OhSoHeartless

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Hello, OhSoHeartless, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! CutOffTies (talk) 20:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Discovery of Arctic islands

Please read what I wrote in those articles. I was very careful not to claim that any of the islands were seen or discovered by the Thule people, the Inuit or even the Proto-Eskimo Paleo-Eskimo. If I had said that, then I would have been required to add a source. I was also careful not to say that Stefansson or one of the others was the first non-Inuit/Thule/ProtoPaleo-Eskimo to see or discover the island as that would imply that someone else had been there before them but that is unknown at this time. If the article says that Stefansson or some other Arctic explorer was the first to find or discover the island, then that needs a source. For example the Meighen Island article said that Stefansson discovered the island and it contains no known Thule or Inuit camps, "suggesting the island has never been occupied, and this is likely due to its extreme northern latitude" While this is probably correct there is no way of knowing if the island had ever been visited prior to the arrival of Stefansson. The ProtoPaleo-Eskimo culture was around for 4,000 years (2500 BCE - 1500 CE) so there is a possibility, very slim as it may be, that these places could have been seen before the arrival of Southerners. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 05:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Putting "first European", in my mind, implies that there was someone there before them (in this case, Thule/Eskimo). I like your more recent re-wording better. But still, if no one was known to have reached a certain area (say Prince Patrick Island, which I remember McClintock or Mecham describing as particularly barren) before Europeans reached it, wouldn't they have pretty much "discovered" it? OhSoHeartless (talk) 01:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure, Mecham was probably the first person ever to go there, but given the area shown as inhabited at File:Artic-cultures-900-1500.png it is slightly possible that someone might have seen/visited but not actually lived there, evidence for long term occupation would have probably been found by now. I don't think that it really matters how you say it, there will always be some suggestion that someone else might have been there first. What would be useful is something sourced for the islands saying that currently no evidence of anybody being there prior to the first European/Canadian explorers. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 15:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that map before. Not convincing. The two maps in Geoffrey J. Matthews' Historical Atlas of Canada (pp. 28-29) vaguely show that the late Dorset culture reached northern Melville Island and the Thule only its south coast, while the Eskimo/Inuit came no where the islands (Prince Patrick, etc.) in question. I'd still like to see actual scientific papers showing the known extent of Dorset/Thule sites in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, but searches haven't produced much to free content, and I don't have any access to journals or anything like that. OhSoHeartless (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Civil discussion

Hey OhSo. I noticed this edit ([1]) on Talk:History of British Columbia. It's important, no matter how exasperated we become, to comment on the source or the edit, and not on the editor. See WP:NPA. I appreciate you efforts to improve our coverage of B.C. topics, but strongly suggest striking that particular term, and issuing an apology. Cheers, The Interior (Talk) 21:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Apologize for what? Him being an idiot and talking out of his ass? OhSoHeartless (talk) 21:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I was fairly clear - apologize for calling him an idiot. No one can apologize for someone else being an idiot. You know what I am talking about. Them's the rules. The Interior (Talk) 22:02, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you like me to call his mom? It's her fault he came out with down syndrome. It's sad, really. Poor guy. Does he know? OhSoHeartless (talk) 23:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry man, but I don't think you're getting the no personal attacks thing:

Hello, OhSoHeartless. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. The Interior (Talk) 23:40, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

March 2011

Please do not attack other editors, as you did above. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Swarm ^X 00:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)