, and the content of articles is supposed to evolve based on the consensus of editors. You say that I gave permission for your changes, but actually I was just trying to be helpful. I can't give permission, because nobody owns or controls the article. If there's disagreement about an article's content, editors generally try to persuade each other, by discussing the article on the article's talk page, or just by using descriptive edit summaries when they make changes to the article. So, you can put that material back, but other editors may remove it again, or make other changes to it. As for the specific text we're talking about, I admit I have slightly mixed emotions about it. It does seem to place a lot of weight on the role of Wally Hedrick in Garcia's development. If this was a book length biography, that would no doubt be appropriate, but it's just an encyclopedia article, so I'm guessing that the editor who made the change felt that it was too long. That's the nature of Wikipedia. You can easily edit articles on one of the most popular web sites in the world, but other people can easily edit your edits. Also, here's a question: Do you have a personal or professional association with the late Mr. Hedrick, or with the San Francisco Art Institute? You don't have to answer, but another point about Wikipedia is that it's supposed to be very neutral and objective, and it's hard to be neutral and objective about one's own work or that of one's friends or associates. I hope that you find this answer helpful, and feel free to reply here for further discussion about this. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 17:21, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear Mudwater, thank you for your quick reply. It is greatly appreciated. Please forgive my long reply which I type out with appreciation to your generous / kind words and suggestions.

Even as an experienced wiki user, it is always great to be reminded of the wiki policy and philosophy. Thank you. I also am very sympathetic of your concerns, however, when I have such concerns I use the following formula: I remove myself by simply relying upon the source to do the talking. In this case, the source of my citations is none other than Jerry Garcia, and the "weight" (as you say) of those comments was measured by Mr. Garcia himself. I only work with citations from primary sources. As an equal partner in the Wiki experiment, I understand my neutral and objective viewpoint must never interfere with the subject and their comments. On the other hand, please let me add, I worry about people who attempt (after-the-fact) to counter-measure the measured responses from important primary sources -- especially in matters as significant as the one discussed above. I do not take Jerry's comments lightly -- especially when he is making an important point which he wanted others to remember about seminal experiences from his youth. The comments, references and quotes I cite from Mr. Garcia are clear; and I believe that Jerry (although I only met him twice) knew very well what he said and why he said what he said (even though that does not matter in Wiki).

In other words, changing and allowing-the-changes from the Jerry Garcia wikipage from "it was Hedrick who turned the young Jerry on to acoustic blues [26] and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and all its attendant attitudes. On the Road changed Garcia’s life forever. [27] Wally taught me that art is not only something you do, but something you are.” [28]" into "Hedrick often encouraged Garcia in his drawing and painting skills.[29]" is not only simply wrong and inaccurate (for whatever editorial reason), but, more importantly, an injustice to a formidable relationship and life-changing experience that Garcia shared with Hedrick.

As for the question of who I am, I am happy to answer: I am just an avid reader of one of the best websites in the world -- and an occasional wiki editor (and infrequent wikipage originator) upon subjects which I am an expert. Additionally, as an expert on a few subjects, I cannot but be sympathetic with Timothy Messer-Kruse experiences from his recent February 12 Chronicle Review article [4] -- but such is life on wikipedia.

Alas, in the end, I think that the attempt of trying to assert "weight" to Jerry's own words and his own memory concerning his youthful and formidable experience would prove much too disruptive to the Jerry Garcia editorial board.

Thanks again for your time and assistance in this matter. It is greatly appreciated. --Art4em (talk) 01:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I appreciate it. And I agree that there are some serious issues with the way that the content of Wikipedia articles is determined. The results are sometimes unsatisfactory. If you chose not to deal with that, I wouldn't blame you. But perhaps it would be more interesting for you to restore the Wally Hedrick material back the way it was, including the citations. Then check back occasionally to see how the article is doing. If the text is removed again, you can start a discussion about it on the article's talk page. In this case it's not a matter of what the facts are, I think, it's just a question of the best way to write about it in the article. One editor took it out, several years ago, but you're free to put it back now, and start a discussion in the event that it's taken out again, which it might not be. It's your call. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:The Band

I removed the songs because it seems templates for most bands don't include these unless they're dealing with hit singles. And of course in The Band's case, they had one, possibly two genuine hit singles. Beyond that, any songs listed would be kind of a POV thing, so I don't think it's a good idea to include any at all. The Wookieepedian (talk) 23:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I think the best place for this discussion is on the template talk page, to make it easier for other editors to find, so I'll reply there. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation

Out of the Blues: The Best of David Bromberg, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you are more than welcome to continue submitting work to Articles for Creation.

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Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Sarah (talk) 05:55, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

NRPS

Hello- Thanks for the input on this! I'll check into your suggestions in a bit and get back to you. I'm new here so it helps to have input. UselessToRemain (talk) 00:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Sgt. Pepper straw poll

There is currently a straw poll taking place here. Your input would be appreciated. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ruger Red Label.

Look slike the page for Ruger's Red Label shotguns was inadvertently deleted; I asked a moderator to restore it, and they have - however, it's empty. Looks like you created the page for the similar Gold Label; if you'd have something to contribute you're more than welcome! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.131.98 (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	Transcluding all of the state gun tables was a great addition, that will make it much easier to keep the various pages in sync! Gaijin42 (talk) 14:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sandy Rothman

Thanks for helping there. Next time i see him, ill tell him hes finally notable:) (he lives across the hall from a close associate of mine)(User:Mercurywoodrose)108.94.0.18 (talk) 07:13, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. To me Mr. Rothman has always been notable. But, as you probably know already, we're taking about the Wikipedia kind of notability here, and that's all about the references, which in that article are more than good enough. See WP:NOTE and WP:MUSICBIO for more details. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:16, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Gun laws in New Hampshire

Hi. I want to thank you for your work on this article. Since you and I have been the only ones adding content to it, I thought I would bring to your attention a recent unhelpful anonymous edit to this page. A revert would fix the problem, but I'm completely new here so I am unsure know how to properly proceed. Thank you. GraniteForge 21:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)GraniteForge — Preceding unsigned comment added by GraniteForge (talk • contribs)

Hello, GraniteForge. Welcome to Wikipedia. Are you referring to this edit? If yes, it looks to me like the anonymous editor was trying to add a reference for the laws in the summary table. Doing so is probably a good idea, although I think it could have been handled better. Maybe I'll improve that if I get a chance. Feel free to reply here, or if you prefer you can start a new discussion section at Talk:Gun laws in New Hampshire, where other editors are more likely to notice. "P.S." Check out the Wikipedia Tutorial for a great overview of how to edit Wikipedia articles. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and edited the article, to improve the references. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello as well, I was actually the person who was trying to edit the page. This site is confusing as he'll to figure out so I apologize in advance. What I was trying to point out is that some of the references provided are incorrect including the 1 link to the NHSP FAQ page. Their site says that you can carry a pistol concealed without a permit but you cannot have any ammunition on you while doing so. This is incorrect. There is nothing in the NH RSAs that states this.

There are also some things that should be added as this topic is about guns laws not just pistol/revolver laws such as "assault weapons" , wu readies, ammunition, magazines and so on. I just thought the article should touch on all of these, not just give NHSPs interpretation of what they want the public to think the laws are. Spreading misinformation is a dangerous thing.

My apologies again if I screwed up the article but I believe it should use facts for references, not opinion(s).

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PreemptiveStrikeNH (talk • contribs) 03:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

File:InTheDarkCDCover.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:InTheDarkCDCover.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

File:LiveDeadBackCover.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:LiveDeadBackCover.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

File:Europe72Back.jpg listed for deletion

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File:SkeletonsFromTheClosetBackCover.jpg listed for deletion

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File:NRPSPowerglide.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:NRPSPowerglide.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

File:DavesPicks2012BonusDisc.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:DavesPicks2012BonusDisc.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Team USA (roller derby)

And thank you for repairing those links; in my haste to get that situation settled, I took out too much code. Thanks for the extra set of eyes on there. Echoedmyron (talk) 21:11, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Daniel Wetherington entry into the 27 club

Hello,

In honor of my brother's life I would like to enter him into the 27 club. He is not a famous musician but was a musician and I think its unfair to just post people based on popularity. We are not in high school based society, so if someone was an honorable musician and had an untimely death at age 27, then please allow the entry! I respect you for building this page and hope you will reconsider deleting the entry for Daniel Wetherington.

I respectfully wait for your response.

Morton Wetherington. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercurydrop (talk • contribs) 18:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for explaining your position. Here's what I think. There have been a few discussions, on the article talk page, about who should and should not be included in the list. You can read the main discussion at Talk:27 Club/Archive 4#RfC: Should there be two lists of musicians or one, and who should be included?. As I said at Talk:27 Club#Criteria for inclusion, the majority of editors in that discussion were saying that, to be included in the article, a musician should have been specifically linked to the 27 Club by one or more reliable sources. For Wikipedia purposes, a reliable source can be on the internet or in printed form, but things like blogs, internet discussion boards, or the musician's own web page don't qualify. So, I think the question is, is there a reliable source, in the Wikipedia sense of the term, that says that Daniel Wetherington is a member of the 27 Club? If yes, then use that as a reference (footnote) in the article, or tell me where it is and I'll post it for you. If not, then it's very likely that one of the editors that works on that article would just take the entry back out again, even if I didn't. Another point is that, when you added the entry to the list, you used "The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll" as a footnote. As you can see by clicking through to that, Daniel Wetherington is not listed there, so that can't be used as a reference. But I'm sure you just copied that footnote from another entry without realizing it, so don't worry about it. Anyway, I certainly intended no disrespect to your brother. As you can see, it's really not based on popularity, and it's also not based on how good a particular musician was, or how cool they were as a person. With all that being said, I'll be glad to help you if I can. So, please let me know what you think about all this, and if you want me to help you in some way. And definitely let me know if you can find a reference that will be accepted under Wikipedia guidelines, or just edit the article again yourself, with an appropriate reference. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:26, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few websites that I found in reference to my brother Daniel Wetherington. Please let me know if these will work.

Thanks, MW

http://www.wect.com/story/7551468/deadly-wreck-sends-one-man-to-jail http://us.myspace.com/mutequotspreadthesilencequot — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercurydrop (talk • contribs) 02:51, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Myspace would generally not be accepted as a reliable source for Wikipedia, but a news site like WECT would be. But the issue for the 27 Club article is that a majority of editors, the ones who participated in that discussion, would want to see a reference that specifically talks about Daniel Wetherington being in the 27 Club. Using Google search, I don't see any of those, although it's possible that they exist somewhere and I'm just not finding them. There's actually a comment at the beginning of the "People identified as being in the 27 Club" section -- you can see it when you're editing the section -- that says, "Do not add anyone here without a cited mention of them being in the 27 Club." So it seems to me that the addition of this entry is going to be problematic. But possibly I'm mistaken about all this. So, you could try putting the entry back in, using the news story as a reference. I could leave it there, and we could then see if other editors accept this. And another thing to keep in mind is that you can always discuss this question on the talk page of the article itself. That way editors who work on that article, other than myself, would be much more likely to participate in any discussion about this. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 04:18, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Reckless Abandon (David Bromberg album)

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Disambiguation link notification for November 19

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Piping on dab pages

Per your edit summary here for the dab page The End, I just wanted to let you know that the prohibition on piping on dab pages applies only to links directly using the disambiguated term. Piping is customary on secondary links, such as links to albums for ambiguously titled songs. See the "Switch" example in the disambiguation-page style guidelines. Cheers!--ShelfSkewed Talk 04:17, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting. It does appear that the guidelines allow piping as part of the description, as opposed to the entry name. Thanks for pointing that out. By the way, what do you think about the discussion at Talk:In the Dark#Piping and redirects? — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:28, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll admit to being a little conflicted about some episode redirects--in cases where they point to simple lists of titles, or when they can't be directly targeted at a section named for the episode--but I always prefer them when they can be directly aimed at a named section that includes details about the ep. I've updated all the "In the Dark" episode redirects so that they do just that.--ShelfSkewed Talk 15:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, very interesting. I like the redirects better this way, and I didn't know you could link them that way. Thanks! — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Assault Weapon

Looks like North8000 is only interested in pushing Brady Campaign talking points, and is edit warring with all editors trying to get the NPOV problems fixed. Suggestions? Yaf (talk) 21:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I agree that things are going very poorly with that article, despite your efforts, and it's become extremely biased, and just plain inaccurate. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of suggestions on how to proceed. I've gradually come to the conclusion that one of the less satisfactory aspects of Wikipedia is that the process for editors cooperating, or not, on articles about controversial or contentious subjects doesn't always work very well. Partly because the process for doing so is pretty scattered and disorganized, and partly because the number of editors actually working on such articles seems to be pretty small -- Request for Comment notwithstanding in this case. Sometimes the editors who have the most time on their hands are the ones that prevail, right or not. It makes me sad, because assault weapons are a very important and serious subject, one that affects many people in the United States, and it's truly disturbing to think of how many people will be going to that article to get their information. It's a shame, because a truly collaborative process could result in a well-balanced and even-handed article, and one containing a lot of good, well-sourced information. I realize that this is probably not the answer you were looking for. Hopefully I'm being too pessimistic, and I apologize for having such a gloomy attitude. Certainly your efforts are appreciated, very much so. Hmmm.... Would there be any way to get an admin to fully protect the article -- after restoring it to how it was right before the Sandy Hook shooting occurred -- so that any updates really did have to be made by consensus, on the article talk page or elsewhere? Just a thought. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 22:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, who knows. Perhaps our fellow editor(s) can be persuaded to adopt a more collaborative approach. I'm giving it a shot, here and here. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 15:34, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

There appears to be progress! Your nudge appears to be working. Let's see if it holds! Thanks! Yaf (talk) 01:55, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow, did you folks guess wrong on me. To miss by that far on a range you'd have to be holding a gun backwards and shooting yourself. :-) In fact, I think that that is exactly what you are doing. :-) North8000 (talk) 09:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Feel free to explain. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It's ironic. You, Yaf and Miguel are knowingly or unknowingly (probably the latter) working for the Brady campaign at that article, (and IMHO 2 of 3 going against sourcing and policy to do so), and then accusing me of working for the Brady campaign. How ironic. North8000 (talk) 12:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not working for anyone. My goal is to have the article clearly explain the facts, and also the controversies, is as neutral and even-handed a way as possible. But I'm very interested in hearing why you think that my edits are working to the advantage of the Brady Campaign. (I'm often away from Wikipedia but I usually check it at least once a day or more.) — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

We have the same goal. Here are the core facts. (For brevity, I am writing imprecisely, with generalizations, oversimplificaitons etc. so please pardon all of those) The AR-15 (and its clones)is the most commonly sold rifle in the US, you could say that it has become American's "everyday rifle" for a wide range of purposes....hunting, target shooting, collecting, plinking. The Brady campaign loves the fact that a whole lot of people don't know that the term "assault weapon" it has two major different meanings. First there is the most common meaning amongst Americans (basically the 200 million who don't know guns very well, and which is a reality, and will be one for at least years to come) which is a military "machine gun". The second meaning is what is targeted in the body wording of "assault weapon" laws which is civilian rifles such as the AR-15 or even broader (the federal ban covered standard pistols (their magazines, > 10 rounds) commonly carried by police, and I've seen some attempted "assault weapon" bans that cover all semi-autos.)

So the Brady folks would like to use the dichotomy / confusion short term to get laws that have sales titles that mean "powerful military machine guns" to the 200 million, and body-wording that include everyday firearms passed. And in phase 2 then evolve the meaning in the minds of the 200 million "from military machine guns" to a meaning that firmly and directly brands everyday civilian firearms with the "assault" moniker.

To fully inform the readers, one must point out the dichotomy, and in order to do that clearly one must identify BOTH meanings, and not make statements that pretend that the two meanings do not exist. This also includes informing that "assault weapon" is a term with conflicting meanings, not a single type of firearm. This is what I have been trying to do, and you 3 have been working against that informing, and have been working on phase 2 of the Brady campaign as described above. North8000 (talk) 14:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I agree that a lot of Americans don't have a working knowledge of firearms, and the Brady Campaign exploits this in their efforts to reinstate the assault weapons ban. You're right, they and others have helped promote the confusion between assault weapons (semi-automatic AR-15s, etc.) and assault rifles (full-auto M16s, etc.). It's unfortunate, but for many people the two terms have been, as Yaf would put it, conflated. By having a lead section like this, I really think we can clear up the misconception. It really seemed to me that a lot of your edits to the lead section made it harder, not easier, to understand the difference between assault weapons and assault rifles. I'm pretty sure that's why Yaf thought you were "pushing Brady Campaign talking points". I wasn't sure how to interpret what you were doing, but, although I didn't say it, that seemed like the most likely explanation to me too. No offense intended. Anyway, I'm convinced that the current version of the lead lays out the facts pretty clearly, which should work against the Brady misinformation efforts, by informing readers of what the facts are. But the cool thing is that this also makes it a better Wikipedia article. We present the facts, clearly and in a way that the average reader can understand, supported by reliable references -- and in as neutral and well-balanced a way as we can. I think there will still be a lot of people who want to reinstate the assault weapons ban. So be it, but let them make their decision based on information, not on misinformation. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 03:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Cool; agree with your post. If there is one thing on the core discussion topic that still needs fixing is that "synonym for assault rifle" IS one of the common meanings of the term; the error is not in using that term to refer to assault rifles, it is in blending (conflating/confusing it) it with a meaning which is opposite (the meaning defined in the body of typical legislation)North8000 (talk) 14:03, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

That's the reason for the current last paragraph, mentioning the conflation. There are 2 reasons for conflation. The first, started by Sugarmann, was to intentionally confuse the public, in the hopes of getting them banned. Malice, as it were. The second reason is ignorance, which I think is your point. By mentioning the conflation without the reason, we are more NPOV, for it allows a reader to read it either way. I would rather not make this article a flame magnet for POV pushing. It is not a synonym for assault rifle. Yaf (talk) 23:42, 29 December 2012 (UTC)