User talk:Ockham

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Hi Ockham, welcome to MyWikiBiz. We're happy that you've taken the steps to become a member of our site. MyWikiBiz is a directory where any person, any company, any product, or any thing can author their own legacy. We seek to provide the space for 265 million entities. Our registered editors like you have generated over 60,000 pages so far -- help keep that number growing with an article about yourself, your business, your industry, your favorite product, hobby, or organization. Since 2008, MyWikiBiz.com has served up over 1 million page views. Get started authoring your legacy today!

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Lovin' what you're doing

It is very exciting to see someone taking the bull by the horns, as you're doing, and laying the groundwork for what could be a great semantic sub-encyclopedia. You've already created an integer attribute, too! Phew! - MyWikiBiz 07:49, 28 January 2008 (PST)

Gack! Some excellent advice found here. I'm too junior a SemWeb noobie to remember things like this -- I just see the strategic beauty of doing things semantically. - MyWikiBiz 08:55, 28 January 2008 (PST)

Since when?

Igor Alexander has never been suggested to have been responsible for setting up www.wikipediareview.com. You must have gotten confused of that. Igor doesn't claim that, I don't claim that, Selina doesn't claim that, nobody claims that. Igor Alexander set up the ProBoards site. A group of 6 founding members set up the domain name. This included Igor, but it wasn't his idea. Lir, Blissyu2, Qwerty, Igor Alexander, Selina and Blissyu2 are your 6 founding members, who set up the new domain name. I haven't seen anywhere that anyone has disputed that. Is it being disputed? Perhaps Somey is suggesting that he went back in time to do it? Gosh darn it, these pesky time machines! Blissyu2 04:04, 13 October 2008 (PDT)

So fix it then, as it is in MWB mainspace. Ockham 04:05, 13 October 2008 (PDT)

Revolting suggestions

See here for my suggestions. -- MyWikiBiz 06:08, 14 October 2008 (PDT)

Google cache

I hope that you'll see my note. -- MyWikiBiz 10:28, 26 November 2008 (PST)

Kenneth Freeman

I am new here (though I've been here once before as User:bluevictim, I wanted to create an account under my real name), so I have just created an article, Kenneth Freeman. Is this how articles are done here, properly? What should be improved?

Jonas Rand 15:33, 1 January 2009 (PST)

Jonas, I've made a note to you on your Talk page. I'll look for your response. I am not big into managing headaches on a repeated basis here. That's not a threat or anything... just giving you my perspective. -- MyWikiBiz 16:51, 1 January 2009 (PST)

Thank you, once again

Ockham, thank you again for all the good, quality work that you're doing here under the subject of medieval philosophy. It certainly lends an air of respect to our site. -- MyWikiBiz 11:57, 4 January 2009 (PST)

My pleasure. I am keeping up the account on Wikipedia see here for example but the article here is going to be better, of course. Is there any benefit in linking the Wikipedia articles here? Ockham 12:01, 4 January 2009 (PST)

I believe that if you create here a hyperlink to the Wikipedia article, that has the net effect among search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) to "enhance" the reputation and PageRank of the Wikipedia article. If you create a hyperlink from Wikipedia to the article here on MyWikiBiz, it will not have a net effect among the search engines, because back in early 2007, Wikipedia selfishly put "nofollow" on most of their external link functions, on orders from Jimmy Wales. I immediately pointed out that the exceptional few links that remained impervious to "nofollow" happened to be to Jimmy's Wikia.com profit project. For that, I was again blocked from editing Wikipedia.

Even with Wikipedia's "nofollow" effrontery, it is still helpful to link FROM there TO here, but only if you're actually doing so to assist Wikipedia users to find more helpful, authoritative information, and you are not doing it to boost your own ego or profit margins. Don't worry, others who hold power on Wikipedia will decide for you what your motives are. If you disagree with their decision, you may be blocked for daring to hold such an opinion.

As a note, MyWikiBiz has about 40 links to it from Wikipedia article and talk space. From these links, we garner about 4 or 5 "hits" per day. Nothing to break a sweat over. -- MyWikiBiz 18:45, 4 January 2009 (PST)

Oh well. On a positive note this search brings in Siger at #3 on Google, above the The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. Ulrich of Strasbourg comes #3 also. It is also interesting to compare the Wikipedia version of 'On Interpretation' with the MWB version. Notice the MWB is complete, the Wikipedia is not. This is not because anything was deleted from the Wikipedia version, but because the author of that article was banned for a period from Wikipedia and completed the article on MWB instead.

Which is rather unfair because when you Google a phrase from both versions it comes 3rd after Wikipedia and a scraper, and to add insult to injury, it comes the omitted portion of "in order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 2 already displayed!". Yet if you Google a phrase only in the MWB it is #1 of 1, naturally. Ockham 09:42, 6 January 2009 (PST)

I replied

I replied to your Google issues, on my Talk page. Just thought I'd leave you a note here, while you're beavering away on the site. Feel free to erase this. -- MyWikiBiz 10:11, 25 January 2009 (PST)

Transcription wiki hacks

I'd like to ask you some questions about your manuscript transcription wiki hacks. I'd looked at modifying MediaWiki for that purpose about 4 years ago, but had very little luck. Please drop me a line via the wiki email address.

Benwbrum 13:06, 18 April 2009 (PDT) [1] [2]

Hi I replied with a test email. Ockham 07:49, 19 April 2009 (PDT)

The Wikipedia Point of View

Hi my name is Peter and I am from Australia. I’ve been reading the article “The Wikipedia Point of View/Peter Damian Evidence” and the “The Wikipedia Point of View “ with great interest. I originally came to Wikipedia to do a little bit of editing. But found myself writing in an area of Wikipedia that seems to be in a constant edit war. Wikipedia is becoming a domain for an ever-growing number of wiki-bullies. The idea of an encyclopedia proper just cannot be achieved this way and it’s probably past the point where any reform can help it. Here in Australia Universities, colleges and other tertiary education facilities have banned the use of Wikipedia as a research tool.

My particular experience with Wikipedia is that it is being used as a promotional tool for political agendas. This then brings up all sorts of moral issues, which I think should be important. I would like to add a chapter to the article The Wikipedia Point of View concerning this. I would like to present my writings to you if I may. I think I need a realty check. I feel like I’ve been banging my head against a wall with this for a while now, on my own, and it’s only now that I’m presenting my concerns outside of Wikipedia. Thanks Peter Z. 17:54, 22 September 2009 (PDT)

Thanks, and by all means post something here on my talk page. I will then post it on WPOV with attribution, if you are content with this. Ockham 00:02, 29 September 2009 (PDT)

Wikipedia & Political Agendas -The Balkans

One of the quality problems with Wikipedia is that an editor or a group of editors can learn to work the system and then push his/her own point of view thus then becoming a stated Wiki fact. These Wikipedian facts then become a promotional tool for political agendas. This then brings up all sorts of moral and ethical issues.

Wikipedia itself states that all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. This neutral point of view approach, which is fine, seems to be disappearing from Wiki’s agendas. Content bullies are simply more and more moulding the articles. Controversial historical articles are becoming targets and are showing outright bias. If we use the Encyclopedia Britannica and BBC History as a yardstick for qualified encyclopedic work, certain articles in Wikipedia seem dated.

A series of articles are appearing on Wikipedia that are reflecting the propaganda of the former Communist Party of Yugoslavia. One would assume that this would be a problem, as matter of fact Admin at Wikipedia doesn’t have a problem with this at all. It is a disturbing phenomenon.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, certain historical factual information has come out into the open portraying the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its leader Josph Broz Tito in a totally different light. It seems to be much more Stalinist in nature than the image that was portrayed to the people of Yugoslavia and to the West during the Cold War. Josph Broz Tito Commander of all Partisans and Communists during WWII oversaw some of the worst war crimes know to mankind. The notorious Bleiburg and Foibe massacres were two of these. There are books, articles (writtem by professionals) as well as TV documentaries (some were aired on BBC 4) in which people testified to the truth of these historical events.

The editors who wrote these articles, expressly the Dictator Josip Broz Tito are written in a child like manner. Actually the articles are very similar to a Yugoslav primary school textbook from the 1970s. Additionally from the late 1960’s to the 1970’s, economic decisions that were made by Josip Broz and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, put the country in a disastrous political situation. Ironically the article on Tito does not even mention the fact that he was a Dictator or his Cult of Personality. None of this information is presented in a professional encyclopedic fashion and when qualified references are presented to prove otherwise, Wikipedia Admin meets it with silence. Why is this the case?

Hi! This is my first draft. Would love to have some input. I am afraid that the more I research this subject matter, the more disturbing it becomes. Since the early 90’s information concerning historical events surrounding Croatia are turning out to be similar to the history of the Soviet Union (massacres, ethnic cleansing, power struggles, political propaganda for cover ups of the truth). I am shocked that Wikipedia is not presenting this information in a scholarly way. These issues in Australia and in Croatia are now being more openly discussed. The University of Zagreb’s Ivo Goldstein, and other professional historians from Croatia, are already tackling these issues. Funny enough, the Croatian government is now paying compensation to former victims of the Communist regime. What a crazy world we live in. Regards Peter Z. 18:13, 29 September 2009 (PDT)

Thank you - do you have any links? (sorry not to have replied earlier - I don't always log in) Ockham 11:53, 2 October 2009 (PDT)

Hi Ockham! Sorry you'll have to be patient with me, I have yet to learn how to use the wiki-internet. Now links, I'm assuming thats got something to do with references? Cheers! Peter Z. 00:01, 3 October 2009 (PDT)

References:

BBC UK/History by Tim Judah [3]

Tim Judah is a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Judah’s first jobs were at the BBC African Service and BBC World Service. He writes most of the Balkan coverage for “The Economist” but also works for the “New York Review of Books”, “The Observer”, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and others. He is the author of two books on the region: “The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia” and “Kosovo: War and Revenge”.

David B. MacDonald: Identity politics in the age of genocide: the Holocaust and historical [4]

Ivo Goldstein-Croatia: A History [5]

Ivo Goldstein is a Professor at the University of Zagreb & former Director of the Institute for Croatian History of the University of Zagreb

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Josip Broz Tito

He knew that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others could not be integrated within some new supranation, nor would they willingly accept the hegemony of any of their number; yet his supranational Yugoslavism frequently smacked of unitarism. He promoted self-management but never gave up on the party’s monopoly of power. He permitted broad freedoms in science, art, and culture that were unheard of in the Soviet bloc, but he kept excoriating the West. He preached peaceful coexistence but built an army that, in 1991, delivered the coup de grâce to the dying Yugoslav state. At his death, the state treasury was empty and political opportunists unchecked. He died too late for constructive change, too early to prevent chaos.

(Referenced from Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Actually (though the above is useful) do you have links to the articles that are problematic? I looked at the article on Tito and there are clear problems there. Is there anything else? Thanks Ockham 01:56, 3 October 2009 (PDT)

Hi! So, Wiki links that that are problematic concerning the article. Hmmm, I like that. I'll get back to you on that one. Thanks for the tip. Peter Z. 02:49, 3 October 2009 (PDT)

No, other articles in Wikipedia - or is it just the Tito one? Let's start with which specific Wikipedia articles you have a problem with :-) Ockham 02:51, 3 October 2009 (PDT)