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Thanks again, IZAK (talk) 03:58, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the fuss. JacobFrank made a prank edit to WT:JUDAISM and signed it La Comadreja or vice versa. There's no rule against having multiple accounts. (I have one, User:MShabazz.)

With respect to the Bacon Challenge page, Misplaced Pages pages don't get blocked, editors do. If you'd like to delete the Bacon Challenge page, please start an WP:MfD.

I'm sorry I can't be of any help, but I just don't see the problem here. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 04:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Malik, I don't get it, on some pages, going back to January 2010 you warn a user about vandalism, the user should learn not to do that, then the user, after having changed their user IDs at least twice more returns to perform a "prank" in September of 2010 with the original prankish/vandal user name, and you refuse to condemn both the use of the controversial user name User:JacobFrank connected to the Jacob Frank article in violation of WP:USERNAME guidelines, let alone worry about possible sockpuppetry. No user would be allowed to call themselves User:Napoleon and be allowed to have that redirect to the Napoleon article, be warned not to play pranks and be accused of vandalism in January 2010 and then go ahead and play a prank in September of 2010 at WP:FRANCE, and at the same time switch around with at least two other user names and sow confusion, while admitting on Wikiversity that they had had serious issues with WP:FRANCE along the way and hinted at even more problems in the past on WP. Such a situation would be clarified very quickly on WP by admins concerned with WP policies and WP:FRANCE. IZAK (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Clarifying user names

Hi IZAK. What we have is a person (User:La comadreja) who changed her username once probably for privacy reasons, and also briefly used a joke account to do nothing significant. I can assure you that this has less than nothing to do with User:ChildofMidnight— I've met User:La comadreja multiple times at meetups etc and she's definitely her own person.--Pharos (talk) 04:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Hi Pharos: Thanks for contacting me. This matter has certain complexities. Let's see what transpires from our other communications with each other via Email. Thanks again, IZAK (talk) 08:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi IZAK,

Re: the link of JacobFrank's Userpage to his article, I am aware that this is unusual. My intent was to show people who Jacob Frank was in the quickest possible fashion, which would illustrate how Judaism and Wikimedia have another side besides the one that plays extra-stringently by the rules. JacobFrank has a real Userpage on Wikiversity, in which "purification through transgression" is used to discusses the policies of "be bold" and "ignore all rules" (these Wikiversity policies are the same as Misplaced Pages's). The hook for JacobFrank on Wikiversity has been up for months and reads: "There are some interesting and colorful people in Jewish history, don't you think? I'm just one of them. Find out more." His signature on Misplaced Pages links directly to the Wikiversity page. However, his Misplaced Pages userpage would only have a soft redirect if it were given that link, so I chose a redirect that would explain who Jacob Frank was as quickly as I could. If you found this problematic, I could change that redirect to my primary Misplaced Pages userpage. His Talk page already links directly to my Talk page, which is the same.

Part of the issue seems to be that Wikiversity has a slightly different policy about User accounts than Misplaced Pages. Wikiversity has several accounts, including JacobFrank, that are known as "mascots." These are obviously controlled by real people, but make edits in-character and with a distinctly different persona from the Users that control them. They are tolerated, so long as they are harmless to the encyclopedia. There was some controversy about JacobFrank becoming a Wikiversity mascot, but he was ultimately accepted. On Wikiversity, my idea was to add educational content to the mascot itself, in this case information about Jewish history that countered stereotypes. Since the real Jacob Frank has been dead for hundreds of years, I thought there would be no question User:JacobFrank is different from the historical figure.

It seems to me that your real question is about the character of Jacob Frank, and why I would choose to impersonate him. My choice of Frank was not because I support his rendition of Sabbateanism, but mostly because of where and when he lived--Frank was the most recent of the major Sabbatean leaders, and the only one based in Eastern Europe. Frankism was considered to have foreshadowed the predecessor of my own Judaism, the Ashkenazic Judaism of the Haskalah. While I do not believe Zevi was the Messiah, I differ from most Jews in admiring his boldly original antinomianism and in asking whether it's still possible to give his story a different ending. I think Zevi was a Jewish genius reminiscent of William Blake or Joni Mitchell. Blake, in his illuminated book _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ (which I shared in a JacobFrank post to WikiProject Judaism), also moved contrary to the religious trends of his day in advocating a religion of emotion and spontaneity rather than strict obedience. Perhaps this is one reason the High Holy Day JacobFrank post was "provocative" to you. Mitchell resembles another side of Zevi--a major theme of her music is the redemptive power of individualism. She pioneered the use of alternate string tunings, and in songs like "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" (about sexual activities that would be reviled in traditional Judaeo-Christianity) she showed that these tunings opened new realms of expression to the guitar. In "Woodstock," Mitchell even reaches toward the idea of redemption of the world--"And I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky, and they turned into butterflies above our nation. We are stardust…and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden." Unlike Ottoman Sufism or 1960s America, which encouraged antinomian creative spirits to accomplish realistic goals, the Judaism of Sabbatai's time had no clear place for such a person and ran into trouble when it found one. Frank had a number of interesting ideas, but his excesses were part of the trouble. However, people who are conventionally considered Jewish heroes committed crimes at least as terrible--it is difficult to top King David, who murdered Uriah because of Bathsheba. Even Jacob Frank does not seem to have gone that far.

I am not the only editor with a positive view of Zevi, or the only editor with a Username based on Jacob Frank or other Sabbatean leaders--some of the other owners of Sabbatean Usernames have commented on my User talk page. While mine is not the conventional viewpoint of Progressive Judaism, I believe most major Progressive movements are making the mistakes of (1) failing to develop a distinct and compelling Progressive Jewish story to teach our children, (2) confusing Progressive Judaism (or Judaism in general) with social conformism. The major thrust of Classic Reform Judaism is integration with the surrounding society, and the major thrust of Traditionalist Reform and Conservative Judaism is mimicking Orthodox Jews in replicating the old traditions. Although Zevi's story is normally taught as a cautionary tale, he reveals that there is a third path, one that may be essential to realizing Progressive Judaism's creative potential. As Jews, we are already consciously choosing to be different from most of the world. So long as we do not depend on fulfilling impossible objectives and we remain moral, there is a power in being ourselves.

I try to be neutral in my edits to articles and in my suggestions about what should be done to them. Other types of Talk page comments, as well as User pages, are another story. My philosophy about them is almost the opposite, that they are a chance to express an editor's individuality and reveal that editor's particular angle. While Misplaced Pages is not Myspace, a byproduct of the editing process is that it accomplishes another worthy goal--to provide a common meeting ground for experts, some of whom may have unconventional angles. Someone relatively sympathetic to Judas Iscariot should not be prevented from participating in WP:Christianity as User:JudasIscariot, and hopefully countering the tendency to speak excessively negatively about him so that the overall discussion approaches neutrality.

I hope this answers your questions. --La comadreja _{formerly AFriedman} RESEARCH (talk) 21:00, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• Hi La comadreja: Thanks for your detailed response actually in response to my own Email response which I repost now, with a few added comments, because it both serves to explain the lengths to which you responded and still retains the main problems stemming from the usage of the "JacobFrank" ID:

1. It was only when I recently saw your recent pre-holiday "greetings" from Jacob Frank at WP:TALKJUDAISM from the "User:JacobFrank" account linking as it did (I see that you recently corrected that, thank you!) to the Jacob Frank article that I became very worried that a huge prank and violation of WP:SOAPBOX and WP:HOAX was underway because I found that the "User:JacobFrank" ID linked back to the actual Jacob Frank article, which you must admit is highly unusual for a user ID. It almost never happens, unless a user's ID needs to be linked to a subject since the user has over-stepped their mark.
2. I then spent a couple of hours trying to figure out the trail of your IDs and I came up with at least two more, the "La comadreja" one, and then the "AFriedman" one and you must admit that it's also not that often that you find one user jumping from one ID to others at least three times, and that it's both highly unusual and arouses suspicion living as we do in a world of sockpuppetry, vandalism, sickos, and all sorts of banned users.
3. Then I noticed edits by two of your user IDs ("JacobFrank" and "La comadreja") at the User:ChildofMidnight/Bacon Challenge 2010 page (of a blocked user yet, about a typical topic that a true Frankist would love of breaking Judaism's barriers!) and I was not sure what to make of it, whether it was yet another link by you to another user ID of yours as well and this time it was banned or was it a comment. I assumed the former, until user Malik Shabbaz told me more about you and pointed out that you had only edited that page but were not a banned user.
4. Ok, so then I also contacted you to find out what's up and let you know about that long into-the-wee-hours trail I was following.
5. Which brings me back to the first issue and that is the usage of the "User:JacobFrank" ID and the way you linked it to the main Jacob Frank article and the way you had chosen to use it not just for neutral WM purposes but you were clearly injecting a Jacob Frank type message AS IF YOU WERE IMPERSONATING and PROMOTING the deceased Jacob Frank himself. Which put Judaic editors on the spot. How so?
6. If you know anything about the real Jacob Frank's life you will know that he is notorious among Jews and Judaism for having betrayed Judaism and apostatized and became a full Catholic Christian in Poland.
7. He was also discovered to be running a cult of sexual licentiousness that did not recognize any sexual boundaries, FRANKISTS HAD SEX WITH EACH OTHER OVER TIME, and his daughter with whom he had incest took over as the high-priestess of his cult after he died. He had hundreds perhaps even thousands or tens of thousands of Jewish followers who followed him and apostatized and became Christians and were absorbed into Poland's Catholic aristocracy and became leaders there.
8. Now that is good stuff for an encyclopedia, but it should NOT become the grounds for injecting controversy into the usual question-and-answer type format at WP:JUDAISM, as if a red flag was being waved to the bulls.
9. This is a very sad time in Jewish history, and nothing that Jews or Judaism are proud of. Yes, Frank had a Sabbatean philosophy, that on an abstract level perhaps had merits and was serious but it was actually mostly misplaced Jewish teachings that he twisted for his own perverted ends.
10. No one in Judaism, even Reform Judaism, has anything good to say about him. He is a tragic and controversial figure. Notorious according to some.
11. So it is thoroughly amazing to actually find a user who uses that name altogether.
12. Even Christians downplay him because Frankists were notorious in their disregard for classical Biblical sexual morality which they held no longer applied since Frank was the "Messiah" and he declared an "end" to all those "old" things.
13. At any rate, it is nothing like using Malik Shabbaz who was a black nationalist or a Christian icon (both heroes to their constituencies), but even that I think is wrong and they should not be doing it.
14. My concern is that within the domain WP:JUDAISM the name "Jacob Frank" is an automatic red flag and challenge and puts people on the spot, then, when you seem to actually be "speaking for him" in WP:SOAPBOX fashion as if he were "communicating" from the grave as it were.
15. It's doubly confusing, especially when you claim you want to be a neutral leader on WM when "Jacob Frank" is about as far from neutral as you can go in the history of the Jewish people in modern times.
16. It would be like taking the ID of Judas Iscariot and enter into the WP:Christianity as User "Judas Iscariot (talk · contribs)" (a sockpuppet blocked indefinitely, as it happens), or take the user name Muhammad (talk · contribs) and expect not to be noticed in WP:ISLAM or elsewhere and naively expect to be go "unnoticed" and given a free pass and claim to be protected by "neutrality" or some such rationalization, if you get what I am saying. It's provocative and violates WP:SOAPBOX and WP:CIVIL for some users.
17. One should be wary of taking upon their shoulders the name of a famous person or movement or subject in history and come on as a user as if one were that person or movement or subject, and that is why WP:USERNAME#Dealing with inappropriate usernames discourages such choices: "...an inappropriate username – in particular, a username that is misleading, promotional, offensive, or disruptive..." or even "...Conflict of interest:If the username simply indicates that the user has a conflict of interest, without otherwise being an inappropriate username,..." and more like this
18. Therefore, if as you say you are willing to let go of the User JacobFrank (talk · contribs) ID on both WP, WM or anywhere else in the WP universe it would be a great idea and very helpful all around but most of all it would help you.
19. Because, you and any editor are obviously free to privately and personally hold any and all views and to work to add or improve any articles about any subjects and no one questions your right to delve into any aspect of the Frankists or the Sabbateans.
20. But when a user takes on names of serious personalities fraught with controversy, it creates awkwardness and unease which then gets in the way of helping WP grow as a neutral encyclopedia. This should be logical and clear.
21. In the past there have been users who decided to use user names like Judaism (talk · contribs) (red-linked now) or Chabad (talk · contribs) (inactive since 16 December 2004, and complaints were lodged) and they were likewise similarly reminded to stop or switch and choose other user names that would not create confusion and misunderstandings.

I am being honest and upfront with you, and I assume you will take what I say in the right spirit. I enjoy WP and above all I have a lot of respect for it as an institution and that is why I care so much. IZAK (talk) 06:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand why you and other people might be offended, and realize this is taking away from making useful edits to the encyclopedia. I'll be retiring the Jacob Frank account from now on. --La comadreja _{formerly AFriedman} RESEARCH (talk) 06:40, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi La comadreja: Thank you for your understanding. Let's stay in touch. Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Auschwiz Selektion.jpg

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag - if no such tag exists then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hangon tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Hi, I am not even sure what this is about, it's been so long that I edited Holocaust-related stuff. IZAK (talk) 08:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Yiddish

• Thanks for letting me know, I have commented. IZAK (talk) 09:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

New Jacob Frank article created

Hi, I thought you might be interested in the new article about Harris Lenowitz I've just created. Lenowitz is one of the leading modern authorities on Jacob Frank. I've just found out about Lenowitz from User:Yalhak, and I'm trying to make the Lenowitz article into a Did You Know. --La comadreja _{formerly AFriedman} RESEARCH (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2010 (UTC)