User talk:Ed Moise

Welcome to Wikipedia, Ed Moise! I am JMS Old Al and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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JMS Old Al (talk) 04:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I have bookmarked your bibliography that you appended to Laotian Civil War. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the literature, but you have added so much more.

Many thanks.

Georgejdorner (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Ed. I'm sorry, but we don't get to link to our own websites on Wikipedia; I've had to remove all the links to added to your Clemson faculty pages. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I apologize if I was in violation of a rule, but I could not, and cannot, see a conflict of interest in my adding links to bibliography pages. I maintain those pages as a public service. They do not selectively list works that support my own points of view. They are simply reference works that I thought users of Wikipedia would find useful. Ed Moise (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

You could make a better case for removing the bibliography link that I added to Westmoreland v. CBS than for most of the others. That bibliography, unlike most of mine, does have a discernible viewpoint; the user can tell that I tend to side with CBS against Westmoreland. But it has an enormous amount of material representing the Westmoreland side of the issue. The user who wants fast access to material representing Westmoreland's viewpoint can find much more of it by going through my bibliography than by any other equally quick and simple means that I can think of. Ed Moise (talk) 22:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions to Initialing. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability and it is unclear what topic is being discussed. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit the draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. aesurias (talk) 05:21, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Please explain what you mean by "establish notability."

Would changing the title to "Initialing an Agreement" meet your concerns about making the topic clear?

I think it might help if I explained the origin of the article. On June 4, 1954, representatives of France and the State of Vietnam initialed the text of an agreement, but it was so short and lacking in details that they could not sign it without further negotiations to clarify its meaning. Those further negotiations were inconclusive and the agreement was never signed.

A number of authors failed to notice or failed to understand the distinction between initialing and signing. There is a widespread belief that the agreement was signed and became legally binding on that date. I intend to edit at least one page of Wikipedia pointing out that the agreement was only initialed not signed. I don't think putting a complete explanation of the distinction into the page for State of Vietnam and perhaps other pages would be a good idea. I thought it better to create a page on Initialing, and have a link to that page in my statements that the 1954 agreement was initialed but not signed.

Is there a way of solving my problem that you think would be better? Ed Moise (talk) 07:16, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

The one (1) source used doesn't demonstrate notability of the term/topic being discussed. Adding more can rectify this.

The primary issue is that, when reading the draft, many people would struggle to understand what initialing is. Try something like "In negotiations, initialing is a word used to describe a non-binding agreement made before both parties are officially ready to sign. In such circumstances, the parties may initial the agreement to certify what they have agreed upon." aesurias (talk) 07:21, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

If I added citations for two agreements being initialed without being signed (one in which the agreement that had been initialed was never signed, and one in which signature followed three days after initialing) would that be enough? Or do you need more?

I will need to think about refining language. Ed Moise (talk) 07:45, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

I have found the issues are more varied than I had been aware. If there is to be an article, it should be one longer and more complex than I have time to write this year.

Thank you for preventing me from going off half-cocked. Ed Moise (talk) 04:41, 17 November 2025 (UTC)