User talk:Geoff Beck

KT

Geoff: Thanks for the note. I, too, look forward to collaborating with you. I think you will find that CZ is considerably more civilized than WP, and that we tend to operate more on a presumpotion of expertise and an abiding respect for that, rather than an ego-driven presumption that other editors are wrong. As it stands, your edits the TK article are AMAZING...thanks for that. I have had a fascintation with the Order for years, although I am no expert, and it has been rekindled of late. For my part, I'm all over the place, so, if you see anything I've contributed that needs help or critique...feel free!!! Blessings... --Michael J. Formica 20:23, 22 January 2008 (CST)

PS

Add the hyperlinks to all that stuff in your bio. --Michael J. Formica 20:25, 22 January 2008 (CST)

Hi Michael... yep good idea!

You're dead right about 'the other place'.

I think the biggest problems that Wiki has is that they:

a) don't practice or implement their own so-called rules and policies which leads to countless complaints of hypocrisy and unlevel playing fields (especially if you're not 'in' with the Foundation staff;

b) editors are allowed to stomp all over other people's accurate work (purely because you know more than they do on that particular subject and their egos can't handle it) and, what's more, are seen to be allowed to get away with it purely because they know someone, either indirectly (or carnally!), higher up the food chain in the Wiki Foundation;

c) So many so-called 'experts' are clearly nothing more than jack-of-all-trades whose sole mission in life (and sense of achievement), it seems, is to get on the all-time high score sheet with the number of edits they perform... despite the fact that the edits they actually perform are nonsensical, badly researched*, irrelevant and historically incorrect... then refer to point b) above for the follow-on action;

d) It is full of egotistical wannabees who have nothing in their lives, nor have they achieved anything notable, who think they will rise to some sort of celebrity status by being in the top 100 Wiki editors list. What's more there seems to be more articles on the biographies of Wiki 'saddo' contributors (i.e. the Double-Z-list of notable achievers) than biographies of famous contributors to World history. Any attempts to have such biographies removed for being so un-noteworthy wannabees results in a roundup of all their little sock-puppet friends pitching for a Strongly Keep vote. This is, again, despite their own policies ... see point a) above.

* re: bad research... I've even seen one so-called Knights Templar 'expert' (ho hum) dismiss one book reference about the origins of the cross pattee, even though she selectively chose to quote the same book in about 30 other places... as I said, total hypocrisy, especially when that particular book was written by an Oxford University professor!

All in all, it's a cesspit of chaos, egos and contradictory drivel, with (for example) more articles (and words!) devoted to porn star biographies than humanitarians in history, which just about says it all really.

Anyway, I am glad that someone has seen the sense to set up a more amenable facility, and I am sure that it will go from strength to strength.

Look forward to working with you on this series of articles. :)

Templars

Greetings...while I am by no means an expert on the history of Templars, I think that some of the contributions you've made on the topic could be misleading. Those without prior knowledge of the subject might believe that the current order is a direct successor of the medieval group, rather than a new establishment. Any thoughts.--David Boven 23:05, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

If there's no objection, I'm going to go ahead and try clearing things up a bit. Let me know if I do something wrong. Thanks.--David Boven 12:59, 21 May 2008 (CDT)

It would seem that there is an objection. :) I don't think we need to repeat the information from Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem in the Knights Templar article. Better to just include a link to the modern order on the medieval order's page. What say you?--David Boven 18:59, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

Don't agree on that one, I'm afraid. The links to Further Information, e.g. the BBC sites, are relevant to both the ancient order and the modern order... have you actually listened to the programmes? They feature both eras of the Knights Templar. To exclude thm from one page would indicate that you are relying on people finding both pages, which isn't always the case. Geoff Beck

Aha...some response. I think I might not understand the policies here at Citizendium that well. I was under the impression that the external links subpage was there to keep the main article from getting too cluttered with links. Obviously, you disagree. I have not listened to the BBC pieces, but that is the reason that I didn't remove them from the article cluster. I try not to make judgments of that sort without reading everything. That being said, the OSMTH external link does not really need to be include on the article for an extinct Catholic order of knighthood. They are not related at all except in the similarity of their names, right? Hope I did not offend you with my good-faith edits. To be fair, I did give you a couple days to respond before I made my first edits and I only did one revert. Have a good day.--David Boven 19:45, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

Knights Templar Article

Hey Geoff--

I just wanted to give you and David a brief heads-up that reverting each others' edits on the Knights Templar article is emphatically not the way we do things on Citizendium. If you two are in disagreement about what should go in the main Knights Templar article and what shouldn't, you need to hash this out on the Talk page. Unexplained reverts are disrespectful, but also a potentially bannable offense.

Thanks, Brian P. Long 15:30, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

~~ I totally agree, but sincerely hope that unnecessary edits and removals of text from the original author's articles is also treated as severely. I had hoped that Citizendium was an entirely different place from that cesspit down the road... however, I am not so sure now, if I am having my articles 'ganged up on'. This is the same reason I left the other Muppet house... I got fed up with having articles changed without rhyme or reason. Geoff Beck

Geoff...I just wanted to point your attention to the notice on the edit screen: "If you don't want your writing to be edited by others and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here." I'm just trying to make things better here. I don't see how one edit constitutes "ganging up," but I'm always open to discussions. Sorry to have offended you.--David Boven 19:48, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

It's probably worth bringing up one other issue with the way the current Knights Templar articles are written. Geoff, I'm pretty sure it's in violation of our Policy on Self-Promotion for you to add links to any OSMTH websites, considering your close association with the priory in England and Wales. The more I think about it, the fact that you wrote the OSMTH article is probably in violation of the policy, too.

I realize that I've thrown a good bit of policy at you and David in the last few hours, and I appreciate that it's frustrating to have other people bring policy into it at you when all you are trying to do is contribute your free time to a knowledge project. (Though the work I've done on Wikipedia has been minimal, I was pretty annoyed by the barrage of acronyms that started flying when I tried to step in.) On the other hand, I think the rationale for our Policy on Self-Promotion is actually very compelling, given some of the problems and abuses that Wikipedia has had. I'm not sure just what we should do about the articles as they exist now. I will try to ask a constable to see how we should proceed. I do appreciate the effort by both you and David to contribute to Citizendium, though. Thanks, Brian P. Long 22:53, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

Constable message

Thanks Brian for inviting me here. If I am understanding this correctly, we have three issues; a large revert without discussion, an issue with external links, and an issue about self promotion. As a constable, I first want you to know that I am not to be concerned about the content of the article, but concentrate my efforts in assuring that we remain professional in our discussions as we work toward reasonable solutions to our differences. It is the editor's responsibility to oversee and make decisions concerning the content. If any author or editor has a problem with a particular decision made by an editor, they may go to the any other editor or editors that are within any of the workgroups that oversee the article.

Having said that, you can see that the question about external links is an editorial decision. Please review the external links guidelines for information on how to handle this issue.

The issue on self promotion for this specific web site is not as obvious a self promotion for me to delete the article, therefore, this, too becomes an editorial decision. Please review the Policy on self promotion

The large deletion is a constable responsibility. After looking at the talk page here, I see that David did ask Geoff to take a look before he made any changes. Considering that the material was moved to another article, I see no reason to intervene. I do ask that you remain professional as you continue with your collaboration in creating some good quality articles on these subjects. Please review the Professionalism Offenses section.

David appears to be the only editor actively working on these articles with Geoff and Brian acting as authors. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me again. D. Matt Innis 01:13, 25 May 2008 (CDT)

New editorship

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Welcome, new editor! We're very glad you've joined us. Here are pointers for a quick start. Also, when you get a chance, please read The Editor Role. You can look at Getting Started and our help system for other introductory pages. It is also important, for project-wide matters, to join the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list. Announcements are also available via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and thank you! We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we hope to see your edits on Recent changes soon. --Larry Sanger 17:28, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Templar PM

I'm sorry if you are offended by my edits or if you feel like I'm out to get you. I can assure you that I'm not. I tried to be open to arguments in favor of keeping the links, but you did not participate in the discussion. I'm not sure how you PMd me, because I did not know that function existed on Citizendium. It would be best to just keep the discussion on the talk page so there's a record of it. If there is information on the websites that is relevant to this article, you might as well cite them as sources for some specific fact. If not, then they are websites for an unrelated group that do not add anything to this article. I think the compromise that has been devised is fine.--David Boven 13:12, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

When in a User's Profile page, choose 'Email this User' from the toolbox on the left hand side (last box). I prefer to PM, as having seen some of the flame wars that have developed on Wiki, it's probably best to try and keep things offline until a PR can be made. As to editing, larry has personally approved my 'promotion' (if you can it that?), so I will continue on the Templar articles at my own pace.Geoff Beck 13:19, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Aha...I see the problem. I have my Citizendium account attached to an e-mail address that I rarely check. So when you e-mailed me, I did not read it until now. That being said, I am going to have to disagree with you. I would much rather converse on the talk pages. From my understanding, part of the reason for Citizendium is to avoid the flame wars of which you speak. I'd like to assume the best of our editors here.--David Boven 14:55, 18 June 2008 (CDT)