Hi. I largely agree with the relevance of your recent comments in the homophobia thread. But I don't think your adding the "don't mean to pull as s..." comment adds anything to the discussion, and there is a good case to be made its a personal attack and a violation of BLP. I suggest you consider deleting that part of the comment. The ref desks are supposed to be held to the same standards as in these regards as article space. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs) 15:26, 2013 August 12

I don't agree, but I also don't think it's worth either of our time (either of our times? What's the right grammar there?) to get into a big thing over it. I also concede my own possible bias as one of the upholders, perhaps even partisans, of the retention or expansion of the page I linked to. Thanks for taking time to point out where I might have come off as a dick, if nothing else. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 19:38, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I had a question. Is the "belly of a whore" comment in the Tanakh? I remember the story of Onan, but not specifically that phrase. μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just spent half an hour trying to track down a source for the quote and for the life of me I can't find a citation. I think it must have just been spoken tangentially by my English teacher in the Bible [as root of English literature] class I took in high school lo these few years ago, but I couldn't tell you where he got it from. And yet before this very hour I would have sworn up and down that it was right there in Genesis. But Onan is struck down without so much as a single spoken word from the LORD, let alone that loaded quotation. Sometimes the malleability of the [my] human mind is just disheartening. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 20:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

....

PS, "Either of our time" is correct. Use the singular when that's what applies to the individual. One wouldn't say "we each got shot in the heads". μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, the shot in the head example makes sense. But what if I say "Hold on, I'll do it with the oven mitt - I don't want either of our hands to get burned" - or better yet, "I don't want to get either of our butts shot off."? Since there are two of us, there are two butts in danger, thus the plural is called for, no? But that still sounds wrong as "...either of our *times." ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 20:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is the appropriate counter-example to bring up. When the item is governed by "our" or "their" then the plural is correct because the pronoun is plural. They each got shot in the head vs They got shot in their heads. (My answer "either of our time" was wrong because time here is a mass noun like "not worth either of our money"--while "times" would mean instances, like "not worth either of our attempts".) μηδείς (talk) 17:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That clears that up then. Thanks for the assistance. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 19:11, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Zenswashbuckler. I noticed that you recently made this edit at Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality. Your edit restored a link from that article to Sigmund Freud's views on homosexuality. I think I should point out that Sigmund Freud's views on homosexuality likewise contained a link to Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality, but that link was removed. As I pointed out on the talk page of the article about Freud's views, it doesn't seem to make sense that there should be a link from the Santorum article to the Freud article but not vice versa. It might help if you could comment there. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:39, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the edit was to revert what seemed to be an obvious case of simple vandalism - a section heading and the wlink were deleted without any explanation whatsoever by an IP with an empty talk page and only two other edits (one of which was a restoration of several instances of the deprecated term "BC" in place of the MOS-approved "BCE"). I agree that Freud's views on homosexuality don't have much to do with Santorum's views, except to refute them. I have no objection to the removal of the wlink if you wish to delete with an actual explanation in the edit summary. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 20:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The IP made two edits, and if you look, you'll see that the first edit did have an explanation. Maybe it's best to look carefully at exactly what changes are being made before reaching the conclusion that the edits are vandalism? (Unrelated edits by the IP to an article on the Aramaic language are not really relevant). FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do take note of edits made before jumping to conclusions. However, since two words isn't much of an explanation, and the section removal had no summary, I don't think the conclusion I came to was unreasonable. And while obviously edits to Aramaic are not relevant, the contentious nature of the BC-AD/BCE-CE fight that takes place in other sectors of Wikipedia, and this IP's seeming participation in it, certainly did support the possibility that the edit was not made for constructive reasons. Looking again, I see the date of that edit should have clued me in that this might not be the case. But it sounds like we've cleared it all up now. Thanks for your time. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 21:20, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am very impressed with your new Geography section -- Thank You Zen! It is exquisitely detailed!! (I still think a map illustrating all these details would be a good addition. I particularly brought up this issue because the external maps I was seeing do *not* delineate these matters clearly.) Should we now change the lede to acknowledge more than Needham?

Can you help with any more details about the railroad (pics, exact years etc) or any of the other old rotting infrastructure remains, between the pond and Rt.128?

Also, I ran across some people calling the pond "Cutler Lake", but feel uncertain about whether the article should mention this... -71.174.188.43 (talk) 20:15, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I opened up an RfC for the U.S. same-sex marriage map due to the complicated situation of Kansas: RfC: How should we color Kansas? Prcc27 (talk) 12:06, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi, I was just updating my entry at the membership page of Wikiproject: Countering Systemic Bias and noticed some of your wording ("Amero/Eurocentrism and status-quo-ism") and loved it so much I want to steal it. I have included it with credit given, but will remove it if you object.

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I might be wrong, but I thought we were meant to be directed by our sources, however vile the subject. It's one of the <organ music> "Five Pillars", n'est-ce pas? Could you point me in the direction of a policy supporting your reversion? Many thanks, Ericoides (talk) 15:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that the source in question uncritically accepted the claim as fact. The Five Pillars are not a suicide pact. Acting as a neutral encyclopedia doesn't mean presenting the claims of Nazis as factual - even claims about their own reactions and mind-states. The only fact we can verify is that Himmler made the claim to be shocked, not that he actually was shocked. Uncritically accepting his assertion as fact, and repeating it, is the opposite of building a neutral encyclopedia. And as long as we're venerating the Five Pillars (peace be upon them), I'll recall your attention to the fifth one. Therefore there is no reason to fall into the same trap the New Yorker did. Thanks. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 14:07, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But there is a difference between saying that he was shocked and saying that he was "shocked". Ericoides (talk) 05:01, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Too subtle a difference. Quoting the word "shocked" can easily be seen as quoting Himmler himself, not a third-party source. That still makes it seem as though Wikipedia is taking the claim at face value. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 17:25, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for discussing this. I don't think we'll agree. Regards, Ericoides (talk) 17:57, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Please be aware that your signature uses deprecated <font> tags, which are causing Obsolete HTML tags lint errors. There is also a misnested tag arising from <font color="#000">.☠ not being closed inside the wikilink it's located in.

You are encouraged to change

<span style="font-family:Garamond;">[[User:Zenswashbuckler|<font color="#000">☯.'''Zen'''</font>]][[User_talk:Zenswashbuckler|<font color="#a00">'''Swashbuckler'''</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Zenswashbuckler|<font color="#000">.☠]]</font></span> : ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠

to

<span style="font-family:Garamond;">[[User:Zenswashbuckler|<span style="color: #000">☯.'''Zen'''</span>]][[User_talk:Zenswashbuckler|<b style="color: #a00">Swashbuckler</b>]][[Special:Contributions/Zenswashbuckler|<span style="color: #000">.☠</span>]]</span> : ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠

—Anomalocaris (talk) 19:40, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Change made, though not the one you suggested. The signature field is three characters too small to accept that one. The deprecated tags at least had the virtue of letting me fit User page, User talk, and User contributions links, with the desired text formatting, all in the small number of characters the sig field can use.

Signature updated.

☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 20:26, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:55, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I usually check to make sure signatures aren't too long but I missed it here. If I had checked, I would have seen the 3-character excess and changed Contributions to Contribs. (Alternatively, the space after the three occurrences of color: can be removed.) If you want your old signature back, this will work:

<span style="font-family:Garamond;">[[User:Zenswashbuckler|<span style="color: #000">☯.'''Zen'''</span>]][[User_talk:Zenswashbuckler|<b style="color: #a00">Swashbuckler</b>]][[Special:Contribs/Zenswashbuckler|<span style="color: #000">.☠</span>]]</span> : ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠

—Anomalocaris (talk) 01:20, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]