User talk:Milomedes

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Welcome!

Hello, Milomedes, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! -- Longhair | Talk 04:31, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

1 Talk: List of Groups referred to a Cults
2 Thanks
3 WP's better topics
4 Apology
5 LOGRTAC centrism
6 Talk:Sahaja Yoga
7 WP:HAR---WP:CIV---[User:GP]---[User:GofG]
8 Tired of User:Really Spooky accusing me of being your sock?
9 Wisdom shown should always be rewarded
10 LOGTRAC
- 10.1 Milo
11 reply to Beyond laughingsocks
12 Cyberstalking [not]
13 GP saga continues - RFC/U this time
14 New Age music promotional link multiple reversions
15 request for advice and/or consensus about "New Thought Music"

[edit] Talk: List of Groups referred to a Cults

Thank you for emerging as the voice of reason on the discussion page. I would like to complement you on a very sensible proposal. cairoi 14:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. It's always nice to have one's efforts appreciated. • It's an intellectual and social challenge to comment the talk page, which is where the real action is. As I think you mentioned to another editor, it's a tough crowd, and I wouldn't be surprised if no more than a tiny useful change results from our collective effort. :) Milo 21:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

I just logged in and saw the barnstar. Very kind of you. cairoi 06:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP's better topics

There's no doubt that Wikipedia handles some topics better than others. I have some ideas on that point, if you'd care to drop me a line. Cheers, -Will Beback · † · 12:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apology

Milomedes, I want to offer a belated apology for the way I reacted to you awhile back (on Cult I believe). It was not how I want to behave. Tanaats 17:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If you feel the need, I accept, but I felt ok with how we parted. I'm also comfortable with the centrist cult-topics edits you've made so far.

As caroi told me when I arrived, this is a tough crowd. And, I would add, not for those who are thin-skinned.

I think contemplation of the ancient Eastern philosopies of balance are useful and appropriate here. Acting in full accordance with them though... well, maybe I'll do better in my next karmic cycle as a cookie recipe editor. :) Milo 09:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LOGRTAC centrism

I personally define LOGRTAC centrism as:

1) Editing from Principle, hopefully resulting in consensed rules;

2) educating global citizens' unfounded biases (95%+ of cults are good enough);

3) being reality-based pro-reporting for global citizens (cults do exist, citizens want reporters to document cult vs. citizen social problems, and citizens mandate governments to watch cults for infractions — to prevent infractions from progressing to crimes (see French Report));

4) practicing proportional critique toward cult-referenced groups on a legal entanglements continuum, ranging from:

A) mere competitive dislike by major religions,

B) to annoying but legal door-step fundamentalists,

C) to legally infractious group actions like mass begging,

D) to undue influence, financial, and sexual abusers,

E) to non-violent felons,

F) to the 10-some infamous destructive cult disasters.

Milo 09:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Sahaja Yoga

On a yahoo forum, the accusation has been that you are "one of the Multiple I.D.'s" under my control. [1] Any chance of you dropping a line to the author to correct this? (the same author has also accused me of being Sfacets) Thanks Sahajhist 04:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

For the record: I deny that I, Milo, am the "Multiple I.D." of anyone else registered at Wikipedia.

Hehe, I certainly find it annoying that my first quotation off of Wikipedia is attributed to someone else. I have written many kilobytes of talk pages posts, that make me a uniquely identifiable personality, with a well-defined centrist philosophy for reporting the referred-to-as-cult topics.

I don't have off-Wikipedia email as Milo, but, I can provide a simple analysis to demonstrate that author had no logical reason to draw such a conclusion.

I think it's a false conclusion that Sajahist=Sfacets, but at least they co-debate from the same positions. Unlike that case, if you, Sajahist, were also me, Milo, you would have illogically debated against yourself in the discussions that I recall. Why would anyone bother to create a "Multiple I.D." that is unhelpful? Milo 14:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:HAR---WP:CIV---[User:GP]---[User:GofG]

[2] ,---[3]

Dr. Who 19:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tired of User:Really Spooky accusing me of being your sock?

I was thinking of an RfC on this. It's not our job to prove anything to User:Really Spooky, but it is his/her job to prove the allegations of bad faith he/she is making. Talk:List of groups referred to as cults#Question about intent

"Hi, Milo. Don't forget about this :) Really Spooky 09:09, 21 February 2007"

On this revision under the section Question about intent. As you can see User:Really Spooky created a user link named Milo but linking to my userpage. He/she has also continued to imply that I am a sock puppet of Milo despite my suggestion to pursue proof of his/her allegations through checkuser. Milo has also attempted to get User:Really Spooky to substantiate their claims in the same way. User:Really Spooky instead suggested that I ask for a checkuser request. I have no problem with a checkuser request, but I should not have to ask for one to assuage User:Really Spooky's concerns. At this point I ask that User:Really Spooky either substantiate his/her allegation or stop making it. User:Really Spooky does not seem to understand that by accusing me of being a sockpuppet of Milo two people are being accused of editing in bad faith. Anynobody 02:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Really Spooky wrote at Talk:LOGRTAC, "For better or for worse, checkuser is only allowed in cases of blatant vandalism, evasion of bans, vote fraud, 3RR violations with socks, etc." I read the WP:CHECK checkuser page and I agree that is correct. This official refusal-of-checkuser policy is frustrating. Where's a cop when you need one?

But I have an idea to force checkuser. Let's Milo and Anynobody both go vote together on issues we agree on, like a series of AfDs, and we'll report Spooky's accusation that we're socks in each one, until somebody demands a checkuser for suspected vote fraud. This idea has the problem of being noisy, and the accusation will be echoed indefinitely for both of us.

An RfC is noisy too, without being as conclusive as a checkuser.

Maybe a quieter way than a general RfC, is to set up a poll vote at LOGRTAC, and let the local editors tell Spooky that he's wrong. Milo 08:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the accusation is mostly directed at you and you have a history with User:Really Spooky I'm willing to handle this any way you want to. Anynobody 06:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I got some good-sounding advice yesterday to handle this through Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates. It seems less noisy than anything yet suggested. Are you willing to nav over there and get us an advocate? Milo 07:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wisdom shown should always be rewarded

		The Wiki Wiffle Bat
		Milo, I award you this barnstar for going where no man or woman dared to go: List of groups referred to as cults in government reports [4]. Thank you, for your kind/wise well thought out words and the spunk to state them! Wikipedia can be most rewarding when someone reminds us to be respectful while discussing the points. PEACE TalkAbout 02:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

wow, thanks, TalkAbout. That's really nice of you to post this Wiki Wiffle Bat template. I'll treasure it. :) Milo 03:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LOGTRAC

Per your request, I have restored the material that you wanted added back in, so you would not have to revert it in. I hope this clears up any confusion between us. Once again, I apologize if any offense was taken, none was meant whatsoever. Hope you are doing well. Yours, Smee 08:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
- Update: - Within seconds, User:Sfacets promply removed the material again. I'm not going to get into a revert war with Sfacets, but hopefully you'll see that my intention was to follow up with your talk page request. Yours, Smee 08:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

(no I'm not stalking you Smeelgova) - I 'promptly' did so because I believe we should arrive at a concensus regarding whether or not we keep or delete the duplicate material - it's not about gettng into an edit war, it's about discussing the (dis)advantages of duplicating the content. Sfacets 08:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was simply clarifying what had happened for Milo. Smee 08:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Milo

I hope this whole lists thing has not soured our Wikipedia relationship - I think you are a very valuable contributor to the project. I (hope) I have tried to remain as congenial as possible with regard to the "Lists...", and you do make some valid points... Smee 18:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

I think you mean well, but you helped break a LOGRTAC list article structure that I had put nine months of my life into building. Maybe it was going down anyway due to too many of the list's friends having departed, but regretably, you put yourself in the position of having unintentionally laid on the last straw. The importance of this is not the list, or even that you made a political mistake, which most of us do. It's that you didn't make your mistake in a small enough venue to avoid me paying for it. I'm ok with you on a personal level, but politically more cautious.

I notice that you've been participating a lot in admin and bureaucrat level forums. My impression is that you are participating at least one level above what is wise, given your current level of experience and maturity. One doesn't have to be the brightest guy in the room to be successful, but one does have to know, what one's strengths and limits are. One also has to know, as the saying goes, what one doesn't know. Good luck with finding the balance. Milo 13:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. What's done is done. I am glad at the least that you stated: I'm ok with you on a personal level.. As far as what you term the political things, I am doing my best and if you have any specific advice about future endeavours I will take them to heart. I hope you are doing well. Yours, Smee 16:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] reply to Beyond laughingsocks

Hi Milo - I replied to your comment on my talk page yesterday. I'm mentioning it here so you can check it out in case you don't have that page watched. Would you rather I reply here when you leave me a message on my talk page?

I saw your discussion today with the cleark about getting the checkuser results clarified or expanded. I can understand your frustration with the procedural logjam, don't let it wreck your day! Parzival418 18:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I prefer not to split discussions. Unless it's urgent, there's usually no need to leave a second message here.

It looks like RFCU has become so bureaucratized, that procedural justice is no longer guaranteed, and isn't available in my case. There's a related rant about clerking at the bureaucrats noticeboard. The RFCU clerk offered an appeal by admin notice, that turned out to be my only option. Maybe I should jump up two levels and let the bureaucrats consider my case as an example. Milo 13:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I re-read your conversations with Luna Santin and UninvitedCompany on their talk pages, but I was not able to find this - related rant about clerking at the bureaucrats noticeboard. Without having seen that, still, I get the sense that the system as a whole might be overloaded for the number of available administrators to respond to the volume of requests coming in which could be why they closed it out so fast before the additional questions were resolved. That said though, I also haven't seen anyone accusing you of the sock issue since this case was closed out. Are you still being bothered by sock accusations on other projects you're working on? I hope not! Either way, if you decide to proceed with your idea of posting on admin notice, I'd be interested in following the process so if you think of it please let me know where I can find your discussions. Thanks and best wishes! Parzival418 06:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The user who first accused me of socks has been editing my posts and is utterly unrepentent. The editing violation is technically unrelated, but his socks charge against me and Anynobody is still unresolved because checkuser wouldn't cooperate. Likewise, the off-Wiki poster's socks accusations against me, Sajahist, and Sfacets are still unresolved because checkuser wouldn't cooperate. User:Durin's long commentary on bureaucratic RFCU clerking, which may be somewhat related to my problem, is in the thread at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#Clerks_at_WP:CHU. Milo 16:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to hear the hassles are continuing. I read the noticeboard comments you linked above and found them interesting though a lot of the terminology is new to me. I hope you find a way through the labrynth to clear up your situation so you can more comfortably concentrate on the content editing you're interested in. Parzival418 04:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyberstalking [not]

Is there any chance that [GP] can be stopped? He's trying to make me leave Wikipedia I guess. He maybe thinks "me or him", I suppose. I suspect that he is (or feels) "protected" by someone with "great powers" here; his whole history is just harrassing, abuse, write about strange topics, advertize himself and his user page is a so BIG violation of most of policies, so, if none has stopped him (though he's been blocked once), it means that the whole Wikicommunity is responsible for this sad episode.Doktor Who 18:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Re-edited by Milo to abbreviate a username 20:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

"can be stopped?" Not in the short term, but that doesn't mean there is nothing you can do now. He's making an opponent of everyone who doesn't agree with him, so in the long term, he's flirting with a community ban. But that could be a long time coming.

The first step in countering an opponent is giving him his due. You may or not be aware that he attempted to seize a 60 sqKm area from the country of Australia, followed by trying to force recognition of that attempted acquisition at Wikipedia. Anyone with that kind of real-world territorial ambition, will not be deterred in a quest for WP:Ownership at Wikipedia. His talk pages harassments are the easiest to deal with as noted below. His article reversions require attributed facts and consensus with enough other editors, which is much harder to achieve due to the newness of the topic. Nonetheless, with time and much patience, his unattributed POV entries can slowly be excluded.

"protected" by someone with "great powers" I think he has no "great powers" here, meaning he probably has no friends among admins. I'd say it's all pretense, since that's his style. I think he is just barely tolerated by the community, mostly because he is a master of doing only what he can get away with, as cunningly enforced by any Wiki concept that he can use to his advantage.

"maybe thinks "me or him" " Hehe, no, you're not that important to him. He does this to anybody who gets in his way.

"Cyberstalking" I've not yet seen evidence of that. His assertion of WP:OWN broadly includes the New Age music bin topics, so you can expect to get harassed anywhere you post among those topics, without it being cyberstalking. Now, if he followed you into Cooking and Video Games, as well as Zymurgy, then it would look like cyberstalking.

Are you familiar with Usenet/Google Groups killfiles? You just enter the names of trolls and they disappear from your screen. You can do the same thing with enough mental discipline, though I agree that it's not easy. GP wants to provoke you, so that you will step over the line and he can claim that you are the bad editor. Don't use any more profanities, it just makes you look bad which is what he wants. If you control your emotional reactions, then he has little power over you. If he tries to provoke you, focus on facts and article content. If he steps over the line, just simply say that you didn't do whatever it is that he claims. Don't bother to mount a defense, he isn't interested, and it just gives him more words to respond to with further provokes. Keep it simple. Given his advantage in English usage, the less you say to him the better.

≈ Non Carborundum Emendators ≈ Milo 20:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Greetings Milo and Dr Who... Dr Who, I agree with Milo that the less you interact with [GP] the better. When he was harrasing me, I found it useful to follow his user page links to the Wikipedia articles about his personal projects. I clicked on the external links he provided in those articles, and learned about the territorial ambition Milo mentioned and also that [GP] has produced an Ambient Music radio show for almost 20 years. Those two facts together, along with the other information he has published about himself, show that (a) he considers himself to be the formost expert on the subject of Ambient music (and any other genre that overlaps with that one), and (b) he is not interested at all in any kind of two-way dialog with anyone else about anything. He behaves as if he considers his opinion to be fact.

Since he has shown repeatedly that he does not listen or respond to the content of any reply to his comments, there is no reason to engage with him. What he does appear to notice in replies is anything that might touch upon a Wikipedia guideline that he can then use to make trouble for his opponent and distract from the editing of the article.

So, I recommend we follow Milo's advice and simply ignore [GP]'s inflammatory talk page comments, other than when we are supporting edits with facts, and even then... We don't have to address our comments to the disruptive user, we can address our comments to the community of editors working on the page.

Milo, as always, thank you for your clarity on this. In case you didn't see these items - in addition to the comments on the New Age Music talk page (where you already responded), [GP] yesterday posted another sock-puppet accusation at User talk:Doktor Who#Take a raincheck and he posted an incident report on Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#23 March 2007 that again includes the sock-puppet accusation. Even in that short exchange, one can see his pattern of using a personal attack to provoke a response, and then responding by accusing his target of violating a rule, ie Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Do you think one of us should respond to the Wikiquette accusation by linking to the closed checkuser result, or better to simply ignore the Wikiquette posting for now? Parzival418 22:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

At Wikiquette alerts. I think Dan T. fairly judged the complaint; the French-English thing is a huh? in the U.S., but probably gets some Commonwealth citizens riled up enough that it could start a bar fight. Doktor Who lost some more Wikiquette points by referring to GP's "strange behavior" -- but then GP overcharged him with WP:NPA, when it was really closer to a WP:CIV, since behavior is commentable. When commenting GP's behavior, one has to get it exactly right, or he will make a distracting issue out of how one got it wrong.

Technically, GP's behavior is probably not "strange" but it might be "territorial". Invasion of others' territory is a classic human activity, as likewise, is harassment of citizens whose territory has been invaded. In a nutshell, both behaviors are unpleasant but commonplace.

It's easier to understand GP's behavior from his viewpoint. He was a classic pretender to royalty, though like many people, he may have a distant relation to some royal family. Classic kings are generals who won all their wars. I'm not aware that GP has won any outright, though I haven't researched what has happened recently at the micronations topics. He obviously has a number of Wikipedia articles in his sights.

The closed checkuser [5] was stopped after Parzival418 and Milomedes didn't match up, so that doesn't help Doctor Who.

Doktor Who may not be up to it, but he could make himself look much better by deleting his own intemperate remarks at Talk:New Age music#Ambient and New Age music, say, leaving the following:

My numerous edits (over 1500) always are welcome and accepted, and almost never reverted. Re-edited to remove my intemperate comments of 16:52, 21 March 2007 by ~~~~

(Note change from all caps (shouting) to italics (emphatic tone).

Then Doktor Who could go to Wikiquette and post,

Thanks Dan T., for taking the time to respond. I don't want to be thought of as a "problem editor". I take your point and have deleted my intemperate comments. It really does make the page more pleasant for other editors to read. ~~~~

(Post about two indents out so it won't look like you are responding to GP.)

Politically, this should mend the fences with other editors (a USA political idiom for making things ok after giving offense). Milo 03:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GP saga continues - RFC/U this time

Hello Milo

In case it hasn't shown up on your radar yet, I thought you would want to know about this:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct#Candidate pages

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doktor Who

Although the RFC is directed at Dr Who, he also complains that you and me and Cricket and two users I have had no interactions with, Sky-Surfer and Brian G. Wilson, are all sock-puppets of Dr Who, along with various other complaints.

I have not posted any response or comments there because so far the request has not been certified so response does not seem needed.

The only action I am taking tonight is to advise Dr Who and Cricket02 to avoid communicating with GP and to refrain from repying if he sends them any further inflamatory comments.

I'd appreciate your advice on the best way to proceed in this. I know GP will most likely read this here too, but that's OK, this is not a secret message. These communications are best out in the open, so that uninvolved editors who examine the full history will be able to see that the source of the problems is GP only, and that the contentious behavior is coming from him and not from the people he has accused.

Meanwhile, here are some links to pieces of the puzzle for your convenience in exploring the situation:

User talk:Georgewilliamherbert#Musical sockpuppets

User talk:Gene Poole#Music article sock allegations

User talk:Gene Poole#Advice

User talk:Cricket02#Advice

User talk:Doktor Who#Take a raincheck

User talk:Real96#WP:RFCU

RFC/U 1st version

RFC/U Diff with edit comment by Real96

-- Parzival418 08:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The Return of Laughingsocks Thanks for the excellent updates. Looks like we could just do nothing. When I read GP's RfC/Uc, (really an RFCU as Real96 determined) I laughed so hard I may have waked up family. He's either fantasizing the claimed linguistic similarities, or is clueless at language analysis.

Could be that he overplayed his hand with the laughingsocks complaints, so now maybe he'll have to deal with us local article editors, socks or not.

We want to discuss and edit music. I think he wants to distract us with minimal trolling that just barely ducks the rules, with the purpose of maintaining his WP:OWNership. But we may be in a position to set limits on his distractions from the project. Milo 12:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There has been a further development. Please take a look at the top link here and let me know whether you advise a response now, or waiting to see if the status of the RFC changes....? The other links here are just for completeness. In GP's request to Gardner of Geda for help, he refers to Dr Who having a Sockpuppt Army!

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doktor Who#Other users who endorse this summary

User talk:Gene Poole#Music article sock allegations (comments moved by Real96 from his page to GP's)

User talk:Gardener of Geda#Sockpuppet RFC

Thanks -- Parzival418 02:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Heeyyy, thank you all for your support; actually I have a Army (j.k.). Well, what do you think of this? In ten minutes he wrote his comment, he was so ready, strange! just cyberstalking or something else? Furthermore, is he really Australian? Cos his language sounds like something very far from real, everyday's use of English. Also, his comments remind me some former friends of mine. Doktor Who 02:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Just ignore him. Don't spend your energy wondering about his personal quirks. Don't let him upset you. While it may be difficult to stay calm when someone is taunting you or "pushing your buttons", it's the best path. Focus on the editing - there will be other editors also involved and with good references and sources, eventually the conensus view will come into focus. If GP continues to make personal inflammatory comments or threats, or if he refuses to accept valid consensus, over time he will get himself in trouble. He's already violated many Wikipedia pricinples in his communications with mulitple editors. Those violations are all in the historical record and can be recalled if needed. Listen to the iChing and be firm and correct. You have value to offer as an editor, so stick with that and let GP fight with himself. Parzival418 07:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

He behaved in this way for years, none stopped him.

Sadly, Wikipedia is lost and destined to become untrustable. :'( Doktor Who 13:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You're a handful, Dok. [="high maintenance"] Milo 23:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC) 03:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

?????Doktor Who 02:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Age music promotional link multiple reversions

Re your comments on Dr Who's talk page about the New Age music almost-3RR incident... the sequence of events was a bit different than what you described -- and even funnier!

It started when I removed the newagepiano.net link noting in the edit summary that it was an advertising link. Gene reverted my edit immediately, within a few minutes, claiming that it was a good informative link. I wanted to undo his reversion, but I did not want to get into an edit war so I did not undo. Instead I posted on the talk page to get consensus.

Then the funny part started. An anonymous IP editor undid Gene's reversion while I was writing my talk page note. I laughed because it happened so fast. I checked the IP editor contribs and found that this was the only edit from that IP. The thought crossed my mind that maybe Gene had logged out and did that undo himself, so he could write it up on his "evidence" page that it was the "puppetmaster" in action. Since it was already reverted again, I decided not to post my talk page comment yet - I copied it to a text file and waited. Gene then did his second reversion; Dr Who reverted; Gene reverted; Dr Who reverted a second time... then Gene stopped because one more would have exceeded 3RR. So the page was left with the newagepiano.net link removed.

After I saw all that activity, I posted my notes on the talk page so editors could see why that link should not be there. Cricket replied with a supporting comment - he had removed that link previously in other articles too for the same reasons. Now it's been two more days and Gene's not reverted it again. Maybe he figured out that he was hurting his own case - or maybe he'll be back to revert again soon. Either way, it's an inappropriate link and should not be there, so if he does, I'll ask for consensus again. Most likely he does not care about that link and was just trying to provoke an intemperate response. As you mentioned, he copied the whole sequence to his RFC/U as evidence (even though it's not evidence of anything but his own bad behavior).

The whole thing taught me a lot. It lead me to read the RFC guides in detail. I found that Gene's RFC/U was flawed from the start because he did not follow the rules. He did not first try to resolve his dispute by talking with Dr Who directly, and no other editor tried to resolve the dispute directly with Dr Who, therefore no second editor certified his complaint. He provided no evidence in his RFC/U of how he tried to resolve the dispute (since he didn't try to resolve it), also required by the rules. Gardner of Geda did add an endorsing comment about his own run-ins with Dr. Who, but he did not sign the certification because he had not been involved in the (so-called) dispute. I appreciated that Gardener carefully excluded you and me from his comments about Dr Who. It's not clear from Gene's RFC that there even is a dispute, other than that he claims we're sockpuppets (already closed), that we're from northern Europe, we're eccentric and we don't agree with his POV. (I've never even been to northern Europe, sounds like a fun place to visit!)

Since the RFC was not certified in 48 hours, as I understand it, it can be deleted. I'm not clear on that procedure. The RFC/U guide reads as though anyone can delete it after it's been uncertified for over 48 hours. I could not find anything in the guide about procedural methods to request it be deleted - it just says may be deleted. My impression is there is so much backed up in that area that if no-one does anything about it it will just hang around indefinitely. I wonder if it might be better to leave it there as an example of Gene's contentious Wikilawyering, and showing that it was never certified and he had made no attempt to resolve the dispute befure posting the RFC. Eventually I guess it will be archived or listed as stale. Do you know anything about this part of the process? If you feel there should be some action to delete or archive the RFC/U please let me know. Have a good day! Parzival418 01:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

GP's obsession with a "sockpuppet army", his obvious misperceptions of English linguistic origin, and his mishandling of the RFC/U suggest there is less scope to his control than he would have us believe. His continual denigration of my writing, I initially assumed was mere insult. But now I wonder if he perceives all compound-sentence writing as excessively challenging?

IIRC, deletion can only be done by an admin, but editors who want to be clerks may be able to archive them. I don't know which is actually done. There are advantages and disadvantages to paying further attention to this RFC. Milo 09:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's ignore that. He's mis-using the webspace that this site gives us for serious purpose(s), but only an admin can stop him, not our business for now. I go there from time to time, it's almost funny (the term "sockpuppet army", really, is very funny). Doktor Who 12:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Milo, I would appreciate a lot if you could honestly tell me if my English is changing these last 2 days. --Doktor Who 12:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I sampled your talk contribs for the last two days and the ones I checked look like normal EFL English. Previous to that, a possibly ESL-looking post I sampled was datestamped 2007-03-30T14:26:12.

Btw, I think some editors would take issue with the way that you frequently misapply the minor edit checkbox on talk pages. Any new post, no matter how small, I don't consider minor. But if you correct punctuation and/or spelling to a post already written, that would be certainly be minor. Milo 16:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

ok, thank you very much, I'll change that wrong habit immediately.Doktor Who 17:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] request for advice and/or consensus about "New Thought Music"

Hi Milo - A link to "New Thought Music" appeared today in the New Age music see also section. After some research I removed that link, and explained my reasons here: Talk:New Age music#reasons for removing unrelated "See Also" link New Thought Music. I'm writing to you about it now though because I think the "New Thought Music" article itself is misleading. There is no genre with that name anywhere in generally accepted musicology and it fails WP:MUSIC and WP:Notability. I'm wondering whether or not to propose removing that article from the music genre category and merging the text into the main article about the New Thought Movement where it would be more approriate, as it's the message not the music that makes it what it is.

The website NewThoughtMusic.com [6] includes this statement:

The purpose of the NewThoughtMusic.com site is two fold:

To support the growth of music ministry in our communities

To promote the best of New Thought Music as an outreach function

That's the same website that I quoted on the New Age music talkpage:

Since it is this universal spiritual philosophy that is the common thread, virtually any style of music could be construed as New Thought. What is important is the intention encoded into the music, not the stylistic form itself. So, it is possible for us to find examples of "New Thought Music" in folk, jazz, classical and even in existing popular repertoire (Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, James Taylor and many others).

Here is another website promoting this idea: [7] where they state:

Help shine the light of New Thought music to the world by experiencing the transformation this music can bring first-hand. Support New Thought artists by purchasing their music. Offer one of our Tribute CD’s to a friend or family member not familiar with this music. The Tribute CD’s provide a variety of artists and musical styles, and each song has a positive spiritual message for all faiths. Visit the Itoi Ministries website www.itoimusic.org for more information on the New Thought Songwriters Tribute and the PosiPalooza! Concert Tour and help us change the world, one song at a time!

I thought you would be interested in this both regarding the musicology aspects and also regarding your work with the list of cults articles. I'm not saying these related groups are cults, though they might be seen that way, and even if they are, I don't have anything against cults in general as a principle unless they behave badly. The topic of music genres is already complex and we don't need a non-existent genre confusing the topic even more. The thing that's bothering me here is the claim of this as a genre while at the same time saying this form of music crosses all genres, as long as it includes their spiritual message. A positive spiritual message is fine with me, but the article seems to create extra confusion in the musical genres which is what I want to clear up.

What do you think about this? Would it be best to ignore the whole thing? Or work on merging that stub into its main religious movement article and out of the music genre category? I don't have an agenda on this in particular other than that WP music genre articles should be about music and not about religion (just as Gospel genre articles focus on the music, not the religion). I'm not sure whether to, or how to, proceed on this, so I'm hoping you can offer some clarity. Thanks for your help... Parzival418 06:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Too much material here for me to deal with definitively — maybe you also.

The idea which floated to the top is, have you listened to several of these promoted artists to hear what they might have in genre common? For example, if they are mostly chanters, then they might be able to hold together a genre in a way analogous to rap.

The more cynical view is that genre is as genre sells. What is the industry buzz, if any?

I read WP:MUSIC and searched for the word "genre". It refers to "notable genre", but doesn't define it, so I think you should re-edit your post and strike-type that guide. It may be a lot of work to validly research WP:Notability for a genre. Without that research, I don't think you are in a position to decide on a merge proposal. Then you'd need to communicate a lot with the current editors. They might invoke philosophy that would take even more time to learn, to reasonably decide whether it was applicable.

On balance, I personally would ignore it.

I'm not sure whether the New Age music article can justify a New Thought music link, given that New Thought music depends on "intention", which may be lyrics, while New Age is almost totally instrumental. Obviously, some New Age instrumental 'intends' to promote New Age spirituality, so that could be why the link was added. Possibly an important factor is that the two philosophies (according to the New Thought article) barely cross over. Milo 08:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I've taken your advice and re-edited the talk page to remove WP:MUSIC. I didn't use strike edit because I changed the rest of the sentence and the result looked confusing. I did however make note of the re-edit in my second signature there on the talk page.

Yes, I have listened to a bunch of songs I found on those websites and no, they do not hold together stylistically - only the lyrics as far as I can tell give it any identity. As far as industry buzz - I did look for that and was unable to find any references at all in any industry publications. There are one or two artists that the New Thought websites claim have been noted in the industry, but they don't provide references. It seems those may be country or gospel artists, perhaps noted within those established genres, who happen have some positive lyrics and are part of a New Thought congreation. But from the music industry POV, they are not considered "New Thought" artists because there's no such genre outside of the New Thought Movement ministries, at least not that I could find.

I'll go with your suggestion to ignore the article. Thanks again... Parzival418 09:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

(reset) Here's a nice development - The IP editor who had placed that link accepted the comments and removed the music-genre-stub template from his article, diff. I think his article does have a place in the music category, now that it's not trying to be a genre. It's good to see positive consensus in action... Parzival418 23:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Good news. :) I have a question: what does that "(reset)" refer to?Doktor Who 23:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I added that to explain I was un-indenting my comment, since it was not a direct reply to a prior comment from someone else. It's not a formal syntax, sometimes people use other methods such as "<<<un-indent", etc... Just something to be clear who is replying to who, or if it's a new thread of the discussion. Parzival418 07:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

"(reset)" may also mean that you are still replying to the post just above, but you just want more horizontal space. I think I personally would not use "(reset)" if I was not replying to the post above. No big deal though — Parzival418's usage of "(reset)" being different from my usage, in this case did not even attract my notice. Milo 08:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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