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Archive 64

I recognize that this user page belongs to the Wikipedia project and not to me personally. As such, I recognize that I am expected to respectfully abide by community standards as to the presentation and content of this page, and that if I do not like these guidelines, I am welcome either to engage in reasonable discussion about it, to publish my material elsewhere, or to leave the project.


This is an archive of User talk:Lar from about 1 March 2010 through about 1 April 2010. Please do not comment here, use my current talk page for that, thanks. It is part of a series of archives, see the box at right for the list and to navigate to others.

An index to all my talk page archives, automatically maintained by User:HBC Archive Indexerbot can be found at User:Lar/TalkArchiveIndex.

Talk Page Archives
My post 2012 archived talk
Archive 79 1 December 2012 through 1 December 2013
Archive 80 1 December 2013 through 1 December 2016
Archive 81 1 December 2016 through 1 December 2018
Archive 82 1 December 2018 through 1 January 2021
Archive 83 1 January 2021 through 1 January 2023
Archive 84 1 January 2023 through 1 January 2025 ??
RfA Thank Yous
RFA Archive Howcheng (27 Dec 2005) through present
All dates approximate, conversations organised by thread start date


Userify request

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At your suggestion, I'll take these off your hands: Osamu Migitera‎, Osamu Kubota, Shiyuna Maehara, Naoki Maeda, Thomas Howard Lichtenstein, and if you would be so kind these that were deleted by others: Seiya Murai, Mutsuhiko Izumi, Hideyuki Ono, Hiroyuki Togo, Takehiko Fujii, Tatsuya Furukawa. And might as well move these off since someone's balls apparently dropped last night and is still rampaging: Toshiyuki Kakuta, Hiroshi Takeyasu, Sanae Shintani, Takayuki Ishikawa. When these pages are moved into user space do they carry their original histories? Cause some of them were severely clipped just prior to deletion. It's a shame really, cause it'll be a time before I can do anything to them. And while putting them in user space is better that deletionism, they won't be in a position to be edited by anyone passing through that can contribute. Which is why Wikipedia exists.  æronphonehome  12:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just add pages under /Articles/ from 8 on up (User:AeronPeryton/Articles/8 and so on) as needed. Thanks.  æronphonehome  12:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, happy to oblige. It may not be this very instant but it will be within a few hours. As a procedural note, if the article has been restored, it doesn't make sense to userify it, as it's already been restored to mainspace and userification would thwart the will of whoever decided to restore it. When it's userified, the entire history will be restored as well (unless there are some revisions that need to stay deleted). If someone decides that the deletion needs to be undone completely, they will presumably move it back. So given the state of flux here, it pays to check to see what's going on before acting. I'll check histories, and I'm suggesting that you check before doing a big edit run, so no one happens to move it while you are editing (maybe add an inuse while doing significant editing? not sure).
Alright then, it'll make more check up work but just move the already red linked deletions. In light of the case built up over this I'll wait and see if the others go down too. In all fairness it's not your fault that people are screaming about this, that happens anytime huge changes are made whether they're needed or not, but the way it was done combined with the attitudes of the people doing the deleting (or supporting it cause they can't do it themselves) makes it hard for me and others to believe that it is in the best interest of Wikipedia, Her purpose and primary goal. Good luck with your case.  æronphonehome  14:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TPWs please feel free to restore/move these if I haven't gotten to them. AP: Thanks for volunteering! Lar: t/c 12:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution list

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I will update this list as I identify what's going on.

My deletions:

By Scott MacDonald (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log)

Articles identified as of interest:

Done with mine, working the rest. Lar: t/c 15:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Second bunch is Scott's, done, need to do the third bunch. Lar: t/c 16:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done with third batch. Lar: t/c 01:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution list part 2

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Appreciate your help, these are unrelated to this event but are related to the article scope I work in so what's a few more at this point?:

Did these. Lar: t/c 18:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And we'll put Atsushi Shindo one on watch along with Osamu Kubota & Osamu Migitera.

Not sure what needs doing here. Lar: t/c 18:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Watching.  æronphonehome  18:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ok, gotcha. Lar: t/c 19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Watching

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Unless other articles get nominated this should be it, please userify these just like the others under my /Articles subfolder. Thank you for your help.  æronphonehome  14:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, you want all of these userified? I'll go through this list and either userify, or explain why I didn't. It may not be right away but it should be this week. Lar: t/c 14:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please. Thanks again.  æronphonehome  00:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: First batch done

Next batch done

(last of 3 Mar bunch) Lar: t/c 17:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC) Remaining batch done 6 march Lar: t/c 19:53, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Advise of any concerns. Lar: t/c 19:53, 6 March 2010 (UTC) Easier to watch them here, because of this whole thing my watchlist is very difficult to read.  æronphonehome  18:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One more time:

Userified a few. you need to clean out the templates, categories and the like, ASAP. More soon. Lar: t/c 18:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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As for working on them in the mainspace it's clear that we've exceeded the Wikipedia deadline for article completion.  æronphonehome  18:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can do the rest of these for you, sure... but can you sort out this many at once? Presumably you have enough to do to keep you busy for a bit, I may not get to the rest right away, but I will get to them, probably within 24 hours or less. Lar: t/c 22:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe my sarcasm was too subtle. There is in fact no deadline for anything here, but you guys want it in dress uniform right now or you want it gone. So give 'em to me. I'll build what I can and trash anything I can't. At least I'm offering to DO something, right?  æronphonehome  02:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are. And good on you for doing so. I wish more people would. You have my sincere thanks. These articles sat with problems for 3 years and 11M users didn't do anything while the backlog grew and grew. We need a reordering of priorities here. Sometimes a shock to the system is what's required. That's regrettable, but it is what it is. We gave the shock, and now the community, at last, is responding in a myriad useful ways... improving tags, processes and articles. Lar: t/c 14:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I solemnly agree, but I still maintain that all the effort put into rocking the boat could be used to plug the holes that the rocking is being done for. Just like I was telling Bali Unlimited in one of the first article to go up for AFD, if you spent half the effort fixing the articles as you do yelling about them things wouldn't be so bad.  æronphonehome  16:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather not debate the point here in what is essentially a "work thread". But no. 450,000 BLPs and growing. How many are problematic? No one knows for sure but it's a large number. The backlogs grew and grew and grew. Efforts to do anything less radical were thwarted. Enough. Lar: t/c 16:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not disagreeing with you, more like lamenting. At least you're being a real person without an apparent social disorder. I guess I just need- *sniff* someone to talk to... ^_-  æronphonehome  19:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
real person, without a social disorder???? [citation needed] ... at least according to some folk. :) Lament away, though. Because I agree. It's too bad it came to this. Lar: t/c 19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At least not one you can't handle. I don't like how mass deletion and bad attitudes seem to always go together. I put up a watchlist since I doubt this thing is over and while other people are open to mass deletion I'm open to mass adoption. Thanks for your help so far.  æronphonehome  18:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This last bunch: (Asaki. Ayako Saso. Atsushi Shindo. Junko Karashima. Kazuhiro Senoo. Kiyomi Kumano. Kozo Nakamura. Miharu Arisawa. Naoyuki Sato. Osamu Kubota. Osamu Migitera. Paula Terry. Reiji Sakurai. Risa Sotohana) ... did you want those userified too or are you just making notes to yourself?

Also what's going on with this: Wikipedia:AN3#User:AeronPeryton_reported_by_User:JBsupreme (see lower on this page too)... Please don't edit war. Please discuss things and arrive at a good arrangement. Removing red links is legitimate maintenance. Lar: t/c 02:53, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's why I'm keeping this list on your talk page. If you want it somewhere else just let me know. As for the spat with the deletion brothers, what can you do? My last attempts to talk with both of them were simply deleted. It doesn't get any unfriendlier than that. They're both unashamedly crude, but I get disciplined. Gotta really love this place to give a care about it sometimes. Look towards the bottom too, I have a couple of questions.  æronphonehome  17:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Re the list, I'm fine with it here, but fair warning, I archive my talk page monthly and so all the Jan stuff (unless it's sitll active) will get archived away... so you may want to make a list in your own userspace or whatever. I thought maybe you wanted those actually userified. If you do just ask, I am happy to but I need to know, right now I'm not totally clear. As for the other matter, I'l comment below. But I'd again implore you to try to talk to folk first, and avoid edit warring. I think at least one of your "adversaries" thinks you're the one not being comunicative, so maybe a reset and start over might help.... put the past behind you and communicate clearly and hope for the best. Lar: t/c 20:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the list is there in the hopes that you will userify those as well. I didn't want to make a new entry on your talk page every time yet another article went under. I imagine the scope of what I'm asking your help with will be active for a while, so if you archive this section I'll just fish out the ones that still need to be done and put it somewhere else.
I'll respond to the rest below in our other conversation.  æronphonehome  21:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:REDLINK & the bounds of a BLP article

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Two things, first can you read the first couple of paragraphs of WP:REDLINK at tell me if I'm crazy or not? It starts by saying why red links exist, how important they are, and then it says when bad articles are deleted one should make any link to it go away. It seems contradictory so the way I interpret that is the backlinks should be removed only in the case that it's glaringly obvious that the article will never return. If an article is deleted about a notable or important subject and it was simply not conforming to guidelines and no one was willing to help it do so then I believe, and am supported by WP:REDLINK in thinking, that red links should stay there for future reference and work.

There are figures on Wikipedia that aggregate red links to tell how wanted a non-existent article is. Removing red links on purpose prevents people from getting an accurate reading that way. And what happens when an article is reintroduced that is done proper? You'd have to do a plain text search of Wikipedia to re-link the term or subject manually. What a waste of effort. If that is how the guideline should be interpreted then it seriously needs to be re-evaluated and revised to be clearer of its intent. Otherwise you have what JBSupreme and I had. Is there a process in which policy and guideline can be introduced for overview and discussion?

Second, when an article is created for a person is there a limit to discussing only one single person per article? I was considering taking all the individuals who may not meet notability on their own and wrapping their bios into List of Bemani musicians. The article would assert the person's importance in the series specifically rather than their importance to world in general. If one or more of them are notable enough to have their own article then a stub section in the list would simply link to their own article and give a brief overview of that person inline. I have spent just about no effort on Wikipedia making BLPs so I know next to nothing about the protocol with them (even less so now with this pitchfork riot) so if you can, I would appreciate your help.  æronphonehome  18:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok on the first part, I agree with you, the page wording is conflicting. But that is the way of many wikipedia policies. We expect people to use common sense when applying them. What is that page really saying? It's saying that redlinks are good, except when they're bad. They're good if they link to pages that we ought to have, because they're on topics we don't have yet but should. SO link them so the project can grow. They're bad when they link to pages that we ought not to have, because they're typos, misspellings, or (more importantly) on topics we know for sure, or we already decided, we shouldn't have, and it's not likely that will ever change. SO don't link them so people don't get confused and create pages we know not to create.
Where things have gone awry here is that there is a disagreement on certain pages... they were deleted. Normally that's a sign that we shouldn't have a link, and that's why policy says get rid of the links. But in this case they were deleted not because we are sure we should never have an article, they were deleted because they were unsourced and we were playing it safe. Strikes me that some of the redlinks here might well come back as articles, and soon, as soon as they get sourced.
All THAT said, things went in the weeds because edit warring broke out. As soon as that happens, it tends to break down communication. As I said above, I'd try communicating again. I can have a word with JBS if you want. Lar: t/c 20:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In response to what you said above, I did try to talk to both of them. When you approach someone with logical rationale (however cynical) and they respond with deleting what you wrote it's pretty obvious who's being uncooperative. I chose to continue reverting the bad idea changes because I see them as just that, and I asked for arbitration (literally), though nothing got intelligently discussed there either (I was blocked by someone involved in all the deletion, surprise surprise). Even though, I can't think of anything you would say to either of them that would change their behaviour for the better... though perhaps you could do something about this? Bali has been doing this to several articles in and not in the process of AfD. Is he trying to bolster his edit count?  æronphonehome  21:10, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for your second question I honestly don't know. Seems a good question to me. I know we do similar things with songs that don't merit articles, they get described in the album article, and albums, they get described in the musician's article.... Hope that helps. Lar: t/c 20:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, I'm clearly trying to inflate my edit count. What else could explain my decision to quietly remove a post to my talk page that said I "behave in a manner that goes against the spirit of the Wikipedia project and you barely actually contribute to it so that makes your existence here almost worthless" and that I clearly "have no time in your busy life to be a nice person or to aid and contribute and instead want to see categories of information removed on the grounds of your personal (Oxford-like?) tastes." I was of course thoroughly convinced by your logically devastating statement (demonstrating a mastery of classical rhetoric) that all that was why my "bad faith edits to List of Bemani musicians has been reverted as will anything else that goes against the purpose of this project that I contribute to while you cynically critique."[2]. Of course, a rational contributor in good faith would have responded positively to your edit summaries on your fourth revert calling my efforts "vandalism" [3] and your fifth revert calling them "bad faith."[4]. Well played, sir! I can see why you've declined defending the maintenance of entirely unsourced information about living people on the article's talk page... your case has already been succinctly and irrefutably made. And if that wasn't enough, you finished with a logical flourish: "As for my excuse for exhibiting 3rr behaviour, again, I do not believe that their edits are in keeping with good faith or even good ideas. It feels as though they simply want to delete and bury everything for good."[5].
In fact, the creation and maintenance of unsourced articles on living people has to stop. There are strong ethical, real world reasons for this. There are strong research and verifiability reasons for this that need to be the core of any encyclopedic project. And it's all well-supported by wikipedia's policies. I'm not particularly interested in educating you if you can't be bothered to read and figure it out for yourself. Perhaps Lar will be more patient. One last bit of advice: being nice does not mean "letting you have your way." I was willing to let the edit warring slide after the fourth revert as i informed you on your talk page. That was me being nice. I'll make you a deal: You can do as much original research and unsourced editing as you like to the Dance Dance Revolution walled garden without any interventions from me so long as you leave living people out of it. Any creation of articles on people (or aggregating lists about living people) that are unsupported by reliable sources independent of the subject and that fail to pass any of the notability guidelines, will draw my attention.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
....errrrm, what happened to the rest of this page?? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I archive once a month. See the archive list at the top of the page. I think you'll find January's topics in User talk:Lar/Archive 62. Archives are searchable as well, see User:Lar/TalkArchiveIndex. Hope that helps. Lar: t/c 16:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Hypothetical Question for you Lar

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If an administrator were to participate in defense of one of his facebook friends, when a complaint has been made against his friend, would it be appropriate to make this defense in the "uninvolved administrator" section of such a complaint and without disclosing their relationship? I'd think the problem would be potentially worse than the admins sole actions due to the concepts behind seed money (which of course may be the point). TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking hypothetically, is it possible you had too many twists and turns in there? It didn't parse for me, I'm afraid. Lar: t/c 20:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that, I guess the basic point is that if an administrator is a friend of someone, then is there a COI in defending that friend, using administrative authority, when a formal complaint is filed?
I guess the seed money article doesn't really cover my intended use, which was from politics, where politicians, at fund raisers, have friends and family who "spontaneously" donate to the politician in order to encourage others to do the same. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Amazingly, real world courts have discussed this absurd question.

The above article relates to the decision of a British magistrate (a lay judge who presides over minor cases assisted by a legal staff). --TS 20:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah excellent, remind me to commit crimes in the UK where my myspace and facebook friends can serve on juries against me. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was for a time "following" (the Twitter equivalent of friending) quite a sizable number of US politicians. I find the notion that such links create a conflict of interest ridiculous. In facebook, where profiles are often closed, the question is even more absurd, because friending is sometimes the only way to gain access to the profile. --TS 21:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Funny, all my myspace/facebook friends are really my friends - not some way to communicate private information. I do admit my analogy was a bit flawed, a better one would be having one of my friends as the actual judge of my case. The UK really is a funny place! TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretically: Uninvolved administrators are the ones who should make final decisions. Those who are involved should disclose the nature of their interest (a friend, an adversary, a co worker, an editor from the same projects, what have you) and while they can advocate, they should not decide. That's the theoretical way it's supposed to work. Actually there are cases where it does not work that way, regrettably, but that's the ideal to strive for. Does that help at all? Lar: t/c 21:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's the way I thought it should work. Thanks. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh look, you've suddenly switched your definition of involved: who said So no, I remain uninvolved. I do not edit in this area at all. Lar: t/c 21:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. That was shorthand, perhaps, but not an actual change. More elaborately: I don't edit in this area. I don't work in this area. I don't count any of the other editors in this area among my close friends or dearest foes. I don't have friends or relatives who work in this area. My employer cares a bit about this but it's not their primary focus either. In short, uninvolved. I have views, yes, but I'm not involved to any degree any reasonable person would find credible. Thanks for stopping by. Lar: t/c 22:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe not, but you do seem to have used a rather modest standard when speaking of yourself, and suddenly incorporated a much broader and it appears to me, rather novel) definition when speaking of the ideal. And since some of us think we can guess who The Good Locust is referring to, and taking into account the question asked, you should bear in mind that you appear to be criticising an identifiable editor for having facebook friends. --TS 22:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not following you at all here. Perhaps you could posit your working definition of "uninvolved"? Lar: t/c 22:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel the need to have any definition of "uninvolved". I think it's enough to ask admins not to use their tools to further a dispute. --TS 22:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, really, since you are apparently criticizing my definition, I want to hear yours. Unless you are saying that all admins are uninvolved? Lar: t/c 23:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What "area" would you be referring to? You seem to be a bit defensive about something - why is that? I was just asking Lar a hypothetical question. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have 238 friends on Facebook. I login once per six months. How would I even remember if somebody friended me? I'm pretty friendly and acknowledge many requests even for people I barely know. This complaint is a bit silly. Jehochman Brrr 22:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not even sure what the complaint is! I thought this was a hypothetical question. I think I have even more FB "friends" than you do, as well as many LinkedIn connections, lots of twitter followers (and followees) as well as... wait for it, 340 TPWs! Lar: t/c 22:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • There you go being coy again. --TS 22:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Coy? Are you saying there really is someone who is getting their facebook friends/admins to run defense for them? Please provide diffs. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Oh nm Tony, I think I found what you were referring to. It is too bad my topic ban prohibits me from pointing out such a flagrant COI. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Can you, or anyone, please tell me what's going on? Email me or something, whatever it takes. This is ridiculous. I don't care for games. Lar: t/c 00:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Without knowing - i'm guessing that it refers back to this. (and other unsubstantiated claims by TGL about Facebook aquaintances. Btw. i have WMC on my Facebook friends list - but just about the only communication we've had there is WMC complaining about the casual games i play and their spam capacity ;-P [and i'd also add TGL if he asked] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • Send me a request, will ya? Lar: t/c 14:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • So Kim you say "just about" the only communication you've had "there," which leads me to the obvious follow up questions of what does "just about" entail exactly and what other method do you communicate with William off-wiki? You see, I once asked WMC and another person if he was engaging in meatpuppetry/canvassing and he would not answer the question directly (the other person vanished), which, oddly enough, sufficiently addressed the question in my mind. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Can you please send me certified copies of your last 10 tax statements and all emails and other communication you have sent or received pertaining to the topic of climate change, interpreted broadly? I only want to make sure that you do not get paid and/or coached by Exxon and/or the Saudi government. If you don't, that will, of course, sufficiently answer that question in my mind... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I asked him a "yes or no" question straight up, didn't get a yes or no answer and so I asked again, and he deleted my response. I wasn't asking for private documents, just a simple question, a simple answer and some honesty. TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • It's not a simple yes-or-no question, its an allegation of wrongdoing demanding a denial. If you think that's acceptable I'm sorry. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                        • Did this deletion happen here? If so, link please? thanks. Lar: t/c 23:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                          • No, it was on his talk page since he didn't answer straight up from the Afd he magically showed up on.[6] As far as I'm concerned he basically admitted to WP:STALK [7] against me, but I find it highly suspicious that his facebook friend, with a personal interest in the article, wouldn't swear that she didn't engage in meatpuppetry/canvassing regarding Connolley's sudden out-of-character appearence - Connolley's refusal to answer simply "yes" or "no" to the question was quite telling as well. But whatever, I have my own opinion and it doesn't really matter in the larger scheme of things.TheGoodLocust (talk) 08:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<outdent> Ah yes, I'd forgotten about that, it is amazing how often a person's facebook friends will show up to defend each other on wiki. I mean, it isn't like there are thousands of wikipedia editors, I'm sure this repeated pattern is just a coicidence. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One of the reasons I switched from Facebook to Twitter was because vague Facebook acquaintances I liked and wanted to respect suddenly started playing noisy and idiotic online games and posting about it, thus handily destroying the board as a communication medium. I grew weary of unfriending the nuisances and stopped logging in. On Twitter if I fancy a —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tasty monster (talk • contribs) 04:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

spot of inanity I look to see what Peter Serafinowicz, a professional comic who is a naturally funny bloke in real life, has been burbling about, and he I don't, l look at one of my more serious lists. Sorted.

Obligatory phone comment: this phone has Facebook installed permanently and I can't remove it. It's a hideous and unnecessary imposition. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 04:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Good Locust's last comment gives me an idea for a Facebook app. WikiDefender, the app that lets you know when your Facebook friends are being lambasted on Wikipedia. I'll get started on the version that splashes the word HELP in huge purple letters on a yellow background all over your inbox. I'm sure that would be immensely popular. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 04:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is it purple for SEIU? I think you should incorporate this symbol into your app. TheGoodLocust (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hate those games. I can't believe people actually play Farmville, etc. Why not actually farm (or remove vandalism here) if you like repetitive (and ultimately pointless) tasks so much? But I find that you can filter those sorts of updates out, when you are on via a PC there is an option next to the update to turn off all future updates from that source. So I no longer see MafiaWars, Farmville, etc etc. Only when someone invents a new inanity am I bothered by it for very long. I haven't mastered how to use lists very well on Twitter, but it's for want of investigating. Lar: t/c 14:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hypothetical Question #2

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If a user were to constantly refer to certain news organizations as BSNBC (MSNBC) or Faux News (Fox News) as a way to denigrate (and thus exclude) such sources from articles then would that be a violation of policy and under which banner would that fall (e.g. WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:SOAPBOX, etc). Sorry if I'm bugging you. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem helpful to use such terms but I'm not sure if there is or isn't a specific policy violation. Lar: t/c 13:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in my unsolicited view the use of politically charged epithets like the above is inappropriate. It would be more reasonable to note that the two sources to which you refer are cable news outlets which naturally adopt a politically engaged approach and often present a skewed view of the facts. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 14:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for the input. TheGoodLocust (talk) 08:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult because some of these nicknames like Torygraph, Gruaniad etc are so widespread as to be used without any particular overtones. --BozMo talk 11:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's an outrageous misspelling! It should of course be the Grauniad, christened at a time of great typos by Christopher Booker's organ Private Eye, which also popularised Torygraph as I recall. In those days the Grauniad also featured great headlines, a favourite being Queen in Brawl at Palace! (see comment 3). . dave souza, talk 13:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is an interesting excuse Bozmo, because when I google "Faux News" I get 317k hits (7 million without the quotes) but when I google "torygraph" I only get 25k hits (and the top 5 include a blog from a wikipedia editor). So, by your logic, it should be alright for editors to constantly refer to it as "Faux News" - that couldn't possibly have an effect on inhibiting a collegial editting environment....TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate comment

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I am not sure the tagging regime is going to work, or maybe I don't understand how to do it. Could you check the history at WP:GS/CC, as well as User talk:Jehochman and User talk:Unitanode? Tagging seems to invite edit warring. What am I to do when a user removes a tag that I've placed? Tagging may be more incendiary than other alternatives. Jehochman Brrr 04:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's only problematic, when you add the tag to edits that weren't inappropriate, Jonathan E. Hochman, as you did in that case. And then, when asked for an explanation after I removed it, you refused and simply readded it. You've anointed yourself the Civility Police (see Malleus' talkpage), and are behaving in belligerent ways that are very unbecoming of someone who seems to hold themselves in such high regard. Scottaka UnitAnode 04:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmation? By the way, I neglected to offer my congratulations on your ombudsmanship the other day - the project is lucky to have someone like you around. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That view is not necessarily universally shared, as you can see for yourself if you visit meta:Stewards/confirm/2010/Lar Lar: t/c 13:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the situation here was rather complicated and the tagging regime probably isn't always going to have problems like this. Unit Anode had been directed by another admin under the probation to address editors by their preferred names, and he regards this as unjust. He also seems to have a personal animus towards admins and particularly Jehochman. He's rather upset. This complicates an otherwise straightforward application of the template. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 14:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He was asked to call the editor Tony, what's so hard about that? Then he made an inappropriate comment about laughing at an administrator that he should have kept to himself. Jehochman was correct that it was an uncivil comment. --CrohnieGalTalk 18:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I'm not interested in defending anyone. I'm simply remarking that this particular incident probably isn't a very good example of how the new tagging regime will work in practice. --TS 22:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have not looked at this example but I think the logic of our discussion on tags is that removing a tag placed by an uninvolved admin is an offense which should be warned and then sanctioned. --BozMo talk 11:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know

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Hi, please see my talk page, archives too since some was deleted by an administrator, Jeffrey R. MacDonald, administrator Sarek and SRQ's talk page. Things are out of control big time. Now I can't edit an article because she says my edits are bad (see my talk page). I am very angry and left a message for Sarek. I just want to keep you in the loop. I'm leaving now. --CrohnieGalTalk 20:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Crohnie has been now reported for edit warring. I tried to reason with her and get her to stop - the only one I see out of control is her, to be frank. --SkagitRiverQueen (talk) 20:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which was dismissed with no action needed. You also said I reverted three times which is not true, I reverted twice which the history will show whereas you did it 5 times. Lar read the comments 2/0 made. She needs to leave me alone. See my archives, her talk page, 2/0 and Sarek's talk page. It's out of control and yes I got mad. I am tired of it all. Sorry, --CrohnieGalTalk 23:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Chronie - grow up and try being honest, please. It was dismissed, but you were still edit warring, regardless of what the outcome was. That much is evident by your wholesale reverts without consideration of the content and the nasty, uncivil edit summaries attached to them. When you were reverting, you didn't care about the article or the encyclopedia - you were just interested in winning against someone, for reasons not understood by me, you see as an enemy. You see, I didn't report you for edit warring so that you would get blocked, I reported you in hopes that you would stop doing what you were doing and step back and rethink your actions and what was driving you to behave in that manner. You weren't paying attention to me and anything I was trying to say to you, so I figured you *would* pay attention and listen if an administrator was involved. Further, I'm pretty certain I never said anything to you about violating 3RR, but just about edit warring. If that's the case, then we have yet another unfounded accusation you have made against me. Sorry you are "tired of it all", but the plain truth is that if you didn't start the majority of the disagreements you find yourself in, you wouldn't have anything to be "tired of". I've tried time and again to get along with you, but you have rebuffed me each and every time only to follow up with more unfounded accusations, incivility, and personal attacks. The ball is once again in your court - what choice will you make this time? --SkagitRiverQueen (talk) 00:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thought you should know about this. [8] I just found out about it myself. --CrohnieGalTalk 12:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Cox and other Michigan governor candidates

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A while ago you did a clean-up of the Mike Cox article, BLP and copyright issues. Would you mind making another sweep through the article and the articles for the other candidates for Michigan Governor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.139.146 (talk) 06:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid I have to decline. I've already formed strong opinions of several of the candidates (beyond the usual) and am not sure I could do a good job. At this point probably we should find a non Michigan resident... or at the least, a team. Lar: t/c 12:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Advice please on wp:blp

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If you have a moment please look at this [9] I can`t understand why wmc keeps pushing for this blog to be in the articles mark nutley (talk) 12:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem odd to me. I'd have to look a lot more closely than I have time for right now to see if there's actually a reason for it that's valid. I don't think you're taking the right tone on the Talk:Christopher Booker page though. The way you phrased things is kind of confrontational. Lar: t/c 12:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I`ll try to use a more neutral tone, But violations of wp:blp are meant to be removed instantly right? How much trouble will i be in if i remove it again? mark nutley (talk) 12:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Depends. Consider, for a second, the situation when you stumble, break a leg, and cannot edit Wikipedia for the next two weeks. Do you think the world will end? Or Wikipedia will end? If not, why not avoid borderline situations and leave them to other editors? See m:Eventualism. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If my leg was broken i`d be sat in front of my computer until it was mended :) But don`t the wp:blp rules say such things should be removed from bio`s asap? mark nutley (talk) 13:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Without commenting on the specific issues of this content, the default position of Wikipedia on potential WP:BLP violations is to immediately remove the material and without waiting for discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed it. Scienceblogs is not appropriate for a BLP. In fact, that entire BLP needs an overhaul, it's filled with coatracks. ATren (talk) 13:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, as i have your attention could you let me know if this is a wp:rs? [10] as it does not look like one to me, i also think it`s a copyright violation based on the fact that the journal it comes from is subscription only mark nutley (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At a quick skim it seems not likely to be a reliable source, but appearances can be deceiving. There are places to ask for more informed opinions on that and on copyvio. You may want to try one of them. Lar: t/c 20:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at the source I don't think it's suitable for Wikipedia, although I'd hesitate to invoke the BLP in this instance. Unlike, say, RealClimate, Deltoid isn't an expert writing about his field of expertise.

The notion that it's an attack blog seems wide of the mark. The edit warring over use of this source is more worrying, and if it continues beyond the next day or two (allowing for ruffled feathers to settle after what seems to have been a fairly large scale removal of references to the source) I think I might raise an enforcement request. --TS 20:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That seems a good approach to me as well. Lar: t/c 20:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem (followup)

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moved to be a subtopic

It has been discovered recently that a blog has been used as a wp:rs in various articles. As per wp:rs and wp:blp i have removed these refs from the articles affected. However WMc has been reverting the blog refs back in on the most spurious grounds, saying wp:blp is irrelevent [11] that it is a "useful resource" [12] Although the blog article is in fact an attack on the Natural Resources Stewardship Project. And the links from that blog post is to other attack pieces. There is no way this meets reliability yet WMC insists on using his friends blog as a source. The blog is an attack blog, all the refs i removed were attack pieces. I realize i will now be accused of edit warring but the wp:blp rules clearly say that breachs of it should be removed instantly. Could you please let WMc know that continuing to use his mates blog as a source is not on. Thanks mark nutley (talk) 19:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And just in case you think i`m just being stupid, Tony also believes it should not be used. [13] mark nutley (talk) 19:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With very limited exceptions, blogs are usually not considered reliable sources. Where have you raised this concern? Has it been discussed on the talk page of the article(s) where the blog is being cited? (I see it has). Has this been raised at the enforcement page? Is there a specific action you would like me to take?
Also, as a side note, WMC does not sanction use of other abbreviations, your use of WMc is not correct. You need to exercise great care in your conversations, please do your very best to get all capitalization, punctuation, and spelling absolutely correct. Because if you don't, some folk may use that against you. And it just looks unprofessional and detracts from your message. Lar: t/c 19:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PS is this the same thing you asked me about above? It makes more sense to keep it with that than start a new section if so. Lar: t/c 19:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is the same issue as posted above, sorry about that, The WMC thing is a keyboard problem, it sometimes fails me :) It is an old keyboard i`ve had it about eight years now :) Action wise i would like you to remind WMC that blog`s are not wp:rs i don`t want to have to take another rfe and i am unsure were else to report such a violation? mark nutley (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If talk page discussion isn't resolving matters I think you may want to either take this to the reliable sources notice board or open another enforcement request. I am not going to get directly involved in content disputes in this area. Lar: t/c 00:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was brought up at the reliable sources board and it is agreed that the sources used do not meet wp:rs I am banned from bringing an RFE against WMC, is there another venue for me to get this issue sorted as he has again this morning reverted my removal of other non wp:rs [14] desmogblog i brought up on the rs notice board and it is agreed it is not wp:rs the other is climateofdenial.net which is also does not meet the criteria for wp:rs mark nutley (talk) 09:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As an impartial admin, I am not going to initiate enforcement actions. You could ask Tony, though, since he agrees. I suggest you put together links to all the specific things you mention (a link to where it was brought up on RS, a link to each of the attempts to engage in discussion, and so forth) as an aid to Tony. If Tony doesn't agree, try someone else. You may quote me when I say that this matter merits being raised at the enforcement noticeboard. Lar: t/c 15:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you lar, i have brought the matter to tony and i`ll see what he has to say mark nutley (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tony seems to have responded below, in the negative. Is there still an ongoing issue? Lar: t/c 03:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well apart from [15] KDP putting them all back in in this article, and of course SBHB removing stuff as retaliation not really. [16] It would appear i have started a tit for tat war :( mark nutley (talk) 07:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone readds that blog source, let me know on my talk page and I'll initiate an enforcement request. Cla68 (talk) 07:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and by the way it appears that that blog isn't being used as a source in the "Swindle" article, just listed in the external links. I sometimes list unreliable sources in the external links section that have some information on the topic but aren't being used as sources for information in an article. Cla68 (talk) 07:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The main argument was over deltoid [17] I then saw desmogblog was also in external links Cla and as it was an attack piece and not wp:rs i believe it has to go mark nutley (talk) 08:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And now i have JQ reinserting the blogs i removed, [18] I mean sourcewatch as a RS? Or how about this one [19] Exxonsecrets.org, seriously? this is considered a reliable source now? And of course [20] Kim refuses to remove the unreliable sources he reinserted, so whats the point. It would appear that so long as a source denounces a skeptic it`s good enough regardless of policy. I think i`ll just give it up and join the rest of the world in just ridiculing wikipedia for it`s godawful bias mark nutley (talk) 11:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see TS has opined he doesn't see an issue. I'd go through the discussions carefully to see whether that's valid before I opened a request, were I Cla68. In any case, any request opened should articulate clearly what the issue(s) are with crisp diffs so it will be easy for admins to evaluate. Fuzzy requests tend to get deferred with no action. Lar: t/c 13:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you clarify COI for me?

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If I wanted to reference a blog, which quoted my own blog would that be okay (Or just quote my own blog straight up?)? What if the guy who referenced me was a friend? If I could get two more friends to defend my use of that blog would that make it okay?

Thanks for the help, some of these wikipedia rules don't seem very clear to me. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This seems more of a WP:RS question than a WP:COI but maybe I'm confused. In any case, seems to me that a blog that cited another blog (regardless of who wrote either one) isn't (or at least almost never is) going to be a reliable source and thus shouldn't be (or at least almost never should be) cited. Lar: t/c 20:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for the insight. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You and Dave souza

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Do you think you and Dave could take your differences to user talk? This squabble on the probation enforcement page is a very unwelcome distraction and imposes on the patience of other editors. --TS 20:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dave souza is welcome here any time he wishes, but an important point needed to be made, that he's accused me of various things related to the enforcement actions themselves and that he (and other folk also jumping on that bandwagon) need to either drop those accusations, or pursue proper dispute resolution, instead of casting vague aspersions about embitteredness, grudges and the like... because to bruit about accusations such as he has is exceedingly unhelpful. I said my piece though. What he chooses to do next is up to him. I advise dropping any accusations of any issues related to enforcement. But, that's his call. Lar: t/c 20:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your concern about this. I'd be very happy if you both dropped it, obviously, but I second your firm demand that Dave, and anybody else making accusations of biased enforcement, follow dispute resolution. --TS 20:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be some misunderstandings here, my comments at the !vote were based on an overall impression of you, not just on the sanctions page. If anything, our interactions here on your user talk page were much more significant. I'm unaware of any rule that I can't voice opinions there when involved in discussions with you elsewhere, and it was inappropriate for you to have raised these comments at the WP:GS/CC/RE page. Contrary to your assertion, I did not bruit about any accusations related to the enforcement actions themselves. I did not make any aspersions about embitteredness, but after you accused me of holding grudges, I responded that you seemed to have a grudge against me. I'm delighted to be assured that you don't. I certainly hope that my concerns about your approach will prove turn out to be unfounded, and that I will be able to support you in any future elections. . . dave souza, talk 17:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Lar: t/c 18:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scary stuff

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See this blog post and think about what it means. I absolutely reject using socks to enter a spoof article, even to prove a point. But how lucky for us that Limey wanted to prove a point, instead of defame a real person. How many real people are being defamed right now because of our failure to do the right thing? Lar: t/c 04:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

About the same number that are being whitewashed I'd imagine. I found that whole post to be quite amusing and it could be the basis of a book, "Fanfiction: A Wikipedia Story," which would be a collection of hoax articles that the author managed to implant on wikipedia.TheGoodLocust (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Whitewashing is also bad. At first glance, anyway, whitewashing seems less harmful. Whether it actually is or not? I do not know. Lar: t/c 13:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it certainly isn't as bad from a legal perspective, but from a practical view it may be worse. For example, if someone researched a political candidate on wikipedia, which omitted several unsavory details about that person's past, causing that person to vote for the whitewashed candidate, then the potential damage is far greater than the damage from blackwashing. In short, while blackwashing harms the subject of the article, whitewashing can potentially harm everyone that is victimized by the subject due to the ignorance inflicted on them. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly for the first time ever we agree! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's good, I suspect it is for different reasons, but it is nice to have some common ground. To be clear though, I'm not advocating either white or blackwashing. I think if something is sourced and relevant (the biggest bone of contention), then it should go in. The problem, with regards to whitewashing, is that some people will challenge that "relevant" bit (e.g. WP:WEIGHT), since it is subjective, without understanding that even if they really don't think it is relevant, others may find the omitted facts to be quite important - this problem is made worse by the fact that some trivia really doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And indeed, after some common ground we diverge again, if not radically. We cannot and should not include everything that someone might find important. If it can be sourced, obviously someone somewhere found it important enough to write about it - that does not imply that it belongs into an encyclopedic article. Selecting what belongs and what doesn't is part of our job as editors. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is far better to err on the side of inclusionism, dispelling ignorance in the process, and letting the readers make up their own minds about the importantance and relevance of facts. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What that does is bury the wheat under the chaff. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. That's Google's job. "1 1=2. 1 2=3. Green is green. Blue is bluer than green. All men are created equal. Abba sorts before Beatles in the phone book." All true, but not all equally important. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't? What do you call this? Yes, there should be standards, but the problem is that the partisan will always grab onto the most subjective policies as an excuse for exclusionism because the "cause" comes before enlightenment. I'm sure I could go to the AfD page and find numerous examples of people voting "delete" just because they don't like the content of an article. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You probably can. But that's a classical fallacy. "We cannot achieve perfection, therefore let's do nothing." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not advocating perfection; I'm advocating information. The simple fact of the matter is that subjective policies will objectively be abused more than the clear-cut policies, and as such, these subjective policies should be considered with a huge grain of salt - especially when consistently pushed by obvious POV SPAs. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But what you call "subjective policies" is exactly what transforms information into knowledge. Information is cheap - properly organizing a and presenting is is what adds value. And that includes the selection of what to present. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia can only communicate information; knowledge is up to the individual. Selectively presenting information in order to mold the "knowledge" a person wants to communicate is simply propaganda and such easy impulses should be resisted by the fair-minded. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Cla68 (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A nice PR statement, totally at odds with the philosophy of exclusionism, but little more. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Raising the subject of whitewashing here introduces a false dichotomy. The Wikipedia approach is to write accurate and well sourced articles. Having a zero-tolerance approach to poor sourcing is how we aim to achieve that on articles that involve statements about living persons. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 14:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I seee it as a false dichotomy. Can you elaborate why? I merely see it as the other side of the same coin, but whitewashing is not nearly as deleterious to the victim as blackwashing. I agree that a zero-tolerance approach to poor sourcing is one of the tools in the arsenal but it's a hard tool to use in the current political climate. Lar: t/c 14:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I refer to the introduction of a whitewashing concern as a false dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy. Asking for tight sourcing on biographies of living persons doesn't result in, and isn't related to, whitewashing. Putting it that way distorts the intent of the policy and expresses, obliquely, a misconception about what Wikipedia is about.

Specifically, we don't do gossip, rumors, stuff somebody wrote on a blog, nonsense in some newspaper that more reliable sources challenge, and whatnot. Removing poorly sourced facts isn't whitewashing, attempts to associate our strong content policy regarding living people with whitewashing, "the other side of the same coin", are misleading, and in particular discussing whitewashing in a discussion ostensibly about laxness in our content policies, is a waste of time.

Note that I wrote the above comment at 1403 yesterday. Perhaps predictably, discussion since then has been about how our content policies should be more lax, permit "inclusionism" (excluding fewer facts under due weight) not how they can be enforced. This argument was settled long ago in a deletion discussion about a pretty young high school athlete whose name I (and nearly every body else) no longer remembers. --TS 19:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most recent A7 deletion of pretty young high school athlete - Jan 10, 2010. Hipocrite (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Who is saying we shouldn't use tight sourcing? I almost always use the best sources available. But hey, I think examples work better than words and so I ask that you consider the following situation about a little known politician and the omissions in her biography:
1 In her first political race she hired a lawyer to knock the names of her competitors off the ballot - in future elections she ran under an inclusionist/pro-democracy platform. Should we include this fact and let the obvious hypocricy speak for itself?
2 This candidate had little experience in the private sector, something her opponents pointed out, and while the article mentions her minimal experience slightly, it doesn't mention the fact that her sole venture into the arena failed completely under her leadership (costing a massive amount of money). Is such information about the effects of a person's leadership important?
These are just a few things and are well sourced, but the small clique in charge her article will never allow such content to stand. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of a little-known politician, we'd need an exceptionally good reason to include points like those you describe in any Wikipedia article. A national scandal over those activities, for instance. They are typical of the kind of dirt that political streetfighters enjoy digging up, but unless there is a wider significance than that we don't include them, because if we did we'd simply become a mouthpiece for that kind of person and that kind of politics. We're not that, we're an encyclopedia. --TS 22:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
? It is a fact that this person engaged in highly undemocratic actions, even getting a civil rights activist thrown off the ballot in the race, and you think it is appropriate not to mention this? It was covered in newspapers and in the public record. As for point two, her company admitted that it failed miserably under her leadership, while not wording it that way it should probably be mentioned since it was the only type of experience she had in an area she was criticized for lacking experience in. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Taking the situation as you have described it, I confirm that Wikipedia would not carry this kind of information on a candidate. Perhaps that is because of the obviously loaded terms you have used to describe the situation. Obviously we can't discuss the specifics, but your phrase "hired a lawyer to knock the names of her competitors off the ballot" could apply to a quite innocent situation in which a candidate's campaign manager or lawyer correctly challenged the eligibility of other proposed candidates on sound grounds. This is why we must use only the best sourcing and consider due weight. --TS 22:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
lol, I suspect you must know who I am talking about (or someone told you). Sorry, but I think integrity is important in a politician and when newspapers talk about how a person who claims to be pro-democracy elimates her competitors using legal manueverings then I think that is quite relevant and important. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know who you're talking about and I don't need to know. The level of newspaper coverage, and its nature, would of course be an important consideration. --TS 23:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"I think integrity is important in a policitian" - that is a POV, widely shared but still a POV. The problem arises when you (the royal you) wish to selectively emphasize those facts which would lead the reader to the conclusion you desire them to draw. Franamax (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Selectively emphasize facts? No, not at all, I'm just saying at the very least they should be mentioned. The hypocricy in the article I mentioned was overwhelming, they made a big deal about a stupid promise that she made, and then when she broke it they removed all reference to the promise and the breaking of it. It really was ridiculous. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLPs are different. In those articles, we err on the side of caution and "do no harm" when it comes to negative information. I agree with you, however, on being more open to all sides in other articles. Cla68 (talk) 01:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in WP:BLP that is the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath - if it is reliably sourced and relevant than it goes in. Rewriting or omitting significant portions of a person's history, like how they controversially won their first political race, is a much bigger problem - especially when people come here to be reliably informed about their political candidates. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

your recent notes

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In regards to your recent comments on this, Stephan Schultz is definitely not an uninvolved admin. furthermore, in a recent discussion, he took the word "civility" and asserted that it is not important compared to other priorities. that's right. the sad thing is that he doesn’t even realize how injurious it is to one's own case any time one takes a stand against ANY abstract virtue, especially one of primary importance. it's like two congressmen arguing on the floor of the House, and one of them saying that "honesty" is not as important as running the country. you're supposed to say how your own actions are in CONCERT with our most central beliefs...not glibly bemoan the fact that some people seem to think civility is "more" important [or more accurately, AS important] as "writing an encyclopedia." --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See his talk, if you have not. Lar: t/c 16:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PROD Restorations

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Lar,

Thanks for helping restore challenged PRODs. It would be even more helpful if you could remove the PROD tag while userifying them, as old prods will jump to the top of the WP:PRODSUM list, and may result in erroneous redeletion, but certainly looks a bit messy. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 19:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These were deleted PRODS, rather than challenged ones. Aeron is supposed to clean those up as I restore them, that was our agreement. If it's not done fairly shortly for this batch I'll see about taking care of it. Thanks for letting me know. Lar: t/c 21:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
*Wakes up, goes to work, sees watchlist, sees users wondering why I don't respond the second of, makes witty talk page comment about having a life outside of volunteer projects, moves along* ^_^  æronphonehome  01:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, I forgot to ping you about it, my bad. Sorry. Lar: t/c 04:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
S'cool, all done now.  æronphonehome  19:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I should have the last batch for you tomorrow I think. Will try to remember to ping you. Lar: t/c 20:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Enough is enough

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I have gone out of my way to not comment on the user since your admonition not to. Please take a minute to peruse her talk page at how many times she has made comments about me, either specifically or has repeated her litany of sins she has charged me with, including most recently. I served my block time, I've followed your admonitions even in the face of her continuing to rake me over the coals. While she is blocked, I even spoke up to support her opposition to something on an article talk page, even when I disagreed with her, only to be disparaged for doing so by her. She even insinuated that Beyond My Ken twitches her "sock" nose. Why is this editor allowed to rant and rave and disparage other editors even while she is sitting out a block for personal attacks and harassment and nothing further be done about it? Do I remain scum even after serving my block time? We've submitted identification to show we are not the same person. LaVidaLoca posted a note on her talk page admitting to being the one who did it and saying she regretted causing me or others trouble. Does it ever stop or do administrators allow an editor to continue to bad-mouth someone she clearly despises? You know, each and everytime she does this (and I have a dozen examples where it has happened since you said not to comment on the other) she gains license to do it the next time, and it gets worse each time. PLEASE do something about this. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's clear now that my informal separation isn't working... something else needs to be done to address the issues here. I also think you've done a good job of doing your best to comply with the requests I made of you. I had contacted a few folk offline to ask them to take a look but I think it may be time to take this to AN/I if we cannot come to grips with this. I don't know if that helps. Lar: t/c 19:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I think this is entirely germane to the AN/I thread that is going on now, and some of these comments are being made in response to that, although I have not commented. I certainly would like to. Would you like me to send the diffs of the violations I've seen or been told about? Crohnie is certainly being raked over the coals about being friends with me. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not going to hold you or her to this restriction any longer. Nice idea, it was worth a try, but it isn't working. If you want to self restrict yourself that's fine but feel free to resume commenting as you see fit, subject only to the normal expectations we have of everyone. Thanks for trying. Lar: t/c 19:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is there sufficient evidence to clear WHL of being LVL, or is there still a question of guilt? Clearing this up could help. -FeralDruid (talk) 22:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Information received privately is being evaluated but I'm not prepared to say. Lar: t/c 13:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Lar, I wanted to make one final comment to that AN/I thread but unfortunately I got horribly sick and got rushed to ER by ambulance on Tuesday night and didn't return until Friday afternoon. I would like to know how to get her talk page deleted of all the cut and pastes and the commentaries that shouldn't be there. The block expires today I think, which is fine, but the talk page there is so unacceptable, what can be done, if anything? Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 15:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you're feeling a bit better now... People have wide latitude on their own talks, unless the material is really disruptive, in which case I think usually an MfD is initiated. I would first start by asking SRQ to remove the problematic material. Failing that, another possible approach is to take the matter to WP:WQA. You could also raise it at ANI I guess. This is not a very clear cut area. Hope that helps. Lar: t/c 03:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'm weak but doing a lot better, can't wait to lose the steriods though. :) Listen I don't want to get back into it with her on all of this. It's exhausting as you know. I'm sure you've read her page by now, how can that be acceptable? I'm going to wait just a bit to see what is done with it and then I guess I'll have to figure out how to handle everything. Thanks again, --CrohnieGalTalk 10:15, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLVIII (February 2010)

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The February 2010 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:NoCal100

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Note: This relates to NoCal100 (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log) Lar: t/c 19:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lar, User:NoCal100 was placed under an editing restriction indefinitely [21] in May of 2009. The user then tried to evade the ban by creating few socks, and was blocked indefinitely in June of 2009.

I am far from trying to come up with the justifications of the user actions, yet I am a strong believer in the giving a person a second chance. I looked at the user contributions. He wrote 10 articles that became DYK. I emailed to the user, and the user promised to comply with all and every edit restriction, if he/she is allowed to return. I am sure that Wikipedia will benefit from the user contributions, if the user would be allowed to get the second chance. What do you think?

Thank you for your time. --Mbz1 (talk) 17:07, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mbz1: (I edited your comment a bit to get rid of all the brs) Here's what I said when you asked me about this matter in an email, with a bit of elaboration.
The typical process for coming back is to find someone willing to mentor (that's you), find an admin or two to support, and then raise the matter at the appropriate admin notice board seeking consensus for a trial return. A discussion at the user's talk page is also an approach. In cases where there has been socking a key point is to establish WHY assertions of no further socking should be believed.
The user should consider the "Standard Offer" in which they first establish a history of peaceful and productive editing at another wiki. (Do you know if they've been editing elsewhere and how it went?... this suggests they have not been editing elsewhere at least not under their name). Note that this user was considered a pretty hardened POV warrior in their past incarnation. Since they engaged in rhetoric strongly critical of me at the time, I may not be the best choice for an impartial judge of their subsequent actions.
My interpretation may be incorrect on some of this, don't take just my word for it. I'd rather see this discussed on my talk page if possible, as it will draw informed comment from some of my talk page watchers. Hope that helps. Kind of you to consider helping with this matter. Best. Lar: t/c 19:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Thank you so much. I will try to find out if the user is contributing to any other Wikipedia. Best wishes.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The user has not been contributing to any other Wikipedia. Is there a way to have the user back here on probation without them contribution to other Wikipedias? Thank you.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. if they want to come back they should place a note explaining matters on their talk page and then place an unblock request template. If they can't edit their talk page, they can mail unblock-en-l. Lar: t/c 18:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your note

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Let's step back and look at everything. He came along to the Mary Pickford article and changed the image that was being used, which was a "restored" version with heavy touchups that removed the photographer's mark that someone on Wikipedia uploaded over a perfectly valid historical image of Pickford. I returned the original view with an edit summary that said "original has historic significance; "restored" removes author's mark & benchmark border, it is a significant image." Before I had completed my talk page post abou it, he then posted to the talk page "This was an inappropriate edit. The restored image is clearer and better serves readers." My reply here outlined what was wrong with the retouched photo, including removing the photographer's mark and that the over touching flattened the image and removed depth to it. He asked Durova to comment on it and she said here that personally, she'd like to delete all instances like this that retouch historically significant images and also that "One of the obstacles to acquiring digital media is the concern that radical edits would alter historic material without documentation. There are many encyclopedic subjects that we cannot illustrate adequately; it is vital to earn the trust of curators in order to illustrate certain topics." Other editors posted to agree with that. He didn't respond further. Then he changed color code to a table under the edit summary of "mo-betta-icky-colours". I changed the table heading to separate the 3 merged tables and asked him to take it up with WP:ACTOR, saying to him on my talk page to kindly explain (to the project) what is wrong with the code they are using. He did not do that, but went to the WP:ACTOR main page and changed the coding there without posting anything to that group talk page at all. WP:ACTOR and WP:FILM set style guidelines for the articles under them, which has never been challenged or shot down, to my knowledge. He then said about the project "not that I much care what that wiki-project thinks. They, and you, own exactly zero articles." and "Wikiprojects do not govern anything; they're just clubs." He then reverted an image change that I had reverted on Jane Fonda, which took it back to a cropped image of her that was taken more than 15 years ago and removed a recent image, saying "Bzzzt; Cannes photo is perfectly acceptable". and followed that with accusations of ownership and proceeded to follow my recent contributions around and changed the table code on them. I made a talk page post on Jane Fonda regarding that, too. Now, if you don't see that as dismissive and arrogant and talking down to me, I'm sorry, but I do. I asked him to explain what was wrong with the code, explain it to the project so it could be addressed and gave valid reasons for what and made talk page posts about it what I did and all I got back was charges of ownership and dismissal of the project that oversees actor biographies to ensure consistency and style as a club that means nothing. I see this from an entirely different perspective - that of being overrun and dismissed. Explanation of the coding changes did not come forth, explaining it to the project did not come forth and he proceeded to revert a valid change I made to the image came next, with no explanation why he thinks a 15 year old photo of a currently working actress was better than one from 2005. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. Change your approach. You need to be kinder and gentler. My warning stands. Lar: t/c 19:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa

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Regarding your note, did you happen to actually read what he said to me? He first posted "Please get on the right path, here." To which I responded civilly, although I did point out that he changed dates to a British style for an American biography contrary to WP:ENGVAR. His reply included "That would be a technical explanation and I don't see you as a technical person and would expect the details of poor markup to be outside your domain; most of the WP:ACTOR crowd's, too, I expect, as they seem to have promoted invalid code for years and have burdened the project with several hundred thousand tables that are malformed. Sigh; it's a wiki; they let anyone edit, regardless of competence." Note I asked him more than one time yesterday to explain, to me and to the WP:ACTOR "crowd" what was wrong with the code and he refused and then today basically insulted the whole bunch of us. He ended his post with "get thee to a beach with a bucket; the tide's trying to come in." I find that insulting and demeaning, I'm really sorry if you don't, but being talked down to that way is unacceptable. I was not nearly as rude to him as he was to me. Again, I'm sorry if you don't see it that way, but I do. You didn't listen to me yesterday about the tone of his posts, but I see them as demeaning and talking down to me and essentially calling me too stupid to understand what he did post to User talk:Equazcion. A little WP:AGF here, considering I was being dismissed and called stupid, but in a "nice", wordy way. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:53, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. Change your approach. You need to be kinder and gentler. My warning stands. Lar: t/c 01:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I'm sorry if you don't see that the editor was insulting and demeaning to me, but that's how I see it and I started the thread with being civil to him. After that, I removed his post to my talk page after that and he reverted it to insult me. He took the left turn with his comments about my ability to understand "technicalities" but Equaczion was deemed capable. Please note that Equazcion posted to my talk page in response to your note with "I can't say who started with the rude language but Jack wasn't a complete angel about that either." Apparently I'm not the only one who saw his comments as less than nice. I'm not entirely sure why he can slide by with what he said and I get warned when I didn't deliberatly insult his intelligence. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"He started it" is what I expect my kids to say (except they've grown out of that now). This is not an isolated incident. Change your approach. You need to be kinder and gentler. My warning stands. Lar: t/c 01:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving

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Now that you've reduced the size of this page from a ridiculous 468,170 bytes to a merely worrying 96,699 bytes, I think it's a good time to ask you to review your archiving policy. If somebody needs to hold a personal discussion with you concerning Wikipedia, he shouldn't have to wait for a long time while his web browser downloads a stupidly large amount of data that has little or no current relevance. --TS 00:59, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used to archive more frequently (twice a month) but found that it wasn't needed. Recently there's been a pickup in the traffic volume here, I may want to switch back to that. Everything still on this page has at least one comment this month. It's a busy page. Let me think on it. Lar: t/c 01:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You could always use a "clearing house" system; before archiving send pending/winding down discussions to a sub page. Something like User talk:Tony Sidaway. I am sure that would be a fair and equitable resolution. LessHeard vanU (talk) 02:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sending unproductive discussions to my talk page would certainly ensure that they were given a swift and efficient dispatch. --TS 02:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. I think we are far apart on the "indulgence spectrum", but I also think that's OK. Lar: t/c 03:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just putting this out to anyone, if you have a problem with someone's talk page don't use it. Invite them to come to yours, don't bitch that another person with different methods of operation doesn't do things exactly as you do. And as an aside, if your internet can't handle a text document that might be another problem entirely and not necessarily any one user's fault.  æronphonehome  15:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nod. The counterpoint to that, of course, is that as an admin (and functionary), my talk page needs to be at least marginally usable by all comers, as someone who otherwise might not visit here (to participate in the "salon" aspect, the free ranging discussion that goes on here) may want to raise a matter, or more importantly, may want to question an action I've done. I cannot take the position that they should go elsewhere. Of course, adding a new section doesn't require viewing the entire page. So, something to keep in mind (although I do agree with the theme of your comment, thanks for the "PSA" as you called it. :) ). Lar: t/c 15:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blog stuff

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While I'm not following too closely, the blog removal discussions now seem to be more jaw jaw than war war, so that's just fine. I expect everybody can see the importance of following our tradition of strong sourcing standards, especially in this field. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 00:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing it again in the light of Mark's comments, my impression is unchanged. the parties are working out how a stricter interpretation of content policies should work, and I'm happy enough to see that happen. As yet this is far removed from the ugliness of the Booker sourcing discussion. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 08:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving 2

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If anybody knows how to start a new section on a page without first downloading the page, do let me know. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 00:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can set a bookmark to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lar&action=edit&section=new and then change the page target by hand for whatever page it is you want to post to. That's what I do on my BB. I've asked some questions on the MiszaBot talk page, if I can figure out how to get it to do what I want I will consider using it to do ongoing archiving but I like having indexed archives, so your scheme of just relying on history won't work for me. Lar: t/c 03:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds ghastly. I think I'll just grit my teeth and download the whole page. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 08:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind?

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If you have a moment could you protect the articles Sandra Bullock and James Cameron? There is a lot of WP:BLP and general vandalism going on at a rate that I've personally never seen before. Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 11:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I didn't have time to look into that. LMK if there still is an action item. Hopefully someone else did by now? Lar: t/c 05:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's ok, I wasn't spending a lot of time here for a bit myself. I just took a peek and the Bullock one has been taken care of and is protected. We still could use it at the James Cameron article if you have a moment. Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 16:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing a persistent pattern of reversion. The vandalism is mostly nuisance but it's all from IP's. This is an important BLP. Prior protection for short periods has been tried, and failed. 3 months semi. Lar: t/c 21:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree and thank you. --CrohnieGalTalk 09:48, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind also giving protection for excessive vandalism to John Dillinger? [22] The vandals seem to be very busy lately I'm sorry to say. Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 11:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dillinger is not a BLP, and until we get flagged revisions, as a matter of principle I don't fight general vandalism, I choose to spend my time in other ways. However, as a personal favor, I've semi protected it for a month. Can you please add the appropriate tag to the top of the page? {{pp-semi}} probably will do. Lar: t/c 11:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that, I saw the article is about a person and and BLP stuck in my brain. :) Thank you for doing the protection though and of course I will add that for you. Thanks again, --CrohnieGalTalk 13:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. You're welcome to ask any time. I just may decline, of course. But I have a lot of WP:TPWs :) Lar: t/c 14:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Notification

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I have co-filed (with Cla68) an arbitration issue in which you are involved. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you are involved, and have made a statement to that effect on the ArbCom page. Cla68 (talk) 01:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can go either way on that, SBHB involved me by tossing some unfounded allegations at me. I commented. I'm missing the part about how it's a co-filing. Is it? You're the filer, you'd know. Lar: t/c 05:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

supports the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming

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But, Lar, you don't support it - you believe it, fine, but you don't support it. If you were trying to make Wikipedia's articles more accurate - make it so they reflected the sum of all human knowledge, that would be different. In this case, I'll admit that you're not actively supporting individuals who want our articles to reflect things counter to the sum of all human knowledge, but you're certainly not doing anything to stop them, or help the people trying to stop them. Hipocrite (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, I certainly do "support" it, in accordance with our principles of NPOV and not giving things undue weight. I just don't "support" it the way that those acting invalidly, in violation of those principles do. This distinction seems to escape you, apparently. So that name applies to me, and to the vast majority of all editors. Therefore it's not a good choice as it does not distinguish much. Lar: t/c 16:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{fact}}. Hipocrite (talk) 16:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Review WMC's block log, just to pick one data point. There are others. Lar: t/c 17:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong statement - "no, I certainly do "support" it, in accordance with our principles of NPOV and not giving things undue weight."{{fact}} Hipocrite (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given that I don't edit in the area, I can't point to edits by me, in that area, that support the principle. But it's a principle that applies to all areas. Feel free to find edits contradicting my opinion of my approach. The reason I didn't pick up that was what you were questioning was that I didn't think that you'd doubt me. Lar: t/c 20:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, I don't doubt that if you did anything to help, you'd help. I merely note that you haven't done anything to help - this is not a fault of yours, it's merely a statement of fact. You don't support the overwhelming scientific consensus as an editor. That's not a fault - it's just that you've chosen not to do so, which, of course, is fine. Hell, at this point, I hardly do so myself, so I don't think saying you don't is at all casting stones, or at all saying that you wouldn't support it if you were to edit. Hipocrite (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support policy. If by "support overwhelming global consensus" you mean something along the lines of "and do whatever it takes to keep all other viewpoints completely marginalised" as well as "and ensure that everything appears monolithic to the point of doggedly opposing changes in names of articles" then you are correct, that's not the way I edit. Nor will I. This is the same question asked before, I'm afraid. The Science Club has no room for people who won't edit a certain way, regardless of whether they personally agree or not. Lar: t/c 21:11, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WMC doubts

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I see no evidence that Lar believes it. If there is no such evidence (perhaps because Lar is proud that it has not affected his editing behaviour at all) then he shouldn't mention it William M. Connolley (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That made no sense. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. However, what sort of evidence do you have in mind? The rest of your statement doesn't make any sense either. Perhaps you're not clear on what writing from the neutral point of view actually means. Lar: t/c
I think there is no evidence. Evidence would cmoe from your editing, or perhaps from your admin actions. What evidence do you propose exists? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If any evidence that one supports a particular real world view can be discerned from one's editing (in article space anyway) that editing is flawed. Ditto admin actions. This fundamental point about how we do things here appears to have escaped you. It is a startling admission for you to make (even implicitly) but maybe not a surprising one.
Perhaps you're not clear on what writing from the neutral point of view actually means. Lar: t/c 17:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We had a discussion before about this, and your statements didn't seem to support the understanding that we show majority views, and show minority views in relation to minority views. This is particularly applicable in a case such as disputes over climatology where there is a considerable scientific consensus contested by a small minority within the field, very prominently contested by others such as amateur scientists or mathematicians, and politically contested. Perhaps you could clarify what writing from the neutral point of view means in such circumstances? . . dave souza, talk 17:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See the lead post in the "On taking positions" subsection, just below. It starts "articles can't take positions. They just can't." and I think it addresses your questions. Lar: t/c 18:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you seem to be talking there about the main articles on the subject which focus on the science, my question relates to articles on disputes over climatology. A certain dispute over the significance and meaning of CRU emails comes to mind. So, your clarification in relation to such articles would be appreciated. Regarding the main article, your later statement that "The article probably ought to be 70/30 other stuff/science" seems at odds with "articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views, and the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." Perhaps you were including under "other stuff" the Attributed and expected effects and Responses to global warming, in which case the global warming article gives considerable attention to these aspects and seems very well balanced. Your views on the more thorny subject of application of weight policy to articles about controversies would be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 18:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have a plane to catch (gotta do my bit to make the AGW problem worse, the amount of CO2 added by frequent travelers is pretty amazing :( ... ) so I'll just say I think there's some confusion here between "how much weight to give the scientific consensus view vs. the fringe views" when talking about how to write about science, and "how much emphasis to give each topic area" when talking about whether a given article should be all science coverage, some science and some impact of the science coverage, or mostly impact coverage. (that's of course a bicolor view of a much more nuanced question of editorial emphasis). I don't support giving fringe science much weight unless it's ... er... not fringe. As I said before I think the issue is more around the other stuff... remember "other stuff" is not "minority/fringe view" it's "impact". AGW is a huge problem, perhaps the worst one we've yet faced (arguably MAD maybe was worse, but maybe not). We do our readers a disservice, I think, by covering just (or mostly, or emphasising up front) the science in the lead. Thoughtful readers should come away worried. Not just informed of the science. That's not POV, that's presenting the material fairly and letting thoughtful readers draw the obvious conclusion. Lar: t/c 19:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, enjoy your flight. Something for you to think over, and I look forward to your considered response. As for the impact, there being any impact is of course dependent on understanding and accepting the majority scientific view. On that, we can all hope that the contrarians turn out to be right, but in the meantime must show their views as the fringe that they are in contrast to the scientific consensus. Have a good journey! . . dave souza, talk 19:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, what exactly are we arguing about again? I actually think I said most of what I want to say in my last response. The original thread started because WMC apparently doesn't believe me when I describe my own personal views about the science, and importance. He's wrong. Lar: t/c 16:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I can't speak for WMC, but he seemed to be asking about your actions rather than your beliefs. If I read you correctly, you want more attention paid to the non-science aspects of AGW. My understanding of policy is that when describing such aspects, whenever the description involves science (or pseudoscience) we give due weight to the mainstream scientific view, show minority views as such, and show the difference including showing how scientists have received the fringe views. For example, where a politician says that the science of global warming proposes costs that are politically or economically unviable, that need not contradict or involve going into great detail on scientific views. Where a politician invokes fringe views or pseudoscientific views and claims that the mainstream is wrong or a fraud thus AGW can be ignored, the mainstream scientific views of these scientific views should be made clear in as much detail as is needed to avoid confusion. The same would apply if a politician invoked fringe views exaggerating the problem. Refusal of editors to accept that can be disruptive, and should be considered when dealing with probation. You may agree or differ, or of course may wish to say no more about this. Hope you had a good and pleasant flight, dave souza, talk 18:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was pretty routine, thanks for asking (I fly just about every week). I agree that what you relate is where you and others, and I and others, differ, and it's interesting and important to work through. But I guess coming back to WMC's point, I didn't see it as addressing it, just, as you say, asserting that there's no proof visible to him of my beliefs. Exactly! I have to just repeat what I said, one shouldn't be able to discern what an editors beliefs are by reviewing their article space edits. Interests, perhaps, but not beliefs. Lar: t/c 22:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On WP:NPOV, what it is, and how to apply it

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People don't seem to understand that Neutral Point of View and neutral are two completely different things. In so far as I understand policy, WP:NPOV says that editors should be neutral and articles should be biased. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's the worst misreading of the decade, I'd argue. Hipocrite (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, this is where a lot of the disagreement is coming from. Editors don't understand the policy. It took me a while to get it, too, and even I occasionally forget. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of misunderstandings, AQFK, were you under the impression that Wikipedia:Systemic bias described a Good Thing? You really don't seem to have got it. . . dave souza, talk 18:04, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't until someone explained WP:NPOV to me at the WP:NPOVN that it finally clicked. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Biases

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(undent) Whoever explained that NPOV means our articles should be biased to you should be shot. Please link to that explanation. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me try to explain it this way. Should the article on evolution be biased against creationism? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. Hipocrite (talk) 18:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That wasn't the answer I was expecting so can you explain your reasoning? Are you using Wikipedia's definition of bias or the dictionary's? If it helps, my question is using the dictionary's definition. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bias - "Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective." Our article on "Evolution" is not biased towards Creationsim - it does not say "An alternative scientific theory is Creationism." It is not biased against creationism - it dosen't say "A pressure group supported by the tobacco and oil lobbies has used creationism as a wedge issue to isolate respectable scientists from public opinion." It reports neutrally what reliable sources say without bias. Hipocrite (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, per WP:FRINGE, it's probably not mentioned at all. Let's try something different. If the article on creationism biased against creationism or is it given its fair day in court? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article on creationism should report neutrally what reliable sources say without bias. Hipocrite (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're using Wikipedia's definitions of neutral and bias. I'm using the dictionary's. This doesn't appear to be going anywhere either. Anyway, the discussion on WP:NPOVN is here.[23]. My initial posts are pretty clueless, but in my defence I only had an account for about a month. It wasn't until Protonk's explanation that it finally clicked. Baccyak4H explanation is also pretty good. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Protonk wrote ""Neutrality" means a fair and non-biased representation of what is out there. It doesn't mean that we introduce a bias to counter an imbalance in the facts or the views on a matter. There is no equal time provision on wikipedia. We do not define neutrality on the basis of "sides" to an issue." Baccak4h wrote "the choice of the word "bias" here carries connotations that may be better avoided by saying represent or reflect rather than biased to." No one there says that article should be biased. They say that points of view should be described in proportion to their significant in reliable sources per WP:WEIGHT. That you misunderstood them there is the same as here. Hipocrite (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If 70% of sources say Climategate is a scandal and 30% say it's not, then the article should be written with an approximate 70%-30% mix. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of sources weighted according to? And what of the ones who don't mention it? How many sources explicitly refute that Elvis has been resurrected versus those who have seen him? Which is only an analogy to make the point that not all sources are equal, with no extended analogy intended... --BozMo talk 19:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not correct. The article should be written neutrally, neither stating that it is a scandal or is not a scandal, rather stating that sources say A and sources say B, and not taking a position on the scandal or lack of scandal. Hipocrite (talk) 20:04, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right. But it would violate UNDUE to either spend more than half, or essentially nothing at all, of the article on the viewpoint that it's not a scandal, wouldn't it? We don't have to get to 70/30 by any means but we can't ignore minority views OR overweight them excessively. Lar: t/c 20:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. The article should be neutral, but if the actual distribution of sources is 70% scandal 30% not scandal the perfect article should reference sourced information about scandal to non-scandal in a 7:3 ratio, and an acceptable article should weight more to the scandal side. However, the article itself should not take a position on scandal or not scandal. Hipocrite (talk) 20:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with everything you said except possibly your last sentence. It depends on whether there's any serious dispute that it's not a scandal. If there is no serious dispute, we're supposed to state it as a fact per WP:ASF. Without having analyzed the sources carefully, I would say that the POV that there is no scandal is a minority opinion, bordering on fringe. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On taking positions

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(out) Articles can't take positions. They just can't. That's a key principle here, one of the foundational ones. When you see an article taking a position it needs fixing, badly. What we CAN do is present the facts and let the reader decide. If the vast preponderance of sources support one position (that the earth is round) that is how much emphasis we should give that view... and we should give only a passing mention at best to competing positions (that the earth is flat). Where the GW articles have went in the weeds is not in the base presentation of information about AGW itself. The basic science is pretty clear, and a preponderance of sources support the science, and it's right and proper that the scientific articles have a preponderance of material. Where the editors working in this area have went in the weeds, in my view, is in covering the material around the science. GW as a topic is much more than the science, and the lead article covering only the science is the wrong emphasis. Further, resistance to covering that there is some question about some data (not enough to undermine the basic thesis, but some question) that got a lot of coverage, and resistance to calling things certain names, resistance to presenting information about controversial side issues, resistance to presenting information on why this was even studied in the first place and the like, these are all distracting issues. This sort of side issue resistance makes the whole thing look suspect to some. Those who fight tooth and nail to control things, to keep this sort of thing out, do their cause a disservice. Lar: t/c 04:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a science graduate lurking here who has largely avoided the area of GW, I want to say that I understand and broadly endorse Lar's position on this issue. This issue has unfortunately become conflated with the culture wars, wars that should have been over decades ago. Science never did stand outside of society, and this area is a particularly good example of why pretending it does has done our coverage and our collective sanity as a community no favors. --John (talk) 04:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John, I would like to highlight several problems in your comment. First, many of the climate deniers who call themselves scientists are not climate scientists. While we would agree that a psychiatrist, a dentist, and a cardiologist know something about medicine, you would not go to a dentist if you were having a heart attack, nor would you go to a psychiatrist if you required a root canal. Second, the culture war you refer to concerns itself with the sciences versus the humanities, or hard vs. soft. This has little to nothing to do with the topic under discussion. Lastly, there is no real "debate" about whether climate change is occurring. The debate concerns politicians and the governments they represent, and the choices they make to respond to the change. This has little to nothing to do with the science, and was appropriately left out of that topic. Viriditas (talk) 06:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Viriditas, I understand the distinction you are making and it is a valid one, up to a point. However, as a general principle, our articles on scientific phenomena need to take account of societal factors around the science. To state otherwise seems like a false dichotomy to me. The idea that the two fields can be totally separated like this is the relic of the culture wars that I was referring to above. --John (talk) 06:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John, I understand the point you are making, but from where I stand, it appears you are arguing for the politicization of science. I'm afraid I fail to see the benefit of such an approach. Perhaps you could point me to a few FA or GA articles that you feel meet the standard of excellence in this regard. Have you thought this through? The end result is that your proposal would entail expanding content on the social disruption caused by climate change, which I can easily do. Something tells me this is not what you had in mind. Viriditas (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But, some of the climate change skeptics are climate scientists, aren't they? What I have observed, and I think Lar is referring to, is that some editors here have refused to allow their opinions to be given any coverage in related articles, have denounced their books and papers as "unreliable", and in some cases, have even tried to add disparaging or negative information to their BLP articles. Not good. Remember, we (WP) don't care if the IPCC's opinion on climate change is true or not. We just don't. We just report on what people are saying about the issue in the RS. All sides must be represented according to their weight in the media. Lately, skeptical viewpoints have been getting a lot of reporting in the media. Cla68 (talk) 07:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To paraphrase Stephen Schneider, all good scientists are skeptics, so any scientist who looks at the evidence and denies it, is accurately called a denier. What percentage of climate change scientists are deniers? Is it very small? If it is, then we write articles in proportion to the number of claimants, not the number of sensationalistic media articles beholden to their advertisers, pushing a campaign of doubt against the scientific consensus. The "weight" in the media is manufactured, and does not weigh more than the scientific consensus nor the scientific evidence. In fact, the "media" is probably the last place we should be looking for sources on this topic given their poor history of covering scientific topics like climate change. See for example: Conway & Oreskes (2010); Hoggan & Littlemore (2009);Boykoff, McCright, Shwom, Willman (2009). Viriditas (talk) 09:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We are a general interest encyclopedia. Not a science encyclopedia. Views in the popular media are germane, and belong in the lead article, not marginalised. Discerning readers will realise the popular media is full of it, if indeed they are (which I believe they are when they give credence to those who question the very fact that there is warming going on). We do not need to coddle or protect our readers, and it is suppressive to do so. You are arguing for not reporting on what reliable sources are saying. That's wrong. Fundamentally. Lar: t/c 18:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Viriditas, I find your naivete almost touching. The politicization of science, eh? (Dreadful article btw, really needs some work). In a world where science was politicized, we would have things like philosophers being condemned to death, great scientists being executed on petty trumped-up charges, Nobel laureates getting involved in making weapons of mass destruction, governments employing scientists to make same, and even politicians with no background in science restricting the scope of scientific research. Thank goodness we don't live in such a world! --John (talk) 15:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, care to mention a single fact I'm arguing we shouldn't report? Just one, please. Which views of the popular media am I suppressing? And, just what is a "view of the popular media"? Please specify. Since I have said nothing of the kind, you won't find any. And John? You've had enough green beer. Viriditas (talk) 21:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I am not understanding what you are asking me, not exactly. Perhaps I'm not being clear and you're not understanding me. You, I think, assert that the fact that the popular media have views about AGW shouldn't be reported, or at least, not in the main article, or not with the weight they have in the media, correct? If that's so I don't agree. If it's not so, what are you asserting? As for " And John? You've had enough green beer. " you may be snarky to me here as much as you like, that's the way this page goes, but no being incivil to other guests, please. I think you were just joking but in case you weren't, please keep that in mind, thanks. Lar: t/c 21:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then, neither of us understand each other. You say the popular media have views about AGW, and you say that I claim they shouldn't be reported. I don't believe I said that. I said, they should be reported in proportion to their claimants, and that the popular media has a very poor track record on the subject of climate change; That statement about the media was supported by three books as refs in the above, and some of that information (Boykoff et al.) was peer reviewed. Are you saying that the opinions of climate scientists are equal to, let's say, Myron Ebell[24]? Because that's what it sounds like you are saying. That kind of argument is a dead end. Jenny McCarthy is not an expert on autism no matter how much she talks about it, and her views on the subject are not on the same level as a research scientist. Viriditas (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless, the autism article should cover the fact that she has a (whacked, as shown by reliable sources) view about the matter and what it's led to (again from reliable sources).... not just because it's her view, but because of the credence her view is given and the problems it has caused. Not just marginalise it off to the side in the hope that people will not notice that some people think vaccination is a bad idea or what have you. Again, we are a general interest encyclopedia, and we cover what is mentioned in reliable sources. It may be helpful to re-read the lead post in this subsection again and see if you agree or disagree with it. Lar: t/c 22:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, are you serious? That's the same logic used by schools who insist that the biblical genesis should be taught as a rebuttal to evolution. I don't have anything against bible studies, it's a fascinating field, but do you expect me to believe that the bible and Darwin should be taught as complements to each other? What does Jenny McCarthy have to do with the subject of autism? It's the same Myron Ebell has to do with climate science: Nothing. Viriditas (talk) 22:25, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's start over. Reread the first post. Agree or disagree with it? Because I don't think that schools insisting on teaching genesis in science classes is at all equivalent. Again, our article on evolution doesn't need to present creationism as a valid alternative theory. There is no basis for doing so. No reliable sources say that it is. But our article on evolution (since we are a general interest encyclopedia) should present information about how schools are doing foolish things, and on what people think about that. Reliably sourced. Because evolution as a topic of general interest has more context than just the science. Marginalizing that off to the corner does general readership a disservice. This, by the way, is not teach the controversy as used by creationists, and if you think it is, you're not getting what I'm saying yet. Lar: t/c 22:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You write, "where the editors working in this area have went in the weeds, in my view, is in covering the material around the science. GW as a topic is much more than the science, and the lead article covering only the science is the wrong emphasis." Just looked at Politics of global warming. What's the problem? Viriditas (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Politics of global warming isn't the lead article on the topic. It's a fork. global warming is the lead article. (some forks are for good and valid reasons, due to our use of summary style, but it's a fork nonetheless) Lar: t/c 00:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GW is more than the science, or is it?

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(outdent) I too am curious about the remark "GW as a topic is much more than the science, and the lead article covering only the science is the wrong emphasis." First, I and many others in the science cabal agree with you. Second, a crude word count shows that global warming is about 60% science and 40% "other stuff." Were you perhaps thinking of a different article? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I counted the lead paragraphs in global warming, the lead article. It has 4. The last one, by far the smallest, with probably well less than 20% of the total word count of the lead as a whole, although I didn't measure it (if I had I bet I'd be reporting an even smaller number) is the only one that isn't strictly science. IMHO, anyway. Wrong emphasis. Further, it's weak, it talks about mitigation options. Not impacts. IMHO, anyway. The article probably ought to be 70/30 other stuff/science, and that ought to be reflected in the lead. IMHO, anyway. Lar: t/c 00:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Something makes me suspect that if we want a more harmonious environment on these articles, putting greater emphasis on politics may not be the best approach. But I could be wrong. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you're right. But that's not the primary criterion for determining what an article should emphasize, at least not to me. No one said making good articles was easy. Oh, I almost missed it! You made a(n implicit) claim, I refuted it, you changed the subject. Lar: t/c 01:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, my mistake. I thought you made an (ex|im)plicit claim (the lead article covers only the science), I refuted it (around 40% of the article is on non-science topics), and you changed the subject (to the proportion of science in the lead). Sorry for bothering you. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The emphasis of an article starts with what is in the lead. The lead of GW is pretty much all science. Change the lead to be 40% everything else I'll buy that the emphasis is as you claim. But, as I say, refuting you seems to result in changing the subject rather than admission that you were incorrect. Why is that? Lar: t/c 02:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think LHO is plain wrong. If I want to read an article on evolution, I want to know about evolution, the biological process. I don't, at that point, care about what Jerry Falwell thought about it. And, surprise, evolution has one small section (the 7th, not counting the lede) on the non-scientific aspects of evolution. It doesn't mention the public sphere controversy in the lede at all. I similarly expect the average reader of global warming to be primarily interested in the physical phenomenon, not Inhofe's hubub. I'd be interested to hear Lar's opinion on our featured article on evolution, and if he has the same concern as about global warming. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, who is LHO? I forgot to ask before. Lar: t/c 11:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do. This isn't a science encyclopedia. Perhaps you should write for one, instead of trying to turn a general interest encyclopedia into one. Lar: t/c 02:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That looks like about the right emphasis for me, on that topic. For all it has been a focus of the culture wars in a couple of countries, it is a storm in a teacup in world scientific terms compared to the controversy about global warming. As someone who accepts the broad scientific consensus on climate change (and indeed teach about it), I don't think reporting the political controversy in our main article would weaken our coverage of the subject, so long as it was done right. YMMV of course. --John (talk) 02:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually a very challenging and nuanced topic - when you take an article like secondhand smoke, Lyme disease, or global warming, how should we balance the political aspects with the scientific aspects? Other serious, respectable reference works, like Britannica, seem to focus solely on the science in their leads and (as best I can tell without a subscription) their articles on climate change. It doesn't really help to make dogmatic statements like "this isn't a science encyclopedia". Neither is Britannica - it's general audience, yet for some reason it seems to focus its coverage of global warming on the science. As a general observation, other serious, respectable reference works tend to be edited by experts who are both interested in and comfortable with a scholarly perspective. We're edited by the hoi polloi, many of whom are politically motivated and lacking in scientific training, so we naturally focus on the politics to a much greater extent than any comparable reference work of which I'm aware. We should be having a serious give-and-take about where Wikipedia should focus, and whether or why we should differ from other general-audience reference works. But instead we're bogged down in Wikipolitics. MastCell Talk 05:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that it is challenging and nuanced. We should certainly be having a serious give-and-take about what sort of balance we are seeking here, as the cultural and political aspects of science are inseparable from, indeed they often drive, the areas and directions of study that science takes. Never mind the obviously culturally nuanced ones like the ones we are discussing (and September 11 attacks probably has to be in there too), I challenge you to name me a purely "scientific" topic and there will be some political and/or cultural context to it; how could there not be? That we ask the question about balance and nuance should perhaps be enough at this stage, rather than finding an answer. I am glad, MastCell, that you agree with me that there is a discussion to be had in this area. To deny that, would be dogmatism indeed. --John (talk) 05:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Britannica's take

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(To MastCell) I have access to Britannica online. Britannica's article on global warming is 44 pages long. It is worded much more neutrally than the WP article. Instead of using the word "consensus", it says "many" scientists agree with the IPCC's stance on the subject. The Britannica article is carefully worded to attribute the mainstream theory on warming to the IPCC, not the world scientific community. Also, the Britannica article interweaves the social and political ramifications plus general statement on the opinions of skeptics throughout the text, such as this line from the "Global warming and public policy" page: "Today, leading climate scientists agree that many of the ongoing changes to the global climate system are largely caused by the release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases...Opponents of this view have often stressed the role of natural factors in past climatic variation and have accentuated the scientific uncertainties associated with data on global warming and climate change. Nevertheless, a growing body of scientists has called upon governments, industries, and citizens to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases." Now, that's how the WP article should be. It should be longer and include the political and economic aspects of the AGW debate, as well as a mention of the criticisms and reservations held by the minority. Cla68 (talk) 06:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68, I'm comparing the two articles now (Wikipedia and Britannica) and the first red flag that I notice is that on the subject and treatment of global warming, Britannica is out of date by several years, whereas Wikipedia is current. But, Cla68, I don't see any evidence that Britannica includes any more political and economic aspects of the "AGW debate", nor does it mention any criticisms and reservations held by the minority. The irony, is that if one closely compares the two articles, one finds that Wikipedia focuses far more on "debate and skepticism", controversy, politics, consensus, and denial, than Britannica does. In fact, one comes away from this analysis with the solid impression that Wikipedia has been far too charitable to deniers and fringers, giving too much space to their political agendas and wacky platforms, not too little as is claimed above. I would encourage Cla68 to read and peruse the entire article on Britannica and to compare it to Wikipedia again; One finds that Wikipedia already gives undue weight to climate denialism and political posturing. I suggest therefore, that the editors arguing for more coverage are misinformed; We need less coverage of politics and agenda-driven attacks on science, not more. Viriditas (talk) 09:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am at a bit of a disadvantage, not having current full-text online access to Britannica, but my previous comparisons between the two lead me to the same conclusion as Viriditas. For any subject that I've reviewed, Wikipedia devotes an exponentially greater amount of weight, space, coverage, and credibility to minoritarian views than any comparable general-audience reference work. That was certainly true of global warming when I last compared the two works. I won't bother enumerating our walled gardens on fringe economic, political, and medical belief systems, but they are legion. If one measures WP:WEIGHT against other serious, respectable reference works, then Wikipedia is heavily overweighted toward minoritarian and fringe views. One could argue that Wikipedia has it right, and those other works are unduly dismissive of such views, but that's a different argument. MastCell Talk 18:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think I posted a followable link to a particular EB article on my blog a while back. (http://nonnotablenatterings.blogspot.com/2010/02/appropriate-editorial-emphasis-of-lead.html here's the link) I can do that again if you tell me which article, or articles, you want to see. Lar: t/c 16:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. It looks like the lead to the Britannica article on global warming reads, in part:

Since the mid-20th century, climate scientists have gathered detailed observations of various weather phenomena (such as temperature, precipitation, and storms) and of related influences on climate (such as ocean currents and the atmosphere’s chemical composition). These data indicate that Earth’s climate has changed over almost every conceivable timescale since the beginning of geologic time and that, since at least the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the influence of human activities has been deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change.

Note the statement that industrialized human activity is "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change", which presents the scientific view of AGW without so much as a mention of the claims of "skeptics" or right-wing politicians. Imagine how an editor inserting such language into a Wikipedia article on climate change would be perceived. They would be tarred and feathered as an "SPOV pusher", a member of the "science club", a partisan. But this is exactly the language and approach used by an actual serious, respectable general-purpose reference work. This encapsulates how far Wikipedia has to go to be considered a serious, reputable reference work. We are way off the mark, and worse, we have created an environment where people trying to move the project toward its goal are handicapped in dealing with people moving us away from our goal. We seem to be prizing a "level playing field" and short-term wikipolitical concerns over accuracy, respectability, and quality. MastCell Talk 03:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"They would be tarred and feathered as an "SPOV pusher", a member of the "science club", a partisan." - I find this claim interesting. I don't believe that I would object to the following language at all: "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change". In fact I would argue that this statement cleanly exemplifies the position of the prominent skeptics and actually is counter to the hyterics of the IPCC (and therefore to the pro-AGW editors here).

I believe that if you read the skeptics their position could be summarized along the lines of: (1) the climate has always been changing, not just now, (2) the current warming is NOT exceptional in the context of geologic history, (3) natural causes account for the first order effects of climate change overall, and (4) humans have had an impact on the current warming but the effect is minor and more likely a secondary or tertiary effect rather than the primary driver over the past 150 years, or so. So when I read the part of their statement that you have highlighted I am quite comfortable with it as a skeptic. In fact I am quite comfortable with the entire statement that you listed above.

I'm not actually comfortable with it as being represented as the editorial position of the "science club" (not my term, BTW) here on Wikipedia, though. They (whoever they are, I am speaking generally based on experience) consistently challenge any attempts to enter material which supports any of the 4 numbered points I summarize above. At least that is my perception in general, there could be exceptions. --GoRight (talk) 23:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, that doesn't parse for me. Britannica says that human activity is "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change." You say that any human impact is "minor" and "more likely a secondary or tertiary effect rather than the primary drive." Those are fundamentally incongruent statements, so I don't really understand your belief that they are in harmony. Furthermore, Britannica highlights the anthropogenic component since "the beginning of the Industrial Revolution", which is directly at odds with your claims about a lack of human impact over the past 150 years as well as your claim that current warming is unremarkable on a geologic time scale. Your point #1 above is unarguably true. Points #2, #3, and #4 are at odds with current scientific thinking, and at odds with the statement I excerpted from Britannica, which perhaps explains the resistance to their insertion here. MastCell Talk 00:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Those are fundamentally incongruent statements ..." - I don't see how, so perhaps we have a different understanding of what "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change" actually means.

"Deeply woven into" does not, IMHO, imply anything about the relative magnitude of something which your interpretation appears to suggest. It merely means something akin to "tightly integrated with" or "inseparable from". So, to me this means that first, second, and third order effects are forming a sort of superposition if you will (which seems obvious to me), but it says nothing about whether human causes are the first, or the second, or the third order effects.

The term "fabric" suggests, IMHO, that there are a multitude of overlapping effects that are interdependent and can only be viewed and understood holistically. Saying, for example, that any single thread is the primary constituent that makes up the whole of the fabric is non-sense. But as far as I can see this is precisely what the AGW proponents do.

To the pro-AGW camp everything resolves down to human caused warming (i.e. the single thread that constitutes or dominates the whole). They aren't interested in looking at geologic timescales (remember, geologic time is measure in millions of years, not thousands or hundreds), preferring to ignore them because they contain inconvenient counter examples to their arguments related to CO2 levels, rates of warming, etc.

Points #3 and #4 are a fundamental area of disagreement between the IPCC backers and the skeptics. The skeptics would argue that we don't know enough to really disentangle the human causes from the natural ones with any reasonable amount of certainty regarding which actually form the first, second, or third order effects. To me that is fundamentally a "deeply woven into" type of argument, whereas the pro-AGW camp clearly believes that they have successfully and accurately separated the two (which in my mind is a fundamentally NOT "deeply woven into" argument).

So to be honest, I can't understand how it is you think that the pro-AGW camp's arguments and positions are in harmony with "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change." Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more? --GoRight (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, GoRight's assertion that the "pro AGW camp" (which I assume is shorthand for "those who accept the scientific consensus on recent climate change") "aren't interested in looking at geologic timescales" is easily shown to be false. In fact Richard Alley's presentation for the Bjerknes Lecture at last fall's AGU meeting was on precisely this topic. This is one of the most frustrating things about the whole issue: people argue against what they perceive the scientific position to be, instead of taking a little time to find out what it actually is. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"which I assume is shorthand for "those who accept the scientific consensus on recent climate change"" - Not exactly. All members of the "pro AGW camp" certainly would "accept the scientific consensus on recent climate change". However not everyone who "accepts the scientific consensus on recent climate change" would be a member of the "pro AGW camp". Not everyone who "accepts the scientific consensus on recent climate change" is unreasonable (i.e. dogmatic).

Take Lar for example, the more I get to know him the more reasonable he seems to me. He is not a member of the "pro AGW camp", IMHO, simply because he is not an evangelist for that position. The "pro AGW camp" tends to follow dogma over rationale argument, at times (i.e. this is not an absolute statement). This is, obviously, only my opinion. The is no formal group and no bright-line definition of membership.

Also, while the phrase "scientific consensus on recent climate change" has a nice sound to it, it is actually not very useful in delineating groups of people. How much acceptance is "acceptance"? 50%? 75%? 100%? For example: Am I a member of the club if I accept that there has been warming over the past couple of decades? Do I have to attribute the causes of the warming to mostly humans (hence the AGW part)? Do I have to salute every time James Hansen walks by? You are attempting to create a black and white answer out of a continuum of possibilities. This is called a False Dichotomy. --GoRight (talk) 04:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(@GoRight) I'm going to decline to elaborate further. If you honestly believe that Britannica's wording is in harmony with a "skeptical" view and at odds with the "IPCC backers", or however you wish to label the scientific view, then I don't think further discussion is going to be a good use of my time or yours. In reality, I'm sure that you're intelligent enough to realize what Britannica is actually saying, and you're simply playing a semantic game. Which is an even poorer use of my time. MastCell Talk 04:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Meh, fair enough. There is no obligation on your part to participate. I will say that while I am not above "spinning the facts" at times, this isn't one of those times. That was actually an open and honest description of how I view things, and I honestly don't have a clue as to how you interpret "deeply woven into the very fabric of climate change". What do you really think that statement means? Give me the short version of what this conjures up for you. It's obviously a Metaphor. I described what it maps to for me. What does it map to for you? I really am interested in understanding what that is from your perspective. --GoRight (talk) 04:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As you all have noted, the Britannica article appears to be four or five years old. Opinions on climate change that are contrary to the IPCC's position have gained more prominence in the media, perhaps due to the questions raised about the IPCC's methods and reports, the hockey stick controversy, etc. One big difference I noted in the Britannica article was that it does a much better job than Wikipedia of including the political, cultural, and economic aspects of the climate change debate. Cla68 (talk) 07:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And that is the point I, John, and many others are making. Not that denialist pseudo science needs more weight in the science portion. It doesn't. But that's an easier position to attack, so that's what is attacked even if it's not what is being said. And that is the problem with the "science club". (My natural allies, if I were inclined to take sides on the POV itself, but I'm not...) they're so busy "attacking" their "enemies" they aren't listening. Lar: t/c 11:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, we, assuming that i belong in the "science club" (although i strongly discount that there is such a thing, except outside a loosely coupled selection of editors who happen to share somewhat similar views), are listening. We just do not agree with your take on what the focus should be. Policy is interesting, but its not the major aspect of climate change - it is a response to it. Where i think things go wrong, considering your view, is that you are too strongly coupled to the wikipedia concept of forks.... and haven't realized that the top-level article for some topic-space may not be just one article - but can be several articles. Politics of global warming is the top-level article that you are looking for - i do not see it as being less of a top-level article than Global warming, nor do i see Climate change as less of a top-level article for the paleo current topic-space. It is one of the drawbacks of thinking about knowledge in a tree paradigm, if you are too strongly married to it - then every article within a topic-space must have one and only one parent article - this concept works well for topic spaces that are hierachial - but most large topic-spaces aren't. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[not to mention that we have significantly more articles on the science aspects, than on the economic or political aspects - which in turn will mold how content/summaries the top-level articles will be distributed] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(@Lar) I don't know if I'm part of the "science club" or not, but I am trying to listen. Above, you expressed the concern that the lead of global warming was overly science-based and did not contain enough political material. You have argued that scientific material should be limited to no more than 30–60% of the lead (e.g. [25]). I am trying to engage your concern with reference to Britannica's lead, which as best I can tell is 95% science. I am happy to look at any additional serious, respectable general-audience reference works for comparison, at your suggestion. I remain a bit concerned that the sort of language favored by other serious, respectable reference works would prove politically unacceptable in the prevailing climate on Wikipedia; I see that as a problem. MastCell Talk 17:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I won't swear allegiance to every "i" dot or "t" cross with Lar, I think that he and John have both done a good job of articulating some of the problems with our current articles relative to the principles we are supposed to be following. I'm not sure how representative I am of the "skeptics club", but for my part I endorse the general framing of the problem by Lar and John above. There are probably others that could be teased out but this one is clearly part of the issue from the skeptics perspective (me in particular, but generally as well as I understand it).

Regarding KDP's point above about trees vs. graphs and having multiple "top-level articles", I sort of agree and disagree at the same time. I agree in general that there doesn't need to be a single substantive top-level article and things can be divided into topical areas as he states. However, this leads to the problem of which topic area gets the prime real estate (i.e. the such as the global warming article) to which uninformed editors get directed? IMHO, this level should be a very thin article which introduces how the material has been sub-divided, the rationale for why it was done that way, and then pointers to each of the top-level articles that KDP espouses. --GoRight (talk) 23:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with MastCell about the reduced amount of science in CC articles. I also think that some administrators are using the procedures of wikipedia to push against science. That happened on Race and intelligence some time back when various problematic users with minoritarian points of view were enabled and hence tacitly supported by administrators. When this selective enabling happens, administrators don't need to do the editing themselves. I do somehow get the feeling that this is happening in CC articles at the moment - the vilification and ghettoization of science editors (the use of the word "science club" is condescending and anti-intellectual) on the one hand and the enabling of editors who add very little serious content to wikipedia on the other. Britannica (note the spelling) is cautious, steadfastly uses academic standards and is not a mouthpiece for blogs or newspapers, even quality ones. Mathsci (talk) 04:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"the vilification and ghettoization of science editors" - I think you are reading too much into the short-hand term "science club" as it is being used in this informal conversation. I certainly didn't mean it as pejorative any more than when I likewise used "skeptics club" above. --GoRight (talk) 04:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This happens on the CC probation enforcement page, as you must be aware. It is precisely this type of issue that will probably lead to an ArbCom case on climate change in the not so distant future. Mathsci (talk) 06:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While some wise things have been said here (and some less wise things), this is very much a red herring. I cannot remember any case where the "sceptic" editors try to give a more detailed description of the political and societal aspects of the issue. They have usually tried to introduce their points in a way that seems not to complement, but to counter the science, either by giving undue weight to extreme minority opinions or by giving the appearance that a blog or editorial or opinion poll somehow has any value for the scientific position. If we decide to give more weight to the political and social aspects, that, too should be adequately represent global opinion - i.e. acknowledge the fact that global warming denial is an extreme minority position in nearly all advanced countries, and not give undue weight to pure US phenomena like Watts or Inhofe. Moreover, it would need to treat this topic from a meta level, not parroting the participants, but describing what reliable sources have said about them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with trying to enlist Britannica as an alternative model for Wikipedia's coverage that might be more about the social and political matters and less about the science is, of course, that Wikipedia has vastly more coverage of the social and political matters, both proportionately and in sheer quantity, than Britannica. If we moved in the direction of Britannica we'd probably cut all coverage of the few scientists who oppose the mainstream consensus.

Some editors, including Lar, have argued that our coverage of global warming should give more weight to the social and political implications. I think we already give enough, and obviously we give more weight than Britannica. What real arguments, not based on flawed appeals to non-existent Britannica content, exist for this point of view? --TS 21:30, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since Wikipedia aspires to become a serious, respectable reference work, one way to measure our progress is by comparing our coverage of high-profile topics to that of acknowledged high-quality references like Britannica. (This approach is commonly employed by both the media and the scholarly community in evaluating Wikipedia's quality). We don't have to slavishly duplicate Britannica's focus, but we should at least be able to articulate why we choose to give comparatively excessive weight to minoritarian and contrarian viewpoints, or to political aspects of scientific topics. (Maybe that's what you're getting at). MastCell Talk 21:59, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's a great editorial on this topic in this week's Economist. They make essentially the same points about the larger context of discourse in the real world that I've been making about matters here... that AGW is a serious problem, the deniers are wrong, and that we ignore it at our considerable peril, but that dogmatic defense of the IPCC and politicization of the results (as well as accepting as certain what we only have ranges of prediction for) do the discourse, and the world, a great disservice and the pro AGW camp ought to stop being so reflexively dogmatic and defensive. Lar: t/c 15:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course you have a long list of examples of "Team Science" performing a "dogmatic defense of the IPCC", "politicization of the results" and "accepting as certain what we only have ranges of prediction for", right? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Economist seems to think it does, that's the thrust of their editorial, and also their in depth analysis (they devote 4 pages to it elsewhere in the issue, which is hugely indepth for them). The parallel to the real world that we see here is the dogmatism, not the specific claims about real world matters that the Economist made. Hope that clears up your confusion. Lar: t/c 16:25, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we talk past each other - I've not read the editorial. Is it online? Link? I thought we were talking about Wikipedia here, so my question should be read as follows: Of course you have a long list of examples of "Team Science" on Wikipedia performing a "dogmatic defense of the IPCC", "politicization of the results" and "accepting as certain what we only have ranges of prediction for", right? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Booker

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In his book, Booker claims that Russia's science establishment has, in general, never embraced AGW as fact and that Russia's ratification of the Kyoto protocol was for economic and political reasons, not because they agreed with the science. Is this true? I'm reserving judgement on Booker's claim until I can find independent confirmation, if there is any. Cla68 (talk) 22:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not waste our time on discussing the opinions of known fantasists. --TS 22:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At least the Russian Academy of Sciences has supported the 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Joint Science Academies statements. See Scientific opinion on global warming#Academies_of_Science. I don't know how much more "establishment" it gets. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Stephan's response was very helpful. Tony's wasn't. Thank you Stephan. Cla68 (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) For whatever reason, the claim that the Russians don't believe in global warming seems to be current on "skeptical" blogs, and, apparently, in Booker's work. The Russian Academy of Sciences, like other major academies of science, supports the view that the climate is changing due in large part to human activity (e.g. [26]). The Russian political leadership has repeatedly stated its commitment to reducing its contribution to anthropogenic climate change (e.g. [27], "Russia intends to pursue carbon reductions regardless of whether Copenhagen produces a deal"). Geopolitically, Russia is certainly strengthening its position in the Arctic in anticipation of substantial short-term global warming ([28]).

    I can't tell you what role "political" vs. "scientific" considerations played in Russia's ratification of the Kyoto treaty; the ratification of a treaty is an inherently "political" act, although given the support of the Russian Academy of Science for AGW, it seems to have had a scientific basis. I am perplexed at the assertion that they signed for "economic" reasons. After all, emissions reductions are consistently portrayed, by the right at least, as economic suicide, no? MastCell Talk 23:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Booker does cite a source for his claim on why Putin reversed his initial opposition to the treaty and decided to sign. Your sources do appear to contradict what the skeptics are saying about Russia and AGW, and I'd like to look into it more. I have to run to an appointment right now but I'll add the cite next chance I have. Cla68 (talk) 23:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Booker cites a book by Sir David King called The Hot Topic (Bloomsbury, 2008) which states that, following a July 7-8, 2004 Kyoto protocol conference in Moscow where, according to Booker, Putin's economic advisor Alexander Illarionov basically told King to take a hike, Blair told the EU government that if Russia ratified Kyoto, the UK would support Russia's admission into the WTO. According to Booker, King had unsuccessfully tried to convince Putin's government at that conference to ratify Kyoto. Booker states that at that conference the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) expressed strong displeasure with the IPCC for refusing to answer 10 questions put to it nine months previously by the RAS concerning the IPCC's climate change conclusions. He sources that information to Illarionov himself from a press conference that Illarionov gave at the conclusion of that conference and to a 13 Jul 04 Financial Post story, "Bad manners at the Moscow Kyoto Protocol seminar". If this is the source, then it appears to be a letter to the editor. Cla68 (talk) 03:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. As far as I know, it was not the RAS but Illarionov himself who put the 10 questions to the IPCC, and they were duly answered (see [29]). Illarionov is currently employed not by Putin, but by the Cato Institute ([30]). He had a rather public falling-out with Putin and has come to view him as a dangerously undemocratic dictator. In any case, if Putin supposedly signed Kyoto in exchange for WTO membership, he got played; as of this writing, Russia's WTO bid remains stalled, despite 17 years of effort. MastCell Talk 05:15, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see a date on the answers to the 10 questions, so it could have taken nine months for Illarinov to get his response, although that doesn't necessarily mean that anything nefarious was going on with the IPCC, no matter how irritated Illarionov may have been by it. I believe that Booker's claim as to why Putin decided to ratify Kyoto is solidly sourced, because he even includes a quote from King's book in the footnote, videlicet, "Tony Blair went to EU leaders to propose a horse-trade. If Russia ratified Kyoto, the EU would support its entry into the WTO. This proved a powerful trump card "(King, pp. 219-220). I don't think Booker has provided convincing evidence, however, that the Russian scientific establishment opposes the IPCC's resolutions on AGW. It appears that many, if not most, of the skeptics Illarinov invited to the July 2004 seminar were non-Russian. It appears to me (IMO) that Illarinov may have purposely tried to ambush King at the seminar to discredit him in order to influence Russia's decision on whether to ratify the protocol. Cla68 (talk) 12:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, I think this discussion can probably move to the Kyoto protocol talk page, but it does support the point made previously that politics and economics are signficant factors in the AGW debate and should be included where appropriate in the related articles. Cla68 (talk) 22:27, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A request for assistance with an article

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Cla68, to address your claims about people who have "tried to add disparaging or negative information to BLP articles", I hope you'll make a sincere effort to support cleanup on Stephen Schneider, which appears to be a complete hack job. For comparison, please see Richard Lindzen. Viriditas (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'm concentrating on blogs right now. I'm currently working on DeSmogBlog to try to get it to GA. While I'm doing that, I've asked WMC and a few other editors to expand and improve the Watts Up With That article. Judging from the article history, they appear to be intensely involved in doing so. Once I'm done with DeSmogBlog, I'm going to join in with their effort on the Watts Up article, although I hope they'll be almost finished by the time I get to it. I'm also thinking of improving the RealClimate article, because right now it hardly has any information. After all this, I hope to help out with some of the BLP articles. I did some work already on the Lawrence Solomon article, which was harder, in my opinion, than it should have been. You're right that many of them need work. Cla68 (talk) 23:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

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Hello, Lar. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement#Comments by uninvolved editors need to cease.
Message added 20:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

NW (Talk) 20:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will comment there, thanks. Lar: t/c 21:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request for protection

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Hi there, could you please consider protecting Samy Vellu? This BLP is often vandalised and I've just purged it of large tracts of unsourced negative material. The rest is still unsourced, which is of course far from acceptable. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Semi-protected NW (Talk) 21:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, thanks, diligent TPW! Lar: t/c 21:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for the non-kid glove treatment of genuine problems. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:31, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

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You recently participated in a discussion here. This issue has been raised again here, where you may wish to comment. Best regards, –xenotalk 15:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me and my TPW's know. Lar: t/c 18:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Minor BLP thing

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Lar, while on new page patrol, I tagged the article Nicole Lamb-Hale as non-notable, but since that time, someone, (possibly her own kids?) started a talk page with her children's names and ages on it. I think that's a possible safety hazard to them, so I blanked it, but I can't remove the edit history, so am giving a heads up to someone who has access to the tools (or those who do have the tools) to permanently remove that edit. I also prod tagged the article because it appears non-notable, but I really have no stake in that race beyond my tag, just a concern about the bit on the talk page. Montanabw(talk) 03:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. </talk page stalkery> Steve Smith (talk) 07:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Sarc! I don't have oversight so couldn't have done the most rigorous clean up anyway. Lar: t/c 11:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Ghost

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Would you take a look at the squabbling that's going on at this talk page and dole out some warnings or blocks or something? A couple of factions have taken a discussion on the relationship between pseudoscience and belief in ghosts as a signal to engage in an all-out holy war. I'm an involved party in the discussion (or was, before it went downhill), and so was 2over0, whom I asked to take a look at it a couple of days ago. --TS 09:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That one looks like it will take a bit of time to untangle what's going on. I'll take a look later but it may be a while before I have time to dig into it. Lar: t/c 11:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I get the impression that this will be around for a while, so no particular hurry. See also recent edit warring on the following article:
--TS 12:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I did not get a chance to look at this over the weekend. Perhaps one of my TPWs can opine? Lar: t/c 12:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your ArbCom statement....

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I don't generally use SS, for obvious reasons. I find it particularly galling in a context where you suggest that holding a certain view may be "verboten". I assume this association is unintentional. Still, appropriate action would be appropriate... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Urp! Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am a strong proponent of calling folk only what they wish to be called, but was shorthanding too quickly. You have my assurance it was an inadvertant error, no slight was intended. It has been corrected. If you see anything else do not hesitate to bring it to my attention. Lar: t/c 16:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'm fine with Stephan or StS, too. I suspect its not useful to go over the contents here - we plainly disagree about many points. I'm right and you are stubborn, of course. ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly. Or possibly I'm right AND stubborn. Lar: t/c 17:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A Star is Borne

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I am Left, and Starborn (that is, the component atoms of my physical being are the product of the formation of stars)... and I am having deja vu. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, but Lar does not even have the excuse that I misspelled his name or mangled an abbreviation. And, of course, most of your atoms are not the product of the formation of stars, but rather the opposites... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not clearly "most" StS. If we are 75% water which (on numerical count of atoms) is 66% H then perhaps one half of the atoms in our bodies numerically are hydrogen and not formed from star death (albeit it they may have lived through it)? (Sighs with a satisfied feeling before no doubt a more accurate calculation shows him wrong). Or did you mean most by mass not by number? BTW in English SS stands for steamship as in SS Great Britain which, as a four year old, I saw being towed up the River Avon toward dry dock in the Port of Bristol. But then we always thought our own history was more important than what johny foreigner got up to... --BozMo talk 23:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, that's why I said "opposites". Much is pre-star-formation stuff - the H2 and some lithium. And of course there is a bummer in your calculation. 75% of our bodies by weight is water, but there is plenty of H in other molecules of the body. And at least some of the rest is not the result of the formation of stars, but of their destruction. Heavier elements are only created at the end of the lifetime of stars, and the heaviest nearly exclusively in supernovae explosions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The primary requirement for a supernovae is, as I understand it, a star with sufficient mass to go bang... For such a case, the star needs to form... thus, I am of the stuff that is the product of the formation of stars... and the consequences of same. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:16, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would strongly suggest that the product of the formation of stars is stars, just like the product of a coffee machine is coffeee, and not science. But even your claim does not get you out of the problem that more than 50% of your atoms are hydrogen... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The initial product of a coffee machine is indeed coffee, but subsequently is elevated caffeine levels in the blood, and urine. Thus while the product of the formation of stars is stars in the primary sense, it is also what becomes of star matter in the life and death of said stars subsequently... I'd think it more of a problem if the percentage of my atoms being hydrogen were significantly lower than 50%. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your statement at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

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Hello Lar. Your statement at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case stands at over 800 words. The word limit is 500. Please refactor it within the next 24 hours or a clerk will do it for you. Regards, Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 14:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see what I can do. Lar: t/c 19:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just struck a third of mine. You can do it, too! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you found it much easier :-P ... plus there's the bit about leaving Collect (who keeps agreeing with me just before I change my words) hanging. Lar: t/c 00:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much appreciated. Thanks for getting to it so quickly. Regards, Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 00:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnic insults by Wildhartlivie

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Just wanted to point out this edit... also the entire incident is yet another example of WHL's WP:OWN attitude. I remain mystified why this editor seems to get away with such behavior...—Chowbok ☠ 09:01, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chowbok, as I noted when I removed the personal attack template you've already left at my talk page, which apparently led you to come complain here, you seem to have missed the extensive other side of this, wherein expressing concern over inclusion of untranslated sources in both Italian and French led to the same editor, whose own personal attacks to me were redacted on AN/I and whose recent post to me was disparaging because I am not fluent in French or Italian, and who had just posted the disparaging comment "Try to learn basic skills in some other languages" prior to my saying he is being arrogant in his approach to this. He and his supporter at AN/I proceeded to blatantly call me stupid because I do not read either language and struck out other personal attack comments. At one point, one of the other editors said "You are complaining about him using sources in French and Italian when you yourself don't even understand English?" Saying to a Frenchman that he is being arrogant for chiding anyone for not speaking or reading his language is not an ethnic slur, unless France has suddenly become an ethnicity, but it most certainly was condescending and arrogant, not only in my view, but others who responded to that editor at AN/I as well. It would be most helpful if before you run off to tattle if you would actually investigate that of which you complain. I remain mystified why the first and actually the only thing you did after being gone from Wikipedia for a few days was check my edits and then run to not just one, but two separate administrators to try to stir up trouble for me. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"He started it" is never an acceptable defense. Knock it off. You've been warned before. Lar: t/c 12:22, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The other thing that mystifies me is no matter what I've brought to you, personal attacks made by friends of yours and for which he was admonished by another administrator and two other editors, blatantly being called stupid by an editor at AN/I and who suggested I go learn another language so I won't appear stupid and whom I called arrogant for behaving that way and being called that by another editor at AN/I, no matter what it is, it is always my fault. And in this case, an editor who aligned himself with someone against me runs to tattle after first templating me and then also running to SarekOfVulcan, trying to stir up trouble, it is still my fault. I just don't understand why it is that I'm always the bad guy. Wildhartlivie (talk) 16:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(restored comment per User:Lar/Eeyore policy) Well, I'm not sure I agree with you there. SRQ is now blocked for a year as I understand it, so it's not like other folk always get off scot free. But my advice to you, as it is to anyone, is first, look to your own behavior. "He started it" is never an acceptable defense. Nor is "they are doing it too". Lar: t/c 18:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander Chancellor protection

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The idea here was indefinite protection, right?

Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indefinite, yes. Permanent? not necessarily. Indefinite means "without a definite end". Geni may be correct, the story may have died down sufficiently to warrant removal of protection. Time will tell if Geni is correct. I note that Geni removed it without discussing it with me (or anyone else, apparently) first. See User_talk:Geni#Are_you_looking_to_be_desysopped?. Lar: t/c 14:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see; Doc's talk, too. This perked-up on my watchlist because I'd either edited there or explicitly watched it at the time. My thinking was that a discussion would have been appropriate prior to opening this fellow up to further abuse. It's my experience that trolls and vandals have long memories; far longer than 3 months. I think semi-protecting abused pages for a very long stretches should be perfectly normal.
Lord of the Flies was semi'd by Cas for some time last year and then it was removed and the anon's and such regularly mess with it. It's not a BLP, but it's assigned in a lot of middle schools and the left side of the bell often curve edit the page out of spite. The Catcher in the Rye, would be in the same boat. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. while previewing this, I see that Josh semi'd Catcher about 13 hours ago...

On Commons

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I would like you to read this discussion [31]. As an ombudsman on Commons, what do you think?. User:Aylaross on Commons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.184.226.156 (talk) 15:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see the connection to the Ombudsman Commission. If there is one, can you write the mailing list about it? Because it probably would need to be handled by the Commission as a whole. If there isn't, can you clarify what it is you are asking about? I see a relatively acrimonious deletion request but I'm not seeing specific privacy concerns. Perhaps I'm missing something. Lar: t/c 16:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Don't Ombudsmen work as a mediator on Commons? User:Aylaross.--81.184.226.156 (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly. See Ombudsmen on Meta for more information on the role, which is WMF wide. Also, why are we not having this discussion on my Commons talk page? It's OK to talk there. Lar: t/c 16:55, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See talk page in Commons. User:Aylaross. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.184.226.156 (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So I see. Answered there. Best. Lar: t/c 19:14, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser privacy policy

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Hello. I wonder if you think that this message might show a violation of Checkuser privacy? I do not comment on the bizarre nature of the allegations it contains. Is this just vaporing or has someone actually decided to discuss Checkuser data with Mathsci so that he can pursue his petty squabbles? Rhomb (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The checkuser report was by Nishkid64 and sent to me by wikipedia email. It is currently being handled, on his suggestion, by Shell Kinney. Nishkid64 has suggested that Rhomb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Dewey process (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are likely sockpuppets of banned user Mister Collins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This also involves Quotient group (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) whom Nishkid4 has identified as a sockpuppet of A.K.Nole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), a user who was found to have been wikihounding me. Quotient group has similarly been following my edits, most recently in the article Charles Sanford Terry (historian). created as spin-off of Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her". Please discuss this with Shell Kinney or Nishkid64 if there is a problem. There do seem to be very serious problems with Rhomb's account, as Nishkid64 has pointed out. Quite separately, on his user page Rhomb describes his account as an an alternative account of an undisclosed user. Both editors figured in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mathsci/Archive initiated by banned user Mister Collins. Mathsci (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rhomb, what specifically do you allege is a violation of policy? You may follow up via email to the Ombudsman Commission if you wish. Based on what you've given me so far I don't see the issue, please be specific, and cite relevant policy and actions that you find problematic. Reporting a CU result is not in itself a privacy violation. Lar: t/c 00:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Lar, for that. My specific questions would be -- Is it within checkuser privacy policy for a checkuser to reveal results of their investigation secretly to a non-checkuser? If so, is it appropriate to reveal results to another party before Arbcomm has had a chance to consider the implications? If so, is it appropriate to reveal them to one party in a dispute but not the other? Rhomb (talk) 06:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My answers, based on my understanding of policy:
  • Yes, it is within policy to reveal results privately (although not the technical details, or, normally, privacy related details such as identity or geolocation), when doing so will protect the wiki. The results revealed normally should be in the form of "this ID and this ID are likely the same/different user(s)", but there may be reason to be more specific if circumstances warrant it. You are invited to contact me privately with more detail if that doesn't answer the question.
  • Yes, it is within policy to reveal results to someone not on ArbCom. You'll have to clarify what is meant by "before Arbcomm has had a chance to consider the implications", specifically, with reference to your specific situation. You are invited to contact me privately with more detail if that doesn't answer the question.
  • Yes, it may be appropriate to reveal them to one party in a dispute but not the other, if circumstances warrant it. This is especially true if one of the parties is the sockmaster under investigation. The reveal normally is pretty much the same information as ultimately is made public with the sock tagging that is placed. You are invited to contact me privately with more detail if that doesn't answer the question.
Hope that helps. Lar: t/c 10:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Just in case there's any doubt, I have let Shell Kinney know about Rhomb's comments here. I asked a checkuser privately because, as here, Rhomb has a habit of forum-shopping on wikipedia and misrepresenting me. ArbCom through Shell Kinney has received copies of the emails about checkuser. Shell explained the wikihounding by A.K.Nole/Quotient group to Rhomb, but he didn't seem to "get it". I can't quite understand why Rhomb is wikilawyering here, although I don't find it entirely surprising. Incidentally the bogus SPI report mentioned above initiated by Mister Collins ended up getting him banned for sockpuppetry. Rhomb is presumably aware that sockpuppetry is not usually dealt with by ArbCom. However, in this case Shell Kinney happens to be familiar with the details, because of her participation in a WP:ANI thread and in the Abd&WMC ArbCom case last year, during which there was a lot of disruption by sockpuppets. Mathsci (talk) 08:14, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, Lar -- I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions so prommptly. I have to say I'm suprised that the policy is as you state, though. This is not the place for Mathsci to repeat his accusations or for me to respond to them. Rhomb (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. For reference you should review meta:Privacy policy and meta:Ombudsman commission, as well as foundation:Access_to_nonpublic_data_policy. The policy is pretty thorough. Note that a userid that is pseudonymous typically is not, itself, "personally identifying information". Only the association of that userid to an IP or to a real name is. Lar: t/c 17:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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