User talk:Slrubenstein/archive 2

When you get a chance, please read the new note on the Talk:Bible_translations page about using quotes from the Hebrew Bible as well as from the New Testament. RK

Thanks for calling the Creeping supernaturalization article to my attention. The same user has recently introduced a number of related articles, including Virgin Birth.

What's most frustrating to me is that they cover material we've already covered elsewhere and worked hard to come up with a balanced presentation, and now it seems we need to start that work all over, or else do some copying/pasting/redirecting to consolidate the material.

I've also started uncontroversial articles like Church Fathers, which you hadn't got round to doing yourself. You didn't find anything to object to there, and thanks for adding "Desert Fathers" etc. Jacquerie27 17:26 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

I wish that controversial subjects like that could be covered in depth in just one place, and if someone thinks it needs work then work on it there instead of beginning again under a new title. Wesley

Other articles by the same author, Supernaturalism and Argument from silence are similarly controversial. I don't like seeing them go away entirely; and neither do I like seeing articles fill up with the back-and-forth that should go into Talk. I agree with Wesley that with a little focus, these topics can be gathered into an appropriate place where they can be filled out in more depth. Mkmcconn 19:53 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I like the stuff you've added to Virgin Birth on possible mistranslations :-) -- Tarquin 08:10 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

NPOV does not mean dragging those into conversations who are likely to agree with you. Both Wesley and RK are religious and, as such, likely to be opposed to religious-critical perspectives. You know that -- this is why you repeatedly invited both to share their views on Supernaturalization, which you want removed. If you are truly interested in NPOV and want to elicit a response from the broader Wikipedia community, and not just those who support your POV, I suggest you use an open forum, such as Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing or Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Back-room alliances are not exactly the way to build an encyclopedia. --Eloquence 17:44 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Eloquence, you are out of line in a number of ways. First, I was not making "back-room" alliances. Had I wanted to do that, I would have e-mailed Wesley and RK personally, rather than writing on their talk pages which is pretty public and "front-room." All Wikipedia pages are open. Second, I wrote to them specifically because I respect their opinions and their knowledge of the scholarly literature on religion, the history of religion, theology, and the Bible. I solicited their opinion because if they told me I was wrong in this case, I would stop pressing my points; and given that you just made some sincere (I trust)points yourself, I am not sure whether they will still agree with me or not. I did not write to them because I thought they would agree with me, merely that I think they understand me. And I see nothing wrong with soliciting the views of people I respect, and whom I believe understand where I am coming from. Third, I do not not "want to elicit a response from the broader Wikipedia community;" I just do not see any need to elicit a response. Everything has been open and above-board, and all interested members of the community (e.g. yourself) has seen where I have written, and has been able to read and respond to it. I simply trust anyone who wants to contribute will, and I especially take for granted that anyone who strongly disagrees with me will express themselves. As I said, it is precisely because RK and Wesley agreed with me before that I solicited their view, because if they now disagree with me I want that to be made clear. Finally, unless I really misunderstand you , you are really, really, really wrong to say that I appeal to them because they they are likely to agree with be because they are likely to be opposed to religious-critical perspectives. Given that I criticized the article because it assumed that the ten plagues really occurred just because it says so in the Bible, and that I compared the Bible to Moby Dick, and effectively called the ten plagues a fiction, your point is both ignorant and surreal. Slrubenstein

From a Wikipedia perspective, user talk pages are as back room as it gets. They are typically ignored by outsiders because they primarily contain private messages, and are difficult to follow without context. This is why I refer to such discussions as "back room alliances", as opposed to an open mention on a page like Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing or Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, both of which are tailored for the purpose of dealing with pages like Supernaturalization.

Of course you respect their opinions and knowledge -- I accept that. But here at Wikipedia, we try to build an encyclopedia from a neutral point of view, which means that we have to set our personal prejudices aside and work toward a common goal of writing neutral articles. This is made more difficult if users with a shared perspective argue and appear in groups. Had I not noticed the supernaturalization page, which could have easily happened, it might be gone by now -- simply because the author was too overwhelmed by resistance from three people simultaneously to effectively defend himself. He might even have gotten the impression that you were somehow representative of the Wikipedia community, when in reality you deliberately created a selection bias which you did not mention on the talk page. I was especially annoyed by your blanking of the article, which I generally consider to be a bad practice. Articles should either be edited or listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion.

[I]t is precisely because RK and Wesley agreed with me before that I solicited their view, because if they now disagree with me I want that to be made clear. It is noble of you to seek the understanding of those who share your views; it would be even more noble if you would also seek the arguments of those who do not.

I believed that I was getting the arguments of people who disagree with me on the talk pages of the article in question. I also stated my argument, clearly and politely, but do not feel that the author of the article responded to any of my points. As for blanking or deleting the page -- I did not and will not nominate the page for deletion because I have no reason to believe the article should be deleted; perhaps there is a place for an article on supernaturalization. I blanked it because none of the content seemed to have scholarly merit. I still believe that it misrepresents both the history of religion and critical scholarship on religion, and is POV. If anyone adds any content that is NPOV and reflects current scholarship, I'd be quite happy. Slrubenstein

You are really, really, really wrong to say that I appeal to them because they they are likely to agree with be because they are likely to be opposed to religious-critical perspectives. I hope so. Maybe it's just a bad coincidence and selective perception on my part. --Eloquence 18:42 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

So that I don't interpret your silence as disagreement, I'd like to have your opinion on my disagreement over the new material in [[Supernaturalization]], found in Talk:Supernaturalization Mkmcconn 21:38 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

SR, I have followed your exchange with J with interest. Little by little WikiLove is prevailing, and the article(s) on naturalism/supernaturalism will generally improve as a result. At the moment, I think that E's decision to reorganize most of the material under Supernatural was a master stroke, judging subjectively, by how my own concerns melted away as a result. Some minor need for re-organization remains; and some of the examples under "supernaturalization" are still POV. As you've pointed out repeatedly, editors need to agree that it is not informative or even interesting to write that some people see as "supernatural" events which others see as "natural". Mkmcconn 17:59 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

We are trying to increase the number of people who are Wikipedia Administrators. Until now, we've been relying on users to take the initiative to ask for this access themselves but this has resulted in a slow rate of Admin rank expansion. So we've gone ahead nominated and approved you and several other long-time users for the account upgrade. This means that your fellow Wikipedians feel that you are a responsible, well-known, and fair-minded user.

Agreeing to be an Administrator does not mean that you are expected to do any additional work above and beyond what you do now ; It just means that we trust you to to have certain privileges and responsibilities that can't be entrusted to random users (such as editing the Main Page, protected policy pages, or banning the IPs of vandals).

All we need from you now is your consent. You can either send an email to WikiEN-L (preferred) or simply state "I agree" on the bottom of this page.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

Congratulations, you are now a sysop! Please see Wikipedia:Administrators for our sysop guidelines before using your new and amazing powers (esp. page deletion and protection). --Eloquence 03:51 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Are you interested in a long-term project on the Industrial Revolution page? There's no doubt that it's on the superficial side. If you decide to come over, do you want to focus on a special area? I'd be interested in its relation to politics and changing economic and social structures, which I'm sure is no surprise. We could focus on specialized areas to save time and so that we could all share the burden of writing what should be, in the end, one of the most detailed articles on this site. Tannin's also interested in completely revamping it, so you'd be in good company. A good long term project like this would be a good way of us both celebrating reaching sysop status.172

Thanks for the response. I thought that it would be along the lines of your interests because we often work on similar scopes of articles. I wish that it were because you always contribute to scholarly articles, especially ones with a socio-economic and socio-political dimension lacking in so many others, like Industrial Revolution in its present form. I'd be really happy to see you do a little on accumulation, and I'd be very happy to integrate it with the rest of the text as well. That's exactly what the article needed anyway, namely an analysis of economic processes. 172

Steve
Thanks for saving me from being the first new sysop that made a boo-boo<G>. I was sure I'd be the first to do some permanent damage - actually I suppose that's still a position that's open! Anyway, with regard to [[Prime Minister of the United States]], yes I did nominate it on Votes for Deletion, where it stayed for 2 days. Here were the comments:

• Prime Minister of the United States: pages for things that don't exist create a special sort of problem for Wikipedia, since the very existence of an article implies that the subject has some importance outside of the mind of the person who created it. Once created they are rarely deleted, but I'd like to suggest that this is an article you would never find in a printed encyclopedia, and one we'd be better off without. -- Someone else 04:23 May 8, 2003 (UTC)
  • I am finding some interesting new items while trying to fix this article. Let me struggle with it for a night and see what happens. Kingturtle 04:42 May 8, 2003 (UTC) P.S. I disagree that a printed encyclopedia should be our barometer.
  • It's already a very interesting article! Double-quoting "Prime Minister" would make for a bit less puzzling title, but a Wikipedia strength is that not all articles are dry-as-dust recitations. BTW, it reminds me that I once read an interview with the descendant of the might-have-been King of the United States (Founding Fathers apparently shopped around a bit before deciding to stick with just a President.) Stan 03:47 May 9, 2003 (UTC)
  • This is now a superb article that is well worth keeping. ÉÍREman 03:58 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

If you think you could make a more persuasive case for deletion, or find a better name for the article, or find a place to move the interesting bits to, more power to you! -- Someone else 18:11 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

I agree on the "might" "could have" as well - but I think they beat "were" and "have been". Sometimes once a personal essay has been shown to be unsalvagable it gets moved to "meta" where at least it's out of the Wikipedia. There's a great reticence to actually delete anything. And yes, superb is not a word I'd use to describe the article in any of the states it's been in. I'll continue to lend moral support on the talk page <G>. -- Someone else 18:25 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Hey SLR: Just to let you know I'm following the war going on at Genetic drift, and I pretty fairly agree with your versions (although I would not always call them brilliant prose, but that's what you get in the middle of an edit war). 168 is certainly difficult to deal with, however, and I'm not sure how to do it... Graft 15:43 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say I'm not ignoring you, SLR. I'll slip over and have another look at GD when I manage to get a free hour and a clear head - both at the same time, which is rare! My initial inclination, though, is to wait till the mother hen gets bored and then copyedit it for clarity. With the revert-mania happening, I'm not keen on wasting ages getting the expression clear, only to have it all thrown straight out the window gain. Best -- Tannin

Fine by me, but who can say what sets him/her off. Graft 16:08 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Excuse me, User talk:Slrubenstein,sir, but you reverted my work on Clovis I without explanation. Ms. JHK agreed it was pretty darn good so would you mind posting a reason why you delted my hard work. Thank you, sir. Triton

Hi SL - again, I think that Triton has (perhaps wilfully) misinterpreted what I said. In the talk page discussions, I said that he had put in some very good information, but that I thought some checking needed to be done because parts of it appeared to have been lifted or very closely paraphrased from other sources. One of my reasons for thinking this was because it looked like there were chunks that were just pluged in, although they disturbed the chronology already in the article. Moreover, some of it was just badly written, like the sentence about marrying Audofleda -- from this sentence, one might suppose Clovis had married Audofleda -- wrong -- Audofleda married Theod.

There are also some more examples of editing problems on the Merovingian dynasty talk page. As I said, it's not that the information is wrong, but it's just so much better to rewrite entirely and with authority when one is calm and has time. I don't really see that there is a rush to do this, and the more time we spend putting out fires, the less time there is to revise articles. Thanks for the revert! JHK

You're "editing for style" on the Clovis page was a lot more than that, I think. The wording as it was was rather clunky, I agree, but changing it from the "french national tradition" to "tradition among French nationalists" is a big change, and, I think, a POV one, given the negative connotations of being a "nationalist." Furthermore, Clovis was considered the first King of France in traditions that go back well before the emergence of modern nationalism. john 21:07 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Good start at the Narcisistic Personality Disorder page. But it needs major wikification. Is this according to DSM-IV? In general, we should get rid of the pasive voice and replace it with more informative content. Is this disorder recognized by all psychiatrists? Clinical psychologists? Only some psychologists? Slrubenstein

Sam:

Thanks, Slrubenstein. Yes, as the article states, the criteria reflect the latest Text Revision of the DSM (DSM IV-TR, 2000). NPD is a personality disorder and an official diagnosis of the DSM. I am the author of a textbook on this disorder ("Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"). And thanks for the minor editing, too. I appreciate it. Take care!

Could you take a look at the Race article? An anon user is making some changes you may not like. --mav

Slr, I have made some changes (hopefully improvements) to the Judeo-Islamic tradition article. Also, please note that I have refrained from making any changes or additions on the areas we have been disagreeing on. I view our discussions and disagreements on the Talk pages as an opportunity for clarification. We then can add text describing certain positions once we hammer a few things out. In the rabbinic terminology, this is the best kind of intellectual disagreement, "a dispute for the sake of heaven". (Of course, intellectual disagreements recorded in the Talmud are sometimes less polite than the ones we are having, so we might not even qualify as having a dispute!) RK 13:45 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Slr, I have revised my comments in the Talk:Judeo-Islamic tradition discussion page. I want to make sure that I focus on specific issues and specific arguments. I just find this entire topic more emotionally involving than even religious topics. (Its been years since being called a "heretic" has bothered me, but I still reach for my (metaphorical) gun when I hear someone talk about social constructions...) RK 16:26 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

From my Talk page, you write: "But I genuinely didn't think my saying so would hurt or offend you." And you didn't; I was more worried that I had offended or hurt you. RK 19:36 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I am concerned with the article on biological evolution, which is pretty good. Unfortunately, someone set up a parallel article called Theory of evolution; it seems to me that this violates Wikipedia NPOV policy. This alternate evolution article isn't creationist, but it is very problematic. When you get a chance, please see the note I added in there: Talk:Theory of evolution. RK 23:14 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

just for the record, the article on theory of evolution is *older* than the one on evolution. It would be problematic to say the older one is violating Wikipedia NPOV (can't see the relationship with NPOV here) just for existing before the second one :-)

please Slr, also read RK note on the topic here, and in particular notice the sentence "When people want to learn about a very technical genetics and evolution topic such as speciation, we can assume that they do not want to study the mystical views of a Jesuit Christian priest from a century ago!"

I see not why people would not be interested to know more about history and - apology here - christian views.

Also, I am concerned when I see some people change links in science articles, which takes people away from the article on evolution, and instead directs them to a page that is non-scientific. For instance, speciation is a technical scientific topic in evolutionary biology. This article requires a link to our article on biological evolution. So why does User:Anthere insist on removing the link to evolution, and replacing it with a link to the more problematic theory of evolution article? That latter article is missing most of the science and details, and replaces science details with discussions on mysticism and Gaia theory. This makes no sense to me. When people want to learn about a very technical genetics and evolution topic such as speciation, we can assume that they do not want to study the mystical views of a Jesuit Christian priest from a century ago! Such a link seems, to me, to mislead encyclopedia readers for the purpose of promoting a certain political or religious agenda. RK 23:14 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I answered on the speciation talk page. Notice that I am similarly concerned of seeing people "entirely" remove links to theory of evolution, to provide "two" links in the same article to evolution. It appears to me non-fair and a try to direct people only to one page, and refuse them the possibility to expand their perspectives in a logical manner that willingness to learn more should naturally lead to. I think trying to push people away off christian views is also promoting a certain political and religious agenda. Somehow. User:anthere

When RK comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (for real this time) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴&#30505sv 22:59, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)

OK. I added him to the list, and Erik wiped it after a couple people quickly started voicing their dissent, which made me think it over more clearly and take it more seriously and, obviously -- more vocally. I'm short on time -- I will explain a bit further later today. -Toda. -戴&#30505sv 18:44, Aug 17, 2003 (UTC)

Good morning Steve.

I thank you for your kind words. Of course, I have no problem with your opinion, and thank you for just speaking up quietly the worries you could feel. I have no reason to be hurt by your comments. I was just interested by other directions, other suggestions that anyone could offer. I think the current way of conflict resolution is ideal, but from time to time, it does not work very well. Previous discussions on the topics were just in the halt, I thought it was no crime to promote discussion again. Last time I did so, was on the Daniel C. Boyer issue, and no one felt the need to participate at all in the topic. This time, it is thought so bad I deserve being blocking for voicing concerns. It is not very big deal perhaps, but I also always have in mind that we have no GodKing on international wikipedias, and we need some process. Very little people take time to mediate conflict; I do so from time to time, but there are always some users who confuse this activity, with actively supporting a bad user. But if I do not do this, all "unusual" people are rejected. Now with Tim option, they will perhaps be banned; On the french wikipedia, we have far less variety than on en. For example, there are several religions represented here, with several levels of involvement. On the french wiki, we only have a couple of very lucky warm catholics and one very moderate muslim. No other religions I am aware of. So, whenever someone holding a faith appears, or belonging to a cult, he is rather badly received, and neutrality is often interpretated as "removing" opinion to make a good "pc" article. At the same time, the user is personally attacked. This is getting better, because of a couple of people good work on the neutrality matter, but still...personal attacks and group rejection is very vivid.
I counted on the many people around here to enlighten me on what to do on the topic. I learned from you and 168, I tried to adopt Ed tactics; I hoped to see other ideas on how to handle mediation issues. That was all. Thank you

Anthère

As a rule of order, you have to unprotect page before editing it. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Not a big deal. Lirath Q. Pynnor