User talk:172/Talk block 6

Gee, excellent work on History of Germany. For a while I thought I was the only one interested in German history around here. :-) In case you're interested, I was the one who tried to split up the enormously confusing History of Germany page into several articles and added a lot to the Franks, Holy Roman Empire, and Weimar Republic pages (and some stuff around Gleichschaltung too). Now, I'm wondering, since you commented your edits as "copyediting", what exactly does that mean? Have you copied the text for the 19th century and German Empire from somewhere else, or is this your own creation? In any case, I find this quite impressive, and I'd love to work with you on the history of Germany more.

I am just wondering whether the texts below the "Unification... 1806-1866" and "German Empire" headings should rather go into separate articles (see my comments at the bottom of Talk:History of Germany), with only a brief summary under the two headings and the bulk of the text in the other article, respectively, as it is now with the previous headings. My reasoning for this is that people interested in the history of Germany are probably quite overwhelmed with that many details, and many probably want to know about post-1945 Germany in the first place anyway. (Thinking about it, even that deserves its own article, but I'll leave that for later.) I would therefore suggest to move stuff to German Empire (which already exists) and to a new article about the time from 1806-1866, for which I cannot think of a decent title as of yet. What do you think? -- djmutex 14:13 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Alright, I moved stuff around; History of Germany is under 32 KB again, and your texts are now in German Confederation and German Empire. I have also restructured your German Empire text; see Talk:German Empire for details. I hope this is still in line with your plans still. :-) djmutex 17:17 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

172, I'm glad you were not offended. :-) — Since you asked me what I think you could work on (not that I feel I am in the position to suggest), I can come up with some. Nazi Germany is mostly empty, except for a few lists. Some related information is in World War II (although primarily military), some in Adolf Hitler (which I'd rather keep to biographical information, although that is probably hard to separate in this case), and I wrote something about the steps by which the Nazis installed themselves in Gleichschaltung, including the laws the produced in the process. Would that be something you'd be interested in?

Also, in general, my expertise is mainly legal history, so I feel that what I write is usually a little weak on economic and social issues. So if you find something missing in my pet articles on German history, feel free to jump in.

Thanks for your offer, I'd be happy to collaborate! BTW, you have a real name too? I hate to call people by number. :-) djmutex 19:04 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If you find the time and are knowledgeable about that era, could you look over Mohammed Mossadegh? The article as originally written could have been directly approved by the CIA; I tried to add some neutrality but it could still use balance. --Eloquence 21:20 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! djmutex 19:33 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Abe. Great to see you back! I'm very busy with work (and some other things) at present and I'm not even getting to do much on birds and mammals, let alone other topics, so I think it will be a while before you see me around and about in the hitory articles. But thanks for asking, and keep up your good work. Best -- Tony (Tannin)

Hello there 172. There's an article on the New Economic Policy (which I wrote most of ages ago) I thought you might want to add something to G-Man 17:29 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice thorough job on both articles! A few things to note though: "CPC" is the acronym now used by the People's Daily [1] so I made that change; and whether Falun Gong is a cult is disputed. --Jiang 10:54 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice work on "Changing demographics and the growth of the Sunbelt". It's very clear and very well-written. RickK 07:53 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to debate him, I was asking him to stop vandalizing. I am not quite as tolerant to vandals as you. MB

You are going a bit too far to be nice to this vandal, because of his perceived beliefs. I find this a bit disturbing, probably as disturbing as you feel my criticism of his perceived beliefs were. The fact is, I didn't really take this guy seriously to begin with. You did. That is where you and I differed in the handling of this vandal. I'll be sure to not bring political views into things in the future, but I am also opposed to you giving a vandal special treatment in the hopes of reforming them, because of their personal beliefs. MB 14:33 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well I was saying, as an aside, that I felt his beliefs were a bit twisted. In any case, I'm willing to let this go, as long as you are. I think we would have better luck finding people with unique views elsewhere, but the truth is, most of people with these type of radical views have little grasp of reality. I admit, they sometime make good points, but they often have to ignore large parts of reality to make thier beliefs hold true. (IMO Capitalists are as much as a culprit in this regard as Communists, they are both extremes). MB 14:47 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why did you revert in Cold War ? This might be poorly written but I don't think it was out of the subject ? Did you find it to POVed ? Ericd 20:09 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think moving great depression is a great idea. What I would suggest is that the Great Depression page should perhaps have a couple of paragraph explanation of what the GD was, maybe explaining its international impact. Then at the end of that page, a series of linked articles could be placed, as in

• Great Depression (United States),
• Great Depression (Europe)
• Great Depression (Australia)

etc.

The main page should have enough info to know in an overall way what the GD was, with they then able to go into separate pages for specific analyses of individual state studies. Overtime a very useful set of individual studies could develop with a depth of local analysis that would make wiki a premier encyclopædic source of information. Is that idea workable/ FearÉIREANN 01:57 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I have only made two edits to New Imperialism. You must have me mistaken for somebody else. Pizza Puzzle

I have no idea what you are talking about. Pizza Puzzle

You are no longer welcome to leave comments upon my talk page. Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere. Pizza Puzzle

Hello there 172, Thanks for removing the dross from the New Deal article, I dont know why I didn't do it myself ages ago. If you think that that was bad, look at the history page and see what the New Deal article looked like before I got my hands on it, I almost had a heart attack when I first saw it.

By-the-way I added a lot of stuff to the Wall Street Crash article. I just thought you might like to look at it and maybe add some more, as youre far more knowledgeable about these things than I am G-Man 22:28 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea about the great depression article. I should be able to contribute something to a Great Depression (United Kingdom) article, I'll have to do some reading up on it though.

I'll take a look at the Cold War article tommorow (going to bed soon) so I'll get back to you on that then G-Man 00:44 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Noticed you mentioning dividing up the Cold War article and thought I'd throw in my two cents; the way I see it there are three periods, immediately post-WWII (Marshall Plan etc.), the period after the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, and the period beginning with the detente process. - Hephaestos 00:46 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree about PP. I think it would be a shame if he got himself banned again, because he is obviously someone of considerable intellect and ability. I've added another comment or two. I only hope he heeds it. lol FearÉIREANN 05:20 22 Jul 2003 (UTC) Thanks for the compliment, BTW.

BTW, I have indeed written about postal history, in case you hadn't noticed; see Stamps and postal history of Austria and Stamps and postal history of the United States for instance, although the latter still needs illustrations. Not as high-falutin' as scholarly history of course, but consider that there are several hundred thousand collectors of Brazilian postage stamps out there, and adroit cross-linking from a stamp article would be a clever way to interest more people in the history of Brazil. (It will be a while before I can write up Brazil stamps though, their history is very complicated and I lack a good reference work.) Stan 06:18 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Heh, I'm pretty sure I never used the word "rubbish"! But I'll be honest; whether or not you intend it so, much of your writing strikes me as painfully strained rationalization of Marxist philosophy, and blanket condemnation of capitalism. Now having personally witnessed unconscionable lying and scheming by businessfolk, I'm inclined to the socialist side myself, but your interpretation goes much further left than I think is justified. For instance, in History of the United States (1945-1964) I believed you characterized the Berlin Airlift as a "provocative propaganda stunt". I have a hard time understanding the mindset that could call the saving of two million people from starvation a "propaganda stunt". My interest piqued, I've been looking up material on the airlift, and I have yet to see anybody call it anything but a humanitarian operation, in response to a dastardly attempt to take an entire civilian population hostage. In fact, who else but the Soviets would characterize the airlift as a bad thing? So it looks to me like you've given away your bias. Another example is your characterization of the 1950s. You have so many bad things to say about the 50s that you never actually mention that the majority of the population was ecstatically happy, so happy that even a half-century later, the older boomers are still nostalgic, so much so that it influences politics today. Now I know this is all criticism, but I wouldn't spend my limited time writing this instead of articles, if I didn't think you were capable of considering whether your material was habitually tilted in the socialist direction. I know that if readers were getting the impression that my material was pushing a particular POV, I would want somebody to tell me, and give me some examples to work from so I could improve my neutrality. Stan 07:45 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)