User talk:Fred Bauder/Archive 5

My associates and I have installed the wikimedia-1.1.0 software at http://www.wikinfo.org, alternative address, http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/. It is hosted by ibiblio.org. The wikidata base dump was not installed. Software has been developed which allows easy importing of Wikipedia articles and to date about 30,000 have been imported. Certain policies have been changed from Wikipedia although the notion of using American English has been abandoned; International English is used. The concept of neutral point of view for each article has been changed to a policy of accepting a cluster of articles with differing points of view. Several policies which have been observed to cause tension on Wikipedia have been liberalized. See Wikinfo. Fred Bauder 13:51, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It may be useful when trying to locate information on a book to try the search engine at Redbaud.com

Material has been removed here and placed in User talk:Fred Bauder/Archive 1, User talk:Fred Bauder/Archive 2, User talk:Fred Bauder/Archive 3 and in User talk:Fred Bauder/Archive 4.

Accept vote?

I'm curious whether your "accept" vote for CK's frivolous request is intended to be some kind of "punishment" against me for not wanting to waste any mediator's time with this little squabble which is only four days old and still being actively discussed in Talk. V V 06:23, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me mediation should not be started at the drop of a hat. You have no sympathy for my position that it is premature? V V 22:46, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I do have sympathy with that view. Is it your position that when the issue does become "ripe" that you would accept mediation? Fred Bauder 22:57, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Archive 10. You will see me say "Premature". Does that answer your question? We are still talking on the discussion page; bringing in a mediator now would simply serve to waste an additional user's time. Arbitration would be far worse. I don't know how I could be any more clear about my position. (See also "only four days old and still being actively discussed in Talk" supra.) V V 23:13, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contrails & sept 11

(William M. Connolley 20:51, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)) Hello Fred. You added: It had been hypothesized that in regions such as the United States with heavy air traffic contrails affected the weather reducing solar heating during the day and radiation of heat during the night. The suspension of air travel for 3 days in the United States after September 11th provided an opportuntity to test this hyposthesis. Measurements did in fact show that without contrails daily temperatures were about 1 degree (Farenheit) higher during the day and 1 degree cooler at night.. This info (the 1 oC effect bit) is now started to propagate: I only noticed because DCoetzee added it to Albedo. But... its sourceless. Its rather a long time ago, true, but do you have any idea of the source?

I don't remember, given my reading habits though, it was probably the New York Times Science section. Fred Bauder 21:14, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at the article, the dates of my edits which added the relevant material and external links to Nature articles, the source is this article in Nature: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6898/abs/418601a_fs.html&filetype=

(William M. Connolley 21:26, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)) Thanks!

Sam Spade

You may want to vote on whether Sam becomes a sysop at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Sam_Spade AndyL AndyL 18:22, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism

I hate to bitch, but this is getting out of hand. user:Turrican, or at least I beleive it is he, has taken it upon himself to do a one man vandal spree on myself and VV's edits. I have had to revert over a dozen articles today for continual vandalism.

It is getting to be quite the pain. TDC 23:01, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Every time a new wave of vandalism hits, its accompanied by a new IP adress, but the articles vandalized are always the same. The newest reincarnation is 198.165.90.75. TDC 17:40, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Arbitration for orthogonal

Fred, you moved it into position as an accepted case with 3 accepts and two recuses. According to arbitration policy, 4 accepts are needed. Is there a reason you did this? I don't see a pressing need to move on this request without a 4th accept since, as far as I know, orthogonal is gone and not bothering anyone right now. As a recused arbitrator, I don't care much about this case in specific since I won't be hearing it, but I do think we should follow policy. Jwrosenzweig 23:19, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I trust you, Fred, but I'd like to know where that is in our arbitration policy, since the pages I was looking at don't mention it. That or I'm just reading badly today. Either way, I'd like to know about that rule so I can see whatever it is I am not looking at. Oh, and I see no reason to move to close, Fred -- after all, many editors claim to leave and then resurface, and orthogonal himself asked we ban him despite his leave-taking. In general, I don't think it's good practice to avoid dealing with a case if someone leaves -- otherwise that will become the favored stall tactic of all our least lovable trolls. Jwrosenzweig 23:28, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I guess I disagree on both counts, but not in any significant manner. :-) I agree it's common sense but I still think it should be written down somewhere. And I've seen many definitive statements on user pages that disappeared a week later when someone cooled off and returned. But do as you please. :-) Thanks for letting me know what your perspective is. Jwrosenzweig 23:36, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Copy of my note to Everyking re Great Purge

I have now withdrawn from this article, and also from Khmer Rouge. I will now go through my watchlist and withdraw from all articles on modern historical and political topics, since I can longer stand having to conduct these endless stupid circular arguments over elementary facts of history with malicious fools like Shorne, while being sabotaged by people like you and Fred Bauder who ought to know better. I am in fact seriously considering withdrawing from Wikipedia altogether, since I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that its structure does not offer any support to those attempting to write intellectually credible articles on historical-political subjects. Adam 13:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shorne

I'm afraid Shorne is not going to stop. Shall we open a discussion about user conduct in Wikipedia:Request for comment ? What do you think? Boraczek 13:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please do. Fred Bauder 13:46, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

To my utter frustration, I find that Shorne is right in one respect. References to various books are secondary. As a lawyer, you are aware of the notion of "hearsay". While in our context it is not exactly applicable, I find that many articles are indeed poorly substantiated. In our particular example, if one relies on or draws from Conquest's book, it is a good idea to mention the same sources Conquest uses, especially in the view of the book being vehemently criticized by leftists. At least, there should be an article The Great Terror that discusses the credibility of the book, to lay a foundation of further references. I believe, in the cases like this the only way to win a conflict is to have a solid factual foundation. That's what I am trying slowly to do, starting from articles Secret Speech, NKVD troika, List of Gulag camps (lays abandoned, unfortunately), Article 58, Belomorkanal, and other ones I placed in a new category, "Soviet political repressions". A cornerstone topic to cover is Andrey Vyshinsky's legal theory. This (missing) article would explain a good deal of the Great Purge works.

Also as a lawyer, I hope you will understand the following problem. The Great Purge article fails to distinguish three issues: (1) existence of actual internal enemies of the Soviet Union (2) simplified legal base, initially subsitituted by "revolutionary justice" and lopsidedly developed afterwards, and (3) the consequences of 2: ease of abuse both from the above and from the below. Mikkalai 19:26, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your outrageous misrepresentations

How can you claim with a straight face that I don't offer references? Go look at Talk:Khmer Rouge. I'm the only one who gave references. And that discussion about The Black Book of Communism: you had almost nothing substantive to say in response to my long article. I've lost respect for you. Shorne 14:19, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Me too. But that was long ago - irismeister 18:40, 2004 Oct 10 (UTC)

WP:LCOTW

Hey, I see you're into books, so I thought you might be interested in or could help out at the Literature COTW. JOHN COLLISON | (Ludraman) 19:24, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) (PS this is NOT a mass user-talk page spam campaign :-)

"Standard" references

Your "standard" reference is nothing but a piece of propaganda. The whole article Great Purge is heavily slanted, and people like Carr have been deleting references inserted by others who seek to add (God forfend!) a bit of balance.

I'll deal with this matter later. I have other things to do, believe it or not, than argue with people who don't—won't—listen. Shorne 22:22, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nonsense on China

You have absolutely no grounds on which to accuse me of not knowing anything about China. Rather than presenting my credentials, I'll point your nose to a few facts:

No one gave a single reference to prove the propagandistic claims made about income and famine in China. I asked several times over a period of days. I was entirely justified in deleting those unfounded statements. (DItto for that stuff about the Great Purge.)
Your newly cited "references" don't prove a thing about the period discussed, which is roughly 1976 to the present.
I have already cited references about declining food production and other problems that resulted.
The article on the Great Leap Forward is slanted and will be corrected when I get the time.

Shorne 22:28, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)