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Note

Yonatan Mendel, Diary, London Review of Books, Vol. 37 No. 6 -19 March, 6 March 2015.

Palestinian population statistics Pro memoria

here,

Notice of Admin noticeboard discussion

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Yo Ho Ho

Doug Weller talk is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec16a}} to your friends' talk pages.

Nomination of Meir Ettinger for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Meir Ettinger is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

Another close call as a Hamas terrorist intent on destroying Israel, Alaa Asawafiri (26), is stopped dead in their tracks

Declan Walsh,'At the Gaza-Israel Fence: Raw Nerves and Shots Fired,' New York Times 13 May 2018

and no amount of antisemitic reportage can spin and challenge its veracity, it is an eyewitness account.Nishidani (talk) 20:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

New image of deadly Hamas rocket attack, courtesy NF.Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Some grownup links to useful I/P sources for contemporary events

• Sir Stephen Sedley, 'Short Cuts,' London Review of Books vol 40 No 9, 10 May 2018.
• Henry Siegman, 'The Two-State Solution: An Autopsy,' vol. 40 No. 10, 24 May 2018 pp.17-18
• Stanley L. Cohen, 'Broken Dreams and Lost Lives: Israel, Gaza and the Hamas Card,' CounterPunch 22 May 2018.
• Mario Vargas Llosa, 'La caja de los truenos,' El Pais 20 May 2019.

Holocaust denial and other bizarrities

I've had the displeasure of knowing two Holocaust deniers fairly well, which was enough to alert me to the perils of making blanket assertions about such people. HD#1 fit the mould of your description pretty well: his denial was part and parcel of his antisemitism. HD#1 would dismiss my suggested reading material on such grounds as "the author is a Jew so what do you expect?". On the other hand, HD#2 is one of those people who can't resist a conspiracy theory, and the bigger the conspiracy the more attractive it is. So HD#2 also believes the moon landings were staged, that the WTC was brought down by explosives (he is adamant that there were no planes), and so on. I sometimes think he is incapable of hearing a conspiracy theory without believing in it. However, I have never heard him attribute these conspiracies to Jews as would someone who had a basically antisemitic world view. It is always some CIA shadow government or similar that is responsible. My point is that HD comes in different flavors and we shouldn't assume otherwise. Zero^talk 12:36, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Point well-taken, and particularly appreciated because, in this area, the rhetorical deployment of anti-Semite/Holocaust denier accusations (along with the extremely devious pressure to legislate into law the idea that opposition to Zionism, i.e. anti-Zionism is evidence of antisemitism) has proved to have great attritional value in wearing down to a tired blur our innate capacities to 'always distinguish'. People whose antennae still quiver differently according to the subtly diverse valencies of the messages in what, to the less sensitive, looks like a uniform field of unisonal signals, are increasingly rare. The point was put with great lucidity by Sir Stephen Sedley in the brilliant essay I cite just above this:

the ubiquity of insult and calumny in the everyday vocabulary of social media plays a not insignificant part in the foul-mouthed verbal assaults described by Jewish MPs in the recent Commons debate. This said, most Jews do understand the risk of hypersensitivity. There is the story about Goldbloom, doing well in the rag trade in Stepney, who has to make a dash for Euston to sort out a problem with his supplier in Glasgow. As the night sleeper pulls out, he realises he has left his overnight bag behind. Luckily the man occupying the other berth in the sleeper compartment has a spare pair of pyjamas, which he lends Goldbloom, and tells Goldbloom he can use his razor in the morning. But when Goldbloom asks if he can also borrow his toothbrush, he politely declines. The next evening, when he returns from Glasgow, Goldbloom’s wife asks him how the journey went. ‘Not bad,’ says Goldbloom, ‘but did I meet an anti-Semite!’

That said, the profile of the person on the page in question left little doubt in my mind that she is anti-Semitic in the HD#1 sense, but, as you remind me, this is, in legal (as opposed to psychoanalytic) terms, still opinionable, much as is my sense that a numerous people I have had to deal with show a callous contempt for anyone beyond the pale of their ingrown provincial prejudices, which are ethnic supremacist to the bootstraps - and mirror the pathology of anti-Semitism which is far more palpably detectable also because the latter attracts more attention and concern, and is treated like a language isolate, as a unique category of its own, and not just the most visibly toxic expression of a generalized 'human' condition - of nonchalant disdain for, or malicious joy over, the suffering of fellow human beings. Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

My first impression of England as a boy was observing how a Pakistani conductor on a double decker bus, noticing a somewhat elderly gentleman, dressed to the pins like a bureaucrat, with bowler and a walking stick, limply stepping slowly onto the bus steps, reached out to lend him a hand, gently grasping him under the elbow to assist his entry. The small man's face changed instantly from the dull public mask it wore into a picture of sheer Kurtzian horror, glossed with a raging outburst along the lines:' Get your filthy paws off me, you fucking Paki swine!' I've witnessed things like that (particularly against Arabs and Africans) far more often than I have anti-Semitism, though once, lecturing in Canberra, I did observe a brilliant English academic whose company I had hitherto enjoyed, suddenly transform himself into a Fagin-like figure as he caricatured another scholar there as a Jew. Rub up otherwise numerous people the wrong way and the basic impression of decency can drop in an instant and reveal a spluttering bigot, and this goes for any community. It's not peculiar to anti-Semites, and you can find it just as often in vocational raucous anti anti-Semites.Nishidani (talk) 15:47, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Problem with Katzman

The issue is that the authority cited is a book published by a firm that has a history of not fact-checking, and the author is essentially unknown, so even though Katzman is probably an acceptable authority, the only way we know he said this is via an unknown author and a publisher with a bad record - in other words we don't actually know that he said it at all. I don't mind if that editor wants tot rack down the original Katzman source, but this one is not on. Guy (Help!) 16:32, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

This is too silly to reply to here. Editors of general books do not check the facts of scholars/researchers (Katzman is on the staff of the Congressional Research Service, for fuck's sake: you get fired if you screw up consistently there, and what he states in any case is a truism) who have competence in their own fields. Anyone who has published academically knows that: one is invited to add a paper to a volume on the basis of one's particular expertise, and editors can't be expected to check your facts. That is for peer-reviewers examining the book on publication. It is totally irrelevant who the editor is. This is so elementary . . . Nishidani (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

ARBPIA violation

Per third ARBPIA bullet: "If an edit is reverted by another editor, its original author may not restore it within 24 hours of the first revert made to their edit." Meaning, you should have waited at least 24 hours after MY EDIT before reinserting your disputed content.--יניב הורון (talk) 00:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, and I appreciate the courtesy. You are correct. The content is not disputed. You just reverted with a false edit summary, without talk page argument. Nishidani (talk) 09:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

spi

no need for any comments there, the diffs are listed. This is a technical question, dont want an invitation to uninformed comments like what followed. that happens nobody will look at it.. nableezy - 18:10, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree. but checking the material, I'm either tired or saw a reduplication of diffs. You nhasve 3 not four, by my account. The time factor (two years) is, at least for this detective, a fundamental clue. Still, the principle is, don't interfere with other people's work. Apologies.Nishidani (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Its not that, its that when people see others commenting they feel obliged to chime in with some irrelevant crap. And then nobody looks at it cus its a clusterfuck. Would like this the to be done with the least amount of fuss possible. nableezy - 21:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

There's an ethical point here. Because a lot of editwarriors cram in to vote on whatever page one comments these days, must one desist from noting a relevant point on those pages for fear of 'baiting' them. I noted as technical correction (right or wrong) and made an observation on time differences, it was purely technical. That the usual Shrike feels obliged to make his necessary opinion/'vote' whenever I or someone else shows up is beside the point, surely. One can't be conditioned by the foolish behavior of other editors. As it is, I don't comment on most pages precisely because I don't want to appear to imitate the herd practices of the usual swarming team, but there's a limit. Still point taken. Nishidani (talk) 08:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

rant and rave

by the bone - email somewhere there JarrahTree 15:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

J'impose silence à mon Méphistophélès. Ce diable allait tout dire! Mais, tout diable qu'il est, il n'eût certainement pas pu vous dire l'avenir. L'avenir est comme le reste : il n'est plus ce qu'il était. J'entends par là que nous ne savons plus penser à lui avec quelque confiance dans nos inductions. Nous avons perdu nos moyens traditionnels d'y penser et de prévoir : c'est le pathétique de notre état.' (Paul Valéry 17 February 1937) Best regards Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

yeah alliance francaise in perth once had the bumper sticker 'monolingualism can be cured' JarrahTree 15:34, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Meaning to get two yodeling tongues on a single fanny require medical advice? Nishidani (talk) 15:37, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Please use Edit summaries

I just noticed your edits overnight to Aboriginal Tasmanians, and had a bit of a look at them because this article has been a target for vandalism in the past. My job was made harder (and you edits looked more suspicious) because you used very few Edit summaries. Can you please try to use them more in future? HiLo48 (talk) 00:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

New article

I recently created an article: March 1947 martial law in Mandatory Palestine. I left room for expansion, and I recall your ability to find new sources at 1946 British Embassy bombing. If you have time, I would appreciate anything you can contribute to the article.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes this is good work - what editors should be doing, rather than editwarring over snippets, i.e. building the encyclopedia constructively. I've bookmarked it, and will see what I can do when time allows. The attention to neat formatting and citational templates is also appreciated. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 12:57, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

AE

[1]--Shrike (talk) 20:26, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Out of curiosity

Did you pick the Toynbee/Ikeda reference (rather than any of the other possible allusions you could have made) as a pointed in-joke for my benefit? I'm not sure if you noticed, but not only has <satire> my disruptive history of promoting the Soka Gakkai on Wikipedia </satire> and the ArbCom case that <satire> spun out of it </satire> been mentioned on ANI but the editor who would write that unironically has apparently been actively evading his site ban in the last few days.

Funny coincidence, if you weren't aware of them.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:14, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

No, I don't follow other editors and had no way of knowing you had worked on Soka Gakkai, a page I can't remember editing. Polymath +outsider working on Japan just spontaneously stirred memories of Toynbee's misadventures with Ikeda.Nishidani (talk) 09:36, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm actually relieved to know you don't remember that the Arbitration case (on which you commented a few times) that led to my being TBANned for a couple of years was technically (at least according to ArbCom's findings of fact) about 20th-century Nichiren Buddhist lay groups ("lay groups" was not in there but the articles in question were all related to either the Kokuchukai or the Soka Gakkai). That said, my Soka Gakkai edits were mostly reactive (I saw an editor adding content and attributing it to sources that, when I checked them, said nothing of the source), so I wouldn't say I was "working on" them. It's a funny coincidence, then. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I?ve seen Soka Gakkai missionaries behaving no different from tekiya in harassing decent folks in my area. Ergo . . .:) Having linked to tekiya I see that it doesn't give sufficient weight to those of them who bash up customers, the gangster kind.Nishidani (talk) 10:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Well don't count on me to improve en.wiki's coverage of any modern Japanese stuff for a few months. Once the current ANI drahma is solved I'm going back up my Man'yoshu hole. Honestly said solving should it should have been over with the minute an admin issued the final warning I requested, less than 24 hours after the discussion was opened; the problem is that the warning was acknowledged and then promptly violated, but some folks are still calling BLOCKNOTPUNITIVE, including the aforementioned Andrew, apparently in order to repay the debt that the warnee left him with when he showed up on AN and said my complaint about Andrew was groundless. It's amazing that people can accuse me, you and this guy of being members of the same clique when "the pack defends its members" stuff as blatant as this is going on under their noses. Even still, there's no way I'll still be dealing with it longer than a few more days, so hopefully my vacation will begin sooner and end sooner. Still not sure if I'd wanna write about either tekiya or SG, though. ;-) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:17, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I didn't mean it in that sense (do some work). I would advise, as usual, that you forget the past incidents. I simply wastes too much time. One should, as far as possible, restrict one's attention to building articles, and walk past the vexatious attrition of POV battles. If they arise, bide your time, and then go one editing. No matter how hard one works here, it is policy to give due hearing to frivololus pseuds and to people with a substantial record of article improvement. That's the way it is, so one must develop strategies to prioritize whatever is personally and encyclopedically useful, esp. since most of the arb disputes are so arcane almost no one understands them, or remembers them (except for attack purposes). Don't get sucked into that. Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

By the way, Hijiri. If you ever come across an internet copy of Hiraga Gennai (平賀源内)'s treatise on farting (放屁論), I'd much appreciate a link, since I'0ve always promised myself I'd read it (the final Greek class I attended before graduating was a brilliantly funny, very erudite survey of malodorous crepitation and halitosis in ancient literature). I was reminded of it by reflecting today on Wikipedia and flatulence.Nishidani (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

List of reverts

The AE case alluded to above flopped on the 20th June. Since it dealt with abusive editing, on closure I am listing any example where reverts, partial or otherwise, take place that have no adequate policy grounds, in my view, starting immediately with this one.

• 20 June 2018.at Ahed Tamimi, by Shrike with a false edit summary. See also here.Nishidani (talk) 19:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
• 23 June 2018 at Blockade of the Gaza Strip, with a meaninglessly opinionated edit summary, by Yaniv.Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
• 23 June 2018 at Gaza War (2008) eliding 'alleged' (as in source) on the grounds it is already stated, which it isn't, that a Hamas tunnel, asserted to be a casus belli, was being directly prepared for an operation to kidnap Israeli soldiers despite a truce, which Hamas was scrupulously observing. By TheTimesAreAChangingNishidani (talk) 06:55, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
• 7 July 2018 nationality and holding a passport are separate issues at Palestinian Authority passport by User:Enthusiast01

Numerous sources state such people as Daniel Barenboim had citizenship and a Palestinian passport conferred on them simultaneously. One implies the right to the other. It takes 10 seconds to verify that, 10 seconds if one is slow.Nishidani (talk) 13:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

On linguistic brainwashing

on May 14, "Black Monday", 63 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead and over 1500 wounded by live fire. Every Israeli knows that this was necessary because the demonstrators stormed the fence and were about to swarm into Israel. Nobody paid attention to the simple fact that there was not a single photo showing such an occurrence. Not even one. In spite of the fact that on both sides of the fence there were hundreds of photographers, including Israeli army photographers, who filmed every single detail. Tens of thousands stormed, and not a single picture?One should notice the use of the word "terror". It has turned into an adjective attached to everything. There are not just tunnels – they are all always "terror-tunnels". There are "terror-activists". There is "the Hamas terror-regime" and there are "terror-bases". Now there are "terror-kites".The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are "terrorists". (In Hebrew, a special term has been invented: "Mekhablim"). The use of these terms, hundreds of times every day, clearly constitute brainwashing, without the citizens noticing it. They are getting used to the fact that all Gazans are terrorists, mekhablim. This is a process of dehumanization, the creation of Untermenschen in the Nazi lexicon. Their killing is allowed, even desirable. . .WHAT CAN be done to counter such brainwashing? Not much. Uri Avnery, Are YOU Brainwashed? Gush Shalom 9 June 2018.

RE comment

RE -this comment - I give little weight to the Israeli, Polish, or any other government view on history. I will also note, that in relation to WWII I have been trying to stick to high-quality (academic books by scholars in the field, journal articles. To a lesser extent - popular history books (only when the prior two aren't available) and mainline news outlets (mainly for contemporary coverage of investigations - not for historical fact)) - and all this in English (with minor exceptions - I have sourced to Polish and Hebrew in very limited instances). Some of the stuff I've been cleaning up is really low quality sourcing - take a look at RSN Ewa Kurek and Mark Paul. There is also a serious problem in the topic area with Polish language sources being misrepresented - I've found (and corrected - sometimes after a protracted "fight") several instances in which a Polish language source was being used to state something in an article when it did not say it all, said something different (in particular - general stmts on Jews turning into particular stmts and vice versa), and in some cases the Polish language source actually said the opposite - e.g. look at your post at RSN here.

I'd like to point out the two most egregious and obvious examples (search them up - Radziłów is fairly famous - just ignore "Mark Paul" who is a WP:QS WP:SPS (though google results are flooded with him) of outright hoaxes - Stawiski (was this) or Radziłów (was this) - both of which presented anti-Jewish pogroms by Poles as Jewish persecution of Poles, followed by a German massacre (with little or no Polish involvement) of Jews. The topic area being in a "stable" state with outright hoaxes and use of non-RS (described as myth propagating to boot) - is not a state that should remain "stable". And these are not unique, just extreme in their misrepresentation.Icewhiz (talk) 14:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I may be wrong, of course, but I can't escape the impression that your position on I/P articles and on the Polish/Jewish WW2 articles represents a ethnonational POV in both cases. That is the only logical connection there. There's nothing on Wikipedia to deny you the right to adopt this approach. In historicist terms however it strikes me as profoundly irrational, and RS have nothing to do with the options exercised. For 6 years Nazis made a hell for Poles, Jewish or otherwise. For the last 50 years Israel has occupied a foreign country, and has blasted shit out of the lives of a few million people. I make the connection between two occupied peoples (not between the occupiers: Australian colonizers weren't Nazis, but a lot that thought and behaved like them became national heroes). What interests me is both Polish/ Jewish Polish suffering, and that is why I can understand, I believe, Palestinian suffering.You don't make the connection. Nishidani (talk) 15:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

For the record - Polish suffered horribly during the occupation. ~3 million non-Jewish Poles (as well as ~3 million Jews) died. That being said, there were some some rather severe anti-Jewish actions by the Poles and Polish underground - see Neighbors and Fear by Gross, or Hunt for the Jews by Grabowski. Take a peak at what was going on in Stawiski and Radziłów - which is actually what really got me involved (I did "light" editing in the topic area around the Polish law passing in Jan 2018 - but mainly on lightweight current affairs stuff which I sometimes do - e.g. Grenfell Tower fire) - but what really get me into this was seeing Stawiski presented in completely counter-historical terms.Icewhiz (talk) 15:10, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Undoubtedly. And there were some severe actions undertaken (and I am fully aware of the Zydokomuna variety of anti-Semitism) against Polish villagers by Communists who happened (for good reason contextually) to be Jewish. I get the impression you think the mere fact of Jewish ethnicity of historical actors means that the historian must assume their behaviour must be accorded special circumstances. (I grew up more or less twigging out the anti-Semitic undertones of a lot of friends whose families escaped from the Eastern European inferno. Most of them were radical anti-Communists because of personal experiences. When two families learnt I was studying Russian, they busted my burgeoning interest in their highly intelligent and winsome daughters.) That thoroughly Decent people can approve absolute evil is the lesson I learnt from those experiences, and it applies to all ethnic groups. The generalized anti-Semitism of East European Christian societies is identical to the anti-Palestinianism of Israeli society. Both are forms of anti-Semitism, with the difference that the latter is reverse anti-Semitism where the historic victim of undying prejudice escapes from the context of torment only to reproduce its logic in turn against a third party which has no connection with the original story of hatred.Nishidani (talk) 15:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Prizegiving

I believe you are partial to a drop of this Nish. As you were the only entrant to my what the feck has been going on on WP in the past 6 months competition, with DBX,who is of the beer, I award you your prize. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 22:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Chivas Regal

• Hahaha, You Got it right bro. But Craft Beer to be precise. And White wine as well. That said, I would never say no to CR, anytime that would be blasphemy. I offer beer cuz unfortunately Wikilove only allowes to serve beer by default. cheers --DBigXray 20:19, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Nishidani means

What does it mean. I am intrigued--DBigXray 20:15, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Nishidani is an off-the-track place in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, meaning ‘western valley’, a nice place to relax from the metropolitan hustle of any of Japan’s supermodern cities. But on the other hand it could refer to a site in Shimane Prefecture noted for its rich deposits of ancient Japanese tumuli, suggesting an interest in Japanese archaeology. Depending on accent, and pronunciation and script it could also allude to the idea of a

• 西蜱 western tick, evocative of the idea of a foreign, European thug or nuisance
• 西谿 western gorge, perhaps then a hermit eking out life in a ravined landscape somewhere in the West.
• 西田 a rice paddy to the west of a hamlet, connoting someone who eats rice as a staple though living abroad, westwards of the Japanese isles.
• It could also be an abbreviation of 西田(幾多郎)に, thus 'Nishida-ni,'(In response to the writings of the foremost Japanese philosopher), Nishida Kitarō
• It could, as a polylingual pun, mean ‘occidental shithouse’ (dunny). It may bear other nuances, but the above were those uppermost in mind when I chose this handle. Nishidani (talk) 08:35, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for the elaborate reply. To add to your list.

• Nishidani can be considered as made up of 2 Hindi words Nisha निशा (meaning Night) and Daani/Dani दानी (doner). So your name can be loosely understood in Hindi as "Someone who donates his nights".
• Nisha is a commonly used name for Hindu Girls. --DBigXray 10:26, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

That's a relief. My inspirations were rather tediously arcane, but your suggestions add a gloss of erotic innuendo that makes the name really interesting. Being a vulgarian when not being pompous, I take 'night donor' sexually, though cod forbid the idea that intercourse is restricted to the witching hours. Perhaps, I should take night donor as a reference to wet dreams? Thanks for the Hindi words: they are fairly recognizable as euphonic scions of Sanskrit, and ultimately Indo-European. Oops, my mind's drifting. . 'donuts his tights', 'Nice boner,' etc.etc. Nishidani (talk) 15:11, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• haha :D Glad to let you know. And yes, both the words have Sanskrit origination. --DBigXray 16:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Stupidity

here wiki editors decide by a majority (archived at Talk:Douma chemical attack/Archive 4#RfC) that Robert Fisk is not a reliable source for events on Syria (while the text quotes numerous reports written by people with no knowledge of Arabic let alone 40+ years of covering the area, and writing extraordinary histories of that part of the world.Nishidani (talk) 19:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is madness. (I mention that Fisk had been found a "fringe source" on wp for a journalist friend of mine, and he was totally gobsmacked.

In the soon 13 years I have been on WP, I haven't seen any area so censored as the present Syrian conflict zone. I'm not sure why that is, well, the British have given about 3 million pounds to "information" about "opposition groups"...I would be surprised if some of that hasn't trickled back into some Wikipediots. In addition, I see several known from the WP:EEML days...editors who don't exactly love Russia, (or always "playing fair") and seem to work under the motto of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" (even if he is a head chopper...).

Well, I remember intensely, how 15 years ago, I was hanged, drawn and quartered (al least, it felt that way)...because I wasn't convinced that Saddam Hussein had WMDs (and of course, I was a "Saddam-lover").

And while journalist like Fisk, or Seymour Hersh, are having a hard time getting heard, organisations like Bellingcat (run by former unemployed Eliot Higgins), or Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (run by a former clothing merchant) ..have no problem in securing plenty of funding...and are somehow found to be WP:RS.

And all the time: those who have financial interests in weapon producing industries are laughing all the way to the bank...Huldra (talk) 22:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Wow, I missed that (I'm trying to stay off Wikipedia as much as possible for the next few months...). Unbelievable! Reminds me of the old saying back in the day when I was working on IBM mainframes: "Garbage in, garbage out" (GIGO). The official narrative on Syria, being pushed heavily by "mainstream" media is, well, "garbage" so WP:RS requires that our articles on Syria are garbage. Having said that, there is no way that Fisk can be said to be anything other than RS, let alone "fringe". I have met both Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett (BTW, their pages are attack pages that need to be blown up), and in my opinion both of them are telling the truth, and the people smearing them are lying - as one would expect from first principles (per Lord Acton's dictum). The current ArbCom case on Philip Cross is highly relevant here. Actually, a case could be made even under current RS rules that the official narrative is bullshit, being based on intelligence sources that provide no hard evidence: the job of spies and intelligence services is to lie and deceive, in other words, they are the most unreliable sources that it's possible to get. --NSH001 (talk) 05:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

It's a rerun of Seferberlik. Manipulation is however rampant for any POV you can imagine. The only difference is that we have a huge amount of press focus on Russian spin, and quasi zero press coverage of consistent Western bias, deliberate distortion and government prevarication. I don't know about the Beeleys and Bartletts: I don't read must reportage on that area unless I see it signed by Fisk, Charles Glass, Patrick Cockburn and people of that tested caliber . The more pertinacious or obsessively careful one is in researching the history of the area, the more disrepute you earn (Norman Finkelstein). He lost academic tenure because, unlike his critics, he actually studied who said what about what, and on what empirical basis was the judgement formed. Nishidani (talk) 14:53, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Funnily enough a similar case is being made successfully right now at BLP/N and Talk:Skylab mutiny: where NASA's transcripts contradict what the papers say, we are apparently obliged to throw the transcripts in the trash, since NASA would have had an incentive to forge them. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

.....aaaaaaand we have an article named Douma chemical attack... when OPCW found no proof that chemicals were used in the attack..... Huldra (talk) 22:43, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, the OCPW hasn't issued its final report yet. The interim report found no evidence of sarin, and maybe some evidence of chlorine. The latter is uncertain right now. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:47, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

RE Recent events

Could you take a brief (I dont want you to waste your time on this) look at the issue here - It looks like either the source article online was amended post-publication, or there is a mis-match between print and online versions. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:25, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

oh, didn't even know the article existed. Yes, if you think I might be helpful, by all means I'll have a look at it. At a glance at your summary (very good source analysis) it looks like the NYTs has had second thoughts, but the BBC has 'highly symbolic'. The word 'symbolic' here probably is one of the cover key terms given in English-language official remarks from the outset. I.e. those who passed the bill know that, in the logic of law, it will have a deep impact on legal arrangements, but wish to blur the implications by reducing the legislative measure a mere matter of symbolic self-affirmation. Whatever their intent, laws are, by definition, never 'symbolic', since by their very existence, they can be appealed to to effect changes in civil life. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Well the Israeli gov is using 'declarative' in the sense to imply that it changes nothing and is merely declaring the current situation, which is problematic by itself, since all sources analysing it say 'no this really does change quite a few things substantially'. Thanks for taking a look though. I'm dealing with more ridculouslessness regarding categories atm. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:01, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for help - Jews in middle ages

Hello,

I'm very new to WP and came across your name on a talk page. I recently visited History of the Jews in the Middle Ages and am pretty surprised at how terrible of an article it is. Article is ethnocentric with respect to Jews in Europe and neglects nearly all mention of Jews living elsewhere during this period of centuries. Many claims are unsourced, what is sourced appears dubious, and the general structure of the article sucks in that there's nearly zero mention of the day-to-day lives of Jews in the middle ages, e.g. their occupations, their lifestyles and customs, etc.

The entire thing reeks of nationalism. I opened a discussion in the talk page (before I made an account, so that most recent IP edit is me, FYI), and added a POV tag. If you wouldn't mind taking a look it'd be great. I don't know any other editors who may be experts in this field (I am not) who could find some better sources to create a better article and get rid of the POV issues. As it stands, it looks like it should be deleted (the only sections of the article worth keeping are cut and pasted from forked articles like History of the Jews in England), but I'm not certain it meets criteria for deletion.

Thanks in advance if you get the time to take a look or could attract other editors to the discussion. Lordbedo (talk) 17:13, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I would certainly be happy to help out. There's one small problem. Any page of this kind I touch is immediately swarmed by edit-warriors who appear to think I am either anti-semitic, or worse still, know nothing about a topic they are usually totally unfamiliar with. It's not an area I know as well as I would like to, though I have a fair grasp of the history of Italian Jews for that period. I think the best approach would be for you to begin an overhaul, along the lines of the History of the Jews of England, using only academic books and articles as the sole criterion for suitable sources. That solves many problems raised by edit-warriors, their ignorance of the topic. I've bookmarked the page, and look forward to lending a hand. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 19:14, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Request

I kindly request that you remove the word "blind" from "This moronic statement was reinserted by Debresser in his blind revert" on Talk:Arab Jews. Before reverting, I had previously replied on the talkpage, so my edit can not qualify as a blind revert. Should you choose not to remove that personal attack, you will find yourself reported on WP:ARBPIA for personal attacks in this already sensitive area. In addition, I'd recommend you refrain from using words like "moronic" for things you disagree with, or sentences like "WTF is going on" since such is also bad tone. Your intimidating attitude will not be tolerated much longer by this project. On ann afterthought, your unproven assertion that I did not check the sources is unfounded (and as a matter of fact incorrect). Oh, and is there a reason you need to repeat the fact that I am not a native English speaker, as though that makes your arguments worth more than mine? Please remove that as well. Debresser (talk) 16:22, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

It was a blind revert because you (a) have a long history of reverting my edits without examining their sourcing (you made a completely capricious revert on the same day of another edit I made at Jerusalem, for example. It had my name attached to it, and you excised a perfectly reasonable informative addition. (b) on grounds that do not cite a relevant policy. The statement is moronic: it was not written by you, as far as I know, but, as my textual analysis shows, it used sources which do not support it, in particular by defining the subject:'the Jews in Arab lands' in terms of sources that do not make their generalizations about Jews in Arab lands' but about Jews, hence WP:SYNTH, making an inference not in the source. I have your word for it that you examined the sources? That would mean you restored a text, knowing that the sources did not support it. As to English, if you can find any literate native speaker who will contest my reading of the ethnic superiority innuendo in that phrasing on sound philological principles, fine. As it stands, you assert it does not mean what it obviously implies, and since you are not a native speaker of English, my remark was appropriate. Not an attack, but a statement to be cautious. I repeat: the revert was a blind revert, and inexplicable. Nishidani (talk) 16:41, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Since I haven't been able to convince you, I think it is best to let the community decide. Please see WP:AE. Debresser (talk) 00:36, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

In 12 years I have, unwillingly, taken editors to the AE board I think twice. That is a working definition of civil restraint. How many times have you jumped at using AE with alacrity to, in your view settle someone's hash? Nishidani (talk) 12:38, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

If this report is correct (long suspected of course) then

a large amount of damage to the encyclopedia by this sockpuppet has to be done, and will require reverting or restoring several hundred excised passages. And I was tempted to retire . . .Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Nafez Assaily

I initiated Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nafez Assaily.Icewhiz (talk) 15:14, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

You've got mail

~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:42, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

thanks for all the arts

the whole of wp en seems a bit like queen river water before the tailing dam, but hey your work on the oz arts was brilliant - thought I spread my small corner of whatever in the face of the whatever. So much for clean water, and all JarrahTree 10:53, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

drowning like flies in a fly trap in marble bar

it doesnt take much, but there is a sense that someone hasnt remembered to turn off the lights just yet, but they are going... somewhere JarrahTree 11:42, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I give you a week to come back.

From my experience with retirement from Wikipedia.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 16:34, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. Sigh. Debresser (talk) 17:05, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

• Nishidani is back
• Im gonna do it
• Im gone
• Seven days later

I for one hope he does as Debresser does and comes back quickly. nableezy - 22:05, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I made that statement once, not every time somebody reports me at WP:AE to game the system and lull admins to sleep. Also please notice that after I came back from my break I trimmed my watchlist by 1,000 articles. In any case, I was a victim, not the problem, while Nishidani is a serious and persistent problem. Debresser (talk) 09:53, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

HA! Legit laughed out loud at that one. Thanks lol. nableezy - 14:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

A victim???? When you called me and Nishidani "anti Jewish", ie, racist, and refused to strike that? That might not have been a problem for you, but as you discovered, it was a serious problem other people here, Huldra (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Bloody hell, Nishidani, your aboriginal articles are a great service to the world and now you won't edit them? Tell me I'm hallucinating. We need you in ARBPIA too as hardly anyone can present both sides of an argument as honestly as you can. Zero^talk 02:25, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Let him write about aboriginals, but in the WP:ARBPIA we need editors like him and the equally aggressive and unpleasant Nableezy, like we need a bad toothache. Debresser (talk) 09:53, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Debresser Personal attacks on other Wikipedia editors are highly inappropriate. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 10:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

@Bodney That was not a personal attack, that was a statement of fact, which has been established over many years of WP:AE discussions. If you are looking for personal attacks, please see this or this. Debresser (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Debresser, sorry to hear about your teeth. I hope they get better soon. Zero^talk 10:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

We need editors in ARBPIA who actually read the sources and edit according to them, not what they wish they said as our esteemed editor above has a habit of doing. nableezy - 14:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

possible mergers in Aussie peoples

Hi,

Here are the articles I tagged for merger. Some of them may be ethnicities that share a common language, but some of them are probably duplicates, e.g. alt names. Since you know the literature, would you mind reviewing them, and removing the 'merge' templates from the ones that shouldn't be merged?

• Kokowara and Laia people

Unresolved

• Wiknantjara and Kugu Nganhcara

Resolved

• Bininj Kunwok people and Gunwinggu
• Dangbon and Dalabon

Resolved

• Barara people and Burarra

Resolved

• Marinunggo and Marranunggu

Resolved

• Amijangal and Emmiyangal

Resolved

• Mutjati and Otati

Wuthathi, according to Norman Tindale, held sway over some 150 square miles (390 km2) of territory extending north from Shelburne Bay north to the vicinity of Orford Ness

Southern part of Shelburne Bay; east and south to Macmillan River, inland to headwaters of Dulhunty River.

On the other hand, the Austkin/AIATSIS entry lists Otati as a variant of Wuthathi. So you have source conflict, that can only be resolved when an authoritative source comments on this.

What I'll do is note that Tindale's distinction is apparently not accepted by AIATSIS Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Unresolved

• Pintupi and Ildawongga

Lake Mackay, Lake Macdonald, Mount Russell,Ehrenberg Range, Kintore Range, Warman Rocks; west to near Winbaruku; south to about Johnstone Hill.

West of Lake Mackay to about Longitude 126°E;north toward a native place named Manggai which is tentatively identified as in the Stansmore Range. Manjildjara say their country begins at Ngila, an unidentified place several days walk east of Liburu (Libral on maps, Canning Stock Route Well 37). South to about 23°30'S latitude. A group of them supposedly suffering from the effects of drought were officially removed in April 1964 from ['Pundudjaba (Jupiter Well; 126°43'E x 22°50'S) to Papunya Station. Their name was first heard in the west as Ilda in 1953, again in 1956 from a Pintubi man at Haast Bluff and directly from a tribesman in 1964]

As one can see from the second quote re the Ildawongga, the Pintubi informant regarded them as a different people. AIATSIS is, justly so, extremely sensitive to any language that may prejudice contemporary land claims, but the earlier ethnographers, despite their own confusions, did take down information from elderly fully tribal people over a half a century ago, before this was a consideration. I don't think one can merge here.Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Unresolved

• Yingkarta and Inggarda

Resolved

Good catch.

• Ngarlawangga and Inawongga

Headwaters of the Ashburton and Gascoyne Rivers; south to near Three Rivers and Mulgul; east to Ilgarari.

On Hardey River south of Rocklea; southeast along upper Ashburton River from Turee Creek upstream to Kunderong Range and Angelo River; south only a short distance from the main Ashburton River channel to the north of Mount Vernon Station. Enmity with the Ngarlawangga prevented them from visiting Tunnel Creek.

Tindale defines them as separate, and as one can see from the bolded part, in the good ol' days, both groups were at odds, and clearly had boundaries beyond which incursion by either would lead to war.

Unresolved

Better still, they have to be kept separate.

• Girai wurrung and Kirrae

Resolved

• Ngambri and Walgalu

Unresolved

, or rather, unresolvable. While the Walgalu are traditionally attested there, as well as the Ngunawal, there are highly politicized claims and counter-claims to a tertium quid, namely the 'Ngambri' based on the suggestion such a group, and their ethnonym, lie behind the name for Australia's capital, Canberra. As one can see from the Ngambri page, it is all either WP:OR or modern political infighting by those descendants who make this claim, and those who dismiss it. To jam the Ngambri mess into the Walgalu page would only submerge the solid data of the latter, and be an eyesore. I think the sensible thing is to keep them separated.

• Dunghutti and Djangadi
  Resolved

They are identical, good catch. The problem is the Dunghutti page is a total WP:OR mess which, as it stands can't be sourced. It appears to have been written off the top of various heads connected to the descent groups. This stuff shouldn't be on wiki. I thought of trying to fix it but just tweaked, since a real fix would eviscerate most of the text. I'll take out one or two things there that are sourced, but someone should, after that, ask for its deletion, leaving the Djangadi page in its place. You can't merge, when a huge WP:OR mess has to be amalgated with another text that is documented, if skeletal.Nishidani (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Please redirect rather than ask for deletion. That will preserve the page history if anyone needs to go back to check something, as well as preserve all the redirects and links to that name, and take people to the preferred article if they look up that spelling. — kwami (talk) 05:38, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

In some cases, it may be that two ethnicities are confused in one of the articles, so they shouldn't be merged but part of one should be moved to the other.

I've only reviewed the articles linked from the regional templates, and only half of those. But I've come across quite a few ethno articles that aren't linked from the regional templates.

I've probably also missed some that don't have corresponding language articles. It's when I add the ethno name to the language info box that I sometimes notice that I'm repeating a name. — kwami (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The primary problem arises from two sources. (a)Tindale summarized in 1974 what he could gather from old informants as to the distinctions in ‘tribe’ and territory when the respective cultures still had some viable identity. His approach was ethnographical (b) research from the 1960s onwards among often ‘detribalized’ descendants, but also from a handful of elderly people, primarily linguistic in nature. The rift in results between the two comes from three decades and more of a waning in the number of informants who spoke the languages, and the rise of land claims by their descendants, who often came from parents who intermarried outside the strict laws of traditional moiety, who had been dislocated for half a century and who combined elements of their distinct multi-ethic/cultural heritage to form a new identity on the basis of which legal redress in courts for land could be made.

• (1)Kokowara and Laia people

According to Norman Tindale, the Kokowara had some 1,800 square miles (4,700 km2) of tribal land on the Normanby River, extending south from Lakefield to Laura and the Laura River.[1] Their central camping area was at a place called Daidan on the Deighton River.[2]

• Laia people

In Norman Tindale's estimation, the Laia had 2,100 square miles (5,400 km2) of territory, ranging over the area to the north of the Palmer River, and east as far as the Great Dividing Range. Their western limits lay around the headwaters of the Alice River.[1]

On that evidence, they can't be merged.

• (2) Wiknantjara and Kugu Nganhcara

Norman Tindale estimated that the Wiknantjara's tribal lands were about 300 square miles (780 km2) in the area between the mouths of the Holroyd River.[1]

However Kugu Nganhcara has no entry, except as an alternative name for the former. This is a very good catch. Kugu Nganhcara (Kugu-Nganychara,known also by the exonym Wik Ngenycharra) are associated with the area whose northern bounds are around the Kendall River and southwards around Moonkan Creek.(von Sturmer 1978:p.169,181) whereas the term used by Tindale Wiknantjara if looked at geophysically refers to an area of a subgroup, the Kugu-Ugbanh in the northern-centre of this area. (John Richard von Sturmer, The Wik Economy, Territoriality and Totemism in Western Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland, PhD University of Queensland 1978.p.37) Contextually then, Tindale’s Wiknantjara is an example of ethnographic synecdoche, they being the Kugu-Ugbank dialect speakers of the broader Kugu-Nganychara. Of course these are highly probable inferences. My problem, as usual, is to locate a source that states the obvious, to avoid WP:OR. On this evidence clearing the wik nantjara has to be merged into Kugu NganhcaraNishidani (talk) 11:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Iì've gone ahead and gutted Wiknantjara, merging what is useful there into Kugu Nganhcara. No doubt this leaves things redirects, merge proposals etc., in a mess, but I don't know, as said, how to do this correctly according to wiki protocols and I'll never learn.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I turned 'Wiknantjara' into a redirect for 'Kugu Nganhcara', and deleted it from the template list. That should take care of things. — kwami (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• (3) Bininj Kunwok people and Gunwinggu.

I was tempted to agree here. Indeed I tried a merge, but it's more complex thasn appears.The problem is that as it stands Gunwinggu is referenced to ethnography that dealt only with one of the six Bininj Gunwok groups. Norman Tindale's mapping seems to refer predominantly to the Kunwinjku /Gunwinggu, and speakers of that dialect were the dominant informants of Ronald Berndt and his wife Catherine Berndt. Elsewhere we have several pages with an ethnos, say Yugambeh people, and a separate page on one of their constitutive groups, the Kombumerri (a difficulty there is that the present self-identifiers want to simplify into one people numerous groups on a dialect chain often treated differently in the old ethnography), or, better still, the Noongar, a collective term now for 14/15 dialect groups, each of which has a page because the ethnography treated them as differentiated. I'll have to think more.Nishidani (talk) 17:51, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good. You know the sources, so whatever you think best.

I can't find Tjurabalan or Ngurrara on AIATSIS. I assume that means they don't speak distinct languages, but still it would be nice to list them as speakers of the appropriate language. Any ideas? — kwami (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Keep them coming. It's not that I'm slow, just that I have several time-consuming problems to deal with here, but I will merge most of those and add comments in the next few days.Nishidani (talk) 09:15, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The Tjurabalan are an aggregate, and since the language used defines the country and both 'own' the inhabitants of the territory thus defined, they appear to be constituted of Djaru and Walmajarri speakers. The Ngurrara likewise, as the page indicates, an aggregate of Walmadjari, Wangkatjunga so that you get |Ngumbin,Wati speakers and even some who prefer Ngarluma. It's all very confusing. But since the pages are ethnographic, and ethnographic identities are so fluid, and subject to repeated reformulation esp. when the European impact was so devastating for the traditional clan/territory/ language unities, only to be expected.Nishidani (talk) 11:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I apologize that in successive blankings and merges, I haven't tutored myself to do all the redirect fancy footwork. I hope it's no bother to clean up in the wake (an appropriate word, since it also refers to burying the dead !). Nishidani (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Yangga possibly needs to be split. Dixon lists "and possibly Yanga" with Mbara but also Yangga as a dialect of Biri. E52: Yangga = Durroburra at AIATSIS is said to be a dialect of Biri, but at G21 Mbara says that "According to Oates (1975:297), Sutton discovered that his Mbara and Tindale's Mitjamba G18 were the same dialect, being mutually intelligible with Yanga E52." But Biri is a Maric dialect and Mbara is Southern Paman, so Yanga/Yangga could not possibly be intelligible with both. Are Dixon's 'Yanga' and 'Yangga' two different dialects, conflated by AIATSIS under E52 Yangga? I'll leave a note at AIATSIS. — kwami (talk) 02:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I've gone through all the templates now. Now for List of Indigenous Australian group names. I've restored your deleted articles as redirects to their alt name. Amijangal, for example, was on the main list, and turned into a red link once it was deleted,, I don't know if there were any rd's to that name, but if so they might've been deleted too because they no longer pointed to anything. Generally, a rd is a better option that deleting the article, unless it's actually wrong (typo etc.). — kwami (talk) 05:34, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• Parrintyi and Barindji

Resolved

Uh, not quite, my merge not being accepted. I've got bronchitis, and can't afford the time to argue this. Sorry.Nishidani (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

They probably didn't understand why you'd blanked the article, since you didn't leave a redirect. It was tagged as 'blanking' as a warning that it might've been vandalized, and since you didn't leave an edit summary explaining that "Barindji" is not a valid name, or that the article was a hoax or vanity project or something, they probably reverted you just on principle. But, just in case, I merged from the other direction. 'Barindji' was the older article. — kwami (talk) 20:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• Baranha and Barna (Australian Aboriginal tribe)

Resolved

Should Kareldi be split?

Gkuthaarn According to Black (1980:189), Sharp (1939:449) noted that Karandi G32 and Kutanda (G31) were two local groups of one group which was usually known by the latter name. Black (1980:181, 189) describes Norman Paman as definitely comprising the Kuthant and Kurtjar G33 languages, probably also Rib Y107 ('though only as a dialect that now appears to be completely indistinguishable from Kurtjar') and possibly Walangama G36 (for which there is very little data).

Garandi According to Black (1980:189), Sharp (1939:449) noted that 'Karandi (G32) and Kutanda G31 are two local groups of one tribe which is usually known by the latter name'. Oates (1975), however, reports a lack of consensus on this matter. She notes that Sutton considers them to be separate, with Garundi (G32) perhaps related to Gugadji G28, but that Breen disagrees, saying Curr's Karrantee is Southern Pama, not related to Gugadji. See also Kuthant G31.

Since there is lack of consensus it's probably best left as the stub it is, rather than create two stubs. I admit I have bronchitis and a certain fatigue here. All of these articles cry for work on expansion, and probably the controversy should be worked up on the page by anyone who can access those or other secondary sources, and when bulk is secured, split it.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Please don't just delete the duplicate articles! When you had Baranha deleted, that left Barna people stranded. Before long, a bot would've come by and deleted 'Barna people' as well, and all of the many articles that linked to it would've been left with red links. In general, if someone has put in time creating redirects for synonyms and a bot deletes them all because their target was deleted rather than merged, they probably aren't going to be recreated again any time soon. — kwami (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I moved Jupangati to Wimaranga before I realized that this might be a conflation on AUSTLANG rather than a synonym. Please revert my edits if I was wrong, and I'll move the article back (or perhaps to 'Yuupngati' or something). — kwami (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

If you don't know how to leave a redirect when you merge an article, just leave a line saying 'article to be merged with X' or something, rather than blanking it, and let me know, and I'll fix it up. Maybe that's why your articles have been getting deleted. If you were the only author, people figure you're not hurting anyone and delete the article after you blank it. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• Wongkumara and Kalali people.

According to AIATSIS (articles D30, D71 for Kullilli/Galali and L25, L68 for Wankumara, there are two groups of each, one on the Bulloo River and one on the Wilson River. The descriptions of their languages and speculation about the direction of migration make it sound as though these are synonyms, that there is a Bulloo River Kalali/Wongkumara and a Wilson River Kalali/Wongkumara. — kwami (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

(I've been treating them as two peoples speaking close languages/dialects that both moved from one region to the other.)

The perception of identity comes from the fact that the Garlali were bilingual, speaking both Bulloo River language and the Wilson River language, about which there is some contention as to identity and difference:

Of the various language varietiess that have gone by this name, all of which are extinct, Bowern (2001) classifies the Wilson River language of the 'modern' Galali/Garlali and Wangkumara-plus-Bundhamara/Punthamara (also known as or closely related to Ngandangara/Yarumarra) peoples as an Eastern Karnic language, while the Bulloo River language of the 'old' Garlali and Wangkumara remains an unclassified Karna–Mari 'fringe' language.

All I saw was that Tindale makes a straightforward territorial distinction, whatever the language similarities.

Wongkumara (QLD) Cooper Creek east of Nappa Merrie and Orientos to the Wilson River at Nockatunga. In postcontact times at Chastleton and NCarcowlah where they mixed with uncircumcised Kalali. Mathews (1905) used the tribal term as a general name for several tribes with similar languages along Cooper Creek. 4,500 sq. m. (11,700 sq. km.) 141°50'E x 27°35'S

The ethnonyms are as follows:

• Wangkumara (valid variant), Wonkamara, Wonkomarra, Wonkamarra, Wonkamura, Wonkamurra, Wonkubara, Wanggumara, Papagunu (rude Jandruwanta name, means 'dog dung'), Balpamadramadra ( ? Horde at Nappa Merrie), Jaramarala ( ? Horde at Baryulah).

Garlali people Eulo west to Thargomindah and Bulloo River; upstream to Norley; south to Orient, Clyde, and Currawinya. Mathews (1905) included this as part of his artificial Wonkamurra 'nation.' They do not practice either circumcision or subincision. 3,800 sq. m. (9,900 sq. km.) 144°5'E x 28°25'S

The ethnonyms as as follows:

• Alternative names Galali, Kullalli, Kullally, Kalili

I might add that at times I find AIATSIS as confusing as Tindale can be. These distinctions can only be collapsed, in my view, if one has a specialist secondary source analyzing all of the relevant respective scholarship and coming forth with a clearer picture. Until that is available, I'd leave them as they stand.Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Are Nunukul and Moondjan synonyms? If not, 'Moondjan' should be removed from the article and I need to tag the redirect for deletion. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

They both go to the same page, so there is no reduplication. Moondjan should evidently just redirect to Nunukul. I'm ill at the moment, so reviewing what you did will take some time.

Okay, just wanted to confirm that's as it should be, and that they're truly synonyms rather than two separate populations that speak dialects of the same language. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I think I'm just about done. I'll watch this page for a while, but you might need to drop me a line on my talk page if you want me to see something. — kwami (talk) 13:48, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all you help, Nishidan, and hope you feel better soon. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Usus

I noticed this edit which links to usus. It that real? I wondered if it might be a pet idea of a couple of researchers somewhere. If the latter, I might revert the edit. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the link, which is just confusing. The para doesn't clarify how Jesperson's usus sits with something otherwise said to be rare and with dialect distribution. There are several functions of themself in any case, not just one, something not clarified there either. That's as much as I can managed for now: hack work as I hack/cough (myself) away! Nishidani (talk) 13:46, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, hope the cough clears soon. Johnuniq (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The Jew Among Thorns

Hi thank you for your help. I have added your to the DYK as one of main contributors to the article --Shrike (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

No problem. (By the way no need to mention me in the nomination. By all means drop it. I'd never have thought of this had you not come up with the idea and the honour goes to you for that. I'm glad you created the article. It just so happens that I once collected a lot of books on the topic, and your raising this gave me a chance to glance back at my reading of them decades ago). By the way, Shrike. As I now noted, there are two other anti-Semitic stories in that collection, and you might consider making a page for each of the other two. I've very little time, otherwise I'd do that myself, but if you can get round to them, I'd be happy to help out there as well. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

DYK for The Jew Among Thorns

On 13 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article The Jew Among Thorns, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the antisemitic tale "The Jew Among Thorns" was used to indoctrinate children in Nazi Germany? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, The Jew Among Thorns), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

pop registry article

Think there should be an article Palestinian Population Registry? nableezy - 16:44, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes. It has been frozen since 2000/2001, but the consequences are immense. Technically tens of thousands of West Bankers could be expelled because of this, so it is obviously important. I'll see what I can do, but my time is scarce.Nishidani (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

19920

Somebody is just upset they lost a couple of arguments elsewhere and thinks that hounding is the way to seek vengeance on those terrible people who stand in his way. Wouldnt worry about it too much if I were you. Hope you are well. nableezy - 16:17, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Wouldnt worry about it too much if I were you.

Youngsters like yourself would do well to recall Alfred E. Neuman's signature slogan, which had a vast impact, perhaps educationally more important than the theories of Montessori and Piaget, on my generation's outlook. Of course my father, a learned man, preferred soldier's Latin, nihil illegitimus carborundum (never let the mongrels grindya down). I never inquire about my health, but since I chain-sawed for several hours today, I'm not apparently wholly dead yet:) Nishidani (talk) 19:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Honestly, this was a mistake. The only reason somebody got to that article is his interest was piqued when he read this comment. Anyway, its your fault for fucking up the article name in the first place. Apparently my move of your initial title needed more than unanimous (your) consent. nableezy - 23:36, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Dracula

Re: Labour strategists leapt at this by then depicting Howard as a Dracula figure, swinging a hypnotic watch. I think you might say in the text who asserted this. Up to you. I don't think the #65 Delaney source link works. Jontel (talk) 12:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

'Michael Howard had been chosen by the Conservatives to lead them I n the 2005 campaign on the basis of his experience. But the former home secretary was plagued with an image problem: Tory frontbencher Ann Widdeombe had suggested he had 'something of the night about him' -an accusation that Labour's campaign team was happy to cash in on.Trevor Beattie, again at the helm of Labour's ad campaign, produced a poster portraying Howard as Dracula, swinging a hypnotist's pocket watch and declaring, "I can spend the same money twice!"

Frail memory. The only thing I got wrong and which needs tweaking is mistaking Widdecombe for a backbencher. It should of course be 'frontbencher'.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

You were right and the book was wrong, according to Ann Widdecombe.:) It's the link to the book that needs fixing. I don't know how to. Jontel (talk) 13:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the sharp eyes, and your edits. The link I added (now in 'sources' works for me. Tell me if nyou have problems.Nishidani (talk) 14:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Corbyn & Antisemitism articles, thanks for your hard work

Just a thank you for your all round detailed encyclopedic additions and non-partisan clean up of these articles. I really appreciate your contributions. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:11, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Corbyn

Hi,

I like your suggestion of an abbreviated synthesis. I'm not sure what your intended process is from here - whether you are soliciting improvements before changing the article, or going to make the change to the article to allow for tweaking afterwards, or just putting it out there and leaving it to someone else to change the article. So, I am not sure how to respond. Sorry: I'm quite new to Wiki. Jontel (talk) 10:34, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

No problem. I have no copyright on the version! Editors are free to tweak it or rewrite it. If a rewrite of a para or the whole version is thought necessary, however, the best way is to supply one's own version (version B), and subject it to the same process. This is just to avoid time-consuming editing disagreements. I'd prefer not to edit the article in any significant way, esp. on this topic. Your intelligent and careful contributions are appreciated. Feel free to make suggestions, tweak or edit it as you see fit.Nishidani (talk) 13:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks,...here is my suggestion (version B), building on your initiative, having read the various comments. User:Jontel/sandbox It is focused on Corbyn, rather than Labour, uses paraphrasing and is short, while mentioning all the incidents. I would like to put it forward to Talk, but would appreciate your views first. Let me know if you have time.Thanks. Jontel (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That certainly has a greater laconic virtue. It may well be something like the version that should end up on the page for WP:Undue reasons. There is a technical problem and a realistic issue. (a) Since we have a RfC open on the draft I suggested, it should be allowed to run its course until that expires, to see what the result is. The probability is that it will be shafted, but it's best to have that process completed before offering a further alternative. On the other hand, if it were approved to replace the existing text, it would be logical to them present the version above, as a larger improvement in terms of concision. (b) Realistically, since quite a few editors want masses of scary detail, the objections arising regarding my suggestion will in all likelihood double with your alternative. It's late here, and these are just some immediate reflections. I'll try to come back to this in due course. In any case, for the moment, the old dictum, festina lente is a wise one: the problem of that page is hectic editing, not detached care to sort out the grain from the chaff, something which I'm happy to see also in your work. Regards Nishidani (talk) 20:43, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Re a) OK. Re b) I agree. However, as version B is based on the current version, adding detail would be easy. The challenge would be that every 'proof' added on one side prompts another proof to counter it, like an adversarial court case, which is what I've done in the past. I'll await your thoughts in due course. Jontel (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have petered out on the proposed version, after a fortnight. People seem happy with the principle of concision and coherence but there are objections to some of the additions/ subtractions. My version, based more closely on the existing version albeit highly summarised, might be an easier first step which you could then amend. I am not sure what you mean by 'run its course until it expires' and 'result'? There does not seem to be a clear majority and the process of closure and duration of discussion can be informal and variable, it seems Wikipedia:Closing_discussions. Also, people are somewhat pre-empting it by starting new discussions. Can I ask the process and timeline going forward? Jontel (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Two weeks - I usually go by the bot closure, i.e. 12 month. A thin majority 4 to 3 so far approves my version. That could change, but one does not need a clear majority. On a page like this new discussions are inevitable. One could, for example, close this earlier by jumping the gun and saying at this moment a majority approve or disapprove if one played a numbers game. That is why I suggest leaving it open for another week or so. Perhaps you could simply provide your version and see what the outcome is, in an RfC, while leaving the other option open. My thinking was that it would be more logical for someone arguing for a more concise summary than I provided, to wait and see if mine was approved, and then suggest cutting even that down further along the lines you suggest. The problem is cutting it down from irts embarrassing length and I don't think one will get there in one fell swoop. I may be wrong. So as a compromise let both RfCs run together?Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. What I think I will do is put it out there for discussion/ improvement initially. Then we can have an RfC. Jontel (talk) 21:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:AE

I have reported you at WP:AE. Debresser (talk) 22:08, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Look Debresser. It’s true I find your editing, whenever I happen to be on the same page, often utterly incomprehensible. I understand that you have some abiding problem with me personally, and I tolerate it, since I don’t, as you have repeatedly, take it up on administrative forums. My principle is that grown-ups should not avail themselves of sanctioning forums except as a last resort. So to clarify the danger you put yourself in I’ll post the evidence on your complaint here, where it can’t be used against you, but may serve to make you understand what the problem is (and it isn’t mine). This is vexatious, and using wikipedia as a battleground to prevail over editors one disagrees with on an edit, is frowned on.

I used the remonstrative or exclamative ‘for fuck’s sake’, not of you directly, but to express frustration at the following facts emerging from our interaction: I made an edit

The Torah set forth rules for dress that set Jews apart from the communities in which they lived, . .

The source p.xv, immediately available by clicking on the link provided (to an authority on the topic) reads:

Jews dressed differently as God's outcasts. But Jews also dressed differently in premodern Europe because their rabbis understood any emulation of non-Jews as a violation of the divine Law ass revealed by God to Moses atop Mount Sinai. The Five Books of Moses, after all, together called the Torah, clearly specify that Jews must adhere to a particular dress code-modesty, for example, and fringes. The very structure of the cosmos demanded nothing less. Clothing, too, served as a "fence" that protected Jews from the profanities and pollutions of the non-Jewish societies in which they dwelled. From this angle, Jews dressed distinctively as God's elect.

You removed the source twice and put in a citation needed tag, first here.

The Torah set forth rules for dress that set Jews apart from the communities in which they lived,

I restored it and, in the edit summary, notified you that his cit needed tag was an error, since the sentence was sourced. Despite being told this that you’d had made an egregious blooper, you again reverted me, insisting against the evidence and my intervening gentle remonstration, that I had no sourced what is sourced. Either you refused to click on the source or you just didn't want that statement there, even if it is obviously true and sourced. Or because I made it, you find it objectionable. I don’t know, but this kind of irrationality is extremely frustrating. The least you could have done was to tweak the sentence and write:-

The Torah set forth rules for dress that, following later rabbinical tradition, were interpreted as setting Jews apart from the communities in which they lived.

(a) Every religious Jew like yourself would instinctively know that, independent of the The Torah set forth rules for dress that, following later rabbinical tradition, were interpreted as setting Jews apart from the communities in which they lived. secondary source, at Deuteronomy 22:5 (my apologies for citing from memory and writing Deut 2:5) , what Silverman stated is doctrinal and uncontroversial.

(b) You jumped at, not the gravamen of my defence of my edit’s propriety, but the fact that I dropped the ‘for fuck’s sake’ remonstratively, to vet opinions as to whether you had a fair chance of taking me to this board and getting me treated as an ‘outcast’ (I guess that means permabanned).

(c) I have an agreement to not comment on your page but, since you were repeatedly complaining that I was engaged in usually ‘badmouthing’ again, and insisting to others I be treated as an outcast, I asked you to desist defaming me and fix the error you made. You adamantly refuse to correct yourself. That is not ‘hounding’ . An editor attacked at length on another’s editor’s talk page surely has a right to protest (once).

(d) I went to extreme lengths (WP:TLDR) to analyse why this huge time consuming ruckus, not over the quality of my edit, but the fact that having it expunged despite the clear testimony of a source, I vented my frustration with an exclamation which I can recall you yourself using not infrequently (just as it is not as you put over a characteristic of my own work here to be foul-mouthted as you insinuate). Your ostensible outrage at me using once a term you yourself have used looked instrumental.

(e) When I suggested you were using double standards to slice out sourced material I added as ‘superfluous’ ,while protesting when Nomoskedasticity did the same with one of his edits you countered that I was poisoning the well. No. I was just pointing your judgement is not rule based, but subjective, depending on who makes the edit in question. If you do it, it’s okay. If someone else does it, not so. The same holds for exclamative 'fuck'. If you drop it, it's okay, if I happen to drop it, it's outrageous.

(f) result? Nomoskedasticity gets reported, and here I get reported. This is a patent battleground mentality, using AE or ANI to rid wikipedia of editors whose content edits one disagrees with. In my case, you wrote the complaint out notwithstanding the express advice not to of fellow editors concerned you were on boomerang terrain, Icewhiz and Sir Joseph.

So please reflect slowly on the above, and try to understand how other editors may view things. It would help, lastly, if you simply correct the error you made, and restore Silervman, eliding the cit needed quote. Okay? Nishidani (talk) 10:51, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

lastly, I hope, hereand here. Nishidani (talk) 19:40, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Not quite.Persisting in a personal attack '(Nishidani) is an unpleasant person who does not respect other people'. Nishidani (talk) 09:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The Yemenite "blue garb"

User:Nishidani, why do you think that Erich Brauer's remark on Jewish "blue colored" clothing being once a required dress-code in Yemen is misleading? After all, it is sourced. Please explain.Davidbena (talk) 21:23, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi David. I know that you always admirably chase things up, so if you are interested you might check out a copy at the Hebrew University of the following book. You can get an idea of what I said by clicking on the page number I've linked to here.

Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, Traditional Society in Transition: The Yemeni Jewish Experience, BRILL 2014 978-9-004-27291-0 p.7 I read this after after reading Einstein's admiring remark about Yemeni music by the way. If you have any queries, by all means drop me a note here. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm familiar with her writings. She would admit to Brauer's expertise in the field of ethnography, as he had Shelomo Dov Goitein's utmost approval and recommendation. I see no real contradiction. Klorman is a writer from our generation. Brauer was talking about several centuries ago.Davidbena (talk) 22:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Here are a few photos of the community in Yemen (as it looked in the 1980s). Click here.Davidbena (talk) 23:03, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

You don't appear to have read the link, David.

Jewsh life in the tribal areas –where the majority of Jews live in in more than twelve hundred small settlements, functioned primarily according to tribal patronage and other customary laws . .These laws ignored and did not enforce some of the shari’a regulations that discriminated against Jews. For example, in San’a and in towns where representatives of the central authorities resided, the houses of the Jewish quarter were built lower than those of the Muslims; in rural tribal districts the houses were not always differentiated in this way. The Jews usually kept their houses close to each other so that they could sustain communal life and observe the Sabbath and religious holidays. But frequently, in small villages, their homes were near their Muslim neighbors. So, too, the restrictions regarding mounts were not enforced in these areas, nor did the Jews differ much from Muslims in dress. Furthermore, in contrast to the demands of shari’a, Jews in the north and the northeast of Yemen even carried arms, as was customary in tribal life, and the tribesmen would teach them how to shoot rifles.’ Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, Traditional Society in Transition: The Yemeni Jewish Experience, BRILL 2014 978-9-004-27291-0 p.7

There were considerable variations of Jewish dress according to social class, age and geography. In the villages the dress of the Jews had more in common with that of their Muslim neighbours: regional differences in dress and custom (as well as in accent and dialect) were pronounced. Village Jews dressed in a much less elaborate ways than townspeople.(Brauer p.78ff). Tudor Parfitt, The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900-1950, BRILL 1996 isbn 978-9-004-10544-7 p.86 n.7

In other words, you have by copying and pasting from the Yemenite Jews page a very partial and inaccurate summary of what all Yemenite Jews supposedly wear, according to a handful of early accounts by passing travellers familiar with the metropolitan world, ignored the fact that two eminent scholars say. I.e. that the majority of Jews dispersed over Yemen in hamlets and tribal areas, showed considerable variety in their dress, and their garments were more or less those worn by Muslims. The problem with these articles is that editors keep insisting, without examining evidence, that there is some uniform abstract Jewish typus, in customs, for every area. Jewish history is not the story of endless cloning of the same archetype: it has extraordinary variety as one would expect. Citing just one or two travelers is misleading. One needs secondary scholarship, which is familiar with these primary reports, and far more evidence than was available to passing eyes.

The other problem on that page is that I cited a principle (Muslims imposed for the first time a dress code marking out Jews by enforcing a dress code that indicated their religion). It was erased with the usual enmity, but your illustrations give a superficial generalization of just one area Yemen, which happens to be ethnologically inaccurate, a notable simplification. The result is, readers do not know when this custom began (as I provided), and have inaccurate data on the one area we cite to illustrate the principle of discrimination against Jews by a special dress code marking them as followers of Judaism. Nishidani (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, you are mistaken on two accounts. 1) The edit which you claimed that I "copied and pasted" is actually my own original edit on the Yemenite Jews, which has been thoroughly researched; 2) the matter there, unlike your recent quotes from Klorman, refers to a different time period. You're mixing apples and oranges.Davidbena (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh dear me. This is unfortunately going to be painful. Let's do a textual analysis. You did no 'thorough research'. I've known this since I first checked the page to edit it, but shut up and refused to mention it, and wouldn't have, until I saw you deliberately lying above where you got that information, by pretending you'd done 'thorough research'.

Here is what you wrote on the Jewish religious clothing‎ page.

German ethnographer Erich Brauer (1895–1942) noted that in Yemen of his time, Jews were not allowed to wear clothing of any color besides blue. Earlier, in Jacob Saphir's time (1859), they would wear outer garments that were "utterly black".

References

True,you synthesized the passage you had written on the Yemenite Jews page. per your edit of 23:53, 6 March 2017 This is the relevant section you added on that date.

Instead of trousers, the Yemenite Jews (as well as Yemen's Arabs) carry a piece of cloth worn around the hip (loincloth), called maizar. The expression fūṭa, quoted by Sapir (Jacob Saphir), is used [for the same piece of clothing] by the Jews in Aden and partly also by Arabs from Yemen. The maizar consists of one piece of dark-blue cotton that is wound a few times around the waist and which is held up by a belt made of cloth material or leather. The maizar is allowed to reach down to the knees only. Today, the Yemenites will therefore wear [underwear made like unto] short-length trousers, called sirwāl, [instead of the traditional loincloth beneath their tunics]. A blue shirt that has a split that extends down to the waistline and that is closed at neck level is worn over the maizar. If the shirt is multicolored and striped, it is called tahṭāni, meaning, 'the lower.' If it is monochrome, it is called antari. Finally, the outer layer of clothing, worn over the maizar and antari, is a dark-blue cotton tunic (Arabic: gufṭān or kufṭān). The tunic is a coat-like garment that extends down to the knees which is fully open in the front and is closed with a single button in the neck. Over the tunic, the Jewish people were not allowed to wear a girdle.<ref>Brauer, Erich (1934). Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden. Vol. 7. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Kulturgeschichte Bibliothek, I. Reihe: Ethnologische bibliothek., p. 81

References

You copied this translation from Brauer from a blog written 10 years earlier, and pretended you had consulted the original German source used by that blog. You then transferred a synthesis of your copyright violation to the Jewish religious clothing‎ page.

n a blog posting dated September 19, 2008, almost a decade earlier, David Ben-Abraham reproduced a translation done at his request by his Swiss friend Esther van Praag of the relevant passage in Erich Brauer. Jewish Clothing (blog)

Using Erich Brauer's own description of the clothing worn by Yemen's Jews (from the book, "Ethnologie der jemenitischen Juden," p. 81, published in Heidelberg, 1934) we find the following account (translated from German):

"Instead of trousers, the Yemenite Jews (as well as Yemen's Arabs) carry a piece of cloth worn around the hip (loincloth), called maizar. The expression fūta, quoted by Sapir, is used [for the same piece of clothing] by the Jews in Aden and partly also by Arabs from Yemen. The maizar consists of one piece of dark-blue cotton that is wound a few times around the waist and which is held up by a belt made of cloth material or leather. The maizar is allowed to reach down to the knees only. Today, the Yemenites will therefore wear [underwear made like unto] short-length trousers, called sirwāl, [instead of the traditional loincloth beneath their tunics].

A blue shirt that has a split that extends down to the waistline and that is closed at neck level is worn over the maizar. If the shirt is multicolored and striped, it is called tahtāni, meaning, 'the lower.' If it is monochrome, it is called ‘antari. Finally, the outer layer of clothing, worn over the maizar and ‘antari, is a dark-blue cotton tunic (Ar. guftān or kuftān)*. The tunic is a coat-like garment that extends down to the knees, that is fully open in the front and is closed with a single button in the neck. Over the tunic, the Jewish people were not allowed to wear a girdle."

The passages are identical, except for some wiki markup. You plagiarized an unacknowledged source.

So (a) You found information on a blog, which fails WP:RS (b) So you copied it verbatim, making a copyright violation (c) and hid its origin in an unusable blog by pretending you had directly accessed the original German source. There was no 'thorough research'. Do you realize that fraudulent editing can lead to a permaban? You're lucky that I don't report anything like this which I observe (almost on a daily basis). Nishidani (talk) 17:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Copyright issue

@Diannaa: Given the following summary of the above, what should occur? It looks an obvious problem to me but your advice to Davidbena would be more authoritative.

• Davidbena added the Yemenite Jews#Traditional Jewish attire section on 23:53, 6 March 2017. The section includes a two-paragraph quote: "Instead of trousers ... not allowed to wear a girdle."
• The quote (in English) is referenced to Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden by Erich Brauer, a work in German.
• A blog dated September 19, 2008 at [2] includes the exact text of the English translation, except for changes to accented characters and wikitext syntax. Even the footnote "This is true also with the Arabs of Yemen" is identical.
• An acknowledgment at the bottom of the blog credits the person who provided the English translation from Brauer's book.
• The text is still in the article after Nishidani explained the issue above.

Johnuniq (talk) 00:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

The introductory paragraph prior to the quotation is too closely paraphrased from the blog post, so I have removed it. I have added a link to the blog to the citation and added the translator's name to the citation. It remains to be decided as to whether or not this blog is a reliable source - that's not my call to make. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 11:47, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I'm not going to following the practice, endemic among I/P edit warriors, of chucking the blog source out. I won't even take it to RS. T checked the translation and it is faithful to the original, and the information important, so in my book it improves the article. I'll just note that the WP:RS rule is being used to expunge anything in the I/P area as blind fidelity to wikilaw,- though the reason often seems to be dislike of the content (notably at Jeremy Corbyn), a policy applied unilaterally for convenience. Those that apply that principle conveniently should note that the edit here fails the criterion which, if exploited in the same fashion here would damage the article by excising solid material.Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

First, there is no plagiarism, as I am the author of that blog. See the discussion on this issue on my Talk-Page (here).Davidbena (talk) 19:42, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion is here. If you are quoting your own blog, but disguising that fact by citing the primary source you got a friend to translate for you on that blog, that's doubly problematical. I won't meddle in the technicalities, but Diannaa is an expert and whatever she decides is fine by me.Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:20, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Bodaruwitj#Not extinct

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bodaruwitj#Not extinct. The user causing some commotion seems to be interested in dicussing the issue, and I thought you might want to reach a consensus. Shadowssettle_(talk) 13:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but the user is unfamiliar with Wikipedia. I've made the obligatory reply, but there's no consensus to be reached.Nishidani (talk) 13:21, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Hint

re our persistent vandal, if you just want to revert to an earlier version, just click on its time stamp in the history listing, click edit, then save. Job done! --NSH001 (talk) 13:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, now were I genetically gifted with longevity -fortunately the opposite is the case, I hope- by the time I topped the ton Methuselah fell 31 years short of, I think I would finally qualify as a competent Wikipedia technician. Now, all I have to remember is 'revert+time-stamp-edit+save' and Robert's a close relative.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

motivation

Honest question, if they hadnt been fucking around so much there, you think this would have gotten to be as large an article as it has? All thats happened for me personally is motivation to do more research and add more to the article. A single line was included about apartheid and that got challenged so fine, make a fully fleshed out section with unimpeachable sources. Im going to be a bit busy this week, but Ill be reading up on opacity. Please add whatever you can, as only you can. Cheers, nableezy - 18:25, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. That stirs a pompous vein of angular erudition still fighting a losing battle against the slow grind of attrition that humps a ride on the cerebral shoulders of the ageing. Lad, familiarize yourself with the myth of Antaios, whose powers waxed mightily each time his feet touched ground: a fine analogy with those who, tossed and tussled, if not indeed, god forbid, tossled by antagonistic edit-warriors, draw renewed force from the ground, as one grounds oneself in the real world, as described by area scholarship.

Utque iterum fessis iniecit brachia membris,

Non exspectatis Antaeus viribus hostis

Sponte cadit, maiorque, accepto robore, surgit

Quisquis inest terris, in fessos spiritus artus

Egeritur. Lucanus, Pharsalia IV, 640-644

Perhaps, we'd better speak of a Farce-alia or still better still, in my case, an (old)Farts-alea

Ah, there goes my infamous battleground mentality again! Hope Sandstone is not looking at this page, otherwise conniptions will lead to my being bestowed a 'perma-wave'.Caveat lector. Anataeus' ruse was seen through by Hercules, eventually, and he got the treatment Muhammed Ali meted out to Sonny Liston at Lewiston back in '65. Come to think of it, Hercules is a Mediterranean reflex of Sansom in biblical folklore ... and were that the case, it would end up with someone being Eyeless in Gaza, opacity. Enjoy the break. Good editing is a matter of respecting the adage: σπεῦδε βραδέως .Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

You thought the occupation page would be gutted within months if I recall. Still standing. nableezy - 02:41, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

One that slipped through the net...

My spy network tells me that this totally unsourced article Jerrinja is in need of some TLC (either that, or deletion, or merge with something else?). --NSH001 (talk) 10:00, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Jerrinja are an aboriginal community deriving from a founding population of 60 odd members at theRoseby Park Aboriginal Reserve back in 1900. They are all kin but do not figure so far as an independent original distinct 'tribal' group, or descendants of a 'clan'. More likely the disiecta membra of several remnant saltwater tribes on that coast. We can't fit them into Wandandian because there's no evidence they are connected ep to them any more than to other south coast Aboriginal groups. Nishidani (talk) 12:58, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement sanction

The following sanction now applies to you:

You are blocked for a week, and indefinitely banned from creating or making comments in WP:AE reports related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, except if you are the editor against whom enforcement is requested.

You have been sanctioned for the reasons provided in response to this arbitration enforcement request.

This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles#Final decision and, if applicable, the procedure described at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. This sanction has been recorded in the log of sanctions. If the sanction includes a ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.

You may appeal this sanction using the process described here. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. Sandstein 14:37, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

and so the chicken did come home to roost. I never appeal, even if, as here, the sanction is outrageouslycomically erratic. What I wrote was an analysis of evidence, with diffs, drawing a conclusion underlining precisely what had been stated by a far finer editor than myself earlier in the thread. Battleground mentality? That's rather like characterizing someone who comments on a conflict as, ipso facto part thereby of the conflict, and subject to the death penalty as other people nearby shoot each other. Still, this little contretemps only underlines how 'arbitration', which use to be connected to the Latin word for thinking, arbitror , can often excel in arbitrary thoughtlessness. I'll sit my week out - there's a lot of work in springtime with four gardens to cultivate.Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

One can't fight ignorance (among other things) so enjoy your gardens. The very best to you, --TMCk (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

(The misspelling in my edit summary was intentional after the fact.--TMCk (talk) 19:41, 14 April 2019 (UTC))

...and there is light, again.--TMCk (talk) 18:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

At AE comments on other editors’ behaviour require diffs. I supplied two examples of what I considered to be evidence of misbehaviour.this in Sandstein’s view constitutes a battleground mentality, as does this.

The judgment was that my inferences from those diffs were devoid of ‘appropriate evidence’. The argument for this was:-

That somebody agrees or disagrees with, praises or dismisses certain thinkers (with whom neither I nor probably most people except devotees of this conflict are familiar) isn't appropriate evidence because it's a matter of opinion about opinions.

That is, in my view, patently flawed, one several grounds

• The named figures have an international reputation beyond Israeli politics. They are perhaps better known in Prague, India, New York, and Paris than in Israel. If an admin hasn't the time or patience to click on the linked names to see what is being said, the ability to evaluate the statements is seriously damaged. It may not be in the remit of an administrator to actually familiarize themselves with the meaning of what is being said when such illustrations are provided, but to make an informed judgement one is required to examine the evidence to see if an inference is fair.
• The use of ‘opinion’ to indiscriminately characterize as equally subjective two opposing statements about an issue is close to Pyrrhonism. In the real world, opinion is one thing, judgement another. The former is an expression of a personal view, the latter consists of an attempt, at least, to form a critical interpretation, based on evidence and logic, and the result, if consensual, forms precedent. A flatearther expresses an opinion, Copernicus expressed a judgement. Judgements can be subjective, of course, but, when a judgement is formed according to standard community protocols about how to ascertain the truth or untruth of a statement, we don’t call it a mere opinion. If the Supreme Court rules on a legal issue, the result is a judgement which then has real consequences for reality, since it becomes law. The minority dissenting opinion does not, and has no practical effect on the legal realities of a given situation.
• Let me recast the issue in a hypothetical, varying the names to render them recognizable to anyone with a sergeant-at-law's minimal grasp of his field, citing topknotch international lawyers from the same ethnocultural background who have expressed views almost identical to those the admin says were unknown spouters of opinions that were neither here nor there.

• If Stephen Sedley, William Schabas, Richard Goldstone and Thomas Buergenthal were characterized by an editor as ‘on the fringes of the (Western) radical left’ simply because they are on record as being critical of Israel's policies regarding Palestinians, he would, of course, be expressing an opinion, one patently so absurd as to lack any quality of judgement, being counterfactual, demonstrably false, and just ballistic hyperbole. That characterization of moderate mainstream institutional figures of world reknown as ‘on the fringes of the (Western) radical left’ would have only one meaning: whoever asserted such a claim would be adopting an extreme fringe viewpoint, and, in context, since the I/P conflict is commonly known to be a classic case of ethnonationalist conflict ([3] [4]), such a wild characterization would fairly be taken as evidence that the person who might make such a claim was asserting an ethnonationalist opinion that is itself extreme. One can of course disagree with my inference, but it is (a) an informed deduction from (b) evidence, and in being banned for it, suggestive that Catch 22 is starting to apply at AE: One must provide evidence from diffs for assertions about another editor's behavior but if you do so, any one admin's passing opinion that the evidence doesn't substantiate the inference can get you peremptorily permabanned from AE. Not that I give a fuck either way. Nishidani (talk) 13:40, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

June 2019

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours for making personal attacks towards other editors. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  Sam Walton (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

There we go again. Inability to read, incapacity to understand context, failure to actually spot irony, a lazy unfamiliarity with the background of the editors' interactions, and all the rest. [5],[6],[7] and this. The disattention here is so profound that this happens repeatedly ([8]) and one similar case led to a block that, examined, was immediately overturned, only to be cited by the disattentive oversight committee at Arbcom which, despite the unblock, used it as a smoking gun proof that I had to be permabanned. Jeezus. Wake up, wankers. Nishidani (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with much that's written at your fourth link. It's lovely that you and another editor have a nice in-joke you can both laugh at, but the vast majority of people reading that back-and-forth would be astounded to see such messages being left alone because they have no idea of the context. In good faith I'll start an ANI thread to get a second opinion. Sam Walton (talk) 17:42, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

ANI thread filed. Sam Walton (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Unblocked per initial responses at ANI. I still think you should reign in these comments - it makes the Wikipedia look like a hostile community to be a part of, regardless of whether you or the recipient appreciate it to be a joke. This is how we drive away new contributors. Sam Walton (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Causing problems again eh?--Bolter21 (talk to me) 18:57, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

yeah. Once in the shit, the smell of poo takes a long time to wear off. Nice to hear from you Stav. Hope all is well. Best Nishidani (talk) 19:33, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Sam. Does this blip stay on my log? Since 2009 when I was permabanned, assorted editors trying to get me repermabanned keep mentioning my block log record.Blocks are made, on the strength of trivia like this, no one noticing it was April Fool's day, and are duly registered on a block log though the block was immediately overturned as a misreading, and then just a month later, some distracted Arbcom members cite it as proof I abused a fellow editor and deserved a permaban. The permaban then has been ritually cited in every one of the 30+ occasions when I/P editors have tried to rid Wikipedia of my presence. I don't want you to reconsider that mess, but simply to tell me if this contretemps will register and remain as ammo for future challenges to my usefulness here?Nishidani (talk) 19:33, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

The standard line is that the software won't allow admins to revdel (or whatever) items from blocklogs. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:17, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Jesus christ. nableezy - 19:46, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Per NPOV, Nab. Allah! Yahweh!Nishidani (talk) 19:58, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I would second Sam's comments above that in-joke or not, you should really cut it out going forward. Wikipedia is not the place to use ethnic slurs as in-jokes. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 23:53, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Serious question, this happened on a user talk page. Neither the user it was directed at or the user whose talk page it took place on saw fit to complain of any attack. Why is there even a need to police user talk pages in such a manner? Why does anyone need to take offense on my behalf? Fine, on an article talk page that should be a more professional environment. But this took place on a user talk page. Seriously, who gives a shit unless one of the people involved complains? nableezy - 03:46, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

*cough*--Bolter21 (talk to me) 23:15, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Even user talk pages are entirely public and reflect on Wikipedia as a whole. IRL I would have no problem if Nish addressed me as was the case in this instance, or, with the C-word as a Britishism, or any number of other possible such little jokey variants that are perfectly fine between mates. Heck, if I'd given him cause to be pissed at me I wouldn't even care if he used such words in anger. I also wouldn't bat an eye over any general friendly banter on here that without the "friendly" bit adduced would fall far on the wrong side of CIVIL. I also curse like a drunken sailor myself, and take no particular offence to the mere words themselves (intent and context determine whether there is cause for offence, not the mere words). But racial or religious slurs are, in my opinion, in a different category and over the line for even user talk pages on Wikipedia. Other people do read user talk pages occasionally (including complete strangers, people new to the project, or entirely unaffiliated and just visiting). I agree that since it was pretty obviously friendly banter the block was too harsh a first response; but I also agree with Sam that these aren't acceptable and shouldn't be used here. It's a matter of showing some concern for all the people across the world and across history who have been dehumanized (often deliberately: British colonials' references to the native populations was no accident in many cases, and the same for American soldiers in their several adventures in various parts of Asia) by such terms (I trust I don't need to provide examples). They are inherently "punching down" and joking with them trivializes all they represent. I'm not sure whether I think this kind of thing should be admin/noticeboard fodder (it might be, in the general case); but simply as a personal appeal from me to Nish, I don't think they're ok even for user talk pages. --Xover (talk) 07:23, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

If I may chime in. I cannot see what the original comment was (as it seems to have been struck, telling in itself). But given the way the world is today (and I am not passing any judgement on the rights or wrongs of that) I would not be able to walk into a School (or shop or pub or board a bus) and be able to engage in "banter" with mates that involved me using terms like "this is work for.." or "stop ... me up" and expect to get away with it. I agree that two mates can shout abuse at each other and its not a PA, but using inappropriate words terms or phrases reflects badly on the project. Its about us not facing accusations we tolerate ...ism. Simpler rule of thumb, if you would not say it in front of the vicar/mum/policeman/largeblokewithbigfists/sexybabe/boss/co-worker you should not say it in front of anyone else.--Slatersteven (talk) 08:33, 3 June 2019‎ (UTC)

I called Nableezy 'raghead' and, when the whim and context suggests it, will continue to do so, unless 'jihadi crackpot' or 'sandnigger' comes to mind first. I met up with him once, my head swathed in bandages from banging my head against a stout porcelain fixture, and then the floor, after a fainting fit at 4 a.m which had me hospitalized and diagnosed with a brain contusion. Against doctors' advice, I signed out because I'd promised Nableezy I'd show him round Rome at 9 am that day, and in all likelihood would never meet again and a host should never allow minor discomfort from getting in the way of social obligations. So when I turned up at the appointed place, I yelled out:'raghead meets raghead!', something that, among the several people there, sufficed to get us to recognize the unknown other. I'll be fucked if some sissy pussyfooting obsession with some generic principle, applied to interactions between people who neither know each other from a bar of soap nor agree on what NPOV content construction means, will get in the way of my liberty to use irony with a friend. I couldn't give a rat's arse what bystanders who choose to eavesdrop on a private conversation might think, particularly one aimed to console a editor whose care to keep patent ethnic smearing and skewering, by innuendo or otherwise, off wikipedia was, as in the past, met with punitive cavilling and blind bureaucratic rigour, when not, as in the most egregious instances on his blot-log, sanctioned by an admin patently was too distracted to actually read the chronology of diffs correctly. All that mattered was some theological commandment -'Thou shalt not swear'.

You can be impeccably polite while running up dozens of articles focused exclusively on Palestinian acts of terrorism, while never deigning to disgrace such pages with any matter that would allow the reader to see the context in which such pathologies arise, let alone, write similar articles covering per NPOV the far more extensive evidence for state or settler terrorism in that area. And anyone can do so while systematically ignoring the contextual evidence for each incident that points to the latter aspect. Wikipedia doesn't worry about editors pushing ethnonationalist skewering as long as they interact with extreme caution on the talk page. Red lights flash, complaints are registered frantically for administrative redress, if editors known for facing down this POV abuse use remonstrative language, express exasperation, or even, as here, crack a private joke whose context leaves no scope for misinterpreting the words as anything but amicable. And why does this happen? Because admins state certain areas are 'toxic', and avoid following them to familiarize themselves with the POV shenanigans,- to edit there requires an iron capacity for forbearance, a long memory and a deep knowledge of the topic- only to weigh in over a few cherry-picked diffs usually brought in by some whingeing POV pusher: not because they are offended, but because it is a default stratagem to rid Wikipedia of anyone who opposes their blind activism for a partisan cause.Nishidani (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Your prerogative, but then I am going to suggest that you will end up with even longer blocks.Slatersteven (talk) 17:42, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

If wikipedia were competently, cogently and coherently governed by its community, in a piddling case like this,- which does not involve IPs or newbies slashing out but very long established competent editors,- anyone sighting that one word would have (a) read the context and, if doubt arose and they knew nothing about either (b) could have checked both my and Nableezy's page where any suspicion of hostility would have immediately dissolved, (c) or emailed me to query the remark and obtain clarification (one outstandingly evenhanded but vigilant admin beat everyone by doing that immediately, and was quickly satisfied by my explanation, and ignored interfering) (d) emailed Nableezy to ascertain whether he was offended. None of these obvious options, which take a minute, no more, were exercised. Instead, a farcical hare was started. Huge damage is done round here by the consistent failure to use commonsense, care and discretion.Nishidani (talk) 21:49, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

It's a matter of showing some concern for all the people across the world and across history who have been dehumanized

One shows one's concern many ways, one of which I took by writing articles about 660 dispossessed Australian aborigines, several on Tibetans etc. No problem there. But for helping write several hundred on Palestinians, I, like Nableezy or Huldra, have had a mother-lode of AE/ANI complaints raised for to write articles that do not implicitly demonize that group is sure evidence of secret anti-Semitic Israel-baiting. Go figure. Nishidani (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

"I, like Nableezy or Huldra, have had a mother-lode of AE/ANI complaints raised for to write articles that do not implicitly demonize that group is sure evidence of secret anti-Semitic Israel-baiting". Gotta say, regardless of that stupid incident, you, Huldra and Nab do make some regrettable statements. Recently Huldra made some statements about settlers and the right to resist them, which was interpreted as a call to murder civilians (and in a very very, butt-hurt sense, it was logical to think so). I was sent twice to ANI/AE to a long battle over my survival in Wikipedia because I really think there is no State of Palestine in practice and I don't think Wikipedia should imply there is. This became even more frustrating when I began serving within the State of Palestine. That scum sockpuppet that tried to get me executed used my current occupation as an excuse and deemed me unfit to edit because I must have an automatic bias against Palestine. But for me saying my service or national allegiance is the reason for the reports was not the right thing to do. Honestly, I did make some regrettable statements. I still stand behind them, but the phrasing and tone were not needed. Indeed some people were butt-hurt, and surely there was a certain motivation to kick me out because I am the "Israeli guy", but hadn't I made those statements none of that would happen. I don't think the other "Israeli guys", such as Debresser are better and we see a lot of ANI/AE against them as well. The point is, it is better to choose your words. Sure that was an in-joke and no one complained, but that doesn't make the general attitude in the I/P area polite. Heck I was once blasted for making edits that showed Netanyahu bad, and I got Emails from pro-Israeli editors asking me to please remove those edits, because of the underground mafia of Israeli wannabe Hasbara agents who think they can win by canvassing through a third-party tool. So just chose your words.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 23:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps because I don't follow editors, any, closely, or wake up to examine Nableezy's or say your contributions every day and check them all out, I miss a lot, like the sockpuppet incident you allude to. I think I noted once that that you happen to be under a legal obligation to serve your country, and no one can credibly attack an editor simply because he is doing his duty off-line, fulfilling what the law demands. An individual is never reducible to some profile which showcases their nationality and ethnic background, but a tertium quid compounded of an intricate mosaic of unique experiences and features. (Break: I must breakfast abroad).Nishidani (talk) 08:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

As to language. I see a curious correlation between the public insistence on political correctness, and the vast increase over the last decades of structural prejudice. The more intense vigilance over language proprieties has become, the greater the growth of geopolitical violence and our blindness to it. I'm fairly convinced that the victory of the former will not drain the animus intrinsic to the latter, but merely make it even more invisible than it is, and therefore feed it. For, as one can see in the public coverage behind our Jeremy Corbyn/Antisemitism in the British Labour Party articles, the more obsessive the insistence that every i must be dotted, ever p and q examined, to ferret out and pin down antisemites ostensibly to ensure prejudice will die, the impact is the obverse of what is putatively intended. Political correctness becomes a pretext for McCarthyism, purging, group hysteria, and paranoia, while imposing a dominion of silence, or niceness about, crucial issues that ought to be discussed on their merits. Like Norman Finkelstein, I think that kind of relentless scouring of minutiae will generate the very pathology it pretends to be curing. My generation learnt about prejudice by listening to Alf Garnett. Now people with precisely his profile, in Italy, the UK, the US, Israel and everywhere else, are thriving politically. The difference is, their public lexicon has been purged. Nishidani (talk) 12:00, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Seems like Malik has decided to leave us. This place fucking sucks. nableezy - 02:16, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

He's probably and understandably as embarrassed by the compliments in his defense, as by the shockingly purblind, illiterate yet pharisaical system that has been at his heels ever since that sockpuppetting dickhead racist jagged his sensitivities as an Afro-American by calling him a 'boy'. That shitstirring wasn't punished, but his street-wise, utterly understandable come-back to it was.Nishidani (talk) 12:00, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Future reference

Perhaps the article on Roof knocking needs to be finessed, or merged with a more general article on Israeli warnings to Gaza residents their home and livelihoods are to be demolished within five minutes so they should kindly fuck off and allow the IAF to destroy their lives without taking them, and thereby enable the purity of arms talking heads to gain high marks touting it as a humanistic army, brimming with solicitude for its victims. I.e. Gideon Levy 'Israel Gave This Gaza Family a Five-minute Warning. Then It Bombed Its Home,' Haaretz 6 June 2019 Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

MYStakes in English-language news media

Hey, I was gonna dump the "director's cut" of my Corbyn comment in my sandbox along with everything else I decided not to post (in this case for obvious reasons -- it's practically a given that NYT journalists don't know about classical Japanese literature, but contemporary British politics are quite a different matter; I've been using the 最古の和歌集 test to demonstrate that popular news media are not "infallible, regardless of context" for a while), but I figured you might get a larf out of it given our shared history of editing other articles for which the following would not be completely off-topic.

• None of the above per WP:PEACOCK. Just say "several organisations". If I have to select one I would say first choice C, second choice D; but what does it say about our encyclopedia that we have to classify groups whose opinions we cite as "mainstream"? If it really looks like their opinions are not mainstream, it's probably because they are not mainstream, and were merely referred to as such by a journalist with an opinion -- The New York Times is not infallible: here are four pieces from 1983, [9], 1990, and 2018 that mistakenly describe the Man'yōshū, a late 8th-century Japanese poetry anthology as Japan's oldest poetry anthology, when every specialist in the topic knows that that honour technically belongs to the Kaifūsō, a collection of whose existence The New York Times seems to be unaware. (Full disclosure: I've been looking into how English-language news media translate the popular Japanese epithet 日本最古の和歌集 for quite a while, and have noticed that hardly any of them get it right except for the online English version of the Mainichi Shimbun, and them only because they took my suggestion when I emailed them about an article that printed the same mistake as the above NYT pieces; I am fully aware of how off-topic the comparison is for this page, and am really only using it to demonstrate how a New York Times article saying something doesn't mean we can necessarily say it without inline attribution or even a direct citation, since regardless of its fame no newspaper is completely infallible in everything it prints.) 16:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Another interesting point: President Drumpf's advisers appear to have consulted either highly specialized works on Nara period literature, or our MYS article, specifically a footnote I added to it two months ago. I ... am a bit torn on how to feel about the whole thing. I mean, it's a given that everyone uses Wikipedia all the time nowadays, but the people who write the scripts for the most powerful man in the world are apparently collating information that is fed to them by foreign governments through interpreters who don't necessarily understand what they are translating (much of the confusion appears to originate from a mistranslation on the Abe Cabinet's English website[10][11]), regarding highly technical topics that (outside Japan) only specialists have even heard of, with what we post on Wikipedia: that is more than a little disturbing. There's also my pride in knowing that I made a small difference, pitted against the fact that expressing that pride in the wrong company could give the impression that I'm happy Donald Trump specifically benefited from my edits to Wikipedia: I told my mother about this in a Skype call last week, and when I was halfway through saying that she laughed and interrupted me "You're afraid they'll think you support Trump!" Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:49, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

(1) The Manyoshu (Collection of Myriad Leaves), the earliest anthology of Japanese poetry

(2) The 4,516 poems in the Manyoshu constitute the earliest available collection of Japanese poetry

(3) Manyoshu, the earliest Japanese collection of poems.

(4) The Manyoshu (the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry).

1,2, and 4 are statements that are impeccably correct, if you take ‘Japanese’ as referring to the Japanese language. The 懐風藻 consists of 漢詩, poems written in Chinese by Japanese. Only (3) is wrong, in so far as in‘the earliest Japanese collection of poems’, Japanese refers to a collection of poems made by the Japanese, which can only be the Kaifūsō, not the Man'yōshū.

In Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (4.2) you can read a hymn he composed in Latin (cf.Kaifūsō), but that would never be cited as as the earliest example of English poetry, an honour, thanks to Bede, we assign to Caedmon who composed in Anglo-Saxon.

I studied, all too briefly, under the Iwanami Kotenbungakutaikei editor of the Kaifūsō. I turned up reeking of Shōchū at his class, at midday, and with some justice, he suspected this was evidence I was a drunkard, and a lout, because I later corrected him when he asserted that the connotations of 散る could not be rendered into foreign languages. In short, don't allow fixing errors about scholarship in the public domain lay siege to your time. Life's too short.Nishidani (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

It's difficult to parse "the earliest anthology of Japanese poetry" as not being synonymous with "Japan's oldest poetry anthology" in these contexts. Yes, it could be interpreted as referring to the oldest anthology of poetry "in Japanese" and not as contradicting the statement "It is not Japan's oldest poetry anthology, because there is an earlier collection of Japanese poetry in Chinese", but in order to read it that way one would almost certainly need to already know of the existence of the Kaifūsō, and I'm fairly certain almost none of the NYT readership does.

The prevalence of the unambiguously wrong "Japan's oldest poetry anthology"[12] and "Japan's oldest anthology of poetry"[13], including in the same newspaper, supports the assertion that the two are just different ways of wording the same common misconception. Other eminent broadsheets use weird variants like "oldest anthology of domestic poetry"[14] and "the nation's oldest compilation of native poetry"[www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/japan-reveals-name-of-new-imperial-era-to-begin-next-month-1.3845320%3fmode=amp], which would look to any non-specialist like synonyms for "Japanese poetry", but I think you will agree that they are unambiguously wrong. (I suppose "native poetry" might mean "poetry in the poets' native language", but a few months earlier the same paper called it "the oldest existing Japanese collection of poetry"[15].)

There are also English-language sources that recognize both the existence of the Kaifūsō and the fact that its poetry is Chinese rather than Japanese, but nevertheless call it "Japanese poetry" because of its having been composed in Japan by Japanese poets.[16] (Sorry for the GBooks link; I appear to have misplaced my copy of Seeds in the Heart, but I'm pretty sure it does the same.) Yeah, non-specialists calling the Kaifūsō "Japanese poetry", or calling it and the Man'yōshū the two oldest collections of "Japanese poetry", irks me in basically the same manner, as it did here. That's why I'm a little more forgiving of sources discussing linguistics that call the Man'yōshū "the oldest collection of Japanese poetry" and then make it immediately clear they are referring to poetry written in Japanese.[17]

As for Bede, the comparison is largely irrelevant since (correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure Cædmon's Hymn was composed earlier anyway (our articles on the two -- of which I know I should trust neither, but it's a sunny day outside and I don't want to spend too much time researching this response -- imply that the Hymn was composed either before Bede's birth or at least by the time he had reached double digits), and an educated Anglo-American audience could be assumed to know that people in medieval Europe wrote in Latin a lot. Although I'm a little surprised you would put that reference in there for my benefit -- I have very little training in Anglo-Saxon history and literature beyond some hobbyist reading I did in my early teens and some open courses I've listened to on walks (BTWs, I've found this particular lecture and the entire series around it to be very entertaining and insightful -- and he actually references how much better Wikipedia had become in the five years up to when he gave that lecture) but am completely obsessed with classical Japanese literature (日本古典文学, not 文語体日本語による文学 :P ), and I was under the impression that I'd conveyed these facts about myself pretty well to you in our on- and off-wiki interactions. Did you put it in for the benefit of your talk page stalkers who somehow didn't clock out after my first sentence? Because you know no one ever reads these discussions between us: that's why as far as the peanut galleries at ANI and AE are concerned, you and I are the best of friends, always agree with each other on everything, and tendentiously defend each other every single time we wind up on the drama boards for that reason, even when we know it violates policy to do so. (笑)

All that being said, your last two sentences are probably the most worthwhile part of this whole mess that I would be genuinely sorry to bring to your talk page if I hadn't missed our backs-and-forths. I'll try to take your advice. (Although I have found that depending on the context "You know, the translation of Abe-san's speech about the announcement of Reiwa actually contains an error: you have to be careful when translating superlatives" goes over really well, as I've recently been attending some 英会話 groups in Osaka where for some reason I'm usually the only native speaker, and the folks there are usually overjoyed to at least here someone speak "real" English and talk about translation intricacies.) I'm gonna go out for a run while I finish listening to that Al Jazeera documentary on my iPod. (Small nitpick -- I wish they would prepare two versions, one with Arabic/Hebrew/whatever speech subtitled for those watching on a computer and one that does the BBC [?] thing and dubs all dialogue into the same language so that it could be listened to without losing part of the message if you don't speak all the languages of their interviewees; that, plus some audiovisual translation courses I took, and my experiences of watching American comedies in Japanese movie theatres, sometimes dubbed and sometimes subbed, and in the latter case being the only one in the theatre laughing because the subtitles don't even try to be funny, have taught me that subtitles that are meant to be read by someone who isn't pausing so they can carefully read through it, as I'm sure Al Jazeera's are, are generally giving an even more incomplete picture than dubbing, unless one happens to speak the language that is being dubbed over.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Well lad, I stand by my analysis. I'll only add that of course all the examples you give are incorrect from a strictly philological view since they lack a significant epithet, and that not even the Kaifūsō figures as Japan's oldest poetry collection. The Man'yōshū after all is an anthology of collections of poetry preexisting both it and the Kaifūsō, which, once it was compiled, led to the extinction of the manuscript sources it was based on, collections like 柿本人麻呂's 人麻呂歌集 and 山上憶良's 類聚歌林. To exercise a precisian's acumen, all references, and your own animadversions regarding these remarks, should clarify that we are dealing with the oldest surviving Japanese poetry collections. I never read newspapers, except under compulsion. What news I get comes from googling journalists I regard as (a) literate (b) with a strong memory of the past and (c) some actual knowledge by direct experience of what they are describing. The rest are shills and shysters, Barnum circus bullshit artistes, wannabee wankers of logorrhoic jism etc.Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Meh, as far as I'm concerned "oldest" kind of implies "extant". There are of course a lot of even worse renditions of 最古の和歌集 into English that apparently misread 最古 as 最初 and thus call it the "first" poetry anthology, but those are rarer, and the mistake is more obvious (even those with no knowledge of Japanese literary history at all should probably assume that the oldest extant example of any kind of written work was not the first of its kind) and so less of a concern to me. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I can't recall if I've said this before, and I do apologize if I have, but I've constantly found your responses, replies, and general editing within the context of discussions to be eloquent and exceedingly erudite, to boot.

In short, thank you for brightening my day by teaching me new words (and also by the fluidity of your prose)!

—Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 03:14, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Reading that generated

Stroked, the fossil took on flesh and purred,

a truncated trochaic pentameter. Thanks for prompting it, you can take the credit in return for the inspiring flattery!Nishidani (talk) 07:19, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Pour information

Bonjour, J'espère que tu vas bien. Il y a actuellemenet un vote sur l'article relatif à la Guerre de Palestine de 1948 qui mériterait attention (sur wp:en) NoAccount2019 (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Malheureusement, j'ai été obligé de retirer ma participation à wikipedia. Je me suis mis en grève contre la tentative récente par des personnes extérieures à notre organisation d'introduire des procès secrets, en utilisant des preuves secrètes, sans appel. Une espèce de fascisme, que me rappelle ce qui se passe dans les procès militaires en Cisjordanie

Je te souhaite tous mes meilleurs vœux. Nishidani (talk) 20:34, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Non. nableezy - 23:40, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Now that is just an excuse to quit le merde and you know it and I understand it but it's still just a fucking excuse. Fix the grammar yourself if it bothers you :-).--TMCk (talk) 18:46, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Mention in upcoming issue of The Signpost

Just wanted you to know your name is included in a report about FRAMBAN in the upcoming issue of The Signpost. If you have any comments you can leave them on my talkpage or other Signpost official channels. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Bri, though it's rather embarrassing to be singled out among hundreds of wikipedians more at home with the intricacies of this dispute, and more eloquent about it than I could ever be. In your redrafts, it's something that could be sacrificed if pressure of space emerges. Best regards.Nishidani (talk) 11:43, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Recommended reading

Franz Kafka: Das Schloss
... about about alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems ...

Thank you - not only by click - for the enlightening language lesson of what "toxic behaviour" may mean! Proud co-author of Kafka, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:19, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll have to earn that compliment by some payback! Hurried for time at the mo,' but in the K article

In his 1995 book Franz Kafka, the Jewish Patient, Sander Gilman investigated "why a Jew might have been considered 'hypochondriacal' or 'homosexual' and how Kafka incorporates aspects of these ways of understanding the Jewish male into his own self-image and writing

(1)That shouldn’t be sourced to the blurb, but to pp.63ff.,(hypochondriasis) and pp.160-163 (homosexuality) of Gilman's book.

(2)I see Ritchie Robertson's Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press, 1985 isn't listed. I know works on Kafka vie with books and articles on Hamlet for printing profligacy but that is a very good introduction. Roberto Calasso's K, is in the bibliog, but I've always found it a very incisively original reading of Kafka. Perhaps it is too textual, too reconditely hermeneutical, on reflection, for a wikibio.

(3)

The tremendous world I have in my head. But how to free myself and free them without ripping apart? And a thousand times rather tear in me they hold back or buried. For this I'm here, that's quite clear to me' = 'Die ungeheure Welt, die ich im Kopfe habe. Aber wie mich befreien und sie befreien, ohne zu zerreißen. Und tausendmal lieber zerreißen, als in mir sie zurückhalten oder begraben. Dazu bin ich ja hier, das ist mir ganz klar."

Aside from the fact this obviously a serious mistranslation probably machine-driven, the original is sourced to Der Spiegel's Kafka page, which also doesn't work for me. Perhaps it should be replaced by

'The tremendous world I have inside my head, but how to free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me'.The Diaries of Franz Kafka:1910-1923, ed. Max Brod, Peregrine Books 1964 p.222 (the entry is for 21 June 1913), which is also the source for the same quote in Louis Begley,Franz Kafka: The Tremendous World Inside My Head, Atlas, 2009 p.38 which of course takes its title from that passage in Joseph Kresh's translation as reprinted in the Penguin 1964edition. The German original can be linked to (a) Franz Kafka, Gesammelte Werke, Paperless, 2016(b) Walter Herbert Sokel, The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka, Wayne State University Press, 2002 pp.67-68

Best wishes Gerda, as always.Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, that's great. Will try to incorporate. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

... but it will take hours, - on my way outside. Feel free to do it yourself! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:58, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for giving you that workload. By all means take it or leave it, or just plunk the gist on the talk page for someone else to look into. I'm on strike, and won't be adding content to articles for, by the looks of it, quite a while. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 14:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll take it, with thanks. Fresh air was good! - Once (2012), I considered strike, but then thought that seeing me go would be exactly what some would want, so I stubbornly stayed ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:42, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I changed (3) as most urgent. Will see for (1) after sleep. Not sure I understand (2). Do you think it should at least be Further reading? Or even be used as a ref? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:09, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

(1) has note 102 Sander 'Gilman (see blurb)'. That should be replaced by

Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka: the Jewish Patient, Routledge 1993 pp.63ff.,160-163.

I am citing from the edition I have, reprinted in 1995.Nishidani (talk) 07:39, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

I changed to the page numbers. Same edition. What about (2)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:39, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Re (2) Robertson can be introduced and used re this:

Hawes suggests that Kafka, though very aware of his own Jewishness, did not incorporate it into his work, which, according to Hawes, lacks Jewish characters, scenes or themes

Hawes’s view is counterfactual, highly superficial and dated. One could for example write something along the lines:-

Kafka followed closely the scandalous Beilis trial dealing with a spurious accusation that the latter had engaged in the ritual murder of a Ukrainian boy, and towards the end of his life wrote a story based on it. The draft was destroyed when Dora Diamant burnt part of his Nachlass. However allusions to the affaire have been found in The Trial.(Ritchie Robertson, Kafka:Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press 1985 p.12.)

(4) I really haven't time to do much of this, with household duties piling up. But you might consider also this.

‘What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself (and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe’) Note 114,

This again is inadequately sourced. You could replace the web page with The Diaries ed. Max Brod 1964 entry for 8 January 1914 p.252; and provide the German text in a footnote ('Was habe ich mit Juden gemeinsam? Ich habe kaum etwas mit mir gemeinsam und sollte mich ganz still, zufrieden damit daß ich atmen kann in einen Winkel stellen’). Peter-André Alt, Franz Kafka: der ewige Sohn: eine Biographie, C.H.Beck, 2008 p.430)

That ‘in einen Winkel stellen’, by the way, reflects a key leitmotiv in his work, the idea of being holed up, best illustrated by his short story Der Bau. This is explored splendidly in Roberto Calasso’s K., Adelphi edizioni, 2005 pp.pp.179ff . Best Nishidani (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

(4) adopted, with a blockquote for both German and English. Yes, it's short, but of prime importance. Thank you, - no more time today, garden work, concert, Rhein in Flammen. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:19, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Varying it, as a generalization along the lines,

Was habe ich mit anderen Leuten gemeinsam? Ich habe kaum etwas mit mir gemeinsam.

has been, I have long thought, one of the most important points ever written about the 'toxicity' of all identitarian cultures. It is the best modernist tweak I know of regarding Kant's Was ist Aufklärung essay. All those seeking 'community' should first try to nurture some strong sense of self-irony, if not indeed a sense of the comical. We need it in these tragic times. Enjoy the fireworks! Nishidani (talk) 13:52, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

(5)'zufrieden damit daß ich atmen kann in einen Winkel stellen’.

Thinking over this quotation last night, with its west Yiddish preference for Winkel rather than the more usual standard German Ecke, reminded me that the Translation problems to English section is deeply defective and would have to be rewritten, if the aim was eventually FA.

Kafka often made extensive use of a characteristic particular to the German language which permits long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop—this being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is due to the construction of subordinate clauses in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence. Such constructions are difficult to duplicate in English, so it is up to the translator to provide the reader with the same (or at least equivalent) effect found in the original text. German's more flexible word order and syntactical differences provide for multiple ways in which the same German writing can be translated into English. An example is the first sentence of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis", which is crucial to the setting and understanding of the entire story:

{{quote|Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt. (original)

As Gregor Samsa one morning from restless dreams awoke, found he himself in his bed into an enormous vermin transformed. (literal word-for-word translation)

• The note to Peter Newmark refers to p.64 a remark about German, not about Kafka in particular and is WP:OR
• The note to Prinsky regards notes for students, and is not quite WP:RS
• The note to Harold Bloom actually refers to remarks by others (Stanley Corngold et al.,) in a book of which Bloom is merely the editor.Nishidani (talk) 16:16, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

This paragraph is, for me, unacceptable, because Kafka did not make ‘extensive use of a characteristic particular to the German language’. That sounds as if there were something stylistically peculiar in Kafka’s German that sets him off from other German writers. Well, in minutiae, there are some such tell-tale differences , but they do not concern this specific example. He wrote impeccable German, and it just so happens that like all German writers he wrote with a kind of syntactical expansiveness which, were it literally translated into English, would sound ungainly (this is true of any word for word translation from any language into another). The illustrative English sentence from the incipit of Die Verwandlung has to go, because there is nothing there that tells one what Kafka does with language. It could be illustrated by text from any German speaker or writer. The illusrative sentence’s various English versions show some of the difficulties in getting Kafka’s usage over into English: the problem is not ‘syntactical’: it is simply verbal (how to translate words like Ungeziefer etc., a word, if translated as 'a vermin,' becomes unacceptable as English, even though some noted writers have translated it that way.)

If you agree, I’ll try to find the time to write up a more precise paragraph on the difficulties of translating K’s German, which you could consider for inclusion. Otherwise, no problems. Forget about it.Nishidani (talk) 16:06, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	For your brilliant eloquence over WP:FRAM and especially for this note. ∯WBGconverse 06:48, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Question

Do you remember you once quoted me on your userpage? Do you remember what was the quote about? I couldn't find it using wikipedia on my phone.--Bolter21 (talk to me)

Sorry, Stav. While many things you've said in our exchanges are certainly quotable for being insightful, I can neither remember nor find the allusion. I'm pretty sure that, if this is the case for my user page, the quote from you would have remained, since I have never removed quotes added there except on one occasion when, on the suggestion of some arb, I removed a citation from another editor calling me out as an 'anti-Semite'.Nishidani (talk) 06:42, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Was it possibly me?--Bolter21 (talk to me) 10:46, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Nope. That kind of crap long precedes your wiki birth, lad! Anti-Semitism is a specific intimately documented extreme on the vast, somewhat blurry spectrum of prejudice, on the end of the band dealing with hetero-ethnic contempt. As such, it can be reduced, analytically, to a set of more general principles. If one underwrites the idea of universal analytic categories - which is what science aspires to do - then the features of 'Anti-semitism' form a subset of a larger class. That is my position. The other, extremely influential view, is that 'Anti-semitism' is a unique class of its own, and therefore does not resonate with other forms of ethnic contempt. For anyone espousing the uniqueness approach, a principled universalist objection to ethno-nationalism, if applied to the IOWB, shades ineludibly into anti-Semitism, because the agents of the IOWB happen, besides being (certain) Israelis, to be Jews. Hope all's well. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 11:10, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Notes on recent events

• It is worth reflecting on our use of the word 'community'. We are a community, and there is a detached organization ostensibly governing the efficiency and 'health' of this community. The word 'community' began to irritate me when I noticed that the default term 'society' began to be replaced with 'community' in political discourse several decades ago. The logic was evident. The more abstract 'big picture' outlook politicians were exposed to, the less comprehensible their actions to the society became. The greater the reification, the stronger the need to cosy back up to constituents, ergo they started talking about the 'community' they governed: the switch didn't alter or soften the hard logic of top bracket decision-making. It also irritated me because it meddles witlessly with Tönnies/Durkheimian/Weberian definitions about what constitutes modernity, namely the shift from village communities (cf. Gemeinschaft) to impersonal societies (cf. Gesellschaft). Essentially these days, we have turned back the clock rhetorically in speaking of even more abstract societies like those in social media and Wikipedia as 'communities', a linguistic remedievalization to get over the idea that, in joining up to these anonymous aggregates, we can retrieve something like the cosy intimacy of village life. Perhaps that is appropriate since villages, the producing majority, were, in the long run, under the thumb of a otioseseigneurial body, and that is what this innovative move by a minute corporate company constitutes, an assertion of feudal powers over the hoi polloi. Nishidani (talk) 11:44, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
• And the language reform will follow corporate usage, the coercion of euphemism, without changing the realities. Cf.Fiona Pepper and Ian Coombe, 'You're unallocated!' Making sense of the corporate euphemisms used to mask bad news Late Night Live 24 May 2019 Nishidani (talk) 19:51, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

(A)In Henry James's novella, An International Episode, Bessie and Lord Lambeth have the following exchange, meant to illustrate a cultural difference between American and European manners.

"It is not the going before me that I object to," said Bessie; "it is their thinking that they have a right to do it—a right that I recognize."

"I never saw such a young lady as you are for not recognizing. I have no doubt the thing is beastly, but it saves a lot of trouble."

"It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid," said Bessie.

"But how would you have the first people go?" asked Lord Lambeth. "They can't go last."

"Whom do you mean by the first people?"

"Ah, if you mean to question first principles!" said Lord Lambeth

Henry James, An International Episode, (1878) in Eight Great American Short Novels, ed. Philip Rahv, Berkley 1963 p.111 Nishidani (talk) 08:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

(B)Some years ago I had occasion to allude to a trial, in which Joseph Brodsky had the book thrown at him because he had no state certification for being a poet, thought for himself and was, in sum, a social parasite constituting a threat to the Soviet order. An exchange took place between him and the judge i.e.

Судья: 'У вас есть ходатайства к суду?'

Бродский: 'Я хотел бы знать: за что меня арестовали?'

Судья:: 'Это вопрос, а не ходатайство.'

Бродский: 'Тогда у меня нет ходатайства.'

Judge: 'Have you a request to make of the Court?'

Brodsky: 'I should like to know why I've been arrested.'

Judge: 'This is a question, not a demand.'

Brodsky: 'Then I have no demand.' (Samuil Kučerov, The Organs of Soviet Administration of Justice: Their History and Operation, Brill Archive, 1970 p.215 Nishidani (talk) 08:49, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

(C) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?,Juvenal,VI, ll.347–348

(D)‘using secret evidence, which is unavailable to either the defense lawyer or the defendant, taints the legal process; the defense is afforded no opportunity to know the contents or contest the veracity of the evidence directly. Under such circumstances, a defense lawyer’s only option is to request that the judge evaluate the merits of the secret evidence. Thus , the judge becomes the de facto representative of the defendant, since the lawyer is barred from playing such a role. Whether judges are capable or inclined to evaluate secret evidence skeptically and impartially is debatable. Indeed, many participants (including some judges and prosecutors) regard secret evidence as a serious derogation of due process protections for defendants. According to one judge, who vigorously condemned the pervasive use of secret evidence, “Justice has to be shown, and not just done.”Lisa Hajjar, Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza, University of California Press, 2005 p.111

(E)W. H. Auden,Musee des Beaux Arts or Wikipedia's expensive sailing ship.

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. Nishidani (talk) 18:09, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

(F) Prediction.

'Ces scènes-là ne durent pas, sans doute parce que la résistance nerveuse a des limites. Le paroxysme atteint, c’est soudain le calme plat, sans transition, un calme qui confine à l’abrutissement, comme la fièvre précédente confinait à la folie.' Georges Simenon, La guinguette à deux sous, Fayard, 1931 p.161

(G)

non ita caelitibus visum est, et forsitan aequis;

nam quid me poenae causa negata iuvet?

mente tamen, quae sola loco non exulat, utar,

praetextam fasces aspiciamque tuos. Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, Bk 4, 9, 39-42

They’ve chosen to rule otherwise, the gods. Maybe

They’re just, and, what comfort might a man

Gain by debunking the reason for his ban?

Yet, I'll use my mind, that alone is free

From exile, and view your robes of office, and the awe

Flourished by the rodded axes of the law.Nishidani (talk) 17:23, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

(H) A structural analogy with what is going on here, and more widely, is in the following, somewhat far too optimistic survey of vetting options to resolve a systermic crisis. Andy Beckett, The new left economics: how a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism The Guardian 25 June 2019

(I) While this does not of course reflect directly on the WMO, it is useful background reading for the environment in which it is located, since several reflections in the threads deal with the perception that there are many different cultural codes and standards for things like civility. A vast rich-poor divide between techies and the rest has opened up in what was once one of the most civilized and integrated cities in the world.

• “I am so proud to live in San Francisco and be a part of this community,” Google employees were instructed to say, as a preface to their remarks at a January 2014 hearing before the local transportation authority, according to a leaked company memo.
• “It was really hard to stomach the indifference that I witnessed from folks who’d been living in San Francisco for a while, simply stepping over the slumped bodies of people who lived outside or just cold ignoring people asking for money,” said Jessica Jin, who moved to San Francisco from Austin, Texas, to work for a tech startup, of her first impressions of the city. “I wondered how long it would take me to also become numb to it all.” Julia Carrie Wong, 'We all suffer': why San Francisco techies hate the city they transformed The Guardian 1 July 2019

(J)

Almost three years ago, the board published a strong statement against toxic behaviors and directed the Wikimedia Foundation teams to work to make Wikimedia communities safer for all good faith editors. A safe and respectful environment is not only one of our five pillars, it will also allow for more diverse voices to join our communities, bringing new knowledge with them. WMF

This repeated use of 'safe' confuses real llfe interactions with on-line identity. In so far as editors use a handle and do not employ their real names, who they remains behind the mask. The identity they assume on-line is one thing, the anonymous person they may be off-line another. This is a long and complex question. I am reminded of a wonderful book on masks by the anthropologist A. D. Napier.

'What is the relationship, in other words, between, between the horrific faces of Balinese art and the expressions the people of Bali recognize in their interactions with the world around them?' A. David Napier, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox, University of California Press,1986 pp.206-207

If someone dresses up as Caesar, and meets another garbed as Brutus, in a masked ball, should Caesar fear for his safety? Were they to suffer anxiety about being threatened, the problem would not lie in the presence of a Brutus, but in the existential insecurities behind the person posing as Caesar prior to donning the projective identity assumed for the masquerade. Undoubtedly, there is a complex psychology of confusion enabled by digital culture, which tends to give incentives to those who play within it to overidentify their anonymous selves with the persona projected. I write deliberately, as often as not, in a pompous style to mock that part of myself which gets a giggle out of pontificating sententiousness à la Sir Oracle caricatured by Gratiano. If called on that, I don't get offended. In the real world, I speak in dialects, and call a spade a fucken spayed. The nambypamby culture being forced on us has nothing to do with the aims of encyclopedic construction, but very much to do with social media mimicry and their pathologiesNishidani (talk) 08:24, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

it will also allow for more diverse voices to join our communities, bringing new knowledge with them.

Whoever is responsible for that is philosophically and cultural illiterate, and more interested in identitarian politics than encyclopedic construction. This for me goes to the heart of the puerile inanity of the T&S project's innovation. Reading between the lines, it is pitched to editors who come from discriminated minorities, or editors who identify themselves with a discriminated minority. But the tacit premise is that diverse voices from discriminated minorities will bring new knowledge. This means that, whoever wrote that, thinks knowledge, of the kind an encyclopedia compiles, has secret dimensions known only to the respective voices of emarginalized groups. On the face of it, it sounds plausible. In Aboriginal communities, there was, and to some extent still is, a sphere of private knowledge that cannot be made known to either the uninitiated or to 'tribal' outsiders. Much of what has been recorded of it remains unpublished and a good deal of it has not, however, been handed down to the relevant communities. What we knew of the Dogon, turned out, as Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen discovered, to be significantly less than what was thought to be the case, when chance led them to interview Ogotemmelli.

It is certainly important that we have people from as wide a spectrum of human background as possible vetting for oversights or prejudice how their realities are depicted. But the sources for this are not people, and their private knowledge and experiences. The statement above, no one appears to have noted, flies in the face of WP:Reliable Sources, which plainly declares that:

Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracyNishidani (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I.e. the drafter of that earlier language never stopped to consider the implications of what they were asserting, in some apparent haste to codify as a Wikipedia project aim the enlargement of editorial recruitment to discriminated group. It sounds like an accommodation to, a peremptory taking on board of what Robert Hughes called The Culture of Complaint, which should be obligatory reading to newcomers here. Whatever the sex, colour, ethnic or political background, the knowledge these new editors are asked to bring is not something beyond the purview or grasp of anyone else, outside of those specific groups, since it must be reliably published by third parties and in the public domain. My way of seeing the world underwent a sea-change on reading John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me (1961), just after it came out. The knowledge he brought into awareness came not from being black, but from passing himself off as a black by undergoing medical treatment to change his skin colour. The best book on traditional Japanese homosexuality I know of was written by Gary Leupp, a heterosexual. One early groundbreaking study of Greek obscenity was written by a Dutchwoman whose scholarship arose out of a doctorate in theology. Henry Mayhew did not need to impoverish himself to write his classic London Labour and the London Poor any more than George Orwell had to forget his background at St Cyprian's and Eton to write Down and Out in Paris and London. Nishidani (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

(K)

Ne vous laissez pas impressionner par mon gendre, c’est tout ce que je vous recommande. Lui a emberlificoté tout le monde. Il est poli. Jamais on n’a vu quelque’un d’aussi poli. Il en devient écœurant.George Simenon, Maigret se fâche, (1947) Éditions Rencontre, 1968 p.20. Nishidani (talk) 17:15, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

(L)

'C’était toujours délicat de parler à Lognon parce que, quoi qu’on dît, il trouvait moyen d'y voire matière à vexation.'(Speaking to Lorgnon was always a touchy matter because whatever one might say, he would always find evidence in it of an intention to be vexatious.) George Simenon, Maigret et la jeune morte, in Georges Simenon,Œuvres complètes, vol. 18 Éditions Rencontre, 1968 p.182)

That is about as good an insight into the problem of the courtesy policy being 'finessed' to bait hordes of whingers into editing Wikipedia, as one could possible find.Nishidani (talk) 19:38, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

(M)::

‘we argued that many parents, K-12 teachers, professors and university administrators have been unknowingly teaching a generation of students to engage in the mental habits commonly seen in people who suffer from anxiety and depression. We suggested that students were beginning to react to words, books, and visiting speakers with fear and anger because they had been taught to exaggerate danger, use dichotomous (or binary) thinking, amplify their first emotional responses, and engage in a number of other cognitive distortions . Such thought patterns directly harmed students’ mental health and interfered with their intellectual development – and sometimes the development of those around them. At some schools, a culture of defensive self-censorship seemed to be emerging, partly in response to students who were quick to “call out” or shame others for small things that they deemed to be insensitive- either to the student doing the calling out or to members of a group that the student was standing up for. We called this pattern vindictive protectiveness and argued that such behavior made it more difficult for all students to have open discussions in which they could practice the essential skills of critical thinking and civil disagreement.’ Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind:How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, Penguin Press 2018 p.10

(Comment on A) And yet still makes more sense than Wnt... Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I was born and raised in the states, but I have spent a not insignificant amount of time in Egypt. And after a certain age you understand why the people seem fearful in public, why they never discuss anything besides anodyne apolitical topics, why while they are warm and gregarious they have a distinct distrust of people they dont personally know, and sometimes of the people they do. Im not trying to hyperbolize, but this feels like that, that there is an أمن الدولة (state security) that operates in secret and can at any time vanish you for saying the wrong thing. Never a public airing of any charges, never a trial, just you were here yesterday and gone today. The majority, overwhelmingly so, of people here dont have much of an experience with a secret police. Thankfully of course. But there is an unhealthy, in my view, deference given by some to this faceless entity that makes abrupt announcements that "so-and-so has been banned from the English Wikipedia for one year" because they dont see parallels in their lives to such a thing as the state security or secret police. So they believe that because they say the evidence must be kept secret that means that the evidence must be sound and the decision above reproach. Yes, harassment is not good for the project, the community, or its individual members. A state security force is worse. nableezy - 18:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Quite. While I have been critical of many of Fram's action (I was utterly dismayed to see him block Gorllawarfare, given the history. And I have never gotten so many "tank you's" as after I gave her a barnstar back then). But the point it that all of what Fram was blocked for is on en wiki. No emails, not off wiki contact. Ie: it is all there for us to see. And I just don't see anything that sinister. A week or twos block for his language against arb.com; yes. A year ban: hell, no, Huldra (talk) 20:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Also the whole brouhaha over a frickin tweet had me look at the Women in Red initiative. And I saw redlink that could turn blue pretty easily if you want to lend a hand at User:Nableezy/abeer. nableezy - 19:08, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, I've desisted from editing articles since I saw that incident, and, sheesh, heard that we are going to live under a 'Community Health Initiative Regime' written by anonymous hands distinguished so far by a prose style that suggests to me zero competence in communication-they must be all drilled in Ayn Rant's sub-pseudo-sophomoric objectivism,- unless by that is to be meant 'bulletins from the Office to (the) hoi polloi.' Who in the fuck thought up that one? that everything done here has to be under surveillance by a health police, specializing in whingeing (not as up to now, in serious complaints like real life threats, pedophiles, and other such scumbag assaults on our work here). How many times have you, I and Huldra got emails or on-talk page edits with death threats, screaming upper case print screeds expanding on phrases like, 'You fucking Aydab asshole licker'; 'you anti-semetic cunt'? One just brushed this off,-water off a duck's back- save for one exception, to do with email security, aside (I reported an incident to an admin who looked into it). My thought was. 'Well, ya gunna cop tons of flak in editing on the wrong side of the I/P area, it's no skin off my nose. Let the miserable pricks rant,' since I was long taught to take insults impersonally, as a clue to a personality disorder in the aggressor, and that, if you are affected by slurs, it means they have tipped you off to a certain 'undiagnosed' weakness, perhaps a hidden hurt that has nothing to do with the actual recent incident that triggered the insults. I see we live in a different world now.

As to the request, I'll look at it but can't promise anything. I'm not editing unless this threat is met. My impression is that the behavioural diagnostic software, and star chamber encroachment on our democracy will fuck up any lingering interest in my staying here. I've seen too many people with cognitive problems, sheer obtuseness to what texts mean, and obsessions with using Wikipedia as a forum for ethnonationalist rigging, or killing time in playing games with serious editors to think that, by putting this cocked weapon in their hand, and charging the civil gun with heftier armour-piercing munitions, anything other than serious encyclopedic damage is in the offing.Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I get it, but personally until I see what shakes out Im going to keep going about my life. Including fucking about on this website when Im sufficiently bored. nableezy - 03:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

To be honest I think its just a massive cultural disconnect between the US-led ideological 'Just listen and believe' crowd, and the EU/Rest of the world that has a pretty damn ingrained cultural memory of good reasons why not to believe it when people in authority tell you they are doing it for your own good. Or you cant do it yourselves. I mean, quite a lot of the crap coming out of T&S smacks of medieval lord of the manner 'We need to take care of the peasants because they arnt equipped for it'. And pretty much anyone who attended school in the EU, Asia or S.America for the last 70 years could have predicted what happens when you vanish a public and outspoken critic of the regime. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:36, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes. There is certainly a cultural disconnect along those lines. But one could cite also the sociology of bureaucracies to endless effect to throw more light on the crassness here.Parkinson's law for example, that the logic of office expansion leads to subordination to rid the place of rivals etc. I appreciated that apposite pun 'lords of (our)manner(s)' by the way. I hope to get back to this when pressures of private life lessen somewhat. Thanks. Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Actually I cant take credit for that one. I recently did a rebuild on my hardware and my autocorrect needs re-training. Its been doing all sorts of weird stuff since. I will leave it uncorrected for the amusement value. Hope life becomes a bit more relaxing. I can sympathise having recently started a new job (for longer hours, less pay, but far more demanding). Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:43, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, that illustrates an aspect of the problem: automatic software encroaching on the sphere of conscious judgment. Tiffs occur quite frequently here because, for example, an exasperative 'For fuck's sake!' triggers an alarm suggesting that the writer has told someone to 'fuck off!' Attempts to convince people that one is remonstrative about deplorable conditions, the other intolerantly dismissive of persons - a world of difference- often fail. 'For fuck's sake' signals that the other editor's refusal to come to terms with the obvious meaning of a source text/refusal to compromise,etc., causes frustration. In the end, an editor must erase any hint that an obstructive editor is causing one frustration in order to make that editor continue to feel comfortable in his, often strategic, persistence in ignoring commonsense. These protocols guarantee passive aggressiveness as much as they aim to ensure one form of 'civility', the form that is judged purely in terms of adherence to the politically correct, neutral and neutered terminology of interactions. They ignore the other side of civility, which demands, in a dialogic encounter, a certain ability to recognize the point another person may be making. As to working conditions in the real world. Most of the bright young people I know here have to cope, after getting a degree, even an MA, with job offers to work for 800 euros a month, while paying half of that in rent. The solution? Keep wages lows to attract capital, and blame immigrants.Nishidani (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Don't get baited

Tl;dr version: when someone argues with you and makes errors of policy or fact, you should point out the problems with their argument once, citing policy, and then stop. If there is nothing new to bring to bear, don't get baited into responding again, especially if they just keep insisting they're right, or if they ignore your arguments. You can't force them to listen to you, so don't try. Unless there's something new to add, just stop commenting, even if they have the last word.

Full version: Nishidani, you're basically completely correct at Talk:Noongar, but, forgive me, you can be your own worst enemy in arguing your point. The problem is, you get sucked in and feel compelled to respond, whenever anybody says anything that you don't agree with, even if it's all been said before, over and over and over again, and even when you've already been proved right umpty-ump times already. Don't get baited, and don't get sucked in. Say your piece once, then refuse to engage. Follow WP:DR about the content, and talk policy about issuing neutral warnings, when appropriate.

Regarding the specific point about the 45,000-year age for Noongar, the burden of proof to provide sources that support their assertion is on those who wish to retain that false assertion; there's no need for you to prove that it should be removed. If they argue nonsense or deny WP:SYNTH on the Talk page, you can point it out once, but if they go around in circles, making essentially the same bogus argument over and over, don't get sucked in. You don't have to respond; let them have the last word, it doesn't change a thing. Ultimately, if they keep insisting on their point of view, arguing with them on the Talk page will not change their mind.

If it's merely a content dispute (which this isn't) then an Rfc may help. If they are going against policy, e.g., by edit warring to enforce their PoV, then we add warnings on their User talk page about edit warring, or about disruption, or whatever the case may be. Eventually, if they don't back off, you take them to ANI. But arguing the same point over and over and over on the Talk page is a gigantic waste of time, and actually works against you, because it makes it look like there is an arguable point somewhere in all that verbiage when there isn't, and makes it look like a real, back-and-forth discussion is going on, when it's merely one disagreement, repeated N times. That just makes it harder for other editors who come in fresh and want to assess the situation, to make out what is actually going on.

So, please: unless you have a completely new objection to what they are doing at the article that hasn't been discussed before, please just stop. Let them have the last word, it doesn't matter. Let the discussion stop, fix the article (like I just did) per policy and consensus, and wait for further developments. Mathglot (talk) 07:17, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

You and I know this is a behavioural problem, WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT WP:IDONTLIKETHAT.The other two editors consider that I am the problem. Since there is no consensus, the page will remain stuck in its folly, according to normal procedures. All of the other measures you suggest are way down the line because one has to have evidence of disruptiveness, and you can only show that by following to the letter all of the WP:CIVIL protocols. including laborious WP:CONSENSUS forming until all alternatives, including dispute resolution, are exhausted, together with the patience of editors who see no reason why days, months, years should be spent trying to gain 'consensus' on 1+1=2 kinds of elementary facts.

By the way, the 45,000 years figure is roughly correct: it just cannot be applied to a Noongar population. By 2001 at the Devil's Lair site and others it was established that human habitation of SW Australia dates back to roughly 50,000 B.P. which means 48,000 BCE. The fact that the editors there can't distinguish 'Before present' from 'BCE' is an index of the level to which we are reduced. The Trust&Safety heads in SFrancisco in any case would regard Noongar as an article in the discriminated minorities area, and therefore any putative representative of that area must be given extreme leeway and tolerance against aggressively Waspish suspects like myself, who lack nativist credentials and therefore shouldn't use RS to push out undocumented speculations by the relevant 'community'.Nishidani (talk) 09:09, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

You're right again, on all counts. Yes, it's a behavioural problem; yes, it's IDHT, IDLT, etc. Doesn't matter that they think you're the problem, just ignore it; they don't understand policy. Yes, habitation dates to roughly -50,000. (The only thing I disagree with you on is o/t here, namely, T&S involvement. Believe me, they are so frazzled by the current situation, they will step verrry carefully next time. But they only get involved in extremely serious issues; they would never step in here, because they're simply not going to interfere with an interpretation of internal en-wiki policies like WP:SYNTH. Also, you're dreaming if you think T&S would get involved in something as minor as this; it's premture even for ANI (so far), ArbCom would reject it in a flash, and T&S is light-years away from considering something like this. Not a snowball's chance in hell it's gonna happen.)

You're not "pushing out undocumented speculations", you are calmly, and clearly, altering article content (Btw, did you see my change at the article?) or you're discussing improvements on the Talk page in a neutral tone, without exasperation, and without aspersions. Once you've said your piece, there's nothing else to say; let them rant and rave. Let them edit war, and then they will be warned against edit warring. Let them disrupt the article repeatedly to enforce their own substantiated position, and then they will be warned against repeated disruption. At a given point, the disruption will become detrimental enough for them to be taken to ANI. (I'm not shy; I'll do it. But it's a last resort, so please don't jump the gun by trying that yourself, before every other method has been exhausted.) If they promise to stop at ANI, then that's the end of it. If they don't, they will be blocked.

But this doesn't happen overnight, DR procedures need to be followed, so you may need to put up with nonsense in the article for a short while, or some pointless, circular discussion on the Talk page. Don't get baited: if they repeat a previous TP argument that you (or someone else) has already debunked, just let it go. Make your point once calmly, then stop. Follow WP:DR and WP:CIVIL to a fault. When there is a user behaviour issue, do not bring it up on the article talk page, rather, address the behavioural issue at their user TP. If they break user behavioural guideline in article TP comments, you can add "I've responded at your User talk page" at the article TP, but nothing more.

Nothing to do now, but watch the article. If it gets altered back to unsourced POV claims, don't jump on it; let it sit 24 hours at least, then revert if you feel like, with a calm, brief, neutral edit summary, like, "Rv per [[Talk:Noongar#Verifiability challenge]]." If it happens again, wait another 24, then, "Rv per [[Talk:Noongar#Verifiability challenge]]. Stop [[WP:EW|edit warring]]." I will do the same. Don't revert a 3rd time. After you have reverted twice, and I have reverted twice, we can decide whether we want to open an Rfc, or go to ANI and request a block.

Enjoy a break from constant strife at Talk:Noongar, and try to help contribute elsewhere. Are you signed up with Legobot's Feedback request service? There are good Rfc's all over the place, crying out for comments by seasoned editors like you, who understand policy well. Please sign up, it's fun, plus you'll learn all about corners of the encyclopedia you never heard of, as well as important ones that you already know all about, but didn't realize they needed help on a discussion. Good luck! Mathglot (talk) 23:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

It even occurred to me after the fact, that they might be lurking here, monitoring this discussion without contributing. If they are, good! If they continue as before at the article, they are headed for a block. And now, they know. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm just on strike until the Fram mess is clarified, so all I can do is offer talk page suggestions. When I began writing the set of Aboriginal articles, I realized the Noongar one was too 'nationalistic', rather like Yugambeh, to allow efficient editing, so I left it aside, though I accumulated a large amount of data for an eventual revision. It's a pity sensitivities are so high. When I began to document the genocidal acts of settlers against the Yugambeh, a descendent was upset, and didn't want painful memories disturbed by history. Scholarship has huge amounts on the devastations of colonial settlers, but the urge to bolster a community sense of having endured and survived, to flourish now, tends to focus on creating a generic picture of a common culture, when the records say this was rather more divided 'tribally' and riven by conflict than people like to admit. The sensitivity is driven by a legitimate fear, that land claims are imperiled if information is forthcoming of divisions within the ranks (the Commonwealth has exploited conflicts in scholarly evidence to undermine several claims). But encyclopedias should describe the problems, not cover them up.Nishidani (talk) 14:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Systemic bias

When the former head of the Board of Deputies of British Jews Lionel Kopelowitz punned that Jeremy Corbyn should be korban (an animal to be sacrificed, or like someone who was murdered in the Holocaust, it was taken by some to be an explicit call for his assassination. (Richard Silverstein, Former Board of Deputies President Calls for Corbyn Assassination Tikun Olam 21 July 2019) The news, unlike every titter of insinuation about the target's putative anti-Semitism, has scarce resonance in the mainstream, save for this “The word Corbyn in Hebrew is Corban, which is sacrifice,” he joked. “I think we should sacrifice him for all the trouble he has caused.” (Mathilde Frot'Former Board president ‘sorry’ for ‘sacrifice Corbyn’ quip,', The Times of Israel, 30 May 2019). A huge wiki effort is being put in to screw Corbyn for comments on Palestine/Israel several levels of magnitude lower than this. Every Iagoish drop from the cascading poisonous well merits expansion. The far stronger counterevidence is zilched, disappeared like this firebrand rhetoric. The same goes for Trump's anti-Semitic slurs addressed to 'Jews' as people who whether they like him or not must vote for him to protect their money and their 'brutal' real estate gains. No mainstream echo. It's fine. He supports Israel. Nishidani (talk) 20:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Not sure why you're jumping on the defend Corbyn bandwagon. [18] among many in recent days. Or Labour lords resign, [19] or the Labour lords avert against Corbyn, [20], please take note how Israel isn't mentioned. You can be an antisemite without involving the IP conflict. I truly am mystified why someone who has nothing to do with the UK, nor of UK or Europe politics would wonder in to the Corbyn affair. And then to state that this is a smear as you've done before, and tried to use your old friends Chomsky as if he's the only source in the world to use. There is a reason why the EHRC in the UK is investigating the Labour party. Why not look up and see when else in history the EHRC ever investigated another party. Maybe when everyone is calling out the Labour party it's time to stop and listen. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I truly am mystified why someone who has nothing to do with the UK, nor of UK or Europe politics would wonder in to the Corbyn affair. Says somebody with an American flag waving on their user and user talk pages. nableezy - 22:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm involved because of the antisemitism and how they attack those who fight antisemtism within the Labour party and let it fester for years. Not sure why that is surprising. I don't think it's a surprise that I'm Jewish and I care about a major political party condoning antisemitism and enabling the growth of it in the UK and how it's being investigated by a national body and the fallout of not catching it sooner, and how the damage one person can do to a party. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 23:17, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

You dont know anything about where Nishidani grew up, lives, lived. And beyond that, the suggestion that only Jews and Europeans should be interested in or contributing to that article is rather silly. Finally, your first comment here also violated your topic ban. Try to stop doing that. Thanks. nableezy - 00:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say that only Jews or Europeans can comment, but it does seem odd for someone who never edited, to the best of my recollection, to suddenly be interested about Corbyn, and then to deny accusations about antisemitism? That is odd. All one has to do is read the papers or watch videos of Jews walking down the streets in the UK to see the increased antisemitism. Jeremy Corbyn mainstreamed antisemitism in the UK moreso than any other modern UK leader. And then to claim it's a SYSTEMIC BIAS??!! Sir Joseph ^(talk) 00:09, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

What is 'odd' is your apparent inability above to either remember the well-known, or check the record. I have edited the Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn pages respectively 128 and 22 times.

You characterize me as posting the above while never having edited this topic. I'm 'suddenly interested about Corbyn'. The anti-Semitism detector machinery's nervous calibrations tingle, the antennae quiver alertly, the nose sniffs the air to ferret out the stench behind a slight waft of speciously neutral observation. This is, in effect, the usual problem. No one outside the perceived ethnic fold may note anything, before their anti-Semitic credentials have been verified, their record minutely threshed, to scour up what their ulterior motives might be. For it is always a question of invisible, inferred, ulterior motives. For those who suffer from this, even a list of facts can, duly scanned, prove to be ad hominem.

There is a simple, almost mathematically precise way to measure prejudice, antisemitism included. Take a murder threat by a Jew against a non-Jew of the kind:-

(a)“I think we should sacrifice him (Corbyn) for all the trouble he has caused (for Jews).”

And reframe it, mutatis mutandis, for the opposite position. I.e. imagine Jeremy Corbyn stating

I think we should sacrifice/korbanize Lionel Kopelowitz for all the trouble he has caused (for the Labour Party).

The first murder incitement is not notable, not reported, brushed off. The second incitement to murder, formally identical, only with the object of animus inverted, would create a political storm, with massive coverage, and the immediate resignation of Corbyn from British politics and cowering in self-inflicted humiliation for the rest of his days(and justly so). (a) was said, it is a fact (b) has never been said, it is a conjecture.

Note that (a) for you is not even mentioned, though it is a fact. Instead (b) an hypothesis is raised as to why anyone like myself would think this noteworthy, with the infratextual nudge-nudge wink-wink innuendo there is something ‘odd’ about my even touching on the fact. This is the standard gambit: if I am criticized, then the gravamen of the charge is to be ignored, and I must galvanize my wits, wrack my brains, to figure out what odd trait is it in the other person that led him to voice his remark in the first place. A dinner guest licks his plate. The hostess remarks, 'Please don't do that', and the guest thinks:'Bloody hell, that's odd. She must dislike Irishmen like me.' This is one of the most common features of conversation on the I/P talk pages I have noted on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The last point was best said by the most intelligent commentator on this media farce, Sir Stephen Sedley

most Jews do understand the risk of hypersensitivity. There is the story about Goldbloom, doing well in the rag trade in Stepney, who has to make a dash for Euston to sort out a problem with his supplier in Glasgow. As the night sleeper pulls out, he realises he has left his overnight bag behind. Luckily the man occupying the other berth in the sleeper compartment has a spare pair of pyjamas, which he lends Goldbloom, and tells Goldbloom he can use his razor in the morning. But when Goldbloom asks if he can also borrow his toothbrush, he politely declines. The next evening, when he returns from Glasgow, Goldbloom’s wife asks him how the journey went. ‘Not bad,’ says Goldbloom, ‘but did I meet an anti-Semite!’ Nishidani (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

but yet you're still insinuating it's still all a smear campaign against Corbyn. That's the problem. Corbyn is still the head of the Labour party, this guy isn't the head of anything. Perhaps you need to read what systemic bias is, and not from a blog who thinks Corbyn is all warm and fluffy and antisemitism accusations are a smear, you need something grounded in reality. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:31, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Whenever one is dealing with hysterics (impersonal), the thing to do is to look at the hard sociological evidence:. This is the reality, the objectively ascertained facts, as opposed to headline screamers

• (a) the percentage of Jews proportionate to the UK population is 0.45%
• (b) The percentage of Jews among Labour MPS is 8 out of 232, 11 of 330 for the Conservatives: They thus make up 2.9% of Parliament. Labour won 232 seats, meaning Jewish Labour MPS formed 3.45% of the elected party, slightly more than their percentage is as members of the Conservative Party (3.33%).(2017).
• (c)I.e. their parliamentary representation is 8 times higher than their proportion of the general population.
• (d) of the 540,000 + members of the Labour Party, 453 members have either been investigated, resigned or been sent to Coventry on the issue of anti-Semitism,=0.08% (2019)
• (e) Despite anti-Semites having a higher presence among UKIP and Conservative voters, neither of those parties has developed a mechanism for detecting, analyzing and expelling, if found guilty, members of those parties who might be anti-Semitic.

• There is a reason why the EHRC in the UK is investigating the Labour party. Why not look up and see when else in history the EHRC ever investigated another party

• (e)According to Pew Research that, negative attitudes towards Jews in the UK amounts to 7% of the population, as opposed to the average 16% for the EU.
• (f)The Campaign Against Antisemitism survey revealed that of all 4 British parties, anti-Semitic attitudes were highest among Conservatives (40%) and UKIP (39%), with a wide gap separating them from Labour (32%) and the LibDems (30%)

Meaning that if the EHRC were serious, they would be investigating the Conservative and UKIP parties above all. They are not.

• (g) The conclusions of (f) were independently confirmed by a Jewish research body which determined that UK surveys for the decade 2007-2016 consistently found a pattern of heightened animosity against Jews to be characteristic of the political right, while The political left, consistently emerged as 'more Jewish-friendly' ( L. Daniel Staetsky, 'Antisemitism in contemporary Great Britain:A study of attitudes towards Jews and Israel,' Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2017 p.42)
• (h)The CAA also found that antisemitic attitudes had declined among Labour voters after Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015.
• (i) In polling the Jewish constituency it found that, from a low of 1 to a high of 5, British Jews ranked Labour's anti-Semitism at 3.94; the Ukip at 3.64; the LibDems at 2.7, the Conservatives at 1.96.

I.e. Jewish community impressions seem to imply that the less anti-Semitic Labour is, the more it deserves to be called out for its antisemitism, whilst the more anti-Semitic you are as a conservative, the less this fact becomes noteworthy.

• (j)

  We found that unambiguous, well-defined antisemitism is distinctly a minority position in Great Britain. Approximately 2-5% (when expressed as a range) or 3.6% (when expressed as an average) of the general population in Britain hold attitudes of a kind and intensity that would qualify as being called anti-Semitic Staetsky ibid p.63

• (k) 727 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in the first six months of 2018. In context, 94,098 hate crimes were reported to police over 12 months to March 2018, of which Jews were victims in 1.1% of cases.

Nearly 40% of Jews would seriously consider leaving Great Britain if the Labour Party under Corbyn were elected, while upwards of 85% are convinced he is an anti-Semite. They vote Conservative overwhelmingly, i.e. for the party with a far higher index for anti-Semitic attitudes than Labour, almost none of which is thought politically noteworthy by the mainstream and tabloid press. Go figure. You don't need to be a genius to work out what this means.Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

As I said, you want to be an ostrich, and your last statement shows how little you know. Most Jews vote Labour, not Conservative. That is changing perhaps now, because of the party that is unwilling to tackle their antisemitism problem. You keep dancing around the problem that Labour is denying they have a problem, that they punish those who try to deal with the problem and actively put people in charge those who have antisemitic tendencies to deal with allegations of antisemitic incidents. There is a reason why Labour MP's are upset at their own party, unless you think it's part of some vast Jewish conspiracy. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:07, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

As I said, you want to be an ostrich, and your last statement shows how little you know. Most Jews vote Labour, not Conservative,' Sir Joseph

'Amongst Jews, a strong majority expressed support for the Conservative Party (63%), with around a quarter (26%) saying they voted for Labour. This builds on the plurality support for the Conservative Party shown by Jewish voters at the 2005-2015 general elections.

Your misprision is rather comical after your insinuation there's no evidence I am familiar with the UK.

If you can't make even an elementary distinction in English between 'wonder' and 'wander' ('I truly am mystified why someone who has nothing to do with the UK, nor of UK or Europe politics would wonder in to the Corbyn affair'), and mix up the United States with Great Britain, I suggest this page is not the place for you. It's hard enough trying to trying to get a grip on the real world empirically, without the complications of being constrained by courtesy to reply to people who appear unwilling to focus.(If this of course is another of your fishing expeditions to get evidence of WP:AGF violations (under provocation, e.g. 'ostrich'- you should be trouted for that) evidence to take to AE or A/I, which is as often as not the case, please note that acquatically, I don't identify with gudgeons. The kind of Oncorhynchus mykiss Robert Hughes recounts trying to angle, with memorable eloquence in his memoir, is more down my line, though I don't imagine that will lure you to reel with laughter. Goodbye then, that's a good chap. Nishidani (talk) 16:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

no need to be condescending. Your TL;DR is that you're still unwilling to admit that Labour has a problem with antisemitism. That's your problem, not mine. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:11, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Anyone who thinks a short page is TL:DR shouldn't be editing Wikipedia, let alone pretending that they inform themselves sufficiently to add content to a topic. Your remark shows that you didn't read what I wrote, and yet want to reply to it. I answered every issue raised, you dodged all the evidence adduced. That is your problem, and, you being an editor, it is a characteristic that would arguably create problems for wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 18:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

No need to be condescending lol, for demonstrating how little you know about a topic you are lecturing him on editing. Well done. Nish, if I might humbly suggest not engaging with people who have no interest in learning anything? nableezy - 18:57, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, if editors want to document in great detail their ignorance, I don't really think it fair to deny them a space to showcase their nescience. Noblesse oblige, as condescenders might say.Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

What is simple is that you are unwilling to admit that Labour has a problem with antisemitism and that you consider it a smear. That you think it's ignorance to say otherwise, is a pox on you, not on the millions who are complaining about Corbyn and Labour. That the EHRC has now received volumes of evidence suggesting a coverup is not a smear but fact, yet you continue to decry it as a smear. That is shameful. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:04, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I listed several facts you got wrong, among them an astonishing belief that most Jews vote for Labour. You confused the UK Labour Party, evidently, with the US Democratic Party, how is beyond human reckoning. If you cannot get a simple fact straight, then you are not in a position to confidently advise people on how to read anything. Let me use your uncivil psychological ploy (the suggestion that behind my reasoned judgments there is an 'unwillingness') against you. 'You are unwilling to admit that when you assert that Labour has an anti-Semitism problem, you have no evidence for the contention, and brush away the evidence, accepted by Jewish scholarly studies, that anti-Semitism is stronger in the ranks of the Conservative and UKIP parties than it is in Labour'.

What is 'shameful' is that one of the most viciously modern expropriative experiments in ridding an historic population of their right to property, life and liberty is justified by systematically screaming 'anti-semite' at whoever, out of sheer decency, considers obscene this daily harassment, demolitions, shooting kids (59 killed,2,756 injured in 2018, per the UN) often in the head, burning olive groves, bulldozing historic sites, stealing land in the name of ethnocracy.Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the last paragraph is quite what you are fishing for, evidence to report me as a deleterious presence on Wikipedia, but, one cannot satisfy every whim.Nishidani (talk) 19:23, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not fishing for anything. And why are you talking about Israel in your last paragraph when we're talking about the UK? What does the UK and antisemitism have to do with Israel? Again, you are still unwilling to answer, so I'll ask a simple yes or no question, does the UK Labour Party have a problem with antisemitism? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:28, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The UK attack on Corbyn, see the relevant pages, is 90% documented by mentioning his and members of his party's attitudes to Israel and Palestinians, exactly what happened in the US, where no one in public life can mention anything negative about the former's occupation without ending up in the crossfire of multiple 'anti-Semitic' barrages. The latter is all minutely documented in impeccable scholarly works, such as Mearsheimer and Walt's 2007 book. As to your question. The UK Labour Party has a problem with a massive persistent press campaign asserting, contrafactually, that, compared to all other political parties, it uniquely has an 'antisemitic' problem. I should add that when anyone complains of 'antisemitism' I examine what the theoretical basis for their outrage is: political, moral, ethical, etc. Anyone who complains of anti-Semitism, while silently ignoring the massive daily evidence of the humiliations, harassment and violence dealt out on a systematic basis in Gaza and the West Bank, is ranting hollowly to my ear. For anti-Semitism is our most egregious instance of reviling, abusing, harassing, even killing people, because of their ethnicity, ergo, if any Israeli or Jew or whoever reviles, abuses, harasses or kills (not in self-defense, but to pursue territorial hegemony) Palestinians in the occupied territories, they automatically deprive themselves of any credibility in complaining of anti-Semitism, a cost which, were I a Jew, I would never accept under any circumstances. This is fundamental to civilization, as Hillel understood in his statement at Shabbath folio:31a, 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation.'

Oh, he did conclude that by the addendum, 'go and learn.'Nishidani (talk) 19:59, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

So a Jew in the UK can't complain of antisemitism in the UK until Israel shapes up? Is that really what you're saying? It seems to me that is what you're implying that antisemitism is indeed tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and while for many instances it is, for many instances it isn't. And it's quite egregious of you to say that a Jew in the UK loses credibility. You do realize that is one instance of antisemitism, don't you? Further, you really ought to read up on antisemitism in the Labour party and how many instances have nothing to do with anything outside the borders of the UK. But it is quite clear now why you are interested in the topic, but I'm done. Have a nice life. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:04, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Any person of any ethnic group can legitimately complain of racial prejudice. But if a Burmese complains (s)he has been insulted in the UK, while remaining silent or indifferent to the plight of the Rohinga, or even defending their government's ethnocidal measures, then, while I have no reason to doubt the complaint should be addressed, the plaintiff's outrage in context is personal, not ethical. They are upset at behavior meted out to them personally, while insouciant if someone else beyond their kinfold cops the same treatment from one of their community. If an Egyptian is outraged by their maltreatment in the UK, but condones what Sisi does in Egypt, their complaint should be addressed, with full awareness however that the offended person doesn't find anything wrong in having other Egyptians, or foreigners like Giulio Regeni, tortured. If a Jew is spat on in London by some anti-Semite, they do well to seek redress and punitive costs; but if that person, on hearing that Christian priests are customarily spat on in Jerusalem by Haredi passers-by, can't make the connection between what befell them, and what befalls non-Jews, then the outrage is not grounded in a universal moral sensibility: it is personal, and, often, ethnic. Whenever any ethnic group is targeted for abuse, that violence is, implicitly, directed at every other ethnic community. Europe hjas falsely addressed its anti-Semitic history. The anti-Semitic tradition was recycled as hostility to Arabs. The psychological and cultural odium remains - it is just cathected onto another group, while Islamophobes vaunt their pseudo-philosemitic (pro-Israeli) credentials.

I don't need an augury for a nice life, I've had an exceptionally fortunate one. I never stole anything from anyone (except a book from a library, which I later repented of, and paid for)), have lived in other countries only by invitation, and never cheered on or turned my head quietly away to think of other things as bullies bashed the shit out of weak people (. Mine is nigh over, fortunately. I have no interest in overstaying in a world that has, in three short decades, forgotten what WW2 was about.Marx was wrong in his gloss on Hegel's view that 'alle großen weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen und Personen sich sozusagen zweimal ereignen.' Mi dispiace.Nishidani (talk) 20:43, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Sir Joseph

Can't really reply to you without violating his ban. Let's give his user talk page a break, okay? Thank you. El_C 21:39, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. The problem was the interaction between you, Nableezy and SJ was so rapid, it took me a half an hour to get an edit in. That done, I thought the second reflection important. It disturbs me to find, so often, that the logic of elementary propositions (what are the ethics of prejudice) fails to get a foothold. It doesn't require a response, since it is not a criticism or provocation of SJ, just a personal anecdote he might reflect on. My apologies if those two remarks looked disruptive.So, that's it.Nishidani (talk) 21:46, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Interesting times, we live in

You might be interested to see this thread .... ∯WBG^converse 18:02, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

re this...

I have moved my interjection so you may wish to reformat your comments for better comprehension. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:55, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I should have put it further up, but fatigue wins out, and I don't think the correspondent will see what I mean anyhow. It's not important. Social engineering has an interesting history, but this one has all the features one would expect were you to ask someone with zero social skills, and bad grades for lego block building in primary school, to take on the task of writing a blueprint for society.Nishidani (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

iw and vm

Given the previously stated support for replacing the section entirely, Id hazard the current change of heart is more a player vs player situation revolving around this than anything else. nableezy - 17:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the good faith. I have in fact been consistent (all be it body vs. lead and three months apart) in advocating trimming of this content (today - two long sentences to one medium length one) - and I hope this is an acceptable compromise here for the lead. I still think the article has issues - but I do not plan on actively editing it in the near to medium future (beyond possibly minor stuff or vandal reverts - it is on my watchlist).Icewhiz (talk) 18:14, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Welcome as ever. nableezy - 18:16, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

A daimen icker in a thrave

(I'm assuming your devious poetic mind can understand twig the heading... Apologies if not.)

Could I trouble you to translate some Italian text I quoted on List of honorary degrees awarded to Noam Chomsky (note d), please? You can post it here, and I will look after the formatting, etc.

When I started to learn Spanish, at night school many years ago, I took a decision to avoid Italian, because of the risk of mixing the two up. (Our night school teacher was fluent in both). My sole experience of Italy and Italian is limited to a long-distance bike ride from England to Venice. It was a large group of cyclists, and most of the social interaction was within the group, not with the locals (basically limited to shop assistants, waiters/waitresses, and similar). Not much chance of picking up any Italian. Easy enough to get the gist of newspapers/magazines (from Spanish), but spoken Italian was incomprehensible. Was surprised how extensive the German-speaking area in the north was. Friendly, helpful people, beautiful scenery, esp in the Lakes/Dolomites. But from a cyclist's POV they're the worst drivers in Europe! Driving up the arse of the car in front, overtaking before blind corners, blind tops of hills. Yikes! No respect for cyclists (big contrast with the French).

Anyway, thanks in advance for your help, hope you're well. --NSH001 (talk) 23:06, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

No problem, N. Just a bit busy today, as my wife needs a special bed rigged up, for when she gets back from hospital today. Just send me the direct link to the Italian text(s) you need English. I'll try to do it within the next few days. Hope you get some holiday time off in the sun, and by the sea. Best Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Your priority is your wife and family, Nishi, not Wikipedia. Looks like you're doing the right thing, and your wife is in good hands. You're probably right about my needing to get some more sun, but I'm allergic to beach holidays - I grew up by the sea, where we had lots of beautiful sandy beaches. We'd get hoardes of uncles, aunts and cousins staying with us for a cheap holiday in August/September, and if the weather was good we'd all walk down to the beach, or sometimes drive to a beach a bit further away, and just laze in the sun. Used to drive me nuts with boredom, esp as I couldn't (and still can't) swim.

Here's the Italian text (it's not very long, hence the heading above):

"Il 16 aprile 2004 Noam Chomsky ha ricevuto la Laurea honoris causa in Lettere dall'Ateneo fiorentino, 'quale riconoscimento allo studioso eminente nel campo delle scienze del linguaggio e delle capacità cognitive e all'intellettuale da sempre impegnato in difesa della libertà di pensiero'. Il 1º aprile 2005 ha ricevuto la Laurea honoris causa in Psicologia dall'Università di Bologna.

Il 17 settembre 2012 Noam Chomsky ha ricevuto un PhD honoris causa in Neuroscienze conferitogli dalla Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati di Trieste."

Thanks again, and give my best wishes to your wife. --NSH001 (talk) 07:32, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Neil.

On the 16 April 2004, the University of Florence conferred an honorary Arts degree on Noam Chomsky, 'in recognition of his eminence as a scholar in the field of linguistics and cognitive science, and as a public intellectual who has never ceased to engage in the defense of freedom of thought.' On 1 April 2005, he received an honorary degree in Psychology from Bologna University.

On 17 September 2012 he was awarded an honortary Phd in neurosciences from Trieste's International School for Advanced Studies ."

If you can do distance running, swimming's a piece of cake, as I found out at 4 years of age when I was thrown into a pool, had my fingers stamped on when I tried to get out, and was told I had to make it doggy paddling to the other side. It helped that I drank half the pool while flailing to that destination. I then had my fingers stamped on again and was told to go back where I started from: I did, and was yanked out. Never put the wind up me. I once dove off a yacht in Bass Strait, a hundred miles from the coast while doing the backleg of the Sydney to Hobart. That's the only time I've felt just a tad uneasy, if only because the crew hoisted a spinnaker, and the yacht veered off with all laughing and waving goodbye. Ah, youth!Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

"If you can do distance running, swimming's a piece of cake" - err, not quite. I have a small chest and lung volume, inherited from my mother. For running, you can compensate for that by hard training to increase VO2 max, which is why it took me two years of hard, time-consuming, persistent training before I ran my first marathon, and another year to start posting respectable times (for my age). For swimming, I lack buoyancy, and the only way to compensate for that is to put on body fat, or to use an artificial aid such as a wet suit. It is quite possible that I sink in swimming pools, though I haven't yet tried that experiment. I still vividly remember the absolute terror from childhood when my father (who was a strong swimmer, but temperamentally totally unsuited to the job of swim instructor) tried to teach me to swim in a swimming pool. I know I float in sea water, since I managed to get hold of a face mask and snorkel, and quite enjoyed that, but was never able to swim unaided in the sea. --NSH001 (talk) 07:34, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

cahoots or cohorts

Hi, re your comment about "two cliques in cohorts", I think you mean in cahoots. Raising it here because it is probably a less contentious page. I wouldn't normally bother with typos in talkpage comments, but I think the rest of what you said is important enough that it is worth changing that word. Cheers and happy editing ϢereSpielChequers 15:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks indeed for this. I paused on that, which meant my instinct was correct, but memory (old timer's disease, or the fatigue of a long day, and the prospect of a difficult night) failed me when I searched it. Feel free to correct anything in my prose, especially if it is as disgraceful as that lapsus. I'll fix that immediately. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 15:58, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus

A lily of the valley for you

Hi! I'm hoping that you'll use your linguistic knowledge to advise on whether the adjective 'capitolinus' in the name Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus applies to the temple or the god (see here). It's a bit ominous that your last edit was over two weeks ago. I hope that you and yours are OK.     ←   ZScarpia   13:10, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

• [21]Nishidani (talk) 19:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Best wishes to you and yours, always. Huldra (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Nish, best wishes and a lot of sympathy from me too.     ←   ZScarpia   22:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Issue

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. --IsraeliIdan (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

What an incredible non-issue, that was. Sheesh. Mathglot (talk) 07:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Substitution

Hey. Just wanted to make sure you know that you can actually substitute the "This user is no longer active on Wikipedia" bit out, or otherwise modify it as you see fit. But maybe you consider it too petty to bother with, in which case I apologize for the intrusion. El_C 21:32, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

You're never an intruder on this page or anywhere else I work here, as a voice who can add, reasoning, that edge of doubt I appreciate on many topics. The link leads me to technical areas, which I studiously refuse to look at. I'm sure, if there is a canny way of doing what you suggest, while maintaining the comic, but half-serious note crafted out of that template, that a friendly technie or two following this page can fix it. But I don't worry about a fix. Reality is always somewhat shambolic. Regards Nishidani (talk) 07:26, 5 October 2019 (UTC)