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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Stephan Schulz (talk | contribs) at 20:36, 2 May 2010 (→A kind request that you recuse yourself from enforcement in the climate change probationary area (w/ evidence why): Um.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Messages

Please put messages at foot. I will delete them when I have read them. If you are replying to a message I left I don't mind where you reply but try to keep conversations together. If you are offering to help with the Schools DVD I would be very glad to hear from you. There is loads to do at present and we are working through the new subject index:

Art Business Studies Citizenship Countries Design and Technology Everyday life Geography History IT Language and literature Mathematics Music People Religion Science

The new selection of articles is about two weeks away. We are still hand checking version numbers (yawn) and still aiming for about 5500 articles to fit on a DVD. Just to update the selection of articles has just moved off wiki to allow a quicker automated run but it will come back. --BozMo talk 06:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Barnstars

Thank you for the appreciation which I have moved off as they clutter the page. --BozMo talk 18:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Narrative?

More seriously, why "narrative"? As far as I can tell (and I think I can tell it reasonably well), there is no single Jesus narrative. There are 4 at best partially compatible canonical gospels, a large number of apocryphal sources, and an enormous amount of cruft accumulated over the years. The Christology is widely variable between the gospels and the other NT writings, the nature of the trinity is something that most non-experts don't even think about, and most peoples play some kind of subconscious mix'n match to arrive at their personal Jesus. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you bit! Since I rate you as an outstanding 0.4 BozMo in intelligence, I will be brief. My take on Hans Frei, for the serious nerd is to look at the data compression going between the real world and any attempt to characterise it in human or scientific descriptive terms. Two data sets: one, the real world, dimensionally related to some power set of particle positions in the known universe and the other, for example, some language (Stephan likes cheese). Philosophically this data compression is when cognito ergo sum has to be extended into some sort of implicit assumption of human level description without which science is impossible ("no observer to determine if a test is positive or negative implies no test"). Science has developed a particular neat way of grouping data and characterising it (sphere, particle, fluid) to allow Popper-type testing and developing of theories (aside that that is not what happened historically). The neat way fails particularly in dealing with the people it implicitly assumes (can you prove "you" exist as a valid interpretation of a bunch of atoms). The success of the scientific kind of perspective in some contexts led it to inane misuse in the development of theology in Germany and the UK over several centuries to the point where people forgot about other forms of characterisation. Freo looks at the history of this in detail. But to the point specifically, a straight projection (a la photography) is often much less sophisticated than an interpreted projection (a la oil painting) in charactering some sorts of human elements of truth. Or, our own way of viewing history is not a good judge of the validity of narrative forms. You should ask "does this sound like the same person" rather than "hey, thats a different number of fishes" if you want to get further. --BozMo talk 16:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Possibly I've not been to clear, doubtlessly due to the missing 0.6 BozMos (but shouldn't you be able to compensate for that?). My concern is not with the validity, but with the form. A narrative, for me, is something that has a beginning, progresses forward in a consistent manner, and possibly comes to an end. Now, it may be many-stranded (I'm a big fan of Turtledove's Great War/American Empire series, because he manages to show so many viewpoints), and it may be tangled (I also like Pulp Fiction), but at the core I expect it to be a projection of some consistent set of events. A mere amalgamation of various beliefs is not a narrative (though it can contain many such narratives, of course). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
That is all from a perspective of thinking of narratives as a second class version/interpretation of history. For me, the opposite hierarchy is true.. "narrative" is, in data terms, a form of projection from the real world to a world into which a human can place themselves. It is not a derivation from a historical projection, it is a valid projection in its own right and terms. People regard themselves as the principals in the narrative of their lives, it is the fundamental human perception. I see the various religious narratives as providing a means of integration of the narrative of our lives into a bigger narrative, in the same way I could get to know you properly by swapping stories about your childhood even if you were mistaken about some details. So, in terms of historical judgement I may be close to you on the gospels etc (although I think the "written hundreds of years later" per AlbertS was probably a trendy thing which went a bit too far in realism for the sake of the glamour of being shocking) but in terms of significance I may be a long way off (I guess), since they could be (but may not be, am open to discussion) completely "true" in terms of what they are intended to be. At first order the historicity is almost irrelevant (per the Christ of faith and Jesus of history "myth" presentation by some of your compatriots) but at second order it becomes critical in considering the validity (again the nature of truth ref mapping between the real world and language is complex). Meanwhile according to you what are people, and how can you discuss their existence without assuming them? Just curious you understand. --BozMo talk 17:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Part one is to hard (or to ambiguous to me). Part 2 is by Descartes. I think, therefore I am. So I've got the to choices of stopping there, or of assuming that my sensory input is generated by some kind of reality, and act on that assumption. But I don't quite get the relevance to our discussion. For me, the gospel of Mark is a narrative. But the collection of "facts" about Jesus that make up part of our cultural baggage ("He was born on Christmas Eve", of a virgin, bearded with sandals, walked on water, is eternal/created by the father/co-equal with the holy spirit/of the same substance as the father/equal to the father (pick one)...) do not form a narrative because they lack the cohesion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I said they were narrative. I did not use the noun or say they were a narrative (unless by mistake)? They are clearly not a narrative, any more than the Pentateuch. They are narrative. --BozMo talk 18:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I guess I was confused by "Meanwhile HerrDrS needs to understand the distinction between myth and narrative" - I'm not aware that myth can be used as an adjective, and I assumed by the construction that both are intended to be nouns. Everything else confuses my fuzzy English language parser... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I am not good enough at grammar to be sure whether myth is correct as an adjective but it is certainly used as an adjective (in place of mythical when referring to the form not the content). But even if narrative was a plural noun the absence of "a" would make the misunderstanding a misunderstanding. --BozMo talk 12:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Signpost: 19 April 2010

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Following and baiting

Baits here by talking down to him with a condescending and patronizing tone, two minutes later does the same thing on Mark's user talk page, then does the same thing here and here. Obvious baiting, as WMC keeps saying the same thing in several places when one place would be sufficient. He has been able to get Mark to react in the past, resulting in Mark being reported to the enforcement board, and I think he's trying to do so again. Cla68 (talk) 12:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

(having come here for the below, and seeing this in passing...) I tend to agree. WMC may be right about the RfC itself but his manner really needs improving. More corrosive than collaborative. Not much can be done about it but it's not good. ++Lar: t/c 14:33, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Remember, WMC's comment(s) was on an article talk page. Big difference. Article talk pages are where collaboration is supposed to occur. Since we're here for the content, behavior which gets in the way of that should especially be discouraged. What if a reader was perusing that article and clicked over to the talk page and saw that going on? Do you think they would have much motivation to get involved? Cla68 (talk) 07:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I sympathise with the complaint about WMC but broadly there are two prevalent "narratives"; one of which says that WMC continually being a bit short with other people (and controlling etc) is the source of all unpleasantness and one which says that WMC is a target for a lot of editors because he defends NPOV so diligently and sometimes inevitably he snaps back. Neither narrative is wholly correct, and I can see considerably elements of truth in each. WMC does need to improve his comments and understand why they are being unhelpful, but having continual badmouthing of various forms about him does not in my view strengthen the case against him, it supports the credibility of the second narrative. I am not referring to you particularly (I respect your conduct in general) but in general anyone who wants to show up the conduct of the other side would be better laying off and to my continual frustration neither party shows signs of wanting to do this. --BozMo talk 08:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
BozMo, perhaps if we dealt with the former, we'd come to a better conclusion about the latter. There is no shortage of eyes on these pages, so POV pushers on the other side will not have free reign even if WMC is absent for a while. And perhaps then we can see if collaboration improves. But no admin wants to issue anything more than a token sanction, and he knows this, so the problem continues. ATren (talk) 11:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I think that you illustrate the problem, ATren. Calling those with whom you disagree "POV pushers" and "the other side" is just not productive. Find good sources, have healthy debate, and then if WMC is still cantankerous the solution is obvious. Everyone needs to stop this pointless back-and-forth; its a huge waste of time and emotional energy. Awickert (talk) 17:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
@Awickert Actually I think you misunderstood ATren (we wasn't refering to his other side but WMC's other side) but I would rather curtail that here @ATren "perhaps if we dealt with the former, we'd come to a better conclusion about the latter" or perhaps if we dealt with the latter we would come to a better conclusion about the former. It is hard to be arbitrary in this kind of way. --BozMo talk 17:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
In that case, I'll strike and apologize in case I misunderstood. Awickert (talk) 17:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I was referring to WMC's "other side", which I guess is "my side" even though I'm not skeptical of the science. In this case, I was specifically referencing BozMo's phrasing "the other side". FWIW, to deny there are "sides" in this dispute is to deny reality, and talking about those sides is not in itself a battleground behavior.
@BozMo, how do you propose we "deal with the latter"? Scibaby is already handled with extreme prejudice and there is a long list of topic-banned "skeptics" in this probation. Are you going to topic ban everyone on that side? I assume that would not include Cla68, whom you specifically exempt from that group; yet Cla is the one who raised the latest request, so that doesn't necessarily solve it either. I guess my point is, we're already dealing with the latter case (i.e. Scibaby and the sanctioned "skeptics"), so how much further do we go on the latter before we try the former? ATren (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
(Aside: I actually agree. There are sides. And I totally misread your comment - sheesh, really sorry again about that. But I'd sooner see "sides" not be antagonizing each other and rather having differences of opinion. As would most everyone else, I presume. Awickert (talk) 06:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC))
I don't know if I need to say it, but my "side" is Misplaced Pages's policies on sources, NPOV, etc. That's the side that I take in content disputes. The fact that I end up opposing one "side" more than the other might mean that there is something wrong with my perspective, or it could mean something different. Cla68 (talk) 06:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I do not personally doubt your good faith Cla88 and have not actually seen any edit by you which brought it in to questions. Have you read "Riding the waves of Culture"? There is quite an interesting discussion about how brains work by pattern recognition and "see" things according to their past experience. You can easily prejudice people to recognising particular things even when not there. My point is not that you or anyone is more prejudiced than anyone else but that we all need to recognise our judgement on things "obvious" to us is not completely neutral. I think that's especially true on what things are baiting and what are banter. Clearly I see Lar's comments about WMC as sometimes personal attacks and sometimes baiting (note, the question on whether they are true is altogether different), clearly Lar sees himself as simply pointing out unacceptable behaviour by WMC in a "call a spade a spade" fashion ("I know your little game"). There is no absolute truth to convince either of, most pragmatic is to separate them. In terms of WMC's other behaviour I think we need a better set of rules. He was a mathematician and presumably can cope with logic. --BozMo talk 07:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

FellGleaming 2

Good close, I think. There is action needed (John has a point) but that isn't the place I don't think. ++Lar: t/c 14:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Signpost: 26 April 2010

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No Interest In Science

Not sure if you made a typo or misread the post, but WMC said no interest in HER science. Meaning MN was only interested in her critical statements on the IPCC and about her colleagues and not what she has done as a scientist. 83.86.0.74 (talk) 08:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, you said "accusing someone of having no interest in science", which isn't what I said at all William M. Connolley (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Complaint, re Lar

In the "result re WMC section", which I take to be for uninvolved admins, you proposed sanctions on Lar. Lar then edited that section to protest that sanctions on him would be inappropriate. This is obviously unacceptable - Lar cannot possibly pretend to be uninvolved in a possible sanction against him. I ask that you remove his comments form that section and protest to him against commentng in this involved fashion William M. Connolley (talk) 22:44, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Not how I see it. Anyway I am still hoping both of you will volunteer to leave each other alone. Time for bed. --BozMo talk 22:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
BozMo, did you really propose sanctions on Lar? If so, could you please explain the logic behind that? Cla68 (talk) 23:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The logic is irrelevant. The issue is Lar commenting in a section for uninvolved when even by Lar's rather elastic definition he clearly is involved. Here, let me reproduce it, since clearly people are finding it hard to find for themselves:
At present I am still struggling with the two way track in "nasty" comments. MN versus WMC is tricky because of the parliamentary rules issue. But this particular comment accusing someone of having no interest in (missing word added later) ^^her^^ science would be less provocative and attacking in my book than Lar "That's not dishonest. Your tactics are, though". It may sound a bit extreme but I am wondering asking for no personal interactions either way between WMC and Lar as a way of improving the atmosphere, since I do not see much productive coming from them? --BozMo talk 06:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not the source of the problem here. I've never had such a restriction imposed, ever. Stop WMC's dishonest tactics and many other problems go away. ++Lar: t/c 12:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I've bolded the bit from Bozmo that matters. That Lar choses to respond with a PA on me is just par for the course; I've pretty well given up hope that Bozmo will chose to reprimand Lar for that kind violation. @Bozmo: yes, if you can persuade Lar to leave me alone I'll be very happy. But he will see this as implicit admission of his involvement, and so refuse. You have noticed that I didn't comment on him until he weighed in with PA's against me, I hope? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
WMC, you and a few others have continually baited and bullied Lar, on his talk page , on your talk page, knowing that he probably has it watched, on the enforcement page. I've seen these kind of pile ons before . BozMo, instead of threatening Lar, you should be taking action against the editors who are grouping together to try to bully him because they don't like it that he is calling them on their problematic behavior, which has gone on for years. What are you thinking? Cla68 (talk) 23:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
BozMo, if you can get WMC to stop baiting editors who he disagrees with (and I could probably come up with hundreds of simliar remarks by WMC over the time he's been a Misplaced Pages editor), I think at least 30-40% of the civility issues with the AGW topic would evaporate. Cla68 (talk) 05:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
FWIW for clarity when I said "asking" I meant "asking" both of them, not making it a sanction. I am kind of hoping they might both see they wind each other up and leave everyone else to deal with it. Hard to compell but possible to argue --BozMo talk 06:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
So, lets be clear: do you have any problem with Lar commenting in that section on possible sanctions against him? William M. Connolley (talk) 07:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
If I did see a problem then I would raise it with him. --BozMo talk 07:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Serious

I am actually serious. Please reopen the request. I know it looks a little jokey but I do wish to be banned as stated. Polargeo (talk) 11:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This and that

Seeing your "Connerly" page reminded me of something I learned clicking around here randomly the other day - linguists have a term for things like "homegrown tuhmayter". I also thought of you on finding out that GW Bush and Clinton are raising money for Haiti together. A fine example of people often in opposition making common cause for the greater good. Hope you are keeping well, - 2/0 (cont.) 12:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I am originally from Bristol (Bristle) and was brought up used to shop keepers addressing me as "lright my cocker?" and the like. There is an amusing book called something like "Bristle ow it shud be sperk" with definitions like "Blow: opposite of buv" etc. Sadly I am not remotely gifted enough to write something of that sort but collecting some of the more entertaining turns of phrase here seems possible. On Haiti yes, charity and good causes do seem to unite people and I do find it often lifts one's spirits to see the better side of human nature. When Gloucester flooded we literally had people stranded upstairs whilst their house was full of water taking out a child sponsorship on a mobile phone... nothing like losing a lot to realise how much you still have. And the recession has also seen a huge surge in charitable giving, at least for "proper" charities. --BozMo talk 15:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Swinging the banhammer

I think it is to your credit you don't care for imposing sanctions, and my view is that where there is not consensus to block then the default is to not block. Had you remained against the block of Marknutley I would not have acted, if it remained us two discussing the matter. You may wish to bear that in mind, because I was only explaining my reasoning and not advocating the sanction - if you feel I am being too vocal in my commentary, please let me know and I will tone it down.
As for the suggestion that the probation area is divided between the various sysops and adminned exclusively by the nominated individual, I could forsee very many editors being unhappy with "their" admin - believing them biased against a viewpoint or editor(s), and not being able to refer decisions and actions. Despite its drawbacks, the current system allows input from all quarters and a discernible consensus being created (even if it isn't agreed with). However, if you feel there are points that make it a better system than the current one, you could always open a discussion on it. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Styrkeprøven

I saw your note about Styrkeprøven - very impressive. I'm not in your league, although I used to do some recreational cycling years ago. My longest outings were under half that distance - about 250 K, in roughly half that time, but I know that it doesn't scale. --SPhilbrickT 15:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks but that was twelve years ago. Three children and twelve years ageing and plenty of weight gain means I am sure you would out perform me on almost any race now...before the event I had only done a couple of 16 hour rides but the excitement of the day keeps you going. The really satisfying bit was finishing 6 hours ahead of the professional sports coach from work :) --BozMo talk 18:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

A kind request that you recuse yourself from enforcement in the climate change probationary area (w/ evidence why)

In this diff you state:

"WMC's own talk page is not subject to probation because it is not the talk page of a climate change article. His specific bit says "WMC is required to refrain until 2010-07-27 from editing others' talkpage posts in pages subject to this probation". which does not apply to his talk page because it is not a page subject to this probation. Is there any good faith argument for saying his own talk page is part of the climate change probation (even interpreted widely)? If not we are wasting time here... --BozMo talk 21:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)"

And yet with me, also editing a page not subject to the climate probation, a fact that I pointed out in my defense, and you respond with:

"Yes it is a clear violation now we have been reminded of the ban. Suggest we extend by a further 3 or 6 months with a ban if the terms are violated again? --BozMo talk 22:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)"

You may not be aware of your bias Bozmo, but this demonstrates quite clearly that you are not applying your administrative authority equally. If you combine this with my previous demonstration of you overstating my reverts while understating WMC's and the pattern begins to take shape.

If WMC's talk page is not subject to the terms of the climate change probation then neither is Lar's. Cheers. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:10, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Um. Your ban explicitly covers all talk pages. WMCs sanction covered only pages under the probation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)