User talk:Mike Serfas

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Hello, Mike Serfas, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Contents

[edit] Viral origins of obesity

I saw you added material on obesity to support supposedly viral origins. I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I'm not sure if this particular line of enquiry needs to be covered so extensively in a "general" article on obesity.

You also used inline links to link to PubMed abstracts. As the article has a "references" section with academic format references, I think it is generally better to add any references there rather than use URLs. After all, peer-reviewed research should have more weight than "just" internet links :-) JFW | T@lk 17:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

On further consideration, I've become more convinced that PubMed URLs, especially, are useful and legitimate references. Every Web link to PubMed contains a unique PMID corresponding to the published article, which is a definitive search term - even on interlibrary loan forms it is the most important piece of data that can be given, and the rest is just a backup. These numbers aren't vanishing any time soon. By comparison, searching for articles by page number can be very tedious in journals that increasingly are encountered as online archives. True, I'd like to have a professional looking reference section at the bottom of every article, but which is worth more - making more edits, or making edits with pretty bibliographies? I wish I could just drag the address bar from the PubMed web search onto the Wikipedia page and have a properly formatted reference appear... but otherwise, it seems very nearly like a waste of time.
Also, I think that viral origin is a very important point to discuss in the article, and it is at least as well-documented as many speculations that have been offered as to why obesity could be increasing. Mike Serfas

[edit] your comments on talk:anarchism

Hey, Mike Serfas, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you said on the talk anarchism page concerning the American revolution, etc. They are my sentiments exactly and have said a bunch of stuff about American anarchy and anarchist history, types of anarchism etc. on the talk page. I've gotten no response to what I said. Also, there is a type of anarchism, anarchist-capitalism, that some editors keep saying is not real anarchism, and they won't let any edits in concerning it. There are 2 ancaps trying to insert this to no avail. If you wouldn't mind sticking around to conrbiute to this article it would be great. Thanks again. Whiskey Rebellion 21:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, again. You said this on talk:anarchy "For centuries the American frontier was about as close to anarchy as things have actually come". This is a great point that I was thinking of, too. And I agree with you about those seeds of freedom being born here more than any other place. Well, I for one, sure wouldn't mind if you edited the article, itself. Please feel free -- you are more than welcome! Whiskey Rebellion 19:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to win a political war here; I'm just disappointed by the lack of information in the article. It really leaves out quite a bit of information, both historical and ideological, that I think would be relevant and interesting. Mike Serfas

[edit] Tinnitus

I'm bringing our discussion here, because it's no longer relevant to tinnitus... I've been thinking about this, and I have to say, I apologize, I think I missed your point the first time around. I think that we're, in a way, arguing around the same point. I completely agree with the desire to see a double-blind study. I also agree with your point that peer review makes it more difficult for casual contributors -- I personally would be okay with a source that's an article from, say, The New York Times, or the Department of Health, summarizing or interpreting a study that found A to be a cause of B. Since encyclopedias are considered tertiary sources anyway, it's fine to cite a secondary source, like a, as long as there is a reliable (read: peer-reviewed) primary source somewhere, such as a conclusive double-blind study. Is this what you're trying to say? Sorry, again, if I'm not understanding... Jesse · talk · contribs 05:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I just don't want the mediation of a small point about aspartame to create barriers that prevent people from providing useful information to the article. Mike Serfas

[edit] Genetic assimilation

Hi Mike Serfas, I just added a category to this article - but only as a part of the effort at Category:Category needed. Would you please have a quick look to make sure it is the correct placement? Thanks. --Bookandcoffee 20:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

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