User talk:Craig Weiler

Welcome!

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

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Vzaak (talk) 21:16, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I would recommend looking at WP:IMPERSONATE. The worst case of ignoring it is that a random administrator could temporarily block you, which wouldn't be so bad, just inconvenient until you get it unblocked. This is just FYI; it doesn't matter to me who anyone is. vzaak (talk) 06:42, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see anywhere where Craig Weiler (talk · contribs) has denied being Craig Weiler. In fact, I welcome honesty in identifying who you are, and your inherent biases. Neither do I see any disruptive behaviour although the same old tired and refuted arguments on talk:Rupert Sheldrake are a little frustrating. Barney the barney barney (talk) 10:18, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Barney, As long as we're having an informal conversation, you should know that I've been involved in this subject for many years and one thing that I've found is that no one who takes an interest in this subject is objective, except for maybe parapsychologist Ed May. I met him. He's an amazing exception. The fact is we're all biased for our own point of view. If you treat your own viewpoint as biased, it will help you understand why other people disagree with you.

The knock on skeptics is that they don't know very much about parapsychology and don't display much interest in learning. I'm not directing this at you personally, but you should ask yourself if this applies to you. Have you formed your opinions based on a thorough examination of the parapsychology literature? Or did you just listen to a few Skeptoid podcasts? To be honest, you don't come across as well informed. When you speak of "the same old tired and refuted arguments" it just tells me that you don't understand the complexity of the situation.Craig Weiler (talk) 20:21, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's no downside in taking precautions when it comes to identity; "CSICOP, a known radical atheist pressure group" could be construed as an attempt to make the real Craig Weiler look bad. vzaak (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is my real name. A quick check of my email address will confirm this. And CSICOP is a known radical atheist pressure group. That's not up for debate. Here and here. I have also published blog posts on this very subject. It does not make me look bad to be well informed in any case. I have nothing to be concerned about.Craig Weiler (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not challenging your identity; I was only trying to help, as I described below. vzaak (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you made that clear. It's just very disturbing and somewhat deranged that this would even be an issue. It means that there are jackasses roaming around Wikipedia using intimidation to push their ideological viewpoint. In any case thank you for your efforts. Craig Weiler (talk) 20:21, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The hypothetical admin in this situation would most likely not recognize your name. He/she would only notice heated comments coming from a real-name-looking account and take action to protect the corresponding real-life person. No matter how rare impersonation is -- even if it had never happened in the entire history of Wikipedia -- there is still every reason to be cautious when a person's reputation is at stake. vzaak (talk) 21:42, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If this was about my opinion of CSICOP, then it would mean that they knew the organization and had strong opinions of their own in support of it. So it would indeed be a case of creepy intimidation. Some skeptics are real hard core ideologues. It's hard to understand this if you've never been on the other side of this. I've had skeptics threaten to beat me up, some have insulted me, called me names, vandalized my website and sabotaged my efforts to get published. So I know exactly what kind of person would do that.Craig Weiler (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so Craig. CSICOP promote that is extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That is not an unreasonable position. We cannot take every claim people make at face value; for a start many such claims are contradictory, so we need to ensure that claims are passed through a filter to determine what's bullshit and what might not be. Now, to make extraordinary claims without such evidence is commonly done by humans. However, once someone's claims have been assessed by the expert in this area, who point out obvious fallacies, those persons who continue to promote such unsubstantiated fantasies is all of these things: (1) immensely stupid or deeply immoral (depending on whether the claimant is being an idiot or trying to profit in some way despite knowing it's wrong) (2) disrespectful of expert opinion (3) potentially harmful as regards the public understanding of science, and (4) potentially harmful to people with mental health issues. I'm sure you can appreciate that sometimes things get a little heated when people who take their time to point out that you are wrong and you respond with (1)(2)(3)(4) above. This btw, is how Wikipedia works too. Barney the barney barney (talk) 16:16, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Barney the barney barneyAre you the one who doesn't like their name highlighted? I can't remember who that was and if it was you I apologize in advance.

I have quite a bit of expertise in the areas you've just mentioned, 1 through 4. On point #1 I agree that people engaged in harmful, devious or immoral behavior should be called out. #2 It is OK to be disrespectful of expert opinion provided it can be demonstrated that the opinion is not based on a solid factual foundation, or worse, the expert is clearly biased. #3 Science is a process, not a set of conclusions. There is a great deal of uncertainty and scientific theories can change rapidly with new information. No one knows how you get from brain function to consciousness; no one has the slightest idea what consciousness is; no one understands the observer effect and according to Bell's Theorem, the universe must be non local for quantum physics to work.

Until these things get sorted out, you can't really take one position or the other. The problems are just too fundamental. Public understanding is best served by highlighting these uncertainties and reminding people that we have to remain open to the possibility that new unconventional theories may overtake old ones. #4 I have had a great deal of contact with mental health professionals over the years relating to discussions of this kind. Based upon what I've seen so far, skeptics, such as yourself, do not seem qualified to talk on this subject. I can only suggest that you tread very lightly on this subject because what you think might be helpful to mentally ill people might be completely wrong.

The history of CSICOP pretty much speaks for itself. Are you interested in learning about that?Craig Weiler (talk) 17:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let's start with this in reverse - "what you think might be helpful to mentally ill people might be completely wrong" - I'll tell you what, I'll rely on the expert opinion here - that of medical professionals. You know, doctors, mental health nurses, psychologists in academia studying mental health issues those sort of people. Their position is completely clear - people suffering from hallucinations, hearing voices, etc, are suffering from straightforward mental health problems. These people deserve proper treatment, not a quasi-philosophical discussion on whether psi might perhaps just exist (when the preponderance of evidence and common sense points to it not existing), or a post-modernist deconstruction of science.

Now let's go back to our first point. Scientists make claims all the time. Someone discovers a new species of frog in Brazil, or a new comet. Scientists question these claims - is this really a new species or a subspecies of an existing frog? This is part of the scientific process. Sometimes scientists come up with claims that are fairly radical but fit in with other understanding - a paradigm shift. These claims require more evidence. There is a sliding scale from ordinary to radical. If we continue this line, for a very long way, we eventually get to the type of claims made by (say) Rupert Sheldrake. These claims are so off the previously mentioned scale, that they're the sort of thing that "atheist pressure group" CSICOP deal with. They don't deal with the controversial stuff - they deal with the really stupid stuff. If you're dealing with CSICOP you should realise you're not right, you're not wrong - you're not even wrong.

I don't understand your motives or background well enough to make a complete judgement, but I suspect what you're doing Craig is you're relying on YOUR own evidently non-expert and flawed judgement. Science is a process (well done), but you're not involved in it (presumably for a reason). It is generally agreed upon by educators and scientists that the public understanding of science is best served by telling people what is well established, and not trying to confuse them by suggesting well established theories have "problems", when no scientist would take those "problems" seriously. This is where Sheldrake is at. And this is why we have WP:FRINGE.

Now you've seen what people do here to worthless little time-wasting trolls like Tumbleman (talk · contribs). It'd be a real shame if your bizarre conspiracy view of science prohibited you from contributing effectively to Wikipedia and you went the same way. Barney the barney barney (talk) 14:16, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can be blocked at any time, for no reason other than your account name. You could have been blocked ten seconds after you created your account. Making heated arguments simply draws more attention; it doesn't actually matter what the arguments are about. Murphy's Law says that a block would come at the worse possible time -- say, in the middle of some argument -- which might indeed look like a conspiracy. But it would only be Wikipedia's WP:IMPERSONATE policy aiming to protect people. vzaak (talk) 22:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Craig, to be clear, my purpose was to help, not to ridicule. I'm saying that a random admin could come across such a quote and decide to block you on potential impersonation grounds. You can prevent that from happening by following WP:REALNAME. vzaak (talk) 13:25, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:REALNAME policy is just common sense, and similar policies can be found on other sites. That the policy exists does not imply that it addresses a rampant problem. The policy would still be there even if not one case of impersonation ever happened. Wikipedians wish to protect real-life identities, and their efforts to do so can nowise be held against them. I regret that my attempt to help here has resulted in all these negative speculations. vzaak (talk) 20:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MEAT

Bringing an indefinitely blocked users off wiki comments into article discussions [1] as you did here, falls under WP:MEAT and should be avoided if you wish to continue to be able to edit on your own.

If you think they have legitimate grievances, you may bring them to the attention of the appropriate notice boards, but otherwise you are just trolling. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. And please don't carry on the dispute at Tumbleman's talk page either. If that continues I can simply protect it. Dougweller (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I actually disagree, I don't think you've done anything wrong in pointing out Tumbleman (talk · contribs)'s statement, but as long as Tumbleman (talk · contribs)'s statement is Tumbleman (talk · contribs)'s final word on the subject, drawing a line under the whole thing, and he tries to contribute nothing new to Wikipedia. If that's the case, then great, we can all move on. But do please we don't need you to be sitting in our lounge with us having a nice relaxed discussion and a cup of tea and while you're on the phone to Tumbleman (talk · contribs) relaying what he wants to say. Barney the barney barney (talk) 14:02, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tumbleman made a statement. I posted it. End of story. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be someone else's go between.Craig Weiler (talk) 17:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You posted the statement in multiple places and now after being warned about being a mouthpiece for a blocked user you continue to WP:SOAPBOX for him like this [2] by advocating for WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality off Wiki as well as spamming your blog page to do so.

Consider this your final warning. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:26, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

TRPoD aka The Red Pen of DoomI am not his mouthpiece. I don't speak for him, I speak for myself. Are you saying I should only post messages like that on my own talk page?Craig Weiler (talk) 03:37, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia and its pages are for improving wikipedia articles. It is not a social media chat forum for righting the great wrongs done against the fringe believers. You should not be posting them on wikipedia at all. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:53, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Wikipedia is certainly the place for discussing Wikipedia problems, such as your attempts to threaten and intimidate me right now. If you have a problem with me then get your buddies together and you guys can try to ban me again. It seems to be your major form of entertainment. Let's discuss this behavior in arbitration.Craig Weiler (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am pretty sure you dont mean "arbitration" , but if you do, it is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests (make sure you read all of the links in the introduction). If you think that your actions have risen to the point that require administrator tools, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (again, read the instructions and links). You may also find this helpful Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:37, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]