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Email

Is it possible for you to enable it and/or for you to email me (which means I can then email you)? There is something I'd like to discuss off project. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I quite deliberately don't enable my email I'm afraid or use it for WP stuff - partly because I have slightly moralistic views about communicating off-site, even when well intentioned, but also because it means I can keep both my time and identity here quarantined and completely separate from anything else. That way I know that I'm only involved in WP issues when I'm actually logged in to this site (which has been more than I'd rather recently anyway). Happy to try to help with anything if I can though ... N-HH talk/edits 20:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

My post was basically about my very strong concerns about Gun Powder Ma's agenda with regards to this edit. It really comes across that he wants to try and squash all Islamic achievements and push a POV on it. This is a much more serious concern than others I've had before. I was thinking of taking my concerns to ANI, before escalating to an RFC/U if GPM doesn't manage to improve his editing at ANI. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:17, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC/U is an escalation from ANI? That's news to me. From an outside perspective, it is quite a bad edit. It's fairly widely established that the Islamic empires were quite tolerant of other people's of the book. CMD (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, it seems that you are correct, RFC/U does appear to be the appropriate next step. I'm clearly out of touch with the rules :). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

One of the reasons I reacted fairly harshly to his note above was my sense, from looking at his edits, that this was an issue (as well as his post being the latest in a rush of people coming to tell me off for this that or the other), even if there are plenty of far worse and far more obvious editors with agendas here. To be fair, looking into the history a bit, it does seem that he and others have had to do a bit of work dealing with the consequences of some overenthusiastic "Islam invented everything!" type editing recently. But that doesn't mean we have to go all out the other way. As for RFC vs ANI, I'd say that ANI is more suited to egregious misbehaviour, where summary "justice" of a sort is required, while an RFC is better for airing less clear-cut but possibly more persistent problems. If there is an issue here, it would seem to be closer to the latter. N-HH talk/edits 21:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Reading over, that may have come off a bit short. I didn't mean it to be, I genuinely didn't know. I've not seen these latest edits that are problematic, but I've seen GunPowderMa make some good edits, so perhaps the fires of AN/I might be a bit much to go straight into. On a slightly more philosophical note, perhaps my commenting here has proved some point about email communication. Not sure what it would be though. CMD (talk) 22:38, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

To be fair March 2011 isn't that recent. With regards to the issue there seems no reason as per the policy to use ANI at all, and that Arbcom would be the next step. To be honest that's probably a good thing as while ANI looks to have improved it doesn't seem to be working brilliantly. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I genuinely don't know either, it was just a sense I started to get. It may be unfair - and after all we all have our own biases, subconscious or otherwise - but often it's editing that relies on decent sourcing and well reasoned arguments that's a bigger problem here, precisely because it appears proficient rather than as the borderline vandalism of raving ethnic, cultural or continental chauvinism. It's only when you realise that the edits focus on a particular topic area and have a particular slant, and that the academic sources are usally from books by academics or institutions with a clear agenda and that sources, wherever they are from, are often being cherry-picked and misinterpreted, that you twig there's an issue. I'm not saying that is the case here, but it does happen. As for the email communication point, maybe having had this discussion in the open counts as an informal mini-RFC all by itself (albeit with only a couple of participants)? Anyway, probably best dropped for now here unless it does move to a more formal venue ... N-HH talk/edits 09:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Death of Carole Waugh

Your comments on the AfD were good, shamefully unheeded. See my and other remarks on Sarah Stierch's talk page.86.173.254.83 (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It just seemed obvious to me, if not to some others, that this was not an encyclopedia topic, and I wasn't prepared to let that go, even in the face of indifference and in some cases outright opposition. Unfortunately, I am sure that the haggling over what to do with it would have been as disturbing for family and friends as the existence of the page in the first place. Although such upset in itself is not necessarily a reason not to have articles more generally, it certainly compounds the error in cases like this. With the media, with or without Leveson, you have to take it for granted that they are going to cover things like this for a brief period, and do so in a slightly salacious fashion - but as you have said, one would expect better of an encyclopedia that acts as a permanent record, especially one whose pages jump out at the top of Google searches. The problem is that so long as there are one or two people willing to defend the status quo on anything here and effectively veto any change, content tends to end up staying, as a bid to do anything about it will always end with a decision that says, at best, "no consensus". N-HH talk/edits 08:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Because sometimes the one who everyone said was wrong and who loses the (first) discussion turns out to have been right. And because such losses can suck. Well, as is becoming clear now, you understood NOTNEWSPAPER when others didn't. Kudos. JN466 00:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I just found the whole thing bizarre really and was simply confused that anyone, from the creator to the 6-7 Keep "votes" at the first AFD, was backing the entry up. While I agree with Paul that we need some kind of more detailed guidance on crime cases for the borderline cases, this one clearly fell short even under existing, more general, rules. It should just have gone with the prod and saved everyone here and, as subsequently turned out, in the real world the grief - but when people got stuck in to defend it I wasn't going to back off (to the point of being accused of being "tedious"). Despite being accused of as much, I also never took it personally, not least because the reason I pushed it so hard was precisely because the case seemed so obvious and remained so, despite the initial AFD debate. I like to think I am as objective as one can reasonably be about discussions here. Nor is there much satisfaction to be gleaned now. If anything, the main point it reveals is the randomness of the AFD process, in that this time round we seem to be heading for a clear delete. Plus that sometimes editors here need to have an eye open as to the potential impact of what we do on other people. N-HH talk/edits 08:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Gates of Vienna

Any chances you have a look at that article? It needs some objective intervention and you are good at that. Thanks. --E4024 (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the suggestion. However, I think I'm done with WP arguments for the week at least. Plus, with that article I think my view is that it should probably be deleted - it's just a crappy, nasty website out on the margins of political debate. That said, I would say I'm wary of overusing definitive pejorative labels on WP, if that's the primary nature of the discussion there. Even if you can find several sources that back up the claim that thing X is of type Y (where Y is a subjective description or label of some sort), I'm never sure what that proves really in many cases - if you look hard enough, you can usually find a fairly decent source that claims anything you want it to, for example Herbert Hoover was the best US president ever, or that Tony Blair is a socialist. N-HH talk/edits 16:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

ps: while I think about it, I'd add as well that I've never been convinced by most of the generic "Anti-XX sentiment" articles, or at least much of their content and the associations made with them. It's too easy to lump things under those banners, and while some of their content is legitimate and based on serious analysis that explicitly defines the examples cited in the relevant terms, most of the articles in question are a mass of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH built on fairly random laundry lists of things that are merely presumed or asserted to be relevant examples. N-HH talk/edits 17:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Small favour request

Dear N-HH, thank you for your efforts towards making WP a better encyclopedia. I will request you a favour. Now that I see your talk on "Ottoman Empire", looking again at the article I see that in the infobox, section history, the date of the promulgation of the Republic of Turkey is written as 29.10.1923 1922! The other day I worked a bit to reconcile a wording on the lead of that article and at the same time took the liberty to correct several data in the infobox. Now I feel bad if I caused that anomaly about 1923 and 1922 all together and cannot fix it. Could you please delete the year 1922 from that infobox section? Thanks in advance and all the best. --E4024 (talk) 17:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't quite work that one out (as presumably, you couldn't) - the infobox layout when opened for editing doesn't seem to follow the order on the page, and removing what I thought was the stray reference to 1922 doesn't have the desired effect. Sorry! N-HH talk/edits 18:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

film-test.info

What are you doing? Even smaller websites (this is the other co-sponsored by the international film distributors) represent a legitives means the system of press freedom and the page is received in Germany and regularly frequented. This is not a private site but part of a publishing house. Every official review is part of the freedom of the press, which you will notice not just! Shame on you. If you see errors in the postings, help with rather to improve them to help with the presentation of a specific topic! Everyone can contribute to! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juragraf (talk • contribs) 08:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say here. You haven't addressed the problem as to why you are adding links and reviews from a little-known - here at least - German-language site to the English-language Misplaced Pages, and doing so on multiple pages and, it would seem, from multiple accounts (deliberately or otherwise). There are plenty of high-profile and respected English-language publications that can be and are used to source reviews and critical reception here. N-HH talk/edits 09:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello. sorry if we made mistakes by inserting the summaries of the test reports, it was not intentional. There should also be no hidden or obscured. We are concerned solely about showing (just on the English side), like this film, for example, in Germany or France or Spain will be evaluated. This comparative presentation of test-opinions is interesting to the reader! Isn´t it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juragraf (talk • contribs) 09:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

You might think it worth adding material from this site, written by unknown critics, on multiple pages, but quite a few people, myself included, seem to take the opposite view (and when you say "we", are you admitting there's something of a combined effort going on here?). WP has to be selective about what reviews are highlighted and linked to. If all your additions from this site are being reverted, it might be time to conclude that it's not worth adding them. You can always ask at the film or TV wikiprojects (where regular and active editors with a specific interest in those topics discuss relevant issues), or at the site-wide reliable sources noticeboard for wider input as to what people here think about the worth of that site. Note as well that you can/should add a signature and timestamp by adding four tildes to the end of your comments on talk pages. N-HH talk/edits 09:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

that seems to make no sense! ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juragraf (talk • contribs) 09:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

your edits seems to be very subjective - do u have a professional education in that parts? or are u a private editor-rambo as many others here in wikipedia? Juragraf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I have explained the basic point at issue and have explained where you can get wider input if you think my view - and that of other editors - is too "subjective" compared to your self-implied objectivity. I am now getting bored of being abused by someone who can't even write proper English. Discussion closed. N-HH talk/edits 10:01, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

we are not against you, but you have to accept different (critical) views - this is the winning of journalistic freedom! Juragraf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Sean Smith (diplomat)

Don't worry, no offence taken in the slightest! Regards, GiantSnowman 21:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd actually be tempted to go to AFD, but I can see it just generating grief for all concerned, both here and possibly in the real world, with the end result of it still being here anyway. The combination of it being the recent killing of an American (apparently) at the hands of radical Islamists, together with him being a noted figure in the online gaming scene means there's unlikely to be a consensus to remove the entry on a US-editor-dominated online encyclopedia - and I don't say that to be derogatory or sarky either, just as a realistic observation. N-HH talk/edits 22:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I do intend to go to AfD - just not quite yet, given the circumstances, and thought it useful to gauge people's thoughts. GiantSnowman 14:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't let me know if you do! I'm not sure I can cope with getting involved in another AFD (or move request). Two is more than enough, especially when each is full of people just making endless random and unsupportable assertions about the rules here and/or what real-world evidence on a topic actually says. Unfortunately, as my user page acknowledges, I find it hard to let nonsense go unchallenged or to let anything go when the correct outcome seems so obvious. As I said, with that one I think that although it's probably clear what the proper outcome should be, it'll be extra-hard to get it through. Waiting seems sensible as well, not least for reasons of tact, but also because with a bit of perspective people are likely to be less subjectively invested in it. N-HH talk/edits 14:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The town where Sparta was

Is there any example you know of an obsure modern town where a famous place once stood? I checked but can't find a town where Sparta or Troy stood that goes by a different name. I think it would be helpful if we could find an "Obscuropolos" that stands where "Famousburg" once stood. This would also skew Google book results in the same way and serve as a useful analogy. Chrisrus (talk) 15:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with Sparta or Troy, as you've found, is that there's probably no continuity with any modern settlement or area, which is what is needed. If any city or defined area lacks a direct connection with the old one, we'd always just have two separate articles and names anyway. However, we do have a switch of name for a continuous entity, as highlighted elsewhere, with Gdansk (modern Polish name for the city, and universally accepted as the English-language standard today for contemporary references) vs Danzig (old German name - and also a common name in other contexts, eg Glenn Danzig and his eponymous band) and Didymoteicho (modern Greek name for a city in Thrace on the Greek-Turkish border) vs Dimetoka/Demotika (old Ottoman and pre-Ottoman name). In simple unfiltered google.co.uk book searches, Danzig beats Gdansk by 5.32 million to 1.96 million. Dimetoka alone has 11,000 results (Demotika has 15,100) compared to Didymoteicho's 614. The latter in particular is skewed because it seems to have been a major town in Byzantine and Ottoman times under its old name - several emperors and one sultan were born there, a major battle was fought nearby and it was briefly even capital of the Ottoman empire, apparently. It's almost the perfect counter-example - but I raised it and got accused of being racist, while people simply have refused to engage with the point, perhaps unsurprisingly because of what an honest answer might say. Maybe someone's answered the point better now, but I can't face looking at the moment.

Looking for islands, a quick look around here also reveals Sazan Island, now part of Albania and hence filed here under its modern Albanian name. However, its Italian name Saseno yields 4,260 Google Book hits against only 1,340 for the modern name. I guess the Bulgarian, Albanian and (FYROM) Macedonian border areas might yield further examples in respect of Greece, but naturally I really don't recommend going to the last one! If you wanted less explosive ones (in this immediate context at least), again I guess Poland-Germany or former Austria-Hungarian lands in central Europe might offer some prospects. There must be other islands, in the western and central Med as well. To be honest though, I'd have said the examples above all more than prove the point - which should be a given anyway - that we don't rely on Google Book search numbers for this kind of thing. Anyway, now for some raki, oddly enough, and to enjoy the rest of my Saturday ... N-HH talk/edits 16:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

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Re: Tenedos debates

N-HH, you are an experienced editor and your contributions are valued. But there is a point where sometimes editors need to be reminded of the lessons in this essay: WP:DEADHORSE. There is no doubt that every editor who has participated in the Tenedos discussions, including the RM and Move Review knows what your position is. Essentially telling every other editor who participates in the discussion who has an opinion counter to yours, that they are wrong and you are right is counterproductive, and contributes little to the resolution of the discussion. More importantly, it contributes little to and even detracts from your personal credibility in the discussion. State your position, let it stand on its merits, and let others do the same. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't give a shit. Don't link to stupid essays on my page and don't patronise me about being valued and experienced. I have to repeat myself because some people really don't seem to get even the simplest point, and others then come in to say "well, they may be wrong, but let's allow their opinion to count". I don't get stuck into these things just for fun you know, I do it because some people need some fucking sense knocked into them. And why don't you go and tell everyone else involved - many of whom have posted just as much as I have - to stop claiming that books about the Trojan War don't count for anything in this context rather than coming here to tell me to stop pointing it out to them. Sorry, this place is, as noted, a joke. When you give equal billing to fuckwits and those with closed minds, you're going to get a decision that says "there's no consensus to declare the earth round, so we shan't". Good luck with that. N-HH talk/edits 15:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Have a coffee!

	You deserved it
	Too little for all your efforts on the Bozcaada naming dispute, but very well deserved. Thank you very much for trying hard to make WP a better encyclopedia. E4024 (talk) 15:43, 19 September 2012 (UTC)