Talk:Dissimulation

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After reading this article, I have no idea what dissimulation is. Melchoir 05:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ditto. --Alynna 06:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the feedback; I really appreciate it. My intent was to distinguish dissimulation from malicious behavior. The hope was to have an article that simply leaned on a dictionary. Consider the definition of the term from Webster's 1913 Dictionary:

"The act of dissembling; a hiding under a false appearance; concealment by feigning; false pretension; hypocrisy."

The association with the latter terms strike me as primarily negative; which might explain attempts to defend dissimulation, even by religious scholars.

Could you please offer suggestions on how I may improve upon this article? Your input on this matter is rather valuable. Folajimi 15:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)^(talk)

• I'm afraid I have to agree with Melchoir and Alynna. I found this article while stub sorting and frankly, it is confusing and unfocused. The assertion at the top, that dissimulation is the logical converse of simulation, wikilinks to simulation which is an article about modeling the behavior of systems. That does not make much sense to me. It is hard to say how the article might be improved; maybe eliminate everything except the technical usage in computing systems ("Constructive Dissimulation"), expand that, and add a note that outside of the technical world, dissimulation refers to "the act of dissembling; a hiding under a false appearance; concealment by feigning" etc. MCB 01:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

• Perhaps I should explain how I came about the idea of writing this article. I was curious about what a 'Mechanical Animal' is, and I stumbled onto an article about a controversial album. While reading the section of the article that discusses the album's packaging, I noticed a reference to dissimulation. I looked for the definition from an online dictionary and related results from a Google query. It was then that I discovered that there were several possible forms of dissimulation. Seeing that it can take multiple forms, I decided to create an article that would bring all those forms in one place.

While I understand how it may appear that I am "spitballing", I can assure you that the idea for the article was born out of curiosity, not malicious intent. The point about the reference to the article on simulation is taken; that will have to be removed from this article. However, if I remove references to all other forms of dissimulation as has been suggested, how can I address the other variations?

All in all, this article appears to be far from ready for primetime; is there a more constructive way to approach development of its content? Perhaps there is a "boilerplate template" for creating such articles? Folajimi^(talk)

Okay, the article is much better now, but it still has two issues. First, the language is so ornate that I don't think I can help fix it, because I'm often unsure of what's being said. For example, in the second sentence, "perceived threat or other source of inauspiciousness"? Second, the article should more clearly define its own scope. The first sentence suggests that dissimulation is the practice of concealing one's ability, but most of the examples given are about concealing something else. I haven't studied this topic, but my suggestions are, if you think they're worthwhile:

• Synchronize this article with Deception. In particular, change the first sentence to "Dissimulation is the form of deception in which one conceals the truth, as opposed to simulation, in which one exhibits false information."
• On the theme of concealing ability, though, mention Pool hustling.
• Eliminate the constructive/destructive dichotomy, which is ill-defined and judgmental. For that matter, delete the reference to crying wolf, which is an example of simulation and not dissimulation.

What do you think? I'm willing to help, but without a reference or personal expertise, I don't know what's right. Melchoir 19:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Your points regarding the diction/rhetoric as well as the article's scope are well taken; the same goes for your suggestions as well. Cryptic or disjointed information will be removed ASAP.

Also, thanks for the pool hustling reference; I can see how it ties in with deception (as does confidence tricks, which receive a mention in the pool hustling article.

It seems that I need to improve the quality of questions to be answered by the article. What I will do is start out with the following:

• What is dissimulation? The challenge here is to provide a generic definition, without being nebulous. Reaching for Summa Theologica and Taqquiya has been helpful, but as you pointed out I definitely need more resources. The pair of links which follow are new articles that I discovered on the subject matter. In particular, the latter link is for an abstract on the subject of dissimulation. The full text is available for download in PDF format. Let me know what you think of the content. The first article is on knife-fighting, the other is an article on dissimulation, featured in a well-known journal of psychology.
• Also, I think I should drop the examples at this point, until the base content is well established. It seems it will be rather counter-productive at this point.

Please feel free to add other questions; I'll take all the help I can get. Thanks again for the feedback. --Folajimi 01:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding like all I ever say is "ditto"... I agree with everything Melchoir just said. Especially, lose the fancy language at the beginning and give us a plain-English definition.

--Alynna 00:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup?

Could someone explain the cleanup tag and/or replace it with a better one? 129.185.75.9 19:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Was the above interchange insufficient, or is there some other explanation needed? Folajimi 20:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] changes made

I implemented some of the suggestions from earlier:

• replaced the opening with a plain-English definition
• scrapped the constructive/destructive dichotomy
• added a reference to pool hustling

Does that improve things?

As a note to the anon, please consider asking questions ~before~ you remove tags?

--Alynna 23:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the revisions; your efforts are greatly appreciated. This entry is the proverbial elephant in my living room... --Folajimi 00:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)