User talk:Hawstom/Archive2

Human

Splitting into pages

Hi, I haven't read the whole debate in detail, but my initial impression is that articles should not split different POVs into different pages. Anyway, you probably know more about this than I do from your work on the Mormonism controversies page and Eloquence's objections to splitting the criticisms away from the main Mormonism page, so I'm not really sure I can be of any help. You could try listing the page at WP:RFC to get other views on the issue. Angela .

What's PR?

You said you were going to put "it on PR". What does that mean? Thanks. Tom 17:26, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry. I meant WP:PR. But WP:RFC would maybe have been more appropriate. dab 17:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

see my talk page. Btw, Mormonism and Christianity appears to be truly an encyclopedic acheivement of the first degree, and a monument to the community spirit... I can only applaud you for sitting it out, and say that I value your experience in WP-dispute-moderation... dab 15:21, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

copy from "Talk:Human" Notice I suggested adding all POV's to the article. I don't feel only the biological POV should be mentioned. But I'm having trouble myself defining "spiritual" in this context. Mgm 07:04, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Human "religious" definition poll

Note: This poll was supposed to be of POVs from people who believe in an omniscient, omnipotent creator. I suppose I wasn't clear on that, and I am leaving all entries that have been added.

Rules:

Poll closes at end of your Friday Oct 8, 2004.
This poll is to gather definitions of what humans are from believers in a God/eternity beyond this world.
Bullet and sign your definition.
Use no more than three lines.
Give your personally believed factual definition of what a human is.

Definitions:

A free-will child of God come from Heaven into the world to inhabit an animal body for the purpose of spiritual growth toward the stature of the Father God. Tom - Talk

"A human is a person created by God, uniquely made in the image and likeness of God, intended for progressively and infinitely closer communion with God. Humans are naturally di-sexual (male and female), and are naturally comprised of spirit (or mind), soul, and body." (First draft of what I believe; hard to condense into the small space) Wesley 04:25, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

From my Unitarian Universalist perspective, a human is a member of the species Homo sapiens. Our conscious (rational) and subconscious (instinctual) minds operate on such different levels that they allow us to feel a transcendent mystery about the world and universe we live in. Our curiosity has led us to ask questions about the nature of the universe long before our technological ability was able to adequately answer them. - UtherSRG 13:19, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

When pondering God's nature, I find a further answer to the question: God is the interdependant web of all existence, of which we (humans) are a part. - UtherSRG 16:31, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My definition is not so much what I think a human is, but rather what humanity is, from my Mormon and religious humanist perspective. I would say that humanity means at least: (1) having some sort of body (physical or otherwise) that reacts like a human's, (2) having empathy for other humans, and (3) having unlimited ambition (meaning an endless desire to learn, acquire, and grow). Any being who is missing one of these things lacks humanity, and is more akin to a machine, an animal, or some kind of alien. COGDEN 22:35, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Any entity that passes the Turing Test, and wishes to be seen as human as a result. (Simpler alternate: if it is a member of a class that statistically passes). Kim Bruning 17:27, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There ain't no God, I say. And since this is a UserTalk page, I will be blunt. I sure as Hell hate the juvenile actions of my fellow people who deny God's pre-eminence in polluting Tom's well-meaning attempt to collect definitions for "Human" from people who do believe in God. Tom might have added the rule: "Answer below only if you believe in God's pre-eminence," but still. . :) ---Rednblu 17:52, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To really answer this question would require writing an entire book! If I'm limited to a few words, I guess it would be that a human is a child of God. I believe that our relationship with God is very much like our relationship to a parent. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) - Talk 01:04, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A human [being] is a son or daughter of God that currently possesses a mortal human body (I'm not sure if I'd include immortal in here -- I'd have to give it some more thought). I have no objection, however, to the definition of Homo sapien, as all Homo sapiens are children of God possessing a body. [By the way Tom, thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate it.) Cookiecaper 04:19, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

children

dab is doing an admirable job of arguing for the "enemy"

thanks! but think about that (I don't want to clog up the talk page with this): monkeys may be children of God, too. I was once moved by a line in a 8-year-old's poem: "god loves the hedgehog curled up in the hay". dab 14:56, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

npov warning

Hello Tom – "Option 1" supporters may put it back, but I think it would now be fair for you to remove the POV-warning boilerplate. dab 13:55, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Christianity cross caption

Hello, Tom! Got your message. Read your background, and understand your point. How about a compromise wording for the caption stating "The cross was established in the fourth century AD as a Christian symbol; there are many variations of the Christian Cross. Groups that consider themselves as Christian generally use this symbol, excepting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses." Waddya think? --avnative 18:46, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

reply to you on Talk:Human

Quick message to point out that I replied to you with a very brief question on Talk:Human. I'm wondering if you could point out where this specific taxonomy and the catechism actually contradict each other, according to you personally? :-) I'll await your reply there! Kim Bruning 23:43, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I added a definition/opening on the Talk:Human page. -Visorstuff 00:51, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please comment about Non-Christian perspectives on Jesus

Hello, my name is Rantaro. In this article, we can see that Latter-day Saints are non-Christian. You seem to be LDS, please comment in Talk:Non-Christian perspectives on Jesus#What is a Christian ?. Thank you. Rantaro 07:40, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not LDS, I'm a Jehovah's Witness(JW). But I think it's POV that LDS and JW are of non-Christianity. Thank you for your help. Rantaro 15:51, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

incorrect talk link

Tom, you slipped up somewhere and started using [[User_talk:Tom|Talk]] instead of [[User_talk:Hawstom]]. I know I've fixed at least one link of this sort on talk:human but I bet there are others around. - UtherSRG 16:34, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

LDS STUBS

Hi Tom,

I just wanted to drop in to let you know that I've just finished the template Template:LDS-stub. It should make it easier to find topics on Mormonism that need to be expanded. You can use the template in your editing by entering {{LDS-stub}}. I hope you will. Pass it on if you see anybody I've missed. ;) Thanks. Cookiecaper 03:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV, and bugs in, solutions for

Right, I'm following NPOV of course, but I've run into some trouble with it. You have the (mis)fortune of being the first person to trigger me to actually write it all down.

Hmm, if you don't feel like reading all the following, or don't entirely agree, that's quite ok. It doesn't nescesarily *change* NPOV policy as such, it just suggests a smart way of working with it. :-) With a little luck, you can safely ignore the following and we'd still see eye to eye on NPOV policy.

Let's hope the current article we're working on doesn't trigger it though! I'm a bit worried about that. :-/

My apologies for making this so long. At some point I'll condense this down, and perhaps write it into a policy document. There's a point-by-point summary at the end.

Right, I doublechecked the NPOV documentation before typing this.

Previously I'd also had the terrific luck to be able discuss the subject a bit with Jimbo Wales when he happened to be in Utrecht a little while ago. :-D

So, what gives?

Alright, well, there's a small problem with NPOV policy as written down (note the "as written down" part). It assumes that people will be able to reasonably agree on some, or even most things. The remainder of an article can then be sorted out by the NPOV rules. All but perhaps the 100-1000 most controversial pages (out of the great multitude ) come out fine, mind you! :-)

In most cases, the logical consequence of NPOV policy is that articles come out being NPOV and encyclopedic.

In some few limited cases (check the page history of Global Warming, or check Socialism), NPOV policy as written lacks something. The articles come out NPOV, but now they're no longer encyclopedic, because they are devoid of actual information on the subject. Global Warming was particularly funny at one point. It failed to mention the Greenhouse Effect at all! :-)

So you could say NPOV policy has a hole in it, where a few articles leak through.

Examples:

Very short powerpoint summary of human, written in a fashion that is perfectly valid , according to current NPOV policy:

Human (1)

Some folks see humans from a biological perspective
Darwin, Linneaus, etc etc...
Some folks see humans from a religeous perspective:
The Pope, etc etc..
Some folks concentrate on culture:
(some people here too)

Ok, that's it. The End.

Wait wait a minute! Hey! You forgot to say what a Human Being is!

Yup. :-) And therin lies the flaw.

Since currently people on Talk:Human are fairly reasonable, we might be a bit luckier , and perhaps get something more like (2) (in random order today :-)) :

Human (2)

Has some nice cultural phenomena:
art, technology, history.
Has been described by scientists:
2 arms, 2 legs, breaths.
religeous view:
Possibly possesing a spirit and soul

An actually GREAT article wrt content would go (random order again, I swear ;-) ):

Human(3)

2 arms, 2 legs, breaths, possibly possesing a spirit, prays to God (where applicable) and paints paintings and builds buildings.

NPOV policy admits that the above turns out to be practically impossible. (It turns out to be merely an asymptotic ideal for encyclopedias in general). But it's quite possible to end up with (4) if we work on it (note that I've combined things at random again, actual article may vary)

Human(4)

2 arms, 2 legs, breaths, paints paintings and builds buildings

Religeon:
Religous people state that Humans posses an immortal soul.

Alright, that's the examples, almost there now. Note how (1),(2),(3),(4) are all NPOV! Further (2) (4) and (3) are encyclopedic (in order from least to most) , while (1) is not.

The objective of wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. The NPOV rules do not (but possibly should) explicitly state that the objective is to obtain content. Therefore, it is possible to write an NPOV article with little or no content (But a lot of words!). Such articles actually exist on wikipedia.

The solution as I've heard it proposed is quite simple, namely, to ensure that all content the parties actually agree on (NPOV) can be stated first and foremost in an article.

That way, a casual reader will be able to get a rough idea about what the article is actually about. After that, sure, add in controversies.

In practice, it actually turns out that it's more important to collect the uncontroversial data at the start of an article than it is to also mention the controversies.

Have a look around and see if you can determine this for yourself! :) Perhaps take a small article and actually try the different forms on it to see what happens. Seen it? Great!

Note that to compensate for this problem when it occurs, we don't actually need to change or negotiate on NPOV policy at all if we don't want to. We merely need to agree on how to approach an article.

It might be wise to do so at some later point to save time discussing this.

Summarising

Let's summarise a bit already.

(Here: "Content"= Encyclopedic Content)

It's possible to have (in an article about Sky):

NPOV Content
"The sky is blue."
NPOV text, but no content
"Pete's grandfather (who is colorblind), states that blue does not exist, while Pete states that it does. "

forgets to mention the sky
Content that is POV
"The sky is very bright green."

forgets to mention that it's the (blue/green colorblind) grandfather who says that
A rant that contains neither content nor NPOV
"The existence of blue is a lie!"

doesn't mention the sky, and no attribution

We'd like to:

We'd like to write articles that conform to situation 1.
NPOV policy allows either 1 or 2. (the latter might be a bit of a bug)
Typically, nothing goes wrong, and we actually get 1 anyway
Very occaisionally, it turns out that we do get 2.

To fix this:

We need to state more explicitly that our goal is 1.
We need to give better advice on how to reliably obtain 1.

'Such an advice might be:

Collect all statements all the different groups can agree on, and put them to the front of an article first. That way you'll have some uncontroversial content to start with. Further on, you can split out things that different groups disagree on.

Once again, my apologies for making this so long at the moment. I'll reserve the right to edit it and improve on it, or move it to a separate page in my talk space. Any comments welcome of course :)

Kim Bruning 19:19, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

I think these are great ideas. And I think we should cut this whole section to a subpage of Talk:Human--because the best raw data against which I think we could develop these ideas is in the discussion for the development of the Human page. I bet we could come up with some concrete improvements to the current NPOV documentation. ---Rednblu 20:15, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Trolling

hello Tom -- I had really vowed to stay away from pages involving creationist disputes, since I believe it has been going in circles for ages, and nothing new is added, no matter how long the disputes are drawn out. Now, on Human, we have thankfully avoided any heated controversy or angry ad-hominem attacks so far, and I am really pleased how we seem to be able to make progress without shouting down anyone. I have come to know you as a good-faith editor who is prepared to listen carefully, and to question your own preconceptions. This should be the case for every editor, but unfortunately, it is more of a happy exception. Concerning the issue at hand: I really think that it should ideally not matter what a user's convictions are, as long as he or she stays honest and objective. You shall know them by their fruits, i. e. by their edits, and if a creationist makes good-faith contributions to a biological article, his or her views will not even be discernible, and should therefore not matter. In practice, however, we will hardly reach this ideal state, and a user who in discussions tries to deceive other users by arguing his own intentions backwards is justly called a troll. As I said, I am reluctant to become involved in battles on creationism, and in this particular case, I am not sure if I can give fair support, because I can hardly make sense of the user's contributions, and find it very hard to decide if they are a genuine attempt to express sincere thoughts, or if they are intentionally confusing. At some point, of course, the 'benefit of doubt' is spent, giving way to 'informed suspicion', but since I didn't follow "creationism", I cannot judge if this point has really been reached. But I encourage you to try and sort it out with an open discussion. I think you are the right person to do this, since I think nobody doubts your sincerity, and I will support you as best I can. Rednblu's posts on Talk:Human have not been evidently trollish, although, to my eye, cranky, and I am prepared to continue to take his posts at face value. If he is as notorious as claimed on Talk:Creationism, he will certainly not "come clear" just for asking nicely, but apparently a friendly and calm note telling him when he seems to argue beside the point goes much farther to contain him than enraged troll-hunting. dab 09:06, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

he is being a good team player at Human — I think so too, and I will not hold anyone's (actual or alleged) Usenet behaviour against him as long as his edits are reasonable and in good faith; again, my judgement is based on Human, and I have not looked up the Creationism issues. dab 17:58, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your request

Tom, I replied to request (rather obliquely, I'm afraid) here. I might move that reply to a more central talk page; if I do, I'll move your replies too. Best wishes, --Uncle Ed 13:21, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good faith

Tom,

I cut the following from the "hearing" record to keep from interrupting the flow of Mr. Monk's argument, if you know what I mean--given that we both inserted our comments after Mr. Monk had already made his counter-argument. :)

You asked, "Would you think it right for someone to investigate your decades-long personal history to keep you from helping others make Wikipedia pages accurate?" I say that would be very wrong. And I assume you are saying that out of frustration that is what LogicHammer did. And I agree with you. But I ask you in return, "Don't you think the ability to research my (Tom's) personal identity and history has ever helped to resolve/diffuse questions about my sincerity and good faith?" I say to you it has. And I say to you that there is a fundamental expectation at Wikipedia that the human contributors will disclose truthfully their biases. I don't know all the nuances of the ethics, but the idea that I could put on an alternate bias well enough to claim I actually possesed that bias smells to me of arrogance and disrespect for the proletariat of unwashed masses who expect me to be forthright about who I am and what I believe. Tom - Talk 21:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

((Added after adjournment--so this paragraph may be removed))

I understand. And I hear the poetry in what you said. :) And in that regard, I assure both you and Mr. Monk that what I put on my User page is a true representation of my true identity and history. Neither of you will be disappointed or surprised when you read my book or hear my speech on the national tour. In your terminology, Red'sManSitting = Rednblu. As I said before, I drafted two prior versions responding to your last questions. And I still think this third response is the best way to go for the overall Wikipedia community. It would be unreasonable to expect verification for Wikipedia identities. We have to judge the written argument for what it is. There is nothing to trust, and one should not expect trustworthiness. For example, I am not surprised, disappointed, or dismayed that Mr. LogicHammer is just a SockPuppet. However, it is worth-my-while to treat Mr. LogicHammer for exactly what he appears to be--a contributor in good faith no matter the disguise of true motives and interests. ---Rednblu 00:32, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I truly appreciate your thoughts and words. And I think they are fair enough for now. I apologize for speaking after adjournment, and I am not going to be dogmatic about what I waxed poetic about. I recognize I may be mistaken. It will be nonetheless interesting to revisit the issue later once FM's concerns are resolved. Tom - Talk 03:10, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Admin

You're not an admin already!? ;-)

Ok, in that case, may I nominate you? Kim Bruning 22:45, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Alright, I've nominated you here: [1]. You can accept your nomination right away, or you can also wait a while and see if you actually garner more support first. Good luck! Kim Bruning 17:42, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

83%. That's a good passing vote. Don't forget you still need to accept the nomination though! ;-) Kim Bruning 15:52, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Joseph Smith, Jr.

What in the edit was worth saving? I suppose there might've been a few things, but where there were they had just been used as replacements for things the editor didn't like. If I didn't revert such edits, the article would be utterly lopsided in favor of the LDS POV. At several points in the edit, it seemed to be forthrightly asserting the truth of the religion. Everyking 19:50, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Are you sure it was User:Sarrica? An anonymous user made the main edit, and then Sarrica fixed a typo. Do you know that they're the same? Everyking 20:04, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's a good idea to put that in the article, considering how vulnerable the subject is to POV problems. Everyking 20:22, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Joseph Smith changes

Hello Tom, Thank you for kindly sending me two emails regarding changes to the Joseph Smith texts. The intent of the edits was to clarify Mormon viewpoints. I did have some difficulty with the multiple previous additions which started with "Some say". Some people say anything and yet at the end of the day, it is still without scholarly merit.

Mormonism is a difficult subject given the large amount of critism that it has engendered. Much of the critism is scholarly and has a place; however, much of it is similarly without merit and has no place in documents purporting to be an encyclopedia. Given my impression that Wikipedia is an instrument of learning rather than an instrument to allow statements without basis in reality (aside: an intertesting point for a conversation regarding religion).

I have read the article on NPOV and concurr. I did make some errors and should have ensured that those statements were from the viewpoint of LDS doctrine. However, I would remain convinced that the statements I deleted did not enlighten a reader and did not belong in the realm of scholarly critism, but rather in the realm of base gossip.

I again thank you and look forward to future conversations.

Utah War ^___^

Hi Tom,

I don't know a whole lot about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but I think it's good to have the 140 as casualities. I agree with you there. ^_^ Cookiecaper 04:46, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to make a Mormonism WikiProject

I'd like to discover if there would be community support for a Mormonism WikiProject. I think it would offer several advantages to our current decentralized approach. Please comment.

See Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr.#Propose we make a Mormonism WikiProject — Cool Hand Luke 18:08, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the WikiProject under Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement. I hope the project will be useful to editors looking for work to do. To this end I've compiled a list of red links and short Latter Day Saint articles not listed as LDS stubs. Cool Hand Luke 18:57, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Interlanguage links

The interlanguage links are seen (in Monobook skin) in the left column, and form links to articles on the same subject in other languages. Their function is to lead people who stumbled upon an article but do not know much English a better alternative and to give those who speak both languages extra information and/or a place to copy more information from or to. There are yet other, less important uses - the bot can for example also use them to find images. I hope this answers your question, if not, please ask it again with more specification of what precisely you are asking about. - Andre Engels 22:38, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You're a sysop!

I'm pleased to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. Congratulations!. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 17:47, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations! Gosh! A (significant) number of people appear to have agreed with me, yay! :-) Kim Bruning 18:15, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Don't forget to read stuff that Cecropia said too! (see above) ;-) Kim Bruning 19:14, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Welcoming anons

I looked at 80.5.160.5's edit history, and all does seem to be in order. I can't remember the occasion, but I can only assume that whoever had that IP at the time had been creating nonsense pages, which, having been caught on Recent changes and deleted, don't show up in the user contributions. Remember that IP addresses can be used by more than one person at different times (or could belong to a public computer); that the user might have "gone straight" after a bit of initial foolishness; or it could also have been staunch newbiness that I mistook for vandalism - to be honest, I just don't remember.

Also, if you're interested in welcoming new users, you might want to join the Welcoming committee (if you haven't already).

T.P.K. 11:47, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Afterlife

Hi Tom, I think you messaged the wrong person about the Afterlife article. My only contribution to it was an "a" changed to an "an". :-) Sam Hocevar 22:05, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Prince Buu Chanh

Emperor Bao Dai the last reigning monarch of Vietnam abidicated the throne of Vientam and lived in exile in France. He continued to be the Head of the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty, which is the Royal House of Vietnam. At the time of his reign his oldest son, Crown Prince Bao Long was his apparent heir, but Emperor Bao Dai had transferred the duties of the Nguyen Dynasty to the Prince Buu Phuc, the elder Prince within the Nguyen Dynasty.

In 2004, Prince Buu Phuc assigned the Prince Buu Chanh as the Regent of the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty. Emperor Bao Dai has a signed document that he wrote assigning the duties of the Nguyen Dynasty to Prince Buu Phuc and has been look over by scholars. I am currently looking over some research books, that document this, that would put the question to rest that Emperor Bao Dai did not wish his son to be the heir.Jimmyvanthach 22:49, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mail

Hmm, I sent you a mail a little earlier, but it looks like things are already over and done with, so it might be a bit on the late side then. :-/

Oh well.

have a nice day! Kim Bruning 22:52, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hindu groups

Tom, you may want to try ISKCON, a hare Krishna group, mostly Western converts who adopted Gaudiya Vaishnvaism. They are extreme Vaishnavites (belief of Vishnu as the supreme God.) A more liberal alternative is the Vedanta Society. They have many branches across the country and meetings. (http://www.vedanta-newyork.org/) They belong to the Smarta Advaita tradition of Hinduism; they believe the Ultimate Reality is attributeless, but is expressed through attributes, commonly in Hinduism as Shiva or Vishnu.

Hope this helps.

If these terms seem foreign, see my edits on Hinduism, and Vaishnvaism.

Hinduism has been misinterpreted. You have to understand that India was under Muslim and British influence. It is possible that misinterpretations of Hinduism existed in order to better subjugate Hindus. I don't accept Jesus as a sole avatar of God but am willing to accept that He is an avatar.

Thanks. 67.106.157.231 Reply: Then try the Vedanta society. Also see if the Chinmaya mission has groups as well. http://www.chinmayakedar.org/ (NY site) The other western convert site: www.dharmacentral.com

or simply see if there is a local Hindu temple in your area. Most of the temples have well-educated Hindu professionals, many of whom would be happy to explain Hinduism to you. Best book on Hinduism for non-Hindus is "Dancing with Siva" (see himalyan academy), also on amazon; It's slanted towards Shaivism but it is overall not a bad book. The smarta advaita tradition books are available on www.vedanta.com.

Prince Buu Chanh information

User Tom, here is the information you requested about Prince Buu Chanh of Vietnam. These are news articles that the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty released concerning their movement to help the people of Vietnam.

This is recent news of exiled Vietnamese Prince Buu Chanh of the Nguyen Dynasty living in the United States with photos, please click on photos and they will appear larger.

Link 1: WTO must ensure Vietnam Must Bring Closure to the MIA/POW and Human Rights Before Being Admitted

Link 2: 2004 New Year Message From The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam

Link 3: The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam opposes the Communist Government of Vietnam’s effort to suspend the Transnational Radical Party concerning Mr. Ksor a member general of the council and the President of The Montagnard Foundation

Link 4: A Royal Solution for a Nationalist Vietnam

The above documents, if you look through them, and also view the photos you will see support that Prince Buu Chanh has support of Vietnamese as well as Americans to help the people of Vietnam.

The Nguyen Dynasty is not interested in the throne, only the improvement of social programs (Human Rights, Freedom of Speech, Religion) for the people of Vietnam.

If the people chose to have a Constitutional Monarchy it is up to them, and the Crown Prince Bao Long would be the obvious choice if he accepts.

As Prince Buu Chanh is role is in the capacity of only a Regent working on behalf of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, for his people.

Also here is support that Prince Buu Chanh has of Vietnamese Cao Dai Temple in California.

Link 5: Cao Dai religious leaders in California and Vietnamese Americans supporters

Link 6: Furthermore, here is the Leadership Structure of the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam

Jimmyvanthach 18:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

counting edits

Well, traditionally people just looked up user contributions, and like, counted. (Using 'view next 500 edits' is very helpful :-P).

User:Kate did have an edit-counting cgi script, but it's been disabled or so, so I'm going to track hir down and see where...

Ha! That was a quick answer, apparently it went "into thin air", um thanks Kate :-P Sie says sie'll fix it sometime soon th....

*blink* That was even quicker.

Erm, well, use this then: Kate's edit counter.

have a nice day! Kim Bruning 19:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yeah it would be intimidating, something shut down and the server is only showing the source code, rather than running it. :-/ Oh well, back to ye olde ways then :-) Kim Bruning 21:21, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your Questions

I provided you the material in the websites that answered your questions.

There are no wikipedia articles concerning disputes or other Crown Prince.

Emperor Bao Dai son, Crown Prince Bao Long is the heir to the throne of Vietnam.

Prince Buu Chanh is only acting in the capacity as a Regent that was given to him with the authority of a 1982 Edict signed by Emperor Bao Dai to Prince Buu Phuc.

I presented you a article A Royal Solution for a Nationalist Vietnam that explained this issue very clearly. Jimmyvanthach 21:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

reformed Egyptian

In response to the message you pointed me to,

[1] Nauvoo keeps saying "there is no such language."

I really don't. I keep saying that there is no linguistic, manuscript, archeological or scientific evidence that "reformed Egyptian" existed, and I have been rather careful not to refer to it as a language, but rather a writing system. I don't think it's fair to characterize this as a "no such language" game, or really a game of any sort.

[2] Maybe I should have said right off the bat, "Nauvoo, what you are really saying is that there is no such thing as ancient Book of Mormon people and writing, right?

I'm not saying that. That is a much broader claim. You may be hearing that: but that's not what I'm saying.

[3] And you want to be sure the article is fairly neutral on that, right?"

I don't think the article should indulge in any speculation about such things.

[4] Maybe I owe Nauvoo an apology

You certainly haven't done anything you need to apologize for!

[5] attempt to get the discussion back on track.

I'm not sure in what way the discussion is off track. Had The Book of Mormon never existed, no one - no linguist, no historian, no archaeologist - would ever have remotely suspected that there was a writing system known as "reformed Egyptian". The inclusion of this simple fact shouldn't be controversial. - Nauvoo 23:13, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)