User talk:A.Khalil

Welcome!

Hi A.Khalil, and a warm welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you have enjoyed editing as much as I did so far and decide to stay. Unfamiliar with the features and workings of Wikipedia? Don't fret! Be Bold! Here's some good links for your reference and that'll get you started in no time!

Editing tutorial, learn to have fun with Wikipedia. Picture tutorial, instructions on uploading images. How to write a great article, to make it an featured article status. Manual of Style, how articles should be written.

Most Wikipedians would prefer to just work on articles of their own interest. But if you have some free time to spare, here are some open tasks that you may want to help out :

RC Patrol - Keeping a lookout for vandalism. Cleanup - Help make unreadable articles readable. Requests - Wanted on WP, but hasn't been created. Merge - Combining duplicate articles into one. Wikiprojects - So many to join, so many to choose from...Take your pick!

Oh yes, don't forget to sign when you write on talk pages, simply type four tildes, like this: ~~~~. This will automatically add your name and the time after your comments. And finally, if you have any questions or doubts, don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Once again, welcome! =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mailer diablo (talk • contribs) 03:33, 9 January 2005

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered Multi-Licensing Guide Free the Rambot Articles Project To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "

" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1 I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2 I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "

" with "

Multi-licensed into the public domain

I agree to multi-license my eligible text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under Wikipedia's copyright terms and into the public domain. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions in the public domain, please check the multi-licensing guide.

". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)%7C talk)

- Mailer Diablo 19:33, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Jayjg

It's pointless. He's an admin. He's very active on the mailing list and his views are supported by the majority. You cannot fight the pro-Zionist bias of Wikipedia because most here don't even recognise it as a bias. I'm sorry. I do sympathise but you have no hope of justice. Dr Zen 03:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I didn't read what is about your conflict with Jayjg, so I cannot give my opinion on it. I'm new on english Wikipedia, and already have a conflict with him on Talk:Anti-Zionism, Talk:New anti-Semitism, and Talk:Battle of Jenin 2002... :-( --Marcoo 09:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it all seems hopeless and that Anti-Arab and Anti-Islamic bias is in fasion nowadays, but there is a presumption of fairness which one hopes that at least some educated people have. Further, I am not just complaining about political or racial bias, which I might brush aside as a normal human condition, but about distortion and/or domination of facts. Maybe I cannot change things, and maybe it would be turned against be, but I feel that at least one should raise the issue for the record and in the hope that, as I said, decent humanity prevails. I hope everyone would do the same.A.Khalil 20:22, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I am not ready to accept that one bias or the other is unchallengably entrenched on Wikipedia. However, I do think we should all pick our battles. For example, the introduction to the Sabra and Chatila article right now is contrary to reality as seen everywhere on the planet except in establishment circles in the US--I doubt that even in Israel itself people see the phrase "Sabra and Shatila" in that light. Admins that see their view of the world as absolute reality and refuse to work out neutral text are definitely a problem. I am looking to see if I can find material that would be relevant to your RFA.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 06:24, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I am learning as I go how to retrieve article edits and reference them, and the like. Any help would be appreciated and it is ultimately for the betterment of information on Wikipedia.A.Khalil 06:34, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to drop me a line whenever you need help--or just want to vent about something.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 08:39, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

A.Khalil, greetings. And apologies for not returning your message sooner. I rarely visit Wikipedia these days. The Pro-Israel crowd make any honest discussion of Middle Eastern history and politics almost pointless. The thing which annoys the most is the attempt to re-write all of history to fit the Zionist agenda. John Ball 19:52 14 Oct 2005.

It certainly is true that anti-Islamic bias - usually by selectivity and omission, sometimes by plain lies (at least in one case which I found myself forced to correct a while ago) - is rampant on Wikipedia. It's not surprising either: English Wikipedia often reflects the biases of its contributors and the limitations of online sources, both of which are mostly drawn from the US. (There's actually a WikiProject devoted to countering that broader issue: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Take a look!) However, the best way to respond is with sources. People who will automatically revert accurate edits that don't correspond to their preconceptions will usually hesitate to do so when you've just quoted them a well-known historian saying the same thing. - Mustafaa 05:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Check ouyt the discussion on the [Israeli terrorism] article - it's way out of line. Hew's actually defending Honest Reporting as being an appropriate link - without a qualification that it is a lobby site and far from honest. And seems to have two definitions of terrorism.

I have been subject to Jayjg's Anti-Israel bias. Most of the administrators practice censorship of material that tries to stop making things Anti-Israel.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Doron"

Khalifa

That's a good question, and I don't really know the answer! There are other such words, like `umdah "governor", but why they end in a ta-marbutah I don't know. However, if I had to guess I would say it has to do with a different function of ta-marbutah: it often marks individual members of a class (for instance, we say Hajarah "a stone", but Hajar "stone (the material)". - Mustafaa 05:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I can see the use of Hajarah (feminine for singular) and Hajar (masculine for plural), and many other members of a class as you indicate, but these are genderless inanimate objects. But when it comes to human titles they seem to need to be gendered. 'Umdah' is a good example (thank you). When it comes to other uses, I think we say 'Ameed' and 'Ameedat', say of a family or a college. But when it comes to a political position, we say 'umdah.' Could it be, and I am asking, that the feminine singular (or the ta-marbuta) here has something to do with absolutism, that is he/she is "the" 'umdah'? But then what is the rule (since not all are the same, ex: Muhafidh and Muhafidhah) and how does one differentiate between a male and a female 'umdah' or 'Khalifah'?A.Khalil 13:33, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I just checked a comparative Semitic grammar, and the author (Lipinski) suggests that it might have originally been an abstract noun. For example, in Phoenician the word "mamlakat" originally meant "kingdom" like in Arabic, but then changed to mean just "king" (just as English "majesty" is also used to address the king: "Your Majesty".) But I'm not sure I'm convinced by his argument: if that was the explanation, why wouldn't we say "khilaafah" to mean caliph? As for how to distinguish a male and female `umdah or Khalifah, I don't know! Maybe there is no way... - Mustafaa 00:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hashshashin: not an Islamic sect

Hi A.Khalil, recall, as per your arbitration case against Jayjg (which, as you might have gathered, I found to be totally bogus), I commented that I believed the Hashshashin to be an Islamic sect, but was not certain and was going to consult the experts and get back to everyone. Well, since the arbitration was rejected and deleted, I'm taking the liberty of writing my findings here. I consulted the foremost authority I know on Persian history, and he said that it is incorrect to call the Hashshashin an Islamic sect because, unlike their other social reforms and policies, their version of Islam was not modified in any appreciable way for it to be defined as such (as a sect of Islam, that is). Just thought this self-correction on my part was due. Thanks for reading, El_C 22:51, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So you're saying that they were just a standard Nizari Ismaili Shia group/team/cult/sub-sect/what have you?—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 03:15, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that, religiously, they themsleves, as Hashshashin, did not modify Islam so as to be accorded the title of Islamic sect. El_C 05:20, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Timeline_of_Middle_Eastern_History

Hey, guy! I did some work with the timeline of MEH you started, because I thought you could need some support and I thought it would be a good idea to have something like "Middle Eastern History in 5 min." I was hoping that you would continue working on it as it is a little out of my scope... I compiled a lot of links as you can see. Ben (talk) 09:02, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I will continue working on it, but my free time comes in waves because of work and health. Anyway, Wikipedia is a collaborative effort and we all build it together. I like the related articles list you added. Maybe we could aslo create an index (in a separate article), if it does not already exist, of all Middle Eastern related articles in Wikipedia. I guess it might be very long, but helpful in research. I also need to find a term that links a widers range of states whose peoples and histories are intertwined (ex. Greece/Greeks and the Middle East). A.Khalil 15:08, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

As for your ideas, the index is not really necessary as there are categories, if only all the articles would use them... A new wider term is not really needed as there is Ancient Near East just see the article. Anyway I don't like the article half-finished and it would be fine for me if you would take over (I noticed you have listed the page in your contribution-and-interest list). BTW, next time, it would be great you could answer on my talk page, so I see the post faster. Ben (talk) 18:27, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Tunis etymology

Greetings again, A.Khalil. I was wandering if you could offer me any insights as to the etymological origins for Tunis. Thanks, El_C 23:02, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Assalamu alaykum -- please vote

Please consider voting at:

Wikipedia:Conspiracy_theory

to rename articles that use the pejorative term "Conspiracy theory" to denigrate the content of the article.

Do the titles of WP articles generally pass partisan judgment on the subject under discussion? Should they? BrandonYusufToropov 02:31, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Arab mathematicians

Hello, A.Khalil. I have recently discovered that there is no article in the Wikipedia -- at least that I can find -- on the subject of mathematical studies by the Arabs. During medieval times the Arabs were quite advanced in mathematics, and in fact far ahead of the Europeans. I think this would be an interesting subject for an article. There is a Category:Arab mathematicians but no article directly on the subject. There is an article History of mathematics that touches briefly on the subject, but perhaps there is much more to be said. If you feel qualified, perhaps you might write the article. — DanMS 19:13, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Your opinion

Hello. I will soon retire from wikipedia. Before I do, I would like you to give your opinion on the List of Lebanese people article and the conflict that occured between me and user:Lcnj. 2aren elli ana 3melto belli howwe 3emlo w 3ate ya2yak. Jaber 13:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

RM alert

The move request at Talk:Foreign relations of the Palestinian National Authority was closed, so we're now taking suggestions for an alternative. As you were involved in the previous discussion, I'd be grateful if you could contribute to the new one. Please lodge your support for a proposal, or make one of your own. Night w2 (talk) 04:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

We're recruiting art lovers!

Archives of American Art Wikimedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about art to participate in furthering art coverage on Wikipedia. I am planning contests and projects that will allow you access, no matter where you live, to the world's largest collection of archives related to American art. Please sign up to participate here, and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 00:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

October 2011

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to use talk pages for inappropriate discussion, as you did at Talk:List of former Muslims, you may be blocked from editing. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:43, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi A.Khalil! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Multilingual editing encouraged!!! But being multilingual is not a necessity to make this project a success. Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! 14:10, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Asian 10,000 Challenge invite

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Asia/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge and Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like South East Asia, Japan/China or India etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. At some stage we hope to run some contests to benefit Asian content, a destubathon perhaps, aimed at reducing the stub count would be a good place to start, based on the current Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon which has produced near 200 articles in just three days. If you would like to see this happening for Asia, and see potential in this attracting more interest and editors for the country/countries you work on please sign up and being contributing to the challenge! This is a way we can target every country of Asia, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 00:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!