User:JWSchmidt/Talk from 2006 first half

This (below) is an archive of old talk for User:JWSchmidt. Please do not edit this page. Continue any old discussions at User talk:JWSchmidt --JWSchmidt 00:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

On Cowpox

Please check the species of the virus responsible. I believe it should be "Vaccinia virus".

It would be useful to include in the Taxa box obsolete scientific names. Quite a few species are being kicked around a bit and we might write a page about this as well if one does not exist.

I've posted this in the discussion page on "CowPox".

Scientology

Hello! Yes, about Scientology; i'm not in any way trying to go against the people who believe what it says; of course not, everybody is free to believe in what they wish to believe in; but that should not come at a price. The fact that to become a member you have to pay is the fact which makes me vehemently against it; it is a business under the guise of a religion. Surely, if you were to take a look at the way in which any religion has passages or information about what is supposed to happen to those who aren't true believers; so in such a case, those who would have different religious userboxes on their page could argue the night away as to why the other is going to be punished.

I'm not against the people who believe it, just the fact that the methods which they have employed to take money off people is horrendous. The magical Spum-dandy 20:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but if everything is judged in way of things which distract from articles, then user pages would be classified as such, wouldn't they? The magical Spum-dandy 21:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with what you say; but my point is that the concept of irrelevance is related directly to opinion. Others may think that certain pages serve a purpose as to inform others of their opinion (e.g - blogs), whereas others condemn them as pretentious and useless. Still, i agree with you, but i do it as a way of informing people. Still, as an agreeance; i'll remove it ;-)

confused

I'm confused on what your msg meant... (I was following pgkbot) achilles 04:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Maybe I just realised it, is it spelled Blanking or Blanketing? English as a *third* language isn't my forte =D achilles 04:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I was trying to make a lame joke which most people would not like even if English was their first language. --JWSchmidt 05:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Civility

Hi! Could we discuss my "changed position on civility" a little? "No thank you" is a quite acceptable answer -- but I don't think I did change my position, so perhaps I've not expressed myself clearly enough. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• Fair 'nuff. Keep in mind this was in the context of someone asserting that the mere use of the word was in itself a personal attack; I wasn't really considering the greater issue of the appropriateness of using such words at all, which (I think) is a seperate issue from the personal attack prohibition. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Your points are well taken, and I'll consider them. I would like to say that I would not defend anyone who damages the Wiki community. Our definitions of "damage" may not coincide. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 06:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

thanks for understanding that I don't know everything about how wikipedia functions and for being aware that I try my best to decipher it and make it better. --Cosmic girl 20:14, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been here for years and do not know everything about how wikipedia functions! I guess I should pay more attention to things like the Wikipedia:FAQ and Wikipedia:Tutorial, but I tend to just bumble around. --JWSchmidt 20:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia

I just moved it to vprotect for now. We have a sleeper account who immediately got around SP. Dang it. I was really hoping to avoid protecting it. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

If you go to #wikipedia on IRC at all, you might be able to grab Kelly Martin (who goes by karynn on there). I'm sure she'd be glad to help. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hi. My RfA was at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Smoddy. I have since changed my username to Sam Korn, hence there wasn't the link to the RfA. I have set up a redirect so your problem isn't shared by others. Cheers, [[Sam Korn]] 12:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --JWSchmidt 13:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Category Talk

You mentioned at Category_talk:Wikipedians_against_Scientology that you didn't feel this was an appropriate category. Do you think the category should be deleted? -Harvestdancer 17:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand how Category:Wikipedians against Scientology is going to help Wikipedia. I guess it should be deleted. --JWSchmidt 18:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I just nominated it for a "Category for Deletion." -Harvestdancer 21:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

re: Senior Editor

Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense. Yes, source-citing is often honored in the breach -- probably because the editor doesn't have a source.

One of the glories of the old Britannica, I recall reading, was the signed articles by luminaries -- Trotsky on Socialism, H.G. Wells on Science Fiction, that sort of thing. If -- and only if -- it was allowed to protect articles in some cases, Wikipedia with its newfound popularity ought to be able to attract notable experts to write signed articles. What a boost THAT would be!

That would go against the Wiki structure, but if the ultimate goal is the best encyclopedia, the structure can evolve. There could and should still be Wiki on most of the articles.

Anyway, that doesn't address what you were saying. To return to that: now... suppose instead of all articles, the source-citing requirement you suggest be only applied to a small percentage of articles labled (say) "of academic importance" or whatever. Coverage of important scientific concepts, major historical articles, important biographies, that sort of thing. (Of course, deciding which articles are appropriate for the designation would be source of much debate, but that's OK).

Making it apply only to a subset of articles would make it much easier for the community "swallow". And really, I don't care that much if an article on The Simpsons or whatever doesn't cite sources.

Or... suppose there was a coveted category of "Senior Editor"... not that I'm tied to that idea, but suppose... perhaps these designated "important" articles would be locked to all except "Senior Editors" (who would have already demonstrated ability and willingness to cite sources). Just a thought.

I'm not an acadamecian or much of an expert on this, but I am interested in the process (and improving it); if you want to try to get this something out on this on a broader scale I will help if I can. Herostratus 00:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Just happened to bump into this, saying much the same thing only with a nice graph. Herostratus 05:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

On Inclusive Democracy

We read on Woohookitty’s talk page the serious problem/question you raised with respect to the Inclusive Democracy pages in Wikipedia and we would like first to congratulate you for your effort to discover the truth concerning the abuses of manipulation and unquestioned following by certain administrators who, as you rightly pointed out, did not seem to pay proper attention to our allegations about the role of User:DisposableAccount and PaulCardan --and more recently Llbb who was denounced as a sockpuppet by FreakOfNurture-- and went along with the deletion requests by one and the same person with the sole aim to delete all references to Inclusive Democracy from Wikipedia. We the members of the EB would appreciate if you could: a) investigate and trace the IP of the above users for any similarities in the addresses they use b) investigate and trace the IP of the person who vandalized the alleged copyright violation page of ID with pornography which went unheeded by the administrators and c) take action for all Inclusive Democracy pages not only be restored, but also protected from vandalism. Please note that we possess evidence that Paul Cardin is the pseudonym used by a disgruntled ex member of Democracy & Nature and the Inclusive Democracy group who, once he left the journal and was condemned by every other member of our organization, he used any means available to him in order to defame Inclusive Democracy. We have therefore every reason to believe that it is the same person who has exploited his knowledge of Wikipedia regulations to delete any trace of Inclusive Democracy from Wikipedia, despite the fact that this conception, as well as its founder, have separate long entries in other Encyclopedias (e.g. the Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy) and biographical dictionaries (International Authors and Writers Who’s who, Dictionary of International Bibliography, The Cambridge Blue Book) etc. Thanking you in advance. Editorial Board of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy User:john sargis 15:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

"trace the IP of the person who vandalized the alleged copyright violation page of ID with pornography" Can you provide more information about this event? --JWSchmidt 15:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Whomever removed it can tell you better. I went to the page and saw the porn where the symbol for the copvio was located on the right side of the page. I immediately notified our group and TheVel asked for it to be removed. And it was. User:john sargis 11:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Which page was vandalized and when? --JWSchmidt 14:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

It was the copyvio page of Inclusive Democracy. We found it on 27 December, and it was deleted on 27 December a few minutes after TheVel requested it deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Inclusive_Democracy john sargis 11:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppeting - DisposableAccount , Paulcardan, Llbb, Bbll

The technical evidence indicates that User:DisposableAccount, User:Paulcardan, User:Llbb, and User:Bbll are all the same editor. I've blocked Llbb and Bbll, but I wasn't sure which of the other two to block, since DisposableAccount is the older one, but Paulcardan appears to be the real one. They should both be blocked, one permanently, and one temporarily to discourage sockpuppeting; I leave it to other admins as to which. Also, I've permanently blocked User:Marx marvelous; though the technical evidence tying it to the others isn't strong, it's still obviously a sockpuppet created for the purpose of policy violation. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Good! --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 02:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

OK! Where does that leave us and the big mess that has been created? And what about the pornographic perpetrator, have you found out who it is? Please advise. john sargis 22:30 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Response to User:JWSchmidt by User:Paulcardan

Thanks for leaving a comment on my userpage. However, as I just pointed out on User_talk:Jayjg your statement "creating multiple Wikipedia user accounts in an attempt to influence voting for page deletions" is misguided, to say the least, and A LIE, to be totally honest.

In the sense that you are using "sockpuppetry", then even you are a sockpuppet kind Mr. User:Memenen...

Congratulations for showing me that the few good people that I've met on Wikipedia who seemed to be interested in enhancing its content and not on personal attacks ARE THE EXCEPTION and not the rule (if I can judge by how both you and User:Jayjg simply arrived at these conclusions without taking the time to find out what the hell is going on).

Paulcardan 05:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Request concerning Inclusive Democracy

Congratulations for your excellent research on the matter. Concerning Inclusive Democracy, after the latest developments, is it possible to help restore our page on Inclusive Democracy (instead of the stub) on the grounds that after the latest explanations by our webmaster there is no copyvio? I want also to ask whether it is possible for you to help restore the other pages (IJID and Network) and of course keep the pages on D&N and Takis Fotopoulos and secure the permanent banning of Paulcardan. We will be then willing to reconsider our decision to withdraw from Wikipedia. --TheVel 11:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Response to PaulCardan

PaulCardan attacks Schmidt for using a sockpuppet but he forgets to mention that, unlike him, Schmidt DECLARED IT HIMSELF AND NEVER USED IT TO DELETE A PAGE. Furthermore, he has the nerve to accuse us of personal attacks when for months he was attacking Inclusive Democracy or Takis Fotopoulos in every possible way!

Also, I cannot undertstand why you have just banned DisposableAccount and not also PaulCardan despite the fact that it is now clear that HE initiated everything and created all other accounts and now even accuses Schmidt as sockpuppet!

--TheVel 15:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The truth about PaulCardan

Thank you for answering to my requests. I want to add this: blocking the User:Paulcardan account from editing would serve the very useful purpose of preventing him from starting again similar campaigns against the Inclusive Democracy entries. It was shown without any doubt that the sole purpose of this guy in opening the Paul Cardan account (and subsequently the sockpuppets accounts) was exactly to carry on his vendetta against Inclusive Democracy. Check the history of the ‘articles he has worked on’: ALL OF THEM (apart from a minor edit on Castoriadis) were published AFTER he was denounced as using sockpuppets to delete our entries, i.e. after Dec. 26 —although his PaulCardan account was created at the end of October! It is obvious that his edits are also a cheap cover for his real aim in creating the PaulCardan account-- to use it for attacking Inclusive Democracy-- and this is why this accout has to be banned permanently.

--TheVel 17:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Go To Discussion Pages of D&N

Schmidt to go to the discussion pages of D&N to find our ‘what is going on’ and not seeking the truth from P.C.’s own lies, which were replied there one by one by members of the ENTIRE Editorial Board which condemned him. Clearly, there is no point in attempting to “fixing the dispute” through any sort of discussions with him and we do not have any intention to spare more of our scarce time on this guy who proved all this time that his sole activity is to plot against all our WP entries . We wonder whether History on the Inclusive Democracy project according to WP is determined on the basis of the views of a single biased user in his twenties (who carries out a personal vendetta against Takis Fotopoulos and the Inclusive Democracy project in general long ago before the WP entries were created) and not on the basis of the views of the entire Editorial Board, as well as of the founder of the ID project--in fact immediately after he left the D&N journal, when he began a clearly opportunistic campaign against us, despite the fact that all his articles in D&N were a celebration of the Inclusive Democracy project which he now classifies as a confused byproduct of Castoriadis and Bookchin’s thought. We understand that he may start a new account and begin again his campaign but at least his banning would have given a moral lesson against the sort of methods he uses to pass his point, exploiting the WP regulations (one wonders why he does not dare to support his views in any printed medium but he prefers the anonymity of WP in order to defame the ID entry!). john sargis15:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

pornographic perpetrator

Because I think that what happened for that hour in Inclusive Democracy' page was horrible, and I don't want for it to simply pass by, I did some research and I found the exact photo that was placed in ID's page that day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Circpn_reduced.jpg. Is it possible for you to find who used this photo that day and put it in Inclusive Democracy's entry for an hour?--TheVel 22:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of User:Paulcardan

Dear User:JWSchmidt,

I already made all the points I needed to make but you refused to pay attention to them.

If I was a sockpuppet then you were also one; you say "There are rules against using multiple accounts in an effort to influence community decisions and creating accounts with names that might disrupt the function of Wikipedia." Well, that is my point precisely: I did not try to influence community decisions by using multiple accounts. Had you actually taken the time to read the relevant dialogues you would have seen that.

I am sure that these people (User:TheVel, User:Narap43, User:john sargis) will come back with their personal attacks now that they know I will not respond.

You say: "I think it would be best for everyone who has a personal interest in Democracy & Nature and related articles to stop editing them." I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU. I will thus hold you to your word and expect you to make sure that these people will not DOMINATE the articles that refer to themselves. I myself am leaving now, and if I tried to return with an ad hoc username it would be really easy for anyone to spot me. Therefore, I expect you (if you have a conscience and feel any guilt) to:

a) Find out the IP of User:Marx marvelous and see if there is a connection with any of the above usernames (User:TheVel, User:Narap43, User:john sargis), or the IP's 212.205.107.171, 147.102.34.72, 212.205.107.171, 84.68.175.34, 84.65.127.105, 217.251.167.153, 217.251.159.64, 217.251.154.17, 217.251.152.70, 212.205.76.134, 84.68.155.188, 195.179.14.235 that belong (or belonged) to them. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them turn out to be in the UK, where Takis Fotopoulos, who supposedly is not participating in these exchanges, resides.

b) Delete my User_talk:Paulcardan page. You know that there isn't anything substantial there and that all the dialogues took place on talk pages of the relevant entries, AfD pages or deletion reviews etc. I have asked User:FreplySpang to do this but she raised some disagreements given that she did not participate in the relevant exchanges and thinks that there may be something relevant to an edit dispute on my talk page. If it has not been deleted by the time you go there I would appreciate it if you would delete it.

c) I would also like you to bar me (i.e. Paulcardan) from logging on to Wikipedia.

I am leaving Wikipedia (thanks in great part to your behavior) but please pay attention: I was 'till now editing many articles, SOME of which were related to Democracy & Nature. The users I mentioned above have not contributed ANYTHING outside their political propaganda.

Best, Paulcardan 03:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

PS: If you want to reply to me, please do it on your own talk page, since I am planning to delete my user talk page as described above.

"I will thus hold you to your word and expect you to make sure that these people will not DOMINATE the articles that refer to themselves." <-- I am willing to do what I can, but that is not much. I have little knowledge of the topics that are of interest to the people who created the Democracy & Nature article.

a) Personally, I would like to know the identity of User:Marx marvelous, but I doubt if someone would do what "Marx marvelous" did and use the same static IP for another Wikipedia account. In general, the IP address of user accounts is not checked "just" for an isolated case of vandalism. Only a very few Wikipedians are trusted with access to the database containing user account information, and it would simply not be possible to check that data base for each act of vandalism.

b) I think User:FreplySpang was correct not to delete User_talk:Paulcardan.

c) I would prefer that you continue to use the Paulcardan account to make comments on the discussion/talk pages for any Wikipedia articles related to Democracy & Nature that survive the deletion process. Your personal knowledge about these topics is of value to Wikipedia. If there is factually incorrect or biased information in an article, it is up to you to document the problems on the talk page(s). If discussion on a talk page does not solve the problem, you can submit a request for comment and/or go directly to administrators for help. If that fails, you can request mediation or arbitration. --JWSchmidt 04:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

D&N and Admin rights

I just assumed that you were an adminstrator. --JWSchmidt 05:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I have been watching RfPP -- I got drawn in there by a dispute involving the Freemasonry page, and have continued watching it, as it makes for interesting reading. :-) As far as being an admin goes, I've been considering nominating myself to make vandal fighting earlier. I'll probably get around to it one of these days...--SarekOfVulcan 05:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

A Final Reply To Lies an Distortions

user: Paulcardan continues to smear even here the entire Editorial Board, and personally the founder of Inclusive Democracy, and then he ‘predicts’ that we will continue with “personal attacks against him”, when, even a superficial reading of the related dialogues in Wikipedia, unambiguously shows who began using this method of defaming his opponents . Briefly, our decision to withdraw from Wikipedia has become irrevocable (see Announcement of the Editorial Board of D&N and IJID) since after it became clear that the administrators are not prepared to reconsider their decisions even on AfDs created by a proven sockpuppet of user:Paulcardan.

So, user:Paulcardan “did not try to influence community decisions by using multiple accounts”. The fact therefore that he was caught using DisposableAccount (a banned account, since, as it was shown by the WP inquiry, it was a sockpuppet of him) which led to the deletion of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, is not exactly this!!!

And user:Paulcardan does attempt even here to smear the founder of the Inclusive Democracy project , when he insinuates that a scatological comment against the administrators by User:Marx marvelous might have been created by Takis Fotopoulos himself. This, despite the fact that Wiki’s technical inquiry concluded that User:Marx marvelous could be another sockpuppet of user:Paulcardan, although they did not manage to find strong evidence for it.

And he has served in D&N as an assistant editor for only a couple of years out of its over 11 years history, celebrating all this time the Inclusive Democracy project and starting opportunistically vitriolic (always anonymous!) attacks in Wikipedia against us, TOTALLY AGREES with the administrators that “everyone who has a personal interest in Democracy & Nature and related articles to stop editing them”! This, because, supposedly, it was us, the Editorial Board of D&N/IJID, who wished to DOMINATE the editing and not HE, alone from all Wikipedia users, who kept vandalizing our entries with false and distorted events about OUR OWN HISTORY! And User:JWSchmidt replies to this that he is willing to do what he can so that we do not “dominate” the edits on Inclusive Democracy. Does this mean that the main, if not exclusive, criterion of editing in Wikipedia is that somebody ‘does not dominate’ an entry, even if this is clearly at the expense of reliability of the information provided? Can anybody imagine any authoritative encyclopedia changing its entries according to the comments of an anonymous user who does not dare to publish in print his distortions of historical facts -- even against the expressed opposite opinion of the people who created these facts (as in this case the project of Inclusive Democracy and the related journals? I am sorry, but if you call this an encyclopedia providing reliable information, everybody else in the world calls it something else and this is why Wikipedia is increasingly recognized by the world media as a source of unreliable information!

And finally user: Paulcardan ‘threatens’ Wikipedia with his departure and he bravely (!) demands the deletion of his user account when he knows that the username Paulcardan has now been completely discredited and the only way to continue his dirty attacks against Inclusive Democracy is by creating yet another account --this time better covering his traces from future WP technical investigations. Still, the Wikipedia administrators agree that even User_talk:Paulcardan should not have been deleted! Congratulations! You proved all our points about how Wikipedia works and the sort of information it provides. john sargis 8:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)—Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy

The whole Inclusive Democracy business

Hi, I'd just like you to know that you've done an excellent job with keeping up civility on Wikipedia despite all the enmities caused by this affair. Here's an award for you, and, er, have you considered being an admin? Would you mind if I nominated you? - ulayiti (talk) 16:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I had a look at Special:Listusers and tried to find your name in the sysops group, but I guess I somehow managed to miss it. Oh well. :) - ulayiti (talk) 16:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

On Animal Testing

Looking back over the Animal Testing discussion pages, you were one of the more sensible and indeed civil voices. We need more like you right now. I don't know why you went away, but would you like to take another look? Ermintrude 20:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

There's also a dispute over the picture on this page [1]. Do you know any toxicologists who could offer an expert opinion or an alternative image? Ermintrude 19:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting your opinion of the "Draize" pic on my talk page. As I'm not involved in the dispute, would you like to post it on the Draize talk page as well? Ermintrude 01:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The note of protest against your removal of Quantum Pharmaceuticals article from the list of Russian Companies

Dear Sir or Madam, let me disagree with your removal of "Quantum Pharmaceuticals" article from the list of Russian Companies. Please inform the community about your arguments why are you thinking that this article is "non-notable article". If you have read the information about the Quantum technology and know something in this sphere you could not consider this information as non-notable and non-important. The sooner the whole mankind will take advantage of Quantum technology the more effective and fast the drug discovery will be. Quantum made a revolution in the technology, the Wikipedia as a democratic enviroment and source of getting the newest information about the development of human knowledge is helping people to learn about breakthroughs and to use the knowledge about it immediatly. By deleting this data from Wikipedia you undermines the general purpose of Wikipedia. Quantum Pharmaceuticals article is not a commercial it is a notification for all researchers of the world that the solution for the long standing problem is found and they can use it right now. The contribution Quantum Pharmaceuticals made in mankind development is not insufficient in comparison with other companies listed in the " List of Russian Companies", it is a technological flagship of the world, not even Russia. The achievements made by Quantum consist the new generation approach to the molecular modelling and preserving the outdated information in Wikipedia is not right and not honest. There are no any other exapmles in the world of the resolution of this problem. The mankind should know about it and move forward with it. Let me ask you to review your decision. Best wishes, Maxim User:83.237.50.62

When Wikipedia can independently verify that your company is notable, then it will be welcome in "List of Russian Companies". Please do not add additional claims about your company to Talk:Quantum Pharmaceuticals unless they are supported by verifiable sources. --JWSchmidt 13:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me note that information about Quantum technology can be verified by everybody by downloading the software from http://q-pharm.com/home/contents/sci_and_tech/proof_of_concept, calculating and comparing it with the known data. Let's be careful and honest. If somebody thinks that guys are making ads lets change it but do not delete the whole article. User:83.237.241.52

Wikipedia does not review software. In this case, I think what is needed is citations to published research articles that make reference to the software. --JWSchmidt 22:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

On the Chimp genome question

I was just wondering, in the picture you made of the human/chimpanzee genomes (Image:Humanchimpchromosomes.png), what is the 'M' chromosome over there on the far right? I'm guessing mitochondrial DNA? I don't see any reference to it in the article (Chimpanzee Genome Project) after a quick scan, though I could have missed something. It might be worth a brief mention on the image page, I'd think. But I'm mostly just curious about that. -- John Owens | (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I added the following to the image's page:

This image was made starting with diagrams available at United States government genome webpages. "M" = mitochondrial, for example see this and this.

The main reason I added that particular image to the Chimpanzee Genome Project is because it provides a visual depiction of how similar the human and chimp chromosomes are and it shows the difference in chromosome 2. Determination of gene changes related to the chromosomal differences between humans and chimps has been facilitated by the genome projects. --JWSchmidt 23:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

?

You wouldn't happen to be J. Schmidt from SUNY Albany, would you? Synaptidude 17:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I edited that section of neuron that you had a question about. I'd worded it badly. Thanks for pointing it out.Synaptidude 01:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Introducing myself

Dear Drs. Schmidt and RobinH (I add Dr. RobinH here as I was unable to locate his UserTalk), I collaborated some time with Prof. Szirk in Buenos Aires. Having found the "Consciousness studies" Wikibook, I think I'd gladly contribute to several sectors and, as a first step, wish to introduce myself. I may contribute info about the neurobiological tradition in which I was working, whose views and results have only recentrly been rendered in English, and try to present them even more clearly. To start with, I'd like to ask you for visiting a website of the mentioned academic tradition and suggesting me guidelines. You may find it in [2] Best, David Neil Reardon e-mail: my family name at operamail.com (200.42.95.189)

Hi David. I was surprised that you found me, then I noticed that someone listed me as a contributor to the "Consciousness studies" wikibook (see b:Consciousness_studies#Contributors); I assume that is why you went looking for me. My contributions to the "Consciousness studies" wikibook have been very minor! I am much more interested in memory than consciousness. In my view, once we understand the mechanisms of memory then we might be able to make sense of consciousness. You should be able to contact RobinH via the Wikibooks user page (the user talk page seems to have a defect; it shows the main page for Wikibooks!?). You can also introduce your ideas on the talk pages at the "Consciousness studies" wikibook. --JWSchmidt 23:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi JW; glad to "see" you. My aim is now double. As regards memory and consciousness, things are moving fast as, with Internet expansion, whole contributions from abroad are finally being translated into English -- whence I'd like both to contribute to the cons-WKbook as well as suggesting you to reconsider the neurobiology project. It seems me that no longer any one of these two WKbooks might stand alone. Exploring the current conceptual situation would require non-negligeable effort & time, initially making a critical reading of the Internet-available docs. To start with, you may cast a glance on [3] To sum all this up, many consciousness avenues now seem useless or appear under fairly different light, as memory surfaces as a basic feature of mind. (I use mind in lieu of consciousness, reserving the latter for a certain state of mind).

Thank you very much for your help; we'll meet in the discussion page. Best, Dave 200.42.95.185 16:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids

Would you please review your 15:05, 1 December 2005 edit of Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids, "data were, remove extra "not" ?

I think in doing this you reversed the meaning completely, from:

Had Crick's boss, Max Perutz acted unethically by allowing Crick access to the MRC report? He felt he had not because the report was not confidential and had been designed as part of an effort to promote contact between different MRC research groups.

to

Had Crick's boss, Max Perutz acted unethically by allowing Crick access to the MRC report? He felt he had because the report was not confidential and had been designed as part of an effort to promote contact between different MRC research groups.

That is, the sentence went from saying "not acted unethically" to "yes, acted unethically". Given the various controversies around crediting Franklin, that wasn't a minor edit. Could you please check that you did what you meant to do? Shenme 22:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC) (BTW: I really liked the "brain sugar" link)

• Thanks for catching that. --JWSchmidt 23:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Ford Motor Company vandalism

Hi, I noticed we both reverted edits by Jthurman. I found one bit of vandalism in the version you reverted to, however, so I reverted to an earlier version. Noelle De Guzman 02:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed the significance of the edit by 69.139.210.234.--JWSchmidt 03:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Prion citations

Done. Thx for reminder. -- Pinktulip 20:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Nature articles are done.

Could you please take a look at the two articles with the most errors: Cambrian explosion and Dmitri Mendeleev for simple copyedit stuff? Or else recruit a fellow Wikipedian? -- Pinktulip 14:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Sources

Could you help me with a simple question? Just for my information, because I really don't know, when editing a controversial topic, is it allowed to insert comments by critics based upon editorials? Or does that constitute NPOV violation? You can answer here, but to get an idea of what I mean you can look for more info at Talk:Samuel_Alito#Opponents_of_the_unitary_executive_theory and at Talk:Samuel_Alito#Requests for comment.--Nomen Nescio 07:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Have added several quotations on my talk page. Hope it suffices as explanation. TIA.-- Nomen Nescio 16:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

References

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php Joe D (t) 23:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Image:Standard curve.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded, Image:Standard curve.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

dbenbenn | talk 23:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. If you know of any other images I made and uploaded THEY ARE ALL AVAILABLE FOR USE UNDER THE GFDL. --JWSchmidt 23:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

ID FA

My take on it is that pro-ID contributors, of which there are a number who have had issues with abiding by NPOV, will always move to scuttle any attempt at making it a FA. This is because the article presents ID in what they consider to be an unfavorable light, i.e.; it presents both sides of the topic.

Reading over the previous objections, most can be categorized as sour grapes. Some are based on an incomplete of flawed understanding of WP:NPOV, and others I recognize as being raised in just plain bad faith to discredit the article from known troublemakers we'd encountered.

Contentious pov-magnets like ID will always attract this sort of behavior, and I have no reason to see why the outcome of any future FA nomination would be any different. The only way to head off these tendentious objections and misuse of the system is for this particular nomination to put some reasonable conditions and qualifications on the tallying of comments that will count toward consensus. There will be strong support for this from the regular contributors to the article. It's justifiable by the senselessness of the past objections at the last FA nom, especially those from anons and clueless newbies that appeared just for that event and scuttled the last effort.

Your thoughts? FeloniousMonk 00:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thad McCotter entry

If you're only after an authoritative source, refer to this campaign page which cites [4] (I have not drilled down into the original source for lack of interest).

I believe that there are larger problems with the wording and POV of the disputed entry. Please refer to my discussion regarding the McCotter entry. In any case, the entry was added by Historianken (something odd here) on 12/28/2005. Bkonrad merely restored it after it was deleted without explanation by a user from that now notorious IP. DrWitty 03:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

on McCotter

There is so much dicussion i'm confused on what exactly what to put, i'm hoping whoever will vote will read the whole discussion prior to voting... any ideas on how to modify the poll? —This user has left wikipedia 15:19 2006-02-01

I think this is a good example of why it is not productive to be too quick to start voting on things. --JWSchmidt 15:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, It's even worse, Voting is EVIL. Considering this is a politically charged issue I added the poll to keep my hands clean. —This user has left wikipedia 16:07 2006-02-01

Two projects

Hi John, I thought you might be interested in two relatively new WikiProjects: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Alternative_education and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education - titles say it all really! The former (AltEd) was set up first but I'm trying to organise it so that separate projects are formed under the umbrella of the latter (Ed). Please comment or join in if you so desire. Cormaggio ^@ 23:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

edit comment

I liked your edit comment on your revert to chimpanzee. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 12:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

okay

This is Lord Carnus apologizing for using vandalizm. It will not happen again

Pinktulip

Ah, I see he's already listed under his other (indef. blocked) account Amorrow; I've added the new sockpuppet names. He's continued his harassment of various users under his new names... Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

What is life?

As Memenen you seem to have contributed to What is life? (Schrödinger). I have expanded the stub and would appreciate any comment. Markus Schmaus 10:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Template_talk:TempUndelete

I just wanted you to know that I fixed the link in the template at Template_talk:TempUndelete. Josh 00:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Draize Test

Hi, I'd be grateful for your views and contributions to the discussion at Draize test. It's moved on a bit since January, and I made some edits a few days ago which I thought improved it, but SlimVirgin reverted. At the moment it looks like a two way contest and SV seems to be ignoring the new sources I quoted most recently in the discussion. MedicalScientist 18:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Jesusism

The article deleted by AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jesusism (Feb 4th) had reappeared. I put {{prod}} there so some admin may check whether the new article differs from the deleted one but the tag was removed (by article creator). Could you take a look whether it is just the old version or whether it is something reasonable? TIA Pavel Vozenilek 22:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

That is a good idea, but perhaps we should allow the author a day or two to add some more references? I just went through all the sources he listed and added fact tags where needed. Copysan 02:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

history of science

Please consider joining the History of Science WikiProject. On an unrelated note, I find the multiple DNA structure templates to be confusing; I think they should be consolidated into one, i.e., {{Single strand DNA discovery}}.--ragesoss 04:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Francis Crick

Thanks for your excellent work excising the ad hominems in the entry for Francis Crick. The content additions were excellent, and the structural changes went a long way to making the facts clearer and more accessible. The difference between today's aricle and the one I first saw are like night v day. Thanks again. Mtiffany 05:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Date links

Since you have taken an interest in links. Please be kind enough to vote for my new bot application to reduce overlinking of dates where they are not part of date preferences. bobblewik 20:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Protein purification is Science Collab of the Week

You voted for Protein purification and this article is now the current Science Collaboration of the Month! Please help to improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia science article.

Samsara _contrib ^talk 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello!

I am a very new user and I thought I'd say Hello. I really like the stuff you write. I haven't seen you for the last few days. Are you still editing? RMTLow

Protein domains box

Hello JW. Considering that there are probably on the order of hundreds of protein domains, don't you think that having a {{protein domain}} box is not going to be practical? I would say that the category protein domain does the job. Shall we remove the box from the few pages that have it currently? Thanks! Miguel Andrade 14:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Collagen Molecule

Hi!

I saw, you created a picture of a collagen triplehelix molecule, currently published in Wikipedia.

I am writing a literature review in adental subject for educational reasons. May I use a picture of this molecule in this review? It will not be published in a journal but only a small number of copies will be made (around 20).

If so, what reference should I give?

Please answer quickly to my e-mail: j.behring@dent.umcn.nl

Tank you!

Velikovsky

You asked for someone to look at the Velikovsky article. Please check it for recent edits and reverts. Thank you. Bubba73 (talk), 17:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Rosalind Franklin rewrite

Hi, I have just had another go at extensivelly rewriting the Rosalind Franklin article. I have included sources for all points made and have paid particular attention to neutrality. I have included a section on controversies, but have (hopefully) covered all POVs. I would very much appreciate it if you gave it the once over, it could do with proof reading, and there may be things I have missed. I would like to include a picture of the famous photograpg 51 (I have aquired one from the internet), but I am unsure of it's copyright status, though it is over 50 years old now. Do you have any knowledge of this? Thanks in advance. Alun 12:39, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I have requested that the article be peer reviewed. Alun 13:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You have a real nice User Page

Nice, really is. And thank you for your comment on my talk page. If you have any specific question about Scientology, such as "How does the Scientology theory of memory differ from the biological one" and you ask me, I'll give it my best shot. Terryeo 03:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if you think this webpage by David Touretzky] provides a fair account of "the Scientology theory of memory"? I find the idea of memory in non-physical form (such as a soul) to be rather hard to imagine. --JWSchmidt 04:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I looked through that page. I would say the page presents information that is misleading and presents it in a misleading manner. The author of the page, I suspect, presents the information of it as accurately and precisely as he can, as he understands it. But he doesn't understand it. No matter who presented it, no matter where it was presented, no matter that a poster was made of it and it hangs on office walls everywhere, it is information which is misleading, presented in a misleading manner. The first misleading point occurs in the first sentence. It states, "The Church of Scientology is noteworthy for its ... mechanisms of memory". Scientology does not present a "mechanism of memory" but instead presents a "workable theory of memory". That statement is misleading. Scientology talks about memories as mental image pictures. It does not state that there is no physical action involved with memory. It may well be that neurons fire and pathways form in the brain and nervous system. Scientology does not disagree with that. The "workable theory" is what Scientology was built on and it is a different approach, an approach which uses no physical universe aspect and thus, no physical mechanism. I am trying to say, everything every researcher and doctor knows about memory and the brain and nervous system, all of that may well be valid and true. Scientology does not address that and does not disagree with that and does not attempt to address the physical body. But the abstract (the webpage) implies that Scientology disagrees. "Mechanisms of memory" is simply not an accurate way to say how Dianetics (and the owner of Dianetics, Scientology), how their "workable theory" is different, but does not disagree with medicine's physical findings.

Hubbard defined "engram" at one point in terms of how the common dictionary defines the word. "A physical alteration thought to occur in living neural tissue in response to stimuli"engram In the Dianetic and Scientology Technical Dictionary, page 141,

the word engram is an old one borrowed from biology. It means simply, "a lasting memory trace on a cell." It maybe be engraved on more than one cell, but up against Dianetics processing, it is not very lasting.

Hubbard's reasoning might have gone something like this. I'll ask a question like, "can you recall a time you ate an apple" and the person recalls and gives details. Then Hubbard would ask, "can you recall an earlier time you ate an apple", again, details. Then, "recall the earliest time you can when you ate an apple" and the person comes back with details. Each recall had some similar perceptions which happened during a past moment. So then, Hubbard made a catalogue of what people remembered they perceived. Taste, color, time of day, position of their body at that past moment and so on, pretty much what you would expect. So the idea of a memory as a "mental image picture" begin to emerge. That is not to say that people carry around such pictures, but this is a "working theory" in the sense that by considering an individual's memory (say John Smith) to be available to John Smith as a series of mental image pictures, then we can talk to John Smith about his memories more effectively. Dianetics does not know exactly how John Smith stores his memories, but Dianetics does know how to talk to John Smith about his memories. A "workable theory of the mind" you see? Workable because John Smith can talk about his memories and Hubbard could ask John Smith about his memories by using Dianetic's workable theory. But not as a mechanism, only as a workable theory. Dianetics does not propose that memories are nothing but "mental image pictures". Instead, Dianetics proposes that by thinking of memories as mental image pictures, we can talk with John Smith about John Smith's memories. By considering John Smith's memories as mental image pictures, we can produce an improvement in John Smith.

There is a lot more to the Abstract, to that page but I'll let most of it go for now unless you ask. A person could get a clue about how the Abstract's creator was thinking by looking at the references at the very end of it. The author of the abstract places secondary sources first (Xenu.net, Clambake.org, etc) and places primary sources second (Scientology.org). The author states misleading information in a misleading way. I would guess that he gave it his best shot. Terryeo 12:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC) So there it is, as you see I'm willing to respond, within the scope of my knowledge. Does that make sense, not respond to what you wanted responded or is it off in left field when you were asking about oranges in the first place?, heh. Terryeo 04:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are confronting the issue: "How are people's beliefs stored in the human nervous system" or perhaps, "What is the difference in the nervous system / brain of a Muslim and a Christian". Perhaps I am misreading what you are saying.

Also, you use the word "spiritual" and I believe it is that mutual understanding that might prove helpful to our mutual understanding. I think you use the word to mean, "non-physical, spiritual, having no physical universe manifestation". I too understand the word that way. Both of the above statements are what I get, not necessarily what you said. But, if I have read what you meant to say, then I think I can answer your earlier question.

But here is another point of view [5], perhaps this list of questions, answered by an expert, would be helpful to what you wish to understand. [6] Terryeo 17:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)