User talk:Rbellin/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Rbellin. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

from Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers

Newcomers are often hesistant to make changes, especially major ones, such as NPOVing and moving, due to the fear of damaging Wikipedia.

Just a minor point, but "fear of damaging Wikipedia" is not the only reason a newcomer like myself might be hesitant to do major NPOV/moving/deletion. Newbies with previous Wiki or version-control experience will not have that worry. A newcomer who is knowledgeable or expert in a given area may seek the pages on his/her area of interest, and find that they are lacking and/or biased, but note the presence of prior flames on the relevant Talk pages that indicate that more knowledge and/or neutrality is actually *not* desired by some vocal, active contributors.

Unfortunately, if "an active contributor will have to perhaps spend more time on the talk pages deliberating with other contributors, who often don't know a damn thing about the subject," then many experts and potential contributors are going to be driven away.

Rbellin 04:25, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for filling my request for an article at English studies, it's very clear and well written. I have a question: does "English studies" refer to the study of English language as well as of English literature? I would like to redirect some pages that talk of studying "English" to "English studies", but don't want to do so if that wouldn't make sense. Thanks again. -- sannse 20:11, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think English studies really refers only to English literature, not the study of the English language or linguistics. Non-literature references are probably best redirected to English language, I guess. -- Rbellin 18:06, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The problem is when "English" refers to a combination of both English language and literature. As in: "John Smith taught [[English]] for twenty years". I've had a look at a few sites for various English studies departments of universities etc and they mostly seem to mention some sort of language component to their courses (this page from the University of Nottingham for example). So maybe that should be mentioned in the article? I'm not sure, so I'll leave it to you. But I think I should be OK using it to disambiguate when the language and literature articles really won't work. Thanks for the reply. Regards -- sannse 21:28, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me of the messages on User talk:snobot. I agree with you that avoiding the Hegelian redirect is potentially harmful to future expansion of Hegelian. I started out changing links from Hegel to Hegel, and I guess I got a bit over-zealous. But note that nothing on wikipedia is "lost", I'll start undoing the changes as soon as I finished typing this message. The "disambiguation" not stems from my use of a bot that was coded for disambiguation, I will change the message to something like "redirect avoidance" in accordance with its current use. Also, I'll make sure to sticking to terms that are clearly the same (as explained above). --snoyes 20:15, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It seems that wikipedia is too slow to load the "user contributions" pages, so I'll revert the changes at off-peak time. --snoyes 20:50, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

How odd, Alice Lloyd College wasn't linked yesterday :-) Seriously, did you actually know of this college previously? Are you a graduate? The reason I chose it as an example is that last year I made an attempt to read Browning's Pippa Passes, got maybe 2/3 of the way through before giving up, and had a mild and passing interest in all things Pippa. I was curious to know how the town in Kentucky got its name, and, of course, it turns out that it was named by Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, (who is currently not linked...) Dpbsmith 02:10, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No, I've got no connection to Alice Lloyd College and had never heard of the place before you mentioned it. I just took the mention -- in a context which could've seemed like Wikipedia was passing judgment on it -- as provocation to add the article. And it did turn out already to be linked from a handful of other pages.

The general issue of academic "prestige" is one that Wikipedia will keep revisiting, I guess. I don't know if there is a good way to treat this issue neutrally, without either encouraging snobbery (and its evil twin, me-tooism) or ignoring all differences. Maybe a start would be to add articles discussing college rankings, how they're generated, and their critics (like the "Forget U.S. News Coalition")? I'll think more about this. -- Rbellin 06:46, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth... I don't think much of college rankings (which, incidentally, is one of the reasons I don't like the idea of appealing to "objective" ranking lists to decide what should go on the page). The difference between an excellent school and a good one is, typically, that most of the departments in the excellent school are excellent, while only some of the departments in the good school are excellent. And the difference between an excellent department and a good one is that most of the professors, etc. And we're talking about distributions with big variances and small differences between the means. And the quality of the education is most determined whether or not you happen to encounter a small number of professors that "click" with you and inspire you. Similarly, the main difference between a good humongous state university and an excellent prestigious smaller institution is that you need to work a little harder and be a little more assertive and motivated in order to actively extract a good education, from the former. My daughter got an excellent education at U. Mass, which is a state university and in the second group of state universities--the ones that are not quite "public Ivies." But it has a good business school, and she majored in business, and had one or two excellent professors.

Nevertheless, I think there's some point in making a list of the hundred or so college and universities that are famous or notable... the ones that, well, people have heard of, or are likely to be referred to. "Fermi developed the first nuclear reactor in the squash courts of the University of Chicago"; "Goddard did his pioneering rocket experiments at Worcester Polytechnic Institute;" "Owen Johnson's book, Stover at Yale, continues the story of Dink Stover..." etc. etc.

And, while I'm glad you made the entry for Alice Lloyd College--I still think that it would be possible to say, from a neutral point of view, that Dartmouth College is famous, and that U Mass/Dartmouth is not. Even though that's where one of the most talented engineers I know learned his stuff. Dpbsmith 22:54, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm also none too keen on college and university rankings, so I'm trying to report on their methodology more than their results in the Wikipedia article. I think you're right that it's possible for Wikipedia to say something more about this issue; but I'm not sure exactly what. "Famous" depends a lot on who you ask: e.g. most non-PhD-owning people who I talk to haven't heard of Swarthmore College and think the University of Chicago might be a state school, while the hyper-educated tend to think of them as among the cream of U.S. higher education. This makes it hard to use "famous" as a surrogate for the intangible "quality" which we subjectively perceive. The examples you give, which have a lot to do with institutions' history, will possibly not select more recently founded and/or recently improved institutions, and/or might allow some "famous" schools to coast on their reputations. But they are an interesting alternative, especially for research universities: maybe we could list locations of significant discoveries.

P.S.: I might lift some of your comment's text into the college rankings article, if that's all right. -- Rbellin 23:51, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Thanks Dpbsmith 00:47, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Five Colleges... yes, you must have read my mind. Good change. I actually dithered back and forth about whether to mention this myself. I kept wondering whether the phrase "Pioneer Valley" area was OK, since few outside Massachusetts would know where it is. And I couldn't quite figure out how to fit in Williams, since it is not part of the Five Colleges. By the way... it seems to me that the Five Colleges resemble a "university" in the historical sense (independent colleges in physical proximity sharing credits, etc) than most universities? Dpbsmith 15:27, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Rubellin, I don't know if you have ever seen Wikipedia:WikiMoney, but I offered six wikis for an article you wrote (English studies) - appologies for the delay, I've now paid up. I also opened you an account at Wikipedia:WikiMoney accounts and added your initial 20W. Of course, if you don't want to use the account just ignore or delete it, but some find it fun :) -- sannse (talk) 17:03, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I added Letters to Humanities and Arts, but it seems that w/o letters Arts would be included in Humanities as well. It would make sense to me to make arts a "see also" and to add "arts and letters" as a see also. (Philosophy otoh and for instance, wouldn't seem to me to be included in Arts, so adding Letters would be required if Humanities were made "see also" and Arts was left. What do you think?--Samuel J. Howard 15:25, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Talk:List of academic disciplines

Hey, welcome to the WikiProject Critical Theory. Great to have you on board! If you want, you can introduce yourself under the =Introductions= heading on the talkpage, so we can coordinate our fields of interest etc. Pteron 21:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Great idea regarding the Critical theory (Frankfurt School) article. One of those Wikiedits that makes me go "Dammit! Why didn't I think to do that!" Oh, and welcome to the WikiProject. Glad to have you on board. :) Snowspinner 03:20, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

First off, thanks for your help in cleaning up the Derrida entry. There's plenty of organization and basic editing that I didn't do the first time out. I hope we can continue to work together as I go through a few more drafts. I will certainly heed your advice about how to manage revisions. I have a couple of more substantive items to offer, and I expect that there is probably a more appropriate forum than talking to you. If you are aware of such a forum, please do not hesitate to redirect me.

There are a couple of detailed concerns I have that I'd like to communicate to avoid toe-stepping going forward -- rather than brain dumping them here, I reckon we should redirect to a more suitable format if one is available or otherwise make one. Drop me a line via my talk page to let me know where to go. Buffyg 14:45, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

RfA

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I've been nominated for adminship status over at Wikipedia:Requests for Adminship. Since you've worked with me on a couple of articles through Wikipedia:WikiProject Critical Theory, I thought you'd probably be a particularly good person to cast a vote either for or against, so I thought I'd let you know. Snowspinner 18:58, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment

Thank you for your comment on User talk:Jongarrettuk/Better writing guide (current draft). I have posted a response (half-agreeing and half-disagreeing:) ). If you have an opportunity, I'd be grateful if you would take a look. Cheers. jguk 20:41, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Better writing guide"

Hi. Concerning the "Better writing guide" and any mass redirects or deletions, you might be interested in this. It's a possible back-up plan. Maurreen 21:24, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

"Academic boosterism and snobbery are out of control on Wikipedia"

Amen, brother.

You can say that again.

I seem to remember crossing swords with you once because I thought it was self-evident that one could create an NPOV "list of notable universities." Maybe I'm thinking of someone else? Anyway I said something along the lines that it was obvious that Princeton was notable and that Alice Lloyd University in Pippa Passes, Kentucky was not. I don't remember much more...

...but I've been quite disgusted at recent showy displays of peacock-butt-plumage in the MIT article, and even more annoyed when people defended same on the grounds that the article on Harvard was just as bad. Which it is.

The MIT article has been toned down to being merely obnoxious, but at one point [1] it opened as follows:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a preeminent research institution and university. It is located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts directly across from Boston.

MIT is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world, and is consistently ranked as the top university for science and technology in the United States. It is also a world leader in many other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. Among its most famous departments and schools are the Lincoln Laboratory, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Media Lab and the Sloan School of Management.

One of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world? Good grief. I have cardinal-and-grey blood in my veins but really. Since then I've been making a point of asking people who are not U. S. nationals the simple question "What names come to mind if I ask you to name the most prestigious educational institutions in the world?" Just a reality check, to see whether I've been over-modest about my alma mater. So far, not one has mentioned MIT. Not without prompting, that is.

I think when I made my crack about Alice Lloyd University perhaps I hadn't been an active Wikipedian for long enough to see this stuff.

BTW the current Harvard article says "The school color is a shade richer than red but brighter than burgundy, referred to as crimson." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:27, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A potential explanation of the long paragraphs documenting institutions' excruciatingly narrow selectivity, dizzyingly high rankings on carefully selected lists on which they rank highly, etc. etc. is that it they arise out of an attempt at maintaining NPOV. The current Britannica is content to say of fair Harvard that she "is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States (founded 1636) and one of the nation's most prestigious. It is one of the Ivy League schools." Now, if a Wikipedia article were to say merely that Harvard is "one of the nation's most prestigious," someone might reply "sez who?" and the next thing you know how have a paragraph about how the endowment is umpteen skabillion jillion dollars and counts of Nobel prizewinners and so forth.

I'm thinking that perhaps we need a powerful tradition that all comments about university prestige, quality, influence, eminence, etc. etc. should be limited to a couple of fairly generic sentences, which should always be secondary references, and that buttressing data beyond that should go on the Talk page.

Not that I think the boosters would be likely to agree to this, of course. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:30, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think you've hit the heart of the problem: It might be okay if the article only said "among most prestigious" or something like that without a large paragraph of supporting statistics. However Wikipedia has a policy of Wikipedia:Cite sources. I've seen what happens when there's only such a statement: it gets removed by editors who claim there's no supporting evidence. So the only way to stop that is to add the supporting evidence to the page. And removing "among most prestigious" or something along those lines is bad, because a large part of the notability of these elite universities lies in their prestige; it is a fundamental part of their identity, when defined as the perception of them within society at large. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 01:25, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I think the inclusion of specific, cited facts rather than unattributed opinion is generally praiseworthy, even in these cases. "Among the most prestigious" is simply unverifiable, and completely controvertible in most of the hundreds of cases to which it will immediately be applied if Wikipedians find it acceptable. In my opinion this (and the Dartmouth case Dpbsmith describes below) is basically a problem of article style: a university's article should begin with a brief description, not a snowstorm of facts. The facts, though, have a place: later in the article. I wholly agree with Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms when it encourages editors to allow the facts to speak for themselves rather than draw explicit conclusions about significance or prestige. The concise lead section is not the place to build a circumstantial case for any article subject's significance; neither is it, though, the place for sweeping subjective claims like "prestige". I do like Dpbsmith's idea that all such claims should be direct citations from secondary sources; but this too could lead to a massive influx of quotations from college guides, none of which has a place in an article's introduction. It might actually be interesting to see such citations collated together in the body of university articles, though. -- Rbellin 07:39, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Could you (Dpbsmith and Rbellin) take a look at the newly enlarged article on Wheaton College, Massachusetts, "an active community of learners who value the liberal arts as a means for personal growth, professional success and leadership that improves the world." It goes on and on like that. OTOH I don't understand why the recent editors have removed the nice old seal that was found in the infobox of a previous version of the article. / u p p l a n d 12:51, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copyvio from http://www.wheatonma.edu/About/ . Of course. Will list as such tonight unless someone wants to do it sooner. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 17:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've drafted a guideline at User:Rbellin/Avoid academic boosterism and would be interested in seeing it improved, accepted, or rejected by other Wikipedians. -- Rbellin 19:56, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Forest-green butt feathers

YEESH. Maybe it's a "September effect?" It takes the freshmen a couple of months to find Wikipedia, maybe?

In the past few weeks, Dartmouth College's opening paragraph has swollen from

Dartmouth College is a four-year private liberal arts college in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA and a member of the Ivy League. Dartmouth was founded in 1769 by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock and Samson Occum under royal charter of King George III of Great Britain. It is the ninth-oldest college in the United States. Dartmouth's original purpose was to "Christianize", instruct and educate "Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land ... and also of English Youth and any others." Dartmouth is the smallest college in the Ivy League.

to

Dartmouth College is a private university in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA and a member of the Ivy League. It is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. In addition to its liberal arts undergraduate program, the university includes the Medical School, the Thayer School of Engineering, the Tuck School of Business, and 18 graduate programs in the arts and sciences. Dartmouth was founded in 1769 by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock and Samson Occum under royal charter of King George III of Great Britain. Dartmouth's original purpose was to "Christianize", instruct and educate "Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land ... and also of English Youth and any others." Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League, with a combined undergraduate and postgraduate enrollment of 5,683.

I probably should have known something was in the offing when the sentence "The well known film Animal House was based on Dartmouth College" was changed to "The well known film Animal House was allegedely [sic] based on the film's writer's experiences at Dartmouth College." Such "allegations" have been made by writer Chris Miller, Dartmouth '63 as well as the film's director, which to me sort of puts it out of the "allegation" category.

I love it that someone obviously thought "smallest college in the Ivy League" reflected badly on the school and tried to counter it by giving the enrollment figure. Any day now I expect to see a further edit giving some reason why it shouldn't be considered the smallest. "Although sometimes alleged to be the smallest, if you measure the enrollment properly as a percentage of the population of the town in which it is situated Dartmouth is actually the largest university in the Ivy League and among the largest universities in the United States..."

[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:28, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

HYP

May I ask you to please read the evidence that I have posted on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/HYP, follow and read some of the links that Google brings up, and consider whether afterwords you still want to delete the article? Thank you. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 08:57, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

Academic boosterism guidelines

A worthy start.

One random, tangential remark:

In an opening summary paragraph, simply noting that a university is "in the Ivy League" succinctly establishes that the university is prestigious, notable, of high academic caliber, and of historic age by U. S. standards. No more needs to be said. 90% of readers know what's implied by "Ivy League" and the rest can follow the link. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Three cheers for succinctness! Anville 14:03, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

from user 216.126.90.151

Hi there,

I read your comments regarding my posts. As I am new to Wikipedia... I am loathe to criticize your assessment that my posts belong in a blog. However, I'd like to point out a few things.

1. The area my posts were located is called "Discussion" NOT in the actual article areas which are quite clear require NPOV. NPOV for me requires a much greater commitment of references and style which at this time I do not have the time for. I decided to make posts that although perhaps may make me look like a baffoon (especially because on the controversy of the subjects), I believe might bring "fresh" thought to those who are writing the articles. I am still uncertain how I have transgressed. If possible please explain your perception as to what the "discussion" area should be used for other than for "discussion"?

2. You use the word "soapbox" to describe my opinions. I am uncertain what triggered the stance but that is very combative. As I have no previous history with you, I would think it is you that might examine your actions at having such an agreesive response to a new user.

One thing if I may be so bold to suggest? Don't clobber new users right away just because they say something you don't agree with or they slip up with some etiquette. Using "Soapbox" and suggesting I get out of here is hardly encouraging. I would have prefered edits where you disagree with me and why. And then perhaps some comments towards style dujour. Wounded pride would offer me greater incentive to go looking for sources and be more kosher to readers.

3. Your talk page makes more comments regarding academia. Academics may be influential and perhaps provide a valuable service to our biosphere, but (I believe) are numerically tiny contributers of information relative to great deal of data that is out waiting to be "discovered". Furthermore, if you'll forgive me, I don't think Wikipedia is scientific in nature. It uses citations from scientific references but unfortunately (I believe most scientists would agree) science and democracy have little in common (a comment that is philosophical onto itself :).

Contributers seem to be held to some standards (sources, grammer, spelink) but ultimately interest and tenacity seem to rule the day in the Humanities. A user could use proxies to appear as someone else at any time and continue to make edits (plus a million other problems). Until someone does a scientific investigation (not Wikipedia) of what Wikipedia's information represents... I would call it an information experiment.

4. If Deconstruction interests you, I would think you might be sympathetic to the concept of miscommunication. I don't put much into two discussion articles of a newbie. It takes along time to get a feel for someone. Unless someone starts swearing, vandalizing, or breaking some other rule of the WEBMASTER (G~d), web etiqutte allows users the attempt to communicate (Painfully pathetic as that may be).

Having said all that, I noticed you have contributed a great deal to Wikipedia. Your seem to have interests that are somewhat simlar to my own. I think we probably would have a great many things to argue/debate about.

BTW - Do you still think I belong on a blog? If not please update my talk user page to retract. No hard feelings either way.

If you don’t have time (or interest) to play with my questions below… no problem.

I should let you know I travel a bit on stream of thought and consider Deconstruction the best definition of how my mind has always operated. By kindergarten teacher said “obsessed with details” in my report card.

Both Derrida and his text is dead…all that remains are two people passing more dead words. Deconstruction interests you, as does computer science, mathematics and although I didn’t look enough deep enough through your articles… I suspect AI. I may have something to offer you although I lack academic credentials.

A little clarification as I think you are being a little wily in your response.

1. You are the one that chose to make that association (soapbox=2 essays by me + maybe future essays by me). By suggesting someone else is making the decision “the word soapbox is not mine” “it seems you are trying to say others agree. As far as I can tell so far you’re the only one that’s made that connection. Perhaps a vote of Wikipedia users should be in order? Or are willing to concede YOU thought those essays belonged on a soapbox?

2. The soapbox definition (in Wikipedia) says it applies to “Articles”. As the ‘’’Discussion’’’ tab is different than the ‘’’article’’’ tab… that suggests there is a difference between articles and discussion. If not then I suggest someone should update the definition to say “discussions” also hold the sanctity of being articles.

3. Just because someone wrote an article about soapbox… does that mean I need to follow its interpretation? As far as I can tell, it’s just another article written by whoever had the interest to write the article.

4. Is that rule enforceable? Is the webmaster the owner? Is it a convention? Who decided that convention and tested it scientifically?

Do you still think those essays belong in a soapbox? Or perhaps a more accurate statement would be Wikipedia’s definition is lacking?

I’m not looking to get into a flaming war and really do appreciate the attempted apology, but I don’t think your answer is a full retraction. I would consider the words “full retraction” acceptable…. NOT full retraction because my time is too important to waste with you. And if you have time to answer my questions….bonus.

from user 216.126.90.151 second reply

If you don’t have time (or interest) to play with my questions below… no problem.

I should let you know I travel a bit on stream of thought and consider Deconstruction the best definition of how my mind has always operated. My kindergarten teacher said “obsessed with details” in my report card.

Both Derrida and his text is dead…all that remains are two people passing more dead words. Deconstruction interests you, as does computer science, mathematics and although I didn’t look enough deep enough through your articles… I suspect AI. I may have something to offer you although I lack academic credentials.

A little clarification as I think you are being a little wily in your response.

1. You are the one that chose to make that association (soapbox = 2 essays by me + maybe future essays by me). By suggesting someone else is making the decision “the word soapbox is not mine” it seems you are trying to say others agree. As far as I can tell so far you’re the only one that’s made that connection. Perhaps a vote of Wikipedia users should be in order? Or are willing to concede YOU thought/think those essays belonged on a soapbox (which is perfectly acceptable).

2. The soapbox definition (in Wikipedia) says it applies to Articles. As the Discussion tab is different than the article tab… that suggests there is a difference between articles and discussion. If not then I suggest someone should update the definition to say “discussions” also hold the sanctity of being articles.

3. Just because someone wrote an article about soapbox… does that mean I need to follow its interpretation? As far as I can tell, it’s just another article written by whoever had the interest to write the article.

4. Is that rule enforceable? Is the webmaster the owner? Is it a convention? Who decided that convention and tested it scientifically?

Do you still think those essays belong in a soapbox? Or perhaps a more accurate statement would be Wikipedia’s definition is lacking?

I’m not looking to get into a flaming war and really do appreciate the attempted apology, but I don’t think your answer is a full retraction. I would consider the words 'full retraction' acceptable…. NOT full retraction because my time is too important to waste with you. And if you have time to answer my questions….bonus.

Regards

Just noticed something

a little something... against my own "essays"...argh. I just noticed I used the word essay to describe my writing in those instanes. Although I think my other points are still valid.... I did notice there is something in Wikipedia references that says that 'essay' is something Wikipedia is NOT. Its interesting Wikipedia articles suggest what it is not... while others decide what it is.

However as mentioned in points 3 and four before.... am I bound by a definition in another article? Does an article have special power over another article? If so where is this defined in Wikipedia? And do I only learn this at the point I am ostracized/banned because of too many complaints?

Not trying to be destructive. Really want to know the answers to this.

I have corrected myself

I think you are correct Mr. Rbellin. I will change it to an "encapsulation of Gramsci's thought and do reconsider the name of the title until further research. Sorry. WHEELER 19:01, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)