User talk:WLU/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Thanks

Thanks for your time and your devotion to our Wiki. You are right, AfD is not a vote, it is a dicsusion and that is what we are doing. (You seem to be a speedy typer :-) Best regards Neozoon 01:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's a discussion based on policy, or it should be. It's aggravating to put together any AFD and every single time you get hammered with spurious arguments again and again. All ME/CVS Ver has to do is pass WP:CORP. That's it. Many people think that 'importance' is what determines if it stays on wikipedia, not notability. WLU 11:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:TALK

So, thanks for the link, but I'm not sure what formatting error I made. Could you just try telling me? I'm happy to make any corrections that are necessary, but first I need to know what I've done wrong. Yeshuamyking7 03:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The biggest point is discussions should be threaded. Basically that means everyone's indent, ideally everyone's post, is successively tabbed inward using a leading :, until it gets excessive and then it's undented. Like so:

First comment

Second comment

Third comment

...

Tenth comment

<undent>Eleventh comment

There was a formatting type where everyone took the same level of indent and stuck with it, but it seems to have fallen into disuse. Basically use the make sure that your contributions to discussions can be read from top to bottom in chronological order without having to constantly refer to the time/date stamp to figure out when each comment was posted. It should be easy by successive comments being increasingly further in, until someone undents and it starts over. By posting your comments constantly without an indent, it looks like you are interrupting the discussion. Also makes you look like a noob to talk pages.WLU 11:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. I've tended to do so. The only reasons I've ever not done so would be if I'm not commenting in direct response to an indented comment above, or as in the last example, I noticed that the indent was so far over that it seemed to make sense to go back to no indentation. Yeshuamyking7 17:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I could be wrong and this was a single exception. Usually when moving the indent back to margin, <undent> or something similar is nice to see because it means it's deliberate and again helps read the page in a chronological order. I didn't used to until recently, but it seems like a good practice. WLU 17:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Thanks for the friendly reminder. And look, I'm putting it into practice now. :-) Yeshuamyking7 19:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Prematurely, custom is to wait until it's far further indented. Tsk... I'm just saying...WLU 21:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. It was a joke, as per the smiley. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know how many indents are customary before reverting to the margin? Yeshuamyking7 22:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I got it, my version of humour doesn't translate into text very well unless I'm allowed to swear. There's no real standard I've seen, its basically when the indent starts to make responses overly long. Roughly 1/3 to 1/2 the page? A splendid time to apply WP:UCS. WLU 22:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Category

Have you heard? WLU 06:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there a page somewhere that discusses it? OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen it, but also haven't looked into it. I only noticed it when someone put it up on Imbrella's talk page. I'm guessing Partgreen will soon have said cat appearing on their user page. WLU 22:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Asteraceae

That page was not in use, but under construction, that is quite a different thing. The underconstructoin template states If this article has not been edited in several days please remove this template. Several days, not a few hours like template inuse. The page contains badly organised info, because it's being edited heavily. Aelwyn 15:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Oops! I'd happened upon the page by accident and thought the template erroneously applied. My apologies, feel free to replace it and I shan't touch it again. Oddly enough, it appears to be linked to {{in use}}, that's how I arrived at it. Again, my apologies. WLU 15:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk Comments

Ahahah, I don't blame you for your comments. You anticipated I would be defensive, as I had been in several previous posts. No harm, no foul. I know I need to...uhh...take a deep breath so to speak, before I edit or it will just turn into a big ole mess. Baby steps, baby steps. Cheers!!! Baegis 16:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Babystep that it may be, it was a good one. Bottle your rage, and dole it out in judicious doses. Policy actually supports the science position, simply because it insists on reliable sources, then identifies peer-reviewed journals as the best sources available. Scientists publish in peer-reviewed journals. Creationists do not. Unless it's about things totally unrelated to creationism. I've found that in many cases, the challenges end up improving the page by making it look, in a very dispassionate way, that creationists are mouth-breathing neanderthals who don't know how to read. A reliable source is a creationists worst enemy. WLU 16:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles

I would suggest nominating them for deletion, not proposing them for deletion. In the "Toolbox" on the lefthand side of the screen click "Nominate AFD" at the bottom. After that is all done then click "AFD/Today" and move it from the bottom to top. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 19:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Prodding's easier :) Since I'm back on popups due to browser issues and the page very obviously seems to not be wikipedia material, I don't see a reason to AFD rather than prod, is there one that I'm missing? WLU 19:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Your notice

Since people keep wondering if you are an admin, would you like to put their minds at rest and become one? The extra tools are quite useful. Tim Vickers 18:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Not sure of the process
2. Thought I had to be nominated
3. Power corrupts and I've little willpower
4. Don't feel enough of an expert
5. Kinda short-tempered

Though I appreciate the implied compliment! WLU 18:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I can deal with 1-2, but 3-5 are indeed problems. Number 4 will come with time, and is mostly just a case of reading the instructions, but 5 would probably be a show-stopper. Oh well. Never mind. Tim Vickers 18:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps one day, when I grow up to be a real boy. Besides, being an admin seems to cut down on the amount of actual editing done, and handy as the tools may be, POPUPS are good too. WLU 19:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Good that you decided not to go on to the dark side. :) Anyway, I just came here to say, great work on the Amoeba article. I could never muster enough energy to clean up that mess. - TwoOars (Rev) 20:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Not dark. Just kinda grey-ish with hints of brown and green. All amoeba really needed was a very large pair of scissors. I've hit the limit of what I know, my basic biology ended years ago - now that it's got a base that doesn't look like it was written by a kid in grade school, hopefully someone else will expand it <nudge> :) WLU 20:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I might work on it sometime. Am not sure when. I am not in a writing mood nowadays. All I seem to be doing is comment on RfAs and revert vandalism on some articles on my watchlist (which is how I found your Amoeba revamp). :) See you around. - TwoOars (Rev) 20:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I stopped policing my watchlist weeks ago, now I just scroll through and look for vandalism or interesting-looking stuff. Spares up loads of time for acutal editing, and other people catch the vandalism if I don't. Much healthier. WLU 20:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

GDB

Thanks for the note. Avb 20:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

De nada, there's no point in fighting over a user's talk page. WLU 20:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Nicolharper reported by User:WLU (Result: )

• Three-revert rule violation on

Bipedalism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Nicolharper (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): Time reported: 02:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Previous version reverted to: 14:44, November 4, 2007

• 1st revert: 18:06
• 2nd revert: 20:27
• 3rd revert: 21:56

• Diff of 3RR warning: 22:07

3rr on bipedalism, failure to listen to my reasoning on his talk page, failure to adhere to policy, ignoring the results of a WP:3O without a reason (3O not binding, but failure to even acknowledge the results). WLU 02:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Flugelhorn and User:Iamtanyaahogan

Heya...actually, an article for Jeff Oster had been created by her, but I deleted it as a copyvio. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:29, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I saw the deleted entry, but figured I'd start small; if she asks questions I'll clarify why it should be only notable entries, and why Jeff Oster may not be so. Baby steps for the newbie :) WLU 17:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		I'm awarding you this barnstar for your great work on Wikipedia! Wikidudeman (talk) 19:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Polska article or maybe an autism article or...

Sorry to be slow. You put a 'sock puppet' comment on my personal discussion page, asking whether I was both cpgruber and plskmn. Answer is yes, but I did go through the Wikipedia formal procedure to change my id. I was never more than one person. I started out innocently "open", but realized that I should probably be more discreet and self-effacing. Hence the change. Anyway, just to re-assure you, everything was kosher.Plskmn 06:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

OK. Please post on user talk pages, not user pages. WLU 21:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Monobook...

I was trying to "install" the monobook jss and css (the full version), and I cannot. I copy the code here but doesn't work. Can you help me to do that or show me a page that I can read to learn how to do it. I work in the spanish wikipedia and my user is RoyFocker too. Thank you very much! --RoyFocker 09:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I will ask to Wikidudeman because is very difficult to install when you have text on the page that you have to create :-( And, my user name is from Robotech, yes... Is there any problem? This is my nick on many forums... thank you again, --RoyFocker 16:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No problem, just curious. I read the novels through to End of the Circle. WLU 16:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Re:Admin?

I don't suppose you're an admin and you can rollback the frugeble links spammed across a variety of pages? WLU 23:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi - sorry, I'm not. I think all the changes have been rolled back at this point. Let's keep an eye on things though. de Bivort 23:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, I think you're right. I cleaned up the PROD stuff, integrating our nominations and sigs. It doesn't look like vandalism, just an editor who hasn't read the right policies. WLU 23:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

why reverse the Ironman Triathlon addition?

Hi there,

What is your reason for reversing my addition to the Ironman article:

  Ironman Triathlon

I'm pretty new, so I'm trying to learn.

I think the Ironman article is deficient currently in that anyone reading it would think that only the WTC corp does Ironman triathlons. What is the right way to point out in an article like this that there are ironman 'distance' triathlons offered by many organizations...

Thx —Preceding unsigned comment added by Force316 (talk • contribs)

I removed the info for a couple reasons.

1. Why is it important to note this?
2. Why is the Quelle Roth challenge so important?
3. What are the reliable sources stating that the QR challenge is worth mentioning on this page? Sources must be reliable and independent of the subject.
4. Adding a blatant plug of an external link really looks like spam, which wikipedia has a policy against.
5. The addition of a bit of info like that, without a reliable source, really looks like it violates WP:NPOV.
6. What makes the Quelle Roth challenge so notable that it's worth a mention on the page?

If you really want the information to go on the page, bring it up on Talk:Ironman Triathlon and see if other contributors are agreeable. WLU 00:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey WLU, thank you *so much* for the detailed explanation. I've learned a lot from your response. I do think the Ironman article as it stands now is not neutral because it only mentions WTC. But I see how my inclusion of the Quelle link was a red flag. It's not central to what I was doing. I'll take your advice and go over to Talk:Ironman Triathlon and make a proposal. Thanks again! Force316 01:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Be sure to use reliable sources. WLU 12:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Caps & stuff

Thanks for the tip! I try to do what seems right, but I am still getting the hang of all the wikipedia three letter acronym guidelines & stuff. --Michaelrayw2 02:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientific creationism

Thank you for the copy-editing work at Gish. I have no qualm about any of the edits, but please be aware the term "scientific creationism" is an alternative term for "creation science" in the sources. It is used interchangeably at ICR, it is used liberally in articles written by staff at NCSE, obviously an opponent of the ICR, the skeptic dictionary, another opponent, uses it, as do countless articles, including in scientific publications, and RL Numbers, who is arguably the top historical source on the subject of creationism. So it isn't really justified to avoid its use for the reason you've given in the summary. To do so given its wide use in the sources could be construed as pov editing. Professor marginalia 20:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientific creationism redirects to creation science and scientific creationism has apparently been out of date for a while. I'd say that scientific creationism is an egg, why not go to the source? And this is wikipedia rather than the ICR,so it makes sense that the Gish article mesh with the other articles on the subject. Edit summary aside, I think the direct link is better, though we could discuss it on the talk page. We have to use one of the two, why not use the direct link that is the contemporary usage? WLU 21:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree qualifies as an egg; since they're synonyms, the issue is what is most meaningful or sounds best in the sentence or paragraph, ie ("Michaelangelo painted scenes taken from the Genesis creation story," or "The commercial fishing plant added tanks for raising the European shore crab)". But I don't have any objection to your change; I was just prompted to speak against the reason given in your edit summary.Professor marginalia 01:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Henckels Friodur process

http://usa.jahenckels.com/index.php?simple_view=15 , I'm not sure of the desirable format, but here's the information, it starts with "Friodur" about halfway down the page. User:Jgioacchini —Preceding comment was added at 20:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

External Link on Menopause Issue

Hello again,

Do you know if there is a problem when an article of a site is duplicated in another site. Like for instance this site is listed on menopause external links Article#1 which is an article related to perimenopause, but I found the same article on this site as well Article#2. So I wonder if that is alright, because I couldnt find much information about duplication on external links article.

And one more thing, regarding the external links article on "Links normally to be avoided", states that:

11. Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups) or USENET.

12. Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority.

There are 2 blogs listed on menopause, one supported by estroven http://menopausetalk.gather.com/?ref=grp_menopause.17 which is not often updanted (last Octobre 10 2007) but it has comments still you have register to see them; and the other http://www.womensvoicesforchange.org/ seems to have more articles more frequently and it is not mandatory to create an account to participate, but I couldnt find much comments there.

Therefore I know that people would like to talk to others about their experiences with menopause, and I think that there should be only one but I dont know which one.

I really would like to know your thoughts,

Jennifer. JenniferFisher (talk) 14:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that all four links are inappropriate. The two blogs are blogs, it doesn't matter how often they are updated. If the blogs are not attributable to a single person, well, they're not really blogs, they're something else. Webpages I guess. If they are attributable, is that person notable? Do they have a wikipedia page? If not, there's a case to remove them.

As for the non-blog duplications, are there references? Is there a reason to keep them as links? Are they reliable sources? If they duplicate content, that either means that one is mirroring the other (no reason for the mirror), it's stealing content (a copyright violation, and shouldn't be on wikipedia), or they're both quoting another source (find that source). Either way, from my admittedly cursory glance, it looks like they're just a popular discussion of the subject. There are better sources for popular discussions, such as the National Institutes of Health, MedlinePlus, etc. Also, look for links that may be duplicated in the DMOZ - if they're there, take them out. We use the DMOZ to reduce the number of links. A lot of links isn't necessarily a good thing, and WP:EL actually urges us to keep ELs ot a minimum. WLU (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the duplication content issue, I found more of them online and probably there are more of them:

#1,#2,#3,#4,#5

My point is that the author (Esther Rastegari) is a professional with a master degree, and I believe in her authority and knowledge. Well, she made this article as a freelance and I don’t know which one should be the right source to use (In case that one of them should be selected). Probably could be about picking the most recognized site hosting the article because it is quite difficult to find the original.

Going back to the blog/forum thing, none of them show a professional leading the site, and I couldn’t find any recognized authority. So I’ll remove them after your reply.

Jennifer. JenniferFisher (talk) 14:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but don't delete based on me, do so based on WP:EL - I'm just another editor, not even an admin. Rastegari may have an MA, but a PhD is generally the norm for most peer-reviewed organizations. The information itself looks OK, not thing insanely wrong with it by my admittedly non-expert eye, but there are no sources, and her MA is in education. I would personally not add this as an external link, even articles like this one from the US department of health or this one by the Mayo Clinic, are short, unreferenced, and though from a reliable source, not particularly useful as links. The real question for me is, why as an EL? Why not a source? As far as ELs go, for me the standard is actually higher than WP:RS because it has to be reliable, and provide something that a Featured article does not. At best, I would work the reference in as an inline citation, I would not use this as an external link. Even as a citation, I would be happier finding the sources used to build the document and cite the source, cite the original scientific research. That's my opinion on the matter, for what it's worth. WLU (talk) 15:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

saliva

I assume your edit was not quite what you intended? Jimfbleak (talk) 17:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Oops, indeed. Thanks for the revert. WLU (talk) 17:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Japanese citrus

There is a DRV discussion here related to the Japanese citrus category that may benefit from your input in view of your contributions to the Fruit article. Thanks. -- Jreferee t/c 20:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wizard's Ultimate Rule

I haven't read the book either, but from the fan commentary on it, it seems pretty clear that that section as written was OR, as would be any attempt to say "The rule is X" that doesn't come from the author himself. I've left a note on the talk page and tried to fix the article as much as possible given the limitations of my knowledge. Thanks for pointing it out! Brendan Moody (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I plan to revert them, I just wanted to attempt a discussion to avoid an edit war. It's not even that I really want to keep the info that was deleted, I just don't want it deleted for the wrong reasons, which is what I think is happening. The anon also deleted all discussion on the matter from the talk page, as if they're trying to erase it from existence or something. Coop41 (talk) 21:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Seekda

If you have time could you take a look at the Seekda article please. I'd like to get your opinion on it. Sting_au Talk 21:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

No involvement necessary. Just after an opinion basically. I'm starting to feel unsure of my original stance on the article being deleted. I noticed how you fixed up that other page and was impressed with your editing skills. I hope I can learn from that. Anyhow, I'm rambling on. I guess if I'm unsure I should just bite the bullet and change my vote from delete to keep. The guy is trying pretty hard to keep the page, and I'm starting to think I may be marking newpage articles for speedy deletion a little too quickly. Sting_au Talk 00:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments on my talk page. This is the kind of help I've been needing. I plan on sticking around so I'll read up on the policy as you suggest. Oh, and that popup script is brilliant! It will certainly save me a bit of time. Sting_au Talk 01:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Popups are indeed awesome. Check out WP:POPUPS for info on it. WLU (talk) 11:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

G'day again WLU. I checked out the code for that hodgepodge. I haven't tried it out. I'm unsure if I'm supposed to delete everything in my .js file first? Since I'm already running twinkle, friendly and popups will it all go haywire if I paste in the hodgepodge script? Sting_au Talk 12:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know much about it. Try reviewing here, here here, here, and here, or just ask WDM yourself, he's usually very good about helping with stuff like this. When I did install it, it worked very well and was quite handy, but it's a pain in the ass for me to switch back and forth for work and home. There's something about importing directly, from what I remember, rather than pasting the actual HP text, you paste the text here and bypass your cache. Or something like that. Wish I could be more helpful! WLU (talk) 12:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, from what WDM has told me, it incorporates the best aspects of all the scripts available, so you may not lose any of the good aspects of most other scripts. WLU (talk) 12:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Handbra

An article on which you previously commented has been proposed for deletion again, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Handbra (second nomination). You may wish to comment.DGG (talk) 04:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Good work on nerdcore article

keep it up good sir Ytcracker (talk) 07:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I removed that page from my watchlist last week. WLU (talk) 11:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Your comments

I appreciate your advice. I hadn't realized that I violated 3RR with the last edit, but when I read the policy closer it became clear that I had. As a result, I won't edit it any further. You are of course correct about the AfD as well, but its very frustrating dealing with few dissenters who make their point only by shouting down the opposition. I will refrain from engaging them any further. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 20:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• It shouldn't be allowed to stay only because a small handful of editors like to have an excuse to look at breasts on Wikipedia. This, like Badonkadonk is a nonencylopedic article about a nondefinition without reliably sourced information. In my opinion, apathy is no excuse for allowing articles like this to exist. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 20:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Dieter Fensel

I noticed that you inserted {notable} tag on this article. I am just wondering if it is in relation with seekda or in general. If it is with seekda, than I will remove it. If it is in general I have already included two additional links (e.g. link to DBLP or example of one of the conference, where he was a speaker). Does it really make sense to reference every of these conferences separately where he was a key note speaker, rather than reference cv, which includes the list of all of these conferences (so his name is mentioned on the page of every of these conferences). The same case is with conferences he organized. Should I reference every single one or just an example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mzaremba (talk • contribs) 20:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have read through WP:PROF. I assume than that google scholar (search for fensel) is a good reference to establish notability. First it is independent from Dieter or from myself, second it provide the number of other publications citing his work. Thanks. Mzaremba (talk) 20:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have read through Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics), but there is no consensus and this is just a discussion with different opinions. Additionally there is lot of contradictory information, so I really find it hard to decided myself about notability.

All the publications searched with this exact query reference to the same person - Dieter Fensel. There is no other Dieter Fensel publishing in the field of computer science and he remains currently one of the most famous and most cited professors related with research on semantics (one of his publications is also used in references on Semantic Web). I cannot really imagine any other source in computer science, which would establish more notability for computer science professor than extremely high citation index (although I see that not everybody do agree with this on Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics). Couple of hundreds other (peer reviewed) scientific publications cite each of his main publications. I also checked h-index mentioned there and it position Dieter quite high with the number 49 (based on the newest Google scholar results). The first researcher on the list of computer science has just 20 more on this index. Additionally it is written in the article that scientists with a short career are at an inherent disadvantage. This is exactly a case for him, as he is only 47.

You are asking if Dieter invented the field. I can mention WSMF publication - [google scholar - first on the list] which gave the base for Web Services Modeling Ontology WSMO - a framework for Semantic Web Services. This is again referenced in the article on wikipedia about Semantic_Web_Services Semantic Web Services

I understand now that there is no point for me to go into any details and reference his particular work, unless I proof notability. I cannot really imagine, that I can come with a better source to establish notability, than a citation index for his publications presenting how much the field was influenced by him. But I am giving just another try to establish his notability. He established DERI (I am using press release from 2004 from National University of Ireland in Galway [1]), which is now the largest Semantic Web research centre in the world (I am using for this the press release of P2P conference from this year [2]. Is this better than citations index?

Thanks for help.Mzaremba (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Warning templates

Yes, thanks for the head's up. I use warning templates often, especially through Twinkle, but sometimes I feel they're too brusque for a given situation and will alienate rather than educate new editors. WP goes through these phases of being super soft and being super antagonistic. Right now I think the climate is such I think WP would be better off to have editors more conscientiously lowering the heat wherever possible. You've been a great source for WP resources to me, WLU. I think I've got the hang of cite templates now, and welcome any other cool tips and tricks you can recommend. Professor marginalia 18:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again, WLU. When I set up the archive bot I guess I forgot to add a link to it on my talk page. I never look at the old talk myself anyway, and haven't given it any thought since the bot was set up. I'm not a noob, I am not sure what gave you that impression. I think I've been editing at WP just a bit longer than you. I'm working on adding article content for four different articles at the moment, and have been diverted temporarily by talk on three or four policy/guideline proposals and a dispute or two in other articles. That's my biggest challenge at WP--how to find time to see more in-depth tasks to completion. I'll give your essay a more careful analysis when I can focus better, but my quick take on it is that it's great advice, but would serve just as well as a much needed reminder to established editors as it is info for newbies. Except for vandalism edits and adding "blog style" content to the mainspace, all the time I am seeing other related misbehaviors from established editors that would get a newbie blocked within a very short period of time. Professor marginalia 19:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Clean slate

Archived, if I archived a discussion that was ongoing, feel free to pull it out of my archive. Unless you're the anon IP complaining about the fibromyalgia-chemicals conspiracy, about which I don't care. WLU 20:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Slight change to Dissociative Identity Disorder article

I restored a link you previously removed as I presumed it was removed because it was a bad link (the nami.org link). If you removed it for some other reason, please do let me know. Also, thanks for posting the links on Talk:Dissociative_identity_disorder#Possible_source. Thanks, Daniel Santos 23:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh yea, here's the edit. Daniel Santos 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Just trying to be congenial and let you know that I rolled back a few other changes you made on the DID article. I liked most of what you did, however. :) On the issue of the EEG findings, all three of the studies had a very small test group (between 1 and 2 people). One of the studies was unable to find these differences, and that may be worth mentioning, but I felt that the way you worded it watered down the point, that distinct differences could clearly be observed in some instances. I didn't look at the full article because I'm not signed up with with pubmed.--Daniel Santos 05:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'm looking into the changes now but I don't expect to have much comment as I'm not an expert. WLU 19:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A bit heavy?

Wasn't your warning here [3] a bit heavy for a first edit? And I think it was for me to warn, since it was I who reverted. Philip Trueman (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, probably. I actually reverted as well, but your revert probably hit a couple seconds later and multiple reverts of the same edit don't show up in the page history. Feel free to drop it to a vand1. WLU (talk) 18:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Looks good, but I doubt if I'll be needing a second archive any time soon-I don't get many talkers on my page.Professor marginalia (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Meh. It's there if you need it, and you get a pretty picture too. WLU (talk) 20:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the barnstar

That was a cool surprise! Thanks a lot!

I wasn't sure if I should reply here or where you left the message on my page, so I replied in both places. How do people usually do that? --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Gracias

Just wanted to say thanks for the info. I'm not sure why I though top-posting was the norm when in most other places it's always bottom-posting.Woland37 (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Rand - ITOE.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Rand - ITOE.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot (talk) 21:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. I think. I friggin' hate image use. WLU 17:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Half barnstar!!!

Profuse thanks. Half a barnstar is a cool thing to have. Keep up the good editing. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

		The Half Barnstar
		You are honourably awarded the other half of the barnstar you gave me, in recognition of your work in coming to grips with the emotive and difficult topic of Satanic Ritual Abuse and working with a range of editors to make for a better article. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

grats to both of you :) Daniel Santos (talk) 09:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Bragging

Hey, I saw your cute "userboxes", and I'm envious. :) Is there a template for bragging about having an article you wrote survive an attempt at deletion? It was actually another person who turned it into a masterpiece, maybe I can give him some kind of award for it (I sure did appreciate it). Daniel Santos (talk) 09:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

For one editor who made an AFD irrelevant by editing until the page passed WP:N, I gave this barnstar. The barnstar page has a variety of templates and barnstars, you can also make your own by creating a template. I can't really explain it 'cause it's complicated and I don't 100% understand it myself, but it's not hard to fiddle with something until you get a version you like. The commons also has barnstars, a greater selection than here.

Note that there's a difference between barnstars and userboxes. Userboxes are self-chosen boxes that users use to say things about themselves. Any can be made, it's not that hard. Barnstars are used to acknowledge excellence and good work, and are given to you by other users (or given to other users by you). They can also be made, if people like it enough it might get on an official page. I'm kinda surprised that there's no 'rescued from deletion' barnstar, I might spend a bit of time looking. WLU (talk) 16:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! :) Also, thanks for reminding me to keep my cool. I'm doing much better on this dispute than with my past disputes. Last year I got pretty nasty and turned out to be wrong, d'oh! I hope we can get things resolved soon and be back to normal editing, you are way beyond me on making an article flow! Daniel Santos (talk) 00:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Flow isn't hard, summarize the results of the reliable sources. I probably won't be editing the page again, it's too frustrating. WLU 02:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Brainwave

Maybe this is what you were looking for. That page is the guidance for administrators on how to close deletion debates, what constitutes consensus, and so on. Neil ☎ 16:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Finished with Gigantopithecus

Edit away. Cheers. - Atarr (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. Looks like a legit article now rather than a stub. - Atarr (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Check out the merge discussion on Talk:Gigantopithecus#Merge. WLU (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there some reason you replaced the pdf link to the paper with a JSTOR link? Since it's the author's page that has the pdf, there's no IP issue here, and not everyone has JSTOR access.

Also, you've replaced all the references to the essay on the author's page with references to the article, and moved the essay to the external links section. I don't see the reason for this, and moreover some of the morphology stuff isn't in the paper at all (which is really focussed on where and when). - Atarr (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I blame doing too many things at once. The reference was generated by a citation generator, and the PDF is preferred. I'll change it. I'm not sure about the second point, I may have used the wrong references, so feel free to change them. I'm going to tweak the article in just a second. WLU (talk) 20:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll wait for you to finish and then sort out the references. I also found some stuff in a reference on the blackli page that I'm going to add in. - Atarr (talk) 20:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead, I'm pretty much done. The changes aren't big, basically just to the citation templates. You may want to consider using them (WP:CIT) as they are pretty easy to fill. Also, this page lets you generate them automatically, and this one does if you give it a pubmed or ISBN. Handy! WLU (talk) 20:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I'm done for now, too. I'll take a look at those citation templates in a bit. I am glad you were around to clean up what I did. I'll put my two cents in on the merge talk. - Atarr (talk) 20:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

That's cool, I'm glad you were around to point out where my cleaning up actually messed things up. Feel free to ask me about citation templates or any other wiki stuff, it's fun to help when I can. WLU (talk) 20:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Biacuplasty

WLU I did empty my user page. Regarding biacuplasty page, I might have some minor editing but at first glance good work at making it within the Wiki spirit. I will post my suggestions in the discussion page later tomorrow--Lucdesaulniers (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Note that if you're in conflict of interest, you should not be editing the page at all, and can be blocked for violations. WLU 02:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Wiley Protocol being discussed at WP:BLP/N

You've edited this article, so you might be interested. You are welcome to add your own comments to the noticeboard discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 03:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Good work, good posts. I'm sorry I wasn't more helpful there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I've more experience with Nraden, so it's easier for me to summarize. You helped out immensely by pointing me towards MEDMOS/RS and clarifying the issues for me. Much obliged. Nraden and I seem to have an friendly animosity thing happening, so I think we can manage the page now. I'll try to re-visit the content in the near future. WLU (talk) 19:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Whoa

Thank you for your excellent work on salvaging disc biacuplasty; I was so sure that it was irredeemable CoI/spam. DS (talk) 02:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

De nada, methinks if the creator had remained the sole contributor, it would have been. WLU (talk) 13:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep getting undone

I've attempted to add Child Abuse Prevention Services to the Child Abuse article three times. The last editor told me I could insert program names but had to edit out any promotional language. I believe I've done that. Please help me and explain why now this not for profit is being rejected for inclusion? Thank you. 18:37, 10 December 2007 (hist) (diff) Child abuse‎ (→Child abuse prevention organizations - add child abuse prevention serivces)

possitive feedback

I pointed a newbie to your essay. he liked it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Huzzah! May I ask who, so I can dig for more feedback? WLU (talk) 13:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, User:Ankithreya. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Gracias. WLU (talk) 13:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Help is what is being offered in your page!

Hey, It was good that i was directed to your page (generic sandbox). Found it a lot useful in looking at the things to do and don't for newbies!. I've started to welcome newusers though i'm just a fortnight old here. It would be great if you can add a section on "To care & not to care". As a newbie i didnt really know what a bot was or what a sock puppet was. It would be great to have stuffs like vandalism, sock puppetry and advertising in the "care" sections and other hi-fi things such as bots and rfa in the "not to care" section especially for the newusers

Ankithreya! has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Ankithreya! 15:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah i meant to say, a page or a section on "useful right now" and useful later" will be great!. :-)--Ankithreya! 05:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind the next time I'm editing the essay. WLU (talk) 11:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Nraden and I

Excuse me. I'm being personally attacked by this person, and it bothers me. You have been personally attacked by this person, and I know it's bothered you. It is, as you say, "fucking annoying".

He is asserting, as fact, things about me that are absolutely false. I'm glad you don't care, but at the same time, you're not the target in this instance.

I think I've shown a lot of restraint, thank you, and I don't agree with or very much appreciate the characterization that we are merely "sniping at each other". If I felt free to personally attack him the way he does me, it wouldn't just be fucking annoying for you. Debv (talk) 15:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't care. If you've a problem with the personal attacks he's making at you, report it. The policy in question is WP:NPA. I'm building an encyclopedia, not sorting out children in a sandbox, and I'm equally annoyed at both of you for taking up my time and attention. I don't usually bother reading anything not directly aimed at improving wikipedia. WLU (talk) 15:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is asking you to mediate or intervene. I expressed my willingness to disengage on your advice, and what I got, and continue to get from you, are insults. If you're frustrated, I would ask that you please find a move civil way to express it. If there is something specific that you want, what is it? Do you want me never to respond to these personal attacks? Debv (talk) 19:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. WLU (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do, but you may be disappointed. Debv (talk) 19:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

If you attack in return, eventually you'll be blocked, and vice versa. This is why COI don't get to edit, because your actions aren't about improving the page, it's about grinding an axe or fluffing a product. It's personal, it's not about the information. It's not hard to edit a page based on reliable sources, but COI, axes and fluffing make it hard. I won't be disappointed, 'cause I don't care. I'm just pissed that this is taking up this much of my time. I don't know what you or Nraden want of me, I can't help. Further, I don't know why the discussion is lingering on BLP/N. All issues seem to have been resolved. WLU (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There are lingering issues. Sandy agreed that we can add a description of the protocol: "No one has said you can't describe what the protocol is according to self-published sources; we agreed above that you can do that as long as its correctly attributed. " That's what I did in the first place on the talk page then added the links as you asked. We have to edit the article, and, as you know, I can't do that myself. I've included a description, I've added a discussion of one of the underlying concepts behind it, quoted and attributed to an MD. There is also something visual about the WP, which is the shape of the curves. Any suggestions how we introfuce that? I will follow the guidelines precisely, and I won't object to any sourced criticisms provided they are reliable and not written in a way to exaggerate their impact. But I would appreciate it if we can get this done soon. I wrote those other three paragrpahs weeks ago and they still aren't edited and posted. Neil Raden (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

<undent>And I did say I would get to it. I should have time tomorrow next week, feel free to remind/nag me if I don't get to it by Wednesday. WLU (talk) 00:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

OK reminding you. Neil Raden (talk) 22:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to get to it today. WLU (talk) 11:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

While you're at it, will you please look at the dangling issue here? SandyGeorgia felt that Formby's disagreement with Wiley warrants an EL on both pages. Debv (talk) 18:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

One thing at a time, you could always ask her about it. I'm not actually familiar with what she said, but I'm sure she's got an excellent reason. I keep getting distracted today and I've still got real-world work to do. WLU (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I may, but as you know, SandyGeorgia has expressed a desire not to be involved in these articles (which is unfortunate). It seemed to me she was pretty clear: "By the way, isn't Formby the person she has co-authored 3 journal articles with? Are you saying he now disagrees with her? Then yes, that warrants inclusion in both articles, if that's the case." Debv (talk) 18:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

<undent>If it's a reliable source, I'd have to look into it to venture an informed opinion. I may not have time until the new year. WLU (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Formby's "quotes" are all on RhythmicLiving and, hence, unreliable. Neil Raden (talk) 03:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL is the relevant guideline here. It asserts that "What should be linked" includes "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews" and specifically allows "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." Please see the discussion with SandyGeorgia. Debv (talk) 04:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes and I would use the same guideline for the sites of the doctors that contradict RhythmicLiving and Formby. 68.84.146.130 (talk) 20:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Formby hasn't been involved with the WP for five years. If he indeed has objections, they're out of date and moot, as the "small trial" already happened and no one died. Objections by those in the Senate testimony were directed at BHRT in general, not the WP. If you watch the tape, you'll see that Dr Joann Manson of Harvard had no idea what the WP was but said, at the end, "This is very interesting, I think this should be studied." I think an airing out of the whole HRT/BHRT is a good idea, but not on the Wiley Protocol page. Neil Raden (talk) 03:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Christmas, only editing what I want, which doesn't include this. Leave me alone until January. WLU (talk) 13:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. 68.84.146.130 (talk) 20:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Those two anonymous posts were mine, not sure why the signature didn't come through. Neil Raden (talk) 17:31, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to replace it with the appropriate signature. After Christmas. WLU (talk) 18:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's after Christmas. Would like me to summarize the outstanding issues in the narrative above and the other talk pages, or do you want to do that yourself? 72.205.193.253 (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Use the appropriate talk page. WLU (talk) 01:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Talmudic names

Hi, I'm not sure how to do this complaining thing, but basically, I just finished making that article easier for someone unfamiliar with Jewish texts to read. Then you've decided to cut out all of my changes. Why? If you read the paragraph carefully, it makes full sense, and gives some insight into ancient Hebrew views on names. Why do you view it as 'bizzare'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.8.45.146 (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm a pretty competent reader, and I had no idea what it was trying to say. Also, someone was engaging in original research, and there were no real sources for much of the information. If you're interested, I could go back through the text and be a bit more specific, but I'd suggest you read up on at least the policy nutshells to see what you can and can't add. WLU (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Vertebral fusion

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Vertebral fusion, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Vertebral fusion. Vassyana (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiAsianTravel was commented out once and erased once by WLU even after hold request

WikiAsianTravel was commented out by WLU twice after I reverted and put it back on List_of_wikis#Travel.

We should leave it for other editors to look at and see if they interested in building the article. Igor Berger (talk) 14:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The list of wikis page, at the top, says that it is a list of notable wikis. I've been removing redlinks there for months now, why should this one stay? WLU (talk) 14:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Look I am just trying to help the project out, it is a WikiMediaFoundation project, but go look at them, they are running Adsense...comoe on...there must be some leway for our own projects, no? This is why I asked to leave it for a while and see if someone can help out! I have my hands full with a whole bunch of stuff for anti Spam...just a curtesy call....but if you want tto be strict there is nothing I can do. I do not want to arguee for the sake of argueing, or waste time escalating an issue. Igor Berger (talk) 15:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

No, there is no leeway for wikimedia projects. From what I've read of Jimbo's comments, he wouldn't support exceptions just because it's a wikimedia project. There is no reason for a redlinked page to be on that page, it invites further spam. Create the article, then add it to the page. WLU (talk) 15:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

WLU okay, lets see if anyone internaly would be interested in doing the article, maybe we should wait a bit, if you think so. But would be nice to get some people to help this one out. My actual desire to help, is that as a traveler and an expat in Asia for 17 years, it is a first travel platform that I have seen that is trying to give back to the countries that it talks about. So instead of just turist going and taking from the area, this project is trying to give authority to travel information, as pertenet to the state of events in the industry. Thank you, Igor Berger (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

With a reliable source, that may be a reason for the page to pass WP:N. With just your statement, that doesn't help the page. The quickest way to have the page created, would be to create it yourself. I'm not going to, and given my experience, the wikipedia community isn't exactly quick on the draw for stuff like this. If you find them more convincing, you may want to bring this up with some admins. User:FisherQueen is a good one, and quite active in WP:AFD, WP:PROD and WP:SD discussions. I also trust User:Isotope23. But pick any, and see what they say. WLU (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Great thanks for the input, I am still learning the ropes here. Lt's sleep on it and see what fans out. Thank you, Igor Berger (talk) 15:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I appreciate your reasonableness as well. Thanks. WLU (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Archaeowiki.org

Thanks for your message regarding links I included from Archaeowiki.org.... Well-intentioned, I'm sure, but if you try to edit that site, you'll notice that it is not publicly-editable.... The author has obviously put a complete restriction on outside edits. I guess this makes the site as good any other information site that one might include amongst external links.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.90.117 (talk) 19:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

As a further note, WP:EL states that the external link should contain something beyond what would be on the page if it were a featured article. The archeowiki links that you added contained no significant amounts of information beyond what would be included in a featured article. A better choice would be taking the information contained in the sources and integrate this with the wikipedia pages. If the archeowiki page doesn't contain sources, it not a WP:reliable source and should not be an external link. Either way, archeowiki does not look like an appropriate external link. WLU (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Help needed to start an article

Can you please help me with how to make an article in WikiPedia to get WikiAsianTravel notable? I am rather new to this community and don't know exactly where to start. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peachyms (talk • contribs) 05:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Coconut healing oil

Hi there! I saw your edits to this relatively new article and I concur with some of your thoughts in the edit summaries. It's nicely formatted, but it seems like a POV essay with non-reliable sources, copyright violations, and a bit of WP:COI since the editor that wrote it also included a reference to an event that involved him (ref #24). I also asked several other editors to review it. You can see their comments here. I was going to be bold and just redirect, but I'd like a bit more input. Do you think any of the article can be salvaged? Appreciate your input. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out and finally redirecting. I was just about to since I found that the remainder of the article was posted by the same user elsewhere, so it really represented an essay. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 18:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Lovely, but methinks we won't be hearing the last from the editor. WLU (talk) 18:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Removed links to Kuliukas "he's a guy with a web site"

On the page about the so-called "aquatic ape hypothesis" I noticed you removed all the links to me, justifying that with the real put down "he's a guy with a web site". I am a bit puzzled. Ok. I admit I have do a web site (a few actually) but then so do many academics. Is having a web site against wikipedia policy somehow? Look, I don't know who you are or on what authority you made the decision to edit but I want to say a few words in my defence:

1) I never put the references to me up there in the first place. It was a postgrad student at UCL. So those references were not by me trying to promote my ideas, someone else thought that was worth while. My angle on this idea is that is has been mislabelled (it does not promote an 'aquatic ape' so why call it that?), misunderstood (how many people can cite a paragraph where it is defined in the literature?) and thus misrepresented (most people tend to sneer about it even when they don't know what it is.) My attempt to rename it and finally define it is long overdue and the person that put the links in to me obviously agreed. If we cannot even say what it is, how can we even debate it?

2) I think most people who are interested in this idea on human evolution, who have searched the web (you know the media we are backing with Wikipedia) will have come across stuff I've written, including my web site. If they did a little reading they'd see that I'm one of a very few proponents of the so-called AAH who has actually gone to the trouble to return to academia to study this thing. I have a masters degree (with distinction) from UCL, London, in the subject and I'm currently doing a PhD on a similar topic. I have a paper published in the literature and another one that is currently going through peer review.

I'd be grateful if you'd write to me to justify your editing of this page. I think it is a real mess and has definitely got worse recently thanks, in part, to your interventions.

You can e-mail me at <redacted> if you like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlgisKuliukas (talk • contribs)

I generally don't do e-mail. Wikipedia has a policy on reliable sources, and a reliable source generally has oversight. Your website has oversight by you, and unless you have made a notable name for yourself in your field of expertise, you would not be considered a reliable source or very good oversight. Individuals like Stephen Jay Gould and PZ Myers are considered reliable sources and their blogs can be cited (well, not Gould 'cause he's dead, but archived versions can be) but if you've not your own wikipage, generally you're not considered a reliable source. The page is indeed terrible, but I hardly think that's my fault. You may also want to read up on our policies on original research and self-published sources. You are not barred from citing your own work if it's in a peer-reviewed journal (though even that is seen as tenuously acceptable).

The AAH is a fringe topic, with little main-stream scientific scrutiny. This makes it difficult to discuss on wikipedia. It doesn't help that, like many fringe topics, there's a lot of speculation and little research. You're not doing anyone any favours by putting up unreliable sources and speculation. Cite your peer-reviewed work, not your own website. WLU (talk) 14:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Further comments - you may not have initially put your links in the page (though your comment suggests you know who did, which in itself may be a COI), but your replacement of those links is clearly a conflict of interest, and somewhat baffling because I believe they were already in the external links section. Our external links guidelines states that links must be kept to a minimum, must be reliable themselves, and add something that the page itself lacks were it a featured article. I don't see your webpage meeting these criteria. You may want to try bringing this up at Talk:Aquatic ape hypothesis to see what other editors say about including them, and more importantly, Wikipedia talk:External links to see what dedicated editors think of including your website. They may agree that your links are appropriate, I'm certainly not the boss of wikipedia and if they have good arguments why they should stay, I'll listen. Further, if you have good arguments why they should stay (beyond 'I'm an expert') I will listen to those as well, but you must refer to wikipedia policies and guidelines. Some that may be relevant include: WP:RS, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:REDFLAG, WP:FRINGE, WP:EL, WP:SPS, WP:5P and WP:WQ. A final point, claiming you are an expert without demonstrating expert knowledge of the subject matter (through citation of references, not by original research, synthesis of sources and adding unreferenced information) is not a good route to go. There was an enormous scandal relating to one experienced and respected editor mis-representing his expertise (and bludgeoning others with ultimately false qualifications) who was banned from editing. If you're an expert with links to legitimate research, show you're an expert by editing the page to be better, don't just add your personal webpage and works to the bottom of the articles. If you wish to link your peer-reviewed works to the page, I can show you how to use citation templates and inline citations, or even do it for you. But please don't just revert war over your COI links, that can get you blocked from editing. WLU (talk) 14:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your extensive feedback on this. I accept most of your points, but...

Citing my web site and making the page worse... I certainly do not claim that my web site should be cited because "I'm an expert", I think it should be cited because it gives anyone interested in this topic (they found the wikipedia page after all) another view about it. I thought that the web generally, and Wikipedia specifically, were meant to be all about broadening one's mind. Surely this is especially the point of the links section at the bottom of a page. I notice that now this section is almost none existant. I think this makes the page worse, rather than better. If people want to read more about this subject they should be directed to a set of web sites that examine it in more detail. Jim Mooore's 'AAT sink or swim' site has almost always been first on that list, interestingly, even though it is basically a character assasination of Elaine Morgan and an attempt to rubbish the theory. I notice that when you removed links to my web site, you did not also do so to Jim Moore's. He didn't get the "He's a guy with a web site" treatment, and I'm better qualified than he is. This smells of bias, frankly. Other critical web sites on that list also slipped past the censor's nose then too.

Actually, I have no problem with these critical links being included on Wikipedia, as long as there is a balance allowing the reader to make up their own mind. My link to the critique of 'sink or swim' provided some balance at least. You chose to delete the ones giving balance but kept the ones that were critical. It is for reasons such as this that I think you made the page worse.

Peer reviewed work. I have a masters degree (with distinction) from UCL, London. That was peer reviewed. I have a paper published in the journal 'Nutrition and Health' which was peer reviewed and I have won two student awards for papers presentated at conferences that were peer reviewed. All of these are avaialable on my web site, so why shouldn't I cite them there? I have a paper that is currently going through peer review but the process is long and very difficult - largely because this topic is seen by people like you as "fringe". It is very frustrating trying to do some original science in an area that has been tarred with this brush.

COI? What is a COI link? You seem to be implying that the guy at UCL and I are collaborating to get my stuff cited on Wikipedia. If so, I'm afraid you're wrong. I do not know the guy at all. Fair enough on restoring those links when they were removed, however. It didn't feel right to do and I apologise.

General... Aren't you and people like you being a little too pedantic here? As you say, this is a topic which has been labelled 'fringe' and therefore there is a sparse literature about it. Almost all of my contributions on this page (which have now almost all been edited away by people like you) were to include relatively rare citations to the literature on this subject. I just find it incredibly frustrating that peer pressure has led to this idea being effectively censored out of the academic curriculum and now, it seems, also out of much more democratic projects like Wikipedia. It feels like we're heading for 1984. Surely, on a controversial subject lie this the best thing for Wikipedia to do is to be open and give all sides of the argument.

AlgisKuliukas (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

People interested in the AAH can can search for more info off wiki, but we try to only provide sources considered reliable, and our EL guidelines are more strict in my mind. One thing they do say is keep ELs to a minimum, which according to our policies, is better. Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia, that's it, and ideally only through verifiable, reliable sources. Moore's site is no longer on the page, but if it were published in a peer-reviewed journal, it'd be eligible. And if he were notable, usually determined through having a wikipedia page, he'd be a notable guy with a website, one step up the ladder of reliability so long as it was restricted to comments within his area of experience. There is no censors by the way, just editors. Getting a degree is not peer review as far as wikipedia's concerned and theses of any level, MA, MSC, PHD, don't count (though they do when published in journals). As FisherQueen says, qualifications don't matter, sources do, so use your expertise to find, summarize and add sources. The page is a mess and needs to be cleaned up - number one would be summarizing the overall theory and integrating any counter-claims with the text rather than having a clunky counter-claim section after each main 'support' bit. COI is adding any link related to yourself. The one peer-reviewed paper you have is in the references section with a pubmed number, but it would be better integrated as an inline citation. Though, given that it is yours, it might be better to let someone else do it. Something you may still not understand - wikipedia reports verifiability, not truth, meaning we report what is uncontroversially published in journals, not speculation. See WP:OR, and give it a good read. If it's not published, if it's fringe, it should not be on wikipedia. Unfortunately, that means 'censorship' (see, I believe, WP:REDFLAG for 'conspiracy' claims) works. We are not the bleeding edge, nor the cutting edge, we are boringly mainstream, and not a place to soapbox. For controversial subjects, the best thing for wikipedia to do is find the most reliable sources, and cite them. You may want to look into the list of wikis for another venue where you could discuss your ideas, though none of these are reliable sources for wikipedia itself. WLU (talk) 02:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Please contact me immediately!

Hi -- WLU...please e-mail me at <redacted>. I have a question to ask of you...and haven't figured out if there is a way to mail through wikipedia. Thanks!—Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk • contribs)

I generally don't do e-mail, feel free to ask me this question on my talk page. WLU (talk) 14:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

oops -- sorry for breaching etiquette...I am new to this side of the wiki -- and am hoping to eventually become proficient...in the meantime, it is almost guaranteed that I will make several egregious errors -- please correct w/as much tolerance as possible Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 14:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, it's not a break of wikiquette just a personal preference, others are quite happy to discuss via e-mail. As long as you demonstrate good faith attempts to improve the encyclopedia I'm very happy to help and quite forgiving. If you're planning on editing the ABA pages, be sure to use reliable sources and add only verifiable information without original research. Avoid adding conflict of interest sources and external links. You are lucky in that much of the literature on ABA is published in reliable sources, it just needs a subject expert who can source the existing information and add new, referenced information. I'm not that subject expert, but I can help with wiki policies and formatting. You might want to read WP:SIMPLE and User:WLU/Generic sandbox as intros to the wiki process. Aside from this, you still have not asked me a question. WLU (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I asked the question via e-mail as it did not pertain to wikiepdia specifically. What do we (on wikipedia) do with folks that keep contending reliable sources(peer reviewed journals) and removing content because it goes against their agendas? Is there a defense against that...or is wikipedia editing simply a 3 step forward, 2 step back type of process.Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 15:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:V is the best defence. Verifiable information should not be removed, and the persistant removal against consensus, if not vandalism, is blockable. I'd have to see specifics to comment further. I'm uninterested in off-wiki stuff. WLU (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

How much time per day do you spend on Wikipedia? Is there a way to get e-mails sent to me to let me know when a watched page is edited? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 18:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Too much :) You used to be able to get e-mailed, but apparently not any more. If you check out the link in that section, there may be a way to do so, but I don't use it. Watching 1500 pages, I would blow through my g-mail account limit in a week. Your watchlist can be set to a max of 7 days worth of changes, so if you watch a small number of pages, you could theoretically check it once per week and see everything that's changed in that week. Even if you check it once per month, there's a 'since me' feature you could use that shows any changes that have occurred since your last edit. WLU (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added a question to the ABA talk page...do you get notification when I do that, or is it important to followup on this talk page?Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 07:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Comments on talk pages show up on watchlists of everyone who watches the page but it's still up to the individual readers to decide if they want to read and respond. ABA isn't one of the more trafficked pages, so it may not get replies. You happened to land on the talk page of an active editor, I'm here every day. WLU (talk) 11:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You added something to my talk page, and I replied there -- will you be notified that I did that -- or should I come here and say, 'I responded on my talk page'? sorry to bombard you with so many newbie questions...Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Either works, comments here I'm definitely going to see but elsewhere I have to watch the page and notice the change. Bouncing back and forth is easy in real time, but you lose track of things if it's not real time and breaks up the discussion. Questions are fine, your intentions are good so my patience is still at maximum and should stay that way. I'll have a gander at your talk page in a second. WLU (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a long (sorry) comment on ABA -- also, can I/you change the title of this comment section? I'd like to be ABA or 'Helping a Noob' -- you're no longer being requested to conact me immediately.Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 04:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look. You could post a link to the section with the following wikitext: [[Talk:Applied behavior analysis#Section title]] The #Section title allows you to link to a section (but must be exact - I usually copy out of the web address) much like a webpage. It's a nice courtesy to link to the page or even better, section just to make things easier. The title of user talk pages are pretty much irrelevant and can throw off any section links that might exist on other pages. I'd rather not change it on principle. Plus, no-one besides the two of us usually read these sections. WLU (talk) 13:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity

Regarding this edit. I had just added a note to Talk:Wikiversity#possible_ref to dicuss refs for that line you removed.--mikeu (talk) 17:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I happened to come across the page and removed; I'd say take it out until the source is OK-ed. I don't plan on being a long-term contributor to the page, this was more of a drive-by, but I'll have a gander at the talk page. WLU (talk) 17:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

List of Wikis

I reverted or undid your deletion of v:Lunar Boom Town as I thought it resulted from a syntax error making the link red. I have placed an evaluation of your "guidelines" for the "List of Wikis" at the bottom of the discussion page there. Feel free to delete or modify anything I added to the page as you please. I am going to look into some of these policies and guidelines and perhaps be back to propose changes or stub deletion. Sorry if I messed a couple of punctuation edits after the edit conflict I reverted. I spend more time at Wikiversity than Wikipedia nowadays and the editing participation is not so dense. I am not as good with the editing tools as perhaps I should be. Talk to you later. Lazyquasar (talk) 17:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That's an interwiki, meaning that wikipedia doesn't have a page for LBT, but one of its sister projects does. I don't see a reason to include it on the page as an interwiki; there are no external links on the page, why should this one (despite being an interwiki, it's still an external link) get a link? It's not notable enough for its own wikipedia page yet, is it? Several contributors have agreed to keep the page to blue, internal links only as a way of reducing spam and providing a readily-transferrable means of determining what should go on the page. WLU (talk) 17:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Metals and Dementia

You characterized my noting that mainstream medicine is coming to accept that metal toxicities cause some forms of dementia as "synthesis." I can see how one could come to this belief, but I disagree. The article is about medical research about nervous conditions not yet accepted by mainstream medicine; a huge paradigm change in another illness that has the same cause posited by other scientists outside of the mainstream has to be topical. Unless you explain why you disagree with my reasoning, I'll undo that change. [4] --Alterrabe (talk) 09:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

To be very clear why I do not think your concerns about WP:SYN do not apply, I did not claim that Bush's research proves that orthomolecular medicine is correct, but rather that the notion that copper can cause dementia has arrived - contentiously - within mainstream of medicine. The entire article is about scientific research that was rejected by panels of experts; now that mainstream medicine is accepting one of their theories of causation, this has to be relevant.--Alterrabe (talk) 09:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I read the whole article, and there's no mention of Orthomolecular medicine. Further, there's no citation that orthomolecular medicine has made claims about copper and Alzheimer's. In my mind, were a citation added to the section about Alzheimer's, OMM and copper, it's like saying 'therefore, Orthomolecular medicine is vindicated and people are justified in using it.' It looks like a sneaky synthesis to me. I stick by it too, even with a citation, but I could be wrong. If you insert a citation for Cu/OMM/A and re-write the paragraph, we could take that paragraph to WP:3O - they are usually a quick, neutral third opinion on matters where two editors disagree.

Incidentally, your reasoning in your second paragraph actually makes me more concerned about a synthesis than the original text in the OMM article. By your reasoning, Bush's article appears to be completely unrelated to OMM, yet you want it in the page irrespective. That's questionable to me. I'm guessing OMM's thesis about copper and Alzheimer's didn't resemble Dr. Bush's current research program, so it also seems like OR to me that Bush's work is in any way related to OMM. However, I don't mind the original text (with citation) going through a 3O for an opinion and sticking with that.

Finally, I'd expected you to be a giant OMM POV-pushing crank, and you're statements here are very reasonable. Thanks for engaging on the talk page, it's a refreshing change, I hope we can come to a compromise that satisfies us both on this matter. WLU (talk) 11:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Wait... metals can cause dementia?--Isotope23 ^talk 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, that's an excellent point. I thought you were going to make a joke about your user name (I keep forgeting what element you were an isotope of. Carbon? Sodium? Neon?) WLU (talk) 15:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Sodium... the only stable 23 isotope... and I'm stable... honest.--Isotope23 ^talk 16:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Liar :) WLU (talk) 16:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Did I mention I'm touched I'm on your watchlist? Thanks! WLU (talk) 15:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Look, according to mainstream medicine, the only disease involving pathological accumulations of copper is wilson's disease. In Wilson's disease, both the brain and the liver are badly affected by a buildup of copper. Carl Pfeiffer came along, found that 35% schizophrenics are in the 99th percentile when it comes to hair copper, prescribed minerals, mainly zinc, that increase copper excretion, and saw them recover. Then a panel of psychiatrists told him they disagreed. As mainstream medicine would now have it, the only illness of copper accumulation involves both the liver and brain. If the liver's ok, it can't be copper. And now a scientist is changing this paradigm. Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's aren't the same thing, not least because of their definitions: By definition, young people can't get Alzheimer's, and by definition, old people can't get schizophrenia. Could we agree that mainstream medicine is now at the very least acknowledging the possibility that copper can cause illnesses whose main symptom is dementia?--Alterrabe (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added a first re-revision. We can flesh out the exact wording.--Alterrabe (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Still looks like WP:OR to me, I'll look at the revision you've made. WLU (talk) 17:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, Isotope is correct, Mercury poisoning is a disease. WLU (talk) 17:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've read the section in question and I think as it stands it's very OR-ish. Did you want to take this version (actually a version I've tweaked slightly - if you've got explanations of the links between topics, without a reference, that's an OR SYNTH in my mind) to WP:3O? Otherwise we should really move this discussion to Talk:OMP so other editors can see it. WLU (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Since I happened to be watching this page, and I looked at the paragraph in question, my problem is that it takes the findings of Ashley Bush to be a vindication of Carl Pfeiffer's theory. This might be more believable if there were citations both ways (i.e. the OMM people were following Bush's work, and evolving their own theory as a result, or if Bush were citing OMM and using some of their thinking). I haven't seen any data presented here (or in the article) supporting either connection. EdJohnston (talk) 17:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's my problem with the article as well, it looks like a synth to me. This is the source of the remarkably civil discussion that I'm having with Alterrabe, I've not looked into it yet today, but I was going to take it for a WP:3O once we agree on a more-or-less final version. If you're going to weigh in as well, we'll have to go to a RFC, but that might not be a bad thing. Alt has mentioned off-wiki that there is a connection, but until there's a source it can't go on the page.

Incidentally, how did you get that sweet output on your edit counter? I want one but I keep getting an error message... WLU (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess this is Tool3 out of the ones listed at User:Interiot/which. According to this page, I think you now have to send email to Interiot to get the extra graphs enabled. EdJohnston (talk) 03:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

<undent>I always thought of Interiot as a bot, not a person. Cool, thanks for the advice! WLU (talk) 12:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

WoWWiki

I didn't include an external link to it because I didn't see any other external links on the page, only links to other articles on wikipedia. I re-added it with a direct link so that it isn't just pointing to an external links section. Any problem with this? -Mike Payne (T • C) 19:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You've hit the nail on the head - there are no external links on the page and this is deliberate. If you look at the top of the page, it says the list includes notable links; that is, wikis with their own wikipedia page. This criteria has been discussed and affirmed multiple times in the history of the page by multiple editors - no redlinks, no external links. WOWWiki doesn't have it's own page, so it shouldn't be on the page, either as an EL or as a redirect link to WOW. That particular wiki has actually been removed several times if I recall correctly. WLU (talk) 19:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, has it? I wasn't aware of that and only see one mention of it on the discussion page. I personally use this wiki and as someone who plays WoW I can see where it is immensely useful, but it hardly deserves it's own article by itself. It really is an attachment to the World of Warcraft article, but it definitely deserves to be mentioned on the list because it is certainly notable... Is there a similar list to this one consisting of external links to wikis, rather than to articles on Wikipedia about that wiki? I see the fact that there are no external links on that page so I'll revert my addition, but it would be nice if this could be listed somewhere, especially since it keeps getting added. Even Jimmy Wales asserts WoWiki's notability here. -Mike Payne (T • C) 19:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Only mention of the 'notability' criteria, or WOWwiki? I re-read recently and I think I saw at least two or three mentions of the notability criteria but don't recall WOWw. If it's notable, then the discussion could be made irrelevant by creating the page, posting and seeing if anyone AFD's it. I'd support it being on the page as long as it's not a red, redirect or external link. WLU (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There's only one mention about wowwiki on the discussion page for that list. I'd love to create a [[WoWWiki]] article, but I don't really know anything about the site other than the fact that it exists and how many articles it has. I could start trying to do some research on the subject, but that would take more time than I have at the moment. Without creating an entire article specifically devoted to WoWWiki(which, again, I don't really see as necessary), is there any other way to add it? Is there a list specifically comprised of external links to other wikis? -Mike Payne (T • C) 20:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

On that page, I'd say no. In the external links for the page there's lists of wikis, but they're off wiki I believe. Aside from that, article creation is pretty much the only way - it's notable wikis only, those passing WP:N. If it's notable, it'll be created at some point. Another alternative would be to mention it in the WOW main article, but I don't think it would get a mention on the list of wikis page. You could bring it up on Talk:list of wikis if you're really curious. WLU (talk) 20:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Satanic ritual abuse

You are right about staying cool; and also about the hard job that Arthur Rubin has to endure as an all too patient admin. I do envy his calmness.

Maybe I should not have been aggressive in the Satanic ritual abuse talk page with the pov-pushers. I have left discussion anyway. My mission was accomplished: tagging the article when the page became unlocked.

However, since I will not add any fire anymore; and since I will keep my word of not editing the article or enter into discussions in a year or two, perhaps you will have an easier time arguing with them now that I shall discuss no more.

I believe that an article such as this one could be written as the Britannica article I quoted in talk page. In fact, NPOV editors may even use that Britannica article on real child abuse (not the imaginary child abuse such as SRA) as a reliable source.

Oh, yes: DS’s comment about snuff films… In the McMartin trial, the most expensive in US history, prosecutors went to the extreme on chasing child porn literature, even overseas, to find graphic evidence that the McMartin kids were actually abused. But no shred of evidence appeared because there’s no forensic evidence of SRA.

How I wish that the sentence “extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources” to be official WP policy…

Cesar Tort 20:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

1. 1. It is a guideline, which is enough, the diagreement is over what an extraordinary claim is.
   2. No, you should not have been aggressive
   3. Your tag may be taken down in short order; the changes that last the longest are the ones built through consensus, when you have editors with fundamentally different points of view defending the consensus page from vandals and POV-pushers.
   4. You may have done irreparable by forcing polarization and acrimony on what was previously a set of very long, but polite disagreements that was gradually (and civily) working its way towards agreement.
   5. You have made Rubin's job harder. Want to make it easier? Apologize to the editors you've pissed off and acknowledge some of their points.
   6. The page is about SRA, not child abuse. They aren't the same thing and there appears to be verifiable information that it exists in some form (i.e. somewhere, children are being abused in the context of satanic rituals). There was also a verifiable cultural phenomena that existed in the past focussed on that issue. The truth may never be known, but it's not hard to represent what was said. Portraying it as just routine child abuse ignores the fact that there was a tremendous amount of interest and discussion of the phenomena in the public, media and scholarly worlds. It's not about truth, it's about sources. WLU (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• "somewhere, children are being abused in the context of satanic rituals".

I contributed a lot in Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures. Ritual child abuse does occur.

On the other hand, "Satanic" cases in the 20 century America, such as McMartin preschool trial, have been thorougly debunked. Have you read the article I called your attention to in the talk page of another editor?[5]

As to apologies and politeness with these people, I am just curious: Have you read User:Antaeus Feldspar's comments in the archived talk pages of the SRA controversy? I think he should still be editing here.

Cesar Tort 23:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't care, not going to read, doesn't excuse incivility, nothing does. McMartin may not be true but the allegations occurred and are documentable, as are the rebuttals. As are the dozens of other newspaper reports and the many books, journal articles and other reliably sourced documents. And yes, I've been uncivil in the past, yes, this makes me a hypocrite. Learn from me 'cause no-one is perfect. Pointing fingers and escalating incivility makes editing harder and extends the duration of time that a crappy version is on the page because it's locked. Working with other editors, even ones you disagree with, produces a much better page. I've worked with Abuse Truth and Biothanoi both; in my experience we disagreed on virtually every edit that was made, but still we managed to make progress and people talked rather than exercised their undo buttons. How much progress has it made since the page was locked? How much as been made since the edit warring began? When I was younger, children respected their elders, wore their hats straight, their pants fit and they listened to real music.

In other words, I'm sure my memory is rosier than reality, but it's definitely better than the past couple weeks. Civility's fucking hard, but it's also worth it. WLU (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

OK: you made a point :) Cesar Tort 00:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd be a whole lot more convincing if I could follow my own advice 100% of the time. Still, it's paid off when I've managed. WLU (talk) 00:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

All of this is sometimes a bit confusing for me.

I confess I have printed and studied carefully the archived discussions of SRA talk page. User:Antaeus Feldspar's non-polite replies impressed me. And I remember that a few months ago there was a WP special page about gathering opinions from many wikipedians about how an user treated a believer of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Many wikipedians, I included, declared that it was ok to be a bit rude in such cases. After the voting (sorry I cannot find the page) no actions were taken against User:Mongo (I think that was his username). But sometimes I find gentlemen such as Arthur Rubin...

I guess the best thing for me is to stay away from such pages until the storm is really over. It may be a character flaw or something. I have said horrible things (though I am not sorry!) in the Mother Teresa talk page article as well as in the Electroconvulsive therapy article. But other editors have been even more rude on me.

Anyway. Maybe I will go back to my wikivacation soon...

Cesar Tort 03:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably a RFC on a user, but you have to piss off a lot of people for that to happen. As a moral absolutist, you're at a bit of a disadvantage on wikipedia because NPOV isn't exactly a policy that favours absolutism of any kind. Other editors have been rude to you, and what happened on those talk pages and with those articles? Compare to an editor who acknowledges that your position has merit even if they disagree and insists that both of you provide sources and tries to work out a compromising wording - the latter makes for a much better final page in my experience. If someone is a blatant POV-pusher who doesn't even try to follow policy and cites, oh, say, the bible on an evolution page (seen it happen...) then they'll probably leave in short order, but AT, IMJ and BT all cited and worked with policy when I was talking to them at SRA. In my rosy days of youth, when the fields were green with clover and chocolate puppies roamed the fields... WLU (talk) 12:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well… I actually did not insult anyone in those pages. I merely used strong language against Christianity and electroshock in the articles cited above; not on the editors themselves.

"Moral absolutim" is a con word in contrast to cultural relativism. If you check my contribution in Talk:Human sacrifice in Aztec culture, which demonstrates that I do believe in child ritual abuse, you will see what do I mean by that. Of course: it’s hard to be a moral absolutist in Wikiland…

Cesar Tort 17:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I mis-read your user page about the moral absolutism comment, my apologies. WLU (talk) 21:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem; you don't have to apologize :) Cesar Tort 22:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad habit for me to get into, and apologizing means our likelihood of future conflict is reduced. It's all part of the master plan, mwhahaha. Ha.WLU (talk) 22:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Body cleansing and Water ioniser

Great work on the body cleansing article. I wonder if you would consider visiting Water ioniser and doing a similar cleanup. I have been in an incredibly frustrating revert battle with an editor over that article and any assistance you could provide would be much appreciated. Gillyweed (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Done, it basically consisted of gutting the article. No sources equals no content. WLU (talk) 00:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, a cursory review of the article history showed you adding a critical link at the expense of several pubmed links by water guy. Both are incorrect per WP:EL - yours was a 'some guy' website, which only work when all the editors agree it's a good 'un. Water guy's are much more reliable sources, but should have been integrated as inline citations. Civility and consensus are required on both parts; WP:AGF and point to policies when disagreeing. I'm kinda surprised to see an editor with nearly 6k edits running into this problem. 'Course, 6k was probably about when I ran into my arbitration hearing, so what the hell do I know? WLU (talk) 01:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Judge Rotenberg Center

WLU -- could you take a gander at this pageJudge Rotenberg Center and lemme know if it is a lost cause, or if we can do something to make sure that anonymous users can't vandalize? This is a very controversial issue that rarely seems to be represented neutrally -- I was hoping wikipedia would be a good place to start.Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 04:43, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It certainly looks like something that can be 'salvaged'. It appears to pass notability based on the Motherwhatever magazine. This makes it eligible for including information direct from the centre's own webpage. As a wikipedia page, once notability is established the page should describe centre foremost and the controversy should be in a separate section and not necessarily represent the majority of the article. Talking about just the controversy means the article is indeed not neutral.

As for vandalism, the only way to keep vandalism down is to watch the page and keep reverting. Make sure you read WP:VAND, and cover what vandalism is not. It's not vandalism if it's a sourced edit you disagree with. Incidentally, you don't work for the centre, do you? That'd be a WP:COI. Consider getting WP:POPUPS or a similar edit tool which makes reverting a one-click option. The most important thing about vandalism is to catch it - there's probably a couple hundred thousand vandalisms of wikipedia each day, people are used to it. It's going to happen, particularly on button pages. If someone consistently vandalizes the page, use an escalating series of warnings and eventually report at WP:AIV. And make sure you don't revert to the last version of the page, but the last reliable version. WLU (talk) 14:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't work for the center -- but I follow it with a lot of interest...I find that most sources (Motherjones included) are not very balanced...Israel has a 25 page rebuttal to the first article...but wasn't sure if I could pull from their own site to source things...I'll look a that tool! ThanksJosh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If using a self-published source, be sure it's not unduly self-serving and is itself balanced within the article. Most of the articles that anon posted can easily be used to show the center in a positive and negative light, and should be used in both ways. Israel's rebuttal can and should be included, but should be very short; one to two sentences. Obviously include a link to the rebuttal itself. Self-published can be used, it's a matter of using them well. WLU (talk) 21:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Judge Rotenberg Center

Please review what I recently added to the talk page of the Judge Rotenberg Education Center and offer me some advice and/or incorporate the info I placed in the talk into the main page in a manner you find fair and appropriate. Thank you. Truthapedian (talk) 21:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Who are you? WLU (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

He's 'bob' -- or the anon that had been working on JRC...that is now a registered user: Truth! *yay*Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 07:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

[[:Image:Christmas_tree_bauble.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Wishing you the very best for the season - Guettarda 06:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)]]

Excellent, thanks very much! WLU (talk) 18:38, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

A Message from the Truthapedian

WLU: Who knew that my original intent to change two words of one page was going to be fraught with such challenge (certainly not I)! Nonetheless, recognize that:

I'm new and learning the norms here.

Now that I'm here, I plan on contributing to the work in several different areas (the bulk of which are on subjects other than the initial one)

I'd appreciate an opportunity to call on you to mentor me a bit in those endeavours (which are likely to initially include, simply, pages in need of format cleanup once I become adept at formatting them).

I hope my having had the first person whom I encountered in wikipedia be someone who is aggressively protecting a controversial and unpopular POV from counterbalance doesn't lead you to conclude me a troublemaker.

I, too, know it is Christmas and wish you a happy one (the kids and wife are napping, thus affording me such luxury :-) ) Truthapedian (talk) 20:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Please stop using unnecessary breaks. A single space between messages is sufficient. Part of learning norms is getting warnings. A large part of editing controversial pages (and anything relating to autism, developmental disabilities and 'cures' are controversial) is getting warnings and starting fights. To date you don't seem to be doing a bad job, but read WP:AGF - that person who is aggressively protecting a POV, well, they think exactly the same thing about you. Re-read WP:NPOV and WP:V very carefully.

I am more than happy to help out, you seem to be doing very well. The other thing you could consider is WP:ADOPT, which is the creation of a one-on-one relationship with another experienced wikipedian. It doesn't happen to be me, there's nothing special about me as an editor and there's lots of others. Administrators are good people to ask questions of, but they're a varied lot. Adopters are dedicated to helping people out, while some admins might ignore your request because they're not interested or they're too busy.

One more thing - the person you consider to be "aggressively protecting a controversial and unpopular POV from counterbalance" thinks the exact same thing about you. Your point of view is not the 'right one'. Have a look at this meta essay - if you can't work peacefully with others who have a dramatically different, possibly opposite viewpoint as you, consider another on-line venue. Seriously, we don't take sides here, there's no page that says (or should say) "ABA using aversives and punishment is torture"; if there is, if you want to be a good wikipedian, you will change it. Similarly, there should not be a page that says "ABA is the best thing in the world and people with autism are mental cripples who need to be changed." Justify things with reliable sources in a WP:NPOV fashion. Read the five pillars and be civil. Yeah, I've said all this before, but I have talked to many, many new editors who read a page, and the bright idea pops into their head, that the page on chronic fatigue syndrome/applied behavior analysis/the Indo-Chinese war/George Bush does/does not accurately portray things because it has/doesn't have information on the use of herbs for treatment/torture/the ethical ramifications of a culture war (on my culture)/torture. Everybody has a POV, and if you can't work with others who have different points of view, the page will descend into insults, grind to a halt, get protected, and valuable contributors will leave. I would suggeset talking to Josh and deciding (on one of your own talk pages) which information is out of line and not useful for improving the Judge Rotenberg Center talk page, and remove the text that's not going to end up on the page. You may consider the GED torture, and prima facie torture at that, but for others it's a valuable treatment aide. Get over it, deal with it, accept it, focus on adding sourced criticisms of them if you can find reliable sources, but don't think you can logic your way into having the JRC or any other page related to the treatment of autism or whatever condition that is treated by behavioral means be criticized for being torture.

If you can accept this, and work with other people who have the exact opposite POV of you, then I'm willing to help out and provide advice. This is a controversial page and set of pages, and I don't want to repeat my past long, draining up-hill battles on ABA and autism pages.

Note that I've not read JRC talk page in a while, so I could be completely out of line on this comment. WLU (talk) 21:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

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Ethical_challenges_to_autism_treatment--challenged

I've put a little template about the Neutrality of Ethical_challenges_to_autism_treatment...did I do it correctly? Could you check out what I've said on the discussion page...let me know if I'm all wet. Thanks!Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 20:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a reply. It's one of those odd pages that really shouldn't exist because it's a mess of original research and outrage; in this particular case, it seems to attract a lot of single purpose accounts and neurodivergents, who have more difficulties in the less-than-supportive context of wikipedia. With good reason, since for many of these people it looks like there's an entire institution of people (like you) essentially out to destroy the essence of who they are. It's a twitchy area, but most of the contributors who appeared to edit in the past don't seem to be on-wiki anymore. Which made my life easier because I ran into a bunch of conflict with most of them, being very pro-ABA.

Anyway, what you did and what you posted seemed OK to me, if the template appears you did it right. In most cases, templates for mainspace pages exist to warn people who are reading or editing that there's problems, usually they don't attract attention from people who aren't already watching the page. The notable exceptions are the {{unblock}} and {{helpme}}, both of which bring the attention of admins rather quickly.

Incidentally, I've stopped watching the ABA page, the anon who keeps adding badly-formatted information that's not really in keeping with WP:TONE or the citation templates is exhausting and frustrating me. WLU (talk) 22:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to slow that down...but I agree -- and I don't think that the information really goes there -- I'm looking to create a Behavior analysis page -- breaking down the history of it and then discuss the four domains, and link to them: Behaviorism, experimental analysis of behavior, applied behavior analysis, and professional practice of behavior analysis. I'll try to move a lot of the stuff off of the ABA page to the newly formed Practice page...that may help a bit in some of this. I believe I'm going to mark the ethical challenges of autism tx for consideration of deletion -- I don't think it is Notable, nor properly sourced...Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 23:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made the new page, and moved some of the content of ABA to the Ppba...hopefully you'll come back to ABA -- that's the one I'm going to be focusing most of my attention on -- the anon should then move to the other page, and hopefully someone that enjoys cleaning articles can partner there!Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 00:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if it deserves deletion, but lots of clean-up. It's a very, very controversial issue within the autistic community, but unfortunately they don't tend to publish in reliable sources. I'd check the guidelines' (which are not mandatory, they're guidelines - some things apparently are inherently notable, and I'm inclined to think this is one of them as its a real controversy) on notability (WP:N) and see if you think you can pass it based on the info on the page. Perhaps not properly sourced, but definitely something real and I'd think notable. Another option might be to try looking around the pages that are linked to it, and see if you can merge it there. Could also ask Sandy or Eub. what they think, they might have a solution. I'd definitely run this past Sandy at least 'cause I totally trust her ability to say whether it's a valid, salvageable, mergeable or deletable article.

I have excellent faith in your ability to deal with and expand the relevant pages, and you've far more knowledge, resources and expertise than I. Feel free to ask me for help if you need it, but I don't know how busy I'll be in the new year. WLU (talk) 00:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully I'll continue to maintain the faith ;-) I'll be sure to ask questions as I come upon them, thanks!Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You've experienced the joy of wikipedia - uncontested editing in an area of your expertise. Welcome to the pain - anon editors, mediocre or non-wiki-style tone and formatting, just wait for the vandalism and POV-warriors. You'll either accept the reality and keep editing, or you'll give up and leave in disgust. I hope it's the former. The pendulum swings between the two extremes. The average is definitely on the 'rewarding' side, but I'm sure you can see how the standard deviation would be quite large. WLU (talk) 02:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (Image:A Storm of Swords.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:A Storm of Swords.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Online/Offline

How do I add the thing that says whether I'm online or not? (Its on your user page). Also, the professional practice of behavior analysis page has section in which licensing is discussed -- it refers to a website, and has not been reported anywhere to support that 'a move' is occuring...could you look over that and let me know your thoughts? Thanks!Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 03:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I actually had another user add it for me, and to be honest it's more trouble than it's worth (it's wildly inaccurate as I don't ever really update it). I believe it's a matter of pasting the following onto your user page,

<div style="position:absolute; z-index:100; right:12px; top:16px;" class="metadata" id="developer">{{User:WLU/Status}}</div>

then creating a sub-page /Status, with whatever the contents of User:WLU/Status is. I may have a chance to look at that stuff today, but I may not make the time. Try me later this week if I don't get to it. WLU (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Quick comments - review WP:LEAD - the page should be explained in the lead, with no questions to ask except details. At minimum, I would add the other domains with links. Also in the lead, avoid self reference. Don't discuss what 'this page will be doing' - find a way to make it clear what the page is about without referring to the page itself. MOS:CAPS - there's section headings that appear to be mis-capitalized. WP:CIT - use amazon to find ISBN's and use diberri's citation generator to create the templates while you are doing other things. All of your references and external links within the body text should be as citation templates as well, and as footnotes. The first heading appears to be off - it should be two rather than three equal signs. Some of the footnotes have odd periods before and after. I always like to put my footnote after any punctuation, to avoid an unsightly space. There's a lot of 'thus', it sounds a bit like a promotional piece. Reviewing the history, it looks like the anon IP that's doing much of the editing on various ABA pages is the one fucking things up. I'll drop him/her a note. WLU (talk) 13:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok -- I've modified the lead...I had only put that there as I dropped in the text that didn't belong on ABA, and hadn't gone back to fix -- thanks for reminding me...I suppose I'll forget the online/offline thing...I'm revamping the ABA site -- you can see it on the page you created for me on my user-site. When I'm finished, I was thinking of making a subpage on the article's site, and posting a request for review on the discussion page, rather than just replacing everything...is that the best route? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 17:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

<undent> Ok -- we now have one less anon -- please welcome JCautilli2003!! Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 20:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I'll have a gander. I'll try to have a look at the page in the future but I'm probably going to busy for a bit. WLU (talk) 01:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your kindness and respect

Thank you for being my shining light to knowledge and for watching over me as I walk towards the light. Igor Berger (talk) 01:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, thanks for being reasonable and engaging on discussion pages. WLU (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree about bots...

I disagree when you state that a BOT couldn't tell whether a page was neutral or not[6] -- while a BOT that may not necessarily be capable that has been made to date -- we could program a bot to determine neutrality -- we'd just have a helluva complicated BOT ;-) Anyways -- just really wanted to say happy new years and thanks for your help with my wiki-beginning. I know that I've been on WP too much when I start linking in all my e-mails and IMs (and even tried to link in my text messages on my phone) Here's to a great 2008 Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 23:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That's one of the signs of wikipedia addiction, be forewarned. I'm always pleased to welcome someone who can take a page off of my hands - it's rare to find an editor I trust enough to unwatch a page. WLU (talk) 01:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Apples, Adam, and Eve

You wrote:

Please note that statements like this one would be considered original research, at least by me if not others, and not really suitable. I don't really know what the point of the sentence is, and how an apple can be 'important' in this context.

Thanks,

WLU (talk) 18:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This observation is by no means original to me; it has been made by a number of researchers (indeed, it's almost common knowledge among fruit historians), and I was looking for a suitable reference. The significance to this point is that the use of "apple" as a synonym/substitute for "fruit" shows the importance of apples to the culture that made use of the substitution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piledhigheranddeeper (talk • contribs)

If you can find a suitable reference, you will indeed be helping the page. Let me know if you need any assistance in integrating it, using citation templates or other formatting issues. WLU (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Knol

If you read the Google blog post and the accompanying news articles, you'll see that Knol will be an aggregated online encyclopedia (like Wikipedia), but its entries will not be editable. They will be written and submitted by single authors, but wiki software will not be used. If there's no collaborative editing, it doesn't meet the definition of a wiki. VanTucky ^talk 20:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it's arguable, but I could have mis-read. Thanks. WLU (talk) 20:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Suarez

Hi, thanks for cleaning my created article Fernando Suarez. Just that he is so famous, noted, and the $ 200 million or P 5 billion mega shrine officially blessed last year and our country Philippines will be the global healing center. BUT due to few links, on him, and amazing, I cannot find any criticism on corruption like other USA tele evangelists, it is hard really to write better without violating copyrights; I replied on its talk pages, apologizing for my very poor grammar due to FEW links on him and I have to use my own words. Take care, Happy New year. Thanks.

--Florentino floro (talk) 05:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

If he is famous, it's hard to tell what he's famous for based on the article. It's not hard to write without violating copyright, just summarize the prose found in the external articles. Don't copy and paste, just write what the essential ideas are from the source you are using. I don't doubt that he's notable, but it's hard to tell that from the article and it uses terrible sources, which it doesn't represent particularly well - if Suarez can, and has, raised the dead, that should be all over the 'net. I live in Ottawa, and I've never heard of the guy, which is odd considering he raised the dead at the Ottawa hospital. Consider the source as well - a tabloid newspaper reporting directly an interview of what Suarez is saying, is not the most reliable of sources, and should not be portrayed as fact. WLU (talk) 12:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, that is why, if you read the links, he had been healing since 2003, yet, I can't find many links about him like David Pannick, for instance who wrote about me. Mystifying also, is that he was rejected by seminaries here in Philippines, only to be accepted by a very small order CC. Now, the thing that baffles me is that even our very own Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales officially opened his alleged mega shrine, and that it has only p 200 million in the bank of the P 8 billion project. But, I can't find any link which criticized him. Regarding USE YOUR OWN WORDS, it is just that I had some FEAR that my article again would be charged with copyright violation, so I tried to change the words. You know, journalists Often rob us editors of the best words and grammar ingredients, leaving us to just couple of few words to choose. I notice that some users here who stict to USE your own words, do sacrifice the prose, beauty of the article, such that when you read the edited ones, often, they lost the true sense of the originals when one is lazy to open the links or like here in the philippines, where the internet is so slow. Anyway, thanks for visiting my page and for cleaning my created article. TRUTH will come out on Fr. Suarez later on (as christians, we are mystified why such a shrine should cost staggering sums, when many Filipinos are hungry. In fact all the 12 apostles and Christ died so poor. Christ never asked a rich site as pilgrim area. just that. Thanks.

--Florentino floro (talk) 12:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

What does Prod mean?

Here you indicate that you should prod Bridget Taylor's page...what does this mean? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 10:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Prod means proposed deletion - there are three types of deletion. Speedy for blatant crap, proposed for material that's not really speedy, but isn't worth afd, and WP:AFD, which is the full-blown deletion debate. People argue, cite policy, debate notability, bicker and eventually an admin decides if the page is deleted or not. BT's page, in my mind, only very tenuously establishes notability. Or, at least it did when I thought about prodding it. WLU (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy 2008

Hey there! I saw you reverting or removing linkspam. Thanks! If you're interested, come visit us in Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam so we can work together in our efforts to clean spam from Wikipedia. Igor Berger (talk) 12:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I refuse to commit to stuff anymore :) I'm busy enough running into random pages that need to be fixed that I rarely end up looking for something to do! WLU (talk) 12:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Too busy? Because your contribution to cleaning up Spam and your Administrator work..:) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igorberger (talk • contribs) 12:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Too busy cleaning out spam, cleaning up prose, removing unsourced material, adding sourced, deleting original research, harassing admins, and negotiating with stubborn editors - by far the most time-consuming, sometimes the most rewarding. WLU (talk) 12:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like we duplicating each other, better report to GSQT for violating GQG. Igor Berger (talk) 12:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your help with editing Capsicum. It was my first attempt at writing a little text and linking pictures. I have only done a few minor edits and spelling corrections before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ningyo Majo (talk • contribs)

Sure. You may want to look into sub pages for working with text rather than using your user page. WLU (talk) 16:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Opps sorry. Thanks again for the info and links. I started to read them, but I think I need some sleep, my brain is kind of fried at moment. Ningyo Majo (talk) 16:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. WLU (talk) 16:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

January 2008

Please do not delete content from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Aquatic ape hypothesis, without explaining the reason for the removal in the edit summary. Unexplained removal of content does not appear constructive, and your edit has been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox for test edits. Thank you. StephenBuxton (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Aquatic ape hypothesis#Gutting the page. WLU (talk) 17:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I would suggest though that an edit summary of "Gutted" is not really enough. Busy-bodies like me who hang around the Recent Changes looking for vandalism to undo do read the edit summaries. Had it said something like "Clean-up as per discussion", I would have ignored it. I had a feeling (a gut feeling?) though that you weren't a vandal, but the amount of material being removed with no real explanation warranted a revert. StephenBuxton (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I am suitably chastized. You mind if I undo your undo? WLU (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No need - done. StephenBuxton (talk) 17:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Orthomolecular psychiatry

Thanks for your advice, and improvements. Punctuation has always been my enemy. That said, I included the probabilities not out of pedantry, but because there are various levels of "significance." p<0.05 is something that a little luck and data massaging will generally get you. p<0.001 is almost always actually significant. I think that in an article in which the lay reader is trying to ascertain if the controversial research is the work of flakes, emphasizing that the significance is robust adds valuable information. Doing so spares them from having to dig up the abstract. I think we both agree that OM is a subject of controversy; if have a strong opinion, I am willing to compromise.--Alterrabe (talk) 19:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ya, punctuation on wiki articles is always hard when there's citations and references involved. I understand the difference between p=.05 versus p<.0001, but as far as readers are concerned, either one is significant. Also helps to have a long-term view - if something is <.0001, people will keep investigating and accumulating more evidence. The other thing to consider is that it's very, very rare to see a wikipage with the actual significance value on it, and if you do see it, it's usually not added by an experienced editor. Better than adding specific p values (which, again, looks like OR to me, and WP:UNDUE, but I'm paranoid) is to find extra sources. Citing a p value should be a last resort when you can't find anything else to say, and in this case there's lots. WLU (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I have verbally conveyed the very strong correlation. I'm afraid, however, that I cannot agree with you in your reticences to spell out very strong probabilities in an article that excites huge controversy. Readers do respond significantly to p<0.001 compared to p<0.001. Bear in mind that it's extremely rare for there to be wikipedia pages that allege that mainstream medicine has adopted totally erroneous beliefs, and at least raise the specter or organized criminal behavior. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I take it that your claim that adding specific p values is OR is a manifestation of a very dry sense of humour. --Alterrabe (talk) 08:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I also emphatically disagree with your changing "A drastic reduction, if not full remission," to significant improvements. Such an edit downplays the improvements gluten avoidance can cause, and definitely promotes one point of view.--Alterrabe (talk) 08:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the other pages I've seen, particularly medical pages, (You'd be interested in WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS I think), I think WP:TONE and WP:SS both support a prose summary, rather than exact number. Consider looking at comparable pages to see if there are any others that use similar numbers. In particular, look at featured articles for medical subjects, as they are the gold standard. Another option would be to ask an admin what they think, which might be a good idea for the variety of disagreements that are happening on the page. WLU (talk) 12:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed one number, and will also remove the other. Not to be overly fastidious, but statistical significances given as p< are not "exact numbers" but rather upper limits. I agree wholeheartedly that giving significances to the fifth meaningful place i.e. p<0.00010351 would be bizarre.--Alterrabe (talk) 16:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Irrespective, wikipedia is aimed at a popular audience, for whom the numbers may not be meaningful or useful. Words are better, but a p value can be represented in words through the use of adjectives - less than 1% is significant, less than 0.0001%, strongly so, though I'd normally reserve that wording for several studies or a meta-analysis. I understand the tension between wanting to be accurate to the source and using words when the numbers are meaningful to you, but from a long-term editor's perspective, take that for what it's worth :) it's very unusual to see. Thanks for making the effort, it's appreciated, and I understand your difficulties. WLU (talk) 17:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I enjoyed Fyslee's opinion of my humble self, and made it my first barnstar. Thank you for eliciting it.--Alterrabe (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Fyslee's opinion is usually quite strong and often times worth reading even if you don't agree or aren't interested. That's not really a barnstar by the way, it's a paste from a talk page (and you might consider using a set of diffs as Fyslee may archive soon). Also, some editors don't like having stuff like that on other's talk page as it looks pointy; check WP:UP for info on the rules about it. WLU (talk) 20:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've responded to your concerns. I agree with, and had anticipated, some of them, and have left my feedback. I've also reworked my user page. Thank you for your edit to the OMP page.--Alterrabe (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Your changes to OMP do not really reflect how OMP is done too well. OM tries to have healthy omega 3 :omega 6 fatty acid ratios in all patients. Even non-psych. O-3s help with heart disease, bipolar disorder and many other things. As memory serves me, pyroluria cannot cause bipolar disorder, but histadelia can, often causing "schizoaffective disorder". Hypolglycemia alone can cause either "mania" or frank psychosis. I really wished I had my Edelman here. Leaving the two merged avoided having to go over the causes case by case. Additionally, since the 70s, the goal posts have been moved as far as what constitutes bipolar disorder is concerned. If you ever talk to a shrink, you'll hear that diagnosis is more an art than a science.--Alterrabe (talk) 21:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Regards the bipolar section alone, or the lead? The problem is I think the pubmed reference doesn't discuss anything except the medical treatment of bipolars with OFA, and it's the only reference in the section. Also, on wiki and in most of the mainstream medical research, they're seen as different, treated with different medication, and there appears to be differential diagnosis to distinguish them, as they do share some symptoms in common. If bipolar and sch. are considered identical or related by OMP, it should be made explicit in the page before lumping them into the same section; I think it's also arguable that they should be in the same section at all. I'd prefer them separate until the purported links between them can be sourced - wikipedia leans to the mainstream as the default position. WLU (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your improvements. I agree with the above. Pending my refinding Edelman, I'll have to let this go.--Alterrabe (talk) 20:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

My opinion would be that the sections should be separated in some way; failing that, before they are merged together, there should be a section discussing that unlike conventional psychiatry, OMP places these two diagnoses together. Remember that the page is meant to inform those unfamiliar with OMP - most people would think the two are different. Further, wikipedia separates the two (even with the article, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder go to different pages). It's very defensible to say on the page "OMPists believe the conditions are essentially the same or break down diagnostically into entities other than those used by the DSM and ICD-10", but leaping into the two diagnoses being the same thing without explanation is just hard for the reader. Exploring the differences between the two conditions is totally viable a la the APA and OMP, treating them the same within this page alone without explanation is out of keeping with wikipedia overall. Even the fact that there are two headings to a single section is bizarre compared to other articles. WLU (talk) 01:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism revertion

Cheers for that! I didn't even notice it had been altered. If I knew how to put a barnstar or other nice image on here, I would be placing it here -> *

...so you will have to imagine that asterisk is a barnstar :-) StephenBuxton (talk) 12:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:BARN - most barnstars are substitution templates, meaning you just paste the text that's in the middle column into an editor's talk page. Though I don't think a single user page revert is really worth a whole barnstar. I did accept your tiny one though. [7] WLU (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help

Thank you for your help with spacing on the broccoli article. You are quick! Marycontrary (talk) 16:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

De nada. Spacing pictures usually sucks. WLU (talk) 21:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Cysts and cystic fibrosis

­­­­There is no such thing as a referference indicating that cystic fibrosis has anything to do with cysts. The name comes from the very frequent developpment of a fibrosis in the cystic duct. Please try to get accurate information from reliable medical source (I would suggest a PubMed search for cystic fibrosis AND review[article type]). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.220.46 (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, fixed. WLU (talk) 21:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

74.56.148.236 (talk) 23:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)Thanks for cleaning my messy contribution (when me upset, me always contribute like piglet - and this cyst thing is such a common misunderstanding that, as a CF researcher, I'm always upset). BTW, the real origin of the name comes from fibrosis in all parts of the biliary tract, cystic being a generic adjective for all that is related to the biliary vesicle and/or the bladder. But I thought that mentionning only the cystic duct (which name actually contain the word "cystic") would make things clearer.

User_talk:Sfacets

User_talk:Sfacets history

Please check this. There was a speedy deletion template. A blocked user User_talk:HaroldHakindson reverted the page and threatened to use popups, when he is blocked! HaroldHakindson edit Something does not smell right! admin User:Will Beback fixed it, but how can a blocked user edit WikiPedia pages??? Igor Berger (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Who knows? If it's been fixed, it's not really worth worrying about. His block may have lapsed, he could have created another account, you'd be better off asking an admin (and using diffs as the history page isn't very helpful to other readers who are trying to follow your point). Try asking Will, he might know what happened. WLU (talk) 01:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I find my talk page NEAT and concise now. Thanks for the help/archiving. Regards. --Florentino floro (talk) 05:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Great. Now that you have seen how, you can do it yourself. WLU (talk) 14:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Crocs

I'm objecting to your removal of the crocs fans link which I posted on the crocs page. It is not an "official site" per se, but people who are fans of crocs should know about it. I was also thinking of adding the unofficial critic of crocs as well. I read the guidelines for adding links, and it seems to me that it falls under acceptable linking guidelines.

"Wikipedia articles should include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia if they are relevant. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic.."

"Links should be restricted to the most relevant and helpful."

"...the link should be directly related to the subject of the article."

People who like and wear crocs should know that there's a site for people who like them. I am not the owner of the site, and I found it through googling. I did say it was an unofficial website for fans.

Many people have added links to fansites on wikipedia. Just the other day I was reading Morrissey's page, for instance, and almost all the links at the bottom were for fansites.

Being that these shoes are important for people with foot ailments (like myself), I feel it is important that a link to the crocs fans site should stay. It has nothing to do with search engine rankings, it is an important service for people who have all kinds of horrible painful foot problems, which includes a good many of the people who who wear crocs. So I'd like you to revert your taking away an important link. Ruth E (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems that it is not only the linking protocol, but the WP:NOT that supports the removal -- "Furthermore, those interested in promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so"

On the external link page, note rule 6, of do not link to sites like this: Links to sites with objectionable amounts of advertising.

Your link is full of advertising, and asks for subscription to their mailing list. Your linked site is also complete WP:OR, so does not add to the article. Nice try, but that link does not belong on Wikipedia--except perhaps if there were an article on 'web fansites of shoes'...which is probably not notable nor will be in the near future. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 20:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

People can find the site through google if they try, wikipedia's not a linkfarm, it's not official, if you find other pages which contains links that are not appropriate, feel free to remove them. And if the link is indeed full of advertising, it is not appropriate. Note that WP:OR is OK off wikipedia, but depending on reliability and notability of the site, may not be appropriate as a source for page content. I don't see an unofficial fanpage as falling into any of the what should be linked section numbers, it does appear to meet some of the links to be avoided, notably 4, 6 and 11. You could suggest adding it to the main page on the relevant talk page, see what feedback you get there. If there's consensus for the website being added, then I won't object. WLU (talk) 23:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Fr. Suarez, Latest Links

As lawyer and judge, we took pains to study hard evidence. Philippines borrowed our Rules of Court/1989 Rules on Evidence from CA Federal Rules of Service. Thus, I was and am SKEPTIC about all these miracles. But as catholic, I investigate. I cannot just be philosopher and suppress the truth, over my skeptical beliefs. Today, I found in front pages of our top newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer and top TV station GMA Network the shocking miracles Fr. Suarez did - the GMA-7 videos are shocking, making the lame walk, and impeccable testimony of a kid who is supposed to be dead now. Hope that later on, despite Fr. Suarez' hatred of media blitz, his miracles will be Wikified by top links:

[8] [9]

--Florentino floro (talk) 06:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Neither of these prove Suarez can perform miracles and if you provided them as evidence in a court of law, I'm sure you would be laughed out of the building. This is not hard evidence, and very far from reliable sources given the extremity of the claim. Consider the following:

• Faith_healing#Criticism - placebo effects, fraud, trickery and what have you. Suarez doubtless profits from being seen as a faith healer, possibly financially, possibly through fame, possibly through blowjobs and buttsex from adoring fans, possibly by having that monster church built. Suarez could also be mentally ill, and/or a pious fraud. North America is stuffed to the gills with healing miracle churches, and they're broadcast every single sunday, douchebags slapping the heads of gullible idiots in wheelchairs who then get up, stagger around a bit, then are guided off stage where they collapse.
• Inquirer.net is a source of unknown reliability to me. In North America, the National Inquirer is a tabloid and using it as a source would get you laughed off of wikipedia. The New York Times or Time (magazine) are more reliable mainstream news sources, and peer-reviewed journals are the gold standard for 'proof'. And from what I've seen, the Inquirer is documenting what Suarez is saying about his own miraculous powers. And Suarez is only a reliable source for what he has said, not what he has done.
• WP:FRINGE applies - raising the dead and actual miracles requires exceptional sources if they are portrayed as fact. The default position is skepticism and the default wording is 'Suarez has claimed/Suarez is reported as having performed', not 'Suarez is a miracle-working healer who can raise the dead'. The former is not from NPOV unless it's reported in the most reliable of sources.
• As for the video, again I've been regularly dosed with Sunday morning miracles, and I've seen the shows documenting both the pious frauds and the lying douchebags who screen their miracles to include the gullible and those who have conditions which lend themselves to good TV (and donations). Making the lame (briefly) walk is not a miracle. And listening to a child (who themselves are acknowledged by North American courts as not being very reliable) give a testimonial, a type of anecdotal evidence, is not compelling evidence of resurection and miracles.

Given your own belief in your ability to perform faith healing, and your belief in the existence of invisible, mythological figures, I can see why you would want to see this kind of thing verified as true and miracles as existing. But it's not. However, it is notable and suitable for its own wikipedia page. The news link could be used as a source, while the tv program could be an external link. WLU (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Casu Marzu

Hi WLU, thanks for your welcome but I'm still a bit puzzled by your editings and your comments on my talk page.

First it seems clear to me that you don't have a clue about the content of the article. You wrote me in my talk page: "on Casa Marazaau (cheese with maggots)" actually is called Casu Marzu and means "rotten cheese" no hint whatsoever on maggots. Second, you wrote me "I undid your edit to the see-also section." Actually, you deleted some info on the See also section written ages ago by someone else and left unchanged by your edit on 23 April 2007 [10].

The only info I added there was "Cheeses with worms exists not only in Italy" with the intent to clarify the difference between the section "Other regional names" (that I changed in "Other regional variations" since the difference here is not only in the name but are actually different sorts of cheeses) that refer to Italian cheeses and "See also" that refers to other not Italian cheeses with maggots. You left actually the majority of my other changes untouched.--Dia^ (talk) 16:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I used the term cheese with maggots on your talk page because I wasn't sure of the spelling for the wikilink and didn't want to bother tracking it down. I usually work pretty quickly and stuff like that slows me needlessly, as is obvious since you knew what I was talking about. I removed the extra info from the see also section because no other see also section on wikipedia has information like that - the see also section is a list of wikilinks, and there is no need to justify them - they either stand because they are related to the article they are posted in, or they are deleted. These are good links, so I left them in. And, my last edit to the page was in April, 9 months ago. I'm now more familiar with the MOS than I was. So I corrected my earlier omission. There's no need to clarify the see also, and it may end up containing other links which are not other maggoty cheeses. I left the remainder of your edits untouched because they were good edits. WLU (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

See also section is now completely removed by turning it into a prose summary. WLU (talk) 16:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Tacit Consent

Unless I hear otherwise, I'll take your not answering my thoughts on Cade to be tacit agreement--Alterrabe (talk) 17:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Cade? I'm not sure what you're talking about, link? WLU (talk) 17:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Cade was the guy who invented Gatorade and then pursued the food allergy - schizophrenia link. Text that was removed from OMP quoted a press release from U Fl, I argued that a Wash Post article proved that the notion of food allergies causing schizophrenia is still kicking.--Alterrabe (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that. Sorry, I've been drafting the new section you see gracing the OMP talk page. I'll look at it now.

Also note that again, you're use of 'argued'. In my mind, for it to be good sourcing that avoids OR, the reference should speak for itself. WLU (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Reference generator

Neat reference generator, thanks. Might even get me to enjoy doing references.Plantsurfer (talk) 18:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No-one enjoys doing references, but it does make it much easier :) WLU (talk) 18:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit all references at once...

Is there a way to edit the 'reflist' rather than having to edit the references in the body of the text? I'm afraid the answer is no -- I've been looking-- the template page seems to include a {{refbegin}} and {{refend}} tag...but they didn't help me...hopefully you have a magic trick! Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking, sorry. I've never found one, it's usually one ref at a time - editing a section with the {{reflist}} in it just allows you to edit the section itself, which is usually just the template. The reflist just allows an outlet for the <ref></ref> tags found in the body text - as far as the software is concerned, the references are actually part of the body text. WLU (talk) 21:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

damn...I'll do it one by one :( Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

You've my sympathies. What exactly was the problem? WLU (talk) 02:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't have my sources when I was writing...so now I have to go back and source it...it'd be much easier if I could source the whole list (I left myself notes so I could find the full source...Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Using a separate 'Footnotes' and 'References' section (where the references contains generic references not linked to specific chunks of text) is legitimate, it's just not near as good as having everything footnoted. Note that if you're using books, there appears to be a move to an initial {{cite book}} and page numbers, with subsequent entries being <ref>Author, Year, p. XX.</ref>. You probably already knew this, but just in case. WLU (talk) 11:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for alerting me to the autism ethical concerns pages, I am a neuro-cousin (per Jim Sinclair's definition.) Cerebral Palsy/ anxiety issues, but I think I'm on the spectrum, just not diagnosed, and totally not enough for it to be an issue or disability. You up for trying to start a disability rights wiki project? The autism rights movement project is extremely cool. feel free to talk on my wiki anytime Uppitycrip (talk) 22:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not up for starting such a wikiproject, it's not one of my core areas of interest :) There may already be such a wikiproject as well, Wikipedia:WikiProject Discrimination, you could also try asking on Talk:Disability. Josh is actually the guy doing most of the editing on ARM, not I. I'm just helping out sporadically. WLU (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility and Wikipedia:WikiProject Human rights. WLU (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

AAH Gut.

Good call. Honestly, I'm amazed at some of the pseudoscientific love for that theory. But, having half a page filled with bad arguments and the other half pointing out that the arguments are bad is not the right answer. Tat (talk) 02:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

People love an easy solution to a complicated puzzle. It's more a matter of now people can re-populate the page with sourced information than a bunch of half-assed assertions and criticism. I mean, the sources are there, so why aren't they being used? I'm outraged. WLU (talk) 14:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Hatnotes

Hi WLU,

I'm not sure I understand how {{redirect6}} helps us? Origin belief is a redirect, not a different page, but maybe I'm missing something. Cheers, Ben (talk) 04:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, you're correct, it was my error. But now you know where hatnotes are, that's always handy. WLU (talk) 14:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

DMOZ at Pain and nociception

Hi - I noticed you have replaced external links with a link to DMOZ. Do you have any info I can read about discussions on the relacement of External links with DMOZ? I am assuming that other editors have looked at this closely and would rather read their deliberations than go over old ground. My concern is that the criteria for inclusion on DMOZ my be far looser than for inclusion in WP External links and thereby reduce the usefulness/quality of External links in WP. SmithBlue (talk) 05:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The DMOZ is handy because it gathers together a large variety of external links which would be useful to wikipedia, but can't be included because it would result in an overly-long EL section. See here, point 3. I'm not against adding more links to the EL section if they can be found extremely relevant, but the previous list of links contained no less than eight links to associations about pain, all of which were notable and useful, but that's 8 links for associations alone. The other links included a bullshit site soliciting donations for some kid, a link to some random doctor's site (in german or dutch I believe), a news article and a link to a document by WCB of NS. The latter two are suitable for references, but not for ELs, and the former two are bullshit spam which make me angry. Apologies for the intemperate language, but I really hates teh spam.

I'm open to re-adding links that aren't duplicated by the DMOZ, and possibly a more refined version of the DMOZ 'cause right now it's pretty general. I don't want to have the EL section turn into this though.

To get back to your original question, I've yet to see a centralized discussion of DMOZ, but there are lots of mentions in the Talk:WP:EL archives, 18, 17, 16 (in particular this section), here. There's middling support for DMOZ with the balance appearing to be 'it is appropriate', but I'm open to going with a more nuanced set of links. Sorry I can't point to a better discussion, I haven't even read the ones I've pointed out, but brief scanning seems to lean towards support. WLU (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I like the idea of only having very high quality EL on Wikipedia. And I find masses of EL diluting/confusing/ridiculous. SmithBlue (talk) 09:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

You could always bring it up again at Talk:EL, though I doubt there'd be much enthusiasm. It's not a bad thing to supplement the DMOZ with further high quality links. WLU (talk) 14:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

List of wikis

Hi. Thank you for taking the time to explain why Wipipedia (specialist BDSM and fetish wiki) is not a valid entry on that list. Unfortunately, there are elements in Wikipedia who want to suppress information on anything to do with BDSM (or perhaps the wider issue of alternate sexuality) [yes, I could come up with references, if I could be bothered to waste my time]. The entry on Wipipedia was deleted on the fourth nomination for deletion and apparently one in four is enough to keep the entry permanently out, despite Wipipedia being the prime source of information for two other encyclopaedias [11] [12]. I'm not blaming you personally, but the partisan attitude coming to the fore in Wikipedia is the main reason that I hardly bother contributing here any more. Again, thank you for your time - it's a courtesy I've come not to expect, here. --Interesdom (talk) 12:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, you couldn't blame me as I was never involved in the deletion. Consider that, particularly if the first three discussions met with 'no consensus', the fourth may be appropriate. I doubt that the page was deleted because of prudishness, dislike of BDSM or censorship, I would think that WP:WEB would be a more likely reason - it's possible that right now, the page just isn't considered notable. If you wish the page to unequivocally remain on wikipedia, the best thing to do is spend the time digging up those references and demonstrate that the page has received obvious and notable coverage in secondary sources. It's a bitter pill to swallow when an area that is of high interest to you is deleted, but such is the reality of things on wikipedia. Were the AFD stuffed with 'I don't like BDSM', this could be easily dealt with via reference to WP:AADD and WP:IDONTLIKEIT; reference to WP:WEB means people just don't consider the page as passing notability. Again, the easiest way to deal with that is to find relialbe, notable secondary sources that discuss wipipedia at length. WP:WEB isn't a very explicit guideline and webistes are notoriously difficult to establish notability for, so AFD discussion are of necessity messy and contested. Consider drafting an entry on a sub page and adding sources until it clearly passes WP:N or WEB, then requesting undeletion or re-creating the page with a courtesy note to those significantly involved in the deletion discussions. You could also solicit those individuals for their input regards the sub-page and whether it passes the guidelines.

Alternate sexualities get a lot of attention from those expressing them; since it's related to sex, there's a very tangled motivation of POV, the eroticization of even the act of drafting and writing the page, and a desire to have the practice mainstreamed, accepted, or simply not persecuted. Unfortunately, since they are by their very nature something undertaken by the minority, the attention received by the main sources of notability (popular press and whatnot) is minimal. It's not necessarily a conspiracy or expression of disgust, I would venture that it's an artefact of wikipedia's policies on what can be an article running headlong in to the low attention received by these topics. Indeed, WP:CENSOR and WP:IDONTLIKEIT support the idea that pages can't be removed because of distaste.

Some alternative solutions or uses for the link include as an external link on BDSM, or soliciting input from the sexology wikiproject. They might be able to offer you some concrete suggestions on improving or recreating the page (if merited).

Also, at least on my talk page please do not embed external links so they look like internal ones. I don't know why or how it ended up looking like this, but for those looking over the page on servers with filters, adult content can raise flags with IT departments and hand out nasty error messages. As a courtesy for other editors and readers, an obviously external link may be appreciated. I have adjusted the links here to be internal and red, as this is more useful to me. WLU (talk) 14:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments

I'm truly grateful, WLU, for your efforts at educating me. I'm kind of slow in that regard, but very steady, and am gradually picking up some of the handy and useful niceties. The tool are especially welcome! Tim Ross 18:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Civility

Before you accuse me of violating WP:CIVIL, please read my comments more carefully. You went on at length about Nraden and his contributions to the article. My comment said nothing of Nraden or his contributions, COI, or anything else. It was a simple statement about synthesis. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, redacted. WLU (talk) 20:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Much appreciated, happy editing. --Cheeser1 (talk) 00:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You were a little quick with the redaction. This guy wants to fight with everyone. Neil Raden (talk) 03:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Nraden: please read WP:NPA. It occurs to me that you may not have been made aware of Wikipedia's policies, so I'd like to direct you to this policy in the hopes that you will perhaps one day contribute constructively to this encyclopedia. --Cheeser1 (talk) 08:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please don't fight on my talk page. Raden - the higher level of civility from which my warning to Cheeser were sourced is indeed not the standard required of WP:CIVIL. In addition, you do have a tendency to raise the hackles of other editors. Your tendency to restrict yourself to editing just the talk pages of a couple topics is definitely a warning sign for many editors. In 99% of the cases of editors with your history, a block comes about pretty quickly. You are the 1% in that you've been very reasonable about following the restrictions suggested by other editors and COI. Cheeser, if you're going to get involved with NRaden, he can be frustrating to work with, but in my experience he will listen and respond to policies and discussions. It requires a lot of WP:AGF, but though insistent, he's generally not disruptive. I'll have more comments on the WP talk page. WLU (talk) 14:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Aqua aerobics

I hope it's all right if I remove the "refimprove" tag from Aqua aerobics, WLU. The article's sourcing seems up to par now, at least to me. About the location of the photo - you are, or course, right, that "top is standard for pictures". As far as I know, though, that preferred placement does not override good graphics. In this instance, bottom right for the photo in that paragraph balances the bottom left contents box. Also, a slightly larger photo helps the visual balance, in my opinion. Since the picture has a lot of detail, a larger size seems useful in that sense, as well (and it merely fills in some white space that way). Tim Ross 11:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure. WLU (talk) 14:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Barefoot!

Guess who's back: [13] 207.229.140.148 (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

that's hilarious Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 04:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Try fixing a hundred-odd spurious links to the barefoot page. Loses it's shine. I became so indignant, I wrote an essay. Now that, is hilarious. I love reading my own prose. WLU (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Gutted 'aquatic ape'

Well done! I agree that this was necessary. I'll try to add some proper referenced material back over the next few weeks. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 00:09, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Arctic Equestrian Games

Hello! Could you do me a great favour? I wrote the article Arctic Equestrian Games, one of my first articles here on English Wikipedia. I'm from Norway, so my English isn't exactly brilliant. Would you check and correct the English for me? I would be extremely grateful. Thanks! --EivindJohnsen (talk) 17:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I corrected the spelling and grammar, and took out a large amount of unnecessary text - the pag should discuss the AEG, not the venue (the conference center). The venue is secondary to the horse show on this page, and has its own wikipage anyway. Before my edit, it read like an advertisement for the conference center as much as a wikipage about a horse show. WLU (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help … I see what you mean, I'll try to stay more objective next time. --EivindJohnsen (talk) 18:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If you're new to editing, and especially in a different language, it's hard to tell the difference between informing and advertising. It's also a matter of where the information should go - a lot of what I took out is valid in some form for wikipedia, but on different pages (for instance, the conference center page rather than the AEG page). The kind of facilities that exist at the cogress center is 100% valid, useful information for Brunstad Conference Center. WLU (talk) 18:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks (: --EivindJohnsen (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Metals and dementia (again)

WLU, the Wall St. Journal article that was mentioned at OMP contains information that the USA Today doesn't. Most importantly, that Bush came to his copper theory of Alzheimer's by noticing that amyloid plaque accumulates in the areas where there the brain has a lot of zinc. That, more than anything else, is what persuaded me that Bush probably was on to something.--Alterrabe (talk) 14:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe just quote the WSJ without linking to the nonWSJ URL is the best approach. "He started studying the role of Zinc while in Melbourne. "He was inspired by a University of Texas teacher... who detailed the presence of zinc in the brain. Dr. Bush saw that the zinc and the amyloid were in the exact same spots, giving him a clue that they were somehow interrelated." This may only be worth citing in the article in other contexts, but it makes the WSJ article superior.

You should know that mainstream medicine now no longer rules out that amalgam can cause learning disabilities. Your 2004 quote is outdated and no longer mainstream. An FDA panel refused to sign off on the idea that amalgam is harmless, perhaps because litigation looms. We ought to find a more recent source. --Alterrabe (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Regards Bush, given the way the citation is used in the page, I still don't see a need to change it, but feel free to bring it up on the talk page. Note that as far as I can see, the statement you are citing is in fact in the USAToday article, in the paragraph that starts with "He was drawn to Alzheimer's after working in..." - baring missing the word "traces" and a Dr. in front of Bush's name', and a dash in inter-related, it's the same sentence. Also, note that the top of the page identifies the writer as "By Bernard Wysocki Jr., Associated Press/The Wall Street Journal" - hence the duplication methinks. I still think that the official USAToday webpage is a more credible source than a pdf file posted on a plumbing website, and given the contents still appear to be duplicates, I still don't see a reason to change it or add it anywhere in the page. I may be in the minority however, so go ahead and bring it up on Talk:OMP if you'd like.

Regards amalgams, the way the statements are used on the OMP page appear to be justified by my quick read-through of the two statements, and are both sourced to the agencies themselves. Barring a new statement by the agencies, I'd say it's a good inclusion. However, if you can find and cite the FDA panel's refusal, that's totally viable. I've tweaked the wording a bit. Also note that the position statements are dated to 2006 and 2007, meaning the post-date 2004. If you can find something indicating the statements have been superceded, then we can by all means adjust the page accordingly. WLU (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I like your wording. If I understand Bush correctly, he believes copper is the culprit, and zinc is attracted to the copper and plaque the way spectators are attracted to car crashes. Perhaps it would be good to improve this. The WSJ generally goes into much greater detail than the USA Today, hence adding both allows readers to choose their source.

In re amalgam. Here are bureaucrats noting they can no longer exclude that they've been mistaken for the last 90 years.[14] Here's a somewhat shriller description, with a lot of background (the FDA jumped before it was pushed.) [15] (Not sure it's WP:RS.) When the American people understand the extent of the amalgam problem, heads will roll (figuratively).--Alterrabe (talk) 17:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

As you acknowledge, the FDA page is a reliable source for what the FDA says, while the other link does not appear to be a reliable source to criticize the FDA. Currently there's a source from the FDA on what the FDA says. The page doesn't say amalgams are safe, it saystwo US federal agencies think they are safe. Again, it's verifiability, not truth - if amalgams are documented in a RS as dangerous in a way that relates to OMP, the page can change. If a reliable counterclaim source can be found, it's viable for inclusion. But until the FDA and dental thing say they reject amalgams, the appropriate thing is to record that they are called safe by these agencies.

Regards USAToday and The Wall Street Journal, I just compared them sentence by sentence, and found no noticeable differences. I really don't understand why you're pushing for the WSJ to be included when it's a rather minor point, and there's a much better, non-convenience link available that is identical. The WSJ does not go into any greater detail that I can see, it's not a matter of 'reader's chosing their source', they're the same article. I can't see why you think the WSJ is superior and I really don't want to spend any more time on it when I can't see any reason to whatsoever. WLU (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I may have missed the passage in the USA Today article. Note this at the FDA: "During the meeting, FDA presented a draft white paper that reviewed the scientific literature from 1997 to the present on the safety of dental amalgam. FDA asked the panel for its opinion on this paper. The panel recommended that the FDA reevaluate the literature." In other words, the panel refused to endorse the FDA's white paper, which, I understand, is extremely rare.--Alterrabe (talk) 20:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but right now it also says To date, the agencies have found no scientific studies that demonstrate dental amalgams harm children or adults. WLU (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

RFA

I just replied to one of the opposes because it can easily be shown to be a misinterpretation of my stance. I never said that Stormfront was a reliable resource, just that it could be used as a primary source to source their own views. It would be like stating that Hitler said such and such in Mein Kampf and then sourcing that statement with a source to mein kampf. That's not saying mein kampf is a reliable resource. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Horrobin

Do we know for sure that David Horrobin is dead per WP:V? I am somewhat wary of jumping to conclusions because Otto Heinrich Warburg a passionate advocate of orthomolecular medicine, and incidentally a Nobel laureate, was one of the few people who was able to read his own obituary in the Times of London on January 12 1938, after Otto Warburg, the famous botanist, passed away. OHW wrote friends: "Thanks for condolence. Rather disappointed with my poor obituary.“ Horrobin may have tired of chronic naysayers, and be enjoying an anonymous retirement in the Caribbean.--Alterrabe (talk) 23:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It's the electronic age, he apparently died almost five years ago, and there's like six obituaries, three of which are in peer-reviewed journals.

You're being British again, aren't you : ) WLU (talk) 00:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Pat Kelly (Irish_singer/songwriter)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pat Kelly (Irish_singer/songwriter)

I've been out of AfD's for a while, but since when has it been acceptable to edit out part of the discussion? -- RoninBK _{T C} 15:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the actual comment on the talk page here, it's a question - the anon is asking about the what is required to pass criteria. Normally I'd use the anon's talk page, but as an IP it could change. Since I read it as a question rather than part of the discussion, I moved it to the talk page so I could expand and discuss at length where it doesn't fill up the main page with questions and answers rather than just deletion discussions. I put the wikilink in so it was obvious I wasn't just deleting it. However, reading a bit closer and from a different perspective, I can see it as an attempt to assert notability (since it's an anon with no real edits beyond Pat Kelly, I'm guessing they aren't really familiar with anything on wikipedia beyond as a reader, so if it's meant as an assertion of notability, it doesn't read as such to experienced editors). Note that I did leave a comment on the IP's talk page, with a link to the deletion discussion's talk page and my own talk page. If you think their comment is meant to contribute to the discussion rather than a request for clarification, then feel free to replace it, I don't mind. WLU (talk) 17:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand your rationale. But in most cases blanking another editor's remarks, even those from Anonymous IP's, can be considered vandalism. I've gone ahead and restored the comment, and included your response as well. -- RoninBK _{T C} 17:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, that's fine. Thanks for keeping me honest : ) WLU (talk) 17:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Edits by Dokos Charalampos (talk · contribs)

Hi there. I see you've been reverting a few edits by Dokos Charalampos (talk · contribs). You're probably aware of this, but I'd like to point out that WP guidelines do not prohibit citing one's own work if edits comply to other content policies. Call me gullible, but I honestly do not see the harm in someone providing citations published in (third-party?) sources simply because they authored the article. Granted, going around articles on subjects you've researched and citing your work seems... self-promotional, but I don't think these particular edits were (1) meant in bad faith or (2) had a negative impact. Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I acknowledge it's not my best work; I was quick with the revert button and even as I did so I wasn't 100% sure it was the right thing to do. However, another admin left a note on his talk page that essentially said he agreed with my opinion (doesn't mean either one of us is right, but it does make me feel a bit more confident). Also, Charalampos wasn't adding his knowledge to the pages in question, as he didn't actually add any content. He was just adding his own articles to sections which were not {{fact}} tagged; further, these citations were often in Greek (?) journals which do not appear on pubmed - doesn't mean they're not reliable sources, but there appear to be better ones. I can't find any of his journals on pubmed, he didn't add any text to accompany them, and they were always his journals. It doesn't make his contributions worthless or his journals unreliable, but it does nudge him very close to spamming his own work. All that to say I agree that my actions were somewhat questionable, but I think justifiable. If you think it's worth replacing the references, please feel free to do so (though you may want to drop Jfdwolff a line, as he's expressed an opinion. Thanks for the post, I appreciate the nudge towards better wikiquette. WLU (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

thank you very much. --Jeneme (talk) 17:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

About the notes

Thanks WLU. That's a good suggestion. Many times those references are there simply to satisfy some editor bugged about a word choice or phrasing, while the reference brings no real value to readers of the article. The references become cya 'audit notes' instead of resources to readers, so commenting them in some cases would do just as well without interfering so much with readability, as the [1][2][3][4] clutter does. Great idea! Professor marginalia (talk) 16:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

New Semester, New Appeal

This semester I am teaching academic writing to a group of teachers at my school. This course starts on Monday Jan 28. I would like to know if you are still interesting in "mentoring". You can see the syllabus at Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/ITESM_Campus_Toluca/SyllabusIf so, please leave a message on my talk page and update the mentor's page Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/ITESM_Campus_Toluca/Mentors, if . If not, please remove your name and information from that page. Thanks! Thelmadatter (talk) 20:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow!

Thanks WLU! Never thought I'd have one of these, but is like the cherry on top of a so-far perfect Friday. A far finer perk than even the free Starbucks that started lucky my day. My very humble thanks to you, WLU. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Free starbucks and this is the best part of your day? I think your standards are skewed :) WLU (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiley Protocol Revisions

I've modified your article in the WP (in discussion). Have a look when you can. Neil Raden (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Link? WLU (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wiley_Protocol#Rewrite_of_the_Article

Neil Raden (talk) 00:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look at your comments in the next couple days. WLU (talk) 02:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

As an unrelated compliment to WLU, I'd like to thank you for your diplomatic efforts on the Wiley Protocol. Your ability to be patient in stressful situations is an inspiration. EdJohnston (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't nominate him for sainthood yet, as he's lost his patience more then once, but I'll second that, he has been extremely helpful. Neil Raden (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You try editing with multiple COI editors, on the article that they are COI on, in a way that tries to please everyone, on a medical topic that has very few reliable sources, with editors who are not familiar with wikipedia's policy or culture. Then we can talk about my sainthood :P But I'll take the implied compliment Neil, and the explicit one, Ed. Much appreciated. I will venture Neil, that you've managed to stay away from that one fatal step that gets you booted off wikipedia, and your intentions appear good - the only reason why I still talk to you (and an implied compliment - most editors would have gotten the boot by now). Though my life would be much easier if you just took my words as gospel and did everything I told you, thank you very much. But then you wouldn't be you, you'd be me : )

Incidentally Ed, dig a bit deeper in my contributions and you might retract your compliment, I've got plenty of diffs that would make you bite your tongue : ) Mine's starting to develop a callus. The real compliment should go to SandyGeorgia, she's the one who inspired me to try to be a nicer editor. But thanks, I appreciate it! WLU (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

WPMED list of open tasks

You listed an article at the Wikipedia Medicine project's list of open tasks some months ago. It's not clear to me whether your concerns have been addressed. Would you please look at the article you listed, and if it has improved, remove it from the list of open tasks? If you still have concerns about the article, please let me know, and I'll see if together we can recruit some assistance with it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered nominating it as a potential group collaboration project? That might get a handful of editors involved, at least for a week or two. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:47, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into it when I've got a bit more time. Your follow-up is much appreciated! WLU (talk) 20:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Quotes

Thanks WLU. I'm going to add the write-up to my helpful links list. In this particular case, there were two paragraphs just "copied" because they weren't identified as quotations (no quotation marks or quote template}. Maybe that important distinction wasn't clear to the editor that reverted me. In any event, I've rewritten the paras to summarize rather than parrot. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I think WP:SS might be of use to you, but I'm not sure. Despite the name of the page, I've never found it spectacularly useful. Still, might be worth a look. That does indeed sound like a WP:COPYVIO but I'm far from an expert. WLU (talk) 02:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:EL Fruit

The Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition is a standard source for many articles in wikipedia. It is public domain. The fruit entry contains much information not in the wiki article and is thus of use to many readers as well as being a good cross-reference for what is there already. In these cases the question I ask myself is: does it help the reader if it is there. I put it there because I felt the lack. I would restore the link. Jagdfeld (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Partial list of stubs/short articles created or rewritten by Adv A students

I know there are a lot here but many are very short stubs. If there are a lot of grammar mistakes, just tag it with a clean up tag. I did not require that they wikify the articles due to time. Final versions for grading purposes are due Tue Feb 5 so any help you can give would be appreciated.

Santa Clara del Cobre, San Felipe del Progreso, Villa de allende, Ixtapan del Oro, Zumpahuacán, San Juan del Río, Nautla, Santo_tomas_de_los_platanos, Tejupilco, Saint Vincent (island), Jilotepec, Tlacotepec, Palizada, Santa Gertrudis (This student wrote about the town in Oaxaca State but it redirects to Misión Santa Gertrudis in Baja California. The student´s stub is under the information about the mission), Álvaro Obregón (municipality), Zentla, Bernal, Querétaro, Temoaya, Acambay, Xpu Há, Chapa de Mota, Pasorapa, Huasca_de_Ocampo, Malinalco, Mexico State, Almoloya de Júarez, Polotitlan, Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexicaltzingo, Lagunillas, Michoacán, [Ixcateopan]], Benito Júarez, Quintana Roo, Jocotitlan, Ixtlahuaca, Temascaltepec, Teapa, Tabasco, Huandacareo, Zualcapan, México, Capulhuac, Xalatlaco, Boca del Cielo

Thelmadatter (talk) 00:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

SPA question

Hey, check out external links and references atBusiness_Agility. Does that mean I'm not SPA? Neil Raden (talk) 23:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really, I don't remember seing you actually edit the page, and adding reference to your own work is tenuous. Those pages are really terrible by the way, BA and the other one I've been editing. Being a SPA is something you can change by editing a variety of pages, or you could just make peace with it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does reduce your credibility with many editors. The larger problem is the way you seem to polarize others. It's hard to understand, but reacting to incivility with even greater civility, is actually much better for you and any page you are working on. WLU (talk) 14:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't actually a serious question and no, I didn't edit that page or add references to my work. Neil Raden (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering if you were kidding, it's always hard to tell via text (unless you want to abuse the close bracket in the most hideously gauche way : ) I noticed you did appear in the references - if you know anything about the topic, both pages could use some work. The contributors to them, Pai and Debevoise, are grossly spamming their work, and there are hideous problems with the text. I'm not familiar with business jargon and the thought of becoming so is quite aversive to me...

And congratulations on your publication, it's something I always wished I had been able to do. Possibly why I spend so much time here. WLU (talk) 15:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'll look into it. Someone alerted me to this using Google search of Wikipedia. Neil Raden (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For your name? Who can't resist googling themselves, friends and families : ) Incidentally, editing these pages might help you understand some of the reactions you get from other editors regards Wiley. It takes being on both sides of a dispute to understand why long-term editors react the way they do. WLU (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you gutted the whole article, there's nothing left. Neil Raden (talk) 20:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a history feature if you want to go looking for my old stuff. Also note the merge tag at the top - it's incredibly close to agile enterprise, but it's a coin toss to see if one is better than the other. I'm actually inclined to merge AE into BA, because I think BA is the more comprehensive term and I think there's a policy that says use adjectives rather than nouns. Or something. I always get my parts of speech mixed up. My wikisense (similar to a spider sense, but more vague) says BA is the better choice. If you think/know they're the same thing, move one over to the other. I'm here to help if you need. WLU (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree on Business Agility. AE is more like a marketing slogan. Yeah, Googled the name to see if you-know-who was slamming me anywhere else. On another subject, isn't time to delete Claudia Imhoff? She may be notable in our little patch, but I don't think that qualifies. Her former co-author, Bill Inmon, is much more widely known. In fact, I would say that the only people in our little capsule who have broken through to wider notability are Inmon, Ralph Kimball and Michael Saylor (more notorious than notable), all of whom have articles. Neil Raden (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

<undent>I moved your reply. If you think the BA page is a better one than AE, feel free to merge them and put in a redirect (easiest way - two windows open, BA and AE. Cut and paste the text from AE to BA. On the AE page, write Business agility, highlight, and hit the #REDIRECT[[ ]] button below the edit summary box and it'll create the redirect. Save and try to integrate and re-write the text from AE in the BA page). If people contest or object (which I doubt, I'm guessing the pages don't get much traffic), discuss until everyone agrees where the best place is.

Regards CI, you can speedy, WP:PROD or WP:AFD it. I'd suggest a WP:PROD as the easiest option. The other thing you could do is possibly merge or redirect to the concept she is most associated with. WLU (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

More stubs!!! (the last major batch, I promise!)

Malinalco, Valle, Tlalpujahua, Xonotla, Otumba, Aculco de Espinoza, Lerma, Tonatico, Luvianos, Tarimoro, Guanajuato, Tambopata - Candamo, Donato Guerra, Angangeo, Huixquilucan, Tlatlaya, Jiquipilco, Juchitepec

Again thanks! The students are taking your tagging their articles to heart. Thelmadatter (talk) 20:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Four more stubs

Otzoloapan, San Jose Villa de Allende, Temascalcingo, El Oro Thelmadatter (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for that lovely barnstar. One more for my trophy box. I'm sure I'll be able to award you one when you least expect it :-)! JFW | T@lk 06:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The best award you could ever give me is to keep answering the questions I pester you with : ) WLU (talk) 14:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

A belated thank you for the minor barnstar you gave me on Jan 22. Thanks! You know, I had been away for a couple of months and found that doing minor edits was relaxing. I didn't expect anyone to pick up on that, so I am surprised and delighted! Herostratus (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Your delight delights me : ) Minor edits are a wonderful thing! WLU (talk) 14:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Environmental Working Group

I don't think it's fair that you just remove them. It's from a reputable source that has no reason to disseminate misinformation. Here is the source, the list is midway down:

http://www.foodnews.org/

I think it's entirely relevant that people should know what foods contain the most pesticides. I just don't know how to reference things with footnotes. Or perhaps you could do that external link thing which I don't know how to do either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.233.138 (talk) 04:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

A raw comment like that, particularly supported by just a table, isn't considered useful, though a section discussing the use of pesticides could be informative. Please note, however, what wikipedia is not - 'useful' being one of them. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and should be informative, not 'useful'. If the EWG has done research and published this research in a peer-reviewed journal or other medium, and an analysis has occurred, then this could be useful for the pages in question. WLU (talk) 13:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipdia is full of garbage like this: "Tastes in apples vary from one person to another and change continually over time."

What does that even mean? I'm going to put it back in with a link to the site. Information is supposed to be useful, otherwise it would be pointless. This is informative, and a lot more than many other things on Wikipedia. Easy, Nazi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jsmaine22 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you just lost the argument! WLU (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		For an apt application of Godwin's law, and a generally well-balanced Wiki-tude. Cheeser1 (talk) 18:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I never thought I'd get to use that wikilink. WLU (talk) 18:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

List of satanic ritual abuse allegations

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article List of satanic ritual abuse allegations, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of List of satanic ritual abuse allegations. Orange Mike | Talk 17:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See the talk page please! WLU (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Thanx; I didn't notice! --Orange Mike | Talk 21:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC) (on vandal patrol today)

No problem. Is a 4im appropriate assuming that were the only vandalism? I figure violating WP:VAND and WP:NPA was worth an instablock. WLU (talk) 21:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure; WP:AGF and all that. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or I need to re-state the question : ) WLU (talk) 22:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Urine

Hi WLU,

I don't think all the slang terms for urine need be included in the lead if it is believed that there are too many. I do believe, however, that all the slang terms should be listed somewhere in the article. If there are too many terms for urine to include them all in the lead, perhaps a new "slang terms" or "alternate terminology" section could be created.

Neelix (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi WLU,

I have moved this discussion to Talk:Urine as you have suggested.

Neelix (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

kitchen knife

Left you a comment there about your edits. --Mistsrider (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the barnstar. --BorgQueen (talk) 02:43, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for defending the wiki : ) WLU (talk) 02:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll Make It Easy For You

I rewrote most of the Wiley Protocol article in the discussion page. Why not just take a sentenc or two at a time and we'll discuss? Neil Raden (talk) 15:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me finish up what I'm doing on satanic ritual abuse and then I'll have a gander. WLU (talk) 15:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's at Talk:Wiley_Protocol#Rewrite_of_the_Article Neil Raden (talk) 03:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Neil, if you want to rewrite an article, one thing you can do to help is copy it all into a sandbox in your userspace (removing any categories and non-free images). What you have presented there is very difficult to read or compare to the current article because it lacks paragraph breaks, proper formatting, wikilinks, references, etc. --Cheeser1 (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That's such a good idea, I had a go at doing so myself. I pasted the current version, and I'm trying at working on the new version, to hopefully allow an easier compare with the diff feature. It's at User:Nraden/WP re-write. It can be accessed as well from User:Nraden. I am having a difficult time because you copied and pasted directly from the oringinal wikipage rather than the edit pane, which messes with the formatting and other stuff. I would suggest working directly on the sub-page in the future as it is much easier than trying to figure out what's happening on the talk page, and it allows the use of direct mark-up. WLU (talk) 14:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I made some small chages to the rewrite page, and made some comments in the discussion section, but I wonder if that shouldn't be relocated to a discussion page. Neil Raden (talk) 06:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

And I just noticed that the Suzanee Somers spokesperson is still in the T.S. Wiley article. Neil Raden (talk) 06:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

If you just haven't gotten to it yet, that's fine, I just wanted to make sure you knew I made some changes. Neil Raden (talk) 15:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably not going to get to it today, perhaps this week. WLU (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: 'warning'

Hello, i do have a question, you have removed the links without engaging in the discussion and then told me that i need to engage in discussion before readding them????????? How can i do that, when there are no explanations provided by you? 77.236.236.6 (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

Sorry to bother you, but a while ago you said for me to archive my talk page rather than delete it. I agree that this would be the most sensible option, but can't seem to get the automated bot thingy to work properly. You couldn't help, could you? Sorry for bothering you. --J.StuartClarke (talk) 16:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I just unleashed a bot upon my talk page a week ago, and am awaiting the awesomeness that I anticipate, quite eagerly. Unfortunately, I think I've a couple more days to go. One thing you could try is checking the page of someone with a working bot, and just copy/paste/adjust from there. Or there's always manual. Less sexy, but more reliable. That's about all I can suggest, sorry! Not a bot expert. WLU (talk) 16:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

One thing you didn't do was adjust the template to reflect your talk page (done). I still have no idea if it will work as desired. Otherwise, trying reading this, may have some FAQs. WLU (talk) 16:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It finally worked...! Thanks for the help... --J.StuartClarke (talk) 13:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I know, but I'm only fiddling with it atm anyway... I'll work a proper method out later... --J.StuartClarke (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

removal

I removed it because you are not an admin, and your adjudicative airs will not be tolerated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.188.2.101 (talk • contribs)

Anyone can add a warning, and it is appropriate as you are removing text without discussion despite multiple reverts. As I said, you are free to remove it, you're just wasting your time. WLU (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Fergking's talk page

If he does it again, yes. Daniel Case (talk) 15:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Barefoot sockpuppet?

Thanks very much for all the links, I am really finding it helpful. I haven't dealt very much with sockpuppets so was proceeding very, very slowly -- wanting to be very sure of my ground. But all those links are showing me exactly what to do and how to do it. You can bet if I see any more users doing edits about barefootedness, I'll be tagging them as you suggest. If there's anything I can do to be of assistance in getting rid of this abuse, please just let me know; I might not think of it myself, but I'm happy to help. (BTW, a little weird to think of a sockpuppet concerned with barefootedness...) Accounting4Taste:talk 15:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish I had some better advice to give, but I've never done a sock check. I maintain a list of pages that I watch solely for the addition of the barefoot links, I wonder if he's tripped over any of them. He inspired me to write an essay you know, WP:SANDWICH. And the irony of the situation has been pointed out - I believe ArielGold (who should also be familiar with Creepy, she's posted a lot on FQ's talk page) said, why does someone so obsessed with bare feet need so many socks? Wikijokes are hilarious. WLU (talk) 16:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Great essay -- speaking as a mildly paraphiliac individual myself, thanks for understanding!! I just noticed that User:72.51.199.6 has added the "fictional characters who go barefoot" content to the Barefoot article. Should this be reverted? (See the comment on my talk page about getting this content in "one way or the other" -- this might be "the other".) I think it's just as useless as people have suggested in the AfD for the list, but I'll be guided by your experience in this matter. Accounting4Taste:talk 16:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

As long as your paraphilia stays in your pants (or diaper) and not on my encyclopedia, we'll get along fine. I particularly like my description of human sexuality as "heroic".

I believe all the contributions of anon and socky the barefoot sock have been deleted from barefoot. FQ said once that even valid edits can be reverted so as to not feed the vandal. Really, how much does something like alphabetizing the categories help wikipedia? I can't see the discussion you're referring to - which talk page? And aren't you an admin? Shouldn't I be bowing to your experience?

If you're interested in another essay, I'm still looking for feedback on this one. I've presented it to Jimbo himself, but it was ignored  :( WLU (talk) 16:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. This is a quote from my talk page from a day or so ago: "Look, it is unfair that you have delete my page because you don't know jack. I am going to make my list of fictional barefoot characters one way or the other." (Strangely, the comment was unsigned and that helpful bot hasn't been by to sign it yet, unique in my experience, but the edit history of the page shows its origin.) Yes, I am an admin -- but (a) you've been on Wikipedia six months longer than I have, (b) you have a lot more experience with sockpuppets in general and this one specifically than I do, (c) you almost certainly have a relevant opinion to which I should listen. I like learning about things from people who know about them!! (If you're interested in becoming an admin, let me know.) I'm just starting work for the day but I'm going to check out the other essay -- I enjoyed the first, so this will be a pleasure. Accounting4Taste:talk 17:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Well who am I to argue with someone who's opinion of me is so high? I've signed the section for you, I'm also unsure why sinebot hasn't pasted your page and his with it's cranky message. I don't have that much experience with socks, I usually report them to a friendly admin I know and let them deal with it (another reason why FQ and Isotope23's absences are so strongly missed, at least by me). If it's the same sock as Creepy, they've developed a new fetish/pattern as usually it's just adding barefoot to random pages. But if all the suspected Creepy socks are actually Creepy, there's been substantial change in editing patterns over the years (or our accusations are incorrect). Either way, them getting blocked = good thing, no matter who they are.

6 months isn't that long, and it wasn't a period of time worth bragging about. There's far more to learn from my mistakes than my opinions.

Also, thanks for the admin-vote, but I actually prefer not being one. I am certain that not only does power corrupt, but that it would completely destroy me. I'd end up cackling and talking to myself - think Gollum but with more hair. And shorter. And wearing pants. And I'm not much one for sushi. Oh, and I'm currently not evil. If you really want to learn from someone, User:SandyGeorgia is my usual reference point and my inspiration for avoiding adminship - she also does not wish to be an admin (though I think her reasoning is it would take time away from editing). WLU (talk) 17:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

<belly laugh> Okay, I won't try to lead you to the Mount Mordor of administrative duty if you won't bite my finger off. My own inspiration is User:Pedro, from whom I learned how, when and why to not be a deletionist. Most of my current administrative work consists of deleting pages that say "Devon X from Winnetka totally rox!!" or "Devon X is a poo-hed", but thanks to Pedro I try to save the ones that are worth saving, while not biting their authors. I'm looking for someone to bring to administrator-ship as a way of saying thanks to him for his efforts on my behalf. Accounting4Taste:talk 17:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Never met Pedro, have you heard of User:TimVickers? Love working with him. Come to think of it, I owe him a barnstar... WLU (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

A wonderful surprise, thank you so much! Tim Vickers (talk) 19:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

For the barnstar or the praise? Doesn't matter, you deserve both! WLU (talk) 20:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Why I sometimes feed a troll

Quite simply I'm an argumentative SOB, so sometimes I feel like an argument -- and nobody tends to worry if I hurt a troll's feelings in the process. As an additional benefit, I can also reread the argument later, when I've cooled down, to see if I can glean anything about their thought processes and argumentation techniques (such as they are). :) Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Argumentative SOB? I would have never guessed :P You don't get bored repeating the same arguments again and again? I just see it as increasing the amount of time the troll wastes and there are better things we could be doing, but that's my opinion. I'm always pleased to see you wade into a discussion because your grasp of the relvant information, policies and background are much stronger than mine. Our latest anon is either going to leave the project, learn the policies, or get blocked, and probably with minimal help. We've given them the rope, they're either going to hang themselves or drop it.

You should write a template with standard "you can't do that because of WP:..." - save you time : ) WLU (talk) 17:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I frequently get bored -- which is why I only infrequently troll-feed & often cut the troll off mid-feeding. But you must remember that the views of these trolls, their logical dysfunctionality & their credulity to their authority figures is precisely what Creationism is about. So, if you treat them as lab-rats instead of colleagues, they occasionally impart useful insights. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You're an interesting and complicated fellow Hraf. And your user name gives me a headache when I try to find you via the search box. But you know your stuff and you've got the best signature-joke EVAR. Anyway, I leave Mr. Anon in your capable hands. I hope s/he doesn't leave bits in your teeth : ) WLU (talk) 18:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Reflexology edit thing

Re: my talk page - didn't realise about the archiving, didn't think the stuff that used to be on the page was important! Thanks, noted.

The part where it was decided that reflexology wasn't a pseudoscience is here, as a result the whole "Reflexology as a pseudoscience" section was turned into a tiny paragraph at the end of the Criticism section and no one objected. I think it was mostly because reflexology never claimed to be scientific, or to use the scientific method. But if you feel that's not appropriate, I'm sure no one would take offense if you put it back in the Pseudoscience category.

Hope that helps. :) Lottie (talk) 17:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Re Good work gets noticed: Thanks! :) Lottie (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the citation advice - there's so many "help" pages at this place, I find it really hard to get to the specific pages I need. Someone telling me what's helpful to me right now is exactly what I need! Much appreciated. :) Lottie (talk) 17:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to your essay, I'll read through it, it's good stuff to make me feel better about being a newbie, I think. :) Lottie (talk) 13:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

If you think there are parts that are not helpful, or you have other feedback or questions, please let me know. I'd like to make the essay as useful as possible and I can only do so if I get information from others. I've received very little feedback from new users, so if you have anything you think would help me, I am most interested in hearing it. WLU (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give some feedback ASAP. :) Lottie (talk) 17:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

ASAP isn't necessary, but some would be nice. At your leisure. WLU (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Cannibalism

Thanks...one day I will finish the Siege article and it will be properly sourced. The problem is that Maalouf is a lousy reference, but I guess it's better than nothing. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I know there are some journal articles dealing with the incident specifically, I just need to track them down. I'll add it to the list of things I don't have time for! Adam Bishop (talk) 04:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Crohn's disease

Hi, thanks for stopping by my talk page. I am learning to edit and trying hard to make the Crohn's article usable for the average person who does not know what Crohn's is and I admit I have an obvious POV about this subject. That is why I asked my mentor, Delldot to look at what I had edited and to give me his opinions since this is really the first article I have actually started to spend time editing on. I have mostly stayed on talk pages not being bold enough to try and actually edit an article. I have put in a paragraph into the treatment section, last paragraph, that I hope is proper and now is NPOV. On my talk page you said that you commented about my edits on pregnancy but I can't seem to locate any comments other than your edit and stating policies I violated with my other attempt. Is this what you were saying by you commented about the same things that Delldot did? Here is the edit I just did [16]

Also on the archiving, it started working today! Thanks for thinking of me. --CrohnieGal^Talk 23:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to pointing out your message, I totally missed it and it had a lot of information in it that I was not aware of. I appreciate your help and the extra eyes on my work, keep it up and keep me honest! Thanks again,--CrohnieGal^Talk 12:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I got involved in other things today like clearing out my sandbox. I will try to get to the article to reread it though. I have noticed all the changes and hard work you diligently did to the article with some help of others. Good work with all the hard work you did. (I did take the time to sort of scan the article changes!) But I need to now go back to the beginning and reread the article so that I am back up to pace with it, I usually have to reread it a couple of times to get through it and keep the information. I want to thank you though for all your hard work and especially your patience with me. I am not considered a new editor; I've been on Wiki now for a little over a year, but I continue to consider myself a new editor do to being a slow editor in learning and comprehending, long story! :) I want you to know that in the last few days though I have learned a lot from you from your posts to me and watching you work the article like you have been doing. I am not that bold yet. One thing, you asked in another thread about ideas for your essay. Well, I only have one minor one and that is to change the information about Wernabot to archive, it's no longer active. Have a glorious day, --CrohnieGal^Talk 17:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Not so hard, a lot of it is just adding citation templates. Natalizumab was harder. And still terrible. I consider anyone with less than 5K of edits to be new, but I might be biased 'cause I'm a bit obsessive. If you would like any help, I am more than happy to try. Also note WP:ADOPT.

Thanks for the bot suggestion, I use Misza, so I might as well use that one in my essay as that's what people will ask me about if they are curious. Anyway, I still recommend a good beginning to end cleanout of the article, trimming the unrelialbe sources and whatnot. There's so much pubmed stuff available that the webpages can probably be removed completely. Irrespective, were I to have unlimited time and be interested, I'd add {{cite web}}s to all the external links. WLU (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Natalizumab

I had a go, but it still isn't very good I'm afraid. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Links to FantasyLiterature.net

You have deleted links to FantasyLiterature.net, saying they don't fit Wikipedia's guidelines. However, number 4 of the guidelines states that links SHOULD be included to:

"4. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews."

FantasyLiterature.net contains reviews and interviews and therefore, according to Wikipedia guidelines, should be included. I own the website and will ask our readers not to add links to author articles that we do not have reviews or interviews for.

Thank you. Kahooper (talk) 19:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)kahooper

Help me

Hello,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I have tried to read as much as possible to understand all of the rules and how to work Wikipedia, but am finding it still hard to navigate.

Here are some current questions related to the ABA page that I am hoping you will be able to help me with:

1) How do I cite an existing reference in the reference section?

2) How to I edit the reference section (it comes up reference list 2- and nothing else)? I noticed that many of the references are not written in proper APA format, and I would like to change them.

3) How do I add my own references to this reference page 2? I press the 'edit this page' button and am unable to access the reference list.

Thank you in advance for all your help. I really appreciate it!

--Svernon (talk) 02:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

1. The original reference should be enclosed within the following tags, beginning with < and >: <ref>reference</ref>. It is these tags which convert a reference into an inline citation with the blue, superscript number and the actual reference at the bottom. Normally what is enclosed between these tags appears at the bottom. The use of a citation template generates a standard tag as long as you have filled out the necessary fields. You can see <ref>reference</ref> here because I've used a formatting trick to display it. References are re-used by modifying the initial ref tag - <ref> becomes <ref name = NAME> where NAME can be any characters. In the initial use of the citation, use the ref name tag and fill out the rest of the citation as normal (i.e. name, publication, year, publisher, page, etc). Chose a NAME that is easy to remember and re-use, and note that this is case sensitive. Any time you wish to cite the initial publication, type in <ref name = NAME/> (again, replacing NAME with the meaningful, easy to remember name you initially chose, and remember that it is case-sensitive). The important thing is that the tag ends with a frontslash (/; could be a backslash) which is not in the original ref name. This closes the tag - without it, the page considers the tag to enclose everything from <ref name = until the next time it hits a /> or </ref>. In the references section, the citation now appears with a little up arrow ^ and a letter following; each letter, if clicked on, will bring you to that use of the citation.
2. You can't edit the references section, the {{reflist}} template generates those references using the tags discussed in 1) that are embedded in the body text. In order to edit the references, you must click on the little blue ^ or ^a accompanying the individual references, and edit the reference embedded in the individual sections. It's clunky, but it works. Note that there are a variety of tools that allow you to generate reference more quickly than typing them out manually. These include:
   1. Citation templates - citation templates can be filled out in any order and generate the same format and order - author, title, publisher, volume, issue, pages. Very handy and makes everything both uniform and neat.
   2. pubmed/isbn template generator, incredibly useful, uses the pubmed number from [www.pubmed.org pubmed indexed journals] or isbn to automatically generate a citation template for you
   3. Google scholar autocitation, a google-style search engine and reference generator. Useful when the article doesn't have a pubmed number (old, social sciences or humanities, a lot of the ABA journals are found here).
3. As with 2, the only way to add references is to edit the page and include references in the page itself, accompanying specific blocks of text and surrounded with <ref></ref> tags. You can add a genereal references section, in which you simply write out a paper or book without attaching it to text, but it is much less useful to readers and other editors and footnotes are the preferred way to go.

I think that's it, let me know if you have further questions. WLU (talk) 15:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks- this is extremely helpful information. I will be passing it along to my colleagues who are also trying to figure out how to reference in their articles. --Svernon (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again

Another gemstone for my talk page! I'm honored. Humble thanks, WLU. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Ritualized child abuse

I've posted these concerns on Ritualized child abuse, but I thought I'd bring them up here.

The content of the article itself is quite bizarre, and seems to be a synthesis of Cesar's ideosyncratic historical and theoretical interests rather then the literature. Cesar's left some comments scattered around WP that indicate that the article is basically a POV fork from SRA, and he plans on shifting content from the SRA article into this new one, in order to strip the SRA article of substantiated cases of ritualistic abuse. See [here]:

Once Ritualized child abuse is created as a legitimate WP article, there would be no reason to impede us the moving of the legitimate cases of child ritual abuse to the moved article. We can even do it before the SRA page is unlocked. This strategy would comply with WP’s due weight policy by vindicating the majority view in history and sociology that the subjects are distinct (RCA is about actual forensic evidence, while SRA is about a 1980s and 90’s moral panic more analogous with witch-hunts than with ritual crime). —Cesar Tort 20:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

His non-AGF strategising aside, the new article is really strange, and relies on a psychanalytic approach to history that is limited to a very small number of theorists (namely, Miller and deMause) who I happen to like, but their influence doesn't extend past the 1980s.

I'm advocating that the material be returned to psychohistory, or the page be deleted. It's currently a vanity piece at best, and in breach of WP codes around synthesis at worst. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article is suspect, and have raised points on Talk:ritualized child abuse. For now I'm leaving it alone and waiting to see how it develops. I have interests aside from SRA and its' various sundry pages, and SRA takes a lot of time away from them. You'll have to follow the relevant policies to get your concerns addressed. WLU (talk) 00:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Understood - and sympathise re: the SRA octopus of articles. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

PeaceCorpsWiki

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article PeaceCorpsWiki, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of PeaceCorpsWiki. WLU (talk) 13:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello WLU, sorry to say, the only involvement I have had with this article was removing the copyright violation tag. In doing a quick search of the organization, it does seem to be involved with the Peace Corps. Personally, I would delete this piece and redirect to the Peace Corps article and place the web site as an external link. Hope this helps. Shoessss |  Chat  13:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply

I intended to revert your revert but thought about it and removed both paragraphs instead. By the way, this is not my original account (I changed my account to get away from a nasty debate) and I have a sizable (5000 or so) edit count myself, so there is not the need to educate me about Wikipedia policies (though I do need to decorate my words sometimes - I tend to provoke others without the intent to). Herunar (talk) 16:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd noticed : ) It's very easy to take offense on wiki. Have you cleared your previous account move with the admins lest ye run afoul of WP:SOCK#SCRUTINY? WLU (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Homo erectus

I agree the information about homo erectus being the first hominid to hunt, use complex tools and care after weaker companions should be kept but the part about homo erectus being stronger than modern humans should be removed and put somewhere else such as the discription section.--Fang 23 (talk) 15:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Done, actually! Still would like some input on proto-language. WLU (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it to say "Steven Mithen proposes that homo erectus like other lower and middle Paleolithic hominids may have used a primitive form of communication known as Pre-language that may have been the precursor to fully developed modern language." instead of "'they may have possessed pre language' or 'they definitely did not posses pre language'.--Fang 23 (talk) 16:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

He may have said it in The Singing Neanderthals: the Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body (2006) but I am not sure, also i chose to use the phrase pre-language instead because it is more specific than proto-language as proto-language can also mean a common ancestor of a family of related languages (i.e. Proto indo European) or the (hypothetical) earliest fully developed language of humankind.--Fang 23 (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

SRA again

I guess that in the sentence of your reply to AT—:

• "What he says is [not] widely accepted, it should be easy to find other, more reliable sources. If he's [Nobitt] a lone voice in the wilderness..."

—there is missing a word, "not"?

Cesar Tort 15:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, missing the word 'if' - thanks for pointing it out, I've adjusted accordingly. How's the rest of the statement? I often cobble together my thoughts, leading to grammatical and spelling mistakes. WLU (talk) 15:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Your comment on my talk page

I agree with you a 100%; I just wasn't bold enough to remove it so I copped out with the citation needed. Thanks for reverting it, I guess I need to stop questioning myself about something like this and be bold enough to do the edit myself. I read it at least three times and didn't like it but like I said I second guessed myself and took the easiest way out. I'll try to get a little bolder in the future! :) --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a guideline - WP:BOLD. Read it! Live it! Love it! The standard is of necessity higher for medical articles. If it's not a pubmed-indexed journal or a statement from a major governing body (in which case there should be journal articles to back it up anyway) it can freely be removed. Read WP:PROVEIT - it supports your position in conjunction with WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. --WLU (talk) 20:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey I am working on being bold. I remember the other policies except I have to reread the WP:MEDRS again to get it in my head better. I also responded to you on my talk page! --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Please check out my response to you on my talk page. --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

ASOIAF images

The reason I removed that long series of images was because they didn't follow the style guide followed by other articles about book series. However yes an image can be used in the box, as long as it has a decent fair use rationale, but to bring the article up to related articles such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (as you can see from their boxes) a collage of the series covers could be used as well. –– Lid^(Talk) 01:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I never deleted the images, I just removed them from the article as they were excessive and didn't include rationales for their inclusion. In regards to your query yes, with a proper fair use rationale the collage could be easily used. –– Lid^(Talk) 11:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually there are three sets - the UK and Australian printings use covers in this design: [17] with the focal point of the covers (in this case the dragon) being embossed and glossy. As for including the different editions... it's a judgment call. You could make two (or three) different versions containing the covers and have a vote on it. –– Lid^(Talk) 12:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair Use is pretty difficult to understand considering the internets proliferation of all images on every website with no one ever really complaining unless the images constitute libel. WP:FU is a start, but to make it simpler pretty much everything that is copyrighted, and the copyright has not expired, constitutes fair use. Photographs for instance are copyright owned by the photographer and can not be reproduced without their permission, book covers on the other hand are copyright to the book publisher and can be used in articles when there can be no free alternative obtained (say, for example, an article about the book itself). –– Lid^(Talk) 12:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

No, for that constitutes a derivative work of the original copyrighted material which is subject to the copyrights of the original. The best way I can explain this is to think about it like someone video taping part of a film in a cinema with a video camera - they wouldn't now "own" the footage and be able to do with it as they wished, the film would still be copyright the film makers. The same appliesto photographs. –– Lid^(Talk) 12:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Additional: These covers - [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

They are not the Australian covers alone, they are the covers used in Australia and the United Kingdom. The US has two seperate sets of covers. –– Lid^(Talk) 12:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

unable to e-mail you

Hi ! I am unable to e-mail you because I don't have an e-mail address in wikipedia. Abuse truth (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered enabling one? WLU (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Anon post

Hi. Received the following message:

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Crohn's disease.

The only links I provided were to existing Wikipedia pages; specifically, the Low Dose Naltrexone page, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet page, and Elaine Gottschall. None are external links. The two modalities have direct relevance to Crohn's. The SCD works for me; I'm off all my meds after dx c Crohn's by biopsy on the SCD. Unfortunately, nobody's paid for a study so it's all drugs and surgery and misery for some. Leave it in, take it out- I don't care anymore. Such pedantics are why I gave up Wikipedia months ago. Don't even bother to leave comments; I won't read them as I won't be back anytime soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.131.108 (talk) 22:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

liar. Since you don't care I've taken them out. Personal experience is irrelevant for wikipedia pages, only peer-reviewed journals are suitable for that page. WLU (talk) 00:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)