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My Comment at Arbcom

I don't want to be belligerent, but I honestly don't see the attack. Was it me calling it a game? Tarc was doing an 'experiment' to 'prove a point' and even stated it's 'been fun to pretend' and characterized the act as a 'schtick' done to 'push peoples buttons'. I don't think it is a far cry to call that playing a game.

As for the conclusion, while mine doesn't match his, I think its relevant because I'm saying he argued a point he didn't agree with, but was capable of doing so without being offensive. Something several other participants failed to do. So again, I'm not seeing the attack as it specifically states he wasn't being, as I said, a raving hateball.

If you still think its an attack, I understand but disagree. But did I at least get why, or am I still not seeing it? 204.101.237.139 (talk) 16:03, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll have to think about it. I need to take my wife to a doctor's appointment, so I'll get back to you. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I now see it as your misinterpretation of Tarc's comments, rather than an attack. If there's somewhere you want me to withdraw the statement, I suppose I should. I do apologize for my hyperbole. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:35, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

You make a difference

	Hello Arthur Rubin, Lionelt has given you a delicious Chick-Fil-A sammie, for your faithful service and commitment to Misplaced Pages! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a delicious Chick-Fil-A sammie! Enjoy!

Please see Misplaced Pages:Purpose

Besides Misplaced Pages:Purpose, see wp:Audience among others ... 108.73.113.212 (talk) 23:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

You're still the same blocked person. See also WP:NOTHERE (you're clearly mostly here to emphasize your favorite Wikilinks) and WP:DENY. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Estate tax in the United States

For what it's worth, the material I added to this article seems pretty straight-forward to me. Those who support the estate tax commonly consider it ridiculously unfair to get rid of this, of all taxes. The whole thing screams rich people protecting rich people, wanting their children to come out on top, and rationalizing why this is all for the greater good. I'll say I was interested to see how closely, but not exactly surprised, that the Alstott article seems to cover all of these points. I notice Rawls is in the first citation. As she later says, "Starting from conditions of equality, if everyone could then agree to make a change, either despite their divergent views and interests and prejudices (this is Ackerman's device) or from a position in which they cannot know their station (this is Rawls's original position), then the substance of their agreement would be worthy of respect." A few paragraphs up: "One familiar device, used in varying forms by different theorists, is to inquire whether citizens debating the issue in some (more-or-less) ideal setting might consent to inequality. Even without entering into the debates over just how thick the veil of ignorance ought to be.... one can imagine a plausible range of solutions, all involving significant (but not confiscatory) taxation of inheritance...." All I did, in the last bit you removed, was to clarify what this argument from the "veil of ignorance" is in fact, most simply, alleging: that people oppose the tax due to vested interests rather than sound philosophy. Of course, many more people can be led to oppose something when you come up with a good phrase, like "death tax," and ask them how they feel about that.

Incidentally, I wonder how you take the first argument under the opposition section. "People should not be punished because they work hard." Is this not silly? If people shouldn't be punished for working hard, how do they support taxing earned income over inheritance? Then we have, "Free market critics of the estate tax also point out that many attempts at validating the estate tax assume the superiority of socialist/collectivist economic models." And then "For example, proponents of the tax commonly argue that 'excess wealth' should be taxed without offering a definition of what 'excess wealth' could possibly mean and why it would be undesirable if procured through legal efforts." This is argument by buzz word! Admittedly I am interested that to the author, and many readers, it seems to be inconceivable that, in any amount or in any context, putting unearned money into one person's hands but not another's, could be "undesirable." I bet a classroom of kids would get it, if we tried it on them. Not that criticism of "excess wealth" is actually a prominent argument. YMMV.

If I'm cynical, I say people oppose the estate tax so strongly exactly because of its manifest fairness. It's a tax that promotes equality of opportunity (not of results), self reliance, earning your own way, the basic connection between wealth and the entitlement to benefit from that wealth that economic conservatives assume in defending the inequality in our system. A tax that makes things more fair than they otherwise would be? That must be stopped! This, I'll acknowledge is "original research," in the sense that I don't care to find someone else who had the same thought.

Apologies for polluting your page here with a bit of chatter, but the truth is I suspect you didn't read the Alstott article very carefully. It isn't anything like an op-ed -- it's a careful analysis of how political lefties approach this topic. Seems quite comprehensive to me, and it certainly covers the material I included. Not that it bothers me too much if you delete a bit. I seem to be here for catharsis, mainly, if you'll please not use that against me. 67.168.11.194 (talk) 04:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Robert N. Rooks

I know it was not your intention to create a controversy, but I went and looked at the links in the restored version. Virtually none count as reliable sources under BLP, and especially BLPCRIME, I feel. They are mostly court documents, news reports about the court case that are one-time events, and market wire pr releases. The effect is to add up to an attack page. So instead of replacing the prod, I tagged it for CSD as an attack page. There was also some discussion at the BLP noticeboard about this page: Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Robert_N._Rooks. Thanks. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 13:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

It seemed that way to me, also, although news reports about the court case, even if "one-time events", might be evidence of notability, even if not usable for the underlying facts.

However, as, looking at the "article", I was going to delete it as {{db-person}}; I wanted to have reviewers note that there had been something there before. For what it's worth, I saw the article only because I noticed the BLPPROD notice on an editors talk page, which I had previously warned for vandalism. I hadn't see the Rooks article at all before then. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:09, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Either way, we both appear to agree this article qualifies as BLP violation and should be deleted. I can see your point about the two reliable sources that mention him in passing, but as passing mentions I basically ignored them. A slight difference in interpretation, then. Thanks again. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME is irrelevant, as it is about reporting suggestions that someone has committed a crime before a conviction has occurred, and in this case it is clear that convictions have taken place. (That the existence of a court document relating to a case is no evidence of notability of anyone involved in the case is self-evident, but why it should be regarded as an unreliable source I have no idea. It is surely the most reliable source of all for the fact of a conviction. Suitable sources for establishing notability and suitable sources for verification of facts are not by any means always the same.) It does seem to me that the available sources (by which I mean both those cited and others I have found on searching) fail short of establishing notability by Misplaced Pages's standards, and so deletion via AfD would seem reasonable. However, the sources do confirm the essential facts recorded in the article, so I cannot see it as WP:CSD#G10 candidate, "biographical material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced". JamesBWatson (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

In reply to James, who said, "It is surely the most reliable source of all for the fact of a conviction," when we assess these things we always should check whether the appeal period has passed and whether an appeal was file. My whiteboard is a good source for what it says right now, after all. If I don't erase it soon enough, it will be stained that way permanently. Anyone on the outside thinking about my whiteboard's status rather needs some idea of the status of potential erasure in order to really know what to make of it all. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:56, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but that applies no more to court records than to any other source, such as a newspaper which may have been published before an appeal. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:35, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Natch.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I haven't checked the deletion reason, but I agree with the editors other than Eggishorn here. There is little evidence of notability (but I believe a blanked version should have been safe from A7), and some of the sources would have been BLP-reliable. I don't think we have enough non-primary sources to support notability, so it should fail at AfD. I'm not going to complain if it was speedied, as that would be making a WP:POINT, but I don't think it should have been. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:48, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Seeing as how this article bounced through every article deletion process the wiki has (save office actions), I'm not very concerned as to the how it finally departed this vale of tears, just that it did. I've never been one for preferring policy to results. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:41, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Wayward IP?

Hi Arthur - I noticed that you removed the statement(?) from the user:99.181.131.235 from my talk page, and blocked him for three months. I'm curious as to why all this happened. I didn't see any history of vandalism, and I just saw a statement from him to me requesting help. Please let me know - take care... Dinkytown talk 08:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

He's the same person as the blocked editor noted in User:Arthur Rubin/IP list, although I am unlikely to catch all of them, as he occasionally makes only one or two edits. Adding the 130kB "notes" is a relatively new improper action, starting this month. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:06, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Some background is here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:08, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of interest

A discussion you may be interested in is this RFC, a proposal to make the second comma in a date/place optional. United States Man (talk) 04:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarification on three-revert rule

Hello. Yesterday, you posted on my Talkpage a warning for violation of the three-revert rule. Yet I notice that in your own edit history shows far greater number of reversions during a recent 24-hour period. I get the impression, perhaps mistaken, that you regularly—at least lately—exceed three reversions per such period. Please, will you clarify to me what how either I am mistaken about this or what qualifies this activity of yours ? — Occurring (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Further reading the rules, I presume I have resolved part of my confusion—the rule applies to a single article. What I do not understand, however, is that the warning placed on my page indicates that virtually any change at all to any previous editors' work—unless, presumably, it is by neutral addition—counts as as not only a revision but a reversion. Yet the page describing a revert itself suggests that a revert is, rather, a full undoing of a particular editor's work. — Occurring (talk) 21:26, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

@Occurring: any undoing of part of an editor's work is considered a reversion. In some cases, if you deleted an editor's contribution, then modifying it might be considered a reversion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Pythagorean triple

Re https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Pythagorean_triple&diff=next&oldid=579416318 -- maybe you meant to undo one of the two earlier edits of FJackson? --JBL (talk) 00:54, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Both, actually. I question the importance of the entire bullet point. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:01, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Re: Reverted Vandalism

I am not a Vandalizer please stop reverting valid content and making false accusations

Edit: my mistake I do not think you were talking about me

sorry for the misunderstanding if there was one — Preceding unsigned comment added by Editguy111 (talk • contribs)

I reverted the anon sockpuppet. You need to talk to Chewings72 (talk · contribs). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:57, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Given your beliefs as per your user boxes, you may have a view of EditGuyy111's changes which I tried to revert but he put in again. Thanks --Chewings72 (talk) 01:30, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Judaean vs Jewish

Judaean preserves more value of antiquity and is more contextually accurate Jewish is a modern ethnic why do you disagree with these valid facts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Editguy111 (talk • contribs) 08:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

They are independent concepts. As far as I can tell, "Jewish" is what is supported by the sources. "Judaean" (probably misspelled) is not the same thing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

they are not the same thing I have already gone over that the Romans called the land of Canaan as Judaea and called its inhabitants Judaeans and they later annexed Judaea Lebanon and Syria into one big province called Syria Palaestina where the name Palestine comes from please revert it back I will keep trying to revert it as it is more accurate Editguy111 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Re: Source aren't there

yeah the sources are there stop reverting — Preceding unsigned comment added by Editguy111 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

@Editguy111:. None of the online sources supports any use of the word "Judaean", although the alternate title Philo Judaeus suggests one use of the term "Judaean". The (now complete) removal of the term Jewish should be considered vandalism, as "Judaean" does not imply "Jewish" by any stretch of the imagination. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

MOS:COMMA

I have opened a new RFC at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style § RFC: Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA regarding geographical references and dates for further discussion. —sroc 💬 08:28, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Block request

Hello, Arthur, would you please block Special:Contributions/178.148.130.96 for expiry set of five months, because he/she did vandalism especially unexplained or reverted unsourced music genre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.171.178.245 (talk) 00:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

No problems

No problems about the category removal at Burzynski Clinic, and thank you for your interest in the topic!

Have a great day!

— Cirt (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Morgellons

I notice you recently reverted an edit to remove an important caveat that appears in the source from the article. Articles should not really say more than the source. grateful if you could explain the revertion on talk. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.196.6 (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

My recollection is that the source didn't have that caveat, but said it in the same voice as there is no evidence that Morgellon's is not DP. If I'm wrong, I apologize. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

November 2013

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Paul Conrad (mathematician)

I am currently working on an article about the political cartoonist Paul Conrad. Whenever I work on a topic, I always check to make sure the subject is disambiguated. Today, I found that Paul Conrad (mathematician) is a possible article title. I have not heard of him, so I am not sure it is notable, but he is listed in the American Men & Women of Science. He lived from 1921-2006 and worked at the University of Kansas on ordered algebraic systems and group theory. Viriditas (talk) 03:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't recall the name, but I'll see if I can find something. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:35, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

RE: pp-semi

Your question doesn't say why I should do it. © Tbhotch (en-2.5). 01:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not a reason to "rollback all" my edits related to it. There are several pages that still protected. I'm not a bot, I can make mistakes. If I added a tag to a non-protected page, it can be removed, but there's no real reason to do it if the pages still protected. Also, if my edits included "removal of vandalism" (if any), why it should be reverted? Tools are certainly not used for those purposes. © Tbhotch (en-2.5). 04:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry

Didn't know you found talkback's annoying; I assumed you were just removing them because you had seen them. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Plasma cosmology

Arthur, I have no interest in the subject of Plasma cosmology, but a newbie is trying to delete large portions of the article. I have commented on the talk page and left warnings on their talk page. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

A newbie obviously created the original article in the first place. I am going to replace it - completely. The Plasma Cosmology page should be about Plasma Cosmology. The current article is little more than the culmination of topic hijacking. It reads more like an article about the triumph of the Big Bang Theory than an article about Plasma Cosmology. It will be replaced - period. I hope you will approve of my changes. I plan to remove every reference to other models and focus solely on Plasma Cosmology. If you have no interest in the topic, then keep your hands off. Critics are not authorities. Advocates are not authorities. I will present a neutral article that deals solely with Plasma Cosmology. Furthermore BullRangifer, your strong insult will not be tolerated. talk 21:43, November 24, 2013 (UTC)

Coming from a newbie, that's pretty strong language which reveals a lack of understanding of how Misplaced Pages works. I've been patient with you. I could have already had you blocked for edit warring. Your attitude is what we call "I didn't hear that," in other words you are not learning from much more experienced editors, even though they have left you warnings, advice, and links to more information. We don't completely rewrite articles here. You don't own the article. It belongs to all editors, and you should show some respect for those who have put time into its creation.

We do want article improvement, so small increments are good for a start, considering you're a newbie. Right now you seem to have no sense of the situation. To illustrate, it's like you're wading into someone else's living room and demanding that they operate their home according to the rules which you use at your home. You're demanding they throw out all their pictures and rearrange their furniture because you don't like it, but you don't know WHY they have arranged their home the way it is. Maybe there is a reason. After all, the rules for interior decorating in their home (Misplaced Pages) are FAR different from the rules in your home (your website or blog). The rules are totally different here, and if you don't learn them and listen to what we're telling you, you will end up getting blocked. It's that simple. We are very long suffering with newbies, but when they don't listen and learn, we simply get rid of them. Now show a bit of humility and start asking questions instead of making demands.

Let me introduce you to whom you're dealing with right now: Arthur a very distinguished mathematician in real life and is an administrator here (sysop, 89588 edits since: 2005-08-15). I am a Physical Therapist (with a Physician Assistant education besides that) and an ordinary editor who does not wish to be an administrator (autoreviewer, reviewer, rollbacker, 40068 edits since: 2005-12-18). We are both experienced enough to help you, if you'll allow it. Since you will never be allowed to edit alone here, without other editors having a right to watch your every move, comment on your talk page (you do not own it), and revert your edits when there are ANY disagreements, you'd better get used to working with others. Communication and civility are valued here. That's how we work.

When in doubt, or if you meet any resistance, the proper reaction is to back off, ask questions on the talk page, discuss until a consensus is reached, etc.. Never attempt to force/push your POV into the article over the objections of other editors. The resulting article will likely never satisfy you, and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be. Other editors have a right to their input, and they will likely find reliable sources documenting POV with which you disagree, but NPOV requires the inclusion of opposing POV. If a subject is fringe, the article will document that fact and the mainstream POV will be dominant. We simply reflect what RS say.

You also need to remember to use edit summaries for every edit and comment, use the edit history to check for edit summaries before making edits, sign your edits properly (using four tildes (~~~~), etc.. I'm going to leave a welcome template at the top of your talk page. It has lots of good links to help you get up to speed. Read them very carefully before proceeding. I will also leave a modified copy of this message, just for the record. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:41, 24 November 2013 (UTC)