Simon J Kissane

HomePage | Recent Changes | Preferences | Receive an article a day!
You can edit this page right now!

I am a student at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia doing 2nd year computer science. I only recently discovered wikipedia, and I have always dreamed of writing my own encyclopedia, so maybe now I can help other people write one.

When I first wrote this, I thought "I will probably disappear sooner or later. I have a habit of picking things up only to drop them again later when I get bored of them." Well now its I can't remember how long (a couple of months maybe) further on and I'm still here, so looks like I will be staying.

I have another website at: http://www.geocities.com/sj_kissane/ but there really isn't anything there.

/Old Talk

I love your nice little diagram! That said, could you move the Chalcedonian controversies to before the great schism? That way the inherent christological unity of Chalcedonian-accepters is clear. I'm also a little queasy about the 'western church' evenly splitting into Catholoicism and Protestantism rather than Protestantism clearly breaking off from Catholicism. Oh, well. You nice little diagram is still INTENSELY useful as it is! On another note, I wonder why no one has even started anything on the Eastern Orthodox? Very odd. --MichaelTinkler

I hope its more to your liking now... I got the idea for it from my Year 10 religion book (from when I was back at high school) -- except the Yr 10 diagram was much more complicated, showing all these interesting transitions (e.g. Orthodox becoming Catholics but then leaving Catholicism again -- I think they were called ex-Uniates.) Unfortunately there is only so much you can do with ASCII art. If I ever have the time I might try doing it properly a diagram properly with a drawing program and uploading that as an image. As to the Eastern Orthodox, doesn't suprise. There is a lot more knowledge and awareness in the community (or at least in countries like the US or Australia) about Protestantism and Catholicism. Comparatively less knowledge and awareness about Eastern Orthodoxy. (E.g. I was brought up a Catholic, and for a while I was going regularly to a Protestant church, but I've never even stepped inside an Eastern Orthodox one.) -- Simon J Kissane

I like it a lot! I especially like the line crossing the Schism for the uniates! I guess what surprises me is that no Orthodox folk have stumbled across Wikipedia - there are lots of fascinating websites. From a mere religious variety point of view I've been lucky; I have personal friends who are Eastern rite priests in two different rites (a Maronite and a Melkite), and I have a cousin who is becoming a priest of the Orthodox Church of America (formerly the Autocephalus Russian Orthodox Church in America), so I have a conversational familiarity with the issues, but there's so much else to write about that I don't want to start on orthodoxy! Oh, well. Again, great diagram.

Hi Simon -- I'll bet the person who is "cutting off the ends of articles" isn't doing so maliciously. I've had NerdScape? refuse to add more text at the end of huge wiki pages... perhaps they have a version which just keeps the first "N" lines/chars. Ain't technology grand... thanks for notifying them anyway.

Good job redirecting the philosophy of religion pages. That's what I would have done. Maybe tomorrow I'll bag my "to do" list and spend the day wikifying my text. That would be fun! --LMS

Hi Simon - I'm also from Sydney. I liked your changes to the Presidents page I started - nice work. Anyway - just wanted to say Hi - ManningBartlett

Hi, I dropped you a line at your yahoo.MOC ;-) account. --KQ

Hi -- thought you handled that Daoism thing well. Better than I would've. :-)

Simon please don't delete what was written on the page I began. If you are such an expert at least join in the /talk which i added today to http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Angels thank you and comply courteously with a new article here. Thanks. BF

BF: What you wrote was only one sentence, followed by your name and the word 'Dakini' -- note that a single word doesn't even form a sentence. I added a lot more information, incorporating the information in your single sentence and expanding upon it. So what are you complaining about? I deleted the word "Dakini"? Maybe I might not have if you had actually explained what a "Dakini" is; but what do you expect people to do if all you write is one word not even forming a sentence?

Hi Simon. Branden here. Just wanted to toss some kudos your way since we seem to have some overlapping interests and you write well. I hope you find my (minor) contributions to your pages of some utility. Take it easy! --Branden

Thanks Branden. Actually to be honest I'm the one that doesn't know much :) I have a huge memory for all sorts of minor details, but most things I write about I've never really studied seriously (and the funniest thing is, those things I have studied seriously, i.e. at uni, is the things I can remember the least about!). -- Simon.

About Jerusalem edit (I can't get an edit lock on Jerusalem/Talk?, thus leaving it here):

It's not false at all, merely extremely non-neutral. There's no reason to explain in detail how Israel violated international law in context of an article on Jerusalem - the only purpose of that is anti-Israeli propaganda. In my opinion, the earlier paragraph which states correctly that the annexation is not recognised by the international community is informative enough; if someone wants to add Res. 478 to that paragraph in something like "... and was condemned in US Sec Council Res 478", that would also be fine. However, dedicating an entire paragraph to detailed elaboration upon UN Charter, UN members duties etc. etc. is simply not warranted here.

The same is true about your latest edits on "Israeli settlements", West Bank etc. They're very non-neutral, in my opinion. --AV

Well I think the article should say that Israel violated international law (which is a stronger statement than a mere rejection than the international community) -- which isn't propaganda, it's the truth -- and if it is going to make such a claim, it should provide evidence to back it up. Such evidence is threefold: (1) the Israeli Basic Law on Jerusalem was nullified by the UN Security Council and the Security Council ordered Israel to rescind that legislation; (2) Israel is legally obliged under the UN Charter, as a UN member state, to obey UN Security Council resolutions; (3) Israel has failed to do so, and has thereby violated international law. -- SJK

Security Council resolutions have been violated many times, not just by Israel. They have also been violated by neighbouring Arab states as well. By singling out Israel's violation and elaborating in minute details how exactly this violation takes place, you are focusing undue attention on Israel. I suggest that you consider your reaction, were I to spell out in great detail how neighbouring Arab countries abuse human rights, women rights, etc., in an article on the history of Palestine or Israel.

The assertion "Israel has not complied with Sec. Councl resolution" is a fact. The assertion "Israel has violated international law because it has not complied with the resolution, while it is obligated to comply under these and these reasons" is fact + propaganda. The proper place for what constitutes a violation of international law is in an article on international law (or US security council), not in an article on Jerusalem. Otherwise, you'll be morally obligated to add "... and violated international law, because..." in *any* place in Wikipedia where you mention ineffective Sec. Council resolutions, which in my opinion would be a silly thing to require. --AV

AV: Okay. If the article just said something like "The UN Security Council, in resolution 478, declared the purported Israeli annexation of Jerusalem to be 'null and void and must be rescinded forthwith'. Many consider the purported annexation to be illegal under international law. Israel has refused to comply with the Security Council resolution." Would that satisfy you? -- Simon J Kissane

: I dislike your most recently edited version, but not nearly as strongly as the first version with the mention of the resolution. If I think of any way to make it more neutral without removing points you wish to preserve, I'll edit it and you'll judge the result; otherwise, let it stand as it is. --AV

Would it be logical to make a separate entry with the extensive discussion of this issue, and just leave a quick mention & link on the original page?

Hi, I saw the discussion on the Zionism/Talk page. Israeli law can be amended (see my post). Saying what you'd said in the way that you'd said is quite offensive to the Israelis. Could you please either change the article to incorporate the above-said, or at least provide an explanation why you think otherwise? --Uriyan

At a very quick seach SJK stands for, at least: Stockholms judoklubb, The Metal band SJK (which stands for Smokejack Kill), SJK - Greek engineering consultants, St. John's-Kilmarnock School in Ontario, Schwule Jugendgruppe Koblenz - a homosexual group in Koblenz?.

HomePage | Recent Changes | Preferences | Receive an article a day!
You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project
Edit text of this page | View other revisions
Last edited October 25, 2001 7:57 am (diff)