User talk:89.102.140.194

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[edit] Shaka page

Your recent contribution(s) to the Wikipedia article Shaka are very much appreciated. However, you did not provide references or sources for your information. Keeping Wikipedia accurate and verifiable is very important, and as you might be aware there is currently a drive to improve the quality of Wikipedia by encouraging editors to cite the sources they used when adding content. If sources are left unreferenced, it may count as original research, which is not allowed. Can you provide in the article specific references to any books, articles, websites or other reliable sources that will allow people to verify the content in the article? You can use a citation method listed at How to cite sources. Thanks! --AW 15:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --AW 15:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genocides and democides section

Okay, I think it's time we had a talk. Please see me at the article talk page. Thanks, Gatoclass 15:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions.

Currently, you are editing without a username. You can continue to do so, as you are not required to log in to Wikipedia to read and edit articles; however, logging in will result in a username being shown instead of your IP address (yours is 89.102.140.194). Logging in does not require any personal details, and there are many other benefits for logging in.

When you edit pages:

  • Please respect others' copyrights; do not copy and paste the contents from webpages directly.
  • Please use a neutral point of view when editing articles; this is possibly the most important Wikipedia policy.
  • If you are testing, please use the Sandbox to do so.
  • Do not add unreasonable contents into any articles, such as copyrighted text, advertisement messages, and text that is not related to an article's subject. Adding such content or editing articles maliciously is considered vandalism.

The Wikipedia Tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. For now, if you are stuck, you can click the edit this page tab above, type {{helpme}} in the edit box, and then click Save Page; an experienced Wikipedian will be around shortly to answer any questions you may have. Also feel free to ask a question on my talk page. I will answer your questions as far as I can! Thank you again for contributing to Wikipedia. --AW 15:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] June 2007

Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Joseph Stalin. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. Javit 17:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make the edit, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

[edit] Thanks for contributing to Atlantic slave trade

Hi! I appreciate your contributions to the Atlantic slave trade article very much, but I have to ask you to reference them.

From what I see they seem to be entirely correct, but one of the major problems with this and other highly sensible articles is that improving them is much easier than referencing your changes. Wikipedia demands (at least for controversial topics) that every addition to an article has to be backed up by reliable sources. If you have any questions or need help for referencing, please contact my talk page or leave a note at the article's discussion page.

I also encourage you to create an account. Apart from a lot of other advantages, this is especially helpful if you regularly contribute to articles on controversial topics, because you can "make a name for yourself" and other editors might take your opinion more seriously if they get to know you. Cheers! Malc82 20:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits at List of wars and disasters

Hi there. I've left a message for you at the article talk page, answering your questions and providing the references you asked for. Please respond on that page before reverting again. Thanks. Gatoclass 00:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've replied to your comments on the talk page. Regards, Gatoclass 12:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your trying to find a "common sense" compromise on the List of wars page. However, the table lists highest and lowest estimates, not likely "common sense" figures. There's a reason we don't have a common sense figure in these tables and that is, who is going to decide what the common sense figure is? Everybody has a different idea as to what the most likely number is - which is why different reliable sources have different estimates in the first place. Do you really think Rummel, for example would agree that the common sense figure for the USSR is 20 million? His common sense tells him it's 50 million, not 20, and there is no shortage of editors on Wiki who agree with him.
So the problem with trying to come up with a common sense figure is that there is no common sense where such topics are concerned. And trying to come up with one is going to cause even more edit warring, as different people insist that their common sense figure is the correct one. That's why we stick to a lowest and highest estimate.
I realize though that there is another problem with the "genocide and democide" section that is generating content disputes, namely the problem of categorization. How do we decide what constitutes a democide or genocide? We have to find a source which describes the event as such, but then, this does not necessarily give the reader an accurate picture. For example, the 6 million Holodomor deaths under Stalin don't get a mention because some scholars deny the famine was a genocide.
It's for that reason I've been casting around looking for a different categorization for these figures. I tried "crimes against humanity" but someone objected to that, and quite frankly, I don't think it's satisfactory either, because it just moves the problem to another place. Then we end up arguing over what does and does not constitute a crime against humanity for the purposes of the list. Do we have a source that has described them as such? And so on.
So at the moment I'm thinking of trying another categorization, called something like "Lethal regimes and movements". That would enable us to put a minimum figure of 10 million for Stalin, as well as allowing for the 22 million (max) from all causes in the Congo. We could still have a separate category for genocide, but it would only list confirmed cases of genocide and the figures would differ from those in the "lethal regimes" category, which would list deaths from other causes as well such as famine and introduced disease. If you have any comments about this idea, please post them on my talk page or the article's talk page. Thanks.
BTW I've left your current figures up ATM, but I'm hoping you will self revert because I dislike reverting other people's work, I know it causes ill feeling and I'd prefer not to have to do it. But ultimately we can't base our estimates on what one person or another thinks is the "common sense" figure. Regards, Gatoclass 09:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

From Talk:Endemic warfare:

Most of this edit by user 89.102.140.194 appears to be a copyvio from this website.

Copyright violation is not acceptable on Wikipedia, not just for moral reasons, but also for legal ones. Please read Wikipedia:Copyright violations. If you have contributed material to this project from other sites please go back to those pages and remove such information or rewrite it so that it is no longer an infringement. If you think that the above is not correct and that no copy violation took place then please leave a message on my talk page.--Philip Baird Shearer 21:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi Philip, I've checked the Endemic warfare page and I admit your warning about copyedit was partly legitimate, however, some deleted material at the Endemic warfare page wasn't copyedit.
  • I came across original research at the List of wars and disasters by death toll page (for example, 50 million dead from man-made famines under the British Raj). That's just unprofessional and leads to disputes of neutrality. Wikipedia is not a blog. Sections Genocide and Democide & Man-made famines need a major rethink. See Talk:List of wars and disasters by death toll. Wikipedia:No original research (NOR) is one of three content policies. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. I've removed some of the offending material, but as you know since I've had a number of differences of opinion with editor Gatoclass already I thought it might be best if the warning came from an admin rather than an adversary, so I contacted you. 89.102.140.194 09:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latest edits on war and disasters

Please desist in making disruptive edits to this page. These entries have been extant for months and are properly sourced. Your edits appear to be nothing more than an attempt to get revenge for the fact that I reverted some of your edits yesterday.

If you have issues with reversions I have made, you can discuss them at any time on the article talk page with me, as I have encouraged you to do time and again. It simply isn't appropriate to start making random tit-for-tat reversions because you are annoyed about someone else's edits.

Perhaps you think I was deliberately targeting your edits yesterday, but that is simply not the case. In fact I compromised with you by accepting two of your edits into existing entries with some additional explanatory text, and I felt at that stage we had reached a good understanding. It was only afterward that I found a number of recent changes to the article which I decided to rectify on the fly. I did not even realize at the time that these were edits you had made, I just found them when checking other entries on the article page.

So I most certainly wasn't singling your edits out in any way, but you unfortunately appear to have drawn that conclusion and to have started deliberately targeting my edits in revenge. Apart from the fact that your conclusion about my motivations is entirely wrong, I reiterate that this is not appropriate behaviour on Wiki. I must ask you to desist, if you don't I will be compelled to take the matter further.

But it doesn't have to come to that. We have worked productively together in the past and I'm sure can do so again, so long as we all keep our cool and try to maintain respect for one another's POV. If you have issues with my edits, by all means let's discuss things rationally on the talk page, not resort to edit wars which are not going to produce any worthwhile results for anyone. Regards, Gatoclass 11:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)