User talk:Richard Jensen

Richard Jensen

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3

Enquiry about Time Magazine Cover

Hi Richard,

Acting in the capacity of Constabulary member here.

Have you obtained permission to use the Obama-Cinton Newsweek Time Cover? --Thomas Simmons 18:39, 18 February 2008 (CST)

It's Time, and yes they give blanket fair use approval for small copies at [1]. Richard Jensen 18:55, 18 February 2008 (CST)

I must be slow tonight, but I've read the Time website twice now and I can't see where they give blanket permission for anything at all. Quite the contrary. Could you maybe find their permission phrase and copy it into this discussion? Thanks! Hayford Peirce 19:17, 18 February 2008 (CST)

sure: they say "Except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law, you may not copy, redistribute, publish, display or commercially exploit any material from the Time Inc. Sites without the express permission of Time Inc. and the copyright owner." Our fair use is expressly permitted under copyright law; see our Fair use article. Richard Jensen 19:22, 18 February 2008 (CST)

So, you have the part that says you are expressly permitted? Where is that then? Your link is to a CZ article.--Thomas Simmons 17:57, 19 February 2008 (CST)

This is section 3 B from your link to [2] pathfinder.com: You may not modify, publish, transmit, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit the content of the Time Inc. Sites or any portion of it. Except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law, you may not copy, redistribute, publish, display or commercially exploit any material from the Time Inc. Sites without the express permission of Time Inc. and the copyright owner. In the event of any permitted copying, redistribution or publication of material from the Time Inc. Sites, no changes in or deletion of author attribution, trademark, legend or copyright notice shall be made. You acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights by downloading copyrighted material. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you agree that any text, photo, graphic, audio, and/or video on the Time Inc. Sites owned by the Associated Press ("AP") shall not be broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any media.

Looks fairly clear to me. This section is saying that it can not be posted here. --Thomas Simmons 18:04, 19 February 2008 (CST)

No, it says it that it can not be posted here unless the fair use law allows it, which it does. How else can you read the key line "Except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law"? I read it as fair use law applies. Richard Jensen 19:56, 19 February 2008 (CST)

Hello Richard,

At the moment our mutual understanding of "fair use" is vague enough that it would be prudent to abstain from using this. We do need to clarify the use here as "Fair use" in accordance with the wishes of the copyright holder. You might even drop them a note to ask specifically. The copyright box that accompanies the cover is filled in with "blah blah blah" and that is not really possible to explain as an attempt at complying with the pertinent laws either. We are concerned with being very sure that the wishes of the copyright holder are not contradicted by use here in any way.--Thomas Simmons 05:36, 21 February 2008 (CST)

we agree CZ needs to settle its fair use rules, for which discussion is underway. I closely followed the draft proposals at [3] which explictly allows use of magazine covers. Under fair use the wishes of the copyright holder do NOT matter and the fair-users (CZ) do NOT ask permission for exercise of their rights. (See Chicago Manuial of Stle 15ed pp 137-8) The blah-blah actually is CZ boilerplate-to-be-added; it was generated by the CZ upload-file process, not by me.Richard Jensen 10:02, 21 February 2008 (CST)

• POINT 1: The CZ draft proposal has no legal impact on the owners of the Time cover. In fact, nothing decided here--and nothing has been decided yet--has any legally binding impact on the owners. It is to simply guide us here at CZ and it is a draft. In other words, our fair use policy understanding does not allow us to do anything if it contradicts the meaning of fair use in the eyes of the owner. As yet no one here has asked the owners of the Time cover if we have interpreted their statement correctly.
• POINT 2: It very much matters what they wish. They own it.
• POINT 3: The boiler plate is supposed to be filled in by the person who uploads the file at the time it is uploaded. If you up-loaded the file it is your responsibility to fill in the pertinent blanks. Blaming the 'blah blahs' on a software programme is counterproductive and just plain nonsense. The person up-loading must do it.

--Thomas Simmons 18:04, 21 February 2008 (CST)

point 1 is irrelevant and 2 is simply wrong regarding federal law (and contradicts what TIME says regarding fair use). Fair use means we have a right to use it. Look at Fair use and [4]. I suggest you write TIME. Richard Jensen 18:11, 21 February 2008 (CST)

POINT 1 is hardly irrelevant. CZ does not adjudicate copyright law. Whatever the owner wishes is sufficient reason to endow them the motivation to seek legal redress if they perceive anything has been been used inappropriately. The attitude that their wishes are without relevance is quite simply irresponsible.

POINT 2 makes it clear that the meaning of fair use is hardly iron-clad and incapable of being read more than one way. That is why there are lawsuits over the use of copyrighted materials. The fair use statement that accompanies the publication in question is NOT clear. Their purpose and their understanding are of absolute concern here.

POINT 3 is strictly the responsibility of the person who uploads the file. I did not upload the file. In my capacity as constable I have drawn your attention to our concerns and obligations. What I see here now is a user telling CZ that the person who uploads a file has no obligation to provide the required information for such a file. --Thomas Simmons 18:25, 21 February 2008 (CST)

what is your interpretation of Time's line: Except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law ? I think our dispute hangs on your reading of this statment. Point 3 is a trivial matter and not a constable issue. My claim is fair use but CZ software which says so is not finished yet; I did furnish the fair use info and the CZ software is at fault, not me.Richard Jensen 18:49, 21 February 2008 (CST)

You're cleaned up

I moved everything to your Archive 2. --D. Matt Innis 21:42, 7 January 2008 (CST)

"Analysis" re:John Edwards

Richard; if it is indeed an analysis then I would recommend backing up this "analysis" with evidence that supports the conclusions rather than just blindly reinstating hyperbole. --Robert W King 10:01, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Robert, please read the Talk page and the many citations given there. Do you argue that Edwards did NOT change style since 2000??? If so you are defying the experts and you need to find an expert that backs your theory. Richard Jensen 10:20, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Reapproval of Nathanael Greene

The Nathanael Greene article has undergone a fair share of updates since it was approved, mostly spelling and grammar. I'd like to see the cleaned up version get approved if you're up to it. Thanks --Todd Coles 22:08, 8 January 2008 (CST)

yes it's OK by me, but I don't know what the re-approval procedure is? what do we do? Richard Jensen 23:04, 8 January 2008 (CST)

The re-approval procedure is exactly the same as the approval process. --D. Matt Innis 23:07, 8 January 2008 (CST)

well not quite. the new draft page says it is "Approved article: approved by editor(s) according to our process" when the new draft in fact is not yet approved. Richard Jensen 23:20, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Hehe, the policy is the same, but obviously the procedure changes, hmmm. I'll follow up on your try and we'll write it as we go. --D. Matt Innis 23:28, 8 January 2008 (CST)

I think this worked [5]. I just filled out the ToA section of the metadata page but make sure to keep the status at 0 so the template remains green. I think it works. --D. Matt Innis 23:42, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Richard, there have been several edits to Nathanael Greene since the approved version. Do you want me to add those edits to the approved version? --D. Matt Innis 22:49, 14 January 2008 (CST)

sure go ahead. Richard Jensen 22:58, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Civil

Insults or personal attacks, on talk pages or other open forums, that are relatively mild, but which are still objectionable on grounds that they aggressively impugn the moral character, or personal or professional credibility, of a project member. It does not matter whether these attacks are made using Citizendium resources or other resources. --D. Matt Innis 23:25, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Party! You're invited!

Hi Richard — Your neighbourhood Mistress of Ceremonies here. Don’t forget to come on over to the party and sign in at one of the categories! Aleta Curry 16:31, 9 January 2008 (CST) say ‘hi’ to me here.

Pittsburgh articles

Hi Richard, we were updating the subpages on the article that were approved before subpages were developed by moving the bibliographies. I think you like to leave some on the main article. Would you take a look and see which ones you want to keep and which ones can be deleted? All of them have already been moved to the bibliography page by Todd. --D. Matt Innis 22:21, 14 January 2008 (CST)

thanks for the tip. I did as suggested and also dropped lots of red links from Wikipedia. Richard Jensen 22:46, 14 January 2008 (CST)

There are a couple of notes that seem to be missing their 'note' [6]. --D. Matt Innis 22:59, 14 January 2008 (CST) and here [7] --D. Matt Innis 23:03, 14 January 2008 (CST)

The notes seem to be in random order. that's crazy. How can we make them go 1-2-3-4 ?? Richard Jensen 23:06, 14 January 2008 (CST)

I'm not sure about the 1-2-3-4, but it looks like there was probably some text that was deleted that contained the first reference for this one <ref name="Lorant"/>. Maybe that is messing them all up. --D. Matt Innis 23:22, 14 January 2008 (CST)

there are lots of problems with the footnotes. minor ones (no italics) & missing page numers. Almost all the references to popular sources like Lorant are not needed. So I will trim them down and try to leave those that might actually be useful to a person writing a paper. Richard Jensen 23:26, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Since those would only be copyedit changes, when your done, just put it up for re-approval for say one day and then we might as well get the whole thing moved to the Approved version. Just go to the metadata page and put your name under the ToA editor and that should do it... I hope :-) --D. Matt Innis 23:30, 14 January 2008 (CST)

OK I will try. :) Richard Jensen 23:32, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Remember, just copyedits changes, otherwise we would need three editors!!! --D. Matt Innis 23:33, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Right, I am just doing minor changes to text (and adding a few items to bibliog). I wish you could do that approval magic for me. I keep screwing it up. :( Richard Jensen 23:35, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Richard, I found the references for those that were missing. When we split the article, we forgot about bringing over the first reference... I have no idea how it made it through approval. I'll put the approval tag on the two articles for one day. Just let me know if you need more time. --D. Matt Innis 19:04, 15 January 2008 (CST)

I dropped all the unnecessary references to well-known facts that came from popular sources (like EB 1911, and Lorant pop history), and keep the more recondite ones that might prove useful.Richard Jensen 19:22, 15 January 2008 (CST)

Re-approved! That was the long way around, but I think it was the right way to do it. Thanks for your help. --D. Matt Innis 21:22, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks again. isn't there a button we can click to automate the process? Richard Jensen 22:10, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks!

Thank you for the compliment on education sections. Yi Zhe Wu 11:29, 21 January 2008 (CST)

Euclid and Euclid's elements

Hi Richard, I wrote about Euclid and Euclid's elements. I'm finished so far. Maybe you like to add some more historical perspective to it? --Paul Wormer 09:20, 24 January 2008 (CST)

you know, I fell in love with Euclid in 1956. I wonder what's new. :) Richard Jensen 10:02, 24 January 2008 (CST)

Does that mean you'll write some?--Paul Wormer 10:53, 24 January 2008 (CST)

yes. Richard Jensen 13:37, 24 January 2008 (CST)

Countries - HIstory Workgroup?

Hi Richard-quick question - Should countries be automatically placed in the History Workgroup. I've noticed some are, some are not. I'll go ahead and start adding; please advise if I shouldn't. Aleta Curry 19:04, 25 January 2008 (CST)

On second thought, maybe I'll just note the ones I've noticed, since that involves changing the Metadata and then changing it back again if wrong. Ireland, Pakistan, Uganda Aleta Curry 19:18, 25 January 2008 (CST)

yes, all counties will get a long history section (eventually...I usually start with a historical bibliography). Richard Jensen 20:12, 25 January 2008 (CST)

I think Aleta was asking about workgroup tags rather than article content. While country articles will have a history section, they will so have political, economical and other sections applicable to other workgroups. I don't think we need to tag countries to every possible workgroup. I would not tag country articles like Poland to the history workgroup, even though the article contains a history section (actually it doesn't have a history section). However, I would tag articles like Poland, history to the history workgroup as they are exclusively about history. If we tagged every article that contained a history section to the history workgroup then I would suspect that every article on CZ would be tagged to history.

On a side point. Why Poland, history and not Polish history or Poland's history? I noticed in the core articles list for history that counties are all listed in a adjective form rather than using a comma. Derek Harkness 22:27, 25 January 2008 (CST)

I think we should presume taht every country will have a History section as a main component and thus should be tagged. (Once the section is big enough as in Poland it can be spun off and the tag dropped). The point of the tags is to alert history authors that the article is ready for their input. As for naming conventions, it's simpler and more elegant to use the Poland, history format for every country. People will then know immediately where to look. Richard Jensen 22:33, 25 January 2008 (CST)

Yes, Derek is correct, I was asking about the tags, not about the content.

Richard's executive decision is that all countries should be tagged in the History Workgroup, so I'll do that for the ones I find that don't have the History tag, and going forward.

Here's my side point (as long as we're at it). Why should we have Poland, history History of Poland, Polish history etc etc at all? Why is not HISTORY a subpage of the Poland cluster?

Since we have this beautiful system, why not use it to full advantage, and do we have to talk to Chris about setting this up?

Aleta Curry 19:33, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Subpages don't work that way. They are not sudo-categories under which a range of themed articles can be kept. Subpages are for other forms of content which support or add to the article. They are not for sections of an article.

Richard, would you also want cities and towns tagged to the history workgroup? Derek Harkness 02:28, 27 January 2008 (CST)

On cities and towns: some have a major historical importance -- especially capital cities, cultural centers and key places like New York, Florence, Montreal, Kyoto, Shanghai, etc and should get tagged. See Beijing. for most places the history should not be tagged.

California

When I was writing the education section in the California entry, I found that they have a decent amount of top colleges but ranks low in education. Can you explain the cause of this apparent contradiction? Thanks! Yi Zhe Wu 12:24, 26 January 2008 (CST)

good question,. it is a notorious paradox: at the top the university of California system is by far the best in the world. In recent years they have cut back $ on K12 schools. Richard Jensen 16:27, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Ha! So does that mean in ten years the California universities will no longer be the best in the world, or they'll be the best in the world but all full of foreign students? Aleta Curry 19:36, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Hehe, no, they're just all from the east coast :-) --D. Matt Innis 19:59, 26 January 2008 (CST)

My niece was valedictorian at Berkeley about 7 or 8 years ago, which I thought was terrific. Later I discovered that Berkeley has 10 or 15 valedictorians every year, spreading them out over a range of different fields. Being an old geezer, I'd never heard of that before. Maybe most big U's do it that way these days?Hayford Peirce 20:51, 26 January 2008 (CST)

California's UC system (ie the PhD schools, Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Irvine, Santa Barbara, Davis, Santa Cruz) will remain the best in the world. 40-50% of the undergraduates are Chinese-American....they attended the mediocre California public schools but took a lot of supplementary help. (They are the offspring of recent, post 1965 immigrants from Chinese lands). The grad students come from worldwide. (My daughter just applied to the PhD program at UCLA so we do follow that story.) (Note that the California State Colleges are a different system and not nearly as good; they do not award PhDs).Richard Jensen 23:11, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Canada

With pleasure. I certainly shall, in the evenings when I have time. And I saw the big bibliography that you had created for PEI -- great. Frankly, what got me re-interested in Citizendium was an article I had created on the Hochelaga Archipelago -- importing it from what I'd done on Wikipedia. I did a Google search for Hochelaga Archipelago and saw that it had suddenly popped up to 4th, right on the first page of Google results. I was so amazed I was going to write Larry sanger about it. It showed, to me, that with enough linkage, Citizendium can start registering on Google, which I believe is vital. cheers, Shawn Goldwater 10:50, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Election formatting

Let me know on the election talk page if you think everything is ok. --Robert W King 18:42, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Martin Luther

Excellent article. Jonathan Beshears 01:53, 1 February 2008 (CST)

hey, thanks! Richard Jensen 03:31, 1 February 2008 (CST)

Scotland bibliography

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm trying to figure out what to do with the works of Walter Scott and especially John Prebble. I think a selection of their works belongs in the bibliography, but where to put them? A new section or two, probably, but what to call it? Scott wrote historical fiction. Prebble? Not quite in the same category as Tom Devine, but still more serious as history than Walter Scott.

James F. Perry 10:39, 5 February 2008 (CST)

Scott belongs in a separate article on Scottish literature, as does Prebble. My wife is a Campbell and I hear about Culloden and Glencoe etc all the time but I don't think Prebble "makes the cut" as a scholar in the company of the authors who are now recommended. One solution: in the main text of the Scotland, history article mention his work in a footnote to Culloden & Glencoe. Richard Jensen 11:40, 5 February 2008 (CST)

I started a literature section in the Scotland Bibliography subpage. Sorry about that move to the Canadian Bibliography page. I was going to transfer the references from the main article to the subpage, so I created the subpage, then when I went to the main article, I saw it referred to Canada, History, Bibliography and I couldn't just move (rename) that page because the target was not empty. So I copied it over to the subpage. Problem is that doesn't transfer the edit history showing that you were the compiler. Don't know what to do about it now. James F. Perry 16:04, 5 February 2008 (CST)

Your input is needed

Hi Richard,

You might want to pop your head into this proposal; http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Proposals/Should_history_articles_be_named_with_general_terms_first%3FDenis Cavanagh 08:59, 15 February 2008 (CST)

Naval guns

Hey, great article! I did all the checklist mumbo-jumbo stuff on it for you; I also moved the bibliography to the /biblio sub-page, and since it was getting lengthy divided it up into books and articles (hope that's OK - if you don't like doing it that way, apologies). I had some editorial comments on the article - I'll post them on the Talk: page when I get a chance. J. Noel Chiappa 13:01, 26 February 2008 (CST)

hey thanks! Richard Jensen 16:13, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Sure. If you don't have access to the Hodges book, let me know if I can look anything up in it for you - it's a beaut.

Also, I checklisted Proximity fuse for you too; dunno if you have any others needing doing, but unless you want specific notice, I'll just do the rest quietly. J. Noel Chiappa 18:54, 26 February 2008 (CST)

thanks again. no need to notify me. I think we need illustrations (public domain) for guns and fuzes. Richard Jensen 19:36, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Walter Reuther

Does the phrase "fellow traveller" have a specific meaning in the opening of the Walter Reuther article? If so, maybe it should be linked. I get the feeling that I'm just not understanding the sentence, though... --Joe Quick 15:54, 1 March 2008 (CST)

yes, a "fellow traveler" is US political history is a person who deliberately collaborated with organized Communists in support of their objectives. Thus we say, to paraphrase, At first Reuther was a fellow traveller who worked closely with the Communists in the mid 1930s, then he changed and became an opponent of the Communists.Richard Jensen 17:17, 1 March 2008 (CST)

Okay, thanks. I'm going to wikilink it in order to signal to the reader that it's something particular and not just a bizarre way to phrase something else. --Joe Quick 13:36, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Led Zeppelin

Richard, I just want to thank you for voting for Led Zeppelin in the Draft of the Week. I never expected anyone to vote for it but I do appreciate it :) Thanks! Meg Ireland 17:07, 4 March 2008 (CST)

my pleasure to support an excellent artcile. Keep up the good work. Richard Jensen 17:24, 6 March 2008 (CST)

timeline template

Richard-

Would you mind testing out a timeline template I've created? It comes in two parts: {{Timeline}} to establish the timeline field, and {{TLevent}} to add timeline events. You can even change the colors and widths and stuff. Let me know if you come across any issues. --Robert W King 17:03, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

I like timelines and will give it a try. thanks. Richard Jensen 18:09, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Cut-and-paste move?

Hi, it looks like you did a cut-and-paste move of The Crusades to Crusades. Was there a particular reason? (Because doing it that way divorces the content from its history, which is not good for copyright reasons... we lose track of who contributed what.) J. Noel Chiappa 17:36, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

the people working on the article agreed that it was better as "Crusades" than "The crusades"--CZ policy is to avoice "The XYZ" in favor of "XYZ", and the history is all there at the latter article.Richard Jensen 17:54, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

I don't think Noel is arguing about the rationale, rather it would be better to do a page move rather than a cut n' paste move. I'll fix it so the history is kept intact. Chris Day (talk) 18:01, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Given how few edits there are in the old history it's probably moot in this case. I'll leave everything as is. Chris Day (talk) 18:03, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes, exactly - I agree with the name change, it was just the cut-and-paste I was questioning. J. Noel Chiappa 18:07, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Input requested re Naming Convention policy proposal

There's been a significant suggestion for a change to the proposed policy. Please look at CZ:Proposals/Naming Conventions for Biographies#Poll regarding suggested change and respond there. Anthony Argyriou 14:09, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Some stuff for you

Hi, hope I didn't irritate you with my concern about the bifurcated article history at Crusades. Just one of my pet peeves, I guess.

Anyway, by way of something to compensate, I made time to review Naval guns as I had said I would. I have produced some lengthy comments, which you can find at Talk:Naval guns; I hope they are useful (and welcome).

Also, I have most of the books in my personal library in a database, and it's easy to cut-and-paste entries here. I have a couple of good Crusades sources which I don't think you list yet, like:

• Hans Eberhard Mayer, (translated John Gillingham), "The Crusades", Oxford University, 1972
• Francesco Gabrieli, (translated E. J. Costello), "Arab Historians of the Crusades", Barnes and Noble, New York, 1993
• Carole Hillenbrand, "The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives", Routledge, Florence, 2000
• Bernard Hamilton, "The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kindom of Jerusalem", Cambridge University, New York, 2000
• Stanley Lane-Poole, "Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem", Khayats, Beirut, 1964

I also have a large number of others on my 'buy some day' list. Would you like me to add these to the article (most would go in the "Specialized studies" section), or should I just list them on the talk page, and you can decide what to do with them? J. Noel Chiappa 21:36, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Noel thanks for the Crusade bibl--why don't you add them. I'm of the opinion students will love our bibliographies! (I make a point of linking to Amazon.com when that site has the "search here" feature.) I'll look at the naval guns matgerials now.Richard Jensen 22:39, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Hi, finally got a chance to respond to you (I knew it was going to be at length, and I wanted a good block of time to do it justice). I'll do the Crusades books in a bit; I have done some research in the naval weapons area, and I want to jot down my research notes at Talk:Naval guns before I forget it all!

Actually, like you, I'm much better read on the 1914-1945 period (I've been an avid reader of military history since I got into WWII as a kid, and since high-school have branched out into history in general - if you count biographies as history, about 1/3 of my 20K volume personal library is history). However, as an engineer I'm also interested in technology, and I have some books that cover the weapons themselves, not just the action, and those do give me some insight into the earlier development.

Anyway, off to dump a load of data at T:Ng! J. Noel Chiappa 09:23, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

GREAT material. please work it in. :) Richard Jensen 12:51, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

Umm, was that directed at me, or Denis? J. Noel Chiappa 14:45, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

That was encouragement for Noel to blast away on those big naval guns. Richard Jensen 16:19, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

RE: Your Bibliographies

Richard,

I just wanted to say that your impressive Bibliography lists have been invaluable to me this year. The standard bibliography the department gives us at the start of the year always ensures those books are exhausted from the Library by the (usually late) time I get to the Library to do some work for essays and such. One good example I found is an Encyclopedia of the American West, which I've spent most of the last two weeks reading, which I found on one of your bibliographies. Just thought I'd let you know that your policy of adding big bibliographies have been unspeakably invaluable in helping me get some work done. Regards Denis Cavanagh 18:59, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

hey thanks--Howard Lamar was my teacher and I always admired his encyclopedia. Richard Jensen 19:06, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Richard, just wanted to second what Denis has said about your excellent bibliographies--I have also been going through those lists and just borrowed out some good references you recommended in the Prague article today. I think your additions to these pages are a huge help to university students and will be a good drawcard. Also, wanted to add my thanks for your stepping in with the article, I am reassured that it will be a solid guide with your input and really value your work. Many thanks. Regards, Louise Valmoria 01:12, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks-- I really enjoy doing bibliogs and learning about new topics. Richard Jensen 01:23, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

More naval research notes

Hi, just a quick note to alert you that I added another batch of research notes at Talk:Naval guns‎. I still haven't nailed down all the issues, but I think we're getting there. I also located a number of other sources. (Including an autobiograpy - is that a primary source, BT?)

Also, I added a reply suggesting a possible source of the 40 degree elevation number. I haven't added anything to the article for a number of reasons (e.g. some of my original suppositions have been shown to be wrong, once I looked carefully).

Finally, do you think I should put in to be a history editor? I posted something on the forum about it (it turns out I do have microscopic actual credentials as a historian), after you mentioned that CZ needs history editors, but didn't hear anything. Anyway, if you think I should apply, let me know.

I just saw your WWII naval biblio, and have dozens and dozens of books I could list for you to add, but the sheer number is daunting. I will list a couple of my favourite overall Pacific theatre books (principally ones which given the Japanese view), but that will have to be later; it's late. J. Noel Chiappa 00:00, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Hi, here are those two WWII Pacific books I mentioned. I mention these specifically because if you don't already have them, I'd highly recommend acquiring them. ABE has the Dull for about $8, so it's not a big hurdle; the Evans is somewhat more, alas.

• Paul S. Dull, "A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941 - 1945)", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1978 (ISBN: 0870210971)
• David C. Evans (editor), "The Japanese Navy In World War Ii: In the Words of Former Japanese Naval Officers", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1993 (ISBN: 0870213164)

If you're not familiar with them, Dull was a Japanese language officer in WWII who was a professor of Asian history after the war. His book is based on extensive research in captured Imperial Japanes Navy records, with additional material from the official history produced by the Japanese Defense Agency. At the time it appeared, it was the only history in Western languages to be based almost entirely on Japanese sources. It also contains nice track charts for all major engagements.

The Evans volume is, if anything, an even more interesting treatment. Japanese naval officers who were key personnel involved in major engagements (Pearl, Phillipines, Indian Ocean, Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte, Okinawa, etc) retell the events from their perspective. The contributor of the Guadalcanal section is no less than Raizo Tanaka himself, commander of so many Tokyo Express missions down the Slot. The blunt directness of his analysis of the many Japanese errors in the Guadalcanal campaign (at the end of his section), so un-Japanese in its directness, bespeaks someone who is driven by an un-remittable debt to all his fellows who died there.

I'm not sure which "Further Reading" sections these should be added to; I'll leave that up to you. J. Noel Chiappa 23:53, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks! I have read and used the Dull book; Evans is new to me and I appreciate it. They go in WW2 Pacific bibliog.Richard Jensen 00:06, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Telescope

Hi Richard,

I noticed you added a section labled 'bibliography' to the article Telescope. I have not used these texts and they are not referred to in the section on 'tools'. Technically they do not comprise a bibliography. How shall we label them? I will pop them into one of the subsections for now.--Thomas Simmons 23:29, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

they comprise a working bibliography on telescopes for the reader. I will add some historical text from them. (CZ has dropped the Wikipedia rule that limits references to items used in the article.) Richard Jensen 00:13, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

The further reading subsection add-on is perfect. Good idea.--Thomas Simmons 00:53, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

"Bibliography" != "Sources". I've always understood "Bibliography" to mean "books about the topic area". If we want to indicate what sources we used, we should say so explicitly, using a term with no ambiguity to our readers (whose minds we do not get to reprogram to follow our rules). "Sources" is the unambiguous term. J. Noel Chiappa 11:08, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Reference, sure. But they still. need a note to show they are not Biblio since we still use APA. I gave them a header in the Biblio subsection (see tabs at top) which point out that they are not used in the article but are recommended for further reading. I see such additions as an added bonus here since they can be keep up to date and give the more serious enquirer a leg up.

I noticed that the subsection is largely a verbatim quote from Zik's book. I found most of the excerpt at [8] It needs a rewrite. I will slip it back into the discussion section till you can get at it.

Meanwhile I am adding some supportive sources for the section as well. --Thomas Simmons 00:47, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

RE the massive deletions and rewrite you have made to the article. Richard you do not make content decisions. I have provided noted authorities from existing sources. --Thomas Simmons 04:17, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

More naval guns

Hi, just a quick note to let you know that I'm still quietly working away at research on this. I prevailed on my wife to buy me Bastable, "Arms and the State", as an early present, and it arrived a little over a week ago, but alas it was more about the finance, politics etc than the technology. However, it did have all sorts of references to other likely-looking things, and I have placed a large number of them on order, and they are starting to trickle in. I'll add them all to the biblio in due course. I also found the name of an early (ca. 1865) book on the earliest rifled big guns which Google has online, but it's by a partisan of Whitworth, so it's not exactly even-handed coverage. I do think we'll be able to get to the bottom of the 19th-C revolution with all this in hand, though. (The earlier stuff I'm afraid I won't be too much help with.) It does look like elongated shells and rifling came in together (one is not very useful without the other). More later... J. Noel Chiappa 16:22, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Good news! please add the 1865 book to the bibliography; we expect primary sources to be informative but not necessarily neutral. Richard Jensen 16:47, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Question

Hey Richard--

Could I borrow your expertise for a bit? I was just reading over the Pentecostalism article, and was tempted to beef it up, but I ran into a quandary about the origins of the movement. My common knowledge understanding of the movement is that it got started with the Azusa street revival and William J. Seymour, but I honestly don't know whether scholars buy into that version of the history. Do you have any advice as to how we should describe the origins of the Pentecostal movement? Thanks, Brian P. Long 16:00, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

Go for it! the Azusa street mission is very important, but some of the ideas date back a few years to Kansas about 1900. see online I recommend you sign up (free) to H-Pentacostalism. They have book reviews and discussion and would love to have you ask questions there. Richard Jensen 16:36, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

Could you please explain more fully?

I believe this is the first time an editor has edited one of my contributions.

I left some questions on the talk page.

Richard, I am trying to figure out whether the Citizendium is going to be a welcoming place for the kind of contributions I would like to make. And also for material I have already contributed to another large wiki.

I have only committed about 40 hours here so far. I think I spent that time well. I uploaded a bunch of good maps and other images. I started more than a dozen articles. I made some other contributions.

But what I was really waiting for was feedback about how the editors in the field felt about the use of the kinds of sources I used on that other wiki. The DoD has released 2300 documents over the last two years. It is possibly 15,000 pages. I have read most of it. I want to write about it. I want to write about it using a cool, neutral voice. I want my readers to find that material useful, and unbiased.

Over on that other wiki some of my correspondents don't challenge my neutrality. They don't challenge the verifiability of what I have written. But they challenge its "notability". That was one of the things I initially liked about what I read about the Citizendium. The flawed and entirely too subjective criteria of "notability" have been replaced by maintainability. That other wiki had a policy that starts with "verifiability, not truth" (Same here, right?) And I saw "maintainability, not notability", as a parallel wise move.

You can say to me, George, in my opinion, those maps and images you uploaded are useful, but please don't try to provide detailed coverage of the war on terror, even if you think it is neutral, maintainable, and well sourced. It just won't be welcome here.

Cheers! George Swan 13:21, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

George--I got involved because you requested an editor's help. To be an encyclopedia article it has to concisely summarize the major points, taking into account all positions. The original article did not explain the main issues or why they were at all important. I don't think the original version was trying to be fair to the Chinese or US positions--that is a fatal error for a CZ contributor. It seems to be mostly based on one person's research --by a person who does not claim any expertise in international or criminal law, and who does not cite any legal opinions. That certainly violates the spirit of an authoritative, nonbiased resource that people know is based on expert research. As for the time commitment, It seems the article in question is a 1-minute exact copy from Wikipedia. Richard Jensen 13:47, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

I agree! Hello everyone. (I'm serious, I looked at the history) P.S. although he could have worked on it at Wikipedia. (Chunbum Park 16:26, 8 April 2008 (CDT))

Editor review

Thanks for the review. I'll have some further questions about it, which I will place on its talk page. George Swan 20:59, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

Complying with the Citzendium model of regular contributors and subject field experts

Now I think you may have been trying to remind me, in this passage:

It seems to be mostly based on one person's research --by a person who does not claim any expertise in international or criminal law, and who does not cite any legal opinions.

...that you are a respected expert, with impressive credentials, who can claim expertise in international and criminal law? And that I, well, am not an expert.

I'll happily concede that I am not an expert. I'll happily concede that I am aware, in principle, of the hierarchy between the Citizendium's content experts and regular contibutors. I was curious to try to make some contributions here, to see if I preferred this model to the wikipedia's model where good content can be overwhelmed by popular misconceptions. I've been waiting to see how this would work out in practice.

I read one estimate that said there were seven active authors to every editor. I read another that said the ratio was a hunred to one. I figure that this discrepancy is based on whether to count people who came, tried the Citizendium out, but haven't returned, and those who are unambiguously happily contributing today.

Correct me if I am wrong -- in the Citizendium model us regular people are still entitled to pose civil questions about content changes made by subject field experts? A limited amount of civil questions... It may seem like I have a lot of questions today, not a limited amount. If so it is because this is my first dialogue with a Citzendium editor. George Swan 05:13, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

1-minute exact copies

I don't know how many articles you have ported from the wikipedia. I checked my contribution history here. I count fourteen others. Like this one I ported the last version I was sole person to contribute intellectual content. You can see the details here.

I assure there wasn't one that took just one minute. George Swan 05:21, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

only George Swan can tell us how long he took. Richard Jensen 07:26, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Extrajudicial detention

The very first article I worked on here was a port of an early version of extrajudicial detention. Larry moved it from article space to the discussion page -- and I am afraid the justification was based on a misconception.

He seems to think that the captives in Guantanamo are all Geneva Convention POWs. I am pretty sure they are not. This is your area of expertise, right? When you feel you have more time could you take a look at this discussion?

Thanks! George Swan 05:21, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Could you please clarify your use of "original research"?

Could you please clarify your use of the term "original research"? On the wikipedia searching for sources, and quoting them, is not regarded as "original research". Neither is, generally, paraphrasing them, provided one does so fairly, and doesn't perform what the policy there calls a "novel synthesis".

Could you please clarify for me whether you think I have been lapsing from compliance with the Citizendium's policy on original research? If so could you help me understand how you think I lapsed?

FWIW I made a comment, back in November, on CZ Talk:Original Research Policy, here. Another newcomer had a concern over what they saw as a contradiction, where they thought the policy allowed Citizendium editors, like yourself, to use the Citizendium to publish original material. I wrote:

My interpretation of this passage does not contradict other documents, because I interpret it as "our editors create the sources [encyclopedias like] the wikipedia cites, when they are at work on their day jobs.". I didn't interpret it as stating that our editors would publish original research here.

Could you clarify for me whether this matches your interpretation of policy? George Swan 05:56, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

a small amount of orginal research is allowed in CZ articles, under the supervision of expert editors who can tell junk science from the real thing. This article seems to be based entirely on browsing into original legal documents by one person who is not trained in law and does not cite law reviews or other authoritative statements, and has not published in any reputable source. CZ is based on long-term expertise of authors and editors and that criteria is not met here, and the article fails to explain the legal issues involved or the importance of the issue in the first place. For this article I strongly recommend you start reading the law reviews--some education in constitutional and criminal law, and in political science, would allow for a broad perspective on what's going on.Richard Jensen 06:32, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Just to be clear -- the "one person" here. That would be me. Is there any possibility you would consider simply addressing me in the first person?

So, just to be clear, are you recommending that I refrain from working on this article, altogether, until after I have "an education in constitutional and criminal law, and in political science"? Does that recommendation hold for any article related to Guantanamo captives?

Bearing in mind that I am not an expert, and you are, can I ask why you refer to the OARDEC documents as "legal documents"? This confuses me because the Tribunal Presidents told every captive who asked why he wasn't allowed to call upon a lawyer that the Tribunals weren't courts of law, that they "were administrative proceedings", not legal proceedings. George Swan 07:29, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

well yes, I recommend you start reading on international law. The reason we have rules against unlimited OR is that people have their hobby-horses and make up their own interpretations without regard to the worldwide community of experts. They don't read the law reviews or court cases. To become an authoritative reference source CZ has to depend on articles written by experts who do rely on those law reviews and court cases.Richard Jensen 08:09, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Michael Faraday

Richard I saw that you removed the editor and city from the J.H. Gladstone reference, why did you that? --Paul Wormer 20:23, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

just to save space. I linked to a complete online copy that people can read (and which has all the details if anyone wants them). (My philosophy is that links to amazon.com or books.google.com provide all the useful information on a book.) I'm a fan of Faraday--and your science articles! keep them coming. Richard Jensen 20:32, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

This is a link to an obscure (for me, that is) site. You know that sites come and go, and if one knows the publisher, chances are greater to find the source after the site has gone. Space is not an issue (this 30 bytes, or so, completely drowns in any picture, where we are talking about order of 50 000 bytes or more). --Paul Wormer 21:16, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

I'll link it to a better site (google books) instead of the private site you originally provided. Knowing the name of the publisher is irrelevant here. The usual practice in encyclopedias is to have very brief author-title-date listings. I often add the number of pages because that seems to interest students a lot! Richard Jensen 21:28, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

Did you know that Google books has only the third volume of the Faraday work online? Because Google books doesn't give the title page (containing volume number, publisher and year of publication) the link is somewhat confusing. A French site (Gallica) has all three volumes (dated 1844 not 1855!) + title pages.

Further, I want to add that I disagree with your deleting of publishers + editions. As I said earlier, the space savings are marginal and one has to follow the link (which is often very slow) to find the publisher (if it is there at all, Google books doesn't give it for the Faraday work, for example).--Paul Wormer 20:19, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

PS Google books does give the title page, the link enters at the table of contents, but scrolling up (which I didn't do at first you find the title page). --Paul Wormer 20:23, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

so why do we want publishers? It was at best marginally useful in pre-www days and quite superfluous today. Most encyclopedias never gave them. In the case of google books you get far more useful info by getting the full text (and yes the publisher info is there if for some reason someone wants it.) Richard Jensen 21:37, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Move

Swedish American isn't an adjective here, it's a singular noun. Ro Thorpe 18:25, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

it's ambiguous but Swedish Americans is unambiguous. Richard Jensen 19:11, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

Just to see what the competition is doing, I checked out the WP article. It is titled Swedish American, singular, BUT then has as the opening sentence: "Swedish Americans are Americans blah blah." That, to me, is clearly the worst of all worlds. In this particular instance, my inclination is to side with Prof. Jensen. After all, all these articles are about a *group* of hyphenated ppl (whether or not the vexatious hyphen is actually used). To me, a "Swedish American" is Paul Bunyon" or some such, not a bunch of people in Minnesota.... Hayford Peirce 19:30, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, I agree "Swedish-American" is.... overly Procustean. What's next, Pant? J. Noel Chiappa 20:00, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

History Workgroup page

Hey Richard-- for some reason, you and I both decided to clean up the History Workgroup articles at the exact same time. You have at it, and then I'll swing in and add my piece. Do you have any feelings about how we should organize the articles on the workgroup page? Personally, I'm not wild about the Napoleon | Regency period thing, all across the page, but I am equally nonplussed about the Religion Workgroup's numbering system... there's got to be a better way. Best, Brian P. Long 20:57, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

well I was postponing doing my taxes....maybe adding a few anti-tax people to the list? Seriously, I was trying to drop items that belong to other workgroups (archaeology), and focus on nations and big topics, dropping almost all individuals and smaller events. I'm doing taxes next 24 hours so it's all yours. :) Richard Jensen 22:19, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

Marconi

The article on Guglielmo Marconi looks like it is just about ready for approval. It is currently listed under the media and engineering workgroups, but there isn't a whole lot of activity in the media workgroup and the editors from engineering are mostly focused in other areas. Do you think it could be added to the history workgroup and approved by a history editor? --Joe Quick 17:31, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

agrees, and I started the process. Richard Jensen 19:13, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

Great, thanks! I'll send a note to the engineering and media workgroup mailing lists to see if any editors from those groups want to sign on as co-approvers. --Joe Quick 13:34, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

yes and please help with the approval details, which I usually manage to botch up. :) Richard Jensen 14:04, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Permanent link

Richard, they added a new gadget in the toolbox on the left; at the very bottom click on 'Permanent link' and it will give you the address of any page that you are on at the moment. It works great for the metadata page article url. Have fun. --D. Matt Innis 19:38, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

PS, this page is getting long again! --D. Matt Innis 19:40, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

ok -- thanks! Richard Jensen 20:04, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

Russian-German Americans

Richard, do you know much about the Russian-Germans that came to America? They are descendents of German farmers who were given free land in Russia, at two different times, to help feed the Russians who at that time were not very good farmers. Many of the German-Americans who came to America are Russian-German-Americans, including my family. My Aunt is compiling quite a nice little book on the subject. David E. Volk 08:44, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

I was in North Dakota last month and people talked about them. But I don't know much so please add a section on them. Richard Jensen 12:07, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Bibliographies

You know we have a CZ:Bibliography page, right? I just linked to that from that section you added stuff too (rather a major omission that was :-). J. Noel Chiappa 18:55, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

yes, thanks! Richard Jensen 19:20, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Irish slaves

Hi, in another context I just came across this, and I don't know quite what to make of it. I was wondering if I could impose on you to take a quick glance, and tell me if you think it merits further investigation? It could be someone with a personal hobby-horse who's making up his own interpretation, or is there in fact a real, but not well-known picture, underneath all this? And perhaps it's somewhere in the middle - some onesided-ness, but also some stuff that has been obscured?

On the one hand, the narrative he's telling is a ways off the beaten track, in terms of the canonical view of history (at least, as I know it - maybe my knowledge is out of date). On the other hand, he does include a lot of quotations (alas, with no source notes - blast). The English (and in particular Cromwell's) heavy-handed treatment of the Irish is fairly well known, as is that lots were shipped overseas forcibly. So it's not like this person is claiming something totally outlandish, it just seems like the picture was somewhat darker than it's usually portrayed - which is of course hardly an unknown thing in historiography.

The site it's on is a little, umm, emotional, but somehow the bias of much of what's there seems like it's at odds with this one. I've sent the author email asking if there's any way he can rework it to include citations to numbers, quotes, etc. Of course, that won't guard against the 'determined to slant the story, so they only include data on one side of the argument' issue, but it's better than nothing.

Anyway, any insight would be appreciated. A Google search for "end Irish slavery" turns up a number of sites which are well footnoted, if that's of any use. J. Noel Chiappa 14:28, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

they were not slaves they were indentured servants. Many English also went as indentuyred servants to Barbadoes and to the American colonies. see A "riotous and unruly lot": Irish Indentured Servants and Freemen in the English West Indies, 1644-1713" by Hilary McD. Beckles The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 503-522 in JSTOR send your email to rjensen@uic.edu for a copy of the article Richard Jensen 14:49, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Congrats again

You had several approvals tonight! It's nice to have another history editor on board ;-) Maybe we can get a string going here, I think it would be unbeatable --D. Matt Innis 19:13, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Hurray! I feel like what-his-name on Super Tuesday, Richard Jensen 19:22, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Ha! You must mean John McCain!  :-D --D. Matt Innis 19:36, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Germany

Hi Richard. Just a short question. You added a Bibliography section to the article Germany although there already is a Bibliography subpage. Why that? Alexander Wiebel 03:12, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

thanks for spotting my absent minded mistake...I just changed it to "further reading". Richard Jensen 03:23, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks. Still, I am wondering whether this paragraph should be in the article or on the subpage. What is your reason for including it into the article? Alexander Wiebel 10:57, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

people who want advanced coverage have to go to the subpage, while the larger number will find the basic books on the main page. Richard Jensen 14:00, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

Van der Waals

Dear Richard, could you contemplate approval of Johannes Diderik van der Waals?--Paul Wormer 10:29, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

yes--excellent work; I'll get the approval rolling. Should it be alphabetized as Waals? Richard Jensen 14:09, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

The Dutch alphabetization is under W, as Waals van der, but in the US it is usually under V. --Paul Wormer 15:06, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

hmm-- we have to have it one way or the other, -- your choice Richard Jensen 15:10, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Isn't this one of these things that people like to have very long discussions about? The present choice will hold for all Dutch names with "van", "van de", and "van der". Belgians usually do not use spaces. A Belgian would write "Vanderwaals". In Holland we write (note the capitalization): "J.D. van der Waals", but "Van der Waals" (without initials). American journals write "van der Waals" (even at the beginning of a sentence they don't capitalize, I once fought with J. Chem. Phys. about this and lost).--Paul Wormer 15:26, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

I can't read Dutch so I defer to your expertise. CZ policy is to prefer English usages (rather than Durch or French or Belgian or whatever--wejust had a debate on "Quebec") Americans of Dutch descent capitalize their Van names (as in President Van Buren) and aphabetize under V. Richard Jensen 16:09, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

In American scientific circles it is "van der Waals", (lowercase v plus spaces, capital W), so let's follow that usage. Alphabetically the name is under v. --Paul Wormer 16:32, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Michael Faraday approval

It's getting close, you might want to take a look as there were too many changes for me to approve anything other than the version that you approved. Let me know what you want to do. I can go either way you decide. --D. Matt Innis 19:45, 23 April 2008 (CDT)