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Archive 12
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is an archive of past discussions about User:Valjean. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
If you're thinking of all the disputes related to Dana Ullman's self-promotion of his book, which names just about every substance, thus allowing him (he thought) to add a link to his book in every article, well, I wasn't very involved in them. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
the D in wp:BRD stands for discuss. you are not participating in discussion here except to instruct other editors in what they can and cannot do, and that is not a reasonable approach. please discuss the content of the page properly.
please DO NOT remove dispute tags that have been placed on the page without discussing and attempting to resolve the dispute.
Hi Brangifer! You'll see my comments at WT:MED about this article's recent edits. I've taken the liberty of extending my comments to the article's talk page and to the anon IP's talk page, to invite him/her to supply the references that were alluded to, and to you as well to supply the reasoning behind the FDA standpoint - all in the intersts of producing a balanced article! Cheers! Mattopaedia Have a yarn01:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC) (PS - that personal info warning up the top? That's some pretty dire shit there dude! I'm sorry to hear that you've been subject to such disappointing and scary behaviour. My prayers & best wishes to you and your family! Mattopaedia Have a yarn)
Wow! I just commented there, saved my edit, and the notice that a comment had been made here popped up! That's freaky timing. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Jessie Sayre
Thanks for your comments. By the way, I'm finding conflicting information regarding the circumstances of her (early) death. Princeton's library said it was after surgery for an appendectomy. But -iIt looks like the family released a statement that week stating that she was operated upon for gall bladder disease and suffered "vasco-motor failure," a phrase not often used. I'll keep looking for clearer info, but if you know an authoritative source, I'll certainly defer to your edit.Wikijsmak (talk) 18:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I have read the statement about surgery for an appendectomy, but don't recall reading the other info. If I find anything I'll let you know. If that information is from RSs, then both can be mentioned, and some other editor who notices the conflicting information may provide a source that clears up what seems like a contradiction (at least to laymen). -- Brangifer (talk) 18:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I also see that her husband wrote an autobiography (Glad Adventure)in 1957, but haven't yet found a place to read it; in Google Books it's just a snippet view. I'll keep looking, but if someone in your family has it, I'm sure it has more first-person primary information on her than just about anything else out there.Wikijsmak (talk) 19:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm absolutely certain that no one in my immediate family has the book because I'm the only one doing any genealogical research. The relationship is also distant. Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre and I have a common ancestor, Daniel Sayre (1666-1723). That's pretty far back! That makes me the 7th cousin of Jessie's granddaughter Harriet. I have been able to trace my ancestry back to William Sayre, b. 1452 in Bedfordshire, England. I'm related to the Sayres and Ansleys, two families who had active genealogists who documented their families quite nicely. BTW, what do you think of the photos I found? Jessie was an attractive woman whose social concerns and activism no doubt had a great deal of influence upon her famous son, the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr.. As a top clergyman he did what he could with his enormous influence. The Sayre's were and still are a remarkable family, with many notable individuals. Another relative I've found is Janet G. Travell, M.D., who was also in the White House, but as President Kennedy's personal physician. That relationship is close enough that I inherited a box full of postcards, family pictures, and postage stamps from her uncle, a noted philatelist in San Bernardino. He was a founder of the Arrowhead Stamp Club there, which still exists. --Brangifer (talk) 01:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I see no need and have no interest in making any promises to you about anything - you are not my mother. Further, if you continue badgering me on the talk page with personal questions that have nothing to do with developing the article I will ask an administrator to intervene. is that sufficiently clear? --Ludwigs209:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I can understand that we should probably take the dispute to a private talk page, although the dispute was related to events occurring on that talk page, so it was natural to continue there. Preventing reocurrances of disruption by you is definitely in the interests of protecting the article from disruption. It's also abundantly clear that you are a testy and uncollaborative editor that isn't interested in seeking consensus. You haven't shown evidence that you can learn from your mistakes. That's unfortunate. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
B - you have literally done nothing on that talk page (or the article itself) except insult other editors, tell them that they are not allowed to make edits, and otherwise interfere with the concensus-building process, so please don't talk to me about being testy and uncollaborative. You are entitled to think whatever you like about me (frankly, I don't have a high enough regard for you at the moment to take it personally), and as long as you keep it off article-space edit summaries and talk pages we can move on. I will suggest generally that you stop trying to bully other editors into complying with your wishes and start communicating and editing to properly improve the article, but I will manage even if you don't, so that is entirely your choice. --Ludwigs219:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes. Editors who don't seek consensus, but edit war instead, don't deserve recognition or a place at the editing table. Let their utterances be treated with the silence and disdain they deserve. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Spaces before/after heading labels
Hi there. I saw your changes to Skepticism. Just curious, but is there any particular reason for adding spaces before/after headings, i.e. next to the equals signs? I just tried it and it seems to make no difference: User:Tayste/Sandbox. Perhaps it's just for readability (which would be fine by me) but it doesn't seem to be stipulated in Wikipedia:MOS#Section_headings, in fact that says that bots are known to come along and remove the spaces again. Tayste (edits) 07:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It's actually not from the MoS, but is the default setting. Try starting a new section automatically by clicking the new section link and type a few letters. Then go back and edit it. You'll discover what Wikipedia's default settings are. It's built into WikiMedia's software. I do it for readability's sake, especially the blank line under the heading. The changes are invisible except when editing and don't hurt anything as they are the default settings. I don't know why anyone would make a bot change them, but it doesn't affect the appearance anyway, except to make it harder for people whose eyes are getting old. That's good enough reason to leave the default settings alone. I just checked and the default spacings are unchanged. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:55, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It's not really a big thing, which is why I have never done anything official about it. It's just a matter of convenience for myself and for others who might have trouble seeing things as clearly. My eyesight isn't bad, but I do have to use reading glasses now, which is pretty much normal for my age. When scanning a page while editing, having a blank line both above and below the heading makes it much easier to not overlook a heading. In long articles this can be a problem. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
You could use some Eastern quotes on your core page. Try Lao Tzu, Confuscious, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Tien Tai, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Admiral Yamamoto Tsunetomo,proverbs, etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiggalama (talk • contribs) 03:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
True enough. Shall we call it the IP of a blocked user based on location and subject ;-) ? Note that it's the same subject raised by the same user at a previous time. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:31, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Given in that instance, there were no other comments for a month, it's weak. The duck test has to be tempered by assuming good faith. An edit from an IP is not necessarily a sock, even in a sequence. Sometimes you see three reverts followed by an IP, or a block followed by IP change; that's clear. A solitary IP edit where there is no strict 3RR/24h violation or block, isn't a hard violation. If the rules wouldn't be breached if the user claimed the edit, I'd give the benefit of the doubt. It is always possible that the editor forgot to log on. Alternate accounts are legal, so a solitary IP edit, without a clear effort to bypass the rules, may walk like a duck, but you have to wait until you hear it quack before you can (and should) nail it to the wall.Novangelis (talk) 05:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
As you may have noticed, I immediately removed my remark after answering you above. The duck test is extremely strong for it being the same person behind Wiggalama. Let's hope they learn something from their block and return a better editor, but their behavior and insults indicate an immature editor, so nothing would surprise me. They have been repeatedly blocked and have an unfortunate tendency to remove warnings and then (apparently) ignore them. Yes, they "heard" the warnings, but didn't internalize them. That's a key trait of a disruptive and uncollaborative editor. As long as they behave when they return, they'll have no troubles from me. We can hope they have the ability to learn and improve. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I removed the direct quotes from anti-vaxxers not to whitewash them but because they were WP:undue ; there could no doubt be collected a lot of random statements from speeches and blogs in support of him, but we wouldn't bother. Martinlc (talk) 15:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't agree. The controversies have been quite public and have been covered by numerous V & RS. It would be undue if we gave the vaccine critics too much coverage, but that was very minimal coverage and exposes their rabid agenda. I am in the process of finding some other statements of support for him, as that aspect wasn't covered at all. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
In an article in The Medical Journal of Australia, Sampson and Atwood wrote about the inroads CAM is making as the "propagation of the absurd":
"The Absurd has gained a degree of agency and respect in some quarters of society through the CAM movement... The guardians that usually keep the institution of medicine from reeling off into irrationality are social contracts built into medical science and ethical behaviour. The academic community guards the contractual borders of science, while laws and regulations encode our ethical system. For the Absurd to have advanced, there must have been some breakdown of these social guardians. Postmodernism has promoted breakdown and reorientation of structured forms of thought. One of its guises is language distortion — the redefinition and use of words to fit personal views. For example, alternative and complementary have been substituted for quackery, dubious and implausible. Another is the invention of integrative medicine — designed to leapfrog methods into practice without need for proof... Postmodernism creates an atmosphere in which absurd claims are accepted more readily because they have simply been renamed... Postmodern CAM also tolerates contradiction without need for resolution through reason and experiment, resulting in a medical pluralism.... Implausible proposals and claims become tolerable and comfortable, and the CAM advocate’s burden of proof is shifted to disproof by the science community, which that community accepts without major objection. These are constructions designed for propagation of the Absurd... The new sociolegal order also shows breakdown of classical ethics. CAM followers declare it to be ethical to perform clinical trials on scientifically implausible treatments — merely because the treatments are popular."[1]
Hi BR, I have no idea what the SW's rules are. I assume the same as ours, but I'm not familiar with it. I'll take a look at the edits, but not sure what I can do. SlimVirginTALKcontribs03:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed, Global warming, is on article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.
Hi Tony. Thanks for the notification. I don't think I've ever been involved in those matters. I only removed obvious policy violations. If you're concerned about my edits, please let me know what I might have done wrong so I don't do it again. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:20, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Hey there BR, I thought I would answer your question above since this is a standard warning. Everyone who edits any of the articles within the Global warming articles gets one of these templates since the articles went on watch because of the editing that is quite heated there with some of the editors. You didn't necessarily do anything other than edit there which is what brought the notice to your talk page. Again, anyone who edits in the GW articles will receive this template, so don't worry about what you did. I hope this helps, --CrohnieGalTalk11:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I may be making a mistake, but I am unable to find any assertion in the source that science refutes the existence of spirits etc. Could you show me the exact wording? If it is just oversight on my part then I apologise. I disagree with the statement anyway, given that science is not a body of authority but a method of investigation, and should make no decision about something not existing, I can't help but believe that a scientist wouldn't be so quick to this conclusion. A skeptic, yes, but not a scientist. Macromonkey (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
You are correct about the source. The source mentions "communication with the dead", but that particular page (others from that source do) doesn't deal with spirits. Other sources should be used to bolster that part of the statement. I'll fix that for you. As to science, it deals with what is proveable, and doesn't use much effort on what isn't proveable. Religion deals with that. If it hasn't been proven using the scientific method, it belongs in the realm of religion and metaphysics. It needs to be falsifiable in order to be classifiable as a scientific subject. Since extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, the claimed existence of spirits is usually ignored by laboratory scientists, but activist scientists (skeptics) may deal with it. It's up to believers to prove their existence, and such extraordinary proof hasn't been provided in a manner that convinces the scientific community. If it had, we wouldn't have this discussion. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Apologies, I may have not articulated my view correctly. I believe that scientists should not refute the existence so explicitly. Whilst it has not been proven, suggestive evidence has been given, yet is unfortunately often ignored because of the stigma attached to parapsychology. So whilst there is no conclusive proof, there is enough for it to be considered possible, however 'unlikely'. As such, stating that science shows us that spirits do not exist would be incorrect, and as you put it, if proof against spirits had be given, 'we wouldn't have this discussion'.
Additionally, requiring 'believers' to provide proof is illogical, since any proof given would be considered void due to the fact that it comes from such a source, not to mention the fact that it is the job of scientists to investigate phenomena fairly, not leave others to prove it.
Finally, the 'extraordinary proof' is a typical mantra of skepticism, a true and fair method of investigation should treat everything equally and without bias. Thanks Macromonkey (talk) 23:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Basically it's a matter of following the scientific method. A scientist, when speaking formally, would say that they have not seen any convincing evidence of their existence, rather than categorically saying that they don't exist. They would say "show me the proof". It would also be proper in some cases to say that some claimed phenomena or method is highly unlikely to be true or effective, such as homeopathy. That's not the same as saying something is impossible. In common speech, which scientists and skeptics often use, things are often stated more informally and statements that such and such doesn't exist or doesn't work are common expressions, and that doesn't automatically make them pseudoskeptics. Hey, we're all human ;-)
As to the burden of proof, it is always on the claimant. Scientists are not obligated to prove or disprove extraordinary claims. That's the way the scientific method works. Marcello Truzzi understood this quite well. Where he went wrong, and we'd likely disagree on this, is that he didn't admit of the appropriateness of stopping investigation when it is futile or a waste of time. Modern skeptics and scientists, for very practical (and often economic) grounds, have learned to give up and cease investigating when something is just too far out, or has been repeatedly and succesfully debunked. They very properly insist that believers must be the ones to provide the proof. For example, scientists aren't obligated to prove a negative. They don't have to disprove something. They can simply say, I won't believe you until you provide convincing evidence.
You're welcome to believe in the spirit world. Many religions believe such things, and as long as it is held as a personal religious belief, there is no problem. The problem starts when someone fails to recognize the difference between proven fact and personal belief. When someone claims that a personal belief is a scientifically proven fact, they are guilty of pseudoscientific thinking, IOW it's a fringe claim. That's where the scientific consensus, for example as expressed by national scientific bodies, comes down squarely against belief in homeopathy and spirits. Only fringe scientists believe in such things. They have made the mistake of suspending disbelief and have drunk woo woo koolaide. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I have no problem with it being regarded as a fringe belief, it was merely the wording in the article that irritated me. I would also like to make it clear that I have no problem with scientific skepticism: things such as alternative medicine (particularly homeopathy) can be dangerous. I appreciate the need for proof, although it must be admitted that they will always be in different spheres of knowledge. To me though, 'debunking' the existence of spirit is immediately ignoring the personal experiences of millions of humans throughout history, these things seem subjective. Also, try to find a culture of which we have sufficient knowledge, and see if you can find one that doesn't have spirits or ghosts etc. From a historical point of view, it's amazing, not to mention the psychological and evolutionary factors if spirits don't exist. :) Macromonkey (talk) 10:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
P.S, I see your point now with the mediumship article, although would suggest the wording to be different, atm it seems very definite and making an outright statement, which is what I have a problem with, not skepticism. It's all very well to be skeptical until proof is given, that's good science, but making outright assertions is not. Macromonkey (talk) 10:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
re this and this. you insult me directly or indirectly in almost every post you make to me, on this and other pages. if you continue to do so, I will ask an administrator to intervene. please refrain from any further discussion of your interpretations of my past actions, your impressions of my personal characteristics, or any discussion of me at all. focus your comment on article content, please.
Hmmm. L's past actions warrant discussion, but insults don't seem necessary. I think the request improper as it relates to your L's actions, but insults are not necessary, even if they would be considered appropriate in most civilized contexts. — Arthur Rubin(talk)17:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Neither of those diffs resembles an insult, IMHO. It should be noted that I wouldn't block either of you, as I've been involved with disputes with both in AltMed articles. — Arthur Rubin(talk)17:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm merely asking that Brangifer keep comments about me off article talk pages. I am not (myself) interested in his obvious misinterpretations of our previous interaction, and they are insulting and irrelevant to the discussion of article content. If he has a problem with me personally, he can use my talk page or some more official page for user conduct, but I do insist that he be be both civil and on topic in content discussions. Do you have a problem with that, Arthur?
I will make an effort to do the same on my part, of course (which is what I normally do, though I have occasional slips). let's hope this is the last we here of the issue. --Ludwigs217:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
"Warned"! On my talk page. (Welcome to the lion's den, Daniel.) You really have nerve after all the shit you've pulled off. There is nothing insulting in what I wrote. It might be unpleasant for you to have your past history brought up, but it was very relevant to the comments made by you and by the admin, and was actually necessary to explain why 3RR wasn't an appropriate option when you are part of the mix of editors. You haven't shown ANY evidence that you understand or accept that editing at the same time a BRD discussion is ongoing is improper. Your past actions created a very disruptive edit war, and your very dubious accusations against Verbal at the Arbitration board (and now here) were even more disruptive per "when you live in a glass house, don't throw stones". You were the one who maintained an edit war against the objections of numerous other editors, and then you had (and have) the audacity to complain! Now you have the audacity to complain again? Talk about thin skin! If you don't like to have your improper behavior civilly and accurately described, then don't engage in it. (Note that civil descriptions are far from personal attacks.) Thin skinned violators of BRD don't deserve to have their offences whitewashed and hidden from view.
I wouldn't have described the context if the admin hadn't proposed methods (BRD and 3RR) that haven't worked with you, AND if you hadn't immediately before my edit attempted to force me to not describe your offenses when I hadn't even considered doing so. What's really ironic about this situation is that I had pretty much forgotten them until you opened your mouth. When YOU unnecessarily poke an unresolved and festering issue created by yourself, do you think that Chanel No. 5 is going to come out when YOU poke it? Of course not. YOU created a mess, YOU have failed to resolve it, and when YOU insist on poking it, it's going to come out as the pus that it is. If you will only show that you can learn from your mistakes, you will be forgiven, BIG time! I don't hold grudges against people who can learn, but those who don't learn are always a thorn in Wikipedia's side and need to be watched, especially with all the aggressive language you have used on that talk page, and your threats to IAR.
Take a look at the section above this one. Here we have an editor who has been banned, used socks, attacked me, and even impersonated me!, and I'm having an enjoyable time seeing this editor learning and trying to make constructive edits. We still don't share POV, but at least they are collaborative, which is more than I can say about you. They are learning and demonstrating a positive learning curve. They can become a good editor. You, in contrast, are digressing and have used your experience here to become an expert at wikilawyering, stonewalling, and gaming the system. You are about as close to a twin of Levine2112 as I've come across in that you profess to be a skeptic, claim to think that scientific thinking is admirable, and yet you constantly and subtly undermine the scientific POV and seek to make fringe POV seem mainstream. That's a violation of policy and ArbCom decisions. That's almost a genetic twin, and if you take offense at that, please be my guest, because it's not a compliment. (You're on my turf!)
After a long period where you showed promise, I've seen you rather suddenly (so much so that I've suspected you're allowing Levine2112 to use your account) coming from nowhere and confronting me out of the blue and returning to your original newbie combativeness. I have therefore come to consider you to be a subtly disruptive pusher of fringe POV, and those are the most dangerous kind for this project. Until you show that you really are on the side of science and evidence, instead of constantly chafing under the limitations which WP:FRINGE place on your fringe agenda, you'll always have a cloud of very justified suspicion hanging over your edits. Subtly undermining Wikipedia to make fringe issues appear to be mainstream is disruptive. I can't control what agenda you choose, but I can describe it civilly, and complaints are only going to make the spotlight shine more clearly on what you're doing. Believe me, for you "silence is golden". Just edit sensibly, avoid conflicts, be collaborative, avoid edit wars like the last one you maintained for so long, and you'll be okay. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome to think whatever you like about me, and indulge in whatever fantastic imaginings make you happy (such as the above). If you have specific concerns about me or my behavior, feel free to speak with me about them in user talk (within reason), and I'll respond as I can. if you're feeling particularly aggrieved, take me to wikiquette, and you'll find I'll be most reasonable about it. However, I will not allow you to try to win arguments about content by criticizing me as a person on article talk pages. If you can't get your way by making valid, reasoned arguments, don't try to get your way by using cheap tricks.
If you keep trying to poison the well with me, you'll find that I've survived that nonsense from people who are much, much better at it than you are. It's not going to serve you well in the long run. do what you like, of course (far be it from me to tell you what to do), but don't blame me if it backfires. --Ludwigs207:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
My basic concern has little to do with content and much more to do with your edit warring. That behavior bothers me regardless of the topic. That's why I've always had concerns about QuackGuru and the "old" ScienceApologist. I'd like to be able to trust you. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as you have made a number of contributions to the article. I have found some concerns which you can see at [[Talk:Seventh-day Adventist Church/GA1]. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi I am trying to add pertinent info on the OPV/AIDS theory based on 3 years of research in North East Congo. Why are you deleting it? Thanks
Hi,
I am new to Wiki but I have done some serious work in North East Congo and even got the ex head of Wistar Lab (which was involved in the Congo trials) on video footage.
I am a scientist trained at Oxford University. If you please link on my movie, you will see that there is very important data relevant to the OPV/AIDS theory and the controversial, potentially contaminated,
vaccine experiments in NE Congo in 1957-59. Please don't delete my comments.
I'm sorry, but personal videos and interviews, such as are found on YouTube, aren't considered reliable sources of information. It needs to be published by a third party in a verifiable and reliable source. Those are the rules here. At Wikipedia sourcing is everything, so we have very specific policies that govern what types of sources we can use. Wikipedia doesn't publish original research. You also have a conflict of interest, and if you aren't careful, you can also get blocked. Have you read the links I left on your talk ("discussion") page? You should also check out each of the items I have linked in this message. If you fail to do so, you'll just end up in trouble, get blocked, and your link may even get added to our blacklist. I suggest you take this matter to the Reliable sources noticeboard and ask them what they think you should do. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for the prompt response:
I want to point out something: - if you see my movie - you will see that it is already BASED on all the published material and sources - from Nature, Science, etc. that you have added to your quite impressive (for people not involved in the debate directly) entry on polio-aids. Polio-aids, if true, has immense implications for human life and safety, speaking from the point of view of our species. Hence it is important, that the editors ascertain whether I have TRULY broken the rules. If my video, is only a visual representation, of what has been already discussed in print in your article, then what is the harm in including it. I chose the visual representation of communication because there have been so many cranky theory of aids origin, not to mention the billion dollar lawsuits that some might face, if polio aids is true, that I felt that a visual representation of already published scientific article was important, especially since Wiki itself suffers from a paucity of images. Yes, over the years, my research in Congo led to to believe that there was more truth to polio aids then the scientific mainstream journals (which presented only a politically correct version) represented - and which lay people thought to be the unvarnished truth. But this is not about my point of view. In your article, you have quoted several scientific sources discussing polio - aids, albeit, cautiously, some dismissive, some supportive. What if somebody put up a visual image of all of this debate. Wouldn't that count as an Wiki entry - being simply a DIFFERENT mode of communication, in order to make dense scientific ideas accessible in a more democratic fashion, free of jargon, using the power of the audio-video medium, which many feel - to be the language of the future? Just as Wiki is the encyclopaedia of the future. Thus, given the important of the topic, I humbly request the editors to SEE my movie. It will, if nothing else, inform your various debates on this page. It is only 1 hour or so, in 8 parts. I put it up for free on youtube, because of the importance of the topic. Fluxsingh (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I definitely agree that multimedia presentations have their place in this world, and that they can have a very powerful effect, but they aren't allowed as sources in this encyclopedia. I'm just one editor and you would need to get a consensus of a larger group of editors to make an exception to our rules. You really do need to present this at the Reliable sources noticeboard and ask them what they think you should do. Present your case there. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Mills
Did you look at the talk page? I had a ton of facts backing up my reason for the delete. Orlandy Orlady? or something like that. Well her own post in the talk page shows they have accrediation and are not a mill. Yes the university appears to be having some problems, but if every university that has a problem is a mill....well we would have no schools left. --Super (talk) 01:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
But it has nothing to do with the article...it is about mills. If this is the case I can inclued schools like AIU and Southwestern as mills.--Super (talk) 04:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Even if you are right, don't continue to edit war. That will get you blocked, EVEN if you are right. You need to discuss this on the talk page, and if that doesn't succeed, then you must use the dispute resolution process. I think that's what you need to do now. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
You were looking at my changes to the Aromatherapy page - perhaps you'd be willing to help? I'm trying to find out which editor originally inserted the obviously bogus claim that a certain doctor cured gangrene by the use of a Lavendar infusion. --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I would be happy to help you. I assume it's the mentions of Gattefossé and the burned hand. I also note the use of this phrase: "was first mooted by". I'm not sure about meaning implied here. I don't recall ever hearing the word "mooted" used in this manner. Is there a better way to write that? Since it's not even referenced, maybe it should be removed.
BTW, you are still marking all your edits as minor. You need to set your preferences (at the top right side of the page) to not do that. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
The minor-flagging is user error, sorry: For some reason the Wikipedia Beta interface defaults every change to minor even though many lines might have changed. Sometimes I forget to untick the box. No deception is intended. Is there a way to remove those flags other than to re-do the edits? The problem with the Aromatherapy article is that I'm having difficulty pinning down the actual meaning of the word? It's most commonly used in a generic term (i.e. aromatherapy shampoo - where a normal shampoo is enhanced by the addition of an allegedly therapeutic aromatic substance ) or a more specific sense (i.e. he went to an aromatherapist who prescribed a course of aromatherapy). The external sources seem to use the word almost interchangeably. This is par for the course in alt-med but still a challenge when trying to compile a NPOV article. --Salimfadhley (talk) 10:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes. I told you above. Here it is again. You need to set your preferences (at the top right side of the page) to not do that. When you click the "my preferences" link, you need to click the "Editing" tab, and then look in the middle of the "Advanced options" section. There you need to uncheck the minor editing line. You need to read about what a minor edit is. Most of your edits don't count as minor edits, and it really makes no difference if you don't mark a minor edit as a minor edit. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually the rule was made because of abuse of the minor edit tag, so you weren't the first one... ;-) In this case they do it exceptionally and appropriately. In the case of the renaming of an article, I suspect they are using a tool to do it, and the tool automatically marks such renamings as "minor", which can be unfortunate, since renamings can be controversial. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Placebo/Homeopathy
While I'd be among the first to decry homeopathy as purely placebo-based, do you really expect this edit to Placebo to survive? Is the UK Select Committee report likely to sway the diehard homeopathists away from reverting your edit? If not, it's largely baiting them. Best leave the debate (and, whether you like it or not, it is a debate) on the Homeopathy page where it belongs.
Zak (talk) 21:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
True believers will never be swayed, but that's not a legitimate, policy-based, reason to revert it. Editing needs to be based on policy, and the Select Committee has called homeopathy a "pure placebo". I will make one small tweak to it though. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually it seems to be perfectly valid edit to me. There's no basis to doubt the neutrality or factual integrity of the Evidence Check 2 findings, especially since they were based in part on the best possible evidence provided by pro-homoeopathy campaigners. It seems perfectly appropriate to call homoeopathy a pure-placebo treatment since this is indeed the mainstream opinion of it. --Salimfadhley (talk) 10:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Verbal has now started to chop text out of the Seth Material article WITHOUT any attempt to communicate with me about it, and therefore without any attempt to collaborate. Now, I want to understand your position: Your position seems to be that it is okay for Verbal to delete information from the article without discussion though there is clearly disagreement, but if I revert his deletions then I am edit-warring. Is that your position? If that's your position, then why am I the one who is considered to be edit-warring, and Verbal isn't? And why is it incumbent upon me to collaborate, but it isn't incumbent upon Verbal?--Caleb Murdock (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
As a newbie you are at a distinct disadvantage. Verbal has lots of experience after many years here, and understands policy much better than you. You therefore fail to understand many of the reasons for his edits. If you two can't work it out on the talk page, then you'll have to proceed with dispute resolution. Regardless of whether you are right or not, battling it out by editing the article will only get you into more trouble. Try dispute resolution or place a notice on the Administrator's noticeboard. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
An editor who has been making edits for 3 or 4 years cannot be considered a "newbie".
It seems very evident to me that you are favoring one editor over another. An editor's relative amount of experience should not be an issue. Simply because one editor has been on the site longer does not mean that that editor has more rights than other editors. If there are disagreements as to how to proceed on an article, then the experienced editor has as much obligation to collaborate as the inexperienced editor. Indeed, the more experienced editor should KNOW that collaboration is necessary.
I am now in the position of having to question your impartiality. It seems to me that a person in your position would strive to be as fair and impartial as possible, but you seem to be doing the opposite. The fact that you would defend Verbal despite what he is now doing -- making disputed edits without collaboration -- makes it clear that your judgement cannot be trusted.--Caleb Murdock (talk) 22:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Are you really serious with that comment about "impartiality"? Do you really think that you, as an SPA, are impartial about the Seth subject?
You are a relative newbie (1192 edits), compared to Verbal (18360 edits with current username, and more with previous one). You are also an SPA, which makes your status here rather dubious. Your experience with Wikipedia is thus very limited.
You are correct that edit count and time here doesn't give him more rights than you have, but it should give you pause to rethink your approach. You are constantly mentioning that you know more about the subject, but that is irrelevant here. Knowledge of policy trumps that. If you'll read the SPA link and it's related wikilinks, you'll see that SPAs, by virtue of their great knowledge of a subject, are very susceptible to violating many policies. Their knowledge and self-confidence become a liability to them as editors. They tend to place more emphasis on furthering their particular topic, than on furthering the goals of Wikipedia. I really wish you would stop the campaign and change tactics. If you really wish to make progress, you should use the DR process. This debate is primarily between the two of you. I'm not saying that Verbal is without fault, but your approach isn't working. Try the DR process. That's my best advice to you, since I'm not interested in getting involved in your controversy. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Nothing you've said changes the fact that you are holding me a to a higher standard than Verbal. You are insisting that I collaborate, but you are not making the same insistence of Verbal. As for the rules, they clearly need to be changed. Just as editors are supposed to assume good faith, editors should be expected to refrain from making extensive edits to subjects they know nothing about. Thanks to the policies, Wikipedia is rotting from the head. I'll proceed with dispute resolution.--Caleb Murdock (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
You may not agree with the rules, but you have to follow them the way they are. If they get changed, you can follow the new rules. Until then you are wasting your time fighting against them. You have been going in rings now for several years and getting nowhere. That should be telling you something. Persistence in doing the same thing when you constantly get resistance isn't a virtue. Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." You may not be crazy, but you're not succeeding, and I hope you find some kind of resolution to this dilemma you're in. It's not good for you and it irritates the heck out of others. Please proceed with dispute resolution. That is the proper way to do this. Good luck! -- Brangifer (talk) 04:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll tell you why I continue to persist on Wikipedia: It is the first place where everyone goes for information. I agree with you, incidentally, about what Einstein said, and I've considered abandoning Wikipedia altogether. With the rules against the proliferation of knowledge, and in favor of people like Verbal whose interest seems to be primarily in censorship, it isn't a good place to disseminate information. Your contention, incidentally, that knowledgeable editors are likely to be biased in favor of their subjects is just an assumption on your part.
Verbal apparently has nothing to do all day but run around Wikipedia causing misery. I, on the other hand, have a success business to run, an elderly mother to take care of, and online projects that are much more worthwhile than Wikipedia. Maybe I am insane.--Caleb Murdock (talk) 06:12, March 3, 2010 (UTC)
I doubt you are crazy. You have just misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, and after all this time, that's a serious matter and indicates you don't belong here. We're writing an encyclopedia. Truth is secondary to verifiability: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.") You are using Wikipedia as a webhost to advocate for your understanding of "the truth". That's called "advocacy", and it's forbidden here. I think it's time for you to go elsewhere. Write whatever you want on your own website, just not here. End of discussion. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
What a nerve you have to speak to anybody on Wikipedia like that -- to invite people to leave the site instead of contributing (as if you owned it). You are the very last person who should be an administrator. Your contention that I am using Wikipedia to spread a biased message is absolutely untrue. From the very first day that I came here I tried to write everything in a neutral manner, and to adhere to the facts. I frequently questioned whether I was presenting the information in the most objective way possible, and I often cut out my own writing because I realized later it wasn't completely accurate or unbiased. For you to say things like that about me, without knowing me, and without knowing the effort I made to be fair-minded, is just insulting.
I think the truth is the opposite of what you said. Like Verbal, you have an agenda that you push unconsciously. I am guessing that Verbal is an atheist, and you are probably one too (since you seem to be pals). You see anything that isn't absolutely mainstream as "Fringe", and you think that when you censor articles and editors you are doing something good for the encyclopedia. Well, you're not. You and Verbal are obstructionists. At first I couldn't understand why an administrator would side with an editor who was so clearly acting badly, but now I understand -- you're no better than he is.--Caleb Murdock (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Spoken like a true crybaby, you want to introduce your own personal and unverifiable 'truth; into Wikipedia. You cry and call obstruction when somebody points to the policies which legitimately prohibit this kind of behavior. I think you will feel more at home on Conservapedia - the kind of behavior you advocate is welcomed there. --Salimfadhley (talk) 15:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Caleb, I see that you have now been topic banned. I wrote "End of discussion above", but you have ignored it. This is not a social networking site. BTW, I'm not an admin, and even though I have been encouraged to seek adminship, I have no wish to be one. I'm going to archive this thread. If you persist in using my talk page, I will report you for harassment, which will likely result in you being blocked or banned. I have only banned someone from my talk page a couple times in the last four years. That should give you some idea of how disruptive your persistence is perceived. END OF DISCUSSION! CALEB MURDOCK IS BANNED FROM THIS TALK PAGE. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Does he have an inexhaustible supply of bone-headedness? As ammusing as his delusions are I wonder if it would be better for all if we found a way to resolve the fake-controvercy he is promoting in talk:Ghosts. Your thoughts? --Salimfadhley (talk) 13:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Since the tagging situation has been resolved for the moment, I suggest ignoring him. If he resumes his edit warring, stonewalling, and disruption, we can take action. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I guess you are right. I naively thought he could be reasoned with - unfortunately he keeps repeating the exact same arguments (ad infinitum). It's so tiresome. I guess enough people are on his case now so if he tries something it will be instantly reverted. The most annoying thing about him... I think it's that he randomly alleges others of violating policies apparantly at random. It's painfully clear that he does not understand the policies he claims to enforce. --Salimfadhley (talk) 15:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes and no. The last sentence isn't true. He knows them well enough to game the system and stonewall. That takes a fairly good understanding of policy. This isn't some innocent game he's playing. If you study when he first came to Wikipedia, he immediately made trouble for some time. Then he calmed down and did some good work, stayed out of trouble, etc.. Lately he has returned with a vengeance to his old disruptiveness, and in such a manner that he's acting as a clone of User:Levine2112, who has been rather quiet since his topic ban. Even after it has run out he hasn't returned to his old haunts, but I find it hard to believe he couldn't find it tempting to cause trouble under some other guise. There are some editors whom one learns to know so well that AGF is lost on them. AGF is not a suicide pagt. Stay on your toes. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
look, I'm going to make one reasonable suggestion, and then I'll leave the two of you to have your conversation in peace. You can treat me as an enemy, the way you have done to date, and things will go on the way they are going on until they reach whatever unpleasant conclusion they will inevitably reach. or, you can try discussing matters with me sensibly, and we will come to some compromise position that won't be exactly what you desire, but will be an overall better situation. It's up to you. I have nothing particularly invested in this, so I have nothing to lose by continuing to argue for what I think is correct. You'll likely get a whole lot farther with me (a whole lot faster) by being cooperative than by using less savory tactics.
If you don't mind a suggestion: Either ignore him, or start a RFC to document his behavior in a proper venue. --Ronz (talk) 18:45, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
An interesting compromise suggestion was added by User:Abecedare to the NPOV talk page - did you see it, it's right at the end. He suggests a minor alteration to the wording of the NSF citation which makes explicit that the words are cited by the NSF rather than originated by the NSF. I think that would dispel any concerns held by the vast majority of editors. I'm pretty sure that all the other purported issues are without merit. --Salimfadhley (talk) 22:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll take a look at it. Dbachmann has just been disruptive and I have replied to him. Please don't add to that particular thread. He shouldn't have commented there. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Just noticed - you never responded to Ludwigs2's preposterous sounding claim that the NSF report was a primary source. That seems to me so self-evidently wrong, since it's so obviously a secondary or tertiary source: The fact that it cites other secondary sources is the dead give-away. This misunderstanding may account for his strange belief that it was something casually written, and his unjustified interpolations of the text which he added to the table on the talk:ghost page. --Salimfadhley (talk) 00:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought I responded to it when he accused me of a SYNTH violation. I explained that in essence NSF has done what any good writer does, and that is to study various sources and synthesize some content based on those sources. This is perfectly proper. NSF did it, not I. At one time he repeated his false "primary source" claim and instead of once again rebutting it, I just answered (as if it might be true), but explained that he was still wrong. Here was my reply:
"Whether or not it's a primary source isn't really the primary issue here, it's your continued insistance that this is an improper use of a primary source. Upon which policy are you basing this suppostion, which nobody in the RfC at Talk:Ghost or here is seeing? Somehow you are right, and practically everyone else is wrong? I think not. So far, your interpretation would seem to prevent us from using any source. Please point us to this policy and show how we are violating it."
That's when he explained that he was basing his claim on the SYNTH policy, and I debunked his misapplication of that policy. If he's still making his false claim, then it needs to be dealt with even better. (This type of IDHT and repeating the same claim is exactly the tactic that Levine2112 and QuackGuru use. They can do it for months on end!) I imagine the RS noticeboard would be a good place to get an opinion and then quote them. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
You are obviously having severe communication problems. I think that has to do with the fact the Ludwigs2 is highly intelligent with an excellent sense for nuances, while you even have problems distinguishing Ludwigs2 and Levine2112, two very different users. Ludwigs2 has a good point, but I am not surprised that most editors don't understand it and I am especially not surprised that you don't understand it. The fact that it's hard to understand doesn't make it invalid. HansAdler01:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I can take some comfort in the fact that even though I have the excuse of using a second language - Danish - as my daily and only language for 24 years, even the other participants in two RfCs don't understand or agree with him either, and I strongly suspect that many of them have English as their first and daily language, and are smarter than all of us. If he's going to get others to understand him, then the burden is on him to explain himself better. Frankly I find his wikilawyering to be "enkel", "forfejlet", "gennemskuelig" and "genkendelig". (Look that up ;-) It's a deja vu experience. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
English is my first (and only) language. My feeling is that when we cite an external source we must accept the plainest meaning, since Wikipedia strives for verifiability and not truth. Ludwigs2 would win a prize if this were an exercise in higher literary criticism, rather than an attempt to build a verifiable encyclopedia. I think there's no need for interpolation of the NSF documents, especially when the plain meaning is so obvious --Salimfadhley (talk) 10:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Being a native speaker of English doesn't automatically give you the ability to understand the principles of scholarly citation. In fact, this issue has nothing to do with any particular language. I guess the best way to understand this is by publishing in a scholarly journal yourself and then seeing people rely on your authority for statements that you didn't formulate carefully because they were not in the centre of your argument.
The particular document in question here is about public belief in pseudoscience, not about demarcation of pseudoscience, which is known to be a hard question in the philosophy of science. To get an idea of how many people believe in pseudoscience one needs to be relatively accurate with what one calls a pseudoscience. When discussing any individual topic one needs to be totally accurate.
The NSF could ignore the dimension of reincarnation as a religious belief, for example, because relatively few people in the US adhere to a religion that involves reincarnation. Immaculate conception is also pseudoscience if you ignore the religious component, and millions of US citizens believe in it. Yet the NSF didn't have it on the questionnaire because in the US the religion aspect dominates for this topic, unlike for reincarnation where it only dominates in Asia. HansAdler12:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, your opinion is probably the truth. If this were an exercise in lit-crit or deduction I might reach the same opinion. It would make an interesting social-studies paper, since the nuance is an interesting one which casts doubt on the consistency of this reputable source.
My issue has always been that as wikipedia editors we should simply report what is definitely verifiable rather than any inferred, probable truth. We know for a fact what the document states, what you and Ludwigs2 claim they actually intended to mean is disputable and therefore non-verifiable. --Salimfadhley (talk) 12:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
That's an interesting response. Now I am curious: Do you agree with Brangifer's calim that Ludwigs2 is wikilawyering? Presumably Brangifer is referring to items 2–4 of WP:WL. I trust he will clarify in case that's not what he meant. HansAdler13:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure, it certainly seems that way. Scroll back a bit, you will see me accuse Ludwigs2 of misunderstanding certain WP policies. For example, on a number of occasions he has stated that the doc which Brangifer cited is a primary source despite it being clearly not the case. My original presumption was that Ludwigs2 was a troll simply because he invoked so many WP policies without due cause.
My current opinion is that he is an honest player who has simply come down the wrong side of a truth vs verifiability debate. He's a passionate advocate of the truth, whereas Brangifer appears to strive for WP:V. The fact that I think that Ludwigs2's interpretation is interesting and probably true is utterly immaterial - WP:V is what we strive for. --Salimfadhley (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, thanks for the link to the WL essay. I wasn't aware of it. I think it fails to mention some common aspects of WL, but of the four choices I'm probably most concerned with number 4:
4. "Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions."
He's misusing the SYNTH policy and claiming the NSF statement is a primary source to justify rejecting the clear meaning of a statement attributed to a RS. In the process he's violating OR by claiming that his interpretation of the NSF statement renders it to mean something else than it actually says, and thus it's not a good source. In fact, as I've explained before, it is the NSF that is doing the actual synthezing of several primary sources they quote in the document, and producing a secondary document. That's excellent writing practice. Their statement, which uses the Gallup Poll as an example, even changes the Gallup Poll's wording, thus making it clear they understood what they were doing and that they were equating "paranormal" with "pseudoscience", not as synonyms, but that they consider paranormal beliefs to be pseudoscientific beliefs. Wikilawyering also has an aspect of doggedness to it which we call stonewalling, that is a failure to know when to admit that the consensus is against you and that it is best to just let the consensus decide what to do, and NOT to interfere with it by then attacking the resulting content (by kicking the dead horse and tagging it) that is approved by the consensus. That doesn't mean Ludwigs2 has to change his mind or beliefs about the situation, but it means he has to accept that Wikipedia is driven by consensus and is not to be used as a battleground to force one's own OR interpretations on the project. Vowing to not stop repeatedly explaining his opinion to us as long as he considers us to be wrong is simply a declaration to edit war and/or disrupt, whether it's in articles or talk pages. Some of the greatest disruption occurs on talk pages, not in articles. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Note that I have some sympathy for the complaints several have expressed about the inclusion of certain ideas in the Gallup Poll (and repeated by the NSF), such as witches, reincarnation, etc. I just believe they are wrong for several reasons. I know that some of those terms have various interpretations and that it is unfair to accuse an innocent and scientifically naive believer in a religious belief of holding a pseudoscientific belief, when they may even be clear that their belief has no scientific support. Sure that's unfair, but that's life. They are being judged by their association with others who push those beliefs in a pseudoscientific manner. Several of those ideas that are mentioned can and should be viewed in different ways, and to make the NSF statement internally consistent, one should choose the meaning that most obviously fits the context, and not a meaning that makes their statement internally inconsistent.
For example, a rigid interpretation of witches (failing to recognize that the NSF is obviously not referring to the individual, but the power they claim) is fallacious and simplistic. Just because the NSF quotes Gallup's use of the single word "witches", when people who claim to be witches obviously exist, and then claiming the NSF is therefore wrong, is a cheap and shallow choice of definitions of "witch", being chosen in a wikilawyering fashion to discredit the NSF in an attempt to justify rejecting it as a RS. The NSF is obviously speaking of the belief in witchcraft as a paranormal power which is claimed by true witches (not your garden variety teenagers who like to see witchcraft movies and wear gothic attire). There are people who really believe they have such powers and who devote their lives to delving into such beliefs and ways of thinking. They are engaging in a religious and pseudoscientific endeavor, and those who believe that such powers exist are holding pseudoscientific beliefs. A simplistic and rigid interpretation of some of the mentioned ideas is getting people off-track. One should choose the meaning that creates internal consistency, and not seek to fault the NSF because one mistakenly/deliberately/wikilawyeringly/simplisticly chooses the most inconsistent meaning to make an invalid point. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
One approach to understand it is to interpolate meaning from an apparent contradiction. An alternative is to simply cite what they said and allow readers to draw their own conclusion about what was actually meant. L2 seems to favor the former, most others seem to (correctly) favor the latter. The NSF said what they said. --Salimfadhley (talk) 15:32, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
FYI: the NSF report that uses the phrase "pseudoscience beliefs" cites this paper: "Losh SC, Tavani CM, Njoroge R, Wilke R, Mcauley M. 2003. What does education really do? Skeptical Inquirer 27(5):30-35" (reprinted at here) which provides both origin (CSI) and operating definition of the term: "Here, we define pseudoscience beliefs as cognitions about material phenomena that claim to be "science," yet use nonscientific evidentiary processes." - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
To come back to the issue of "wikilawyering": I brought that up because you are either not getting the spirit of the word or assuming things about Ludwigs2's motivations that I simply can't see. The NSF has counted things as "pseudoscience" that cannot possibly be pseudoscience because they lack the "pretends to be science" component. The normal way of dealing with this would have been to simply ignore the source. For some reason we now have two(?) RfCs about it, so that's no longer possible. Now the important thing to understand is this: When people try to resolve the (apparent or real) contradiction between the spirit and the letter of our rules by interpreting the rules in such a way that their spirit is preserved in the application, then that's not wikilawyering but instead the opposite of wikilawyering. Wikilawyering in this case would be the abuse of a straightforward application of the letter of our rules in order to break their spirit. The first can be seen as a valid and somewhat disguised application of WP:IAR; the second is just plain wrong.
It's absurd when people who are trying to resolve such a contradiction creatively by preserving the spirit of our rules accuse each other of wikilawyering just because they disagree about where exactly the creative interpretation needs to be applied. HansAdler06:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, I appreciate the calm and reasoned way you are approaching this, and I agree in principle with what you say. Where we differ is that I and the majority of editors in both RfCs consider Ludwigs2's arguments to be OR and disruptive. "Creative interpretations" are the essence of OR. A straightforward understanding of the source and a straightforward application of policies avoids this problem.
The standard and simplistic definition of pseudoscience isn't wrong, but the NSF demonstrates that they have a deeper understanding of what is involved in how people end up holding such beliefs, which is the setting of the whole article: a lack of critical thinking and a lack of scientific knowledge. That leads people to believe in certain unscientific concepts. The Gallup Poll listed ten concepts, some of which (but not all) are beliefs, and labelled them "paranormal". The NSF then used that list and deliberately labelled them "pseudoscientific", and that beliefs in those concepts were "pseudoscientific beliefs". The NSF understands this better than we do, because we have traditionally held a rigid and legalistic interpretation attached to key words (the "only" definition just "has to" be open "claims" of "scientificness"). They aren't saying that the traditional definition is wrong, and they even use it, but they go much further. It's a "both" "and" situation, not an "either" "or" one. We can learn from the NSF. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:05, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
This is going to have to go through DR. A RfC/U is probably the best first venue. Both Ludwigs2 and Dbachmann deserve bans for their behavior, and Dbachmann should be desysopped. The one advantage to waiting is that the evidence is piling up. I'm going to move these comments up on this page. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I saw your recent edit to this article, and think it is incorrect. The statement "Wild kokoro yams are used as an ingredient in progesterone cremes for women, which are claimed to eliminate problems associated with menstruation and menopause" is backed up by a plausible source, and there are many similar sources. I assume that Kokoro, LLC is telling the truth when they say they use wild yams to derive progesterone, since this is a common method of manufacture, and they certainly make the claim. Whether their creme actually does any good is a different question. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
My edit was mostly concerned with sourcing. Curezone is a deprecated site that violates WP:ELNO. We need better sources. Please find them. While I didn't touch the next reference, anything sourced to Christiane Northrup is potentially dubious.[3][4][5] It should be possible to find a better source. Note that all scientific and medical claims should pass the standards for such sources established at WP:MEDRS. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
You clearly know more about which sources are good and which are not - this is not an area I know anything about. A book search on wild yam progesterone gets many hits, many with limited previews, but I have no idea which are acceptable. The point is not whether or not the cremes are actually useful, or whether progesterone derived from wild yams is better than progesterone from other sources, both of which seem dubious to me, just to point out wild yams can be a source and various companies advertise the fact that their products are derived from wild yams and claim benefits, which is clearly true. Any advice? Aymatth2 (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I made the following comment on Crum375's talk page.
Hi Crum. I notice that you have reverted a revert. You may not have realized that only one minute before your revert, Bifurga had reverted several edits (actual changes of wording) made by QuackGuru, all of which were unsourced and undiscussed. By contrast, mine were pretty much only references to the Psi ArbCom case, from which the content came, with some minor formatting.
If you'll look at my edits you'll see that they should be pretty uncontroversial. This is a policy page where references to other policies, and even to the ArbCom cases which spawned the content, is helpful information. I added the four numbers for convenience because the ArbCom really did create these four groupings and they are often casually referred to by number, but the numbering isn't official. With this numbering it will be much easier to refer to them by number when discussing the four groupings. This will help to avoid misunderstandings because the numbers will actually be there on the NPOV policy page.
I suspect you saw a bunch of undiscussed changes and reverted without realizing that an intervening revert had fixed the addition of potentially controversial content by QG. Your revert then got rid of my uncontroversial and constructive edits. After looking at my edits, if you still think they are problematic, please explain so I can understand and avoid problems in the future. I hope you will restore those references. I know better than to touch the NPOV policy page (and other policy pages) with anything that might be controversial without discussing it first. I've been there and done that ;-) -- Brangifer (talk) 00:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Which led to this thread here.
Hi BullRangifer, I watch that page (as well as most policy pages) pretty closely, and don't make edits blindly. I believe your changes need to gain a broad consensus on talk. I prefer to discuss the matter there, but just to let you know, in principle, we should avoid making links or references from policy pages to ArbCom or their decisions, since they are not the ones who make policy, the community does. Also, they are supposed to base their decisions on our policies, and if we base our policies on their decisions, we risk going into an infinite loop.:) Crum375 (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I basically agree that our (the community's) decisions are the ultimate source of policy, but it's a fact that this particular piece of policy was based on an ArbCom decision, and that ArbCom decisions do in fact help to form and influence the creation and modification of policy. Their decisions are based on existing policy and then extend them. Those new interpretations and applications then end up in our policies. Whatever the case, this has its origins in a specific ArbCom case.
Before Dec. 3, 2006, when those four groups were created by the ArbCom decision, the word "pseudoscience" was only mentioned here. The four ArbCom groups and links to their origin were first added to the WP:NPOV/FAQ policy page on March 15, 2007, and here's what it looked like.
It took quite awhile before the content was moved from the WP:NPOV/FAQ policy page to the main NPOV page on Feb. 12, 2009. It's interesting to look at the version when it was transferred.
It is fine, and even recommended, to consider previous ArbCom rulings and statements (as well as inputs from other sources) when making policy, but those discussions should remain on the talk page, not become part of the policy. By inserting ArbCom rulings inside the policy page, we create an appearance of policies being driven by ArbCom, where in fact it's the other way around. But again, this should be discussed on the talk page, as should any significant change to the policy. Crum375 (talk) 02:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Fortunately I'm not proposing any change to the policy. It's quite good. Barring use of the refs, would the link to the ArbCom case which I added right under the heading still be okay? There was abundant reference to the ArbCom case in the original. What about the numbering? -- Brangifer (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
A link from a policy to ArbCom implies that ArbCom dictate policies, which they don't. In fact, as I noted above, it's the other way around, and ArbCom can and do link to policies all the time. If policies link to ArbCom, it creates a circular reference, which we need to avoid. Crum375 (talk) 02:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I concede your point based on your reasoning. What about the numbering and mention of "four" guidelines, without mention of ArbCom? It would really help when discussing this policy. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
If you'd like to make changes to a core policy, it makes sense to propose it on the talk page and gain consensus. Crum375 (talk) 03:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
with respect to this: I stand by my previous comments on the page, and I think the RfC/U is completely in order. If you'd like to discuss the matter with me, please keep it in user-space where it belongs, or wait until the case is opened and we can discuss it there. --Ludwigs218:56, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
You know just as well as I that your proposed RfC/U is just revenge for you losing the RfC cases. You have failed to convince me and likewise numerous other editors. You live in a glass house and are definitely not innocent regarding personal attacks and incivility. If you were perfect you'd have a slightly better case. Starting an RfC/U would only result in a shitfest which would only cause irritation and more disruption, as well as draw the attention of far more editors to your behavior. It might hurt me a bit, but you have much more to lose, and Dbachmann even more. You would at the very least be topic banned or even banned, and Dbachmann desysopped, since I would continue all the way to ArbCom to ensure that Dbachmann stopped setting such a bad example. I'd rather see you just drop the stick and walk away without any types of bans. Let the consensus rule. It never was against you personally. I can understand that you aren't satisfied, but Wikipedia works in this manner. The solution to what you perceive to be an "imperfect consensus" (such things do occur) is not to fight the consensus and attack its supporters (myself), but to change policy. You have a right to do that. If policy gets changed, then I'll abide by it. Right now I happen to have it on my side.
Please just drop this and let's all get back to constructive editing. If you'll stop now I won't seek to have you banned, and I'll try to not be so paranoid. I'll even seek to end the discussions with an announcement that we have agreed to settle our differences privately. I'm putting some very good weed from my stash into the peace pipe. Are you willing to light it and smoke it with me? (Actually I dropped pot in 1973, but that's another story. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Brangifer, I will tell you one last time: This is serious. You attacked me with lies and did not withdraw them when challenged; in fact you repeated them. You engaged in character assassination against Unomi and continued after my very clear warning. I believe you did similar things with Stmrlbs, although I don't remember the details. And you are behaving in a similar way against Ludwigs2 and Dbachmann now.
If anybody is going to be banned then it's you. Do you remember Orangemarlin? This was his last edit but one. This is what my talk page looked like at the time.
Perhaps you wonder what happened to him? So do I. But I caught his first sockpuppet, see User talk:SciMedKnowledge. I never got a response to my email, and he never edited after I sent it.
Then there is the case of Ottava Rima. In contrast to you he was a really prolific content producer, and he had (or has?) a lot more wiki friends than you do. Like you he thought he was blameless, and he was simply surrounded by idiots who attacked him for no reason. After a great and long drawn-out theatre performance at Arbcom he was banned for a year. Basically this was for claiming all the time that he was right when he was wrong and attacking people for no good reason. I don't think we need Arbcom in your case. I am confident we will handle it on the level of RfC/U.
You can prevent this by convincing us that it's not necessary. You would have to convince us that you finally understand what is wrong about your behaviour and that it has to stop. You would have to make a clear commitment to changing your behaviour.
I am not sure that you are even able to change your behaviour, so it seems more efficient to me to go straight to RfC/U. But it's up to you. Perhaps you can prove me wrong. HansAdler19:47, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, Brangifer, please inform me if/when the RfC/U against you is opened. I haven't studied this particular issue, but I'm sure Ludwigs2 should be restricted for non-constructive edits, whether or not against a specific policy. Your edit does seem to be uncivil, but there is certainly provocation. — Arthur Rubin(talk)19:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi Arthur. I'll notify you if necessary. I don't claim to be perfect and I have crossed the civility line at times. In that we're all guilty. Hans is laboring with me and he seems to be knocking this through my thick skull. I have apologized to all concerned except Dbachmann, who should know better, and who should contact me on his own as his case is different. I haven't ever implied any socking or meatpuppetry, but have restricted my comments to describing the actual situation, one which is supported by many others. If I've gone too far, then he can approach me with precise quotes and diffs and I'll likely apologize if I've been unnecessarily harsh. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:29, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, I don't know what happened to OrangeMarlin. He just disappeared and we lost another MD as an editor here. I wasn't aware that he had created a sock. That's just wrong if it really happened! Did you start an SPI and get him blocked? You should. I hate socks. As to Otava, I've seen the username but never followed their "career" here, so I don't really know anything much about them.
As to my paranoia about socks and meatpuppetry, it has good historical reasons. What's unfortunate is that, while many times it has led to the unraveling of sock farms, it has at times been wrong, and I have and will continue to apologize for that. I'm going to apologize to all of you for how it has affected you personally. You, Hans, are a good scientist who makes good contributions here. Strmlbs happens to make very good work that will help Wikipedia software to work better, IIRC. Ludwigs2 will just have to bear the full responsibility for his actions, rather than being able to partially allow my suspicions to shift some of the blame onto Levine2112. I'm now convinced that Ludwigs2 is acting on his own and I've dropped all mention of Levine2112, and have no intention of reviving them. I'm sorry I brought it up in the first place and apologize to Ludwigs2 for doing so. We need to keep our differences between us, and I shouln't have brought Levine2112 into the picture. As to Dbachmann, no one has been able to provide a motivation for why he's been doing as he's been doing, but he seems to have drawn back and I'm not interested in pursuing the matter. His involvment has been considered odd by those who have emailed me. If he has some legitimate complaint against me, I'd rather deal with it separately from this thread. I accept and understand that you all have been very irritated by my paranoia and will try to curb it in the future. I have been slow to understand this because it's been clouded in debate and controversy, which doesn't make me think clearer about interpersonal relationships. Instead it only makes me focus on the logic of the discussion. Your repetition here has made it more clear. Thanks. Your persistence on this point is paying off! Maybe there's some hope for me after all. When truly convinced of something, I'm capable of changing behavior and even fundamental beliefs. (How do you think I changed from an ultra conservative preacher's kid into a skeptic and atheist? That has taken several very profound emotional crises and severe changes of pretty much all my belief systems. That's a grueling process, but I had to follow my conscience and the scientific evidence.) That doesn't mean we agree on the other matters, but I'll try to stay on topic. Okay? Will you join the circle and smoke the peace pipe with me? You can always point to this conversation if I get careless and thus thoroughly embarrass me. I am forgetful, but not a malicious or bad person. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
So it's all just caused by sock puppet paranoia? I don't believe you. This doesn't explain your very problematic relation to truth. (See my ANI comment.)
Thanks for telling me about your history, by the way. Being a conservative preacher's kid explains a lot: You are treating science as a religion, and that's a problem. Science doesn't deserve to be abused in this way. HansAdler20:31, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
So much for AGF. I am telling the truth. I'm sorry you can't put yourself in my shoes like I've been trying to set myself in your shoes (above). It's helped me to understand how what I say can hurt you. I'm sorry about that. I have no idea what you mean be a "problematic relation to truth". You'll have to be more specific. An AGF would attribute any descrepancy to poor communication, misunderstanding, etc.. You know we have a history of near impossibility to understand each other. We may not be able to overcome that, but I think we should try. It can never happen if we assume bad faith. As to science, it is definitely not my religion, but the scientific method is often the best method we currently have to get closer to something that approaches the truth about falsifiable reality. That doesn't deny that there are things that can't be measured, but my relation to such matters is on a different level which I clearly understand to be unverified belief. I'm a bit more complicated than to make science my religion. For example, I don't just believe and accept the latest research at face value. It has to stand the test of time and get reproduced, especially if it contradicts existing knowledge. I am neither the first one to hop on a new trend, nor the last one to give it up. Whatever the case, I still hope we can put this behind us. That takes a will and effort on both sides. I'm open. --Brangifer (talk) 02:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
brangifer - why should I take revenge for an argument I'm winning? If you want to accuse me of an emotional state, well fine, here it is: I am seriously pissed off at you for insulting me, lying about me, misrepresenting me and my position, campaigning to get me blocked, and etc, and etc, in dozens upon dozens (if not actually hundreds) of documentable instances over the past month or two. The only thing more outrageous than your actions is the fact that you continue to think that this behavior will work on me, as evidenced by your comments above. point of information: I never give in to bullying. it's a personal principle that has earned me more bruises and garnered me more respect than just about anything else I can think of.
But whatever... I am going to lay out the very, very long list of diffs of your problematic comments and behaviors towards me, and then I'll give you the opportunity to explain how even 1/10th could be considered justifiable, and leave it up to others to judge you. I'm sure that you and your buds will take the opportunity to turn it all back on me: that's typical behavior, which I've experienced several times before, and will likely experience again. However - and this is the point you all keep missing, incidentally - I don't care. This problem is not going to be resolved by virtue of you bad-mouthing me. --Ludwigs222:08, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Is this about winning to you? If you're winning, then why are the majority of editors against you? This is about the verifiability of an NSF statement, not about whether it is true or not. That's policy. Now please provide just one single instance where I have lied about you. I doubt you can do it. Upon examination it will likely be some example of poor communication or something taken out of context. Please provide the exact quote and diff, since context is important. If I've been imprecise, which is entirely possible, then I'll refactor and apologize, because I have never knowingly attempted to be deceptive or lie about you. I have told things as I have seen them, just as you have done. This is the first time I can think of where you have actually accused me of lying about you. You haven't mentioned a single instance, so I don't know what you're referring to. I'll excuse the hyperbole about "hundreds", as you admit to being in an emotional state. If my standing firm and unrockable on a solid consensus, and not engaging in OR to weasel myself around accepting a statement which I don't like (I'm describing your behavior) is bullying, I guess you'll just believe whatever you want to believe. I won't give in to your bullying. Why should I when a majority of editors assure me that I'm on the right end of this debate? My comments describing your negative and disruptive actions (what you call "badmouthing") won't convict you. It is those disruptive actions that will, while my adherance to policy and a solid consensus will provide me a certain amount of protection from your attacks. You have come up on the short end in two RfCs and you just can't drop the stick and walk away. It's your decision. The gun is still pointing at your own foot. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
On the upper right corner of the page is a link which says 'my contribution'. I invite you to use it and do a little reading: it is not difficult to find examples where you treat me like crap, so go ahead an find one yourself and explain it to me (I might suggest you start with your opening paragraph in this section, where you accuse me of seeking vengeance against you, imply that I am in cohoots with several other editors, and threaten to have all of us banned). Or you can wait for the RFC/U. I expect you will have excuses and justification: I have to date heard you use English as a second language, momentary frustration, self-defence, and misinterpretation by others, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if you claimed you were influenced by sunspot activity or blinded by the full moon. You have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to excuse away your own problematic behavior, even in the same breath as you condemn others. I could probably accept any of those reasons as an excuse for any single instance, mind you, but a "temporary lapse of judgement" which occurs over countless posts for over a month no longer demonstrates a 'temporary lapse' - that is a full fledged lack of judgement that needs to be addressed.
and since you ask, I am winning (IMO) because I have reason firmly on my side. You can play misguided games with policy, manufacture fake consensus through off-topic RfC's, poison my reputation; you try anything you like from your book of dirty tricks - it doesn't phase me. until you convince me that my position is wrong using reason I will consider myself to be on the right side of this debate. The difference between you and I, BR, is that I listen to reason, and I am more than willing to concede any point where people show me I've made an error in reasoning. You, by contrast, backpedal, play IDHT games, split-hairs with definitions, play nasty politics, shout, scream, threaten, insult - anything you need to do to keep your otherwise insupportable point alive. The only real issue we have here is that (unlike most editors, who just wash their hands of you) I'm persistent. sorry, but it is high time you learned the lesson implicit in this. --Ludwigs216:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Just as I thought. You made the accusation that I had lied about you, so you are under obligation to provide an example. You can't or won't do it. That makes you look either deceptive or deluded. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
... as a talk page violation and gross personal ad hominem attack.
Hans, let's deal with this here. You wrote:
Oh, that is what you are driving at. I see. So you are making the same distinction that you made (under your former user name "Fyslee") in your character assassination campaign against Unomi:
You knew that the fishing expedition against Unomi had ended with the result: "Checkuser evidence shows no IP-relationship nor any geographic relationship nor any other checkusery sort of evidence between the three candidates." You knew that the admin who had blocked Unomi as a sockpuppet had apologised for the error afterwards. Yet here is what you wrote on ANI:
Later you defended this behaviour as perfectly OK. Things are beginning to make sense now. Apparently you believe that anything goes so long as what one says can be interpreted as only extremely and intentionally misleading rather than literally false.
Here is news for you: That's not how the world works. When you work actively on making people believe something that is not true, then you are lying. HansAdler20:31, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
What the heck does this have to do with the current situation? Nothing at all! It doesn't have anything to do with sourcing policies, pseudoscience, or NSF. Nothing at all. Digging up old things unrelated to this case isn't helpful. You have an awful grudge against me. Above I have extended apologies and promises to do better, and this is your response? That's not honorable, but warlike. Instead of taking the high road you're going about as low as possible. I am truly surprised. I thought higher of you. You are actively seeking to stir up trouble, rather than to lessen disruption and strife. That's very unwikipedian.
Thanks for providing the link to the old Unomi SPI and CU cases. I had totally forgotten them. The only reason I made that comment and linked to the CU case was that Unomi denied ever having a CU run, so I provided the link to the actual CU case to correct the erroneous statement made by Unomi. That was my interpretation of the situation. Sure the block was finally undone, and apparenly properly so. What led up to the block was standard procedure in such cases. Many were very suspicious, and I was only one of them, yet you single me out as if I was somehow a bad person for sharing the same suspicions for the same reasons with many others. George William Herbert shared those suspicions and detailed why they were legitimate and then carried out a block. What I wrote in response to Unomi's erroneous denial was perfectly proper. Read it again with my motivation in mind and it'll suddenly make sense to you. I was responding to an erroneous statement.
Newbies are always at a distinct disadvantage when they suddenly appear with very advanced knowledge of the history behind disputes and how to edit here. Their modus operandi shows they aren't true newbies. If they then engage in certain suspicious behaviors, suspicions are raised. We are constantly attacked by socks, vandals, and other types of dubious editors. There is hardly a day where I don't undo several examples of vandalism and bump into possible socks. My motives in the YouKnowMe/Unomi case were no different than those of many others who were suspicious of Unomi, whose very username automatically seems designed to raise suspicion. It's a flashing red light held in front of our faces every single day that says "YouKnowMe" (that's the English pronunciation of Unomi). Why was this new user (who acted like a very experienced editor) announcing that we "knew them", unless they were a sock of someone whom we supposedly should know and who was taunting us? Their behavior then raised even more suspicions. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one left scratching their head after the CU didn't confirm the charge. The whole thing was regretable, but very understandable and forgivable when one assumes good faith, as required by policy and good ethics. The same has been stated by Arthur Rubin above, regarding any incivility by myself. It has been provoked by the behavior and attacks of others.
No one is innocent, and only the innocent have a right to accuse others of behavior they have not engaged in themselves. Such is not the case here. Ludwigs2 has done the same to me as he accuses me of doing. It's totally hypocritical to start an RfC/U.
As to your last comment, I'll explain something. In English (I don't know about German), a lie is an untruth deliberately told in an effort to deceive. By contrast, an untruth is something that isn't accurate, but which is told by one who sincerely believes it to be true. Do you see the difference? It's a matter of motives. They may be mistaken, but they aren't lying. The first is morally reprehensible, while the second is a result of human frailty. Accusing me of lying is wrong. Your failure to AGF is a policy violation and you're not even slightly attempting to follow it. Please stop. You can do better. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion of comment on AN/I
I reserve the right to refactor headings on my own talk page. Don't use them for personal attacks.
Comment on your character and its implications for Wikipedia restored to WP:ANI, which is where it was in the first place (not WT:NPOV).
As the title says. (Added: Link to post with original title. 20:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)) As to AGF: AGF is not a suicide pact and Wikipedia generally expects a minimal level of competence, which includes the ability to see the difference between right and wrong. If you are unable to see what was wrong with your character assassination of Unomi (then a new user), and if you are unable to see what is wrong about misrepresenting sources, then that is your problem and needs to be fixed by yourself. Wikipedia can try to help you. But Wikipedia is not under any obligation to pretend that your problem does not exist and to work around it forever, especially when it affects other users or causes disruption. Hair-splitting about the word "lying" is not going to do you any good.
This is my last comment in this matter on your talk page. The discussion belongs on ANI. Ludwigs2 has taken the original problem to ANI, your behaviour is an important factor in the problem, and since you are not showing any insight it needs to stay there until it is resolved or moved to RfC/U or Arbcom. HansAdler08:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
As to your additional points concerning Unomi: I have addressed them before. Look in your talk page archives if you don't believe me. But of course it's always other people who are practicing WP:IDHT, never you, right?
And the real problem isn't so much that you started the character assassination, but that it was impossible to stop you. After I explained what was going on – that the user (unusually) lives in Thailand, as was obvious from his first, anonymous, edits; that he has been using the same id on various places on the internet long before joining Wikipedia, as is obvious from a quick Google search; that he could not possibly know that by RfCU you were referring to "Request for Checkuser", a process that no longer existed at the time, and so naturally interpreted your first comment as referring to RfC/U, something he had never had (an SPI with checkuser, yes; an RfCU, no) – after I explained all these things to you, you continued to claim that you had been totally right and justified, never made a real mistake, and you didn't even properly withdraw/strike your attacks against Unomi or apologised in any meaningful way. And now you tell me about AGF? WP:KETTLE. HansAdler09:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Unomi lives in Thailand? That's all news to me. Have you told me this before? It appears you know lots about this person. I never did any Google searches and only based my comments on what all of us thought at the time. Call it groupthink or whatever, but lots of us were wrong, except in one thing, Unomi wasn't a newbie or new user at all as deceptively claimed. As to my movement of your ad hom comment to here, sorry about the location thing. That was pure confusion. It was Talk:AN/I rather than Talk:NPOV. (This issue has been forumshopped several places (and Ludwigs2 got blocked when he took it to AN/I...) so it's confusing in the heat of the moment.) I moved it because it wasn't an answer to my comment, but an ad hom attack and character assassination. Don't dig up old stuff. Deal with the current situation. Please look at the spot where you placed your ad hom attack and reply properly to the subject instead of diverting attention by attacking me.
Your comments reveal that what you wrote above regarding seeking to lay this behind us if I admitted that my comments had hurt you were just baiting, lies, entrapment and deception; that you are more interested in carrying a grudge than in understanding me; that you wish to put the worst possible interpretation on anything I do; and that you somehow think you are superior, perfect, absolutely faultless, and that this gives you a right to bait, insult and lecture me. It's all a cheap shot and a spinelss and cowardly thing to do. You have become what you fight against. You are the embodiment of what happens when an editor refuses to AGF. There is no possibility of collaboration. Even if you were to AGF, we would have difficulty understanding each other. We have already established that fact in our first encounters, which is likely because of language issues. But refusing to AGF makes it impossible to heal the rift between us. I'm very sad about this situation. I had really hoped that we could learn to get along. I'm still willing if you can ever learn to AGF. If I were an evil person, then AGF would indeed be a suicide pagt, but I'm just like you, imperfect and learning. The problem is you believe you're perfect. No, it's so sad that you have become what you fight against and are completely blind to it. Our AGF policy is what prevents editors from going from ignorant jerks into becoming evil people who are destructive to the project. You have crossed that line. I can't trust you. You have proven that by your baiting above, and then misusing my offers of peace. You're not interested in peace.
It's doubly problematic that you piled on and brought all this old stuff up in a situation that didn't involve you and which you didn't understand. It only confuses the issue, but then that is apparently your intention. (Now how do you feel about that statement? See what happens when someone assumes bad faith about you? It's not nice!) You made a very bad choice of allies in Ludwigs2. It's odd that you chose to attack me when I was in the strongest position I have ever been. You are fighting against the NSF and a strong consensus of editors, and instead of learning from the situation, you've acted like a childish and recalcitrant edit warrior who's hellbent on doing as much damage as possible to the "other side", regardless of the consequences to oneself. It's a suicide mission. Like I said above, I might get hurt a bit, but you have more to lose because the consensus and policy is not on your side. This is all very sad. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:39, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for breaking my promise and answering here again (hopefully for the last time). You asked for it.
Facepalm On 29 March 2009 I opened a new section "Personal attacks" on your talk page. It is now in your talk archive 10. Here is the first paragraph of what I wrote at the time. I have added some italics for your convenience.
At WP:ANI#Martinphi requesting unblock there are three posts in which you attack Unomi based on an unfounded belief that he is a sockpuppet or returning user. As I noted elsewhere, with only a little research you can easily find out which country Unomi is editing from. You can also google his user name to find a lot of additional information about him, some of it related to his country of residence. The SPI case (apparently Unomi didn't know it was a RfCU since the term seems to be officially out of use since the merge of all SPIs to a single page) ends with "Checkuser evidence shows no IP-relationship nor any geographic relationship nor any other checkusery sort of evidence between the three candidates". I have rarely if ever seen such a strong formulation for a negative CU result. It led to the following unblock comment: "Checkuser evidence appears to indicate this sockpuppet ID was a mistake. Undoing my own block."
I don't remember now where I told you how to find out Unomi's country, so I can't expect that you still remember it. Look for Unomi's first edits. You will remember the page. Look for anonymous edits that happened immediately before Unomi appeared. That was very obviously Unomi before he decided to create an account. Click the WHOIS link for that IP and you will see it's from a provider in Thailand. I can't believe that I have to tell you this. You went around shouting at the top of your voice that Unomi is a sockpuppet! Unomi is a sockpuppet! and didn't even do the absolute minimum of research? Not even afterwards, after I told you exactly how to do it? Wow.
Facepalm "Unomi wasn't a newbie or new user at all as deceptively claimed". Where do you get this information from? As an anonymous user he tried to fix an obvious mistake, was reverted, started to discuss on the talk page, and decided to create an account to make things easier. For this he used a username under which he is known all over the internet. Several weeks later, while you were attacking him unfairly, I contacted him by email and gave him advice. Later I had several live Google chats with him. (Contact stopped shortly after you stopped attacking him.) It was very obvious that Wikipedia was completely new to him but that he is much better than me at finding documentation, and finding it fast. That he misunderstood RfCU as RfC/U shortly after being checkusered is the best proof that he had not been an active Wikipedia user earlier. Any returning user would automatically have understood what you meant. He didn't.
Facepalm "seeking to lay this behind us if I admitted that my comments had hurt you" – This is a complete misrepresentation of what I said. I challenge you to find anything remotely like that in my posts here. Here is what I actually said: "You can prevent [the RfC/U] by convincing us that it's not necessary. You would have to convince us that you finally understand what is wrong about your behaviour and that it has to stop." It does not say that your comments hurt me. (None of them did.) Naturally I did not ask you to admit any such thing. I didn't give you a specific list of aspects of your behaviour that need to change, so here are two. Perhaps I can think of more later. You will notice some familiar links. You like to use them yourself against others, as weapons. But they also have a meaning. We are supposed to read them, understand them, and apply them to ourselves.
You must listen to others (WP:IDHT), even to those who you would like to dismiss at not worth listening to because they might be sockpuppets etc. (WP:AGF). If it turns out your opponents have better arguments you must deal with the situation graciously. Not everybody can win at all times, especially not the person who is wrong.
You must not poison the well by continuously assassinating the character of editors you merely suspect of having done something wrong or having bad intentions. (Again, WP:AGF also applies.)
Facepalm Ludwigs2 is not my ally in any meaningful sense. We just happen to be of the same opinion in this case.
Facepalm You were not in a strong position, and you must have known it. Otherwise you would hardly have started two frivolous RfCs, one of which misrepresented the dispute, while the other tried to change policy to give you an advantage. That's not what winners do. It's typical behaviour of losers.
Facepalm "You are fighting against the NSF". I am fighting for the NSF against your attempts to misrepresent them and make it appear that they make ridiculous statements.
Facepalm "[...] but you have more to lose [...]" – Thank you very much for your kind consideration. I am not afraid. You are not the first untalented bully that I am helping to make a choice: Stop the bullying or leave the project. HansAdler21:28, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Read and noted. Considering our inability to understand each other, even when we slightly agree, it would probably be wise for me not to reply, but thanks for explaining. Come to think of it I will comment on one point. The raising of RfCs is recommended when there is disagreement. They are designed to bring more, preferably also uninvolved, editors to the situation. The second RfC at NPOV is not designed to change policy in any manner. I have said this again and again. The NSF statement just happens to fit guideline two perfectly. It's the type of ref that the ArbCom would have used if they had seen it at the time they crafted those four guidelines. It's use doesn't change anything in policy. I have explained exactly how it fits numerous times, so I won't repeat myself here. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
yeah, sure... RfC's are recommended to get extra commentary on difficult disputes. they are not for gathering 'votes' which you can try to use to override reasoned argument, and they are worse than useless when the RfC is opened on the wrong question and the first twelve respondents are friends you've canvassed in to show their support. If you had opened an RfC on the correct problem and left it to gather responses from neutral editors then I most certainly would have respected it, and so I imagine would have Hans. But if you had done that, there is no way in hell the RfC would have come down on your side of the issue. Don't get me wrong, I understand your problem perfectly - you want to make a point, and you're having a hard time supporting it through available sourcing, so you're doing what you think you have to do to get your unsupportable point across. I understand the problem, but I have no sympathy for it. that's not the way wikipedia is supposed to work. --Ludwigs223:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Noted. Your wishful thinking and delusional belief (that I was canvassing) is interesting, but unsurprising. refactored per below -- Brangifer (talk) 00:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
and your personal attack ('delusional' my ass) is unsurprising, but not interesting. I just keep racking up those diffs... --Ludwigs202:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
This is my talk page and I'm just showing I can learn from you. You have been very derogatory, so POT. The "delusional" part referred to your supposition that those who expressed support were my "friends", when actually most of them I haven't encountered before. A few who watchlist my activities did show up, but I was surprised to see so many I didn't know show up. That's what I intended by placing the RfC notice in three different places. That way many different editors would see it, and that's what happened. Note that editors who support your position also saw those notices, there just weren't that many of them. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
ah, my apologies then, I'll retract the bit about canvassing. I'll add that it's probably better better if you avoid off-hand accusations of that sort: you don't have the knowledge, qualifications, or competence to comment on my mental state, and your long-term insistence on doing so is part of the reason we're headed to RfC. --Ludwigs204:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
And I'll also refactor my comment to reflect that I wasn't referring to your general mental state, but to your conspiratorial "canvassing" type comment. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I have obviously seen it. I just don't agree with your interpretation, and especially application, of it. It isn't the do all and end all on that subject. It doesn't require all attribution to be removed. Sometimes the attribution is actually a plus, and you're blindly removing it, even when it makes the article better. You are also emphasizing "dispute in RS" to the exclusion of disputes among editors. It does not trump consensus nor WP:TALK. It does not allow you to edit war or remove content over the objections of other editors. You seem to have forgotten that collaboration is the ideal editing environment. Well....you haven't really ever understood that. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Do you agree no serious dispute has been presented but choose to ignore ASF. I am emphasizing ASF while it seems you are intentially ignoring policy. Your dispute is with ASF. Ignoring policy is against collaboration. QuackGuru (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring the concerns of other editors is ignoring policy. You can have every policy on Wikipedia supporting you, but if you ignore the concerns of other editors, you will have no success in getting your edits to "stick". Edit warring, even if you are "right" will still get you in trouble. Learn to collaborate, and even compromise, and you'll have more success. ASF doesn't "require" that attribution be removed. You have been warned countless times about your behavior, but you seem are incapable of learning. Your history here gives abundant proof of that. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring the concerns of other editors is ignoring policy? You are ignoring my concerns. ASF does not require attribution be included when an editor disagrees with the source. This is not about me. This is about you violating ASF. Do you agree no serious dispute has been presented. What specific reason does the text need attribution according to ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 01:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
QuackGuru, you seem to be missing the point of WP:ASF. From their examples, "That The Beatles were the greatest band in history is an opinion". However, under your interpretation, it would be ok to leave "The Beatles were the greatest band in history" in an article unattributed, as long as there was no dispute in reliable sources. This shifts the onus onto other editors to disprove what you are putting in the article, rather than having the editor have to WP:PROVEIT. There are times when it is clear that something is an opinion, and cannot be a fact. In those cases, it seems absurd for you to be requiring dispute within reliable sources. DigitalC (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
See ASF: "By value or opinion,[1] on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute." There are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions." The Beatles were the greatest band in history is a proposition. A piece of information that is not a proposition and not seriously disputed does not require attribution. QuackGuru (talk) 02:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
QG, I know you well enough by now to know that this thread will never end. Since this is my talk page, I'm going to put a hat on this and redirect everyone to WP:ASF. Take it there. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Meaning of "pseudoscientific beliefs"
I invite editors to describe their POV on this topic.
Please do not mention the RfCs at all. Such comments will be removed. The NSF source itself can be used, but be careful.
Groundrules
This isn't for an acrimonious debate, but for sharing, picking brains, questions, inquiries, etc., all in an atmosphere of open sharing without fear of being attacked. All opinions are of equal value. That doesn't mean they are equally "right", but have equal right to be expressed without fear of recrimination. If you feel someone is getting too sharp in their comments or replies, instead of replying in kind, ask them to reword their comment in a less controversial manner. Try to make others feel they can trust you and that their reply will be respected, even if you don't agree with it. Word any disagreement agreeably.
Just stick to what you think the phrase means, as well as what you think it doesn't mean. You don't have to give examples, but they are welcome. Citations, books, articles, and other sources are also welcome. They can be a resource we all can use in our editing work. I'm providing this thread in an attempt to enlarge my knowledge base and to better understand my fellow editors. I hope they will gain the same benefits from reading and participating here.
I suggest that each new entry start in its own subsection as a proposition, and comments related to that proposition can be indented under it. Any ideas for improvement are welcome. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Is my opinion invited or excluded here? I'm happy to provide one, but there's no need for another forum for us to fight it out if that's what it would come to. --Ludwigs203:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Your opinion is very welcome. I have tweaked my cautionary words above. I'm not interested in a heated debate. Questions designed to ferret out real meanings, clear up misunderstandings and such like are very welcome. This is a subject with many facets and each contributor here will likely bring interesting insights into some of the different ways this subject can be viewed. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
make one vulnerable to accepting without question ideas that are unproven.
Detailed explanation
They must be falsifiable beliefs. By "falsifiable" I mean vulnerable to scientific examination. Making claims about falsifiable matters amounts to a de facto scientific claim, whether one intends to do so or not. Skeptics then have the right to demand proof for the claim and will usually reject the claim as unproven. Anyone making such claims is obligated to either back up the claim with acceptable scientific evidence, or stop making the claim that it is a proven fact. They can then continue to make the claim, with the disclaimer that it is a personal, unproven belief.
The crucial nature of falsifiability is borne out by this comment from Tony Sidaway:
"You go on to say "Ghosts are by definition part of the spiritual world." If that were wholly true, then they would not be associated with real places, people wouldn't claim to have seen them and there wouldn't be a whole host of physical phenomena associated with ghosts. That purported collision between the real (or material) world and the imaginary (or spiritual, if you prefer) world is what makes ghosts pseudoscientific." [7]
The ones holding such beliefs are not pseudoscientists unless they are actively making bold claims of a scientific nature based on misguided use of scientific methods. Without such bold claims they are merely holders of pseudoscientific beliefs.
Not all of the mentioned items can properly be called "pseudosciences", as they are not maintained by the continuous use of misguided scientific research. Their existence is predicated on them first being "pseudoscientific beliefs" which then motivate pseudoscientists to devote their energies to research designed to prove the beliefs to be true. This is the opposite of the scientific method, and individuals who do this are pseudoscientists. They are fooling themselves and others. An excellent example of a "scientific" journal devoted to such pseudoscientific research in this backwards manner, is the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research. Pseudoscientists of this nature follow the "method" described in this cartoon, which contrasts the scientific method and the creationist method:
The Scientific Method: "Here are the facts. What conclusions can we draw from them?"
The Creationist Method: "Here's the conclusion. What facts can we find to support it?"
Others qualify because they make claims, which upon testing show none of the claimed results. They are pseudoscientific claims.
In short, there are (1) pseudoscientific beliefs, and there are (2) pseudosciences supported by (3) pseudoscientific claims. Those claims are then believed and are pseudoscientific beliefs. (Hmmm...not sure about that formulation...)
I am very willing to tweak this if I have worded things unclearly or incorrectly, since I have formulated this as I went along. I enjoy writing here because writing forces me to solidify(?) my thoughts and thus helps me to learn more. -- Brangifer (talk)
That's very interesting OR and personal opinion, none of which are becoming for an editor, or especially an admin, to use as substitutes for "verifiability, not "truth". Try some policy-based arguments, rather than assuming the supreme scientific organization in the USA made a mistake. That's a pretty bold assertion, and definitely OR. Also, when articles quote sources that are advocating a position, the article is not advocating, it's just following our sourcing policies. The quote must be attributed and framed properly, but this is perfectly proper. Since this is a subject governed by WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT, it is especially proper to give the mainstream POV prominence in the lead.
I really doubt that their use of the phrase "pseudoscientific beliefs" was a mistake they made every other year since 2000 (!), when "The National Science Board Members were closely involved in all phases of the preparation of this report." As Gwen Gale wisely put it (above), "Editors should keep in mind, reliable sources may not be true and often may be lacking, but en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability." That was immediately after stating that the "National Science Foundation is a reliable source." Now that's an opinion based on policy, and I can respect that.
Note that this discussion is totally muddled because the discussion focuses on the rigid, black/white definition of "pseudoscience" (which is a correct definition), but the NSF quote under discussion was about "pseudoscientific beliefs", which aren't exactly the same thing as "pseudo-science", even if related to it. Undocumented topics are "beliefs", and if they are held because of a lack of scientific insight or critical thinking, they are "pseudoscientific beliefs". (This is a relatively modern phenomenon, since "pseudoscience" couldn't really exist in the pre-scientific era.) Read the whole 2006 report where they discuss why people end up believing wierd things. That's why. A false belief cannot be a pseudo-science, but it can be a pseudoscientific belief. There's a difference, and the apparent lack of understanding of this difference is confusing this discussion.
The 2006 NSF report dealt with this commonly used expression ("pseudoscience" coupled with "belief" in various forms), using it numerous times. They understand the wider nuances of this subject, nuances which aren't covered in the rigid, black/white definition. It's a broad topic. My talk page has a discussion about this, and you're welcome to join in. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I think you're right to some degree. In the pre-scientific era, critical thinking hardly existed and wasn't expected in the general population, so belief was just belief. There were no recognized errors in judgment involved. It was purely simplistic thinking. The NSF statement is written in a modern context and is labelling modern beliefs in such things (listed in a modern Gallup Poll of paranormal beliefs) as "pseudoscientific beliefs". While this isn't directly applicable to this discussion of categorization, it does affect how this information and the NSF source can be used and dealt with in the Ghost article. As with all meta articles, it should cover the whole subject, and only if one portion is so large it overwhelms the article and causes undue weight problems, should that information be split off into a fork article. Until that happens (it's a small article at present), the article should cover the historical and social aspects, and note that in modern times the scientific community (which hardly existed previously) considers such beliefs (in modern times) as psi beliefs. That puts things in context, because people are living under a different paradigm in this age of enlightenment, and they are expected to benefit from and use critical thinking, and thinking that is informed by the advances in scientific knowledge and the widespread use of the scientific method by ordinary people, even if they don't realize it. Thus the article can deal with the subject as a non-pseudoscientific historical subject, and as a modern pseudoscientific subject. Times change, expectations change, and the article should discuss that fact. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion of Brangifer's proposition
BR - it's becoming more and more clear to me that our differences on this issue hinge on one single point. you want to say that everything which is not scientific is pseudoscientific by default; I want to say that everything which 'claims' to be scientific is either scientific or pseudoscientific, and everything else is just belief. your worldview is just too black and white for me - in my view there is a vast grey area in which science hasn't made any forays and belief doesn't pretend to be scientific, and I don't want to discredit everything in this grey area by saying that it fails scientific standards it is not trying to achieve. do you see my concern? --Ludwigs204:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for asking. I have understood this point since my youth in college and when auditing university courses. You have misunderstood me all along, or, to be more fair, it might be that until now (above) you haven't heard me state it, but I have done so before at Wikipedia. I too agree there is a huge grey area that can't properly be labelled as pseudoscientific. I believe that area has gotten much smaller, but it will always exist. Only areas that are falsifiable can be vulnerable to charges of being pseudoscientific, which leaves many religious and metaphysical beliefs "off the hook", so to speak. (There are probably a few instances where belief in a non-falsifiable idea can be labelled a pseudoscientific belief, as explained by Hans Adler, but let's not get into that right now.) Keep asking and I'll gladly try to explain. I may not be good at it, but I will try. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Proposition by Ludwigs2
I don't believe the phrase 'pseudoscientific beliefs' has any particular analytic meaning. I believe it was simply used as a 'term of convenience'.
Reading the chapter in full, it is clear to me that the author(s) are concerned primarily with the credulity of the lay public, and not particularly with pseudoscience itself. In the passages that use the phrase, the authors are trying to point out that the lay public is exposed to public presentations (television shows, movies, books, etc.) in which paranormal ideas are presented as scientifically reasonable - e.g. vampirism explained in a TV show as a biological process, a popular book which claims to lay out suppressed scientific evidence for UFOs, a movie in which a scientific experiment turns a doctor into raging green monster - but the lay public lacks the scientific acumen to distinguish viable science from fantasy science. The term 'pseudoscientific beliefs' is more a hand-waving attempt to capture this general idea of 'belief in science that never was', and is used primarily as a foil to critique the public's poor critical thinking skills. It doesn't seem to be intended as a formal concept, and certainly isn't developed as a formal concept; it's just a term put out there the way one might use a term like 'westerners': a vague, ill-defined, of-the-cuff reference term. --Ludwigs205:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion of Ludwigs2's proposition
I agree that it is used in that manner by many. That's very accurate, but I believe it includes more, per my proposition above. It's a very common term used in many venues, not always clearly defined, but still referring to something or other that is falsifiable but unproven. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
It's that 'more' where we start to disagree.. Let me clarify that disagreement into two distinct disagreements: (1) with respect to this document asserting more than what I said is (I think) out of line. Your 'more' is really well outside the context of this document and what this document is trying to do - I don't think we can reasonably take this document beyond its discussion of critical thinking to some more expansive meaning. This doesn't mean that the terminology isn't used the way you want to use it in other documents, of course, but (2) I am uncomfortable with the confusion that approach creates between untested, untestable, and invalidated constructs (which are very distinct categories in scientific thought). Let's look, for instance, at Traditional Chinese Medicine, which has a mix of all three. Some of the core assumptions of TCM (e.g. chi flow and energy meridians) are untestable under conventional scientific assumptions - the assumptions are just too wildly divergent for there to be any meaningful cross-investigation. Either you believe in them, or you don't, and either way science has nothing to contribute to the discussion. Some of the practices the TCM practitioners use are testable, but untested. Untested practices are treated scientifically as matters of belief; science has nothing to say about them until some scientist actually puts lab to rat and comes to some verifiable conclusion. Still other practices have been tested, and amongst those some are invalidated and some actually demonstrate positive effects. acupuncture has some documented clinical effectiveness; other TCM techniques fail to demonstrate any effect. Only the last one of these (practices that have been tested and failed) can really be called pseudoscientific, and that only when they continue to be promoted as scientific after science has refuted them. The problem I see with the way you use 'pseudoscientific beliefs' in your comments above is that it lumps all of these things together without distinction, treating them all as though they were invalidated practices. I don't believe that any scientist will say that an untested (possible untestable) belief is pseudoscientific, not in an analytical sense, because scientists are not generally given to staking their reputations on claims that they haven't tested. Occasionally you'll get someone like B.F. Skinner, who will step out of his role as a scientist and engage in philosophy (his radical behavioralism denied the existence of any internal mental life, but it was always an untestable philosophical stance, never an active research program), but it's fairly rare, and they are always careful to distinguish between 'what they think' and 'what they can show'. If we want to use this phrase, I think we need to be careful to restrict it to 'beliefs that are founded on pseudoscientific claims' and not let it stray over into beliefs that science hasn't, or can't, examine. --Ludwigs207:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
To some extent I disagree with you about untested beliefs. Consider a book which, based on relations between the proportions of Gizeh pyramids and similar measurements, comes to the conclusion that a huge turtle "consisting of anti-matter in a metastable quantum state" is hidden in the centre of our sun. By an immense research effort it would probably be possible to test this hypothesis. But it's uncontroversially obvious pseudoscience even without such a test.
The belief that God created the world in a week a few thousand years ago, and then planted fake evidence such as dinosaur skeletons for His infinite amusement, or equivalent ideas about the Spaghetti Monster and pirates are similarly untestworthy. Tested or not – to the extent that people try to justify these ideas with faulty science, it's pseudoscience.
There is even some pseudoscience that is (mostly) correct and true. E.g. This person was once an editor here and left a lot of links to his mathematical papers all over the wiki. When I cleaned up after him I actually read one of his papers. It consisted of an awfully long, horribly complicated proof of a fact that is so obvious that it is not normally mentioned in treatments of the subject, and which was known to the inventor of the subject himself, more than 50 years ago. The paper was incredibly hard to read because it used lots of silly definitions to make things more complicated. Instead of recalling them in the paper itself, as is usual, Herrmann referred to earlier papers – which referred to yet earlier papers instead of defining the terms.
In my opinion this is the essence of pseudoscience. Most pseudoscience is wrong because sensational claims are more attractive than boring ones, and more likely to be wrong. But being wrong should not be part of the definition. HansAdler11:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem with your definition of pseudoscience is that it depends on your idea of what is sensational, what is rational. Scientists by their nature are critical of new ideas, but because of that, new ideas have been ridiculed - and then later proven to be correct. So using our own values to stick that "pseudoscience" label on the "ridiculous idea", rather than using an objective definition seems foolish. DigitalC (talk) 13:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I think you got me exactly wrong. Did you read only the last paragraph? The first "this" was meant to refer to what I explained before: That pseudoscience is in what you do and how you do it (meaningless word play that pretends to be science) as opposed to any actual claims you make. In the second sentence of the last paragraph I explained why it is that most pseudoscience also makes sensational/wrong claims. Not because it's part of the definition, but because the definition is such that sensational/wrong claims are more attractive to pseudoscientists than others. HansAdler14:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps this is clearer: Pseudoscience is a form of bullshit in Harry Frankfurt's technical sense: "while the liar deliberately makes false claims, the bullshitter is simply uninterested in the truth. Bullshitters aim primarily to impress and persuade their audiences. While liars need to know the truth to better conceal it, bullshitters, interested solely in advancing their own agendas, have no use for the truth."
Pseudoscientists are bullshitters who aim to impress their audiences (including themselves, usually) with their erudition and their capabilities as scientists. HansAdler14:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd say most pseudoscientists are indeed flogging codswallop for sundry reasons. Some may be sincere, some may be marketers, some may indeed care only for a cheap path to "recognition" (fame is the name of the game) with no heed for the outcome upon themselves or others (scammers). Meanwhile here and there, now and then, some research or speculation or belief system will mistakenly be called pseudoscience. Religion is faith, not pseudoscience (items of faith are not disprovable through the scientific method, nor need they be). Likewise, although Darwinism does likely have some deep flaws and moreover, a lot of theory drawn from Darwinism may wind up being cited someday as mistaken (as Gould hinted years back), this doesn't mean Creationism (which most likely is a pseudoscience drawn from the metaphors of Christianity) will have much to do with understanding those flaws. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Creationism is an excellent example for pseudoscience that arises from the desire to prove a "truth" scientifically. Thus it is a form of pseudoscience that doesn't fit my definition above. HansAdler17:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I would agree that research, as to whether the theory of Creationism is falsifiable, would be science. Rashly saying the theory is supported by the bible and hence word-for-word true would be pseudoscience (and muddled theology). Gwen Gale (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
<-- Hans, I think you misunderstood me a bit. Obviously, if someone is going to claim that something is a scientific fact, then they are either engaged in science or in pseudoscience. that act of 'claiming' determines that. For instance, Start Trek warp drives are fantasy science (entertainment: good); the idea that warp drives are conceivably possible under certain assumptions of relativity and/or quantum mechanics is speculative science (speculation: good); the idea that warp drives are a scientific fact based on... (alien technology?) is pseudoscience (assertion of scientific fact in the absence of research or evidence: bad). Or consider blood-letting: in the 16th century they thought that draining blood from the body would remove 'bad humours' and cure a multitude of diseases; in the 19th century they decried the practice as barbaric; in the modern day leeches are used to control bleeding during operations and dialysis drains the blood from the body, cleans it of 'bad elements', and puts it back in. someone might come along and try to revive the humourism idea in the modern world - more power to them - but to my mind they are not pseudoscientists until they start to say "the fact that doctors use leeches and dialysis proves I'm right".
really, pseudoscience is the attempt to claim the authority of science without recourse to the methods of science. it shouldn't be applied where there is no appeal being made to the authority of science in the first place.
This has some pitfalls: for instance, I've known TCM practitioners who say that they have 'scientific' evidence for chi flow - what they mean is that anyone who observes their own body carefully enough can feel the flow of chi. The problem, of course, is that they are using a variant definition of science and proper evidence (their statement is likely true, but is completely untestable and inadmissible under the rules of scientific medicine). I'd personally hesitate to call them pseudoscientists until they start claiming that 'western science proves that...', which is a clearly false claim. but that's a harder issue. --Ludwigs217:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I have read an Applied Kinesiology textbook which I have somewhere, which states that meridians are channels which contain a clear fluid. They aren't talking about lymph vessels, which fit that description a lot of the time. They are actually making an anatomical claim that is totally unsupported by science. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
that may be true of applied kinesiology (I don't know, I'd need to see the source), but it's not true of chinese medicine in general, which treats meridians as some sort of bio-energetic pathway. for instance, you'll find claims in chinese medicine that both the kidneys and the brain are accumulations of chi on a particular meridian (despite the fact that both the kidneys and the brain are solid organs): meridians are more an abstract conceptualization of particular bodily functions. for an accessible example, the skin is often considered in TCM as being on the same energetic pathway as the lungs, on the grounds that the skin (to a lesser extent) has the same respiratory/excretory functions that the lungs have. it's simply a different model of bodily organization, based on holistic functionality rather than atomistic functionality. I'm not saying it's right, mind you, simply that it's different, and untested/untestable under western scientific models.
really, TCM is an applied observational model - there's a couple of thousand years of practitioners noticing things that work and things that don't work, and making analytic but non-scientific theoretical claims. There's just no grounds to test or judge it without some fairly esoteric experimentation. --Ludwigs206:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Please discuss this on talk. There is no consensus anywhere that I can find to use that reference in the policy page. If there is one, please point me to it. Crum375 (talk) 03:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
sigh... it is such a pity that you say one thing with your mouth but do another with your hands. it would be nice if you finished this (eminently pleasant) discussion without feeling the need to aggressively edit in your side of the argument elsewhere while we talk...
I'm sorry about the conflicts elsewhere. Let's please keep it out of this discussion. This is where we can really get to know each other. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I have no illusions here. I recognize that the bulk of our disagreement is a misunderstanding, and I believe that if (through some strange magic) you and I and most everyone else here could see through to what others really mean we'd all be talking about the same thing. there are a few people on wikipedia intent on making some silly point clear against all reason; the rest of us (I think) really do want to make a good encyclopedia, we just don't understand how many of us actually share that same goal. it's a tragedy (or comedy) of Greek proportions.
I'll tell you - If you and I and Hans and, say (to pick someone who really irritates the crap out of me), Verbal were to sit down and cautiously, carefully, and honestly hammer out exactly how far the pseudoscience thing could be stretched, it would do wikipedia a world of good (or at least save us a whole lot of pointless bitching). what do you think?
I'll come back to your substantive argument tomorrow - tapped into the sherry a bit tonight, so my wits are not completely around me. --Ludwigs205:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I firmly believe that much of what you say is true. Much of this disagreement is misunderstanding. If we could meet and hang around together, and really get to know each other, I suspect we'd have a really good time. I'm a Zin freak myself, and I also enjoy sherry and port, together with good dark chocolate! We are all trying to do what we can to build this encyclopedia. Yes, there are vandals here, but none of us involved in this controversy are those types. We're all serious people. We must AGF. When we do that, we see similarity where we would otherwise see disagreement, and we build bridges where we would otherwise build walls. I'm really enjoying this section because the ground rule is that we AGF, like we should do everywhere else here. I'm sure I could learn a lot from all of you. I believe that the best articles are (only) developed when editors who hold opposing POV learn to collaborate and get it right. Articles built by editors who share the same POV are rather flat and leave out important details. Believe it or not, I don't wish you any harm. I just want to be treated with an AGF and not harassed. It feels that way. I'd rather disagree agreeably. Is it easy to do that in the heat of the moment? I think we have all proven that it can be very hard. I'm actually a very forgiving person, and when convinced that I am wrong, I readily apologize. What makes it hard in this conflict is that so many other editors, most of whom I don't know, have agreed with me. That means I need rather radically different arguments to convince me that I'm wrong in this case. I'm sick of what's happened. I didn't wish for such disruption to occur. I thought it was a given that my simple proposition and formulation would be approved and that any opposition would be slight and not be taken so seriously.
I'm putting a hat on this as it isn't really "allowed" in this section, but thanks for sharing. I really appreciate that. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunate hatting - I'd have understood the first couple of lines, but the remainder cut off a possible direction for agreement. pity, I was hoping we might get somewhere, but we're apparently back to SOP. --Ludwigs215:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what SOP means. I put a hat on the discussion, not because of any agreement or disagreement, but, in spite of it being a fruitful discussion, it is about a different subject than this the section above, which needs to be limited to the topic, and not about the past and current squabbles elsewhere. That's all. I definitely think it's fruitful and should be continued in another thread. I think I'll move it. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Now it's unhatted and moved, so we can continue here. You may recognize that the section heading is based on a quote of yours. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
SOP means Standard Operating Procedure - it was a somewhat cynical observation about the way discussions like this are handled by editors on your side of the dispute. No need to go into that here; it will be a factor in the RfC/U, and we can discuss it there (If I can ever finish sorting diffs...)
Let's understand each other. I'm a scientist (social scientist, but I've put a lot of time into researching scientific methodology). I can't help but approach these issues from a scientific viewpoint, and my biggest problem (excuse me, my biggest substantive problem - I'm excluding behavioral issues) with the debate here is that you and Verbal and TS and a number of other skeptical editors keep pushing for statements that are well outside the comfort zone of any actual scientific perspective. The scientists I know would think that a person who believes in ghosts is a bit brain-dead, and they would laugh their asses off if someone tried to prove to them that ghosts are real. but they wouldn't be bothered by it unless that person was doing something malevolent with it (like try to profit off of people by convincing them of ghosts) and they wouldn't start arguing against it seriously until that someone started seriously violating the integrity of science. scientists rarely get hung up on particular beliefs, because in science beliefs stand or fall on their own on the results of methodologically sound research. However, scientists are very protective of their methodology (you'll notice that the bulk of scientific criticisms of creationism are methodological critiques: comedians make fun of the seven days thing, scientists object to the way it ignores available evidence). You guys repeatedly and consistently presume that scientists are willing to violate their own methodological principles just to 'get one over' on poor reasoning; I keep trying to tell you that that is the absolute last thing that a scientist would ever do, because the minute s/he violates his/her methodological principles s/he stops being a scientist.
As I said elsewhere, you defend science with the logical tools of pseudoscience, and you demean both science and non-scientific belief in the process. I suspect that you don't know that you're doing it, mind you, but do you understand why that would irk me?
As far as I'm concerned, pseudoscience (as a label) should only be applied where there is clear evidence that someone is trying to promote something as scientific against scientific opinion. I'm willing to to be pretty generous with that label, but you can't start extending it to anything that you think might possibly be falsifiable. Stick with what the scientific community has actually falsified, directly or indirectly, and stop trying to impose a point of view on science that it cannot logically hold and still be scientific. --Ludwigs204:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining SOP. You were not AGF in your complaint about putting a hat on it, and I explained why I did it. I even made it clear that it was a very interesting and fruitful discussion and have moved it here. Please AGF. We can't have a decent discussion if you fail to do that. Your condescending tone isn't necessary either.
A lot of what you say about how scientists deal with the paranormal and pseudoscience is covered at WP:FRINGE and the Pseudoscience ArbCom. The scientists (and others) who actively deal with those subjects are called skeptics. They are activist scientists. They exist, and they write in verifiable sources that can be used here. Their opinions are generally shared by the silent majority of scientists. That's why the NSF quotes those activists, including top scientist and arch skeptic Robert L. Park. The NSF has some interesting things to say about how scientists treat (ignore) fringe subjects, but note how Park encourages scientists to become activists:
"Although scientists are concerned about scientific illiteracy, including the public's gullibility regarding pseudoscience, few choose to say much about it. According to physicist Robert L. Park, most scientists would rather talk about their latest cutting-edge research, not the basic laws of thermodynamics.[55] Park has been speaking out for many years. In explaining why, he recently said:
[P]eople drawn to [pseudoscience long] for a world that is some other way than the way it is. They pose no great threat to science. [Pseudoscience] is a sort of background noise, annoying, but rarely rising to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse. The more serious threat is to the public, which is not often in a position to judge which claims are real and which are [not]. Those who are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an obligation to help the public make that distinction (Park 2000a).Source
They also note how he has been used as an advisor for the judiciary on scientific subjects:
"Furthermore, a group of judges recently asked renowned physics professor Robert L. Park for guidance on how to recognize questionable scientific claims. The author of a landmark book on the subject, Park came up with "seven warning signs" that a scientific claim is probably bogus (Park 2003):...[list follows]..."Source
The silence of the majority says loads about how fringe those subjects are. They don't waste their time on them. The Pseudoscience ArbCom was all about dealing with this situation. IIRC, User:Iantresman tried to claim, as you seem to be doing, that such silence indicates a lack of consensus and a lack of support for the idea that these things are pseudoscientific. The ArbCom nailed that example of pseudoscientific reasoning and wikilawyering to the barn door and used it for target practice. I know Tresman got indef banned, but I don't remember all the reasons.
Although falsifiability is a vital requirement for even slightly being eligible for categorization as pseudoscience, I don't "extending it to anything that you think might possibly be falsifiable." It's far more complicated than that. It's even possible to have a pseudoscientific belief in something that itself isn't strictly a pseudo-science. You're welcome to ask my opinion on specific examples. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Your entire argument seems to rest on the claim that all scientists agree with skeptics, they just don't care to say anything about it. My argument is that scientists don't talk the way that skeptics do because scientists aren't willing to make scientific claims about things they haven't researched, the way that skeptics do. we can go back and forth on this (I'm pretty sure my logic has more substance than yours, but whatever...), but the one thing that we both agree on is that scientists don't have a lot to say about pseudoscience. on simple grounds of attribution alone, we shouldn't be putting words in their mouths.
I have no problem with skeptics - I see them as a vocal but small group of people who are scientifically-oriented or philosophically inclined non-scientists. I see no reason to assume that they speak for the scientific community other than the fact that they (and you) claim that they speak for the scientific community. My sense is that the scientific community mostly ignores skepticism the same way that they mostly ignore pseudoscience - i.e. as a "background noise [that] rarely ris[es] to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse." Scientists have no interest in what some skeptic says about (...whatever...); scientists wait until some kind of actual, valid research is done which tells them how stuff actually works. Skepticism is merely another philosophical belief structure: the non-scientific belief that everything not proven scientifically must be wrong. It's a perfectly fine belief structure, if you are inclined to have faith in it, but it is nothing more than a belief structure, and shouldn't be treated as though it were some self-evident truth. I don't know how to make that clearer to you, and I have no expectation that you will accept it (any more than a Catholic would accept it if I told them the pope was just a spiritual leader, not the voice of God). but there it is - that is the POV you keep pushing. do you see it? --Ludwigs221:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
If that really were the POV I "keep pushing", I'd agree, but it's not. It's a straw man, which I'm sure you don't intend, but is likely a result of misunderstandings. I don't believe "that everything not proven scientifically must be wrong." As I wrote above, there is a large grey area which has previously been larger, is now smaller, and which will always exist. The reason the grey area has gotten smaller is because of great strides in increasing knowledge in the last few hundred years. The grey area includes some things related to pseudoscience, the paranormal, quackery, and then plain religious and metaphysical belief structures. On top of that, it obviously includes a lot of things we simply don't understand yet, haven't developed methods to measure yet, etc.. Previously people explained all seemingly (based on their limited knowledge at the time) "supernatural" phenomena as the acts of gods, demons, angels, fairies, ghosts, spirits, etc.. With more knowledge we now attribute many of those phenomena to newly understood natural science or psychological phenomena. What you describe is not only a "non-scientific belief", it's a pseudoskeptical belief.
In a certain sense, pseudoskeptics and pseudoscientists are mirror images of each other. They're both wrong, and they will even make accusations against each other based on the fact they both claim to be scientific and skeptical. There is even a paranormal wiki where they engage in very clear revisionism and redefining of terms so that they, as believers in the paranormal, can feel justified in calling mainstream scientists "pseudoscientists" and mainstream skeptics "pseudoskeptics", which lets themselves off the hook. They thus claim, in spite of the fact that their beliefs are widely labelled as pseudoscientific paranormal beliefs, that they are the true scientists and skeptics. They are so deeply deluded that I quit participating there. Their delusion is a natural result of the defects in thinking I describe above in my proposition regarding what constitutes "pseudoscientific beliefs". I offered to help them, but when they started redefining terms to make themselves look good, I gave up, as dealing with such types is hopeless. It's not a black or white world, but it's very real. I doubt that anyone is totally innocent either, since it can be tempting to unconsciously and momentarily engage in pseudoscientific or pseudoskeptical behaviors. As long as it doesn't become a habit there is little harm done, but if engaged in too much, one actually begins to change sides. One loses the ability to think clearly. Logical fallacies begin to take over, and before one knows it one "goes over to the dark side", as some scientists and quack doctors have done. They then lend their titles to support things they were previously obligated to oppose. Ethics and truth fly out the window. (Excuse the rant, but my hobby is dealing with quackery, and I have lots of contact with that world, and lots of contact with such types. When they write their hate mail, threats, and diatribes to me or about me, their true selves are revealed. I also have contact with their victims, who have often alerted me to them. Hearing both sides is interesting, and also disturbing!)
Regarding pseudoskepticism, Marcello Truzzi is my hero, even if I disagree with his final behaviors to some degree. He truly understood the concept of pseudoscience. His objections to it led him to be a purist, which isn't practical in the real world. It's fine as a philosophy, but impractical in reality. It leaves the door always open, no matter how rediculous the claim, which in a sense is actually proper, but practically the door needs to be closed at times while making sure the burden of proof is on the ones making unusual claims. If they can then provide unusually strong evidence for those claims, then the door can be opened again. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
well, pardon me for putting it this way, but if that's not the POV you're advancing then your actions confuse me. I mean, I looked over the Truzzi page, and I have to say I tend to agree with him, but when I have made Truzzi-style arguments to you (which I have: e.g. that you have a burden of proof to demonstrate that the NSF opposes mere 'beliefs', one which is not satisfied by a single questionable source), you have ignored the argument and continued forging ahead. I feel as though you are challenging a whole range of beliefs and ideas unfairly - insisting for them that they must make a scientific claim, whether they do or not, and then criticizing them for doing the scientific claim they may not have made badly. it reminds me of that teenage jock thing thing - trap some geek in the locker-room and say "we all know you're a wuss, so you might as well confess to it", and then slap him around either way, either for being a wuss or for lying about being a wuss. --Ludwigs202:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, as we've already realized, many of our differences are because of misunderstandings. That's not evil or totally avoidable. It's life. The solution is to ask even more precise questions. Please choose some specific subject and I'll try to explain. That way you'll peel me and discover what's really inside -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Fine with me. Let's talk about ghosts. Ask away. I'll have to leave soon, so there will be some lag before I can reply, but I will. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
errr... your statement was "Please choose some specific subject and I'll try to explain." I chose a specific subject, you explain, yah? --Ludwigs215:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you hanging. Other things have occupied my attention, and I thought that you might want to ask some specific questions related to ghosts and my POV on ghosts and pseudoscience, or some such thing. I didn't know if you were curious about some particular angle. What would you like to know? If you ask me a specific question to get me going, I'll reply to it. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
You have edited since I asked this question. Would you please respond. You have started two RfCs recently, neither of them was closed in a way that would justify your edit comment, and you know that. If you are referring to a third RfC please provide a link. HansAdler01:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
No third RfC. Both RfCs approved the source, the wording, and the meaning of that wording. In the NPOV RfC they also approved of using it as a ref. Only one who !voted for the content has complained because they didn't notice the full proposition, even though it was commented on several times both by approvers and deniers. Otherwise the only ones who have complained are you and your few allies.
My edit summary could just as well have read: "Per NPOV". Guideline 2 explicitly describes this type of reference. You don't like what it says, and you disagree with the NSF. That's too bad, but Wikipedia is about "verifiability, not truth". The source mentions belief in witches as a pseudoscientific belief. The NSF is obviously meaning the witchcraft aspect, not that children dress up as witches. Per NPOV, the source qualifies for use on the witchcraft article, and that would apply even without the two RfCs. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Err, no, I think the emerging consensus is that the format of the RfC was deficient. How else would you explain Blueboar explicitly changing his vote to oppose inclusion? Stating that he did not realize that it was also about including it in the policy page? Not to mention the overwhelming majority of people that have voted against using external sources for informing policy? You are the only person voting for it. You also still don't seem to have read demarcation problem. Unomi (talk) 07:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Your neutral summary: "Please weigh in on whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that 'belief in ghosts and spirits' are 'pseudoscientific beliefs'."
(Perhaps you meant something else, something like: "Please weigh in on whether [...] is an appropriate source for claiming [...]", but you didn't ask this specific question. You asked a general question that had the disadvantage of being unrelated to what you want, but the advantage that everybody (yes, everybody including Ludwigs2 and me) agrees.)
The closer, Gwen Gale, added a comment saying that "the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific", which sounds as if she was of the opinion that the NSF does have such an position. I disagree (we have no evidence that the NSF has such an opinion, although I can guess what it would be: ghosts are artefacts of our imagination; research of ghosts is pseudoscience unless carried out to examine the delusion as such) She later clarified in response to your comment that her comment cannot be understood as saying that there was any consensus about your source or your intended use of it.
Your neutral summary: "Please weigh in on whether a statement by the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy. Also please discuss whether their expressions can be considered to represent the current scientific consensus (in the USA) on that subject."
Note the complete absence, again, of any reference to the actual paper you want to cite. Only a general, hypothetical question about what happens if the NSF makes a statement. And again the problem that the case is completely hypothetical.
The RfC question is followed by a long question about changing policy in a specific way. To judge from its formulation and the fact that it is almost unrelated to the RfC summary, almost everybody would interpret it as the motivation of your RfC. You want to do something, but before you consider it you want to make sure that the NFS is a sufficiently reliable source for doing so. Just the easiest of about a dozen questions that will presumably be asked about in other RfCs. (Most readers would probably assume that you were stonewalled by a silly argument that the NSF is not a reliable source. Guy's supporting comment indicates such, for example.)
I already had an edit window open to support your RfC, but then I realised that you would take that as support for something you didn't actually ask.
Ludwigs2's comment was the first. He couldn't address the obvious problem because at the time your question wasn't formatted as an RfC and didn't have your 'summary'.
Dbachmann, instead of !voting, said: "look at the dispute, not the misrepresentation of the dispute by BullRangifer. He isn't trying to use the NSF as a source, he is trying to twist the sense of the an NSF publication by excessively literal interpretation of casual wording." At that point, latest, you should have understood that something was wrong with your summary.
Due to the bad summary, not much real discussion happened about the quality of your sourcing. Several editors explicitly supported what you meant to ask: Doc James, Salimfadhley, Scray, LuckyLouie, Slatersteven, Guyonthesubway, Johnuniq, Shadowjams, Enric Naval, Durova, DreamGuy. Some commented as if they were supporting only the statement in your summary. Some people merely pointed out that the statement is simply wrong or unsupported by the reference: Peter jackson, Dbachmann. And some opposed: Ludwigs2, Abecedare, Elen of the Roads, Pyrrhon8, Crum375, Binksternet, Collect, Abd. That's 11 people clearly for your proposal and 10 clearly against it. The dynamics of the RfC was such that people were more supportive in the beginning, while more opposed in the end, when the problems with the sourcing had been pointed out.
The RfC was closed as: "National Science Foundation is a reliable source", followed by the closer's comment about use of reliable sources for article comment.
Gwen Gale later explained this as follows: "Hence, my close more or less says, 'follow the policies we have.' Reading through the RfC, it didn't look to me as though some editors on either side had a strong grip on the policies we have." [9] I interpret this as saying that basically the close was intended to be equivalent to "no consensus". HansAdler08:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Her statement "follow the policies" pretty much sums up what I've been saying all along. The statement is a V & RS, and, as Gwen said, "NSF can be taken as reliable in an encyclopedia, even if they're wholly wrong." You argue that they are wrong, and that their statement is taken out of context. Instead of forcing those opinions of yours, you should "follow the [V & RS] policies". -- Brangifer (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
No, brangifer, Hans and I have not argued that the NSF is wrong; we have argued the you as an editor are wrong for taking that NSF statement out of context. The NSF is a reliable source for things it says, it is not a reliable source for things you want it to say that it hasn't said. --Ludwigs215:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Have you forgotten that you actually stated "that the NSF screwed it up once," referring to the 2006 version? Hans also said something somewhat similar recently. You admit the NSF said the words, but you disagree with them, and you claim I have misquoted them, even when I quote them exactly. Now you're intimating that I'm trying to claim they have said something they haven't said. Is that a correct "paraphrase" of what you've just said? (Repeating it exactly won't help us.) I don't want to misunderstand you. We've had far too much of that going on from both sides. I think you'll agree to that. Please explain. I do want to understand you. There are some things you say which I understand and disagree with. There are likely some things which I don't understand fully, so let's get to the bottom of it. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
No, actually, that is not a correct paraphrase of what I just said. I did not (and have never) claimed that you misquoted the words. I claimed the you misquoted the NSF. no one's writing can be reduced to a mere collection of words which are either there or not-there; Any document needs to be read as a whole, in the context of the author's stated intentions.
it's actually an interesting coincidence: I was at the gym today, watching Fox News as I worked out (Damn You, Gym TV Remote!!!) and Fox actually played back a tape of Obama's health care speech, stopped the tape right in the middle of a sentence, and finished the sentence for him in a way that (if that was what Obama had actually meant) would have made him look like a complete ass. all the words up to that point were Obama's literal words, recorded on tape. Should I take it from this that Obama actually is a complete ass? taking little soundbites out of context to make people look bad is big business in politics - everybody does it, from the far left to the far right - but doing that is a trick, not an accurate representation of the people in question.
so... I am intimating that you are taking something that he NSF actually said out of context to imply something that is important to you that there is no evidence the NSF cares one whit about. I am intimating that you are misrepresenting the NSF's position by a careful mismanagement of the NSF's words. I am intimating that you are so intent on pursuing a personal battle against topics deemed unscientific and irrational that you have become the monster you fight, and I don't mean that as a a criticism so much as request that you shake it off and look at what you're doing. is that clearer? --Ludwigs203:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
<-- Yes, that is clearer, but you've already said that many times before, and I do understand the point. In principle it's very valid, as illustrated by your story about Fox News, which doesn't surprise me at all. Their job is to manufacture misinformation about Obama. (That tells you my political leanings.) So, we basically disagree on your interpretation of my application of that point. I don't see any evidence that the NSF have any other published position on this matter than this, and if they do, that it doesn't contradict this one. If you have any other statement by them, I'd like to read them. They are just like other major scientific bodies -- they generally ignore fringe and pseudoscience subjects pretty much all the time, so what they have written here is what they've written. We're stuck with it and can use it. (If we followed their example at Wikipedia, there would be no fringe or pseudoscience articles allowed, which would be unfortunate.)
Fortunately for the public and consumer protection, in contrast to what you state (quoting you), the NSF do "care one whit about" it, even if they don't write about it all the time and publish huge declarations on the subject. That's why they publish this report about it each year, in which they quote skeptics favorably. This is all we get from them, so it's very significant. This source discusses their serious concerns (they do "care a whit") about the public's lack of scientific thinking which leads them to accept and hold pseudoscientific beliefs. The NSF is very concerned about the deception being practiced on the public and about what the NSF calls its "gullibility" and "scientific illiteracy". The general lack of comment by scientific bodies on these subjects is why we have WP:FRINGE. It deals with this well-known phenomenon, which is described by the NSF itself, and quoted in what I wrote above:
A lot of what you say about how scientists deal with the paranormal and pseudoscience is covered at WP:FRINGE and the Pseudoscience ArbCom. The scientists (and others) who actively deal with those subjects are called skeptics. They are activist scientists. They exist, and they write in verifiable sources that can be used here. Their opinions are generally shared by the silent majority of scientists. That's why the NSF quotes those activists, including top scientist and arch skeptic Robert L. Park. The NSF has some interesting things to say about how scientists treat (ignore) fringe subjects, but note how Park encourages scientists to become activists:
"Although scientists are concerned about scientific illiteracy, including the public's gullibility regarding pseudoscience, few choose to say much about it. According to physicist Robert L. Park, most scientists would rather talk about their latest cutting-edge research, not the basic laws of thermodynamics.[55] Park has been speaking out for many years. In explaining why, he recently said:
[P]eople drawn to [pseudoscience long] for a world that is some other way than the way it is. They pose no great threat to science. [Pseudoscience] is a sort of background noise, annoying, but rarely rising to a level that seriously interferes with genuine scientific discourse. The more serious threat is to the public, which is not often in a position to judge which claims are real and which are [not]. Those who are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an obligation to help the public make that distinction (Park 2000a).Source
The scientific community in England reacts a bit more proactively in fighting pseudoscience, and lately have focused on homeopathy, but the government doesn't necessarily do so. They do much like what is described above, as revealed in this statement:
"The Government does not find it helpful to define pseudoscience...." Source
You charge that I am "misrepresenting the NSF's position by a careful mismanagement of the NSF's words." No, I am actually presenting their only known position by quoting it. That can't be misrepresentation or "mismanagement". You see an internal disagreement in the whole page of the source. You can't reconcile their clear and good definition of pseudoscience (as false scientific sounding claims) with their statement about the public's "pseudoscientific beliefs". You can't reconcile this seeming disagreement, so you deprecate the source ("that the NSF screwed it up once,") and try to prevent mention of this part of the page from a V & RS. This is clear from your's and Hans Adler's continual deletions of the V & RS everywhere it appears.
I see no conflict at all. I've dealt with this subject for decades and understand it pretty well. I deal with "both sides of the coin" all the time, including the quacks who hurt people, their victims, and those who criticize the quacks for doing so. I don't think in black or white terms, as you (or Hans) have accused me. This is a complicated matter with many nuances, and the NSF understands this matter very well, as revealed by this source, sparse as it may seem, compared to the abundant writings of the skeptics whom they use as sources and obviously quote approvingly. When the NSF writes a page like this, I can agree with every element on that page without blinking an eye or stumbling over anything. I see it as a unified whole that starts with a concern, some examples, trends, a definition, and then shows how the problems of of stupid thinking lead to the feared results -- the holding of "pseudoscientific beliefs". I understand and accept it all. The NSF and I are on the same track and share the same frame of mind and reference points.
By contrast, you have little to say, and actually state "I don't believe the phrase 'pseudoscientific beliefs' has any particular analytic meaning. I believe it was simply used as a 'term of convenience'." This reveals that our different backgrounds, belief systems, life experiences, education, etc., have determined that we see this subject very differently. I have a lot to say about it, and you have little. I see harmony where you see a confused NSF who made a blunder in their wording, so you deprecate the source. We are supposed to use V & RS here, and it's problematic that you hate this one so much that you war against it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
In your own bloody words: "I don't see any evidence that the NSF have any other published position on this matter than this, and if they do, that it doesn't contradict this one. If you have any other statement by them, I'd like to read them. They are just like other major scientific bodies -- they generally ignore fringe and pseudoscience subjects pretty much all the time [...]."
That's Ludwigs2's and my whole fucking point, innit? The NSF doesn't speak about that kind of thing. You have no rational reason to believe they meant to characterise these 10 paranormal topics as pseudoscience in any meaningful way. Most likely the passage was written by a single author (a statistician was in charge of the section), and nobody else noticed that she misquoted the Gallup poll by simply assuming paranormal and pseudoscience are synonyms, which of course they are not for the purposes of an encyclopedia. They reviewed the statistics and the aspects of the paper that are relevant for politicians, not the totally irrelevant philosophy of science aspects. It was a simple oversight in a very minor point. Scientific publications are full of them, and so are executive reports by the NSF (which is what you are quoting).
If I find a faulty Latin quotation in one of Albert Einstein's physics publications, does that give me the right to add the words into a Wikipedia article?
According to Albert Einstein, who had a classical education and an excellent knowledge of Latin, errare humanum est can also be spelled erarre humanum est.
If Albert Einstein never explicitly said anything in public about Latin spelling rules, does that make it more or less likely that by spelling the phrase as erarre humanum est he meant to support a variant spelling and just didn't bother to say it more clearly?
This quotation would be exactly as correct as yours, and it would do exactly the same kind of damage: Misinforming the readers about the subject matter itself, and damaging the credibility of the misquoted author. HansAdler11:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll reply to the first part and ignore the last illustration as a bit off the mark. (Even at Wikipedia we are specifically allowed to, without comment, correct typos in cited quotes, unless they change the meaning.) You are providing a pretty bold OR reason, based purely on your own speculation and disagreement with their statement, for rejecting their statement as some unfortunate slip up. You're basically saying, just like Ludwigs2 has done, that they blundered and don't really mean what they wrote.
That's where we disagree. I am not speculating, but taking them at their word. They wrote it, and lacking any other statement by them to indicate otherwise, must believe them. If you have any other statement by them that indicates it was an oversight or poor formulation, then by all means bring it forward. That would change the basis for this discussion quite a bit, but until then, this is just your own disagreement with them, and I'm not going to contradict them without any evidence. You see internal inconsistency in what they wrote, while I see a beautiful consistency that shows they understand this matter better than any of us. These are the representatives of the top scientific organizations who are speaking. They aren't amateurs, and they are using terminology that is used all the time by various types of authors, including skeptics. WP:FRINGE makes it clear that even rare and casual mention by such bodies should be taken seriously and may be used. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
so in other words, you argument is "it doesn't matter what they said elsewhere in the document, It doesn't matter what they say in other documents, and it doesn't matter what they meant to say; all that matters is that they said it, once, and that justifies everything." By that logic, Orgone exists (Reich had at least one credible experiment), the government believes UFOs are extraterrestrial crafts (I can dig up a few quotes where credible government officials make that claim), Alternative Medicine is scientific (I have seen quotes where medical professionals have said that), and Bigfoot is alive and well and living somewhere in Montana.
Your logic, brangifer, is much closer to farce than to reason, and I am having a seriously hard time believing that anyone could make these kinds of claims seriously. Are you fucking with us just for the hell of it? because if so, it's in poor taste. --Ludwigs217:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Not at all. Your ABF about me are again causing you to make exaggerated straw man arguments that are very far from the truth about my POV, and you top it off by mocking me. That's very incivil and bad manners. We interpret the source page differently. You really do disagree with the NSF statement about "pseudoscientific beliefs", which is why you see disharmony where I see harmony on that page.
If you have other sources from the NSF, as seems to be implied by your statement "what they say in other documents" (otherwise why do you say it?), please provide them. In such a case I might totally change my POV and end up agreeing with you.
All I've been hearing from you is that you disagree with their statement, think it was a blunder, and that it seems to contradict their clear definition of "pseudoscience" used higher on the page. (Note they do not define "pseudoscientific beliefs", but provide examples instead. They see ghosts, witchcraft, etc. as "beliefs", which they label "pseudoscientific".) No, I see no disagreement between those things on the source page.
The bridge to understanding and harmonizing what you believe to be discordance lies in understanding this subject better. Your view is a rigid and inflexible black/white view that only uses a rigid definition (the definition is correct). It ignores the way the term "pseudoscience" and the phrase "pseudoscientific beliefs" are used in thousands of sources. I am accustomed to reading and dealing with such sources, so I see great harmony in their use in general and on the NSF source page. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not mocking you, I simply cannot understand why you would continue to stump for a position which has no basis in proper scholarship. I do not need to demonstrate that the NSF does not hold this position - you need to demonstrate that it does hold this position, and for that you are going to need something more than a single taken-out-of-context footnote from an outdated revision of a document on a different topic. The argument you are defending (not you, mind you, but the argument itself) is stupid. That is not a matter of interpretation or a matter for disagreement - it's a stupid argument. Either come up with something more credble, or give it up. --Ludwigs218:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
It sure sounds like mocking to me. Since I have heard you repeating each point of your statement many times, and basically disagree with nearly every one of them as a misrepresentation or misunderstanding to which I have replied at one or another point of time, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If I were alone in holding my view I'd be worried and might reconsider, but I do have a majority of editors in two RfCs who !voted that my interpretation is correct. We're not getting anywhere, so it's probably best to close this thread. Thanks for the conversation.
BTW, if you do find anything written by the NSF that shows they have a POV that contradicts any of this, I'd like to read it. I'm open to changing my mind, but I'd need some evidence from them. If you have other sources from the NSF, as seems to be implied by your statement "what they say in other documents" (otherwise why do you say it?), please provide them. Otherwise you have made a positive claim (that they have said something different in other documents) without providing proof. Now I'm challenging that statement, and per Marcello Truzzi's understanding of pseudoskepticism, you need to provide that proof or stop making such claims. Your claim contradicts their statement, so it's an unusual claim and needs supporting evidence from the NSF. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
look, BR: I don't need to convince you; convincing you would just make things nicer all around. And I can't help the way you hear things: I know my own intentions, and that's good enough for me. If you want to continue defending an argument that is this utterly and completely irrational, that is your business - I can and will shred it any time you use it, and anyone who isn't already as blindly determined on the issue as you are will quickly see what a mindlessly idiotic argument it actually is. If you keep it up, you will eventually get a reputation as a POV-pusher (someone willing to break all the rules of reason to push through a point) and that will solve my problem admirably. All I have to do is sit back and be rational; you will do it to yourself. That's not the way I'd like to resolve this, but I'll follow your lead on this.
So you choose - you continue edit-warring this idiotic misrepresentation in using this specious logic, and I will continue correcting you (and making you look like a fool as an unintended side effect). or you can get your act together and start being reasonable. --Ludwigs221:49, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd think you'd want to provide evidence for your (likely false) claim as a defense of your integrity, rather than just to "convince" me. I don't need to be convinced. When evidence is lacking for an unusual claim, I just continue to believe the existing evidence, and in this case their statement is all we've got. As to your negative tone toward me, I've gotten used to it. If I seem irrational, I'm only "following your lead". You need to look in the mirror and note that you're living in a glass house, but continue to cast stones. A bit of humility wouldn't hurt you. You're the one who claims to be dogged and one who doesn't give up. I've noticed that. Does it irritate you to find that others don't give in to your bullying? -- Brangifer (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
As I said, I don't need to convince you; I was just hoping I might. If you want to continue pushing this point, I will continue correcting you. I never said you were irrational, I said the argument you are trying to defend is irrational. Not my problem if you cannot understand the difference between the two statements...
let me make this clear: you have no hope of winning this argument on the grounds of reason. none. anyone who considers our arguments fully and objectively will reject yours out-of-hand as specious. You may win it through political maneuvering of one sort or another - confusing the issue, ramping up misdirected RfC's, getting your buds to back you up - but is that the way you want to win it? If you want to sacrifice the aims of wikipedia so that you can push through a specious argument you never should have made in the first place, I may not be able to stop you. but I sure will do my best.
finally, no, you don't irritate me much. this is actually an interesting pedagogical exercise for me, and I might get a decent publication out of it. I'm thinking "Rhetoric in the age of information: anti-epistemic appeals to scientific authority." I might even be able to convert it into a short series or a small book. I suppose I should thank you for that, but you irritate me enough that I don't want to go that far. C'est la vie. --Ludwigs222:43, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't want to push any point if it's wrong. You have opened a peephole to hope for my increased understanding by claiming there were "other documents" by the NSF that contradicted the quote I have been using. Please help me to understand this using those documents. OTOH, if you'd rather keep contradicting the NSF and my quoting them, that's your prerogative, but that's a declaration by you to misuse Wikipedia as a battleground rather than to settle this all very quickly. If those documents exist, that would be much easier for you. If you will provide evidence for your claim by proving that such documents exist, and that they contradict this quote, then I'll have learned something and this may end very quickly. Until then your claims will have to be considered unproven and potentially false. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
After refusal to provide the claimed evidence, Ludwigs2 is hereby banned from my talk page. The harassment and incivility needs to stop.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
again, you misunderstand one of the fundamental points of proper scholarship. it is (as a matter of formal logic) impossible to prove a negative. Scholarship proceeds by making a claim and supporting it with evidence; that evidence can then be examined to see if the claim made is the best means of explaining the evidence in toto.
You have made a claim that the NSF holds a particular position, based on a piece of evidence. I have shown you (repeatedly) that that evidence is insufficient to support the claim you've made, and asked you to provide more or better evidence to support that claim. you have been unable to provide more evidence, been unable to salvage the evidence you've presented to make it stronger, and yet you continue to present the same refuted evidence as though it were meaningful. The only possibilities here are that you are aware of the evidentiary problems and you are lying in order to continue pushing your point of view, or you are not aware of the evidentiary problems here because you have no skills for basic reasoning. In either case, you have demonstrated that your (uninformed) opinion is not worthy of further consideration.
I will keep explaining this to you as long as it takes; I'm happy to teach you the basic skills of scholarship if you are willing to learn. but please don't plate up a load of tripe like it was a porterhouse; I've got no issue with sending back to the kitchen. --Ludwigs216:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
So you violate a fundamental rule of debate -- you make a claim that there is evidence from the NSF that contradicts the 2006 quote, then you refuse to produce the evidence for your claim (which is a truly pseudoskeptical act), and then you speak derogatorily to me as if you were somehow better or more knowledgeable? Who cares! Even if you were, it really doesn't mean anything. YOU made the claim and you won't back it up. Your repetitions of this nonsense just don't cut it. You want to get in the last word? You want to somehow be "right"? Whatever. I don't need this kind of baiting. Now don't come back here. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Your misrepresentations of our dispute
BullRangifer, while I am working on your RfC/U, our dispute is going on. Unfortunately you have chosen to misrepresent it. It is about whether using a certain NSF paper as a source for a certain claim is acceptable or not. More specifically, our disagreement is about whether the paper makes a certain claim, or if it does so, whether it does so intentionally and expresses the NSF's opinion. You are misrepresenting it as if I disagreed with the NSF. That is simply not true. I disagree with you about what the NSF says.
Stop claiming that I disagree with what the NSF says. I disagree with you about what the NSF says.
Stop claiming that your two RfCs established a consensus for your interpretation of the NSF paper. They established a consensus that the NSF is a highly reliable source.
Stop accusing others of assuming bad faith while doing so yourself.
Just so we are on the same page... would you point me to the specific arb-com ruling that you think mandates the current language in WP:NPOV when it comes to categorizing pseudoscience? I am having difficulty finding it. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans has provided the proper link to the source for the NPOV wording. Note that the NPOV policy, not the ArbCom ruling, is the basis for editing and categorizing. (Not that ArbCom rulings aren't important or influence editing. Doing violence to them ends up creating conflict, because their rulings usually address conflicts and seek to prevent them.) The ArbCom wording was quickly adopted into NPOV policy, first as a FAQ subpage, and later moved into the main page. I obviously disgree with Hans Adler's straw man exaggeration of my POV below. I don't think that "may" means "must", and I obviously don't think that everything must be categorized as psi. That's just another of his attempts to poison the well against me. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I think BullRangifer is severely confused about WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE#Serious encyclopedias and the following sections. He seems to read "may be so labeled and categorized" and "may properly contain that information and may be categorized" as if they said "must" instead of "may".
Having now reviewed the arb-com case... I see where the language about categorization comes from... however, what I don't see is any sort of comment indicating that arb-com is recommending or mandating that this specific language be used in WP:NPOV. Arb-com has indeed ruled that we may categorize pseudoscience as such... however it has not ruled that we must mention this in the WP:NPOV policy. Blueboar (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
You are correct that they didn't dictate policy. They made such a good ruling that the community chose to include it in policy. When considering whether to tweak the wording, it is helpful to understand its history and its true intent. Otherwise we might end up undoing wording that was meant to solve a problem, thus opening the door to old conflicts and disruptions that created the need for the ArbCom case in the first place. That's why I suggested that a Request for Clarification would be the best place to start when considering changing the whole intent of the current wording. Then that clarification could be used as an important factor in deciding whether we really wanted to trash that intent. Such a decision must be made very carefully. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree. In a case that seems to be riddled with sloppiness as regards the details, Arbcom got at least one thing right: They established a bright line for the pseudoskeptics, one which they are simply not allowed to cross. At the time, and until about a year ago, they were still in an extremely strong position. They could not cross the bright line too blatantly, but they have made it a de facto policy to always push things right up to the edge so that they just project a bit beyond it. HansAdler14:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
That bright line applied to both sides of the discussion (skeptics and pseudoscientists alike, but mostly to pseudoscientists who backed up the losing side in that ArbCom), and your noted confusion over the difference between Guidelines 1 & 2 revealed that you were trying to push the bright line for categorization from between Guidelines 2 & 3 up to between Guidelines 1 & 2, which is a significant change. If you got your way, the whole use of the category and use of the very word "pseudoscience" would be deprecated and mention of the existence of anything as related to pseudoscience might even be banned from Wikipedia as a bad pejorative because its use might hurt people's feelings. Well, the real world happens to include pseudoscience, and it is commented on in numerous V & RS, so the encyclopedia must document that. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I can understand the desire for a bright line... and debating where to draw it. I come at this from a different angle... is WP:NPOV the right place to discuss all this? Blueboar (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Since the bright line is in the NPOV policy, and has been reiterated and made clearer by SlimVirgin's streamlining of that content, it's a logical place. Whether it's the best place, I'm not sure. Do you have a suggestion for another, better place?
BTW, while examining her revision very carefully, I noticed something which I hadn't noticed before. There was already a link to Category:Pseudoscience above the four Guidelines! If I had noticed that, I would never have started that RfC. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually, there is some discussion at NPOV of moving the PSCI section to WP:FRINGE... so I think the talk page there is the right place. Blueboar (talk) 01:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting! That might be the right place for it. That would keep it as part of policy, but in a more related policy. I like it! -- Brangifer (talk) 03:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Glad you like it. I have posted an initial comment about the idea at WT:FRINGE and also at WP:FTN... if the good folks who watch those pages don't raise any strong objections (and since many of them are the same people who have been discussing the section with us at NPOV, I don't expect any), I will toss this idea to the wider community through an RfC. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
That sounds wise. I too suspect that there will be very little resistance. Since changing policy affects everything, it's important to get very wide support. It should be posted on multiple RfC watchlists, which is easy to do, and then announced manually on multiple noticeboards, projects, and the talk pages of the meta articles that deal with such subjects. Let me know when you start the RfC. I have over 4,000 articles on my watchlist, so it could slip under my radar. If you need any help, just contact me. Now go for it! -- Brangifer (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Can you let me know if you see any more of those Providence IPs around? Some of them are close enough for a range block, but that might just be coincidence in the dynamic assignment. Email me if you are not sure what this is about. Thanks, - 2/0 (cont.) 06:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll keep my eyes open. I wish there was a tool or template warning system, so that it wasn't necessary to go to the vandalism reporting board. Then the warning template would automatically notify the bot. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Twinkle adds a button when you are viewing the contributions page. I am not sure that I have ever used that particular function, but the rest of the tool is pretty user friendly. IE is not supported, but it works fine in FireFox and I have not noticed any problems in Chrome or Opera. It should also be fairly simple to create a bot to monitor Category:Users in need of a good blocking and generate reports to AIV based on that. Putting a user in the category could be done by adding a template parameter - say, {{subst:uw-warn4|report=yes}} or something. Then again, I have never actually bothered to check how the current vandalism-reporting bots function. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't use Twinkle, and my HTML and programming skills are very limited. Someone needs to create this. Then a vandal4 tag would trigger the bot. BTW, take a look here. This shows what type of attitude I'm up against, or just look above near the end of this section. There a refusal to provide a claimed source reveals a pseudoskeptical attitude that would rather crucify than help, IOW create more disruption. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I have semi-protected this page for a month; it might need to be extended, but I generally prefer to start with a shortish period. You should also create and monitor a subpage where legitimate non-autoconfirmed can contact you. I added the rest of the IPs I have seen to your list, including some from the beginning of the month around the time his topic ban was being placed; I also found but did not list some older IPs that appear to be CM engaged in legitimate editing while inadvertently logged out. Up to you which ones you feel like tracking. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Didn't the edit summary explain well enough? The whole point of the BRD cycle is to stop edit warring. There is only one cycle. It has no duplicate elements, for example, BBBRD, BRDB, BRBRD, etc.. The diagram explains it. As far as I know, there is no other way to establish without any doubt whether an edit war is going on, and exactly who started it. It's even more clear when an editor states in their edit summary that they are making a bold edit, or another one states that they are reverting. The proper response is to discuss and seek consensus. Where this doesn't apply is when there goes some time between edits. Otherwise, I may not be understanding exactly what you're meaning in all this, so please explain.-- Brangifer (talk) 01:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
BTW, what's "wiki-editing" mean? I don't recall that phrase. On another point, there are certain individuals who often attempt to change policy, and when they do I get very suspicious, they are Science Apologist, QuackGuru, and Ludwigs2 (and some others). (Note that the first two -- who share some of my skeptical POV -- are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the other one.) There's usually some ulterior motive, often designed to make policy more conducive to accepting their edits. Sure, policies can be improved, but it should be done through consensus, and not be done to aid oneself in an edit war. Sometimes they make edits directly to policies, or they do it by continual discussion, which is more acceptable. In this case, SA made a direct change. I know it's not a policy, but it probably should be since it is so useful to prevent edit warring. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
The current BRD page actually could use a lot of rewriting to better represent all the stages of the cycle of editing. One very pleasing example of a bold-bold-bold interchange is a set of changes to the section Wikipedia:N#Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content done by User:FT2 and me between 19 and 23 February: [12] Although we disagreed about various points throughout the interchange, neither of us ever resorted to a revert: it was one bold readjustment after another. In all, we managed 7 bold rewrites of each other in a row without once reverting or taking it to talk, and in the end, we were both completely satisfied with how the give-and-take evolved.
True edit warring is more accurately called revert warring, where one person wants a page to be a certain way and another person flat out disagrees for whatever reason. Those are the wiki equivalent of "Is too!" "Is not!". Bold-bold-bold, by comparison, is almost like a complete BRD cycle carried out with every single edit: partial reversion, bold adjustments, and ongoing discussion via edit summaries.
I'm a bit wary of SA myself -- he has very strongly held views -- but regarding the recent change to BRD, he's got it spot-on. BBB is really the optimal form of BRD.--Father Goose (talk) 05:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I see what you mean. I know that's often how it works, and it's great when it works well. I understand the BRD cycle to apply to a certain type of editing situation not covered by the ideal you describe. That's my objection. It doesn't apply in all situations, because editors who AGF and can collaborate don't get that far. I think a pure BRD cycle description has value, and this would water it down to the point where it would be meaningless and not worth keeping. The original BRD cycle is so crystal clear that one can walk into a wikicourt (I know, we don't have one ) and present its violation as proof of who started the edit warring. The situation you describe is quite different and shouldn't be used to water down the BRD cycle. It might be worthy of another essay about the ideal editing situation. BRD doesn't describe the ideal, but is more a formalized set of rules where antagonists meet each other. Unfortunately that's all too often the case here. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Don't get hung up on the three letters "BRD" for the specific reason that it's the BRD cycle. The central virtue of the cycle is that through discussion, compromise can be achieved. Actual reverts are not strictly a necessary part of the cycle -- just an expression of opposition is -- and discussion can be done via edit summaries instead of the talk page.
The clarity you speak of about edit warring is just the clarity of edit warring, where one revert after another is taking place. Meanwhile, some people take a literal view of BRD in the form of bold, counteract, filibuster: that's not the BRD cycle either.
Separately, why do you feel that mentioning the ideal cycle (bold-bold-bold) on the BRD page is a bad thing? Suggesting that all objections must come in the form of reversions, and that all discussion must be done on the talk page is far worse -- it's the same process, but with much more paperwork.--Father Goose (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
It's not necessarily a bad thing. I guess I was reacting to SA's bold edit to what is nearly a policy. I didn't see any type of consensus for such a radical change, one which will mean the diagram will also need to be changed (or maybe not?). I'm not that hung up on it, as long as the fundamental aspects are unchanged, and they don't seem to be. I was a bit concerned that things were heading in that direction. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure the diagram's ever been accurate. There was an enormous disagreement over its original form at WP:CONS about a year ago, until finally a simplified form was agreed upon -- File:Consensus Flowchart.svg. The new chart doesn't map 1-to-1 onto BRD though -- it's still in there, but the granularity is different; "(dis)agreement and compromise" instead of "reversion and discussion".--Father Goose (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually, wikipedia policy is just a big mess. :-P
There's actually 3 things intertwined at WP:BRD
The WP:BRD page presupposes knowledge of three things:
(A) How consensus works ideally(bold->bold->bold->... ad infinum). This requires WP:AGF
(B) How consensus works non-ideally (Bold->revert->discuss->bold->...) . signalling possible issues with WP:AGF .
(C) How to recognize that consensus is broken (Either revert->revert->revert, or Bold->revert->discuss with discussion still happening after 48 hours and no new bold step)
Then the page (badly, imho) attempts to explain the following meta-process
Objective is to find and solve the root cause of (C), by
a slightly "naughty" application of (B) to find the "key interested persons"
interviewing each person in turn
negotiating a partial consensus with each person in turn, until we have full consensus.
we have hopefully removed all the issues that were blocking state (A), and we can continue in state (A)
We have the following issues:
(A), (B), and (C) *are* somewhat described in wikipedia policy, but spread out across the entire Wikipedia: namespace along with lots of chaff, so WP:BRD is just about the only place where they are ever discussed together as a whole at all.
With that, BRD often gets quoted as a source to explain (A),(B),(C); when really specific pages referring to (A), (B), or (C) should be quoted. (if they even exist properly)
The process that BRD applies gets lost in the noise.
The graph on WP:BRD showing (A), (B) is no longer in sync with WP:CONSENSUS. The graph at WP:CONSENSUS now no longer shows (A), (B) at all!
My issue was with you removing (A) from WP:BRD, was that (A) is the actual objective of the process. ;-)
Thanks for the great explanation. I have often referred to BRD because it summarizes the application of several policies, as you explain so nicely. It's not perfect, and in my mind it has never been designed to describe the perfect situation, but to avoid edit warring. You objected to my removal, while I objected to the addition of radically new content without discussion or consensus. Whatever the case, if others see value in it, that's fine with me. One of the recent cases where BRD was broken in a very disruptive manner was also in the back of my mind. A certain editor who is banned from this talk page had carried on a one-sided edit war which ended up involving a number of different editors. (I say "one-sided" because his reverts totalled more than all the others put together.) The situation was sort of like this: BRDRDRDRDRD, IOW he continued to edit and revert while the discussion was on-going and definitely hadn't reached even a semblance of consensus. That was very disruptive and irritated several editors. He violated BRD by not stopping at D. It was an endless cycle to him. He thought that because he was discussing, that he had a right to continue to readd the very disputed content. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
He correctly continued at B after D, it's cyclic, not linear. Where (s)he may have erred is that perhaps (s)he didn't adjust his/her edits based on the discussion?
It's supposed to go something like "Ok, I tried this, apparently you didn't like it. How come?" (other person says what's wrong) "Alright, I've made this new BOLD edit, that incorporates what I think you said. Is that ok? Can you BOLDLY improve it from there, or do we need to talk some more before you're happy? "
And the other side should work the same way.
Though of course, in the cases where I got called in as an informal mediator, a lot of discussion was about getting people to even just talk, let alone solving ABF issues or getting work done. It takes a lot of work to get back to (A), but it's definitely fun, and worth it! :-)
Yes it does involve him/her, and it wasn't B after D, it was RRRRRR during D. It was an edit war at alternative medicine during Jan and Feb. On Feb. 3 I wrote this to him: "BTW, I still haven't gotten any promise from you that you won't repeat your violations of BRD. I want an assurance from you that you realize that it's wrong to discuss and repeatedly edit in a controversial manner at the same time. The BRD cycle doesn't have a repeat button at the end. Discuss means ONLY discuss, not edit at the same time. Will you promise not to do that again? Have you understood?" I have never gotten such a promise, nor any indication that he realized that what he was doing was very disruptive.
BRD is not cyclic, as was explained to him by several editors, including admins. If BRD is cyclic, then it serves little purpose to stop edit warring. Any editing during a tense situation will likely be misinterpreted (or correctly interpreted!) as edit warring. In the situation referred to, even when it might have been B during D, it was disruptive restoration of very contested content, IOW an attempt to force personal content over the objections of other editors, which isn't an attempt to seek consensus, but to edit war. When B can in any manner be interpreted as being against the objections of other editors, then it's disruptive. Only in situations where the Bold edit is a result of AGF discussions and following what one perceives to be the expressed concerns of the other editors is it proper. Otherwise it's dangerous and disruptive to edit at all while the discussion is ongoing. The whole idea of D is to stop all editing on the contested topic, stick to discussion, and seek consensus. Hammer it out on the talk page. Make trial edits on the talk page, refs and all.
Stop and think about it. How often, on controversial topics, do editors totally and always AGF? How often are there no sensibilities and feelings involved? How often is it impossible for misunderstandings to occur? Never? Right! Due caution requires that absolutely nothing is done that can be misinterpreted as warlike. Therefore BRD is not cyclic. It's an even tighter control than 3RR. It means that there is only one cycle, then one tries to form a consensus version and agree to incorporate that into the article. It should properly be written as: BRDS (BOLD, Revert, Discuss, Stop), and do not start over again. Sure, sometimes nothing happens for awhile. In that case a Bold edit can restart the process. Maybe the other editors don't really care anymore and there'll be no problem. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:31, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
If people aren't assuming good faith, or acting in good faith, just about nothing will work.
It might seem that all disputes should be worked out on talk pages before being implemented, but in practice, bold experimentation with alternatives has a quickening effect on resolution. People can quibble over fine points for months, digging the trenches deeper and deeper, but when presented with a solution immediately at hand, disputes often simply vaporize.
Bold experimentation with alternatives in the midst of dispute -- if truly done in a spirit of good faith and compromise -- also fosters good faith, and augments the discussion process. It's an overture of cooperation -- though it has to be intended as such and taken as such.--Father Goose (talk) 04:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
By and large I agree, but only when the spirit is truly one of collaboration. Let's not ignore the interesting (and unfortunate) fact that much of the editing on controversial topics does what Wikipedia is supposed to do -- reflect and document what's happening in the real world. These are real conflicts we're documenting, and very few editors can collaborate with editors who hold opposing POV. I've had that pleasure a few times, but it's relatively rare. If you ignore the fact that edit warring really does happen, and that lots of such editing isn't intended as "an overture of cooperation", then I don't see the point of BRD in the first place. It's a method to prevent brewing edit wars. It's not about the ideal situation, a situation which often isn't working, so BRD exists to cover these less-than-ideal situations so we can still get some editing done without all hell breaking loose. I hear too much talk about the ideal, and not enough about the realities. We need essays about the ideal, and we need to encourage it, but no matter what, it's never going to happen all the time, and we need to formalize a way for policies to still work in those situations. That's what BRD is for. If it includes the slightest bit of a recycle function, it can, will, and is be(ing) used to eliminate the only known way to identify where an edit war started and who did it. People need to be held accountable for screwing things up. You are giving edit warriors an excuse to edit war and call it part of BRD. BRD is not part of edit warring. It's to prevent it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Just putting some notes here: Bold->Revert->Discuss->STOP is a case (C). (I actually described it as such, and you appear to have agreed?) You correctly identify that situation as indicative of a problem because "bad faith is present".
You incorrectly state that case (C) is an objective of BRD. BRD is, in fact, one tool in our arsenal to *end* case (C).
The objective of BRD is orthogonal to edit warring, neither allowing nor preventing. However, incorrect or injudicious application may be misidentified as edit warring. (Hence some of the warnings on WP:BRD ;-))
The objective of BRD is to achieve case (A), it's objective is to resolve case (C).
Note that (A), and (B) are cyclic, while the pathological case (C) need not be.
Formally, BRD employs (B), and is thus, by necessity, cyclic.
Short version: We're supposed to edit on wikipedia. Everything we do (including discussion) is supposed to lead to making a new edit. Everything that prevents new edits is a problem in need of some solution. Of course, clumsy application of the tools to do so can lead to the situation getting more bungled up than before, rather than less. ;-)
Finally, wikipedia is not a blame game. We try to resolve our issues and come to the next edit, we don't waste resources on guilt and punishment.
I think we are "talking past each other" to some degree. My BRDS wasn't a description of your case C, IF I understand you correctly. When I write "stop", I mean discussing until there is a consensus, and then making bold edits that are in harmony with that consensus. That includes careful editing during discussion, as long as it isn't disruptive. It could be written as BRDC, with that being a cyclic process. The C would be Consensus. If there are no controversial issues, then the BRD process isn't necessary, but there are lots of them at Wikipedia. The best articles are written when editors who hold opposing POV can collaborate. I'm very familiar with the BRDC type of editing on very controversial subjects, and it works very well. It forces editors to talk to each other and form a consensus version. Everytime a rogue editor starts editing before a consensus has been reached, all hell breaks loose and someone gets blocked, banned, or the article gets locked down. The idea of BRD is to force editors to seek consensus. Edit warring seeks to bypass consensus.
Most of the time there is no need for the BRD cycle. Its main application is in controversial situations. It is a code of conduct designed to avoid clashes and to force attempts to seek consensus. I fear that some of what you are saying deprecates the supremacy of consensus. As far as your last sentence goes, Wikipedia isn't ideal, so it's not a case of "either/or". We do the best we can, and of course we don't wish edit warring or blaming, but it happens and can't be ignored. This discussion reminds me of pacifist discussions where one part says we don't need the police, military or jails because people shouldn't do bad things. When objections are raised, the return argument is that we can stop all crime and war if we are more kind to each other. The problem with that type of discussion is that the one doesn't exclude the other. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Would you strike out your advice to Maquiguy (talk·contribs)? Using the information without citing it violates Wikipedia:Plagiarism. I also doubt that http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Origins-of-the-Maqui-Berry is a reliable source because it appears to be user-generated. See the offensive changes Maquiguy made to the webpage. A responsible website would not allow such changes to made. Cheers, Cunard (talk) 05:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Hubpages.com is definitely not a RS, and I said to not use it: "The best solution is to completely leave out mention of that source...", but I'll delete my comment anyway as I doubt this user is going to be able to figure out how to do it properly anyway. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
After reading your comment a second time, I see that I have misunderstood what you meant. However, the message could be read several different ways though (I don't understand what you mean by Forget the original format, authors, etc. - does it mean not to cite those authors?), so thanks for removing it. Cunard (talk) 06:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
What I clumsily meant to say was to start from scratch here. If there was any good content at the hubpages.com site, then find out what the original source was, and if it was a RS, use that to build content here. One can get good ideas from reading other articles on subjects, then adapt them here. I was assuming that the hubpages.com article did quote from some RS, but maybe it didn't. Whatever the case, my comment could be misunderstood, so your advice was well worth following. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, this is classic Dr. J. Compare Vittal's contributions (spamming Talk:Homeopathy, good article review, and WP:NPOVN]) to User:NootherIDAvailable, a confirmed Jhingaadey sock. Same arguments, same idiosyncratic English, similarly formatted lists of the same questionable studies... if Vittal's IP doesn't trace to Bangalore I'll eat my hat. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 23:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll have to admit I've noticed there is a discussion, but I haven't followed it at all. From what I know of QuackGuru's debate tactics, it's often hopeless to discuss things with him. He goes in endlessly repetitive rings without properly answering questions or dealing with the objections of others. I end up very frustrated when dealing with him. Right now, as you know, I've been under intense and very nasty attacks for abiding by the consensus in two RfCs and following the Psi ArbCom's ruling, it's corollary in the NPOV policy, FRINGE, "verifiability, not truth", and RS in general. The constant harassment has left me little time for much else. Otherwise I'd probably take the time to weigh in there because, IIRC, QG's opinion on the subject of attribution is miles from mine. When in doubt, I believe in overattribution rather than too little attribution. I consider it an editorially good practice to attribute potentially controversial statements regardless of their POV. I don't see any downside to doing so. I couldn't care less if there is no controversy in RS. If an editor seriously and unfrivolously challenges a statement, then it should be sourced AND attributed. A challenge and controversy on a talk page is enough for me to consider attribution as a method to resolve the dispute. Why not?!! This is just one of many ideosyncratic ideas QG pushes, and even though we share skeptical POV on certain subjects, I vehemently disagree with most of his methodologies here at Wikipedia and consider him to be so disruptive as to be a liability to Wikipedia, and even to skepticism in general. So, to sum this up, don't take my silence as agreement with him. Far from it. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. That's a very logical next step in DR. I had considered doing so after several had asked me why I hadn't done it, but I feared you'd accuse me of forum shopping. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
This is the version when the thread was closed. [13] It's kept here for historical purposes and my own use.Maroon comments have been added later. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Discussion from RS/N
Statement by Hans Adler
I have been very reluctant to come here with my question, because it is related to many subtleties w.r.t. sensible interpretation of sources – more than the average editor can deal with, apparently. The core question is whether accidental claims that are present in a source in an almost but not quite explicit form, and which are outside the main focus of the source, may be taken to the context of a Wikipedia article where they are in the focus, and presented in the lead of such an article as if they had high significance.
The claim in question is that belief in 10 subjects – including ghosts, haunted houses, clairvoyance, witchcraft and reincarnation – constitutes belief in pseudoscience. Even though deciding what exactly is a pseudoscience is known as a hard philosophical problem, e.g. scholars disagree whether psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience, there is one thing that all serious definitions agree about: A pseudoscience must have superficial similarities with science; it is not enough to just make claims about physically observable (or rather not) phenomena. It seems obvious that in the large majority of cases, belief in ghosts, haunted houses, clairvoyance, witchcraft or reincarnation is in no way related to anything superficially similar to science. (Sometimes it may be related to such factors, e.g. when people believe in ghost hunting or "scientific" explanations of reincarnation. But typically the belief is just traditional and/or religious.) It follows that the claim itself is obviously wrong.
According to User:BullRangifer, and I can understand how he initially got this impression, the Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 makes this claim. He also makes the somewhat bold assumption that the National Science Board (NSB) speaks for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and expresses scientific consensus – even casually when claiming something implicitly.
The scientific consensus, as expressed by the National Science Foundation, considers the claimed ability of people to communicate with the dead, as well as belief in ghosts and spirits, to be pseudoscientific beliefs. They have included them in a list of ten items:
From Note 29: "[29] Those 10 items were extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations, telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses, clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future, astrology/that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation/the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death, and channeling/allowing a "spirit-being" to temporarily assume control of a body." [15]
There were so many versions, spread over so many articles, that I can't list them all here. See User:Hans Adler/NSF disruption for details up to 22 March.
The Science and Engineering Indicators is a biennial report with science-related statistics, prepared for US politicians by the NSB, an NSF-related body consisting mostly of statisticians. Editions since 1996 are available on the NSF website. In the 2000 edition, there was a section about Belief in the Paranormal or Pseudoscience. (There was no such section in the 1996 or 1998 edition.) This was one of five sections of Chapter 8, "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding". In the next three reports the word "paranormal" was removed from the section title:
2004: Belief in pseudoscience (subsection of section Public Knowledge About S&T) – uses astrology as the main indicator, but also mentions belief in paranormal as if it was a direct indication of belief in pseudoscience
2006: Belief in Pseudoscience – freely uses belief in paranormal instead of belief in pseudoscience, but this is not explained, and the word "paranormal" does not even appear.
In the 2008 and 2010 editions the section no longer exists. Moreover, in the 2010 edition the NSB (controversially) removed a section about belief in creationism and the Big Bang from the draft, "because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs". [17] In other words: Someone who believes religiously that God created the universe and life on Earth, but also knows scientifically that this is not literally true, may decide to answer in such a way as to demonstrate their faith, rather than their scientific knowledge. The pseudoscience section, which relies mostly on paranormal beliefs strongly related to some religions, may well have been pulled for similar reasons.
The claim that belief in the 10 survey items in question is pseudoscientific belief is not made explicitly in the SEI 2006, but appears in the following form:
Belief in pseudoscience increased significantly during the 1990s and into the early part of this decade (Newport and Strausberg 2001) and then fell somewhat between 2001 and 2005 (figure 7-8 figure.). The largest declines were in the number of people who believe in ESP, clairvoyance, ghosts, mentally communicating with the dead, and channeling. Nevertheless, about three-fourths of Americans hold at least one pseudoscientific belief; i.e., they believed in at least 1 of the 10 survey items (similar to the percentage recorded in 2001).[29] In addition, 22% believed in five or more of the items, 32% believed in four, and 57% believed in two. However, only 1% believed in all 10 (Moore 2005b).
[29] Those 10 items were extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations, telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses, clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future, astrology/that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation/the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death, and channeling/allowing a "spirit-being" to temporarily assume control of a body.
Thus the claim that belief in the 10 items is pseudoscientific belief does not even appear explicitly: One needs to combine the main text with a footnote. This is important, because the SEI 2006 (and to some degree the SEI 2002 and SEI 2004) is the only respectable source we know that makes this claim. It is not a claim made by any notable sceptics, because they generally use a correct definition of pseudoscience. (And in fact the SEI 2006 even quotes the following definition by notable sceptic Michael Shermer, without once addressing the obvious contradiction with their tacit assumption that all paranormal beliefs are pseudoscientific beliefs: "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility".)
Talk:Ghost#RfC: Context of NSF statement about belief in ghosts – This RfC asked in general terms whether the NSF is a reliable source for stating that certain beliefs are pseudoscientific beliefs. Predictably, the consensus said yes it is. According to BullRangifer the RfC was about whether the specific source (SEI 2006), and whether that is good enough for making this claim. I dispute that.
WT:NPOV – Here BullRangifer tried to add the list of 10 items to the policy as a footnote and asked in an RfC whether "the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy". The RfC was closed as "NSF is a reliable source", and a subsequent RfC made it clear that in spite of BullRangifer's protestations that this supported his footnote, there was no consensus for including it.
I apologise for this long post and the even longer discussion that is likely to ensue. But so far the disruption has been spread over many pages, with the same questions coming up over and over again from different editors, and as it is not dying down we need to centralise it somewhere. This seems to be the best place. HansAdler11:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
A few responses to BullRangifer
The author of Chapter 7 (the relevant chapter) was Melissa F. Pollak of the Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS). (Most authors of other chapters and the chief editor were also SRS members. The SEI 2006 is a primary source for the claim that the 10 items are pseudoscientific beliefs, because the source they use only says they are paranormal beliefs. I can see no indication of relevant (i.e. philosophy of science) qualifications or interests in any of the "illustrious" NSB board members who according to BullRangifer can be expected to have micro-managed the report down to a level of irrelevant detail where they would have noticed the discrepancy between Gallup's calling the 10 items paranormal and the report calling them pseudoscientific. Academic peer-review often misses problematic details, especially when they are irrelevant to a document's main focus.
We have no reason to believe that any of the "outside experts, interested federal agencies, NSB members, and SRS internal reviewers" felt responsible for checking that the report uses the term "pseudoscience" to encyclopedic, rather than sloppy common language, standards of accuracy. This was in no way relevant to the report, and there is no indication that any of these experts had an independent interest in pseudoscience or philosophy of science. In fact, that the obvious problem in the report was not fixed is a good indication that nobody noticed the problem, or if someone noticed it it was not found sufficiently relevant to warrant fixing.
It is standard practice, and in fact required, for Wikipedia editors to evaluate the credibility of our sources. See e.g. WP:REDFLAG, which seems to be relevant in this case. This often involves original research, which is perfectly proper. The only thing we can't do is write down our assessment of the sources in article space. I am not aware that anybody proposed this – except perhaps BullRangifer with his initial claims about the SEI 2006 expressing scientific consensus, which he has dropped after being instructed about WP:RS#Academic consensus.
An exact quotation can be misleading, and even a lie, if it is taken to a different context where it will be interpreted in a way substantially different from its original context. E.g. if a casual remark that a supreme court judge made to his hairdresser was published in a law review journal. This is basically the kind of stunt that BullRangifer is trying to pull here.
"Verifiability, not truth" does not mean that it is OK to let articles say absurd things just because they are formally "verifiable". Verifiability is "the threshold". (See WP:V.) Many things pass this threshold, but are not published in Wikipedia because doing so would break NPOV or BLP constraints, or simply because they are outdated or false.
"Editorially we should not allow our private opinions about the 'truthiness' of a notable and verifiable statement to trump our sourcing policies." – The word truthiness makes no sense here, so I assume BullRangifer means "truth" and is just trying to be sarcastic. The "verifiable statement" is hidden in one of three subsections of one of three sections of one of eight chapters of a report for politicians. By spreading it over the main text and a footnote, the authors did not exactly go out of their way to draw attention to it. That's not what I would call a "notable statement". For me a notable statement is one that is worth mentioning for having been made and for the public reactions it received, as opposed to those statements which we include to represent a significant POV. Nobody remotely relevant seems to represent the POV that belief in ghosts, reincarnation etc. is pseudoscientific belief – except of course in certain special cases where science is imitated.
"I ask editors to not allow this discussion to be sidetracked by OR speculations about the "truthiness" of the statement. That isn't what Wikipedia is about. Force the objectors to only discuss policy. Don't allow their OR to muddy the waters." – This sounds to me like a request not to evaluate the reliability of the source for the specific statement that BullRangifer thinks it supports. Per WP:REDFLAG exceptional claims require exceptional sources. The claim that beliefs that have nothing to do with anything remotely like science are "pseudoscientific" is clearly surprising, it is out of character for the NSF/NSB (especially as it comes immediately after a definition of pseudoscience that stresses the "like science" aspect), and it contradicts the prevailing view within the relevant community (sceptics, philosophers of science). Exceptional claims require high-quality sources. The SEI 2006 is not a high-quality source for this statement because by all standards it is peripheral to the document.
Contrary to BullRangifer's continued assertions, the suitability of the source for the purpose of the controversial statement has not been evaluated in the previous RfCs. I am not sure why he is asking this board not to do the evaluation right after he thanked me for taking the question here and mentioned he had considered doing the same thing. [18]HansAdler20:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Reply by BullRangifer
The relevant parts of the exact quote at the center of this controversy:
"... about three-fourths of Americans hold at least one pseudoscientific belief; i.e., they believed in at least 1 of the 10 survey items (similar to the percentage recorded in 2001).[29] .....
[29]: Those 10 items were extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations, telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses, clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future, astrology/that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation/the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death, and channeling/allowing a "spirit-being" to temporarily assume control of a body. Source
Note that the quote under discussion is about "pseudoscientific beliefs" (a broad concept related to faulty thinking), not "pseudo-science" (a more narrowly defined concept related to claims). They're related, but not exactly the same. The source page quotes arch skeptic Michael Shermer's definition favorably. It's an excellent definition with which I fully agree. The page also liberally discusses pseudoscientific "beliefs" and expresses deep concern for the causes of such beliefs: lack of scientific insight, lack of critical thinking, in short just plain muddled thinking. This is discussed at length. The use of the term "pseudoscientific beliefs" is no accident, and it isn't in conflict with the definition of "pseudoscience" since it's a slightly different concept.
The quote is an exact quote (with the necessary added attribution) published on the National Science Foundation website in the 2006 SEI Report prepared biennially by the National Science Board, whose membership is rather illustrious. While statisticians help, that's a far cry from the deceptively worded "consisting mostly of statisticians" mentioned above. (Such misleading comments are characteristic traits in all of Hans Adler's and Ludwigs2's objections.) The depth of the NSB member's involvement isn't "casual" (as falsely claimed above) and is described thus:
"The National Science Board Members were closely involved in all phases of the preparation of this report." [19]
"SEI is prepared by the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) on behalf of the National Science Board. It is subject to extensive review by outside experts, interested federal agencies, NSB members, and SRS internal reviewers for accuracy, coverage, and balance." [20]
My contention all along has not primarily been about the "truthiness" of the NSF/NSB statement, but about its obvious verifiability.
Editorially we should not allow our private opinions about the "truthiness" of a notable and verifiable statement to trump our sourcing policies. Certain editors have indulged in massive and repetitive OR speculations, claimed that the statement did not say what it said, tagged the statement with a "failed verification" tag, claimed that the NSF/NSB made a mistake and are wrong in their 2006 statement, and even speculated about the motives of the NSF/NSB for writing their content. Since we are totally lacking any verifiable sources from the NSF/NSB to the contrary, what the NSF/NSB said should be taken as what they said, regardless of editorial disagreements about the "truthiness" of the statement. Such disagreements are explicitly addressed in the very start of the verifiability policy. OR doesn't trump policy.
Their exact quote is actually their exact quote (!), contrary to what has been explicitly and implicitly stated by the two editors (User:Hans Adler and User:Ludwigs2) who refuse to accept the overwhelming consensus in two RfCs (see below), and which was confirmed by the closing admin:
I'm closing this RfC as National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are "pseudoscientific beliefs." Editors should keep in mind that the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific. ... en.Wikipedia is not about truth, it's about verifiability. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)(All emphasis original.)
In contrast to Gwen Gale's clearly favorable statement above ("the NSF position on this is meaningful, notable, reliable and scientific"), Hans Adler had the audacity to call the NSF/NSB statement a piece of "non-notable misinformation." [21]
The vast majority of editors in the two RfCs and the closing comments by Gwen Gale all disagree with Hans Adler and Ludwigs2 and side with the National Science Board and our verifiability policy:
I ask editors to not allow this discussion to be sidetracked by OR speculations about the "truthiness" of the statement. That isn't what Wikipedia is about. Force the objectors to only discuss policy. Don't allow their OR to muddy the waters.
We are to follow our policies and guidelines, and this is about the statement's verifiability, which has been resoundingly affirmed by the majority of editors in two RfCs and by the closing admin, who wisely chose to stick to policy and not back up such speculations. We all stand firm against the concerted efforts of two well-known defenders of fringe POV, one of whom actually wishes to "dispose of the word pseudoscience entirely" in our editing at Wikipedia! -- Brangifer (talk) 16:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
A few responses to Hans Adler
The NSB members claimed responsibility for the report (see the two quotes above), regardless of who aided them. This fallacious OR objection just doesn't cut it. For example, just because I typed my father's doctoral dissertation and did research for it doesn't make it mine or any less his. He took and deserved the full and ultimate responsibility. The same applies to any secretary and the same applies in this case. The NSB members are just fortunate they have an expert statistician to help them.
In this type of situation there is no descrepancy in the switching between Gallup's "paranormal" and SEI's "pseudoscience", but rather an obviously deliberate choice of wording by the NSB. It is common practice for skeptics to consider paranormal beliefs to be pseudoscientific beliefs. That section of the report constantly refers to and quotes skeptical sources very favorably, thus elevating their status. It is so much an assumed fact that it happens in a "the earth isn't flat" casual manner all the time. That's what happens in the real world, and Wikipedia's job is to document it, not judge it. The SEI report does the same thing numerous times. The 2000 version does quite a bit of this type of "switching", even in the title: Belief in the Paranormal or Pseudoscience (2000). They could just as well used an equals sign, rather than "or". To really see it with colors is rather interesting and aids the understanding. Use the free Google Toolbar and search the page with these words and phrases at the same time: paranormal pseudoscience belief believe. They are generally used rather synonymously. This practice was followed in some later editions of the SEI report. No doubt much to Hans Adler's dismay, this complaint actually points out that the NSF/NSB report equates paranormal with pseudoscience, that there was no "obvious problem" in need of fixing, and that skeptical sources are excellent sources approved by the NSB. The SEI report undermines his arguments in several ways.
I'd say this is a misapplication of WP:REDFLAG. The only reason the statement might seem "surprising", "exceptional", or "out of character" to Hans Adler is his lack of understandng of the depth and breadth of this subject. On my talk page I started a section to discuss this, and Ludwigs2 had very little to say, and what he says is rather uninformative. Take a look. What else can one expect from defenders of fringe POV? As a scientific skeptic I'm very familiar with this subject and the way these terms are commonly used. There is nothing exceptional about them. In fact, it is impossible for Hans Adler to find RS from the NSF to back up his purely OR assertion since the SEI reports are the only known places on their website where they discuss this! Therefore what they say here is the totality of what they say on the matter and should therefore (per FRINGE and the Fringe ArbCom) be taken seriously, not deprecated. You will notice that everything about Hans Adler's argumentation is designed to deprecate the NSF and to elevate his personal OR opinion about the "truthiness" of the matter as his purely editorial reason for excluding the NPOV use of the statement. I'll take their opinion over his any day.
The reason I used the words "scientific consensus" was because (as a national scientific body) (1) their opinions are expected to reflect such a consensus and because (2) the majority of editors in both RfCs confirmed that they considered the statement to reflect the scientific consensus. I acted in good faith when I wrote that and don't deserve the vicious wikihounding and personal attacks I've had to endure from these two editors.
Also, I didn't drop the statement "after being instructed about WP:RS#Academic consensus." That's not true at all since that part of the RS policy doesn't even deal with this type of situation. Whatever the case might be, I have no burden to argue over this point. Just using the NSF/NSB statement to document that the NSF/NSB wrote what they wrote is my main concern. That's about as NPOV a manner to use the statement as I can think of, and Hans Adler and Ludwigs2 won't even allow that NPOV usage.
That's about as misleading a straw man diversionary argument as can be imagined. There is only so much "straw" in a straw man, and the nature of this twisted argument reveals that Hans is grasping at "straws" that aren't there anymore because he's used them up! How can using the NSF/NSB statement to document that the NSF/NSB wrote what they wrote be such a problem? That's a very NPOV way to use the quote. It only serves the cause of fringe POV promoters to keep this out of Wikipedia. (Whether the actual quote is true or not is an entirely different matter best left to other wikis without our policies. Wikipedia doesn't sit in judgment on the truthiness of a statement, it just reports what V & RS say.)
"Verifiability, not truth" is a very fundamental policy. If you want to change that wording, thus allowing editors like yourself to incessantly argue with editors who hold opposing opinions about the truthiness of a statement, and letting the majority determine what's allowed here, then change the policy. (Believe it or not, that's what he was doing right here! Attempting to change a policy to aid oneself in an edit war is very disruptive.) That would create a nightmarish situation of POV articles where the opposing POV, even if published in V & RS, would not be allowed any mention because a cabal of editors on one side determine a source should be eliminated because it doesn't jibe with their version of "truth".
"a disruptive conflict maintained by two defenders of fringe POV who lost two RfCs" [23] – This is totally out of line and I ask you to take it back explicitly. You have been repeating such accusations over and over recently. Fact check:
1. The material was added by you to the leads of about a dozen articles. You are insisting it needs to stay there; at the moment you are being supported by Guyonthesubway and nobody else.
2. The POV that "ghosts", "haunted houses", "reincarnation" and "witches", with no further setting of context, are pseudoscience in the technical sense is a fringe POV which you are trying to force into the encyclopedia.
3. It is no more a defence of fringe POV to insist that "ghosts" are not pseudoscience (and belief in ghosts is not belief in pseudoscience), than it is a defence of a criminal to insist that Jack the Ripper was not a cannibal. If you have any (real) evidence that either of us (Ludwigs2 and me) is a "defender of fringe POV" you will have to put it on the table.
4. This is how the two RfCs were closed:
"National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that 'belief in ghosts and spirits' are 'pseudoscientific beliefs.'"
"National Science Foundation is a reliable source".
These RfC results are unclear because the NSF isn't actually a source at all. The most reasonable interpretation, given the chaos at the RfCs, is that, as a general matter, if the NSF ever happened to say that belief in ghosts and spirits are pseudoscientific beliefs, then we can say so in article space without attribution – under the usual caveats. I totally agree with that, and I think Ludwigs2 also agrees. Therefore we haven't "lost" these RfCs in any meaningful way.
Speaking only for me, I am asking you:
to not repeat the claim that I am maintaining a disruptive conflict;
to make an explicit, public statement that you have no reason to believe I am defending a fringe POV – or provide a detailed list of such reasons so that we can have a public discussion about your allegation with a clear outcome;
I will respond to your points just to enlighten you that you are continuing to misunderstand this matter and are misquoting me.
1. The ten NSF points boil down to only nine Wikipedia articles, and the source would only justify adding it to those articles. The pseudoscience article and the "List of..." are also logical places to use it. Those were all logical places to use it, so about a dozen is probably right. The RfCs justified my doing so. I acted in good faith following our sourcing policies, the Psi part of NPOV (now moved), and the Psi ArbCom ruling.
2. That is not my POV or the POV of the NSF/NSB. I only sought to use the NSF/NSB statement to state that this was the NSF/NSB's statement on the subject. It as attributed to them, not stated as an unattributed matter of fact. That's very NPOV. You are also misquoting me and the NSF/NSB. They did not claim "that "ghosts", "haunted houses", "reincarnation" and "witches", with no further setting of context, are pseudoscience..." They expressly stated that "belief" in them were "pseudoscientific beliefs", which, although related, is not the same as "pseudoscience". I've told you this many times. You need to quote properly. You have misquoted this constantly throughout this whole process and that has confused and fooled quite a few people.
3. I wasn't referring to your attitude toward ghosts as such, but to the fact that you, and especially Ludwigs2, Cosmic Latte, and some others who support you have often sided with fringe POV and you specifically have ridiculed skeptics a number of times, thus revealing your tendencies. You all are also judged by the company you keep. That's not always fair, but it's life.
4a. You wrote, as you have done numerous times: "if the NSF ever happened to say that belief in ghosts and spirits are pseudoscientific beliefs,..."
You seem to be in complete denial. They said what they said! Don't deny it. Not only did they summarize the points from a Gallup Poll, they used their own words and carefully substituted "pseudoscientific" for "paranormal". They thus made the argument their own. Use other arguments, but stop denying it. It lessens your credibility.
4b. You wrote: "... then we can say so in article space without attribution – under the usual caveats. I totally agree with that, and I think Ludwigs2 also agrees."
That one really puzzles me as it's nonsensical. If they said so (and they did), then any inclusion should be done WITH attribution. That's what I have done and you have removed it. It was never included to say that belief in such and such "was" a pseudoscientific belief. It was always a statement attributing that POV to the NSF. Very NPOV.
4c. You wrote: "Therefore we haven't "lost" these RfCs in any meaningful way."
Whatever you mean by the weasel wording "any meaningful way" (which is an indirect admission you lost), you were in the minority who lost the RfCs. You objected during and after, but the closure was against your arguments. Don't deny that. We wouldn't be having this conversation if that weren't an easily documentable fact. You have repeatedly objected to the results of those RfCs. If you hadn't been on the losing end, you wouldn't have objected.
As to your demands for retractions, some of them are without merit because they are based on your misunderstandings and misquotings. The others, at the very least, make us pretty even. Are you willing to stop calling me a liar and what I say a lie, stop calling me stupid, stop being condescending toward me, stop threatening me, stop saying I was gaming the system, stop claiming I was acting in bad faith, stop saying that (by abiding by the consensus in the RfCs) I was being disruptive, and above all start AGF about me and my intentions, etc.? You have said many terrible things about me and treated me abominably. You can dish it out, but you can't stand it when I point it out. Better to let this one die a quiet death, because we both know that nothing but my real death would ever appease you. No apology of mine would ever be accepted by you. The last time you asked for one and got it (and I really meant it), you revealed that you had set me up and then repeated your attacks. No matter how sincere I might be, you would only use any apology against me, just as when I wrote that editing here is a "learning experience". You really reached a low point when you used that against me. No, I can't trust you. Brangifer (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Re-response
1. This was a response to your claim that "two defenders of fringe POV" were maintaining "a disruptive conflict". You started the conflict, and you currently have precisely one ally (Guyonthesubway). On my side there is Ludwigs2, SlimVirgin, Cenarium (one edit summary: "the cited source does not support that") and occasional random editors such as Jack-A-Roe and K2709 (one edit summary: "Doesn't belong here. This article is about a specific author, not what the NSF has for breakfast"). Your claim was false, and with your response to my item 1 you didn't even try to argue otherwise. Why don't you retract it, if you know it was false?
2. Your hair-splitting on this marginal point is extremely tiring. Our readers are not going to notice the difference. With "belief" it is even more absurd in the case of reincarnation, since that is primarily a religious belief. If we assume for the sake of the argument that ghosts, reincarnation etc. are not pseudoscientific, but belief in them is pseudoscientific, then it would be extremely misleading to just make the claim about the belief without clarification that it is only about the belief. Of course no such clarification is possible, as it would be original research. Your source is simply unusable, even with your hair-splitting and even under your absurd assumption.
Of course, if it makes you happy you can read my item 2 as saying that your POV that belief in these things is pseudoscientific belief, with the technical definition of pseudoscientific, is fringe. I don't care whether you actually hold this POV. The problem is that you are trying to force it into a dozen articles. If you don't even believe the POV you are pushing, then your activism is even worse.
3. "I wasn't referring to your attitude toward ghosts as such, but to the fact that you, and especially Ludwigs2, Cosmic Latte, and some others who support you have often sided with fringe POV and you specifically have ridiculed skeptics a number of times, thus revealing your tendencies. You all are also judged by the company you keep. That's not always fair, but it's life." – If fringers from both ends of the spectrum are in a fight with each other, neutrality suffers, and while defending it against the stronger party one cannot prevent getting support from the wrong people.
I am not familiar with Cosmic Latte, but I note that you are using a technique that I have seen you use before: "A is bad because A is on the same side as B and C. B is bad because B has occasionally sided with A and C. C is bad because C sometimes agrees with A and B." This is of course circular logic, and it is purely ad hominem.
I do not ridicule sceptics. I am a sceptic myself. I occasionally ridicule pseudo-sceptics such as you who have no understanding of the scientific method and believe in science as in a religion. (This is not something I do in real life. I have never met this type in real life.)
4a. "Carefully" and "They thus made the argument their own." is your own interpretation. It is unfounded and very likely incorrect. I guess you believe it because you wish it were true.
4b. If it were scientific consensus that these beliefs are pseudoscientific beliefs, then they right thing to do would be to simply say that they are pseudoscientific beliefs, without any attribution. But it isn't. It is just nonsense or sloppy formulation, depending on how you interpret the words. Therefore it makes no sense at all to put it into articles, especially not in the leads.
4c. "If you hadn't been on the losing end, you wouldn't have objected." I did not see the two RfCs before they were almost over. Then I said in the one at Talk:Ghost: "Everybody agrees about statements 1 and 2." I.e. you asked the wrong questions, questions that everybody agreed about, instead of the question that needed answering. Dbachmann and Ludwigs2 also told you so. You made no attempt to fix the problem. As to your RfC at WT:POV: There you also asked the wrong question, with the result that I could only agree with you. Since I guessed that you would misinterpret the result, I preferred not to say anything. (My name does not appear anywhere at WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 38.)
To your final point: "Are you willing to stop calling me a liar and what I say a lie, stop calling me stupid, stop being condescending toward me, stop threatening me, stop saying I was gaming the system, stop claiming I was acting in bad faith, stop saying that (by abiding by the consensus in the RfCs) I was being disruptive, and above all start AGF about me and my intentions, etc.?"
There may be self-deception involved, but some of the things you say are indistinguishable from lies because it is hard to imagine that you do not know they are false. I think I have always made it clear that when I accused you of lying I meant it in this sense.
I do not remember calling you stupid, but it would be consistent with your behaviour.
As far as I can tell, there is precisely one class of people to whom I am condescending: Those who are more clueless than me and act condescendingly towards me. One of the two factors is under your control.
Are you talking about the RfC/U or about Arbcom? I am not too familiar with both procedures, but I think both require fair warning so that the target gets a chance to reform and prevent a lot of hassle for everybody.
Did I talk about gaming the system? But you are very clearly doing that. There is no way that you can think edits such as this are in any way, shape or form acceptable. This is relatively extreme POV pushing, and you are trying to push it through with wikilawyering. There is also no way you can genuinely not understand that you asked the wrong questions in your RfCs. It is natural to ask RfC questions in a leading way, but you overdid it by far, and afterwards you simply denied it. You also continuously claim that basically everybody agrees with you. All of these are examples of gaming the system.
I don't think I ever claimed you were acting in bad faith. Even when you game the system you seem to be acting in good faith, to some extent. I am not sure how it works, but that's how it looks.
You have no grounds to prevent me from saying that you have been extremely disruptive over the last few weeks. I will document the extent of your disruption in my statement to Arbcom.
"You can dish it out, but you can't stand it when I point it out." – This sounds like a description of your modus operandi, especially in your dealings with Unomi and Ludwigs2, but also with respect to me.
"No apology of mine would ever be accepted by you. The last time you asked for one and got it (and I really meant it), you revealed that you had set me up and then repeated your attacks." – You seem to be talking about this. The section was about the RfC/U concerning your wide range of behavioural problems. In response you admitted a sockpuppet paranoia, maintained not to agree with the other criticism, and said: "Will you join the circle and smoke the peace pipe with me?" That was an obvious attempt to get rid of the RfC/U without changing your behaviour or admitting that there is a problem beyond your sockpuppet paranoia. Hardly an adequate response to the following: "You can prevent this by convincing us that it's not necessary. You would have to convince us that you finally understand what is wrong about your behaviour and that it has to stop. You would have to make a clear commitment to changing your behaviour." I had asked for a change of behaviour, not for you to roll on your back, present your neck, and then continue with the same behaviour.
"No matter how sincere I might be, you would only use any apology against me, just as when I wrote that editing here is a 'learning experience'." – This was very obviously a demonstration that even a literal quotation can be a misquotation. I even spelled it out after you simply side-stepped the issue. Your putting it against me in this way is one of those cases where I simply cannot decide whether you are stupid or acting in bad faith. HansAdler20:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I see this could go on forever even if I remain silent. You apparently intend to pursue me until I'm dead, even if I don't respond, and as is the case now where I've pulled back and haven't been defending your deletions. Whatever. I'd think you'd have better things to do than carry a grudge. Why not take the high road? Just for your information, a "lie" is based on motives. It's not the same as an "untruth". If I knew something was false I'd say so, change my mind and apologize. I've had to do that many times here. When I write something it's because I believe it, so you shouldn't accuse me of lying, but you insist on doing so. You're not AGF. You may not believe what I say is true and you could state that you believe it's untrue, but even that doesn't make it so. Then when I don't accept your interpretation, you call it IDHT or gaming the system, or whatever else you want, but you are wrong. You are again not AGF when you say such things. Why not just say that you don't agree? It's that simple. I hope that Gwen can help me figure out if I've misunderstood some policies. They are obviously subject to interpretation and we're interpreting them differently. I hope I can learn something from all this, because I'm not interested in it happening again. I've already discovered that I'm not as successful at formulating myself as I once was, so I'm accepting part of the blame for why others aren't understanding me and don't agree. I'm obviously not expressing myself clearly enough. In your case much of the problem is also related to your failures to AGF. That has often resulted in misunderstandings which have only escalated things.
Your last paragraph is really a mystery to me. I suspect it is yet again one of those situations like we've had before. We seem to be talking "past each other". Note that I don't accuse you of being "stupid or acting in bad faith". Miscommunication happens. It's irritating, but it's honest and does happen quite a bit when the two of us attempt (unsuccessfully) to communicate, and by AGF I'm not going to escalate the situation. We always seem to hit a brick wall where no one is satisfied. I usually forget the matter, but you carry a huge grudge. BTW, a lot of what you've been writing lately is written in the present tense. You're forgetting that I've drawn back. Even when you restarted this whole conflict by overreacting to the removal of your "failed verification" tag by another editor, I hadn't touched the subject for some time, yet you continued to write in the present tense.
I'm not actively editing this matter anymore, even if I'm discussing it to some limited degree to gain more understanding, to prevent misunderstandings, and to meet misrepresentations of my position. It's just limited discussion. You can persecute me for having a POV with which you disagree if you like, but that doesn't help the atmosphere here or aid in editing the encyclopedia. You'd only be using it as a battlefield, but I'm not on that battlefield. I'm on the sidelines trying to figure out what went wrong. Contentwise you have apparently won on this matter. That doesn't mean I agree, but that's life and I'm not interested in persecuting you for it. If you misrepresent my position or continue using straw man arguments, I may comment, but don't take that as an attempt to do battle, that I am assuming bad faith, or that I think you're stupid, which you definitely aren't. We're all trying to learn and discussion is one way to do it. If you will start to AGF about me, I think you'd at least understand me better, even if you don't agree. I would have no problem with that. What I'm uncomfortable with is that you don't understand me and that you assume bad faith about me and my intentions. My only intention was to document that the NSB wrote that beliefs in those ten items were pseudoscientific beliefs. I wasn't interested in making any assertion of fact about the matter ("blablabla IS psi"), only to document that they wrote what they wrote, even if they might have been wrong to some degree. NPOV requires that we present all sides of the story, but you're not allowing this side to be told. I'm pretty much finished replying as I see it's pointless, and our history in previous situations also indicates that it would be pointless to continue. That's life. We just have a dysfunctional relationship. I hope that we can still cooperate and agree on some other things. There's plenty to do here. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Reminder
You have not yet responded to my request in any way. But you have repeated the offence: "In this case I was really in doubt because of the original objections of Ludwigs2, Hans Adler, and a couple other pushers of fringe POV. Since the arguments of such editors don't carry much weight, I decided to get more input." [24]
Hans, I apologize for repeating it. I hadn't seen this at the time. I have already pulled back from this to some degree. I'll be discussing this with Gwen Gale. As to taking it to ArbCom, you'd be in a poor position to do so. Keep in mind that you are living in a glass house and your many personal attacks on me would seriously weaken your position, so it's best to let this go. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:24, April 15, 2010 (UTC)
Considering Hans' continual insulting tone, I'd like to see this go to Arbcom... (whatever that is, I'm assuming thats a threat?) Guyonthesubway (talk) 22:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
You'd like to see this go to ArbCom, and I can understand the gloating feeling one can get from seeing someone possibly gaining a Pyrrhic victory, but I've been in an ArbCom and it's a very tiresome process with no guarantee for justice.It's an extremely disruptive process that should be reserved for extreme cases where clear policy violations and obvious attempts to deliberately disrupt Wikipedia have occurred. That can't be the case when editors have acted in good faith and the dispute has been a content dispute with numerous editors on one side and a few on the other. It would be a muddled mess, likely with no clear winners. When editors who have themselves engaged in bad behavior start such ArbComs, they usually get the short end of the stick. One should be pretty much spotless before doing so. My ArbCom ended quite favorably for me, with my opposer being indef banned and their mentor (who started the ArbCom against me) disappearing for a long time. (As a self-declared continual suicide candidate, I feared he had done it, like I was fleetingly (2 secs.!) tempted to do, but he finally returned.) Even later some wording in the decision that was somewhat unjust against me and Quackwatch was modified and cleared me completely, and also cleared Quackwatch as a source. No, I don't wish to see this go to ArbCom as that would be very disruptive. Sometimes it's best to let things just die down and we all get back to peacefully doing what we came to do, editing this encyclopedia in a congenial atmosphere. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
But you were cautioned during that case, BR, to use reliable sources, edit from a neutral point of view, and seek consensus on talk if people question your edits. Repeatedly adding "pseudoscience" to the leads of articles based on a source that only indirectly mentions the topic via a Gallop poll (and sometimes not even that), and triggering tens of thousands of words of objections, probably isn't what the ArbCom had in mind, in all fairness. :) As soon as we look as though we've crossed the line into activism it becomes problematic, even if we may be right. SlimVirgintalkcontribs01:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I am gradually pulling back from this matter, pending the results of my conversations with Gwen Gale, a fact that will please many, although the majority in the RfCs (whom I don't know) held a different POV than those few who have made so much noise during all this. Why should I be blamed for all the "tens of thousands of words" they have written in their objections to the majority opinions in the RfCs? I have acted in good faith all along, I have used an extremely reliable and notable source, and I never used the statement to make an unattributed statement of fact, but only to note that the NSF made that statement, all in an NPOV manner. That two editors refused to accept the consensus, and have constantly misquoted me and the NSF to muddle the waters and confuse so many, including yourself, isn't my fault.
I also sought consensus by starting those two RfCs because those editors objected. I was really unsure. The clear results of those RfCs confirmed me in my belief that my use of the statement was correct. I again acted in good faith. I didn't edit war and I was backed up by many other editors who preserved my edits. I followed the precautions in that ArbCom, which, BTW, only cautioned me to do what I had already been doing. No evidence was ever brought forward that I hadn't been doing that. My adversary was indef banned and the ruling was later modified even more in my favor. I haven't been engaged in any form of activism. I have only held to our sourcing policies. A good source and statement was being rejected by certain activists because they didn't believe the statement to be true, which is a violation of WP:V.
That they didn't understand that "pseudoscientific beliefs" isn't the same thing as "pseudoscience" isn't my fault. They are two different concepts, even though related. The thrust of the entire NSF source page was to explain what makes people vulnerable to pseudo-science AND to holding pseudoscientific beliefs. (The expression "pseudoscientific beliefs" is a very common expression. See here and here.) The NSF knows very well what science is and what pseudoscience is. They are concerned about the public's gullibility and lack of scientific thinking. That's why they wrote what they wrote. Please don't keep discussing this until you give evidence that you have really read the sources and noted the arguments in favor of the RfCs. Read all those support !votes. It's very instructive and will explain my POV on this matter. It's not an isolated POV and it is the majority POV in the RfCs. Only those influenced by Hans Adler's and Ludwigs2's misinformation since then are holding different POV. When you have read that, I think you will admit that I have acted in good faith all along by sticking to policy and refusing to let OR and personal beliefs sway me. We aren't allowed to reject the neutral use of good sources on such grounds.
The fact that Gwen Gale has modified added to her closure is interesting. Parts of it are good and parts reveal confusion, as well as a failure to defend policy against tendentious POV pushing objections based on personal beliefs in the absence of RS to support such objections. I will discuss this with her. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
An analogy from an area I edit in, animal rights. I could easily find statements from senior legal scholars at top universities that list activities regarded by those scholars as unjustifiable cruelty to animals—scholars who are concerned to investigate what makes the public vulnerable to engaging in those activities without thinking of the consequences. I could then go around adding those statements to the leads of articles on their list. To Meat: "Eating meat is one of a number of activities listed by John Smith, professor of jurisprudence at Harvard University, as constituting cruelty to animals." To Circus: Using animals in entertainment is one of a number of activities listed by ..." To Silk worm: Using animal byproducts as clothing is one of a number of activities listed by ..." And on and on in the face of tens of thousands of words of opposition, and at least one ArbCom case that asked me not to edit in a partisan way. I don't think you'd support someone who was doing that.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you're pulling back from it, so thank you. I really do think you can make the same point in a slightly different way with different sources. SlimVirgintalkcontribs03:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi :)
I am writing the article on Human Hair Growth, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would assist me! You can either suggest ideas to me, or be proactive and fix things yourself if you so desire. Thank you so much in advance!! Bmonicole (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Sure thing. To make this a learning experience for you, I'll start with some formatting issues. I'll make a few edits, always leaving an edit summary, and then I'll let you continue making the same types of edits. That way the article will get into the formats expected of all articles. That's for starters and let's see where we go from there. The first thing I'll mention is the reason for why the article was retitled. Article titles normally capitalize only the first word, so the correct title is Human hair growth. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
