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Andre Geim

I've posted our dispute here and have asked for a third party to mediate our dispute. Fellytone (talk) 04:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, I have replied there. betsythedevine (talk) 14:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

So are you still going to post a response to the comments I've made on the Andre Geim talkpage and the Misplaced Pages NPOV noticeboard ? If not I'm going to put the remarks made in the exchange between Geim and Llosa back in. (And I'll take your silence as a subtle affirmative nod for those edits.) Fellytone (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Not one single person has agreed with your arguments, either at the noticeboard or on the article talk page. Please do not take it as a subtle affirmative nod that others consider the argument to be over. As for the changes you want, the article talk page is the place to propose them, but it seems to me they have been rejected, and not just by me. betsythedevine (talk) 09:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Your comments

Hi Betsy, thanks for your contributions on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Israel. You write so nicely and with such thoughtfulness, and you have my respect for your overall contributions to WP - hence why I am writing to you now. The discussion in question is not easy but I believe it is important that WP gets this right. I am writing to you because I noted that whilst you have set out your views clearly, you chose not to address the challenges from other editors against specific points you had made (I am referring to my points as well as the challenge to your SYNTH comment by Noelander). Perhaps I am still too new to how wiki-discussions work - I guess I am just surprised that ignoring good faith and thoughtful critiques of one's comments is deemed acceptable in wiki-world, by even the nicest and most civil of editors such as yourself. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi there, Oncenawhile, I said so many things already on that page, I was afraid people would already be tired of hearing me. :-) I did not intend to slight anyone's comments or criticisms. If there is some specific question you feel I should answer I will be happy to do so.

There are good arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, it seems to me -- good arguments to delete, and good arguments to keep, as for most debates here in Misplaced Pages. Neither solution, if enacted, will be perfect -- each solution would lack some of the virtues of the opposite solution. My basic argument to "Delete" is perhaps more emotional than reasoned -- a "feeling" that such an article will be a flashpoint for conflict and POV-pushing, a constant source of hurt feelings and resentment to one side or the other. betsythedevine (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Betsy, I understand and respect your point of view, thanks for your response Oncenawhile (talk) 02:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Reference templates

Yup, feel free to cut and paste them to your page, make sure you are in edit mode when you do, they update the access date to the day you cut and paste them into an article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much; I copied the ones I'm most likely to use here; my only real change was adding "xxx" as a placeholder for a lot of the blanks to make it easy to select the spot, copy, and paste. I really appreciate your inspiration for this idea! betsythedevine (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Kudos and another article

Hi Betsy - you did a great job with updating and expanding Jack Ertle Oliver yesterday. I came across a similar case and thought you may want to take a crack at expanding it as well - Oleg Grabar was an art historian who died on the 8th. I've added the NYT obitaury to the article already and there seems to be a great deal on him that is not yet included in the article. If you're not interested, no worries, but I did want to bring it to your attention. Cheers, --Jezebel'sPonyo 15:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I would love to work on this but today is going to be a busy one in RL. I really liked and admired Oleg Grabar, who joined the IAS at about the same time as my husband. I remember during the 1990s going to a seminar he gave about something completely novel he was working on, basically a computer-generated rendition of Jerusalem's Old City where you could watch it develop over the centuries with mosques and temples appearing and changing shape. It was a truly awesome and imaginative idea for somebody near retirement to be exploring. Of course by now people do things like that so easily with all the game engines. Maybe after I shovel out my car I can dig up some sources. Thanks so much for the kind words and also for moving the page, which I did not know how to do. betsythedevine (talk) 15:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a fantastic story - what a coincidence that I happened to mention his name to you in the first place. Regarding the page move, it was easy peasy, so happy to help. Good luck with the shoveling - the Vancouver rain has all but washed away the remnants of our snowfall from earlier this week. --Jezebel'sPonyo 15:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

More about Oleg and Terry Grabar, not Misplaced Pages-quality-reliable though who knows, some real source might say this some day: Terry told me the story of how they met, when she was a student at Wellesley. One of her friends yelled up the stairs of her dorm, "Anybody want to go out with a Frenchman?" Intrigued, she wandered downstairs and met Oleg, who was then a student at Harvard, in the dorm living room. That sense of adventure marked her as a good match for Oleg. They were married for 59 years, traveled the world together, and had two children. I met them at the Institute for Advanced Study and lured Terry to work with me for quite a few years on the "Fuld Flyer," a newsletter I created as a project for visiting spouses from all the schools. She is one of the people I miss most from my years in Princeton. Another fun memory of their post-retirement doings -- they were recruited as "tour guides" for a multi-day luxury journey some art museum sponsored on the Orient Express. Perhaps "tour guide" is the wrong descriptor -- Terry (an English professor) gave talks about the literature of places the train passed through while Oleg discussed the art. betsythedevine (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Beautiful. --Jezebel'sPonyo 15:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for these two. I only do very short art historian bios myself, filling the huge gaps. The dictionary of art historians is an RS I think, & useful. Some of the older Germans have decent bios - Richard Krautheimer, Nikolaus Pevsner and others. Of course Anthony Blunt has a decent one because of his spying! We really need an article on the Yale/Penguin History of Art! I've done a few touches but these are fine as far as they go - are you going to DYK them? There will be useful obits coming out over the next few months of Oleg I'm sure. Johnbod (talk) 15:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I would like to try a DYK but I have never done one yet. I think we could do Andre Grabar together if you expand it, couldn't we? For Oleg, it already had 3700 whatevers when I started, so I would need to bring it up to about 20,000 to qualify for dyk, I think. Thanks for the tips on good art historian bios, I will check those out. betsythedevine (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you have JSTOR access? This looks very full & I have added from page 1 (of 4) which is all I can see. Sorry about my primitive referencing. Also, found on google, "For a brief biography of Andre Grabar, see Richard Krautheimer, Ihor Sevcenko, and Ernst Kitzinger, Speculum 66 (1991)" - will be on JSTOR too. Johnbod (talk) 23:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Nominated Template_talk:Did_you_know#Andr.C3.A9_Grabar though I'm on a notebook now & can't check length. Please suggest a better hook if you see one. Johnbod (talk) 00:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I did do John Shearman by the way - don't know if his years at Princeton or Harvard overlapped with yours. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I did not know him, but you certainly write good articles. What about this DYK for Andre Grabar: DYK " ... which language was used by art historian André Grabar (born in Kiev, educated in St. Petersburg, retired in the USA) for all his scholarly writing on Iconography? betsythedevine (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank! I had complaints last time I used one that wasn't "Did you know that..." though it got through in the end. (it was "DYK ... how to tell which of the two possible Saint Catherines is shown marrying Jesus in a painting of the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine (example pictured)?") I like them but "DYK that André Grabar was born in Kiev, educated in St. Petersburg, and worked in the USA, but wrote his books in French?" might have a better chance. Johnbod (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh -- I liked that one so much I was trying to make this one a bit more like it. I hope it is all right that I added my suggestion, without removing yours of course, to the DYK page. betsythedevine (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course - let's see how it gets on. Johnbod (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Jack Ertle Oliver

On 20 January 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jack Ertle Oliver, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that a 1968 paper by Jack Ertle Oliver helped confirm the existence of continental drift, a theory that had been scoffed at by mainstream scientists when proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably not cool to say this, but I am sooo pleased. I never got a DYK before, and this one came as a complete surprise, because I did not realize it had been nominated until I heard it had been picked. A million thanks to the generous person who got me a piece of this award. I don't even know who it is, or how to find out, or how to look at DKY archives to see the discussion of it.

And now I will probably get another thanks to an experienced editor Johnbod helping me by expanding and nominating André Grabar, an article I created based on French Misplaced Pages's because I did not want a redlink in the obituary of my friend Oleg Grabar. And yet another article I'm working on, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts) is looking like a possible candidate too. So thanks so much to the people who helped this usual wikignome spread my wings a bit more building the wiki. betsythedevine (talk) 05:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Congrats Betsy! --Jezebel'sPonyo 15:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help, Ponyo. betsythedevine (talk) 02:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Hello, this is just to let you know that I have granted you the "autopatrolled" permission. This won't affect your editing, it just automatically marks any page you create as patrolled, benefiting new page patrollers. Please remember:

• This permission does not give you any special status or authority
• Submission of inappropriate material may lead to its removal
• You may wish to display the {{Autopatrolled}} top icon and/or the {{User wikipedia/autopatrolled}} userbox on your user page
• If, for any reason, you decide you do not want the permission, let me know and I can remove it

If you have any questions about the permission, don't hesitate to ask. Otherwise, happy editing! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for André Grabar

On 22 January 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article André Grabar, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that art historian André Grabar fled St. Petersburg a few days after the Russian Revolution, to become a leading expert in Byzantine and Medieval art? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

a NOTE

Regarding this, I'd say that's a very interesting approach. So, if I check out an editor such as betsythedevine , I see that less than 50 edits into their wiki career, they jumped right into an AfD. Would you like to disclose any previous account you were using before then, or, given these results, simply post a short apology for this bad-faith assumption? Two for the show (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I apologize (and also did so on your talk page) for my failure to WP:AGF in assuming your editing pattern meant you were another sock of a banned user with similar patterns of action. My earliest edits here were as an IP, but once I figured out how to register I did so with my own identity clear. I probably read about the afd of Kevin Marks on a blog somewhere, so perhaps one could say I was "canvassed" in the Misplaced Pages sense into my early !vote on that AfD. betsythedevine (talk) 19:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the apology - no hard feelings and no harm done :). I have also edited previously w/o an account. I hope we can work together in a cooperative fashion in the future. Two for the show (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Greetings

DYK for Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

On 29 January 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived in the same house on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi Betsythedevine, before I am blocked again I'd like to thank you at your talk page for your input on AN/I. It was really generous of you to do so. May I please ask you to accept my sincere apology, if my words ever hurt you? Best wishes.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mbz1, thanks for the kind words. You did hurt me when you were angry, but I believe my words hurt you first, so I am sorry for that too. I hope you are not blocked. I mean, because I think you contribute generously and valuably to Misplaced Pages, I hope you are not blocked, whether you are angry with me or not. betsythedevine (talk) 23:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Pro-life to anti-abortion?

Hi, Betsy. I hate to nag, but could you change your "Comment" to "Oppose" if that was your true intention? Thanks! --Kenatipo 00:40, 4 February 2011 (UTC)