User talk:JacobFrank

 Hello JacobFrank, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may


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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --AFriedman (talk) 04:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

 Woof! My name is Jack Russell. I am a dog and a Wikiversity mascot. I am pretty new around Wikiversity. Perhaps we can learn together! Tail wag...

What the Userpage had
Hi! I am an alternate account of User:AFriedman. I intend to be a little used account, created by AFriedman to test the administrative tools.

I am named after Jacob Frank, an 18th century Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the savior of the world and developed the doctrine of "purification through transgression." According to this doctrine, sinning brings people closer to God. I'm about to be blocked, as a test.

There are some interesting and enigmatic people in Jewish history, don't you think? Jacob Frank is just one of them. Find out more. --AFriedman (talk) 05:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Without sin, there can be no repentance, which brings people closer to God
Forgive me, for I have sinned. --JacobFrank 05:38, 4 January 2010
 * Your claims of repentance are unconvincing, as you haven't admitted to what exactly your sins are. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

lol. You may want to see Jacob Frank to learn more about what his real-life sins were. On-wiki, I think his biggest transgression was being a secondary account for an established user (me). See the previous section of the Talk page. --AFriedman (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I saw, but I didn't consider you having a disclosed secondary account a sin. :P Plus, his WP article didn't have blockable offenses. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 18:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, because I have enough respect for the integrity of the site to disclose that I'm JacobFrank. Creating a sockpuppet, however, is a blockable offense this might bear a slight resemblance to. Rabbinical Judaism forbids many things just because they resemble sins, and not because they actually are! No wonder the Jews of that time reacted against the Rabbis by following people like Jacob Frank.

Jacob Frank couldn't have been blocked from Wikiversity in the 18th century. But his philosophy of "purification through transgression" and his many real-life transgressions were quite outrageous and make me wonder what kind of editors he and his followers would have been, had they been able to use the Wikimedia foundation projects. :)

By the way, do you know User:Blurpeace? I met him at the Wikipedia NYC meetup and he had very nice things to say about you, as did I. --AFriedman (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Surely asking for forgiveness can cause a dilemma for the person being asked to forgive? If the person asked forgives that would be a sin. If the person asked refuses to forgive that would be a sin. So how does a person being asked to forgive deal with the dilemma and avoid the sin of judgment? Could the person asked employ Schrödinger's paradox to avoid a sin, or would attempting to avoid a sin be sinful? -- dark lama  23:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For future reference, a secondary account that is openly identified is not a problem and not a "sock". A sock is only when you attempt to hide your identity. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In the same way that a sock puppet hides a hand underneath. -- dark lama  00:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, that it wasn't a sin. I like your analogy that the hand behind the sockpuppet is "hidden" and I am not. FYI, w:User:Spongefrog calls his legitimate alternate accounts his "sockpuppets." Darklama, why would forgiving JacobFrank be a sin? Why would failing to forgive JacobFrank also be a sin? I don't understand.

I think you 2 are enjoying the tangled web of logic Jacob Frank wove, when first he advocated "purification through transgression." I was thinking: Perhaps we could make Jacob Frank one of Wikiversity's mascots? He seems to have more educational value than the current mascots, given that he was a real person and he illuminates an important yet forgotten aspect of European history. Then we could tie him and WV in to the relevant articles and Wikipedia's WikiProjects that he would be part of. To name a few of the WikiProjects: WikiProject Judaism, WikiProject Jewish history, WikiProject Kabbalah, WikiProject Christianity, WikiProject Catholicism, WikiProject Religion, WikiProject European History, WikiProject Europe, WikiProject Poland, WikiProject Ukraine, WikiProject Ottoman Empire, WikiProject History, WikiProject Philosophy and WikiProject Biography. That's quite a number of projects that wouldn't normally go together, but Jacob Frank's transgressions crossed fundamental boundaries between those areas. --AFriedman (talk) 21:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Deciding to forgive or not to forgive someone for their sins usually involves judgment. Judging others is usually considered a sin is it not? -- dark lama  00:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

In most of Christianity, yes. In Judaism, I think the question becomes more complicated. You may want to read Deuteronomy 17:8-13, in which God instructs the Israelites to set up a legal system where the judges can decide cases. This is judging, is it not? --AFriedman (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikiversity statistics
Hi Jacob - good to see you so active - try exploring Statistics. Unfortunately this is out of date: http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikiversity/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm There is some activity in part because I have students working on Motivation and emotion/Textbook which is due next Monday! -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for writing. Not sure if you would or wouldn't want to see Jacob Frank so active--this is what happened in history.  I had been thinking that a number of new Users from Wikipedia came over to Wikiversity when there was the controversy over the "ethical breaching experiments" earlier this year.  Kaldari comes to my mind.  This seeming spike didn't seem to be supported by the usage and edit count statistics.  Even so, I wonder if a bit of controversy--but not too much--might lead more good editors to come over.  JacobFrank is certainly our most controversial mascot, and definitely raises eyebrows among people who know about him on Wikipedia.  The Wikipedia article about Frankism, BTW, made DYKSTATS as being one of November's most viewed "Did you know" hooks.  What are your thoughts?  --La comadreja formerly AFriedman RESEARCH (talk) 17:40, 15 November 2010 (UTC)