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Revision as of 05:55, 22 August 2005

"Supporters" argue this

You said "supporters" argue this, but I've never heard this point claimed. The argument that conscription is fascism might be an interesting one, but the fact is nations do conscript and it is not considered fascist or out of the ordinary at all, whether it should or not. Furthermore, the fact that women and children were being used in factories was never used by anyone to my knowledge as a justification for killing them. There have been arguments that foreign nations' economies are "fair game" because they support the war industry, but that's the closest one can come. In any case, Japan's decisions in this regard do not reflect on the legitimacy of killing civilians. VV 08:23, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

User talk is yes inelegant. It is true that a state's act of conscription confers non-civilian status on someone, but that's not really the same thing. It is the fact that they are fighting and shooting at their enemy that makes them soldiers. A child forced to work in a factory doesn't count. Such are the laws of war, however illogical you may think they are. VV 08:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's not a matter of whether I "accept things the way they are". It's a matter of whether the article should reflect what the actual arguments being made are or just a few people's theories. VV 04:22, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, the point I'm trying to make is that the paragraph you wrote said that "supporters" "argue" something that in fact is not an argument often made. Note in Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not that "original research" is not one of things this encyclopedia is. We are supposed to summarize human knowledge, not expand it. JamesMLane phrased this general idea I think well in his response to you at the article. VV 06:38, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See also Misplaced Pages:No original research. VV 06:42, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

discussion moved

Hi Silverback -- User:Graft removed our discussion from the talk page. I guess s/he's right that it didn't belong there according to official policy. I've retrieved it from the page history and put it here. Since it won't be publicly visible, we might as well continue by email, which is perhaps a bit more convenient. My email is fpahl@web.de.

This long and detailed article in the New York Times is very relevant to what you still seem to regard as an intelligence failure. (It requires registration, unfortunately, but I can send it to you as a zip archive if you're interested.) What it describes isn't an intelligence failure. Blatant manipulation of the truth to justify aggression comes closer. (See also my last posts in the discussion (marked "22:07, 6 Oct 2004")) Fpahl 00:22, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi Silverback - your discussion was related to the topic, but it was not a discussion directed at improving the page. It's very easy for us to get into undirected discussions about the subjects we are writing about, but that's not the purpose of Misplaced Pages, and having those sort of discussions on talk pages takes away from the task of working on pages. I don't mean to demean or stop your discussion, which I think is important to have. However, as Fpahl suggests above, User_talk pages or email are much better forums for that conversation. Graft 03:45, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

justification for war

There are things Saddam definetely needs to answer for. There are two clearly different issues here that seem to be intertwined with each other in your arguments, justification of war and saddam's guilt... Something definetely needed to be done about Saddam, I do not disagree and I don't think Kerry disagrees either, but war should be used as a last resort. We did not exhaust all other options, and as the Duelfer report showed, sanctions were effective in keeping WMDs out of Saddam's hands. No doubt that he wanted to, and who knows what would have been done, but that does not necessarily justify invasion. You must see the external consequences we have suffered in the eyes of the muslim world by invading a country which by no means directly threatened the US. Yes, they probably would have given some chemical weapons away in the future if they got any, Yes Saddam is a bad guy, but in the world of politics that is all irrelevent. We have invaded a soverign muslim nation, exactly what Osama predicted we would do, and as a result have strengthened Al Qaeda more than anything they could have done themselves. These drastic consequences could have been avoided by other means than full-scale pre-emptive invasion of a country that did not directly threaten us. The big problem with your argument is that any criteria you set for why Iraq was ok applies to so many countries, what are we going to do, invade them all? --kizzle 01:06, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the same criteria used for Iraq could be applied to other countries. Iraq was a priority because Saddam was too bad a character to leave in control of oil resources, and the credibility of the UN was at stake, and he was tying down part of our navy and air force. A democratic Iraq will be a good counter to Iran and a politically acceptable military base than Saudi Arabia. Both wahabi and ayatollah daemonization and the Israeli situation was making the US reputation worse in the muslim world. More secular muslim intellectuals probably welcome the liberation of Iraq and hope an example of democracy succeeds there. There are a lot of arabian experts that believe that power is what is respected there.

I don't think justifying an attack on a government is hard, one innocent person being tortured or conscripted is enough, after all governments do not a right to exist and they are justified only to the extent that they protect and respect individuals. An attack on the US government as on most others, is justified, if one can credibly hope to improve the situation here, the US government has committed its share of mass murders, but there is little doubt that it is more effective at protecting individuals than Saddam's government.

What is happening in North Korea is terrible and anyone that knows of it should do something about it if possible. N Korea want's bilateral negotiations, the problem is it won't agree to a bilateral war, it is holding S Korea and its "own" people hostage with daunting conventional power. It is misconception that the failure to act there is because they already have nuclear weapons. Those weapons are not currently a threat to the US. The deterrent is what their artillery could do to Seoul.

One doesn't need the consent of an organization of dictators to help someone in need, as we did in Iraq. It doesn't even matter if most people there prefer an oppressive government because of a misguided nationalism or a fear of terrorism, that doesn't give them the right to impose it upon others.--Silverback 07:14, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here's the thing. I think you and I are on the same page that Saddam needed to be dealt with. However, all that you are saying now is not the reason we went into war. These are merely post-decision justification, these weren't the reason to go to war. Thus, while *Iraq* is better off now than they were before, the *world* is not. And also, if one innocent person being tortured or conscripted is enough, so because of Abu Ghraib does that justify Europe invading us? --kizzle 19:37, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I've gone into my views of the justification and relative merits of the Iraq war at Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq/Fpahl vs Silverback and would welcome any responses or feedback on the points I make there. If the behavior at Abu Ghraib was official policy of the government at the top, then attacking the US government would be justified, but of course attacks on the rest of us, other than reasonable collateral damage, would not be justified. I doubt a group of European governments inclined to take offense at such behavior could in all intellectual honesty, rank the US in the top couple dozen of offenders.

I don't agree that the world is worse off. The middle east was already polarized over the Arab/Israeli conflict and the terrorists had been emboldened by the passive US response to the bombings in Kenya and of the Cole. Syria is intimidated, Libya has decided to join the community of nations, Iran is having to be more careful, the Israeli wall appears to be reducing terrorism there, there have been successful elections in Afghanistan, and the casualties have been mild by any historical standards given the accomplishments. Several middle easter countries already feel pressured to reform and have responded, although Saudi Arabia just used a lame execuse to deny women suffrage once again (they can't have their pictures taken). I've just seen an interview with some arab American leaders who were supporting Kerry, even though they admitted they represented communities that are refugees from the governments of the middle east and thus were pleased at the overthrow of Saddam and the introduction of democratic reforms, they still opposed Bush because of "what he has allowed Israel to do". I view this as an indication that the Arab/Israeli conflict is actually still more polarizing there than Iraq. --Silverback 09:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is some that I agree with you in the polarization of Israel, but you still haven't answered that these rationale you are providing for the war in Iraq were not the ones given to us upon going to war. --kizzle 17:54, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

They were not the reasons emphasized in the legal maneuvering before the UN, but they all had been mentioned before the war and most were known at the time of the 1st gulf war. I opposed that gulf war, because the "new world order" rhetoric that the first Bush was emphasizing, as best as I could discern, was that Saddam had no right to oppress Kuwaitis, but had every right to oppress Iraqis. I contended then and still contend, that he had every bit as much right to oppress Kuwaitis as he did Iraqis, and that right is none. I did not find the rationale for that war convincing, despite the UN approval.--Silverback 18:42, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your usage of the word "oppress" is incorrect and an oversimplification of the situation. The first Gulf War was fought because Saddam, who believed he had the U.S's support in invading Kuwait, thought that there were oil fields under Kuwaiti control that were his due to the ambiguous borders between the two. It is questionable which side was right, but it was not simply for kicks or "because" he was a dictator, it was a matter of ownership of resources. Any rhetoric the first Bush espoused can be ignored completely as we were lied to back then as well (do you remember the incubator story about how Saddam's forces broke into a hospital and killed babies... along with the testimony to this of a 15-year-old girl who happened to "witness" the incident, she wouldn't reveal her last name due to "security" concerns, it was later found out that she wouldn't reveal her name because she was the daughter of the ambassador to Kuwait).

No, I don't remember this, I'm not sure what its relevance is, did Bush repeat this story and make it a key issue in the UN negotiations or was it just in the news?--Silverback 08:54, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And no, sir, I vehemently disagree these reasons were known before the war. Could we really have been sold the war on "weapons of mass destruction related program activities" or that "he is a brutal dictator"?? No. Absolutely not. Read Paul O'Neill's Price of Loyalty. Read Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies. Read Bob Woodward's Plan of attack. And optionally, read Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud. --kizzle 05:54, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

How were the issues, not known before the 1st gulf war? Saddam had used chemical weapons before and it was feared he would even use them in the conflict. He was a known oppressor and conscripter and had violently suppressed dissent and opposition. Are you defending his right to oppress his own people? The meeting Saddam had before the war, where he was given relatively ambiguous signals about how the US would view an invasion, is no justification for the invasion. I don't think starting a war to resolve disputes about oil resources is supported by Just War theory.--Silverback 08:54, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty busy in RL at the moment, but enjoyed reading your comment! Probably, I'll comment again in due time! Best regards! /Tuomas 20:12, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

draft

a) yes, i've reverted you 3 times over 3 days. you've reverted me the same amount. you have also reverted 3 other editors on this issue, and incorrectly accused 1 of vandalism. fyi, the 3 revert rules is 3 in 1 day, not 3 total.

And you are taking full advantage of your three reverts.

b) the snippet you keep including falls so far below any reasonable standard for npov, factuality backing, reasonable placement in the article, or a reasonable link, that it does not even pass the laugh test.

You obviouslly have not reviewed the other supporting material

c) i have not refused to participate in anything. i have explained clearly in the edit summaries my objections. i'd be happy to go cut and paste those into talk if you'd them easier to read there.

yes please do, and support your position with argument rather than mere assertion

d) trying to insert that in the manner you have is a classic weasel tactic. if it's important, put it in the text. put some words around it to explain context and content. put in a link that documents this is actually his position. maybe npov can be achieved by iterating that way.

I can work towards this. just asserting a judgement you've made in the edit summary, constantly exploiting your right to revert three times, and not defending your position, is the weasal top.

e) i have very little tolerance left for those who try using wikipedia to insert partisan political points. see my comment in talk:media bias on the issue. i will vigorously oppose you, unless you take affirmative steps to make the material you insert npov.

You hypocritically did not object to the Revival of the draft site, which was attempting to bring in internet inuendo without facing the scrutiny of the existing conscription page. Exactly whose partisan viewpoint are you suggesting I was inserting? It was John Kerry's position, as stated in his position paper. You keep asking whether it is his "current" position as if that was relevant. What makes his "current" position any more or less POV than his past one? Both are facts.

d) warmest regards. p.s. i like you name and find it suits you. Wolfman 15:13, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think so too. It is nice to have something slightly positive about old age. Lets please take these discusions to the conscription talk page, so we can hash it out and others can contribute.

Survey

There is a survey regarding a disputed paragraph in the PNAC article that you might be interested in. Kevin Baas | talk 19:10, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)

Conscription series

Hi - glad to see someone picking up the ball on these. Ive just started Template:Conscription as an attempt to maybe sort out some of the mess. The US branch article was long coming, and I was a bit puzzled as to why it wasnt developed before. SinReg-SV 17:00, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There was also supposed to be a page, for non-military and peacetime conscription, such as that proposed by John Kerry and that used by Solomon to build the temple in Jerusalem. National Service did not work out for this purpose. Thanx for your efforts.--Silverback 17:05, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Modernization theory: I urge you to cite your sources

And, also, instead of (generic, unidentified) 'critics,' you should attempt to remain topical: Modernization theorists respond to Wallerstein with..., etc. Again though, cite your sources — this is pivotal. El_C

PNAC

Thanks for your efforts to find a solution to this madness. Your intervention may well be what is needed to break us out of this impasse. VeryVerily 04:00, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lancet Study (Iraq excess deaths)

I propose that we restore the reference and note that the methodology and conclusions are subject to ongoing critique. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:2003_Invasion_of_Iraq

Current Events

I would appreciate your feedback in Talk:Current_events. Thanks, Dejitarob 06:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

I get the impression that you and I disagree on almost all political topics. That said, I'm glad you're working on the Iraq War pages. If you weren't there, I (and others) would unintentially add our own POV, which I don't want to have happen. I also, being human, tend to overlook facts that don't support my position or accidently misread statements to be more in line with my own views, and you catch me in that. You seem to sincerely want accurate, NPOV text. That makes you my ally as well as my opponent. Thanks. – Quadell ] 03:04, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Honest people will find more areas of agreement than they realize, especially if they are secure enough to admit mistakes. We both abhor the taking of innocent life. However, I think when innocent life is being taken in "peace" time, it blurs the bright moral line between war and peace. The brutality of war can be more honest, and more likely to conclude. Perhaps the Bush administration has miscalculated, but the resources and destructiveness of the Saddam regime, allowed a lot of room for error.--Silverback 10:28, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do you know any exceptions?

I don't know any governing organizations for competitive anything that openly condone steroids. There are certainly some that look the other way. If you know any that have explicitly said steroids are allowed if you compete in their events, change it to "almost all." Otherwise, you seem to be writing this from an unusual perspective. alteripse 01:44, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I didn't say "condone", there are many that haven't banned them, even major league baseball only recently got around to it. I doubt man of the minor sports have even addressed the issue. I think banning them is a bit of an artificial way of achieving "fairness", as if nature itself was fair. If I want to take anabolic steroids and HGH to improve my chances of experiencing a sub-14 second 100 meter dash (my natural endowment is really poor), I should be able to do it. If people want to have different categories of competition some unlimited (enhancement allowed) others restricted to natural endowments, and perhaps others with carefully controlled steroid levels so that the playing field is level (only some get supplemental drugs), that would be the free, non-coercive solution. Unfortunately, the market probably won't support that many leagues and some people ("liberals") are really fond of sending the government after people with guns.--Silverback 01:56, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

my compliments

I've been reading alot of your contributions on talk pages, and I wanted to compliment you on your insight, particularly in regards to communism. You seem to understand the difference between a commune and a totalitarian state, which is something few others seem to be able to do. I must say however that in regards to Left right politics, your definitions are unorthodox. Unfortunately, the only solid footing we have in regards to the terms is their origin, the time just prior to revolution in France, w monarchists on the right, and liberals (in the classical sense) on the left. That’s obviously very different from today, which is why I think things like the Political Spectrum are so handy. Anyhow, I wanted to thank you for so often being the voice of reason, and give you my $.02 on the left right (false) dichotomy. Cheers, ] 13:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Misplaced Pages's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to ] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to ] all my contributions to any ], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

"Dry drunk"

Thanks for your note. The original addition of the point to the George W. Bush article used some language like "it has been observed", as if it were an established fact, and lumped all the referenced articles together. I tried to make it more encyclopedic by changing "observed" to "argued" and by using a verbatim quotation from the article by an expert. As for the other cited articles, there's certainly some truth to your deprecation of them. Nevertheless, articles about political figures can, I think, reasonably report on what their opponents are saying about them -- rhetoric and all -- provided the attacks are reported as argument rather than presented as fact. JamesMLane 20:56, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Anti-democracy forces and the U.S.

Silverback, you said on Talk:Occupation of Iraq, 2003-2004 that you don't believe anyone can support the idea that the U.S. is not there to support democracy factually or historically. I'm assuming you're joking about the latter, or else displaying your extreme ignorance of American foreign policy. The U.S. has historically been a strong supporter of friendly dictatorships (e.g. Egypt, fairly high on the list of repressive governments), and in other instances has helped install dictatorships (e.g. the rule of the colonels in Greece after 1964, the Shah in Iran, etc.,etc. - as time goes on the documentary record will probably furnish more and more robust examples). So I'm not sure what you're talking about there. As to the current Iraqi regime, while what comes out of official channels has never contravened the desire for democracy, the moves that have been made are not entirely encouraging (e.g. repeated postponement of elections, appointment of the autocratic Allawi). Just some food for thought... Graft 16:12, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Silverback... I wasn't referring to cold-war era support above. The US continues to provide support and arms to many dictatorial regimes (we provide several billion in aid and arms to the Mubarak government in Egypt, which is and always has been a notoriously repressive dictatorship), and the support of democracy has been rather thin. For example, the Bush administration has supported coups in both Venezuela and in Haiti in the past three years against democratically elected governments. This is not indicative of supporting democracy, and it is not a result of Cold-War politics. I'm not sure why you mention territorial ambition - the U.S. is perfectly capable of supporting dictators without having territorial designs. As to the existence of forces within the Iraqi resistance that are opposed to democracy, this does NOT imply that the resistance can be accurately described as "anti-democratic", that is, explicitly fighting against democracy, since those fighting are highly diverse in ideology. Graft 19:12, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From ViP

On 12/13/2004 between 12:33 and 12:55 pm, my firewall software detected an attack from 207.142.131.245 www03.wikimedia.org, the nature of the attack was "Microsoft Multiple Application/OS GDI+ JPEG Processing Buffer Overflow Vulnerability attempt detected". I've never had any dealings with wikimedia, but my understand is that it is closely associated with wikipedia. Please investigate a possible virus, or malicious administrator at your site.--Silverback 12:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It looks to me like someone may have uploaded a JPEG containing the GDI+ buffer exploit. Although it could be a false alarm. Can I ask the following questions to clarify... Were you viewing a wikipedia page at the time of the warning? Did the page contain images? What is your OS? What is your firewall? -- FirstPrinciples 22:23, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Iraq occupation

Hi, I hadn't realized the discussions I archived had recent comments. Thanks for fixing it. Maurreen 05:59, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

wrt most skeptics

In essence the change you have made is simply an expansion on the idea placed two sentences above:

"Some indirect solar effects may be very important and are not accounted for by the models. Or then again, they might not be important at all. (Source: The Skeptical Environmentalist)"

and would better fit at the end of that sentence. The problem being, of course, that no one has a proven mechanism for this solar amplification although several have been proposed.

Also I think "most skeptics".... is more than a bit of a stretch and I doubt you could establish that point. Awaiting your reply, I would simply move your addition up in the paragraph and maybe put "among the ideas put forth". Jhalpern 16:17, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Neoconservatism

May I assume that at Talk:Neoconservatism (United States), when you wrote "probitive" you meant "probative", as in "Furnishing evidence or proof" and not some other word? I'm asking here rather than there because I don't want to muddy the discussion, just trying to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. Even if I've understood the word correctly, I'm not sure I've correctly understood your meaning. "Probative" as in being a Jew would be a requirement to be a neoconservative? Or something else. Clarification of that would be appreciated (especially if I've misunderstood) and should probably go on that talk page. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:04, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Wow, this is really an article I hadn't intended to plunge into. OK: I think it's important that most of the early neocons came out of New York City Jewish leftist culture. If it were only one or two, it would be of negligible importance, but it's not: it's more like half a dozen of the key figures, including Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, both husband-and-wife teams and all key neocons. Yes, it's relevant, if only as part of the history of the American left, that a significant portion of the Old Left reacted against the New Left and moved to the right, and that a very large number of those who did so were Jews. It's also significant as part of the history of American Jewry, because up to that time nearly all significant Jewish political involvement in the U.S. was on the left.

Are you at all familiar with Max Schachtman? He didn't exactly end up a neocon, but he's another (slightly earlier) figure who took a similar course.

Again, I think it is very easy to exaggerate the degree to which neoconservatism is rooted in a specific left politics (especially Trotskyism: that is really mostly just Kristol), but its roots in New York Jewish leftism are pretty clear and quite interesting. I come from the same tradition, but didn't follow their trajectory. Like many movements, they later picked up adherents from different backgrounds, but (given that I don't see their ideology as having changed much since the '70s -- do you?) it is important to understand the milieu in which neoconservatism developed, and I think it would be an outright falsification to deny that was a secular Jewish milieu. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:59, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Atkins

Hi Silverback, thanks for your comments. As a bodybuilder myself and also a amatuer mountain bike racer (and no, the two don't mix very well but what the hell, it's fun!) I can look at the athletics side of the diet from both bodybuilding and aerobic training points of view.

The pre-contest 'cutting' diet of bodybuilding is indeed somewhat similar to the Atkins diet in that it is low in carbs (to create an energy deficiet) and high in protein (to hopefully maintain muscle mass), although I've never heard of anyone eating the actual Atkins diet pre-contest. In the rest of the year, bodybuilders eat excesses of all food groups to add as much muscle as possible, recognizing the excess energy demands of both the training itself and the energy demands of muscle growth and sustainance.

In aerobic training, the concept of 'carb depletion before carb loading died out some time ago; now athletes just pile on the carbs in the last few days before competition without attempting to achieve a 'over-fill' from 'depletion' anymore. Dan100 13:16, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary

Hello. Please provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy edits. Hyacinth 02:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bombing of Dresden in World War II

Please see Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II#Where is the straw poll? Perhaps the issues should be separated. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:05, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Strauss

Edit as you will on the point on Strauss. I haven't read enough of MacDonald to know what here was MacDonald and what was Jacquerie.

BTW, I've noticed that even if our initial contact was a disagreement, we are more often than not on the same side of what actually belongs in an article. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:08, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

VfD

The main page (WP:VfD) should only contain an inclusion link to the sub-page, i.e. to list FOO on VfD, the entry on the main VfD page should be "{{Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/FOO}}" - just that, and nothing more. What that does is include the text from the FOO sub-page when you look at WP:VfD, but it's not in the page source for WP:VfD. (Actually, even that inclusion entry is in a sub-page of WP:VfD - the actual coment page is a sub-sub-page). That way, people adding comments about a particular page don't have to edit any of the main VfD pages, which is likely to cause "edit conflicts", with so many people adding comments. Noel (talk) 14:17, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sure, you're welcome. Noel (talk) 13:25, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Politically motivated VfD on your part

I find it very unfortunate that you're willing to waste the communitys time with politically motivated votes for deletion. The human shield action to Iraq was of course notable and any cursory search of the myriads of commentary and news articles surrounding the subject is evidence of that. It also featured on around half a dozen global TV networks (of which O'Keefe was mostly the interviewee). If you'd done some research you'd know this. Thankfully others have so you're attempt to delete the O'Keefe article is likely to fail. In the future please don't waste the community's time with these politically motivated votes for deletion. Christiaan 9:45, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apparent versus Published

Prefacing a comment with "published" is an attempt at "appeal to authority" which is a persuasian technique. Words like "apparent" refer to what has appeared, or is seen. The more important thing, is that people have observed temperature changes, not that they then published them. It's better to speak more directly about what actually occured, than to try to authenticate things with appeals to authority, because even when true, the appeal to authority feels much more like POV pushing. Such things are more likely to turn people off than a simple presentation of what actually occurred. — Cortonin | Talk 21:48, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have responded to this on talk:Global warming--Silverback 23:11, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Children in the IPC

I appreciate your reverting an attempt to restore that terrible old version. I realize that you also reverted my latest edit, but I'm fine with that: I'll try to be more careful and either make small incremental changes or discuss big changes first. Please keep an eye on it, it's been a WP sore ever since it was created under POV title by now banned Alberuni. Cheers. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 07:43, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Silverback

Hi, Silverback I'm Mark, I noted your good edits on Karl Marx. Should you need any help on that page I'll be glad to help you out (BTW El_C is a troll).--198 02:15, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Invasion or liberation?

IMO invasion is not POV. In the cold war era there was a view that if people only fought defensive wars then war would cease so invasion was a no-no. But that makes no sense today in world of failed states. Invasions can enable a liberation. I would say that Irak is yet to be liberated because the Iraki people are still subject to terror from the resistace. The courageous Iraki voters have taken tho a huge step on that path tho. (Hearing those voters saying "let the resisance kill me so long as I vote first" etc was moving wasn't it.)

Having said that "enabling Irakis to take their freedom" needs to be in the results of the invasion box.

How long before protection will be lifted? Dejvid 02:23, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re: Don't abuse the minor edit box.

Sorry. I didn't know that using the rollback link automatically marks reverts as minor edits. You're correct. It wasn't a minor edit. I'll be more careful in future. Tim Ivorson 12:31, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Iraqi insurgency page move

Please vote to support the move from Iraqi resistance → Iraqi insurgency at Misplaced Pages:Requested_moves. Thanks! ObsidianOrder 12:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Republic of China" and "Taiwan"

Hello Silverback. Thanks for joining the discussion over the titles of several China-related articles. You mentioned that " In some of my research for wikipedia contributions, I've had to search, and have found Taiwan to be a far more useful key word, and because of that and the context in the articles, I have had to explicity reference Taiwan, even though I was wiki linking to the republic article. It must have been some strained politics that resulted in the wikipedia policy that is being cited. ". Would you mind why you would have thought Taiwan is a more useful keyword, and therefore should be used as the title? "Republic of China" and "Taiwan" have different meanings, which are not entirely overlaps. — Instantnood 18:18, Feb 19 2005 (UTC)

Re: Taiwan vs Republic of China

It's indeed very true even thinktanks like PNAC uses "Taiwan" but not "Republic of China". Nonetheless would anybody who advocates somebody's interests consider the non-Taiwan parts of the ROC so important that "Taiwan" fails to denote the ROC? Probably only the residents of the non-Taiwan parts and editors of encyclopedias would. Misplaced Pages as an encyclopedia is a place where accuracy is among the most important. — Instantnood 15:38 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)

Re: Taiwan vs Republic of China

I have similar view on the PRC. Nonetheless Taiwan is not an accurate term to denote the entirety of all territories under the ROC's control. Using Taiwan to represent the ROC is just like "Holland" and "England" to the Netherlands and the UK (as MarkSweep has mentioned somewhere). No one would object using "the Netherlands" and "the United Kingdom" to replace "Holland" and "England" where appropriate, then why "the Republic of China"? — Instantnood 16:47 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)

List of sources referring to the Taiwan Strait islands as Taiwan

Since the advocates of the terminology "Republic of China" consider islands other than the island of Taiwan (esecially Quemoy and Matsu) significant, I am putting together a list at User:Susvolans/List of sources referring to the Taiwan Strait islands as Taiwan. Feel free to edit it. Susvolans (pigs can fly) Did you know that there is a proposal to treat dissent from naming conventions as vandalism? 18:08, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Etiquette in the Anarchism article

Your revision of Anarchism at 11:51 on February 26th, fucked up edits that had nothing to do with anarcho-capitalism. I for one, don't really care about the capitalism / anti-capitalism argument that is going on, but please dont revert edits by people who are working on different sections of the article in the process. - Nihila 14:03, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Etiquette is free - capitalists have no excuse not to use it. - Nihila 14:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Whatever. Just try not to run over other people's toes and maybe they will do the same for you. :P - Nihila 14:50, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Global warming

Sorry. It doesn't matter who the parties are; there is a disptue, and reversions will likely begin as soon as the article is unprotected. The article is not ready to be unprotected. 172 17:37, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi Silverback! I really appreciate your ability and willingness to concede a point in good grace (as recently with the different models used for climate prediction to 2100). Thanks! --Stephan Schulz 02:37, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

donkey punch category

what do you think of changing donkey punch category from "violence" to a more specific subcat, such as Category:Abuse or Category:Domestic_abuse? --Smooth Henry 10:55, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Medicine

Please quote on the discussion page of the article Medicine, the sentences of the section Patient-doctor relationship (revision as of 10:43, 28 Feb 2005) you find flawed and your arguments so we can discuss it together and make it more NPOV. It is in the interest of Misplaced Pages and I hope, also our interest not to start a reversion war, but to try to reach an agreement. Thanks. --Eleassar777 12:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

re: 172

To be honest, you tend to come of as ranting, and I'm not sure that it's really helping anything. In fact, the Arbitrators may be more inclined to skip over a long diatribe, and miss the main arguments we're trying to present. I had already prepared a rebuttal to his "quitting", in case one of the Arbitrators made it an issue. -- Netoholic @ 00:00, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Use and Abuse

I didn't lose information; I moved the side effects up to the new Effects section; at least I don't think I lost info. Could you do a check on the version you wrote and make sure there aren't duplicated paragraphs in the two sections? I'm a little snow-blind on that article. Blair P. Houghton 16:43, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. I'd cut out the part about competitiveness because it was both poorly worded and fairly obvious yet still shallow. I was thinking of putting in something specific about the recent history of baseball to make the conflict more concrete. I may yet. Blair P. Houghton 19:59, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Classical definition of republic

Please see the improved version at Wikinfo:Classical Republic. Also, I need your vote on vanavsos. Thanks.WHEELER 17:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee case opening

I am having trouble with classical works and definitions. It seems that User:Snowspinner is out to get me and destroy all classical works.

The Arbitration Committee has accepted the request for arbitration against you. Please bring evidence to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/WHEELER/Evidence. Thank you. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 20:19, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Can I get your help in this regard?WHEELER 14:25, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Seattle

Thanks for your support vote. Can you point me to references for Ron Santos being the 'first insulin dependant baseball player'? Thanks. Niteowlneils 16:55, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dividend tax

Thanks for the correction. I'm not a professional economist, and sometimes I make mistakes in these articles. Pakaran 18:28, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: comment on Talk:FOX News

In reply to Kevin Baas, you say:

Bush is a champion of self determination, how else is a nation to "choose" except democratically. Iraq "chose" Saddam about as much as it "chose" the US invasion.

Bush's idea of democracy is more limited than my own. I expect that the best self determination that Iraqis can hope for will include, with Bush's blessing, the WTO, which leaves Bush's own protectionism nearly unpunished, overruling economic decisions of an elected government (but this would be an improvement over Saddam's regime).

Bush doesn't even consistently support his "democracy" and I don't agree that opposing Bush's policies means not being able to. Why would Bush make an ally of Soviet dictator Islam Karimov, if he supported democracy? If Iraq is allowed democracy, we will owe it to something other than Bush's love of democracy.

However good some of his policies are, Bush is part of the problem (as are his allies, including our own "socialist" Blair) and not because he's American or Protestant. Bush is up to no good and, even if you could recall him, it would be better to have a US president who doesn't need such close supervision.

Tim Ivorson 17:42, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't in good conscience vote for Bush, but I don't hide the fact that I strongly prefer him to Kerry or the United Nations, both of which I have little respect for and grant even less moral authority to. I've disagreed with the policies of the WTO and the world bank in the past, and I am surprised that other countries put up with the imposition of intellectual property rights by the US, Japan and Europe. You'd think that such an artificial thing would be optional. They must want access to western markets bad, or lack the intellectual wherewithal the make their case.

I am surprised that I have such strong positive feelings about the war in Iraq, probably because it was fought by such moral means, without conscription and with extreme care to preserve civilian infrastructure, and the armistace terms where aid is given rather than reparations sought have to be marveled at and put it head and shoulders above any significant conflict in the last hundred years. I can respect a pacifist position, but certainly wonder that someone could think other wars can be defended over this one. --Silverback 19:23, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I thought that the other candidates were so weak that Badnarik would get at least some EC votes. Tim Ivorson 12:14, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nah, when your candidate is weak then you demonize the other side. Fear. The US needs reform that gives minority viewpoints proportional representation. We can't rely upon majority benevolence and respect for the constitution any more. A minority may be 15 to 30% everywhere, but not a majority in any winner take all state or congressional district, and so has no voice or representation. And the major parties like it that way.--Silverback 12:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Zen-master

My comment, unlike yours, was serious. Zen-master's actions were a refreshing change from most of what we see on /3RR. Noel (talk) 13:32, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I did enjoy your poke at PaperBoys. I love these socks, they show up and immediately head to some obscure corner of Misplaced Pages. Riiiggghhhtttt. Noel (talk) 13:38, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How do you spin this sort of thing?

Silverback, I'm curious how you spin this sort of thing: http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050324/NEWS/503240308/1002/NEWS01 with regard to Bush's "moral" way of waging war. —Christiaan 09:47, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I believe in open government, so I think the caskets should be allowed to be photographed. But I suspect the reason photography is prohibited is to prevent the press from playing up emotionally rather than rationally the human toll of the war in Iraq. Rationally, the one or two thousand lives the US has lost in Iraq is a drop in the bucket compared to the approximately 2 million who die in the US each year or when compared to the US losses in Vietnam. I suspect, that she would be disappointed with the "repectful" way the caskets are treated. I know from my fathers burial with military honors that the individuals that perform rituals over and over are bored stiff and can't wait to get home or their next meal. I think you should keep in perspective how evil various government actions are. If history is any guide, the US government is kill 10s of thousands of its own innocent civilians each year by the FDA delays in approving life saving medicines. Frankly, when one government destroys another, I count it a net gain.--Silverback 12:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I guess so. Hitler was a rational think too. —Christiaan 20:16, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reason and values are orthogonal, don't expect too much from reason without values or with the wrong values.--Silverback 20:43, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

I'm not sure why you're pursuing this KingOfAllPaperboys thing, but the only evidence you seem to be offering is coincidences in timing, which is pretty useless. Given how many accounts there are on Misplaced Pages, the argument could be made for an immense number of people, so it proves nothing. You could track down a developer and see if they're willing to help you, if it's important enough to you. Also, it is not at all helpful, when people rebut one of your accusations, to just turn around and make the same accusation about somebody else chosen with no more rhyme or reason than your first target. Please stop. --Michael Snow 23:36, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Because I think an admin with a sockpuppet is a pretty serious thing. Is there a list of developers? -- thanx, --Silverback 23:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The basic list is at m:Developer. --Michael Snow 00:00, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanx, I've posted my request on the developer talk page.--Silverback 00:25, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:KingofAllPaperboys

Thanks for the heads up, but — while it is not for me to decide whether Mr KingofAllPaperboys is a sock puppet or merely a remarkable, astounding, really-quite-shocking newbie — he's not my sock puppet. Believe me, I have no problem reverting Netoholic under my own username. In fact, it's a hobby. — Itai (f&t) 20:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Depleted Uranium

Thanks for your edit to depleted uranium. I've been in kind of a stand-off with Christiaan on the issue, and I'm glad to have another opinion. Hopefully we can try to get the article to be more NPOV. --Bonus Onus 02:10, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

hey

hey, thanks for the comments earlier on the arbitration case. RJII 14:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC) Hey, you might want to put some of the stuff from your proposed intro in the new Free Market section of the capitalism article, like the self-organization and decentralization stuff. RJII 05:35, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

nicely put

I chanced upon your 14:09, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC) comment in Talk:2003 Invasion of Iraq/Fpahl vs Silverback. I just wanted to say I agree completely, it's nicely put. "When a government does not protect the rights of its citizens, it has no legitimacy" - should be inscribed at the entrance to the UN in five-foot-tall letters. ObsidianOrder 15:11, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanx, its nice to see that someone actually uses the archives.--Silverback 23:12, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Capitalism

Hi Silverback, I've left three requests for citations on Talk:Capitalism for your recent edit to the intro. I'd be grateful if you could supply them please. Many thanks, SlimVirgin 00:39, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

I addressed you concerns about plagerism on the talk page. Yes, I can write that well. Any similarity to any other text is mere convergence.--Silverback 00:45, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Redirects

Can you either redirect your Meta user page to your Misplaced Pages user page or add an explanation? Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 05:28, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Global warming

Are there really people (ie, real people, not politicians or people in the pocket of the oil industry) who doubt the very foundations of climate change the way Ed appears to? I always thought the arguments were about nitpicky things - whether models that are maybe 70% accurate are "good enough" to be considered "consensus". Reading Ed's comments left me shaking, horrified. Guettarda 21:48, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was struck that Ed seemed to be speaking as if there was only opinion not knowledge. That said, there is reason for skepticism about the dire predictions of the extent of global warming and its consequences, and there is good reason to think that taking any measures with hundreds of billions of dollars of economic impact is premature and probably wrong even if Global warming is right. Although, WMC seems to have a visceral opposition to Fred Singer, Singer points to valid weaknesses in the global warming evidence, and we would all be more informed if the questions he raises were answered, especially the reliance on the predictions of climate models, which are unable to match the temperature data. On the SEPP talk page, I mention Singers peer reviewed publications this year, which point to these issues with the models, and suggest that surface issues in the handling of the tropical oceans may be the source of problems. New data on the CO2 levels from Hawaii show a much lower increase this year than in previous years, contrary to what one would expect from human emissions. Climate feedback mechanisms are too poorly understood and modeled for the level of fearmongering and economic measure that have been undertaken. There are lots of things that can be done with 100s of billions of dollars taken out of economic growth by Kyoto type measures, so it is no wonder that this is politicized.--Silverback 22:03, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I disagree with you in terms of the costs/benefits given the potential risks, but of course skepticism is valid. As for costs, BTW, according to Clinton's science advisor, Kyoto's costs are ~1/2 what we spend on clean air enforcement. It's reassuring to hear your interpretation... I suppose I was mostly shocked because I though (think?) well of Ed overall. Guettarda 23:04, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would be concerned, on the contrary, if valid questions were not or could not be raised. I would be concerned becaue that would mean that the evidence was not scientific. Climate models are pretty sophisticated and have improved since earlier ones and are constantly improving, the ability to match predictions; the accuracy; has gone up drastically, and is continuing to improve. So far, as the climate models have improved in this way, they have provided progressively stronger verification of the theory of global warming. So what's your point?

You said "and there is good reason to think that taking any measures with hundreds of billions of dollars of economic impact is premature and probably wrong even if Global warming is right." How is this so? Trees don't grow on money. Our fundamental resource is this planet. When you have $100 billion more dollars, you can purchase all the dirt you want, but the ecosystem is getting worse, you're losing capital. The ecosystem is ontologically prior to the economy; the health of the economy depends on the health of the ecosystem (as does the health of our bodies). When you spend money faster than you make money, you will run out of money. Is this the right thing to do? is this the wise decision, to run out of money, when it is possible for you to not run out of money, by spending slower? Money doesn't grow on trees. Trees don't grow on money. You cannot eat money. Perhaps we should switch from the gold standard to the ecosystem standard - maybe then more people will understand. Essentially, this is what other animals do, when they fight over territory on the basis of the ecological resources that the territories provide. The value of the territory is proportional to the ecological resources. Don't be fooled by our abstract system of barter - the laws of physics haven't changed, we still build houses with wood and stone, and eat fish and meat and fruit and vegetables, and wear fabric made from animals and plants, etc. This stuff is not made out of money, and we will never be able to make it out of money, which we ultimately have to make out of something other than money in the first place. What good is money if there's nothing to purchase with it? If oil prices are twice as high, what does it matter if we have 1.5 times the dough? That's called "inflation", it's what happens when the ratio of ecological resources to currency goes down. The value of the dollar is based on what it can buy, it is not fixed. What can be bough is based on what can be produced, what can be produced is based on raw materials, raw materials come from the environment. The buck stops there. The buck starts and stops at the ecosystem. You throw it away, you're throwing money away. You throw money away, that's called deflation. Kevin Baas 23:28, 2005 Apr 5 (UTC)

The models and their fit to the data are unfortuantely much weaker than you think. Here are a couple journal articles that Fred Singer was co-author was on that make just this point: . And to note another factor no accounted for the 2001 IPCC predictions, check out the climate commitment studies I referenced on the Global warming page.

The effects of Kyoto, despite its expense, are going to be difficult to even detect, while the effects of Global warming are not all negative, there will be energy savings and benefits to agriculture for instance. While the economic costs of Kyoto such as sea level rise are probably more cheap to mitigate directly than to try to prevent by Kyoto type measure which end up limiting economic growth. Yes there is some inflation, but the price of oil also has something to do with increased demand. In the long run that increase in the price of oil may do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than Kyoto, although, it may have the opposite effect if coal rather than nuclear is substituted. It is pretty clear that the eco-system is not at stake, based on much higher greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere in the geological past. The temperatures themselves were experienced in the last 1000 years with just natural variability. Even at current temperatures, climate commitment effects probably already guarantee that sea levels are going to rise for several hundred years. So Kyoto is a drop in the bucket at a precious price. Even the poor in countries likely to be impacted by sea level rise would probably benefit more if those dollars were spent on health care rather than Kyoto.--Silverback 23:48, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The simplest questions are what if...if current models are accurate, it isn't just the few tens of thousands of people from low-lying countries who will be displaced, it's 17 million Bangladeshis. True, Kyoto was too little, too late. But isn't there something deeply immoral about the idea of poor people displaced so that rich people can drive SUVs? The money not spent on Kyoto isn't being spent on health care for the poor. It's being spent to SUVs and ever-larger houses to heat. And if the dire warning come true,

The idea that "the ecosystem is not at stake" is not "pretty clear". True, predicted warming is in the historic range, but the predicted rate of warming is well outside of the range. Even if it wasn't/isn't, habitat fragmentation means that the "avenues of escape" are gone. Trees migrate rather slowly, and they migrate extremely slowly across farmland. Exotic species become more prevalent in disturbed areas - so it's entirely possible that the "greening" earth will be one covered with kudzu. I may not be an expert on GCMs and aerosols, but I do know something about forest ecology. Guettarda 00:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alright, first, someone has to tell me how to "mitigate sea (as in ocean) level rise directly". Maybe the advances in science, which have given us technological solutions, might have an answer - - oh wait, it does. Well, if we don't like that solution, maybe we can try good old fashioned religion... That's right, all we need to do is pray and not believe that we eat food, or in any thing such as Lotka-Volterra equations, food chains, or population dynamics (speaking of health care rather than Kyoto).

It's time to think long-term. I get so bored with everyone not thinking past their own lifetime. It is so easy to live until old age. You can do it without thinking once. So what are we talking about here? Are we talking about global warming, or the economy? Are we talking about policies? What are we talking about? Hold on, let me look at the section title: oh yeah! Global Warming. Isn't that some kind of science thing? Hold on, let me look it up in an encyclopedia...

But first, won't someone tell me how to mitigate sea level rise "directly"? Wouldn't that be through precipitation, you know, the "water-cycle"? Wouldn't that be the most direct route? Kevin Baas 08:41, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

At 10 to 30cm of sea level rise over the next century, there are many forms of direct mitigation for those affected, better construction techniques near shore, migrating villages further inland, sea walls, artificial barrier islands, better fresh water management to reduce salt water invasion, etc. Of course, there may not need to be any special international programs for such measures to happen. The best strategy might be to continue the economic growth which benefits the third world, so that third would nations beyond just India, Thailand, Malaysia, etc develop middle classes which can afford their own mitigation and so that there is more urbanization and coastal living becomes more specialized, for fisherman, vacationers, etc.--Silverback 09:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One problem with the whole economic growth idea is the famous number of 5% of the world's people (ie, the US) consuming 25% of the world's resources. If we get everyone up to a US (or even W.European) standard of living, where are the basic resources to support that going to come from? Don't get me wrong - I am from the Third World - I don't reject the aspiration of improving the standard of living. But does economic growth in the developed world really benefit the Third World? I lived through "structural adjustment" and the development of a vibrant, export-driven manufacturing sector. The result? The wealthy grew wealthier, and the average standard of living declined. 10-30 cm rise in itself is difficult to mitigate. Even as rich a country as the US doesn't seem to be able to find the money (or is it the will) to save the Mississippi Delta. Mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands, back reef communities, they are all threatened by rising sea levels in a way that is difficult to mitigate. I don't see how Bangladesh is going to manage the need to become Holland. As for places like the Maldives or some of the Pacific nations...they would have to import the material to create sea defenses. Add to that the problem of storm surges... Warming is likely to have an adverse effect of agriculture as well. Sure, CO₂ is a "fertiliser", but higher temperatures are likely to increase photorespiration rates. Increased microbial respiration rates may cause competition for nitrogen. Soybeans grown in enriched CO₂ environments are attacked more by pests, although forest trees appear to be less attacked - it's all a matter of resource allocation, growth or defense...it's impossible to predict (the eternal problem in biology - you can demonstrate something to be possible in the lab, but that says nothing about whether it is likely to be a significant driver in field conditions). One can choose to be optimistic or pessimistic, but realism demands that we consider average and worst-case predictions. If we have the time left over we can also put on our rose-tinted glasses and imagine the best-case scenario, but it's irresponsible to plan based on best-case predictions. Guettarda 15:09, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The US economy has in the last two or three decades become much more energy efficient per dollar of GNP, and the US economy itself has become more service and information oriented. Bits don't consume many resources, flat panels consume less energy than CRTs, telecommunters consume less energy than traditional commuters, etc. The US may be the end user of a lot of the worlds resources, but a lot of that consumption is indirect through other countries the US imports from. I think you also will find that the paradigm of using the third world as low priced unskilled manufacturing labor may not be the predominate model in the future. Already India is developing a substantial world presence in the information processing industry and the middle class there is surpassing the US in size if not yet in wealth. Even in China, where the economy is still more manufacturing than information, the workers are benefitting in the sense of having higher standards of living.

Don't underestimate the adaptability of lesser developed countries. Holland and Venice did not become what they are, with only the latest technology, but with technology existing decades and even centuries ago. The benefits of modern knowledge should provide more options for such transitions, not less. Don't underestimate indigenous populations of homo sapiens. So called primitive cultures have sophisticated cultures able to cope with harsh environmental conditions, for example, the eskimos of the north, or the aborigines of Austrailia, etc. The peoples in these lands, however, condescendingly primitive, our cultures see them as, are resourceful, they aren't just going to roll over and die.

We don't need to consider the worst-case predictions unless they are realistic and credible. And currently they aren't. They are predicting much more warming than paleo-climates indicate occur with CO2 increases, and their predictions are out of line with straight forward extrapolations of current temperature trends, and their models are not realistic, although they are fitted to and match surface temperature data well, they have much warmer troposphere temperature profiles than have been measured by satellites, balloons and 3 meter high sensors on buoys in the oceans. The CO2 increase for the last year was less that in previous years even though human contributions were larger. The models are poorly representing climate feedback mechanisms and are not yet ready realistic enough for prediction, even though the modelers are more than willing to do so.--Silverback 16:24, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 23:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)) Essentially everthing in that paragraph is wrong. There is no good way to know which predictions are credible or realistic. The prediction-using-palaeo stuff; or from extrapolating current trends, just isn't a good way to predict future T. The models are *not* fitted to match sfc T - you've just made that up. "much warmer trop profiles" - I presume you mean trends? If so, the answer is, it depends which versionof the satellite record you use.

(William M. Connolley 23:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)) Note that all the economic stuff is a red herring, because thats not what any of the current argument cycle is about. Note also that 'And to note another factor no accounted for the 2001 IPCC predictions, check out the climate commitment studies I referenced on the Global warming page. is simply wrong: the commitment stuff is nothing new at all. Its in IPCC TAR, of course http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/345.htm. Note that Singers recent PR papers are distinctly dodgy: they truncate the satellite record at 1996 in order to avoid showing the warming you get if you use the full record. People may not have noticed that...

Singer truncates at 1996 because the treatment of snow changed, making that data inconsistent throughout its whole time period. He then analyzes seperately the non-snow impacted data all the way through 2003 and shows it does not alter their conclusions, and fully discloses all of this. He also reviews the literature, and apparently not only he and his co-authors but also the peer reviewers, thought the his use of the satellite data was valid. It's been awhile since I looked at the satellite data, has been another iteration in publications since these papers were published? The economic stuff is not irrelevant, because it is the reason there is controversy at all. If it wasn't for the fear mongering that resulted in policies like Kyoto, we'd all be happy to be patient and wait for the science to develope.

(William M. Connolley 11:02, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)) Singer struggles for an excuse to truncate to 96. As the GW page says (because I put it there) yes this is controversial because of the impacts but it *is* a red herring because we are not arguing over the economic impacts, its just background.

The paleo stuff is relevant, because until we can understand the discrepancy, we don't understand the climate. Of course, in the short term deviations from the geological scale equilibria can occur, but of course, the possible feedback mechanisms such as increased precipitation and erosion may actually operate right away. There may be no way to know which predictions are credible or realistic, unless the models have a track record of accurate and realistic prediction.

You are correct that I just "made up" that models are fitted to the surface data, if by that you mean that it is my own conclusion based on my assessment of the problems with the models, and their predictions based on physics that we know they don't include or model properly. However, the authors and these papers we are discussing apparently propose that as a possible cause of the model/surface data/vertical temperature profile discrepencies. I quote:

• • It seems improbable that results from satellites (MSU), NCAR/NCEP reanalysis (NNR), and Radiosondes, which agree with each other, would all be wrong. Therefore, it seems more likely that both the models and observed surface trends are problematic. Their apparent agreement may be a coincidence or perhaps reflect a “tuning” of the models to the surface temperature trends.

Note the last phrase. Certainly if the models had been tuned to the non-surface data, they should have done a better job fitting them.--Silverback 03:46, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 11:02, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)) Singer is a septic who knows nothing of the climate models. Repeating his vague insinuations won't help. The paper you place so much weight on can't bear the weight you put on it. Its not even true that the satellties all agree with each other, obviously, since there are multiple satellite records. NNR isn't an independent source, of course.

It is probably best to attribute the "vague insinuations" they published to all the authors. The overlap in the NNR data is only partial and is discussed by the authors. Christy, et al, published their response to the Vinnikov satellite data in this paper. The difficulties of modeling are well known, and it is much easier to criticise them than it is to produce a realistic model incorporating surface and aerosol chemistry on a world wide scale, approximations and parameterizations will of course be necessary, but that is why skepticism is in order, and validation with real data is needed. Since the IPCC TAR, we have increased understandings of the amount of commitment already in the current climate, we have additional information about the amount of natural climate variation, both from Stouffer's modeling and the correction of the hockey stick by Moberg, and we have additional physical mechanisms that perhaps explain the stronger solar correlations (cosmic rays), and the papers we have discussed which confirm the satellite verticle temperature profile anamolie and suggest that a better understanding of tropical ocean surface interactions will be needed to improve the models.--Silverback 05:01, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

"the commitment stuff is nothing new at all"

I checked the IPCC reference , and yes it does mention climate commitment, but in the context of calculating "climate sensitivity" and approximating "effective climate sensitivity".

• "Because of the long time-scales associated with deep ocean equilibration, the direct calculation of coupled model equilibrium temperature change for doubled CO2 requires an extended simulation and a considerable commitment of computer resources. One such calculation has been performed (Stouffer and Manabe, 1999). "

The reason there was only one study available was because of the extremely long model runs needed:

• "For a full coupled atmosphere/ocean GCM, however, the heat exchange with the deep ocean delays equilibration and several millennia, rather than several decades, are required to attain it. "

I don't have access to the full text of this study, here is the abstract.. However, note that it only studies the commitment at 2x and 4x CO2, not the commitment yet to be realized in the current climate. That is what the new studies fill in. This is not a criticism of Stouffer and Manabe, because they were more interested in the thermohaline circulation, and not specifically in the calculation of climate sensitivity. Apparently the IPCC panel chose to use their study for this unplanned purpose. From the description of the Stouffer and Manabe study, it appears that it would be incorrect to use it to calculate climate sensitivity, because they don't first make long runs to achieve equilibrium at current climate forcings, so the climate sensitivities that IPCC derives are not really for CO2 doubling from the current values, but include some of the unrealized commitment from current greenhouse gas and solar forcings.

In a sense, the new climate commitment curves need to be subtracted from the Stouffer and Manabe curves, to get the climate sensitivity figures for the particular models. The "effective" climate sensitivities" that are used to make the IPCC predictions are also subject to other uncertainties and errors. For instance, here is the caveat from IPCC

• "If effective climate sensitivity varies with climate state, estimates of climate sensitivity made from a transient simulation may not reflect the ultimate warming the system will undergo. The use of a constant climate sensitivity in simple models will lead to inconsistencies which depend on the value of sensitivity chosen. This feature deserves further study."

Note that here, IPCC seems to be making the erroneous attribution of all unrealized climate commitment to greenhouse emissions, when in fact some of it may be due to commitment from solar forcing.

• "In order to make projections of future climate, models incorporate past, as well as future emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Hence, they include estimates of warming to date and the commitment to future warming from past emissions."

Models tuned to the past surface warming data, without knowing the amount of unrealized commitment already in the system, will attribute too much effect to greenhouse gas levels, and will demonstrate too much sensitivity to them.--Silverback 08:02, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

In your last paragraph, you stated a speculation as a conclusion. Kevin Baas 22:43, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

The warming will be attributed to one of the forcings they apply and since the unrealized commitment is a warming, it is unlikely to be attributed to a cooling forcing such as a sulphate aerosol, and will be more likely to be attributed to a warming forcing such as greenhouse gasses. I don't have all the information, but more is known now than the IPCC had at the time of the third tar, so perhaps my conclusions are less speculative than theirs.--Silverback 04:40, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 12:37, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)) You're still misinterpreting things. All the commitment stuff means is that once you stop increasing CO2, the temperature continues to rise. Thats in IPCC 2001, and it was in IPCC 1995 as well (fig 6.17). You don't need millenial runs for this. Models tuned to the past surface warming data, without knowing the amount of unrealized commitment already in the system, will attribute too much effect to greenhouse gas levels is just wrong, because the models aren't tuned in the way you assert.

(William M. Connolley 15:10, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)) Anyway, Climate commitment studies already said the idea was nothing new; I've made it more explicit; talk there.

Yes, it was intuitively obvious that the oceans would take time to equilibrate, so it shouldn't have been new. But it was barely mentioned and studied even less in the IPCC reports. BTW, thanx for the new Stouffer reference on the Climate commitment studies page. Although it was in 2001, I guess it was after the TAR, since it isn't discussed in the text, although I haven't checked in the references.--Silverback 09:54, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

page move

I have reverted your move of the Anarchism article. Before you rename a major article, please make sure there is consensus to do so on the Talk page. Thanks. -- Viajero 12:22, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fear not, none of your precious edits have been lost; just look in the page history, i.e, -- Viajero 12:13, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Left Anarchism

The left anarchism page is up for deletion by Che. You might want to vote to keep it: Thanks. RJII 05:26, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

libertarianism

Take a look at the libertarianism page. I think you were right that I took too much out. I consolidated the discussion of redistribution and inequality in the property section with the discussion of the same issues in the economics section and put both in the economics section. If you don't like my wording, we can work something out like last time. I just thought I'd give you a heads-up. Dave (talk) 03:35, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda

Could you please vote on the proposed move Links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda → Alleged links between pre-invasion Iraq and Al-Qaeda? The vote is here . Thanks. ObsidianOrder 17:08, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're back

You're back. Welcome. I've reverted the recent/2001 bit on GW - but don't worry - I'm limited to 1 R per day so you can outfight me if you want to. See the talk anyway. I'm pretty dubious about the +ve benefits of ozone but... what the hell. Have you looked at the simplified GW article yet? William M. Connolley 20:53, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Conspiring

Please see User_talk:El_C#Silverback. Cheers, Sam Spade 21:26, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Working poor

Hi, Silverback. I note that you reverted the work that I did on the working poor article. I tried to make it more neutral and relevant to other first world countries and more readable by improving the style and tone of the article. I also added what I consider relevant issues such as fuel poverty, precarious employment and targeted welfare assistance for the working poor that you have deleted. You also deleted references to work being done in other countries to research the plight of those in precarious employment and categories relevant to the subject matter of this article. I would be interested in why you believe the version I edited was more NPOV Tiles 05:24, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Because the plight of the working poor has not been balanced by their responsibility for their own situation, through their values and choices, and furthermore there is too much emphasis on the misery of their situation, when in reality they have a standard of living only exceeded the the "nobility" and rulers for most of human history. Consider that most of the working poor can afford a VCR and TV. Only the ruling elite in Roman times could afford nightly dramatic entertainments. Consider also that whatever the complaints of the working poor about their status, ex post facto, most would make the same decisions that put them in a lower materialistic status again given the same situations. AND, they wouldn't necessarily be wrong. However, poorly they've done materialistically for instance, they may be society's winners if one measures them on a partying or sexual frequency scale. The article was making condescending, paternalistic judgements about people who made different choices, and compounded that with making excuses for why they didn't do better on some scale they may not even care about. I'd love to be able to speak foreign languages for instance, but I am unwilling to make any effort to learn them. People make choices all the time, and have unfulfilled desires that they were unwilling to pay the price to get, so perhaps they were not their highest priorities.--Silverback 05:40, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I now have a clear understanding of your views on the working poor. Tiles 05:53, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I hope that is true, it would be a credit to our skills of communication. Can you extrapolate the same principles to the comparative wealth of countries, the USA and France for instance?--Silverback 15:52, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

FARC archive page

Please don't vote on the archive page of the |featured article removal candidates, a decision already has been made on the articles listed there. --Conti|✉ 21:12, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Nominations are kept on the page for about two weeks. As the Iraqi insurgency nomination was quite undecided I kept it for another week and then moved it to the archive with no consensus reached (therefore it got kept as a featured article). There is currently some discussion to change the rules and maybe extend the time it is on WP:FARC at Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article removal candidates. --Conti|✉ 21:25, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Castro

No request is necessary. As for the "one intransigent editor," I'd agree except that I don't know if you mean Trey Stone, 172, Davenbelle, or KapilTagore. I see little evidence on the talk page of a good faith attempt to resolve the content dispute. I do see political polemics and inveighing against Castro, which is unhelpful. Best, Mackensen (talk) 13:20, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We aren't here to make value judgements. I'd also note that Trey Stone has a long history of being uncooperative and white-washing the actions of a certain conservative statesman. I hope you aren't trying to tell me that the problem with the Castro article is that it doesn't condemn him strongly enough. Finally, I care very little for the insinuation that I'm abusing my admin powers. Mackensen (talk) 13:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can only reiterate what I said above. We are suppose to write from a neutral perspective. That means we don't write the article from a libertarian perspective. I suggest reading WP:NPOV very, very carefully, because I don't think you understand it. We aren't here to decide if Castro "deserves" anything. I suggest you direct your energies towards finding consensus on the talk page. Mackensen (talk) 13:47, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

the page was being hit with reverts from all over the place and it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Protecting seems logical under those conditions.Geni 14:05, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please read this. Proteus (Talk) 14:11, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You "generally oppose page protection"? How nice for you. However, criticising Admins for doing things they are perfectly entitled to do simply because you think they shouldn't be able to do them is rather pointless. Try to change the policy if you disagree with it, but acting as if it doesn't exist isn't likely to get you anywhere. Proteus (Talk) 14:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's bordering on unacceptable, but it bears no resemblance to this situation and I'm struggling to see the revelance: the fact that powers can be abused doesn't not mean that they always are, which is what you seem to be implying here and which is manifestly not the case. The fact that an admin has protected a version of a page which you dislike does not mean either that they are corrupt or that they favour the protected version. Proteus (Talk) 14:44, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re: Bad Habits

When have I ever taken sides before? This is the first time I have even taken up a page as such a major project. I posted notices in 3 different places. Fine, you've convinced me, I won't protect the page, but please watch what you're talking about. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 14:55, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No worries, prehaps you'd like to come over and help us? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent Design, Comments from A ghost

You wrote, "rv to Silverback, you deleted my comment AGAIN, be careful Ghost". It appears that you and I have run into the same problem with Edit Conflicts that I've seen crop up since the recent publish (Monday). I wasn't intentionally deleting your comment. Any more than you did mine. We're not getting Edit Conflict warnings like we used to. So our posts accidently reverted each other. I'll try to rebuild the chat.--ghost 28 June 2005 21:59 (UTC)

RfC

On June 28, Silverback alleged that Ilyanep, Shem, and myself engaged in collusion regarding which version of the Fox News article was to be placed under protection. Ilyanep had placed the article under protection on June 27 at the request of Shem and myself.

It seems to me that Silverback, by making these allegations, is in clear violation of the “Assume good faith” policy: WP:AGF. Silverback has failed to apply Hanlon's Razor, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Even if our actions regarding placing this page under protection were in violation of Misplaced Pages policy – an allegation that I deny – such violation could be explained by a lack of understanding on our part.

I request that Silverback retract his allegations that Ilyanep, Shem, and myself engaged in collusion regarding which version of the Fox News article was to be placed under protection, and that he apologize for making such allegations.

If he does this, then I will consider this dispute settled.

If he does not do this, then I would advise him to begin his own dispute resolution process regarding this alleged collusion. Meanwhile, I will go on to the next stage in the dispute, and put the dispute up for comments by the Misplaced Pages community at large. (Provided that one other person also attempts to resolve this dispute peacefully.) crazyeddie 29 June 2005 04:21 (UTC)

Assuming good faith is a guideline, actually, not a policy. But for the active misrepresentation Silverback has engaged in with regard to the events described both here and at Talk:FOX News, amongst other comments of his, I do believe Silverback to have violated Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks (which is a policy) several times against myself and other editors at FOX News. I would agree to a formal RfC if this is taken into account, unless Silverback would care to apologize and/or cease his interpersonal rhetoric. Shem 29 June 2005 06:32 (UTC)

I already resolved the dispute with Crazyeddie, before he even went to all this trouble. I am surprised he has done this, what dispute remains?--Silverback June 29, 2005 13:41 (UTC)

Your exact words were: "I apologize to you Crazyeddie, the evidence isn't there for you.". I don't believe that this qualifies as a retraction of your allegations.

I've recently took a one day wikivacation to try to get a better perspective on this issue. I still believe that my request is reasonable.

I don't think I can be reasonably expected to negotiate with someone who thinks so little of me as to suggest I might be involved in such a lowlife scheme.

Contrawise, if we were involved in such a lowlife scheme, then Silverback should not be expected to negotiate with us. So, I think Silverback should carry out a dispute resolution process of his own, if he truly thinks we were involved in such a scheme. If successful, if the evidence backs him up, he could probably get the protection lifted, and possibly have all three of us removed from the discussion. Surely that would be to his liking? If he does initiate such a process, then I will consider my dispute with him settled - unless this process clears our names or is settled outside of RfC, and he persists in making these allegations.

If upon reflection, he realizes that the evidence does not back up his claims, then he should retract his allegations against all three of us and apologize for making them. If he does so, I will consider this dispute settled.

If he takes neither action, then I will be forced to begin a formal Request for Comment. crazyeddie 30 June 2005 18:35 (UTC)

Just in case my apology did not make it clear, I do retract my allegations against you. Your refusal to negotiate with me is nothing new, and I am not going to press you on that.--Silverback June 30, 2005 19:09 (UTC)

But you still haven't retracted your allegations against Shem and Ilyanep. Obviously, it would be strange if I filed a RfC on their behalf. But I can encourage them to file one, and cosign it if they do. As I said, if the evidence backs your account up, and you initiated a dispute resolution process, then you could probably have the protection lifted and perhaps have all three of us temporarily banned from editing the Fox News article. So why haven't you done so? So far, your accusations have earned you nothing but alienating an administrator who, given his admitted pro-Fox bias, had every reason to be on your side. You have also seriously annoyed two people (if not more) who were already not very happy with you. So why not retract your allegations and repair some of the damage you have done to your own reputation? crazyeddie 5 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm waiting for this to be resolved before continuing at FOX News, and hope he'll respond quickly. Shem 22:31, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda → Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda conspiracy theory - name change vote

Hello, there is a vote to rename Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda conspiracy theory. The voting is here: Talk:Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda#poll on changing the name of this_page. I would appreciate it if you could vote. Thanks. ObsidianOrder 05:18, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages cliques

Hello - I noticed in your vote in the Felonius Monk RfA that you mentioned experiencing cliquish tendencies with this user and Slimvirgin at the Intelligent Design article. Just wanted to let you know that I've experienced almost an identical situation to yours twice before with Slimvirgin that involves an editor she's either closely aligned with or nominated for adminiship. This is a severe and growing problem on Misplaced Pages when administrators start elevating their buddies into positions of authority and using off-site backchannels to coordinate their work. Many times the purposes are less than forthright such as POV pushing and voting down RfC's when a member of one of the cliques violates WP policy. Don't know if you have any ideas on how to counter this sort of stuff other than to keep citing the policies and vote against these types when they come up for admin, but I'm interested in any suggestions. To date I've been doing everything I can to bring attention to this problem and to contact other editors who have experienced it. Best regards Rangerdude 07:27, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I think "sunshine" is the minimum we can do. Shine light on or highlight the behavior in public places like we just did. Unfortunately, once they become admins they can develope a shameless hubris, like Slimvirgin has, and can only be gotten rid of for severe violations of policy, and usually not even then, because the arb committee seems to view adminship as a right rather than a privilege, and will only discipline for a month or so in most cases. Some have become part of an admin peer culture with an ethic of serving rather than abusing the community, these are usually apologetic when any instances of poor judgement come to light, although some seem to have those instances far too often.--Silverback 07:36, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. It's unfortunate that many of these administrators will turn a blind eye to one of their own when a clear policy violation happens. And hubris! You aren't kidding. Slimvirgin is one of the worst on this. A couple weeks ago I posted a complaint against one of her administrator buddies for repeatedly making a blatant disruptive POV edit to an article. The case was so outrageous it shouldn't have taken more than a few seconds to see who was in the wrong (her administrator buddy was adding completely extraneous David Duke quotes into an article in an attempt to taint the other sources in the article with the KKK). Several rational and objective editors saw this, agreed it was wrong, and went to work trying to get him to stop. Then Slimvirgin shows up and declares that she's friends with the problematic administrator and as such she knows he can do no wrong, no matter the evidence. In short order she also rounded up her clique through talk pages and the backchannels and they all showed up and voted down the complaint en masse without so much as a word addressing the evidence. A week later I run into her again and its the exact same thing. One of her editor buddies has an article here about his off-site identity and he got mad when sourced critical material about his politics was added to that article. So he posts a fit about it on the article page (in violation of WP:AUTO) and calls her in. In a matter of hours she's rounded up the exact same cabal to orchestrate the expunging of any criticism of her friend. A day later she starts undertaking the revision herself and guts any critical material. This was contested by myself and other editors on the talk page and accordingly reverted pending consensus. Next thing you know she starts a revert war, calls in the clique again to help with it, and the moment her contested revision is back another one of her administrator buddies protects the page. It's very frustrating to deal with people like that because they are plainly acting in bad faith and running the place to protect their own. To date I've identified 4 or 6 members of this little clique as well as some fellow travellers. The worst are Slimvirgin, Willmcw, Jayjg, and FeloniousMonk - 3 admins and one admin nominee! Rangerdude 20:33, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I am fond of the wiki philosophy, but it assumes most people are of good will, and will live or die on the validity of that assumption. wikipedia is further flawed by the lack of symmetry in the admin approval/removal process. Adminship should really be about service, not power or status. I don't think you should really take all the injustice personally. Just fight the good fight and if you lose, then wikipedia is probably getting what it deserves, it is a shame, but it is a weakness of democratic principles. You can build a franchise with reputation and authority, and then a mob can come in and steal it by mere numbers and "consensus". These parasites can live off it for awhile, but eventually they will destroy its value with their lack of integrity.--Silverback 20:43, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

The only way to fight a clique is with a clique. I'd tell you more, but you don't have email enabled (either of you ;) As far as the disclosure comment @ Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/FeloniousMonk, people are allowed to communicate via IM, IRC, Email, phone calls, or whatever they may like. There is no way to stop that, or to force them to reveal their communications. The only thing you can do is a bit of trustbusting, which is certainly my intent.

¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 21:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sam, I know you are well intentioned. But I really do believe in doing everything in an open and transparent manner. I wish you the best of luck. I will lend a hand occassionally, if I see activity, and can in good conscience assist what is going on.--Silverback 22:37, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Ted Kennedy

The info has already been restored... =) happy editing and remember to smile. Sasquatch↔讲↔看 22:30, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thanx, that looks like the ethical/neutral position.--Silverback 22:32, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Why Silverback, is this you colluding with an admin to protect a "correct" version of a disputed page? Shem 22:39, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

It is hardly collusion. It is wikipedia policy to attempt to resolve a dispute directly with the admin before filing a grievance. I believe he has now resolved it in a neutral manner, according to the rules, before he hadn't. I welcome scrutiny, note, I don't archive my talk page, I leave an open and transparent trail, warts or not.--Silverback 22:47, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Ted Kennedy

Because the consensus at the time of the removal was clearly against including the passage with JamesMLane, jpgordon, Kelly Martin and Robert McClenon all against it and only you and the anon IP supporting at that time. Again, I respect consensus and felt that it was heavily POVed and should be left out until a) it can be decided whether to include it or not and b) how to word it to not be so POV. Sasquatch↔讲↔看 02:51, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

not really, under WP:PPol:

Reverting to an old version of the page from a week or so before the controversy started if there is a clear point before the controversy.

Again, I stated my reasons and my opinions on the matter, I believe it is way too POV to keep in there for now and either I upset you by removing it or I upset the others by removing and based on the arguments so far, it is in my judgement that it should stay out for now. I also think Kelly Martin and Robert McClenon have made there opinions explicidly clear on the issue. I see no point in arguing my actions of removing it further as, again, this is only until a NPOV section can be writtien if the content is to be included and the section was clearly POV. Sasquatch↔讲↔看 03:08, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Kennedy Poll

Please give your vote on the talk page.Voice of All(MTG) 03:01, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Insults, etc.

Inviting you to contribute to this discussion of insults, etc. of public figures in the Village Pump patsw 03:18, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent design

Silverback, I think I have been fair and patient in waiting for you to show signs of cooperation.

I'd rather like to get back to editing the article. There are lots of things wrong with it and lots of improvements that could be made.

Thus far, you have shown a lot of rhetoric, but not even a token gesture to cooperate and assume good faith.

At this rate we will be on our way through dispute resolution. I'd rather avoid that.

To make this absolutely clear, I am not basing this request on disagreement with your opinions on ID. As has been pointed out by multiple people, we don't all agree 'round here.

You have to work with us. We have to work with you. Everyone of us had to work through out disagreements in order to work with eachtoher. Look at User:FuelWagon and User:Dbergan! They were at eachother's throat and now they're trading opinions on the nature of everything and wedding congratulations.

Show us a willingness to work together with us, cooperate, and assume good faith, and you will get slack in return.--Tznkai 14:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

No, you haven't been fair. You've been condescending and playing to the crowd, engaged in ad hominen attacks, selectively invoking rules and you haven't been willing to work with me, as evidenced by your request the protection continue. I will recognize slack when I see it, you could have given me slack before the protection and didn't. I don't have a long memory or hold a grude, I will judge you by how you behave in the future.--Silverback 17:30, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I have given you multiple places on the talk page to list your objections. Specific objections, general objections, etc to the article itself. So have others. If this is still about what you think I specificly am doing wrong, then we need to continue into dispute resolution.--Tznkai 17:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

My edits, edit summaries and participation on the talk page speak for themselves. You've given me nothing, because it wasn't yours to give. You don't own the page.--Silverback 17:39, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I created a new section so everyone can be on the same page. I encourage you to help.--Tznkai 17:40, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Dominionism

Our approaches to managing this vicious little article are quite different; but I want to work with, rather than against you. I fully approve of your call for documentatation. But I cannot support deleting material that is referenced, as the Diamond comment is. The difference between this article and a conspiracy theory is a thin technicality. Please help me to describe the credibility problems of this influential and spreading view, rather than using the article to explain your disagreement with it. Can I succeed in persuading you to join me in this approach? — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 17:41, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I applaud your sentiment, but I'm not interested enough in dominionism to assist in documenting it. I think that should be left to people that think it can be documented. The mere fact that we have someone named Diamond to who we can attribute the statement that this extreme form of dominionism is "prevalent", doesn't seem to merit including such an incredible statement. I don't doubt that she THINKS she is seeing this view everywhere, perhaps even under her bed. But practically noone on the Christain right is EXPRESSING that view, so she must be reading their minds or something. Are you so interested in her contribution to smearing the Christian right with some extreme form dominionism that you are willing to read her book to see if she has documentation for her assertions? She is going way beyond the other critics, who at least expanded dominionism to the "soft" form, so they could apply the term to the Christian right.

If Dominionism is claiming to be legit sociology, perhaps we should insist on peer reviewed journal articles as sources. Hopefully, they would at least be required to define what they mean by the term "prevalent" and their methodology for measuring it.

Strangely the other text I objected to that talks about persecution, is stark contrast to the Diamond material, because it is a completely different motivation than the extreme dominionism that Diamond says is so prevalent, in fact, it isn't even dominionism, so why is it even there. Given that it wasn't dominionism, the Schaefer material no longer applied. How could an alliance between persecution-complex, non-dominionist Christians with moonies and mormons, be a co-beligerancy that Schaefer advocated for dominionists? I think we give this material credibility it hasn't earned by including it. Consider the persecution motivation information, by including it in a dominionism article, aren't we asserting that belongs in there somehow, that it is or is somehow closely related to dominionism?

I am willing to justify my edits, as I have here. But, I prefer to invest my time in more rigorous and challenging material that can stand some scrutiny. Why do you want to put in material just because it is referencable? What if Diamond was saying something equally incredible but more tangible that you had never heard elsewhere before, such as "the view that wife beating is good exercise is prevalent in the Christian right", wouldn't you require better evidence before allowing it in?--Silverback 18:31, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

The issue is not whether I would quote Diamond; in my opinion all that matters is whether Diamond is quoted, and by whom she is quoted. I do agree with you, that the quote was illogically placed as far as the thesis of the article was concerned. On the other hand, I think that she was quoted accurately, and in an appropriate context, because she does seem to conflate, or at leas insinuate covert influence, from Reconstructionism to the Rutherford Institute, the Christian Coalition, etc.

The point being made by the persecution text, was that these theocratic ideas, to which they allude and which are (they generously assume) distasteful to the average American, are gaining entrance into the "mainstream" by playing on common fears. This sort of gateway theory is a key element of any effective conspiracy theory, to explain how so many ordinary folk can tolerate or unconsciously propagate radical ideas. It is a key ingredient to the view - if you lack evidence that the "playing on evangelical feelings of marginalization" theme is real, I would appreciate it if you would call for documentation instead of deleting the material. Leaving the {{fact}} marker at the appropriate places in the article is good preparation for a cleanup call, later on. If you dispute a claim, leave a note in the Talk and mark the dispute in the text, with {{disputed}} tag. It is not a matter of this material being "credible" in an academic sense. It is believed in a political sense - and that is what makes it important. Document its importance, as well as its credibility, and it will be a stronger article instead of a weaker one. Please reconsider your significant deletions of material. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 18:57, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

The second component of the link that you described wasn't made in the text that I deleted. Yes, they got into the Christian Right because of the feelings of persecution, but that just means they got into some issues and party politics. It isn't like once there they get indoctrinated with dominionism. There was nothing in the text to indicate that dominionism was even mentioned. So a whole "gateway" that you state is a key element of a conspiracy theory is missing. These people got into the Christian right not dominionism, and then were not even introduced to dominionism, at least, the text in the article is completely silent in this regard. Or are the non-dominionism-aware Christians, also co-beligerants?--Silverback 19:07, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

That's the whole idea of the theory, as far as I can tell. The notion is that people influenced aren't aware of where this influence is coming from. When Pat Robertson distributed a pamphlet that advised, "Rule the world for God", what do you suppose that means to people who are afraid of theocracy? When James Dobson or Paul Weyrich encourage Christians to infiltrate the government and to make their influence felt to prevent America's further loss of family values and decency, what do you suppose that means to someone who believes that Dominionism is a plot to take over the government for Jesus, by stealth and deception? This isn't a far-fetched portrayal of the theory - it is easy to see and to understand. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 19:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't see these documented on the Christian right or the dominionism pages, and a couple statements do not make it "prevalent" even for the persons who made the statements. Perhaps the dominionism page should be moved to Possible hints of dominionism.--Silverback 06:06, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Lancet

I think the confidence interval should definitely be included. I didn't mean to revert to a version that didn't include it. (I was objecting to the removal of "To date this has been the only serious scientific attempt to estimate the excess mortality as a result of the invasion.") Sorry, I'll put the confidence interval back in. – Quadell 21:07, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I worked at a compromise version that clearly includes the confidence interval. – Quadell 22:39, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Talk Pages

Regardless of whether the attacks happened, they don't belong on an article talk page. This is not hte place for them. I'm simply trying to restore some order to this page. WIthout some compromise and some give on everyone's part, this article will stay in permanent lockdown with only admins being allowed to edit it. This situation really just needs to move on and the article talk pages need to be used for what they are supposed to be used for -- discussing the article, not users. - Sleepnomore 01:09, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Archives

You are right that they don't belong in the archives either, but its a better place than there. They may have happened, and there may be more expressive attacks on other pages, but right now I've made it a point to try to dull this particular page down. Since you've been here for a while, perhaps you could help tone down the rhetoric by simply letting these things die down now instead of later. New users don't need to be pulled into this argument. There are enough people pulled into the hole already. Just let it go, please. This isn't worth arguing over. - Sleepnomore 01:27, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

• • Naw. I'm not trying to cover up. I'm trying to clean up. In fact, I'm sort of an inpartial outsider (I say sort of because I did vote in the page to leave the rhetoric out and stick to the facts). I saw this page was high on creating RfC's on the RfC page, so I came to try and help out. The RfC's can point to the history of the errors. They don't need to point to the current version. You can admit the attacks don't belong, so lets leave them out. There is no need to keep perpetuating the problem by leaving the attacks there for new users to pick up. Can we please just not get into a revert war on this and try to settle this down? Most of the people on this page are adults. I'm just trying to get everyone to act like it. I know its hard when discussing politics, but it can be done. Everyone can talk with a civil tongue. -Sleepnomore 01:34, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • I can understand how you think this is censorship, but it is not. Its asking you to keep the conversations in their appropriate place. You can say whatever you want, and even personal attacks will most likely be more acceptable (although still against policy) on talk pages. Once again, all I'm asking for is that you keep the personal discussion where it belongs -- not that you stop discussing it. - Sleepnomore 01:50, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Why does this all have to become a personal attack? I have nothing to do with this argument. I'm not out to get anyone. So why are you attacking me? I know its a hot situation, but this isn't neccessary. - Sleepnomore 02:45, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
• There are exceptions to the 3RR rule which allow you to revert regardless. One of these instances is vandalism. Removing comments is allowed when it involves personal attacks. Additionally, a guidelines is provided which actually encourages removal of personal attacks. Please see the following:
  • Misplaced Pages:No_personal_attacks
  • WP:RPA

For this reason, I am continuing to revert personal attacks on the pages. I still don't understand why you feel the need to keep personal attacks in public view and to drag others into it. This seems counter-productive to Misplaced Pages. Am I missing a point that you were trying to make? I honestly do understand that you don't think its fair or that you feel its censorship, but in context, it doesn't belong on article talk pages (which you have already agreed is the case) and it serves no productive purpose that I can see. - Sleepnomore 03:02, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

• You are right. There is a lot more that could be deleted. I was doing my best to be less intrusive. I've moved RfC content and archived older personal attacks. I am intending to remove more personal attacks as time permits. You are welcome, obviously, to try to clean some of these personal attacks up yourself, but please try to keep it neutral. I'm definitely hoping to get more people involved in neutralizing this situation. - Sleepnomore 05:55, August 22, 2005 (UTC)