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User talk:Bryan Derksen/Archive 6

Compliments
I don't know if its the mediation or what, but to my perception you are being particularly reasonable, agreeable, and able to compromise as of late. The result is not only an ease of editing with you, and a pleasing demeanor overall, but much more importantly, a better article. I still feel strongly that the oild "logic of atheism" was awful, but I feel just as strongly that the new chart, and explanation thereof is excellent. I feel that is mainly due to what I percieve as a radically different attitude on your (and perhaps both of our, its hard to guage myself) part(s). While getting along and enjoying editing is vital, the most important reason for it is the production of high quality, NPOV articles. It would seem to me that both of us have resolved that NPOV is not a bias in favor of our own POV, but rather is the state of the article being accurate in the eyes of (or at least respectful of) all POV's. Thank you for the fine work. Sam Spade 23:13, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks. Perhaps it's simply that while we still disagree about a lot of stuff, we are each no longer quite so quick to assume that those disagreements are inevitably going to result in irreconcilable conflict. We could have each been "hitting back" thinking it was the other guy being unreasonable. :) Bryan 23:51, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * To me, it is clear that the best article is one that no reasonable, informed person can diagree with. And from what I have seen, you are also agreeable to that sort of article :). POV's are fine, as long as they can be cited, and are presented as such, w opposing POV's to balance them. It seems to me I was too quick to assume irreconcileable differences, and that perhaps our divergent POV's can assist us in providing the reader w a balanced article, rather than a mess based on pointless squabbling. :) Sam Spade 00:53, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

taxobox
Heya... take a trip over to WikiProject Tree of Life for some taxobox formatting updates. Check out the Talk as well. - UtherSRG 00:10, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Bryan Derksen
I don't see a need for this page, and would just as soon archive it, but I remember you saying something on it in regards to not wanting me to do that. Do you object if I archive it? Sam Spade 01:55, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * It was only the archiving of issues that were still under discussion that I complained about. I think that RFC is done with now, so it should be okay to archive. I assume this means moving the link from Requests for comment to Requests for comment/User conduct disputes archive?

 * yep Sam Spade 02:17, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * No problem, then. Bryan 02:19, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

ship disambig msgs
FYI, I thought about adding disambig notices to ship index articles but decided against it, because for every one of those there are several different cases where we don't want the ambitious to be messing with the links; one from the list of ship names, one from the namesake (see Kentucky for instance), and one from each specific ship pointing back to others of the same name. Perhaps a different message would be better, tailored to the situation? Stan 10:18, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I considered that, but I think the current disambiguation message is okay; it says "you might want to go back and fix that link" (emphasis added), so it isn't like it's saying "no pages should ever link here". On the other hand, there are plenty of situations where the usual need for disambiguation does apply; see for example what links to USS Vincennes. Many of them should instead be linking to Iran Air Flight 655 or USS Vincennes (CG-49). Bryan 20:31, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thumbnails
I agree it looks OK in this case. What happens with some of those JPEGs is that the native MediaWiki JPEG creator makes one of too low quality with a mixture of solid graphics (lines) and the photo-like background. I have to save the original JPEGS at high quality or they look like a mess with artifacts around the solid lines (usually its worst for sea voyages. I think it works OK here because the solid lines are against a "fuzzier" background (the mountains)). Unfortunately the PNGs, which should be the natural format, come out bigger, >100 K in most cases. -- Decumanus 21:40, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Personally, I'm hoping that eventually WikiMedia's thumbnail generator will be made "smarter" and gain the ability to select jpeg or png for the thumbnail on a case-by-case basis. It could do this automatically by generating one of each and comparing filesizes, or manually via some attribute that could be added to the image tags. Until something like this comes along, though, I've tried to be careful about what images to thumbnail and what images to leave as-is. I hope that others will do likewise. Bryan 22:11, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Star Destroyers
Funny! Perhaps we could go through all of the Star Wars articles and think up random comparisons? Because of his small size and rounded top, R2D2 bears a certain resemblance to a fire hydrant, because of his height, Darth Vader bears a certain resemblance to Michael Jordan, because of it's large trees and friendly natives, Endor bears a certain resemblance to Northern California! Mark Richards 06:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Human League pic prob?
Hi Bryan.

No unkind criticism is intended: I don't really understand the new pic format (though it's nice) so I can't fix this, but it looks like you may in reformatting a pic at Human League have inadvertently demoted a caption into alt text as, in my browser at least, it has vanished from the static display. Unless of course this was what you meant to do! :) If you'd like to point me at where there is a description of the elements of the new format, that would be helpful too. Regards Nevilley 08:26, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Yup, looks like I did that. Sorry, that's the one part of the new syntax that really frustrates me; you only get a visible caption if you thumbnail the image. The new syntax is described at Extended image syntax. It looks like there's still ongoing work on the coding behind it, so perhaps the caption situation will be resolved at some point; until then, I try to leave images in the old format when it would make a caption vanish. Must've not been thinking when I did this one. Bryan 01:50, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks VERY much for the pointer to the syntax description. Most useful. Nevilley 17:55, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey
I see some some of our classic "comprehension conumdrums" (as I like to call em) coming up, and I'd like to either solve em or side step em, rather than start digging the same old trenches over again. The mediation went great, but prob. the main thing it DIDN'T solve was the basic disagreements. If you want to work on those, or leave them alone, or anything other than re-igniting the same useless back and forth, I'm game. I think banno has a point, but I don't think its worth losing article quality (or our current editorial truce) over it. Sam Spade 05:46, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * As I see it, the current article is factually correct, but uses awkward wording for no good reason. I think the wording should be changed, but not strongly enough to spend the sort of effort that went into the past couple of months of arguing with you about it. So I've left the article alone. However, if the article gets changed in such a way that it becomes factually incorrect, then I'll feel obliged to step right back in again. So yeah, the mediation basically didn't change anything about my stance on the article itself. I think that was basically settled by the poll you initiated, even though it did become a bit messy when extraneous options were added. Bryan 05:56, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * the poll was messy and solved nothing. Eloquence solved everything IMO. He found a concensus compromise that may not have overjoyed anyone, but mollified everyone. As I said, I understand banno's complaint, but I also know he is MUCH happier as is, than either of us would be w either of the more radical options. Anyhow, I am perfectly able to discuss any and all particulars (altho I assume I share your aversion to doing so?) with you, and intend to be nothing other than polite and compromising, so long as my (and the articles) integrity remains intact. Cheers, Sam Spade 06:02, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * The current solution is stopgap at best, IMO, because I believe it plasters over some very fundamental disagreements about what atheism means. I still have yet to figure out why you think atheism is even relevant to an entity that is not a god, for example, and I've given up trying to explain the distinction between denial and disbelief. The first time someone wanders along and helpfully tosses in anything mentioning "god", because that really should be mentioned in an article about atheism IMO, everything comes crashing down again and we start arguing over whether it should be capitalized. Bryan 06:11, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You make extremely insightful points. Atheism (and its inclusion of disbelief or lack of belief, or denial of God) is both profoundly relevent (when it is synonymous with satanism and amalek, i.e. denial of God) and irrelevent (when it simply means agnosticism, or confusion, etc...). And your right, the current state is unstable. I've known that all along. Eventually someone will place God or god or who knows what on that page, most likely all three ;). You and I are not going to change that. You understanding God, or me understanding your particular form of "atheism" is not what the page needs. The page needs to be accurate in a way in which no reasonable, informed person can dispute. To me that is the bottom line (NPOV). Sam Spade 06:17, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I think the best approach to that is to try to be inclusive of all the different interpretations of what atheism means. If naturalistic pantheists have a particular approach to atheism, there should be no conflict in saying "naturalistic pantheists believe atheism is hooey because blah." Actually, as I reread the article right now, I think the current version does a pretty good job of that; it does mention god and God in contexts that make it clear what's being intended, and has descriptions of various different interpretations of what atheism means. For some reason I remembered there being a lot more tortured usage of "deities" than there is now. Perhaps our disagreements have been plastered over so thoroughly that this thing really is stable after all? People have been quietly adding interesting content since last I looked. Bryan 06:33, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dragon Ball Z Powerlevels
Just thought you might be interested to know that there is now a Dragon Ball Z Powerlevels page that has been listed on Votes for Deletion. --Lowellian 22:14, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks. Looks completely unintelligible to me. :) Bryan 22:22, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Local Church Movement
Thanks for discussing your concerns on the Local Church Movement article in Talk:Local Church Movement. I have added a few comments of my own and would appreciate your thoughts on that page. Please understand that I have no intention of spending enourmous amounts of energy constantly revising the entry on this topic, given its highly controversial nature. For example, there is a mention of "two books" on the page; however there were more books, articles, and websites published with critiques of the movement than these two. Further, the retractions mentioned in the article were due to enourmous legal pressure - not on the basis of the materials presented in the books mentioned. People who are involved with this movement have the unusual impression that it is because of these two books that they are criticized; however criticisms arose prior to these books and have come from independent researchers since then. At this point, no criticisms of Witness Lee, Watchman Nee, their respective theologies, or of the Local Church Movement have yet been posted to Wikipedia, that I am aware of. My hope is that these entries can serve to be an open forum for discussion in the future. Please also be understanding of my desire to remain anonymous, under the circumstances :) The history of litigation is quite significant with this organization; hence a large part of the controversy.

TheLocalChurch 06:21, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Heh. I actually know nothing at all about this subject, I just notied that an article that claimed to be under dispute hadn't been edited in any way for two months without any apparent protection or talk: discussion. That suggested to me that the dispute was over, or at least forgotten about by its participants. If I'm wrong, well, it's easy to reapply the header. But an article in Wikipedia should not be permanently in dispute, so please try to continue working out the problems with it if you do. The aim is to ultimately overcome all factual and NPOV disagreements. Bryan 06:50, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I dispute TheLocalChurch's explanation above of the situation, because it is a misrepresentation of the facts. For one, in nearly 100 years of history, with thousands of churches and hundreds of thousands of members, the local churches have only ever been involved in three (3) litigations, one of which resulted in a public apology and retraction, one of which resulted in an $11.9 million judgment in favor of the local churches, and one of which is ongoing. Is this a history of litigation that is "quite significant"? Obviously, it is significant mainly to those who were found guilty of libel. Secondly, none of these three cases were/are about criticism—we welcome healthy criticism that is grounded in truth—but are about libel, malicious slander, and willful misrepresentation with the intent to inflict harm. Please read Libel Litigations Filed by the Local Churches to learn the facts of these matters (from local church POV, though original court documents are also available here). Thank you! --Nathan w cheng 23:56, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * This is not the place to be arguing details of that article. As I said to TheLocalChurch, I don't actually know anything about the subject, nor am I interested in it. The only reason I got involved was that it looked to me that nothing at all was being discussed or edited on a page that was supposedly under dispute, and so I concluded that the dispute label was no longer applicable. If it really is under dispute, then by all means dispute away - on that article's talk: page, where the dispute can be seen and resolved. Bryan 00:37, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I realize that; sorry...I'm just balancing the viewpoints expressed on this page for the other 6 billion people who may read it.--Nathan w cheng 21:53, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Ah, okay then. Still make sure to copy your concerns to the article talk: page too, though; every once in a while I delete my user talk: page when it gets long, leaving it up to the article history to keep a permanent record. Future users will be unlikely to see this here unless they're looking through my old talk for some other reason. Article talk: pages have more rigorous standards for maintaining archives of old discussion in easily-accessible places. Bryan 01:24, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Europa
Hi, thanks for the hello, about Europa... By 'positively identified' i meant that the astronomers had identified features and compositions on the moon that are in most probability formed by liquid thermal jets. Positively as in 'yes we see' not 'definitely'. They have noted the features, and the interior, from the new info, so they are drawing their conclusions. Of course we won't really know till something/one lands there.:~)sunja 11:32, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * OK sorry. I just looked at it again an I must have been half asleep or something. :~) sunja 03:51, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Or perhaps drunk.sunja 05:36, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Heh. The Achaemenids supposedly liked to make decisions when they were sober, only to reconsider them when they were drunk. Nothing wrong with doing it the other way around too, IMO. :)

List of Indo-European Roots
I will have to revert your image to character change; many browsers don't support the "schwa" character. --Monsieur Mero 21:43, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, I remain ideologically opposed to it, but I'm not going to get into an edit war or anything. :) I think it's a terrible idea to use an image of a character in place of an actual character, since it's semantically meaningless. You can't resize the font, you can't copy and paste the text elsewhere, text-to-speech programs are thwarted, etc. Bryan 00:30, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

talk:agnosticism
Your sounding curiously like a pragmatist! ;) Sam Spade 09:36, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Image:Stamp US 1870 2c-130px.jpg
Why should Image:Stamp US 1870 2c-130px.jpg be deleted? Thanks - Texture 18:04, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Because, thanks to the new image markup, thumbnail versions of images are no longer required. That image is a thumbnail of this image: Image:Stamp US 1870 2c-500px.jpg. The only article that used it was Fancy cancel, but I changed the text so that it uses the full-sized image instead (compare the old version,, with the current text). So now the 130 pixel version of the image is an orphan, and it likely will always be an orphan from now on since the 500-pixel version can be used everywhere instead. Thus, I put it up for deletion. Hope that fully explains my reasoning. :) Bryan 00:57, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As an occasional contributor to the Nivokov self-consistency principle article, I'm hoping that you have some familiarity with Newcomb's paradox. I am asking for informed comment on that article. Thanks for any assistance you can provide. Rossami

Hi Bryan hope you don't mind I reworked your smiley image. I saw it show up on the happiness page, and while I think it is cute to add the smiley, I just thought the image was a bit rough. Robbrown

 * Oh, no problem at all; this is the kind of thing the GFDL is all about. I threw that picture together in five minutes, IIRC, simply because I happened to have Photoshop open at the time. :) Bryan 02:26, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Bryan... I wanted the infobox in Charon (moon) to be closer in vertical size (length in pixels) to the whole article, because I thought people would not scroll down beyond the end of the article and may not absorb the rest of the infobox. In general, I think it is odd for tables to be longer than the articles that they live next to.

It's a matter of consistency vs. layout-goodness for users. I did it for a few of the other very short moon and asteroid articles. I could revert if you hate it. --- hike395 13:44, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually, I've just been playing with this, and realized that slightly tweaking the font only gets a little more infobox information on the screen, so I'll go back and restore full-sized fonts on the ones that I touched. -- hike395

 * IMO, a better approach to evening out the lengths would be to add more information to the text of the article. That'll probably happen over time in any event. :) Bryan 15:39, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Requests for comment/172
That was a contentious and unhelpful thing to do. Our conflict has nothing to do w 172. We have been doing well for sometime now, and I really can't imagine why you would do something like this. Are you going to continue to bring that up everytime I point out someones poor behaviour? Have you bothered to review any of the links provided in regards to 172's hostility, or did you simply assume that I was the source of the troubles and therefore wanted to help get the ball rolling in my direction? Needless to say I'm fairly P.O.'ed. Sam Spade 03:47, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * On the one hand, you do seem to pick fights a lot in my experience. On the other, our conflict ultimately resolved itself with mediation. From what I've seen of other mediation results, ours seemed to go textbook perfect. Shouldn't that count as a positive? Bryan 04:08, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is no similarity between the two situations, and since you are clearly unaware of the particulars w 172 giving people ammo (and that’s what that link is, flames against myself) without knowing the specifics of the situation is thoughtless and highly divisive. I wouldn't mind so much if you had been involved, or even knew what was going on, but you basically brought up an old attack against me, out of context, for no discernable reason. How could I be anything other than offended? Sam Spade 08:43, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * It was a request for comment. I was commenting that you've got into lengthy conflicts with people before that turned out to be based on misunderstanding, and which were resolvable. It takes two sides to fight, you know; this isn't just about 172. Bryan 16:25, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The request for comment on 172 is about him, not me, but thank you for removing the link, that was polite of you. If you think about it, I am bound to be involved in a great deal of conflict, I seek it out actually. I am a Members' Advocate and a Harmonious editer and thus am supposed to seek out conflict in order to provide an assist. Besides I seek out conflict anyhow. The subjects I am interested in focus on religion and politics, and are almost all contentious. In high school I was on the debate club, and in grade school/middle school I had prob 3 fist-fights a day on average ;). My friends and I are are always debating something or other (pretty much all of them are either atheists or democrats, so you can imagine...) when were not busy laughing about something else. I feel strongly, but you must understand that my passion first and foremost is for good and truth, for mutual understanding and fairness. I really want the wiki to be NPOV, it would unsatisfying to see only my views presented. I want the reader to be given multiple POV's, along w enough info to make up his own mind. Anyhow thanks for not picking up where we left off before the mediation, I was concerned that was what you had in mind, and it proved not to be the case. Cheers, Sam Spade 19:59, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * In hindsight, there was rather a lot more "this is why I think Sam's a flaming blue meanie" on that page relative to "this is how we ultimately resolved things" than I was remembering or aiming for. I'd be lying if I said I liked you, since for about two months you made it not-fun for me to work here (that's never happened to me before; the only previous "fight" I can recall being in was a few days of being shouted at by Lir regarding the infobox on Earth maybe a year or so back), but my opinion of you coming out of mediation is still a lot better than it was going in. I suppose it just struck a nerve with me how similar the beginning of this RfC was to the one you started on me, so I jumped in without additional background. I'll add comments to this effect on 172's RfC. Still, try not to escalate arguments needlessy; my nerves aren't the only ones that are vulnerable to being struck, and very few people around here seem to be doing what they do out of actual malice. Bryan 02:57, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A good point, assuming bad faith is a particularly bad thing to do. I think the central problem to disputes in on the wiki is the difficulty in reading one another, since our interaction is so much more limited than IRL. Cheers, Sam Spade 03:42, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * On the other hand, there are 0 fist-fights per day on Wikipedia. That may help balance things out a bit :) Bryan 03:46, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think we'd be about as likely to have fistfights in person as scholors, historians, librarians, or volunteers at a charity, since were pretty much a mix of all of those as wikipedians ;). By my view the hostility is caused entirely by the unusual form of interaction, and lack of accountability and normal social interactions/outlets. Sam Spade 04:26, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Atheism and realism
What's your problem, doc? 666 21:19, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * My problem is what I explained in the edit summary when I reverted your addition. Who among us, atheist or theist, doesn't consider themselves to hold a realistic position? Should we go around adding that comment to every such philosophical or religious position? Bryan 21:23, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Why not? 666 21:26, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Because it's needlessly redundant. Bryan 21:36, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Formatting of Sergeant page
In reference to this edit the <div> method isn't rendered very well in Mozilla/Firefox. I'm only guessing, but I think your objection was that the 2 floating insignia were stacking horizontally? If that was the only issue, I reviewed my CSS, and that can be fixed without resorting to <div>s. I wouldn't normally put so much effort into this, but there are many other pages with the same format which I can fix, too. :) - Wguynes 18:47, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

 * Yup, that was the only reason I did that; they weren't just stacking horizontally, they were diagonal. However, I use Mozilla exclusively, so I'm not sure what you mean about them not rendering very well. :) If you've got an alternative way of fixing that, though, go ahead and try it out; I'll be interested to see it. Bryan 02:14, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * How about it now? The clear:both; property is specifically to address this problem in CSS floating.  Notice, at least in my browser, the USMC version is pushed down below where its start point should be in the text, but it will scale perfectly if any text is added to the Army section.  (i.e. once the Army text gets long enough, the marine insignia will move down and stay even with the Marine Corps text) - Wguynes 05:39, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

 * The floating looks right (on Mozilla 1.7), but using tables for formatting like this isn't really good HTML practice IMO. In theory, shouldn't switching the tables to a pair of divs with the same styles have the same effect? Bryan 06:22, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Here is how the <div> version looked in Firefox. I hear you, and will look into replacing the tables with divs.  Not sure what's happening, but I need to experiment. - Wguynes 06:51, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

 * Weird. Both images are 50px wide, perhaps adding "width:50px;" will force Firefox to behave a little more conservatively? Bryan 06:54, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * How about it now? - Wguynes 07:07, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

 * Looks perfect. I'll have to remeber that "clear:both;" trick for future use. :) Bryan 07:21, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Exploding head
It looks fine now, it was just that there were some phrases that stood out like "springing open" and the section on rapid heartbeat after the attack. Upon my review, I don't think it was fair of me to characterize the article as containing large sections of verbatim text, but rather large sections of clearly copied and subtly modified text. In contrast, the article as it CURRENTLY stands is clearly a derivative work, i.e., you didn't just reword, you did a complete rewrite. :) Good job! --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:56, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I thought those particular phrases might be the problem, on second reading. I guess I wasn't creative enough the first time through. :) Bryan 16:17, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Bryan Derksen/Archive 6


text:
User:Klonimus/Islamofascism

The term "Islamofascism" is a controversial political epithet used to describe certain variants of Islamism, which it has been suggested have fascist or totalitarian aspects.

Origins of the term
Although the exact origins of the term are murky, it appears to have been coined either by Khalid Duran, Stephen Schwartz or Christopher Hitchens. The coining or popularisation of the term is frequently attributed to Christopher Hitchens, a prominent critic of Islamic Fundamentalism, based on his article in The Nation immediately following the 9/11 attacks, where he used the phrase "Islamic fascism". . Hitchens also used the phrases "Islamic fascism" and "theocratic fascism" to describe the fatwa declared against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses.

After the 9/11 attacks, the concept of "Islamic fascism", later shortened to "Islamofascism", took root in the blogosphere, to explain or describe the ideology of the attackers. Islamofascism is popular term among neoconservative blogs such as Little Green Footballs.

Application of the term
Those who have attempted to flesh out the epithet often state that "Islamofascism" refers to strands of Wahhabi or Salafi Islam, which are claimed to display some of the signifiers of fascism or totalitarianism. Among the allegations directed towards these Islamic sects and their followers are that they :

 * Promote the establisment of a global unitary Islamic nation-state under the totalitarian control of Islamic religious authorities enforcing Sharia law.
 * Propose the existence of an eternal violent conflict between Muslims and infidels, which will end with the eventual victory of muslims over the infidels.
 * Accept and promote terrorism and violence to further their goals.
 * Are strongly and violently anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist], anti-American, and anti-Western. These groups and nations are allegedly perceived by "Islamofascists" as implacable enemies of Islam, which must be subjugated or destroyed.
 * Do not accept Western political concepts such as intrinsic human rights, egalitarianism and western democracy.
 * Advocate a philosophy of trotskyist entryism to convert/subvert non-Islamic societies from within.

Some applications of the term "Islamofascism" specifically refer to the Muslim Brotherhood and similar movements in Sunni Islam inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb while others use it to refer to all highly politicized strains of Islam, including Shi'a as practised in Iran. A more common and less loaded term for these politicized strains of Islam, which seek to replace secular governments in Muslim countries with Sharia law, is Islamist.

Examples of use in public discourse

 * "But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state." — Christopher Hitchens in Against Rationalisation, The Nation 2001.

 * "What we have to understand is ... this is not really a war against terrorism, this is not really a war against al Qaeda, this is a war against movements and ideologies that are jihadist, that are Islamofascists, that aim to destroy the Western world." Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

 * "[Islamic terrorist] attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom." George W Bush, President of the United States speaking before the National Endowment for Democracy, October 6, 2005

Criticism
Critics, claim that "Islamofascism" is simply a derogatory epithet directed towards Islam as a whole, and not a real political concept or ideology. They claim that the term attempts to conflate the neutral concept of Islamism with the negatively perceived concept of fascism. They further suggest that those who use the term rely on a politically unsophisticated understanding of "fascism", which simply understands it to be synonymous with totalitarianism.

Islamism is a diverse political category, which covers also political movements such as Turkey's Justice and Development Party, which do not seek to overthrow secular constitutions. (See also Islamic Democracy.) Moderate muslims such as Tariq Ramadan, point to democracies in Turkey and Indonesia, (both major nations with large muslim populations and islamist movements), as proof that Islamism is not always incompatible with democracy.

Use of the metaphor of fascism
"Fascism" has been traditionally invoked to describe the merger of state and corporate power. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, the oil industries are nationalized (Saudi Aramco and National Iranian Oil Company) and signifcant source of government funding in both countries. Supporters of the term Islamofascism contend that the fusion of oil wealth together with the ideology of totalitarian theocracy espoused by these govenments is consistent with the definition of fascism.

Most Muslims feel that the comparison of Islamic extremism to ideologies such as Nazism or other forms of fascism is offensive. However some secular muslims such as Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali feel that Islamism represents a a threat to the ideals of western democracies in the 21st century equal to that of fascism in the 20th century.

Islamist/Axis Alliance during WWII
right|thumb|222px|November 2, 1943 Himmler's telegram to the Grand Mufti on the anniversary of the [[Balfour declaration "]]

During WWII, Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, leader of the Palestinians, aligned himself with Nazi Germany, hoping that the Axis would liberate Palestine from British colonial rule and kill the Jewish population. Al-Husayni was a good friend of SS leader Heinrich Himmler and met Hitler several times. It is not clear to what extent Palestinians in general held fascist views (though doubtless some of them did, including al-Husayni and his followers), they were led to believe that their own political ends would be served by the Nazis' victory over the British.

 * '' "To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between ( Nazi )Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory.

 * Signed: Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler" ''

Political Concepts

 * Islamism and Islam as a political movement — Islam as a political movement
 * Islamophobia — irrational fear of Islam or Muslims
 * Islam and anti-Semitism
 * Arabs and anti-Semitism
 * Arabs and anti-Zionism
 * Islam and anti-Zionism
 * War on Terrorism
 * Islamist terrorism

Islamic Concepts

 * Dhimmi — non-Muslim citizens under Islamic law, who were subjected to additional taxes (Jizyah) and restrictions on religious and political liberty.
 * Jihad — a controversial Islamic term, interpreted by some moderates to mean an inner struggle against evil thoughts and deeds, and by some fundamentalists to mean holy war against infidels
 * Wahhabism — fundamentalist Muslim denomination
 * Salafi — fundamentalist Muslim denomination.

Academics

 * Daniel Pipes — U.S. political scientist
 * Victor Davis Hanson — U.S. historian and commentator on military affairs
 * Bat Ye'or — Egyptian born British academic. Author of many works on dhimmitude and contemparary European-Islamic relations.
 * Dore Gold — Israeli political scientist and former ambassador. Author of Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.

Political and Social Commentators

 * Ibn Warraq — Muslim free-thinker and social critic.
 * Oriana Fallaci — Italian journalist and author of The Rage and The Pride (La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio) and The Strength of Reason (La Forza della Ragione).
 * Andrew Sullivan — U.S. journalist and blogger
 * Christopher Hitchens — British journalist based in the US
 * Natan Sharansky Israeli politician and human rights activist. Author of The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
 * Richard Perle — U.S. neoconservative.
 * Ayaan Hirsi Ali Dutch MP and friend of murdered film director Theo van Gogh. Scriptwriter for Submission: a film about violence against women in Islamic societies.
 * Clifford May — president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "What we have to understand is ... this is not really a war against terrorism, this is not really a war against al Qaeda, this is a war against movements and ideologies that are jihadist, that are Islamofascists, that aim to destroy the Western world."

Organizations and think tanks

 * Middle East Media Research Institute
 * Project for the New American Century
 * Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Critical of the concept of Islamofascism

 * How the right played the fascism card against Islam — The Guardian (4 February, 2005)
 * Criticisms of War on Terrorism

Categories: Islam | War on terror

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

title: User:Klonimus/Islamofascism


text:
User talk:YingYing

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Yu Ninjie 04:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Chinese Wikipedia
Hi Ying, I noticed you have some expertise in Chinese. Please consider joining Chinese Wikipedia too. It's still in its formative stages and we need more people like yourself! --Yu Ninjie 06:05, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:YingYing


text:
Talk:Flowers on the Wall

Nancy Sinatra Cover
The article should probably include a mention of the Nancy Sinatra version from Boots 47.156.144.157 (talk) 13:55, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Untitled
Isn't the song just called Countin' Flowers on the Wall'?
 * The song is also known as "Flowers on the Wall". Rlquall 01:04, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This page has been molested by Captainbeefart in an attempt get the scattered ducks in a row
Vide infra. Captainbeefart (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup
(The main page) really needs a re-write; almost every sentence begins with "The". TenPoundHammer 01:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC). The same applies to the Talk Page. I did, I did... Captainbeefart (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Interpretation
I never got the impression he was depressed at all... I thought he was just an oddball hermit, who is explaining to a concerned neighbor not to worry about him, he's perfectly happy. Bkatcher 00:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I always read it as the guy claiming to be happy in his padded cell because he's too proud to admit how miserable he is. D. J. Cartwright (talk) 14:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Where does the "Padded Cell" thing come from? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I always got that impression from the line, "And my shoes are not accustomed to this hard concrete." D. J. Cartwright (talk) 14:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

 * I have always gotten the impression that the chorus was a thinly-veiled cry for help.

The person in the song is in an insane asylum; “Flowers on the wall” refers to a padded cell. “Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo, don’t tell me I have nothing to do” refers to the patient neglect in years past. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.193.64.106 (talk) 19:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that most of the above is original research. It is also illogical. The person the protagonist is addressing has a guilty conscience- so much as this is articulatde as an assumption by the singer (- "all that thought you're giving me/ is conscience I guess"). Why would the neighbour have a guilty conscience? Who in the loony bin would have a guilty conscience? Who is allowed to smoke in a padded cell? What is wrong with all of you?.....

So. Maybe the protagonist is just a lonely soul forced to leave his lonely room to buy more cigarettes ("-my eyes are not accustomed to this light") and has had an accidental meeting with somebody who is to blame for his distress (-perhaps the man who fired him? A former girlfriend who is out and having fun with her friends while he falls apart in heartbreak and fantasy (- "last night I dressed in tails") in his urban cave? Compare the lyrics of the song "Oh, lonesome me" (Jim Reeves I think): "I guess she's not like me/ she's out and fancy-free/ flirting with the boys with all her charms/ but I still love her so/ and brother don't you know/ I'd welcome her right back here in these arms.. The hard concrete is the sidewalk outside his apartment Captainbeefart (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe. But I always got the impression that he's just a guy who never leaves his apartment because he's happy there, but makes a rare trip outside because he's heard that a neighbor was worried about him. Bkatcher (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

 * I've removed the entire speculative "interpretation" section, sourced entirely to a youtube of the song. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 23:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Flowers on the Wall


text:
User talk:Bryan Derksen/Archive 7

When a stub is no longer a stub
When is the stub msg removed from a page, when is a stub no longer a stub? sry to bother, thanks. Star controller 03:50, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Whether an article is a "stub" or not is a highly subjective thing, as far as I am aware. An article is no longer a stub when you think it's too big or detailed to be called a stub any more. :) Bryan 03:52, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ashoka Pillar
I changed your edit back because as it stands there is at least a link to some info about Ashoka. Changing it to Ashoka pillar without even bothering to create a stub for it seemed to decrease the information content of the article. mahābāla 11:01, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * But there is already a link to Ashoka just a line or two before the pillar is mentioned. Creating a link to the empty article invites future addition on that subject, whereas having two links to Ashoka in the same paragraph adds nothing that having one link doesn't already provide. Bryan 14:35, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On Vacation
I'll be on vacation for the next week, and will only check Wikipedia occasionally in that period. Just in case anyone wants to argue anything in that period. :) Bryan 06:09, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * actually I was just thinking, maybe we should have a bot to change all the uses of 'diety', 'dieties' 'God' and 'gods' on the wiki to 'Jehova, the one and only, original gangsta'. I'll take any silence on your part as enthusiastic support, and will do you the favor of signing your name to any votes/posts on the subject. Don't bother yourself replying, I'll just assume that if you don't get back to me in the next couple days here... ;) Sam Spade 06:43, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't leave the house for half an hour yet. I'm still watching you. :) Bryan 13:35, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re Lycanthrophy
Oops. Long day at the office Bryan. Sorry for dopey edit. Squirm. Cheers Moriori 09:16, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * No problem, that's what the watchlist is for. :) Bryan 15:02, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

msg-disambig
I thought you might be interested in List of disambiguation pages without msg. -- User:Docu

 * Oo, lovely! I've been working from the what-links-here of Wikipedia:Disambiguation, but it doesn't show a complete list. My long-term plan has been to switch everything over to the one uniform msg format, and then get a database query of what links to that and then add them all to the "links to disambiguating pages" in one fell swoop (minus the multiple-place-name articles). This list you just pointed me to will be very useful in the interim, thanks! Bryan 15:02, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, there are just about 4538 of them. -- User:Docu

 * Excellent. Will take me a little while to cull out the ones that shouldn't be added. :) Bryan 18:45, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I noticed your edits at Mu, Met, and UMC. Was I wrong to follow 'Disambiguation and abbr. expansion page' at Disambiguation and abbreviations? This states that 'Abbreviations pages' replace 'disambiguation pages'. Please let me know. Thank you, Pædia | talk 04:39, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

 * I had no idea that page and the guideline listed on it even existed. Not sure what I think about it; I personally prefer the notion that abbreviation disambiguation should be treated no differently from regular disambiguation. Is there a MediaWiki message for this? Bryan 05:04, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Docu created the page 02:43, 2003 May 10, and revised the guideline 07:48, 2004 Jan 8. Please see bottom of Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation and abbreviations.
 * To my knowledge, there is no current MediaWiki message for 'abbreviation disambiguation'. Pædia | talk 06:29, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

 * Soon as I have some time I'll look into making a msg: for that, then. Thanks. Bryan 14:38, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I once experimented with { {msg:TLA}}, e.g. at AAB, but it probably has too much formatting on it. There is some advantage for queries if we keep msg:disambig as well, but there is a slight difference in scope of them, so the usual msg may need an addition. -- User:Docu

Re Singular races
Thanks for the heads up. I'm new to this, obviously. :) I'll remember this in future. --khaosworks 00:05, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * No problem. One thing to watch out for when using the "move this page" function, BTW, is that it won't work when there's already an article with the new name - even a redirect. In such cases the article you want to replace will have to be deleted, which can only be done by a sysop. You could put it on Redirects for deletion to get a sysop to do it for you, or you could put your name on Requests for adminship and do it yourself. Though you might want to wait until you've had a few months of editing history built up before trying that, to reassure everyone you're not a devious maniac who's come here to destroy us all. :) Bryan 00:16, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wilson Loops
Now we have a page about Wilson Loops. It would help immensely if you went in and asked lots of questions about them on the talk page. — Miguel 21:10, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC)

 * Will do. At the moment I'm just killing time until someone arrives for a meeting, so I'll wait until later to get more deeply involved. :) Bryan 21:13, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Empire of Atlantium
Hi there. Apologies for the intrusion, but as you have been a positive contributor to the ongoing review of the Empire of Atlantium article recently I thought you might be interested to note that this article has been listed for deletion for the second time in several months, by a user who appears to have targeted it in some sort of POV-push. If you believe this article is worthy of continued inclusion I'd encourage you read my comments in response on the VFD page, and place a vote accordingly. --Gene_poole 08:39, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Images on which side
In the changelog for spacecraft propulsion:

 * Right margin is better for images, IMO, since the text is easier to follow with the eye.

I don't know if I agree with this. Certainly left-hand images should occur at breaks in the text, and the image will be "read" before the text, so the text should be directly related to the text. But given these criteria, I think a judicious few images on the left can give the page a little more visual interest. I wouldn't go so far as to use the zillion sidebars and floating boxes you find in the average magazine, but I think that having all the images on the right, almost the same size, one per section can be a bit dry, so I tried to liven up the page a little. Do you have any suggestions fo giving the page a little more visual appeal? (Or perhaps I'm worrying too much about MTV-addled teens?)

 * My only issue with left-side images is when they're "floating", so that the text flows around them. Since English is read from left to right, I find it easiest when there's a consistent margin for the eye to jump back to when it finishes the line. The right margin can be a lot more "ragged" without being noticeable, since the eye simply scans along the lines until it hits the end of the text. If the text doesn't flow around it, then left-side images are fine (though perhaps consider centering it instead). It makes the article a little bit less "artistic", true, but I think that can actually be a benefit in the case of an encyclopedia article; your comparison to magazine articles is apt. :) However, this is clearly verging over towards the area of personal taste, so I don't generally go far out of my way to change things; if every second image on that page had been floating left instead of just one I would have been more hesitant to radically remodel.

It would be nice if image guidelines were a little less about technicalities and more about "does this article really need yet another picture?" As is probably obvious, I tend to err on the side of too many pictures. --Andrew 02:43, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hm. The only pages I can find with guidelines, on a cursory search, are Picture tutorial (which suggests alternating left and right floats if the images are close enough together to "collide" othewise) and Image use policy which I assume is the one you were referring to. Yeah, could use a little bit more there about overall presentation. Anyway, since a large dose of personal preference is involved in my tendancy to float everything to the right, I won't complain if you try floating some of the images left to "spice things up" a bit. I recall that I used to do that myself at some point in my history here, so it can't be too bad. :) Bryan 04:29, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

For spacecraft propulsion, I think the only images that can be on the left is the solar sail one, and I'm not convinced it helps. (I don't think a section should start with a left image). Anyway, I don't really have strong preferences here, so I'll leave it as is unless I start to wake up at night thinking about it. --Andrew 05:09, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Hello from Berlin
Hi there, I saw you reverted some of the vandalism against Human rights situation in post-Saddam Iraq and checked your user page because I am always interested in who the reasonable people around are. I noted you have skills in computer science, so I wondered whether you might be interested in a project about learning that I am starting and where I need some help with programming. Please check my user page and let me know. Get-back-world-respect 21:37, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Fixed Template:Saturn
You don't need to do anything else. I put See also: into the footer, so we don't have to type everything over and over again (which, after all, is the whole point of the msg functionality. -- hike395 02:35, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually, I'm about to take out the See also: and try to make the Saturn more like the other footers in use throughout Wikipedia shortly. :) Bryan 02:37, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Can we discuss it briefly, first? I think that people have gone berserk making footer lists with > 50 items in them, which I believe is reader-unfriendly. I don't think we need a long list of all possible moons of Saturn on every moon article. I figured that all you need is a link to Saturn, and a link to a list of moons --- that only requires one more click than having a list inside the footer. -- hike395 02:43, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Okay, putting my proposal over on MediaWiki talk:Saturn. Bryan 02:51, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

 * BTW, I'm also of the opinion that footers have been proliferating wildly on Wikipedia; I'm hoping that when categories are implemented in Wikipedia's code we'll be able to obsolete most of them entirely. But until then I try to keep the footers as tidy as I can. :) Bryan 02:56, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Source texts on Wikipedia -sutras
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm still trying to find my way around this cyber "library of alexandria" :-) Just finished putting out the "Autobiography of a Yogi" ed. 1946 Pub domain on Wikisource. If you have a moment maybe you can take a look at it and let me know if anything should be changed etc. I will move the Sutras to Wikisource and then provide some text in Wikipedia and a link to wikisource. While you're still on the line.. how does one create a link to a wikisource from wikipedia? Autobiography of a Yogi in a wikipedia document justs puts me in wikipedia new page. thanx --robert_wh 09:37, 2004 May 17 (UTC)

 * No time to look at anything right now, I'm just zooming through before heading out for the day; I'll take a look when I get back this evening. But in quick response to the interwiki link question, I never figured out how to do a wikilink to Wikisource so the one time I found myself needing to do that I just did it manually; try Autobiography of a Yogi Autobiography of a Yogi. There might be a better way that I don't know about, though. Bryan 15:32, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Metric/Imperial References
As stated Wikipedia is an International website, viewed both by Americans and non-Americans. And as such, pages often contain both [SI] and [Imperial Measurements]. The biggest reason that Americans give to resisting the adoption of metric [and being an American, I can say this], is that they're "'not used'" to metric. The only way that they are going to become "'used to'" metric, is to see and to be required to use it. The rest of the world is not us any favors by including non-SI measurements in their definitions.

 * It is not wikipedia's job to enforce change on others, Steggall, and it certainly isn't your job to do so here. Please don't do this again. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:47, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Quite. And even if we were in the job of teaching Americans to intuitively grasp metric measures, removing the imperial conversions of metric values would have the opposite effect. Someone who doesn't know metric won't know what "2 meters" is unless you also throw in "6 feet" as well. Bryan 04:36, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Exactly. I wouldn't be at all averse, however, to someone methodically adding the metric equivalents to US articles, which would have far more "educational" effect that deleting stuff. -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 13:17, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh, definitely. When I went around restoring the pages Steggall had removed imperial measures from, I always made sure to leave in the metric measures (though in a few cases he'd rounded the metric measurements to the nearest 5 for some reason, perhaps to make them seem more "natural". I undid those changes). The only major problem to keep in mind is precision; if an article says "one million miles", it's not correct to add "(1609344 kilometers)" after it. :) Bryan 15:07, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Moving Saturn Rocket Family pages...
Uh, it was decided a while ago to name rocket and missile articles with the format "[name] (rocket)" as they tend to conflict with other more normal names (think Thor, Delta, Atlas...). see WikiProject_Rockets. Is there a compelling reasion to avoid this naming convention? Audin 02:24, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I wasn't aware of that decision, but if I'd noticed it being discussed at the time I would have opposed it; putting categorizations in brackets like that should only IMO be done when disambiguation is necessary. Since there's nothing else in Wikipedia with an article that goes by the name "Saturn V", putting (rocket) at the end is completely redundant and should not be done. I note that Naming conventions (common names) would seem to agree with me on this, too. I'll go over to that WikiProject and make note of my disagreement there. Bryan 04:25, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Railway Station pages
Hi. I note your edits to B & S. Could we discuss. 1) I'm not sure I agree that tweaking the headers so that on wide monitors the columns take on the width of the explanatory text, rather than of the column data content. In data terms, Column 2 is never more than 8 characters, but is forced to about 43 characters wide. Column 3 is never more than 13 characters wide, but is forced to, I dunno, about 70. 2) You've wikicoded 2 out of the 22 or so tables. Could you tell me what you see the advantage of doing this is? I note the comments in [Wikipedia:How to use tables]; this doesn't appear to me a case where the tables are now more easy to edit than they were. Indeed, candidly, I'll tell you, as the person who has put ridiculous time into these pages, that for me they make the whole thing more difficult to edit. All told, then; not thrilled nor dancing on the table. :( --Tagishsimon

 * I was on a Special:longpages binge, working my way down through the list looking for articles to shrink, and hit those two. By that point I'd become quite efficient at converting HTML tables to wikimarkup using a couple of search-and-replace techniques, so I tried it out to see how well the page's byte count would reduce. In this case not very much; those external links accounted for most of it. I'd been planning to go back and make sure the other tables in that group of articles got formatted the same over the next few days, but if you're deeply opposed to what I did go ahead and revert; since there wasn't much space saved I'm not going to complain. As for why I changed the headers, that was simply due to my personal "table philosophy"; I try not to force tables into any sort of predefined layout or formatting unless there's some pressing reason for it, instead preferring to let browsers handle them however they prefer. Bryan 00:13, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I guess I can cope with the wiki table - time I got my head around that, and your cause is good. I guess I do have a preference for constraining the column widths roughly to that of the data - or, at least, not giving browsers the opportunity to put up stupidly wide columns. Can we meet half way on this? best wishes --Tagishsimon

 * Sure, fiddling with the headers like that was actually just an afterthought I didn't spend much effort on. If you like I could go through the other pages and convert them all to wiki table markup that produces a result exactly identical to what's currently there, and leave issues of formatting up to you? I was a reluctant convert to wiki table markup myself, BTW, but I've since taken a shine to it because it means the wiki software will automatically generate "correct" HTML code and I won't have to go hunting for where I forgot the / in a  or something like that. :) ~

 * Hah! I forgot the / in the nowiki tag! That was totally unintentional, but it's so appropriate that I'm going to leave that mistake in there. :) Bryan 01:24, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Yeah, if you're still up for it, converting all the tables to wikiformat would be a good thing (tm). They are, I come to find, *much* clearer than the HTML table. Thanks for changing the header format back. For some reason, the P tag in the header of the third column didn't work (on B and H, so I changed it to a BR, which did. Wikicode. Go figure. best wishes --Tagishsimon

 * Heh. I suppose I can tear myself away from the Category feeding frenzy that's gripped Wikipedia since the upgrade and do that when I get home this evening, yeah. Glad my changes didn't turn out to be disruptive after all. :) Bryan 14:47, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia is rather a mirror on the soul, what with its audit trail & all. No matter how I kid myself, I do seem to be somewhat reactionary & fractious. Apologies for giving you the blunt end of it; the wikitable layout is a breeze compared to the clunky HTML. Thanks for doing the remainder of the tables. Meanwhile you may be in the vanguard of categorisation; I'm more towards the let's key the people entries on familyname not first name conservative cranky sweep-up squad... --Tagishsimon

 * Took me quite a while to warm up to the wiki table markup too, and I must admit that for a while I'd made it my holy mission to run all HTML table code on Wikipedia through HTML Tidy solely to ensure that all the td, th and tr tags were properly closed. Also in the process replacing all non-ASCII characters with their HTML entity equivalents. In hindsight, that was really obsessive. :) Bryan 23:30, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

phased array antenna
I tweaked your description of phased array in antenna. Do you agree with the wording? I hope it's clearer and more accurate. --ssd 05:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Looks great to me. :) Bryan 05:52, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Category: Solar System
Hey, Bryan. I'm kind of in shock with v1.3 of the software. I see that you are adding all of the Solar System articles to its own category. This seems like a good idea. Are you thinking that categories replace the footer? Or we should move the information from the footer into the category meta page? I'm not sure what is the best thing --- would like to hear what you are thinking of. -- hike395 05:42, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I was mainly just thinking "Neat, Categories! Let's see what they do!" :) I stopped after adding categories to just the planets because I started to ponder whether this would be a good opportunity to change the way these things are organized a bit; rather than dumping everything into one category I was thinking perhaps we could use "planet", "moon", "asteroid", etc. instead. I'll bring it up on Category talk:Solar system.

 * See Category talk:Solar system, question about Category:Moons

Categories
Any reason the Philippine-American War can't be both and  ? jengod 23:51, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

 * Because Category:United States history has a vast number of articles in it already, and Category:United States wars is a direct sub-category of United States history so it's needlessly redundant to have them both. I'm a believer in categorizing articles as specifically as possible, allowing the network of sub-categorization to take care of larger groupings automatically. Bryan 23:55, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

JRR Trollkien
You may want to look closely at some of those rollbacks. Some of them are editorial material like. Guanaco 06:23, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I've been erring on the side of restoring deleted text. I figure it'll be much easier for the regular cycle of editing to spot text that shouldn't be there than it will for it to notice stuff lost in the edit history that needs to be restored. I don't have time to read and evaluate the validity of it all myself, especially since I'm not familiar with many of these subjects. Bryan 06:29, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I've been checking the diff of every page that I restore. Most of the edits were just adding categories, moving interwiki links to the bottom, etc. A few are more substantial additions, and I haven't been reading them in detail; if they seem "encyclopedic" when I skim through them I've been bringing these back too. I don't know anything at all about the Trollkien controversy, aside from hearing his name being argued about in the background sometimes, so if he's got some sort of subtle agenda it'll have to be rooted out the hard way. Bryan 06:42, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

De facto semi-permanent page protection?
Bryan, I'm unhappy that Alarodian languages, Caucasian, Hurrians, Hurro-Urartian languages, Iberian-Caucasian languages, Laz language, Megrelian language, Nino Burjanadze, South Caucasian languages, Svan language and Zviad Gamsakhurdia appear to be gaining de facto semi-permanent protection due to the repeated vandalism by the former User:Levzur. I've posted a comment about it on Protected page - I'd be grateful for your views. My feeling is that rather than block the entire Wikipedia community from editing those pages, we should instead block Levzur's proxy servers indefinitely. What do you think? -- ChrisO 07:53, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I totally agree with you, it's clear that it's this one particular user that's the problem and he's the one that should be the focus of the solution. I only reprotected those articles because edit warring was going on right at that moment. Bryan 07:59, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately Hcheney has been unblocking Levzur's proxies (in good faith, I'm sure). I've added a comment to User talk:Hcheney so if you want to chip in, you're very welcome to do so. -- ChrisO 10:23, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Sure. Chip in how, though? Next time Levzur vandalizes and I block him I'll make sure to provide a more detailed description in the block explanation so that hopefully he won't get unblocked like this again. Other than that, can't think of anything more to do. Bryan 14:45, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your supportive comment - that was fine. Camembert (of the Arbitration Committee) has given some advice on the situation (Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/ChrisO and Levzur) which I think we can use as a green light for an extended ban. We will need to keep an eye on the blocklist to make sure that other admins don't unblock the proxies prematurely, and let them know the situation if they do. -- ChrisO 21:05, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re: Morrissey
I noticed you cut and pasted the article to Steven Morrissey, whilst it would seem to make the most sense to have the page there, there aren't many Neil Morrissey or Paul Morrissey references that would link only to the surname. But Steven Morrissey now no longer uses his forenames and most musical references to him would link only to Morrissey. I have created a page Morrissey (disambiguation), so that hopefully there will be minimal confusion. SimonMayer 04:02, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, since I don't know much about the guy. I did that simply because it seemed to be the correct Wikipedia standard for articles about people and because it preserved more of the article history associated with the text. Wish there was some way to merge the histories, but I guess the edit summaries will tell people where to find the rest of it if necessary. Bryan 04:19, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re: data on Europa
I had surmised that the data on Europa was left over from a previous incarnation of the Europa article, so in fact I was just cleaning up in an uncurious state of mind. That's just in case you were curious about my curiosity… —Herbee 18:37, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

4179 TOUTATIS
question: APOLLO or ALINDA type ?? I will ask an expert still active in asteroid work; and then inform you corespondingly see you HES (Hans-Emil Schuster)Desertsky

 * It's an Apollo, according to the man who discovered it - http://www.astrosurf.com/maury/asteroides/toutatis.html . -- ChrisO 09:07, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

exellent information, I assume the problem is solved and no further investigations necessary, HES (Hans-Emil Schuster)Desertsky

Asteroid 4179 Toutatis
I left a comment on User talk:ChrisO, I think it could be both an Apollo asteroid and an Alinda asteroid. I believe the categories can overlap.

Apollos would be defined by how they approach the Earth, Alindas would be defined by a 3:1 resonance with Jupiter which also usually produces a 1:4 resonance with Earth.

See for instance http://www.phys.utb.edu/~johnston/astro/rpt4179-u.html for what seems to be a list of Alinda asteroids.

-- Curps 19:29, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

About Sintering
You are probably right about the link here; my change was merely to make some kind of improvement & hope if it wasn't correct, someone with the proper knowledge would come behind me & fix things. (Originally this was "magnesia", which linked to a Prefecture in Greece, which was obviously wrong.)

You may want to look at my other fixes magnesia ==> magnetite, & fix any other mistakes I made. Thanks! -- llywrch 03:35, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * No problem. I'll have a look, but I'm not exacly an expert either so don't consider it reassuring. :) Bryan 03:39, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * To overcome my uncertainties, there's now a magnesia (mineral) and magnesia (disambiguation) to point to instead of trying to figure out exactly what some of these references might mean. :) Bryan 04:05, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * There, think I've got them all now. the only one I was certain enough of to point to something other than magnesia (mineral) was the chromatography one, the others are now pointed to magnesia (mineral) for others to deal with later. :) Bryan 04:20, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Category:Disasters
Do we need a distinct category for disasters, as opposed to Category:Natural hazards ? I see that they are different (for example, a disaster can be a non-natural hazard), but I wonder if having both is informative. Should Category:Natural hazards be a sub-category of Category:Disasters? -- hike395 04:24, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * There are a lot of non-natural disasters that I was planning to put into there, but got distracted from for the time being. Specifically, I was going to start with List_of_accidents_and_incidents_on_commercial_airliners as soon as I worked out a good set of sub-categories to divide them up into. I'm not sure what other category those would all be grouped under (some would fit under "Terrorism" and such, but there are a lot of non-terrorist airplane catastrophes in there too). I don't think Natural hazards fits very well as a direct subcategory under Disasters, due to contents like Category:Volcanoes (which includes Olympus Mons, for example) and the other generic stuff. Bryan 05:19, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re: Natural Satellites
Sorry for not checking the template first! I knew there was somewhere to check.. anyway, here's my argument for using mean diameter. First, mean (as opposed to equatorial). Many of the sizes I found were mean, and listed as equatorial, which may be quite a bit off, especially for smaller moons. As for diameter.. it's just a matter of preference. But I did it for half the moons anyway, so.. :P. I did forget to record the dimensions of some moons in their text before deleting them, but I know some reliable sources where I could recover them, later. As for my sources, I'm using JPL's Solar System Dynamics page except where info isn't available there, in which case I'm using Scott Sheppard's page. Anyway, I'll change the template, and I have some plans to put the data box on some moons that haven't been updated within a few days.. I'm a student, and I'm on break. I have plenty of free time to work on it. :P --Patteroast 15:40, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Heh. I wasn't exactly objecting to your change (though I must admit a moment of panic when I saw you were tampering with my preciousss tables, mine, MINE! :), in fact I agree that mean diameter probably is better as a "general single number" than equatorial. I just like to keep everything standardized where possible, and figured giving you a heads up on that might make it easier to do. Amalthea was the only irregular moon whose article I spot-checked, so I didn't see that you were preserving dimensions elsewhere and was worried you might not have considered such information to be relevant. Bryan 00:28, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(Stargate-SG-1) Disambig
You're totally right. The first disambig for stargate I saw was Jaffa when I first started to alter the pages. So I stuck with the format... I totally agree (Stargate) really should be the disambig.

Washington Metro
I wasn't gonna. But if you wanna, go for it. ;) Just wasn't sure if there was a proper way.  Figured the list was sufficient, but I suppose the ideal solution is that every single article on Wiki is categorized. :) --Golbez 05:34, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Bryan Derksen/Archive 7


text:
Talk:Captain Midnight

Comments
Captain Midnight was a popular radio serial from the late 1930's. More info here:. I believe the radio serial ran until the early 50's. In the mid 50's, it became a television show. Eventually, a movie was made.

This entry for "Captain Midnight" is not the common use of the term, and should be completely replaced.

A disambiguation page would be better. I found the page this through the satellite hijacker.

In 1942, Captain Midnight was a Columbia movie serial. It was also a Fawcett comic book during the 1940s.
 * Comment

The radio show ran from 17 October 1938 through 15 December 1949.
 * Comment

The link to the Captain Midnight Decoder is in error; First, it's a general introduction to ciphers. Second, it cites a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Neither the radio nor the television show ever offered such a ring. a better link would be to www.theCrimsonCollector.com -- OVALTINE, which discusses all the cryptological premiums.
 * Comment

¶ I would be loath to contradict someone with authority here, but I definitely recall owning a Capt Midnight decoder - I think it was a ring - during the period of the TV series, and, on more than one occasion, actually decoding some trifling message about next week's show. I also add that the TV show had a Secret Squadron emblem -- different from that gilded badge connected to the earlier radio series, shown in the article -- the major distinction was that the TV emblem had the large letters S & Q (I suppose in the decade following WW2, "SS" had unappetizing associations).Sussmanbern (talk) 02:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Captain Midnight


text: User talk:65.185.182.86

title: User talk:65.185.182.86


text:
Koko Kondo

Koko Tanimoto (Née Koko Kondo (近藤紘子), born November 20, 1944 ) is a prominent atomic bomb survivor, peace activist, and the eldest of at least four children of Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist minister famous for his work for the Hiroshima Maidens. Both appear in John Hersey's book Hiroshima.

On May 11, 1955, her immediate family, including 10-year-old Koko and her father, Kiyoshi, unwittingly appeared on a television program popular in the United States at that time, This Is Your Life, where they were placed in the uncomfortable position of meeting with Captain Robert A. Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Kondo has espoused global peace in such places as Iraq, and speaks frequently at American University in Washington, D.C., her alma mater. Kondo regularly accompanies both Japanese and international students, mostly Americans, from her alma mater, on a peace study tour throughout Japan focusing on the atomic bomb.

When she was living in the United States, she lived with Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck, who greatly influenced her personal work with Japanese orphans.

Kondo received an honorary degree from Webster University in 2014.

title: Koko Kondo