User talk:Antaeus Feldspar: Difference between revisions

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Please stop your personal attacks
HKU skeptics soc
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Please stop your personal attacks, User Antaeus Feldspar.[[User_talk:Terryeo#Feldspar.27s_statements_from_my_User_Page]] [[User:Terryeo|Terryeo]] 06:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Please stop your personal attacks, User Antaeus Feldspar.[[User_talk:Terryeo#Feldspar.27s_statements_from_my_User_Page]] [[User:Terryeo|Terryeo]] 06:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

==Skeptics society==

Hi Antaeus. I have noticed some strange and odd things on the NLP article. Most of the HKU skeptics society has been banned from editing on the basis of they are suspected sockpuppetry. I am a member, and I am worried about myself being banned if I make any objection to the NLP advocates removing verified information. I know at least some of them are not sockpuppets. I met Alice, Headley (Wei Qing), Hans, and Bookmain (Jim) a few months back, and Camridge (Liz) is also really nice. They are all therapists and academics. Do you think they will ban the whole of Hong Kong and China from editing that article? Also, I notice you have a grounding in editing pseudoscience subjects. I can send you some soft copy papers on NLP that the group gave me if you like. The article at presently seems to be going under some kind of censorship campaign. Some of it refers to scientology and other pseudosciences so I thought it may be helpful and "synergetic" for you. [[User:Helen Wu|Helen Wu]] 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Revision as of 07:41, 6 June 2006

Archive 1 Archive 2

Note: if you leave a comment here that you want me to reply to, here's where I'll reply to it. (The one exception, whose comments will be deleted unread whether he signs them as himself or as his sockpuppet, knows who he is.) Leave new comments at the bottom.

I reserve the right to refactor this page as I see fit, and if you are planning to post the exact same complaints to my user page and to the talk page of the article you're upset about, don't be surprised when it's deleted from here.


Gundam

I suppose this is what VfD is all about. My vote probably was a bit kneejerky, it's also true Hoary's opinion influenced me. Anyway, in encyclopedic terms, I think it's worth a mention, not an article (hint: I'm not completely close-minded on this, however). Wyss 13:08, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd agree (if you notice, my vote on this one, and I think on every Gundam article actually, has been to merge to some more appropriate parent article; I'm starting to think that instead of an inclusionist or a deletionist, I may be a mergist) -- it's worth a mention but not an entire article to itself. But when someone nominates the major antagonist of one of the ground-breaking anime series and says "surely not notable" and someone else chips in and says "super minor fan trivia" -- we have major decisions being made by people who don't know what they're talking about and don't even know that they don't. That worries me. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:41, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From Danniboy

Mr. Feldspar (isn't that a chemical?)... I'm asking you this time politely not to reverse edits I'm making and call them "spam". I am not spamming. If you will do so again, you're asking for a huge ego fight, and I'm not interested in it. One last time - you have a problem with an edit I'm making, let me know about it and explain yourself. Just remember, I can do the same to you... Thank you.

Of course I have a problem with the edits you're making. Or should I say, the edit you're making, since there is only one and you are making it repeatedly, which is just a link to the nlpweekly.com site, which you have re-inserted into the article four times, under deceptive summaries like Removed spam link to "technotip" - reversed to previous version (with no mention, of course, that you added a link rather than just removing one.) Hmmmm, funny, that's exactly what Special:Contributions/212.179.213.210 did less than twenty-four hours before, claiming (spam link "false memory" removed) when an honest description would have included and also reinserted a frequently removed link. Why exactly is it that you and 212.179.213.210 are entitled to declare things "spam" but a link that has been reinserted to the article fifteen times can't be called "spam"? Sure looks like it to me; looks even more like it after a look at your edits. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:30, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
with all due respect, I had recently joined Wikipedia as a registered user, and most often I forget to log in when I contribute content. I've added content in the NLP page, the Hypnosis page and some other psychology related issues. However, I had the impression that as long as I mark the "remember me" when I log in, I don't have to use it again if I close the browser. Apprently I do, so I'll keep you posted on future edits/contributions I'm making, to show you I'm not a spam maker and I do try to contribute to the community with valuable content. At the beginning, I didn't even know who's deleting my edits, but in the last week I found out how to contact them (at least if they're registered like you and I). I appologize if it looked like spam, it was not my intention at all. Have a great new year eve. ---> Danniboy

Re: What to do about a spammer?

Yeah, I've removed that link more than a few times in the past. At least the link he posted to Anthony Robbins actually points to a relevant article now, and he didn't supplant a pre-existing link, this time. I can't say I care for his threatening tone and deceptive edit summaries, and haven't seen him contribute anything that wasn't self-promotional. The section he added to self-esteem isn't even encyclopaedic, so I think I'll move it to talk. I say we let him keep the Anthony Robbins link, but ditch the link at hypnosis since it's too general a topic: His link is already at neuro-linguistic programming, and that should be enough. Since he has quite a history of self-promotional editing (under dozens of IPs, of course), you shouldn't hesitate to block him (perhaps temporarily at first) if he does not heed your warnings in the future. Cheers, -- Hadal 19:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

- My sincere appologies to both of you, Antaeus and Hadal. I did not mean to sound threatning, just frustrated. However, I will look for my content contributions to Wikipedia in the last few months and send it to you for review. Again, I appologize, have a great new year. - Danniboy

Request: New Year Resolution

Humbly and kindly I would request from you the following new year resolutions:

  1. Stop pre-judging me and others;
  2. Stop tiny quabbles, and focus on substance;
  3. Be less anal retentive;
  4. Be more gracious to others;
  5. Help instead of hinder;
  6. Be kind.

I promise I would do the same. Happy New Year --Zappaz 01:10, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would not believe your promises, Zappaz. You've shown me your idea of being "gracious", of being "kind", of "helping"; it's to maintain a different standard for every occasion and preach sanctimoniously whichever one is convenient for you at the time.
I'm not "pre-judging" you, Zappaz. I'm judging you, based on bitter experience with your intellectual dishonesty. There's a difference. You have pre-judged me, leaping to conclusions about who I am, what I must mean when I talk about cults and how it must be generalization and bigotry, what connection I must have with the ex-premies -- how is that "kind"? How is that "gracious"? Case in point: I went out of my way to spell out what I mean by "cult" and that it is not a brush with which I am tarring every new religious movement. [1] What was your oh-so-"gracious" response? To tell me 'Oh, there are 100's of thousands of such new religions, which you call cults, and now you're saying they all have this dangerous structure.' [2] (After that sort of BS you think I'm going to look to you for my New Year's resolutions?)
And hey! You know what would have been "gracious"? If you had either removed this attack on me or not made it in the first place -- instead of striking it out so that everyone can still see your attack on me and it still has exactly the hurtful, harmful effect you intended, but you don't actually take responsibility for it. "Stop pre-judging me and others", indeed. "Help instead of hinder", indeed.
When I want advice on how to run my life, Zappaz, I'll take it from someone I can actually admire or at least respect, someone who comprehends the meaning of the word "integrity". Someone I doubt that someone will ever be you. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:29, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Antaeus, regardless of your antagonism, I will still try my best. And now, to party, do the countdown and hope the New Year brings me joy. --Zappaz 02:54, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More Yatta

I would have responded earlier to your comment found on 'My Talk', but I only now figured out how to.

Your gratitude for me not being a twit reassures me about the Wiki community. I am a moderator for a high-mid-level traffic web board, so I loathe the stubborn n00b as much as you. Sadly, many assume the worst of the new people. (Example: Usenet sci.math has sent me multiple nastygrams.)

I just hope future arguments of mine will fly, or at least land softly. I wasn't sure whether your original response was a sci.math-esque mockery or just helpful criticism. Your warm welcome has shown it merely to be the latter. Thank you.

Have a merry...erm...Valentine's Day? Spamguy 22:46, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An unforgivably delayed reply (re: rape protection)

Hi; I want apologise for not being around to respond to your query in a timely fashion. For what it's worth, your suggestion was a good one. I hope you've been well (those first few lines atop your user page worry me). Cheers, -- Hadal 03:07, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Copyright clearing

Hello. You edited the zsync article and added a paragraph. I am the author of that article and I have previously published on my site Wikinerds.org (not related to Wikipedia/Wikimedia). Your paragraph is now released under the GFDL since you edit on Wikipedia. I would like to publish a modified version of your paragraph under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license on my site. You will get proper attribution with your full name Antaeus Feldspar. Here and here you can check the original article. If you agree with the CC-licensing of your paragraph, please contact me using my talk page. Thank you. NSK 01:33, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! -- NSK 08:44, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Admins

Heya, good job on the link quality assurance. I'd suggest you avoid phrases like "at least two admins are agreeing with my opinion" though: Admins are just regular editors with a few extra powers to aid in janitorial work, their opinions do not count more than that of other editors. Of course in most cases they are established editors with a good track record, but perhaps you could use something like "established editors" or "long-time editors". --fvw* 03:11, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

True, true. *sigh* It's just that if this guy has already failed to take the clue that if three long-time/established editors are saying this link is not appropriate and it's one anon saying "Sure it is! Wikipedia policy says it is!" maybe that anon is not understanding the policy the way he thinks he is. But if he doesn't take a clue from "three people are saying I'm wrong; I'm the only one who thinks I'm right" I don't know if he's going to clue in just from being told that these editors are "experienced." Plus, you not only have to be experienced in order to be an admin, you have to have earned enough trust from the community for the voting on your adminship to pass. So, an admin is not just someone who's been around a while, it's someone who has earned some measure of community trust... -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:32, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I see your point, though the anon definately wouldn't get that whole distinction. And the "person in power" distinction he probably will get is exactly the one we don't want to give, convenient though it may be in this case. --fvw* 03:37, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

Deleted material

Removed material duplicated at Talk:Melissa Joan Hart.

Time to ban/block 204.193.6.90?

He is now engaged in personal attacks, asking if "Did he go against an arbritrttion?" [3]. Between this and his violation of the 3RR, it may be time for him to discover that Wikipedia does not live by the rule of "do whatever you want and no one can stop you". -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that counts as a personal attack really; just ignore that kind of stuff. Interestingly enough, he hasn't violated the 3RR yet (though I was fooled into thinking so too), see the discussion on WP:AN. Just revert him where necessary and block when he does violate the 3RR, that should get the message across soon enough. --fvw* 17:55, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)
Hunh. I guess I misread the timestamps too. I have to disagree about it being a personal attack, though; I have never been the subject of an arbitration, let alone "going against" one, and I find 204.193.6.90's suggestion that I have done both to be a cheesy smear upon me. (and the irony? He's appealing to a user who has recently explicitly violated the rule of "Never suggest a view is invalid simply because of who its proponent is" against me. [4] And this is who 204.193.6.90 is turning to to complain about "cyber-bullying"?) -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:16, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Elias coding

Yes I am moving all three. I am atemptint to be consistent with Wikipedia policy on capitalisation. I checked breifly via google to see if there was a prepoderence of capitals usage, adn ther wasn't (although there is some). Rgds, Rich Farmbrough 01:37, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Another link-adder...

I wonder if you'd take a look at 66.234.37.74; he's added external links to five different articles, all links to http://celebritycola.blogspot.com. For obvious reasons, I would rather not be the one this time that raises the issue... -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What, you're afraid of making yourself too useful? I Didn't find any of the links to be worth having in the articles and have removed the lot of them. The link reorganising to make it look like it's not just the addition of one link is suspicious too. Good catch. --fvw* 02:18, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)

copyvio

Scoring the Hales copy COPYVIO NOTICE You recently put up a notice about an article I put on Wikipedia FYI http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cornwall/ball/alnw.htm Is my webpage and I am transfering all info across to Wikipedia

My home page is http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cornwall/ my info on Medieval footbal games is http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cornwall/ball/shroveball.htm

These pages are mine the have been on the web for several years.

Phil Ellery Talskiddy 23:11, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Shape property

Hi, I noticed your addition of the shape property to the binary heap article. This is a common part of the definition of binary heaps, but I think there are some applications, such as link-based priority queues, where it's not strictly needed. The term I've heard for the shape property is a complete binary tree, although the definition on Wikipedia seems to be slightly different (perhaps an error). I accept the edit, but perhaps there should be a small note about how the shape property need not always hold in all applications, if you agree. Deco 07:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You're right that it should probably be complete binary tree instead of the numerical parent-child relationship I gave. (I see what you mean about the definition seeming slightly off, though...) Perhaps we can combine the two, explaining that the shape property is so valued because combined with 1-based indexing it makes for this very useful parent-child relationship?
As for the shape property -- well, to be honest, all my formal reading on binary heaps has stated that both properties are needed for it to be a binary heap; if it's not either obeying both properties or trying to restore both properties, it's something like a binary heap but not a binary heap. However, that may just be the gaps in my knowledge showing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 08:31, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Advice on controversial articles

I see from your edits that you're quite concerned about the articles that deal with cults, as I am. I'd like to give you just a bit of advice that might help you get more result from your effort, and that's to not give people the conclusion you think they should reach. I call this "jumping in the jury box"; if you want to convince people, you want to put the facts before them and present them in a compelling way. You can't jump in the jury box and announce "I've decided for you that this is the conclusion you should reach!" -- that's more likely to turn people off. Some of your edits have that quality -- the edit summary alone on this one is over the top -- and I hope you'll realize that if there's anyone out there that hasn't yet decided where they stand on the issue, declaring "this is how you'll regard things!" is more likely to alienate them than convince them. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Of course, I understand. But some people don't hesitate to play games with the system, under pretence of giving facts. Sometimes it has to be said, so that they understand their maneuvers cannot go far, and so that they think twice before doing it again. I think I got some results that way. What I agree is that it is better to do it in the talk page than in the article --Pgreenfinch 14:28, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re: your comments on User:Marvelvsdc, a.k.a. User:68.49.237.159

I had a look at these users contributions, I have to say most of what I saw looked like perfectly good information. I totally agree with your "GOOPTI" philosophy, but I think there are literally thousands of users contributing fancruft. I think it's futile to battle fancruft on a case-by-case basis, without a strong policy backing you up. Personally, I don't allow myself to care about these types of contributions anymore. I mean who's going to read an article about an obscure comic book character, except someone who cares about obscure comic book characters? Sure, I wish these articles weren't there; Wikipedia would probably have more credibility- but there is enough work just reverting all the "Paul is gay" edits!

See you around the Wiki ike9898 01:33, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Hash table

Why do we need the text "or probably will" in the hash table article? The hash function defines the set of locations in the hash table where the hashed value might be found; ISTM that meaning is sufficiently conveyed without the "or probably will" text. Or is there some variant of hashing I'm overlooking that does need this clarification? Neilc 00:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's a variant covered in the article, under Open addressing. In open addressing, the hash function only determines the first place the hash table will try to put the entry; if something already occupies that space, some strategy is used to determine the next place to try, and the next, until finally an open spot is found. It's not really accurate to count that strategy as part of the hash function.
Whether that slight inaccuracy is worth fudging over in the introduction is a question open to debate; I restored it mostly because it looked like someone else had completely misparsed the syntax of the sentence and tried to "correct" grammar that wasn't wrong, and someone else had seen the now-incorrect sentence and removed the seemingly-redundant part entirely. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:58, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Star Wars and GOOPTI

OK Anteus, you've convinced me (on another user page, which I shouldn't hog). The Star Wars episode I saw (either the second or third) was overrated and hackneyed, and nothing in it seemed new, but yes, OK, these movies had a major, bad influence on Hollywood. Though actually Hollywood studios continued to push out quite a lot of movies, and the near-infallible predilection of suburban cinemas (in the two countries in which I've lived) for the trite minority among them (Pretty Woman, etc.) I think long predated (and thus can't be blamed on) Star Wars. (I did once see Usual Suspects in a suburban cinema -- perhaps it had made some mistake.) Compare two Kevin Costner baseball movies made at about the same time: Field of Dreams, tacky (I rented the video but gave up after 20 minutes), widely exhibited; Bull Durham, first-rate, little exhibited. I've got dozens of DVDs of watchable post–Star Wars Hollywood movies; I'm delighted to say that they don't show any Star Wars influence. (They're also not directed by Spielberg, don't star Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, etc. . . . hmm, they're not very Hollywoody.) -- Hoary 07:34, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

I give in. You're right. The Star Wars movies are horrible movies. They are loud, stupid, lowbrow, and of course, American, which encompasses all three of the above. And of course, as we all know, movies which are stupid and lowbrow have no real impact whatsoever and are ipso facto not notable. Let's VfD any article which makes any mention of these awful movies which were never popular with any notable number of people, had no impact on popular culture or on the business of moviemaking, and never had any true fans. There. Are you happy? Is this what it takes to make you happy? -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:30, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
No, I'm unhappy as usual. If they're as bad as I think (and I've only seen one of them so perhaps shouldn't judge), I would indeed be happy if they'd had no influence. But you've persuaded me that they did (or the first one did) indeed have a major influence on Hollywood. That's a most unhappy thought. Meanwhile, "American" of course encompasses loud, stupid and lowbrow, just as "Japanese", "British", etc., do. (Probably "Malian", "Zimbabwean", "Belizean", etc. -- everything.) Luckily it also encompasses stuff that's very different; just from the post–Star Wars era, there are American Movie, Being John Malkovich, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Fargo, Little Odessa, The Player, Quiz Show . . . oh, lots more. What would it take to make me happy? Well, for a start, Dubya could take a very large bite of a very large pretzel. How about you, Antaeus? Do you enjoy the Star Wars films? Do you think I'm missing something? -- Hoary 04:24, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

Killian Documents

Thanks for commenting on the Killian documents issue. Are you familiar with the facts concerning the authenticity of these documents? Anonip 00:09, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm familiar with Wikipedia's principle of NPOV, which is why even on issues that are a whole lot more black-and-white than the Killian documents, we don't jump in the jury box and say "Here is the conclusion you would have to come to if you looked at the facts", we say "here are the facts." -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I just wanted to clarify. You haven't actually investigated the specific facts in this case, your position is simply based on your understanding of the Wikipedia NPOV principle. You believe NPOV does not permit Wikipedia to state that the documents are forgeries, even if that assertion is not seriously disputed. Correct? Anonip 00:44, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Let me put it this way: I do not accept your judgement on what is "serious" disputation and what is "unserious" disputation. If there wasn't any dispute, then there wouldn't be any debate about how to refer to the documents. Since there clearly is a dispute, it is Wikipedia's policy to describe the dispute, not to assert "this is the side of the dispute you should take, since it's clearly the correct one." The only exception I'll make to this is on mathematical topics where certain truths are simply unescapable given a certain set of axioms. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:20, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please bear with me. I'm not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand your thinking. When you say "there clearly is a dispute", are you referring to a dispute about the fact among competent sources, or a dispute about the fact among anonymous (possibly incompetent) Wikipedia editors? Do you believe that the latter, in the absence of the former, requires Wikipedia to state that the facts are disputed? Anonip 03:33, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Again, you seem to be trying to angle towards the idea "the only people who are not absolutely convinced that they're forgeries are people too incompetent to be taken seriously", presumably under the mistaken assumption that if that could be shown to be the case, it would logically follow that Wikipedia would describe the situation the way the smart, right people see it, and would completely ignore the way the "incompetent" people see it. But since this latter assumption is completely incorrect, you can angle towards the former idea all you want and it won't make a damn bit of difference. Look at Raelism. If we went by your mistaken assumption that Wikipedia should state as truth the beliefs of "competent sources" and ignore views which are fringe, "incompetent", or outright lunatic, don't you think the article would state "The Raelians are some real freakin' nutjobs, man!"? I certainly think their beliefs are seriously bizarre -- but have I tried to edit the article to say "Everyone who's sane agrees that the doctrines of the Raelians are completely wrong"? No, and if you understood NPOV and cared about it, you wouldn't be on this wrong-headed campaign to say "Everyone who counts knows they're forgeries, and anyone who doesn't think they're forgeries doesn't count, and therefore the article should state as fact that they're forgeries." -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm having trouble following you. By "competent" I mean those with recognized expertise (in the real world) releence and clearly articulated reaamined the matter carefully, and have stated their expert conclusions supported by credible evidence and clearly articulated reasoning. By "incompetent" (perhaps I should have said "non-competent") I mean those who lack relevant expertise, who have not examined the matter carefully, and who simply assert their beliefs without credible evidence or articulated reasoning. The qualification of competent sources is objective and does not depend on their conclusions. In principle it is possible to have competent sources who reach different conclusions. In that case there would be a serious factual dispute. But what if there are no competent sources who disagree about a fact? Is disagreement by non-competent Wikipedians sufficient to require Wikipedia to treat a fact as disputed? That's my question.

And although I don't think the issue here is about fringe beliefs, suppose the Zaelians believe Abraham Lincoln was an extraterrestrial. Would the Wikipedia article on Lincoln have to say something like: "Lincoln is generally believed to have been born in Kentucky, but the Zaelians believe he was born on Sirius Zeta-9."? Anonip 05:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First off, you need to go read WP:NPOV, because the questions you're asking are answered there. Really. Second, you can define "competent" all you want and yet it's not going to change the central point: even if it was provably true that the only people disputing the non-authenticity of the Killian documents were "incompetent", "non-competent", "partisans", "real morons", whatever -- it wouldn't change the fact that they dispute it.
Thirdly, your Zaelians example cannot be fairly evaluated because the Zaelians are a made-up group and do not exist. It is therefore impossible to evaluate whether it is truly a "fringe belief" or whether it is a belief held by enough people to make it notable even if it is a belief that no one should be believing (in, of course, the evaluation of those who don't believe it.) But again, I believe that what you are pushing towards is "if I can convince everyone that everyone's who's anyone believes that the Killian documents are forgeries, and that it's therefore a fringe belief that they might be authentic, then I have all the ammunition I need to say 'Why even acknowledge such a fringe belief? Let's just go with what we in the right" (no pun intended) "know to be true, that they're forgeries.'" Trust me, the belief would have to be very much more fringe in order to justify the kind of changes you have been proposing to make. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:39, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Antaeus, after messing up your talk page last night (although I think it may have been due to technical difficulties on the Wikipedia end), I've decided to move the discussion to my own talk page. That's probably a better place for it anyway. Please respond to me there. Anonip 17:36, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

TH

Nice explanation

You wrote a really nice letter on User talk:24.126.173.124. You didn't bite the newcomer or denigrate the subject, you succinctly explained the relevent parts of Wiki culture and procedure, and beautifully demonstrated the nature of notability as applicable to autobiography and NPOV. I hope you won't be bothered if I draw upon it in the future if I ever feel the need to write a similar letter. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:54, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC) (Though I must add that I don't know/don't care about the deal with DG's involvement - just talking about the other stuff -W.)

Why, thank you. No, I won't be bothered if you draw on it; I'd be quite pleased. (Though, understandably, you probably won't have to mention David Gerard; I felt I had to do it in this case, because as the letter indicates, his advice to 24.126.173.124 was more reflective of how he feels WP should operate than how it does.)
I am an idealist myself sometimes. I haven't seen the letter you were responding to - I just happened upon the page and saw the good explanation of autobiography issues. Anyway, wikilove. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:16, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)
OK, so perhaps the wheelie bin is not the most apt analogy to a non-notable biography. ;) Better to use a non-controversial example of non-notability, like an average high school. <;) In the wiki semi-policy on autobiographies there is a warning that articles begun in vanity may, in the hands of other editors, take on an entirely unexpected character. That's worth repeating too. -Willmcw 09:29, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

Please desist

Antenaeus, you took such a good deal of time to polish your response that you failed to address the issue at hand. The matter is being handled by David. Please consider it closed, as the deletion of our message to you ought to have suggested. Your "private";;; messages, as we stated prior, post to an entire network. Please desist. Thank you. -- unsigned message by 24.126.173.124

I don't know where you got the idea that David is the authority and that people like Uncle G. -- and like myself, when I don't tell you what you want to hear -- are merely "volunteers" to be arrogantly waved away. You simply cannot post articles about yourself on Wikipedia -- violating Wikipedia policy, as it has been explained -- and then instruct people the matter is "closed" to them. That is not your prerogative to determine, and neither is it David's. If you imagined that Wikipedia was a place where you would be free to advertise yourself to your heart's content and no one else would be allowed to say anything about it, then you are very incorrect; if you think that you can say things on Wikipedia when you think they'll get you what you want and then delete them without trace when it ceases to be convenient, you are again mistaken. Perhaps you should re-think your behavior in light of these realities. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:41, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Correction

Mr. Feldspar, as well-crafted as your letter appears, your information is inaccuate and reveals poor research. Ms. Spicuzza and "her" collective, as you refer-- a contradication in terms in itself-- are internationally known. She did not submit "autobiographically." She "lent" her permission for use. We are consulting with David as to whether all history, including contributions, ought be eliminated from Wikipedia altogether. Most of us involved, some members, some not, are sorry we ever posted. -- unsigned message by 24.126.173.124

"Lent" her permission for use? Ah, I see. I didn't realize that it was Wikipedia which came to Ms. Spicuzza and to the collective and begged "Please! You are so internationally famous we must have an article upon you! Except no description from outside could possibly do justice to such an amazing subject, so it will have to be someone from the same IP whose contributions are sometimes signed 'Jeanne-Marie' who creates the article!" Oh, wait ... you mean it wasn't? You mean it was someone from the collective who decided, "Wow! Our collective, and our founder, are so 'internationally famous', Wikipedia needs an article on both!" Well, then, I don't see how it doesn't qualify as autobiography -- and I don't see how it excepts you from the warning which was clearly put in front of you when you started each new page: "Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product, or a business." -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:41, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Feldspar,

Ms. Spicuzza "lent" her permission to the collective and non-members, not Wikipedia, as you've assumed, who share an ISP hub. I am not famous, nor did I claim to be. Ms. Spicuzza is. Your tone is quite rude, thus I make this my final posting. *Shelly Robbins, member

Your behavior has been rude, arrogant, and unwise, and thus I fully support your plan to make this your final posting. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:02, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please desist

I think perhaps you ought to consider your behavior in light of this. -Rick

I think perhaps you, all of you, Jeanne-Marie, and "Shelly" who is using the IP address 24.126.173.124 at 21:47 to announce that it's her last posting and "Rick" who is suddenly using the same IP address at 21:56, nine minutes later, to continue the same posting pattern, should try growing up. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:02, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please desist

I think you should try growing up. -Rick

Thanks for your opinion. When I come to your place and start pretending that I know the way things are done there so much better than you and patronize you, then your correction will be well-deserved. In the meantime, in the real world, you may (or may not) be multiple people behind that IP address but only one of you seems even close to realizing that you can't just waltz onto Wikipedia and take what you want (publicity and promotion) and thumb your nose at the way we do things around here. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:26, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

ISP Sharing

Isn't he aware of how many people can share a single network? --Irene

Bell inequalities vfd

Thanks for your input. I added a reply to Caroline Thompson's comments. Please have a look and also carefully look at the talk page of that Bell's theorem article. CSTAR 14:25, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aphrodite

Well, look at it like this - if is wasnt for people like me who create articles, people like you wouldnt have anything to do, would they? As for reintroducing errors, as I created it in the first place and was still working on it, then I consider it gives me artistic licence to make typos. As for criticising my grammar...........languages evolve by distorting grammer, just go with the flow dude.

Lincolnshire Poacher

PS. I just read something on your user page:

'there is a place on Wikipedia for descriptions for television shows and video games and webcomics, but how much detail these things actually deserve is proportional to how much influence they have actually had on the real world.'

Wow, thats arrogant beyond belief!!! Who are you to judge how influential any particualr thing has been on any particular societal group? Are you an expert on EVERY cultural and Social grouping on the planet? I think not!! If so, I was born in 1954 and live in Lincolnshire, UK, so tell me what was influential to me, if your an expert? I think if someone wants an article on some obscure comic that influenced him so much he remembered it from childhood, and you've never heard of it, then that hardly gives you a valid reason to oppose it.

I read the bits above about this, and you either have an unbiassed encyclopedia that encompasses all knowledge, of you censor it to some arbitrary ruleset defined by some personal subjective worldview. Personally, I prefer the former.....who are you to censor anyone else?

I think you need to reevaluate your own importance to the planet, dude............

Thank you for your opinion. I'll give it the appropriate amount of consideration, based on your idea that people who create articles are some separate, superior class to people who actually work on articles that they didn't create, working on more than just the bits that are fun, and that merely creating an article on Wikipedia gives you "artistic license" to undo the work of others. I'm sure you're just the person to tell me about who is arrogant. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By the way, if you don't think you can bear to read about my own philosophies, then you might not want to read that section of my user page, the one marked "Philosophies". Just a hint, to such a clever lad as yourself. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:59, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Listign of purported hate groups

I understand that type of issue. It seems like the hate groups should all be in the list of purported hate groups, rather than the hate groups article itself. As it was, I only dropped one - the empty category of anti-cult groups. If it's important to have that or other unsourced hate groups then we could create a subsection for alleged hate groups that do not appear on any source list. Let me take another look at it after dinner and see if there's a way to bridge the gap. Cheers, -Willmcw 02:16, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

PS- I just checked the history of the Hate group article and see that, indeed, the listings were merged. Nonetheless, every single one that was included was supportable by citations from the ADL or SPLC. So although I changed the criteria, that didn't make any difference (except for the new, empty section "anti-cult"). So, I don't see an actual problem- but maybe I missed it. FYI, Rick Ross and the old AFF list "controversial groups" (not cults), which include hate groups and NRMs. So if we need to broaden the scope of sources, we should be able to find a citation to support almost any group's inclusion. We've got open arms for hate groups! It's a big tent. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:01, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the correction on the Efuru stub. Clearly I need to not edit late at night. The lesbian 06:44, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You're quite welcome! I don't mind doing spelling and grammar edits when I see them -- well, as long as the next person to edit doesn't erase them because he can't be bothered to edit an edit conflict... 9_9 -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:01, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Best wishes

Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Fighting for NPOV is not as fun without you around... :) --Zappaz 19:38, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:42, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hey

Can you allow me to blank my user page? I threw all that stuff up on there just to see if it would work...I didn't think it would be attacked the way it was. I'd like to keep it blank from now on. Thanks. Kaneda 07:08, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The reason I restore pages that are blanked during VfD (the reason the VfD notice itself tells you not to blank the page) is so those who go to check whether the content merits deletion will see the content that everyone else voted on. Since the VfD looks certain to pass anyways, I don't know that it makes a lot of difference. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:19, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Belated thanks.

For pointing out that my scratch page was appearing in a category. Don't know how I missed this. Rich Farmbrough 14:06, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Thank you for your edits. I feel the book and hopefully the article will help a lot of people.--Jondel 00:05, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome! I'm glad I could help out... -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:07, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Umm,as suggested by Plek and GeorgeS, I'm going to propose renaming to Waking the Tiger, removing redirects, create See-also links from articles of Fear, Trauma, etc. This fulfils my purposes. Sorry for your trouble. I may copy the whole thing or a complete write up. I don't feel the need to push for this article if the renaming or write up of Waking The Tiger is well done. What do you think?--Jondel 01:05, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Waking the Tiger

Hi Anteus. I've done renamed and tried to rewrite as best as I could. Now I'm asking for your help if you are interested. The Waking The Tiger btw has a new peer review request. The VFD has transferred to Waking the Tiger.--Jondel 05:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anteus, you have a gift with words (reffering to assuming bad faith), nurture it!--Jondel 02:14, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article was restored! Open the champagne! Thanks for your help.!--Jondel 07:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Congrats! -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Walker, Texas Ranger lever

Hey thanks for merging my Walker, Texas Ranger lever article to the Conan page. I didn't know it was listed on the Conan article and it makes more sense to be on that.

--Jedihobbit 16:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No problem! I tend to be a mergist and so "part of a larger article" tends to occur to me as where information may belong -- or may already be, as was the case here. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:41, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rex

I have no problem with your having edited User:JamesMLane/Rexlog. It's still a draft and I'm glad to get anyone's input. (I'm especially glad to see you're fairly active. I hope that means good news about your health.) Rex has also been stalking me, voting on a couple CfD's after I did. It's kind of funny that he stalks other people, given that he complained loudly when he thought others were tracking his edits. Once you're finished admiring the irony, though, is it ArbCom material? It's not a violation of any policy that I know of. I'm inclined to leave it out of a formal RfAr. I'd be glad to get your thoughts on the subject, though. JamesMLane 17:03, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, if he takes it to the level that he did before, before his "leaving forever", it may rise to the level where it can be presented to the ArbCom as evidence of harassment. At the current time, though, I agree that it's best left out of a formal RfAr. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:47, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've filed the RfAr. Thanks for your help in developing it. JamesMLane 07:07, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Links to 9/11 open questions

Deleting or redirecting links to a page being voted on for deletion is sabotaging the election process. As such it could be argued to be vandalism of the Wiki election process. If you see the Wiki deletion policy, it states that links to an article can be deleted and redirected to more suitable links after the article is deleted. I doubt anyone would condone doing this while the election is in progress. Please stop.

I see the Wikipedia deletion policy and I see no such statement as you claim there to be, stating that redirects to an article must not be changed while the article is in VfD. Even if 9/11 open questions were to be kept it would be absurd to redirect 9/11/01 to that article rather than to September 11, 2001 attacks. It's not as if anyone would be searching on 9/11/01 to try and find your article -- let alone that they would type in 9/11, an existing redirect which pointed to September 11, 2001 attacks, trying to get your own article, which you changed the redirect to.
Are you seriously suggesting that if I created an article called al-Qaeda is an awesome musical group and created multiple new redirects to it under every variant spelling that I could think of and changed redirects currently pointing to al-Qaeda to my bogus article -- are you seriously suggesting that from the moment my article was put on VfD, that no one would "condone" changing those redirects to a non-bogus target? because it might "sabotage" the VfD process? The suggestion is ludicrous and will be ignored accordingly. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You edit summary read -rv; please be honest and mark reverts as such in your edit summaries. And if "9/11" is too ambiguous, what sense does it make to redirect to "11/9"???)

  • What do you mean be honest? How am I being dishonest by stating the reason why I am reverting this page?
  • What sense does it make to redirect to "11/9"? - 11/9 is a disambiguation page which lists the meanings of 9/11 and 11/9. I could duplicate this page in its entirety but why not use a redirect? I will duplicate the page to satisfy your requirements the next time.
  • A very long time ago, (in 2002 I think), this page along with pages like 10/12, 10/3 etc.. were created en masse. It was decided to delete all of them because while 9/11 means September 11 to Americans, for everybody else it means 9th of November.
  • Take a look at 9-11 - that is a disambiguatrion page. Why should this be any different? Jooler 09:00, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I note your failure to address the issues raised here and on the relevant talk pages. Jooler 12:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes; absurd responses such as "It also means 9 shillings and 11 pence" convinced me very early on that talk was wasted; that I was dealing with someone doggedly determined to revert this redirect, not out of ignorance that for every citizen of the United States "9/11" means "the attacks of September 11, 2001", but because that is an indelible association for Americans, and Americans need to be put in their place. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:41, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
There is nothing "absurd" about 9/11 meaning nine shillings and eleven pence. This is how the value of pre-decimal British coinage was written. Perhaps you recall the Mad Hatter's hat from Alice in Wonderland where a ticket with the price of the hat at "10/6" remained tucked into the band - see [5]. The point of saying that was to illustrate that "9/11" can mean a whole host of things other than the date, expressed in a particularly parochial format, of a particularly nasty incident. Pointing out that people from outside of the USA do not spell certain words the way they do; or call certain objects by another name; or do not believe in the same values, or wexpress dates in a different format is not an attempt to "put Americans in their place". Jooler 08:00, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If I were to insist that Boxing Day be a disambiguation page, because in addition to being a national holiday for millions of people, it could be used by some people to refer to a particular day on which some particularly anticipated boxing match is scheduled to happen, it would be clearly ridiculous, because the national holiday is by far the more prominent and encyclopedic meaning. It is true that not everyone in the entire world calls the events of September 11, 2001 "9/11". It is also true that if you say to any mentally competent American adult "9/11" they will understand immediately that you are talking about the attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. In contrast, please show me the existing article that Wikipedia has on the subject of "nine shillings and eleven pence". Or an article for any money amount expressed in shillings and pence. Or an article for any specific money amount specified in any coinage system. You can't find it? Good; now you know why I called your suggestion that 9/11 needs to be a disambiguation page because it could mean "nine shillings and eleven pence", which we do not and never will have an article on, absurd. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:30, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That would be boxing day not Boxing Day. In any case we are talking about a redirect, so if you want to "fix" the redirect at "boxing day" go ahead. For the vast majority of the world that particular sequence of characters means 9th of September, but I am not suggesting that the page should redirect to that date. It should be a disambiguation page. I was not in anyway suggesting that we should have an article on the specific sum of money 9 shillings and 11 pence, merely that that particular form of characters can be used to express things other than the date. However there are many disambiguation pages which list meanings that do not require theer own article. See Jack Jooler 23:09, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vaccines

Antaeus, your fair-minded dedication to NPOV might be put to good use on the vaccine article, which could use a good NPOVing by someone who is more of a stickler for details. Interested? Ombudsman 01:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'll look it over and see what I can do. Thank you for the compliment. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thnks. In striving for NPOV, a straight line may not be viable, much less optimal. The ADHD article needed a good keelhauling, for reasons such as those eloquently expressed by *Kat*. NPOV is in the eye of the beholder; perhaps perusal of the links at Keirsey will help instill an understanding of others and their perspectives on NPOV and ADHD. Ombudsman 05:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New Freedom Commission on Mental Health & TMAP

(consolidation of Antaeus' thread, where a compliment on his differing reactions to two articles inexplicably turned to his analysis of two different "situations") copied from User talk:ClockworkSoul Would you mind taking a look at New Freedom Commission on Mental Health from a NPOV-maintenance perspective? It seems to contain a lot of the material that was cut from Texas Medication Algorithm Project, which needed to be NPOV'ed. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:53, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is impressive to find a Wikipedian's adaption toward a consensus-driven mode, Antaeus, and your restraint this time around is admirable. Both articles were written as a starting point, obviously, and your modifications, rather than simple culling, are very much welcome. Ombudsman 07:33, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

copied from User talk:Ombudsman

Well, I believe that by "adaption" you must mean the different reactions I had to two different situations. In all honesty I believe you must look at the differences between the two situations: one was an article that had been worked on by just one editor, and no one reasonably expects even the most fair-minded editor to produce something fully NPOV by themselves. The other, however, while under the edit summary "cleanup of non-neutral bias", introduced copious use of scare quotes around words such as 'improvements' and 'authoritative' and 'problem', and bolding around phrases such as "almost all of the latest studies have been sponsored by drug companies" and "rates of diagnosis vary widely even within the U.S. In some school districts as many as 60% of all children have been diagnosed with ADHD". Even accepting your explanation that you only meant to put these phrases in italics, and the bolding is accidental, it leaves the question of why these phrases needed to be italicized at all. What has not even been touched on yet is how this "cleanup of non-neutral bias" came to include insertion of so many statements either implying or directly stating malfeasance on the part of "the industry", as in changing "These questions cannot be answered unless one knows about the effects of these fatty acids on the dopamine system." to "These questions cannot be answered unless one knows about the effects of these fatty acids on the dopamine system, and the economic realities regarding who is funding studies attempting to debunk the correlation." [italics mine] and "The process of obtaining referals for such assessments is being pushed vigorously by the pharmaceutical industry, in the guise of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health". Ombudsman, I am willing to assume good faith of your intention to work for NPOV, but I am afraid that that edit, especially under that edit summary, presents a lot of evidence to make me wonder if you have really thought through what it entails. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
btw, the two starting points, sorry it wasn't specified, were meant to reference the differing treatments of TMAP and New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Ombudsman 05:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
As I stated at your talk page, I admire your dedication to NPOV while wondering if you truly understand what it is. I don't know what "a straight line may not be viable, much less optimal" is supposed to mean; what I do know is that a great many editors think that when they have the article in a state where their POV is fully and sympathetically expressed, and everyone else's POV is grudgingly given an airing followed immediately by disclaimers that one would be a fool to believe such a thing, that this is NPOV because every POV is thereby represented in some form. -- Antaeus Feldspar 12:37, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Compliments & Complements

Just for the record, Antaeus, your hard work here at Wikipedia is valuable, though everyone errs at times. The application of your strengths no doubt provides discipline to complement the Kindness Campaign. The fact that you aggressively have defended an anonymous poster, despite evidence of mischief, including some you may have missed[6], shows just how kind you can be. It is hoped that you will, in general, treat extablished contributors with equal deference. You are, of course, a staunch defender of your point of view on NPOV and merging, and it is hoped you will tolerate differing perspectives on such matters, and also defend those whose views do not coincide with your own. It would be appreciated if you might contribute more to articles where you see deficits, rather than simply expressing your point of view about the edits of others.

RE Evangelion

The Lilith = 2nd angel is indeed Fannon, as is Touji's younder sister and Kensuke's hakcer status. Why did you remove everything? NovaSatori

Some of the items you listed may indeed be fanon. Others, however, have been confirmed by Gainax as official canon in sources such as the Red Cross Book. Others are not fanon; they're just something that appeared in someone's fanfic. In addition to these problems, when you're writing in an article, it's not a good idea to include notes to other editors such as "(someone check me on this one, because the wikipedia article seems to disagree)" -- the talk pages are how you should communicate with other editors, as that's why they exist. For the articles, we should be aiming for a professional tone. These are the reasons that led me to revert to the previous version. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:56, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Fanon adopted into canon was still considered fanon. In any case Touji's younger sister is definately fanon. NovaSatori

You might want to go back and check the definition of fanon a bit more carefully. Fanon is that which is believed by significant numbers of fans or treated by large numbers of fans as if it was canon, although it is not. And as previous discussions have clarified, there's a difference between "it appeared in a fanfic" and "it's fanon". -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Removal of VfD notice by article's author

I have again removed it. Take it to WP:RFAr. ==SV 01:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance#Criticism_of_the_Iraq_War-==SV

Edit summary

Hello. Please remember to always provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy edits. Hyacinth 01:13, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Corax

I'll thank you not to censor my posts. I'll take my chances with the personal attacks policy. Adam 07:26, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't thank me for something I don't plan to do. If you are going to throw libellous and baseless accusations of pedophilia I will feel free to remove them and I am not the only one who takes that policy on personal attacks. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:31, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The anonymous user:192.104.181.227/user:192.104.181.229 does not seem to be willing to discuss his or her edits, and instead is just reverting without explanation. I've left a note on his talk page, a note in the article talk page, and several notes in edit summaries. I am not generally interested in pursuing minor violations, but do you think a 3RR time-out would bring this editor to the talk page? Cheers, -Willmcw 21:55, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

FYI, received a response at User_talk:192.104.181.227. -Willmcw 22:48, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
Given the tenor of that response, I think a 3RR time-out might be highly salubrious. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:18, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Probably so, but since the last edit was more of an evolution than a revert, perhaps it is not needed. In fact, the article may have achieved a rough balance for the time being. Thanks for being on top of it. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:51, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it was an attack

You wrote on m discussion page that you didn't mean it as a threat about the 3RR thing. If that were true, explain why you were intrested in counting up multiple revisions because the IPs were similar.

"I'm tempted to go back and see how many reverts 227/9 racked up in 24 hours... -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:14, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)"

Because you'd be surprised how many people are warned about the 3RR and violate it anyways -- thinking that "my reverts are 'good' reverts because I'm reverting to the good version of the article; his reverts are 'bad' reverts because he's reverting to the bad version of the article" has any relevance to the way the 3RR operates. Someone who responds to a heads-up about the 3RR with irrelevant blather about "my reverts were good; yours were bad" and "your reverts are worse because they're blind/you didn't repeat your reasons" is missing the point, and this is an excellent predictor of who's going to violate it again even after warnings. And someone who racks up almost enough reverts for two people (now that we know you and 229 are the same, unless you make a habit of answering messages to other people on other people's talk pages) is also quite likely to keep violating the 3RR even after being warned.
A threat would be "If you keep doing something I don't like, then I will inflict some consequence." My warning is "If you keep doing something prohibited by the rules of Wikipedia, then you may face consequences inflicted by Wikipedia." You may not see the distinction, but that says more about what you choose not to see than about the distinction not being there. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:48, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SamuraiClinton

I have to tell you, I'm getting rather upset with this individual's behavior. Case in point: Candy Girl. I've voted to delete this on general principle. In other words, blow this thing out of the edit history and if another editor wants to write an article - a real article - on the Frankie Valli song, they can start fresh. Better we have a red link IMO. - Lucky 6.9 23:03, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mark Geier

I see you have Mark Geier watchlisted. :) I'm going to take some stabs at un-POV-ing it, and it's good to know someone else with an outside perspective is sanity checking me. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 01:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Church caps.

Hi, sorry to hear you haven't been well. Speedy recovery. In relation to an earlier discussion on the (R)CC page, you may wish to have a look at this MoS comment. Alai 05:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comment at Talk:Scientology_controversy

Hi: It is my opinion that you are doing good work at the controversial Scientology_controversy page. GodHelpWiki is very upset about the contents of the page. It seems that we both disagree with much of what he says. That said, however, I do think that the tone of your last response to him was rather harsh in tone. "Well, then, clearly you don't know as much about Wikipedia as you think you do" could be taken as an implication that s/he is stupid (given the anger/hurt s/he already shows). The "clearly" is what makes it seem so pointed. "It seems to be one of many things you still don't understand" is similar; with "many" as the barb. I do not think think that your suggestion that s/he has not read what is being written is likely to make him/her any more amenable. Please would you consider rephrasing your response to soften it and to encourage constructive discussion? --Theo (Talk) 16:23, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My pleasure. It was a bit confusing at first, though — the two user names looked identical on every part of my screen except my address-box (when I hovered the cursor over them). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:09, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Facts or knowledge

The "distance", I would write, between facts and knowledge...but that's a matter of taste. --VKokielov 07:35, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template

Antaeus, I felt you were a little unfair in the way you responded to Grace Note regarding Template:Explain significance. [7] I share your evident frustration over the amount of rubbish we often have to deal with, and I also know that it's annoying to have templates edited (I've had a couple of mine changed), but on the other hand, Grace Note's edit was quite reasonable and introduced only a subtle (but arguably important) change of tone. Perhaps a compromise text could be worked out. Anyway, I hope you don't mind me expressing my view here. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:04, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Grace Note's editing made two changes:
  • It removed the completely factual information that articles which make readers say, "So... why is this subject worth reading about, again?" do regularly get nominated for deletion (and as we both know, frequently wind up deleted once there.)
  • It inserted the suggestion to simply remove the tag "if you feel this ... is not necessary."
Both of those are more than a subtle change of tone. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. It still asks for extra information on "significance" (without pretending it's anything other than one editor's opinion that it does) and it still mentions that it might be nominated for deletion. I think it's only fair to point out to new users that they can remove a tag if they don't feel it's necessary. You and I know that's the case, because we are bold enough to make changes when we simply differ in opinion, but a newer editor might be intimidated. I'll give you an example: John Smith might be a world-leading widget scientist, and the stub might say so. How can you further explain his significance? He's significant because he's a world leader in widgets. That might seem plain to me and not plain to you. So you tag it because you think widget scientists are not "notable" and I remove it because I think they are. Okay? No big deal. We differ in opinion. But I think the template needs to make that freedom to differ in opinion explicit. Otherwise, you get what I've had with other templates: you can't remove it once I've put it there. Well, yes, you can. They're like any other edit. If the subject of a vanity page removes it, or its author, there are other means to keep it there. You can write to the author, explain the use of the template and ask them to leave it. Explain that it's meant to help, not hurt. Grace Note 06:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. I'll still note that it is one of a very small number of tags which invite the reader to completely dismiss the concern that it represents. And based on my experience, new editors generally don't need encouragement to dismiss the concerns raised by more experienced editors -- what they much more often need is encouragement to take such concerns seriously, and realize that maybe some of the assumptions they're under regarding Wikipedia aren't the way Wikipedia actually works.
Your example of: John Smith is a world-leading widget scientist; the stub says so; Editor X puts on the tag because he doesn't think that even the world's single most notable widget scientist is notable -- sure, it's easy to follow that example, and it shows why it would be a Good Thing for the tag to suggest "remove me if I'm not necessary and the person who thinks I am is wrong!" But let me offer two counter-examples:
Newcomer Y hears a little bit about Wikipedia, and proving the adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", decides that this must be the most fabulous idea of all time: if they let anyone edit any page, it's going to be a great place to tell everyone how great and cool his lunchtable gang at his high school is! The tag goes on the article, but it suggests "remove this tag if it's not necessary." Newcomer Y still hasn't gotten the idea that the "-pedia" in Wikipedia means that we are aiming for an open-content encyclopedia, rather than something closer to a graffiti wall, and so the minute he sees "if it's not necessary," the possibility that it might be necessary is already gone from his mind. He chucks the tag, because who is anyone on Wikipedia to judge whether his social clique is "significant" or not? They don't even know his social clique, because they don't go to his high school!
Newcomer Z hears about Wikipedia, and wonders if they have a page about his favorite band, the Mudskippers. When he finds out that they don't, he happily sets to work preparing one, including all sorts of biographical details that will surely be of interest to any true Mudskippers fan, like why Mark always wears that stocking cap on stage and why Kevin, the guitarist, will never use any brand of strings except Champion. Someone puts the tag on the article and when Newcomer Z sees it, he steps back and for the first time sees the article from the perspective of someone who isn't already a Mudskippers fan. "Oh!" he says. "Why are they notable? Uh... well, they're signed to one of the major indie labels, and their music is starting to get used in commercials and TV shows... I should probably put that in the article, shouldn't I?"
Now between those two sets of examples, which do you find more probable? I can definitely tell you which I think matches up better with what actually happens on Wikipedia, and it's the latter. I can even back this up with an example that just happened: Looking at the category that the tag places the article into, I see "La-Z-Boy". Someone thought La-Z-Boy was important enough to create a stub on, but forgot to mention the reasons why it's important -- in this case, the fact that they happen to be the United States' largest manufacturer of recliners. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cognotechnology?

You put the page Cognotechnology into Category:Anti-cult terms and concepts. I'm a bit curious on the logic behind this, since the article does not mention cults at all in any form. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:42, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The logic behind putting it in Category:Anti-cult terms and concepts was rather informal and simple: It is somehow connected to the other issues in cat, has similar potential for discussion (critical, etc.), and is controversal. That's all, nothing about cult (do the other have anything to do with cult?). I thought it just had to be put in some category. I'll add engineering, too. Maybe neuroscience would be good also. I think, we need some new categories anyway, to get some order in engineering, neuroscience, etc. Please post me your ideas. Ben please vote! 05:22, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Well, IMHO, something is wrong if there are articles in Category:Anti-cult terms and concepts that don't have anything to do with cults. It is "somehow connected", yes, but the connection is not strong: a frequent concern about cults is the possibility that they are exerting mind control over their members by means of sleep deprivation, love bombing, et cetera, while the article seems to indicate that "cognotechnology" is hypothesized mind control through nanotechnology and biotechnology. Category:Neuroscience seems appropriate, as does Category:Speculative technology or something similar if we have such a category. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:46, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, Antaeus. Anti-Cult terms and concepts is probably not a good category for the article. Then, the proposed category Category:Speculative technology sounds good. Thanks for your comment. I just saw it now. I'll remove the category again. Ben T/C 06:19, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Lakireddy Bali Reddy

By "pov and wrong", I meant that the article previously said that Reddy had been able to "keep all of his ill-gotten gains", or something along those lines. The DOJ indicated that he had been fined $2M. The old article also lowballed his prison sentence at 6 years instead of 8. jdb ❋ (talk) 18:37, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Right -- what I was trying to say in my hurried edit summary just before I ran for the train (I have to stop doing that) is that the paragraph you replaced did in fact contain POV statements and statements which the reference you also added showed to be factually wrong. However, those statements were only about half of the paragraph. The other statements were not noticeably POV, so I restored them, and what my edit summary was meant to convey was "these might have been removed in too much haste, or they might have been removed because they too were incorrect. I've restored it in case it was the former, but feel free to re-remove them if it was the latter." -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:01, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A bit too quick on the speedy trigger on this one; it had a long edit history, and a few edits back was the unvandalised version. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh. sorry. You've got me dead to rights on that one. I only saw it by following a link from some already-reverted vandalism, so when I saw it consisting mostly of juvenile abuse I thought it had been created by the vandal. Didn't occur to me it might not have been. sorry. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:34, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar of Diligence Award

On behalf of the Wikipedia community, you are hereby awarded an overdue Barnstar of Diligence Award in appreciation of your tireless efforts in many places, but most especially for helping ensure a very high 'quality of form' is maintained in new articles Ombudsman 22:33, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've merged some of the stuff in Samantha Geimer into Roman Polanski#Statutory rape charge. Think that's enough? --ssd 04:19, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's honestly a surprising question. The usual intent of a merge is to put information that's in two articles and put it all in one article and convert the other to a redirect; one of the frequent cases where this is considered a desirable thing to do is when one of the article subjects really isn't notable except in connection with the other. Samantha Geimer is probably a very very nice person, but unless something's missing from her article, her only notability is through connection with Roman Polanski -- which is why I suggested a merge. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:11, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I know I'm dredging this up from the past, but given that Vili Fualaau has his own article instead of a redirect to Mary Kay Letourneau when his notability is for the most part similar, shouldn't the Samantha Geimer article no longer be a redirect? There's more to the story than that connection especially given the circumstances leading to it and what has turned out to be a flip-flopping of her story in recent years. What goes for one statutory rape "victim" is good for another victim, yes? Scrabbleship 00:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, which is why if anyone was asking me, I'd advocate merging Vili Fualaau into Mary Kay Letourneau, too. =) As for "a flip-flopping of her story in recent years", if you have sourced information on it, please add it to Roman Polanski and if others agree that it merits splitting out a separate article, then a split can be done. I'll note that Fualaau has done his own "flip-flopping", filing a suit for not protecting him from Letourneau and then marrying her -- and I still don't think he merits an individual article when he has no notability apart from l'affaire Letourneau. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Monty Hall problem

Hi - A previous change I made to the Monty Hall problem article some time ago added a sentence with the critical assumptions in the first paragraph immediately before the question. Because of this addition, the words "the host knows what is behind each door" now appear twice in this paragraph. It is this redundancy I was trying to eliminate. The first occurrence of this phrase (the one I deleted) is in a parenthetical in a compound sentence. Deleting this occurrence seemed (to me) to simplify this sentence without changing the meaning, since the assumption that the host knows is still stated. Is there some reason it doesn't look redundant to you? Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:19, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Misreading on my part. Believe me, I looked through that entire paragraph for somewhere else where that prerequisite was mentioned, and I didn't see it. I can only think that somehow I was expecting the other mention to be the first mention, making the second mention redundant, and therefore missed that the remaining mention was the second mention. Sorry. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:50, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So, what do you think about nominating this article as a featured article? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:48, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

ADHD

Antaeus, as always your efforts are appreciated for their apparent sincerity. Your boldness in editing is admirable. However, you might encounter less resistance, your POV might be more effectively promoted, and you might generate less antagonism if your approach avoided what appears to be sarcastic overtones. Thanks again, though, for your diligent efforts. Ombudsman 14:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There wasn't any sarcasm at all in it. At this point there are far more medical professionals who accept the existence of ADHD than who do not. You've been clear about your opinion that ADHD is in fact an invented disease which does not exist, and the drug companies are responsible for somehow creating the general consensus that it does. How are you suggesting that they did this, if not by means of a conspiracy? -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
A more collegial tone would be appreciated, Antaeus. With regard to ADD, the 'symptoms' subjectively used to facilitate diagnoses are generally quite real, especially from the point of view of those who may inappropriately seek to enforce overly strict discipline. The groupthink (rather than 'conspiracy', which comes off as sarcastic) is likely to precipitate backlashes on several levels, including the spread of illicit drug use among those without an Rx, and vulnerabilities to substance abuse among those given an Rx. The focus on artificially controlling behavior draws attention away from equally serious symptoms related to overly compliant and deferential behavior (perhaps associated with hyperfocus and neoteny), which are routinely and selectively overlooked. The resulting discrimination tilts heavily against children whose only crime, often, is being slow to grow up. According to one report, half of patients given psychiatric diagnoses at a facility were later found to have underlying non-psychiatric medical conditions which likely contributed to their mental health issues. Psychiatric diagnoses can only be made without identification of any medical pathology, because there are no tests specific to mental illness. The primary problem with most ADD diagnoses is one of discrimination, more so than fabrication of diagnostic criteria. Such discrimination (biased in favor of the sycophant) likely fosters, and culturally ingrains, the Peter principle phenomenon. Ombudsman 08:21, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Oh, please, Om. Your efforts at manipulation are criminally transparent. When you think you can carrot, you hand out insincere barnstars. When you want to stick, you throw accusations like "parroting of proferred propaganda" and puff up your talk with all the twenty-dollar words you know, hoping that the time it takes people to figure out your point is time in which they won't notice that you haven't proven your point, only expressed it in big words and then claimed it to be fact. Don't talk to me about "collegial tone" when your own tone is an insincere attempt to manipulate people to your way. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:53, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Antaeus, your diligence appears to be sincere, and worthy of a barnstar. Attending to content for a moment, it is the chemical imbalance theory that is most impoverished in terms of proof, something that seems to be lost on the expert worship crowd. The Wiki is a collaborative endeavor to expand, rather than obfuscate (using the smokescreens of orthodoxy) the collective knowledgebase. If your sincerity leads you to be disruptive, then your acerbic comments do not rise to the level of Wikipedian 'best practices'. Ombudsman 17:00, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:17, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Hi and not so Hi

Well, it might be me. I feel really lonely and hated by the wiki community, what can I do? Frenchman113 22:58, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)


Anti-Psychiatry Activities

Hello, Antaeus, please help having a look on the activities of user AI - he is concentrating on inserting negative psychiatry articles. Uses expressions like "does not confront his past" and reacts pretty strong, as soon as critiziced). Irmgard - see at my user side as example. ;-)

(Sarcasm) Antaeus, thank you for helping with anti-psychiatry activities. --AI 02:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Content forking

Hi there! The reason was that I was cleaning out Category:Wikipedia proposals so that it might become a useful category (you'd be amazed how much unrelated issues were in there, or stuff that hadn't been edited for over a year...) From the current content of your article I figured it wouldn't be proposing anything, but if that's the direction you're heading please change it back. Sorry for the trouble. Btw you're probably aware of Wikipedia:POV fork? Possibly it should be merged into your article, because POV forks would be a subset of content forks. Yours, Radiant_>|< 08:14, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

No, I wasn't aware of it. It didn't exist at the time I created Wikipedia:Content forking, but it seems to cover a lot of the same territory, so merging of some kind should definitely be looked at. -- Antaeus Feldspar 13:55, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Prisoner link

Sorry about that. I just felt the anti-6 of 1 link was a violation of the Soapbox guideline, much as anti-Trek United links were removed from the Star Trek: Enterprise article earlier this year for the same reason. Personally I don't get what the big deal is about a fan club (this anti-6 of 1 thing destroyed the main Prisoner Yahoo Group). In the grand scheme of things who cares? I think it sets a dangerous precedent because we'd have to link every webpage that has an opposing viewpoint to any club, group, etc. otherwise listed. 23skidoo 15:30, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Roman Catholic Church

Thanks for the kind words; it's always nice to hear good things. -- Essjay · Talk 04:54, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thanks for your support for my adminship. I am honored by your vote. Cheers, -Willmcw

Monty Hall problem

Hi - I'm trying to address a comment raised at WP:FAC about the Monty Hall problem article. The suggestion is to delete the explanation you originally added under this edit (effect of opening a door). Rather than delete it I agreed to find who added it and discuss it. Isn't the opening a door side of this analysis tantamount to an explanation of the original problem? It's not obvious to me what the comparison adds. If you could explain it to me, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) July 2, 2005 21:54 (UTC)

Well, the key point (which, I'm afraid, did get lost in trying to make the analysis so complete that no one could misinterpret it) is that if the host doesn't open a door, the chance of winning by switching is the intuitive chance, 1/3: it must be the correct decision to switch (a 2/3 chance) and the player must pick the correct door to switch to (a 1/2 chance); 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/3. The "a-ha" of how the host opening a door can raise the chance of winning above its intuitive level is the realization that when the host opens the door, he is eliminating the 1/2 chance that you might correctly decide to switch but choose the wrong door out of those that are left. -- Antaeus Feldspar 3 July 2005 19:41 (UTC)
Thanks. I get this. User:Wile E. Heresiarch just deleted the section. Do you think it's worth adding back at this point? I notice you haven't commented at WP:FAC. I haven't exhaustively examined the history, but I gather you actually did a lot of the work on this article. Do YOU think it should be a featured article in its current form? Thanks -- Rick Block (talk) July 3, 2005 19:47 (UTC)
I haven't been able to take a good exhaustive look at the article in some time, so I'll abstain on whether it's ready to be a FAC. As for adding the deleted section back in -- no, not in the form that I wrote it, which wound up far less clear than I wanted it to be. However, I think the central point may be worth explaining, in some form: Many people are blocked from seeing the solution because their intuition misguides them; they don't see how the probability for any door can rise above 1/N where N is the number of doors. They don't realize that the host, by opening a door, is actually removing something that lowered their chance. Whether someone can phrase that better than I can... -- Antaeus Feldspar 3 July 2005 19:57 (UTC)

Psychosurgery

Glad to have that relatively cleaned up. I still wonder if there is some way to really emphasise that both "psychosurgery" as a term and a practice is now more or less an historical thing. I don't know about other countries, but I'm pretty sure that no procedure related to a lobotomy/cingulotomy is performed in my country (New Zealand, although I think some may be done in Australia). Or am I degenerating into POV again?Limegreen 3 July 2005 00:28 (UTC)

I think it's probably possible to put that emphasis in in an NPOV fashion. You could point out that the practices collectively referred to as psychosurgery were all based on fairly crude assumptions about how the brain functions, assumptions which have now been discarded by science. (ever see those 19th century charts that showed the brain divided up into neatly delineated regions, each labelled with the area of thinking that brain section concerned itself with?) Any statistics you can find on the actual occurence of such surgeries would probably help support the contention that psychosurgery is primarily a thing of the past, too. -- Antaeus Feldspar 3 July 2005 22:00 (UTC)

RfC

You stated "there is no such 'Wikipedia alert' as AI would find it convenient to claim" in your contribution on 6 July 2005 16:10. [8]. I meant Wikiquette alert, I am assuming you knew and just decided to play word games. Please check more carefully before you jump to conclusions. The Wikiquette alert was removed after today and and RfC has been filed: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Antaeus Feldspar. --AI 7 July 2005 03:59 (UTC)

As usual, you assume wrongly. I don't make it a practice (as you clearly do) of filing Wikiquette alerts, and you didn't ever notify me that one had been filed; how exactly was I supposed to know that you were making your tiresome allegations behind my back in that particular corner? Of course, if you had actually called it by its correct name, then it would have been less effective for dead agenting purposes, since everyone would be able to see that this "Wikipedia alert" of which you thought everyone should be aware was simply just you finding another place to kvetch. -- Antaeus Feldspar 7 July 2005 04:15 (UTC)
"As usual, you assume wrongly" How else are you right? --AI 19:56, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Express yourself comprehensibly and I might reply. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK, How else are you right? --AI 00:28, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your query is still lacking in communicative power. I can only make sense of it if I interpret it as a fairly cheap attempt on your part to change the topic from your incorrect and uncharitable assumption that everyone should know what you mean by "Wikipedia alert" and that anyone who say they don't have any idea what you're talking about is lying. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I will say instead that I still can make no sense whatever out of what you're saying. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:59, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, and how else are you right? --AI 01:10, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Is the purpose of this "discussion" to annoy me? That's the only thing it's accomplishing, and accordingly, any attempts to continue it will be reverted unread. The purpose of my having a talk page is not for you to badger me in an attempt to divert attention from your own failings. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:20, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. --AI 01:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, your RfC was deleted only because I am new to the RfC process and didn't get it certified in time. --AI 01:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please start the RfC again. I am with you. --Zappaz 03:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, what is annoying is your inexplained reverts and your bad faith and your rhetoric and your inability to carry on a logical argument in opposition to people who know what they are talking about. This is not a personal attack, this is the beginning of a complaint. --AI 02:53, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Victims and survivors of rape, and their allies, may find this type of usage pejorative and deeply offensive". So, ... I'm an enemy of the raped because I don't find the use offensive? :) I really think that text needs improvment, as it stands it sounds like someone on a soapbox... There is a fine line between reporting on a view that exists, and taking up the flag ourselves... as a casual reader of the article I felt we crossed that line in the text where we gave the arguments as to why the non sexual uses were okay. I thought my alterations were an improvment, but I can see why you disagreed. Can you suggest some text that sounds a little less soapboxy? Gmaxwell 7 July 2005 12:03 (UTC)

The word in the sentence was "may", which makes it correct. If it had been "should", I would have challenged it as a value judgement; if there had been no qualifier such as "may", I would have challenged it as unfairly categorizing all those who do not share that POV as not survivors or allies. If it had even said "most" survivors and allies, I probably would have challenged it as making an unproven statement as to how "most" feel. But since it was phrased as a non-endorsing statement of how a significant number of people do in fact view that use of the language, I didn't think it was appropriate to remove it. You'll notice that I also restored the reasons why others see nothing wrong with such metaphorical usage.
As for making it "less soapboxy", well, I'll have to admit that I look at it and see more a plain statement of what people believe, than a line-crossing advocacy of either side. If you have an alternate phrasing to suggest, however, please bring it up for consideration. -- Antaeus Feldspar 7 July 2005 22:57 (UTC)
By the way... marking an edit as "minor" has a specific meaning on Wikipedia that you should be careful about. a "minor edit", in the Wikipedia sense, is one that is so minor in its effect on the meaning and content that no one could reasonably object to it. Note that the key criteria is the effect on the meaning and content, not the amount of editing: if all you are doing is fixing misspelled words, you could fix 500 of them and it would still be a minor edit. An edit that changes the meaning and content, however, is not a minor edit. If you only change one word, but it alters a phrase so that someone who agreed with it in its previous form now disagrees, it's not a minor edit. When it doubt, don't mark it as minor. -- Antaeus Feldspar 7 July 2005 23:53 (UTC)
I marked it as a minor edit by mistake, as I also made several other edits in the article after the text I removed... I'd forgotten that I hadn't submitted the earlier change. If you look at my contribution history you can see that it is quite infrequent that I mark anything as minor, and I must admit that I am a little put off by your lecture.
The word 'may' doesn't really matter in this case as the sentence implies that such people might but others will not. Can you provide a citation that shows that other people do not think that? Can you even tell me what "allies" of the raped are? I'm sorry but the whole sentence is rubbish.
As for suggesting alternative phrasing, I already did that and you reverted my changes without discussion. The text after my modification stated both sides without including a 70 word repetitive discussion, for example "It is argued by some that this usage is demeaning or disempowering of victims and survivors of real sexual rape" and "Victims and survivors of rape, and their allies, may find this type of usage pejorative and deeply offensive, since it normalizes the term "rape" to cover". Does it really need to say the same thing twice? Do we have to include several examples of metaphor when we already wikilink Dysphemism and metaphorical. Looking at the history of the article I see that you routinely revert changes made by other casual editors, perhaps we should find a third party who is less protective of the article to help? Gmaxwell 8 July 2005 03:18 (UTC)
Sorry that you think you're being harshly treated when your removal of text is reverted. Perhaps you should raise the issue on the talk page of why you think that passage of text is superfluous. If there's a consensus, I'll go along with it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 8 July 2005 03:23 (UTC)

ann coulter

poll you might want to check out

Keith Henson

Lets take a closer scrutiny of your actions. You revert my changes[9] which basically removed my mention of Keith's bomb expertise and restored the link to Arnie Lerma's POV. Why didn't you explain those changes as you claim in the history comment: for reasons explained on talk page. You are not acting in good faith. --AI 02:44, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That really is your answer to everything, isn't it? "Let's take a closer scrutiny of your actions. Let's divert the attention away from my repeated harassment of you. Let's divert the attention away from my citing a policy in order to justify my removing category tags from articles that I don't want noticed and then completely ignoring the policy when it's pointed out that the policy actually calls for those tags to be there. Let's divert the attention away from my attempting for a third time to speedy-delete an article that I ought to know by now is not a correct candidate for speedy deletion. Let's ignore all those things I am doing wrong and focus on anything you did wrong, like forgetting to sign a single post on a talk page." Kind of puts the lie to all the blathering about Scientology teaching the importance of taking responsibility, doesn't it? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:58, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You're a spin doctor. --AI 17:00, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm glad you finally decided to take some form of responsibility and not resort to tedious tu quoque yet again -- oh, wait... -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:15, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still waiting for a response about this instance in your history.[10] You still havent explained those changes as you claim in the history comment: for reasons explained on talk page. Instead you changed the subject. The source of the disputed content is the Henson's legal divorce proceedings, not the Church of Scientology. --AI 20:18, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, please explain your revert[11] of my explained edits. --AI 22:25, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trolling?

I can see that you are following my edits... I do not mind you fix my grammar, but I please note that sometimes I almost feel like turning back to see who is following me. Eery feeling indeed. Why don't you start new articles and leave me alone for a while? Thanks. --Zappaz 03:02, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes, the famous "You're editing the same articles that I edit, therefore you must be stalking me" accusation. You do realize, though, that others watching you throw such allegations can see the egotism in it? "He could not possibly be someone who shares the same interests as I do and therefore edits the same articles! He must be stalking me! Because, you see, I am so important that he could not be acting independently!" Too bad it's a figment of your imagination. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:09, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, right. ---Zappaz 03:15, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, Zappaz? Look at the history of this talk page. Now look at how many messages I've left on your talk page, or on AI's. You're gonna have a fun time trying to convince anyone that it's me obsessed with you. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:19, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Obsessed ... with you... God forbid! what an awful thought! Pulezze, Antaeus. You need to take a walk in the park, breath some fresh air, and take it e-a-s-i-e-r. A bit of humor will also go long ways. :) --Zappaz 03:31, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, because, like, it's me that's actually trying to have this boring conversation about your paranoid fantasies? Shwhatever, don't feel you need to reply, I'll be just as happy if you don't. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
So, now you are acussing me of paranoia? Oh well... Let the facts speak for themselves... --Zappaz 04:56, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake; I didn't look at the talk page. tregoweth 01:10, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

No problem; I saw this marked as a copyvio a couple of days ago but didn't think to look on the talk page until today. In fact, the only reason I did was scrolling down in the history to see when original work had begun from the copyvio, and seeing "copyvio" in the edit summaries from near the creation of the article. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A Request for Mediation has been made to resolve the ongoing dispute on this page. The actual request can be seen directly at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Talk:David_S._Touretzky. --Modemac 20:06, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"This page" is not Talk:David S. Touretzky. --AI 20:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Thought Police

Omsbudsman has not replied yet, but you are welcome to share whatever you wish. I do hope you feel better soon. Best wishes, Xoloz 01:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RfA - User:AI

I'm not sure what the best means to comment on this is, but I discovered this on the RfA page today, and thought it should be commented on:

In summary about a possible campaign against me:

Repeated personal attacks directed towards me by Modemac, Antaeus Feldspar and a few others in Talk:David S. Touretzky.

As a look at the history of the page shows, I've never edited it even once. I think this says a great deal about AI's claim of a "campaign" against him. -- Antaeus Feldspar 05:36, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I will add a note outlining the fallacy of AI's claim against you on the Request for Arbitration page; if I were you, I wouldn't get mixed up with this dispute, as it is likely to drag on a bit judging by AI's reticence to cooperate with the procedure. On the other hand, if you feel strongly enough about this accusation, you could join Party 2 of the arbitration against him; it is entirely up to you. I am sorry that you have had to be on the receiving end of his continued accusations of personal attacks, and it does indeed say a lot about his complaint. I am hoping that we might be able to negotiate with AI to try to bring this thing to rest before the arbitrators have to make a judgement on the subject; however, I offered him an amnesty to have the request for arbitration withdrawn, which he refused, so the arbitrators shall probably make him change his approach. --NicholasTurnbull 00:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Squelch

You are not welcome to leave unsolicited feedback on my user page. I find your behaviour, rethoric verbosity, and overall lack of respect in your addressing people of opposing POV, totally and utterly unacceptable. I will delete and ignore each and every one of your comments on my user page, and will not engage you on any discussions about any articles until further notice. Squelch. --ZappaZ 17:07, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, and when did you decide this, Zappaz? Was it before or after you thought I would welcome hefty loads of "unsolicited feedback" from you? I've made no secret before of the fact that I find your behavior reprehensibly hypocritical, and the "lack of respect" you think is directed at people of opposing POV is in fact directed at people determined to push POV at the expense of any sort of integrity. You simply don't notice the difference because you fall so squarely into both categories. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of Good Times episodes

Good catch. I was moving it into a new article because it was cluttering up the main one. I didn't even know it was a copyright violation. Mike H (Talking is hot) 01:51, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it was pretty huge -- any time I see a newly-created article of really huge size, I try to check it out, as a lot of them are copyvios. Ironically, if I'd known it was being moved from the main article, I might've thought "oh, no need to check this one -- if it was a copyvio, surely it'd have been caught already!" -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:56, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Getting Psychotherapy into This Week's Improvement Drive

Hi there! I noticed that you contribute a lot to Mental health, and I thought you might care to help out the Psychotherapy article. As it stands this article could use a lot of help, and thus I've taken the liberty of trying to get it to be the focus of a week's improvement drive. All we need to get it for a week's worth of focus and improvement is enough votes, so go to Psychotherapy's vote page and help out this very needing article! JoeSmack (talk) 21:32, July 25, 2005 (UTC)


I just want people to be able to learn about me if they wish. I am quite famous

Thanks for the Tip

Thanks for the great tip on checking "What links here" to figure out the context of an otherwise mysterious (even suspicious) new article. It's very helpful. I'm a bit ashamed I didn't think of it. --DavidConrad 03:12, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Muffed punt at Dianetics

Antaeus- I am positively embarrassed that I missed the POV edits by those anon editors when I was working the new Clear (Scientology) article into Dianetics. Thanks for picking up my slack, I promise you won't have to again. :) --Fernando Rizo T/C 03:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, no problem! =) -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support

Thank you for supporting my recent RfA. I was surprised and humbled by the number of positives votes. I'll be monitoring RfA regularly from now on and will look for a chance to "pay it forward". Cheers, --MarkSweep 02:29, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

re: Careful with your categorization!

Thanks for your clear explanation. I will try to avoid it on the future. I seem to have some kind of problem with categories (look for instance at this and this), so if you see me doing something dumb related to categories, do not hesitate to tell me. --cesarb 00:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Depression section

You removed some information I put there that objectively describes how doctors choose a candidate medication to treat depression. The reason you state for removing this contribution is that it contains the ad hominem "the drug industry has a vested interest in". Drug companies' pirmary incentive is to provide returns to their shareholders within the rule of law. Their board of directors acts on behalf of shareholders to appoint a CEO who will maintain this objective. This is simple economics.

Part of this incentive is to mitigate risk against the demonstration that a drug they manufacture is inferior to an already existing one.

You call this ad hominem. I'm glad you're power is limited to the bowels of Wikipedia.

Yes, I do. It is "ad hominem circumstantial", suggesting that a particular entity's arguments or claims are discredited by that entity's position. It is a recognized fallacy. It is, indeed, simple fact that pharmaceutical companies are organized, as almost every company is, with the goal of making money. It is not simple fact, nor deducible from simple fact, that the drug industry is deliberately skewing and actually surpressing research, as you imply.
You may be unfamiliar with ad hominem circumstantial and may incorrectly believe that I am abusing ad hominem abusive, the only meaning of ad hominem that many people are familiar with. However, just as merely pointing out character flaws in a person or entity does not weaken their arguments, neither does pointing out that they are in a position to benefit if their arguments are true or believed true (particularly because it makes unwarranted assumption about cause and effect -- instead of "John argues that X is an effective product because he's in the business of selling X", why is it not equally plausible that "John went into the business of selling X because X is an effective product"?) To use an analogy, if a murder occurs, you're smart to start your search at those with the strongest motive. But if you try to go from "strongest motive" to "murder" you're going to wind up falsely accusing "suspects" of murdering people who aren't even dead. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:05, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is widely known within the psychiatric research community that drug companies will only sponsor trials that compare their drugs with placebo. The NIH has recently started a clinical trial that attempts to compare many drugs, even those within the same class. To my knowledge, drug companies are not actively supressing or skewing research, and my original comments didn't imply this. I was just pointing out that drug companies have no incentive to conduct research that compares their drug with an existing treatment, and until recently the NIH refused to consider drugs within the same class as being different. This leads to rather imcomplete information about these drugs, which seems like an important piece of knowledge. I'm not sure what motivates you to be so pedantic. In this case you come off as disruptive. My assertion wasn't formulated personally, but is a reflection provided by a very well known research psychiatrist. However, you seem to know better.
"Information on long term effects of continuous use of 5-HTP is limited, and large drug companies have a vested interest in keeping things this way." If you claim that this does not imply that large drug companies are doing things to "keep things this way", I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you and more productive ways to spend my time. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:01, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK, those comments might do well with editing to convey the point that pharmaceutical companies do not have any incentive to conduct trials of 5-HTP. But, instead you've decided to censor comments of mine that are unrelated to the 5-HTP issue. As long as you continue in this vein, Wikipedia will remain a marginal oddity. Additionally, it is important for people to understand the lack of attention research into mental illness receives, leading to a huge drain on the economy. In their arrogance, scientists are likely to dismiss any reference to 5-HTP because of the fact it is sold in health food stores, not because of its profile of clinical indicators. So, I make an error in judgement about characterizing the current state of research with 5-HTP. You eliminate any appearance of 5-HTP from the Depression page. This doesn't sound very scientific to me.
Commenting out the excerpt that says that SSRI's were orignally intended for limited use (6-12 months) is also annoying. The information came from here:http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19990301-000032.html. Donald Klein is a widely recognized expert in psychopharm, and is regularly quoted in psychology today. This would appear to indicate that the information is correct. I'm not going add the material back to wikipedia. I'd prefer to wait for a general information service that isn't edited by computer science types.
Your choice, but you're being strangely passive-aggressive on this. If you'd been willing to tell us before this "Here is the source for this information I'm adding; you don't have to depend entirely on the presumption that I, a total stranger who hasn't even identified himself, would not lie and could not be mistaken" then you would have gotten a much different reaction. Here, look: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clinical_depression&diff=20307315&oldid=20307164 Did I remove it and say "Never bring this back!" No, I commented it out and said "Please cite references." If you had this reference back when you added the claim based on it, and instead of providing the reference then or now, instead just waving it and saying "Here! Don't you see, you were wrong! Because you didn't take my unsupported word for it! But now it's too late; you've driven me off with your evil ways!" it really leaves the impression that you're less interested in getting good results and actively seeking to do things in a counterproductive manner so you can complain about it. Your choice, really, but that's the impression it gives. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In a manner of saying, yes, I'm being passive agressive about it. The source wasn't entirely up to the standards I consider appropriate for quick approval, but was believable within its context. What bothers me is the dominant mindset umong established Wikipedians. They appear to see things in black and white, are predisposed toward arrogance, have limited breadth of education, and are obviously very emotional. Medical articles within Wikipedia provide a valuable opportunity to probe the orthodoxy of medical practice unavailable elsewhere on the web. Unfortunately, most doctors fall on the side of preservation of the status quo, and are unlikely to muster the courage to educate others here about their job. Being subject to harsh editorializing by however well intentioned anti-Scientoligist zealots has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Stolen Honor et al

It seems you have the matter well in hand and I think we have a pretty firm consensus in place. I'm keeping it on my watchlist but I'd prefer to lurk for now because I'm worried my presence may spur TDC on to more obnoxious behavior.

As long as we are on the subject of political articles, if you have some free wiki time, perhaps you could add your thoughts to the controversy at Talk:Joe Scarborough? Gamaliel 20:44, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

VfD List of purported cults

Please note that I do not check my account too often. If you want to alert me of VfD's in the future, email me. --Senegal 02:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Sorry for not realizing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:45, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Original research in clinical depression

Sorry, my mistake. That really was not original research, I should read rules more carefully. Anyway I decided that possible method of threatment published in one of the medical articles is not notable (and proven) enough to be listed as a separate method of threatment. Anyway, this problem seem to be resolved now (the topic is covered in transcranial magnetic stimulation part). Varnav 05:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The CoS page went unwatched for the last 5 days, 'mucha problema'

Check out the Scientology page, especially the last few discussion comments. Big headache. Fernando Rizo and I have fixed some of it.

Scott P. 03:09, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Hey Antaeus, sorry to see that you're sick. I hope you feel better in short order. I came here to thank you for supporting my RfA; I was promoted last night. I'm glad that I met your standards, and I'll do my best with the job. Thank you again. Fernando Rizo T/C 17:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It was a pleasure to give my support. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fiction can be Mentioned in an Encyclopedia

Antaeus, may I entreat you to read Hypnosis. It should only take you about 5 hours, and you can read it all online. It isn't a novel that just exploits hypnotism as a plot device. I think there is a good chance that it is unique in the depth to which it makes hypnotism its theme.

My hope is that after reading it, you will deem it worthy of the 3 words in the Hypnosis article it would take to alert readers of fiction, with an interest in hypnotism and philosophy, to the novel's existence.

The fact of a work of fiction's existence is a fact that might be useful to know. Whether it is a fact worthy of mention rather depends on your opinion of the work. Until you read it, that opinion can only be based upon prejudice − though I am sure unintentional.

Another possibility (if 5 hours is too much to ask of your time, which I admit is rather a lot) is that, although my motives for placing a link to the novel cannot be assumed to be impartial, you could extend me the benefit of the doubt by waiting until someone who has read it judges that a link to it is inappropriate. That would seem to me a reasonable course of action. --Vibritannia 21:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've submitted the dispute to Wikipedia:Third opinion. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, with regard to your position as stated on the 'Third Opinion' page, why shouldn't each article contain just one single link entitled 'Related Fiction'? Such articles could have a standardized format, categorizing the fiction according to the media (film, novel, play etc.) and briefly describing how (and the extent to which) the work relates to the subject of the article in hand. I think that would be a valuable resource for an encyclopedia to contain. I never know how to root out fiction I would be interested in, but people have seen films and read novels and they know which fiction treats subjects interestingly. They could contribute that knowledge for the benefit of all.

Whether Hypnosis would qualify for a mention on such a page is another matter. I believe that it would, but obviously a disinterested opinion would be preferable − if it was available. --Vibritannia 08:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"rv to last by Irmgard, based not upon the identity of the editor but upon the fact that it is a better quality version (you did realize that was the goal, yes?" - Antaeus Feldspar [12]

No, you are misrepresenting yourself :) What you claim to be a better quality version is not. What you are simply doing is censoring a specific POV which has been attributed. Your action is a violation of NPOV. Now stop reverting! --AI 02:11, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so my POV about people whose first and last name begins with the same letter belongs at Rick Ross? Because he happens to fit in that category? Fewmets to that. The quote which Irmgard quite correctly removed was not about Ross; it was a general broad assertion about a group to which he is perceived to belong. If you're arguing that a general POV accusation against a general category of people is relevant to a specific person's article just because he happens to fit in that category, then I guess it's time to start gathering up all the POVs that can be found about Scientologists in general and adding them to every article in Category:Scientologists... -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Suit yourself... :) --AI 02:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]


CHV

Since you posted on this stub, you might be interested in this. Str1977 22:55, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merging Frey effect / Microwave auditory effect

I agree these two articles should be merged, but I think the best way to do it would be to leave the Frey effect article as-is and leave a redirect from Microwave auditory effect. It seems that neither term is more widely used, according to Google results (it's about 600 hits vs. 700 hits). This doesn't solve the issue of large portions of the Frey effect article potentially being hogwash, but as I said on its talk page, I plan on going through and cleaning it up. Once I'm done, hopefully only verifiable facts from reputable sources will be presented as truth. Colin M. 00:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can agree that in certain respects, it would be easier to do it that way. However, in the context of how we got a Frey effect article in the first place, I feel pretty strongly that we should merge to Microwave auditory effect, not vice-versa. When someone creates a POV fork as a deliberate way to get material in in contempt of consensus, they should bear the burden of proving that any of that material is actually worth merging. If we set a precedent of keeping the larger article regardless of whether it's a deliberate POV fork, then it provides a way to game the system: just make your POV fork larger than the existing article and chances are that some of your violating material will be retained just because no one caught it while other material was being merged in. Even if it's more difficult to move only the good material from Frey effect to microwave auditory effect, I strongly feel it's the way we should go. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I honestly wasn't aware of the history behind the Frey effect article. Fine by me to make the "real" article be Microwave auditory effect then, I'll try to keep that in mind as I make my edits. Colin M. 00:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting out of hand...

May I direct your attention to Barbara Schwarz and the accompanying talk page. User:Tilman has been maintaining this page, with User:Vivaldi's help, in the face of multiple reverts and - on the talk page - repeated attacks by opposed parties. I say attacks because I can't call them anything else: violations of WP:CIVIL, WP: No personal attacks, and on and on. Really, we need help at this point.... 206.114.20.121 17:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

in case you didn't notice: since i know that you are not quite so sympathetic with zappaz as i am also for obvious reasons, i wanted to tell you that he is on his way to adminship at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Zappaz Thomas h 12:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trolling for votes against me, Thomas. That is very unwikipedian. --ZappaZ 14:11, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You could have chosen to inform him yourlself. Informing one of his strongest opponents first, could have been a true sign for a worthy candidate Thomas h 17:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"marked other comment left by probable sockpuppet" - Antaeus Feldspar edit summary 10 September 2005 07:24[13]

Who is it a "probable" sock puppet of? --AI 12:57, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

""apparent original research; will aredd if citation request is satisfied" -- didn't look very hard, did you, AI?" -- Antaeus Feldspar edit summary 12 September 2005 15:11[14]

It seems I have not researched into the content of this section as fast as you have. --AI 03:08, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your AfD apology

I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out. :) But neh, don't worry and don't apologize - strong words and real opinions are nothing to be sorry for. BTW, I was definitely not advocating keeping the article as it was written... Try this one on instead: Victim complex SchmuckyTheCat 18:05, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Billy's fatalism appears to be grounded in reality (at least that reality which Billy perceives); after noting that Billy had a copy of the Serenity Prayer in his office, the narrator says, "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future."

I disagree with your edit above; in this novel, the universe is completely deterministic. Unless you are perhaps talking about the theory that the Trafalmadorians are in Billy's imagination? Tempshill 18:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly what I'm talking about. For some reason a lot of the people who edit the article are under the impression that because Billy is our viewpoint character, that whatever he perceives as happening is literally happening (or will happen), and ignore the fact that because Billy is our viewpoint character, we have no objective verification that things are actually happening as he perceives them. If Billy's Trafalmadorian experiences aren't real, then neither are any of the people who supposedly verify their reality; we don't even know if the porn actress that he sees on Earth really is named Montana Wildhack or if that too is part of the delusion. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Admin nom?

Antaeus, I've been reviewing some of your contributions, and I was wondering if you would be interested in a an admin nomination? It seems to me that it is overdue. Regards, Fawcett5 22:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow... I'm very flattered, but it's something I have to give quite a bit of thought to. I hope that's all right. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:42, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You mean he isn't one already? :D TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:42, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, by all means think it over. While Rfa can occassionally be a bit contentious, I don't think you'll have any serious problems. And the rollback button alone is worth the price of admission. Keep in mind as well that accepting the mop does NOT oblige you to necessarily spend more time on "admin" functions. For me, the rollback and ability to do the more complex page moves are 90% of the functionality I actually use. I have blocked the occassional vandal, but I don't think I've ever had call to protect a page except when it was an image going on the main page. Regards, Fawcett5 12:15, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

incorrect stub

I'm sorry about my mistake, I was mislead by the article's name. Thank you for your correction. Conscious 13:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mass changes in the article, "Rape"

First of all, I would like to thank you for pointing out the mistakes to me. I do not know where I got this idea that H2 headings must be in small letters apart from the first word, and H3 headings onwards should be in title case (ie. capitalize the first letter of each word). I may have read it somewhere, or else some users must have told me that. I have since go back to the MoS and found that all headings should be treated in the same way. Thanks for your advice.

I have spend two days trying to edit this article (outside the website, that is). It seems to me that an integrative approach is necessarily, rather than minor adjustments here and there. In any case, if this is the wrong approach of doing things, I guess it is better for me to spend my time elsewhere. For this article, I felt that while the contents are very well written, the structure (ie. the way the sections were arranged) was kind of disorganized.

As for minor mistakes here and there, there are bound to be, although I did take considerable care. As for non-quotations that have been converted into quotations, it must be because the "apostrophes for italicizing words" look so much like "quotation marks". I will take note of that in future.

In any case, if these mistakes are deemed to outweigh the contributions that I have made, it would be best to revert the article back to its original version. PM Poon 18:04, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, please notice that I never asked you to not make changes. What I asked is that you space them out more, so that other people have a chance to check your changes and respond appropriately. This might actually save you some work; if you correct one kind of mistake, another editor may see it and realize that other mistakes of the same kind are still to be found in the article; the job gets done by cooperative effort because everybody takes a little bit of the job to do. As I said, there's practical reasons, as well as civility, behind spacing out your edits. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:16, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen your edit, and have greatly learnt from it. As far as I can see, about half the errors come from the subheading style where I had used the title case, as advised by one user earlier on. This is a very minor problem that could easily be corrected without creating a storm in the teacup. As far as I am concerned, sometimes a cooperative style where "everybody takes a little bit of the job to do" is excellent, but there are instances when it is not — for example, when a holistic approach to editing the article is necessary, such as in restructuring an article, after many users have contributed. As in many things in life, there are times when quantum leaps are necessary, and there are times when tiny steps are preferred. Let us not therefore quarrel and let us agree to disagree.

From my short experience here, editing in Wikipedia has not been a very rewarding endeavor, what with the attitudes of some of the administrators. While it is true that you never did ask me not to make changes, you did NOT find anything good in my edit, and merely saw the mistakes. In any case, would you agree that the revised article is now neater, and that the cost in terms of effort to both of us is worth the while? If not, please revert my edit to the original. This will ensure that justice is not only done, but seen to be done. It's no point griping at something, and yet wanting to use it at the same time. -- PM Poon 03:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One Man's Trash is Another's Treasure

Much of what you remove is useful information. You need to be a little more open minded as to what should be removed and not removed. If it is not false, and not libel, obscene or irrevelent it should stay.

Unfortunetly, you remove what people worked hard to create out of your own arrogance. Try and think that perhaps it may have low value to you, it may be of value to others.

I'm sorry that you think that adding two external links (or, in point of fact, adding one external link twice) is an awful lot of your hard work. I'm also sorry that you have a mistaken idea that "not false, and not libel, obscene or irrelevant" is the highest standard Wikipedia aims at. I'm also sorry that you have the idea that the way mature adults deal with such conflicts is by juvenile high-school antics on the lines of "Do you like Feldspar? I sure don't!" Finally, I'm sorry that you haven't grown up at all since you pulled this same nonsense at Melissa Joan Hart. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The contributions from this IP over the last weeks have almost all been puerile vandalism. I have blocked the account and deleted a one-line, unsigned "RfC". Maybe someday this person will grow up and become a useful contributor. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:12, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your reversion of The Melted Coins

The decision to remove that external link was indeed reached by consensus (see Talk:The_Hardy_Boys and Talk:Stratemeyer_Syndicate). This decision affected over 100 articles covering multiple book series (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and others), although it is not apparent within the discussion of each of those articles. I've reverted your reversion since the link was removed by consensus. We decided to allow a single link to that individual's website per book series, and not one for each individual book article, because his website contains Amazon affiliate links for purchasing those books. --Dan East 20:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see! I thought it was just another unilateral edit by the same anon (you know the one I mean, of course) just with a different edit summary instead of the same old "spammer and plagiarist". (In fact, looking at the contributions history, it looks like it is the same anon...) I didn't realize that there actually was a consensus decision and this time the anon was acting in accordance with it instead of defying it. I'd been cleaning up after some strangely uncaught anon vandalism just before, so I thought that this was more of the same. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:15, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, believe it or not, it appears the issue has been settled. No reverting or vandalism for a number of weeks now. --Dan East 22:20, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

David Bauer (actor)

Well, based on the availble facts, since he would have been in his 30's at the time of the Red Scare of 1948-1953, I made the perhaps unwarranted assumption that he was actor by trade, if perhaps not a film actor before he moved to Britain. He certainly played American roles in Britain. If you want to change the stub back to just plain actor or double stub him as both a US and a UK actor, I wouldn't mind. I don't think stubbing him as just a UK actor would be approriate tho. Caerwine 17:56, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Double-stubbing seems to be the way to go. Even based on just the known facts, you can make a good argument for either side -- he was certainly an actor in Britain, but he was best known for playing "an American", so... I don't see what double-stubbing would hurt, so I'll add the British stub. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Merkey and Off/On Topic

About the judges opinion; I meant that whatever the judge may have said, it doesn't have any bearing because Jimbo's words (Jeff's version or otherwise) have no bearing on the deletion request. Hauling in the particular findings of fact feels like the goal was to encite Jeff (who has a short enough fuse as it is) rather than discussing the merits of the deletion request. Posting the quote now has brought Jeff to more posturing again. Sorry that I didn't elaborate that on the deletion page.

I am all too aware of what kind of person Jeff is, and WikiPedia is learning it remarkebly fast too; let Jeff's conduct speak for itself --MJ 20:18, 26 September 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Categories

Thanks for pointing me to the page on categories, etc. I will bear the policies in mind. I noticed you mentioned illness. I hope it's nothing serious, and I wish you a full and speedy recovery. Logophile 07:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Behavior Therapy

Hi! I actually don't even remember making that redirect—it looks like something that I did whilst on RC patrol as an alternative to deleting. Feel free to change the redirect if you think there is a more appropriate place for it to point to. JeremyA (talk) 03:47, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hypnosis

Thanks. I always take everything with a grain of salt. If you think some sort of "mediation" would help, let me know. RDF talk 18:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I appreciate that -- both parts, both the offer to help find mediation and the taking everything with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, I don't know what sort of mediation will work; I'd rather just have people coming in and looking at Hypnosis with fresh eyes and helping to make it a really NPOV article, that gives fair explanation of all POVs. I don't kid myself that the article was perfect before the edit war, but I like to think I'd at least made some headway in cleaning it up... -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:56, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I get the impression you took my unhappiness w the article as I found it rather personally. I apologise for that. I was probably disrespectful, resulting in our current predicament. If you would be willing, I would be glad if we both could agree not to edit that article until we have successfully resolved our differences. The edit war we have been having, separate from anything else, has had a negative impact on that article, I would hope you agree. I favor mediation, and am open minded as to how it occurs, and who mediates. I seem to remember us both editing the Rape article (a difficult subject if there ever was one) amiably in the past, so there is hope, I should think. Sam Spade 19:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Even if I had no personal feelings about you coming in and without talk page discussion beginning a "major overhaul" designed to undo the hard work already put in to make Hypnosis an NPOV article that discusses both POVs on the subject, I would still oppose your changes, Sam. No matter how many times you repeat that treating one POV as the only one is just "giving it a fair hearing", it's still not, it's slanting the article. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What do you say to RDF's offer to mediate? Sam Spade 15:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you both are interested in something informal first, I'm willing to give it a go. RDF talk 19:42, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiability

Thanks for your comment on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Otherkin. It's entirely possible that I'm completely misreading WP:V, as I've only been here a couple months. I agree that some things need more verifiability than others, however to me, Otherkin seems about as verifiable as an article about "Bloggers who hate George W. Bush". Certainly, a quick google reveals that they exist. However, expecting readers to "verify" the article by reading people's blogs doesn't seem quite cricket to me. To me it's a classic example of an article built using only nonreputable sources, which is why I quoted that bit from WP:V in the nomination. It's entirely possible that I have a non-mainstream idea of what verifiability means, tho. Anyway, I welcome any further comments you may have, as I'm trying to get a good handle on what WP:V and WP:NOR really mean. I thought I mostly knew, but from this Afd, it sure looks like most people disagree with me. Friday (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Friday. Whatever our points of disagreement may be, I can tell you it's delightful to deal with someone who not only studies Wikipedia's policies but puts thought into why they are there in the first place.
The difference I would draw between "Otherkin" and "Bloggers who hate George W. Bush" is that, given basic knowledge of what blogging is, and what bloggers are like, it seems almost a given that no matter who the current U.S. President was, there would be bloggers who hated him or her. Such an article would almost inevitably go one of three ways:
  • Statements that do not need verification but do not say anything interesting or non-obvious. "There are many bloggers who hate George W. Bush."
  • Statements and claims that are interesting and/or non-obvious but need verification. "Most bloggers who hate George W. Bush are minorities." "Bloggers who hate George W. Bush have on average more education than bloggers who like George W. Bush." These certainly go farther than just saying "these bloggers exist" but who's assuring us that these things are true? To put such statements in the article we would at the very least need to know who makes this claim, and describe it as their claim, rather than as something Wikipedia is stating as fact.
  • Statements and claims that are interesting and/or non-obvious and may even be verified, but which belong in other articles. For instance, "Bloggers who hate Bush often criticize his invasion of Iraq based on faulty intelligence such as the yellowcake forgery." This is a frequent criticism of Bush but it would be more appropriate in a general "Criticism of George W. Bush" article -- unless this was a criticism particularly stressed by bloggers more than other critics, which would probably need verification that this is a blogger-specific criticism.
In contrast, the belief system (loose and varying though it may be) that defines Otherkin is not an obvious one by any means. The average person, if not specifically told that these people exist, would probably never guess that these people exist, or what they believe in. This is what makes it possible to write an interesting, non-obvious article on Otherkin just by describing their beliefs, and for the most part (there are exceptions, of course) we can take people's words for what their own belief systems are.
The prohibition of no original research really has two purposes. One is to prevent Wikipedia from being seen as an avenue of publication for crackpots; numerous times we've been told that Wikipedia needs to keep the article that so-and-so wrote or otherwise The Truth will never get out because the Phar-Mafia/the CIA/the Einstein Cabal prevents the research from being published elsewhere. Needless to say, that's when we explain that if the peer-reviewed scientific journals passed on it, we will too.
The other is to keep people from drawing their own suspect conclusions and presenting them in article space -- for instance, if some editor decided that the legends of werewolves in the Middle Ages must have come from Otherkin who were there at that time, that would definitely be original research. The prohibition against disreputable sources is to keep people from presenting dubious facts or conclusions as fact just because someone out there who wasn't a Wikipedia editor claimed it to be so. If the Otherkin article were to state that legends of werewolves in the Middle Ages came from Otherkin, not because an editor decided it but because an Otherkin site claimed it to be so -- then we'd definitely run into problems of verifiability. But as long as we're describing what people believe as what they believe, we can usually take people's word on it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to provide such a detailed response. It all seems reasonable to me. Part of me wishes there was a way of tagging an article as using possibly dubious sources, though. Part of my experience with Otherkin was that a while back I wanted to merge several of the otherkin-subtype articles into the main article. The problem was, some of the people who were Elenari, therianthropes or Vampire lifestylers consider Otherkin a seperate group. There wasn't enough consensus to agree on how to categorize and (possibly) merge some of this stuff. I think that'll continue to be a problem, but maybe that's just how it goes with obscure topics. Friday (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute? It might have what you're looking for. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at it before, but I'll check it out again, thanks. BTW, I posted a question on verifiability over at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy)#Can a website verify itself?. Since you seem to have nicely thought-out views on these matters, I thought you may be interested. Based on the above, I have a feeling I know what your opinion would be on this question already, but the discussion is there, for what it's worth. Friday (talk) 16:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Eire Shamrock/ Prodigal Fenian and "Wikiginity" - A thank-you

Just a brief note to say thank-you regarding your message to me regarding the "first edit" note you put on my vote on the relevant page. Since I was speaking not only as, hopefully, a future wiki, errr, user, but as a NationStates player and an NSwiki user, I certainly understand the "sometimes we have to be anal about to show that we're not showing favoritism to one side or the other" factor you mentioned, ;)

Also, " Yay, second edit ! ^_^ ". I don't think I broke anything, either, which is nice. This United State 06:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, please have another look at Candy Joness. That's exactly what happened. Long John Nebel was into weird stuff like UFOs and hypnosis; it's not at all surprising he reached such a conclusion. No one rational believes Long John's conclusion reflects the actual situation. See if the changes merit remove of the label. - Nunh-huh 20:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd say they do. I'll remove the tag. Thank you for such good, fast effort; it made me feel again like Wikipedia can work, which sometimes I start to doubt... ^_^ -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:56, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I credit many late nights mis-spent, listening to Long John interview many people from other planets.... He was the spiritual father of Art Bell, but managed not to take himself seriously. As to the other contributions made by that IP...hmmm.... - Nunh-huh 21:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Help with User:PM Poon

Sorry to trouble you; I couldn't work out whether you were an admin or not, but you have had dealings with this User. After correcting some Englsh on an article, and adding the "copyedit" template, PM Poon made some edits and removed the "copyedit" label. The article was no better (in some respects worse), and I replaced the label, explaining my action to PM Poon. Since then he's been harassing me on my Talk page, leaving long, insulting, and hostile messages. He's also started going through the list of articles that I've created looking for typing mistakes (that's OK, so long as they're genuine, though it's still a bit creepy). What should I do? I left a message at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance), but I haven't had a reply yet. -Phronima 13:14, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've had dealings with that user. Unfortunately, I'm not an admin and I can't really suggest anything that "worked". You may want to contact Mel Etitis, an admin who I know has talked with PM Poon about his/her tendency to "copyedit" unsuccessfully. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:10, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Response to RfA

Thanks for participation on my RfA. I did not respond during the vote as to not to disrupt the voting process. Now that it is over, I would want to respond by quoting from Jimbo Wales' Statement of Principles (my emphasis):

Diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness. Both are objectively valuable moral principles. Be honest with me, but don't be mean to me. Don't misrepresent my views for your own political ends. And I'll treat you the same way.

And most importantly, It's only the internet! Breathe...... and relax! ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t@ 16:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I did not misrepresent you. I told everyone exactly the view that I really do have of you, and I showed them exactly the evidence that led me, regretfully but inescapably, to conclude that you prized the promotion of your POV over your own integrity. Don't you think I would rather think of you as a colleague who may believe different things than I do, but believes them honestly and believes in fair treatment?
I wish I could count you as an honest colleague, as I do many on Wikipedia whose viewpoints I differ with, but after seeing your behavior the best I can say is that I do not think you are as prodigiously dishonest as Zappaz. Zappaz I fully believe to be willfully dishonest; you might be willfully dishonest or you might just be under the impression that all it takes to be honest is saying "I am honest" and that honesty will therefore imbue your actions without effort. But if I were look at all the numerous times you've demonstrated your double standards and still pretend I can believe you are honest? That would be the misrepresentation. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Please refrain from modifying a closed RfA. (Header states: The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.) I would appreciate if you can revert to the final version when the RfA was closed. You can respond to that user's comment on his talk page. Thanks. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t@ 22:41, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

queue

Thanks, I almost wrote "cue" ;) Sam Spade 18:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, I am back from my 6 month hiatus and wish to pursue various edits that interest me. Prime among my interests, is Dedham. As you now. we previously locked horns over my not having sufficient information to back up various assertions about the history of that town. However, I did buy and re-read a copy of the book I referred to back then, and as I knew it would be, it's chock full of the kind of facts I'd like to see in the Dedham article. I feel that various aspects of Dedham's history are underwieghted in the article and I'd like to see that corrected. I am going to work up a mock-up of that page, as a scratch page under my user page, which shows the edit's I'd like to include. When it's ready (in a few days), I'd like your feedback about it. You have good skills at the technical aspects of editing and I think if you peer review my work prior to my posting it, we'll avoid conflict. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 17:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


RfC about Stolen Honor

You've participated in editing Stolen Honor. I've started a Request for Comment at Talk:Stolen Honor#RfC re scope of this article because we appeared to have reached a point of diminishing returns on the talk page. I'm glad to see you're editing fairly often again. Good health to you! JamesMLane 11:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck

I was wondering where you went, especially with the recent edits on Hypnosis, but I see now you are ill. Well, edit warring on Hypnosis certainly seems like a poor pasttime when your sick, so I would certainly advise against it. For that matter edit-warring while writing a thesis (as I am currently doing) is also not worth it.

Either way, good luck, and hope to see you around! The Minister of War 14:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

JamesMLane for admin

I have created this Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/JamesMLane, but and not sure if I've posted it right.

Please look. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:48, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Science!

Just wanting to express my admiration at your dedication to scientific principles and the scientific method vis á vis the AfD page on Fatfemnudist. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah}

I'm glad my research paid off. =) -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:59, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Please don't bite the newbies

Hi, Antaeus. I'm sorry you felt you had to talk to the guy like that. He didn't act very sensibly, but surely there's room for thinking he was trying to help? For that matter, it's better not to shower even the vandals with sarcasm. I've found that modelling the kind of tone that you'd like to hear from them is often the most effective way of handling newbies. I aspire to it, I don't always accomplish it, needless to say. Best wishes, Bishonen|talk 02:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


From Cooleyez229

Hello. Thanks for helping me out a bit with that anon who keeps adding stuff to the articles Christian televangelist scandals and Melissa Scott (televangelist). I am not sure what his/her agenda is, but it seems that he/she keeps ignoring my hints at dropping all of it into the article for Melissa Scott. And when he/she does, he/she seems hell-bent on putting stuff up without references, and putting it in as many places as possible. Check out the article for Eugene Scott and see what I mean. I understand she is saying this stuff on TV, but I'd feel a bit better if the anon provides hard links to this, or if possible, PVR it and upload it to a website. --Cooleyez229 07:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Unfortunately, I can't do much. There's always someone around willing to slam you across the head with a stick if you've failed to show enough WikiLove but surprisingly few people seem to care about blatant open repeated POV-pushing. It's up to individual people who care and when they fall ill or run out of energy, what happens? The problem is that Assume good faith is too often interpreted as "As long as the person who has blatantly thumbed their nose at all Wikipedia's goals and standards maintains a straight face, nothing can be done about them." -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Userfication for The Swiss Knight

Userfying this seems like an obvious way to go to me.. did you see a problem with that? Normally I'd just do it but I see there's already been some disagreement over it. I dont' see that it's harmful as a user page, and it's obviously not an article. Is there some reason to continue dragging it through Afd? Friday (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the problem is that userfication is a process that has crept. When someone with the user name "JohnDoakes" creates a page titled John Doakes and uses it to tell the world "John Doakes is happily married with two kids and is a systems administrator in Dallas, TX" there's little to object to in userfying it; the user probably just made a user page, for the reason user pages exist, and simply didn't know that we have a specific namespace for those pages.
But policy states that user pages are not for everything and anything, just because they're out of the article namespace. I suspect that many people choose to vote "userfy" because it seems like a way that they can affirm "no, this doesn't belong in the article namespace" without being labelled as the bad guy, the EVOL MEEN deletionist who wants to KILL ALL FUN IN WIKIPEDIA. The problem is that this seldom results in the obvious question being asked: is this appropriate for userspace either? It's a judgement call in each case, and unfortunately there is not a lot of set-in-stone policy. I was already leaning against userfication because the story of "The Swiss Knight" really has nothing to do with the purpose of user pages; we don't even know if The Swiss Knight is AshJW or merely someone who AshJW used to work with. Then the behavior of the various supporters in the AfD just put the cap on things; seeing lots of obvious meatpuppets puts my hackles up, having my "humanity" questioned because I don't think Wikipedia should host random fiction doesn't give me warm fuzzies, and having that same someone declare the discussion moot because he already took the decision out of people's hands makes me unhappy indeed. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:16, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

your "contribution" to depression article

You added "although two persons of undetermined credentials claim that this is a marketing technique rather than a scientific portrayal of how the drugs actually work."

You're a wiki-vandal, destroying the integrity of this article. Many respected researchers question the serotonin theory of depression and rightfully so. Please at least try to give the appearance of being NPOV. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 08:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is a rather large distinction -- at least any person with any shred of objectivity would concede that there is -- between "question the serotonin theory of depression" and "claim [the serotonin theory] is a marketing technique." If you think that it is in keeping with Wikipedia standards to put that second claim into the mouths of "respected researchers", under the misguided notion that anyone who "questions the serotonin theory" must of course also share the belief that the serotonin theory is a marketing technique created by the drug industry, then it is you who threatens the integrity of the article, by substituting your prejudices for actual facts.
I see that, like your fellow POV-pusher Ombudsman, you are quick to accuse but slow to actually check your facts -- even when simple fact-checking would be easy and show good faith. You were already notified that your hysteric complaints about "vandalism" were completely unfounded under the Wikipedian definition of vandalism. But yet here you are again, screeching an accusation that you would know was false, if you had even bothered to check what someone else was telling you. You could have determined in a single minute that my warning about your misuse of terminology was in fact correct, but clearly, since you are still making the very same mistake, I can only assume you said "Oh, he's one of those stooges of the drug industry!" (as your compadre Ombudsman so civilly dismisses me) and thus decided to completely ignore the warning, because I was someone of a different POV who was telling you things you didn't want to hear.
Now, tell me again why I should be putting faith in the word of a person doing that, on what would "give the appearance of NPOV"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

E. Fuller Torrey RFC

The Fuller Torrey page has been protected at Ms. Allan's request. Would you consider adding your comments on the discussion page?--24.55.228.56 12:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the alert. I really have nothing to add to that discussion except that clearly, accusations against Torrey need to be supported by more than just claims from MindFreedom and similar organizations. I suspect someone else will make that point, if they haven't already. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Brainwashing and Mind Control

Please take part at the merge vote under Talk:Mind control#Merge vote --Irmgard 16:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I note that checking What Links Here that an article called Wiki-fiddler was deleted back in May. It is a similar article to the current one albeit not as deleted. I would be grateful to see if you could have a look at it to see if the current Wikifiddler article is sufficiently similar to warrant a speedy deletion as recreation of recreated content. Capitalistroadster 00:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tell me if he does it again

Provide me with the diff and I'll look into blocking him for a short period of time. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

REDVERS awards this Barnstar to Antaeus Feldspar for the correction job on my daft editing to Captain Scarlet vs the Mysterons

Thanks for reverting my stupid edits to Captain Scarlet vs the Mysterons this morning. It was my own fault: I can't multitask, yet I was busy helping a friend set up his Wiki system, editing a typo in Scarlet and talking to my mother on the phone.

The net result was I managed to completely b-gger up the article... then not notice I hadn't put it right. The moral of the story is either "do less at once" or "concentrate, you fool" ;)

Thanks again! ➨ REDVERS 15:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

=D Hey, no problem... thanks for the kind words! -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery

You have in the past edited William-Adolphe Bouguereau. A related article, the William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery has been nominated for deletion for violating WP:NOT (AfD here). A proposal to modify WP:NOT is here. Please join either or both conversations and comment as you see fit. Dsmdgold 16:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Antaeus, I found you via your edits on Neologism, and found that you have made various NPOV adjustments on Scientology so I think you would be a expert in this situation. There is an open arbitration request open on this page. There is a group of users who are using sources that have no citations on citeseer or google scholar. It seems that these users are trying to have "engrams" included as a fundamental concepts of NLP. I'm arguing that it should be restricted to one or two sentences, or even remove it altogether. It is not used by any of the original developers of NLP nor any mainstream NLP trainers or publications. The group headed by DaveRight, and now Camridge (who appeared after a arbitration request was made against a similar editor HeadleyDown) is using very flakey evidence to connect NLP to dianetics or Scientology -- and claiming that their view is scientific and any sources which provide counter-examples are pseudoscience -- it seems to be a mixture of original research and selective research. I'm requesting your comment on how best to calculate weight. For an academic field it is easy, you can demand references from peer-reviewed journals ONLY, otherwise it would be considered original research. However NLP is a mixed field with some academics, and non-academics. Some practitioners and trainers have no interest in academic, scholarship. Many authors and trainers make exagerated claims in training and marketing. So the question to you is party directed at wikipedia policy for subject of this nature. --Comaze 09:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments would be welcome at Treatment Advocacy Center

The Treatment Advocacy Center page is now protected. Your comments would be welcome.--24.55.228.56 14:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your Redirect of Bleach anime

I copied the material to Talk:Bleach (manga) that you obliterated when you made it a redirect. I think it is best to be more careful when redirecting. Hu 00:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I viewed it as extremely unlikely that there was any material at Bleach anime worth merging to Bleach (manga). YMMV. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't read it. I left it up to the Bleach (anime and manga) experts. If you are a Bleach expert, I defer to your judgement. Hu 03:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Black List

I think that you should be informed that you are on the [Black List]. I wouldn't worry or anything if I were you, just conceal any personal information he doesn't have about you. No need to make things easy for banned users. Izehar (talk) 18:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello John Doe#14, what are your personal views on the Brandt website? John Doe #16 23:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly? Not impressed at all. His listing of what I did, and what he in his paranoia thought it was intended to imply, shows that he does not have the understanding that a normal, rational person has of the effects of his own actions. He lacks the ability to empathize; he can't understand his actions except from his perspective. And I couldn't have asked for anything better than for him to prove in this way, to every visitor of this page, that he is not a man acting from idealism but from an inability to process the world as normal adults have the obligation to do. He's his own biggest public relations disaster. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain why you think it is hypocritical. I would be interested to hear your argument. I don't think its obvious at all that it's hypocritical. It's completely in line with his exposing Oliver North et al on his namebase page. He isn't giving any personal information - he is just saying what people said and who said it. While I personally think screen names is good enough, I don't really see why you can say that its hypocritical for him to do that. Its what he's been doing for the past 40 years. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 16:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oliver North is a public figure, and it is a principle explicitly codified in American law that public figures have less expectation of privacy than ordinary citizen; that's a difference to start with. Second, what he collected on Oliver North was already public information; he merely collated that information, which was primarily public statements North had made. That's a far cry from what Brandt is doing, saying and proving "Hey, I already know what public statements these people have made, but that's not enough; I want their personal information and I'm willing to take it from anonymous sources who openly admit they are going along with this specifically to hurt those people. Not that that's why I'm doing it, of course. No, no, of course not. It's because, uh.... oh! Yeah, I'm gonna bring a lawsuit against them, so of course that means I have to collect their real names (and of course, reveal them to the entire Internet the minute I get them, because that's part of the normal procedure of a lawsuit, after all, trust me on this.) What am I suing them for? Uh... uhmmm... well, see, this guy here? He called me a 'kook', so of course I added him to the lawsuit! I mean, it's not legal for one person to call another a kook, right, so of course I'll be suing him! I'm certainly not scraping up these people's personal information in order to intimidate and harass them; a noted privacy advocate would never do anything like that."
So, in summary, the fact that Brandt has been collecting public information about public figures since the 1960s doesn't make him not a hypocrite for collecting private information on private individuals; even if he'd been doing that since the 1960s, he is still demanding that he, a public figure (go look at Daniel Brandt#References and ask how many private individuals get that many articles written about them in national venues) get an exemption from having public information about him revealed. And by the way, I expect to receive your apology for your unforgivably scurrilous and knowingly false allegations about me. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outing

I'd just point out that, whilst I understand that you are trying to say that it's not pointing out he is gay, and your intention is to point out that he is a hypocrite, that is still POV. At best, you can write in the article perhaps under a section "criticisms of Wikipedia watch" why some people think that his outing of people is hypocritical, given that he is a privacy advocate. Mind you, if doing that, you would need to also include why he is doing that, and his own justification for it, as well as other reasons why it is not hypocritical and not at all inconsistent with what he is doing. But it shouldn't be included in some subtle little link thing at the bottom. The problem is that it's not neutral. Saying "this guy is a hypocrite" can never be neutral. At least, not unless you are writing about hippocrates (I hope that I got his spelling right). You can say why some people think that, but you also should find references to support that. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 16:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're still laboring under some pretty heavy misconceptions. Chief among them seems to be "the article must be NPOV; therefore, it cannot describe any POVs or the reasonings behind them." The truth is of course that the goal of NPOV is to describe POVs and the reasonings behind them without endorsing those POVs. I believe you might be acting in good faith when you say "we can't make any reference to outing because people might read it and say, 'Gee, I never approved of the practice of outing, even though the unwilling sacrifices made of the privacy of individuals are supposedly done for the greater good; Brandt may claim he's invading people's privacy for the greater good but that doesn't explain why the only people he's trying to expose personal information are those who have criticized him, personally'. if the reader forms a POV on an issue because of what they read on Wikipedia, it must mean whatever they read is POV and has to be removed." I believe you may be arguing that in good faith -- but it's still completely mistaken. Providing people with information and perspectives so that they can come to their conclusions is what we're supposed to do.
As for "Saying "this guy is a hypocrite" can never be neutral", yes, yes, you're completely right on that, but it's utterly irrelevant; YOU were the one who made your own comparison of Brandt's actions and your perception of the practice of 'outing' (which some people still approve, mind you) and decided that in your opinion Brandt's actions made him look like a hypocrite, doing to his neighbor exactly that which he makes clear is hateful to himself. IF the article were to say "Daniel Brandt is a hypocrite" then THAT would be unacceptably non-neutral. But extending that to "the article must not say that some people might consider Brandt's actions hypocritical"? Extending it even further to "the article must not include any references to points of comparison by which a reader might decide for themselves that Brandt's actions are hypocritical"? Entirely wrong-headed. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:MSH

I didn't remove that comment and I don't know who did. As far as I can remember, there was some text on the MSH article about some other person, Hal Bringman. I don't know who that is, and I can't find it in the old versions of the article now. I'm confused... I can't remember being drunk that day... (Entheta 23:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

If you can't remember, that's the worst sign. =D But seriously -- I couldn't find any reference to Hal Bringman on the page or in the page's history, so I debated leaving it be, but decided that no anon should get the idea that it's okay to delete other people's talk page comments. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm really confused. I could've sworn I remember there was something else in that article as well and that's why I posted that comment. And I'm confused about who deleted it.. Someone with only a few edits... How could I just come up with a name like that and believe I saw it in the article? (Easier for me to see your response if you write on my talk page) (Entheta 01:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

RuneScape Quests

  • Please dont redirect, as the page you are re directing to is up for deletion because it acts as a game guide - which is what Wikipedia is not. This reason was used for Members RuneScape Quests, so it was applied to the free version. The new page i created summarises both free and members quests and doesnt act as a game guide. - Bourbons3 17:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Zordrac

He's definitely a problem editor, it turns out. After my initial rather polite request to his talk page, he decided to post nonsense accusations about me all over a bunch of user talk pages, and on various administrative pages. Unfortunately, that's still not really joint RfC material. An RfC needs to be about some specific issue, and specific attempts to resolve it. The problems I've had with Zordrac are more-or-less disjoint from those you've had... even if they indicate something similar dispositionally about him. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AfD

If you're that intent on making personal attacks I may as well withdraw my vote, if it means avoiding this smark sullied nonsense, it's not like the vote has a chance in smark of passing anyway--Ytrewqt 04:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a personal attack to note that an individual has not achieved Wikipedia's "voting age" or to note anomalous circumstances about their editing patterns that may indicate that they have not attained the experience with Wikipedia that the voting age is hoped to represent. It is a well-established part of the way AfDs are conducted; if you fail to recognize it as such and describe it as a "personal attack" it only serves to reinforce the impression that you're simply not ready for AfD. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Biffeche

Hi, I've done a complete rewrite with references and am requesting people who voted to have a look at the new version. Thanks. Dlyons493 Talk 16:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

re:verifiability

The Wikpedia policy Wikipedia:Verifiability states the truth of an information is less important than its verifiability. I posted cited sources of information with ISBN (linkable) page number, title as per Wikipedia:Citing_sources and in a Harvard sort of easily readable format. You deleted by reversion all of the cited, verifiable information I had posted. You used the reason:

"Antaeus Feldspar (Talk) (rv to last by Fplay. Terryeo is once again trying to slip in POV about how Dianetics "was accepted broadly by the public at large" and "a feat unparalleled in publishing history" and the like)."

Dianetics is a POV and is not Scientology, though the second controls the distribution of the first. The article I mention to you is about Dianetics. The statements you deleted by reverting were verified statements. The reversion you substituted has very little verified information in it. I point out, Wikipedia is largly about verified information. I point out to you, I am not attempting create a POV article, but a verified, cited article. Feel free to place any verified information within that article of any POV. But do not feel free to delete verified information. Have a nice day :) Terryeo 22:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I will point out to you, WP:NPOV is not a negotiable policy, and judging from your words and your actions, it's one that you either do not comprehend or are trying to assert that you understand to mean something different than what it does. Good day to you. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV is the single policy which is non-negotiable, and justly so. The arguement you frequently pose seems to be: "If a point of view exists, it should be minimized to comply with NPOV" while my reactions have been: "If it is a POV, then it is citeable, therefore an article should have that citation in it." As an example, a history of Dianetics development is not real long, it is 13 books long. This is not too much, I believe, to be included in a Wiki article. I present the information exactly as stated in my source of information. I state my source of information with all of the appropriate, Harvard sort of referenceing with footnotes. You revert the article. I do it again and you delete it all. Deleting uncited information is one thing, but deleting cited information which the public can look up in a library or purchase is creating disinformation. I am writing here to attempt to resolve this dispute. Good day here :) Terryeo 19:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If the information you posted in the Dianetics article is verified and cited, then please verify and cite it. Provide an external source that backs up your claim that "tens of thousands of copies" were distributed worldwide. The Scientology home page is not verification, because it is unquestionably biased in favor of LRH and thus is not NPOV. Have a nice day.  :) --Modemac 20:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The verification I provide, that Antaeus Feldspar has reverted and deleted is, published books with ISBN numbers, publication dates and publisher. In this instance of "Abnormal Dianetics," (tens of thousands of copies) which preceeded "Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health" I took a brief quote from a more modern volume (again cited with ISBN number and page number) which talks about the early history of Dianetic publications. I did this with an eye toward any person being able to obtain and read the information cited. Sometimes at public libraries, some of the citing documentation would require visitng a CoS and asking to see a specific Bulletin. Can't we at least have one of the POVs of this Dianetics accurately presented? Terryeo 22:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing Antaeus Feldspar, because we seem to have a head to head going and I appriciate the communication you have given to me. By the way, you're a hard man to stand up against I think. :) You state on your user page: "NPOV means honestly conveying not only what each side believes, but why a reasonable person might believe it to be true. ." Well, I believe your stated position on NPOV to be wrong and here is why I think it is wrong and why the two of us seem to be going toenail to toenail. Wikipedia:NPOV at section "A Vital Component:good research" states: Facts (cited, etc.) are not POV (in the sense of being opposite to NPOV). That section goes on to describe how to present NPOV by providing equally reputable facts of both sides. And then section "Undue weight" says: "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents.."
I'm all about knowledge and knowing. I want to present cited information. Wiki's policy represent my attitude, or I thiers in this area. Present the information, let a man figure out how to scratch his own back.
The section "Lack of Neutrality as an Excuse to Delete" of that article says, regards to deleting validated information, "If it contains valid information, the text should simply be edited accordingly."
I'm trying to say, Antaeus Feldspar, a belief is fine if presented as a cited piece of information. Myself, I separate the information within the citation, consider its source and use the information accordingly. Knowledge is fine too, if presented as a cited piece of information. I believe it is namby-pamby to so water down Scientology articles that no cited fact can appear within them. Wiki's point of view in this area is stated at Wikipedia:NPOV, section "Undue weight" and implies; that side which can be most clearly verified will probably be the prominent side.
As for Scientology and belief, I would say this. I believe there is only one belief that Mr. Hubbard ever built on and that it the belief that man (in the sense of mankind) can know. All 25,000,000,000 words after that were built on that singular datum, for use or for dismissal as a person chose to do. I hope this communicates. Terryeo 14:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like david miscavige's pr entourage is at work distorting the biographical article on him. I doing some re-editing and reversion.--Fahrenheit451 04:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

while unrelated to the conflict dispute I have opened here, Fahrenheit451, I have never met nor communicated with Mr. Miscaviage. Is he someone I would like to meet? Have a nice day. Terryeo 19:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

re: deletion

so i am not sure i understand.

i am obviously and inevetiably going to be deleted, but why has it not happened. and when i tried to delete the article it was put back up. i'm not quite sure of the process.

and on another note - as you seem to be the more civil and mature person that i've come across (i'm beginning to wonder the age range of wikipedia editors is generally from 15-25) - who moderates immature and insensitive bevahior? speaking in regards of Hedley. Does anyone really follow the wikiquette? just curious.

The Way

I noted this in passing in an article on Saint Stephen; I'd be indebted to anybody who could add additional information. DiogenesNY 01:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Zordrac's categories

Greetings:

I have taken the liberty of refactoring your separate nominations for Zordrac's various categories into one single nomination. It seems obvious to me that people who will vote on one of those categories will vote similarly on the others, and collecting them all into one nomination seems to make things easier.

However, I have no strong feelings on this one way or the other, so if you think the community is better served by having them listed seperately, feel free to revert me. In any case, I felt you'd wish to know.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 16:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think it's better to list them all as one nomination, so I thank you for the refactoring. My listing them all separately was motivated in part by the knowledge that any minor deviation from the letter of the procedure would be jumped on by the users harassing me and cited as purported instances of my flouting the rules. (Though I don't know why they bother; it's not like they haven't shown themselves willing to testify to entirely fictitious events...) -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

the AfD for Gunk_Land

That page is certainly getting out of hand. I have now removed both the personal attack against you as well as the "sarcastic" delete vote comments and added some advice to 'stay cool'; hopefully that will end the revert war. --Quarl 22:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


It has. On my end anyways. Thanks Quarl. LHF

re: reply

Hey Antaeus, I just wanted to reply to your note. I don't think what I did was quite as exaggerated as your metaphor of stealing from Habitat for Humanity - although as a writer and artist, I do love a bit of drama peppered in here and there. I understand you as well as hundreds of other editors face harassment due to your decisions in editing and revisions. but I think that is a choice you make when becoming an admin here - and as an admin to - not only make sure the quality the information is intact, but to encourage kind and thoughtful behavior - rather then belittling and judging someone and making assumptions about how they feel. I was thankful for Quarl for not only removing the sarcastic comments, but also acting in an unbiased manner to mediate.

I was having harmless fun with wikipedia by posting the hoax article - and when I felt that you weren't gonna respond to inquiry about unnecessary sarcastic comments I adapted and began posting my own sarcastic comments.

I know doing so was basically counter positive, but I just couldn't grasp your comment that for me, summed up Wikiquette as a general "make up the rules as we see fit" idealogy. So that left me disappointed and was not encouraging me to seek some sort of positive conclusion.

My sarcastic edits/comments was me trying to quickly illustrate why i thought all sarcastic comments should follow the wikiquette in all instances - even AfD's.

And in general, I really don't think you are bad person or admin, I'm sure its hard to be an admin, and that is why I don't want to seek any such position out. Truth be told, if I were in your shows, my patience with Wikipedia in general would have worn out long ago. Anyhow, I'd like to think we are leaving off with under good terms. I don't have it in me to hold a grudge.

LHF

First of all, I'm not an admin. Many people have encouraged me to seek adminship; I have been tempted, but always declined, because I know the position requires some qualities that I don't at this point in my life have, primarily a great deal of patience.
Second of all, I understand that it may have been frustrating to you to read some sarcastic comments from Hedley, and it may have been frustrating to ask why sarcastic comments of that nature were permitted and not receive an answer in the timeframe you expected. However, are you trying to tell me that you don't see a difference between "sarcastically mocking a person's insistence that what they wrote was true" (and, let's not forget, it wasn't true, so you can't really fault Hedley for correctly guessing that it was a hoax) and "using Google to try and dig up dirt on a Wikipedia editor, then presenting it in a public place to try and embarrass that editor, and trying to seek out others who want to hurt that editor and hand them all the damaging information you can for them to use as a weapon"? I'm afraid that if you're telling me you thought Hedley phrasing the reasons why he was voting "delete" in a sarcastic manner -- and Wikipedians declining to let you edit other people's votes, as you had done before -- gave you free license to target editors for the kind of personal harassment you engaged in, that's not the way it works. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I apologized - But Quarl and Hedley's sarcastic comments weren't constructive criticism - just plain insults. I removed the offending words - Quarl thankfully apologized and struck out his criticism. And Hedley knew it was a hoax, I had already posted numerous times that it was at that point. He was trying to sneak in an insult and criticism veiled in a strikeout. I have noticed that this is something that has happened to you as well - noted in your "In Progress" page. I take it as something that immature editors do to veil their insults.

I openly welcome constructive criticism when presented with it - but I won't stand for insults. As a newbie, I wasn't aware of the rules of "vandalism, and general editing guidelines. Perhaps there should be roadblocks for newbie's like me, that can't post until they have understood how to post. What I did was wrong - but it takes two to tango, and you engaged as well.

In any case, I apologize and I removed the offending edits from the current page. Lastly - outside the scope of this blemish - I think you would make a fine Admin. (And if you wanna delete this entry in your discussion section I am ok with it.)

LHF

Well, so that perhaps you won't see Hedley's actions in such a poor light, please be aware that AfD is a very rough place, because of all the places of Wikipedia, it's the one with the highest concentration of both new editors who don't understand Wikipedia or its goals or its procedures, and malicious editors who are only out to cause disruption. Editors who take on the rigors of dealing with AfD deal with all sorts of personal attacks: claims that they're censors, claims that they're in the pay of the CIA/Big Pharma/The MediMafia/the vast right-wing conspiracy/the liberal media conspiracy, personal insults that they're too stupid to understand Wikipedia policy (that the page creator just read that day), claims that they're shallow and narrow-minded -- and that's just from editors who aren't violating the rules purposely. This is why AfD has a much different atmosphere than the rest of Wikipedia (and there used to be a prominent warning on the main AfD page, alerting people of this) -- anyone who spends any amount of time at AfD gets battle-hardened and tends to express themselves more bluntly, and with more sarcastic humor, than would be appropriate on other Wikipedia pages where new editors and troublemakers tend to show up one at a time.
Hedley's remarks were sarcastic, yes, and yes, they were mocking your continued insistence that the show really had existed. It wasn't, perhaps, a particularly acute and targeted bit of sarcasm, but it was on-topic; you were still posing as multiple people who had supposedly seen the show themselves and were testifying to its existence and its hard-to-believe contents, and you were even making personal remarks about anyone who would fail to believe you. "To say a show is a hoax because of its potent content is silly and short sighted." "I also can't help but see humor and irony in the concept of an anonymous jury debating the validity of my memories and experiences. :P" As I hope you now realize, attempted hoaxes, while they may be intended as harmless fun, are perceived as a hostile breach of faith, and this is especially true when attempts to keep the hoax going turn into attempts to discredit the people who have correctly determined that it is a hoax.
If you'd like to know why you weren't allowed to edit Quarl's "crap" or Hedley's struck-out-by-him comments, reading Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision Policy may explain it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for the advice. Have a Happy New Year. LHF :)

Personal information

I've posted a note on WP:ANI. The guy will likely end up blocked. Radiant_>|< 22:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Two templates, {{Pinfo4}} and {{Pinfo5}} have been created to deal with such behaviour in the future. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • If you want certain edits to be removed from history, you need to contact the DEVs for that. However, since you told me the information was in fact wrong, I figured it wasn't that big a deal. Radiant_>|< 01:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism and whatever

Gator's not an admin, but I am. I've taken a quick glance at this stuff you mention. Could you provide some diffs for the supposed "vandalism" that DannyWilde alludes to? I think he is rather confused, but just want to make sure of the circumstances surrounding this. Thanks. android79 06:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. These are the edits to Andrew Orlowski that Danny calls vandalism:
At this point I asked other editors for help, as Danny showed no signs of stopping or even of understanding that he might not be in the right, and it was my understanding of Wikipedia policy that merging the entire contents of an article under AfD to different articles was forbidden as it effectively made an end run around the whole AfD process. Will continue finding all the links tomorrow -- have to go to bed now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 07:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just took a look at those diffs and DannyWilde's deleted user page. Nothing that would be considered vandalism. Editing his user page might have been bad form, but since it morphed into essentially a user talk page discussion, not a blockable offense. As I remarked on his talk page, reverting what amounts to an end-run around AfD ought to be commended; it's not something you get blocked for. android79 07:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dianetics problems

Have you taken a gander at the current state of the Dianetics article? The two editors who have been deleting stuff willy-nilly from many Scientology-related articles on grounds that statements are "uncitable" have turned the Dianetics article into a hash of run-on sentences, non-sequiters, and unabashed pro-Scientology POV. On the talk page, they're congratulating each other on how readable and useful they article has become. I don't have the time and energy to hash things out point-by-point with these guys, nor do I want to engage in an edit war. It seems like a good thing to have some Scientologists among the editorial mix for articles on those topics, but they're really making a mess of it. Any suggestions of how to proceed? (I'll check back here for your reply.) BTfromLA 18:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of the two users you mention, but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time and energy myself, and most of what I do have is sadly being diverted to a number of problem users, one of whom is trying to get vengeance for what he calls "blanking vandalism" (the pre-emptive merging of the complete contents of an article under AfD to a different article) by posting what he thinks is my real name multiple places, the other of whom is telling lots of untrue stories: first claiming I threatened him and made wild accusations and told him I was watching him; then claiming that after that I then requested him to do what he did, which was write to a difficult person that Wikipedia has had multiple problems with and tell him "Antaeus Feldspar is using weasel words in an underhanded campaign to discredit you"; then claiming that after he "helped" me this way as I had "requested" I "stalked" him by finding out where he was telling people that I was vandalizing, Wikistalking, violating the fifteen-revert rule and suchlike, and posting the correct version of events along with the diffs for proof.
So, uh, yeah. Ironically, one of the latest claims made by the guy who claims I "requested" him to misrepresent him to someone who already had a hard-on against Wikipedia is the claim that he is "unaware of any legitimate edits" by me. Well, a) it only proves that he didn't look, or more probably didn't bother to check the truth because he had no intention of telling it, and b) it's not like I'm going to make a lot more legitimate edits because I have these two harassing me. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to hear about this harassment, which is clearly a more pressing problem than the plague of whacked-out Scientology articles. I'll turn my question about that elsewhere: best wishes for a happy resolution to those problems. BTfromLA 19:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ALien

No need to apologize man :)—jiy (talk) 16:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Squirrels

Per Wikipolicy I removed uncited sentences from the Squirrels portion of the Scientology article and placed it into the Discussion area. I pasted it, posted my reasons clearly and invited discussion. You Ignored the discussion which I cited the reason for the difference, the change and reposted your original research. That is against and counter to Wiki Policy. You have done and act which is wrong and counter to Wikipedia Policy. You ignored the discussion, you didn't cite or verify the sentences which you reposted. You are not editing appropriately. Specifically the last sentence of what I removed and you reposted is:

However, many point out that the Church has itself introduced changes to Hubbard's Scientology, such as the "patter drills" introduced in 1995, and cite this as an indication that the Church is more worried about losing its position as the only source of 'true' Scientology than in keeping Scientology true to Hubbard.
That is an inaccurate statement. The Patter Drills are not within the address of HCOPL of 16 April 1965 Issue II. That Policy Letter addresses Practical Drills. Patter Drills are not Practical Drills. Patter Drills are Theory Drills. Your misunderstand something. Terryeo 06:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which makes a generality from one specific action (creation of patter drills) which is probably not true and then states that the CoS is "worried" and further implies the CoS is not using actual Hubbard doctrine. You are required to provide verification to place such a statement in an article. You are off policy. That is probably original research Wikipedia:No original research but if it is not then a source of that information must be cited. I have posted this same line of reasoning on the Scientology Discussion page and you have ignored my alert of it my edit. I am posting it here. Will every sentence you create have to go through this lengthy process of reminding you of Wiki Policy, pointing out line by line where and how you have failed and done wrong? Terryeo 17:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Probably not true"? In whose judgement is it "probably not true"?
Cite the information. One's ethics level can be observed by how easily the person under observation confronts simplicity. This is real simple. Cite your source of the information: "However, many ...". This is not a dispute about accuracy, this is a dispute about verification. Wikipedia:Verifiability applies here. It is real simple. If you have a published information which contains that statement, cite it. Cite it or lose it, it is just real plain and simple and spelled out in the 3 Wiki Policies. Terryeo 06:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, you have proceeded past several misunderstoods. "You Ignored the discussion which I cited the reason for the difference, the change and reposted your original research." This makes it sounds as if I wrote the material which you removed about the patter drills being evidence of the RTC "pejoratively dehumanizing" those it calls squirrels, which I did not write, nor did I restore. However, I restored the facts: The Church instituted patter drills in 1995, after Hubbard's death, and many point to this as evidence for the view that the Church is not concerned with keeping Scientology in line with Hubbard, but in keeping themselves the sole 'official' source of it. If you believed that either of these statements were incorrect, you should have followed the procedures at Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute, marking them {{dubious}} and making a request on the talk page for verification, rather than yanking them out of the article where it's unlikely that anyone will fix them, because very few people knew they were there. Wikipedia:Verifiability is an important policy, but if you were under the impression that it gave you carte blanche to remove any statement whose verification

Wikipedia:Citing sources states: "Avoid weasel words such as, "Some people say…" Instead, make your writing verifiable..." Had you done that, this issue would not be before you now. Because the sentences in question begin with "many people ...." and is not cited. I therefore removed the uncited information per that same Citing sources directive. Specifically it states: "When there is a factual dispute .. Disputed edits can be removed immediately, removed and placed on the talk page for discussion.... Which I have clearly stated several times now. Those are the Wiki Policies and directives I actioned from and why I actioned from them.

...was not handed to you on a silver platter, you are, again, proceeding past your misunderstoods.

"Will every sentence you create have to go through this lengthy process of reminding you of Wiki [sic] Policy, pointing out line by line where and how you have failed and done wrong?" You would be best advised not to, since you have been at Wikipedia less than a month, and it's just possible that you have not grasped as much of Wikipedia policy as you believe you have, particularly the end goal that all that policy is intended to serve. To be honest, your suggestion that you will go reviewing "every sentence [I] create", "pointing out line by line where and how you have failed and done wrong", smacks not just of arrogance, but of incivility and harassment.
In the meantime, so as not to waste your time and mine, kindly bring up any concerns you have about article content on the article talk pages, and drop a short note to me on my talk page, alerting me that the discussion is occurring there. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I shall endevour to do so and prefer to do so. I did, after all, state in my edit summary what I had done. I included my removing it to the discussion page for verification. I established on the discussion page a place to discuss. Terryeo 06:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

moved from user page

Note to Feldspar: Re clinical depression article. I only referred to my book in the edit summary, not in the article proper. The reason I referred to my book was that mjformica removed my contribtion, citing it as "patently incorrect." This kind of ad hominen attack is definitely against Wikopedia policy. I only referenced my book as a way of establishing my credentials. My Wikopedia contribution is based on years of research, including talking to the leading experts in mood disorders.

I appreciate this may not be the place to talk to you. Please feel free to contact me at mcman@mcmanweb.com.

I'm not sure just what you're referring to as an ad hominem attack, but none of what you've described matches the actual definition of an ad hominem attack. Remember, an ad hominem is when someone tries to attack the argument by attacking the person, and nothing that I am aware of even mentioned you the person.
As far as your book establishing your credentials, the problem is that we have no way of verifying even that you are who you say you are, let alone that your book really is coming out, that it really says what you say it says, and finally that what it says represents either the mainstream or a significant minority viewpoint. If you read Wikipedia:No original research you'll probably understand why Wikipedia can't accept it when people say "I have done enough research to know what the truth is; now Wikipedia should publish the conclusions of my research as verified information." If we did it for you, we'd also have to do it for the guy who has concluded from his "research" that there is no such thing as depression, there's only CIA mind control and the solution is an attractive Thought Screen Helmet.
However, as you'll read at WP:NOR, your expertise can still be put to good use, bringing to us information about what published sources say on the topic, see the section on "The role of expert editors". -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit removed

Antaeus, I forgot to let you know that I have removed that edit from the history. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and yes I can understand the dilemma. If it appears again anywhere, let me know and I'll remove it again. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please have another look :) Grutness...wha? 00:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Email attempt

I emailed you today--at least I think I did, it was the first time I set up the wikipedia email capability. Please let me know whether or not it arrived. Thanks. BTfromLA 22:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

a few more comments where left in regards to the deletion of pedelec --CylePat 13:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Truthfully, I simply missed the link to the Mitch Brown (wrestler) article in the AfD. I usually close a dozen or so AfDs simultaneously, and I'm generally careful about catching additional articles in a nomination, but this one slipped by. I'll take care of it. Mindmatrix 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AfD: OGA

Hi, Antaeus! I'm sorry if I didn't follow some particular procedure; the OGA topic didn't have any note of the previous AfD vote. I see that you thoroughly expunged my name and input from the OGA discussion. Is there some reason you scrubbed my input from the record? -- Mikeblas 17:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell are you talking about? There are four pages you could be talking about: OGA (Office Golf Association), Talk:OGA (Office Golf Association), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OGA (Office Golf Association), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OGA (Office Golf Association) (2nd nomination). The first, you added two tags to, {{uncategorized}} and {{hoax}}; those tags are still there. The second, you put an explanation of your tags on the first; that explanation is still there and hasn't been touched. The third and fourth pages, you never edited. I think you're a bit confused and I wish you would get your facts straight before tossing irresponsible allegations like "scrubbed [your] input from the record" and "thoroughly expunged". -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! I didn't mean to make you cross. I'll see if I can find someone else who will answer my questions. Sorry for the trouble! -- Mikeblas 18:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


straw man

hey could you please check out the discussion page on the straw man article, my comment is titled "this doesnt make sense". thanks iamorlando 04:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Dianetics

I've completely rewritten Dianetics and I must have set some sort of Wikipedia record for the use of footnotes - there are now 72 in the article (!). I've posted the new article; I'd like to get it up to FA status, so could you take a look at it and let me know what you think? I suspect that our resident Scientologists may have some issues with it, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out... -- ChrisO 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scientology Series

I've just tagged a ton (well, less than that, depending on the mass value assigned to an electron) of scientology articles with a new template, and I'm fishing about for feedback, screams, arguments, etc.. I know it's a difficult "series" to work on, which is why I chose to work on it. Any and all feedback is welcome. Ronabop 14:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Hey, I just read your article on the Lang film. You left it unfinished ("more to come") since March last year. Are you going to finish it? I would like to read the rest (pls?). Ben T/C 19:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for reminding me! I will try to return to it soon, especially if I can get hold of the movie again to refresh my memory... -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please do continue :). As for watching the movie... Shouldn't it be PD by now? Do you know why it isn't on internet archives? I found only a trailer for streaming Ben T/C 22:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. (Just calculated...) Back to 1931 makes 75 years (e.g. M), back to 1933 only 73. So that must be why it's not PD yet (in the US at least). Ben T/C 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A.E.Van Vogt

Hey there... posted about this to the Van Vogt discussion page but just in case you don't see it, wanted to ask you to think about that list of criticisms you reverted my deletion of.... I feel like given the genre and the period, it's a bit pedantic to list various scientific "mistakes" in old sci-fi novels. These stories are fanciful by nature, and it's a bit like complaining that Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator violates the laws of physics, or that Teletubbies have no valid physiological explanation for their abdominal television implants. wikipediatrix 18:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the heads-up; I had actually seen your response there before getting the "new messages" bar, so I replied there. Thanks! -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Narconon

Hello Antaeus Feldspar, once again I find myself attempting to talk with you about something. I don't have great hopes, but here goes. You stated: "Narconon's dangerous use of vitamin overdoses to treat drug abuse but who also opposes drug abuse, you have disproved Scientology's beliefs. --Antaeus Feldspar" Which, from my point of view says you have some concern for those poor people who are forced into vast overdoses of vitamins in an effort to overcome their vast overdoeses of drugs. I realize you consider there is little hope for such sods anyway, but might we talk about this? 66.248.87.133 01:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You say "once again," so I'm guessing that I know you better under some other name. Terryeo, perhaps? Anyhow, the complete sentence that you quoted above was "If you find a single person who opposes Narconon's dangerous use of vitamin overdoses to treat drug abuse but who also opposes drug abuse, you have disproved Scientology's beliefs." I'm not sure why you think you "realize" that I "consider there is little hope for such sods"; I would hardly describe that as what I actually think on the subject, and I can't think of anything I've written that would even lend itself to that interpretation, but if you tell me what gave you that impression, I might understand better why you think that's what I think.
I'm quite willing to talk about "this", even though I have to admit, I'm not sure which "this" you mean -- whether I have concern for drug addicts in Narconon treatment, whether I think there is hope for drug addicts in Narconon treatment, or something else different. I'm willing to discuss it, though. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Propaganda by redefinition of words

I removed this from Category:L. Ron Hubbard because it didn't seem limited to Hubbard or Scientology. Hubbard may have given the technique a name, but given how much he (ahem) borrowed from others, I'd be surprised if he actually invented it. tregoweth 04:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: Anthony Godby Johnson

Hello,

I saw your article on the fake author Anthony Godby Johnson and I saw an interesting connection with the JT LeRoy news. I'm not sure if you had heard about it, but it seems JT LeRoy is alleged to be a fake author, concocted to garner celebrity attention and assistance to help publish a fake history. There is an article on the New York Times and a few other AP sources -


I figured you might enjoy the parallels between the two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT_Leroy Diamondpro2060 2006-01-12 18:28Z

Check on my categorization, please?

See [19] Ronabop 06:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zordrac

I think he, like many people on here, probably with myself included, is his own worst enemy. He gets too passionate about what he believes and when you lose focus, the first thing to go is often the ability to make compromises and resolve disputes. I personally believe there's nothing anybody can do at this point to undo the arbcom sockpuppet block, particularly since even though he was a outspoken critic of Kelly Martin, Kelly very fairly(I was surprised) reduced the block to what it was before for Internodeuser, the alleged sock of Zordrac.

So, at this point, the best thing seems to be to leave it be. I know that's easier said than done, in the real world today, I laughed my ass off when I saw that the sign of a real estate agency I quit last month had fallen down, and I was tempted to rub it in, but we all gotta take it one day at a time I guess.

Please let me know if I can help out with anything in the future. Karmafist 18:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the advice. Believe it or not, I actually had been letting it lie (no pun intended) because even though he was telling malicious lies about me he was at least telling them in the form of "Oh, woe is me, pity me, for I am soooo piteous, being harassed* by my two Wikistalkers* (* Note: please see User:Zordrac/FAQ for my own private redefinitions of these terms)". But when he went back to naming me by name and repeating the same lies about me, I broke the silence I had been trying to maintain for the sake of peace. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was deleting revisions that supposedly included in their edit summaries the real name of a contributor (I didn't want to take any chances). If you want me to restore the version, I will. --King of All the Franks 01:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be more specific, there were some claims made against you in a comment on the user talk page, trying to give out your real name. I don't think it would have flown with you. --King of All the Franks 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. That clarifies things; Zordrac spent some time allied with a user who thought he knew my real name and kept trying to post it everywhere he could to harass me. If that's the case, it shouldn't be necessary to restore the version, if you can just confirm to anyone questioning that none of the edits which were removed were by me. -- Antaeus Feldspar

Absolutely. --King of All the Franks 02:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To begin with, I'm not the admin you're looking for. :) I VFD'd the article, but didn't end up redirecting it or formally closing it.

Anyway, I reverted to the redirect and replaced the text in the list of characters. He didn't so much improve the article drastically, so much as polish what was in the long list already, thusly I merged his changes into the list. I don't think anyone will complain. -- -- Bobdoe (Talk) 08:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On "Engram"

I saw that you recently moved Engram to Engram (neuropsychology) and made a disambiguation page. That's a really good idea; I've looked at the old page many times, trying to figure out what would be the best way to convey the various very different meanings of "engram" without hitting on that solution. I realize you might be quite busy, but would you consider taking the time to write at least a brief stub for Engram (Scientology) or Engram (Dianetics), whichever is more appropriate? I felt bad when I happened to see a note from you on someone's talk page, saying that you sometimes felt dissuaded from making edits that might be perceived as too 'pro-Scientology'; I just want you to know that I have great respect for you, and think we need more editors like you, who can fairly and clearly present the Scientology point of view, without presenting it as the only point of view, or the only rational point of view. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Antaeus: Thank you for your kind message; I am greatly honoured that you think so highly of me, although I cannot possibly think I could deserve such praise - I am far from a model editor, and indeed have much to learn. As for the issue of not wishing to make edits that may be perceived as being pro-Scientology - I am acutely aware that, since I have openly stated my Scientology background on Wikipedia, it is most difficult to attempt to temper what is often a rather strong critical POV on articles relating to Scientology without being accused of Scientology POV pushing, simply because the view presented in the article tends to be more the mainstream one; it is more I do not wish altercations to occur over the subject, and I am somewhat self-conscious about running the risk of appearing that way albeit unintentionally. However, that can't be helped really. As for the Engram article, if you take a look at Engram (Dianetics) I have fleshed together a preliminary stub; I will add more info. on engram running etc. tomorrow, polish it off a bit, and add critical aspects with a reference or two to critical sources for NPOV purposes. I do hope this helps. Thank you, and best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow -- it looks like a great job so far! That's impressive, especially for something only started tonight. As for having a lot to learn -- well, we all do, really; we just need to keep ourselves aware of it so that we do continue to learn. You may think you're far from a model editor, but I'm being honest when I say that a new editor could do a lot, lot worse than to take you as a model. Cheers! -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Southall and munchausen

Why is David Southall germane to Munchausen syndrome? --Vees 20:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consider posting what you posted to my talk page to Southall's article? --Vees 23:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

86.10.231.219

Who on earth ordered 86.10.231.219 (talkcontribs). Please have a look at Talk:Mumps. My patience is wearing more than thin. JFW | T@lk 21:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletions

Hi Antaeus,

I know it can be a bit frustrating dealing with Dianetics etc, but could I ask you to take the time to explain deletions/reversions? If you don't do that, there's not much for the other editors to work with in terms of working out and responding to whatever your objection is. I certainly don't disagree with (most of) your deletions/reversions but it would help if you could make the reasons clear. -- ChrisO 11:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I try to do that when I can, but we're dealing with editors who pretend they never heard us the last fifteen times we raised the same objections. Tell them fifteen times why they can't just put the results of "scientific tests" that never appeared anywhere except Scientology books into the article as confirmed fact and they'll just put it in a sixteenth time. Show them documented proof and Terryeo will still "cut unverifiable blah-de-bloo to talk page because I don't want to believe it la la la la I'm not listening lol ~~~~". After a certain point you realize that these are people who aren't talking on the talk page to actually communicate, to actually resolve anything, these are people who just want their own way, and will use whatever serves their purpose at the moment to try and get their way. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly it makes sense, if it isn't published it isn't presentable in Wikipedia. A good lesson to keep in mind for those who support citing unpublished, confidential documents :). However, since Science of Survival underwent 15 or 20 reprintings, is listed by ISBN in the Library of Congress, can be purchased new or used today, to quote a study within that book is not unreasonable. Terryeo 17:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry....

I was responding to a vandal attack and got a little careless in the reverts. Jwissick(t)(c) 20:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, I understand how that can happen. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't some reason that I wasn't aware of for not using that template anymore... -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sylvia and Gerry Anderson

Hi. I wanted to call your attention to a mini-poll I've launched on the talk page for the Sylvia and Gerry Anderson article. I believe this article should be split into two separate articles, one for each person, and as someone who frequently contributes to Anderson-related articles, I'd like to get your thoughts on this. Thanks! 23skidoo 13:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed your changed vote on the AFD for this article, however it seems to be based on misinformation. The case received wide coverage on TV and in the press in Australia, and generated a lot of public attention and sympathy for those involved. I've added a link at the AFD to a group of 5 press articles on the subject from Australia's biggest circulation broadsheet newspaper. --Centauri 05:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kring AfD

You have stayed factual and we are all on your side. You certainly did not deserve that horrible abuse. Keep cool and hold to your values. Obina 00:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I wonder if Zothip's lawyer contacted Wikipedia. He said he's not pressing charges against you, but we've got your back, just in case. :P --Kinu 17:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I haven't heard anything about anything of the sort. I really doubt that he could find a lawyer who'd even pretend to take a "case" with so little actual merit, but it means more than I can say to know my back is got. =) -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Request for mediation re Dianetics

I think we need to expose the editing dispute over Dianetics to a wider audience. Terryeo clearly has no intention of following basic editing standards, whether it's because he doesn't agree with them or just doesn't understand them. We should, however, give him the chance to get the views of people who haven't been involved in this dispute and whom he might see as less partial sources of advice than us. I propose to submit a Request for Mediation concerning the Dianetics article. If that fails, an Request for Comment on Terryeo's conduct may be necessary, though I'd prefer that to be only a last resort. Would you be willing to be a party in the initial Request for Mediation? -- ChrisO 19:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gladly. I don't know if he'll have any interest in following basic editing standards once he realizes that they won't allow him to put pro-Dianetics and pro-Scientology spin everywhere that he wants to see it, but if there's a chance that he can be made to comprehend that he is not standing up for free speech against censorship, but rather practicing POV-pushing in violation of Wikipedia's principles, I'd like to take that chance. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The mediation request is up now at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation#Dianetics. -- ChrisO 00:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppets

Antaeus, do you know the process - assuming one exists - for having an admin check certain suspected users' IPs for sockpuppetry? I don't want to just openly accuse someone of being one, of course, but some new users in the last 48 hours are giving me pause. wikipediatrix 01:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I don't know the process. You might ask David Gerard (talkcontribs), though, what it takes to get such a check made. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I suspect they're more probable to be meatpuppets than sockpuppets; you-know-who contacting buddies and telling them "this is what policy is on the subject," (actually his own private understanding/interpretation of policy, which is unlikely to be the same thing) "now go make reverts for me since I'm going to hit my limit." -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scientology and the Legal System

I notice on that page that you say I remove information that doesn't support my POV. It appears that you may have not read my comments on the discussion board. I would be grateful if you could first read those comments and then set out (1) what you perceive my POV is (2) what specific edits I made that fall afoul of the WikiProject standard. Really Spooky 04:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

article Psychotronics

Hello Antaeus,

I just noticed your edit summary on the edit to Psychotronics. --JimmyT 11:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Dianetics

In response to your lengthy entry at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Dianetics: Fair Use permits you to cite documents in Wikipedia, but not those which are unverifiable. You may use secondary sources, but then you would be just as "guilty" as I am in some other unrelated articles where you disputed my inclusion of information which was fairly used and based on secondary sources published by writers who are just as or more notable than the only sources you may have access to. --JimmyT 10:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your opinion. I disagree that the testimony provided by Scientology's own witness Warren McShane under oath in a court case is a source equal to "Patrick Flanagan's Neurophone: Hope for the deaf and superlearning for all" by Eddy Taylor. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. This is your talk page, not mine so there was no way to know you answered my communication until I came to write You! :) What does Warren McShane have to do with verifiability? Is he a reputable publisher, or are you attempting to employ OR by using his testimony to substantiate ChrisO's claim? Please discuss it in a short and sweet manner on the Dianetics talk page or on the mediation page so everyone involved can comment on what you have "discovered". BTW, I am still waiting for you to discuss a few things on the neurophone talk page, I have almost entirely conceded to you there, out of respect and to give discussion the opportunity to solve any and all disputes even though your notes on the history page did not clearly explain what you were doing and at least once did not even match what what you did. Thank you for your consideration. --JimmyT 03:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you've already made it clear that any of the reasoning and evaluation that editors are expected to do in order to separate reliable sources from unreliable sources is, in your mind, "original research" -- even though it is not. So, since you've already made clear that you will insist upon this error no matter what anyone says, what point is there in anyone talking to you about it? We've already tried to explain your error and you keep insisting that, with roughly two weeks experience of Wikipedia under your belt, you couldn't possibly be misunderstanding anything about policy in the slightest. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Society of Wikipedia Vandals

Hello I am the creator of that page and it didnt seem like the Wikipedia admins thought it would be workable. that is why i deleted it, the deletion was not meant to be vandalism. thanks

Also, i have a question about the text unsalvageably incoherent comment. how is the text incoherent. it follows the Americanized rules of the english language. Im not a second year english student from a foriegn speaking land. thanks --Wsuraider 03:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Hi. We haven't interacted much, but from what I can recall seeing of you around here, I think I've been impressed. I just noticed you're not an admin, and am a bit surprised. Would you like to be one? I've never nominated anyone before, but you certainly seem deserving. Leave a note on my talk page either way, and if you say yes, I have a couple follow up questions. -R. fiend 05:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, though you should consider that being an admin doesn't mean you have to do admin tasks all the time. It's a useful thing to have, to use when you need it. As for our second reason, well, I had some of the same concerns, but my RFA went pretty well. In any case, if you're definitely not interested shall I cross out your name at: Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts? -R. fiend 17:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Guitar Garden

Hello, thanks for your NPOV reminder on the Guitar Garden entry. I've gone back through the entry and removed all the non-neutral language. If this meets with your approval, I'd like to remove the Neutrality tag from the top of the page. Please advise (greenscene@earthlink.net).

thanks very much!

MEST

in Re: to the article MEST (Scientology) I see you have insisted certain lines be included in the article. Please understand, this attempt to communicate with you is not about what you believe to be true or false. This attempt to communicate is about the information the article presents. You have reverted the information which I removed to the discussion page. Then you didn't discuss. But instead reverted the information into the article again. I invite your discussion. The lines I am talking about are these:"... eventually attain "cause over MEST' - the ability to influence the physical universe by thought alone.[1]"

  • which points to a verification which does not say anything like, "by thought alone." That is the portion which I umm, well, know to be false and which there is no verification of and which I have pasted to the discussion page, saying similar to what I have just stated. I do understand of course that some secondary sources give their interpretation as being "by thought alone" and the article is perfectly free to cite them. But the verification that [1] points to does not use those words.

and secondly this line:

  • "In Hubbard's teachings, our Thetans have become contaminated or debased by the influences of MEST, which must be transcended." A secondary source of information (such as clambake or xenu or something) might use those words. Scientology sources will never use those words like that. If that sentence is to be included, doesn't it make sense to use it as a quote and cite a source of information?

Scientology literature does say something like: "we, as thetans, have allowed ourselves to become injured and reduced our abilities because of impacts with MEST and these difficulties can be overcome". Hoping to resolve an editing revert - counter revert. have a nice day.Terryeo 21:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please check your WP:NA entry

Greetings, editor! Your name appears on Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. If you have not done so lately, please take a look at that page and check your listing to be sure that following the particulars are correct:

  1. If you are an admin, please remove your name from the list.
  2. If you are currently interested in being considered for adminship, please be sure your name is in bold; if you are opposed to being considered for adminship, please cross out your name (but do not delete it, as it will automatically be re-added in the next page update).
  3. Please check to see if you are in the right category for classification by number of edits.

Thank you, and have a wiki wiki day! BDAbramson T 04:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very easy, Feldspar

at ChrisO's talk page you stated: "may wish to look at a user-conduct RfC against Terryeo instead. His poor behavior is clearly affecting far more than just the Dianetics article". I want to tell you Feldspar. I am very easy. There is only one thing I want. I want the subject material which comprises Dianeticts to be introduced in the Dianetics article. Likewise with every article on Wikipedia. I am not talking about running on for many paragraphs, I am talking about one or two, 4 paragraphs at most which are dedicated to presenting the information which comprises the subject. I am very easy. The rest of the mumbo jumbo can be anything, fairy tale, pseudoscience, anything you all want. I don't care as long as the subject is first presented. On that basis a rational person can then make their own judgements. Without the information of what a subject is, a rational person can not make judgements. I am very easy. There is one other thing I insist on. I will insist that WP:V be followed. This means that legally contested docments, unpublished to the public, shall not appear on Wikipedia if I can prevent it. It means some things further but I intend to follow WP:V. If this attitude I hold bothers you, too bad. I expect you to hold the same attitude in your areas of expertise. I won't give you an example because last time I did (about vitimin B3) you hypered off about how Vitimin B3 information from Dianetics is invalid. So, I won't give you another example. However. I am making a statement here. I am very easy. You all do whatever you feel is right, I will do what is right about introducing subjects. You're being silly to view my actions as hostile. It baffles me that you don't understand that I know Dianetics.Terryeo 22:26, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am very easy. There is only one thing I want. I want the subject material which comprises Dianeticts to be introduced in the Dianetics article. Sorry, that is a lie, as your editing behavior has proven. The much-missed NicholasTurnbull did more to make the beliefs that comprise Dianetics available to the Wikipedia reader in one half-hour at Engram (Dianetics) than I think you've done in the whole of your time here. Your time, on the other hand, has been spent trying to sneak in original research [20] and trying to force Wikipedia to promote your POV as "reality"[21] -- not to mention harassing other editors by making malicious accusations against them that you knew to be false. Your actions are hostile and all your words pretending things utterly different from what your actions demonstrate will not change that. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh. You have told me that you view my above statement as a lie. I understand what you have stated. :) Terryeo 20:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you ask me?

"12:36, 21 February 2006 Antaeus Feldspar (hmmmm, Terryeo just *happened* to break links to *two* articles about Scientology controversy with unsummarized changes. Why was he changing those links in the first place?) " In editing the template and adding the Subsection for books, I might have broken 2 links as you state. The Xenu link is still good I think. If I did break two links, I didn't mean to. I know you view me, you and probably a few others, as some kind of born again Christian who attempts to stifle anything but the word of god. HEH. nothing could be futher from the truth. It is perfectly okay with me of any kind of controversy at all and as much of it as you like. But I do want, somewhere kind of early on, the meanings of the articles. "Dianetics Studies" communicates something, it makes it easier for the reader to know there are things studied, some things to know about that. I'm not trying to obstruct, I am trying to get the good sense of the subject someplace early in the subjects. Because the the controversy can be weighed against the information from the primary source, I hope you see. Terryeo 20:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spooky

"10:33, 21 February 2006 Antaeus Feldspar (rv to last by ReallySpooky; Terryeo shows bad faith by misdescribing his changes counter to consensus as "correcting")". Let us remove the "spookiness" and communicate. In the edit you just reverted for that reason, I changed "major" to "minor" based on my own knowledge and the following information which I invite you to read: The U.S. Navy's information to its troops. [22] click "About various faiths" click "Scientology". At that site the beliefs of Scientology are discussed. There is no mention of "Space Opera" being a "major" belief. And then further, a number of Doctors of Divinity and esteemed scholars, including people who testify before governments as experts about religion state their opinions here. Those men are Catholics and other faiths. None of them state that "space opera" is a "major" part of Scientology beliefs. Therefore I changed "major" to "minor". Additionally, the article lacked citations (a common problem here on Wikipedia). As per WP:CITE#When_there_is_a_factual_dispute, since I didn't feel the information was particularly "dangerous" (description from WP:CITE} I simply indicated a citation was needed for certain statements. Pleasent editing, Feldspar :) Terryeo 00:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Universism

Antaeus, regarding your question - the LA Times' Column One "appears every day but Sunday and gets its name from its location in the newspaper — in the far-left column of the front page." And yes, it's above the fold. Please see: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/columnone You may view an LA Times front page here: http://www.latimes.com/includes/sectionfronts/A1.pdf and here: http://universist.org/losangelestimes.htm 164.111.21.141 01:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

No problem ILovePlankton 23:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I have removed the prod tag from this article as it appears that a tag was added and removed yesterday. As I understand the guidelines at WP:PROD this means that this article would now have to go to AfD for deletion. JeremyA 04:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zordrac

What's up with this guy? As far as I can tell, Internodeuser was banned for a year for legal threats and now Zordrac claims it was an unfair ban. Not to mention this grudge he seems to have against you and some other users. --Latinus 17:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's up is that Zordrac/Internodeuser/bliss2yu is one of those special people who appear to have no sense of "reality" as a thing that doesn't change when they want it to. I seriously suspect that he may have some neurological condition that makes it impossible for him to distinguish between things that actually happened and fantasies he makes up to match his emotions and his wishes. Once they have "happened" in his head, they become the facts of his world until something happens that makes them inconvenient to him, at which point they change again.
This is how he a) first left a message on my talk page gloating about how he'd written to Daniel Brandt and told him I was "using weasel words in an underhanded way to discredit him"[23], b) later asserted that I had requested him to write to Daniel Brandt as my intermediary[24], and c) still later asserted that "before we had communicated, he threatened me on the Daniel Brandt talk page, and made wild accusations about me, claiming to have been "watching me"." [25]. Obviously, since "requesting" him to represent me to Brandt would be "communication", what he is claiming all in all is that I threatened him on Talk:Daniel Brandt, made wild accusations against him and claimed to have been "watching" him -- and then I turned around and said "Hey, Zordrac? I want someone to speak in my name to Daniel Brandt. Will you do it for me? I want to make sure Brandt gets the impression that I'm up to no good, trying to discredit him through underhanded tactics" and Zordrac, who had purportedly been the victim of my "threats" and "wild accusations" by that point, agreed to do so.
The reason I think he may be actually unable to keep a grip on reality, rather than just being willing to lie when it suits him, is that he seems to have no awareness at all of how easy it is for people to see through his falsehoods. Prime example is what he wrote about me at User:Zordrac/Poetlister: "08:16, 23 December 2005 User:Antaeus Feldspar, wrote to Zordrac supporting Lulu and implying that they both would stalk Zordrac until either he stopped trying to get Poetlister's ban reversed, or else was banned from Wikipedia. [26]". A simple check of the diff included by Zordrac shows that it has nothing to do with Lulu, with Poetlister, with Poetlister's ban, with Zordrac's efforts to get Poetlister's ban reversed, or any part of Zordrac's description of it. So -- that's Zordrac for you. He may or may not actually be delusional, but from the outside the difference seems mighty moot. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship

Hi Antaeus, it's been half a year since you previously declined to be nominated for RFA. I would like to nominate you to become an administrator, if you are ready now. Quarl (talk) 2006-02-26 05:57Z

Tom Swift

I really hate to bring this up, but you have been one of the protectors of the Tom Swift entry against its persistent vandal. Due to someone making a category edit, some of the vandal's "pet changes" have not been reverted, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_Swift&diff=41321835&oldid=40517655.

This vandal is annoyingly persistent, and being anon, cannot be blocked except by blocking all anon edits- which, as I understand the policy, is never permanent?

Thanks for all your good works. I would also like to chime in for you as an administrator. Postagoras 21:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I found the edits and restored the deleted text. Dammit, why doesn't this guy get a clue and grow up? -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, less than two hours after you reverted, the vandal re-appeared and re-edited. At one point there was actually a discussion going on with the vandal, but when I posted a while back, there was no reply. *Sigh*. When I have a moment I'll evaluate the vandal's changes to see if there's any middle ground possible. Otherwise, I don't see anything in the policy that will stop this person. Postagoras 03:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Account Unjustly Blocked

I have discovered that my account "Happyjoe" is blocked from editing due to some sort of misunderstanding over the Big Spring, TX article. I am uncertain who to contact to have this mistake fixed. Please remove this block so that I may complete necessary editing on other articles. Thank you for your timely assistance in resolving this problem... Happyjoe 69.145.215.206 04:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding you RV which does not match your edit summary

Antaeus, FLUNK!!

  • Me: "writing only of body thetans and NOTs is innacurate POV as there are many things addressed on the OT levels", "Took out incorrect POV mention. OT5 is not the only OT level about OT3" [27]
  • You: "If you think something is missing, add it in -- don't remove what's already there" [28]

Notice, I never said anything was missing, I said something was there which should not be because it was innacurate. Care to explain your dishonest and sneaky revert or did you make a mistake? I'm not buying any more confusing dialogue from you, lets stick with the facts and get to the point without the extra blah blah. --JimmyT 00:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go flunk yourself, Jimmy. You have no excuse -- you haven't been around very long, but you've been around long enough to know that for you to insert "fake (or forged)" in the description of the Fishman Affidavit OT levels was, at best, your own original research. Let's see, what descriptive edit summary did you use when you were presuming to declare, on behalf of Wikipedia, that those documents were faked or forged? "Description". Go away, you petty little troll. I am not going to waste my time answering trumped-up charges from an editor whose bad faith is manifest. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, FLUNK! You're edit summary didn't match your reversion ONE BIT! You go away. You're stalking of me at the other articles I tried to discuss with you indicate to me that YOU are the one trolling. Go away. AND, your comment about bad faith is noted. --JimmyT 01:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask you ..

Where are you cutting and pasting from for the Dianetics and Scientology articles? I see a good deal of what you revert is presented on certain websites, presented as good information of those subjects. Are you copying and pasting certain informations into Wikipedia? In particular in the Dianetics article, you and I went back and forth for some while about a full list of Dianetics books or a very sketchy list of Dianeitcs publications. I later found what you reverted to, to be present even today at a certain dictionary site. This prompts me to ask where you get the information which you feel should present the subjects of Dianetics and Scientology. Terryeo 21:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, isn't that interesting? First you present your accusatory theory ("Where are you cutting and pasting from?") and then you present your ... not your "evidence", but your claim that there is evidence, which you cannot describe coherently (hello, what I "reverted to" was most likely by the nature of reverts to be what was there before?) for which you somehow think the most likely explanation is my "cutting and pasting". If you actually thought I copying and pasting from outside sources, you would have followed the correct Wikipedia procedures for alleged copyright violations -- of course, then you would have had to submit your "evidence", which (if it existed) might turn out to have a much more logical explanation (such as that -- Reverting 101: Reverting is the act of restoring a page or part of a page to the state it was in before.) Why am I not surprised that you chose instead to phrase your "question" in fine Joe McCarthy "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" form on my user talk page? -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Its a pretty honest question, I presented it in a manner which seemed polite and not accusatory to me. A "yes" or "no" would suffice. What I would like to do is arrive at good aticles. I'm in a position that I understand the subject matter. I don't oppose controversy in the articles but I do oppose the subject matter not being presented. Terryeo 15:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Its a pretty honest question, I presented it in a manner which seemed polite and not accusatory to me." Bullshit. "Where are you cutting and pasting from for the Dianetics and Scientology articles?" is supposed to be "not accusatory"? How can it be "not accusatory" when it actually assumes the accusation to be true? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can't you answer a simple question? What are you hiding Antaeus? Are you on drugs? --JimmyT 10:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because a simple question was not asked, Jimmy; an uncivil question which assumed the truth of an untrue accusation for which not one shred of evidence has still not been offered was asked. I can answer simple questions, however, that does not mean I am obligated to answer simple questions, especially when they are being asked for the purposes of harassment, an excellent example being your absolutely unfounded speculation of "Are you on drugs?" It's too bad that Spirit of Man can't see this (or more accurately, that he can't make sense of what he's seeing since he's blinded by his prejudices): after watching you allege totally out of the blue that I may be "on drugs", based on absolutely nothing I've ever said, then perhaps he'd finally comprehend that legal clause of "malicious disregard for the truth" which he has such trouble with. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OKAY, you win Feldspar. Here is the question in a simple form. Do you sometimes cut and paste from other websites toward creating Dianetics and Scientology articles? Terryeo 15:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If I am quoting another website, I will probably use cut and paste to make sure I am fulfilling my obligation to quote the source correctly. Otherwise, no. Now I have a simple question for you: what is the supposed evidence you have that led you to make this accusation? Where are these sites that were supposedly copied from? Did you in fact have any basis for your allegations or were you, like JimmyT, operating in malicious disregard for the truth? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thetan article

You came into the Thetan article and REFUSED to do any discussion on the discussion page whatsoever. I suppose you are in your "non-discussion" mode and in 2 or 3 days you will be screaming, "I discuss on talk pages all the time". But in this single, solitary and individual situation you refused to discuss and had not been editing the Thetan article and came to the Thetan article which I have been working on and you used this edit summary: "17:25, 4 March 2006 Antaeus Feldspar (rv Terryeo's attempt to remove true and verifiable information which the CoS finds inconvenient. Notice he makes no attempt to remove "redundant" information about Operating Thetan.)" Which is at least critical (obviously) and which could, conceiveably be helpful IF you were involved in discussion on the article's discussion page (but of course that is beneath you are something). It is kind of irritating, you know what I mean? I'm trying to produce good, understandable - to - the - reader articles. I'm dealing with another editor in that article who at first insisted that "spirit" was an idea cooked up by Hubbard and presented in the guise, "thetan" and that "spirit" doesn't exist and shouldn't be believed to exist by anybody, ever. Your edits combined with your inflammatory edit summary aren't helpful. Terryeo 08:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are a liar Terryeo. I never insisted that "spirit" was concocted by Hubbard. In fact, you know that I know that the idea of a spirit that persists after death is one that has existed for thousands of years. The whole point is that this article thetan isn't about a "spirit". If "thetan" and "spirit" held the same meaning then LRH wouldn't have taken the time to invent a new word that holds quite a different meaning than what most people think of when they hear the word "spirit". Vivaldi 09:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vivaldi is a liar and one of the trolls who work with the critic crew. Do you think he maybe is on some kind of psychiatric drug for ADHD (pseudoscientific "quack" diagnosed "disease" of the p$ychiatrists (SPIT)) --JimmyT 10:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to see you are still around, JimmyT. At Talk:Thetan Vivaldi has been doing a good deal of personal attack. Terryeo 15:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, and JimmyT demonstrates for us again just what "malicious disregard for the truth" looks like in action. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:08, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And Terryeo demonstrates that he doesn't mind a good personal attack as long as its directed at the proper editors. And again its apparent that neither Terryeo or JimmyT is interested in the truth, as it is easily provable that Terryeo has lied about my statements. He said that I stated that Hubbard invented the idea of "spirit". Now if that statement were true, then please post the proof. Otherwise, if you don't respond with the proof or an apology, everyone will know that you are in fact using deliberate deceit in your edits here. Vivaldi 21:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Terryeo, I have no doubt at all that you would like it if, every time you made a clearly incorrect edit in flagrant violation of policy (even one you have made twelve times before), any editor wishing to restore the article to the state it was in before you damaged it had to write an essay of at least 500 words on the talk page, giving a detailed explanation of just why your edits violate policy. However, that is not the case. The fact that you were completely aware of articles corresponding to both the Operating Thetan and Body thetan subsections of the Thetan article and yet you tried to remove only one section as "redundant" shows that you are not a well-intentioned editor who actually tries to abide by Wikipedia policy and might correct some form of mistake if his mistake was explained on the talk page but a blatant POV warrior with no intention to edit correctly. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:08, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, good for you, nice to not have any doubts, huh? Heh. I would like to talk with you though Feldspar because it seems to me we might better understand each other's position if we did. I do understand you have strong and nearly violent reaction to the way I edit. I think we understand basic Wikipedia policies differently and would like to work out a common understanding. Of course we have different beliefs, but I don't think that has anything to do with the different approaches we take to editing. What say you, can we talk, possibly work out our differences? Terryeo 15:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"work out our differences"? I highly doubt it. I could do that with an honest editor, but you are not an honest editor, something you proved when you threw allegations at other editors that they violated a policy which you already knew that your interpretation of (the only thing they violated) was and always had been completely mistaken. It isn't a case of "we understand basic Wikipedia policies differently"; it's that I see them as rules we work by to shape our efforts to create a resource of NPOV information and you view them as obstacles to be twisted aside or openly violated so that you can push your POV. It's insulting to me that you think I haven't recognized that by now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well Feldspar, where does it start? Don't you think it more productive to spend your time doing something besides reverting my edits without creating anything? It starts by talking. I offer that perhaps we understand Wikipedia policies differently. It is insulting to me that you don't understand that I do understand them. We have similar, if opposite understandings of the same thing and therefore, I would hope, a base to talk to each other from. Agreeing on points of policy might be step we could take toward more productive editing Terryeo 19:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Terryeo, it is far too late to pretend that you are an honest editor who has, at worst a "different" "understanding" of what policies mean. That lie was threadbare even before you decided to blatantly violate exactly the same policies which you declared, with a maximum of furor and a minimum of grounds, that others had violated. I realize that you are, for purposes of show, trying to make it look like you are an honest, sincere editor just trying to edit the best you can and that I am the pig-headed stubborn jerk who refuses to re-evaluate my beliefs in the light of new evidence. However, the flaw in this is that there is no new evidence -- none that supports your pretenses. The evidence that you're an insincere POV warrior keeps mounting and mounting. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Healthyplace.com

You may want to look at my talk page for why I believe we should not link to healthyplace.com. -- Barrylb 12:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to place a higher value on accuracy in your editing

I'm sorry, but was it not you who, upon my adding the Catholic Church to the list, went over to the Sahaja Yoga site and added a link to the critical section? If that isn't revenge editing...

I agree with you on that point though, and will research other sources before I re-incluse the Roman Catholic Church to the list.

Shane 08:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that isn't revenge editing... No, it isn't. What happened is that when I saw the surprising addition of Roman Catholicism, with the even more surprising source of the University of Virginia Religious Movements homepage, I checked the source to see if it was accurate. Going through the whole article, I found that it wasn't. I wondered whether there were other entries in the list which also used that source when that source did not actually meet the qualification, so I checked the two entries in question that used that source. In both cases, the source did refer to them as a cult. In the case of the Sahaja Yoga entry, I found the U of V article to not just meet the qualifications for the list, but to be an informative article in its own right, the kind of article we try to link to. Since it was not already an external link from the Sahaja Yoga article, I entered it. That's not "revenge", that's "seeing a way to improve an article, and improving it." -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments - Terryeo

I've posted a Request for Comments on User:Terryeo. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that his persistent misconduct on a range of Scientology-related articles will require an intervention from the Arbitration Committee and probably a lengthy ban. I'll keep the RfC open for a limited period before submitting it to the ArbCom as a Request for Arbitration. Please feel free to add any comments to the RfC, which is at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Terryeo (but please ensure that you add your comments to the right section of the RfC). If you have any additional evidence, please add that to the RfC. I will be posting this note to a number of users who've been directly involved in editing disputes with Terryeo. -- ChrisO 23:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:AN/3RR. Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 20:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Review?

I'm sorry to bother you with such a matter, but in the I-95 exit list page, there was talk about what to do with such a page. After discussion on AFD and in Talk, which can all be accessed on that page, the consensus was no consensus. Myself and many others work on the page to make it presentable and up to Wikistandards, when suddenly User:SPUI comes out of the woodwork after not contributing to talk or any discussion, and decides to make major changes which go against consensus and talk. This is not the problem. In his latest reversion, he claims that this site is a Fork, which I and others disagree with, since the article is not to represent a different POV, but provide a central hub of information (a person may go to the individual I-95 state page for in-depth information about the route, including information, but for multi-state travel, a single page of exit lists provides easy-to-access information that people, such as myself, like to know. It seems that he is just using anything he can to get his way, which he seems to do quite often, including ignoring consensi. So I was just asking if, since you seem to be more knowledgeable about forks, you could review the article and decide if it was a fork or not. I'd appreciate your input and thank you very much. --MPD01605 23:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Monty Hall

I'd like to get your thoughts at the discussion going on at Talk:Monty Hall problem regarding WP:FARC. You've spent a lot of time on that aricle and it is important that we have the benefit of your thoughts. --hydnjo talk 13:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for dropping in, I was getting worried about you.  :-) --hydnjo talk 01:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Vandalism"

I thought your remark on my talk page was uncalled-for. As I explained to ESkog, I described in full my reason for making that change on the naked short selling talk page. I agree that using the word "vandalism" was a mistake, but I can't go back and change that so what do you want me to do?

This page has been the subject of an editing war going back weeks, in which a succession of meatpuppets coming in from the outside making a concerted effort to turn that page into a flyer for an "anti-short-selling crusade." Just prior to my arrival, a POV fork, aimed at evading consensue concerning the page, was deleted by administrators. Additionally, the discussion on the Talk page has been invariably ad hominem, and I have been subjected to personal attacks and gotten little support in defending myself.

The change that I reverted was an effort by a new anonymous editor to add original research on a tangential issue with unsourced, one-sided commentary. In the past, such edits have been described by other editors as "near vandalism."

I'm not defending my use of the word "vandalism," which was wrong, but I think the substance of the destructive changes being made to that page is more important than your piling on concerning my incorrect description of a perfectly proper edit. --Tomstoner 14:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was this edit, editing Tin-foil hat to hold proponents of "the campaign against naked short selling" up to ridicule, was that a "perfectly proper edit" in your opinion? Because in mine it's rather blatant POV pushing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I thought it was a proper edit. I wouldn't have added it if I thought otherwise. What has that got to do with the naked shortselling page? --Tomstoner 15:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because you may think it's a "perfectly proper edit", and you may think that what you were removing "borders on vandalism" or was "near vandalism" -- but the fact that you think it so doesn't mean anything unless you have an accurate sense of what is and is not proper editing on Wikipedia. And if you think that it's perfectly okay to use Tin-foil hat to make a personal attack on opponents of naked short-selling, suggesting that they are paranoid conspiracy theorists, then you do not have that accurate sense. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, great. Thanks for sharing. Stop by again -- I enjoyed your ad hominems, which obviously added greatly to the credibility of your "opinion." Bye. --Tomstoner 16:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not post further personal attacks on me on my talk page. --Tomstoner 16:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Asking you to shape up your editing behavior is not a personal attack. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What you have posted on my talk page are personal attacks. Nobody appointed you "Tom Stoner's shaper-upper." Your hostile remarks and attacks are unwelcome. Please stop. --Tomstoner 17:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No one promised you that if you came to Wikipedia, you could do anything you wanted to do and never have to abide by any rules and never face any criticism for violating those rules. Your idea that it is a "personal attack" to request you to not make personal attacks on the sanity of your opponents in article space is completely your own willful misunderstanding. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When did I ever say that? I admitted that the "vandalism" comment was incorrect. The edit that I made in the naked short-selling page was not a correction of "vandalism" but it was otherwise correct. You have not even made an effort to understand why I made that change -- you are too busy attacking.

You are not interested in making constructive, friendly suggestions. You assume bad faith and post in an aggressive, hostile manner. When you violate Wikipedia policy yourself by being aggressive and attacking and uncivil, how do you expect your opinions to have any credibility?

I am not interested in your opinion of me as an editor. Your behavior borders on stalking and I want it to stop. --Tomstoner 17:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What my behavior borders on is "keeping an eye on an editor who is so self-righteous he violates the rules and then thinks it's a personal attack if anyone suggests that he learn the rules better." If you don't comprehend why you can't add "hey, lots of people think that my opponents are tin-foil- hat-wearing paranoid conspiracy theorists" to article space, you do not comprehend WP:NPOV. Period. And if you do not comprehend WP:NPOV, your judgement that your edits are "otherwise correct" aside from missing the technical definition of vandalism is likewise suspect. Period. If you don't want people to think they have to keep an eye on you, maybe you could try learning from your mistakes instead of trying to shift the blame to others for bringing it up to you. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Fine. I prostrate myself before you. I rend my garmets. You are right. You are always right. Forgive me for suggesting otherwise. Now can you please stalk another newbie?--Tomstoner 20:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

E-mail for you

Hi, please check your e-mails. Cheers. AnnH 17:15, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Swift

I lost track of which is the consensus version, so I decided I'd better just stick to handling the protection matter and let more involved editors correct the text. Cheers, -Will Beback 20:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Cult Issues

Hi, you claim to have been called names on both sides of the debates about cults and that makes you credible. Sounds appealing to me, but then you seem hell-bent on pushing the anti-cult point. Maybe I'm a bit naive, and I will not wade through your contributrions history: But what makes you think that I have no idea about what I am talking about? Yes, I push a point, like everyone else does on Wikipedia (you, me, Tilman, everyone), and mine is that the anti-cult movement has basically hijacked Wikipedia as its vehicle. I'm not gonna defame the ACM or its adherents, I just correct FACTUAL errors. And I know, what I am doing, I have written my ph.d. on New Age (not at some Micky Mouse University, check my CV, via the user page) and I have followed the debate since. When I say that Hadden puts forth the mainstream view, that's because, I have read literally hundreds of scientific articles on this matter, and if you wish, I post the entire bibliography part that demonstrates that. So, please, either justify your edits (like I try to do) or do no longer claim that you are "independent". On second thought, better no longer claim that you are independent, no matter what, because no one is.--Fossa 05:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, you do not just "correct factual errors". You make your first edit in article space to move "Opposition to cults and new religious movements" to "Anti-Cult Movement", without having even suggested this move on the talk page first. Then, having taken it upon yourself to single-handedly change the focus of the article, you then proceed to delete sections of the article because they don't meet the new focus of the article. You delete mention of things that don't fit with your world-view because, even though there are sources for these accounts, you choose not to believe them and so you call them "unsubstantiated", and then you insert your own original research, for which you provide no substantiation. You do not even have enough edits yet to have suffrage in an AfD discussion and yet you're sure that if I am opposing your edits, it could not be because those edits do not meet Wikipedia's standards, but because I am "hell-bent on pushing the anti-cult point." Welcome to the legion of other editors (usually new editors, like you) who refused to believe that there could be any issue with the quality of their edits, and insisted instead that I must be an agent for The Other Side. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, excuse me that Wikipedia has not been the center of my world for the last 5 years. I have worked in a more reasonable environment, academia, where one is concerned with producing knowledge and checking facts, not spreading rumours. That's why I am arrogant enough to change errors in my field of expertise without consulting first the "talk" page, where at best some computer science geeks sits, to whom I have to explain at great length why I make a really basic edit, which is totally uncontroversial in my field, at second best a follower of the Cult of Wikipedia, who explains me some wobbly POV, three edits, or whatever rule I supposedly just crossed (few rules on WP are as specific as the 3R rule, most, like "original research" or "POV", would result in an F in every Philosophy 101 course), and at worst some anti-cult activists (or rarely a cult fruitcake) who desperately tries to sell their warped perceiption of reality as NPOV facts.
Take "Anti-Cult Movement": That is an established term in NRM scholarship. If I search for the exact term "anti-cult movement" in Sociological Abstracts, I get 34 finds. If I type in "Opposition against Cults and New Religious Movements" I get zero finds. B4 you say, but ah, we are not in sociology: The google figures are even more daunting: 45,000 to 129. Most of the 129 are Wikepedia and its clones finds. I think, you call that "concept formation" or somerthing like that in your Wikipedia rules.
Take the Hausherr article (nobody provided sources there, but I am supposed to provide sources; what kind of double-standard is that? Anyways. What did I do? I clipped some redudant information (same link appears twice in the article), kicked out the redudadant "in his spare time", applied a health warning to the two weblinks provided and changed "Scientology critic" into "Scientology opponent". For sure, *he* rthinks he's a critic. But neither do I nor the average Scientolgist. Scientology considers him not a critic, but an enemy, as is evidenced by the Weblink provided. So this fact is obviously disputed. An opponent can be both an enemy or a critic, so I simply applied the most value-neutral label, that would not be disputed by either me, a Scientologist or a anti-cultist. Clearly, anti-cult activists would prefer the more palable label, but there simply is no evidence that Hausherr is a critic, i.e. weighs advantages and disadvantages in a nuanced fashion. There is some evidence that he is an enemy of Scientology (in that he publishes at times plainly false information related to Scientology), but there is no need to investigate this claim either, if you use opponent.
I have been following WP for quite some time, and it's rubbish for everything past the natural sciences, maths, and computer science. I wouldn't be too bothered about the defamations and factual inaccuracies that are being broadcast via Wikipedia about so-called cults, if it wasn't for the fact that people take WP seriously. I get university student essays with Wikipedia quotes. So chances are, Joe Doe will think that it's actually true what he finds in Wikipedia. That's why I started this rather quixotic task to correct falsities, and unsubstatitated allegations. --Fossa 18:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Get back to me when you actually have the expertise you're trying to assert that you have now. It's obvious you don't comprehend WP:NPOV and until you do this discussion is pointless. Even if you understood that we'd still have some points on which you are unclear, such as your idea "if the title of an article does not correspond one-to-one with 'an established term' then it's clearly a bad title and must be moved." Did it ever occur to you that the article "Opposition to cults and new religious movements" existed to discuss the topic "opposition to cults and new religious movements" and not the specific subset of it designated in someone's formulation as "the anti-cult movement"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You answer my elaborate reply with three, four sentences, none of which refers to anything substantial of what I have said, but you just give your POV (in this case that means: opinion) that I don't have the "expertise". So a Ph.D. on the subject matter is not enough expertise for you, so i guess you jettison all academic criteria. But what exactly are your criteria for expertise? A few Wikipedia edits? You seem to value those.
I'm not gonna write to you here an elaborate reply, why the NPOV policy is too ambigious to serve for anything else as a smokescreen to advance a certain (usually the young, affluent computer geek majority) POV under the pretense of "neutrality" and "objectivity". But why do you think that philosophers have dwelled hundreds of years over the question of neutrality, if it could be solved by some computer scientists within a few months?--Fossa 19:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, you're right. Wikipedia is based on the principle of WP:NPOV. If you want to edit on Wikipedia, you'd better understand it. If you don't want to understand it or don't want to follow it, you don't have any right to edit on Wikipedia, the fact that you can still edit anyways unless you get banned notwithstanding. It's as simple as that, so if you're still stuck on that point, eighteen paragraphs isn't going to do more good than four sentences. Do you think you're the first person to come along and say "Well, out in the real world there is widespread dissension on this issue, with some people saying X and some people saying Y and some people saying Z. But you are in luck, because I have come along, and I have The Answers! Unlike other people who only think they know what's right, I know what's right, and I will kindly clear up all your confusions by removing what I know is falsehood and substituting what I know is true!"? I'll give you a hint, the whole point of WP:NPOV is to deal with attitudes like yours. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do you actually read what I write? I said that NPOV is much too ambigious to be a valid policy. I did and do not at any time violate NPOV, but it it not that fact that makes my edits either actually "neutral" or "objective" in any way. Unlike 3R, which gives clear criteria about when it is violated, almost anything can pass as NPOV. So you can proclaim that my view is not NPOV and I can proclaim that your view is not NPOV, but there is no unequivocal WP-criterion to decide, which of us would be right and who violated the NPOV policy.
To give you an example: When I write that Rick Ross works on "so-called cults": That is obviously a fact. Then you delete the so-called and many people (depending on the meaning of the word "cult") will also consider it a fact. So we can both claim its NPOV, accusing the other side that it's not.
But again: What are your criteria for "expertise"?--Fossa 21:04, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. You evidently really want the last word. Here it is, a gift all for you. Enjoy. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, the moment "Fossa" blurted out "Oh, excuse me that Wikipedia has not been the center of my world for the last 5 years. I have worked in a more reasonable environment, academia, where one is concerned with producing knowledge and checking facts, not spreading rumours. That's why I am arrogant enough to change errors in my field of expertise without consulting first the "talk" page, where at best some computer science geeks sits", I saw no further point in trying to communicate with it. Fosse is an Internet troll in the classic sense and if he/she expresses so low an opinion of Wikipedia, I see no reason to take anything it says seriously. wikipediatrix 02:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
wikipediatrix: Just out of curiosity: Have you read my little review of your user page in 1? Or is this a coincidence? Forever yours: Fossa 03:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My 2 cts: Fossa first came up on the german usenet, then in the german wikipedia (several definitions have been blocked now), and now he's trying to "correct" the english wikipedia. He thinks he knows all about cults, including scientology, however I was able to prove again and again that he's mostly clueless (e.g. about the many court decisions on the topic, both in Germany and in the US). He admitted himself that his field is "new age". He has a very black and white view of everything, which is why he loves to use the word "scientology opponent" instead of "scientology critic". In the german newsgroup, he claimed that there is a conspiracy by psychologists and others to "oppress" scientology. He hates wikipedia, even called it a cult. He loves to mention literature sources, suggesting that he had read them (which is not always the case, as I was able to prove in the german usenet).--Tilman 07:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that sounds right in character with the behavior he's displayed here. I'd love to see him in a court of law. "Your Honor, we can stop the trial now, because the defendant is guilty. What? Well, yes, he is guilty. I said so, and I clearly know more than all those twelve morons in the jury box put together. After all, I have a degree, and that means I'm right. What? What do you mean, "no matter what degrees counsel may have, it's the jury who makes the verdict?" Well, you see, that's exactly what I'm here to save you from. That's clearly the wrong way to go about things, so I'm going to come in, ignore the way you do things, and do them the right way. You, being nothing but pig-ignorant legal geeks, won't even realize how you should be thanking me, but that's a cross I must bear." -- Antaeus Feldspar 13:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ubuntu Linux and references

Hi, thanks for your copyedits. Do you think we could convert the web references on the Ubuntu Linux page to the <ref>{{cite web}}</ref> pragma, or is this viewed as not desirable? For the article to ever become featured quality (which I firmly believe it can be), this would probably have to be done. - Samsara (talkcontribs) 17:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, shouldn't there be a bot for this?! - Samsara (talkcontribs) 17:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good question. I'm afraid I have fairly little experience with {{cite web}}; I've only recently started using the <ref></ref> pragma and I'm still getting used to that. Even though I understand the advantages of separating markup from presentation, I'm afraid when I looked at the cite web template the complexity dissuaded me from using it until I had more experience with the basic <ref></ref> idiom. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"(Terryeo's third, perhaps fourth repetition of a sleazy tired lie)"

Hello Feldspar. Would you, in the future please, state the situation you refer to in your edit summary? Your pasted statement, "(Terryeo's third, perhaps fourth repetition of a sleazy tired lie)" does not describe what you edited, it does not discuss on its discussion page, it uses "lie" when actually I have made good efforts to explain to you and other editors the logic of the situation as clearly as I can. I have invited futher discussion, I am willing to explain things as well as possible. "Lie" is a judgement, By all means, continue to judge right and wrong. But would you please discuss things toward our commonly understanding rather than use such accusation in edit summaries without discussion in appropriate areas? Terryeo 18:58, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo, I am not interested in your lies. Your claim that I did not spell out exactly which lie it was you were trotting out yet again is entirely false, as anyone can verify for themselves by checking the edit in question: [29]. "Lie" is not a judgment, it is a description of what someone is doing when they know damn well what the truth is and yet they tell something else which isn't the truth. You know damn well that I explained over and over again that Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health should not become the place to discuss the subject of Dianetics, because the article Dianetics was already fulfilling that role, and had been doing so since 2001. What you claimed, however, was that I made instead some statement which "implies that nothing in any of these articles should have the slightest bit of meaning." You knew the truth to be one thing, and yet you claimed it to be something else. That is why I call it a lie and I will continue to do so. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar for Monty Hall problem

Hi Antaeus. Your patience on Monty Hall problem is impressive.

A Barnstar!
The Barnstar of Diligence

For your tireless efforts to explain the Monty Hall problem to every nonbeliever, and to keep the article itself in reasonable shape. P3d0 19:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tone scale revert

Ya beat me to it by milliseconds! Well done. Nice work as per! ;) File:Glenstollery.gifPOW! 20:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You'd be suprised how much many more issues I do have then what comprises the 4 of your little glory holes collectively. I still think you're contentious AND pompous and biased; and your Outside View for Terryeo is full of claptrap lugged out of your despotic ___. --JimmyT 14:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This guy is way beyond RfC territory--isn't there a swift lock-out mechanism for this sort of abusive troll? BTfromLA 15:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He's gone, for two weeks anyway (see here. Phew! File:Glenstollery.gifPOW! 15:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


personal attacks on dianetics

Please refrain from accusations of "bad faith", "grotesque misconceptions" and other uncivil phrases regarding my edits on Dianetics as per WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Thank you. SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 03:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to what you are alleging here, I never accused you of "bad faith" or "grotesque misconceptions", at Talk:Dianetics, or anywhere else. I simply pointed out that according to what you claimed at Talk:Dianetics was the only standard that needed to be met for an article to be marked as having its NPOV disputed, a perfectly fine article could be kept forever labelled as "NPOV disputed" by just a single editor, even if that editor was acting in bad faith or operating under grotesque misconceptions as to the NPOV policy. If that's not what you meant to suggest then perhaps you'd like to clarify your earlier remarks. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Scientology Edits (3/24/06)

Hello, Antaeus. Let me introduce myself; I'm the anon editor (as of 3/24/06) who added material relating to the beliefs and activities of the CoS, and whose contribution you reverted. However, I'm not upset or displeased in the slightest, but a little confused. It was slightly POV in retrospect, but unintentional really; I was operating on very, very little sleep and it definately translated into me being sardonic. But, however... I'm a little confused as to why you did a revert rather than an edit to organise the information, as all of it was factual. I still think both subjects are worthwhile contributions to the article, and indeed, while those regarding the legal issues and ethical conduct paint the church in a decidedly negative light (but still worthwhile to mention in the main article), those regarding the basic beliefs are desirable.

So, how would the edits be suitable to your tastes while still incorporating all of the information, and conforming with the NPOV policy? Any suggestions? I think a more substantial contribution is in order, which would be broken down logically withing the article. While I don't think anything I said was necessary inflamatory, the wording was ultimately not cordial/neutral. Additionally, as I hinted out earlier, I think it could have been incorporated into the article better.

I'll keep your talk page on my watchlist for your response. Kaelus

To be honest... I'm not sure which edits you're referring to. I think you're referring to this revert of mine? With my time zone settings, that actually shows up for me as happening the middle of the 23rd rather than the 24th, which is why I'm not sure if that's the revert you mean.
If I'm wrong and you're referring to something else, please let me know. If that is what you're referring to (and I'll write from here as if that's the case), my brief explanation is that the major problem with the information you added was where you added it. You added a great deal of detail to the second paragraph of the article, for instance, on all the different specific fields of science whose information debunks Scientology's space opera, on the Church's involvement in Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout, the death of Lisa McPherson, et cetera. The only problem with this isn't the information itself -- it's the fact that you added it to the introduction of the article, which should serve as a summary for the rest of the article. Think of it as like a legal case: each side makes opening statements. "Your Honor and members of the jury, we will show you physical evidence and offer testimony that places the suspect at the scene of the crime on the night in question, in clear possession of the murder weapon, and with a strong motive to commit the crime." "Your Honor, members of the jury, we will show that the prosecution's case has crucial flaws: their witnesses are tainted and unreliable, their physical evidence is circumstantial at best, and their supposition of motive for the defendant is unsubstantiated guesswork." Then the actual trial begins and both sides start going into the details of exactly who the witnesses are and what they say and what the markings on the bullets were. (In fact, technically, Scientology should only really be functioning as a overview article for all the other articles, which are there to cover the sub-topics in the greatest detail -- the fact that so many people add information straight to the main article is an ongoing problem.) I hope that if I've guessed right, this explains most of the revert. If I've guessed wrong, or if I've left questions unanswered, I hope you'll let me know. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


That is indeed the edit I was speaking of. And I agree completely with your assessment. The information regarding the scholarly view by the scientific majority could be subdivided into its own section and expanded, and then properly sourced, later in the article.

The basic information Church's involvement in Operation Snow White, et cetera could be better incorporated into the introduction perhaps, as the information and suitable links are noticebly absent from the article (not including the sidebar). The information I'm most concerned about is the list of cardinal beliefs central to Scientology. The existing information is not completely accurate; in fact it's misleading. Let me explain:

  1. A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness in his life.

This is not completely accurate; scientology makes very little claims about this current life, but insists that the "aberration", so called, is primarily due to past lives, the evolutionary history of mankind as presented in a History of Man, and Thetans [tainted] by 'implants'. This should be expressed here, though it is addressed later in the article. The current statement seems to be written to make Scientology more palatable to adherents of other religions.

  1. What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. No beliefs should be forced as "true" on anyone. Thus, the tenets of Scientology are expected to be tested and seen to either be true, or not, by Scientology practitioners.

This is completely contrary to the practice, organisation, and tenets of the Church. Most of the legal controversy having to do with the Church, and its opponents' claimn of the CoS being a "brainwashing cult" have to do with the church not allowing any aberration toward 'unorthodox' beliefs and practises (within the church), and targeting those who insult or publically question the beliefs of the Church of Scientology, sometimes in a criminal manner. I'm suspecting that this whole section was originally written by a Scientologist who formulated it to make it, as I said, more palatable to people of mainstream religious backgrounds, and thus encourage them to find out more information on the church. While I would never disagree with the Church searching for adherents, a Wikipedia article is not the place to do it; the information should be as factual as possible and NPOV, so as to be accessible to all readers, and not a tool for evangelism, if that's what that was intended as. Either way, it's somewhat inaccurate, and the additional information presented key beliefs, even if they might seem a bit "out there" to someone looking for a glowingly positive main article (especially early in the article) which does not express the more criticised aspects of Scientology and Dianetics. Kaelus 20:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Kaelus -- sorry for the delay in replying. You make some excellent points; let me respond to them:
'A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness in his life.' This is not completely accurate; scientology makes very little claims about this current life, but insists that the "aberration", so called, is primarily due to past lives, the evolutionary history of mankind as presented in a History of Man, and Thetans [tainted] by 'implants'.
This is a very good point; all these things are presented by Scientology as sources of aberration. I would not try to press the "primarily" part, as claims of "most" and "primarily" always seem to get challenged as 'unproven', but I would expand it from "moments of pain and unconsciousness" to "engrams and implants incurred during moments of pain and unconsciousness" and "in his life" to "in his current life or in past lives". I think this last would cover the prehistoric time periods Hubbard writes about in AHOM, even if it doesn't specifically mention them; if there was a reasonably concise way to communicate "oh, and these are not just past lives from after the dawn of humankind as we know it, as you might be picturing, but from before as well" without it looking shoehorned in, I'd take it.
'# What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. No beliefs should be forced as "true" on anyone. Thus, the tenets of Scientology are expected to be tested and seen to either be true, or not, by Scientology practitioners.' This is completely contrary to the practice, organisation, and tenets of the Church. Most of the legal controversy having to do with the Church, and its opponents' claimn of the CoS being a "brainwashing cult" have to do with the church not allowing any aberration toward 'unorthodox' beliefs and practises (within the church), and targeting those who insult or publically question the beliefs of the Church of Scientology, sometimes in a criminal manner.
I completely agree with you here. However, I'll be frank that I'm not sure immediately what's to be done about it. I think it itself could be trimmed of the questionable second and third sentences, and perhaps followed by a short discussion that, like all 'ideal culture', there is question about whether these beliefs are actually followed in practice; Scientology advocates state that the tenets of Scientology are expected to be tested and seen to either be true, or not, by Scientology practitioners, but at the same time it is held that "the Tech is 100% effective" and anyone who tested the tenets of Scientology and didn't receive confirming results is presumed to have not applied the Tech correctly.
Please let me know what you would like to do next. I think this has illuminated some good changes that need to be made; I'm tempted to make them myself but I don't want to deprive you of the opportunity. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Claims vs Statements

May I get into communication with you about this ? Please understand, I am here attempting to get into communication with you about this. I am not attempting to convince you of something. I am attempting to establish communication with you because you and I have somewhat different points of view about what words should be used. So I am trying to get into communication with you about the area. Specifically in the thetan article your and my edits are bumping head to head. You might be right. I might be right. We both might be right. There might be a better third way. The last two edit summarys read: Antaeus Feldspar (No, "claims" is perfectly appropriate, as in "the product may or may not live up to the manufacturer's claims".) and Terryeo (→Operating Thetan - reworded one of the "claims" they are better presented as cited statements because 'claims' is a sort of POV presentation). Can we talk about this area ? I am assuming that WP:V is the policy we are going by? Terryeo 09:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Bait and Switch"

Hi Feldspar. I appricated your discussion at User_talk:Spirit_of_Man#.22Evil.22.3F. I saw you presented some important elements. One is the "bait and switch" technique, well known as a con. Perhaps we could talk about this area? For example, "Cause over MEST" is one of phrases that is often used in the Scientology series articles. I read what you said and I think I understand you to understand "Cause over MEST" means "an individual simply wills the physical universe to do something and it does that." Could we talk in this area? May I suggest this possible meaning for "Cause over MEST." A bricklayer picks up a brick, slathers it with mortor and lays it into a wall where the motor dries and the brick becomes part of the wall. The bricklayer has caused something to happen, he has caused an effect with MEST. As another example, a student buys a book from a bookstore, takes it home and places it in his library. He has moved MEST, he has been causative to MEST. May we talk in this area? Terryeo 18:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, if I were to walk into a Scientology franchise, plunk down lots and lots of money, study really hard, accept whatever I'm told without criticalentheta thinking, do lots of auditing, and eventually reach Operating Thetan, my great reward for all that will be the ability to mortar a brick or to buy a book and put it in my library? -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On Psychotronics

Please read this and hop over to this page with your markup of the insertion.

The "secondary definition" of psychotronics was the first one I ever knew. The one you have posted was "secondary" in *my* education.
And you say there's "no evidence" of that usage? Good grief...I'd better dig out the publications, and get busy on the bibliography, hadn't I.
Hmph...I suppose I'll start with articles from Aviation Week And Space Technology on the Russian work. Good enough?

P.S.: The "completely unsatisfactory editor's note" was cheese for the mouse (whoever put in that link), but...it seems the cat put his paw
in the trap first. Poor kitty. Oh well...I'll refrain from using that tactic anymore. Don't want to stir up the natives. (Yes, I admit it: I'm a wiki-newbie.)

Anyway, your subsequent observation was right: what did Bearden have to do with it.... ---MAS 31 Mar 2006 5:33 PM CST

Categories

Ok, thanks for the heads-up on that; there was actually a bit of debate a few weeks ago on the scifi/speculative fiction difference (actually it was whether or not speculative ficiton deserved its own stub category), and they seemed to come to the same thing you did, and apparently what most wikipedians do; that speculative fiction IS science fiction; even though technically, speculative fiction encompasses a much wider subset, including science fiction, most horror, and alternative history novels. Seeing as how I seem to be in the minority in this view, I guess I will concede it; but I still thank you for the info on the policy, I was not aware that they actually had any pertaining to this specific topic, but I guess I shouldnt be all that surprised. -- Gizzakk 20:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think there may be a misunderstanding here: I'm not saying that "speculative fiction IS science fiction", I'm saying that because "science fiction" is a subset of "speculative fiction", and thus "science fiction novels" is a subset of "speculative fiction novels", that it isn't necessary to say "this article falls into the category of "speculative fiction novels" -- because if you've already said "it falls into the category of "science fiction novels", it goes without saying. To give another example: Statue of Liberty is in Category:Landmarks in New York City; Category:Landmarks in New York City is a sub-category of Category:New York landmarks ; therefore Statue of Liberty doesn't need to be in Category:New York landmarks as well. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Terryeo. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Terryeo/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Terryeo/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 19:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lena Zavaroni/Civility

You're not going to tell me I was wrong, surely? Actually I reserved my language: I don't think that person was "deeply retarded", I think they were a pervert of some kind. --62.255.232.5 00:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do think you're wrong, on two counts: you're wrong to think that it's acceptable to call other Wikipedia editors "deeply retarded" or "a pervert of some kind" based on the phrasing of a single sentence; even calling it "bullshit wording" is a violation of WP:CIVIL. Secondly, it is particularly bizarre to think such a strong reaction is somehow justified by the difference between "She began to suffer from what we now know as anorexia nervosa in 1979." and "She began to suffer from anorexia nervosa in 1979." Both are perfectly acceptable wordings and neither justifies the attacks on the wording, much less the attacks on the editor. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nikitchenko and I are now in Mediation based on his allegation of POV editing to the Office of Special Affairs article; See here. The Mediation is being held at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-04-11 Scientology. I notice there is a section, Comments by others so I thought given you have edited the article you may wish to comment when Mediation begins (I am unsure of the process at this stage). Look forward to hearing your opinion if you choose to offer it, and thanks in advance - Glen T C 19:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neologisms

Hi there, a while ago you made an edit on the Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms guideline. I am proposing a revision to the guideline and I'm soliciting your comments. You can find the link to my rewrite at Wikipedia talk:Avoid neologisms -- cmh 01:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reversions without discussion

Hi Feldspar. Up to your old "reversions without discussion" again I see at Thetan where you have ignored a great deal of talk page discussion. My efforts have been to leave the paragraph in the article for about a week. BTW, it is ChrisO's offensively cited paragraph, written in a narrative style which beguiles the reader into thinking that Hubbard actually stated what Atack says he stated, i.e. "Hubbard said ....". That is just a very poor citation. It seems to quote Hubbard whom, I beleive, never said what Atack says he said BUT it is perfectly okay with me if Atack's book says that Hubbard said that as long as the attribution is appropriately made so a reader can know that it is Jon Atack who is saying that Hubbard said .... So. After a week's of discussion you revert with no discussion. Typical. I have clearly laid out the problem, I have clearly attempted to get that paragraph appropriately cited. I have even helped to cite the previous paragraph. This is another one of ChrisO's very very poor citations. I plan to revert that paragraph once a day until it either has a good citation or is gone forever from the article. It is directly contrary to WP:V and in particular it is contrary to "burden on the person making the citation". Happy Ho Ho's. Terryeo 23:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo, someone who didn't know you might think you actually meant what you said about wanting things to be "appropriately cited". But the fact is that you have been known to request citations and then, once you receive them, remove them -- on more than one occasion. That is, in fact, just a small sample of the kind of behavior that has led to the current RfC on you. Please don't insult us both by pretending that you actually just want the paragraph "appropriately cited". -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed question

Antaeus, I removed a question from the IP address that has been repeatedly posing unwelcome questions unrelated to encyclopedia building. I have advised the user to concentrate his efforts on our project, and limit his discussions to issues directly relevant to Wikipedia. He has been warned that ignoring this advice may result in a suspension of his editing privileges; drop me a line if he causes any trouble. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Websites as Secondary Sources

WP:RS states: Personal websites and blogs may never be used as secondary sources. Please note, I am not adding emphisis, that is how the statement appears on that page. Terryeo 15:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo, among the material you dishonestly removed citations to the 1957 Martin Gardner book Fads and Fallacies In the Name of Science.[30] I have a hard copy of that book resting on my right thigh right now as I type these words. Your presumption that any citation to the book can be removed because the chapter on Dianetics happens to be available online, and I might have been working from that copy of the text, and that copy of the text might contain a transcription error, and that transcription error might potentially alter the meaning of what's cited, is quite frankly idiotic.
If you actually read WP:RS instead of cherry-picking out little bits and pieces you can misapply to waste people's time with, you'd realize that WP:RS allows editors to do their own transcriptions when the original is available for the transcription to be checked. If Andreas Heldal-Lund were to come to Wikipedia himself, he could transcribe relevant material from a copy of Fads and Fallacies into an article, and that would in no way contravene WP:RS. Are you still going to nonsensically assert that because Heldal-Lund did his transcription onto his own website instead of directly onto Wikipedia, that any citation which comes from that book must be removed because one of the sources from which the person inserting the citation could have gotten the text might have been Heldal-Lund's transcription stored on a "personal website"? You have no excuse. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You raise a valid issue when it comes to citing sources for published works. The only lasting good I've done on here is to get "personal websites" and particularly Xenu before the arbitrators whom are voting on its use in Wikipedia articles. The rule is, as you know, no personal websites may be used as secondary sources. You raise a valid issue because your original research which rested on your thigh when you posted, tells you how accurate that particular article is. But I'm not longer a person of consequence in your arguement that Xenu.net may be used as a source of any information within any article. The arbitration committee is your terminal to communicate with. Terryeo 23:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"your original research which rested on your thigh" -- you know, at this point, I really can't blame you if you're trying to create the impression that you're a complete incompetent who has no idea in hell what he's doing. That is, after all, the only other possible explanation for your behavior besides "a completely untrustworthy liar." However, at this point, you really should comprehend what "original research" actually is and why Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science really pretty utterly fails to meet that description. If you actually don't comprehend it by now, it should give pause to anyone who thinks Dianetics does good things for your IQ. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, a little hint to you: Editing other people's words on a talk page is not permissible. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I did that. Terryeo 23:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo a-go-go

Thanks for the heads up about Terryeo's edits of others on his talk page. Looks like we'll have some changes on the non-talk pages soon; take a look at [31] (scroll down to item 2.2). BTfromLA 21:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's the situation. I'm banned from editing in the articles for a while. However, the issue which has long driven the difficulties in the articles is also being confronted and will be voted on by the administrators. Fahrenheit451 attempted to modify WP:RS to suit his fancy, placed a racial slur on an experienced editor's page whom was communicating with him on that talk page and Vivaldi has engaged to modify WP:RS as well. The issue, "are personal pages allowed as secondary sources in Scientology articles" is at last being confronted. The administrators can argue it out, we've spent months with it. By the Way, Feldspar, I deleted your post form my page because you used invective language. And let stand what was real communication. This isn't an uncommon practice on here and I'm not the only one who does it. One more point, BRfromLA's idea of simply ignoring what isn't liked, so that 2 sides become more and more enbrittled isn't going to be a fruitful idea. Terryeo 19:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the Way, Feldspar, I deleted your post form my page because you used invective language. And let stand what was real communication. Blatantly false. I pointed out to you that the information you removed was from sources that would be perfectly acceptable if they were mirrored nowhere on the Web, and that common sense pointed out that such a source did not become unacceptable if a "personal website" chose to mirror it. You removed that, as well. You weren't concerned about "invective language", Mr. "Beanbrain-Dogfood-Idiot"; you just thought you could use "invective language" as a plausible excuse. What a pity for you that you have no idea just how pitifully implausible your excuses really are. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
ah, I see. You would rather bring that one up than move on. well, okay then. Terryeo 11:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"move on"? The state of affairs I would like to "move on" to is one where you no longer waste the time of contributors who are actually acting in good faith. Thankfully, it doesn't look like that's too far off. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
More Office of Special Affairs smear tactics from you Terryeo. Where and what was this alleged racial slur you accuse me of? Looks like you are acting as a "third party" to pit editors against each other. Vivaldi and I have every right to edit. You are condemning us for that now. --Fahrenheit451 02:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the notification, Terreyo removed a discussion I had with him [32]. Terryeo's m.o. is simply to remove or mutilate any correspondence he doesn't agree with, hopefully the injunction will limit such tampering to his user & talk page. ˉˉanetode╡ 19:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's the way I've been doing it. Removing by deletion old chat. On more rare occassion I removed personal attack or uncivil language. Yep, that's a good example Terryeo 00:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Editing other people's words, removing chunks right out from the middle without so much as an edit summary to explain that what is on the page is not what those people actually said -- I'm not sure I'd call it a good example, but it certainly is in keeping with your general habits! -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was better than the emotionally invective foul language you used. Terryeo 23:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. It was not better. What you did was underhanded and dishonest, and while personal attacks are to be avoided, they are a hundred times better than sneaky selective editing like yours. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
all righty then, you prefer it otherwise, I have duplicated your preference in the area. Fine, good. Terryeo 11:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo is still disrupting the wikipedia editing process. Here are some documented examples: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Terryeo/Proposed_decision--Fahrenheit451 02:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

<blink> Terryeo 23:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The correct information about Dianetics

Your edit summary states: "Antaeus Feldspar (Talk | contribs) (no, auditing is purported to treat the actual conditions -- the fact that Dianetics considers colds, arthritis, radiation sickness etc. to be nothing more than "mental stress" does not make it so)" in the Dianetics article and that has been a very very big point of contention with the medical community and Dianetics since 1950. The Church of Scientology gave it up, they found it to be an impossible arguement to state that Dianetics treats the human body's conditions. It might or might not happen, but Dianetics and the Church aren't going to argue whether it does or not. If placed as a historical presentation of Dianetics to the public, then that might be accurate. But not for a long time, maybe it was 1955 or something when they gave up stating that they treat medical conditions, or implying they treat medical conditions. Call it a brief "fad" if you like, heh. Terryeo 21:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but you're incorrect. The Church of Scientology still publishes Hubbard's claims that auditing will cure physical conditions, and not as a historical curiosity, but as a current claim of "this is what Dianetics can do for you". If you want to verify it, you can find it the same way I did, on the first page of Google results for "Dianetics" and "arthritis". You can even find video of Scientologists making the claim if you like: [33]. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see, you cite "xenu.tv" as a source for your statement. OK. Well, the Dianetics website might be able to tell the public what Dianetics treats, probably. They don't present that information. Happy Ho Ho's. Terryeo 19:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I cite Scientology Missions International as a source for my statement. What, didn't you read what I wrote, or were you too lazy to Google on "Dianetics" and "arthritis" as I said and find the proof you (weren't) looking for on the very first page of results? The video evidence of a Scientologist stating on camera that Dianetics cured her mother's arthritis was just offered as langniappe. =) -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I find it hard to believe that a man who can use words like "reprehensible" can't observe the difference between, "Dianetics treats arthritis as a regular practice" and "Jane Smith, on Dec 22, stated 'Dianetics treated my mother's arthritis' and she is happy about it". Miscaviage stated his allergies were treated, there have been many personal attestations. But Dianetics doesn't treat medical conditions. It confuses me that it is an issue at all. 65.146.33.28 19:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)Oppsy, I seem not be logged in. Terryeo[reply]

Martin Gardner

Right, you state, "You didn't "remove an external link reference to Xenu.net", Terryeo. You removed everything on the page that had to do with Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, and used a link to Xenu.net as an excuse for doing so." So the way to do it would be to only remove the link to the personal website, but leave all of the other information intact, right? Terryeo 12:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, the way to do it would be to leave it alone. I mean, not for you, of course, since your objective is maximum disruption of the encyclopedia, but it's clear to anyone who's actually thinking about it that if there is clear reference information that would allow anyone to look up the original if they chose, adding a convenience link does no harm at all, and that is why such convenience links are in fact recommended in the style guides which you should have read. -- Antaeus Feldspar 13:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My intention is to "maximize disruption?" That verges on a personal attack, Feldspar. Apparently you still consider that it is perfectly okay to go to a personal website and quote a book, document or paper, insert it into an article and provide the link to the personal website it is on. That procedure puts Wikipedia into a less reputable situation than to quote and cite the same information from a website which is not either a personal website, nor a blog, nor a newsgroup. You notice, the procedure which I mentions would cause Wikipedia to be more stable, secure, its links more well established, the articles on such sites more dependable, etc. etc. rather than the "disruption" which you state is my intent and which sounds very much like a personal attack, it assuming bad faith. But, that one, for now, I'll let it go without initiating a personal attack procedure. :) Terryeo 02:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Terryeo, I am not "assuming" bad faith. I am deducing bad faith from the copious evidence you have given us which has no other possible explanation other than your bad faith, including making knowingly false claims about myself and other editors. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OCRT

Is the OCRT the personal website of a Wikipedia editor? Or did I misread your comment? -Will Beback 01:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OCRT isn't the personal website of a Wikipedia editor (at least, if Bruce Robinson edits Wikipedia, I've never heard of him doing so) but it certainly seems to me to be a personal website in the sense meant by WP:RS: the content, while well-written and occasionally insightful, has not been published by a reputable source. It's simply the personal opinions of the site owner, formatted in an academic style. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, now I see I was misreading you. Thanks for the clarification. -Will Beback 01:47, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are you goint to remove the OCRT references from the List of groups referred to as cults? cairoi 18:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of religions once classed as cults...

Would you consider changing your vote to keep the information if it were merged with List of groups referred to as cults or expanded into a broader topic: "The Transition from Cult to Religion." That might make a very interesting wikipedia article. cairoi 18:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Muhlenberg anon

I've blocked 192.104.181.229 and 192.104.181.227 for 24 hours. If he resumes his previous behaviour, I will employ longer blocks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. As the primary target of his harassment, I of course fully support those blocks -- hopefully he'll learn his lesson, and further blocks won't be needed ... -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please respond at Talk:List_of_groups_referred_to_as_cults#Removed_one. If in doubt, read Tantra. --Pjacobi 17:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On bypassing redirects

While true, that section only really addresses server load. Bypassing redirects is good to reduce chances of having double redirects (which are bad because they make people click an extra link), especially when it's not doing something like [[direct|indirect]], as the link I did was piped anyway (assuming we're talking about the one I did in The Colbert Report, which was the only one I did recently, IIRC. (Interestingly, there was recently a discussion in Wikipedia about this with me arguing the WP:REDIRECT side, but whatever) --Rory096 04:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SRA

Hi, I read with interest the discussion re devpt of SRA article. Currently experiencing problems with an article on SRA/moral-panic casualty Peter Ellis. Wonder if you would care to skim read the article and perhaps enter discussion with any ideas on how to the article can move ahead from seeming deadlock.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hugh_McGregor_Ellis#The_case

For background reading see http://www.peterellis.org.nz/

Richard 12:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo's talk page ban

Antaeus, I've just asked all the arb com members who voted on Terryeo's case to take a look at the talk page discussions that suggest Terryeo be banned form Scientology-related talk pages. I suspect it is too late--they may be about to close out the case. If you have any thoughts about ways to get some action on this, and perhaps for dealing with the larger issue of creating policy to guard against "dev-t"-type disruptive behavior, please advise. BTfromLA 17:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Be civil!

Please be civil with User:24.15.61.184. Egging him on isn't going to help matters any. Thanks! --Zpb52 17:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry if it seemed an uncivil way to express to him that vandalism wasn't helping his case. I've tried merely ignoring him in the past, but if that had worked, well, he wouldn't have come back for another spree. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is closed. Details of the final decision are published at the link above.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 16:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

your last edit of Scientology medical claims

That was a pretty good edit. I do suggest you change the line 1 to omit the statement that the e-meter "treats" the reactive mind. Each e-meter bears a legend that "By itself, this meter does nothing. It is solely for the guide of Ministers of the Church in Confessionals and pastoral counseling." So the article needs to refer to the auditor's use of the e-meter. I don't agree with your use of the term "body thetan" since it is used nowhere in the Church's websites or literature, but I understand that the "Xenu fans" insist on including that reference, no matter how inaccurate.

But, would you agree that the e-meter is to assist the auditor? dcottle561

Well, I thank you for your compliment and your polite approach. I looked at the introduction and didn't see a need for the E-meter to be mentioned in the summary, so I removed it. I agree that it is technically correct to say that Scientologists don't claim the E-meter itself can diagnose any medical condition or apply any treatment. I also think that it is highly misleading to stress that particular point. The Church of Scientology is still publishing Hubbard's claims that coronary disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, the common cold and other ailments are really just problems created by the reactive mind. The Church is still claiming that problems caused by the reactive mind can be cured by auditing. The Church freely admits that the E-meter is an assist to the process of auditing. The Church insisting that the E-meter 'doesn't treat anything' is like a builder insisting that his carpenter's level doesn't build any buildings. Stating that the level itself doesn't build anything is accurate. Implying that it isn't used in the process is not.
As for the issue of body thetans, why are you so sure that you have the accurate information on them? That's an honest question: unless you are on the other side of the Bridge already, you know that your religion still has secrets that you won't be allowed to learn until you've done more auditing and are ready. Why are you so sure that this isn't among them? Even if you decide that you don't believe all the former Scientologists who have said "Yes, I went through the OT III levels, and yes, they do talk about X--- and Teegeeack and body thetans", then why don't you believe the testimony that Warren McShane provided in court as Scientology's witness, not only confirming the story of X--- and the volcanoes and the body thetans but claiming that it had never been secret? Please, if you can explain to me, I'd love to know: why are you so sure that references to body thetans are "inaccurate" when you don't know whether they're accurate or not? -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I did not intend to imply that your insertion of "body thetans" was inaccurate. Whether that is, or is not, a part of any Scientology secrets was not my issue. I merely noted that none of the Church of Scientology's websites or publications that I am aware of mention them. By the way, who is Warren McShane? Do you have a reference for his testimony? I'd love to read it.dcottle561 19 May 2006

Oh, I'm sorry. That's what I thought you were trying to imply when you added "no matter how inaccurate" to the end of your sentence. As for the question "who is Warren McShane?" -- well, at the time he testified in Civil Action No. 95B2143 [Sep 1995], Religious Technology Center, Plaintiff, vs. F.A.C.T.NET, INC., et al., Defendants, he was Deputy Inspector General of Legal Affairs for the Religious Technology Center. Up to about September 2005, he was Deputy Inspector General of External Affairs. After about September 2005, however, his name, along with that of Marty Rathbun, started being removed from official Scientology sites as if the two had never held such high-ranking positions. If you go to http://faq.scientology.org/page18a.htm you'll see Miscavige and Rathbun and McShane, listed as the RTC Board of Directors. Then try to find any mention of McShane on the RTC website or any acknowledgement he was ever there. Then try this search on Google: 'site:rtc.org "Deputy Inspector General"' It looks like not only McShane but even the position he held have just ... disappeared.
McShane was with the Church since 1973 -- more than three decades. He's been a major executive of the Church since 1983 -- more than two decades. Now he's been written out of the Church's version of history. After over twenty years of service, he's been disappeared with barely a trace left here and there. Maybe you can explain for me, because I honestly am curious: how do you deal with knowing your Church will do things like that? Do you just say, "Well, they must have done it to him because he was secretly an SP all those decades, and they'd never do anything like that to me because I'm not Suppressive"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have been nominated for adminship :)

Are you going to accept at all? - Glen TC (Stollery) 17:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Understood, I thought I'd nominate you after I saw your name on the Esperanza Administrator Coaching page. You may want to delete the post above so no one is aware and tries to pressure you (your call). But there's no rush as the page will just sit there until you're ready (AFAIK) as it hasn't been linked to off the main WP:RfA page. At the end of the day however I don't believe you'd have to change much over and above what you're already doing as you do a great job! Thanks for getting back to me anyway :), - Glen TC (Stollery) 19:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
harasssment from Terryeo (talk · contribs) removed
Antaeus, I bet you'd rise to it as admin--you'd be able to restrain yourself from abusing the cloak of authority (you'd want to recuse yourself from scientology-related decisions, I'd guess, for starters). Anyway, I'd endorse Glen's nomination--you've shown yourself to be clear-headed and articulate, valuable attributes around here. And by the way, a personal kudo for your recent witticism--"DevTpedia" caused me to burst out laughing. BTfromLA 17:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Antaeus, I've reverted the votes in your RfA, as it isn't in progress yet. --Pjacobi 22:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's moot now, as I've declined the nomination, but I doubt very much that there is anything in policy which supports removing all votes that have been cast, including that of the nominator, if the RfA is not "in progress yet". You'd think that if Wikipedia had policy dictating "the nominator may not cast a vote until the candidate has accepted the nomination" -- and took this policy seriously enough to authorize removing all votes that were cast outside that period -- that the policy would instead entirely prohibit initiating an RfA before the candidate has accepted. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for causing any troubles. Besides my impression (I can't vouch for it being policy), that no votes outside the actual candidacy period are valid, I've acted primarily because any votes tend to attract more votes. I'd very much doubt, that you'd have lost your nominator's vote. If he hadn't noticed himself, someone (e.g. me) would have notfied him. --Pjacobi 01:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

your comment is requested (NLP)

I read your comments on Helen Wu [34] and completely agree. On the Talk:Neuro-linguistic programming page, we have a similar style of writing. I'd really appreciate your comments on the page to help direct the page towards wikipedia standards. --Comaze² 04:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scientology mediation case

Greetings Antaeus: I'm currently mediating the Scientology case down at the Mediation Cabal, which focuses on the argument surrounding the Office of Special Affairs article over whether particular quotes by Tory Christman are acceptable for inclusion. User:Nikitchenko has recently requested your involvement in the mediation case, which is located here:

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-04-11 Scientology

I would like to invite you to participate in this particular mediation case, if you feel it is relevant and that you are indeed involved in this case. However, it seems unclear to me whether you are involved in this particular dispute or not, so I would be most grateful for your input. Of course, the Mediation Cabal is entirely informal, and if you don't want to get involved, that's fine. It might, perhaps, help to bring this dispute to some sort of amicable resolution if you did enter as a party to the case, since I should expect you would have greatly valuable input to the proceedings. Thank you very much. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 06:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Nicholas. I do feel that it is very relevant -- after all, if Nikitchenko is going to make trumped-up reports to WP:AN/I about me based on that article, then he's pretty much ensured that I'm "involved", eh? I very much appreciate the heads-up (and on a personal note, I'm glad to see that you're back in Mediation work, which I gathered was a major stressor for you before...) -- Antaeus Feldspar 12:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My response:

Take a look bud: User_talk:Nikitchenko, thanks mate Glen StolleryT C 16:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My sincerest apologies

Antaeus, I've just read some of your recent contribs, specifically those involving your RfA. I just want you to know that I truly meant it as a mark of respect on my behalf towards you: I've never nominated anyone for adminship before (truth is I rarely even vote) and I honestly meant it to be a badge of honor for you. If I had known for a second that it would cause you undue stress or even that you weren't interested please know I never, ever would have lodged it. As I said I saw your post for adminship training at Esperanza and presumed (ignorantly) that you were interested. I apologise once again, and truly regret having filed it. In you hope you know the intent which I had, apologies once again, - Glen TC (Stollery) 17:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No apologies needed, Glen. I did take it as a mark of respect and as an honor that you thought I should become an admin. I never thought you were being careless of my feelings and if someone had suggested that I would have set them straight. I'm only sorry that at this time in my life and health, it's not a challenge that's best for me to take up. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a relief, I was panicking a bit when I saw your comments to User:Pjacobi - the thought that it had actually in some way affected you negatively was upsetting to say the least. Please let me know if your situation changes and I will first out of the gate nominating you. :) I don't know anything specific about your health (obviously) but I sincerely hope it improves (perhaps auditing would help? - lol!). God bless matey, - Glen TC (Stollery) 17:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right; it needed work. See what you think now. –Steve Summit (talk) 05:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice; a lot of subtle but effective improvements. I touched up one or two other points. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation Cabal case

The Mediation Cabal: Case change notification

Dear Antaeus Feldspar: Hello there. I'd like to let you know that in a Mediation Cabal mediation case that you are involved in, or have some connection with:

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-04-11 Scientology

I've made the following changes:

Nikichenko has now been blocked, case closed [35]

I would be most grateful if you would please have a look at the mediation case page linked to above, and participate in the current stage of the mediation process if you wish. Of course, participation is completely optional, and if you don't want to take part in this mediation, that's perfectly OK. :-) If you have any questions or concerns relating to this dispute, the mediation, or the Mediation Cabal in general, please do let me know. Thank you very much. Best regards, NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 16:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey bud, re the category for the above; do you think it's best in its current or Category:Scientology beliefs and practices? - Glen TC (Stollery) 07:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about this one, actually. I could make arguments for "beliefs and practices", "controversy", or both. -- Antaeus Feldspar 12:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa I am totally confused

Hello. Aparently I have offended you? On my (former) article Child Protective Services; After sepnding hours writing and editing it, (and alas yes also using other sources, AND noting them AND referencing them as well as I read how in the user guide) I see that you have totally deleted my entire article - not just marked it or any one part, where I may have made a mistake knowing HOW to use material in an article! I did a LOT of research and work on that article, and I work in the field (hence my username) and while I AM new at wiki, working at trying to learn and do things right, the articles I DID use were written by my MOTHER (her research at Princeton for this very article WE are very proud of) and I very much have her permission. How do I show that any more than with a direct reference in the article? While SHE is not UP on what a wiki is, she was delighted in having SOME of her work featured here last time I asked her. She would tell you the same, and that was only SOME of the article as well so why is it ALL deleted? MOST of that article I either wrote on my own, using many sources and my own knowledge, and assimilated that way. WHY delete the ENTIRE article and not just mark or work with the parts that you felt were not right or tell me? How is someone supposed to contrib if they are just wholeheartedly deleted when they try?? NOt even a NOTE on the talk page! Geez. I was out of town for the Memorial Day and I get back to this. Help! Please advise/explain. I NEVER meant to do anything wrong HERE! I love wiki and spent HOURS working on that and hardly ALL of it was a copyright issue even IF you didn't know that or I didn't reference it right. How am I to learn?? I am totally lost on this one. I await your respose eagerly. cpswarrior 16:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, please calm down.
Second, please note that "your" article (please consult WP:OWN if you don't know why I put the possessive in quotes) was not "deleted". Deletion is a different procedure, and if the article had been deleted, you would not be able to go back into the edit history and see the complete text of what was in the article after every edit. The procedure that was followed was Wikipedia's established procedure for dealing with possible copyright violations; if you had read the notice that was placed on the page as part of the procedure, you would note that it shows you the steps you should take if you hold the copyright to the material or have permission to use the material. You have not taken those steps.
Thirdly, and importantly, please realize that "does the contributor have copyright to the material or permission to use it otherwise" is not the sole question at issue. There is also the question of whether material that was written for some other venue will be appropriate without modification for Wikipedia, and it may surprise you to learn that for the average academic paper the answer is NO. Why? Because the purpose of an academic paper is to put forward and support with evidence a thesis -- a hypothesis or opinion such as "Child Protective Services is good" or "Child Protective Services is bad" or "Child Protective Services started from the best motives but has lost sight of its original purpose" or the like. Wikipedia articles, by contrast, must be written from the Neutral Point of View (NPOV), which means that it may describe hypotheses or opinions on the subject but should not be trying to convince the reader of the rightness of any thesis -- neither by coming out and directly advocating that thesis nor by giving undue space and attention to that thesis.
This means that just having permission from the American Family Rights Association to use their highly opinionated essay "Problem Statement" nearly word-for-word -- and even if that essay was a peer-reviewed work, which I can find no evidence that it is -- doesn't mean that you should be including it nearly word-for-word on Wikipedia. As for your statement that you wrote the majority of the article on your own, merely assimilating observations from others, I must respectfully question whether you took as much care with adapting the work for Wikipedia as you claim you did, seeing as there are not one but two places in the text of the article where you neglected to remove a parenthetical note to "(See the article by Courtney in this journal issue.)" -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay I understand, agree. I can go back and work slowly to try and clear up the copyright and rewirte the parts of the article to make sure it is nutral and not POV. I do understand what you mean. I am used to others editing and then speedy deleting things before I even get past the first edit. I can't see the need to write EVERYTHING in the sandbox simply because of speedy deleting editors. I feel they are as hasty as anonymous contributors sometimes in viewing deletes, talks and edits over the years. I have contributed other articles for scientific matters without the issues at hand. I understand this is a highly charged and opinionated issue. As for the parenthetical notes, I HAD editied, re-written and corrected most of them, but worked until too tired one night and reverted to an earlier edit in clipboard, and missed those at that time. In so doing I lost a lot of work and edits, but I see what you mean and how it looks the way it was left. Note: My collegues in the field agree with it (the articles) and they have reviewed them. How is that to be stated if it is fact and still can be considered POV? In my work, most agree that 'cps' has become (is becoming/always was) a big governmental industry, and I felt that readers should know the truth and not what some government pamphlet would have you believe that they are "there to help families" as they state it. It is sickning. How do I write this kind of information without avoiding the truth and still satisfy NPOV rules? I can see that writing "Big oil is a monopoly and makes huge profits at the expense of consumers" would be POV, but if it is TRUE that oil companies are monopolies, are making huge profits, and that it IS at the expense of consumers, where do you state that without the nutrality replacing truth, without simply sounding like Sean Hanity stating another guised opinion? "Some poeple feel that big oil companies are making huge profits" sounds so weak and right-leaning. I do appreciate your answer. I will continue to read and edit this and I will try my best to correct it in a way that meets all the rules. I would like there to be a CPS article that explains more than what the GOV wants you to read/think. I hope you will review it and agree at some stage. Thanks for taking time to answer so thoroughly. I will do better. On one last note, in reading what you suggested I do, I understand I do not "own" my work here. I will share one from WP:OWN that struck me about this edit though:

"Although working on an article does not entitle one to "own" the article, it is still important to respect the work of your fellow contributors. When making large scale removals of content, particularly content contributed by one editor, it is important to consider whether a desirable result could be obtained by working with the editor, instead of against him or her - regardless of whether he or she "owns" the article or not. See also Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Etiquette and Wikipedia:Assume good faith. My talk page is always open. I didn't even find a note or entry from you on the discussion page, just your name in the history led me here. I am not saying you worked against me, but I would have liked the chance to know. I feel with your answer you are working with me now, but it was a shock. cpswarrior 22:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the problem is that an NPOV article on the subject must include what "some government pamphlet would have you believe" -- correctly attributed to its proponents, of course, and not just "some government pamphlet". If you think the facts of the matter would convince anyone otherwise, then what you want to do is to show the reader those facts, and make sure they're well-sourced so that the reader knows why they should believe that those facts are factually true. To give an example, if you found reliable sources for two of the figures mentioned in the "Problem Statement" essay, that "Federal statistics say that there are approximately 3 million reports of suspected child abuse and neglect each year" but "The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services documents 900,000 as 'substantiated'", readers can see why those who believe CPS oversteps its bounds believe that. Another source is the 2000 Time article mentioned: what facts does that article provide? That's the direction I'd encourage you to look in. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I owe you a sincere thanks for being so helpful and patient taking time to explain all of that so well. I am going to attempt a total re-write (and properly sourced) version of the article this weekend, time permitting. I will be asking for your approval/advice before I resubmit it again or change the page-holder. I appreciate your calm manor with me. I have been very flamed and scorned in the past by people and wanted to just throw in the towel after trying. I feel inspired by your suggestions Antaeus. In my opinion you are a very good editor and an asset to Wikipedia. I would nominate you as an editor if you weren't. cpswarrior 21:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Way work, Thanks

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for your comment and for the work you have done to make The Way International page NPOV. I was just going to send a quick email but could only find this place to reply to. Delete this after you read it if you want, but again thanks! :) Lsjzl 15:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Television Puppetry

I removed Category:Television Puppetry because the category didn't exist, that's all. —tregoweth (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I was alerted about a possible abuse of personal attack parole by Terryeo but I cannot help noticing that your own comments lack civility:

""Janet" is a former Scientologist? Flunk, go back and clear your M/Us"

That's not really a nice thing to say to a scientologist, is it? I'm familiar with the jargon, sadly.

I realise that is a pretty old comment, but I'd just like to ask you to please resist the urge to goad Terryeo, whose own comment was pretty civil. I'm not taking action against Terryeo because I feel that he was deliberately goaded in this instance. --Tony Sidaway 16:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, looking at Terryeo's comments of "Those people whom you refuse to address are observing you, too", which I am just seeing now, it seems what you really mean is "I feel that you deliberately goaded him in this instance." Don't you think there's a bit of victim-blaming in that? I mean, do you realize that Terryeo has never stopped his own incivility of declaring that other editors are deliberately trying to keep Dianetics and Scientology from being presented in an NPOV fashion? He has even dedicated a page to such accusations; it's only recently (and at the prompting of NicholasTurnbull, who also made it clear to Terryeo that it would be done for him if he didn't do it himself) that Terryeo stopped calling us suppressive persons[36]. Are you saying that Terryeo treating us with that incivility for months is not enough goading to explain ""Janet" is a former Scientologist? Flunk, go back and clear your M/Us", but ""Janet" is a former Scientologist? Flunk, go back and clear your M/Us" is enough goading to excuse him making more comments of a "people are keeping tabs on you" nature? -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Watch out for 126.86.47.11

The guy's making innacurate edits and claiming they are correct. He changed "Suzuka Ohgo" to "Ohga" on the Suzuka Ohgo page claiming that "Ohga" is her name (when it isn't.) WhisperToMe 17:38, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your personal attacks

Please stop your personal attacks, User Antaeus Feldspar.User_talk:Terryeo#Feldspar.27s_statements_from_my_User_Page Terryeo 06:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Skeptics society

Hi Antaeus. I have noticed some strange and odd things on the NLP article. Most of the HKU skeptics society has been banned from editing on the basis of they are suspected sockpuppetry. I am a member, and I am worried about myself being banned if I make any objection to the NLP advocates removing verified information. I know at least some of them are not sockpuppets. I met Alice, Headley (Wei Qing), Hans, and Bookmain (Jim) a few months back, and Camridge (Liz) is also really nice. They are all therapists and academics. Do you think they will ban the whole of Hong Kong and China from editing that article? Also, I notice you have a grounding in editing pseudoscience subjects. I can send you some soft copy papers on NLP that the group gave me if you like. The article at presently seems to be going under some kind of censorship campaign. Some of it refers to scientology and other pseudosciences so I thought it may be helpful and "synergetic" for you. Helen Wu 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]