User talk:Shirahadasha/Archive Nov 2007

POV and personal opinions

You hit the nail on the head! Thanks for your fair edits. We must make sure that the line between personal embellishment and 'opinionated sources' is clear for all to see. Cheers, A Sniper 10:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

History of the Galveston Jewish Community

Hello Shirahadasha. I added the article History of the Galveston Jewish Community onto the "See also" list of Jewish history because it is an historical article, detailing over 150 years of history. I did not include it in the article itself, as that might be to much, as you have stated because there are so many Jewish Communities - but I disagree with you in that I do think it is notable enough to be included in the "See also" section. Take care. Bhaktivinode 01:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Your criticism of User:A Sniper

I know you care deeply about the integrity of the Judaism articles, but I think you might have been a bit harsh on User:A Sniper - please see his talk page for my comments.

I am so sorry we seem to be at loggerheads again and again. I hope you will understand that we both have a deep concern for the integrity and quality of articles in Wikipedia. Kol tuv, Egfrank 07:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yom Kippur?

Hi, I saw you made this edit. Did you mean to add something there sometime? Or was that an accident? *Cremepuff222* 01:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I saw you fix it. :) *Cremepuff222* 01:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoa!

For the record, your thank you note for gaining admin status is most civil and excellent (I saw this edit in response by Kelly Martin). On the off chance that such an unkind comment has disheartened you, I'd like to say that though I didn't participate in your RFA, I think that you have made an excellent admin. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

3 things wrong

about the article you undeleted.

1: It was an A7, not a prod.

2. It had no assertion of notability and was clearly within the definition of A7.

3. Undeletion is not the proper way to contest a deletion. The proper way is to take it to WP:DRV.

Please restore the deletion and bring it up properly at WP:DRV.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 15:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note it is even MORE inappropriate to recreate the article with absolutely no citations or sources for the statements of notability included. With those removed (as they are unsourced), it STILL cannot survive speedy deletion as an A7. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 16:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

please stop.

Per WP:V, unsourced material may be deleted at any time. Please stop reverting. You are obviously too close and have strong feelings about the subject. If you want to reinclude the information, you must provide sources for it. I hate to say it to another administrator, but to continue to reinsert the material IS VANDALISM. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 16:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

request for citation - if you have it on your shelf

Would you happen to have a copy of Words on Fire by Vanessa Ochs on your shelf? I've expanded the Midreshet Lindenbaum article with in-line citations, but given Swatjester's desire to redelete this, some additional sources might help. I'm pretty sure it mentions Midreshet Lindenbaum/Bruria/brovenders (the latter two were used until the mid 1980's). Egfrank 20:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Simchat Torah

Hi, I wasn't trying to censor you; I just looked up the reference you gave and found nothing in that said people engage in hard drinking on Simchat Torah or that Simchat Torah is as lenient as Purim when it comes to inebriation. All it said was that kohanim are careful not to drink alcohol in the morning. Perhaps you have another reference that says what you want it to say outright? Yoninah 23:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Bible

You reverted all of my work from half a day. This is not correct. We had several comments asking for a refinement of the article. Why would you be against separate articles? I understand that you are Jewish, but wikipedia is no place for preference of one religion over another. Both Christians and Jews should have articles for their holy documents. The article, as I found it, was predominantly Jewish, even though there are more Christians than Jews in this world. I would strongly advise that you not revert my edits. You are in the minority on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luqmanskye (talk • contribs) 03:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Shirahadadasha, User:Luqmanskye seems out of control - he's converted the bible article to a redirect(again) and blanked the discussion page for bible (again). I thought of leaving a message on his talk page, but since he's in the habit of blanking it (your latest comments have been removed), I don't see much point. I considered reverting his reversion of your reversion, but I only think that would start a reversion war. What really concerns me is the apparent attempt to cut off communication and discussion. Is this time for an administrator to step in? Egfrank 03:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have two user names? This smacks of self-discussion. You are really in the wrong here, abusing your power as a sysop. Luqman Skye 03:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Bible edits

I see that you have reverted my edits and locked the Bible page. This is an abuse of your role as a sysop. Many people requested the refinement of the Bible article to include separate articles for the various bibles in this world through a disambiguation page to avoid controversy. You should be editing the bible of your interest. The article you are refusing to refine has its first half devoted to the Hebrew Bible and Jewish interpretations of it. This is very controversial and biased and, obviously, it is your own point-of-view. It is not right to abuse your power as a sysop to support your own point of view. Wikipedia is based on giving everybody a chance to edit articles for the topics of their interest. I worked for half a day on this article after many calls for this refinement. You are in the wrong to undo the work of other editors without discussion and to enforce your POV by abusing your role as sysop. Luqman Skye 03:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration

Arbitration of your actions related to your seemingly-biased reversions of each of my high-quality contributions to the articles on various bibles, and your subsequent locking of the pages, has been requested. You are in the wrong to enforce your point-of-view by abusing your privileges as a sysop. Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luqmanskye (talk • contribs) 08:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: your self revert

“ Hi! The term "Bible" implies a canonical status in a religion. The Masoretic text has this status. Do you have a source that a different text has this status? Obviously academic viewpoint's on the Bible's status are relevant but under WP:NPOV academic and religious viewpoints have to share the space and neither has priority. Best, --Shirahadasha 13:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC) ”

I completely agree with you. Bible is about canonicity. It is used in secular terminology with the same sense. "Das Kapital was the 'Bible' of Communism." The MT does have such status in Judaism, but not Christianity. Which is one of the reasons HB is used in neutral contexts, HB does not assume canonicity of the MT.

The religious viewpoint is that the Tanakh or the Old Testament is canonical, depending on the religion. The academic community, like Wiki, seek a neutral term so independent parties and believers in both faiths can refer to the same text with terminology that is not loaded with presuppositions.

I'm not exactly sure if you were intending to point out that Jewish appropriation of a namespace for a neutral term is blatantly POV. Wiki specifically encourages HB as a term. It can't do that if the article on HB defines HB as Tanakh.

I imagine it may be hard for you to take a position in this discussion because of friendships. Mind you, if you could help people realise that a neutral term like HB helps minimize use of the term OT, even if it doesn't promote Tanakh, you are perfectly placed to argue a reasonable case that others may be more inclined to hear from you than from those they cannot be as certain have their best interests at heart.

Please think about this. If the points aren't clear, I'm happy to clarify further. Cheers. Alastair Haines 13:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

PS I'm happy to source anything you like, btw, I visit a large theological library almost weekly. I'm not fussed by challenges to source things, but how would people cope if I responded in kind? Anyway, I don't think there's much fact checking involved in this issue. I suspect it's an issue of "protecting boundaries", frankly if I was Jewish, I'd feel the need to do this too. I'm sympathetic and supportive. HB is most useful to the Jewish community as a neutral term, let it be. Even if it became Jewish a new neutral term would need to be invented. Please keep an eye on the page Shir, a peacemaker from w/in Judaism could really help everyone stay together on this.Alastair Haines 14:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip-off re Bible. I'll get involved, it's important. Until issues are clearly understood and summarised, all sorts of ad hoc "fire-fighting" can consume time that could otherwise go into providing quality content. I suspect I may be able to help promote clarity and hence aid consensus forming.

Re: HB, I think I detect a very courteous and pleasantly indirect suggestion that there could be bias in the stable version of HB. Simple answer is "nope", and if you look carefully, I doubt you could find evidence and sources sufficient to demonstrate it to a community broader than people who've visited the talk page, because it just ain't there. I can understand you being suspicious, that's part of being responsible. But I'm glad you're not only polite in being vague, you're not asserting more than evidence suggests.

Let's see how we go with Bible. I love a challenge! ;) Alastair Haines 16:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I've replied to your self edited comment at my page and I'm duplicating that here. You can have the last word if you wish. I'm going to try and make a constructive contribution to the Bible:Talk page. As per your request. Let's see what happens. :)

<snip> from my user page

“ Nope, I didn't start the article, not by years I expect.

Not only that, I'm not happy with the lead. It retains text I think has a Jewish perspective bias. I've taken the extremely time consuming expedient of researching Supersessionism prior to considering how that text should be altered. But a few lines that suggest the POV inaccuracy that HB exists to stop Christians from imposing supersessionist language is something I can tolerate until I've got all the refs. Complete replacement of the article by Tanakh information is another thing altogether. Bad strategy at Wiki. Technically incorrect. Procedurally flawed -- rv cited text etc etc. But it's the inaccuracy of it that concerns me most. It's worth remembering, from outside the Jewish community, I would be perceived as being very biased in favour of Judaism. But I don't write from my perspective. Look at the Supersession article if you like. I'm not a Catholic or Dispensationalist, nor a Covenant Theologian, but I wrote up all those views. Finally, there comes a point in discussion where I have to politely remind people that allusions to my motives are inadmissable in Wiki debate. They can't be proven for a start. They are also irrelevant. The issue is, what is HB, and what text presents it best to a reader. Note that I do not attribute bias to other editors, even when the evidence would be read that way by almost any third party. Such things are discipline issues. That's your business as admin. I'm a content guy and I stick to it. Alastair Haines 16:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alastair_Haines"

”

Bible protection

I noticed the above mentioned arbitration request and took a look. Please remove your protection of Bible. Though, from looking briefly, I agree with your view that turning it into a redirect is a horrible idea, reverting the page to your preferred version and protecting it is inappropriate under the protection policy. Thank you. --B 20:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Conservadox Judaism

Hi, I don't know you well but I've gotten a uniformly good impression. (And belated mazal tov on your RfC!) So, thought I'd ask you about this article, which I gather you've worked on a bit. Frankly, this article looks like an essay/OR and it deals with a casual neologism, with quite limited witnesses (I'm betting) in high quality sources (e.g., peer-review journals etc). Granted, the phenomenon is interesting, but I'm skeptical about it might be called or how much it can be sourced as notable. In addition, is it really a self-identifying term or any significance? In short, I wonder if this shouldn't be deleted, or at least moved into a subsection of a better developed article? Pls reply on my Talk when you get a chance. Thanks, HG | Talk 18:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, our chief weapon is... neutrality? Anyway, maybe this is a good time to bring up 2 times. (1) I've gotten frustrated at times with Judaism /J-history articles, perhaps because the in-fighting hits too close to home and seems quite unproductive. Nevertheless, I would like the experience of helping move an article into GA or FA status. Are you or any of your friends working on such an effort? (2) I'm interested in working on Judaism and abortion, a topic now covered at a basic level in Religion and abortion. Any interest in working on that topic? Maybe it would devolve into in-fighting, though I'm thinking that within each movement it's not such a heated issue. Kol tuv, HG | Talk 03:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

user ThuranX

he is not going to discuss anything - he just gonna delete all mentioning 'em. I suspect that he is racist who hates khazars :-( what should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.193.233.66 (talk • contribs)

I am not a racist, nor am I going to delete everything. thank you Shirahadasha for explaining our policies to the IP again, as you saw, I already left that editor a message about why its work was removed.ThuranX 20:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin help required with vandalism of nomination page

Dear Shira: Unfortunately, there is a user Ludvikus (talk · contribs) who is tampering with the formatting of a nomination page [1]. See the wildness of what he is doing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Protocols of Zion (imprints). He is inserting and changing the original formatting and even the wording, totally unheard of. Please take a look at it. Thanks a lot. IZAK 15:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you take a look

Can you take a look here for me. This is out of my depth, but I'm concerned about this editor's behavior. Thanks, Egfrank 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. Egfrank 22:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Reversing a nomination on page

Hi Shira: A user is reverting the legitimate template on the Żydokomuna page [2] that is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jewish Bolshevism that is already underway, under the pretext that it is "mass filing" when this involves only three articles with duplicated content about Jewish Bolshevism. Your admin expertise would be appreciated. Thank you, IZAK 17:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Creationism

To correct the fiction that USA Protestant Christians are the only group in the world to believe in Creationism today, I mentioned on Creationism another huge group that holds this view, the Oriental Orthodox Churches (predominantly in the Middle East). However, this was challenged. After a couple of reverts, I added it again with a reference to a Coptic authority who unambiguously states the position held by all Orthodox Churches, that God really created the Earth 6000 years ago. The pack of editors "in charge" of the article is now threatening to have me blocked for 3RR when all I did was add it again with a cite as I was requested, without breaking 3RR, as well as throwing a spurious accusation of "personal attack" when I have never made anything like a personal attack ever at any time. Please look into what is about to happen to me this time before it is too late. Til Eulenspiegel 17:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

LBi

Hi buddy, thanks for telling me about turning down the CsD. When I added the tag at a previous point the article did seem completely 100% advertising but now I notice that another user removed the advertising and I forgot to remove the tag. Nevermind. Thankyou anyway! Scarian^Talk 08:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

RfA thank-spam

Thank you! Thank you for your help in my RfA. It hammered home a few things I need to keep in mind while admining and passed with a final tally of 40/0/4; two people forgot to vote in time, leaving me short of that exquisite number :-(, but I'll just have to fudge the next vote about me. Adminship feels slightly august but not particularily exalted, so I shall endeavour to consider it a toolkit and make sincere efforts to know what I'm doing before using it. If you later on have something to say or want to ask for -- MESSAGE EATEN BY BEARS --Kizor 23:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

ritual slaughter

what is wrong with you? Did you pay any attention to what I said, at all? I am not opposing anything, I am urging you to get working on your "combination", instead of placing merge tags on a disambiguation page (where they are not "proper" at all). --dab (𒁳) 15:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, hi. Saw that you were editing Legal aspects of ritual slaughter. Assuming you're ok with the name change, and given the volume of Talk shtuff since, shall we close the RfC? P.S. On another Talk page, I want to say to an editor, that's not an argument, that's an assertion.... Kol tuv, HG | Talk 02:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Relisting Ashkenazi intelligence as a separate vote

In a sweeping nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and intelligence (history), the Ashkenazi intelligence article was not listed as part of an original group in the AfD until a later user mentioned the article and then the nominator decided to add it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and intelligence (history)#One more? Ashkenazi intelligence. Unfortunately, by that time the nomination had already attracted a lot of negative attention with ten delete votes already having been cast making it essentially impossible for those only concerned with the Ashkenazi intelligence subject to be heard or noticed, and among the votes that are still coming in afterwards it is not clear if they understood what the serious tinkering additions by the nominator were all about, or if he was even right to do so. Futhermore, being "Ashkenazi" is not a "race" by any definition. The Ashkenazim are a cultural and historical group of Jews, not really even an ethnicity, consisting of a variety of Jews with a common religious and historical culture originating mainly from France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia, so that Ashkenazi Jews are a recognized and respectable group, not a "race" in any way, so it is a mistake to match them up or compare them to any "racial" articles. For the sake of clarity the Ashkenazi intelligence should be removed from this nomination due to the confusion and the non-orderly and out of sequence manner in which it was included. The Ashkenazi intelligence article survived an AfD in February, 2007, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashkenazi intelligence. Based on the incorrect manner and negative timing that the Ashkenazi intelligence was included in the general vote about "Race and intelligence" it must be withdrawn from this AfD. If anyone wishs to have a new nomination, they can go ahead, but it definitely should not have been lumped with a set of articles not connected to it in content or spirit. Your input and intervention is requested. Thank you, IZAK 06:15, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

SEE: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Relisting Ashkenazi intelligence as a separate vote: "I think that pages should only be grouped together on XfD if all the following criteria are met: (1) There is a single place to discuss all the pages. (2) It is unlikely that any user will have diferent opinions about the pages. (3) They were all listed within an hour of when the discussion page was created. As the third criteria clearly wasn't met, I think that lumping it in here was the wrong thing to do. Od Mishehu 08:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)" Thank you, IZAK 19:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Nominations of Texas Jews articles for deletion

Hi Shira: Your input would be greatly appreciated at the discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Nominations of Texas Jews articles for deletion. Thanks a lot, IZAK 21:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for RFC input

Thanks for your input on the Sixteenth Amendment RFC on the Taft source. I found another source, the American Presidency Project, so the issue is moot. Mpublius 18:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)