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Happy Holidays

Can't say I disagree with you at all; it only gets worse and worse. You go have a happy holiday, and a great 2011! Stay in touch, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:13, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas. I'm sorry that it's come to this, and that I'm a part of the problem. If you think I can help fix things, drop me an email, I'd appreciate your advice and thoughts. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 14:42, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't really think you're part of the problem. I would have handled things differently, but that doesn't mean I think you're a bad editor or admin. You're fine. It's not really about your actions, or those of any one person. It's more a general, growing sense about how things are going here. I have some ideas about what I think has gone wrong and what might help, and I may post them here at some point, but for now I'm just going to step back for awhile. MastCell ^Talk 17:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem. When you're ready to come back, I'm ready to listen. In the meantime, hope you have a great new year. Best wishes, Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 17:58, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I admit to being part of the problem. After the Climate Change arbcom decision was announced I realized that there's basically no place for me here and haven't made a mainspace edit in months. And after almost five years of playing the Wikipedia Politics Game I've given it up and have been speaking my mind. Sorry to have made things unpleasant for you. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:09, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• I also should apologize for my part in the shenanigans, but I've recently got such a bad taste in my mouth that when I see stuff that's unpalatable I tend to vomit in public rather than in private where I should. I'm pretty fed-up with the way these scenarios have tended to play themselves out on Wikipedia (remember when we could appeal to WP:CLUE? Not so much anymore, I fear) I admit to falling far from perfection, but I'm really tired of the way governance is more-or-less a Lord of the Flies type of proposition here. There have been some improvements over the last two years in editing environments (noticeboards have helped a lot), but the palpable social discord tends to inspire too much sardonicism from me. For that, I apologize. Let me know if there is anything I can do. (For example, mark AN/I as historical). Happy Holidays. jps (talk) 19:22, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Again, I didn't have anything you guys did in mind. Boris, the way you've been treated is actually the archetypal example of why I think this place is doomed. If we're lucky enough get an editor with demonstrated and recognized real-life expertise who's willing to volunteer here and play by the rules (to the extent that no one could even find a reason to oppose your RfA), then we need to recognize that person as a valuable resource and make an effort to retain them, or at least not actively antagonize them. I mean, Britannica would be falling all over itself to pay someone like Boris to edit their articles on climatology. Here, he works for free and we treat editors like him as an infinitely renewable resource. In a sane project - one that took seriously its stated goal to produce a serious, respectable reference work - someone like Boris would be in charge of coordinating our articles on climate change. I'm as frustrated as you two are at the gulf between this site's stated goals and its actuality; I've chosen to express my frustration by withdrawing (at present) instead of speaking out, but that's just a matter of personal style. MastCell ^Talk 20:40, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree completely -- wish I knew a way to fix it. Gotta fit in that sword-skeleton theory though without offending anybody. Is there a way to give that pile of old bones a good kick that will scatter them for good? Antandrus (talk) 20:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Bradley Manning

Hi MC, would you mind removing pending changes from Bradley Manning? You added it back in July during the trial. I'm having real difficulty using it. When I revert an IP change, I end up reverting some of my own edits too (or my own reversions). I can't even explain it properly. Here, for example, I reverted an IP adding OR. But in the same revert, I ended up reverting my own previous revert (or my rejection of the pending change) of another IP who added an inappropriate reference (the Stop the War link).

Would you mind taking a look and either adding semi-protection, if you think it needs it, or none? Cheers (and happy holidays!). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 16:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay; I've been limiting my time here and had missed this request. I removed pending changes; if vandalism or BLP issues become a problem, then let me know and I'll happily semi-protect it. Happy New Year. MastCell ^Talk 20:52, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks, and a Happy New Year to you. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hogmanay greeting

Thank you very much for working with me in 2010 to make the encyclopedia a better place. Regardless of any disagreements we may have had, I want to wish you all the very best for 2011. I look forward to working with you, and I hope for health and happiness to you and your family in the year to come. I therefore send you this glass of the cratur, so you can celebrate, whether it is Hogmanay or New Year's Day where you are. Warmest regards, --John (talk) 04:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy New Year and a request

There has been a discussion regarding the manner that some conclusions have been paraphrased, please see the discussion here. Please also see further discussion brought to NORN here ,where I am hoping for your input. Best Regards, un☯mi 12:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Your helpful warning should be logged in the case file

Hi, MastCell,

I see that a while ago you issued a formal warning[1] to a disruptive editor, and noted that warning in discussion of a request for arbitration enforcement,[2] but I see that the warning has not been logged in at the ArbCom case log, where I see other editors have recently logged other warnings and sanctions. I would do the logging myself if I were sure I had authority to do so (as I am not at all sure). I hate to trouble you about this, as the message at the top of your talk page makes plain that your helpful administrative work for the project has been feeling tedious to you. You definitely are not getting enough appreciation for the good work you do here. Feel free to vent over on my user talk page if being reminded that other editors admire your work (as I know they do) will help maintain morale. Keep up the good work. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello MastCell and WBB. HelloAnnyong has taken care of this. It is now the first item in the 'Notifications' section at the Log of blocks, bans and restrictions. Happy New Year to all. EdJohnston (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Ed, thanks for letting us know. MastCell, I hope you have a relaxing break and we'll see you back soon. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow

You probably already knew this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110106/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_autism_fraud SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

But you see, it's all part of the coverup. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Like the man said, a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its socks on. But I think sanity is making a slow tactical advance in this case. Even the hardcore conspiracists and anti-vaccine stalwarts like David Kirby are starting to distance themselves from this mess. As Solzhenitsyn wrote: "There's a God in heaven after all. He's long-suffering, but when he hits you, it hurts." On the other hand, the amount of ignorance in the world is a fixed constant - if anti-vaccine nonsense takes a beating, then you'll find that some other form of ignorance is gaining strength. As far as vaccine coverage and public health, the damage is done, but Brian Deer deserves the Nobel Prize in Medicine as far as I'm concerned. MastCell ^Talk 05:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

What do you supposed fueled Deer's passion to uncover that fraud? Does he have autistic family? Wonder what Jenny what's-her-name is saying now. Someone should submit our MMR Vaccine article to ITN-- Eubulides kept it in good shape, and it's mainpage worthy-- but I'm off to bed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

McCarthy. And I hope having nice long look in the mirror.--Tznkai (talk) 08:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Fools! Now is the time to fall in line behind a man who has no leg to stand on. Best to seem loyal than seem wrong. In fact, I would respect McCarthy so much more if she doubled her efforts!!! to keep children from being vaccinated. I suggest donning a superhero outfit, going to medical clinics, and slapping vaccination bottles and syringes out of the hands of doctors. --Moni3 (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I realize there's plenty of progress in this revelation, but there's something missing. The reason people like McCarthy will go to such lengths to promote a false theory is because of the crushing loss they experience in their lives. Though falsehoods shouldn't be left alone, the proper context for these people (the promoters if not the original researchers) is not 'charlatans' but mislead sufferers. Ocaasi (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The work done to discredit vaccines causes the spread of fatal childhood illnesses. McCarthy has an autistic child. Several parents lost their children because, no doubt, they believed the study so intently championed by McCarthy and other celebrities. I'm not sure what your point is--suffering excuses bad arguments or ignoring logical thinking--because that would excuse the parents whose unvaccinated children are dead from being prosecuted for lynching McCarthy and Wakefield. My suffering is more legitimate than yours. --Moni3 (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to gloss over the real consequences of misinformation. I think it helps to understand where people are coming from. You won't have much luck getting someone dead-set on chelation therapy to care that someone else's kid might get the measles when their kid can't get the cheerios into their mouth or tie their own shoes. I think that's important, at least as a way to understand how to speak to people who have the belief that vaccines cause autism. You don't easily get emotionally invested people to change their behavior by telling them their facts are wrong. It requires some way to transfer or process the attached emotional weight which a pseudoscientific belief has carried, and to move the person onto a different track. Many, many people who eschew and abandon science do so because they want hope and community, and they need targets of blame (industry, establishment, etc.) Those people, if they are to change, also need to be welcomed with the hope that science provides, the hatred of slow research and biological ignorance, and the communities of people--also in pain, also doing as much as they can, also willing to try everything (that at least doesn't hurt). No comparison of suffering, only an acknowledgment that one side has it. Ocaasi (talk) 17:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I see your point, but I don't think some parents are reachable via logic, compassion, emotion, understanding or anything else. And I abhor how they damage children, because of their own obsessions. BTDT, and I think there is usually some underlying obsessive pathology involved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

People have a deep need to know why these things happen, and science isn't very good at the why questions when it comes to autism (or cancer, or chronic fatigue, or what-have-you). In my experience, when people learn that they have cancer, their #1 question has nothing to do with their diagnosis, or treatment options, or prognosis. It's: Why did I get cancer? I suspect that the situation is similar with autism. We don't have good scientific answers to these questions, and the metaphysical and religious answers are, frankly, unsatisfying to most people. So it's very powerful when someone says definitively: "I know why you got cancer/autism/chronic fatigue syndrome/etc. It's because of vaccines, or candidal overgrowth, or Epstein-Barr virus, or invisible parasites." Once an idea like that takes root, then no amount of negative studies can dislodge it, because it's not a rationally based idea in the first place. Ocaasi and Sandy are both saying the same thing, essentially, and I agree: you can't combat an irrational belief with scientific papers or research. MastCell ^Talk 17:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Disagree somewhat with Ocaasi, it's the damn fringe science that keeps parents deluded, and parents want desperately to believe anything, and then a celebrity like McCarthy furthers it, damaging innocent children. If she lends her voice to fraud, she pays the price. Anyway, this is going on the mainpage, ITN, so we need all hands on deck on all related articles (Andrew Wakefield, Brian Deer, MMR vaccine controversy and autism). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Greed. Well known to make people take leave of their senses. Colin°^Talk 17:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Apropos McCarthy (wash mouth after saying her name....), check out Jenny McCarthy Body Count, an interesting website....;-) -- Brangifer (talk) 20:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• Edit conflict, re: some of the above... Ultimately, people who have a public platform are responsible for how they use it. I suspect that people who promote ethnic, religious, or homophobic hatred are on some level acting out of personal suffering. At the risk of violating Godwin's Law, even Hitler was motivated partly by a sense of personal loss and suffering. At some point, though, a person's actions have to be judged not only by their internal motivations, but by how they affect other people.

  That said, I would certainly draw a distinction between someone like Jenny McCarthy - a mother dealing with a challenging situation and lacking medical or scientific sophistication - and someone like Andrew Wakefield. I know that Jenny McCarthy is sort of a lightning rod, in part because of her aggressive advocacy for her viewpoint and her rejection of scientific approaches, but in the end I think people know what they're getting when they listen to her. There's nothing deceptive about how Jenny McCarthy presents herself. I can empathize with, if not condone, her response to the challenge of having an autistic child. I'm much less inclined to empathy when it comes to people who manipulate and prey on the suffering, especially when they do so under the cover of science, and when they resort to outright deception.

  This sort of thing is ubiquitous at the limits of what modern medicine can accomplish. If you look at incurable cancer, or disabling but medically unexplained symptoms, or parents whose children have autism, or even people with severe chronic back pain, you see people who have been told that medicine has little or nothing in the way of answers. Sometimes that message is conveyed without sensitivity, unfortunately. People in these sorts of desperate situations are incredibly vulnerable, and from time immemorial they have preyed upon by all manner of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. Personally, I see that as problematic. I can understand the impulse that drives people to these sorts of treatments. Like anyone with experience in oncology, I can even understand the impulse to find something, anything, to offer people in desperate straits, even if its chance of success is marginal at best. But I can't understand or excuse dishonesty, particularly when it's overlaid with personal financial gain and devastating public-health consequences. MastCell ^Talk 17:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Very good points-- somewhere in between the McCarthy's and the Wakefields are the desperate parents who also have some version of scientific or medical training or credentials, and I 'spose my real disdain is reserved for how they damage children when they promote bad science. And then there's Swedo and PANDAS ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite know how to express this because it's still nebulous in my mind, but it appears both science and society are working toward the goal of attempting to make us as immortal as possible so that we may continue our belief that we are significant and special. Not simply unique individuals, but special. I'm assuming, based on my experience as a teacher and not as a parent, that many parents experience pain viewing their children's imperfections because they don't come to grips with the fact that often children aren't perfect--and the designation of perfect is too subjective. Random occurrences, such as the diagnosis of a disorder or even infant mortality, naturally occurring for millenia in humans, are incomprehensible, specifically recently in Western cultures. The pain parents go through is a reflection of their conflict that they and their children deserve better, when in fact nothing, not even science or religion, can promise us that. McCarthy and other parents are frustrated and angry because they expected something that did not happen. Science does its best to alleviate that frustration and anger to prevent more imperfections so that people may continue to have faith in their significance. --Moni3 (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

That was very nicely said. As for immortality and science, you should pick up a copy of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. We do have expectations of perfection, and it is a modern, 'western' view that problems can be solved and people can be fixed. Blame science for that. (We know what Christianity and other traditional religions have to say about fate, folly, and human perfectability). Autism seems particularly cruel because it strikes in childhood and without warning. I have no sense of the magnitude of pain cancer causes, but at least it tends to come on later in life and has some clear genetic/environmental triggers. Autism is like a demon that only haunts children and leaves no trace.

I think science should try to mimic some of the non-content practices of much of the alternative medicine. Not the 'we'll sell you a cure part' but the we know there's an answer (genes or neurological growth or toxins) and we do blame the enemy (genes or neurological growth or toxins and slow research) and we will fight the enemy (with research and more research) and we will cure your child with our magic (evidence based medicine), and group up to fight to do it.

But alternative medicine will always provide that perception of extra. Like, I prepared for this marathon, but I also wore my lucky shoes and did three heel spins... superstition is the way we trigger our placebo effect. People pursue these cures as ritual, because it's a behavior they can link to an intention, that they can attach to a boogeyman, in an attempt to remain special, relevant, and meaningful to the universe. Who wouldn't want that? Science says 'we'll make you better' but it doesn't say anything about meaning. It should. It should say, "we keep you alive, so you can find meaning". A thoughtful wikiday. Ocaasi (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Dude. What. the. fuck... --Moni3 (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Like I said, you don't reach these people with scientific logic. My outrage is for what they do their children, more so with Tourette's, where most kids grow out of it and would be just fine if their parents didn't make it such a problem and make their tics the center of their lives, and their childhood all about the "relentless pursuit of cure", and their self-image all about tics. Pity the children with obsessive parents, destroying a child's self-identity in the relentness pursuit of quackery, when acceptance is a better fit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems that Jenny thinks it's "much ado about nothing"; too bad children died. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Your child died because an unimmunized kid licked him at daycare? Too bad you're not Indigo. That would have made a difference. Have this autographed photo of me to battle your soul-crushing sadness. --Moni3 (talk) 22:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I find it a little odd that McCarthy, and not Wakefield is drawing so much ire. McCarty is a parent of an autistic child, and in my mind a victim of Wakefield's fraud. While she's gone on to cause a great deal of damage by adding celebrity to the cause, she seems to have been following predictable patterns in the vulnerability of the human mind: the need for answers, the just-world hypothesis, and the vulnerabilities we all share to conspiracy theories. The particular nonsense she does is otherwise just typical of the shallow nonsense that the famous use to promote what causes they find worthy, by trading on their fame.--Tznkai (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's very understandable, but (unsurprisingly) not very wise of her. She should be wise enough to stick to her area of expertise....eye candy. There are areas where misguided activism doesn't have such a price, but here children are hurt. That's pretty low. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It is obviously unwise, yes, but I save my anger at those in whom fail in trust or wisdom when they have public trust invested in them. Our leaders and our professionals. McCarthy isn't either one of those, so as much as I wish her efforts to fail, and support counter action to ensure it, I have no personal animosity for her. While its fair to say by acting as if she a leader, she's opened herself up to the attack, I just don't see why we have to indulge her.--Tznkai (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I sort of agree with Tznkai: you can't expect better from someone like JM. More constructively, we need to figure out how to communicate with the touchy-feely types. They're not going to be reached by statistics or rational evidence. It's interesting to watch a show like "Oprah" (just once) and try to get an idea for how such people think and listen. I don't know how to do it, but it's a segment of the population that needs to be reached. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It's great when celebrities use their fame for good causes. Controversial fringe medicine is not a good cause, but celebrity attention is a boon for lots of conditions. McCarthy is not really to blame, though she is somewhat responsible since she put her name, face, voice, and reputation behind it. She needed to really understand the science before doing this, and it's unlikely she did (though she might have thought she did or trusted the people who informed her).

The way to get to touchy feely people is with touchy feely language. People choose alternative medicine not for what it does but because of how it feels. AltMed doesn't just treat a condition, it targets the mind and spirit of the patient. That stress reduction, improved self-concept, etc. are benefits that can be extracted and included with real medicine. There's no good reason that people with [cancer] shouldn't be doing positive visualization, self-talk, relaxation techniques, etc. And AltMed involves human agency in a direct way--either the healing knowledge of the practitioner or the self-healing of the patient. Mature scientific disciplines don't require much of human anything, since bodies of knowledge become standardized and codified. This healing is really touching, and doctors should encourage people to be touched (socially, physically) during illness, since it makes them feel less lonely and more a part of something, more cared for.

When you tell someone who feels better because they believe X that X is incorrect, they interpret it as saying that "feeling better" is incorrect. Explain that the "feeling" of AltMed is the most powerful visualization tool people have, and visualization guides our healing. This lets them keep feeling hope, and feeling involved. Then explain that apparent (fallacious) connections between causes and AltMed practices can be explained through incidental or conflating factors, that science works to account only for connections that can't be explained by mistakes, and that no matter how good something feels you want to do the thing that is also not going to cause harm, which science helps minimize. I don't know for sure, but that's where I'd start. Not, 'hey, you're an idiot and you're going to kill kids'. Ocaasi (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

If alternative medicine is promoted honestly, as in "this will reduce your stress level and make you feel more whole", then who could argue? But if it were promoted that way, I suspect that substantially fewer people would buy into it. Instead, it's promoted as a cure, as a valid biological approach in its own right, and in many cases, that's dishonest. If you look at the most popular (and most lucrative) forms of alternative medicine, they tend to eschew the holistic and subjective language you've used, and instead explicitly claim the trappings of science, of "clinically proven" results. MastCell ^Talk 23:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)Thats the rub, isn't it? A lot of this stuff that can be defended on its emotional value (and partisan media comes to mind) requires that the consumer not be in on the joke. AltMed makes (many) people feel better because its supposedly scientific. Partisan media is entertaining because its supposedly truthful journalism, and so on and so forth. Not saying that these people are inherently unreachable or immune to facts or anything, but the whole structure depends on a certain amount of charlatanism.--Tznkai (talk) 00:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Yes, that's true, and interestingly also plays into the placebo effect... because people believe more strongly in something's value if they've paid for it rather than if we've gotten it for free (an insight of behavioral economics). And when people look to visualize, they use hyperbole. But what is stronger than science? So AltMed steals its language, because it is the strongest visualization. Really a great though backhanded complement. I think it is also worth mentioning that the many profiteers of AltMed believe it too, are no better educated in science than the average Opera watcher, and are unlikely to critically investigate claims if for no other reason than their livelihood depends on it. And yes, charlatanism is a part of it, because the charlatan is the suggestion-giver, the visualization leader, the placebo inducer. Ocaasi (talk) 00:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't this episode does show that there is a place for investigative journalism in science? Cla68 (talk) 00:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I'da thought this would have shown that. --Moni3 (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

That's another good example. Cla68 (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Before we jump on that bandwagon, let's be clear that journalists created this monster. Someone reading the scientific literature alone would never have been taken in by this for a second. In fact, the response of the scientific community was immediately and justifiably skeptical. On the other hand, someone reading only popular journalism without a handle on the scientific literature would likely have a skewed impression of the credibility of Wakefield's hypothesis, and would likely believe that there was a robust and two-sided scientific controversy here when, in fact, there was one dubious paper and an avalanche of high-quality studies contradicting its conclusions.

Think about what happened here. Even before Wakefield's dubious behavior came to light, there was never a shred of evidence that would impress a critically thinking, scientifically literate individual as anything other than wildly speculative. On the other hand, there was a mountain of high-quality scientific evidence contradicting the vaccine-autism hypothesis. The Institute of Medicine concluded ~7 years ago that this was nonsense (and its panelists were threatened with death for their efforts). But journalists, with their insistence on horse-race, he-said-she-said, false-equivalence approach, kept this alive in the popular mind.

And it wasn't a scientific study that brought down the house of cards - it was the personal ethical failings of individual scientists. Which is, frankly, fucked. You could show a journalist a dozen rock-solid scientific studies and they'd yawn, but give them a juicy personal scandal and you've got front-page news. Kudos to Brian Deer - he did credit to the ideals of his profession, and without him the scientific community would still be voices in the wilderness on this issue. But let's stop short of cheerleading for science journalists. Deer cleaned up a mess that they played a central role in creating. MastCell ^Talk 00:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Allow me to take the role of possible Wikipedia reader for a moment. I have children and me and my wife have friends who have children with autism. When we had our children, starting around 10 years ago, we were aware of the theories that vaccinations might contribute to autism. It took me all of about 10 minutes of looking around the Internet to figure out that the vaccination theory was dubious. I saw the news stories promoting the vaccination theory, but I could judge the validity of the competing ideas by looking at the strengths of the arguments presented in each report, not necessarily because some were written, supposedly, by scientists and some by journalists. Same thing with Wikipedia's readers. We source the information in the articles, and they look at the sources and figure out for themselves which of them appear to have a better claim on the truth. Investigative journalists, like Mr. Deer or Mr. Schilt, establish credibility by the strength of their reporting and soundness of the conclusions they draw, based, of course, on the evidence and reasoning they present. Cla68 (talk) 01:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The singular of "data" is not "anecdote". Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess it could be interpreted by some that a big flaw with Wikipedia's policies is that it allows "too much" information to be given to our readers. I don't think so, however. Anyway, this discussion is about, among several other things, the fact that an apparently fine piece of investigative journalism has helped shed further light on a controversial subject. Cla68 (talk) 04:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Media role discussed at The American Spectator. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

An interesting perspective, but I'm not sure how much weight we should give to the views of a guy who also runs this. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Party pooper! Give me a hand ... someone needs to write a neutral paragraph stating that Wakefield killed children. I'm googling for info, but I can't write it neutrally because, ummm ... Wakefield killed children. Talk:Andrew Wakefield#Deaths. Need to find CDC info. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Boris beat me to it... since the American Spectator historically provided a platform for Tom Bethell's AIDS denialism, which is the archetypal pseudoscience-spread-through-the-Internet, it's a little hard to view them as part of the solution. I guess we should be glad they've moved on from calling Anita Hill a slut, though. Since it's the Spectator, you know the other shoe is going to drop at some point, and sure enough, the second half of the article is devoted to dismissing the links between Vioxx and heart disease, SSRIs and suicidality, Avandia and heart failure, hormone replacement and breast cancer... all of which are taken a bit more seriously by the scientific community than Wakefield was. In the end, they're basically using Wakefield as a prop for their broader anti-regulatory agenda. I'll look for other sources. MastCell ^Talk 18:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

You would refuse to put a useful perspective into a Wikipedia article just because you personally don't approve of the source, even though it meets WP's definition as reliable? I think it should be added and attributed, so that our readers could do what you just did, evaluate the credibility and validity of the source on their own. Cla68 (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Which "useful perspective" are you talking about? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What perspective are we talking about? Do you mean the American Spectator article? I don't really see that magazine as a useful source on Wikipedia, unless the goal is explicitly to illustrate a partisan conservative take on an issue. As you know, the reliability of a source depends in large part on how we use it, and I certainly wouldn't make a blanket statement that the Spectator is a reliable source without qualification. It's certainly not a good source for unqualified BLP assertions - I would hope that its assertions about Anita Hill, for instance, are not repeated in our biography. Perhaps you disagree. In any case, if our goal is to limn the media's role in the vaccine-autism scare, I think we can find superior sources.

More generally, I'm always a bit disappointed when people play the "let-the-readers-decide" card. It's superficially appealing, because it makes me sound like an elitist who wants to keep information from the masses for their own good. But it ignores the reality of what we do as editors, which is fundamentally to make decisions about the quality of sources. Yet anytime someone argues against a source on grounds of quality, the knee-jerk reaction is to "let the reader decide". That would be appropriate if Wikipedia were a search engine providing massive, unrefined data dumps, but it's a totally inappropriate attitude for an encyclopedia, where our goal is to refine raw sources into a serious, respectable reference work.

Part of that process involves discarding sources which are partisan, low-quality, or unserious, except for certain circumscribed uses. But the culture of this site has always had trouble with that idea, which is part of why this place is so deeply dysfunctional. MastCell ^Talk 01:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It's worth noting that WP:V states The appropriateness of any source depends on the context, not If it's verifiable it's gotta go in. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. The Spectator quote is last, because it's the most recent and provides a good, pithy closure to the section. Cla68 (talk) 02:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Notice that in the time it took for you all to argue about why a specific source couldn't be used, I was able to get two paragraphs written and published using that and several other sources. Just get the cited information out there in a presentable manner and let the reader decide what to do with it. Cla68 (talk) 02:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

As a minor quibble, I haven't spent much time arguing about this (or, indeed, doing anything at all on Wikipedia recently). You asked what I would call a very leading question and I answered. Honestly, I haven't felt like contributing at all recently, outside of a few talkpage conversations here and there. I think that evaluating the quality of sources (sometimes negatively) is an important part of editing, rather than a distraction, as you've framed it. In any case, while I continue to think that the Spectator is a poor source for the article, I think the passage you wrote looks good on the whole and adds to the article, so thank you (honestly) for putting it together and adding it. MastCell ^Talk 16:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Can't pull up the original paper here, but it sounds obviously flawed (and I see it got a lot of flak in the letters that followed it). What's the scoop on Wakefield's 12 co-authors, plus peer reviewers and journal editors? Conspiracy, group-reinforced delusion, CV-padding, other? Postpostmod (talk) 20:40, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for your help! Best regards, Mathsci (talk) 17:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: Law school debt

Hey, I saw your question about 5 days ago on NewYorkBrad's userpage and saw that it was unanswered, so I'll try to answer it for you since I have asked the same question a couple years ago. http://esqnever.blogspot.com/ That answers your question about law school. As for med school, if you have $300k in debt at 5% interests, plus principle paydown of about 5%, then your payments are about $30k per year. Everybody can match into IM residency, where you'll be starting at a minumum of $150k per year. Get into a specialty like Derm/Plastics/RadOnc and the minimum is about double. If you're smart enough for med school (decent Mcat and Gpa) then go to med school. If you can't get in, try doing Physicians Assistant program. They make about $100k per year, also have a nearly 100% employment rate, and you won't go into as much debt and could possibly work part time while in school, thus lowering your debt. Good luck and I hope this helps. Other degrees which are good for $$$ and employment rate are: engineering, nursing, accounting/finance, and computer science & IT. Brain Before Life (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense from a purely financial point of view (except that the average resident's salary is closer to $40,000 than $150,000, but once residency is finished, 3-6 years after graduating from medical school, physicians can expect a substantial increase in income). But it's not purely a matter of whether one is "smart enough" to get into med school. You have to actually enjoy medicine. I've seen a lot of people who were smart enough to get into med school, and who understood the financial calculations you've outlined, but they didn't love the actual practice of medicine. The problem is that the job is so challenging and all-consuming that if you don't love doing it, it will grind you down. People like that are miserable, because they're essentially trapped by their investment of time, energy, and money into a demanding career which they don't find rewarding.

PA school seems to be increasingly popular, and I can understand why - the opportunities are incredible for well-trained PA's, with essentially guaranteed employment and excellent salary/benefits, especially in relation to the amount of formal training. It's not unusual for a PA to out-earn a physician, especially a physician in academic medicine. It seems to me that admission to PA school has become incredibly competitive, though - if not quite on par with med school, then at least in the same ballpark. And the people who excel in the field tend to chafe against the ceiling imposed by the restrictions on PAs. MastCell ^Talk 17:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Every lawyer, doctor and PA, that I know gains Informed consent before taking action on someone's privately held issues. Please consider what the real value is in these professions. Each has the potential to earn way beyond the norms and their debt levels, simply by providing ethical and fundamental beneficial services to help people, and not unfairly harm them for their own selfish base reward. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 03:51, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Am I being POV-y?

Hi MastCell. I wrote an article on the recently decided Mayo v. United States today and have nominated it at DYK. Someone on IRC mentioned that it seemed like the article and the proposed hook did not fully meet NPOV. I would appreciate it if you or a talk page watcher could take a look at it and tell me what you think. NW (Talk) 06:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

NW, I've given up trying to sort that (DYK) talk page; what is the hook and what is the source? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's fine. The problem is with DYK itself; any attempt to boil down a complex two-sided issue into a half-sentence soundbite is going to strike someone as POV. I don't know enough about the process to know whether the concerns are deal-breakers, but I would keep trying, because overall it looks like a well-written and neutral article. Thanks for working on it. MastCell ^Talk 17:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks MastCell. Sandy, the source isn't the issue, but the hook is "... that the Mayo Clinic argued in Mayo v. United States that residents who work up to 80 hours a week[3][4] and are paid approximately $50,000 a year[5] should not be considered employees but students instead?[6]" I think that MastCell is right that the problem arises from trying to choosing one interesting fact from of a complex legal case. I was wondering if the hook could be changed or replaced with something better. NW (Talk) 20:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

You could go with something like "... that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mayo v. United States that medical residents are employees, rather than students, for purposes of taxation." That way, it's more just-the-facts; when you cite the work hours and salary, it sounds more like you're making a case. On the other hand, my proposed hook may substantially obscure some of the finer points of the decision. Anyhow, just a suggestion. MastCell ^Talk 21:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

But wouldn't one problem with that hook be that the average reader probably wouldn't know what a resident is and would therefore have no reason to care to read the article? NW (Talk) 22:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's a fair point, although in these post-House and -Grey's Anatomy days the concept may be more familiar. You could say "resident physicians", but I'm not sure that's any grabbier. MastCell ^Talk 22:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Your off-topic question

Just noting here that I responded to a post you put on my talkpage a few days ago. I don't usually bother with giving "talkback" messages, but thought I should this time as you might otherwise miss my response in the flurry of other business. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much, and thanks for the heads-up. MastCell ^Talk 17:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Apology and consent request

Apparently, someone suggested I may have offended you. So I must offer an apology, with a request to seek clarification on these concerns. Would you mind if I ask other folks their opinions (on) your actions? Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

(Just kibitzing...) The most appropriate place to seek clarification regarding the terms and conditions of your topic ban is almost certainly Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification. "Ask[ing] other folks their opinions" is a rather broad request. If it means contacting other editors who were involved in climate change disputes (formally sanctioned by ArbCom or not) – or who you might reasonably suspect are otherwise predisposed to your position in the MfD – then you run a serious risk of violating both your topic ban and WP:CANVASS. Regardless of how MastCell might respond to your request, it would be beyond his authority to grant you leave to overstep either provision.

If you wish to seek a formal sanction of MastCell, then that runs through the usual dispute resolution forums, from WP:AN/I all the way up to ArbCom. If you're unsure about how such processes would interact with your topic ban, I would again recommend seeking ArbCom clarification first. Frankly, I don't recommend this approach, as MastCell's conduct has been entirely proper and you might be sanctioned for pursuing a frivolous request. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I was considering Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts first, for uninvolved input. I am sure, I would like clarification on the "frivolous" concerns too. There can be no battle ground when folks consent to a peaceful dispute for resolution. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 16:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not easily offended, so you don't need to apologize for offending me, although it's kind of you to do so. Really, I'd just like to keep things focused on site policy rather than personalities. If there's a question as to whether a page should be deleted, then I'd like to have that discussion grounded in policy, rather than in accusations of personal malice. Not because I'm offended, but because I think it's the best way to handle things. As far as seeking further input about my actions, you're of course welcome to do so in any venue that you think is appropriate under existing site guidelines. MastCell ^Talk 16:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

My concern is that you took action without consensus, no one had any issues, until you decided to selectively escalate the issue. Is this an abuse of policy? ... well that's what we should get clarified. I hope you agree this is really beneficial to Wikipedia, I am not seeking an administrative action for you, maybe just a minor warning. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 17:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

What action did I take without consensus? I contacted you to discuss whether the pages in question met site content guidelines. When it became clear we were unlikely to reach agreement, I submitted the matter to WP:MfD for outside input. The whole point of WP:MfD is to determine whether a consensus exists to delete a page. It's unclear to me why you think "consensus" is required to submit an article for discussion there. Certainly this site's guidelines and policies don't suggest any such thing. MastCell ^Talk 17:06, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I remain clearly open for agreements, it's difficult now that this has been escalated. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I think it's flatly untrue that you are "open for agreements". When I approached you with a policy-based concern about the pages, you told me to "go away and bother someone else". When I tried to elaborate on my concern with further reference to site policy, you demanded that I stop and accused me of harassment ([7]). While I disagree that I was in any way "harassing" you, I respected your request to cease posting to your talk page. You then hatted the entire thread with a summary of "Bothersome". I did not interpret those as the actions of someone "open to agreement". The policy-prescribed next step to address my concerns was WP:MfD, where I submitted the pages for discussion. MastCell ^Talk 23:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this earlier. What would you like me to agree to? Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 16:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(I note parenthetically that ZuluPapa5 added a passage to WP:CIV a few minutes before his comment here that reflects his rather idiosyncratic understanding of consensus-building and dispute resolution. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC))

Note, WMC has once again [8] deleted my contribution, as if WP:hounding my user contribution list for disputes. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 18:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, but I don't have any interest in editing (or arguing about) WP:CIV at the moment. MastCell ^Talk 19:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, I'm just an onlooker here, but trying to follow along on the page, I'm having trouble parsing the first sentence: Apparently, someone suggested I may have offended you. That sentence conveys no useful meaning whatever. Did someone suggest you may have offended MastCell? If so, who suggested it, what was the context and where is the diff? And what does it matter if "someone" suggested this, if the "someone" wasn't MastCell himself? If MastCell says he's not offended, why are you trumping up a dispute on the basis of this flimsy evidence, not that MastCell was actually offended, or even that "someone" actually suggested MastCell was offended, but that someone apparently suggested MastCell was offended? This is hardly reasonable grounds to establish the existence of a personal dispute that needs to be discussed and resolved by the community. MastCell's actions were completely within policy, as he has patiently explained; to interpret them as being motivated by some personal animus against you suggests a battleground attitude on your part that is not helpful. He has put his editorial decision up for review by filing the MfD, which is open for comment by anyone in the community, and I have no doubt he will abide by the decision made by the community. I don't see any personal dispute here that needs to be discussed in addition to the editorial review. Woonpton (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You are excused, seems like there was reconciliation here, unless you wish to disrupt this? Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 15:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Articles matter

While the perpetual waves of woo make this project terribly tedious at times, a blog on the educational use of articles reminded me that it is, in the end, worthwhile. Science teaching, or at least physics.
Getting a bit offtopic, another Scottish blogger writes on a similar theme of changes in education. Thought you might find these of some interest. . . dave souza, talk 10:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Having noticed your comment elsewhere, thought you might be interested in a documentary featuring a Nobel prize winning biologist sympathetically interviewing an Aids denier, albeit one who rejects the label. That part starts at 3 minutes into the linked section, though the whole thing is worth watching. . . dave souza, talk 19:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link - I've been meaning to watch that. MastCell ^Talk 19:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah good, if you've an hour to spend you'll want to start here. An interestingly understated programme. . . dave souza, talk 20:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Advice on Past Page Deletion

Hi MastCell, I'm a new user to Wikipedia, but I wanted to ask about the deletion of a page called 'CUrio', in August 2007. The page was about a student newspaper at the University of Canberra, and was deleted (from what I can tell) due to lack of notability and references. I want to look at overturning that or restoring the page. I'm the editor of the newspaper, going into my second year of its stewardship, and I'm troubled by its deletion for a number of reasons - firstly, that other student newspapers at universities in Australia have Wikipedia entries that are both updated and remain undeleted; second, that the notability of a student newspaper will obviously not be apparent to those who are not concerned with it and/or the University at which it is based (in other words, as a part of campus life at the University of Canberra, documenting the changes that do occur there, and having been under the stewardship of several notable alumni, CUrio should be considered notable); and lastly, by the lack of data available to confirm the information about the magazine - information and references of which are now available and can be used. Would you be able to give me some info on how I can go about restoring, updating, and referencing the page? And if not, outline for me why exactly the page will remain deleted? Cheers, PatrickJosephFrederickMartin (talk) 05:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I see that I deleted the article in response to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curio (magazine). At the time, I wrote that the article could be re-created if/when new sources became available. From your note, it sounds like you've got access to relevant information and references. I don't see any reason why you couldn't re-create the article. Typically, people are advised to go through the deletion review process before re-creating a deleted article, but given that it's been 3 years I think that would be giving you an unnecessary run-around.

I would suggest that you just go ahead and re-create the article with the new source material you have, and if anyone raises a concern you can point them back to this discussion, or to me. Do be aware that others may send the article back to articles for deletion, but if the sourcing is there then that shouldn't be an issue. If I can be of additional help, or if you want to see the deleted material from 2007, let me know. Take care and happy editing. MastCell ^Talk 03:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You've won!

Hi, MastCell! The OS-AFTER committee is pleased to announce that you've won the OhioStandard Award for Truly Exceptional Repartee for your reply to the trollish question, "Wow! Have you had your blood pressure checked recently?". Previous winners include Frank Zappa, for his response to an interviewer with a prosthetic leg, who asked him, "So, I guess your long hair makes you a girl?", to which Zappa immediately replied, "So, I guess your wooden leg makes you a table?" One of the things I like about this place is that it's filled with a lot of really smart people ( and five dumb ones ;-) who make comments that really crack me up! Thanks for the laugh! Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 23:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Sweeeeet - thanks for the kind words. :) Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 04:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Coleman

Thanks for your edits at Priscilla K. Coleman (unfortunately I'm afraid these editors are either quite serious or are more skilled at trolling than I can conceive). I've begun a new discussion on the talk page if you'd like to contribute. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what's going on there - it's like I stepped into an alternate universe. This makes absolutely no sense - I cannot understand why any editor would restore that content, which is clearly an editorial argument (complete with use of first-person plural) and violates literally every fundamental content policy we've got (the edit summary probably violates a few behavioral policies for good measure). I left a note at User talk:Johnpacklambert - at this point, I'm assuming that I'm just missing something, because it doesn't make any sense. MastCell ^Talk 19:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you're missing anything. I'd have reverted it myself by now except I've already reverted it a couple of times today. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

There seems to have been an explosion of partisan abortion-related editing in the past 24 hours or so, at least judging by Priscilla K. Coleman and Planned Parenthood (I don't watchlist many others). From my perspective, it seems to be raining pro-life talking points all of a sudden, and the cynic in me (or at least the believer in Occam's razor) is a bit suspicious, but in the end, like most things here, it's not worth getting in a fight about. MastCell ^Talk 20:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• Just a heads up that I have blocked User:Johnpacklambert for edit warring at Priscilla K. Coleman. I encourage you both to keep cool (I think you've done reasonably well so far, all things considered). Quite apart from the edit warring issue, I do share MastCell's wonderment at some of Johnpacklambert's edits. This is not a new phenomenon—I recently came across this editorial commentary and was quite amazed. Anyway, his edit warring is not new either—he's been warned multiple times before—which is why I saw fit to issue the block. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Hmmm - while you were posting this, I was in the process of posting a complaint to WP:AN/I (link to subsection), and I think we crossed edits. I'll amend the complaint to reflect your block. As an aside, thank you for stepping up to the plate; I appreciate your prompt attention (it was so fast that I hadn't even posted my AN/I request yet!) If I can further impose upon you, if the pattern that seems to be in evidence here continues unabated after the block expires, I may contact you again to ask you to review the matter. After all, no good deed goes unpunished. :) Thank you again for reviewing the matter. MastCell ^Talk 21:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
    • That would be fine if you wanted to contact me in the future. I'm in timezone UTC+13h, so my editing time doesn't always correspond well with others' around the world, but if you ask me something I will usually respond the next time I log on. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
      • UTC+13? OK, I'm suitably jealous. Unless you're in Chukotka. In any case, this editor's behavior reminded me of Strider12 (talk · contribs). Not that I think they're sockpuppets (I don't), only that they had similar approaches to this controversial topic. In the case of Strider12, it took more than 6 months of AN/I reports, RfC's, begging and pleading, and finally this nightmare to resolve the situation, which is why I'm being proactive about follow-up in this case. Anyhow, thanks again for your review. MastCell ^Talk 22:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
        • UTC+13 = New Zealand on daylight savings time. I'm in NZ. I'm happy to act as a third party evaluator on issues such as these, as I have no strong views about abortion one way or the other. It's not an issue that excites me very much. Cheers, Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

talk page

Just to let you know: I plan to remove clear talk page violations from the AIDS denialism page. After being away from Wikipedia since August, I'm amazed that certain denialist agenda editors continue to waste so much of your (and everyone's) valuable time with fruitless debate. Please object and discuss if you disagree with my position, but I strongly oppose the abuse of Wikipedia as a publicity tool for extreme fringe ideas and feel that a hard line on violations is warranted. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Good luck. The likely outcome is that you will be hauled into dock for deleting others' comments, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

That's fine with me. The talk page guidelines are fairly clear about what is and is not permissible. If administrators wish to punish me for trying to enforce these guidelines in the face of an incredible waste of good editors' time, then so be it. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I should add, it's happened to far better editors, so I don't have great expectations! Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure. I've always been in favor of a taking a tougher approach to serial talk-page abusers. I've stopped editing for awhile, except to pop in here and there, because I'm going through one of my phases of disillusionment and disappointment with this project. But I'll probably ramp up editing again at some point. Good to see you back - I was wondering where you'd gone. MastCell ^Talk 04:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

MC, regards this comment, part of the reason he didn't realize the implications of adding that wikilink is because he didn't.

If this goes on much longer, then it may be worth bringing Bruce up on ANI for a page ban on AIDS-related topics. He'll count it as a PR victory but he's going to do that no matter what. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm

[9] "At least half of whom are of below average calibre"? --BozMo talk 11:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

He's a doctor, not a mathematician. Add "assuming that calibres are drawn from a dense ordered set, distributed symmetrically around the average, and the sample has the expected distribution", it's a correct (if weak) statement. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering if it was deliberate or not as a statement about the distribution. "At least half of whom are of below average calibre" could be a way of saying "some of us are really smart" for example, per "only Stephan Schulz & BozMo are above the average intelligence of Wikipedians". However it reads like he meant "some of whom are really stupid" in which case the statement may not have succeeded. --BozMo talk 13:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

"Mean" isn't the only "average" - there's also median. And arranged from most notable to least, exactly half of our bios are below the median. More to the point, since "notability" is not quantifiable, "median" is probably the only meaningful measure of "average". Guettarda (talk) 13:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The reference appeared to be to Wikipedians not articles --BozMo talk 14:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oops. Problem with skimming instead of reading. Or, to put it otherwise, I'm probably below average, at least in terms of reading comprehension, among the people involved in this 'discussion'. Guettarda (talk) 14:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• I was being glib (as in facile, not as in GLib). A wise man, interpreting the results of a recent election, once opined that it was important to remember that half the population was of below-average intelligence. It's meant to be a tautology, and a play on statistical illiteracy (which, incidentally, seems to be rampant on Wikipedia these days). But I suppose it was too clever by 50%. MastCell ^Talk 22:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oddly none of the editors at Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_effect have observed that the minimum elevation of people in Minnesota is above average (except of course for miners, but they're rarely children these days). LeadSongDog come howl! 22:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

We used to have a minor minor miner problem around here, but since the lowering the age of majority it has not been an issue. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Cf. Major Major Major Major. And why do we have so many biographies of Catch-22 characters, anyway? MastCell ^Talk 04:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I would just delete them, but then I would be too involved to do so. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Heads up

Re User:JedRothwell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), please see at Talk:Cold fusion under IPs User:69.15.73.234 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and User:99.120.10.38 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). LeadSongDog come howl! 20:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey I thought I would add a message here, if this isn't the appropriate place please let me know where to re-post it and please excuse my ignorance. I just wanted to comment on the article to someone with authority on the site. As a practicing research scientist I feel I am qualified to tell you that this article does not meet the standard of a wikiproject physics entries that I have come to expect. Normally, when I search for info on a topic at wikipedia I am gratified to find well organized and informative article on the subject. The cold fusion article falls far short of this mark (the most cited reference in the article is a book by an anthropologist).

I recommend that this article be removed from the physics project as it is a stain on the otherwise good quality of the science articles I have had the pleasure of using on site. This article was so poor it literally made me create this account out of disgust. By contrast, the wiki article on Plasmons actually led me to sources that allowed me to improve the efficiency of the solar cells I am designing and building (go wikipedia!). The Cold Fusion is a disgrace please consign it to someplace where an interested reader will immediately to look elsewhere for relevant science based information. I am sure that after examining the article any qualified authority of the wikiproject physics will agree. If you could ensure that my concerns are conveyed to the appropriate wikipedia participants I would be grateful. Crawdaddy74 (talk) 01:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think your options are to post to WikiProject Physics to get some feedback there; to try to work within this site's guidelines to improve the article yourself; or to accept it and direct your efforts elsewhere. To the extent that the article is in poor shape, the desire on the part of some cold-fusion enthusiaists to use Wikipedia to promote and legitimize their viewpoint has played a large role. MastCell ^Talk 04:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I will post to the wikiprojects page but I fear that I will be ignored because of my low standing as a new user.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 15:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Source Request

Hi MastCell. For some reason, I don't seem to have full access to this NEJM article. If you or one of your talk page watchers could email me the article, that would be much appreciated. Best, NW (Talk) 22:00, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that article is old enough that I don't have online access to its content. I can scan it from a paper copy at the library, but that would take a few days. Depending on your access, it may be quickest to request it from your local public or medical-school library, but let me know if you'd like me to scan it for you. MastCell ^Talk 20:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

It was too old for me to access online, but I didn't even thing of using these old-fangled paper thingies. I submitted a request with my interlibrary loan system; I'll give you a heads up if there is an issue with that and I need to ask you for a scan. Thanks very much! NW (Talk) 21:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Score one for treeware. MastCell ^Talk 04:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

International marriage agency: please help.

Greetings, I would request help at international marriage agency with vandalism. An editor by the name of Ineverseeu is completely blanking out sections with absolutely no attempt at discussion or consensus. My additions are highly relevant, sourced to highly credible publications (EG, New York Times, etc) and help Wikipedians and surfers understand the emerging nature of the international marriage industry, and how South Korean men are one of the main patrons of mail-order brides. Ineverseeu (apparently South Korean) blanks whole sections, claiming "racism." I have reminded him that personal discomfort does not constitute justification for removal and that he is free to post any concerns on the talk page, as well as post content from credible sources that might counter the content that I have uploaded. Any help appreciated. Computer1200 (talk) 02:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, OK. I don't really know anything about the subject, and I'm not really looking for new Wikipedian disputes to involve myself in at this point. I would say that your additions are well-sourced, but they arguably give excess weight to South Korea in particular and move the article away from a worldwide viewpoint. It's probably an issue to be worked through the usual mechanisms, rather than resolved by administrative intervention against one party or the other. I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance at present. MastCell ^Talk 05:14, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

James O'Keefe again

Greetings, new to the world of WP edits, but the recent NPR controversy brought my attention to O'Keefe, and in reading your discussions regarding the criminal case in New Orleans, I saw that your original text clearly indicated that his guilty plea was for a misdemeanor. Yet now the text reads:

In January 2010, O'Keefe and three other conservative activists were arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in New Orleans, Louisiana on felony charges of entering federal property with the intent of interfering with the telephone system of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. O'Keefe was sentenced to three years' probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine.

which leaves the impression that he plead guilty to a felony. I realize the two articles footnoted at the end of that section do exactly the same thing, neglect to mention the misdemeanor plea, but as the discussions all acknowledge it was indeed a misdemeanor it was therefore commonly accepted among the WP editors, so why then did it disappear entirely from the article? Thanks Ikonoklastic (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I haven't been following the article (I found it a poor use of my time here), but I think it should make clear that while O'Keefe was originally charged with a felony, he ultimately pled guilty to a misdemeanor. I think that's a fairly common plea-bargaining situation, FWIW. I don't know why it disappeared, and I haven't been following recent changes to the article, although I assume it is once again rather active given current events. MastCell ^Talk 00:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Gerneral Sanctions on Abortion articles

Since you made a revert to the abortion article, I just wanted to inform you of the general sanctions on the abortion article, per Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Abortion/Log. This is NOT a formal warning, but instead a friendly notice, in case you didn't know. I don't want to see you getting in any trouble in regards to 1RR on abortion related articles. So the more you know... (identical message sent to other party). -Andrew c ^[talk] 21:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I try to self-impose 1RR, especially in places like the abortion articles, as a matter of general principles, but it's always good to know about more formal sanctions. Take care. MastCell ^Talk 21:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

JPS

Mastcell - with respect to the "courtesy blanking" on User:Joshua P. Schroeder: I'm not going to make any comment about this silliness except to point out that the page should have the {{indef}} template that goes on every other indef-blocked user's page. will you revert me if I add that? --Ludwigs2 04:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, I went ahead and did it. We'll see what happens. --Ludwigs2 04:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, we don't put the {{indef}} template on every indef-blocked user's userpage. We sometimes courtesy-blank them, and even the {{indef}} template is usually temporary; ultimately the userpages are often deleted, although I don't think there's a uniform standard practice on the subject. In particular, where editors are directly associated with their real-life names, we've typically erred on the side of courtesy-blanking - even in cases where they've done things far more egregious than ScienceApologist has. In that context, I think courtesy-blanking is entirely appropriate, and I'm a bit concerned at the appearance of (as another admin termed it) "grave-dancing" here. MastCell ^Talk 18:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Keep it!

Perfect! But why did I come back to this place? I see the same stuff. Lots of badly written articles with huge POV issues. And lots of POV-pushing individuals that play the martyr AND pretend to be all civil. We'll see how long I last, before I go crazy. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, what do you expect? After all, there's nothing new under the sun, et c. (See, I have a userpage diff for all occasions). MastCell ^Talk 22:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Duesberg_hypothesis#Article_violates_Wikipedia_NPOV_policy

We've got an editor who's using the article as a forum for the AIDS denialism POV. Since you're uninvolved, can you end this. I prefer that we delete the whole "round and round" section, but only you have THE POWER to do so. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 01:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I've commented there. Honestly, I don't think he's being totally unreasonable. Achieving reasonably accurate encyclopedic coverage of minoritarian or rejected fringe viewpoints is extremely challenging - I've been working on it for years here and I don't know that I've really come to grips with it - so I think it's probably best to simply lay out one's reasoning as clearly as possible and be patient. My gut tells me that the editor in question is not an agenda-driven "denialist", but rather a relatively new editor who is sifting his way through the challenges of presenting fringe views on Wikipedia. Of course, my intuition has been wrong before, but it's probably worth taking it easier on him. MastCell ^Talk 18:15, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Too many polite POV pushers out there. I assume the worst, and if they prove otherwise, I'll change. You might have the more appropriate modus operandi, but I'm too far removed from AGF around this place.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:45, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

MastCell indeed has the patience of the son of Uz, and that's admirable. It seemed to me that the editor was repeating quite a few denialist Internet snippets, including the idea that Luc Montagnier supports Duesberg. When I attempted to explain the Montagnier situation, my words were interpreted as a smear of Montagnier, etc. Whether or not this guy actually takes the denialist position, he was passionately defending it. But, all in all, I think the edits and behaviour just stuck out because things have been relatively quiet recently, and I'm sorry if I was at all unfair with him. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

And the editor has been around since '06, thought not a lot of edits. I think there's a point where you ask questions, and learn, but becoming tendentious tests are patience. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Keepcalm, I don't think you've been unfair, and I'm as prone to losing my patience as anyone (at present, this idiocy is driving me batty). OM, look at it this way: if the editor in question is in fact an AIDS-denialist "civil POV-pusher", then the appropriate tack is to be polite but clear. If he's just a well-meaning editor with limited experience, then the appropriate tack is to be polite but clear (albeit for slightly different reasons). There seems to be some movement toward compromise, which is encouraging. Anyhow, I didn't mean to lecture you guys. I will say that the less I edit Wikipedia, the more patience I have when I do edit (or maybe the less I care about disputes here, but the end result is the same). MastCell ^Talk 20:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That link provided some perspective! Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Your patience with certain pseudointellectuals around here is amazing. And just keeping a straight face while replying to those editors who invoke the victim complex (probably as a result of a narcissistic personality disorder) is almost saintly. I just don't know how you do it. Though I think I occasionally detect veiled snark coming from your fingertips.  :) OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:23, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Like Jeffrey Lebowski, I adhere to a strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber. MastCell ^Talk 04:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I never saw that movie. Obviously I'm missing some pop culture references. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 05:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

So-called "edit war"

You claim I'm in an edit war; you are wrong. I made one revert, and that's it. Do you not understand the concept of edit-warring, wherein multiple reverts are made? Obviously, since I reverted once and left it alone, this does not qualify as such. I've been a member of Wikipedia for nearly 5 years; I'm well aware of what edit warring is. Or do you simply like to scold regardless of the truth of the matter? Even more telling is that you didn't put this same edit-warring notice on the pages of Yobol and Skinwalker, the other two users involved. This would seem to indicate your bias regarding the subject in question. Kaihoku (talk) 05:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

If you're already aware of the policies on edit-warring, feel free to remove the note from your talkpage. I'm sorry it upset you. MastCell ^Talk 16:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The wheel in the sky keeps turning...

It's been a long since we've interacted, but thought you'd appreciate this: Tom Borelli of Big Tobacco-fame (see Steven Milloy if you need a reminder)--his wife, Deneen, is now a champion of the Tea Party[10]. On FoxNews.com even! How do I know that they are a husband and wife team? This. Yilloslime ^T_C 00:30, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think a shared set of interests and priorities are important to the success of any marriage. :P Nice to see you around. :) MastCell ^Talk 17:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Truthsort demands continual attention

Apparently, User:Truthsort thinks that if he makes non-substantive comments that garner no rebuttal that his position is accepted by default. Do you think you can swing by Talk:Rand_Paul#Board_certification and elaborate on your position? He claims not to see consensus against his edit. Either way, thanks. BigK HeX (talk) 17:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

In general, I've been trying to limit the amount of time I spend arguing with ideologues here. On the other hand, it is a bit bothersome to see such an obvious misrepresentation of cited sources. I'll think about it. MastCell ^Talk 17:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I *fully* understand. Arguing with ideologues is one of the least enjoyable tasks on Wikipedia. It's such an anathema to most editors, that I've actually dedicated my time to filling the niche. Just started seeing articles reflecting small-minority views far too heavily. Thanks for your effort and time! BigK HeX (talk) 18:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Ironically, I only got involved at Rand Paul because I perceived ideologically driven editing aimed at discrediting Paul on the basis of his certification status (see Talk:Rand Paul/Archive 2#Board certification 2). And because I have some familiarity with the board certification process. Otherwise, I'd rather poke my eyes out than fight about Rand Paul on Wikipedia. MastCell ^Talk 19:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Belated thanks

About this, I've been meaning to say mea culpa: I should have caught it. I checked the last-minute changes to the GA nomination in diffs, which apparently made it easier for my least favorite grammar error to hide. Thank you for fixing it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem; happy to help. You don't need to feel responsible for every grammatical slip-up. :) I don't mind run-ons, but I can't stand its-it's confusion. To each his or her own. Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 23:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Ginkgo biloba

So, why have you enabled the user to replace a JAMA study published in February with a later study published in November (in a different journal))? The initial study was published in JAMA; replacing that citation gives credit to the wrong people in the wrong paper. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm confused - it looks like we now cite both the 2008 IJGP study and the 2009 JAMA study, with appropriate citations, in the "Dementia" section. Am I missing something? MastCell ^Talk 17:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a 2008 and a 2009 JAMA study. That may be what's confusing you. The anon who made the edit eliminated the 2008 JAMA study in the edit, but left the 2009 JAMA study. He claims that "JAMA did not publish this article; IJGP did", but if you examine the doi link from the citation, you find the 2008 JAMA article. What's confusing the issue is that the IJGP article seems to have appeared on-line first, but the JAMA article was published in hard copy first. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Newcommers/NPOV/COI

Hi, I am still here, I still do casual contributions in the sprit of the community. I came across this article and you immediately came to mind, Please do not bite the newcomers. Anyway Doc, I did learn from our exchanges. You are clearly a very active member of the community and contribute a lot. You also are very (maybe selectivly) knowledgable of many wikipedia policies. In retrospect, I still do feel some of your approach towards certain articles could be much better. Contributors want to avoid perceptions of NPOV,COI and focusing too much of the editor and not enough on the article. For example a owner or CEO of a company should not be behind edits on pages, especially solely favorable ones of those companies since they have a vested interest. Same would go for association memberships such as the NRA and AMA. Supportive members probably shouldn't play a hand in contents since this could raise a NPOV and COI. Also I would advise when dealing with newbies to not be so quick to accuse and label. 0pen$0urce (talk) 18:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I can't say I remember our interactions, but looking back you must be referring to this and this. Thanks for the feedback, and I'm happy to see you're still editing. Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 19:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

All hail the pseudo-royal pooch!

[BARNSTAR MOVED TO User:MastCell/Barnstars]

Thanks - I've always wanted one of those barnstars, but given the baseline level of pre-existing surreality on Wikipedia, they're hard to come by. I will treasure it. :) MastCell ^Talk 23:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Comicania

Thanks, MastCell. Please you could protect may talkpage again for three months? I have asked Shell Kinney to perform a checkuser on this account and have also asked Moonriddengirl to delete the uploaded comic strip on commons. Mathsci (talk) 21:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, done. MastCell ^Talk 21:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again. Philippe (WMF) immediately deleted the file on commons very shortly after I made a direct request for deletion using my account there. Mathsci (talk) 21:55, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

A quick review

Hi MastCell, how are things with you? Just wondering if you could have a review of this convo (diff or current link). It comes on foot of the indef blocking of User:Sarah777 - see here[11]--Cailil ^talk 14:34, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Could do with a check on this - HighKing basically accused me of admin abuse in his last post[12] (which could also do with a NPA review of its own). I'm disengaging but would be very interested in your feedback and would gladly accept a trout across the face if necessary--Cailil ^talk 21:08, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Do the rhabdo!

Hey MastCell, thanks for your edits to rhabdomyolysis. Would you mind offering any further comments on the FAC page? Cheers! JFW | T@lk 07:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

B12

Hi there! I replied to your edit and comment @ Talk:Spirulina_(dietary_supplement). Rdavout (talk) 07:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

And again. Nothing particularly new given that Watanabe did not reply. I was quite proud of my email, and I did manage to get a few people onboard for such things by dropping a personal email before... but this time it failed. My personal opinion on the subject is comforted and I am therefore less than ever happy with the present version. But then again articles about dietary supplements are usually a big load of crap anyways and I guess it's better to have one be too harsh than overselling. I understand that you're a busy admin and these kind of articles must be a heck of a burden to manage ;-) The evidence I put forward should give you the sense that the whole paragraph on spirulina's B12 is poor NPOV because that all data derives from one seemingly biased source, but given that you're touchy about it, I won't touch anything. I may rework the references about B12 in eggs though, given the evidence. Cheers Rdavout (talk) 14:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

PubMed formatter

Hello there. Not sure if you noticed, but a number of us responded to your post at WT:MED. Best, NW (Talk) 11:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up - I've been having Internet connectivity issues that have sent me back to the Dark Days of Dial-Up, plus I have a major real-life deadline coming up, so I've been slow to respond. I left a note at WT:MED - I can distribute the add-on next week, I think, and in the meantime I'll probably try out Wouterstomp's bookmarklet - that's an elegant cross-browser approach that I hadn't thought of. MastCell ^Talk 16:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Google

jftr, Googlebot doesn't recognize 'reader comments'. Almost all webmasters know this, and block them from those areas. In the case of the weird Trevor Marshall information, that clearly didn't happen. I've seen it on political blogs too, where many 'diametrically opposed' comments were posted, presumably in the hope they would show up in snippets. Flatterworld (talk) 18:46, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Spirulina

HI, re your reverting of my edit on this page, sorry for not putting an edit summary, I'll make sure to do that in the future. However, you seem to think I deleted something, when in fact I didn't delete anything from the page. All I did was change the order of the three paragraphs in the section 'Nutrient and vitamin content". As they were before my edit, the first and third paragraph spoke of nutritional content, whereas the second went on a related and worthy yet nonetheless tangential and mildly controversial exploration of spirulina's Vitamin B12 content. I thought it was more logical and structurally intelligent to include this vitb12 discussion paragraph last of the three, after the first two which spoke in general of spirulinas nutritional content. Do you concur? Trefalcon (talk) 17:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile

Could I get one of you charming scientific types to please look at Cyclopia? I'm trying to figure out what the "Sonic Hedgehog Gene Regulator" is supposed to be. Who knew genetics was based on arcade games? Risker (talk) 23:11, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Did you find the article Sonic hedgehog homolog? It's named after the arcade game. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I hope one day, science will name something for the companion cube. <3 Heimstern Läufer (talk) 00:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing, someone went through and put in the link shortly thereafter, and I was greatly relieved. I had just sent an acquaintance a link to that article, then saw the Sonic Hedgehog thing, and was hoping that there really was something to it and that it wasn't just one of those very cagy vandalisms. Pretty sad when even I would question such things. But tip of the hat to the editor who made the link; I have a feeling he watches this page. :) Risker (talk) 02:58, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey, we've got all kinds of sense of humor. See Dracorex_hogwartsia#Name.  :) OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 03:41, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I just watch this page because obviously this is where all the cool kids hang out. :D Yobol (talk) 02:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I can tell I've been spending too much time on "Facebook" when my first impulse is to click "like" on the above comment. Anyhow, referring back to the first post in the thread, my own favorite -- from paleontology -- is the Thagomizer. Antandrus (talk) 02:29, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I know about the Facebook thing. I guess "watch" is the same as "like". Of course, don't even check out something new that Wikipedia is bringing out...Wikilove. It's Facebook Lite. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 02:50, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You may want to see discussion here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You watch the strangest shit on Wikipedia. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 03:11, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Uncontroversial article suggestions?

So I figure I probably need to do some proper writing again. Do you or any of your talk page watchers have suggestions for a not-too-technical, uncontroversial medical article where review articles and such exist in spades? Yeah, I'm aware that I'm probably asking for a subject that doesn't exist, but can't hurt to try. Best, NW (Talk) 02:43, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh there are loads. Probably the majority of medical articles. How "technical" can it be? Epilepsy is on my [never getting round to it] to-do list. Needs a complete overhaul. I don't think you'd face any conflict editing there. Colin°^Talk 08:55, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

How non-technical a subject do you want? I've been thinking about an article on Disease awareness (an umbrella article that summarizes more specific subjects like Breast cancer awareness) for a few months. That's really more sociology of medicine than proper medicine, and as such is completely non-technical. The sources are mostly "books" rather than "reviews", but decent scholarly sources exist.

You've been doing a lot with abortion, so if you're up on the subject, Pregnancy would benefit from your attention. Condom is not too far from FA. On the other hand, I suspect that what you're looking for is to get away from that area.

I don't know what your general areas of interest are. I see edits to XMRV; if you're interested in hematological malignancies, then basically all the lymphomas and leukemias need to be re-written. DLBL, for example, is the most common lymphoma, and it's barely more than a start. In a few cases, there are stellar sources available for rare conditions ("rare" in this instance meaning "so under-watched that you could probably re-write the article in complete, uninterrupted, perfect peace"). Drop me a note if you're interested in that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Medicine sez we need an article about how the governments is prepared to stab all the childrens inna face. - 2/0 (cont.) 16:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

How about Human Vision?. We have Human eye, Visual perception, Eye movement, Saccade, et al. but no overview. see Visual Stability - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Visual system also seems closes, but Vision is probably where the top human article should go. Then Vision (disambiguation) would list others. At present Vision is the dab page. Given the breadth of other uses there, a cautious approach to discussing the move of the dab page would seem warranted. The other option would be to make the human article Vision (human) and leave the dab page where it is. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

One of the things I figured I'd do if I ever got burnt out in controversial areas would be just go down the list of Cochrane reviews and add them one by one to their respective Wikipedia articles (and deleting primary studies on the way). Yobol (talk) 04:41, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Almost any disease article is "noncontroversial". They are difficult, in that it takes some time to get up to speed. Mostly, the alt-med people just don't have enough medical knowledge (oh wait, that's irony) to edit them, so they throw in a "this herb cures all diseases", but they go away, because they just don't know enough and they lack any MEDRS articles. I remember getting involved with Alzheimer's disease with a Spanish editor. He provided all the references and such, and I did the writing. I believe I met LeadSongDog in that editing process. It was a really bad article when we started. Ended up a pretty good FA (don't you think LSD?). I play around with several disease articles, and it is relaxing. There are all kinds of parasites, viruses, cancers, and other disease states that could use help. Interventional cardiology is a mess, mostly written by corporate lackeys (I ran down IP addresses to coworkers, which amuses me, and why I don't edit them). Those are my ideas. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 05:21, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Then and still I tend to focus on citegnoming, especially as I'm getting familiar with a topic. In the process of converting partial to complete citations you get the chance to read many of the papers that have been cited by previous editors. If you feel industrious you can also vet that they support the statements they are cited against. When they appear dated it's not too tough to check Pubmed for more recent reviews. Just pick a few keywords from the supported statement, pop them into the Pubmed query window along with "review" and see what pops up: very frequently one of the top results is useful, and perhaps even freely available online. Check the pubmed XML view "Publication type" value to make sure that it is a review and that it has not been retracted. By the time you get through the list you'll usually be in a decent position to constructively edit the content, and even if you don't do so you'll have helped subsequent editors. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:02, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Citegnoming? Well there's a new word. I agree, and it can be relaxing, though the missing diberri tool is not helpful. But you're right, you end up reading the citations, and think "wait wait, that doesn't support anything." The alt-med types quote mine from those citations, and when you read them, you find out they don't say "this green herb cures male pattern baldness," but instead says "this green herb doesn't cure male pattern baldness, but isn't harmful if taken in small doses." 16:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orangemarlin (talk • contribs)

← As far as articles, as WhatamIdoing mentioned, the leukemias and lymphomas could use some love. Acute myeloid leukemia is the first featured article that I worked on extensively, but it's woefully out of date and needs to be updated to include molecular prognostic markers for patients with normal cytogenetics, as well as newer treatment approaches. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most common leukemia in the Western world, but our article is still pretty half-baked. The most common forms of lymphoma (Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma) could all use improvement. That's where I plan to start, if/when I go back to serious content editing. I suspect all of those articles will be non-controversial. MastCell ^Talk 17:56, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the excellent suggestions all. Basic physiology is fairly beyond me though, let alone pathophysiology and disease. WhatamIdoing's suggestion of pregnancy and perhaps Orangemarlin's suggestion of interventional cardiology is probably closet to what I was thinking. I think what I was really aiming for is something like abortion—rather non-technical, fair amount of public health/epidemiology content that isn't too hard to comprehend—but without the whole pro-choice/pro-life part. Any thoughts on something that might fit those criteria? NW (Talk) 20:35, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

My impression of Category:Early childhood education is that it could use a lot of love. You get CoI accounts and some politics, I am sure, but in learning the material you get to form an informed opinion in favor of DonorsChoose (<end shameless plug for a project I support but do not benefit from>). I do not recall seeing anything from the topic area at the drama-boards (though neither have I checked). Early childhood interventions can be wonderfully efficient, but by their nature the endpoints often require large studies and decades of follow up. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Obesity, of course. Health effects of tobacco, or possibly Medical marijuana. HIV prevention, teen pregnancy, and harm reduction are all possibilities. Disease, maybe; it needs to have Illness merged into it. Have you considered Public health itself? Oh, and I'd like Lifetime risk to quit being a redlink. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I certainly have some ideas now of what I could work on for a long while hence.

MastCell, I replied to a post of yours on my talk page. The reply is a bit late, so I just wanted to make sure you saw it. NW (Talk) 16:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Water Ionizer

Hi, I notices you reverted the changes on this page. I gave arguments of why this change was necessary and had not been given a counterargument. So I believe there is none. Unless you can provide one. Thanks. Steelmate (talk) 02:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you've been given quite a few counterarguments by multiple editors at Talk:Water ionizer. Your time would probably be better spent arguing your case on the talk page, rather than trying to force in edits which clearly have no support and quite a bit of opposition. MastCell ^Talk 02:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Magnonimous

An editor you blocked way back in December 2007, is now asking for an unblock. I've put it on hold for you to look at, it's way before my time here.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 16:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I can't say I remember the incident - it was a long time ago. Looking through the archives, it looks like this was a pretty abusive sockpuppeteer, and worse, the sockpuppetry was designed to push an agenda/POV. I think the likelihood of positive contributions is low, but at the same time I guess everyone deserves at least one chance every 4 years. I'd ask why he wants to be unblocked - is it to keep pushing a point of view at coral calcium, or... what? But I wouldn't object if you want to unblock him. I'd say that if the same sorts of problems flare up, you (or me, or another admin) can step in swiftly so that no more time is wasted. MastCell ^Talk 20:15, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

It was suggested that you know the user called OrangeMarlin. He was scheduled for a medical procedure this past week. Do you have any (hopefully good) news on the subject? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:27, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any news as of yet. MastCell ^Talk 03:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:RSN

Hello! I hope this message finds you doing well. I saw that you were reviewing the issue at WP:RSN here. I added a comment that needs addressed there. Could you or anyone else at WP:RSN please address it? I would highly appreciate it. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 16:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)