User talk:Realskeptic

Welcome...

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

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.

I've already modified your contribution at Andrew Wakefield, hopefully for the better.

Again, welcome! Novangelis (talk) 01:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew Wakefield

Hi. I have undone your edit at the above article. As you can imagine, this wording has been discussed at length, and has not been arrived at frivolously. Please feel free to initiate another discussion on the article's "talk" (discussion) page. The earlier discussions are archived here. (You can also access the archive via a link at the top of the current "talk" page.)

Debate at Wikipedia can be robust; patience, politeness and persistence are often required. Our editing is also tightly constrained by policies and guidelines. If you want to pursue this, I'll be arguing against removing "fraudulent" from the article, but I have been persuaded to change my mind in the past.

Your point that we shouldn't be basing assertions of fact on opinion is plausible and may be worth expanding on. Another possible avenue is our policy on biographies of living persons (WP:BLP). Once you have familiarised yourself with that policy, if you think the article breaches it, you may consider asking the opinion of other editors at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. If you can elicit enough support there, the present wording may be overturned.

Modesty and politeness, even in the face of rudeness (don't be a wimp, but don't be snarky or hysterical either) is the shortest route to wherever you want to go here. Good luck. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion relies on weasel words and is outdated. I added a new section with reliable sources that dispute at least some of the allegations of fraud made against Wakefield, but you removed those citing what appears to be your own opinion. That is a violation of WP: NPOV. While I appreciate the suggestions, those developments still need to be added.

Realskeptic (talk) 05:49, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When an edit you make is removed by another editor, the usual practice is to open a discussion on the talk page about your concerns. Repeatedly restoring the same content more than three times in a day is considered disruptive, and it's unproductive too, because, presently, most of the editors watching the article agree with the current wording. The way forward is to win others over to your point of view with patient, polite and sound reasoning. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

/archive 1

November 2015

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:

Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made.
Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Acroterion (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You may not move on to edit-warring at a different article, and you may not try to deflect disagreement by claiming persecution. If you continue in this manner, you may be faced with discretionary sanction enforcement. Acroterion (talk) 01:36, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reverts maintaining WP:BLP policy are exempt from edit-warring behavior. Realskeptic (talk) 01:50, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The inclusion or exclusion of Kennedy's opinion on the Salon incident is not a BLP matter. You have to have a credible reason to cite BLP: you've been inserting the Salon item in multiple articles. Acroterion (talk) 01:55, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The mere utterance of "WP:BLP!" in one's edit summaries is not a magical invocation that renders one immune to Wikipedia's prohibition on edit warring. Your reverts at Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and at 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference do not seek to repair egregiously unbalanced or libelous material; not every dispute about NPOV, WEIGHT, and appropriate selection of sources automatically engages the BLP-edit-war "loophole" even when some of the material touches on living people.

In any case, the actual rule – clearly spelled out in both WP:BLP and WP:EW – is that genuine and credible BLP issues provide a defense for edit warring when the edits in question are made to remove libelous or contentious material relating to a living person. Neither policy shelters edit warring to add contentious material in support of a fringe viewpoint.

Oh, and please don't play silly buggers by making WP:POINTy mass deletions of the bits of the articles you don't like; that's not cool, and admins have very little patience for that sort of game-playing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:10, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from your very unconvincing case that that viewpoint is fringe, the edits on both pages did repair egregiously unbalanced if not potentially libelous material. It does not matter that they concerned a person who held that viewpoint or that the viewpoint of the person was loosely relevant to the edits about him.

WP:BLP applies to all living persons equally and to all Wikipedia articles. Re WP:BLPSTYLE, it states that they must have balance - for instance, it must balance out Salon's retraction of Kennedy's article with his response and Talbot and Rolling Stone's opposition. It must be neutral in tone - both articles are clearly written in the prose of his critics. It should not misrepresent Kennedy as not addressing his critics when he has, and it must not misrepresent others as addressing Kennedy's concerns when they haven't.

WP:BLP should not be overridden by POV pushing, even if it is a POV you claim to be consensus. POV pushing also does not justify edit-warring, wikihounding, threats to disrupt another editor's work, factionalism and admin abuse. Realskeptic (talk) 04:36, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is your only warning; if you make personal attacks on other people again, as you did at Talk:Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. Acroterion (talk) 17:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Warning

You have been alerted to the discretionary sanctions that apply to fringe topics, of which anti-vaccine advocacy is one. You have continued to advocate fringe views, including making controversial edits to article space, which have consistently been reverted as failing our content policies. If you continue in this vein, I will initiate the process of getting you banned from the topic of vaccines, broadly construed. Guy (Help!) 10:51, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, I should be able to discuss my opinion about how best to edit articles in talk pages without facing such an unprecedented level of hostility. The autism-vaccine link is not "fringe" or "anti-vaccine"; the consensus against it is not a scientific consensus, it is merely the Institute of Medicine's consensus. The IOM's position on it is for reasons other than scientific ones. Realskeptic (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Realskeptic - this is one of the toughest concepts for new Wikipedian's to understand. You want to write the Truth (with a capitol T), whereas the rules here say that you have to write what is Verifiable. Have a look at WP:TRUTH, and pay particular attention to the section "But I know the truth!", because I think that describes how you feel right now. --Salimfadhley (talk) 02:16, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is verifiable, that's my point. Realskeptic (talk) 06:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that you've not yet read the WP:MEDRS. You just linked me to a response from an author after his article had been withdrawn by the publisher. That's not a suitable source for verification. For well-researched medical topics we really need clinical studies, published by scientific or medical journals which have not been withdrawn by their publisher! --Salimfadhley (talk) 15:22, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The source itself does not concern a medical topic, but rather the conduct of individuals in their formulation of a review about a medical topic. The article was not withdrawn after the author's response, it was withdrawn over five years later even though no new flaws were found with the piece. The other publication that ran the piece never considered retracting it. Salon.com's retraction was also condemned by Salon's founding editor-in-chief in a letter to Kennedy. This is all discussed in the book Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak by Kennedy, which would meet WP:MEDRS#Books. Realskeptic (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As another editor has kindly explained, your topic ban also extends to talk pages. Regretfully I must ask you to end this discussion. --Salimfadhley (talk) 05:17, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary sanction request

I have requested that discretionary sanctions be applied to your editing. Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Realskeptic. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The request linked above has been closed against you. You are indefinitely banned on Wikipedia from the topics of autism and vaccination.[1] NW (Talk) 18:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you are against POV pushing, you should not let your obvious bias against a subject impact your judgement. Realskeptic (talk) 18:38, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Appeals instructions can be found at the following link: WP:AC/DS. Let's just say we have already gone passed the first step where you asked me to rethink my decision. NW (Talk) 18:42, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I saw. I never asked you, I knew it would be a waste of my time. Realskeptic (talk) 18:58, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Realskeptic, the sanctions do seem to be warranted given your recent behavior. Did it occur to you that something may be wrong with you behavior if you have managed to attract such a lot of attention in such a short time? Take a vacation from Wikipedia, and when you are ready to return to this site please review which of your behaviors lead to this ban. --Salimfadhley (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've spent the last week purely trying to discuss civilly with other editors and met an absurd level of hostility. Realskeptic (talk) 18:58, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not actually true that you were "purely" involved with discussions. You also made a few quite radical changes to articles that generated a lot of attention. Your use of the word "purely" is somewhat questionable! I can see the changes you made - you did much more than use the talk pages! And in any case, would you care to speculate why it is that your actions have resulted in what you perceive to be 'hostility'? --Salimfadhley (talk) 19:10, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I said over the past week; I made changes but was discussed them in talk pages - now I've been banned from even being able to do that. It's obviously the work of a POV-pushing faction. Realskeptic (talk) 23:45, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Salimfadhley: While I appreciate that you may be trying to help Realskeptic understand why so many other editors found his approach to editing Wikipedia to be...problematic, I strongly urge you to be very cautious here. Both you and Realskeptic should be aware that topic bans on Wikipedia apply everywhere and on every page on Wikipedia – including on user talk pages – and that this discussion looks like it's headed for territory covered by the ban. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:48, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Formal notification your appeal has been dismissed. [2] Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]