TheBustopher

See my actual User page for some notes on me.

I am NOT a member of the Revival Fellowship and have NEVER been a member.

I am thus a neutral observer of the processes of the church and after attending a few Sunday meetings and other events I am well-placed to describe the activities of this "church".

I have been witnessed to on a number of occasions by members of this church, who I have observed to cheat, lie and threaten me. Thus I am not very likely to become a member of the church, however at the moment, I am still getting myself along to most Sunday services as I wish to give the church a fair go before coming to a final conclusion on its activities. Initially I am appalled at the carryings-on, however as I say, I am more than willing to give the church a fair go, and this will even include attendance at neighbouring congregations other than my local fellowship.

So: before you blindly delete my Wikipedia entries, bear this in mind: a closed mind is un-Christian. Jesus wants us to treat others as we would treat them. So assuming someone has made a wikipedia entry that is valid it is un-Christian to delete the bloody thing. Please treat me with respect by correcting any details I may have wrong, and arguing for the opposite of what I am claiming, but piss off if you reckon that deletion of something you don't necessarily agreee with is an appropriate response.

He is not a former Australian, though. For this to be correct, it would have to say "is an Australian former politician", which I hope you would agree is a ghastly construction. It is far better to simply say "is an Australian politician" and leave it at that. I always find it strange that people want to add this in as though readers aren't intelligent enough to tell that a politician is no longer serving from the text. We don't call people "former scientists", "former doctors", "former dancers" or "former actors", after all.

In any case, how would one define a "former" politician? John Howard (the "former" designation was snuck into all the ex-PMs' articles some time in the last year) still gets involved in Liberal Party affairs - is he still a politician? How about Joanna Gash, who is retired from federal politics but still in the local council? Or Michael Yabsley, who hasn't been an MP for decades but holds senior positions in the Liberal Party? Are George W. Bush or Barack Obama former politicians? What about John Major and Tony Blair?

I have not been able to find discussions dealing with this issue, although it is clear there are a number of views floating around and there does seem to be some kind of informal distinction between more exact/easy-to-define titles (e.g. "professional tennis player", "New York Times columnist") and more general occupations ("businessman", "academic"). In my brief tour of Wikipedia to ascertain widespread practice I have seen plenty with "former" and plenty without, although in the former (ho ho) case I have also seen plenty of truly hair-raising English. I do note that Britannica, for example, gets on very well without it.

I am not edit warring, by the way, and please don't say that I am. Frickeg (talk) 13:48, 30 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Frickeg: I've seen a lot more of your Aussie politics work, so fully withdraw edit warring claim. However, I was just adding a word to try indicating that Hartcher is no longer a politician. He has disappeared completely from public life (and his old state electorate borders mine, so I'd be hearing about him locally if he did turn up). So despite mentioning Howard, Yabbers, and former US presidents and UK PMs, Hartcher isn't in that boat. I'd define politician as someone who earns money from being a member of a parliament or LGA (i.e. any of the three levels). Let me look at what's there and see if I can express it more uncontroversially. Although I do think you're extending reality to argue that because he's (obviously) still Australian, then he's not a "former Australian politician", because I'm using "Australian" as an adjective, not a noun, which your interpretation requires. TheBustopher (talk) 17:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

The file File:TheBustopher image file(with FX).jpg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unused personal file, out of project scope.

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Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. —Matr1x-101 _{(Ping me when replying)} {_{user page} ^{(@ commons)} - _talk} 12:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply