User talk:IZAK/Archive 13

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2 Kings 1:8

Whoops, thanks for fixing that up. I'm inadvertantly letting my biases show, I think. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 06:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• No problem really. Thanks for the feedback. IZAK 07:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Aaron-Zalman Conflict and Satmar

IZAK- I'm happy to follow your lead on the Satmar page (and I agree, it is a neologism), but I'm becoming rapidly frustrated trying to deal with User:Rebbeshe_Kneesocks and his anonymous partner User:207.127.40.3, who have begun a tag-team edit war and are deleting and/or moving the section multiple times a day. Have you any advice on how to proceed? I tried to list the page on the protected list but I may have done it wrong, as it no longer appears there and has not been protected. Every attempt to talk with Kneesocks about the conflict section seems to get nowhere. I'd really appreciate your input. 12:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• For some reason you have not sugned your name here, just the date. What I advise is that you contact User:Jayjg and User:Jfdwolff, who are both admins and very familiar with these subjects, and Jayjg is an expert in dealing with sockpuppets. They will help to get the article protected and to block any vandals and their IP addresses. IZAK 04:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Hi IZAK- sorry, that was me above. For some reason the signature didn't go through. Thanks for the advice; I'll be in touch with the above (and below). ShalomShlomo 08:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

IZAK, would you like me to protect the page? Tomer^talk 07:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Hi Tomer: Thanks for the response, please be in touch with User:ShalomShlomo as he is the one mostly involved with it and having the most headaches as the page gets cut up. Thanks. IZAK 07:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I left him a message. Haven't heard anything since. I guess the situation isn't that incredibly desperate. Tomer^talk 08:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Alright...no sooner had I said that than I had a request waiting for me.  :-) I know very little about Satmar Chasidim, so I'm not really sure what to do about the content parts of the dispute. Tomer^talk 08:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Like most things, it's not that hard to learn, especially as it pertains to a brief article, and it won't take you long to latch on. IZAK 09:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Moses article

Please state your opinions on, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moses#NPOV Also in general the article needs a lot of work. Up until a recent edit, under a Jewish section was a lot of christianity statements. 220.233.48.200 18:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

new noticeboard

I've created Wikipedia:Islam and Judaism controversies noticeboard, I thought you might be interested. --Victim of signature fascism 19:19, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Lists in Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lists_in_Wikipedia --Eliezer | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 00:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Tree of life move

I recently posted a complaint to your move of the Tree of life (Kabbalah) article to Sephirot (Kabbalah) on the talk pages of both articles. I would greatly appreciate it if you would read my arguments and reply to them, preferably CCing to my talk page. Thanks. Shaggorama 08:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hello Shaggorama: I have now done so at both Talk:Tree of life (Kabbalah) and Talk:Sephirot (Kabbalah). Let us try to keep the discussions in one place. Let me know where. Thanks. IZAK 07:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For simplicity's sake, let's keep the discussion with main article, so Talk:Sephirot (Kabbalah). I will be responding to your comment soon, and thank you for getting back to me so quickly. Shaggorama 10:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ok, I look forward to the discussion, God willing. IZAK 11:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this article appropriate for Wikipedia?

It seems that so many people are checking into Wikipedia nowadays that as soon as I rewrite an article, a slew of people start editing it! Surprise aside, I just looked at the changes which FDuffy made to the Sarah page, and noticed that he created a new article called A wife confused for a sister which is totally based on bible criticism. Would you kindly look at the discussion page which I started on that article and add your comments? Thanks, Yoninah 09:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that basing an article entirely on academic knowledge of a subject rather than pious guesswork is NOT a bad thing, and entirely the right thing to do. --User talk:FDuffy 20:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yoninah: So you have now met "Fduffy" aka "Francis" a notorious Bible-hater and someone whose only aim in life seems to be to trash any conventional knowledge about the Torah/Bible on Wikipedia. It's pretty sad actually, because it makes one wonder why this person has such a chip on their shoulder and what this person would otherwise be doing if the Torah/Bible did not exist? Like, why doesn't "FDuffy" spend its life trashing Atheism or Hedonism or Modernism, which would be just as fun don't you think? Worse yet, "FDuffy" is not afraid to create its own self-styled worthless "myths" from sources that have nothing to do with respectable normative religion and trash religion big time. So what we have here is just a pathetic hater and trasher of everything traditional Judaism (and even Christianity) respects. Do not get discouraged because that type of empty-headed intellectually bankrupt parasitic vandalism is bound to fail. IZAK 05:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for enlightening me. I really thought that spending some time beefing up the Torah people articles would be non-controversial, or at least that the classic Jewish interpretations would be clearly set off from the Christian interpretations. But what FDuffy has done to the article on Dinah is a travesty. Sabotaging the Torah narrative by calling it a "tale" and stating as fact what is clearly not fact by anyone who possesses a first-grade intelligence and an English translation, then going ahead and presenting the bible criticism (aka "scholarship") as fact, without any sources, is simply misleading. I wrote all my counterarguments on the Talk:Dinah page, but FDuffy is ignoring it. I don't have the koach to get into an edit war over this. What should I do? Yoninah 13:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yoninah: Like in any other situation in life, you have to draw the line somewhere and do your own personal version of a "triage" and decide for yourself which articles you will work on and defend, and keep on your "my watchlist", and then do your best to defend your own contributions to articles and not submit to anyone's war-of-nerves designed to wear down people like yourself. Remember, Wikipedia is sort of like "a work of art in motion" and by nature this means that no article will ever be "safe" from additional editing (until maybe, there will come a time when the "the powers that be" will decide to "lock down" what they consider to be the best versions of articles that should no longer be edited -- but that time has not yet come for Wikipedia.) In the meantime, do not be intimidated by anyone, and you should fight for your own valid insertions of the Torah perspective which has been around for THOUSANDS of years, vs. the "biblical critics'" POVs which were literally invented out of thin air in the nineteenth century, and did so much to harm to both Jews and Judaism. Some Jewish historians have said that Julius Wellhausen the most important "father of biblical criticism" who came from Germany is guilty of the "murder" of the Torah (by denying its status as something which ultimately emanated from God and said that the Torah is basically "just another book like any other ") which was a historical and academic prelude that prepared the way as for the Final solution (these are not my views, but have been stated by notable rabbis and scholars of traditional Judaism). Keep in touch. IZAK 09:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I saw your post on your Talk page, as well as on mine, and I appreciate it. As an administrator, you must spend hours and hours putting out fires, but you probably enjoy it. If I spent that much time fighting my own little wars, I would never get any work done!

I don't understand what "My Preferences" is all about. Will editors' comments go directly to my Outlook Express in-box rather than to my Wikipedia page? And what is the difference between receiving mail on my Talk page as opposed to through e-mail correspondence? I thought that just having a user name, rather than an IP address, was more secure, confidentiality-wise. Yoninah 13:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yoninah: For the record, I am NOT an administrator, and I would not consider becoming one. I am just very active in articles relating to Jews and Judaism and Israel and Zionism because I have a great interest and a good educational background in these topics. I also enjoy writing in English a lot and for the last three years I have found Wikipedia to be a very challenging and important site to contribute to (Wikipedia is now in the world's top twenty Internet sites -- so that should tell you something about its significance). Hopefully my efforts will serve as an example to others who may share my interests and who have some time to devote to it. So, I do NOT "put out fires" at all, I just try my best to keep watch over SOME articles that are important to Jews and Judaism, and try as best I can to edit them, contribute to them, write new articles, or to partake in various Wikipedia votes and discussions in subjects that pertain to Jews and Judaism. On Wikipedia, in its present form, you never just write an article or contribute to it and then "walk away from it" because if you treasure your input you must defend it by tracking it via the "my watchlist" button which lets you know which articles that you are watching need your attention and follow-up. As for your technical questions, an "IP address" (meaning Internet Protocol address) is basically the unique number given to your computer by its manufacturer but it is NOT your E-mail address. (If you can, read the two articles: IP address and E-mail address to understand the different terms.) Basically, any computer's IP address is read by other computers it comes into contact with. So, for example, someone on the official technical side of Wikipedia can read the IP address of anyone's computer when they write anything on the Wikipedia website (that's how the Wikipedia admins get to "block" banned users, vandals, trolls, or sockpuppets). But, very importantly, E-mail addresses are not "IP adresses" (even though inside the technical body of a sent E-mail is the IP address of the computer from where it originated -- so using a computer is really not as hefker as some may imagine, and it's also a reason that every user should purchase some kind of firewall that serves to protect any computer from being attacked or hacked). With regards to your "IP" question about the "my preferences" feature at the top of every Wikipedia page, it does not mean that editors' comments go directly to your Outlook Express in-box rather than to your Wikipedia page when they write a comment on your regular Wikipedia user's page! It only means that a person trying to contact you has a choice (that is, if you provide your Email address in the "my prefrences" link) and you will see that on the side of every Wikipedia user's page there is the option for them to send a private Email to you, using Wikipedia's services and that remain private between you and the person sending you the Email, and even then, the person sending you the Email does not know what your Emaill address is unless you choose to respond to them. So to sum up: It is your choice. If you do not want even Wikipedia to have your Email address that's fine and it does give you added privacy, and some Wikipedians prefer it that way. But at the same time you should know that once you register on Wikipedia, Wikipedia knows your IP address in any case, and even without registering, even an anonymous user reveals their IP address once they place a comment on any Wikipedia page. Another option for you, if you have confidence in another Wikipedian, you can simply just click on their "Email this user" and send them your Email if you so desire for any communication that does not have to go into a user's talk page for the whole world to read. I hope that this clarifies some things. Feel free to ask again. Best wishes, IZAK 08:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

IZAK, thanks for all the technical information. I understand it, I understand that Wikipedia administrators know which computer I have, but I wonder if logging in my e-mail for other users to correspond with me is going to turn my Wikipedia experience into a chat room. (I understand that I don't have to respond to them by e-mail, but then what is the point of returning the discussion to their talk pages?) And can you honestly say that none of the e-mail you've received through Wikipedia has been free of obscenities and the like? Yoninah 20:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yoninah: Gut Voch! In my over three years I have not received any obscenities through Wikipedia's Email system (Bli Ayin Hara). I don't know what it would be like for a woman. But experienced Wikipedia users know that if Wikipedia's Email system is abused, with things that you describe, Wikipedia technicians can trace the user who wrote the obscenities and have them banned, so there is a good level of security on Wikipedia's side for Emails as well. Honestly, I am a heavy user of Wikipedia and I am in touch with many different editors, as you can tell from this talk page, but I get hardly any Emails of any kind from Wikipedians and I barely use the Email system myself. Usually it's about votes taking place all over the place. Probably every heavy Wikipedia editor has contacted a fellow Wikipedian this way, they wouldn't have the feature otherwise, so it's 100% legitimate. So, there are times when I wish to communicate with a User via their Email feature, usually for a more private sort of message that the world does not have to have access to and I can't because they have opted out of having the Wikipedia system's Email service. There is another solution however that I have seen more and more Wikipedians use and that is to set up a completely seperate Email account only for Wikipedia usage and that way, if you ever get any messages you don't like, you can simply disconnect that account. More and more people seem to be using Google's FREE "gmail" service. Bottom line, for busy Wikipedians the fun part is that they can chat with other users on all the talk pages of any articles, so they are not hungry for chats via Email, of this I can assure you. But if you have strong privacy issues, then stay put with what you have. Be well. IZAK 11:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for all the clarification! Yoninah 13:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Why exactly do you wish to get "rid" of me? Thanks for any response. Antidote 20:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Antidote: Only based on the complaints (for some examples, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Antidote and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Antidote, and claims by admins that you are operating sockpuppets as indicated on your user page at User:Antidote), if these allegations are indeed true, then you are making a huge nuisance of yourself on Wikipedia (and if the claims about you having all those sockpuppets are true it makes things even worse). Otherwise, if all the complaints against you are not true, then, hey, be my guest, and enjoy Wikipedia like everyone else. IZAK 05:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Antidote

Hello IZAK. I am grateful for your support on this rfc. The user has been persistantly disruptive and dishonest since March so it is overdue that action is taken. I agree that some of the Jewish lists are unnecessary, i.e. the Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society list, and, I agree that if they continue to include living people it may well do the dirty work of Jew Watch as you say. I do not think the people who currently contribute to the lists have that intention at all, but maybe they are being somewhat naive in their actions. Personally my interest is mainly in pre 20th century Jewry so I am not interested in the listing of living persons. Regards Arniep 17:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hello Arniep: Thanks for your message. As far as Jews who are no longer alive being listed as Jews, I think that a huge problem is that in many cases they have been placed on "Lists" and into "Categories" of Jews when in real life they had hardly anything, in fact NOTHING, to do with either Jews or Judaism. A good example is Karl Marx whose parents apostacised to Christianity when he was young, and then Marx himself wrote virulent things against both Jews and Judaism which should place him into the category of "Former Jews" or "Self-hating Jews" if anything, and ironically that is not possible in an ethnic sense if he was born to a Jewish mother according to Halakha ("Jewish law"), so it just shows you the ridiculous quandaries of logic, ethnicity and religion this subject leads to, and why even dead Jews should not be placed into mass lists and categories of Jews implying a kind of "definitive" definition of who they were. IZAK 09:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello IZAK. I think it is perfectly acceptable to list people involved in the history of the Jewish people whether or not they were practicing Jews or whether they were Jewish according to Halakha. Regards Arniep 17:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Arniep: I agree that they should and must be part of articles about Jewish history, no question about it, but it is an exercise in futility (and stupidity) to put people into arbitrary lists that they themselves would have abhored or that serve no real scholarly or encyclopedic purpose. Unless you want to create lists such as: List of Jews who converted to Christianity, List of Jews who were atheists, List of Jews who never acknowledged their Jewish identity, List of Jews who married gentiles, List of Jews with dubious conversions to Judaism, List of Jews who fought against other Jews, List of Jews who disguised their identity as Jews, List of Jews identified as Jews by the Nazis etc ad nauseam, these may all sound like interesting "historical" lists that could have many names placed into them, but they would serve no real scholarly or encyclopedic purpose insofar as scholarship is defined. IZAK 08:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

which is why is better to just accept that Jew can mean different things, and then annotate the lists explaining in what way that person is considered to be Jewish. Arniep 10:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Arniep: By doing that you would be making any meaning of Jew into a MEANINGLESS word on the one hand, on the other hand it would make "Jews" out of people who never considered themselves as such (for example, people with one lost great grand-parent as for example it is said Vladimir Lenin had a Jewish grandfather or great grand-father so do you think that therefore Lenin should presto become a "Jew" because of that --akin to pulling "Jewish" bunnies out of ethnic and religious "hats"?) This has already made NONSENSE of the term Jew and has also violated the rights to anonymity and privacy that some living people may have logically expected, but which now some users on Wikipedia have decided should be done on a mass scale verging on ludicrous scandal-satisfying publicity. By the way, when the List of Jews was originally started on Wikipedia some years ago, there was only one list and it served as an interesting feature, but when massive amounts of lists and categories of Jews based on infinite types of crazy criteria began to crop up the whole undertaking became an exercise in foolishness bordering on the dangerous.IZAK 10:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

) cheers for the welcome mate! hows it going? XYaAsehShalomX 13:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• As the Yanks say "You're welcome!" As for how it's going, well currently I have made some proposals at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession and it's stimulating some solid debate and voting on the related talk page over there. Take care of yourself, oh, and do you play rugby at all? (I have to take some shut-eye, so I will catch up with you soon.) IZAK 13:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

nah - i watch and sometimes play REAL football ;) heh - personally im a bit opposed to all those lists, which seem to serve no purpose except to antagonise ppl. thanks - you too mate :) well i'll speak to you soon...im gonna go and watch Newsnight in a sec...ya'aseh shalom 22:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Illnesses of Ariel Sharon merge with Ariel Sharon

Hi. Please share your thoughts at here; I remain open to persuasion and various formulas. Regards, El_C 05:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Erm, I did not expect that. El_C 06:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

El_C: Based on the initial discussions at Talk:Illnesses of Ariel Sharon it seemed logical to merge. Actually, most of the information is trashy, so it needs radical editing as well, but you beat me to it, so I will try again. IZAK 06:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is obvious that much of it is presented in a rather doubious way; feel free to radically edit accordingly. But there are two people that object to the merge at this time, so you four (5?) do not quite amount to consensus. Simply speedy deleting it at this point makes no sense. I delete a lot of patent nonesense. This type of 'trashy' is not patent nonesense; it needs to be AfD'd. El_C 06:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

El_C: From what I can tell, the only worthwhile and non-repetative information in the "Illnesses" article are the "International reactions" which are important. The other stuff about Sharon eating Pringles is a joke. Sharon is an old man, most people don't make it to 77, and as he is close to 78 all the discussions are moot because old people get sick and die from such things as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, pneumonia, dehydration, or accidents (what's missing?). Sharon is nothing special. The article should be renamed, if anything, to the Health of Ariel Sharon and how he functioned so well for most of his high-pressured life. IZAK 06:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

There's pringles now? Why don't you and Tomer and others begin to delete impertinent material liberally, then we can see where we stand. There are more international reactions, for example, the Pope calling on Catholics to pary for his recovery (if I recall correctly). Adding more details about the health aspect of it could be beneficial; detail impertinent to a biographical article (entailing a more brief summary of these), but that readers may still find interest in. Feel free to change the title to Health of Ariel Sharon, or whatever you see fit, I don't consider the title to be of an important issue (barring pringles & such!). El_C 06:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Point is, in the context of Israel (and beyond), this is a major historical event. He was in Office. What if after a while we merge and perhaps by then would end up with a stroke conspiracy article or something of the sort...? Difficult to tell. Let's not be hasty, is all I'm asking. El_C 06:54, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Klausner

This article seems particularly POV, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Would you mind taking a look? Jayjg ^(talk) 04:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, I read the article and added to it. It's basically ok. One may dislike the guy perhaps, but the article is basically fair, I think. IZAK 11:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Israeli postage stamps

Israeli postage stamps are probably not OK for illustrating Wikipedia. Please consult any web page regarding "state copyright" and Israel. [1] --Hoziron 02:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Hoziron: Thanks for contacting me. Your own words here "probably not OK" reveal what I have read from some of your references, that there are basically no laws restricting the FAIR USE of, for example, official Israeli stamps. The articles you point out frankly state that Israel's copyright laws are not up-to-date and have almost nothing to say about how information should or should not be used on the Internet, this article [2] is a very good example. So for now, unless you can come up with a very specific reason not to do it, Israeli stamps, like all postage stamps, can be used provided the relevant Stamp template is attached to it, and that template does state that stamps are usually copyrighted but may be used for fair-use types of purposes:

The copyright for it may be owned by the issuing authority, and there may be other restrictions on its reproduction. It is believed that the use of postage stamps to illustrate the stamp in question... qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Other use of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Copyrights for more information.

What are your views about the template's conditions? IZAK 16:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The Rav

Hey, thanks for your changes. I'm not religiously observant so please feel free to expand in that area, I'm not qualified (yet). Kaisershatner 18:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Kaiser: Best wishes. IZAK 09:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

VfD

Hi, could you please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparative military ranks of World War II. Thanks. Izehar 13:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Money begging and ArbCom election

Hi, IZAK. I agree with your general premise about the links, but don't know what to suggest. I'm not involved in either of these and don't know offhand who to appeal to. -- Cecropia 03:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Cecropia: See Talk:Main Page#Arbcom elections link please and Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#When do the fundraiser end???. After a few Emails back and forth with some people at the top some progress was made in scaling back the too ostentatious and distracting appeals at the tops of article pages. For the ArbCom vote users will still have to click on their "my watchlist" to catch them. Best wishes. Thanks. IZAK 13:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

ok...but...

meanwhile, can you look at the lead to Tosafists? I'm trying to figure out whether or not it really is a copyvio. It was tagged as a potential copyvio 2 weeks ago...if it is, we should get rid of it, but I'm not sure it is... Tomer^talk 06:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's a plan... my email is messing up bigtime...can you email shaya@shayadesign.com and ask them whether their text there is original and copyrighted or if they got it from somewhere else? It's kinda ballsy, but I'm beginning to suspect that what looks like a copyvio may very well be a case of mistaking an image for the original. Tomer^talk 06:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, the text on their homepage and the history of the Toysfes page. Tomer^talk 06:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Tomer: Great minds think alike... I just thought of that and sent "Shaya" an Email. I posted a copy on Talk:Tosafists and sent you a cc of it. So let's wait and see what happens. Gotta go, Shabbat Shalom. (By the way, I read on Haaretz that one of the ways that they are trying to get a response out of Sharon is by placing a plate of steaming shawarma near his nose, the article claimed it was his "favorite dish". Heavens, what will they think of next, falafel ball cures?) Be well, I gotta go. IZAK 07:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)