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Thx

You nearly made me spill my coffee, I laughed so hard.LeadSongDog come howl 17:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

As Langston Hughes said (or maybe it was Madonna), we laugh to keep from crying. MastCell ^Talk 17:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Did you count the grilled cheese sandwich?LeadSongDog come howl 20:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

A new approach for dealing with conflict?

Hi MastCell, I started this section on Woonpton's talk page about a couple of ideas that have been floated for areas of conflict. One comes from SlimVirgin originally on the workshop page of the current Israel / Palestine ArbCom, the other from rootology on ANI in relation to the baronets dispute. Both approaches might have potential for fringe science areas, and I thought you'd be interested. I'd welcome your thoughts. Best, EdChem (talk) 05:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not MastCell but I'll answer anyway because I'm obnoxious like that. A proposal requiring that every edit opposing the flat earth hypothesis or perpetual motion to be balanced with an edit favoring flat earth or perpetual motion is not something I would support. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 09:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

That would not be 'balanced' within the meaning of WP:UNDUE, and (from my perspective) everyone is welcome to chip in their view. EdChem (talk) 13:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

?? That's not how I read SV's proposal. The way I read it, it does away with the notion of WEIGHT altogether. Fringe editors' favored interpretation of NPOV that says neutrality means having the article say "Some say the earth is flat, others say the earth is not flat," is bad enough, but Slim's proposal takes another step away from NPOV by mandating that every single editor must edit both ways; if the panel of uninvolved neutrality arbiters can tell that your edits are more toward "the earth is not flat" POV and don't favor the "earth is flat" POV enough, then you are tagged as a not-neutral editor and topic banned. This doesn't seem crazy to you?

In my initial response on my talk, before I'd looked at the specific proposals, I said that my first reaction to any suggestion that something that would work in geopolitical or ethnic conflicts should also work for fringe science topics is, "been there, done that." Perhaps a further word of clarification would be helpful: Elonka. Woonpton (talk) 04:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to MastCell for opening up his Talk page for this interesting debate. I think that there could be some value in SlimVirgin's proposal, if the team of neutrality checkers were picked differently. For nationalities, having some people from each side is good. For fringe, the team would need to be selected another way. Elonka's system for ethnic conflicts was trying to make a single admin do too much, and the diffusion of responsibility to a larger group would be good. I could even imagine the neutrality-checkers being elected (like we do now for checkusers), though that would take one election for each major controversy. EdJohnston (talk) 13:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, what a good idea, an election, something like an RfA. What could go wrong with that? As to MastCell "opening up" his talk for this, you'll notice he's not commenting. Perhaps anyone wanting to continue the discussion to do so on my talk, although you'll notice I'm not too keen on the idea myself. Woonpton (talk) 15:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought the checkuser/oversight election was rather civil. (No comments were allowed with the votes). The advantage of the mainstream over the fringe is that there are more people in the mainstream. With an election, you will presumably wind up with people who are typical of regular experienced editors, and maybe with some fringe people who are generally trusted. EdJohnston (talk) 17:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I don't mind people discussing this stuff on my talk page. I guess I think SlimVirgin's proposal is reasonable as a means of addressing the problems at Israeli-Palestinian articles - certainly it can't be any less successful than what's been done so far, right? I'm a bit leery of the idea of generalizing it, though. Political and nationalistic disputes are one thing - there is no "right" and "wrong" side, or rather both sides are both "right" and "wrong", or whatever - you know what I'm saying. It's not unreasonable to start from the understanding that both the "Israeli" and the "Palestinian" points of view (as if such monoliths existed) are equally valid for presentation in the encyclopedia. Scientific and technical disputes are different. Some concepts are "right", some are "wrong", and some are controversial. I don't think that you can apply the same precepts used for nationalistic or political disputes to scientific/medical articles. But I get tired of commenting at those sorts of debates, so I figured I'd sit this one out. MastCell ^Talk 00:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

"Stepping Back" eh?

You've still got the energy to block me. This madness is both frustrating and mildly embarrassing - for LK not me. I don't embarrass easily (I hope that's obvious by now). My soul request (or should that be sole?): Could you please (as a now ACTIVE administrator) clean up the typos and graffiti I had cleaned up before my actions were reverted. This occurred on credit crunch where some idiot has inserted "finance" crunch in the first sentence just to be a smart*ss and "bubbles" to "bubble" in DBMS. If you have a soul you'll improve WP by cleaning this up. If you don't you won't just out of spite. We'll see. If you're really a hard nut you'll delete this and do nothing (rot in H*ll if you do). - Lizzy"KeenEye"Coleman (talk) 08:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

In all honesty, when I drafted that notice at the top of my page, one of the few areas where I figured I'd remain administratively active (as I expect no one else to bother) was in handling your sockpuppets. I suspect that your apparently boundless energy and enthusiasm for this topic could be put to more productive use, but that's your call. No comment on whether I have a soul - I like to keep people guessing. MastCell ^Talk 00:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahhh...so you admit you knew no one else would "bother" if a sockpuppet cleaned up typos. So you had to step up to the plate on your lonesome, eh? The question is: If no one else would bother doing something so petty and spiteful and damaging to the "project", why would you? - Lizzy"KeenEye"Coleman (talk) 08:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I think other admins would probably agree that your sockpuppets should be blocked. I don't think that the long-suffering, law-abiding editors on your favorite topics should have to go through the lengthy process of familiarizing a new admin with your habits each time you create a few dozen new accounts, so I keep an eye on it. Let's not go any further with the charade that you're interested in fixing typos - it insults both of our intelligences. MastCell ^Talk 02:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

If you knew me better you would have used the term "masquerade" not charade. I once sweated for two days over which word to use. I went with masquerade as a hidden homage to George Benson. No one got the link, but then so much of my stuff goes over people's heads if they found all the connections their heads would explode. I don't deny I have an agenda, a purpose, a goal, a target. Yes, you are in my sights. No doubt your people have me in theirs. But the simple reality is that you reverted my edits that were SOLELY and EXCLUSIVELY cleaning up typos. You used the agenda to affect your decision-making as an adminstrator. I would not. That's the difference between me and you. You can't help yourself. I can. - Lizzy"KeenEye"Coleman (talk) 08:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Banned User

The DPeterson entity/Weidman has amde another brief appearance here.Fainites ^barleyscribs 07:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. Looks quiet for now, but if it picks up feel free to let me know and I'll handle it. MastCell ^Talk 16:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Whey protein

This might very well be the worst article of all time? It has it all: uncritical advertising copy, biological nonsense , unreliable sources AND commercial spam. Is there some kind of award I could nominate it for? Tim Vickers (talk) 03:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion:

This article sucks and is in need of attention. Please improve it in any way you can, if such a thing is possible.

(Modified from one of the deleted revisions of Template:Sucks) Antandrus (talk) 03:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

As a valuable bonus prize the prose sparkles like a divot. It's got that finely balanced almost-but-not-quite-gibberish quality that's hard to imitate. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

You guys really need to take your whey supplements. They can cure cynicism and empiricism (along with cancer, AIDS, and jock itch). If you don't believe me, just follow the 20+ links from our article to the "Whey Protein Institute" (wheyoflife.org), a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In all seriousness, Something Should Probably Be Done about that article.

I'm actually putting together a script which will randomly generate crappy Wikipedia articles from a set of basic rules and heuristics... a more complex project will be to write a script which will vociferously defend these crappy articles on talk pages by referencing medical-industrial-complex conspiracies and calling anyone who tries to clean up the articles "deletionists". This latter project requires some rudimentary artificial intelligence and I don't have the skill to code it, though. MastCell ^Talk 17:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A precedent? David D. (Talk) 18:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Hah - if the [REDACTED] turned out in full force to shoot down this AfD, there's no whey an AfD would succeed here. More to the point, there has been some cursory scientific investigation into potential antiinflammatory or anticancer properties of whey protein. It's a typical problematic case for Wikipedia: there are a bunch of individual animal studies, many from the same group of researchers, claiming that whey prevents tumors in mice. There is no human data that I'm aware of.

So the whey marketing types come here and feature each of the mouse studies at great length, implying that they're relevant and ignoring the innumerable cases where advances in rodent cancer prevention have failed to translate into advances in human cancer prevention. Since the mouse studies are, technically, reliable sources, it becomes a policy quagmire. WP:MEDRS was drafted partly in response to this problem, and aims to avoid the laundry lists of primary animal studies which are generally touted at dietary-supplement articles as proof of benefit. Anyhow, I think with a few minutes of hardcore editing, the article has improved substantially. MastCell ^Talk 18:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Let me guess, the only citations these papers have are from letters to the editor saying that their research is complete crap? David D. (Talk) 18:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... I haven't checked the citation index or Google Scholar. The thing is, each of these articles heavily cites the others, which is understandable but hardly indicative of widespread acceptance. There is also a substantial literature from various dairy-farming trade groups on the many benefits of whey protein, though they should probably be taken with a grain of lactalbumin. MastCell ^Talk 18:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

User Phillind again

Hi, I see you are off admin duties. So, quickly ...

I raised the issue of the hoaxing user Phillind back in April with you.

He's responsible for this oddball children's author page "Ferzakerly Kernott".

He left us a little clue to his hoax:
He describes the author's husband "whom she met at a pub in Middle Wallop".
Middle Wallop is a geographical oddity in England. Ha, ha. She married at age 66.

So, it would be appropriate to delete page "Ferzakerly Kernott". Is there a procedure to follow? Should this be notated in some standard way?

Thanks, Varlaam (talk) 06:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hoaxes generally cannot be speedily deleted, and need to go through articles for deletion. I'd suggest nominating the article for deletion, explaining that it appears to be a hoax (certainly there's no Google presence for this supposedly notable author). If you need help with the AfD nomination, let me know. MastCell ^Talk 17:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Your talk page stalkers sometimes come through for you. I've opened Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ferzakerly Kernott based on not finding any evidence that this person ever existed. (It's hard to hide a published novelist from the libraries of the world). EdJohnston (talk) 17:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. :) MastCell ^Talk 17:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Attachment-based therapy (children)

Hi. That AT sock is back [1]. Please note the user name. This is one of his regular attacks on User:Jean Mercer and one of the things raised in the arbitration. Lester is Mercers pre-marriage name and the rest is spelling. Isn't there some rule about not having offensive user names? Fainites ^barleyscribs 06:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yup. I semiprotected the target page again as well. MastCell ^Talk 17:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, MastCell, and you too, of course, Fainites. My gynecologist, my husband, and my two sons all confirm that I am not a man and have never been one. Actually, in case any one cares, Lester was the name of my first husband. After divorcing, I returned to my birth name, Mercer, and have kept it for well over 30 years now. (Fortunately, the fellows don't know the name of the present husband.) I legally changed the spelling of my first name, which was given to me by my mother in a fit of ill-advised cuteness. XX to all--Jean Mercer (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thyroid article

This might be useful. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. MastCell ^Talk 19:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Hypothyroidism#Diagnostic_testing really needs a good wacking using that source. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:20, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Whoa....well,I do stacks of thyroid tests in psychiatry...all teh lithium, plus a one-off screening early on...one positive in the latter category in fifteen years there...and it was when I was working in the UK for six months. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, think of the thousands of cases you've missed by relying on scientific, evidence-based testing instead of one person's anecdotes backed by a handful of obscure infomercials-in-print... MastCell ^Talk 20:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahaa. Was there not a good peer-reviewed paper rebuffing this that can be added? Anyway, i met a makeup artist who'd picked up hyperthyroidism by detecting the protruding eyes in someone she was making up....Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

As is often the case with fringe stuff, it's far enough below the radar screen of the scholarly community that no one has bothered to specifically rebut this particular person's claims. Ordinarily this would be grounds for deletion under WP:FRINGE, but as the person himself has a claim to biographical notability, it's a bit complicated. Ideally, we could cover the notable aspects of his biography without giving undue weight to ignored or discredited health claims, but there are the usual roadblocks.

Curiously, one of Barnes' modern disciples has marketed the concept of Wilson's syndrome, essentially a slightly less sophisticated version of Barnes' claims, which has achieved sufficient fame (infamy?) to be officially debunked by the American Thyroid Association. MastCell ^Talk 21:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this a good place to hang out now OMs gone? I'd add something constructive but I'm far too tired after messing about with a circular hand saw. Goodnight! Verbal chat 21:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't match Orangemarlin's legendary hospitality. But I do have free beer and pretzels, as long as you show your Cabal Membership card. MastCell ^Talk 21:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

		Civility Award
		You're a better (more civil) man than I am, Gunga Din. Quartermaster (talk) 21:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

A question

Hi MastCell, you deleted the remarks at this RFC from a sock that went unnoticed for a really long time. My question is this, isn't it usual procedure to strike any and all comments and edits from a sock account when seen? As you can see, your actions were reverted with the comments that there was no need to adjust the RFC after it was archived. I haven't reverted it back to your edits as I want to be clear about the policy here about this. Thanks for your time. I have to admit, I had seen this editor around a lot and was quite surprised by the socking. Again, thanks for clarifying for me. Be well, --CrohnieGal^Talk 10:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find a policy explicitly describing such situations; it's one of the many areas where Wikipedia depends on the common sense of its editors. This seemed like a clear-cut case to me - an editor was using a sockpuppet to egregiously violate a topic ban. As part of the sock's activities, it commented extensively on an RfC directly related to the banned topic. The RfC is sort of a historical document - it will be referenced in the future, and it makes sense to clue in readers that at least one of the most vocal accounts was entirely illegitimate. Especially since people have an unfortunate habit of simply counting numbers of signatures rather than evaluating the quality of support for each RfC view.

But whatever. There are more important things to attend to on this site, and I'm tired of spending my volunteer time here dealing with zealots. The more time I spend interacting with those sorts of editors, the less I enjoy this site and the less patient I become. Thanks for the heads-up, though. MastCell ^Talk 16:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

6SJ7 (despite being named for the preamp tube in a highly regarded classic amplifier) is prone to do things like that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That reminds me: did you see that Fender is "reissuing" a bunch of classic amps? For the low, low price of $1,500 - $2,500? It's tempting to stimulate the economy by purchasing one. MastCell ^Talk 17:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time explaining. I agree with you and I'll do the revert if no one else has. I think common sense should be used here. The editor was very active in a lot of places that I saw, including the recall that got started during the RFC. Thanks again, --CrohnieGal^Talk 09:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to reinstate the edits. I actually think that edit-warring over it would be worse than just leaving the sockpuppetry stand, which is why I'm not bothering to re-strike the material. It's up to you; it seems like there's some discussion about it on the RfC talk page, so whatever gets decided is fine with me - I'm not going to edit the RfC again. MastCell ^Talk 18:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)I understand and I don't do edit wars, 1 revert for me and I'm done unless it's totally obvious that it's vandalism. I saw the conversation and added to it. Someone else reverted it back to what you did. My last look showed a consensus coming to keep the edits like you had them. Thanks for your help and your time, --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-Drug, Non-Vaccine treatment of diseases

If one does a Google Search of >site:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov extracorporeal ultraviolet blood irradiation< one will find that many studies have been done. Some of the studies are a bit silly like exposing blood for many hours in UV, but others are more genuine and honestly done.

UV as a form of electromagnetic / photon radiation is at a frequency that is able to break chemical bonds, as such it can break up pathogenic causes of disease such as viruses, bacteria, and mycoplasmas. As a proponent of the use of vaccines, you should recognize that damaged virus vaccines and also live virus vaccines exist, and that their usage influences the human immune system to fend off those and similar viruses. The purpose of this treatment method is a self-development, as it were, of its own vaccine to the actual blood borne pathogens present in the body.

What is your view on extracorporeal ultraviolet blood irradiation for assisting the mammalian immune systems? Oldspammer (talk) 19:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Extracoporeal irradiation of the blood with UV-A has a variety of reasonably well-described effects on the immune system. The most widely used approach is called extracorporeal photopheresis, which involves separating lymphocytes from the blood via apheresis, incubating them with a photosensitizer (usually 8-methoxypsoralen), exposing them to ultraviolet light, and then reinfusing them. However, the effect of photopheresis is immunosuppressive, and so it would likely be counterproductive in treating an infectious disease. In fact, photopheresis is used to suppress inappropriate immune responses, as in the treatment of graft-vs.-host disease after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the suppression of graft rejection after solid-organ transplantation, and the (experimental) treatment of some autoimmune disease.

The classical explanation for the effectiveness of photopheresis was simple damage from UV light, preferentially affecting activated lymphocytes. More recently, a few more complex mechanisms have been proposed, involving alteration of natural killer cell reactivity, regulatory T cell production, or selection of suppressive-phenotype antigen-presenting cells (eg PMID 18411417).

I'm not aware of any evidence that extracorporeal ultraviolet irradiation of the blood would be useful in treating infectious diseases. As I mentioned, the predominant effects are immunosuppressive, which would be counterproductive right off the bat. Some wavelengths of UV may cripple or destroy bacteria and viruses, but then you get into the age-old problem of all "blood purification" methods. You can't treat a systemic infection simply by "purifying" the blood, no matter how effectively you do so. Infectious organisms are not confined to the bloodsstream. They reside in tissue, in extracellular fluid, and in other reservoirs separate from the blood pool. Even if you eliminated every last bacterium circulating in the bloodstream, a person could (and likely would) be left with a substantial reservoir of infectious organisms in non-hematologic tissues and compartments.

As a means of "damaging" (attenuating) a virus to create a "vaccine", it seems awfully involved, expensive, invasive, and potentially dangerous to have someone undergo extracorporeal photopheresis when the desired effect can be achieved by simple vaccination. Did I address your question, or am I misunderstanding it? MastCell ^Talk 20:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I accept that what you say has been found. Another link for a Google search has numerous articles about what I was initially thinking about vis a vis viruses, bacteria, mycoplasma, fungus, etc

Also the following Google search >extracorporeal UV irradiation vaccine Berger OR Salskov-Iversen dendritic cell cancer< found articles regarding research that,at first inspection, seems not to be indexed at Pub-Med for whatever reason. Is any of this information valid? Oldspammer(talk) 18:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Proportion of pro-fringe editors

Re "more editors available to protect the majority position": [2] I agree with you that among editors of any particular fringe article, there tends to be a disproportion of editors favouring the fringe POV on that topic. I'm not sure whether you mean that you think there's a disproportion of pro-fringe editors on Wikipedia in general. I assume there isn't. People who believe in a particular fringe view will tend to edit that article; but if we can somehow poll all Wikipedians on a question, I think we would likely find a similar range of views as in the general population. People who are pro-fringe on one topic are not necessarily pro-fringe on some other topic. This is why RfCs can help, by bringing in input from broader community consensus. As soon as I have a bunch of spare time I'm planning to participate in a bunch of RfCs, to help increase overall involvement in them. Other methods include: asking the pro-fringe editors to recognize that they're disproportionately represented at the page and to avoid aggressive editing (repeated reverting) for that reason; and focussing on literally following policies and guidelines rather than, in effect, voting. Somehow the right balance has to be achieved, neither too much nor too little information about fringe views in articles on fringe topics; different people will have different opinions about what is the right amount.

I'm sorry you went through the frustrating experience you mentioned. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Somehow the phrase "the fox guarding the henhouse" pops into my mind. I wonder why that could be? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This reveals a great deal. --Abd (talk) 01:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig, there are a load of reasons why there will be a high proportion of pro-fringe bias here - promotional health claims are easy to read, numerous and accessible, heck, online or in any chemist (drugstore) or supermarket, let alone television. Many absorb this more than attempting to analyse metaanalyses which show an apparent affect but with insufficient benefit to be confirmed as real, or things like placebo effect etc. So I think many laypeople don't really give it much thought - speaking of unproven remedies, think of how many of us take vitamins (hahahahha) when we have a healthy diet which should provide us with everything - I reckon it's be 90% of us all (and I am guilty as well as I pop another vitamin C and cross my fingers I don't get too many viral URTIs this winter in Oz). Many scientific experts are too time-poor to edit here and have no direct benefit to do so, unlike many proponents of various fringe theories and practices, who may have a big incentive to be here. Some I suspect are playing for keeps and will really not be interested in negotiating. Others I presume (hope) are better. I come here to relax, and like Mastcell, I am not keen on spending time slugging it out on contentious article and talk pages either and have spent little time doing so. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Certainly some experts are too busy to edit Wikipedia, but there are also many experts here. I would guess that the overall level of education and expertise is higher on Wikipedia than in the general population, since the type of person who is an expert is also more likely to be interested in, and capable of, writing and editing articles. (We also need to think about how to make this place welcoming to experts.) Your arguments about people reading ads etc. would apply to the general population too, not just to Wikipedians. (I hope MastCell doesn't mind me continuing this conversation here.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:18, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

....and hence my comment about the popularity of vitamins..I also presume even normal chemists in your neck of the woods have ever-growing alternative/herbal sections? :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, by "chemists" you mean stores that sell drugs and stuff (what I call "drug stores" or "pharmacies" or even an "apothecary"). At first I thought you meant scientists in the field of chemistry. Not sure whether they're growing, but drug stores and some grocery stores and natural food/health food stores have big vitamin/herb/etc. sections. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) chemist in Australia = drugstore in US of A. Must go and take my vitamin C tablet as there are lots of colds and flu about and it has just gotten cold the last week or so...Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry

neverending. Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Blocked as matching the now-familiar pattern. MastCell ^Talk 01:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject User Rehab

Would you be interested in joining this project? We need more editors who share a burden for rescuing promising editors who have gotten into serious trouble because of behavioral issues. IF (a fundamental condition!) they are interested in reforming and adapting to our standards of conduct, and are also willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, rather than constantly subverting them, we can offer to help them return to Wikipedia as constructive editors. Right now many if not most users who have been banned are still active here, but they are here as socks or anonymous IPs who may or may not be constructive. We should offer them a proper way to return. If you think this is a good idea, please join us. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've occasionally taken a stab at this informally, if I'm in the right mood, but I don't have the time or (more importantly) the energy and optimism to undertake a structured project along these lines. I do wish you luck, though. MastCell ^Talk 08:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't bother to wish them luck; or perhaps wish them a lot of luck. It looks just like the AMA to me and several other "older" editors. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of the AMA, it's apparently alive and well at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mattisse - funny you should mention it, since I just did the same. One more repetition of its name and we're screwed, like in Beetlejuice. MastCell ^Talk 18:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I hate to break in here, but what's the deal with this "AMA" thing. It's obviously not the American Medical Association, but some ghost from wikipast. What's the story? -- Brangifer (talk) 05:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh like we're not already screwed? Hah. I love you, MastCell, and one of the things I love about your is your boundless, almost childlike, optimism and AGF. You're adorable. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's good to hear - I've been feeling pretty cranky and cynical recently. I think I'm definitely past the apogee and on the downswing of my Wikipedia-admin career arc. I think the turning point can be found here. According to my calculations, I am 2 months and 14 days away from telling some particularly obnoxious (but relentlessly "civil") miscreant to go fuck himself. It follows that I am 3 months and 1 day away from deleting my user and user-talk pages with a frustrated "retirement" message, 3 months and 6 days from returning out of addiction to Wikipedia, and 4 months and 5 days away from being desysopped for failing to uphold the august standards expected of Wikipedia administrators. MastCell ^Talk 18:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to reality. The sooner you go through these stages, the sooner you'll be on the road to recovery.

Re the "user rehab" project: In the real world people who kick over the office furniture and delete all their coworkers' data get fired. In Wikipedia we shower them with the attention they crave, sending an implicit "up yours" to all the constructive users whose time they have wasted. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh nonsense. If I can watch Wikipedia "keep" an article on a redneck teenager whose claim to notability is that he fucked his girlfriend, you can surely survive an article on a woo-pushing crank being kept. :-P Boris: your point? KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec a go go) ::::::::See skew lines. The "user rehab" project involves disruptive users, not fringe articles. (FWIW, I'm fascinated with "woo-pushing cranks" and in the pre-interweb days used to seek them out on late-night shortwave radio.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Boris: That's true of an employer/employee situation. The really interesting thing, to me, is that virtually all volunteer organizations have strict criteria in terms of screening and accepting volunteers. I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and the screening for volunteers was substantial - they turned people away if they got a bad feeling about them, or informed them that their volunteer services would no longer be needed if they didn't uphold the organization's standards. It's hard to believe that Wikipedia is more desperate for volunteers than the average charity, soup kitchen, or after-school program, but for whatever reason our expectations of responsible behavior are several standard deviations lower than the average volunteer-staffed organization. MastCell ^Talk 18:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That AfD is depressing. Honestly - an arbitrator voting with the most basic "per X", and citing someone whose version of reliable sourcing is "Per Amazon reviewer who said blah blah"? Nuts. Nathan ^T 19:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Which afd? Which arb? KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

MastCell mentioned it above as the turning point [3]. Could've threaded it better I guess, but I hate breaking into the middle of a section. Nathan ^T 20:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was a sucky Afd all around. Teh Idiots R Winning, head for the hills! KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think my favorite part was when a particular user accused me of deceptively stubbing the article, despite the fact that I specifically noted and diffed the stubbing (which was done by an anomymous IP) in my nomination statement. When called on this, the editor in question altered his post (thus destroying the context of my complaint for subsequent readers) while simultaneously accusing me of "further deception" in his edit summary. But we're talking about someone capable of making an ArbCom case out of the use of quotes in footnotes - there is no winning outcome in arguing with such a person, as the WOPR would say. I was a bit nonplussed by the Arbitrator's vote (and it was, simply, a vote) - he seemed to be endorsing behavior that I thought was objectively appalling. But what the hell. As Lao Tsu said (or maybe it was Johnny Cash), I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way. MastCell ^Talk 20:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

... and, of course, I have sought solace in my campaign to vandalize the article. MastCell ^Talk 21:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not the trolls and vandals that make this place so unpleasant, it's the Milos and Nortons and the rest who get away with dishonesty while staying within the letter of "the rules." And there should be a special room in purgatory reserved for those "respected admins and content creators" who shelter and enable them. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not following "that" article actively, but have dropped in occasionally to check what's going on (I confess: it's like watching a horrible car accident unfold in slow motion - I can't turn away). My favorite part was the claim that letters to the editor are considered reliable sources, and when that source was removed, it was reverted once because it is claimed that "LTE are a reliable source unless a retraction is printed". Hang in there. --Quartermaster (talk) 13:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

@BR way on up there - AMA = Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates in this context. I was not around for it myself, but it gets mentioned at the MfD (which you may have seen since posting that, I cannot be arsed to check the chronology). I am not going to express much of an opinion regarding User rehabilitation as such work lies outside my skillset, but every time I think maybe we could have ScienceApologist back I have to counter with maybe we could have Firefly322 back.

I am also mildly curious how it can possibly be considered that Milo is staying within the letter of civility; my clever stratagem of waiting until the screaming stops and then just writing a decent article in the calm appears not to apply in this case. Meh. If I wanted to collaborate with people who enjoy disagreeing about project aims, I would just mentor undergraduates whose argument that they should not be kicked out of the lab for gross negligence is but then I cannot get into my favorite medical school. - 2/0 (cont.) 16:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

You know, when I was an undergrad, I used to wonder why my chemistry and physics TAs were so mean to pre-meds. Then I looked around at my fellow pre-meds, and I was amazed that anyone could put up with them (us). :) MastCell ^Talk 17:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Funny, when I was an undergrad, I didn't wonder at all; I hated the pre-meds as much as the chemistry and physics TAs did. I wasn't a pre-med but I took basically a pre-med curriculum, lots of chemistry and biology. I kept a household going (cooking, cleaning, running kids to the orthodontist, picking up the dry cleaning, all the stuff a housewife does--ah, I've just given myself away-- yes, I'm a woman) plus I had two part-time research jobs, and I still managed to take 18 hours of science classes and get straight As. But these guys, most of whom had nothing to do but go to school, couldn't even seem to manage Cs without cheating. The college had to keep instituting new practices to foil cheating, like taking photographs of everyone taking tests, to make sure the people taking the tests were the same people whose names were on the tests, otherwise they would pay other people to take their tests for them. They used to even steal the chemistry homework answers out of the reserve library to keep everyone else from checking their homework, just to try to give themselves a little boost up on the grade curve. I had no respect for them at all, and doctors still have to work to earn my respect, after that experience. It's possible that none of those losers were actually accepted to med school; I can hope, but let's just say I wasn't impressed with premeds as a group. Woonpton (talk) 18:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I read an interesting essay once, entitled: The Pre-Med as a Metaphor of Antipathy. The author was (IIRC) a basic-science professor trying to understand why pre-meds were such jerks, and whether the qualities selected for by the pre-med process were necessarily the ones that would make for an exemplary physician. Taking the pre-med curriculum was among the most depressing experiences of my life - a relentlessly grinding, competitive exercise in rote memorization of material that held little interest or applicability for me. I felt bad for people who took organic chemistry and biology because they were actually interested in those subjects - they were trampled in a horde of people who had come from the top of their high school classes and were trying to beat the curve, inexorably normed to a C+/B-, to get into med school.

I certainly witnessed a reasonable amount of cheating, and I'm sure there were more egregious things happening out of plain sight. I was amazed, when I took the MCATs, at the level of security and anti-cheating measures in place. They did basically everything except a retinal scan, but I suppose such things are necessary. The question, of course, is whether such learned behaviors and coping mechanisms can be switched off. MastCell ^Talk 18:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

As compared to the LSAT, where cheating is virtually unheard of... Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but those are aspiring lawyers... it's probably part of assessing their vocational aptitude (ducks and covers). It's like Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test. MastCell ^Talk 19:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I laughed. I KILLED AMA BEFORE AND I CAN IGNORE IT NOW. Hipocrite (talk) 19:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) We may soon be able to return the favor. MastCell, the problem of admin burnout is a very real one, as you obviously know. In my view, our structure, such as it is, causes this and many other problems that we face. Solutions are possible, but are vigorously resisted, even when they fit within our existing structural philosophy. In the recent RfAr over myself and JzG, you commented that we hadn't been involved before. That wasn't accurate. Remember WP:PRX? This was a trial balloon for a structural supplement that would have the potential, if implemented broadly (participation would be totally voluntary and would remain so), to set up conditions where burnout could be converted to recognition and intelligent and efficient process. Obviously, it wasn't understood as that, it was seen merely as a kind of voting, which it was not. It was, in fact, the seed for a growth of new structure that would supplement what we already have, as nervous systems supplemented more primitive diffusion methods of cellular communication. Good luck in facing your identity crisis, I'd much prefer to retain your experience. At a certain point, though, we move foot-soldiers up to command (or, in this case, advisory positions), and they don't fire weapons any more. To give a present example, my opinion is that ArbComm members should not use tools other than for research purposes. ArbComm can be viewed as a controlling body, or as an advisory body, and the latter is technically more accurate, the former is only true to the extent that the editorial community and the Foundation voluntarily respect ArbComm decisions. Advisors should not be executives, and when they are, it's a structural error which leads to problems, it can be predicted. --Abd (talk) 13:23, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I honestly don't remember interacting with you before the ArbCom case. Did I comment on WP:PRX somewhere? I can't remember taking a stance of any sort on the issue, but it was awhile ago, so please refresh my admittedly spotty memory.

I take a different view of the advisory/executory roles. I think it does us no good to have one set of people who theorize about policy in an ivory tower, and another set who have to get their hands dirty implementing it in the real world. Isolating the people who make decisions from the consequences of their decisions is a bad idea; I'd be happy to adduce any number of historical illustrations of this. Most Arbs are not active as admins, which is understandable due to the nature of the time commitment, but ideally they at least have prior experience applying policy to problem areas. I personally am extremely uncomfortable when people who have no practical experience applying policy in difficult areas start lecturing on How Things Should Be Done. If you can't do something yourself, you shouldn't really be in the business of telling other people how to do it. MastCell ^Talk 23:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I was about to comment that I searched the history of WP:PRX and searched its talk page, and can find no evidence of MastCell editing the proposal or commenting on the talk page, nor is he mentioned on the sock report where it was revealed that most of the editors supporting the proposal and "discussing" it with each other were related sock puppets, so if he was "involved" in that anywhere, it's fairly well hidden, maybe on the now deleted talk pages of the several socks who participated in discussing that very odd proposal. As for the proposal itself, it's one of the worst proposals I've seen on Wikipedia. I don't see any way the proposal could be interpreted as providing a structural basis for rehabilitating burned out administrators, as claimed above. I don't care to get into a discussion here with Abd about the merits of the proposal; it was soundly rejected and I have no interest in resurrecting it. I'm not sure what the point of bringing it up here would be; the intention seemed to be to suggest that Abd and MastCell had a previous involvement that MastCell hadn't acknowledged, but the link given certainly doesn't provide any evidence to back up that insinuation. Woonpton (talk) 23:52, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

In the immortal words of Emily Latella (Gilda Ratner), it just goes to show. and "Never mind." That wasn't MastCell, my error. I might be able to figure out how I got confused about this, but I won't, don't have the time. The comments wasn't hostile, in any way, and I believed MastCell's denial of memory even when I thought it had happened. As to my experience with policy, it should be understood that, while I was new to serious Wikipedia activity in late 2007, I had, by this time, over twenty years of experience with on-line debate and consensus-formation, plus extensive offline experience with such process. Wikipedia policies generally made complete intuitive sense to me, and still do. I just see (and would have predicted) the edges. And I respect those who have experience applying policies and recognize that this experience can certainly trump my theoretical analyses. Hence I propose changes with caution; an example will be work with blacklisting policy and procedures, where I've been involved in long-term discussion with blacklist administrators and whatever I ultimately propose will be hammered out as consensus with them, to the extent possible. ArbComm, in the recent case, Abd and JzG, validated one of the principles involved, though I did not consider that matter ripe for arbitration.

On the other hand, there was no sock puppetry involved with WP:PRX, and Woonpton has misinterpreted the history. There was one editor who changed his name, dropping one account and starting up a new one, without any concealment, that's all, but arguably inadequate disclosure. Nobody was blocked for sock puppetry, and there was no significant effect on any result. --Abd (talk) 13:35, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

No sockpuppetry involved with WP:PRX? Woonpton has misinterpreted the history? That's an interesting formulation on both counts. Just because I disagree with your interpretation of the history, doesn't mean I have the history wrong. I'm generally thought to be pretty good at reading a batch of text and quickly boiling it down to its essence. But let's not take my word for it, let's hear what Kim Bruning had to say about it:

"This page was originally created by someone using a small number of sockpuppets. There was in fact very little support for this proposal at all. It is kept in the historic record as an example of manipulation. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)" [4]

Abd responded (same link) : "Kim, you got most of this right, but not the sock puppet thing. This page was created by one user, Sarsaparilla, but Sarsaparilla was abandoned as an account and that user began using Ron Duvall, consistently. While policy did not require that Ron Duvall be explicitly connected with Sarsaparilla, he should have done so, and promptly acknowledged the connection when the issue was raised. But it was already blatant, anybody who cared could have found it in minutes, and, indeed, that is what happened. Ron Duvall was also, for different reasons, abandoned and Absidy taken up; this time the connection was properly noted with account creation." (more verbiage follows)

But then on the sock puppet investigation for Obuibo Mbstpo Abd argues: "Note that calling Obuibo Mbstpo a "sock" of Sarsaparilla, as has been done in the archives below, is a little misleading. Yes. Same user. But Obuibo Mbstpo was a replacement account for Sarsaparilla, and openly. This user only creates new accounts because he's blocked, he's not other than that -- which I agree is a problem on its own, and I have privately asked him to stop and to go through proper channels if he wants to return to editing -- disruptive on any major scale. Just to be clear. --Abd (talk) 14:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)" [5]

I'll let the TPS contingent here draw their own conclusions about the implications of this, but the fact remains that by Abd's own admission, Sarsaparilla, Ron Duvall, Absidy, and Obuibo Mbstpo were all the same person (all accounts now blocked) and they all argued in support of the proposal as if they were separate people, making it look as if more people supported that daft proposal than actually did. If that's not sock puppetry, maybe I don't know what sock puppetry is. Whatever you call it, it's misleading and not in keeping with collegial editing and decisionmaking. Woonpton (talk) 17:01, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

They were all the same person, acknowledged being the same person, and did not edit simultaneously, but sequentially. They did not argue as if they were separate people, but at one point it appeared so to some editors. There is no evidence that there was any intention to present the appearance of multiple persons supporting something, and the existence of one more person (say, three, rather than two) would have been completely moot. I believe that during that process, one change of account occurred. Yes, the accounts were all blocked, but each account was blocked for actions taken by that account, and Sarsaparilla wasn't blocked for anything, except later as some kind of technical formality (i.e., user is blocked, this is a former account, so it was blocked). There were no blocks of these accounts for sock puppetry. The editor was apparently embarrassed by one action of Sarsaparilla, a joke, during my RfA, (I reprimanded him for it, in fact) and abandoned the account over that. Sarsaparilla would not have been blocked for this. However, Absidy then suggested to each member of ArbComm that they name a proxy. Given that there was no process under way, this wasn't canvassing, but Absidy was warned for canvassing. It could be argued that it was spamming, and, as well, that it was provocative. The actual block, though, was clearly over a defiant response to the warning. ("Too late! I'm done" -- and an image of an upraised finger.) Indeed, this was my first encounter with a problematic block; an admin blocked for an insult to that admin. I discussed this with the admin, who generously agreed to unblock, and that is how the editor was able to return, to become Obuibo Mbstpo. Each time this user abandoned an account, the password was allegedly spiked. Sock puppetry charges were irrelevant to WP:PRX, and, it might be noted, Kim Bruning was on the side of protecting the proposal from deletion. There were other instances of socking while blocked, i.e., this user did avoid blocks, but did not ever edit with an old account after establishing a new one. I know the real-world person involved and there is much more story that could be told, but which won't be. Sequential accounts aren't sock puppets, unless, perhaps, used to present an appearance of multiple editor support, as in an AfD or other process where !voting is involved. None of the accounts involved were connected through checkuser or sock puppet investigations. In one case (Sarsaparilla -> Absidy), the user hadn't explicitly connected the accounts, though it was blatantly obvious, and in that case the user, when the issue was raised, then directly connected the accounts. The other accounts (Obuibo Mbstpo and Ron Duvall) were created under arrangements to return as a new account. --Abd (talk) 18:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Guys, how's that filter coming? Woonpton (talk) 18:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Slightly different

I believe this is still the same person with the same obsessions though. The old Candcae Newmaker was killed by rebirthing, not attachment therapy was a good old sock issue. Adding the quals in this way is another. [6]Fainites ^barleyscribs 07:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suspect you're correct - I mean, how many legitimately new users start out by {{fact}}-tagging? It is a bit outside my range of familiarity, though, so I'll probably have to pass this one on to someone else. Might be worth having a checkuser clear out any nests of sleeper sockpuppets. MastCell ^Talk 17:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This one looks deffo. Obviously not much going on in the world of AT.Fainites ^barleyscribs 18:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree about the latter and have blocked it. In that context, the CarbonNot_Silicon (talk · contribs) account looks like it matches the overall pattern - if it persists, let me know. MastCell ^Talk 18:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I should also mention that the fact tagging started on Emily Rosa. If you look at the article, she is the daughter of two of the three leaders of Advocates for Children in Therapy.Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:54, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm convinced. MastCell ^Talk 17:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Human rights in the United States

Suggesting that a US politician ordered troops to fire on civilians seems like the kind of thing that should probably be, like, sourced, or something

It already appears sourced in two articles on Wikipedia (Kathleen_Blanco#cite_note-0, Criticism_of_government_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina#cite_note-shoottokill-64) and in dozens of sources on GNews. Viriditas (talk) 16:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. Can we source it in the Human rights in the United States article as well? I'll be happy to do this, but our guidelines as well as best practices are pretty clear that quotes should always be sourced (particularly inflammatory or contentious quotes) - that's where I was coming from.

As a separate issue, a brief glance at the talk page suggests that your overall take is reasonable - if the UN and other reliable sources have cited Katrina as a human-rights issue, then that warrants inclusion in the article. MastCell ^Talk 16:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It's ok. I think it should probably stay out of the article for now. The person who originally added the material (I merely attributed the quote and expanded some of the material) didn't really connect it to human rights, but I suspect I'll find a source that does. Until then, it's ok if it stays deleted. I suspect a lot of additional material should be removed as well. Viriditas (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. I will probably leave a brief comment on the article talk page. MastCell ^Talk 16:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Beatdown

Diff Feckin' dissing me, punk. Got to block you now, dat's rulz. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

must... resist... temptation to start ANI thread... Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Careful... the last time I was "blocked", it messed with peoples' heads something fierce. And don't even look at my actual block log. MastCell ^Talk 04:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

lost your barnstar page?

nevermind, spend US$800 on one of these handy-dandy dowsing stick-things and set to "award page" heh, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

AN/I drinking game

What happens to the worm? Mathsci (talk) 08:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The fate of the worm is to be resolved by civil discussion and consensus among involved editors. :) MastCell ^Talk 20:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Help with sources

Hey there! I just saw your reversion on the Passive Smoking page edit I did yesterday. Wanted to know if I could ask your help with the cite tags in that article. I wasn't quite sure how to properly cite the 1999 study from the who. When adding that in, I figured that somebody else who knew more would come along and fix the cite, since it was directly from their page, but... :)

Also, I'm a little confused about the WP: WEIGHT comment. There are prominent adherents to the view that relative risk should be larger before something is seriously considered, and I could reference a few, but I thought that going into any exhaustive detail or adding that many references would've invoked WP: WEIGHT in the first place, and that a short one-line comment on the further controversy would be acceptable. How should I have posted it? Crickel (talk) 16:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry for not providing more detail or explanation when I reverted your edit. I'll cross-post this over to Talk:Passive smoking and respond there, so that the discussion can be seen and followed by other editors of the article. MastCell ^Talk 21:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Autism

Watch this video, it is interesting. [7]

With this new therapy you can cure the autism definitively? You can lose the diagnosis and the symptons definitively ?--green island (talk) 17:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

News video released today that shows an autistic girl improving after receiving stem cell injections --green island (talk) 17:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Just visiting

Just visiting, thought I'd say hello. So: "hello". Thanks for the pointer to the complaint generator: it is so true! Now I know where all those messages on my talk page came from. Best, William M. Connolley (talk) 22:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the drinking game was actually first proposed here, so I should really pour out a bit of tequila on the ground in honor of homies who are no longer with us. MastCell ^Talk 22:45, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, the development of a algorithm which would generate automated but realistic AN/I complaints, or arguments in favor of using snakeoil.com as a reliable source, etc is an interesting computer-science puzzle. Well, I think it's interesting, anyway. Of course, you could simply generate a MadLibs-style grammar of the most commonly used tendentious nonsense and have the computer randomly parse it, but that's simplistic.

The ideal algorithm would probably require that you feed it a large series of frivolous AN/I complaints, wikilawyering, fringe-theory advocacy, and other tendentious editing. It would then parse the text and create a web of associations, weighting each word according to those it most commonly precedes or follows. If you run this weighted web through a natural-language filter to create reasonably grammatical sentences, you would probably have output largely indistinguishable from that of any number of human-controlled Wikipedia accounts.

I believe that it could be done by someone with better coding skills than I. I started looking at something like this in Lisp once, but I'm probably dating myself. Does anyone use Lisp anymore? MastCell ^Talk 22:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You know about this and this (the latter resulting in this), of course? Presumably all you'd have to do is load their database with Wikipedia drivel instead of postmodern or CS drivel. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:44, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I initially had in mind - a straightforward random expansion of a context-free grammar, and the trick is coming up with a grammar that captures the formulaic AN/I post. But it would be so much cooler if the program could learn to be tendentious, by observing actual tendentious editors at work. You know - with each additional exemplary post that you feed it, the program analyzes the post and refines its algorithm accordingly. Of course, the problem is that I know nothing about computer science. MastCell ^Talk 03:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you're thinking of something like the Bayesian model for spam filters. I was fascinated with that and read some papers about it several years ago, but don't know if spam filters are still using that kind of model. You keep feeding it examples of the way spammers use language and it keeps refining the filter based on the new information. That's what we really need, not a grammar-generator that generates that kind of language, but a grammar-detector that identifies that kind of language and automatically rejects the input. :) Woonpton (talk) 04:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Spam filters are still all based in Bayesian spam filtering. Nobody has found anything better yet. I see that there is some refinement like Markovian discrimination, but I'm not sure of how popular they are. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:01, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Next!

Here. Fainites ^barleyscribs 07:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Book

I started reading the description of the book in our article, and stopped myself. This sounds so interesting I'm heading straight out to get it myself. Antandrus (talk) 04:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. The French sometimes confuse transgressiveness with literary merit - Michel Houellebecq being exhibit A - but as long as you go in with your eyes open, there's some good stuff there. MastCell ^Talk 23:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Health effects of tobacco

From Talk:Passive smoking you seem to be better at handling this. There's an active COI, article is at Talk:Health effects of tobacco. ChyranandChloe (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite get it - is the IP accusing you of having a COI and working for a tobacco company? Maybe I need more coffee... MastCell ^Talk 23:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

He's accusing me of PoV pushing. In my opinion it's reversed, but that's probably would not be helpful. His first edit began with the accusation, so I really can't assume good faith. Therefore I've decided just to be simple. Stick to the point on what's wrong with the edit, and hopefully it'll get through. So far I've raised verifiability, and relevance, which is described in my first post, diff[8].

While I was working on the article I've found that quotations and positions really don't improve the reader's understanding. All it ever seems to get across is: don't smoke and that was it. Two months ago I removed the same quotation from the CDC I'm try to remove (again) today, it's at the bottom the section [9]. This is the background to my stance.

The second paragraph in the lead is contentious, it's been like that when I first drafted it and when Vuo decided to rewrite to reflect his understanding. In my opinion, as a whole it probably shouldn't even be there there under verifiability. I've let it slide because I've been working on a draft that replace "studies" and "vectors" using chapter 1 of the surgeon general's report[10], which should both verify and clarify the second paragraph in the old version[11]. Draft is online here[12], but it's not quality, so I've held it back.

I really don't know what to say. Vuo managed to stay out of this COI, I probably should have too. I really didn't want to take the stance: look, we need to check what's going into our 100+ Kb article. It's how I got accused of being the "antagonist". This is what's on my mind. What's on yours? ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it may be clearing up. Discusion are now centered at: Talk:Health effects of tobacco, and User talk:ChyranandChloe. ChyranandChloe (talk) 19:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

RfC Invitation

Within the past month or so, you appear to have commented on at least one AN/I, RS/N, or BLP/N thread involving the use of the term "Saint Pancake" in the Rachel Corrie article. As of May 24th, 2009, an RfC has been open at Talk:Rachel_Corrie#Request_for_Comments_on_the_inclusion_of_Saint_Pancake for over a week. As editors who have previously commented on at least one aspect of the dispute, your further participation is welcome and encouraged. Jclemens (talk) 23:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

No thanks - I'm over the temporary insanity that led me to comment on that issue. MastCell ^Talk 03:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh God!

Dr DDP again Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. MastCell ^Talk 16:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like he's on holiday again.Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Must be nice. MastCell ^Talk 17:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Invitation

Hi, MastCell. I added a section to Abd's userspace essay User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing, and I would be interested in your comments on it. I invite you to participate in discussion on the talk page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

How can I help?

Since OM has abandoned us, are there any pages where my meager talents at quackfighting can be of marginal service? Aunt Entropy (talk) 14:54, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Most of the pages I'm involved I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. :) MastCell ^Talk 03:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Robert Young (author) page

I just wanted to let you know that I posted some issues about the "microscopy" paragraph on the Robert Young (author) discussion page and would very much appreciate your input on the matter when you have time. Respectfully, Honest Research (talk) 02:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Could use your experience

Hi MastCell, you seem to be able to get your radar up in a good way. I've been watching the Serial killer article and there are a group of new editors there adding lots of information to the article. The edits have been quite quick for me so that I've really not had a chance to check the sources being used though so far I don't see anything really wrong. But what I am concerned with is that the newer edits all seem to have their accounts activate 4/7/09. There is around 5 of them now. It just looks a bit hokey to have all these new accounts opened on the same day editing the same artical which looks like it has been organized by the way it is going so far. There isn't much on the talk to show the organiizing, just the way the edits are going. In a way it looks like one editor under multiple names to me. Which is why I am here, I don't know if I am just burned out with vandal patrol at this point or if there is really something wrong going on. I would appreciate another opinion here from you if you have time. There is no rush or urgency to this, just a sanity check on my part. :) I'd appreciate and respect your opinions if you have time. Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, please ignore, someone took it to ANI during the time I was off line. It has been also been explained by the teacher of the new editors, the reasons for all the new editors. It's a class project apparently, which explains why so many new editors signed up at around the same time. Sorry to have bothered you, --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Meatpuppetry

Whither Yilloslime and DarrenHusted? They appeared to revert my changes to the article at the same time as Dessources, and yet have not said one word on the discussion page. I note that the last time I was in an edit war with Dessources, Yillowslime also showed up to revert changes. He is obivously a long time editor and not a sockpuppet, but it is equally obvious he has been called in as one more user to revert changes. This is the sort of thing that makes editing the article impossible and causes guys like Chido to object to the process.SonofFeanor (talk) 15:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if he's been "called in". For my own part, I have no off-wiki contact with Yilloslime, Dessources, or anyone else active on that article. The sum total of our interaction is visible on Wikipedia. The article is just on my watchlist, and as you've probably noticed it's been the subject of fairly heated debate and editing in the past, so I tend to look in on it whenever I see something flaring up.

I would agree that the editing atmosphere at the article is not optimal, and I don't think any one person deserves all the blame for that. In an ideal world, I think we could discuss specific content changes and sources without constant digression to our personal opinions and arguments - and I'm probably as guilty of that as anyone. I don't think that the actual content issue under dispute is a big deal - it really seems trivial whether we say "partly funded" or "funded and managed"; I think both are supportable with reliable sources, and neither one seems outrageous to me. Certainly it doesn't seem worth edit-warring about.

In the end, this is a collaborative project. If you really think that a small group of editors has inappropriately taken control of the article, then the best solution is to bring the situation to the attention of a wider audience and get uninvolved, outside input. But to do that, you can't just look for people who agree with your "side", like Chido6d, and ask them to pile on. There's more on our pages on dispute resolution, and the page on canvassing has some general guidelines about appropriate ways to solicit outside input. MastCell ^Talk 15:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

As a compromise, how about "partly funded and managed"? Yilloslime ^T_C 16:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain further...

I asked you to return to Talk:Gladys Kessler to explain further your recent edits to Gladys Kessler. Geo Swan (talk) 13:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

OK; I've commented there. Next time, do you mind using more measured language, at least off the bat, rather than accusing me of a hagiographic attempt to obfuscate the historical record? Believe it or not, I (and I suspect most other people) respond better to the former approach. MastCell ^Talk 15:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

RfC

It appears SonofFeanor isn't going to be reasonable. I suggest either Cabal or RfC. Soxwon (talk) 03:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see why it's necessary to jump through dozens of hoops when dealing with a clear-cut tendentious agenda account who (incidentally) has solicited meatpuppets and edit-warred well past 3RR with their help. But I guess I'm old-fashioned. I'll participate in whatever process is necessary to restore some sanity, but I don't think I have the energy to take the lead. I don't think mediation will be useful. We tried that with Chido6d (talk · contribs), and I came to the conclusion that mediation is only useful if all parties are here to build an encyclopedia and simply disagree about the details. If one party is obviously here solely to push an agenda, encyclopedia be damned, then mediation is worse than useless. MastCell ^Talk 03:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban is the next step, but I'll ask for an RfC first. Soxwon (talk) 14:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In the Sonof Feanor case, there is admitted use of meatpuppets. Per WP:TEAM, I think one could argue for 3RR enforcement, where reverts by the original editor plus all meats are counted together towards the four revert limitation. EdJohnston (talk) 21:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

From the Statements of the Blindingly Obvious Department: "Don't care if you are willing to compromise. I am not." MastCell ^Talk 01:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Funniest article figure ever

Taken from PMID 17494747 is this image. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Good Lord... since software is one of the most commonly cited examples of "intelligent design", you'd think they could use find-and-replace correctly. Worse, from my perspective, is that both sentences are grammatically offensive run-ons. MastCell ^Talk 22:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The Lord must have nudged the poor guy's elbow. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Mysterious ways. MastCell ^Talk 22:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

¡Yow! Talk about a smoking gun. The cat is out of the bag, or should I say the panda is out of the pen. Whatever cliche you want to use this is great. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Bets on whether you edit MastCell's talkpage more than your own? ;-) Nathan ^T 00:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The quality of discourse is higher here. I'm not sure what to say about that, except that I have no comment. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm glad it's on my watchlist. The figure is great. :) David D. (Talk) 04:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Homeopathy and cancer

An editor is going around saying homeopathy cures cancer... I think I'm going insane... Verbal chat 09:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

This explains a great deal. Verbal, if you feel crazy every time someone proposes something you think preposterous, you will have one trouble after another. That some unknown editor says something "off" isn't a reason to make a big splash or to become mentally ill. And, in fact, I'm sure that homeopathy cures cancer, through the Placebo effect. I.e., real people have been cured or have gone into remission that would otherwise have died without the treatment. The placebo effect doesn't merely affect scientific studies for theoretical reasons, it affects the studies because knowledge of treatment actually does affect outcomes, otherwise we wouldn't really care about "double-blind" in most cases. Whether or not homeopathy has some effect outside of the placebo effect is where the legitimate controversy is, and to come to a true scientific conclusion on this is actually quite difficult. For how do you study it?

Suppose that homeopathic remedies do have some real effect, in themselves, but that effect requires knowledge of treatment by the patient to set up the conditions. How would you do a double-blind study on this? Basically, you'd have to pretend to treat patients but not actually give them the remedy, which raises ethical issues. Not easy to do.

Note, my belief is that homeopathy only works through the placebo effect, but that's not based on reading it in reliable source, and I only propose that here to point out that I'm not biased toward homeopathy, au contraire. --Abd (talk) 18:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Abd, baiting isn't very good behaviour. I'm sure MastCell could fill in the details about the Placebo effect for you, and its relation to cancer therapy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he ignored your addition to this thread. Verbal chat 19:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Verbal, I think that was just Abd's way of suggesting to you not to say negative things about other editors. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say anything negative about their behaviour here. Why did you feel the need to comment? This really isn't fair on MastCell. If you want to comment to me, my talk page is linked in my signature. If you want to make ridiculous comments about an idiomatic turn of phrase, then write them in your diary. If you both remove your comments, feel free to remove my replies, or move them to my talk page. Verbal chat 19:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Editing this encyclopedia can be an exercise in cumulative frustration. I purposely don't watchlist certain articles for my own sanity, homeopathy being one of them. It's best not to say negative things about other editors, but we're all human, and venting in a non-specific manner on someone's usertalk page is unlikely to destroy the encyclopedia. I don't think there is any evidence that homeopathy can produce objective remissions of cancer, whether by the placebo effect or by any other means, but I am not an expert on the matter, so would be willing to be enlightened if such evidence exists. MastCell ^Talk 04:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI, The user in question User:NootherIDAvailable has been blocked as a sockpuppet of a banned editor. Tim Vickers (talk) 06:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Preparation of clay (Medicinal clay)

In regard to this edit,

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Medicinal_clay&diff=294470245&oldid=294470069

could you please explain in which way any of this info is "dubious"? Dyuku (talk) 15:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"Some authorities insist that raw clay (as close to its original state as possible) has the best therapeutic effect. This is because the raw clay also tends to contain a variety of micro-organisms that may contribute to healing. Heating the clay may destroy those micro-organisms. Too much processing, likewise, may reduce the clay's healing power."

Could you please explain in which way any of this material is sourced? MastCell ^Talk 04:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Being sourced isn't the same as being dubious. None of this material is dubious or even in any way unusual for those who are familiar with the subject matter. Dyuku (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see reliable sources provided to support the claim that clay has "healing powers", much less that these supposed powers would be destroyed by heating the clay. That makes me dubious. If you'd prefer to frame this in terms of your superior familiarity with the topic, very well: please understand that most readers will lack your deep knowledge of the subject. We provide reliable sources and verifiable information as a courtesy to those readers. Short summary: sources plz. MastCell ^Talk 23:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Cholangiocarcinoma

Congrats on the main page! That article was all you my friend. I have much better ERCP images that I should add to the article (ones that don't have the scope covering the stricture, lol). Take care dude -- Samir 06:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I hope it's still up to date. I was looking at the article on acute myeloid leukemia, which is the other FA I worked on, and it's kind of mired in 2006 (and in a time when I knew less about Wikipedia and its style guidelines etc). I've been meaning to update it. Anyhow, thanks again. MastCell ^Talk 16:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

MastCell, could you have a peek at hepatorenal syndrome if you have a chance -- I think it's getting into FA territory (still some work left) but it could use the seasoned touch of an FA pro like yourself. Best regards -- Samir 10:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, since you buttered me up... :) I will take a look, maybe not before Friday though given some other things I need to attend to. Interesting topic. MastCell ^Talk 16:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

RFC Health effects of tobacco

An RFC is being conducted at Talk:Health effects of tobacco, I thought you might be interested. 04:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Water Ionizer

[BARNSTAR MOVED TO USERPAGE] Gillyweed (talk) 04:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

That's very kind of you, and I appreciate it, although I think my politeness level has slipped several (dozen) notches over the years on Wikipedia. This place really takes a toll after awhile. But your note will encourage me to try a bit harder to stay polite. :) MastCell ^Talk 04:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

SA minor Q

Hi... your memory or archives may be better than mine. There was a point where blocking or not of SA for minor improving edits was being discussed, and I contributed, amusingly at variance with the current situation. I don't suppose you know where that was? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I debated trying to find it, because I think that (as usual) people are spouting off without actually understanding what went down. But then I decided that it wasn't worth the effort, as I don't think there are a lot of minds waiting to be changed on this topic. If you find it, let me know; I'm still idly curious. MastCell ^Talk 18:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

21:41, 6 March 2009 Hipocrite (talk) 18:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, thats the one. I see I hung myself even further out to dry than I recalled. Or, following my previous naval metaphor, nailed my colours firmly to the mast William M. Connolley (talk) 19:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you think so, you mean old blocker you?  :) Like I said, the decisions are being made whimsically. It's all about who your friends are, not what's good for the project. This is a prime example. --GoRight (talk) 00:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

And to provide a contrast in self-consistency, consider the following [13]. --GoRight (talk) 00:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, come on, GoRight, you repeated the edit given above by Hipocrite. It's a tad rude to rub WMC's nose in it when he's already seen and acknowledged the problem, and I admire his admission, he asked to be shown it. Yeah, he's in some deep do-do, I suspect, but maybe there could be some way to clean it up, give him and his friends a chance. It will probably be a few days before I can get to writing the request. --Abd (talk) 02:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It was never my intent to rub anyone's nose in anything. I am merely making the bald point that these things are not being dealt with in a consistent manner but rather based on who one's friends are. I don't mean to impugn wikipedia user WMC any more than anyone else who is guilty of the same. WMC is by no means the worst offender. Nor is he as persistent as some I might name in this regard. But if one claims to be lawful good aligned and a defender of the law, one should make every effort to apply that principle more even handedly than it has been here. That is the point. Nothing more. Nothing less. And without prejudice (in the legal sense). --GoRight (talk) 04:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• The minor edits weren't the issue, and I'm grateful that ArbCom actually did the research rather than listen to the people who kept making false statements. SA went immediately back to his old battles and made some pointless edits; for example, see this edit at atropa belladona, something he's edit-warred about for probably a couple years now. He also significantly upped his bad faith behavior with disruptive and poorly-researched (sometimes libelous) talk page comments, and called for my ban on ANI with no diffs presented. II | (t - c)

WMC, I think this is the thread you were thinking of. . .(Useless advice -old page revision). R. Baley (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Sadly, Wikipedia is reaching the stage where common sense has to be thrown out the window in favor of strict policies. SA was cut enormous slack because for years he defended the integrity of Wikipedia against lunatics that others just couldn't stand to deal with. But eventually he went too far. Abd has no such history; quite the opposite, if anything. This is compounded by Abd's -- well, let's just say he is not handicapped by a lack of self-esteem. But to reach a clean resolution of this situation requires us to make a strict rule about participation by topic banned or page banned editors. Part of me wants the community to stand up and say to him, "You know what? You just haven't contributed enough to be cut a lot of slack," while the other part of me knows that this wouldn't be accepted in the present environment here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, so it looks like I was inconsistent with this as in everything else. Or perhaps, being more generous, having seen which way the wind was blowing I advised him to trim his sails to it (see, I can do Nautical) William M. Connolley (talk) 19:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

So true. I will refraim from making any comment on your comment of 03:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Total consistency isn't a natural human state. For one thing, it precludes the possibility of actually learning anything new, a point I tried to make here, albeit unsuccessfully. MastCell ^Talk 21:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Only Stalin was completely consistent, all the surviving documents agree on this point. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Presently I am in a pub in Toulouse, feeling somewhat... tolerant. Otherwise I would sternly rebuke your imperialist provocations. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

You know, when the issue of "harmless edits" was previously discussed, I certainly understood that the sense of the community was that someone shouldn't be blocked for harmless edits, not to mention for useful ones, and the only issue, that actually came up partly because I brought it up explicitly, was that it can complicate ban enforcement, which should, by definition, be kept simple. Being blocked and having nothing better to do, besides, I need to know, I went over all these old discussions last night, and, yes, I noticed those comments mentioned above. Based on that experience, I really did not expect to be blocked for a self-reverted edit, which doesn't complicate ban enforcement like ordinary "harmless edits" can. My motive, in self-reverting, was to respect the ban. One of the sad results of this affair is that another editor who was banned and who had used a self-reverted edit to an article to help quickly negotiate consensus, even though restricted to the Talk page, was then warned not to do it again as a result of the "decision" in my case at AN. Then, compounding the problem, the warning editor advised the editor, if he was sure that an edit wasn't controversial, to go ahead and make it, but be sure not to revert himself. Unclear on the concept. Look, I really did not make that edit to challenge the ban. I really did think that harmless edits were, well, harmless, unless intended to challenge a ban and to make it complicated, as it turned out they were in the SA case. I cannot fathom why a self-reverted harmless edit is worse than one not reverted; the change to the database is less, overall, than the suggested series of suggestions on various Talk pages, etc, which is so complicated that I certainly wouldn't bother for a spelling correction. Come on, folks, this is for the welfare of the project, it doesn't help my situation at all, which won't change regardless of what decision is made on self-reverted edits not violating bans, just like they don't typically violate anything else. I wasn't planning to make that edit until I happened upon it, and definitely won't do it again unless permitted, it's absolutely not worth the disruption even if I hadn't been blocked, but if you folks showed up at WP:BAN Talk, and supported the idea, all this crap wouldn't happen again. You know and I know what the general policy should be: harmless edits are not a reason to block anyone. That's certainly the consensus, overall, take me out of the picture. Self-reversion removes the one harm from "harmless edits," i.e., complication to ban enforcement. --Abd (talk) 23:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Need eyes on Zicam

I'm concerned about User:Cosmic Latte's edits of Zicam. He has been editing the article so as to downplay any criticism of the product or the company. In some cases he has introduced blatant factual errors, such as stating that "the FDA suspected" there were additional cases when it was the company itself who said that there were additional cases that they did not disclose to the FDA. I've no interest in demonizing the company or the product but we need to tell it like it is, especially given the current interest in the topic. I think you're involved in some medically-oriented Wikiprojects so could you drop a word there? (Talk page stalkers are of course welcome to keep an eye out too.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll take advantage of the parenthetical bit at the end. I stated that the FDA suspected additional cases because the FDA stated that the FDA suspected additional cases. What they said was, "the agency is aware that Matrixx appears to have more than 800 reports" ([14]). I could have noted that that the FDA "had an apparent awareness" (or, better still, "an awareness of an appearance"), but figured that "suspected" would suffice for a paraphrase. My version reflected my source, and your version (I'll take the edit summary in stride) reflects yours. Your source, being a secondary source, is preferable to mine. And by "mine" I mean someone else's, which I had removed once as overdependence upon primary material, but did not attempt to remove once it was accompanied by a secondary source. My intention is not to downplay the criticism, but to upgrade the writing. Because much of the writing lately has been critical, it follows that much of the revision will be of critical drafts. Were the writing more laudatory, it would be laudatory writing that would come under scrutiny in revision. Cosmic Latte (talk) 15:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll take another look at the article tomorrow - I've been editing it a bit. If there's a dispute that can't be resolved easily, then involving the medicine wikiproject would be reasonable. MastCell ^Talk 05:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Prod at Group for the Scientific etc.

MastCell, I placed a prod on Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis. If you have any objections, please let me know. To me, the org simply doesn't seem notable by WP:ORG. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me. It's not a notable organization, and the article will never be more than a stub. MastCell ^Talk 05:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

At least one editor disputes, so I'm taking it to AfD for more input. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Megavitamin therapy and Keepcalmandcarryon

Hi MastCell, I was wondering if you could offer some input over at Talk:Megavitamin_therapy#Vitamin_C_and_the_cold.3B_toxicity_of_vitamin_B12. I think you might be able to communicate more effectively with User:Keepcalmandcarryon. Plus, this is a sensitive subject that we've discussed before. II | (t - c) 18:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I've left a comment there. Not sure if I addressed the issues you had in mind - if not, just let me know. I think you guys are actually pretty close on content - after all, you agree on sources and are mostly disputing the wording used to present those sources - so I think it will work out acceptably for all involved. MastCell ^Talk 19:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Telepathy and war

Contains the hilarious statement "Telepathy and war is kind of like Siamese cats and cheese" and then gets better from there. Superb. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Abd

Hi. I had noticed that Abd is making unsupported statements on his talk page. In particular he now claims that, within his own very personal terms of reference, cold fusion has been accepted as mainstream science. I challenged this extreme point of view on his talk page. In an edit summary, he labeled such a challenge as the act of a recognized contentious editor. [15] As far as I am aware, unlike Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has an extremely poor and problematic namespace editing record, my own contributions are fairly and squarely confined to uncontroversial sourced mainstream content in the arts and sciences. Abd seems to be plummeting towards an indefinite block/ban on wikipedia. He should probably be far more careful about what he writes. Mathsci (talk) 03:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Eh, it is his talk page. He's welcome to discuss his beliefs about cold fusion there. Obviously, some of these assertions would be (have been) problematic in article/talkspace, but he deserves some latitude on his own talk page. I wouldn't be too concerned about his labeling of you - it's his opinion, and your work here isn't going to be judged by anything Abd says in an edit summary. I think he should be more careful about what he writes too - not in a threatening, watch-what-you-say sense, but in the way that he's obviously not an effective advocate for his own cause. But that's his business. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it - if he's confining himself to his talk page with the cold-fusion advocacy, then that seems reasonable, especially as it will presumably free up Talk:Cold fusion, where progress can hopefully be made. MastCell ^Talk 03:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, MastCell. Abd's absence from cold fusion and its talk page seems completely positive. Mathsci (talk) 03:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to note that Abd's return to the t:CF page will be conditional on (amongst any number of things) him *not* labelling people like Mathsci contentious (he did the same to me too, but I can cope :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 10:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I do disagree on this, you know. The ban isn't WMC's any more, it was confirmed by the community, and the closing admin for that discussion, when asked, set it at a month. Mathsci is contentious, highly so, and that will be easy to show; he's followed me around, posting where he never posted before, and most lately making provocative comments in my Talk space. And you can see an example of unnecessary contention above. I've been arguing that there is some evidence that Cold fusion is accepted as a legitimate field of research, and that has been clear since 2004. Different from saying "has been accepted by mainstream science." Notice the qualifier Mathsci used: "within his own very personal terms of reference," which is a flag that I didn't say what he claims. Reading what I write on the topic on my Talk and making inflammatory comments about it, both there and now on an administrator Talk page, that's not "contentious"? Very personal terms of reference indeed. Thanks, MastCell, for your sober response. --Abd (talk) 11:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Your agreement is not required. [16] remains true. Please make sure that you have read and understood that William M. Connolley (talk) 11:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Watch. Your involvement, WMC, does not decrease with repeated assertions. Don't worry, I'm not planning on creating disruption; I didn't take your ban to AN/I, nor did I take your block of me to AN, I didn't even put up an unblock template. No, I'm going to follow process, without the equivalent of wheel-warring, on a matter that is far more important than whether I edit Cold fusion or not, and it's become very clear what the next necessary step is. --Abd (talk) 13:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Only one day hi by the way

First of all I apologise for losing control and edit warring. The stress of it being an FA and disruptive editing made me lose my cool as I saw the FA going down the drain with all the original research and warping of refs etc. Thank you for having some understanding of the situation and showing restraint and not blocking. I was just surprised that the article lock was for one day! I was thinking one week at least if not 2 or 3 weeks. This was a major behavioural, allegations of intentional trolling, POV accusations all over the show, faking refs. There is no way all of that can be resolved in less than 24 hours. That will take lots of mediating, comments going through diffs to verify allegations. This was more than just a one day fall out. Anyway I would request due to the complex nature and prolonged nature of the dispute that the protection tag is increased to 1 week. I have no intention of edit warring or reverting sceptical again but if we are trying to resolve disputes and I see him trashing the article it will effect feelings during mediation. i personally think this is a matter of trolling rather than content dispute but am fair game for giving mediation a shot. Sorry for long post. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I left a note at User Talk:The Sceptical Chymist. In relative terms, I do consider his behavior worse than yours, because he's been ignoring the repeated entreaties to use the talk page. In absolute terms, both of you were edit-warring. I considered blocking both of you, or just him, but in the end I think protection is probably the best way forward - blocks won't help resolve the underlying content dispute, after all. I'd like to see how things go with the article locked for a day. If The Sceptical Chymist begins edit-warring again, then I'll block him.

The protection can also be extended if needed, but I hate to lock a high-profile article for an extended length of time if we don't have to. The protection is just a crutch, after all - I'd like to see a commitment to self-restraint from the editors involved, where they won't edit-war even if the article is unlocked. I see you've already made such a commitment, which is good on you. Hopefully The Sceptical Chymist will follow suit; if not, we'll deal with it. MastCell ^Talk 18:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] This had gone on for weeks, I would wake up, refs were distorted, I would correctly reference their conclusions, next day original research, deleting systematic reviews etccand I was freaking out adding them back in as it was destroying FA review. Much of these reverts was done manually. This looks like a temporary flare up, 1 day wonder edit war but has been going on weeks, appealed to help to admins alledging trolling, they dismissed and said it is just content dispute, tried appealing on talk page to sceptical, was ignored repeatedly.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I honestly think this was more than a content dispute, for almost a month refs were made to say something different. It is obvious to me he was trolling, even the first few days of the FAC I flipped out and was on the FA talk page demanding admins intervene and topic block him as I could see he was trolling, intentionally faking refs, claiming they weren't verified, making them say things they didn't. he got a kick out of destroying an article he knew I had put a lot of work into. It is just like children in a school yard getting a kick out of bullying someone. That is what I liked it to--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Like one day he would be saying paradoxical effects happen in 10% of people, edit war over it, when I had reffed it to 1%, then he would be edit warring from the other POV playing down paradoxical effects.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Last comment (running on adrenaline so not my usual self), thank you for your comments and thank you for saying you will deal with it if necessary. First time I have had an admin take disruptive editing seriously and this time I don't particularly deserve it for descending to edit war. Have a good day.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I know how frustrating it can be to deal with something like that when you have trouble attracting administrative attention. Let me look into the situation a bit more fully over the next few days. MastCell ^Talk 20:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Try dealing with 3 of them. I have a banned sockpuppet mwalla who is regularly following me around monitoring talk page discussions and then creating sockpuppets and messaging people, causing editing conflicts, I revert vandalism or faking of refs, then off he goes to admin noticeboard saying that I doing POV unfair reverts, then I get abuse of admins for being unwelcoming to the newcomers. My talk page has new drama from this sockpuppet with an NPOV investigation that they triggered which I will have to go through the thing that mwalla was making fda refs say opposite using irrelevant primary sources and so forth. Then I am in an arbcom with another disruptive editor scuro who took control of talk pages and articles for about 3 years. Now I have Sceptical Chymist. Anyway if you would like to get a good background of this situation with Sceptical, read from this section down to the bottom and you will see what I mean.Talk:Benzodiazepine/Archive_3#Withdrawal_section If you read from that section down to the bottom you will see a good background of what I mean. No one in the community defended me (or defended sceptical, i.e. I was left to deal with this on my own largely) except mattissee who challenged sceptical but then she seemed to buy into medical nonsense sceptical was saying and turned on me briefly bombarding me with original research, I lost my temper with her then she backed off. No problems with her though, she did help copy edited defended me then turned on me, so if you see a dispute with her don't drag her in, she did not troll me like Sceptical and we are pretty much neutral. It is the hardcore trolling by Sceptical and WP:DISRUPT editors such as Sceptical who I cannot deal with and need intervention. I cannot ignor trolls because they bombard the talk page denouncing people as ownership, NPOV all sorts of nonsense. Like Sceptical deleted a National Institute of Clinical Excellence systematic review leaving only a non-systematic review article of uncontrolled trials by Roche employed doctors, then knowing I would oppose it preempted me and jumped on and made a post denouncing me as OWNERSHIP, NPOV, neutrality in a big section (even though the previous version had both the NICE and the review of the uncontrolled questionaire based trials so it was absolute hypocracy. I have no choice but to respond and engage the troll then and I can't ignor the edits either or the article goes to pot. Also it gives me a bad name on wikipedia when people see me worked up over these incidents. These trolls do immense harm to wikipedia. Thanks for looking into this. Another long post but should give you enough background.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Evidence

Hi, not sure if you want to investigate this or not but I compiled my evidence and summarised it. Talk:Benzodiazepine#Refute_the_evidence_base_both_scientific_and_wikipedia. It is on this page.[User:Literaturegeek/Sceptical_Chymist_evidence a collection of evidence. I feel very wronged by what he did. It is a lot of evidence but after reading it you will realise what I had to put up with. read my appeals on sceptical's user page if you have a chance, on the talk pages as well and you will see what happened and why after weeks of this I called him for what he was doing.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I will take a look. I think spending some time refining the diffs and presentation, if you feel strongly about it, would be useful. On the other hand, if I can give you a bit of unsolicited advice - sometimes it's best to take a few days away from the conflict in question and do something totally different. It's hard to maintain perspective when you're in the middle of this sort of situation, so sometimes you can see it more clearly if you put it aside for a couple of days. At the very least, it looks like this is causing you a substantial amount of stress. I'm not saying that you should forget about this, or drop the issue entirely - quite the opposite - but this place is supposed to be fun (we're all volunteers, after all), and sometimes when things get this stressful the best thing you can do is get a bit of distance and then come back. MastCell ^Talk 19:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I will do some refining in the next day or 2. I think that you are right about taking a few days off wikipedia though it is difficult when you feel under attack. The only thing that I have a problem with is collecting diffs for talk pages. I think that reading over talk page can be helpful as well otherwise it is impossible to get an accurate perception of the situation. I will be trying to avoid any name calling from now on as I realise losing my cool over the ruineed FA is not going to do anyone any favours. Thanks and have a nice day. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I see that you are just going to concentrate on behaviour rather than the citation discussions, fine with me, don't blame you it can be time consuming. There seems to be eyes from wiki medicine/wiki pharm who will be contributing to those discussions so think that side of things is covered. I need to let you know that Sceptical seems to be trying to spread this. He is now on Sandies page trying to get her to turn on me or say something bad about me. I feel as I have throughout the FA under attack and on the defense. I feel this continuation of behaviour is seeking to escalate rather than desescalate. Just saying because if something isn't said to him he could do goodness knows what to escalate this between now and tomorrow morning.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the best advice I can give you (and Sceptical Chymist) right now is to disengage. There's no deadline on the content issues; and at this point I think the interpersonal dispute is heated enough that both of you are more likely to shoot yourselves in the foot than to make progress. MastCell ^Talk 20:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You are right, good advice and dualy noted. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

thx

... for catching that weirdness on my Talk. AGF probably wouldn't have been my first thought, so thanks for handling it. Tvoz/talk 17:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I can't remember why your talk page is on my watchlist, but it is. MastCell ^Talk 17:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely because it is such fascinating reading! Tvoz/talk 18:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's weird whose pages get left there. I automatically watch every page I edit but go prune the watchlist once in a while...I actually saw the 'foaming at the mouth' comment below so should have written there I guess...Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Killjoy

Sure, go ahead, make me feel guilty about a perfectly harmless lynching. :) --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I'd probably feel the same as you if I hadn't seen the deleted contribs. In fact, that ability is really the only reason I keep my admin bit. I don't want to make Tony feel like we're blowing it off - he shouldn't have to deal with that sort of nonsense - but I guess that having seen the deleted contribs, I can empathize with MitchCool (talk · contribs). I'd probably be angry too in his situation, no matter how professionally Tony explained this site's policies. That's just life. You'd probably have reached the same conclusion if you had the technical ability to see the deleted contribs. As a side note, I've often thought that trusted non-admins should be able to see deleted revisions - since we're gradually unbundling the administrative tools anyway... MastCell ^Talk 18:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Ooooh, "trusted non-admin". I'm honored, but I think you've just damaged your public reputation for good judgment. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Hah. That reputation must involve some public other than Wikipedia's. Although I was recently told that I had "badly damaged my intellectual reputation", which at least presumes that I had such a reputation to damage. Hell, I've even been downgraded from a "paid biostitute" to an unpaid one. No respect. MastCell ^Talk 18:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Whew, I was afraid you were going to say "I never said you were a trusted non-admin". And ouch; that's gotta hurt at least a little bit. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the bad economy is hitting everybody nowadays. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Accurate criticism really hurts, other times it is more like the noises made by a dog running up and down behind a fence, barking at those who pass it by. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

... and, more often than not, foaming at the mouth... MastCell ^Talk 19:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And again

[17] and this old IP that he accidently used when harrassing users about their tax returns just before he got permanently banned. Fainites ^barleyscribs 19:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I've blocked the named account as a sock, and restored the semiprotection of Attachment-based therapy (children). Given that his IP appears quite static and stable, going back at least to 2007, I've hardblocked it. That will prevent it from being used anonymously or to support logged-in editing. Depending on technical matters, that may or may not put a significant dent in the problem. MastCell ^Talk 20:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. He also edits from various places - probably when he's on holiday or at conferences or something. He's unlikely to give up. Persistance seems to be a key feature of attachment therapy.Fainites ^barleyscribs 08:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC)