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Mundane Astrology

I would like to ask you to please stop reverting the Mundane Astrology article without using the talk page. You also seem to not see that there are blogs sources cited as references on the page itself that you continually revert back to.Eagle Eye 23:53, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I have asked you to take it to talk numerous times, I have also responded to you on the talk page before you posted this message. I'm also already in dialogue with you on your talk page so what exactly was the point of this message? Saedon (talk) 22:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

No, you have not. I was the one who asked and who started the discussion. Listen, it is obvious that you are not being upfront about your reverts and that is a shame since you could have something valuable to add rather than to revert. Moreover, your reverts INCLUDE the same blogs as 'references' which shows that you do not have any interest in this topic other than to revert blindly. That is not what an editor does. If you continue, I will report you for violating Wikipedia guidelines and policy as you are not assuming good faith and clearly do not edit to improve an article's quality. Eagle Eye 23:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EagleEye (talk • contribs)

Now you're just being ridiculous. Check the page history, I asked you to take it to take multiple times and I responded on the talk page before you posted this message. Please do report me, you can do so at WP:ANI. Be careful of the WP:BOOMERANG. Saedon (talk) 23:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, you are not improving the article Seadon, and your reverts (and those of your friend Andy) continue to include blogs as references - the very thing you complain about yet you did not edit this or improve on it with references that do not link to blogs. Again, the talk page is for improving the article, but you spend your time complaining but not editing, referencing and sourcing. Why is that?Eagle Eye 00:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I have no friends named Andy, though I'm guessing someone with that name also reverted your edits? Secondly, yes I am improving it - I gave the example of how a text book is improved by removing a false claim, please stop your WP:IDHT attitude. You can help by removing other material which is only sourced to blogs, not by adding more. Saedon (talk) 23:55, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Editors can add as much material, sources and references as possible. There is no limit on this. I suggest you learn more about editing and writing rather than wanting to police Wikipedia and jumping down editors throats right from the get-go. Assume good faith and use the talk page. Thanks.Eagle Eye 00:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

So long as said material is supported by sources that are in line with our policies. Your material was not supported and was thus removed, and any further unsourced material will also be removed. That's the curl of the burl. Saedon (talk) 00:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Like it says in the section heading. Welcome back & happy hunting! St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 02:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks John. Now if only I could actually drink it ;). And don't worry, I won't be doing any hunting on GCN, though I did notice on talk that you've changed your opinion on the matter, mind if I ask what prompted the change? Saedon (talk) 02:18, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well-reasoned argumentation from the opposition and getting out of the thick of it for long enough to notice everyone's myopic focus on the first sentence to the exclusion to the rest of the article, and my additional myopic focus on some (possible) distinction (of logic-chopping pedantry) between the definitions of "narrative" and "myth" as drawn from a dictionary with no regards to context. And, eventually (I wonder if this would happen if Richard Dawkins would get some philosophical sense and become a Deist), I'm embarrassed to admit the argument was heated enough I never properly re-evaluated my position when new circumstances were brought to light while it was on-going, as is the duty of every hack philosopher. Oh, I want to vote against censorship of Muhammadan images too, so "it befits to fulfill all righteousness" and not (appear to) hold a double-standard. :-) St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 10:54, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

O? Did I manage to strike stillness into the fingertips of the great Saedon through my <insert attribute of speech or thought here>?! St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 05:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Haha no, I am notorious for taking days and sometimes more to reply to talk page messages :). Never could understand it myself but I have this weird aversion to it sometimes. I'm still curious though, exactly what line(s) of argumentation lead you to change your mind? Not looking to get credit or anything, I'm just always curious when someone changes position on something meaningful (and it's a rarity amongst humans, myself included).

Dawkins a Deist? I doubt that'll ever happen, though of all the outlooks on the universe that mankind has come up with deism is a bit serene. Some might say that the idea isn't even worth contemplation because the vastness of the universe would make it impossible to ever see it from the "outside." I hold the thought that if there is any sort of higher intelligence or divinity, it will be discovered by looking "in" and not "out," and by "in" I mean by deconstructing reality at the subatomic level. There's always the argument that we're all living in a simulation, and that always struck my as something similar to deism; I imagine the process of figuring it out would be similar as well.

On the myth vs. narrative thing, I really wouldn't have been pissed if it was a three admin close. It's usually impossible to know how far away from objectivity you are when in a heated discussion - as you pointed out - but I would have been apt to consider my position as wrong (or at least not right enough) had there been a better close. I also certainly could have reacted better. All over now and life goes on though, thank you for the kind words on the GCN talk page. SÆdon^talk 03:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it was a cumulative thing. I think the main part of it, maybe a plurality, is that my original argument backfired cut both ways - WP:UCN applies just as much to "myth" and "story" as it does to "narrative", except for my narrow focus on exegesis (understandable being a seminarian taking theology and Bible studies instead of the normal theology and canon law), which does very frequently use "narrative". That, and the arguments on my own side (keep) for "understandability" - if no one can understand "myth", how are any beyond the initiates of the third degree going to understand a distinction between "myth" and "narrative"? I'm pretty sure there were a few others too (the only one that struck me as wrong was the "uniformity" argument - apologies if that was yours), and, after the heated discussion, a general "What the fuck was that about? It's a God-damned article title, and both are God-damned near motherfucking synonyms! We argued for fifty pages of single-space over that shit?" [sic], as if I had just argued for a week on whether dogs were canis canis or canis lupus familiaris as if life depended on it. Once one is no longer actively arguing a position, one can sometimes begin to see the forest, as when one is arguing, one can only see the trees. Both sides had good points, but the behavior on the "keep" side was admittedly abominable. St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 18:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I've stopped visiting the page and working on the rewrite for the time due to the atmosphere, though I still hope to complete it for the WikiGrail. I find it ironic that I started off the whole string of debates by removing "myth" from the lead (and putting in outdated ideas on the documentary hypothesis in the lead, as the textbook I have/am assigned is by a lone wolf academic who is one of the few remaining who still teaches it - at least it was sourced to something!), only to go on to become a staunch proponent of keeping it there (and having to agree with atheists in the process...!) - give credit where credit is due, I came out of Islam and in to Christianity, so even if I don't float among the rarefied heights of the non-theistic freethinkers, at least I do change my mind occasionally (even on important beliefs). Too many never do. Ask me two or three years ago if I would have ever supported to have pictures of Muhammad in Wikipedia, or whether I would have been banned based on my comments in the RfC instead. St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 18:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Re EagleEye

You'll probably be better off ignoring EagleEye, while s/he is blocked at least. If s/he can't conform with policy, and refuses to listen, there will be a longer block soon enough. I've removed the linkspam from the article, and tagged it for POV and lack of inline sources - probably best to leave it for a day or two to see if there is any response from Wikipedia:WikiProject Astrology - if there isn't, it can probably be AfD'd or stubbed - I'll see if I can find any half-decent sources that might actually justify an article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I'm in the middle of telling him that I'm done with the discussion. Let me know what you end up doing with the article. I'm tempted to remove the "Houses and Signs" section as well because it just never seems right to have a list of astrological beliefs represented by one astrologer's opinion when there's no reason to believe his opinion is any more accurate than anyone else. Thoughts on that? Saedon (talk) 03:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, if we actually knew who it was sourced to, that would be a start. But yes, you're right, this is an endemic problem with astrology even those who believe in it can't seem to agree on what it is they believe in. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I ended up removing it and importing the science sections from the main article. I don't never particularly liked the lede wording in Astrology wrt pseudoscience but it'll do until WP:ASTROLOGY provides some guidance on the matter. SÆdon^talk 05:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that - it could probably do with a little tweaking to cover the particular topic, but it is a start. I'm not entirely convinced from what I can find from Google etc that 'mundane astrology' is a topic in its own right anyway - and if it isn't, there is little point in putting a lot of work into the article - instead, AfD, with maybe a suggestion that what little can be salvaged (if any) should go into the main astrology article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:54, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The Body Electric

You added a lot of tags for this article, and thus laid the ground for the total dismantling and annihilation performed by IRWolfie. (He removed 70% of the text in the two Becker articles.)

I think the article is supported by these arguments:

• Robert O. Becker was a prominent scientist, as evidenced by the number of peer-reviewed articles he has published. (The 33 articles for which he was the first author must evidently be listed in the Becker article - as a defensive measure. Writing that a PubMed search gave this list, can of course not be labelled as Original Research.)
• He wrote the book The Body Electric to summarize his research, so the book is notable.
• The book must be recognized as an authoritative source for the research results given in the article. (Internet sources can of course not be demanded for the details in pre-Internet research.)

How would you characterize the text deletion performed by IRWolfie? Could I restitute the article The Body Electric, or would I have to restitute the text in the Becker article? (How much easier it is to be a deletionist than a writer!) OlavN (talk) 21:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Olavn. My sincere apologies but I cannot for the life of me remember this page and currently it's a disambiguation page that didn't do much to help me figure it out. Could you possibly provide some more background or a link to the AFD discussion if there was one? Thanks. SÆdon^talk 03:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the history of the present redirect page The Body Electric, you will see how it was destroyed. OlavN (talk) 07:29, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok thanks, sorry that I didn't check that the article had a history. Going through it briefly, it appears as though the article was converted to a disambig page because the original article lacked the necessary sourcing. I think it might be possible to salvage an article but let me go through your points before we get to that. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Wikipedia's standards of notability (and I'm not 100% either as each subsection has its own rules for inclusion, such as sports, academics,etc.) but our policy is that notability is established by significant coverage in independent sources. In other words, no matter how "important" a topic might be to any given person or group of persons: significant, independent, third party coverage must exist on a subject for us to consider it notable enough for an article. The problem with the previous incarnation of the article is that it relied completely on a WP:PRIMARY source - the book itself - and not WP:SECONDARY sources.

It sounds like from what you're saying though that this person has a certain amount of notability that might transfer to the book as well, and if this is the case we can certainly have an article about it. I just looked up the notability criteria for books and you can read it at WP:BK. May I ask you to provide some sources that comply with WP:SECONDARY and WP:BK? If you can find a couple, how about you create the article at User:OlavN/The Body Electric and when it's ready to be published we can do so and figure out whether it should be the main page or something like The Body Electric (book).

Please do keep in mind though that if the sources are not of high quality then they probably won't be enough, as even with my help other editors will object to the material. SÆdon^talk 08:23, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI, the energyfields.com website would not be considered an WP:RS, nor would other similar publications. Ideally, we need mainstream sources as elaborated upon at WP:RS. SÆdon^talk 08:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Cheers for asking other editors to characterize my edits. The sourcing was terrible/non-existent as is evident from the material I removed [1]. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I have now written a new version of The Body Electric here. Notability and sources are mainly given on the accompanying Talk page. OK now? OlavN (talk) 07:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Short answer: no. Please give me a couple days to get back to you as I am short on time, but I'm looking forward to helping out. SÆdon^talk 09:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, going over the new article what strikes me immediately is that the article doesn't establish any sort of notability. I realize that you've pointed towards some sources on the talk page but this isn't really enough as the sources aren't currently being used in the article. I think it's possible though. Can you provide the links to the full text of the sources you mentioned on the talk page? Also, I'm not entirely comfortable with the way you've set up the overview of the book. Ideally, it would be better if we simply had a synopsis rather than a chapter breakdown (though this is stylistic and thus secondary to establishing notability). SÆdon^talk 08:57, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought I explained well enough in Talk how the notability of Becker supports the book, and how the university department history transfers this notability to the book. And the 440 references to the book from Google Scholar. I have now included some of these as secondary sources. Should more of this argumentation be included in the article? (The book reviews mentioned are too old to be located.) The way to specify the sources of the synopsis parts would be to give book page numbers in parentheses.

I have structured the overview into Part 1-4 in order to give the reader an organizing structure (and make the article more robust against text slashing). OlavN (talk) 06:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Some extra boasting is now added to the introduction. OlavN (talk) 07:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok point by point: (i) I understand your reasoning for splitting the sections but I still wouldn't recommend it. Generally we do a synopsis and don't get overly detailed. Because this is a fringe subject it's going to be subject to even more scrutiny (as you already know I'm sure) and having all that detail might be seen as POV pushing. See, for instance, A brief history of time, which is a famous book by probably the world's best known physicist and yet the overview section is a single paragraph. You may want to use this or another good physics book article as a template for your article (ii) Nothing counts for notability if it's just on the talk page or if it's in another article. (iii) Right now there are a list of sources at the bottom of the page but it doesn't seem as though they are used for anything and, indeed, may not even be relevant. The first article, for instance isn't about the book so it has no relevance to an article about the book; it appears this principle applies equally to the other sources. What you need are high quality publications about the book itself - not just the field of study. (iiii) In the references section you have an article that is an interview with Becker and so this doesn't work to establish notability either. (iiiii) You mention that there are reviews that are too old to find. Unfortunately these may be your best bet here and so I would recommend you attempt to track them down. Please keep in mind though that if the reviews are from WP:FRINGE publications then they will not contribute to notability. SÆdon^talk 00:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The article A brief history of time may be fine for those in the book distribution business, but it is miserable for those interested in (astro)physics. (I have read that book, and find the article miserable.) I intend to keep my POV for science contents. Those thinking about reading a 350 page physiology book will certainy want a one-page synopsis, and so will those who want to avoid reading the book. The book distributors will manage to skip the synopsis. Sorry about spending those kilobytes of the WP databases. (Splitting the synopsis according to book parts makes the "work" more difficult for aggressive text deleters.)

The main source for the article is of course the book itself. The sources at the end of the article have two functions: They corroborate the research findings mentioned in the synopsis, and they are samples of papers (from Google Scholar) referring to The Body Electric.

Does this article have to argue against the Fringe label? Does it have to say the book contains conventional physiological research, based on conventional physics? Does it have to repeat the listing of peer reviewed articles, including 9 in Nature and Science, given in the Robert O. Becker article?

The book publisher will apparently not answer my request for details about the 7 old reviews mentioned on the book cover, but I found and included a review in New York Times. Shouldn't this - and the notability bragging in the introduction, suffice to keep the article afloat? OlavN (talk) 08:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to draw your attention to the undue material that OlavN appears to be adding to the article: [2] and his introduction of fringe claims, for example see the section which begins "Having discovered the physiological importance of electricity in the environment,... IRWolfie- (talk) 09:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes that is certainly POV and problematic but it seems as though you've taken care of it. Sorry for the late response, I had seen I had a new message and put it on my todo list but since this section was old I completely forgot about it. SÆdon^talk 22:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

AN

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Coordinated_voting_by_Fringe_Theories.2FNetwork_participants_in_AfD_and_other_debates".The discussion is about the topic Coordinated voting by Fringe Theories/Network participants in AfD and other debates. Thank you.—Romulanius (talk) 18:12, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

ANI edit page vandalism

I pulled that off by editing the editnotice for the page; see Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Only admins can edit them, so even if you had found the page you would have needed to ask someone to fix it. I'll probably leave it at that, though; my RfA joke is much better. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Nice

Well done on the reply on the Objections to Evolution page, really well done. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:25, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Objections to evolution

Just wanted to send you a note. I appreciated your tone and kind response to my arguments. I disagree, but I can't argue with your approach and it was a nice change to the typical "you're an idiot, get out of here" replies I usually get when I voice something that (almost) everyone disagrees with. Hopefully I would be as gracious when talking to an evolutionist about Biblical theory... but probably not (we may be Christians, but that doesn't mean we are always nice). Good luck in your studies and may God bless your future! Ckruschke (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Saedon. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 23:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Ahh... that explains it.

I was curious when you said you started going through the diffs a couple months ago. I guess now that I see your old name, I understand better. Anyway, hello again Noformation.

Of course, this raises another curiosity: What happened to you? One minute you were encouraging WLU to get me banned, the next you were requesting the deletion of your own talk page. His preparations stopped suddenly. I assumed that he was hoping that you would file the ANI, so he wouldn't get hit if it bomeranged. I guess I don't really need to know. BitterGrey (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't recall trying to get WLU to get you banned, rather I saw some behavior on your end in an unrelated dispute that seemed inappropriate. Mostly I was trying to figure out what was going on, but I was leaning towards supporting WLU's side in the matter. Both of you guys emailed me a couple times, it went into my junk box and I didn't see it till much later, I didn't respond to either and have had no interaction on this matter outside of what you've personally read. I also have no intention (atm) of supporting any sort of sanction against you or WLU. As far as I'm concerned this is a long running problem between two editors with plenty of blame to go around and I would like to help find an amicable solution. As to why I left temporarily, that's a long story you can read at Talk:Genesis creation narrative, but I'd rather not get into it as it's just a dramafest. SÆdon^talk 01:53, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, drama. Joy.

So you've been going through WLU's difs for a couple months? What are your thoughts on them? Please be aware that you've only heard one side of the story. BitterGrey (talk) 02:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Honestly nothing, as I said at ANI I started to go over the diffs but it got overwhelming pretty quickly and so I didn't get deeply into it. It's true that I have not heard your side of the story, aside from what you've written at ANI, but again, I don't really want to get in to it. I'd really just like to find a way for you guys to get along and resolve the situation amicably. I'd especially like to not see anyone get blocked because we can certainly use good editors. With that said, I'm not sure how this will play out. I would like you to be aware though that I've found many of your comments to be unnecessarily aggressive and bait like. That doesn't mean that I'm biased against you, but please understand that my first impression was not the greatest (though I would love to change that impression). I won't get back into this until tomorrow or the next day but I'm curious to see how this will play out. Take care, SÆdon^talk 08:58, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

WLU has edit warred to make personal attacks regarding my sexuality, in effect calling me a pedophile. I tend to take things like that personally. Wouldn't you? BitterGrey (talk) 07:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not interested in being part of this dramafest anymore. Every time I try to talk to you about your behavior you point the finger at WLU and you're missing the point. WLU may have done things he shouldn't have, this doesn't excuse your behavior; they are different topics and you are seemingly unwilling to discuss the former. Please don't continue this line of dialogue with me here, if I have anything else to say I will post at ANI (but I don't). SÆdon^talk 01:25, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

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User talk:Schicagos

The user is not listening. Please stop posting to their user talk; I do not want to block them for talk page abuse. Tiderolls 00:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It would, after all, be unfortunate to garner attention from the internet overlords :) SÆdon^talk 00:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree it's comical. My hope is that they will shut up and more harm can be avoided. Call me an idealist...but, be gentle when you do. I don't know any overlords :/ Tiderolls 00:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

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Thanks!

Thanks for rewording the section Misconception on Evolution. Oct13 (talk) 01:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

No worries :). That's why we're all here...at least in theory. SÆdon^talk 02:50, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Practical logic fallacies

Moved to Talk:Creation–evolution controversy § Moved from my talk page

 – SÆdon^talk 06:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

re: Naprapathtreatments

Good evening.
CSD#R3 may only be applied to pages which are redirects but the "recently created" clause refers to the total time that the title was a blue-link, not merely the time that the page has been a redirect. The reason for that clause is that we can never know how many external links exist to a page. For pages created in the past few hours, we can reasonably assume that there are none. For pages older than that, we have to worry about link rot, an evil that we should avoid whenever possible. That's not to say that older links can never be deleted, they just can not be speedily-deleted under this clause.

Having said that, this particular redirect would be unlikely to be deleted at RfD. The general consensus is that a redirect must be actively harmful or confusing to our readers. Being grammatically incorrect is not a valid deletion reason. If it were, we would have to also delete all redirects in {{R from misspelling}} and all the other {{unprintworthy}} redirects. I will, however, add the 'unprintworthy' tag - that should have been done long ago. Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 22:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess I have a lot to learn about redirects. Admittedly this is an aspect of the project I haven't dealt with much, and I'm making some intuitive assumptions that I shouldn't be, based on the rest of the project. Thanks for the info. SÆdon^talk 22:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Redirects are commonly misunderstood. Thanks for helping make the encyclopedia better. (And thank you for the update. I do not automatically watchlist all edited pages.) Rossami (talk) 22:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

This helped out. I struggled with some appropriate verbiage, but it was difficult. Skeptics (like me) understand that skepticism is evidence-based. Like the word "theory" in science, skeptical has different meanings to scientists and the average person. And James Randi…well, quoting him is like quoting Einstein! SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

One more tiny little point. In science, the "scientific consensus" is pretty powerful. But like "theory" and "skeptic" the meaning is lost. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually trying to reword that section a bit more right now and I'm struggling with the verbiage as well. Can you look over it after I edit and see if you can't improve it? It's true that most terms we use are lost on the public and that's sad, I can't count how many times I've heard that evolution is just a theory and is therefore equal to creationism. I think that understanding the full implications of what it means to have a theory supported by scientific consensus requires at least cursory education in some more abstract concepts, e.g. logical positivism, and for the general public (who many times have a distrust in science) consensus isn't as compelling is it would be for you or I. SÆdon^talk 21:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I have the preference checked off that allows me to automatically watch pages which I edit. Anyways, I wrote a published article about Zicam, which I can't link because I've had enough issues with people attempting to out me around here. Anyways, Zicam is regulated by the FDA as a homeopathic product. However, according to our own article Zicam#Ingredients_and_use, zinc gluconate is only diluted 1/100 (I thought it was 2/100, I'll need to check that out). That means it's not really a homeopathic product although the manufacturers of Zicam have found a loophole to sell it. Now, the FDA considers certain potions as homeopathic only because they are just water. The problem with Zicam is that the FDA had to warn them of problems in the past, because zinc gluconate can, in a significant (though small) number of case cause anosmia, or loss of sense of smell. It really doesn't work in stopping colds or even reducing the course of the cold, but what can you expect? Anyways, my point is that Zicam really isn't a homeopathic product by the definition that's been established. It's simply a legal/regulatory loophole. Now reading more, I'm finding that paragraph problematic as an example. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 22:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Those were my thoughts exactly but without a source I couldn't find a way to integrate that distinction, so I just added the generic claim that Zicam was an exception, which should hopefully be considered a non-contentious deduction. Think you could find a source that compares Zicam to normal homeopathy, or alternatively you can email me and I can add the article you wrote at some unspecified future date? Btw, are you really worried about being outed? Googling your user name doesn't lead to much ambiguity... SÆdon^talk 22:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, absent my actually outing myself here, there is absolutely no evidence that this account is in anyway related to what you might find on google. It could be a random coincidence. And until I out myself here, I reserve the right to protest being outed by others. Them's the rules, and I believe that Wikipedia ought to strongly stand by privacy issues. But if I'm wrong, then, as a and admin, you could just rename this account to something of my choice. That'll keep my identity firmly in the closet. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 23:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, I can understand that perspective. Not an admin btw, not sure if you meant "you" or "the royal you." My guess is that you're gonna end up dealing with the issue a lot, but your interpretation of policy is spot on in my opinion. SÆdon^talk 23:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I thought you were an admin, so the you really meant you. It's never clear who is or isn't an admin. By the way, outing me will get an editor blocked. That'll probably reduce the problem somewhat. Back to Homeopathy. I made some changes, what say you? SkepticalRaptor (talk) 23:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it sure will and thankfully so, people get way too personal here on occasion. Easiest way to do an admin check: go to user contribs, bottom of the page there's a link called "user rights." There's some other tools down there as well. I have to take off soon, will check the homeopathy page tonight or tomorrow. SÆdon^talk 23:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I was hoping that Admins would have a huge star plastered across the top of the User Talk page. Of course, some admins might think that's just a big target. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 00:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Seamus & Romney Neologism

I undid the removal of the Romney neologism on the Seamus page. There is some history and precedent behind this article. There is an article called campaign for "santorum" neologism that has existed since 2006. Early this year, there was a move to create a similiar article for romney neologism. A decision was made that the romney neologism did not have the same level of media publicity as the santorum neologism, but that it should be part of another article. A decision was made that because the neologism was connected to the 1983 road trip, it would be included in the Seamus article. There is some discussion of this on the Talk:Seamus (dog) page under 'merge of new material'. Bearian was the administrator who proposed this solution. Debbie W. 21:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Would you mind keeping content discussion on the article talk page so other editors can engage in discussion as well? Thanks. SÆdon^talk 21:34, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Debbie W. 21:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Heads up! Varma Kalai martial art!

A reply has been posted here: Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics#Varma_Kalai. --Tito Dutta ^Message 00:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

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Seamus (dog)

I noticed that you have made edits to the Seamus (dog) article. There is a survey to determine whether the Seamus article should be kept, renamed, merged, or deleted. Thank you. HHIAdm (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC) Talk:Seamus (dog)#Consolidated survey

Hold on a minute

Hold on a minute Saedon, I was using xylon's laptop with my user id, nothing wrong with that, that's why the "technical data" looks the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revo Altros (talk • contribs) 00:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

So you're a WP:MEATPUPPET, which is about the same as far as WP policy goes (see also WP:BROTHER). I suggest both of you (if there are two of you) stop reverting right now or your IP will be blocked very shortly. SÆdon^talk 00:14, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

WRONG

The Forbes article merely mentions that the field is pseudoscience. You're not going to find a JAMA article that describes anything as pseudoscience, so MEDRS (as laughable as that is, because science has thoroughly and absolutely debunked acupuncture as nothing more than junk medicine) probably shouldn't apply. Rant done. Do as you will, it's not worth the trouble to actually show the average reader that acupuncture does not work. But let me go quote mine and research mine, because if that's how Wikipedia works, and your comments seem to support that, I'll do it. It should be fun. Another thing to blog about, and get people involved in how horrible the medical articles are here. You want MEDRS, you're going to get MEDRS crammed up the intestinal tract of the this article.SkepticalRaptor (talk) 07:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe not, but I've seen major journals refer to plenty of things as pseudoscience, there are some good examples on intelligent design. WP:PARITY gives us a good degree of leeway for sourcing when it comes to pseudoscientific articles that don't have good sourcing otherwise. For instance, a Forbes article would be fine on something like crystal healing. But our weight policy would seem to prohibit giving weight to a Forbes article when we have high quality review articles, which are WP's pinnacle of sourcing for the most part. I'm not sure why you think that using review articles is like quote mining, I don't think it is and quote mining is specifically mentioned in some policy or another as a no-no. As far as acupuncture being pseudoscience goes, I don't think it is and I've started a discussion on the talk page, please join in. Regarding the blogging, and not saying you intended this, but before you do so you may want to read WP:MEAT, I'd rather not see you get any flack. SÆdon^talk 07:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Auto Archiving

I noticed that you set up auto archiving for the Seamus talk page. Exactly how does that work? Debbie W. 21:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Roughly once every 24 hours a bot will stop by the talk page and check the timestamps for all the sections. Any section more than 20 days without responses will be move to Talk:Seamus (dog)/archive 1 and then archive 2, etc, after an archive fills to 100K. You can tweak the settings by adjusting the code I added to the page, if you wanted to make archives bigger for instance. SÆdon^talk 20:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the info. Debbie W. 20:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

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Vandalism? of Seamus article

Your are correct. The edits made do not fit the definition of vandalism. My mistake Debbie W. 10:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit Summary

Please do not make false statements in your edit summary like this. You know damn well that the related discussion was for all purposes on hold until the AfD process finished. It is starting to get hard to assume good faith at this point in time. Arzel (talk) 13:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're having trouble assuming good faith then I suggest you follow the guideline: if you have clear evidence to demonstrate that I am not acting in good faith then take it to a noticeboard and let the community judge me. If you do not have said evidence then please keep your opinions to yourself. Further, if you are not able to AGF nor provide evidence that I am trying to damage the encyclopedia then it would perhaps be better for you to find something else to work on as you may be far too involved. SÆdon^talk 20:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I would prefer to resolve issues without having to go into the mess of a noticeboard, however your response makes it clear that you have no desire to work with those that you disagree. As for your lame statement of COI...Ha, maybe you should go talk to activist editors like Debbie who are actively pushing this kind of crap on WP. Arzel (talk) 22:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually I do. I have argued with Debbie about things she wanted to include that in my opinion served only to disparage Romney...are you so quick to forget all the things you and I agreed upon that I helped you remove? SÆdon^talk 23:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Btw, you just used a red herring yourself there. I say that you have a COI and you point to Debbie and says she has one. Debbie very well may have one, it doesn't mean you don't too. SÆdon^talk 23:04, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Seamus, WHCD, & Dog-Eating

Saedon, I also replied to you on the Talk:Seamus (dog) page, but I wanted to reply individually to you about the White House Correspondent Dinner because there are a lot of comments on the Seamus talk page. I am opposed to the inclusion of comments regarding Obama eating dog on the grounds that the AfD deleted Obama Eats Dogs for lack of notability. Hypothetically, let's say there was an article about a given person or event which was not notable, and that article was deleted. It would be in violation of Wikipedia policy to turn around and then add that material to another article. I've seen this issue before, particularly with Wikipedia pages for colleges, where people who are not notable add their name to the famous alumni section of the page of their alma mater. It's completely illegitimate.

I'm not convinced that the comments at the WHCD make the dog-eating notable, if the original week of publicity about the meme did not make it notable. There was far less news coverage of Obama's comments about dog-eating than there was about Jim Treacher's original 'Obama Eats Dog' story. Furthermore, the WHCD was discussed three times during the AfD, and the decision was still to delete. Maybe I'm wrong, but do you know of another case where an article was deleted (not merged) by AfD, and then the material from the deleted article was subsequently added to a different article? Debbie W. 05:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Needs to be dealt with according to policy

If we're going to expect administrators to act like good citizens of Wikipedia, we need to start with that example as well. ScottyWong may be an admin, but unless he's here to provide a defense, we don't need an attack page on him. If you feel that discussion is needed to address or create policy regarding conflicts of interest by admins and unethical editing by admins, then start a thread on that. But I don't see how this is ethical either to start going on about the guy when he's not here. No one's asking for anything specifically, just griping that he might be bad, coming up with ways he is bad, and generally acting rather conspiratorial. A short definition would just be trash talking.

I don't see trash talking as what we need to be doing, and I don't see it as productive, but I'll leave the thread alone for the time being, but if it doesn't move into being a productive discussion, I will ask for an admin to step up and make sure that happens.

I agree that if ScottyWong or any admin abuses community trust in any way, it needs to be dealt with. But I don't agree this is a good approach presently. -- Avanu (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from and if it doesn't turn productive I'd support your asking an admin to intervene (though being the admin's board I imagine someone will do so if they deem it appropriate). He decided to duck out rather than face the music, I don't think that affords him any sort of silent consideration so I think the thread is appropriate, but if it does purely end up being an attack piece then obviously you're right, I think we should see where it goes though. SÆdon^talk 08:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. -- Avanu (talk) 08:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Archiving

I apologize for accidentally undoing your restoration of material to the Talk:Seamus incident page last night. I had not realized that you had restored the material until I was done archiving. As for the archiving method, Wikipedia allows for the use of a topical archive (TA), as long as their is also a standard ordered (chronological) archive. The Talk:Seamus incident page contains both. Although they are not so common, Wikipedia describes a topical archive as "an alternate way to archive talk pages - according to subject matter, rather than just by the standard ordered archive (OA) that keeps a chronological discussion history. TA is primarily intended for busy talk pages which have a long history of discussion on regular general subjects, with the idea being that the history of discussion on those subjects is valuable, and requires some sorting for archives to be easier to read and reference." I will convert the current ordered archives labeled by month to Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, and will let the bot do any additional chronological archiving. Debbie W. 12:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Debbie, no worries, I actually appreciate your topical archives and rereading my post to the talk page last night I see how it could have come off a bit rude and I didn't intend that at all. The annoying aspect is the month-by-month archiving because they are so small, but I like the idea of having the commonly discussed topics on the page. Thanks for your work, I did not mean to minimize it. SÆdon^talk 20:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem. What I'm not how how to do is to take the current chronological archive (now numbered 1 to 4) and incorporate them so that the either the text block at the top of the Talk page or the archive block has the standard format (e.g., "Index, 1,2,3,4"). Debbie W. 21:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

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Good Article status

I decide to see what was needed to get the Seamus incident article to GA status, and I read the following.

If a nominated article meets any of these six criteria it may be quickfailed without further review.

1.The article completely lacks reliable sources – see Wikipedia:Verifiability.

2.The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way – see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

3.There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid.

4.The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.

5.The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint.

6.The article contains significant close paraphrasing or copyright violations.

I think that the Seamus incident article will likely be quickfailed for numbers 3 & 4. Personally, I think the article is close to being a good article, but with a sizeable minority of editors believing that the article shouldn't exist, I not sure that it will get GA status in the near future. That being said, I think there are a few areas of possible improvement.

(a) I looked long and hard for a major US politician who defended Romney regarding the Seamus incident, but I couldn't find one. I wanted to see if there were comments from another politician that we could add to the paragraph where Santorum and Gingrich criticize the incident, but I guess not.

(b) If possible, I want to find commentary from another veterinarian to replace the vet comments from ABC News that had to be removed because they were from a semi-anonymous source (Russell Cummings wife). I found a few articles so far, but they aren't from the best sources.

(c) Hopefully, some resolution can be reached regarding the name of the article and whether it should contain any reference to Obama's dog-eating. Debbie W. 11:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

On the Talk:Seamus incident page, I noticed that the bot has moved some material to Archive 5, but did not create a link to Archive 5 on the Talk page. I manually created a link to Archive 5. I'm not sure how to make sure that the link is automatically created. Debbie W. 02:57, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Seamus incident dispute resolution

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Seamus incident". Thank you. HHIAdm (talk) 04:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Your apology

Thank you for the apology on my Talk Page. Although I accept it, I believe your recanted accusation would better be placed where you initially left the original incorrect comment or, more practically, here. I'm trying to work on improving the article. An improper accusation of edit-warring made after only a single edit and one revert since I started to participate on the article was not justified as you later admitted. I would appreciate the other editors who saw/see the comment, which still remains, to be aware that you have recanted it. As it stands now, this is not the case. Regards Veritycheck (talk) 02:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for being understanding. SÆdon^talk 02:58, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for stepping up. Veritycheck (talk) 08:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Roman Polanski Arbcom case

I posted a reply on the Roman Polanski matter in Arbcom: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement_by_Psalm84 Psalm84 (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

AFD edit

Sorry for the screwup. I was just trying to move a comment of mine to the intended location. I thought I cut and pasted just the one comment. There was no intent to modify anyone else's. Thanks for the repair. Edison (talk) 23:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

SPSs

Not on a BLP, surely! The link you posted says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." StAnselm (talk) 23:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah fair enough, good point. (I've said it before and I'll say it again:I really need to take some time and learn BLP policy better)SÆdon^talk 23:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

So what about the rest of your edit - you removed a quote from a Harvard University Press book which I added so that we didn't have to have "According to biographical notes at Answers in Genesis..." You added "For his creationist efforts..." of which another user had said on the talk page "I would suggest that Ham's honorary degrees (i) should not be included with our own editorial context..." Finally, I cannot see that the denialism claim is at all appropriate for the lead of a BLP - perhaps we need to take this to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard if you wish, but I think you should self-revert your last edit. StAnselm (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually if I removed anything that was a mistake, looking back on my edit the diff was truncated and so it didn't appear that I was doing anything but restoring an edit. I will undo but I'm going to keep the addition to the lede, feel free to edit out the denialism aspect but I think that the fact that his position is contrary to fact should be mentioned (and is quite common on creationist bios). SÆdon^talk 00:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for starting the section on the talk page - we should obtain consensus there first, and then add it in. StAnselm (talk) 00:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

And yes, I'm watching your talk page. StAnselm (talk) 00:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh that wasn't me, I haven't checked the talk page but when I have a sec I'll drop by. SÆdon^talk 00:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Oops. Well, I can't make any more reverts, so I would appreciate if you would self-revert the remaining bit. StAnselm (talk) 00:13, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

With respect I have to refuse. Three editors have supported the addition at this point and I think that's good enough to be considered a consensus. We are, afterall, encouraged to be WP:BOLD. SÆdon^talk 00:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

No, consensus is what we get after discussion. StAnselm (talk) 00:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

If you have objections please raise them on the talk page. If a consensus develops to disinclude we can remove, it's not a big deal and we're not on a deadline. I'd rather talk about the content than wax intellectual about policy. SÆdon^talk 00:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

MMA sanctions

Hi Saedon. I noticed your proposal regarding sanctions for MMA; it is attracting opposition to the part restricting editors based on their edit count, but in that noise, people may be missing the general sanctions proposal. Was your sanction proposal dependent on editors having more than 500 edits? If not (that is, the edit count proposal is separate to the general sanctions proposal), it could be worth putting the general sanctions proposal in a separate section. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

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Harry Potter is a girl

I'm not endorsing your opponent in the debate at Talk:Alkaline diet because I have no really strong idea what the debate is about. But I wanted to put forward that you have badly misunderstood the purpose and nature of Wikipedia in at least one major respect.

You wrote: "What you seem to misunderstand about WP is that the WP:TRUTH is not our goal, WP:VERIFIABILITY is. Indeed, if 5 secondary sources say that Harry Potter is a girl and we have no better or equal sources to correct that then we will report that Harry Potter is a girl." That is absolutely and completely false. That doesn't describe the way we actually do our work, nor does it describe how we ought to do our work. This way of thinking is wrong, and based on a longstanding badly worded sentence in a policy document. It is false.

I don't care how many secondary sources say that Harry Potter is a girl. Any ordinary person is fully capable of going to the original novel and reading it to find out the truth. And that truth is more important than all the secondary sources in the world. An example like this is not an example which would involve our engaging in inappropriate original research - our ability to read this novel is equal to our ability to read the mistaken secondary sources, and we can correct the error put forward by the secondary sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:03, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, I sit here humbled by your words and I appreciate the time you've taken to offer your advisement. However, you're making two statements here that seem to be contradictory: for one you are saying that my estimation is based upon a badly worded policy - but policy nonetheless - and for two you're saying that's not how it's done nor how we ought to do. I don't disagree with the latter but the fact of the matter is that it is how the policy is worded, and thus it is what I learned as an editor here.

I will capitulate that Harry Potter is a bad example of this concept, and I felt silly making the argument in the first place; it's a reductio ad absurdum. If this were the Harry Potter article and the circumstances were as such that the secondary sources all made an obviously false claim we would use WP:COMMONSENSE and edit the article accordingly. However, the point of my statement was to illustrate a general principle of WP that, for better or worse, is representative of how it's done. Harry Potter is obvious but many topics are far from. I recall, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you offered a similar piece of advice regarding VNT in situations where you yourself knew that some claim was wrong but was published by an RS anyway. I did not follow the argument but I remember that my initial internal response was "Well yes, Jimbo may know that X is false and we would trust his word on it, but any editor can't claim out of the blue that X is false and expect the community to take them seriously in the face of a published source."

To recapitulate: I don't disagree with the essence of anything you've said above, but I think there's a lot of nuance that needs to be considered. Nonetheless, I will take your words under advisement and keep them in mind in the future. Thanks again. SÆdon^talk 10:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Louisiana Science Education Act

I have started a discussion on the talk page. To quote Lucy, it may be obvious to you, but it sure is disobvious to me. StAnselm (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

DrAlyLakhani

It appears DrAlyLakhani has learned nothing. At the least, an IP is making very similar edits.[3][4] Edward321 (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

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NPA

You got a bit too personal here. Please consider reverting yourself before someone else replies. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Anthony rails against offense and yet seemingly has no issue with offending other editors, I don't have a problem with pointing out his hypocrisy. I notice you didn't leave a warning on his page regarding his rude comment towards Tarc. If he's willing to retract his and agree to stop attacking Tarc et al. I will retract mine. SÆdon^talk 19:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't "warn" you, just offered a friendly suggestion, because your comment seemed out of character, at least to me. (I loved your dead horse analogy earlier, and intend to steal it for later use.) ~Amatulić (talk) 19:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh no I didn't take it that way either (as a warning I mean), just using the colloquial Wiki terminology. Thanks for the compliment :). SÆdon^talk 19:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I can see how my response to you came off as aggressive, I didn't intend it. I'm ridiculously tired today, long night of insomnia. SÆdon^talk 19:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Just Wondering

Say, why'd you change usernames? Thanks. Wekn reven

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 22:47, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Cosmic Perspective

Yes, I'm pretty sure I have a PDF version of it on my ED. It's at the office now and its 1 AM here right now, but I can get it tomorrow and send you the pages you need. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm deader than dead. Semester exams to correct and a dissertation to review by Monday morning or else. No rest for the wicked! Thanks for the offer. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Heads-up

I mentioned you at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification request: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Muhammad images. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC)