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Revision as of 02:46, 27 January 2015

My opening gambit

Hello Renejs,

I have developed over the years, in my OT/Hebrew Scripture historical studies, a decidedly radical minimalist approach and position.

I have been following with interest the developments here in NT (with an eye for trying to feel the possible impact that OT minimalism can have in NT), and since you have just mentioned Lemche's and Thompson's supposed professional predicament in Kopenhagen, I thought I could ask you:

What would they have to fear, in terms of their academic positions and reputations, by pushing more overtly for the establishment of an NT minimalist current, at least in Europe?

Since this would all really fall under the rubric of a personal conversation ("eye-to-eye" as much as possible in written digital communications) about academic politics and epistemological strategies, feel free, if you are so inclined, to just reply to my email directly, through my own user page, where on the Tools menu on the left side you should see the option "Email this user." I was looking for this option here on your page, but I couldn't see/find it.

Best regards, warshy 19:35, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Indenting paragraphs

You know, indenting paragraphs of comments really, really looks weird around here, and makes it somewhat harder to instantly visibly determine what is part of the same comment and what isn't. Using a : at the start of each paragraph in the same comment is the more standard procedure around here, and honestly makes comments somewhat easier to read. John Carter (talk) 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

In the mean time, I just fixed it. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:25, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Jeppiz (talk) 22:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2013

This is the final warning you will receive. Please refrain from casting nonproductive personal aspersions on others as you have done in this edit. If you continue, the already extant chance that you will be blocked from editing will grow much more likely. John Carter (talk) 01:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi John. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the warning is for. The use of "BS" in my last post to Bill the Cat 7 referred to what he was saying--not to him. (I would use a phrase like "arrogant bastard" for that, if I were being ad hominem.)

I sense I'm coming to the end of my short Wiki life and am wondering: isn't it COI that you're both an administrative Clerk and one of the editors of the CMT page? Here' what one reads: "no Clerk should be involved in a case as both a Clerk and participant" I mean, I've got you logged making multiple substantive comments

I'm an atheist writer on religion and research is my bag. I'm fairly good at that--you know, finding ways to dig and tease out the nitty-gritty quickly. I'm writing articles for various mags and online blogs about Misplaced Pages "from the inside." I'll basically be chronicling my digital wiki-voyage and how the encyclopedia has managed to pretty much turn this well-meaning newbie into a disgruntled bannee in less than a month! Wow. It's been quite an education and, as you can imagine, a negative experience for me. To be frank, I had expected better--even though I admittedly bring a highly controversial view to the table. Anyway, I can now better appreciate words like "quagmire" and "highly dysfunctional" when applied to the encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/User:Beyond_My_Ken/thoughts#A_personal_prescription_for_surviving_Wikipedia).

Of course, I've gotten to know apparent Wiki-faves (like Meijerling) MUCH better than I'd planned. It didn't take him long to pull me on the carpet (ANI)! I also haven't been able to get squat done on the CMT page (the single page I chose for my "project," since I know the subject so well). My main interest is investigative work in religious history, and I don't have a lot of time for marginally related issues like Misplaced Pages. But, of course, this digital encyclopedia has become important as an information 'first stop' for the average citizen, and that's why the view from an atheist perspective is needed. It's rather sad that 'Wiki-religion' is basically mired in the Stone Age, resisting new ideas with a vengeance, and cleaving to rather conservative (e.g. 1977) views in its religion pages. That's my take right now, anyway. If that's the truth, then Misplaced Pages is doing a disservice to society and this is not, I believe, at all what Jimbo Wales intended. But I still hold out that 'theoretical' dream which he and many must have, and am saddened to see the 'practice' turn out so differently.

I've been pretty aggressive--just to expedite matters--and will try to be fair in my evaluations of Wikpedia in print and perhaps on the boob tube later this year. I also had hoped to effect some change in one or two religion articles. . . But I've now pretty much given that up, seeing how the deck appears to be strongly stacked against my liberal view in such a conservative fashion--and seeing how I'm being quickly railroaded out the door! This is rather sad and somewhat discouraging for people with my point of view. Just thought you might want to know.

Regards,

Renejs (talk) 11:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Reality check required. Let me be honest. I have seen nothing in you which gives me any reason to believe that you have ever read the talk page guidelines as per WP:TPG. Read them. Also, it would really, really help if you stopped slandering everyone and casting your trademark irrational aspersions of the motivations of anyone who disagrees with you. You have also not only been "pretty aggressive," which is a remarkably self-serving way of saying you have consistently violated almost all relevant conduct guidelines, you are also rather obviously solely interested in a topic which you, as a published writer in a book of the same field, might rather reasonably be seen as having a conflict of interests as per WP:COI. Read it too. If the current ANI discussion closes without action, and it might, and your conduct continues in the way it has, and, honestly, there is no reason to believe it will change. that will leave really only one option, arbitration. Believe me when I say that if I see your obnoxious, self-righteous, condescending, insulting, and irrational "aggressive" commentary continue after the ANI thread closes, if it closes without action against you, you will likely be taken to ArbCom very quickly. And it is worth noting that they deal only with behavior, like your behavior, which, so far as I can tell, has rarely if ever adhered to the relevant guidelines. John Carter (talk) 16:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, we overlook your COI (above) but focus on mine. Maybe the application of policy is two-faced? And then Meijering and Bill the Cat 7 seem to get away with all kinds of "green cheese" allegations and false accusations, but you ding me for "irrational" aspersions? Really? Everybody's always told me I'm scrupulously rational--to a fault. That's my profession. I'm a investigative researcher into religion, and verifiable facts are what it's all about. My job is to catch people fudging in the domain of religion. And yes, I'm pretty quick at spotting those like Meijering and youself missing the target time and time again.

So, a reality check for you: look in the mirror.

I'm going to give the wiki a rest. See where the Jesus pages are maybe a year from now. See if you guys have added "In 1977" to the Grant citation by then. . .

Thank you for pointing me to the TPG page. My two cents is that needs to be highly recommended reading BEFORE anyone's first edit. Had I read it before all this, there may never have been my first edit. I'd have realized that wiki is a very tricky place for the "new" and offbeat. But I still wouldn't have realized its so darned dysfunctional. That takes a little time and pain to learn. . .

Here's the conclusion to my current article for popular consumption: When you boil Misplaced Pages down to its basic element, it comes to this: be conservative. Wiki's a good place for the middle of the road, tried-and-true stuff. Today you can read about 1977. At this rate, in 2045 you'll be able to read about the situation today. So, in the Jesus articles, there's about a 40 year lag time. That's pretty darn conservative.

You're right. It's a poor fit for me.

Later--and good luck.

Renejs (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey. Not so fast. I think you're being railroaded here and, if I'm right, would like to sanction those who are doing it. At first glance, I can see three editors who need to be topic-banned from anything Jesus-related, and none of them is you (provided you agree to quit edit-warring, which I'm sure you will). I've asked a couple of questions at WP:ANI#Clarification request. Can you help me there? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to Misplaced Pages!

You can return to editing now, I think. If you want to! Really, it's great to have someone here with a grasp of the actual scholarship - particularly recent scholarship. In that administrator's noticeboard discussion, I pointed to a couple of links that I strongly recommend reading, if you haven't already.

• WP:RANDY
• WP:EW
• WP:NOR

The first is short and describes your situation well, in my opinion.

The second explains, among other things: if you habitually revert or add content to an article when it's clear there is no consensus supporting your edit, or if there is a clear consensus against it, that is "edit warring", and you can be blocked from editing by an admin. If you revert more than 3 times in 24 hours, regardless of the merits, any admin will most likely block you, without even looking into the details. But that is not to say you can push a contested edit onto an article 3 times in 24 hours without risk of sanction. The "3 reverts in 24 hours" limit just protects you from an automatic block. The message is, don't edit war.

The third explains why they felt justified in in reverting your addition of "but two serious experts have proposed non-historicity". I'm not sure if they were justified, but getting that policy under your belt will at least tell you what they thought they were on about.

If you think our historicity content needs further updating, I hope you decide to have another go at it. I'm in Australia so our sleep-wake cycles may clash, but please contact me any time on my talk page if you want another pair of eyes on anything. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Anthony. I will probably consider the outcome of this ANI decision a referendum on Misplaced Pages. I can't see attempting to edit with an irrational editor like Merjering preventing progress on a daily basis. If Misplaced Pages were to take action against him, however, that would restore my confidence somewhat and I would consider it less dysfunctional than I do at the moment.Renejs (talk) 00:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I totally understand. Dysfunctional it is. You see first hand why sane experts (on any topic) steer clear of this place. For some occasionally good criticism of Misplaced Pages I recommend http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/ . Everybody on the inside of Misplaced Pages at least keeps an eye on that forum and its blog, and you may be interested in publishing something in their blog, or commenting in the forum - Wikipediocracy blog posts occasionally get picked up by the press, and are always read by the serious players here.

I fear current scholarship is being seriously misrepresented by Misplaced Pages in the "Jesus historicity" topic area, but I don't have the subject-matter expertise to take them on. If you have the time and would like to have a crack at it with me - combining your subject expertise with my Misplaced Pages expertise - I'd love to collaborate. Cleaning up a topic may just require good argument with a good grasp of the topic and our policies, but it often also involves banning the biased editors from the topic or from Misplaced Pages altogether.

Anyway, thanks for your efforts. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)