User talk:Ray Foster

I'm a new subscriber to Wikipedia so I'm low on the learning curve in terms of navigating the site and using its function. If you have a question for me you may contact me here or via my e-mail link and I'll try to answer you.

AMA Request for Assistance

Evening. I'm Wally, an advocate for the AMA, and not long ago I read of your request for assistance on our page. After reading thoroughly the relevant sections on the deafness article (might I ask, just as a stylistic point, if the article ought be "Deafness" rather than "Deaf"?) I feel that my aid might be helpful in resolving the dispute over the page. Where deafness and issues regarding the deaf are concerned I have little practical experience beyond the experiences of family members with hearing impairment; however, in this case I feel that a detached viewpoint might be useful to all parties.

If you're amenable, I would like to begin by going directly to mediation over the relevant sections of the article - I believe the issue is both heated and specific enough to warrant proceeding through requests for comment. With your leave I'd like to contact a mediator and request the following:

• Until a mediator is found and appointed, please refrain from editing or commenting on the page and encourage others to do so.
• Please make a detailed list of both your specific objections to the article (basically what, where and why) as well as your objections to the conduct of other users regarding the article.
• Please be ready both to cooperate in any way possible with the mediator and other Wikipedians who might take differing points-of-view in the debate.
• Most importantly, please be ready to accept the recommendations of the mediator and to make compromises on relevant sections of the article. If you find by the end of this stage that this is not possible, arbitration can be requested and the page can be protected; however, in general arbitration is requested regarding people, not articles. In this case (very fortunately), there appears to be no "bogeyman", simply a dispute as to both process and outcome.

Where personal advice is concerned, while I feel your initial comments on the page were rather strong, and in places perhaps even inflammatory, I believe that following that point you made sincere and forthright efforts to reconcile the differences of all parties to mutual satisfaction, assistance in that endeavor being my reason for offering my help. As for the article itself, I can certainly see where your complaints originate, and that changes to uphold the article's neutrality are necessary.

The only specific note I have is that, while your offer to remove the dispute to a private, protected website in order to hash out the disputes in an amicable way were both good-natured and serious on your part, Wikipedia is committed to transparency at all levels of the article-writing process, and therefore part of the reason that response was lacking to that proposal was that other authors wanted to keep it on the page where it would be archived - this should have been stated to you, however, and the non-response of other disputants was, in my opinion, not called for.

Cordially yours, and looking forward to assisting you,

Wally 08:32, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Understood. I welcome the offer of a mediator and I'll begin preparation of material that you've suggested to get the article back on a good footing. I should mention, however, that I immediately followed the advice of your fellow AMA representative and made a Request for Comment that has already drawn attention and comment to the article. I did this before you offered your assistance. Should I withdraw the Request for Comment? My offer to hold the discussion elsewhere had only to do with unfamiliarity with the Wiki concept. I agree that the discussion should take place within the confines of Wikipedia so that it benefits all with an understanding of the evolution of the article.

Ray Foster 02:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• See my e-mail; in short, however, the RFC note is fine, and you may add it or not at your leisure. However, given the circumstances I thought having a mediator (more as a "trained eye" than anything else) would be most effective. Wally 07:45, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's good. I've posted the request for a mediator, as of yesterday - no word on an appointment yet. Also, FYI, next time please post comments on my talk page, not my main page. Took me until my second month to get the fine tuning of the message system, so don't worry - you're definitely above the curve. :) Wally 05:10, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Update

No word yet on the mediation page. If I don't hear anything by the New Year I'll go to the head of the mediation committee personally to request at least the courtesy of a reply. I'm rather surprised it's taken so long, but I suppose it is the holiday season.

By the way, a question. Another user has posted a request for assistance on the AMA page, and no one has replied to him yet. I wanted to put my name in as a last resort in case they can't find anyone else who is unoccupied to assist him. Is this all right with you, or would you prefer I not? Wally 02:59, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, Dcreemer has agreed to participate in mediation, if that goes through. He's asked to be assigned an advocate of his own, and I've promised to find him one. Doubt it'll be necessary - truth of the matter is that this whole thing is amicable enough that I doubt either of you will need one once the ball gets rolling. Means are as important as ends, however. Wally 05:18, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Acknowledgement and Final Clarifications

Before I address your last message, there are issues I feel ought to be clarified. I will do so also to Dcreemer, Keith Tyler and on the requests for mediation page.

First of all, I proceeded directly to mediation with the thought that given the nature of the debate and given that the actors and the issues had become melded together it would be best to proceed directly to mediation, which I was not aware would be such a slow and in the end unfruitful process. I felt that the existing guidelines were to be negotiated based upon what all parties thought best, and this is what I advised. I did not feel requests for comment would be warranted, first given the hotly-personal nature of your debate with Dcreemer and secondly due to the lack of positive response to the initial RfC. I see now that you have apologized for and negative behavior to Dcreemer and asked to work with him, a development of which I was not aware. When this dispute first started I examined the procedures in place along the hierarchy of dispute resolution and decided that, a discussion having already been attempted and insufficient users in place to effect a quickpoll, as well as the lack of reply to the RfC, necessitated mediation. I did not "skip" steps and I apprised you at the time of all of these deliberations, to which you agreed. If you had questions, I wish you had come to me and not to Keith, who was mediating for another party. Given that, and given the fact that the dispute is now strictly professional rather than both professional and personal, I agree that mediation is unnecessary. I stand by the recommendation I made initially under the circumstances which then existed, as well as the appropriateness of that request.

Also, I did not at any time ask you to block off the page, and I did not do such. I asked you to not edit the page and encourage others to do likewise, which at no point should have been construed as a request that you, acting on your own authority, should close off the page. I am sorry that I did not recognize this problem and fix it, and it was a miscommunication. I will note this on the request for mediation page as well as the fact that you believed you were acting under right auspices due to my lack of clarity on the matter, and that it was not out of malice. However, it should be clear that such action was neither what I requested nor what I advised, nor would I have beyond requesting protection of the page by an appropriate source, should the dispute have come there.

I am both relieved and pleased that this dispute appears to be heading along the road towards an amicable solution, and am grateful of whatever efforts I made, or assisted you or others in making, towards that end. If you feel the need to avail yourself of further suggestions or advice in the future, I am at your disposal.

Wally 21:20, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deafness

I removed the Category:Medicine link from deafness. A small look at that category reveals that this category does not simply contain everything medical. Even cancer is not categorised directly in this category. Rather, as deafness is the concern of otolaryngologists, I placed it in Category:Ear, nose and throat surgery, which you then replaced with Medicine again. Deafness is presently well categorised... JFW | T@lk 13:44, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Ray, I must discuss some misgivings with you that I'm having with the whole Deaf Culture thing. As I explained to User:Pengo on Talk:Deaf, I strongly resist the use of partisan terminology on Wikipedia, and I will not accept that the article title deaf redirects to anything other than hearing impairment. This is because MOST readers, when looking for information on deafness, are NOT primarily interested in the cultural phenomenon that you and others have been pushing forcefully.

I have always learnt not to push people in categories, and I find it odd that deaf individuals should feel they belong to a seperate cultural entity. I do understand some may feel the need to identify culturally, but ON WIKIPEDIA, this should be covered in one major article, termed deaf culture. This avoids endless edit wars, redirect idiocy and vociferous fights.

As a bonus, I wrote a new article on Pendred syndrome. JFW | T@lk 00:59, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

List of transgendered people

Lecter actually told Clarice, in his cell, that Jame Gumb was not transgendered or transsexual. Dysprosia 23:45, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

SEE article

Hello Ray. Let me start by saying thank you for your additions to the articles on issues surrounding the Deaf. I think you were the one to add the paragraph that confused me to the SEE article though. I do not understand what you mean by this sentence. "Tremendous confusion is cited by the deaf also since, while in the process of acquiring SEE, the teacher often reverts to explaining the system in Signed English which permits the teacher to simultaneously speak while using manual communication." How do you revert to SEE when you are using SEE in the first place? Qaz

Do you mind if I answer that? (Not sure what the etiquette is here.) SEE and Signed English are not the same thing. SEE1 and SEE2 are specific forms of manually coded English, with a set of strict rules for both signs and construction. Signed English, on the other hand, is a more freeform type of communication; it follows the general structure of spoken English but also incorporates ASL features such as directional verbs and listing. -Etoile 16:25, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Added - I've created the Manually Coded English article, which may help clarify for you. -Etoile 20:28, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User language boxes for sign language

Hello :)

I just created user language boxes for sign language, similar to the ones that exist for spoken languages. You may like to have a look. Any feedback is of course welcome!

Cheers, ntennis 09:09, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Hello

I just stumbled on your user page after finding the article on sign language in Martha's Vinyard. It sounds like you have been working hard to educate Wikipedia users and editors about deaf culture, and that's awesome. :)

I was wondering if you'd have an opinion on something. I am not deaf; in fact I am somewhat ignorant of the subject and hope you will take all of what I am about to say in good faith, because I am trying to learn.

From what I understand, culturally deaf people don't think of themselves as people with disabilities. There's a growing list of disability rights activists, which I have been working on, and I don't know where people who promote deaf culture should go. Though I read about deaf culture and deaf activists in disability rights books, maybe some or all of them would not consider themselves disability rights activists. All the same, I wonder if a list of promoters of deaf culture would be a nice thing to have around. I know that I would certainly learn a lot. I realize that there's a list of deaf people around, but to me this doesn't seem to be quite the same thing.

What do you think? --Jacquelyn Marie 17:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject on Sign language, Deaf culture and deafness

Hi, I am writing you in regards to a proposed WikiProject I am a part of: User:Ntennis/Deaf WikiProject proposal. You have previously contributed to/ expressed interest in Deaf related articles and thus we thought you might be interested in participating in our WikiProject. If you are, please add your name to the list at either User:Ntennis/Deaf WikiProject proposal or Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List of proposed projects#Deaf and give your input! Thank you! Gaep13^(talk) 04:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Grand argument story

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Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)