User talk:Richard Jensen/Archive 1

Richard Jensen

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Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3

Welcome, new editor! We're very glad you've joined us. Here are pointers for a quick start. Also, when you get a chance, please read The Editor Role. You can look at Getting Started and our help system for other introductory pages. It is also important, for project-wide matters, to join the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list. Announcements are also available via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and thank you! We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we hope to see your edits on Recent changes soon. --Bernard Haisch 18:48, 24 January 2007 (CST)

Hi Richard! it's great to see your additions to History of Medicine (United States). I'm just sort of writing off the top of my head, and according to references as I find them, and really welcome your input. Nancy Nancy Sculerati MD 12:58, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Hey Nancy--it's great to be aboard. I taught a lot of historical demography so it's a favorite topic. RichardRichard Jensen 13:00, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Richard, I went back and looked at the article, and noticed that you removed almost everything I'd written, but put noything on the discussion page about why. It takes all the fun out of it to have one's work erased, Nancy Sculerati MD 13:17, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I apologize but I moved some stuff around and I meant only to cut a couple sentences. Richard Jensen 13:24, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Richard: regarding constitution of San Marino, I took my date from the CIA Factbook, which I took as authoritative, and confirmed with the Law Library of Congress. I just did another search and found a document that explains that the Sammaranese constitution is an ancient (a la 1600) form of what we call the US Code. Sounds like more than an urban myth to me ... but even so, I'm fine removing the bit you removed. It was added as an afterthought any way. --steve802 14:22, 9 March 2007 (CST)

No I checked it out. (And I've even been to San Marino!). A local duke took over in 1600 but there was no written constitution. The CIA book does not give its sources and so we don't trust it for controversy. You will note that no one ever quotes the so-called constitution or says what it contains. It's just an unwritten or traditional system and not as old as Britain. Cite: San Marino does not have an official Constitution as such.' Page 211 of Fragmentation and the International Relations of Micro-states: Self-determination and Statehood (1996) by Jorri C. Duursma in books.google.com Richard Jensen 14:38, 9 March 2007 (CST)

History of Pittsburgh

Richard, would you please look at History of Pittsburgh. Go through the history tab to see the actual article. The author is clearly getting frustrated and has made a nice start on an article. Do you think you have the expertise to give editorial guidance? I hate to see a talented contributor turned off. Nancy Sculerati 18:17, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the heads-up. It's pretty good work (the Indian part should be spun off into a separate article) and it should be kept. I'll work on it. Richard Jensen 18:29, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks-please contact Tom Cool on his user page? Nancy Sculerati 18:30, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Richard, I'm not sure you're watching my page, but there is an enthusiastic response at User talk:Tom Cool. Tom Cool 20:31, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

what's history?

Richard, could you, perhaps after discusssion with available editors in your workgroup, clarify appropriate History Workgroup tags for me. I will relay them to other workgroups. For example, History of Medicine (United States) we agree is both Health Sciences and History- in terms of workgroup. Now, perhaps the History of Medicine would also be both- or perhaps just Health Sciences? Similarly, I have started articles on a number of individuals, such as William Stewart Halsted whose major importance is in medicine and medical education. Is the History Workgroup tag appropriate or inappropriate for such an article? Take a look also at Paracelsus please. What do you think? Nancy Sculerati 13:50, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Nancy--I would say that Health Sciences group should take over most all the History of medicine topics, except demography (that can be joint). Richard Jensen 14:08, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Good- I'll remove the history workgroup. Now when you say demography- can you be more specific? Is there any present article that should retain the history workgroup? Nancy Sculerati 14:10, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Nancy-- no demography as yet but it's a special interest of mine & there will be articles. Richard Jensen 14:41, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Ok! Just to be sure- Albert Einstein? Florence Nightingale? At what point does a household name in the sciences cross over into history? Even if you can't say-should the history workgroup be removed from these two examples? Nancy Sculerati 15:13, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

History of science is a third zone, closer to history than to health sciences I think. (I did a little grad work in the area, and am a specialist in history of the social sciences.) We could use a history of science editor at some point. My wife, by the way, does history of nursing so it's a common dinner table topic. 16:30, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

So-for the moment, I will remove the history workgroup from both. This is your chance to object!(but there will always be more chances) Nancy Sculerati 16:50, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Debate on naming conventions

Just to let you know that you'd inadvertently left your message on Larry's user page; I've moved it to his Talk page. I hope that that's OK. --Peter J. King  Talk  17:49, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

thanks! Richard Jensen 18:21, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Bibliographies

Where do you get these long, detailed bibliographies from? It's amazing to see all this content just sprout up on the wiki! --Larry Sanger 20:58, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

I've been a bibliographer and bookhound for 40+ years (and even spent 11 years at the Newberry Library in Chicago, a big research library). I work from home and have read the Harvard Guide to American History over and over (it's a massive bibliography, as is the AHA Guide). I have some books at home but 90%+ of the titles are from the Internet. My best sources are: JSTOR and Project MUSE (scholarly articles with footnotes; book reviews), The Am Hist Review, J American History and J. Southern History (and a few other journals I subscribe to--they have excellent reviews), books online (from Questia, books.google, scholar.google and amazon.com--and I start first with the bibliography), abstracts from ABC-CLIO (I've been on their editorial board for years), course bibliographies online, and of course google searches and (even better) Amazon searches. University presses send me a lot of catalogs and I go to a few history conventions a year and spend a lot of time at the book exhibits looking at the new and forthcoming items. The trick it to quickly evaluate a book or article, which presumes reading a lot of book reviews to see where a field is headed. I reject 10 to 20 items for everyone included. (There's an online bibliography of Jefferson that runs over 10,000 titles.[1]) Bottom line: these are all original bibliographies I selected as useful to readers. Wiki doesn't appreciate them at all; those kids are anti-book as well as anti-expert, which is the major reason I'm moving to Cz. Richard Jensen 21:43, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Very impressive. I fear we won't be able to do as good work in other disciplines, but--I suppose we will eventually. --Larry Sanger 22:31, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. Nobody in electrical engineering wants articles from the 1960s, but we historians relish them. Richard Jensen 22:33, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

check your e-mail

Richard, I sent you a private e-mail on your university url a couple of days ago-did you get it? please respond to nssanes at mac dot com. Thank you, Nancy Sculerati 18:08, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

Recently uploaded image(s)

Hi. Thanks for contributing to CZ! I hate to have to tell you this but one or more images you recently uploaded are lacking clear copyright data. Please carefully review the image(s) you uploaded while referencing Images Help—Copyrights. Please fix the problem rapidly, as the image(s) will otherwise have to be deleted. Thanks! — Stephen Ewen 02:35, 14 April 2007 (CDT)

What copyright data do you want and where do I put it? Richard Jensen 14:16, 14 April 2007 (CDT)

OK I added it. we need a fair use category. Richard Jensen 14:23, 14 April 2007 (CDT)

Question about entires included in CZ:Media_Workgroup

Did you really intend for Fourth_Party_System, Democratic-Republican_Party and Democrat_Party_(phrase) to be included in the CZ:Media_Workgroup category? I was tempted to remove them myself, but I thought I might be missing something.Thomas H. White 13:04, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

all the articles deal with political advertising and use of newspapers as political media. (also Mukrakers in 4th party system, together with Yellow Journalism, Hearst) Richard Jensen 14:29, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

American Conservatism

I noticed the article American Conservatism is identical with the Wikipedia one, did u make a mistake to label it "CZ Live" or there are other reasons? Please clarify, thanks! Yi Zhe Wu 18:17, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

I wrote much of that Wiki article. Richard Jensen 18:58, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Ah, so you were the "RJensen" on Wikipedia? Yi Zhe Wu 20:31, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

yes. :) Richard Jensen 20:54, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Nice job, the article is very well-written. Indeed American conservatism is a complex topic. Within U.S. conservatism, libertarian conservatives and neo-conservatives disagree on everything except for low tax. Goldwater was a conservative, but definitely not today's Republican Party-line conservative. Cheers! Yi Zhe Wu 21:14, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I edit conservativenet blog that has a lot of experts on board and will ask their suggestions. Richard Jensen 21:23, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Dr. Jensen, unless you wrote all of the article, not just much of it, we must give Wikipedia credit. --Larry Sanger 10:02, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

the "Content is from Wikipedia? tick-box

Hi, thanks for contributing to Citizendium!

I noticed that one or more articles you have uploaded appear to contain material from Wikipedia, yet the "Content is from Wikipedia? tick-box has not been checked. Please allow me to make sure the policy on that is very clear in case any error is being made.

If any content of an article at Citizendium — even one sentence — came from Wikipedia and you aren't the 100% sole author of that content, be absolutely sure you check the tick-box. It is just above the "Save page" button. If you are the sole author, however, please make it clear on the relevant talk page and post a link to the Wikipedia article history giving evidence of such.

Please kindly review your contributions in this light. There are multifarious reasons for why we must be completely above board in this matter!

For your future reference, this policy can be found at Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians: New and unfamiliar practices.

Thanks again!

——Stephen Ewen 23:51, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

I replied on my talk. Stephen Ewen 01:54, 17 April 2007 (CDT)

Replied again. Stephen Ewen 02:31, 17 April 2007 (CDT)

History of Pittsburgh

Richard, could you kindly point out, as editor, what (if anything) is lacking or requires revision at this point for the History of Pittsburgh to be nominated by you as an approved article? Thank you, Nancy Sculerati 21:28, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

there is a question whether or not to spin off the pre-1800 history into a separate articlde that can deal better w Indians, & empire; right now the tiny village overshadows steel city. Richard Jensen 23:35, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

OK- since you are splitting the article- please put your reasonbs for doing so on the talk page (discussion) of the article. If you are acting as Editor, and not as an author, you need to keep those roles distinct. Splitting the article is an editorial sort of thing, but adding text is different, unless you reword something that has been discussed with the author(s) . Nancy Sculerati 08:53, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Nancy--we talked about splitting it on the Talk page a few days ago and no objection, so as an editor I split it (and split the bibliog, and added a few items to bibliog part 1). I think both halves will grow in size and they have little in common, Richard Richard Jensen 09:03, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I think it's fine- I would ask that you write that on the discussion tab so that it's not a red blank. I will be mentioning both articles as developing articles moving towards approval on the Notice Boards tonight. If you think one or both are ready for nomination as approved articles- please let me know and we will ask a constable to put up the nomination templates.If you think one or both are not - please indicate on the discussion page what is lacking so that author(s) can move towards approval. Is there an area that needs more work? What is it? Not trying to push you to nominate, please understand, just pushing the process so that we don't get stalled (being part border collie :)) Nancy Sculerati 09:08, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

we can nominate Part 1 and 2 of Pittsburgh history. They will both be expanded but are good now. Richard Jensen 09:16, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Titles again

Hello Richard, I notice that you created a redirection page from National Democratic Party to Gold Democrats. The problem is that this is not an exclusively American project; therefore, we must bear in mind that "National Democratic Party" is used for many other parties around the world, including ones in Germany and Nigeria (or so the Oracle of Google declares).

I'm going to finally expand our policy about titles, just for you.  :-) --Larry Sanger 10:08, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

History of the English Language

Hi Richard -- about History of the English Language, I'm not sure we'd want to drop the history workgroup -- even though, you are correct, the article here is written from a linguistic view, it certainly has implications for history. Language, like genetic material, is one of the best historical methodologies for pre-literate human history, and there are some vital overlaps. Why not ask on the History workgroup's forum? Cheers, Russell Potter 04:09, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

p.s. just checked and saw your comments in the History Workgroup. Maybe we should talk to the techhies on site and see how the wiki's search engine would handle such queries -- my guess is that anyone who typed "Massachusetts" would get the entry with that name, but typing Massachusetts with "history" or "witches" or "colonial" would produce a ranked set of matches, among which would almost certainly be all the articles (when created) that you mention. It's hard to anticipate how people will type queries, but since they're not optically looking through a print index, the "order" of such entries matters only on index pages (and there we can sort using DEFAULT:SORT of the article checklist's "abc" entry. If it's for the editors that we want all History articles sorted by keyword first, you could use the article checklist to do that.

By the way, thanks for the vote on Police History! Russell Potter 04:18, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Re: History of the English Language -- I love language history but in the division of labor it doesn't fit with the expertise or time demands of the History Workgroup. The linguists should work on it. (There are other articles I want to shed, such as the series on navy ships.) Richard Jensen 07:28, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Punic Wars?

Richard, Do you have the expertise to guide First_Punic_War to approval? It is apparently high on search lists and needs an editor. Can you either be that editor or find one? Gratefully (in advance) Nancy Sculerati 21:13, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I can handle the article. It needs more work, but seems to be moving along ok. Richard Jensen 07:33, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Redirects

Richard, I am getting concerned about article redirects being made to thwart the naming conventions decision. Please consider that page histories will be lost unless pages are moved instead of cut and pasted. If articles get moved later, the other page history will be written over. This seems a dangerous precedent. --Matt Innis (Talk) 21:20, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I hope people will not rename my articles without asking me first. Richard Jensen 21:41, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I hope that senior professionals can all be civil and an example to others as to how professional conduct on the wiki can provide a product that improves the world. Perhaps we can back off from this particular tussle, which appears to be currently a non-issue- no recent name changes in your workgroup's articles- and wage real war- as in Punic? We appear to be steadily rising in the search engines for the First Punic War- according to our tech people, and it would be great if that article was actually a good one. I don't know if it is. Do you? I'd like to showcase on the Thursday Night rundown as a developing article. Should I? Nancy Sculerati 12:11, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

I agree, let's let Dr. Jensen continue to name articles for which he's mainly (or solely) responsible as he wishes. We'll return to the issue later; we can always rename articles en masse later, when we have more stakeholders on board to make something closer to a binding decision. --Larry Sanger 12:20, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Another civil Senior Professional!! Allright!!! :) Nancy Sculerati 12:37, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

What, me, civil? Perish the thought.  :-) I did want to add, not necessarily in keeping with the finest standards of civility, that Dr. Jensen was, ahem, mistaken to refer to certain articles as "my articles." We know what he means and we give him (lots of) credit, but strictly speaking, they aren't articles owned by anyone in particular. --Larry Sanger 14:13, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Now that CZ has moved into a professional model (away from the Wiki model) then CZ has adopted professional standards of behavior which recognize and respect the "turf" that has been established. Richard Jensen 17:42, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

My belated translation,if "my" articles means History Workgroups and in that sense - and in that sense only-it is perfectly legitimate. The professional trumps others when it comes to making calls in their own profession. If there are disagreements within the profession, then that's another story. Hoping this will rest now. Nancy Sculerati 09:54, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, carry on. Sorry if I added fuel to a fire; I hope you realize that my intention was to extinguish one. Once this decision is made, please feel free to ask me to help sort it out, I might be able to work through the edit histories and put them back together. --Matt Innis (Talk) 21:28, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

yes, thanks! Richard Jensen 21:43, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

History workgroup for ships

I don't know much at all about the various workgroups. I've put 100+ Navy ship articles into CZ, and they are all in the History workgroup, based on somebody's putting one of the first ones there. Every one of them also has the History workgroup listed on the checklist on the article's Discussion page. If somebody's going to take 'em out of the History workgroup, (which I know nothing about and wouldn't question), shouldn't they also update the checklist?

BTW, back in the 1960s I was in night school in Chicago. The Newberry Library was on the route from my parking area to the school. I was always intrigued by the building, and wondered what went on inside it. Louis F. Sander 07:50, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Louis, well if you stopped by the Newberry from 1971 to 1982 you would have found me working away -- in those days I was teaching computers to historians using punch cards. I remember getting our first modem--300 baud--and it cost $250 a month. As for the ships, they belong in the military workgroup but not the history workgroup unless it was a really famous ship. We're all felling our way here. Richard Jensen 07:54, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

The original stuff about the History workgroup was HERE. Maybe you guys should feel your way together. Once again, I'll let workgroup decisions to people in those workgroups, but if somebody's going to change one, I'm thinking that it's up to them to maintain sync between the workgroups cited in the article and those cited in the checklist.

I passed the Newberry Library between 1965 and 1967, when I was at the U. of Chicago business school, which had a building across the street from the then-under-construction John Hancock building. I, too, was involved in computer programs using punched cards. We had one or two courses that used FORTRAN in that mode. Louis F. Sander 08:06, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Richard - I've finished posting my articles on ships, and I will no longer put any of my old-time Navy stuff into the History Workgroup. I left the last few ships in it, because I didn't want to change my protocol before I had finished the list. Regards, Louis F. Sander 15:39, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Recent edit

Hi. I saw that you removed History Workgroup from Tecum Umam with the reason that it is "not quite historical enough." I understand the need to depopulate the History Workgroup category somewhat, given the enormous number of articles that could conceivably fit in, but I wonder if this one in particular should stay.

There is very little that is actually known about Tecum Umam, but he is generally considered a very prominent figure in Guatemalan history. An important part of the article concerns the historical reality of Tecum Umam as a person. Though we can't lay out the history in solid terms, I think the debate ought to put the article in the History Workgroup.

I'm not going to change it back yet, but I'd like to here your thoughts. --Joe Quick (Talk) 18:15, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

It is a good article and appears to belong to the realm of folklore/anthropology. That is a large and respected field that has experts who can handle it. It is, in my opinion, not the kind of article for which the expertise of CZ's historians can assist very much. The article indicates the historical evidence is extremely thin--one vague reference. I have been removing lots of articles from the History Workgroup which deal with the past, but that are not sufficiently historiographical in approach that we historians can assist with. The situation is fairly common in religious studies, where holy figures about whom very little is known loom quite large because of the impact of their relation to God (rather than their part in historical events.) Historians turn those topics over to Religious studies folks. Richard Jensen 19:28, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for the reply. --Joe Quick (Talk) 19:46, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Great Britton and the UK

I noticed your recent addition the the article United Kingdom and related redirects and disambiguation pages. I'd just like to observe that the term 'Great Briton' is not synonymous with 'United Kingdom' as discussed at length on the talk page Talk:United_Kingdom. Derek Harkness 20:40, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

I realize the terms are not synonyms. I tried to sort out the questions of usage. Richard Jensen 22:16, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Frederick Porter Wensley

Richard, I do not understand what you mean by "not historical enough." The article is still developing, and surely it's too soon to orphan it out of History (I don't think Law will know what to do with it). It's also one of a series of entries I'd written as part of a group on Police History, which you'd said on the History Workgroup talk page was a great idea. If you could at least comment on the article's Talk page, I'd appreciate it. Russell Potter 02:48, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Russell--it can go in a police history workgroup. But CZ needs to start big, I think. An overview of Scotland Yard for example. Richard Jensen 08:46, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Richard, that's on its way -- I have a start at Scotland Yard, with more to come; I've worked with several researchers in this area, including some retired officers of the Metropolitan Police, one of whom helped assemble the Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard published a few years ago, so my aim is for an accurate, in-depth main entry with links to sub-entries for major divisions and/or historical events, e.g. Special Branch, the Flying Squad, and the Crippen case. The subsidiary articles will all link to the main entry, at least to that degree they won't be oprhaned. Russell Potter 10:53, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Ok That makes sense now! Richard Jensen 12:31, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

I posted a query to the forums about this -- rather as I thought, Larry replied that the consensus view is not to create any sub-groups for now, and to regard group tags as 'inclusionary' rather than 'exclusionary' -- so I've re-tagged Frederick Porter Wensley for the History workgroup. My post and his reply are here. Cheers, Russell Potter 09:34, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Robert A. Taft

Hey, I just added his portrait from Congress (on the Robert A. Taft article). Nice work on conservative-related articles! Yi Zhe Wu 12:02, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

thanks--good photo. Richard Jensen 12:38, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

History workgroup talk page

The recent discussions about naming articles and on categorising ships took place on this page CZ:History_Workgroup but should really have been done on the talk page at CZ_Talk:History_Workgroup instead. Seems everyone got confused as to the difference between wiki pages and talk pages. I'll move the conversation over to the correct page tomorrow unless you say otherwise. Derek Harkness 12:18, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Derek, fine with me. By the by, while I have you on the line here, I have question about whether, and how, we might set up smaller working areas within certain workgroups -- could we create a subdirectory? could the current workgroup category tags include a link to it? The discussion on this issue took place on Talk:Frederick Porter Wensley. By the by, we do know the difference between wiki and article talk, but there is a tendency, I suppose, to contact fellow editors directly; not every question turns into a relevant policy discussion. Cheers, Russell Potter 12:33, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

You didn't have me online, I said 'tomorrow' cause I was just heading for bed at silly o'clock in the morning. Here in lies the problem with being on the opposite side of the world. With respect to subgroups, I think we will need them. History workgroup is just going to be unmanageably big without them. Similar things were discussed a long time ago at Biology. See the Biology forum discussion; though without conclusion. Larry has stated in the past that he doesn't want categories. There is an entire section in the forums devoted to this issue. I suggest you look at this forum page to see what Larry has planed.

In the mean time, while we wait for the sub workgroup/categorization issue to be resolved, I suggest we make use of Larry's suggestion to build Catalogs. These Catalogs will help us track articles on a given subject while at the same time being a useful tool for users to read, research and navigate the site. An example of a suitable Catalog for the history workgroup could be a Royal family tree or a time line such as that see at in Chinese history| Dynasties in Chinese history at wikipedia. Derek Harkness 01:49, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Economic recovery?

During George W. Bush's administration (right now) America is experiencing one of the worst economic downturn, how is the "economic recovery" going on? Yi Zhe Wu 17:43, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

look at the unemployment data and GDP data. [2] Richard Jensen 18:24, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Arthur S. Link

Just been doing a bit of the big cleanup and got allocated your article on Arthur S. Link. I noticed it's almost identical to a wikipedia article of the same name. I was about to stick a speedydelete template on it when I realised it looks like your name in the history of both wikipedia and CZ. To avoid problems, I suggest to add a comment to the discussion page at Talk:Arthur S. Link stating that you are the author of both. If there are any other pages you have authored on both sites then be sure to comment on the other talk pages too lest someone delete them in error. Derek Harkness 06:03, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Derek, yes I wrote the Wiki and will note that on Talk. Richard Jensen 07:36, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Illustrations

Thank you for pointing that out, some of the photos are indeed too dark. However, I tried to click the "use external editor" button but it doesn't seem to work (it downloaded a blank file). Do you know how to use it? Thanks! Yi Zhe Wu 11:53, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

That did not work for me either. I use a photoeditor--paste into it, dixup and save as JPG. Richard Jensen 12:03, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I'll probably lighten up those images this afternoon or in these two or three days. Yi Zhe Wu 12:21, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Hey Richard Jensen, I increased the brightness of three pictures: Image:StephenDouglas.jpg (Stephen Douglas), Image:Calvincoolidge.jpg (Calvin Coolidge), and Image:Warrenharding.jpg (Warren G. Harding). Please take a look and if they are not as good as before, feel free to revert back. Thanks! Yi Zhe Wu 13:03, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Great!Richard Jensen 14:27, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Military Workgroup

Hi Richard. Why are you removing [[Category:Military Workgroup]] from some of the Navy ship articles? Is this a mistake? Or why remove that workgroup from them? That's their rightful "home", is it not? Stephen Ewen 04:38, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

oops that was a mistake. I am painfully erasing the ships one by one from the History workgroup. In my opinion they should NOT be in the Military workgroup either, because there is nothing to edit or improve. They are data dumps on ships that have a VERY small interested public and there is nothing really to add to their entries. Richard Jensen 06:57, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Richard, there are many people interested in those ships, and-in a sense- a data dump, if its well written, is just fine for an on-line encyclopedia, when you want to know something-like that ship that your grandfather served on, it's there. Unlike a print book, after all, its presence does not mean something else was omitted. Lets encourage our hardworking authors, please.I personally enjoy those articles and am impressed at the amount of work that has gone into them. (Aunt of a navy enlisted man) If you would like help in removing the History Workgroup tags, I'll help you. Nancy Sculerati 07:17, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

In my opinion the material does not belong in Citizendium. They do NOT mention any people--not even the skippers and EOs, nor any notable incidents. Richard Jensen 07:24, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I do not appreciate your opinion that my work does not belong in Citizendium. Louis F. Sander 07:55, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Sorry about that. It appears all the info was merely copied and was already easily available to anyone interested. Richard Jensen 08:32, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

There are obvious and numerous wikilinks, photos, summary tables, external links to multiple sources, etc. "Merely copied," indeed. Louis F. Sander 08:47, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

lots of work but that does not make it encyclopedic. Anybody can post anything in Wiki, but CZ is based on expert judgment about what is valuable to users. Richard Jensen 09:02, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I disagree with your view stated here, Prof. Jensen. The material belongs in CZ if for no other reason than that people researching ships will find it useful. The claim that it is "already easily available to anyone interested" can also be said of many other strictly factual articles. Whether or not a piece of information is easily available elsewhere does not mean that we should not include it.

To say, here, that "CZ is based on expert judgment about what is valuable to users," appears to imply that it is the role of CZ's expert editors to remove information that they regard as worthless. If we are to understand that information about ships is an example of worthless information, then I disagree with this claim entirely. We will be including a great deal of information that some experts regard as worthless--but which some other experts and non-experts prize greatly. My own view is that we should record facts that are of interest to any significant section of the populace, as long as we can maintain the information.

Again, we will not place on CZ certain space and organizational constraints that have traditionally been imposed on general encyclopedias by the fact that they are published in printed volumes. Indeed, these articles would be inappropriate for Britannica, but we will, in time, be much, much larger--and more useful--than Britannica.

Personally, I have been enjoying Mr. Sander's contributions, and I am grateful to him for his work, as of course I am to you for yours. --Larry Sanger 12:56, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I gave my personal opinion and I will stick with it. I was not recommending the articles be erased from CZ--rather their listing was messing up the history workgroup and I had to manually remove each one by hand. That was a pain. Richard Jensen 13:03, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

May 1 - Is it Approval time for the two Pittsburgh Articles?

Richard. please contact a constable or myself today to initiate approval for the Pittsburgh articles. Please give them the proper links for approval. Nancy Sculerati 07:12, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I got Nancy's message and performed the mechanics of the Approval - Congratulations! Please note that I was not able to combine the discussion histories of the two talk pages, but I did copy the text of the discussions. I don't think it should be that much of a problem for these articles, but if it is that important, let me know and maybe there is something that the computer experts can do. It's good to see this one finished! Contact Tom Cool! --Matt Innis (Talk) 11:03, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

De-tagging Minik Wallace

Richard, please do not remove the History tag from an entry without at least some discussion. My understanding from Larry is that the tags are meant to be inclusive, not exclusive -- that is, if an entry may possibly be of interest to some persons in a workgroup. there is every reason to have it tagged; this just brings more potential editorial and authorial eyes to bear on the entry, which will only lead to its improvement. A tag is not a seal of approval or a mark of ownership, and I think it's better to err on the side of keeping a tag; it's not as though the tag takes up space or somehow intrudes. Russell Potter 13:36, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

the topic in question belongs to anthropology. We have only a limited number of history editors and I have looked at the specialties each one has; it is unwise to spread them too thin. It is NOT true that everything before Jan 1, 2007 should be tagged as "history"  :) Richard Jensen 13:39, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I beg to differ. I do not believe that all "old events" are history, of course! But I also do not think that the Workgroups themselves need function like academic departments, only taking on articles (rather like taking on graduate students) in the specialities of the existing members. As new Authors and Editors enter each of the Workgroups, the potential areas of their interest will surely expand; by de-tagging the entry, you remove it from the list of potential entries of interest, and that makes it less likely that a newcomer will learn of its existence. And, while I'm an Editor in Literature, I'm also an Author in History, so at least one person in the Workgroup is eager to keep working on this entry! Russell Potter 13:48, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I think we need to see the big picture here. I would hope that in the future there will be more than enough editors in all workgroups. IMO, the removal of a tag should not be because there is no editor available to monitor the article. I see nothing wrong in having multiple groups being tagged to articles. A good example is the wheat article since it is in both agriculture and biology workgroups. It is an approved article despite CZ having no editors in the agriculture workgroup, so a lack of editorial input from one workgroup, does not preclude the article moving forward. In addition, I think the tags serve an important reference, beyond their role for editorial oversight, for cataloging the CZ articles. Chris Day (talk) 13:55, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

The small cadre of history editors are best utilized by looking at a limited list of articles that they can deal with, rather than an endless list of articles that are better dealt with by other workgroups. In this case the anthropology editors are much better able to help than the history editors because the topic is mainline in anthropology but not in history. A person who is expert in both disciplines should sign up for both workgroups and will not miss the article. Richard Jensen 13:57, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

The argument of whether this is history or not is obviously an important issue. But your argument appears to be you don't want to spread the history editors too thin. The latter argument makes little sense in this embryonic project. Clearly we are all spread too thin. The critical issue is whether it is history or not. That should probably be the basis of a discussion thread on the forum. Chris Day (talk) 14:01, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Yes, let's continue there ... Chris, could you start a thread and move what we have here to there? Thanks, Russell Potter 14:02, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Oh, folks, interdisciplinarity is good, good, very, very good. Stephen Ewen 14:04, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

People good at several disciplines can and do join the appropriate workgroups. No problem at all. Why ask twice as many people to look at the article? That is surely wasting scarce resources. Richard Jensen 14:11, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Again, I'd say, you're not asking twice as many people to look at it, you're letting twice as many people know it exists who might want to look at it. As a person with an interdisciplinary background, I would second Stephen's sentiment that interdisciplinarity is a very good thing -- and if we regard Workgroup tags as exclusive, and try to limit them to the fields of the so-far existing Workgroup editors, Citizendium will be much the poorer for it. Russell Potter 14:15, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

FYI, i started a thread on the forums with the beginning of this discussion from above. http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,885.0.html Chris Day (talk) 14:18, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Yes, we are asking editors to look at the articles in the workgroup. Anyone who wants to look at those in anthropology or biology or whatever can do so right now without making a detour thru history workgroup. There is no issue of "interdisciplinary" here. The Anthro departments actually have thousands of books, articles and courses that deal with how anthropologists relate to their subjects, so they can deal with this issue. Historians have books on Teddy Roosevelt. Richard Jensen 14:20, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I will leave it to you (all) to decide whether the article should be included in the History Workgroup, but I do want to observe that what belongs in any given workgroup is not to be determined by the resources a workgroup currently has available. This is because it is not hard to find new editors for a given group, if we work at it, and we can expect all groups to expand greatly in the coming months.

All, if you believe there is still some question about the workgroup assignment for an article, please make sure (in the Article Checklist) cat_check = y. These matters are still fluid, because we do not have a Workgroup Committee, and we badly need to outline the purview of each workgroup (something that committee needs to work out). That will be one of the first creations of the Editorial Council, however. --Larry Sanger 14:36, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Cartoon

Sure, I'm glad to help. However, due to busy school work, I can only upload one picture per a couple days, so if you don't mind slowness I'll help inserting them. Yi Zhe Wu 21:10, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

If you'd like to send them, you can send through email attachment, but don't send all the bulk at one time, to prevent space shortage. Thanks!

P.S. nice and funny cartoon on Herbert Hoover :-). -Yi Zhe Wu 22:42, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

send me your email to rjensen@uic.edu Richard Jensen 02:27, 3 May 2007 (CDT)

No Irish discrimination?

Hey Professor Jensen, did you write this article? What we learned in US history class is that Irish immigrants was indeed discriminated against. Why would they make it up? Yi Zhe Wu 19:40, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Hmm, reading over the entry you mention, it doesn't seem to me to say that Irish immigrants weren't discriminated against, but rather that the ostensibly ubiquitous sign "No Irish Need Apply" is more a thing of mythology and folksong. Of course, specific evidence about discrimination at these early dates may simply be hard to come by! Russell Potter 20:20, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Please let's not call people to task on the wiki for opinions they express elsewhere. It's "off topic." --Larry Sanger 23:43, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Sorry Larry, I shouldn't have posted it. Yi Zhe Wu 23:47, 5 May 2007 (CDT)