User talk:172
Hello and welcome to userland 172! --mav
Hello. 194.117.133.118 11:05 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)
Minguy is pretty unfriendly, no?Vera Cruz
What are they saying you removed anyways? I don't see why they are making such a big deal out of it, it's not like we can't revert anything anyways. Most of these talk pages are a mess and need cleaning. Vera Cruz
I think quotes from the Washington Times and other POV sources do belong in NPOV articles. It's very informative to know what the POVs on different topics are. Vera Cruz
172, let's not get into a misunderstanding here. I would be the last person to call you a communist. Prior to your arrival, a good many of the history pages were rather shallow things, and showed little understanding of the interrelationship between history (in the traditional "kings and queens of England" sense) and the broad flow of economic change that underpins and (in general) controls the actions of statesmen, generals and inventors. You certainly do not fall into that trap! Your contributions have made significant inroads into the task of describing history as an interacting whole. Several others here have objected to what they see as a "communist bias" in your writing. In large part, these objections stem from two things:
- Many people here have spent a lifetime steeped in a rather one-sided view of history - I'm talking about the sort of history that describes the Battle of the Bulge or Second Alamain in loving detail, but relegates Stalingrad to a footnote and doesn't even bother to mention Kursk; the sort of history that thinks Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and therefore we had an Industrial Revolution - and on reading the sort of thing that you write, they (very naturally) tend to say oh, this isn't what I'm used to seeing, therefore it must be wrong.
- You tend to write large slabs of text which is perfectly comprehensible if one concentrates but far from easy reading, particularly as it is liberally laced with the jargon of political economy. Many people see key words or phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" and (a) don't really understand them, and (b) assume that because the two or three Marxist or Leninist tracts they happen to have glanced at are filled with these same words, that the present work is more of the same.
As I see it, the challenge is not to write long entries that are technically correct but so complex, wordy, and jargon-filled that no-one reads them (any fool with half an education can do that), but to translate the specialised jargon of Marxian political economy and materialistic history into terms that that are readily accessable to the ordinary, non-specialist reader, and in doing so to bear in mind that any given article should not aim at detailed perfection at some far off future time to the exclusion of readability and usefulness at the present time - changes should, in other words, be sufficiently incremental that the article as a whole remains useful in the meantime.
There. It's said. Now is there anyone I haven't' offended yet? Tannin
- Bah. If you can't see that it's POV to write things like, "Mao sure pulled China together and gave the people more freedom than they've ever known before!", then you and 172 deserve each other. --Len
(I loathe Mao, and did not write such a sentence. But one could make a very strong case for that statement.)
- One can pull individual POV statements out of anyone's contributions - you and me included. I am talking about the bulk of 172's work, not every single sentence as if it were Holy Writ. I assume that the quotation above has already (and quite properly) been edited into shape - but with the massive slabs of text 172 submits, this is no easy task! Tannin
Quite so, 172. The 172.X user I reverted was obviously nothing to do with you, just one of those rather sad little people with a self-image problem that go about making up imaginary countries with three citizens and a modem for their Yahoo Groups account, and casting themselves in the role of King Mucho Stupido the 2nd. After I reverted his nonsense a few times, he deleted my user page. Shrug. Tannin
---arguing is pointless, try finding people who agree with you, rather than people that don't. Vera Cruz
My looking things up in a history book don't answer the tons of questions you left unanswered. This is an encyclopedia, all of the answers should be made HERE. -- Zoe
You should strongly consider getting an instant message program. Vera Cruz
I'll take into consideration all your suggestions, Vera Cruz
Try to pretend that the United States is a fascist empire, close your eyes and imagine what it is like to not offically be held in an undisclosed location. Then note that the US doesn't agree that it does anything bad, ever, and so technically it wouldn't be accurate to say, 'The US committed genocide', whereas it is always accurate to say 'Everybody else committed genocide, and so we must always say, "And then some people allege that the US dumped barrels of defoliant upon these people so that they would be eradicated like insects! But oh, it's not really worth mentioning at all here...but if you'd like to click on this link Alleged warcrimes of the United States Military... Vera Cruz
172, please play nice and work with other contributors instead of against them. You may have noticed that you are getting in edit wars with many different people who represent a many different POVs. You are the only constent. --mav
- You, sir, get a Point. I'm not sure what they're good for yet, but keep 'em around. Annie
172, your contributions may be good but they are not necessarily as outstanding as you think. One thing I really wonder: why do you feel the need to repeat the same text at different places in the Wikipedia ? This is not needed and is bad for the overall organisation. FvdP
- Well, I'm sorry for the "alledged" in "172's alledged contributions". You see, seing the same text everywhere, I had come to think you were just copying someone else's text. If that is not the case, I apologize. The only reason I'm keeping all these links is to eventually remove all text duplication. FvdP 02:28 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)
Can I make my changes to New Imperialism now? Vera Cruz
massive reorganizations are what i do here. Vera Cruz 02:37 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)