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Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance/archive2

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Latest comment: 18 years ago by Pranathi


October 3

October 4

One editor is making repeated minor alterations to a cross-reference, claiming "I can do this all day, you know" Opinion is invited. 22:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

We need some level-headed Wikipedians to compare the reasonable, neautral encyclopedic former entry with a new entry that seems to be an essay in pressing a series of agendas about a "known" history of Joseph of Arimathea based on popular mythology.

October 5

The article isn't too pleasant, with near constant revert wars and vandalism and no shortage of apparent sock puppets. Some outside help would be nice to head this off at the pass before it gets to RfC. Thanks. 12:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

October 6

  • An anon user at IP 203.59.6.175 has been putting links to the Buddhist Society of Western Australia on tons of Buddhism-related article, neglecting the fact that the BSWA site doesn't have relevent information about many of the topics. As an example, a link was added from Abhidhamma, but a quick use of the search box at bswa.org turns up almost nothing relating to the Abhidhamma. 09:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • See Bektashi article, its discussion page, and recent versions upto three days. One editor deleted some part of some section, the one who inserted them thinks they should be kept, but the other editor cuts out the discussion. 22:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

October 11

  • User:Wbfl refuses to discuss his edits to Road and Pavement (material), despite being politely offered every chance to do so. He has now reverted three times, removing what seems a reasonable statement from the text. His responses to the comment on talk page has consisted of little more than insult, and his edit comments are full of the same. This is the sort of thing that really ticks me off, I just want to get on with something interesting - can someone take a look and sort this out? Graham 09:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Things are getting seriously out of hand in the spanish version of wikipedia, and there is a mass abuse of power. Some spaniards have become obsessed with "Gibraltar bashing" placing untrue and POV items on the Gibraltar page. There are many spaniards in WP, but not many Gibraltarians, so I am fighting a losing battle. There are many abusing their power as sysops, and banning me from correcting their lies, or coming up with a "consensus" that has nothing to do with truth or neutrality. Could someone please look into this issue, and assure objectivity and fairness in future? Many Thanks --Gibraltarian 22:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

October 12

Things are also seriously out of hand on Neuro-linguistic Programming. We really need assistance there to restore "assume good faith" and "no personal attacks". 11:20, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

On the WP edit template, there is a direct request made to editors: if you don't want others to edit what you write, don't submit it. Unfortunately I've found there are many Wikipedians who refuse to honour that request, angrily reverting even the most minor clarifying edits to "their" pages. Some Chinese editors are particularly nasty, accusing all who clarify articles on China of vandalism (the "use the sandbox" message). It's reached the point where I'm off to more productive work than WP - I'm just not into edit wars with doctrinaire and possessive people. Unless you can find a way of handling people with high revert counts, I'm certain you will lose other qualified editors too. JohnSankey 13:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


October 13

There is currently an edit war heating up at Wikipedia:Manual of Style; an anon. user continues to reinsert text regarding the German 'ezrett' character w/o apparent consensus. I don't feel qualified to jump in, but I do feel that the MoS is not a good place for an edit war, so I'm hoping a more qualified editor will have a look. 16:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Administrator Fire Star is deliberately getting involved in edit wars and then threatening those involved with banning. This is obviously conduct unbecoming of an administrator. 24.250.136.236 22:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

You were warned against reverting more than three times. Since I edited the article, I wouldn't have banned you, I'd have reported you on the 3RR noticeboard and someone else would have blocked you for 24 hrs. I will ban you permanently if you make any more threats like you did on User talk:12.18.108.242, specifically, this: [1]. That is conduct that will not be tolerated here. --Fire Star 22:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Tsk, tsk getting a little antsy are we, Mr. Fire Star? It is clear I was just joking around with what's his face, but who was the only other person editing that article. Hmmm ... you? For me to have reverted 3 times (which I did not do) would have meant you would have had to have reverted 3 times. But the rules don't apply to you do they? Maybe I should link to what you wrote me on my user page and on the page we were arguing over. 24.250.136.236 22:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
No, actually, it isn't clear that you were joking at all. Especially given your short, yet disruptive, edit history. Other users don't "joke" like that more than once here, either.
My job is to clean up after vandals and to warn new users when they start to look like they are headed in that direction. You don't want to be considered a vandal, do you? You did not revert more than three times, so I did not report you, it is that simple. If you look at the article's edit history, you'll see that there was a reversion back to my version by User:81.109.122.94 when they tagged the article for speedy deletion, a reversion that put me one ahead of you. FYI, that is a function of how consensus works to stabilise article disputes. My other edits were edits of the npov version, not reversions of your opinionated offering. That is evidence that despite your perception of how I am working with you, I do indeed apply the rules to myself when I need to. If I ever don't, for whatever reason, there are plenty of other knowledgeable and courteous users here who I'm sure would gently remind me of the oversight. --Fire Star 01:54, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

October 15

User:Harprit, also known under various socks and anonIPs (see User:Sukh/Revert War Evidence) has repeatedly vandalized my userpage and is now following me about reverting all my edits. He has also threatened me, albeit indirectly and completely ineffectually -- "Why don't you come down to Bombay so we can show you how to really play Holi. Then you will understand that you shouldn't write about something you don't know." This is wearing me down. Do I have any recourse? Zora 07:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Heptor is making what I consider bad faith reverts of the Six-Day War article after I've spent weeks researching appropriate scholarly sources. I can't see the point in trying to improve the article any more. Is there a solution? --Ian Pitchford 17:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:WivesMuhammad - revert war has been raging for two months due to a content dispute. Attempts to use page protection and reach consensus or compromise have repeatedly failed. 07:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

October 17

We are having disputes on the vegetarian pages as to what constitutes the definition of the word. Whether to use the definition as it applies to Britain and the US or worldwide. While discussion is going on, edits are being made that is further aggravating the issue. --Pranathi 16:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

An anonymous user has removed speedy delete tags no fewer than three times on Secret Secret Page. They keep replacing the text with a message to "Wikipedia admins" that the page is "currently being edited." Al 16:07, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind. It got speedied. Al 16:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Dhul-Qarnayn - Extremely controversial Islamic topic. Large group of apologetic POV pushers are making unexplained edits, deleting vast amounts of content and refusing to explain their edits. A certain user started a version fork of the article on her User pages and certain apologists have taken this opportunity to start a revert war dedicated to replacing the article with the version fork, without adequate discussion. Mediation, comments, or participation in editing is strongly requested. 01:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

October 20

User:ThomasK is persistently blanking the Talk:Michelle Forbes page, which contains exactly one comment. When questioned about it on his own talk page he reverts the question, and does not respond. 08:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Page CS 5555 was created a little while ago. According to the content, it is a class assignment given to a student specifically to create a page on Wikipedia. It does not contain any encyclopedic content. Presumably there will be other articles created from other students in the same class. Can someone head this off at the pass? 12:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

October 23

User:TDC is reverting frequently other users contributions without proper motivation. Questions on his talk page are regularly ignored. If he motivates his reverts his comments are often provoking and abrasive. He is not neutral in his revert-policy but is pushing his point of view. 09:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

User:82.47.148.236 is purging factual infomration from British Sea Power, claiming some is "not important" and including a very abusive edit summary. Andy Mabbett 11:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Ongoing, despite evidence cited, by several editors, to support the material he's removing. 15:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • User:Andy Mabbett - Continuous instigations in an attempt to create an environment of argumentive attention and confusion, to make editors screw up then laying the blame on them with, revert wars, stalking of edits, uncivil snide edit comments, and user has been blocked on multiple occasions. User seems more concerned to cause above examples than be civil. Example is his user page and pending disputed behavior/ RFC. 15:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

October 24

User:M1ss1ontomars2k4, otherwise apparently responsible (but not a newbie either), is repeatedly inserting a sentence into the lead paragraph of Drosophila melanogaster. The point appears to be to push, as a joke, a certain alleged nickname for the species and/or a mention of "AP biology" instruction at what is presumably his U.S. high school. 13:16, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

William M. Connolley reverted the article of the lomborg whitout any explanation or any note in the talk pages[2]. This constitutes a violation of his parole[3]. I expect that the appropriate action is taken.--MichaelSirks 19:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

This edit 19:33, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

October 25

User:Adraeus continuously refers to civil comments directed to him as "vandalism," and "harrassment" and the people posting them as "trolls." This has gotten him banned from Wikipedia for one month in the past, but has not helped him come to terms with the problem. Here is an example of a civil comment to his talk page made by me, which was deleted, the edit summary claiming it constituted harrassment. There are examples of where he has done the same to other users.

In the particular conflict between me and him which led up to this, I have myself behaved badly. I was tremendously annoyed by his behavior, and said inappropriate things. I will accept any form of punishment that may result because of this. Please continue this discussion on my talk page. I cannot post to Adraeus talk page without him deleting my entries. Miai 17:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Snowspinner is making personal attacks and generally behaving with incivility on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Webcomics/Notability_and_inclusion_guidelines. He's been asked politely by other editors to stop the incivility but he just seems to be getting more obnoxious and hostile, becoming more and more profane and posting links to blog discussions with comments about how people on wikipedia make him "really feel" "like killing." This has turned what had been a safe, productive conversation into one that is threatening and uncomfortable for other participants. Is there something that can be done about this ? 09:33, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

October 28

User:Nick Boulevard - Hostile talk page comments. 19:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

This is hostile? Leonig Mig 10:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

October 30

Phish / Talk:Phish - anonymous editors repeatedly reverting cleanup attempts when a previous topic RFC produced a clear consensus to do so. 21:02, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

November 1

User:24.88.252.207 - continues to re-add the comment

"The company is particularly noted for its low level of customer service, among the worst in the cable industry, and for employing criminals. Several senior Charter executives received felony fraud convictions in 2003."

or derivations thereof to Charter Communications. A few users that watch this page continue to either revert the statements or delete the statements. The user has only targeted this page, as viewed on User:24.88.252.207 Contributions the article has been growing slowly but steadily over the last few weeks, despite these statements. 01:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

November 2

At John_Kerry#First_Purple_Heart there is a year long edit war over the word 'minor' being used to describe Kerry's wound. User:Rex071404 is pitted against User:Gamaliel and User:JamesMLane. User:Dubhdara tried to add this sentence: "Kerry's detractors consider this wound "minor" while other people don't." But, that doesn't seem to placate either side in the dispute. 18:52, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

November 4

Please see Casa Zimbabwe and the associated talk-page regarding a current edit/revert war, please see page history. Calton is an ex-member of a rival Co-op, I don't believe that Calton is editing constructively. Rather than making concret suggestions, he reverts the page to a very *early* version. He even removes the house flag image. Thanks Joachimp 03:54, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

November 5

NSR, an experienced and well-respected editor, today appears to have used an automated procedure to create identical new stub articles for every single village in Gloucestershire. Is this a good thing to do? Wikipedia has notability requirements for persons, rock bands, etc.; does it have (or need) any comparable criteria for geographical places? IslandGyrl 17:19, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

It was for a long time a common complaint that somehow there must be limits to what Wikipedia can hold, and therefore any move towards really trying to cover all of some paticular category (highschools, grammer schools, villages) must be a bad thing and someone needs to set up "importance" criteria. In fact, putting all the villages of Gloucestershire is still far short of putting every village in the world in (therefore, theworry is premature), and it is near impossible and kind of against the philosophy of Wikipedia to say which villages will have merit and which will not. Fact is, if push comes to shove, some village articles that seem to not move beyond a real short stub might get combined by the next Gloustershirerer. Obviously there are topics the expansion into which could produce a lot of pretty useless articles for Wikipedia ("Parts List for a 1935 Ford", for example). But all such entries can only be handled on a case by case basis. I do not think places on the planet rise quite to that level of insignificance, so I would support articles on each village of Gloucestershire or anywhere else for that matter - Marshman 18:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

November 7

A simple edit war over on Vodcast. An annoymous user is repeatedly removing external links to other vodcast directories, breaking the "3 reversions a day" rule. This has been mentioned in the discussion section but ignored. Either any directory is allowed to be mentioned or all are removed. As it is, I don't feel this behavior benefits Wikipedia users. Please help! 10:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Marshman - you're my hero! Things at Vodcast seemed to have settled down now so you can take off the cape and mask. Thank you, until next time... 00:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure they did. I blocked the jerk for 48 hours. Buit he might be back shortly. If so, we will extend the ban - Marshman

Tales From Topographic Oceans- See discussion on Talk:Tales From Topographic Oceans. Anon user has expanded article into a 'critical essay' with lots of personal opinions, etc. Needs third party view/input/severe editing and cleanup, possibly user needs clarification re. NPOV and other Wikipedia policies. 21:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies, this isn't an anon editor but user:thoss, who I assume is the previous anon contributor now signed in. Could still do with a third party look-over though... quercus robur 22:53, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

This anonymous user has seen his or her recent additions to the Natalee Holloway article reverted three times for pushing a POV and not providing citations for disputed claims. A third party could help keep the article neutral. 00:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Two users, both anonymous, have been reverting each others' edits to sections of Greek reconstructionism for months. A heated talk page discussion full of personal attacks appears to have accomplished nothing in the way of compromise. "Assume good faith" doesn't seem to be the philosophy of the day. 00:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

November 11

HappyApple dropped by to leave a POV warning on the article I'm working on, the Cenepa War. The problem is that he doesn't seem to be too enthusiastic to talk about it. Also, the reasons he brought forward explaining the notice do not look like justifying an POV warning. Perhaps a notice of expansion would be more adequate? Thanks. 18:22, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

November 12

User:Cunado19 has been reverting and excising text on the Bahá'í Faith and Science page that don't conform to his POV on the matter of "Life on other planets." A great deal of discussion has occured on the talk page addressing his points in detail to no avail. He's removed text that has sought middle ground, and called edits contrary to his opinion a revert war. In my opinion the last, clean version is: 05:38 6 November 2005.

Another example of the subject user's tone may be found here: User_talk:Jeffmichaud

I'm requesting assistance. MARussellPESE 19:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

November 13

User:Jooler refuses to abide by the "football (soccer)" compromise on Current sports events. See Talk:Current sports events. -- 13:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

November 14

  • I would like to get an opinion about whether or not User:Molobo's behaviour on Talk:Zygmunt Bauman (wholesale deletion of replies that he alleges contain "personal attacks" without any indication - see this and subsequent edits) is considered acceptable practice? Thanks. 18:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

November 15

November 17

  • User:Duncharris has launched some personal attacks in the deletion discussion thread for the Jason Gastrich entry. His latest reads, "Jason, you are known liar. Did you perchance, get that job with your "degree" from Louisiana Baptist University? Do you think your bosses should know about this?" Here is another: "If anyone's ever come across this guy on Usenet you'll know he's a complete nutjob" 11:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


  • After a rash of uncivil behaviour and personal attacks on WP:TFD by User:Jtdirl (behaviour hugely unbecoming of an administrator, I might add) and User:Boothy443, my attempt at communicating the point that they have misunderstood the purpose of templates resulted in being branded with the D-word, as well as "anti-Irish" (as if that was ever a bad thing ... *ahem*), and being passively insulted in Irish (my rather poor guess being that amadáin ufuasach translates roughly to flaming idiots), and then my comment was removed entirely without response. Note that he explains his TfD votes "keep or recreate" to mean that were a given template deleted, it would be recreated, thus ignoring the result of a consensus discussion (making it difficult to AGF, since there doesn't appear to be any). Far enough for (another) RfC? Chris talk back 20:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

November 19

Is it proper to report, on all User pages the presence of a potentially fatal malfunction, such as the recent HTML Tidy malfunction, which made a mess of Wikipedia, and had taken this site down ?Martial Law 07:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

November 23

User uses threat of revert on British Sea Power if he doesn't get his own way elsewhere.

Sigh. For more information on the unsigned contributor above, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Pigsonthewing and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing. He's basically a POV Troll. Karmafist 15:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

November 24

Lyrebird. Dispute brewing over issue of inclusion vs. noninclusion of unsourced folklore. Guidance sought.

Evangelicalism. Dispute over the use of the term progressive in section on Evangelical politics in the United States. Original wording added on 7/26/05 was "The mass-appeal of the Christian right in the so-called red states, and its success in rallying resistance to progressive social agendas, is sometimes characterized by an otherwise unwilling, and secular, society as an attempt to impose theocracy on the country. " One user 129.252.127.142 changed the term progressive to leftist. I objected and reverted to the original wording. Codex Sinaiticus has weighed in and been fairly rude in his characterizations. I have asked several times that he refer to the articles on progressivism or Progressive Christianity. He and others simply change the term to leftist, liberal and now the very vague term 'certain' without discussion of the philosophy. While I understand the concept of works being edited, none of the revisions (OK possibly liberal) capture the socio/religious/political counter point to conservative evangelicals being discussed in the article. Is the term progressive too POV for use? Does it violate NPOV or is it rather a descriptive term which is possibly misunderstood? I'm stuck. Any ideas? Robbie Giles 04:57, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

November 25

Timeline of Motorized bicycle history: User nominating article for deletion believe the creator has a point to prove. The delete nomination was right away (as soon as the article was created) contrary to WP:RFC: "the first resort should always be to discuss the problem with the other user. Try to resolve the dispute on your own first." Debate also concerns the relevance of facts being submited (inclusion vs. noninclusion) and the idea of duplicating information from a timeline within the article motorized bicycle. Discussions are escallating from mediocre wikietiquette to bad. References:

21:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)~

November 28

  • [4]. User:Deeceevoice (who I would emphasise is otherwise a valued contributor to Wikipedia) is asked to respect Civility and No personal attacks policies. She obviously is not convinced, with hostile responses like, "Ha! Get a life, no-name", "pathetic", "Do you really think I give a flying ****? Some friendly advice: don't waste your time", "Oh, puh-leeze. Be my guest. Don't bother to respond. I'm bored with this -- and you're cluttering my talk page" and "Deleted annoying clutter from MY talk page". 12:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
This has now escalated into an RfC: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deeceevoice. — Matt Crypto 20:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

November 30

Scott Ritter Possibly controversial page, possible POV issues, poor structure and unclear writing. 05:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

December 5

Several articles on nations and ethnicities (e.g. Germans, Danish people etc.) started to included a detailed list of people living outside of their country of origin. This is becoming a problem due to diverging agendas, disagreements on how to obtain these numbers and which ones are less biased or correct. Nationalist sentiments are present and emotions are running high. Nobody has questioned the benefit of these numbers to Wikipedia given their controversial nature until now. It might be good to determine what population (if any) numbers these articles should contain and find a standard way of obtaining them. 16:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

December 7

Asian fetish and its talk page have several people from ModelMinority.com who have stated what sounds like a POV-pushing agenda. They are attempting to get rid of published sources on the page, saying that they are too "western" to be credible. [5] Further, User:SillyAlgebraist has been making numerous personal attacks [6] on one of the users involved, whose response mentioned possibly starting an RfC against SillyAlgebraist. [7] --04:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


Two editors have been having a revert was on KTVX regarding a paragraph talking about a "cencorship" incident by the TV station. Numerous attempts to talk to the two editors involved on Talk:KTVX have failed and they are still going at it after 60+ edits over 5 days. It started off as should the paragraph be included, to what seems to now be a religous debate including elements of a pro wreastling past on the parts of the two editors involved. 07:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


An unabashedly bold edit on a contentious but obscure article on a disputed confession is being reverted to a very long and messy earlier version which may contain original research and POV in the form of long lists of arguments and opinions. If you have the time to do a read (it is actually a fairly interesting subject) can you please compare the two flip-flopping versions and either edit as you see fit, or at least offer your thoughts re: which is more "Wiki" on the article's talk page? 15:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


An article about author Robert Spencer is having trouble establishing an NPOV, with one group of contributors disagreeing with the other about how much "rebuttal" remarks should be made in the criticism section. If you have time, please take a look at the recent edits and the discussion on its talk page to provide some outside perspective. Would love perspective on how to balance the POVs presented by each side. 07 Dec 2005

December 8

The Arabic Numerals page and its wikiquette-abiding editors are currently suffering the destructive and disruptive effects of a revert and edit war against them by individuals with manifest and strong anti-Arab biases who despite repeated requests refuse to abide by Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia: Cite sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Please see Talk:Arabic_numerals for details. csssclll 13:53, 8 December 2005.

  • There is an additional page where stuff has branched out into, Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals. I can feel the fustration csssclll feels because the other editors do not seem interested in addressing the academic & factual points brought up by csssclll. As far as I can see, they have been sidestepping the issues csssclll raises and make unsubstantiated statements that he is trying to vandalize the page. I do not have the full picture but it seems like csssclll has valid points, especially since he cites peer-reviewed academic sources when he made his changes that the other editors rejected. -Frogular 03:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I thoroughly checked his references. He picks up a line or two completely out of context to emphasize his POV, and ignores everything else that goes against it. So, for example, if ten references of ten lines each have one line about Arab contribution, he'll pick that one line from each of those references and make a ten line article showing how the Arabs were mainly responsible for the numerals, ignoring the other 90 lines of reference that point strongly to Indian contributions. Then he would properly reference those ten lines, saying that his POV is supported by all kinds of imminent people. This kind of bias must be removed. deeptrivia (talk) 15:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Deeptrivia, this is typical of your replies, evasive and false, and I would like to make clear to the neutral reader that Deeptrivia is an active participant in the revert and edit war on that page and one whom I have repeatedly tried to reason with without much result. You say "for example", why aren't you citing specific examples?! You should have plenty if your claim is true and you "thoroughly checked". I have gone now over your version over three times and each I took it apart and criticised it point by point and cited verifiable and reliable sources for every little issue, why aren't you guys doing the same? Why don't you back up your version with sources for every claim made, and acceptable sources at that? Wikipedia policies demand it, especially in a dispute situation like this. Why don't you just critique my version on a point-by-point basis like I did to yours?! I wish you guys would do that, then we'd have a reasonable and Wikipedia-abiding way to work together instead of this nonsense you guys are doing. And above all, why are you editing Arabic numerals?! I have made it clear to you guys with strong Hindu nationalist biases that this page should focus on Arabic numerals, it should point out that they are derived from Indian numerals but nonetheless focus on its topic, namely, Arabic numerals, not unproven "weren't the Hindus great!" claims, and that every point should be based on verifiable evidence in the scientific literature. I have suggested to you many times that the Indian numerals page is in quite an impoverished state and would benefit from your motivation if only you'd care enough to abide by wikipedia policies and cite reliable sources. csssclll(20:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC))


  • Okay, I'll give one example, which I hope should be sufficient for the discerning audience here. You cited this reference. This reference says:
The scene now moves to India where it is fair to say the numerals and number system was born which have evolved into the highly sophisticated ones we use today. Of course that is not to say that the Indian system did not owe something to earlier systems and many historians of mathematics believe that the Indian use of zero evolved from its use by Greek astronomers. As well as some historians who seem to want to play down the contribution of the Indians in a most unreasonable way, there are also those who make claims about the Indian invention of zero which seem to go far too far. For example Mukherjee in [6] claims:-
"... the mathematical conception of zero ... was also present in the spiritual form from 17 000 years back in India."
What is certain is that by around 650AD the use of zero as a number came into Indian mathematics. The Indians also used a place-value system and zero was used to denote an empty place. In fact there is evidence of an empty place holder in positional numbers from as early as 200AD in India but some historians dismiss these as later forgeries. Let us examine this latter use first since it continues the development described above.
Then it talks about the fact that even while there are "historians who seem to want to play down the contribution of the Indians in a most unreasonable way", the latest date of use of zero in India, agreed by *all* historians is the inscription from the year 876.

After this one line, the article describes in detail Brahmagupta's (598-668) rules regarding the use of zero:

Brahmagupta attempted to give the rules for arithmetic involving zero and negative numbers in the seventh century. He explained that given a number then if you subtract it from itself you obtain zero. He gave the following rules for addition which involve zero:-
  • The sum of zero and a negative number is negative, the sum of a positive number and zero is positive, the sum of zero and zero is zero.
Subtraction is a little harder:
  • A negative number subtracted from zero is positive, a positive number subtracted from zero is negative, zero subtracted from a negative number is negative, zero subtracted from a positive number is positive, zero subtracted from zero is zero.
Brahmagupta then says that any number when multiplied by zero is zero but struggles when it comes to division:-
  • A positive or negative number when divided by zero is a fraction with the zero as denominator. Zero divided by a negative or positive number is either zero or is expressed as a fraction with zero as numerator and the finite quantity as denominator. Zero divided by zero is zero.
Really Brahmagupta is saying very little when he suggests that n divided by zero is n/0. Clearly he is struggling here. He is certainly wrong when he then claims that zero divided by zero is zero. However it is a brilliant attempt from the first person that we know who tried to extend arithmetic to negative numbers and zero.
From this article, you chose to conclude that[8]: "There is *no* evidence accepted by the scientific community of the use of zero as a number in India before the 9th century (Gwalior tablet, 876, see below), and that's quite late, and comes a century and a half after the Arabs conquered the Indus Delta region in 711, (and long before that Alexander invaded India), in fact, more than half a century after Al-Khwarizmi wrote his "earth-shattering" treatise, 825, in which he was aware of zero."


AT LAST! Here you are discussing things on a point-by-point basis like I had been requesting for quite some time now! What took you so long?! And more importantly, why haven't you been doing this in the relevant talk pages rather than just now here?! And why are you citing the talk page instead of the article itself, which should be a better measure of my current "conclusion", though I had made it clear that the article is a work in progress, and scientific consensus should be given priority of first attention over the disputable?! And why didn't you reply to that point when I made it then on a point-by-point basis?! My statement above is correct, but anyhow, why didn't you quote what I was objecting to, and then my objection in full detail?! Why are you evidently guilty of what you falsely accuse me of, quoting out of context; why don't you quote this... that in response to your version's claim "The first inscriptions using 0 in India have been traced to approximately 200 CE." I commented "Why don't you cite reliable sources?! Here, I'll cite some: According to Professor EF Robertson and DR JJ O'Connor, "The first record of the Indian use of zero which is dated and agreed by all to be genuine was written in 876" on the Gwalior tablet stone[9]. This is also verified by Professor Lam Lay Yong, an an Effective Member of the International Academy of the History of Science "the earliest appearance in India of a symbol for zero in the Hindu-Arabic numeral system is found in an inscription at Gwalior which is dated 870 AD". [10] According to Menninger (p. 400): "This long journey begins with the Indian inscription which contains the earliest true zero known thus far (Fig. 226). This famous text, inscribed on the wall of a small temple in the vicinity of Gvalior (near Lashkar in Central India) first gives the date 933 (A.D. 870 in our reckoning) in words and in Brahmi numerals. Then it goes on to list four gifts to a temple, including a tract of land "270 royal hastas long and 187 wide, for a flower-garden." Here, in the number 270 the zero first appears as a small circle (fourth line in the Figure); in the twentieth line of the inscription it appears once more in the expression "50 wreaths of flowers" which the gardeners promise to give in perpetuity to honor the divinity." The Encyclopaedia Britannica says, "Hindu literature gives evidence that the zero may have been known before the birth of Christ, but no inscription has been found with such a symbol before the 9th century."[11] I'll accept mention prior to the Gwalior tablet, in fact, the article needs it and I'm planning on doing it once I'm no longer distracted by your nonsense, but such mention must be well-phrased so as not to mislead and contradict scientific consensus, and the phrasing must be limited to the exact intent of verifiable and reliable sources."" I have made it clear that "The article, and good writing in general, should give early prominence to what's factual, verifiable, and consensual, and defer what's debatable opinion till later on and balance it with with opinions counter to it in the debate." Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#Vertaloni.2C_examples_of_errors_in_your_version Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#Regarding_the_Charles_Seife_quote csssclll (23:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC))

I hope that now since all editors have reached a consensus on the article, and have tried to explain you in clearest possible words the difference between numeral symbols and numeral system, you would play a more constructive role. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Why are you lying again here? yes, lying! As you had been doing for quite some time now and as I have pointed out. The dictionary defines a lie as "1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression." First of all, "all editors have reached a consensus on the article" is a demonstrable false statement that you should know is not true and that we're having this exchange here is evidence enough that it isn't, nevermind others. Second, here's your other BIG lie, you say others "have tried to explain you in clearest possible words the difference between numeral symbols and numeral system", Oh really? why don't you tell everyone here that it is I who made the clearest distinction and as far as I remember and see on the page I was the first to make it between numeral symbols and numeral system, and you should know because you have been around. I clearly distinguished in my first post between the Arabic Numerals (1, 2, 3, 4...) and the Hindu-Arabic Numeral system in a paraphragh that begins with "- For a start," Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#RFC_2 and you should especially know, not just because youhave been around, but also because what you quoted above happens to be just the paragraph under it! And again I made the distinction in "the clearest possible words" when I proposed here, as my first(!) point in an suggested outline, Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#Suggested_outline.2C_please_consider_and_discuss "differentiate a specific numeral script (eg, Arabic Western, Arabic Eastern, Devanagari) from the numeral system (ie, Indian-Arabic, which includes many numerals scripts), the rest of the article should maintain this, it should also keep in mind what the readers may have searched for when looking up this article and cater for those needs (eg, is the reader looking up the Arabic Western numerals script or the Indian-Arabic Numeral system?)", and then again zocky, who prefers my version and is against yours, made the same disctinction Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#What_this_page_is_about. The dictionary defines a liar as "One that tells lies" and "a person who has lied or who lies repeatedly", if you want me to stop calling pointing out your lies stop lying! csssclll (23:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC))



69.157.xx.xx repeatedly re-adds external links/ads to "VAT (Value Added Tax) Refund Specialists - INSATAX" (www.insatax.com) to the Value Added Tax and VAT (disambiguation) pages, in violation of the Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine policy. 22:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

December 11

Don't know if this is the place to suggest this, but could User:206.130.23.67 be banned. S/he persistently vandalises pages and has never made a worthwhile contribution.22:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

14:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC) Edit war in Communism, user violates 3 reversion rule, user removes "disputed" tags, user does not provide verifiable sources for edits.

December 12

  • 12:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC) Dispute between two editors on Grass jelly about whether and where a Cantonese translation of a Chinese food is appropriate. Three edit rule violated. See Talk:Grass jelly for my attempt at a resolution, which appears to have been rejected. Similar dispute on Chinese sausage and possibly other pages.
  • 17:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC) Anonymous user 65.114.180.34 has been adding advertising links to many programming-related pages. The IP address 65.114.180.34 appears to belong to the company in question, and should perhaps be banned.

December 13

  • 10:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC) Anonymous user 86.128.31.164 has been reverting an image that is illegal in some jurisdictions (and should not be in wikipedia) in the lolicon article. See the talk page & images for deletion page.

December 15

  • 09:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC) Xino has a history of calling other editors "fools" in his edit summaries. Most recent example: 18:31, December 13, 2005. I've tried pointing him to WP:BITE and WP:NPA, but I don't think he understands. Or maybe I'm overreacting.

December 16

  • patrickw 16:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC) I am currently having a dispute with [12]] EncephalonSeven aka Primate1 also perhaps known as Mikhail_Lebedev about what I see as vanity edits on a number of pages; for instance Neural correlate and Consciousness. In which the author is apparently adding links to himself and citations of his paper whereever possible. The paper in question has only been cited twice in the last four years (and then only by the author) so it can hardly be seen as a classic publication in the field and worthy of being listed as a key reference in a wikipedia entry. The author has edited a large number of entries in this manner and has generated some new entries which seem largely biased towards his own work. I would appreciate any advice on how to deal with this.
All the paragraphs in Neural correlate and Consciousness that patrickw complained about have been revised. The reference to the paper in question that is a review article published in a fairly new journal has been deleted by patrickw. In my opinion, it may be used as a good source of information on the topic. The review is not biased in any way, and its deletion because it has not been cited enough (is there such a rule in wikipedia?) does not seem like a good idea. Let the reader decide what is important and what is not. As far as "classical publications in the field", certainly much more will be needed. I would recommend adding references to Millner, Goodale, Logotheis, Bradley, Schall. Also, references to human fMRI studies would be worth adding. Articles initiated or edited by EncephalonSeven or Primate1 are in a reasonable shape. They have undergone multiple edits by different participants. Any volunteer-editor can modify them any way he/she likes, so the problem of bias is bogus. My disagreement with the method of deletion adopted by patrickw is that he puts too much emphasis on his speculation about the authors' intent. Using the consciousness analogy, it is very difficult to read the content of an author's mind, and this is not really important in the case of wikipedia articles. What matters is that information provided is correct, covers an important topic and may be useful to the reader.
patrickw 15:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC) Editing a passage to only add your own publications is a vanity edit. To state that this is not the case because people can later edit such changes is first to deny the possiblity of a vanity edit, and second not sincere since you then immediately complain about people doing this.
The objection to the deletion is that it was based on personal opinion about importance of a particular reference. I've seen references that I myself considered unimportant on other pages, but I never deleted them. In one case it was a group of references that were very remotely related to the topic. Instead of deleteting these references, I restructured the reference list by as groups of references about some specific issues. This way the reader could find what he/she needed with minimum distructions. I would say, use deletion as the last resort. It is very unlikely that we will reach consensus about "vanity edits" in scientific publications. I think that only people with ambitions can achieve anything in science — including writing good wikipedia articles (I would speculate that you yourself have certain ambitions in this respect, and I commend you for that). In my opinion, someone pointing to his own work is much more efficient, quick and valueable than revisions by a person with encyclopedic knowledge (one cannot know everything) or even worse a non-expert who is rewriting paragraphs from a textbook. However, all kind of opinions are of value — including your ethical considerations. I think the articles in question have improved as the result of our discussion, and this is the eventual goal. Thanks for your input. --EncephalonSeven 17:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

December 17

I'm sorry and I apologise if you found this offensive. I know many Iranians, and they constantly complain angrily about Arabs claiming Persian contributions as their own, and I thought this was a perfect example of that. Apart from trying to keep the article accurate I don't have much to do with the Arab/Persian problem here. Also, we know that it is Astriolok who consistently keeps reverting the version to his own, and since I am the one who's doing the talking, probably you consider me as responsible for everything that's going on. I know it might be offensive to say Iranians will be disgusted, or will consider it an insult, but I said it quite innocently, since that's what I see happening everyday. As for your content being verifiable and encyclopedic I encourage everyone to go through all our previous discussions on this. Thanks, and I still hope we can resolve any differences we have, if any at all. deeptrivia (talk) 15:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Deeptrivia, don't act so innocent. The offensiveness of your editing summaries above is clear and unambiguous, made twice not once. Your strong and distorting bias has been consistent and unrelenting; the page edits and talk pages are filled with my attempts to reason with you. Remember your editing summary "2 December 2005 Deeptrivia (atleast on wikipedia, we can remove the "Arabic" POV)"? to which I replied "3 December 2005 Csssclll (It's not about "Arabic" POV or Indian one, it's about scientific evidence. I don't care about your POV, where's your scientific evidence?! Provide that and we'll have something.)"? You have been averse to and evasive towards scientific evidence that contradicts your unreasonable bias, and you were under no obligation to cite your "Aryan" friends as a determining factor for whether Al-Khwarizmi was Arab or not! user:csssclll:csssclll (15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC))

Note: See also: Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#December_8 deeptrivia (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


Article created and promoted by subjects of article
Paragraph relocated for refinement21:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

December 18

  • Somebody has defaced the William Wallace entry. I don't know how to revert to a previous version of the page, but somebody who does, could you please change it back.
Fixed! Antandrus (talk) 03:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)



December 20

December 21

December 23

  • Talk:Sonic Rush - Edit war concerning a comment at the top of the page, which keeps getting removed and then put back up in a revert. Both sides apparently view the other's actions as vandalism (as evident in edit summaries). Has also carried over to here and here. The person who wrote the comment in the first place is uninvolved, although one of the parties has tried to get him involved, claiming that his comment will "get him banned" on grammar alone.
The comment is question was in Leet, every attempt to correct this abomination to the English language was edited back to the original.

December 27

  • See Michel Thomas and associated discussion page.
  • I'm a Los Angeles Times reporter trying to present a NPOV regarding the disputed World War II claims of Michel Thomas. Someone keeps deleting information challenging Thomas' claims from the main article and adding false attacks on the Los Angeles Times and me. I have posted information regarding Thomas on the related discussion page under the heading "The Myth of Michel Thomas." --Rivenburg 20:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Arab-Israeli War - Does Wikipedia have any mechanism at all for making sure that editors cite reliable sources? As far as I can see it's possible to add a blatantly racist unsourced claim to an article and then block its removal. --Ian Pitchford 18:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Talk:Palestinian exodus - Does Wikipedia have any mechanism at all for ensuring that articles cannot be gutted of relevant sourced material? As far as I can see it's easy to wreck or disrupt an article using Wikipedia procedures as an aid. --Ian Pitchford 18:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • There has been an edit war going on in Stuyvesant High School for the past few days. Anonymous users keeps on breaking wikipedia style with his edits (bolding entire paragraphs, inserting editorial comments like "verify this" inside main text instead of talk, doing reverts instead of cooperative editing). --BenjaminTsai Talk 23:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

December 30

  • User:Witzel has been repeatedly removing criticizing edits in Michael Witzel without any explanations, despite asking him several times. Also user:Dbachmann and me are not able to reach common ground on content of criticism. Also he is trying to turn any wording with criticism around to criticize the critic. I feel he is heavily balanced toward one POV (he may feel the same about me). Requesting neutral observers to help agree on content. --Pranathi 00:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
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