User talk:Solar/Archive2

A little late, but thanks anyway. Asedzie 15:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about deleting the template and thanks for being cool with that. Ghandir 15:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Mr. Solar! I had proposed a merger of Way of the Peaceful Warrior into Dan Millman and User:CanadianCaesar seemed to think that this had been discussed and decided against at an earlier time, but could not find the discussion on this one. Since you seem to be the person who created both of these articles, it seemed the most polite thing to check with you. Do you have any strong opinions one way or another on a merge?

My reasons for the merge are

1. Book titles with capitalization issues frequently need multiple redirects
2. Some works make more sense in the context of an author's total body of work (such as Robert Kiyosaki)
3. Having multiple pages for every title may or may not be appropriate (consider Thoreau)
4. Given that Millman's first book is the groundwork for his entire PW series and ties into his other work, all of the above apply.

The logical thing to me seems to incorporate Way of the Peaceful Warrior into Dan Millman (as I have done) and then to make Way of the Peaceful Warrior a redirect to Dan Millman much as Way of the peaceful warrior currently is.

Any suggestions you may have would be most appreciated. - Rorybowman 23:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The merge seems fair to me, and in this context helps to create a stronger Dan Millman article overall. I am unaware of any decision in the past against merging the two. Thanks. - Solar 23:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I've completed the merge with a redirect from Way of the Peaceful Warrior to Dan Millman. Cheers! Rorybowman 01:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome! I'm starting to learn my way around here. Catsv 17:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)catsv[reply]

February 15, 2003 anti-war protest an article from the WikiProject Anti-war, which you are listed as a member of, has been nominated for the Article Improvement Drive (by me ).

It is an article about a day of much importance both to the history of the anti-war movement and to general discussion of the Iraq war. With a little work from experienced editors it could gain FA status. If you would like to see it improved please vote for it at Make "February 15, 2003 anti-war protest" the subject of an Article Improvement Drive--JK the unwise 13:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Thanks for the welcome earlier. I have a question: where can I find a list of templates for use in a personal page? I could just copy some of yours via the edit page, but we're not very similar. --Chodorkovskiy 15:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Chodorkovskiy 06:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

for welcoming me. I'm not a pagan, but, unlike most of the rest of the world, I'm into religious tolerance. If you'll ever get in trouble with some fundamentalists wishing the "bastards to hell", just send them over to my page. The Infidel 19:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saw your comment on the Capital Punishment talk page. I agree with your point about avoiding Americo-centrism in the article. However I didn't understand what you said about "restitution" - something you wrote got distorted? Unfortunately the article has been vandalised so often that it's difficult to see who the genuine contributors are. Can you enlighten me? Caravaca 14:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. Your restitution point is still easily rescuable. When the anonymous IP editor did his last delete of your sentences, I didn't want to get into an edit war. So I put in the POV-section tag, and just beneath it, in the source code but not visible on the page, I inserted the old text between <!-- --> tags in the hope that somebody else would reinstate the NPOV version. A bit unconventional, but with so many edits a revert would have been impossible. You are very welcome to rescue it and delete the POV version. I hope there's nothing else of yours which I disturbed during my "be bold" adventures with the article, but let me know if there is. Caravaca 05:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am entitled to my opinion on a talk page, surely. As a scientist and long-time watchdog of pseudoscience, my opinion is valid. I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to prohibit me from having an opinion on a discussion page. Quinkysan 07:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome! It made me feel at home. How do you get all those cool things on your page? How do I create my own page? I would love to know! Smartestbrunette 22:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This user believes that only articles need reflect a NPOV, and that displaying political, religious, or other beliefs using userboxes and user categories should not be banned.

You have a userbox Template:User UN which links your userpage to United Nations Wikipedians. There is currently a movement to ban userboxes from Wikipedia which are shared and which create List of Wikipedians. Certain admins have taken it upon themselves to preemptively sabotage and/or delete such categories and template. Here is the incident report which reported damage to yours, in which hundreds of userpages were delinked from categories without the users' knowledge. They have been stopped, barely, and the damage reverted— for now.

There is a Wikipedia:Userbox policy poll, which if passed, will make required by policy the damage done to categories and templates such as User UN/United Nations Wikipedians. If you do not want this to happen, I urge you to vote Oppose. in the poll. Support is currently running at about 66%, and your vote could make the difference. It is said to require 75%-80% to be deemed reflective of consensus.

Thank you,

StrangerInParadise 23:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your welcome. I'll do my best and thanks for your support.  :-)

Susu the Puschel 19:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Friend, I wanted to share with you some issues including something regarding the Page "Sex Magick" and something of much greater importance. I'd prefer to share it with you over email. If you are not willing to post it online.. kindly use my email id - [email protected]

White adept 14:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can contact me via the email link on the left 'toolbar' from my userpage, I look forward to hearing your ideas, best wishes - Solar 15:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, sir (or madam). Very interesting userpage — it gives me some new topics to check out. — goethean ॐ 14:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Zanimum, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the actions of User:Anglokurisu, who created UKSPI which you voted to delete on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UKSPI. I feel that an administrator should look at the issue, as I do not wish to be the only user commenting on his/her conduct. To date this user has added anonymous votes to the above-mentioned page and spammed several pages with links to the same organisation. I know that this user has added false votes as he/she admitted correcting a link on UKSPI, this link was fixed by IP:172.216.253.2 which is the same IP that made an anonymous vote to the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UKSPI page. All the votes that were added anonymously were also Do not delete votes, written with a characteristic broken English, clearly showing they were added by the same person. I removed these votes from the page saying all votes should be made by registered users on a one vote per user basis. After I made this addition a new user appeared called User:Evenstarbabe and added a vote with the same style i.e. Do not delete. This is obviously a sockpuppet of User:Anglokurisu. If you could look into the IP information of this user and generally assist in this matter I would be very grateful. I feel that this user should now be blocked as he/she has consistently tried to abuse Wikipedia guidelines and policies. Thanks - Solar 15:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Solar! I've blocked Anglo for one week, based on the fact you did indeed give repeated warnings, and the strong possibility that they created a sock. I've noted the sockiness of the vote by Evenstarbabe on the AfD, and noted the vote shouldn't be considered. I'm tempted simply to speedy delete the article, a good way to prevent further abuse of Wikipedia by these users. -- Zanimum 15:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When trashing an article by a new user, could you try to be a little more forgiving? I have known about a dozen users who were welcomed by being told to be bold, only to have them accused of trying to sabotage the encyclopedia after writing their first article. Unlike most, you did try to explain the situation to Pchurch, but if I didn't know any better, I would assume that there was an "Attack The Newbies" Project at Wikipedia. I think we have seen the last of that user. Please try to take this into consideration when addressing someone who in their welcome message is told to be bold and to edit away. Cheers. Arundhati bakshi 14:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Arundhati bakshi, I must admit I am slightly confused by your actions regarding Thurrock Paranormal and User:Pchurch. I was drawn to this user and his page by reverting link spam on an article I monitor, within a day the link was back. I looked into the link and this user as a result of this and found that he had done nothing on Wikipedia but add his own organisation, this is clearly spam. Weighing this against the value of the article and Wikipedia policy, which is clearly against this kind of thing, I decided to nominate the page for deletion, which I am confident the vast majority of Wikipedians would support as it is policy for a very good reason. I feel that your support of such vanity pages undermines the positive work of so many users who would not dream of using the freedom wiki affords in this abusive manner. As you can see from User:Pchurch's talk page I have made every effort to apologise for any upset the process may have caused him, but I have made it clear that spamming is against policy here, and I feel as a longer standing member you should have made this clear and not encouraged him to abuse the system. It seems to me that both of you may have been unaware of Wikipedia policy, which is understandable, but I would encourage you to clearly discourage vanity and spam in the future as this whole process of deletion could have been avoided. To conclude I have made no attack on this user and made no remarks that would not be made in any other situation were numerous new users to appear during voting on a deletion. I hope you can see that I acted fairly, neutrally and in line with Wikipedia policy and I hope that we may work positively together in the future. Best wishes - Solar 19:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You may find my actions regarding Pchurch a bit more understandable if you keep in mind that he is a new user and does not know all of the regulations, rules and policies. Keep in mind that many rules and policies are broken here as a matter of course by many people, including admins when it seems to suit them. I can provide many examples of this. So it is not just I who am setting the bad example. I have commented on this before to Esperanza, but when we welcome people, the welcome message tells them to do very nearly the opposite of what we tell them when they make unhelpful edits. A link back to his own site would be considered vanity, yes, and I suppose that him writing about his own organization can be considered vanity. If I had written the same article, however, would that have been considered vanity or relevant links to verify the topic notability?

To give you an example of what I said before, admins and users deliberately abusing rules, look under the Category "Slang". You will find many "articles" there that violate WP:WINAD. While Wikipedia does not allow definitions of words, if you take the definition and put them into a list, in most cases it is deemed acceptable. See Marijuana slang and Trinidadian slang, both of which violate this policy. (And both of which will stay, I am sure). So it seems to me, which articles are allowed to be break the rules and which aren't is applied in a manner inconsistent enugh so that it would confuse anyone.

Nonetheless, what my post to you was about was not biting the newbies, which us supposedly also policy. Yes, his first post was about his organisation. My first real article was aout my school, Sacred Heart Convent School. I do have links linking back to the school. Is that a vanity article? Is it spam? I only posted to you because you sounded as though you had the civility to listen to me. In the course of the AfD, the user and his work was called pathetic and non notable even after he made every attempt to show notability, and then was accused of sockpuppeting with no proof, after I had warned him of the likely outcome of this and thus think it unlikely that he would have used this technique. After such treatment, I would not blame him if he left and thought Wikipedians a bunch of jerks and bullies.

Can you please give me a definitive guide of which rules are to be obeyed and which can be broken so I will know in the future, because it confuses even me! I think I was expecting a bit too much from our members again. Thanks for your attention.

Arundhati bakshi 09:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

My leaving has nothing directly to do woth you or your decisions. I have decided this some time ago, because Wikipedia is no longer a nice place to be, largely because of incidents like with Pchurch, but also general lack of goodwill, POV interference masquerading itself as NPOV corections, biased admins, the applications of certain rules to certain people and articles while not applying them to others and a general atmosphere of unfairness and often outright hostility which makes any contributions feel they are done in vain. If you look through my nearly 5000 edits, you will see that I stand up for new people quite often, to have them leave after being gangbanged in a "kill the newbies" type campaign. I don't see the usefulness of working under such conditions. I am just tired of spending my time defenidng people who have bene told to do the opposite of what they are expected to do and trying to maintain goodwill among a bunch of rude users. This doesn't really apply to you . . . I understand you were acting in good faith . . . but I notice that none of my questions have been addressed.

As for not being involved in deletions, that's not necessarily a helpful step, as many articles *do* need to be deleted as many are hoaxes, attack pages, junk or blatant vandalism, and that needs to be addressed as well. If you are interested in the paranormal it is doubly important if you still believe in this project, to sort the junk from the verifiable, the culturally relevant from the quacks, which is a tough call under the best of circumstances. As for adding useful content, to a degree, I have even been limited in that by people who find some of the topics offensive, and I am just tired defending myself and others when there are more useful things I could be doing. Over the time I have been a member here however, I have lost more and more faith in the project, and have little faith that apart from mathematical/programming/science issues that it is worth it. The loss of one or two people won't make a difference. Anyway, I have learned a good bit here, and wish you the best, but don't think it is solely your fault . . . in the contrary, you have acted far better than many others have (I might add that Pchurch has has well . . . he didnt rant and rave like a child but tried to defend himself, that's in part why I decided to try to mentor him).

Anyway, good luck, and take care. If you can help make it work, then the place needs you. best wishes. Arundhati bakshi 18:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am leaving Wikipedia and will not be writing another article or recommending anyone else to write one for this site. I feel that I have been bullied! This site is not supposed to "bite the hand of someone new" but that is exactly what was done! I see similar blatant articles advertising themselves all over the place (spirit searchers is still there! and is just one big advert!!!) I want to pass my thanks onto you for the help you have given me but I feel that I am losing a battle here against people who either don't like newbies or do not like the article. I was called "pathetic" and I will not stand for that! I have added my comments to the bottom of the discussion page and I will leave it at that. Pchurch 21:41, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

____

Thank you Solar for your kind comments on my talk page. You have talked me in to it! Pchurch 10:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have just checked out the latest on the deletion page and yet again I have been subject to abusive comments! This is unacceptable and is a breach of the personal attack rules. I am very very disappointed as I have certainly not made any attack on anyone on here. Pchurch 10:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear 'AKMask', Would you please try to be a little easier on the creators of Thurrock Paranormal, users here overly criticising them and their site is doing Wikipedia a disservice and has resulted in some long term members loosing faith in the community here. Thanks - Solar 18:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

err, yeah, sorry about that... he was being pretty childish and I just felt the urge to smack a bit. Wont happen again. -M^ask 18:20, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

____

I beg your pardon M^ask I was not the one being childish and abusive!!!

Solar,, I have decided that I will leave, M's response says it all, I don't feel welcome here and certainly won't stay where I am not wanted. If I wanted abuse I would have stood in the away end at my local football ground. At least you can see who is abusing you and why! I have felt that this has been an "attack the newbie" campaign! If you wish to email me, you'll find it in my user profile if you can access it. If not, thanks for the help. Regards Phil Pchurch 20:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Solar, Perhaps my citing the ENTIRETY of "Further reading" will improve things. These are detailed studies that confront the validity of psychic detectives both pro and con. In the many newspaper articles I have collected over a course of the last 40 years and the on-the-spot detectives and reporters I have personally questioned I find the success of psychic detectives to be no more than distortion, self publicity, delusions of grandeur, and growth of story, especially after the passage of time. People just don't seem to check things they favor before arriving to a conviction. It is much easier this way. User:Kazuba 11 Apr 2006 Decided to move "further reading" to references because I cited both of these works. User:Kazuba 11 Apr 2006

Thank you for your comments, but I agree with the deletion of your statement by O. Harris, as it is not encyclopaedic or workable to request readers to read entire books. I will be submitting a new edit of the psychic detective page in an attempt to make the article more NPOV. While I understand each users reasoning towards the content of the psychic detectives page, it is clear to me that at present views which do have significant support are not included and views which are present have been written in a misleading style, see my last statement on Talk:Psychic detective for a more in-depth explanation. Best wishes - Solar 10:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the kind reply. When dealing with evidence it is difficult to remain completely unattached. I look forward to seeing your "significant support" of the documented abilities of psychic detectives that will have a NPOV. Can this really be accomplished? It will be interesting to see. Sincerely User:Kazuba 12 Apr 2006

Though this has nothing to do with psychics, you might find some fascinating material at Offender profiling that will be of interest. I am a big fan of Dr. James Brussel (Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist) and John Douglas (Mindhunter)User:Kazuba 15 Apr 2006

On Wikiproject Supernatural I proposed a merge for these two projects I need your members input. Mahogany-wanna chat?

Dear Kukini, Thanks for your kind gesture, it can be hard work keeping things civil on here at times, especially when in comes to my work defending NPOV, but people like you help to remind everyone what this project is really about. Thanks again - Solar 11:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure you've seen enough of this, but all the same thank you for your welcome. Oh, and congrats on the award! --badpazzword 09:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's always nice to hear from someone I've welcomed, I remember being welcomed myself and I think it really helps to build the community here, which I think is very important. It's always nice to receive an award as well! Best of luck with your editing, and if you need any help you know where I am... - Solar 11:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is my understanding that any article needs to assert notability WP:BIO to avoid being a valid nomination for speedy deletion. The article was nominated and I did not see anything in the one sentence that said it meet the guidelines. Vegaswikian 18:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Thanks for the welcome. I've been going through the wikify and cleanup lists so I can get the hang of what's good and bad.

What do I do when I prod an article (Wanda_Karen_Lee_Middleton), the author (Leewanda22) deprods, I AfD, and the author removes that tag too? Do I revert? What do I say to the author? Jamoche 04:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's appreciated, even if I noticed it was purely a template, copied and pasted :D. I wonder what brought me to your attention? As far as I recall, I've only done a few minor edits so far. Thanks! fel64 13:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for welcoming me to Wikipedia! Being welcomed really made my day.Emmett5 17:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Anti-war topics is up for deletion. Please weigh in on the discussion. Thanks! SchuminWeb (Talk) 09:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your statements regarding David Icke. Foreigner 11:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your welcome and kind message. I am (obviously) very new here, and my initial forays into discussions were predicated on anger at the bullying tactics of the Randi crowd, and I'm afraid my comments on the "psychic" discussion page may have crossed the line a bit on civility (although the commentary on the "psychic detective" page was really amazing - thanks for the heads-up!). In the future I'll try to curb those urges, although I will remain happy to point out their use of intellectually dishonest, irrelevant or fallacious material when they try it.

If I may respond in kind to your message, I would suggest that you may enjoy the book "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot about the theories and work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram. I personally know very well that psychic ability is quite real, and I am hopeful that physics research such as described in that book (along with Radin, Targ, et al.) will someday prove that it is a normal and universal function of life.

Again, thanks for the kind welcome and message. Nomorebs 19:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Solar, I've seen you several times now mention that the general sceptics group has been rude and prejudiced, as well as logically incorrect, in relation to talk:psychic and talk:psychic detective. I feel that those accusations have been consistently unfounded. Maybe there's something I've missed. Could you fill me in? fel64 23:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear fel64, I have already commented on this on the Talk:Psychic detective page, in which I drew attention to various rude comments, see this quote from my reply: "It really saddens me that so many who claim to be scientific and fair resort to strawman arguments and veiled insults. In this discussion alone I have been met with all manner of strawmen and sensationalist arguments to statements I have not even made, including reference to: the Holocaust, flat Earth theory, the Easter bunny and now insulting generalisations like "This lands in the "Elvis lives" department — New Age spiritualists always use logic like this"." So I do stand by my statements that certain users have been unfair, childish and rude, as I feel these generalisations show, so to say my highlighting this is “unfounded” is again simply unfair and untrue. The strawmen I refer to are bringing into the debate the flat earth theory, the Bermuda triangle or the Holocaust just to demean my points as it is clear that these comments have nothing to do with the points I made. I also believe stereotyping people into boxes like “new age spiritualists” who use bad logic and believe “Elvis lives” is also unfair and unhelpful to a discussion. These comments may not be direct personal attacks but they hardly benefit intelligent adult debate and are clearly not inline with Wikipedia:Civility policy. I would also like to point out I have not said these individuals were illogical, that statement was made by another user; I don't believe either side of the debate is illogical. As far as James Randi I do believe he is valuable and sincere in his actions and has helped reveal frauds and poor scientific rigor, but that his tabloid like tactics are unhelpful to those sincerely investigating the subject. I do now wish to work on more valuable additions to articles and do not wish to continue this endless debate that can ultimately lead nowhere. Thanks. - Solar 19:08, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But, Solar, you see I do. I think that this debate can lead places. Firstly, they are not ad hominem. There is no cause for you to take offence. I agree. Stereotyping people is very unhelpful. But I haven't seen it here. I can't say, either, that I've seen people talk about those things - maybe I have, but I've forgotten it as it seems fairly irrelevant. I'm sure you can point me to those places, but it doesn't matter. Ultimately, I have faith that people who are silly like that won't have the last word in this encyclopedia, and I've seen a large number of very well thought-out comments which have no such basis. I also can't say I've seen those strawmen used, and heck, they're pretty poor strawmen. If neither side of the debate is illogical, and they say conflicting things, then that seems a little impossible. fel64 17:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments, I have however said as much as I want to on the subject, which was whether I had made 'unfounded' statements relating to childish and rude users; I think I have made it clear that my statements were true and well founded. All the things mentioned above were quoted from talk pages, so if you look you will see them, you may believe they are not rude or irrelevant and you are entitled to your opinion as am I, this is why I will not be continuing this debate. To answer one last point, IMHO it is possible for two arguments on a subject to be logical or well reasoned and factual but to come to different conclusions depending upon what evidence and expertise you have access to, so I stand by my statement. It is like having two different theories or interpretations of an archaeological site, both theories interpret the evidence ‘logically’ but may come to different conclusions as to the nature of the site, one may be proven wrong or both theories may stand unproven this does not make either illogical, I hope that clarifies my position. I wish you all the best with your future contributions. - Solar 20:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Solar; I'm very much interested in keeping this debate up. If you're not, feel free to stop it - just don't expect me to be quiet if you feel the need to make further points, too. If you don't want me to reply, give me nothing to reply to, please :D. As it is, here's my reply:

Solar, you want to stop this debate, then stop debating. Fair enough, having two conclusions based on different sets of data is likely. But it's not like the groups here have different experiences - both (some) supporters and sceptics have had experience with psychics, read the same journals etc. While the data is not the same for everybody, there is a great deal of overlap.

And while you make a valid comparison to archeology, it is certainly not a hard science (and by the definitions I'm familiar with, not even a science at all). For psychic effects to have proper scientific status, they have to be examined more rigorously than an archeological site (not that they are not thoroughly analysed, but the amount of data you can get from those is often limited). fel64 09:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]