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Obama talk talk

I've been bold. I hope you don't mind. (If you do mind, then please take up the matter on my own user talk page, rather than on that talk page.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:11, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Hoary for the courtesy of notifying me. It was actually a good idea on your part. I didn't like the direction the conversation was taking. You did the right thing. Take care. Dr.K.  04:16, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I did do it with some regret, I have to say. -- Hoary (talk) 06:54, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for recognising that it is a always a tough call to modify peoples' comments. Your sensitivity is appropriate and commendable. But you modified the collapsed section title to a more appropriate one while preventing a meta-comment pile-up which had already started to occur. So, on balance, you did the right thing. Dr.K.  15:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Greetings

It's always refreshing to see your name in the history, Dr. K.! Thanks for keeping an eye on Rosetta Stone. Andrew Dalby 20:53, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I am so pleased to see your message here Andrew :) And what a delightful way to mention my edit in the article! In turn I thank you for adding your name to the history of my talk page and for your nice comments. It is an honour. Take care and my best regards. Till next time. Dr.K.  22:50, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Prahlad Jani

Oh, no problem, that's how this place works. --McGeddon (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I wish everyone shared your professionalism, collegiality and your gentlemanly attitude toward your fellow editors. Thank you very much again. Take care. Dr.K.  16:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Your retagging of that quote is a bit over-the-top, possibly to the point of unhelpfulness - Nazar is likely to assume that if some things are clearly undisputable (such as the fact that some text is in Polish), then the rest of his observations are similarly valid. It made enough of a point as it was. --McGeddon (talk) 13:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that the issue here is not the segments of information that may be verifiable but the various conjunctions that put all these bits of information together. This is the very definition of improper synthesis. If I tagged the polish language info it was in error and when I have the time I will go back and correct it. But I stand by the tagging of all the other conjunctions that clearly show that this was assembled not by a reliable source but by an editor here. Dr.K. 

πraxis 14:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I also would not describe the tagging as "over the top" and certainly not unhelpful. Here we have an editor who has repeatedly refused to admit that adding this paragraph, full of original research and synthesis, to the article is wrong and has edit-warred over months to include it and who does not seem to understand that original research and improper synthesis must not enter the article under any circumstances. Deconstructing that paragraph and clearly showing all the conjunctions where synthesis occurs is eminently helpful in making an observer understand where the synthesis occurs and it is the only tool I have to reveal the original research in the paragraph. Is it my fault that this paragraph is rife with artificial and synthetic conjunctions and thus I had to use many tags? I find it surprising that you thought it was unhelpful and over the top. Dr.K.  15:45, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's probably time to let this drop, Nazar just seems to be dragging the conversation out without conceding any points. If he goes ahead with his implied approach of "coming back to this article later", to add his own commentary again, we'll both see it crop up on our watchlists. I'll drop him another WP:OR warning and let it go, for now. --McGeddon (talk) 14:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree. Sounds like a plan. I will keep an eye on it as well. Thanks again for all your help. Take care. Dr.K.  14:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Liston

Γεια σας!

On a side note, I reorganised a bit the images of Kerkyra on Commons, and noticed many good pictures were from you. You may have a look to see if you're OK with it. However, I was disappointed to see that there is no free picture of the building of the Ionian Bouli, to illustrate an article about the Ionian Parliament. As you seem to have access to Corfu, would you be so kind to take a picture if you ever pass in front of the building? Συγνώμη ότι τα ελληνικά μου δεν είναι καλύτερα... Place Clichy (talk) 16:56, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup pour votre message. I replied there. Dr.K.  17:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

RFCs

It's generally a good idea to keep threads brief on RFCs, for the benefit of the third-party commenters you actually want to hear from. Just make your point, and hang back - you shouldn't worry about rebutting every challenge, however easy it might be to do so. The point of an RFC is that a new editor can drop by, read some basic arguments to understand the disagreement, and add their own reading of the situation. They shouldn't have to read through pages of repeated, antagonistic arguing. --McGeddon (talk) 14:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you seriously think that I didn't want to exit from that circus? Please check how many times I tried to end the one-sided debate by telling Nazar "let other users express their opinions" but to no avail. Examples from the recent RFC at Prahlad Jani's talkpage: But I am not going to reply any further. Let other editors now comment. I am done here for the moment. and I have opened another report on WP:ORN, the original research noticeboard. Since this RFC is open and there is no consensus for adding your material I would advise that we wait until a consensus is formed and stop the edit war to add the material But with, unfortunately, no success, in fact only to be accused that I was being "disruptive" and that s/he was in full compliance with Misplaced Pages's policies. In this edit-warring example s/he undid my reversion of his/her synthesis and called it an improvement, by adding more synthesis including his/her calculations of Prahlad Jani's age in order to prove the time discrepancy. I think the word "circus" does not do justice to this incident. Meanwhile when I abstained from that circus s/he came to my talk page to announce to me that I was crossing the line and I was an impediment to their adding the synthesis back to the article and to give me an ultimatum to either come up with new reasons for keeping the edit off the article or he had the right to put it right back. I was the only one around at the time defending Misplaced Pages's policies at the Prahlad Jani article when this new round of aggressive synthesis push materialised. You can imagine my position. I had to engage this user in debate in order to avert an inevitable edit-war at the article, make a report at the unresponsive WP:ORN while at the same time asking for page protection; and only at the last moment s/he rescinded and pulled back from adding this synthesis back on the article. If I did not discuss this at his/her pace this synthesis would have been put back in the article as they did at least twice yesterday. And let us not forget that we also have WP:BLP issues here. By Nazar trying to discredit Edamaruku's video without valid and reliable sources it impinges on Edamaruku's reputation and it should not be allowed in the article without verifiable, reliable third-party sourcing. Your description of repeated, antagonistic arguing I think covers this whole mess that this user started, starting from last June and I sincerely do not think that I did any antagonising by pointing out Misplaced Pages policy points and urging this user to comply to them. The "repeating" part was out of my control, because as you very well know, we had, both of us, to repeat points to this user many, many times, without any success on our part or compliance on his/her part. It would be unfair to describe just my segment of the discussion with him/her in these terms. Your protracted debates with this person also fit exactly that description and so do the discussions of Nazar with user Escape Orbit, who, for some reason (maybe wisely), did not show up in this round of the synthesis push. I still don't know why this user did not get sanctioned by the system much earlier. S/he has not even been left an official note about all this. This systemic inaction, especially for an incident of this magnitude, is really discouraging. In fact I am getting tired of this prolonged and sordid affair. I think that the system should not make it so difficult for regular editors like me and you to fight blatant synthesis. Otherwise next time, or even this one if it continues, I will simply let someone else, if any, perform this onerous task. Because this incident shows that a single, determined synthesis push can succeed due to systemic inaction. I am unwilling to take part again in the inevitably ensuing circus and especially if my good-faith arguments to try and avoid BLP and SYNTH violations are going to be interpreted as "repeated and antagonistic". Dr.K.  16:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm just saying that a lengthy back-and-forth argument isn't the best way to discuss something, particularly in an RFC. If you wait a bit longer between responses, another editor may step in and respond for you, which makes your side of the argument look much stronger. Don't feel that you have to have the last word; if you leave a personal attack without replying to it (or at least just reply to it on the editor's talk page), other editors will see it for what it is. --McGeddon (talk) 11:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with you, in theory. Except in practice very few people step in to help, especially with this article. At least that has been my experience thus far. The RFC and the first report to WP:ORN went unanswered. The only external response came in the form of an IP who supported the synthesis and was used as a pretext by Nazar to claim consensus and restore the synthesis in the article. If it were not for your timely interventions the situation would have been much worse. No other editor stepped in to help and the IP's response made matters worse. You may be right about not replying to some of the personal attacks but that works when the attacks are not that many or not so frequent. This was an unprecedented situation when even when I quoted policy I was accused of a personal attack. You cannot argue policy this way. If you reply clarifying that it was not an attack you will be accused of making more personal attacks, as it happened. This amounts to an attempt to neutralise the opposition by making false claims of personal attacks and other (false) transgressions. If you don't reply then they perceive this as their side being right and they think they have the right to add the synthesis back into the article, as explained in my reply above. Look how s/he accused us of synthesis and tendentious editing simply for defending Misplaced Pages's policies. Such policy-defying, logic-inverting debating tactics are more suited to a street-brawl than encyclopedia-building. And the worst part is, there is still no warning by the system to this user. I won't be surprised if they return unabated as they already did once. Their current response at WP:ORN is not looking that promising. Dr.K.  15:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:ORN got a good response in the end, and Nazar isn't bringing anything new to the table. With all due respect, I think we're looking at a WP:DEADHORSE here, and I don't think it helps to pile on extra policy warnings when WP:OR and WP:RS already have things covered. --McGeddon (talk) 16:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

But the user still has not accepted that s/he violated WP:SYNTH or WP:OR or any of the other policies. So I just reminded them of the ORN commentary and WP:REDFLAG; because they have a tendency, and you also reminded them of that, to agree with consensus at first and then return with more vigour opposing consensus adding new objections and PAs. Also WP:NPA, WP:NLT are very important and they stand on their own merits. If these are the policies you meant in your message above, I disagree that we should not mention them, if they are violated, because they are fundamental. That many other policies were also not adhered to, is not a reason to leave these unmentioned. They have their own significance and purpose, which is not covered by other policies, but I will not elaborate further because I clearly made these points on the article talkpage. So I really do not understand your remark of piling on, especially with a user who apparently insists on a WP:POINT and yields no ground. Dr.K.  17:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Names of Greek PMs.

As a Greek speaker, you will understand these things better than I do - I simply record what I observe. But these middle letters seem to be important in Greek - for example, Konstantinos G. Karamanlis and Konstantinos A. Karamanlis are different people, as are Georgios Papandreou and Georgios A. Papandreou. The initial seems to be the Greek way to differentiate between them, so it is worth noting. My understanding is that these are patronymics rather than middle names, so this is what I recorded. BartBassist (talk) 12:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that. But we cannot record these observations as to what these middle initials are, or the ones about middle names, because they are not cited and they are valid for most Greek names anyway. These observations are not exclusive to the names of the prime ministers. If cited, they belong in the Greek name article and we do not have to repeat them for each prime minister's name. What I have done is add the middle initial to these prime ministers but I also have added a citation to verify the fact, without the uncited observations. Your edits insofar as they pointed to the need to add the middle initial to the names have been helpful. But unfortunately the middle initial/name observations have to go, as uncited and generic to all Greek names. I hope this helps. Dr.K.  15:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll add the initial to Konstantinos G. Karamanlis as well. BartBassist (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought I did that, but please go right ahead. Thank you very much. take care. Dr.K.  16:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

		Keeper of the Roll Award
		The Keeper of the Roll Award is awarded to User:Dr.K. for substantial contributions to the Service Awards Scheme. Mootros (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much Mootros for the nice award. I really appreciate it, even though my contributions in this area pale in comparison to yours :) Kudos for your great and tasteful contributions. Take care. Dr.K.  18:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

ANI

Thanks for the heads up - I haven't any great experience of legal threats, so I'll leave it to others to comment. --McGeddon (talk) 11:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You are very welcome. Thank you again for your help during this case. Take care. Dr.K.  14:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Straight razor

The GA review has started on Straight razor. It was put on hold for seven days to allow issues to be addressed - the main one being the need for reliable sources. See Talk:Straight razor/GA1 for more details. Any questions, please ping me on my talkpage or send me an email. SilkTork * 22:07, 13 August 2010 (UTC)