User talk:Alanscottwalker

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User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive1

User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive2

User talk:Alanscottwalker/archive3

I started using one-click-archiver in 2017, it labeled the new page with a Capital 'A':

User talk:Alanscottwalker/Archive 1

Good Ref on Lake Michigan[edit]

The Original Barnstar
Neat fact, I think it's worth a barnstar. Good job. Royal Autumn Crest (talk) 16:39, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Precious anniversary[edit]

Precious
Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:30, 2 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for caring about Jessye Norman and her article, borrowing her smile --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, invite to join new RfC on Bruno Bettelheim[edit]

Hi, thanks for participating in last May's RfC (Request for Comment).

I wish to invite you to join a new one with the specific question of:

Should our lead sentence describe Bettelheim as a "self-proclaimed psychologist"?
RfC on lead sentence
started: Feb. 25, 2020

Any time and effort you wish to spend on this will be most appreciated. Thanks. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ITN recognition for Joseph Lowery[edit]

On 29 March 2020, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Joseph Lowery, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. —Bagumba (talk) 03:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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John Lewis[edit]

Thanks for moving that paragraph into chronological order - I had intended to do that while I was editing that section, thought I had, in fact! Glad you picked it up. Tvoz/talk 00:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Precious anniversary[edit]

Precious
Eight years!

I enjoyed having the TFA yesterday, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk)

Thank you. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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US intellectual tradition in political reforms[edit]

Hey. Thank you for your considered statements over the last couple weeks at Talk:United States Electoral College. I wanted to expand on a string of Congressional reform addressing state mal-apportionment in federal elections. I noted previously, efforts to curb state majority abuses included three Acts of Congress passing both House and Senate in an effort to shape political communities that resembled the underlying populations geographically, socially, and ideologically (the culturally-related basket of religion, ethnic practice, and politics): contiguity (1842), and compactness (1872), including equal population (1911) (but only for a few sessions at a time, and never enforced).

If we expand the observation from listing Acts of Congress to exploring who was sponsoring them, the topic takes on an interesting aspect of US political intellectual history. The 1842 legislation was sponsored by Jacksonian Democrats, the 1872 by Lincoln Republicans, and the 1911 by Republican and Democratic Progressives. Wiki-fencing on Talk pages notwithstanding, I understand the impulse to the National Popular Vote generally to be aligned with that intellectual tradition. To take another page from the same democratizing impulse, if the states abuse their Constitutional duty to elect US Senators by their legislatures for thirty consecutive years as they did in the Gilded Age, then the American people will pass a Constitutional Amendment taking the abused trust away from the bad actors subverting their democratic republic.

So it is, that if the states do not refrain from the egregious anti-democratic practice of winner-take-all selection of their presidential electors, I expect that in due time the American people will take away the state legislature role in choosing a president, in one way or another. I will regret the loss of political community that might follow uniform standards for redistricting by equal population, contiguous boundaries, compact shapes, and respecting political boundaries aligned with the state geography. But the voting people are sovereign, at the very least, even if the non-voting populations of the voters' neighbors who are immigrants, young, and transients are left out of the national equation the future.

But whenever a persistent political majority takes form of the same opinion, it must be allowed to prevail, or we lose the American experiment that the London Economist last week noted is the political reason that Americans respect themselves and why others around the globe in turn respect them. - TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:46, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Per history, it rather seems inertia will prevail, unless there is sustained political crises in multiple states over multiple elections (we maybe in the middle of such, but perhaps not and over-time the College will continue to most often produce outcomes most everyone can live with and endure, regardless of whatever principles some people see as being served or not). The College was and is a compromise, and it seems hardly surprising that in every generation the compromise will be questioned, and that talk of recalibration will arise, this is especially so in that ideas of what or who a democracy encompasses, change. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:11, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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WP 20[edit]

Thank for your help with Jerome Kohl! - Happy Wikipedia 20, - proud of a little bit on the Main page today, and 5 years ago, and 10 years ago, look: create a new style - revive - complete! I sang in the revival mentioned. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the Main page today, remembered in friendship --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Electoral college edits[edit]

Hello. Former NARA employee here. One certificate is for public inspection as mandated by law - that is what is uploaded. There is a difference between a certificate of vote and ascertainment hence why my edit says "certificate of vote." However, since in the immediate one is available to the public - there is no real difference in the change made. Furthermore, I was simply replacing a certificate of vote from 2012 from one from 2020, hardly a controversial edit. Please refrain from making subtle jabs at other users. I am fully up to speed on the American electoral process. Cliffmore (talk) 15:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cliffmore, Hi. Sorry, I did not think the image was controversial, I thought it was redundant, uninformative of the Process, and ultimately misleading in its redundancy. And since the two Certificates are different, created at different times in the process with different info, etc., and both events recently proved to be controversial, in addition to essential to the links in the chain from popular vote to inauguration, it makes sense in the Process section to illustrate the process with both certificates. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:46, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Got it. Appreciate your clarification --Cliffmore (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Green for hope[edit]

Lenten Rose

Today, we have a DYK about Wilhelm Knabe, who stood up for future with the striking school children when he was in his 90s, - a model, - see here. - Thank you for your position in the arb case request, - I feel I have to stay away, but there are conversations further down on the page, in case of interest, - in a nutshell: "... will not improve kindness, nor any article". - Yesterday, I made sure on a hike that the flowers are actually blooming ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]


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Modest flowers[edit]

Thank you for what you said on Yoninah's talk, - see also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-03-28/Obituary! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Time flies...[edit]

Hey, Alanscottwalker. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day!
CommanderWaterford (talk) 08:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
CommanderWaterford (talk) 08:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply] 

Happy First Edit Day![edit]

Notice[edit]

Just to let you know, 85Rose has filed a case request at WP:ARC with you as a party. They failed to notify you so I am doing that for them. You may comment at the case request, though it may be removed by the time you see this message. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 12:08, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you[edit]

... for what you said on User talk:SlimVirgin - missing pictured on my talk, with music full of hope and reformation --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you for participating in my RFA[edit]

Nice to see your datestamp in support. Trust is especially valuable when given by contributors with whom I interact regularly. Please help me by keeping sharp eyes on my foibles as they arise. I'm happy to learn something new. BusterD (talk) 21:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ANI[edit]

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Disambiguation link notification for August 12[edit]

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Please supply more complete information in your citations[edit]

Your citation (from Abraham Lincoln and slavery):


"Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864) – Encyclopedia Virginia". Retrieved 2021-07-01.


What I did with it (note that at the end, as with many articles, there are instructions about how to cite it):


Bearss, Sara B. (December 20, 2020). "Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1864)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. Retrieved 2021-08-01.


Thanks. deisenbe (talk) 15:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Removing my analysis[edit]

Hey, I saw you completed deleted the whole analysis for the election of 1864 I had wrote out. the page doesn’t even really explain why the election wasn’t as close as the electoral college map shows as Lincoln only narrowly edged out Mac in a few states which gave him the win. I know quite a bit about elections but Ik I do need to site the sources. I mainly used US election atlas which is already sourced. I don’t think thanos snapping that whole analysis was really necessary though as their was non of the like on the page. DrPipp96 (talk) 21:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Sorry but you do need to cite the sources for such "analysis" and that analysis has to be "directly" in the source, see Wikipedia's policy on the sourcing requirements, WP:V, and policy against publishing Wikipedia user's unsourced analysis, WP:NOR. If you have read that precise analysis from sources and you have good cites for it, then it can possibly be used (see also WP:NPOV, the other major content policy.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary[edit]

Precious
Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Six (musical)[edit]

Hi Alanscottwalker! Could you please help me understand why you reverted my bot's edit? My bot's edit was to delete a duplicated author from a reference. I'm not sure what "removal of TOC" means, as my bot's edit did not remove a table of contents. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Must have been some kind of glitch, because when I went through it at the time the TOC had disappeared and I scrolled through history to see it was the bot edit but now the history does not show that, so, now, all I can say is, apologies. Alanscottwalker (talk) 05:47, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The TOC issue was discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Missing TOC? Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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End of slavery in former Confederate states[edit]

Hey Alan, thanks for your work on Slave states and free states, but I want to clarify the edit of mine you've reverted a couple of times. The Emancipation Proclamation did not end the institution of slavery in areas under Confederate control. It just freed the slaves currently held there — an action enforced by Union forces as they moved through the south. ("...all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.") Slavery as an 'institution' continued until it was legally eliminated by individual states or by the 13th Amendment. That's one reason former Confederate states were required to ratify the 13th as a condition of readmission.

For example, if someone who owned a slave in a non-emancipated place (like, say, Kentucky, Delaware, or New Orleans) moved them to a place covered by the Proclamation (say, Alabama or Georgia), that slave was still a slave under the law. That's why the individual state changes and 13th Amendment were necessary: to end the institution itself. The Proclamation was the equivalent of a governor commuting the sentences of everyone on his state's Death Row: It protects everyone currently facing a death sentence, but it doesn't ban the death penalty or prevent future people from being sentenced to death. Flaggingwill (talk) 13:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not convinced. The states were under matial law, and martial law ended slavery -- it is also practically certain that should there have arisen a second Dred Scott v. Sandford (of claimed enslaved moving between states) that the courts would never make that horrific mistake again, after the war they just went through. ~~ Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but that's not accurate. Neither the Proclamation nor Union military control "ended slavery" anywhere, legally speaking. Black leaders, as well as Northern Republicans, expressed fears that as soon as Union forces returned home, freedmen would be re-enslaved so long as slavery was still on the books as legal. (From the Toledo Blade: "When the rebellion is suppressed, the same Constitution will be operative as before. Although every Slave in the South be emancipated, the institution in its legal sense would not be destroyed. The Slaves, if they remained in the States, could all be reenslaved as soon as the army that liberated them was removed.") The Proclamation had been made in the narrow context of Lincoln's war powers, and those powers would at some point end.
The Wade–Davis manifesto in 1864 specifically complained that Lincoln's Reconstruction plan "does not secure the abolition of Slavery; for the proclamation of freedom merely professed to free certain slaves, while it recognized the institution. Every constitution of the rebel States at the outbreak of the rebellion may be adopted without the change of a letter, for none of them contravene that proclamation." The whole point of each of the state actions in this article, as well as the 13th, was to remedy the fact that slavery 'as an institution' was still legal until it was made illegal by state or federal legislation. A few months before Lincoln was shot, his Secretary of State William Seward made a speech that made it very clear slavery in the Confederate states would still be a live matter at the war's end:

While the rebels continue to wage war against the Government of the United States, the military measures affecting Slavery, which have been adopted from necessity, to bring the war to a speedy and successful end, will be continued, except so far as practical experience shall show that they can be modified advantageously, with a view to the same end. When the insurgents shall have disbanded their armies, and laid down their arms, the war will instantly cease, and all the war measures then existing, including those which affect Slavery, will cease also, and all the moral, economical and political questions, as well questions affecting Slavery as others which shall then be existing between individuals and States and the Federal Government, whether they arose before the civil war began, or whether they grew out of it, will, by force of the Constitution, pass over to the arbitrament of courts of law, and to the councils of legislation.

And here's his Interior Secretary John P. Usher around the same time:

The moment they submit to the Government and support the Constitution the war must cease, an a matter of course, and peace will be the natural result. Then the question as to whether the President's Proclamation has in fact freed the slaves of the people of the South will come up for decision. It is a question of law, and can be decided only by the courts. The President believes the Proclamation is constitutional and lawful, and that it has effected all it was intended to effect, but if it should turn out, as it may, that the Proclamation does not in fact free all the slaves, the law must take its course over the President's Proclamation, for we are a law-abiding people.

Flaggingwill (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your thesis is still not convincing. Martial law did end slavery, and you can quibble about it not being civil law, but that does not matter - it was the law of the land and it did end slavery. And Lincoln insisted that for a state to ever get out of being under martial law it had to affrim the EP. It seems like you contend the Emancipation Proclamation was illegal, and the courts would have found it illegal, but that is a pipe dream. And of course no court did find the Emancipation Proclamation illegal. Indeed, people argued for more beyond martial law, but that does not mean that martial law where it was in effect did not end slavery - in law, and ´´in fact´´ it did. (Nor did martial law end when the war ended, in some ways it only just began.) By law, martial law ended slavery where it was in effect, or as predicted there would have been nothing to be in court to fight over afterward, were it ever to get to court. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for December 3[edit]

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).

Administrator changes

removed A TrainBerean HunterEpbr123GermanJoeSanchomMysid

Technical news

  • Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
  • The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)

Arbitration



Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AE[edit]

Do you know how many times these parties have been to AE over the last decade? [1] An AE filing often results in an immediate retaliatory filing, and so much mud slinging that it's very hard for the uninvolved to determine who's in the wrong. El C, is that a fair summary of the dynamic? Jehochman Talk 18:09, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much. It's an exceptionally challenging subject matter for the non-expert to orient themselves in. And on the WP:APL side of WP:ARBEE, there's also WP:APLRS to contend with. El_C 18:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One editor has appear on 76 AE archive pages, and the other on 110 pages. They could be AE's most frequent customers. I think it's time to come up with a more systematic solution rather than continuing this revolving door. Jehochman Talk 18:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Jehochman, you're here (and at the RfAA [2]) falsely insinuating that there have been 110 AE filings against me. Of course you don't say that explicitly ... because it's so blatantly false that if you did say it explicitly people would laugh at you and you yourself could be sanctioned for WP:ASPERSIONS. So instead, being careful, you only INSINUATE it. ... It's still blatantly false. Yes, there's passing mentions of me at WP:AE [3], or me commenting on someone else's report [4], or even some sock puppets trying to sling mud at me [5] [6] and getting themselves blocked in the process. If you've been editing in controversial areas for 12 years the number of times you get mentioned adds up. And here's another false insinuation - most of these mentions don't even have anything to do with Eastern Europe. They're about Donald Trump, or Race and Intelligence, or Economics, or Mexican history or some other unrelated topic. You either know this, in which case your "some statistics" comment is made entirely in bad faith, or you don't know this, which means you haven't even bothered to do a basic fact check before spouting off.
I also see that you're doing the same type of mealy mouthed insinuation here. Buddy? If you think that I'm guilty of "falsifying history in Eastern Europe for nationalistic ends" then have the guts to say that outright and name me by name, rather than doing this cowardly hint-hint-whisper-whisper crap on people's talk pages. And guess what? At that point, when you actually make the accusation explicitly, I will ask you to back it up with diffs. And if you can't provide such diffs, then *I* will report you myself for WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:NPA. If you can't do that then stop with this "everybody's talking about it" Trumpian nonsense. Volunteer Marek 19:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) No, Jehochman, the editor who has made most trips to AE is actually.... Icewhiz, you know, the guy who you're busy carrying water for right now. Volunteer Marek 19:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

He's been banned. So you're saying that a lot of trips to AE correlates with users being banned. Are you sure you want to point out that correlation? Jehochman Talk 20:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Bang head against table. No J, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. I believe others already pointed out to you how ... specious (at best) your argument is [7]. Volunteer Marek 20:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why this conversation should be here. What issue has AE not been able to deal with -- if the issue is whether someone should be banned from the project or a topic, put in your filing to Arbcom, who should be banned, why, diffs and what steps have been taken to secure the ban prior to Arbcom. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:30, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AE has had trouble dealing with some of the editors who are its most frequent customers. No process is going to handle every situation perfectly. This looks like an exceptional case where delegation to AE probably won't solve the problem. The problems are outlined in the four threads I linked. I will respect your wish to end this. You asked and I answered. Thank you for your indulgence and please have the last word if you wish. Jehochman Talk 20:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RFA 2021 Completed[edit]

The 2021 re-examination of RFA has been completed. 23 (plus 2 variants) ideas were proposed. Over 200 editors participated in this final phase. Three changes gained consensus and two proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration. Thanks to all who helped to close the discussion, and in particular Primefac, Lee Vilenski, and Ymblanter for closing the most difficult conversations and for TonyBallioni for closing the review of one of the closes.

The following proposals gained consensus and have all been implemented:

  1. Revision of standard question 1 to Why are you interested in becoming an administrator? Special thanks to xaosflux for help with implementation.
  2. A new process, Administrative Action Review (XRV) designed to review if an editor's specific use of an advanced permission, including the admin tools, is consistent with policy in a process similar to that of