User talk:ජපස

Discretionary sanctions notification - climate change

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The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Climate change, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

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Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:41, 19 October 2014 (UTC)Template:Z33

Ayurveda

Hi. As someone who has edited this article recently, I am bringing your attention to a proposed set of restrictions at Talk:Ayurveda#Going forward. I see this action as necessary to allow harmonious editing at the article, and to prevent more blocks going forward. Best regards, --John (talk) 20:45, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment on using secondary RSs at "List of scientists opposing maintream assessment of global warming"

In the most recent AFD of a particular article, you made a comment that referenced "original research" or "WP:OR". I am sending this same message to every non-IP editor who metioned either character string in that AFD. Please consider participating in a poll discussion about adding secondary RSs to the listing criteria at that talk page. Thanks for your attention. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:28, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Universal rotation curve

I substantially undid your edit that removed large chunks from the universal rotation curve article. There was a debate as to whether this article should survive at all, and the result was to keep it. Yes, I think the article could benefit from a substantial amount of editing, but the large deletions are, to me, contrary to the spirit of the AFD result. I am fairly new at this, so it easily could be that I am approaching this wrong. If you would redo your change, please also explain (on the article talk page?) why the deletions are not contrary to the spirit of the AFD. Leegrc (talk) 16:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I have tried to address your concerns on the talkpage. Unfortunately, many of those arguing in the AfD were either the authors of the article or were not familiar enough with the literature to understand that the universal rotation curve is an approach that is taken by one group and basically ignored by everyone else (except for a few of the more adamant MONDians who are subject to our WP:FRINGE inclusion criteria). jps (talk) 16:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Graphology

A good RS supporting the validity of graphology [1] Investimate (talk) 13:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

From what I understand, Dan Anthony is a WP:FRINGE proponent of rather unorthodox claims in psychology and psychometrics. As such, it is not clear that his attestation is what would be needed in terms of WP:FRIND. jps (talk) 15:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia of Creativity, the book from which the link is taken is not written by Dan Anthony! The book was written by several independent RS and edited by Marc Runco and Steven Pritzker[2] It is their attestation, not Anthony's. Investimate (talk) 07:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

You miss my point. The authors don't acknowledge the fringe nature of Anthony's advocacy. jps (talk) 11:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 12

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Teleportation

Maybe you can help me on this. Please see two sections on this article "Information-only teleportation" and "Matter teleportation". Would you consider these fringe claims? I was going to remove it? Good idea or no? And this book has been cited "The Physics of Star Trek". Is that reliable for this sort of thing? Goblin Face (talk) 18:13, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that Lawrence Krauss' book is just as good as almost any other for this sort of thing. It's a bit "out-on-a-limb-ish", but it's not unreasonable. Less "fringe" and more "fanciful speculation", IMHO. jps (talk) 18:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

List of pseudosciences

I wonder what you might think of maybe changing the title to something like "List of purported sciences." One of the reasons I think such a title might be preferable is that it allows addition of some topics which clearly are by definition psuedoscientific but which may never have been specifically called such. Christian Science and the variations on it come to mind, as they clearly call themselves science but generally are not considered to be such.

On an unrelated note, I would be interested in your opinion regarding perhaps changing policy from reading wikipedia is a "scientific" encyclopedia to wikipedia being an "academic" encyclopedia. From what I can tell, having looked over a lot of encyclopedias lately, it seems to me that the most accurate single term to describe encyclopedias in general is "philosophical," although admittedly giving priority of place to philosophy of science, aka science, where such is applicable and where the "science" is perhaps other than strictly theoretical. Ideally, I might like to see policy rewritten to prioritize material in roughly the following fashion:

• (1) first priority would be for material directly impacting the lives of readers, like for instance medicine, law, and personal finance, with maybe creating a policy along the lines of BLP for material relating to the lives of living persons
• (2) second to that, the opinions of the scientific community in matters where the topic under discussion has been both found to be consistent with experimental evidence and to have some specific independent evidence which directly supports is. this would basically leave out a lot of "theoretical physics" and speculative sciences regarding matters which have yet to receive any clear experimental support. Unfortunately, while a lot of theoretical physics is to some degree accepted as reasonable, without any real experimental evidence telling which variation on a specific approach within the broad field of that theory can be very difficult.
• (3) content consistent with non-scientific non-philosophical academic disciplines, like history, the social sciences, etc.
• (4) material relating broadly to purely theoretical sciences, philosophy in general (specifically including aesthetics and other "art" related views), and religion broadly construed next
• (5) fringe theories of any kind related to any of the above.

Unfortunately, as I think you know, it is the case that even both sides in the "global warming" debate have been called pseudoscientific, and the word itself is perhaps used less often in the sciences themselves as it might best be for us to be able to use it as an truly "scientific" term in itself. And in some cases what some might call "pseudoscience" might be called by others "theoretical physics" or similar, which makes the differentiation between them harder.

Anyway, just a few ideas. But I would be interested in your opinions. John Carter (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

In practice, the demarcation problem is solved most of the time by an I know it when I see it approach. Routinizing this is neither desirable nor possible within the context of Wikipedia. To take your final example first, it is fairly clear that global warming denialists are the pseudoscientists who reject climate science in favor of some perspective or another which is generally considered pseudoscientific for one reason or another. It seems that you are interested in removing what is undeniably a fraught term from Wikipedia's general lexicon (at least from the standpoint of identification -- I'm sure you're happy with us actually having an article on the subject of pseudoscience). I don't know whether changing from list of pseudosciences to list of purported sciences isn't just a euphemism treadmill. I think that arguments over "purported sciences" would be just as problematic for a list inclusion as "psueosciences". Look at how WP:FRINGE is becoming increasingly used as an epithet, even though it was designed in part to be a neutral descriptor ("fringe" used to be a positive term for people and ideas on the edge -- see fringe festival). Inventing yet aother new term will put Wikipedia on the bleeding edge of these general questions in the sociology of science, knowledge, and technology -- not something we are prepared to do as a group, I would argue.

As to your proposal to move to a definition of Wikipedia as an academic encyclopedia, I would be all in favor of that. (Contrary to your suggestion, though, I don't think there is any policy indiction present that Wikipedia is a "scientific" encyclopedia. WP:SPOV was rejected, after all.) If you could get some consensus for making Wikipedia "academic", I would be thrilled. However, I seriously doubt that this will be possible. I tried suggesting this approach at certain featured article discussions a year or so ago. The problem is that WP:FANCRUFT has become endemic to the ongoing life of this somewhat moribund project. The most active editors are doing things like writing articles on roads, video games, and current events. Meanwhile, academic subjects languish. One can even see that tendency with me. The last academic article I spent any significant amount of time on was force, abandoning hope for that back before I was banned from the site.

Those are my rough-draft first thoughts.

jps (talk) 11:50, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

The main reasons for questioning the use of "pseudoscience" as a word are the dubious definition of the term (an implicit 34 variations in the OED) and the fact that we really can't use the term to describe things which qualify as pseudoscience, like Christian Science, but predate the term pseudoscience itself, and so aren't as likely to have been described very often by that term. This would not preclude using the word for either a category for such articles, or as maybe a secondary descriptive term in the article, in those instances when the topic is often described as pseudoscience. And yeah, there's a question whether some things that have been described in the past as social sciences really continue to qualify as "pseudoscience" if they no longer describe themselves as science.

Yeah, personally, I do have reservations about using the term "pseudoscience" as a primary descriptor of a lot of topics if it isn't most regularly described as such in independent reference sources. I would myself favor a more specific if rather lengthier statement like "claims to be science, but whose status as science is questioned or rejected," if the subject is primary clearly a purported science, like Creation science or Christian science. If it maybe secondarily a "pseudoscience," a second sentence saying "its claims to scientific status have not received much support and it is widely regarded as 'pseudoscience.'" Some matters, although none come immediately to mind, seem like things which might perhaps better be described as philosophy with "scientific" claims, but maybe aren't primarily "pseudoscientific". Maybe. So, for instance, an old Mormon book about the "Science of prophecy" I've seen is probably not the best grounds to describe the Mormon conception of prophecy as a pseudoscience, but it can be more easily said to be a purported science based on that book.

Regarding scientific topics and academic topics per se, that's one of the reasons I'm working on developing the Bibliography of encyclopedias, and eventually a broader Bibliography of reference works, listing as many as I can and maybe, eventually, lists of articles like Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Encyclopedic articles for the leading encyclopedias in the various relevant fields. There are a lot of reference works relating to the problematic intersection of science and philosophy, and, honestly, most of them tend to take the broadly academic perspective, which tends to favor experimentally verifiable science, but not so much "unproven" theoretical sciences, some of which might not unreasonably be questioned as "pseudoscience" if they don't have any real hard evidence to support them yet. Some of them will probably give some weight to fringier topics, like maybe "supernatural forces," but taken as a group they would probably tend to limit the weight in such overview topics of woo material to one small section and a spinout article.

Regarding "force," I haven't checked all the relevant science and physics encyclopedias and reference works lately, but I would think that the content they contain would arguably be unquestionably relevant for our article on "force", and together may well be sufficient with the Britannica article (if there is one) to establish the basic layout of the main article on the topic. I'm considering doing a broken-up group of lists of encyclopedia articles for multiple projects from EB, but that is probably a month or more away. But such might help in establishing both the WEIGHT in major topics, and, where necessary, what spinout articles on alternate ideas are more useful.

Sorry for blathering on. John Carter (talk) 16:40, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Numerous attempts to change the title have been made and never succeeded, simply because no other title fits the bill, especially considering the four groups created by the PSI ArbCom decision. Those groups are pretty good. In the end it still comes back to sourcing. "When in doubt, attribute." Only in pretty much unambiguous cases, where the vast majority of RS call something a pseudoscience, do we use Wikipedia's voice to say it, and then we do it and defend it rigorously, adding more sources if necessary.

The question of whether something "is" or "is not" a pseudoscience is often a straw man diversion which it is best to avoid. If you see someone take their argument toward that rabbit hole, call them on it and stop that train of thought, because it encourages discussion of personal opinions, rather than "what do the sources say". We should always follow the sources and use common sense.

I do find your idea about "academic" intriguing. Maybe it'll get traction, so go for it! -- Brangifer (talk) 17:32, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

It's not that hard to define pseudoscience: it is work that purports to be scientific but significantly fails the test of scientific rigour. Remote viewing experiments are pseudoscience, remote viewing itself is merely a delusion. Homeopathy experiments are pseudoscience, homeopathy itself is a pseudoscience because it masquerades as a form of medicine but is not one. Acupuncture is not inherently a pseudoscience, but current studies of acupuncture meridians are pseudoscience. We don't need to guess though: there are a number of well-known reliable sources on the demarcation issue. Guy (Help!) 00:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Or: List of fields considered to be pseudoscientific. Guy (Help!) 00:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'm a bit late to the party but nevertheless I'll throw in my 2 cents because it's an interesting topic.

In deciding what a word means the dictionary is rarely helpful except at a basic level (as a starting point for an interesting discussion say). The OED online gives 17 different definitions of the word "science" for example [3] but we clearly know what we are talking about when we say it. It is not always easy to reduce a concept to a nice short definition which encompasses what it is.

On Christian Science being pseudo-science, actually the sources do exist and in the standard sorts of places as every other topic. Of course, despite me getting 5 sources describing it to be a pseudo-science (see cite 16 and where it occurs in the article) Jimbo Wales deleted it as "unsourced" [4] (don't worry, SlimVirgin came along and buried all of the content, including that about child deaths from medical neglect). So it's the sort of thing I don't think won't get into an article (because of religion). Personally I don't care too much about labelling something as pseudoscience, but what I am interested in is providing all the reasons why it meets the criteria for being regarded as such.

Something that "claims to be science, but whose status as science is questioned or rejected," or " it is work that purports to be scientific but significantly fails the test of scientific rigour" is kind of an incoherent definition of pseudo-science to me. Firstly, who is doing the claiming? Secondly, if half of astrologers claimed they were doing science and half didn't, would that mean the first set of astrologers were engaging in pseudo-science and the second set weren't, and that therefore astrology is only half pseudo-scientific or not pseudo-scientific? Is it defined by it's practioners views on science or by the research rigour of their community, their lack of historical progress and their theoretical framework alone? Further, those who engage in activities regarded as pseudo-scientific frequently "tend to be ambiguous between opposition to science and claims that they themselves represent the best science"; Christian science is a good example of this. They simultaneously attack and try to wear the mantle of science, so are they pseudo-science or are they not because they distance themselves?

In fact, if you look at the Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy entry on pseudo-science [5], you see that they show another problems with the standard definition, namely that fraud isn't generally regarded as pseudo-science but bad science despite satisfying the descriptions you gave.

Under the wider sense of pseudo-science (the one the Stanford encyclopedia says critics of pseudoscience use in practice if not in how they define it), the items on the list are pseudoscience. Second Quantization (talk) 21:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I would agree that Christian Science in at least some of its aspects, the basically "medical" ones, are pseudoscietific. The religious philosophy aspects are pretty much straightforward religious philosophy. And there are, as far as I remember, a rather huge number of usages of the term "pseudoscience" are to be found on JSTOR, which could, presumably, be used to source a lot of the topics described in those sources as pseudoscience. There actually are so far as I can tell a rather huge number of topics which are included in the few reference works on pseudoscience I know of, which should, at least, be considered reliable sources for the topics being called pseudoscience, even if they might fail MEDRS as medical descriptions. I would think that MEDRS would only apply to specifically medical matters, and that other matters which are not inherently medical, like something being described as a pseudoscience, would be outside the scope of MEDRS. This might be particularly true for encyclopedic sources which might contain rather poorly written articles describing things which the editors included in the topic of pseudoscience, because by their being selected to be the subjects of articles in those works they are, apparently, reasonably described as pseudoscience on that basis alone. John Carter (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• It's OK to have a rough definition of pseudoscience as long as it is understood as being rough. The definition Guy offered is not far from how Pigliucci/Boudry define it, "if a theory strays from the epistemic desiderata of science by a sufficiently wide margin while being touted as scientific by its advocates, it is justifiably branded as pseudoscience". Nobody expects the demarcation problem to be resolved by a sentence or two, otherwise there would be no need for books like the one by Pigliucci/Boudry.

On a related but slightly tangential note, since editing Wikipedia I have become aware of the enormous cultural divide on how the word "pseudoscience" is perceived. In mainstream discourse the label denotes a meaningful and informative category, while fringe advocates consider it to be an information-free insult akin to "stupid". Since latter group believes the word represents an entirely subjective opinion, they are incensed when Wikipedia uses "pseudoscience" in its own voice. One such advocate argues that because there is fuzziness in the demarcation problem for certain cases, it is therefore impossible to actually differentiate between science and pseudoscience. One might as well argue that the distinction between male and female is meaningless because intersex people exist. Manul ~ talk 17:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the second point, the same thing is true about the phrae new religious movements. Happily, in that case, the phrase is used almost exclusively by the academic community in some form, so we can reasonably say that when an academic source calls something an NRM it is one and include it in the list of new religious movements. The unfortunate ambiguity of the usage and implications of the term pseudoscience lead me to think that in that case adding an additional modifier to the title seems appropriate. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't the point about NRM contradict the point about pseudoscience? In mainstream academia there is little ambiguity in the usage and implications of the term pseudoscience, in practice. Wikipedia should reflect that. Proponents of pseudoscience seek to portray ambiguity where there is none (like "teach the controversy") and affix an intensely personal connotation to "pseudoscience" where none was intended. They would have us believe that sheer bigotry is the reason their views have not been accepted by mainstream science. On Wikipedia we might describe that view, but we can't buy into it or have it play a role in editorial decisions. Manul ~ talk 21:37, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Copyright checks when performing AfC reviews

Hello ජපස. This message is part of a mass mailing to people who appear active in reviewing articles for creation submissions. First of all, thank you for taking part in this important work! I'm sorry this message is a form letter – it really was the only way I could think of to covey the issue economically. Of course, this also means that I have not looked to see whether the matter is applicable to you in particular.

The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered.

If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.)

If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Wikipedia to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using {{db-g12|url=URL of source}}. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with {{subst:copyvio|url=URL of source}}.

Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors.

I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC).

       Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Requesting assistance

I know that this is probably one of the more problematic times of year for you, and there is no particular rush on this at all. But I was wondering whether you might, as circumstances permit, take a look at Bibliography of encyclopedias: astronomy and astronomers and maybe try to sort the list out into useful topical subgroupings. Yes, I know that the UFO books are at best dubiously included in this section, but they were included in the ALA Guide to Reference Astronomy list, from which I got a lot of the information included, which seems to indicate that they at least deserve some sort of listing here, if only eventually of a "see main listing (somewhere else)" type. I may well make such a section if and when I see a clear grouping for pseudoscientific sources in one of the other lists.

I'm still going through the full lists of encyclopedic sources from those lists, and actually have only gotten up to the early "B"'s in terms of sublists there. On conclusion, I'm going to try to start similar lists of Bibliography of reference sources, using the same sources and the ARBA annuals for the non-encyclopedic reference sources. If and when I get to that point, and it still feels like it might be months away, having some idea of what subgroupings you might use here will be useful in sorting out the larger lists of reference works there. John Carter (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, jps. I also would appreciate it if you could take time to opine on this discussion about whether books about UFOs should be listed at Bibliography_of_encyclopedias:_astronomy_and_astronomers#UFOs. Cardamon (talk) 00:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

You really should. The amusing attempts to try to place personal OR over independent reliable sources are most amusing, and, honestly, if the changes are made, well, the page might benefit from having someone who is interested in improving the article rather than than making OR criticisms. I can't imagine that there would be any reason for me to even watch the development of the article if one editor's determined attempts to make content conform to apparently no more than his own personal opinions takes priority over the sources. John Carter (talk) 00:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

In spite of appearances to the contrary, I have been thinking about this topic. Sad to say, I'm undecided. There is a part of me that thinks that including encyclopedias of pseudoscience might be useful if for no other reason than to provide a convenient reference point for astronomers who get accosted with pseudoscientific questions. jps (talk) 21:14, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture case request closed by motion

The Arbitration Committee has closed a case request by motion with the following remedy being enacted:

In lieu of a full case, the Arbitration Committee authorises standard discretionary sanctions for any edit about, and for all pages relating to Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Any sanctions that may be imposed should be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture. The Committee urges interested editors to pursue alternative means of dispute resolution such as RFC's or requests for mediation on the underlying issues. If necessary, further requests concerning this matter should be filed at the requests for clarification and amendment page.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Fake archiving

Since you neither reverted yourself nor explained why you thought "archiving" something other than what was on the page was appropriate, I'll leave a record here: That was blatantly disruptive, and if such actions recur, they will have consequences. Consider this a warning. Huon (talk) 21:39, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Warning is nice to do. Just realize that you are an WP:INVOLVED admin on the basis of your belief in the justification of your previous actions. jps (talk) 22:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not involved and I have no problem blocking you if this continues. Give it a rest please, jps. Drmies (talk) 02:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The more you edit that thread, the longer it will take before it's archived. Jus' saying. Drmies (talk) 02:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I know you don't have a problem blocking anyone, Drmies. You seem to take a certain amount of pleasure in blocking user accounts. jps (talk) 14:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

creation–evolution controversy

An article you have edited List of participants in the creation–evolution controversy has been nominated for deletion. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_participants_in_the_creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy FYI --Kaptinavenger (talk) 09:07, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

DS on Griffin

Just want to make sure you are aware that there is a 1RR DS in place on the Griffin article, and Callanecc (who implemented that) gave Guy a formal warning for making a controversial edit that was unlikely to find consensus. This is not a formal notice, just a heads up. Jytdog (talk) 03:30, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

That's cool. Do you think my second/third edit corresponds to a revert? jps (talk) 03:39, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I am mostly worried about your first edit, which Callanecc (who is abiding by the RfC close) might take as a revert to the pre-close state of the article (the closer made a sweeping edit after the close, here, removing all mention of "conspiracy theory" from it). Callanecc might also say that is a controversial edit that doesn't break 1RR per my original note.

the 2nd/3rd edits will count as one, as they are serial; seems OK to me, it is just a reword and i don't think the article ever said that

sorry to bother you with this - I really hate it that the editors working on the article didn't restrain themselves and we ended up under DS. I don't like working under them, as people like you come in later and get trapped. Jytdog (talk) 04:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Tu quoque indeed: thanks! I'll try to remember it. Drmies (talk) 16:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Sciency stuff

jps, if I'm not mistaken, you're a sciency kind of guy, right? One of them liberals who thinks that scientifically established fact is somehow more important in making policy decisions and stuff than right-wing interpretations of what is claimed to be holy? If so, say "yes"--I got a funny and interesting email for you (which is probably more for you than for me) that I can pass along. Drmies (talk) 16:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure. Go right ahead. jps (talk) 16:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

On its way. Drmies (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Ecat merger

Hey mate I'm not allowed over on Energy Catalyser anymore, but I happen to have read through the archives of that page last month when looking at the sources, and I just wanted to point out, incase you didn't know, that the article has twice previously been up for merger with A.Rossi, and opposed each time.  InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{InsertTalkHere}  16:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that's because people are taken in by WP:RECENTISM. It will happen. Eventually. jps (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Eternity

Hi, I reverted older changes by those crazy IPs, but your edits had been intermingled with them. Some of your additions, like sempiternity, had already been in there but were removed by the IPs. I'll try to fish out some of your changes. Manul ~ talk 12:29, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Threats

If you want to file a frivolous WP:AE request, then go ahead and do so. Be aware of WP:BOOMERANG. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Watts

A DS alert was given only today; no activity before that is admissible at AE. In other news, I was surprised that souza interpreted my culling of the Surface Stations section as whitewashing. In this climate (pun intended) sometimes there are false positives, I suppose. Or I may have missed something that was considered essential. Manul ~ talk 03:44, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Yep. The actions that were taken after being warned are enough to show that he just doesn't care. jps (talk) 03:47, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Requesting essay input

I started the page User:John Carter/Self-appointed prophet to basically deal with editors who are a bit beyond being simple POV pushers but don't necessarily have a monetary COI. Basically, to include the real fanatics and evangelists out there. I figured you probably know a few from the field of pseudoscience as well. Feel free to make any copy-editing (which I'm pretty sure it needs) or any additions you think reasonable. John Carter (talk) 18:25, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) nice! see also Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing? (on a completely superficial note, i see i am not the only one who cannot make the double-bullet thing work nicely. WHY does it show two buillets, WHY?) Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) who doesn't actually remember why this talk page is on my watchlist, but anyway... Nice essay on a much-needed topic. For the formatting, I made an attempt to tweak the bullets/indentation by converting to {{ordered list}} templates. Feel free to remove of course :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:09, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration Case Opened

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Collect and others. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Collect and others/Evidence. Please add your evidence by April 7, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Collect and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Robert McClenon (talk) 20:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC) Robert McClenon (talk) 20:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Please strike

Formally requesting you strike this egregious personal attack.--MONGO 23:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you consider the entire quote to be a personal attack? Or do you consider the question as to whether they were Lyndon LaRouche supporters? I mean, I sincerely want to know who they are. I guess curiosity may not translate well online? Anyway, you'll have to be more specific about what you think a "personal attack" is, because I can't see it. Honestly. jps (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

American politics 2 arbitration case opened

Pursuant to section 3a of an arbitration motion, you were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. Please note: being listed as a party does not imply any wrongdoing nor mean that there will necessarily be findings of fact or remedies regarding that party. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2/Evidence. Please add your evidence by April 14, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions notification - CAM

This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)Template:Z33

American Politics 2 arbitration evidence phase closing soon

As a listed party to this case, this is a notification that the evidence phase of this case is closing soon on 14 April. If you have additional evidence that you wish to introduce for consideration, it must be entered before this date. On behalf of the committee, Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 01:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC).

Evidence closed

The evidence phase is now closed on the American Politics 2 arbitration case, which you are a named party to. You are welcome to add proposals at the workshop. For the Committee, --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

American politics 2 workshop phrase

Hello I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc, the workshop phase on the American politics 2 arbitration case, which you are listed as a party to, has been extended to 24 April 2015. This is the best opportunity to express your analysis of the evidence presented in this arbitration case. For the Committee, --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Truce?

Honestly, I'm not the bad person/editor/whatever you think I am. Obviously, we both have an interest in science. How about we work on the article about Neil DeGrasse Tyson's new StarTalk TV show? I created a stub here.[6] I missed last night's episode but it's going to re-air this Friday. Would you like to help me with this article? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to bury the hatchet. jps (talk) 01:04, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been offline the last couple days, however, I believe that we were making progress. Your last suggestion that we explain how it is critical is something that I agree with, and I'd like to pursue that further. On a side note, I forgot to set my DVR to record StarTalk before Monday, but it aired again last night and I hope to watch it tomorrow. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Gang editing

You are not a "particularly good scientist", and I shall be watching your edits carefully.-Pocketthis (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Exciting! Incidentally, I don't know why you used "particularly good scientist" in quotation. [7]. jps (talk) 17:36, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry, Pocketthis. I am a "particularly good scientist," if I do say so myself, and I'm watching his edits. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:26, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

American politics 2 workshop phase closed

The workshop phase of the American politics 2 arbitration case, which you are listed as a party to, is now closed. For the Arbitration Committee, --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Collect_and_others

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above.

1. Collect is banned from any page relating to or making any edit about US politics or US political figures, in any namespace. This ban may be appealed no earlier than 18 months after its adoption.

2. Collect is indefinitely limited to one revert per article in any 24 hour period. This restriction excepts the reversal of unambiguous vandalism.

For the committee, Robert McClenon (talk) 01:54, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Brews' disruption

I am doing my best not to go anywhere near the talk page in face of the relentless flooding of the talk page. The problem as originally presented to me was that Brews knows his stuff but has problems engaging productively with other editors. But that is not the problem at all. It's one of basic competence. I have put together a list here. Some of them are very basic errors like misunderstanding implication, or the parallel postulate. If he actually listened and corrected these mistakes it would be fine, but he just relentlessly spams the talk page with nonsense. This makes it difficult for other editors to follow the discussion. He was banned from physics related articles, can he be banned from all philosophy related ones? On a technicality, he doesn't understand the philosophy at all, but he thinks the free will problem can be 'solved' by quantum indeterminism or something like that. So it's not a philosophical perspective he is bringing at all, but rather physics (and poorly understood physics, as far as I can see). Can he be barred for that reason? Peter Damian (talk) 07:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah and see this edit. This is physics (probably bad physics,who knows) used to make a bad philosophical point. Peter Damian (talk) 07:15, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

PS I also note your comment here. "It is why you are banned from editing certain other articles." Given that the same problem applies here in spades, can the reason he is banned from physics not be used as a reason to ban from philosophy? Was that ban simply from all physics-related articles, or was it for the synthesis problem? Peter Damian (talk) 07:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Sooner or later the problem will need to be addressed at the source—some people cause enormous disruption yet are hard to dislodge because clueless onlookers think it's just another dispute. I wonder if JohnBlackburne has any ideas. Johnuniq (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I wonder why Wikipedia:Competence is required never got into policy. It's a neat idea. Be as welcoming as is reasonable, but at some point the disruption has to stop. The problem is when there is an inverse relation between competence and arrogance, which is what is happening here. I am sure Brews achieved mastery of his own particular field (MOS and transistors), and as a result he has strong confidence in his ability to master other subject areas. The confidence is misplaced, however, and this is what makes it so difficult. He refuses to take on board even the very simplest point Peter Damian (talk) 08:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

It needs a case to be properly drafted at ANI by several editors not just one. That would make it clearer that its not just another dispute. ----Snowded ^TALK 09:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that, because of the very few competent editors now involved in Philosophy articles, there won't be many 'several editors'. Peter Damian (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Coordinating at WP:FTN might be a good way to start (thought sometimes there are no other editors there who feel competent enough to help out if the subject is obscure). I think we have enough of a quorum here to go to WP:AN (I would avoid going to AN/I because it's more of a circus) to ask for a topic ban from philosophy articles. jps (talk) 12:24, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Well I have a sandpit with some diffs to the last round where he hit multiple articles, and then created some. This time its mostly Free Will. So it just needs drafting ----Snowded ^TALK 12:28, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Where is the sandpit? I could help draft something, but I would not be prepared to post anything, given I have just returned to Wikipedia from 'a long absence'. Peter Damian (talk) 12:35, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Is it this by any chance? Peter Damian (talk) 12:36, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Here it is happy to work collaboratively and post ----Snowded ^TALK 13:03, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I have done so. Peter Damian (talk) 13:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

That sandbox looks to contain problems that are broader than I was anticipating. Is a topic ban from philosophy pages going to be enough? I would hope so because Peter Damian and I both know how ridiculous sitebans can be. jps (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

For my part I am perfectly happy not to see him around any of the philosophy articles. He may be OK at other subjects. Peter Damian (talk) 13:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Proposed_topic_ban_from_philosophy_for_Brews_ohare. I took much of your wording without attribution in typical slimy Wikipedia fashion. I also included some background from Snowded's page, though much of his stuff looked more like a WP:AE request rather than a new point which is why I think Peter's argument may be a bit more toothy. jps (talk) 13:25, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Note I added some material to the sandbox (POV forks) which crossed with your post. Peter Damian (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I made an alternative proposal at ANI. Philosophy will not be enough, but letting him back into Physics but with general restrictions might just work ----Snowded ^TALK 16:47, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Quantum nonsense

I made a start on the [User:Peter_Damian/Free_will gardening thing]. It's not completely walled in, but the one to watch is Bob Doyle (inventor). I suspect Doyle himself is responsible for much of that article, and other related ones. He is clearly not the same person as Brews but they are on the same side of the fence. For example:

Doyle describes himself as an "Information Philosopher". He argues that information philosophy can shed light on some classical unsolved problems, specifically free will, values, and knowledge.

Doyle's basic argument is that quantum mechanics, especially the wave function collapse, and the second law of thermodynamics play a key role in the creation of information structures. These structures range from galaxies, stars, and planets, to molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. They are the structures of terrestrial life from viruses and bacteria to sensible and intelligent beings. And they are the constructed ideal world of thought, of intellect, of spirit, including the laws of nature, in which humans play a role as co-creator.

I don't know anything about quantum mechanics, except that these sorts of claims are dodgy. I will post something on FTN.

I had recently posted on FTN about Menas Kafatos. It seems to me that there is a cottage industry of people taking advantage of the fact that we don't teach quantum mechanics very well at the level of primary and secondary education. jps (talk) 17:09, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

"He is internationally known[1][2][3] for bridging the disciplines [of science and philosophy]". To use the word 'know' presumes the truth of the claim of bridging the gap. I imagine philosophers would be skeptical of that claim. The sources don't say he bridged the disciplines, nor do they look reliable, for that matter. How much of this stuff is there? Peter Damian (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Kafatos

“quantum mystics seem to interpret the wave function as some kind of vibration of a holistic ether that pervades the universe, as “real” as the vibration in air we call a sound wave. Wave function collapse, in their view, happens instantaneously throughout the universe by a willful act of cosmic consciousness. In their book The Conscious Universe, Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau identify the wave function with “Being-In-Itself"" [8]. Peter Damian (talk) 17:50, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

More quantum walled garden

Two-stage model of free will Peter Damian (talk) 19:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Per xkcd. MastCell ^Talk 19:28, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Reversed burden of proof

Comments welcome Peter Damian (talk) 17:44, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Determinism

I'm starting to look at Determinism which is horrible. I am reading a book for the popular market (but the author seems to know his stuff) which talks about the 'quasiclassical' or 'non quantum' universe, which behaves as if determined by the classical laws of physics. On the hypothesis of a quasiclassical system, we don't need to worry about quantum effects. He writes:

The macroscopic universe we inhabit seems to obey deterministic laws because of an effect known as decoherence, which effectively reinstates classical mechanics at the level of systems above the very, very small ... quantum indeterminacy has no implications for human action because we inhabit the macroscopic universe.

Is this correct? [PS I looked at the article on decoherence which is completely incomprehensible]. Peter Damian (talk) 14:35, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Decoherence is exactly the issue with why quantum indeterminacy rarely manifests in the macroscopic world. Quantum computing deals with decoherence as one of the major problems that has prevented implementing quantum computers. Yes, I would say the author is correct.

However, there is also a property of emergence which can turn fully deterministic micro-systems into indeterminate macro-systems owing to effects that are related to non-linearity and chaos. This means that even though the underlying classical models are deterministic, indeterminate statistical modeling of systems can result. To be clear, there are fully deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics as well.

jps (talk) 14:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

American politics 2 arbitration proposed decision posted

Hello. The proposed decision for the American politics 2 arbitration case, which you are listed to as a party, has been posted. Thank you, --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

GM food RfC

Note about this RfC where you !voted. I tweaked the statement to make it more clear that it is about eating GM food and health. I'm notifying each person who !voted, in case that matters to you. Sorry for the trouble. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

NPA

You made a personal attack against me with this edit in which you called me a climate change denier. Please remove your WP:Battleground behavior and refrain from personal attacks. Arzel (talk) 01:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)