User talk:Ian.thomson/Archive 21

Book of Revelation

2 IPs from the same location, probably the author. Dougweller (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh. I'll treat the next revert as edit warring, then, unless they make some other mistake. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Well thomson, I hope they are who they say They are... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.48.25 (talk) 22:38, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Uh-huh... Right. Nevermind that we would be "Them" as well. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

don't be a target and they won't accuse you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.48.25 (talk) 22:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Target? Accusations? Wow, what an interesting world view. Did you consider that Wikipedia just has social contracts mutually agreed upon by its users, such as WP:Neutral point of view, that you went against with your commentary, and that I just left a warning to ask you to stop? Judging from previous rants coming from your IP address (where you can't even tell the difference between the government and privately owned and funded groups such as Wikipedia), I'm guessing not.

If all the world's out to get you, you might need to consider if they're really the ones at fault there. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Oannes

Do you want me to separate the article from Adapa, I personally would have prefered that, but since they were put together I worked that way. I would also like if you commented on what I wrote. You can take your time. Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.212.159 (talk) 20:45, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Your interest is preaching your beliefs instead of simply summarizing what sources state. That is in direct opposition to Wikipedia's goals.. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

You do have a point, but I did that in a talkpage, what I had actually added in the article was actually supported, and there I did not preach anything at all. Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.212.159 (talk) 04:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Human sacrifice

It is written in the Bible, and it is belived by nearly every priest and even the pope, that Jesus is God in the flesh. And that he died for our sins, taking it apon himself and atoned for it. I don't understand what your problem is, and if you can't refer to the bible, that are the holy book of the christians, what can you refer to? Then you can't write anything about religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olehal09 (talk • contribs) 17:57, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

May 2014

Certainly, the paragraph implies Gardner discovered Wicca, when he actually created it. I suggest a revision as to two points, Gardner created Wicca and, not all of Pagan Witchcraft originated in Britain. The main issue I had with the previous revision is that it conflated Pagan Witchcraft with Wicca. Even Ethan Doyle, the scholar who was quoted in the previous revision states the following as to Pagan Witchcraft pertaining to his origin theories, "arguing that this particular religion's early history can only be understood if it is viewed as a movement with branches developing independently across various parts of Britain and the United States around the same time, rather than the currently widespread view that it can all be traced back to Wicca's founding father, Gerald Gardner."

To be precise, there are other branches of Pagan Witchcraft such as Feri, the Cultus Sabbati, etc. And not all of them trace their origins to Britain or Wicca. As an example, Feri developed in the United States before Wicca gained its spotlight. Therefore, Pagan Witchcraft is an umbrella term and Wicca is one of its branches.

I edited the paragraph once more. Instead of Pagan Witchcraft, a better term would be Modern Witchcraft. I am baffled in that the previous revision uses the term Pagan Witchcraft underneath the subtitle 'Wicca and Modern Witchcraft'. Using the term Modern Witchcraft is more consistent with the wiki article on Modern Witchcraft and the header title. I also wrote that Gardner created Wicca, this always opens a can of worms. I prefer there was a way that traditional witchcraft could be mentioned in this paragraph, as a reflection of other witchcraft traditions aside from Wicca, and Feri, as an example of a tradition that did not develop in Britain. Nevertheless, I think this is decent for now. Thank you. Sabbatian (talk) 16:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Moved from graffiti page since it concerned Wikipedia

Dude u should quit editing my posts...your dad doesn't own wikipedia, neither do u....so keep your wikipedia police business away from me!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geezzy147 (talk • contribs)

Responding to on his talk page. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Unintentional disamb link in Muhammed article infobox

Hi,

You have reverted some edits by Zwanzig 20 in Muhammad. One of that user's edit remains and says Ishmaelite as ethnicity in the infobox of that article. As you can see the link points unintentionally to a disamb page; it should point to Ishmaelite. Technically, the claim is unsourced because it's not made in the body of the article. Please take a look at it and see if it should be removed like some other Zwanzig 20's edits, or fixed to point to the correct article. I cannot edit the page myself because of protection level.

Finnusertop (talk) 04:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey

Hello. According to your most illuminated edits on Italian cuisine, I have to infer, from an exquisitely logical point of view, that you'd be, uhm... bold enough to say the English language has been influenced by the Anglo-Saxon language? :)

I've proceeded to flush your contributions down, where they belong to. --80.181.235.120 (talk) 22:57, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

"- including Etruscan, Ancient, Greek, and Roman."

That nonsensical sentence fragment is what you left in it's place, and you have the gall to call me out on language use? Semi-literate hypocrite. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

This mafia site doesn't allow me to post my full answer, even after I've purged it of all things a bot seemed to regard as non-nice. Is there another way to show you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.181.235.120 (talk) 23:16, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

There, done. Enjoy. Only wish I could have saved it for the place it was meant for. --80.181.235.120 (talk) 23:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:80.181.235.120#For_Ian

Remote Viewing

The research of the US intelligence agencies into remote viewing was not, in my opinion, a waste of taxpayer money. It was a zero-times-infinity or very-low-probability-times-very-high-gain proposition during the Cold War. It was worth spending money on something that mainstream science said wouldn't work, because if it did work, it was of great value, and much science (not all science) starts as fringe science. It doesn't change the fact that his posts are tiresome, and that he doesn't realize that he is in a small minority. Although the spending of money on remote viewing did not yield any results, other research does not always yield results. If you knew it would work, it wouldn't be research. Taken to your talk page so as not to feed the troll. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:04, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Before and during the research, it wasn't a waste, but after the fact (after 23 years of no results) it's a different matter. A few years under adequate controls? Sure, not a waste. But 23 years with almost no controls? Ian.thomson (talk) 04:10, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Are they still spending that stupid money, when the Cold War is over? If so, I agree. It was reasonable during the Cold War, but then it may have become self-perpetuating with little or no check due to its secrecy. I also wonder whether the defender of remote viewing is (possibly unintentionally) leaking secrets. Any such research should be secret, because any successful development of remote viewing would be a secret weapon. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 14

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Administrators' noticeboard

there is one of Administrators Treats others by religious intolerance, See Talk:Abrahamic religions --Islam90 (talk) 12:13, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

May 2014 (Reply)

Ian.thomson, I apologize for deleting from the Saint Peter talk page. I was unaware that this is considered bad practice. By the way, for your information, I've come to agree with your stance on the Saint Peter and have stopped arguing for its "de-Romanisation". I misinterpreted the page's author's intentions. Thank you for letting me know about this aspect of talk protocol. --Noldoxis (talk) 16:42, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Brian Josephson

Hey, this is a bit aggressive. Can you possibly cool it? --John (talk) 22:30, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

• I noticed you had edited without responding to the above. That is perfectly OK. Can you please take note of this? Making false allegations to win a content issue is something I am always looking out for. Be aware that if you do this again you could get hit by the boomerang. Best wishes, --John (talk) 16:54, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

After this post, it was made clear to him that using claims of libel as a chilling effect is unacceptable. His response to the block was to threaten to contact the media, again trying to deliberately bully the site into giving him his way based on a remote threat of outside interference. He has since gone even further with the quasi-legal provocation. Even if the threat was not that he was going to sue, the implication of his posts was "Wikipedia could be taken to court for libel over this," with the clear intention of getting his way in the discussion. You can't deny that.

Other users who are more familiar with him know that he's a disruptive editor with an unmitigated WP:COI that causes him to push a WP:FRINGE POV on a number of articles. Ask @Goblin Face: or @AndyTheGrump: (who, despite him filing a duplicate report, you've yet to discuss this matter with). Ian.thomson (talk) 17:01, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I might well do. It was your aggressive message that called you to my attention. Speaking from experience, when one starts using language like that, sometimes it is a sign that it is time to walk away from the area for a bit. The main thing is that you understand that your complaint was dismissed as being without merit, by people like me who had read the history. I think you do, don't you? --John (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Allen B. Reed

You may be interested to know that much of the content that everyone else worked hard to cut down for a more encyclopedic presentation has since been restored. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 03:27, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Aw crap. I only added it because my mom does geneology. I'll try to take a look at it at some point, thanks for notifying me. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:35, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah... I honestly did not know that his strategy was to simply wait until nobody was paying attention to revert it all back. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 03:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Right, because that's totally honest, cooperative, mature, and scholarly of him. I mean, why bother actually trying to find reliable secondary sources and discussing the matter? Ian.thomson (talk) 03:45, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Occult Project

I joined it today, after I saw you joining it. So what you will be doing? In my view, List of Occultists needs some attention. If you know any names(even those who don't have wikipage), you may add them to the list. OccultZone (Talk) 19:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Cool, I get the impression that they're lacking in active members.

*shrug* Maybe the page would better arranged by tradition instead of era, shuffling off many entries to pages like List of alchemists and List of astrologers, then just listing articles according to their categories? The only issue then would be individuals who are listed in multiple categories, like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, but their articles usually list what they're most known for first (like Agrippa being primarily known as a magician instead of an alchemist). I've put it on my watchlist, and may ogre it someday if nothing happens.

I've been working off-and-on on an overhaul of the List of demons in the Ars Goetia article, with most of that material hopefully going out to individual articles. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, which probably isn't much, Wikipedia:WikiProject Occult/Encyclopedic articles and Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal/Encyclopedic articles and similar pages probably contain some information regarding at least some occultists. I could probably add much more information, if I had a clearer idea as to what does and does not qualify as "occult". I know Rosemary Ellen Guiley has several encyclopedias printed, and others exist as well, but I have always been unsure where to put lists of such articles as they may have because of the problem of the definition of "occult," "paranormal," "parapsychology," etc. And I myself don't apparently have ready access to any good, lengthy "Encyclopedia of the Occult" type works. At the very least, though that page might list a few other articles which might be notable that don't exist yet. And great to have you back, Ian. John Carter (talk) 20:34, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I think I've got a few of those somewhere, as does my local library, I'll try to keep them in mind. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the merge proposal and 'semi-active' tag. Both are irrelevant because I had assessed all articles of Occult. @John Carter: It is good to interest in such non-controversial(no possibility of bias) subject. Occult is different than Paranormal. Paranormal is something which is unknown, but occult is evident. Ian(never knew him before this year) has been around for a while now. OccultZone (Talk) 11:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I could see merging the two into some generic "supernatural" category (but also see that opening doors to New atheism advocates trying to shove religion and mythology into there as well), but I do think the two need to be kept as separate for the same reasons mythology and pseudoscience are separate. Part of the reason I did start work on an overhaul of the Goetia related articles was that I have caught the occasional bias sneak in there, usually from fans of the Joy of Satan website. I wouldn't care, except their positions aren't historical or WP:DUE in the articles' current states, and I wouldn't want people putting stuff from even the Golden Dawn unless clearly labelled as such. John and I have been here since about 2007, and I've been way less active last year than I was any couple of months before then. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

That would work too, and I guess I should clarify that I was thinking about where to put lists from , for instance, reference books on ghosts, vampires, demons, and whatever. And Man, Myth, and Magic has some useful content too, although sorting what articles are relevant to what topics there is a bit of a pain. John Carter (talk) 17:57, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I have been trying to get that one. I recall that there's my local library has a few copies, though they probably only have them remaining in the reference section since I'm probably the only person to have picked up their (now missing) copy of The Book of Abramelin without the intention of stealing, censoring, practicing, or destroying it. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

ANI notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Useitorloseit (talk • contribs) 01:50, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

It's probably moot by now but....

Thanks for noticing my attempt at generosity. For the record, there were four reversions in today's batch, [1][2][3][4] not three, although the inability to count was probably the least of this editor's challenges. Thanks though! __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:44, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, after seeing his reaction, I was ready to suggest that he be given a cool down block until well after the topic ban discussion was finished (but then the topic ban went through while I was writing a response). Nice to have passionate new editors and all, but the gains/effort ratio doesn't look as good with him. He knows how to prove me wrong, but that doesn't appear to interest him so much as being "right". Ian.thomson (talk) 23:00, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Completely agree. (Although, as far as being a "new editor", his talk page said he's had accounts for years. Maybe they all ended similarly. Ah, we'll probably never know and it probably doesn't matter in the end.) __ E L A Q U E A T E 23:13, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

You're right, I honestly didn't realize that was 4, not 3. Seemed like a pointless thing to be reverting, though. My other edits were one-time things that never attracted much attention. Although I did get into an edit war once that we worked out amicably. Useitorloseit (talk) 23:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Ian.thomson. You have new messages at User:Ian.thomson/Grafitti.
Message added 15:16, 6 June 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Feel free to remove when done- I felt this would be slightly less disruptive than putting the whole thing here. Thanks, Lixxx235^{Got a complaint?} 15:16, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I am blocked and like to discuss

Related to the Quran article you mention that my discuss may be smap but it is not. I am discussing my block in one discussion related to the blocked article and the other section is related to editors that are not blocked, which I want to get contact and discuss editing style and policy, because it seems it is not same of wiki policy. Abdusalambaryun (talk) 10:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

As I explained repeatedly at Talk:Quran, just leave a note saying what you want changed, how you want it changed, and why it should be changed. Just saying that you want the article to fit "the truth" gives us nothing to work with. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Lucifer

Hi, this is on your watchlist and you just reverted an IP. Can you take a look at the discussion between myself and Esoglou regarding whether Isaiah 14 has any place in Jewish pseudepigrapha (beyond the Christian insert into 2 Enoch). Thanks In ictu oculi (talk) 03:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Historicity of Jesus

The page seems to some problems with neutrality, and attempts to fix it are regarded as not being very neutral either. The article seems to skate by more due to the popularity of Christianity. What's more, there seems to be this odd distinction made about what has been termed "Christ Myth Theory". On the one hand, the Historicity page claims that Jesus existed, Jesus was baptized, and Jesus was ordered crucified by Pontius Pilate. The Christ Myth Theory page notes that it holds that at most Jesus was a real person whose life little resembled the gospels. The only explanation I can think of for why these claims would be seen as incompatible is if the Historicity of Jesus was more in favor of believing the gospels, which discuss supernatural events that do not meet any test of evidence. It comes across as though it says that most scholars believe in curses, demons, resurrections, and so on. If a page is going to be supported more by that viewpoint, then it seems to call into question the majority of the sources being Christian in nature. That's not helped by the Sources page citing the Gospels themselves.

As for Ehrman, he is the same man who wrote this in his book Jesus Interrupted, "The ultimate emergence of the Christian religion represents a human invention–in terms of its historical and cultural significance, arguably the greatest invention in the history of Western civilization." He appears to be a bit biased, and that doesn't even address other scholarly problems with his work, including purposefully misrepresenting criticisms of his scholarship as personal attacks.

Then there's the use of Josephus and all the other sources, which appear to have been separated from the main page to leave out any doubt about the historicity of Jesus. Even if I ignored his mention of Jesus being a later insertion, I can't ignore the fact that the guy was born after the events of the New Testament were said to take place, meaning that he was incapable of ever being a firsthand source and could only be a secondhand source at most, if he ever was one. The same is true of every other non-Biblical source mentioned, something even the Sources for the Historicity of Jesus page admits. That page seems to say that the Pauline Epistles are the only source that would be necessary, but even it has a citation backing up the statement that "Paul was not a companion of Jesus and claims his information comes from the holy spirit acquired after Jesus' death." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus#Christian_sources)

I'm not going to accuse you of being a snake-handling fundamentalist, though I have at least one good reason to question the scholarly credentials of writers who think the existence of Jesus should be unquestioned.(http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx) I just see it as a particularly egregious eyesore around here when Christians prop up a Wikipedia article then refer back to it when trying to win arguments, especially given how frustratingly bipolar it is about the idea that there may have been a Jesus who just didn't do what the gospels said he did (either a mythicist argument or the historicist argument, or somehow both at the same time). I can't say I hold out any hope that anyone here will do anything about any of this, either. 173.30.136.136 (talk) 12:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)User:173.30.136.136

See WP:No original research, WP:Identifying reliable sources, and WP:Neutral Point of View. Wikipedia merely summarizes mainstream scholarship found in secondary and tertiary sources (which is not inherently the same as popular opinion, as represented by the Gallup poll you linked). When it covers WP:Fringe topics, it does so by summarizing mainstream academia's views on those topics (with WP:Due weight given to topics according to their coverage in reliable sources). This reliance on mainstream scholarship does not result in circular reasoning, as citing Wikipedia or sources that borrow from it are generally not allowed. We do not give our own interpretation or opinions on any sources (especially primary sources, such as Josephus). It does not matter what you, I, or anyone else believes. We don't allow any sort of fundamentalism, whether it's Christian, Muslim, or irreligious.

So far as I'm aware, there's actually a good split between Christian and non-Christian editors at the Jesus article and most related articles, and I know that most of the sources cited are decidedly secular (unless one wants to accuse someone like Ehrman of being a closet Christian pretending to be irreligious to somehow advance a theology counter to what's in his works). Most of the articles are hardly puff pieces for Christianity*, it's just that they're not puff pieces for the almost completely rejected Christ myth theory.

*(At least the more popular and more heavily patrolled ones, I'm willing to guess from my experiences keeping fans of Carroll "Poke" Runyon and the Joy of Satan from inserting non-renaissance-era gender-swaps and Sumerian deity attributes into articles about goetic demons that there are probably some less popular articles on uncommon saints or minor televangelists that need cleaning up).

Ian.thomson (talk) 18:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say Ehrman was a closet anything, I was just noting that he appears to be heavily biased in favor of Christianity when interpreting things. You must have missed the part where Ehrman shows his bias in favor of Christianity as supposedly the greatest Western invention ever. It seems odd as well that the articles are divided up so that his opinion on the sources, noting that they're all unreliable, is kept separate from the article saying he believes in a historical Jesus anyway. Perhaps because it would show his own bias to note that he believes in something he's stated there's no evidence for?

Also, Josephus only appears to be a primary source up to the parts mentioning Jesus. To quote this wiki: "Primary sources are original materials that have not been altered or distorted in any way.[1] Information for which the writer has no personal knowledge is not primary, although it may be used by historians in the absence of a primary source." 1. Josephus's work has been noted to have been altered after the fact. 2. He wasn't even born when the supposed events of Jesus's life were said to have occurred. That's both an alteration and pointing out that he was incapable of having personal knowledge of Jesus in the texts where he's alleged to have mentioned Jesus.

And if there are ever any irreligious fundamentalists, I'll be sure to let you know. S.E. Cupp, maybe? 173.30.136.136 (talk) 04:00, 22 June 2014 (UTC)173.30.136.136

It's generally accepted that older history texts are to be treated as primary sources regarding that era's perception of history. This is why Herodotus is rarely cited directly, and Josephus is treated as a primary source about first century Roman Judea.

Again, no original research, which includes making one's own conclusions about sources. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

ani

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.122.223 (talk) 16:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

RE: Boomeranged IP

Thanks for taking care of all that. I was asleep and just woke up to see the mess he left. I agree with you that IP editors are normally fine, but when I see a talk page discussion where the IP address keeps changing, yet the argument does not, I automatically assume the editor is changing their IP to try to make it appear as if some massive anonymous consensus has been generated when it is just one editor gaming the system. I should have been more clear about that when I requested for an account to be registered. --Tarage (talk) 21:40, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Judging from some of his other behavior, he definitely had to be hopping IPs, and was continuing the gaming later with claims of "don't bite me, I'm a newbie!" Ian.thomson (talk) 22:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

re your deletion of addition to section on creed in Christianity.

You indicate that you have deleted it for the following reasons to which I respond : You say :Do not pretend that your interpretation of one church's views applies to the whole of Christendom : I did not say that it was my interpretation - it was quoting one church which has responded to a groundswell of request for a simple user-friendly update. You say : Describe doctrine as doctrine, not as scientific fact (would you want Muslims adding "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet" as a fact? Do unto others...). I did not claim that it was scientific fact, it is quoted as from a church expressing the content of its belief, i.e. doctrine. You say : Do not add something unless you've got a source that supports every bit of what you add. I have given the source General Assembly of the Church of Scotland You say : Wikipedia is not a pulpit or a Sunday School. If you want to preach, find a forum elsewhere. I was not preaching, I was quoting a statement of belief which is what a creed is You say : Do not add anything labelled "Updated" or "user-friendly" to an article. I used these words as they were the words user to trigger the production of the creed and the way in which it was to be worded. It may be that you do not like this, but by seeking to exclude these words you are preventing the inclusion of the reason for its production, just as Wikipedia describes the sequence of historical developments. You say : Do not comment about imagined demands for changes in an article in the article itself. Voice your concerns on the article's talk page (such as Talk:Christianity), as your concerns instead of a universal demand. Keep in mind that talk pages are not discussion forums, though. I did not indicate this as my concern, I was seeking to bring up to date statements of the church's belief, the trigger for which was a demand formally expressed at a church court in public to which this was the considered and academic response formally accepted by the court of the church. Your charge of "imagined demand" is contrary to the truth. Thank you for taking the time to explain your reasons, and for reading my response. I hope this shows that I am trying my best to ensure that Wikipedia is inclusive and up to date. It may be that I have not expressed it in technical accuracy, and would value your help in including it in proper form. Thank you. sandygunnSandygunn (talk) 19:48, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Sandygunn: Let me give you my perspective. You are a partisan editing without a neutral point of view. I imagine you can't help that; you're editing based on how you see things. This behavior is not allowed.

Ian Thomson is trying to explain this for your benefit, not to berate you or condemn you. You would do well to agree with what he's said. If you can't come to agreement with him, you disagree with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It is as likely that Wikipedia is not for you. Try Conservapedia; it's a wiki so you can edit it like how you do here. There's more leeway for your viewpoint there. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Every time you've added that material to the article, it was removed by a different user each time because it goes against the site policies I've explained and linked to on your talk page. Here are the links as proof: [5], [6], [7], [8]

Repeatedly adding the same contested material will get an account blocked for a while, especially if multiple editors have removed it because it violates common understanding of site policy.

You treated one church's belief as the summary of all Christian belief (by citing the Scottish General Assemblies creed as a response for some nonspecific and apparently universal demand for a summary of what, without any limiting explanation, must assumably be the whole of Christian belief as the article is on the whole religion, not just some of its Scottish followers). That goes against WP:UNDUE, an extension of our neutrality policy.

You jumped into the creed with little explanation and no transition, resulting in its tenets being presented as objective information. You may not have meant to write it that way, but if everyone else reads what you wrote that way, you clearly did not manage to get your meaning across. No one here knows what you intend to mean, which is why it's on you to be clearer in your text.

Notice that no other article goes on with "user-friendly summary."

Notice that [[square brackets like these]] are used to link to articles, and section headers are inbetween == Clusters of equals signs like these ==

Notice that any article that mentions a demand notes who made the demand and includes a source to verify the information.

I assumed that you're trying to help, and I am pointing out mistakes you're making so that you can avoid repeating them. You do not need to explain why you made those mistakes, just learn from them.

A preferable use of the creed would have been to not directly copy and paste it because it is a primary source, but find a secondary source (preferably from an academic publisher) that explains who accepts that creed, what beliefs it espouses, any social context that brought it about, and maybe any reactions to the creed, and then cited (not plagiarized) that source in a more specific and appropriate article (such as Church of Scotland).

Ian.thomson (talk) 20:26, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Frank Lucas (Oklahoma)

You may want to stop by the talk page of that article. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:53, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, no, don't really want to get involved, I just quite enjoyed it. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:54, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

AN3

Ian, you have no business reverting reports at AN3 because they are malformed, in your view, or because they lack merit, even worse. The only time you can revert another editor is if it's blatant vandalism, which in this instance is not true. And then you edit-warred over it with the other user. Really.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:08, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Two reverts is edit warring now? Ok... Ian.thomson (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Odd, removing malformed reports appears normal. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I didn't look at all your diffs, just the first two. In one, it was removed by an administrator, and in the other, it wasn't removed, it was cleaned up. In any event, I don't care what may happen sometimes (WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS), it's generally not the place of a non-administrator to deal with the evaluation of reports at AN3 other than to comment on them. You could have done that if you wished. In any event, it's over. Dougweller found no violation, and I blocked the reporter. Ironically, they would have been better off with their report reverted. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 17:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

That AN3 report

I've closed it, but that editor is surely a sock. 4 talk page edits and his 5th edit is at AN3? Dougweller (talk) 20:56, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I deleted too many notices, but please do not deleted the hindus one — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.231.103 (talk) 17:07, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

You're censoring the article and adding false information. If you're sorry about anything, you'd stop. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Vaporwave

Now that the editing dispute has been "dealt with," let me first thank you for your willingness to take up the matter, and second urge you to refine your approach to newcomers, specifically with regard to suggesting they might be illiterate. 50.185.134.48 (talk) 06:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

He's been blocked three times, each time for edit warring. If he'd bother reading any of the messages left for him, he wouldn't get into those messes. That's assuming he didn't read the warnings, and instead read them and continued in the behavior, which would make him a user we don't need. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:55, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

You went out of your way to insult him and then accused him of trolling when he did the same to you. Work on that. 50.185.134.48 (talk) 15:13, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

He had several warnings on his page explaining what his behavior was. He then asked what he did wrong at the top of my page. It doesn't take much of a jump to observe that he's not bothering to read. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:18, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

god versus God

I do consider it a minor edit to update the grammar of the God page, but I understand your concern at my edits. Interestingly, another "god" undo-er, AlexTiefling, had this to say when he undid my edits, "This article is *about* the monotheistic conception (sic) of God. You can't just say 'god' with lowercase g and no article." Ironically, with his own words, he exposes the problem. His sentence does have an article, so why no lowercase "g"? Certainly, a concept can't be a proper noun.

He and you do make a good point in that I should have changed the sentences in the instances were I downsized the case in order to incorporate the necessary article. Indeed, in English speaking, Christian dominated countries, in common speech people are overwhelmingly ungrammatical when they use the term "God" without an article, when referring to the general concept of a god, written or spoken, like Alex did (in fact, I could have written "the general concept of God" and most people would not have noticed the error). I believe this is because of the frequency with which the proper noun is employed to refer to the specific god of their Christian religion. I hope you will give me the go ahead to try these changes. I will not mark the changes as minor.Kcornwall (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The article God is not specifically about the Christian conception of God, that would be "God in Christianity."

Your belief that the capitalization is specifically Christian is not shared with you by Bahais, Deists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Unitarian Universalists, and other religions that believe in a transcendent deity (as well as Freemasonry, which isn't a religion but a compliment to any theistic religion). Except for the most bigoted members of those religions (and Christianity), those religions do generally believe that they more or less are concerned with the same transcendent deity, even if they do not agree at all on Its nature, qualities, or relationship to existence. And in English, "God" (with a capital G) is the term used to refer to that shared transcendent deity. That is the assumption of all but the most fringe theologians, scholars of comparative religion, and even atheist writers.

Because of your rather specific focus on Christianity (as if it has a monopoly on God and religion, like it's some sort of anti-atheism instead of a distinct belief system), I cannot imagine you even considered those other religions' existence (much less their beliefs). Not considering those religions' beliefs when discussing a shared trait among those religions would leave you about as qualified to edit articles relating to shared theology as Ken Ham is to speak on biology.

You will not receive the go-ahead from me or from anyone else on the site to decapitalize God. MOS:CAPS#Religion (which says to capitalize God when referring to the transcendent deity) is in place because it represents a social contract with the backing of the majority of the site's users. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:19, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Second Commandment

If you click on the image, you will see it is the Second Commandment. Any image of Christ is a false manmade image of God which we have not been commanded to make. All such images are violations of the Second Commandment. It's about time modern Christianity reverted to this stance instead of revelling in popery.--CovenanterSoldier (talk) 14:40, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Wikipedia is a secular encyclopedia and is not bound by any religious edicts or direction. If images are useful to understanding the subject, they will be kept in the article. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

But I would still argue that the image is not even representative of Christianity as a whole, since many Christians hate such images. I suggest a simple empty cross would be far better for the Christianity series.--CovenanterSoldier (talk) 16:46, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Catholicism is the largest denomination, followed by (in order) Eastern Orthodoxy, Pentecostalism, Baptists, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, "Non"-denominationalism, Lutheranism, Methodism, Reformed Churches, and then other groups. Assuming 10% of Baptists (so, 10 million), Methodists (7.5 mill), Nondenominationalists (8m), Pentecostals (28m), and other groups (maybe 2m) -- extraordinarily high and overly generous figures -- are iconoclasts, that'd still be a tiny fraction (55,500,000 out of 2,200,000,000 billion, or 2.5%). That's not "many." Ian.thomson (talk) 17:02, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Re

OK, thanks for the information. Fleivium (talk) 18:38, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Can you issue warnings based on user-talk page discussions?

I just saw someone make some horribly antisemitic comments (on his own talk page) to a Jewish editor, and I'm wondering if that would be enough to issue a warning based on personally attacking another editor. Help? Aristophanes68 (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

That's usually where I see personal attacks being made, so I'd say so. If it's Themainman69, though, I was thinking it'd be necessary to bring him up at ANI for being WP:NOTHERE. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Aristophanes68: Yes, WP:TPNO governs all talk pages, even an editor's own talk page. Antisemitic (or other) attacks are unacceptable anywhere. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:40, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly who it is. I don't know how to bring him up at ANI, but I'll put a warning message on his page. Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 16:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll notify you when I finish the report, we don't need him here at all. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Aristophanes68 (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

This again?

Time to take out the trash, again. --McDoobAU93 17:32, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Bagged and tagged. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Added the investigation page to my watchlist. Thanks again for catching this so fast! --McDoobAU93 17:42, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Not as quickly as @IronGargoyle:, he blocked while I was still filling out the SPI. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps ... but there is still the need for a sleeper check. --McDoobAU93 18:21, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Darmech

Thanks for all you do to defend Wikipedia from those who misunderstand its function or try to abuse it and I have often felt hot under the collar myself, but even so I feel the need to comment here that your last contribution on the talk:Monotheism page falls short of Wikipedia etiquette. Jpacobb (talk) 19:46, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Yahuahislife

Or, YahuahisLife.com Dougweller (talk) 09:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

IP edits

Huh, good catch, I hadn't even noticed it was the same IP on the 666 article that I'd been replying to at Talk:Reddit, it was just another article that was on my watchlist. --McGeddon (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

(It looks like your "admits to having and using proxies and IP hopping" might be linking to the wrong diff?) --McGeddon (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)