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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cryptic C62 (talk | contribs) at 19:30, 5 June 2009 (→Cold fusion mediation: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Welcome!

Hello, Woonpton, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! -- EdChem (talk) 13:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment at talk:Sokal Affair

Hi Woonpton, I noticed your comment at the talk page for the Sokal Affair, and have acted (and commented) there. I encourage you to read the policy WP:BOLD. It is OK to act when you find mistakes (or to ask, of course, but on a page like that a question could go unnoticed for ages). If challenged on a change, take it to the talk page, just like you did.  :) Best, EdChem (talk) 13:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


This should whet your whistle. There are about a dozen more if you are interested. If I can help you any more, let me know.

ScienceApologist (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bleep article

Hi, Woonpton. On the Talk page you said, "The assertion about meditation and crime, while refuted by the actual data, is just another example of the claims made in the movie that aren't supported by science." Maybe look at this.[1]. The criticism by the media of the meditation study is based on Park's assertion, which Rainforth addresses. Just FYI -- not really relevant to the editing of Bleep, since this article doesn't mention Bleep. TimidGuy (talk) 22:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again. I've had a chance to look over the rest of this article. My second impression isn't much better than the first, and your statement that the article contains data in tables form is false. Tables are rows and columns of numbers; what he shows is two graphs. There are no data in this article. (I'm a statistician and it sets my teeth on edge when people mix those up, especially people who have set out to instruct me about statistics). There's not enough information in the graphs for me to draw any conclusions from them, and it's not clear what the units are on the abscissa, but at any rate this isn't a serious research paper; it's a polemic apparently written in answer to a polemic (I haven't read Parks' and probably won't bother) and I don't draw conclusions about anything from such material. It's a lot like the kind of useless debate that seems to characterize Wikipedia: nyah, nyah, nyah... back and forth; there's nothing much to be learned from such posturing and taunting.
You apparently assumed, without bothering to ask, that my comment (in an aside) that the evidence doesn't support the claim made in Bleep about the meditation study, came from Park. No, I came to that conclusion by analyzing the data myself. I won't bore you with the details of my analysis, since I ran those data simply to satisfy my own curiosity and it couldn't be cited anywhere, but I am quite comfortable saying my analyses just don't find anything in those data. There's a lot of nonsense (in many fields, unfortunately, not just yours) that results from taking a GIGO approach to time series or regression analysis, so I'm not terribly surprised or impresssed that someone got some kind of result by grinding these kinds of data through such a routine; spurious results are more the rule than the exception, in my experience with this combination. A simpler approach often gives one a more accurate idea of what's going on, since if there's really something there, not just a statistical artifact, it will show up in the descriptive statistics as well as in the inferential statistics.
I'm looking right now at a table I just pulled up of crime in Washington DC from 1960 through 2006. The year 1993, the year TM supposedly reduced crime in the city by 23% for two months, Washington DC had the highest incidence of overall violent crime in the 46 years recorded in this dataset. Second highest murder rate, highest rate of rape, highest rate of assaults, which are supposed to be the three types of crime included in the study. It's kind of hard logically, never mind about the statistics, to argue that even though that was the worst year in history in DC for violent crime, it would have been worse without the meditation? There's simply no justification, in my opinion, for making such a claim (with or without fancy statistics); if Park did say that this is more likely a result of wishful thinking than an actual effect, I would be inclined to agree with him. thanks. Woonpton (talk) 04:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Answer to your question

Hi, Woonpton, I saw your message on my talk page. You are correct about your user name being red because you have not started a user page. In fact, any red link on WP means that the page being linked to does not exist - either because it has never been created, or because it has since been deleted. Your idea of a red link to indicate a newbie user is interesting, but would be a double-edged sword. Since there are a lot of new users who are sock puppets or interested only in vandalism or are trolling, they can be met with some suspicion. I note that you have a talk page post from ScienceApologist about ArbCom proceedings, from which I am guessing you have dived into some of the more controversial areas. I have done the same, so I can understand your decision, but this also means that there may be a little more suspicion of you as a newbie from some quarters. It isn't fair, but then, what is?

Regarding watching pages, at the top of each page there are tabs for discussion (the talk page), + (add new section), history, etc. Pressing the 'watch' tab will add that page and its associated talk page (or the associated article or user or whatever page if you are on a talk pgae) to your watchlist. Your links in the top right "Woonpton my talk ..." include a link to your watchlist, where you will see a link to the most recent edit of all pages you are watching, including who made the edit, when, and what the edit summary says. This is not only useful for watching for replies to questions, but also for changes to pages you are editing or find interesting. From the 'my watchlist' link, you can also edit your watchlist, and you can remove pages from your watchlist either there or by clicking the 'unwatch' tab on a watched page.

Another thought on red links - they can also be useful if you want to create sub pages. For example, if you wanted a sub page of your user page to work on a section of an article out of the public glare, you can simply add a link by posting a talk page message that says something like [[user:Woonpton/sandbox]], which produces a red link: user:Woonpton/sandbox which you can click on to create the page. If you prefer to name it something relevant to the article, that's cool too. You can also request such pages be deleted when you no longer need them.

Regarding talk page organisation, there seem to be two distinct schools of thought. Some people prefer to respond on each other's talk pages, so that you get the orange 'new message' bar. Others prefer to keep interactions on a single page, so they are coherent. I fall into the latter group, but either way is fine. If asked to reply on another page (as you requested), I'll do so, but also tend to copy responses to my own page - that way you get the orange bar notification and I get the coherent discussion that I prefer. It's up to you what you prefer.

Finally, I know that it is easy to feel ignored. You might want to try joining a WikiProject in an area of interest, and contribute to it. Long standing editors on those projects tend to be happy to welcome and help us newbies, and can also provide someone to ask for help. Of course, you can also ask me if you like! If I don't know the answer, I'll try and point you in the direction of someone who can help. If I don't answer, I'm probably busy in real life, and so have yet to see your message. Regards, EdChem (talk) 03:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HI

HI - thanks for the message. Agree with what you say but at a loss on how the article could be improved. I think I hate the current version most on grounds of style. But no improvement I can think of that will not incur the wrath of someone or other. The Rationalist (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - Bleep talk page...

Woonpton, anytime someone makes a negative statement that is "to the man" as opposed to "to the argument", that is incivility, see ad hominem. So, when someone says: "Search engine tests only give a vauge guidance on questions of relative importance or connection of subjects, for exmample. They are not used to justify singular opinions of an article's direction as you are now doing", you can see that the comment was fine up to sentence one, but sentence two was a not-so-thinly veiled accusation of what is called "POV pushing" around here, and the editor who made the statement is on civility parole specifically for calling people "POV pushers", which IS a personal attack. Finding a weasle-worded way to call someone a "POV pusher" is still incivility. Thanks for asking thoughbringing it up...WNDL42 (talk) 01:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Woonpton, thanks for pointing out my error, I have struck and revised accordingly. When you refuted my civility assessment here, and you said "There's nothing uncivil, as I understand civility,...", well...I assumed that since you are new here you might not have been familiar with this, specifically the second bullet, and I misinterpreted your comment as an implied question. The editor I was responding to has been quite creative in his use of weasle-words to tip-toe the borders of incivility and find new ways of calling other editors "POV pushers" (as has been well and fully documented dozens of times elesewhere), so as to avoid being blocked. Now, per WP:CIVIL, we are instructed to explain incivility even though it can be controversial to do so. I posted here, and (as you will note) avoided mentioning this editor by name, in an attempt to mitigate rather than inflame. WNDL42 (talk) 14:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The compact little link thingy for that one would have been [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AWoonpton&diff=194796427&oldid=193321889 compact little link thingy], and it would look like compact little link thingy. I think adding it to the RFC to illustrate how the message is not being received would be quite appropriate.Kww (talk) 03:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Hi - sorry if my message came across in the wrong way. It's just I have a real life identity I want to protect, and I'm not sure how the email system here works. Happy to discuss - I will enable the email if I can work out how. PS I have been following your comments on the expert withdrawal page and they showed great insight. The Rationalist (talk) 19:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear, so sorry. Look, there is no connection of the sort you are trying to make. I was infuriated by the trolling (follow the edit trail) - I keep saying certain things over and over again, and it just seems to me it is deliberate. The Rationalist (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Hi Woonpton, thanks for your comments on my talk page - I responded there. I haven't been on wiki recently - feeling discouraged about the place, to be honest. Best, EdChem (talk) 10:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect

Would you consider redirecting (#REDIRECT [[User talk:Woonpton]]) your user page to your talk? That way I wouldn't see your name and think newbie/vandal/not-interested in being part of the community (as many User:Rednames are). Only a suggestion, however! Cheers, Mostlyharmless (talk) 06:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should have made myself clearer - I didn't mean to imply you were in any way a bad editor - it's because I've seen your contributions that I came to your talk page. In any case, user-space is yours to do with as you wish (within reasonable limits of course), so I respect your decision. Mostlyharmless (talk) 06:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!

There, now I feel a tiny bit better. Thanks for listening. This stuff drives me absolutely crazy; I admire your patience. Woonpton (talk) 21:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember, all is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds.Kww (talk) 21:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, it's been too long, dear Leibniz/Pangloss. Antelantalk 00:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bleep

MartinPhi was the only one with a serious objection to the current content. I've asked him to detail it. Once he does, we'll see where we go from there.Kww (talk) 16:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad Example

Yep. I'm waiting to see whether anyone pays any attention.Kww (talk) 00:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Spade

I'll be more than happy to have a side-discussion with you here on the topic. To play devil's advocate (or, you know, "spade's advocate"), let me ask you this: is it possible to identify someone as being a "vandal," using that term, without it being considered name-calling? Antelantalk 21:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should hope so, but I don't know how the people who are out with the pitchforks to eliminate all name calling would answer that. What I'm worried about is something a little different. I do (so far) tend to hold the same position as GTB on the usefulness of namecalling; it's not helpful in discussions. I do agree with that, as long as the cutoff for name calling is sensible. Maybe that's where my dilemma is; I'm not sure where the cutoff should be. What I'm worried about is that a general statement about, say "fringe advocates" not referring to any person, could be interpreted as name calling; that would go way too far as far as I'm concerned. Not sure if that answers your question.Woonpton (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that answers it. To me, at least, it shows that you are aware of the definition of name calling, which is an important starting place in this discussion. Do you see WP:SPADE as advocating for name calling? (Not trying to be annoying here with the one question per response, it's just the way I think; feel free to pepper me with questions, as well!) Antelantalk 23:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, I appreciate that, it helps me think, too. It depends on which version you mean. The present version of course doesn't advocate for name calling, or much of anything but being just annoyingly nice and polite and sweet, which makes my teeth hurt. The earlier version..... actually, that's a very good question, because it comes back to what is name calling. It advocates for calling POV pushers what they are; I guess the question is whether that's name-calling or not. I still tend to agree with GTB that it's not helpful to do so, but no, I guess I wouldn't say it's name-calling. But how is it useful, I guess that's where I'm not sure. On the other hand, if this is headed in the direction of saying (using an actual example from the Bleep page) that it's uncivil to say that someone's unique and OR position on an issue is a "singular position" because to say "your position is singular" is a veiled way of calling the person a "POV Pusher" and calling a person a "POV Pusher" is a violation of CIVIL -- I don't want to go there. So I guess I have to consider whether I think to equate calling someone "POV Pusher" with name-calling is the first step down that slippery slope. Woonpton (talk) 23:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well the other problem with the sanitization of this essay is that it doesn't change behavior, anyway. It just eliminates the explanation for why some people do what they do. Regardless of what this essay says, people have already learned the following: (1) On Wikipedia, you will get in trouble if you say "POV pusher". (2) On Wikipedia, you will not get in trouble if you say "edit X by user X pushed a POV". If you didn't already know that, and I'm sure you already did, call me Prometheus. It's all a semantic game, and deleting the core idea of this essay doesn't change a thing. Well, actually, deleting the core idea of this essay makes Wikipedia's soul die a little bit. Antelantalk 00:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I wish I'd been here in the Before time; it's definitely headed in a different direction now. Okay, so I think I get what you're saying: the semantic game is a lot of BS; instead of staying on the "good" side of the line by saying "edit x by user y pushed a POV" why not just call a spade a spade? Why not? I'm not sure I know.Woonpton (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, except I'm not saying it for myself, I'm saying it on behalf of the essay. I don't often "call a spade a spade", being rather fond of semantic games myself, but I think the pessimists among us should retain that right. This essay should be a good primer on how some people think it should be done. Antelantalk 01:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

=

Thanks for your support

Saw your comment, and I appreciate your support during this somewhat surreal experience. Kww (talk) 21:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please just take a break

Sometimes the best thing is just to step away from WP for a while. I for one really appreciate your voice of reason here.--Filll (talk | wpc) 20:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I second Filll's words. Raul654 (talk) 03:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like to elaborate?

I'm always open to becoming BetterInformed, if you've got data. II | (t - c) 03:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the support

Thanks for the support. Nice to know I made an impression on you during your formative time as an editor.

Couple of things: I had to reformat a bit (see this diff), because the way you did it broke the counter. I hate editing numbered lists, and always have to play with it five or six times.

As for why she responded to you: you said that I had never insulted or bullied anyone, and she was saying that so far as she was concerned, I had insulted her.

But yes, the RFA process is excruciating, and it's pretty obvious that I'm not going to make the 75% cutoff. It's be interesting to see how it plays out in the end, though. It's never over until its over.—Kww(talk) 00:56, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it just shows I still don't know how to do things, that I broke the counter, but thanks for fixing it. I would have thought it was quite clear exactly what the context of my comment was, that I was speaking entirely within the context of my experience of working with you on that page. To interpret my saying that during that time, in that context, you never insulted or bullied anyone, as an insistence that in all your time on Wikipedia you had never insulted or bullied anyone, is rather odd, if not bizarre. How would I know, without checking every single edit you'd ever made? All I can know is from my own experience; that experience weighs more for me than that one older diff that she's so exercised about, that had nothing to do with my comment. Thanks for taking the time to explain her response, but it still makes no sense to me. I guess the first RfA I've commented in will also be my last. Good luck to you. You made an impression because you were one of the few reasonable and intelligent, sane and kind people I met during that time, which says more about Wikipedia than it does about you, not to take away from your qualities or anything, just saying. P.S. I notice that the Bleep article has eroded somewhat since then, but I don't care any more about it. Woonpton (talk) 05:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dude

What's going on. I decided to check in and there was your message. Nice to see you are still here. I got rather irritated with that 'Bleep' business and had a break for the state of my health. Plus I haven't been at home for some time, travelling and so on. Back for the Autumn, so what's up? Something easier perhaps. The Rationalist (talk) 19:28, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments about Cool Hand Luke

Not that I really care what others think of me or my votes, but I just think you need to revisit how I voted here. You missed my change of heart. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A New Approach?

SlimVirgin has suggested a new approach for trial with Israel-Palestine conflicts. What do you think of the general idea for application to fringe science topics? Also, rootology has proposed an approach for addressing a naming conflict regarding baronets here at ANI. Any thoughts on applying it to fringe science topics, say with two representatives of each side plus a neutral admin to look at admin issues and a mediator (6 people, total - consensus being 5/6, minimum)? Best, EdChem (talk) 05:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, shall we talk here for a while? I have to go spray blackberries so I can't spend much time on this right now, but my initial reaction is "been there done that." Not the same approach, but the same logic, that something that works for a geopolitical struggle should work for science vs fringe. The logic is flawed, surely you can see that. In one set of cases, you have two points of view, neither of which is "right" and both very strongly held; in this kind of case neutrality really is sort of halfway between the two points. But when you're talking about science subjects, where there really is a "right" answer (the earth is not flat) then to say "some people say the earth is flat and some people say the earth is not flat" makes for a really stupid encyclopedia. When you compromise between science and nonsense, the result is some version of nonsense. Anyway, the experiment was not a success. You really have missed a lot. More later. Woonpton (talk) 15:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I recognise the problem to which you refer, but I was actually more thinking the behaviour and psychology issues. Entrenched views from Jewish and Palestinian editors coupled with disruptive behaviour does form a reasonable analogy to the fringe science issues. Neither side is going to change their beliefs, but if they can be helped to find a way to work together to produce policy compliant content then surely there would be useful lessons for resolving some fringe science conflicts. Best, EdChem (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Before I could get my shoes on, the windsock out my window was standing straight out from its stick, so I can't spray blackberries after all today. It looks like we're back to where we started. You say you recognize the problem, but I'm not convinced that you do. If you really think that "entrenched views from Jewish and Palestinian editors coupled with disruptive behavior does form a reasonable analogy to the fringe science issues" then no, you don't see what the problem is at all.
I just ran through your contributions again, and it looks as if you've never edited in fringe areas. Here's a proposal for you: go work on the cold fusion article for six weeks, or at least watchlist it and pay attention, and then come back and talk to me; maybe then there would be a possibility for some common ground from which to launch a conversation. For now, I've said at least three or four times that the behavioral issues, and even how they are resolved by the Committee, arise from content disputes and can't be solved without understanding and resolving the content issues. It can't be done the other way around; it's been tried and it doesn't work. And as long as you see the problem as people holding entrenched positions just needing to be shown how to work together, you don't understand much about what's going on here or how to fix it. Not that anyone else knows how to fix it either, without abandoning some of Wikipedia's most cherished ideas (the devaluation of expertise, the idea that if you leave things alone, they'll get better and better, the idea that no one is here for any reason other than to build a good encyclopedia, and all you have to do is assume good faith and all will be well).
As long as the "entrenched positions" in the fringe areas are on one hand, people trying to make the article reflect the consensus of the best sources on the subject, and on the other hand, people determined (to the point of insisting on misperceiving policy, even to the point of warring on the policy pages to change policy to a position that is more favorable to their agenda) to get their favorite fringe stuff into the encyclopedia, then any attempt to help the two "sides" to work together to produce "policy compliant" content will either fail miserably or end up pushing the content in a fringe direction. Because what you're doing with this approach is setting up "NPOV" and "RS" as negotiable policies that can be compromised in the interest of peace. The quality of content will never be improved by such a compromise. I'm tired of saying the same thing again and again; you're not getting it. All the best, but unless you take me up on the suggestion to learn something about what editors in fringe areas have to deal with here before opining on how to fix it, I don't think we can have a productive conversation. Thanks for trying, though.Woonpton (talk) 17:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. It wouldn't have to be cold fusion, if you think that would be too stressful. There are dozens of articles you could choose from, where a neutral presentation of a topic is vehemently opposed by a never-ending supply of folks who are there to use the Wikipedia as a platform to promote their product/program. Generally it's about money; having your particular brand of snake oil recognized on Wikipedia gives legitimacy to the product/program and is seen as free advertising. The fringe theories noticeboard is a good place to find such articles, but they're everywhere.Woonpton (talk) 17:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Woonpton: For now, I've said at least three or four times that the behavioral issues, and even how they are resolved by the Committee, arise from content disputes and can't be solved without understanding and resolving the content issues. It can't be done the other way around; it's been tried and it doesn't work. And as long as you see the problem as people holding entrenched positions just needing to be shown how to work together, you don't understand much about what's going on here or how to fix it.

Vassyana [2]: [M]any times I see the phrase "content dispute" raised, it's a matter involving content but that has behavior that extends well beyond a reasonable content disagreement.

Noroton [3]: I see it the other way around: In long-running disputes, where parties find it too difficult to reach a compromise, the temptation is to charge your opponents with behavioral violations in order to rough them up so much that they'll go away (or get blocked or banned). Wikipedia's current set of policies and guidelines channels our energies toward that kind of gamesmanship because Wikipedia doesn't work well in large controversies. Since it's so difficult to reach broad consensus on these kinds of content disputes, the urge grows and grows to exaggerate a behavioral problem or egg on your opponents into bad behavior.

So, which is the real issue: the behavioural problem that there is a determination to 'win' at any cost, or the content problem that there is only one 'right' answer?

What an odd, and if I might say so, perverse way to frame the issue. It would depend on the context, and you're misunderstanding me entirely if you think this is what I'm saying, that there is only one right answer and "my side" must win at any cost. This is not what I'm saying, for heavens' sake! And (since you keep coming back for more, I'll say it again!) it just shows you don't have enough familiarity with editing in fringe areas to be able to understand the problem, so you approach it as a problem of failure to compromise on both sides. More about that below.Woonpton (talk) 18:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do feel I have to respond to this one. I'm asking which is the basic issue with a single editor. Consider a determined fringe POV-pusher: in terms of the problem to the encyclopedia, is the problem that s/he is determined to win and will do anything to do so (like use the civil strategy that appeared a while back)? Or, is the problem her or his belief that there is only one 'truth' as regards content? I would say the former, because it is hugeley disruptive. In an editor that will follow site norms and accept consensus, the latter can help to produce balanced content. I suggest that compromise is not possible with the former editor but it can (though not necessarily will) be possible in the latter case. EdChem (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your coming at that again; my first response wasn't helpful. What I should have said is that I don't think it's a useful distinction, because (1) the effect on content is the same either way, and it's content that I'm concerned with, and (2) the really annoying fringe editors don't separate themselves neatly that way into one or the other. The person who is a determined POV pusher will also most often be the person who believes that their truth is the truth that needs to be in the encyclopedia (the truth that the static you hear on the radio is really your dead grandmother sending you messages, for example. I had to go find that because I couldn't remember what they called it, and am encouraged to see that that article really has improved remarkably since Martinphi was banned. So maybe I'm being too pessimistic about everything. If he had been banned for his endless POV-pushing, for editing policy pages to make policies more fringe-friendly, for all the ways in which he disrupted the encyclopedia, I'd feel more optimistic, but that would never have happened, unfortunately. He was banned for edit-warring to "out" Science Apologist, with whom he shared an undying enmity, and some administrator finally had enough and blocked him. I was relieved to see a fairly recent unblock request and review, where the consensus was he should stay blocked. Yes! But..I digress. As I was saying, the person who is a determined and aggressive POV-pusher is usually doing it because they believe their truth is the truth and needs to be in the encyclopedia, and they will do anything they have to do to get it in there and keep it in there. I had to smile at your idea that anyone who believes their truth is the truth that needs to be in the encyclopedia could be "helped to produce balanced content." I'd like to see you try that with a 9/11 "Truther." I keep giving you assignments, but only because some of the things you suggest seem so unrealistic to anyone who has been in the trenches, or even watching the trenches, in the fringe areas, it seems like you need to see how they work in practice before you assume you've got the right answer.Woonpton (talk) 02:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noroton [4]: One of the problems we have now is that the best game players in the largest, most protracted content disputes try to push their opponents into behavioral violations and immediately report those violations -- get rid of your opponent, win the "game".

DGG [5]: The problem Noroton sees of people in a dispute trying to taunt each other into conduct violations is very real, & I'd word it just as he does. I think we should encourage wider participation from those not involved in a particular dispute; our rules on canvassing are a little bit out of touch with reality. I see the problem though not as much in making a decision, but in achieving closure.

I think we can agree Noroton and DGG are absolutely right about this one, and I can (almost) hear you saying that this behaviour is directed towards winning in the content dispute - and I agree with you. I'd also agree that editors like that need topic banning. However, to me the problem is not their belief in whatever topic is in question, it's in their determination to win WP presenting their "truth". I can work with someone who believes in cold fusion (say) so long as they recognise that their view is a minority perspective and that a genuinely balanced article must say so. That's why I see the problem with someone like Abd as a behavioural problem, not a content problem. A science advocate who was equally determined to eliminate any balance and make the cold fusion article a vehicle for ridicule presents just as large a behavioural problem, in my view, even though I may share a large amount of common ground about content.

Does this make sense? People with entrenched positions can work together and achieve a decent and policy-compliant article provided they are willing to work together. When they aren't willing to work together, they need to be removed from the discussion. It is not necessary to restrict participation to editors with a single content position. What is necessary is to remove from participation the editors who are unwilling to behave in a manner consistent with productive development of content. EdChem (talk) 07:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS... I know that those with an agenda to advance are going to be intractable - they fall into the need-to-be-banned category. Maybe on the rest the problem is that I assume too much good faith. EdChem (talk) 07:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, I don't know what to say any more. I'm sure you're not being deliberately obtuse, so it must be that I'm not explaining myself clearly enough. But we are definitely not getting anywhere. It's as if you think that if you just say enough times that the whole problem is that both sides need to learn to work together, you'll finally open my eyes. Look, I get your point, I got it the first time. I just don't think it's terribly useful or relevant to the problem we're dealing with.
Yes, if there's a case where both sides can really be shown to be pushing a position that is incomplete by itself, then both sides need to compromise, as in the Israel/Palestine conflict. And if one side can be seen to be advancing an argument that's not complete in itself, then that side should be made to understand the concept of NPOV and weight and taught to compromise. However, I can't think of any case that has been brought against fringe advocates for insisting on a fringe position taking prominence in an article, although cases have been brought against science editors for doing so (see ID Cabal, or whatever it was called; in that case, though I can't say I followed it closely, it looked like some science editors got carried away with pushing a position that wasn't neutral, although the other side got carried away naming every science editor on the place as obviously "involved" with that "cabal," even those who had never edited that article or agreed with the stance that was taken there). I do agree with SV that it would be lovely if people on either side could write the article from an equally neutral viewpoint-- that after all is the original ideal vision of Wikipedia--and that does make sense with something like I/P. I think most science-literate folks (and especially someone like me, who has spent a career of writing, reading, and summarizing research reports) could write a neutral article on a fringe topic, and in fact that's what most science editors are trying to do, to produce an article that summarizes fairly the positions taken in reliable, academic sources. It's harder to imagine it the other way around, because many of the people on that "side" don't have any background in science, don't trust scientists, don't respect the findings of science, and in fact see "science" in terms of a conspiracy to suppress the truth (such as the truth that the World Trade Center towers were brought down by an explosion that was set by our government, or the truth that putting fluoride in the water is motivated by a government conspiracy to harm its citizens), so to be able to present science findings in a neutral manner, I think, would be difficult for many on that "side." And since reliable academic sources for the most part don't support their position, they tend to rely on blogs and advocacy websites and self-published tracts, and spend a lot of time arguing that such sources must be considered reliable sources for fringe topics.
At any rate, throughout the fringe science conflicts, the fringe "side" (if you insist on framing it as warring factions, although I don't think that's particularly helpful, myself) has managed to portray the "science" side (even when all the "science" side is trying to do is write the article to reflect the consensus of the best sources in the field) as "biased" or "pushing a POV." (This, I assume, is why Jehochman wrote that principle on the JzG/Abd workshop that said something to the effect that core policies, and those who try to enforce them, do not constitute a "POV.") I will never be convinced that in such a case, the science "side" should be forced to compromise NPOV or RS in order to show their willingness to work with the fringe folks. To me, that's the certain way to the destruction of the encyclopedia. (Let's see now, I've lost count. Is this the 8th or 9th time I've said that in this discussion without making a dent?) I'm not talking about ridicule; I've always said ridicule doesn't belong in an encyclopedia (if you have any doubt about that read my comments on the Fringe Science workshop page). I'm just talking about a neutral presentation of a topic, based on solid sources. And I'm not talking about insisting on "my" version of the truth either, I'm just talking about neutrality in the encyclopedic or scholarly sense, where the article reflects the available reliable sources.
A neutral presentation of a topic will never favor the fringe position or give it prominence (by definition) and that is why the fringe folks try to reinterpret and redefine NPOV, why they try to frame everything in terms of conduct on the other "side" in order to obscure the real problem, and why the encyclopedia is so royally f$&*'d up. This is why I had to go to a medical publication database to learn that the Bates method is not supported by research and is not held in high esteem by opthalmologists. I should have been able to learn that from the Wikipedia article. That was several months ago; I don't know what kind of shape that article is in now, but I do know that there are people making money from practicing the Bates method and from writing and selling books promoting it, and these people are never going to allow that topic to be presented neutrally, hence the repeated appearance of that article on the fringe theories noticeboard. So, show me how you can work with such people*, show me how if they're intractable to "working with you" you'll just see that they're banned, and how you'll be sure that the banned people don't come back as sockpuppets to continue to bias the article and harrass your efforts, and how you'll continue to deal with the steady influx of advocates from the same advocacy websites that come in to take their place, and do that for months and years, and then we'll talk. Okay?Woonpton (talk) 18:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC) *here I'm not referring to Bates method advocates specifically, just a general class of users whose purpose is to promote a program or a product rather than to write a neutral encyclopedia. Woonpton (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI... Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Content_dispute_resolution EdChem (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, thanks, it's already on my watchlist. Lotta politics going on here. I can pretty well predict how it will go, the way of Kirill's proposed "reliable sourcing panel"of last year (which I actually supported in theory, although I was skeptical of how it would work in practice if the wrong people got on the panel, but which was shot down in flames anyway, because the "community" didn't want ArbCom concerning themselves with content). If I think it's looking promising, I'll maybe add a comment. Not that my comments carry any weight, but hope springs eternal that with one brilliant comment one can turn the battleship around and get it headed in the right direction. :-) Woonpton (talk) 00:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you didn't mind my pointing it out to you. I don't know whether to say anything else, because I don't want to upset or offend you. I have responded to the "perverse" characterisation above, but will leave the rest unless you'd like a response. We agree on so much, it's frustrating and disappointing that I feel you aren't seeing our common ground.  :( Take care. EdChem (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, I'm not upset or offended, just weary. If you have something new to say, then I'd be happy to hear it, but if you continue sounding that one note, that fixing the problem is just a matter of getting people in "entrenched positions" to learn to work together, my hair might catch on fire. We have no common ground there at all, so I wonder where our common ground could lie. I responded to your other comment above. Hope you've been continuing to follow the SV proposal; that's gone from dubious to hilarious with Coppertwig's proposal. I really can't see what you thought was so appealing about this proposal, or about rootology's either (which I haven't commented about but might have some comments if you're interested) especially for fringe science topics. But then you weren't here for Elonka. Interestingly, Elonka gained power and influence with ArbCom by coming up with a solution for the, yes! the Israel/Palestine conflict, and then she leveraged that into a working group applying her solution to all the ethnic conflicts in the world, and then she moved her one-woman operation over into the fringe science area, where she was adored by fringe editors and loathed by science editors. I don't know if her discretionary sanctions worked in ethnic conflict areas, but they were a disaster in fringe science. She made a virtue of ignorance about content issues (that's where I learned what a really bad idea that is); she really was proud to be able to say that she knew nothing about the content areas where she was pretty much managing articles and manhandling editors (mostly science-oriented editors) on her own. It wasn't a happy time in the fringe world for people wanting to see some neutrality in fringe articles. I don't know what happened to her, she just sort of disappeared, soon after ArbCom very gently admonished her for taking arbitration enforcement to mean she could do anything she wanted and no one could challenge or overturn her decisions. I don't know if she left because she was hurt by the admonishment, or if she just hasn't been around for other reasons; I hope to god she never comes back. But as far as her brilliant idea, I say the proof is in the pudding; if her solution to Israel/Palestine was so great, why is that conflict still raging a year later? If I seem cynical, it's just because I've seen these things come and go, ebb and flow. I used to get excited about every new proposal or arbitration or discussion that I thought would finally get people to see the underlying problem and do something about it; I no longer believe that's going to happen. So why am I still hanging around? Very good question. Woonpton (talk) 02:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. "I can just see you saying" (well, if you can do it so can I) that science editors didn't like Elonka because they were all being disruptive and uncivil and needed to be sanctioned, so good on Elonka. While that might have been so in one or two cases, for the most part it had nothing to do with behavior per se; it was all about content. Elonka declared fringe articles, one by one, as "under discretionary sanctions" and then she applied whatever sanctions she thought necessary, in her little bubble of not understanding the content issues at all. A science editor reverting a non-sourced blatantly POV statement in the article would be considered "disruptive;" she instituted 1RR and even 0RR restrictions on some of these articles. Reverting was prohibited, in other words; the only way you could edit would be to change the fringe editors' edits slightly, in other words, the only edits allowed were edits that compromised neutrality. (I hope by now you can see why these compromise proposals make me foam at the mouth). The result was that fringe promoters could add as much cruft to articles as they liked, and it couldn't be reverted. She claimed the articles had "improved" after her intervention, and I'm sure by her criterion they had, because her criteria had nothing to do with neutrality or quality of the content; it was all about people not fighting. She never was willing to consider that the reason no one was fighting anymore was that neutral editors had pretty much abandoned the articles. Antelan and I analyzed the editing on one article and showed how the article had got longer but less neutral and how most editors had just stepped away from editing the article. You would probably think that's a good thing; I definitely do not think that driving science-literate editors away from fringe articles is a good idea by any definition that's meaningful for producing a quality encyclopedia. Woonpton (talk) 16:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi... I either missed or forgot about having read this. I did look briefly into Elonka's efforts after you mentioned them, and agree they were unhelpful in the extreme. I am disappointed (and a little upset) that the image you have of me is as distorted as it appears to be. To be clear, 0RR is a dreadful idea on a science article precisely because scientific content must be accurate. Chasing or driving away science-literate editors is a poor outcome for quality encyclopedia content. Decent behaviour helps with collaborative editing - just as it does with any collaborative endevour - but some of the stuff that provokes mock outrage is trivial... and the mock outrage performances advancing a strategy for banning opponents warrant sanctions, not rewards. If there is ever to be a single editor supervising science articles (and I don't think that's a good idea at all) she or he *must* be a scientist, or they will not have a hope of recognising what is disruptive and what is POV-pushing. EdChem (talk) 13:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how to reign in the "subtle" assholes?

i came over here from your post on the an/i giano thread and read the above conversation. i am 'involved' in i/p pages and i think you see this correctly, although it may be more nefarious than you characterize it. hounding, goading, baiting, and worst of all, the wikilawyering against massive sources were the highlights of that case, but the only behavior chastised was edit warring.

content, content, content. camera infiltrates the area to drum up !votes (even recently with the banning of this one). misinformation from unreliable or tiny minority sources is allowed to stay in articles, whether i/p or science/fringe. reverting without enough teammates and cussing are the only things that will get you blocked. its a joke.

this is a community with people who take the time to go over the history, timeline, diffs, logs, etc, etc. why is "subtle" gamesmanship tolerated across the board while an fbomb will get you blocked right away? and, again, where is the right place for this discussion - i'm still a little green. untwirl(talk) 18:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Answer copied back from untwirl talk)
Hi untwirl, thanks for your message on my talk. I never know where is best to respond to talk page messages; some people like to keep them together, some don't care; I go back and forth.
I took the time to look over some of your contributions, and liked your editing and your manner in discussing edits. And I learned something. I've never actually looked into those articles and didn't follow that arbitration very closely, since it's not an area of concern to me (I mean, not as far as Wikipedia goes) but looking a little further, I think I was wrong about i/p and other geopolitical and ethnic disputes being somehow different from science/fringe disputes and needing a different kind of resolution. I assumed that in those areas, it was a matter of two groups of good-faith editors with strong beliefs about something having trouble finding the middle ground. But it looks just like more of the same thing; you're right. It's the people who are trying to maintain encyclopedic content vs those whose interest would be served if the content were biased in a particular direction. I don't know if you've been following the Macedonia2 RfArb; it's very distressing to see how that's going.
I have been thinking about posting a comment to the RfC that ArbCom opened to discuss the problem of how to deal with content disputes; I may or may not come up with a coherent statement before the RfC closes.
About subtle incivility: it's a big problem, but raising consciousness among people who don't see it as a problem is a real uphill battle. You saw how little discussion followed when the question (where do we discuss this) was raised. I don't know if you're aware of the page on civil POV pushing but that was one place where it did get some discussion, although I don't think it generated much interest in the community as a whole. I don't know the answer, but it's good to know someone else that is concerned with the question. Woonpton (talk) 23:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Reply at my talk page

I left a question for you at my talk page. Regards, Jehochman Talk 00:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation

Hi, Woonpton. I added a section to Abd's userspace essay User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing, and I would be interested in your comments on it. I invite you to participate in discussion on the talk page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, hmm. I'm no doubt honored by the invitation but puzzled as to why it would be extended to me, since I don't edit Wikipedia, and have merely made a few comments in metadiscussion as an outside observer. To tell the truth, I'd rather have root canal work done than read another word of Abd's prose and/or get myself caught in an endless back and forth involving mushrooming amounts of obfuscating and tendentious verbiage, which appears to be the only kind of "discussion" that is possible with Abd. But at least I seem to be in good company in the invitation. MastCell is the most evenhanded person I've seen in more than a year of watching Wikipedia; I respect him greatly and trust his judgment implicitly. To be mentioned on a short list with him is the highest praise I can think of. So, thanks, but no thanks. Woonpton (talk) 19:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
re:[6]. I think you may be laboring under the persistent influence of some snap judgments. But I don't want to harass you. Care to pick the most important thing you wrote there, and discuss it? I'll try to be brief. Otherwise, please, don't go around making wild charges based on superficial appearances. One example: sure, lots of people wrote "sock puppet," for what were really serial accounts. But nobody was blocked for sock puppetry, per se. The editor, while blocked, made some edits, generally non-disruptive except for being block evasion, those we do call "socks," but the original blocks had nothing to do with sock puppetry, this was an editor confining himself to a single account, he just kept changing his account name each time, openly (except once he didn't declare it, but didn't conceal it, either, it was totally obvious). Thanks. --Abd (talk) 18:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm prepared to provide dozens of diffs to back up every single thing I've said; I have pages and pages of them. No, these aren't wild charges; they are supported by evidence and a careful reading of the record. I have no interest whatever in "discussing" it with you, I've read the same arguments a thousand times in all the miles of verbiage you've written on the matter. The same things you've said above, the same things you said on MastCell's page, are the same things you said to everyone at the time. No one was buying it then, and I'm not buying it now; the facts speak for themselves. There are some wild charges that I could make about this, but they couldn't be proven, they are only speculations, so I have kept them to myself. I was simply suggesting that my friend might investigate the matter himself and draw his own conclusions; that's hardly making wild charges. I'm not interested in getting into a fight with you; I was just discussing some of my thoughts about Wikipedia with a friend. As I said, what I have is way too much for MastCell's talk page, although if you insist, I may post a small fraction of it there anyway, since you've insisted on challenging me on it. I'll think about it.
In the meantime, my advice to you would be to let sleeping dogs lie. That proposal and its surrounding disruption hardly show you in a good light; I wouldn't think you'd want to be calling attention to it or continuing to defend your actions there; that you are still doing that shows that you haven't learned much from the experience. I'd prefer that you stay off my talk page; if you post here again I will delete without reading. I have read, a hundred, a thousand, times, everything you have to say. It's not convincing to me. Saying what you want me to believe ten more times is not going to persuade me; it's just going to increase my aversion. Thank you for respecting my right to interpret information as I see it; I'm actually known to be very good at that. Thank you. Woonpton (talk) 19:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See cold fusion, [7]

Cold fusion mediation

I have been asked to mediate the content dispute regarding Cold fusion. I have set up a separate page for this mediation here. You have been identified as one of the involved parties. Please read through the material I have presented there. Thank you. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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