User talk:Dancingeyes
You have edited Greer's page recently. I have to warn you that there is a guy from Caltech who does not have a user account and gets a new IP-Address every hour(you cannot block it). He reverses every changes daily he doesn't like. Of course in the name of science.— Preceding unsigned comment added by I-netfreedOm (talk • contribs)
- Actually, I could be blocked if I did something that deserved blocking. I stay behind DHCP to separate Wikipedia from life. I do not remove material from Greer's page because I don't like it - I remove material because it is blatantly false and misleading. 131.215.64.195 (talk) 22:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
- STOP PROMOTING GREER'S CONS! The Orion Project has presented absolutely _nothing_ to support their claims, so to say they are 'actively working' to produce anything other than words is nonsense. 131.215.159.218 (talk) 04:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
- Also, Greer's saying that he has lots and lots of evidence is worthless when he doesn't present this evidence in something other than 'I say so's from people. I can say that you will donate a thousand dollars to Caltech, but the act of saying so doesn't increase Caltech's budget. 131.215.159.218 (talk) 04:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
- You can cite one hundred references. Our Caltech Prof will reverse them until he sees confirmation of them on the front page of the Washington Post. He is very passionate, either because he believes strongly in the status quo or he is part of the conspiracy. I-netfreedOm (talk) 16:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
- So, what constitutes ample evidence, then, in your opinion? Admittedly, I am no law expert, but my understanding is that people have been convicted of murder in courts of law based on verbal testimony by reliable witnesses (many arguably less reliable than the hundreds of military, government and civilian witnesses presented in the Disclosure Project). Furthermore, how do you dismiss hundreds of pages of official documents, transcripts, radar records and such? To what standard is one held in terms of bringing forth evidence? Is there some magic minimum number of reliable third-party "experts" who have had direct, physical access to the evidence in question in order for it to be acceptable as verifiable (on Wikipedia or elsewhere)? If so, what is that number...and who decides what constitutes "reliable" in terms of those so-called experts? In the interest of clarity here, please provide your definition of acceptable evidence. To use a somewhat rhetorical example: if you claim to be associated with Cal Tech, and you post a page on Wikipedia stating your status as student/faculty or whatever, how do you prove it? What references do you attach to verify your association with Cal Tech? Is it an administration office, a transcript record, an individual with a phone number....why would I believe any of these? How far back must one trace the chain of "verifiable" evidence to be able to post such a claim? It seems to be to get rather ridiculous rather quickly. So, again, what is the magic number here wherein a mention of evidence is not immediately debunked, challenged, rebuked and/or erased by individuals such as yourself? Have you read the Disclosure book? Have you seen the pages and pages of copies of official sighting reports, witness transcripts, (formerly) top-secret documents all included in the book? Are these all forged, fabricated, meaningless? Whose word do you trust, and why? Wikipedia's own definition of verifiability says "All material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable, published source." Please explain why the Disclosure Project book, and the attendant witness testimony videos are NOT reliable sources, in your estimation. Dancingeyes (talk) 16:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
- Dear Caltech Prof: You are stating above that Greer have never presented evidence other then "I say so". I am providing you with a link now to the these documents: http://www.disclosureproject.org/access.htm I-netfreedOm (talk) 19:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
- Our Caltech Prof hasn't replied yet to your quesions above but instead he reported us for what he calls "incident" on Dr. Greer's page. See following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=216449269 I-netfreedOm (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I want to thank you for understanding Wikipedia's policies on WP:NPOV as shown by your recent edits on Steven M. Greer. Quite honestly, most supporters of fringe authors don't know what "neutral" means. My personal opinion of Greer is that he's a con man, and quite an industrious and persuasive one. We may disagree, but that only emphasizes how important it is to be fair. His notability is another issue, one which should be discussed in the AfD. I'm not going to comment there myself because I don't think I can be objective. Plvekamp (talk) 17:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your respectful and honest comments. The whole issue of notability, IMO, is little tricky in these (so-called "fringe") instances. My understanding of the intent of these AfD discussions is the establishment of notability for any given article. It seems that notability is greatly influenced by "mainstream" thought, and to some degree the lowest common denominator, in terms of public and/or academic positions. Related to this, I am curious (given your admitted bias toward Greer), if your opinions are based on first-hand knowledge, peer discussions, academic understanding, scientific expertise (or a combination of any/all of these), or....? If it is none of my business, I can respect that. What concerned me when I first looked at Greer's article earlier this month—given Wikipedia's high profile on the web as itself a reliable source—was the overall negative tone and (IMHO) overly-weighted bias towards listing his detractors, and very little info with any neutral tone regarding his actual work. If one was to look at that article, in that state, with no other prior knowledge of Greer and his work, it would be easy to conclude that it was all "iffy". But what are the credentials of those proclaiming him suspect? It seems like a closed-loop sort of logic is at work here. For example, in the subject of ET/UFO contact—one of Greer's main areas of interest, as you know—there has been for years a systematic and pervasive effort to paint anyone who has valid contact or sightings of UFOs as mistaken, confused, mentally unstable or worse (this is all very well documented in Greer's book, as well as several other researchers of this topic, and I can speak also from personal experience, as well as second-hand knowledge of such intimidation and cover-up from some trusted friends). As a result, countless individuals who would otherwise have come forward with their direct experiences chose to remain silent, for fear of ridicule, discrimination and worse by colleagues, peers, public officials, and even family members. As a result, the solid, reliable—notable, if you will—evidence on the UFO matter has been for the most part lacking. Then, when members of the scientific community who dared to admit their interest in the subject—and called for serious inquiry into the matter—came forward, they were told by their peers there was little or no credible evidence on the subject, and they were then marginalized, shut down, or worse. A big Catch-22. Thus, the fringe remained the fringe by virtue of the mainstream naming it as fringe, and this has been a very tough wall to crack. I should say that I personally have had contact with Dr. Greer, have participated in his trainings, and have nothing but high respect for his integrity, honesty and efficacy with regard to his work in a very unforgiving field. In the Greer article, when I first came upon it in early May, many of the blanket statements against his case were also lacking in appropriate citation, yet there seemed to be little upset from the Wiki community on those points. I only started editing the page because I saw imbalances and inaccuracies that I know first-hand were false, and attempted to do my part to make the article more fair. My learning curve has been sharp here, and my steps went askew a few times, in ignorance of some editing policies. I was surprised and dismayed at the personal attacks coming from some quarters of his detractors (toward myself and other contributors), which were quite intolerant, chauvinistic and snobbish. This issue of notability, while I may disagree with the predominant tones expressed, is too me more-on target than the outright dismissal of information that had been in the article, simply because certain editors felt it was "BS", without providing reasonable explanation of why they had come to that conclusion. Your comment here was very respectful, and I appreciate it greatly, and would hope that Wikipedia members might use your example by not engaging in such snobbery, but looking to make this a truly informative vehicle. — Dancingeyes (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
See above. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- My apologies, but I thought I'd better check. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Multiple accounts
[edit]Hi there, I want to check before I take any further action that you are familiar with our policy on the use of multiple accounts. Multiple accounts are acceptable to segregate edits on controversial subjects, but the use of these accounts to create a false appearance of consensus is expressly forbidden. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm aware of the policy, and no, I don't have but one account, and have no intention of ever having but one.
AfD #2 for Dr. Greer
[edit]Somebody marked Dr. Greer's page for deletion yet again. It would be useful if you would add your thoughts on the discussion page. Thanks. I-netfreedOm (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)