Guidelines for my talk page: Be civil at all times; Fix any mistakes I make; Give me at least 24 hours to a few days to respond. I edit Wikipedia sporadically. Unless you have an openly stated policy on conversation, or request for me to reply here, I will reply on your page. Please do not put substituted warnings on my talk page - I have edited Wikipedia for years, mostly as an unregistered user. Such warnings are condescending and will be removed. Any messages should be in English, and as clear and as legible as possible. As long as I know what you're saying to me, it's okay. If you have a request for me, please be aware that, unless dictated by policy or behavioural guideline, a member of the Arbitration Committee or Wikimedia Foundation (either paid employee or advisory board), or Jimbo Wales, I am not bound by your request, but will take it into consideration. I reserve the right to remove any threads or revert any edits that I percieve to be in bad faith. Violations of these guidelines may result in your post being removed or ignored.

Thanks for your note. I'm actually mostly offline for a few days, so my lack of activity is not an indication of anything more than busy-ness. Appreciate your efforts on this.--Gregalton (talk) 05:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to move the guidelines thing to no avail; I got it to budge to the right a bit, but then it disintegrated and spewed it's contents all over the page. I think there's some conflicting code or something that's causing a problem, but I can't figure out what... Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 23:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What are your interests? I have a few articles I've been wanting to get to Featured Article status. For instance, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, free market environmentalism, instant-runoff voting, and private highway. I also would like to see workplace conflict get to good article status. The latter would be worth a cookie or kitten if nothing else, and the others would be worth a barnstar I'm sure, or at least a userbox that says you've contributed to x number of featured articles. Sarsaparilla (talk) 04:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mainly politics and economics. Any articles you mentioned would be fine, although Free-market environmentalism may have some POV issues (it looks good, ATM) and in Private highway the "support" and "oppose" sections are just silly. There's no need for political commentary in such an article. Zenwhat (talk) 04:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When we get to peer review and FAC, I'm sure any of those articles would get a lot of criticism. They are all in need of major rewriting/expansion to become featured. Sarsaparilla (talk) 05:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some minor changes to the UDHR page and overhauled the template at the bottom. Zenwhat (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. A basic problem with the article is that it has a lot of bulleted lists instead of paragraphs; those will need to be converted in order to make FA. Sarsaparilla (talk) 02:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Another user reported your repeated reversions of Debt-based monetary system as a 3RR violation. I have declined to block you because one of your reverts was of a bot so it was not technically a violation. Please understand, however, that this is NOT blanket permission to revert three times in each 24 hour period. You have reverted to your preferred version a number of times and it can be considered disruptive. I strongly encourage you to continue to discuss the issue on the talk page and not to revert again. Thank you. --B (talk) 00:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note also that an edit you dispute is absolutely not vandalism, as you characterised it. To describe another editor's good faith edits as vandalism is incivil and not acceptable. Please discuss disputed changed on the article's discussion page. Guy (Help!) 10:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please suggest what to do with the Shake (cannabis) article? It recently had an unsourced-template birthday (tagged since December 2006). You might also want to take a look at the Blunt (cigar) page as well. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 18:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can move the article to Marijuana cigar if you think that is a good idea. I too am having difficulty finding sources to document which term is most popularly used. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 21:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you mean. Also related to this is Smoking rolling papers -- this one is half original research and half corporate-spam, egad. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 19:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Zenwhat,

I saw your note about barnstars. I'm sorry you haven't seen any. Of course, thousands of very good contributors never receive a barnstar, so you are in good company.

If you are still interested in tasks to improve Wikipedia, I could easily come up with a list, but I don't really know where your interests lie, aside from (I guess) politics. Coming up with a random list probably won't work for you. Or are you really willing to work on anything? Firsfron of Ronchester 00:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"I will work on anything, provided it doesn't require me going to the library." Oh, man. The library is our friend. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 01:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, have you had a chance to peruse my response from yesterday at the article's discussion section? There are many sources describing Buddhists using drugs (in the times of yore) and I think these might have influenced the general public into this mistaken belief. Also, you write:

And this edit seems like weasel words:

at least according to the author signed as "DJ Short", in a publication in "Cannabis Culture magazine"

I don't think you're referring to the Wikipedia's definition of weasel words. My edit was, in fact, an attempt to satisfy your critique of leaving the preceding statement as "objective", by only referred to the publication. My intent was to emphasize that this statement is of the author of the article. Feel free to delete the fragment of the sentence you cite above, if for whatever reason you find it not objective (but clearly it has nothing to do with weasel words).

Per your comments on the magazine's forum - while I admire your passion for accuracy and your will to educate them, the editor's response seems quite reasonable. After all, in many cases they are referring somebody's words (in interviews, books, etc.), and they did admit the haikus were not "real" (although you should realize, that all haikus in English are to some extent fake. There is only a traditionalized form of translation and writing them in Englih, but it is pretty far from the original Japanese versification for language reasons, and also there are so-called contemporary free-form haikus, which are close to free verse poetry. But I don't think it matters that much).

Credibility of this magazine as a source is, in my view, very limited and I would not learn haiku structure from them. I do believe, though, that if there is any magazine that can professionally write something about different kinds and strains of marijuana distributed 20 years ago, that'll probably be them. NRA publications also have limited credibility - but if I wanted to know about gun subtleties, I would assume them to be a useful source. It is their core business, after all - and while being ignorant about haikus will not take readers away from a cannabis magazine, mistakes and slips in articles on marijuana actually may. Being accurate about existence of strains is almost the only thing they really have to be truthful about (and of course you are right that they quite likely will minimize and belittle the medically proved negative effects of cannabis intake). Pundit|utter 23:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, I see you removed the source as well. I disagree with this decision. My perception is that you took offense to their silly comments about Buddhists smoking marijuana. Still, I am not an expert and also, I don't want to start a revert war. Perhaps someone else will drop a couple of cents in. Pundit|utter 23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• You seem to mistakenly take the magazine to be scholarly. They are not scholars at all. It is, at best, a pop-cultural magazine, with particular focus on marijuana. I don't expect them to be accurate about haikus, honestly. But a versological slip is hardly a proof that they don't know about marijuana strains. By analogy - if NRA magazine published a sonnet and called it a haiku, it wouldn't make them unreliable about guns. Pundit|utter 23:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I cut out your RfC from the article and added it to the discussion. I cut out somebody's (yours?) template from there to add a new one - I hope it is ok, as it didn't work previously. Pundit|utter 23:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Hello. I don't mind your reverts, but calling my definition of the RfC as not adhering to Neutral Point of View does not seem to be very fair. It is, however, only natural to assume that our own perception and wording are more neutral and elegant, so I'm leaving your description in the template. Pundit|utter 23:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, your own opinion and the opinion of your colleague Buddhists, whom you kindly offer to consult, are not entirely falling under credible sources of information neither. However, I gave you Such, or such, or such, or such links to chew on the issue of drugs and Buddhism and to at least show you that the issue is not as obvious as you seem to believe and it is not only the magazine you criticize who claims that some time ago some Buddhists were using cannabis (although, as I said, this may be totally wrong - but the idea is out there and not only supported by this one magazine). Pundit|utter 00:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not trying to prove or disprove the use of marijuana by Buddhists. All I'm saying is that it is extremely easy to find information about Buddhists using cannabis and it does not make sense to blame one particular magazine for a cultural notion (perhaps an urban legend) that is already out there. But of course there are also many published articles and books on the subject, such as this or this or this or this or this. In spite of what your friends may say from their own experience, there are reliable sources to prove the historical use of marijuana in Buddhism. Therefore it is very premature to claim that the magazine is totally unreliable, basing on the info they give on Buddhists and marijuana. They may be wrong, but the plethora of publications gives them good reasons to support this view. Pundit|utter 00:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm, as I admitted, not an expert - my only knowledge about the subject comes from google. The links I gave you above come from the first 10 results of a search in http://www.scholar.google.com which is my typical resource for more scholarly works, although you seem to disprove them as a whole. I assure you that both in martial arts or e.g. RPG edits we sometimes refer to specialized magazines. I'm not saying that Cannabis Culture is a superb source, all I'm trying to point is that if the article and its ilk are to be kept in Wikipedia, the only sources of some credibility will be like this magazine. In no way was I trying to upset you and if I did, I apologize. Pundit|utter 00:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and one more clarification per FRINGE - as written before, I do not support this theory (if I did, I would make edits basing on the given academic sources in articles on Buddhism or marijuana). But even if the theory was totally out of the blue, if it is notable and widespread enough, it deserves a place in Wikipedia (which, although, I am not going to provide myself, as I do not wish to write articles about it). All I was trying to prove to you (and again, apologies, if it upset you) was that criticizing the validity of one particular pop-magazine because of their misconception that Buddhists smoke marijuana is unjust - there are too many sources on this theory to blame only Cannabis Culture, that's all. Pundit|utter 00:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• But you are 100% right that there are contradictory sources not only in scholar.google.com, but also in top-tier academic journals as well. All I'm saying is that a claim of historical use of marijuana in some Buddhist communities long time ago can be supported by legitimate publications (just as anarcho-capitalism in economic theory, although economy is perhaps a bit more arbitrary than history). By the way, I don't think anybody so far claimed that marijuana smoking is a widespread practice among Buddhists nowadays. Pundit|utter 00:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Fringe rule is about marginality being presented as mainstream, or at least a contesting theory. I understand why you brought it up here, although I don't share your view (but I don't want to dispute whether Buddhist monks really smoked marijuana some time in the past - I just don't care, I don't think even if they did it changes anything). NOR, on the other hand, is irrelevant in our discussion - I didn't present any of my research to support my view, and the only time you did was when you referred to your friends, but it was not a research-like statement. Per narratives in economics and your apparent interest in the subject - you may find this book interesting. Pundit|utter 03:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is because I'm not proving something is true or not, I'm just proving the presence of an idea in the discourse. BTW, calling books and scholarly journals/conferences marginal is a typical POV, especially when considered the fact that you have not provided ANY (credible or not) sources to support your view. Pundit|utter 03:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Zenwhat and thanks for your comment. When talking about discourse I'm referring to the idea of marijuana being historically used in Buddhism (the topic of our discussion in a number of our recent post exchanges). This idea made you challenge an otherwise possibly valid source of information, although I gave you plenty of resources that support the challenged view presented in the magazine (possibly wrong, but still present in the discourse). In the same time you have not provided even a single source to support your view.

I don't mind your change of colloquial into slang, it is a good edit. But in the future please, stop using defamatory terms to describe other editor's contributions, unless you mean what you write, while assuming good faith. So far you called my edits weasel words twice (perhaps you should read the definition first), not adhering to the NPOV, promoting Fringe theories, and violating NOR rule. Once you even reverted my edit so hastily and without checking what it actually was, that seconds later you brought it back. In the same time I carefully refrained from labeling your edits as any violations of rules (Preserve information being the minor one), and I really did my best not to revert your edits based on the info from the magazine we currently discuss.

In spite of the RfC you keep editing the articles. From your user page it is clear that you made deleting Chocolate Thai article your personal goal (it is listed under "to dos"), which for a casual reader may make an impression that you decided the article has to disappear, no matter what the community's decision is and/or what are the constructive edits of other contributors - don't you think that reaching a consensus is a better way to do it, than decide ahead? The fact that you so violently reacted to the information from Cannabis Culture about Buddhist monks in the past may suggests that you took offense to the magazine (you actually called their article offensive).

At this stage I kindly request that you refrain from editing Chocolate Thai at all and I will do the same. We all have our editorial biases and it is only natural that we reinstate our positions in any discussion we already entered. Thus it may do good to Wikipedia if we both take a break from Chocolate Thai. I highly respect your other edits and contributions, and I very much appreciate your good intentions, so let's switch to something else for a while. Pundit|utter 15:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In response to the discussion on my talk page:

Your lack of sources refers to the topic of our debate for the last 10+ posts, namely "Buddhists smoking marijuana in the long past", which was your main argument against Cannabis Culture. For this I've provided reliable scholarly resources, many satisfying the verifiability criteria at Wikipedia, while you have provided only your own words and an offer to consult your friends or Buddhist Internet fora.

I personally find this argument void and aside of the crux, while there are many points you can raise against this magazine - but you can't blame me for replying to your posts and not what you could have written.. Please, refrain from any further personal attacks. Calling my arguments extremely illogical or doubting my sincerity fall within this category. While you wrote that the article in the magazine was offensive, I think it is understandable that I assumed it was you who took this offense.

Per your argumentation above - you seem to randomly cross-interpret the arguments from several different discussions on:

1. Buddhism and marijuana
2. reliability of Cannabis Culture as a general source of information (including haikus, history, etc.)
3. reliability of Cannabis Culture as a specific source of information on the existence of cannabis strains

etc., so I really cannot understand what your point in these particular topics is, or in general on the subject now. I do hope, however, that by looking at the history page of the article you will at least notice that you made edits and reverts AFTER the RfC was posted, so your argument about not editing being a proof of good faith is void (while the good faith, on the other hand, is present I'm sure - I'm only referring to the argumentation, and not the fact).

I don't understand your simultaneous refusal to stop editing the article and agreement to abstain from editing and wait for third parties to jump in, but I hope that you will wait for other editors to help us in this dispute. For now I think we both may use some time in other places of Wikipedia calling our attention. Let me again express my high regard of your contributions to Wikipedia, in spite of our current discord. After all, our vivid discussion proves also that we both care about standards the the quality of information, although we can disagree in details. Pundit|utter 16:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Please don't do copy and paste moves. It messes up the page history. Thanks. I take it you want Wikipedia:Credentials moved over your copy at Wikipedia:Credentials (proposal)? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]