User:SJK/Old Talk

I love your nice little diagram! That said, could you move the Chalcedonian controversies to before the great schism? That way the inherent christological unity of Chalcedonian-accepters is clear. I'm also a little queasy about the 'western church' evenly splitting into Catholoicism and Protestantism rather than Protestantism clearly breaking off from Catholicism. Oh, well. You nice little diagram is still INTENSELY useful as it is! On another note, I wonder why no one has even started anything on the Eastern Orthodox? Very odd. --MichaelTinkler

I hope its more to your liking now... I got the idea for it from my Year 10 religion book (from when I was back at high school) -- except the Yr 10 diagram was much more complicated, showing all these interesting transitions (e.g. Orthodox becoming Catholics but then leaving Catholicism again -- I think they were called ex-Uniates.) Unfortunately there is only so much you can do with ASCII art. If I ever have the time I might try doing it properly a diagram properly with a drawing program and uploading that as an image. As to the Eastern Orthodox, doesn't suprise. There is a lot more knowledge and awareness in the community (or at least in countries like the US or Australia) about Protestantism and Catholicism. Comparatively less knowledge and awareness about Eastern Orthodoxy. (E.g. I was brought up a Catholic, and for a while I was going regularly to a Protestant church, but I've never even stepped inside an Eastern Orthodox one.) -- User:Simon J Kissane

I like it a lot! I especially like the line crossing the Schism for the uniates! I guess what surprises me is that no Orthodox folk have stumbled across Wikipedia - there are lots of fascinating websites. From a mere religious variety point of view I've been lucky; I have personal friends who are Eastern rite priests in two different rites (a Maronite and a Melkite), and I have a cousin who is becoming a priest of the Orthodox Church of America (formerly the Autocephalus Russian Orthodox Church in America), so I have a conversational familiarity with the issues, but there's so much else to write about that I don't want to start on orthodoxy! Oh, well. Again, great diagram.

Hi Simon -- I'll bet the person who is "cutting off the ends of articles" isn't doing so maliciously. I've had NerdScape refuse to add more text at the end of huge wiki pages... perhaps they have a version which just keeps the first "N" lines/chars. Ain't technology grand... thanks for notifying them anyway.

Yeah, when I was in Malaysia (and forced by company policy to use NoScope) I conducted a test and discovered that the edit window of Netscape stops are precisely 25000 characters. It's a rather odd number and I guess was picked arbitrarily (I mean 2^16 or 32768 would have made some sort of sense). Anyway, IE doesn't seem to have this problmem - User:MMGB

Good job redirecting the philosophy of religion pages. That's what I would have done. Maybe tomorrow I'll bag my "to do" list and spend the day wikifying my text. That would be fun! --User:LMS

Hi Simon - I'm also from Sydney. I liked your changes to the Presidents page I started - nice work. Anyway - just wanted to say Hi - User:Manning Bartlett

Hi, I dropped you a line at your yahoo.MOC ;-) account. --KQ

Hi -- thought you handled that Daoism thing well. Better than I would've. :-)

Simon please don't delete what was written on the page I began. If you are such an expert at least join in the /talk which i added today to http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Angels thank you and comply courteously with a new article here. Thanks. User:BF

BF: What you wrote was only one sentence, followed by your name and the word 'Dakini' -- note that a single word doesn't even form a sentence. I added a lot more information, incorporating the information in your single sentence and expanding upon it. So what are you complaining about? I deleted the word "Dakini"? Maybe I might not have if you had actually explained what a "Dakini" is; but what do you expect people to do if all you write is one word not even forming a sentence?

Hi Simon. Branden here. Just wanted to toss some kudos your way since we seem to have some overlapping interests and you write well. I hope you find my (minor) contributions to your pages of some utility. Take it easy! --Branden

Thanks Branden. Actually to be honest I'm the one that doesn't know much :) I have a huge memory for all sorts of minor details, but most things I write about I've never really studied seriously (and the funniest thing is, those things I have studied seriously, i.e. at uni, is the things I can remember the least about!). -- Simon.

About Jerusalem edit (I can't get an edit lock on Jerusalem/Talk, thus leaving it here):

It's not false at all, merely extremely non-neutral. There's no reason to explain in detail how Israel violated international law in context of an article on Jerusalem - the only purpose of that is anti-Israeli propaganda. In my opinion, the earlier paragraph which states correctly that the annexation is not recognised by the international community is informative enough; if someone wants to add Res. 478 to that paragraph in something like "... and was condemned in US Sec Council Res 478", that would also be fine. However, dedicating an entire paragraph to detailed elaboration upon UN Charter, UN members duties etc. etc. is simply not warranted here.

The same is true about your latest edits on "Israeli settlements", West Bank etc. They're very non-neutral, in my opinion. --User:AV

Well I think the article should say that Israel violated international law (which is a stronger statement than a mere rejection than the international community) -- which isn't propaganda, it's the truth -- and if it is going to make such a claim, it should provide evidence to back it up. Such evidence is threefold: (1) the Israeli Basic Law on Jerusalem was nullified by the UN Security Council and the Security Council ordered Israel to rescind that legislation; (2) Israel is legally obliged under the UN Charter, as a UN member state, to obey UN Security Council resolutions; (3) Israel has failed to do so, and has thereby violated international law. -- SJK

Security Council resolutions have been violated many times, not just by Israel. They have also been violated by neighbouring Arab states as well. By singling out Israel's violation and elaborating in minute details how exactly this violation takes place, you are focusing undue attention on Israel. I suggest that you consider your reaction, were I to spell out in great detail how neighbouring Arab countries abuse human rights, women rights, etc., in an article on the history of Palestine or Israel.

The assertion "Israel has not complied with Sec. Councl resolution" is a fact. The assertion "Israel has violated international law because it has not complied with the resolution, while it is obligated to comply under these and these reasons" is fact + propaganda. The proper place for what constitutes a violation of international law is in an article on international law (or US security council), not in an article on Jerusalem. Otherwise, you'll be morally obligated to add "... and violated international law, because..." in *any* place in Wikipedia where you mention ineffective Sec. Council resolutions, which in my opinion would be a silly thing to require. --User:AV

AV: Okay. If the article just said something like "The UN Security Council, in resolution 478, declared the purported Israeli annexation of Jerusalem to be 'null and void and must be rescinded forthwith'. Many consider the purported annexation to be illegal under international law. Israel has refused to comply with the Security Council resolution." Would that satisfy you? -- User:Simon J Kissane

I dislike your most recently edited version, but not nearly as strongly as the first version with the mention of the resolution. If I think of any way to make it more neutral without removing points you wish to preserve, I'll edit it and you'll judge the result; otherwise, let it stand as it is. --User:AV

Would it be logical to make a separate entry with the extensive discussion of this issue, and just leave a quick mention & link on the original page?

Hi, I saw the discussion on the talk:Zionism page. Israeli law can be amended (see my post). Saying what you'd said in the way that you'd said is quite offensive to the Israelis. Could you please either change the article to incorporate the above-said, or at least provide an explanation why you think otherwise? --User:Uriyan

At a very quick seach SJK stands for, at least: Stockholms judoklubb, The Metal band SJK (which stands for Smokejack Kill), SJK - Greek engineering consultants, St. John's-Kilmarnock School in Ontario, Schwule Jugendgruppe Koblenz - a homosexual group in Koblenz?.

Simon - I'm personally glad you kept the defaced Wikipedia pages on your website - both of the vandalisms were actually quite funny - I like the thought of being replaced by a ceramic figurine. Do you think they would survive at meta? User:MMGB

Manning: Quite possibly. I wouldn't be the one to do it though -- I don't want to start another war. (Also, the inclusion of the images probably raises copyright issues...) -- User:SJK

Hello, I've attempted to explain color temperature. :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi

Simon - come on! I put "elected", not "appointed". But that was only because I couldn't think of anything better - I think "since" is by far the best option. BTW, I'm back in Sydney now - wanna catch up for a beer/herbal tea/your preferential beverage sometime? - User:MMGB

Yeah, that would be nice sometime. I should finnish my exams first though (Actually, I'm supposed to be studying for them now... bad me.) Yes, I know I can be horribly pedantic at times. But being pedantic is what Wikipedia is for. :) -- User:SJK

Shit, shite, and ordure are all English words for the same thing but faeces is a Latin word imported into English by the medical profession as a technical term. That's what I was trying to point out -- User:Derek Ross

Shit isn't considered very polite, and shite and ordure are archaic. What you say about the historical origins of faeces is correct, but faeces is now an English word: in fact it is *the* word for the stuff in modern English in polite contexts. (One does not use shit and crap in polite contexts, and poo just sounds childish.) -- User:SJK

Thanks for letting me say a few "positive" things about JDL. User:Ed Poor

What's to discuss? It's vandalism. User:Ed Poor

It is not vandalism. You may disagree with my edits, but edits done in good faith to try to improve articles do not constitute vandalism just because you disagree with them. -- User:SJK

The reorganization seemed to ignore the discussion we all had 5 or 6 hours ago. But if you are acting in good faith, I ought to bow out. Have a good weekend, and I'll see you Monday. --User:Ed Poor

Firstly, five or six hours ago I was asleep, so I wasn't there for it. Secondly, I have read some of that discussion. I disagree with what people did to Christian mythology, but I thought that if the neutral use of the term mythology is going to be controversial, maybe we better avoid the term altogether. Maybe my edits are not NPOV, maybe they are not the best way of solving the problem, maybe I should have discussed them more with people before making them -- but the one thing they weren't was mindless vandalism. -- User:SJK

You're right: it wasn't mindless vandalism. Your changes were reasonable and systematic -- I just disagreed, and I am sorry I said that :-( User:Ed Poor

Don't worry Ed, I forgive you. :)

SJK, quoting from your own words (at AV's talk page), "a terrorist is whoever you don't like, and other definitions of terrorism put forward are simply rationalizations". From this, it follows that it is impossible to say (objectively) "X is terrorist", but rather "X is considered terrorist by Y because Z". Could you please follow this convention on e.g. Irgun, Menachem Begin et altera?--User:Uriyan

Yes, but AV was so insistent that some groups really are terrorists, and you seem quite happy calling Fatah or Hizbollah terrorists. And I'm not going to get rid of pages like the list of terrorist groups, the word terrorist just has to be used. And if it is, it should be used neutrally, to include both Arab and Jewish terrorism. Everyone is more than well aware of Arab terrorism. People aren't so aware of Jewish terrorism, but it exists also -- in recent years there has been little of it, and most of the terrorism has been Arab; but in the 1940s a lot of Jewish terrorism occured. So, let me propose a truce. I will let you call Fatah, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, etc., terrorists, and you will let me call Irgun and Stern gangs terrorists. Since both engaged in bombings and assasinations, they fit an objective definition of terrorism, insofar as one exists. -- User:SJK

This is acceptible by me, but then why did you write Fatah "terrorists" in quotes in one of your editions of Ariel Sharon? --User:Uriyan

I have now changed it to call Fatah terrorists. Happy now?

Yes, I am. --User:Uriyan

Thanks for adding stuff to my Maastricht treaty entry. I had found all this 'pillar talk' on the web myself (the EU pages contain reams of it), but had not included it in my article, because it was incomprehensible jargon to me. Could you expand the article with an explanation of what these pillars actually mean? Thanks in advance -- Branko

Added some more text, trying to explain it more. Hope that makes it clearer to you.

Thanks for the assist on the Theosophy article. I was going to cover the founders of Theosophy under "History," but mentioning them in the introductory paragraph mades sense as well. User:F. Lee Horn

Hi Simon, I did ban 203.170.3. earlier this evening. Let me know if the problem pops up again. --User:LMS

Cool, thanks Larry.