Talk:Bengalia
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[edit] French content that was removed
For the removed text, see the page history or fr:Bengalia.
[edit] Familiarity with what WP:NPOV means
I think M. Lehrer has perhaps not understood what Wikipedia is; the evidence for such a misunderstanding is in the statement above: we can intervene at each time in the texts which do not correspond to the scientific truth - which is directly in contradiction to WP's explicit policies.
Allow me to quote from WP:NPOV:
- The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions.
and also:
- Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from asserting which is better. One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence.
Following this policy, (1) both viewpoints represented in the present dispute are represented and characterized (2) information is given on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. It is unfortunate and inevitable that adherents of the less popular view will object to being portrayed in this way, and often, as in the present case, insist that the more popular view should be ignored entirely - but NPOV is a policy that works. Likewise, WP:SOAP warns against the sort of editing that M. Lehrer has engaged in here:
- It can be tempting to write about yourself or projects you have a strong personal involvement in. However, do remember that the standards for encyclopedic articles apply to such pages just like any other, including the requirement to maintain a neutral point of view, which is difficult when writing about yourself.
It is unfortunate that M. Lehrer has chosen to disregard these policies, and many others, in his attempts to promote his view of "scientific truth". The bottom line is that WP, in order to remain neutral, does not take "truth" into consideration as a criterion for material to be included/excluded here. Again, from WP:NPOV:
- If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
That is the official policy of Wikipedia, and it serves little purpose to challenge this policy. Dyanega 21:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Almost forgot the lead statement from WP:V:
- The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.
In that regard, it is evident that M. Lehrer's work appears not to satisy this criterion; as far as I have been able to determine, all of his publications cited here and elsewhere are either self-published directly ("Fragmenta Dipterologica"), printed by a publisher who has no peer-review requirements ("Pensoft Series Faunistica"), or printed in a journal that has no peer-review requirements ("Entom. Croat."). To include such citations here toys with the edges of WP:SPS and WP:RS; if I am incorrect in my assessment of the nature of these publication venues, I would appreciate information from a third-party source that definitively confirms my error. Dyanega 01:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
- P.S. Having done some research, it appears that the two journals that Lehrer has published in have a very limited editorial board, and his works were not reviewed by specialists working on Calyptratae (the group of flies to which Bengalia and other Calliphoridae belong); the reviewers were, in essence, only acting as proofreaders, and not qualified to render opinions regarding the intellectual merit of the submitted works. All of the genuine taxonomic acts appeared in the Pensoft publication, which was a publish-for-pay, and therefore qualifies as self-published. I have examined this latter publication, and read Rognes' criticisms of the work; some of the criticisms were a matter of Rognes' personal opinion, but the others pertained to the ICZN Code, which is an objective set of criteria determining the validity of taxonomic acts in Zoology. In each such case, the ICZN Code's rules were clearly violated in Lehrer's work, at many levels (including his erroneous claim to authorship of the taxon name "Bengaliidae", which - following explicit ICZN rules - resides with Brauer & Bergenstamm, 1889). As such, the personal attacks on Dr. Rognes were not only uncivil, but uncalled-for; there were errors in Lehrer's work, and there can be no legitimate grievance when such errors are pointed out and corrected by a subsequent author. It is unfortunate that not only does M. Lehrer refuse to acknowledge his errors, but chose to use Wikipedia as a forum to attack the scientific community, and - most significantly - chose to do so using sockpuppetry, and has accordingly been banned from further postings to WP. Dyanega 21:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Personal attacks removed
There seems to be little need or purpose served by allowing the numerous personal attacks posted here by User:AzLehrer and his sockpuppet accounts ("Pandur" or "Condor" or "Anlirian"; see Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/AzLehrer) to remain; the bottom line is that the academic community has rejected Lehrer's proposed classification, and WP follows the mainstream - especially in matters of taxonomic classification, where WP cannot accommodate multiple competing ideas. Readers interested in seeing the exchange to this point can do so by viewing the page history prior to today's date. The message regarding how these policies apply to M. Lehrer's edits is best left here, I think, in case there are future attempts to violate these policies. Dyanega (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Subtle IP edits
The very subtle edits, between "do not recognize" and "do not discuss" need to be discussed if they can be accepted. "Do not discuss" would be incorrect when the reference mentioned is a critique of the privately published monograph. Shyamal (talk) 05:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
