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Violations of these guidelines may result in your post being removed or ignored.
Thanks for your note. I'm actually mostly offline for a few days, so my lack of activity is not an indication of anything more than busy-ness. Appreciate your efforts on this.--Gregalton (talk) 05:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Your talk page
I tried to move the guidelines thing to no avail; I got it to budge to the right a bit, but then it disintegrated and spewed it's contents all over the page. I think there's some conflicting code or something that's causing a problem, but I can't figure out what... Master of Puppets23:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Mainly politics and economics. Any articles you mentioned would be fine, although Free-market environmentalism may have some POV issues (it looks good, ATM) and in Private highway the "support" and "oppose" sections are just silly. There's no need for political commentary in such an article. Zenwhat (talk) 04:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
When we get to peer review and FAC, I'm sure any of those articles would get a lot of criticism. They are all in need of major rewriting/expansion to become featured. Sarsaparilla (talk) 05:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. A basic problem with the article is that it has a lot of bulleted lists instead of paragraphs; those will need to be converted in order to make FA. Sarsaparilla (talk) 02:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Another user reported your repeated reversions of Debt-based monetary system as a 3RR violation. I have declined to block you because one of your reverts was of a bot so it was not technically a violation. Please understand, however, that this is NOT blanket permission to revert three times in each 24 hour period. You have reverted to your preferred version a number of times and it can be considered disruptive. I strongly encourage you to continue to discuss the issue on the talk page and not to revert again. Thank you. --B (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Note also that an edit you dispute is absolutely not vandalism, as you characterised it. To describe another editor's good faith edits as vandalism is incivil and not acceptable. Please discuss disputed changed on the article's discussion page. Guy (Help!) 10:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I saw your note about barnstars. I'm sorry you haven't seen any. Of course, thousands of very good contributors never receive a barnstar, so you are in good company.
If you are still interested in tasks to improve Misplaced Pages, I could easily come up with a list, but I don't really know where your interests lie, aside from (I guess) politics. Coming up with a random list probably won't work for you. Or are you really willing to work on anything? Firsfron of Ronchester00:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, have you had a chance to peruse my response from yesterday at the article's discussion section? There are many sources describing Buddhists using drugs (in the times of yore) and I think these might have influenced the general public into this mistaken belief.
Also, you write:
And this edit seems like weasel words:
at least according to the author signed as "DJ Short", in a publication in "Cannabis Culture magazine"
I don't think you're referring to the Misplaced Pages's definition of weasel words. My edit was, in fact, an attempt to satisfy your critique of leaving the preceding statement as "objective", by only referred to the publication. My intent was to emphasize that this statement is of the author of the article. Feel free to delete the fragment of the sentence you cite above, if for whatever reason you find it not objective (but clearly it has nothing to do with weasel words).
Per your comments on the magazine's forum - while I admire your passion for accuracy and your will to educate them, the editor's response seems quite reasonable. After all, in many cases they are referring somebody's words (in interviews, books, etc.), and they did admit the haikus were not "real" (although you should realize, that all haikus in English are to some extent fake. There is only a traditionalized form of translation and writing them in Englih, but it is pretty far from the original Japanese versification for language reasons, and also there are so-called contemporary free-form haikus, which are close to free verse poetry. But I don't think it matters that much).
Credibility of this magazine as a source is, in my view, very limited and I would not learn haiku structure from them. I do believe, though, that if there is any magazine that can professionally write something about different kinds and strains of marijuana distributed 20 years ago, that'll probably be them. NRA publications also have limited credibility - but if I wanted to know about gun subtleties, I would assume them to be a useful source. It is their core business, after all - and while being ignorant about haikus will not take readers away from a cannabis magazine, mistakes and slips in articles on marijuana actually may. Being accurate about existence of strains is almost the only thing they really have to be truthful about (and of course you are right that they quite likely will minimize and belittle the medically proved negative effects of cannabis intake). Pundit|utter23:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see you removed the source as well. I disagree with this decision. My perception is that you took offense to their silly comments about Buddhists smoking marijuana. Still, I am not an expert and also, I don't want to start a revert war. Perhaps someone else will drop a couple of cents in. Pundit|utter23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
You seem to mistakenly take the magazine to be scholarly. They are not scholars at all. It is, at best, a pop-cultural magazine, with particular focus on marijuana. I don't expect them to be accurate about haikus, honestly. But a versological slip is hardly a proof that they don't know about marijuana strains. By analogy - if NRA magazine published a sonnet and called it a haiku, it wouldn't make them unreliable about guns. Pundit|utter23:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I cut out your RfC from the article and added it to the discussion. I cut out somebody's (yours?) template from there to add a new one - I hope it is ok, as it didn't work previously. Pundit|utter23:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I don't mind your reverts, but calling my definition of the RfC as not adhering to Neutral Point of View does not seem to be very fair. It is, however, only natural to assume that our own perception and wording are more neutral and elegant, so I'm leaving your description in the template. Pundit|utter23:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Buddhism and marijuana
With all due respect, your own opinion and the opinion of your colleague Buddhists, whom you kindly offer to consult, are not entirely falling under credible sources of information neither. However, I gave you Such, or such, or such, or such links to chew on the issue of drugs and Buddhism and to at least show you that the issue is not as obvious as you seem to believe and it is not only the magazine you criticize who claims that some time ago some Buddhists were using cannabis (although, as I said, this may be totally wrong - but the idea is out there and not only supported by this one magazine). Pundit|utter00:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not trying to prove or disprove the use of marijuana by Buddhists. All I'm saying is that it is extremely easy to find information about Buddhists using cannabis and it does not make sense to blame one particular magazine for a cultural notion (perhaps an urban legend) that is already out there. But of course there are also many published articles and books on the subject, such as this or this or this or this or this. In spite of what your friends may say from their own experience, there are reliable sources to prove the historical use of marijuana in Buddhism. Therefore it is very premature to claim that the magazine is totally unreliable, basing on the info they give on Buddhists and marijuana. They may be wrong, but the plethora of publications gives them good reasons to support this view. Pundit|utter00:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm, as I admitted, not an expert - my only knowledge about the subject comes from google. The links I gave you above come from the first 10 results of a search in http://www.scholar.google.com which is my typical resource for more scholarly works, although you seem to disprove them as a whole. I assure you that both in martial arts or e.g. RPG edits we sometimes refer to specialized magazines. I'm not saying that Cannabis Culture is a superb source, all I'm trying to point is that if the article and its ilk are to be kept in Misplaced Pages, the only sources of some credibility will be like this magazine. In no way was I trying to upset you and if I did, I apologize. Pundit|utter00:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and one more clarification per FRINGE - as written before, I do not support this theory (if I did, I would make edits basing on the given academic sources in articles on Buddhism or marijuana). But even if the theory was totally out of the blue, if it is notable and widespread enough, it deserves a place in Misplaced Pages (which, although, I am not going to provide myself, as I do not wish to write articles about it). All I was trying to prove to you (and again, apologies, if it upset you) was that criticizing the validity of one particular pop-magazine because of their misconception that Buddhists smoke marijuana is unjust - there are too many sources on this theory to blame only Cannabis Culture, that's all. Pundit|utter00:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
But you are 100% right that there are contradictory sources not only in scholar.google.com, but also in top-tier academic journals as well. All I'm saying is that a claim of historical use of marijuana in some Buddhist communities long time ago can be supported by legitimate publications (just as anarcho-capitalism in economic theory, although economy is perhaps a bit more arbitrary than history). By the way, I don't think anybody so far claimed that marijuana smoking is a widespread practice among Buddhists nowadays. Pundit|utter00:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Fringe rule is about marginality being presented as mainstream, or at least a contesting theory. I understand why you brought it up here, although I don't share your view (but I don't want to dispute whether Buddhist monks really smoked marijuana some time in the past - I just don't care, I don't think even if they did it changes anything). NOR, on the other hand, is irrelevant in our discussion - I didn't present any of my research to support my view, and the only time you did was when you referred to your friends, but it was not a research-like statement. Per narratives in economics and your apparent interest in the subject - you may find this book interesting. Pundit|utter03:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
This is because I'm not proving something is true or not, I'm just proving the presence of an idea in the discourse. BTW, calling books and scholarly journals/conferences marginal is a typical POV, especially when considered the fact that you have not provided ANY (credible or not) sources to support your view. Pundit|utter03:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Zenwhat and thanks for your comment. When talking about discourse I'm referring to the idea of marijuana being historically used in Buddhism (the topic of our discussion in a number of our recent post exchanges). This idea made you challenge an otherwise possibly valid source of information, although I gave you plenty of resources that support the challenged view presented in the magazine (possibly wrong, but still present in the discourse). In the same time you have not provided even a single source to support your view.
I don't mind your change of colloquial into slang, it is a good edit. But in the future please, stop using defamatory terms to describe other editor's contributions, unless you mean what you write, while assuming good faith. So far you called my edits weasel words twice (perhaps you should read the definition first), not adhering to the NPOV, promoting Fringe theories, and violating NOR rule. Once you even reverted my edit so hastily and without checking what it actually was, that seconds later you brought it back. In the same time I carefully refrained from labeling your edits as any violations of rules (Preserve information being the minor one), and I really did my best not to revert your edits based on the info from the magazine we currently discuss.
In spite of the RfC you keep editing the articles. From your user page it is clear that you made deleting Chocolate Thai article your personal goal (it is listed under "to dos"), which for a casual reader may make an impression that you decided the article has to disappear, no matter what the community's decision is and/or what are the constructive edits of other contributors - don't you think that reaching a consensus is a better way to do it, than decide ahead? The fact that you so violently reacted to the information from Cannabis Culture about Buddhist monks in the past may suggests that you took offense to the magazine (you actually called their article offensive).
At this stage I kindly request that you refrain from editing Chocolate Thai at all and I will do the same. We all have our editorial biases and it is only natural that we reinstate our positions in any discussion we already entered. Thus it may do good to Misplaced Pages if we both take a break from Chocolate Thai. I highly respect your other edits and contributions, and I very much appreciate your good intentions, so let's switch to something else for a while. Pundit|utter15:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
In response to the discussion on my talk page:
Your lack of sources refers to the topic of our debate for the last 10+ posts, namely "Buddhists smoking marijuana in the long past", which was your main argument against Cannabis Culture. For this I've provided reliable scholarly resources, many satisfying the verifiability criteria at Misplaced Pages, while you have provided only your own words and an offer to consult your friends or Buddhist Internet fora.
I personally find this argument void and aside of the crux, while there are many points you can raise against this magazine - but you can't blame me for replying to your posts and not what you could have written.. Please, refrain from any further personal attacks. Calling my arguments extremely illogical or doubting my sincerity fall within this category. While you wrote that the article in the magazine was offensive, I think it is understandable that I assumed it was you who took this offense.
Per your argumentation above - you seem to randomly cross-interpret the arguments from several different discussions on:
Buddhism and marijuana
reliability of Cannabis Culture as a general source of information (including haikus, history, etc.)
reliability of Cannabis Culture as a specific source of information on the existence of cannabis strains
etc., so I really cannot understand what your point in these particular topics is, or in general on the subject now. I do hope, however, that by looking at the history page of the article you will at least notice that you made edits and reverts AFTER the RfC was posted, so your argument about not editing being a proof of good faith is void (while the good faith, on the other hand, is present I'm sure - I'm only referring to the argumentation, and not the fact).
I don't understand your simultaneous refusal to stop editing the article and agreement to abstain from editing and wait for third parties to jump in, but I hope that you will wait for other editors to help us in this dispute. For now I think we both may use some time in other places of Misplaced Pages calling our attention. Let me again express my high regard of your contributions to Misplaced Pages, in spite of our current discord. After all, our vivid discussion proves also that we both care about standards the the quality of information, although we can disagree in details. Pundit|utter16:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
It is not my wish to report you, I'm just kindly requesting you to start to act in a civil manner.
You seem not to read my posts carefully. In no place have I written that I know little about Buddhism. I even confessed I participated in sangha meetings in Warsaw.
You have not provided even a single reliable source to prove that Buddhists in the times of your did not use marijuana, while I gave a couple to prove they actually might have. If you assume that Buddhist forum is a reliable source of information on this subject, read again the policies on verifiability.
Per your last comment - again, you have not read my post carefully. I have not altered my comment in any way. However, in the process of transferring the post from my discussion to your discussion. I started replying here, because you seem to prefer keeping the whole dialogue in one place and you keep transferring my posts here. I don't condone this practice, but in respect for your preferences I posted my reply both here and in your discussion. I mistakenly have not copied the first two paragraphs (which as you can easily checked were posted in the primary reply on my talk page). Thus, to keep it consistent, a couple of seconds later I added the missing paragraph. I honestly don't see in what way could you have thought it was my intention to "revise the comment to make it more civil", in what way you believe it was or is not civil, but again - I'm not going to allow this discussion to become personal. I respect your work. I suggest we end this discussion for now. Pundit|utter16:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the info on posting the debate. And PS: above "times of your" should be written as "times of yore". I hope you understand it is a spelling mistake. Pundit|utter16:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks for the clarification. It is just that I still believe 2 scholarly articles and 3 books do prove that something may be right in Buddhists' use of marijuana hundreds of years ago, while I don't think that Buddhist forum is a good place to check this information (just as, per the analogy you used, it would not be reasonable to seek historical information about Jesus at Christian forums). But nevertheless, I appreciate the fact that we have an ardent (even sometimes close to personal), factual debate, rather than a revert war and I am grateful to you for your mature approach in this respect. Pundit|utter17:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The idea to merge all the real and fictional strains into cannabis and leaving the simple redirects on the strains' pages makes sense. It would call, however, for transferring the articles into the main article so as not to leave the information out. Alternatively, a header on all strains' articles could be added informing that they are one of a bigger list and that sometimes the information is more streetwise than scholar. Pundit|utter22:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Regarding your comment here: You may be interested in my rant on that talk page. I think the main problem with regard to American conservatism is the schism into paleoconservatism (which is mainly found in Europe) and neoconservatism / neoliberalism, which is also found in Europe, but has really dominated the American GOP over the last few decades. Since neoconservatism employs methods of covering-up and misinformation etcpp to an even greater degree, comparably aggressive and simultaneously more sophisticated than any other political system (compare FOX Noise), the most basic mission of Misplaced Pages —to provide knowledge— is inevitably opposed to their goals. An aspect of systemic bias I for one would never want to see countered. If any organisation/insitution/collective is based (if only in part) on keeping people uninformed and therefore calculabe and dirigible, it's bad. The Abrahamic religions with their average attitude towards biological evolution also come to mind (compare homeschooling). The interesting thing is that Misplaced Pages really seems very much inspired by the notion of European Enlightenment. Dorfklatsch 11:23, January 6, 2008
True, the phenomenon is not limited to what is being called neoconservatism. It just appears blatantly obvious there, but the Clinton administration for example was not much better. The reason I jump on neocons and other similar things (if asked, I would name e.g. Scientology, the Intelligent Design "movement", the Catholic church, Helmut Kohl, or companies like Coca Cola, Nike, and each and every single pharmaceutical company) is that I think they are all evil bastards. The reason I like Misplaced Pages is that it automatically counters them by providing knowledge and the empowerment of people that goes with it. OTOH, someone should have told Marx that he was indeed right, but that he should shut the hell up, so as not to spoil the whole thing... Dorfklatsch 19:49, January 6, 2008
It does, surprisingly. But so does the article on Hitler. But you're not being fair, I never said I wasn't an evil bastard :D Dorfklatsch 20:21, January 6, 2008
hi. Many thanks for your most kind words and appreciation - it is really nice to hear it after a heated debate such as ours. Unfortunately, I don't feel competent enough on the issue. I expressed my opinion in the talk page - in general the merger (or at least partial mergers here and there) some may seem like a good idea, but I think a longer debate is crucial, as otherwise a revert-war is imminent. Good luck in negotiations :) Pundit|utter00:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Re: Heeeeeelp with WP:FRINGE and possible arbitration.
On Debt-based monetary system, which is a POV fork of fractional-reserve banking, me, EGeek, and Gregalton have tried to improve the article by at least removing stuff that violates WP:FRINGE. There is consensus that it needs to be improved. However, whenever any changes are made, Libertarians who seem to be supporters of these fringe theories revert any edits to the page which remove such material, and appeal to WP:CONSENSUS. This isn't direct vandalism -- just wikilawyering that takes advantage of the slowness and tediousness of Wikipedian bureaucracy in order to keep nonsense up. And they don't put forth any genuine arguments for why they're making such reverts other than a vague appeal to consensus. I've noted this repeatedly on the talk page.
I already posted this on Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard a few days ago, in hopes it would bring outsiders to edit the page. That has not helped reached consensus and the topic has been listed for RFC in the distant past. On monetary theory articles, in general, I seem to be going around in circles, because the article on fractional-reserve banking looked good enough to be featured a while back, but now, adherents of the New World Order (conspiracy theory) and Austrian economics have put all of their silly little fringe theories back in.
I would like to either engage the users making the reverts or seek arbitration. However, the users' seem disinterested in discussing their reverts (so mediation is out of the question.). But on the other hand, given the current state of ArbCom, ArbCom will likely reject my request because they seem to want people to assume good faith even where it's clearly absurd and mediation hasn't been tried. Per WP:IAR, I'd like to just say, "To hell with these trolls," and boldly remove all of the nonsense, but then I will probably be blocked for violating 3RR since WP:IAR doesn't seem to ever be a legitimate defense on Misplaced Pages.
I saw this recently which made me highly skeptical of ArbCom's current ability to address WP:FRINGE violations, since admins who proactively go after such trolls cause great controversy, risking their administrative privileges from being taken away.
So, please, somebody tell me: What can I do to fix that article without having my edits reverted with the summary "omg no consensus" with no corresponding comment on the talk page, and without getting blocked for edit-warring? Zenwhat (talk) 02:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
In the long run, you can't escape community consensus. If the greater community wants something a certain way, it will eventually be that way. But a localized consensus may not match the community's desires. So if an editor or group of editors are maintaining an article to non-Misplaced Pages standards, then what you need to do is seek wider input. Keep in mind that common practice (that is, the defacto standard) doesn't always match policy, which means policy in such an area hasn't caught up to common practice yet. At the core of this approach is WP:IAR - the community isn't straight-jacketed by its own rules. To seek wider input, post requests for editors to come and participate on the article. In addition to occasionally asking for help here at the help desk, also try WP:CBB, WP:RFF, WP:AN, WP:RFE, WP:VPA, and WP:RFC (for articles). If you really want the community to apply the magnifying glass to the article, prepare it for featured article status. Post it at WP:GAN or WP:PR, and once it gets through peer review, nominate it at WP:FAC.
Keep a log of the perp's violations, for use in an RfC on him if it ever comes to that. You can also use that as evidence to request that the article be protected, but that step usually follows an RfC. Keep suggesting mediation, because you are open to consensus-building discussion.
To solve the merge-issue, I stepped-in and boldly renamed the page so it is more closely associated with the article it expands upon.
I hope I've been of help. If you need further assistance, continue to post requests everywhere you can think of (check WP:DIR for all the relevant departments you can find), and on my talk page.
Their removal was unintentional, infact lazy. Otherwise in order to revert a previous editor's edit I first have to meticulously copy-paste your latter edits, then open different windows and so on.
However I do not agree with the merge proposal at all. Like the Semitic religions, Indian religions are the other important polar branch of religions that arose in a particular geographical region, and which all have commonalities and similarities in belief system, philosophy and in the origins of these. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
wikiliberalism
Hi. A nice essay. I am somewhat reluctant to focus on background work at Wiki (such as introducing new wikipolitical doctrines), but I am glad that somebody does it :) Pundit|utter16:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello with Chocolate Thai I spent tremendous amount of time because I initially made a short verifiability check and decided the topic seems encyclopedic. I don't want to make the same mistake and enter a much bigger debate on philosophies, Eastern or Wikipedic and contribute as much, or more, as previously, when I can do something clearly good for Misplaced Pages in the same time. I appreciate your essay, but I believe that you need to make the argumentation more clear and perhaps more oriented at the doctrine rather than at critique of current policies and approaches (simply try to answer the question "what is wikiliberalism? why should people declare they support it?"). Please, keep also in mind, that no matter how persuasive you are in your essay, you will probably not persuade all editors to accept this doctrine (even if just because people are different, some e.g. don't like the word "liberal" for whatever reasons). My reasons for advising you against major changes without establishing consensus are related to the sensitive nature of topics such as religion or personal beliefs. It is extremely important not to make people upset, angry or resentful because of any edits and changes, whenever it is possible. I'm not sure if I will be heavily editing in the following days, and in any case you're on your own - I hope your edits will be successful, constructive and that they will bring you appreciation both from other editors, and from the readers. Pundit|utter23:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Making a To Do List
I'd like to make an automated to do list. Are there already any good scripts out there I can use?
My talk page. The idea is to edit Misplaced Pages algorithmically. It would work like this:
You create a task.
You list its hierarchical importance (perhaps by a "number" or flags like "vital" or "minor")
When a task is completed (either accomplished or failed), it's crossed off, given a check or an X, and the reason why is stated.
This seems more logical than having to try to remember what you're doing, on a whole bunch of articles, all at once (that is, if you don't narrowly focus on a few articles). I've been doing this all manually on my user page with a manual to-do list. Take a look to see what I mean.
Just now, I thought about creating a "check" and "x" template to make it quicker to update my to do list. Then I thought: Why not have the entire thing just be one big template, where there is a {{task}} template (one {{task}} for each task) and the whole thing is wrapped in another template which is a script that sorts tasks by importance, date listed, whether they've been accomplished, etc.. Zenwhat (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any scripts for this. You can make tables that automatically sort; see M:Help:Sorting. You can also use AWB to process a task list, where the "tasks" are pages you want to edit. Create a page with links to all the pages you want to work on, then make a list in AWB from the links on that page. AWB will automatically load the next page on the list when you are done with the previous one. I hope this helps. The Transhumanist 22:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Transhumanist, I'm no expert with programming, but I'm a bad enough amateur that I think I could definitely do this myself. When and if I finish it, I'll let you know, since I think a lot of people would find such an idea useful. I somewhat assumed it would've already been done, though.
Also, thanks for the barnstar! Finally, I get one! However, I don't completely deserve it because your articles helped me a lot and my layout is mostly just a modified version from User:ArielGold.
is hereby bestowed upon Zenwhat for a sleek and informative userpage, with useful userpage design features that can be copied by others (like the to do list). The Transhumanist 22:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC) 22:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Image copyright problem with Image:Wpatitsfinest.jpg
Image Copyright problem
Thank you for uploading Image:Wpatitsfinest.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Misplaced Pages takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.
There are so many frustrating features to Misplaced Pages. I usually describe them "accommodation", "anti-elitism", and "hostility towards experts". I also think an unreasonable focus on "civility" prevents good Wikipedians from improving the quality of the encyclopedia. If you tell someone that they are "wrong" because they declared that "1+1=5" you are automatically told that you are violating WP:NPA and WP:CIV. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the History section is also in need of expansion. The whole thing is, really. I'm sure records were kept of the debates leading up to the final text. Sarsaparilla (talk) 23:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
In the deletion discussion for The End of the World (animation) every single source you cited was unreliable. Per WP:Don't template the regulars, I don't want to lecture you on basic Misplaced Pages guidelines because you're a veteran editor. However, it's important you realize what they mean. This kind of behavior seems to come from the Rescue Squadron often. While protecting good articles is a good thing, this policy is only makes sense if you can back it up with WP:RS and WP:V. The existence of a number of random hits on Google does not constitute WP:RS or WP:V. See WP:GOOGLE. Zenwhat (talk) 03:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Firstly I would like to thankyou for not templating me :-) Anyway, yes I am fully aware of what reliable sources are, and often add them to articles. This is why I didn't add them to the article, but rather left them on the AfD for discussion. I actually meant to leave a comment not a keep, but I forgot to change it - I have now. Establishing notability for Mimes is always hard because they are very rarely covered by "traditional" media - and if they are it is usually trivial - eventhough they may infact be notable due to their impact on "web culture" - lolcats would be an example of this.
Regarding your second comment about seeing issues with how members of the Rescue squadron source articles. If you can provide examples please do so on the project's talk page - we are a newish project, so some users may not be following proper procedure - we need to nip this in the butt to prevent the project from getting a tarnished name. The proejct has done some good work and with support from the rest of the community we will continue to do so. Once again, thankyou for your comments. Fosnez (talk) 04:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Re: Austrian School
Semi prot is warranted only for vandalism or biographies which are on the receiving end of persistent violations of WP:BLP and WP:NPOV, not content disputes. Cheers, east.718at 12:50, January 10, 2008
Well, it's definitely not vandalism - I would qualify even egregious violations of WP:FRINGE as disruption and not vandalism. If the problem is long-term, I suggest you find an administrator who is familiar with either the subject matter or history of the page. Sorry to be of so little help, but I simply do not have the time to delve deep into the background issues. east.718at 13:07, January 10, 2008
Global warming
I read the edits and while I don't sympathize with those who don't think anything should be done, I'm not sure that it's a fact that "something must be done". If nothing is done it will be devastating for humanity, but if one is a misanthrope hoping for the destruction of huge swathes of humankind then perhaps global warming is a good thing, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
There are a few points I would clarify. In my estimation, Kyoto is really a drop in the bucket in terms of both economics and the environment. Interestingly, the total cost-benefit analysis by many economists seemed to give a net positive effect as Kyoto would have stimulated technological development in the US to offset carbon emissions, for example. In any case, macroeconomics often has non-linearity, and so I view the Bush administration's position on the matter as purely obstructionist from a political angle. The business interests of the Bush-cohorts were in status-quo energy sector that would have taken a direct hit if Kyoto would have gone into effect: a headache for them but there was no way for them to say that it would have been an overall economic problem. Be that as it may, Kyoto was irrelevant because it didn't go far enough. This was the other tack the Bush administration took (mostly in private). Basically, Kyoto was a symbolic treaty because it does nothing to decrease greenhouse emissions. Nevertheless, this is how politics happens -- through primary steps that are inconsequential leading to more major movements in the future.
The economic effects of global warming have in fact been studied fairly in-depth. Interestingly, it seems that the country that will probably be devastated the most economically by even modest rises in sea-level will be the United States. Other countries will have to deal with population dislocation (Bangladesh, for example), but the US economic infrastructure in many places is tied very close to sea level. One particularly scary thought is that the California Central Valley could easily become an inland sea in even moderately conservative estimations of sea-level rise.
Undoubtably, there are wingnuts out there on the left who have no conception of the science and don't really consider this subject as carefully as they should. One of my personal pet-peeves is the continued opposition to nuclear power by goups such as Move-On. Nuclear power is one of the proven technologies that can actually reverse carbon emissions (unlike, for example, biofuels which are arguably worse than fossil fuels). I suspect that there is a considerable contingent of them which are neo-luddites as well, hoping to dismantle the modern, technological world in order to return to a "simpler" self-subsistence lifestyle. Of course, what these radical anti-modernists don't realize is that things were pretty shitty back then with private wars, frequent famines, and disease taking the lives of most people before adulthood.
In short, I think that there is definitely enough evidence out there that it would be better in all analyses to control our effects on the environment than to simply allow our climate to turn into a runaway greenhouse effect. However, if we don't do anything, the ones to suffer will be us. The Earth will continue on fine whether we're happy or not.
How we choose to control global warming is a political question and perhaps the only place where legitimate controversy is had. One of the things emphasized in classes I teach is that global warming is truly a global problem but there isn't yet a consistent political method for dealing with global problems. It's really the first major global long-term issue the world has had to face, but it certainly won't be the last one. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Karma
Just FYI, I have posted a note on the WP:ANI regarding User:karmaisking's renewed personal attacks, incivility, references to violence, etc. As for your other notes, I simply have been mostly occupied, and expect to be for a few weeks.--Gregalton (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
