User talk:Armedblowfish/Archive6

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This is Archive 6 of my talk page, containing material from 10 February 2007 through 27 February 2007. It may contain some refactoring (mostly, copying pieces of conversations spread out over multiple places, including here, to my talk page, and adjusting indentation accordingly) or contextual notes (e.g. links to related conversation) from after that date. Refactoring should be noted in bold. Contextual notes should be in italics.

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[edit] Time Out Needed

Armedblowfish, I have just made the following posting on the Suppression of Falun Gong page concerning Asdfg's bevahior. I was just about the weigh in on Olaf's proposal, when I discovered that Asdfg is back to his role as a POV warrior, making grand statments about what he will delete or change. Here's the posting:

Armedblowfish: At what point does an editor get stopped in his tracks? If Asdfg's blatant announcment above (on the Suppression of FG page), together with his repeated assertions on the main article talk page that he will delete what he considers to be "falacious" here, on the Epoch Times page, and presumably all pages don't constitute grounds for an administrative sanction of some sort, I don't know what does. We are supposed to operate by consensus and for the most part editors on both "sides" of this debate have tried to honor consensus decsions. But as Firestar has pointed out on multiple occassions, Asdfg actually demands the right to take unilateral actions which he feels are justified. Witness what he says above, and witness the series of edits he and others have done to change the Suppression of Falun Gong page into an anti-CCP propaganda piece. I am requesting that you take action now to stop Asdfg in his POV warrior campaign. --Tomananda 03:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I would like it if you looked at my changes to the suppression page, too. And the comment I left there about my intended actions, as well as the changes I have made to the Epoch Times page. I think I have a problem with the way I phrase things. I think I put things in a blunt way, like what I am saying is simply correct, and I think that is the source of conflict. I have had this pointed out to my in my demeanour in the real world, so since it is happening again on wikipedia I think it must be a big problem that I have to correct. It is difficult to know how to write and [[which kind of tone to adopt, and how to comport oneself. You know, most of the time I don't think we would do things if we thought they were wrong. Actually, I think we never would. I would like to state openly here that I will always take into consideration other people's thoughts, opinions and ideas. When faced with criticism, I want to be able to examine myself and truly take it on board. I realise that this is a problem I have, so I need to do something about it. Maybe, for example, you can see a change I made to my most recent post on the main Talk page. The first time i wrote that I was indignant with Tomananda, but then I did the exercises and thought it was really wrong to say sharp things, so i went and changed it. You can see by looking in the edit history. Okay, that is just a bit of background and also apologies and saying I will try to write in a kinder way. Alright, in the meantime about the edits. You can take a look at the Suppression page and my edits. I think all I did was put in one new section about Psychiatric Abuses which is completely sourced from legitimate sources, and I strictly followed the sources - there is more to go on that section... and I think the only other changes I made were significant changes to the Tiannamen self-immolation section. The best way to identify them I think.. wait here are links to how it was before I got to work on it: (23:45, 3 February 2007) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suppression_of_Falun_Gong&oldid=105444508 (skip to the section), and the final sort of version, this is just to get an idea is (17:22, 6 February 2007) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suppression_of_Falun_Gong&oldid=106089725. Those are just to get an idea of the changes.

I am not claiming that my editing is infallible, not at all, because I just quickly looked at that section and I can see my bias creeping in. I want to state upfront that I acknowledge that. If I were the only one editing these articles they would not be as good as working with editors who have an opposite viewpoint to me. I am at a bit of a loss for how to respond to Tomananda's comments. I would hope that any reasonable person looking at the edits I have done would see they are at least well intended. I added sourced material to that section and removed very, very little of the other stuff. I think all I removed was one paragraph from a Chinese website, and that is allowed. So I don't know what I have done wrong. There is a separate page for that section now so check that out.

About the statement on the suppression page, I don't understand how it presents a problem. If something is unsourced then where did it come from? Why should it be included? We are not just allowed to write whatever we like and expect other editors not to question or challenge it. I feel like I made a reasonable declaration about the matter, but maybe again I just need to control how I phrase things and the impression I am creating. But I did mention that if someone has a problem they should bring it up and we'll put off removing that content. So, I guess I don't really understand what I am being accused of, or what wikipedia policies I have violated. Please take a look at the edits, and if there are big problems with them, I would really like them corrected as well. Yenchin brought up some things and I agreed with some of what he said. He raised some points for improvements and I supported him in some of them. As for the Epoch Times page, Tomananda has not responded to the comments on the discussion page. I feel that it is not quite right to say I am wrong to remove that content when I did explain all the reasons quite well, but got no response. I think it would be best if that issue was dealt with. Actually, there is a consensus not to include that content. I also explained how it is a big misrepresentation of the teachings, I can dig up that comment too.

I am not sure if I have responded adequately, or addressed the issues in question. I would find it most useful to be given some concrete examples of edits I have made that are violating wikipedia policies. I hope those edits can be examined. If there is a problem with what I am doing, I will correct it, apologise, and behave myself better. I struck through a statement of mine on the Falun Gong talk page, and I hoped this would be an indication that I really want to cooperate with other users. I don't know how I have really gone against wikipedia policies though in the three cases Tomananda brought up. (changes to the Suppression page including big changes to the self-immolation section which is now a separate article; the unresolved edit conflict on the Epoch Times page; the statement made on the Suppression talk page about removing unsourced content) Please, please tell me if this message still contains the same kind of self-assertive tone as my other posts. It would be a really big problem for me if I could not correct that, so feedback is welcome. I actually welcome Tomananda's remarks, too.--Asdfg12345 16:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and polite response! I guess Tomananda was concerned about this message. (Tomananda, please correct me if I am wrong.) I'm not really sure what specific messages and/or edits Jsw663 was concerned about, but but maybe (s)he will tell us. I am guessing that the concern was about the prospect of bold editing of a highly controversial page. Not that bold editing is necessarily a bad thing, but tensions are high.
I absolutely sure that your edits are well-intentioned. I hope none of my messages have given a different impression. As for violating Wikipedia policy / guidelines, I am sure we all do that unintentionally, including myself. After all, Wikipedia policy and guidelines are complex, ever-changing, sometimes contradictory and leave room for interpretation. (Not that I don't support Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but it is difficult to follow all of them to the letter.) In any case, if we can reach consensus, we will probably have a more neutral article, and we can then share the blame for its imperfections.
If you do make your changes in a draft page before committing them to the article, it will give other editors more time to voice their concerns about specific changes. Additionally, you won't have to worry about someone reverting you while you are still working on said changes. I have found working on a draft to be helpful in the past. For example, the current general form of WP:RS was drafted at WP:RS/rewrite. (Admittedly, it has changed a lot since then, but such bold edits could not have originally been made on the guideline itself.)
Also, if everyone is okay with it, I suggested a significant change to Suppression of Falun Gong at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Falun Gong/Suppression, persecution, genocide or other. Actually, I doubt everyone will be okay with it, but you are welcome to join the discussion.
— Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 19:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, no problem, I will hold off on my bold plans for now. You know, I only wanted to get rid of unsourced content and original research, and put in sourced stuff. Anyway, there are other things I can do in the meantime. That is still on my hitlist, though. There is a large amount of unsourced stuff in there which has been tagged, so it can't stay there; it needs sources. I have been and will continue to spend a lot of time reading carefully through the wikipedia policies and guidelines. There is a growing feeling among some editors here that some very basic principles have been overlooked this whole time. Jsw commented, for example, that Samuel's website does not contain original research. I don't want to say anything bad or make some clever comments. Olaf has made some proposals based strictly on wikipolicies, there were a few things not in them specifically for these articles I think, but anyway, I think in the end there are no huge problems here and the application and enforcement of the actual wikipolicies will bear this out.--Asdfg12345 22:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Armedblowfish: To respond to your question above, I am conerned about Asdfg's long history of POV pushing and blanking of sourced material, together with his declaration that he is within Wikipedia policy to adopt that stance. If he is, we will never get out of the endless cycle of revert wars. On at least two occassions in the discussion page, Fire Star has pointed out how Asdfg has violated Wikipedia policy by self-declaring his intention to edit unilaterly. Most recently, in the "Strike One for Asdfg12345?" post above, Fire Star challenged his statement that "I will continue to remove all edits which misrepresent Falun Dafa and force a POV on Wikipedia." Although Asdfg did acknowledge Fire Star and crossed out that sentence, he then followed up in the next discussion (see "Amending the Source" above) with the following:
If you swear off introducing fallacious material I'll swear off blanking it. And not just for February! Olaf has proposed a good idea, that we can put the [citation needed] on questionable content and if it remains unsupported it may be removed. I do not think that I am being unreasonable in removing and challenging that content. To tell you the truth, if I added content that was much disputed and subsequently removed, I would discuss it before engaging in a revert war about it. I gave a range of reasons and proposed alternative strategies for presenting that - at least what I think contains elements of - valid material. This is all on the talk page so I won't repeat it here. --Asdfg12345 11:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, it is your opinion that the material is false. Others are going to object to simple blanking of their material in the context of statements like: "I will continue to remove all edits which misrepresent Falun Dafa and force a POV on wikipedia.--Asdfg12345 11:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)". These articles are broken, and without the aid of outside mediation, they aren't likely to be fixed any time soon, IMO. --Fire Star 火星 15:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
In response, Asdfg merely states: "Thanks, Fire Star, for raising that point," but by his subsequent editing behavior (eg: on the Suppression page) he reveals his intent to continue to insert edits unilaterly. I appreciate the fact that you have politely asked him to post any major new edits on a talk page first, but still argue that he needs to be sanctioned for his most recent POV pushing behavior regardless. --Tomananda 22:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I would rather worry about the future neutrality of the articles than whether or not anyone has made controversial edits in the past. In any case, there is another interpretation: this whole escalation is my fault for going off and being absent from Wikipedia. Sorry about that. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 01:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You do not have much to do with the situation that has arisen on these pages. Actually, I think I can reasonably say that a good deal of it is my fault. I had not actually, carefully read much of the wikipedia policies and guidelines. A great deal of our problems have been the result of unfamiliarity with even some of the most basic requirements of wikipedia regarding original research, and the definition of original research. Though that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how these pages fly in the face of wikipedia's policies. Anyway, we know them now, so I think there will be some significant changes on these pages in the time to come. I request your attention over an escalating dispute on the Epoch Times talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Epoch_Times#Statement_about_the_Dafa_and_Fa-rectification_.28response_to_Asdfg.29 Sorry not sure how to do the internal linking to talk pages yet. You will have to read all our posts about the subject, though... hmm, that is a bit of an ask. Well, actually, I don't know what else - I know you can only provide opinions and things, but maybe you can make some useful comments and help to elucidate some things. Often the discussions on these pages devolve in this way, and simply stall. Tomananda, next time you accuse my editing of violating wikipedia policies, please cite the part of the policy you are referring to. Put a link, or simply quote it if it is not too long. I will scrutinize. If you are not referring to any wikipedia policy in particular, please stop using that series of words. I think that should be a claim we all take quite seriously, particularly if it is an accusation willful violation, so it would be better to point it out explicitly and make it really identifiable. Corrective measures should be taken immediately in such cases. The same applies to claims of illegitimate removal of content, etc. - from now on you need to tell me what your talking about when you make these serious statements. --Asdfg12345 11:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time Out Taken

Just an update, I have thought about this and I want to step back, take on board Tomananda's advice, and take a time out for a little while: I won't touch this particular issue again for the rest of February. Please see my comments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Epoch_Times#Roll_back_own_edit.2C_express_committment_to_wikipedia_policies_and_principles --Asdfg12345 12:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AWB

AWB just opens up a predetermined list, one after the other for viewing and then allows you to edit the talk page manually (in this case). For the vast majority of assessments it's possible to make fairly quick judgements as to whether or not the article represents a stub, a start or B-class. It's about usually about length and whether or not the article ticks the requirements of WP:MOS. Take a look at the examples at WP:ARCHA - then hit the random article button and see how quickly you can put the article into one of the 3 categories, with practice it gets quicker. The other thing is that about 10-15% of article don't belong in architecture at all but in {{planning}} or something else - these are pretty evident from the lead (and 15-20 years of architectural study). Regards. --Mcginnly | Natter 19:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attention requested on the (currently titled) Suppression of Falun Gong

Referring to the large amount of blanking and replacement with mostly CCP stuff, full of weasel words, inferences and OR. Revert was followed up by Pirate101 - who only ever seems to come on here to revert soon after one of the others - and I have put it back again. Samuel needs to realise that this is not acceptable behaviour. I have only ever seen Pirate101 play the role of a vandal, and I have never heard from him much on the discussion pages. I do not know why this is the case. Before, this would happen and the articles would be reverted indefinitely. I don't want to do that. Actually, now that I have alerted you to this, I will not make the revert again. --Asdfg12345 19:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I sort of see the present form of the page as temporary anyways. Also, as I think I told someone else above, I don't think content disputes involve vandalism, just disagreement. Anyways, would it help if I wrote a mockup for what Conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese government might look like? You can respond on the relevant mediation subpage. Thank you, Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 19:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like you to request Samuel to undo his illegal edits and start behaving properly. We will take his case to ArbCom if he does not revert it himself and start doing things right. I have been looking through his contributions and it is hard to find one that does not involve some blanking of legitimate content, addition of weasel words or OR -- sometimes using sources that do not qualify for wikipedia, sometimes with deceptive edit summaries. There is a great, great deal of this, so we will not have a problem with this. My request for your direct intervention -- to simply look at his edits on that page, observe the amount of sourced, perfectly legitimate content he blanked, replacing it with personal Chinese websites, weasel words, original research, and so on -- I just want you to see it and request that he undo it. I appeal to you as the mediator to say this to him, to give him a final chance before we take his case to ArbCom. We otherwise plan to begin collecting evidence next week. This latest case is particularly egregious. Just take a look. --Asdfg12345 19:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It does look rather extensive. Perhaps you could maintain parallel pro- and anti- FG versions in the talk namespace? See my suggestion here and here. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 21:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Say, Armed? I'm not sure if this is what prompted your query on Wikipedia talk:Content forking, but this is an example of an article whose title I would view as inherently POV. The interesting part is that I'm still struggling to work out in words what is very intuitively clear to me as to why. "Conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese government" is a legitimate limiting of scope and "Suppression of Falun Gong" is not; I am sure of this, but darned if I can put into words (at least at this hour) what the precise distinction is that makes one a perfectly legitimate focus and the other inherently POV. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Armedblowfish, It's really weird that one of the biggest violators of Wikipedia blanking policies, Asdfg, would do the above posting threatening Samuel with sanctions by going to the Arbitration Committee. Meanwhile, I have asked you to intervene on a content dispute on the Epoch Times talk page here: [1]
I am not asking you to sanction Asdfg or McConn despite the fact that they like to call me names. Instead, I am asking if you could issue a ruling on the appropriateness of the Li Hongzhi quote that I inserted, which continues to be blanked by FG practitioners. Actually, earlier on a had a different Li quote in the edit, and they complainted about it constantly, so I have found what I consider to be a better Li quote to take its place. --Tomananda 02:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Tomananda. I really hope this doesn't go to ArbCom, as I really do believe everyone means well. Anyways, to be honest, I am having trouble keeping up with the dispute both on Supression of Falun Gong and on The Epoch Times, and I really feel more familiar with the material on the former right now. Perhaps you could add a few things to my reading list to help me with that? In the meantime, if "endless back-and-forth" means an edit war, would it help if I suggested a page protection and let interested editors support or oppose it? You should be aware that the page would undoubtably be protected in m:The Wrong Version. Note that the preceding links to a satire. Alternatively, as a temporary compromise, some citation templates, like {{cite web}}, offer a quote field. So, for example, you could provide a summary in the text, with an inline m:Cite.php reference, and include the quote in the citation. Sorry I can't help more at the moment. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 03:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Armed, I think in this case both pro- and anti-FG parties are equally guilty of WP:Vandalism and in danger of violating WP:3RR. The content is inherently controversial. For the pro-FG case, they say their sources are admissible and thus their content is valid. The anti-FG case says that the content may be valid, but is POV-pushing as it justifies one side of the story at the total expense of the other. Therefore, due to the controversial nature of the content, both pro and anti FG camps should stop simply reverting, accusing each other of vandalism. I have suggested a compromise version which will air both views (like the Falun Gong page). I don't know what you think yet, Armed, but would love to get your input on this! Jsw663 13:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Armed, your mediation did not fail for the Falun Gong related pages. It was just that one camp decided to jump the gun because they couldn't wait to see their opposing camp / POV destroyed so that they could unleash their POV without restraint. Please keep up the hard work! Jsw663 15:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section break

[edit] Foreign Press

Is the foreign press and local newspapers, other media considered reliable sources ? The Human Mutilation incident was in the Brazilian Press, as may be indicated on the UFO links. Martial Law 21:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with major foreign newspapers. The main question is how good their fact-checking process is, but most major news outlets are good with that. Local newspapers are a bit touchier, as they are often "starved for cheap content". If you use a local newspaper, I would reccomend prefacing the information with something like "According to the [Town] local newspaper [Local Newspaper Name], [...]" in addition to the usual citation. I hope that helps. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 21:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ATT

Question for you here in case you don't notice it. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recovered from del log

<CODE> {| class="messagebox" |- | [[Image:Symbol OK.png|30px]] |style="padding-right: 1em"|'''This page is an [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines|official policy]] on the English Wikipedia.''' It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. [[Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages|Feel free]] to edit the page as needed, but please make sure that changes you make to this policy reflect [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] before you make them. !id="shortcut" class="noprint" style="border: 1px solid #999; background: #fff; margin: 0 0 .5em 1em; text-align: center; padding: 5px"| <small>[[Wikipedia:Shortcut|Shortcut]]:<br />{{{1}}}</small> |}<includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedia official policy|{{PAGENAME}}]]</includeonly><noinclude> This template is based on [[Template:Policy]] but includes space for a shortcut. This avoids having two boxes at the same position vertically.

==See also==

  • [[Wikipedia:Template messages/Project namespace]]
    • [[Template:Policy]]
    • [[Template:Guideline]]
    • [[Template:Style-guideline]]
    • [[Template:Wikipedia subcat guideline]]
    • [[Template:Proposed]]
    • [[Template:Rejected]]
    • [[Template:Historical]]

</CODE>

There you go. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Also, fixing (i.e. refactoring) the closing nowiki tag and making your signature appear as it was supposed to rather than as four tildas. : ) — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 01:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I posted the following on WP:AN, but I am also posting it here in order to clarify Template:Policy2 for you. It was created in January 2006 before ParserFunctions such as #if: was fully implemented. It was basically the same as Template:Policy except it included a space to list a shortcut. But after ParserFunctions became in use, the optional parameter to list a shortcut was added to Template:Policy, making Template:Policy2 deprecated. Hope this helps. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again, Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 01:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
No problem. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RS

Thanks for your comments with regard to RS, given that the effort was all for naught given the juggernaut that is the ATT lobby who're rolling back the whole reliability debate to the middle of last year I'm bailing out of any related discussion. I don't mind working on these things, but when it's as futile as it's turned out to be then it gets more than a little disheartening.ALR 19:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is somewhat depressing. Sorry you are feeling stressed out, I hope you feel better soon. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 20:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits

This kind of edit is just disruptive. WP:A is policy and very accurately and carefully reflects the previous policy pages. Nothing that is inconsistent with it can be promoted on any other page. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistencies may be indicative of a lack of consensus. Fixing inconsistencies in guidelines is good, but in my opinion it is also good to discover why not everyone agrees and attempt to build or strengthen consensus. To me, it seemed the comment discouraged the latter. In any case, I do not really care any more and the page is no longer on my watchlist. Happy editing, ArmedBlowfish (talk|mail) 01:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
People agree with the self-published section of the policy, which has existed for a long time. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure you've understood it the point of it, which is to allow subjects of articles a voice so they can respond to the secondary sources, within limits, of course, so they don't turn WP into an extension of their websites. And the notability provision is already there, so there's no need for you to suggest adding it. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with subjects of articles responding to the secondary sources, but whatever. — ArmedBlowfish (talk|mail) 02:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
To expand, suppose a secondary source insulted the self-published source, and this was relevant and mentioned in some article not about the self-published source. Does the self-published source have any less reason to respond there, even though the article is not about the self-published source? According to the current wording, this would seem to be against the letter of WP:ATT, since the article is not about the self-published source and the self-published source is likely not a professional researcher / expert / whatever. I do not know if it would be in line with the spirit of WP:ATT, as I cannot actually feel the spirit of WP:ATT right now, and conversations on WT:ATT are not successfully helping me feel the spirit, hence why I removed the page from my watchlist.
I asked for your opinion on the Gunston Hall article because I think your judgment on the reliability of references is probably stricter than mine. Therefore, if you agree that they are reliable, then they probably are. The preceding should be taken as a compliment, I am not trying to pressure you to comment on something you don't want to comment on.
— ArmedBlowfish (talk|mail) 03:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
On a brighter note, I would appreciate your opinion on this matter, if you are interested in offering an opinion. — ArmedBlowfish (talk|mail) 02:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
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