text:
Talk:Wizadora

They spelled PROGRAM wrong!

 * No I didn't. This article is clearly written in British English. Dmn  € Դմն 00:04, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Could you please stop refering to "English" as "British English" it's really anoying and offensive to some English people, me being one MJN SEIFER

It's not offensive. British English, as opposed to American English or Australian English. It's just further clarification. I'm English and I don't find anything offensive about it o_O, Tony Flow

Seeing as it's our language, surely 'British English' is just 'English'? Smurfmeister (talk) 13:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing
I watched this show when I was young. I remember there being a talking spider and a talking snail. I might be wrong, after all it was a while ago, but neither of them are mentioned in the article. Bubble bunny

I only remember the spider being in one episode, but there was a talking snail in the second season - he was called "Nigel" or something similar, and was friends with the fish.

Actually this show also had a few characters who just appeared suddenly and would then dissapear after about 4 (At the most) episodes. Strange really...MJN SEIFER

Second actress?
I know Wendy van der Plank was replaced as Wizadora later in the show's run - any idea who the new Wizadora was? Smurfmeister (talk) 13:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

SWR
What is this? It needs to be clarified.

Page is a mess
This page is a mess, lack of refs and really how can you have ep 600 if only under 200 were made? Some big changes are needed to get this page up to proper standard. --Crazyseiko (talk) 12:30, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Wizadora


text:
Talk:Minong (town), Wisconsin

No mention of the Link family? :)

- Derrick Becker

Coordinates
Shouldn't the coordinates actually be for the town? Or will the village's coordinates be "close enough?" Topeka Sam (talk) 19:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Name of town
Couldn't the name of the town be taken from its website? Topeka Sam (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Jack Links
The town is 71 sq mi. Wouldn't it be more helpful to refer to the village? Topeka Sam (talk) 19:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Minong (town), Wisconsin


text: User talk:213.136.104.118

title: User talk:213.136.104.118


text: User:JanSlupski

title: User:JanSlupski


text:
Cross-cultural

Cross-cultural may refer to
 * cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis
 * cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate
 * any of various forms of interactivity between members of disparate cultural groups (see also cross-cultural communication, interculturalism, intercultural relations, hybridity, cosmopolitanism, transculturation)
 * the discourse concerning cultural interactivity, sometimes referred to as cross-culturalism (See also multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, transculturation, cultural diversity)

Cross-cultural communication
By the 1970s, the field of cross-cultural communication (also known as intercultural communication) developed as a prominent application of the cross-cultural paradigm, in response to the pressures of globalization which produced a demand for cross-cultural awareness training in various commercial sectors.

Cultural communication differences can be identified by 8 different criteria:
 * 1) when to talk;
 * 2) what to say;
 * 3) pacing and pausing;
 * 4) the art of listening;
 * 5) intonation;
 * 6) what is conventional and what is not in a language;
 * 7) degree of indirectness; and
 * 8) cohesion and coherence.

Cross-cultural pedagogies
The appearance of the term in the titles of a number of college readers and writing textbooks beginning in the late 1980s can be attributed to a convergence of academic multiculturalism and the pedagogical movement known as Writing Across the Curriculum, which gave educators in the social sciences greater influence in composition pedagogy. Popular examples included Ourselves Among Others: Cross-Cultural Readings for Writers (1988), edited by Carol J. Verburg, and Guidelines: A Cross Cultural Reading Writing Text (1990), ed. Ruth Spack.

Cross-cultural studies
Cross-cultural studies is an adaptation of the term cross-cultural to describe a branch of literary and cultural studies dealing with works or writers associated with more than one culture. Practitioners of cross-cultural studies often use the term cross-culturalism to describe discourses involving cultural interactivity, or to promote (or disparage) various forms of cultural interactivity.

Cross-culturalism is nearly synonymous with transculturation, a term coined by Cuban writer Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s to describe processes of cultural hybridity in Latin America. However, there are certain differences of emphasis reflecting the social science derivation of cross-culturalism.

The term "cross-culturalism" became prevalent in cultural studies in the late 1980s and 1990s. An early proponent of the term was the Guyanese writer Wilson Harris, who wrote in The Womb of Space (1983), that "cultural heterogeneity or cross-cultural capacity" gives an "evolutionary thrust" to the imagination.

Anthropology exerted a strong influence on the development of cross-culturalism in literary and cultural studies. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was a key figure in the development of structuralism and its successor, post-structuralism. Cross-influences between anthropology and literary/cultural studies in the 1980s were evident in works such as James Clifford and George Marcus's collection, Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (1986). Harvard anthropologist Clifford Geertz was cited as an influence on literary critics like Stephen Greenblatt, while other literary/cultural scholars turned to works by Victor Turner and Mary Douglas.

Like multiculturalism, cross-culturalism is sometimes construed as ideological, in that it advocates values such as those associated with transculturation, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, interculturalism, and globalism. Nevertheless, cross-culturalism is a fundamentally neutral term, in that favorable portrayal of other cultures or the processes of cultural mixing are not essential to the categorization of a work or writer as cross-cultural.

Cross-culturalism is distinct from multiculturalism. Whereas multiculturalism deals with cultural diversity within a particular nation or social group, cross-culturalism is concerned with exchange beyond the boundaries of the nation or cultural group.

Cross-culturalism in literary and cultural studies is a useful rubric for works, writers and artists that do not fit within a single cultural tradition. To the extent that cultures are national, the cross-cultural may be considered as overlapping the transnational. The cross-cultural can also be said to incorporate the colonial and the postcolonial, since colonialism is by definition a form of cross-culturalism. Travel literature also makes up a substantial component of cross-cultural literature. Of the various terms, "cross-culturalism" is the most inclusive, since it is free of transnationalism's dependence on the nation-state and colonialism/postcolonialism's restriction to colonized or formerly-colonized regions. This inclusiveness leads to certain definitional ambiguity (albeit one derived from the term culture itself). In practice, "cross-cultural" is usually applied only to situations involving significant cultural divergence. Thus, the term is not usually applied in cases involving crossing between European nations, or between Europe and the United States. However, there is no clear reason why, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America or even Woody Allen's Annie Hall (in which the protagonist experiences culture shock after traveling to Los Angeles from New York City) could not be considered cross-cultural works.

Although disagreement over what constitutes a "significant" cultural divergence creates difficulties of categorization, "cross-cultural" is nevertheless useful in identifying writers, artists, works, etc., who may otherwise tend to fall between the cracks of various national cultures.

Cross-cultural studies in the social sciences
The term "cross-cultural" emerged in the social sciences in the 1930s, largely as a result of the Cross-Cultural Survey undertaken by George Peter Murdock, a Yale anthropologist. Initially referring to comparative studies based on statistical compilations of cultural data, the term gradually acquired a secondary sense of cultural interactivity. The comparative sense is implied in phrases such as "a cross-cultural perspective," "cross-cultural differences," "a cross-cultural study of..." and so forth, while the interactive sense may be found in works like Attitudes and Adjustment in Cross-Cultural Contact: Recent Studies of Foreign Students, a 1956 issue of The Journal of Social Issues.

Usage of "cross-cultural" was for many decades restricted mainly to the social sciences. Among the more prominent examples are the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), established in 1972 "to further the study of the role of cultural factors in shaping human behavior," and its associated Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, which aims to provide an interdisciplinary discussion of the effects of cultural differences.

Cross-cultural films

 * The African Queen
 * Anna and the King
 * Babel
 * Bride and Prejudice
 * Jodhaa Akbar
 * Mammoth
 * Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
 * The King and I
 * The Last Samurai
 * The Man Who Would Be King
 * The Namesake
 * Outsourced
 * Princess Tam Tam

Cross-cultural theatre
In the early 21st century the term "intercultural theatre" is preferred to "cross-cultural theatre."

Companies

 * International Centre for Theatre Research
 * The Bridge Stage of the Arts
 * TheatreWorks (Singapore)
 * Darpana Academy of Performing Arts

Plays and theatre pieces

 * Homebody/Kabul by Tony Kushner
 * Indian Ink by Tom Stoppard
 * Madame Butterfly (1900) by David Belasco
 * Miss Saigon
 * The Mahabharata by Peter Brook
 * The Mikado (1885), a comic opera in two acts by Gilbert and Sullivan
 * The Gondoliers (1889), a comic opera in two acts by Gilbert and Sullivan

Characteristics of cross-cultural narratives
Cross-cultural narrative forms may be described in terms of common characteristics or tropes shared by cross-cultural writers, artists, etc. Examples include primitivism, exoticism, as well as culturally specific forms such as Orientalism, Japonisme.

Cross-cultural narratives tend to incorporate elements such as:
 * acculturation or resistance to acculturation
 * culture shock
 * ethnographic description
 * overcoming of social obstacles through acculturation, tricksterism, kindness, luck, hard work, etc.
 * return home (often accompanied by further culture shock)
 * social obstacles such as discrimination, racism, prejudice, stereotypes, linguistic difficulties, linguicism
 * travel writing

Cross-cultural music
Music has long been a central medium for cross-cultural exchange. The cross-cultural study of music is referred to as ethnomusicology.

Cross-cultural theatre directors

 * Peter Brook (United Kingdom)

Cross-cultural visual artists

 * Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita (Japan, France)
 * Paul Gauguin (France, Tahiti)
 * Isamu Noguchi (United States, Japan, France, India)

Cross-cultural writers (autobiography, fiction, poetry)

 * Meena Alexander (India, Sudan, England, United States)
 * Elvia Ardalani (Mexico, United States, Iran)
 * Ruth Benedict (United States, Dutch New Guinea, Japan)
 * Aimé Césaire (Martinique, France)
 * Joseph Conrad (Poland, England, Congo)
 * Charles Eastman (Sioux, United States)
 * Olaudah Equiano (Igbo, United States, England)
 * Lafcadio Hearn (Greece, Ireland, United States, Japan)
 * Joseph Heco (Japan, United States)
 * Rudyard Kipling (India, England, United States)
 * Jhumpa Lahiri (England, United States, India)
 * Anna Leonowens (India, England, Thailand, Canada)
 * Spike Milligan (India, England, Ireland)
 * Yone Noguchi (Japan, United States)
 * Marco Polo (Italy, China)
 * Victor Segalen (France, China)
 * Khal Torabully (France, Mauritius)

title: Cross-cultural


text:
Fisher Building

The Fisher Building is a landmark skyscraper located at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The ornate 30-story building, completed in 1928, is one of the major works of architect Albert Kahn, and is designed in an Art Deco style, faced with limestone, granite, and several types of marble. The Fisher family financed the building with proceeds from the sale of Fisher Body to General Motors. It was designed to house office and retail space.

The building, which contains the elaborate 2,089-seat Fisher Theatre, was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989. It also houses the headquarters for the Detroit Public Schools and the studios of radio stations WJR, WDVD, and WUFL.

History

Initially, architect Joseph Nathaniel French of Albert Kahn Associates planned for a complex of three buildings, with two 30-story structures flanking a 60-story tower. However, the Great Depression caused the project to be scaled back to a single tower.

The Fisher brothers located the building across from the General Motors Building, now Cadillac Place, as General Motors had recently purchased the Fisher Body Company. The two massive buildings spurred the development of a New Center for the city, a business district north of its downtown area.

The building's hipped roof was originally covered with gold leaf tiles, but during World War II these tiles were covered in asphalt because it was feared that the reflective surface would attract enemy bombers. After the war, the asphalt could not be removed from the gold tiles without harming them, so they were replaced with green tiles. Since the 1980s, these tiles have been illuminated at night with colored lights to give them a gold appearance. On St. Patrick's Day, the lights are changed to green and, in recent years, to celebrate the NHL playoffs, the tower is illuminated with red lights in honor of the Detroit Red Wings.

In 1974, Tri-Star Development purchased the Fisher Building and adjoining New Center Building for approximately $20 million.

In 2001, FK Acquisition LLC, a real estate firm based in Southfield, purchased the two buildings from TrizecHahn Corporation for $31 million. FK Acquisition LLC lost the buildings to its lender in 2015.

In 2002, Detroit Public Schools (DPS) paid the owner of the Fisher Building $24.1 million to purchase five floors to house administrative offices, citing the high cost of renovations needed at the Maccabees Building, the previous headquarters, to comply with building and safety codes.

In July 2015, Southfield-based developer Redico LLC, in partnership with HFZ Capital Group of New York City and Peter Cummings of The Platform, a Detroit-based development company, taking advantage of the general decline in Detroit real estate values, purchased the Fisher Building and adjacent Albert Kahn Building, plus 2,000 parking spaces in two parking structures and three surface lots in New Center for only $12.2 million at auction. Redico said the partnership plans to transform the two buildings, which are connected by an underground pedestrian concourse, into what it called a "true urban" mixed-use development, with a mix of office, retail, residential and entertainment uses. The multi-year project has a potential cost of $70 million to $80 million in addition to the purchase price. The Redico interest was purchased by Cummings and his partner in The Platform, Dietrich Knoer, in 2016.

In 2023, Michigan State University acquired 79% of the owner of the Fisher Building, which means MSU now owns the building.

Architecture
The Fisher Building rises 30 stories with a roof height of 428 ft, a top floor height of 339 ft, and the spire reaching 444 ft. The building has 21 elevators. Albert Kahn and Associates designed the building with Joseph Nathaniel French serving as chief architect. French took inspiration from Eliel Saarinen's Tribune Tower design of 1922, seen in the emphasis on verticality and the stepped-back upper stories. The building is unlike any other Albert Kahn production. It has been called "Detroit's largest art object".

In 1929, the Architectural League of New York honored the Fisher Building with a silver medal in architecture. The opulent three-story barrel vaulted lobby is constructed with forty different kinds of marble, decorated by Hungarian artist Géza Maróti, and is highly regarded by architects. The sculpture on the exterior of the building was supplied by several sculptors including Maróti, Corrado Parducci, Anthony De Lorenzo and Ulysses Ricci.

Radio
Designs called for two flagpoles atop the gilt roof. While they were installed, they were essentially unusable as a radio antenna was installed when one of the building's oldest tenants, radio station WJR, leased space in December 1928. On-air hosts often mention that broadcasts originate "from the golden tower of the Fisher Building." This was a requirement of the station's original lease in exchange for a nominal rent. Two other radio stations, WDVD-FM (the former WJR-FM) and WUFL, also have broadcast studios in the building.

In 1970, building employees discovered a storage room sealed with tape. None of the staff knew what the room contained or why it was sealed. When they located the key, they found the flags of 75 nations that apparently were created in 1928 and intended to be flown for foreign visitors.

Fisher Theatre
The building is also home to the Fisher Theatre, one of Detroit's oldest live theatre venues. The theatre, designed by the Chicago-based architectural firm of Anker S. Graven & Arthur G. Mayger, originally featured a lavish Aztec-themed interior in the Mayan Revival style, and once had Mexican-Indian art, banana trees, and live macaws that its patrons could feed. After the Depression, the theatre operated primarily as a movie house until 1961. Originally containing 3,500 seats, the interior was renovated into a 2,089-seat playhouse that allowed for more spacious seating and lobbies for patrons at a cost of $3.5 million. The decor was changed to a simple mid-century design.

The Nederlander Organization opened the "new" Fisher Theatre on October 2, 1961 and operated it until April 2021 when it sold the venue to the Ambassador Theatre Group. It primarily features traveling productions of Broadway shows and has hosted numerous out-of-town tryouts.

Pre-Broadway Engagements at the Fisher:

 * 1961: The Gay Life
 * 1962: No Strings, Bravo Giovanni, Oliver!
 * 1963: Sophie, Here's Love, Jennie, Hello, Dolly!
 * 1964: Foxy, Fiddler on the Roof, Golden Boy, I Had a Ball
 * 1965: Pleasures and Palaces, Pickwick, Skyscraper, Sweet Charity
 * 1966: Pousse-Café, Walking Happy
 * 1967: Illya Darling, Henry, Sweet Henry
 * 1968: George M!, I'm Solomon, Lovers and Other Strangers, Maggie Flynn
 * 1969: La Strada
 * 1970: Applause, The Rothschilds, Not Now, Darling
 * 1972: Tricks
 * 1973: Seesaw, Lorelei, Turtlenecks, Gigi
 * 1974: Good News, London Assurance, The Wiz
 * 1979: Sugar Babies, Oklahoma!
 * 1982: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
 * 1986: Into the Light
 * 1996: Big

Art
Befitting the Fisher Building's history in association with art, three nationally recognized fine-art galleries have occupied space in the structure including the Gertrude Kasle Gallery and London Fine Arts Group.

 * Gertrude Kasle Gallery: Located in Suite 310 of the Fisher Building from 1965 to 1976 was a nationally recognized fine-art gallery hosting exhibits for some of the most highly respected artists of the second half of the 20th century including Willem de Kooning, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Goodnough, Adolph Gottlieb, Phillip Guston, Grace Hartigan, Ian Hornak, Ray Johnson, Robert Motherwell, Lowell Nesbitt, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and Jack Tworkov.
 * London Fine Arts Group: Located in a large portion of the third floor of the Fisher Building during the 1970s and 1980s, London Fine Arts Group acted as a publishing company assisting in producing limited edition art works for many internationally recognized artists including Yaacov Agam, Karel Appel, Arman, Romare Bearden, Gene Davis, Don Eddy, Alberto Giacometti, Ian Hornak, Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, Richard Lindner, Roberto Matta, Lowell Nesbitt, Robert Rauschenberg, Harry Bertoia, Donald Sultan, Victor Vasarely and Larry Zox.

Tenants

 * Detroit Public Schools
 * 4th floor: Department of State and Federal Programs (Suite 450)
 * 6th floor: Office of the Secretary of the Board of Education
 * 9th floor:
 * Office of Athletics
 * Office of Literacy
 * Multilingual-Multicultural Education in DPS (Suite 119)
 * Office of Specialized Student Services (Special Education)
 * Office of Innovation
 * 10th floor:
 * Division of Talent (Human Resources)
 * Division of Labor Relations
 * Division of Technology and Information Services (Suit 1000)
 * 11th floor:
 * Division of Finance
 * Payroll Department
 * Office of Risk Management (Suite 1100)
 * 14th floor: Main Administration
 * Office of the Emergency Manager
 * Office of the Inspector General
 * Operations Group
 * Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan
 * 1st Floor: Council Shop
 * 5th Floor: Office
 * Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation - Suite 218
 * City Bakery
 * A Detroit shop of the famous New York City-based company.
 * The Allen Law Group, PC - Suite 2500

In 2017 The Platform LLC converted the fourth floor into rental space for arts-based groups.

title: Fisher Building


text:
Battle of Nancy (1944)

The Battle of Nancy in September 1944 was a 10-day battle on the Western Front of World War II in which the Third United States Army defeated German forces defending the approaches to Nancy, France and crossings over the Moselle River to the north and south of the city. The battle resulted in U.S. forces fighting their way across the Moselle and liberating Nancy.

Overview
When the Third Army began its attempt to capture Nancy, it had only recently recovered from a severe fuel shortage which had caused it to halt on the Meuse River for five days. During this time, German defenders in the area had reinforced their positions.

While the U.S. XX Corps in the north was tasked with the capture of Metz, Nancy, the other major city in the region, was assigned to the U.S. XII Corps. When the XII Corps first started on this assignment it was not at full operational strength as the 35th Infantry Division was guarding the southern flank of the Allied forces until the southern Seventh Army could close the gap. This left only the 4th Armored Division and the 80th Infantry Division available.

U.S. forces
U.S. XII Corps - Major General Manton Eddy

 * 4th Armored Division - Major General John Shirley Wood
 * Combat Command A
 * Combat Command B
 * Combat Command R
 * 35th Infantry Division - Major General Paul W. Baade
 * 134th Infantry Regiment
 * 137th Infantry Regiment
 * 320th Infantry Regiment
 * 80th Infantry Division - Major General Horace L. McBride
 * 317th Infantry Regiment
 * 318th Infantry Regiment
 * 319th Infantry Regiment

German forces
XXXXVII. Panzerkorps - General der Panzertruppe Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz

 * 3. Panzergrenadierdivision - Generalmajor Hans Hecker
 * 8. Panzergrenadier-Regiment
 * 29. Panzergrenadier-Regiment
 * 553. Grenadierdivision - (later Volksgrenadierdivision) - Oberst Erich Löhr
 * 1119. Grenadier-Regiment
 * 1120. Grenadier-Regiment
 * 1121. Grenadier-Regiment
 * 104. Panzergrenadier-Regiment (detached from 15. Panzergrenadierdivision)
 * Fallschirm-Jäger-Ersatz-und Ausbildungs- 3. Regiment (airborne infantry replacement and training regiment)
 * 92. Flieger-Regiment (ad hoc regiment of Luftwaffe antiaircraft units and other ground troops)

80th Infantry Division attempts to secure a bridgehead

Due to the difficulty of the terrain and lack of intelligence about enemy strength, it was decided against risking the 4th Armored Division in the initial capture of a bridge, as had been done at Commercy.

Instead, the 80th Infantry Division was assigned to secure three crossing sites across the Moselle: at Pont-à-Mousson with the 317th Infantry Regiment, Toul with the 319th Infantry Regiment, and a limited one at Marbache (48.80139°N, 6.10472°W) with the 318th Infantry Regiment. The 4th Armored Division would then sweep around from the northern Pont-à-Mousson to assault Nancy from the east, while infantry from Toul would attack from the west.

At Pont-à-Mousson, the 317th Infantry dispensed with reconnaissance and preliminary artillery bombardments, hoping to use tactical surprise instead. This turned out to be a poor decision though, as the German defenders, who were in greater strength and much better prepared than assumed, held terrain that allowed them to observe the movement of the American forces in the vicinity. American forces made two crossing attempts, the first in the daylight and the second at night, but both were easily repulsed and the assault was called off by General Eddy.

Confronting the German 92. Luftwaffe-Regiment around Marbache, the 318th Infantry had a difficult fight through the woods as they tried to seize the high ground which commanded the vicinity. After a two-day battle, they managed to dislodge the German defenders and capture the hill, but were soon thrown back by a German counter-attack.

At Toul, there was seemingly more success as a loop of the Moselle was crossed by the 319th Infantry, but it was short-lived as the German defenders of the 3rd Parachute Replacement Regiment simply fell back until they reached a 10 mi defensive line flanked by two forts from which they were able to stall further advances.

Americans regroup and 35th Infantry Division secures a bridgehead
Though the initial crossing attempts largely failed, by 7 September the situation had started to improve for the Americans. With the Seventh Army rapidly approaching from the south and the XV Corps returning to the Third Army to guard the southern flank, the 35th Infantry Division was now available to use in the next assault.

A new plan drawn up was for the 80th Division to attack in the north and the 35th Division in the south along with the 4th Armored's Combat Command B (CCB), while Combat Command A (CCA) would wait in reserve to exploit either flank. This new plan was scheduled to take place on 11 September.

Dieulouard Bridgehead
After the poor results from the hasty earlier crossing attempts, greater effort was made for a coordinated and well-supported assault, with General Eddy deciding on a concentric advance to encircle the German forces around Nancy. Dieulouard (48.83111°N, 6.09556°W), located about 4 mi south of Pont-à-Mousson, was chosen as the new crossing site for the northern thrust of the encircling maneuver. The new plan would have the 317th Infantry cross first and secure a foothold, then for the 318th Infantry to follow and capture the high ground centered on Mousson Hill to the north. A heavy bridge would then be laid and CCA would be able to strike and capture Château-Salins, an important rail centre in the region. Because the 319th Infantry was still engaged in combat at Toul, they could not be used in this assault.

Because of the formidable terrain held by the German forces, extra support was called in. On 10 September, the IX Bomber Command destroyed a bridge at Custines to prevent enemy reinforcements from Nancy, and the following evening struck at Mousson Hill. In order to feint the enemy, artillery and air strikes were primarily directed at Pont-à-Mousson.

The infantry crossings took place on September 12 and met with only weak resistance. So fast was the advance that elements of CCA were able to cross on the very same day. The reason for this ease was the Americans had crossed in a region near where two separate German divisions (3. Panzergrenadierdivision and the 553. Volksgrenadierdivision) linked up and were thinly posted. Most of the reserves in the area had already been sent north to engage XX Corps.

The German assault to destroy the bridge began about 01:00 on 13 September, and was initially successful as troops of the 29. Panzergrenadier-Regiment forced a retreat of the American infantry and pushed them almost back to the bridge itself. An American battalion commander assembled enough troops and medium tanks (of the attached 702nd Tank Battalion) to stop the Germans at le Pont de Mons. CCA sent a reconnaissance troop of armored cars and jeeps into the bridgehead at 06:15, and this unit pushed to the outskirts of Sainte-Geneviève (48.89722°N, 6.08972°W) but was forced to halt by German self-propelled guns. As daylight broke, the Germans began retreating to the north and east, pursued by 80th Division troops and tanks of CCA. CCA's 37th Tank Battalion—commanded by Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams—pushed across the bridgehead and rapidly moved to the southeast, defeating German roadblocks and taking prisoners. By that evening, the bridgehead was considered secure, allowing all of CCA to cross and move on Château-Salins.

The following day saw further counterattacks against the foothold by German forces emerging from mist-shrouded hills, but they were again repelled by the 80th Division, aided by reinforcements sent back from the advanced CCA.

Flavigny and Bayon Bridgeheads
On 10 September, as the 35th Division moved into position to begin their part of the assault, a bridge, rigged with demolition charges but otherwise intact, was located at Flavigny (48.55139°N, 6.22194°W). The 2nd Battalion of the 134th Infantry Regiment was given permission to assault the bridge at dusk, and although they succeeded in capturing it and establishing a bridgehead, reinforcements failed to arrive. The Americans defeated two German infantry attacks, but the bridge was subsequently destroyed by German artillery early the next morning. The American troops were forced back across the river by a third German counterattack supported by tanks, suffering heavy losses. This loss prevented the regiment from being further involved in the attempt to secure a crossing site, and the next day, it was instead assigned to guard the left flank at Pont St. Vincent (48.57944°N, 6.18611°W). At this location, the regiment garrisoned an 1880s-era French fort which was subject to a small German assault that was eventually broken up by artillery.

CCB managed to cross at Bainville-aux-Miroirs (48.60611°N, 6.16361°W) and near Bayon (48.4475°N, 6.29806°W). A large bridge was floated at Bayon that night, which German forces attempted to destroy, but were annihilated instead after being encircled.

The 137th Infantry also managed to secure a foothold at Crévéchamps (48.62278°N, 6.30806°W) after a feint 5 mi to the north and a half-hour artillery bombardment. They quickly found themselves pinned down after crossing, but were able to fight themselves out after German forces were depleted following the failed counterattack against the Bayon bridgehead.

Encirclement of Nancy

The drive of Abrams' 37th Tank Battalion on 13 September reached Fresnes-en-Saulnois (48.855°N, 6.43778°W), a village located 3 mi west of Château-Salins. The next day, orders were changed though and CCA was to instead capture the high ground at Arracourt (48.73139°N, 6.53583°W), cutting off German escape routes from Nancy. On arrival in the area, CCA encountered and dispatched forces from the 15. Panzergrenadierdivision with only light casualties, then proceeded to set up a defensive position, oriented towards the east from which they were able to harass German forces on the main road to Nancy and send advance units to meet with patrols from CCB around the Marne-Rhin Canal. The raiding party was very successful, as CCA took over 400 prisoners, destroyed over 160 vehicles, and knocked out ten 88 mm guns. The following day brought word to CCA of further German counterattacks at Dieulouard, at which point they released a reinforcing infantry battalion as well as a tank company to stabilize the situation.

After CCB crossed the Moselle in the south, the German defenders, finding poor natural defense in the terrain, retreated to the Forêt de Vitrimont (48.58°N, 6.43°W) across the Meurthe River. The Germans had little time to prepare their defenses in the area, and were soon driven off after CCB crossed the Meurthe River on 14 September, the bulk of them falling back to Lunéville. The meeting with units from CCA at the Marne-Rhein Canal that night completed the encirclement of Nancy.

Liberation of Nancy
The concentric assault around Nancy hastened the German withdrawal from the city which had already been authorized on 13 September by Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz, the army group commander.

The 320th and 137th Infantry Regiments pushed out of the Bayon bridgehead and made an oblique advance to the Meurthe River, crossing it by the evening of 14 September. By 16 September, the 320th Infantry had crossed the Marne-Rhin Canal while the 137th Infantry had pushed up to it in the vicinity of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (48.61222°N, 6.31222°W). At this point, resistance by the 553. Volksgrenadierdivision stiffened again, and both regiments found themselves under heavy fire.

On 14 September, the 319th Infantry was prepared to advance on Nancy proper. Intelligence provided by the French Forces of the Interior informed the U.S. troops that the Germans had evacuated the Forêt de Haye (48.69417°N, 6.09°W), and on 15 September, the 3rd Battalion, 319th Infantry entered Nancy on the Toul Road and pushed through to the eastern outskirts of the city with no opposition.

Aftermath
The capture of Nancy provided the Allies an important communications center in France and the city later served as the garrison of Third Army Headquarters. The German defenders of Nancy, however, largely escaped the encirclement of the city and were available for further operations during the Lorraine Campaign. The XII Corps' successful assault across the Moselle around Nancy also prompted the subsequent German counter-attack at Arracourt by the 5. Panzerarmee.

title: Battle of Nancy (1944)


text: User talk:66.226.241.202

title: User talk:66.226.241.202


text:
Richie Rich (film)

Richie Rich is a 1994 American comedy film directed by Donald Petrie and based on the comic character of the same name created by Alfred Harvey and Warren Kremer. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label. The film stars Macaulay Culkin (in his final film as a child actor until he began work as an adult actor in 2003), John Larroquette, Edward Herrmann, Jonathan Hyde, and Christine Ebersole, while Reggie Jackson, Claudia Schiffer, and Ben Stein appear in cameo roles. Culkin's younger brother, Rory Culkin, played the part of Young Richie Rich. In theaters, the film was shown with a Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon called Chariots of Fur, and was followed by the 1998 direct-to-video sequel Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.

Plot
Richard "Richie" Rich Jr. is "the world's richest boy", living in Chicago with his billionaire parents Richard Sr. and Regina. Under the care of his cheerfully loyal butler Herbert Cadbury, scientist Professor Keenbean, and his dog Dollar, Richie enjoys a luxurious but lonely life. At his father's reopening of the local United Tool factory, Richie sees union rep Diane Koscinski's daughter Gloria and her friends playing sandlot ball, and later tries to befriend them.

Lawrence Van Dough, the greedy CFO of Rich Industries, plots with head of security Ferguson to kill the Riches and steal their fortune, believed to be stored in the family's secret vault. As the Riches prepare to leave Chicago to visit Elizabeth II in England, Ferguson plants a bomb among their gifts for the Queen's birthday. Cadbury convinces Regina to let Richie stay home instead, and arranges for a day of fun with the sandlot kids, accompanied by Diane, who has begun to take a shine to the stiffly-debonair but caringly-kind Cadbury. Though initially bribed by Cadbury to come and play with Richie, the kids decline the money after genuinely having fun with Richie.

Flying the plane themselves, Richard and Regina discover the bomb just before it explodes, crashing the plane into the ocean. Stranded on a life raft, Richie's parents are presumed dead, and Van Dough takes control of Rich Industries. He attempts to close the factory, prompting Richie to assume leadership of the company himself, with Cadbury as his legal guardian and business proxy. Determined to seize the Riches' fortune, Van Dough has Cadbury framed for the bomb and arrested, and subsequently petitions successfully to take over as Richie's legal guardian. He then regains control of Rich Industries removing Richie as the company's leader, evicts the rest of the Rich family servants, and installs his own security team at Rich Manor to keep Richie prisoner.

Overhearing Van Dough's plan to have Cadbury killed in jail, Professor Keenbean warns Richie, who sneaks out and rescues Cadbury. They enlist the help of Gloria and Diane, who develops romantic feelings for Cadbury, while Van Dough and Ferguson threaten Keenbean into revealing that the family vault requires a voice-activated code from Richard and Regina. At sea, Richard manages to repair his "Dadlink", a device allowing Richie to track him anywhere in the world. Using Gloria's computer, Richie finds the Dadlink's signal, but Ferguson intercepts the coordinates and captures Richard and Regina.

Richie and Gloria rally the sandlot kids to break into Rich Manor with Cadbury and Diane, using Keenbean's inventions against Van Dough's men. Unfortunately Richie and Cadbury find out that the Dadlink reveals that Richard and Regina are in Richie's room, and Van Dough and Ferguson anticipated their arrival. Meanwhile one of Van Dough's men named Nash captures Diane, Gloria, Pee-Wee, Omar, and Tony outside. Van Dough forces Richard and Regina to take him to the vault, while Ferguson and Nash forces Richie, Cadbury, Diane, Gloria, Pee-Wee, Omar, and Tony into the molecular reorganizer. Ferguson and Nash's plan to turn them into bedpans is thwarted by Professor Keenbean thanks to him getting Nash stuck to his invention of Cementia on the steps, and knocking a blinded Ferguson out with help from his invention Robobee. Richie manages to take a bag of Keenbean's inventions to save Richard and Regina.

Holding Richard and Regina at gunpoint, Van Dough is led to the vault hidden within "Mount Richmore", their gigantic mountainside family portrait that's in the process of being 3-D laser-carved into the rock. Once through the voice-activated doors, however, Van Dough is furious and outraged to discover that there is none of the family's financial assets inside the vault, but what the Riches actually value most: treasured family mementos and heirlooms. Richie confronts Van Dough, who shoots him, but the bullets prove harmless thanks to Keenbean's bulletproof spray. Van Dough pursues the Riches down the side of the mountain. The Rich Family comes under attack from carving-laser-blasts shot by an infuriated Ferguson. Cadbury follows Ferguson and they have a bad fight which Ferguson manages to win at first by clobbering Cadbury over the head, but Cadbury regains consciousness and takes out Ferguson by bashing him over the head with a concrete picture of Regina, saving the Rich family. Cadbury fires the laser at Van Dough, and Van Dough end up hanging on upside down for dear life. Although Richard doesn't like firing staff, he allows Richie to fire Van Dough and Regina punches him in the face.

Days later, Richie plays baseball with Gloria and his new friends for the United Tool team on Rich Manor's yard, coached by Cadbury, who shares a kiss with Diane. Van Dough and Ferguson serve as the manor's gardeners as part of their work release, while Richard and Regina are overjoyed that their son has finally found something money can't buy: friends.

Cast

 * Macaulay Culkin as Richie Rich
 * Rory Culkin as Young Richie Rich
 * Peter Lampley as Baby Richie Rich
 * John Larroquette as Laurence Van Dough - the greedy CFO of Rich Enterprises, who plots to steal the Rich family fortune.
 * Edward Herrmann as Richard Rich Sr - the father of Richie.
 * Jonathan Hyde as Herbert Arthur Runcible Cadbury - the Rich family's trustworthy butler.
 * Christine Ebersole as Regina Rich - the mother of Richie.
 * Stephi Lineburg as Gloria Koscinski - the best friend of Richie.
 * Michael McShane as Professor Keenbean - a brilliant inventor who works for Rich Industries.
 * Mariangela Pino as Diane Koscinski - the mother of Gloria.
 * Chelcie Ross as Ferguson - the Rich family's rude and tough security chief, who plots with Van Dough to usurp the Rich empire.
 * Michael Maccarone as Tony
 * Joel Robinson as Omar
 * Jonathan Hilario as Pee Wee
 * Reggie Jackson as himself - Richie's private baseball coach.
 * Matt DeCaro as Dave Walter - the plant manager for United Tool.
 * Claudia Schiffer as herself - Richie's private aerobics instructor.
 * Ben Stein as Economics Teacher
 * Sean A. Tate as Reynolds
 * Joel Ellegant as Ellsworth
 * Justin Zaremby as Reginald
 * Eddie Bo Smith as Ambler

Production
Though set in Chicago, the house and grounds at which most of Richie Rich is filmed are those of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Some scenes, however, are filmed in Chicago, including a fencing scene filmed at DePaul University's Cortelyou Commons & the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood including the Francisco stop on the CTA Brown line. The roller coaster in the backyard is the former stand-up roller coaster Iron Wolf at Six Flags Great America. In contrast to the famous publication and animated series, a few characters are eliminated to accommodate the film: among them are Irona the robot maid.

Data East was one of few regular pinball companies that manufactured custom pinball games e.g. for the film Richie Rich. This pinball machine was based on The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard machine.

Reception
The film has been met with mixed reception. A Los Angeles Times reviewer praised the actors' portrayal of characters in the film. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars saying he was surprised how much he enjoyed it and said that though it was not the greatest film, he liked that it had style and did not go for cheap payoffs. Richie Rich earned a Razzie Award nomination for Macaulay Culkin as Worst Actor for his performance in the film (also for Getting Even with Dad and The Pagemaster) but lost the award to Kevin Costner for Wyatt Earp.

Richie Rich received a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "With Macaulay Culkin barely registering any emotion, Richie Rich feels disjointed and free of a sense of fun and wonderment." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

The film grossed $38 million at the box office in the United States and Canada and the same internationally for a worldwide total of $76 million on a $40 million budget. It was an even bigger home video success, with $125 million in VHS rentals and, as of April 1997, $44.2 million in retail sales, the studio receiving 75%.

Year-end lists

 * Fifth worst – Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune

Sequel
Richie Rich's Christmas Wish is a 1998 direct-to-video sequel starring David Gallagher in the titular role.

title: Richie Rich (film)


text:
Portal:United States

Parent Portals: Geography / North America / United States

title: Portal:United States


text:
Biya (river)

The Biya (Би́я; Бий, Biy) is a river in the Altai Republic and Altai Krai in Russia. At its confluence with the Katun, downstream of the city Biysk, the Ob is formed. The Biya is 301 km long; the area of its drainage basin is 37,000 km2. It flows out of the Lake Teletskoye. The river freezes up in mid-November to early December (some parts of the river freeze over on a year-to-year basis). It breaks up in early or mid-April. The Biya is navigable on its entire length.

The maximum depth of river is 28 ft.

title: Biya (river)


text:
Orthodox Union

The Orthodox Union (abbreviated OU) is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol,, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.

Its synagogues and their rabbis typically identify themselves with Modern Orthodox Judaism.

Foundation
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America was founded as a lay synagogue federation in 1898 by Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes. Its founding members were predominately modern, Western-educated Orthodox rabbis and lay leaders, of whom several were affiliated with the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), which originated as an Orthodox institution to combat the hegemony of the Reform movement.

Cracks between the OU and JTS first formed in 1913, when Solomon Schechter decided all alums of the institution would be allowed to apply for managerial positions in the newly created United Synagogue of America (then a non-denominational communal organization), though his close ally Rabbi Frederick de Sola Mendes advocated that only strictly pious ones should be so approved. Only then did Mendes begin to distinguish between "Conservative" and "Modern Orthodox" Judaism in his diary, though he could not articulate the difference. The OU, JTS, and RIETS were closely connected, with an alumnus of the latter two serving in the former's communities until the postwar era. Only around 1950 did Conservative and Modern Orthodox Judaism fully coalesce as opposing movements.

Development
During the early decades of its existence, the Orthodox Union was closely associated with and supported the development of Yeshiva University into a significant Jewish educational institution producing English-speaking, university-trained American rabbis for the pulpits of OU synagogues. Some Orthodox rabbis viewed the nascent OU and the rabbis of its synagogues as too "modern" in outlook. Thus, they did not participate; instead, they set up more stringent rabbinical organizations.

Nevertheless, the idea for a national Orthodox congregational body took hold. The OU was soon acknowledged within the American Jewish establishment as the main, but not exclusive, mouthpiece for the American Orthodox community. Representatives of 150 Orthodox congregations, with an estimated membership of 50,000, participated in the OU's 1919 national convention. The OU became more active in broader American Jewish policy issues after 1924, when Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, the innovative spiritual leader of the West Side Institutional Synagogue of Manhattan, became the president of the OU. Under Goldstein, the OU and its Rabbinical Council, became a founding member of the Synagogue Council of America, along with representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements and their rabbinic affiliates.

The OU played an active role in advocating for public policies important to Orthodox practice, such as advocating for the five-day workweek and defending the right to kosher slaughter. It was also involved in efforts to serve the religious needs of American Jewish soldiers and relief for European Jewry.

Kashrut
In the 1920s, the OU started its kashrut division, establishing the concept of community-sponsored, not-for-profit kashrut supervision. In 1923, the H. J. Heinz Company's vegetarian beans became the first product to be kosher certified by the OU. Company executives at Heinz were afraid of alienating non-Jewish customers. Because of this, after much negotiation, the Orthodox Union agreed to drop the word "kosher" from their initial design in favor of the less Jewish-sounding "OU" symbol. The OU's kashrut program was heavily influenced by Abraham Goldstein, a chemist who used his knowledge of food science to determine the kosher status of various products. In 1935, Goldstein left the OU and started Organized Kashruth Laboratories (OK). The wide acceptance of OU kashrut supervision rested largely upon the outstanding reputation of its rabbinic administrator, Rabbi Alexander S. Rosenberg. He and his staff established effective kashrut supervision standards for modern food production technology, which allowed the availability of OU-certified packaged kosher products across the US since the 1950s.

By the mid-1930s, the OU kashrut division had matured enough to influence and challenge the traditional local rabbinic "sole practitioner" kashrut supervision model. At the time, kashrut was a profitable business for rabbis; the OU sought to make kashrut freely available to reduce the consumer cost of keeping kosher.

Mid-century
The OU Women's Branch was also organized during the 1920s to encourage the formation and support of active sisterhoods in OU synagogues. Women's Branch took on particular products, typically related to women's Jewish education and support for Yeshiva University.

OU operations became more efficient with the appointment in 1939 of Leo S. Hilsenrad as its first full-time professional executive director. Its services were further expanded in 1946, adding Saul Bernstein to the professional staff. Bernstein became the founding editor, in 1951, of Jewish Life, the OU's popular publication for Orthodox laymen. Bernstein also succeeded Hilsenrad as the OU's administrator.

During the postwar years, there was considerable overlap in the lay leadership of the Orthodox Union and Yeshiva University. The Orthodox Union expanded its operations following the election in 1954 of Moses I. Feuerstein as its president. Its leadership ranks were augmented by a talented group of lay leaders, including Joseph Karasick, Harold M. Jacobs, and Julius Berman, who would guide the OU's growth over the next several decades.

Another significant development was the appointment, in 1959, of Rabbi Pinchas Stolper as director of the Orthodox Union's youth group, the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). By inspiring thousands of public-school educated high school youth across North America to become more observant, NCSY played a major role in launching the baal teshuva movement, a widespread spiritual re-awakening among Jewish youth which followed the 1967 Six-Day War.

OU's board of directors has had female members since the mid-1970s.

By the mid- to late-20th century, most synagogues affiliated with the Orthodox Union were under the leadership of rabbis trained by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. These rabbis were ideologically Modern Orthodox. By the 1990s and early 21st century, the OU's general philosophy and observance levels have shifted towards stricter interpretations and halachic practices. This change has not necessarily affected individual member congregations but has impacted many Orthodox Jewish communities across America. The general trend toward more rigid practices among Orthodox Union congregations reflects American Orthodoxy's trend toward Haredi Judaism.

21st century
In 2009, Rabbi Steven Weil succeeded Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb as the OU's Executive Vice President and was succeeded by Allen Fagin in April 2014. In 2011, Rabbi Simcha Katz became president, and was succeeded by Moishe Bane in January 2017. In 2014, the first women were elected as national officers of the OU; three female national vice presidents and two female associate vice presidents were elected.

In 2017, the OU adopted as formal policy the normative Orthodox position that the clergy is only for men. It precludes women from holding titles such as "rabbi" or from functioning as clergy in its congregations in the United States.

In June 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at the OU Advocacy Center's annual conference in Washington, where he was presented with an artistic rendering of the biblical command "Justice, justice shalt thou pursue." Given Sessions' policies, particularly those concerning immigrants and asylum seekers, the OU came under criticism for hosting him and presenting him with the plaque.

Alliance with the Rabbinical Council of America
For many years, the OU, along with its related rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Council of America, worked with the larger Jewish community in the Synagogue Council of America. In this group, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform groups worked together on many issues of joint concern. The group became defunct in 1994, mainly over the objections of the Orthodox groups to Reform Judaism's official acceptance of patrilineal descent as an option for defining Jewishness.

Kosher certification
The Orthodox Union's Kosher Division, headed by CEO Menachem Genack, is the world's largest kosher certification agency. As of 2023, it supervises over 1,200,000 products in 13,000 plants in 105 countries. Two hundred thousand of those products are found in the US. It employs 886 rabbinic field representatives, mashgichim in Hebrew, and about 70 rabbinic coordinators who serve as account executives for OU-certified companies; they are supplemented by a roster of ingredient specialists, flavor analysts, and other support staff. The supervision process involves sending a mashgiach to the production facility to ensure that the product complies with Jewish law. The mashgiach supervises both the ingredients and the production process.

National Conference of Synagogue Youth
The international youth movement of the OU, the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), was founded in the early 1950s. After a few false starts, NCSY succeeded under Rabbi Pinchas Stolper by reaching out to public school-educated Jewish youth with a message of Orthodox Jewish religious inspiration. It has now expanded its reach to include many already religious, mostly Modern Orthodox children attending Jewish day schools.

Orthodox Union Advocacy Center
The OU Advocacy Center is the non-partisan public policy arm of the OU, leading the organization's advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C., and state capitals. Formerly known as the Institute for Public Affairs, OU Advocacy engages leaders at all levels of government and the broader public to promote and protect the Orthodox Jewish community's interests and values in the public policy arena.

Synagogue affiliation
The OU requires that all member synagogues follow Orthodox Jewish interpretations of Jewish law and tradition. Men and women are seated separately and nearly always are separated by a mechitza, a physical divider between the men's and women's sections of the synagogue. Many OU synagogues support the concepts of Religious Zionism, which teaches that the existence of the State of Israel is a step towards the arrival of the Messiah and the eventual return of all Jews around the world to live in the ancient national Jewish homeland. The laws of Shabbat and kashrut are stressed. They pray in Hebrew, using the same traditional text of the siddur that has been used in Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish communities for the last few centuries.

Until the 1980s, the most popular English translation of the prayer book used in OU synagogues had been Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem edited by Philip Birnbaum. In recent years, the most popular translated siddurim have been the Rabbinical Council of America edition of the Artscroll siddur and the Koren Siddur. Similarly, the most common Hebrew-English Chumash used had been the Pentateuch and Haftarahs, edited by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz; in recent years this has been supplanted by The Chumash: The Stone Edition, also known as the Artscroll Chumash.

Yachad
Yachad: The National Jewish Council for Disabilities is a global organization dedicated to addressing the needs of Jews with disabilities and ensuring their inclusion in every aspect of Jewish life. The inclusive design aims to ensure that persons with diverse abilities have their rightful place within the Jewish community while it helps to educate and advocate in the Jewish world for greater understanding, acceptance, outreach, and a positive attitude toward disabled persons.

Baruch Lanner abuse scandal
The OU has been accused of ignoring multiple reports of child abuse when appointing Rabbi Baruch Lanner as Director of Regions of its National Conference of Synagogue Youth movement. Lanner was ultimately convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse and imprisoned. In response to the scandal, the OU implemented several new initiatives to better protect children under their care.

Shechita supervision
In 2005, an undercover video purportedly showed cruel treatment of animals in an OU-certified slaughterhouse. The story was featured many times in national newspapers and Jewish media. The OU defended its limited supervision scope while studying changes to its policy. In 2006, the OU's response was the subject of a video narrated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Irving Greenberg, and David Wolpe.

Agriprocessor, Inc.
In May 2008, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, together with other Federal agencies, raided a kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, owned by Agriprocessors, Inc. At the time, the OU provided kosher certification services to the plant. The raid was the largest single raid of a workplace in U.S. history. It resulted in nearly 400 arrests of immigrant workers with false identity papers, many of whom were charged with identity theft, document fraud, use of stolen social security numbers, and related offenses. Some 300 workers were convicted on document fraud charges within four days. The majority served a five-month prison sentence before being deported. The OU had numerous rabbis working on-premises, yet none reported child workers working illegally at the plant or the abusive conditions workers faced on-site.

title: Orthodox Union


text:
Talk:Bridesmaid

[Untitled]
I moved this text here: "the bridesmaid would protect the bride against evil by wearing similar clothing to the bride's attire. This would confuse any "evil spirit" as to who the bride was. " Invented "folk customs" seem to be a cottage industry. Anyone who thinks this is real history might improve it with an old quote and return it to the entry. --Wetman 21:12, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Citation required - custom of bridal party dressing alike
Cited source (Britannica entry) did not mention customs of dress for the bridal party. Citation removed and left a [Citation needed] mark to indicate that this has no currently referenced source.

I'd checked that because it seemed surprising. Roman marriage customs changed a lot over time and I'd expect at least information about the period during which any custom was active to be mentioned.

Citogenesis
The 'Origins' section of this article appears to have all the hallmarks of a classic case of citogenesis. The original text dates from 2005, but with no citation offered at the time. A reference to Encyclopedia Britannica was added later, but was removed because it made no reference to any 'Roman Law' requiring ten witnesses, let alone the superstition as to why so many witnesses would be required. Yet I see this 'folk tradition' crop up all over the place, mostly on wedding sites and "Did You Know?" type sites (mentalfloss and "Today I Learned" on reddit being two recent examples), but every time there is no evidence offered. I'm removing the original; if someone wants to reinstate, please make sure you have actual evidence in hand when you do. PublicolaMinor (talk) 23:50, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

 * E.g. this book, which is from 2001 and therefore predating this Wikipedia article, is making the same claims as the text you removed, so the first appearance of these claims isn't Wikipedia. --Distelfinck (talk) 00:41, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

 * Glad to hear we didn't start it, though now I'm curious who did. I'd be surprised if the book you linked wasn't the original source for the claim here, since the phrasing (including the capitalization error) appears to be identical. It's clearly not a reliable source though -- I could point out any number of fallacious 'facts' in the book, unrelated to this case, and there's no way to verify which of the books' claims are true or false without a secondary source, who it'd be better to cite in the first place. PublicolaMinor (talk) 08:43, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

 * The specific factoid combining ten Roman witnesses and bride-doubles appears to have been born in the 1929 How the World Weds: The Story of Marriage, Adultery & Divorce (p. 68) - the author is Claudia de Lys, who appears to have been a more-or-less real anthropologist. And the Roman ten witnesses thing as cited in de Lys ultimately comes from the real Roman custom of Confarreatio. Another more-or-less real anthropologist Ernest Crawley wrote on this, and similar customs in several cultures, at more length in the 1902 The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage, and its Mock Brides section may be worth mining, if some of it can be confirmed by modern sources.--Pharos (talk) 06:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

 * On second thought, perhaps the 'Origin and history' section could be more profitably replaced by a more general section on 'Women wedding attendants in world cultures', because the role being fulfilled in most cases is not really "bridesmaid" in the modern Western sense.--Pharos (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Best Man
Surely in British English (which I speak) the equivalent of Chief Bridesmaid is the Best Man? The Groom's chief attendant, usually best friend or brother. An "usher" is someone who shows people to their seats, the same meaning applies to an usher in a cinema or theatre. It's not a particularly honourable role. Perhaps that's just for upper-class weddings. The few normal-person weddings I've been to have had Best Man, not an usher, as chief male guest.

BTW far as I know, Best Man comes from "second-best man", who would be expected to marry the bride himself if the groom was incapacitated. Not sure how often that actually happens.

188.29.165.91 (talk) 07:13, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

"In the UK there is a National Bridesmaid’s Day held on 25th March every year to celebrate bridesmaids"
I searched for an RS for this claim (as I'd never heard of it), and could only find puff-pieces for the two companies that invented it in 2015 to promote their hen/stag party businesses. If someone can find an RS that is actually R, I have no objection to it being reinstated. MarpoHarks (talk) 09:12, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bridesmaid


text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite/purpose

 * 1) Temporary Main Page: WikiProject Wikicite
 * 2) Project purpose and original proposal: Wikicite project purpose
 * 3) Feature Requests: Wikicite feature requests
 * 4) Technical Background: Wikicite technical background
 * 5) Wikicite Syntax: Wikicite syntax
 * 6) Wikicite Outreach Wikicite outreach

Introduction
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopedic Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting.

Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:

 * 1) Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite, and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
 * 2) Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
 * 3) Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information.i like ponys!

Reasons
The reason for having such a system goes beyond the need to cite: there must also be the ability to annotate, and provide, at least, some summary for the user that does not have access to the book. This is particularly important if a work is obscure, hard to obtain, or in a different language from the reader's base language. This means that having the card "body" being a wiki space for editing is essential to tying together the functions of citation.

Moreover, this tool would have use in itself beyond wikipedia, or even wikipedia and wiktionary. It would allow, for example, the ability to search through the webs of paper citation, it would allow scholars to cite works against a public database. It would allow googling to find credible links within the citation web of the paper universe.

By this means wikipedia could not only match the ability of external sources to have bibliographic tools, such as are commercially available, but leapfrog them by making the information live, and linked. Books annotation could have information which is critical of them, or extends or expands them.

Just as Amazon has user reviews and credibility rankings, so too should wikipedia have ratings on the utility of a particular work for the purposes of judging the credibility of the citation.

Additional Functionality

 * 1)  Add journal articles, at least for the major journals, this is particularly important in the case of many fields in the sciences where the paper, rather than the book, is the basic means of information distribution.
 * 2) Edition linking, so that editions of the same book could be compared.
 * 3) Bibliography project, to add the bibliographies of books themselves, so that searches can go down, and not just up, the chain.
 * 4) Ability to use BiBTex citation formati, e.g. \cite{ key } in articles.

Database
Wikicite links would link to a wikicite database - like wiktionary and wikipedia and wikisource - one within our name space. The link, if clicked, would bring up a wikicite card, with both the MARC data, and the annotations of the wiki editing community, the "enhanced material", this could also include other identifiers to cite, bibliography of the work, other editions and so on.

Wikicite Card
Specification for wikicite card here.

Reference in Article

 * cite: type:identifier Link to card in database
 * Expands to bibliographic reference, wikified.
 * Expands to BibTex formatted reference, universalized.

type would be defined by look ups to the database, and would include at least ISBN.

Additional fields:

 * 1) edition

Expansion
The macro would expand to the following fields if present:

 * 1) Author Link to wikipedia article in local namespace.
 * 2) Author Card Link to wikicite author card, listing all works by that author
 * 3) Editor Link to wikipedia article in local namespace
 * 4) Editor Card Link to wikicite author card, listing all works by that editor
 * 5) Title Link to wikpedia book article in local namespace. All book entries should have a link at the top to their wikicite added.
 * 6) Publisher Link to wikicite publisher card.
 * 7) Date Link to wikipedia article in local namespace
 * 8) ISBN Link to wikicite book card. Or primary key if no ISBN
 * 9) Source Link to wikisource, if any, for cited material, or external link if no wikisource.

Original Proposal
Original discussion

Proposal Wikicite
Wikicite original

title: Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite/purpose


text:
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikicite/purpose

This is in the wrong place, isn't it? Jwrosenzweig 21:14, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

IMHO it belongs to meta andy 21:15, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There's a meta version of these same pages, which I will sync up shortly. Wikicite Stirling Newberry 21:23, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


text:
User talk:Menphrad

name: manfred dob: 1978-06-17 city: vienna country: austria languages: german, english

Copyright tags
Thanks for uploading Image:Mt Conner, seen from the road to Uluru.jpg and Image:Mt conner.jpg. 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 images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much, BrokenSegue 21:34, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Tu-119_002.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:Tu-119_002.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this:.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or ask for help at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. Thank you. -- Carnildo 07:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:Yulara from helicopter (August 2004).jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:Yulara from helicopter (August 2004).jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.

As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the GFDL-self-no-disclaimers tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Fair use, use a tag such as or one of the other tags listed at Image copyright tags. See Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following [ this link]. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 10:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Samulili 10:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Notification: changes to "Mark my edits as minor by default" preference
Hello there. This is an automated message to tell you about the gradual phasing out of the preference entitled "Mark all edits minor by default", which you currently have (or very recently had) enabled.

On 13 March 2011, this preference was hidden from the user preferences screen as part of efforts to prevent its accidental misuse (consensus discussion). This had the effect of locking users in to their existing preference, which, in your case, was. To complete the process, your preference will automatically be changed to  in the next few days. This does not require any intervention on your part and you will still be able to manually mark your edits as being 'minor'. The only thing that's changed is that you will no longer have them marked as minor by default.

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MfD nomination of User:Menphrad/10:08
User:Menphrad/10:08, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Menphrad/10:08 and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of User:Menphrad/10:08 during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you.  Sandstein  10:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:Menphrad


text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite/feature requests

 * 1) Temporary Main Page: WikiProject Wikicite
 * 2) Project purpose and original proposal: Wikicite project purpose
 * 3) Feature Requests: Wikicite feature requests
 * 4) Technical Background: Wikpedia:Wikicite technical background
 * 5) Wikicite Syntax: Wikicite syntax
 * 6) Wikicite Outreach Wikicite outreach

BibTeX
Entries in the Wikicite database should be "compatible" with BibTeX entries. BibTeX is the citation format of choice for math, physics, computer science and some other areas. This means that a BibTeX entry should be structurally a subset of the WikiCite entry, so that some trivial text processing with perl or gawk can extract BibTex from the Wikicite entry. Possibly a BibTeX entry by itself could be a minimal Wikicite entry. This is a design issue.

Wikicite would have numerous advantages over a raw BibTeX entry. One could it to direct readers to specific sections of a book, warnings about pitfalls in other sections, summaries, of what you "really need to know" to understand a paragraph, POV's and so on. This is impossible in BibTeX.

Namespace
Wikicite entries should be in their own namespace equally accessible to all wikiprojects.

XML
Wkicite entries should be able to produce XML, multilinguinal, output. See bibulus for an example software project.

Editor generated tags
There will be tags that can be added which will be stored in the database for look up. For example, could be added to "An Inquiry into the causes of the Wealth of Nations". These tags should be protectable to prevent vandalism from breaking links.

Language and Origin information
Each wikicite entry should include original language of publication and original place of publication, with any additional language translations (and perhaps their own wikicite entries) available. Also, edition information with editor info and new date of publication for each new version of a book, say Guinness World Book, an encyclopedia, etc.

Preparation using existing system
Preparing for Wikicite can be done by encouraging current features which put citations in formats which can later be converted to Wikicite use.

Reference semantics
Encouraging semantic mark up, migration to future systems should be easy. If existing citations use formats which identify the components (Title, Author, etc.), machine conversion to new formats can be done.

 * The use of correct name tags according to the style recommendations should allow automatic generation of author / page information and nice titles.

 * As shown in Cite_your_sources, at present different templates are used for book, journal, and web references due to existing programming. However, there should be a single "Citation" template which can be given all types of sources and allows omission of fields.

Citation components
The present approach of trying to make inconspicuous links to references is a good start (see Footnote3). Even if a single endnote has several Templates for different components, at least everything is identified.

 * At present the Template:Journal_reference does not accept a digital object identifier although DOI is intended to provide a permanent web link to a journal article, so a separate Template:Doi has to be added.

 * A journal article or book may have an associated web site but presently each has to be given as a separate item.

 * A single source may have several components to refer to. One part of an article may refer to a book, while another part may refer to the web site for that book.  Or several citations may refer to different pages within the same book. Future citation tools may allow such distinctions while retaining the relationship between sources.

Citation presentation

 * It is not possible to know if a future system will have footnote text inline with the text or separate. Storing citation data separately is easy for the display system to move the text of the footnotes from the end of the article to inline positions if needed. See also: Referencenotes

 * Wikipedia may want to use different presentation of references, whether to follow new standards or user preference (ie: General, Technical, Academic, FullGlossary, WebOnly, IncludeFeeLinks). Once components of a reference are identified, they can be manipulated in various ways.

Semantic web
Data in Wikicite may be useful for Semantic web use. What that means is not clear, other than that info should be available in RDF/XML format. When defining the meanings of Wikicite data fields, the W3C definitions should considered. http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/


text:
User talk:Derrickbecker74

Hi hey. how are the ferrets? Tom e rtalk 07:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Derrickbecker74


text:
Lough Conn

Lough Conn  is a lake in County Mayo, Ireland. With an area of about 48 km2, it is Ireland's seventh largest lake. With its immediate neighbour to the south, Lough Cullin, it is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the River Moy. Lough Conn is noted for its trout and salmon fishing. The ruins of a priory exist at Errew Abbey.

Name
In Gaelic mythology, various accounts are given of the origin of the name.

In one account, Lough Conn was created when Fionn mac Cumhaill was hunting with his hounds; Conn and Cullin. They came across a wild boar. Fionn and the hounds attempted to chase it. However, as the boar ran, water poured from its feet. The hounds ran ahead of Fionn and eventually Conn was ahead of Cullin. Conn chased the boar for days until a lake appeared. The boar swam back to land but Conn was drowned. This happened again in the south to Cullin.

According to another account, the name means in Irish "the lake of the hounds". The story is that the fierce hounds of the chieftain Modh pursued a wild pig into the lake, where they drowned.

Location
The lake is connected to Lough Cullin by a channel that passes under the R310 regional road at Pontoon. The River Deel flows into Lough Conn and exits Lough Cullin at its southern end near Foxford, joining the River Moy which discharges into the Atlantic at Killala Bay.

title: Lough Conn


text:
Wikipedia:Wikicite technical background

A Brief Discussion of ISBN
Since the first level of wikicite implementation would be to make available ISBN numbered books, or some subset, a short discussion of ISBN is in order.

Format of an ISBN number
An ISBN is a 10-digit number that identifies a book, it is used for commercial and citation purposes. It has 9 significant digits and a check digit. A digit is base 11, that is 0-10, represented by the digits 0-9 and an "x" for 10.

The ISBN code is broken into 4 parts:

 * Group/Country id
 * Publisher id
 * Title id - by format
 * Check digit

The standard says hypens are to be placed between these four parts, but often they are not.

Obtaining ISBN data
One can purchase commercial data for ISBN databases from the Library of Congress and other sources. However, Wikimedia would probably begin by taking MARC Records downloaded from Z39.40 sources.

A MARC record is a card catalog format, and the Z39.50 protocol is used for records in this format. This means an initial test implementation could be "sparse" by creating records which are linking to the ISBN page as citations.

List of ISBN ranges

Brief Discussion of BibTex

BibTex is a Tex format for bibliographic citing, its format is

@type { name = {value}, ... }

title: Wikipedia:Wikicite technical background


text:
Wikipedia:Peer review/French legislation against cult abuses/archive1

French legislation on cult abuses
Some other editors seem to contend that the content of this article is too biased in favor of the point of view of the French government. I have made a large number of edits to this article, and as much as possible I tried to stick to facts and legal cases, and avoid quotations of opinions, suppositions, hypotheses and alarmism.

I am somewhat unhappy with the external link section. First, the section seems to be solidly biased in favor of the criticism of the law. Second, the relevance of the linked articles is not obvious to me. Some articles are written by self-described human rights groups, but I wonder whether they have any kind of wide recognition. Some of the articles discuss paragraphs of the law... that do not exist (or only existed in early drafts); presumably, the authors of such "references" did not know what they wrote about. Etc. David.Monniaux 21:24, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Complaint of abuse of sysop privileges by David Monniaux moved to Talk:French legislation against cult abuses. Note: Anon user believes this complaint to be at the core of this Peer Review. --38.119.107.72 16:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Look at that, the first anon ever to be a sysop candidate. Who is For ? Against ? Neutral ? ;-))) --Pgreenfinch 17:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Regarding his request for peer review, the external link is just a small sample of the criticism by European nations, US and human rights organizations against what they consider a degradation of freedom of religion in France.
 * Do you call these "Self-described" human rights advocacy groups?
 * The Council of Europe
 * The International Federation for Human Rights
 * The European Court of Human Rights
 * The Helsinki International Federation for Human Rights
 * --38.119.107.72 03:27, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * The Council of Europe has expressed concerns on the legislation, but has refrained from considering it to be an infringement on human rights. The European Court of Human Rights has not expressed itself on the topic. The International Federation for Human Rights, this one is notorious. The Helsinki International Federation for Human Rights, I had never heard about it, it seems to be less notorious than the preceding. The remarks of the US government have ceased with the Bush administration, giving credence to the thesis that they were motivated by financial support of the Clinton administration by financial groups. Where are the remarks from European nations?

 * The external links that I disagree especially with are two from un-notorious sources (a Canadian professor and some organization) that criticize non-existant disposition of the law. One of them, for instance, quotes some disposition in "section 1" of the law... and if you read the actual law, there's no such disposition, in section 1 or anywhere. How relevant is "criticism" of a law from un-notorious people who haven't even read it?
 * Who is the Coordination des Associations & Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience? Who is the International Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance? David.Monniaux 08:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Aren't you confusing the interventions of some advocates of a position in some mmeting of those organizations or some reports presented to it, with an official positions from those organizations?
 * You can cover biased statement by using such official-looking attributions. There is a craze by some to find attributions for every line of every article. Not only it makes for confusing articles, unaccessible to the common reader, as playgrounds for specialists only, but also it smacks of lawyers' ploys. Attributions, playing on the notoriety of the attributtee, and presented to support a thesis, sometimes stink as just maneuvers.
 * I suggest that all quotations and attributions should be kept out of the main texts, and become footnotes, for the specialists to play and have their solitary pleasures. This is my theory, "always isolate the side mess from the main mess". You are welcome to quote it and attribute it to me, or to the International Organization and Court of Greenfinch Rights on Attributions and Quotations;-)) --Pgreenfinch 08:36, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Don't see what the problem is here. As far as I can see the ongoing debate between Pgreenfinch, Mr. Monniaux, anons and myself, has led to a substatially better and more comprehensive article (check the history!). This energy is what fuels WP. Let it be, rather than quash it. Let the critics make their point, let the pro About-Piccard make theirs. All will contribute to a better article and more informed readers. --Zappaz 17:35, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I researched what the European Court of Human Rights had to say on the matter, and it seems that, on two occasions, they rejected recourses against the main matters discussed of the article (the parliamentary reports, and the About-Picard law).

I contend that many of the "references" and quotations added by our anonymous (and anonymized?) friend are not that relevant. Criteria for relevance include: 1) being from a notorious, identifiable source on the topic being discussed 2) being well-researched and documented. This is especially true about criticism.

If, for instance, somebody went to George W. Bush and added any criticism about Bush's policies that he could find worlwide in the word of any, however minor, left-wing group, the size of the article would explode, and other editors would remove the irrelevant material.

On aspect 2), I do not think that it helps much to include criticisms from unknown sources that, for instance, criticize inexistent sections of a law. I mean, it's not rocket science to get the text of a French law, there are free Web services for it; it's not rocket science either to use Google translate or Babelfish. If somebody cannot do those two simple things, then I wonder what kind of criticism he or she can write.

On aspect 1), it must be pointed out that, nowadays, (almost) anybody can found an association of protection of the rights of anything, open a Web site, and post "reports" and opinion pieces on it. But, seriously, how is that relevant to quote such opinions in an Encyclopedia?

Institutions such as the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights are certainly notable (plus, in the case of the ECHR, they may issue legal rulings on the matter). Associations such as Amnesty International or the French League of Human Rights have a long history and are well-respected. The French Protestant Federation is an association of note. But, seriously, should we include the rants of any random association, just because they show up on Google when one types certain phrases and they show the POV that the editor wishes?

I have strived to, as much as possible, include references from well-identifiable, reputed sources. If there was discussion of legal aspects, I strived to obtain the legal texts – of laws, of rulings –, in preference to posting what somebody (who may not even have read the text, or knows about it from hearsay) commented upon it.

(Note for Zappaz: I'm not a big fan of some of the actions of my government with respect to "cults". Still, I think that they should not be mis-represented, especially when authoritative documentation is available.) David.Monniaux 17:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore I think, like Pgreenfinch, that we should be careful not to represent the position of somebody intervening at a meeting organized by an institution as the position of that institution. In all cases, precise attributions should help dispel any doubt or misunderstanding. As an example, I replaced vague wording about some criticism from an OSCE meeting to those who uttered it during that meeting (representatives from the Church of Scientology and other groups). David.Monniaux 19:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)


text:
User:Derrickbecker74

Derrick Thomas Becker

Born: March 29, 1985

title: User:Derrickbecker74


text: User talk:64.60.74.162

title: User talk:64.60.74.162


text:
User talk:Blindside17

Hi, So, as I explained in class, your first Project is to create a slide-show presentation on any particular still-camera (not video) produced prior to 1950. Information you should include in your presentation includes:

 * Full name of camera
 * Creator of your selected model
 * Manufacturer
 * Type of film used
 * Picture of the specific model
 * Years of production
 * Important features
 * Specifications
 * Popularity
 * Intended market: Amature or Professional photographers
 * Original selling price
 * Value today
 * Current availability of film stock
 * Limitations of this particular model
 * Example of a current equivalent model

Please use multiple sources for your research, and as always, if you have questions.... ask. Weaponofmassinstruction 21:19, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Blindside17


text:
Talk:Autoduel

Untitled
I totally revamped this entry to only reflect the computer game. Many of the outstanding links were pointing only to the computer game "Autoduel". I suggest any reference to the GURPS Autoduel should be done under the GURPS section or possibly a GURPS Autoduel page. --WillDarlock 21:21, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This game was also released on the Macintosh, in the Mac Plus era.

Mmmmm.. I think someone should add the author's name here, as there's " a " Lord British/Richard Garriott involved. Could be noteworthy.

--Drew Falconeer

 * What? Could you please expand on this?  Richard Garriott ("Lord British") started Origin Systems, who developed the game.  Is this what you meant? — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Autoduel. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110520182526/http://www.the-underdogs.info/company.php?id=294 to http://www.the-underdogs.info/company.php?id=294

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:22, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Autoduel. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090330222049/http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070223b/barton_05.shtml to http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070223b/barton_05.shtml

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Autoduel


text:
Sabatini

Sabatini may refer to:

People

 * Sabatini (surname)

Places

 * Sabatini Gardens in Madrid, Spain
 * Sabatini, Italy, a volcanic region in Italy

title: Sabatini


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stupid Day

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE Stupid Day, KEEP Towel Day. dbenbenn | talk 14:31, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The votes appear to be
 * Stupid Day, 8 delete, 1 keep, 2 merge.
 * Towel Day, 5 delete, 7 keep.

Stupid Day and Towel Day
Stupid. Jokes on a website, not notable enough. There's plenty of other pages related to RinkWorks which could also be below the bar - a merge or delete might be in order for some of them. sjorford// 21:21, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 *  Sorry for the double-listing - I obviously wasn't concentrating properly that day, as I just assumed they were a related pair of articles. Won't do it again.  sjorford// 14:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Disintegrate. Yawn. Phils 22:29, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. I do recall that Adams' fellow fantasy/SF writer Terry Pratchett celebrated the first towel day, asking fans who came to a book signing he was holding to bring their towels. There should be something about this in the Douglas Adams article, but it doesn't really merit an article of its own in my opinion. It seems to be more talked about than celebrated. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, though Stupid Day would have no shortage of celebrants if it were for real. Denni ☯ 02:24, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)
 * Delete zzzz. Wyss 02:30, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I say to delete Stupid Day and keep Towel Day.   — Kieff | Talk 02:39, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert on Towel Day, but merge Stupid Day to RinkWorks and redirect. It might have been useful to have separate VfD listings for these, just for future reference.  --Idont Havaname 04:28, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Please don't entirely delete Stupid Day. Merging it with RinkWorks would be a good idea. BTW, I usually celebrate Towel Day. 85.76.152.179 05:28, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Towel Day. Merge and redirect Stupid Day. Megan1967 06:06, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep towel day. —RaD Man (talk) 09:49, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Stupid day. It is a non-official holiday, but nevertheless a holiday. Wikipedian231 17:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is User:Wikipedian231's 17th edit. Account created yesterday.  —RaD Man (talk) 17:43, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep both. Especially Towel Day. -SocratesJedi | Talk 17:47, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I am the original author of the Stupid Day article, and while I would personally like to keep it, the overall opinion seems to be to merge it with RinkWorks, preserving the actual content. So that's what I'm going for. 85.76.152.179 ~
 * When Towel Day starts to approach Bloomsday in popularity come back and write about it. Until then delete (or maybe merge somewhere, if you can find a spot). -R. fiend 20:13, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it should be merged with Douglas Adams? 85.76.152.179 06:33, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Towel Day, delete Stupid Day, and please don't do this kind of joint VfD listing of two articles about which a contributor might well have different opinions. JamesMLane 17:35, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete both of them.  --BM 17:46, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree with JML, keep Towel Day, delete Stupid Day due to no evidence of any notability. List these types of things seperately next time. Gamaliel 17:07, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Towel Day, delete the other. Furthermore, I second JamesMLane that we should not be joint-listing articles on VfD!  Can we make this an official policy?  GRider\talk 20:08, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that forbidding joint-listing articles on VfD should be official policy, especially when they're written by different, unrelated users, as in this case. I wrote Stupid Day but I have no idea who wrote Towel Day. 193.167.132.66 10:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep Towel Day. Stupid Day gan go.

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
User:JohnJohn

Hi, I am currently studying biology at Colorado Christian University. I haven't made sustantial contributions to Wikipedia (mostly because I know very little) but I fix things when I can. I have made slight contributions to these pages: I like these people:
 * Kool-Aid
 * I added a sentence to "Retina." I'm pretty proud of it.
 * Andy Goldsworthy
 * Ellen MacArthur

title: User:JohnJohn