User talk:Slrubenstein/archive 15

Black people

This article is being edited at a dizzying rate. I can't keep up, and besides, I am not expert on what they are doing to it. Would you mind horribly, when you have a chance, taking a look? Thanks. (I've written to you based on what I've watched of your work on Race) Jd2718 15:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Judaism

BS"D

Reb Yid, There is a small fact that you forgot, You are putting in the Reform POV, The way it was is the NPOV version. --Shuli 15:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Race

Thanks for your note on my talk page. You are right that the article mentions the meaningless of race, but I still disagree with you that it's given equal weight. While researchers like Boas (1912), Montagu (1941), Wilson and Brown (1953), Livingston (1962), Ehrlich and Holm (1964) are already included, they seem to be outdated by the modern genetic studies mentioned. That's why I would like to include the findings of recent researchers and studies which second their early research and the researchers I cited are indeed authorities (fringe researchers are not given a chance to announce their findings for White House press releases). Given the fact that most of the article space is used to eleborate on all the different racial theories people came up with in course of time, illustrated with several detailed illustrations about race lineages, genetic clusters, DNA clusters, and so on, and then, additionally, provides a section which summarizes these already lengthy discussions, it's only fair to include at least one section which summarizes the opposing opinions of early as well as recent researchers. I don't want to act against consensus, that's why I will not edit the article before we reached one and would appreciate it if we could have this discussion on the articles talk page so that other editors have a chance to voice their opinions on that matter as well. SecurID 16:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Jewish reclamation of Jesus

Hi. I was referred to you as someone who might help me with this question of the Jewish reclamation of Jesus. I think that this is a topic of considerable importance, but I am having enormous difficulty posting anything about it. For some background, see Talk:Historical_Jesus#Jewish_reclamation_of_Jesus. Any comments or suggestions? Barrett Pashak 21:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

suggestion

Thank you for the suggestion. I am sorry if I was rash or unreasonable. I have much to learn and, again, thank you for the suggestion. Lostcaesar 22:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Hasmonean

SI, we have worked near each other before; I saw your name come up at Judaism's view of Jesus and it occurred to me to invite you to have a look at Hasmonean. I have greatly expanded and referenced it, found little interest at WP:PR, and am always looking for someone who could help improve the article. Especially given your work on Pharisee, a subject that the Hasmonean article probably treats inadequately, perhaps you could do some good work there? Regards, Kaisershatner 15:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

doc hyp

My comments are on the talk page in question. Lostcaesar 13:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Are Fascism and Nazism forms of Socialism?

Hi, sorry to intrude, but I thought you might add a calm voice to this discussion...

Please take part in the current vote to rename the Nazism entry to National Socialism. See: Talk:Nazism#Requested_move. This is part of a longstanding dispute that goes back at least to 2004, in which some editors argue that Fascism and/or Nazism are merely a variety of Socialism. This is the view of a small number of libertarian/Free Market authors, and an even smaller subset of authors on the left. I argue that a majority of scholars reject this formulation, but this is being challenged on a number of pages. In addition, several editors have started redirecting [[National Socialism and National socialism away from National Socialism (disambiguation) to Nazism, which they are attempting to rename National Socialism, as part of this larger campaign to suggest Nazism is Socialism. If you are interested in the outcome of this vote and the larger discussion, please visit: Talk:Nazism#Requested_move. Thanks.--Cberlet 17:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust - Adding your sentence

Fine. As my account is less than 4 days old, I am not yet able to change it. I will then add your sentence and the two main sources. One more thing: Your reproach of holocaust denial still hurts me deeply and no matter how clumsy my original message may have been, I don't think I deserve it. I don't mind to be given bad names, I can deal with that, but this is a different dimension for me. Do you think your heart is big enough that we can replace your first and my second answer by another text? Or strike them out? Or delete them altogether, if possible? Thanks. D Krum 16:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

---

Thank you for the changes. That is more than I hoped for. In principle I would like to stick to your sentence and add the sources which I have to prepare, but not today. I will send you another note. Thank you for your offer to help. D Krum 18:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Fascism and Nazism as Socialism -- again

It appears that a handful of editors are going to continue to POV push the line that Fascism and/or Nazism are widely recognized as forms of socialism. The changes I made to the Nazism page and the redirect pages are already being reverted. I am open to suggestions and advice. Thanks. --Cberlet 14:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Will do. I've done an WP:RFC for Nazism.--Cberlet 14:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Your Personal Attacks

I want to let you know I don't appreciate you leaping to personal attacks on the Evolution talk page. Saying that I either don't understand English or Evolution because you disagree with me is extremely offensive and inappropriate. Furthermore, if you had read GetAgrippa's and Dmurtegx's comments more carefully before firing off an attack, I think you might have understood what I was saying. In any case, there's no reason to be rude. If your arguments are valid, they'll stand on their own merits. Gnixon 15:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust - References added

Hello Slrubenstein, I added one sentence based on your proposal without changing any other sentence. I added the two references 78 and 79 and replaced the review with another one. I saved the replaced review on my talk page; thus I can restore it easily in case you disagree. I also stroke out some of my sentences on talk page according to yours. I hope everything is fine now. D Krum 17:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Pharisees

I made a couple of suggestions on the discussion page. As it stands there's a definte POV issue. I've noticed several other inaccuracies. Among others from where do you get the idea that the Pharisees held that all had to keep the laws of purity. A most cursory study of the relevant Mishnayos would reveal that only those who ate sacrifices or terumot,etc. were required to keep purity laws. IO can send particulars if necessary. And the statement that the requirement against eating impure meat applied originally only to priests doesn't seem to have any basis.

Dorot Ha-Rishhonim was a historian, his work definitely deserves a mention from a historical point of view, not as a traditional point of view. The page as it stands does not represent an unbiased view.

Bible

I realize Dorff's book came before HaLivni's published his POV on the issue (in Revelation Restored), sort of in between an Orthodox and a Conservative one, that there was a Sinaitic revelation but it became corrupted or lost and Ezra restored the Torah by redacting it from disparate texts, hence the Torah reflects the best available record of Divine will and has prophetic imprimatur while nonetheless having potential for textual disparities. Given that Roth cited it, it would seem to be a potential Conservative position. Not sure if the numbers reflect a ranked spectrum, but if they do I would suppose it would be Conservative 0. --Shirahadasha 04:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC) It might be worth separating Jewish and Christian theological responses given the different starting positions the two bring to the table. Best, --Shirahadasha 04:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:ATT

"This was in old NOR policy" isn't a sufficient justification for reverting to old language; "and none of the current talk justifies removing it" - you have not actually demonstrated this at all, and several edidtors disagree with you, which is why the vague language was removed in the first place. Your talk page comments on the matter certainly do not justify re-adding it. To the extent you've made an argument at all, it either has already been addressed, does not address the problems caused by that language, or appears to amount to resistance to change simply for the sake of resisting change. There are serious problem caused by "explanation" being considered OR, and nothing demonstrable to be gained by it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you have a look at these articles and their talk?

• Jewish opposition to evolution
• Jewish reactions to intelligent design

Thank you. --Metzenberg 05:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I really need your help here. ZayZayEM is engaging in troll-like behavior, such as making edits on the very materials I am editing, removing materials immediately after I add them, and so forth. It is a harassment pattern that extends across multiple articles. The main articles involved are:

* Jewish reactions to intelligent design

* Jewish opposition to evolution

* Natan Slifkin

It is bizarre behavior, because I can see no reason why he is even interested in this material. As you and I both know, it is material you have to really understand well to edit. Over the last week, I have substantially rearranged all the materials on Judaism and evolution in an effort to clean up the main Judaism and Evolution page first of all, so that it can be turned into a page that is not dominated by issues (such as the Slifkin affair) that would have undue weight. ZayZayEM has simply made it impossible for me to work. He has followed me from one article to another, demanding arbitrary changes. many of his edits, and his changes, show that he knows very little about the subject, which as you and I both know, is quite abstruse at times. --Metzenberg 16:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Fascism and Nazism as representative forms of socialism

I am sorry to bother you, agaun, I still need some help. There are a tiny handful of editors who revert and redirect National Socialism to Nazism. I believe a majority of editors support redirecting National Socialism to National Socialism (disambiguation). I realize we just had a poll on the Nazism page where I thought this issue was settled, but apparently the struggle is not over. Please consider voting in the new poll, or adding a comment at: Talk:Nazism#Survey:_redirecting_National_Socialism. Please consider voting again for clarification Thanks.--Cberlet 19:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I have filed a request for arbitration

You are allowed to make a statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Metzenberg-ZayZayEM

Please review the record and feel free to comment. --Metzenberg 16:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I have also entered proposal for a compromise on Talk:Jewish reactions to intelligent design. If my proposal is accepted by User:ZayZayEM and User:Guettarda I will withdraw this request for arbitration, and we can consider this resolved. I have informed them. --Metzenberg 02:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Pharisees

I've done some minor editing and I've left several points taht need clarifying on the discussion page. Some of the points are minor or have sourcing issues, I just put everything I noticed and we'll work from there. Thanks

do not respond on poll page

Please do not respond on the poll page itself to other editors' comments. You should discuss the poll at Wikipedia_talk:Attribution/Community_discussion. This is not intended to limit your freedom of expression, only to keep the poll page from becoming a second discussion page. CMummert · talk 15:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I am disappointed that you have chosen to express your opinion by way of attacking good faith editors on a poll page. Consensus has already been violated in forcing this policy on us to begin with and behaviour like this really says to the Wikipedia community that their views don't really matter and will be dumped on. Using boilerplate text in particular is very very insulting, you didn't even consider their post with enough respect to actually come up with an original response. DanielT5 18:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

V'Chein L'mar (To you as well). Enjoy the holiday.Wolf2191 17:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Pesach

Chag Sameach! --Shirahadasha 03:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Truth

Thanks for the note, Steven. I appreciate that you took the time to write it. However, you have totally miunderstood me. My position has been that the policy is exactly as you characterise it: that truth has no part at all to play in whether we include material in our articles. That is one strand of what I have been saying. I think that in answer to your question you should note that I strongly support the change of "verifiability" to "attributability" exactly because I do not think the intention of the policy is to encourage considerations of the truth. I do not though share your belief that reading the policy that way shows bad faith. Many editors have over time. Even if I don't, I can see why they do. Verifying something, in the common parlance, means "checking that it's true". The original drafter clearly didn't consider that, and meant it to be read "checking that it's there".

Another strand is that it would be possible to refer to the standard of verification that Rednblu discusses for science articles but probably not more generally. He is not suggesting that this is the current policy. He is urging change or at least redefinition.

The third, and final, strand of my position is that there is a conflict between the notion of neutrality, implying that we do not judge positions, with the notion of "reliability" of sources, which has the effect of prejudging positions by preferring some over others. Our policy is only tenable if one assumes that the sources we consider reliable tend themselves to being neutral. Some would argue that they do; I argue that they absolutely do not. I'd like to see either a more honest statement of what we are about or a bold step towards doing what we say we do. I am not sure that the latter can be accomplished in the form of single articles; not at least if we wish them to be readable. The former would require new policy.

The attraction of Wikipedia for me is the notion of NPOV, although I do not like the policy document that explains it and I do not believe it is not negotiable if we were to choose to change it. (Many of our articles are de facto not neutral in ways that are not really exceptionable.) I believe WP:V follows from it as night follows day. However, I believe WP:RS detracts from it, especially because it is so deeply flawed a document. I particularly do not like the "undue weight" section of the NPOV policy -- not because I believe minority positions should be given undue weight but because it's so readily interpretable as suggesting that majority positions are "neutral" just because they are held more widely. Grace Note 03:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Ebionites nominated for FA

The Ebionites article has been nominated for Featured Article. You are invited to show your support or suggest further improvements to the article. Ovadyah 07:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your words of support recently on the Evolution page. That one editor has had me near the breaking point over the last few weeks, when I think many regular editors must have been away for the holidays. I should say I don't think he's pure troll, although his behavior toward me has seemed more and more trollish recently. Simply ignoring is good advice---I think I extended the benefit of the doubt a little too long.

There are actually a lot of topics on Talk:Evolution that seem to have died off simply from neglect. Particularly the Mandaclair and FAR topics contain lots of suggestions that were well-received but haven't been acted upon and are no longer being discussed. Gnixon 14:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

(By the way, the bit on your user page about "great truths" resonates with me---the Creation of Adam is one such work for me. Maxwell's equations are another. Because I recognize the power of those great truths, I bear less antipathy toward your fundamentalists. Gnixon 17:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC))

I definitely appreciated your point about general fundamentalism. I try to be equally understanding of all forms---whether they're rooted in truths from the Bible, the Communist Manifesto, the Koran, Origin of Species, Ulysses, or Gianni Versace---but I certainly have my own biases and prejudices. My truth taken from that fresco is probably much different than others'. I wonder to what extent Michaelangelo knew its various truths intellectually or intuitively, so I'm very interested in what he intended, but I'm independent-minded enough to always seek my own conclusions. Not sure if it rises to "great truth," but I took something that feels deep from Carl Jung, who showed me that everyone starts with a certain personality, and we all have much less control over our beliefs, attitudes, and opinions than we might think. I was "born" to be a scientist and a skeptic, so I'll never paint a Sistine Chapel, write a great novel, or help people save their souls, but I'll always be in awe of those who do. On the upside, I'm pretty good at integrals.  :-) Thanks again for your kind words regarding Evolution---they're much appreciated at this time. Let me know if you find yourself in central NJ some time so I can buy you a beer. Gnixon 16:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I'm male. I take no offense that you chose the "she" pronoun in a conversation. Cheers, Gnixon 13:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

i'll check it out

Thanks, --Urthogie 18:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Being a troll

My dear Slrubenstein-I've taken a week off from involving myself in the Evolution and Creation discussions, because, frankly, they're frustrating, mainly because of the POV pushers on board. I've have edited a number of articles, and a lot of the same ones as you, and never once have I butted heads with you. In fact, I thought you were one of the good guys. But to call me a troll? Well, I was kind of shocked. You should read some of the very pro-Creationist commentary that is being pushed by certain users. My frustration level reached a maximum, and I had had it with those users.

Moreover, with regards to Theory vs. Fact, I believe you were incorrect in both the interpretation of my comments and in the resolution to those discussions in the past. Certain editors use "theory" as pejorative term to somehow demean the quality of science that was involved in arriving at Evolution. Evolution is a fact, in the sense that all the scientific knowledge of the past 100 years confirms that Evolution is the best science to describe how life got to where it is now on Earth. One of my favorite jokes is if the Theory of Gravity was treated in the same manner, we would be all floating above the earth.

I think that I might agree that my frustration with certain editors might have bordered on trollish. But after some 150 edits to the Evolution article and maybe the same number of edits to the Evolution discussion, I think I deserve some leeway with frustration, just as any number of other editors have. If that were my first or even 10th comment, sure I should have my butt kicked.

I have watched the Evolution discussion, and I know that certain editors thought you were one of them, but I detect your frustration in how the POV pushing is going. You are infinitely more patient than I. But I don't know much about your background (I think you're Jewish), but I have battled right-wing Christian Creationist nutjobs trying to force the teaching of Christian Creationist theology on my Jewish kids in the real world (not the world of anonymous Wiki-editing). Maybe I don't have the right to be angry and mean towards these POV pushers, but I guess my generally intolerance of their anti-intellectual viewpoint is limited.

I would hope that you understand that your calling me a troll means 10X more than certain POV editors calling me that, because I respect your editing on this encyclopedia. Whatever I have done to offend you, well, I hope that you could tell me what it is and I could correct that tone. Otherwise, I am confident that I wouldn't meet even the slightest definition of a troll. Yes, I would meet the definition of an uncivil anti-Creationist type, but I fight hard for NPOV on this encyclopedia, despite my disgust with other editors. You are not in that group.

Anyways, I hope this all makes sense to you. I just attended a long Bar Mitzvah party, and I'm a little tired. Orangemarlin 22:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Amber Witch

Hope you don't mind my bothering you over here. I've just created an article The Amber Witch (my first). I found the book fascinating both as a really good "kick in the pants" on the proponents of the DH and a fascinating description of the witch fever during the 17th century. In any event I would appreciate suggestions such as how to find the correct category and the like. I've also added a section to the zohar page in defense of it's authenticity. Would appreciate the feedback but don't mind me if you're to busy. Thanks Wolf2191 18:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I appreciate your feedback. The term authenticity is used because De Leon claimed he found a manuscript and Scholem claims ihe forged it. So the question is if it's an "authentic" Tannaitic document (that would represent a chain in the link back to Sinai and thus an vaid Jewish opinion) or an 13th century forgery. I sort of see your point as well though so I won't stick on it.

As far as the amber witch page, I meant by "supposedly" that this is what meinhold claimed but later said it was a forgery. The term "most interesting trial" is more like an advertising slogan and that is how the book is always described in all the articles I saw on it. I'm planning to update the pharisees and karaites articles as well. Shabbat Shalom.Wolf2191 16:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I added to Rosh Hashana and Get as well. I agree with you concerning Scholem's intentions. It's more writers like Graetz and the like that militate against the Zohar that annoy me. I also don't mean to imply that all historical research is worthless. Only that it is heavily subjective. I wouldn't give the DH the same type of credence I would give to evolution. But people hear the word science and accept evrything as "gospel" (I would say as if it was given in Sinai) truth. (This is just my personal view)Wolf2191 22:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I see your point I wrote the article more like an essay. I will try to fix the problems you mentioned when I have time. I also responded to your point on the kohelet page. I think we will have to "agree to disagree" but I don't think the article is off balance as stands. I changed supposedly but I think the term "described" gives the impression of a book review (which is what I meant). Do you have any idea how I can set about categorizing and how to make redirects? Many Thanks. Wolf2191 20:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Do not post topics about banning someone on article talk pages

I removed your topic on Talk:Judaism_and_Christianity, about banning BernardZ. Article talk pages are for improving the article. Contact admins, use user talk pages, or request arbitration if you have a dispute with someone. Malamockq 23:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

race - no time

it would be an understatement to say i have no time. i left a note, but i doubt it will be of much help. it doesn't take long for an article to go from good to irremediable -- race and intelligence is currently in that situation. --W.R.N. 06:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ishtar and Judaism

I'm thinking of adding a section to the Istar page on Ishtar's influence on judaism. That would include to prohibition of the Ashera tree and Tu' B' Av when the girls would dress in white and marraiges would be decided on (I've got to think of an elegant way of saying all this). According to Baron that custom originated in a festival for ishtar and the Rabbis replaced it with a Jewish Historical basis. Do you think it fits there , in a different section or is better left unsaid? Wolf2191 21:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:1915 Dance by Rodchenko.jpg

Hello, Slrubenstein. An automated process has found and removed a fair use image used in your userspace. The image (Image:1915 Dance by Rodchenko.jpg) was found at the following location: User talk:Slrubenstein/archive 10. This image was removed per criterion number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image was replaced with Image:Example.jpg, so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. Please find a free image to replace it with. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 23:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for mediation

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Race, and indicate whether you agree or refuse to mediate. If you are unfamiliar with mediation, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. There are only seven days for everyone to agree, so please check as soon as possible.Muntuwandi 17:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Slrubenstein

I appreciate your concerns and I am touched (well touched in the head too!)by your notice. I am just taking a break to see what develops. I have been frustrated with the process and wonder how progress can proceed on certain subjects. I guess I was burned out and was getting slack. I also don't care for some of the personality traits that some exude, but that has nothing to do with good editing. After a break, I see I may have been too impatient as there is progress. I think the process brings out the nasty in some editors, which does not help with progress. Fortunately there are lots of excellent editors (such as yourself) that keep the ball rolling in a civil tone (well as civil as one can be at times). How has the Race and Intelligence article developed? The last I noted the Intelligence article seemed to be inundated with editors with a human psychology expertise that was slanting the article for my taste. I am still reluctant to write much given it may disappear in a weeks time. GetAgrippa 22:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the way you think!!!! Your opinions of race or intelligence are similar to mine-very biological thinking. I am surprised more biological scientist are not of the same ilk. The ability to step out of your sociological bias to see the biology that dominates it all. I haven't read the Race article but as you would guess I like the technical details (as long as one can distill the big picture). I would also include the human distinctions and relationsips with our closest living relatives (chimps (bonobos) and gorillas) to further illustrate and give context of what differences mean (although it doesn't immediately strike one as being related it is nice to relate to other similar animals). Regards, GetAgrippa 14:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Race and lineages

Hi, I'm not really editing Wikipedia at the moment, I haver avoided the "Race" article because it seems to be controlled by a cabal of POV pushers who seem to have at best a limited to non-existent understanding of science, but who keep trying to include a distorted or downright false presentation of the available science. With this in mind I'd like to know why you keep making edits to the Race article that claim that multi locus allele clusters represents evidence that supports discrete lineages for so called "races"?[1] Are you so intent on introducing content that supports racism into Wikipedia that you are prepared to include unverifiable lies to support your unfounded belief that "races" are biological lineages? I'd just like to understand your insistence on claiming that this science supports a model for human genetic diversity and distribution (that is that human populations form discrete non-overlapping non-interbreeding lineages) that no researcher or scientist or academic in the field has actually claimed? Can you provide any citation from a reliable source that claims that multi locus allele clustering supports the existence of discrete lineages? I think not, because a basic understanding of what multi locus allele clusters actually are and how they are calculated shows that it is completely irrelevant to the concept of populations forming discrete lineages. You can reply to me on my talk page as I'm checking it most days, even though I'm not editing. Alun 07:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

• The issue is not whether multi locus allele clusters represents evidence that supports discrete lineages for so called "races," but whether there are people (e.g. Tang et. al. 2005) who believe this.

Tang et al do not say any such thing. They do not claim that multi locus allele clusters support the concept of discrete lineages. They actually say that people who live in proximate geographic regions are more genetically similar to each other than they are to people who live in distant geographical regions. I can find nowhere in their paper where they claim that multi locus allele clusters support the concept of discrete human lineages. Please provide proper evidence, like a quote for example. Saying that people who come from the same place are more likely to be genetically similar to each other than they are to people from distant places is not the same as saying that these people form a discrete lineage. Alun 13:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What is cristal clear to me is that you have continually removed my edits on the pretext that a certain article supported a different point of view. Now you claim not to have known that this article did not support this point of view. This begs the question why did you keep including this assertion when you did not know what it said? Alun 13:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I answered this on your talk page already.

Please understand I am not discussing the existence or not of biological race. I am disputing that anyone has claimed that multi locus allele clusters represent evidence of humans representing discrete lineages. Deffinitions of what biological races are are difficult, largely because the human species does not fit into any of the criteria for the concept of "race". This is because there does not seem to be any discrete biological boundaries between any human populations. Give the observation, made time and time again, that not boundaries exist between human populations it is virtually impossible to define human "races" from a biological point of view, because any distinction between populations is always going to be arbitrary. If discrete lineages really did exist then we would not see this pattern of variation and it would be very easy indeed to draw these discrete boundaries. You and Ramdrake's continual attempts to keep this article from discussing human genetic variation in it's correct context is really amazing and quite bizarre. I suggest you take a look at these papers Conceptualizing human variation and Genetic variation, classification and 'race', though I suspect you will not like what they say because they discuss the clear and lucid scientific consensus against the sort of biased nonsense you want to include in the article. Alun 13:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

How wrong you are. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah well, it's not me who's wrong, I just want to include the most up to date scientific thinking. I don't know how you define this as "wrong". Anyway you should probably be aware that the two above papers are from a Nature Genetics supplement about race and genetics and you should probably read the whole supplement. If you are going to continue to make your claims on the race article then you should at least be aware that you are arguing against all of the actual scientific evidence. So here's a link to the supplement, there's about ten papers here. Genetics for the human race I expect you are going to claim that reproducible scientific results are just someone's point of view. I expect you believe that evolution is just someone's point of view, or that chemistry is just someone's point of view (maybe you should go to the Chemistry article and tell them that atomic theory is just a point of view, you can provide citations from the middle ages that disagree with atomic theory can't you?) It's a daft argument really, and one that could only be made by someone who has little or no understanding of scientific method. By the way if you don't read any of the other papers you should definitely read the paper Conceptualizing human variation because it gives a very good account of the various ways in which "race" can be viewed, including a good section about how the very concept of race is confused by the fact that it has very different meanings in different contexts. There is also a nice discussion about the subspecies concept ans a discussion about human genomic variation. This is a brief but quite nice little review of the state of play as it currently stands in the field of genetics. You really should read it. If you want to claim that certain genetic research supports a concept of "race", then you have to define which race concept it supports. Biology is not a social construct, biology is a science, as such it relies on well defined constructs that can be tested experimentally. There are several concepts of "race" from a biological point of view, not all of which rely on lineage or subspecies as a foundation. The idea that "races" represent the distribution of genetic diversity is a reasonable proposition, and multi locus allele clustering is a good way to measure the distribution of genetic diversity. This definition of "race" suffers from it's own problems (as do all biological definitions), but that's not the point I am making, the point I am making is that multi locus allele clusters do not support the concept of discrete "racial" lineages. The race article currently states that these data do support discrete lineages, but this is not supported by the citations used. This is also incorrect, the section should be entitled "the distribution of genetic diversity". Alun 05:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You are officially the third biggest moron I have ever encountered at Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah resorting to insults again, very mature. I did wonder what you were talking about on my talk page when you wrote For any Wikipedia article to argue that it is up to us to forward a consistent definition of race in the article would be to violate NOR. It is not up to us to say what people "need to have." I have never suggested either of these things. I have several specific complaints about the race article, all more or less related to your and your "tag team" revert mate Ramdrake. I've been having a read of Tang et al. and it is clear that theyare not discussing lineages, they clearly state that African Americans have a significant European ancestry. How can they represent a lineage when they are an admixed group? This is a clear contradiction. The finding that African Americans are more similar to each other genetically than they are to White Americans is not support for lineages. It is a statement of the obvious in some ways, but it is clear, even to you, that having multiple continental origins is incompatible with the concept of lineage. Clusters are not lineages, African Americans do not represent a lineage, White Americans do not represent a lineage, when TAng et al. compared African Americans to White Americans all they found was that White Americans are more similar to each other than theyare to African Americans and vice versa. This has got nothing to do with lineages because both groups are actually admixed groups. So I am still looking for that citation from you that claims that multi locus allele clustering is an "argument supporting the concept of lineages". You are struggling here, I suspect it is because you really don't know what you are talking about. Your argument on the Race talk page is very weak, you claim that First, the section provides arguments in favor of a view - by definition, it does not present the view as a fact, it is making it clear that it is a view. but it actually doesn't do this. The title of the section does not correspond to the information contained in the section. I can find no reference in this section to lineages at all, neither can I find any citation that discusses lineages. In effect the section does not provide any arguments for races as lineages. I cannot put this any simpler than his. There is not a single argument is support of races as lineages in this section. The section even discusses admixed groups as if they were lineages, this is clearly daft. So please stick to the point and stop making irrelevant observations. The section does not provide any sort of point of view whatsoever regarding "race as lineage" because no part of the section mentions or discusses race as lineage at all. I hope this is a simple enough explanation of the problem. You yourself have stated in the past that it is reasonable enough for me to ask for a citation regarding this. I find it extremely frustrating that you seem to be incapable of understanding this simple point, that you seem to be incapable of accepting that this is a valid concern. None of the responses you have provided have addressed the issue at hand. Your insistence that this section provides a point of view is not supported by any verified source, because none of the sources provided actually say that their data provide any support or evidence for (or an "argument for" in your parlance) the idea of "races as lineages". Alun 07:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation

A Request for Mediation to which you are a party has been accepted. You can find more information on the mediation subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Race. For the Mediation Committee, ^demon[omg plz] This message delivered by MediationBot, an automated bot account operated by the Mediation Committee to open new mediation cases. If you have questions about this bot, please contact the Mediation Committee directly.

This message delivered: 12:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for your insightful comments on the DH. If I have your permission I would like to try to FW your comments to the author. Have you reallly read Welllhausen's tedious prologomennna? I'm fairly sure that he does believe in the existence of an Interpolator adding in comments to make the Bible appear older then it is. (They made fun of wellhausen that the only interpolator is Wellhausen himself, a 19th century narrow minded old man trying to project his own ideas on to the past). I was under the impression that modern archeology sent a large part of Wellhausen's theory crashing.

I'm afraid most of my reading is based on 19th century authors so I can't comment much. The Oral tradition and some of the medieval commentors do resolve many of the difficulties set up by modern criticism. I particularly enjoy the medieval commentor Abarbanel's commentary since he tries to weave the different seemingly unconected chapters into one flowing tapestry of ideas.

Did you know that Spinoza created the basis for Biblical criticism by following the signposts left by the 11th century exegete Ibn Ezra? Now there's an enigma, He constantly lets slip that "these are the words of Moses" (implying that parts of the Bible were not dictated by G-d), hints at deutero Isaiah and other such things but never gives a good idea what his (he was clearly a tremendously devout Jew) philosphy on the subject might be. CheersWolf2191 23:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Reuvein Margolies

Wrote an article on this important orthodox researcher. Do look in and see if it looks in order. if you have time. I also made some additions to the [[Essenes] page. ThanksWolf2191 21:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Feminism

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Please weigh in at Talk:Factory farming#Mediation

Please weigh in at Talk:Factory farming#Mediation. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RJII is claimed by SlimVirgin to be evidence against the use of dictionary definitions. Relevant content: WAS 4.250 20:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

We must use the terms the way reliable published (preferably mainstream) secondary sources use them. How CNN, the BBC, the Washington Post, and Reuters use the terms is directly relevant. We have never based our work on dictionaries. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That is neither true nor sensible. It is appropriate to use the best published sources for any specific claim and the best editors do. Dictionaries for definitions of words, scientific literature for scientific claims, historians for history and so forth. Prefering newspapers for these claims is nonsense. WAS 4.250 19:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know where you get the idea from that a dictionary is a good source for Wikipedia, because it's not in any of the policies or guidelines. On the contrary, these say we prefer secondary sources, not tertiary sources, for obvious reasons.

We have to use words the same way reliable mainstream sources use them. Reference.com is a website written by who-knows. The W/Post, CNN, Reuters, the BBC are staffed by professional researchers and writers who deal directly with the issues. That is, they speak to the factory farmers, intensive farmers, industrial farmers, or whatever they call themselves. They speak directly to the governments that regulate them. They speak directly to the public that may or may not have concerns about them. They know what vocabulary is in general use, and they form committees to decide which terms to use for sensitive subjects (e.g. their policies on terrorist versus militant). That is why we take our lead from these mainstream organizations. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

We disagree totally on this. We need arbcom or a miracle if you can't accept dictionaries as reliable published sources. To me that's just nuts. And I'm sure you are sincere. So we need outside forces who have the authority to decide this very important attribution issue. I have asked for help at WP:AN/I. WAS 4.250 19:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I recall that there was an ArbCom case that revolved around the use of a dicdef, which as I remember was regarded as not legit. I'll try to find it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It was Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RJII, which was unfortunately closed without a decision. It was triggered by one user insisting that a dictionary definition of "capitalism" be used instead of the definitions of reliable sources. It appears to have been resolved by removing his dicdef from the article, but creating a "definitions of capitalism" article, where he could include his material. There was also a discussion about it on the mailing list, and my recollection of that was firmly against dicdefs. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Jesus-myth hypothesis

I trust you. So, if you could put in your 2 cents worth in what had happened here, I'll shut up or fight on. Several people suggested your 2 cents is worth around 37 cents. Anyways, three editors attacked that article and Jesus as myth. They completely destroyed both articles with a lot of OR and POV stuff. I'm frustrated, but so are a lot of others. Again, I'll trust your opinion. Unless you think the three editors are completely right, then I might have to whine a bit. Orangemarlin 20:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Well, all I have are personal opinions, for what they are worth. I spent a few minutes looking over the edit history and it is not clear to me what the main points of contention are - if you could spell it out for me maybe I could give better feedback. From what I reviewed I saw four main issues.

1. process. I agree that someone should not make major changes to an article without discussion, in principle.
2. does it matter whether Jesus was a real person? NOR is our savior, here. The question is not does any or all editors think that it matters whether Jesus was a mythical being that some people believe acted in history, or a real person around whom a large body of mythology has been developed. The question is, what do the major scholars writing on the issue think? My own understanding is that most believe he probably existed but that what we call Christianity was based as much or more on the incorporation of wide-spread near-eastern myths, than that guys actual life and acts. Maybe I am wrong. That doesn't matter - the point is, whatever it is that the main sources (scholars) the article draws on claims, ought to be in the article. If the major proponents of this approach are divided, the article should say so.
3. should the article state that these scholars are skeptics who espouse a naturalist view? Well, I do not find that objectionable because I assume that people who are skeptics and espouse a naturalist view are proud of the fact. That said, I would again appeal to NOR. I think the issue is this: what are the assumptions and methods used by these scholars? The answer should come from the books and articles used as sources themselves. Most ggood historians, especially when writing on the Bible, try to summarize their assumptions and methods and it is good to educate readers about this.
4. was the Talmudic Yeshu Jesus? I happen to believe that he was, but in a non-historic (i.e. mythic i.e. the Rabbis were constructing their own myth to counter the Christian myth) way. But again, NOR - it doesn't matter what I think. There are some scholars who have made just this argument, such as Jeffrey Rubenstein (no relation). However, this is contested and there is no I repeat no proof that Yeshu = Jesus.

So, is this what you were looking for? If not, please let me know and tell me more what you think the real issue is. Best, Slrubenstein | Talk 09:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, thanks for writing back. My point of contention is mainly that several editors more or less hijacked the article, without consensus or otherwise following established procedures. Several editors suggested I write you to get an unbiased look at the edits to see if maybe what they did was acceptable in terms of writing (setting aside the hijacking). As to your other points:

1. OK, we're in agreement.

   Originally, we wrote the article (I didn't start it, I provided editing support throughout) as a thesis that Jesus was based on eastern Mediterranean myths. Of course, you can imagine what the fundamentalist crowd might have thought of it. Actually, the article does not propose whether this person existed or not (I'm very doubtful on the point, given the lack of Roman data on the point), it's just that whether the person is real or not, was his life based on a myth. Not sure.

   I'm more or less not in favor of this point, but I certainly agree that my NOR and opinion doesn't matter all that much. The proof is lacking, and that bothers me about this article.

In the end, we need your help in either reverting to a previous version (which has been completed), and possibly provide a scholarly (or very learned) opinion on the article, especially to reduce any POV and OR issues that have arisen or will arise. I personally don't care whether Jesus (strictly in the Christian sense) lived or didn't live, but I do care that this article not make any assumption in that area. Thanks for your time. Orangemarlin 15:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, I was led to your user page via your intervention (upon request) into the debate at Factory farming. Perusing your page, I thought you may be interested in this article by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. I may be completely wrong, in which case I apologise. FNMF 09:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

factory farming talk

Hey: Nathan isn't arguing about your excellent discussion of dictionaries and encyclopedias - he is arguing about the relative merits of dictionaries and encyclopedias when the only proposed alternative is OR or WP:SYN. I just wanted to clear that up: I don't think you two are as far off from one another as the tone of the FF talk page makes it sound. Jav43 16:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello Slrubenstein

One of my daughters graduated from high school so we took her and her other siblings to Greece and Italy for a couple of weeks. I started to read the section on the Race-Talk but quickly lost focus. I remembered two Science articles I recently read I thought pertinent, so I posted them to try to get the discussion back on track. I will try to read more closely and comment. You either have a penchant for finding contentious articles or you are a sadomasochist-Hee, Hee. Hope all is well. GetAgrippa 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Nah, he's just a plain masochist. (just kidding!)--Ramdrake 22:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

June 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. However, we remind you not to attack other editors, as you did above diff. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. You don't do either your argument or case for any future administrative action any good by losing your temper. Thank you. TimVickers 02:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Even on my own talk page ... yeah, I guess you are right. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Not to encourage you or get Tim mad at me, but do you think you could secretly tell me who the first two are?  :) Orangemarlin 08:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Query about OR

Hi Slr, would you mind commenting on an issue that has arisen at Factory farming? There is a dispute about whether the terms "intensive farming," "intensive agriculture," "industrial farming," "industrial agriculture," and "factory farming" refer to the same phenomenon or practice, or to different ones. The reason we're exploring this is to find out how many articles we ought to have on this practice (or these practices), and what those articles should be called.

I have gathered together some mainstream sources showing that the terms are used synonymously (with factory farming referring to the same intensive farming practises, but reserved for animals). See Examples of articles in which reliable sources use the terms "intensive," "industrial," "factory," and "modern" in the SAME way).

On the basis of that research, I've suggested we have two articles: Intensive arable farming, and Intensive livestock farming.

WAS is saying that this is "original research." He won't say clearly what he means, but I believe he wants us to use a dictionary definition of the words, instead of looking to see how mainstream sources use the terms. This reminds me of the situation you had with someone trying to use a dictionary to define "capitalism."

If you have any time, would you mind leaving a comment in this section? I'm going to leave a note for Jayjg too, as he's also good at spotting OR. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are willing to take the time to read the gathered source material on the talk page and to skim the various articles under discussion that are listed on the talk page, then I would be both very very very grateful and fully willing to abide by whatever decision you make with regard to the issues involved. Thank you very much for the time you have already provided. WAS 4.250 10:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I apologize

Dear Slr,

I apologize. I was referring to the text and why it is not fair to the reader, and to the implicit expectation that the reader would figure it out or muddle through somehow. What you wrote explains how the text got the way it is, but it does not provide a rationale for leaving the reader perplexed. In my mind it is not a matter of blame that the text has at points become hard to follow.

Sincerely,

Patrick Moran

Sorry

Hi. I am sorry that I have not assumed good faith with you. I really think there is a fundamental problem with your edits to genetics sections of the race article, but I have not assumed good faith. So I'm sorry that I have been offensive to you, there's nothing to be gained from being antagonistic. I would say that I think your understanding of genetics is not good, and that you have certainly made claims for certain research that are simply not supported by this research. Sometimes you have claimed that other editors have made the edits you are defending, this does not explain why you feel that the previous editor's work is worth defending. I have been very frustrated by the fact that you revert every single edit I make, even though you seem not to understand the genetics very well. It is disheartening to be excluded from contributing to this article apparently because I simply want to express the science in a more accurate way. I really don't understand why you assume that every edit I make is biased or incorrect, your only "explanations" have been that my edits do not give a neutral point of view, but the sections in the article that cover genetics are generally poor and often do not actually represent the conclusions of the scientists they are citing. I still can see no evidence that any of the section titled "Race as lineage" includes anything other than OR. Take a look at the definition of "race as lineage" that occurs later on in the article,

"A subspecies (race) is a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. This definition requires that a subspecies be genetically differentiated due to barriers to genetic exchange that have persisted for long periods of time; that is, the subspecies must have historical continuity in addition to current genetic differentiation."

This the information in the section in the article does not address this definition at all. I also think that by reverting every edit I make (even after promising not to) you yourself are not assuming good faith. To revert every single edit I make, and to be so dismissive of my comments on the talk page is partly responsible this poisonous environment on the talk page. Let's try to be more civil to each other, and please try to understand what I am saying, rather than accusing me of not being able to read, for example. Also please accept that I am a biologist and a geneticist, so I want the article to accurately reflect something I actually know something about. I don't edit the article except for the genetics sections, because that is what I know. I hope we can work more constructively together in the future. All the best. Alun 13:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I've replied to you on my talk page, it seemed the best thing to do, rather than copy and past everything elsewhere. All the best. Alun 18:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, let's continue the dialogue on your talk page. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 14:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

About Boas

Please see my reply to you on the talk page.--Gilisa 20:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi

It's been a long time. I was wondering if you could email me. Danny 10:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate your dropping over to my talk page to give me your perspective on the edit wars at the Jesus and myth articles. I figured you would provide an unbiased thought. Several other editors jumped in to bring back the article to a previous level. My concern was not necessarily the edits themselves, but the method by which they single handedly changed the article. Anyways, I'm catching up on my busy talk page, and I wanted to get back to you. Thanks again. Orangemarlin 08:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Need your input at Race and intelligence

SLR, if you wouldn't mind dropping by the talk page of Race and Intelligence, there is a user by the name of Skywriter who seems as upset by the article as Alun was about the article on Race. I'm afraid I'm not very good at handling those situations, so a third-party input from you might be something that may help smooth out things (the user is rather hostile currently, partly my fault). Thanks!--Ramdrake 00:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Your input wanted re: Terminology: God - Yahweh - YHWH

Hi there, SLR. Our paths haven't crossed of late, but I recall that you've done a lot of editing in this subject area. So I thought you might take a minute or two to offer your thoughts over at Talk:Temple Mount#Terminology: God - Yahweh - YHWH. I've found myself caught up in a tiny imbroglio with a young, ultra-orthodox guy who is quite certain that there is only one valid perspective. (surprise, surprise!). A few words of wisdom would be much appreciated -- at least by me. :) Regards, Cgingold 12:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, in case you haven't got the page watchlisted, I thought you would like to know that I've just now posted a reply to your last comments. Cgingold 12:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply -- much appreciated. If it's alright with you, I'd like to post it to the article's talk page as well. Cgingold 12:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikibreak

Hi. I was really glad of our discussion and I think we covered a lot of very good ground. Indeed I think we have reached a good understanding of how the Race article should proceed. I think I might want to contribute a bit to the section about the distribution of genetic variation, clustering and such like, on the whole though I thought that the suggestions you made were very good and constructive. I generally think I need a break, I have been finding it more difficult to assume good faith recently and I think it's probably down to a bit of wiki burn out, I also don't have as much time as I would like to contribute, and for article slike Race that are constantly changing it is very difficult to keep up to date with the talk page if one cannot check it frequently. My personal opinion about the Race article is similar to your I think. If we agree that:

• Identification of group membership based on Y chromosomal and mtDNA lineages is a social construct. The debate about how this form of genetic testing is changing the way people think about their "race" can be included in the social construct section, and there are the articles by Nadia Abu el Haj and others that can be used to inform this discussion.
• The section "Race as subspecies" should clearly state that in biology (not necessarily in medicine) it is usual that "race" and subspecies are synonymous, this is a taxonomic concept. We can also point out that occasionally "race" is used to mean differentiation below the subspecies level, but that this is unusual. We should also probably include several definitions of subspecies here, including Templeton's 1998 definition. I suspect that it is fair to point out here that biologists think that our level of differentiation as a species is too superficial for any human populations to be cnsidered subspecies. I suppose it is fair to point out that we are all taxonomically classified as Homo sapiens sapiens, so at least at the moment we are taxonomically all the same subspecies.
• A section about the "Distribution of genetic variation" can be included that is separate from the "Race as subspecies" section. I suggest that this section contains most of the information regarding clustering analyses by Rosenberg and Tang and Risch etc. This used to be mainly in the section about "lineages". I think this is because there may have been some feeling (possibly by RIK?) that clustering is de facto proof of populations deriving from discrete reproductively isolated founder populations, and that the descendants of these populations remained reproductively isolated for very long periods of time. This assumption would fit well with Templeton's definition of subspecies. I think the problem here is that this claim is not made by any published scientific source, it seems to be some sort of assumption made by a Wikipedia editor. I don't think there is any evidence that this assumption is supported by any of the cited literature. So all in all I think this should have it's own section, it could also be mentioned that this work is mainly about how medical treatment can be modified depending on the culture and geographical origins of the ancestors of the individual in question. I think I'd quite like to do some work on this section because I have read quite a lot of the papers about it and there is a lot of disinformation about this work. Some people (not published reliable sources) keep claiming that it "proves" Carleton Coon was right and such nonsense.

Besides doing some editing to this one particular section of the article I think I'm going to take a bit of a break. Maybe I'll come back in the Autumn but I'll have to see. If I do I may try to participate only in small tidy up excercises. I might have a go at making some maps of the clustering analysis data as this seems to be a better way to present these data. Hope this is OK with you, I'll still check my talk page if you want to have a chat about something, it's mainly editing and talk pages I want to avoid. Have a good Summer. All the best. Alun 06:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe

Maybe we should remove both sections and speak more generally of this subject? what do you think? XGustaX 17:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Prophet

I tried to add a section on Heschels view of the divine pathos. It's hard to do justice to the towering poem-philosphy of Heschel in a short paragaph. Do you mind looking in on it and seeing what can be done? Wolf2191 21:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding.

1.Do you mind looking at my section on divine pathos in the prophet page? 2. Do you recall Heschel mentioning a dislike of the term Old Testament (implying supercessionism) in an essay in "Moral Grandeur.."? I would like to add it to the Hebrew Bible page. 3. You might use Meyer Waxman's "History of Jewish Literature" vol. 5 (limited on google books_)to expand the Heschel page maybe I will try during vacation. 4. I've always thought Heschel's essay on pluralism in "No Religion is an Island" to be one of his most important works for the modern age.

BestWolf2191 02:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The essays are in "Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity" edited by Susannah Heschel.Wolf2191 13:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Rogue Admin

Please see my User talk:68.110.8.21 and User_talk:Akhilleus#WP:POINT.2C_WP:HOAX.2C_WP:PN.2C_WP:BIAS. Wikipedia seriously needs your help Slr. Thanks. 68.110.8.21 03:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Protestant POV pushing at Template:Books of the Old Testament

Just thought you might be interested in User:Alastair Haines attempts to push a Protestant POV at Template:Books of the Old Testament, see for example [2]. 75.14.208.224 19:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

essay

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_role_of_policies_in_collaborative_anarchy&oldid=122256157

Hi,

I like your essay. Do you, by the way, have any idea how we as a community could solve the endless conspiracy information wars? I would say that our community has found the theoretical way to deal with these controversial subjects:

• describe events mainly from the mainstream bias
• include the non-mainstream bias fairly and equally
• attribute views to bodies and persons, do not take a standpoint (view) as wikipedia
• do not indulge in speculation, but let the facts speak for themselves.

However, what I see is:

• articles on widely-known subjects are deleted for "non-notability"
• e.g. the September 11, 2001 attacks are refusing any fact which is unsupportive of the article's view.

— Xiutwel (talk) 10:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! It helps.
Could you perhaps give a hint how to counter, or when to accept, this one:

Including this fact / factoid in the article would give it undue weight

I cannot think of anything objective to discuss undue with, i.e. the proportionality of NPOV. Perhaps opinion polls? — Xiutwel (talk) 12:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Samuel of Nehardea

I did some editing on that page. The question of to what (if any) extent a Tanna's Halachic statements reflect his personality was subject of a fierce discussion between S.R. Hirsch and Graetz. Hirsch insisting that the Tanna was simply repeating a Mesorah and offering numerous proofs of inconsistency in Graetz's work. Since most of the JE articles base themselves on Chochmas Yisroel position (Graetz's side), I was wondering if a brief statement that Hirsch disagrees with this method of deducting Tannaitic biography (If I can get a Collected writings vol. 6 some more specific points)would be in place with WP standards.ThanksWolf2191 16:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Since there are a good many pages that contain the Graetz "POV", How Could I best implement this? Should I add a section to the Hirsch page on his controversy with Graetz's method of biographical "exegesis" (there isn't any yet) and then add a reference that section on the appropriate pages? Or is it best to simply add a brief statement mentioning Hirsch's disagreement with aforementioned exegetical method?

I'm not certain if the background of the debate need be mentioned in this case. I agree with you that the disagreement with Graetz (and Frankel) represent the (orthodox) weltanschaung of Hirsch that the ENTIRE Oral Torah (with all details- Rashi beginning B'Har) was given at Sinai (This is actually why Hirsch went to great lengths in Horeb to fit the Rabbinical details of the Mitzvoh in his reasoning of the mitzvoh), thus any statement made by an Amorah is passing on a Tradition, not stating his own view (and would not reflect his personal biases). Whereas Graetz (following Frankel (following Krochmal)) work with the thesis that believes the Talmud was to a large part the exegetical work of the Pharisees (back to the old conundrum of "Innovators or Preservers" mentioned on the pharisees page). Thus a statement made by a Pharisee would represent (to an extent) his own bias.

That is my own understanding of the dispute but I don't know of any "real" studies on the issue thus it's OR. What do you suggest? ThanksWolf2191 03:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I've done some editing to the "critical method" section of the Talmud page. It was\is a tremendously central issue to the developement of Modern Judaism. It still needs much more work.

I've just got Heschel's Heavenly Torah... I imagine that there should be much relevnt information there. BestWolf2191 21:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Documentary Hypothesis

I added a section on some of the attempts to reconcile the DH with traditional beliefs. Do you mind giving it a look? BestWolf2191 20:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

SL, There is some disagreement on whether the section is appropriate for that page (See talk page there). I think that since it takes into account all the facts that the critics do, but with a different interpetation, it has a place on the DH page. What do you think?, Thanks Wolf2191 13:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The Lord our God

Do you happen to know the Hebrew (English transliteration) for "The Lord our/your God", as used in Deuteronomy? Wenham says Wellhausen says this is D's characteristic phrase for the Deity, equivalent to J's YHWH and E's Elohim. (I don't imagine YHWH Elohimni would be anywhere close? Oh well...) Thanks in advance, PiCo 16:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy reply; I've corrected the Documentary hypothesis article accordingly. On a tangential issue, I have a personal theory which I'd like to float by you: Genesis explains the chan ge of name from Abram to Abraham as being a new meaning, "Father of Multitudes", but it's not: so far as I can discover, Abraham means nothing at all in Hebrew. My thought is that the form ABRHM might actually be a fossilised archaic voweling of ABRM, using H as a marker for a long /a/, telling the reader that the pronunciation is "Abraam", as opposed to any other vowel (I'm thinking in terms of Arabic, where vowels were only comparatively recently introduced). A later scribe, seeing this, might have thought that the H was an /h/, and given it another vowel all its own: ABRaHaM. As you might guess, I'm no Hebrew linguist, (nor any other sort), but I'd be interested in your reaction. PiCo 16:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments

I noted some of your questions on the Holocaust article and thought you might be interested in this. – Dreadstar † 18:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, thanks for the message. I think your suggestion regarding reorganising the "Race" article is excellent. I'd be happy to work onit with you. At first I'll have a go at making a draft of the changes on one of my user sub pages, this might take a little while as I ca only devote a little time each day to it. We can work on it together and hopefully propose the changes on the talk page for race when we are happy with it, what do you think? All the best. Alun 05:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Jesus talk page

In response to your note on my talk page: That's probably a good idea. From what I've seen of that debate, it's grown quite a bit of anger and indignance around it; so I think staying away and letting it calm down is a good idea. I admire your restraint! =David^(talk)_(contribs) 14:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Pharisees

The context in Sotah a list of false saintly actions and then "Beware of the Tzvuin (the fakers) who do the actions of Zimri and then request reward like Phineas" does imply that there were a class of false pietists.

What was the Mishna in Avot you mentioned? (RE: Paul\Saul there is some form of tradition that he was actually a Pharisee who was sent by the Rabbis to seperate the Christians from the rest of the Jews (because the early Christians were very similar to the Jews). They say for instance that he initiated the change from Saturday to Sunday (I thought Constantine did that.)Wolf2191 02:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

BC/BCE, etc.

Thanks for your personal message. I wrote my comments on the Jesus discussion page before reading any of the above material, and hoped by having it hard-left in the column that everyone would not think I was attempting a response to any above statements. Since then I've read quite a bit of that material, and I know I didn't say anything revolutionary, but I may have made a somewhat unique point.

I completely understand your reasons for your position. However, if the terms BCE/CE didn't exist you'd probably ignore the significance of BC/AD, just as Christians ignore the sources of so many other date-related words (I once met a woman from Armenia who said that in her sect, all weekdays are referred to only by number--Firstday, Secondday, etc.--to avoid the use of pagan names, but this is my only brush with such extremism among Christians).

I, too, don't expect to change your mind, but I would like to return the courtesy of explaining the reasons for my position. I think the original promotion of the BCE/CE terminology was an outright attack on either the historicity or divinity of Jesus, and an effort to undermine the foundation of Western culture. This does seem to be a primary goal of many, if not most, liberal arts professors and university administrators. I don't think you share their motives, but you're not the one who invented the term or made it such an article of faith for academics. As I alluded, if others hadn't already politicized the issue, I don't think it would even occur to anyone as reasonable as yourself that it was an issue at all. I've certainly never met any Christian who believed using BC/AD was a confession of faith.

It's notable that, while BCE/CE is the standard in academia, it's not the standard in any encyclopedia I've read (it's not even a standard in Wiki). Even in newspapers, which of late are increasingly partisan and politically correct, BC/AD is considered fine. As a journalist, I tend to hew toward AP style, of course. It's generally pretty reasonable.

Again, thanks for your personal note. It's nice to see such courtesy, which indicates assumption of good faith. It also encourages me to assume good faith in others. Preston McConkie 12:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Snakes

Its in Avot 2:14- the full quote " Warm yourself before the fire of the sages, but be heedful of their glowing coals for fear that you be burned, for their bite is the bite of a jackal and their sting the sting of a scorpion and their hiss the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like coals of fire."

Compare also this statement of R' Yochanan bar Nafcha‎ - ואמר רבי יוחנן משום ר' שמעון בן יהוצדק כל תלמיד חכם שאינו נוקם ונוטר כנחש אינו תלמיד חכם - translated (Rodkinson) as "A scholar who is not revengeful and remembers not injuries as a serpent, cannot be called "Talmud Hakham" (a teacher)."

This statement was not an insult (as you seem to understand it) but an expression of awe at the tremendously holy nature of the Pharisees that one must be very careful in relating to them.(compare all the stories in the Talmud - after in insult - the Pharisee looked at him and turned him into a pile of bones.)

Jesus seemed to be making a double entendre - he was using the Pharisees self reference to themselves as snakes against them. If he was in truth making a pun then he might not have meant to be quite as deragatory as it would appear.

Yet another snake reference (Shabbos 63a) אמר ר' שמעון בן לקיש אם תלמיד חכם נוקם ונוטר כנחש הוא חגריהו על מתניך - translation "If thy teacher is jealous (for thy welfare) and as spiteful as a serpent (if thou neglect thy studies), carry him on thy shoulders (because from him thou wilt learn)" - The interpretation in the parentheses seems incorrect (some sort of apologetics?). The correct explanation is that the Pharisees needed to uphold an awe-inspiring image of themselves in order that their transmission of the Oral Torah be accepted.

In so far as the arguments between the Pharisees - I refer you to the statement Eiruvin 14b "Because the members of the school of Hillel were modest and patient, and would always repeat the words of the school of Shammai. Not alone this; but they also always gave the school of Shammai precedence when citing their teachings". There certainly wasn't any harsh vindicative comments of the sort that Jesus used (though the accuracy of the transmission of Jesus's teachings in the Gospels is dubious being as Jesus wasn't even alive when they were written. In truth given the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees detailed in the Yeshu article. Jesus would have had a bone to pick withh the Pharisees for not accepting his repentance when offered.) But the later Amoraim did use terms such as "blockhead" and the like. So your point may be correct. Best.Wolf2191 15:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Cassuto

Sl, Where does Cassuto ( an oral tradition and a number of ancient poetic epics, which were subsequently woven into the unitary and artistic texts of the Pentateuch and other biblical books) stand in the discussion of Mosaic Authorship? Does he believe these ancient "epics" were written by Moses? the oral tradition was from Moses? (I don't quite understand why he didn't just accept a main text from Moses with some various oral traditions added in later (by accident?) to account for some of the doubles (1,2 Genesis,etc.))

Second, Would you count Wellhausen as anti-semitic (the NEJ does and I added it to the Wellhausen page) or merely pro-protestant? BestWolf2191 16:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

ARCHAEOLOGY

Hi do you think the reason why some UK archaeology departments merge with anthropology is because those universities move towards the US model, or is it for administrative purposes?

The Manchester University Archaeology Department is part of the School of Art History and Archaeology, but the two do not have much in common. Conversely, the Sheffield University archaeology dept. is first and foremost an archaeology one, despite having biological anthropologists as part of its staff.

Two conclusions: firstly, I would like to see more Archaeology Departments, which do not require another subject to stick to, which means an independent archaeology. Archaeology has as much to do with the social sciences as with the humanities (because an archaeology is either humanistic or it is nothing) as with the natural sciences. So, where does archaeology fit?

Secondly, while archaeology in the US has more to with a systemic understanding of social change, in Europe this understanding is cultural - as culture, or history. The right position in my opinion is somewhere in the middle.

I was possibly irrelevant, but it's 4.54 am.! Cheers, Panos.