Welcome to my talk-page. Please leave any comments you may wish to discuss with me here, and I will be happy to respond.
For access to earlier discussions on this talk page dated between 2004-04-10 and 2006-05-07, please visit User talk:Scottperry/Archive-2006-05-07
Please help with ACIM page!
Dear Scott:
Another editor and I are currently in an edit war. If you read the talk page of the "JC as source of ACIM" page, you will see what is going on. I have repeatedly asked this person to stop inserting their badly written paragraph into the article. After a few days of arguing, the editor then inserted erroneous information into the "symbolic" paragraph, making it appear that both the "literalists" and the "symbolics" believe that ACIM is the "literal" result of communication between Helen Schucman and Jesus Christ.
I agree with the other editor that the page needs work and needs to be expanded. But so far, all this person has done is contribute things that decrease the readability of the page, and continue to accuse me of trying advance Wapnick's perspective, and to accuse Wapnick of being anti-Christian and anti-history. This is all very bizarre.
Because I am not a moderator, there is nothing I can do but revert what he/she continues to add. This is getting tiring. I think you are a moderator, so I was hoping that maybe you could do something about this.
Thank you.
Sinerely,
Andrew Parodi 21:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Possibly unfree Image:Jkrishnamurti.jpg
Done, thanks. -Scott P. 04:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Invitation and Recommendations for writing articles on Hindi Wikipedia
Hindi wikipedia invites and welcomes Wikipedians to contribute for the cause of spreading knowledge and the Hindi language. This page contains guidelines for writing a wiki-article on any topic at the Hindi Wikipedia, with special recommendations for writing in Hindi (Note: The script/font-family for Hindi is Devanāgari; the script/font-system for English is Roman script, also, the Hindi spelling system is not completely standardized). This article is yet in English language (mostly), in order to encourage even non-native/foreign people who have learnt/are learning Hindi to contribute to the Hindi wikipedia, and native Hindi speakers who normally write in English. The examples given below are only for explanation.
Recommendations:
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- English should be used sparingly, only when required; i.e., if the corresponding शुद्ध हिन्दी word is too "difficult and not generally encountered", or if it is a proper name of non-Indian person/place/terminology/title, or if the user is highly unsure of the proper translation. It is recommended (but not required) for English-to-Hindi translation while writing articles, the Shabdkosh online dictionary should be used. For each English word, that alternative should be used which is generally encountered in everyday spoken Hindi, and also fits well into the context. Use of intelligent guesses for newly encountered words is also allowed, and so are translations encountered in Hindi-dubbed TV documentaries, Hollywood films, Hindi-translated books, etc. e.g., दमपिशाच for en:Dementor (used in dubbed HP films).
- If used, it is recommended to use the English words within the articles using the English (Roman) alphabets rather than devanagari (or better, the devanagari transliteration should be used in the sentence, followed by the English word in Roman alphabet in parentheses). Such words should be italicized and not put in quotation marks. Preferably, there should be an in-page interwiki link (like :en:) on the word to the English wikipedia. If the word comes as an integral part of a sentence, so as not to break the continuity, the en: prefix should be hidden by writing the word again after the pipe sign (piped link). Thus, recommended:
हैरी पॉटर ने ''[[:en:Pensieve|Pensieve]]'' के अन्दर ''[[:en:Little Hangleton|Little Hangleton]]'' गाँव में लॉर्ड वोल्डेमॉर्ट की माँ ''[[:en:Merope Gaunt|Merope Gaunt]]'' को देखा. ''[[:en:Resplendent Quetzal|Resplendent Quetzal]]'' पक्षी के ऊपर एक मेक्सिकन पादरी डा० ''[[:en:Pablo de la Llave|Pablo de la Llave]]'' ने काफ़ी शोध किया था.
Whence,
- हैरी पॉटर ने Pensieve के अन्दर Little Hangleton गाँव में लॉर्ड वोल्डेमॉर्ट की माँ Merope Gaunt को देखा
- Resplendent Quetzal पक्षी के ऊपर एक मेक्सिकन पादरी डा० Pablo de la Llave ने काफ़ी शोध किया था
- Always start the first 1 or 2 lines of the article giving its definition (from any standard dictionary/other wiki) or suitable introduction. Thus, recommended: ललिता सहस्रनामन हिन्दू धर्मसुधारक आदि शंकराचार्य द्वारा रचित देवी दुर्गा को समर्पित एक पूजा-मन्त्र है, जिसे कई हिन्दू रोज़ श्रद्धा से जपते हैं । But not: ललिता सहस्रनामन मन्त्र जपने के लिये लड्डू-पेड़ा, ताम्बुल, सिन्दूर, लाल चुनरी के साथ नित्य इस मन्त्र का पाठ करें, तो जल्द ही गड़ा हुआ ख़जाना मिलेगा । Recommended: वैमानिक अभियान्त्रिकी (en:Aeronautical engineering) विमानों (en:Aircrafts) की अभिकल्पना, निर्माण और प्रचालन करने का विज्ञान, कला और कार्य है । (translated from Eng. Webster's New World Dictionary). But not: आजकल वैमानिक अभियान्त्रिकी के लिये देशभर में कई कॉलेज खुल गये हैं, जिनमें अग्रणी स्थान यूटोपिया स्थित लालू-यादव टेक्लिनक कॉलेज का है ।
- For names of countries, cities, places, languages, people, books, films, technical vocabulary, mythology, etc, start the article like this:
- 1.
The name in bold ('''अपोलो''')
- 2.
starting parenthesis, then English name in Roman script, in-page interwiki-linked to English wiki ff. by semicolon ((अंग्रेज़ी : [[:en:Apollo]];)
- 3.
The native name(s) if applicable in the italicized native script, preferably followed either by its italicized approximate Hindi pronunciation or non-italicized
phonological transcriptionwithin / /, ff. by closed parenthesis (यूनानी : ''Aπollων अपोल्लोन''))
- 4.
the rest of the definition or introduction (प्राचीन [[यूनानी धर्म]] (ग्रीक धर्म) और प्राचीन [[रोमन धर्म]] के सर्वोच्च देवता थे ।)
For country names, only the standard short form of the name is needed in the first line. If there is a common name for a difficult word in Hindustani, also mention it. Whence: अपोलो (अंग्रेज़ी : en:Apollo; यूनानी : Aπollων अपोल्लोन) प्राचीन यूनानी धर्म (ग्रीक धर्म) और प्राचीन रोमन धर्म के सर्वोच्च देवता थे । If you don't give the interwiki English/another language link (which would be deemed to be the default reference), then you MUST provide an appropriate reference.- Please leave no article without an appropriate category. See the list of created categories here; you can also make a new category (pref. in Hindi). Please leave no article without at least ONE off page (like en:) interwiki link. E.g., the user can check the article name (say Apollo) on the finally redirected English page and append to the Hindi article (
[[en:Appolo]])
). These interlanguage links will help a bot to update all interwiki links for that article in all wikipedias. The category and the aforementioned link should be typed at the end of the article. If the article is very small, mention it as a stub/substub.- Use of templates is welcome. See the list of templates here. If creating a template, name it pref. in Hindi.
- Use पूर्णविराम ( । ) instead of a period (.) for ending statements. The पूर्णविराम, semicolon, colon and dash (but not comma) must come after one space after the word to prevent ambiguity. Use the international form of the Hindu-Arabic numerals (1,2,3 instead of १,२,३), as used by the Constitution and the Government of India (even for Hindi). There is no need to use the हलन्त at the end of Sanskrit words wherever it occurs. Hence, prefer: संसद over संसद्; अथर्वन over अथर्वन्. Use the proper quotation marks “” from the Insert toolbox, not "". Write dates as 2 मई 2006 (ईसवी or ईसापूर्व). Write time as 3:45 pm. Separate common suffix-words like शास्त्र, विज्ञान, ज्ञान with a hyphen. Thus: रसायन-शास्त्र. For most others, leave both the words of the noun-cluster free. Combine them into one word only if it is very common to do so. Thus: सामवेद.
- The use of ज़ for the en:voiced alveolar fricative (/z/, as in zoo, rose) is fundamentally wrong. Its nearest counterpart is the en:voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ (as in sea), and not Hindi ज (en:voiced palatal plosive). Hence, it is suggested and recommended that for the sound /z/, whether it comes in English (etc.) spellings (z) for while pronunciation otherwise, should be transcribed as स़ (स with a dot below, available in the Insert toolbox). Hence: Reason रीस़न, not रीज़न ; Roses रोस़ेस़, not रोज़ेज़. But common Hindi words borrowed from Persian/Arabic (so-called Urdu words) are allowed to continue with ज़ spelling. Thus: ज़रा, नज़र, तर्ज़. The en:voiced postalveolar fricative (/ʒ/ as in treasure), inexistent in Hindi, can similarly be transcribed with श़. Thus: treasure ट्रॅश़र. The nukta (dot) available in the Insert toolbox can be combined with various consonants to suggest a more exact phonetic devanagari rendering of foreign sounds. E.g., since phonetically, English Think and this are not equal to थिंक and दिस, a better transcription could be थ़िंक and द़िस. Please take care of the dot below in so-called Urdu words, otherwise the Hindi spelling is deemed incorrect.
- For the following English vowels met, mate, mat, transcribe as मॅट (short vowel), मेट (not मेइट), मैट (not मॅट, as popular in Marathi). However in contemporary Hindi and here, it is acceptable to use ए instead of ऍ. Thus: अमेरिका is more popular than अमॅरिका. For cot, coat, caught, transcribe as कॉट, कोट, कॉट (not कौट). Transcribe English /t/ and /d/ as ट and ड.
- Use half-न before त, थ, द, ध, न, instead of anuswaar अं. Use half-म before प, फ, ब, भ, म. Use the anuswaar before all the rest of the consonants (not half-ङ, ञ, ण). If the मात्रा is not above the alphabet, use chandra-bindu, but only for nasalization. Thus: अन्दर, not अंदर ; अन्त, not अंत ; हिन्दी, not हिंदी ; सम्भव, not संभव ; पंचमी, not पञ्चमी ; अंडा, not अण्डा ; कंठ, not कण्ठ ; लैंड, not लैण्ड ; आँख, not आंख. However, both forms are acceptable in contemporary Hindi as well as here; the prec. are just recommendations.
- When proceded by another vowel, use the pure vowels instead of य (unless the य is clearly articulated while pronouncing). Thus : जाएँ, not जायें (not जावें) ; आएगा, not आयेगा . However, both forms are acceptable in contemporary Hindi as well as here.
- Please pay careful attention to the masculine/feminine gender (and singular/plural) in adjectives and verbs, else the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
For more information/suggestions/criticisms, please contact any one of the administrators of Hindi wiki here, preferably en:User:Magicalsaumy.
This page can also be found here.
Thank you,
Cygnus_hansa 02:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Forgiveness Article
Hi Scott, There is a war going on against ACIM on the [forgiveness] page. Help in the discussion would be appreciated. An editor (administrator) deleted it as insignificant. Censorship is the new rage I guess. Hope all is well. Thanks, Bob speet 20:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Leaving Wikipedia
Hi Scott:
I know I've said it before, but this time it is for real. I've decided that I have to leave Wikipedia. I realize now that I just don't agree with its underlying themes or "policies". I don't want to go into that now; I just wanted to say that it was nice meeting you here, and goodbye. If you want to contact me personally, please do so via my own personal e-mail (andrewparodi@aol.com) rather than on my Wikipedia page. I'm not going to check my talk page anymore. This is my last post on Wikipedia.
Take care,
Andrew Parodi 08:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Wrong license tag
Two images you uploaded, Image:William-thetford.jpg and Image:Wapnick-blue-frame.jpg, are currently tagged as screenshots of websites, which they clearly aren't. Please add a proper licence tag to the images so they won't have to be deleted. Thanks. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 14:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Charles Buell Anderson
If you're around, could you please drop in on Charles Buell Anderson. I believe you were the principal contributor. Thanks, -Will Beback 07:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Dear Ste4k,
I am the one whose articles you have been trying to delete, many of which you have already had deleted, some of which fortunately were caught before it was too late. You seem to believe that I have some sort of a vested interest in promoting ACIM, and that you must stop me. I don't know. I certainly despaired when I came back from my 4th of July vacation to find so many of the articles that I had researched long hours to create trashed, deleted, or nominated for deletion! Indeed I am an ACIM student, and admittedly I have a pro-ACIM bias. Still, I have done this primarily to further my own study of ACIM, and if anyone else might have benefitted from my work, then I thought, 'so be it'. All of the main article was reviewed by several others familiar with ACIM and it was agreed that it was an accurate summary of the work. Will get back to you later. -Scott P. 16:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Scott. I am not pushing anything at all. My interest is not to delete all ACIM related articles. Although there still remains some significant question to the importance of these articles, it is in the best interests of both the encyclopedia as a whole and to the articles in question, that the articles be written from an NPOV and statements of fact with reputible previously published secondary resources that cite the information, all of the information, and with no disregard to any specific related information. Do you agree? Ste4k 16:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Scott, in the AfD for the article I am currently writing, you wrote: "This article seems to me to be an attempt by its creator to sidestep the traditional Wiki process of dialogue with the editors of the main article, and to ultimately thereby delete it." You may or may not be aware of the extensive attempts on my part to establish dialogue with the other editors regarding the "Authorship of A Course in Miracles". For my efforts to understand this article, I was treated with hostility, harrassed, and became the subject of personal attacks by "Andrew P." Andrew also made me his personal target, edited several of my comments in several AfD discussions, and in general protected that article from editing, even though it was obviously not citing its sources and/or was promoting only a specific brand of books with this title. Ste4k 16:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
- Hey Ste4k,
- Unfortunately I have not had enough time to do as much follow through on all of this as I would like to have had. I'm getting married in three weeks and right now my time constraints are a bit tight. I had a feeling that this might have all been started by the author of the Jesus Christ as Source of ACIM article. This is an article that I had voted to delete earlier, but unfortunately my vote did not carry at the time. Is that article deleted now? I hope so. The info you uncovered about the early major donor to the ACIM publication who was a transexual pioneer is certainly noteworthy, and I believe deserves noting in the main article. Andrew has had run-ins with Wiki editors in the past, and I think still may need to learn a bit more about Wiki ettiquite and policy. Thanks for your message. Looking forward to working with you.
- -Scott P. 12:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Hello Scott. About the article mentioned, it was the first time I had ever seen/heard anything about books with this title. After a week or so, I am now practically an expert on that court case (given that I am not an attorney). Did I want to be? no. Do I want to be now? no. Do I care? no. Complete waste of time and energy? yes. Is selling 1.5 million books around the world important for one company? yes. Is that book still in print? no. Are other new copyrighted works that include various public domain versions of that book available now? yes. Have any of these new works, all under the same title, sold 1.5 million copies? no. Was the rank on Amazon as high as 500th top sale among Amazon users in early 2005? yes, for one version. What does that publisher's new version rank currently? zero, since it isn't even listed on Amazon anymore. Is the old version still listed? yes, with a rank of about 2000 or so. Who purchased a large number of one of the original versions of this book (out of the 1.5 million)? Amazon. Did they read them all? I doubt it. How many different publishers of different versions of this book under the same title exist? I've found three so far, but I no longer care. How many different publishers of the various versions of this book represented on Wikipedia? one. Is that NPOV? Don't ask me, it is enough to have convinced several editors that only one version of this book exists. Ask them. Is this book important because of it's content? no, the content of this book hasn't made any appreciable difference to society at large. Had it made any sort of impact at all, then more than one article, book review, newspaper column, or other notice of the press would have been written about it specifically. Currently there is only one editorial written about a different book that mentions this title in passing as being an inspiration for another author, and that is specifically referring to a version no longer in print. Is this book important because of the big commotion that it caused? No. The U.S. District court has heard thousands of cases, this particular lawsuit hasn't made any appreciable change in law nor is it likely to be cited as a major precedent. Were there any significant stories written about this court case in the press? None. Do articles about this book add to the repute of Wikipedia? At best, in my opinion, they detract from the credibility of this encyclopedia. Is this article notable among eight to ten non-professional editors on Wikipedia? yes, evidently so. Does that establish notability in the world? you have to be kidding. Does anyone care about the facts addressed by this list of questions? Not even the eight to ten editors previously mentioned care about the facts, and that fact is demonstrably proven by the sheer unwillingness of any of them to address any of these points directly. Will I bother to work on any of the related articles anymore? You couldn't beg me hard enough to make it worth the time of day. There are far more important things to be working on, like marking empty files for speedy deletion, for example. Does it matter to me that people want to use articles like these to discuss their religio-politico-philosophic views on Wikipedia? Do what you want; everyone else does, and the policies on Wikipedia are made to be the butt end of a joke. It was nice meeting you. Thanks. 13:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
WP Policy and ACIM
Hi, Scottperry. I'm sure you've mentioned this elsewhere, but how are we to back up many of the actually useful claims in the A Course in Miracles page? Most of what is interesting appears to be one of a kind statements. Why does it appear that no one critically evaluates ACIM in a scholarly environment? I think we are right to allow our synthesized information to be on Wikipedia because it is credible. ACIM is what it means to be credible, by definition and simple deduction. A man who knows truth knows at last when he has it, and something has gone wrong if policy prevents him from sharing it in a way that it will be judged on its own merit, on its own grounds. As if truth was so ambiguous and so difficult to understand that the only way of maintaining something credible was to have a verifiability-not-truth, reliable-secondary-sources-only policy. As if the error of dogmatism was possible under a perfectly inclusive truth. As if it was not them who are so dogmatic as to police genuine information, and believe in the meaningfulness of what was "purified."
I think what you have invested in creating the ACIM family of wikipages is right and noble and it is a mistake that this information should be challenged on the authority of policy. I've explained why ACIM is in principle unintelligible from reliable-secondary-sources on the A Course in Miracle's Talk Page, and I foresee no lasting solution unless ACIM could be lastingly exempted from Wikipedia's policy. Perhaps you have something else in mind? I don't understand the political situation here, but I believe you to be the primary supporter of keeping this kind of valuable information on Wikipedia (for it deserves nothing less). I just want to understand what your plan is. I want to do what I can to help.
—Antireconciler 01:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)