User talk:RandomCritic/Archive 5

An archive for things that show up on my talk page that have no relevance to Wikipedia's mission whatsoever.

Hilarious accusations from a troll

[The below is the original post to my talk page: ]RandomCritic 13:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sock puppetry

I could be mistaken, so I thought I would ask you to be clear on this. Do you have multiple accounts and if so why? There could be a good reason why you are running multiple accounts (if in fact you are). I would be interested in knowing why. One such possible account (looking at all the edits that took place over the last two months) is the account of User name "Wareh". There are several issues that make me believe that "Wareh" and "RandomCritic" are from the same person. One such issue is that they both work on the same type articles of Renaissance and Medieval. Another is that both have the same basic education level on these articles and both know Latin well. Another is that they edit at basically different times: while one is editing the other is "sleeping" and vice versa. Another is that since they work on many similar articles (many exactly the same articles), they have never communicated with each other (nor had any differences of opinion between themselves). There are several other coincidences in addition that seem to be too much to be just mere "coincidence" - so I thought I would ask you to make sure these are two different individuals or just one single individual. Can you clear this up for me? To keep both parts in the same place, please answer here on your Talk page. Thanking you ahead of time for clearing this up, since I could be mistaken on multiple accounts for the same person as it looks.--Doug ^talk 17:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[The following is my response, which I moved, together with the original trollage, to troll's Talk page: ] RandomCritic 13:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

As you requested "keeping the two parts together", I have moved your original question back here.RandomCritic 18:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Doug,

Thanks for bringing your concerns to my attention. I abominate sockpuppetry and I have never engaged in it. I am not User:Wareh; I have never heard of him (or her) before; and I have no connection with him or her. Wareh is not my sockpuppet, nor am I his (or hers). I appreciate your efforts to prevent sock-puppetry, which I approve of, but in this case there is none. On examining Wareh's page, I see that he (or she) is primarily interested in editing articles related to classical literature. I have only done a little of that, and that was primarily to organize a set of categories related to the classification of Latin language and literature by date. Wareh's edits seem to be considerably more extensive (and with a different focus) from mine.

Anyway, thank you for your alertness.

RandomCritic 18:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[This is an addendum which I supplied half an hour later, after checking the troll's allegations: ]RandomCritic 13:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

By the way, you wrote:

“ Another is that they edit at basically different times: while one is editing the other is "sleeping" and vice versa. ”

And I double-checked and that's not even true -- you could find synchronous edits (to the minute) from just yesterday. Look at 13:09, 17 April 2007. I can countenance a well-founded, if erroneous, suspicion; but you should really not make unfounded statements of fact.RandomCritic 19:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[This is the reply from the other user involved in this nuttiness: ]RandomCritic 13:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Doug. For what it's worth, I can assure you of the same thing (and to echo what RC just said: I just had to repost this reply because of an edit conflict with RC!). You won't find me displaying any knowledge of electors of the Duchy of Braunschweig, Buddhism, astronomy, or science fiction, which are all apparently among RandomCritic's interests. I had noticed RandomCritic before, since, as you say, there aren't that many editors around using a knowledge of Latin to try to improve the encyclopedia. My greatest interest is in the Classical period, though I like Renaissance and Medieval literature too. Besides watching the article on Dante's Comedy and the Vulgate Bible, I scarcely took any note of articles on stuff from that period, until your ref. desk question alerted me to the unusual pages you'd made on Jerome's book. Based on what I learned at the ref. desk about your original (and, to me, extremely obviously false) theories about the New Testament being written by Petrarch, Petrarch Code, etc., I do have some concerns, as you know, about making sure that your content fits in with the encyclopedic tone of the rest of Wikipedia and doesn't promote those theories. But, despite my strong feelings about that, I will always do my best to assume good faith and keep the focus on the encyclopedia's content & communication. So I hope you don't feel there is anything personal. Wareh 19:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[This is the troll's response, in which it becomes clear that this is trolling and not a genuine attempt to deal with sockpuppetry: ]

Moved this Talk discussion back to your Talk page where it should be. It is a conversation topic about you, not me. If you will look I did not ask that the conversation be moved to my Talk page, but asked instead: "please answer here on your Talk page." If you are not doing Wikipedia: Sock puppetry then you have no reason to remove this from your Talk page; however by removing this from your Talk page it indicates to others that perhaps you have something you want to hide. Is there a problem with keeping this conversation about you on your Talk page? If you will note I had not actually made any "unfounded statements of fact", but just raised suspicion since there seems to be too many mere coincidences. I even used the wording "if in fact you are" - but since both you and User Wareh are so defensive about this perhaps it does show a smoking gun. --Doug ^talk 12:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Noticed that you recently had the first "conversation" with User Wareh after I pointed out that you two never before communicated with each other. Noticed also your usage of the word "Hullo", a British term not used in American. This is indicating that perhaps one person is British and the other American. This is confusing to me since there is approximately 8 hours difference and you both found each other and had a "conversation" within minutes from the time I put this originally on your Talk page (before you removed it). Don't know how you or User Wareh could have learned from the reference desk any Petrarch theories since I don't recall any reference desk questions that I made concerning theories about the New Testament being written by Petrarch, the Petrarch Code, etc. Perhpas you or "Wareh" could point this out when I made these reference desk inquires. --Doug ^talk 12:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

So here is the troll's "reasoning":

• If I don't post at the same time as another user, I'm a sock-puppet.
• If I do post at the same time as another user, double sock-puppet!
• If I don't communicate with another user, I'm a sock-puppet.
• If I do communicate with another user, definitely sock-puppet!
• If I refute the above points, I'm being defensive, and so trebly a sock-puppet.
• Plus, I might be British, and you know that the British are eeevil.
• Assuming that I'm British, I must be in a different time zone, and so I couldn't possibly be online at the same time as another (American?) user, so therefore... uh... sock-puppet! This is beautiful pretzel logic.
• Moreover, if you see scare quotes around the name of a user that proves he is a sock-puppet! Q.E.D.

This has been today's moment of comedy. RandomCritic 13:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Just incredibly goofy

Nonsense to you, music to others

I searched your past activities and found that you were interested in Buddhist Sumeru and that is why you took interest in my contribution Merucentricity in ( Indian astronomy ). I had read in some anthropology text two decades ago that central Africa has many Sanskrit names for places and tribes. Unfortunately, I cannot find that passage now. If possible, please help me in finding such references. I am again inserting some citation to that effect which you may like to view. I hope you will accept that the original humans were blacks and originated somewhere around Meru (Mt Kenya) nearly 4 million years ago. -Vinay Jha 09:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I am unfortunate that you misinterpreted my ideas. Whatever I contributed to Indian astronomy was based upon well established sources. For instance, Mt Meru on equator is not my theory but based upon ancient texts, eg. Surya Siddānta: Bhoogolādhyāya:34-48 (Burgess). Meru near Pāmir is an old theory (based mainly upon Kashyap+Meru > *Kāshmeru > Kāshmir) which I had heard long ago, but it has no proof. There are many places in many countries named Meru, from New Zealand to Uttarānchal (India). Such exceptions do not make a theory. A theory in astronomy needs a mathematical system. Surya Siddāntic astronomy cannot work without Merucentricism, and I have developed a software (freeware) on its basis for making almanacs, on whose basis six government and non-governmental organisations are already making almanacs. Surya Siddānta may be right or wrong, that is another issue, but most Hindus still prefer Surya Siddāntic almanacs, and that is why I made the software (because manual almanacs were much more erroneous). Surya Siddānta is not my creation, and therefore please do not call Meru on equator my theory : it will invite a false charge of WP:OR against me from ignorants. Secondly,I had cited reliable authorities to drive home the point that the Kushite empire with Meru as capital around 1000-500 BC was a meeting ground of Indian and Egyptian traders, which might have resulted in other exchanges as well. I clearly remember that I had read in an anthropology textbook that many places &c in eastern Africa bear Sanskrit names. It does not mean that Bantu and Sanskrit belong to same stock. I worked for 12 years on historical linguistics. Sorry for causing you trouble. -Vinay Jha 19:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Evolution of PAMIR

On logarithmic glottochronological scale, I am giving the mean statistical dates for reconstructed intermediate forms of the word Pamir :

AD 1900 Pāmir

AD 1800 Pāmer

AD 1530 Pāmeru

AD 960 Pārmeru

BC 310 Pāromeru

BC before 2800 Pārv(at)meru

During the time of Megāsthenes, 'Paro' was prefixed to names of mountains in regions west of indus (cf. Ta Indikā). - Vinay Jha 21:23, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Somehow, blanking most of an article without discussion isn't vandalism

Please note that vandalism requires bad faith. --Eyrian 02:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Bizarre pronunciation fanaticism

Hi RandomCritic,

We're trying to standardize pronunciations to some extent. If you follow {{IPAEng}}, you'll get the key we've come up with. Comment there if you like. kwami 04:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Please don't revert referenced pronunciations, especially with different standards than suggested by the Manual of Style. kwami (talk) 02:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Please stop converting pronunciations to your dialect, as you did for Eris and continue to do piecemeal elsewhere. English Wikipedia covers all dialects, not just yours, and it is especially misleading of you to keep the citation of the old pronunciation as if it supported your edit. Your piecemeal approach also makes it difficult for our readers to follow our formatting. If you have a problem with how we indicate pronunciations on Wikipedia, you can take it up at help:Pronunciation or at the MOS. kwami (talk) 08:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)