User talk:Wndl42

Welcome!

Hello, and Welcome to the Wikipedia, Wndl42! Thanks for joining the fray over at the Corporate Personhood Debate article. It is too bad that corporate personhood has been translated, via redirect, into the Wikiality newspeak non-equivalent (and inappropriately capitalized) Corporate Personhood Debate. In any case, the article you have been editing needs to be retitled, or moved over to where it belongs at Corporate personhood. Here are a few perfunctory tips to hasten your acculturation into the Wikipedia experience:

• Take a look at the New contributors' help page, the Wikipedia Tutorial and the Manual of Style, and If you still need any help, you can always post your question at the Help Desk.
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• Always be mindful of striving for NPOV, be respectful of others' POV, and remember your perspective on the meaning of neutrality is invaluable!
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And some odds and ends: Cite your sources, Civility, Conflict resolution, How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Pages needing attention, Peer review, Policy Library, Verifiability, Village pump, and Wikiquette; also, you can sign your name on any page by typing four tildes: ~~~~. Best of luck, Wndl42, and most importantly, have fun! Ombudsman 02:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and my response

Hi Ombudsman,

Thank you, for your kind welcome and extremely helpful tips (and reminders)!

FYI, I created the page title "Corporate Personhood Debate" to create a place to restore the original "Corporate personhood" article and the topic it represents -- after another user had redirected the latter to "Juristic person" and moved all of it's contents to the "talk" page of an intermediate page, "Juristic person/CP". All of this appeared to me to be (possibly) motivated by a POV in favor of censoring or camoflaging the controversy.

It appeared to me like someone found a way to effectively 'delete' the Corporate personhood page without going through the process of nominating it for deletion and gaining concensus. Perhaps this was not intentional, but as a result, the "Juristic person" page is now tagged non-NPOV because all the POV wars over Personhood/personhood are mucking up what is an important article on the legal concept, and now Wikipedia does not have good articles on either "Juristic person" (legal idea) OR Corporate personhood (controversy).

Looking for Wikipedia precedent for this, I examined another politically controversial topic, abortion, and noted that we finally achieved a 'peaceful' outcome (nutrality concensus) AND excellent content by providing separate pages for an encyclopedic entry on Abortion, and for Abortion Debate. This seemed to me to be the best way to solve the issue and restore the "political controversy" topic as a recognized element of US political landscape, while silmultaneously allowing a path to eventually achieve nutrality on the "Juristic person" legal article under WikiProject Law.

Regarding capitalization, I chose Personhood purposefully, as the debate/controversy is over the extent to which the "legal personality" of a corporation has proceeded from treating corporations properly as 'legal/juristic persons' under the law to the (opponents say) increasingly inappropriate treatment of corporations as Persons (natural human beings), thereby conferring "Personhood" status equal to that of natural persons in some important and controversial areas. I think that "personhood" versus "Personhood" is one way of highlighting the core of the debate/controversy.

This having been said...ultimately I don't think the Personhood vs. personhood is all THAT important and I >>happily<< defer to you on this matter...

Anyway, with the restoration of the original "Corporate personhood" page to "Corporate Personhood Debate", all of the talk pages seem to have been restored as well, and I commented and documented my changes on the "Juristic person" page as well, if you want to check out the history.

As a fair disclosure, my POV is first and foremost against censorship of the topic, secondly that Wikipedia presents neutral POV on both topics, (the 'thing' and the 'debate', and thirdly -- I am admittedly on the anti-Personhood side of the controversy. I am also a neophyte here and greatly appreciate your help and interest!

Again, thanks for the warm welcome and I hope you will continue to look in on the topic and keep an eye on me/others for civility and POV, and further "wiki tricks" (intentional or not).

Thanks (again),

riverguy42 15:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Case citations...

...should be italicized - e.g. Smith v. Jones, 123 So. 2d 456 (1999). Also, please try to use the full case citation where possible (most can be tracked down fairly easily on the Internet). Cheers! bd2412 T 03:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed...will do ASAP...thanks,

Corporate Personhood Debate

Although you present a compelling rationale about the majority of discussion of corporate personhood being about the debate over it, the same could be said about abortion (or affirmative action, or global warming, or the alternative minimum tax). This is precisely why the main article on any of these topics should describe what the thing is and a separate article (referenced from the main article) should describe the controversy surrounding it.

I'm all for structuring both articles so that one naturally leads readers to the other, but irrespective of the dispute over corporate personhood, it is a thing that presently exists and that people have to understand in their business dealings. That was the rationale behind my restoration of the previous redirect - perhaps we can resolve this by having a summary and reference to the debate article early on in the juristic person article? Cheers! bd2412 T 17:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• I am feeling SOOO new here and ignorant of this world...thanks...

re: "...the same could be said about abortion..."

Absolutely - that is the first place I looked for Wikipedia precedent. There are two excellent pages, one for Abortion and one for Abortion Debate. That's where I'm hoping to take this, because the "Juristic person" page is sorely non-NPOV and, under the scope of WikiProject Law should (I imagine) be relieved of the POV wars.

re: "perhaps we can resolve this by having a summary and reference to the debate article early on in the juristic person article?"

That would help, but the issue of "personhood" is associated with the debate/controversy and not with the legal concept, and if there MUST be a redirect, I would like to see Corprorate personhood redirect to the debate rather than the WP:Law definition of a "juristic person".

I'm not sure if this can be better solved with a disambiguaiton page, what do you think?

And OBTW...thanks VERY much for the civility and help...

riverguy42 17:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion on the matter, although I think a disambiguation page is not needed (after all, we are only looking at two concepts which are already related). In retrospect, I'm ok with the current setup (although it does seem to defy convention a bit). Cheers! bd2412 T 21:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sun Myung Moon

Hi, Wnd. Thank you for your lengthy analysis of my recent contribs.

You may be surprised to find that I agree with much of what you said. I will reply with indented comments on my talk page. In particular, I appreciate the depth of your analysis on the "charged/complained" thing. You are right, and if you haven't already done so, I'm going to revert my own edit. "Charged" is certainly the right word, and I'm happy that (1) you pointed this out and (2) took so much time to explain why it is the right word! :-)

See you at talk:Ed Poor. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

And thanks for bringing up the subject and object relationship here. This is something I've been meaning to straighten out for decades (literally). --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And also thanks for thinking carefully about the best way to word a subtopic like views on women. I have a quote rattling around in my head about men and women having equal value, despite having different "positions" or "roles". Maybe you can locate it? --Uncle Ed (talk) 01:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ed. You might want to check out my addition to the article Rev. Moon's theology seems to embrace a "physical form follows spiritual function" thoughtstream as regards Genesis -- which is the right basic idea, it follows many other eastern traditions in this regard. I wish he'd gone a little deeper down this path all the way to it's spiritual-linguistic roots before reaching his conclusions about Genesis in the "Divine Principle". For example, if Rev. Moon had taken the time to deeply understand the Hebrew language in which Genesis was written, he'd have discovered the much broader, deeper and (IMO) more beautiful view of man-woman that is told there, rather than the 'subject-object' metaphor. This view can only be derived when one uses the unfortunately and utterly insufficient hebrew-to-whatever language translations, ALL of which fail to adequately convey the mind of G-d as described in the original hebrew composition. I think this is particularly sad in Rev. Moon's case, as he certainly understands, perhaps more than anyone else, the myriad ways in which the Korean language is superior to English these purposes, and Rev. Moon has had lots to (rightly) say about this, but he fell into the "tower-of-babel" trap of presuming that Korean was the best language just because it was better than english. Anyway, what I see in the "subject-object" metaphor is shards of evidence of the common-to-all-religions "Golden Thread of Truth". Unfortunately virtually all of the world's judeo-christian derived faiths take their own linguistic interpretations and build dogma around them, and it's the dogma that divides rather than unites. UC dogma is particularly divisive in this regard, and in this, Rev. Moon shows an all-too-human failing. I hope that you and the other UC member editors will help focus some attention on the unifying elements of UC theology.

The connotations of the English words subject and object do not quite match the meanings of the Korean terms juche (추체) and daesang (대상), particularly as used by Rev. Moon. I really wish the translators of Divine Principle had left these particular terms untranslated, so that English readers would realize they have no precise counterparts in Western philosophy. --Uncle Ed (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Nice work

Nice work on Bible code! Λυδαcιτγ 07:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing in particular, just the improvements you've made in the past few days. Λυδαcιτγ 23:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk Page - Sun Myung Moon

Here is an archive of a discussion that got fairly heated in which I failed to "assume good faith" and went off on what I saw as an example of Tendentious Editing on the part of some Unification Church members with respect to the BLP for Sun Myung Moon. I'm placing this here "for the record" and (as there seems to be a developing consensus around solving the issue), removing my "rant" from the talk page at Sun Myung Moon riverguy42 (talk) 08:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section removed

I removed this whole section, some of it could be put back however if the information is cited:

Other criticisms: theocracy, anti-semitism, anti-gay, views on women

Moon, perhaps one of the most controversial religious leaders, has been widely criticized. Some civil libertarians consider his call for unity between religion and politics is contrary to the principle of separation of church and state.

There have been objections toward his saying that the Holocaust is partly an indirect consequence of some important Jewish leaders, especially John the Baptist, not supporting Jesus which contributed to his murder by the Roman government (see Unification Church and anti-Semitism).

In a speech to church members in 1997, Moon said: "What is the meaning of lesbians and homosexuals? That is the place where all different kinds of dung collect. We have to end that behavior. When this kind of dirty relationship is taking place between human beings, God cannot be happy." and referred to homosexuals people as "dung-eating dogs".[1]

Rev. Moon's views on women as "objects" in a subject-object relationship with their husbands generated further criticism. In 1996, Moon summarized these views;[2]

"American women have the tendency to consider that women are in the subject position. However, woman's shape is like that of a recepticle. The concave shape is a receiving shape. Whereas the convex shape symbolizes giving. When water is poured into a container does it fill from the edge of the container, or from the deepest bottom? (Deepest bottom.) Since man contains the seed of life, he should plant it in the deepest place. Does woman contain the seed of life? (No.) Absolutely not. Then if you desire to receive the seed of life you have to become an absolute object. In order to qualify as an absolute object you need to demonstrate absolute faith, love and obedience to your subject."

I have never heard of any civil libertarians criticizing Rev. Moon on the issue of church and state. Mainly because their interest is to protect individuals against the powers of government. In fact the ACLU in New York supported him in his tax case vs. the US government. Also uncited.

The statement about the Holocaust is uncited. It is a legitimate criticism so could be put back with a cite.

The speech cited was not mainly about homosexuality, so it is misrepresented. There is also no cite that says it caused controversy or criticism.

The inclusion of the quote about women is original research. The cite from Robert Parry's site does not show that this "generated further critism." Mr. Parry certainly has the right to criticise as much as he likes but he is motivated by his own political ideology, not by anything Rev. Moon says. To say otherwise is also original research.

Thanks. Steve Dufour (talk) 03:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Steve, you have been asked politely and repeatedly to stop blanking content. In this case of your latest section-blanking, you apparently have not read or are being intentionally obtuse regarding Wikipedia's definitions and policies on OR in general, and also in the BLP context. The reasons you gave for blanking this entire section resemble a smoke screen to cover your apparent COI-POV driven motives for blanking this section.

Is he going to listen to you, if you start off with personal remarks? Let's just stick to the issues: in other words, I won't question your motives if you don't question mine, okay? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Each criticism/controversy in the section you blanked IS cited, and IS supported by Rev. Moon's own words (and this IS the section where controversies and criticisms are supposed to go).

Well, I see no reason to delete Rev. Moon's words on any issue that he himself considers important. Perhaps these could be retrieved and placed in a "views of" section. For example, views on women, views on exposing corruption, views on being nice to people who hate him? ;-) --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

On "what is controversial?", outside of your Unification Church, Rev. Moon is MOST notable because he is controversial. This is why the section you blanked is critical. If you or anyone else here doubts this, an explicit news archive search (NOT a general web search) on "Sun Myung Moon" and either "controversy" or "controversial" should put that notion to bed conclusively. More than 1,270 hits from Google's archive of recognized NEWS SOURCES yields a 30 year history (and a nice bar-graph by year of publication) to show strong evidence that Moon among the most controversial figures on the planet, in religion, politics, media, etc. (FYI, the distant second place award (at 763 hits) goes to Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard

As a Unification Church member, your well known COI and POV, and your long history of tendentious editing has generated many polite requests for you to stop blanking content.

Because of your COI you are unqualified to be the final judge of whether Rev. Moon's statements and the criticisms of them represent "controvery" or not.

I would define a controversy as a dispute between two sides which disagree with each other strongly. Especially if facts or principles are involved. I have to agree with you that in any case where Rev. Moon has stated his position on an issue, and there is significant disagreement from others then there is a controversy.

How about a section on "controversial views"? We can start with "dirty dung eating dogs" who won't get into heaven. There's even a Bible quote from the end of Revelations 22 we can throw in: "Outside the gates are the dogs and fornicators." --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the most disturbing tendency exhibited in your pattern of tendentious edits is that you appear intent on making the Wikipedia entries on Rev. Moon and many other UC pages more closely resemble (in content and structure) the parallel Unification Church-owned wiki "New World Encyclopedia".

Is Steve doing that? What a waste of time. We should just link to that article. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If you think something is improperly cited (and IMO you are flat wrong here) then, given your COI and POV you should TAG things that you think are improperly cited and CEASE BLANKING content and sections.

Wikipedia is not your forum for de-controversializing Rev. Moon by censoring criticisms and controversies that you personally don't like or disagree with. That function is handled quite nicely by the Unification Church's own wiki). Just because YOU PERSONALLY "have never heard of any civil libertarians criticizing Rev. Moon on the issue of church and state" does not mean that he has not been so criticized, and it does NOT justify your blanking the entire section. With your COI and POV problems, the burden of proof is on you. Suggest you READ the sources that have been cited. And in case you didn't know, (1) criticism around "civil liberties" does NOT need to be sourced back to someone that YOU judge to be a "civil libertarian" in order to be valid and notable, and (2) the fact that "The speech cited was not mainly about homosexuality." does NOT mean that this citation "misrepresents" Rev. Moon's views, and (3) your statment that the critic "is motivated by his own political ideology, not by anything Rev. Moon says" is blatently and absolutely false. Indeed, the speeches cited contain the EXACT WORDS that generated the criticism and resulting controversy. For example, how do you arrive at the idea that the speech cited on the "dung eating dogs" controversy must be "mainly about homosexuality" in order to be a valid citation? Steve, that's either (a) just plain silly, or (b) a smoke screen tactic.

I think we went over some of this before, and I still agree with you! :-)

There is no way to de-controversialize Rev. Moon, and Wikipedia is not a place for hopeless quests. (Other than to write about a hopeless quest, as in "Man of La Mancha". Steve, can you back off on this please? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Question - if you don't like the fact that someone attributed the criticism around church and state to "civil libertarians", then why didn't you just change it to "critics"? Given your history, your COI and your POV pushing through tendentious editing, I would suggest that you were just looking for another ostensibly valid reason (smoke screen) to hide behind and justify your blanking the entire section.

This is a good suggestion: "critics" is a good, neutral word. If it turns out that some of them ARE civil libertarians, we can find a way to mention this fact. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I have been working hard to make sure this article is balanced in it's presentation, and I have invested much effort in adding balance (including a generally complimentary overview of Rev. Moon's Basic Beliefs so that some of these criticisms can be taken in context of the basic teachings), and I have been commended by at least one UC member (Ed Poor) in this regard.

Steve, I think he's got a point here. Wikipedia is about balance. Let's not delete; let's add more about his teachings or accomplishments. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

You on the other hand have displayed a single-minded tendency toward censorship of criticism and controversy surrounding Rev. Moon, here and on MANY other UC related pages. Now, I have just invested (wasted) an hour dis-assembling your smoke screen - time I'd hoped to spend supporting Ed Poor in his request to me to help add some context around the "subject-object" relationship.

Steve, I think River is sincere. Let's work together, eh? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Now...do I need to seek to have you blocked from UC related entries on this basis, or are you going to lay off on blanking content?

Ultimately I think (hope) you might just have some good things to add, -- and so I hope you will choose the latter approach. I'm out of patience.

riverguy42 (talk) 19:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're out, have some of mine? ;-) Doctor Ed (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

O.K. Here is a suggestion. How about making a "criticism" section to Divine Principle and moving the "subject/object" "controversy" over there?Steve Dufour (talk) 04:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Excellent idea. River, do you agree? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the controversy and criticism that have been generated (from what I see) are based more on Rev. Moon's post-Divine Principle speeches and talks. "Dung eating dogs" is not (I think) in The Divine Principle. I think the criticism is leveled at Rev. Moon himself, so I'm not seeing the reasoning behind taking it out of the bio and putting it into "Divine Principle". For another example, see my reply to Ed on "subject object" below.riverguy42 (talk) 07:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, as we appear to be in dialog here, I will (next edit) tone down (delete) some of my more incendiary language, and let's keep talking...riverguy42 (talk) 07:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You may want to enable your email. -Exucmember (talk) 00:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness causes collapse

If anything, the onus is on the authors of this page to provide a single example of any light shed on any point in physics (not the amateur philosophy of Wigner etc.) by this idea. To be consistent, I suggest you remove the phrase "... is an obsolete scientific theory" from the entry on phlogiston. There is no citation for that one either.

Sure there is, it's here. Whatever controversy there once was over phlogiston is long dead and well buried, but you knew that.

Do you have any credentials to judge any scientific theory? If so, perhaps you would like to edit your user page to that effect.

I asserted none, and made that clear at your talk page, so I wonder why you ask? Nevertheless, any credentials I may or may not have pale in comparison to Mikhail Lomonosov. I merely point out that here on Wikipedia any claims of scientific consensus around contemporary controversies must be cited, as per WP:RS, specifically:

"Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources."

Certainly if there is such a consensus, it should as easy and quick to cite a reliable source for that consensus as it was to find and referece and post here about phlogiston.riverguy42 (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Dave Kielpinski (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Signature

Hi,

You may change your signature - on talk pages you've got a totally different signature versus user name. Very confusing. Unless you've got a really good reason, it makes talk pages harder to follow and attribute who is saying what, when. A particular problem when you're trying to use diffs.

Agreed. I would like to be known as Riverguy42, but not sure how to do it.

Also, you just dumped 9K worth of text on a talk page. That much reading is really time consuming. You may want to consider shorter posts. WLU (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the reason for this was that I used an offline editor and had to copy and re-paste the entire thing. I am refuting some efforts to portray me as a bad-faith editor by a pair of editors who share histories as particularly difficult and tendentious editors. Recently, one of these editors was caught in a blatant lie about his reasons for citing WP:RS as justification for repeatedly blanking my edits.

Further point - this set of edits is quite long, and contains two links - one of which should be a wikipage (and therefore isn't a real reference because wikipedia isn't a reliable source. WP:PROVEIT states that when an edit is challenged, the burden is on the add-ee (that'd be you in this case) to source the contested information. Also consider if the non-wiki source you provided ([3]) is reliable, and represents all viewpoints on the matter. Should it be qualified? Also, what is the tone like - does it portray things as truth? Can it be shortened? Is it overly long considering there is a main article on day-age creationism? Creationism is a HUGE page, adding large amounts of text when there's a more appropriate main aritlce isn't usually a good idea - see WP:SS. Articles are spun off because the original article is too unweildy to use. Also, is the edit neutral? Is it overly sympathetic to one perspective? In my opinion, this block of text was appropriately removed from this page, but may go in Day age, if it's not already there. But it would need better sources, or consensus from other editors that it works. WLU (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I have conceded much (most) of these points, and am in the process of improving sources. Please do note that I have deferred, based on talk page discussions, restoring my edit until the concerns expressed have been resolved. Thanks for the notes.riverguy42 (talk) 21:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. You might try reading WP:TALK, mostly for the idea that you shouldn't break up posts regularly, exception only (in other words, only post beneath other's comments, even if you're replying to a comment above).

Regards your name, you could try looking at WP:U, especially here. Or you could just start a new account, stop using this one, and put a note of your new name. I'd see if you can get your name changed first at WP:U.

Finally, creationism, evolution and all the controversial flashpoints between the two sets of pages get a lot of trolls and sockpuppets. The civility is much, much lower, WP:AGF as well, and biting is the norm. It attracts a lot of POV-pushing cranks. If you are trying to edit with a pro-creationism view, or even just adding information, excellent sources or toe-ing the line are both things that may help your edits stay up. Unfortunately. WLU (talk) 21:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, from what I can see no-one is known as Riverguy42 (talk · contribs), so you could just create the account. WLU (talk)

You got a very civil reply from Haf by the way, I've seen him bit and chew people before - s/he's never wrong and always works within policy (though sometimes pushing the boundaries of the policy), but dealing with the creationism pages often leads to a lapse in wikiquette. And s/he's completely right, talk pages never get {{fact}} tagged. Ever. It's not a matter of annoying him, it's actually wildly inappropriate. You may want to have a gander at this essay I wrote - it gives an overview of the wiki process and whatnot. WLU (talk) 18:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I enjoyed your essay. Yeah...I got a perspective on what I think is Hrafn's POV and apparent editing demeanor from his edit history and talk page, he bites alot but also brings alot. Your comments/essay help me put these reactions in context. Seems if someone wants to work on articles like these, it takes a very thick skin and a lot of perseverence (and a willingness to throw an elbow or two on the court). In the end I think incivil behavior (on the whole) does more to drive away good contributors and contributions than what is given back those who engage in it, no matter what the quality of their work is. I would guess that the most erudite and capable editors would have very little patience for this crap and just quit, which sucks for Wikipedia. Fortunately for me (and maybe for Wikipedia) I am not among this group.

But, I didn't find in your essay (nor can I find in WP:TALK or WP:DE) any reference to fact-tagging of talk pages. The WP:TALK guidelines seem to indicate that talk pages should be treated like any other pages in the case of problems with WP:OR, WP:V, WP:NPOV, and when those problems are encountered in the context of presonal attack, well, I figured it was clearly time to throw an elbow, if that's what it takes to balance the strong POV that I see in the articles at Creationism and Day-age creationsm. Nevertheless, if there is a policy or guideline that I'm violating by fact-tagging on the talk page, I'd like to know about it. Really, I hope I'm not being dickish by asking you, I do agree with you that the tactic of fact-tagging was (in typical circumstances) quite inappropriate as you say, but I really do want to know. A willingness to ignore a rule when "necessary" does not justify my ignorance of the rule I decide to ignore.

Just for the record, I resorted to this less-than-optimal defense posture in the face of repeated and prolonged use of (a) Straw Man mis-characterizations of my edits, intended to make them (and me) appear silly, and (b) the "wear out the enemy" tactics of refutations via Proof by assertion and Argumentum ad infinitum, and (c) outright and intentional falsehoods. At some point I think this behavior constitutes a particularly vile and pernicious (though subtle) form of personal attack. I think it's a pretty good case of a couple of tendentious editors protecting their "turf" by whatever means possible. For now, I'm just patiently building a dossier in order to be ready for one of them to make good on a threat, or if things (hopefully) calm down maybe I'll just write an essay on the use of these tactics for the benefit of future editors.

You asked above, "If you are trying to edit with a pro-creationism view...", well, this is the MOST frustrating thing to me. While my personal POV should not be an issue as long as I behave, the truth is that I am absolutely aligned with the POV that NO form of "creationsim" should be endorsed or taught or tolerated in a secular democracy, same as the editors I'm in conflict with. I am very Jeffersonian in this regard. What I see and am trying to correct is the problem that the entire set of Wikipedia articles on this topic are the result of many years of battles between the extreme polar opposite POV's, and as a result there is little or no tolerance for any POV from the middle, any information that would diminish the "black and white" contrast that keeps the "battle lines" clearly defined is not tolerated by either side. For example, the idea that interpretations of Genesis in which a "day" is something other than a "earth-based 24 'hour' day based on the rotation of our planet" are as old as the Jewish faith (and I am not Jewish either), and they are not merely "inventions" dreampt up by creationists to evade the conclusions of science, but on reviewing these articles, I not that thst is the "clear battle lines" POV that these articles portray. The editors who "own" the creationism pages seem intent on making sure that nothing presented on Wikipedia serves to diminish the contrast between the armies, and this serves to make sure the treatment of these topics is as inflammatory and incendiary as possible. For me, if I'm "throwing my elbows around", it's on behalf of that set of views that seek to mitigate, rather than accentuate the differences. Quite frankly, the "Creationism" series on Wikipedia is a joke and an embarrasment to Wilkipedia.

As I write this, I realize that I do have a minor critique of your essay you may wish to consider, and it is this. Your essay (and also your advice to me) seems to spend a lot of time apologizing and explaining away the incivility of tendentious editors. I would think that the community of Wikipedians and Wikipedia itself would be better served if we were more strict about behaviour on controversial topics and not less strict. In this sense I think your essay tends to spend too much time "explaining" and in some sense justifying "bad behaviour" -- at least that was the impression I got. As I said, I think your essay is very good and this is a minor point, I'd welcome your thoughts.

Thanks again WLU, and do let me know where I can find some info on fact-tagging talk pages.riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 04:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

BLP

Wow, I thought I was the lone rider on the LaGrotta article. Your comments are certainly helpful for balance on the discussion. Perhaps you have some thoughts for BLP policy as it relates to undue weight: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Undue_Weight ----Jkp212 (talk) 05:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It was a clear case of an article created solely to advance a partisan political POV. Thanks for your comments, and leave another message to let me know how it proceeds. Also, if the subject of the article is willing to post a comment, that will have more weight than a boatload of POV pushers.riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 05:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't a problem with your disagreement on this question (surely it would be quite wrong of me if I did!), but I would appreciate it if you didn't make statements that at least sound like you see me as writing somewhat in bad faith — especially if you're trying to demonstrate up above that you're not a bad-faith editor yourself. Nyttend (talk) 06:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Urgent matter?

My apologies, and I will remove my implicit references to you. I should have characterized the edit and not (by implicit reference) "the editor who created the article". I merely stumbled upon this article and noted the following in violation of WP policy of "Do No Harm", and I felt it necessary to tie the publication date of the news item to the date and time of the article's creation. I do not "see you as writing somewhat in bad faith" and I hope you don't see me that way, but I do think this is a very serious matter based on the following observations:

• In spite of the fact that Frank LaGrotta had a very long career in public service (20 years), this article did not come into existance until the very day on which the charges were made public -- within hours.

• The first version of the article did not say anything of substance about the person except that he was a PA Democrat and that he was up on corruption charges.

• The article failed to mention the highly notable, easily sourceable and balancing POV that the charges are alleged to be politically motivated. This is a gross omission in a BLP. The identification of LaGrotta as a Democrat combined with the failure to identify the prosecutor as a Republican gives the article a very bad slant.

• Whether intentional or not, the article had the effect of serving a single purpose, that of using Wikipedia to promulgate and amplify the news of the day around the fact that Mr. LaGrotta is a politicial figure in the Democratic party accused of criminal conduct. The effect of Wikipedia as a "megawatt bullhorn" to announce the news, in this context "does harm". This kind of "harm" is very serious business. Presumably Mr. LaGrotta will have a trial, or will plead. In either case, this "effect" (intended or unintended, of Wikipedia serving as Corbett's "bullhorn") could prejudice jurors and/or weaken Mr. Lagrotta's negotiating position.

• The article has the clear effect of serving (intentionally or unintentionally) the explicitly stated purpose of an organization (the GOP) in "getting the word out" on corruption among the opposition party, and the "single source" citations have the further effect of reinforcing a parallel editorial campaign of the "Beaver County Times", as seen in several examples here.

• The language used in the article's original version, (again, created on the very day that the news came out) contains nothing positive on Mr. LaGrotta, cites only a single source (the Beaver County Times), cites that source twice, and merely summarizes these two news reports. This gives the clear impression of an NPOV problem.

So....for all this time Wikipedia did not have an article on this person's life or accomplishments until the day the charges hit the newspapers, and on that day (within hours) we all of a sudden have an article. To me, that looks like prima facie evidence that the article was specifically created to advance a political agenda against Mr. LaGrotta and his political party, and in "spreading the news" this gives all appearances of "political muckraking", and if so this is clearly a gross violation of Wikipedia policy on BLPs -- specifically the "Do No Harm" clause.

If this article came into existence for the sole purpose of promulgating negative information about someone, then this article needs to be deleted immediately. Also, the huge chorus of votes to "Keep" the article does seem strange. The fact that so many editors are suddenly so passionately aroused about the need to keep an article on this person gives every early appearance of "POV pushing" in the context of an agenda. Again, appearances may be (often times are) deceiving. But (especially in that case of a BLP), I think a quick look at the edit histories of the voters might give further creedence to the idea that an "agenda" is at work here, and may be warranted. Wikipedia's problems here are (a) rigorous enforcement of the policies around BLP's, (b) vigilance around the "politicization" of Wikipedia, and (c) rigorous enforcement of the specific policy of "Do No Harm" in the BLP context. Agreed?

If we are further agreed that you are in good faith here, I'd suggest that (a) you delete the article, or (b) we put the matter in front of an appropriate WP review process for BLP's. Thanks, and let me know what you want to do. riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 17:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

You should put some of these points on the article's talk page. I have commented there. Thanks --Jkp212 (talk) 17:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delete the source for the first two paragraphs — the intro and the personal life? If you're concerned with following BLP's undue weight principles, please be careful also to observe the following requirement:

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims.

Unless you're going to delete the rest of the article, don't delete its source. Nyttend (talk) 18:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the sources (temporarily) because they are "Beaver County Times" articles that are explicitly associated with the charges that we are discussing, they present the POV in a non-neutral manner and therefore the sources are not compatible with NPOV criteria for sources in a BLP. There are far better (see NPOV) sources for the lightweight bio that remains and I will add them. In the meantime, I think the case against citing the sources you referenced was clearly and convincingly made on the talk page (and above), especially as the editorial campaign I illustrated shows a strong bias at the paper. You might also note that I deleted the "balancing" sources as well, because they also are not NPOV. OK?

If there is something especially important to you that justifies using the Beaver County Times as a source for simple bio information, rather than using an NPOV source, please advise. And please be careful of using the article to provide links to a particular POV, it gives the appearance of...

riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 18:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever read the Times? It is typically much more friendly toward the Democratic Party than toward the Republican Party, and there's nothing different in the articles that I used. There's nothing POV in the articles: they simply stated that he'd been arrested and was to be arraigned for alleged violations of the ethics laws. Nyttend (talk) 18:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

WRT: "stated that he'd been arrested and was to be arraigned for alleged violations"...That's EXACTLY why these sources need to come out (temporarily), in the context of BLP. Wikipedia is not a "news amplifier", and Wikipedia has the effect of "amplifying" the news, giving undue weight to the controversy relative to the rest of the subject's life. Have I somehow been unclear or obtuse here?riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 19:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you want a direct quote from the article? I return to college in Beaver County this weekend, and I'll have access to the exact paper copy of the newspaper. You aren't at all clear what is wrong with having these statements in the context of the news — what's the difference between this and the O. J. Simpson Las Vegas robbery case article, except that the other is an entire article rather than a section? Your arguments against it are the same as the arguments for deleting that article, which were shot down as the article was kept: both are taken directly from multiple neutral (unless you're going to attack the liberal Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for attacking a Democrat for political reasons) sources, and this one at least contained nothing unsourced from these sources. Nyttend (talk) 20:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology. I'd also like to note that I've left a note on the WP:Pennsylvania talk page, asking for someone to expand the article's coverage of him in materials unrelated to the current controversy. Nyttend (talk) 18:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration on Sun Myung Moon article

Thanks for all your recent contribs to SMM. I am particularly grateful for this copy-edit. You turned my thoughts, which were just off the top of my head, into properly-expressed enyclopedia prose! :-) --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

User:ScienceApologist and WP:NPA

User ScienceApologist was provided guidance at ArbCom to remove the following personal attack from my talk page and make an apology. See here.

As the editor has declined ArbCom guidance, I am assuming the intent of the editor is to allow the following Personal Attack to remain here as part of this editors resume at Wikipedia.

Take some physics classes

I'm sorry that you are ignorant of physics and haven't been able to understand the sources I cited. You might find it easier editing in areas outside of the purview of WP:PHYSICS. Your edit-warring to promote WP:FRINGE viewpoints will be resisted. If you continue down this road, you will find yourself subject to blocks and bans.

Best,

ScienceApologist (talk) 19:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Note that ScienceApologist has published a notice on the Fringe theories noticeboard.[4]. The noticeboard really should alert editors when something is posted. TimidGuy (talk) 20:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom enforcement mention

Just wanted to make you aware that you were mentioned (only mentioned! nothing bad!) in this report on ScienceApologist. It looks like you've only been editing Wikipedia since the end of October 2007, less than three months. if this is the case, then I must extend my greetings, and hopes that you have not been too seriously bitten. I'm always available if you need advice or other assistance! Just drop a note on my talk page or send me an email. Dreadstar † 01:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the biter got a far more serious bite in return than anything he was able to inflict, and a nice addition to his resume. Case closed...justice done...karma delivers SA a little more rope to hang himself with in the future...riverguy42 aka WNDL42 (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)