Ed Poor

Ed, I edited the Shankill Butchers page, with still a little more to do. ."What do you think?

Accolades

I think it is very sad to see you leave. --Elian

Sorry to see you go, Ed. -- Sam

We'll miss you. I haven't always agreed with everything you've said, but I'm sad to see you go (if, indeed, you're going). Stormwriter

Thanks for your support, Ed. I think Lyndon and I saw eye to eye at last. :-) -- Zoe

Please don't go - Wikipedia needs you. --mav

I concur. Please don't leave. --Stormwriter

Ed, I thank you for your apologies, and accept them. Anthere

The Recent Unpleasantness

Mav, Stormy, Anthere, thank you for your kind comments.

I'm discouraged by a number of things. The straw that broke the camel's back yesterday was the vandalism over the weekend. I have to decide whether to embrace the soft security idea -- advocated by those polar opposites, Jimbo and Cunctator -- or wait for better hard security.

Actually, either one would work, although each has a different mix of good and bad features.

Hard security reduces vandalism and thus mitigates the fatigue of impatient contributors (people like Julie, Larry, Mav and others who tire of cleaning up after those who frustrate their efforts with pointless page moves and non-NPOV edits). But it makes Wikipedia less accessible, and totally inaccessible to people who can't meet criteria such as "has a valid e-mail address" and "answers their e-mail").

Soft Security has none of the accessibility drawbacks of hard security, but it makes cleaning up after vandals a chore.

The question is, and it would be ad hominem to ignore it just because the person who keeps raising it the most is Cunctator -- the question is, I say, how to conduct a well-organized, useful and effective soft security campaign. Larry and the other pioneers used to joke about a "cabal" (but the joke became stale after a while).

Soft security is harder to do. It requires forethought and consistency. It may be analagous to child time-out, which I used so effectively in my Sunday School class after weeks of floundering around trying other things that didn't work. Reverting an "improper edit" is like a time-out in some ways, especially if a sysop locks the page in question. Hmm, maybe this is hard security. Anyway, whatever we call it: if Jimbo maintains the current security policy -- which I think is likely, since he never even ran the TMC namechange script -- we then have to work with what we have.

Well, this is as far as I've thought it out for now. But I probably will take some advice I received in a private e-mail -- thanks, cowboy! ;-) -- and lie low for a while.

--Ed Poor 14:25 Nov 19, 2002 (UTC)

I know this would not eliminate edit wars and the problem of folks moving pages on a whim, but what if the ability to edit entries was limited to those who had user names and were logged in? That is to say, someone with a registered name like User:Stormwriter or User:Ed Poor could edit, but someone with an anonymous IP address like 125.xxx.xx.xx could not. I know we have long-time contributors who prefer to remain anonymous behind their IP addresses, but perhaps we could grandfather them in. Would this be soft security, or hard? Stormwriter

It would be "hard security", and is currently being discussed on the mailing list. November's discussion archive is here. --Ed]

New Talk

Just so you know Ed. The naming convention for movies is to have the word movie in parens if another thing by the same names exists and to have (YEAR movie) if there are two movies with the same name. --mav

Thanks, Ed. I saw A Man Called Horse only once, and that was 32 years ago. KF 20:40 Nov 19, 2002 (UTC)

Fair enough -- and I think I anticipated you in my most recent deletion, Slrubenstein

passive disobedience is superior to violence! Lir 23:28 Nov 19, 2002 (UTC)

"A dirty mind is a joy forever." Eric Partridge. Ortolan88

well why dont we put the whole article into that correct spelling?Lir 23:58 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Hi Ed - of course I know who you are ;-) Thanks for your words, although I don't think, that I deserve the praise. Now I feel like having overreacted in that case. At that time Mirsa just repeated her edit again and again without any comment - so I took her actions for vandalism, probably erroneously. Let me say, that I was really impressed about the way, you settled the yesterday dispute on the Wagner article. I really appreciate your tolerance and patience towards other users - much more patience than I would use to have, unfortunately. In this case your way to settle the dispute was a nice success. I will learn my lesson and next time be less abusive towards a newbie - I promise ;-) -- Cordyph

Let's agree never to discuss gay rights, Ed. :-) --KQ

Okay, I've added that to my rather lengthy list of don'ts. Say, did you read on the mailing list where Jimbo said banning me is something to think about? ;-) --Ed

I wouldn't ban you, Ed. I would ban F.A., though. :-P --KQ

Why was it necessary to say "Zoe wants it gone" when you deleted something I put into the votes for deletion page? You make it sound like I'm being unreasonable. If you don't think it should be deleted, you can make a comment about it under my listing on the votes page. -- Zoe

I took this from RK's talk page because I want to answer you:

Are you sure? I've travelled in the Arab world and, while I encountered a lot of hatred towards Israel, I never heard a call for the destruction of Israel (except by _really_ fundamentalist people who behaved almost crazy). I heard a lot of Israel denying fundamental human rights to the Palestinians and Israel ignoring international law and about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, though. But this is only my personal impression I got from talking to people, maybe you have better sources for your statement. --Elian

I believe your reports of the "man in the street" encounters you've had. Nonetheless, the 3 wars and the insistence on creating a 2nd Arab state in Palestine certainly look like a desire to destroy Israel. --Ed Poor

Do you think you can equal the Egypt, Jordanian, Syrian and Iraq leadership from 1948 and the following years with "the Arab world" today? Yes, there was this desire, but I doubt if any serious arab politician today would earnestly try or desire to destroy Israel (he may, however, dream sometimes at night how nice it would be). And Ed, be serious, does this question really matter? It is a decision we have to make in wikipedia. Do we want to write from a "Stammtisch" point of view ("man in the street") and discussing extremist views or do we want a political analysis of facts and developments? I am sure, many German politicians dream at the moment about destroying the state budget deficit, Bush dreams about torturing Osama slowly to death, Saddam dreams the same about Bush, and an in the U.S. unknown conservative bavarian politician dreams of driving the mayor of Berlin with an accusation of homosexuality out of his office...

The insistence on the creation of a "second Arab state in Palestine" now is a totally different thing than a desire to destroy Israel. It rather stems from the wish of the Palestinians (=Arabs nationalists "there are no Palestinians") in the Israeli occupied territories Gaza and Westbank (=Judea and Samaria "Israeli controlled territories") to have an own state instead of being rightless subjects of Israeli military law, curfews, travel restrictions, arbitrary arrests, torture in prison and oppression (note that conditions in most Arab states aren't any better)this week in the Palestinian territories, please read. Please try to avoid thinking in terms of "black-and-white" ("the Arab hate the Jews, the Jews hate the Arabs..."), things are seldom so easy. now, bed time for me, good night :-) --Elian

This, re minor edits from 216:

I thought a minor edit included anything up to a short sentence or two.. sorry.

What's the rationale for keeping non-logged-in users from making minor edits? And where is this conversation happening? Thanks for the note. Graft

Ed, look at the way Clutch tampers with Lir's page. What authority has he to do so ? Is he a Wikipedia founder or something ? Really, I haven't heard of him before he tried to "correct" and "educate" Lir on her own pages.

I think such behaviour is borderline with respect to the spirit of Wikipedia.

I think Lir's pages should be 1. reverted to a version she and "the Wikipedians" (Clutch excepted) are likely to agree with and then 2. immediately protected, until she returns.

Whatever she has done, she deserves minimal respect.

I agree, Ed. Please protect the last non-Clutch version of Lir's user page. --Eloquence 11:12 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

Lir has shown, abundantly, that he does NOT respect the rest of us here on the Wikipedia. That is why he was banned in the first place. I showed more respect than I should have to the good work that Lir did do. I modified her page to remove the elements other Wikipedians found offensive, annoying, and irritating. EVERYTHING ELSE was left not only in-tact, but in better shape than I found it. --Clutch 11:10 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

Ed, my username may not be as inspiring as you think, but I appreciate your comments and your efforts at trying to find a common ground. It is truly hard for me to be objective when it comes to certain politicians, which is why I have gotten a little feisty on this subject, but I am open to your rewriting what I wrote to make it in a way that you find more balanced. soulpatch

Speaking of "balanced", try looking at this cartoon. --Ed

Well, I suppose he is balanced on that wheel, but the cartoonist isn't really that balanced in my opinion. ;) --Dante Alighieri

Uh, Ed, you totally nerfed the Harry Potter page, major formatting oopsy. --Dante Alighieri

Don't worry, I fixed it. --Eloquence, always watching ;-)

Thanks for waving your wand and saying Reparo, El. :-)

Bah, humbug. Magic is for the weak-minded, humanists use the scientific method :-D --Eloquence

The below is actually connected to the above. Somewhere in the article on Harry Potter or witchcraft I came across a red link to secular humanism. Eloquence's use of humanism above reminded me. Thus...

You know, there is no article on secular humanism... isn't that weird? Oh, btw, check out Exodus 22:18. --Dante Alighieri

Maybe because the term secular humanism is used by Christians to denounce humanism and atheism? Is it a loaded term like "pro-life"? --Ed

Of course it's a loaded term, and it IS used that way. That is why it is important to have an NPOV article on the term in the Wiki. Oh my god.... there is no article on pro-life... sigh... I'm gonna have to rectify this tomorrow if no one beats me to it. --Dante Alighieri

Does being pro-life mean being against the death sentence? :) --Clutch

Damn you and your humor! ;) I've always loved that anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty seem to be two positions held by many of the same people. --Dante Alighieri

The term "pro-life" is explained in the abortion article. --Ed

When I did a search for the term "pro-life", that did not show up on top.. maybe I need to make a redirect? But then again, isn't the controversy over the usage of that term worthy of it's own article?

There are at least 2 sentences in abortion about that controversy. Read the article, dude! --Ed

Fair enough... but pro-life and pro-choice in the search engine did not show the abortion article. Now they show up and redirect to it. --Dante Alighieri

Ed, I stumbled across this when looking for something else, and thought you'd find it interesting. Just don't turn Wikipedia into this kind of encyclopedia, ok? :) -- Stephen Gilbert 01:39 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

What part of Andy's proposal didn't you like? (You read the entire proposal, of course, didn't you? ;-)

Of course... quickly. I have it bookmarked to read it again more thoroughly. It's not that I don't like the proposal, but rather that it seems more like the Encyclopédie rather than a NPOV effort like Wikipedia. There is a stated mission to counter rationalistic Enlightenment values with a more spiritual and holistic effort. This is not a bad thing; it's just not our thing.

If you were thinking I didn't like it because it was a Unification Church proposal, I plead not guilty. I know almost nothing about the church, and don't have a particularly negative perception of it.

I think everyone contributing to Wikipedia would agree with the following:

"Readability is essential for a good encyclopedia. Articles will be edited for readability according to the standards of the industry. The Encyclopædia Britannica suffers on this score, as entries in their Macropædia are often written in dense, scientific prose that is unintelligible to all but a few specialists. Encyclopedias are not written for specialists, who have many specialized reference sources at their disposal. The audience for this encyclopedia should be laypeople and college students. They should find the articles interesting and enticing, making plain even the most esoteric subjects. To aid in the presentation of material, we will make use of copious illustrations, photographs, charts, and maps. We may also use sidebars and boxes to separate out essential technical or mathematical information which might otherwise obstruct the flow of the exposition. Entries should be easy to locate, through intelligent cross-references." [1] --Ed Poor

I almost entirely agree with that, except I don't find reading the Macropedia particularly difficult. :P -- Stephen Gilbert 02:21 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

I know that this is a too late response to your message sent in August, but due to my very busy schedule, I do not have much time to check my user talk page (to say the truth I did not even know that this page existed at all). I am planning to write a few paragraphs for both genocide and Armenian genocide pages. Since this is not my area of specialty and since this is a very easy subject to fall in the trap of populism and sentimentalism, I gave myself a certain time to reconsider the facts of both sides and write something as rationale as possible. Thanks for the encouragement. [[Erdem Tüzün]

Hello Ed, having been gone a while, I noticed, that you were recently ready to leave. I am glad, that you have 'recouperated' and are still here. It did me good to step back a while and not get 'sucked into all this'. You are a caring person and it is easy to get burned out. Ed, please don't get burned out, rather stay away and pace yourself inbetween, as needed. I plan to just occasionally drop in, but of course it is easier to stay away completely, than to drop in sometimes. I had left a sort of appreciation message for you, but do not know, if you received it. Anyway thanks for your previous kind messages. You are a fair person and you do not deserve to be ousted or whatever. User:H. Jonat

Monsieur, je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai jusqu'au bout pour que vous puissiez le dire (Voltaire)

Hi Ed. I 'm probably late and I think I recently missed something (I'm currently working on the it.wiki), but just wanted to tell you that I'm sincerely glad you decided to stay :-))) Gianfranco

Ed, if you send a message to a non-logged in user's (IP address only) talk page, how do they see you've sent it? I'm thinking about your note re the current user who is experimenting. Please feel to demonstrate to me if you can! (I won;t go and vandalise anything though!) 138.37.188.109 18:36 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

They don't, unless they a) check the Recent changes page, and b) recognize their own user name. There's currently no good way to notify anonymous users. --Eloquence

Ah, you have answered my point, E. (And thanks Ed for the note on "my" page!) So, is there no way of more directly getting an alert to a naughty/confused/etc user that (a) they have been noticed, (b) they are (perhaps inadvertently) damaging a resource about which people care, (c) there are ways of stopping them if need be etc? I think many of these things are probably kids and they may not understand the annoyance they cause, not that there are people watching them? 138.37.188.109 18:49 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Not really. But we may implement something soon, as the basic infrastructure is already in place: We have notification when Talk pages are changed (currently just a "*" behind the "Talk" link, but that can be made more user-friendly), anonymous users just don't get user+talk pages by default like everyone else. The rationale here is that an IP can be reassigned or shared, so it's not a reliable identifier. But I don't really see a problem with several anonymous users sharing one user+talk page, so anons might get a "you have new messages" link when someone writes something on their talk page.

Optimally, we would use cookies+unique hashes as part of the user identification, but I'm not going to code that. --Eloquence

OK and thanks. I do feel that a more noticeable form of warning - or just encouragement, looking at some of the nice things people write to try to encourage people to use it well - would be very useful. I will await developments with interest. 138.37.188.109 18:58 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. No one relishes the prospect of blocking an IP. And most of us still cling to the fond hope that anyone will be able to contribute without having to create a username and "log in". --Ed Poor

Ed, I would be grateful if you could give me an opinion on my addition to Talk:Pol Pot - Am I being paranoid? -- Alan Peakall 18:40 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Apparently the messages have nothing to do with being a sysop. Some other people (who weren't recently made sysops) have mentioned it on the Village Pump, which I foolishly forgot to check before sending the note to Brion. Thanks, though. Tokerboy 00:47 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for your tips, Ed... although it seems you made them without reading my changes, which makes your tips seem bizarre and useless to me. I didn't call Kissinger a war criminal, I just toned down the obsequious bits about how gifted he was and included some information on the dark side of his accomplishments. If it's not neutral, please show me how, rather than giving me condescending advice. Graft

Sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending. --Ed Poor

Edmund, I have reverted your change to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Hope you don't mind! See the Talk page for my explanation. -- Oliver PEREIRA 03:59 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, Ed. I guess I consider myself a jack of some trades and barely a master of a few, but hopefully I can contribute something useful while I'm here. My wife is a Ph.D. candidate in biophysics. I may be able to encourage her to make some useful contributions as well. BoNoMoJo

Could you keep on eye out for 213.138.109.254 for me? I have to catch the tram home in a few minutes. Or just block the IP you don't have the time or energy. :) --mav

I think I'm going to bow out of the Ockham's Razor issue... it looks like people are actually getting worked up about it... So much for all in good fun. :( --Dante Alighieri 01:31 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Anyway, you're pretty sharp, so don't cut out too soon. We need more fellas like you on the bleeding edge. Get the point? :-) --Ed

That pun was so bad I'm actually pained. Hehe. --Dante Alighieri 01:35 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

I thought you'd be talking about this, Ed. --KQ

If you could look at Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and my additions - if you think it is NPOV, please remove it. karl

sorry if I have made you shy about changing what I wrote. Have made the changes you suggested, I think. karl

I'm not shy at all. I just have way too much to do. Rather than changing each other's writing, we can often do better by providing suggestions to one another. Cheers! --Ed

Ed, let's try and stick to one naming convention on the Colors. I'm not to keen on the French titles myself. Danny

How about Blue (1993 Jarman movie) and Blue (1993 Kyszlowski movie)? Danny

Okay, if you want. But I just realized that leaving all three colors in French would be a tres elegant solution to the whole problem. Although English title are preferred, in a case like this French will work better. Besides, the color names aren't that obscure to english speakers:

bleu = blue
blanc (like "blank") = white
rouge (lipstick color) = red

Anyway, I've plainly done enough damage tonight, so I'll leave it to you! --Ed

Do either of you (Ed, Danny) have any objection to the form "Three Colours: Colour" (or "Color", if you must...), as I suggested at Talk:Blue (Kieslowski movie)? The films have been released under those "fuller" titles in the US, are better known that way in the UK, it makes a good natural disambiguator, and I think people are pretty likely to search for it. --Camembert

Fine by me. That's how I remember them too. Danny

Yeah, that ought to do it, like:

Trois fromages: gouda (movie)
Trois fromages: camembert (movie)
trois fromages: suisse (movie)

That's why they pay Camembert the big bucks. --Ed

Ah, if only they did, Ed, if only they did... By the way (I dare hardly mention this given all the renaming you've been doing) - if we use this form, we don't really need the (movie) qualifier, do we? I mean, Three Colors: Blue will do, won't it, rather than Three Colors: Blue (movie)? Don't worry, I'll move them and fix the redirects (again!) unless there's a good reason not to. --Camembert

I like having the (movie) disamibuator in there, to distinguish it from a primary color or something. But just let me finish sorting out the maze of twisty little passages, I mean the chains of redirects. --Uncle Ed

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, so there's not much of a collision there. Also, I doubt there's enough to say about the fact that blue is a primary color for that aspect of blue's blueness to demand a second article. :-) --KQ

not much point in specifying "movie", "Three colours: blue" can really only be that film. (until someone writes a novel based on it or something...) primary colours are red green blue (squint at your monitor...) -- Tarquin 14:00 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

How did you make a page move display a comment? --KQ

It wasn't a "page move" but a manual redirect. After 90 minutes of page moving and deleting, I finally got around to making 3 manual redirects from the French colors: bleu, blanc and rouge. I should really get some sleep. zzzzzzz --Ed

Well then get some sleep. No one's going to fire you. ;-) --KQ 02:44 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

Goodnight, then. Thanks to all for your hard work this evening, especially camembert and kq for providing the way out. --Ed

Ed, I'd like to email you. BoNoMoJo

Having been chastened on the mailing list today, for inappropriately protecting the Richard Wagner page, I am demoting myself from Uncle Ed to Cousin Eddie in penance. --Cousin Eddie

In my heart you will always be Uncle Ed. :) --mav

[1] Do you intend to create "articles" for every anti-Semitic website, as you did for JewWatch? Is there a purpose to having this here? If, like one of your previous usernames, it is here to "provoke" a response to make a point, you should remove it. If it's the creation of a non-encyclopedic weblink in response to a random comment on a mailing list, you should add some encyclopedic content to it or delete it.
[2] What happened to all the "Doctrinal changes" in the article Doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses? You collected them, saying you were moving them somewhere, and they are now gone, deleted by Clutch.
[3] I think you should seriously rethink your strategy of splitting controversial items off into a separate article. It produces bad results. It did not improve Fluorine, it did not improve Richard Wagner, and it did not improve Jehovah's Witnesses
[4] I'm not sure that your policy of placating difficult and non-cooperative users is wise. -- Someone else 21:22 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with the thrust of your comments:

No, I don't intend to create articles for every anti-Semitic website. As you guessed, it was a response to a comment on the mailing list. I guess I wanted to prove that I can indeed slap the label anti-Semitic on something without having to say "regarded as". Feel free to delete it: erase all the text and vote for deletion, and it'll get swept up in the next coupla days :-)
I will look for the Doctrinal changes; I thought they were at the end of the article in question. We can always revert the article to get 'em back.
I will re-think the "splitting off" strategy, in light of the 3 cases you mention where it didn't seem to help.
Okay, I'm not going to placate difficult and non-cooperative users any more. If they won't toe the line, I'm going to throw them to the wolves. No more Mr. Nice Guy: you hear that, Helga-Lir-Clutch?

--Mr. Ed

I am a victim of RK's anti-Goy abuse. Take care of RK, and I will take care of myself. --Clutch

Clutch's clinically paranoid claims of persecution tell us all we need to know about him. That, and his claims that all social workers are literally international war criminals. I wish Clutch well, and look forward to his next appearance on the talk show circuit. Bye! RK

Hey Ed -- I came, I dealt with the ever-abusive Eloquence and did no call him any of the names I would like to, and wm now ever more fully convinced (especially because no one called him on his dig at Larry) that there really isn't a place for me here. I don't feel competent to tell the mathemeticians and engineers that they're wrong in their fields of expertise, and I've worked too hard in mine to spend my time arguing with people who imply I've made up my credentials and think that my spending almost 20 years learning and honing my craft is irrelevant because I don't agree with them. If people can't see that Eloquence is a man with a dangerously POV agenda, then I have no place here. JHK

1) I was willing to let any personal issues rest and to try to continue to work on neutral articles. It was you who accused me publicly, for no reason, of writing POV articles on subjects I do not understand. To call me "abusive" because I defend myself against such slander is ridiculous. Furthermore, you continue to slander me behind my back, apparently because you hope I will not notice it. You have no interest in cooperation or reconciliation, you are interested only in asserting your POV.

2) Your alleged expertise is irrelevant as long as you do not understand nor follow the principles that make it possible to build an encyclopedia with people who hold different views than you.

3) I consider your agenda far more dangerous, because it is subtle, built on arguments from authority, and easy to ignore. The great opportunity of Wikipedia is to go present all views on a subject because people from many different traditions are present. You ignored this opportunity.

Yes, I have a point of view. I don't trust anyone who claims he doesn't.--Eloquence

Clutch, Eloquence and RK each have a POV agenda. Each of them, to varying degrees, has begun to listen to my requests about working together toward building articles that all contributors can agree on.

I would like to thank RK for frequently volunteering to hang back while someone else added information that seemed outrageous to him. He didn't have to, but he did it as a favor to me.

Eloquence did me the favor of defending me on the mailing list, immediately after someone called for the suspension of my sysop rights. That was a magnanimous gesture (thanks, El :-) which touched my heart. Additionally, he has apparently no objection to my locking an article that he is working on, provided that I myself do not also work on it. Again, that is not something he has to do, and it's mighty "big" of him to volunteer this.

Jonathan (aka Clutch) has some very strong ideas and disagrees in part with Jimbo's NPOV policy. However, he has frequently shown willingness to restrain himself in edit wars. Yesterday, when I locked Richard Wagner, he did not object to the lock at all; moreover, he praised the temporary compromise text I inserted.

Julie, you are an acknowledged expert in your field. I think therefore that all contributors should trust you. I will not tolerate anyone peremptorily reverting your contributions. I expect partisans to copy "offending" text to talk and discuss them, preferably before cutting it from an article that you are managing. I think you will find that tolerance for partisans has gone way done in the last couple of months, and I hope you will consider contributing again.

--Ed Poor

I do not deny, nor have I ever denied, having a dark, sinister secular humanist agenda. It's quite clear to me that you have an equally sinister Unification Church agenda. I have always acknowledged that Wikipedia is an attempt to build an encyclopedia, not an advocacy site, and have attributed all views where appropriate. I have not committed any violations of NPOV. I recognize that you, too, are doing your best to follow NPOV principles, even when working on subjects on which your church has clear positions.

Julie's understanding of NPOV is "no point of view", that articles should give only the relativistic view of history. It's no surprise to me that she has a hard time collaborating with others. She doesn't want a Wikipedia, she wants a Wishy-washy-pedia.

Ed, I will not tolerate articles being locked on the mere premise that the person who has written the previous revision is an "expert". --Eloquence

Erik, I agree with all of your three points above (except the part about the UC agenda being sinister ;-) and I assure you I have no plans to lock articles merely on the basis of any contributors "expert" status. I think the only case in which you're willing to tolerate a lock on an article you're working on, is when there are repeated tit-for-tat reversions, as happened yesterday with Wagner; moreover, you expect the sysop not to contribute after blocking the article. Fair enough?

Absolutely. It's a pleasure to work with you. Do you think it's possible to reach a reasonable conclusion to the Clutch episode? --Eloquence

Well, Ed, I guess that's it, then. Although I have never said I don't have a point of view, I have repeatedley said that it's an historian's job to keep that point of view (his personal beliefs, that is) out of the writing of history. This doesn't mean that we don't have our own points of view on why things happened the way they did (despite Eloquence's accusation that I don't understand cause and effect -- History is ALL cause and effect). The thing is, that good historians try to make very sure that they don't choose causes and effects that fit in with their preconceived notions. Eloquence doesn't do that,and doesn't like that I try to. and yes, some of my arguments are based on authority -- I try to keep up in my field, and at least read scholarly reviews and keep an eye on mailing list discussions. I appreciate your support, but it isn't enough. I can't argue with a narrow-minded person like Erik. There really isn't any place to start -- after all, when he brings up someone like Cantor to prove his point <sigh> Cantor was once thought to be one of the brighter medievalists of his day -- but we've had two generations of medievalists since then! Medievalists who aren't also people who dabble in sociology, comp lit, and don't write for a popular audience. One of the amusing things in Cantor's "Inventing the Middle Ages" is that he blasts the Annales school -- a school that followed to some extent Braudel's view of total history -- yet cantor himself mixes fields with ease. The fact is, many modern medievalists have problems with Cantor's later stuff, not least because he seems to be talkting more about other medievalists of his era and perhamps immediately following, than he does about the medievalists now working. But he's popular -- Ann Rice's favorite historian, BTW. THat says a lot. Anyway, I don't have time for this. I have papers to correct. For institutions who pay me to teach history for a living. JHK

The thing is, that good historians try to make very sure that they don't choose causes and effects that fit in with their preconceived notions. True. I consider it important to mention everything the church and its followers have done, no matter what moral judgments we may apply to it today.

Eloquence doesn't do that,and doesn't like that I try to. You're lying again, Julie.

Please don't call Julie a liar, Erik. Or I'm going to start "moderating" my own talk page. Come to think of it, that's ridiculous! ARRGH!!!

Well, Julie put this on your Talk page, as she doesn't want to talk to me directly but merely slander me behind my back. I think it's only appropriate for me to respond to such slander, and point out obvious false claims. Feel free to move this entire discussion somewhere else. --Eloquence

Medievalists who aren't also people who dabble in sociology, comp lit, and don't write for a popular audience. Medievalists, in other words, who cherish their own ignorance and inability to communicate their ideas. Modern medievalists often barely understand their own field, let alone the basics of physics, technology and sociology. For example, many medievalists still like to believe in Lefebvre des Noëttes' debunked theory of the Romans strangling their horses because they didn't have horse collars. I dare not even imagine how long it will take for new findings such as the Keys Event in 535 to enter mainstream medievalism.

You are once again using an argument of authority -- instead of arguing against Cantor's very specific claim of Catholic apologism which continues to infest all scholarship of the medieval period. Ann Rice's favorite historian, BTW. That says a lot. That's about the same intellectual level as Tinkler's remarks about Carl Sagan. It's shameful, really. But calling me narrow-minded, that's the kicker.

But true, I think -- and why would non-Catholic medievalists be apologists? There are TONS of medivalists who aren't even Christian. BTW, if you were to read discussions of Cantor's Inventing the MA on academic listservs from teh time, you'd know that the book was not necessarily well-received, not because of Cantor's theory, but of his reliance on anecdote rather than demonstable fact. You would also find that he rejects many accepted schools of thought, especially those that lean toward a Marxist POV, and that part of his claim that Medieval academics were catholic apologists was rooted in IIRC his belief that it threatened an existing Jewish academic tradition in the US. There is also the complaint that medievalists after the WWII generation had less real-world experience and that it affected their abilities. I know you hate my bringing in my personal experiences, but my advisor was in the army during the Vietnam war, I come from a mostly non-university, single-parent background, and I went to school with a former police officer, an ex-customer service manager, and one of the students who followed me was a lawyer. THere are also many who go straight through school, but again, I think Cantor's criticism isn't rooted in fact. Oh -- and even though the horse collar/stirrup thing still appears in textbooks, I don't know any medievalist under 50 who doesn't correct that particular myth in class. Still, I think you have no business weighing in on articles where you have a clear prejudice against the people who specialize in it. Like it or not, Erik, you don't appear to know your ass from your elbow when it comes to how historians work -- you rely on popular, but controversial authors to support your views, and refuse to accept that you might be wrong. As I said on my own page -- I'm off for virtual coffee with KQ. JHK

But true, I think -- and why would non-Catholic medievalists be apologists? That's correct, and note that I have taken care not to call you, specifically, an apologist (that term is accurate for Tinkler, although he isn't as bad as someone like, say, this guy). The main problem is that the post-modern Catholic school of medievalism has infected (in the Dawkins sense) modern study of the subject. You don't need to be an apologist to represent views that have been deliberately created by apologists. If serious medievalists rejected all studies by Catholics that were produced under the guidelines described by Cantor, I would have less problems with the discipline. You and I know, however, that this is not the case.

and that part of his claim that Medieval academics were catholic apologists was rooted in IIRC his belief - I have no theory regarding the motivations behind Cantor's books. I don't sympathize with the guy that much -- just read his glorifying closing statement about the Middle Ages. What I do recognize is that Cantor describes how, after the church realized that censorship was no longer an option, it managed to create a new tradition of medieval scholarship, apologist in nature. This is a fact that you should take seriously. Of course Cantor's book was not well-received by medievalists. Much of his criticism is plain ad hominem stuff against his former colleagues.

I don't know any medievalist under 50 who doesn't correct that particular myth in class. That's reassuring. Have you asked Tinkler about it? Still, I think you have no business weighing in on articles where you have a clear prejudice against the people who specialize in it. According to that logic, you have no business to work on articles I work on, because you have clear prejudices against me. Like it or not, Erik, you don't appear to know your ass from your elbow when it comes to how historians work. I have a lot of respect for critical historians with an open mind. This requires a willingness to accomodate opposing viewpoints -- not necessarily to believe them, but to tolerate and respect them. Again, I am perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones and try to work on historical articles together -- but the ass/elbow type comments will have to go. --Eloquence

Anyway, I don't have time for this. I have papers to correct. Fortunately, you cannot "correct" Wikipedia. --Eloquence

I think I've done enough penance. --Uncle Ed

If I'm the cause of trouble on the JW pages, I'd appreciate insight into how I'm at fault. My concern has much less to do with the definition of the JWs, and more to do with the re-definition of every subject those pages touch upon. Defining JWs "best" as "evangelical" alters the definition of "evangelical" - do you already see this? "Fundamentalist evangelical" is then no longer "best" defined as including Trinitarian belief. If there is any such thing as a sociological "fact", then I believe it is against the facts to delete trinitarianism from the definition of "Fundamentalist evangelical" ... Mkmcconn

If you search the internet for anti-JW sites, most of them are published by "evangelicals", defending the "evangelical" point of view against the JWs. Even a number of unitarian sites, such as those owned by Millenial Dawn and the Bible Students, refer to their difference with the "evangelicals" on the one hand, and "Jehovah's witnesses" on the other. The difficulties involved in describing evangelicals are made worse by Wikipedia in this case, instead of simply reflecting the status of those difficulties. Don't get me wrong - I don't over-estimate Wikipedia's importance. But, I do find cases like this one to be disturbing on another level, if it's proof that persistence against the facts tends to change the facts. Mkmcconn