LuxNevada

Welcome!

To follow up regarding your comment about links to different Schools at Nevada State College being advertising, I beg to differ. Both UNR and UNLV have links to their schools within the articles and nobody has a problem with it. Please check their sites and tell me what is different about their pages. Thanks! Editcontent (talk) 18:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I recently edited sections to add full context and also deleted two sections that show poster's bias. If you have problem with this, let's discuss it. I do not think one should bias an article like this with a section on "Low Enrollments" based on a single program that was cut. Many new schools cut programs when they are not working out. This is just good management. NSC's enrollment gains as a total institution have actually been much higher percentagewise than UNLV or UNR. Furthermore, I cut out the misleading biased section about some lenders cutting off their listings at NSC. Lenders all over the country are cutting of their listings of schools all over the country. Inclusion of this material is biased and does not meet the standards applied to other college and university entries. Please see Wikipedia guidelines about bias and neutral POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ousmane3 (talk • contribs) 07:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yoo, hoo. Do you even acknowledge Wikipedia protocol? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.96.96.213 (talk) 02:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It does not matter whether it is sourced or not. Sources that include minute or misleading details or inaccurate headings can easily be used to violate neutral POV. Many of the issues you talk about are facing all of the other colleges in the system and I do not see such entries on the UNLV and UNR websites. Please stop your personal grudge. I have asked for mediation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ousmane3 (talk • contribs) 03:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

"The college’s student population since 2002 has increased by over 1100 percent." [[1]] They started with 176 students and now have 2,196 students. Not exactly low enrollments there--much higher than NSHE reports of UNLV or UNR (see NSHE BOR tables). It is not that I think this info should be included, but I think the inaccurate misleading info you are peddling should not be. 03:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)Ousmane3

Fine. You win. Edit and add at will. Just keep personal information out of this. I wash my hands. 19:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)Ousmane —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ousmane3 (talk • contribs)

Sparta

Hi - don't worry, even when I do (finally) get around to putting in some work on Sparta, it's not my intention to delete anything that might be useful. Referenced stuff is nearly always useful. Right now the article looks shapeless and confused to me, because of the sheer mass of information on some topics, such as the Spartan constitution, and the near-total lack of information on other stuff, such as the history of Sparta after the rise of the Romans. I don't believe in deleting hard work which people have done, unless it's completely pointless, and it seldom is such. It's more the style and structure of the article that needs work. To pick a random sentence, "Poor knowledge on Spartan traditions is the result of Sparta's secrecy" is not only incorrect English (should be "of Spartan traditions"), it's also a passive construction (should have been something like "The Spartan passion for secrecy means that we have little knowledge of Spartan tradition"). But when you phrase it like that, you can see that the real problem is that it's not true. We actually know quite a lot about Spartan traditions, but we know nearly all of it second-hand from non-Spartan sources because the Spartans were not a literary culture in the way that the Athenians were. But that's a separate issue from their secrecy, which I do not dispute. This is a fairly unusual sentence in the article because it should probably be totally cut. Anyway, I hope that this shows you my rationale for editing the article. I have no intention of butchering it. Lexo (talk) 09:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Re Paul Cartledge: trying to edit an article on Sparta without relying on Cartledge amounts to tieing one hand behind your back. You might as well try to write an article about the South Pole without mentioning Amundsen. He is a respectable historian (they don't get any more respectable about that particular subject) and if you know of any better contemporary writer on the subject, I will be glad to use them in the article. I will get around to providing a wider range of citations, but right now I am using him because he just knows more about the subject than nearly anyone else alive. I have given my reasons for deprecating the use of ancient sources on the talk page. Once again, I want to protest my good faith and say that I have no intention of entering an edit war, but the sentence you keep restoring to the intro is, I insist, unacceptably bad English and also in the wrong place. (I don't know what "without blood or guilt" is supposed to mean, outside of a bad historical novel.) Lexo (talk) 23:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, me again. I want to affirm that I welcome your contribution to the article, as would anyone who were editing it; neither you nor I want the article to be a puff piece about how great the Spartans were, but the principle of WP:NPOV insists that neither can we make it into something that compares them to the Nazis. (You know that old principle that whenever anyone drags the Nazis into an argument about history, you might as well stop arguing right there.) Hitler may have praised the Spartans, but that doesn't make them into proto-Nazis any more than the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian must mean that vegetarians are Nazi. You can blame the Spartans for a lot of things, but not for having disreputable fans. I do not want this to get personal, as I am not someone who forms grudges easily or who likes to do so. I just fail to understand the reasoning behind some of your edits. I hope you will take this in the friendly spirit in which it is intended. Lexo (talk) 16:09, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Once again I have to caution you against using a modern concept such as Eugenics to describe an ancient society such as the Spartans. That is the very definition of anachronism. My reason for saying so is that the modern concept of eugenics was invented in an entirely different historical situation than the one in which classical Sparta became (however briefly) a major power. The Spartans had become a minor township in southern Greece two thousand years before the word "eugenics" was invented. I have noticed, incidentally, that you lifted entire sentences from the Eugenics article and imported them into Sparta without changing a word. That is not, in my opinion, good editing.

My point about Hitler is that Hitler is relevant to the subject of Nazi Laconophilia. He is much less relevant to the subject of general Spartan history; he merits at best a footnote or a brief mention. The Spartans rose and fell two thousand years before Hitler was even born, and it seems to me that you are somehow attempting to blame Hitler on the Spartans. They cannot be held responsible for the Third Reich. I brought up the subject of vegetarianism to point out the absurdity of your own argument: vegetarianism, like Sparta, existed before Hitler and just because he was a fan of both, doesn't mean that either of them is tainted by Nazism. The Spartans have faults enough of their own without attempting to pin the Holocaust on them too. This is basic to the writing of history, and I am somewhat surprised that you seem not to realise it. If you want to start blaming people for thinking that their own race is superior, you will have your work cut out. Plenty of societies have thought that they were better than others - it seems to go with being a society in the first place - but most of them have not attempted to systematically exterminate an entire ethnic group. The Nazis did make that attempt. The Spartans did not. I really think you need to know more about Sparta before you draw naive and ill-informed parallels between them and the Nazis. Please, do some more research. Lexo (talk) 22:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

One final thing: "If anything, many vegetarians are characterized by their disapproval of non-violence (towards animals)." You do realise that you are saying, here, that many vegetarians approve of violence towards animals? Is that really what you meant? Lexo (talk) 22:59, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the "disapproval of non-violence" was a typo (or maybe a double-negative for emphasis?). My point is that Nazi Laconophilia is worthy of inclusion in an article about Sparta given the prevalence of knowledge about things Nazi in the modern times. Also given that most Spartans were Helots, it seems right to mention their condition briefly in the introduction. LuxNevada (talk) 19:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should check out the article. I spent almost the whole of today doing the big edit, and the condition of the helots is now mentioned in the intro. I also go into more detail about the oppression of the helots than you have done in your own edits. Incidentally, you seem to be confused about the nature of the helots: they were not Spartans. They came mostly from Messenia and to a lesser extent Lakonia, the larger territory of which Sparta was the capital. It confuses the issue to refer to them as "Spartans", which can only refer to the free and enfranchised inhabitants of Sparta and the surrounding villages. But the nature of the helots is a complex historical problem and it's not difficult to get confused; I have read several books about Sparta by now and the one thing that I do know is that modern historians are very cautious on the subject. Cheers. Lexo (talk) 23:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The dogskin thing: I have not found that anywhere. A reference, please? Although I can think of worse things to be forced to wear dogskins; being murdered in the middle of the night by a teenage agoge graduate being one. It is not "apologist" to call the mass killing of the helots "the only mass killing on record"; it is simply true. If you can find a record of another killing like that I would genuinely love to hear about it, because it would be news to the entire world of classical studies and you would be hailed as one of the foremost classical scholars of the age.

The point about that killing is that it is the single biggest act of violence and intimidation that the Spartans are known to have inflicted upon the helots. The fact that they never did anything else like that again demonstrates that they knew they needed to not drive the helots to the point of revolt, because they needed them to support their economy. You also seem to think that "the risk of ritual pollution" is a "euphemism", which says a lot about your understanding of Greek religion and, in particular, its power over the notoriously pious Spartans. Yes, the Spartans could be grossly cynical about religion, as witnessed by the fact that they felt the need to declare war on the helots every year so that they could kill them without the risk of, as it says in the literature, ritual pollution. (I didn't make up that phrase, I found it in a perfectly respectable mainstream history book.) If you think that a non-Spartan Greek who killed a non-Greek chattel slave was at serious risk of being tried for murder and executed, then that is based on utter ignorance of the ancient Greek attitude to slaves; to quote the Oxford Classical Dictionary, the chattel slave had "no legal, let alone civic, personality whatsoever".(OCD3, p.1415) Greek slavery is a complex issue, and the Spartan attitude to the helots was inflected by the fact that the Messenian helots in particular had a very strong group identity and a powerful nationalist motivation to revolt. I notice that you are far less interested in the fact that the helots eventually gained their freedom, than in your delusion that the Spartans treated them in the same way that the Nazis treated the Jews. You need to work out who you are angry with, because it can't possibly be the Spartans.

If anything, you don't go far enough. You project modern attitudes about law and justice onto the entire ancient Greek world, and then paint the Spartans as a weird fascist blemish on an otherwise peaceful and just background. Read a little about the slaves forced to work in the silver mines in Laurium. Your rhetoric about "apologist historians" includes, I can now see, anybody who is historically aware enough to know that calling the Spartans fascists is an anachronism - in short, all serious classical scholarship of the last hundred years. Tough. I am tired of arguing with someone who is both ignorant of what s/he is talking about and resistant to learning anything about it. Lexo (talk) 23:54, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I was losing my temper and I apologise. In the meantime, if you really want to make a contribution about the Nazis with reference to Greece, you could do some research on the German occupation of Greece in WW2. Read Mark Mazower's Inside Hitler's Greece and find out about all the classically-educated SS officers who went to Greece and admired the Parthenon and then had no reservations whatever about the mass executions of Greek partisans. Follow it up with some research into the killing of the Greek Jews in Salonica (Mazower's Salonica: City of Ghosts is an excellent starting point). You will find that no matter what Hitler may have expressed in private or in print about his own ideas of what Sparta stood for, it didn't count for anything compared to what he was prepared to let his army get away with in modern Greece. I have visited Auschwitz and I have seen abandoned suitcases with Greek names written on them; my wife is half-Greek and her family comes from Salonica. I do not need to be told by anyone that I am trying to apologise for a supposedly "fascist" society that had disappeared more than two thousand years before Hitler was even born. Lexo (talk) 00:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Cartledge is not a Spartan "apologist", as you would know if you had read any of his work on the subject. I nowhere say "Everyone else was doing it, so it was no big deal." The tendency of my edits about Greek slavery is to say "Everybody else was doing it, the Spartans just did it with greater cruelty." I am not aware of removing any info about Helots being "put to death for getting fat", and would appreciate that edit being pointed out to me. If I did get rid of it, it's because I couldn't find a source for it. I have not read Myron, but I am aware that Pausanias criticised his book on the first Messenian War for being inaccurate. As for this statement: "They fought for no ideals greater than their own freedom and the continued slavery of those they oppressed." - did you expect the Spartans to not fight for their own freedom? Yes, they also fought for the freedom to oppress other people; such has been the way with slaveholding and oppressive regimes throughout recorded history, including the USA. I share your awareness that 300 is a silly movie, but don't blame it on the Spartans: they didn't make it. Blame it on Frank Miller and Zach Snyder. (You want to have it both ways: you yourself point out that the movie is wildly inaccurate, but you also want to say that it promotes Spartan ideals. Either it's a distortion of reality, in which it doesn't promote things that the Spartans really stood for, or else it's accurate, in which case it does.) I quite liked 300 just for the acting and the battle scenes. I am no more a "closet fascist" than you are. If you really want to see a grossly inaccurate portrayal of Thermopylae, check out The 300 Spartans - pure Cold War propaganda. In the meantime, I insist that your assessment of Cartledge is based on ignorance; if you had read him you would see that he is a sensible and responsible historian. You must also admit that nobody would spend a lifetime researching Sparta and writing about it if they didn't find the place deeply fascinating, and Cartledge clearly must do; it doesn't mean that he has ever downplayed a single incidence of Spartan cruelty. You continue to be silent about whether or not you have ever read him, so I assume you haven't. Lexo (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Sparta does not get "the maximum mention" in Eugenics. You seem to be unable to understand that just because Hitler cited Sparta as a precursor for his own ideas, it does not follow that Hitler knew what he was talking about. You do not seem to understand that Hitler is not a reliable source; I assume that you wouldn't cite Hitler as a reliable authority on Jews or Judaism, right? So how do you reckon that he is a reliable source about Sparta? You say you have read "some (not all)" of Cartledge's works; I see no evidence that you have done so, or if you have, that you have understood anything of what you have read. Cartledge does write popular histories, but they are in no way distortions of his more academic work, nor do they propagandise for Spartan cruelty, as you would know if you had read them.

Sparta the article is a general overview of the entire subject of Sparta and is, as far as I am concerned, a work in progress; for a start, its coverage of Hellenistic, Roman, medieval and modern Sparta is highly inadequate, and it can only cover every aspect of the topic in the most concise way. It is not, and should not be, exhaustive. As far as I'm concerned, Hitler's vague interest in Sparta (I have seen no evidence that he had anything more than a cursory and ill-informed interest) is of secondary importance, and certainly not something worth covering in great detail in the Sparta article, although it is worth a mention. You, however, want the article to reflect your own ignorance. You persistent refer to the Krypteia as something that things happen "during", reflecting your vague notion that it was some sort of festival, which is like referring to an El Salvadoran Death squad as a carnival. You refer to "fascism" a lot, but fail to appreciate the distinction between fascism and Nazism. Your obsession with the idea that the Spartans were like the Nazis fails to reflect the current state of Nazi historiography; it is increasingly agreed (by historians such as Ian Kershaw, Richard Evans, Adam Tooze etc.) that the Third Reich authorities were split between those, like the SS and the Nazi Party, who wished to exterminate the Jews for ideological reasons, and those such as the Office of the Four-Year Plan and the Reich Economic Ministry who wanted to use the Jews as forced labour.

Finally, you do not understand the basic nature of Wikipedia. It is not up to us to decide, as you appear to have done, that the Spartans must have been like the Nazis if only because Hitler said that he admired them. I have already cited one eminently respectable historian (Anton Powell, who has excellent left-wing credentials) pointing out exactly how the Spartans could not allow themselves to treat the helots the way that the Nazis treated the Jews. We are obliged to report the opinions of secondary authorities such as Powell, not to decide from reading Hitler's words that he must have been right about Sparta. I will not be editing the article to reflect what I consider to be your own invincible and determined ignorance. You have not moved an inch in the course of our discussion and I see now that it's because you don't know what you are talking about and you are not willing to find out. Lexo (talk) 01:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I do read your replies. The trouble is that they make no sense. You seem to want to say that the fact that Hitler admired the Spartans says something about the Spartans. I say that it actually says something about Hitler, because classical Sparta rose and fell two thousand years before Hitler was even born. I have never said that you write that "Spartans like Nazis", but you yourself did say (and I'm quoting from your 4 November post on the Sparta talk page here) that "you would be hard put to find a worse fascist state than Sparta in history". I insist that this point of view is an anachronism. The article Sparta is meant to be a general overview of the entire subject, but you go on and on about the classical Spartans' treatment of the Helots as though it were the only thing remotely notable about Sparta. You also behave as though I had suppressed any mention of their treatment of the Helots, when in fact I go into more detail about it than you ever did. And you wonder why I raise the same objections again and again? As far as I am concerned, the treatment of the Helots is covered in quite enough detail for an article of this sort, and any reader who wants to know more has been pointed in the right direction. If you have any more detail to add to Helots or Laconophilia, add it yourself. I am tired of trying to accommodate someone who will never be satisfied. Lexo (talk) 01:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

LuxNevada, I have noted your pointless and tautological edits to the article, in particular the restoration of an entire section that is a repetition of material presented elsewhere in the article. They were not a result of any agreement we have come to. I can no longer believe that your edits are made in good faith and can only assume that you are not interested in improving the article. I have done my best to remove the damage you have caused and I am, accordingly, seeking third-party arbitration, as I believe it will be clear to anyone reviewing the article that you are not interested in making a good article but only in promoting your personal opinions about the matter, in apparent violation of WP:NPOV. I'm sorry it's come to this, but I no longer feel like I have a choice. Lexo (talk) 02:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The material you say I am excluding is in the article already. You restored the Eugenics section, which is pointless since it simply repeats material that's in the article. Nobody needs to negotiate with anybody else for permission to edit an article; it's neither my intellectual property nor is it yours. I maintain that you make bad edits; you put inaccurate material in the article, you place material in inappropriate places, you place material in the article that's in there already, all because you want your own precious wording in the article. As long as you go on making edits that I think can be reasonably defined as contrary to WP guidelines, I will go on reverting said edits until either you stop making them, or somebody else can make out a very good case for why I should stop reverting them, because you do not convince me. Lexo (talk) 12:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Any further comments I have to make, I will make on Talk: Sparta where they probably belong. I have already posted some information there that may be of interest to you. Lexo (talk) 14:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Grammar, "Race", & Jesus Christ

Thanks, Lux. Indeed, it is a "fine grammatical point" about which I was not sure, so I altered my own phrasing. I will confirm your take on the matter & return the sentence to the "borne" I initially chose (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_of_Jesus&oldid=235861845), if appropriate. As I understand the headstrong American frontiersmen (and women) often said, "one should always trust an original instinct."

[I confirmed your proposition. You are indeed correct. Thanks again for the suggestion.]

sewot_fred (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

10.2 Games???

Just to let you know a player can play 10.2 games by playing a fraction of a game resulting in a .2 instead of the whole game equaling 1.0 game.

HairyPerry (Talk) 18:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Flewis page "Strange edits"

Please note my comment added to your discussion on Flewis' talk page. I think you were on board that he is NOT helpful in his reverts and is knowingly harassing it seems.96.246.193.135 (talk) 22:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

He seems to have changed his talk page to SuperFlewis now, so hopefully this link works - his changing his talk page and name I don't understand.96.246.193.135 (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't seem to link to his talk page and he selectively deletes portions of it so here is what I'd posted: You are perhaps being disengenuous as you deleted the following posts from your page and did not resolve the issue, it was only resolved via another admin's talk page. They were as follows, which you deleted each time a post was made. WHAT DID YOU DO???? YOU just reverted a valid, researched edit I did on Salem Chalabi article, which I discussed/stated cause for in discussion page, w/a kneejerk reversion that hid my researched changes.96.224.32.254 (talk) 04:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You then reverted my above edit! Here's the rest I posted/you posted on the talk page you created for me WHAT DID YOU DO???? YOU just reverted a valid, researched edit I did on Salem Chalabi article, which I discussed/stated cause for in discussion page, w/a kneejerk reversion that hid my researched changes.

If for some oddball reason you disagreed w/the edit (updating information and clarifying name listing) you SHOULD have put that in the discussion page - there was nothing "unconstructive" even facially about the edit if you were knowledgeable of the subject, which you should be to automatically HIDE an edit and CHANGE it. 96.224.32.254 (talk) 04:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Please review WP:COI and WP:VAN for more info on this subject, and, before inserting biased comments in the article you need to gain consensus on the talk page. Simply leaving a comment and then changing the article will not suffice. --Flewis(talk) 04:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

What is possibly biased about reviewing the public data on the website previously discussed in the discussion and/or history and updating the page based on the updated information. If you want, you could list Chalabi as previously listed as delinquent but since re-registered, that's your call. What I did was update w/public info and list that - nothing biased pro-Chalabi (or against) there.96.224.32.254 (talk) 04:25, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The sites that you list have absolutely NO bearing on my edit. (Shame on you appears to be in order)96.224.32.254 (talk) 04:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC) 96.224.32.254 (talk) 05:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)96.246.193.135 (talk) 22:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.193.135 (talk)

• I am a bit mystified why this discussion is taking place on my talk page as I am neither 96.246.193.135 nor Flewis. LuxNevada (talk) 09:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Because you posted a discussion to Flewis' talk page in which you accused him of poor editing and he "explained" why he doesn't and I noted that, indeed, he does, and I posted a since deleted on his page (but/therefore replaced on yours) response, as your final post (which he kept) on his page said, in essence, oh thanks for explaining I was wrong you're great. He is as you and others noted, constantly posting false vandalism notes and reverts in "split seconds" and he DOESN"T resolve all. I'm surprised you had to ask, I guess you post a lot too and it's hard to keep up w/your own discussions! (frankly I think you should change your last post to him accepting his explanation - and see how he deleted my posts re his work)71.190.64.215 (talk) 22:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

You may not have noticed but Flewis apologized to me. He wrote "Apologies for the inconvenience." It is polite to accept an apology and move on. Please take your discussion to his talk page which you can find here [[2]]. LuxNevada (talk) 10:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I told you I took my discussion to his talk page from the first (as I've quoted you above) and he kept deleting it after I posted, bit by bit - ie, he's kept other comments and just deleted mine w/no response - not in the wiki spirit and exactly what your original post accused him of, which is why I thought I'd alert you (it's verifiable in his page's history). Just b/c he apologized to you (actually you apologized to him after he told you of 6000 edits he's only had some 6(?) queries, which, since he deleted mine, is clearly false. Your end of "happy editing" thanks for explaining indicated to me you should know more and ask why he deleted my post, which was equal to the many others questioning his WRONG and fast and loose reverts and vandalism accusations; ie, you were right on in your original post - I am sorry you are having trouble understanding this, I truly thought it was clear from my first post to you if it was read through, and if there is confusion ask that you read it again. If you are merely saying you accept his statement that of 6000 edits he is causing no harm, you are mistaken, I had to waste a lot of effort trying to legitimately edit an article and was emotionally hurt, especially by the deletion of my queries on his page and his keeping others. I hope you understand now and see how your "all resolved, happy editing" is sending the wrong message to this editor - review his talk page again and add a reference to my deleted info to it; you'll do a service to update your post or alert an admin, I can't seem to find how to do that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.173.108 (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC) 96.224.173.108 (talk) 20:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Few things that you should think about:

• If you wish to be taken seriously in Wiki, get yourself a username. IP addresses don't get the same respect.
• Flewis seems to be a reasonable guy. He tries speed deleting vandalism and makes mistakes once in a while. But he admits that he made mistakes, so best to move on.
• You seem like a smart guy and write well. Maybe you should think about whether this is the life you really want, arguing with me who is only very tangentially involved in this matter. I have gone through life with similar internet addictions and realized I was wasting my time. I am sure you can find much better use for your time.

Peace, LuxNevada (talk) 00:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your sentiment; however, I wouldn't call editing a few articles and following up on the responses an internet addiction, and I oppose the notion of distinctual treatment of usernames or #'s - they are both people and deserve equal respect in my view; Flewis did NOT concede he made an error in my case, he merely kept deleting my posts to his page, it was another editor who posted that he was in error; also, Wiki is genderless - I too assumed Flewis a male and you I wasn't sure of; as a # I am truly genderless on line, which is fine w/me, it bespeaks the same equality and respect of names and numbers, genders, professions, etc. What I had asked was for you to assist me in raising a valid point that many raised, undeleted, on Flewis/superflewis (he seems to have changed his username?) page. I am sorry you neglected to do so, but appreciate your not deleting my post and refusing to reply; to me, what Flewis did is wrong and he is hurting alot of people and edits and I am sorry you wouldn't flag the issue and accepted his phoney "apologia" that he gets few complaints, they can't be avoided. But I've stated my case fully and succinctly and if you can't help me out w/an admin, I'll just wait for someone else to eventually stop his destructive behavior on line, if anyone bothers. Peace.96.224.173.108 (talk) 02:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

If someone who doesn't even know you personally offers you advice, it may be a good idea to think about it carefully. Anyway, I do not really have the time to enter into this argument between you and Flewis. Peace, LuxNevada (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I hope you take your post to heart, as I worry you may not see how it applies to you. This is also not about an argument w/Flewis but about your posts on his talk page and the possible accuracy of your original post and inaccuracy of your last. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear to that extent; I was also asking you assist me in following up on what you cited in your earlier posts, in which you cited several other users. His admitting inaccurate vandalism charges doesn't make them right; if you agree now w/his opinion over zealous and inaccurate vandal accusations w/warnings and reversions are to be supported, just say; I disagree and could read in your early posts you disagreed and I pointed out he was not honest or accurate in his post to you that all were sorted out properly. If you refuse to see past your own nose, I don't think it helps Wikipedia; in other words, I'm talking about a pattern of behavior, not your individual edit or any "argument" I am asking you to one on one bother to care about, as you seem to not care about what is happening beyond your nose and this isn't a mundane "argument"; I hope I am wrong. Peace.96.232.231.119 (talk) 06:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Helots

Hi. I don't understand your last edits on this article. 'Dependent' is a frequently used term in History for the myriad of unfree statuses that used to exist, but that cannot be reduced to straight chattel slavery, such as Medieval serfs or Penestae. Please try "dependent status" or "dependent labour" on Google and see. This has nothing to do with children. A word can have several meanings.

In Ancient Greece, the shedding of blood caused religious pollution. Cartledge writes on this matter: "the Ephors declared war annually on the Helots – a typically Spartan expression of politically calculated religiosity designed to absolve in advance from ritual pollution any Spartan who killed a Helot" (Sparta and Lakonia, pp.141–142). By comparison, in Attic law, the suit brought against the killer of a slave was a dikē phoinikē, demanding punishment for the religious pollution brought by the shedding of blood (see Slavery in Ancient Greece#Athenian slaves). Jastrow (Λέγετε) 07:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

As suggested by you I googled "dependent status". Nothing on the first page remotely matched the meaning you want it to convey. In an introduction it is better to use language a layman will understand, you can get more "complex" in the body of the article. Similar argument for "religious pollution". The first thing that comes to mind when one murders another, is whether the murderer was punished, not whether the murderer suffered "religious pollution". LuxNevada (talk) 09:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Good points. Still, I think we should try to explain from the beginning the inferior status of the Helots. Perhaps "Helots were an unfree population that formed," etc.? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 20:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent edits. They seem right. LuxNevada (talk) 10:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

ip hopping 'sockpuppet'

Hi there, this may be of interest to you: User_talk:Flewis#Please_inform_me_how_to_contact_an_admin. Cheers --Flewis^(talk) 07:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been harassing you, I have been responding factually to your posts and questions raised and wiki issues; I think you need to clarify that v. let it stand on Flewis' page; you either involved him somehow or allowed him to involve you in attacking me personally and improperly; please note that my posts to you were legitimate responses and if you can't see that, I'd ask you reflect on good faith. If you can't see that, I'd ask you focus on your "Peace" comments.96.224.42.29 (talk) 07:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

When you write "you" I can't make out if you are referring to Flewis (whose comment you are responding to), or me (whose talk page you are on). In any case I think I have said all that was to be said. My goal was to help you. I don't think my saying anything more is going to help towards that goal. With that in mind I am going to not participate in this discussion anymore. LuxNevada (talk) 18:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You means you - Flewis posted on your page a reference to a post he made on his page in which he says (incorrectly) that I have been harassing you; I asked you to rectify that matter. For the record you are one of two editors I asked to moderate an issue with Flewis. I note that you have terminated your involvement for whatever it was worth (per your post above) and in my understanding I would then need to bring in an admin as I made a good faith effort to resolve or discuss issues I raised with 2 other editors brought in.96.224.42.29 (talk) 06:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello I reverted your edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Piracy_in_Somalia&curid=17015903&diff=279035210&oldid=278880741 cause when I read the references and sources, there is stated a clear connection between the lack of control of western nations dumping and the pirates seeing them selves as the coast guard, defending their territory. Care to follow the discussion on the talk page ? Peace, rkmlai (talk) 03:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your message to me. I will look for additional citations, in a couple of days, as I am presently on a camping trip. Peace, rkmlai (talk) 19:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Sparta

Hi, please see my comments on the talkpage. The sentence you restored looks out of place in the lead, and it is moreover highly simplistic in tone. Athenean (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I posted a reply and moved the discussion to the article's talkpage. Athenean (talk) 01:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Mona Lisa

I have just reverted your edits. A reference was required for "the most parodied". I find numerous, but all the others said "American Gothic is the most parodied painting in the world after the Mona Lisa" (or something similar).

The reasons for my reversion are:

• The whole statement is too much within the context of the biographical introduction. It would not be too much in the introduction of the article on the painting itself.
• "most famous" encapsulates "most visited, most written about" etc.
• "most parodied" is an entirely different matter. It lends itself to parody to a singular degree. It is unusual at that level in that there are works by famous painters which are parodies, rather than derivations of the Mona Lisa. Offhand, I can't think of any other painting for which this is the case.
• Because your addition was a direct quote, it needs to go in quotation marks.
• I will add the quote to the Mona Lisa article.

Amandajm (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why you think "most famous" encapsulates "most visited, most written about"? For example, the most famous painting could belong to a private collection in which case it likely would not be most visited. Also most sung is entirely different from most famous. I have condensed the quote so it is not a direct quote anymore. LuxNevada (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Having all that stuff in the intro of the Leonardo article is overkill, and it remains plagiarism, even if not a direct quote. As an academic author I don't use things which are obviously the original idea or the sequential thinking of another individual without either making it a clear quotation or saying "according to...". That sequence plainly derives from someone else. I have used it, appropriately, as a lead quote in the Mona Lisa article. That is sufficient. Anyone who wants more on the Mona Lisa will look it up. The article in question is about the man, not the painting.

The debate about whether the "most famous" might be privately owned is a non-argument. It isn't. It is visited specifically because of its fame. That is obvious.

As for "most written about" being part of its fame........ well, what do you really think? Would the two be related, or not?

The fact that popular songs have been written about it has had very little real impact. It is too trivial for the intro of this article.

On the other hand, the fact that the painting was parodied, initially by Duchamp, is highly significant in the history of 20th century painting, with implications in the works of Dali, Warhol, Lichtenstsein, Bacon and others. If you are not particularly knowledgeable about 20th century painting, you may not realise this, but it is the case.

"Parody" here, has to do with impact that goes beyond general fame. There is something about the nature of the work itself, which, unlike most other female portraits, is so distinctive and challenging that it leads to parody. To be parodied, an image has to have achieved "iconic status". Not all famous works are parodied. The "Last Supper", which until the late 20th century, was by far the most reproduced and copied painting in the world, was treated with reverence, and not parodied until comparatively recently. American Gothic, on the other hand, was parodied almost from the first day it was exhibited.

Amandajm (talk) 02:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
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