User talk:Edhubbard

In the "Demonstrating the Reality of Synesthesia" section of the "Synesthesia" article, a cite is given to "Beeli et al., 2006".

Is that the following?

Beeli, Gian, Michaela Esslen, and Lutz Jäncke. 2005. "When coloured sounds taste sweet." Nature; vol. 434; 3 March: 38.

Or is there another, later Beeli et al. I have overlooked?

--Sean A. Day 21:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right, Sean. Thanks for the correction. Edhubbard 08:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Edward M. Hubbard

Hello! Edward M. Hubbard is not the appropriate spot to post information about yourself, because that's the encyclopedic part of the Wikipedia website. User:Edhubbard, however, is all yours to use more or less as you wish. Please see Wikipedia:Introduction and Wikipedia:User page for more information. -- Merope 13:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Synesthesia

I'm familiar with all three! I did a project two years ago that focused largely on a discourse between the two. I have most of what i need, thanks, i just need to get around to it. I have a lot of wikipedia projects that i've been sitting on but just haven't gotten around too. Thanks for reminding about the synesthesia page, and i'll check out your cleanups as soon as i finish writing this. Shaggorama 07:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I'm fairly familiar with your work as well! The papers you wrote with Ramachandran have been a pleasure and a great resource. I'm actually fairly honored to have been contacted by you, and i might get on those edits a little faster just on virtue of my gratitude for your research. Keep up the good work!

Thanks. I think that's one of the cool things about wikipedia; that people come here because they care about gaining and sharing knowledge. With the amount of stuff out there, we're all experts on something, and we can share and learn from each other. Edhubbard 11:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Pharrell Williams

Ed, the problem with Pharrell Williams is the question of whether his statement alone, in that one interview, should be deemed sufficient to declare that he has synesthesia. The thing is, we want solid material that we can refer people to. While this interview clip does exist, and stands better than a private interview or such, I don’t think that it, in itself, is sufficient. I mean, it sounds very good, and like Pharrell is very possibly a synesthete, or at least a fair bet. But I just feel we need something more solid. Granted that there are others who have been put on the list with just about as scant of information or support, but at least, with those, there are hard-copy references which have been considered by more than just a few experts and which others may be referred to for continued debate.

The problem, as you are aware, is that there are some people – or at least one or two solid fans – who keep wanting to see Pharrell’s name in the list.

Now, what I would like to do would be to interview Pharrell and, somehow, lead him to producing something more solid which could be referenced. However, as you might guess, getting hold of Pharrell Williams in nigh impossible. Still, I will pursue the matter a ways further and see what might be done.

Meanwhile, although I saw your initial response re Pharrell Williams before, I am curious as to what your stance might be now. Do you think the video clip previous provided via the link is sufficient to use as citable reference? I guess I just want something more; including something more solid straight from Pharrell Williams himself.

Incidentally, I'm quite okay with keeping Pharrell on the "being reviewed" list.

--Sean A. Day 18:49, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sean, I'm in 100% agreement with you. I think that you're exactly right, both that the quote is suggestive, and that it, in and of itself, it doesn't quite reach threshold. I agree that the ABC clip, by itself, is citable as definitive. If we have some other corroborating source (is there a Pharrell Williams fan page we can search through?) then the ABC quote is nice because it is publicly available.

So far, we have had just a couple of people (always IPs, instead of named users) and they seem to not persist when I revert. I think it's good that we have a documented conversation on this, so that people know that this is something we are working on, and that we have a procedure in place for looking into new additions. However, in the event that we get someeone that persists, we will want to be prepared to both argue for our procedure, and to say that we are doing everything we can to make some progress on this. It sounds like you are doing everything that any reasonable Pharrell Williams fan could ask.

On a related note, one thing that I was thinking about the other day, is, for new suggestions, what constitutes famous? For someone to be a "famous synesthete" we need to be able to agree that they are both famous and a synesthete. One suggestion that seems reasonable to me is that we consider anyone who has a wikipedia entry famous enough for our wikipedia list. What do you think? (ps: I'll copy this to your talk page, too) Edhubbard 20:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Re 'famous', I'll go with your premise here. My guess is that we are not too likely to too often run across someone whom we could otherwise substantiate as 'famous' who doesn't also have a Wiki article, or who doesn't deserve one to be slapped together on other, separate grounds. For example, I was considering adding Nicholas Saunderson (and still might, after a bit more work and consideration on the matter), a name that doesn't rapidly spring to the mind of most people nowadays as in any way recognizable; and yet, ... he was hugely famous in his time, holding what is now Stephen Hawking's chair, and does indeed have a good-sized Wikipedia article on him. Nevertheless, likewise, (quite to my surprise!) Wiki currently has no entry for John William 'Blind' Boone, a fairly influential American composer and musician (whose synesthesia is fairly well substantiated but, alas, again, useful references are lacking -- although I be working on it!), although one may find other web pages about him. So, ....

--Sean A. Day 20:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

hello, i've tried to find some written source for Pharrell, i'm pretty sure there isn't one; atleast not on the internet. googling "pharrell williams" synesthesia OR synaesthesia -"one half" -afi -playlist -records -Thrillseekers -Downstair [this excludes most hits eg, the thrillseekers had a record called synesthesia, there is a "synesthesia records" etc. "one half" eliminates the wikipedia copiers if u were wondering], leaves only 30-something.. and none of them seem to be relevant.

I also tried "Pharrell Williams" "weird colors" -"one half" to see if there was any transcript of the interview; but that only gave 4 results none of which were relevant.

So unless you have hope of actually reaching pharrell-- and i would imagine that a well written letter from the President of the American Synesthesia Association, ie sean, would provoke interest and a response, that is assuming it gets to him, and would no doubt take a long time if it did (incidentally if either of you happened to live in virginia beach i'd imagine it would be quite possible; u already have the address of his childhood home on the video)-- then a desicion on it has to be made? if u were to hypothetically get an interview with pharrell, whilst it might settle your own mind, it wouldn't provide a better citation.. i can see that 'youtube' is not a traditional source, and that in theory the source could be deleted at any time, and it appears to be the only source on the planet, and doesn't mention synaesthesia atall directly however.. also the fact that; it is on an internationally known and reasonably respected channel, broadcast to millions and presumably with records, it is clear it was not an error; as he confirms it, and it comes directly from him, and is clear and varifiable it is actually him.. and it seems like a fairly accurate (if not in depth) description of sound>color synesthesia. There could hypothetically have been loads of more citations to him having synaesthesia, without there being another independant source.. Bungalowbill 04:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Article does look better --- but

The article has potential but it needs work to tie things together into an overall point. Maybe as you continue to work on it, it will become clearer to you what you are trying to say.

However, APS is not the APA -- it's the group of experimental psychologists that split off and formed its own association in the 1980's or so because it felt APA was too focused on clinical psychology.

Also, you link to Psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience when none of those articles even mention mind wandering. Generalized linking like that in not appropriate in this situation. Likewise, your link is to a APS Symposium page that does not mention mind wandering.

The general issue is interesting, but mind wandering just is not a psychological term, not in DSM-IV etc. so I wish you would keep psychology out of it -- unless you make it clear that you are talking about Experimental Psychology which APS represents. I'm pretty vigilant on this issue of inappropriate references to psychology in Wikipedia articles.

Insomnia, attention-deficit etc. perhaps are more relevant and gets you into the medical, neurological and neuropsychological literature. Mattisse(talk) 22:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Mindwandering vs mind-wandering vs mind wandering

I apoligize to you about mindwandering indeed being on the APS page. My search had not incluced all three versions of the term you are using.

Since you are an experimental psychologist, take it that direction. I'm just super-sensitive after dealing with "Wizard(psychology)", right after "evolutionary psychoanalysis", on the afd list -- the most recent battles. Few people seem to understand the distinction between psychology as a scientific, clinical, and academic profession versus all this pop psychology stuff. It's one thing after another. Sorry if I was overly prickly.

Just make sure you have good sources per WP:V and there will be no problem. Mattisse(talk) 23:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Started discussion

Hi Ed. Just to say that I have started up some discussion on your Psychology Wiki page. I am away til the weekend now, but if you have a look at it and give me your views I can pick up with you when I get back.Lifeartist 11:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ramachandran help

Hi, thanks for the message! I'm impressed that you studied with Ramachandran, I've always respected his work. My background is in Physics, not Neurology, but I've got a personal facination with it, and feel bad that one of the most interesting neurologists in the world has but a mere stub bio. Oliver Sacks has an unfortunately short bio as well.

I'd love your help working on Ramachandran's article, as well as some of the sub articles. I'll write what I can, but I'd love your help keeping the science on track. I'm OK at separating reasonable information from blatant BS, but you need to keep an eye on my details. I'm also pretty good at diagrams and formatting for wiki-consistency, so I'll keep up with that.

You'd probably be much more qualified to work on the professional history of Ramachandran, but I'll help where I'm able. I think Synaesthesia is in pretty good shape, but phantom limb and mirror box need work. Right now it seems like no one ever had phantom pain until 1998. ;) I added a few paragraphs about historical treatments, but the article doesn't really give a sense of how significant the new thoughts about the neurological reasons for phantom limbs really are.

Anyway, look forward to working with you a bit! Phidauex 04:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Re the External Links section of synesthesia, I agree, its getting a little dense... I'd like to clean up the see also section as well. I'll try to go through and check out some of the links, to see what really needs to be there. The sectioning has prevented it from being a complete train wreck, but its still thicker than it needs to be.

I'll look over the other articles we've been working on as well. Usually I have to be away from an article for a day or two before I can do a good copyedit, to get a bit of distance. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend reading User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a, its a well written essay on copyediting that I've found to be very useful.

As a GA reviewer, I think synaesthesia is very close to GA status, and FA is not an impossibility. We can submit it for peer review, but peer review has been a little slow recently, so we may not get much response. There are a few things that I think need to be resolved before GA submission. The big one is the spelling thing... I still don't know what to think about that one, synesthesia seems more right to me, but on the other hand, the majority of the refs use synaesthesia... I'll go either way, but we need to make a choice soon. The see also and external links need pruning, but we are already on top of that. I think the lead could stand to be rewritten... It is good now, but still reads like a piecemeal assembly, which it is. The lead should be like a viable summary of the topic. It should be able to stand on its own as a 'mini article' that gives a concise summary of the most salient points of the topic. A good lead is a tricky thing to create, but it can really set the stage for a good article. A bad lead will quickly shoot down any FA attempt. Now that the article is more rich, it may be time to read over the article, and write from scratch a new lead that more effectively communicates the general points of the article. Phidauex 19:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Response about Neuro and Free will

There's so much mishmash still there (even after the radical surgert I perfromed on it this morning by just moving the theology section out), that I'm not exactly sure which part you are talking about. The section on Neuroscience and free will or the more general section on science and free will? I haven't looked it over carefully.

BTW, since you are at it, any references you can add for the science section (there are basically none at all) would be helpful. Thanks. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Free will and Tourette

Thanks for notification about the Tourette issue in the featured article review of the Free will article. I have added a suggestion in the talk page. I wonder if this makes it clearer? - fnielsen 22:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

-- I agree to the edit counter opt-in terms

Thanks

Hey, Just saw the star on Putnam! Congratulations! You deserve a lot of credit for everything you did to make that a Featured Article.

Thanks. Credit goes to other people as well, of course. Hopefully, it really does reflect the highest quality information and writing on Wiki, though I can still subtantial room for improvement on the first score. In any case, I think it's a pretty nice article and I put a lot of work and knowledge into it. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 06:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Psychology wiki

Hi. Just to let you know that I have continued our conversation on my talkpage. Sorry for the delay in replying but I have been thinking!!!Lifeartist 11:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirects aren't evil.

Please read Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken and stop changing [[synaesthesia]] to [[synesthesia|synaesthesia]]. I know you're trying to help, but please, do something productive instead. —Keenan Pepper 00:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! I wish somebody had pointed this guideline out to me about 120 edits ago! Let's start with Keenan's last comment, and work backwards from there...

First, "do something prodcutive instead". In fact, I have been doing something productive, and I find this comment insulting and ill-informed. Compare the synesthesia page now, with the one that I arrived to see just under a month ago [1]. A team of four of us have essentially rewritten an article that had three tags (expert, clean-up, unreferenced) into one that is getting to be GA quality. In addition to the work on the main synesthesia article, I have created several synesthesia related pages, including neural basis of synesthesia, lexical-gustatory synesthesia, ordinal linguistic personification, synesthesia in art and American Synesthesia Association, and contributed to grapheme-color synesthesia, famous synesthetes and cleaned-up an old number form entry. This useful work has begun to attract others, who, for example have created a category tag for our "impressive collection of articles" [2] and offered their unsolicited praise for the changes to the page [3].

In the course of all this work, we standardized our spelling on the modern American spelling, synesthesia [4]. In the end, this led us to decide to move the page from synaesthesia to synesthesia, which I did last night. Along with the move, I read the following instructions:

"Using the form below will rename a page, moving all of its history to the new name. The old title will become a redirect page to the new title. Links to the old page title will not be changed; be sure to check for double redirects (using "What links here") after the move. You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go.

— Move instructions, emphasis added

.

Believing it was my responsibility to make sure that links point where they were supposed to, I spent three hours that I would have loved to be using to do something else, changing all the links to the old synaesthesia page. In most cases, this meant simply changing the link, since many of the pages used modern American English for other distinguishing words (color instead of colour, specialized instead of specialised, etc.). In cases where the British English spelling seemed to be preferred, I used the [[synesthesia|synaesthesia]] code to avoid changing the preferred spelling in article space, while doing what I thought was my job, which was making sure that links continued to point where they were supposed to go. It's worth stressing here that this isn't willy-nilly "link cleanup" but rather something I felt obligated to do, as the mover of the page.

Now that I see that "redirects aren't bad" I guess I could have left it in the minority of cases where the British English spelling was preferred. However, in the large majority of cases (maybe 90-100 out of about 120), the American English spelling was preferred, and therefore my changes not only avoided the redirect, but made the spelling style consistent within the page. Edhubbard 07:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. Making spelling consistent within an article is a good thing to do, so it wasn't all a waste of time. Sorry for the confusion! BTW, you can link to a section of an article like this [[Article#Section]]. You don't need the whole URL. —Keenan Pepper 00:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

"Stub"

Hi, EDH. I'm not an admin, but I see clearly the case you are making, and think that any admin would also see it as vandalism, albeit cleverly disguised. In the past, I had a terrible time with vandals on Tourette's, and I can't remember which admin added the article to a vandal bot for me. At any rate, a vandal bot wouldn't pick up the addition of "stub" anyway, so having lots of eyes watching it with you may help (I'll add it to my watchlist, but if you ever need help, let me know). I suggest that you make a post to WP:ANI (or WP:AN3), asking for help from admins. Specifically, ask them if you can be exempted from 3RR in this case, as it is vandalism. And, ask if they can add it to any bot lists to prevent this from occurring. Let me know if that strikes out, or if I can be of any other help. I'm almost certain that User Talk:Commander Keane is the admin who helped me on TS, so that would be another thing to try. (In fact, now that I think of it, try asking him first: he was very helpful on the TS article). Sandy 19:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Had a closer look: yes, do contact User:Commander Keane, and do ask if he can get that article added to a vandal bot. It gets hit similar to the way TS gets hit. Also, whenever you revert one of them, be sure to add {{subst:test2}} ~~~~ warning template 2 to the user's talk page. Sandy 19:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

OK I have got someone on IRC to add the article Amputation to the vandalism bot watchlist - so more Recent changes patrollers are likely to spot the vandalism. A bot is not smart enough to revert this type of vandalism, but adding the article to the watchlist will alert Recent changes patrollers every time an anonymous user edits the article, and hopefully someone will spot vandalism and revert it.

If the problem persists you might consider requesting semi-protection of the article at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, which will stop anonymous users from editing the article. As you have done, placing a warning on the IP's talk page is the right thing to do. In the case of 137.73.22.142, an IP check shows that it belongs to a school or university, so the same student may not actually get the warning message and respond.

The 3RR does not apply to senseless vandalism like this (and applies to a 24 hour period anyhow). Hope that helps :-) --Commander Keane 00:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I noticed the vandal patrolling is working ! Sandy 19:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL - we were doing the same thing at the same time (vacation, internet cafes). The patrolling is working so well, I was considering removing the article from my watchlist. What do you think? By the way, there is another Philosophy FAR in need of input, votes, whatever: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Omnipotence paradox. Sandy 17:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: Cognition tag on synesthesia pages

Hmm... Thinking about it, it might make sense to make Category:Synesthesia a subcategory of Category:Cognition. Beno1000 00:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, how did you come to be interested in the synesthesia pages?

I'm studying A-Level psychology and I was doing a little bit of research about it on Wikipedia and I thought it might be useful to categorise it under cognition. Plus I have several psychiatric disorders (Asperger Syndrome, bipolar disorder and a mild form of epilepsy) so I'm interested in looking up different psychiatric conditions in general. Beno1000 00:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Good luck with your A-levels!

Thanks! Beno1000 00:39, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Peer review for synesthesia article?

How does one go about getting a peer review on an article. My main project, along with a few others has been to improve the synesthesia page to a reasonable status. I started working on it on July 25, and it was a mess; tagged with expert, clean-up and unreferenced tags. Now, I am starting to hope that it is a good summary style article, with shiny new Harvard reference-style references, and factually acrruate (compare here [[5]]). At this point, what I'd like is for someone who hasn't been too closely associated with our edits to come and give it a look over, and to highlight any particular weak spots, etc. In particular, the article is a little longer than I would like so any thoughts on trimming or farming out to our fork pages would be appreciated. Edhubbard 17:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Striking through comments below as completing; not trying to disagree Edhubbard 21:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I can give you a couple of leads:

• Have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, and post a request for help on their talk page. Ditto for Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Collaboration of the Week. Neurology isn't necessarily their forte, but some of them are willing to help out.
• In particular, also see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Medicine-related articles). I resisted the overly-disease-oriented format there at first, but once I used it for Tourette syndrome, I found it helpful, and that it helped me see what areas I hadn't covered well. In particular, notice there how they recommend my TS article in terms of how to handle "Notables" or "famous cases": your notable list isn't referenced, and you might have a look at how I did it. Your Table of Contents also might need to be tightened up.
• In terms of items a peer review would note:
  • You need far better inline citations. Have a look at Tourette syndrome and Cystic fibrosis (a recent medical FA). You mix referencing styles, with some Harvard style inlines, and other footnotes. You have only three notes, which aren't necessarily reliable sources. You need to incorporate one style for all of your inline citations. (Don't forget to employ PubMed links -- again, see TS and cystic fibrosis). Your inline cites would be better converted to the cite:php mechanism for footnotes (see TS). Even though Harvard style references are accepted, in practice, most medical articles on Wiki are moving towards the other format.
  • You don't follow WP:GTL - External links and further reading go last.
  • You have what is referred to as a "link farm" in External links; see WP:NOT and WP:EL, and also refer to the above article on writing medical articles. You might try to pare that down.
  • Your section headings don't conform to WP:MOS: have a look at the guidelines there. If the title of the article is repeated in the section headings, there's a problem in the section headings.
  • I didn't look at your article content, since I know nothing of your area, but I recommend you look at [[6]] and in particular, Tony's page at the bottom of that page.

So, in terms of how to proceed from here, I recommend that you read everything above and get all that preliminary work done, then ask for help from the medical projects, and then, last, list it at peer review (which isn't always very helpful) - WP:PR. Let me know if you need any further guidance: this is just a start. Sandy 18:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like more than one thing is going on in that debate. 1) A newcomer to the article has fixated on a minor point: maybe let it go for a while and come back to it. Don't let it sidetrack your other work; it's a big deal about a small point. 2) Do you want the second article to be a list or an article, which then employs summary style? A list is a list: I used an article, and then summarized important text back to the main article. Epilepsy uses a list (and a featured one): it gives you a sample of how that can be done. List of people with epilepsy. Yes, if you go with a list, it's harder to summarize it back to the main article, but I think the new poster is wrong to call it a POV fork. You can summarize the most important or best known cases back to the main article: that is not POV. For me to discuss the two most important and well-known TS people back to the main article is not POV - it's summary style. But, you can also solve the whole problem by handling it as epilepsy did: the list is only linked to the article in See also - no need to carry the info twice. Sandy 19:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks - I'll leave a note later today at that Project. The only means I have of knowing which projects to notify are those that are linking to the article. Thanks for the help ! Sandy 12:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I hope that's what is bothering him: I didn't realize he had been hit so hard by the GA notifications. They were only intended to let people know that articles should gradually be brought to standard. He added some not so good stuff to his user page :-( Sandy 17:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I thoroughly recognize and value his contributions, feel like I understand his neurochemistry very well, and besides that I've lived in Italy and have Italian relatives: but my patience ends when he refuses my help and friendship, and insults me as well. I've been patient and defended him to others for a very long time. Sandy 21:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm patient, but today my thick skin suit has been worn a little thin. Sandy 22:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is something more than a General Encylopedia

Ok, here's the deal. The fact is you will not find many of the articles that are on Wikipedia in a general encylopedia. There are innumerable specialist articles here. There's no other way to put it: Wikipedia is no longer a general encylopedia and should not be held to the same standards. I think it will be an inevitable progression in the procedures for evaluating articles that the specialist articles will no longer fall within in the scope of knowledge of the average reviewer. Eventually, there will have to be grading systems within the individual projects and this is what will determime wthere an article is excellent, good, moderate and so on. the same people who review film articles cannot review articles like anomalous monism.--Francesco Franco 14:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I assume you have my page on your watch list, now, too so I'll reply here.

I think you have a good point here... The English Wikipedia has definitely grown beyond its humble beginnings (I just had a look at that Italian FA). It's no longer an encyclopedia in the sense of Britannica (the cannon of knowledge, and nothing but the cannon) but rather, an attempt at creating an encyclopedia in the original sense; a compedium of the totality of human knowledge, which is a very worthy goal.

But, that's where things get complicated. At the borders of what we know, or think we know, there is still a lot of debate. Some of it is scientific, and should be reflected in the articles. Some of it, though, is POV, and should not be. The more I've been thinking about this, the more I've come to realize that the referencing thing isn't just due to the need for scientific rigor... If it were, many articles would be fine as they were. Rather, it's because we cannot assume any shared background, and that articles need to be made almost 100% watertight against *anyone* who might come along and argue about something... "prove to me that the Earth is round... show me a ciation" Or, for example, arguing with the people who really believe that the moon landings were a hoax, that Bush actually planned 9/11, or that there are aliens who can read our thoughts and who we need to protect against by wearing a tin-foil hat. "Show me a reference that says that aliens don't exist, and that they can't read my thoughts" (show me a reference proving the negative... great!). This is where wikipedia is frustrating. In some ways, it's just a bulletin board for the culture wars... but to counteract that, we now have overly restrictive referencing policies that we don't need within, for example, the philosophy or neuroscience communities, and the sometimes frustrating realization that you can't find a citation for something because it has been so taken for granted that no one has even bothered to write a peer-reviewed article on it.

As for reviewing, I think that it has been assumed that people that are interested in a topic are the ones that will review, and if someone who cares about film also cares about anomalous monism, then they will edit and comment on both, and there is no conflict there. The problem is when people who support ID feel like they can and should vote on the scientific accuracy of the age of the earth, or something like that. Where politics, social values and science clash the debate becomes far too heated, and in these cases, it although it seems like the fight for truth is eventually won by the side that can produce the best evidence, the battle is always accompanied by unnessecary causualties (editors leaving, etc). For some of these things, there has to be a better way than the current system of edit, revert, discuss... perhaps the system should become more one of discuss and edit for any article above a certain level of quality and length, no matter how contentious it might or might not be. I don't know. Edhubbard 16:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

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Crank

I see we have another crank with a masters in softward engineering (or something like that) who is possting BS all over the Free Will talk page. I was deeply offended by the comment on the bottom of that page and I am in a VERY, VEEEEEEEEEERY deep state of depression right now. I am strongly tempted to do one of two things 1) respond with a massive outbruft of raging hostility 2) abandond Wackipedia again and leave a note on my userpage with an image of my middle finger. --Francesco Franco 15:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I just saw that... Sorry to take so long to respond, but I had a research day that made me think about giving research the middle finger. From 8 am to 10 pm, nothing but frustrations, nothing works, we had four and five people working on it the whole day, still no good... I think it might be best to adopt a "don't feed the trolls" policy with him. If he restricts his crap to the talk page, I will gladly leave it be, and not respond. If he starts to screw with the page itself, then I will intervene. Of course, if you want to fight the troll, I got your back, man (also read your Dangerfield comment). In the meantime, just remember the trolls win if they drive off one of, if not the best, philosophy editor on wikipedia. Edhubbard 21:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

To illustrate just what a troll he is, look at his edit history [7]. He literally has more edits on the talk page for the Free will article than on anything else. Apparently he came to the free will article, shortly after he posted his particular view that "Compatibilism makes sense" on the Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism talk page [8]. Since then, he has contributed nothing to any other pages, and has simply argued in unreferenced, OR, POV fasion for his views... as I said, a troll. I won't feed him unless he starts to touch the article. Edhubbard 21:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've calmed down substantially at this point.

But I needed to vent the frustration somewhere. Thanks for understanding and responding. I will obviously try to stick to politeness and reasoning on the talk page of the article and I have deleted the angry outburst from my own talk page. --Francesco Franco 07:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Adding Free will to my watchlist: I'll periodically try to make sure damage isn't done, but I might not know the "good" stuff from the "bad". Sandy 21:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the topic well enough to provide perspective, but if unsourced OR is being inserted, I'll revert. I hope you all will keep track of the "last, best version" if it deteriorates. Sandy 21:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me know whenever you need help. Sandy 21:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Olaf Blanke Study

Dear Edhubbard, I was wondering if you have a link to the study by Olaf Blanke, I tried the link in our discussion but kept getting an error page, do you have an alternative or direct link? I would like to compare his findings and approach to those of Michael Persinger. I must say I did find the discussion interesting and thoughtful, which was a refreshing change to the usual ad hominum arguments and indignant dismissive attitude I usually encounter here. If you have any more information you can send me please do so, I like to be informed of both sides of the debate. Best wishes - Solar 17:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Solar, Sorry for the delay in responding. I was away at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Atlanta. Did you mean the link to his lab website? I double checked the link, and it seemed to work, but just in case, give it a try like this: http://lnco.epfl.ch/ If you still have troubles, let me know, and I'll try to figure out what's going on. Maybe his site was just down when you tried? I'll also post this to your talk page. Edhubbard 23:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I did manage to find it via a web search, as you say the server must have been down when I tried. Thanks again - Solar 23:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

In comparing Persinger and Blanke I wanted to find if there was any reference to Blanke's attitude towards objective factors in these experiences and interestingly I found that in a 2002 BBC radio debate Blanke stated that one of his patients was able to make accurate visual observations while in an OBE state. In fact he conceded the possibility of the objective out-of-body experience, stating many more studies should be carried out. Unfortunately he chose to bias his article in Nature and not mention this. This reveals that Blanke is in a similar position to Persinger, although Persinger has already worked with Ingo Swann and clearly supports psi as a reality. I thought this might be of interest to you, Best wishes - Solar 11:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have created a philosophy blog

I will post my "original research" and POV (OH MY GAAAAAWD!!) and my name is attached automagically to evetything I write. Nobody can edit it without my permission!! Ohhhh, I like this idea better than Wikipedia. In fact, I was thinking of creating a spin.-off project where I would post only articles I have written. It would be called Francescopedia. --Francesco Franco 12:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that sounds great! I'd be happy to read your philoblog. Wanna send me the link (off wiki)? Edhubbard 23:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Here it is. --Francesco Franco 07:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Neuroscience section

Thanks for your professional input on the neuroscience section, it looks much clearer. If you could add some explanation in layman’s terms of the general functions of the areas of the brain mentioned I think that would also be an improvement. I was not aware of the original data having not been published, it does seem odd, but it would make little difference to the psi debate as there are countless studies of psi ability which have been fully published, including studies of Ingo Swann. I think the psi issue is a side area for Persinger but one that his findings support. What are your thoughts on Blanke's belief that there should be more study of the psi area in a neuroscience context due to the objective experience of one of his patients? PS: Also thanks for the positive comment on the deletion page for Project Rational Skepticism. - Solar 20:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's something for you

This looks extremely interesting. But I am not competent to contribute. You might be interested.--Francesco Franco 16:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Freewill

Ed. Thanks v much for the sandbox etc.. I too will be rather busy for the next week or so, but I'll have a go. Thanks also for your comments re Laplace, you're right it's better to leave the might and put the issues in the LD. Though the more I think about it the more I think it's a red herring, a perfect example of a 19th C argument that was really killed in the 20th C. NBeale 23:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Dawkins

Hi Ed. The carefully crafted consenus we had on the definition of Delusion has been removed by two of the "defenders of the faith" who systematically remove things that may be seen as critical of the Great Man. I see from your comment on talk that you are working on it - thanks. Seems to me that the syndromes you mention do fit the DSM - "what everybody else believes" clearly means "everybody else who has an opinion on the matter" :-) NBeale 17:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)