User talk:Random user 39849958

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Starting fresh

Time to archive. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

New Years resolution

I have a New Years resolution to bring a little order into my chaotic life. I went to OfficeMax and invested in file and accordian folders to help clean up my desk, I bought an In/Out mail sorting system from Crate and Barrel and for my car, I sprung for a detail job and the car wash manager sold me on Drop Stop, an auto accessory that helps keep things from slipping through the cracks! I am resolved to be a tidier and more organized person this year! Maybe that will translate into cleanliness at Wikipedia as well. :-) -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably best

It's probably best for you to make every effort to avoid ScienceApologist in the future. Please consider not follwing his contributions. Hipocrite (talk) 15:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 16:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Atropa belladonna

If you are reverting other editors' good faith changes, especially in the powderkeg topic areas such as pseudoscience and homeopathy, you must engage in talkpage discussion as well. Though you've been reverting multiple times at the Atropa belladonna article, there's not a single message from you on the talkpage. Please try harder to discuss controversial issues, rather than just battling it out in edit summaries. Thanks, --Elonka 19:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Chiropractic

Remember, you promised to voluntarily avoid chiropractic-related articles for two weeks.[1] This means to avoid List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, as well, even if you are not specifically using the word "chiropractic" in your posts. Please work on entirely different articles for awhile. Thanks, --Elonka 16:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts

Come on, please - I thought that we were in agreement that the title was kinda off (you moreso than me, but agreement is agreement) but the inclusion criteria were fine for making a useful list. This means we leave out Evolution (yes, I am caricaturing your points, but you are a reasonable enough editor that I trust you will get the idea) and anything else that would make the list ridiculous rather than useful to our readers. If you take Elonka's suggestion above (no opinion, myself), this may not matter, but can we please try to focus on moving forward to a useful, stable article? Regards, - Eldereft (cont.) 21:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

thank you

My RFA passed today at 150/48/6. I wanted to thank you for weighing in, and I wanted to let you know I appreciated all of the comments, advice, criticism, and seriously took it all to heart this past week. I'll do my absolute best to not let any of you down with the incredible trust given me today. rootology (C)(T) 08:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

question about a past mediation

I have been a registered wikipedia user for a while. I have done some - but not a lot - editing. I am not experienced with reading the arbitration and mediation issues. I was wondering if you could show me where the decision was posted for your request here: Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-04-05_Stephen_Barrett

I was wondering why the article on Stephen Barrett makes a point to say that his medical license is in good standing - obviously to answer questions about his license - but makes no mention of the fact that Barrett is not board certified - questions which were also raised about his license. I don't understand how this is not relevant for someone who has testified as a medical expert.

However, since I have had some small edits reversed within a day (and even 2 line comment on a talk page within an hour!!) for the Wiki articles on Stephen Barrett and Quackwatch - edits that I wouldn't have had a problem with anywhere else, imo. So, I figured I would look around since I couldn't believe it hadn't been brought up before. And this is where I found your mediation. Can you point to where this matter was decided, and why?

thanks.

Stmrlbs (talk) 06:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That particular mediation was abandoned with no consensus reached. For more information, please read this exchange. I simply gave up editing that article because too much ownership violations by editors who were hellbent on sheilding the subjects of the articles from any negative information - regardless of whether or not the information was completely and notably verifiable. As it stands now, the article is not presented from a WP:NPOV because it purposefully lacks any of the exisiting serious critiques of the subject. Feel free to edit there, but please be warned. You will be entering a mine-field where you and your edits will be accused of violating an alphabet soup of Wikipedia policies and guidelines - even though you and your edits are probably completely reasonable and justified. Good luck.-- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

oh my. Well, it is obvious even to a bystander that there is nitpicking and stretching of Wiki policies to perpetuate a certain bias in these articles by certain editors when you read the discussions. When a full quote is of Stephen Barrett's answer to the question of bias on his own website is immediately reversed for reasons of WP:SELFPUB and WP:UNDUE.. this is quite a stretch - if it applies at all. That had me wondering what was going on with this article.

Also, for Ronz to immediately revert an edit with just a cryptic comment "rv - both discussed multiple times at length - this article is about Barrett".. is intimidating to new editors when there are 13 archives of discussions. Many things are "discussed" on a controversial article - but just because something is discussed does not mean a decision has been made. He did post a reply to my talk page in response to my question on the discussion page of the Steve Barrett article, but he couldn't point me to where the decision had been made either.

NPOV - When looking over some of the history, I can was surprised to see so much discussion and argument go into the one negative review by Joel Kauffman, who has a scientific background. You would think that with as many positive reviews, there would be no problem with one negative review.. just to balance out that section. If these editors were really interested in NPOV and balancing an article. Now, it reads like an advertisement for Quackwatch. 5 Positive reviews, and one iffy that looks like it will be deleted. Funny how there are no objections from these same editors about the undue weight given for positive reviews.

You seem to have a lot of experience with Wikipedia.. how do you find out "what has been decided" for a topic? I don't want to bother editing something if a decision has really been made and this is Wikipedia's policy. However, if a decision has not really been made, then I don't want my edits reversed by people that just don't like edit and use this as an all encompassing reason for reversals.

Can a neutral editor be assigned to a controversial topic to keep things on an even keel between the different viewpoints? Has this been done for these topics and how would you know? or is every argument taken to arbitration?

If you don't have time to explain, perhaps you can point me to the part of wikipedia that explains this? or how consensus is reached and how it is marked? Thank you for any help you can give me in helping me to navigate the Wikipedia waters.

Stmrlbs (talk) 04:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

What has been decided? Nothing. There was never any consensus to add or remove the Kauffman review (and certainly nothing at all about the full quote from Barrett). You can read the archives, but you will see that no consensus exists. So if you are in support of adding the material, then I think you should add it and give your explanations on the talk page. If the people who remove the content fail to participate in the discussion or only give you a vague sense of their argument, then I would encourage you to keep pressing them for an answer. If they can't give you an answer but still won't let the material enter the article, then you may wish to seek methods of dispute resolution. I have gone through the process before with this very same material, but maybe you will have more luck than I. Let me know if I can be of further assistance. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind offer of help. I looked around more last night. I think I can figure it out, but if I get hung up, you might see me back.  :)

actually.. I do have one more question. Is there a place to put programming (as in wiki software) suggestions? I have some suggestions as to formatting/marking of certain "decisions" so that a search could find them easily. Wikipedia is huge, but sometimes refinements in the search function can really help. (and i realize they probably have a big queue of suggestions.. but no hurt in putting in one more suggestion).

Stmrlbs (talk) 23:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Really good question and I am not really sure, but you may want to start here: WP:RD/C. Let me know if that's the right place. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:25, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I never did get back to you on this. Here is where you would report a software bug, or put in a request for an enhancement to Wikipedia software:

Report Wiki Bugs / or Request a Feature or Enhancement.

Stmrlbs (talk) 03:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Stephen Barrett was not board certified, why are you dancing on eggshells about that one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roomservice007 (talk • contribs) 05:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable source asserting so, then feel free to include it in the article. Be prepared to have your edit reverted though, no matter how reliable your source is. That's been my experience anyhow. But who knows? You may heve more luck than me! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 05:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Stephen Barrett would be listed on http://www.abms.com/ (American Board of Medical Specialties) if he was board certified. He is not listed for Pennsylvania or his current state. I think that is a good enough source, don't you?

Stmrlbs (talk) 17:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think so. But I've tried that before and Opposition argued that you can't use a source to prove a negative. Mind you, the same editors made the "you can prove a negative" argument recently at Journal of Scientific Exploration. So maybe their stance on this argument has changed, rather than just flip-flopping to when it suits their position. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I see the flip flop. illuminating. So, I guess these editors are well aware that Barrett is not board certified.. they just don't want it in the article.

Well, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but an article like this needs an uninvolved neutral 3rd party to decide what is legit and what isn't. However, I realize that Wikipedia is shorthanded, so I guess that isn't going to happen. Too bad.

Stmrlbs (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I can certainly understand Stmrlbs concerns. There was a whole lot of dispute over that matter, with some editors arguing for and against inclusion for various reasons. IIRC (and please correct me if I'm wrong!), part of the problem was that reliable sources didn't deal with the matter. It was only sourced to an unreliable source referring to part of one court document (without us knowing the context) where it was brought up as an unfair and irrelevant "criticism" in a libel case. Even if we had the court document, there can be problems attached to using court documents if they are not cited elsewhere in RS. An added factor was that the one who did the criticizing is not a RS (actually blacklisted and indef banned here at Wikipedia), and using the unquestioned fact as a "criticism" would be improper, since it was irrelevant in practice. If an independent RS source could be found which mentioned it as a simple matter of fact, with explanation of its irrelevance throughout his career, then it might be eligible for use. Even then, it wouldn't be fair to use it as a criticism.

Historically it never was a problem for Barrett during all of his career, including testifying in numerous cases. That is because of the relatively few MDs from his generation who were board certified (IOW, he was in the majority); the types of cases in which he testified didn't necessarily need board certified witnesses; and the fact that expert witnesses don't always have to be board certified. There are actually examples of medical experts who are properly used as expert witnesses in medical cases who aren't even MDs. Expertise can apparently be established by other criteria, so it is apparently a judgment call in each case. Whatever the case, Barrett never had any problems because of it. Now if he had attempted to choose a different career path, at some point in time board certification might well have been an issue and likely a requirement. Things have changed since then, and board certification is much more necessary now, but I suspect that there are still non-board certified MDs teaching other MDs who are preparing for board certification. It's called "grandfathering". In such cases, a long career and vast experience trumps board certification when teaching new graduates. -- Fyslee (talk) 01:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Two points: 1) Barrett himself confirmed that he failed the Board Cerification exams at a time when 1/3 of his colleagues were Board Certified. 2) At Journal of Scientific Exploration just last week, you said that we can include the fact that JSE is not indexed in Web of Science based on it not appearing on WoS. Well, here we are. Stmlbs went to the ABMS and Barrett is not listed. Fyslee's words at JSE: The included sentence is a simple, easily falsifiable statement. Anyone who can show that it is indexed can just remove or modify the statement, using a citation as evidence for justification to do so. Now let's apply the same standards to Barrett: The included sentence is a simple, easily falsifiable statement. Anyone who can show that Barrett is board certified can just remove or modify the statement, using a citation as evidence for justification to do so. Does that sound reasonable, Fyslee? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Levine, evidently the editing standards are different. They shouldn't be, but they are. I added Barrett's board certification status and was reverted in less than a minute for bad source (I used the ABMC source). When I added the edit with Fyslee's added comment, that was immediately reverted with QuackGuru's and Ronz's favorite reason "see archived discussion" for an article with 13 archives! Then Ronz warned me on my talk page that I was being libelous, and violated WP:blp. Stephen Barrett's board certification status is not libelous as this is public information (and it should be).

All I can say is these are very heavy handed tactics. I really think this page needs a 3rd uninvolved party to oversee this page.

Can Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-04-05_Stephen_Barrett be reopened? (was it ever closed?)

Stmrlbs (talk) 21:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The mediator left some comments which makes it clear why mediation was halted. I agree with you. There does seem to be a double-standard at play here. However, I have posted a fair question on the discussion page for those who we perceive are applying a double-standard. I intend to read their responses carefully and will withhold the "double-standard" labelling of their actions if they provide a satisfactory answer. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

See WP:BATTLE, especially "Wikipedia is a volunteer community, and does not require its users to give any more time and effort than they wish. Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other users." --Ronz (talk) 04:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey Levine2112

Hey Levine2112. Great to join. Thanks for your message : --Zurih (talk) 09:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Peer review

I missed the comments on Wikipedia:Peer review/Fancy rat/archive1 until it was archived earlier today - sorry. I just replied to the questions there, and think it should be OK for GA. Good luck, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of File:221house-rat.jpg

A tag has been placed on File:221house-rat.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a non-free image with a clearly invalid licensing tag; or it otherwise fails some part of the non-free content criteria.

If you can find a valid tag that expresses why the image can be used under the fair use guidelines, please replace the current tag with that tag. If no such tag exists, please add the {{non-free fair use in|article name that the image is used in}} tag, along with a brief explanation of why this constitutes fair use of the image. If the image has been deleted, you can re-upload it, but please ensure you place the correct tag on it.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:File:221house-rat.jpg|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. hmwithτ 14:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool. I really had my doubts on using that but I thought is was worth a shot! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely. I uploaded multiple images that weren't allowed under policy until I learned the ropes. I'm glad that you're interested in adding images though, and I hope that I didn't sound too harsh in saying that it wouldn't work in that article. I was half-asleep. :P hmwithτ 19:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Not harsh at all! :-) I appreciate the education. I have uploaded some other images over the years, but I believe that they were ones I created myself. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:06, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Kinesiology tape

Fair enough, thanks for the note. It needs sourcing as I'm sure you are aware. I pruned it down. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Good pruning! I did some nominal Google research on the topic today and found some sources out there - the majority of which are commercial links and so it goes. That said, there are some scientific studies out there on the subject - mostly one-off case studies. Let's see what others dig up. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It sounds pretty notable. There must be stuff on Google Books. I figured it would have been okay to shoot it over to the Kinesiology article, and then those editors could have fought over it and sorted out what's worth including. I'm going through Feb. 23 page patrol and there's a lot of stuff that never gets checked. But if someone is wililng to work on stuff I'm almost always willing to defer to them. Crazy outcome with SA? I wonder what he'll do now. Anyway, take care and have fun. Thanks for your good efforts and collaboration. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The latest edits on the Kinesiology tape article page are why I redirected it (based on wat I anticipated if you will, which is proably not a good reason, but it wasn't the only justification). I felt that oversight, in the sense of more than just the article's creator, working on the article's content, as would have happened at Kinesiology, was needed. Anyway, no big deal. I see other anons have stepped in now and again with their own trims. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully it's just a new user who needs educating on procedures and sourcing etc. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Category:Genodermatoses

• Would you mind looking at another CfD I proposed? kilbad (talk) 21:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Fancy Rat

Hello saw your comments, my apologies for the delay... Was pretty busy. I have added my comments. --Bluptr (talk) 15:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:AGF

In this edit you state that "the nature of the original nomination of this deletion request and subsequent follow up nomination were an exercise in bad faith." Can you think of any other reason that one might make that deletion request and subsequent follow-up nomination other than an attempt to harm the encyclopedia? Hipocrite (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

My rational is that a link from a first name only to a person, when that person isn't well known, especially by that name only (except with WP), doesn't meet our redirect criteria. I wasn't aware of it until a posting on SAs page. I would think that Elonka wouldn't make such an edit now; and we can ask her when she's back. If you can give some reference of Elonka being synonymous with Elonka Dunin that would help. Verbal chat 21:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

My objection to the nom has been noted. Again, I apologize for my assumption of the motivation for the re-nom. Verbal, please recognize that in my eyes, you are an editor who does tend to WP:TAGTEAM with ScienceApologist. Perhaps my eyes have deceived me though. If that is the case, then again, I apologize to you. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your collaborative message here. While discussions may not always go the way one had hoped, I figure that as long as the articles are based on reliable sources and on consensus then we all win. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:14, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well said! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Gambian pouch rat

I'm not sure that Gambian pouch rat is correct. According to the reference,[2] the correct name is "Gambian Rat", or "Northern Giant Pouched Rat", so maybe Gambian rat, instead? In the Time article,[3] I think that "he is a bristly giant Gambian pouched rat" is more a description, and not suggesting that "bristly" is actually part of the name of the rat, and using Gambian together with giant pouched is a confusion of the two correct names. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 21:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I am no expert in this subject, so my best advice would be to be bold with moving the article to the name which you think is best supported by the sources. Then, we see if anyone steps up to revert or not. If someone does revert, then we can engage in discussion and see what is the most agreeable solution for all parties. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome

Thank you for creating a welcome page on my user talk page. I noticed that is more extensive than some of the other user pages I have seen. All the best. Closetindex (talk) 11:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)closetindex

You're most welcome. Happy editing! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting discussion thread begun

I have started a discussion thread here dealing with WP:NPOV and the article List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. I am definitely seeking so WP:3PO on the matter. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for the welcome! I noticed you changed the applied kinesiology article; I don't object to the change, but I wonder if the 3rd paragraph should be in the introduction at all - do we really need to know that 37.6% of chiropractors used this method in the introduction? Especially as it's almost repeated in the 'history' section. It just seems as though that might be an attempt to give undue credibility to AK by saying 'ooo look at all these people who use it too' - not that I'm suggesting that's what you were doing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CheesyBiscuit (talk • contribs) 11:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:Homeopathic remedies

Hi, I think you might find this CFD of interest -- and I would be very interested in your thoughts on the subject. Regards, Cgingold (talk) 23:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Question about reordering

Levine2112, I put your question below the rest of the discussion in a separate section , because I wanted to answer it, and the reply that you got from Chronie Gal did not answer your question.. but was just a diversion back to the old discussion about board certification. Chroniegal even said "Oh, as to Levine's question above I have no comment at this time because I haven't a clue what it is about, sorry".

After I moved it, I was promptly reverted by Verbal. And I guess I shouldn't have changed the position of your question, even though I did not change the content, since it is your question... However, can I ask you to move it to its own section? or repost the question under its own section??

because I don't think anyone will answer, but just continue discussing only the point of board certification (which is fine in the previous discussion, but it doesn't answer your question), and I do have some comments specifically for your question.

thanks, Stmrlbs (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Stmrlbs (talk) 03:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Homeopathy

I'm sure you've read the article on Homeopathy - every sentence there is criticised and no defense is being allowed. I'm new here (although I'm not a noob) and saw the mediation notice on the chiropractic page a coupla days ago. Can you put up such a notice on the Homeopathy Talk page or at least tell me how to do it, without getting blocked/banned? Thanks in advance for the help.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you are asking for here. Do you wish to start a new mediation? Or point to an old or ongoing mediation? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking you how to go about getting someone to mediate/arbitrate and make that article more NPOV. Not even a POV tag is being allowed on the article. Please help!-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Chiropractic

As a comment on this edit an experienced editor such as yourself should know that if a section is written in a way that you feel violates the NPOV policy, you should rewrite it to attribute the opinions to the sources cited, not simply delete the text. Deleting parts of an article because you happen to disagree with the conclusions of the cited sources is not acceptable. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There has been edit warring over this text for over a month now. I figured if we take it out of the equation, it would force a real discussion. Any help to facilitate such a discussion would be most appreciated! Thanks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)