User talk:Fiveby/Archive 1

Archive 1

Reference desk

Your removal is being discussed on the reference desk talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#World_War_III. Your point of view would be welcome. Buddy431 (talk) 16:19, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

British Isles/References

Well done on your valuable contribution on the above, a few years ago. Hope you are in good health. Frenchmalawi (talk) 01:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links

You have to make them in a slightly counterintuitive way, like [[:es:paella]] to get es:paella. Or you can type [[:es:paella|paella]] to get paella. The extra colon at the front says to just make a regular wikilink in the text instead of trying to group with other language links in a separate panel. --Amble (talk) 02:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

La Grange monument

Thanks for the help on File:La Grange Civil War monument.jpg! Could you add a sentence or two to the article referring to the monument and citing Missouri: A Guide to the Show Me State fully, including the page number? Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 06:01, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

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File copyright problem with File:Eugene pick actor1.jpg

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The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	Awarded for tirelessly sifting through articles written by fringe theory proponents and digging up obscure references. Your great work isn't going unnoticed! Thank you. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Out of Jstor reads...

I saw your comment about running out of Jstor reads. I have Jstor access through my old university, so if you ever need an article please do feel free to ask. DuncanHill (talk) 23:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I will take you up on that offer when I get around to actually writing an article! fiveby(zero) 16:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Bristol Record Society is fine

Why are you tagging these sources unreliable and not vetted? Are you actually doing any reading or research on them? Do you have something about Bristol University publications? Govvy (talk) 10:39, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The source is fine, but it simply does not support the content. If you'll take a look at Template:Failed verification, the "When to use" section: you have checked the source, the source does not support what is contained in the article, and, despite the source not supporting the article, the source still contains useful information on the topic. All those apply. Are you reverting the tag simply because in general this would be a reliable source? I concur, but that is not why i applied the tag. The source describes at least two examples of Colston's charities, but it is simply WP:SYNTH and a misrepresentation of the source to state categorically that Colston constituted his charities to deny their benefits to those who did not share his religious and political views. The reference to the proposed wording, where you also removed the fv tag, is of course completely unreliable in this context, and there is a talk page section for discussion. fiveby(zero) 10:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Violation of editing restrictions and consensus on Jordan Peterson

This edit[1] is a violation of the 1RR editing restriction and the consensus from this RfC[2]. Self-revert immediately. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus in your link that the FT article is an appropriate source for the article. Despite your statement that it is "not an op-ed", it is quite clearly an opinion piece and not reliable for statements of fact, especially within a BLP. I will stand by the edit as it is completely inline with WP content policies, making use of such sources in a BLP is not. fiveby(zero) 16:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

If you do not self-revert, I will take you to the edit-warring noticeboard for violating the editing restrictions on the page and for willfully editing against consensus (once you were made aware of the fact that this was consensus text). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Ross E. Hutchins

Hello, Fiveby. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Ross E. Hutchins".

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Edward Colston

Hello.

My latest response to you on the Edward Colston talk page might be considered by some to be a little harsh; I prefer the description "robust debate". I replied assuming good faith on your part - I did consider bad faith motives, but decided that WP:AGF is not merely good advice but probably actually entirely correct most of the time if you see what I mean (and you really do not want to know what things I thought of as potential bad faith motives...)

My intention is to make Wikipedia better and I bear you no ill-will at all. I hope you are of a similar mind.

All the best. Michael F 1967 (talk) 00:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard ‎→‎ War of 1812

Hi, could you please clarify regarding this discussion? On one hand, you write Deathlibrarian and Elinruby with their "Canada Won!" arguments are really fringe, using poor sources and often misrepresenting what good sources they do mention. [...] Good research should be the key here. Deathlibrarian mentions Lambert, Latimer, Stagg (didn't see Brian Arthur but there is a lot of discussion) and Hickey. This is a diverse set of opinions, there is a lot of disagreement and different perspectives. I think it's unfair to the authors to summarize as "Britain Wins!", as you say they don't agree as to why or what they mean by victory or defeat.

On the other, you also write WP:FRINGE guideline does have the language you refer to about departing significantly from the prevailing views. I don't like it and think the guideline should be more objective—stick to UfOs and such and avoid issues that are better handled by the core policies. [...] I just hate the idea of applying the fringe guideline here, even though these authors are sometimes in the minority. If WP:FRINGE is applied for such as Don Hickey saying United States lost the war then there is something very wrong with the guideline. So could you please clarify that?

I am writing you because Elinruby wrote to me you are saying that it is not fringe while my view is that you agree with my reading of fringe or that it is correct but you do disagree with that and believe it should be changed. However, until that is changed though, my reading is correct, no? This is supported by other users and Rjensen, an actual historian and Wikipedian here, so it is not just me. I am merely agreeing with them and believe the infobox should not imply that the result is disputed when the war is seen as a draw.--Davide King (talk) 06:08, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed this. You wrote If WP:FRINGE is applied for such as Don Hickey saying United States lost the war then there is something very wrong with the guideline. But Donald Hickey actually say it was a draw! See Hickey 2012, p. 228: "Thus, after three years of campaigning, neither the United States nor Great Britain could claim any great advantage in the war, let alone victory. Militarily, the War of 1812 ended in a draw. So they have completely misinterpreted him!--Davide King (talk) 20:32, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Guidelines on Medical Advice

Hi Fiveby. In April 2007 you initiated a set of guidelines about questions and answers related to medical advice. See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice.

On 9 April 2020 a User took action to demote that document from a guideline to an essay. See the diff. The matter is now under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice#Marked as a guideline page. You may wish to contribute to the discussion. Dolphin (t) 12:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

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--Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Hey! It was just a joke! fiveby(zero) 14:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

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Your draft article, Draft:Eugene Pick

Hello, Fiveby. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Eugene Pick".

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A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	Thank you for reinstating Cancel culture. Heatxiddy (talk) 16:20, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

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November 2020

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 1 hour for assuming bad faith, as you did at Special:Diff/991162586. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  —valereee (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Fiveby (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

Prefer indef. fiveby(zero) 17:31, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Accept reason:

The block is expired so it doesn't matter, but I don't understand at all under which policy blocking someone for "assuming bad faith" is acceptable. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 18:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

December 2020

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing certain pages (Talk:Syrian Kurdistan) for disruptive editing.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  —valereee (talk) 19:45, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection to any other admin making a decision to unblock, no need to consult me. —valereee (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Fiveby, I've instituted a restriction on the page and believe this block is no longer needed, so I've lifted it. —valereee (talk) 13:28, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Notice of ArbCom discussion

Hi, just making you aware that Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Syrian_Kurdistan exists, since you commented in prior discussions on the issues raised there. GPinkerton (talk) 11:55, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 20:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

SBM

See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_351#Science-Based_Medicine, where you participated, obviously. Crying BLP when there's no consensus for your view that this is an SPS is also quite WP:POINTY. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

September 2021

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Nicholas Wade. This means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be although other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:30, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

To quote WP:3RRBLP: "What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption.". Stop edit warring. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:31, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

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Important Notice

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You have shown interest in Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

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––FormalDude ^talk 06:27, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Mass killings under communist regimes

From Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes.

My thinking as to sources is probably more fine-grained than yours or Paul's, with more emphasis on what authors state and shying away from larger interpretations. I was just commenting that Fein used Harff's dataset and, taking a different perspective, did comment on Communism. As far as article structure, i am not sure what exactly the B content will look like. I'd suggest an extended lead section(s), introducing concepts and arguments that will appear later in the article, but most important refusing any content that pushes a conclusion. Nothing that needs quoted, nothing that requires attribution, simply introduction for the reader. A list by country that is broader than the current sections, not focused merely on numbers (A?). Last the broader arguments (B?), probably organized somewhat chronologically to emphasize historiography and the arguments of authors rather than editors. fiveby(zero) 16:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I hope you do not mind if I reply you here, so as to avoid bloating the page, and use link here from the relevant talk page.

If I understand you correctly, I think that, in fact, that is what Siebert and I have been tried to do, emphasizing exactly, and that you have a view of C that is closer to Siebert's than to Nug's. I disagree about their thinking of sources because they are primary sources about their own views, and we cannot assume a priori they are a significant minority view if they have not sufficient secondary scholarly coverage, and rather than cherry pick quotes from them, we should rely on such secondary overage, especially when we disagree about what they are saying or supporting.1

The thing about Feind is that she did not comment on Communism as a whole, which is what this article is attempting to do here, and is what I believe Nug support (they have repeatedly rejected country experts because they do not write in such a context, which in my view is a total wrong structure to have). Indeed, Siebert and I have supported relying on country expert specifically to properly discuss the events and provide the background you complained about for B, which will nonetheless discuss significant cases, have links to them when mentioned, and 'See also' links. If we cannot discuss the events in summary style in accordance with NPOV, the best thing to do is to simply directly link to the main article themselves.

As for the structure of B, I think that Race and intelligence is a good example of how B (Communist state and mass killing) article may look like, and also in line of what you wrote; however, I still have not got a satisfying reply for why we should not do this in broad scope and general, as genocide scholars actually do. I find it absurd that there is no Causes of genocide/Causes of mass killing article2; if you want us to discuss the events, we may also have Mass killings in history (akin Genocides in history) article. It is "Explaining the onset of mass killing, 1949–87", not "Explaining the onset of communist mass killings, 1949–87", and that "autocratic regimes, especially communist, are prone to mass killing generically, but not so strongly inclined (i.e. not statistically significantly inclined) toward geno-politicide" does not make it a new, separate topic. For us to have a Communist-specific article, we would need scholars to discuss it as a new main topic, or we would need Courtois and Rummel to represent a mainstream, majority view, which is not the case.

As things stand, the only Communist-focused article may be this — Victims of communism narrative, e.g. that communism killed 100 million people3 (no distinction between directly caused mass killings and excess deaths and mortality, essentially treating it as Communist death toll) and that communism (not Communist regimes) was the main cause of such killings, and that this narrative is used to criminalize communism, equate it with Nazism, and discredit the whole political left. Karlsson & Schoenhals 2008 cites Ellman 2002,4 who discusses Stalinist repressions and the category of "victims of Stalinism" as politicized, so you can imagine attempting to this for Communism as a whole in a NPOV way, without OR/SYNTH and UNDUE to Courtois and Rummel.

P.S. Could you please clarify what you mean by "totalitarian" and "revisionist" sources? The latter may have been historical revisionist during the Cold War but that is no longer the cause; there remains "revisionist" who are also historical revisionists but those like Fitzpatrick, Getty, and the like are mainstream.

Notes

1. Rather than cherry pick quotes from Valentino saying that regime type matters or that ideology is the cause, we should rely on secondary coverage, which says regime type generally does not matter, that it is about the leaders and not ideology, and that the Communist mass killing category is a subtype of dispossessive mass killing, which is the real major category.

2. Those are all good sources to use for this, why do we cherry pick them only for and about Communism?

• Mann, Michael (2005). The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge University Press.
• Chirot, Daniel; McCauley, Clark (2006). Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder. Princeton University Press.
• Jones, Adam (2017) [2006]. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge.
• Sémelin, Jacques (2007). Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. Columbia University Press.
• Bellamy, Alex J. (2012). Massacres and Morality: Mass Atrocities in an Age of Civilian Immunity. Oxford University Press.

3. The narrative takes the fact-based position that many, many people have indeed died under Communist regimes, that the events we list other, and many others discussed elsewhere, indeed happened and that Communist authorities, like any other government doing the same awful things, are obviously at fault and should have done more to mitigate effects of unintended policies that did not work. The problem is that all of this is mixed up with generalizations, oversimplifications, Holocaust trivializations, and politicizations to provide such a narrative that Communism was the greatest evil of the 20th century (worse than Nazism), so the West did the wrong thing by forming the Allied powers with the Soviet Union, because it killed 100 million people, therefore communism must be decriminalized and any perceived radical left politics are going to result in such killings no matter what.

4. "Some of these problems were investigated constructively in Ellman 2002, pp 1151–1172." Davide King (talk) 18:01, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem at all posting here, better to avoid the other conversations happening on the talk page. You cover a lot of ground tho so this will be a piecemeal response as time allows. First on the postscript, i thought i was following your lead when categorizing as totalitarian and revisionist? Possibly misread a comment. Regardless as in the Karlsson review you linked for Soviet history, and not a disparagement or comment on acceptance and certainly not denialist or Marxism revisionist. fiveby(zero) 20:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

First of all, thank you so much for your kind response, it means a lot to me, and please feel free to take all the time to analyze, read, and respond. Indeed, you are right, and I do not know why but I thought that you were saying something else, but I believe that here Siebert well-addressed your concern and are indeed correct that it is not just "revisionist" being country specific. Below are some raised points that I found persusasive and may be of interest:

• As noted by The Four Deuces, even Conquest "did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has." As noted by Filefoo, The Black Book of Communism "only presents a number of chapters on single country studies, it presents no cross-cultural comparison, there is no discussion of 'Mass killing[/Any other bad thing] in Communism'"; it is mainly Courtois and Malia who attempt to theorise a "generic Communism", see David-Fox 2004 for what it means.

• David-Fox, Michael (Winter 2004). "On the Primacy of Ideology. Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia)". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 5 (1). Bloomington, Indiana: Slavic: 81–105. doi:10.1353/kri.2004.0007. S2CID 159716738. Malia thus counters by coining the category of 'generic Communism,' defined everywhere down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals. (Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris thus comes across as historically more important than the gulf between radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism.) For an argument so concerned with justifying The Black Book, however, Malia's latest essay is notable for the significant objections he passes by. Notably, he does not mention the literature addressing the statistical-demographic, methodological, or moral dilemmas of coming to an overall communist victim count,2 especially in terms of the key issue of how to include victims of disease and hunger.

Notes

1. Indeed, that is also what is said at Paczkowski, Andrzej (Spring 2001). "The Storm over The Black Book". The Wilson Quarterly. 25 (2). Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: 28–34. JSTOR 40260182. Retrieved 30 December 2021 – via Wilson Quarterly Archives. [Only Courtois made the comparison between Communism and Nazism, while the other sections of the book] are, in effect, narrowly focused monographs, which do not pretend to offer overarching explanations. ... [The Black Book of Communism] is not about communism as an ideology or even about communism as a state-building phenomenon.

2. This takes us back to my victims of communism narrative topic proposal and how that is a common name. Indeed, the problem of the current article is that it attempts to prove Courtois and Malia's thesis as true and correct, hence the emphasis of events as death tolls; my proposal is simply the same topic but NPOV.

Davide King (talk) 23:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Davide King: I'm glad you responded here, i think that entire talk page discussion lacks the focus required to make good decisions on content. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but sometimes your and Siebert's comments also lack focus, by covering so much ground in one post it's difficult do determine what you would like to see a response to and what is an observation made to convince or argue an earlier point. To some extent we'll always be talking past each other by losing older or introducing new threads.

My first thought for a comment on that Afd was to vote a facetious Merge to Communism and see where the content sorts itself out. I raise the Afd discussion because so many of the arguments keep circling back to points raised there. AfD's, RfC's, community discussions very often just entrench positions rather than allowing options. The exclusionary tact of the delete voters was so easily countered by WP:5P2. A more inclusive discussion, sorting out a recognizing important content and asking where should this content be located might have gained more ground. The suggestion that the content would remain in individual articles such as Black Book, etc., in my opinion exacerbated the problem rather than addressing NPOV —all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic— concerns. I liked some of MarioSuperstar77's thinking re Criticism of communism, but that ship has sailed.

I'm not implying that there's not some merit to the points you raised in your second post concerning Conquest, Victims of Communism, "generic Communism", but have to put them aside. An editor pushed AfD on the talk page, someone took them up on the suggestion and created a mess of a nomination, now the content is stuck at this location. Paul Siebert had some kind of plan for fixing the WP:STRUCTURE issues, and had convincing arguments for doing so. That petered out with an unexplained No response. The ABC RfC started up, some admin will come along and put their spin on things, and the article will be stuck with their interpretation. Anyway, i'm not disregarding your arguments, just not sure it's productive to invest effort when we're waiting for the RfC result.

On "cherry-picking" quotes i absolutely detest this quote-and-attribute style forced on articles by WP:RS and WP:RSN. In academic writing, mentioning in text rather than footnote calls attention, a quote highlights something which the author feels sums a position very well and they will expand and further explain. WP usage is the exact opposite, the source is not "reliable" enough, or it's any old opinion so quote and attribute is fine. It seems like articles are built by googling for the quote one likes and trying to cram as near the top as possible. Preferably high enough that it shows up in the google search snippet. But i will happily quote on talk pages, it's along the lines of "hey, go read this", or "here's what I think your missing", not as proposals for text inclusion. For the source analysis, i wasn't very fond of the google scholar method, and neither you or Paul were i think happy with my proceeding from reviews and quoting sources. Probably wasted effort right now regardless. I recall that FTN discussion on the 1812 infobox winner/loser/tie, so we will probably disagree on mainstream/majority/minority/fringe categorizations from source analysis also.

Anyway, the article needs content creators, not those like me having fun researching and arguing sources, editors who do real work writing well. Don't take any of my comments as getting in the way of that effort.

Happy New Year. fiveby(zero) 19:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

First of all, Happy New Year too! Second of all, thank you again for taking the time to read my long comment–analysis, and for your kind and respectful manner and approach. I agree with most of what you wrote, and indeed your analysis in regards to Siebert's and my posts is fair and understandable, which is why I hope that here we will be able to fix this, and I suggest you that you also engage at Siebert's talk page, as I am doing to yours — I see no point in further discussing this with users who are so entrenched in their positions and are not as kind as you; on the other hand, I think that you and Siebert could work together to find a solution and better understand each other's points.1

I agree with you on the AfD, though I think that it had two positive outcomes: (1) it legitimized Siebert's, mine, and other's concerns, which could no longer be dismissed and ignored; and (2) it at least provided some much-needed new users on the talk page, and we were able to have an RfC about it. I can also see and share your concerns about the RfC, but that is also why I insist on source analysis because whatever will be the results, it will have to be supported by reliable sources, by which I mean mainly scholarly ones, which are the best sources especially due to the controversial nature of the topic. But at this point, I agree it is best to wait for its closure.

There are two things you raised that I feel warrant a separation.

Communism

I find it interesting2 that you wanted to merge it with Communism, when I think the more appropriate venue is Communist state. Communism should be like Socialism in having a short paragraph mentioning that anti-communists—the political right point to the killings as an indictment of the ideology as a whole. What is written here should be good. Communist state should have the section discussing this in more details and have the two other sections. As it is named Mass killings under communist regimes (MKuCR), I always thought that it was a spin off from Mass killing (interestingly enough, the latter was actually created much later than MKuCR and it is in my view a much better one, and is why I think MKuCR is a content POV fork because the main article does not support it as a separate article; similarly, Crimes against humanity under communist regimes is a content POV fork of Crimes against humanity because the latter does not support Communism as a whole as a separate new topic and events that happened under a Communist regime are treated as such and not as part of a grouping as a whole) and that its daughter article was Communist state, which is a subtopic of Communism.

I think we are giving way too emphasis to this because the popular press may be doing this but the academic press is much more nuanced. I could be wrong and this may have been more true in the past, but this is also reflected in Communist-related article; we give too much weight to Conquest, Courtois, and Service, and popular press historians and writers like Applebaum, Figes, Montefiore, and Pipes rather than Ellman, Fiztpatrick, Wheatcroft, and the like (Soviet Union), or Chang, Dikötter, and Yang Jisheng rather than more scholarly and mainstream Chinese specialists (China), and so on. We should better balance the three sides of historiography and rely more on secondary and tertiary coverage to assess their weight precisely to avoid what you pointed out and read more like a tertiary source. This short discussion may also be of interest for you.

Sources

I think you too made very agreeable points; however, I am not sure I am against reviews and quoting sources — indeed, that has been my proposed approach; rather than cherry pick quotes from Valentino and the like from their own primary works, we should look at academic reviews of their work and what they say, and in this case quotes can indeed be very useful, and is what Siebert did for Valentino. If you felt I was criticizing you, I did not mean to criticize your approach as a whole but rather I thought that you were trying to prove that the article is fine and C is supported by majority of sources. I think Siebert is already well aware of Fein, Gurr, Harff, and the likes, and I would prefer that we assess what weight they hold and what they actually support. While I agree with you about this, I think it would be much more productive if you and Siebert could work together on sources. As they wrote here, what Nug did with sources, which is exactly what you rightly complained about, is precisely why we are at a dead point and why I think we are not going to get anything useful out of it with them, while you are a much better choise to discuss this in a respectful way and have common grounds and solutions.

The problem is always going to be that while genocide scholars rely on country experts, they are ignored by the latter and is why I see their view as a minority a best; we cannot write a NPOV article from the POV of minority views in academia, can we? That is why I think it is of much importance to find secondary academic coverage of their theorising and properly contextualize them. Otherwise I remain convinced that the only NPOV article about the same topic, and the only way to have a Communist-focused article, is the "Victims of communism" narrative to criminalize communism and discredit the Left as a whole — I think scholarly views will still have a place, but unless we agree on the group type of sources and their relative weight, they are not going to be the primary focus. One last thing to consider is that genocide studies is itself a minority and is not on par with the field of country experts, and they themselves are isolated from mainstream political science (Verdeja 2012, p. 307) and lack consensus on so many things (Weiss-Wendt 2008, p. 42), and this does not appear to have changed. I have much respect from them, and preventing killings and genocide is certainly one interest of mine, but I simply cannot ignore those facts and is why I am skeptic that an NPOV article can be written. If we have to attribute everything because they are a minority,3 then what is the point?

Notes

1. I basically wrote all this but before publishing my response, I remember something that I would like to have some clarification, e.g. Paul Siebert had some kind of plan for fixing the WP:STRUCTURE issues, and had convincing arguments for doing so. That petered out with an unexplained No response. The ABC RfC started up, some admin will come along and put their spin on things, and the article will be stuck with their interpretation. This takes us back to your point about the talk page lacking focus. I think that is a shame it did not happen, and I would like to see some link to it. Perhaps it was because they were involved in the DNR and pledged to not comment on the talk page, I really need to remember this better when it happened and the context. It is a shame. If only this article, which was created by a sockpuppet or banned user to troll was deleted in the first place, all of this would have been avoided. Any relevant and new information could have been moved, and nothing would have been lost.

2. I wrote this before going back to your comments here, which I believe support my point, but I could be wrong.

3. Interestingly enough, this has been acknowledged by defenders of such article but they have deemed them equally significant and see no issue as long as they are attributed. I do not think that this makes for a good article, or that this is in respect with our policies and guidelines (WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT in particular).

Davide King (talk) 05:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

You should understand that from my perspective there is no good basis for deciding some of the issues you raise. Let's collect and organize all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources, call it an encyclopedia, allow anyone to take part, do good research but not by any means any original research, and fill in the details as we go. Oh, and make sure articles are not so long that they bore a reader with the attention span of a guppy scrolling though on their iPhone. I like the "all the significant views" part, but the "community" sure doesn't right now.

I said Communism rather than Communist state above and in the discussion you link because i was thinking of a general purpose encyclopedia, which would probably have articles along the lines of: Communism, Marxism, individual countries, and a few important biographies. I was not proposing an actual merge to Communism, but it was my own thought experiment. Take a look at content not just from this article, but Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, the Communist section in Democide, Criticism of, History of etc. and where does is all filter out through a general purpose encyclopedia, specialized reference works, literature reviews and reading lists. Where would the content end up? Where significant and summarized and where a more detailed expansion? The answer is i have no idea. It's too much work, i'm not qualified to do it, and it seems to conflict with the Wikipedia way which results in train wrecks such as "Race and Intelligence" you mentioned above.

I am definitely not proceeding top down from Mass killing, it is inappropriate for the very reasons you have expressed. Proceeding top down from Mass killing, in my opinion, there would be no article under this title. But under Communism there would probably be some kind of article somewhere. That may not be the best way to look at the situation, but well, not much of a basis for taking another path.

That leads into the source analysis and so much emphasis on Valentino. It makes a huge difference in reading the sources. Valentino is an accidental confluence of chapter and article titles, as you say not it the one major review of Communist Crimes against Humanity. I see Wayman & Tago as not very relevant, and they don't have a good take for the current article. Of course i'm not qualified to make such a statement (skipped most of my cold war seminar way back when after a Wisconsin School prof began pushing his theories about the bomb, and nothing else close) But recall there is a separate review looking at Valentino and Mann in a different light. I kind of see Paul's look at sources as trying to demonstrate against something that i had already discarded.

Working at cross purposes is a bad way to proceed, so let me know if you think i'm standing in the way of any progress. The discussion i was thinking of for the first step of Paul's plan was Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/Archive_54#Terminology, already three! pages into the archive. fiveby(zero) 00:37, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Introduction and comparison of literature — if I was wrong, I expected to have similar source results for each article

Thank you so much for your response, this is all interesting; I am not sure I understand everything of it, or that I got your meaning correctly, but it is very interesting. As I said, I think that we are giving way too much weight to death tolls (see this) and Communism in general as a single phenomenon. I do not think Crimes against humanity under communist regimes and Mass killings under communist regimes should exist, especially in their current versions which are not only unhelpful but even actively harmful in representing important academic sources and totally decontextualize them. We do not do this for any other ideology, not even fascism, which is a similarly complex system of regime types with big differences. Look at Genocide of indigenous peoples, there actually are works about this topic as a whole and the name is spot on too, there is even a critical bibliographic review. Apart from Courtois, Rosefielde, and Rummel, which I believe we have discussed and that even such sources have been misunderstood (though clearly not to the same extant like others), we cannot say the same thing from "crimes against humanity under communist regimes" and "mass killings under communist regimes". The closest thing we have is Karlsson 2008, which Nug dismissed because it was not cited (of course, it is a tertiary source and does not present anything original and notes the lack of research about the topic as a whole) and because it supports Siebert's claim about Courtois and Rummel.

Interesting discussion about Karlsson 2008

This discussion was particularly interesting and still true, especially the following quote:

"I remember the discussion and it could be used as a source for the article. In fact it is the only source ever presented that is directly about the subject of this article. BTW the article qualfies as a secondary source under WP:RS. ... Because it is a review of the literature and does not include any original research." —TFD

"Well, then we are again in an impasse: the only book that discusses mass killing under Communist regimes is Valentino's 'Final solution' (Chapter 4), and we cannot use a single chapter from one book as a justification of the existence of this article. Other sources are either fringe, or they already have their own WP articles (Rummel's sources on 'democide', the BB), or they represent a single society studies. As a result, the topic in general still has insufficient amount of sources to discuss the subject as whole." —Paul Siebert

There is a handbook about anti-communist persecutions — I am not going to lose my sleep if the former is deleted but it is different from MKuCR

Even Anti-communist mass killings is not as problematic (we actually have not just a book but a handbook about "Anti-Communist Persecutions", which may be its proper name, there are no serious disputes that they were not the results of anti-communism—if we mixed capitalism with it, it would be OR/SYNTH—or that a regime was not anti-communist, and as noted by Damoclus here, "there are many sources that talk about the general phenomenon of anti-communist forces killing real or suspected communists across multiple countries" — I am not going to lose my sleep if that article is turned into a redirect for the Indonesian mass killing, but we actually have a full book, a handbook, about anti-communist persecutions and is not as controversial as Courtois and Rummel, which means a NPOV article may be written about it, and attempts to link the two articles is an example of false balance, and certainly one of them does not have the same controversy or policy violations as the other. If such articles for Communism are so notable and even necessary as some users make them out to be, why they do not have proper scholarly sources about the topic like those two other aforementioned topics? I know you said that you are not convinced by Siebert's and Google Scholar approach, but it should have been easy to prove us wrong.

Back to it and some issues that do not help us moving forward

But back to the Communist-related articles, it is the same reason only Communism has such articles — because they inevitably results in NPOV and OR/SYNTH violations, yet we do this only for Communism, and I think that is a clear double standard. Any information relevant to the crimes and killings of Communist regimes is, or should be, described in each country's history, which is exactly what scholarly sources do. I really do not like such article types, and list-like articles, unless academic sources actually do make such grouping and list (e.g. if all we have are some sources supporting something, it is not going to make a good article, without any tertiary-like source identifying a literature for us and assess their weight for us), or uncontroversial lists, e.g. List of WWE Champions. Just look at List of totalitarian regimes; we take the concept of totalitarianism as fact and treat it as if a few sources supporting the claim (ignoring all scholars disputing the concept and model) is good enough — such articles only makes sense when we have academic sources summarizing that there is scholarly consensus. Perhaps I am being too strict about it, or maybe I simply want that we follow our policies more clearly. Too much users seem to think that WP:VERIFY is enough, rather than see it as interconnected with WP:NPOV and WP:NOR.

Your comment about terminology was very fair, and I am going to highlight one issue — the fact that the whole section is still there should be telling; there are some users, that I am not going to nominate, who are against anything that changes it, and worse of all engage in shift blaming us as if the article is totally fine and we are wrong about pretty much everything. Siebert and I may have took too much space but I do not think that we are the issue. Just look at this — I think that our policies are clear, and there may even been consensus already, yet it is still in the article, and this and this may be why. When there is edit warring even about obvious policy violations, and my arguments were supported on the talk page, no progress is being made and is exactly what I expected if the article was not deleted/rewritten.

I probably digressed too much but that is because I think you are not standing in the way of any progress, you can in fact help us to actually make progress. The problem is that there are users who actually believe in the "victims of communism" narrative (Neumayer 2018), which I think is the only way to have such information you talked about and discuss the topic of Communism in general, and we have two totally different views and understanding about the topic. Here, the moderator explained everything that is wrong with how the other side has used source and engaged source analysis. I do not have any reason to believe that we can have productive source analysis with them; you, on the other hand, are totally different in a good way. I am curious to know more about this: "But recall there is a separate review looking at Valentino and Mann in a different light. I kind of see Paul's look at sources as trying to demonstrate against something that i had already discarded."

To summarize — I am not sure if I properly understand your main points and what you wrote, so let me know and feel free to correct me, but I think that we need not to worry too much about losing information, especially if it is badly written, organized, and cherry picked and sourced; I believe that all relevant information about the events is already there in their main articles and also mentioned and discussed in each state's history and related articles. About Criticism of communist party rule, TFD gave good rationales (here and here), and may be a better place for all the information, especially if it turned into analysis, and not just criticism. "Proceeding top down from Mass killing, in my opinion, there would be no article under this title. But under Communism there would probably be some kind of article somewhere." I agree, and I believe that "Victims of communism" (Neumayer 2018) would be such an article, and summarize for us the views of authors proposing such a concept without citing it to themselves, and without treating it as scholarly consensus fact and separating the facts that many, many people indeed died and were victims of it with the general claim that communism was the main cause, that this is seen as anti-communist field, and is used in an attempt to criminalize communism as a whole and equate it with Nazism. I do not know either how to get this but hopefully the RfC will move us there, and you will help with source analysis and major rewrite of the article.

P.S. about your very first paragraph

Again, I am not sure that I got you right but I agree with you about your initial statement. I was like that too, and if there is one good thing for me about this mess is that it made much more analytical, critical, self-aware, and in a way more strict, about our policies and guidelines than ever before. What I am particularly interested is precisely knowing and finding about all significant views in academia about a given topic (which are the majority, minority, and fringe?), and having academically-sourced articles with popular-like writing, but very few article from the topic area do this. This article is the furthest thing from this, and it is a shame because I am really interested about the topic. I am actually curious about how my proposed version of it would look like but I have no idea from where to start without any help.

Davide King (talk) 04:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Soviet and Communist studies

I think that this comment was interesting and I look forward to see Siebert's reply. I wonder, however, what you meant when you wrote this: What i see resulting is some monstrous hybridization of Communist Studies#Controversy and VoC with a different definition of 'Victim'." That has now been removed here, I would like to understand better your thoughts. I thought that it was better to discuss such controversy there rather than have such a flawed full article about it. Davide King (talk) 19:01, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, i don't have that article watchlisted and wasn't aware of any changes. I think i would agree that Communist Studies is a good location for much related content, as long as it were confined to debates of those studying communism, rather than those merely opining. But i haven't been following or considering that article.

I was commenting on the RfC, and Paul Siebert's earlier explanation of the B content and how the SYNTH concerns would be resolved. I know Paul knows there is no such thing as Courtois/Rummel, but that is my shorthand restatement of the "core sources" SYNTH argument of how sources can be used to force a narrative. I just have trouble getting my head around the expansion of content described here. It looks like an NPOV description of the B choice but in reality how massive and lacking in selectivity it could be? What's our "core source" for that article? Rummel/Courtois. It looks like surrendering the article to the very issues that were problematic in the construction of the C. fiveby(zero) 20:01, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Do Courtois and The Black Book of Communism count as those studying communism? Surely, the effect it has had on the popular press is also relevant, as noted by Wheatcroft 1999. The section about the holocaust is because Rosefielde is a subject within the field, so that is relevant too. All of those has been removed.

I think that this is a good argument for deletion in that we just cannot write a NPOV article without violating other policies. At the same time, I just do not see how we can write a NPOV article without having "a major change in scope". I really am curious to see you and Siebert working together to rewrite such article but I am as skeptical of this as you are of B, though I am certainly willing to change my mind after seeing a clear draft of what it would look like and its core sources; and I do think that your comment that "[i]t looks like surrendering the article to the very issues that were problematic in the construction of the C." The difference may be that while Courtois and Rummel are used as facts for C, or their own primary works are used, B would report secondary coverage of their opinions and views. Davide King (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

So i looked at the usages of the introduction within the article, once for 94.36 million in "Estimates", once for criminality under "Ideology", and once of 20 million under "Soviet Union". I didn't look at the individual chapter usages and may have missed something. These could all be reasonable usages within the article depending. I think it's pretty ridiculous to cite Africa Check for an opinion on Courtois, but well, that is WP i guess.

I don't think your "primary", "secondary" classification follows the traditional or or policy usage. But i have seen lots of other editors use primary/secondary in that manner so i think i know what you are saying. Regardless, nothing along those lines is stated within the RfC. I think the estimates section is probably a bunch of individually reasonable usages which due to placement and organization is unreasonable for the article. But near as i can tell the RfC result doesn't change that. If there's a B result (likely as the closer will want to do something to change the dynamic) all that happens is sections 5-8 go away. To the extent that there is an implicit mandate for a rewrite and removal of other sections that probably should have been made explicit in the wording. I think i will remove from my watchlist when that starts being argued on the talk page.

A reevaluation of sources is needed, i probably wouldn't agree completely with where you are going with the primary/secondary distinction, but the RfC does not speak to that. There is no reason to think it could not be done now, or under a "no consensus" result, or that a B result would bring that about. fiveby(zero) 20:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The funny thing about the Black Book is what Siebert noted too — it is mainly its more controversial parts (the introduction and the 100 million number) that are usually cited and not chapters like Werth's. Of course, there are much better sources than support what Africa Check say, which was added by another user, but it is a decent enough source about its acceptance, or in this case its rejection and controversy among scholars on the matter.

I have come to realize that about primary–secondary but I do agree with TFD that "[w]hat confuses some editors is that the same source may contain all three types of source at one time."123 In particular, see this: "Original interpretations or opinions are primary sources. Secondary sources report those opinions. ... If you use a source for the opinion of its author, it is a primary source. While allowed, I would avoid this because it requires us to interpret the passage and determine its degree of acceptance. ... As I said, some source may contain all three types of sources at one time. If it expresses a novel theory about the information it analyzes, it becomes a primary source for that theory." And you are right, that is very common on Wikipedia and I have been guilty of this too, but I do think that if we want to strive to write a good article, we should be following what TFD wrote; if something is truly due and part of scholarship, it will be covered by secondary sources.

If that will be the case, a total rewrite will be needed because there is too much popular press trash even in sections pre-5–8. I think that with you, AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the likes, we can have better source analysis that with some other users are not, or have not been, possible because there is just too much distance and misunderstaning. As unfortunately I have not access to them, how would you classify Strauss 2014 & Kuromiya 2017 as you did here?

P.S. Why can we not use Kuper 1982 for a general article about ideology and genocide? Why it must be focused on communism alone? I am not able to read the full chapter but the context does not seem to be what I understand of genocide/mass killings and communism. Its case studies or examples are the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, and Ikiza, none of which happened under Communism, in contrast to the two sources I provided, or maybe I am misunderstanding your reading of it — I just want to understand more about the source you cited, and its context and meaning that I may lack for not having it read in full. Perhaps it does show that B, understood in this sense, is not notable or good enough, and you were right about your criticism; problem is I did not find any of the four options working ideals either, including how B was formulated, but I did not feel like rejecting all options, and I felt that B was close enough to my ideal structure. Davide King (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, you should get an archive account, no cost. Also The Wikipedia Library, with a WP account you have access to the Oxford Handbooks online for Strauss' "Communist Revolution and Political Terror". fiveby(zero) 01:37, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I do have an Archive.org account but I still get only a preview, and I am not sure how it works to get the full book; is it through a download with Adobe Digital Editions? I am glad you wrote this — just 11 days ago, I got the notification of being eligible for The Wikipedia Library. I did not know how it worked exactly but just now I found Strauss 2014 in full. I am not going to use quotes, but I believe that it does support what Siebert have been saying the whole time, that the situation is much more nuanced and must be contextualized, and that MKuCR's current structure simply is not able to gasp or doing this, and I am not sure if there is any structure that would be able to do this. It is also mainly limited to the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia. I still would not know how exactly it to put in the table at Wikipedia:MKUCRSA, so any help and comment from you is welcome. Davide King (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, when i follow this URL there is a button near the top that allows me to borrow for either 1 hour or 14 days and view in the browser. I thought everyone had this same access? Maybe it's a U.S. specific option such as with HathiTrust? Make sure you are actually logged in to archive. Are you using chrome on a mobile device? Or Safari on iOS? You shouldn't have to download and use Adobe. fiveby(zero) 19:49, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, I must have missed it. I have loaned it now, thank you very much! Davide King (talk) 03:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Kuper is a very philosophical argument, or assumption he terms reasonable. Man is essentially good, therefore in order to commit an evil genocide there must be some "ideological legitimation" or "warrant". Before something like that went into a general article about ideology and genocide, i would want to see some comments elsewhere. There should be works available on the psychology of genocide, how would they respond to such a philosophical proposition? Also if you read the chapter look at the comments on China to see just how out of date it is. There was some congressional report i think in the '80's, then Rummel, and sometime after the thinking about China shifted.

For the MKuCR article, a quick scan at scholar showed he was still cited for the U.N. genocide convention. Why it's 'mass killing' and not 'genocide' i think goes in part to the ratification of the convention. Also Fein and one of the reviews briefly mentioned as important, so worth a look.

You should know i'm not proposing any content. I detest the find a quote throw it in the article approach, and am really only interested in the bibliographic type tasks. fiveby(zero) 03:00, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, Kuper's argument is very reasonable, and I think that your approach is very good and closer to Siebert's. I just find it absurd that MKuCR was created before a general article about mass killings, and it shows its POV; if we had a general article, we could better understand how does communism fit, and whether it is treated as a subtopic or a separate new topic — I do think that we may find to do this by following your approach by looking at the bibliography, I just think it would have been good to have a general article to compare and that Siebert is more qualifeid than I am on this.

The distinction between genocide and mass killings may also be welcome because if it was about genocide, it would be limited to the Cambodia genocide and discussions on whether mass killings under Stalin and Mao were also genocidal; mass killings open a can of worms to the "Victims of Communism" TFD well-explained below — the problem is that many users do not actually understand it and take it as fact, and rather than being a proper discussion of universally recognized mass killing events according to the most established criteria (50,000 killings within five years), it includes any death.

That is what Siebert have feared about this topic, and it is a reasonable fear, but the fact is that we already do this (e.g. "In August 1966, over 100 teachers were murdered by their students in western Beijing."), and treat the events as death tolls to prove the narrative, which I believe is contrary to mainstream scholarship that contextualize them; on the other hand, if we place this in the context TFD explained below, everything will actually be clear, but I feel like I am digressing and I do agree with you that it is better if we do not propose any content. Davide King (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd agree with The Four Deuces saying it could be a mix, but now with Secondary sources report those opinions. ... If you use a source for the opinion of its author, it is a primary source. A publishes. B comes along and says this A guy is a real jerk, and totally wrong, and publishes. There's no automatic reason to prefer B. It's opinions all the way down. fiveby(zero) 03:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

That is why we have WP:WEIGHT; if they are both scholars in their field and are published by the academic press, it is one thing. It is a whole other thing if A is a scholar in their field, and B is either a scholar outside their field or is not an-expert (WP:FALSEBALANCE). We would simply mention A in line with WP:UNDUE. I think that we have WP:NPOV and WEIGHT precisely to avoid such cases. Either way, I do agree that if we do want to write a good article, and not violate any of our policies and guidelines in the process, what TFD's outlined below, which in my view is also the correct reading of the relevant policies, is the way to do, especially in regards to NPOV and avoid OR/SYNTH. If something is truly due and relevant, or part of mainstream scholarship or significant minority, we would have secondary sources doing for us what TFD outlined below. Davide King (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify the types of sources. A expresses an opinion and B critiques it" those are both primary sources for opinions. B however might begin by explaining A's opinion, so that would be a secondary source for A's opinion. Of course that requires a reliable soucce such as an academic paper rather than an editorial, because the publishers would expect that B's explanation of A's opinion would be accurate.

The C comes along and summarizes A and B's opinions and explains the degree of acceptance of the opinions both express. So that is a neutral secondary source.

For example, Charles A. Beard was perhaps America's top hisorian and a leader of the progressive school of history. However, after WWII, "liberal consensus" historians rejected his theories and they have never recovered. Subsequently the civic republican view has largely replaced the consensus view among historians. A source that explains all that is a secondary source that helps us explain the various theories and their relative weight.

The only parallel I can see here is that Courtois launched the "Victims of Communism" narrative in his introduction, which was adopted by mostly polemical writers and has been rejected in mainstream scholarship. It's largely ignored by genocide scholars, but has received extensive coverage by sociologists and political scientists of anti-Communism. Although they point out Courtois' miscalculation to reach 1oo million vicitms, their focus is on why he wants to prove this number and what effect his arguments have on current, post-Cold War politics. They are not genocide scholars.

It's a bit like the Lost Cause narrative of the U.S. Civil War, that it was not about slavery but about states' rights, etc. Civil War historians take little interest in the theory, but sociologists and political scientists writing about extremism do. Of course they themselves are not experts on the Civil War, but are able to tell that the Lost Cause narrative departs from mainstream scholarship. So they write about who advocates the theory, why they do so and what influence it has, rather than writing point by point rebuttals and providing detailed arguments about the various reasons for the war and the motivations of the historical figures involved.

TFD (talk) 09:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Instead of steeping back from the events, stepping back from the scholarship maybe? But if the other editors don't understand that, or don't want that, or don't think that is always appropriate then saying this is 'primary' and this is 'secondary' is simply met with "no, it's not". And what content do you derive from such a look? Do you write about the events or write about the scholarship?

What kind of 'scholarship' is Courtois anyway? I think he makes a moral argument. I think that because he says "this is my moral argument". My fellow historians this is the view you should take and you should reflect that in your work. Some say yes, some no, some say they have their own moral arguments to make thank you very much. A couple say they don't appreciate having the argument and billboard slogan attached to their work. If you have the perfect neutral review of all that available, there are still questions. What are you going to write about and can you get editors to agree? To borrow your last example where do you write about Fort Pillow and where about Shelby Foote? That's not an argument for anything, but maybe an easier example of a harder problem? fiveby(zero) 18:34, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

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Toxicity on science ref desk

The topic, not behavior. It's archived now, and I feel I should tell you that your final post on the matter was very thought-provoking, but I really haven't had time to sit down to think on it all at once. I did want to note that I did not intend in my link to SEP for you to read the entire article as a prerequisite to my comment -- those articles are way too dense to take in all in one sitting unless you're really well versed in the field (at least for me, and I'm not) -- it was merely a "further reading if you're interested" link. It would probably be a good idea for me in future to explicitly separate those two meanings in prose links when it's a dumptruck ref like SEP. So if it wasn't hyperbole (as I expect) and you literally read the whole thing, thinking I expected you to do so for my comment, I apologize and hope you at least somewhat enjoyed it? For my part, I quit those articles the moment I hit the the first "qua", sine qua non patior. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	I bow in the presence of your 10th degree, grandmaster Google-Fu. Thank you for your help with research as to the origins of Renoir's lost painting. Viriditas (talk) 00:06, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

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Jarvisburg

I disagree with your idea, but not for the reason you might suspect. (1) This section is solely meant to be a list of communities, not a place with content about them, and redirecting list entries to a list is not a good idea. (2) If it's real, it ought to have an article eventually, and creating it as a redirect discourages creation of the article. Also, (3) I was inactive for a long time and lost my administrative rights as a result, so I can't offer any opinion about the deleted item. Nyttend (talk) 22:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Apologize

I want to apologize for my unclear phrasing at the reference desk earlier. I was in no way thinking that you were saying anything racist. I was saying that the news writers who use phrases like "Soros-backed" to discredit the DA in question are. It's clear that I said it incorrectly, and I should have been more clear. I apologize for that. Oh, and I've never thought of myself as "good people". I've mostly thought of myself as a complete asshole that is certainly not worthy of being thought of as a "good person" in any way. I recognize that good people exist, indeed most people are quite good at heart. I'm just not one of them. --Jayron32 18:26, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

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@Jo-Jo Eumerus: sent 12, will check for more this evening. fiveby(zero) 14:20, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Seems like the email server rejected them, as the space was used up. 'afraid you'll have to re-send them all. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Sent Romero, Mendez, Smith (2011), let me know if that one makes it and i'll send the rest one at a time. fiveby(zero) 16:52, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It came through. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 18:38, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

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Removal of "lab leak" external link

Regarding recent edit of "COVID-19 lab leak theory", I am asking you to reconsider your objection. FWIW, on Wikipedia:External links, I don't see any specific prohibition on opinion pieces, but I do notice that "knowledgeable sources" which are not "reliable sources" may be included. The linked article provides some perspective on the possibility of there having been a lab leak without this necessarily constituting a conspiracy theory Fabrickator (talk) 21:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

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Thank you

For being a voice of common sense on Talk:Tim Hunt. WCM_email 12:37, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you once again, for your comments. I can see its futile too, so I am disengaging but sadly its the wiki that is the loser. I am going to take a break, my 3rd in recent weeks whether I return or not remains undecided and I wish you well. WCM_email 09:05, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Regret not getting involved earlier. Once things go to ANI and an RFC is started to remove any wriggle room for editors with minority views and limit the extent to which one user can wear everyone else down (which makes a mockery of the name "Request for Comment") editors begin looking at sources only as a way to validate their own opinions. The conflict becomes more important than the content. fiveby(zero) 14:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)