User talk:Valjean

This page has been removed from search engines' indexes.

$\star$  Regarding posting (or reposting) of my personal info at Wikipedia  $\star$ $\star$  DON'T DO IT!! SEVERAL EDITORS HAVE BEEN INDEFINITELY BANNED FROM WIKIPEDIA FOR DOING SO.  $\star$ Lately I have become more sensitive to the posting of personal information about myself here at Wikipedia. I am the target of cyberstalking and hate mail from some pretty unbalanced people and regularly receive threats (including occasional death threats). While I don't normally have any reason to hide my true identity, any past revealings by myself on or off wiki should not be construed by others as license to do it here at Wikipedia, where only my "BullRangifer" tag should be used. My personal identity and activities off wiki should be kept separate from my username and activities on wiki. While such revealings here have often been done innocently, I still reserve the right to delete such personal information posted here at Wikipedia by others. My own and my family's security is at stake here, and I would appreciate support in this matter. Thanks. -- Brangifer

What's in a name?

Name change.

Alternative medicine critics

Please help develop this. Use the talk page.

Meaning of "pseudoscientific beliefs"

I invite editors to describe their POV on this topic.

Please do not mention the RfCs at all. Such comments will be removed. The NSF source itself can be used, but be careful.

Groundrules

• This isn't for an acrimonious debate, but for sharing, picking brains, questions, inquiries, etc., all in an atmosphere of open sharing without fear of being attacked. All opinions are of equal value. That doesn't mean they are equally "right", but have equal right to be expressed without fear of recrimination. If you feel someone is getting too sharp in their comments or replies, instead of replying in kind, ask them to reword their comment in a less controversial manner. Try to make others feel they can trust you and that their reply will be respected, even if you don't agree with it. Word any disagreement agreeably.

Just stick to what you think the phrase means, as well as what you think it doesn't mean. You don't have to give examples, but they are welcome. Citations, books, articles, and other sources are also welcome. They can be a resource we all can use in our editing work. I'm providing this thread in an attempt to enlarge my knowledge base and to better understand my fellow editors. I hope they will gain the same benefits from reading and participating here.

I suggest that each new entry start in its own subsection as a proposition, and comments related to that proposition can be indented under it. Any ideas for improvement are welcome. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Is my opinion invited or excluded here? I'm happy to provide one, but there's no need for another forum for us to fight it out if that's what it would come to. --Ludwigs2 03:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion is very welcome. I have tweaked my cautionary words above. I'm not interested in a heated debate. Questions designed to ferret out real meanings, clear up misunderstandings and such like are very welcome. This is a subject with many facets and each contributor here will likely bring interesting insights into some of the different ways this subject can be viewed. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

ok, I'll add it below. --Ludwigs2 04:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposition by BullRangifer

I believe that it refers to beliefs in falsifiable claims that:

1. because of a lack of critical thinking skills,
2. the use of logical fallacies,
3. failure to follow the scientific method,
4. failure to use due diligence by being insufficiently skeptical, IOW being gullible, and/or
5. ignorance of basic scientific facts,

make one vulnerable to accepting without question ideas that are unproven.

Detailed explanation

They must be falsifiable beliefs. By "falsifiable" I mean vulnerable to scientific examination. Making claims about falsifiable matters amounts to a de facto scientific claim, whether one intends to do so or not. Skeptics then have the right to demand proof for the claim and will usually reject the claim as unproven. Anyone making such claims is obligated to either back up the claim with acceptable scientific evidence, or stop making the claim that it is a proven fact. They can then continue to make the claim, with the disclaimer that it is a personal, unproven belief.

The crucial nature of falsifiability is borne out by this comment from Tony Sidaway:

• "You go on to say "Ghosts are by definition part of the spiritual world." If that were wholly true, then they would not be associated with real places, people wouldn't claim to have seen them and there wouldn't be a whole host of physical phenomena associated with ghosts. That purported collision between the real (or material) world and the imaginary (or spiritual, if you prefer) world is what makes ghosts pseudoscientific." [1]

If the claims are not falsifiable, they should be classified as religious or metaphysical beliefs which are not strictly pseudoscientific, but will be considered dubious by unbelievers. Normal religious and metaphysical beliefs don't qualify for inclusion in the List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, but some of their applications do. For example, the subsection about Religious and spiritual beliefs includes Scientology's Dianetics, and Fundamentalist Christianity's Flood geology, and should also include Christian Science. Other examples are faith healing, and the witchcraft power claimed by witches.

Some religions and health care professions postulate falsifiable beliefs which can be labelled as pseudoscientific. The NSF lists others which I also consider to be "pseudoscientific beliefs". I would also include Vitalism, chiropractic's Vertebral subluxation, Innate Intelligence and Applied kinesiology, as well as TCM's meridians and acupuncture points, etc.. They too are postulated to have scientific proof for their existence as biological facts, but are as yet unproven. Those making such claims are often labelled as quacks. Such claims make it legitimate to place them in the Category:Pseudoscience. There are many more. The List of topics characterized as pseudoscience includes some of them.

The ones holding such beliefs are not pseudoscientists unless they are actively making bold claims of a scientific nature based on misguided use of scientific methods. Without such bold claims they are merely holders of pseudoscientific beliefs.

Not all of the mentioned items can properly be called "pseudosciences", as they are not maintained by the continuous use of misguided scientific research. Their existence is predicated on them first being "pseudoscientific beliefs" which then motivate pseudoscientists to devote their energies to research designed to prove the beliefs to be true. This is the opposite of the scientific method, and individuals who do this are pseudoscientists. They are fooling themselves and others. An excellent example of a "scientific" journal devoted to such pseudoscientific research in this backwards manner, is the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research. Pseudoscientists of this nature follow the "method" described in this cartoon, which contrasts the scientific method and the creationist method:

• The Scientific Method: "Here are the facts. What conclusions can we draw from them?"

• The Creationist Method: "Here's the conclusion. What facts can we find to support it?"

A Doonesbury cartoon that pokes fun at Intelligent design is found here.

Others qualify because they make claims, which upon testing show none of the claimed results. They are pseudoscientific claims.

In short, there are (1) pseudoscientific beliefs, and there are (2) pseudosciences supported by (3) pseudoscientific claims. Those claims are then believed and are pseudoscientific beliefs. (Hmmm...not sure about that formulation...)

I am very willing to tweak this if I have worded things unclearly or incorrectly, since I have formulated this as I went along. I enjoy writing here because writing forces me to solidify(?) my thoughts and thus helps me to learn more. -- Brangifer (talk)

---

Responding to SlimVirgin's statement, I wrote the following, which supplements the above:

That's very interesting OR and personal opinion, none of which are becoming for an editor, or especially an admin, to use as substitutes for "verifiability, not "truth". Try some policy-based arguments, rather than assuming the supreme scientific organization in the USA made a mistake. That's a pretty bold assertion, and definitely OR. Also, when articles quote sources that are advocating a position, the article is not advocating, it's just following our sourcing policies. The quote must be attributed and framed properly, but this is perfectly proper. Since this is a subject governed by WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT, it is especially proper to give the mainstream POV prominence in the lead.

I really doubt that their use of the phrase "pseudoscientific beliefs" was a mistake they made every other year since 2000 (!), when "The National Science Board Members were closely involved in all phases of the preparation of this report." As Gwen Gale wisely put it (above), "Editors should keep in mind, reliable sources may not be true and often may be lacking, but en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability." That was immediately after stating that the "National Science Foundation is a reliable source." Now that's an opinion based on policy, and I can respect that.

Note that this discussion is totally muddled because the discussion focuses on the rigid, black/white definition of "pseudoscience" (which is a correct definition), but the NSF quote under discussion was about "pseudoscientific beliefs", which aren't exactly the same thing as "pseudo-science", even if related to it. Undocumented topics are "beliefs", and if they are held because of a lack of scientific insight or critical thinking, they are "pseudoscientific beliefs". (This is a relatively modern phenomenon, since "pseudoscience" couldn't really exist in the pre-scientific era.) Read the whole 2006 report where they discuss why people end up believing wierd things. That's why. A false belief cannot be a pseudo-science, but it can be a pseudoscientific belief. There's a difference, and the apparent lack of understanding of this difference is confusing this discussion.

The 2006 NSF report dealt with this commonly used expression ("pseudoscience" coupled with "belief" in various forms), using it numerous times. They understand the wider nuances of this subject, nuances which aren't covered in the rigid, black/white definition. It's a broad topic. My talk page has a discussion about this, and you're welcome to join in. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

---

From a discussion at WT:Categorization:

I think you're right to some degree. In the pre-scientific era, critical thinking hardly existed and wasn't expected in the general population, so belief was just belief. There were no recognized errors in judgment involved. It was purely simplistic thinking. The NSF statement is written in a modern context and is labelling modern beliefs in such things (listed in a modern Gallup Poll of paranormal beliefs) as "pseudoscientific beliefs". While this isn't directly applicable to this discussion of categorization, it does affect how this information and the NSF source can be used and dealt with in the Ghost article. As with all meta articles, it should cover the whole subject, and only if one portion is so large it overwhelms the article and causes undue weight problems, should that information be split off into a fork article. Until that happens (it's a small article at present), the article should cover the historical and social aspects, and note that in modern times the scientific community (which hardly existed previously) considers such beliefs (in modern times) as psi beliefs. That puts things in context, because people are living under a different paradigm in this age of enlightenment, and they are expected to benefit from and use critical thinking, and thinking that is informed by the advances in scientific knowledge and the widespread use of the scientific method by ordinary people, even if they don't realize it. Thus the article can deal with the subject as a non-pseudoscientific historical subject, and as a modern pseudoscientific subject. Times change, expectations change, and the article should discuss that fact. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of Brangifer's proposition

• BR - it's becoming more and more clear to me that our differences on this issue hinge on one single point. you want to say that everything which is not scientific is pseudoscientific by default; I want to say that everything which 'claims' to be scientific is either scientific or pseudoscientific, and everything else is just belief. your worldview is just too black and white for me - in my view there is a vast grey area in which science hasn't made any forays and belief doesn't pretend to be scientific, and I don't want to discredit everything in this grey area by saying that it fails scientific standards it is not trying to achieve. do you see my concern? --Ludwigs2 04:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for asking. I have understood this point since my youth in college and when auditing university courses. You have misunderstood me all along, or, to be more fair, it might be that until now (above) you haven't heard me state it, but I have done so before at Wikipedia. I too agree there is a huge grey area that can't properly be labelled as pseudoscientific. I believe that area has gotten much smaller, but it will always exist. Only areas that are falsifiable can be vulnerable to charges of being pseudoscientific, which leaves many religious and metaphysical beliefs "off the hook", so to speak. (There are probably a few instances where belief in a non-falsifiable idea can be labelled a pseudoscientific belief, as explained by Hans Adler, but let's not get into that right now.) Keep asking and I'll gladly try to explain. I may not be good at it, but I will try. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposition by Ludwigs2

I don't believe the phrase 'pseudoscientific beliefs' has any particular analytic meaning. I believe it was simply used as a 'term of convenience'.

Reading the chapter in full, it is clear to me that the author(s) are concerned primarily with the credulity of the lay public, and not particularly with pseudoscience itself. In the passages that use the phrase, the authors are trying to point out that the lay public is exposed to public presentations (television shows, movies, books, etc.) in which paranormal ideas are presented as scientifically reasonable - e.g. vampirism explained in a TV show as a biological process, a popular book which claims to lay out suppressed scientific evidence for UFOs, a movie in which a scientific experiment turns a doctor into raging green monster - but the lay public lacks the scientific acumen to distinguish viable science from fantasy science. The term 'pseudoscientific beliefs' is more a hand-waving attempt to capture this general idea of 'belief in science that never was', and is used primarily as a foil to critique the public's poor critical thinking skills. It doesn't seem to be intended as a formal concept, and certainly isn't developed as a formal concept; it's just a term put out there the way one might use a term like 'westerners': a vague, ill-defined, of-the-cuff reference term. --Ludwigs2 05:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of Ludwigs2's proposition

• I agree that it is used in that manner by many. That's very accurate, but I believe it includes more, per my proposition above. It's a very common term used in many venues, not always clearly defined, but still referring to something or other that is falsifiable but unproven. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• It's that 'more' where we start to disagree.. Let me clarify that disagreement into two distinct disagreements: (1) with respect to this document asserting more than what I said is (I think) out of line. Your 'more' is really well outside the context of this document and what this document is trying to do - I don't think we can reasonably take this document beyond its discussion of critical thinking to some more expansive meaning. This doesn't mean that the terminology isn't used the way you want to use it in other documents, of course, but (2) I am uncomfortable with the confusion that approach creates between untested, untestable, and invalidated constructs (which are very distinct categories in scientific thought). Let's look, for instance, at Traditional Chinese Medicine, which has a mix of all three. Some of the core assumptions of TCM (e.g. chi flow and energy meridians) are untestable under conventional scientific assumptions - the assumptions are just too wildly divergent for there to be any meaningful cross-investigation. Either you believe in them, or you don't, and either way science has nothing to contribute to the discussion. Some of the practices the TCM practitioners use are testable, but untested. Untested practices are treated scientifically as matters of belief; science has nothing to say about them until some scientist actually puts lab to rat and comes to some verifiable conclusion. Still other practices have been tested, and amongst those some are invalidated and some actually demonstrate positive effects. acupuncture has some documented clinical effectiveness; other TCM techniques fail to demonstrate any effect. Only the last one of these (practices that have been tested and failed) can really be called pseudoscientific, and that only when they continue to be promoted as scientific after science has refuted them. The problem I see with the way you use 'pseudoscientific beliefs' in your comments above is that it lumps all of these things together without distinction, treating them all as though they were invalidated practices. I don't believe that any scientist will say that an untested (possible untestable) belief is pseudoscientific, not in an analytical sense, because scientists are not generally given to staking their reputations on claims that they haven't tested. Occasionally you'll get someone like B.F. Skinner, who will step out of his role as a scientist and engage in philosophy (his radical behavioralism denied the existence of any internal mental life, but it was always an untestable philosophical stance, never an active research program), but it's fairly rare, and they are always careful to distinguish between 'what they think' and 'what they can show'. If we want to use this phrase, I think we need to be careful to restrict it to 'beliefs that are founded on pseudoscientific claims' and not let it stray over into beliefs that science hasn't, or can't, examine. --Ludwigs2 07:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• To some extent I disagree with you about untested beliefs. Consider a book which, based on relations between the proportions of Gizeh pyramids and similar measurements, comes to the conclusion that a huge turtle "consisting of anti-matter in a metastable quantum state" is hidden in the centre of our sun. By an immense research effort it would probably be possible to test this hypothesis. But it's uncontroversially obvious pseudoscience even without such a test.

The belief that God created the world in a week a few thousand years ago, and then planted fake evidence such as dinosaur skeletons for His infinite amusement, or equivalent ideas about the Spaghetti Monster and pirates are similarly untestworthy. Tested or not – to the extent that people try to justify these ideas with faulty science, it's pseudoscience.

There is even some pseudoscience that is (mostly) correct and true. E.g. This person was once an editor here and left a lot of links to his mathematical papers all over the wiki. When I cleaned up after him I actually read one of his papers. It consisted of an awfully long, horribly complicated proof of a fact that is so obvious that it is not normally mentioned in treatments of the subject, and which was known to the inventor of the subject himself, more than 50 years ago. The paper was incredibly hard to read because it used lots of silly definitions to make things more complicated. Instead of recalling them in the paper itself, as is usual, Herrmann referred to earlier papers – which referred to yet earlier papers instead of defining the terms.

In my opinion this is the essence of pseudoscience. Most pseudoscience is wrong because sensational claims are more attractive than boring ones, and more likely to be wrong. But being wrong should not be part of the definition. Hans Adler 11:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• The problem with your definition of pseudoscience is that it depends on your idea of what is sensational, what is rational. Scientists by their nature are critical of new ideas, but because of that, new ideas have been ridiculed - and then later proven to be correct. So using our own values to stick that "pseudoscience" label on the "ridiculous idea", rather than using an objective definition seems foolish. DigitalC (talk) 13:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• I think you got me exactly wrong. Did you read only the last paragraph? The first "this" was meant to refer to what I explained before: That pseudoscience is in what you do and how you do it (meaningless word play that pretends to be science) as opposed to any actual claims you make. In the second sentence of the last paragraph I explained why it is that most pseudoscience also makes sensational/wrong claims. Not because it's part of the definition, but because the definition is such that sensational/wrong claims are more attractive to pseudoscientists than others. Hans Adler 14:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps this is clearer: Pseudoscience is a form of bullshit in Harry Frankfurt's technical sense: "while the liar deliberately makes false claims, the bullshitter is simply uninterested in the truth. Bullshitters aim primarily to impress and persuade their audiences. While liars need to know the truth to better conceal it, bullshitters, interested solely in advancing their own agendas, have no use for the truth."

Pseudoscientists are bullshitters who aim to impress their audiences (including themselves, usually) with their erudition and their capabilities as scientists. Hans Adler 14:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• I'd say most pseudoscientists are indeed flogging codswallop for sundry reasons. Some may be sincere, some may be marketers, some may indeed care only for a cheap path to "recognition" (fame is the name of the game) with no heed for the outcome upon themselves or others (scammers). Meanwhile here and there, now and then, some research or speculation or belief system will mistakenly be called pseudoscience. Religion is faith, not pseudoscience (items of faith are not disprovable through the scientific method, nor need they be). Likewise, although Darwinism does likely have some deep flaws and moreover, a lot of theory drawn from Darwinism may wind up being cited someday as mistaken (as Gould hinted years back), this doesn't mean Creationism (which most likely is a pseudoscience drawn from the metaphors of Christianity) will have much to do with understanding those flaws. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• Creationism is an excellent example for pseudoscience that arises from the desire to prove a "truth" scientifically. Thus it is a form of pseudoscience that doesn't fit my definition above. Hans Adler 17:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• I would agree that research, as to whether the theory of Creationism is falsifiable, would be science. Rashly saying the theory is supported by the bible and hence word-for-word true would be pseudoscience (and muddled theology). Gwen Gale (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• <-- Hans, I think you misunderstood me a bit. Obviously, if someone is going to claim that something is a scientific fact, then they are either engaged in science or in pseudoscience. that act of 'claiming' determines that. For instance, Start Trek warp drives are fantasy science (entertainment: good); the idea that warp drives are conceivably possible under certain assumptions of relativity and/or quantum mechanics is speculative science (speculation: good); the idea that warp drives are a scientific fact based on... (alien technology?) is pseudoscience (assertion of scientific fact in the absence of research or evidence: bad). Or consider blood-letting: in the 16th century they thought that draining blood from the body would remove 'bad humours' and cure a multitude of diseases; in the 19th century they decried the practice as barbaric; in the modern day leeches are used to control bleeding during operations and dialysis drains the blood from the body, cleans it of 'bad elements', and puts it back in. someone might come along and try to revive the humourism idea in the modern world - more power to them - but to my mind they are not pseudoscientists until they start to say "the fact that doctors use leeches and dialysis proves I'm right".

really, pseudoscience is the attempt to claim the authority of science without recourse to the methods of science. it shouldn't be applied where there is no appeal being made to the authority of science in the first place.

This has some pitfalls: for instance, I've known TCM practitioners who say that they have 'scientific' evidence for chi flow - what they mean is that anyone who observes their own body carefully enough can feel the flow of chi. The problem, of course, is that they are using a variant definition of science and proper evidence (their statement is likely true, but is completely untestable and inadmissible under the rules of scientific medicine). I'd personally hesitate to call them pseudoscientists until they start claiming that 'western science proves that...', which is a clearly false claim. but that's a harder issue. --Ludwigs2 17:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• I have read an Applied Kinesiology textbook which I have somewhere, which states that meridians are channels which contain a clear fluid. They aren't talking about lymph vessels, which fit that description a lot of the time. They are actually making an anatomical claim that is totally unsupported by science. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• that may be true of applied kinesiology (I don't know, I'd need to see the source), but it's not true of chinese medicine in general, which treats meridians as some sort of bio-energetic pathway. for instance, you'll find claims in chinese medicine that both the kidneys and the brain are accumulations of chi on a particular meridian (despite the fact that both the kidneys and the brain are solid organs): meridians are more an abstract conceptualization of particular bodily functions. for an accessible example, the skin is often considered in TCM as being on the same energetic pathway as the lungs, on the grounds that the skin (to a lesser extent) has the same respiratory/excretory functions that the lungs have. it's simply a different model of bodily organization, based on holistic functionality rather than atomistic functionality. I'm not saying it's right, mind you, simply that it's different, and untested/untestable under western scientific models.

• really, TCM is an applied observational model - there's a couple of thousand years of practitioners noticing things that work and things that don't work, and making analytic but non-scientific theoretical claims. There's just no grounds to test or judge it without some fairly esoteric experimentation. --Ludwigs2 06:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Further reading

• Google scholar - "pseudoscientific beliefs" (257 hits)

• Google scholar - "pseudo scientific beliefs" (127 hits)

• Google - "pseudoscientific beliefs" (15,600 hits)

• Google - "pseudo scientific beliefs" (66,600 hits)

• Student's Beliefs in Pseudoscience - Mats Lundström, Malmö University, Sweden, Malmö University Electronic Publishing, http://muep.mah.se/handle/2043/4701, Conference Paper, peer reviewed

Your note

Please discuss this on talk. There is no consensus anywhere that I can find to use that reference in the policy page. If there is one, please point me to it. Crum375 (talk) 03:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Read my proposition at the top of the RfC. That's what it was all about. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I have started a thread at WT:NPOV. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

How far can the pseudoscience thing be stretched?

sigh... it is such a pity that you say one thing with your mouth but do another with your hands. it would be nice if you finished this (eminently pleasant) discussion without feeling the need to aggressively edit in your side of the argument elsewhere while we talk...

I'm sorry about the conflicts elsewhere. Let's please keep it out of this discussion. This is where we can really get to know each other. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no illusions here. I recognize that the bulk of our disagreement is a misunderstanding, and I believe that if (through some strange magic) you and I and most everyone else here could see through to what others really mean we'd all be talking about the same thing. there are a few people on wikipedia intent on making some silly point clear against all reason; the rest of us (I think) really do want to make a good encyclopedia, we just don't understand how many of us actually share that same goal. it's a tragedy (or comedy) of Greek proportions.

I'll tell you - If you and I and Hans and, say (to pick someone who really irritates the crap out of me), Verbal were to sit down and cautiously, carefully, and honestly hammer out exactly how far the pseudoscience thing could be stretched, it would do wikipedia a world of good (or at least save us a whole lot of pointless bitching). what do you think?

I'll come back to your substantive argument tomorrow - tapped into the sherry a bit tonight, so my wits are not completely around me. --Ludwigs2 05:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I firmly believe that much of what you say is true. Much of this disagreement is misunderstanding. If we could meet and hang around together, and really get to know each other, I suspect we'd have a really good time. I'm a Zin freak myself, and I also enjoy sherry and port, together with good dark chocolate! We are all trying to do what we can to build this encyclopedia. Yes, there are vandals here, but none of us involved in this controversy are those types. We're all serious people. We must AGF. When we do that, we see similarity where we would otherwise see disagreement, and we build bridges where we would otherwise build walls. I'm really enjoying this section because the ground rule is that we AGF, like we should do everywhere else here. I'm sure I could learn a lot from all of you. I believe that the best articles are (only) developed when editors who hold opposing POV learn to collaborate and get it right. Articles built by editors who share the same POV are rather flat and leave out important details. Believe it or not, I don't wish you any harm. I just want to be treated with an AGF and not harassed. It feels that way. I'd rather disagree agreeably. Is it easy to do that in the heat of the moment? I think we have all proven that it can be very hard. I'm actually a very forgiving person, and when convinced that I am wrong, I readily apologize. What makes it hard in this conflict is that so many other editors, most of whom I don't know, have agreed with me. That means I need rather radically different arguments to convince me that I'm wrong in this case. I'm sick of what's happened. I didn't wish for such disruption to occur. I thought it was a given that my simple proposition and formulation would be approved and that any opposition would be slight and not be taken so seriously.

I'm putting a hat on this as it isn't really "allowed" in this section, but thanks for sharing. I really appreciate that. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunate hatting - I'd have understood the first couple of lines, but the remainder cut off a possible direction for agreement. pity, I was hoping we might get somewhere, but we're apparently back to SOP. --Ludwigs2 15:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what SOP means. I put a hat on the discussion, not because of any agreement or disagreement, but, in spite of it being a fruitful discussion, it is about a different subject than this the section above, which needs to be limited to the topic, and not about the past and current squabbles elsewhere. That's all. I definitely think it's fruitful and should be continued in another thread. I think I'll move it. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Now it's unhatted and moved, so we can continue here. You may recognize that the section heading is based on a quote of yours. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

SOP means Standard Operating Procedure - it was a somewhat cynical observation about the way discussions like this are handled by editors on your side of the dispute. No need to go into that here; it will be a factor in the RfC/U, and we can discuss it there (If I can ever finish sorting diffs...)

Let's understand each other. I'm a scientist (social scientist, but I've put a lot of time into researching scientific methodology). I can't help but approach these issues from a scientific viewpoint, and my biggest problem (excuse me, my biggest substantive problem - I'm excluding behavioral issues) with the debate here is that you and Verbal and TS and a number of other skeptical editors keep pushing for statements that are well outside the comfort zone of any actual scientific perspective. The scientists I know would think that a person who believes in ghosts is a bit brain-dead, and they would laugh their asses off if someone tried to prove to them that ghosts are real. but they wouldn't be bothered by it unless that person was doing something malevolent with it (like try to profit off of people by convincing them of ghosts) and they wouldn't start arguing against it seriously until that someone started seriously violating the integrity of science. scientists rarely get hung up on particular beliefs, because in science beliefs stand or fall on their own on the results of methodologically sound research. However, scientists are very protective of their methodology (you'll notice that the bulk of scientific criticisms of creationism are methodological critiques: comedians make fun of the seven days thing, scientists object to the way it ignores available evidence). You guys repeatedly and consistently presume that scientists are willing to violate their own methodological principles just to 'get one over' on poor reasoning; I keep trying to tell you that that is the absolute last thing that a scientist would ever do, because the minute s/he violates his/her methodological principles s/he stops being a scientist.

As I said elsewhere, you defend science with the logical tools of pseudoscience, and you demean both science and non-scientific belief in the process. I suspect that you don't know that you're doing it, mind you, but do you understand why that would irk me?

As far as I'm concerned, pseudoscience (as a label) should only be applied where there is clear evidence that someone is trying to promote something as scientific against scientific opinion. I'm willing to to be pretty generous with that label, but you can't start extending it to anything that you think might possibly be falsifiable. Stick with what the scientific community has actually falsified, directly or indirectly, and stop trying to impose a point of view on science that it cannot logically hold and still be scientific. --Ludwigs2 04:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining SOP. You were not AGF in your complaint about putting a hat on it, and I explained why I did it. I even made it clear that it was a very interesting and fruitful discussion and have moved it here. Please AGF. We can't have a decent discussion if you fail to do that. Your condescending tone isn't necessary either.

A lot of what you say about how scientists deal with the paranormal and pseudoscience is covered at WP:FRINGE and the Pseudoscience ArbCom. The scientists (and others) who actively deal with those subjects are called skeptics. They are activist scientists. They exist, and they write in verifiable sources that can be used here. Their opinions are generally shared by the silent majority of scientists. That's why the NSF quotes those activists, including top scientist and arch skeptic Robert L. Park. The NSF has some interesting things to say about how scientists treat (ignore) fringe subjects, but note how Park encourages scientists to become activists:

• "Although scientists are concerned about scientific illiteracy, including the public's gullibility regarding pseudoscience, few choose to say much about it. According to physicist Robert L. Park, most scientists would rather talk about their latest cutting-edge research, not the basic laws of thermodynamics.[55] Park has been speaking out for many years. In explaining why, he recently said:

• [P]eople drawn to [pseudoscience long] for a world that is some other way than the way it is. They pose no great threat to science. [Pseudoscience] is a sort of background noise, annoying, but rarely rising to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse. The more serious threat is to the public, which is not often in a position to judge which claims are real and which are [not]. Those who are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an obligation to help the public make that distinction (Park 2000a). Source

They also note how he has been used as an advisor for the judiciary on scientific subjects:

• "Furthermore, a group of judges recently asked renowned physics professor Robert L. Park for guidance on how to recognize questionable scientific claims. The author of a landmark book on the subject, Park came up with "seven warning signs" that a scientific claim is probably bogus (Park 2003):...[list follows]..." Source

The silence of the majority says loads about how fringe those subjects are. They don't waste their time on them. The Pseudoscience ArbCom was all about dealing with this situation. IIRC, User:Iantresman tried to claim, as you seem to be doing, that such silence indicates a lack of consensus and a lack of support for the idea that these things are pseudoscientific. The ArbCom nailed that example of pseudoscientific reasoning and wikilawyering to the barn door and used it for target practice. I know Tresman got indef banned, but I don't remember all the reasons.

Although falsifiability is a vital requirement for even slightly being eligible for categorization as pseudoscience, I don't "extending it to anything that you think might possibly be falsifiable." It's far more complicated than that. It's even possible to have a pseudoscientific belief in something that itself isn't strictly a pseudo-science. You're welcome to ask my opinion on specific examples. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Your entire argument seems to rest on the claim that all scientists agree with skeptics, they just don't care to say anything about it. My argument is that scientists don't talk the way that skeptics do because scientists aren't willing to make scientific claims about things they haven't researched, the way that skeptics do. we can go back and forth on this (I'm pretty sure my logic has more substance than yours, but whatever...), but the one thing that we both agree on is that scientists don't have a lot to say about pseudoscience. on simple grounds of attribution alone, we shouldn't be putting words in their mouths.

I have no problem with skeptics - I see them as a vocal but small group of people who are scientifically-oriented or philosophically inclined non-scientists. I see no reason to assume that they speak for the scientific community other than the fact that they (and you) claim that they speak for the scientific community. My sense is that the scientific community mostly ignores skepticism the same way that they mostly ignore pseudoscience - i.e. as a "background noise [that] rarely ris[es] to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse." Scientists have no interest in what some skeptic says about (...whatever...); scientists wait until some kind of actual, valid research is done which tells them how stuff actually works. Skepticism is merely another philosophical belief structure: the non-scientific belief that everything not proven scientifically must be wrong. It's a perfectly fine belief structure, if you are inclined to have faith in it, but it is nothing more than a belief structure, and shouldn't be treated as though it were some self-evident truth. I don't know how to make that clearer to you, and I have no expectation that you will accept it (any more than a Catholic would accept it if I told them the pope was just a spiritual leader, not the voice of God). but there it is - that is the POV you keep pushing. do you see it? --Ludwigs2 21:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

If that really were the POV I "keep pushing", I'd agree, but it's not. It's a straw man, which I'm sure you don't intend, but is likely a result of misunderstandings. I don't believe "that everything not proven scientifically must be wrong." As I wrote above, there is a large grey area which has previously been larger, is now smaller, and which will always exist. The reason the grey area has gotten smaller is because of great strides in increasing knowledge in the last few hundred years. The grey area includes some things related to pseudoscience, the paranormal, quackery, and then plain religious and metaphysical belief structures. On top of that, it obviously includes a lot of things we simply don't understand yet, haven't developed methods to measure yet, etc.. Previously people explained all seemingly (based on their limited knowledge at the time) "supernatural" phenomena as the acts of gods, demons, angels, fairies, ghosts, spirits, etc.. With more knowledge we now attribute many of those phenomena to newly understood natural science or psychological phenomena. What you describe is not only a "non-scientific belief", it's a pseudoskeptical belief.

In a certain sense, pseudoskeptics and pseudoscientists are mirror images of each other. They're both wrong, and they will even make accusations against each other based on the fact they both claim to be scientific and skeptical. There is even a paranormal wiki where they engage in very clear revisionism and redefining of terms so that they, as believers in the paranormal, can feel justified in calling mainstream scientists "pseudoscientists" and mainstream skeptics "pseudoskeptics", which lets themselves off the hook. They thus claim, in spite of the fact that their beliefs are widely labelled as pseudoscientific paranormal beliefs, that they are the true scientists and skeptics. They are so deeply deluded that I quit participating there. Their delusion is a natural result of the defects in thinking I describe above in my proposition regarding what constitutes "pseudoscientific beliefs". I offered to help them, but when they started redefining terms to make themselves look good, I gave up, as dealing with such types is hopeless. It's not a black or white world, but it's very real. I doubt that anyone is totally innocent either, since it can be tempting to unconsciously and momentarily engage in pseudoscientific or pseudoskeptical behaviors. As long as it doesn't become a habit there is little harm done, but if engaged in too much, one actually begins to change sides. One loses the ability to think clearly. Logical fallacies begin to take over, and before one knows it one "goes over to the dark side", as some scientists and quack doctors have done. They then lend their titles to support things they were previously obligated to oppose. Ethics and truth fly out the window. (Excuse the rant, but my hobby is dealing with quackery, and I have lots of contact with that world, and lots of contact with such types. When they write their hate mail, threats, and diatribes to me or about me, their true selves are revealed. I also have contact with their victims, who have often alerted me to them. Hearing both sides is interesting, and also disturbing!)

Regarding pseudoskepticism, Marcello Truzzi is my hero, even if I disagree with his final behaviors to some degree. He truly understood the concept of pseudoscience. His objections to it led him to be a purist, which isn't practical in the real world. It's fine as a philosophy, but impractical in reality. It leaves the door always open, no matter how rediculous the claim, which in a sense is actually proper, but practically the door needs to be closed at times while making sure the burden of proof is on the ones making unusual claims. If they can then provide unusually strong evidence for those claims, then the door can be opened again. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

well, pardon me for putting it this way, but if that's not the POV you're advancing then your actions confuse me. I mean, I looked over the Truzzi page, and I have to say I tend to agree with him, but when I have made Truzzi-style arguments to you (which I have: e.g. that you have a burden of proof to demonstrate that the NSF opposes mere 'beliefs', one which is not satisfied by a single questionable source), you have ignored the argument and continued forging ahead. I feel as though you are challenging a whole range of beliefs and ideas unfairly - insisting for them that they must make a scientific claim, whether they do or not, and then criticizing them for doing the scientific claim they may not have made badly. it reminds me of that teenage jock thing thing - trap some geek in the locker-room and say "we all know you're a wuss, so you might as well confess to it", and then slap him around either way, either for being a wuss or for lying about being a wuss. --Ludwigs2 02:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, as we've already realized, many of our differences are because of misunderstandings. That's not evil or totally avoidable. It's life. The solution is to ask even more precise questions. Please choose some specific subject and I'll try to explain. That way you'll peel me and discover what's really inside -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

we have a specific subject - Ghosts. if you don't like ghosts, try Alt Med. --Ludwigs2 05:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Fine with me. Let's talk about ghosts. Ask away. I'll have to leave soon, so there will be some lag before I can reply, but I will. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

errr... your statement was "Please choose some specific subject and I'll try to explain." I chose a specific subject, you explain, yah? --Ludwigs2 15:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you hanging. Other things have occupied my attention, and I thought that you might want to ask some specific questions related to ghosts and my POV on ghosts and pseudoscience, or some such thing. I didn't know if you were curious about some particular angle. What would you like to know? If you ask me a specific question to get me going, I'll reply to it. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 15 March 2010

• News and notes: A Wikiversity controversy, Wikimedian-in-Residence, image donation, editing contest, WMF jobs

• In the news: Studies on collaboration and student usage, Main Page drives traffic to Time.com

• Dispatches: GA Sweeps end

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Ireland

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 20:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Which RfC???

[2]

Link to the RfC please. Hans Adler 01:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

You have edited since I asked this question. Would you please respond. You have started two RfCs recently, neither of them was closed in a way that would justify your edit comment, and you know that. If you are referring to a third RfC please provide a link. Hans Adler 01:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

No third RfC. Both RfCs approved the source, the wording, and the meaning of that wording. In the NPOV RfC they also approved of using it as a ref. Only one who !voted for the content has complained because they didn't notice the full proposition, even though it was commented on several times both by approvers and deniers. Otherwise the only ones who have complained are you and your few allies.

My edit summary could just as well have read: "Per NPOV". Guideline 2 explicitly describes this type of reference. You don't like what it says, and you disagree with the NSF. That's too bad, but Wikipedia is about "verifiability, not truth". The source mentions belief in witches as a pseudoscientific belief. The NSF is obviously meaning the witchcraft aspect, not that children dress up as witches. Per NPOV, the source qualifies for use on the witchcraft article, and that would apply even without the two RfCs. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Err, no, I think the emerging consensus is that the format of the RfC was deficient. How else would you explain Blueboar explicitly changing his vote to oppose inclusion? Stating that he did not realize that it was also about including it in the policy page? Not to mention the overwhelming majority of people that have voted against using external sources for informing policy? You are the only person voting for it. You also still don't seem to have read demarcation problem. Unomi (talk) 07:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Two RfCs did no such thing:

• Talk:Ghost#RfC: Context of NSF statement about belief in ghosts

Your neutral summary: "Please weigh in on whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that 'belief in ghosts and spirits' are 'pseudoscientific beliefs'."

(Perhaps you meant something else, something like: "Please weigh in on whether [...] is an appropriate source for claiming [...]", but you didn't ask this specific question. You asked a general question that had the disadvantage of being unrelated to what you want, but the advantage that everybody (yes, everybody including Ludwigs2 and me) agrees.)

Closed as: "National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that 'belief in ghosts and spirits' are 'pseudoscientific beliefs.'"

The closer, Gwen Gale, added a comment saying that "the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific", which sounds as if she was of the opinion that the NSF does have such an position. I disagree (we have no evidence that the NSF has such an opinion, although I can guess what it would be: ghosts are artefacts of our imagination; research of ghosts is pseudoscience unless carried out to examine the delusion as such) She later clarified in response to your comment that her comment cannot be understood as saying that there was any consensus about your source or your intended use of it.

• WT:NPOV#RfC: Using the National Science Foundation as a reference

Your neutral summary: "Please weigh in on whether a statement by the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy. Also please discuss whether their expressions can be considered to represent the current scientific consensus (in the USA) on that subject."

Note the complete absence, again, of any reference to the actual paper you want to cite. Only a general, hypothetical question about what happens if the NSF makes a statement. And again the problem that the case is completely hypothetical.

The RfC question is followed by a long question about changing policy in a specific way. To judge from its formulation and the fact that it is almost unrelated to the RfC summary, almost everybody would interpret it as the motivation of your RfC. You want to do something, but before you consider it you want to make sure that the NFS is a sufficiently reliable source for doing so. Just the easiest of about a dozen questions that will presumably be asked about in other RfCs. (Most readers would probably assume that you were stonewalled by a silly argument that the NSF is not a reliable source. Guy's supporting comment indicates such, for example.)

I already had an edit window open to support your RfC, but then I realised that you would take that as support for something you didn't actually ask.

Ludwigs2's comment was the first. He couldn't address the obvious problem because at the time your question wasn't formatted as an RfC and didn't have your 'summary'.

Dbachmann, instead of !voting, said: "look at the dispute, not the misrepresentation of the dispute by BullRangifer. He isn't trying to use the NSF as a source, he is trying to twist the sense of the an NSF publication by excessively literal interpretation of casual wording." At that point, latest, you should have understood that something was wrong with your summary.

Due to the bad summary, not much real discussion happened about the quality of your sourcing. Several editors explicitly supported what you meant to ask: Doc James, Salimfadhley, Scray, LuckyLouie, Slatersteven, Guyonthesubway, Johnuniq, Shadowjams, Enric Naval, Durova, DreamGuy. Some commented as if they were supporting only the statement in your summary. Some people merely pointed out that the statement is simply wrong or unsupported by the reference: Peter jackson, Dbachmann. And some opposed: Ludwigs2, Abecedare, Elen of the Roads, Pyrrhon8, Crum375, Binksternet, Collect, Abd. That's 11 people clearly for your proposal and 10 clearly against it. The dynamics of the RfC was such that people were more supportive in the beginning, while more opposed in the end, when the problems with the sourcing had been pointed out.

The RfC was closed as: "National Science Foundation is a reliable source", followed by the closer's comment about use of reliable sources for article comment.

Gwen Gale later explained this as follows: "Hence, my close more or less says, 'follow the policies we have.' Reading through the RfC, it didn't look to me as though some editors on either side had a strong grip on the policies we have." [3] I interpret this as saying that basically the close was intended to be equivalent to "no consensus". Hans Adler 08:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Her statement "follow the policies" pretty much sums up what I've been saying all along. The statement is a V & RS, and, as Gwen said, "NSF can be taken as reliable in an encyclopedia, even if they're wholly wrong." You argue that they are wrong, and that their statement is taken out of context. Instead of forcing those opinions of yours, you should "follow the [V & RS] policies". -- Brangifer (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

No, brangifer, Hans and I have not argued that the NSF is wrong; we have argued the you as an editor are wrong for taking that NSF statement out of context. The NSF is a reliable source for things it says, it is not a reliable source for things you want it to say that it hasn't said. --Ludwigs2 15:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Have you forgotten that you actually stated "that the NSF screwed it up once," referring to the 2006 version? Hans also said something somewhat similar recently. You admit the NSF said the words, but you disagree with them, and you claim I have misquoted them, even when I quote them exactly. Now you're intimating that I'm trying to claim they have said something they haven't said. Is that a correct "paraphrase" of what you've just said? (Repeating it exactly won't help us.) I don't want to misunderstand you. We've had far too much of that going on from both sides. I think you'll agree to that. Please explain. I do want to understand you. There are some things you say which I understand and disagree with. There are likely some things which I don't understand fully, so let's get to the bottom of it. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

No, actually, that is not a correct paraphrase of what I just said. I did not (and have never) claimed that you misquoted the words. I claimed the you misquoted the NSF. no one's writing can be reduced to a mere collection of words which are either there or not-there; Any document needs to be read as a whole, in the context of the author's stated intentions.

it's actually an interesting coincidence: I was at the gym today, watching Fox News as I worked out (Damn You, Gym TV Remote!!!) and Fox actually played back a tape of Obama's health care speech, stopped the tape right in the middle of a sentence, and finished the sentence for him in a way that (if that was what Obama had actually meant) would have made him look like a complete ass. all the words up to that point were Obama's literal words, recorded on tape. Should I take it from this that Obama actually is a complete ass? taking little soundbites out of context to make people look bad is big business in politics - everybody does it, from the far left to the far right - but doing that is a trick, not an accurate representation of the people in question.

so... I am intimating that you are taking something that he NSF actually said out of context to imply something that is important to you that there is no evidence the NSF cares one whit about. I am intimating that you are misrepresenting the NSF's position by a careful mismanagement of the NSF's words. I am intimating that you are so intent on pursuing a personal battle against topics deemed unscientific and irrational that you have become the monster you fight, and I don't mean that as a a criticism so much as request that you shake it off and look at what you're doing. is that clearer? --Ludwigs2 03:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

<-- Yes, that is clearer, but you've already said that many times before, and I do understand the point. In principle it's very valid, as illustrated by your story about Fox News, which doesn't surprise me at all. Their job is to manufacture misinformation about Obama. (That tells you my political leanings.) So, we basically disagree on your interpretation of my application of that point. I don't see any evidence that the NSF have any other published position on this matter than this, and if they do, that it doesn't contradict this one. If you have any other statement by them, I'd like to read them. They are just like other major scientific bodies -- they generally ignore fringe and pseudoscience subjects pretty much all the time, so what they have written here is what they've written. We're stuck with it and can use it. (If we followed their example at Wikipedia, there would be no fringe or pseudoscience articles allowed, which would be unfortunate.)

Fortunately for the public and consumer protection, in contrast to what you state (quoting you), the NSF do "care one whit about" it, even if they don't write about it all the time and publish huge declarations on the subject. That's why they publish this report about it each year, in which they quote skeptics favorably. This is all we get from them, so it's very significant. This source discusses their serious concerns (they do "care a whit") about the public's lack of scientific thinking which leads them to accept and hold pseudoscientific beliefs. The NSF is very concerned about the deception being practiced on the public and about what the NSF calls its "gullibility" and "scientific illiteracy". The general lack of comment by scientific bodies on these subjects is why we have WP:FRINGE. It deals with this well-known phenomenon, which is described by the NSF itself, and quoted in what I wrote above:

A lot of what you say about how scientists deal with the paranormal and pseudoscience is covered at WP:FRINGE and the Pseudoscience ArbCom. The scientists (and others) who actively deal with those subjects are called skeptics. They are activist scientists. They exist, and they write in verifiable sources that can be used here. Their opinions are generally shared by the silent majority of scientists. That's why the NSF quotes those activists, including top scientist and arch skeptic Robert L. Park. The NSF has some interesting things to say about how scientists treat (ignore) fringe subjects, but note how Park encourages scientists to become activists:

• "Although scientists are concerned about scientific illiteracy, including the public's gullibility regarding pseudoscience, few choose to say much about it. According to physicist Robert L. Park, most scientists would rather talk about their latest cutting-edge research, not the basic laws of thermodynamics.[55] Park has been speaking out for many years. In explaining why, he recently said:

• [P]eople drawn to [pseudoscience long] for a world that is some other way than the way it is. They pose no great threat to science. [Pseudoscience] is a sort of background noise, annoying, but rarely rising to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse. The more serious threat is to the public, which is not often in a position to judge which claims are real and which are [not]. Those who are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an obligation to help the public make that distinction (Park 2000a). Source

The scientific community in England reacts a bit more proactively in fighting pseudoscience, and lately have focused on homeopathy, but the government doesn't necessarily do so. They do much like what is described above, as revealed in this statement:

• "The Government does not find it helpful to define pseudoscience...." Source

You charge that I am "misrepresenting the NSF's position by a careful mismanagement of the NSF's words." No, I am actually presenting their only known position by quoting it. That can't be misrepresentation or "mismanagement". You see an internal disagreement in the whole page of the source. You can't reconcile their clear and good definition of pseudoscience (as false scientific sounding claims) with their statement about the public's "pseudoscientific beliefs". You can't reconcile this seeming disagreement, so you deprecate the source ("that the NSF screwed it up once,") and try to prevent mention of this part of the page from a V & RS. This is clear from your's and Hans Adler's continual deletions of the V & RS everywhere it appears.

I see no conflict at all. I've dealt with this subject for decades and understand it pretty well. I deal with "both sides of the coin" all the time, including the quacks who hurt people, their victims, and those who criticize the quacks for doing so. I don't think in black or white terms, as you (or Hans) have accused me. This is a complicated matter with many nuances, and the NSF understands this matter very well, as revealed by this source, sparse as it may seem, compared to the abundant writings of the skeptics whom they use as sources and obviously quote approvingly. When the NSF writes a page like this, I can agree with every element on that page without blinking an eye or stumbling over anything. I see it as a unified whole that starts with a concern, some examples, trends, a definition, and then shows how the problems of of stupid thinking lead to the feared results -- the holding of "pseudoscientific beliefs". I understand and accept it all. The NSF and I are on the same track and share the same frame of mind and reference points.

In the section above about "Meaning of "pseudoscientific beliefs", I have no problem, in great detail, relating my understanding of this matter.

By contrast, you have little to say, and actually state "I don't believe the phrase 'pseudoscientific beliefs' has any particular analytic meaning. I believe it was simply used as a 'term of convenience'." This reveals that our different backgrounds, belief systems, life experiences, education, etc., have determined that we see this subject very differently. I have a lot to say about it, and you have little. I see harmony where you see a confused NSF who made a blunder in their wording, so you deprecate the source. We are supposed to use V & RS here, and it's problematic that you hate this one so much that you war against it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

In your own bloody words: "I don't see any evidence that the NSF have any other published position on this matter than this, and if they do, that it doesn't contradict this one. If you have any other statement by them, I'd like to read them. They are just like other major scientific bodies -- they generally ignore fringe and pseudoscience subjects pretty much all the time [...]."

That's Ludwigs2's and my whole fucking point, innit? The NSF doesn't speak about that kind of thing. You have no rational reason to believe they meant to characterise these 10 paranormal topics as pseudoscience in any meaningful way. Most likely the passage was written by a single author (a statistician was in charge of the section), and nobody else noticed that she misquoted the Gallup poll by simply assuming paranormal and pseudoscience are synonyms, which of course they are not for the purposes of an encyclopedia. They reviewed the statistics and the aspects of the paper that are relevant for politicians, not the totally irrelevant philosophy of science aspects. It was a simple oversight in a very minor point. Scientific publications are full of them, and so are executive reports by the NSF (which is what you are quoting).

If I find a faulty Latin quotation in one of Albert Einstein's physics publications, does that give me the right to add the words into a Wikipedia article?

According to Albert Einstein, who had a classical education and an excellent knowledge of Latin, errare humanum est can also be spelled erarre humanum est.

If Albert Einstein never explicitly said anything in public about Latin spelling rules, does that make it more or less likely that by spelling the phrase as erarre humanum est he meant to support a variant spelling and just didn't bother to say it more clearly?

This quotation would be exactly as correct as yours, and it would do exactly the same kind of damage: Misinforming the readers about the subject matter itself, and damaging the credibility of the misquoted author. Hans Adler 11:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll reply to the first part and ignore the last illustration as a bit off the mark. (Even at Wikipedia we are specifically allowed to, without comment, correct typos in cited quotes, unless they change the meaning.) You are providing a pretty bold OR reason, based purely on your own speculation and disagreement with their statement, for rejecting their statement as some unfortunate slip up. You're basically saying, just like Ludwigs2 has done, that they blundered and don't really mean what they wrote.

That's where we disagree. I am not speculating, but taking them at their word. They wrote it, and lacking any other statement by them to indicate otherwise, must believe them. If you have any other statement by them that indicates it was an oversight or poor formulation, then by all means bring it forward. That would change the basis for this discussion quite a bit, but until then, this is just your own disagreement with them, and I'm not going to contradict them without any evidence. You see internal inconsistency in what they wrote, while I see a beautiful consistency that shows they understand this matter better than any of us. These are the representatives of the top scientific organizations who are speaking. They aren't amateurs, and they are using terminology that is used all the time by various types of authors, including skeptics. WP:FRINGE makes it clear that even rare and casual mention by such bodies should be taken seriously and may be used. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

so in other words, you argument is "it doesn't matter what they said elsewhere in the document, It doesn't matter what they say in other documents, and it doesn't matter what they meant to say; all that matters is that they said it, once, and that justifies everything." By that logic, Orgone exists (Reich had at least one credible experiment), the government believes UFOs are extraterrestrial crafts (I can dig up a few quotes where credible government officials make that claim), Alternative Medicine is scientific (I have seen quotes where medical professionals have said that), and Bigfoot is alive and well and living somewhere in Montana.

Your logic, brangifer, is much closer to farce than to reason, and I am having a seriously hard time believing that anyone could make these kinds of claims seriously. Are you fucking with us just for the hell of it? because if so, it's in poor taste. --Ludwigs2 17:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. Your ABF about me are again causing you to make exaggerated straw man arguments that are very far from the truth about my POV, and you top it off by mocking me. That's very incivil and bad manners. We interpret the source page differently. You really do disagree with the NSF statement about "pseudoscientific beliefs", which is why you see disharmony where I see harmony on that page.

If you have other sources from the NSF, as seems to be implied by your statement "what they say in other documents" (otherwise why do you say it?), please provide them. In such a case I might totally change my POV and end up agreeing with you.

All I've been hearing from you is that you disagree with their statement, think it was a blunder, and that it seems to contradict their clear definition of "pseudoscience" used higher on the page. (Note they do not define "pseudoscientific beliefs", but provide examples instead. They see ghosts, witchcraft, etc. as "beliefs", which they label "pseudoscientific".) No, I see no disagreement between those things on the source page.

The bridge to understanding and harmonizing what you believe to be discordance lies in understanding this subject better. Your view is a rigid and inflexible black/white view that only uses a rigid definition (the definition is correct). It ignores the way the term "pseudoscience" and the phrase "pseudoscientific beliefs" are used in thousands of sources. I am accustomed to reading and dealing with such sources, so I see great harmony in their use in general and on the NSF source page. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not mocking you, I simply cannot understand why you would continue to stump for a position which has no basis in proper scholarship. I do not need to demonstrate that the NSF does not hold this position - you need to demonstrate that it does hold this position, and for that you are going to need something more than a single taken-out-of-context footnote from an outdated revision of a document on a different topic. The argument you are defending (not you, mind you, but the argument itself) is stupid. That is not a matter of interpretation or a matter for disagreement - it's a stupid argument. Either come up with something more credble, or give it up. --Ludwigs2 18:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

It sure sounds like mocking to me. Since I have heard you repeating each point of your statement many times, and basically disagree with nearly every one of them as a misrepresentation or misunderstanding to which I have replied at one or another point of time, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If I were alone in holding my view I'd be worried and might reconsider, but I do have a majority of editors in two RfCs who !voted that my interpretation is correct. We're not getting anywhere, so it's probably best to close this thread. Thanks for the conversation.

BTW, if you do find anything written by the NSF that shows they have a POV that contradicts any of this, I'd like to read it. I'm open to changing my mind, but I'd need some evidence from them. If you have other sources from the NSF, as seems to be implied by your statement "what they say in other documents" (otherwise why do you say it?), please provide them. Otherwise you have made a positive claim (that they have said something different in other documents) without providing proof. Now I'm challenging that statement, and per Marcello Truzzi's understanding of pseudoskepticism, you need to provide that proof or stop making such claims. Your claim contradicts their statement, so it's an unusual claim and needs supporting evidence from the NSF. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

look, BR: I don't need to convince you; convincing you would just make things nicer all around. And I can't help the way you hear things: I know my own intentions, and that's good enough for me. If you want to continue defending an argument that is this utterly and completely irrational, that is your business - I can and will shred it any time you use it, and anyone who isn't already as blindly determined on the issue as you are will quickly see what a mindlessly idiotic argument it actually is. If you keep it up, you will eventually get a reputation as a POV-pusher (someone willing to break all the rules of reason to push through a point) and that will solve my problem admirably. All I have to do is sit back and be rational; you will do it to yourself. That's not the way I'd like to resolve this, but I'll follow your lead on this.

So you choose - you continue edit-warring this idiotic misrepresentation in using this specious logic, and I will continue correcting you (and making you look like a fool as an unintended side effect). or you can get your act together and start being reasonable. --Ludwigs2 21:49, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd think you'd want to provide evidence for your (likely false) claim as a defense of your integrity, rather than just to "convince" me. I don't need to be convinced. When evidence is lacking for an unusual claim, I just continue to believe the existing evidence, and in this case their statement is all we've got. As to your negative tone toward me, I've gotten used to it. If I seem irrational, I'm only "following your lead". You need to look in the mirror and note that you're living in a glass house, but continue to cast stones. A bit of humility wouldn't hurt you. You're the one who claims to be dogged and one who doesn't give up. I've noticed that. Does it irritate you to find that others don't give in to your bullying? -- Brangifer (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I don't need to convince you; I was just hoping I might. If you want to continue pushing this point, I will continue correcting you. I never said you were irrational, I said the argument you are trying to defend is irrational. Not my problem if you cannot understand the difference between the two statements...

let me make this clear: you have no hope of winning this argument on the grounds of reason. none. anyone who considers our arguments fully and objectively will reject yours out-of-hand as specious. You may win it through political maneuvering of one sort or another - confusing the issue, ramping up misdirected RfC's, getting your buds to back you up - but is that the way you want to win it? If you want to sacrifice the aims of wikipedia so that you can push through a specious argument you never should have made in the first place, I may not be able to stop you. but I sure will do my best.

finally, no, you don't irritate me much. this is actually an interesting pedagogical exercise for me, and I might get a decent publication out of it. I'm thinking "Rhetoric in the age of information: anti-epistemic appeals to scientific authority." I might even be able to convert it into a short series or a small book. I suppose I should thank you for that, but you irritate me enough that I don't want to go that far. C'est la vie. --Ludwigs2 22:43, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to push any point if it's wrong. You have opened a peephole to hope for my increased understanding by claiming there were "other documents" by the NSF that contradicted the quote I have been using. Please help me to understand this using those documents. OTOH, if you'd rather keep contradicting the NSF and my quoting them, that's your prerogative, but that's a declaration by you to misuse Wikipedia as a battleground rather than to settle this all very quickly. If those documents exist, that would be much easier for you. If you will provide evidence for your claim by proving that such documents exist, and that they contradict this quote, then I'll have learned something and this may end very quickly. Until then your claims will have to be considered unproven and potentially false. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

After refusal to provide the claimed evidence, Ludwigs2 is hereby banned from my talk page. The harassment and incivility needs to stop.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
again, you misunderstand one of the fundamental points of proper scholarship. it is (as a matter of formal logic) impossible to prove a negative. Scholarship proceeds by making a claim and supporting it with evidence; that evidence can then be examined to see if the claim made is the best means of explaining the evidence in toto. You have made a claim that the NSF holds a particular position, based on a piece of evidence. I have shown you (repeatedly) that that evidence is insufficient to support the claim you've made, and asked you to provide more or better evidence to support that claim. you have been unable to provide more evidence, been unable to salvage the evidence you've presented to make it stronger, and yet you continue to present the same refuted evidence as though it were meaningful. The only possibilities here are that you are aware of the evidentiary problems and you are lying in order to continue pushing your point of view, or you are not aware of the evidentiary problems here because you have no skills for basic reasoning. In either case, you have demonstrated that your (uninformed) opinion is not worthy of further consideration. I will keep explaining this to you as long as it takes; I'm happy to teach you the basic skills of scholarship if you are willing to learn. but please don't plate up a load of tripe like it was a porterhouse; I've got no issue with sending back to the kitchen. --Ludwigs2 16:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC) So you violate a fundamental rule of debate -- you make a claim that there is evidence from the NSF that contradicts the 2006 quote, then you refuse to produce the evidence for your claim (which is a truly pseudoskeptical act), and then you speak derogatorily to me as if you were somehow better or more knowledgeable? Who cares! Even if you were, it really doesn't mean anything. YOU made the claim and you won't back it up. Your repetitions of this nonsense just don't cut it. You want to get in the last word? You want to somehow be "right"? Whatever. I don't need this kind of baiting. Now don't come back here. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Your misrepresentations of our dispute

BullRangifer, while I am working on your RfC/U, our dispute is going on. Unfortunately you have chosen to misrepresent it. It is about whether using a certain NSF paper as a source for a certain claim is acceptable or not. More specifically, our disagreement is about whether the paper makes a certain claim, or if it does so, whether it does so intentionally and expresses the NSF's opinion. You are misrepresenting it as if I disagreed with the NSF. That is simply not true. I disagree with you about what the NSF says.

• Stop claiming that I disagree with what the NSF says. I disagree with you about what the NSF says.
• Stop claiming that your two RfCs established a consensus for your interpretation of the NSF paper. They established a consensus that the NSF is a highly reliable source.
• Stop accusing others of assuming bad faith while doing so yourself.

Hans Adler 11:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Arb-com and Pseudoscience

Just so we are on the same page... would you point me to the specific arb-com ruling that you think mandates the current language in WP:NPOV when it comes to categorizing pseudoscience? I am having difficulty finding it. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans has provided the proper link to the source for the NPOV wording. Note that the NPOV policy, not the ArbCom ruling, is the basis for editing and categorizing. (Not that ArbCom rulings aren't important or influence editing. Doing violence to them ends up creating conflict, because their rulings usually address conflicts and seek to prevent them.) The ArbCom wording was quickly adopted into NPOV policy, first as a FAQ subpage, and later moved into the main page. I obviously disgree with Hans Adler's straw man exaggeration of my POV below. I don't think that "may" means "must", and I obviously don't think that everything must be categorized as psi. That's just another of his attempts to poison the well against me. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think BullRangifer is severely confused about WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE#Serious encyclopedias and the following sections. He seems to read "may be so labeled and categorized" and "may properly contain that information and may be categorized" as if they said "must" instead of "may".

I guess that the remedy WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE#Tommysun banned is somehow related with some editors' obsession to categorise everything and the kitchen sink as "pseudoscience". The category came up in a discussion on the workshop page. [4] Hans Adler 13:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for the link.

Having now reviewed the arb-com case... I see where the language about categorization comes from... however, what I don't see is any sort of comment indicating that arb-com is recommending or mandating that this specific language be used in WP:NPOV. Arb-com has indeed ruled that we may categorize pseudoscience as such... however it has not ruled that we must mention this in the WP:NPOV policy. Blueboar (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

You are correct that they didn't dictate policy. They made such a good ruling that the community chose to include it in policy. When considering whether to tweak the wording, it is helpful to understand its history and its true intent. Otherwise we might end up undoing wording that was meant to solve a problem, thus opening the door to old conflicts and disruptions that created the need for the ArbCom case in the first place. That's why I suggested that a Request for Clarification would be the best place to start when considering changing the whole intent of the current wording. Then that clarification could be used as an important factor in deciding whether we really wanted to trash that intent. Such a decision must be made very carefully. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree. In a case that seems to be riddled with sloppiness as regards the details, Arbcom got at least one thing right: They established a bright line for the pseudoskeptics, one which they are simply not allowed to cross. At the time, and until about a year ago, they were still in an extremely strong position. They could not cross the bright line too blatantly, but they have made it a de facto policy to always push things right up to the edge so that they just project a bit beyond it. Hans Adler 14:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

That bright line applied to both sides of the discussion (skeptics and pseudoscientists alike, but mostly to pseudoscientists who backed up the losing side in that ArbCom), and your noted confusion over the difference between Guidelines 1 & 2 revealed that you were trying to push the bright line for categorization from between Guidelines 2 & 3 up to between Guidelines 1 & 2, which is a significant change. If you got your way, the whole use of the category and use of the very word "pseudoscience" would be deprecated and mention of the existence of anything as related to pseudoscience might even be banned from Wikipedia as a bad pejorative because its use might hurt people's feelings. Well, the real world happens to include pseudoscience, and it is commented on in numerous V & RS, so the encyclopedia must document that. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I can understand the desire for a bright line... and debating where to draw it. I come at this from a different angle... is WP:NPOV the right place to discuss all this? Blueboar (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Since the bright line is in the NPOV policy, and has been reiterated and made clearer by SlimVirgin's streamlining of that content, it's a logical place. Whether it's the best place, I'm not sure. Do you have a suggestion for another, better place?

BTW, while examining her revision very carefully, I noticed something which I hadn't noticed before. There was already a link to Category:Pseudoscience above the four Guidelines! If I had noticed that, I would never have started that RfC. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the logical place to discuss this is WP:FRINGE... which is a guideline devoted to discussing stuff like pseudoscience. Blueboar (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you are getting very "warm". Since the talk page there is reserved for discussing the policy itself, the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard is probably a better place. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there is some discussion at NPOV of moving the PSCI section to WP:FRINGE... so I think the talk page there is the right place. Blueboar (talk) 01:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting! That might be the right place for it. That would keep it as part of policy, but in a more related policy. I like it! -- Brangifer (talk) 03:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Glad you like it. I have posted an initial comment about the idea at WT:FRINGE and also at WP:FTN... if the good folks who watch those pages don't raise any strong objections (and since many of them are the same people who have been discussing the section with us at NPOV, I don't expect any), I will toss this idea to the wider community through an RfC. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

That sounds wise. I too suspect that there will be very little resistance. Since changing policy affects everything, it's important to get very wide support. It should be posted on multiple RfC watchlists, which is easy to do, and then announced manually on multiple noticeboards, projects, and the talk pages of the meta articles that deal with such subjects. Let me know when you start the RfC. I have over 4,000 articles on my watchlist, so it could slip under my radar. If you need any help, just contact me. Now go for it! -- Brangifer (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

More on SEIND

I left some of my thoughts on those reports over at User talk:2over0#NSF conflict update. There is quite a bit of background over at least the last few weeks that I have not perused, but at this point I favour using them but with care. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. I'll look at it. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:07, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

CM vandalism

Context: Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Caleb Murdock

Can you let me know if you see any more of those Providence IPs around? Some of them are close enough for a range block, but that might just be coincidence in the dynamic assignment. Email me if you are not sure what this is about. Thanks, - 2/0 (cont.) 06:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll keep my eyes open. I wish there was a tool or template warning system, so that it wasn't necessary to go to the vandalism reporting board. Then the warning template would automatically notify the bot. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Twinkle adds a button when you are viewing the contributions page. I am not sure that I have ever used that particular function, but the rest of the tool is pretty user friendly. IE is not supported, but it works fine in FireFox and I have not noticed any problems in Chrome or Opera. It should also be fairly simple to create a bot to monitor Category:Users in need of a good blocking and generate reports to AIV based on that. Putting a user in the category could be done by adding a template parameter - say, {{subst:uw-warn4|report=yes}} or something. Then again, I have never actually bothered to check how the current vandalism-reporting bots function. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't use Twinkle, and my HTML and programming skills are very limited. Someone needs to create this. Then a vandal4 tag would trigger the bot. BTW, take a look here. This shows what type of attitude I'm up against, or just look above near the end of this section. There a refusal to provide a claimed source reveals a pseudoskeptical attitude that would rather crucify than help, IOW create more disruption. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Another one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/71.161.239.242 -- Brangifer (talk) 06:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Edgar181 nabbed that one, and I tried a rangeblock. And so it goes. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I may as well document the attacks:

• 71.161.233.73 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 71.161.239.242 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 67.150.49.240 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 71.161.231.27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 72.82.14.172 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 72.82.7.213 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 72.82.20.134 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 72.82.20.215 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 72.82.1.248 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I have semi-protected this page for a month; it might need to be extended, but I generally prefer to start with a shortish period. You should also create and monitor a subpage where legitimate non-autoconfirmed can contact you. I added the rest of the IPs I have seen to your list, including some from the beginning of the month around the time his topic ban was being placed; I also found but did not list some older IPs that appear to be CM engaged in legitimate editing while inadvertently logged out. Up to you which ones you feel like tracking. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's probably best to ban User:Caleb Murdock indefinitely for evasion and harassment, and probably semi-protect the Seth material and Jane Roberts articles. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The relevant articles:

• Seth Material
• Jane Roberts

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-12-01_Seth_Material

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Rejected/39#Seth_Material

A warning I gave him.

He doesn't hide his ability to use socks.

The Wikipedia Signpost: 22 March 2010

• Wikipedia-Books: Wikipedia-Books: Proposed deletion process extended, cleanup efforts

• News and notes: Explicit image featured on Wikipedia's main page

• In the news: Campaign for video, costs of crowdsourcing, iPhone app, brief headlines

• WikiProject report: Percy Jackson Task Force

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 18:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Removing wiki-editing from BRD

[5] . How come?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Didn't the edit summary explain well enough? The whole point of the BRD cycle is to stop edit warring. There is only one cycle. It has no duplicate elements, for example, BBBRD, BRDB, BRBRD, etc.. The diagram explains it. As far as I know, there is no other way to establish without any doubt whether an edit war is going on, and exactly who started it. It's even more clear when an editor states in their edit summary that they are making a bold edit, or another one states that they are reverting. The proper response is to discuss and seek consensus. Where this doesn't apply is when there goes some time between edits. Otherwise, I may not be understanding exactly what you're meaning in all this, so please explain.-- Brangifer (talk) 01:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

BTW, what's "wiki-editing" mean? I don't recall that phrase. On another point, there are certain individuals who often attempt to change policy, and when they do I get very suspicious, they are Science Apologist, QuackGuru, and Ludwigs2 (and some others). (Note that the first two -- who share some of my skeptical POV -- are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the other one.) There's usually some ulterior motive, often designed to make policy more conducive to accepting their edits. Sure, policies can be improved, but it should be done through consensus, and not be done to aid oneself in an edit war. Sometimes they make edits directly to policies, or they do it by continual discussion, which is more acceptable. In this case, SA made a direct change. I know it's not a policy, but it probably should be since it is so useful to prevent edit warring. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The current BRD page actually could use a lot of rewriting to better represent all the stages of the cycle of editing. One very pleasing example of a bold-bold-bold interchange is a set of changes to the section Wikipedia:N#Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content done by User:FT2 and me between 19 and 23 February: [6] Although we disagreed about various points throughout the interchange, neither of us ever resorted to a revert: it was one bold readjustment after another. In all, we managed 7 bold rewrites of each other in a row without once reverting or taking it to talk, and in the end, we were both completely satisfied with how the give-and-take evolved.

True edit warring is more accurately called revert warring, where one person wants a page to be a certain way and another person flat out disagrees for whatever reason. Those are the wiki equivalent of "Is too!" "Is not!". Bold-bold-bold, by comparison, is almost like a complete BRD cycle carried out with every single edit: partial reversion, bold adjustments, and ongoing discussion via edit summaries.

I'm a bit wary of SA myself -- he has very strongly held views -- but regarding the recent change to BRD, he's got it spot-on. BBB is really the optimal form of BRD.--Father Goose (talk) 05:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. I know that's often how it works, and it's great when it works well. I understand the BRD cycle to apply to a certain type of editing situation not covered by the ideal you describe. That's my objection. It doesn't apply in all situations, because editors who AGF and can collaborate don't get that far. I think a pure BRD cycle description has value, and this would water it down to the point where it would be meaningless and not worth keeping. The original BRD cycle is so crystal clear that one can walk into a wikicourt (I know, we don't have one ) and present its violation as proof of who started the edit warring. The situation you describe is quite different and shouldn't be used to water down the BRD cycle. It might be worthy of another essay about the ideal editing situation. BRD doesn't describe the ideal, but is more a formalized set of rules where antagonists meet each other. Unfortunately that's all too often the case here. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't get hung up on the three letters "BRD" for the specific reason that it's the BRD cycle. The central virtue of the cycle is that through discussion, compromise can be achieved. Actual reverts are not strictly a necessary part of the cycle -- just an expression of opposition is -- and discussion can be done via edit summaries instead of the talk page.

The clarity you speak of about edit warring is just the clarity of edit warring, where one revert after another is taking place. Meanwhile, some people take a literal view of BRD in the form of bold, counteract, filibuster: that's not the BRD cycle either.

Separately, why do you feel that mentioning the ideal cycle (bold-bold-bold) on the BRD page is a bad thing? Suggesting that all objections must come in the form of reversions, and that all discussion must be done on the talk page is far worse -- it's the same process, but with much more paperwork.--Father Goose (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not necessarily a bad thing. I guess I was reacting to SA's bold edit to what is nearly a policy. I didn't see any type of consensus for such a radical change, one which will mean the diagram will also need to be changed (or maybe not?). I'm not that hung up on it, as long as the fundamental aspects are unchanged, and they don't seem to be. I was a bit concerned that things were heading in that direction. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure the diagram's ever been accurate. There was an enormous disagreement over its original form at WP:CONS about a year ago, until finally a simplified form was agreed upon -- File:Consensus Flowchart.svg. The new chart doesn't map 1-to-1 onto BRD though -- it's still in there, but the granularity is different; "(dis)agreement and compromise" instead of "reversion and discussion".--Father Goose (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, wikipedia policy is just a big mess. :-P There's actually 3 things intertwined at WP:BRD

The WP:BRD page presupposes knowledge of three things:

• (A) How consensus works ideally(bold->bold->bold->... ad infinum). This requires WP:AGF
• (B) How consensus works non-ideally (Bold->revert->discuss->bold->...) . signalling possible issues with WP:AGF .
• (C) How to recognize that consensus is broken (Either revert->revert->revert, or Bold->revert->discuss with discussion still happening after 48 hours and no new bold step)

Then the page (badly, imho) attempts to explain the following meta-process

• Objective is to find and solve the root cause of (C), by
  • a slightly "naughty" application of (B) to find the "key interested persons"
  • interviewing each person in turn
  • negotiating a partial consensus with each person in turn, until we have full consensus.
• we have hopefully removed all the issues that were blocking state (A), and we can continue in state (A)

We have the following issues:

• (A), (B), and (C) *are* somewhat described in wikipedia policy, but spread out across the entire Wikipedia: namespace along with lots of chaff, so WP:BRD is just about the only place where they are ever discussed together as a whole at all.
• With that, BRD often gets quoted as a source to explain (A),(B),(C); when really specific pages referring to (A), (B), or (C) should be quoted. (if they even exist properly)
• The process that BRD applies gets lost in the noise.
• The graph on WP:BRD showing (A), (B) is no longer in sync with WP:CONSENSUS. The graph at WP:CONSENSUS now no longer shows (A), (B) at all!

My issue was with you removing (A) from WP:BRD, was that (A) is the actual objective of the process. ;-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 11:00, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the great explanation. I have often referred to BRD because it summarizes the application of several policies, as you explain so nicely. It's not perfect, and in my mind it has never been designed to describe the perfect situation, but to avoid edit warring. You objected to my removal, while I objected to the addition of radically new content without discussion or consensus. Whatever the case, if others see value in it, that's fine with me. One of the recent cases where BRD was broken in a very disruptive manner was also in the back of my mind. A certain editor who is banned from this talk page had carried on a one-sided edit war which ended up involving a number of different editors. (I say "one-sided" because his reverts totalled more than all the others put together.) The situation was sort of like this: BRDRDRDRDRD, IOW he continued to edit and revert while the discussion was on-going and definitely hadn't reached even a semblance of consensus. That was very disruptive and irritated several editors. He violated BRD by not stopping at D. It was an endless cycle to him. He thought that because he was discussing, that he had a right to continue to readd the very disputed content. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

He correctly continued at B after D, it's cyclic, not linear. Where (s)he may have erred is that perhaps (s)he didn't adjust his/her edits based on the discussion?

It's supposed to go something like "Ok, I tried this, apparently you didn't like it. How come?" (other person says what's wrong) "Alright, I've made this new BOLD edit, that incorporates what I think you said. Is that ok? Can you BOLDLY improve it from there, or do we need to talk some more before you're happy? "

And the other side should work the same way.

Though of course, in the cases where I got called in as an informal mediator, a lot of discussion was about getting people to even just talk, let alone solving ABF issues or getting work done. It takes a lot of work to get back to (A), but it's definitely fun, and worth it! :-)

So what went wrong in this case?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 15:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Reading a bit more, is this to do with Ludwigs2? --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:46, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does involve him/her, and it wasn't B after D, it was RRRRRR during D. It was an edit war at alternative medicine during Jan and Feb. On Feb. 3 I wrote this to him: "BTW, I still haven't gotten any promise from you that you won't repeat your violations of BRD. I want an assurance from you that you realize that it's wrong to discuss and repeatedly edit in a controversial manner at the same time. The BRD cycle doesn't have a repeat button at the end. Discuss means ONLY discuss, not edit at the same time. Will you promise not to do that again? Have you understood?" I have never gotten such a promise, nor any indication that he realized that what he was doing was very disruptive.

BRD is not cyclic, as was explained to him by several editors, including admins. If BRD is cyclic, then it serves little purpose to stop edit warring. Any editing during a tense situation will likely be misinterpreted (or correctly interpreted!) as edit warring. In the situation referred to, even when it might have been B during D, it was disruptive restoration of very contested content, IOW an attempt to force personal content over the objections of other editors, which isn't an attempt to seek consensus, but to edit war. When B can in any manner be interpreted as being against the objections of other editors, then it's disruptive. Only in situations where the Bold edit is a result of AGF discussions and following what one perceives to be the expressed concerns of the other editors is it proper. Otherwise it's dangerous and disruptive to edit at all while the discussion is ongoing. The whole idea of D is to stop all editing on the contested topic, stick to discussion, and seek consensus. Hammer it out on the talk page. Make trial edits on the talk page, refs and all.

Stop and think about it. How often, on controversial topics, do editors totally and always AGF? How often are there no sensibilities and feelings involved? How often is it impossible for misunderstandings to occur? Never? Right! Due caution requires that absolutely nothing is done that can be misinterpreted as warlike. Therefore BRD is not cyclic. It's an even tighter control than 3RR. It means that there is only one cycle, then one tries to form a consensus version and agree to incorporate that into the article. It should properly be written as: BRDS (BOLD, Revert, Discuss, Stop), and do not start over again. Sure, sometimes nothing happens for awhile. In that case a Bold edit can restart the process. Maybe the other editors don't really care anymore and there'll be no problem. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:31, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

If people aren't assuming good faith, or acting in good faith, just about nothing will work.

It might seem that all disputes should be worked out on talk pages before being implemented, but in practice, bold experimentation with alternatives has a quickening effect on resolution. People can quibble over fine points for months, digging the trenches deeper and deeper, but when presented with a solution immediately at hand, disputes often simply vaporize.

Bold experimentation with alternatives in the midst of dispute -- if truly done in a spirit of good faith and compromise -- also fosters good faith, and augments the discussion process. It's an overture of cooperation -- though it has to be intended as such and taken as such.--Father Goose (talk) 04:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

By and large I agree, but only when the spirit is truly one of collaboration. Let's not ignore the interesting (and unfortunate) fact that much of the editing on controversial topics does what Wikipedia is supposed to do -- reflect and document what's happening in the real world. These are real conflicts we're documenting, and very few editors can collaborate with editors who hold opposing POV. I've had that pleasure a few times, but it's relatively rare. If you ignore the fact that edit warring really does happen, and that lots of such editing isn't intended as "an overture of cooperation", then I don't see the point of BRD in the first place. It's a method to prevent brewing edit wars. It's not about the ideal situation, a situation which often isn't working, so BRD exists to cover these less-than-ideal situations so we can still get some editing done without all hell breaking loose. I hear too much talk about the ideal, and not enough about the realities. We need essays about the ideal, and we need to encourage it, but no matter what, it's never going to happen all the time, and we need to formalize a way for policies to still work in those situations. That's what BRD is for. If it includes the slightest bit of a recycle function, it can, will, and is be(ing) used to eliminate the only known way to identify where an edit war started and who did it. People need to be held accountable for screwing things up. You are giving edit warriors an excuse to edit war and call it part of BRD. BRD is not part of edit warring. It's to prevent it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Just putting some notes here: Bold->Revert->Discuss->STOP is a case (C). (I actually described it as such, and you appear to have agreed?) You correctly identify that situation as indicative of a problem because "bad faith is present".

You incorrectly state that case (C) is an objective of BRD. BRD is, in fact, one tool in our arsenal to *end* case (C).

The objective of BRD is orthogonal to edit warring, neither allowing nor preventing. However, incorrect or injudicious application may be misidentified as edit warring. (Hence some of the warnings on WP:BRD ;-))

The objective of BRD is to achieve case (A), it's objective is to resolve case (C).

Note that (A), and (B) are cyclic, while the pathological case (C) need not be.

Formally, BRD employs (B), and is thus, by necessity, cyclic.

Short version: We're supposed to edit on wikipedia. Everything we do (including discussion) is supposed to lead to making a new edit. Everything that prevents new edits is a problem in need of some solution. Of course, clumsy application of the tools to do so can lead to the situation getting more bungled up than before, rather than less. ;-)

Finally, wikipedia is not a blame game. We try to resolve our issues and come to the next edit, we don't waste resources on guilt and punishment.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:22, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I think we are "talking past each other" to some degree. My BRDS wasn't a description of your case C, IF I understand you correctly. When I write "stop", I mean discussing until there is a consensus, and then making bold edits that are in harmony with that consensus. That includes careful editing during discussion, as long as it isn't disruptive. It could be written as BRDC, with that being a cyclic process. The C would be Consensus. If there are no controversial issues, then the BRD process isn't necessary, but there are lots of them at Wikipedia. The best articles are written when editors who hold opposing POV can collaborate. I'm very familiar with the BRDC type of editing on very controversial subjects, and it works very well. It forces editors to talk to each other and form a consensus version. Everytime a rogue editor starts editing before a consensus has been reached, all hell breaks loose and someone gets blocked, banned, or the article gets locked down. The idea of BRD is to force editors to seek consensus. Edit warring seeks to bypass consensus.

Most of the time there is no need for the BRD cycle. Its main application is in controversial situations. It is a code of conduct designed to avoid clashes and to force attempts to seek consensus. I fear that some of what you are saying deprecates the supremacy of consensus. As far as your last sentence goes, Wikipedia isn't ideal, so it's not a case of "either/or". We do the best we can, and of course we don't wish edit warring or blaming, but it happens and can't be ignored. This discussion reminds me of pacifist discussions where one part says we don't need the police, military or jails because people shouldn't do bad things. When objections are raised, the return argument is that we can stop all crime and war if we are more kind to each other. The problem with that type of discussion is that the one doesn't exclude the other. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Your advice to User:Maquiguy

Would you strike out your advice to Maquiguy (talk · contribs)? Using the information without citing it violates Wikipedia:Plagiarism. I also doubt that http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Origins-of-the-Maqui-Berry is a reliable source because it appears to be user-generated. See the offensive changes Maquiguy made to the webpage. A responsible website would not allow such changes to made. Cheers, Cunard (talk) 05:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hubpages.com is definitely not a RS, and I said to not use it: "The best solution is to completely leave out mention of that source...", but I'll delete my comment anyway as I doubt this user is going to be able to figure out how to do it properly anyway. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

After reading your comment a second time, I see that I have misunderstood what you meant. However, the message could be read several different ways though (I don't understand what you mean by Forget the original format, authors, etc. - does it mean not to cite those authors?), so thanks for removing it. Cunard (talk) 06:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

What I clumsily meant to say was to start from scratch here. If there was any good content at the hubpages.com site, then find out what the original source was, and if it was a RS, use that to build content here. One can get good ideas from reading other articles on subjects, then adapt them here. I was assuming that the hubpages.com article did quote from some RS, but maybe it didn't. Whatever the case, my comment could be misunderstood, so your advice was well worth following. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 29 March 2010

• News and notes: Usability rollout, downtime, admin phishing, Wikimania scholarships and more

• In the news: Overdue correction, Critical Point of View conference, brief headlines

• Sister projects: A handful of happenings

• WikiProject report: The WikiProject Bulletin: news roundup and WikiProject Chicago feature

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 17:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 5 April 2010

• News and notes: New board member, rights elections, April 1st activities, videos

• In the news: Wikipedia influences drug terminology, brief headlines

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Baseball and news roundup

• Features and admins: This week in approvals

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 02:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Homeopathy sock

From behavioral evidence it looks like Dr. Vittal is Dr. Jhingaadey. I'd recommend opening a case. Auntie E. (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is classic Dr. J. Compare Vittal's contributions (spamming Talk:Homeopathy, good article review, and WP:NPOVN]) to User:NootherIDAvailable, a confirmed Jhingaadey sock. Same arguments, same idiosyncratic English, similarly formatted lists of the same questionable studies... if Vittal's IP doesn't trace to Bangalore I'll eat my hat. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 23:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You may want to weigh in.

You may want to comment on this thread. Unomi (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to admit I've noticed there is a discussion, but I haven't followed it at all. From what I know of QuackGuru's debate tactics, it's often hopeless to discuss things with him. He goes in endlessly repetitive rings without properly answering questions or dealing with the objections of others. I end up very frustrated when dealing with him. Right now, as you know, I've been under intense and very nasty attacks for abiding by the consensus in two RfCs and following the Psi ArbCom's ruling, it's corollary in the NPOV policy, FRINGE, "verifiability, not truth", and RS in general. The constant harassment has left me little time for much else. Otherwise I'd probably take the time to weigh in there because, IIRC, QG's opinion on the subject of attribution is miles from mine. When in doubt, I believe in overattribution rather than too little attribution. I consider it an editorially good practice to attribute potentially controversial statements regardless of their POV. I don't see any downside to doing so. I couldn't care less if there is no controversy in RS. If an editor seriously and unfrivolously challenges a statement, then it should be sourced AND attributed. A challenge and controversy on a talk page is enough for me to consider attribution as a method to resolve the dispute. Why not?!! This is just one of many ideosyncratic ideas QG pushes, and even though we share skeptical POV on certain subjects, I vehemently disagree with most of his methodologies here at Wikipedia and consider him to be so disruptive as to be a liability to Wikipedia, and even to skepticism in general. So, to sum this up, don't take my silence as agreement with him. Far from it. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Notice of RS/N discussion

I have started a centralised discussion about the SEI 2006 and its fitness as a source for what you want to use it for at WP:RS/N#Science and Engineering Indicators 2006. Hans Adler 11:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a very logical next step in DR. I had considered doing so after several had asked me why I hadn't done it, but I feared you'd accuse me of forum shopping. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)