User:Maunus/Talk:Archivepage5

I can Justify

When a user is a vandal, that has been WARNED BY OTHER USERS, they should be reverted. Now, my actions were slightly wrong, but this user had benn WARNED, and I also had not been. Andrewrp^Tally-ho! 17:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You did not adress your problems with his edits on the talk page even once. I don't really think you can justify your behaviour according to policy. I also don't think you should try - saying "I'm sorry, I got carried away" would be a more appropriate response. As you can see above on my talk page I was given a (justfied) block warning for reverting three times (still observing 3RR) and not using rollback. I think you should count yourself lucky ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice, I don't have to read any further on this page or to write really many lines. Your first sentence on this page already answers everything. "You did not adress your problems with his edits on the talk page even once." - But now you blocked an article (Josie Maran) from editing by IPs in a version from a User (Mbinebri) who himself changed hundreds of article without writing anything on the discussion pages before - and got addressed for that behaviour much more often than once on his talk-page. - Maybe you should come up with better excuses for biased actions. 82.113.121.126 (talk) 17:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Help with Culture

Are you around to help on an article? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I could be. Which one?·Maunus·ƛ· 18:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah if you mean Language development I'd be more than happy too - I looked at that page yesterday and it was barely legible.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I have seen that page too and it needs a lot of work. But actualy, I meant this. Last year, the Culture article was a total mess, a disaster, a trainwreck - too many ill-informed people making uncoordinated attempts. I did a total overhaul, trying to treat "culture" as a concept, and primarily as an object of stuy, or as a conceptual tool used by, academics. The article is getting too big now, but at least I believe it has some coherence. My ideal would be for a few other people to work on the article until it is really good, and then decide how to spin off linked articles and make summaries.

"Linguistics" is its own topic, and I do not want to identify "culture" with "language." But theories of language have been important for how others have viewed culture, and I iknow at least some linguists (ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics) use the conce3pt of culture, or believe that they are contributing to the study of culture. So I want the article to have a section on just this: what does culture mean to linguists, and how do they study it or contribute to the study of it.

I asked as many editors at Wikipedia who work on language as i could think of, and most ignored my requests. One ditor did provide a list of quotes by linguists on the talk page -I like these quotes and find the list useful and I hope its existence makes my request more appealing to you as you already have some material to work with. But I really want a competent linguists to write this section.

A year ago, this article just reflected an incohereht range of popular opinions about culture and it did not reflect any serious research. I want to change it. Right now I think one major weakness is an explanation of the relationship and difference between language and culture. I hope you can help fix this! Thanks!! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:11, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

THANKS!!!!!!! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

First off, the quotes there were placed by another user with an interet in linguistics; whether you find them useful or not I leave to you. When I went to graduate school I was told that there is a close relationship between language and culture: that language and culture coevolved, that language is one very important domain of culture, and that language may even be paradigmatic of culture in that anthropologists like Claude Levi Strauss and later Ward Coodenough and Charles Frake turned to the linguistics of their day to develop heories and methods for studying culture. So I just assume that an article on culture should have something about language and culture, but it is more an assumption than anything else.

The article is on culture and I do think that we need to keep the focus on culture, so I guess the question is, do linguists set about their work with a model in their minds about what culture is? Is some concept of culture an important part of the linguist's "toolkit?" Can one argue that linghistics provides a particular way to study culture? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, I guess that would help point out material that should go into the article.

When I was in graduate school I was taught that ethnolinguistics studies the relationship between language and culture. Is this right? If so, I would think that the findings of ethnolinguists, or some of the findings, would be relevant to an article on culture.

Finally, I was also taught that sociolinguistics is the study of the social uses of language, and reveals important aspects of social relations, social structure, etc. Is this an important part of culture? I would have thought so, but defer to you. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, the article has a section on culture and language and it is only that section that i am asking you to draft. Of course I would welcome your edits of any other part of the article, but it is getting long and right now the most glaring weakness is the inadequate discussion of the relationship between language and culture which can be in one section. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it is amazing. It is finely written and moves very smoothly from one important issue or concept to another. It is so concise and well-thought-out part of me thinks it should just be used as is. But it is also very dense and I wonder if there are some places where key concepts could be spelled out more, or whether it could be expanded and broken into subsections. Well, whether you wish to continue working n it or not is up to you, I think you have already done something great. I just wish there were more linguists at Wikipedia who would be willing to collaborate on this. Cnilep provided some quotes (which currently occupy the "culture and language" space in the article - do you see any value to these quotes, do they suggest other issues to raise, or directions for expansion?) I guess the only other thing I could suggest is to consider how you might add some of those quotes and in the process develop certain key ideas. Cnilep is the only other person with some training in linguistics who has expressde any interest and I have asked him to look at your draft too. I guess I will wait a week or so and if neithe of you have expanded on your draft, I will just put it in. Thanks, I appreciate your work, Slrubenstein | Talk 18:49, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I am glad you liked it. I wrote this in summary style and I would be very interested to flesh the subject out more in an article of its own. ·Maunus·ƛ· 20:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem with Cnilep putting it on a subpage of his page for furthe work, especially as he has made it clear you are welcome to continue editing it. I say this only because the two of you both have training in linguistics and are the only ones to express interest in working on this section. My sense is, when the two of you reach agreement about a fleshed out section, we can place it in the article - where of course anyone can edit it. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, if he prefers it that way I guess its ok. ·Maunus·ƛ· 23:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Kudos

• 
  Kudos re Talk:Clarence Thomas. Few editors would be so willing to note a mistake (innocuous vel non) and apologize so soon after a row with the other user in another setting. An outstanding example of wikicivility and not taking things personally.

- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 01:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your principled stance

I noticed you are there almost alone with that anti-Jehovah's-witness at JW articles attempting to keep thing fair, and I wanted to thank your for your time and effort.
Tell me if you think my Psalm 83:18 edits are rational. Cheers - GabrielVelasquez (talk) 00:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. There is a tugwar between antiJW's and JW's and its a little unwieldy.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

topic ban

This ban was done with no due process, inadequate discussion and zero evidence. It stinks. I want to overturn it. Do I have options? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos GA review

Hi Maunus! I started to work on your suggestions for the Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos article. You'd like to have the list in the location section converted to prose. There is not a whole lot of information in this list (names of the settlements and coordinates). For a non-trivial prose (something other than one sentence listing the names separated by comma), I would need to add some information. Since the section is titled "Location" I'd probably want to add information about geographic peculiarities (location). Is that what you meant? Honestly I don't really know what to add, as the geography is very similar among the missions. There are for instance no big rivers or mountains to speak of. San Javier is situated on a hilltop but for instance San Miguel, San Rafael and Santa Ana which are not far apart from each other, don't have any distinguishing geographic features I can think of at the moment. Do you have any suggestions on what information I could add, besides saying that misssion 'x' lies 'y' kilometers to the east/west/north/south of ... ? bamse (talk) 04:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I have tried my best at converting the location list into prose - the coordinates are sort of disturbing to the readability though, I don't know if you can think of another way to present those.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the conversion. I fixed some typos. One thing confuses me. You write: "San José...is located...in the foothills of the Gran Chaco." I am not sure what you mean by "foothills" here. The Gran Chaco is a lowland region and basically all of the map lies within the Gran Chaco region. I agree that the coordinates should be removed from the prose. They could go either into one of the tables (if applicable) or be left out completely. In any case the coordinates can be accessed through the respective settlement articles. bamse (talk) 06:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

right, the foothills was a slipup. I'll think of something else.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Maunus. You have new messages at Cnilep's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Nupedia

Thanks - I guess it was the experiment in centralized governance that failed!! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly in three years they made 14 articles.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics

Hi Maunus. Thanks for your messages. Is there some problem within this community? Not only have my edits been reverted as you point out, I have just been falsely alleged of being another user's sock puppet! I'd like to report this. Please give me your feedback and suggestions. Thanks. TroubledTraveler (talk) 13:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing to report, TroubledTraveler; a user has only "expressed a suspicion", because you are behaving very similarly to a known problem user. If you really did read all the archives, then you will understand why there is not consensus for including that user's edits and you should know not to re-add them without having a real discussion. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

How can an edit "belong" to any user?! Is it anything other than a co-incidence (I wonder!) that there are more than one people who might feel the same way about something? If it's not a co-incidence, obviously there is consent over that view! So everybody who wants to make changes to this article is the same person? This sounds like SERIOUS trouble to me. I don't know for whom, yet, though. For Wikipedia, or for these people on the linguistics' community. TroubledTraveler (talk) 19:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Please don't use my talk page for bickering. Troubledtraveler, I can only suggest you do this: go to the talk page lay out your arguments, make a case that you are not supriyya even though he/she introduced edits with nearly the same wordings from many different sockpuppet accounts. If a majority of editors are convinced that your suggestions are an improvement to the page then they'll go in if not, you will have to find better arguments. Its as simpe as that.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

If you have a hlaf-hour

would you mind going here and reviwing the discussion (the second half is i think more important than my initial statement in the first half) to see if you might have any reasonable comment to add to the discussion? [1] Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

A bold proposal

Can you help me make this work: Wikipedia:Areas for Reform Slrubenstein | Talk 14:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of User:Cnilep/Culture draft

Slrubenstein has moved your section on language and culture to Culture. I am therefore going to request that the page we had been using for revisions, User:Cnilep/Culture draft, be deleted. If you would like to keep the page, or to move any content there to your own user space, please let me know. If you have no objection to deleting the page, I will request speedy deletion. Cnilep (talk) 16:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

No, thats fine. Wel'll just edit it in mainspace.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:52, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

It's OK

Not a prob...I do the same. Funny thing...While you were correcting my spelling, I was correcting someone else. LOL! --Buster7 (talk) 15:54, 3 August 2009 (UTC) Also....just noticed that it was your comment that I moved from Areas of Reform to Buster7/Incivility. Hope that was OK?--Buster7 (talk) 15:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

It's been a pleasure working on the Chiquitos article. The topic is interesting and Bamse has done a great job with the article. All I've done is straighten out the prose. Thanks for your work on the review. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Truthkeeper88. Thanks for your good suggestions, edits and work on the review. bamse (talk) 21:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit war

Because the guy remove references and put his own numbers in the article Copenhagen? Im not the one who make edit war. --JHF1000 (talk) 15:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It takes two to make an editwar I am afraid.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

That makes it two of us. But it takes more than two to tango. Or something like that. --JHF1000 (talk) 16:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I can't even comprehend what a three-person tango would look like :p (Taivo (talk) 16:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC))

yes I think more than one but less than three is the usually preferred Tango set up. Anyway I warned both of you so there is no need to be sour - just go to the talk page and discuss. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:30, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

LOL. I wasn't one of the parties to the conflict, I just noticed that special "more than two to tango" comment and had to share a good laugh. (Taivo (talk) 16:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC))

No, the both of you was to JHF1000 and the other guy in the editwarring couple.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks on ANI

Thanks for your constructive comments on the ANI thread on David Fuchs. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for thanking me. :) I had to resist making a pun about the "nicht so wohltemperierte Fuchs"·Maunus·ƛ· 22:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI

I think there is a very dangerous section in the NPOV policy, which I deleted and discussed on the talk page here. Now there is an RfC, I hope you will comment. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

refs

Hi Maunus. Yep, I thought that TfD discussion & outcome to be a hard call too. A couple of the exchanges were frustrating, felt like dealing with strangers who've unaccountably taken an instant dislike to something about you, and nothing you actually say or do can penetrate the wall of preconceived self-rectitude. It took a little spell or two off-wiki to regain some sanity & perspective after some of those exchanges, let me tell you.

But at least, the practical outcome looks like the functionality can be retained, just to have it merged with another template that also provides bibliography formatting options. Personally I don't see a great need to combine them, but it can be done and there might even be some benefits down the track. So I've added the indent functionality to {refbegin} as an option, works just the same as before, except you'd use {refbegin|indent=yes}. Just a bit of tedium in going thru them all to convert.

So while I think some good arguments could be made for a DRV, and I certainly toyed with the idea of going for a review, if only to see if someone independent could actually hear and read what was being said-it wld prob be more trouble than it's worth to pursue. Mind you, only as long as the functionality can be retained and operate as simply & conveniently as before. Cheers,--cjllw ʘ TALK 13:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I just used the refbegin|indent option on Otomi language and it actually looks better imo. I guess its ok then - but really frustrating, and I can't wrap my head around how no delete arguments were based in policy and still the closing admin swayed that way (the count was 7 keep / 10 delete) and more than half the arguments of the delete side was "it is ugly". ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I took the opportunity to trim down the default indent size a little, & think it looks better too.

I fully agree that we could use some serious revisions and clarifications about "MOS-compliant" citation/referencing systems in the general case (not just this particular aspect), and a much much better description of what those referencing systems actually are and the rationales/advantages/disadvantages of each. From the beginning on wikipedia referencing systems have grown more or less organically, without really any overarching plan or prior assessment & decision about the best ways to do it. It's been subject to the development/augmentation of technical capabilities, & the documentation & description of rationales has likewise lagged.

In a recent lengthy discussion at WT:CITE it was apparent, to me at least, that a number of folks are wedded to their own particular way of doing it (prob dependent upon what was around when they first came here) but seem simply unaware that there are other equally valid ways. There also seems to be a lot of confusion/conflation of two elements that ought to be recognised as distinct: the citation element (how some given statement in the text is associated with a source) and the reference element (the full expression and identification of some source work used or consulted).

Partly I'd attribute this to the—IMO, disorganised—presentation of the various methods at the MOS & CITE pages. The way I see it, we really only have two classes of citation/referencing systems—those that use bibliographies, and those that don't. I think a lot of the confusion might be cleared up if that were to be spelled out a little clearer in the guidelines.

In the present situation with that refindent tfd, at the moment maintenance of that functionality as an option in that other template is not being impeded. As long as that's the case I'd rather not stir the pot with a DRV, thus far the closer has been reasonable/agreeing to migration of the indent functionality. While I'd still stand by those arguments advanced in favour in the TfD as anything other than "ilikeit" ones, there'd be more to lose than gain by pressing with a DRV, RFC or fuller documentation of the closing rationale (IMO at least).

If down the track someone does raise an issue w having the indent functionality retained as a template option, that'd be a different story. Personally I think objections to hindent wld be harder to justify, the "references-small" function of {refbegin} itself is not something mandated or recommended in MOS from what I can see. If there's persistence maybe then's the time for DRV or RFC.

I'd rather get the migration completed, and update the refbegin template doco. After that, I think it would be a good idea to engender some discussion at WT:CITE on clarifying MOS/CITE recommendations and systems, in the general and overall case, along the lines as I've outlined above. I think the whole system needs clarification, not just this hindent element, & focusing back on that TfD first might muddy the waters. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Central Morocco Tamazight

I'd be more than happy to work on this article. Would you like to alert the editor that I'll be copyediting, or shall I? Also, thanks for the compliments! I enjoy copy editing. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

You do it - I am sure he'll be happy for the help he has struggled with it alone for awhile. :)·Maunus·ƛ· 17:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I've read through the article and have a quick question: I'm seeing organizational issues that need to be addressed before tackling the prose. Would you agree? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you should probably take a look at the GA review I made here and the subsequent peerreview here.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Pretty much along the lines of my assessment. Fascinating topic, and basically well done. I think I can get it into shape, but need to spend a little time thinking about how to go about it. Thanks for thinking of me for this. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

One more question: I've read the Nahuatl article (very nice!) and then looked at some dialect specific languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Bernese German. Any other suggestions for articles to read? Reading a GA language article would be helpful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at Ottawa language for a recently passed language GA (it failed an FA run because of prose problems), Canadian Gaelic is an older GA that treats a specific dialect of Gaelic - much like central Morocco Tamazight. I am currently working on Otomi language that I want to take to GA level (it's very much a work in progress) - if you want to take a look at that as well and brush up the prose that would be excellent. I still need to fill in several sections though and get the maximum out of the many references I've assembled.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Other articles I've written that could use a brushover to get closer to GA status are Mesoamerican languages and Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Good, thanks. Those will keep me very busy, and hopefully help with conceiving a good org. structure for Tamazight. I was hoping to see a native American language in the list -- the Hopi dictionary might be helpful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Ottawa and Otomi are both native american.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, got caught up with seeing the Hopi dictionary. I believe I might know some people who worked on that project, and definitely some who worked on the Lakota Dictionary. At any rate, Morocco first, after reading the articles. Time to log off. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you, but having looked at the article history, prefer the previous leads that were more to the point, rather than the overly long lead that exists now. I've tried a quick rewrite of the lead (flipping some paragraph order and breaking up paragraphs where I'd prefer to see less text) here but it's still very dense text. My suggestion is to trim it down by deleting the last two paragraphs and incorporate the information into the text of the article, but not if you want to see a more expansive lead for the review. Am asking because your review mentions rewriting the lead as per WP:LEAD. This is a long winded way of asking whether the lead needs a complete rewrite? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that would probably be a good idea. Remember that the structure of the lead must mirror the structure of the rest of the article quite closely. There should be no information in the lead that is not also in the body - and the weighting of material in the lead should reflect the weighting in the article. Those are the most important guidelines imo.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. That's what I realized as I was working on the text. I think I'm good to go now, and shouldn't have to bother you again. I'll also post on the article talk page as I go along. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

So much for saying I don't need to bother you!! When you have a chance, can you take a look at the bottom of the thread here. I've combined three sections from the article into one, and need your opinion re: renaming the section. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you mind if I have a go at copyediting (lightly) one of your articles, to get a sense of how the grammar sections should be written, that I can then apply to the Tamazight article? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:58, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

No, please. If you are going to copyedit my articles please do it heavily! And please don't limit yourself to one. No seriously, please dopyedit all you can. ·Maunus·ƛ· 02:08, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Patzin

ps. Could you validate my reasoning/interpretation of nahuatl morphology at Talk:Patzin pls, if u get a chance. I think it's correct, but can't be sure. Saludos amigo, --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

policies

We can discuss this off-wiki if you would like. But I see my actions as consistent with my beliefs: we want to recruit new editors, and support new editors. When I write "editor" I mean someone who wants to work on articles. In my experience, newbies who go straight to policies at best lack the experience required for the kind of judgment that is needed to maintain effective policies. I do not believe in institutionalized hierarchies. But I think it is common sense that someone should edit on what they know about, or are willing to learn. If you know about linguistics, please, contribute to articles on linguistics. If you do not know much about linguistics but are willing to do the research, that is grand too. But if an article on shifters is an article on a concept in linguistics, what are policies "about?" They are about the proper functioning of Wikipedia, and people who edit them ought to know a lot about the functioning of Wikipedia - or be willing to learn. No one is prevented from this, and we all learn this knowledge the same way: by working on articles, getting into conflicts, getting out of conflicts, and working more on articles. I think we should do everything possible to encourage this, especially among newcomers. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Well for one thing we don't know how many edits he has made as an unregistered user (as we know studies show that unregistered users supply the highest quality content). Judging from his edithistory he is preoccupied principally with policy and wikipedias inner working - that might suggest that he has prior experience as an IP editor. Anyway what I take issue with is the somewhat condescending tone of your comment and what seems to unnecessary force in admonishing him. If his arguments aren't valid then I think its ok to say that (in this case he merely made suggestions that I don't see how can be of any harm), but I don't think it is ever ok tell a fellow contributor to "Shut up Donny, you're out of your element"(quote from The Big Lebowski). I don't mean to be annoying about it, nor will I pursue this any further either on or off-wiki I just wanted to tell you how I perceived that particular comment of yours.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess I need to work on my tone. I respect your opinion. But perhaps one day we will discuss this further off-wiki. I admit this: my views were formed by my growing sense that he really does not understand how things work at Wikipedia. Then again, this is a time of change and it looks like there are many editors who would like to see policies like NPOV go. I could well be in a minorty trhat is rapidly growing bigge (er, smaller) .... Slrubenstein | Talk 23:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

AfD

Sure. Do we let the AfD page itself be automatically archived, or will you archive it, or do you want me to do something there? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It gets automatically archived once a day right? If you want to archive it thats fine. You can also archive Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aoption parenting and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/At-risk students that I also closed.18:49, 7 August 2009 (UTC)·Maunus·ƛ·

Closing AfDs

I noticed that you have closed some recent AfDs. Just to let you know, {{subst:afd top}} (or {{subst:afdt}}, however you call it) goes above the section header. This way, the AfD collapses correctly. Cheers, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok - i was wondering about that. thanks for enlightening me. :)·Maunus·ƛ· 21:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, per WP:NAC, non-admins should only close unanimous or near-unanimous "keep" AfDs. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:29, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok! I thought any editor "in good standing" (whatever that means) could do it. I guess I'll just have to stop then, not enough unanimous keeps to make patrolling worthwhile. I hope noone will object t my closures. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, as a non-admin, you don't have the technical ability to delete articles, so an admin would have to come back and delete the article anyways. However, non-admins can be helpful; User:Ron Ritzman is an example of one who closes and relists AfDs a lot. You are an editor in good standing, and can still help with the (uncontroversial keep) closes or relists if you want to. I did plenty myself before I became an admin: [2]. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Abrasive

I'm aware that my matter-of-fact approach to editing may be seen as abrasive. However, there is no intention to make anyone feel 'downtrodden' when I don't agree with them, just as they shouldn't feel elated if I do agree with them. My negative opinions of edits have equal (just as much/little) importance to my positive opinions of edits, and I try to consistently back up my arguments logically. To date, no one has complained when I have bluntly agreed with them. :) --Jeffro77 (talk) 06:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to explain.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Black Hawk War

Worked the lead. Pls give it a look. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ashkenazi intelligence

I just posted my own view, which would be for a merger with another article. Or deletion. If you agree with my motion to merge, you could start an RfC. Or I could do another AfD attempt. This is of course ths spawn of the race and intelligence article, which I and a few others fought many wars over to ensure it not violate NPOV and NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

edit war warning

Thank you for your sharp eyes and keeping an eye on edit-warring practices. My reverts have been discussed on the article's talkpage and other editors agree with that. Having said that, I now leave it to others to revert again. Again, thank you for your sharp eyes and attention. Seb az86556 (talk) 16:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for heeding my suggestion. Even if the other side is editing disruptively it is always better not to get ones own hands dirty. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; the situation is more complex that it may have appeared. The intentions of my edits were not to war. We are done with editing for now.--Asdfg12345 16:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I realise that I am not in a position to see the whole issue, but you were both editwarring which was what i reacted to. I am not taking sides in the dispute. Now it would be best if you go and solve the complexities of the issue on the talk page. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Link

Please kindly give me the link to where you did this as I could not locate it over at AN/I. Best, A Sniper (talk) 18:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

theory

It is not a theory. In the physical and life sciences, a theory is a model of some portion of the world such that relationships within the model enable us to formulate propositions with observational consequences in the world (in the physical sciences, these are usually measurable i.e. changes in the model correspond to changes in quantities of something in the world). Such theories thus open up new lines of investigation. The conjecture about Ashenazi Jews is not a theory, although it relies on the language of another theory (the modern synthesis of Darwin and Mendel). But it does not produce any propositions that can be falisfid or confirmed and it does not open up new lines of inquiry. It is in no way a scientific thory. It is merely speculation by a couple of guys who happen to be scientists. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

but the word theory has a usage outside of science as in conspiracy theory.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:34, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Nomination

Hi Maunus. If it's ok by you, it would give me great pleasure to nominate you for RfA. If you can allow me a couple days to set up the page, then when you've filled out your statement and you are ready (ie are able to set aside a contiguous period of a week or more for availability in responding to Qs) then we'll activate it and away we go.--cjllw ʘ TALK 02:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I accept, I was reluctant in the past, but after watching Admins at work for awhile I am confident that I can contribute positively to wikipedia with the admin tools. ·Maunus·ƛ· 02:21, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have now set up the RfA nom page. If you can sign the nom acceptance and put up ur answers to those standard questions, then when ur happy w it and all set to go let me know and I'll transclude it to the RfA list to open the commentary/voting period. Whenever you are ready, no rush. ¡Buena suerte! --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Race to see who gets the first Support. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Maunus, I know we haven't interacted much, if at all, but you and ptcamn deserve the credit for getting me interested in Wikipedia in the first place. I wish you the best of luck. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 23:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Maunus, responded on my talkpg to ur Q. When ur ready, ping me there & will get it added (if I'm online, or when next online -- I plan to be checking in as often as I can) and the clock will start ticking... cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Re:Citeshort

Im so sorry. I was not aware that those types of references would be skrewed up with the AWB. Im going through the 600 articles now to find if that occurred in any other instances. Im sorry and thank you for bringing that to my attention--Tim1357 (talk) 04:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I think mostly it has been taken care of.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Peer review: Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos

Hi! Just to let you know that I put up Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos for peer review. bamse (talk) 08:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. I saw it got a lot of useful copyedits today.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox

Had not even noticed you'd been there until pulling an old version from history. Anyway, feel free. Your edits were helpful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Lame Excuse

I have two books available at Amazon, etc. and have been published in over 30 magazines for 180 plus artcles and column pieces. My work appears in several books. My original research on the "galactic alignment", a term I coined is in a 1991 issue of Mt Astrology Magazine. I believe you are just using this as an excuse to harass me. Back off. MARDYKS.

I said publish in reliable sources. And up untill this pont harrassment has been mostly your game.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Play Fair

I just read the Mayanism section and it is all opinion. It is highly biased and borders on "hate" for the New Age. There is not one bit of verifiable research in the entire piece. So please stop being a hypocrite and using lame excuses to harass my contributions. I'm contributing to help educate people about 2012. Something needed on Wiki because it has nothing really helpful or substantial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.151.35 (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

May I suggest that you bring these perceived neutrality problems up at Talk:Mayanism. Probably it would also result less frustrating for you to try to edit wikipedia if you read our policies about conflict of interest, Reliable Sources and Consensus.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I've put a coi template on his talk page. Dougweller (talk) 07:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

GAC review

Are you still working on the Black Hawk War? Thanks for helping on the arb case today. I post a stmt on the PD talk page and my own talk page you may want to read. For BHW tweaks, pls post on its talk or my own talk. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

I just wanted to thank you for becoming involved as a neutral editor at Falun Gong. Your experience and assistance is greatly valued. --Vassyana (talk) 09:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for thanking me. :) I enjoy trying to use people skills to move such stalemates forward.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

RFA

Hi Maunus,

Sorry for not responding to your earlier message about your upcoming RFA. I've been a bit busy this past week.

I see that you have filled out the RFA request and CJLL Wright has written up a nomination for you. He did a good job, probably better than I could have.

A few tips for you...

People expressing opinions at WP:RFA will want to know if you have experience in the areas that you profess an interest in working in.

Since you have expressed an interest in blocking, page protection and AFD, people are going to ask you about your experience at WP:RFPP, WP:AFD and the various admin noticeboards. They will want to see if you have been active at WP:ANI, WP:AIV, etc.

I grant that being involved in WP:RFPP is not absolutely necessary to understand page protection policy but it would be a good idea for you to know something about how requests for page protection are made and which ones get fulfilled and why.

Similarly, for AFD, people will want to know if you understand how AFD's are closed (not the technical details but how the closing admin makes his decision). In theory, AFD's are closed based on the persuasiveness of the opinions expressed. In practice, they are closed based on numbers of !votes unless the number of !votes is very close. Even then, the safe thing is to extend the !voting period to get more input.

If you're really ready to start your RFA, it's a little late for "admin coaching" but you might look at User:Richardshusr/Admin coaching template anyway and review it quickly. It provides a one-page overview of key knowledge and experience that an admin candidate should have. If you haven't already followed some of the RFA's at WP:RFA, you should. It will give you some idea of what to expect. In particular, people are going to throw a bunch of questions at you (expect at least 3 more beyond the standard 3 and it could be as many as 5-10 additional ones).

When I prepped for my RFA, I compiled a list of questions that I saw crop up on multiple RFAs. Here's the list with my answers. Your answers might differ... (You certainly shouldn't copy any of my answers verbatim!).

User talk:Richardshusr/RFA questions

Good luck. Feel free to ask me questions either here or on my Talk Page.

--Richard (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Black Hawk

Check now. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Male

LOL, my only purpose of using his/her was that I know some people get upset when you automatically assume the gender of another editor. I would agree you are a reliable source on your own gender :o).   Redthoreau (talk)RT 03:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Your RfA is now live...

best of luck! Saludos, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

NowCommons: File:Lamojarrascript.jpg

File:Lamojarrascript.jpg is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:File:Lamojarrascript.jpg. This is a repository of free media that can be used on all Wikimedia wikis. The image will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case: [[File:Lamojarrascript.jpg]]. Note that this is an automated message to inform you about the move. This bot did not copy the image itself. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 07:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

File:Nahua man of Morelos.jpg is now available as Commons:File:Nahua man of Morelos.jpg. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 07:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

File:Chalcatzingo-stela.jpg is now available as Commons:File:Chalcatzingo-stela.jpg. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 07:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Your RFA

I've made one last comment on your RFA; I would like to see your response. Best wishes, AdjustShift (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will respond.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Happy Maunus's Day!

User:Maunus has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Maunus's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Maunus! Peace, Rlevse ~ A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. Maunus, I noticed the great work you have done for a long time on wiki and then you did a great job reviewing Black Hawk War. Keep up the great work! — Rlevse • Talk • 00:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Che Guevara

See my further advice on this page - which can be summarised as - if you have the patience, don't close the GA, but keep it running until the RfC is dealt with. Regards. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw your advice and I think it is good. I have plenty of patience with that.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:42, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Inofficial questions

Before I get to my questionsFirst: Congratulations for receiving the award from Rlevse; I know from my own experience that he awards the best! ;-) I also like the running man in your sig.

That said, while I was reading your RfA, I was wondering why you, as an atheist, are so eagerly participating in the discussion of one particular sect? Of course, we are all encouraged to widen our horizons, but it seems at least bad timing to me. I was also wondering about this, which seems a bit dubious to me. If you took Keepscases that seriously, then I would have preferred if you had given a straightforward reply on the RfA page, and explained why you had the userbox in the first place, and what has changed now. I also believe it is setting a bad precedence; I don't like to live in a society where people feel forced to hide their religious conviction. — Sebastian 02:42, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not really an atheist - I mostly included that userbox because I thought it was humourous. When Keepscases mentioned it I looked over my userboxes and realised that maybe not everybody found it as humourous as I do, so I decided to remove it since it doesn't mean anything to me particularly. I think that everyone is entitled to their view points of course - but I also think that it is good to try not to flout them in ways that may be offending to others, if there is no particular reason for doing so. I thought about commenting, but I have seen that many editors dislike it when the nominee responds too much to the oppose votes - and I had already respinded a lot to the AdjustShift comments so I decided just to remove it so as to not offend anyone, but make no further mention. I would describe my self as areligious with no strong viewpoints either for or against the existence of a God, but a strong interest in what it means to be religious,and what others believe. And I like trying to understand belief systems that are initially strange to me. This is what made me study Jehovah's Witnesses from a proffessional point of view (I have researched the use of indigenous languages among Jehovah's witnesses of Mexico) and doing that research I had to read a lot about sociology of religion which I also found to be an interesting topic. I stumbled upon the Falun Gong article because I was patrolling for editwarring and I realised that I had some specialised knowledge about the sociological point of view and some experience from my editing at JW that I could use there - so I decided to chip in. Untill now it has been appreciated. The viewpoint/bias that I have brought to the articles on JW and Falun Gong is that of the sociologist of religion and I have made that clear to the parties I have worked with (on the JW articles the editors I've worked with include both ex-JW's with strong anti-JW viewpoints and current JW's and I have found my self siding with both groups on different issues an approximately equal number of times.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:02, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[...] After writing the response I saw that you are interested in nonviolent communication - so am I. I and basically that is what made me remove that userbox. The wording of the userbox was "God made me an atheist, who are you to question him?" This is confrontational for two reasons: it makes a statement about the other persons god with which they will not agree (theists don't believe that the God makes people not believe in him). It also directs a question directly to the reader "who are you to question him?" and that question is a rhetorical question that only serves the purpose of confronting the reader with the incompatibility between the atheist and theist views of how to relate to deities, and at the same time does so in a sarcastic tone. Not a good example of non-violent language use. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand your concern about too many replies, although I see the problem in Headbomb's case not in the number of replies, but in the preponderance of argument over empathy - in other words: He would do well to learn NVC. Speaking of which, I realize that my reply to Ottava may also not have been up to NVC standards. Well, we're all humans - it only gets forgotten so easily when all you see of someone are a few letters on a screen. I agree with you about the "who are you..." wording; that would have been a great reply! — Sebastian 19:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutral

Dear Maunus, I've withdrawn my opposition from your RFA. I've switched to neutral. Our wiki-relationship didn't started on a positive note, but we can ameliorate it. :-) Best wishes, AdjustShift (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I thank you very much, and I am happy to take your extended hand of friendship. Lets try working together to improve wikipedia instead of letting hurt feelings and bruised egoes get in the way of that goal. Thank you for being a "stand up guy" - I will do my best to be the same!·Maunus·ƛ· 19:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. :-) AdjustShift (talk) 19:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

policing admins

Itook the initiative here - I hope you will edit what i wrote to make it clearer and pehaps start the analysis, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure y'all have seen Tony's relevant efforts... Ling.Nut (talk) 00:21, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I will try

I will try to help out but in reality I should retire altogether. Milo is no centrist btw. That's a ridiculous rouse of his. I've interacted with him several times in the past and he's pretty squarely on the ACM side. The scholarly POV on NRMs is barely accounted for here on Wikipedia in general. People who try to represent it are usually accused of being "group members". This is understandable, of course, because the popular perception of "cults" is what it is. I'm hopeful, however, that there may be enough critical mass to make a difference at this entry at this time, so I will try to help.PelleSmith (talk) 05:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the request

My time has become sapped that I have not been able to honor the last request for my help, but I will monitor the page and assist if it looks like I can help. I am also hesitant due to the Policy debater who resides in the cult realm (pay attention to the flowing section of that page), and I am not sure if my blood pressure can handle prolonged contact.Coffeepusher (talk) 15:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am certainly not interested in causing any damage to your health. But the article has been a mess for too long a time and editors voicing concerns or trying to improve it have been "owned" to use the parlance of our times. We cannot allow that cult related articles remain artefacts of wikipedias less academically rigourous past - they must be upgraded. Ill be very thankful for any assiatance you have the time and calm to provide.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

while I am not familiar with the sources you have suggested, I like your suggested rewrite a lot. your points are valid...you know what? I think this will be better said somewhere else. give me a min.Coffeepusher (talk) 15:52, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Notice

Maunus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) My admin log

Congratulations!
It is my great pleasure to inform you that your Request for Adminship has closed successfully and you are now an administrator!
Useful Links: Administrators' reading list • Administrators' how-to guide • New admin school Administrators' Noticeboard • Administrators' Noticeboard for Incidents Administrators' Noticeboard for 3RR • Suspected sock puppets
Your admin logs: blocks • deletions • moves • protects • uploads

Congrats

Now you can go close all the AfDs you want! Check out WP:DGFA for some guidelines. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and I will!·Maunus·ƛ· 04:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ditto from me Maunus- well deserved amigo, if there's anything I can advise let me know but I'm sure it'd be superfluous anyway. Very glad to see this go as well as it did. Keep a balance with editing, & I'm sure you'll find it a rewarding addition to your wiki experience. Saludos, --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Well-deserved. Congratulations! Ling.Nut (talk) 08:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The admin T-shirt

Congratulations on your successful request for adminship. I am glad you passed, and you are welcome for the support. For information on using your new tools, see the school for new admins; you will find it very useful. Here is the admin T-shirt for you. I also noticed today that you are not a native speaker of English, and you can speak in multiple languages. I'm also a non-native speaker of English. Apart from my native language, and English, I can speak is other languages. Hopefully you will use the tools to ameliorate the encyclopedia, and be a net positive as an admin. Have a nice day! :-) AdjustShift (talk) 09:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Though I did weakly oppose your RfA, I still wanted to wish you the best of luck with the new tools. Congratulations on it passing so well! NW (Talk) 13:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem, well done. Regards IJA (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Well done and congrats, new admin! :-) JamieS93 ^{be kind to newcomers} 15:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

And its even my thirtieth birthday too!·Maunus·ƛ· 15:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Happy birthday and congratulations, Maunus, even though I had to oppose. Just make sure you take the advice laid out in the legitimate opposes to heart and try to improve on your faults. Good luck with the tools. Timmeh (review me) 15:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Felicitaciones.--Asdfg12345 17:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

Hi from Soap

Yeah, it's me. I think it's worth repeating that you and ptcamn are the reason I got interested in Wikipedia to begin with, but yet in almost 4 years we've virtually never crossed paths. I'm not really a good researcher or a good writer so I focus on fixing typos and reverting vandalism. I do read a lot in areas of Wikipedia where I don't often edit though. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 03:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Ptcamn isn't as active as he ought to be. Good to see that you work to keep the barbarians at bay! I am sure you could do some language related stuff as well though. Hope to see you around here also.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Otomi grammar

You might want to pop in to DYK, as someone has made a suggestion about clarifying your hook there. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I have adressed the concern. Thanks for notifying me.--·Maunus·ƛ· 13:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Re:Thanks

I'm happy to help you there. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Otomi grammar

Hello! Your submission of Otomi grammar at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Allen3 ^talk 20:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Vercetticarl

what happened in Honduras was NOT a coup, Zelaya was deposed. Vercetticarl (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

So you keep saying. I don't care either way. Consensus decides, and in this case it is against you.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Cool3 (talk) 00:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

RE: Mauritius

• A few fair points. However have you ever stopped to think that certain things (as in Jackie Shroff article, where I deleted vandalism), isn't actually disrupting anything? I agree, I was out of line with a few things, but there is no need to point out things as trivial as that. Perhaps this user page will also show what you call "un-civil" but is clearly neant to be used in terms of debating rather than disrupting the peace (as with most of my "un-civil" comments) [3] (see the bottom comment). However I do apologise for the truly unsavoury comments, and will not repeat them in the future --Maurice45 (talk) 16:40, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It may not be disrupting in every case, but it does create a tense athmosphere. I am glad that you agree to use more constructive language in the future.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Greetings, Maunus. Regarding your edit of the above article, can you steer me to your sources please? I need to aquaint myself with the pertinent references, especially the deerskin used in the canonisation of Juan Diego. Many thanks, and wishing you the best of the day,--Lyricmac (talk) 17:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Cult

Maunus, great work by the way on the cult rewrite. No matter where we are at, and especially if we aren't getting any traction from other editors, how do you feel about moving some of the material into the main entry in a few days? I think if only you and I rewrite the entire entry in the sandbox and attempt a full replacement there will be some rather unpleasant opposition. I think it may be best to start testing the waters. What do you think?PelleSmith (talk) 19:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think thats probably a good idea.

·Maunus·ƛ· 19:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The crux... (Organ harvesting)

So Asdfg12345 is busy reverting basically all the changes that were made, piece by piece, just as dilip did in one sweeping go. This will go on forever unless we resolve the question of "merge yes/no?" -- those who made the changes and cuts were preparing the article for a merger; those who revert assume it will stand an independent article. The crux is the merge-question. It needs to be solved first. Seb az86556 (talk) 20:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been bold and already made the merge to Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China :) - now we just have to remove everything from the Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practicioners in China article that doesn't directly adress the topic of whether FLG is being specifically targeted.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You're stubborn in your own (silent) way :P ... I'll go ahead and try to find all the broken refs you didn't carry over... finally some action here. Seb az86556 (talk) 21:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

See? he reverted everything again. that's what i'm trying to tell you. it simply isn't going to happen w/ arguments. Seb az86556 (talk) 21:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't despair - there is always arbitration enforcement. We just need to show that there is a consensus and that they are not respecting it.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

you go ahead and try running through a brick-wall...i'll just keep fixing refs...Seb az86556 (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. This isn't an AE issue, it's a content issue. I've violated no behavioural or civility rules. You have removed information directly relevant to the article. Please let's not use circular logic to get around the debate. It's highly disputed whether the pages should be merged. No one has yet responded to my argument that the relationship between the two pages is the same as between any main issue/sub issue relationship (of which there are countless on wikipedia). Moving everythign to the organ harvesting in the PRC page could be only successfully done if 80% of the reliably sourced and relevant material regarding organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners was purged from the encyclopedia. Is that appropriate? This issue has generated such an enormous amount of coverage, as evidenced by the sources. By the way, there are a stack of reliable sources that aren't even in that article. --Asdfg12345 21:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It is a matter of Arbitration Enforcement I am afraid although luckily not involving the blocking of any editors. The arbitration statement states that any article can be reviewed on the motion of a user. This is the venue we will have to follow if you and HappyinGeneral does not show a more forthcoming attitude to the arguments of the majority of editors.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

[ec]Hi, I understand. My problem is that I believe the bones of contention are being ignored, again. There are specific arguments that I have raised that are being dismissed or ignored. These include:

1. The topic qualifies WP:N;
2. Even if it were to be 'merged', (though how could it, since it qualifies for its own article?) it would presumably be a subsection of the organ harvesting in the PRC page (rather than all split throughout, which makes no sense, because while yes they are related issues, this is still a specific issue that has gained A LOT of attention). The only way to make it a subsection would be to delete 80% of it, or it would be too long for a subsection. When subsections get too long they are made into daughter articles, which is effectively what has happened here. Deleting swathes of well-sourced, reliable information? Is that precedented? Why, exactly? Why should a lot of reliable sources about an apparent human rights crisis, if you believe the high-profile agitators, just be purged from the encyclopedia? In particular, under the circumstance where the UN has made repeated submissions and the issue is effectively at an unknown point, still very much topical.
3. I won't speculate on the motives for removing information and I don't really care, to be honest. The key is that that information is directly relevant to the subject so I simply fail to understand why it should be moved;
4. Why am I being rigid? Why are others being rigid? Why aren't they addressing my arguments? Why aren't they sticking to wikipedia policy? Why do they refuse to follow the apparent established protocols on wikipedia, which dictates that daughter articles be split from their parent articles when they are sufficiently long, rather than simply smashed into something 30% of what the reliable sources on the topic have to say. This violates WP:DUE, by the way.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I can possibly satisfy you. I just have to do what I understand is correct, according to wikipedia policy. When there are dozens or hundreds of seconary sources on an issue, an article is formed. The propsal (or, the attempts) goes against the basic concept of wikipedia, and subordinates core wikipedia practices to the whims of a group of editors. It would be the same as deleting 80% of the Persecution of Falun Gong article and making it a subsection of Human_rights_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if that was next on the hitlist. They're equivalent ideas, it seems to me. --Asdfg12345 22:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

update: Maunus, I am totally dedicated to responding to the arguments of other editors. I have responded to them. I really want to be forthcoming in doing so, too, which I have tried to do. The only real way to resolve this is through clear argumentation and close reference to policy. My basis is that I'm not willing to sacrifice that to cut some deal. The policies are there, they're clear. If my concerns can be addressed then I obviously won't have them anymore. These policies need to be the anchors of our discussions, and not what some people get together and decide among themselves, unmoored from them.--Asdfg12345 22:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

• by the way, can I hear you say that you are intimately familiar with the material in question? Have you read the K/M report in full? Have you read the UNCAT submission, the UN submissions, Ethan Gutmann's articles in the weekly standard, Tom Treasure's piece? This is a direct question. I request you answer specifically about which of those sources you have read and how much of them you have read. You have no obligation to answer, but I assert the right to ask. Of course, I don't mean to be rude or impolite, but I want to be quite clear. Thanks for your understanding.--Asdfg12345 22:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Nearly all editors have agreed that the topic passes WP:N, but WP:N is not the only applicable guideline. It is common practice to merge notable subtopics into their main articles if they are deemed to not be sufficiently sourceable, if they constitute a POV-fork (which could also be argued in this case) or if having a stand alone article assigns undue weight to a specific subtopic relative to the main topic.

2. If the main article incorporated the material from FLG in the right way there would be no need for a humongous subsection on the FLG related material, nor would any material need to be cut. If I were to write it I would use some of the FLG material to support the general case (that is what it does best) and some of it to show that FLG practicioners are overrepresented in the PRC penal system and therefore also overrepresented as hravesting victims. This is a fact about the harvesting practice more than a fact about the persecution of FLG. That is the basic conclusion of Kilgour and Matas who conjecture that the practice is aimed at FLG but who can nly prove that they are logically statistically overrepresneted among the victims.

3. I don't need to respond to this point as we are simply in disagreement. I also won't speculate about your motivation.

4. I think there is something to be said for recognizing when one is in the minority and taking that as a motivation for reviewing once stance for possibilities of compromise or for possibilities of areas where one might not possibly have the correct interpretation of facts.

I appreciate your cooperativeness.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

If it's okay, I'll wait for you to respond to my specific questions regarding your knowledge of the topic, since this will inform my response.--Asdfg12345 22:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not going to give you that answer, except I'll say that it should be obvious to all that you are the one who has the most "intimate knowledge" of the sources of the editors currently working on the articles, and that I am an editor who had never read about Falun Gong untill last week. I am not sure this is relevant for any of the points at hand though since the arguments are based on a general judgement rather than the specifics of any single source.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I don't believe your fourth response answers my concerns about why this is being treated so differently from every other topic/sub-topic on wikipedia. There are hundreds of related issues with topics of themselves, and I've never heard of one issue being squished into another for no good reason, I mean, unless its sourcing is lacking. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, right? I also appreciate your discussing this rationally.--Asdfg12345 23:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Last week the Article on Steven Dale Green was merged into Mahmudiyah killings because of similar concerns that although he passed WP:N because of the significant coverage his biography has attracted he was still most notable as a suptopic of the killings in which he participated.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Otomi grammar

On August 23, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Otomi grammar, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 05:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Otomi language

Hi Maunus. I've read through the Otomi language article fairly carefully and see a few rough spots. Might get the opportunity to start working on it tonight, but most likely will slowly start working my way through during the week. If I have questions, should I post here, or on the talk page there? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Maube you could leave questions here at the FA review: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Otomi language/archive1.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I did leave a message on the talk page today re: having edit conflicts so I decided to use the copyedit banner. It seems however that Dale Chock is editing the article, and when two people edit simultaneously it's difficult because edit conflicts cause work to be lost. I'm happy to do this, but we should coordinate who is doing what when, if you don't mind. Thanks. Btw -- love the article! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I am also getting a little blown away with all the attention the article is suddenly getting - I had been asking for it for a long time without any reaction and all of a sudden a chaos of changes and suggestions break loose that i can't even keep track off. I guess I just have to let my baby go now and let others take over :)·Maunus·ƛ· 22:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Nonviolent communication

You mention that you're interested in improving your NVC. I think Wikipedia is a good place to do that, since we have a bit more time to think about our replies, and they are written down, which means we don't have to worry about such things as prosody. It also means that everyone can look at what we wrote after we did so. I'm not very active here anymore, but when I was, I started the page User talk:SebastianHelm/NVC to collect feedback about my NVC. If you'd like to do something similar, let me know! — Sebastian 22:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Otomi FAreview

• A short journal article can be cited directly, that is put it in the reference, instead of writing "Jones 2006" and then expanding in the Bibliography that "Jones 2006" is actually "Jones (2006) Journal of X "Article" 18(4) 251". You can easily re-use in-line reference using the <ref name=x1>, and then <ref name=x1/> operators.
• Books have many pages, thus for FA (and GA) it is obligatory to mention which page (or page range) is being cited.
• In "Lastra 1998, 2006: 54–55" it is unclear which book of Lastra you refer to.
• In bibliography, alphabetic order seems Ok, but chronology is not ordered: for same author, later years precede earlier (this might sorted itself if you address 1st comment)

Hope this helps. Those are very minor comment. My advice is to keep working on the article. IMO, you were much too quick to submit it for FA. I know nothing about this field and am poor copyeditor, but I already see potential problems with the prose. There are much better writers among FA referees, be prepared. Materialscientist (talk) 01:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding journals: you can try to sit and wait for others (there are "specialists" at FA for alt texts, referencing, etc.). One thing you better fix: if the journal article is only 1-4 pages long it would better go to notes; if the article is, say, 8 pages long and you cite all 8 pages, it better go to notes; if article is many pages long, you can try keeping it in bibliography, but then you have to mention cited page number in the notes. For example, note "Palancar 2006b, 2008b" is grossly incorrect: there should be two notes instead of one, each citing page numbers, but again, I would just put the whole journal ref there. Then you don't have to cite page numbers. Another thing, there are redundant refs (repetitions), which can be easily sorted out (see above). Materialscientist (talk) 01:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC) Sorry, I didn't answer why short articles (this refers not only to journals) are treated differently - to facilitate, as much as possible, getting to the source. By the time reader reaches it, (s)he already forgets where (s)he was in the text. Materialscientist (talk) 01:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I missed your last post to me because of other messages on top. I have no hard feelings whatsoever about this article. After all, you complied with most my comments and I'm almost happy. I would be even happier if you moved unused bibliography items into further reading and would be less stubborn in learning your mistakes :-) BTW, please do not treat WP as junk, this offends. I've built quite a career in my own field, but find that recent WP standards are getting close (in some aspects higher in some lower) to "professional" publications, and I'm not alone - there are many professionals of various skills around here. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 05:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Dilip rajeev enforcement case

Kindly note that an Enforcement case has just been filed against Dilip rajeev here. You might like to comment. Please note that this is a permalink; any commenting should be done only after clicking on the 'Project page' tab. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Maunus. You have new messages at SparksBoy's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

SparksBoy (talk) 06:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Otomi languages

Just read your message asking me to be less fierce. I'm sorry, I agree I should do so. But let me elaborate — in the milder tone — on some style objections already made, now invoking one of the edits I've made in just the last half hour. I refer to comments made by you and G. Purvedorj on the article talk page. There's a comment G.P. made, not you, but it well illustrates my dissatisfaction with what I've been calling the professionalism of the writing. Regarding the appeal to "encyclopedia style", in a linguistics encyclopedia one would not follow up a passage about linguist X developing an orthography with "and linguist X taught this to native Y with great success". I really believe that's an unprofessional degree of trivia (at least for an encyclopedia), and after all, it was just one person being taught.

There's one little point of English grammar I would ask you redouble your efforts on, just to make less work for copy editors. In English, we retain the capital letter when we derive an adjective from a name, e.g., Mesoamerican. When you violate this rule half a dozen times in one article, and consistently over years, it creates an impression you're not taking it seriously, when it's an easy thing to learn, as opposed to something like mastering the choice of prepositions. Dale Chock (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

We can make a deal - if you start talking to me like an equal I will see if I can amass energy enough to work to comply with English capitalization rules without it influencing negatively on my content writing.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about capitalizations -- they get cleaned up in the copyediting process, and generally people tend to over-capitalize rather than under-capitalize. It's much easier copyediting an article with under-capitalization than one with egregious over-capitalization problems, of which I have seen many. Cheers. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I tend to see myself as a researcher and a content writer. I find spell checking tedious and I don't care to do it when I am not writing with professional publication in mind - especially not here at wikipedia where there are so many editors happy with doing wikignome work like correcting my flawed capitalization and non-native english.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Quick question: in "tones and accents" can the phrase "subject of discussion" be changed to controversy? Was the discussion a controversy, or is that too strong? Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk)

Well it was a slightly heated exchange - but not really a controversy - just a difference of opinion. Bernard wanted to give the usefulness for speakers primacy while Bartholomew wanted to give the linguistic accuracy primacy.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. You may want to check that section to correct any content mistakes I might have made. Will stop in about 30 minutes or so. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Done for today. Please check my work for content issues. I've marked in the edit summaries which edits should be checked. Back tomorrow! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually per this I think I'll let Dale take the field. Obviously I'm not very good at copy editing. Give me a shout if you need anything else, and thanks for asking me to work on Otomi languages. Regards. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm done for today. Check my work for accuracy. I haven't made all the changes yet from the review page; I still need to complete a second pass (hopefully tomorrow!); and then a third pass for consistencies such as 20th century vs. twentieth century. It's a busy place! Cheers. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it is! thanks for your efforts, they are appreciated.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that I moved the image of the street sign down slightly so the table of distribution/percentages of speakers isn't as cramped. The table is still cramped in my view, but I have some ideas about that -- will tweak it tomorrow. Hope it's fine to have moved the image. There are a few sections I have some questions about but will wait until I'm done, and everyone else is done to see what's left of the article, and then address the final questions to you. I'm trying not to change content, but if I do, go ahead and revert the edits. Thanks again. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Essentially I'm done for now. The only inconsistency that remain is about the Spanish friars. I'm assuming they were missionaries, so I've replaced friars w/ missionaries in some places, but not everywhere, so you may want to check those edits. I've not done a second pass on the Phonology and Grammar sections as those are out of my area of expertise and I didn't want to make a mistake. I'll return to make any changes that come out of the review comments, or for anything else you see that needs to be done. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I almost reverted your changes to "missionaries" which I think carries wrong connotations of people in jungle helmets being eaten by cannibals. Friars or monks is more accurate in my sense and anyone with a little knowledge of colonial latin america should know that they were missionary monks.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Although some were priests -- it depends on the order (Jesuit/ Franciscan, etc.). That's why I wrote missionaries, but re-reading, I think either friars or monks is better if that's the most accurate. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Adding to my comment above: Friars leave the monastery and monks stay cloistered. Working on the Chiquitos article, we established that they were all missionaries, some were brothers (friars) and others priests. Anyway, I'll let you deal with this, because I haven't read the sources, so don't know who is who, and really am not sure how important it is. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you are probably right that missionary is more correct because it doesn't confuse friars with priests - its just my connotations of "missionary". I do think though that most literature I read about colonial mexico doesn't make that distinction and just calls them friars. (By far most of them were Franciscan and Dominican friars with the odd jesuit and augustinian in between)·Maunus·ƛ· 14:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If the sources you've read specify friars, then that's most likely the best term. My understanding is the Jesuit order had more priests whereas the other orders more brothers/friars. The Franciscans & Dominicans most likely were friars. I might do a little digging on this, but most likely will change the phrasing. Certainly those who wrote the grammars should be correctly identified. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

You were right. The first paragraph of this source specifies friars & monks. I'll rephrase those sections. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Whorf

There are very important, if polemical Malotki essays exposing Whorf's astonishing ignorance (it must be said) of Hopi, but probably not online. If you read German, a very good article on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (but sans Malotki!) can be found in a collection of essays on Anthropologists. Klaus Peter Koepping, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in: Klassiker der Kulturanthropologie, Wolfgang Marshall, editor, Beck, Munich, 1990.--Radh (talk) 02:01, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I do read German, but I don't think the world lacks essays or books exposing Whorfs "astonishing ignorance" - quite the opposite in fact. What I have gathered from reading Malotki and Pinker and other Whorf debunkers is basically that they have read Whorf without reading him. For example the notion that Whorf has espoused the view that Hopi doesn't have time doesn't hold up to scrutiny - he simply didn't mean that in the way most universalists have interpreted it. Whorf was very much aware that the hopi do express time - it is just not the same notion of time as the one expressed by the english word "time". He even invented an entire wordclass in Hopi that he called "tensors" - what he meant (and possibly) overstated is that the hopi concept of "time" is different from the English concept of "time" and therefore cannot be directly equated with the english word "time" as understood by English speakers - and Malotki's work actually documents quite well all the ways in the the Hopi language treats "time" differently from English. What Whorf didn' know because most languages of the world were barely studied when he wrote was that there are many languages that treat time quite differently form the way it is done in english - kalaallisut for example has a system very much akin to the Hopi system - and it has also been called "timeless" because it doesn't distinguish simple past from present. Whorf wasn't wrong, and he definitely wasn't ignorant - he just didn't have the full picture, because nobody in his time did. That is very facile to criticize him for now. That being said Malotki's in depth analysis of Hopi temporal and spatial language are excellent - and I wish I could afford his books (as well as his ethnoliguistic publications), but they are valuable not because they disprove Whorf (because they don't) but because they are monumental contributions to our knowledge about the Hopi language and culture.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The article I cited is not against, but for Whorf. Nearly all the stuff I have ever read on Whorf is way more friendly than hostile. Malotki is the sole exception- and the only one with knowledge of Hopi.

I like Whorf's basic philosophical ideas, although I do not think they are "correct". But they come from Humboldt who knew more about language than anybody else at the time and they should have led to useful debates. The concept of Multiculturalism and unsurpassable Relativism is absolutely true, I think, even if I do not much like the conclusions liberals draw from it.

I would not call Sapir or Whorf ignorant people! But, Whorf's true knowledge of Hopi is a problem. If Malotki in his more brutal conclusions is correct, Whorf simply did not have any. I do not know why Malotki who must have spent 20 years learning Hopi before critizising Whorf in the harsh tone of his essays had it easy or why his criticism is "facile". Malotki might be forgiven for thinking nobody has told Whorf not to learn the language. Henry Voth seems to have had a good grasp of it. (I know Voth is a problematic character in many other ways).

On the other hand, I think you have a very valid point. Maybe Malotki and Whorf do talk past each other, in all other aspects of their "dialogue". As ALL philosophers (large and small) do when they critique each other (see Hegel on Kant), this holds true for the meanest book review. Thinkers of diffferent schools and ways to do "philosophy" or plain thinking never understand each other and will not even try to do so.

I personally do think there is no identity (perhaps not even a secure relationship) between any of the forms of a language (from the tenses to Chomskian Satzbauplänen) and "ideology", understood as the system of ideas a person has, his way of thinking.

Korean and Japanese have an enormous language of respect. Does this really mean the social classes there were two or three times more divided than in Europe up to say 1914? Social mobility seems to have been greater in Asia than in Europe

Dutch does not decline its nouns anymore, German still does. A differnt world-view on the changeability of things?

The gender of words in any language has nothing to do with any ideas its people have on the real life division of the sexes.

English and German have a completely different system of marking time. But the mentality of the many different nations using those languages is surely not divided along those deep diferences? Has anyone ever had any idea how an English or German ideology according to their aspects and tenses would look like?--Radh (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. I think the examples of grammatical differences you mention are not the ones that are most likely candidates for linguistic relativity. It is rather trivial that some languages decline nouns and others don't I don't think that is very significant. I think that Whorf talked about different kinds of differences that are "deeper" because they aren't obvious and that mostly affect our conceptual systems. There is no reason to assume that case systems directly influence conceptualization. Or that a more differentiated system of honorifics necessarily emplies more social layers (although it sure implies a different attitude towards social inequality in that society than in a language that doesn't use any honorific forms). Nowadays I think those who study linguistic relativity aim to find those deep conceptual patterns and test how their being different effects how people act in and think about the world. For example such distinctions are how some languages focus on shape and others on material when encoding the difference between mass and count nouns, also the grammar of space seems to be quite well related to how people actually behave and porientate in space. I think those kinds of differences are more likely to show traits of linguisic relativity than the more superficial grammatical aspects. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. Things will be more complicated than I am able to see so far. Re: Whorf, I have tried to be fair to Whorf (de:Benjamin Lee Whorf), and I will need to read more of his stuff, I have relied too much on out-of-context citations, although I still find him a bit extrem in many of his views. This German article I thought was very good also seems to depend way too much on the Carroll introduction, it is perhaps better on Sapir.

Form/content of language/and thought; just two remarks: There is some powerful relation between thought and language, only sometimes the language side dominates, sometimes the thought side. Whorf wants to see language ruling everything, philosophers only the importance of thought (the purer the better). b) Whorf's ideas on the "regional" character of science and Western thinking are absolutely correct (against the right-wing ethnocentrics masking as "Universalists"), but "our" thinking still is "right" (if "wrong" in details), it is the only thinking that counts in any real science so far. Chinese and Japanese counting and Numbers were quiet different from the "Arabo-Europan" mathematics, but they managed to use our conceptual instruments and mentality where it suited them in no time...Whorf really seems to have been a great guy and to have had a lot of interesting ideas on a lot of topics, even if his conclusions may go too far. For me. See you--Radh (talk) 15:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)