Thanks. Seems helpful. I generally have tried to do this when i can manage the awareness. Regarding the last one, nearly everywhere on Wikipedia is public, and in a sense public discourse is an important aspect of this place. Cheers and thank you. SageRad (talk) 12:06, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Harassment policy
Hi Sage, I just re-read WP:Harassment and I thought you might be interested in the following. It states The prohibition against harassment applies equally to all Wikipedians. It is as unacceptable to harass a user with a history of inept or disruptive behavior as it is to harass any other user. Wikipedia encourages a civil community: people make mistakes, but they are encouraged to learn from them and change their ways. Harassment is contrary to this spirit and damaging to the work of building an encyclopedia.
All the best.DrChrissy(talk)17:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
YES, I know is the policy, but the actuality is that most people here don't give a rats ass about civility our about policy and bullies run rampant. Thankfully a few editors here and there have the integrity to stand up to bullying and harassment and abuse. I will continue to do so even though it garners me abuse and harassment as a result. Someone has to stand up to it. Thank you for doing so, DrChrissy. SageRad (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage, I just want to point out that you are using and misusing the word "bully" a lot. I can't help notice that editors who do this often find themselves indefinitely blocked. It's a pattern I've noticed over time. Instead of calling people names and complaining all the time, be the change you want to see starting with your own behavior. Have you ever noticed how a genuine smile is infectious and can brighten up an entire room? Try to wiki-smile instead of wiki-complaining all the time and see what happens. Viriditas (talk) 06:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Viriditas, i am using the word bully to refer to actual bullying behaviors. Please stay off my talk page. Your contributions here to date have been wholly unhelpful and subtly controlling and hostile. In other words, ironically, harassment. SageRad (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Got a minute?
Hey Sage, I hope cleaning up here has helped clear up your headspace as well. Sorry to keep pestering you, but are you still interested in helping me work on Efficient energy use? I keep asking because I have a hard time finding other editors who are even willing to look at my work in the first place. Either way, I do hope your cleaning house here is an indication that you're gonna stick around.--FacultiesIntact (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Edward321, i opened up Wikipedia to do some article improvement, and then i have to waste my time on this? What a load of crap. What a pain the arse. No thank you. This is more of the same McCarthyism dynamic, in fact it takes it to a more McCarthyist level than it was at before. "Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm observing the topic ban to a ridiculous degree. I have not edited anything about GMOs or agrochemicals at all since the topic ban. Period. I'm not stupid. I know that violating my topic ban would be suicide. Someone obviously spent a lot of time trying to compile a case. Looks like enemies have it out for me. I'm editing with integrity and not touching the areas from which i am topic banned. I don't have time to waste on this and i'm not even going to grace this case with any point-by-point rebuttal. It's clear this is a witch hunt trying to find an excuse to get me blocked. SageRad (talk) 10:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
But, just to be safe, none of the diffs provided show me discussing GMOs or agrochemicals at all -- because i have not. And when Kingofaces writes:
SageRad has also been commenting directly at ANI on a discussion on GMOs
he's actually speaking of a conversation that begins with:
Editor KingOfAces casts aspersions
Kingofaces43 is casting very serious aspersions, and here - where he essential frames everybody participating in a OR noticeboard discussion as a climate change denier, among his common theme as fringe.
In other words -- it's not "a discussion on GMOs" -- it's a discussion on meta-level aspects of Wikipedia culture, mainly about the use of "fringe" as an aspersion, and how we deal with name-calling, and all that. It is not a discussion on GMOs, and his trying to frame it as such is a lie.
And once again, what Kingofaces calls:
They also responded directly to me at WP:FTN when I asked for more eyes on this GMO discussion
links actually to this diff which has nothing to do with GMOs. Again, a lie.
And most of his issue seems to be that i have opinions and speak against a McCarthyism sort of dynamic that i see going on. Ironically, this very case here is another such incident within that dynamic. I should not have to be wasting my time on this.
As for DuPont -- my edits on that company (and Dow who have merged with them, hence [1]) have been about the chemical PFOA (like this edit [2]) which is not an agrochemical. It's a Teflon additive that did pollute water in West Virginia and in the Ohio River. That's not at all under my topic ban. And i also edited about Styrofoam[3] to correct a trade name. Styrofoam is made by Dow but Thermacol is made by another company. I also made the same change at Polystyrene to correct that trade name -- again, another chemical also made by Dow (my edit).
Seriously, my edit to Charles Eisenstein[4] ??????? This is out of control. So he's a wonderful thinker, author of Sacred Economics and a social change agent in the world. He probably wrote something about GMOs sometime, but i've never read it, and it's not his main thing, not what he's known for. You're really stretching. This is looking like McCarthyism, sort of proving my point, the actual point for which this case appears to have been brought against me.
So, even though i said i wouldn't, i just went through all the diffs provided, and as i know, they do not show me editing anything at all about GMOs or agrochemicals. I know this because my conscience is clear. I have not edited anything about GMOs or agrochemicals at all since the topic ban. I ask for this case to be summarily dropped, as it's onerous and seems to be intended to "get me" for being outspoken on cultural issues within Wikipedia. Good day. SageRad (talk) 11:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yo! I'm being witch-hunted. Check it out. ^^^^^^
Word. I guess i spoke too much of what's real here on Wikipedia and too many people are pissed off at me and so want to use a weasel argument to say that i violated the topic ban that was wrong to begin with, but which i absolutely did not violate at all.
I'm topic banned from editing about GMOs and agrochemicals -- and i have not. And there has been a clarification that states that i can make basic non-related edits about companies that may also produce such things, which would be under discretionary sanctions. And yet they're trying to make it out as if i've broken my topic ban so they have an excuse to block me for whatever length of time -- it's a McCarthyist thing. Really it is.
Here's the case they're making against me. It's so empty it's sad and yet they're gonna perhaps block me because of it. It's another travesty and sham. This place has no integrity. Wonder if it ever did. I bet back around the beginning there was probably some integrity here but since i've been editing i ain't seen it.
And... shit gets worse and worse... and one editor calls anyone who writes a word in my defense "the peanut gallery" and everyone thinks that's okay -- and meanwhile there's conservative people changing other people's comments on the essay that some people say "should die".... there's such bullshit here on Wikipedia -- how can anyone get any editing done. I'm just wanting to improve articles like ExxonMobil climate change controversy and Experimental evolution and Zika virus and Buffalo hunting and answer Legobot calls like Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach which i've done, and much more... the real work of Wikipedia ... and yet i'm in this stupid drama with people holding a knife to my throat and all these drama-makers trying to find ways to get me banned from Wikipedia -- because i speak honestly and see much. SageRad (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did agree with some of what the filer was saying, but a lot of those diffs were relatively innocuous given what you actually wrote and where. Some of the other edits were problematic, but you were given specific permission to make non-GMO-related edits to company articles, so those should have been expressly excluded from consideration.
That being said, as someone else who was said to have missed the point of an AE filing, what I've guessed is going on is that the purpose of the topic ban was not just to keep you out of the fight (their words) but to compel you to edit other parts of Wikipedia in the hope that you'd decide to stay away permanently. (Why they can't just come out and say this remains unknown to me. Research pending.) Your edits, even the non-violation edits, proved that you're still paying attention to these pages and this issue. If you're planning to appeal the ban, that might work against you. I'm developing a draft for an AE procedure FAQ, so if you as someone who ran into misunderstandings at AE want to comment or discuss your experience, that would be valuable. Whatever else is right and wrong about the procedure, it helps if everyone knows what is expected of them going in. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:52, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog that's a talk page. That's completely different from the meaning of WP:POINT. You'll note that all the examples on that page are about article mainspace editing. Talk page discussions are different. Thanks for looking out but i think my dialogue there was fine and was made with good intent and fair manners. In talk page discussions, showing a parity of a number of sources can be understood as a reasonable mode of dialogue. SageRad (talk) 18:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did once make a pointy edit to an article back in last April or so... and i apologized for it and haven't done such a thing since. SageRad (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
HighInBC are you accusing me of disrupting Wikipedia by posting on a talk page a comment in which i showed that i can also list many sources to show that an alternate point of view exists? Let's be very clear. Are you accusing me of being disruptive in this dif or in the comment on a talk page to which it refers? If so then please state it explicitly, otherwise please retract or otherwise rephrase your above comment so that i don't think you're saying that. If you think i was actually being disruptive then please explain how? We talk on talk pages to arrive at understandings about articles and this is one way in which people speak. Are you accusing me of being disruptive there? SageRad (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I accused you of nothing. I corrected your assertion that WP:POINT only applies to articles. I never said you were being disruptive, never even checked. HighInBC20:32, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I appreciate it. Thanks for the clarification. I read WP:POINT to mainly speak to making edits to articles that would not normally be made, for the purpose of making a point, to the detriment of Wikipedia. I don't believe i did that here, so i feel ok in my conscience. I read in the guidelined:
However, just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate that point. As a rule, editors engaging in "POINTy" behavior are making edits with which they do not actually agree, for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention and provoking opposition in the hopes of making other editors see their "point".
All i did was to post a talk page comment in which i linked each of several words in a row to articles that spoke to my point to show that there are such sources, in response to another editor who did the same to try to show that sources lean the other direction. SageRad (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To all those following this thread Check the thread above the diff. I'm not sure where Jytdog is coming from, but what Sage did was not pointy, because it was not -in any way- disruptive. I linked a number of sources using in-line links to words in my message, and he responded the same way. I'll be the first to point out that most of his links didn't say what he claims they said (and the ones that did... yeesh, they were pretty much the definition of poor source), but there was absolutely nothing improper about the way he did it. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.15:10, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, MjolnirPants, i appreciate the acknolwedgment -- although with a dose of critique too. So while thanking you for the acknowledgement, i must also point out that the sources that say it's not a fad diet are not all top-notch and i never claimed they were, but the sources saying it is a fad diet are also not all top-notch, and there is also the issue of "parity" as it's been called, by which we cannot always expect that there will be an equivalent source countering every cranky claim about something, so we can use what we have. As for some sources not saying what i represented them as, please read my original quote more carefully, for there were two sources that i specifically said did not say it's not a fad diet, but simply were mainstream sources that called it a diet and not a "fad diet" as a way to show another things. Thanks for the good words of integrity here about the behavioral allegtions, though. Much appreciated. SageRad (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SageRad: All of the sources I provided said outright that it was a fad diet. Only two of the sources you provided said outright that it wasn't, and those were pro-paleo diet sources. I find your rhetoric acceptable and non-disruptive, but the logic of your response was lacking. I think one can demonstrate that the response was not disruptive by pointing out that nobody indicated it was until a poor choice of words on your part later on seemed to imply that it was intended to be. (I don't think that's what you meant, but your words did seem to imply it.) It certainly doesn't hurt that I never even noticed your response until today. It couldn't have been that disruptive if it wasn't even noticeable. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.16:45, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
All these comments are gamy. I countered a linked list rhetoric devide with a linked list rhetoric device just to show it can be done. Many sources that say it's a fad are also B-grade and POV-laden sources. There isn't a genuine and unbiased attempt at discerning the reality here. There's rhetoric and POV pushing. Like i said, you can't build a good house when there's a constant high wind blowing. There's not an atmosphere here in which a real dialogue can be had to determine the best way to write this article. There's a constant wind blowing.
The bolded text is the definition of POINTY - protesting what he sees as a bullshitty argument by proposing another one, "just to show it can be done" (i.e. to make a point) - not because what he proposed is actually what he wanted. This kind of tactic is something that we humans resort to when we are frustrated; but it is unhelpful and disruptive, and is why POINTy was written. Jytdog (talk) 16:26, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) @Jytdog: Yes, he formatted his response to make a point. I think what he was saying in the bolded section of the quote you provided was that he can find sources which say it's not a fad to counter my point that there are sources which say it is. I'm reasonably sure that was his point. Even if it wasn't, his response wasn't inherently disruptive and the formatting he chose didn't make it more disruptive. From where I sit, something must be disruptive to fall under the aegis of WP:POINT. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.16:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
here is the diff I believe I believe he was describing. In that dif he used crap sources like this and this and this and this (written by the recipe columnist for the Telegraph). Not one of those is a serious source. SR was not making a serious argument about what reliable sources actually say - he was just making a POINTy "meta" argument that just added more smoke and heat, not clarity toward reaching some consensus on content - not working to actually improve the content. Jytdog (talk) 16:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they are crap sources. But even if he didn't intend them to be taken as serious sources, it wasn't disruptive. The argument continued, and as I pointed out above to SageRad: I didn't even notice his response until today. How disruptive could it have been, if it went unnoticed by the person to whom it was directed for days? MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.16:45, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You and I disagree there. It doesn't matter if you paid any attention to it; the behavior is the behavior and it is right in line with taking up acres and acres of talk space repeating an argument, not responding to requests for sources, making POINTy arguments, etc etc. It is what POV-pushers do, and that is what is going on here, as you have noted. Jytdog (talk) 18:23, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion takes up space. Filibustering is disruptive but discussion with detail and completeness is necessary. I was not being "POINTy" because that would require being disruptive and it would require making an edit that i do not actually agree with in order to "make a point" which was absolutely not what i did. And it's odd that you take up "acres and acres of space" discussing little things like this in which i was not being disruptive and simply speaking my considered thoughts about a topic, citing sources, explaining myself, and the like of usual and expected behaviors here at Wikipedia. I could say to you that i find this rather hounding and vexing and disruptive in itself. SageRad (talk) 18:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The goal of my post was to remind SageRad not to make POINTy edits. I am not going to wikilawyer this to death. Just don't do it, please. Jytdog (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Since you voted on the (more recent) RfC on Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach, you may be interested in the current discussion on it on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. Marlindale (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is not appropriate behaviour on an article talk pages. The article talk page is for discussing the article, not for discussing other editors. If you think there are concerns about another editors behaviour then you can leave the a polite message on their talk page, or if very serious then you can post at a noticeboard. Be sure you have evidence to back up your claims if you intend to make them. HighInBC21:25, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The bullshit agenda going on is what's not appropriate. Owning an article, railroading away people who wish to make it NPOV, and slandering a licing person, is highly inappropriate. One may even say immoral. The real crime needs to be addressed, not the person saying look at this crime. SageRad (talk) 18:56, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SageRad, I understand your recent comments. I don't agree but perhaps that is a matter of perspective. As you may be aware the editor in question and I have had a less than ideal working relationship. Around March 2nd I was happy to be done with the ExxonMobil articles and was already discussing some Ford Pinto fuel tank controversy edits on the article talk page. The editor in question followed me to that page (and the Chrysler article) and proceeded to try to put an anti-corporate spin on things. Note the editor had never worked in the auto topic space before but suddenly discovered an interest after looking at my edit history. The interest was even added to his home page! In both the Pinto and Chrysler cases the editor's engagement resulted in a great deal of article disruption (see the talk pages and 250+ edits to the Pinto article in just 5 days). I'm not the only one who questioned the motives. Look at the characterization of the editors who didn't agree here, "fanboyz" [7] These are largely the same editors (me included) that are involved here [8]. Given the recent auto topic related edit warring, bludgeoning and refusal to engage in productive talk page discussion I think people can be forgiven for not assuming good faith. Especially when one editor, seemingly on a quest to jam pet content into several topics (see his earlier efforts with Pinto material in non-Pinto articles) into a topic that was not political since its inception a decade past. I don't think the involved editors would disagree with my comments. That said, you are right that I probably went too far in my frustration in dealing with the editor. Springee (talk) 11:29, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Springee, i appreciate the note. Yes, i've seen a tense relationship, and i know the other editor has some peculiar habits but is generally fairly ok in my book. I think he's free to begin working on another topic whenever he wants so that is not relevant to me. What's relevant is that articles get edited well and to NPOV standards without bias. Thanks for the note and hearing my comments. SageRad (talk) 18:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I'm MjolnirPants. I noticed that you made a comment that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia is built on collaboration, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page.
Thank you. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.12:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)@MjolnirPants:I have known SageRad on WP for some time now and I was extremely surprised to see an allegation of incivility directed at them. I have checked your recent contributions, and I can not see such a deletion. Have you contacted the correct editor? DrChrissy(talk)14:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It was directed at me and other contributors at the FTN, and it was made here. It referred to us (by exclusion) as "McCarthyist" and suggested we "...see it as [our] mission to declare and root out all content that collides with [our] ideological agenda." I struck out the comments rather than delete them, here. This was not the first time Sage cast aspersions on those who disagree with him about this particular subject. This is, indeed, a bit out of character for Sage, which is why I struck it out. Normally, I would stick to advising an editor to remain civil directly, at the page in question. In this case, with Sage (to my view) acting out of character, I thought a more formal response might be more appropriate. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.14:46, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I feel striking another editor's comments without their permission is way up on the scale of incivility. WP:Talk states Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page. Striking text constitutes a change in meaning, and should only be done by the user who wrote it or someone acting at their explicit request. I strongly suggest you reconsider your strike. DrChrissy(talk)14:58, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You forgot the sentence afterwards. Removing harmful posts, including personal attacks, trolling, and vandalism. This generally does not extend to messages that are merely uncivil (my emphasis); deletions of simple invective are controversial. Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived. I note that your opening sentence to this thread was a concern about incivility. I really do suggest you reverse your striking. DrChrissy(talk)12:59, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So where does it say that it is OK to strike another editor's comments? The quote you gave above is removal. WP:Civil states It is not normally appropriate to edit or remove another editor's comment. Exceptions include to remove obvious trolling or vandalism, or if the comment is on your own user talk page. SageRad's comments were neither vandalism or trolling. DrChrissy(talk)14:45, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MjolnirPants: You made this allegation that i made an uncivil comment but you don't tell what comment or who removed it -- please fill in these gaps of information. And i really don't have time for drama so please lower your squalch knob if you can, and let other people speak to the nature of things on a talk page about an article if it's what i think it's about. If it's what i think it's about then i was pointing out that someone hacked an article and didn't even put a note on the talk page. So, specifics please, and also i don't find this stuff amusing and would rather not deal with petty accusations. SageRad (talk) 11:48, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MjolnirPants: Hey buddy, i didn't like you saying "pro-fringe editors" -- that tripped my wire as an aspersion and it's what made me use the term "McCarthyist" ..... so can i get your comment removed please? Can you redact the term "pro-fringe" -- you see how it's all relative? SageRad (talk) 11:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You made this allegation that i made an uncivil comment but you don't tell what comment or who removed it -- please fill in these gaps of information. I have already answered that question.
Hey buddy, i didn't like you saying "pro-fringe editors" -- that tripped my wire as an aspersion and it's what made me use the term "McCarthyist" ..... Substituting sarcasm for a valid point doesn't get you anywhere.
you see how it's all relative? No. Because you're grasping at straws to defend your actions instead of owning up to them like a responsible adult. "Pro-fringe" is not an insult. "McCarthyist" is. You already know this. However, it's clear now that you won't listen to civil advice, so in the future, you can expect templating and ANI discussions from me in response to this sort of behavior. I'd rather you simply calm down, because I do have some respect for you as an editor, but that's entirely up to you. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.12:39, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MjolnirPants. You really, really need to dial this down. You have clearly just threatened to harass SageRad in the future. DrChrissy(talk)13:08, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for reading my mind for me. Would you please tell me what I would like to have for lunch today? Oh, and would I rather watch a movie or play a video game with my son, tonight? I think I can handle the rest for now, but I'll come hit you up anytime I need to be sure what I was thinking or intending.
Alternatively, you could stop putting words in my mouth and stop telling me what I actually meant by what I said. It's your choice, really. Of course, given the difference between what I actually said and what you're sitting here telling me I said, there's the possibility that you just don't know any better. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.14:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MjolnirPants: It was not sarcasm. (Maybe "buddy" was sarcasm, i am not sure if it qualifies, and i really do wish to be your buddy, to collegiately discuss these things with you. Saying "Hey buddy" was a little rough, and i'm sorry for that.) I find the use of the term "pro-fringe" to be as much a painting of prejudice in a personal attack way as my response that used "McCarthyist". To paint people as "pro-fringe" and group them into an action is the same kind of thing i did to which you are objecting, is it not? I was commenting on what i see as a pattern of editorship. You were doing the same. You seem to see a "pro-fringe" phalanx trying to get things into Wikipedia. Well, i see a McCarthyist-toned flavor of editors who seem to think it's their personal mission to root out any non-mainstream content from Wikipedia, despite the policies not supporting this mission.
If you are judging some editors who wish to retain the article on State Crimes Against Democracy as all or mostly being "pro-fringe", i find this an insult. Here you are declaring that "McCarthyist" is an insult and that "pro-fringe" is not. I happen to disagree. I think "pro-fringe" is an insult in this context, and is also not accurate. The term "fringe" in itself is an insulting term, a trash can moniker, a symbol that means "this is garbage and nonsense and you who defend it must be wearing a tin foil hat to protect your brain against the red LEDs" or something like that.
This could be an opening for us to figure out our differences through dialog. I will explain what i mean by "McCarthyist". I use it as a shorthand to express a political witch hunting for ideological purging or purification. I see this in Wikipedia when people call some political term or concept "fringe" and wish to purge it from Wikipedia. I see this as harmful, as it attempts to make Wikipedia more Mainstream#In_sociology. Note from the hyperlink that "mainstream" in this context does not mean "more correct" but connotes more of an agreement with the dominant political ideology desired by the elite or powerful interests in society, and pushing a conformity of thought. Would you please help by defining what you mean by "pro-fringe" and we can see if these definitions meet up, or not?
One way that i see "McCarthyism" is the sliding of the scale by which "fringe" is judged. In the way that McCarthy used the idea of a threat of hostile entities wishing to overthrow the U.S. government to harass and punish people who had socialist ideals and expressed them, i see "fringe" as having an extreme form that is real, but the concept being used in Wikipedia to punish articles and concepts relating to "non-mainstream" ideas.
The term is definitely disparaging, in the real world and in Wikipedia especially. If you dispute this, please do. I find that it's a term of derision that wants to discredit the validity of some ideas and label them as totally invalid. I see this happening in Wikipedia at an alarming rate.
I am sorry that i offended you, and i wish to know exactly how i offended you with my language. Please do help me to understand more. I don't think it was right to strike part of my comment, but i do also see how i might have been more Socratic, and drawn out what i wanted to express from your responses to well-formed questions. Let this be the opportunity for that exchange, then. No harm, no foul about the strikeout. SageRad (talk) 00:40, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is not uncivil to speak about a pattern of railroading and agenda pushing where it does actually exist. It's speaking about reality. Of course those who feel the guilt of being part of said railroading would not want it spoken. That's part of the agenda and the bias, not to want it named. But it's quite important to speak about what is happening in Wikipedia because there is a big problem here. SageRad (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The AfD on 'State Crimes Against Democracy' was decided and the article has been deleted, but the closing admin was very kind in his response to my query about the basis of his decision.
Hi JerryRussell. Deletion discussions are not votes, but here we have a clear majority in favor of keeping, so the only way to escape a consensus to delete would be if the "keep" opinions were particularly compelling, or the "delete" opinions were particularly weak. That's not the case. Discussion centers on the quality of sources, and that's something people can disagree about in good faith. If anything, SageRad's opinion to keep because it's "a useful article about an actual term" would need discounting because it isn't based in policy or practice, see WP:USEFUL. Sandstein 08:08, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm thinking that I talked too much at the delete discussion, I won't do that again. I'm a new editor here, my specific goals are to create articles and links related to Roman influences on Christianity, and regarding Lanierite theory of Shakespeare authorship. I was recently scolded & warned by Bishonen for activities on a Shakespeare talk section, and was curious what kind of person Bishonen was, and thus I clicked on the link to her 'delete' opinion on SCAD. I would've thought that SCAD would be a shoe-in for GNG and I was, frankly, stunned at the vehemence of opposition to the article.
Both my intended topics are regarded as 'fringe' around here, and I'm not sure what (if anything) to do about that. It also seems to me that the information in the SCAD article should be on Wiki; I wonder if the article could be reframed around the broader topic of criminality by states or elite individuals, and given a new title?JerryRussell (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or, Sandstein's comment seems to leave the door wide open for a deletion review. It might be interesting to find out a broader cross-section of admin opinion about this.JerryRussell (talk) 17:14, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JerryRussell:Jerry, it is the views and opinions of the community as a whole that matter, not just the admins. (You may have just mis-typed, if so, I apologise for drawing attention to this.) DrChrissy(talk)15:04, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AFD states "... after which the deletion process proceeds based on community consensus". There are very things admins can decide upon which non-admins can not. The idea is that they are administrators, not super-editors with a greater say or vote in matters. And as with any group of humans, there are good ones and bad ones. DrChrissy(talk)16:10, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JerryRussell:, welcome to Wikipedia. I've been here for over a year and I have discovered that there is a very large contingent of people with a certain ideological agenda who are willing to use all sorts of games and lawyer ring to get their way in regard to the content despite the guidelines and policies. This was one more such case of it. That is why I used the term McCarthyism. I didn't use it accidentally. There is a kind of ideological pushiness and demonization of people who disagree that is very reminiscent of the McCarthyism as relates to communist ideas in the United States in the 1950s. There is a systematic program to root out all sorts of things that a certain group labels Fringe. The word is the new word for communism if we continue the metaphor of McCarthyism. I don't know what to do about this. But at least I can name it and call it out. And even doing so I get attacked quite often for just doing so. I am remarking on a sociological observation that I have made during my time editing in Wikipedia. I'm not particularly blaming any particular individual, but I'm calling out a friend that is very harmful to the encyclopedia. It is actually harmful to humanity at large because it is limiting people's access to knowledge based upon a certain ideological filter that they have not chosen and are not aware of. Sure a deletion review would be great. But the problem is much much much much much deeper than a single article or question period there's a cultural problem with in Wikipedia and there is a balance of power that has shifted toward this sort of fascist group. SageRad (talk) 13:53, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SageRad, thanks for your welcome message. I appreciate your view of the systematic cultural situation at Wikipedia. I feel that my best strategy as a new editor would be to just gain some more experience about the way this place works. I will take your advice to add WP:NPOVN to my watchlist, and participate there.
What are your thoughts about the best approach to getting the SCAD material back in Wikipedia? Deletion review? New article with different title? Or, the information could be incorporated into the White-collar crime article.
One more thing. Could I ask a favor? My first two articles here are Hall Carbine Affair and Caesar's Messiah. Could you take a look at them, and the talk page for CM, and give me your thoughts as to any changes I should make to give these articles a better chance of surviving attack?JerryRussell (talk) 16:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jerry, I took the liberty of having a quick look at the HCA page and making some copy edits. What the article is lacking most at the moment is a summary introduction - the lead. Try looking at WP:Lead if you are not familiar with this. I am not sure the last reference would be considered a reliable source. DrChrissy(talk)16:32, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks DrChrissy. I will write a lead. There is only one item left in the 'further reading' section, and it's also called out in the references. So should I just get rid of that section?
As to the 'last reference', are you concerned about the box of files at Yale Library, or about the Irvin book chapter, or both? Irvin's argument in the book chapter is based on the original source in the Yale document collection. In terms of Wiki's basic verifiability policy, can I argue that the best verifiability is provided by giving both the primary source, and the secondary interpretation, so that the interested readers can check for themselves whether the secondary source has correctly interpreted the primary? I can imagine someone claiming that Irvin is not a reputable author, John Rush is not a reputable editor, Atlantic Press is not a reputable publisher, and so forth. If there are any pragmatic editors left, I should hope that an appeal to the primary source might turn the tide.JerryRussell (talk) 17:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage, you cannot make those edits, because you are still topic-banned. I feel badly about telling you this, but it's the way things are. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It was (1) correcting a serious mistake in the article, and (2) in the opposite direction from the supposed bias that i'm supposed to have by the McCarthyist agenda-ridden people who led the kangaroo court that banned me, and (3) the topic ban was a pile of steaming crap to begin with. Thank, Tryptofish but i edit for accuracy, and saw a serious inaccuracy in the glyphosate article, and the world deserves good knowledge. This is what Wikipedia is all about. Integrity. Integrity was completely lacking in the inquisition of last year. SageRad (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have been your own worst enemy in Wikipedia for more than a year. If there was a serious error in the article, and I am willing to take your word that there was, you could have requested, via Arbitration Clarification and Amendment Requests, permission to make the edit. You have been your own worst enemy in Wikipedia for more than a year. If you continue to think that you get to ignore Wikipedia policies and procedures when you are certain of your own rightness, you are heading for a site-ban. I told you a year ago to pause and reconsider. Pause and reconsider. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:57, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, you, Robert McClenon and several people like you have been my worst enemies, creating a hostile environment here for real editing work. You have an ideological agenda that you infuse into your enforcement and your interactions with people. Reflect deeply. SageRad (talk) 12:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is extremely wrong for there to be ideological bias in the editing of articles. It is a disservice to the world because the world looks to Wikipedia for knowledge summaries. When articles are biased, it affects the world negatively. There is systemic bias in Wikipedia, and i am not the source of it. I am calling it out and for that i got attacked and topic banned. That's what happened and i will not stop saying that loudly and clearly no matter how much people like you attempt to intimidate me into silence. Your very intimidation right here on this page is yet another piece of evidence of the way that McCarthyist tactics are used endlessly in areas of ideological controversy. I advocate complete adherence to the NPOV policies of Wikipedia. The people who railroaded and banned me want the opposite but do not admit it. This is all so much bullshit and the world needs to know. SageRad (talk) 13:13, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an ideological agenda. It is true that some of your opponents do. As long as you start out by seeing ideological agendas, bullying, railroading, and general meanness in Wikipedia, you will be met with hostility, but it is the reflection of our own hostility. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:14, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot say that to see an ideological agenda is wrong, if it is there. My seeing hostility is not the cause of hostility. My seeing agendas is not the cause of said agendas. I remember you as an often hostile person in many conversations. There is bullying, railroading, and general meanness, and i am not the cause of it for seeing it and saying it. SageRad (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To enforce an arbitration decision and for violating your topic ban, you have been blocked from editing for a period of 5 days. You are welcome to edit once the block expires; however, please note that the repetition of similar behavior may result in a longer block or other sanctions.
If you believe this block is unjustified, please read the guide to appealing blocks (specifically this section) before appealing. Place the following on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Please copy my appeal to the [[WP:AE|arbitration enforcement noticeboard]] or [[WP:AN|administrators' noticeboard]]. Your reason here OR place the reason below this template. ~~~~}}. If you intend to appeal on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard I suggest you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template on your talk page so it can be copied over easily. You may also appeal directly to me (by email), before or instead of appealing on your talk page.
Reminder to administrators: In May 2014, ArbCom adopted the following procedure instructing administrators regarding Arbitration Enforcement blocks: "No administrator may modify a sanction placed by another administrator without: (1) the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or (2) prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" [in the procedure]). Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped."
@Only in death: I noticed you have edited (removed material) from this talk page twice in the last 4 days. I suggest you re-read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines which states Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page. Striking text constitutes a change in meaning, and should only be done by the user who wrote it or someone acting at their explicit request.DrChrissy(talk)17:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you read the guidelines regarding polemical material and the policy at WP:NPA linking to attack material. I also suggest you keep your nose out of other people's business before attempting to lecture someone who knows far more than you about wikipedia policy. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:30, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you - I have re-read the policy but I can not see anywhere a statement that this vindicates the non-invited editing of another user's Talk page. I suggest if you are concerned about such postings in the future, you seek the attention of an administrator. DrChrissy(talk)18:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed that just in the last few minutes you have edited yet another editor's posting[9] indicating this is a repeat behaviour on your part. DrChrissy(talk)18:18, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah what the hell is going on here? Why are people censoring other people's speech? Why are people enforcing an agenda? Why are people being seriously ideological dictators here? It's a systemic censorship and repression of speech and a group-enacted dynamic that creates this hostile editing environment and causes systemic bias in the content of the articles. It's seriously out of hand. This is ridiculous. Stop this. SageRad (talk) 19:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It was not "attack material" -- it was an account of some systemic bias in Wikipedia. Sorry you don't want reality mentioned here but that's not your choice. You have to understand the difference between (1) naming behaviors and dynamics versus (2) personal attacks. There is indeed a systemic problem in Wikipedia and some people see it and say it, but those people get accused of "personal attack" for doing so, incorrectly. Here is one more such case. It's sad and sordid. SageRad (talk) 19:57, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, DrChrissy -- i cannot believe the kind of stuff that happens here, the level of disrespect and lack of integrity that is part and parcel of the systemic bias within Wikipedia that has infected the knowledge base of the human species. It is holographic. SageRad (talk) 19:58, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Only in death:WP:NPA says Linking to off-site harassment, attacks, or privacy violations against persons who edit Wikipedia for the purpose of attacking another person who edits Wikipedia is never acceptable. Attacking, harassing, or violating the privacy of any person who edits Wikipedia through the posting of external links is not permitted. Harassment in this context may include but is not limited to linking to offsite personal attacks, privacy violations, and/or threats of physical violence. This is not to be confused with legitimate critique. -- explain how i violated that. Explain how what i posted was personal attack and not simply legitimate critique, which is expressly allowed by the guideline. Explain how what you did was correct and what i posted was a violation, if you really mean that in good faith. Otherwise apologize. SageRad (talk) 20:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia, we have a problem
It's called systemic bias, it's called ideological agenda pushing, and it's taken hold of Wikipedia like a metastatic cancer. See the above section of my talk page for an example. Look into the edit history of this page to see what was removed. Wikipedia, we have a problem. SageRad (talk) 20:11, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So why continue on here? I disagree with your assessment, BTW. I see a diverse community of editors, very few of whom have closed minds. When "ignore all rules" is regarded as a valid rule, it's hard to sustain a view of a hidebound, closed, narrow-minded community.
There are people with certain viewpoints and there are those with views opposed. The great beauty of the system here is that these people can not only get along with each other, but coöperate to create an indispensable resource.
What I'm seeing is a problem with one editor, creating stress for himself and others. I'm not seeing you changing the system with your current tactics. Whether you believe it or not, people here are listening to you, and just not agreeing with your views.
Because i care about the world's knowledge and because it matters. Your assessment is expected to be quite within the realm of the problem, by the way, "Pete" or "Skyring", as you have always been with the "side" that is engaged in the problem here. It's a question of serious bias. It is not about my enjoyment. It's about the world's knowledge being unbiased. What you're seeing is totally irrelevant to me because you have proven yourself time and again to not be intellectually honest here and to be part of the problem.
Why do you bother to post on my page? Why do you say what you said? Why do you not take my words at face value but rather try to turn them around and to gaslight the problem away.... go away from my door, you who are one of the problem. You, Robert McClenon, Only in Death... you arew not welcome on my page. See how the people who feel the threat flock to the messenger who says something is wrong with distortion of NPOV in Wikipedia? It's classic. SageRad (talk) 22:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People do listen to me and do agree with my views. Go the fuck away Pete. Your gaslighting bullshit bully attitude is hostile and toxic. SageRad (talk) 22:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Toxic abusive manipulators have taken over Wikipedia. It's seriously bad. People are noticing. People are saying it. People are also being attacked for saying it -- just like here on my talk page. SageRad (talk) 22:43, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Skyring Pete, you are not welcome on my talk page ever. Do not ever post anything on my talk page. I see you as a hostile and toxic person and do not want you to post anything here. I believe that is my right within Wikipedia rules. SageRad (talk) 22:51, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage - your language and hostility above are understandable, but very out of character for you. I agree with the message you are trying to get across, but you might consider editing the language you have used. Are you OK? Feel free to email me if you want to. DrChrissy(talk)22:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am not okay with people being under-the-radar aggressive in the microaggression mode, which is a hallmark of the narcissist bully type of behavior that is shown by Pete above. I will not censor my language to eliminate "cuss words". I am not ok that people of this nature have done a hostile takeover of the world's knowledge via Wikipedia. I am not okay with this. I am ok as a person, not in any danger of harming myself if that is what you're asking, but i am not okay with living in a world where all things of import lack integrity and are taken over by hostile entities. Thanks for asking. I know when people are being hostile, and it's worse when it's done in the classic gaslighting and covert way that is less detectable to others who are not tuned in. It's an aggressive and violent thing. It's not okay for people to do that. This is part of the strategy of the people who have taken over the world's knowledge through Wikipedia as well as other locales. SageRad (talk) 23:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Sage - that is all fine, and I am glad to hear that there is no danger of you harming yourself. I should let you know that Pete has raised a thread on my Talk page about you. It is not inflammatory in any way, but as with any other editor, you should know if you are being discussed. DrChrissy(talk)23:17, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pete is passive aggressive and a hostile presence. I recommend not taking his words at face value. Thank you for your comments and care. SageRad (talk) 23:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
All the dishonesty, all the agenda pushing, all the slandering, all the railroading, all the bullshit frankly, has led to this point where it's past ridiculous. It's to the point of absurd, but it's hard to see unless you've been in it deeply as you and i have. Don't forget, DrChrissy the water that has gone under the bridge -- it's not gone but it has had so much effect. I cannot edit right now at all because of that water. I am smeared by the people who are willing to smear people without cause due to that water. To some people this seems to be a team sport, an ideological team effort to get as much of their ideology into articles as possible. NPOV policy doesn't exist anymore wherever there is something that they want to "win" as if representation of knowledge is something to "win" rather than to work cooperatively to reflect reality through reliable sources. There is an evil cancer that has metastasized within Wikipedia, and it has effects beyond this website. It affects the world and it's an evil game to distort human knowledge for one's own ideological goals. SageRad (talk) 23:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Sage, I agree. There is never a day that I am editing on here when I am not having to double and triple check I am not violating the same topic ban you and I have (and I also have another one for daring to question RS guidelines in a particular area of human biology). Anyone who believes Topic Bans are protective rather than punitive really is living in a different world than I am. I think it is extremely noticeable and highly pertinent that the amount of disruptive editing on pages we are now banned from has escalated rather than decreased since our ban in January - do topic bans work? Let the reader decide. DrChrissy(talk)23:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can see topic bans sometimes being enacted for good reasons, when an editor is continually disruptive. But they have come to be used for ideological purging of editors who are not liked by other editors who have the power by Wikipedia having come to be occupied by people sharing the ideology. When integrity and adherence to the principles of Wikipedia (NPOV and RS especially) goes out the window or gets entirely distorted, then Wikipedia is owned and occupied by a particular agenda interest group and they maintain power by finding ways to expel others, by any means possible. It is not ok. It's blatantly clear to those who have seen the daily interactions and the outcomes of many decisions. It's clear who is here for the true reasons of editing an encyclopedia to the ideals of the encyclopedia, and who is here to bend the encyclopedia in a particular direction. The bias is astounding to those who have been in the trenches and seen what goes on. It's sickening. SageRad (talk) 12:08, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the link i posted originally that caused this most recent flaring of the immune system of the occupiers of Wikipedia was to a blog called "Wikipedia we have a problem". Does the mentioning of such a blog that speaks to dynamics in Wikipedia constitute a Wikipedia "crime" or "personal attack"? I don't think so. I think that is legitimate critique. It's really telling when people want to erase critique. I did human rights work in Nepal during the civil war or insurgency there, and it was striking how the King wanted to shut down critique to the point that he shut down the entire Internet and all cell phones in the country. He censored newspapers. They wrote articles about dirty socks instead of the government, but everyone knew of what they were speaking. And the King did not last much longer. You can only clamp down so much before you get bucked off the horse. People need to be able to speak freely about dynamics going on, and not shut down when they do so. It's not a "personal attack" to speak to the authoritarian dynamic going on here that has been enacted and enabled. It's not wrong to point out that someone is acting abusively or in a controlling way or without integrity of dialog. If you cannot speak to that and resolve it then the problem is simply more hidden but even worse. SageRad (talk) 12:36, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The bias that i see within Wikipedia, in arbitration cases, in article talk pages, and in the banter of admins and arbitrators, is astounding and so blatant.
There is a continuing polarization that is causing content to be more and more polarized. It's akin to a takeover, and it is in part intentional. There is indeed a "Skeptic" movement to cause Wikipedia to move more in line with the ideology of the "Skeptic" movement, and they engage in meat-puppeting, in the form of recruiting people of their ideology to take up Wikipedia editing in order to change and maintain the changed content to move it more in line with their ideological beliefs.
It is insidious in that they pretend to be one with science -- they claim that what they believe is "science" and that it's neutral and unbiased. But that is a huge misrepresentation, because they actually take a single approach to science on certain topics and exclude other science that is not in line with their beliefs. They generally have a simplistic and reductionist view of science, not seeing the ecological and sociological dimensions of many subjects.
They also have a heavy-handed way of bullying and speaking with condescension and dripping with a nasty slimy toxicity that is holographic with the fact that they generally defend the products of the chemical industry, including chemicals which are toxic to living things. They move in groups and support one another, and having the numbers, they can knock others out, one by one, in topic bans and various other mechanisms, as well as just making editing so unpleasant that people who have other points of view simply drop out in frustration and futility. People who really want to improve articles and restore some balance and NPOV.
They pretend to be "neutral" and they pretend that they are defending "science" and that they are NPOV but they are asdtoundingly blind of self-deluding or lying about this, because they push a particularly biased interpretation of science and exclude other good solid science that is not in line with their general agenda.
Others have written about them in blogs like "The Ethical Skeptic" and "Wikipedia We Have A Problem" much more lucidly and in more detail than i have. It's seriously affecting Wikipedia very badly.
To enforce an arbitration decision you have been blocked from editing for a period of 1 month. You are welcome to edit once the block expires; however, please note that the repetition of similar behavior may result in a longer block or other sanctions.
If you believe this block is unjustified, please read the guide to appealing blocks (specifically this section) before appealing. Place the following on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Please copy my appeal to the [[WP:AE|arbitration enforcement noticeboard]] or [[WP:AN|administrators' noticeboard]]. Your reason here OR place the reason below this template. ~~~~}}. If you intend to appeal on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard I suggest you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template on your talk page so it can be copied over easily. You may also appeal directly to me (by email), before or instead of appealing on your talk page. Laser brain(talk)19:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Reminder to administrators: In May 2014, ArbCom adopted the following procedure instructing administrators regarding Arbitration Enforcement blocks: "No administrator may modify a sanction placed by another administrator without: (1) the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or (2) prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" [in the procedure]). Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped."
Comments here and at Jimbo's talk page about "products of the chemical industry, including chemicals which are toxic to living things" are violations of your GMO topic ban. --Laser brain(talk)19:20, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Laser, this is such a general comment by SageRad that I think your block may be unsafe. SageRad might have been referring to, for example, companies that make batteries and allow lead to leach into rivers and kills fish. DrChrissy(talk)19:50, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
He wasn't. Check his recent contributions; the ones immediately preceding the ones on Jimbo's talkpage used nearly identical language to attack David Tornheim's topic ban from the GMO area. Claiming that they are completely unrelated strains credulity. The WordsmithTalk to me20:06, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the chemicals i would most have in mind are PCBs and PFOA -- persistent organic pollutants that are affecting bodies of water near where i live. I was speaking to a general bias that i see in Wikipedia, and that others see as well, that has to do with many a topic area other than those of my topic ban. SageRad (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I absolutely did not speak of anything that is covered by my topic ban. And yet I was blocked for violating a topic ban. Can you explain this? Ridiculous. It seems like certain people just don't want any critique of any bias with in Wikipedia. I spoke about bias in the most general terms and that's what I meant. It was not some sort of coded language and you cannot assume what I was meaning because you don't have telepathy, and you would be wrong anyway. I was speaking on the most General level of a systemic virus within Wikipedia and how it is manifested. And the Very fact that I was banned because of doing so is one more piece of evidence that it is true. Touchy? SageRad (talk) 13:07, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't buy it, sorry. Since your last block for breaching your topic ban, virtually all of your contributions have been comments about your topic ban, derogatory comments about other editors ("toxic abusive manipulators"), comments about David Tornheim's topic ban, and then heading to Jimbo's talk page to comment about "science" editors and then the "chemical industry". Claiming you were referring to anything else is frankly ridiculous. Jimbo's page is not exempt from rules that apply elsewhere. --Laser brain(talk)13:46, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, the notice above provides instructions for appealing this action if you wish to pursue such action and get feedback from other administrators on the validity of this action. --Laser brain(talk)13:47, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You had better buy it because there is no other authority about what my words meant than myself. I know what i was writing about. I did not mention at all anything within the purview of my single topic ban, which is very specific (and is wrongly imposed in itself as part of the problem). I spoke to a general pattern of bias within Wikipedia that includes a great many topic areas. My single specific mention of "toxic chemicals" was about things that i am "allowed" to speak of. This is extensive and ugly admin overreach here. I have responded to you by email to demand dropping of this block, as well. I demand it because it was wrong and you over-reached here. I spoke of a general pervasive "Skeptic" ideological pushing within Wikipedia. You cannot assume what i meant based on your preconceptions. That's the nature of the problem in itself. You're illustrating an aspect of the very thing i was talking about here, Laser_brain. Poetically, i was blocked unjustly for saying that people are being blocked unjustly according to an ideological pattern. And so it continues to be illustrated clearly. SageRad (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've explained my action and given you clear instructions on how to appeal it. If the community finds that I acted incorrectly, I will accept that and move on. I am in receipt of your numerous emails and won't be responding to them. Please keep communication about your sanctions here for transparency. If you continue to go off the rails as you are doing below I wouldn't be surprised if your Talk page access is revoked. However, I am going to sit by a quiet lake for the weekend and won't be here. Maybe you should do the same and clear your head. --Laser brain(talk)13:04, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have written 3 emails explaining that i did not even speak of anything that is in the scope of my topic ban and you are stating that you are not going to respond to them or to lift my block. You did not respond to them. I will keep communication here from now on, Laser_brain.
I did not "go off the rails" as you put it. I would call your use of this phrase to be casting an aspersion as it clearly implies that i am crazy and amok. I am not. I see a clear bias within Wikipedia and i am speaking to it lucidly. There is a biased power structure that has been manifested by a swarm attack for an ideological movement and this is documented at many sources and there is copious evidence for this agenda being enacted. There is an "establishment" that has occupied the power structures of Wikipedia and the situation continues to become more polarized (as well as more blatantly obvious).
I spoke to this, and your response is to threaten further repression of my speech, by blocking access to my own talk page, which is currently the only place where i can even speak now because of your block.
I do not need to "clear my head" -- my head is quite clear. I clearly see the situation within Wikipedia based on my past 15 months of participation. I see the landscape and the bias at all levels and the abuses of power. It's holographic and systemic, and it's hostile to curation of knowledge content with neutrality. I speak to this and the result is further repression of my ability to speak. That in itself is yet another piece of evidence in support of the hypothesis that there is systemic bias within Wikipedia. Hostility to hearing critique, even if it's mostly wrong, as the good Jimbo recommended on his talk page, is a sign of something rotten in the state of Denmark.Methinks thou protest too much.SageRad (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BLOCKED FOR SPEAKING ABOUT A PROBLEM!!!!
I started this section on Jimbo's talk page, and i was summarily blocked from editing for one month (anything but my own talk page) by Laser_brain.
I did not speak about anything within my "topic ban" -- which is unjust in itself and part of the problem -- but i did not flout my topic ban -- and yet i was blocked from editing for one month for speaking of a general ideological bias pattern in Wikipedia -- which illustrates further the actual problem of ideological agenda pushing and flogging of people for speaking to that bias. People on the "winning side" are free to accuse anyone they don't like of being an "activist" or "having an agenda" or bring "fringe" but them moment you speak of a bias in the other direction, you get tarred and feathered and lynched.
I am not going to appeal to the very authority who banned me to begin with in such a badly biased and unjust way. Sure, ask the fox to guard the henhouse after he eats a chicken.... yeah right.
I'm going to point out the extensive holographic bias within all levels of Wikipedia, from biased application of the word "aspersions" to the blocking of people for speaking of the bias that is screaming in Wikipedia. This has to end. SageRad (talk) 12:12, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When a person perceives a problem of power abuse, and then speaks about it, and then gets immediately silenced and eliminated for speaking about it, that is a sign of a deep abusive problem. An abusive relationship has this characteristic -- you don't speak about the problem, for it's taboo and it is a sin to speak of it. You pretend everything is ok and try to appease your abuser. You try to survive. If you speak directly about it, the abuser will punish you with worse and worse abuse. That's what's happening here. I have been blocked for one month for speaking about a problem and there are many in positions of power who don't want that spoken. Silencing and gaslighting are very real things. Even here. SageRad (talk) 12:20, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone is reading this, and cares, please note that i am blocked from commenting on that conversation at Jimbo's page but that has not been clearly noted there yet, so it could appear odd that i started that convo an didn't partake anymore. A note to that effect there could be helpful. SageRad (talk) 12:13, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
THE ABSOLUTE BULLYING AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY ABUSIVE TREATMENT OF DrChrissy at Jimbo's talk page is really really bad, and if i can put myself into DrChrissy's shoes and empathize, it feels like a serious bullying and psychological attacking of that editor. Please, someone, speak up against that, as it is really ugly and cruel, and this cruelty should NOT be allowed in Wikipedia -- if civility means anything at all. This is all part and parcel of the holographic toxic atmosphere from this takeover by toxic people, this horrible horrible atmosphere that really does hurt people. Seriously, it's harmful to people and to the content as well. It's a cancer in Wikipedia. It's got to be addressed. SageRad (talk) 12:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jusdafax, i am very concerned about bullying and harassing and psychological abuse of DrChrissy at Jimbo's talk page -- i don't know what can be done but do you see that happening too? Is it clear to you that there's a toxic thing going on? Needing help and perspective. SageRad (talk) 12:34, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed, 2#New_page_-_Goat_farming this definitely is a case of hounding by two hostile editors who have recently been bullying you at Jimbo's talk page. And nothing will likely be done about this, ever, because Wikipedia is totally captured by the likes of these hostile editors who damage content and prevent useful editing, DrChrissy. I have empathy for your ill treatment by hostile bullies. Please, others, if you see this, please say what you think about it. Use your voice please. SageRad (talk) 11:14, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Horrible, blatant biased agenda pushing continues within Wikipedia every hour of every day, and those who speak about it get blocked and banned and harassed and some end up leaving in frustration and others are forcefully blocked (like me) and the false story is told that people like me are the agenda pushers but it's the very exact opposite. SageRad (talk) 13:21, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion on Jimbo's page archive link
A discussion that i started on Jimbo's talk page titled "Wikipedia we have a problem" was archive here. I record this for easy reference to that discussion. Note that promptly after i began that dialog, i was summarily blocked from editing on Wikipedia for one month (except for my own talk page) for allegedly violating my topic ban, which i did not do. I maintain that my topic ban is 100% unjust and yet i know that to break it would be grounds for a block there, so i did not. And yet i was blocked anyway, unjustly, on a false basis. My topic ban is to not speak about GMOs and agrochemicals. I spoke of neither. I did mention as one example of bias articles about "toxic chemicals" but this is not the subject of my topic ban even if there might be overlap in a Venn diagram in someone's mind, but i have edited and seen bias in articles about PCBs and PFOA and other toxic chemicals that are products of the chemical industry but explicitly NOT covered by my topic ban. There was not other basis for the block and it was based on another person believing they could attribute my words in ways that they were not meant or spoken, and it was ridiculous. And you can see the editor who blocked me above showing the same impunity and disregard of justice and reality. Wikipedia, we have a problem, and we are not to speak of it, just like in an abusive relationship the worst sin is to speak about the abuse. SageRad (talk) 16:12, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is an unsigned personal attack from someone who "happened" to come across my talk page. Whatever, more of the same, more evidence of the abusive toxic editing environment of which i speak, and which is clearly seen by many people who have spent any time editing. Anonymous attack troll, thanks for further illustrating the bullshit that is going on with Wikipedia. It's a runaway toxic playground for bullies. Unfortunately, there are very real consequences for the world. The integrity of knowledge is important. So it matters to real people. Real people get hurt -- both from bullying abusive attacks like this, and from the distortion of knowledge that results. SageRad (talk) 17:30, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am blocked so i cannot comment here but i'll provide some thoughts.
It's not "nice" to say "fuck off" and generally is very uncivil, but you still need to look at the context. It's not cuss words along that defines civil versus uncivil. It's more about integrity of dialog, and general respect for others, especially when there is disagreement about some topic. It's about being able to keep to the topic ("the comment not the commenter") and not to go ad hominem.
However, after a long history with any specific person, then one may see patterns and they ought to be able to speak to it. If i see that one editor consistently ignores reasonable dialog, or uses straw man argumentation, or otherwise abuses dialog or does personal attacks, then i would call this out. I would speak my reckoning about that person's actions, based on my observations of their history, in a place where it is appropriate to show bad behavior.
I would not use that, however, to try to slander a person in a new context where they have not yet acted badly. Every person deserves the respect of some amount of good faith in a new conversation. But history does remain in the minds of the people who interact.
When someone who has been consistently hostile to me for as long as i've been editing, comes to my talk page and adds a comment that they truly know is meant to torment me or to be abusive then i may tell them simply to "fuck off" -- or in a better moment "Leave my talk page. You are not welcome here." Some people though, who continue to push and push even when told that they are not welcome to do so, and who continue to cast aspersions over and over, may trigger a "fuck off" response from even the most normaly polite person.
I am a very polite person in every situation, and i start every interaction with respect for others. I assume good faith until i see reasons to suspect otherwise.
Huge problems arise when there is not good enforcement of civility from the get-go. Problems build up between people who are getting away with abuse with impunity. The people who are abused endlessly then may reach a breaking point. It's not symmetrical. It's related to gaslighting, and also to blaming the victim, to simply respond when the abused party reaches a breaking point and uses a cuss word or speaks strongly. That's the way abusive power dynamics go, so often.
In the discussion there on Jimbo's page, i think that Cassianto is indeed not very civil to people and could work to temper their interactions. It's not the best example of what i'm talking about. But it's not okay to simply say "every use of a cuss word is incivil" -- you need to see the context deeply. That takes work. Sorry, but it takes work. Wikipedia needs a huge dose of integrity, and everyone needs to be willing to do the work or get out.
DrChrissy -- you may be interested in my take on this. Dr._Blofeld, i respect your comments there. I cannot comment there to tell you this, so i ping you here. Especially your comment:
I agree with Jimbo on " We are here to build an encyclopedia - nasty behavior to others is damaging to that effort.", but nasty behaviour goes beyond uttering expletives, some of the worst offenders I can think of on here are the ones who typically don't resort to direct personal attacks, but go about the site harrassing people and bringing a vendetta to multiple articles, psychological bullying on here really. That can be the most damaging I think. And they get away with it because they're "civil" in terms of abiding by NPA. Personally I'd rather somebody swear at me than spend weeks/months pursuing some issue and wearing me down by obsessively going on about it, or infobox warring!
In fact, i would say that many people are not actually "civil" but that the judging of what is a "personal attack" is often done too simplistically and also with great prejudicial bias. There are indeed people ideologically warring here, and they will not hesitate for a second to nail someone to a cross for a single unkind word, whereas they will happily overlook endless snide and nasty attacks by others who are "on their team" ideologically. It's a huge pervasive systemic problem in Wikipedia. It needs to be admitted and addressed.
Sage - as usual you have expressed this very eloquently. One of the patterns of behaviour is also to try to make connections between those who they believe oppose their ideologies when in fact, they simply disagree with their editing. For example, you and I are often linked together. However, I don't know you well enough to know about your ideologies and I suspect you do not know mine. But, we do have something very much in common and that is a healthy respect for civility on here. This should not make us "partners in crime" - rather, it is a situation that should be addressed if this project is to survive. As for that conversation going on at at Jimbo's talk page, why not simply make some language sanctionable. Although there would be conflicting ideas, it is achievable. Nobody would be allowed to call a female editor on here a whore, so why do we allow editors to tell each other to fuck off. It is a mystery to me. DrChrissy(talk)22:23, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.
This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the DRN regarding the use of Harriet Hall's blog post in the Michael Greger article. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The discussion is about the topic Michael Greger.
Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:01, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Sammy1339, thank you for the note. The correct location is here. I am currently blocked from editing anything but my talk page here, for completely unjust and untrue reasons. Please see the above sections to understand this. I spoke about the heavy ideological bias within Wikipedia on Jimbo's page, and got summarily blocked. I did not violate my topic ban (which is an unjust product of the same bias about which i was speaking) but was blocked on false charges that i did so. I did not appeal because i know this place is run by the people who did that to begin with. There is no integrity on Wikipedia. Very little anyway.
WP:PARITY is abused. It's sort of akin to being able to declare anything "terrorist activity" and thereby escaping the normal rules and restrictions of law and individual rights. There are people who would declare things that don't mesh with the very decidedly "Skeptoid" ideology (which is an ideology, not a mode of thinking, do not be fooled) as "fringe" and therefore use "special rules" to destroy the articles about them against the actual policies of Wikipedia like NPOV and RS. It's a loophole to get around RS rules. And the numbers of people who adhere to that ideology are great enough that they get away with it. It's akin to McCarthyism and calling anyone who is not sufficiently mainstream a "commie" and therefore an enemy of the people, and blacklisting them and ruining their lives. It's a sick thing happening.
Please watch my talk page, and please help and remain in solidarity. Please look at the big picture of the hostile ideological takeover of Wikipedia against the actual policies of NPOV and RS, etc. Thanks. SageRad (talk) 13:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Criticism of wikipedia
Sagerad,
If you haven’t already taken a look at wikipediocracy, that site may be a better forum for your criticism of wikipedia than Jimbo’s talk page. Commenters on wikipediocracy are more amenable to recognizing a distinction between Skeptic movement editors and neutral science and evidence-based editors, and are significantly less likely to try to see you banned.Dialectric (talk) 21:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Dialectric. I do not wish to be banned, but i don't want to be a part of a place where there is espoused integrity but in practice lacks integrity. We have voices and let us use them honestly, in a civil way, to speak to the dynamics and issues we see as well as to praise the good things about Wikipedia. This is a project with wonderful potential but also vulnerabilities, and we need more people, not fewer, speaking with integrity about their observations. If my observations were outlandish and held no kernels of truth then i would not trouble anyone. They'd ignore me just like the other post on Jimbo's page about catfishing -- "oh, that koook, let them fizzle out" -- but what i am saying actually threatens people because they do not like to have the things named. The Emperor Has No Clothes is a fitting sort of parable. SageRad (talk) 21:57, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
However, if they simply let it pass, then it will pass. Last time i spoke to this i was banned for a month summarily for incorrect reasons, and so when i was unblocked i had to speak to that as well. It's pretty telling that speaking to the problems here seems to get one banned quickly. That's a dynamic that shows the very thing i am speaking of. Anyway, if they let it pass and if they don't get too worked up then it'll pass. I have a life, quite a life in fact. I don't desire to be here in contentious dialogs. I would like to edit now and again in a peaceful way about non-controversial topics. But if they ban me, i will not go gently into that good night. SageRad (talk) 22:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sage. I intend this as a friendly comment, so I hope that it will not be unwelcome. As you may remember, I've always felt that you have a lot of good to contribute to Wikipedia. And I would hate to see you get banned. But please hear my advice that one cannot change what one cannot change. If you try to change these things, you will get hammered down, and there's nothing you can do to change that. So I think you have two viable options. One is to walk away from Wikipedia, and I hope that you don't choose to do that. And so the other option is to, as you say, edit peacefully in some non-controversial topics. The fact is that, if you do that, you will find things a lot more happy here. So I really hope that you choose a happy option instead of giving yourself unhappiness. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tryptofish, isn't the very dynamic that you note in your comment worth making known? I would choose to not enter into frequent conflict as it's not good for one's soul and i have much else to spend my time on nowadays, but please do note the very serious nature of the very things you've said in your comment as your own observations about Wikipedia. It's noteworthy. Thank you for you acquaintance. SageRad (talk) 22:50, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I probably have a higher tolerance for putting up with things that offend me than most people do, and than what I had when I was younger. Anyway, I think that Dialectric is right that the best way to express one's criticisms of Wikipedia is elsewhere than Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:54, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I hear you and i thank you, but i think that very thing is notable, Tryptofish -- the fact that the place to express critique of Wikipedia is not in Wikipedia. It speaks to an environment where dissent from a party line is not tolerated, where critique of the very basics of the encyclopedia is not tolerated under pain of hostile insults, blocking, and virtual death (indef'ing).... odd thing, that. SageRad (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, too. Of course, Wikipedia is not a workplace, but I can tell you from personal experience that much the same thing is the situation in many workplaces and other real-life situations. And I'm referring to my personal experience in the context of when I was a tenured professor at a university! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage, you might like to take a quick trip to my talk page and read the thread "A page to avoid". Epipelagic and Tryptofish both spoke words of wisdom which are motivated by more experience than you and I have here on WP. As ever, I wish you peaceful editing. DrChrissy(talk)21:40, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DrChrissy, i appreciate the tip. Upon reading that section, i most resonate with your plea to others to speak up against incivility... if few people speak up then it goes on and on. The critical mass is already such that the incivil crowd rules the roost. I appreciate Tryptofish's perspective as well, and the metaphor of the workplace, but if we have an ideal of being able to discuss in a civil way but cannot then this place is broken -- and it is broken -- so the thing to do is state clearly that it's broken. Otherwise it's functioning in a broken way producing broken content. Let us stay human. We are all different in our temperaments and points of view, but if we are civil and if we together stand up to bullying and those who are uncivil with impunity, then we can make something of this place, which was and can again be a place where differing points of view resolve through civil discussion into an NPOV-approaching melding of the human supermind. My best to you both, and stay human. That's why i like Jimbo's page, actually -- it's a place that feels more human than other areas that are more highly policed. For whatever flaws he may have, Jimmy Wales is a real human with a lot of integrity, i think, and his talk page seems a less formal place for us to speak more easily -- even though i've been blocked for a month last time i posted there. Best to you both. SageRad (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog editing my comments
What policy allows another user to edit my comments? What policy prohibits this? I seem to recall that policy generally prohibits one editor from editing the comments of another editor on talk pages. SageRad (talk) 13:57, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NPA, WP:TPO / WP:TPG. TPG states off-topic posts may be subject to removal. TPO (a subsection) states that off-topic posts should be collapsed/hidden or moved (effectively removal) and NPA states personal attacks will be removed. Given you (in one post) accused another editor of attempting to intimidate/threaten you and went wildly off-topic in one of your usual 'ideological' rants, you were lucky any of your comment was left at all. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:07, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If WP:NPA applies then why doesn't it apply to the personal attacks that my comment was noting?
It's all in the interpretation. In my interpretation, me comments were absolutely not off topic nor were they personal attacks. You claim they were. You seem to be in a war-like stance against me. Is that last sentence a personal attack by your interpretation? What's a "personal attack" then? Is noting that there is strange phenom of pushing of a source a "personal attack"? What about your recent comments on Jimbo's page where you seem pretty mean to another user who announced their retirement? Where does this end? It's so sad. I lose hope for this place altogether when you are allowed to act this way.
I would like to ask you in all sincerity, if i has noted that the Hall source appears to me to be one with an ideological bent, would you have considered that to be a "personal attack"? I am seeking genuinely to understand what you consider to be a personal attack, and why. Thank you in advance if you can summon an answer to this question. SageRad (talk) 14:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As i said elsewhere, i'm bowing out of conflict. I've no taste or desire to be in conflict here, as it's harmful to the spirit to be enmeshed in a toxic ecology. I will note the blatant inequities as they appear, but i will bow out because i do not wish to be embroiled in the dramas. But note that this is distortive to content, because those who eschew conflict will leave those who create and maintain the conflict to control the content, thereby resulting in a Machiavellian rule of those willing to be toxic to others for the sake of a prize, which often is a specific angle to content in articles. SageRad (talk) 14:30, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have climbed the Reichstag twice now at Jimbo's talk page with regard to your concern about WP being overtaken by skeptics.
You created significant disruption at the Talk:Paleolithic diet page carrying out your campaign, which took up a significant amount of time and yielded almost no changes to the article's content.
You have now opened a section at Talk:Michael Greger to continue your campaign, raising drama about how Harriet A. Hall is defined there. I am not going through another Paleo experience with you.
If you continue to abuse article Talk pages in the course of carrying out your campaign - which is a clear violation of WP:SOAPBOX and is disruptive behavior, I will move to have you topic banned from discussing "skepticism" in WP, perhaps with a focus on content about health, as that is what unites the two articles I noted above.
This is just letting you know what the future holds, should you continue to do this. Jytdog (talk) 19:05, 11 September 2016 (UTC) (added wiggle to allow going broader, via redaction Jytdog (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Jytdog, those are your opinions, which i disagree with 100%. Your words here are interpretations that are highly mistaken. It also has the flavor of threat, intimidation, and personal attack. Your interpretations above are extremely off-base.
I opened a new talk page section at the Greger article to examine a question about the content of the article. Purely and nothing more. Your accusation is unwelcome and is a personal attack.
At Jimbo's talk page, i opened a section to discuss observations about Wikipedia. Totally what his talk page welcomes.
Your accusation of me waging a "campaign" is off base. I do see problems within Wikipedia and i do wish to make the project as good as possible. I hope we all do.
If you don't like me, then leave me alone. If you'd like to discuss content anywhere, then please do discuss content --- but leave all accusations and personal attacks out of anything you write to me. It's completely unwelcome.
You are not God. You are not omniscient. Your interpretation is not objective reality. Please hear me when i say that your interpretations above are completely off base. I am the one who knows my true motivations and i testify that they are completely in line with the goals and policies of Wikipedia and nothing more. Please go away with your hostility. Goodbye. I am so tired of the flavor of interactions that you continue to bring toward me. It's not good for this place. Please examine your own ways.
Note that despite your continual use of personal attacks against me, i don't come to your talk page, except when you recently edited my comments on a talk page. I don't come with my interpretations to your talk page to accuse you of things in this way. I simply respond to comments in the place where they are made. I don't come at you like this or threaten to get you kicked off Wikipedia or other such things. You do often irk me, Jytdog, but look at the asymmetry of the actions of the two of us. I do try to refrain from any personal attacks even though i receive them from you quite often. I am looking at general patterns within Wikipedia. I am not into making accusations against any specific people. I'm looking at how the project is broken and how it might be fixed, but not waging a battle against specific editors. Please do try to lighten up and be less litigious. SageRad (talk) 19:19, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I warned you. You will do as you will. Please note that the warning is focused on disruption of article Talk pages. Jimbo apparently welcomes Reichstag climbers. Jytdog (talk) 19:37, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And i tell you that discussing content on article talk pages is what those talk pages are for, so please get some perspective and act well toward me instead of this fighting behavior of yours, please. Leave me be to be a simple editor. I asked a question that struck me as important about the content on the Greger article. It happens to be related to something i spoke of at another page, and that is how humans work. That topic was on my mind and that is why the word "skeptic" jumped out at me as an odd title for a person on that article page, and inappropriate for Wikivoice. You're making accusations that are so incorrect and so interpretive with no grain of good faith. Please lighten up and let me be. Speak in a good natured or civil way, please, or don't speak to me. I realy mean that. I don't need this energy constantly, Jytdog. Please. SageRad (talk) 10:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher) I looked at the Geiger page, and I see nothing wrong with the use of the word "skeptic". (No, I don't want to get involved in that page.) But that said, @Jytdog: please lighten up. I think the warnings here are excessive. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Trypto you didn't live through the excessive nonsense that happened at the Paleo diet and this was going directly down that road. I meant what I wrote to SageRad. Jytdog (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is, that was not nonsense. You may call it such but it was actually genuine discussion about the content of the article in light of NPOV and RS policies. So... there you go. I agree there was a lot of nonsense in long discussions but i was not the origin of said nonsense. SageRad (talk) 23:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See, when people have thoughts or issues about content, they go to the talk page to discuss those things, and that's how Wikipedia works. I have concerns about the use of "skeptic" as a professional title, and voiced them with full genuineness. You disagree with me on that point, and the thing to do is to discuss the content in a civil way. The ideal would be that reasonable dialog among people can work out issues and reach either consensus or compromise. SageRad (talk) 23:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Talk pages of articles are for discussing specific content and sources in that article; carrying out a campaign across article Talk pages to change X is a violation of WP:SOAPBOX. If you cannot restrain yourself, the community will eventually constrain you. That's how it goes. Jytdog (talk) 00:21, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And that is what i was doing, Jytdog --- discussing content and sources in that article!!! Please, get it through your head that while i do have this particular wheelhouse on my mind lately, so some specific things related to it do jump out at me as a look at an article as an editor, it is not "carrying out a campaign" -- that's your interpretation. Please, let me be and let me edit as a normal editor does. Everyone has their own point of view and we need to work together and discuss things without such heavy accusations like this. I'm tired of this. Please. Look, if i were really thinking about directed evolution, as i was for a while, then i'd also be editing some things about directed evolution across a few different articles and maybe commenting on the topic on an evolution-focused page as well. I'm not on a soapbox, sir. At Jimbo's talk page, i was freely speaking my mind about patterns i see in Wikipedia, and that's appropriate for his talk page. Other places, i'm discussing content solely, not soapboxing. The topics may be related in some ways but that is the nature of life, and it's not a sin or a crime and it's not against policies, and it's not a "campaign" any more than any other editor who has their own interests is "on a campaign" .... sure, i have some specific critiques of patterns within Wikipedia, but that's not a crime or sin or against policies. You do too. So do most people. Can you be more specific about exactly what you think i'm doing wrong? Did i attack anyone with personal attacks? Did i vandalize articles? Did i delete other people's comments? No, i don't think so. Other people have done those things rampantly but i have not. SageRad (talk) 00:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just look at the stats at Paleo diet. here. SageRad you bludgeoned that discussion, adding 311,122 bytes to the page - about four times as much as me. We are pretty close in terms of number of comments there but you just go and on and on; and you refuse to give up when no one agrees with you. For all those bytes, what content change did you effect? Nothing. Pure waste.
This is what you do wrong. Instead of identifying holes in our content or places where it is bad, and finding great sources that no one will contest, absorbing what they say, and generating great content summarizing the sources, giving appropriate WEIGHT - (you know - building an encyclopedia) you just campaign all the time, climbing the reichstag or abusing article Talk pages.
Look at your edit count; only 18% of all your edits are even to article space (no telling how many of them even stuck). 82% of what you do here, is talk -- and talk and talk.
Look at what you actually wrote when you opened the "Problem with 'skeptic' as a title" section in this dif. What actualcontent change did you even want? (Who knows? Not stated) What did that have to do at all with helping people understand Michael Greger any better? (Nothing that I can see) Did you offer some proposal to fix it? (No.) You were just wasting space and time "protesting" your delusional skeptic Cabal. What did I do? I fixed it, here. That is clueful editing. It is solving a problem using good writing and good sources. It is not wasting time. (that said, of course it is important to take time to actually try to reach consensus - but you have to be aiming for that)
You fail over and over to spend your time here even trying to generate content that can stick. Clueful arguments are persuasive and clueful edits stick. Read WP:CLUE (it is very short). This is what you lack. What you have in overabundance is certainty that you posses the Truth, and that you are Righteous, and a self-granted license to suck up everyone else's time telling everyone how righteous you are, and all about your "Truth". Your behavior is just so lacking in WP:CLUE. This is evident from your consistent failure to generate content that sticks or - for all the 82% of your time that you spend talking - to persuade others to adopt your version of content.
What should you do? Forget your agenda when you log in (mind SOAPBOX). Per the mission, focus on generating well written content summarizing the best sources you can find, guided by the sources and the policies and guidelines. When disagreements over content arise, follow the WP:TPG, and write brief remarks on article Talk pages focused on solving disagreements about content and sources in light of policies and guidelines. You are plenty smart to be able to contribute but you cannot get out of your own way, and you cannot see Wikipedia for what it is even after all this time. Jytdog (talk) 01:48, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Really not interested in your one-sided lecture here, Jytdog. I'm doing what is in the interest of Wikipedia and i know the policies. You're wasting my time. I've said that numerous times.
I didn't even read your long long comment above and i have other things to do and you're wasting my time. I'll pick one thing i happened to glance at in the long comment above that's too long (didn't read all):
Look at what you actually wrote when you opened the "Problem with 'skeptic' as a title" section in this dif. What actualcontent change did you even want? (Who knows? Not stated) --- well duh, i wanted the "title" of "skeptic" removed because it's not valid as a title in Wikivoice. So... there's your question answered with a most obvious answer.
I think you need to be much more respectful of others and to not "come at me" with such attacks. This is unwanted time wasting here. This is obnoxious biased insulting editorializing you've subjected me to by posting voluminous commentary of your own highly biased perspective on my talk page. I have things to do and limited words i can pump out to counter your every single argument even though i easily could if it were my full-time paid job. But it's not... and you're destroying the weak, good force as i've described it on Jimbo's page. You're attacking me here with a sea of words and a slew of insults based on misrepresentations. Please cease your onslaught now. I'd really like to not have to ask you to not comment on my talk page at all, to keep lines of communication open, but that requires you to not be harassing me. Please cease harassing me.SageRad (talk) 08:36, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh lordy, i happened to glance and unwittingly read one more bit of your long comment. Dear lord, you claim, What did I do? I fixed it, here. That is clueful editing. It is solving a problem using good writing and good sources. Well you did not fix it with adding two sources because they did not show what you claim them to show, as i point out here in the dialog. Really, anyone can read the dialog and see your unwillingness to listen to others there. And, even when informed that the sources did not show what you claimed you failed to remove the sources or to admit it. You're the obstinate one, the one who won't listen to others, the one who is wasting others' time here.
So.... the things you say about me seem to be really reflections of your shadow self or something... when you actually take anything you've said above and examine the real evidence -- get into the weeds -- it seems you're the one at fault for all the sorts of failings of which you're accusing me. Sorry if that irks you but it appears to be the case, and all i've been asking is for you to please leave me alone. You are the one getting onerous and disruptive. SageRad (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So look at the above comments. I can take your entire comment and desconstruct it, and it would take 4 times the length of your comment to do so. You seem to have perfected an art of attack and your dialog lacks the integrity to stick to a single point and carry it through, or even to return to anything i ever say and actually admit when you're wrong. Look in the mirror, Jytdog. You're being disruptive here, you're making this a toxic environment here, you're not showing integrity of dialog here, you're all the things of which you're accusing me. I could run circles around your comment there in any court where there is fair judgment and integrity. Please stop wasting my time and leave me alone, and please if you do encounter me in dialog in a talk page, stick to the content, and act with integrity. Please don't misrepresent sources, and if you're corrected on blatant errors of misrepresentation of sources, please have the grace to admit it and correct your error. Please.... please.... SageRad (talk) 08:45, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On a human level please understand that we have limited energy as human beings. I have a newborn and i have carpal tunnel. Every word i type has a cost in pain and time away from the most important thing. So i say in all earnestness, PLEASE RESPECT PEOPLE JYTDOG! Do not harass people. Do not come at people repeatedly with this attitude. This is really damaging to Wikipedia and to people who are subjected to it. SageRad (talk) 08:48, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are absolutely wrong when you say "i show you data and you blather..." .... YOU DID NOT EVEN RESPOND TO MY VERY DETAILED REBUTTAL TO ONE OF YOUR POINTS WHERE I SHOWED YOU TO BE INCORRECT and therefore yes, you do lack integrity in this dialog. And you continue the threats, intimidatory, chilling-effect speech here. You'ree incorrigibly rude and mean to me and if there is anyone with a campaign, it's you waging a campaign against me -- your behavior here is intolerably disgusting, Jytdog. SageRad (talk) 12:19, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know who you really are, Jytdog, but this seems like a cry for help from far, far away, from a lost soul. Please realize there is much more to life than controlling Wikipedia by whatever means it takes... there are many good things, like treating others with respect, and using the weak force of true skepticism to gain wisdom and learn more about the world without bias... so much... so much there is under the sun. SageRad (talk) 13:07, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog and Capeo, please find something else to do than harangue this user on his own talk page. If you feel compelled to seek sanctions against SageRad for whatever reasons, you are aware of the appropriate venues for doing so. --Laser brain(talk)15:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Electronic Harassment NPOV". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 23 September 2016.
I read many of your thought-posts & reply-posts @ Jimbo's Talk and think you're very smart, self-aware & honest. Like all big orgs w/o inspired leadership, WP is dysfunctional at best; abusive/corrupt at worst. How many years are needed to evolve to something better than 1984 + Stanford Prison Experiment + Lord of the Flies? Funny to see how long WP holds onto ANI, a most primitive example of mob rule belonging to the days of Christ. With so many popular & thoughtless title memes rattling in heads (e.g. "NOTHERE", "BOOMERANG", "OTHERTHINGSEXIST") to fuel close-mindedness/stereotype/ignorance/unfairness/illogic/stake-burnings ... perhaps Rip Van Winkle was ahead of his time!? You're right the best editors don't find the abuse worth it to stay and continue to give their best. (WP's shame. WP needs radical re-org & inspired leadership, else mass & inertia spells rotten eggs.) Best of luck. IHTS (talk) 02:00, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ihardlythinkso, thank you for this expression. I appreciate all your metaphors and references. I am touched whenever i see an example of integrity within Wikipedia, as it's so rare. I don't know what will come of this, but i will continue to push for a culture of integrity in general forums within Wikipedia. SageRad (talk) 11:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Request for mediation rejected
The request for formal mediation concerning Electronic Harassment NPOV, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.
Noticed your edit on the PCB article. I think it was rightfully reverted for being primary but it got me curious. There are reviews out there [10], [11], [12] . I haven't looked at them in depth, and they seem to mainly conclude that more research is needed, but it might be worthwhile to bring it up on talk for discussion. Capeo (talk) 15:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Capeo, yes. Thank you for the comment. I have also looked at several of those reviews. I've also commented to Jytdog that i agree with his edit. In fact this is a case where my editing was mistaken and i admit it. The primary study was not a good fit to WP:MEDRS standards. In fact when i looked at several reviews, the conclusions were rather mixed about connection of prenatal and perinatal PCBs exposure to autism and ASD outcomes. Therefore, the primary article was somewhat misleading to include. For once, i see Wikipedia working as designed, the policies working well, and editors being civil enough, and admitting mistakes when pointed out clearly. And i appreciate your note as well. I am working toward finding common ground and civil interactions with editors that i've have rough times with in the past. So let's keep at it with as much good faith as we can muster. Thanks. SageRad (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I had remembered reading an article in a popular science magazine a few years back that mentioned some preliminary evidence that autism may be related to environmental PCB (or other chemicals) but never heard much more about it so I wasn't sure what the state of the science was so I just did a quick search. I still haven't gotten to look as these particular reviews in any depth, busy weekend, but the conclusions, as you mention, seem to be inconclusive. Not surprising really. Environmental effects are notoriously hard to pin down. There's so many variables that need to be accounted for that trying to isolate causation can be near impossible. Particularly if there isn't a specific mechanism you're trying to isolate and when you're dealing with something as complex as autism. Anyway, wasn't sure if you had seen those reviews, or if they were useful, so I thought I'd point them out. Capeo (talk) 21:57, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Have you studied control theory? In control theory feedback has a different meaning, as does control. The signal that is fed back for comparison. That function is missing in a thermostat. The controller does the comparison against the set point and uses a calculation to make a calculated adjustment to the controlled variable. A thermostat doesn't do any calculating or adjusting; it either turns something on or off.Phmoreno (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Phmoreno, in fact i've worked in the field and engineered systems with feedback, including full PID feedback potentiostat. A thermostat is a device that gives feedback to the heating/cooling plant generally. That's pretty much a basic example of feedback. I'm sure you're talking about this which i had edited before you reverted my edit. Let's take it on the talk page here. That way other editors can take part too. SageRad (talk) 05:23, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh
This is off topic for the RSN, so there's no point in continuing it there.
It's neither rude nor uncivil to say I have to speak in a certain way to help you understand me. Condescending means "to talk down to" and it includes things like explaining concepts that one well understands to someone who doesn't understand them. Yes, it has negative connotations, but it was you who brought it up, and I merely borrowed it to try to make my point. This is especially true when it is undeniable that I have to 'speak down' to you to get you to understand. Providing you with a link which contains an answer to your question is not condescending, whereas spelling out the answer because you refuse to read (or fail to understand) the link is very condescending. This is what I refer to when I say you guarantee that I will condescend to you: you either cannot or will not engage me on my own level of knowledge, so I can't engage with you without speaking down from my usual level.
It's neither rude nor uncivil to actually answer someone's question by posting a link to a page that answers that question, nor is it rude or uncivil to point out that the page answers further questions. The fact that you apparently refuse to read the page speaks only to your own intractability, not to my civility.
You say that i guarantee you to condescend to me by "things like you just said above" -- meaning what exactly? Meaning what I said above. I can't simply toss up a link and my signature when you ask a question, as I could do for editors who engage me on my level of knowledge, or which they could do for me. Instead, I have to not only explain that the link contains the answer, but explain to you in my own words what that answer is, because you either can't or won't read the link. You offer up behavioral evidence that your purported motive of not understanding what makes the claim that Cleopatra was black a fringe claim is false. Indeed, your attitude strongly indicates that your actual motive is to pick another fight (something which you do with some regularity).
Whether you believe me or not (I know you don't, but I don't really care; this is more about principles than it is about you) I actually prefer to help people than to argue with them. To that end, I posted this, which contains a direct answer to your question in both short and long form below, instead of simply blowing you off and ignoring you.
The short answer to your questions is that it's not a mainstream theory. That is the definition of fringe. If only a few historians (or no serious historians) believe it, it's fringe.
The long answer is: a fringe theory is any theory which doesn't have any significant expert acceptance. More specifically, the term "fringe" is often used to refer to those subsets of the former which contain postulates which defy established knowledge, or which make predictions which are not confirmed by observation. In this case, the theory that Cleopatra was black is still a fringe theory, because it was highly unlikely that a person of black ancestry could find themselves in a position to rule Egypt (postulates that defy established knowledge), and because we have a decent amount of information on her pedigree (part of the Ptolemaic dynasty), which we know was Greek (an prediction which is not confirmed by observation). Finally, it fits the broader definition because it's not widely accepted.
On a more personal note, I have to say that I really don't understand why you're still editing Wikipedia. I can't say that I've ever seen you say anything good about the site. Indeed, without exception, every time you've addressed the subject of WP as a whole in my experience, it's been from a position of complaining about it. Specifically, you complain that it encourages skepticism and discourages credulity. Well, if WP is so wrong, and has such a different mindset from your own, why are you here? The web is full of wikis that document all sorts of things without the strict policies of WP. Based on what you say constantly, you would be happier there. And by this point, I'm sure you're aware that at least a few Wikipedians would be relieved not to have to continue to see your comments here. I'm a little incredulous that I'm sitting here actively discouraging someone from editing WP, but in your case, being here just seems to make you (and some others, myself not included) miserable. Life is too short for that. MjolnirPantsTell me all about it.00:33, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for posting your thoughts here. I didn't read most of it for now, but the section title ("Sigh") seems inappropriate, and the skim i did seems like it's a whole lot of unfriendly stuff you posted here. I'm on Wikipedia. Not going anywhere. And i think there is a big problem in people declaring things "fringe" and thereby not subject to the main policies of Wikipedia, by their declaration that "it's fringe". Anyway... i find the whole message generally unfriendly. You see, i disagree with you, and that does not mean that i don't understand what you're saying. I simply disagree. You don't have to speak down to me to get me to understand, and that's unfriendly to say, and demeans my intelligence. You see, i disagree with your opinion on some matters. That's possible for a rational and reasoning person to do. Your way of speaking says that you are so absolutely sure that you are correct that the only possible explanation is that i do not understand, and that i need to read your links and then agree with you. I'm not sure that dialog will be possible between us with this assumption on your part. SageRad (talk) 01:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You see, here's the crux of the matter:
What you did above about the topic of whether Cleopatra could have been black, or otherwise mixed race, and what exactly race meant in period of her life, is the very definition of WP:OR. That is perfect for your own personal beliefs, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of verifiable knowledge (WP:V) so we need reliable sources to support those claims.
Defining something as WP:FRINGE because you believe it to be so gives undue power to editors based on personal beliefs to circumvent the normal policies of Wikipedia. It allows WP:OR to trump WP:V. This leads to violations of WP:NPOV.
A true skeptic does not assume an idea to be true or untrue. All possibilities are open, and subject to determination by evidence.
Your focus on "established knowledge" is problematic because Wikipedia is not a mainstream encyclopedia. It is an open-content encyclopedia of verifiable knowledge and claims that are supported when challenged. The nature of knowledge is that it's often compiled by the dominant groups in a society, and therefore subaltern histories must be allowed the chance to compete in terms of presenting evidence from reliable sources to support notions that may run counter to "established knowledge" if we are to move forward as a postcolonial society.
This whole obvious thing is a problem. It's very I know it when I see it. I don't think "it's obvious" makes the cut in Wikipedia policy because editors are explicitly not experts and our opinions don't matter, and in fact are prohibited by WP:OR. We need sources to ascertain facts and judgments. Personal reckonings about content are not admissible. SageRad (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't really read your comment because I didn't post this to start a discussion. I did, however read where you accused me of OR, and I have to say that's the absolute worst definition of OR I've ever seen used anywhere, not just on WP. You took the very simple process of evaluating what sort of fringe an already-established-to-be-fringe claim would be, and tried to spin that into an excuse to try to block people from calling any claim a fringe one. I'm sure you thought it was quite clever (it was, actually, a bit clever), but you completely missed the forest for the trees: Nothing I said above was even hypothetically offered as something to be included in the article, which means the answer to the question "Is what MjolnirPants did there OR?" is the same answer to the question "Is the sky apple?"
Um.. this is a waste of time here. I don't feel like investing any time into figuring out what you're saying and going bac to read a history of this bickering... what i think happened is that i did say that assuming that the claim is "fringe" because of your thinking is indeed WP:OR if it affects content, which it would for sure if you label it as "fringe" and then use alternate rules for sourcing, etc. And that is really I know it when i see it which is not sufficient for Wikipedia because we editors are not experts and therefore must rely on sources. If you provided solid sourcing to show that real experts say that the premise is definitely fringe, i missed that part. So yes, what you were doing was something like synthesis or original research. Do you claim otherwise? Original research and synthesis are fine for your personal beliefs, but not to determine content in Wikipedia.
I also ask you to watch your tone and show as much goodwill as possible because obviously our relation is currently rather strained, and it would show goodwill if you're careful with your words and not accusatory and mocking and condescending. I'm about a millimeter from telling you to stop posting on my talk page. I don't like to do that but when someone shows intentional hostility then i will. SageRad (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I hope they're not produced with ethyl bromide. Anyway, i am not a "defender of diets" or any such thing. It's simply that i respect Wikipedia's policies enough to want to see them enacted with integrity. I do believe very much in the ability of good dialog to clear up questions and to elucidate most matters. I get the feeling you feel similarly, Safehaven86. SageRad (talk) 19:23, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Totally agree, and I respect your commitment to integrity. I'll never understand why people who are so convinced they are right often refuse to give all sides of an issue a fair hearing--surely if you are right, a fair hearing will confirm this. Anyway, as for fad diets, I'm highly suspect of any diet that doesn't allow alcohol :) Safehaven86 (talk) 19:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The edit summary was simple and blatant personal attack, and he damn well knows it. Kindly self-revert as the article is under 1RR. Collect (talk) 12:13, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Collect i agree with you fully about not making references to others in edit summaries. However, what is this you're saying about wanting me to self-revert? Please explain further. By "1RR" do you mean the article is under some special rules about reverting edits? How does that apply here? I will take a minute to look at the edit history now, and please do explain your position about the content and the process. SageRad (talk) 12:16, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see edit summary of "Watson is clearly talking about race, contrary to RC-challenged User:Collect. He's not concerned about the aptitude of all people (e.g. Afrikaaners) who originate from AFrica, but of black Africans." What does "RC" stand for? SageRad (talk) 12:17, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note for others -- the alleged "personal attack" was not by myself, but by another editor and i don't even know what it means let alone whether it was indeed a personal attack. SageRad (talk) 11:15, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It has been more than a year since have been notified about this, so I am providing you a fresh notice.
This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.
The section above was not opened by Sage Red. Am I missing something in the allegation you made Jytdog? Be careful Jytdog to get your facts straight especially when citing discretionary sanctions.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:07, 15 October 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Jytdog, then is it safe to say that this message can be disregarded since i did not open that section of the talk page? If there is a problem with something i've written would you please explain in more detail exactly what is wrong with it? I appreciate good communication and fair warning if you think something i have done has gone against policy. I made some comments on an article about detoxification, that is correct. I cited one peer-reviewed review article from the scientific literature and i quoted the abstract of that paper. I made some comments regarding the content of the article and how it might relate to the review article. Is there a problem with any of this? Please be very specific if you are accusing me of something that goes against the policies of Wikipedia. I want to be a good Wiki-citizen and editor. SageRad (talk) 21:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Reading more slowly, i do see that the message does not imply that i've done anything wrong, but only that there is DS on that article. I understand this. Do you think that i did anything wrong there or is it ok for now and you're simply giving me warning about the discretionary sanctions special rules on that article? SageRad (talk) 21:13, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are continuing the behavior I warned you about in User_talk:SageRad#WP:SOAPBOX. I've thought about this and AE under the altmed DS would be the cleanest way to go forward. The altmed DS apply to fad diets, detox etc. I've replied to your comments at the detox article here. Jytdog (talk) 23:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog, i think you're jumping way out of bounds here and the way you're speaking to me is extremely unfriendly and accusatory. Will you please calm down sir? Please back off and calm down? You can disagree with me about content -- and discuss it -- and thanks for your reply there on a talk page -- but accusing me nonstop about violating some behavioral constructs by your interpretation is not civil in my book. Big surprise -- people can disagree about content without it being a problem that needs a template and some stern accusatory words on my talk page. I find this kind of accusation chilling and unwanted. I disagree with you as well, and it's solely your interpretation that i'm standing on a "soapbox" -- that's a word that allows you to cite a policy in attempt to make me wrong for speaking something that i thought about an article. So i'd appreciate it if you apologize and back off. Capiche? I don't accept the way you're acting toward me with ease and i don't like it. I think it's wrong. Ok? Got it? SageRad (talk) 12:50, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So, what's gonna happen is you're going to drop your threats because i simply spoke on a talk page!!!!! And you're hopefully gonna say you're sorry and it was an over-reaction.
If people cannot discuss reliable sources on talk pages without people coming to their use talk page and making threats of actions to sanction them simply for speaking about sources about the content -- then what is a talk page for? I was not "soapbox"-ing and i was describing a source as i read it, and quoting the abstract in fact. So... if you have other readings of the source, speak it -- as you did -- but don't come here swinging a large chain in a threatening manner. As i recall -- you have been warned before about doing that here, Jytdog. Recall that? SageRad (talk) 13:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I gave you a DS notice, you asked a question about it, and I answered. Per the suggestions I was given above I am not going to continue this here. I am sorry this upsets you; that is not my intention. Jytdog (talk) 17:12, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was reading your comments on the Misophonia page. As well, I have reviewed all of the "talk" page in the past, as well as edits. It seems as though jytdog has been controlling edits for the time being - and has removed several sources, adding others. I cannot determine why these were done. Since there seems to be a conflict with Jytdog and changing information from random news sources. Should I review the page? Will there be further fighting involved? What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AbsenceOfSound (talk • contribs) 01:59, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
AbsenceOfSound, i think it's all ok. Let us continue to edit using good sourcing, the best WP:MEDRS sourcing that we can, and i think everything will be alright. If we re improving the encyclopedia using our best judgement with good sourcing according to the policies, i don't think anyone will have a problem with it. SageRad (talk) 02:14, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I'm just tired of all the drama. For some reason Jytdog seems to have put a comment about persons feeling suicidal at one point - and it seems to have been reverted. All very strange. AbsenceOfSound (talk) 02:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
feel free to delete this section since you answered my question! I welcome discourse and conversation on my talk page. I too want Wikipedia to be more ethical. AbsenceOfSound (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fringe discussion: shall we shift our support to Staszek Lem's proposal?
Hey SageRad, it's nice to see you around Wiki again.
So far, we're the only two supporting votes for my proposal to re-define "fringe". Shall we put our support behind Staszek's proposal to clarify and build on the existing definition instead? From now on, "fringe" is synonymous with: creative, avant-garde, and innovative! It's the opposite of stodgy old mainstream, and only occasionally related to bogus crazy stuff.
As to changing the definition, I suspect we're outliers among the wider Wiki editor population, and we'd be facing a major uphill battle. I was disappointed but not surprised at the limited support for my proposal. Time to "drop the stick", I think. JerryRussell (talk) 23:39, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
exactly how would you suggest me to rephrase it so that I can talk about the content and the issues that have arisen. I had taken issues with your recent everything, so I spoke about those edits. I spoke of the pattern of editing as well. You did the same and your comment initially in that same section did you not? Please be specific and tell me exactly what parts of my language you have an issue with and why. SageRad (talk) 15:01, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
every edit I made has an edit note. If you don't understand the basis in policy/guideline for one of the edit notes, ask me about the basis for that edit at the talk page. no one has replied to your comment yet so you are free to rewrite it to remove the personalization. Jytdog (talk) 15:12, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You still have failed to answer my question. You made 27 edits in 51 minutes, rather strongly pruning the article. Should I not say that? What exactly constitter "personalization" in my comment? Do you want me to ignore what it looks like you're doing and the need for a dialog on the goals? Do you also see that you spoke to pattern of editing in that very section which you starred there on the talk page? What exactly do you have a problem with? What exactly would you rather I say? I speak to the content and the recent edits. They also form a pattern. I speak to that. I want to move forward. You get accusatory even now in the approach to me here. You got problems dude. SageRad (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Again if you have questions about specific edits I made I am happy to answer them. Think for a minute, about how I would actually answer the question you asked me on the Talk page - my answer is entirely predictable if you are assuming good faith. Your post was inappropriate on several levels, which is why I posted here to give you the opportunity to change it. I won't respond here further. Jytdog (talk) 16:35, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Both of you: again? I've looked at it (sigh), and here is what I want to say:
@Sage: What specifically is objectionable in your talk page comment is where you said: "... seem to be pushing a cause to make the article absolutely not state that misophonia is a thing that exists. It seems Jytdog's mission is to make sure that the article absolutely will not speak of misophonia because he does not think it is known to exist. I say that is wrong according to..." There is no need to frame it as "pushing a cause" or as a "mission". You could just as well have said something like 'It seems that the effect of those edits is to...' I think that Jytdog is entitled to want you to have focused less on him.
@Jytdog: I looked at your (many) edit summaries, and you did indeed give reasons. But I also have problems with these three edit summaries: [13], [14], and [15]. Per people who live in glass houses, you are on shaky ground when you ask other editors, in turn, to speak considerately back to you. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Tryptofish. SageRad is on the edge of an AE for his behavior like this, on fringey med topics like this. To the extent you are pulling his attention away from that, you are doing him and the project harm. I understand you are advising me, but this GEVAL post was a bad move. I did not ask anyone to speak considerately to me. I did not raise questions about any specific editor's motivations on the article Talk page nor in those edit notes, as you well know. One big meh. (of course nicer edit notes would be better) Jytdog (talk) 20:50, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have made a difficult situation worse. Ill advised - increasing the drama, not reducing it. You clearly have no idea what kind of bullshit that article has been through. Do your homework before you stick your foot in this article. Jytdog (talk) 20:56, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage, I know there is a temptation to make an issue of what Jytdog is saying to me, but please do not be distracted by it, just ignore it. Please focus instead on what I originally said to you, about your talk page comment. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll go strike some text from Talk:Misophonia but i would really like to understand this.
So let's agree that it's against rules to impute motives to edits or groups of edits then? Is that the rule? I'm not sure it is but let's not get into where it might say this in policy, but let's say that's the rule here that i've supposedly violated, right?
In that case, didn't Jytdog's very section title on that talk page violate the rule as well? And his comment's text too? The section title was "Promotional/advocacy editing" -- doesn't this contain an imputation of motive to editing by others? First sentence of his comment: "I unwatched this for a while. I checked it over and sure enough a bunch of promotional/advocacy editing has crept back in."
And then he makes a string of 27 edits in less than an hour, reversing a lot of work by others (which may have some problems, but that's on a case by case basis and doesn't validate large-scale hacking away)... and then i am not allowed to characterize those edits (which have a fairly well characterizable quality to them, and some of which state motivations and reasons in the edit summaries themselves)....
I'm trying to understand why something is said to be alright by another editor and then not alright for me to similarly characterize a group of edits and speak to them with some critical voice.
(edit conflict) For me, this is less about rules than about common sense and avoiding unnecessary conflict. You asked him what specifically about this was the problem, and I don't think that he gave a clear answer, so I did. I don't think that your comment broke an enforceable rule, but there's no question that it led to another editor coming angrily here to your talk page. If you are looking for where someone wrote about it, it's where NPA says to comment on the content rather than on the contributor, and I'm just trying to tell both of you how to decrease the likelihood of someone getting angry at you. I don't know whether there were previous issues about section headers, and at this point I'm not going to look, because the fact that the other guy did it is not an excuse for anyone else to do it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did not come here "angrily". Please read my posts above: i made sure I wrote them calmly - gently even, and I wasn't angry at any point. I did get angry with you but I tried to keep that out of my reaction to you. The "angrily" thing is offpoint. Jytdog (talk) 22:55, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, thank you for reverting that troll on my talk page. OK, then change it to coming with dissatisfaction. As for keeping your anger at me out of your reaction, you did a rather poor job of that, and frankly I'm getting tired of it, especially considering the amount of effort I have put into defending you in the past. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your attempt to interpret, Tryptofish. I appreciate it. I'd like to comment on the content alone but then when an editor is slashing the article isn't it ok to go up to a meta-level and ask "Hey, what's going on? What do you want to see in this article? What are your goals? Why did you just make 27 edits that removed a lot of content added carefully by others?" I do understand two wrongs don't make a right, but i also want to be able to simply speak and break it down to the fundamental issues instead of dancing around point-by-point. It seems hard to collaborate in this context. SageRad (talk) 21:25, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good, I'm glad to try to help. It's counter-productive to ask for another editor's motivations, particularly when you already know that they might be hostile towards you, when you could just as well say something like 'all these 27 edits have had the effect of massively reducing the amount of content and I'm concerned that we have lost x, y, and z'. That actually makes it easier to collaborate. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please, someone clarify this for me. Either say it's bunk or explain it in simple terms. I would like to be able to talk about the content and the development of the article like an adult, with other adults, without being told to "SHUT UP" in so many words at every single juncture. Who knew? Same bad editing environment even in an article on misophonia. Why? Why can't people simply edit without this drama? Jeesh. Fed up. SageRad (talk) 21:09, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't expect everyone to agree with you, and when they disagree, consider that they might be correct. And don't be surprised if they get angry when you say that they have a "mission" to do something you don't agree with. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You should know by now that i don't expect everyone to agree with me. I expect everyone to be able to discuss across differences. What do you make of this edit summary if it's not to say that Jytdog doesn't want the article to contain any statement that makes it seem that misophonia actually exists? I have struck the word "mission" on the talk page and similar statements, ok. But on the other hand, when an edit states a reason, that's evidence as to why the editor made the edit. SageRad (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything wrong with that edit summary. It's about what content should or should not be included on the page. If you have a reason to add the content back, then express that reason and explain how it would make the page better. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
But the edit summary expresses a belief in the editor that the condition should not be spoken of as actually existing, despite the fact that several review articles speak in the simple terms of "misophonia is a condition in which..." ... which in the context of that article and his behavioral pattern are frustrating to people who are there to edit the article about misophonia and improve it. Imagine if someone were editing an article about climate change and someone were pushing for the article to never say "climate change is" but rather "Climate change is a hypothesis introduced in 1979 by..." but never to speak of it as if it is real. It's a position of denialism of the reality of the topic of the article. That if anything, is "advocacy editing" if i ave ever seen it -- wherease Jytdog opened that very section on the talk page with the title "Advocacy editing" as if others were pushing content into the article whereas the behavioral observations say the opposite is true. SageRad (talk) 11:15, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The way I see it, it's a content dispute, and it would be more productive if both "sides" omitted attribution of "advocacy". Some editors disputing the content cite sources that describe the term, and other editors dispute the reliability of those sources. So focus the discussion on the reliability of the sources, not editor motivations. (It occurs to me to add that I really don't mean to sound like a know-it-all here, even though I probably do. I'm trying to offer helpful advice. But I make mistakes all the time on the same things that I am talking about here.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tryptofish, my honest admission of advocacy would be that i strongly want good articles. Nothing more. In regard to misophonia, i do have this condition myself. It's affected me since i was a child, and now i have a child of my own and still deal with it every day. Only a few years ago i heard that it's a condition known to others, with a very specific symptom cluster. That helped me a bit to cope with it, knowing it's not only me, and it's actually a thing others suffer from. The article should reflect the sources on this which say this strongly, and with good MEDRS sourcing say this. Anyone coming to that article from Google should find a good article that follows WP:RS as well as other policies. That's what i am advocating -- a good article that says the reality about misophonia for real, following sources, so other readers find the most useful article possible. If that's "advocacy" then shoot me. I want the best encyclopedia. My goodness, the hoops we must jump through. SageRad (talk) 11:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage, I don't think that you really responded to what I said. Pretty much all long-term Wikipedia editors want articles to be good. So that does not make for anything specific to you. I'm sorry, of course, to hear of your personal problems (and you would be shocked to learn of the medical issues that I deal with, although I do not discuss them on-Wiki). But I'm confident that you also know that your own experiences are considered WP:OR for Wikipedia purposes, and that you (and I) are not a reliable source. So that brings us back to what I tried to say before: what matters is the quality of the sources. Obviously, you consider some sources to be reliable, that other editors consider to be not reliable. So that's what talk page discussions need to focus on – not whether you have a "good" agenda or another editor is "advocating" for a "bad" one. Also, I agree with what Roxy suggested to you below about AE. At a minimum, you need to comment about what you feel would or would not be fair with respect to any decision about you, and why. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tryptofish, obviously i know that my personal experiences are not sourcing for a topic. That's exactly why it's quite good that there are multiple MEDRS quality sources that describe said condition. So, if you are implying that i am saying that my experiences are justification for content, that is totally not the case, and i don't even see why you'd say that. Maybe you misunderstood my point. My point is that the condition is real and it's documented to be real in MEDRS sources, and therefore blocking that content is actually counter to the policies of Wikipedia and bad for the article. High quality review articles in the relevant field, and very recent (2015), seems to be the very best standard of source for this sort of thing, is it not?
To be honest, i don't want to see a boomerang. I just want to learn from it, and for it to be dropped with perhaps both Jytdog and myself learning from the experience. I want to edit on friendly terms with others, especially those with whom i've had difficulty in the past. SageRad (talk) 00:46, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What I am trying to express is that saying that you know the sources to be MEDRS etc., is not a substitute for discussing other editors' concerns that the sources are not – and that discussing editors' motivations instead of the quality of the sources is the wrong way to go. And I am glad that you are reconsidering what you first said about a boomerang. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:50, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Tryptofish (please tell me if you'd rather i not ping you). I appreciate that. Note that it was not a question whether the 2015 review article by Cavanna and Seri is a MEDRS source, because it's clearly the picture of the best MEDRS source and that wasn't a contention by Jytdog at all. It was in the interpretation of the MEDRS sources. And i was most certainly engaged in dialog with Jytdog about it. Motivations are the wrong way to go. I agree and i'm learning this better here. Yes, i would rather get along with Jytdog and not have anyone sanctioned. SageRad (talk) 00:58, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on, man. I don't want this drama. Can't an editor simply edit? What's your problem? I follow policies to the letter. I speak in forums where speaking is the thing that's done there. End of story. SageRad (talk) 11:29, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sage. If I may offer my opinion, having read your comments at AE, you should read Jytdogs submission, not ignore it. What you decide after that is of course your decision, but surely it is in your best interest to know what is being said about you? -Roxy the dog™bark16:23, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I listen to things much better when they're offered from one human to another without a power play involved. That's not the case here. I love to listen to the thoughtful, considered words of others. I love to hear criticism when it's offered in a good spirit. However, i am not a tool nor a coward who is scared by threats. I relate to others when they speak as equals. That's the good way of relating. SageRad (talk) 23:16, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your deletion of most of your statement. Once you've made a statement and others have responded to it, you should not remove it as it causes a great deal of confusion in the discussion, with people answering questions that are no longer there. You may strike them if you like, but don't remove them. Dennis Brorwn - 2¢23:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, i didn't know. Where can i find the process? I really don't have time for this though. Like how long does this last. How much time do i have? I don't want to be topic banned, but on the other hand i don't have time to devote to this as if it were a court case for a felony. Dennis Brown, thanks, i just re-changed my statement but i'll revert it back now. SageRad (talk) 23:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That page is the place. Best thing to do is listen, be agreeable, don't throw things or yell, that kind of stuff. Listen. Most of the time when you've been dragged there, there are some valid reasons that you need to be aware of. Dismissing the concerns of others is the fastest way to a topic ban or block. EVen if you don't like someone. I don't know the particulars of your case, I was just mopping up there. From the looks of it, some people think you are a time sink, perhaps too verbose. You could start by addressing that, on that page. Dennis Brown - 2¢23:48, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dennis Brown thanks. I'm not throwing things, but i may be throwing up my hands saying "I don't have time for this and don't deserve this" -- and sometimes couldn't it be the accuser having issues instead of the accused? I am willing to hear criticism of myself, very very much open to it. It's the tone of some people sometimes and if they're too exaggerated in what they say because their perspective is on the other end of some spectrum, the maybe others could translate and temper the message. I'm a teachable person, if the teaching makes sense and is good. I think other people are a time sink. Perhaps it is a signal that i am in the way of their mission and so they are frustrated with me -- couldn't that be the case? Perhaps they are the ones not open to discussion across perspectives. Could be either way if you're a true skeptic and not prejudiced. Please don't think that jusst because 2 or 3 people say things about me, that it's true or consensus. Those are self-selected 2 or 3 people who want to get rid of me, could be. Please really look at me and my edits and who i am. SageRad (talk) 23:54, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have time right now. Bishonen is looking at it and the right person to talk to. Bish is a good gal. She doesn't tolerate bullshit, but she is fair. Dennis Brown - 2¢23:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dennis Brown ok, thanks. I don't have time either. I know how it feels. Sorry for pining you again if it's an intrusion. Onward and to tomorrow. SageRad (talk)
23:58, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Here's what I can tell yoCTu about the process. You are free to add to your statement and to strike through parts of it, if you want to revise what you said. I think that you had best accept that you are looking at some kind of editing restriction, and you should focus on avoiding having that restriction be excessive. Focus on showing that you understand why there is a complaint against you, and that at least some parts of it are reasonable, and on demonstrating that you can be a good editor going forward. The way it works is that uninvolved admins (so far, Bishonen) comment on what they think the best solution would be, and the tendency is to be somewhat strict, because the goal is to stop the dispute for good. If the admins agree on what to do, then they will do it – or an admin who wants to go it alone can go it alone. That can happen at any time, once you have posted your statement, so there is a real possibility that it can happen very soon and very abruptly. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:59, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah look I'd rather commit suicide that have any more editing restrictions. I understand exactly what is happening here and that is JY T-Dog has collected a huge diatribe against me through some months or whatever and then posted them here and I'm not going to subject myself to this stupid drama in this f****** cosplay Dungeons & Dragons fantasy world. SageRad (talk) 13:43, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah so goodbye. Thanks for all the fish.
No, Jytdog has collected this evidence only because you have repeatedly failed to heed an enormous amount of advice and guidance. If I had to put any money on it I'd say that your frustration levels have increased as you have less time to devote to pushing for your worldview to be reflected as fact on Wikipedia. Endlessly trying to fix the same Great Wrongs in an ever shorter period of time per day, is stressful, and I think that has pushed you to the point of being unable to get along at all with those whose conclusions you reject. You should take a break and then edit boring topics with no drama attached. Wikignoming is good for the soul. Guy (Help!) 17:49, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SageRad: I've been in a very similar situation to you - in a different topic area in Medicine, the Morgellons article, with the same editor as you also. Didn't go as far as AE. As with you it was just for being honest and forthright on the talk page. I've had previous experiences like this and when they threatened AE I knew to stop, there is nothing more you can do at that point. I know from my own experience how scary and stressful it can be. You say to yourself "it's just wikipedia" but at that point you've got quite involved in it, got to really care about the quality of wikipedia articles, and it can be very distressing indeed to be threatened to be banned when all you are doing is trying to help here.
I'd just like to offer my sympathy especially as you talk about preferring to commit suicide - I hope that is just a metaphor and you didn't actually do it - saw that your user page says DEAD at the top, again I hope it is just a metaphor. Do contact me via email if you want support / sympathy / comparing experiences. You can message me via the messaging link on my user page or else you can email me at support@robertinventor.com - I'm a software developer and that's a public email address, so no problem sharing it here. Robert Walker (talk) 06:08, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion
Sage, it would be extremely unwise to take up this offer. Robert is promoting a fake disease, and if you go down that route you will be aligning yourself with the pseudoscientists and woo-mongers, and that will get you a full site ban much more quickly than what you're doing now. Guy (Help!) 09:05, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Guy Please be reassured, I'm just offering sympathy to a fellow human being who is in a similar position to me and experienced the same stressful circumstances. If you have never had this done to you, you may not know how upsetting it can be. Many wikipedians just stop editing altogether when faced by the relentless hostility you sometimes get here. (At least it seems that way, mainly because of almost complete absence of the expressions of sympathy that you get all the time in normal conversations online.) There is nothing at all in what I just said to suggest I'm attempting to recruit him to any cause.
I've been involved in several RfCs and disputes here on wikipedia and in all my years as an editor, I have never attempted to canvas anyone else for any of them, either on or off wiki, even when opposing editors do so, although in several of them I have loads of off wiki friends who have the same views as me on the dispute, many of them Wikipedia editors. I always tell them not to join in because of wikipedia guidelines on canvassing. I have been contacted by many Morgellons sufferers since writing my article on it and far from recruiting them, I would warn them not to attempt to do anything on wikipedia. The only ever participation as a result of talking about the disputes to others outside the dispute was a facebook "friend" who I barely knew who took part in a dispute despite all my off wiki warnings to all my friends not to take part. This "friend" made statements against me in the dispute and soon after they unfriended and blocked me.
Indeed if you check my talk page [16] you will see that I've said I don't see any prospect of doing anything about the Morgellons article. I've given up on that. I hope this helps. And @SageRad: do please contact me, I find that it helps a lot to talk to other topic banned and blocked editors. You just realize you are not the only one. Often the only thing you can do is to forget about wikipedia and get on with your life, but it helps a lot to know you aren't the only one in that situation. Robert Walker (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JzG:@Guy: I find your comment above that aligning yourself with certain people can result in sanctions to be either grossly disturbing, or grossly incorrect. Surely site bans must be based on editing behaviour, not on who your friends are. DrChrissy(talk)17:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
But when certain editors promote poor and unscientific behaviour, aligning oneself with them may result in action taken against oneself. Especially if alignment results in taking actions that the aligned with is prohibited from as a result of previous infraction. Carl Fredrik 💌📧18:05, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@CFCF: Let's be clear here, please. Are you stating that if I align myself with an editor whose behaviour is sub-optimal, then I can have action taken against me even though I have not made any edits since that alignment? DrChrissy(talk)18:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just to say, I haven't been prohibited from contributing to the talk page discussions of the Morgellons article. I just had an editor who threatened to take me to AE if I continued to talk there and put forward my views there - not an admin. I haave other reasons why I don't want a ban, even a minor one. Because of that I was unable to defend myself against the allegations that what I said on the talk page was against MEDRS - I'd be taken for AE immediately for doing so and I know how easy it is to get topic banned.
The other editor actually said that he was about to take me to AE and only stopped after I hid my comments critical of his views on my own talk page and agreed not to continue to present my views on that article anywhere on wikipedia including my own talk page here. I came here after a friend off wiki who follows events in AE noticed that the same editor who threatened me had actually taken @SageRad: to admin for similar behaviour, just being forthright and honest on a talk page, at least that is how we see it. I wanted to offer sympathy, as I said, because I know how scary this can be. That is all there is to it. I have given up on doing anything about the Morgellons article. Anyone who cares about it can make their own mind up about whether it is biased and if they think it is will probably look elsewhere. So it's not a big deal really, just wanted to improve wikipedia. Robert Walker (talk) 19:41, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Folks, is this really the best place for this conversation? On the talk page of someone who can't reply? I know it's not intentional but it comes across as baiting. It's probably best to continue this, if there's even a need to, on someone else's talk page. Capeo (talk) 21:00, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Capeo, my understanding is that Sagerad's current absence of editing is purely voluntary; he is allowed to reply but by doing so, the moratorium on his AE will be immediately finished. However, I agree with you that some comments here could be considered baiting and should be elsewhere. Personally, I would like to see JzG reply to my question, and depending on his answer, I might pursue this question elsewhere. DrChrissy(talk)21:22, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And if he breaks his voluntary hiatus how do you think that AE will go? Keep going if you guys insist but if you all tempt him into responding here I guarantee another topic ban would be most favorable possible outcome of AE. With worse being more likely. You're doing SageRad no favors by milling about his talk page. Capeo (talk) 22:43, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, SageRad. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Hi, Sage, I hope you are well. It's been a month since we put the AE review of your actions on hold to give you more time to respond. I'm planning to re-open it tomorrow, if somebody else hasn't already done so by then. You yourself are welcome to re-open it at any time: just remove the {{hat}} and {{hab}} templates top and bottom. If you have a new response to make, please do so by 26 November, UTC, to make sure it gets taken into account by admins. If you don't, the review will go on without you. Feel free to either remove your previous responses or leave them in, just as you like. I've also sent you a reminder by e-mail, in case you're not watching this page. Bishonen | talk11:09, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Hi Bishonen I wonder if it would be a good idea to reopen this AE after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? Thanksgiving seems to be one of, if not the biggest holiday of the year for many in the United States. (Littleolive oil (talk) 16:58, 25 November 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Hello, Bishonen, i've been not checking in here, taking that break. I was notified by your email this morning to check in.
As i noted in my response to your email, i have been aware that November 26th was the re-open date. I'd like to know what may be an expected timeline of action, and would also like to request for the complainant's statement to be reduced to the expected 500 words from it current excessive 1,500 words... and a chance to respond with clean slate, as in my previous troubled and panicked state i'd written a lot there, and then i'd like to have a few days to a week to respond before it gets decided upon.
I also note that i do not find the process inspiring of confidence. I find the charges themselves to be onerous, and a heavy burden for someone who is simply editing Wikipedia in spare time, as most people do... it's not my paid job, and i have other burdens. I really don't know if i can spend the time to be a defense lawyer on my own behalf to simply retain my editing username. It's pretty weird to me, and i'm surprised that it's not seen as onerous. It's the sort of thing that i'd hope boomerangs back to the plaintiff. People can't go around doing this to other people just because they disagree on something. It's not good. It's not right.
The whole thing is a vague / fuzzy / ideologically loaded charge and the plaintiff basically has a disagreement with my point of view on some things and therefore wants me topic banned. I did good and sober editing according to policies, and spoke in forums where that's expected. What does a person have to do to get onerous charges wiped away?
Anyway, let's see. I guess... I'm a busy person with a need to survive by working, and kids to raise. It's not my full time job to be here. But when i'm here, i'm totally WP:HERE and dedicated to the policies and ideals of Wikipedia. I feel a certain hostility and it's troubling. I feel a weird thing happening, and i spoke to it... in a forum where it's appropriate -- and then the same thing happened 10X larger with an ideological attempt to get me banned and punished... which is telling.
I'd like to put in a word agreeing with Olive, that Sage should be allowed a few days beyond the holiday weekend. Not a long delay, just a day or two into next week. And Sage, although I'm not going to try to put words in your mouth, nor would you want me to, I think I can give a bit of advice in response to where you say that you are not sure what is expected of you. My advice is to pretty much redact what you wrote a month ago, and replace it with a statement that can be rather brief. In it, you should refrain from blaming other editors for disagreeing with you, and instead make clear what you can offer Wikipedia in terms of helpful collaborative editing, hopefully with an indication that you understand why other editors have been concerned. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tryptofish, thank you. I don't want a "delay" but i want to know that the case won't be opened and then decided in a few hours... that there will be a few days for me to post a "defense" and then a few more days where people consider that.
I can redact? That is good to know. I would like to wipe that clean and write a simple strong statement.
But i'm not "blaming other editors who disagree with me" but saying that the whole thing appears to be a way of attacking me because of having a different point of view. Is that the same as what you're saying? That i ought not say that? Ok... well i could say that i'm simply editing, and following policies, and why does this editor feel like bothering me in this way?
I have so much to offer Wikipedia, and i do that when was editing. I am collaborative. I use dialog properly. I help to open up conflicts and discern their elemental parts. I help to check sources and see what's accurate according to what a source said.
But when you say "hopefully with an indication that you understand why other editors have been concerned" -- how can i do that when i suspect that it's because some editors have an ideological opposition to me and a chip on their shoulder, an axe to grind? It's really what i see pretty obviously from tons of evidence. I don't want to say anything about that but you're advising me to do so...
I've made occasional mistakes and admitted when pointed out. I've been good to others whenever possible. But when i see Wikipedia being abused, it's hard not to speak out. And so i did, in a forum that's appropriate, and without naming specific editors. Only spoke to the patterns. And then i get pilloried here. So what's one to say?
Seriously, i could be better as an editor, but not in line with the "criminal charges" brought by Jytdog here. Anyway... onward... I have to do things, and i thank you Trypto. SageRad (talk) 17:44, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to predict how rapidly or slowly the case will be decided, because any single admin is, in principle, free to act unilaterally to wrap it up at any time. The best way to protect yourself is to act first, by saying what you want to say before the deadline passes when they might act. But you can safely assume that the issues that they will consider are what was already posted there, and that new issues are not going to pop up, so you don't have to anticipate anything not already posted at AE last month – and if something genuinely new does pop up, you can ask to be able to reply. But these are not "criminal charges" and this is not a courtroom.
As for redacting, yes that's no problem. Just strike through the old stuff like this instead of deleting it, and only what you write new will count towards the word count.
As for what you say about other editors, I'm advising against saying things like they attack you because you have a different way of thinking or oppose you ideologically or have chips on their shoulders or axes to grind or are abusing Wikipedia or you don't know why they are bothering you. I'm hoping that, instead, you can acknowledge where you have "made occasional mistakes and admitted when pointed out", and show credibly that these are examples of where you have listened to other editors and responded positively. But I cannot put words in your mouth. The ball is in your court. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:05, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that I've told you repeatedly in public and in private that you're free to remove your previous text in the AE thread at any time, I'm not sure how much more of a "clean slate" you want, Sage. (Tryptofish says you need to strike through, not remove, and that is indeed the usual principle, but these are special circumstances, even apart from the fact that I've already said you could remove it. Just blank it out, and put "Bishonen told me to" in the edit summary if you're worried about it.) Are you talking about a clean slate beyond removing your own stuff, such as archiving the entire discussion and starting a new one..? I don't think that would be fair to the other people who took time out of their lives to read up on the issue, find diffs, and formulate opinions. It's not like the discussion was in any sense finished; it was interrupted. About Thanksgiving: I see you're not requesting any further delay — Olive and Tryptofish are requesting it for you. As you say, you knew you had a month (a generous amount of time, I thought), and Thanksgiving isn't an unexpected event. But I'll wait till Monday, it may be just as well.
As far as Jytdog's request, I know it's too long, but I'm reluctant to ask him to shorten it, for two reasons: a) it's full of useful information and diffs — not of ranting or anything like that — and b) it's considerably shorter than the text from you currently on the page, so you don't have much of a foot to stand on in requesting it be shortened. Why don't you ask for it to be shortened when you remove, or when you don't remove (I'm past caring at this point) your own old text and/or post your new one? Other admins may agree with you it should be shortened. Or, here's an idea: ask Jytdog politely yourself. He probably wouldn't mind putting most of it on a subpage and linking to it. Bishonen | talk19:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
I'll just add (for the sake of maximum clarity) that I defer to Bishonen about anything that I said here, and I do not think that anyone other than Sage (ie, Jytdog) needs to alter their previous postings unless they want to. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Bishonen, Tryptofish -- i was not aware that you'd expected i would use the month of break to write my defense. That could take 20 good hours if i really wanted to do it well. I'm a poor person, working all the time, and have two kids (one a newborn) and that is clearly an onerous burden. My simple position is that i am a good editor and follow policies, and i'm generally friendly to others when they are civil to me. But allowing an onerous and frivolous attack "lawsuit" upon another person is not what a good justice system does. Otherwise anyone could bring unending frivolous suits upon another editor. I am a good editor and i stand by my editing practice. Anyone with common sense can see through the attack modes of Jytdog's complaints, and see that he's upset that (1) i voice general observations about Wikipedia in appropriate forums like Jimbo's talk page, and (2) discuss article content in article talk pages. If that's against the rules then i missed reading those rules. SageRad (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On further thought, i am considering retiring but would like to do so i in a graceful fashion, not with some AE case hanging over me, so it would be great if i could put together a real folio and slam dunk this one, even get it boomeranged back on the plaintiff for bringing an onerous an disruptive case against me, but i honestly don't have the time to do so. Honestly, it would take like i said 20 good hours to put that together. So i may just retire anyway, and hang up my hat. Ironically, it would further show the theory i outlined on Jimbo's page about how some editors emitting a toxicity can drive away other editors, thereby hurting the project by biasing point of view distribution. Anyway.
My ideal would be to hang this up and have my account simply sit inactive with no topic ban or other marks against me from this. But i don't have the time to give to a proper defense. My baby is more important. SageRad (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just as at the AE, it's very difficult to reply when you keep edit conflicting me with new stuff. I'm going to post now, without taking your latest lines into account, I'm afraid. Here it is: I said here that you'd be free to remove all your own posts here and start afresh, if desired, and in my second e-mail, though now I look at my e-mail message again, maybe it wasn't as clear as I thought. Anyway, now you know. I'm very surprised you say you were not under the impression you should be using a month of time to write your "defense". Obviously you don't have to write a syllable if you don't want to or if you (still) can't find the time, but I certainly thought we had a deal. I asked you here: "@SageRad: I see you ask above how much time you may have, and saying you don't have time to dedicate to finding diffs and being a lawyer. I suggest you put a request above, at the end of your statement, something on the lines of "I'm busy in real life, can I please have a week (or whatever specific time span would fit your circumstances) to supply a responsive and factual statement?" You responded here, saying "Bishonen -- i just saw your comment in which you pinged me. I would like to request a month to get a defense together then. I would be able to process and not feel in jeopardy of a hammer coming down at any moment. ... Another thing i would ask is to be able to erase the current statement and make a coherent new one." And finally I made this note, stating "... if what you need is some cooling-off time and then a new statement, it's fine by me." Why exactly did you think we waited for a month, if not to give you plenty of time to compose a new statement? Bishonen | talk23:11, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Bishonen, well in an ideal world if i were wealthy, i would have been able to. But in reality i struggle to live, work all the time, and also spent weeks trying to get a new keyboard because my laptop was barely able to type. So... that's what happened. What can i say? In the end, the attack case by Jytdog is just that. A onerous attack case. He's out of line and deserves a boomerang for doing so. But that would take a wikilawyer with enough time to do it. I could do it if i had 20 hours but i don't... so... there you go. So... it's not been enough time for me. I haven't been able to do it, and having a newborn, it's much more important to be with the baby. Even now i'm borrowing time that i ought to be tending to the baby. That's real life. What's happened on Wikipedia is gamesmanship and agenda pushing attacking through frivolous AE actions with ideological overtones of dislike. "I don't like the things he's saying so we need to topic ban him from editing on health!" Without real basis... with a collection of diffs that pull the probable worst 40 diffs of thousands of my edits, and portray them in loaded and ingenuine ways, to make a case like a highly paid lawyer could make against anyone in the real world. It's not good. So... i need more time because i have a life here, and had bad luck in the past month as well as too much to do. What can i say? The case is frivolous. I could do it if i could have the resources to do it. I don't want to be in the position of being judged in this bad framing, in a system where any admin could arbitrarily close it in any way, with no timeline specified. But here we are. So... i simply need more time to do it right if i am going to do it, but i'd rather retire without bad disposition at present. That's where it leave me. This is the real world. SageRad (talk) 23:27, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Bishonen, sorry for the edit conflicts before ... i did notice that you had implied i could erase text at AE (though i'd been told not to do so when i initially did it by another editor) and also you'd implied that the time was to write a defense and to calm down. I give you those things, and sorry to imply otherwise. But still, here i am, with no time to work center and then write a real defense at length, nor desire to pay that cost, which is a very high cost given the vague and ideological and extremely long complaint by the plaintiff here. The cost of a proper defense -- even if i am innocent of the charges -- is too high for me to afford right now. I need time. More time. Yes, sorry. Sorry that i'm poor, and got sick, and have a newborn, and had a keyboard breakdown that took weeks to get remedied. These things happen, in a world that is also constantly in motion. I'd like to be able to edit in a low key way on Wikipedia in spare time, but this level of required work is ridiculous to me for a voluntary encyclopedia project. So... i guess tomorrow i will go and erase / edit and see if i can write a defense that might be adequate to clear my username, and the go into a real semi-retirement. Now the baby's crying. SageRad (talk) 23:47, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sage: I think everyone is sympathetic to your parental duties, but the month break was intended to give you a month during which you could find just a little bit of time to think things over about the AE. Nobody expected you to devote an entire month to creating an opus. You could write what you need to at AE in the time that you wrote your comments here. It sounds like you disagree with the advice that I gave you about what to write or not write. You have every right to do so. But Wikipedia has the right to agree or disagree with you, and you do not get to dictate the terms of your potential retirement. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:00, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tryptofish, the whole month didn't lend time to do that. What can i say? And if i'm going to do it, i want to write an opus, to do it right. And i could do it right... the case would write itself given 20 hours. And it is onerous to be charged in this way. And if the veil is lifted, then any admin could close it however they choose, so it's rather arbitrary. Depends on who happens to do it. It's not satisfying. It's not a jury of peers. It's too arbitrary. So... what if i retire right now? Or what if Jytdog drops the crap? SageRad (talk) 00:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is going to drop it, even if you retire. And I recommend brevity. Beyond that, I cannot help you. If you don't like it, that's too bad. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So Bishonen, what you're saying is tomorrow November 26th at 2200 UTC the veil will lift and the case will be active again, right? Jytdog, what do you say you reduce your complaint to a more manageable 500 words and 20 diffs as per the guidelines of the AE process so i could actually respond in a reasonable and less onerous amount of time given that real life has too many time demands as a working person with kids and other responsibilities? Or, even better, what do you say you drop the request altogether and we work toward peace and understanding and i pretty much subside from editing for a considerable length of time as i raise my newborn? SageRad (talk) 00:02, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, what I'm saying, and said above on request from Olive and Tryptofish, is that I'll wait till Monday, which is November 28, because of the Thanksgiving weekend. The veil will lift on the 28 at 22:00 UTC and the case be active again. If you prefer, you may lift it earlier yourself, by removing the {{hat}} and {{hab}} templates and posting your new response. (And, I presume, removing your old responses.) Bishonen | talk01:47, 26 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Thank you, Bishonen. I appreciate you explaining this. It eases my mind to have a couple more days to write a good response. And i would also extend goodwill to Jytdog and hope that he consider a way to resolve this with a discussion and a handshake. I would like to learn better practice in any way that i am not an optimal editor, and go into semi-retirement with a clear conscience and a good feeling. SageRad (talk) 04:04, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SageRad - you have been given lots of feedback by me and others over the past year and a half. You've chosen to interpret these efforts to help you as censorship, bullying, McCarthyism, etc.
Nobody takes joy in restricting another editor's privileges, and I took no joy in presenting the case at AE, but that is where things end up when editors persist in problematic behavior, cannot see the problem, and will not change. Things end up right here, where you are now. The record of your actions in WP, is what it is.
What the community is looking for from you, is an expression of self-awareness of the ways your own behavior has been problematic, and clear signals that your approach to WP will be different in the future.
Everybody was willing to give you time to listen and reflect, given your life situation.
Are you saying you will not reduce your statement to 500 words and 20 diffs?
Are you so sure you're right about everything that you are not willing to discuss things without litigation of this kind?
Are you not willing to drop your case and save everyone's time?
Your basic problem with me is that i speak things that you don't like.
For that, you have opened an onerous and disruptive request against me. It's disrupted my ability to edit, and it's caused a lot of time-sink for a lot of people. SageRad (talk) 14:54, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not your POV, it is your behavior.
Look at the post opening this section:... "the AE review of your actions".
Read the opening paragraph of my statement at AE - "SageRad is on a campaign against X and for Y, and this WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, civil as it may be, has been consistently disruptive on A topics like B. The key issues are BLUDGEONing discussion with long soapbox-y rants against X and for Y -- a consistent behavior of using talk pages as forums, talking about "meta-issues", etc, instead of focused discussion on crafting content based on sources per policy and guidelines. He also misrepresents sources in the course of his arguments. In all of that, he fails to yield to consensus, and accuses other editors of Z. His presence on these topics is just a tremendous time sink." -- As far as the folks AE are concerned, whatever is filling the variables X and Y, A and B, and Z doesn't matter - what matters is the other stuff there, that describes behavior.
Many, many people have told you this already. You cannot seem to hear it.
The bottom line here is that nobody has a complete line on objective truth -- not you and not me. Neither of us. I don't claim to know "The Truth" even though you have accused me of such. However, you act as if you know the truth about my behavior, as if your point of view is the one that's accurate and mine is simply mistaken. That's arrogance. SageRad (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Bishonen, i've uncorked the genie at AE and wrote a response. It's about all i can do for now. Thanks for your help and sorry about my sometimes grumpiness with this process. I didn't ask for this but so it goes. I hope there are sober minds and hearts who can simply put this whole thing down. I've stated that i would make more effort to never impute any motives regarding other editors on content talk pages. I think that's the crux of what i have needed to learn. On the other hand, i think many others need to adhere to the same dang thing, and the near absence of rebuke when the motive impute goes the "other direction" is a glaring problem in Wikipedia--- and a much greater issue than mine. It's cast to the wind now. We'll see what kind of place Wikipedia is these days. Tryptofish thanks for your advice as well... I think i took about half of your advice. I wish to be a good person in dialog, and when it comes to discussion of content, i would be happy if everyone would keep it to the content and show integrity. But when it comes to forums like Jimbo's page, i think freedom to speak observations (even if totally wrong as they often are) is important for meta-level reflection about Wikipedia. Thanks for the advice and goodwill. SageRad (talk) 16:40, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about Jimbo's page — I always did.This was my first comment on the case: "I don't see a problem with SageRad's posts on Jimbo's page. They're the kind of thing that page is for." However, that's rather moot now, because I'm afraid I've proposed a block, as you've noticed. We'll see what other people think. Bishonen | talk17:02, 26 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
But you've bought into -- hook, line, and sinker -- the wikilawyered character assassination. I am not bludgeoning or battlegrounding... i edit articles using sources. Sometimes i do see a mode of approach that is strikingly exactly similar to a well-known "Skeptic" meme and then i question that. And that is good for this is an encyclopedia designed to be the outcome of different points of view in dialog. Jytdog has constructed a way to make it sound like i'm an enemy of Wikipedia, whereas there is truly a specific group of people who do this on purpose in specific ways. My editing on the Paleo Diet and Misophonia are specific content questions and use MEDRS sources to question the article content sometimes. Why would that be a blockable offense ? What exactly is the crux of why you want to block me for a year? Because i speak to content? Since when is that "bludgeoning"? Since when do you limit someone's ability to speak about content on an article's talk page, with reference to sources, even if that may be unpopular among a few editors with a specific bent? You don't, not in good conscience. You allow dialog, and through the balance of multiple points of view, you get something good. When you excise a point of view like mine, you get a more biased encylopedia. That's totally counter to all the ideals of this place. My god. SageRad (talk) 17:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly do not even want to edit anymore. But i want to walk away without some slanderous censoring block like this. If you care about Wikipedia truly, and its ideals truly, it's unbelievable that you would come to a case like this and recommend a block instead of a boomerang. I have used the McCarthyism metaphor for very good reason. Ideological purging is the opposite of intellectual integrity. SageRad (talk) 17:15, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would really like to know, Bishonen, in your own words, in one or two sentences, what you see as the real crux of why i should be blocked from editing Wikipedia for a year. Please, if you are willing. Please state the core issue in brief. Why should i be blocked for one year and others not? What crime have i committed here? Have i "ruined" the article on the Paleo diet? How about Misophonia? How about the dozen or more articles i've created? How about adding sources on Locust? How about improving Field-effect transistor? How about working out issues on Race and intelligence? How about helping work out conflicts at James Watson? Really. I have done much good work and i do not deserve this. Especially as i have stated that i am totally willing to not speak to anyone's potential motivations on any article talk page. That's the crux here, isn't it? Isn't that the one thing i really did wrong on occasion? And isn't that something done so so so often by others when it's the "other direction" in terms of point of view? In the "dominant viewpoint" that's been crystallizing on Wikipedia? I would really appreciate (honestly) a simple and direct from-the-heart answer to this.
Charles Burnham (geneticist) (a noble man who helped develop blight-resistant American chestnut through back-breeding)
Tory's Cave (Springfield, Vermont) (sources were used in the Tory's Cave (New Milford, Connecticut) article that were misleading as they applied to a different Tory's Cave, this one. I created an article for that Tory's Cave, and transcribed a poem about the cave into the article. I hope that the people in the area pick this up and develop the article more. Rather than throwing away good sources, i preferred to create a new article for the other cave. I wish all editors had a generous attitude in regard to editing -- to build rather than to simply delete. This historical work is fascinating.
Of course. And, Wikipedia is far from the worst example. It's a much bigger issue in academic publishing, where peer review is misused for censorship instead of quality control.
Consensus is a profoundly anti-democratic process. I've been involved in a few situations in the real world where it's been used, and the result is always that the majority has a strong motive to attack, demonize, discredit and disenfranchise the minority. In Wiki's case, the battle against non-conforming editors has a huge cost in terms of volunteer time and effort. Or is everyone here really a volunteer? JerryRussell (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly there is the pushing of an ideology in Wikipedia. I think then it is important for those of us who see this and care to say that we see this and communicate where this pushing is occurring. And I think it is important to stay cool, also to not push any ideology and maintain neutrality. I also think it is important to stay calm in the face of bullying, abusiveness and agenda pushing.
Also, SageRad, you have not been cool and you have been abusive and intolerant to other editors yourself. What is going on here in wikipedia, I think does reflect what is going on in society itself. We are seeing a lot of people wanting to push their view as being the correct one and other views as "fake" or untrue.
This presupposes that people are mindless sheep, who just listen to what you are telling them. For the most part, thoughtful and educated people will resist others telling them what to think. That is why many wikipedia articles fail, because so many people will just move on and see through the agenda pushing, and browse elsewhere on the web for information.
As these articles mention, issues such as the pushing of agendas and deletionist orientationss are well known in the wider world.
Therefore it may well be worth taking note of these deletionists and agenda pushers, and to see what actions can be taken about them to "reign them in", as Samuel Klein says in the latter article.
You think i've been abusive and intolerant? Give me an example where another person didn't start it, and something deeper than perhaps a curse word or two. I've argued long and hard for civility, Probrooks and when i've been treated respectfully i've always returned that respect and have never lashed at someone initially.
On your main point though, of course i agree, and the issue is that here i have spoken the thing and am being burned at the stake for it.
One thing we might be able to do quickly (maybe even before SageRad gets blocked) would be to vote in the Arbcom elections. SageRad, do you have any experience with any of those editors? Could we put together an endorsement list, or ask some questions? JerryRussell (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JerryRussell:, no, i haven't studied this and i simply wish to retain my username with the ability to occasionally comment here or there, at the moment. Please do not assume that i will be blocked. It is still to be decided, and i just added an argument with diffs to my statement at the AE page to show at least one claim of Jytdog's blatantly incorrect. (He claimed that i never admit to being wrong and i show clearly where i have done so directly to him, thereby disproving this claim. Please review that if you wish. I think it's solid.) SageRad (talk) 15:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, SageRad, you predicted yesterday that you'd be blocked before the day was over, and it hasn't happened yet. I'm glad you're feeling more hopeful today. Your argument looks solid to me, and I agree that Jytdog has resorted to SYNTH and OR to make his point at misophonia. Best wishes, and I hope things go your way at AE. JerryRussell (talk) 18:40, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, @Bishonen:, this absolutely was an accident, and thanks for correcting it here -- my mistake and i'm sorry. Too much, too fast. I want to be able to edit calmly and well about content, not to be in this whirlwind of drama. SageRad (talk) 22:22, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What does it mean when you are told that to provide evidence that is in a very good source that may perhaps be against what they call the establishment consensus around an article which simply means that some editors are so pushy that they will simply not question their own position, becomes a crime? It means there is an establishment of a party line here. There is an established house point of view on Wikipedia and if you cross it as I have done even in proper ways that would be completely the right way to edit Wikipedia, you will have your head cut off. And you will be told also to stop using metaphors. You will also be told you are the problem because you are the problem because you speak about what you do. That is what I'm talking about folks. It's time to read your Orwell, it's time to read your Kafka. No exaggeration, that's where we're at here in the virtual realm of Wikipedia. SageRad (talk) 13:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi SageRad, nice to see that you're still here for another day and that the metaphorical guillotine blade hasn't fallen yet. From a scientific point of view, your particular case isn't sufficient to prove that there's a consistent pattern. But for whatever it's worth, I suspect it's true that editors who agree with the 'party line' are much less likely to be blocked than editors who are trying to get fair representation for so-called 'fringe' views. And there's a reason why your critics say you're guilty of behavior problems. In arguing for a minority position, going against the 'party line', it's necessary to be verbose to answer all the criticisms. Also, "Mainstream POV pushers" basically get a free pass to bully and slander the opposition, but no such free pass applies to their opponents.
Over time, the situation reinforces itself, as a particular type of person is drawn to edit here, while others are repelled. The consensus in RfC's and AfD's drifts further and further away from what an average person in the broader society might think.
Newcomers get some idea of the problem right away. I got hazed at my talk page by Jytdog and Bishonen within a few weeks after my first arrival here. I'm sure many potential editors arrive here, see the situation, and depart without making waves.
I suspect it is possible to survive here as an editor who doesn't buy into the mainstream POV. But, if you find yourself against a consensus, it's necessary to back down without causing much talk page drama. Basically, any time there's a controversy, you're going to lose. And you have no access to behavioral dispute resolution (AN/I or AE) because it will always boomerang against you.
I don't know what can be done to fix the situation, if anything.
I've been looking around at competing encyclopedia projects to see if there's a more reliable source of information on the web, and a more worthy recipient for volunteer contributions. There's a new project, www.infogalactic.com, which has some interesting ideas about how to structure their articles to avoid most sources of edit conflict. But their ideas for dealing with conduct issues are rather primitive. Problem editors are hauled into the "Star Chamber" for execution. The place is run by a bunch of Trump fans. Well, at least they're honest about it. What a world. JerryRussell (talk) 19:38, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitration Enforcement block
To enforce an arbitration decision and for battleground conduct, casting aspersions, and a repeated failure to drop the stick, you have been blocked from editing for a period of one year. You are welcome to edit once the block expires; however, please note that the repetition of similar behavior may result in a longer block or other sanctions.
If you believe this block is unjustified, please read the guide to appealing blocks (specifically this section) before appealing. Place the following on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Please copy my appeal to the [[WP:AE|arbitration enforcement noticeboard]] or [[WP:AN|administrators' noticeboard]]. Your reason here OR place the reason below this template. ~~~~}}. If you intend to appeal on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard I suggest you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template on your talk page so it can be copied over easily. You may also appeal directly to me (by email), before or instead of appealing on your talk page. The WordsmithTalk to me19:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Reminder to administrators: In May 2014, ArbCom adopted the following procedure instructing administrators regarding Arbitration Enforcement blocks: "No administrator may modify a sanction placed by another administrator without: (1) the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or (2) prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" [in the procedure]). Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped."
So the metaphorical guillotine falls. @The Wordsmith:, @DrChrissy: -- in addition to SageRad's use of this talk page for appeals of the block (if any), would there be any concerns about using this talk page for ongoing discussions about the possibly Kafka-esque aspects of AE proceedings? Maybe working here, we could come up with practical ideas for how to fix the issues? This place is off the beaten path, minimally disruptive, and yet available for any interested Wikipedians to participate. JerryRussell (talk) 20:28, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea why I have been pinged here under these circumstances. Having said that, I think it is generally considered "bad form" to use a blocked user's Talk page to continue conversations in which the User cannot themselves engage. DrChrissy(talk)20:37, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Echoing DrChrissey, it is indeed bad form to host discussions about wider issues on the talkpage of blocked users. Keep in mind that they get notified every time someone posts. I don't know that there's technically a policy against it (since I can't think of that ever happening), but I would suggest an alternate venue like the Village Pump or a talk page/subpage of a non-blocked user. The WordsmithTalk to me20:43, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I guess i can post here, just not from a mobile device.
Here's one more page i created that wasn't mentioned in the kangaroo court case: ExxonMobil climate change controversy. A good page that was split from the ExxonMobil article with discussion among several editors.
I would be happy to host a discussion here, JerryRussell, though would want to put it in a new section and make sure it's sober, thoughtful, and slow. There is plenty of time. There are many deep questions to ponder, and knowledge to gather and record about the nature of power within Wikipedia. An ethnography of the control of the world's default knowledge base would be quite useful. SageRad (talk) 13:38, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. Ongoing personal attacks. Neither civility nor integrity really on the rise.
Given Sage's definition of integrity (which is synonymous with uncritical acceptance of his POV) I sincerely hope that will never happen.
And... this is not accurate, and it's a personal attack as well.
Integrity is real. It can be seen in dialog. Lack of it can also be seen.
Bob K31416, i hope you're not fooled by the sophistry and attack in Guy's comment.
Integrity is refreshing on Wikipedia, and is deeper than superficial civility. Civility is needed, but even moreso, integrity is needed.
It means to me:
Speaking directly, without snark or insinuation or backhanded insults or sarcasm.
Speaking honestly.
Addressing all open good-faith questions asked by others. Not ignoring or leaving threads dangling on purpose because it's not advantageous to your agenda.
Not having a hidden agenda to begin with. Being above board.
Speaking from one's own point of view and not imposing assumptions upon others. Asking others what they mean if you need clarification, but not assuming the worst of what they mean.
Not hurling insults or character-defaming stabs, or whatever.
By these standards, Guy's comment fails the test.
Obviously, my definition of integrity has nothing to do with whether another person accepts my POV. On the contrary, i love dialog with people of other points of view. It's useful and i learn from it ideally. However, far too often on Wikipedia, it goes straight to agenda pushing and insults and lacks integrity. And then the person who made it go that way often blames the other and uses this as fodder for long-term cases like the blocking that happened to me.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the topic, as i was just insulted on a forum where i cannot express these things.
Just a heads up, Sage. If you use your talkpage for much more than just an appeal you'll likely get your talkpage access revoked. Folks are usually given a little leeway to blow off steam after a block but if it goes on too long someone will drop the hammer. There are other forums on the net expressly for the criticism of WP. Wikipediocracy for instance. Capeo (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm guessing that technically speaking, Capeo is correct. Any admin could shut off SageRad's access to this talk page at any time. Obviously if that happens, we'll go find another venue, which would of necessity be off-wiki. In the spirit of open communications and integrity, I hope that the admins will choose to leave this forum open. JerryRussell (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They won't. It will inevitably become disruptive and, strictly speaking, it's against the blocking policy. So, unless your goal is to get SageRad's TP access revoked and force them to only use email if they decide to appeal at some point in the future, its best to take this somewhere else. Capeo (talk) 19:29, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So yes, let's take this somewhere else. There are many forums. I've never participated at any off-site discussion forums but perhaps i will do that. Doesn't matter to me where such is done, but it does matter to me to be able to respond to people on occasion on-wiki as i did above in this section in regard to a wildly bet claim about me. SageRad (talk) 21:45, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Um, I'm assuming that "you people" was directed at me? I was simply advising Jerry on how things end up going and how to avoid it. Understandably, you're likely not looking for any advise from me so I won't post here further.Capeo (talk) 22:10, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SageRad Perhaps you could write an article about your experience editing wikipedia? I am sure there is a newspaper or magazine which would pick it up? I have been talking to people about wikipedia recently and it seems that many people are quite naive about how wikipedia works, even people I would have thought were quite well informed.
...Contribute To and Edit our various sites or Projects.
Under the following conditions:
Responsibility – You take responsibility for your edits (since we only host your content).
Civility – You support a civil environment and do not harass other users.
Lawful Behavior – You do not violate copyright or other laws.
No Harm – You do not harm our technology infrastructure.
So the Wikimedia foundation does promise a right to edit here, subject to these limits. The terms of service create a contract between Wikimedia Foundation and the users and editors of the site.
You have no rights here. Wikipedia is privately owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, which sets the terms of usage. Therefore editors have no legal right to edit it, no rights are being denied if users are blocked, and thinking in terms of a legal framework is counterproductive.
This seems to be clearly an error, and I believe the Terms of Use create the correct framework for editor's rights at Wikipedia. As a concrete example: I don't believe SageRad violated the terms of service, and I certainly don't believe that there was any due process to establish any such violation. Kangaroo courts don't work when it comes to evaluating compliance with legal frameworks, and we are dealing in a legal framework.
This is not a "legal threat", but rather a simple statement of my belief that SageRad's legal rights have been violated. I would like to compose a letter here to be sent to the legal department at Wikimedia Foundation, to get their views on the community process. JerryRussell (talk) 16:39, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You seemed to skip over the part where they say WMF is just a host and the creation and enforcement of policy is left to the individual communities. Those policies can be far more strict than the WMF TOS. Capeo (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Jerry, there are a few fundamental errors in your interpretation of the above material:
First, you quoted from a "user-friendly summary" that clearly states it is not a legal document; the actual legal Terms of Use are below that section of the page.
Second, saying someone is "welcome to contribute" isn't equivalent to saying someone has a legally binding right to contribute. If I say you're welcome in my home, am I saying you get to sue me if I don't allow you in my home?
Third, the actual Terms of Use clearly state "You are welcome to join as a contributor, editor, or author, but you should follow the policies that govern each of the independent Project editions". This means that individual sites such as en-wikipedia are empowered to make and enforce policies. If a user is found to be in violation of those policies by established processes (as Sage has), the Foundation will consider that a violation of the Terms of Use.
Fourth, you seem to be under the impression that a site's Terms of Use are designed to legally protect users. It's quite the opposite; this document is designed to provide legal remedies for the Foundation when people violate the Terms.
LaserBrain and Capeo, thanks for your comments. I agree that I quoted from the "user-friendly" summary, but the said summary is clearly intended to be an accurate summary of the complete documentation. I reviewed the complete Terms of Use and I see no contradictions.
The analogy between user rights and permission to enter a private home is instructive. Actually, Wikimedia Foundation is a public charity. As such, it's more like a cyberspace community center than a private residence. They do have a right to control access to this public space, but only in accordance with the stated policies.
I disagree that the Terms of Use are designed only to protect Wiki Foundation. A contract protects all parties, which in this case includes the users and the general public. I am not sure whether individual Wikimedia projects are entitled to create Policies and Terms of Use which contradict the umbrella policies set by the foundation.
The central question is whether SageRad has violated any policies, and whether there has been a reasonable process to establish that such violations have occurred. I contend that Sage has taken responsibility for his edits, has not harassed anyone, and there is no basis for denying him access to the project. On the contrary, if anything he has been subject to harassment and unjustified personal attacks, and denied access based on an ideological agenda of his opponents.
"NO JUSTICE" at Wikipedia? Really? Is that the way we want to run things? I would really like to ask the legal department if that is their position. JerryRussell (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this, Ravensfire. I didn't know about Meta, and it does look like a good place for discussion. What do you say, SageRad? I agree with Capeo, the admins are unlikely to show mercy for ongoing talk here. JerryRussell (talk) 20:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have exactly two enforceable rights: the right to leave and the right to fork.
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Soon to be unblocked
You will soon be unblocked. I want to give you a piece of advice, it is not an attack. If you will listen to it you will have a good time around here.
Wikipedia is mainly a venue for parroting mainstream science and mainstream scholarship (and perhaps mainstream press, for certain subjects). Editors are supposed to understand this, to wish this and be competent at doing this.
So supporting mainstream science and mainstream scholarship is required of all editors, failure to do this leads to losing disputes, being blocked and eventually banned. Strong adherence to mainstream science and mainstream scholarship is what made Wikipedia one of the greatest websites. So, dissent from mainstream science and mainstream scholarship will be perceived as an attack upon Wikipedia itself. If you want to win a dispute, you have to show that your claims are mainstream science or mainstream scholarship. If you cannot honestly do that, then refrain from making that particular claim. And remember, Wikipedia is just a mirror, mainstream science and mainstream scholarship exist outside of Wikipedia and cannot be changed through editing Wikipedia, Wikipedia merely reflects them. So if you want to change science/scholarship, you have to be a scientist or a scholar, Wikipedia is not the venue for doing that. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:19, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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