Friends list (add your name here):

User:Gloriamarie User:Wasted Time R User:Tvoz User:Southern Texas User:Photouploaded User:Metaeducation User:Newsroom hierarchies User:Apartcents User:MZMcBride User:tqbf User:Duchamps comb User:Burzmali User:Orangemike User:Devil's Advocate User:Dougie WII User:LakeOswego User:98.224.242.164 User:Iamunknown User:Cbenton2679 User:Thegoodlocust User:Slp1 User:PHG

User:MZMcBride User:Colin MacLaurin User:Buspar User:Sharkface217 User:Will Beback User:Dank55 User:SteveSims User:Onorem User:YixilTesiphon User:Pmanderson User:JayJasper User:AdRem User:B User:Viridae User:Martinphi User:Fritzpoll User:Noroton User:Crum375 User:63.198.104.197 User:Kossack4Truth User:Kevin Murray

User:Nsk92 User:Netherling User:Jpgordon User:Qaqaq User:Sam Blacketer User:Florian Blaschke User:Boston User:TallMagic User:Nsaa User:Niteshift36 User:Sillyfolkboy User:Garycompugeek User:H1nkles User:William S. Saturn User:DGG User:Wifione User:PiCo User:Longevitydude User:Griswaldo User:RomanHistorian User:Tonicthebrown

User:Axs912 User:Jose77 User:Itsmejudith User:LevenBoy User:Georgewilliamherbert User:Roscelese User:Kevinkor2 User:Simply south User:Lord Roem User:Sitush User:Beeblebrox User:Barsoomian User:Chaos5023 User:Jeff3000 User:Agent00f User:Factseducado User:SilkTork User:Dennis Brown User:HueSatLum User:Voice of 5-23 User:Editor2020

I saw that piece of garbage you got earlier. Here's a real barnstar:

		The Current Events Barnstar
		I am giving you this barnstar for all your work on updating the straw polls article and for all the work you have done on election articles. Great job. S TX 21:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC) reply

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For tireless work. Going above and beyond in editing the Presidential Campaign, 2008. December 2007-- Ducha mps_ comb MFA

		The Socratic Barnstar
		For the many insightful and helpful contributions you've made to the discussions of election articles and templates, I award you this barnstar. JayJasper ( talk) 15:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC) reply

	The Civility Barnstar
	For keeping civility at Wikipedia:Summary style and discussing it on the talk page instead of reverting. — Hue Sat Lum 22:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hey John, thanks for helping out and welcome to Wikipedia. Could you not move things around on talk pages? It makes it very difficult for editors who have been following all along to follow the discussion, and it's pretty confusing. Thanks a lot! -- Gloriamarie 16:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the kind words and for wanting to help. I'll take a look at your article soon and let you know-- it's a good idea for an article! The big POV issue atm is probably the abortion thing; a few editors seem to want to make the entire article focus on abortion for some reason... it's odd. There are also some sourcing issues, which I saw you pointed out with the list of federal agencies given. Thanks for noticing that and helping to sort it out.-- Gloriamarie 06:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

FAC comments belong on the FAC page, not Talk pages, as far as I can tell. And no comments too small - just wait until User:BQZip01 gets at you with the non-breaking spaces et al. Wasted Time R 20:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks, Wasted, response is here. JJB 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Interrupted

Sorry about not using {{ Interrupted}}; I actually haven't seen that before, or if I did, I forgot it. Seems useful ... Wasted Time R ( talk) 02:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks! JJB 03:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

From WP:MOS: "The word to, rather than an en dash, is used when a number range involves a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−3 to 1, not −3–1), or when the nearby wording demands it (he served from 1939 to 1941, not he served from 1939–1941)." Please leave the wording as we had it - from, to - on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Should be that way on Ron Paul as well. Further - you don't have to follow MOS slavishly even if it didn't say this: common sense should prevail, and common sense prefers narrative to en dashes here. As for HRC - your rewrite was too extreme and introduced error (e.g., she has long been considered a polarizing figure in politics, not a polarizing politician - those two are not equivalent). At this stage, coming in and doing a wholesale rewrite is not the best way to go - and it's not a matter of "favorite phrases", which, again, is a bit insulting. You've just arrived here and might want to spend some time in the archives so you have a better idea of how we got to the place we are on articles - this goes for Ron Paul too in my opinion - it's not always the best approach to come in and just wholesale rewrite. By doing so at this point on HRC, you make it more difficult to respond to the comments made in the FAC, having the effect of derailing the process. I wouldn't want to think that this is your goal. Tvoz | talk 04:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC) reply

The only reason I made one good-faith edit to this article, as I adverted, was to demonstrate that my concerns were well-grounded and that there was much room for improvement. I am sorry Tvoz considered this edit to introduce error, as I don't split hairs between "figure in politics" and "politician". And I did apologize in advance for any unaccepted condensation of favorite phrases, and my edit was in fact in response to my and others' FAC comments. JJB 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha! I barely remember this... by the way, when she was First Lady she was indeed a polarizing figure in politics, but not really a politician...... just sayin'..... See my answer to your Obama plea on my talk. Nice to see ya again - you do have an - um, interesting group of friends up there, some of whom I have rarely been on the same side of an edit with, but then there's Wasted, a true and good friend of mine too, so you're not all bad, JJ.... <I'm kidding of course> (By the way - did you realize that people who had your "real" talk page on their watchlist don't get notices when anything is posted here unless they affirmatively list it or comment here? - hmm, maybe that's not true, I'm not sure now....) Tvoz/ talk 20:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

edits

I'll try to look at it tomorrow, but I'm kind of knee-deep in a couple of things and may not have a chance. Will do my best. Tvoz | talk 05:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Thank you!! JJB 15:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was already a straw poll article. I agree that we should merge them together and create a new article with just the Democratic results.-- Southern Texas 01:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Sorry about that. I didn't realize you were working on it.-- Southern Texas 02:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks to your help, articles are now humming along: Dem, Rep, both. JJB 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hello John J. Bulten, I've been editing very little in the past few months and I haven't kept track of what's going on with the straw polls article. I'll change the maps if you give me a list of everything that needs to be changed, thank you in advance. On a side note, is JayJasper not your friend?-- Southern Texas ( talk) 03:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC) reply

I found your comment in this diff's edit summary to be problematic. The policy of WP:CIVIL makes it clear that judgmental comments in edit summaries are not permitted.

Please view references numbers 113 and 116 in the References section of this diff. This is the version that existed just before I removed two defunct citations; there is a bright-red error message in each of these references. All I did was convert these empty references to requests for citations. I did not have the time or inclination to figure out which refs were intended by the defunct titles "insideradv" and "gallup92007". Citation requests are an improvement over statements which have nothing but a defunct label as a reference.

To be called "disingenuous" after I made this small improvement to the article is not very nice. If you have anything else to say on such matters, please do it in the proper places, not in edit summaries. Please try to AGF; I want the article to be good too. Thanks. Photouploaded 20:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC) reply

I do apologize, Photo, I did look at that diff when I tried to source the dereference, but I misread it, came to the wrong conclusion about what was edited, and accused too hastily. The actual dereference was done by TechnoGuyRob, and it was clearly a mistake while adding the new 5% poll. Thank you for pointing this out civilly. I will watch my edit summaries. JJB 21:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, John. Apology accepted, no harm done. See you on the slopes! Photouploaded 00:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC) reply

I hereby apologize to those editors who have been cleared by an administrator of my charges that they were suspected sockpuppets. In each case I believed at the time that I had probable cause to make the accusation, but in at least one case I agree with the consensus that I did not actually have sufficient cause. I believe pride also contributed, resulting in overzeal and several mistakes in understanding the graduated levels of accepted protocols. I'd like to explain how the mistakes arose, not to defend, but only to illustrate.

• I relied on WP:BOLD and its principle that "any changes you make that turn out badly can be reverted, often quite painlessly". I recognize that accusations cannot be withdrawn, so I did not accuse recklessly; but a finding of not guilty is a vindication of the innocent in accord with this principle.
• I relied on input from other editors which I found credible, such as User:TDC, User:Life, Liberty, Property, User:Starkrm. I recognize this input is now also subject to invalidation by admin findings, and although I did not credit it recklessly, the irony of the parallel to Bush's reliance on British intelligence is not lost.
• I relied on the community consensus of banning James Salsman, partly out of agreement, but partly out of overzeal.
• I oversimplified the established processes, partly out of newness, but partly out of pride.
• As a forum moderator, I have experience spotting sockpuppets and abusive accounts, but am still learning how to put that experience to use given this larger community and its different standards.
• In each of the cases I made or joined ( 1of3, Acct4, Eric Shalov, Squee23), I believe the admin findings are or will be that there was in fact misbehavior. I believe I did not always take the proper response in reporting the misbehavior, and thereby contributed to it to some degree.
• I don't believe I am editing out of conflict of interest any more than anyone else; technically, every edit is made because of some degree of interest in making the change to its subject article. But I affirm WP:COI.
• I don't believe my edits are an abuse of a single-purpose account. I chose to start with a difficult subject area, Ron Paul and the election, and chose to restrict my watchlist to that area until I am comfortable expanding it, which I hope to do in the future.

I will be more careful: for instance, I can discuss charges with more experienced editors rather than send them immediately to admins. Also, having made these mistakes, I will impose a 24-hour timeout on myself, and refrain from edits immediately after linking this note to the appropriate case pages. See you soon, happy Reformation Day. JJB 15:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not "In the clear" since User:TDC is hell bent on reverting my DU edits, (and ignoring their content) but I appreciate these words. Thank you. Starkrm 15:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC) reply

I think your reaction to the feedback here shows good intent. I only suggest that your inner meditative mantra can migrate from no harm, no foul with the accusations toward something much more Wiki-like, such as "Assume Good Faith"! Sockpuppets and vandals are pests which automation will probably increasingly deal with, but reliable flesh and blood editors—(moods and attitudes notwithstanding)—will give up if not treated decently. So it helps to be very circumspect when differentiating poor edits from vandalism.

If you've come from forums, I think you can relax a bit about sockpuppets—Wikipedia isn't ruled by numbers. I know election windows are narrow and it may seem critically important if the Ron Paul Wikipedia page doesn't look perfect to your eyes every minute of the day. But Ron Paul advocates absolutely should not be pointing anyone to the Wiki article—they should direct people to an official campaign page that represents his platform directly. (And if there's one thing that needs to be doggedly defended and reverted if corrupted here, its the link to the official campaign site!)

I can understand that you would be hurried to guard the page if you are passionate about the campaign, but that's precisely why your determination might be more appropriate for a non-wiki you can control. If we had to be paranoid about edits moments after they happen we really would spend all our time in sockpuppet debates. All wiki readership must be prepared to dig into the history and talk page to form an opinion about the subject; it is the very nature of the medium. I'm personally glad people are being trained to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, because that supports the consensus methodology. (And it will get easier...there's innovation in the works here with Meta:Article validation feature and the likes of Wikipedia Trust Coloring which will hopefully evolve to make things even more laid back.)

AND speaking of people who should be doing more useful article editing rather than mired in debating, I'm a living example here. Bah. Though secretly I've done most of my editing while not logged in—just to try and put good edits in anon space to make sure the Wiki High Council continues to see value in keeping anonymous editing enabled! Metaeducation 05:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Hey, no hard feelings, John- I think we both got a little excitable! Things like politics and Wikipedia have that effect on some people! ¡Salud! - Eric 20:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC) reply

You accuse me of being a Sock Puppet

I'm not exactly sure why. I'm not even exactly sure what that is, or what I can do about it. Could you please explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Starkrm ( talk • contribs) 19:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Probable cause appears here, and at this moment I am awaiting resolution here. JJB 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

So I ask you for help, with a sincere question, the day you accuse me of being a sock puppet, and 12 days later you respond linking what you call "probable cause" which is actually a CLOSED case which determined I was not a sock puppet. You also link where you called for my indef banning which you changed to CU after I pointed out how ridiculous your accusations were. I understand your motives, since I am actually fighting the same fight as you and TDC, but your actions are, IMO, deplorable and border on harrasment. Starkrm 14:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Try making a case about Dlabtot if you want what I think is a real sock puppet. Starkrm 16:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Yawn in response to Sockpuppetry accusation

I encourage you to request checkuser or whatever the process is. I'm nobody's sockpuppet and frankly I find the accusation to be boring and not worthy of a response beyond saying that my name is James Lang, I live in Alberton, MT, and I always post from 12.32.36.103 or 216.166.132.57, I made a couple edits from one or both of those IPs before I registered my username and all of my edits since I registered have been made under this username. Do not expect any further response from me on this non-issue. Dlabtot 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC) reply

WP:BLP is not a license to edit another editor's comments, whether you or I consider them incorrect or not. Please read this before doing so again. -- Orange Mike 01:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks Mike, I have read that already, I concluded that its reference to "prohibited material" resoundingly includes WP:BLP#Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material. It doesn't matter whether I consider them incorrect, but it does matter if they're unsourced contentious material about a living person. JJB 01:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

But WP:BLP refers to mainspace articles, not talk pages about those articles. -- Orange Mike 01:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Mike, you may not have noticed that my link says (emphasis in original): "Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research). The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals if the information is derogatory. Content may be re-inserted only if it conforms to this policy. These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel." Thank you for your consideration. JJB 02:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see where the difference is here. I feel that the original editor was not out of bound in feeling that statements which went out over Paul's name were Paul's statements, and that certainly within the confines of a talk page discussion he is entitled to say so without being policed out of existence. You feel that this is a contentious statement, even in a talk page, and should be censored. (I'm sorry, there's no weaker word that expresses my disagreement with you.) I accept that your interpretation is a good-faith one, although I disagree with it. I certainly shan't get into a revert war over it; but I feel that you are wrong in your reading of the guidelines here. -- Orange Mike 05:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Thank you. I think Vidor is not out of bound to feel they were Paul's statements, nor to state that feeling, but is out of bound to state what is felt as if it's an established fact, four times, after being warned twice. The subtleness of how the admitted bias slipped its way into Vidor's comments does not appear to excuse Vidor for treating that bias as NPOV. JJB 15:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your edit summary on Ron Paul (talk): I'm editing from an IP because I feel like it and because Wikipedia policy permits me to do so (don't worry, I'm not Ben/James or whoever). Specifically, I reverted you because I felt your removals of someone else's comments were highly inappropriate. More generally I dislike the ownership you assert over the article, and I intend to revert your removal of other people's comments every time it happens. -- 68.162.80.156 21:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Another instance of the same debate above with OrangeMike occurred today with Photouploaded. My notice re the first instance is still open at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Ron Paul. JJB 20:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The quote in question... is it a problem to reprint it? — Photouploaded — continues after insertion below

Why, yes, especially when you can link the diff instead, as you did with the other case below. JJB 17:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem here? Just today another user reverted your removal of someone else's comment. I find this trend to be questionable. Please explain the above. Photouploaded ( talk) 23:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC) reply

No, that user reverted my removal of the only other comment made by the same IP as the comment you want restored. I think my position is fully explained by the above and its attached links, i.e., relying on Jimmy Wales for deriving the proposition that WP:BLP trumps WP:TALK. Is there any question that the edits are unsourced contentious material about living persons, when they allege racism, sexism, condoning of rape, and incomprehension of the Constitution? I requested admin comment at WP:BLPN the first time I did this and am still awaiting comment. JJB 17:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The Liberty Dollar spammer

The guy stuck identical comments in other talk pages. I feel this falls under "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article"; I gather you do not? -- Orange Mike | Talk 00:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC) reply

In this case I can give benefit of doubt. The author did at least learn to put them in talk instead of article, after all. When there is hope that the author might get to proving relevance, I can wait and not bite. Also the user shows signs of not understanding the system, which can be remediated or rehabilitated. However, overall, I know we may be at loggerheads on occasion, and may continue to be, but I want to applaud you for your patience and hope I can show you the same. JJB 06:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Userpages

It's generally not considered acceptable to edit other folks, except to remove vandalism; not even if you are praising them. I'm not reverting your recent edit to Kaz' userpage, in case it was done with his prior approval; but I thought you should know. -- Orange Mike | Talk 22:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Per WP:USER, "pages in user space still do belong to the community"; what policy are you citing? Both User:John J. Bulten and User:Jimbo Wales encourage "edit this page". JJB 22:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Userpages#Ownership and editing of pages in the user space: "...by convention your user page will usually not be edited by others." -- Orange Mike | Talk 22:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC) reply

OK, thanks for the clarification. I'll grant that I was nonconventional and presumed on Kazvorpal's approval. Thanks for watching so closely, I think. JJB 22:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I watch the talk and user pages of folks I've interacted with, for better or worse. I even get to revert an occasional vandalism before the user can (common courtesy). I think of it as part of collegiality; and some of these folks get to be friends of a sort, even if we got off on the wrong foot. -- Orange Mike | Talk 05:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC) reply

your changes on Talk:Ron Paul

Please refrain from making changes to other editors' comments. While talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles, we certainly don't "correct" for "shock nature" or POV on them. -- Newsroom hierarchies ( talk) 20:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the concern, News, but we do correct when BLP is involved. False allegations that Paul is withdrawing are serious enough to be stricken strictly. See WP:BLP#Non-article space, WP:TALK#New topics and headings on talk pages, WP:TALK#Others' comments. JJB 21:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for dealing with the SoLA edit for me. I'm pretty sure I saw your handle on another page I was looking at to work on too (I've taken a bunch of the candidates to try to put my hand to make the articles better) so hopefully we'll get to work on these things together soon (I hear there's a 4 day rule before I am no longer n00b)! Apartcents ( talk) 00:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC) reply

Food Fight

Yeah I agree something is fishy with foofight. It seems he's more interested in pushing some agenda than adding to the quality of the article. SoLA is much more complicated than just 'revert it to the states.' A finding is not completely non-binding, either. And yeah, "calling the LOC" made me lol. Thanks for the help, I'm a fan of Ron Paul too so don't want to see the page vandalized by dummies. Apartcents ( talk) 22:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC) reply

16:13, 4 December 2007 . . JayJasper (Talk| contribs| block) (40 bytes) (moved 
Christine Smith (libertarian) to 
Christine Smith (activist): "Activist" is a more all-encompassing term.)

After the page was moved on December 4, there was an AfD regarding the article here. Article got deleted; I deleted the broken redirect. Cheers. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 21:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC) reply

This discussion is getting contentious (for instance, you replied to one of my posts, "how to respond calmly?"). You seem very attached to this article.

I don't understand why. I know you're an advocate for Paul, and there's nothing wrong with that, not even in WP. What I don't understand is why you want to take an article about the term "moneybomb" and use it as a platform to discuss your candidate; it puts you in the awkward position of having to respond to arguments on two fronts simultaneously:

1. Are you verifiably, neutrally documenting the Paul campaign's progress?
2. Even if you are verifiably, neutrally documenting the Paul campaign, are you doing so in a manner strictly relevant to moneybombing?

More than one editor (myself obviusly among them) believes that there shouldn't even be a "moneybomb" article; that is is a faddish neologism of uncertain notability, which creates a third front on which you're now obligated to deal with arguments.

Why don't we strip the moneybomb article down to a kernel of well-sourced defensible campaign-neutral content, and then add a subhed about Paul that redirects to his campaign article? Then we don't have to debate the successes or failures of his campaign in this article. I do not care about the Paul campaign one whit, and am unlikely to "follow" you into the warren of articles that are genuinely dedicated to his campaign.

--- tqbf 18:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC) reply

Umpiring AfDs

It's unnecessary to tally and judge comments in AfD votes. Like I said in the AfD debate, but should have just said directly --- when you criticize someone else's vote, all you're really doing is begging them to come back with a stronger, more compelling "delete" vote. It's unlikely that the closing admin is going to misread a "per nom". There is also nothing wrong with a per nom; it's just not a particularly compelling argument.

--- tqbf 02:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC) reply

On the moneybomb page, thanks for the halp and gentle way of explaining your point. I am new to all of this and want to be helpful as well now I refrence every thing I post.

Thanks again, Duchamps_comb —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duchamps comb ( talk • contribs) 19:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC) reply

Ron Paul Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ron_Paul_Revolution#Ron_Paul_Revolution

If you have time I would like to hear your comments on this page. Thanks-- Duchamps comb ( talk) 19:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC) reply

Directions for discovering that: Because the link wasn't easy enough, here are the step-by-step instructions:

1. Go to [http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html Thomas].
2. Select box with "Choose House Members" highlighted, it be roughly in the center of the screen.
3. Type "P" and select the entry for "Paul, Ron ..."
4. Click the radio button labeled "Sponsor"
5. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the "Search" button
6. On the results page, scroll down and notice how none of the "Latest Major Action" 
for the activities list "Signed by President".
7. Click the Back button on your browser.
8. Select 109 as the Congress to search in the list at the top.
9. Repeat steps 2–7 for Congresses 105–108, 98–96, and 94.
10. Notice that none of his bills have made it to a vote.

Burzmali ( talk) 19:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC) reply

Thank you. Whether or not your conclusion is correct (unverified as such by secondary sources), I note that your detailed process excludes successful cosponsorships, resolutions, amendments, unification with other legislation, etc., all of which are within the scope of the subject article legislation sponsored by Ron Paul. JJB 19:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Notice how the title of the article is " Legislation sponsored by Ron Paul". If it were " Resolutions sponsored or cosponsored by Ron Paul", I wouldn't argue with you, but then the article would have even worse WP:N problems. Burzmali ( talk) 19:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC) reply

American Sovereignty Restoration Act

John, you can put down the bicycle pump, the article's size isn't going to make or break it. Besides, some of your recent additions aren't really adding information about the bill. Burzmali ( talk) 20:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC) reply

And letters to the editor, even in the New York Times, are not evidence of notability. Newspapers like to give cranks a chance now and then, as it makes the corporate media seem more accepting of disagreement. Milwaukee's local neo-Nazi (excuse me, "advocate for Euro-Americans") used to get letters in the moderate Milwaukee Journal every few months, in part so he couldn't pretend he was being supressed. -- Orange Mike | Talk 19:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Burzmali ( talk) 17:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Reviewing more Paul legislation for AFD

As you've made it clear that you intend to throw WP:AFD#AfD Wikietiquette to the wind in any further AFDs I start, I figured that I'd come here to see what you opinion is on a couple articles.

First, as I'm sure you'll soon notice, Education Improvement Tax Cut Act has been deleted under CSD-G4 as the recreation of deleted material. The same article was deleted as Teacher Tax Cut Act last year. Nothing new has been added to the article and Google News still doesn't have anything notable about either [1] [2]

Second, I looked at the articles Sanctity of Life Act and Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act. Neither is sourced particularly well. Google news turns up nothing of real note for the first [3] (excluding "chuck baldwin" from the search removes renewamerica.us, not a RS to be sure) but turns up an interesting hits on the second [4] namely [5]. While a single article doesn't establish notability, it's enough to prevent me from nomming it from AFD. Now, if you could find one source as clear as that one for each of Paul's bills, I would happily withdraw my AFDs. I've slapped a Notability on the other for now. Burzmali ( talk) 14:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

As a first go on re- WP:AGF, can you please tell me the meaning of "more than trivial but may be less than exclusive" in WP:N, and of "avoid the use of sarcastic language" in WP:AFD? JJB 03:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It means significant coverage. As in, that the subject is talked about in more than just confirming its existence. Burzmali ( talk) 19:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply

OK, if that's what you mean, then you should have no trouble saying that any one of the following sources should be enough to prevent you from requesting AFD.

1. Two related stories on Paul in a local paper by staff writers, total 26 grafs, with 6 grafs on Paul's pro-life position and SOLA's purpose and place within it (and effect upon local population), including mentioning the pro-life stance in the title.
2. A 8-paragraph story on Paul published by an aligned news website operated by an editor of a large weekly alternative paper (since your example Dallas Voice is an alternative and aligned with Frank), with 2 grafs on Paul's pro-life position and SOLA and related legislation within it, including mentioning the pro-life stance in the title.
3. A 17-paragraph story on Paul and Gravel published by a (partly anti-aligned) internet portal operated by a large media publisher, with a large graf on Paul's pro-life position and SOLA and related legislation within it, including a rebuttal to the legislation, its progress, and a link to Wikipedia anticipating more info.

These meet all the points of verifiability, reliability, oversight, newsworthiness, secondariness, independence, and significance as more than just confirming existence. If you could confirm that these sources are acceptable to you, or let me know what concerns I could answer about them prior to posting them, then I will know that my labor is not in vain. I'm sure you can understand that I perceive your selection criteria as sufficiently arbitrary that it would be better to confirm the notability generically, prior to spending the time converting them into WP content, if that time might be discounted by another as wasted upon nonnotability. JJB 22:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Any chance that you'll be telling me which sources you are referring to, or do I have to guess? In most case, I'm going to guess that the articles are talking about Paul and his pro-life position, of which the bill is part, and not the bill itself. Burzmali ( talk) 22:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC) reply

See that's where our ability to communicate tends to break down. First, an article that mentions a bill is "talking about ... the bill itself". Second, if the article states the bill's purpose, or its progress, or a criticism of it as confused, or refers it to WP for more info, the article is doing "more than just confirming its existence". Third, when an article delves significantly into the pro-life position, the context within which the bill is mentioned may indicate its place within the speeches of Paul or its reception among listeners, and so the coverage of the bill is more than the mention of the bill, though this must be stated carefully to avoid original synthesis. Fourth, these kinds of communications breakdowns are so frequent between the two of us as to hamper ongoing collaboration very seriously.

The point of not naming the sources yet is to establish to me sufficiently whether or not your criteria can be stated without contradictions. The conclusion inferred above, that no bill article should be sustained unless an article exists that is fully "about" the bill, in your judgment and in some undefinable sense, does not mesh well with WP:N as you paraphrase it, as being merely more than confirming existence. If faced with these apparent contradictions, why would I bother collating the sources into WP, unless I have a forum for establishing consensus upon the apparent contradictions? JJB 23:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Fine, have it your way. If you can't discuss the topic without resorting to playing games, I'll leave the article for now and nom it when it is clear that no one intends to fix it. Burzmali ( talk) 01:30, 24 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Actually, "my way" would be that you would continue good-faith discussion of what objective standards you use for determining notability. If you believe I misrepresent the sources, please say so; I say so when I disbelieve you. Now that you've stated your intentions, I feel comfortable letting you know that your behavior is becoming vanishingly distinguishable from someone whose goal is to waste my time and to bias WP. Perhaps you haven't noticed the direction in which consensus is moving either. If you refuse to answer my simple, good-faith questions, I must resort to other fora for dispute resolution; but I'll certainly wait 24 hours for you. JJB 06:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you considered my response at "Stem Cell Controversy" unreasonable. I am quite sincere in regarding this kind of thing as silly and undignified grasping at straws. I am proud to say that I don't try to edit pages of candidates I support, nor of candidates I consider actively evil, for fear that I will lose my NPOV in my fervor. I genuinely believe that a loss of objectivity on the part of supporters has happened in almost all Ron-Paul-related articles, and it is an embarassment to the decent people who support him (among whom I number yourself). -- Orange Mike | Talk 15:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, thank you, and I can agree that the deleted article was insufficient and when no consensus arises to fix its insufficiencies then defending its existence becomes silly and undignified. And your assessment of the zeal from the Paul side is correct. But I am also sincere in holding that, in lieu of such article, seeking out the proper article ( stem cell controversy) and adding three new sentences on the bill and the libertarian view is properly encyclopedic; and I think the anti-Paul side often loses objectivity also (yourself reflexively excepted of course). JJB 15:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Note also that the article history, as summarized in my AFD argument, completely rules out Ron Paul cruft as the article's provenance, attributing it instead to generic pro-life cruft. JJB 15:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think of myself as anti-Ron-Paul. I don't think he is evil in the way that many of the Bush people clearly are, nor malevolent like so many Randites; but I believe his doctrines, if actually put into place, would open up society for the kind of triumph of evil which would make the 1920s bubble/rise of the KKK/Great Depression sequence look like a " Dow up 40, then down 62" kind of day. -- Orange Mike | Talk 17:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC) reply

Good job bud! I was planning to rewrite the article myself, but I'm glad to see somebody else did and with some really good sources.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 08:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Somebody mentioned a cite that simply said something petty like, "G. Edward Griffin speaks at UW-Austin on evils of the Fed" in a community calendar; that's non-substantive and inappropriate for establishing anything except that he speaks in public places (a fact not under dispute). -- Orange Mike | Talk 18:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC) reply

OK thanks. I picked up that cite on an initial salvo of attempting to demonstrate that he does lecture (notably) when his notability itself was in dispute (it still seems to be). Note it's not a blog/forum nor unreliable, just trivial. It's gone now. JJB 18:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

This article has been around for a month and has shown no improvement to justify its own page separate from Ron Paul. I would hope you'd see the truth in that and restore the redirect until someone can add enough sourced information to show the organization's notability on its own. Otherwise I guess this has to go to AFD or something. -- Dougie WII ( talk) 18:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC) reply

My comments appear at the AFD. JJB 22:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

John J. Bulten Graet article G. Edward Griffin

BJBot Your Opinion is "Your Opinion" keep it for you and have fun. ( LakeOswego ( talk) 01:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)) reply

Creature from Jekyll Island (audio)

What do you think about adding Creature from Jekyll Island (audio) SAMPLE

I think Creature from Jekyll Island Work need to be under it own title (==Creature from Jekyll Island==)

( LakeOswego ( talk) 23:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)) reply

in German Edition: 2006 August

What do you think about adding the German Edition of the Creature from Jekyll Island?( LakeOswego ( talk) 23:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)) reply

Very briefly, primary-source audio is generally frowned on. Mentioning an OCLC or other reliable link to the German edition would be worthwhile; note how I did the Japanese edition. Jekyll once had its own article, which was soundly deleted, so it wouldn't well survive a restart, especially when its content fits well at Griffin's article. JJB 23:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

German Link

The German Books for G. Edward Griffin [6]

( LakeOswego ( talk) 00:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)) reply

what's the point of wiki if i can't correct errors? every time i fix it, someone changes it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.224.242.164 ( talk) 23:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Answer is here. Let me know, by editing that page, when you've signed up for a Wikipedia identity, thanks. JJB 15:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Hey John. Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I wanted to let you know that I was impressed by your comment on my talk page. I was expecting to get an earful, but instead I find myself agreeing with your comment. (Especially that a consensus hasn't really been reached (probably partly due to not enough editors).) One of my more general concerns the information might be better managed as a news article (on Wikinews, for example) - particularly because new polls are conducted quite often, so the article seems to require updates often. At least, that is my impression from looking into the material, though I haven't tried editing it, so I don't know for certain.

I am not active as much recently, but if you like, I could try commenting some on the talk page, and hopefully we (and other editors) can get a discussion going. I admit I'm still concerned about the Arizona poll I mentioned on my talk page, so that might be a good topic for an initial discussion.

Anyways, thanks again for the comment on my talk page. Let me know if you are interested in trying to strike up a discussion. :-) Cheers, Iamunknown 04:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

John, thank you so much for steering us in the right direction. That is all that we wanted, and that advice wasn't being offered. I do have some questions about merging. If we do merge, is there still a way to add in her info box if we add in the other candidate's as well? Also I am still very confused about how Wikipedia works. SarcasticIdealist mentioned that it just happened to be "bad luck" for her, but that just doesn't seem quite right. There are 8-9 other campaigning candidates that are "less notable" than Annie Loyd, yet their pages have remained up for quite some time, but as soon as this article went up, it was voted to be deleted. There is also an info box for Congressional Candidates on the info box page, so I just wanted to know why this page cannot stay up and if she doesn't receive more notability, then it be deleted in the future. The article's purpose isn't to campaign. The article's purpose is to teach. If someone happens to stumble upon the article, or searches her name in Google and they find her Wikipedia page, they will learn more about being an Independent, and why being an Independent may be a good option. It's not campaigning, because most of the people that will view the article will not be part of Arizona's 3rd District to vote, but the reason why people posted on the delete page was because people from New York, California, Arizona, Virginia, etc. have heard her voice and think it is important enough to keep this article up. Although she may not be "notable" in Wikipedia's book, and although we cannot assume "future notability", this woman, a homosexual woman, will be the first of her sex to come this far in an Arizona Congressional election and most likely win. That alone is notable enough. I understand your ruling, but I am asking if you could work with me a little bit more, or a little longer so that even if she has to be merged into another article, it will be done properly.-- Cbenton2679 ( talk) 20:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Also, if there is no reliability in deletion, then how can wikipedia be at all credible if articles, that are seriously lacking, are allowed?-- Cbenton2679 ( talk) 22:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you CB! It would certainly be possible to add multiple infoboxes to the proposed new section, although you might want to experiment in a sandbox to ensure they're not cluttered, and the incumbent would be expected to have priority. Secondly, there is no consistency to WP except what we the editors enforce, which is why it's a general guideline that the fate of one article does not get to reflect the fate of another. Two similarly situated articles getting different fates is presumed in this idea to mean that the deleted one properly deserved it due to consensus expressed in actual activity against it, where the undeleted one came in under the radar because no one bothered to act against it. But whether it's improvidential or malevolent doesn't matter much, the best route is to preserve the content in a safe place (i.e., a section of another article). Anyone who searches WP (or Google) will find the section due to redirect, and it will be neutral enough. For example, if she's homosexual that should appear in the article for neutrality's sake, with a citation of a reliable source. Also, existence of infoboxes does not establish notability for everyone who might qualify; and "why can't it stay up" does not trump notability, especially during a campaign where WP must be nonpartisan; and "we're just getting the word out" does not trump undue weight, regardless of how much we think we're not campaigning. See also several of the arguments to avoid. Also learn how to use template:cite news and template:reflist (see references) and notability will shoot up dramatically in editors' eyes. I don't know if I can do the merge, I expect an admin will (if that's the consensus), but if it's done as I described I believe it will be done properly. I'll get out a merge template for you. JJB 22:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• I am a little confused. This debate has gone on for more than a few days now and no conclusion has been reached. We want to continue to work on the page and we cannot do this if it will be deleted, and we cannot work on the merge if it is not approved. When will a decision be made? -- 160.39.156.239 ( talk) 13:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC) reply

The 5-day AFD ended with a result favorable to a merge to AZ-3#2008. JJB 16:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Has a habit of misrepresenting the facts - I was providing the facts. He said there were no criticism sections in several of those articles and I provided the titles of those sections, not only that, I provided an example of the sycophantic praise that is lavished over the article in question as an example of the contrast between it and comparable articles. Please undelete my argument or further discuss the issue. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 20:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Actually, Locust, I did not delete your argument. It appears you accidentally deleted a number of other paragraphs from that page, which I restored, placing your argument in its proper location; it never left the page. JJB 20:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry not sure how I did that. I know my spellchecker has been having problems with such large pieces of text and so I've been trying to use it less. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 20:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Are you sure it's the right Christian Polak? It doesn't seem very likely to me that we know he has lived in Japan for the last 30 years. -- Slp1 ( talk) 17:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC) reply

I held off on responding or building on the sentence you questioned, until the validity of your doubts was vindicated and the situation corrected. As I turns out, the article is about M. Christian P. Polak, the French aeroscience businessman, but my insertion referred improperly to M. Christian C. Polak, the French energy businessman. I trust you understand. I considered that, since CPP has been in France recently, placing him in Algiers and Geneva was not unreasonable. But thanks as always. JJB 16:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you John for your great, thoughtful and courageous edits! I will answer your question tomorrow if you don't mind. For now, I'm going to bed. Best regards. PHG ( talk) 21:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC) reply

God bless. I understand if it takes some time to get back to this question given the recent admin actions. JJB 16:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Restored. Cheers. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 23:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Hi JJB, thanks for the greeting on my talk page. I read the Hebrew Roots article - interesting. I for one appreciate the recent shift in biblical scholarship towards a greater appreciation for the "Old" Testament - from this perspective, Calvinism has it more correct than Lutheranism, and the New Perspectives on Paul has much to say, I believe. Adventists were far ahead of their time on this issue, even if they have gotten some details wrong (as I believe they have). Methodist scholar Donald Dayton recently affirmed this. I replied to your comment on Talk:Sabbath in Seventh-day Adventism#Rename proposal. I have not kept up with the other Sabbath articles, although I approve of your changes to Sabbath - see comments there. Colin MacLaurin ( talk) 07:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Next time an editor like Terrier starts using "Ron Paul fan" or "Paultard" as an epithet at you or others, remember this line from WP:NPA: Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views — regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. If they do so more than once or twice after being reminded of this, bring them before WP:ANI for personal attacks. I've done it once before and had a user blocked for 24-hours, after which they corrected their behavior. Just thought you might like a similar tool as you work to improve Wikipedia. Buspar ( talk) 21:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Not to put a too fine point on it, but this is what people are talking about with WP:GAME. Bringing things that toe the line on NPA to WP:ANI to get a revenge block, while in the middle of a content dispute with them, reeks of gaming the system... Burzmali ( talk) 23:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Uh, what? I was telling JJB this so he could use this in the future against people who attack him for no good reason. I fail to see how pointing out an expressly relevant facet of WP:NPA to a person who has BEEN personally attacked is gaming the system. If I'd been telling him to tempt others into insulting them or something, that would be gaming. This is letting another editor aware that those who try to discredit another through their possible affiliations are wrong and that Wiki policy expressly forbids such actions. Please apologize for your unjustified insinuation. Buspar ( talk) 02:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the suggestions, which I will consider appropriately. This particular case commends itself to quite a wide variety of useful options. Someone crossing that line from WP:NPA twice after warning would certainly be ripe for further action, but I see the policy referring me to WP:DR rather than WP:ANI, so I must consider all sides of the question. JJB 05:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll give it at least another month before I start filling in for him. He shows up every now and then. He just has a busy life and comes here when he can. He shall return. -- Sharkface ^T/ _C 01:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for creating Category:Ron Paul. However I notice that you're applying it very liberally. I'm not aware of the supporters of other policitians being added to their categories, or even their hometowns. Perhaps it'd be simpler to add links to the articles on those topics to the article on Ron Paul? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for watching! I believe all categories should be applied liberally, especially including those of other politicians; please compare my work on Category:Political catch phrases. I agree that in a couple cases, where the links do not exist at Ron Paul, they could usefully be added at some point. However, I made my inclusion decisions responsibly, considering the breadth of material, and knowing that I was accused of COI last year. Also, you might note that the category was created by User:Buspar, and I removed an inapplicable IP-added article from it as well. JJB 20:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC) reply

John, I think if you skim over the last 2000 or 3000 edits (which is only a couple of months), you'll see that any dramatic change in the lead section might get a pretty dramatic reaction, possibly losing some of the minor improvements we've achieved over the last month. Let's give it a rest for a little bit so that we can build up data to prove that the changes of the last month have been helpful. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 22:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC) reply

I appreciate your interest, thanks! I mentioned WP:BRD at talk and we can continue there, but let me just note my mystification here. My first edit was somewhat dramatic and had no strong reaction, while my most recent edit was very little and drama would not be anticipated. I also (solipsistically) don't know what "minor improvements" or "changes" were made in the lead other than my own, or are at risk of being lost. I considered your partial undo of Brando to indicate some consensus for my first more dramatic edit, and felt emboldened to make a mere improvement to word order. I don't know what you mean by building up data to prove something: do you want to start another RFC or formal community discussion? But at any rate let's work this out under BRD at WT:V and we'll understand each other soon enough. JJB 00:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for adding me as a friend, btw. I guess all I can ask is, read a bit more of this month's discussion. The rest of my reply is on WT:V. I spent a lot of time on the debate all during April, and I really don't have time to re-do it, I need to be working on style guidelines and reviewing articles; the WT:GA debate is at a critical point. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 02:00, 1 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks. It seems interesting, so if I learn more about it then I'll probably contribute to that article. Plus, it'd be good to have some non-Ron Paul supporters like myself edit it. SteveSims ( talk) 22:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank YOU! Agree wholeheartedly. JJB 01:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Heck, John, I couldn't possibly do a fair edit to an article like that. The concepts of "planned community" and "Ron Paul supporters" in the same breath? I'm not as discourteous as Wonkette, but I fear this will end in overt tragedy, instead of low farce with a side of disappointment and disillusionment. (I can foresee no other alternatives.) -- Orange Mike | Talk 04:28, 3 May 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm grateful I can always count on your unique sense of humor Mike. JJB 14:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Mountainsarehigh

You've got to be careful here, JJB. While the guy is clearly in the wrong, a couple of days ago you used the term "vandalism" at least once in what could be argued to be a mere content dispute. I fear your anger might get the best of you.-- Orange Mike | Talk 17:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Yeah, if anyone wonders, I did so here and afterward, referring to adding "racist" to the lead three (eventually five) times, starting here. When user started acting like a sock instead of a vandal, I withdrew the charge here. Had anything else in mind? Your warning is wise. JJB 19:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen nothing that shrieks "Sockpuppet!" in his behavior. He's problematic and borderline incivil, but nothing worth taking to AN:I over. He just thinks we're all Paulistas with a WP:OWN problem. -- Orange Mike | Talk 18:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the notice...although my entire involvement was moving the page because it wasn't capitalized correctly. This adw template is supposed to be subst'd. You may want to check up on that if you've used it elsewhere previously. -- Onorem ♠ Dil 14:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you for informing me, Onorem, I did not notice. In answer to your other question, I am disenchanted with the talk archive system and am experimenting with alternatives that reflect better on the value of others' correspondence. JJB 14:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about not notifying you - it's been a long time since I've AfDed anything. I'm posting to assure you that I didn't do it out of any anti-Paul bias - as stated on the AfD, I voted, donated, and volunteered for Paul in two states. The website is still down, and I still believe this to be a notability issue, not a crystal ball issue (though if crystal ball turns out to be the case, it was still worth nominating). -- YixilTesiphon ^{Say hello} _{Be shallow} 15:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC) reply

See your talk. JJB 17:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind discussing the following paragraph, which AdRem has removed from the article:

Hamilton had revealed this decision in private to George Hammond, the British Minister to the United States, without telling Jay—or anyone else; it was unknown until Hammond's dispatches were read in the 1920s. This "amazing revelation" may have had limited effect on the negotiations; Jay did threaten to join the League at one point, but the British had other reasons not to view the League as a serious threat.<:ref>Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jay's Treaty (quoted); Elkins and McKitrick p.411 f.</ref>

Please note that the sources here include the current standard textbook on the 1790's. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC) reply

I appreciate the consideration! I commented, but progress really depends on what develops among all the editors together. JJB 17:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hammond appears to be resolved. However, there remain serious issues over Newburgh, where AdRem is insisting on saying something his source does not say, and which no one else does. The issues may be clearly enough laid out at Talk:Alexander_Hamilton#Another_PMA_tag_-_.22oblique_rebuke.22_.22suspected.22_etc. for someone who hasn't looked into the matter to follow. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you; as I said, I agree in principle with your proposal.

I will list my quibbles here:

• Morris and Madison should be introduced in the previous paragraph; Hamilton came into the middle of a long story.
• The maugre letter is Washington to Hamilton, April 4, 1783. (note the difference: suiterings for sufferings) I think the them to whom justice is due must be the Army, given how "they" are described. Your parsing is correct, but I will consult on what authorities think Washington meant; it is not uncommon for letter-writers to lose track of their sentences.
• I would leave out from oblique rebuff to blunt lecture; it doesn't do anything for the reader.
• I read Brant as saying that the 1783 measure was not an amendment, but a law which specified that it must be substantially passed by all the states; I suggest measure. Also, Hamilton voted against it, and we should say so.

Feel free to repeat these on the article talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you for considering this, I trust my latest has answered these. JJB 17:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much! JJB 17:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure, the barnstar was well deserved!-- JayJasper ( talk) 17:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Welcome back to WP:USPE

Thanks for re-adding yourself to the active members list of Wikipedia:WikiProject United States presidential elections. Good to have you on board again!-- JayJasper ( talk) 19:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you Jay. We'll see what happens. JJB 19:29, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for helping at Alexander Hamilton. I would award you a 'Working Man's Barn Star', but I see you already have one. If you know of anyone who is willing to take the article on as a project (as you can see, it requires a lot of time and energy) please, please let them know. My goal is to flood this important article with new blood. I think that is probably the best way to get it up to the encyclopedic quality it deserves--a quality in which it is somewhat lacking at present. AdRem ( talk) 01:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you. I referred this question to the WP:08 group. JJB 17:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. PMA significantly altered your attempt-at-peacemaking rewrite of the 'Congress and the Army'. I had to revert PMA's very last edit in that section, because it makes substantial and irrelevant additions and opinions that just blow past my hard tolerance limit on this section. If you are on friendly terms with PMA, please try to talk to him. Having a third party do a rewrite from another perspective is very helpful, but it is totally pointless if it is then, in turn, rewritten by one of the original parties substantially as it was before. AdRem ( talk) 04:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes, could you please have a look; I put in a sentence explaining what Hamilton and his friends actually did, and a sentence that they did not (as some loose writing may suggest) plan a coup against Congress; I have now removed the latter, in an effort at appeasement. My honorable and gallant colleage objects to this as more than given to Hamilton's military career, which is not, and never has been, true: Hamilton's military career has three paragraphs, and may deserve four, but Newburgh has one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Wow. So my change was wiped out, and the section got even bigger. My complaint is not that the Newburgh section is longer than the Military sections(which it most certainly is if you include the support paragraphs that Newburgh necessitates), it is that the Newburgh sections, like others written by PMA, have a strong POV quality and an inappropriate length and focus (these paragraphs belong in the Newburgh article, if anywhere). Sourcing irrelevant information, or information that is innapropriate to a given article doesn't qualify it for inclusion. Oh, and being sarcastic instead of directly insulting is still not especially civil. I hope you can spare some time for this, because PMA will not talk to me in a respectful manner, nor have the conversations between he and I been particularly productive. Please help if you can. Thanks again. AdRem ( talk) 18:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC) reply

In fact, could you remove any other tags you yourself do not support, now you've demonstrated them? They can be replaced if anyone does agree with them, but it is a waste of time to discuss tags with which nobody agrees. (I have added one {{ vague}}, but I would happily reword the sentence instead.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC) reply

FYI, a few of things regarding [7]. (1) Normally, you only edit your own section so if you want to comment on someone else's evidence, you should either do so on the talk page or make another subheading within your section. (2) When Viridae protected Wikipedia:Attribution, the protection automatically shows up as a minor edit - that is not something the admin can control. Similarly, when Crum375 hit the rollback button (which may or may not have been an appropriate use of rollback) the edit was automatically marked as minor - he had no control over it. -- B ( talk) 21:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Great, thank you! Providentially I already took care of my mistake at #1 once I noticed. JJB 00:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

You might want to note that there were approximately 15 reverts in 3 days on WP:ATT involving the same material - that is most definitely an edit war. Protection has not been set to expire because I am watching the talk page. When I feel that people have actually started talking about it instead of blindly reverting it will be unprotected. I arrived at WP:ATT because saw someone telling Crum off and went to investigate the problem. Viridae ^Talk 22:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Great, thank you! I'm not going to go back and count them myself, and really my Arbcom statements were more a matter of frustration at various nonresponses than anything else. But there they are. I appreciate your hereby breaking the general trend of nonresponsiveness in editing by your answering quickly, and I apologize for assuming you would be one more of that class of editors (no one specific in mind of course). Time will tell the best method of handling WP:ATT. Continued input would be nice! JJB 00:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help in calming this Viridae. JJB 14:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Very nice [8], (: —— Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I had help from Crum375 and Gordonofcartoon. JJB 14:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Fritzpoll/Refinement - Can you take a look and comment on its talk page, please Fritzpoll ( talk) 11:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC) reply

This has already been uploaded because people were still straw-polling on the old proposal. I want to get us back to discussion, rather than polling Fritzpoll ( talk) 14:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Looks like it settles 99% of the serious objections, and I'm not going to read the 340K to find the remaining 1%. I added a point about meeting notability policy as a friendly amendment. Congratulations, looks like FritzpollBot won't be in the NICU that long after all. JJB 14:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, both for the comments, and your suggestions yesterday - I hope you will have time to comment on the new discussion page Fritzpoll ( talk) 14:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC) reply

You're welcome! I'll keep an eye out. I'm more interested in the policy and standards aspect and don't have much to contribute to geographical knowledge. JJB 14:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

... but it would do some good on the Obama talk page. Hi, I appreciated your input reacting to my post at the Talk:Ron Paul page, but if you would put it in the discussion over at the Obama talk page, it will help affect the discussion there. Thanks! Noroton ( talk) 17:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC) reply

You're welcome. JJB 17:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey, where'd that Barack pic go to?

I was very, very impressed with your post about how to structure the presentation of the Wright controversy at Talk:Barack Obama#Wright consensus build, and I just responded to it with some suggested tweaks. I hope you'll stick around there.

As for the WP:CANVASSING business, the more I think about it, the angrier I get with the way WP:CANVASSING is written. Either it forbids what I just did, in which case there's something deeply self-contradictory about it, or it's so poorly written that it looks like it's forbidding what I just did. Contacting six or eight editors in an effort to alert them to a compromise position that will bring us closer to consensus is not disruptive. In fact, it tamps down disruptiveness. It also promotes consensus rather than promotes dissension, all of which is supposedly the purpose of WP:CANVASS. Apparently somebody else had the same interpretation of WP:CANVASS (as only applying to initial contacts among people not already involved in the discussion) as I did (there's a post from May 20 on the WP:CANVASS talk page to that effect). I'm still contemplating whether or not to try to get the guideline either changed or have its language made clearer. It just may be that there's no easy way to allow what I just did, or maybe there's no support for it. I'm still thinking about it.

As for the B.O. pic, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. WP:CANVASS mentions that some editors can be irritated when a message at first appears to be individually directed to them, and the picture and big green headline tends to disabuse them of that pretty quickly. If I'd figured out the border correctly, that would have helped as well (I created that notice from a barnstar.) Don't like the pic, eh? There's always that delete option. [Hey, wait a minute, did you just delete it? ... Now I have even less sympathy!] If Bill Kristol's column today is any indication, the McCain campaign won't be able to get its act together well enough to pull off an upset, so you're gonna be seeing Mr. O's toothy grin for quite some time. ... Cheers, Noroton ( talk) 16:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you, my involvement with Obama will only be ad hoc. I've also gotten chastised for potential canvassing before, so I understand your concern. To me the guideline says there's a spectrum from acceptable to unacceptable canvassing, and to be careful not to push the limits; it's not written to forbid borderline cases, but to leave lots of wiggle room to allow editors to argue about the spectrum (I don't like wiggle room, but that's why it's there). When someone such as yourself has made a first good-faith attempt and has then taken note of the policy, that is sufficient. The key is to keep your future activity above suspicion, now that you've read the guideline, and not to bristle about the charges this first time. And feel free to work on the policy talk page if you have time, but (as an involved editor) don't go onto the policy page itself until you've built consensus of involved editors at talk. (I made that mistake early too.)

I understand you liked the picture as indicating a boilerplate, but please be sensitive to the fact that (as proper canvassing requires) you wish to attract editors of all POVs, and holders of some of those POVs would be disappointed to find Obama's picture on their talk pages. Similarly, your comments about McCain may have assumed I hold a POV that I do not hold, and some may not find that kind of joking to be the best method of breaking the ice. Rest assured that I have steeled myself for the 44th president's grin whomever she may be. Finally, I hope you don't mind my idiosyncratic method of keeping my talk pages tidy: I moved your message (less the picture) to User:John J. Bulten/Invites. JJB 17:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Please look over the current options

... for Rezko language and pick one to help us get to consensus. This is a form notice, not a personal message. I'm sending it out to the most recent contributors to the Rezko discussion at Talk:Barack Obama. Sorry if this is inconvenient, but we may be close to consensus if we can get your help.

Hi, I've noticed you've been a part of the Rezko discussion but haven't said which of the options now on the table you'd prefer. It would really help us to get to consensus if we could get your input on that. There's been plenty of discussion, but if you have questions, I'm sure other editors would answer them. The four options now on the table are the three in Talk:Barack Obama#Straw poll and Talk:Barack Obama#Scjessey-preferred version (which doesn't contain the word "criticism"). So far, the two most popular versions seem to be Clubjuggle's Version 3 and Scjessey's. Please help us try to wrap this up. Noroton ( talk) 17:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your message. I do post on talk pages when I feel it makes sense. If the issues are minor, self explanatory, or have been repeatedly discussed on the talk pages, I use edit summaries only. Crum375 ( talk) 18:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't know how to leave a note of my own -- I appreciate your joining in the ban of James Salsman, who I personally know to have a number of aliases that he has used to write to me and to post messages to RADSAFE -- I am intensely opposed to the anti-depleted uranium crusaders and I like to correspond with anyone who takes a scientific approach and realizes that DU was developed under Nixon, Ford or Carter, not Bush and that neither Father nor Son Bush ever probably had any say in using it in the Gulf War or in Iraq in 2003. I am a Democrat and never was a fan of the draft dodger who hid out in the Texas ANG in order to be a pilot like Daddy but never actually go to war - I used to have very strong credentials in the veterans for Kerry world before I began being the great satan to the anti-DU crusaders like Douglas Lind Rokke, Leuren K Moret, Dennis Kyne, Asaf Durakovic, Herbert Reed and wannabe journalists like Bob Nichols and Cathy Garger. In that pro-Kerry role, I researched Lieutenant Kerry's discharge from the Naval Reserve and proved that the Swift Boat Liars were totally wrong on that point. Roger DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.198.104.197 ( talk • contribs)

I left the following message for you at Talk:Barack Obama:

Of course, the Ronpaulicans capitulated for quite a bit more space being devoted to the controversy than the Obamanators are doing. Exactly right, John. Look, I will support any compromise that allows a fair treatment of Wright, Rezko and Ayers in this article. Keep it as short as you want, but make sure that readers understand there is a controversy, and why there is a controversy, by reading this article. What is the weight that is due to Bill Ayers when a compromise is reached? At least one sentence maybe two. For Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko, at least one substantial paragraph each, maybe two, maybe more later if the right wing 527s make a big deal out of them. I hesitated to take a voluntary 30-day vacation from the topic of Barack Obama, because it would be difficult for the people like Noroton left here to control the impulses of what Bigtimepeace describes as "Obamanators." But since BTP is here, I feel more comfortable doing so. Pay attention to what BTP says. I'll be back.

It is also because of fellow editors like you, who have experience with other contentious political articles, that I feel comfortable taking a 30-day break from the topic. I trust that you will further discuss the solution from the Ron Paul newsletter controversy and seek to implement it at Barack Obama. There has to be a compromise.

Cheers Kossack4Truth ( talk) 10:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Thank you, I guess we'll see how well I can reward your trust in the current climate. JJB 14:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

John, I thought your joke was a typo. Still don't get the humor of the "j", but oh well. You've "voted" in almost all categories which only confuses the issue. You seem to be advocating further discussion toward some use for ATT, so you must not be advocating archiving. I suggest that you pick more clearly so that your "vote" ahs some meaning. This will conclude soon with one tag or another; you are in a minority of those advocating more discussion. Just my thought for what it's worth. -- Kevin Murray ( talk) 20:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC) reply

You haven't read essjay? Or you don't think WT:A is equally convoluted? JJB 14:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you please take another look at this AfD and this article? I have added a number of references, and I think the article is in much better shape now. Thanks, Nsk92 ( talk) 16:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Looks like your work did it all without my jumping in! JJB 19:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I just want to brought it to your attention that someone is adding the e back in Gadsby-- Netherling ( talk) 22:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks, working. JJB 19:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I believe you're confusing Peter Laurence Gordon with somebody else, perhaps with the same name; the composer Peter Laurence Gordon is certainly not the puzzle editor for the New York Sun. -- jpgordon ^∇∆∇∆ 22:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Full name is identical. If I disambiguate it'll be Peter Gordon (editor). JJB 20:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. While I appreciate the page devoted to me, I really don't know that I'm a notable enough subject for Wikipedia, as I say on the article's talk page.

Also: based on your name and NPL links, I'm assuming that you once went by Ostrich? I would take that as a given, but I actually heard rumors of your demise from local Scrabble players, and assuming that you are that same person, I am very pleased to see that those rumors were in error. Qaqaq ( talk) 00:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes! JJB 20:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You may wish to read the Report on use of sources in this case. Sam Blacketer ( talk) 13:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Sam, thank you so much. As to the posting of this material, I am immensely grateful that ArbCom has responded to my petition and has published its analysis; this is a great stride in open governance. As to the material itself, I appreciate having its angle upon the content and conduct questions, as it provides a proper perspective for my own judgment on the matter, which I must necessarily reserve for now. For me, it also vastly clarifies steps along the path by which the base Franco-Mongol alliance article may reach featured status. I look forward to ArbCom and the community working out the well-known larger questions with equal alacrity. JJB 14:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi John. Thank you for your note! I left my answers on the same page Report on use of sources. Cheers PHG ( talk) 06:55, 31 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Now I'm at a loss. What's that circular wikilink, which brings you through Gadsby: Champion of Youth back to Gadsby (book), actually for? A kind of backup? I can't fathom why you put it back in. Can you clarify? Thank you. Florian Blaschke ( talk) 18:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC) reply

Actually, it's partly in honor of Wright's own autological writing on so many occasions, and partly a final tipoff to all-and-sundry who run across this topic that it is, in fact, a lipogram. If you didn't find out by skimming it, but you do click that link, you will confront a loop, which is an additional way of pointing out circuitously just what is going on. It is also shown this way so as to allow no violation of Wiki policy against talking about Wiki gratuitously, in that this autology is circular, not straight, so it works on mirrors too and has no bias toward any host; I know D.R.H. is so happy about that too. JJB 14:00, 6 Oct 2008 (UTC)

Discussion - -- Boston ( talk) 01:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Thanks! Glad it/they calmed down. JJB 11:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi JJB, since you say, "there is ripe ground for my position that the whole accreditation coverage on WP is tainted by poor policy compliance". Please take care of the vandalism being perpetrated on Wikipedia as I write this, http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Almeda_University&diff=279477830&oldid=263897382 I do appreciate it since I'm hampered. Regards, TallMagic ( talk) 00:05, 25 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Done. Hat-tip to you. JJB 11:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I've just tried to search for sourced (per WP:SECONDARY) for the article so it's possible to keep it, but I didn't manage to find anything. Can you help out here and add references to the article? Nsaa ( talk) 19:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC) reply

From User talk:Nsaa#Rand Paul:

Rand Paul has been overhauled. This may affect your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rand Paul. This message is being copied to 8 people. JJB 07:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. Now a clear keep. Good work on adding sources! I will create a norwegian language version at no:Rand Paul. Nsaa ( talk) 19:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Created as an stub. Nsaa ( talk) 14:30, 13 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The missing comma in the date was an oversight. I appreciate you catching it, but I don't think I needed the mini-lecture in the summary. We all make those kinds of errors from time to time. Niteshift36 ( talk) 16:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The template was completely overlapping with the text but it's fixed now. An oversize monitor certainly wasn't a cause as I'm using a middle of the road laptop. Cheers. Sillyfolkboy ( talk) ( edits) 02:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC) reply

Hello John, you've stumbled onto a bigger unresolved problem of bias relating to male and female circumcision neither of which are appropriately named. Last year I tried to change both but votes were to evenly split and ruling of no consensus was attained on each. I feel with a little more input from more editors, common sense will prevail. Garycompugeek ( talk) 20:45, 11 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The current title religious male circumcision is just passable, but I will comment if I see more developments. JJB 20:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I note from the history that you have done signficant work to keep the article GA. Thanks to your work and the work of others I feel comfortable keeping the article as GA, thank you because I really did not want to delist it. My question is about the photo link in the lead. It is currently a dead link. Any idea why? Has the image been deleted? If it has then the link should be removed from the article. Again thank you for your efforts they are not in vain. H1nkles ( talk) 16:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC) reply

I have no info on this. JJB 20:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I looked back and saw that the straw poll articles were deleted a few months ago. I think we should do a deletion review. What do you say?-- William S. Saturn ( talk) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC) reply

You have my 100% support on that! Welcome to the project. JJB 19:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am "Southern Texas" -- William S. Saturn ( talk) 19:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC) reply

Sorry I missed the straw poll brouhaha. I come and go up in here, as to not get too attached. Hover if there is any way I can be of help on further or other like mined issues, please let know. -- Ducha mps_ comb MFA 00:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Peer review/Bob Barr

Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008 is currently under peer review. As a frequent editor of similar articles, your comments would be appreciated. Thanks. -- William S. Saturn ( talk) 00:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Welcome back (1)

Good to see you on here.-- William S. Saturn ( talk) 23:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Thank you! Dunno how much help I can be but let me know anytime. JJB

E-mail

-- William S. Saturn ( talk) 23:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC) reply

New Mail

-- William S. Saturn ( talk) 01:42, 9 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Welcome back (2)

Glad to see you back.-- William S. Saturn ( talk) 19:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

You too, but go slow. JJB 19:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Another editor placed a tag on Dry carpet cleaning and Carpet cleaning, linking to a current discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Paid editing. In all fairness, someone should really have informed you already. DGG ( talk) 00:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I did see the tags, and yes, there has been some attempt at advertising on carpet cleaning that I could see, but the articles appear to be staying neutral. The "paid editing" discussion is interesting and I have some comments on it, but I will save them for when someone else is interested in them. JJB 12:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi John, good to see you around here on Wikipedia. Just wanted to leave you a personal note that I have had to revert the reversion of my footnote you did here. My apologies in advance for this. Actually, the footnote addition that was done by me on the BLP policy is extremely important as some editors (few administrators though) today are confused about the difference between the policy BLP1E versus the guideline BIO1E. You and I might know the exact differences; yet, it is extremely important that the differences between these two are not left to conjecture, inductive reasoning and personal analysis, something which many on the Wikipedia project are quite capable of attempting, as they rush through the main text. Secondly, my addition was a footnote; so wordiness doesn't matter -- footnotes are meant to be explanatory -- (see it in the main article view rather than the diff view and you'll realise that my addition was/is actually relatively quite small). I know this sounds OR, but without the footnote, if you were to ask any passing editor about the differences between BLP1E and BIO1E, I can bet my 1000 edits they wouldn't be able to call it off the cuff :-) All right, not 1000, perhaps 100 edits :-) Take care John and best wishes. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 02:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Thanks, we'll see if anyone else reverts. Policies generally boil down anyway. JJB 04:27, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note on my page, but it's probably better to discuss articles on the article talk-pages. Cheers. PiCo ( talk) 00:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Lemche

John, you say nin your edit summary that it was me who introduced the "flawed" lemche reference. True, I referenced Lemche, but I did not make a flawed citation. My cite of Lemche was to the effect that Israel was located in the northern highlands, which he says; all the rest was introduced by you. Not maliciously, of course, you simply misread Lemche. I misread people myself sometimes. Anyway, let's keep discussing on Talk. PiCo ( talk) 08:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Edit war at article Shabbat

You're quite right to be concerned at the propspect of an edit war, and we should all seek to avoid one. However, I believe I can set your mind at rest. I made a deletion (edit 1); you reverted it (edit 2) and then I redid the edit, but with an explanation on the Talk page, something which had been lacking for the first edit (simply because I hadn't thought it necessary). So let us now talk the matter out on the Talk page. Best wishes PiCo ( talk) 03:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC) reply

[9] JJB 03:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I personally agree with your point of view about Biblical ages and though we may have a few disagreements, I value your opinions, but please tell me and Robert Young where to draw the line. Longevitydude ( talk) 21:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Ill post my suggestion on the articles talk page when i have more time. Longevitydude ( talk) 15:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC) reply

JJB, please do not do this kind of thing. If you think it is a bad proposal then oppose it and state why. No one editor gets to unanimously decide that the discussion will not go forward. Cheers. Griswaldo ( talk) 12:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Drive by reverting

Please do not drive by revert. I have started discussions at both Talk:Moses and Talk:Jacob regarding the longevity template which is not encyclopedic. Can you please engage the discussions. Thanks. Griswaldo ( talk) 04:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC) reply

JJB, you are using an improper justification for not discussing article content at article content talk pages. I understand you would like to draw attention to the larger discussion, but consensus is against the template on that page so it should be removed. If you would like to have it deleted propose deletion and I'll gladly support, but I'm not sure what you're aiming at on the talk pages. It's against policy to claim that article content should not be decided on the article talk page. Cheers. Griswaldo ( talk) 13:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC) reply

I was wondering if you might have a chance to help me forge a consensus on Gospel of John. I have other members who are going along with it but need some more help. As usual the primary culprit is Dylan Flaherty. I made some changes but he reverted them. As usual he provides no explanation. He is on the verge of violating 3RR, and I am trying to avoid doing the same. If you have a chance could you revert his most recent reversion and provide some kind of note backing up your action? RomanHistorian ( talk) 03:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your support. You are completely right about reverts, so I think I will stay away from them as it makes it harder for me to criticize others for doing the same. I wasn't aware of the point on deleting material as counting as a revert, so thank you for letting me know. I am going to be monitoring a small group of biblical articles and mainly focus on authorship issues on those articles. Dealing with Dylan is not easy, as his reverts are whole-sale and without discussion. I think I am getting to understand Wikipedia better and getting a better feel for its channels of dispute resolution. I will be following your advice and will continue to work on improving Wikipedia. I am definitely not frustrated with you asking me to do so. RomanHistorian ( talk) 16:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Gospels

I made some major changes over on Historical reliability of the Gospels. I was wondering if you could go over there and see what you think, maybe make a few changes and add your two cents. I am trying to build a consensus on the changes and any assistance would be appreciated. RomanHistorian ( talk) 18:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC) reply

I could really use you

I could really use your help right now over on Historical reliability of the Gospels. Someone is threatening to revert all of the changes I made and restore the article to what it had been before, which was an article in a badly neglected state. Any help would be greatly appreciated. RomanHistorian ( talk) 08:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Not sure how much I can do on that as I have been away and I need to pick my battles wisely too. Perhaps extrication from my current ones .... JJB 18:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

John (1)

Some editors are wanting to restore the skeptical POV that existed on Gospel of John. You seem to know a lot about this topic, so I think it would be good if you could make some more comments on the talk page so we can get an end product that isn't as skewed as it was before.

It's ok if you would rather not make edits, but it would be helpful if you would participate in the discussion so that most participants in it aren't skeptics, and the discussion will shape the final product. RomanHistorian ( talk) 17:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Jesus

I appreciate your participation with the editing of Gospel of John. If you have a second, could you please leave your two cents over on the talk page of Jesus (the discussion on this issue is at Talk:Jesus#Disputed_vs._debated). Three of my edits were reverted ( here, here and here). I think they better reflected scholarly debate on the issues, and I am wondering what you think about them and if they should be part of the article. RomanHistorian ( talk) 02:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC) reply

John (2)

I was wondering if you could look at two edits that I made here and here and tell me if you think they should have been reverted. They are pretty much the same thing, and were reverted because editors think Darrell Bock is fringe or an "apologist". I think the substance of the edits accurately reflects the nuances of scholarship on the issue. RomanHistorian ( talk) 14:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC) reply

Please take a look at Talk:Gospel_of_Matthew#Changes if you get a chance. RomanHistorian ( talk) 06:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC) reply

WP:CANVAS Dylan Flaherty ( talk) 13:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC) reply

edit warring

Dylan Flaherty reported me for edit warring on Gospel of John. Would you mind going over there and putting a word in here)? RomanHistorian ( talk) 00:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC) reply

John, in my humble opinion, what you did was wrong on multiple counts. I will keep this in mind in the future. Dylan Flaherty ( talk) 02:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC) reply

Hi, JJB. Just making you aware that someone has turned up with a very strong SDA POV, and he has attempted to make large scale revisions of Sabbath in Christianity. You may want to watch that article closely. Tonicthebrown ( talk) 05:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Hi friend, just to make you aware: the article has now been re-worked beyond recognition by the same editor, with the strong traditionalist SDA POV. I do not have the time to address it, and in any case this individual has a tendency to keep reverting aggressively until he gets his way. Not sure what can be done... we may just have to leave it. Tonicthebrown ( talk) 11:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Welcome back

Hi JJB. Why were you kicked off for a year? Tonicthebrown ( talk) 10:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Watch this space. JJB 02:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

See User talk:Axs912#Hey JJB. JJB 18:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Hi again JJB

Hi John

Hey

No problem, here it is:

Age (Since 2009) and Date of Birth	Chinese name & Chinese pinyin	Native ethnic name	Ethnicity	Birthplace/Location of residence	References
No.1 (Aged 122, born on August 9, 1887 [10])	萨迪克•萨伍提 (Sàdíkè Sàwǔtí)	سادىق ساۋۇت (Sadiq Sawut) [11]	Uyghur	Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang Province	[12]
No.2 (Aged 120, born on May 1st, 1889)	努日•喀日 (Nǔrì Kārì)	-	-	Uyghur	Xinjiang Province
No.3 (Aged 118, born on November 11th, 1891)	郭方姬 (Guō Fāngjī)	-	-	-	-
No.4 (Aged 118, born on April 17th, 1891)	艾萨•吾苏尔 (àisà Wúsūěr)	-	Uyghur	Xinjiang Province	-
No.5 (Aged 117, born on November 25th, 1891)	王张氏 (Wáng Zhāngshì)	-	Chinese	Shangqiu, Henan Province	-
No.6 (Aged 117, born in 1892)	佰达洪•柔孜 (Bǎidáhóng Róuzī)	-	Uyghur	Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang Province	-
No.7 (Aged 116, born in 1892)	多来提•麦麦提敏 (Duōláití Màimàitímǐn)	-	Uyghur	Khotan Prefecture, Xinjiang Province	-
No.8 (Aged 116, born in 1893)	亚库普•卡斯木 (Yàkùpǔ Kǎsīmù)	ياقۇب قاسىم (Yaqub Qasim)	Uyghur	Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang Province	-
No.9 (Aged 116)	田龙玉 (Tián Lóngyù)	-	Chinese	Hunan Province	-
No.10 (Aged 116)	打兰弯 (Dǎlánwān)	-	Lisu	Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province	-

You would need to ask the Uyghurs regarding what the original word for Nǔrì Kārì, àisà Wúsūěr, and Duōláití Màimàitímǐn are. It could be Nuri Kari, Aysa..., Dulayti Mehmetimin etc. You could try asking this user for help.

It is difficult to find updated English sources on these. The Uyghur woman Alimihan Seyiti (born in 1886) was not even mentioned in that article you gave me. Besides, these records would certainly change very quickly over time and within the 5-10 years these names would become outdated. -- Jose77 ( talk) 00:56, 29 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Thanks again! ( Link to last update.) JJB 06:17, 5 November 2010 (UTC) reply

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Itsmejudith ( talk • contribs)

Thank you for your considerations regarding my RfC John but, in the future, please do not change the context to any of my posts. Despite comments to the opposite you appear to have attempted to cast the RfC on policy in the light of a simple content dichotomy, which is very clearly not my interest, position, nor how I see the issue. I could agree discussions might require categorisation if they develop further but I specifically want to address the policy aspect not the related content which is being discussed elsewhere. Thanks. -- LevenBoy ( talk) 23:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC) reply

Please don't re-add the personal identifications to the arbitration request; those are in violation of privacy policy. Unless those users are completely open with their identity on-wiki, you can't go around repeating that, even if they slipped up and mentioned it at some point.

I have undone it again. As I noted, it's against policy, and if you re-do it again I or another admin will likely block you. That info isn't appropriate or relevant here.

If you believe that it is, communicate it in email to Arbcom, not posted on the public request.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert ( talk) 03:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC) reply

George, thank you, I did link what appears to be evidence that all users are completely open. But this fine point needs better discussion this weekend; I trust you'll be available later. JJB 03:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

As a general point, if their user name isn't their real name and their real name isn't on their user page, then you should consider it private info; I didn't see that for several of the things you included. However, I am open to being shown that it's appropriate on a case by case basis.

My apologies if my undo deleted other, non-related info you added. Georgewilliamherbert ( talk) 03:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC) reply

I may have realized the source of your confusion - before I NPOVed the ~20 articles we're discussing elsewhere, I have a bunch of other abortion-related minor edits, but that's because I created a page on an assassinated doctor and was wikilinking it on pages that mentioned him. Have I hit on it? Roscelese ( talk) 21:23, 23 November 2010 (UTC) reply

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#smallcaps and LORD.-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 12:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC) reply

NEWSECTIONLINK

Hi JJB,

Interesting page, but it can be improved using the magic word NEWSECTIONLINK.

If you put __NEWSECTIONLINK__ someplace in the page, the page will have a "New section" tab like regular talk pages.

-- Kevinkor2 ( talk) 12:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC) reply

You are right! JJB 17:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Redirect up for deletion. See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 23#WP:08. For related deletion please also see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 22#WP:12. Simply south ( talk) and their tree 12:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Hey! I wanted to know if you still needed a mediator for your case over at the Mediation Cabal - I'd be glad to help out if possible.

Cheers! Lord Roem ( talk) 19:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Let me look. JJB 02:08, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I've picked this up as mediation. I just need a bunch of people to sign on with me. Xavexgoem ( talk) 09:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

I think I can help you with your question about why you so often find yourself being opposed whether advocating a "keep" or "delete" position. Some users take these discussions on a case-by-case basis and carefully analyze them to see if they honestly meet our criteria for inclusion or not. Others see AFD as a philosophical battleground where the fate of Wikipedia hangs in the balance. These users will usually adhere to whichever "side" they have chosen in almost any AFD, no matter how many absurd arguments they have to make to twist policy and logic around to support their position. Unfortunately this situation isn't likely to change anytime soon, but the worst actors on both sides do have a tendency to eventually implode and either retire in a huff or take one too many outrageous actions and get themselves blocked. Unfortunately:: this tends to make those of us who don't care to choose a side shy away from AFD. Although perfectly understandable, it is a shame because that is exactly what is needed there. Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Hear, hear! JJB 17:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Now that is the most sensible thing I've read about AfD for a while! I notice with the Ashton article AfD [ [13]] that the deltionistas seem to avoid the threads where you concentrate on the burden of proof which they need to satisfy. The chief protagonists seem intent on making you do all the work; simply to shoot down whatever you offer. I think your earlier approach of focusing the discussion on their burden to satisfy the argument to delete is the one which most clearly defines the lack of credible reasoning behind a consensus for delete. Try to pin them down as to why they don't believe a source is significant, how it doesn't justify x, y and z - and insist on hard facts, evidence and quotes rather than rhetoric, bare assertion or opinion. It would appear that some of the editors are intent on making the discussion difficult to follow - I think your earlier tactic of demanding they meet the burden is the winner here. Keep at it! isfutile:P ( talk) 01:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Sorry to be so negative earlier, but I was, and still am, very unhappy about how the RfC and DRN proceeded and just wanted to forget it. I have looked at your suggestion and I personally would support it. Too bad you didn't turn up earlier before things got too overheated. I'd be surprised if you could get anyone else to support it, as it seems identical to what I did, except with asterisks. Betty's proposal was for a separate list, and I thought you were doing a version of that. But my endorsement is meaningless, as the DRN made clear, the WT:FILM crew has taken it over and they make their own rules and ignore any sources they don't like. (Explicitly stated: here.) Gothicfilm deleted my multiply sourced entries with no compunction, and claimed "consensus" to do so. With them in residence I should stay away in any case. (Yeah, I know how paranoid this sounds, but it's how it looks to me.) Barsoomian ( talk) 16:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply

So despite my intentions I rejoined the fray. But it seems that I'm shouting into the wind, no responses for several days. Since they have the numbers to revert anything I do on the article, they don't need to waste time debating on my "minority viewpoint". Barsoomian ( talk) 01:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Have you seen this? Barsoomian ( talk) 09:55, 28 April 2012 (UTC) reply

text in Prequel table

I put linebreaks between the Apes films in the table as having all five films and about a dozen refs in one continuous "paragraph" makes it hard to find your place when I need to modify a ref. I can see some uneven linespacing, (God knows why, the breaks should not change the appearance) but that bothers me a lot less.

Other entries, I have collapsed each table row to one line of text code, making them easier to sort and move for one thing, but most of those, with no refs, don't even make one line of text.

So, next time I edit it I will put the linebreaks back, unless you have a strong objection. Barsoomian ( talk) 13:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply

As you've probably noticed I used a format that seems to give even linespacing, while keeping each film + refs in its own para. I think the problem is due to the background colour style. Very odd things happen with that if you throw linebreaks in other places. Barsoomian ( talk) 07:33, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I trust these are all resolved. JJB 02:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You may enjoy User:Chaos5023/Why your entire way of thinking about the Abortion Article Titles RFC is wrong. —chaos5023 ( talk) 22:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply

This link is excellent. Might even catch on among wise editors, which might be enough. JJB 02:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Followup RFC to AAT started

Hey, JJB. Dunno if you've seen, but I suspected you'd want to know I've started hashing out a proposed followup RFC to AAT at User:Chaos5023/Abortion coverage. —chaos5023 ( talk) 17:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC) reply

I take your statement that you are working on referencing the document according to the guidlines at face value, but the template should stay, until the article is well referenced. Currently there are absolutely no references, and so the template should stay. Regards, -- Jeff3000 ( talk) 10:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Working on Sabbath. JJB 02:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Specifically, your suggestion that the "4th TLDR" was a good idea proposed by Agent00f, I point you to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mixed_martial_arts/MMA_notability#Moving_forward.2C_no_need_to_wait which shows that a few days before, the user had been explicitly opposed to it and caused the proposal to die on the table (taking along with it the prime mediator). I consider the 4th TLDR as trying to resurrect a proposal that had some support because they were looking for a demonstration of ego needs, not trying to good-faith negotiate a solution. Hasteur ( talk) 18:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Note this response of deficiencies in the plan was exactly what Dennis asked for in the section. If he didn't want criticism, then he should've explicitly banned them instead of "Feel free to point out the holes or failures in my logic, I can take it." I also have no idea what "taking along with it the prime mediator" is supposed to mean. Dennis quit himself due to the first ANI, which is mostly Hasteur's own doing, and it came as much of a surprise if not more to me as anyone else. Also, I think everyone would prefer it if Hasteur addresses these issues on the proper talk pages so that they might get a proper reply seen by everyone instead of targeting/canvasing individuals. Agent00f ( talk) 19:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Just a minor thing, I modified your recent posting regarding the responses to Agent. Specifically I change the formatting you used for the infobox MMA event template as I think you were intending to link. If this was not your intent, please feel free to revert my change and I apologize for overstepping the line. Hasteur ( talk) 20:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I know folks who edit-war over that. But notifying the user of the tlx add is good civility. JJB 20:29, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

FYI: per your previous request, I do not intend to respond to Agent's questions directed at me in response to proposal 1. I want it known that I did read his questions but I am refraining from answering them as they appear to be baiting attempts. Hasteur ( talk) 21:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Sometimes straightforward questions have difficult answers, just as simple observable facts like a bottle on a table can reflect badly on someone who was supposed to put it away. Likewise answers can be difficult when they reflect badly, but earnest people answer anyway because their sense of ethics take priority. Agent00f ( talk) 06:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC) reply

JJB, I very much appreciate the time you've spent on this. As I've mentioned before, you're the first editor in the many months this has been going on who entered with questions instead of assumed answers. This seemingly makes your sense of character quite rarified here. You've brought a lot of additional wiki-specific insight and most of all substance into a process that used to be 95%+ politics. In the same ANI against me there was a section about "walled-gardens" with supposedly lowered standards like MMA, implying this might be the first salvo to breach similar communities with the same poisonous politics if precedents are set. Hopefully that won't come to pass if what you've added to our understanding of the problem helps to solve this at the ARBCOM Hasteur will set up soon. It'll try to narrow the "problem" to me and the politicians I seem to attract, but I'll make sure it includes coverage of the general meaty issues. Agent00f ( talk) 06:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC) reply

JJB, this probably helps justify your proposal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LISTN#Stand-alone_lists. In this case, we should be able to find sources which talk about these events as a whole. Agent00f ( talk) 20:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hello JJB,

I am wondering if you already have contacted MEDCAB about the MMA content issue. I really do think progress is not being made in that area of WP and mediation is a sensible choice. I think very polarized sides are talking past each other and going in circles. In my opinion it's no wonder tempers have worn thin.

Also, I am unsure if you think Agent00f would be wise to request a mentor or adoption at this moment. I believe the adoption process may have been or may be taken over by the Teahouse experiment because the adoption rate had slowed.

Would you agree that for now Agent00f would be wise to remain silent in the unhappy areas until things are slower and calmer? I have just written to him asking if he'd be willing to brainstorm a different part of WP he could work on improving for the time being.

Finally, I understand Agent00f has now been warned about not making what others feel are personal attacks. Is this warning in effect forever? Will he ever go back to not being constantly at risk of immediate banning if someone feels he has said something that was an attack?

Thanks,

Factseducado ( talk) 19:15, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for adding your name! Few do. (1) Have not gone to Medcab; I will do so only if I think I can contribute fairly. (2) Definitely mentor. The Teahouse is many-to-many and would not do the job. (3) Agent00f needs to walk circumspectly. Editing math and science articles, e.g., is very good. RFC/U rules are supposed to prohibit a large group from affirming ban as a solution, but see what happened. (4) The warning should be rolled into another remedy such as mentor. If you get warned by the wrong person, you may be "constantly at risk" for 10 years; such is WP. Best prepare for your next meeting with such a person by accumulating a good record: listening to a mentor, being able to self-strike, speaking moderately, editing in multiple areas, helping elsewhere. This sideways enfolding into WP culture actually does better for your being heard in your strong-interest topic(s). JJB 20:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I have seen this myself. Sideways enfolding into WP culture can help in an area one has strong opinions in. It is also an interesting way to see how WP works when people are getting along. Factseducado ( talk) 21:15, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Please help. I'm looking for an attack but I can't find one.

Hi JJB,

Agent00f has been given a final warning for making a personal attack. I've looked and looked but I can't find one, not even sort of. Would you be willing to look to see if you can find anything vaguely attack like. I realize it's not impossible that some form of an attack may have been written and I think I need another set of eyes. It's very peculiar to me why I just can't find something even remotely resembling an attack. I assume I must be missing something.

Thanks,

Factseducado ( talk) 16:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I want out of WP now

What will I have to do? Factseducado ( talk) 20:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The short version of what I wrote on your userpage before it was deleted was: read WP:RTV and click the bureaucrats' email link there. Don't make any more edits, do everything by email. But if you change your mind, welcome back. JJB 20:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, this was rather a surprise for my letting WP go for 2 hours. Never thought of that eventuality, that would allow an article with 70 independent sources to be deleted. Yes, please userfy to me, with full history of course, if that is the right outcome. I am disappointed that you didn't mention that there were eighteen reviews of four books other than the anthology, which were incompletely rebutted; only a couple comments mentioned them, and all referred only to the chocolate book and not to the other three reviewed books. These reviews were asserted to satisfy WP:AUTHOR and were not rebutted at any time by any of the delete !voters I can find (I only found 13 such !voters). Also after close it came out that Ashton was a Chartered Chemist after all (CFRACI), which probably settles the question of PROF#C3. Based on this data I would of course appreciate your making any clarifications necessary for the record. JJB 01:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I have userfied to User:John J. Bulten/John F. Ashton with the full history. When you feel the article is ready to be moved back into mainspace it's just a case of removing the <!-- --> code from around the categories, and then doing a page move - full editing history will remain with the page. It would make sense to ask an admin to look over the article before making the move so that the article isn't speedy deleted as a recreation of a deleted article. Sometimes people will voluntarily take a newly recreated article to AfD in order to test out consensus, but that is up to you.

As regards the reviews and the CFRACI, such information is useful in building up a profile of a topic in order to establish notability. The various guidelines that we have regarding notability are not bright lines - it is not intended that if a topic meets a criterion that they are automatically notable, nor that if they do not meet any criteria that they are automatically non-notable. The criteria are useful guides. The majority of those in the discussion felt that article did not sufficiently meet the criteria, and it was worth noting that as the article was being developed during the discussion, and that arguments were also being developed, that a number of people had revisited the article and the discussion and re-affirmed their delete !votes - sometimes early delete !votes count for less if new sources or arguments come to light during the discussion, and the !voter hasn't noticed. I felt that there had been a healthy (and civil) discussion of the article, and good points had been raised on both sides, but that on balance the consensus was sufficiently enough in favour of the delete view for deletion to take place. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• This is just a polite notice of my response. I note that you have a range of talkpages, but I don't know where you want it. Please move or delete as you wish. I will not be watching your page, so if you respond here only I will not see it. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks! You've discovered my idiosyncratic method of enlisting talkers into assisting with autoarchiving. Probably needs some more touchup, as please select is intended to mean that I want the talker to choose from among the list. Has worked well from a maintenance standpoint. JJB 15:02, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I have a reasonable compromise that you might look at. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 19:10, 31 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you, I affirm that and its following comments. JJB 19:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• ( edit conflict)Now we can move forward, assuming someone does close it. I did add a little note that I consider all previous sanctions lifted, since the old ANI was archived. I didn't enjoy going to WP:AN, but as you raised legitimate concerns about the validity of my actions, I felt I had to (again, for the integrity of the system). Note that admins are given a wide latitude in giving sanctions, even into WP:IAR, but I am always willing to answer to any action I take. What is going on with the mass deletions was exactly what I worked so hard to prevent, and actually did prevent for some time, while being falsely accused of being a deletionist and while my integrity was being challenged by others. I knew these types of events would happen, which is why I was so frustrated over the interference of some other editors, who may have talked about fixing problems, but only made them worse. I've been here a long time, some things are easier to predict than others. Now with no omnibus system, merging (the "failsafe") is much less certain. A few who claimed to be trying to "save" the system have only doomed it instead. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 19:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks HueSatLum, you are very kind. JJB 19:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi JJB. I have no idea why I decided to look here, but I'm glad I did. I can't tell you how delighted I am to find a Christian libertarian in this organization. I perhaps naively thought everyone would be left-wing secular-humanist. I'm concerned by your declaration that this space is for conversations "civilly and amicably initiated by other editors", since I'm just writing to say hello. My name is Ken Biegeleisen, MD, PhD. Some years ago I became very briefly famous, in the libertarian community and the short-wave circuit, by starting a class-action lawsuit against the fed, asking the question "Who owns all that gold -- the fed, or the 'United States'?" And, if the 'United States' -- since the US Supreme Court says there are two of 'em -- the question continues with "Which one?". The suit was entirely quixotic of course, but it was sure a learning experience. RE: "Non-helical DNA", I wouldn't have dared to say it on that talk page, but this DNA structure has profound religious significance. I'm not saying that to promote the article. Because of the nature of this subject, I'm obligated to talk about it to anyone who is willing to listen. Voice of 5-23 ( talk) 15:23, 1 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you very much Ken! That is a breath of fresh air to hear and you're right in line with my bombastic userpage instructions (it takes experience to tell the bombast from the real threats around here, sorry). IMHO Ron Paul finally made it safe to be a Christian libertarian by a particular debate announcement on 2007-09-17. The key of WP is that we can hold whatever views we want about (say) tungsten or DNA, but in mainspace (where the nonhelical article is) we have agreed to work together from what can be proven by reliable sources without dispute, and in the rest of WP we play very cagey with our own views (especially our own views that we've published in reliable sources and want promoted into mainspace). The learning experience is how to get along with people who disagree harshly and irrationally when you and they are only patched together with the duct tape of a couple civility recommendations. If you get over the newbie hump you'll have a lot of fun working on other articles. JJB 17:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Dear John (yikes! I've written a "Dear John" letter!), because I've enjoyed our brief exchange of short notes, I'm writing as a courtesy to let you know that I am leaving Wikipedia and won't be back (at least not as a contributor). I think my final note to the self-appointed axe-man, "Antony-22", is self-explanatory. For your convenience I have copied it here, so you don't have to waste time going to the talk page for the article:

"Antony-22, you have hamstrung and castrated this article. There's nothing left of value, and it no longer serves any purpose. You may actually believe that you have, I think you call it "NPOV", but this is a bias to heavy to be measured. I asked you to take the article down weeks ago, and you insist on leaving it up. For what purpose? You killed it. I'm not coming back to either the article or the talk page. There simply isn't any point. If you have anything to say email me at kb@notahelix.com."

Well, that's all folks. It looked good for a while, but now that I see which way this is relentlessly going, I have to give up. I have no tools to fight prejudice, disguised as a quest for "encyclopedia style". Voice of 5-23 ( talk) 12:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Excerpt from WP:SEEALSO: "As a general rule the "See also" section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes." Editor2020 ( talk) 02:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC) reply