User talk:Roger A. Lohmann/Archive 2

User bio is in User:Roger_Lohmann

follow-up to our conversation about culture area
It occurred to me just now that you might be interested in developing an inter-disciplinary approach to the article on ethnonyms as well. It was one of the first articles I worked on here, and I've hardly looked back since, but it would be a good candidate for attention from many different perspectives. --Joe Quick 15:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

final version for approval on folk saint
If you have a moment, please have a look at the most recent posts here. In order to include Shamira's copyedits in the approved article, the to-be-approved version number has to be updated in the metadata by the nominating editor. Thanks! --Joe Quick 15:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

U.S. Education History articles - merge needed
Currently, there are two articles on Citizendium concerned with this topic, to wit:


 * History of education in the United States, and
 * Education, U.S., History

The former, written by myself, consists at the moment in an introductory section only. I wish this to be retained as it provides a general overview and perspective. However, the two artilces should be merged. Both are assigned to Workgroups "History" and "Education", though they differ as to which is the primary WG. I assigned "History" as the primary WG and I believe this to be correct.

My question is: which should be the title article and which the redirect? Your call. Let me know and I will do the merge which includes moving the references on the one article to the subpages.

(The merge is simple enough - just add my intro section to the other article or vice versa, and construct the subpages. However, you are a History WG editor, so you could overrule this, of course. In the absence of a redirect, I'm glad I did a thorough search for duplicate articles before setting to work in earnest on this subject.)

James F. Perry 16:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Approval question
Could you take a look at Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Its not my best work but I do think it's ready for approval. I don't really see any way it could be improved except maybe formatting issues. But I'm open to suggestions.Drew R. Smith 09:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Grand Trunk Railway
Hello Roger, I just nominated this one for approval. Please look it over; you're the only other history editor who would be familiar with such things. Thanks! Russell D. Jones 20:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Re-approval Adams-Onís Treaty draft
Roger, since I'm the author of the Adams-Onís Treaty/Draft article, I can not nominate it for re-approval and need another history editor to nominate it. Would you please look it over and consider nominating the draft for approval? Thanks. Russell D. Jones 12:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

final touches on the Grand Trunk Railway
Russell updated the version of Grand Trunk Railway to be approved to the most recent revision and the article is just about ready to go, but we need you to have a look over those changes and let us know whether you also agree with them. Once we've heard from you and Milt, Hayford or Matt can make it official. Thanks much. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 12:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to be a bother but did you see the note I left above? I noticed that you've been on the wiki in the last couple of hours but didn't respond here or at the article talk page.  --Joe Quick 02:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Kamehameha I
In my opinion, Kamehameha I is as close to being "complete" as it can be. I think I have covered all major aspects of his life. I am asking you four; Joe Quick (as approvals manager), Roger Lohmann (as a history and politics editor), Russell Jones (as a history editor), and Howard Berkowitz (as a military editor), to look over the article and suggest any changes you think neccessary. Between the five of us, I don't see why we can't get this article improved. Thanks for your time. Drew R. Smith 09:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

changes to Grand Trunk
Hi Roger, have you seen the comments on the talk page of Grand Trunk Railway? Milt and Russell are already on board for a quick re-approval. If you have a few minutes, could you stop by? Thanks much. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 13:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Editor applications
Hi Roger, any chances that you can take a look at the editor application queue, there seem to be some there that probably need some attention. Thanks, D. Matt Innis 00:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Roger for looking into those editors, poor things were in purgatory for a long time! Is that really his name? I know there is a section of India (I think) that only uses one name. D. Matt Innis 22:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * So it seems! Roger Lohmann 23:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you help?
Hi Roger! Good to see you hard at work again!!! I hate to slow your progress, but I wonder if you might stop in at Eric Holder and see if you can help with a comment concerning the article content.


 * Matt, I just tried to post this to the Talk Page of Eric Holder, but it appears you've locked it. (Can't imagine why! ;-)
 * This is the comment I was going to post.


 * I've just read this article through once without attempting to comprehend any of the comments on the Talk Page (except what was necessary to scroll to the bottom!). My initial reaction is that once again we have a problem trying to get the right focus on a politically-controversial living public figure.


 * And in this case, its complicated by Holder's position as Attorney General. Is he the President's man, a neutral public servant, are the two roles in conflict and do we even know yet, since he's only been in office for a few months. Moreover, with his appointment of a special prosecutor, the political controversy is likely just beginning. For CZ purposes, the current article is not yet encyclopedia; it reads a little too much like the kind of "box score" daily political commentary we have come to expect from CNN and Newsweek and the blogsphere. But, that's fine; its a good start. I didn't see any overt evidences of political biases, The article does makes the Attorney General out more to be a partisan political figure than the nation's #1 law enforcement official. (Obviously, that isn't an either or proposition.)


 * This is the start of a good solid encyclopedia entry. There is certainly no reason for any kind of drastic action about the article at this point. It might be a good time however for a "time out" on continuing to add to the growing body of argumentation on the talk page. Mostly, contributors are probably talking past one another anyway. (They usually do). The only contribution I can see worth making at this point would be a purely editorial one: a list of short bullet points extracted from that discussion, noting continuing issues and concerns only (and not reviewing any of the arguments pro and con.)


 * How about a moritorium for a week or so on additions to the main entry? Authors and critics can go on to other things for that time; like building the subpages. Meanwhile, I'll try to sift through the comments on the talk page and compile my own list (and invite a couple of other editors to do the same). Then, let's see if, a week or so we can be at a new starting point and ready to move on. In the meantime, please don't shift the discussion and pummel me with private emails, because I won't read them until later anyway.
 * Roger Lohmann 15:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Roger, I'll move this post to Talk:Eric Holder and keep it unlocked unless I hear from you! D. Matt Innis 17:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Citizendium charter drafting commitee nomination
Hi Roger, You've been nominated by a fellow Citizendium member to be a candidate for election to the Citizendium charter drafting committee.

If you haven't been following the discussion in the forums, we're getting ready to establish a charter for Citizendium that outlines the project's goals, ideals, and basic structure. To get the process moving, we put together a plan for electing a group of Citizens to compose a draft of the charter, which will then be submitted for community review. You can find more about the plan here.

You've been nominated by another Citizen to be a candidate for election to that committee. The next step is up to you: you may either accept or decline the nomination by going here and following the instructions at the top of the page.

If you have any questions, just let me know. --Joe Quick 15:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Article approvals sought
Hi - I have done as much as I can with two articles, Scarborough Castle and Great Siege of Scarborough Castle (specifically the versions here and here), and am looking to move these articles into 'approved' status. I made sure to use only authoritative sources (published books, English Heritage castle literature, things like that). Can you have a look and see if you feel that there is anything preventing them being approved? Thanks. John Stephenson 06:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

10 editors that have never shown up
Hi Roger,

I don't know if you are following the discussion on the Editors and editorial issues forum thread, "How to recruit and retain active editors?", but Hayford claims you and David Volk have collectively and recently approved editorship for 10 editors that haven't done anything. (See that thread, reply #57). When I asked Hayford if he would contact them and ask them why they went to the trouble of having their credentials approved and then didn't do anything more, he said he didn't want to waste his time. In my view, finding out why editors are registering and then doing nothing else is an important issue. Would you be willing to contact those of the 10 that you confirmed and ask them that question? P.S. I am asking David Volk if he would do the same thing for the editors he approved. Dan Nessett 21:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

History Naming Conventions
Roger, there has been a revitalization of the discussion about renaming the Britain, history article. There is also, I think, a chance here to revise the naming convention for history articles. What do you think? I disagree with the format "[Topic], history" and am in favor of the more literary "History of [topic]" or what ever the topic is. Some of my reasons were expressed here. Russell D. Jones 16:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bother you, but I moved the article as per the naming conventions. It seems that the preferred style is "History of Topic" as it is without punctuation and that the "History, Britain" article title was left over from the early days of CZ.  Russell D. Jones 17:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Wot? Wat!
Sending a quick ‘hello’ out to all of you who wanted a weekend write-a-thon. Also, a nudge, push, and a shove to all those who haven’t made it out in a while. This Sunday, 10th January, is your Big Chance. Party theme is ‘stubs’. Now, what could be easier? Write about anything you want! (At least come on over and say ‘hi’—we’ve all been much too quiet lately and I rather miss everybody.) Aleta Curry 21:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Roger for approving my author account
Does everything pretty much work like Wikipedia? If so I probably won't need much help. I'll read through the help files a bit to look around. --Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I wrote an article on Wikipedia called "History of citizenship in the United States". It's almost all my wording (I have roughly 100 references). I think it's a solid article. Here it is: . Is it worthy of importing here to Citizendium? One of my biases is that I think citizenship is important; at the same time, I included differing academic perspectives. If you have any advice about this article or another I wrote, Citizenship in the United States (see although this has been edited somewhat since I wrote it a few months ago. I'm finding uploading pictures from Wikimedia Commons to be difficult.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Dr. Lohmann I've ported over "History of U.S. Citizenship" (which I wrote on Wikipedia a few months ago) to a sandbox page here: User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer/sandbox2. If interested wondering your opinion, or do you know who else here on CZ might be interested in giving it a look-over before approving it for going online? The gist of the article is this: citizenship transformed from a mostly political relationship (ie participation in town hall meetings circa 1640s) to an economic relationship (consumers, workers, investors uninterested in politics). So the article tries to show how this political -> economic transformation happened. It's based on civics and history books, some academics, political philosophers (eg Tocqueville), contemporary writers (Wolf, Kaplan etc), but basically it's trying to be like a high school civics text. But instead of writing about a country, or a city, or a person, it's the history of a relationship -- citizenship. I hope it's not too boring so I tried to put lots of pictures in. One of my biases is that I think citizenship is important but I realize most Americans don't even bother to think much about citizenship. I tried to include contrasting points of view -- writers like Ginsberg feel that citizenship decline (ie political participation) is not good, while writers like Kaplan think it's not a big deal, and that lack of political participation suggests that everything is working smoothly. Wondering what you think or what I might do next. I'm having trouble getting some of the repeated references to show up. If approved, I'll work on making it better than the WP version which I wrote earlier.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 04:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Dr. Lohmann thanks for your feedback about the proposed "History of US citizenship" article. I'm getting feedback from others too and am going to work on other stuff in the time being, and let others lead. I think we agree citizenship is important but most people don't really care much; so the article may appear to be biased perhaps, since it's talking about something that most people don't want to even think about? And I read widely in a number of areas, history, philosophy, politics, etc, and civics textbooks and such, as well as lectures from the Teaching Company on Tocqueville by Professor Cook, and so the article is more or less connecting the dots, trying to piece together how the switch happened, and why people stopped showing up at town meetings, etc etc. I don't think of it as original research since I'm not a professional but only a layman; rather, it's me just trying to describe what happened. Like, wouldn't this be what high school civics teachers teach (assuming they had a course on citizenship) like it's kind of what I'd expect if I were to take a high school course on citizenship.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank Yoo
Glad to see someone is reading this! There is much connected to it, of course -- I would value your opinions, and perhaps even approval, on such things as Intelligence interrogation, U.S., George W. Bush Administration, Interrogation, Torture, and many interlinked things. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I could use your help and guidance
Roger, I have just been appointed as an Editorial Personnel Administrator by Larry Sanger (see bottom of my user page as well as the history of my user page).

In reading CZ:Editor Application Review Procedure, I find the following in the "Step-by-step application review procedure":

Before you review any applications, please go to this page and bookmark it. (The editor-in-chief has it in his "quick links" at the top of his browser.)  Please get in the habit of checking that page every time you log on to the wiki.

It's not that difficult. Think of it this way:
 * 1) Look over the application.  Make sure the person's identity is confirmed and that the person is a bona fide expert in the fields he or she has checked off.
 * 2) Write a little welcome message in the "Comment" field.
 * 3) Press "Confirm."

When I click to go to the indicated this page, I get a message that says:

The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups Sysops, Bureaucrats, EPAs.

Now that I am an EPA, what needs be done and by whom so that I can get access to that page?? Thanks in advance, Milton Beychok 02:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not Roger, however the answer is that you need a Bureaucrat (a list is here) to add you to the 'EPA' user rights group (a list is here). --Chris Key 04:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Chris, for again helping me out. Milton Beychok 05:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Edwin E. Witte
Roger, since you wrote the bulk of the Arthur Altmeyer article and when you have the time, could you take a look at Edwin E. Witte and make some recommendations? I don't think I have anything more to add to it. Thanks. Russell D. Jones 00:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Great Siege of Scarborough Castle
Hi, Roger. There is some discussion of whether and how to approve this article (that I wrote) here - can you see a way it could be approved? Thanks. John Stephenson 09:22, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Please review Renewable energy
Roger, since you are a Politics Editor, I would much appreciate your reviewing the Renewable energy article and editing/revising/commenting on it. Thanks, Milton Beychok 00:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Please? Milton Beychok 08:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Re an illustration for Social capital
Roger, there is a diagram on Flickr at this website:http://www.flickr.com/photos/lbernholz/3995954964/in/set-72157622524476268/

If you will let me know if it is suitable, I will contact the copyright holder and try to get permission to use it in CZ. Alternatively, if you could email me with an attached hand-drawn sketch of a similar, suitable diagram, I will try to produce a professional-looking version that could be uploaded into CZ. My email address is mbeychok@cox.net Milton Beychok 22:29, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think its suitable, by itself. It focuses exclusively on the economic portions (Trust and Networks, which are centrally important in social and political approaches) aren't even mentioned. Together with the Putnam map, however, it might work, with a suitable caption noting its economic orientation.

Roger Lohmann 00:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)