Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MarkThomas (talk | contribs) at 18:49, 12 January 2007 (Revert to revision 98627070 dated 2007-01-05 12:03:12 by Staberinde using popups). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Userpage otheruse

/archive1 = Archived material from 10 May 2006 to 10 November 2006.

Liam Byrne

Saw you caught the sneaky edit, which was mentioned in the Guardian. It was up for almost a month. Are you that fella off the TV?--Shtove 15:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Alas no Liam, I am another Mark Thomas - but I also think he is a good chap. And I also spotted the Guardian piece. MarkThomas 01:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Tony Blair page vandalism

Thank you for informing. I will take care if vandalism continue to happen. --Bhadani 19:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessment on RC page

There's an assessment scale at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Psychology/Assessment. It's fairly subjective, but it at least gives a general guide on how to rate articles. The class of an article is pretty easy to determine since there are special processes for GA- and FA-class articles. Re-evaluation Counseling hasn't been granted GA- or FA-status, so the highest class it could be is B. Importance can be harder to measure, but I will point out that it is measured relative to other articles in the same WikiProject. Therefore, an article could be given a High rating in one WikiProject and a Low rating in another. In general, major concepts that would be covered in a basic psychology class are usually given Top or High ratings. Mid ratings are generally given to concepts that are covered by most psychology institutions in more advanced classes and are well-known among psychologists but probably not to the general population. Concepts that are not well-known, even to psychologists, or are not emphasized in academic studies of psychology typically get low ratings. This doesn't mean that it's not important, only that it's not as important as other psychology articles. I chose to give it a low rating because Re-evaluation Counseling doesn't seem to be a well-known organization among psychologists, nor is much emphasis placed on in academic studies of psychology. In comparison, note that key organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have Mid-importance ratings. Of course, rating articles isn't an exact science, so you can feel free to change the rating if you want. If someone doesn't like it, they can bring it up on the article's talk page, and consensus will determine the result. —Cswrye 19:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I am a Christian, although I don't think that affected how I rated the article. I'd never heard of Re-evaluation Counseling or co-counselling until I saw their articles on Misplaced Pages, and I didn't notice anything anti-Christian about them when I skimmed over them. I admit that I am looking at my assessments from the perspective of mainstream psychology, but I think that's appropriate considering that it is for WikiProject Psychology. Unfortunately, the project isn't very active, and there are only a few people actively involved in assessing articles. Someone else did most of the work setting up the system and doing some initial evaluations, but I've done most of the work tagging articles as part of the project. I was actually very reluctant to assess articles until recently because I didn't want to get involved in any controversies, but there is a growing need to prioritize articles. Assessing articles is sometimes hard because every article is of High importance to someone, but if every article were rated High, there wouldn't be any reason to have an assessment. I try to rate them as objectively as possible in comparison to similar types of articles, but my tendency is to rate articles lower than other people to compensate for the fact that most people who are interested in an article will rate it higher than the article merits (which is what we I/O psychologists call leniency error). The assessment system for this project hasn't been around long enough for there to be too many arguments, but there was a major dispute about NPA personality theory that even attracted the attention of some off-wiki groups like Slashdot. Someone rated the article FA-class and High-importance in spite of the fact that it had failed its featured article nomination. I argued that it should be A-class and Low-importance. They agreed on A-class, and we compromised on making it Mid-importance, but someone else nominated the article for deletion on the basis of it being non-notable, original research, and a conflict of interest (the author of the article was the same person who developed the theory, and some of his associates admitted to using the article to promote the theory). Of course, once it was deleted, the assessment became an irrelevent issue. —Cswrye 23:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Steven Hassan: not a place to digress on the cult controversy

I more or less expected such a reply. My removal of well-sourced statements is consistent with my principle that general statements belong in a general article and not in a biography. For example, general criticism of Marxism is off topic in an article about Fidel Castro. Same for Steven Hassan that should not digress on the cult controversy. The cult controversy should be treated in the articles cults and new religious movement, not (selectively) repeated in Steven Hassan. Andries 18:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add what criteria Hassan uses to identify a cult. I support mentioning such information in the article, but I oppose comparisons made by the Misplaced Pages editors between lists of cults unless they are made in reputable sources. Otherwise it is original research. Andries 18:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yet in the piece you deleted, there were references to sources that make precisely such comparisons. MarkThomas 18:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that it is only the Misplaced Pages editors who compared these sources. That is inappropriate. If these sources compare their list to that of Hassan then I apologize for removing the information and I will self-revert, but from what I have read this is not the case. Andries 18:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing - I am describing the references in the material to other widely read sources of information about what constitutes a cult. Since Hassan's website is widely used as one such source, I feel that Misplaced Pages readers could do with having information about other such sources. I deliberately chose academic sites and sources from universities as references to avoid any suggestion that I was using some sort of Scieno-driven front organisation as a source, for example. I note that you haven't responded in any way to my original request that you confirm if your reaction to this piece was about suspecting cult activity - yet I do get the feeling from your various responses that this is indeed the case. If so, please say so openly so we can all see where we stand. MarkThomas 19:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I am aware of a lot of criticism of Hassan that I share to some extent. The question regarding my removals is whether the information that I removed was on topic or not. May be some rebuttal from targeted groups can be added, but certainly not from a Scientology smear website, but from a far more moderate and more on-topic Unification Church website. Andries 19:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

External links

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Misplaced Pages, as you did in Kate Beckinsale. Misplaced Pages is not a mere directory of links nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policies for further explanations of links that are considered appropriate. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Misplaced Pages. Thank you. --Yamla 15:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Harvey Jackins

I don't know if I have an axe to grind. Harvey was a friend but we fell out over politics (he really did think Staline was a good thing, like many of his generation). I am concerned about the allegations of sexual misconduct, because I know he wouldn't have, but mainly because it is so easy to accuse, so hard to defend on this sort of question, which is why it is the subject which is chosen. Don't have a lot of time but will look at it. I think it was especially bad the beginning where it said "Harvey said that he had been attacked but someone else said he hasn't and in general you can't trust what the guy says." It's not encyclopedic.

But my edits were quickly done, so I don't defend every bit of them. John Mullen

William Shakespeare

The whole article needs lots of citing up. But that particular paragraph I added some cites to, and it's necessary to be clear what parts the cites cover, or it's misleading, because people will presume the cite at the end of the sentence covers it, which it does not. Adam Cuerden 13:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Not if we want this to become a featured article. Anyway, anyone can edit Misplaced Pages: if we don't show that experts believe it, we end up with the situation where a crank can come along, write plausibly about, say, how Shakespeare's Cardenio was, in fact, the basis of "A School for Scandal", and, if he manages to fill it with enough bluster it might be very hard to prove it wrong. Adam Cuerden 13:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Map of Borders of the Roman Empire

Hi Argentino, did you create the map on your (excellent) borders page? It does contain some errors, including showing Ireland as having actually been colonised for a while (it wasn't - just a Roman trading post - by this standard India should be included!) and the furthest-reached borders into Germany go much too far, or are at least very speculative. It is also now wrong on the Scottish border, recent confirmed archaeological work shows much greater Roman incursion into Northern Scotland than was previously stated. Would you be interested in working with me to modify it if it was you who made it? Thanks! MarkThomas 12:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

If you click onto this link to wikipedia commons it shows that this user did create the file and that the rationale for the inclusion of ireland is listed in the file summary. Since it is public domain, you should feel free to edit it with any reasonable improvements etc where you are certain of them. I may be working on this image myself shortly to make the limes clearer in lower res thumbnails and de-emphasise irrelevant modern national borders - PocklingtonDan 11:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Useful information, thanks, I will take a look at both! MarkThomas 13:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

On being an admin

Being an admin does not make one superhuman. And perhaps Republic of Ireland and Isle of Man should be changed as well? Give a coherent logical (not emotional) argument for why the most common language in a region should not be listed first. Logic should be given precedence, as this is an encyclopedia. Polls have only limited use on Misplaced Pages—one should not resort to them every time there is a conflict. _└  / _talk  20:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps I was a little harsh. It was, however, only a variation on the common poll !vote of WP:Polls are evil. _└  / _talk  18:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Dispute mediation

Are you interested in participating in an informal mediation regarding the Adolf Hitler article? http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-12-18_Hitler —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.135.64.6 (talk) 23:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Osirian/Osiran

On reflection, you're correct. All I can really say is that I believe there was a good reason at the time to stick to the "Osirian" spelling but I can't really remember it now. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 12:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

We probably all take canonicity too seriously :) Anyway, I've changed it and put up a note on the Talk:Pyramids of Mars page to see if anyone is going to weigh in on it. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 13:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Your Username (MarkThomas)

Hello MarkThomas, unfortunately the username you have picked is inappropriate as it might be mistaked for Mark Thomas. Please consider changing it. You can do this by following the instructions at the Changing username page or by just creating a new account. Note that changing your username will allow you to keep your current edits credited to you. If you do not change your username, a Misplaced Pages administrator may block this account. If you feel this message is a mistake and your username does not violate the rule, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. Thank you. . Asterion 16:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mark, please have a look at WP:RFC/NAME and Misplaced Pages:Usernames. Personally, I have no problem with your username but given the subject of the articles you edit (UK politics, etc), there is a chance for confusion. I guess that you could make a little more obvious that you are not the same guy (i.e. adding a comment like "I am not Mark Thomas" to your userpage. Regards and happy new year, Asterion 16:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Cheers, Asterion 16:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Commanders of World War II(references)

You have shown interest about "Commanders of World War II". We have had some discussion about referenceing it with Oshah, but im not sure what's best solution.--Staberinde 12:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)