text:
Édouard Drumont

Édouard Adolphe Drumont (3 May 1844 – 5 February 1917) was a French antisemitic journalist, author and politician. He initiated the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder and editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole (founded in 1892). After spending years of research, he synthesised three major types of antisemitism. The first type was traditional Catholic attitudes toward the alien "Christ killers" augmented by vehement antipathy toward the French Revolution. The second type was hostility toward capitalism. The third type was so-called scientific racism, based on the argument that races have fixed characteristics, and asserting that Jews have negative characteristics. His work played a key role in catalyzing the Dreyfus Affair.

Drumont's biographer, Grégoire Kauffmann, places Drumont within the counter-revolutionary tradition of Louis Veuillot, Antoine Blanc de Saint-Bonnet, and anti-modern Catholicism. Socialist leader Jean Jaurès stated that "all the ideas and arguments of Drumont were taken from certain clerical opponents of the French Revolution.

Early life
Drumont was born in Paris in 1844 to a family of porcelain-painters from Lille. His father died when he was seventeen, and had to care for himself and earn his own livelihood from then onwards. He attended high school at Lycée Charlemagne.

Public career
He first worked in government service and at one point became a police spy for Napoleon III. Later he became a contributor to the press and was the author of a number of works, of which Mon vieux Paris (1879) was awarded by the French Academy. He also worked for Louis Veuillot's L'Univers. Drumont's 1886 book, La France juive (Jewish France), attacked the role of Jews in France and argued for their exclusion from society. In 1892, Drumont initiated the newspaper the La Libre Parole which became known for intense antisemitism. Gaston Méry was soon made editor in chief due to his skill in exploiting scandalous affairs and his daring invective. The newspaper took "France for the French" as its motto. The newspaper was skeptical of Léo Taxil's anti-Catholic Diana Vaughan hoax before Taxil admitted it in 1897. It was the first paper to publish news of Alfred Dreyfus's arrest, in an article titled “High Treason: The Jewish Traitor Alfred Dreyfus Arrested” in 1894.

Initially, Drumont was a supporter of Pope Leo XIII and his policy of ralliement in his encyclical of 1892, Au milieu des sollicitudes which called for French Catholics to embrace the Republic. He soon denounced this course and bitterly insulted the Pope, the Church, and any Catholic who supported it. In one editorial Drumont hoped for a "modern iron-fisted Nogaret for the modern Boniface VIII". In La Libre Parole Drumont's old friend Count Adrien Albert Marie de Mun and Papal Nuncio Cardinal Domenico Ferrata were denounced liked common criminals.

For the French legislative election of May 1898, the antisemitic activist Max Régis endorsed Drumont before this election from Algiers. On 8 May 1898, Édouard Drumont was elected triumphantly with 11,557 votes against 2,328 and 1,741 for his opponents. Of six Algerian national deputies, four were elected on the platform of Regis's Anti-Jewish League. Drumont represented Algiers in the Chamber of Deputies from 1898 to 1902. He was sued for accusing a parliamentary deputy of having accepted a bribe from the wealthy Jewish banker Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild to pass a piece of legislation the banker wanted.

Drumont had many devotees. He exploited the Panama Company scandal and reached the maximum of his notoriety during the Dreyfus Affair, in which he was the most strident of Alfred Dreyfus' accusers.

For his anti-Panama articles, Drumont was condemned to three months' imprisonment. In 1893, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the representation of Amiens; the next year he retired to Brussels. The Dreyfus affair helped him to regain popularity, and in 1898, he returned to France and was elected deputy for the first division of Algiers, but was defeated as a candidate for re-election in April–May 1902.

Works

 * Mon vieux Paris (1878)
 * Les Fêtes nationales à Paris (1878)
 * Le Dernier des Trémolin (1879)
 * Papiers inédits du Duc de Saint-Simon (1880)
 * La Mort de Louis XIV (1880)
 * La France juive (Jewish France, 1886)
 * La France Juive devant l'opinion (1886)
 * La Fin d'un monde : Étude psychologique et sociale (1889)
 * La Dernière Bataille (1890)
 * Le Testament d'un antisémite (1891)
 * Le Secret de Fourmies (1892)
 * De l'or, de la boue, du sang : Du Panama à l'anarchie (1896)
 * Mon vieux Paris. Deuxième série (1897)
 * La Tyrannie maçonnique (1899)
 * Les Juifs contre la France (1899)
 * Les Tréteaux du succès. Figures de bronze ou statues de neige (1900)
 * Les Tréteaux du succès. Les héros et les pitres (1900)
 * Le Peuple juif (1900)
 * Vieux portraits, vieux cadres (1903)
 * Sur le chemin de la vie (1914)

title: Édouard Drumont


text:
Ostap Bender

Ostap Bender (Остап Бендер) is a fictional con man and the central antiheroic protagonist in the novels The Twelve Chairs (1928) and The Little Golden Calf (1931) written by Soviet authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. The novels belong to the picaresque novel genre, which was previously rare in Russian literature. In The Twelve Chairs he called himself Ostap-Suleyman-Berta-Maria-Bender-Bey, in The Little Golden Calf he called himself Bender-Zadunaysky, and he was called Ostap Ibragimovich by one of his companions.

Bender is an attractive, resourceful crook, full of energy while operating within the law ("Bender knew 400 relatively legal ways to make the population part with their money."); his description as "The Great Combinator" became a catchphrase in the Russian language.

His exploits have been enjoyed by readers throughout the Soviet times and in modern Russia. In post-Soviet times Bender's character was elevated from the status of a con man to that of an entrepreneur. His statues may be found in several cities, and a commemorative plaque was set in Odesa, the city of his birth.

Appearances
The Twelve Chairs was released in January 1928.

In the first novel, Ostap Bender searches for a stash of diamonds hidden in one of the twelve eponymous chairs. The action takes place in the Soviet Union in 1927 during the New Economic Policy era. At the end of the novel, Bender is killed by his partner, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, who does not want to share the treasure when it seems like they are about to reach their goal.

In the second novel, The Little Golden Calf, published in 1931, Bender is alive, he says, because "surgeons barely saved my life", Ilf and Petrov having conjured the character's death away retroactively. This book provided an extended satire on certain elements of Soviet life. Here, Bender follows Soviet underground multi-millionaire Koreiko, hoping to acquire some of his riches and thus amass a fortune. Bender gets his money, but soon discovers he cannot spend it in the USSR. He proceeds to lose it as he attempts to flee the country by crossing the border into Romania.

Film-makers have produced a number of screen adaptations of the novels; see The Twelve Chairs adaptations and The Little Golden Calf adaptations. Over the years, the part was played on screen by Frank Langella (The Twelve Chairs (1970 film)), Archil Gomiashvili (The Twelve Chairs (1971 film)), Andrei Mironov (actor) (The Twelve Chairs (1976 film)), Sergei Yursky (The Golden Calf (1968 film)), Oleg Menshikov (The Little Golden Calf, 2006), etc.

Character
Ostap Bender's origins are mysterious; he mentions only that his father was "a Turkish subject", his mother was "a Countess and received unearned income" and that his full name is Ostap-Suleyman-Berta-Maria-Bender-Bey (Остап-Сулейман-Берта-Мария-Бендер-Бей). In the comments to the Complete Works of Ilf and Petrov by M. Odessky and D. Feldman, this phrase is explained as a hint to his supposed Jewish origin from a port city in Novorossiya, most probably Odesa, where many Jews claimed Turkish citizenship to evade discrimination and conscription for military service. Some of them indeed held Turkish citizenship, such as Julius Martov.

In The Little Golden Calf, Ostap Bender is also called "Бендер-Задунайский" ("Bender-Zadunaisky", literally: "Bender-Trans-Danubian") and "Остап Ибрагимович" (Ostap Ibragimovich, where "Ibragimovich" is a patronymic, literally meaning "son of Ibrahim"). The city of Bender and the Danube river are historically and geographically close to both the large regional city of Odesa and the former Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Bender dreams of travelling to Rio de Janeiro, "the city of his dreams", while admitting the futility of that obsession.

There were a number of possible prototypes for Bender, most famously Ostap (Osip) Shor (1899–1978), a friend of the authors who spent his youth in Odesa gaining money as a con man and then—as a Cheka inspector. He was a good story-teller, and many of his tales inspired the adventures of Ostap Bender. Valentin Kataev who came up with the idea for the novel (which, in turn, is dedicated to him) is named as another prototype; he also led an adventurous life and was known as a literary hoaxer, adding many original touches to the biography of Osip Shor whom he saw as fitting the readers' expectations of a "real-life combinator".

Another suggested influence was the character of Alexander Ametistov from Mikhail Bulgakov's play Zoyka's Flat that had been written and staged in 1926, before the work on The Twelve Chairs was even started. Also an elegant con man with many names and occupations, he is seen as a direct inspiration by a number of modern researches, to the point that some of them believe that both novels were ghostwritten by Bulgakov.

Bender's leadership
The entrepreneurial abilities of Bender attracted attention of researchers in management. Parallels have been drawn of Bender's schemes with failures of businesses in early post-Soviet Russia, a period compared to that of NEP when Bender operated. Bender is educated and has an analytical mind; is full of energy; in the case of a failure keeps his optimism and has an ability to reassess the situation; has an empathy towards his subordinates, opponents and "marks"; has exceptional organizational skills, even when limited by scarce resources.

While Bender is endowed with many traits of a charismatic leader, it was concluded that the major reason of his failures was lack of clear understanding of his own goals and needs, and short-term perspective. A serious drawback of Bender as a leader is his paternalism. Also, while he is aware of the drawbacks of his companions, he puts no efforts into their betterment. While at times he can be a motivational speaker, he did not care about the long-term motivation of his subordinates; instead, he preferred to manipulate or simply force them.

Cultural influence
A chapter in The Little Golden Calf was called "The Great Combinator" ("Великий комбинатор", "The Great Schemer"). It was one of the choices for the title of the book. Since then the expression "the great combinator" came to refer in Russian culture either a con man or to an enterprising person.

One of the attractions of Bender is the witty language of the novels which produced numerous catchphrases:
 * "Maybe I should also give you the key to the flat where I keep my money?" ("Может быть, тебе дать ещё ключ от квартиры, где деньги лежат?") – it became a cliche rebuke to unreasonable requests.
 * "Stay strong. The West will help us." ("Крепитесь. Запад нам поможет.") – now an ironical hint that a situation is hopeless. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ironical meaning has become nearly literal.
 * "Money in the morning, chairs in the evening." ("Утром деньги, вечером стулья.") – now a jocular hint to payment in advance.
 * "The task of helping the drowning people is in the hands of the drowning people themselves." ("Спасение утопающих — дело рук самих утопающих".) – "not our business" Notably, this quote was cited in the situation when Russia was trying to attract foreign investors, while Russia's own capital was fleeing the country.
 * "The ice has broken, ladies and gentlemen of the jury!" ("Лёд тронулся, господа присяжные заседатели!") – said to declare the onset of a progress in something after a period of deadlock, uncertainty, or stagnation.
 * To cover up his activities, Bender created the fake office named Horns and Hooves ("Рога и копыта"). This name in Russian is used to describe shell companies and other small dubious organizations.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ostap Bender


text:
Mount Usborne

Mount Usborne (Cerro Alberdi) is a mountain on East Falkland. At 705 m above sea level, it is the highest point in the Falkland Islands. It is only 5 m taller than Mount Adam, the highest peak on West Falkland.

The mountain is referenced by Charles Darwin in Chapter 9 of Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. It is named after Alexander Burns Usborne, master's assistant on HMS Beagle, the ship that took Darwin on his famous voyage.

As one of the highest mountains of the Falklands, it experienced some glaciation. The remains of glacial cirques can be seen on the mountain. The handful of Falklands mountains over 600 m have

"... pronounced corries with small glacial lakes at their bases, morainic ridges deposited below the corries suggest that the glaciers and ice domes were confined to areas of maximum elevation with other parts of the islands experiencing a periglacial climate."

title: Mount Usborne


text:
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles/Describe external links

Recommend also note: --Menchi 02:23, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)
 * Ad warning: pop-up ads, in-page ads warning
 * Loading issue: frequently/sometimes down, slow/fast

NPOV links
What's the standard for NPOV in external links? If one spies an External link in an article that appears to be a personal political rant, is it ok just to leave it there? In this case, I'm referring to a link at the bottom of the Epilepsy article. It was written by a fellow Wikipedian, and seems to have only a faint relationship with the subject matter, but I'm not sure what the "rules" are for such material. Dachshund

 * One should seek NPOV balance in links the same as one seeks NPOV balance in quotations, citations, and attributions: try to include links to a variety of viewpoints and note what kind of treatment each site gives the subject. That doesn't mean you should link to every nutter with a geocities page, of course; information should be relevant, informative, and useful. --Brion

Links to large files
I have just edited Biometric word list to reflect the fact that the link is to a 2 megabyte PDF. I think there should be some sort of guideline that external links to slow-loading pages should contain a warning such as this, and PDFs in particular as many people will prefer to download them rather than view them online. This one in particular doesn't give my web client (IE5.0) any idea of the file size.

Any other thoughts? Is there such a guideline already and I've missed it? If not, where should it go?

What should the criteria be? I think 2 megs is at least enough to warrant a warning, in fact my feeling is that about 200k and up should ideally have some sort of warning, as a rough guide. I also think it's going to be a very rough one, it's no particular hassle IMO if people deviate by a factor of two in either direction.

Should we even have this sort of link to a PDF? Many users wouldn't be sophisticated enough to decide to download it rather than view it online. So should we give them some extra help, eg an explicit download link? Andrewa 06:03, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * As a matter of courtesy I always insert a little "(pdf)" marker to the end of pdf links. This should suggest the link may be rather large. Dysprosia 07:06, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I do similar notice as Dysprosia above. I hate PDF. Just waiting for Adobe program to load takes like 10 seconds, then another 10 seconds for file to load (in Win98). So I say (PDF) with a wikilink, and those who needs download link of the program and click on PDF to find out (and learn more about it from our article!). --Menchi (Talk)ü| â 07:13, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Has this policy been superseded by practice?
It seems to me that this policy has been superseded by the practice of idenifying the website and/or offering a short explanation of the website (rather than go into all the detail recommended on this page). Am I right, and if so, is it ok to amend the policy in line with what actually happens? jguk 13:21, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to consolidate advice on writing better articles
At present there are many articles in the Wikipedia namespace that seek to give guidance on how to write better articles. I propose consolidating these into a much smaller number. On User:Jongarrettuk/Better writing guide I propose how these could be consolidated. The proposal is not to change advice, just to consolidate it. If I have inadvertently moved what you consider to be good advice that is currently in the Wikipedia namespace, please re-add it. I'm hope that the proposal to merge all these articles, in principle, will be welcomed. Of course, it may be preferred to have 2, 3 or 4 inter-connected articles than just one and would welcome advice on how this could be done. (In particular, perhaps all the guidance on layout should be spun off into one consolidated article on layout.) I'm also aware that putting lots of different bits of advice together may throw up anomalies or bits that people now disagree with (including bits that I myself disagree with:) ). I ask for support for the consolidation. Once the consolidation has happened, the advice can be changed in the normal way. Please feel free to improve on the current draft consolidation, but don't remove or add advice that is not currently on the Wikipedia namespace. If all goes well, I'll add a new Guide to writing better articles page on the 19th, though maybe some bits of the new article will need to be phased in over a longer period. I'll also take care to preserve all the archived discussion in one place. jguk 20:00, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


text:
Mansalay

Mansalay, officially the Municipality of Mansalay, is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Oriental Mindoro, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 59,114 people.

This town is notable for its indigenous Mangyan population. The municipal hall is located on the upper land of Mansalay Town proper, in front of a Medical Care Hospital. Nearby is the church and the only Catholic School, Mansalay Catholic High School. Santa Catalina is the town's patron saint.

The town also has a wide ammonite formation area discovered in the 1940s. Since then, thousands of ammonite fossils have been discovered. Due to the complexity and vastness of the collection found in the area, the town has been called the Ammonite Capital of the Philippines. Various local and international scientific institutions have conducted research on the ammonite formations of Mansalay. Scholars have argued that due to the natural significance of the area to Southeast Asian pre-history, the site has a big chance of being declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site or a UNESCO Geopark Reserve. It is 144 km from Calapan.

Barangays
Mansalay is politically subdivided into 17 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

In 1957, the sitios of Santa Brigida, Santa Maria, Roma, Budburan, and Mahabangsapa were constituted into barrios.

 * B. Del Mundo
 * Balugo
 * Bonbon
 * Budburan
 * Cabalwa
 * Don Pedro
 * Maliwanag
 * Manaul
 * Panaytayan
 * Poblacion
 * Roma
 * Santa Maria
 * Santa Teresita
 * Sta. Brigida
 * Villa Celestial
 * Wasig
 * Waygan

Economy
Its people relies heavily on fishing and farming to survive and earn a living. Because of meager income opportunities, Mansalay has produced a large number of overseas Filipino workers who send remittance back.

title: Mansalay


text:
User talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 5

 * Move vote and some discussion to Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/vote

 * Koyaanis and Jwrosenweig didn't use the magic D word, that's why I didn't count them in category 3. I missed someone else accidentally. Anyway, I won't count anyone below if their vote is unclear. People who are voting for "keep" are not saying that the article should be protected forever, editing is expected. Their opinions, therefore, are pretty much the same as mine or any of the other users in favour of keeping. In other words, I was categorising everyone on the basis of their preferences: (This is also Tim Starling)

Category 1

 * 1) Delete
 * 2) *Keep & edit as usual
 * 3) *Keep and redirect or greatly reduce
 * 1) *Keep and redirect or greatly reduce

Category 2

 * 1) *Keep & edit as usual
 * 2) *Keep & redirect or greatly reduce
 * 3) Delete

Category 3

 * 1) Keep & redirect or greatly reduce
 * 2) Delete
 * 3) Keep & edit as usual

Bullets indicate that the category may be split as to which one of the pair is better.

-- Tim Starling 09:28, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

 * verifiability of review to Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Discussion over the content
 * suggestion to move to user: -> Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/move to user:
 * suggestion to rewrite for more proportionality of coverage : -> Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Article size proportional to fame
 * List by Kat of Daniel published works and description ->Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Published works

What should we do?
Seeing as this has been listed for deletion for more than a week, and the offical vote is in favor of deletion, could someone other than me delete this page? There is really little point in continuing arguing about this particlular page. Let us delete this page and move onto the next. MB 15:40, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't see how the vote is in favour of deletion - I see 12 for deletion, 10 against deletion, one with mixed views and 6 to keep if it's rewritten (which to some degree at least it has been). --Camembert

 * Camembert, I see your point, but it seems to me that, regardless of what election system we propose using (first-past-the-post or runoff), MB is probably right. First-past-the-post would give the deletions the victory with a plurality of votes.  If we decided to run off, I couldn't speak for other "severe rewrite or deletes", but in the absence of a severe rewrite, I imagine most if not all of us would choose deletion.  I've not been here long enough to know how contentious issues like this one are settled (and I certainly am not a strong advocate for deletion), but the vote seems tilted towards deletion, and the debate has lasted for what seems (to me at least) a reasonable time.  Just my two cents -- Jwrosenzweig 17:30, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * My apologies. I've just viewed the article again (wow, there were some radical changes since the last time I looked), and it's been severely rewritten enough that I think I'd side with the keep crowd in the case of a runoff.  Of course, the thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit that article back up to a level I'd be uncomfortable with, but at the point of this time-stamped entry, anyway, I wouldn't support deletion.  (I think this goes to show that, the longer an issue is discussed at Wikipedia, the more confusing the discussions will become. :) ) Sorry for the contradicting entries. Jwrosenzweig 17:39, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Heh, it's a confusing issue for most of us I think :) To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been such a contentious disagreement over whether to delete a page or not before, so there isn't really a precedent. Voting hasn't been much used as a decision making tool on the Wikipedia, and it's something people have very mixed views about - I know I'm not alone in finding "votes" like the above useful in assessing where general opinion lies on an issue, while at the same time being uncomfortable with using it as final arbiter on decision making (though of course, it's much easier to hold this view when the vote isn't going the way you want it to ;-).

 * Anyway, Rednblu might be right that some sort of standard about this would be good. Somebody has started Criteria for inclusion of biographies, so people might want to have a look at that and try to get something going there, and there's also something on this at the end of Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Camembert 18:54, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * And there's Wikipedia talk:Auto-biography, too. Sorry if it's been mentioned before, this discussion is getting difficult to follow. Kosebamse 20:38, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Voting method discussion

 * Just to support Camembert regards votes - I've been reminded often enough that Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchism... and that's true. Also, Wikipedia is not an experiment in participative democracy. All votes are opinion polls - it's just more obvious with some.
 * In cases where there's a close outcome, especially in cases like this one where neither side has a clear majority, we can't just ride roughshod over dissenting voices - we need to find a compromise, or a way out of the impasse. Martin 21:15, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * compromise move -> Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/move to user:

While the votes for a rewrite (and have not changed to keep/delete) I assume the people involved do not believe the article has changed sufficiently to warrant a change in votes. However the votes is close enough that I'd feel uncomfortable using it to make a decision one way or the other, perhaps this is an issue we should just get Jimbo to decide on one way or the other. --Imran 21:56, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I would have thought that a severe rewrite or redirect would be a solution satisfying both the "keep" camp and the "rewrite/redirect" camp, therefore it would be appropriate to add the two categories together. Declaring that it was an FPTP vote seems unfair at this point. If you declare it FPTP, but allow people to change their votes in view of this fact, then it becomes essentially a preferential vote anyway because I would expect people in the "keep" category will change to the "rewrite/redirect" category in the hopes of a compromise. I certainly would. Such a policy would just mean we have to go through the rigmarole of contacting everyone again.

 * It should be noted that the vote was only an informal one due to the lack of predetermined rules. The final decision must still be a consensus. However, I'm prepared to respect the outcome of the vote, and I hope everyone else is too. -- Tim Starling 00:19, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

 * Actually, at least 4 of the rewrite votes would not be satisfied with the current version. GWO said "keep, but leave in little doubt to readers that Boyer is an extremely obscure figure, and that his invented techniques and vanity-published books are neither important or influential in the artworld."  And most of the rewrite votes are agreeing with GWO.  So, you can't simply add them together.

 * Why the hell not? I don't follow this line of argument at all.  User:GWO

 * In fact, once a rewrite like this is done, the article is practically useless except for slander, so I would argue that these votes should be added to the delete votes ;). MB 15:45, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

 * Well, slander would imply untrue, which would imply that Boyer isn't extremely obscure. But, its pretty clear that he is. So, to be honest,  I resent the implication that I'm slandering Boyer. If Boyer doesn't like an article that accurately represents his position in the grand scheme of things, I'm sure there'd be no complaints if he deleted it himself. -- User:GWO
 * This is way off the point in any analysis as to whether this is slander or no. The subjective nature of someone or something being "extremely obscure" makes such a statement one of opinion and not of fact (there is no scientific measurement on the obscurity/fame scale), so defamation law does not come into play.  --Daniel C. Boyer 20:07, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * OK, slander was a bad choice of wording, but you get my point. The article would be pointless to keep if it said "he is not important at all, blah blah blah."  Your vote was not just to keep the current article.  It was to make it into a pointless and worthless article.  I'm not arguing that the last non-redirect version wasn't pointless and worthless, but it would be much more obvious with your proposed rewrite.  So if we did follow through with such a rewrite, it would once again be listed of VfD, b/c the subject matter does no warrent an article.  MB 18:02, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

 * Lack of a uniform measurement system does not mean something cannot be measured without resorting to opinion. For instance you could do it in terms of readership, citation, etc. For instance in terms of readership, which quartile do you think you fall compared to other surrealist authors ? --Imran 22:11, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * I would be much surprised if it is not the bottom quartile. But since my principal activity has been in visual art rather than in writing, I would question how significant this is.  Moreover, you are missing my very limited point, which is just about defamation law.  People, please do not add extrinsic "implications" to a very limited argument I am making.  I was only saying that GWO's statement was not slander as it was expression of opinion and not of fact.  I wasn't saying I'm not obscure!  I wasn't saying I am obscure.  That was the one and only thing I was saying!  --Daniel C. Boyer 19:12, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

This is obviously generic enough an issue to warrant autobiography. See my comments there.

What's going on? Why has it been deleted? -- Tim Starling 03:25, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't know, but I just restored the page. Jtdirl - why did you delete the page? Our policy on the matter clearly favors keeping a redirect and there was far from a supermajority in favor of deletion (14-10 in favor of deletion and 7 saying that a major re-write was in order). --mav 03:57, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I was cleaning out some stuff to make room, then had second thoughts about that one and thought that I had misinterpreted the results but I couldn't access the undelete page to do anything about it - or any other page for that matter. I don't whether it was wiki (again) or my net link but for the last ages everything has been v e   r     y       v      e      r      y      slow! (In fact if I hadn't tried again and this time got on Allah be praised (opps. Shouldn't have said that. RK will be pissed) I would be gone to bed by now. Sorrreee. FearÉIREANN 04:33, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * discussion of redirects -> Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/redirect

 * stuff moved to Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/move to user:

Right, now that the page we are discussing is once again properly attached to the page where we are discussing it, on with the discussion... As I understand it, the main argument against the article is that Daniel C. Boyer is obscure. Well, although this isn't much of a counterargument, it might be worth pointing out that I've seen several people more obscure than Mr. Boyer sit around on VfD for a week, and end up being kept. Although I'd never heard of Mr. Boyer before I came here, I understand from the above that he's not completely obscure. Camembert says, "it seems perfectly possible to me, given the scope of his exhibiting, that Boyer passes the 1000 person test." The 1000 person thing is only an informal criterion for inclusion, as far as I know, but it's enough for me. I consider the talk about self-promotion to be irrelevant, if we implement the proposed policy to stop people from editing articles about themselves. See Wikipedia talk:Auto-biography for my views on that. The article has already been chopped down by other people so extensively that it is a mere shadow of its former self, so it can hardly be called a vehicle for self-promotion any more. So I really don't see the problem with it. And although I always seem to vote in them, I don't really take our votes very seriously. We should decide individual cases based on policy, and decide policy based on rational argument and consensus. -- Oliver P. 00:57, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Just regarding that last sentence: it's a bit hard to set a policy on these matters because there is a small class of articles which polarise the community. Everyone seems to have their place on this Wikipedian political spectrum -- everyone has different ideas on Wikipedia's target breadth and respectability. For example, I always seem to end up arguing for inclusion, whereas Daniel Quinlan wants quality not quantity. The 1000 person test is difficult to apply and open to interpretation. If you can come up with an unambiguous policy which will satisfy everyone, I'll be surprised. Pleasantly suprised, but surprised nonetheless. -- Tim Starling 01:34, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)

--

More obscure
Out of interest which entries are more unimportant/obscure ? (said anon)

 * You'll find an interesting selection at September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/Casualties. Including a few under-fives, whose major achievements include being born, gurgling a bit, and dying. Martin 17:52, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I believe that most of the individual articles had been moved to http://sep11.wikipedia.org/. Mentioning an individual on a list on a page is much different from having an article on them, and given the importance of the event of 9/11 the individuals involved gain importance. --Imran 18:16, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Nope - 'fraid not. Many still have individual articles, and only a few were ever moved over, AFAIK - those who only had tributes. Martin

There are two ways to select new things to write about: top down and bottom up. The "top-down" approach is an attempt at completeness, where users start with broad categories and drill down, and also write lists and work through them systematically. The 9/11 casualties are an example of that. The "bottom-up" approach is where a person contributes very specific knowledge, that only a small part of the community is interested in. For example, a person writes about their home town or suburb, their favorite computer game, or even themselves. Unlike a conventional encyclopedia where only the top-down approach is appreciated, both approaches are valued in this encyclopedia. This is because our large pool of editors means that the bottom-up approach can yield significant amounts of useful information.

If you want entries which are similar in importance to this article, you should look for other ones created in the bottom-up style. For example, Ebor. They're hard to find because they're poorly organised. -- Tim Starling 00:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

 * We recall also that Formeruser:Isis made herself a "name" here. Everybody's hit the nail on the head -- all different nails--but all these different nails are in the same direction. The real issue is formal policy vs informal policy. Are we going to make it policy that noone can make a page talking about themselves?

Think of it the other way around -- Imagine if *everyone made their own page, and there was a page for everything truthful, real, and imagined. Isnt this eventually the goal of something that tries to be all encomassing? Then the issue becomes granularity -- whether material belongs on a more general article or on own. Its tacky to toot ones own horn -- but I dont see how we can deal with these things on a 1:1 basis -- either we formalize policy or were stuck with whatever we dont rule out. If this is a "rule out" vote -- this need to be generalized to a Wiki policy page. Consider the two points of view: ["Wikipedia should not be an advertising vehicle for obscure and relatively unknown individuals to self-promote." "Keep, wikipedia is not paper. I believe that Boyer is a real person... the problem is the obscurity, not the non-factuality."] Both of these are very strong arguments -- What then is the prevailing underlying principle for each side -- so we can boil it down to something repeatable? - 戴&#30505sv 01:10, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)

Similar Pages
Will Jen Besemer, Ronnie Burk and Franklin Rosemont also be deleted? They seem comparable to this to me (except that the persons themselves haven't edited them, but maybe that's the point...). I don't like this being redirected, by the way - either the guy should have an article or he shouldn't (I don't see any reason why he shouldn't) - as such I've put the article back. --Camembert

Franklin Rosemont should be kept, he seems to be a relevant figure in American Surrealism. The other two should be deleted.

 * I don't see why. Just because they don't seem relevant or interesting to you, doesn't mean they're not relevant or interesting to everybody. --Camembert

 * They're irrelevant to virtually everyone, that's why. Are you arguing absolutely every person can have an article? If not, tell us your standard and show how those persons meet it. --Wik 14:27, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

 * No, that's not what I'm arguing - I'm arguing that just because people are irrelevant to "virtually everyone" doesn't mean they shouldn't get articles. Lots of people (particle physicists, 16th century priests, chess problem composers) are irrelevant to "virtually everyone", but that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't have an article. If you want criteria for inclusion... well, I'm making this up off the top of my head, but how about verifiabilty of facts, and an interest in the person by somebody not personally known to them (difficult to prove this, I know, but it seems a good guiding principal to me). --Camembert

 * Franklin Rosemont seems to be fairly well known, and his books seem widely available so I have no problem with him being included. Ronnie Burk is very border-line, with the only prominent incident apparently involving him being his assault on Pat Christen. As for Jen Besemer I can find little to no evidence of any interest in her, either within her specialism or outside it. --Imran

While I have nothing more to say about the Boyer page, we seem to have moved to another topic. I had seen the pages in question (Jen Besemer, Ronnie Burk and Franklin Rosemont) before and must admit to a degree of concern because they are stubs and because it is not clear whether they are encylopedic. The standard alternatives thus apply: allow time to see whether they become more than just stubs, consider redirecting to and merging with the logical parent topic (American Surrealism, I suppose) so as to have one good article rather than many stubby ones, or delete. I am unfamiliar with these topics, and so would be inclined to defer to Imran's judgement. -- Kat 15:12, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What about Easter Bradford? RickK 03:04, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

--

Self-submission
Keep, wikipedia is not paper. I believe that Boyer is a real person, doing real artwork cf. ,, , -- and also Boyers own page, ) -- the problem is the  obscurity, not the non-factuality. And that is only a problem if the article is massive linked and/or if spce is severly limited. -- till we *) 23:53, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

 * Uh, there are dozens of such sites, all of which Boyer himself has submitted his material to. No proof of significance whatsoever.

 * General comment on how it works in art (for offline as well as online exhibitions) (with exception of invitationals, which I've only been in one of): the artist himself has to send out slides, or submit work digitally. No website, no gallery, no exhibition, and very few publications, are going to go door-to-door: "Do you have any art you'd like to show at our gallery?  Do you have any art you'd like to post on our website?  Do you have any art you'd like to submit to our publication?"  I'd be most gratified if anyone can point out to me what is the significance of an artist "himself... [submitting] material to" something.  --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Nah -- I don't want to start a discussion here (in a voting list), but at least and  don't look like self-contributions, but rather like small artistic communities, magazines, what-evers, that display Boyers work.  And I also believe that the list of exhibitions on his website at  is genuine and not a fake. So I come to the conclusion, that Boyer is a real, living artist, but indeed a rather obscure one (like most real, living artists). I see problems in self-promoting via wikipedia, but I don't believe we should exclude artists because of not being famous. -- till we *) 00:16, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Daniel C. Boyer/Archive 5


text:
Nightfall

Nightfall or night fall may refer to:

Time of day

 * Sunset or sundown, the daily disappearance of the Sun below the western half of the horizon
 * Twilight, the period during which the Sun is at most 18° below the horizon and when the sky is illuminated by indirect sunlight scattered in the upper atmosphere
 * Nautical dusk, the last stage of twilight in the evening before night

Film

 * Nightfall (1956 film), an American film noir by Jacques Tourneur
 * Nightfall (1988 film), a film starring David Birney
 * Nightfall (1999 film), a film starring Jeff Rector
 * Nightfall (1999 German film), a film by Fred Kelemen
 * Nightfall (2000 film), a film starring Ashish Vidyarthi
 * Nightfall (2012 film), a Hong Kong crime thriller by Chow Hin-yeung

Gaming

 * Nightfall (video game), the first real-time 3D adventure game, released in 1998
 * Nightfall Games, a UK role-playing game publishing company
 * Guild Wars Nightfall, a 2006 computer game in the Guild Wars series
 * Nightfall, a deck-building card game by Alderac Entertainment Group
 * Nightfall: Escape, a first-person survival horror game by Zeenoh, released in 2016
 * Nightfall, a cancelled video game by Maxis South

Stories and novels

 * "Nightfall" (Asimov novelette and novel), a 1941 science fiction story by Isaac Asimov, and a 1990 adapted novel by Asimov and Robert Silverberg
 * Nightfall and Other Stories, a 1969 collection of short stories by Asimov
 * Night Fall (novel), a 2004 novel by Nelson DeMille
 * Nightfall, a novel by Will Elliott
 * Nightfall, a 1947 novel by David Goodis
 * Nightfall, a 2017 fantasy book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger
 * Nightfall, a two-novel fantasy series by Mickey Zucker Reichert
 * The Return: Nightfall, a 2009 novel by L. J. Smith
 * "Nightfall" (Clarke story), or "The Curse", a 1947 short story by Arthur C. Clarke
 * "Nightfall", a 2003 short story incorporated into the 2005 Manfred Macx novel Accelerando by Charles Stross

Comics

 * Nightfall (comics), a DC Comics supervillain
 * Nightfall: The Black Chronicles, a 1999–2000 comic book mini-series published by Wildstorm/Homage Comics
 * Nightfall, a graphic novel by Scott O. Brown

Music

 * Nightfall (band), a Greek heavy metal band
 * Nightfall (Candlemass album), 1987
 * Nightfall (Louis Hayes album), 1991
 * Nightfall (Charlie Haden album), 2004
 * Nightfall (Little Big Town album), 2020
 * "Nightfall", a song by Amorphis from Tuonela
 * "Nightfall", a song by Blind Guardian from Nightfall in Middle-Earth
 * "Nightfall", a song by Circle of Dust from Circle of Dust
 * "Nightfall", a song by Stratovarius from Fourth Dimension
 * "Nightfall", a song by Xandria from Sacrificium
 * "Nightfall" (Interlude), a song by Tinashe from Aquarius
 * "Nightfalls", a song by Keith Urban

Radio and television

 * Nightfall (radio series), a 1980–1983 Canadian supernatural/horror series
 * "Night Fall" (Yin-Yang-Yo!), an episode of the TV series Yin-Yang-Yo!
 * "Nightfall", an episode of the radio program Dimension X, based on the Isaac Asimov story (see above)
 * Operation Nightfall, a fictional operation in the first season of the TV series 24
 * Halo: Nightfall, a 2014 series set in the Halo universe

Other

 * Nightfall meteorite, the colloquial name for the El Ali meteorite
 * Nocturnal emission, a spontaneous orgasm during sleep that includes ejaculation for a male, or vaginal wetness or an orgasm (or both) for a female.

title: Nightfall


text:
User:Jtvisona/Edit

=Using Wikipedia=

First, understand the purpose and philosophy of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is quite unlike anything conventional. It's a volunteer effort on a global scale coordinated mostly asynchronously via the Internet to create a large collection of quality, multimedia entries to rival any academically or commercially produced encyclopedia. All of this to give it away! What's even stranger is that anyone can contribute given a computer. Imagine if you could walk into an organization's office, say Public Library of Science, rifle through drawers, peruse memos, read through computer files, and just start or help complete some project you thought was important and useful. That's the essence of Wikipedia. Before you can begin however, you have to understand what is desirable, and what is not.

Before it's possible to know what's going on, you have to know where you are, what's available, what's useful, and where to find it. The 'where you are' is the easy part. (yadda yadda yadd)

The Main Page contains the following lists each with its own collection of links:
 * Selected Articles
 * Encyclopedia
 * Philosophy and Mathematical and Natural Sciences
 * Applied Arts and Sciences
 * Social Sciences
 * Culture
 * Other Category Schemes

 * Community
 * Writing Articles
 * About the Project
 * In Other Languages
 * Sister Projects

 * Category_schemes
 * Copyrights

 * Next, learn the basics of the technology behind the website.
 * How to Edit a Page
 * Help
 * Sandbox
 * Legal Advice

 * After, learn the basics of having an account and communicating with others.

 * Then, learn more about etiquette.

 * To follow, learn something about the style.

 * Finally, have at it!
 * Contributing FAQ

 * Policies and Guidelines
 * Guide to Layout
 * Manual of Style
 * Public Domain Resources
 * Shared Resources
 * Requested Articles
 * Requested Pictures
 * Fulfilled Picture Requests
 * Brilliant Prose
 * Brilliant Pictures
 * Wikipedians
 * Utilities
 * About
 * Wikimedia
 * Announcements
 * FAQ
 * IRC_channelIRC channel
 * Mailing lists
 * PHP Script
 * Friends of Wikipedia
 * Press Coverage
 * Multilingual Coordination
 * Things to be moved to Wiktionary
 * Wiktionary
 * Special:Specialpages
 * Special:Newpages
 * Content_disclaimer
 * Welcome%2C_newcomers
 *
 * Project Gutenberg
 * Wikipedia
 * Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics
 * User_preferences_help

Reference

 * Village Pump Scuttlebutt, gossip, questions, and debate.
 * Reference Desk Questions? Answers!
 * Boilerplate Text contains some templates for copying and pasting. Very useful and creates systemwide consistency.

title: User:Jtvisona/Edit


text:
User talk:Professor water

Hi Professor water and welcome to Wikipedia! I saw your article on Bernard Kerik -- it's a start but I wonder if you could refine it (wikify it) and put it in a more standard biography format (see Ross J. Connelly for a good example). Also if you have time, he's supposedly doing something in Iraq these days, that's worth talking about. Thanks and welcome again! Chadloder 02:48, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for adding something about the West Nile virus: however, we already had an article at West Nile virus (your article was entitled West Nile Virus). The old article is a superset of your stub, so I have redirected your stub to the old article, and preserved your text on the talk page of the old article, just in case. This is a common problem: see the Naming conventions article for some advice on how to avoid it. I look forward to reading your contributions. -- Karada 10:04, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The Philadelphia Project
Hi i have noticed that you have edited several articles on subjects related to the Philadelphia area. Several other users and myself have got together to create a project to help improve, expand, and create articles concerning the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley region. While our project is still new, we are inviting people to join us to help it get started off on the right foot. You can find the project at WikiProject Philadelphia, feel free to add your name and drop off an suggestions that you might have. If you have any questions, drop me a line anytime. Thanks. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 01:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Join us this Saturday (July 30) at the Philadelphia Wiknic
Join us this Saturday (July 30) at the Philadelphia Wiknic, the "picnic anyone can edit". This is an opportunity to meet other local Wikipedians, have fun, and discuss potential projects.

The event is this Saturday, between 1pm-5pm at the Picnic Grove in Penn Park.

(To unsubscribe from future messages, remove your name from WikiProject Philadelphia/Philadelphia meet-up invite list.)

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Musk as an engineer
While I agree with you, there is an Rfc happening regarding this very point. Feel free to contribute. QRep2020 (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Charles N. Haas

Hello, Professor water. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Charles N. Haas".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz Read! Talk! 22:50, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

title: User talk:Professor water


text:
Talk:Matza

Name
Bartlby's list "Matzo" as the official spelling and "Matzoh" as the alternate spelling.
 * "Matzo" also generates almost twice as many google hits. - Hephaestos 19:03, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Help, I tried to rename "Matzo" to "Matza" so I could rename "Matzoh" to "Matzo", but that didn't delete "Matzo". So we now have "Matza" and "Matzo" pointing to "Matzoh".  What I want is "Matzoh" moved to "Matzo" and "Matza" and "Matzoh" pointing to "Matzo".  Does an adminstrator need to do this?Samw 02:40, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Heh. That took a steady eye, but I think it's fixed now.  :) - Hephaestos 02:48, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I won't try this again!  :-) Samw 02:51, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Hey I wouldn't sweat it. If it would help to have the ability to delete redirect pages, you might consider asking for admin status.  I'd support it, I've seen you do good work here. - Hephaestos 02:53, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

By the way, not sure what happened here, but this should almost certainly be "Matza" or "Matzah", because that is the neutral Hebrew term -- "Matzoh" reflects an Ashkenazi dialect which is not neutral. Sort of like a POV article name -- what must be done to get it changed? I don't know how to do this. 132.216.227.226 01:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, Matza(h) would definitely be the appropriate form, as this corresponds to Israeli Hebrew, Sephardi Hebrew and even American pronunciation of Yiddish matse. The form Matzo(h), albeit used by some major US corporations, is an exclusively Ashkenazi form. -- Olve 17:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Why is the Ashkenazi pronunciation "not neutral", but a Sephardi or Israeli one "neutral"? The vast majority of native English Jewish speakers, are, in fact, Ashkenazi.  I note as well that the Britannica article is at "Matzo", as is that of the "The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.  2000" and "The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition.  2002" (Encarta calls it "Matzoh"). Anyway, "Matzo" gets 808,000 Google hits, versus 711,000 for "Matzah", 420,000 for "Matza" and 376,000 for "Matzoh".  "Matzo" does seem to be the single most commonly used English spelling, and naming this article would comply with the WP:NAME policy. Jayjg (talk) 18:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * And how many Ashkenazim say Matzoh? Most Ashkenazim I know in the US say Matzah (with the main stress on the first syllable), and this form is the one they have from the spoken Yiddish of recent generations. Thus, the form Matzah is absolutely defensible from an Ashkenazi perspective. Let me be a bit clearer:
 * Matzah is, in its various pronunciations, Ashkenazi (Yiddish), Sephardi (Sephardi Hebrew) and Israeli.
 * Matzoh is only Ashkenazi Hebrew, and is pronounced with an -o/-aw sound only by VERY few.
 * Thus, the form Matzah is perfectly Ashkenazi as well as Sephardi and Israeli. Both Matza(h) and Matzo(h) are clearly used in English. The form Matzah would be a reasonable compromise representing both the Ashkenazi MATza, the Sephardi Ma(t(sSA and the Israeli Hebrew MaTZA. -- Olve 21:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * BTW: I noted that you (JayJG) threw the numbers at me as "proof" for the Ashkenaziss form being the most appropriate. Let us look a bit closer at the numbers. Adding up the Google hits on Matza(h), we get a total of 1,131,000 hits for Matza(h) and 1,184,000 hits for Matzo(h) — a pretty minor difference (1.047/1.000 in "favour" of Matzo(h)) which suggests that these forms are numerically similar and that other factors, such as finding the culturally most inclusive form, are more relevant. Note that in a case like kosher vs. kasher, the Ashkenazi/Yiddish form kosher is clearly the established form. I am not asking for any sort of Sephardi hegemony here — just for a little bit of Ashkenazi sensitivity. -- Olve 22:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, I didn't mean to get into a tussle here. I was just pointing out that "Matzo" is the most popular English spelling (regardless of how Israelis pronounce it in Hebrew, or even how Ashkenazis pronounce it in English), and that spelling is used by a number of encyclopedias/dictionaries.  I have personally heard many Ashkenazim saying "matzoh", but I haven't done any formal surveys.  Regarding "hegemonies", I note that almost all articles on Jewish topics use the modern Israeli/"sorta Sephardi" pronunciation.  Whether it's Shabbat (not Shabbos or Shabbes), or Sukkot (not Sukkos or Sikkes), or Simchat Torah (not Simches Toireh) or Brit Milah (not Bris Milah), or Tzeniut (not Tznius), or Daf Yomi (not Daf Yoimi), or Tallit (not Tallis) or Tzitzit (not Tzitzis) or Kippah (not Yarmulke) etc.  In fact, this is one of the few, if not the only, article which follows an Ashkenazi pronunciation.  Given that it also conforms to the naming policy, I don't see the harm in leaving it here. Jayjg (talk) 17:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Interestingly, tallit is neither Ashkenazi (talles, tallis) nor Sephardi (tallét, taléd, taléth); brit milah is neither Ashkenazi (bris mile / bris miloh / briss) nor Sephardi (berit milá / berith milá). These forms are exellent examples of modern, widespread "compromise" forms established by modern, mainly Ashkenazi Jews. I am not suggesting that we should make sectarian Sephardi forms be the norm, just like I would prefer that we also avoid sectarian Ashkenazi forms like the one in question. Therefore, we should select the compromise forms: tallit (not tallis or tallét), brit milah (not Sephardi "berit milá" or Ashkenazi "bris(-miloh)"), tzedakah (not Ashkenazi "tzdokoh" or Sephardi "sedacá") and matzah (not Sephardi "massá" or or Ashkenazi "matzoh"). Concerning WP:NAME, it is not quite as usable as an argument for the "matzoh" form as you try to make it — as this policy page could just as easily be used to defend the other forms in question. -- Olve 20:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

 * All the spellings are essentially "Israeli"; I assert that fewer Sephardim use the traditional Sephardi pronunciations than Ashkenazim who use the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciations. Other than that, I don't particularly agree with changing the name, for the reasons listed, but don't feel overwhelmingly strongly about it either. Jayjg (talk) 17:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * BTW, I just moved Chometz to Chametz. ;-) Jayjg (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * i think that dictionaries still dont have one standard, with a majority probably writing Matsa or Matza, reflected the near-universal pronunciation. only religious ashkenazi yiddish-speaking jews say 'matso', and it doesnt make sense to have a fringe pronunciation. i would never have thought to type 'matso' to find this article and it is highly misleading for someone unfamiliar, since they will think to pronounce it as it looks. i suggest changing it to Matsa. dgl 02:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

 * My feeling: Who cares about dictionaries? The important thing, as dgl wrote, is which spelling people will tend to think of. For that, either do a survey of how it is spelled on the boxes, or just Google it. But even that isn't so important, if we would just add some redirect pages. So, just to keep dgl happy, I will now add one for matsa, and everyone else can add whatever they like too. --Keeves 11:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Who actually says "Matzo"?!... it sounds like some kind of commercial detergent for mats... The word is matza. A small minority of diaspora Yiddish speaking Haredim pronounce it "matzeh", and even that is not "matzo". That doesn't make the word "matz-oh" as "matzo" seems to designate. Absolutely nobody pronounces it that way. The only distinction is that Hebrew speakers put the accent on the second syllable whilst Yiddish and Ashkenazi-style non-Hebrew speakers put it on the first. In any case, it is a Hebrew word and obviously the correct usage is how it is said by 7 million modern Hebrew speakers, not by a few thousand people in Brooklyn and Flatbush. There is a "kamatz" vowel under the tzadik, not a "cholam"! Referring to the above discussion, there is no longer such a thing as "Sephardi" Hebrew, given that "Ashkenazi" Hebrew is not a spoken language but used solely in liturgy by an elderly ever-decreasing minority in the diaspora. "Sephardi Hebrew" is a term invented by non-Hebrew speaking Ashkenazim in the diaspora in order to expain to themselves their continued use of corrupted Eastern-European Hebrew in the synagogue. Monosig 10:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Israelis speak Hebrew, not English. What matters on English Wikipedia is how English speakers spell the word. The Random House and American Heritage dictionaries give "Matzo" as the primary spelling. "Matzo" gets 1.34 million Google hits, whereas "Matza" gets 1.09 million Google hits. Manischewitz spells it "Matzo". Streit's spells it "Matzo". Even the Israeli company Yehuda's spells it "Matzo". "Matzo" is clearly the most common form in English. If you want to move the page to "Matza", please do it properly; get consensus, and then go to WP:RFPM and ask that it be done. Don't do cut and pastes, which destroy page histories. Jayjg (talk) 18:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Quartanzans?
I thought somebody here might know: An article on quartanzans was just created. Apparently, it's a cracker-like bread similar to matza, which is also eaten on Jewish holidays. But the term gets 0 Google hits, so I'm wondering if it's real, or a joke? Thanks. 68.81.231.127 10:35, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy deleted as blatant nonsense. Amongst many things, Yom Kippur is a fast day, so there really can't be a special cracker eaten on that day. Jayjg (talk) 15:39, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the double check. I sometimes wonder how much stealth vandalism we miss. 68.81.231.127 22:55, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

matzo meal
Can anyone tell me what matzo meal is made from? Thanks.

Matzo meal is simply matzo that has been ground up into crumbs. It is often used as a replacement for bread crumbs, such as when breading a cutlet. It can also be used for making a batter for frying pancakes and other foods. If the matzo is ground even further, to flour-like fineness, it is called "matzo cake meal" or just "cake meal", and can be used in making cakes. Because it has already been wet and baked, it no longer has many of the chemical proprties of regular flour. This is why it can be used on Passover, and for the same reason it cannot replace flour in recipes without some adjustment to the recipe; for example, cakes would have more egg to help it fluff better, but breads usually don't come out good at all. --Keeves 3 July 2005 03:13 (UTC)

Christian Child
Excuse me? Blood of a Christian child? I thought that myth was over with since the beginning of the 20th century! It should be removed! (unsigned)

No Myth F-tard!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/08/wjews08.xml (unsigned)

There are processes in Wikipedia to deal with repeated vandalism. I strongly suggest you work this out in therapy, rather than making a fool of yourself in public. FiveRings 15:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Matza


text:
USS Starr

USS Starr (AKA-67) was a Tolland-class attack cargo ship in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service and scrapped in 1970.

History
Stokes was named for Starr County, Texas. Her keel was laid down as a Type C2-S-AJ3 ship on 13 June 1944 (as MC hull 1392), under Maritime Commission contract, by North Carolina Shipbuilding Company of Wilmington, North Carolina. She was launched on 18 August 1944, sponsored by Mrs. C. L. Griffin and acquired by the Navy from the War Shipping Administration on a bareboat charter; and was commissioned on 29 September 1944.

World War II, 1944–1945
Starr completed fitting out at Charleston, South Carolina, and sailed on 31 October for the Chesapeake Bay on her shakedown cruise. After loading cargo, she stood out of Norfolk, Virginia, on 27 November and proceeded, via the Panama Canal, to the Pacific. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 18 December 1944 and remained there until after Christmas. Starr participated in amphibious landing exercises during the first week of January and then entered Kahului Harbor, Maui, for combat loading.

Starr joined a large convoy and sailed west on 27 January, stopping at Eniwetok for two days, before proceeding to Saipan, where the Iwo Jima assault force was staging. The force cleared Tanapag Harbor on 16 February. At 0640 three days later, Starr launched her boats against the Iwo Jima beaches. The attack cargo ship had multiple duties: she was a receiving ship for wounded; an ammunition ship for USS Salt Lake City (CA-25); and she had a priority cargo of vehicles which were to be delivered only when requested and then, as quickly as possible. She waited until 25 February to begin discharging her cargo and finished on 5 March. She then got underway for Leyte.

Starr loaded combat cargo from 9 to 27 March and joined a convoy for the Ryukyu Islands. On 1 April, her first boats hit the water at 0615; and they soon joined their prearranged waves for hitting the Okinawa beaches. At 0420 on 9 April the ship was raked from stem to stern by an explosion. At first, it was thought that she had been torpedoed; but it was soon learned that she had been attacked by a Japanese Explosive Motor Boat (No. 326). The suicide boat had exploded as it contacted one of a cluster of Starr's landing craft that were moored alongside. The explosion was sufficiently removed from the side of the ship, and the water absorbed the shock so Starr suffered little damage.

Starr sailed for Guam on 10 April with a convoy and was routed onward to Pearl Harbor. She arrived there on 26 April and was notified that she was to return to the West Coast for overhaul. She arrived at San Pedro, Los Angeles, on 5 May; and repairs were begun immediately. When they were completed, the ship participated in an amphibious exercise and then loaded cargo at San Francisco, California, to be delivered to Guam. She sailed on 24 June and arrived at Guam on 11 July. On 20 July, she steamed to Pearl Harbor for another load of cargo for Guam. Starr was several days out of Guam when word was received that hostilities with Japan had ended.

Post-war activities, 1945–1946
After discharging her cargo at Guam, the ship was routed to the Philippines on 2 September; she arrived at Leyte on 5 September. Starr operated in the Philippines until 29 November when she got underway for China and arrived at Tsingtao on 4 December 1945.

Starr sailed from China to Sasebo, Japan, and thence to Vladivostok. She arrived there on 2 January 1946, unloaded her cargo, and returned to Sasebo where she received orders to proceed, via San Diego, to San Francisco. She remained at San Francisco from 9 to 18 March and then got underway for Hampton Roads. Starr arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, on 4 April 1946; was decommissioned on 31 May 1946, and was returned to the War Shipping Administration on 1 June 1946. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 19 June 1946.

In commercial service, 1947–1970
As a civilian vessel, Starr was sold on 3 December 1947 to Pacific Far East Lines, which changed her name to SS India Bear. In April 1957 she was sold to Trans-Pacific Company, who sold her in turn on 11 November 1959 to Dorama, Incorporated. On 10 July 1959 she was named Lanakila, and on 27 May 1960 she was sold to Long Island Tankers Corporation which renamed her India Bear. On 7 February 1961 she was again sold to Pacific Far East Line. Finally, on 9 September 1970 she was sold to Sing Cheng Yung Iron & Steel Company for scrapping in Taiwan.

Awards
Starr received two battle stars for World War II service.

title: USS Starr


text:
Ligne de Sceaux

The Ligne de Sceaux (Sceaux Line) was a railway line in France running from Paris, which initially linked the Place Denfert-Rochereau (then called the Place d'Enfer, in Paris, to the town of Sceaux. The line originally opened in 1846 as a broad gauge line to demonstrate the Arnoux system and was extended to the south to Sceaux. A branch, now the main line, was built to Orsay and extended to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and then to Limours. In the latter configuration, it is also called the Paris-Luxembourg–Limours line (line 552000 of the national rail network) by SNCF Réseau. With a capital of 3 million francs, it was one of five companies placed under sequestration by the State during the Crash of 1847, along with the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans on 4 April 1848, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Bordeaux à La Teste on 30 October 1848 and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Marseille à Avignon on 21 November 1848. Similarly, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon was nationalised in 1848. In 1895, it was extended north into Paris to Luxembourg station. In 1937, it was transferred by the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans to the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris (CMP) after thorough modernisation. The commissioning of electric railcars suitable for the line, the Z railcars, and the redevelopment of the infrastructure with high platforms and high-performance signalling made it a core section of a future regional metro, enabling it to double its traffic in less than a year. The section from Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse to Limours was abandoned in 1939. After a period of particularly high traffic during the Second World War and the following years, the 40 km long line was integrated into the Réseau Express Régional (Regional Express Network, RER) in 1977. It now constitutes the two southern branches of line B of the RER south of the Gare du Nord: branch B2 to Robinson and branch B4 to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse.

Paris to Sceaux
In 1838, Jean-Claude-Républicain Arnoux, a graduate of the École polytechnique, proposed a technical solution to improve the speed of trains in curves, while reducing wear on the rails and wheels. He suggested separating the wheels from the same axle and hinging the axles on a central pivot instead of fixing them to the carriage frames. In addition, he recommended the use of a broad gauge of. This is called the Arnoux system (système Arnoux). In order to implement his system, Arnoux secured the adoption of a law on 5 August 1844 that granted him a concession to build and operate the Sceaux line for a period of fifty years. On 21 February 1845, he founded the Compagnie du Chemin de fer de Paris à Sceaux (Paris–Sceaux Railway Company). The first section connected the embarcadère (pier) of Enfer (renamed Denfert-Rochereau in 1895 ), located at the Barrière d'Enfer in Paris, to Sceaux. It was inaugurated on 7 June 1846 and opened to the public on 23 June. This first section, which wound around several sharp curves and reverse curves from Bourg-la-Reine to enable a gradient of 1.15% and passed through an intermediate station called Fontenay (named after the street of Rue de Fontenay in Sceaux), had its terminus at Sceaux. The winding route was intended to prove the relevance and effectiveness of the Arnoux system. The gradient of the track did not exceed 3.0%. Although the structures were planned from the start to enable a double track, only a single track was laid for the opening. A second track was laid from Paris to Bourg-la-Reine in 1863.

Bourg-la-Reine to Orsay
The line suffered from losses during its operations: while very profitable during fine weather, it struggled to attract travellers during the rest of the year. The company considered an extension to Orsay to improve its profitability. The first route considered would have branched off near Fontenay station and would have included a branch towards Longjumeau. This first proposal was not pursued, but the current route, with a branch at Bourg-la-Reine, was seriously studied. However, the financial crisis of 1847 further weakened the company, so that it was placed in receivership in 1849–1850. During the Revolution of 1848, earthworks were built from Sceaux to Orsay, financed by the State within the framework of the National Workshops. They reached Palaiseau in 1849. The State, wary of the company's future, built the platforms to conventional railway standards, that is to say with radii of curvature grrater than the sharp curves accepted by the Arnoux system. The company, partially refloated, obtains a concession to build a line from Bourg-la-Reine to Orsay by a law of 10 June 1853. In addition to passenger traffic, significant freight traffic was forecast, notably the transport of sandstone from the Yvette valley and fresh vegetables. The line was single track, broad gauge, although the concession provides for its conversion to standard gauge in the long term. The line comprised 17 structures, including a 205 m-long tunnel. Between Palaiseau and Orsay, the line was also sinuous, unlike the section built by the state: the radii of curvature were as little as 125 m. The section was inaugurated to Orsay on 28 July 1854. The terminus was at a place called "les Planches", near the current Guichet. Despite some signs of financial improvement, the company remained fragile, and in particular could not acquire the rolling stock for the establishment of a freight service, which would nevertheless have been lucrative.

Orsay to Limours
The Compagnie du Paris-Orléans bought the Sceaux line from the Arnoux company in 1857 to thwart the plans of a competing company that wanted to gain rail access to Paris. In the project presented, the Sceaux line was to be integrated into a route from Paris to Tours through Châteaudun and Vendôme. However, once this competitor had been eliminated and in-depth studies carried out, the Paris-Orléans determined that the beginning of the line to Tours via Orsay was impractical due to a succession of plateaus and valleys. The Paris-Orléans gained approval for a new route via Brétigny. Following the financial collapse of the Compagnie du chemin de fer Grand-Central de France and its dismantling organised by the State in 1857 for the benefit of the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans and the establishment of the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans bought the line from Paris to Orsay under an agreement signed between the two companies on 18 June 1855. This treaty was approved by decree on 19 June 1857. As compensation for a population that was to be deprived of a railway, it was proposed to build a section from Orsay to Limours as an extension of the Sceaux line. A decree of August 28, 1862 ratified this extension to Limours, via Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and the valley of Saint-Paul. Thus, the Paris-Orleans was allowed to make a saving by not having to serve Chevreuse, even if it meant building a 2% ramp in the valley of Saint-Paul. The concession to build line "from Orsay to Limours" was officially granted to the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans by an agreement signed on 11 June 1863 between the Minister of Public Works and the Company. This agreement was approved by an imperial decree on 6 July 1863. The last section was inaugurated on 26 August 1867. It was built as a single track.

Acquisition and modernisation
Towards the end of the 19th century, the emergence of bogies overcame the problem of wear on rails and restrictions on speed through curves without resorting to the complex system, including broad gauge, designed by Arnoux. To make the Sceaux line compatible with other networks, a decree of 1889 permitted the Arnoux system to be abandoned and adopted. In order not to interrupt the traffic, the conversion of gauge and change of rolling stock was carried out on the night of 21/22 May 1891. The original route from Bourg-la-Reine to Sceaux was abandoned and replaced by the current route, which also comprises three stations and ends in Robinson, passing through Fontenay-aux-Roses. Work began in June 1891 and ended in May 1893.

Extension to Luxembourg
The extension in Paris between Denfert station and Luxembourg was declared to be of public utility by a decree of 14 December 1889. In the 1890s, the line was extended in tunnel to a new Parisian terminus at Luxembourg. Vents were provided for the extraction of the steam locomotives' fumes. The Compagnie du Paris-Orléans also planned to move this terminus to its new Orsay station (later converted to house the Musée d'Orsay), opened in 1900. The beginning of this extension still exists at the east exit of RER C from the station in the form of a second double-track running tunnel parallel to the one heading towards the Gare d'Austerlitz. This is now used for train storage.

Development projects
A line from Limours to Dourdan was granted as a possible concession to the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans by an agreement signed between the Minister of Public Works and the Company on 17 June 1892. This agreement was enacted by a law of 20 March 1893. In 1913, the government considered that the electrification of the Sceaux line was not a priority, because the opening of the line from Paris to Chartres via Gallardon was imminent. Two of its four tracks would have been electrified, but this line was never finished. Meanwhile, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans was given a concession to extend the Sceaux line from Limours to Dourdan under an agreement signed by the Minister of Public Works and the company on 20 February 1913. This convention was approved by law on 7 July 1913, which also declared that the line had public utility. This line was never built. As early as 1929, the Langevin plan (named after the then Minister of Public Works) included link lines in the Paris region so as to create an urban transport infrastructure on the model of the German S-Bahn. This developed into the Réseau Express Régional (RER). As the Langevin plan involved crossing Paris underground, the operation of steam trains would have been problematic. In 1929, it was decided to electrify the line to Massy-Palaiseau. The Compagnie du Paris-Orléans refused to take on this work at its own expense. It nevertheless carried out the electrification due to its experience and then transferred the line to the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris (CMP). This company became part of the future Régie autonome des transports parisiens (RATP) as a result of a merger after the Second World War with the Société des transports en commun de la région parisienne (STCRP), which managed the bus network and was entrusted with the operation of this section of the line. The line was electrified between 1935 and 1937 and two substations were built at Paris-Montsouris and Massy-Villaine (between Massy-Verrières and Massy-Palaiseau). The first electric train carrying passengers ran on 16 November 1937. The electrification was carried out with overhead line, using the 1500 volts DC system. Electrification continued to the south and reached Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse on 1 January 1939. A new substation was installed near Gif-sur-Yvette. Electrification was never undertaken towards the town of Limours, which was always served over a single track by a Renault VH petrol railcar, operated every day from Versailles-Matelots. The operation of the unprofitable Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse – Limours section was abandoned on 15 May 1939 and replaced by a coach service. Automatic block light signalling was installed during the electrification. The colour-light signaling adopted was original and different from that of the SNCF (Code Verlant), since turning off a light made the signal more restrictive. Thus the absolute stop signal consisted of a single red light, the forward indication of an occupied section was indicated by two red lights. A warning was given by two yellow lights and an early warning by three yellow lights. A clear section was indicated by a green light. This signalling was replaced by the standard SNCF signalling when the line was extended to Châtelet–Les Halles to connect with RER A.

The War
The tracks of the Saint-Rémy–Limours section were torn up by the German occupiers in 1941; the ballast was used for the construction of the runways at Villacoublay airfield by allied forces in 1944. This was the end of use of the section, although it was not officially closed until 1967. The rest of the line was spared by the war until 1944. However, Massy-Palaiseau railway junction, located on the Grande Ceinture (Great Belt), which was used by the occupying forces, was the target of four Allied air raids in June 1944. The Bures sector was the target of a fifth air raid.

The post-war era and the RER

Newly electrified, the line was served by Z 23000 (popularly known as Z) railcars for fifty years. MS 61 sets, which later circulated on the RER A, also first operated on the line in 1967 and some MS 61 sets known as series A ran on the line until 1983. The last Z 23000s were withdrawn from service in 1987, not without having been of great help during the winters of 1985 and 1986, when the new MI 79 sets suffered many breakdowns due to snow. In the 1970s, it was decided to connect the Sceaux line to the Gare du Nord and the lines of the Paris-Nord suburban network, in accordance with the "Master plan for development and town planning in the Paris region" (Schéma directeur d'aménagement et d'urbanisme de la région de Paris) of 1965. The route involved a difficult crossing under the Seine and it was initially envisaged that Luxembourg station would be closed to allow an earlier descent to pass under the river and it would be replaced by the construction of a new station called Quartier Latin, which would have been built further north towards the Carrefour de l'Odéon to allow a connection with lines 4 and 10 of the Métro. A protest campaign by residents led to the retention of Luxembourg station. As a result, the new tunnel was built with a 4.08% grade, beginning its descent just north of the station. This required the total reconstruction of the station and the establishment of a temporary terminus at the station, with one of the platforms being extended by means of wooden planks so that both sides of the trains had access to the platforms. A new station at Châtelet–Les Halles, built to give interchange with line A was inaugurated on 8 December 1977. The Sceaux line now formed the southern branch of RER line B. The connection between the Sceaux line in the south and the line to Roissy in the north (operated by the SNCF) and to Mitry–Claye was finally completed at the Gare du Nord in 1983. The RER B opened in its entirety, with direct services between Charles de Gaulle Airport or Mitry-Claye and Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse or Robinson. The four letter "mission codes" were introduced: the first letter indicates the terminus station for the service and the following letters indicate the details of the route (for instance: AILO, KNUT, POLY, LYRE, etc.) Saint-Michel - Notre-Dame station, built to allow connection with line C of the RER and line 10 of the métro, was opened on 17 February 1988. This involved fitting out spaces reserved for it during the construction of the tunnel and the station is located partly under the Seine. At the same time Cluny - La Sorbonne station on line 10 was reopened to provide interchange with line 10.

Current operations
The line is now operated by RATP from Gare du Nord to Robinson, Massy-Palaiseau and Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse; it is enjoying significant commercial success. In Paris, the trains follow one another every three minutes. Since 1987, line B has been operated by sets called MI 79 by the RATP (and Z 8100 by the SNCF) and MI 84 (called Z 8400 by the SNCF), Eight MI 84 sets were assigned to this line to complete the MI 79 fleet; the two classes are totally compatible and mixed sets of MI 79 and MI 84 are sometimes seen. Since 2002, the RATP has carried out major work to replace the overhead line and its supports, as well as the ticket validation equipment. Consistent signage has been put in place for passengers, who also benefit from real-time information on train movements.

title: Ligne de Sceaux


text:
User:Jtvisona/Bio

Credentials

 * B.S. in Computer Science (concentration Software Engineering)
 * Adjunct faculty at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois

Personal Philosophy

 * Ask forgiveness, not permission.

Interests

 * Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
 * Computer Science
 * Mathematics
 * Chaos and Complexity and Consilience
 * Linguistics and Language, esp. Italian, German, and English
 * Hand-to-Hand Combat
 * United States Marine Corps
 * Buckminister Fuller, Carl Sagan, et alii
 * Gardening and construction
 * Storytelling
 * Cognitive science and artificial intelligence
 * Classical Greece and Classical Rome

My Links

 * International Logo Contest
 * ISO 639

Co-steward of These Links

 * Instant Messaging Wikipedians
 * Computer Science
 * Algorithm

title: User:Jtvisona/Bio


text:
Birju Maharaj

Pandit Birju Maharaj (born Brijmohan Nath Mishra; 4 February 1938 – 17 January 2022) was an Indian dancer, composer, singer, and exponent of the Lucknow "Kalka-Bindadin" Gharana of Kathak dance in India. He was a descendant of the Maharaj family of Kathak dancers, which includes his two uncles, Shambhu Maharaj and Lachhu Maharaj, and his father and guru, Acchan Maharaj. He also practised Hindustani classical music and was a vocalist. After working along with his uncle, Shambhu Maharaj at Bhartiya Kala Kendra, later the Kathak Kendra, New Delhi, he remained head of the latter, for several years, until his retirement in 1998 when he opened his own dance school, Kalashram, also in Delhi.

Birju Maharaj was a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honor, in 1986.

Early life
Maharaj was born Brijmohan Nath Mishra, on 4 February 1938 into a Hindu Brahmin family at Handia of Allahabad district. His father was the Kathak exponent, Jagannath Maharaj, popularly known as Acchan Maharaj of Lucknow gharana and the Kalka-Bindadin family in Lucknow. His father served as the court dancer in Raigarh princely state. Maharaj started dancing early at the age of four, and was trained by his uncles, Lachhu Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj and his father. He started his performances first at his father's concerts before performing solo at the age of seven in West Bengal. His father died when Maharaj was nine.

Career
Maharaj started teaching the dance form at the age of thirteen, at the Sangeet Bharti in New Delhi. He then taught at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra in Delhi, and at the Kathak Kendra (a unit of the Sangeet Natak Akademi) where he was Head of Faculty, and director, retiring in 1998 after which he opened his own dance school, Kalashram, also in Delhi.

In addition to performing the Kathak dance form, he also brought along knowledge of Hindustani classical music and percussion instruments. He was noted to have been able to sing the thumri while dancing to it, and also playing instruments like the tabla and the dholak. His Kathak performances in addition to mythological stories had contemporary elements including stories from daily life and social issues being communicated by way of the dance. His ginti ki tihaais were noted to have been studied by Kathak students. He collaborated with other artists including the tabla player Zakir Hussain, and singers Rajan and Sajan Mishra. Some of his students included Priti Singh, Saswati Sen, Aditi Mangaldas, and Nisha Mahajan.

Maharaj also choreographed and composed music for many Indian movies. Some of the performances that he choreographed included for Saswati Sen in Satyajit Ray's Shatranj ke Khiladi (1977), Madhuri Dixit in Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Devdas (2002) and Dedh Ishqiya (2014), Kamal Haasan in Vishwaroopam (2012), Deepika Padukone in Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Alia Bhatt in Kalank (2019). His choreography for Kamal Hassan in Vishwaroopam won him the National Film Award for Best Choreography in 2012, while his choreography for Deepika Padukone in Bajirao Mastani won him a Filmfare Award for Best Choreography in 2016.

Maharaj was one of the youngest artists to receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, when he received the award at the age of 28. He also received the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 1986.

Personal life
Maharaj was married and had five children (2 sons and 3 daughters). In later life, Maharaj had kidney disease and diabetes, and received dialysis. He died from a heart attack at his residence in Delhi, on 16 January 2022, at age 83.

Awards and honours

 * 1964 - Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
 * 1986 - Padma Vibhushan
 * 1986 - Nritya Choodamani Award by Sri Krishna Gana Sabha
 * 1987 - Kalidas Samman
 * 2002 - Lata Mangeshkar Puraskar
 * Honorary doctorate from Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya
 * Honorary doctorate from Banaras Hindu University
 * Sangam Kala Award
 * Bharat Muni Sammaan
 * Andhra Ratna
 * Nritya Vilas Award
 * Adharshila Shikhar Samman
 * Soviet Land Nehru Award
 * National Nritya Shiromani Award
 * Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award
 * Newsmakers Achievers Award in 2017

Film

 * 2012 - National Film Award for Best Choreography for Unnai Kaanaathu (Vishwaroopam)
 * 2016 - Filmfare Award for Best Choreography for Mohe Rang Do Laal (Bajirao Mastani)

title: Birju Maharaj


text:
Talk:The Magic School Bus explores the Senses

Do the authors of The Magic School Bus explores the Senses really capitalize their titles so capriciously? - Someone else 03:07, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)