User talk:MastCell/Archive 17

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Improving medical articles one by one

This is going to take forever. But I'm starting with Alzheimer's disease. I removed a whole ton of alternative medicine cruft. Ginkgo has no effect. But, lots of articles published in real journals seem to indicate that there are lots of things to prevent Alzheimer's. Mediterranean diet is one. Anyways, please help. Let's make this article a good one. It matters to people, and they need to have more information. There are a couple of editors that have built a good foundation. Let's get it over the top, so I can add it to my list of outstanding medical articles around here. Besides, a good admin like you will keep the cruft-warriors from getting too crazy.  :) And it's more fun than Abortion and mental health. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's got potential. In fact, all of the necessary references are probably there. The main issue is just stylistic - it's hard to read and over-technical. We can fix that. MastCell Talk 17:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I am somewhat amused that the guardians of NPOV so cavalierly dismiss alternative medicines/treatments. Not that I am any great fan of "voo-doo" medicine, but I like to keep an open mind about things whilst taking same with a grain of salt. Nor do I see what poor quality computer coding has to do with it. Anyhow ... I wonder if this is the kind of reaction that our young Mr. Ernest Duchesne suffered at the hands of the Institut Pasteur in 1897. ;-) JimScott (talk) 02:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


Sounds like fun!

Hey MastCell,

Got your note. Funny you should ask, I've been thinking about that very thing recently, and your note is the last little catalyst I need. I've waited this long for two reasons: So no one could seriously say that my dust up with Eddie was part of some larger pattern, and so I could address a couple of other items that were either brought up in my last RFA, or (more accurately) probably would have been if the Eddie thing hadn't come up. Mostly AFD participation, RFA participation, and article writing. I've participated in a few AFD's since the RFA (maybe a half dozen or so more, haven't kept exact track, not many), a couple of RFA's, and written the longwinded masterpiece Diaphragm (structural system) (and that was only because I was fixing dablinks for Diaphragm and discovered we needed the article). To add to its impressiveness, it currently has zero references! Won't be knocking anyone's socks off.

The thing is, I don't really like AFD or RFA, and I'm not cut out to write Featured Articles. In the last week or so, I've had something of an epiphany: I'm here because I'm doing what I like to do, not because I want to be an admin. So my latest and greatest plan is to try RFA one more time, and if that fails, just give up on adminship and remain an editor, using AIV, RFPP, ANI, and mercilessly pestering admins I see are active when I need tools. In other words, remove the stress of finding time to do stuff that doesn't interest me, by deciding not to force myself to do the stuff.

So the short answer is, I think the first week in February (I've got a deadline in the real world this Friday). If your offer to nominate me is still open, I'll gladly take you up on it (wouldn't want KMWeber to be the tiebreaker). Another couple of editors have offered to nominate too, let me ckeck with them and see if they want to write a co-nom or not.

Thanks for giving me the shove. --barneca (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy to nominate or co-nominate you. Your comments are perceptive; I sometimes consider just giving up the sysop bit, de-watching AN/I, and just improving articles, which is why I started here in the first place. The buttons are definitely useful, but they do change your experience on Wikipedia. That said, you don't have to use them; they're essentially a few extra tools you can use if you like. Anyhow, just let me know when you're ready. MastCell Talk 03:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Whenever you want to start is fine; there's no rush. I'll add a statement and answer the questions slowly, over the course of the week, when I have free 5 minute windows. Then I can transclude sometime next week, when my project is over. Pedro has previously offered to nominate, and I've left him a message. Dreamafter is most familiar with my activities at WP:ACC, and offered in December. I'm leaving him a message right after this, he may still be interested too. Thanks for the ¡vote of confidence. --barneca (talk) 04:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd be delighted to co-nominate Barneca! Let me know when it's created. Pedro :  Chat  08:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd also dearly enjoy co-nominating Barneca, I have the page (Requests for adminship/Barneca 3) watchlisted, so upon creation, I will glady add my statement. ~ Dreamy § 14:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You might be waiting a while on that page going active; I'm hoping/planning on never needing Barneca 3. I'm hoping Barneca 2 is all we'll need. :) --barneca (talk) 15:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to be taking a much-needed Wikibreak, but I'll be looking in from time to time, particularly on my talk page. Just leave me a note when you're nearly ready and I'll have a statement of nomination up. MastCell Talk 17:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not a break! --barneca (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
No, but next time you'll be able to apply the block yourself. Then someone can complain on WP:AN/I about how you blocked someone you were "involved" with, and someone else can say the IP was bitten and was about to go on a featured-article-writing spree, and someone else can offer to adopt the hapless IP while you go before ArbCom to be desysopped... see, I do need a break! :) MastCell Talk 19:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe just a tiny one... Enjoy it. --barneca (talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
MastCell you becoming a regular Troll..:) Welcome to the family, maybe you will get your own article! Igor Berger (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and created it myself, so I'd have a place to store answers as I write them. Like I said, I have very little time until next week, so absolutely no rush on anything; enjoy your break and compose at your leisure. --barneca (talk) 15:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It's transcluded. --barneca (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Template created

Check out {{recruiting}}. Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Response

Hi - given that you've jumped into some fairly heated debates, may I ask if you edit using any other accounts, or if your participation here was solicited? MastCell Talk 22:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody asked me to participate. Usually I just read Wikipedia, including the policy boards. Fairchoice (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That answers half of my question. The other half: do you edit, or have you edited, using any other accounts, particularly ones which might currently be blocked or otherwise sanctioned? MastCell Talk 23:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you take a look at this?

User:Durova/Sandbox/Harris Coulter Here's a sandbox version from a deleted biography about a person who's probably notable enough for a biography, based upon authorship notability standards. I'd like to raise the neutrality and sourcing to a level where this can move to article space. Your input is welcome. Best regards, DurovaCharge! 23:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

THIS is crazy

The POV-nutjobs win. They'll use this stupid probation as a method to continue the anti-scientific bullshit pervasive in this project. Do you know how many articles the Homeopathy promoters have infested? Hundreds? The nutjobs will take this opportunity to flood well-written medical articles (of which, I found zero so far) with Homeopathy POV, and someone, like myself, will attempt to revert or clean up, then get slapped with some silly charge from one of the promoters of the POV. I'm fighting a losing battle keeping the crap out of the medical articles. I'm afraid that there just more POV-warriors than there are truly neutral editors such as yourself. Quackademic Medicine rules!!!! OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Leave them to "win" then. Only once the Wiki is so hopelessly ignored by the rest-of-the-world by being so wrong, will the administration do something. The administration is paralysed by it's own internal systems and is currently operating under the maxim "it worked fine in the past, why do we need to change?" which is a sure sign of pending doom. Shot info (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I'd suggest leaving the homeopathy article for a few weeks. De-wathclist it and see what happens. There will be plenty of eyes on it after the recent to-do. Any thinking person realizes that the principles of homeopathy are scientifically implausible or impossible. Some thinking people choose to believe in it anyway, but that's based on an innate mindset and won't be changed by the wording of a Wikipedia article. Personally, I think it's much more worthwhile to keep the promotional or fringecruft claims under control on articles like AIDS, cancer, or dietary supplement, because I've seen people actually make decisions based on what Wikipedia has to say on those matters, but that's just me.
I think most reasonable editors support the idea of making Wikipedia into a respectable reference work, and realize that aggressive fringecruft and credulous promotion of discredited ideas undermines that goal. The playing field is not level; it's slanted in our favor. But if you're serious about making the encyclopedia more reality-based, then you (we) have to make it easier for the reasonable editors in the middle to see it that way. That means biting the bullet and going the extra mile to be civil, regardless of whether it's warranted or not. I look at a lot of disputes as an outside party, and it's very easy to ignore or marginalize someone who's always angry, uncivil, or vitriolic, regardless of the correctness of their underlying argument. It's much harder to ignore or marginalize someone who's civil and polite, even when these are a mere veneer for weak arguments or even bad faith. Some editors have grasped this and exploited it. We, as a group, have not. It's not ideal, but it's the way things are here.
To get anywhere, we need uninvolved but reasonable editors to see the problem and sympathize. They will, because reason and the good of the encyclopedia are behind us, but we drive away potential allies by sounding thin-skinned, vitriolic, entitled, etc. I'm not pointing fingers; I'm as guilty of these things as anyone. Still, I think we have to start from the presumption that most established editors want the encyclopedia to succeed as a respectable, reality-based reference work, but may not see the problem posed by tendentious and undue promotion of fringe views. Instead, we often start from the premise that everyone's out to get us and to coddle the bad guys. Even when there's an element of truth to that worldview, it quickly becomes self-fulfilling. MastCell Talk 23:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Barneca 2

Hiya MastCell - do you want to put your comments at the top, as the main nominator, and then myself and DHMO as co-noms? Or do you want me to change mine to "Nomination" not co-nom? Or shall we just leave it as all co-noms? No biggie but thought I'd check. Pedro :  Chat  20:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with whatever. Since yours is the most detailed statement, and mine "seconds" it, yours should probably be the main nomination and mine the co-nom. MastCell Talk 22:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
You guys could get into an edit war about it, and then I'll swoop in and calm the waters, demonstrating my wonderful dispute resolution skills, and suggest we could perhaps alternate them hourly once it starts... or probably not.
I'm just glad to have such cool nominations, the order doesn't matter to me. Thanks guys. --barneca (talk) 01:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Cool. I've changed mine to "Nomination" leaving others as co-nom - now MastCell has to revert with no edit summary, I revert back with an edit summary containing an attack, Barneca weighs in and gets us to agree consensus on the talk page, and the community agrees his dispute skills are second to none. Oh, and then MastCell and I shut down our user pages with a blunt message on how we've lost all faith in Wikipedia and never edit again. Think that's about how it goes ....... :)..... Pedro :  Chat  08:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Barneca deserves to be an admin. Very good skills and I am sure he will do a good job. We need Barneca!!! Igor Berger (talk) 09:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Note

I think a number of people owe me an apology here. The note above the section says start a new section. Should I do that on the AN/I page? Anthon01 (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you with certainty that demanding an apology is a bad idea. The best thing to do is drop it and move on, which is why I archived the thread. If people genuinely feel they did something wrong, they'll apologize spontaneously (c.f. User:Bearian). If they don't, then no amount of complaining or demanding an apology is going to produce a satisfactory result. AN/I is for incidents requiring urgent administrative action. Using it to demand an apology for a perceived slight, particularly when the homeopathy page has already generated so much bickering in the last 1-2 days (not that this is your fault, necessarily), will exhaust everyone's patience very rapidly. MastCell Talk 00:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Anthon01 (talk) 00:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Revert war @ David Hicks

hi Mastcell. I request your advice about revert warring at the David Hicks article, because you witnessed similar activity on the same article a few months ago. I am concerned because some editors hover over the article with the delete button ready to revert other editors' additions. It's kind of a slow edit war, but it has reached the stage where there is no point changing the article when you know that 2 editors will delete whatever anyone else adds, while at the same time writing "please discuss" in the edit summary window just before they hit 'revert'. The reverting really has to stop, and I'm not sure how to stop it. Regards, Lester 02:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem seems to be those making controversial changes without seeking concensus. I left Brendan's additions stand, while I restored text cut by "Wm", so Lester's statement above does not reflect the reality as shown by the edit history. I think we are making good progress, actually, without slanting the article one way or another. However, more eyes on a controversial article are always useful. --Pete (talk) 03:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Some people need to learn that consensus is never achieved via the revert button.Lester 03:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Anyone in mind, Lester? For controversial articles, the best policy is to discuss and gain concensus, rather than try to sneak something through and hope any watchers are busy with other matters. --Pete (talk) 04:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
As we can see, some people have a lot of difficulty learning that the revert button has nothing to do with gaining consensus. I note MastCell's previous warning here for edit warring to cease. The edit warriors who seem to have claimed ownership of the article as if it is their territory, are making it impossible for others to contribute to the article.Lester 06:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Could this be a case of WP:SEI. Igor Berger (talk) 06:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Kelly letter to Science

I've posted about this at my blog and on Crooked Timber. Lots of fun ensues.JQ (talk) 10:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Nealparr and Lucyinthesky

Hi Tariq - I left a comment on WP:AN/I re: blocks of User:Nealparr and User:Lucyintheskywithdada. I certainly think Neal was participating in an edit war and the block was reasonable, but my 2 cents would be to unblock him and commute the block to time served - based on his otherwise very solid history of constructive editing, and possibly considering the checkered history of his "opponent", who has since been indef-blocked by JzG. I think Neal has hopefully learned something from this, which appears to be an isolated incident in an otherwise laudable Wikipedia career, and I'd lean toward clemency. Just my 2 cents - while I'd probably have handled it differently, I think your block was certainly reasonable and within policy, so I'll leave it up to you what to do. MastCell Talk 19:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Judging by your comments at ANI, I have the feeling that you were unaware that I found out about the connection between Lucy and the other account after I had blocked Neal and Lucy. Neal did mention allegations of sockpuppetry on the AN3 report, but you can see that he was also requesting a checkuser. He made no note of the fact that Lucy admitted they were the same user, and perhaps was not even aware that such an admission had occurred.
Additionally, I'm not sure why, alternate account/sockpuppetry aside, you believe I should have given Neal the benefit of the doubt for anything. He apparently has been editing Wikipedia since 2005... yes, and for that reason he should have been aware of the rules. When disruption is as apparent as it was in this case (and even in many less severe cases), I do not look at the tenure or the (for lack of a better term here) status of the editor in question. I don't care much for people who believe the rules are different for them because they have a couple years on their adversary. For this reason, he should not have complained that his block was invalid because he didn't receive a warning; that's to ensure editors they know about the three-revert rule (and I'm sure Neal already knew about it). The appropriate action to resolve this issue would have been to file a checkuser, go to WP:ANI, or use WP:SSP (did you see how quickly Lucy was indefinitely blocked after my ANI report?). Instead, though, Neal continued to revert across multiple articles.
As for the block, I would think it would be better for more people to respond to the ANI report. However, I'm afraid that's not going to happen. So, at this time, I'm just going to have to stick with no further comment. -- tariqabjotu 22:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
That's fine. I sense from your tone that I've offended you a bit, which wasn't my intention. Like I said at AN/I, I think your block was reasonable and within policy. It's not what I'd have done, but I'm certainly not going to unblock, or push the matter further beyond bringing it up with you. I completely agree that Neal should have handled the situation differently, and I'm not making excuses for him. The block was preventive to forestall further edit-warring. Since his "opponent" in the edit war has been blocked indefinitely as a disruptive sockpuppet, I don't see a further preventive purpose being served. I think he's taken the point that he went about things the wrong way, and commuting the block would be clemency for an otherwise solid editor rather than validation of his admittedly inappropriate behavior in this one instance. It's not so much that he deserves special treatment because he has a few years on his adversary; it's that one is an otherwise constructive editor with a good track record who made a mistake, and the other is a 4th-incarnation disruptive sockpuppet. That doesn't mean Neal should get away with murder, but I'm not sure these accounts should be treated as equally valuable to the encyclopedia either.
But let me just say, again, that I respect your call. I think your decision and rationale are completely reasonable even if I don't fully share them. I didn't mean to criticize or offend you, though I did want to give you my perspective since it differs somewhat from yours on this particular matter. I agree with you 100% about the more appropriate avenues Neal should have used, and I suspect that in retrospect he agrees with you as well. I'm not going to push it any further than that; certainly Sandstein agreed with your block, and he's got lots of experience and excellent judgement about such things. If you decide an unblock is warranted, then I support that 100%. If you decide it's not, then that's fine too and I'll leave things there. Again, I apologize for any offense I've caused. (added) The whole point may be moot since Neal is accepting of the block at this point, so I don't want to trouble you further over it. MastCell Talk 22:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I've offered my comments by email. Orderinchaos 02:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I would like a change to clarify matters directly with you as you have made prejudicial comments, or taken a position specifically over this use of the word sockpuppet, and take advice from you. I have left a very short version of it at the end of my talk page [1]. I have never been indefinitely banned, have no other blocks outstanding and do not operate any sockpuppets.
My name change came about because my previous accounts were deemed too similar to real people (wachowski is a fairly common name) and a further accusations of that name change being puppetry was deliberately contrived by someone with a direct interest in the topic we were editing on. At that time the topic was subjected to the attentions of a genuinely and indefinitely banned user IPSOSS and proven socks. It was a highly artificial situation I was subject to but if you check my editing record, you will see a very high propertion of well presented citations and references and general copyediting.
  • The accounts have never been used simultaneously (I locked my self out during a password change of the first and reported the change to admins immediately). I suffer from editing mainly on fringe subjects where passions run high.
I will return to editing the spiritualistic topics as it is my specialist area. There is a situation there than needs attention. I am not the sort to go dragging admins into to do my work but I believe the current situation warrants it; the same individual that lost a nomination for deletion of a template [2] has gone about deleting from every page it is on [3] without any discussion or refinement having been made, embravened by and repeating Nealparr's inexplicable wholesale rampages - which removed other similar templates not even of my placing.
Honestly, if you look at the edits, or ask me to document them for you, you will see that stepped out in good faith and I attempted to discuss with all parties in the first place. My first edit will be to revert a bad faith revision of the Spiritualism (religious movement) by the same individuals done when I was blocked removing all of my edits with any discussion.
I am not utterly stupid, I am not unreasonable and I know my subjects well enough to know I am not entirely wrong. It is very difficult not to become defensive when false allegations are being repetitively made about one by an individuals who knows it is not true but I am here to take advice. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
The edit-warring with Neal was disruptive, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of your position in the underlying dispute. But to address the "sockpuppet" issue: I would suggest you ask User:Orderinchaos, or another admin familiar with the totality of your situation, to make a few changes. Your other account userpages are all tagged as "blocked as a sockpuppet". Those tags ought to be changed if the accounts are not, in fact, blocked as abusive accounts. Also, Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Lwachowski was closed with a finding of abusive sockpuppetry, and the alternate accounts were blocked as such. Since this apparently does not reflect the full situation, it would be useful to amend that page to specify that a) you are in fact connected to those other accounts, but that b) they were not used abusively or in a way which violated WP:SOCK. I would suggest you have Orderinchaos or some other neutral and knowledgable party make these corrections, because those sockpuppet tags and the closed WP:SSP case are among the first things I turned up when looking at the situation. MastCell Talk 19:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I wanted to say thank you for the vote of confidence and that the wikibreak was beneficial. Sorry for the inconvenience. --Nealparr (talk to me) 19:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Mastcell, I raised the issue about the Anthon.Eff who nominated the template for deletion, lost the vote and then went about deleting it from every page once before and then immediately after Neal did. The deletions remain.
That would not seem reasonable. What is the right thing to do? --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 13:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Dispute resolution. MastCell Talk 16:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Lucy, I removed the template from inappropriate articles only. I have no idea what edits Anthon.Eff made, but my removals were because the articles were not predominantly related to subject of the template. I left it on articles where it was appropriate, quite a few articles in fact. That's before my block. After the block I spent hours making the template more visually appealing and fixing the float and collapse function so that it doesn't have to dominate articles. If you'd like to go through WP:DR, it sounds good to me. --Nealparr (talk to me) 18:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
So, can I restore them and then go through WP:DR? Or do I have to accept defeat as the victim of a mental slamdancing episode and then waste contributing time wasting admins' time?
Accuracy to the point, please. Neal removed all the infoboxes on more than one occasion AND many incidents of the other "spiritist and spiritualism" template made by another uninvolved author.
He also chose to entirely re-interpret the 'infobox' and give it an entirely different meaning, some what redundant and duplicative of the 'template' mentioned above ... visually appealing is POV. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 15:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
If there's a dispute about restoring the infoboxes, then yes, you should go through WP:DR. MastCell Talk 16:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
In all politeness, to your summary, "not me" is the answer. Personally, it is not my style to waste some voluntary admins' time and energy. There is a matter of principle here to discuss though, where is the first fault? --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 12:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Did I do something disruptive here?

[4]--Filll (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy probation

Hi. Could you please have a look at the edits of User_talk:86.134.27.61 on the water memory page. He's in violation of the probation, I believe, and has been made aware of it. Thanks --DrEightyEight (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I have placed the IP on 1RR and notified them. Let's try to err on the side of assuming this is a new user unfamiliar with the dispute and try to explain policy without the 3-letter acronyms, but at the same time, if they continue edit-warring rather than discussing on the talk page, I will impose a short block. MastCell Talk 19:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
It turns out it's the infamous Martin Chaplin! -DrEightyEight (talk) 21:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Userfying a template ?

What are the the specifics of userfication does it mean that no other users can adopt it  ? Albion moonlight (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone can use it. Userfying it is more of technical solution that moves it out of template-space. If you want to use it, you just need to put it on your userpage by finding the template and enclosing it in double-brackets (for instance, a couple of my userboxes are in my userspace, and I include them with {{User:MastCell/Strangelove-UBX}}). But anyone would be welcome to use it if they wanted to on their userpages in the same manner. Does that make sense and answer your question? MastCell Talk 21:02, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does and thank you. I also think that it is a good compromise. I hope it wins the day.: Albion moonlight (talk) 01:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Stonewalling Claim

I am putting together diffs to defend myself against the accusation of stonewalling. It is going to take a many hours for me to find an organize my defense. My life intrudes. Should I post that in a new subsection of the current Anthon01 AN/I or should I start a separate AN/I for that. Thank you. Anthon01 (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Will others be required to spend a comparable amount of time to counter these claims and support the blocking admin? I believe the actitivity is prima facie evidence of the behavior, in and of itself. --Filll (talk) 16:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I have been accused of stonewalling. Will I be getting any proof so I can properly defend myself? WP has a culture onto itself; I have no diffs or policy to know what I am defending myself against.
Filll: Your kidding? You want an accusation to stand without any diffs whatsoever? Anthon01 (talk) 18:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikilawyer and engage in tendentious argumentation all you like. I will leave it to others.-Filll (talk) 18:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I see you are very involved in this, even though earlier you said you wanted to stay out of it. All this may be obvious to you, as I suspect you've been here much longer than me. I am new to this process. Are you suggesting that I defend myself without getting diffs the help frame the act I am accused of? I don't even get why this is wikilawyering. Anthon01 (talk)

Being bold on electrotherapy

Kudos! You're a braver (or bolder?) man than I... Tom Harris (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably a case of fools rushing in... MastCell Talk 22:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My Talk Page

Many thanks for moving it back. --Blowdart | talk 22:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. If it happens again, I can move-protect it (or move-semi-protect it). MastCell Talk 22:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm perversely proud it happened. I think there's 4 vandal accounts so far that have popped up after I rolled back some edits and asked for account blocking :) --Blowdart | talk 22:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Orangepith

Hi MastCell. It looks like this user didn't commit any further vandalism since the last warning I gave them a few days ago, other than blanking their talk page, which I think is normally allowed. Do you have any objection to my unblocking as they request? I will guarantee to keep an eye on their future edits. Best wishes, --John (talk) 23:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the talk page blanking was no big deal. I came across that account in response to this report at WP:SSP. It looked like Orangepith (talk · contribs) as well as Dagophet (talk · contribs) and Hippytrout (talk · contribs) (at least) were all engaged in pretty much the same sort of vandalism simultaneously, so it seemed likely these were sockpuppets, or just kids in the same study hall. I blocked them all based on the apparent use of multiple accounts. That said, I have no objection if you'd like to unblock him; the quality of mercy blesseth him that gives and him that takes, and so on... :) MastCell Talk 23:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I have unblocked and now hope I won't live to regret it. Best wishes to you, --John (talk) 23:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. I don't think there's too much to be lost by giving him a second chance. Good luck. MastCell Talk 23:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Usage of "POV Pusher"

I've learned from WP:POVPUSH that it is never civil to call another editor a "POV Pusher". I noticed that another editor (Shot info) was using the term to describe others a lot recently and I tried to politely notify him about the policy and to cease using the term. Unfortunately, he threw it back in my face, now calling me a "POV pusher". See here. I am really trying my best to encourage civility - especially in these trying times. What do you suggest I should do about this continued incivility? Ignore it? I always appreciate your advice, MastCell. Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I find your "concern" a bit "disingenuous" as you like to put it: User_talk:Levine2112/archive6#Please_chill. --Ronz (talk) 02:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I am unclear why you feel that shows me to be disingenuous about my concern to maintain civility. What I see is you asking me to reword for civility and me being open to the idea, then another editor giving me a better option (IMHO), and then I went ahead and re-factored based on both of your advice. Anyhow, I did not post here to once again have you throw my very sincere civility concerns in my face. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
"I am unclear why..." That's the problem. You're unable to see yourself as uncivil or worse, and choose to look to what you see as misbehavior in others as an excuse for your continued misbehavior. If you were sincere, you'd stop wasting time with these complaints of yours, and instead review the times you've gone to WQA with such frivolities. --Ronz (talk) 02:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Or I am legitimately concerned by the usage of the uncivil "POV Pusher" and the fact that both you and Shot info threw my concern back in my face. WP:AGF. Please. -- Levine2112 discuss 03:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Why are you so legitimately concerned that two editors threw your concern back in your face. Is this why you are starting down the path of forum shopping? If you don't like reading my talk page, don't visit my talk page. Actually here's a clue, take a lession from JzG and never visit my talk page again. Do you need some more applications of WP:TROUT or maybe a smack in the face with some WP:SPADE? Shot info (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I was reading User:Jehochman's talk page when I came across your incivility. And no, I was not forum shopping. I posted here because I respect MastCell's neutrality and Wiki know-how. And I posted at Jehochman's page to inform everyone there to remain civil. Please, just don't call other editors "POV Pushers" and you want have to hear from me on this ever again. -- Levine2112 discuss 03:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Enjoy your wikilawyering Levine... Mastcell, your problem it seems, enjoy... Shot info (talk) 03:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Let policy and fairness prevail on Aspergers

In response to SandyGeorgia's warning of off-wiki canvassing and POV-pushing on the Asperger's page, I would ask that a) all parties assume good faith, b) dispassionately adjudge sources without regard to this article's history and c) refrain from inferences about motives and conspiracies. I have not been solicited to contribute here.

The balancing of Due Weight is a tricky and subjective matter, and I would welcome administrative oversight to this article to assist in this.Sitadel (talk) 20:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't be an issue so long as we're all working together, discussing edits, and following policy. I'm not judging your motives, nor implying that you've been solicited to edit. I don't think there's any need for administrative tools per se on the page at present, but I'm happy to watch the discussion and contribute with the goal of building consensus. I think you'll find that the topics you're raising will be reasonably received, as long as the sources are there, and that much of the discussion will revolve around WP:WEIGHT. But like I said at the talk page, no one is out to belittle anyone, and I think everyone has the goal of creating a better and more complete article. MastCell Talk 20:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

So...

I guess it's pretty obvious I've been here before. Don't worry - I'm not gaming the Wikipedian system by any means. Mistery account (talk) 22:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I debated whether to even bother with the {{spa}} tag at the RfA, but I thought in the interest of even-handedness I ought to apply it. After all, if you'd opposed, I certainly would have... MastCell Talk 23:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Delete a page

Hi. Could you delete a page for me? It's Bedford College (London). A new user tried to move a page but copied and pasted into a new title rather than moving. I said I'd help fix for them but obviously I can't move it to that title until it hs been deleted :). Seraphim♥ Whipp 00:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. Good luck. MastCell Talk 00:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank-you kindly :). Seraphim♥ Whipp 00:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

ANI notification

FYI, [5] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

What is it you're saying?

That if you get attacked by another poster, you just should accept it? Because if you object, you're just making trouble? Is that it? --if you're being stalked, just accept it?

Or how about admins? That posters here just have to accept whatever arbitrary action an admin makes? That if an admin is wrong, you just have to suck it up? Is that what this system stands for? Is that what you're saying??? "In wikipedia you have to accept the arbitrary actions of unaccountable admins." That's all you have to say, --that'll end it. I'd have no recourse.

Look, you don't want problems when you log into wikipedia. I don't want problems when I post here. But when an admin makes a wild mistake, and then hides instead of addressing it, I don't see how I cannot try to seek appropriate redress.

His content was wrong. His arbitrary action was wrong. I don't care about his character.129.133.124.199 (talk) 02:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The same stalking editor, Pgagnon999 is now engaged in the same behavior. Why should any user have to accept stalking by another user129.133.124.199 (talk) 02:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Planned Parenthood reversion

In re to your reversion based on "remove POV wording and unreliable source addition (anyone can post to YouTube, it's essentially self-publishing)".

What part of actually recorded conversations (ie FACTS) are you objecting to? Or perhaps you are objecting to someone making note of the FACT that PP breaks (or encourages others to do so which is much the same thing legally) Federal and state notification laws in regard to parental rights (where applicable of course) and in the reporting of statutory rapes? This is NOT my POV. These are just the FACTS. I'm sorry if your POV is offended but you will have to take this up with PP as they created the FACTS, not me. I would appreciate it if you would return the material you deleted. If you feel my precise selection of terms was inappropriate, feel free to NPOV it up. However, deleting FACTS, as I understand the guidelines behind Wikipedia, is expressly frowned upon. JimScott (talk) 02:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. The recording(s) released to YouTube has(have) already been introduced into evidence in various law suits that have been filed against PP. Releasing content to YouTube neither validates nor invalidates the content. Is this a straw man? Using YouTube merely provides a universally convenient method of sharing the content. Please advise what would meet your requirements of validation. Thanks.

MastCell is taking a wikibreak. In MC's absence, allow me to be presumptuous and suggest that if the videos have been intro'd in lawsuits, they ought to be easily referenced in some reliable secondary sources. WP is not about truth, but verifiability. Consider MC's deletion a matter of sources, not facts. Hope this helps! -Phyesalis (talk) 03:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Since my Wikibreak has basically not gotten off the ground thus far, I'll just second what Phyeslais has said. I don't object to facts. I object to bad sourcing. Provide a reliable source, as defined by Wikipedia. Also, despite your aggressive tone, I'm sure you realize that edits like this are not "factual"; they are editorial opinion and generally get reverted on sight anywhere that responsible editors notice them. MastCell Talk 04:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Well at least y'all are amusing if nothing else. "WP is not about truth, but verifiability." I guess I could not have said that better myself. It is indeed unfortunate that your POV that actual recorded voices do not meet the standard of verifiability wasn't more widely embraced whilst Nixon was in office. He might have made it to the end of his term. You will be happy to hear I imagine that PP was partially successful in hiding Rose's recordings after all by forcing the student to turn over her original tapes and notes [like they'll ever be heard from again] with threats of financial and social ruin.[6]
And there we have it. The last gasp of desperation. If one cannot win by discussion, brand the opponent as an aggressor and let mob mentality carry the day.
BTW, you also erased my comment regarding the continued financing of PP with public monies even as they continue to break the law. You may object to the exact phraseology but no amount of NPOV spinning can save you from the cold hard fact that it is true (like that matters) and verifiable that crime does indeed pay handsomely in the present age (ie, lawsuits and Title X). Even the PP article mentions that taxpayer funding amounts to roughly a third of their annual budget. So, in effect, the taxpayers are funding criminal activity. But why should anyone be surprised. Nearly every major corporation has an internal group calculating the cost of compliance against the profits of non-compliance. Otherwise, why would we need the EPA, eh? :-) JimScott (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Er... OK. MastCell Talk 21:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

My apologies

I'm very sorry if you took offense to my comment. My observation shows that, in over several dozens of cases, the articles you have attempted to have deleted from Wikipedia were of a certain type. I, on the other hand, edit articles of all types and if I believed an article was written about a non-notable subject, I would not do so in such a focused manner, on a single subject. Thus, it appears that you are here for a "mission"--to debunk what you consider to be "non-scientific" topics; not by actually adding to articles, but by attempting to have them removed from Wikipedia. This is just my observation. Badagnani (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Always good to follow up a set of personal attacks and bad-faith assumptions with a non-apology apology and a dubious claim to the moral high ground. MastCell Talk 23:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

STATS?

You know anything about STATS? Would you consider them a WP:RS? Yilloslime (t) 05:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I've not heard of them before, but they look like the same Steven Milloy/"Junk Science" approach with a new veneer, from a glance. The list of topics "debunked" is pretty similar to junkscience.com, with a heavy preponderance of the-chemical-industry's-byproducts-are-harmless stuff. I'd be curious to know who funds them. Interestingly, check their "Recommended Resource Link" page - Milloy's site and Michael Fumento's feature prominently, which is quite telling. The only name I immediately recognize on their staff is Sallie Baliunas, the global-warming skeptic - again, not surprising. According to Wikipedia,[verification needed] the president of STATS, Samuel Robert Lichter, is best-known for asserting that the media has a liberal bias, has been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute (held the "DeWitt Wallace Chair in Mass Communications at the American Enterprise Institute") and with Fox News, and founded the Center for Media and Public Affairs with funding from the Scaife Foundation. There is a fair amount of personnel overlap between STATS and the AEI (e.g. James Q. Wilson, Nicholas Eberstadt, etc). STATS also publishes books "debunking" silly ideas like global warming ([7]).
As always, it's informative to run it through the tobacco documents archive. A brief search there turned up this resume (noting that STATS is funded by right-wing ideologues). Lichter, the president and founder of STATS, was of great interest to the good folks at Philip Morris, because his organization was viewed as independent and relatively credible. Additionally, Lichter's group was contracted for a hit job on PBS by Kenneth Tomlinson ([8]). Here's Salon.com on Lichter and his groups: [9].
Sourcewatch is a bit more critical. And glancing at Media Transparency's data on who funds STATS is quite revealing, particularly as this information is nowhere to be found on STATS' own website. Sort of undermines the claim of neutrality, unless you believe that Richard Mellon Scaife generally funds non-partisan endeavors. I think not only is there good evidence that this is a partisan and somewhat unreliable source, but we should probably incorporate some of this information into our stub article on Statistical Assessment Service. MastCell Talk 21:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Wow Mastcell... I was just curious of your general impressions--you've really gone above and beyond the call here. I was going to suggest we use this info to start a page on STATS but I see you've already done that. Yilloslime (t) 22:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I do love the smell of Astroturf in the morning. Actually, there already was an article, started a while back. I just added some sources to it. MastCell Talk 22:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
...I actually figured you already new about these guys. I feel like I've run across them elsewhere on WP, perhaps passive smoking, but I don't remember for sure. Yilloslime (t) 23:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Nah, but thanks to the Web you can confirm your suspicions in a few minutes. I don't recall them from passive smoking; they seem to steer clear of that issue for the most part. Where are they being cited now? MastCell Talk 23:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
phthalates. Yilloslime (t) 23:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Shoulda known. It's been all over the news the last few days. MastCell Talk 23:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You probably already have too many fish to fry, but if you're looking for something to do, check out endocrine disruptor and associated pages like bisphenol A and phthalates. There's any editor bent on inserting {{cn}} tags, and references that "debunk" the theory of endocrine disruption. Oh and he seems hostile to Environ Health Perspect [10] and has placed WikiProject Rational Skepticism templates on the talk pages[11][12], implying by association that the endocrine disruptor hypothesis is in the same league as Dowsing, and reflexology. Or at least that's my interpretation—perhaps I'm not WP:AGFing. (Oh and the reference to STATS has been there for a while, and wasn't necessarily added by this editor.) I admit these pages are poorly written to begin with and that the topic itself is controversial. While there aren't tons of studies conclusively demonstrating endocrine disruption in humans, my take is that this is new area--hence the paucity of human epidemiological studies--and there is plenty of evidence from in vitro and animal studies that suggesst endocrine disruption is real. It certainly hasn't been disproven. Am I way off? Anyways, I encourage you take a look, but I suspect you're too busy. Yilloslime (t) 03:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

← I'll take a look. In theory, it should be relatively easy to summarize the issue: there is evidence of endocrine disruption in animal models. Some studies have found correlations in humans, though others have not, and the area remains one of active investigation and scientific controversy. Environmental-health groups interpret the data to mean that phthalates are harmful and should be withdrawn; more industry-friendly groups view phthalates as a "health scare". But of course, when the edits start flying it's always hard to achieve balance. I don't think I'm going to edit the article at present, because I'm trying to cut back on Wikipedia in general, but I'll keep an eye out. MastCell Talk 17:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Semiprotection request for Dana Ullman

Hi MastCell... lots of IP revert activity going on at Dana Ullman (a prominent homeopath who also has an account here and has expressed valid concerns about the article on the talk page, but is refraining from editing it). Wondering if semiprotection might be a good idea given the BLP issues at stake. best, Jim Butler (t) 08:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, a very brief look shows that at least one IP, 89.113.77.64 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS), is a TOR proxy, which I've hardblocked. I'm leaning towards semiprotection - while some of the edits are at least reasonable if arguable, it's generally not a good idea to have open proxies at work on a contentious BLP. MastCell Talk 16:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've found and blocked at least 6 TOR open proxies which have worked on the Dana Ullman article in the past few days, so consider it semi-protected. I went with 3 weeks - if problems recur after that, let me know and I'll extend it. MastCell Talk 17:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Agree with all you said and did, and many thanks for looking into the IP's. cheers, Jim Butler (t) 07:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

edit warring

Mast Cell,

Sounds good. I'm a little unclear regarding the 3RR (24 hours, week, etc.) and really am trying to increase the scientific standards of the chiropractic article by providing good references to support my edits. I appreciate your suggestions and feel that the actions taken against Mr. Mccready, specifically, will improve the constructive dialogue with respect to edits.

Cheers, EBDCM (talk) 17:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind telling me information?

What is a TOR account? I would appreciate knowing what it is but I also assume it's something that administrators tend to so if it's none of my business, just say so, you won't hurt my feelings! :) --CrohnieGalTalk 18:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

TOR is an implementation of an open proxy (we have an article on it at Tor (anonymity network)). I'm not particularly technically savvy, but my understanding is that Tor and other open proxies allow people to connect to the Internet with full anonymity - that is, they cannot be traced to a hard-and-fast IP address. There are multiple uses, including privacy and the ability to use the Internet safely in countries which monitor or restrict their citizens' use of or access to the net.
Open proxies (including Tor) are a tricky issue on Wikipedia (see WP:OP). The problem is that checkusers rely on IP data to investigate sockpuppetry. Editors on Wikipedia using an open proxy could be anyone's sockpuppet, but they cannot be tracked by checkuser or IP data. So their use, while not completely prohibited, is dicey, particularly on articles where there are pre-existing concerns about sockpuppetry etc. On an article like Dana Ullman, where there are WP:BLP issues and multiple IP's edit-warring, I'm firmly of the opinion that we're better off without Tor-proxy operators. MastCell Talk 20:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Block shortening

All apologies. It appeared to me that this was only the second serious 3RR vio. Didn't intend to cause a rift. My bad. Lara❤Love 04:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Abbott Tom

I think Abbott Tom is a reasonable solution! Others have pointed out that other articles have been secretly edited by someone in a company or a government office only to be discovered by others looking up the IP. If this new user openly states who he is, there is no longer an issue of secret identity or that a company employee is editing.

The name "Abbott Tom" solves the issue of not having a corporate name. It is even more open than a non-descript name, such as User:TomBrown, whose user page discloses the man's employer since not everyone looks at the user pages.

If Tom wants to preapprove all his edits with his employer, he is free to do so. Likewise, a child can edit in WP and ask Mum to read over the edits first. Archtransit (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think it's a reasonable suggestion. I don't see a problem there. MastCell Talk 04:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly Noteworthy?

Hi,am writing to you as a member of the team that writes RecallPlus study software. We direct our users, if they wish to help us, to write about us online at places, including Wikipedia, should they feel enthusiastic. We have been informed in January by one of our users that we were removed due to 'noteworthiness' issues. Obviously we don't have a good feel for what the content was that was there, though we have seen it previously. We are a small group of programmers and try our best to provide a product which is constantly improving with users feeding us back where go go right and where we go wrong, both of which are common. The reasons we feel that RecallPlus is worth a small note in Wikipedia is because since it appeared online in 2002 it is the ONLY study software by some definitions (i.e. data gathering + help you learn the data = study software). If you choose to believe there might be another definition then either way, if you search study software in google and you will find only us there aside from bible software and sometimes the pure data gathering program - gobinder. Study software itself is the ABSOLUTE DOMINANT FUTURE of study. Improving speech recognition software (see standard with all vista releases) and improved computing mobility (wearable will be soon), means students will constantly use software to help them with their study.

So - not sure exactly how you judge notability, but if you consider the future is for students to constantly interact with some software that helps them in their studying (likely) AND see what software is available (google it), then you will find us and that is it.

Everyone has an opinion obviously :-)

Thanks in advance for considering putting maybe even just a small note back in about us. Don't know what was there previously and we are not ethically able to edit it ourselves so will not even consider 'going there'.

Regards Dr Adrian Ternouth + RecallPlus Team —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aternouth (talk • contribs) 07:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I've responded on your user-talk page. MastCell Talk 03:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Last straw?

Hi Mastcell. I think it's time to consider a long-term sanction on Mccready (talk · contribs · logs · block log). Since his most recent block expired he's ignored the suggestions to stick to 1RR, reverting acupuncture twice in a 24-hour period with plenty of attendant disruption. The first was along the lines of his previous reverts, with which five different editors have disagreed.[13][14][15][16][17]. The second deleted the entire introductory paragraph, resulting in this astonishingly unencyclopedic first sentence: "Many Cochrane reviews of acupuncture say there is not enough evidence to determine its efficacy.". Of course, his response was to deny any wrongdoing; only after three rounds of talk did he acknowledge that something was wrong with his edit (see this section at talk). This is at best dense and sloppy. In any case it's very disruptive.

To be fair, at times he is a very good, wikignome-type copy editor, and has made some fine, substantive, scientific contributions. Too often, though, his pattern is to make drive-by, contentious edits to lead sections without ample discussion or even checking to see if his changes to the lead reflect the article body, and then edit warring and digging in. At this point he's battling with editors on every side of the issue, convinced that he alone is right. All the evidence one needs is on his talk page (version as of 06:25, 11 February 2008).

IMO, he is doing more harm than good on WP, at least with alt-med articles and topics he considers "pseudoscience". FloNight in September 2006 issued a community ban on editing such articles[18], and I think it's time for something like that again, perhaps of indefinite duration. That ban was itself a "second chance" after egregious behavior: FloNight stated that she had considered arbitration[19][20], but wanted to give Mccready a chance to improve. His contribution history and block log show what happened next: he disappeared for about a year and then came back in August 2007 with the same approach to editing. My opinion is that this disruption and recidivism would, if presented in arbitration, result in a ban, and that perhaps a dozen editors would produce arguments and diffs similar to mine, with many more voicing general agreement. I am happy to go that route, but suggest not wasting the ArbCom's time, and just doing a community block, or at least a topic ban from alt-med and pseudoscience articles.

One could argue that I'm biased, since I'm one of the editors he's clashed with most, and maybe I'm just fed up with the gratuitous personal attacks[21][22]. However, I think the evidence suggests that he is a chronic "problem editor". Most editors manage to edit without getting blocked or persistently irritating other editors across the spectrum ("skeptical" and "proponent" and otherwise).

Sorry to waste your time with this request for bucket and mop-wielding. Only doing so because I think this editor has persistently crossed the line (or intentionally stayed as close as possible to what he believes it to be), and become a net disruption to WP. best regards, Jim Butler (t) 08:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Now 3RR at acupuncture: first, second, third, although the third is probably defensible as a re-do of the botched second one. Still, skirting the line. --Jim Butler (t) 09:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
There is clearly a problem here. I'm thinking about the best way to address it. My instinct would be to place Mccready on 1RR on these articles to address the constant edit-warring. I've left a note for User:Davidruben to get his thoughts. I agree with you that ArbCom would probably deal with him pretty harshly given the history, and it may come to that since he appears to reject any outside attempts to address his behavior by impugning the integrity, experience, etc of the admin in question. First, though, let me see what David thinks. Personally, I'd like to give 1RR a try. I am not in favor of continually tolerating obviously disruptive presences on these articles, since it's clear where that will get us. MastCell Talk 17:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
(partly cross-posted from David's page) Many thanks, MastCell, for looking into this. If you haven't read it already, please see earlier discussion of community ban at ANI, and also this, which epitomizes all that's been wrong with his approach since he started here. (Still doesn't grok WP:LEAD, or for that matter, WP:NPOV.) Maybe 1RR is the way to go, but I suspect he'll just keep making the same revert every 24-25 hours. My patience is exhausted, if you hadn't guessed. :-) How about not letting him edit lead sections? Seriously. He does so much damage with that alone. regards, Jim Butler (t) 20:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

EBDCM

Doesn't this editor have a strong WP:COI? I have seen him on articles but the latest was chiroprator and he is being uncivil. I have left messages (2 I believe) to talk about the edits and not the editor but I have been ignored. QuackGuru gets on a lot peoples nerves but calling him out like has been done is wrong in my opinion. What are your thoughts? --CrohnieGalTalk 15:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that being a chiropractor per se creates an insurmountable conflict of interest - for example, Dematt edits very well on chiro-related pages. If EBDCM is violating other policies then that would certainly be an issue. Looking at the exchanges in question, I would say he's a bit hot under the collar and is certainly stretching civility. On the other hand, QuackGuru is not exactly an angel himself. The best approach would be EBDCM to ease up and focus the discussion on Citizendium as a source rather than on QuackGuru. MastCell Talk 17:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
[23][24][25][26] Is this behaviour proper? QuackGuru (talk) 02:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I see you've also posted this to WP:AN/I, so if I comment it will be there. MastCell Talk 04:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Dematt commented in between my comments again.[27] This is not the first time he had done this and was warned about this previously.[28] QuackGuru (talk) 05:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

re User:Twicemost

Providing you believe that they fully understand that threats, etc. are not tolerated, and they apologise for past examples, I see no reason why they should not be unblocked immediately. I don't see what a week long or even day long block is going to achieve prevention wise; if they have got the point then let them back in. Do you want me to do the unblock, or will you do it? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I think he's most of the way there. My gut feeling is to unblock him now with a clear understanding that any further threats, sarcastic or not, will result in reblocking, and see what he does. I'll leave it up to you to unblock, assuming you're comfortable with the level of understanding/contrition he's expressed (unless you'd rather I do the honors). Thanks for looking at it. MastCell Talk 21:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note - sorry I went 'missing' after leaving the first message. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

re RfC

That would be a resounding yes. I listed the warnings that Strider12 deleted with links on her talk page ("January 2008"). I was going to do it this past weekend but RoyBoy has really exhausted my patience for this kind of thing right now. If you'd get the ball rolling, I'm right there with you. I mean COI, SPA, tendentiousness (just look at the average length of her posts - we've got whole archive pages of nothing but the same argument over and over), inappropriate content on user pages, and 3RR: it's a duck. --Phyesalis (talk) 23:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

So when will the RfC be? The edit war has got to stop. миражinred (speak, my child...) 20:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Alzheimer's disease

A much calmer article, which I need to do more on Wikipedia. It's starting to round into shape, but a couple of sections, especially Pathophysiology, could use your help, because it relies on some biochemistry that is unfamiliar to me. Of course, when I took biochemistry, I believe Watson and Crick were grad students in the UK.  :) All right, I'm not that old, but when I took Biochem in college and grad school, it was still ethical to culture fetal cells. Anyways, it's nice civil article, and I've been a good boy. I think we can get it better, and ask an editor like SandyGeorgia to clean up the writing, and it could be a very nice article. I know you're busy, so whatever you can do will be great. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Prose isn't my strength; I can look at MEDMOS, MOS and citation issues when you're ready. The *best* editor I know for looking at prose (when you get to that point) in medical articles is Colin (talk · contribs). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
But you're really good at getting things MOS'ed.  :) Can you take a look? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Today is spa day ... and then there's Valentine's and all that jazz, plus the tree guys making major dents in my property ... ping me in a few days if I forget. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I need a spa day. Actually, I just need a day off anywhere there are no BlackBerry's, email, phones, conferences, meetings, computers, and bad air. I'll ping you if I find it. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Since you're a "Darwinist", you should try the Galapagos. MastCell Talk 19:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
NOOOOOOOOO. I've actually deleted all of the Evolution articles from my watchlist. I'm keeping Homeopathy, just to keep me insane!!! But I'm sticking with articles in which I have some knowledge, interest, and background. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 19:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Psychiatric Portal?

Is there one? If so, I cannot find it. Currently Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Reactive attachment disorder is up for FAC. I hope this does not qualify as canvassing, but I do wish some knowledgeable people would weigh in with opinions or help with the article, as Reactive attachment disorder is a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis. Mattisse 22:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if there's a psych portal, though there probably ought to be one - are you volunteering? :) You could consider a note at WT:MED (the Medicine WikiProject), if you haven't already - there are a lot of knowledgable folks (though no psychiatrists that I'm aware of) and good copyeditors on that project with a lot of experience bringing articles up to FA status. Hope that's helpful. MastCell Talk 22:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll try that. Mattisse 23:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

AIDS

I have made a change to the AIDS reappraisal page that I know you disagree with, but which I'm confident is correct. Please discuss the issue; it does not seem reasonable to make changes like this without offering a proper justification. Skoojal (talk) 03:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Er, I did offer a justification, and you appear to be the one changing a long-stable article. But I'll discuss further on the article talk page. MastCell Talk 04:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
The only potentially relevant justification that you offered was that it was misleading to say that most members of the scientific community accept the HIV theory, since it might imply that the level of disagreement was significant. Sure, that would be misleading, but the article could easily be made more literally accurate without implying that - just say that the overwhelming majority accept HIV. Skoojal (talk) 05:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Ping

Thanks - and returned. Cheers--VS talk 05:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

AIDS Reapraisal

MastCell, I reverted the wording "An Overwhelming Majority". I agreed with your arguement and I feel that the way it was used in the article lent itself to more POV. I tried to explain to the editor that in order for that wording to be used, an interview would have to be conducted with every single member of the scientific community and then it would be a correct statemtn to use if they did in fact agree to some degree. The fact that there is a select few does not make it "An Overwhelming Majority". I just stumbled onto this issue while I was patrolling recent changes. But I agree with you 100% in your viewpoint. The one thing I can say is that, "I think this will be a wonderful editor with a little time under their belt with some more experience!" Canyouhearmenow 06:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I accept that I may not have made the change in an ideal way, but it's still perfectly clear to me how the introduction to that article should read. Canyouhearmenow's arguments about what wording should be used I find not coherent enough to be comprehensible. Skoojal (talk) 09:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
We should probably centralize discussion at the article talk page. It may be worth soliciting opinions from other editors of the article - User:Trezatium comes to mind, though I'm not sure how active s/he is at present. MastCell Talk 17:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Canvassing block

Just to let you know, I've left a comment on Quackguru's talkpage. Mccready (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I answered there, as at least some of your questions appeared to be directed to me. QuackGuru immediately erased my comments, so I'll leave well enough alone there. They're in the page history if you're interested. MastCell Talk 00:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Probation question

I am no longer mentoring Whig; he's drifted away and I'm not bothering to chase him down. Whig's a big boy and can go it alone if he feels like it. However, he's still under the first three restrictions listed here, due to them being imposed on him by the community as opposed arbitrary stuff from me. east.718 at 02:50, February 15, 2008

Late reply to your ANI reply

Mastcell, thanks for your message and sorry it's taken me a week to get back to you. I didn't mean to be critical about what you wrote on Adam's decision to leave. I grabbed your phrase late at night and I understand what you wanted to say. However, everything I wrote holds true. We need to work out a way of keeping democracy on Wikipedia, and freedom for all constructive contributors to contribute, while at the same time realising that Wiki is now a victim of its own success in the sense that those that know much about certain fields now spend so much time in 'negative' actions like reverting nonsenses rather than adding content. It seems to me that the scientists are asking for help that they don't feel they are getting, and they are blaming the very democracy of the encyclopedia for its ills. They feel Wiki is an uphill struggle rather than a pleasure.

Regarding the comment I made about the drive-by taggings, if you've got half an hour, I'd ask you to have a look at the articles in question, Gregorij Rožman, Lyenko Urbanchich and Slovensko domobranstvo. The problem I face is summed up by the editor's contribution here [29]. S/he has never added anything to any of the articles other than the tags. To me comments like "When I will do it (edit the articles), I don't know. Maybe soon" means that the editor believes that question marks can be put over articles indefinitely with no necessity to bring justifications to the table. I've explained Wiki policy on this, without response [30]. If you've got time, please review the talk pages (most of it's on Talk:Gregorij Rožman), and then I'd ask you to ask the editor to move things along or be aware that tags are not a substitute for contributions. Many thanks.AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Sézary's disease

Hi MastCell, I found you via JFD and he said you may be able to help me. I'm looking for an image relating to Sézary's disease (preferably one displaying erythroderma or lymphadenopathy?) to help me expand the article and was wondering if you had any, or if you know where I can find one thats free for use in the public domain? Regards, CycloneNimrod (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me see what I can do... give me a couple of days. I don't have anything on file, but I might be able to dig something up. MastCell Talk 21:50, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, it's appreciated :) CycloneNimrod (talk) 22:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

disruption???

OK..so please explain to me how exactly it is disruption, to post up a reference to someone with these credits??? a far out source??? not mainstream enough that he was Director Harvard-Radcliffe Mental Hospital Volunteer Program???...NIMH what is that? some radical terrorist organization??? Johns Hopkins? isnt that some preschool somewhere???

please do not harrass wikipedia users, that was a legitimate reference, and gives readers a chance to verify that there is an issue about this drug being defective and poisoning people, and that court cases are being won for vast sums of money over this and like drugs! i will wait for a response, and then will shift this issue to the main page actually, where it belongs, and not the talk page. This page haloperidol is mainly unreferenced and not backed up by anything, and this reference to this medical doctor is an excellent one!!! here is the link, but i put it here for u too! http://breggin.com/resume.html

sorri to add so much to ur page, im just trying to establish whether reinstating this reference is gonna make u freeze wikipedia edits from this university account is all...129.132.128.136 (talk) 17:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Breggin.com may be acceptable as a borderline reliable source, subject to Wikipedia's policies on undue weight and so forth. Again, you need to discuss this issue on the article talk page. Before doing so, please read the talk page guidelines. My warnings to you were based on the fact that you're using the talk page as a platform for various argumentation and conspiracy theories. It's not a discussion forum. Focus your post on what you'd like to see in the article, propose concrete wording, list the sources you'd like to use, and avoid excessive rhetoric. Then wait for a response. Give it a day or two. Discussion will take place. Hopefully, a consensus will be reached. That's how things are generally supposed to work here. MastCell Talk 17:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Fw: Notice of Arbitration Committee decision and discretionary sanctions (User talk:ForeverFreeSpeech)

He wants you to look at his reply to your comment, located here. --SyntaxError55 talk 20:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I did see his comment on WP:AN/I. MastCell Talk 20:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Rose Jackson- second deletion issue

I've asked some of the previous AfD participants to nominate it, but after several days I'm losing faith. I don't suppose you can throw up an AfD for this? Dunno how to second (or third in this case) nom itJJJ999 (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Collective punishment

For civility's sake I believe I should inform you of the message I have just left for Master of Puppets: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Master_of_Puppets&curid=3258122&diff=193447683&oldid=193439563

I also would like to ask you to support the creation of a request for comment regarding the article in question, Collective punishment. As I have reviewed the edits and seen people coming in to dismiss one side and push the POV of another, and accuse each other of doing same, it appears to me that the article suffers for the unduly large emphasis on Israel and accusations of Israeli actions being collective punishment. This includes, unfortunately, administrators who believe their own POV to be "correct" and who accuse editors of "vandalism" when it is actually a content dispute.

Since the Israeli/Palestinian issue is so hotly contested, this is natural, but I believe that we should remember that Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox and act accordingly. The Israeli/Palestinian issue could easily be moved to its own section on Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead. This would benefit Wikipedia by making the Collective punishment article easier for editors to improve without tripping over the number of people who unfortunately will edit war anything related to the Israeli/Palestinian issue.

Thanks, M1rth (talk) 07:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't need my support to open a content RfC - you can just do it. I have no interest in editing in the noxious atmosphere which pervades Israeli-Palestinian articles on Wikipedia. I am in general agreement with your suggestion that we ought not to turn every tangentially related article into an auxiliary battleground. MastCell Talk 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I have created the request for comment (at least, I think I did it right). I would like to ask you to add your thoughts if you feel so inclined. Additionally, if you could check the creation in case I did something wrong or missed a step, it would be appreciated. Thanks. M1rth (talk) 07:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

In particular, I'm not sure if I should have listed it as politics or some other category. Your suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks. M1rth (talk) 07:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The RfC looks fine. I think listing under politics is appropriate, since the issues under discussion are political. The challenge will be getting actual uninvolved input as opposed to the usual well-known faces and opinions. Best of luck. MastCell Talk 22:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

A favor to ask

Would you keep an eye on Free Republic, specifically the talk page for me? i do not have the ability to monitor this heavily partisan topic for a few days while recovering from injury, and many of the players should be familiar to you, as several of the same folks from the waterboarding issues are over there. I have set some informal rules to go with the new sanctions (the general sanctions are listed on the page), that all additions and subtractions other than minor grammatical fixes must be discussed onthe talk page. Thanks. SirFozzie (talk) 00:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Argh - what have I ever done to you that you should afflict me thus? :) I will watchlist it and try to respond to issues; you can direct people to me while you're recovering. Hope you're doing OK and feeling better soon. MastCell Talk 00:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Feedback appreciated

on the NPOV talk page. Anthon01 (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Advice

I self-reverted one of the items I previously reverted on the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I reverted an edit that NCDave made that put a Congressional Report under the category "Pro-choice" cits. May I ask a favor? Will you look over my reverts and the 3R board website? I don't know if I did anything wrong, so I don't know what to self-revert.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 04:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

SirFozzie referral

Pardon, but I wish to impose on you to the extent that you would express an opinion or two on whether Shibumi2's two reversions of discussed and sourced content yesterday on the Free Republic page fit with Fozzie and your and the Arbcom's recent guidance, also he expresses a desire in talk to use an affidavit as a RS to support a point of view he acknowledges pushing. Thanks, and sorry for the interruption. Eschoir (talk) 23:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like he's currently seeking wider input on the issue on the article talk page. If he edit-wars at all, then I'd be inclined to place him on 1RR, but so long as he's made only the one revert (two consecutive edits = 1 revert) and raised the issue on the talk page, I don't see anything actionable. I'm not going to comment on the specific content issues, though I will say that WP:NOR and WP:PSTS generally indicate that it's inappropriate to use primary sources (e.g. court testimony, affadavits) to advance a point or interpretation; primary sources should never be used to supercede, contradict, or rebut what reliable secondary sources have said. MastCell Talk 23:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for looking. Eschoir (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Can you help me?

This has nothing to do with the edit warring that we have been dealing with now, but I wanted to ask you something since you are an admin. Anon IP 89.108.143.2 has been continuously spamming Haifa Wehbe despite reversion by several editors. I'm getting a bit tired of bombing his talk page with warnings. How can I block him? мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 00:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You can't, but I can.[31] Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review of Category:Wikipedians who support Hezbollah

Hi. I noticed you took part in the debate atWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Hezbollah userbox and I was wondering if you might want to participate in a debate I have started at deletion review of this category and accompanying userboxes here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

159.105.80.141

Hi MastCell. You've tried warning him, I've tried to tell him and make it explicit to him and others why what he spouts doesn't belong here, but he insists on using article talk pages for purposes of no benefit to Wikipedia. WilliamH (talk) 17:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I had taken to simply removing all of his inappropriate posts under the talk page guidelines, but inevitably, given the controversial issues he pushes, people respond to him and feed into his trolling. I've been bold and blocked the IP for 1 month to give everyone a break. He appears to be the only anonymous IP editor from that particular library IP, so hopefully there will be little or no collateral damage there. MastCell Talk 19:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
That's super, thanks for your help. Regards, WilliamH (talk) 20:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

User:131.50.151.9

This IP was caught up in an autoblock on ProtektYaSelf: see User talk:SpudHawg948. You may wish to consider, given evidence you are familiar with, a longer block on the IP itself. The Evil Spartan (talk) 15:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Per SpudHawg's explanation, it appears that is a widely shared IP from an Air Force Base - therefore, I'm not going to block it (too much collateral damage), and I agree with the unblock and lifting of the autoblock by Yamla. Thanks for the heads-up, though - it's appreciated. MastCell Talk 16:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

FYI, in regards to an AE discussion you took part in

FYI, in regards to an AE discussion you took part in. Lawrence § t/e 00:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal RE: User:Mikkalai's vow of silence

You are a previous participant in the discussion at WP:AN/I about User:Mikkalai's vow of silence. This is to inform you, that I have made a proposal for resolution for the issue. I am informing all of the users who participated, so this is not an attempt to WP:CANVAS support for any particular position.

The proposal can be found at: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed resolution (Mikkalai vow of silence) Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 01:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Equazcion

I don't usually whine, and I'm not sure that's what I'm doing, but I just wanted to point out what a strange contributor Equazcion has been. For someone who doesn't no longer really participates in the David Reardon or Abortion and Mental Health discussions, I'm baffled as to why s/he will occasionally come to the page and [make claims] that I am part of a duo of "prepubescent children," and that I "display poor behavior" before threatening to ANI me, etc. He then tops it off with "I'll let you know when the ANI posting is ready, and you can tell everyone there how I attacked you."

I bring this to your attention because I found this [32] - a discussion in which you were involved that I was unaware of prior to today. I don't normally pay much attention to Equazcion; however, it just strikes me as odd that Equazcion's only consistent participation is to compare me to Strider. Do you have any thoughts? I'm going to cross-post this to мirаgeinred's talk page as well.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 02:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I used to contribute quite regularly to the mental health article and to the corresponding talk page discussions. I stopped because of you, Alice. However I do still watch. It doesn't make much sense to me to participate in the bulk of the discussions, because as I've said before, I've tried and it never leads anywhere. After a while of observing from afar, I came back to point out a couple of unrelated issues, and finally to comment, once, on you and Strider. I haven't "occasionally" come back to berate you. I was a regular contributor who left once in disgust, and after watching the activity on the article for some time, came back once again to announce that I planned to put a stop to it. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:53, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)

The constant comparisons to Strider don't make sense to me. Neither does this idea that I somehow drove you off. We had one discussion where we disagreed. I didn't call you names, I didn't berate you. We disagreed about the merits of one version of the beginning paragraph. To come back to the article every-so-often to make nonsensical claims about me does no one any good.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 03:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Again I don't come back every so often to make claims. I came back once. And whether or not they're nonsensical will be for others to decide. As for our discussions, you may not have berated me (although that's an iffy statement in my opinion). But my complaints are due to your editing practices, not our discussions. My comparisons to Strider are based on the fact that you both have, as I see it, disrupted the article. They of course don't make sense to you, since you think Strider was disruptive while you were not. I think otherwise. This is why outside opinions would be valuable. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:08, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Okay, then to put any disruptive editing in context would be helpful. For example, let's look at how many times I reverted vs. other editors in the history of that page within the last couple of month's edits. This is what I see (in descending order - not including vandalism):
List of reverts 
Lots of people were reverting lots of people - par for the course on a controversial page. Again, why single out me? I can see if I were the only one reverting, or if I also conducted disruptive edits in other ways, but I don't understand why I am being singled out now. Is this to make up for MastCell's ANI on Strider in some way?[35]
--IronAngelAlice (talk) 05:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know MastCell started an ANI for Strider, so no. Anyway, number of reverts isn't the issue. The contexts (and edit summaries) of those reverts is. And even if we're comparing number of reverts, and if we're going according to this list you've posted, you've got more reverts under your belt than anyone else, if you count 'em up. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:39, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)
He told you about it here, two weeks ago: [36]
You responded several times.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 05:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
He told me he was planning an RfC, and said that he would let me know when it was ready. He never did let me know. I said that once it was posted I would comment there; but I never did, because I didn't know about it. Equazcion •✗/C • 06:00, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)

The point being, you had an idea that it was coming. I feel as though your accusations against me are a response to the ANI against Strider - not because, all of a sudden, yo felt the need to "straighten me out."--IronAngelAlice (talk) 06:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

For some reason you're working under the assumption that I'm accusing you and you alone. My comments regarded both of you equally. I'm sorry if you feel singled-out, but that's really your own invention. The only reason I'm addressing you alone now and not Strider is because you have and continue to complain; Strider hasn't. Equazcion •✗/C • 06:07, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)
This is silly. I'm going to bed. Let me know when you've "gathered all the evidence," against me.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 06:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Will do. I've exhausted my goodnight sendoffs on the other talk pages in which you've announced your're going to bed... Don't let the bedbugs bite? Equazcion •✗/C • 06:17, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)
  • Equazcion, you say:"you've got more reverts under your belt than anyone else, if you count 'em up" Here is my respsonse: (1)I have only slightly more reverts (2)that's because I've been one of the most consistent contributors to the article.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Equazcion, I think at this point it is simply best if I WP:SHUN. You aren't interested in making the article in question better. You seem interested only in making judgements about me, though you have never engaged my talk page.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 14:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Jeez. I can't believe you actually copied this comment to all three pages. See my answers at mine and Saranghaes talk pages. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:05, 1 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Er... I apologize for not notifying either IronAngelAlice or Equazcion of the opening of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Strider12. Strider12 began canvassing people to comment at the RfC who were poorly disposed toward me; I thought it best not to even give the appearance of reciprocating, as I know that both of you are not particularly high on Strider12's editing. Anyhow, it's open and you're both welcome to comment on whatever you see fit. MastCell Talk 04:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV DUE

Dear MastCell,

I thank you for your contributions concerning my proposals to get more clarity on the DUE WEIGHT issue. I've drafted new proposals, and would welcome any improvement or critique you may have! Thx,  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 09:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

re: Primary Secondary Sources

I commented at User talk:Strider12#re: Primary Secondary Sources. I welcome your comments there. Sbowers3 (talk) 13:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I have more questions at the same place. (It's a bit strange that you and I are conversing on another user's talk page without anything from that user but that's where it all started so I guess it makes sense to stay there.) Sbowers3 (talk) 23:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Interested?

...in helping with this? Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - did you really want help with the disambig page for the word this, or is there a missing wikilink? :) MastCell Talk 02:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh good grief. I meant this, not this. Do I at least get partial credit for surreal humor? Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
At least I caught it before I got involved in whatever picayune Wikipedia dispute is undoubtedly raging at this. MastCell Talk 03:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Ferrylodge

Answer on my talk page. Follow links if interested. — Rlevse • Talk • 04:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I see your point now. My suggestion is start a new thread at clarification as the one I closed I was actually told to close. Mention the old one, link to where I archived it, and then basically say what you just put on my talk page. Then email NYB and ask him directly about it. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. MastCell Talk 19:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Koop

I wanted to alert you that I have now responded to you regarding Surgeon General Koop, in case you are not watching the page any longer. See here.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for revisiting the issue with me. However, I believe that you have repeatedly misrepresented what I have said today.[37][38] I never said once that Science, the New York Times, New Scientist, or Washington Monthly are incorrect. I simply said that a quote from the hearing transcript will provide MORE info than is provided in those publications. I still believe that. While your quote from Science magazine is interesting, it costs money to access that article, and furthermore the brief quote from the hearing provides interesting and useful info. Page 14 of the congressional report cited by Science magazine itself quotes other sources.Ferrylodge (talk) 21:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the issue can be crystallized very simply. We should rely on what reliable secondary sources have said about a subject as the basis for our articles here, rather than editorially selecting specific passages from primary sources which provide "MORE" info. Of course, it would provide "MORE info" to quote the entire transcript - that's not a justification in and of itself, as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and furthermore the selection of quotes from a 340-page transcript is itself an editorial judgement. When that editorial judgement supercedes the context provided by reliable secondary sources, then we have original research and synthesis. MastCell Talk 21:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia guidelines specifically allow use of primary sources if it is done properly, and that was the case here. I have seen no guideline and no sensible reason why a Wikipedia editor may not quote a brief answer to a congressman's question, if that answer is already referenced in reliable secondary sources. The issue here was how Surgeon General Koop used the word "minuscule." Focusing on the answer where he used that word is not original research, IMHO, and doing so confines the Wikipedia editor to a minuscule part of the hearing transcript.
So what's the next step? Are you going to still try to ban me from the abortion article?Ferrylodge (talk) 21:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I continue to think that your approach to these articles generates much more heat than light. If the issue was simply to include the "overwhelming" context, then we could have saved about 80kb of bickering had it been approached with something remotely resembling good faith (rather than this). I'm more than happy to review available sources, and I'm not going to exclude something that I find adequately referenced on some sort of ideological grounds - after all, I could have just neglected to mention or selectively quoted the Science piece, which I was re-reading this morning, rather than bringing it up. Given the history here and the ongoing issues, I continue to think that Wikipedia would be better served without your participation on those talk pages. I'm hardly the final word on the subject, but that's my opinion. MastCell Talk 22:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, we'll leave it at that then, and see what happens. I still think that the hearing quote would be better than your Science quote, and certainly the former could have been included pending the latter. And FYI, another editor involved here (IAA) is perhaps the most aggressive POV-pusher I've ever encountered, and Severa can attest to that, despite your recent complaint to ArbCom that Severa's departure was my fault.Ferrylodge (talk) 22:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think Severa's departure was entirely "your fault"; the corrosive atmosphere at those articles wore her down, and IAA was undoubtedly part of that atmosphere. I'm amazed that anyone can hang around those articles for long with what goes on there. I do think it is accurate to say that you played a role in driving her off Wikipedia, which was my actual statement, though I don't want to put words in her mouth. That's just my take on what I see on-wiki. MastCell Talk 22:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe you admins could arrange a revolving duty. It seems a shame to leave those articles (especially the fetus article) to the wolves, regardless of whether you think I'm one of those wolves.Ferrylodge (talk) 22:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

← Articles on these kind of highly controversial subjects, where everyone feels strongly but no view is demonstrably "right" or "wrong", are always a problem. The Israeli-Palestinian articles are even worse in that regard. The problem is that admins are also editors, so they tend to have opinions on the content. Also, it's an unpaid position, so few people are willing to spend a lot of time sorting through vitriol and getting dragged in themselves in order to try and sort these things out. I try to avoid editing/adminning on abortion-related articles for that reason - my interest is pretty much restricted to the overlap between the abortion debate and science, which is where something like abortion and mental health comes in. If you have a suggestion on how these kinds of articles could be better maintained, and how the atmosphere could be improved, then I think the community in general would be interested in hearing it. MastCell Talk 22:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If you tell me what Wikipedia forum would be best, I'll consider doing it.Ferrylodge (talk) 23:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

re: Strider12 RFC

I did say that "The evidence section is good, better than many RFCs I have seen. The structure of the section is good - it lists particular policies and diffs". Of all the current RFCs yours might have the best set of policies/guidelines and diffs - but it could be better.

  • You provided no diffs for your assertion "Continuously reinserts the same disputed material, often 2-3 times a day".
  • You provided but a single diff for "Continuously denigrates the New York Times and PBS" - one diff doesn't show "continuously".

Still, I wish that every RFC provided as many diffs as you did.

After all the diffs you showed in the evidence of behavior section it was all the more surprising that you provided so few diffs in the evidence of trying to resolve the dispute section. I'm not a masochist; I don't want to wade through those long talk pages, but I would have glanced at half a dozen diffs.

Strider12 is a relatively new editor and she waded into a naturally contentious topic. It's not a bit surprising that she would make mistakes. But from the evidence that you provided - particularly from the dates of the diffs - she has improved since you tried to resolve the dispute. And you are to be commended for trying to resolve it through your lengthy comments of about 21 January. I said that your comments were "good evidence of trying to resolve the dispute." Since that date, looking at the evidence you provided, I saw considerable improvement in that there was no evidence of problems with the several policies I cited.

I do believe that if we warned users more frequently and explained to them specifically what they did wrong - and followed up with progressively longer blocks - that we would see less bad behavior. And I have seen many cases where editors did not understand the specifics of the 3RR policy - and they never received a good explanation before they were blocked. So, yes, I do think it is worth taking the time to warn users with a clear explanation as to what they did wrong.

If you want, I will put her on my list of users whose contributions I check regularly. (It's a list of people I have caught vandalizing.) And I'll put her two articles on my watchlist. I will try to explain to her the details of 3RR, V, and RS. And I will warn her if she comes close to 3RR - to the extent that I might be around near the same times she is editing. As an uninvolved and NPOV editor I might have better results than you or some other editors. Sbowers3 (talk) 05:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

That would certainly be appreciated - any outside input is helpful. I think the frustrating thing is that there was a significant effort to politely guide Strider12 in the right direction - I've seen newish accounts blocked as incorrigibly disruptive for doing far less than she did in her first month or so. This wasn't just on my part, but on the part of other admins and even User:The Evil Spartan, an editor whose viewpoint on the issue at hand is more in line with Strider12's. WP:BITE is, ultimately, a two-way street - that is, as experienced editors it's our responsibility to try to guide newbies rather than pounce on them, but at the same time new editors need to make at least some effort to meet us halfway and be receptive to feedback and guidance instead of meeting it with wikilawyering.
I agree that WP:3RR is confusing. I thought I had specifically made clear in one of my warnings that any revert anywhere counted towards it, but I can't find the diff so maybe I'm mistaken. In any case, when an editor comes to my talk page to warn me about 3RR, I assume that they've read the policy, or at least the first paragraph where this is specified. If they haven't, then they shouldn't be handing out warnings.
I filed the RfC specifically because I've come to the conclusion that further warnings, feedback, guidance, etc to Strider12 will have no effect. She's had feedback from hostile, neutral, and even friendly editors which has had little effect on her editing tactics; she's consistently wikilawyered every single policy issue that's come up, and so far as I know never admitted fault, even in the case of clear violations like the canvassing and 3RR. I seriously doubt she will respond to anything less - in fact, given the excuses being made for her at the RfC, I doubt even that will change anything.
The canvassing is still an issue, as demonstrated by canvassing people to the RfC who are specifically known to be hostile to me. The constant bad-faith accusations of "purging", "disruption", etc have never stopped - if anything, they've intensified slightly. The central issue, to my mind, is that it's far too easy for a tendentious single-purpose agenda account to stall an article indefinitely. That's what's happening here. The article is uneditable. That is not completely Strider12's fault, but she is most culpable in my opinion. It's simply not possible to make progress, and that needs to change.
I'm not out to propagandize the article(s) in question - I think they both have a long way to go to be useful, accurate, and neutral. But it's been 4 months of circular arguments and constant accusations of bad faith, "purging", being Planned Parenthood interns, "disruption" (based on a horribly wikilawyered interpretation of an ArbCom finding), etc, and there is no end or improvement in sight. The outside editors who've been brave enough to comment have largely been driven off or left as a result of the tone of talk page discussions. There is a good article there waiting to get out, but I've come to the conclusion that it's never going to improve while Strider12 is there. And I don't say that lightly - like I said, it's been 4 months of trying to resolve this issue through discussion, warnings, reports, etc. I'm open to suggestions on how to deal with it, but I just don't see more warnings as being effective - to me, the issue is that Strider12's approach to Wikipedia is fundamentally agenda-driven and incompatible with basic principles like WP:NOR, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:CONSENSUS, and her approach has become more rather than less entrenched with the passage of time. MastCell Talk 17:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Hydrino theory and WP:COIN#User:TStolper1W

Hello MastCell. Ronnotel opened the above thread at the COI Noticeboard on 22 February, and you joined the discussion, mentioning you were considering extending Stolper's ban to Hydrino theory. So far no-one has supported the continuation of Stolper's editing of that article (rather than the Talk page). Stolper himself has not responded to my proposal that he moderate his editing, which I think means 'No.' Can you offer guidance as to whether our thread should be closed, or if there's any particular point that needs discussing further? EdJohnston (talk) 18:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I've made a proposal at the COIN thread. MastCell Talk 19:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your follow-up. Can you finish off the expanded ban (if that's what you're planning to do) by editing User_talk:TStolper1W#Notice? In this edit, Stolper has undone an article change by one of our COI patrollers, claiming he is not banned from the article, citing your previous ruling. So he is clearly tracking the letter of the instructions rather than their spirit. EdJohnston (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

In the notice of decision dated 8 March 2008 that you posted to my talk page, you wrote: “if you would like to dispute my action here, you may raise it at the admin's noticeboard for wider feedback - I ask only that you notify me if you intend to do so with a brief note on my talk page.” Agreed. Give me a couple of weeks to think about this, and to see how much advantage Mills’ opponents, who are also mine, take of the new situation, which does tilt the playing field in their favor. TStolper1W (talk) 16:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is just a brief note to let you know that I will shortly be resuming my editing of the Hydrino theory article. TStolper1W (talk) 15:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

MastCell, I hate to be hard-assed about this, but can we just block TStolpher completely? He hasn't changed his editing habits and is entirely unrepentant. I'm thinking it's time to invoke WP:DENY and end this entire sad drama. Michaelbusch (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Upton Sinclair

Not having read the Bachelder book: do you mean literally dug up and resurrected? The word literally is often misused nowadays, and somebody just removed it from the Sinclair article. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

??? The only edit I can remember making to Upton Sinclair is this one, which consisted of adding a {{reflist}}. I seriously doubt that Sinclair "literally" dug up and resurrected anyone, as apparently do you :) Am I missing something? Did I suggest somewhere that he wielded the power of necromancy? :) MastCell Talk 04:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Israeli-Palestinian_conflict#Abbas_re_Holocaust

surely the remarks by User:ForeverFreeSpeech in this talk section are unacceptable? He is calling people racist and members of the KKK. Given that Israel palestine policies are under extra sanctions, I believe some sort of restriction is in order? regards Suicup (talk) 06:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I had just given User:ForeverFreeSpeech a warning when I noticed that you, User:MastCell, had already given him one regarding his editing on Council on American-Islamic Relations. Maybe it's time for a shot across the bow?
Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 04.03.2008 07:09
The user's been blocked by Jersyko, and I don't disagree with it, but I don't think taking "shots across the bow" in the sense of making attacks upon the user is going to help the situation much given that the user's already had troubles being bitten. He's not the only one being incivil in that talk page either, Nishidani and Eleland are plenty combative and make a few personal attacks themselves.
Now, if your goal is to drive someone off wikipedia, taking "shots across the bow" is a great way to WP:BITE someone. M1rth (talk) 17:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, blocks are preventive, not punitive. An editor who uses numerous inappropriate edit summaries, is warned in no uncertain terms, and continues with summaries like these: [39], [40], [41] warrants a preventive block. I don't like to characterize it as a "shot across the bow", or with any other aggressive or military metaphors, but ForeverFreeSpeech (talk · contribs) is extremely close to an indefinite block unless there's a major change in his/her behavior. I agree that there are other problem editors on the topic - I warned Kahmed (talk · contribs) as well, as this user was edit-warring. If you have diffs of personal attacks by other editors you'd like me to look at, I'd be happy to, or you could take them to the Arbitration enforcement board. MastCell Talk 18:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Kahmed sockpuppetting?

See this diff and associated SSP log: [42].

I strongly suspect the IP is actually Kahmed trying to use his IP to avoid 3RR, and using the block on ForeverFreeSpeech as an excuse to edit war. M1rth (talk) 23:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that's quite suspicious. On the other hand, multiple editors are reverting FFS' edits, not just Kahmed, so I don't think it's open-and-shut. I'd suggest taking it to WP:RFCU as possible abuse of multiple accounts/IP's to violate WP:3RR - that would be much more conclusive. MastCell Talk 05:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Looks pretty confirmed to me without needing a RFCU. Kahmed appeared about the time the IP did, and if you check both the IP contribs and Kahmed's contribs, you see an amazingly similar pattern - the IP's been systematically hunting down things it dislikes seeing mentioned about CAIR, for example, this diff too. It appears to only break out the Kahmed login when trying to hide the number of times it reverts. I've caught it messing up once (diff1,diff2). M1rth (talk) 07:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I must have missed those last two diffs earlier, but they are conclusive. Given that, there's no need for a checkuser. I'll block the primary account for edit-warring and violating 3RR, and the IP as well. If IP socks continue to be a problem, we can consider semi-protecting the page temporarily. MastCell Talk 07:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

re "Things I've learned on Wikipedia"

Perfect! You have captured the current environment for posterity! •Jim62sch•dissera! 16:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy AGAIN

I know you're an uninvolved admin, so maybe you can stop a SPA editor from causing much more trouble. See this. thanks. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears he's only technically reverted 3 times (the initial edit, while sweeping and against consensus, was not a revert in the technical sense of undoing a recently preceding edit). Ordinarily I'd go with the spirit rather than letter, but this is nominally a new user so WP:BITE comes into play. If he reverts again, I'll block him. In the interim, I've left a note informing him of the article probation on homeopathy; if the disruptive pattern continues, then I think 0RR/1RR might be the best approach. I'll keep an eye out; feel free to let me know if there are continued problems. By the way, does this new editor remind you of anyone? This is a highly atypical "first edit", so I was wondering if it matched any familiar patterns. MastCell Talk 19:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been looking into it, since the first edit shows way too much expertise, up to and including how to set up references (which took me months to learn properly). I know it's a sock, just don't know who yet. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 19:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Davkal? It seems like his style, though I must admit holding a grudge because he abused a holy icon in an impure manner. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Possibly... you could ask for a checkuser - it's probably time to screen for Davkal's latest bunch of sleeper socks anyway. MastCell Talk 21:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I tried to do a RFCU but I don't understand how the hell to do an updated request on someone who's already had an RFCU done. This is the second time I've attempted such a thing and the second time that I've screwed it up completely, to the point that it doesn't even show up at all as a pending request. Someone smarter than me can take it from here. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Fixed - you just need to put the new request at the very top of the Case page (above all the archived crap) and then transclude it as you did. MastCell Talk 22:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll go sit crosslegged in the desert and beat myself over the head with a scrap of plywood. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Now now... no need to make a test case out of yourself. MastCell Talk 22:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)