Scholars

(fm the BC thread "Triumph of the Will")

bob,
Six days a week you can start a fight with Habu. Heck on four of those days you might have to get in line, and on at least two occasions the line formed behind me. Still even if he was the second coming of Baron Munchausen there is no reason to use an ad hominem to attack his scholarly references. Many things can fly under the radar on the Internet but the one thing that this crowd does very efficiently is detect pretension. Habu's scholarly or literary comments reflect his education and reading. Unless you can produce an Annie Hall moment of revelation to prove that he is talking through his hat you are out of line to disparage his apparently lucid thoughts on philosophy.


It is particularly off key to gratuitously pick a fight while we are all rallying around to defend the Club. On the ship two guys might be circing each other with evil intent because one always seems to draw the duty the first night in Subic or OZ but if the GQ sounds they work together like family. Better in fact considering some families. Habu we better get back to debating the fine distinctions between Democratic Republics and Republican Democracies or people will tell us to get a room.

Regarding another professional thinker of deep thoughts someplace in the house is or was a paperback with the title "The Essential Schopenhauer." When I was 12 I asked my brother if I should read it and he assured me "There is nothing essential about Schopenhauer."


Nihiltres gets one share, redeemable at Milo Minderbinder's, for showing up. There is no excuse for failing to post a notice on the entry in question stating in advance that it was scheduled for deletion and there is no reason not to have an automatic notice emailed to parties who claim ownership or an editorial role for a particular entry. Pleading that the site is to technically antiquated or to rise to such a basic level of what passes for customer service these days is not an excuse. Even worse is to say that they always do it that way. When I am a Supervisor one of the first things I say is that no one is to ever challenge a question or instruction by saying "But we always do it that (other) way." It sounds suspiciously like a government clerk pleading that it is not his fault that the IRS lost your file or that because Congress refused to appropriate an additional $10 million they can't put any light-bulbs in the Washington Monument so it will have to close.

To me the most chilling scene in Claude Lanzmann'a Shoah was when the travel agent explained that he did not kill anyone. He just arranged the group fare travel for Jews going to Auschwitz on the Reichsbahn. Somebody else selected them. Responsibility is not divided but multiplied. If I remember the full interview Stier 40 years later complained at one point that the SS still owed for one "excursion."


The "new information came up" defense for a bureaucratic blunder does not make me change my position on Capital Punishment but it does make me want to be sure that Nihiltres is not on my jury. Devotion to procedure devoid of moral content is reflected in Canada by the Human Rights tribunals or in American English the PC Kangaroo Courts.

-------
Brainstorm, has wretchard been interviewed in Technorati or anyplace else that cam be referenced? Can we use the allegations at another place that the Club was a cabal of Houston Conservative, something about L3? If we edit in those external references to the site, even reporting and debunking fairly the criticism, then presto does it meets the wiki criteria?

I can see how this becomes an incitement to a nightmare of sock-puppetry, which I am not advocating, in which people create false sites to report on other sites so that they drive up the 'reference' count that wiki, and I suppose Google, use to evaluate worth. That worth or 'notability' will in fact be worth real money to many people.

Black Shoe,
(who is Old Salt not OldSalt)
I am a Black Shoe myself. The important question is, are you a Shellback or a Polliwog?

Donna V,
but alas, it’s my uterus which is leading me

Consider the way you can fairly describe how many men are lead around.

ConservativeMutant,
(who is a Wikipedia editor)
To cut to the chase a seven day window for an entry that is Prod but not grounds for Speedy deletion is an invitation to abuse. People can go away for a week and return to face real damage. The volume of trash is acknowledged but the technical tools are available to provide better service. The way it is insiders have to much power to manipulate and abuse the system for any private agenda. They need to install a better notification system for people who have identified themselves as concerned parties and the window needs to be pushed back to at least a fortnight or even 30 days.

Appreciate the reply, thank you. What is needed is an automatically generated email message to "owners" or concerned editors who do not live in the wiki. That should be a not to difficult fix. A message about a proposed deletion in the wiki would be more welcome in most mailboxes than another hundred notifications of 3rd party updates by FaceBook. Just title the Message something subtle, like "Warning your article at Wikipedia has been proposed for deletion."

-------
May I propose a thread on the Off Shore Drilling in the future for swallowing the entire Obama agenda now proposal? A good working title may be "Bait and Switch."

Donna V,
(who is offended by the gender based analysis some use)
Honestly, except for Habu today uncharacteristically channeling him, which may get a citation for trespass or copyright infringement, I think those murky waters that you do not want to navigate are considered the preserve of whiskey. I am sure that each of us can become fixated on some topics. On my best days I am the house Max Weber bore. Really I do not think that whiskey or anyone else is intentionally expressing hostility to women and while this is not my house I do not think that it is that hard to screen it out if you have to. Trying to keep the conversation alive without resorting to an LGF level of control is a sub-topic behind these last two threads. My instincts are to be much more controlling but all the evidence is that I would do a far worse job than wretchard does. My belief is that only one person has been invited to leave this Club in the last 4 years but that is just an opinion. Old threads tend to get sidetracked into special discussions on hobbies (guns) or religion or the honor of some country fond of cheese or simply nostalgia. The current thread should not and I am confident that your efforts to focus on the topic are appreciated.