User talk:LookingGlass

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Shiva

You had asked what Lord shiva represents. This may help: http://www.dlshq.org/download/lordsiva.htm#_VPID_29 Raj2004 03:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. Thanks, Raj2004 (talk) 02:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC) I found a better interpretation of Shiva. "Adi Sankara in his interpretation of the name Shiva, the 27th and 600th name of Vishnu sahasranama interprets Shiva to mean either "Pure One," i.e., the One who is not affected by three Gunas of Prakrti, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. or "the One who purifies everyone by the very utterance of His name." Raj2004 (talk) 15:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Raj! Why do you think that a better definition?

Hi, Looking Glass ! Sanskrit names have multiple interpretations. So there is no good or bad definition. Thanks, Raj2004 (talk) 22:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfD

Hey just to let you know, you put your comment on my Userpage (User:Doug), you probably meant to put it on my user talkpage (User_talk:Doug). No big deal, I moved it and I could tell it was a mistake, just wanted to make sure you know where it's supposed to go so you're careful not to do that on other users' pages. --Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 06:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have replied further on my talk page and the RfD page.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you still want help with this? See my comments at: Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2008_February_1#Semiotic_triangle_.E2.86.92_Triangle_of_reference--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response on my page, it was quite interesting. I understand your frustration, I think, though maybe not as I've never really had this happen to me. But anyway, banned users are not supposed to create articles. When they do, their articles can be deleted under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#G5, I've never run into this in application before, but I do deal with a lot of deletions. Speedy G5 only works when the banned user is the only person with substantial edits to the page. It looks like that's what you ran into. After it was deleted someone created a redirect from the old page name (Semiotic triangle) to Triangle of reference. What needs to be done is you need to talk to the deleting admin or go to Wikipedia:Deletion review and ask for the page to be temporarily undeleted so you can get information from the deleted page. I am not sure what the copyright issues are with respect to that, if any.

With regard to the other page you mentioned, have you looked in the page history to see if the removed material is there and whether there was a comment about why it was removed (for example the cite being incorrect or being to a blog). You may find that the information was not reliable. You may also find that it was removed (not deleted) by someone who just didn't find it relevant to the topic or even by a vandal and that maybe you could get it restored. If you give me the page information and what it is you're looking for, I'll take a look if you like.

Keep in mind, a lot of people see fit to put a lot of trash on here. If there were no process for deleting it, the articles would soon become unintelligible. As far as simply removing information (and having it stay in the page history), if we couldn't do that, we couldn't very well "edit" this encyclopedia. Hope this helped a little. Oh, by the way, the Redirects for Deletion discussion has ended, they closed the debate and kept the redirect. That really has no affect though on what you want to do.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 23:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I generally prefer to keep the discussion together, however, the way I personally do that is somewhat unusual. I cut the discussion, move it to the other page and then paste it there with my reply. I didn't do that the first time here as I was afraid of confusing things - it was already confusing and I wasn't sure if you would understand what I had done (I have never looked at your edit count but I assumed by several comments and the post on my user page - which I understand now was an accident - that you were pretty new, at least to editing). So, I never bothered to keep things together. The problem with keeping everything on one page is that it one editor never gets alerts when he or she has new messages and must "watch" the other's page. If I'm busy for several days that can be a lot of work. On the other hand if we split it up, well the problems should be obvious - you can't follow the thread without jumping back and forth. Once it's going this way though it's a real pain to change it. I will probably only notice if you reply on my talk page.

I have no idea what you meant about comments being in green, unless you were looking at a WP:Diff.

The RfD had no effect because getting rid of the redirect would not have restored the original article, it is gone into the vortex where only admins can see it and we can only hope that the developers won't decide to start purging deleted pages (not something to worry much about, but theoretically possible). As noted below, it can be restored by the deleting admin or a deletion review. It is also sometimes possible to get a temporary undeletion so that you can copy material out and use it for a new article, which is probably more likely since the reasons for deletion were legit under the rules.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 00:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Semiotic Triangle

I'm sorry, but it is not clear to me what you are asking. From reading your note, the RFD nomination, and the notes to Doug, there seem to be several possibilities. I will try to address them all.

You object to the deletion of the original article. If so, you should discuss that with the deleting admin, Slrubenstein, and see if he will undelete it. If that doesn't work, you may also try deletion review.
You wish to create a new article. If so, go to this link, select edit this page and have at it.
You want access to the image used on the original article. Images are not deleted when pages are deleted. The image still exists here.

If none of those address your concern, please feel free to leave me another message. However, please try to be concise and explicitly state what you are asking for. I hope this helped. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Triangle of Meaning

Hi LookingGlass, I have read through the issues around Semiotic triangle and Triangle of reference. I have also read the original Semiotic Triangle article. It was correctly deleted because the author Jon Awbrey was in the habit of writing articles that looked correct on the surface but on deeper examination turned out to be incorrect. For his own reasons he wanted to disrupt the quality of Wikipedia. A shame as he seemed like an intelligent person but was ultimately unable to work with others or get over his own sense of self-awe enough to be a productive editor.

As a result, we cannot keep his work on Wikipedia as it is at best unreliableand some of it is deliberately deceptive. It also means that we cannot temporarily undelete it for you if you wish to use it to improve Triangle of reference as we don't want the unreliable content transfered into the new article.

This is a shame since the current article at Triangle of reference is very poorly written and needs a serious overhaul. As Doug has pointed out to you above, the original image taken from Ogden's book is still available. If you wish to edit Triangle of reference to include that image and improve the article text you are welcome to do so. Gwernol 12:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi LookingGlass, I'm glad my explanation was useful. I should emphasize that I don't know for sure that the original Semiotic triangle article was wrong: some of Jon Awbrey's contributions were valid, some were not. I'm not expert enough on this particular subject to be able to draw a firm conclusion. The problem is enough of his contributions were incorrect that we can't trust any of them.

On the question of getting back to the source page of a redirect. Its not obvious, but there is a way to do it. As you know, Semiotic triangle redirects to Triangle of reference. If you click on the link to Semiotic triangle you will end up at Triangle of reference. If you look carefully at the top of the page, in small letters under the title it says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and right under that it says " (Redirected from Semiotic triangle)" - this tells you that you were redirected. Now if you click on the link back to Semiotic triangle in the small text, it will take you back to the original page but this time it won't redirect you to Triangle of reference. Now you can edit the page and put the note there. This is one of those things that is much easier to do (once you know about it) than it is to explain! Good luck, Gwernol 21:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

moved your comments on ACT to the bottom of the talk page

cheers Earlypsychosis (talk) 07:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Catching, or projecting, the light?

Re: copy from projection talk/ good point. Both of you make excellent points that aren't even touched upon in this article. I suggest you read Catching the Light, by Arthur Zajonc, a Quantum Physicist and good friend of ours. He gives an astonishing history of how light was first seen as "projected" from the human eye by the Greeks, then gradually shifted to "receptive" mechanics from the sun in Newtonian and relativistic physics, and now, with the advent of Quantum brain states, prefrontal "mirroring" in the visual cortex, and, as LookingGlass says, resonance (in this case, resonance in synaptic networks), we're coming back to humans as cosmic "projectors" of light! In more empathic terms, a counselor might not want to deal with a patient any longer who is scaring her. But, how much of that decision is based upon the patient's state, and how much on her own state, and her projection of, or not dealing with, her own internal fears? This gets into transference and countertransference as well, but both put a fine point on your discussion of really "seeing" anything at all. Zajonc makes a little known and literally astonishing point: vision is something that must be learned, and if not learned by age 1, can take 15 to 20 years to learn. He cites references to people whose blindness was "cured" with laser technology who nevertheless still couldn't "see", because "seeing" is something the brain projects, not something the eye collects. He states that vision is tougher to learn than talking or walking, but we all take it for granted!Phoenixthebird (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

did I ever thank you for this comment?!? I hope so, but if not then sincerely thank you. LookingGlass (talk) 13:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My views on coloured signature text

In response to your e-mail: let me start with the caveat that I am no longer in touch with the culture around here. As time moves on, the things that are important to the project shift, and so do the priorities and perspectives of those who work to improve it. I try to base my view on the opinions of those whose work and attitudes I admire, and it's been a long time since I've had that kind of example to look to here on Wikipedia. Regarding WP:EQ, you're welcome! I've slowly realized that there is a lot of wisdom to be found out there when it comes to participating in online communities. That page is one of them, tailored to Wikipedia. Two others I draw upon heavily are Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral & the Bazaar, and Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software. They're both freely available books written about open source software, but they have excellent insights on the nature of volunteer internet communities, our motivations, our communications, and our relationships.

In general, I would discourage you from altering other users' signatures without checking with them, provided they are not causing obvious harm (e.g. breaking formatting, deceptive or inappropriate linking, egregious violations of WP:SIG). If there's a judgement call involved, my inclination would be to ask the user politely to change their template rather than change the occurrences of the offending signature. Bear in mind that some users will be insulted and/or flat out refuse, and once you've gone down that road you've given up on the possibility of taking it into your own hands.

In this specific case, I think it would have been best to just leave it alone. QuackGuru's userpage used to exist, and that will be apparent to anyone clicking through. Furthermore, even if he had never had a userpage, it is one's own prerogative to have or not have a userpage. Since standard signature behaviour is to link to the userpage, I can see a logic in electing to have no userpage but still leaving your customized signature to point at the empty page—after all, it's only one extra click to reach the talk page from there. If it seemed noteworthy to the discussion that Mr.Guru no longer had a userpage, a note on that discussion saying so might have sufficed (though, as old as that discussion is, I don't think it matters).

Of course, my views on signatures and userpages have changed a lot since I first started editing. I'm somewhat ashamed of the amount of time I used to spend on such vanity, making fancy user sub-pages and all that. I haven't gone to great lengths to hide all that, but I did trim my current userpage down to a mere stub, and modified my signature to use default colours. The fact of the matter is that one's contributions are what is important, not the colour of their name, the complexity of their userspace, or anything else. For the record, I'm still in favour of allowing users the privileges of coloured signatures and freedom over their userspace. There are benefits to visual individuality in a text-based community. A certain font and colour scheme gives some visual cue as to who you are communicating with, though it's a poor surrogate for faces in meatspace. (I also found it really handy when scanning RfD lists to see if any of my comments had been replied to at a glance.)

I hope I've explained my thoughts well enough, and I hope I have not offended. As far as un-formatting my old signatures, you may do so if you wish, I won't mind. I don't think they're causing any harm though, and I don't see any benefit in spending effort/attention on that sort of thing. Thank you for the e-mail.

—BigNate37_(T) 10:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again

Hey, stranger. Cool to see you're still editing here. I am sorry that I never replied to your last message to me—I can be flaky like that some times. Thought I would stop in at your talk page with a hello, since I saw you're still active. BigNate37_(T) 09:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Really nice to hear from you :) (to be honest, it's nice to hear from anybody!) Thanks for dropping by. I still find this virtuality odd, feeling unseen, invisible almost, raning into an echo-less void, and then finding that someone has seen your wanderings :) Happy trails LookingGlass (talk) 09:09, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

p.s I think I'll add that info box here on my page as I've never understood how to communicate/interact here on wiki, I just try to clean up stuff and say my 2c worth :)

p.s. did you do anything special to trigger me getting an email notification? Just that it's the first time ever! Yaaay! :) LookingGlass (talk) 09:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I think somewhere in your preferences is a setting to control e-mail notification. That wasn't anything I caused intentionally. As far as flying beneath the radar, that's probably a good thing if you're keeping yourself occupied with editing articles! The only two ways I've found to really interact with other people a lot is to participate in discussions in project space, or to get involved in editing issues over contentious topics. Neither of those are as productive as being able to edit articles quietly. (We all contribute however we can, though.) BigNate37_(T) 18:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Nate :)) My settings were set ok, but anyway whatever happened I'm glad it worked. And I'll attribute the change to your benign influence! Re-reading your reply here nearly a year ago, I must get hold of those two books you recommended: "Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral & the Bazaar, and Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software. They're both freely available books written about open source software, but they have excellent insights on the nature of volunteer internet communities, our motivations, our communications, and our relationships". I've just started using Drupal to publish thoughts, and have been finding it an awesome community, and interesting how the different communities have such differet feels to them. Maybe they're set to become the new "nation states"! LookingGlass (talk) 07:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in this

You may be interested in this - it's my contribution to the 'Don't Be A Dick' Talk page on Wikimedia, and it came about as a result of reading your 'Fuckheads and dickheads' section on the Ochlocracy Talk page. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great stuff, both comments. I've added my support there in addition to on your talk page LookingGlass (talk) 19:37, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, LookingGlass. I've added two more comments, one in each place. Tlhslobus (talk) 01:45, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, LookingGlass. I've added yet another two comments, again one in each place, with the more important one being in Wikimedia. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I somehow missed your last reply a couple of months ago

Hi again, Looking, I somehow missed your last reply a couple of months ago at Talk:Ochlocracy#Ochlocracy_versus_anarchism, so I've added a reply there now. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your addition Tihslobus and your offer of help. Appreciated. Now, "where" "should" this conversation be held? Your Talk page, my Talk page or the article. I get dizzy! :) LookingGlass (talk) 07:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Ochlocracy Talk page seems best, at least until there's any evidence to the contrary, on the basis that it shows what was in earlier parts of the conversation, as a possibly useful reminder. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:41, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought maybe I'd better copy the above two items from my Talk page, just in case you missed my above reply there. Perhaps Wikipedia should have a facility for two-person or multi-person conversations, as with Facebook, or maybe we should just sue Wikipedia for making us dizzy :) Tlhslobus (talk) 10:27, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

lol, and true on all counts (if we could find Wikipedia that is!)! Thanks T, appreciated :) I'm not going to pursue my "edit war", it's slipped way down the priority list now and feels futile, but your refs may well be useful in the future! I don't now how to conter the sort of PC/normalising editors on Wiki who continuously try to merge and subsume topics into an imagined ideal structure. Let them run out of steam? :) LookingGlass (talk) 10:50, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is this how?

This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can ask another question on your talk page, contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse.

1. I want to contribute to the quality and comprehensiveness of wiki but it is not my life's work. Therefore I could do with some help. In brief I am not volunteering my finger for the dyke, just pointing to a leak!

2. The3RR has NOT been breached. I have no wish to enter an edit war.

3. The article concerned is Corporation

4. I brought the editor's attention (Blue-Haired Lawyer) to the issue at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Corporation#Edit_reverted_-_Modern_corporations and then withdrew.

5. The editor continues to rewrite the article deleting sections with no discussion, explanation, or, in my opinion, sound jsutification for doing so.

IMO material is being lost to wiki that is of value. I don't like to see this. What can be done?

LookingGlass (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

p.s I notice this editor is also doing the same to History of companies

The way to deal with this sort of thing is to go through some sort of escalated dispute resolution, of which leaving a message on the talk page. Third opinion comes to mind as a possible option. The {{helpme}} template isn't going to attract the sort of editor willing or able to help with this, but dispute resolution might. --I dream of horses @ 00:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying. Your talk page is scary!! Anyway, I have already tried to resolve the issue with the editor, and failed, hence the post here (following advice on wiki re disputes/edit warring/etc etc etc). Sorry to hear it won't attract anyone able to help, but I wasn't holding my breath :) The "Third option" you mention (clever name but confusing) seems like a way forward, thanks for taking the time to drop by LookingGlass (talk) 15:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like to tell me why my talk page is scary? I dream of horses If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. @ 04:27, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I would have been better advised either to have written: "I found your Talk page scary." or not commented at all. The latter may have been the better choice. It was not the page itself but the miscellaneous warnings on the page I saw when I added the new section. LookingGlass (talk) 12:24, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the link to 'Don't be a dick' from our Civility guidelines

Hi, LookingGlass, I thought you might be interested to know that I've finally decided to remove the link to 'Don't be a dick' from our Civility guidelines, giving my justification here. It'd be interesting to know if there are any links to it elsewhere, though I guess I'll have to wait and see whether anybody reverts me first, and who then wins any ensuing argument. Tlhslobus (talk) 12:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm honoured. I've commented in support (I hope it comes across as that - if not PLEASE let me know) LookingGlass (talk) 17:34, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Page rename

Hi there!

I've gone and moved your AfC submission to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Pseudohypoxia. There is no 'rename' button - but you should see a 'move' button at the top of the page, or on your sidebar.

As to its inclusion... I've gone and accepted it, as there does seem to be a reasonable amount of coverage - enough that it has at least a chance of surviving an AfD discussion. We'll see what other people think of it - hopefully it'll grow into a nice full article.

All the best to you, Quantumobserver (talk) 07:01, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Quantumobserver. If you get to read this ... the graphic and the instructions for page creation don't apply to the basic paths to that page e.g the one I took: from the "create article" button on the "no-such-article" results page. As you're closer to the "core" of this beast than I am, would you/could you put in a suggestion that either the graphic should be ammended or deleted and/or some text added to clarify (there's a ton of text in the creation process that could be heavily edited imho - leading to greater clarity and more inclusivity). Also odd that the menu after login showed only I had only 1 msg here and linked only to the last one, while email notifications I received noted two (and hence I looked, luckily). fwiw. So, again, thanks for sorting it all out for me. Appreciated. LookingGlass (talk) 10:39, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that you only got one talk notification because both messages came from the same editor. As far as a lack of clarity in the article creation instructions... I don't know what you mean. Which graphic are you referring to - is it on the failed search page? Above the text box when you're about to create a new article directly in mainspace? Quantumobserver (talk) 17:32, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to retrace my steps to the page concerned but couldn't find a way to do that. From memory, I searched for pseudohypoxia, which didn't exist so wiki generated a suggestions page. I clicked on one of the links to create an article on that page and was then led through about 5 or 6 pages asking for instance if the subject was notable, until I finally got to the create page. However when I tried to duplicate this process, maybe as there were no suggestions for the serach I used, I got directly to the create page ... then again maybe that's because my user status has changed now I've created an article. Would love to help more but I can't think of anything else I can do. FWIW generally it feels as if I am behind a wall here. All that's on my side of the wall is a basic editing functionality. I've never been able to find a door through it, but imagine there are numerous walls, for instance separating the sort of stuff that you did here for "my" article from ordinary editors like myself, etc. LookingGlass (talk) 19:06, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm just an ordinary editor as well - granted, I have the Reviewer and Rollbacker permissions, but those don't matter here. Not admin or anything. You're probably right as to why you couldn't create the article the first time as easily... did the system boot you to WP:WIZ?

Also, look on the User Profile tab of your preferences. If it says you're autoconfirmed, you should be able to move pages. Quantumobserver (talk) 22:43, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, well as far as I can see it: "ordinary editor plus" <> "ordinary editor". I don't know how many dolls are nested in this Gormenghast only that they are. Yes, you got it, the wizard is the page I was sent to. It would appear that the goof is not visible to anyone except the newbies!

BTW, although I'm not going to take issue there with your "clarification" of the new page, I have to comment on it. The wording you changed was the wording of the researchers, so the issue is beyond doubt (there are appx a dozen researchers sharing authorship of the peer reviewed paper from whence that wording you changed comes). I assume that they did not use the word levels because it is primarily not a relative measure they are referring to (i.e one that refers to a base point) but rather an absolute observation about the reducing quantity of that chemical during ageing. Personally I find your rewording clumsy but that's a matter of taste. What I can't figure though is why you perceive your editing of their work as and improvement / "clarification". I don't see it as such. Rather it seems to me it is made poorer by introducing something that wasn't and isn't there. LookingGlass (talk) 10:42, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, okay. Well, if you feel particularly strongly about it, go ahead and put it back. Unfortunately, I cannot see the entire paper, but it seems it is, as you say, a matter of taste - the researchers do use both constructions in their abstract. Perhaps the rest of the paper would make clear a meaningful difference that's not apparent to me from the abstract. Quantumobserver (talk) 15:11, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at AfC Pseudohypoxia was accepted

Pseudohypoxia, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as Stub-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk.
If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Quantumobserver (talk) 07:03, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yaaay!

Another Wikipedia dispute

Hi, LookingGlass, I've left a second answer re Squeakbox (etc) for you on my Talk page. But on a somewhat related issue (another aspect of disputes in Wikipedia) I don't want to waste your time as the issue is not worth the effort, but if you've got nothing better to do, I was wondering would I be correct in concluding from this little episode [[1]] that disputes in Wikipedia tend to be won by those willing to be the most unreasonable, and that this also usually applies in the rest of the world too, thus partly explaining why the world is such an unreasonable place? Tlhslobus (talk) 08:29, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What a small world wiki is - despite its millions of editors the same faces seem to crop up. I think most people who can be bothered to become part of it in the end find they can't really be bothered. The theory in this electronic Wild West seems to be that the enforcement of codes will reult in reasonableness etc, but codes for human behaviour require interpretation. Only those for machines do not. Wisdom and more is needed to enact the spirit rather than just the letter of the codes we author to try and encapsulate our intent.

I believe your comment about conflict arising from a personal rather than a factual basis is correct (though I don't navigate that reality competently ... yet?). On the CAR Talk page I realised that you've written nearly ten times as much as Lihaa in that exchange (1108 vs 139 words appx), unless something been deleted, all of it well constructed and argued, and quite forceful (it contrasts with the style of your reply to me on your Talk page). While only a few words of the totality, and although "illegible mess" may well be an accurate description, I imagine that criticism could easily hurt someone who is not very articulate in English, especially if they have ties to the region.

I know little about the CAR (despite some very tangled personal connection with the place) and Lihaa doesn't make much of an argument for themself. S/he says only that a religious definition of the conflict is too simplistic. While s/he contests that consensus is required for reversions (of reversion?!) and that your sources weren't good enough (I've had the Guardian rejected on an article on Anti-aging research - aanother lost battle, probably justly), I think s/he only wrote those things to defend hsi/her objections. They were not the basis of it.

In the end I feel something reasonable in Lihaa's view. I think s/he is saying, not that the conflict does not have a religious dimension nor even that the religious dimension is not a major one, but that the conflict is more complex, and that the religious dimension, rather than being the primary dimension that it is generally portrayed as being in the media, is actually a veneer over the real-politik of tribal and other power struggles. I have some sympathy with this perspective. I think that in the end s/he simply didn't have the skills to do better than they did.

Perhaps on the other hand you have the ability aand some time to reconcile and integrate the fact that there is a religious dimension with information regarding the tribal allegiances and real-politik. Bearing in mind the genocide fostered by the West in that region due to "well-meaning" attempts at social engineering I truly think it would be a great service to perform and help stand up against "this fussing and fighting brother".

Anyway, what do you think?

LookingGlass (talk) 17:42, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

p.s I don't usually use s/he or his/her but I'd conceived of Squeakbox as female so when I read you referring to "her" as being male it was an odd surpise :D

Thanks, LookingGlass, but I'm afraid I'm going to be disagreeing with you quite a bit. It's sometimes a good idea to look up the Talk page of those you're in dispute with, though I'm afraid I probably initially forgot to do so in Lihaas's case, but we'll get back to that. If you look up Squeakbox's Talk page you will see what purports to be a photo of him and his wife in 2006, and what at least seems to be a photo of him in 2013. So if he's actually a she, she's doing a very good job of hiding it :)

Incidentally, I generally assume editors to be male unless there is evidence to the contrary. WP:BIAS will tell you that at the last count only 8.5% of editors were female (and I suspect frequent editors are even more likely to be male as it also tells us that males last longer as editors). I also tend to suspect rude ones may be even more likely to be male, though this may be the result of my being brain-washed by centuries of gender-stereotyping. In any other circumstances I would normally also suspect, without being able to prove, that this is actually deliberate policy by our Great Leader, on the basis that despite these low (and seemingly declining) female numbers, he has personally made 9 edits to the female-deterring 'Don't be a dick' article according to its edit history, and also that his bio article says that he funded Wikipedia with money from his former online adult entertainment outfit, thus presumably giving him a fairly strong dislike of the usual feminist attitude towards freedom of expression in porn (though I should say that I think many kinds of porn are basically a good thing that reduces the anger and violence brought about by unnecessary sexual frustration, but that's another story, and far too long to go into here). But of course such totally unworthy suspicions against our Great Leader can't possibly be true as they would violate our rules concerning biographies of living people and our obligation to always assume good faith, and in any case I'm digressing, so sorry about that.

As for Lihaas, his Talk page tells us, among other things, that he is a Citizen of the Confederate States Of America (yes, the entity that biased media-brainwashed people like me foolishly believed to have disappeared in 1865), and that he is among the top 2500 editors in terms of the number of pages edited. But perhaps that just means that he or she is a very cleverly camouflaged inarticulate African :) He has not tried to tell the readers that there is a Muslim v non-Muslim element to the conflict, but that it's more complex than that. Instead he has succeeded in keeping any mention of the Muslims v non-Muslims aspect out of the lead paragraphs of two related articles, contrary to what is said by all so-called reliable sources, as well as what is said in the main body of the articles. He then accuses me of being POV and sensationalist for simply trying to mention what these sources and these articles say in the lead paragraph. In the process, despite his obviously sincere concern to prevent me ruining the quality and neutrality of the article by mentioning apparent facts backed by all so-called reliable sources and by the main body of the articles, his cack-handed deletions of my work has twice left the lead paragraph looking illegible or ridiculous, and he has then accused me of violating BRD for fixing his first mess (I also ended up having to fix his second mess, and a third minor mess, as he hadn't bothered to fix his second mess after I pointed it out, but had instead added a new sentence backed by a citation of an unrelated story about Thailand). Of course I'm obliged to assume that he is doing all this in the utmost good faith. And it was of course very wicked and insensitive of me not to spend 3 times as long and get 3 times as angry and exhausted saying what I felt I had to say to him in tones that bent over backwards to minimize the risk of hurting such a nice well-meaning chap's delicate feelings (but no doubt that's all part of my being a wicked POV sensationalist as he so rightly pointed out with such sensitivity and good faith).

Of course one can argue that he's right and that there never has been a true religious war anywhere ever because it has always really been about land and tribe and class and the materialist dialectic and foreign and domestic vested interests and whatever you'll be having yourself, and that religions are all institutions for promoting peace and brotherly love (as they must be, since they all tell us so), but I should point out that that is ever-so-slightly POV and supported by neither any so-called reliable sources, at least that I've seen, nor by the main body of the articles (as well as by other articles such as the article on the Seleka, which presumably went through a similar process judging by the fact that four citations have had to be brought in to back up the seemingly uncontroversial statement that the Seleka are nearly all Muslim). In my experience this kind of censorship is not unusual at the start of wars with a large religious dimension. In my country (Ireland) the Northern Troubles were and are not normally described as being between Protestants and Catholics but between Unionists and Nationalists. Of course we locals understand that Unionist basically means Protestant and Nationalist basically means Catholic. And many of us know that there are some exceptions to this, and when I was young and naive I was gullible enough to believe and argue that these exceptions were of major significance, the kind of naivete that possibly helped fuel the war by dragging in naive young people who believed in religious tolerance and would thus never be willing to fight in an overtly religious/sectarian war, but were ready to fight to unite Ireland by supposedly 'uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter under he common name of Irishmen' (to quote the standard 'Republican' mantra dating back to 1798), though obviously all that's an unprovable speculation. Incidentally, at least among Northern Catholics, and to some extent in the mainstream British and Irish media, 'sectarian killings' used to be code for killings of Catholics by Protestant paramilitaries, so unsurprisingly Catholics tended to be outspoken in condemnation of sectarianism (there was probably also an element of 'Protestant Churches are small sects, but the Catholic Church is the Christian mainstream and thus not a sect'). Also incidentally I'm a Southern Irish ex-Catholic, ex-Christian, and basically ex-Nationalist in the sense that I stopped believing in a United Ireland a very long time ago, but I'm in a very small and very silent minority here in the South, and it may make me even more wicked in your eyes, given that you've previously said you admire Chomsky, as he would probably describe my views as those of a dupe or knave of British imperialism (I won't bother detailing what I think of Chomsky's views on the matter, or of what I see as the fondness of elements of the British, French, and American so-called Left for encouraging people like the Irish to turn themselves into pseudo-revolutionary cannon fodder and their countries into pseudo-revolutionary killing fields, as it'd take too long and you might find it too offensive, but I'll later mention Chomsky more favorably in the context of our articles).

Though we locals mostly understood what was meant by Unionists and Nationalists, when I read in the 1970s in The Irish Times that the then-starting Lebanese Civil war was between Right and Left, it was difficult to understand what was going on until I eventually learned that Right basically meant Christian and Left basically meant Muslim, thus explaining why the Left was supported by Arabs and Palestinians and the Right was supported by Israel, etc. In the end The Irish Times saw sense and dropped the Right v Left nonsense. Similarly you can't understand why Syria's Assad is supported by Iran and opposed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia if you don't understand the Shia (or Alawite) v Sunni aspect of the war, even if there will be plenty to tell you that it's an oversimplification, as of course it always is. And similarly omitting the religions from the summary of these articles prevents the uninformed reader from understanding much of what's happening. If this were censorship, one would say it followed Chomsky's model of New York Times articles - the censored information is suppressed from the introductory summary bits, but you can sometimes get some of it if you persevere down through all the detailed stuff which most people don't have time to read. With Central African Republic conflict under the Djotodia administration, you start getting at least some of it around paragraph 5 (in Section 2, Fighting). With Central African Republic conflict (2012–13) it's rather worse as you only start getting at least some of it around paragraph 50 That's in Section 3.3, Sectarian Conflict, which finally tells us that the Seleka are mainly Muslim at their 40th mention (citing the same Guardian article which was one of those that he deleted from the lead paragraph) after previously devoted the whole of the second lead paragraph to describing them without mentioning this. And it also tells us there that there is widespread conflict between Christians and Muslims, but it never tells us that President Michel Djotodia is Muslim (despite incidentally having the Christian-seeming first name Michel, which will lead many readers to assume he's Christian), and it never tells us that Muslims are a small minority in the country. If this were censorship, it would be unclear whether the purpose was to hide that a sectarian war between Christians and Muslims had broken out after rebels from the Muslim minority had seized power, or that a Muslim President had been overthrown with Western backing, or both. But of course it can't be censorship because he is acting in good faith.

But I'm afraid I've gotten a bit carried away and wasted too much time on this, as one more instance of 'non-censorship' in this world is not going to make much difference one way or the other. And somebody might even argue that this censorship may save lives, though I suspect that it's at least as likely to cost lives, and that both possibilities are very remote indeed. All the best. Tlhslobus (talk) 01:51, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OOPS! I'm guilty of not looking at his website closely enough. Had I done so, I would have added the following at the end of the second last paragraph above, just after "But of course it can't be censorship because he is acting in good faith.":

So the fact that his Talk Page says that he supports anyone's fight against Islam cannot imply that he is trying to hide from people, especially Muslims, the fact that a Muslim President had been overthrown with Western backing. This is all the more the case as, after checking the links, one realizes that when he says that he supports the IMU or anyone's fight against Islam, he's actually saying that he's supporting the militant Islamist group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in its fight against Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. In the next sentence he tells us that "Death by boiling seems to mean nothing in the annals of torture history to most, worse than the gas chamber as it is." He also tells us of himself "The sanity of this user is disputed. There. You don't believe me? Well, look at the rest of the page..." He also tells us he supports Ataka, described as a Bulgarian xenophobic party that is anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish, among other things, and that he also supports Jobbik, a Hungarian party described as fascist,[9] neo-fascist,[10] Neo-Nazi,[11] extremist,[12] racist,[13] anti-Semitic,[14][15] anti-Roma[16] and homophobic. And so on. We are presumably obliged to assume that he holds all these views in good faith. Tlhslobus (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The last bit above is making me wonder whether I should rethink the idea that it doesn't matter - the guy and his arguably slightly sinister 'sense of humour' (assuming it really is just humour) seemingly has the potential to cause a good deal of distress to quite a few editors if nobody tries to stop him. And yet I really don't want to waste any more time on what has already caused me some distress and I expect will end up causing me a good deal more if I don't just drop it. Tlhslobus (talk) 04:01, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But if I don't drop it, I'd probably be guilty of violating WP:CANVASS if I asked for any assistance from you other than advice, so no assistance other than advice, please :) Tlhslobus (talk) 05:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I've been a 'silly boy'. I've noticed that the main flag he's showing seems to be a variant of the Polish flag, so he may be Polish or Polish-American, and he may even be punishing me for keeping a Polish composer off In The News Recent Deaths a few weeks ago. But even that wouldn't explain why the articles were as they were long before I appeared, so perhaps there is some consensus to keep Muslims and Christians out of the lead to prevent edit warring, a consensus which he didn't mention because he either wanted to punish me for the Polish composer, or because he didn't want to explain that he was silently violating the consensus by deleting the Christian - Muslim stuff while leaving the associated references in place in the lead paragraph, ostensibly documenting the previous sentence as they arguably do, so readers could use them to see what was really going on. He may even have added a nonsense reference as a hint. Unfortunately I didn't get the hint and deleted my references as 'orphans' and I also deleted his nonsense one (which he then corrected, explaining his correction as 'silly boy', ostensibly directed at himself, but perhaps really directed at me for failing to spot the hint). That leaves me wondering whether I should now try to restore my 'orphan' references with some dodgy justification. At any rate it's clearly not worth me trying to restore Christians v Muslims unless I see evidence that there's no such consensus. Tlhslobus (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I see no evidence of any such discussion and consensus in the Talk Pages of any of the relevant articles, plus it's not a Polish flag but a Bahrein flag. But who cares? Tlhslobus (talk) 06:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat to my surprise, the issue now seems quite likely to be heading for a satisfactory resolution, thanks to a reasonable response by Lihaas. Also, in case you can't find it, the Child Protection Issues section of the "Don't be a Dick" argument has been archived to here. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pleased to hear that Tlhslobus. I did write a (rather long) reply but in the end didn't post it as I felt it wasn't going to help. There was so much to respond to in what you wrote that addressing it all was beyond me. Belatedly I also realised I wasn't sure if you were actually seeking more input from me. LookingGlass (talk) 10:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for causing you to waste time writing a long unused reply, LookingGlass, especially as it now looks as if I was wrong and you were right about such matters as him being reasonable and not being American (though I still can't even be sure about either of those matters). As it happens the outcome of the dispute was at best semi-satisfactory in terms of improving the articles. But thinking back, it was really all a massive waste of my time (and yours, sorry again about that), as that phase of the war was essentially already over (due to Djotodia's resignation) by the time I got involved, so all I could ever hope to do was half-lock the door after the horse had bolted - all those who went to Wikipedia looking for an explanation of the background to the conflict while it was still ongoing were seemingly successfully deprived of important information, and got no benefit from my later efforts to provide it. And now that this Djotodia phase is basically over, hardly anybody will be going to look there, so I probably would have been far better off doing the sensible thing and not getting involved (which is why I've now abandoned any further efforts on those articles). Hopefully I'll learn from my mistake, but I suspect I'm basically just far too foolish to do so :) Perhaps I would also benefit from your long reply, but it wouldn't be fair to ask you to spend time preparing it, and I'd probably just foolishly ignore or waste both our times disputing most of the points you made, so we're probably both better off leaving me in my foolish but blissful ignorance :) All the best. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But as it's your time and your Talk Page, please feel free to post the reply if you wish to do so, and to refrain from posting it if you don't wish to do so. (I am in fact rather curious as to what you would have said, but I also don't want to waste your time, and I expect I'll probably disagree with much of what you'll say and I don't want to have to spend time replying nor alternatively spending mental (or psychic or psychological or whatever) energy trying to suppress the temptation to reply). Thanks for your time, and All the best. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:37, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! again (as that's how my unsent reply began). You sound so angry.

I wrote to say that I had tried to reply. I wanted you to know that. I also wanted to say something of why I had been unable to reply more fully. It seems you interpretated that reply negatively and this feels unfair. Now you say you believe you would probably disagree with me, and I think because of that you probably will, so what purpose am I to imagine my reply is to have?

You write a lot, and I do not think I am expressing an opinion in that statement. This means there was/is a lot to respond to.

I find a "redundancy" in what you write, for instance when you point out that this is my Talk page or that I may feel free to reply.

Style has an impact on what I understand. Style is the prosody of text. It is what frames the content. Style is the form of content and so is content too.

I feel all of this will be unwelcome. I feel I should delete the majority of it, as I did last time. Perhaps I should not be replying at all. But we are exchanging messages because we have somethings in common! Perhaps I should have simply acknowledged where my assumptions had been wrong.

But I don't find any of this to be about "repression" vs. "expression". It seems to me to be about how we manage "sound and silence", the "spaces between the notes". And that's about choice. There is a tension in the maner of our expression, between what we express and what we do not express, that is for each of us to manage. That management comprises a central part of the content received by others.

This is not my unsent reply, which was founded more on the points of your dispute, yet I think the substance of it is somehow the same. Your disagreements feel like an attack by reason of their style. I don't believe you mean to communicate this, hence my reply.

It occurs to me that perhaps I try too hard and that having written it it was as if the content of my second reply to you was out there and obvious. So here it is, in all its unedited glory. Perhaps it will help you understand:

I was going to leave it there but .... I'll have another go.

You put me straight for taking things personally and expecting wiki etiquette/codes of behaviour/whatever to militate towards reasonableness or even reason. I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to return the favour.

My roots are in domestic disputes. Political perspectives came later and showed me that for any argument based on one set of facts there is a counterargument based on another set of facts. Worse, both arguments will have their merits. I do not believe that things cannot be resolved by a battle of the facts. I believe that in the end what drives people is their sense of self, their fears and so on.

I fear all this is only going to serve to irritate and exasperate you further. Perhaps I should just have ended with that initial "Wow!".

Casting issues in terms of dichotomies, binary choices, black and white, militates toward not away from dispute. So for me, religion is not EITHER a silver bullet of sublime nobility and perfection practised by saints who are beyond reproach, NOR do I see it as a tool of division that must be destroyed to save the world from evil. What I see is that people use any tool to handd and do anything they can to win, and even more to defend themselves. Please do NOT take that as saying reference to Christian vs. Muslim should be deleted. That is NOT my opinion and it's frustrating to find that what I wrote came across as saying that.

I didn't spend enough time reading and researching and checking your arguments, reading and comparing the revisions one with another and so on. I also did not researched the characters involved. I forced myself spend time trying to do that though. I thought what I did was reasonable, good enough, and made some suggestions. The facts are important but they are not the whole story or even the most important part of the story (assuming that winning the or a peace is the goal) As you yourself pointed out to me, there is no answer to these things by recourse to wiki.

People interpret the guidance here in their own way. You are an expert on the various codes. There is nothing I can see as effective arbitration or even mediation for disputes. I find the guidance and codes to be verbose and tangled. I find no clarity in them. They don not seem to evolve to meet the interpretations put on them. They seem to me to be social-algorithms for a social experiment which seems to be working more or less well at least for now and that's pretty much it. He who shouts the loudest wins. The rest for me anyway is not a lot more use than the dimensions of goalposts.

I think wiki is best thought of as a multitude of fiefdoms. Some articles are reasonable, well written, concise, well researched and reliable - I suspect for as long as the hard core editors remain uninterested in them. Other articles seem to me to flout the guidance while still being examples of good articles. The "article" (aka mini series) on Queeen Victoria for instance is in my opinion abysmal. For my purposes it is entirely useless. To get any benefit from it I would in effect have to write it again myself, easiest to go elsewhere, or move on.

Anyway I am left with the feeling that I have failed you and that makes me sad as you have been a great help to me. I am sorry.

I am not sure, but then maybe that's the point.

LookingGlass (talk) 09:41, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply, LookingGlass. I certainly haven't been angry with you, as opposed to being to varying degrees annoyed and/or angry with, at various times, Lihaas, Wikipedia, and myself, and I'm sorry for failing to realize that might come across as being angry with you, and thus failing to take adequate steps to avoid giving that impression. And don't worry, you haven't failed me. If anything I've failed myself through being too foolish to see that I was trying to lock the stable door after the horse had bolted. Sorry for upsetting you and wasting your time. All the best. Tlhslobus (talk) 11:13, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pleased to hear Tlhslobus and no worries. I'm easily upset! In my opinion though, it's not been a waste of time as we seem good. And Wikipedia is infuriating, or I find it so, like trying to engage with a cross between a trippy hippy and a traffic warden on largactyl. LookingGlass (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for February 27

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Saarland, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Invasion of France (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Dear DPL Bot, thank you for taking an interest in my edits, it's always appreciated, but in this case it was my intention to point to the disambiguation page, and not to a particular page and particular invasion, as the reference was for the three invasions cited in the article and puting three internal references for them defeated me and would in any case have been onerous on the reader. Anyway, when you're an evolved bot, like me, you'll recognise context as well as fact - and I guess you'll have your own User page too! :) LookingGlass (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Openoffice

Torai lies here[2] --- he works for IBM in Ireland. This is why hae has done all the edits to Openoffice.95.172.31.34 (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to look in

... at the Western culture article, where you now may be beginning to have a consensus to change the article, in the directions you proposed earlier (where you called attention to length, and sourcing). See last Talk entry there, and comment as you see appropriate. Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:17, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for letting me know. I've commented on the Talk page section you have written there. In summary, I see no consensus there and the article needs a clear topic in order to improve substantively. LookingGlass (talk) 11:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please offer some insight

Perhaps you could share some wisdom *here* at the RFC near the bottom of the page as Wikipedia seems to be more interested in Wikipedian opinions than independent reliable sources. There seems to be an effort to censor the fact that psychometrics has been called a pseudoscience by an abundance of independent reliable sources (which undertook thorough investigations of the subject). I know you've expressed some concern before over how this mysticism is being represented on Wikipedia.--TDJankins (talk) 07:49, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about wisdom, but thanks for the suggestion and the heads-up. I'd be "delighted" to throw in my 2c worth. What effect this will have though is moot, as when (if?) I pitch in it be in answer to your request not because I believe it is worthwhile. Sadly I have given up on wiki after too many futile and vacuous "contests". IMO Wikipedia is resolutely set in a downward spiral. It relies on a combination of mob-rule and the letter of wikipedian law to "resolve" disputes of content, added to which is the innate dynamic in wikipedia created from the ego satisfaction of publication. The former leads to a trend of decreasing quality and the latter to chaotic and bloated articles. Ironically the articles are becoming tending to become promotional demonstrations of wiki-status, faux-erudition, and ownership. I have to say that wiki remains indispensible to me. I use it as amy online library of first resort, after which I go to the original research papers etc. When through this process I have found errors or see how to clarify the wiki article I have done so. Wiki was once a time sink for me, but I felt this to be a worthwhile sacrifice. Over the last few years though I have found my edits reverted. If I do correct something these days I might do so but I never expend any significant amount of time doing so and I never watch the page. Wiki's quality seems to lie more in what was written in it in the past than how this is being edited now. Its quality seems to be inexorably reducing. I think your concern over the psychometric test page may be unwarrented as I think it is a running battle between those with a vested interest in promoting it and those who are set against its "exaggerated claims". The former seems outnumbered by the latter but perhaps this is only because of efforts by such as yourself? Feel free to pester me if the task falls under my radar, and thanks again. Best LookingGlass (talk) 11:41, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wisdom for sure. Thanks for your contribution. What you and others say makes sense, but I still think it is as pseudoscientific as just about anything out there as no aspect of the mind is isolatable, therefore no aspect of the mind is actually measurable, and therefore every instrument is impossible to actually validate, yet psychometrics claims that it's able to do all of these things all while claiming to be science. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, the best and simplest mode of operation seems to me to be to simply rely on what has been said by independent reliable sources (whether they represent one side or both) and avoid the kerfuffle. Thanks again for your time.--TDJankins (talk) 04:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. And thanks again!! For the record, I agree with everything you say except the conclusion. That is because use of the scientific method (aka Science) does not depend upon whether something can or may be isolated. The search for subatomic particles is a scientific field of study irrespective of whether subatomic particles have been found or "exist" at all. Quantum mechanics has a lot to say about "existence" and chaos theory has a lot to say about the systemic nature of reality. The mind exists because the concept of mind exists. To argue that it does not exist because it is not something concrete or because yhe boundaries of it are not precise is illogical. The former is as Wittgenstein observed merely a problem of language. As regards the latter, aanyone who has flown through a cloud knows how fuzzy its boundaries are and yet we would not claim that clouds do not exist. Of course these arguments can be drilled into but in the end the facts remain unaltered. All the best LookingGlass (talk) 11:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've been absent from here for a long time. Revisiting, it seemed to me that my comment 'needed editing', in particular the phrase: The mind exists because the concept of mind exists, as that invites category error. The mind is a concept. It exists, but only as a concept exists, not as a brain exists. Both 'exist', but within separate 'categories' or defintions of existence. LookingGlass (talk) 11:02, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Reference errors on 17 February

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Lepiotaceae

Hi - The "Lepiotaceae" article never existed on Wikipedia. I created it as a redirect page. More detailed discussion on my talk page. Peter G Werner (talk) 22:54, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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References

Remember that when adding content about health, please only use high-quality reliable sources as references. We typically use review articles, major textbooks and position statements of national or international organizations (There are several kinds of sources that discuss health: here is how the community classifies them and uses them). WP:MEDHOW walks you through editing step by step. A list of resources to help edit health content can be found here. The edit box has a built-in citation tool to easily format references based on the PMID or ISBN. We also provide style advice about the structure and content of medicine-related encyclopedia articles. The welcome page is another good place to learn about editing the encyclopedia. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a note. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:09, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion was here [3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:16, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

u and ping

I saw your note on User:LookingGlass about {{u}} and agree that that {{u}} is very cool. The correct usage though is {{u|name}} You have ":LookingGlass" when it should be "|LookingGlass" for me to ping you. There's a similar template, {{ping}}. Here's what both of them look like to ping me:

@Marc Kupper: example using {{ping|Marc Kupper}}.
Marc Kupper example using {{u|Marc Kupper}}.

I tend to use {{ping}} when I want to start out with the person's name and {{u}} when I want to mention the person's name in the middle of a sentence.

There's a "gotcha" with both {{ping}} and {{u}} in that they only work when you first add a new talk page section or reply. If you save the comment and then realize you should have pinged someone then see WP:PINGFIX which is a complicated help page but explains the steps needed to edit your own comment to ping someone. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Marc Kupper:, thanks for taking the time to contact me. I really appreciate that, and all the information.

I posted that admission of my ignorance ten years (9 yr 10 mnth) before your help arrived! So, it's nice to get the page corrected. The link there to the Gnome page also didn't work. So that's straightened out too.

Things seem to me to have changed here a lot over the past decade. I very seldom edit anything anymore. That makes me sad as I would like to have continued contributing, Wiki being a great first-stop research resource for me. But bringing back to it what I learn after often simply generates conflict. It seems interesting to me how virtual-claims of territor mirror those in the real world.

Anyway, all the best to you, and thanks again. LookingGlass (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, LookingGlass. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Talk:Individual#DELETE

I saw your comment there and was so inspired that I started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Individual. But it is rather clear we are in minority here... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! So, I read what I wrote, first (!). It seemed reasonable. The conversation on your deletion page though was interesting. However, the "behind the scenes reality" of editing wikipedia is not understood by perhaps the majority of users. I would like articles in sandboxes to get the same attention from other editors as they do when published. Perhaps a "sandbox gateway" system would reduce later disputes, but any system can be trolled. Anyway, hopefully you think the article is on track now. Thanks again. LookingGlass (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking feedback on Communication Theory page overhaul

Hi! In the past, you commented on the Communication theory page, and now I've written a replacement article (discussion at Talk:communication_theory#Proposed_replacement). I'm eager for feedback on the overhaul -- I put the new article in my sandbox.Kaylea Champion (talk) 22:22, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on an impressive draft article Khascall! I would suggest biosemiotic theory is key to it though. Jesper Hoffmeyer wrote: "life and semiosis are coextensive" - a tautological reality others seemed to have overlooked - and this relationship, from the Hadean world, immediately and unavoidably led to "communication" - with society and language hot on its heels. Anyway, hope that's of use. All the best with it. LookingGlass (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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