Alphax wrote ...
>You mean whether it's plain sense or not? No, it's not. It's actually
>/more/ POV than BC/AD is, because it makes the *assertion* that the
>Birth of Jesus, whether is Christ, Lord, Prophet or otherwise, is
>*common* to *all* cultures - it's Western Imperialism and Political
>Correctness at its worst.
You have a right to believe this, as you have a right to disagree with my
proposal. But it is clear that you didn't read my proposal, since I argue
against the interpretation you present, and provide a different explanation.
I disagree with LOTS of people, but I listen to what they say and try to
respond (indeed, I mention several other editors in my proposal because I
listened carefully to what they said, thought about it, and wanted to
explain to them why I disagree with them, even considering their own
arguments).
It is a shame that Alphax won't do this.
According to our policy: "The first resort in resolving almost any conflict
is to discuss the issue ...Take the other person's perspective into account
and try to reach a compromise."
I have tried to do this with every person who opposes my
proposal. Sometimes I get impatient, and in three or four cases,
rude. Other times the other person gets hostile and rude. But even then,
I try to listen to their arguments, and respond to what they actually said.
I wish Alphax chose to follow this route, rather than the ones/he chose.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
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Skyring wrote:
> On 5/17/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Skyring wrote:
>>
>>>On 5/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Skyring wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 5/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Skyring wrote:
>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>CE/BCE is already a standard in many disciplines. Make it so in WP.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>...except where use of BC and AD is appropriate.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>As Steven said "a general policy that BC and AD represent a
>>>>>Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate,
>>>>>that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a
>>>>>Christian point of view."
>>>>>
>>>>>I support his standard. I think it is plain common sense. Don't you?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Reading the proposed policy page, a poll of *44* people - out of however
>>>>many million speakers of English, *44* - decided that BCE/CE was the
>>>>more favoured term. That's a mighty poor sample. And yet people are
>>>>claiming "NPOV" and "countering systematic bias".
>>>
>>>
>>>Just answer the question, please. Evasion just leads me to wonder
>>>about your motive.
>>
>>Evasion is caused by me actually reading the page and trying to work out
>>what is really going on. I'm not so sure that BCE and CE are any less
>>POV than AD and BC are. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether they are
>>in fact anti-Christian POV.
>
>
> Just answer the question, please.
>
You mean whether it's plain sense or not? No, it's not. It's actually
/more/ POV than BC/AD is, because it makes the *assertion* that the
Birth of Jesus, whether is Christ, Lord, Prophet or otherwise, is
*common* to *all* cultures - it's Western Imperialism and Political
Correctness at its worst.
- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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Ahah! But mediums without wikilinks and other such goodies of
autonomousnesses. ;)
El_C
>Orthogrphy is of no consequence in a medium designed to appeal to the
>illiterate.
>Ec
--- dpbsmith(a)verizon.net wrote:
> highway requirement. Many signs DID get changed, enough for them to become a
> reasonably familiar sight. Cars produced during that time period had both
> miles per hours and kilometers per hour marked on their speedometers,
> although odometers continued to read in miles.
I don't know how things are in other nations, but in the United States the
standards to get a drivers license are so low that really stupid people are
allowed to drive. For example, a 70% score on written driving tests is enough
to pass in most states, meaning you can screw up 30% of the time! I imagine
many of these idiots got confused by the dual system, thus the current
pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Traffic would be much better if 95% scores were mandated to get a license. But
since most U.S. cities are built in a way that almost requires the use of an
auto, I don't think that will ever happen.
-- mav
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Fans of archaic unit systems may find solace in the fact that astronomy
still stubbornly resists the onslaught of SI units. The CGS system is
still king in astronomy: ergs/cm^2/s is our preferred unit of flux (except
radio astronomers use the Jansky) and we also like such non-standard units
as the Angstrom for wavelengths, light years and parsecs of course for
distance, and arcseconds and arcminutes instead of radians for angular
measures. In the astronomy articles I've written for Wikipedia, though, I
think I've stuck with SI except for light years and parsecs.
As for what UK folk use, well, the packets might be marked in metric but
the amounts are still imperial. We buy milk in 568ml (pint) bottles, peas
in 455g (1lb) packets, that kind of thing.
Not sure that changing distances on road signs would be that difficult or
at all dangerous, it's just that being on an island we have no compelling
reason to conform to the continental standard - there would be no benefit
to be gained from a switch.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Sidaway [mailto:minorityreport@bluebottle.com]
>
> In the UK this is only for "folk" uses such as pints of beer and road
> signs. I believe all scientific and engineering ventures switched to SI
> long ago, and nearly all commercial institutions (aforementioned pints of
> beer excluded, for instance) are required to use metric measure although
> they are also permitted to provide equivalent ounces, pounds, stones and
> whatnot. They sell orange juice in liters, butter by the kilogram, cloth
> by the meter. Liquor is sold in metric measure, so in a pub you get a
> pint of beer but a 35 ml measure of brandy, and a 200ml glass of wine.
>
> Road signs haven't switched because it would be very difficult and
> dangerous as well as politically explosive.
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote...
>The argument of AD vs. CE is probably the most ridiculous one i've seen so
>far. What next - Will [[Gingerbread Man]] be made [[Gingerbread Person]] to
>not upset the gender equality pushers? Or how about renamed Wikipedia to
>Wikipédia to not upset heavily pro-French language-ists? Just about
>everything can be made POV in one way or another.
mvh Björn wrote...
>AD and BC might be offensive to some, who knows what the abbrevations
>actually mean. Good stuff that so few know about it. But what ACTUALLY
>MUST be extremely offensive to a huge number of people is the
>imperialist use of the word "American." Therefore, if we change all
>instances of AD/BC, shouldn't be also change all instances of
>"American" to something that will not offend the majority of all
>Americans?
>--
>mvh Björn
I have observed that most of the objections to my proposal fall into one of
three camps: people who simply do not understand our NPOV policy (which I
addressed in my last message), and people who, as in the cases of David
'DJ' Hedley and mvh Björn, either fantasize about more and more absurd and
entirely hypothetical cases, which is just a means to avoid a specific and
concrete proposal that addresses different views actually held by millions
of people, and practices that are and have been going on for at least a
century; or complain about how unfair it is that they are being asked not
to be offensive. Sometimes, when telling the truth, some people do of
course get disturbed, hurt, or angry -- these cases cannot and should not
be avoided. But sometimes there are little things people do which, if the
people were asked to stop doing these things so as not to offend, would
involve no real sacrifice, no loss of integrity or honor. I will never
understand why in such cases such people not only refuse to make the small
change asked for, they actually seem to relish and take pride in offending
people.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
Bill Haggett wrote:
:Does NPOV require that we reject the name of the month of June,
:because it is based on the name of a Roman goddess?
Using the name June for a month doesn't assume that there is a goddess named June, just as referring to days of the week as Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday doesn't assume that these Norse gods exist.
:It is likely that the overwhelming majority of people consider "BC"
:and "AD" as simply labels -- giving little (if any) more thought to
:their religious context than they give to the label "June".
That argument doesn't fly, for reasons that should be obvious. Fifty years ago, the overwhelming majority in certain southern communities would refer to African-Americans as "boy" or "nigger," without giving it any further thought.
As it is, AD and BC mean something; their usage explicitly assumes a religious belief that everyone doesn't share. The fact that people don't give it much thought - or don't even know - doesn't change the meaning. "BC" means "before the Anointed One," and "AD" means "the Year of Our Lord."
:It is possible that rejecting a commonly held and accepted
:nomenclature in favor of one which many would perceive as being
:artificially neutral could be considered as the violation of NPOV.
I don't know what "artificially neutral" even means. I think what all this comes down to is that the "overwhelming majority" can't be bothered to change their ways because it doesn't bother them, and they want the minority to lighten up and get on with things.
I was not too bothered by the practice of BC and AD in this encyclopedia, except when some bonehead corrected BCE/CE in an article with Jewish content. But now that I see the attitudes toward this, I'm definitely becoming more insistently supportive of the proposal.
Leif
--- Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> As for the use of BC and AD, it is indeed perfectly
> appropriate in
> articles about Christianity-related topics, just as
> the use of the
> Hebrew, Hindu or Chinese calendars is appropriate in
> articles related
> to those topics.
Nonsense. Do you want to use the Mayan calendar for
Central American articles, the date of the founding of
Rome for all dates associated with the Roman Empire?
We should use dates that the average reader is going
to understand.
RickK
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--- Skyring <skyring(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The horse has long bolted. CE has been common usage
> for decades in an
> expanding circle of groups, most notably those of
> science or academia.
>
> The Christians trying to contain the infection are
> as ultimately
> risible as the French trying to keep their language
> pure by opposing
> terms such as "le weekend". Christian belief is
> something that comes
> from the heart, not from strict adherence to the
> display of symbols.
It's only Christians who support AD/BC? How curious,
considering that I am not a Christian, but support the
status quo, since CE/BCE is anti-Christian POV and a
violation of Wikipedia policy of using most common
name. Just because the academic community uses it
doesn't mean our readers do.
Again, I suggest making it part of the Preferences,
just as the date formatting is.
RickK
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