User talk:Lawrence King

Okay, I'm hooked.

Wow, they let anyone update Wikipedia these days. -- Walt Pohl 05:11, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

All too true.

Bible

just my compliments on keeping the Bible article NPOV --ClemMcGann 11:38, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

You're quite welcome! I have proposed a new compromise verbiage; let me know what you think of Talk:Bible#Reworded passage about history of canon. Lawrence King 23:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind e-mail

Much appreciated. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:18, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Buffy

Hey, I saw your comments on the Sunnydale article. I am starting WikiProject Buffy and I would love your help! Thanks!

Che Nuevara, the Democratic Revolutionary 04:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: a certain wikipedian

Thanks for your message. I can relate to what you said. I don't know how much energy I have, but he can't be allowed to just occupy certain pages and then spread around Wiki. Regards, Str1977 12:20, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear Lawrence, judging from your previous post you might be interested in this: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Famekeeper. Str1977 09:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Vicki Vale

You made the following edit to to Vicki Vale: [1]. A question: where exactly in Batman #45 does she appear? Please reply on my talk page. —Lowellian (talk) 12:15, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I was practically certain that she was not in #45 and that that was an error, but I wanted to check with you first. —Lowellian (talk) 18:11, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Wagon

I see you've fallen off the wikiwagon. :-) -- Walt Pohl 15:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Merging or comparing with other article

There are now two Buffy chronology articles on Wikipedia:

• Buffyverse chronology (this article)
• Buffyverse Chronology Canon

I think the following work needs to be done.

1. The second article needs to be renamed. The C should not be capitalized, but more importantly, "Buffyverse Chronology canon" isn't the right name. It should be something like "Buffyverse Chronology (canon only)."

2. The "Buffyverse chronology" article has had a lot of great updates, links added, etc. But the "canon" version has not. I think it needs to be updated in the same way. Ideally, the Buffyverse Chronology canon article would just be identical to the main article with certain lines missing.

OR.... a better idea might be this. Delete the "Buffyverse Chronology canon" article entirely. Then, within the main chronology article, somehow indicate which items are considered canon. This would actually be more valuable, because then the canon-only timeline would be seen in context of the whole timeline.

Paxomen -- and anyone else who uses this article a lot -- what are your thoughts? I'd be glad to do this work but I don't want to do it without your approval! Lawrence King 04:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Old article Buffyverse chronology

Heya, I did recently distinguished the canon and non-canon throughout the whole page. the canon stuff appears in bold, the non-canon in italics, and episode flashbacks in bold italics. Also I recently moved the 'Key' bit to the top of the article to make the whole thing clearer.

Your absolutely right about the need for an update: Buffyverse chronology (canon only), though I'd hope it remains only as a daughter article, because if it becomes more used then work writing articles for the novels/comics becomes more pointless :)

Btw if your interested in helping with the 'Buffyverse chronology', Angel novel book descriptions need to be reworded before they are created as articles, they are presently almost ready except book descriptions at:

User:Paxomen/Angel novels needing rewritten 'book descriptions'

--Paxomen 18:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks for all the work updating these articles. I just spent an hour proofreading both articles and have a few suggestions. See Talk:Buffyverse chronology (canon only).

But I don't know if I'll have time to work on the Angel book descriptions. Lawrence King 06:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Was tempted to edit your user page...

...purely to raise a smile. I wholeheartedly agree with your Philosophy statements (especially NPOV and silly links) and imagined a change to your Philosophy line:

Finally, I hate the practice of adding tons of irrelevant links.

to become

Finally, I hate the practice of adding tons of irrelevant links.

I guess that whether you like it depends on whether you have the same peculiar sense of humour as me ;-)

Euchiasmus 09:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

*grin*

What's most disturbing is that finally and irrelevant are wiki articles at all!

Hmmm... how about doing the whole thing: Finally, I hate the practice of adding tons of irrelevant links.

Everything but the "adding" is blue. Interesting. I didn't expect to see articles on "of" or "the". As they say, "Wikipedia is not a dictionary." Yet I expected an "adding" article. Or at least if I had wikified the root word — [[add]]ing — I would have expected an add article. But even that doesn't exist. Very disturbing.

Thanks for the comment! Lawrence King 03:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Ordinary words should not be linked. It is possible to link almost every word Drogo Underburrow 07:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

A message from Mr. Altadena

LK: Thanks for the kind words and assistance with my articles. I am really getting the hang of wiking-out! When I first put my article on my web site about the Mount Lowe Railway, I was e-mailed from a fellow in Vancouver (disambig) Canada who said he went to school with me at Eliot Jr. High. He loved the photos and the memories after 29 years. I thought to myself, now if I had published 20,000 books, he probably would have never seen a copy. But within a week he caught it on my web site.

So what's fun about Wiking is we can be anywhere in the world and share our articles.

User:Mmanning

List of Buffyverse-related topics

Hiya, you maybe interested in the fate of the following article List of Buffyverse-related topics, it has been designed as a comprehensive list of every topic relating to the Buffyverse, as well as links to discussion and revision histories. It is now up for deletion. If you're interested take a look at the article, and share your opinion in the deletion forumn on whether it should be saved or deleted. -- Paxomen 22:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Paxomen, I'm unsure how I would vote on this. Who will be maintaining this page? It seems that a category has a lot of advantages. Furthermore, I am uncomfortable with having graphics (especially lots of interesting graphics) on a list page; are all the graphics duplicates of graphics that already exist on their own pages?

It seems to me that list pages (in any version) are indexes, and there's a reason that a real book doesn't illustrate it's index: the index is there for a specific purpose and nothing else.

But I don't want to vote to delete a page you have spent a lot of time on, because we've done some good work together on other Buffy pages! LK

Update: After a bit more reading, I will vote not to delete; my reasons are in my vote. LK

The graphics are all duplicates of images already used on topics from the index, do you think they are a distraction from the list itself? -- Paxomen 12:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a distraction, but they seem out of place here. But you shouldn't value my opinion very much here. I tend to be a text-search person with a good memory for page titles, so I very rarely use indexes or categories of any kind during my own navigation! Lawrence King 02:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I like pretty pictures too much (gotta get out of that phase) :) should the index survive, i'll open up a discussion on the talk page about whether images should be smaller, fewer, or non-existant. Thanks for your help. -- Paxomen 18:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

"The Peninsula"

Since you left a little comment questioning the extent of this (the S.F. Peninsula), I thought you might be interested in an ongoing discussion of this subject over at Talk:San Francisco Peninsula. No clear decision on where it ends, but it's at least mildly interesting. --ILike2BeAnonymous 03:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

World's Smallest Political Quiz

Thanks for the addition to the criticism section on the World's Smallest Political Quiz. I hadn't heard that one but it makes sense. Two other topics that are left off are Gun Control and Abortion. Liberty4u 03:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thomasine

Please do not redirect from the article namespace into my (or anyone else's) userspace. If you want to direct to the article in my userspace, please transclude it (Don't move it - copy the contents) into the article namespace. Phil Sandifer 15:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

sola fide

OK, I've commented on Talk:John 3:16.

Yes, I am a protestant, and I do believe in sola fide. Nonetheless, I do believe strongly along with James that our works show if our faith is really genuine. I don't get it how you can believe that Christ's death is not sufficient for salvation. If I am reliant on any part of my own righteousness for salvation, no matter how great my works then I am surely doomed, since my own righteousness is so stained? Brusselsshrek 12:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, as a catholic Christian myself, I do believe that Christ's death is sufficient for salvation. Would you agree with the following statement: We are not saved by our works, nor by our faith, but by the grace that Christ won for us on the cross. Not faith or works, but grace: this is the Catholic view, and I think that most Protestants would agree with it. After all, faith and works are both ours, so they can't be the source of our salvation: salvation is not something we can earn, either through our actions or our beliefs.

But then, the next question is: does this grace automatically save all humans, or is there something that has to happen within each individual in order for this grace to be applied to him or her? This is where Protestants and Catholics usually answer differently. Protestants (perhaps, like Luther, emphasizing Paul's letters and the Gospel of John) often seem to say that it is faith alone that lets Christ's grace apply to us. Catholics (perhaps emphasizing the first three Gospels and the letter of James) usually say that this grace needs to be accepted by us, and we accept it by our faith and our works. But "works" doesn't mean giant projects like feeding all the homeless people, or making pilgrimages to far-away lands. Rather, it's an inner choice: do you choose good, even though you will often fail to live up to this choice? If you deliberately choose the evil path and stick to it, then you would not be saved despite your belief. This is one of the many reasons we can't judge others: Suppose Person A is choosing good, but because of human weakness keeps falling back into sin; and suppose Person B has truly chosen evil. Their actions might look very similar from the outside! But A has saving works while B does not, even if B believes the doctrines of faith.

Yet I'm not sure that the Protestant and Catholic views are all that different! I have asked Protestant friends of mine, "Suppose you believe in everything Christ did, but then you consciously say, 'Yes, I believe that you died for me, but I reject you and the grace you offer!', then are you saved?" They almost always say "of course not".* Many of them say "Belief isn't enough, you need a saving faith." Perhaps what some Protestants mean by "saving faith" is what some Catholics mean by "faith, ratified by works"?

* I say almost always. I have a couple friends who believe in predestination, and they insist that if you truly believe in Christ, you will inevitably end up doing good works -- you have no choice. Therefore my hypothetical person who believes in Christ but rejects him is simply impossible. I don't believe this theology, but it is certainly a logically consistent answer.

Anyway, that's my poor attempt at a summary that you may or may not even be reading.... Lawrence King 20:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course I have read it. Now I need to reflect on it. Brusselsshrek 08:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Abandoned Lawrence King page

When I first read the "* I have abandoned..." text on your User:Lawrence King page, I thought you were saying that you were not editing the Lawrence King page any more. Now, by looking at your extra "*" change, I understand that this paragraph is a reference to other pages and not the page on which it appears itself. My mistake I know, but you may wish to try and make it clearer to people who scan your page and land on the bottom quote. (P.S. I have not forgotten the scripture debate above - my thoughts are now pretty clear, but I need to find the time to respond) Brusselsshrek 11:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Aha, it never occurred to me that it might be read that way! I'll fix it. Thanks for the tip! Lawrence King 02:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, yes, that's muuuuch clearer. :-) Brusselsshrek 11:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ceding control

On another user talk page, apropos of a certain article: I have agreed to let you have complete control over this page. I hope that this is a huge exaggeration and that it's understood to be one. You're free to drop out; that other person is not free to expel you or anyone else. -- Hoary 07:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and I shouldn't have said it. Among other problems with my statement, it might be pointed out that if I were to drop out of Wikipedia entirely I would not be ceding this article to a specific user, but rather to six billion other editors and potential editors!

Many thanks for your help, by the way! - Lawrence King 08:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Lest I appear too amicable, let's have an argument! If you mean what I think you mean on your user page about they, please read this, and then if you wish this, this, and this. You should enjoy them, in one way or another. -- Hoary 07:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ummm. Well, I do wish we had a gender-neutral pronoun that was clearly singular. I used to insist that "man" and "he" and "his" were both masculine and gender-neutral, since my mom (a pre-Baby Boomer feminist) always found inclusive language silly. But in fact, today "man" does not make people think of humankind, and "he" certainly doesn't make people think of "he or she" -- so we need gender neutrality.

In my school papers I end up using singular they, because I find that I can use "he or she" once but using it over and over is annoying, as one of your articles pointed out.

Your Sean Lennon article is interesting; it seems to suggest that "they" functions as an indefinite pronoun to some degree. This does seem to reflect usage to some degree.

So I guess my fundamental gripe is that I don't think that "correct language" should necessarily follow usage....

As an irrelevant side point, Latin has masculine/feminine/neuter distinctions almost everywhere, except, oddly, in the singular third-person possessive: his/her/its = eius, while the plural their = eorum or earum depending on gender.

Maybe my main gripe is in translation. Psalm 1:1 (RSV) begins with "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked." In the NRSV it reads "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked." Would you consider this sentence to be singular? If not, would this still qualify as a valid translation, given that the original Hebrew is in the singular? - Lawrence King 08:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm in a bit of a rush now, so I'll be brief. I see no reason to think that "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked" is singular. I know nothing about Hebrew, but let's imagine that the original sentence were not in Hebrew and instead were in English, reading "Happy is the person who does not follow the advice of the wicked". This clearly isn't about a single person; rather, it's about a postulated generic person, as probably (and we hope) exemplified by many actual people. This use of the grammatically singular generic is common in many languages. Offhand I don't know if it's lacking in any language that (unlike, say, Japanese) compels a singular/plural distinction; but if it were lacking, I'd happily see it translated into the plural (more closely equivalent to "Happy are people who..."). All in all the sentence you discuss seems a valid translation. Hoary 10:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Paul Verhoeven and Jesus

I quote from the Paul Verhoeven article:

Since he is not a professional Biblical exegete, his membership in the Jesus Seminar has occasionally been cited by opponents of the Seminar as a sign that this group is less scholarly than it claims.

You added this to the article. Can you maybe quote one of these allegations? Or could you provide a source where Seminar opponents call the Jesus Seminar unscholarly? I believe that would make the quote above more encyclopedic. Thanks, Ilse@ 01:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Done! See Paul Verhoeven#Other activities.

Let me know if this looks POV to you. My intention was to state the criticisms, not to imply that I agree or disagree with them. - Lawrence King 01:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

There's more information at Jesus Seminar#Criticism of the Jesus Seminar, but I think that the Verhoeven article should stay focused on Verhoeven. - Lawrence King 01:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

When you mentioned there was critique, you just made me curious what people were saying, because you didn't tell what it was. I think the passage gives just enough info about the Seminar now, and is still from a neutral POV. - Ilse@ 02:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy

I found myself in such agreement with you, I copied your Philosophy section onto my own user page. Drogo Underburrow 05:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't see it!

Was "Underburrow" an actual Hobbit last name? I don't recognize it, and it's not in Foster's encyclopedia.... Lawrence King 07:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops....I think I must have forgot to hit "save"! No, its not a Hobbit name...it just sounds like one....I made it up. Drogo Underburrow 07:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use and Command D

Chris,

You edited my user page [2], removing a copyrighted image of the cover of the comic book Kamandi # 5.

Can you clarify why you believe this is necessary? I certainly want to be a loyal Wikipedian and obey its rules, and I also want to obey the applicable laws of the United States. But, as I'm sure you can understand, an edit to my user page -- in particular, the removal of an artpiece that is clearly fundamental to the entire design of my user page -- is something that I hesitate to accept unless I am persuaded it's necessary.

First of all, is the objection to the image in general, or to its use on my page? In other words, according to the image's own Wikipedia page ([3]) it's a fair use image. You haven't deleted this image, nor objected to its use in the relevant article (Kamandi). Would you agree that these are permissible under Wikipedia policy?

Assuming that you don't object to these, then I presume your objection is to the way I used the image on my page, not to the image per se. What exactly is the objection, then? I wasn't using the image in a misleading way or for profit. I was using it to make my page into a faux-version of a comic book character page. Regardless of whether I succeeded in being funny, the deliberate comparision is clear (compare the actual Kamandi page to the old version of my page [4]). In my opinion, any reasonable reader would recognize that this is an attempt at humor, and would not believe that Larry King is actually a comic book character. I'm not claiming this qualifies as strict "satire" per se, but surely it falls under fair use? - Lawrence King 22:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC) [Copied from User:ChrisGriswold.]

I'm glad you are asking. The fair-use rationale is that the image is being discussed or used to describe something being discussed; fair-use images are for Wikipedia articles only and do not belong in any other namespace. I got the humor, but it doesn't matter what else is on your page: The image's being there violates its copyright. I apologize for any distress this may have caused you. You didn't do anything wrong. You just didn't know that bit of the complex information surrounding fair use, and it looks like you are doing a good job contributing as well. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying this is Wikipedia policy, or the law? I believe that the law allows fair use for satire purposes.

You mention specificially that fair-use images are for use in Wikipedia articles only. Suppose I downloaded my own fair-use image that wasn't being used for any Wikipedia article. I certainly could legally use that on my own website unrelated to Wikipedia. Why is my user page more restricted than this? - Lawrence King 17:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I found under WP:FU, Policy # 9, that Wikipedia fair use images are not permitted on user pages. I accept this as a Wikipedia rule, and won't violate it.

As a matter of law, I do believe that fair use is permitted for satirical purposes. The policies on the WP:FU page assume that the sole purpose of Wikipedia is as an encyclopedia (which, IMO, is not true of user pages) and the policies are designed accordingly. In other words, I think the policies are more restrictive than they need to be legally. But, regardless of whether I am correct in this matter, I will follow the current policy! - Lawrence King 17:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The satire has to be about the copyrighted item you are using, and in this case it was not. It was about you, and the image is only tangentially related, so it does not satisfy fair use there either. Additionally, the difference between using a copyrighted picture on your web site and your user page is that Wikipedia owns your user page. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

re: Bots and WikiProjects

Thanks for the heads up. Katr67 05:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought of this when I realized that Levada was in California, then Rome, then Oregon, then California, and then Rome again. So he should be in your WikiProject Oregon also, by that logic.... - Lawrence King 05:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

MetsBot

Thanks for raising your concerns about tagging project pages. Unfortunately, I think you should bring your proposals up on WP:VPR, as MetsBot's request page will not be read by basically anyone except me. Project tagging is something that's done by many bots, I was simply doing it for the California WikiProject. I intentionally left out people who were just born/lived in California in the run, but some may have slipped in due to their placement in other California subcategories. Thanks. Also, I don't think it would be rude to remove a tag of small relevance. —Mets501 (talk) 10:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Contemporary Catholic Music, small correction

Nice job handling POV in this article, which is a hornet's nest for those on the inside of it. One small thing: in two places on the page, you make reference to "Mel A. Cymbala" who is one of the editors of "Gather" and a Director at GIA - His actual name is "Michael" Cymbala. I don't know where the name "Mel" comes from, but it's not a name by which he's known to any colleagues. (from Rory Cooney)

Thanks for the kind words! Although I can't take full credit; many folks worked on the Contemporary Catholic liturgical music article, including several who are serious about NPOV.

I think I know what happened: I brought in a notecard and pencil, and took notes from the Gather hymnal after Mass. I must have abbreviated "Michael" as "M'el", and then been unable to read my writing later. I've fixed it. - Lawrence King 03:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

William Elvin

Hi Lawrence. I see you have an interest in "The Road Goes Ever On". Me too. I don't have the LP but I taped it from a radio broadcast by John Cargher some years ago, and I play it regularly with great pleasure. I've attempted to find out some biographical details of Willian Elvin, without a great deal of success. He has (?had) a very fine voice, and it's a pity he's not better known. Do you know anything about him? -- JackofOz 04:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't. I just looked on Donald Swann's site and didn't find anything. There's an image of the first LP here but not the back. If you can find an image of the back, it might have some details.

If you happen to be looking for a higher-quality recording, you might search Ebay and used book sites such as bookfinder.com for the third edition of the book, which comes with a CD. I have the CD here, but my book is buried away somewhere so I don't know if it says anything about Elvin... although I doubt it.

An Amazon search shows him singing on these 25 classical recordings. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 22:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks. -- JackofOz 12:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

International College Timothy Radcliffe

Gee - thanks for listening. What are talk pages for if you don't take any notice of replies? - --Paularblaster (talk) 14:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I did listen, and wrote a detailed response. Then someone deleted the page. I'm not saying I don't deserve blame -- after all, I was the one who put the speedy delete request on the page. But I didn't realize it would be that speedy, or that the person who deleted it would not take note of the ongoing discussion on the talk page. According to the deletion log which is in the blue box here, it was deleted by User:Mr.Z-man.

Unfortunately, it seems that the page history is not easily recoverable now that the page is deleted. The only way I can figure to recover it is to create a page entitled International College Timothy Radcliffe -- this page will immediately acquire the past history of the first page with that name. Then look through the page history, save the text of the page and its talk page, and then delete it again. I don't know if that violates some sort of Wikipedia rule.

In any event, it sounded as if you and I were on almost the same page: this information should be moved to the Louvain page. I felt it should also be drastically reduced, as I wrote in my last (now deleted) comment. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

sorry I overreacted (shamefaced). As you say, it's not even as though it's crucial information ... - --Paularblaster (talk) 17:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

No prob! I actually feel weird about the whole thing, because I am very much not a deletionist. I feel that Wikipedia made a very bad choice by going with deletionism and an absurdly strict version of WP:NOR around a year or so ago. For example, if you want the best essay ever written about the differences between the Harry Potter books and Harry Potter movies, it can be found in a deleted Wikipedia article. Grrr. Still, I need to focus on my schoolwork, so maybe being disillusioned with Wikipedia is good for me.... — Lawrence King ^(talk) 22:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Young Conservatives of Texas

Another editor has added the {{prod}} template to the article Young Conservatives of Texas, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 19:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Barsoom articles

Hi there, noticed you mentioned being a ERB enthusiast and a POV concerned editor. I recently did a lot of work on the Barsoom main article and the first few books - diminishing with distance from the first. I would really appreciate anything you can do to improve them from both these angles as no-one in the weeks since I did the work has added or subtracted much more than hypens and SP and such. When one editor does a lot of work on an article I find it tends to skew it either towards them or their references and so I thought you might be able to help here Mesmacat (talk) 10:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a paper due for class in a couple weeks -- after that I can do so. I do love these books, and would like the ERB pages to be good! My roots are in the San Fernando Valley; I went by the old ERB house on Ventura Blvd. -- it really is a tiny little adobe building hidden between a bunch of trendy Encino shops. It looks abandoned. Perhaps his grandchildren pay as much attention to his legacy as they might.... — Lawrence King ^(talk) 20:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I just looked over the article, and here's my fundamental problem with it. I am a strong supporter of WP:NPOV, always have been, and always will be. However, I am not a supporter of the WP:NOR policy as applied to articles about fictional universes.

To be clear: I support the "no original research" rule when it comes to fact articles; we don't want a Wikipedian to visit Dallas, get out his measuring tape, measure the grassy knoll, and post some original theories to the article about the Kennedy assassination.

But the powers-that-be at Wikipedia -- after waging an unsuccessful battle in 2003-04 to basically drop or minimize all coverage of fiction from Wikipedia -- decided (consciously or unconsciously) to cripple W's coverage of fiction by imposing the WP:NOR rule on fiction. To me, it simply seems absurd. I am not opposing references; we absolutely need references. What I object to is the claim that these references must be secondary. Consider the following sentence:

Captain John Carter is an Earthman, who originated in Virginia. He fought in the American Civil war on the Confederate side.

This passage might have either of the following refernces attached:

1. Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (New York: Ballantine, 1973), pp. 1-2.

2. Robert Sampson, Yesterday's Faces: A Study of Series Characters in the Early Pulp Magazines (Popular Press, 1984), p. 177.

According to WP:NOR, the second is better. But how can this possibly be? # 1 refers to an easily available book, which those interested in the article are likely to be able to get; anyone can check the reference. # 2 refers to a hard-to-find academic book that I myself have never heard of even though I've read ERB all my life.

Another argument for WP:NOR is that immature and silly Wikipedia editors will misinterpret primary sources. But even if we stipulate that there are Wikipedia editors who are incapable of a correct and unbiased interpretation of Burrough's statement that John Carter is from Virginia, what makes us think that these editors will be capable of interpreting the same statement when they find it in Sampson's book?

When I say "the arguments for WP:NOR", I mean the arguments for NOR in non-fiction articles. I haven't heard these arguments made for fiction articles. In fact, I don't recall ever hearing any arguments made for WP:NOR with regard to fiction.

The reason I quit Wikipedia a couple years back was that some zealous editors were on a rampage deleting everything in the fiction articles that they considered to be original research. Before that, Wikipedia had excellent articles about Star Trek episodes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters, Stephen King novels, comic book characters, etc. -- because thousands of fans pooled their knowledge on these subjects to create great articles. When WP:NOR was imposed, these articles suddenly became limited to facts that have been published in secondary sources. But the fact is, for most recent fiction, there simply are not many secondary sources at all. Sure, there are a couple books published about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but these books are a tiny fraction of what is available from the actual show itself.

At that point, some of the editors quit (like me), or moved to individual Wikis (e.g., Buffy on Wikia), or spent hours converting perfectly good primary-source references into convoluted and not-very-applicable secondary-source references, or just went on doing what they were doing and hoped that no one would delete their work.

Anyway, as you can see, I feel strongly on this. At the same time, I honestly have never heard any arguments -- strong or weak -- in favor of applying WP:NOR to fiction articles.

So I am eager to hear your point of view on this! Looking at many of your recent edits, I suspect that you might support the NOR policy. Certainly your edits are in conformity to it. And the material you have added to the Barsoom page and the Magician's Nephew page is excellent. I don't deny that excellent material using secondary sources can be created; I just object to (and fail to comprehend) the rule that says that only secondary sources are permitted.)

I am keeping this on my talk page (rather than yours) because of its controversial nature.... — Lawrence King ^(talk) 04:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to reply here in some length to the issues you raise, many of which I agree with and which raise some further questions I have been pondering since I started doing some work here on Wikipedia such as the relationship between references in academic world and Wikipedia, which seem to me to be doing completely different things. May take a few days as I am snowed under with work at the moment. Mesmacat (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts on NOR and sourcing issues, etc

HI Lawrence.

Thank you for your kind words about my contributions, and taking an interest in the ERB articles. I am new to Wikipedia. While I am forming ideas about, and attitudes to, various policies as I continue to contribute, it seemed only sensible to stuck to the rules in a medium where I am learning the ropes. This does not mean I intend to bend the rules later on, but that I get to understand them through putting them into practice.

Having said that I do have a number of issues with the use of sourcing in this medium which suggests to me a fascination in with process rather than outcome, which may at times hamper the core aims of the project itself. I do not see how intelligent respectful discussion on this can be in any way harmful to the project. I do support the idea of using sourcing to help make the information legitimate, but I suspect some of the rules cause unintended problems when put into practice and you have pointed out one of them extremely well in your comparison between Burroughs and Sharp as a source for information on John Carter

NOR and Barsoom

I had much the same issue when working on the Fauna section of the Barsoom article. I could relatively easily develop this section into a decent overview of Barsoomian wildlife by simply taking the information directly from the books. I left it the way it is, because I ran out of secondary sources that talk about the animals in the books. I have all the information I need in the Barsoom novels, but I cannot legitimately use it in the article if I follow the policy (at least as I understand it).

If Burroughs has written a few paragraphs describing a Barsoomian animal, surely this is the ultimately authority on what it looks like, how it behaves and its position in Barsoomian ecology. This is not actually original research in reality, only by definition due to using the primary source.

Having said that, in some cases you might need to piece together several descriptions across the books to provide a good summary of the creature; Burroughs may not have specifically written a summary of the creature in one passage. May be you could get around that by sourcing each fragment individually, though this is something that may end up with a stilted paragraph, written to allow the use of the sources, with references like pins in a pin cushion. Perhaps in this case a bit of what appears to be original research is really acknowledgement of the impracticalities of providing the information in encyclopaedia format without bending the rules a little.

NOR and fictional worlds

I agree that this is a particular problem with writing about fictional worlds. It might also be true in interviews containing biographic information only the subject knows about, or is revealing for the first time. I am sure there are other examples.

In the case of fictional worlds, yes, some are relatively new and have not been written about. In the case of something like a long running TV series, it is unlikely anyone other than fans is ever going to write the vast amount of commentary necessary to cover all aspects of the series and its episodes. Fans are probably the only true experts on some fictional worlds

To say it is not relevant because it is not written about in a particular way in a particular published source, is perhaps missing the point. Readers may not be fans, but they may wish to know some detail about a fictional subject. The books which might be published to provide this information will probably not be, because there is an insufficient market for something that detailed. Wikipedia without limitations on number of articles or scope can thus provide a valuable contribution to human knowledge of great use to us all.

Other secondary source issues

In my view, a more general problem with a rigid adherence to constructing articles from secondary sources, is that there might well be many books or articles written about something, but relatively few presenting information in a form useful to construct a lucid and informative Wikipedia article.

Many books are written to argue rather than to inform, especially those typically written by academics, who are trying to present an original thesis to further a field of knowledge and their careers and reputations. An academic thesis may give a brief overview on a subject to provide a context, as Richard Sharp does in the example above, Sharp, however is not concerned about his readers getting a concise understanding of the Barsoom books, but understanding something specific about them, and the period in which they were produced, useful for him to elucidate his ideas about culture.

Quality sources

University press published sources are meant to be best foundation for Wikipedia sourcing from my understanding. In aspects of the sciences dealing with concrete laws and other areas, this may well be the case in the humanities may be less so. A university press primarily publishes the kinds of sometimes arcane academic works I mentioned above. If someone asked me where to find out about a field of knowledge I would advise them against consulting anything published by a university press that is not written specifically to give an overview of a field. Why? These books are far too specific in focus and often assume prior knowledge of the general aspects of a field.

Difficulties in applying NOR and sourcing rules

What this possibly translates to in terms of furthering Wikipedia content, is inertia in contributing to articles because the work is far more laborious and challenging than it needs to be. Writing a few paragraphs about a subject from my research might take as little as 10 or 20 minutes. Referencing it according to NOR is far far more time consuming. In the end the only way the articles actually get written is if people ignore the policy and just do anyway. I have chosen not to take this approach, partly out of respect for Wikipedia’s rules and partly because combing these sources enriches my knowledge and self development is an important component of why I am working on Wikipedia.

Much as I have chosen, not to take the publish and be damned approach, I can tell you it frustrates the hell out of me a lot of the time. I have to anchor each fact or commentary, each paragraph, each parcel of knowledge with a passage from a secondary source that says what I want to say, or what needs to be said to give the reader an understanding of an aspect of the article’s subject. In the final analysis, it is just pot luck as to whether a subject has been written about in that precise way, or the text is available to me.

I have spent literally hours while working on articles combing books looking for a passage or paragraph I can use to provide the source for a relatively straight forward piece or section of information. It feels at times like trying to construct a house out of lego blocks, only I have one box of perfectly decent homemade blocks that will make a strong sound structure but I cannot use, and one box of blocks I am allowed to use, which may or help me construct a sound structure or leave it a house full of holes and with some peculiar architecture.

Sometimes I find myself writing a stilted, less helpful passage to try and confirm to a source, The danger here is that you end up with an encyclopaedia article which is less helpful to the reader than it would have been if I just could have written what I know from my research, or simply capture the basic jist or implication of a source.

Actually I suspect some writers for Wikipedia do this anyway. Were you to apply forensic scholarship to some perfectly decent well written articles in the humanities, I wonder if you would find the kind of precise correlation between source and commentary Wikipedia demands? Forensic analysis of sourcing in academic works often enough turns up issues between what the writer has written and the source they use, it perhaps Wikipedia is no less saintly.

Differences between uses of sources in Wikipedia and academic world

Wikipedia appears to my mind, seems to be using secondary sources in a very different way to academia. You source in academic scholarship to show where your ideas have come from, so another scholar can understand how you reached a conclusion, or investigate the original ideas in more depth. It is also used to credit the originator of an idea, out of respect for their work and to avoid plagiarism. A paper by a distinguished professor or expert in the field might have very few sources.

Wikipedia uses the sources to verify the information in its articles, to say it is reliable and trustworthy. There is a sense of this in academic sourcing, but it is far less of a focus. Wikipedia has to demand sourcing to some degree because otherwise how can anyone have any confidence in the information they find in a Wikipedia article?

What perhaps is missing is a balance between following the rules to make sure Wikipedia has some respect as a pool of knowledge, and acknowledging the impracticalities of following the rules to the letter if the articles are going to get written, or in the case of the fiction articles you mentioned, not get edited into oblivion or became a time sink for source conversion – energy that could have been invested in expanding Wikipedia’s quality, detail and scope. But as you point out, can editors be trusted to do this? It is a rock and a hard place, how can you have an encyclopedia anyone can edit and then assume everyone will edit in good faith. I guess you can't as vandalism and political or COI editing shows. I don't know the answer to this, and perhaps this has all been debate in the past in Wikipedia, but it strikes me that there are better solutions to be found to these problems and there are plenty of smart dedicate people on Wikipedia who can help find them.

Perhaps sourcing in Wikipedia is also used as a kind of pinning mechanism for an editor’s contribution. If I put in a paragraph with a respected published source such as the New York times, or university press sourced basis into an article, it is hard for another editor just to remove it if they do not like it, unless they can provide an alternative references to the same calibre. They might do it anyway, but if it came to a dispute the sourcing gives an editor a strong position. I don’t know if this is the case, but perhaps it is.

Another area I could comment on is the way sources can be used to circumvented POV restrictions, but this has already turned into a long comment, so I will leave that alone.

Hope this is not too long winded a reply, I have been chastised by other Wikipedians in the past for this. I have tried to add a few sections to break up what would otherwise be a big block of text. Please forgive me if I have cluttered your talk page too much! Mesmacat (talk) 04:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! This is not "too long winded" -- it's very well laid out. I won't be able to reply for another week (my darn paper is due in six days) but after that I will certainly offer some of my meager thoughts in response.... — Lawrence King ^(talk) 18:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No worries and no hurry. Looking over this, I see I wrote it when somewhat tired and left many grammatical and other errors in the prose, including confusing Sampson with Sharp, another reference for the Barsoom articles. Apologies, but I will leave it be, as I guess you will get the basic direction of where the ideas are going. Best of luck with the paper!Mesmacat (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nota Praevia

[This section deleted, since it was duplicated on Talk:Nota Praevia, which is a better place for it anyway.]] - 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Buffy

I really wanted to tell you that I was mostly admonishing the other editor about the 3RR since he was at that threshold. I've followed this article for a while now since that editor and another (who is now blocked for sock puppetry) were constantly edit warring over content. Sometimes this current editor was right, sometimes he wasn't, but there has been an overwhelming bit of ownership regarding the article. I see nothing wrong with the removal and hope my comments help get that across. I didn't necessarily want you to think I was chastizing anyone, but more especially, not you. Thanks. LaVidaLoca (talk) 22:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem! And I certainly was not unhappy with your comments. The issue of "ownership" is tricky, especially for part-time editors like me. I used to spend a lot of time editing Wikipedia, but in the past few years I have cut back -- I just don't have the time. So when I run into a page like the one on SMG, I have to remind myself that there is no way to significantly alter the page without running into resistance from the current owner(s), which means it will be a long laborious process -- and I just don't have the time for that. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 00:20, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. And thanks for commenting at the sock case. That is silly and unwarranted but I appreciate your commenting. I'm guessing sock cases like that turn up a lot with new editors, but this one is just completely off-base. If this weren't a holiday weekend, it would have been closed as lacking proof already. Thanks again, and for the record, the word I would like to have banned on Wikipedia is "also". Happy Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm off to enjoy just that. LaVidaLoca (talk) 14:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Gospel of Thomas in India

Hello Lawrence King. I've been reading the discussion on the Syrian Malabar Nasrani article and notice that you say that the Gospel of Thomas was never in India ('No reputable scholar claims that there is any evidence that the Gospel of Thomas ever existed in India'). I've been researching this a bit, and I agree with your assessment. I was wondering if you had any scholarly quotes that actually say that the Gospel of Thomas was never in India? Thanks for your help. Woofboy (talk) 16:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, strictly speaking there are no scholarly quotes saying that the Gospel of Thomas never existed in India prior to the 20th century, for the same reason that there are no scholarly quotes saying that the Gospel of Thomas never existed in New Zealand or Antarctica before the 20th century. The idea that it did exist in India seems to have been invented by a certain Wikipedia editor a few years ago, and so far no scholars have bothered to publish papers addressing this claim.

However, I can give you scholarly citations that have the same impact: passages that discuss exactly where the Gospel of Thomas was known in the ancient world:

• Bentley Layton, ed., The Gnostic Scriptures (New York: Doubleday, 1987; paperback 1995), pp. 360-364, 378-379.
• Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, Volume 1: Gospels and Related Writings translated by R. McL. Wilson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991; paperback 2003), pp. 111-113.
• Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 1994), pp. 301-303.

Each of these books contains a variety of ancient documents, and each document begins with an introduction by modern scholars explaining the history of that document. The pages I cited above are the pages on which these books discuss the origin and distribution of the Gospel of Thomas.

These three sources represent a variety of views. The Schneemelcher book is the standard reference work in Germany and the English-speaking world, and is highly respected in the secular academy. The Miller book is sponsored by the Jesus Seminar, who have views that are considered eccentric by mainstream academia (and are considered heretical by many Christians). Layton is a prominent scholar of Gnostic literature.

And yet all of them agree on the basic facts: The Gospel of Thomas has been found only in three small fragments and one full text. The fragments are in Greek, copied in the late 2nd or very early 3rd century, and discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The full version is in Coptic (Sahidic), copied in the late 4th century, and discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. They all agree that the original version was in Greek, but that there must have been some textual variations because the Coptic version does not completely match the Greek fragments in meaning. They all agree that the text was originally written sometime in the second century in East Syria. However, they disagree about the history of the text before that point: the Jesus Seminar believes that there was an earlier edition (Gospel of Thomas, First Edition) created in Palestine in the late first century, which has been lost; the others don't see any evidence for that theory. But all of them agree that this text was known at most in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. None of them mention India.

Finally, it's worth noting another point. Traditional Christians (including Catholic, Orthodox, the "Thomas Christians" in India, and the majority of Protestants as well) believe that the four canonical Gospels were either written by apostles or were written in the second half of the first century by Christians who were recording traditions they had learned from the apostles, but the Gospel of Thomas is not a product of apostolic tradition (and in particular, it was not written by the apostle Thomas). Modern secular scholars -- both mainstream scholars and the Jesus Seminar scholars -- believe that the four canonical gospels were written in the late first century and contain significant amounts of non-historical or fictional parts mixed with fact; these scholars also believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written in the second century or perhaps the late first century, and is also significantly non-historical. In other words, all of these scholars agree that the apostle Thomas himself did not write the Gospel of Thomas. That is a point accepted almost unanimously on all sides. Therefore, if the story about Thomas going to India and founding a church there is true, it has nothing to do with the Gospel of Thomas! The Wikipedia editor that I argued with back in 2006 had apparently connected the fact that both of these groups pointed to the apostle Thomas as their authority and connected the two. But this is invalid logic: it's like assuming that Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra must have been written in Persia because it's named after the Persian prophet Zarathustra. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 21:19, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the comprehensive reply. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea if this was moved to the talk page of the Marabar article -- it could be useful for others.. I'll copy it over. Thanks, again. Woofboy (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Best location for VDM / AlphaScript discussion

Hi, Lawrence I have a question -- concerning Alphascript publishing. A subject I'm sure you're tired of hearing about, lol. However, I need to know where the discussion page of the controversy (not the discussion of the article itself) concerning the legality of their lifting material from wikipedia. Thanks! - VirginiaBoy (talk) 00:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. Are you asking about the legality of this? I'm not a lawyer and I don't know whether it's legal. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 04:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that Lawrence. I knew when I posted the question, the wording wasn't exactly the best in the world. No, I'm not looking for legal advice concerning this matter. I was researching the controversy of VDM/Alphascript lifting material from Wikipedia and then publishing it in printed form, when I came upon the Wikepedia discussion page on VDM Publishing. Some of the posters were discussing the controversy and the legality of it, as well as giving opinions on it. You pointed out (rightly) that the discussion page was for the quality and the content of the article, not for any debate/discussion about the controversy. I guess what I'm asking is where is the proper discussion page for talking about the controversy and giving opinions on it. Hope that makes it clearer what I was trying to say. Thanks - VirginiaBoy (talk) 15:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that is a good question. I am not sure what the answer is. As I mentioned, Talk:VDM Publishing is for discussion of the article itself. Discussions about Wikipedia itself -- including its legal policies and copyright rules -- belong on the Wikipedia:Village pump pages. (In general, pages that begin with WP: or Wikipedia: are meta-discussions about Wikipedia policies.)

In the Village Pump you can start a new thread to discuss any policies you like. I know that User:Kasaalan has started some threads about this topic. Perhaps before starting new threads you could look at some of the old ones that have been archived:

1. Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 20#The Alphascript-Amazon-Wikipedia book hoax

2. Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 25#Free Wikipedia articles are on sale as printed books for 50 dollars each in Amazon.com with no prior warning

3. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 68#Question concerning people profiting from the usage of Wikipedia articles

4. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 72#alphascript publishing is selling wikipedia content masquerading as a book on amazon

I haven't read these discussions in full, but it looks as if many participants have concluded that there is nothing that can be done about Alphascript. You shouldn't try to add material to these discussions, since they have been archived. I suggest that you read them, and then if you still think it needs to be discussed, you can start a new thread at Wikipedia:Village pump. Hope this helps! — Lawrence King ^(talk) 17:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

William A. Rusher

My apologies for any problems with the William Rusher article. People should added citations to articles they started and I notice the Rusher article had no citations. I wanted to help out by adding some citation to the article. Thank you-RFD (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all! You were right to remove the "Unreferenced" tag, because there were some citations, although very few. Since then I have added a lot more. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 15:43, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Edgar Rice Burroughs bibliography

I just finished working on the table for the ERB bibliography. I wanted to put all of ERB's works into a sortable table by order written, serialized, and published. I think I've accomplished that. I see you have been active with ERB articles, so I hope you may help with weeding out any inaccuracies as far as the chronology, as well as any missing pieces. Thanks. Jmj713 (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I replied on your talk page. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 21:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Notification about the VDM article user who got banned

I took a break from Wikipedia editing but one user gave me a badge for the article editing, so I checked the page, Another user [5] who got for using multiple accounts and disruptive behavior, just as I claim months before, yet threatened me to take administrative action claiming I act disruptive at [6]. Kasaalan (talk) 07:46, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Nesta Helen Webster

Good work!!!--- Thanks for inserting additional links to references/source material for my original edit on Winston Churchill's admiration of Webster's writings on conspiracies and conspirators. I found reference to this connection between Webster and Churchill in Anthony Julius' comprehensive, scholarly book, "Trials of The Diaspora, a History of Anit-Semitism in England," and felt it needed to be included in Webster's biographical entry. It illustrates the esteem felt for Webster's "theories" in high circles. She had detractors, of course, but many influential people bought into her obsessive, fanaticism. Betempte (talk) 19:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

FutureChurch

I restored it to mainspace--see my talk page. DGG ( talk ) 23:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi! Apologies for not replying sooner, but I'm happy that you managed to solve your problem. If you do have any other issues in the future, please feel free to ask. The Helpful One 23:45, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Cousin coincidence of timing...

Thanks for your note. Yeah, I did some editing yesterday and I had changed the opening paragraph using some old language that used to be in there, but after making the change I decided I liked the original better for the purpose of keeping it simple. Most people who go to that page are looking for a simple explanation of the kinship term.

The page has often become a confusing mess. I did a major edit back in March, and it looked great... after some copy editing from other editors. :) Since then it seems to have gotten kind of disjointed again, so I did some more editing, including removing non-cousin terms from the cousin chart. Check the talk page for my notes and let me know what you think.

Btw, I'm not a very frequent contributor and you were the first person who has ever written on my talk page. Congrats.

Shoeless Ho (talk) 14:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Followup RFC to WP:RFC/AAT now in community feedback phase

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Arianism

Lawrence: I have answered the query you left on the Arianism Talk Page.RobLandau (talk) 18:56, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Control-Alt-Delete: Thanks

Hi.

Thanks for marking contributions without source. Since they were fresh, I removed them outright, especially since what was in their place had source.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 16:23, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. If there is any truth to the Hallerman story, hopefully someone will supply a source. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 19:06, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

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Genesis Live Note

Thanks for reminding me of that phenomena with PAL->NTSC framerate conversion. I play the DVD on my PC setup which can playback at both PAL and NTSC framerates. The DVD appears to be encoded for the PAL format reading around. To me this would imply (combined with the knowledge of the DVD audio's pitch error) that the audio was sped up intentionally to match the PAL framerate at some point without pitch correction, but I don't know whether this speedup error is present in the Laserdisc master or is specific to the DVD release. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Travis McGeehan (talk • contribs) 21:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

A brief history of the infobox-inclusion discussions on U.S. presidential general election articles

I noticed you had an interest in the history/status of discussions about which candidates get included in the infobox on U.S. presidential general election articles, so I thought I'd bring you up to date on how those discussions started, what has been agreed to (and not agreed to) and generally what has happened so far...

The reason why Castle and other write-ins are not currently in the infobox (or should not be) is because of the consensus reached in 2012, for presidential general elections, that says that (before the election occurs) only candidates who are on the ballot in enough states to be able to achieve 270 electoral votes (not write-ins) are included in the infobox of presidential general election articles. Here is a link to the discussion that established that criterion: [7] (Note that after the election there is a completely different set of criteria for infobox inclusion because actual vote totals are available then) The recent attempts to add write-in candidates started with a bold edit to add Castle to the infobox during a discussion on Aug 23 at 735891756, which was challenged (reverted) at 736056459. Because that Aug 23 discussion was only a few hours old when the attempt to add Castle was made, and because the bold edit was challenged (reverted) and because other editors at the discussion also opposed the addition of Castle, there was no consensus at that time to add write-ins (although an editor claimed there was consensus a few hours into the discussion). The discussion continued on other threads (because that Aug 23 thread was immediately archived) and the addition of Castle and other write-ins has been proposed/challenged/discussed (and edit-warred about) ever since at discussions on the 2016 presidential general election article, including the thread at [8] and several other threads without reaching a consensus to add them.

Eventually, a RfC was started which is still under discussion at Talk:United_States_presidential_election,_2016#A_call_for_consensus_on_McMullin_and_Castle with no consensus to change the 2012 criterion or to include write-ins in the infobox, therefore, any edits that try to put write-ins in the infobox should be immediately reverted because it's a challenged edit (until a compromise is worked out at the RfC). (See WP:BRD for an explanation about challenging/reverting edits) Unfortunately, the RfC was ambiguously worded and the first wave of editors to comment on it used the word "keep" instead of "add" when indicating a preference to add write-ins to the infobox.

There was an inappropriate attempt to prematurely close the RfC and that attempt was challenged (reverted). The editor who actually tried to close the RfC was inexperienced and his attempted closing statement incorrectly indicated that there was a "rough consensus", which there was not because half the editors at the RfC opposed adding the write-ins. (Here's a link to an admin noticeboard discussion about the inappropriate close of the RfC [9]). However, immediately after the attempted closing of the RfC, several editors launched several threads nearly simultaneously all claiming there was a "consensus" to add write-ins, which there was not. In coordination with all that, the notice at the top of the talk page that refers to the 2012 consensus, was removed and replaced with one saying that there was a consensus for adding write-ins (there's an editor(s) who continually keeps removing that notice -- that notice, or similar notice about the 2012 consensus has been on the talk page of U.S. presidential articles for a long time)

Once the stage had been set with all those threads, someone requested full protection to the article (which happened), then the incorrectly closed version of the RfC was reinstated and immediately archived so it looked as if there was a closed RfC showing consensus to add write-ins (which there was not because the RfC is still active). Then an edit request was made to add the write-ins [10], and discussion at the edit request referred to that incorrectly closed RfC (and another completely different RfC) along with all those staged threads. An admin (@MSGJ:) came to the talk page to answer the edit request, saw all those staged discussions, and added the write-ins, (presumably) based on that incorrect information.

So that's where we're at, and the RfC continues to attempt to find a compromise as to whether or not (or how) to add write-in candidates to the infobox.

Hope that clears things up. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:39, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

ps - An RfC is a 'Request for Comment', which is a specific type of structured discussion that invites editors to comment on a question. Not all discussions are RfC's. (see WP:RfC for details) Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:50, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Sparkie82, thanks for the explanation. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 04:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Draft

Thanks very much! They're excellent additions. Please go ahead with your thoughts. Coretheapple (talk) 14:40, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

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"My only wish is that I could vote to delete quintet, sextet, and septet as well."

"You may fire when ready, Gridley." (Except I haven't nommed quintet yet-- it took a bit more examination). Mangoe (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

And now I have. Mangoe (talk) 22:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Hitler's stepfather

I was reading recent discussions about deletion of categories, when I noticed one of your comments:

"What about Hitler's step-father: that would require debating whether Hitler counts as a "criminal" and whether a step-father counts as a "parent"."

To what stepfather are you referring to? Adolf Hitler never had a stepfather. His father Alois Hitler raised the boy and died when Adolf was 14-years-old. His mother Klara Hitler never remarried and died when Adolf was 18-years-old. Dimadick (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

My mistake. I recalled learning long ago that Hitler's last name would have been Schicklgruber if it weren't for adoption by a stepfather. But now that I look it up, I see that it was Adolf Hitler's father Alois who was born Schicklgruber and later took his stepfather's last name (and apparently the stepfather might have been his biological father as well, but that's an open question). So Adolf would have been Schicklgruber if his father had kept that name (and if all subsequent history had continued unchanged). Sorry for the confusion. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 01:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

	The Burkie Barnstar
	is hereby awarded to Lawrence King for his extraordinary contributions to conservatism-related articles in particular American Solidarity Party and Young Americans for Freedom. – Lionel(talk) 06:47, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

re: Jeffersonian Democrats (Democratic-Republican Party)

This material was moved to the talk page of the article. See Talk:Democratic-Republican Party#Recent edit disputes regarding connection between Democratic-Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

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Disambiguation link notification for August 25

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Vatican (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

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Disambiguation link notification for September 13

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Theodore Edgar McCarrick, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Sean O'Malley (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

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A page you started (Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, Lawrence King!

Wikipedia editor Doomsdayer520 just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Thank you for starting and developing the very informative new Wikipedia article "Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania." Many other editors have already contributed, showing the importance of the topic.

To reply, leave a comment on Doomsdayer520's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 13:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

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