User talk:FRJohn

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[edit] Natasha Demkina

Hi FRJohn

Thank you for your comments on the Natasha Demkina article. You may not have seen, but I had posted a little earlier on its talk page a proposed rewrite of the article that swept away all of the back-and-forth, leaving a bare-bones biography of the girl and a brief discussion of the test. This proposal is on the talk page a little up from your contributions; or in a slightly less confusing format, the same text is viewable on a test page I have created at User:BillC/sandbox.

There seems to be some momentum of support going for this version. If so, this would be welcome and mean we can get something out there that is not going to attract flames and edit wars. I have also requested that the talk page be removed from public view once we have a 'finished' article. Regards, --BillC 10:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks you for posting additional comments to the subpage I had set up. I have contacted various parties involved in this edit dispute and directed them to that page. Some of them may not have yet seen the original version there so I have reverted back to my version and placed yours following it. One of the major drivers was to try to reduce the level of detail in the article, for it was over the detail that the flaming and edit wars began. I think we ought to do our very best to achieve an article that is NPOV, factually accurate with a proper editoral balance, and carries the least risk of starting the whole thing up again. --BillC 11:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to stay away from the statistic analysis, FRJohn. The very heated contention over this topic has been over the conditions of the test itself: were they properly adhered to, was it fair, was it accurate, and so on. A table of probabilities calculated for someone who was just randomly guessing is not relevant if there are other factors coming into play, be they cheating, or confounding test factors, or whatever, and one can't assign 'statistical significance' to the result afterwards. If we can drop the table and the statistical analysis, and trim the test description down to saying that it required Natalya to match volunteers against specified medical conditions, then we might have something here. I think we might need to drop the 'radiology' statement as well. Natalya herself deprecates the term "X-ray girl" on her own website. It just becomes yet another bone of contention best avoided. --BillC 11:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

It must be clear that the statistical analysis is a major point of contention with all parties. To keep adding it in is evidently antagonising both sides in this debate. Let me state again, the debate that has raged on this issue has not been on the statistical significance of the result, but over the test conditions, and the manner in which the whole enterprise was carried out. If the test was flawed, then no amount of statistical analysis is "fact", since the probability analysis does not apply. I do please urge you to reconsider your insistence on its inclusion because I feel that prior its appearance we were within a whisker of attaining an article that would go, and be able to wrap up this whole sorry business. It has already become an issue of some stress for me, and I was never involved until the Request for Mediation was filed. --BillC 22:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Would I be right in believing that the inclusion of the statistical analysis is a sine qua non for you, and a point of which you will not let go under any circumstances? Because if so, I think I will have to be obliged to bow out of this attempt at mediation and let you or someone else see it to completion. I had worked hard to get us to that point, felt that we were all close to a workable solution, and now have seen all that founder to leave us all no better of than we were before. --BillC 00:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi FRJohn. I liked your additions to the Natasha Demkina article, the information on statistical signficance as it related to what the CSICOP testing thresholds was very helpful. I don't know if you're interested in participating, but there is new, lively discussion and editing of the Natasha Demkina article going on. I would welcome your further input! Dreadlocke 20:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confused sentence

You wrote on the parapsychology talk page: "statistical tools allow us to accurately assess the effect sizes of things which only happen a certain probability of the time. " but I cannot parse that. What did you mean,please?Carrionluggage 21:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)