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Swedish Match

Swedish Match AB is a Swedish multinational tobacco company headquartered in Stockholm. The company manufactures snus, nicotine pouches, moist snuff, tobacco- and nicotine-free pouch products, chewing tobacco, chew bags, tobacco bits, cigars, matches, lighters, and other fire products with operations in Sweden, Denmark, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. The company's origins can be traced back to 1868, and Ivar Kreuger. Swedish Match has played an important part in Sweden's industrial development.

In May 2022, Philip Morris launched a takeover bid for Swedish Match. Despite some shareholder resistance, by late November 2022 Philip Morris had acquired over 90% ownership, allowing it to begin the compulsory purchase of remaining shares and de-list Swedish Match from the stock market.

History
The operations of Swedish Match originate from two companies: Svenska Tobaksmonopolet, a tobacco monopoly owned by the Swedish state and founded in 1915, and Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget (STAB), a match manufacturing company founded in 1917 by Ivar Kreuger (also known as the ”Match King”) in connection with the acquisition of Jönköpings Tändsticksfabrik. In 1992, the tobacco and lights operations were joined in the Procordia Group. Two years later, they were merged into an independent company named Swedish Match, which became publicly listed in 1996.

During parts of its existence, most recently between 2010 and 2015, the company has been headquartered in the so-called Matchstick Palace, commissioned by Ivar Kreuger in the late 1920s.

Svenska Tändsticks AB (STAB)
In 1917, Ivar Kreuger founded Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget (STAB) in Jönköping (also known as "City of the matches"). It was a merger between Aktiebolaget Förenade Tändsticksfabriker and Jönköpings & Vulcans Tändsticksfabriksaktiebolag. By expanding through acquisition of government-created monopolies by lending money to the governments, and through mergers with for instance the British match company Bryant and May in 1927, it became the world's largest match manufacturer. A year later, STAB was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. In 1930, the company controlled 60 percent of the world's match production and was the sole owner of match companies in 33 countries.

Following the death of Ivar Kreuger in 1932, the ownership structure in STAB changed and a number of factories were liquidated. During 1938, STAB's share of the world's matchmaking fell to 20 percent. When the match market declined sharply in the 1950s, STAB looked for new business ventures and acquired more than 50 companies between 1968 and 1976.

In 1980, Svenska Tändsticks AB changed its name to Swedish Match to create unity throughout the group. In 1988 the company was acquired by Stora AB and was sold two years later to Nederlight. After another two years, Procordia acquired Swedish Match.

AB Svenska Tobaksmonopolet
In 1915, the Swedish government founded AB Svenska Tobaksmonopolet and nationalized all Swedish tobacco production plants. The monopoly was introduced in order to give the government funds to finance the country's military defense and a new national pension system.

During the 1960s, the monopoly on production, import and sale of tobacco was abolished in Sweden. Svenska Tobaksmonopolet was converted to a new state-owned company named Svenska Tobaks AB. In 1971, the ownership of the tobacco group was transferred to Statsföretag, the Swedish Sovereign Wealth Fund, which in 1984 was renamed Procordia.

As a result of the monopoly being abolished and in order to broaden the market, the Dutch cigar company Elisabeth Bas/La Paz (EBAS), the American tobacco manufacturer Pinkerton Tobacco Company (maker of Red Man, a chewing tobacco brand introduced in the U.S. in 1904) and the Dutch cigar producer Willem II were acquired between 1968 and 1989. In 1989, Procodia was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Volvo acquired part of Procordia in 1990 and became the principal owner together with the Swedish government. To complement the tobacco business, Procordia, in 1992, acquired the match and lighter company Swedish Match from Nederlight.

Swedish Match AB
In 1992, the listed company Procordia acquired the match and lighter business named Swedish Match. The operations of Swedish Match were integrated with Procordia United Brands, one of Procordia's business operations, and was renamed Swedish Match to take advantage of international name recognition. In 1994, Swedish Match functioned as an independent company and was later, in 1996, listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm AB and on Nasdaq.

In 1999, the company sold its cigarette manufacturing to Austria Tabak but is still active as a distributor of cigarettes on the Swedish market. In the same year, Swedish Match expanded its cooperation with PT. Java Match Factory (Jamafac), the biggest safety matches manufacturer in Indonesia, to a joint venture agreement in order to strengthen its position within lights and matches in Southeast Asia. Jamafac was divested in 2005 and now has a license agreement with Swedish Match to produce matches and distribute Cricket Lighters in Indonesia.

In 2009, Swedish Match entered an agreement with Philip Morris International and formed the joint venture company SMPM International, with equal stakes owned by each of the two partners, for exploring and developing new markets for snus and other smokefree tobacco products outside Scandinavia and the United States. The collaboration placed test markets in Tel Aviv, Israel; St. Petersburg, Russia; Taiwan; and nationwide Canada. The joint venture was, however, dissolved in 2015.

In 2010, Swedish Match and Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) formed a new company specialized in cigars. Swedish Match brought its entire cigar business (with the exception of U.S. mass market cigars) and pipe tobacco into the new company, while STG transferred all of its tobacco business. The new company took over the name Scandinavian Tobacco Group. Swedish Match became a partner with 49 percent of the company, and the remaining shares were owned by Skandinavisk Holding A/S. In 2016, STG became publicly listed, and Swedish Match sold most of its shares in the company.

In 2017, Swedish Match acquired V2 Tobacco, a producer of chew bags and snus, and in 2018, Oliver Twist, a producer of tobacco bits. Both companies are Danish and now fully owned by Swedish Match. Also in 2018, Swedish Match bought a 95 percent stake in the Swedish company Gotlandssnus, which produces snus.

In 2022, Swedish Match's shares hit record high as Philip Morris International (PMI) closed a $16 billion dollar deal with the company. PMI completed the acquisition and eventually delisted Swedish Match.

Operations
Snus, moist snuff, cigars, chewing tobacco, chew bags, tobacco bits, matches and lighters are the main products made by Swedish Match. The company also sells complementary products, such as razors, batteries and light bulbs, on the Brazilian market.

Organization
The organizational structure consists of three divisions, along with corporate functions.

Europe division
The Europe division develops, manufactures, markets and sells snus, nicotine pouches and other smokeless products. The geographic scope is international except North America, with a focus on Europe.

US division
The US Division produces chewing tobacco, cigars, moist snuff and nicotine pouches for the American market. It is also responsible for sales and marketing in the United States.

Lights division
The Lights division manufactures and markets matches and lighters, with production in Brazil, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Sweden. The main markets are Europe, Asia, Brazil and parts of Africa. The division also sells complementary products, mainly in Brazil.

Operating locations and factories
Swedish Match operates in eleven countries and has production units in seven of those: Brazil, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Sweden and the US. The company has 15 factories.

The table below presents an overview of Swedish Match's operations as of 2021:

Production of matches and lighters The matches produced by Swedish Match are safety matches and are manufactured in Sweden and Brazil. The entity that produces matches in Sweden, Swedish Match Industries AB, is since 2009 certified according to the Forest Stewardship Council chain of custody standard and the standard for controlled wood. The matches are manufactured according to the European match standards EN 1783:1997. 40 percent of the production is sold in Europe and 60 percent to Africa, Central America, The Caribbean, Oceania and the Middle East. The Swedish manufacturing facilities are located in Tidaholm and Vetlanda. In Brazil, 95% of the wood consumption for safety matches and matchboxes is from Swedish Match's own plantations. Swedish Match produces lighters in the Philippines, the Netherlands and Brazil.

Market
While today's Swedish Match still produces matches, the majority of its sales and operating profits comes from its smokeless tobacco products such as snus, nicotine pouches, moist snuff and chewing tobacco. In 2021, these smokeless products accounted for 67 percent of sales and 74 percent of Swedish Match's operating profit, whereas matches and lighters accounted for 7 percent of sales and 4 percent of operating profit. Swedish Match's cigars accounted for 26 percent of sales and 23 percent of the operating profit. Swedish Match generates most of its sales in Scandinavia and the US(93 percent of company sales in 2021) but also has a significant worldwide presence through its matches and lighters businesses.

Smokefree products
Scandinavia and the US are the primary markets for Swedish Match's smokefree products. The company is market leader in snus in both Sweden and Norway. In 2021, the operating profit for smokefree products (chew bags, tobacco bits, snus, moist snuff, nicotine pouches and chewing tobacco) increased to 5,998 MSEK (5,142 MSEK in 2021). The market for Scandinavian snus and the US moist snuff/snus is approximately 1.745 billion cans per year (345 million cans in Scandinavia and 1.4 billion cans in the US). The snus market in the US is about $175 million, and Swedish Match has about 10 percent of the market.

Cigars
In 2014, the US cigar market was estimated to more than 5 billion cigars (excluding little cigars) of which Swedish Match produced 1.1 billion sticks of cigars. The cigar market grew 9 percent compared to 2013 in terms of volume. Swedish Match's share was even greater in the recent past, as a series of acquisitions between 1999 and 2010 including General Cigar and Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) which is the world's largest cigar producer and manufactures more than 50 percent of the world's pipe tobacco. Control of major brands such as Macanudo, Punch, Cohiba, CAO and La Gloria Cubana gave Swedish Match nearly 1/3 of the US premium cigar market in addition to its strong position in machine-made cigars. However, in 2014 Swedish Match, having reorganized its premium-cigar businesses under the STG umbrella, spun off STG as a public company. Swedish Match's cigar business is now limited to machine-made mass-production brands such as White Owl and Garcia y Vega.

Matches and lighters
Swedish Match supplies matches worldwide. The main markets for matches are Europe, Asia and the Americas. For lighters, the most important markets are Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Scandinavia, France and UK. In 2021, 59 billion matchsticks were produced and 325 million lighters. Sales for matches and lighters was 1,338 MSEK (1,149 MSEK in 2020) and the operating profit increased by 0.8 percent to 1,453 MSEK (1,382 MSEK in 2020).

Main brands
Below are Swedish Match's main brands along with market information as of 2021:

Swedish Match is also active on the Brazilian market with disposable razors, batteries, light bulbs and toothpicks under the Fiat Lux brand.

Market position and competition
In 2019, cigarettes made up 88 percent of the global tobacco market by value, smokeless products 2 percent and other products, which includes e-cigarettes, 10 percent. Swedish Match is active in the smokeless products category, with several types of smokeless products, as well as in the other products category, with cigars.

In the United States
For nicotine pouches in 2019, Swedish Match was number one in the U.S. market, with 84 percent. The main competitors, in descending order, were BAT (Reynolds American) and Altria.

For moist snuff in 2019, Swedish Match was number three in the U.S. market, with 8 percent. The main competitors, in descending order, were Altria (USSTC) and BAT (Reynolds American).

For chewing tobacco in 2019, Swedish Match was number one in the U.S. market, with 41 percent. The main competitors, in descending order, were National Tobacco, Swisher, and BAT (Reynolds American).

For mass market cigars, excluding little cigars, in 2019, Swedish Match was number two in the U.S. market, with 22 percent. The main competitors, in descending order, were Swisher, Altria (Middleton), and Imperial Brands (ITG Brands).

In Scandinavia
For snus in 2019, Swedish Match was number one in both the Swedish and Norwegian markets, with 61 and 55 percent, respectively.

For nicotine pouches in 2019, Swedish Match was number two in the Swedish market and number three in the Norwegian market, with 26 and 15 percent, respectively.

For snus and nicotine pouches combined in 2019, Swedish Match was number one in both the Swedish and Norwegian markets, with 60 and 49 percent, respectively. In Sweden, the main competitors, in descending order, were Imperial Brands, BAT, and Japan Tobacco International. In Norway, the main competitors, in descending order, were Imperial Brands and BAT.

Swedish Match in the US
In the US, Swedish Match produces and distributes the Longhorn, Timber Wolf and Red Man brands of moist snuff. The company also expanded into the United States premium cigar business by purchasing General Cigar Company Inc. (producer of non-Cuban versions of Macanudo, Partagas and Punch) from Edgar Cullman and El Credito Cigar Company (producer of La Gloria Cubana and El Rico Habano) from Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. In October 2010, the company transferred its US premium cigar and European cigar businesses, as well as its pipe tobacco and accessories businesses, to a new company named Scandinavian Tobacco Group, while receiving a 49 percent ownership stake in the new company.

In an effort to expand its snus business outside of Sweden and Norway, the company has, since 2009, been selling its Scandinavian market leading brand of snus, General, at tobacco retailers in the US. The distribution of General snus has increased over the years, from being sold in approximately 10,000 stores in 2012 to more than 24,000 stores by the end of 2014.

For the US, snus is a relatively new category while the main smokeless category is moist snuff. Moist snuff is made using fermentation. Snus is made using a steam heat process (much like pasteurisation) and is usually placed under the upper lip, which means that spitting is not necessary.

Key people
Swedish Match's board after the annual general meeting in 2021:

President and CEO: Lennart Sundén, 1998–2004 Sven Hindrikes, 2004–2008 Conny Karlsson (born 1955) is chairman of the board since 2007 and board member since 2006. Lars Dahlgren (born 1970) is president and CEO of Swedish Match since 2008.

Ownership structure
In 2021, 78,3 percent of Swedish Match was owned by foreign investors.

title: Swedish Match


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CAH

CAH can stand for:

Science and technology

 * Congenital adrenal hyperplasia
 * Calcium Aluminate Hydrate, an important phase in cement chemistry
 * Chlorinated Aromatic Hydrocarbon
 * CAH, a mnemonic used to teach trigonometry, showing that cosine is the ratio of adjacent over hypotenuse

Companies and organizations

 * Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH)
 * Community of All Hallows, an Anglican religious community for women
 * Capital Airport Holding, airport holdings company in the People's Republic of China
 * Charlan Air Charter, a South African airline with the ICAO airline designator CAH

Media

 * Cambridge Ancient History, a bibliographic abbreviation for the work edited by Cambridge University Press
 * Calvin and Hobbes, a newspaper comic strip from 1985 to 1995
 * Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic

Other uses

 * Crime against humanity
 * Cards Against Humanity, a party game
 * Critical Access Hospital (CAH); these must have no more than 25 beds, not counting 10 extra psychiatric beds and 10 extra inpatient rehab beds, and must be located in a rural area or an area treated as rural, be certified by the state as being a necessary provider of healthcare services to area residents, and be more than a 35-mile drive away from a hospital or other healthcare facility
 * Controlled-access highway
 * CAH, the IATA airport code for Cà Mau Airport

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

title: CAH


text: User talk:65.92.75.184

title: User talk:65.92.75.184


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Idrija

Idrija (, in older sources Zgornja Idrija; (Ober)idria, Idria) is a town in western Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Idrija. Located in the traditional region of the Slovene Littoral and in the Gorizia Statistical Region, it is notable for its mercury mine with stores and infrastructure, as well as miners' living quarters, and a miners' theatre. Together with the Spanish mine at Almadén, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012. In 2011, Idrija was given the Alpine Town of the Year award.

Geography
The town of Idrija lies in the Idrija Basin, surrounded by the Idrija Hills. It is traversed by the Idrijca River, which is joined there by Nikova Creek. It includes the neighborhoods of Brusovše, Cegovnica, Prenjuta, and Žabja Vas close to the town center, as well as the more outlying hamlets of Češnjice, Ljubevč, Marof, Mokraška Vas, Podroteja, Staje, and Zahoda. The Marof hydroelectric plant is located on the Idrijca River on the northern outskirts of Idrija, between Marof and Mokraška Vas. Springs in the area include Podroteja Spring and Wild Lake on the Idrijca River south of the town.

History
Mercury was discovered in Idrija (known as Idria under Austrian rule) in the late 15th century (various sources cite 1490, 1492,  and 1497  ). To support the mining activities, Gewerkenegg Castle was constructed between 1522 and 1533 by the mine owners. Mining operations were taken over by the government in 1580. The mineral idrialite, discovered here in 1832, is named after the town.

In the Middle Ages, Idrija was managed by the Patriarchate of Aquileia and the Counts of Gorizia as part of the Governorate of Tolmin, which became independent in the 15th century. After 1500, Idrija was occupied for one year by the Republic of Venice (in 1508), but it was otherwise governed by the House of Habsburg. In March 1511, it was affected by the forceful 1511 Idrija earthquake. In the 18th century, Idrija gained the rights of a market town. From 1783 until the 1910s, it was part of the Inner Carniola Kreis. In 1920, it came under Italy with the Treaty of Rapallo. In September 1943, it became part of the Nazi Germany and was then heavily rocketed by the SAAF in 1945. After the war, it formed part of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia within Yugoslavia and became a town in independent Slovenia in June 1991.

Today, its inhabitants mostly consider it part of the Slovene Littoral.

Legend
According to legend, a bucket maker working in a local spring spotted a small amount of liquid mercury over 500 years ago. Idrija is one of the few places in the world where mercury occurs in both its elemental liquid state and as cinnabar (mercury sulfide) ore. The subterranean shaft mine entrance known as Anthony's Shaft (Antonijev rov) is used today for tours of the upper levels, complete with life-sized depictions of workers over the ages. The lower levels, which extend to almost 400 meters below the surface and are no longer being actively mined, are currently being cleaned up.

Church
The parish church in the town is dedicated to Saint Joseph the Worker and belongs to the Diocese of Koper. There are three other churches in Idrija, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Anthony of Padua, and Our Lady of Sorrows.

Notable people
Notable people who were born or lived in Idrija include:
 * Aleš Bebler (1907–1981), Slovene Communist leader, resistance fighter, and diplomat
 * Jožef Blasnik (1800–1872), printer, publisher
 * Stanko Bloudek (1890–1959), designer
 * Borut Božič (born 1980), professional road cyclist
 * Aleš Čar (born 1971), writer
 * Karel Dežman (1821–1889), Carniolan politician and scholar
 * Damir Feigel (1879–1959), writer, journalist, cultural worker, satirist, humorist, father of Slovenian science fiction, national awakener and anti-fascism fighter
 * Heinrich Freyer (1802–1866), Slovenian botanist, cartographer, pharmacist and natural scientist
 * Ludvik Grilc (1851–1910), painter/portrait painter
 * Belsazar Hacquet (1739/40–1815), French natural scientist
 * Marko Hatlak (born 1980), accordionist
 * Vladimír Karfík (1901–1996), Czechoslovak architect
 * Eva Lucija Cecilija Viktorija Emilija Kraus, (1785–1845), Baroness of Wolsberg, lover of French Emperor Napoleon
 * Marko V. Lipold (1816–1883), Miner, geologist and lawyer, known as the father of Slovenian geology
 * Jožef Mrak (1709–1786), one of the most notable Slovenian polytechnicians
 * Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975), Italian film director and poet
 * Vasja Pirc (1907–1980), chess grandmaster
 * Nikolaj Pirnat (1903–1948), sculptor, painter, illustrator and author
 * Zorko Prelovec (1887–1939), musician, composer, choir composition author
 * Luka Rupnik (born 1993), Slovenian basketball player
 * Marko Ivan Rupnik (born 1954), artist, philosopher and theologian
 * Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723–1788), Italian natural scientist
 * Jan Tratnik (born 1990), professional road cyclist
 * Anton Aloys Wolf (1782–1859), Roman Catholic bishop, philanthropist, patron of literature

title: Idrija


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Hoodoo (geology)

A hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid) is a tall, thin spire of rock formed by erosion. Hoodoos typically consist of relatively soft rock topped by harder, less easily eroded stone that protects each column from the elements. They generally form within sedimentary rock and volcanic rock formations.

Hoodoos range in size from the height of an average human to heights exceeding a 10-story building. Hoodoo shapes are affected by the erosional patterns of alternating hard and softer rock layers. Minerals deposited within different rock types can cause hoodoos to have different colors throughout their height.

Etymology
In certain regions of western North America these rocky structures are called hoodoos. The name is derived from Hoodoo spirituality, in which certain natural forms are said to possess certain powers, but by the late 19th century, this spirituality became associated with bad luck. Prior to the English name for these geographic formations they were already the origin of many legends from Native Americans. For example, hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park were considered petrified remains of ancient beings who had been sanctioned for misbehavior.

Occurrence
Hoodoos are found mainly in the desert in dry, hot areas. In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles (or spires) is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body". A spire, however, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward.

Hoodoo formations are commonly found on the Colorado Plateau and in the Badland regions of the northern Great Plains (both in North America). While hoodoos are scattered throughout these areas, nowhere in the world are they so abundant as in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park, located in the U.S. state of Utah. Hoodoos are also very prominent a few hundred miles away at Goblin Valley State Park on the eastern side of the San Rafael Swell, at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in north central New Mexico, and in the Chiricahua National Monument of Southeast Arizona. Some hoodoos are found in Sombrerete, Mexico at the Sierra de Organos National Park.

Hoodoos (peribacası) are also found in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, where houses have been carved into the formations. These hoodoos were depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 50 new lira banknote of 2005–2009.

In Armenia, Hoodoos are found in Goris, Khndzoresk, Hin Khot and several other places in the marz of Syunik, where many were once carved into and inhabited or used.

In French, the formations are called demoiselles coiffées (ladies with hairdos) or cheminées de fées (fairy chimneys) and several are found in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence; one of the best-known examples is the formation called Demoiselles Coiffées de Pontis.

The hoodoo stones on the northern coast of Taiwan are unusual for their coastal setting. The stones formed as the seabed rose rapidly out of the ocean during the Miocene epoch. Efforts have been made to slow the erosion in the case of iconic specimens in Wanli.

The Awa Sand Pillars in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, are hoodoos made from layers of compacted gravel and sandstone.

Đavolja Varoš (Devil's Town) hoodoos in Serbia feature about 200 formations described as earth pyramids or towers by local inhabitants. Since 1959, Đavolja Varoš has been protected by the state. The site was also a nominee in the New Seven Wonders of Nature campaign.

The hoodoos in Drumheller, Alberta, are composed of clay and sand deposited between 70 and 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. These hoodoos can maintain a unique mushroom-like appearance as the underlying base erodes at a faster rate compared to the capstones at a rate of nearly one centimeter per year, faster than most geologic structures.

Formation

Hoodoos typically form in areas where a thick layer of a relatively soft rock, such as mudstone, poorly cemented sandstone, or tuff (consolidated volcanic ash), is covered by a thin layer of hard rock, such as well-cemented sandstone, limestone, or basalt. In glaciated mountainous valleys the soft eroded material may be glacial till with the protective capstones being large boulders in the till. Over time, cracks in the resistant layer allow the much softer rock beneath to be eroded and washed away. Hoodoos form where a small cap of the resistant layer remains, and protects a cone of the underlying softer layer from erosion. The heavy cap pressing downward gives the pedestal of the hoodoo its strength to resist erosion. With time, erosion of the soft layer causes the cap to be undercut, eventually falling off, and the remaining cone is then quickly eroded.

Typically, hoodoos form from weathering processes that continuously work together in eroding the edges of a rock formation known as a fin. For example, the primary weathering force at Bryce Canyon is frost wedging. The hoodoos at Bryce Canyon experience more than 200 freeze-thaw cycles each year. In the winter, melting snow, in the form of water, seeps into the cracks and then freezes at night. When water freezes, it expands by almost 10%, prying open the cracks bit by bit, making them even wider, similar to the way a pothole forms in a paved road.

In addition to frost wedging, rain is another weathering process causing erosion. In most places today, rainwater is slightly acidic, which lets the weak carbonic acid slowly dissolve limestone grain by grain. It is this process that rounds the edges of hoodoos and gives them their lumpy and bulging profiles. Where internal mudstone and siltstone layers interrupt the limestone, one may expect the rock to be more resistant to the chemical weathering because of the comparative lack of limestone. Many of the more durable hoodoos are capped with a special kind of magnesium-rich limestone called dolomite. Dolomite, being fortified by the mineral magnesium, dissolves at a much slower rate, and consequently protects the weaker limestone underneath it. Rain is also the chief source of erosion (removing the debris). In the summer, monsoon-type rainstorms travel through the Bryce Canyon region bringing short-duration high-intensity rain.

title: Hoodoo (geology)


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User talk:Vasile

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are some tips to help you get started:

 * If you haven't already, please add your name to the new user log to let others know a little about yourself.
 * Read the article describing how to edit a page and feel free to experiment in the Sandbox.
 * When editing pages, use the preview button before submitting and try to fill in the summary box for every edit.
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 * If you need help, post a question at the Help Desk or ask me on my talk page.
 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Good luck! Jrdioko

P.S. One last helpful hint. To sign your posts like I did above (on talk pages, for example) use the '~' symbol. To insert just your name, type (3 tildes), or, to insert your name and timestamp, use ~ (4 tildes).

Vasile, if you have any interest in working on Reign of Terror, please go for it. It's on my long list of articles I eventually want to work on, but it's so far down that it will be at least months until I get there. First, I'm trying to do accurate articles on the French Revolution down through the abolition of the monarchy; I haven't started on the Convention years. And I keep being distracted by the continual tendency of articles Jew, left-wing politics, right-wing politics, conservatism, and political liberalism (and a few others of that ilk) to drift off into opinionated messes. I keep trying to pull them back towards neutrality, but it really eats my time. If you want to see a real mess, have a look at Left-wing_politics (& see my critique at Talk:Left-wing_politics). -- Jmabel 06:47, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

Is there a reason to add Guillaume Marie Anne Brune to Category:French Revolution as well as Category:French Revolutionary Wars? The latter category is subordinate to the former, and as far as I know his significance was as a soldier. -- Jmabel 17:54, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * According to the article Guillaume Marie Anne Brune: "Before the Revolution he went to Paris to study law, and here he became a political journalist, a Jacobin and a friend of Danton. He was appointed in 1793 to a superior command in the army direct from civil life." He played a major role in 13 Vendémiaire and that event is not connected with revolutionary wars. Desaix about Brune: "A été employé à Bordeaux et à Marseille du temps de la terreur." He was a montagnarde republican first, then a soldier.--Vasile 04:04, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

___

The Vienna Arbitration is officially called Vienna Award in English. See e.g. http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS076.pdf. Therefore I will chage it correspondigly.Juro 23:41, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC) "The Vienna Arbitration is officially called Vienna Award in English. See e.g. http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS076.pdf. Therefore I will chage it correspondigly.Juro 23:41, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)"

 * Hi! You imposed the name of the article so I suppose you know a lot about those events. Why do you think it is more appropiate to use the word "award" rather than "arbitration"? Thanks for taking your time to answer me.--Vasile 00:20, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Vienna Award is the only correct title in English (have a look in Google for example). It is also used in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and all official texts (like the above mentionned LEGAL text of US government). Previously, I also thought that the correct name was Vienna Arbitration (and I also introduced the term into many Wikipedia articles), but that's not the case. And in other languages that are able to make the distinction, the name also refers to the resulting decision (i.e. the award) and not to the process (e.g. in German Wiener Schiedsspruch vs. Wiener Arbitrage). It's because Hungary gained the territories in virtue of the decision and not in virtue of the decision process. Thus, Vienna Awards (as the result of Vienna arbitrations) is correct as well. Juro 02:05, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * US and Britain were ignored in the decision process; that doesn't mean there has been no such process.
 * The resulting decision was presented being "arbitration award" by the "arbitrors" Germany & Italy. The territory was gained due the "arbitration" decision. The award is a part of the arbitration, as the verdict is part of the trial. I agree you introduced the term into Wikipedia articles. Please let your term "Vienna Arbitrations" be the name of the article and be used in other articles. --Vasile 03:22, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Maybe I did not explain my point clearly enough. This is a pure language problem, nothing else, and I have been looking for months to find the correct English name instead of the provisional Vienna Arbitration. I did not expect that now that I have found the version generally used in English history and legal texts (see e.g. Enc. Britannica), there would be problems about it. All the reasons I have given above for the use of award are only reasons why I think Award is used, but actually that is not relevant, because award is simply the only correct English usage. The term Vienne Arbitration is used by wrongly translated Slovak, Romanian etc. texts only. And the fact that England did not participate is also irrelevant for the language, because - to take an extreme example- there are also certain English language words for many things from the Roman Empire (wars, treaties), although of course England did not participate. Juro 13:09, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Please see Talk:Munich Agreement Mintguy (T)

minor edits
Well, yeah, you're not supposed to change 93% to 95% (or whatever numbers were there...), remove link to the ethnic group, and a whole paragraph that's stood there untouched and verified for years, and mark the edit as minor, providing a partial (and unfounded) explanation. Those changes could individually qualify as minor edits but altogether they are quite notable. --Shallot 17:37, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Farce
Farce is an opinion. You can't put your opinion into an article. If you can find a quote in which the term was used to describe the tile, then you can include the quote. RickK 04:09, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

Edits in History of Hungary
Vasile, you don't have to make every single change in the article a separate line in the history page - four or so are enough. Since old history is not accessible endlessly, this can become a problem after some time. So please copy the relevant parts of the article into your own text editor, change it, and only then insert the result into the article. Juro 17:24, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

...
No, I don't have anything to communicate to you other than what I've written in the log visible from the page history.

Why are you repeating this fairly pointless and also semi-wrong notice (talk about specific pages should be in those talk pages, not scattered around the user talk pages)? --Joy [shallot]

Vasile,

I see that you deleted a refence to the rule of the Moldavian region by Halych Volynia around 1300. I understand that it was during this time that The city of Galati was founded, named after Halych (Galicia). If this is incorrect, or you have other history to offer for this time period, please let me know.

Genyo 15:50, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Vadim Tudor
Please see my question at Talk:Corneliu Vadim Tudor. - Jmabel 17:08, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

population in Romania in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact article
What do you think of the following wording?
 * The annexed Romanian territories were inhabitated mostly by Romanians, with a significant Jewish minority also present. However, the inhabitants of Bessarabia were treated by the Soviet Union as romanised Ukrainians while the German authorities perceived a large part of them(? - or Romanians in general?) as ethnic Germans.

I'm sorry to say, but your chosen wording doesn't travel well from one ESL-user to another.

Regards! --Johan Magnus 20:47, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Transylvania Article
Vasile, I see that you removed the whole Late Middle Ages history (maybe this was by accident) as well as references in the Ancient Times section. Well, the history of Transylvania is not just about Hungarians and Romanians - various other peoples also have a place in its history. I'm trying to flesh out this article as there is a lot more to the history of Transylvania than it currently contains. Of course, its difficult to avoid (largely-biased) Hungarian and Romanian sources when writing something like this, so I don't pretend that everything I write will be accurate. Frankly, both sides use controversial arguments to support their own nationalistic aims (which is quite clear to outside observers). But that in itself is part of the history of the region. I myself am from a region of the world which has seen various peoples inhabit its lands (northern England), but that's part of the richness of my heritage. So, if you believe that anything I write needs changing, then do so but please do me the courtesy of explaining why (and giving sources for your changes).

Thanks,

Scott

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Tudor, again
Why the removal of the image at Corneliu Vadim Tudor? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:21, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that in many ways that poster sums up Tudor's appeal: the (belated) embrace of the EU, the willful ambiguity between România Mare and Partidul România Mare, populism stripped to its materialistic essentials... There would be nothing wrong with attaching a similar poster for any politician, Romanian or otherwise. We lack a simple portrait for Tudor, which would also be appropriate. Usually we don't remove even modearately appropriate images unless we can substitute a better one. And, believe me, I have no desire to promote Tudor, I think he's pond scum. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:12, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think a simple image would be better, too. Do you have one? If not, I'm inclined to restore what we've got, because I think it is better than nothing. Probably this image ultimately belongs more appropriately on the page about the Great Romania Party. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:54, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Unverified image
Thanks for uploading the image I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use if you release it under the GFDL, or  if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the image and I'll tag it for you. Thanks, Kbh3rd 05:46, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Image:Armand.JPG

 * Same for Image:Religion.jpg. Thanks! – Quadell (talk) (help) 00:21, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * And Image:WGMW.jpg. Images without tags will eventually be deleted. – Quadell (talk) (help) 14:44, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

History of Canada
Hi Vasile. I was wondering why you changed "granted viritual independence" to "granted a Constitution". I had chosen the previous wording with care as most people outside Canada think Canada had little independence after 1867. In fact one of the motivating factors for the British was to reduce their military expenditures in Canada and they withdrew their armed forces as soon as they could in 1871 (only the Red River Rebellion of 1870 prevented an earlier withdrawal). That really left only foreign affairs which was not resolved until the early 1920s. Of course the BNA Act was a Constitution but it was written by Canadians, not UK parliamentarians who took almost no interest in the bill, and certainly did not draft it. To say the UK parliament granted Canada a constitution implies that it was gracious of them to do so, when in fact they merely complied with Canadian wishes, and were anxious to avoid any further expense in Canada. I wish you would restore the earlier wording. Persons who want to know more about the constitution need only consult the more detailed articles listed at the bottom of the page or via links. The agreement has been to keep this page to a bare minimum.--BrentS 02:50, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vasile - you simply do not understand Canadian history. There was no political subordination to Britain after 1867 except in foreign affairs, and the Governor General was the medium for communicating with the Foreign & Colonial offices. Give me an example of political subordination or interference from the British apart from foreign affairs. You are meddling with articles where you have no expertise.--BrentS 17:13, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC) - Vasile. Thanks for the references to the Colonial Laws Validity Act (you should write an article on it). I still hold to the distinction between the legal regime and the political realities. I vaguely recollect that the Macdonald government had a tariff policy the British were not too thrilled with, but Macdonald held firm even though it must have been "repugnant" to British policy, if not law. I notice on one website that Sir Edward Grey in 1907 advised the Canadian government that it was free to negotiate a treaty with the United States without passing through London. I suppose our differences are really of emphasis - you like "subordination", I prefer "virtual independence" or "growing independence" even though you dislike the word "virtual". Perhaps others will weigh in the "independence" issue eventually. --BrentS 23:08, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Transnistria

 * ''you wrote: I see nothing disputed in this page.

Hi Vasile, the user:Fisenko who placed the POV tag specifically enumerated what he perceives as POV problems at the article's talk page talk:Transnistria. I am not ready to jump in an judge the merit of arguments from either side, but until his points are answered fully in good faith, at talk page, at least, his remark is valid. Regards, -Irpen 05:02, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Three revert rule
Hi! I noticed that you have removed the POV tag on the Transnistria article five times within the last 24 hours. The WP:3RR states that you should not revert an article more than three times in any 24 hour period. Looking through the talk page for this article I can find no indication that the dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, so a (or may be  ) tag should remain on the article page. JeremyA 4 July 2005 19:44 (UTC)

Tiraspol
I think you're assuming that a place being de facto independent is a judgement over its final status, or whether it should or will be independent. The Transnistrian "government" in Tiraspol currently has sovereignty over its territory - it decides what goes on, as opposed to the government in Chisinau. There is a generally functioning seperate government that governs over the territory they lay claim to. That's just the way it is. Saying it is de facto independent doesn't mean it necessarily should be independent, or that it will be - it's just describing the situation as it currently stands. Ambi 11:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see your point - I misunderstood what you were arguing. I still don't think it's acceptable to remove the phrase altogether, as it makes the status of Transnistria too unclear. The ECHR is a convincing source as to Russian dominance of Transnistria, and I see that how affects the de facto independent claim. My main point is making its current seperation from the Chisinau government clear - if you can come up with an alternate phrasing that takes care of the Russia issue concisely (as it's an article about Tiraspol, not Transnistria) and neutrally, I'll likely not object, as I'm not in a position to dispute that argument (and indeed, on the basis of what I've read, likely agree with it). Ambi 13:46, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Moldova
In ceea ce priveshte republica Moldova, fii bun, lasa pe moldoveni sa-şi aleaga ei singuri naţionalitatea. Eşti Roman, shi e foarte bine. Insa in RM majoritatea populatiei sunt Moldoveni, cum a indicat shi recensamantul recent, unde ponderea Romanilor era de cateva procente. In ceea ce priveshte obiectivitatea recensamantului, daca ai ceva sa-mi reprosheyi a propos, nimeni nu inpiedica sa se numeasca Romani, pe cei, cei ce vroiau sa se numeasca Romani. serhio talk 11:16, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

De mai sus, priveshte Republic of Moldova serhio talk 12:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * In articol eu m-am referit la perioada pre-sovietica, inainte de formarea poporului moldovean in cadrul marii familii de popoare sovietice. --Vasile 14:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Odessa massacre
My edits reflect the definition and casualty counts of the Odessa from the US Holocaust Museum, which states "Romanian and German forces killed almost 100,000 Jews in Odessa during the occupation of the city. Several thousand Jews survived in hiding with the aid of local Russian and Ukrainian rescuers." The Museum includes Jews from the Odessa area who were killed in the Romanian camps as part of the Odessa massacre, in addition to those killed in Odessa itself. The problem is that there is no formal definition of the Odessa massacre, so the article explains the range of killings in 41 and 42, taking the timeline from the USHMM. --Goodoldpolonius2 19:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Vasile, you say the data is matched, but you did that by deleting the USHMM figures, which are obviously highly reputible. What is your reason for doing so? --Goodoldpolonius2 15:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * I think your answer on my page was a little glib (we are both trying to make it a better article), but I think the article is now much improved thanks to your work and our discussions. Are you happier with the current form? --Goodoldpolonius2 16:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

so called "moldovan" language and Romanian
Salut Vasile! Maybe you will like to check the recent dispute regarding to the Moldovan_language and take some support actions. Your help is wellcomed. There is no unitary Moldovan language. It seems that user Node deletes systematic an important part of the text. Plus, you may suppor the action to file a vandalism report as proposal of Dpotop []. Stay sharp.Impreuna suntem o forta. Bonaparte  talk  &  contribs
 * You may also check this out Transnistria. Bonaparte  talk  &  contribs

=Ronline for Admin=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Ronline and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Ronline. I have nominated Ronline to be Administrator for English Wikipedia. Let's vote for him! Bonaparte  talk  &  contribs
 * Ai votat? Ce mai astepti? Bonaparte   talk  &  contribs  17:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Moldovan language business
I reverted all your edits there. Let us talk on the talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Vasile. It is me again. I realize that my revert took you aback and you still wonder why the heck I did that. Sorry, I was too rushed. Let me try to explain.

 * That article has a very very long history of revert wars, abuses, calling names, and whatever bad behavior you can think of. And romanians contributing there are guitly of that too.

 * Now, I believe you did not recently contribute to that article or gone to its talk page. The protection on that article was just lifted, and when I saw you editing away at it without seeing you on the talk page and making big changes, I thought this will start a big edit war. And that's the last thing we need.

 * That is, it is good that any big changes (adding removing language history, changing facts, etc) be not done without discussion. Some people are spending a lot of their energy arguing things over there, and will be really upset if somebody else edits the article without being asked first. The article is not in a really bad shape right now (that is, nobody on each side likes it, which is a good thing :) So let us try to move slowly. More discussion on the talk page is welcome, as now people again started talking badly about Russians instead of focusing at the facts at hand. Thannks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The article will be even better. Sa fiti siguri. -- Bonaparte  talk  &  contribs  19:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

=Alexander for Admin=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Alexander_007 ,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Alexander_007. I've nominated User:Alexander_007 as admin. Let's vote for him! -- Bonaparte  talk  &  contribs  14:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Our forum
Welcome to the Romanian Wikipedia notice board! This page is a portal for all Romanian-related topics and a place for Romanian editors to gather and socialize and debate. Discussions are encouraged, in both English and Romanian. Post any inquiry under their relevant cathegory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Romanian_Wikipedian%27s_notice_board

--Anittas 17:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Moldovan language
Vasile, you have been editing Moldovan language, but the article incorporates some recent edits of Node_ue, which will probably be reverted. The rule on the that article, due to its status of being highly disputed, is to discuss all edits on the talk page before operating them in the article. Please do so. --AdiJapan 17:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

 * You're right, many people, including Romanians, have been abusing that talk page. But this doesn't mean we should not use it for constructive discussions on the article.

 * In your edits you removed the paragraph below. Did you have a reason? If so, that reason has to be stated on the talk page. If it was by mistake, please fix it.

 * Twenty-two years later, in 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Bessarabia. A year later, in 1941, Romania invaded the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa and retook Bessarabia (along with a large portion of Ukraine). These territories were taken back by the Soviet Union 3 years later in 1944, and remained under Soviet administration until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

 * --AdiJapan 18:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Eu sunt de acord cu un redirect la romanian. Simplu si repede. Bonaparte   talk  &  contribs  18:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Un redirect la Romanian language cred ca ar fi prea devreme.

Oameni buni, aici avem nevoie de unitate si de mai multa cooperare intre noi. Node este enervant, ce-i drept. Insa e adevarat ca e si pus la punct cu propaganda anti-Romaneasca iar noi nu venim cu surse care sa-i inchida pliscul. Propun ca sa venim cu articole, nu sa facem copy-paste dar sa dam numai adresa de unde se poate accesa articolul.Constantzeanu 22:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Your problem with Bukowina
Definitely, you are not at best writing about Bukowina and city of Cernauti, as you dislike the region. Please refrain on reverting without reading or thinking on others contribution. --Vasile 14:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Your accusations that I dislike something are just silly and baseless. I will edit articles with reading and thinking as I see fit and in accordance with Wiki-ethics and Wiki-policies. --Irpen 18:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Besides, your contribution mainly consisted of deleting big chunks of information, almost of the whole chapters. This is on the borderline of vandalism and would have been reverted by someone else, if not by me, anyway. Please use article's talk to discuss the edits to the article, so that the discussion is seen by all interested parties. --Irpen 18:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Irpen your text is irrelevant, that's why should be deleted. Bonaparte   talk  08:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Three-revert rule
Please do not keep undoing other people's edits without discussing them first. This is considered impolite and unproductive. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. —David Levy 20:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep it easy
The same message was for Irpen. Keep it cool. There's no need to be blocked. Everything is under control. And maybe discussed in peace.--163.20.85.7 21:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

La Multi Ani!
Multumesc frumos. Bonaparte  talk  16:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Stii Vasile asta (Alex) mai vrea sa fie si administrator dupa ce editari a facut la pagina cred ca nu va reusi. Bonaparte  talk  15:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Vasile du-te si voteaza si tu cu ronline si mai stii tu la cine. Bonaparte   talk  19:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Tu nu citesti mai sus? Sa trimit pe mail? Bonaparte   talk  12:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Ti-am trimis pe mail. Bonaparte   talk  13:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

vasile, lasa pagina aia la bucovina asa cum este, nu-mi sterge harta. ce rost ar avea ca sa punem pe moldoveni ca etnie separata numai ca primesc bani separat de romani? nu prea vad nici un sens. sa nu confundam politica de stat a ucrainei cu adevarul.Constantzeanu 22:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Mii de scuze. Am crezut că erai tu. Te rog frumos, mergi şi pe Moldovan language şi Moldova când mai ai timp că acolo lucrurile au început să meargă mai greu. Constantzeanu 00:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Ilascu
I didn't know where you wanted me to answer. The reply I gave is on my page. Dahn 00:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

transnistria/gagauzia
I only today accidentally discovered this "double" article. If you look into its history, you will see that it was edited by a small number of accidental people. I added links to it into several artricles, so that people who know things may do something with it. E.g. merge useful things somewhere else and delete the article altogether. On the other hand, History of Moldova has a section "Secession of Gagauzia and Transnistria", so it may make sense to have this article as "main" for this section. mikka (t) 00:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * If you really want it deleted, I can do it for you. But if you want to practice yourself (you have to learn it sooner or later), see Articles for deletion. mikka (t) 00:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks
Don't use the edit summary to call me names. Wikipedia rules require that you enter a meaningful edit summary, avoid personal attacks, and remain civil. —Michael Z. 2006-02-16 18:47 Z

Kertész
The text you put on the article on Imre Kertész was ungrammatical, hardly-legible, and entirely unidiomatic English. My edits brought it in line with proper English encyclopedia tone. Please leave it the way it is, or ask someone who is a native speaker of English to intervene. CRCulver 02:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Image Tagging for Image:Konigsberg_bridge.jpeg
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Vino la pagina de discutii Transnistria
În 17 septembrie va fi referendum în Transnistria legat de independenţa regiunii. Cu această ocazie probabil multă lume va căuta pe Wikipedia informaţii despre Transnistria. Am încercat să adaug în articol nişte informaţii legate de acest referendum, anume:

- faptul că mai multe organizaţii antiseparatiste au lansat un apel la boicotare, considerînd referendumul "farsă"

- faptul că din 46 de ţări membre ale Consiliului Europei, 45 sînt împotriva recunoaşterii referendumului, numai RUsia are altă părere

- faptul că datele Comisiei Electorale Centrale din Tiraspol au fost schimbate în mod ciudat, anume numărul total de alegători s-a micşorat cu 7% faţă de 2005, ceea ce ridică suspiciuni asupra unei încercări de creştere artificială a prezenţei la vot prin raportarea unui număr mai mic de alegători înregistraţi.

Totdeauna am dat lincurile care dovedesc cele scrise de mine, n-am născocit nimic din burtă.

Userul Willian Mauco, care pare fan Tiraspol, mereu mi-a şters adăugirile. (vezi istoria paginii)

Puteţi vedea la pagina de discuţii Transnistria ce argumente a adus. Anume: ăia care cer boicotarea referendumului din Transnistria sînt foşti KGB-işti, că aşa zice o organizaţie rusească de analiză (a dat un linc pentru asta). Întîi a spus că respectivii nici nu sînt din Transnistria, ci doar din Basarabia, dar i-am dovedit că unii dintre semnatarii apelului la boicot sînt transnistreni. Am fost împăciuitor, i-am zis că n-are decît să adauge părerea organizaţiei ruseşti că antiseparatiştii sînt foşti KGBişti, că n-are decît să-i considere pe cei care vor boicotarea referendumului drept băieţi răi, dar faptul în sine, că s-a cerut boicotarea referendumului, trebuie menţionat. Degeaba, mereu mi s-au şters adăugirile - pentru celelalte 2 fapte nici n-a adus argumente.

A mai fost o adăugire care a şters-o, despre arestarea a 4 persoane din Transnistria care sînt împotriva separatismului (între timp li s-a dat drumul). În cazul ăsta am renunţat eu să mai insist pentru includerea informaţiei în articol (deşi informaţia e incontestabilă), tocmai fiindcă n-am vrut să mă cert prea mult.

În perioada asta cînd agenţiile de ştiri vor menţiona referendumul de la Tiraspol, se va citi articolul Transnistria în Wikipedia poate mai mult decît într-un an întreg. De aia acum e nevoie să existe în articol informaţii despre contestarea corectitudinii referendumului. Nu cer să se menţioneze ca adevăr absolut faptul că referendumul e incorect, ci doar că există unii (OSCE, 45 din 46 ţări ale Consiliului Europei, unele organizaţii din zonă şi din Basarabia) care consideră asta. Vă cer de aceea sprijinul ca să interveniţi pe pagina de discuţii Transnistria pentru a susţine rămînerea informaţiei în pagină şi să repuneţi informaţia atunci cînd Mauco o şterge (eu nu pot să verific chiar 24 de ore din 24). Evitaţi atacurile suburbane, păstraţi ton civilizat. mulţumesc.

Who is William Mauco Here is an article about a Wikipedia celebrity, William Mauco, and his relations with the International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty (ICDISS), an organisation "which seems to be a front organisation for a Kremlin-backed rogue statelet called Transdniestria" (quote from the article) http://0.bypass-filter.com/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZGx1Y2FzLmJsb2dzcG90LmNvbS8yMDA2LzA4L2dvdGNoYS0yLmh0bWw%3D

Edward Lucas wrote about Mauco: "The other lead is William Mauco. He has an extensive record of posting intelligent and fairly neutral entries on Wikipedia, not only about TD but about other unrecognised statelets. Crucially, these predate ICDISS's birthday of January 2006. And he also claims to have been at their conference in Mexico City in April of this year. I have written to him asking to get in touch, and had a friendly email in reply. I am planning to follow up this research in an article in European Voice at the end of August, so watch this space!"--MariusM 08:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Votează contra ştergerii articolului Heaven of Transnistria
Împreună cu EvilAlex (un tip din Tighina - Transnistria) am creat un articol despre propaganda separatistă a Tiraspolului Heaven of Transnistria. I s-a cerut ştergerea. Te rog ajută-ne să păstrăm articolul, votînd contra ştergerii. Destul s-a şters din articolul principal Transnistria, Wikipedia e plină de propagandă a Tiraspolului, să avem măcar un articol care explică această propagandă--MariusM 18:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Non-free use disputed for Image:Armand.JPG
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Notability
Is it possible to find some more sources of information on this topic Marielle Houle? It is tagged with a notability tag, and there are currently 31 articles in the scope of wikiproject Canada which are tagged with notability concerns, so I am contacting anyone to see if the quantity of notability concern articles can be reduced, and quality increased. For more help see this note or the article talk page for a current discussion. Kind Regards SriMesh |  talk  19:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

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Schizotypy

In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis, especially schizophrenia. The continuum of personality proposed in schizotypy is in contrast to a categorical view of psychosis, wherein psychosis is considered a particular (usually pathological) state of mind, which the person either has or does not have.

Development of the concept
The categorical view of psychosis is most associated with Emil Kraepelin, who created criteria for the medical diagnosis and classification of different forms of psychotic illness. Particularly, he made the distinction between dementia praecox (now called schizophrenia), manic depressive insanity and non-psychotic states. Modern diagnostic systems used in psychiatry (such as the DSM) maintain this categorical view.

In contrast, psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler did not believe there was a clear separation between sanity and madness, believing instead that psychosis was simply an extreme expression of thoughts and behaviours that could be present to varying degrees throughout the population.

The concept of psychosis as a spectrum was further developed by psychologists such as Hans Eysenck and Gordon Claridge, who sought to understand unusual variations in thought and behaviour in terms of personality theory. Eysenck conceptualised cognitive and behavioral variations as all together forming a single personality trait, psychoticism.

Meehl et al. 1964 first coined the term 'schizotypy,' and through examination of unusual experiences in the general population and clustering of symptoms in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. The work of Claridge suggested that this personality trait was more complex than had been previously thought and could be broken down into four factors.

 * 1) Unusual experiences: The disposition to have unusual perceptual and other cognitive experiences, such as hallucinations, magical or superstitious belief and interpretation of events (see also delusions). This factor is also often referred to as "positive schizotypy" and "cognitive-perceptual" schizotypy
 * 2) Cognitive disorganization: A tendency for thoughts to become derailed, disorganised or tangential (see also formal thought disorder). This factor is also often referred to as "disorganized schizotypy"
 * 3) Introverted anhedonia: A tendency to introverted, emotionally flat and asocial behaviour, associated with a deficiency in the ability to feel pleasure from social and physical stimulation. This factor is also often referred to as "negative schizotypy" and "schizoidia"
 * 4) Impulsive nonconformity: The disposition to unstable mood and behaviour particularly with regard to rules and social conventions.

The relationship between schizotypy, mental health and mental illness
Although aiming to reflect some of the features present in diagnosable mental illness, schizotypy does not necessarily imply that someone who is more schizotypal than someone else is more ill. For example, certain aspects of schizotypy may be beneficial. Both the unusual experiences and cognitive disorganisation aspects have been linked to creativity and artistic achievement. Jackson proposed the concept of 'benign schizotypy' in relation to certain classes of religious experience, which he suggested might be regarded as a form of problem-solving and therefore of adaptive value. The link between positive schizotypy and certain facets of creativity is consistent with the notion of a "healthy schizotypy", which may account for the persistence of schizophrenia-related genes in the population despite their many dysfunctional aspects. The extent of schizotypy can be measured using certain diagnostic tests, such as the O-LIFE.

However, the exact nature of the relationship between schizotypy and diagnosable psychotic illness is still controversial. One of the key concerns that researchers have had is that questionnaire-based measures of schizotypy, when analysed using factor analysis, do not suggest that schizotypy is a unified, homogeneous concept. The three main approaches have been labelled as 'quasi-dimensional', 'dimensional' and 'fully dimensional'.

Each approach is sometimes used to imply that schizotypy reflects a cognitive or biological vulnerability to psychosis, although this may remain dormant and never express itself, unless triggered by appropriate environmental events or conditions (such as certain doses of drugs or high levels of stress).

Quasi-dimensional approach
The quasi-dimensional model may be traced back to Bleuler (the inventor of the term 'schizophrenia'), who commented on two types of continuity between normality and psychosis: that between the schizophrenic and his or her relatives, and that between the patient's premorbid and post-morbid personalities (i.e. their personality before and after the onset of overt psychosis).

On the first score he commented: 'If one observes the relatives of our patients, one often finds in them peculiarities which are qualitatively identical with those of the patients themselves, so that the disease appears to be only a quantitative increase of the anomalies seen in the parents and siblings.'

On the second point, Bleuler discusses in a number of places whether peculiarities displayed by the patient before admission to hospital should be regarded as premonitory symptoms of the disease or merely indications of a predisposition to develop it.

Despite these observations of continuity Bleuler himself remained an advocate of the disease model of schizophrenia. To this end he invoked a concept of latent schizophrenia, writing: 'In [the latent] form, we can see in nuce [in a nutshell] all the symptoms and all the combinations of symptoms which are present in the manifest types of the disease.'

Later advocates of the quasi-dimensional view of schizotypy are Rado and Meehl, according to both of whom schizotypal symptoms merely represent less explicitly expressed manifestations of the underlying disease process which is schizophrenia. Rado proposed the term 'schizotype' to describe the person whose genetic make-up gave him or her a lifelong predisposition to schizophrenia.

The quasi-dimensional model is so called because the only dimension it postulates is that of gradations of severity or explicitness in relation to the symptoms of a disease process: namely schizophrenia.

Dimensional approach
The dimensional approach, influenced by personality theory, argues that full blown psychotic illness is just the most extreme end of the schizotypy spectrum and there is a natural continuum between people with low and high levels of schizotypy. This model is most closely associated with the work of Hans Eysenck, who regarded the person exhibiting the full-blown manifestations of psychosis as simply someone occupying the extreme upper end of his 'psychoticism' dimension.

Support for the dimensional model comes from the fact that high-scorers on measures of schizotypy may meet, or partially fulfill, the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder. Similarly, when analyzed, schizotypy traits often break down into similar groups as do symptoms from schizophrenia (although they are typically present in much less intense forms).

Fully dimensional approach
Claridge calls the latest version of his model 'the fully dimensional approach'. However, it might also be characterised as the hybrid or composite approach, as it incorporates elements of both the disease model and the dimensional one.

On this latest Claridge model, schizotypy is regarded as a dimension of personality, normally distributed throughout the population, as in the Eysenck model. However, schizophrenia itself is regarded as a breakdown process, quite distinct from the continuously distributed trait of schizotypy, and forming a second, graded continuum, ranging from schizotypal personality disorder to full-blown schizophrenic psychosis.

The model is characterised as fully dimensional because, not only is the personality trait of schizotypy continuously graded, but the independent continuum of the breakdown processes is also graded rather than categorical.

The fully dimensional approach argues that full blown psychosis is not just high schizotypy, but must involve other factors that make it qualitatively different and pathological.

Relationship to other personality traits and sociodemographics
Many research studies have examined the relationship between schizotypy and various standard models of personality, such as the five factor model. Research has linked the unusual experiences factor to high neuroticism and openness to experience. Unusual experience in combination with positive affectivity also appears to predict religiosity/spirituality. One study found that a moderate level of unusual experiences predicted increased religiosity, but a high level of unusual experiences predicted lower religiosity, and that impulsive non-conformity was associated with lower religiosity, as well as lower values of tradition and conformity. The introvertive anhedonia factor has been linked to high neuroticism and low extraversion. The cognitive disorganisation factor as well as the impulsive non-conformity factor have been linked to low conscientiousness. It has been argued that these findings provide evidence for a fully dimensional model of schizotypy and that there is a continuum between normal personality and schizotypy.

Relationships between schizotypy and the Temperament and Character Inventory have also been examined. Self-transcendence, a trait associated with openness to "spiritual" ideas and experiences, has moderate positive associations with schizotypy, particularly with unusual experiences. Cloninger described the specific combination of high self-transcendence, low cooperativeness, and low self-directedness as a "schizotypal personality style" and research has found that this specific combination of traits is associated with a "high risk" of schizotypy. Low cooperativeness and self-directedness combined with high self-transcendence may result in openness to odd or unusual ideas and behaviours associated with distorted perceptions of reality. On the other hand, high levels of cooperativeness and self-directedness may protect against the schizotypal tendencies associated with high self-transcendence.

One study examined the relationship between the dimensional MBTI scales, and found that schizotypy was associated with a tendency toward introversion, intuition (as opposed to sensing), thinking (as opposed to feeling), and prospecting (as opposed to judging), which can be represented by the "INTP" personality type in the MBTI model. Intuition is conceptually similar to the Big Five "openness to experience" trait which is thought to be increased in schizotypy, thinking represents the tendency to prefer objectivity and evidence in making decisions and forming beliefs and is conceptually similar to the lower level "intellect" factor of openness in the Big Five, and prospecting is conceptually similar to low conscientiousness in the Big Five.

Schizotypy shows positive associations with traits that are associated with fast life history strategies, including increased sociosexuality (characterized by increased effort for short term sexual relationships, lower effort for long term sexual relationships, increased total amount of sexual partners, and lower sexual disgust) and impulsivity.

Personality disorders
Schizotypy shows positive associations with overall psychopathy, however when considering the primary and secondary factors of psychopathy, schizotypy is associated with lower primary psychopathy (also called fearless dominance) and higher secondary psychopathy (also called self-centered impulsivity, or disinhibition). Narcissism is negatively associated with schizotypy, (though persons high in schizotypy may experience grandiose delusions and a sense of deviance and enlightenment (idionomia), which may be mistaken for narcissism) and borderline personality traits are positively associated with schizotypy as well hypomanic personality traits. Schizotypy also shows positive relationships with schizoid, paranoid, and avoidant personality traits, and a negative relationship with obsessive-compulsive personality traits (particularly with disorganized schizotypy). In contrast to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder shows a positive relationship with schizotypy.

Cognitive function
There is evidence that schizotypy correlates with differentially enhanced and impaired aspects of cognitive function. These findings include schizotypy being positively associated with enhanced global processing over local processing, lower latent inhibition,   attention & memory deficits, enhanced creativity & imagination, and enhanced associative thinking.

Autism
Correlational studies of schizotypy and autistic traits tend to find positive correlations, most strongly with negative schizotypy, to a lesser extent disorganized schizotypy, and weak, absent, or negative correlations with positive schizotypy. Diagnosed schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also overlap statistically.

However, several researchers have suggested that positive correlations between schizotypy and autism are not necessarily evidence of overlap, but rather are due to a lack of specificity of measurements for autistic and schizotypal traits, and the confounding variable of social difficulties and social-cognitive dysfunction which occur in both autism and schizotypy. Researchers have suggested that high comorbidity between diagnosed ASD and schizophrenia are highly unreliable and misleading due to a severe inadequacy of the DSM and diagnostic interviews for differential diagnosis. Studies which show apparent overlap between the causes of autism and the causes of schizotypy also have significant methodological issues.

Multiple evolutionary theories of schizotypy place schizotypy and autistic traits at opposite poles of a continuum, with relation to traits such as theory of mind, life history and mating strategies, "mentalistic" or creative cognition and "mechanistic" cognition, and predictive processing. In agreement with this, schizotypy (particularly positive, impulsive, and disorganized schizotypy) shows a negative association with autistic traits when controlling for social difficulty, which has been well replicated across different countries, scales, methods, and independent research teams, and a diametric autism-schizotypy continuum factor emerges through factor analysis. Notably, some studies find a direct negative association with positive schizotypy and autistic traits even when social difficulty is not controlled for.

Some researchers have interpreted these findings as indicating that autistic and schizotypal traits are both overlapping and diametrical in different aspects, with autistic social difficulties and negative schizotypal symptoms being a shared dimension, and positive, disorganized, and impulsive schizotypy as a dimension that is diametrically opposed to autism.

Predictive processing
Andersen (2022) put forth a model of schizotypy based on the predictive processing framework, where lower importance is attributed to sensory prediction errors for updating beliefs in individuals with high schizotypy. Essentially, this means that schizotypy is a cognitive-perceptual specialization for processing chaotic and noisy data, where patterns and relationships exist but can only be detected if minor inconsistencies are ignored (i.e., focusing on the 'big picture'). Andersen suggests that a tradeoff exists in predictive processing, where giving higher weight to prediction errors prevents the detection of false patterns (i.e. apophenia) at the cost of being unable to detect higher level patterns, and giving lower weight to prediction errors allows for the detection of higher level patterns at the cost of occasionally detecting patterns that don't exist, as in delusions and hallucinations that occur in schizotypy. This model explains features of schizotypy and previous models of schizotypy, such as the hyper-mentalizing model originally proposed by Abu-Akel (1999), hyper-associative cognition, the hyper-imagination model by Crespi (2016), antagonomia (acting in ways directly opposing societal values) and idiosyncratic worldviews, attentional differences such as latent inhibition, hyper-openness, increased exploratory behavior, and enhanced cognitive abilities in insight problem solving, creativity, and global processing.

Oxytocin & testosterone
There is some evidence to suggest that abnormalities in the regulation of oxytocin & testosterone are related to schizotypy. Crespi (2015) provides evidence that schizophrenia and related disorders may involve increased or dysregulated oxytocin, and relatively decreased testosterone, leading to "hyper-developed" social cognition, although Crespi's model of schizotypy has been criticized. Evidence for oxytocin's role in schizotypy includes genes associated with higher oxytocin levels being associated with higher levels of positive schizotypy, blood oxytocin levels positively associated with schizotypy in females, ratio of genes associated with low testosterone and high oxytocin positively associated with schizotypy and negatively with autistic traits, oxytocin levels being associated with higher social anxiety, and oxytocin being associated with global processing, divergent thinking, and creativity, which are also strongly associated with schizotypy.

Anhedonia
Anhedonia, or a reduced ability to experience pleasure, is a feature of full-blown schizophrenia that was commented on by both Kraepelin and Bleuler. However, they regarded it as just one among a number of features that tended to characterise the ‘deterioration’, as they saw it, of the schizophrenic's emotional life. In other words, it was an effect, rather than a cause, of the disease process.

Rado reversed this way of thinking, and ascribed anhedonia a causal role. He considered that the crucial neural deficit in the schizotype was an ‘integrative pleasure deficiency’, i.e. an innate deficiency in the ability to experience pleasure. Meehl took on this view, and attempted to relate this deficiency to abnormality in the dopamine system in the brain, which is implicated in the human reward system.

Questionnaire research on schizotypy in normal subjects is ambiguous with regard to the causal role, if any, of anhedonia. Nettle and McCreery and Claridge found that high schizotypes as measured by factor 1 (above) scored lower than controls on the introverted anhedonia factor, as if they were particularly enjoying life.

Various writers, including Kelley and Coursey and L.J. and J.P. Chapman suggest that anhedonia, if present as a pre-existent trait in a person, may act as a potentiating factor, whereas a high capacity for hedonic enjoyment might act as a protecting one.

Negative priming
Negative priming is "the ability of a preceding stimulus to inhibit the response to a subsequent stimulus." Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizotypy exhibit “reduced or abolished NP [negative priming], especially in the presence of positive symptomatology, acute psychosis, high severity of symptoms, and/or lack of medication.”

SAWCI
The phenomenon of semantic activation without conscious identification (SAWCI) is said to be displayed when a person shows a priming effect from the processing of consciously undetectable words. For example, a person who has just been shown the word ‘giraffe’, but at a speed at which he or she was not able consciously to report what it was, may nevertheless identify more quickly than usual another animal word on the next trial. Evans found that high schizotypes showed a greater priming effect than controls in such a situation. She argued that this could be accounted for by a relative weakness of inhibitory mechanisms in the semantic networks of high schizotypes.

Attention, working memory, and executive functions
Schizotypy symptoms have been related to deficits in executive functions, which entails the psychological processes that supersede habitual inclinations with novel responses and behaviors to fulfill important goals. In particular, when schizotypy is elevated, the ability to filter out task-irrelevant stimuli may be impaired. That is, participants who score highly on schizotypy tend to fail to ignore a previously preexposed, non-reinforced stimulus as compared to a non-preexposed, novel and potentially important event.

Enhanced performance on verbal fluency has been associated with high levels of positive schizotypy, i.e. increased reports of hallucination-like experiences, delusional ideation, and perceptual aberrations. However, decreased performance was associated with negative schizotypy, such as anhedonia.

Many studies have also shown that individuals who exhibit schizotypy features demonstrate deficits in attention and working memory.

Abnormalities of arousal
Claridge suggested that one consequence of a weakness of inhibitory mechanisms in high schizotypes and schizophrenics might be a relative failure of homeostasis in the central nervous system. It was proposed that this could lead to both lability of arousal and dissociation of arousal in different parts of the nervous system.

Dissociation of different arousal systems
Claridge and co-workers  have found various types of abnormal co-variation between different psychophysiological variables in schizotypes, including between measures of cortical and autonomic arousal.

McCreery and Claridge found evidence of a relative activation of the right cerebral hemisphere as compared with the left in high schizotypes attempting to induce a hallucinatory episode in the laboratory. This suggested a relative dissociation of arousal between the two hemispheres in such people as compared with controls.

Hyperarousal
A failure of homeostasis in the central nervous system could lead to episodes of hyper-arousal. Oswald has pointed out that extreme stress and hyper-arousal can lead to sleep as a provoked reaction. McCreery has suggested that this could account for the phenomenological similarities between Stage 1 sleep and psychosis, which include hallucinations, delusions, and flattened or inappropriate affect (emotions). On this model, high schizotypes and schizophrenics are people who are liable to what Oswald calls 'micro-sleeps', or intrusions of Stage 1 sleep phenomena into waking consciousness, on account of their tendency to high arousal.

In support of this view McCreery points to the high correlation that has been found to exist between scores on the Chapmans' Perceptual Aberration scale, which measures proneness to perceptual anomalies such as hallucinations, and the Chapmans' Hypomania scale, which measures a tendency to episodes of heightened arousal. This correlation is found despite the fact that there is no overlap of item content between the two scales.

In the clinical field there is also the paradoxical finding of Stevens and Darbyshire, that schizophrenic patients exhibiting the symptom of catatonia can be aroused from their apparent stupor by the administration of sedative rather than stimulant drugs. They wrote: 'The psychic state in catatonic schizophrenia can be described as one of great excitement (i.e., hyperalertness)[...] The inhibition of activity apparently does not alter the inner seething excitement.'

It is argued that such a view would be consistent with the model that suggests schizophrenics and high schizotypes are people with a tendency to hyper-arousal.

Aberrant salience hypothesis
Kapur (2003) proposed that a hyperdopaminergic state, at a "brain" level of description, leads to an aberrant assignment of salience to the elements of one's experience, at a "mind" level. Dopamine mediates the conversion of the neural representation of an external stimulus from a neutral bit of information into an attractive or aversive entity, i.e. a salient event. Symptoms of schizophrenia and schizotypy may arise out of ‘the aberrant assignment of salience to external objects and internal representations’; and antipsychotic medications may reduce positive symptoms by attenuating aberrant motivational salience, via blockade of the Dopamine D2 receptors (Kapur, 2003). There is no evidence however on a link between attentional irregularities and enhanced stimulus salience in schizotypy.

title: Schizotypy


text:
Wyatt Earp (card game)

Wyatt Earp is a rummy-like card game first released in 2001. The game is named after Wyatt Earp, a famous lawman, and is set in the American Old West. It is manufactured by Rio Grande Games and was created by Mike Fitzgerald and Richard Borg for Alea.

Rule summary
The following is a partial summary of the rules of play.

Each player tries to earn reward money by participating in the capture of seven outlaws during multiple rounds of play. Outlaws are captured through the accumulation of capture points, awarded to players who play sets or melds of cards representing the outlaws, or who play cards which build on the melds of others. Cards almost always have reward amounts associated with them; playing a card adds to the reward for the outlaw associated with the play.

As in rummy or gin rummy, a meld is three or more matching cards. In Wyatt Earp, card matches are not determined by suits; instead, cards are matched based on a color marking associated with each of the seven outlaws.

A round starts with each player being dealt ten cards, with one of the remaining cards used to establish the discard pile (face up) and the rest of the deck serving as the card supply, face down.

Each player's turn consists of three steps:
 * 1) drawing either the top card from the discard pile or two cards from the card supply;
 * 2) optionally playing one or more cards from their hand; and
 * 3) discarding a card.

A round usually ends when a player discards the last card from their hand. It can also end when the card supply is exhausted again (i.e. a second time) after having been restocked once from the discard pile. Or most rarely, it ends after a player discards a card as the third step of their turn and another player, as a result of play during that turn, is left with no cards.

Capture points are assessed and reward money is distributed at the end of a round. Players with the most capture points for a given outlaw get the largest share of the reward money for that outlaw; a player gets all of an outlaw's reward money if their capture point total for that outlaw is at least five points higher than any other player's total for that outlaw.

The game ends when one player has accumulated at least $25,000 in reward money.

Outlaw cards
Of the 78 cards in the deck, 49 are outlaw cards, seven of each of seven outlaws: Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Bob Dalton, Wes Hardin, Jesse James, the Sundance Kid, and Belle Starr.

Outlaw cards are worth two capture points each. A meld of three must be played the first time any player lays down cards for a particular outlaw. After that, outlaw cards can be played individually, by any player, though rules encourage multiple cards to be played at a time. That's because playing a single outlaw card does not increase an outlaw's reward; playing two at a time add $1000 to the reward, playing three at a time adds $2000, and so on; in other words, the reward added for a play is (N − 1) × $1000, where N is the number of outlaw cards being played together.

Sheriff cards
There are also 29 sheriff cards, which combine with the outlaw cards to form the 78-card deck used in the game. A bit more than half of the sheriff cards increase the capture points and rewards associated with an outlaw:

 * Four "Bank Robbery" cards add two capture points and $1000 to the reward for an outlaw;
 * Two "Stagecoach Robbery" cards add one capture point and $3000 to a reward;
 * Three "Fastest Gun" cards establish an outlaw in that role (replacing any previous holder) and add three capture points and $1000 to the outlaw's reward; and
 * Seven "Photo" cards, one for each outlaw, add four capture points and $1000 to their reward.

The remaining sheriff cards play other roles in the game:

 * Three are "Most Wanted" cards, which let a player take a card from another player;
 * Three are "Hideout" cards, used to block the capture point value of a meld of another player; and
 * Seven are "Wyatt Earp" cards, which are used to add to or exchange cards in a player's hand, or to remove a hideout.

A player is allowed but not required to use only one sheriff card per turn.

Based on card type, players are sometimes required to draw, or given the option of drawing, a card in order to successfully use a sheriff card. Such a draw is considered to be an attempt to "shoot" the outlaw. If a player draws an outlaw card (which are marked with a bullet hole for this purpose), the shot is successful, and the sheriff card is played. If another sheriff card is drawn, the shot failed, and the original sheriff card has no effect. Those cards for which attempting a shot is optional have greater value when the shot is attempted and successful than the value it has when no attempt is made.

History
The game was first conceived as the fourth in Mike Fitzgerald's "Mystery Rummy" series, until he decided to collaborate with Richard Borg and publish it through Alea.

Wyatt Earp won the 2001 Meeples' Choice Award. It was a finalist for the 2002 Gamers Choice Award, in the category "Best Family Card Card Game", and was nominated for the 2003 GAMES 100 Best Family Strategy game.

title: Wyatt Earp (card game)