User talk:PPdd/Archive 1

Pacific American Volunteer Association

Welcome!

Hello, PPdd, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, like Pacific American Volunteer Association, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted.

You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! E Wing (talk) 02:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Pacific American Volunteer Association

A tag has been placed on Pacific American Volunteer Association requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. E Wing (talk) 02:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The speedy was put on while I was editing. I think I addressed the "article providing little or no context to the reader" concern. Let me know if not. I am a new editor and only log on once or twice a week. HkFnsNGA (talk) 03:12, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Cal Trans Pet Cemetery

I have nominated Cal Trans Pet Cemetery, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cal Trans Pet Cemetery. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

November 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from Louis Lesser. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm gonna chime in here as well. First, if you need to wipe the page and background it like I suggested in another AFD, we can always userfy it for you. Second, if you have to wipe the page, see WP:CSD - there's a tag for wiping out per creator request. Third, be careful - we get a bit cantankerous if you remove an AFD tag from an article, even if it's a side effect of blanking it. We're assuming good faith here, you being new and such, but try and chill out a bit. The AFDs have a week for you to work on them. Finally, check out those links above for your talk page - they'll help you immensely. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 18:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Pacific American Volunteer Association

I have nominated Pacific American Volunteer Association, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pacific American Volunteer Association. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. ⇒ Pickbothmanlol 22:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

ANI notice

Hello, HkFnsNGA. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. GiantSnowman 22:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

ANI Notice.

There is a discussion concerning your recent edits at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:HkFnsNGA. ⇒ Pickbothmanlol 22:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you want me to move the article for you because that is all that I can offer. ⇒ Pickbothmanlol 02:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

What does "move the article" mean? Why not just upload the Annual Report from 1963, or read some of the hundreds of news articles I supplied on the AFD page? HkFnsNGA (talk) 02:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Go on Wikipedia:IRC to discuss this further. ⇒ Pickbothmanlol 02:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

User:Pickbothmanlol, It says you are blocked indefinitely. HkFnsNGA (talk) 17:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Uploading images

To upload an image, please look at Wikipedia:Upload. Thanks, GiantSnowman 14:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank You. How do I make the image appear in the infobox?HkFnsNGA (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Barrington Plaza

I have nominated Barrington Plaza, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barrington Plaza. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. KuyaBriBri^Talk 18:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Louis Lesser

Some advice: Don't worry too much about the article. One way or another it will probably be kept. After all, he clearly is notable under wikipedia's rules. The problem is that the unverified information and stories obscured the verifiable information and led several to vote that he was not notable. People do not realize how frequent it is for very notable figures to be forgotten and vanish from reference works where one would expect them to be described. This is a particular problem with people who became prominent around the middle of the last century, from the 20's to the 70's, like Lesser.

The article right now may plan for too much detail, and too many headings and under-construction templates. It would probably be best to build it around prominent and unimpeachable sources like the NY and LA Times articles. Things like "Mysterious Death of Son Craig Lesser following sales to Adi Da Cult in Lake County CA" are of course notable to Mr. Lesser's biography, but without publicly available sources on it, we can't really treat it, and we need not plan to go into every detail of his business ventures as described in legal and business documents, but just give a general picture of them. Hope your experience here will become pleasanter!John Z (talk) 21:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Everything I wrote in the original version was based on documents I saw with my own eyes, when in Los Angeles. I am a volunteer who works with high end very old senior citizens, and I was worried about the article being deleted very quickly. I can back up everything I originally wrote with documents, but not until I visit Los Angeles again next month. in the meantime, I moved the "Under Construction" Headers to the talk page of the article. Is this a good idea? HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

About the deletions of things from commons - the commendation may be public domain and OK once you describe the permissions correctly; the others probably are not and may violate copyright. As long as something is publicly available somehow, in a library or elsewhere, it is OK to use as a source, or quote from it in moderation, but putting it up at commons in toto will get it deleted if you don't own the rights or have permissions. It isn't vandalism; the wiki system sometimes works brusquely towards people new to it. The article does look better. Regards, John Z (talk) 20:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How can an Annual Report prepared for the public and the SEC, and the American Stock Exchange, be a copyright violation. It is a public record. Similarly, the commendation, SIGNED by the Board of Supervisors of LA, how can it be a copyright violation. And why is a signed commendation by the Board of Supervisors not allowed as a reliable source? This makes no sense. It really seems like other editors are deliberately trying to stop this article from existing, for some reason. Thye are so irrational, VANDALIZING the commendation, that one might think there is a reason they do not want any article on Lesser, and this may be related to Lesser's connections to the Teamsters and Vegas and the Shah and Marcos and a whole lot of weird stuff I have been finding. Can you put the commendation back in? HkFnsNGA (talk) 20:27, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Louis Lesser

I have nominated Louis Lesser, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Louis Lesser. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Look. I'm going to be blunt. You've already pointed to an article that I called you on where you stated that Louis enters into the picture, and it didn't even mention his given name or his surname. You have yet to provide the details. .

I already made it clear in the AFD: I AM NOT WASTING MY TIME WITH THIS. I am not assisting you with this for two reasons: one, you have been told numberous times what we need. Two, you have proven - at least, to me - that you cannot be believed. So no, I'm not calling Mr. Lesser a liar, I'm calling you a liar. The clock is ticking. It is ENTIRELY UP TO YOU to fix the article and provide what we need. If you wish to reverse my opinion of you, you need to prove yourself. Frankly, a phone call is not at all a reliable source, so it does not even come anywhere near entering the picture. I am not going to apologize for this, and am standing by my word.

Finally, please do not pester me with further messages on my talk page. The end. Further messages from you to me will be reported as unwanted harrassment on WP:ANI. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 04:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• Thank You, DennistheTiger. I have tried to spend time writing the article, having finally noticed your initial suggestion buried in the AFD page, but everything i put in based on the LA board of Supervisor's signed statements keeps getting deleted from the article because of technicalites whereby my Wikimedia Commons uploads being deleted.

I have spent hours trying to figure out how Wikimedia Commons works, but apparantly I am not good at figuring it out.

1. Can you help me figure out how to restore the PUBLIC Commendation of Lesser by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors on WIkimedia Commons? This would probably go a long way to removing the sense that I was trying to pull a "hoax", instead of just being sloppy, and that Louis Lesser at least USED TO BE Notable, back in the 1960's.

2. Can you help me figure out how to restore the PUBLIC 1963 Louis Lesser Enterprises, Inc. Annual Report, signed by Arthur Anderson himself, and which is a public document for the SEC for an offering on the American Stock Exchange, and lists an INCREDIBLE number of Howard Hughes buildings, and an otherwise unbelievable number of buildings owned. Then, at a minimum, the article can cite that Arthur Anderson and Louis Lesser Enterprises CLAIMED to have developed, owned, and operated all of this.

3. Also, if I can get that picture of the David Susskind show, would it help? Or would that just get another AFD, since it is just a picture of Buffett and Lesser with Susskind between? HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Survival Tips

Not gonna answer about the copyvio deletions of the SEC stuff you mention for Mr. Lesser, above - that might be best asked on the Commons site, though.

In any event, I'll give you my perspective. I exploded you (above), but you've done something that, frankly, I didn't expect - you actually fixed the damned thing. =) In any event, I apologize for popping at you.

To explain, in the three years I've been on this site between contributions and AFDs, far, far too many times, we've seen people not only come up with articles that were clearly hoaxes, however bogus facts are dropped in. On occasion, said vandals will attempt to defend the article, either by touting the merits without any data whatsoever, or by providing links that have little, if anything, to do with the article we're examining. Admittedly, you were fitting into the textbook profile, from my perspective - with everything that sounded like it was bogus to the grade of a certain Baron Munchausen, it's the logical conclusion.

In your case, I say you're unique because you were essentially ignorant of the requirements, being a new user, but acting in good faith - albeit in a flurry, as you didn't understand the protocols we follow. That, as is evident, is changing - there's more to learn, but you're getting the hang of it.

As far as adding things that you're positive of but dno't have the ability to find citations for, you can always use the {{fact}} tag. But be careful with this - overuse is considered harmful. Beyond this point, general rule is that adding anything that can't be backed up somehow.

One thing I'll also introduce you to is the {{helpme}} tag - this will draw somebody in to answer any of your questions. Check the template for how to operate this.

--Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 22:40, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank You. (Baron Von Munchusen is my hero, by the way, and so are Daffy Duck, Peter Pan, and Santa Claus. And Gilliam's "Brazil" is my favorite film.) Lesser was PARTNERS with just about every ANTI-hero I have ever had - the Shah of Iran, Marcos, he had something to do with the Teamsters financing in Vegas prior to selling out to Kerkorian and Hughes, he "had Yorty in his pocket", he lived across the street from Ronald Reagan and with Marylin Monroe and Jane Mansfield on each side, and Bernie Kornfeld behind, and he had dealings with just about everyone I ever thought was an international super-villain, as I am now finding out. Trump was in the anti-hero category, until I heard the story Lesser told about how Trump actually helped his father urinate in the bathroom, indicating a very different kind of person than the public image Trump creates. I have first hand VERBAL (not Wikipedia style sources) knowledge from two billionaires, and a retired CA Senator, (I work as a nurse to high end seniors in assisted living), that Lesser really was Buffett's and Kerkorian's mentor (I had never heard of Kerkorian until then). I even saw the picture of the David Susskind show with young Buffett across from Lesser, with Susskind in the middle. I also saw pictures that Lesser lived at 2256 Shadow Lane, and moved out so Michael Jackson could move in. (Saying that on the talk page would likely completely kill the article, so I will keep it here on my own talk page.) I don't even want to mention any of this, even on the AFD or article talk page, since I think it will do more harm to the article's surviving, than it would do good by generating research to establish these facts, even with a {{helpme}} tag.

• Even after deletion of the Louis Lesser Enterprises "Chart of Properties" from Wikimedia Commons, the article starts off with the New York Times and LA Times writing articles on Lesser as effectively "Mr. Money Maker" of the post WWII America, and the "Man of the Year", Special Commendation by the LA Board Of Supervisors as "bigshot American money maker", and that if you at least look at the 1963 Louis Lesser Enterprises, Inc. Annual Report, Lesser sold a lot more to Howard Hughes than just a few Las Vegas Casinos. In fact, it now looks to me like when Eisenhower said "military industrial complex", he might just as well have been referring to a single person, Louis Lesser. (It looks like Lesser which looks to be about half of the entire military industrial complex, if you include info from the 1963 Annual Report).

• Ignoring the deleted Annual Report from 1963, the question I have is, given Lesser was consisdered such a high end money man that the New Tork Times and LA Times wrote stories about him as "Mr. Money Maker of America" (paraphrasing) in 1960, I dont understand how anyone could vote to delete after that alone.
• Am I wasting my time, and someone will pull out some Wikipedia technicality and all of the days I have just spent will go to waste, and the article will disappear? That's the way it is now looking. HkFnsNGA (talk) 23:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It's really hard to say what's going to happen here - it largely depends on the condition of the article. The two articles indicate he was rather wealthy, but doesn't do justice to his history. So in its current state, it would have to be pared back to a stub. Best case scenario, it works; worst case, an admin can userfy the article, and then you can work on it and get feedback in background.

One note is that, at the top of this page, there should be a welcome message that gives you pointers. No matter which way this goes, this is information that's going to be useful to understand what we're looking for as far as an article. So even if this winds up getting userfied, you have a good start if anything, and you can put some spit and polish on it to make it even better.

As far as the waste of time, I wouldn't call this a waste of time. If anything, you've learned what we're looking for - granted, it was the hard way. :) The next attempts will be better, I think. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 00:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Louis Lesser

Is the basis for your deletion nomination still that Louis Lesser is a "hoax"? If not, I do not know what it is I need to respond to. Does your nomination for deletion mean you voted to delete, or just that you want others to examine things, then you will vote after discussion? HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Going to try and address your questions in order:

1. The basis for my deletion nomination was that Mr. Lesser is a hoax. That does not mean that Mr. Lesser does not exist—you clearly proved to me that he does—but that the claims made about him and his accomplishments were unsubstantiated. It appears you removed such claims, and I removed the hoax tag from the article ([1]). I will shortly be posting a comment to that AfD redacting the hoax claim, but I would still question whether the subject qualifies under WP:N. Please respond to my comments there and not on my talk page.
2. Unless otherwise stated, nominating an article for deletion means that the nominator wishes the article to be deleted. I will change my position to neutral, but since there are so many outstanding delete !votes, the AfD cannot be closed until the 7-day discussion period lapses.

As for some of your other behavior,

• DO NOT DELETE your own comments from talk pages. This is a major breach of WP:Etiquette. If you need to withdraw or redact your own comment, please use strikethrough by surrounding the text with <s> and </s>. I'm going to ignore it this time, but please don't test my patience.
• I have not explicitly requested that you not comment on my talk page. You are welcome to comment here as long as you remain civil, refrain from personal attacks, and follow the guidelines in the boxes at the top. Just remember that I reserve the right to ignore and/or outright delete your comment. I do prefer to keep discussions in one place, which is why I have not responded to any of your comments here.

KuyaBriBri^Talk 22:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

These admins are on a serious power trip.

I have been practicing your suggestion - "If you need to withdraw or redact your own comment, please use strikethrough by surrounding the text with <s> and </s>." Please let me know if I am doing it incorrectly. HkFnsNGA (talk) 13:55, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Testing editing

Hi, if you want to practice some features of editing Wikipedia, you shouldn't do that on normal articles (as you said you did on Louis Lesser), but instead either use sandbox, or create subpage of your user page for this. Thanks. Svick (talk) 13:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I will read the links you gave, follow your advice, and put your comment here on the article talk page so no one wastes their time duplicating your suggestions because of my own ignorance. HkFnsNGA (talk) 13:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

User:Bfigura, User:Hazir

I read all of your comments on the Louis Lesser article AFD page. My original article (I am a new editor, but getting lots of practice in the past days) had no reliable sources at all. After reading your comments, I deleted the entire article contents, and rewrote the whole thing, added information from sources as follows -

• 1. Los Angeles Times, Feb 10, 1957
• 2. LA Times, October 3, 1958
• 3. Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1959
• 4. LA Times, March 13, 1960,
• 5. Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1961
• 6. Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1961
• 7. Los Angles County Board of Supervisors, Resolution, April 9, 1961
• 8. Los Angeles Times, Oct 15, 1961
• 9. LA Times, March 3, 1963
• 10. New York Times, March 16, 1963
• 11. Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1964
• 12. SEC, http://www.secinfo.com/dv22g.655.htm
• 13. Arthur Anderson, Arthur Anderson Co., Audit of Louis Lesser Enterprises, September 13, 1963
• 14. Louis Lesser Enterprises, Ltd. v. Roeder, 209 Cal"[35]

Am I on the right track to addressing your concerns, and do you have any suggestions or Wiki:educational advice for me to further improve articles I may write in the future? HkFnsNGA (talk) 16:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I don't think you're supposed to delete and rewrite a whole article, but it doesn't worry me so long as there is an improvement. It looks better to me - so far. Haven't done any digging yet. Don't take it personally if people do dig. Wikipedia needs to maintain a reputation for accuracy - and to avoid possible libels too. Peridon (talk) 20:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. If you do any digging, especially for things I put on the talk page, and if you find anything, it would be appreciated if you put it in the article. I am having trouble finding stuff about the Las Vegas Casinos, Zenith Refinery, and Emedia Scope. Its like the guy was in the news every week about US defvelopment for the first half of the 1960's, then went into Vegas, was mixed up with Jimmy Hoffa's attorney Morris Shanker and Irvin Kahn, sold his casinos and hotels off to Howard Hughes and Kerkorian, went international with Marcos and the Shah, but COMPLETELY disappeared off the all the news radars, despite growing bigger than ever. It is especially weird about the Vegas-Shanker-Hoffa-Hughes-Teamster stuff not being in any newspapers, except for one obscure LA Times story in 1970 about Lesser suing these guys. HkFnsNGA (talk) 20:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Louis Lesser

He seems like an interesting person. If it survives the AFD (which it should, given the massive number of references you've provided) I'm willing to help you restructure and improve it. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't find anything after he quit and went into Vegas in the mid 60's, then started Zenith Refinery in 1975 and moved it to Hong Kong, and I can't find anything about the Marcos relationship, but I saw pictures that he broght Marcos to the US. And I have three VERBAL sources that he was mentor to Buffett and Kerkorian in the 1960's, but I can't find anything on that, and I have found nothing on the Trump stuff, except three more verbal sources. Finally, I know he lived in the house that Michael Jackson last moved into, since I know the former owner. But no sources on any of this. And what did he do from 1968 to 2008, which is 40 years! I heard he had something to do with setting up competition for the Federal REserve, and failing, but that is strictly rumor. HkFnsNGA (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Improving your article

OK, it looks like it was kept. I'll help you out. Some links you will find helpful.

- Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style This is a very helpful guide, including specific templates, for adding references. For example, if you want to add a reference from a newspaper, just go down a bit to the related section, click on where it says "See also Cite News", and that will take you to the template page for newspaper refs. You can copy and paste the text from there. Be sure to start your ref with something like this <ref name="news001"> and end it with this </ref>. After you've named a reference, you can use it multiple times by simply tagging the name to the ends of sentences like this <ref name="news001" />

Here is a list of the references, unless others have added more -

• 1950

<ref name= “LAT6Apr50”>LA Times, April 6, 1950, “Sterling New Head of Sunset Oil Co.” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/423475671.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Apr+06%2C+1950&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=AIRCRAFTS+LEAD+MARKET+RECOVERY]</ref>

<ref name= “LAT17Dec50”>LA Times, December 17, 1950, “Active Week Puts Tract’s Sales Past $3,750,000” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/421688101.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Dec+17%2C+1950&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Active+Week+Puts+Tract%27s+Sales+Past+%243%2C750%2C000]</ref>

• 1954

<ref name = “LAT9Oct54”> LA Times, October 9, 1954, “Subpoena in Quiz Faced by Builder” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/434710372.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Oct+09%2C+1954&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=SUBPOENA+IN+QUIZ+FACED+BY+BUILDER]</ref>

• 1957

<ref name = “LAT10Feb57”>Los Angeles Times, Feb 10, 1957, “Firm Occupies Sixth Building in Center” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/458475362.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Feb+10%2C+1957&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=FIRM+OCCUPIES+SIXTH+BUILDING+IN+CENTER]</ref>

• 1958

<ref name = “LAT3Aug58”>LA Times, August 3, 1958 “Overseas Unit of Construction Company Set” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/475942772.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Aug+03%2C+1958&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Overseas+Unit+Of+Construdion+Company+Set]</ref>

<ref name = “LAT3Oct58”>LA Times, October 3, 1958, “Beckman Instrument Plant at Newport Sold”[http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/445009322.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Oct+03%2C+1958&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Beckman+Instrument+Plant+at+Newport+Sold]</ref>

• 1959

<ref name = “LAT25Oct59”>Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1959 [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/485490982.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Oct+25%2C+1959&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=%247.S+MILLION+PROJECT]</ref>

• 1960

<ref name = “LAT13Mar60”>Los Angeles Times, “The Lesser Side of Making Money: "Making money can become a habit.", March 13, 1960, Al Johns, [https://secure.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/489900922.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Mar+13%2C+1960&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=DOWN+TO+EARTH]</ref>

<ref name= “LAT26Mar60” > Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1960, “City of Hope Honors Builder Lou Lesser”, [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/491452542.html?dids=491452542:491452542&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Mar+26%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=CITY+OF+HOPE+HONORS+BUILDER+LOU+LESSER&pqatl=google]</ref>

• 1961

<ref> Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1961 [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/446953732.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Jan+16%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Southland]</ref>

<ref name = “LAT26Mar61>Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1961, "''Louis Lesser of Beverly Hills, partner in the land development and construction firm bearing his name, has been named ‘Man of the Year’ for 1961 by the City of Hope'', [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/491452542.html?dids=491452542:491452542&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Mar+26%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=CITY+OF+HOPE+HONORS+BUILDER+LOU+LESSER&pqatl=google]</ref>

<ref name = “LASups9April61”>April 9, 1961 Los Angles County Board of Supervisors Resolution of Commendation, “… that Louis Lesser be commended for his many accomplishments in the field of business and philanthropic endeavors…”</ref>

<ref name = “LAT15Oct61”>Los Angeles Times, Oct 15, 1961, “Apartment Approved as Official Fallout Shelter”, [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/481412212.html?dids=481412212:481412212&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Oct+15%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Apartment+Approved+as+Official+Fallout+Shelter&pqatl=google]</ref>

<ref name = “LAT 15Nov61”>Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1961 “Board Asks Full Study of Shelters” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/448218732.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Nov+15%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Board+Asks+Full+Study+of+Shelters]</ref>

<ref name = “LAT3Dec61”>Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1961 “Businessman Appointed to Civil Defense Group” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/481553932.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Dec+03%2C+1961&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Businessman+Appointed+to+CD+Group]</ref>

• 1962

<ref name="NYT13Sep62"> New York Times, September 13, 1962, “712 Unit Project Finished on Coast”, p 349 {{cite news|title=712-UNIT PROJECT FINISHED ON COAST|publisher=[[New York Times]]|date=1962-09-23|pages=349}}</ref>

• 1963

<ref name = “NYT16Mar63”>New York Times, March 16, 1963 "Boom Is Loud for Lesser; Western Developer Sees His Operation Soar in 9 Years Offices, Apartments, Shopping Centers Among Projects Developer Louis Lesser Rides Crest of the Real Estate Boom Home to Be Leased Once Sold Magazines", "Restless, fast-talking Louis Lesser is a business executive right out of Hollywood's 'Hometown Boy Makes Good'"[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C16FE3C5B157B93C4A81788D85F478685F9]</ref>

<ref name = “LAT3Mar63”>LA Times, March 3, 1963, “$100 Million Building Program Set by Firm” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/490292332.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Mar+03%2C+1963&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=%24100+Million+Building+Program+Set+by+Firm]</ref>

<ref name = NYT16Mar63> New York Times, March 16, 1963 "Boom Is Loud for Lesser; Western Developer Sees His Operation Soar in 9 Years Offices, Apartments, Shopping Centers Among Projects Developer Louis Lesser Rides Crest of the Real Estate Boom Home to Be Leased Once Sold Magazines", "Restless, fast-talking Louis Lesser is a business executive right out of Hollywood's 'Hometown Boy Makes Good'"[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C16FE3C5B157B93C4A81788D85F478685F9]</ref>

<ref AA13Sep63>September 13, 1963, Arthur Andersen, Arthur Andersen Co., SEC Audit for American Stock Exchange listing, “Audit of Louis Lesser Enterprises, Inc. 1963 Annual Report”</ref>

<ref>LA Times, September 22, 1963 [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/491857672.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Sep+22%2C+1963&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Two+Downtown+Buildings+Sold]</ref>

• 1964

<ref name = “LAT15Nov64>Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1964, “Historic Ranch to Be Big Community”, [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/472218192.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Nov+15%2C+1964&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Historic+Ranch+to+Be+Big+Community]</ref>

• 1965

<ref>[openjurist.org/.../national-labor-relations-board-v-tragniew-inc-tragniew-inc]</ref>

• 1966

<ref>LA Times, September 18, 1966 [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/485776292.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Sep+18%2C+1966&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=22-STORY+APARTMENT+NEARING+COMPLETION]</ref>

<ref>Los Angeles Times, Friday, November 13, 2009, page B6, lower right quarter page</ref><ref>LA Times, September 18, 1966 [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/485776292.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Sep+18%2C+1966&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=22-STORY+APARTMENT+NEARING+COMPLETION]</ref>

• 1970

<ref>LA Times, February 27, 1970[http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/601140202.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Feb+27%2C+1970&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=San+Diego+Developer+Sued+by+Louis+Lesser]</ref>

<ref>LA Times, February 27, 1970, [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/601140202.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Feb+27%2C+1970&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=San+Diego+Developer+Sued+by+Louis+Lesser]</ref>

<ref>LA Times, Septemeber 20, 1970, Al Delugach, “Morris Shenker: The Money Mover” [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/602114842.html?FMT=AI&FMTS=::ABS:AI:CITE:PAGE&type=historic&date=Sep+20%2C+1970&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Morris+Shenker%3A+The+Money+Mover]</ref> <ref>Life Magazine, May 29, 1970</ref>

• 1996

<ref>San Jose Metro, June 6, 1996, [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/06.06.96/property-9623.html]</ref>

<ref>Santa Cruz metro, May 2, 1996, [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.02.96/timber-9618.html]</ref>

• 2003

<ref> Newsletter of the American Engineering Geologists article by AEG president C. Rexford Upp, April 1, 2003 [http://www.aegrms.org/newsletters/AEG_newsletter_Apr_01.pdf]</ref>

<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golitsyns]</ref>

• 2005

<ref> Certificate of Death, County of Lake, Lakeport, California , Russell E. Perdock, Chief Deputy, County of Lake Recorders Office Document # 000073969, recorded December 9, 2005</ref>

• 2006

<ref> Jewish Journal, December 14, 2006, Obituaries [http://www.jewishjournal.com/obituaries/article/obituaries_20061215/#]</ref>

<ref> Jewish Journal, December 14, 2006, Obituaries [http://www.jewishjournal.com/obituaries/article/obituaries_20061215/#]</ref>

• 2007

<ref> CBS News, September 28, 2007 [http://cbs5.com/local/caltrans.animal.dumping.2.460138.html]</ref>

• 19??

<ref>MILLER vs. FRANKLIN A. JONES [http://www.rickross.com/reference/adida/adida2.html], plaintiff alleging “When the young couple arrived at the Sanctuary on or about the evening of September 2, 1976 they were met by Craig Lesser… being advised by Lesser that MASTER DA himself used alcohol and drugs and that he required the use of drugs and alcohol by his disciples…”</ref>

<ref>Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [http://wwwdb.oscars.org:8100/servlet/impc.DisplayCredits?primekey_in=1999090822:29:4045-165891]</ref> and choreography of an Academy Awards Ceremony <ref>[http://www.kathysanson.com/resume.html]</ref>

<ref>[openjurist.org/.../national-labor-relations-board-v-tragniew-inc-tragniew-inc]</ref>

Nelson Mandela JDMC Global Corp., International Synergy Holding Co. [2]

I did this by hand. Is there a way to fix all of these without doing them one at a time by hand?

- Wikipedia:MOS This is our Manual of Style. It's huge, tedious, and cumbersome, but it does have some good stuff. If you want to see an example of what constitutes a well-constructed article, have a look at one of our Featured Articles (nobody expects you to turn this into an instant Featured Article, but you'll pick up some good cues from existing ones).

- Here is an excellent guite to writing an article well [3]. I would skip over the stuff in the beginning and go straight to the section "Manual of Style and criteria" and read on from there.

- WP:RS, this is a somewhat simplistic guide to what is and what is not considered a "Reliable Source" on Wikipedia. This will help you determine what you can and can't use.

- WP:N and WP:V These are links to the Notability and Verifiability policies, both core components of Wikipedia.

I'm usually busy during the day but I'll pop in tomorrow night and see how you're doing. I'd kinda like to help you improve this article yourself and learn those skills rather than just doing it myself. I'll make simple corrections here and there. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page, or if I'm not around and you need a quicker response, you can ask at Wikipedia:HELPDESK and someone there will try to help you out. For now though, goodnight. :-) <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You wrote - "learn those skills rather than just doing it myself". I agree. But sometimes (like learning how to get a simple picture up on Wikimedia Commons", learning a programming language, or being shown how to use a new computer for the first time) it is easier to learn by copying others' work, rather than trying to read a manual. I still can not figure out how to get the simplest image to stay up on Wikimedia commons! But I agree that I will be a better editor if others do NOT do all of the boring work for me (it is more fun to read and write facts than to format them correctly, or make them organized in a stylisticly good way). I am first going to try to remove all of the POV stuff I have in the article. I think some of this comes from me, and some from the news sources, since it seems that those writing the original news articles did so from a perspective of awe of just sitting and interviewing Lesser. Apparently in the 1950's and early 60's, Lesser was a kind of "richest-persons-in-the-world" type of celebrity, then he suddenly COMPLETELY dropped out of the news. This was at the time of the Jimmy Hoffa, Morris Shenker deals in Vegas. Lesser seems to have intenionally become invisisble in the press at the time of the sales of Casinos to Howard Hughes, and at the time of his work with Warren Buffet and Kirk Kerkorian (whoLesser was mentor to, according to two Los Angles billionaires I met and got to hear verbal stories from). I can't just call these guys up and ask for sources, since I would be lucky to ever get a few seconds of their time again. I will continue working to improve the article. My current strategy is to write smaller articles related to the sections, since each of the sections would make an ordinary person notable in and of themselves. I just wrote an article on the "first entire city built" stuff in the Arizona mining. I learned a lot about mining in doing so, and realized that what was going on was a making wealth by massively exploiting the non-renewable resources, which can't be repeated in history, because they simply used everything up, and turned non renewable resources into money. The most interesting thing abuot Lesser to me is the Zenith Refinery recycling operation in the San Ferndando Valley in 1975, which I remember hearing about as a kid, because my hippy parents were complaining about this rich guy polluting the air, and I thought all the LA air pollution was being caused by the Zenith Refinery. I am only now discovering that Lesser was invening the new field of recycling (and moving pollution operations into countries where you can get away with it!) HkFnsNGA (talk) 13:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Briefly (I'll be back tonight): To upload a file to Wikimedia commons and have it stick, you must either own the copyright yourself and be willing to license it under a free license, or it must unequivocally be in the public domain (due to age or as a work of the federal government) or be available from another author under a free (as in copyleft) license. It took me ages to figure out how to do this right, so don't feel bad about it. The sillier part is that the Commons naming conventions for licenses is sometimes different from Wikipedias. If you can tell me something about your images: a brief description of each, where they came from, how you obtained them, etc. I can probably tell you whether they will be acceptable for Commons and if so, which license to use. I also have email enabled on my account, so you can email me if you like. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 18:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

• Re Commons photo image stuff -
• 1. I have a cellphone picture of Lesser from last August.
• 2. I have a copy of the Annual Report handed out for Louis Lesser Enterprises, Inc., which was not copyrighted.
• 3. I have a photocopy of the LA Board of Supervisors Commendation of Lesser in 1961. HkFnsNGA (talk)

I also see you've figured out how to create sandboxes. You'll save yourself a million headaches that way. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a suggestion...

...I wouldn't consider this a high priority, but a good amount of the links to the Los Angeles Times articles you paid for (which I still don't understand why you did but that's a separate issue) are dead links to those of us who have not purchased the articles. I suggest either removing the links and just leaving them as bare newspaper citations, or at the least linking to a page where non-paid viewers can see an abstract. If you ask me, this says a lot more than a bare pay wall, which gives zero details about the article I'm trying to view. KuyaBriBri^Talk 22:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

• I wrote this below - "Still needing to be addressed is User:KuyaBriBri's comment that the references are pay-to-view, where some of the Google News Archive hits go to article titles and hint at the contents for free. I now think there shuold be a DOUBLE set of references, one for those who are interested enough that want to actually pay, and another for those who want to get an idea if they want to pay. So I will try to work up another set of refernces, one for each of the pay to view links, but to the info that is free." So there is much work still to be done... Who knows, if enough people contribute their time, maybe it will end up a featured article! (I am moving this small thread to the Louis Lesser article, in hopes others might help out with this "need for double references" concern.) HkFnsNGA (talk) 14:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I paid for them because I was point blank called a liar by another editor. I think that a historian using the article might be willing to pay for the links, so maybe it is best to keep them as I have them, but it is also pretty clear that I do not yet understand how Wikipedia works, or who it is intended for (like maybe real historians who would pay for a pay to view newspaper article are not the target audience Wikipedia is aimed at) so your opinion is probably right if it conflicts with mine. By the way, thank you for noting that my edit was made in good faith on that San Miguel article. Having skimmed WP:POV stuff, it is clear that my initial article was very "pro-Lesser". But having looked at how Lesser appears to have had no problem doing business with international bad guys of what might be called "historic bad-guy-ness", ever since the early 60's to at least early 90's, I am having troubel keeping anything I write from being the opposite POV of my initial article, or having any kind of neutrality at all, so I hope I am not going to be accused next of "Lesser-bashing", or at least bashing his business associates. So if you are checking my POV, you might want to look at my more recent edits (seriously), to make sure I am not being too negative, since I am having a hard time not putting in "little nasties" about some of Lesser's business associates, who no one forced Lesser to do business with. I don't intend to bash a 93 year old, but being 93 years old does not change history, and is not an excuse for whitewashing it. HkFnsNGA (talk) 22:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding linking to abstract pages on newspaper archive sites, those abstract pages, including the one I noted above, have a link to access the paid articles. But as I alluded to before, it's really a matter of style that may or may not be important.

The intended audience of the English Wikipedia, as I understand it, is the English-speaking general public. Specialized knowledge of any subject area covered by a Wikipedia article is the realm of scholarly journals, historical archives, etc. You say you do not understand how Wikipedia works. I've been a registered editor for over 3 years and have thousands of edits to my credit, and still learn new things about how this thing works all the time.

I will get to assessing your recent edits as I get time, but be advised, I may seek some advice either from uninvolved editors better versed in neutral point-of-view or BLP issues. If I do, I will post a note on Talk:Louis Lesser indicating that I have done so. KuyaBriBri^Talk 23:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Another note: Since you seem to be using a lot of newspapers as references, I suggest using refTools. To use it, click on the "my preferences" link located in the upper right corner of this screen, then the "Gadgets" tab, and check "refTools" and click "Save". This tool allows you to add citations in a preferred Wikipedia format just by inputting the necessary information into a bunch of fields instead of you having to code it into Wiki format. It also allows you to reuse named references more easily. I use this thing all the time and only rarely input references manually. I do recommend reading the documentation first, though. KuyaBriBri^Talk 23:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Just so you know, I skipped Thanksgiving, and called in to miss work today and tomorrow. And my girlfriend says I should request a block of myself on the admin page, since she is pissed that I have done nothing but edit since I first wrote the unsourced article, so I may need to disappear off Wiki for a few days, or at least see a psychiatrist about what appears to be becoming a compulsive disorder... editing articles. HkFnsNGA (talk) 23:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Hrm. Such requests are routinely denied. Try the WikiBreak Enforcer --StaniStani  00:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I see the problem is not me. The problem seems to be Wikipedia itself. Should I suggest Wikipedia shut iteslf down for a few days, just to allow people a choice if they want to return or not, or does Wikipedia not have its own emergent consciousness yet to make such a decision? HkFnsNGA (talk) 00:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• I read WikiBreak Enforcer. The fact that instead of going to work, or visiting a friend, or going to a strip joint, or eating, I read WikiBreak Enforcer is symptomatic of the problem. But it is not a problem with me. It is a problem with Wikipedia. Because WikiBreak Enforcer says "User can still view/edit as an anon through their IP Address". So the tool is completely useless. If I go to a friend's house, I will likely ask to use their computer. So if I am not blocked, I will call a vote for either blocking every user for a day, or of deletion of the entire Administrators Notice Board, until the "User can still view/edit as an anon through their IP Address" problem is fixed.

I am continuing this discussion on the Administrators Notice Board.HkFnsNGA (talk) 00:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Please take a break

I hope you were being facetious in your request at AN/I... if you were serious please shut the PC down, go to work in the morning and spend some time with your girlfirend. You should never put a website ahead of these things and especially skipping Thanksgiving. The article will not be deleted or go anywhere if you leave it for a few days. Others may even step in and work on imrpoving it. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• I took a break, for a half hour, and drove to McDonalds, then got take out, and broght it back and ate while I worked. Apparently, Lesser worked with Nelson Mandela in 1994. I found it on the internet. But I am not sure how reliable the source is. HkFnsNGA (talk) 06:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• Ok... well in any case you're moving way too fast and trying to do too much at once with this Lesser article for me to be of much help. Trying to write a huge article like this with barely any experience is not going to be a healthy exercise for you, especially if you're OCD. You really ought to limit yourself to a couple hours a day, my friend. You may want to consider asking formally for a mentor. Here is a list of experienced editors willing to adopt new editors and help guide them. [4] You would probably benefit from this, so please consider it. You have to learn the proper skillsets before taking on such a huge task. Paul Allen wouldn't have been able to write the software for the Apple II on his first day of taking up programming.

<>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks again. My adoption reqeusts are going in right now. I am looking for a mentor who knows about geology, civil engineering, architecture, landscaping, botany, structural engineering, ecological entineering, or has a general engineering background. I would like a mentor who likes articles with an overuse of outline format, with numbers and bullet points to find information for use as a REFERENCE encyclopedia, NOT one who likes expository writing styles written for enjoyment or to be easy to read from start to finsh. HkFnsNGA (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Advice taken. Logging out. HkFnsNGA (talk) 07:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

OK good. I have made some minor edits to the article. The main thing was to eliminate most of the subheads... it makes the article too choppy. Let's try to concentrate on cleaning up what we have so far rather than expanding it any more. I need to go to bed, but I'll try to sort your references in the next couple of days and make them conform to each other stylistically and in naming convention so it's cleaner. If you'd like to upload your cellphone image of Lesser to Commons (assuming you actually took the picture of him lie and it's not just a photo of another photo), I would do so by clicking "Upload a file", then clock "Entirely my work", then fill in the "date of work" (doesn't have to be exact, something like "Spring 2008" would be fine), add a BRIEF description of the image, then from the "license" pulldown select the license you want the image to appear (I suggest the one that says "Recommended") and then just click "upload file". Looks like you already uploaded the photo. Good night for now. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 08:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, it actually looks like a good article.

• Still needing to be addressed is User:KuyaBriBri's comment that the references are pay-to-view, where some of the Google News Archive hits go to article titles and hint at the contents for free. I now think there shuold be a DOUBLE set of references, one for those who are interested enough that want to actually pay, and another for those who want to get an idea if they want to pay. So I will try to work up another set of refernces, one for each of the pay to view links, but to the info that is free. HkFnsNGA (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The closure of your AN/I thread was no small hint: See a mental health professional. The problematic behaviors you described are consistent with several known conditions; a doctor will be able to help you to understand and manage them. Blocks and other forms of user account management are neither designed for nor proven to be effective in modifying behaviors. Regards, ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 09:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I was only half joking there. I really did skip over a week of my life to edit. But I am now of the opinion that people who compulsively work at jobs they hate every day, just to get a little more money to go shopping, instead of editing on Wikipedia for free, are the ones with a problem, not the other way around. OK, now back to editing... HkFnsNGA (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, just keep in mind that noticeboard posts that cry wolf are taken seriously here. Otherwise it looks like you've done some solid research for the article. Take your time and don't burn out ;) ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 01:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thnx.HkFnsNGA (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Improvements

I submitted Louis Lesser for WP:DYK so that it would appear on the main page but there are some issues with needing citations for a few specific statements. You're the expert here (and you have all the references), so if you'd care to add a few citations, that would be helpful. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK discussion is here [5]. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Louis Lesser

On December 6, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Louis Lesser, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 18:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Peninsular ranges

A tag has been placed on Peninsular ranges, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing no content to the reader. Please note that external links, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, interwiki link, rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article don't count as content. Moreover, please add more verifiable sources, not only 3rd party sources. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 08:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Traditional western medicine

I have been reading and re-reading this phrase you have written in the lead and I still am not sure how to understand it. It seems to have two possible meanings:

• "...and its use as evidence based medicine is common among practitioners of alternative medicine."

What do you mean with it? Can it be worded better to remove any ambiguity? -- Brangifer (talk) 17:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

BR, I agree it needs better wording. I am moving your comment from my own talk page to the Traditional western medicine talk page here[6].HkFnsNGA (talk) 18:59, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Please find sources before you add new content

I mentioned it before on the homeopathy talk, but forgot about it and the section was archived: you can't add unsourced material and template it with “citation needed” in hopes of somebody else coming around and finding sources for you. Please provide sources or self-revert, otherwise I'll revert your new addition to homeopathy because right now it reads like original research. --Six words (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. It was just elementary statistics, so I did not think it would in any way be controvertial. I put in the edit summary that I would be right back with citations. I will have them soon. On other articles, we have worked as a team to find references for uncontroversial material. What is the proper use of the "citation needed" tag. HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It's meant to be used when you read what someone else has written and think it needs a source. You titled this section “Why some tests of homeopathy indicate homeopathy is effective when it really is not” - that's not a neutral wording (as is the rest, e.g. “Even though homeopathy is false...”), and since we're not allowed to combine multiple sources to come to a certain conclusion you'll have to find at least one reliable source that supports the whole section. I'm off to bed now, but I'll try to give some more input on the homeopathy talk tomorrow. --Six words (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Archiving at Talk:Homeopathy

There is no need to manually archive old threads on the Talk:homeopathy page - they are automatically archived if inactive for a couple of weeks. Brunton (talk) 09:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC) " Thanks, I was just doing it manually so people did not waste time reading it, but I guess my "resolved" would have been enough.HkFnsNGA (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It's better than for them to waste time bringing the same matters up over and over again. Leaving recent threads on the talk page gives people an idea of what is currently being discussed. Brunton (talk) 10:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Request at WP:WQA

I don't think we can solve this on our own, so I've filed a request at Wikiquette alerts. Feel free to comment. --Six words (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Traditional western medicine

The article Traditional western medicine has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Issues of original research, synthesis, lack of sources, and fringe theories.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Sailsbystars (talk) 23:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Traditional western medicine for deletion

The article Traditional western medicine is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Traditional western medicine until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Sailsbystars (talk) 23:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Question?

I've found some of your commentary very interesting and your perspective thoughtful and detailed. I'm curious how all of the life experiences you've described bridge together. You wrote that, you are a Native American mathematician who used to teach for Cirque du Soleil, worked at Stanford and did doctoral work in philosophy analyzing statistics and logical fallacies, looked up to Huck Finn's slave as a child, and have processed 43 bad faith insurance claims. Barring the unusual fact that I've copied all of these to a single page, is there a common thread in that life experience? Or have you just been all over the place? (note, this is ostensibly personal or at least not relevant to any substantial editing, so you certainly don't have to respond or 'explain'. I'm mainly just curious how they all fit together). If you'd rather respond by email, it's wikiocaasi @ yahoo . com (no spaces) Ocaasi (talk) 04:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm only part Native Am (Apache), not full. Started math at age 14 with some high end mentors. First math, then phil, then engineering, then math stat, then data analysis and phil of it, then couldn't stand it anymore, and did botany, joined a dance company, and opened an art pawn shop. (Didn't analyze logical fallacies. Don't know where you got that. But know them when I see them.) Then got lucky at my other invention based businesses going on all along in parallel, then unlucky. (43 bad faith denial claims. Insurers are all in bad faith and automatically don't pay claims if they are high) Then fashion then ecology and politics then film and music production and entertainment. Then celebrity related stuff, and more far out unbelievable stuff. Editing at Wiki for relaxation. Like to live in the desert. No thread to it all. Huck Finn's Jim (not just "slave") was the voice of sanity in an insane world, totally uneducated but with wisdom and compassion and common sense - the world was upside down since he was called n----- to put him on the bottom, but he was the only one really on top of things, etc. Gotta read it again. I only taught clown as a substitute teacher for a few days, and that was as a joke by a slight of hand move to take over the class when the teacher got sick. Did alot of that kind of "just passing through" stuff. Absurdity is easy for simple desert mathematicians. Consider myself to be just starting out. No common thread to all of it (I did study "thread" in textiles reasearch) except for a string of luck. HkFnsNGA (talk) 05:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's really a lot of neat stuff. I have to sadly admit a mix of envy at your peripatetic, picaresque, Finnian existence--and an hint of regretful anticipation that your level of free-wheeling intellectual curiosity and engagement may sometimes be misread around here as 'just too much'. Wiki is a place where philosophers and artists go to die, but maybe you'll enjoy the diversion from normal craziness; I think I do. Ocaasi (talk) 05:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

If you check the history page, I put the "just do it!" at the top of WP:Bold, and recommend it as a way to work of your morning ten cups of coffee (it also helps to rise before the sun does each day). I have actually got alot out of editing here as a relaxation tool during work breaks. I have also found the attitude of Wp:assuming good faith and WP:civility to have actually changed me outside of Wiki. Are we allowed to use our personal talk page for chat? HkFnsNGA (talk) 05:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

We can definitely chat like this, and I've never seen it be a problem when it involves introductions, basic info, specific topics, talk about subjects, talk about Wikipedia etc. Policy is pretty open-ended in that regard. As long as at some point you're here to work on the encyclopedia, which I think undoubtedly applies to us both, talking is just a way to get to know other editors. Very rarely someone is blocked because they do nothing but talk with friends; I'd say it's off the radar. Some people value this chatting thing more than others; some think it's pretty essential to doing good work. I've found that as much as arguments should be about policy and not people, it's much much much easier not to assume bad faith when you've gotten a little background info/discussion in with another editor. Substantially more personal discussions are generally encouraged to be done via email, etc. simply because they are so public and it's likely some people you would never expect are reading this. Ocaasi (talk) 06:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

• From WP:User pages: The Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption.
• (On the other extreme) from WP:NOTFACEBOOK: Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog or to post your resume, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet or any hosting included with your Internet account. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. Humorous pages that refer to Wikipedia in some way may be created in an appropriate namespace, however. Ocaasi (talk) 06:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
• This is also insightful but likewise shows no problem with convos like these. Wikipedia:Here_to_build_an_encyclopedia Ocaasi (talk) 06:27, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

"Foundation for effective collaboration" is pretty broad, so I'll go with that. HkFnsNGA (talk) 06:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Great response

[7] Thanks. My patience was wearing a bit thin. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thnx. HkFnsNGA (talk) 13:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Pointing to posts

HkF, better when referring people to a discussion to just use a link like, 'Ocaasi recommended I ask you'. People really prefer posts that are under, say 5 lines, 2 or 3 if possible. They're just easier on the eyes (and brain). Ocaasi (talk) 03:14, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Got it, good point, thanks. HkFnsNGA (talk) 03:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I refactored your post on Arthur's talk page to keep the question but not involve as much external stuff. That's not a traditional thing to do (editing someone else's post) but since we were talking about it and I didn't change your meaning at all, I think you'll be okay with it. If not, you can change it to whatever you want. Ocaasi (talk) 03:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all (ever), attempts at intended helpulness are always welcome (especially if they are actually helpful too, like yours is) , but I might have just accidentally undone your refactoring in an edit conflict. HkFnsNGA (talk) 03:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

January 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions. However, I noticed that your username (HkFnsNGA) may not meet Wikipedia's username policy because it it is offensive and will create a hostile environment to blacks. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. As an alternative, you may ask for a change of username, or you may simply create a new account and use that for editing. Thank you. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I will remove the explanation from my user page. I only put it there because no one could figure out what HkFnsNGA was an abbreviation for. Jim (HkFnsNGA) was my childhood role model.

Huck Finn's Jim, was my childhood role model of honesty, compassion, wisdom, and common sense. This is a term of endearment in my culture. My cousin would be offended if I said "what's up N-word?", but the correct, non-PC expression indicates familiarity. NGA is ambiguous and vague, and I keep being asked what my nick means, since no one can figure it out. I am also part Apache "Injun". Would you prefer "HkFnsNword", or "Honest Injun with common sense and compassion", over "HkFnsNGA? There is, right now, much outrage all over the news about proposals to delete my nick from the Huckleberry Finn novel. Per your comment, I eliminated the "explanation" from my user page, so it is vague as to what it means again. Hope that resolves things. HkFnsNGA (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid it doesn't. You won't be able to un-ring the bell now that you have explained clearly what it is meant to mean. Unlike in the real world, we don't have a double standard on who is allowed to use this word, it is never acceptable as a user name. I happen to agree with you about Jim and the ridiculous PC hysteria calling for erasing the word from the novel, but that is an entirely separate issue from your username here on Wikipedia. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I whitewashed it out. I really don't understand why "NGA" is offensive and "Nword" is not. More people know what the latter refers to by far. HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion "N-word" would also not be acceptable either. What we are looking for is a name that does not reference "n-----" in any way. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I said "Nword", not "N-word". I have my own family's values to uphold at stake in this. HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was good for a laugh. You insist in maintaining a user name that you admit references an offensive term yet you censor my remarks when I use it in the context of explaining why it is offensive. Clearly you understand what the problem is if you would do such a thing. Your families values do not grant you an exemption to our username policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have the same POV on the novel censorship as I do, so we should be able to reach agreement. Let me read the policy and respond. HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

HkF, even if you meant to refer to 'injun' it would still be butting up against the username policy. What about HkFnsN, with the N standing for "Nation", the great American tableau in which your favorite novel takes place. Can we work with that? Ocaasi (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but I only had one childhood role model who was not a joke. The great American tableau Twain painted only had one reasonable person in it that I remember. That's why what he was called was so topsy turvey. ("Injun" is supposed to offend me, too, not just n---.) HkFnsNGA (talk) 05:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggested "N" as my user name at the discussion. HkFnsNGA (talk) 05:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops. While these last two posts were being made I was seeking wider input at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names. We can hold off on that for a minute if you are in fact willing to propose alternative names. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I read the relevant part that says "Offensive usernames are those that offend other contributors". So howabout if it offends contributors (plural) I agree to change it. I really doubt it is one that will offend other contributors (or users, to broaden it as it was likely intended to be). People I know are not offended... rather they think I am being pompous in assuming it. No one I know has any idea what it means unless I explain it. HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• If you want to have others review it, I request that you not interpret it for them. HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Even if it were HkFnsNGA was intelligable (anyone who figured it out had to have read the book, and likely thinks me pompous, and are not offended), there is a big difference between these three consonant expressions, "ngr" and "nga". HkFnsNGA (talk) 01:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Please make comments only at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names, not on this page. HkFnsNGA (talk) 05:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Ethics of belief

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Ethics of belief requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Content added. construction and stub tabs added. HkFnsNGA (talk) 18:42, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hang on}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion, or "db", tag; if no such tag exists, then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hang-on tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Content added. HkFnsNGA (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Name

I have to give a nod to the new moniker. Much easier to spell. Ocaasi (talk) 16:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I never spell. I use cut and paste. I was worried new moniker would be found "offensive", too, "pee-pee doo-doo". It is based on my other two childhood role models, Peter Pan (PP), and Donald Duck (dd). Regarding "pee-pee doo-doo", this really happened. I was with a new girlfriend named "Kaki" (a nick for Catherine). I was with Kaki and ran into an ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend, Poopi, at a revival movie theater. I introduced Kaki to Poopi by pointing from Kaki to Poopi and back, saying "Kaki, Poopi. Poopi, Kaki" (true story). That's how I thought up "PPdd". PPdd (talk) 16:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, and here I assumed it meant "palladium in the public domain". - 2/0 (cont.) 19:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

File:Pato Lucas.JPG

I'm not the real Daffy Duck

My first book as a child was a children's illustrated book of Greek Mythology. Pallas Athena (palladium) was my favorite character, and would have been my first role model, but I thought "she's a girl" (again, true story). And the Palladium was where my (groupie) mother took me to my first concert, one of my earliest childhood memories. So you were almost right. Unfortunately, most Daffy Duck images are not in the public domain, so WP:Commons pretty much does not have the real Daffy Duck, like a shopping mall does not have the real Santa (my fourth and final childhood role model). PPdd (talk) 20:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's much better. A name is like a doorknob, and if people have a hard time getting hold of it and turning it, ..... IOW, if they have a hard time pronouncing it, they are less likely to contact you. Even here it was a mental stumbling block. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit summary

Please remember to always write an edit summary. To make it easier to remember, you can set your preferences to prompt you for one. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Eeks, I forgot. I will read up on how to set my preferences on this. PPdd (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Preference set. Thanks.

I set it and saved, and it shows as set, but it is not promting me. ??? I will leave the edit summary blank for this edit to test it again. PPdd (talk) 02:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

You may have to clear your cache for it to take effect. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Where can I read about clearing my cache? PPdd (talk) 02:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It depends on your browser. What do you use? --Brangifer (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I have mentioned you ...

... in an ANI report. See WP:ANI#Homeopathy. Please see WP:Homeopathy#Objection to the nonsense poll above for the reasons why I think you should remove most of the identical talk page sections that you have created recently. There is no danger of the homeopathy article being taken over by homeopaths. Large-scale canvassing of this kind is totally inappropriate. Hans Adler 10:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Before notifying relevant Wikiprojects (and I presume by the same reasoning, article talk pages related to the RS debate) I was explicitly told by an admin that it was appropriate to do so here[8]

"How do I "inform a Wikiproject"? I would have liked to do so in several articles, but is this not WP:Canvassing? HkFnsNGA (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi! No it isn't, quite the opposite: wikiprojects exist exactly to provide help from editors who specialize or anyway care about a subject. You just go to the desired wikiproject talk page, open a new section and ask with a neutral message for help. --Cyclopia^talk 23:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)]".

After the notifications I was again told by an admin it was "reasonable" here[9],

"I put a notice to please vote at a Wikiproject to which the article belonged. I was told that this is the appropriate place to request votes, though I was told to be neutral and should not express a POV as to how to vote. Did I make a mistake? PPdd (talk) 02:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It is reasonable to post a link to the WikiProject; it is also good form to post a note at the discussion saying that you did so. (There might be an expectation that members of the project would tend vote in a block (true or not), and it's good to be completely open about how a discussion has been publicised.) LadyofShalott 02:50, 3 February 2011 (UTC)"

PPdd (talk) 13:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

About socking and POV-pushing

I would have thought that the wikiquette alert made you realise accusing other editors of POV-pushing doesn't help maintaining a collaborative atmosphere at article talks. I've followed the article and talk page for quite some time (though I haven't always actively contributed) and don't have the feeling that George is a sock. I think he previously posted there as anon editor, but that's totally acceptable. If you have proof to the contrary, you should bring that to WP:SPI (don't forget to notify the user of your report). Both you and George seem to have a strong POV, so neither of you should accuse the other of POV-pushing, instead stay calm and comment on content. If you feel you no longer can, either discuss it in an appropriate forum (such as SPI for suspected sockpuppets, WQA for civility problems, ...) or call it a day and start fresh the next morning, week, .... For all I know George is a newbie, but you should really know better by now. --Six words (talk) 23:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The fact that he says he "has nothing to do with homeopathy", with a contribution record that shows only homeopathy talk page edits is suspicious, given the extensive nature of his edits. The fact that he shifts back and forth between ignorance of WP policies and guidelines, and sophisticated knowledge of them, has sophisticated knowledge, was more suspicious for a completely new editor who has made no edits at all. Anoter suspicious thing was that he started editing at talk. I first edited for a long time before I even knew that there was a talk page. I accept your "anon" editor hypothesis that assumes good faith. PPdd (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems you're not paying attention to what Six words is saying. You need to read and understand the talk page guidelines. Article talkpages are not the place for discussions of socking or other aspects of editor behaviour. This is especially true for controversial pages, such as Homeopathy. If you think there is a case to be made that someone is socking, by all means make the case, but do it in the right way and the right place. If you aren't sure how to go about the process you can ask for wp:Help or read through some recent cases at wp:SPI before starting. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I never ran into this situation before. I mostly just did content editing before I experienced the pseudoscience articles, and I stayed off the talk pages. I will just drop it for now. PPdd (talk) 06:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Reference

Were you trying to add a third reference here? If so, which one? If you are going to use the <ref name = tag for repeating references, you need to include a name. The name itself (what comes after the = sign) doesn't matter. The important thing is you need at least one instance with a full citation, all other citations must have only the ref name and a closing slash, thus:

First citation.<ref name = bob>{{cite book | title = Bob's book | last = Boberson | first = B | publisher = Bob's Books }}</ref> Second citation.<ref name = bob/> (note the slash between "bob" and the >). This renders as:

First citation. Second citation.

This is something that becomes second nature, but the first couple times are tricky. You used to have to be careful about using quotations but apparently not anymore. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:30, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. No third reference. I was just happy to find RS for "based on Chinese astrology", which is how I would have characterized it, but I could not find any RS using words like mine until NIH (but their "findings" are ridiculous... so maybe I should look in the mirror). PPdd (talk) 01:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I put a reflist below so folks can check your RS to Bob's book, just to make sure your not trying to pull something off here. :) PPdd (talk) 01:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem was you forgot the closing slash - most tags (like <i><b><u><nowiki><ref>) need a closing tag incorporating a slash to show where to stop italicizing, underlining, referencing, etc. Moved the reflist, otherwise it gets messy if more people incorporate comments. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:50, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

That was not the first time I forgot to close a ref. I must have a blindspot. Thanks. PPdd (talk) 01:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a single character and it's not intuitive. Made the same mistake myself when I first started editing - very common. Again, if you have any questions or are having any technical problems, I am happy to help. I genuinely enjoy doing so, often learn something new, and am around here way too much. It's normally a lot quicker than digging through policies and instructions. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will return your favor to the next new editor I come across. PPdd (talk) 01:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I added you to my user page's "helpful editors" list while back. PPdd (talk) 01:59, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Anthroposophical Medicine

Your input on this article could be beneficial. Thanks. Desoto10 (talk) 04:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I read the article, but there is no content. For all that I can tell, it seems to be a group of doctors who are also adherants to a minor religion, but in no other way differs from Christian medicine, Islamic medicine, or Singularitarian medicine (I am a Singularitarian). What is Anthroposophical Medicine? PPdd (talk) 05:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I deleted nonWP:MEDRS medical claims which had as sources self-published, self-promoting in-house "medical" journals. My deletions were reverted with a request "to discuss". It is my understanding that the burden to find MedRS is on the editor who wants to insert the claim, not on the deleting editor. The editor provided no talk page assertions as to how any of the sources met WP:MedRS. PPdd (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I did some work on the article and think it is NPOV enough that both sides will like it, and a reader will have some idea about what it is. PPdd (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

cheers for the good work on the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope it makes the article more understandable. PPdd (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Great job! I think the article finally reflects what AM is. I especially admire the even-handed manner in which you handled your edits. Thanks, Desoto10 (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Homeopathy (journal) poll

I didn't comment on this earlier because I thought this poll was started by George - while I didn't think it was a question difficult enough to need a RFC, if George wanted “outside views” I wouldn't deny them to him. Now, seeing the “full picture”, I agree with Hans. This poll did nothing to cool down the situation, and its only aim was to shut up an editor with a different POV. Giving it a rather polemic heading, a question that could have been answered in a few carefully worded sentences was changed into a meaningless “vote” (coming to think of it I should have wondered why George wanted to know if the journal was an acceptable source for “physics conclusions”). Hans did a pretty good job explaining why it was useless in the first place, but I want to add that even if this was a sensible poll, we still couldn't expect that from now on nobody will ask for “Homeopathy” journal articles to be included. It's in the nature of the project that inexperienced users will ask questions the regulars have already answered numerous times; be nice and explain it once again. If that doesn't satisfy the newcomer, you can also suggest that for longer explanations they can search the archives (or link to the relevant archive). While I think our personal views on homeopathy are pretty similar, I don't agree with your conduct at all. Perhaps you're not aware of that, but the article has been to ArbCom - please familiarise yourself with the "case" and (especially!) with the remedies ArbCom proposed. This is just a friendly warning, I hope it helps making the homeopathy talk a place for civil discussion once again. --Six words (talk) 10:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, and LOL. I hope you don't mind that I just [very slightly modified your edit] to try to one-up your finishing joke by making it consistent with the homeopathy article on "remedies". PPdd (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Canvasing... or not

PPdd, I noticed that several people think you are canvasing. I don't think that was your intent... but I can understand why they feel this way. It is more how you notified people of the discussion than the fact that you did so. By cut and pasting your argument from WP:IRS (and including my replies) to WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV you came across as if you were making an argument and asking for support, rather than neutrally informing people of a debate. For the future, A shorter notice would have been better... something along the lines of:

• "There is a discussion at WP:MEDRS <link> relating to when and how "alternative science journals" should be discussed and cited in articles. I think this discussion relates to both WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV, so please drop by and add your comments"

That's really all you needed to say. and fewer people would have thought you were canvassing. Blueboar (talk) 21:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know why they feel that way, since the matter was already discussed here[]. I only know of one editor, Hans Adler, who has so accused me, repeatedly, and has multiply accused me of misrepresentation and bad faith and other foul names. His lack of civility is disrupting the discussions, by filling them with irrelevant defences against charges of bad faith (and is done in violation of assuming WP:GF) in my edits, especially since I explained myself, and got no apology or response as at the top small notes here.

Canvassing was already discussed with him here[10] and "misrepresentation" at the top notes here[11].

What I did was the opposite of canvassing. It is appropriate to post notice at WikiProjects, that is what Projects are for. If this was all I did, I know the projects would side with my own POV. So I also posted at relevant talk pages which will certainly be affected by a change in MEDRS, with editors who have the opposite POV as I have, in fairness to them, so they, too, can participate in a discussion that will affect the. This is the opposite of canvassin.

I will shorten my notices in the future (but Hans will likely, once again, accuse me of canvassing). PPdd (talk) 21:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Subpages

Have you looked into subpages? I've made this suggestion at talk:acupuncture and on my talk page already but you might find it an easier approach to editing. It would allow you to essentially tabulate your thoughts and work in progress without having to worry about the sourcing standards, policies and guidelines that apply to mainspace. Just a thought... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. This seems like a better place to put NRS stuff awaiting RS input. PPdd (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that with much input by many editors, the acupuncture article is much more plain English readable, less ambiguous with ever shifting definitions, but still needs more NPOV and plain English on theory and practice. PPdd (talk) 18:58, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem is, I don't know if you'll ever find sources to substantiate your points. There is definitely tiers or divisions of acupuncture - electroacupuncture that is basically TENS, traditional acupuncture based on Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Tibetan perspectives, medical acupuncture, dry needling, acupuncture with and without qi, meridians and acupuncture points that could fall into a broad range of categories. However, per WP:OR, we are not supposed to make up definitions for pages or apply our own reasoning process. This is frustrating and aggravating since there are obvious divisions that can and shoudl be established for both wikipedia and research on acupuncture, but we can't do it. An ideal reserach program would test a) whether acupuncture points exist b) whether meridians exist c) whether qi exists d) whether any of these concepts are specific to body locations d) whether these concepts map to TCM e) whether there is benefit to sticking someone with a needle f) whether there is benefit to poking someone with a needle g) whether there are specific anatomical structures that do "benefit" from being poked h) whether any benefit is due to placebo effects or actual interventions. Each requires different questions to be asked, different patient groups, different tests, different materials, etc. But until someone else does these tests or asks these questions, we're rather stuck - unless you can get all the editors to agree that we should ignore the rules. Good luck with that, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't agree. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

When I first came to the article, I could not even read it, since the inline cited sources seemed to support each sentence, but I did not yet realize how much the various usages of "acupuncture", "needling", "placebo", "efficacy", and "need for further research" were mixed and matched for various POVs in the article. But I sourced it all, summing up a lede paragraph from only article body usages (there may be more such differering usages), and RS from the article body. I actually read many of the sources cited in the body (i.e., wasted my time on behalf of WP). That's how I figured out all of the various uses of "acupuncture", which I took from the body and summed up in the lede. I have yet to put in the "acupuncture" as "electroacupuncture", since I have not read the source to see if it uses only the expression "acupuncture" to refer to it, but it probably does in the alt med jounrals, as it is prime pseudoscience to use "electricity and magnatism" and scientific looking "experiments" on E&M to confer the appearance of scientific legitimacy. (E&M has recently been upgraded to using "quantum effects" for this purpose.) PPdd (talk) 19:51, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Email

Please go to your preferences and activate your email, and do it soon! -- Brangifer (talk) 18:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to create a wiki email address. The preference tab requires me to already have one in order to activate it. PPdd (talk) 18:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You must have an email account somewhere, don't you? Just use it.

You can also create a special one. Gmail is a good place do to that. Just go here:

• http://mail.google.com/mail/signup

You could make an account for just Wikipedia and call it wikippdd@gmail.com or something like that. Once created you can even have it forward those mails to your main email account so you won't have to always check to see if you've gotten mail from Wikipedia. It is often necessary to communicate by email, and sometimes immediately. For example, we can help one another from getting into trouble. If I see you are starting to irritate someone (maybe they are even reporting you somewhere without your knowledge), I can help you to not offend them by giving you a friendly warning off-wiki, thus not offending anyone at all. Wikipedia is better off if we can avoid drama and defuse situations. I'd appreciate such a mail from you if you observed such a thing happening. Right now there's a situation I'd like to discuss off-wiki, and right away. You can contact me by my email. Just write "acu". -- Brangifer (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Done (at last). PPdd (talk) 20:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Good. BTW, I got your notice on my talk page twice. I left a message in my edit summary to always place at the bottom. Don't you read edit summaries? You need to look at the edit history, often before actually looking at the page. That tells you what's really going on. That's the difference between a casual reader of Wikipedia and an editor. Editors use the edit history and read the edit summaries, usually before replying. That avoids lots of misunderstandings. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:08, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I will try to look at edit summaries more. Where do I post my email address? PPdd (talk) 20:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You don't post it publically, unless you want every bozo in the world to be able to contact you. I'd remove it from view, unless you don't care. You see, only registered users can use the email feature, and normally only they deserve that privilege. Maybe you have no need for privacy, so you can then post it on your userpage. Some people do that. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry

For the record, I'd like to say I seriously regret encouraging you to edit Acupuncture go for it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

? PPdd (talk) 01:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the nature of a neutral article or neutral tone. Acupuncture is a placebo (with the possible exception of pain and nausea) and its rationale is hokus pokus. That can be conveyed in a neutral voice. The approach you are taking will tend to make the article look polemical and biased. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I was asked to help out on anthroposophical medicine, a much more simple article, and got yelled at in the beginning, but ended up with this[12], then this[13], and then this[14]. Please don't give up on me just yet. :) PPdd (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I will try my darndest to prove you wrong. LOL. :) PPdd (talk) 02:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I am seconding Anthony's comment, but with a pretty big caveat (one I think he would agree with). Your intentions are great, but your grasp of WP:NPOV is, in my opinion, shaky. I would highly, highly recommend reading that page repeatedly. It's not your fault, NPOV is a very easy policy to misunderstand. It's even harder to implement. I encourage you to keep trying, but please please please spend some time reading and thinking about NPOV, with the recognition that a neutral depiction must give due weight to the idea that even though it is a prescientific intervention with a nonsense theory, there are a large number of experts who think it has merit as an actual treatment, independent of placebo. They are probably wrong, but they think it and publish articles along this vein. I know I'm repeating myself, I'm trying to preserve your interest and enthusiasm for editing while giving you as much feedback as I can, from as many different directions I can think of, to enforce the importance of NPOV and the difficulty of editing towards it. I think your results at AM indicates you can reach an understanding of NPOV that is in keeping with that of other experienced editors, but it'll take both time and a thorough reading of the relevant sources. Please don't be discouraged, but please also slow down a little! The best articles are written slowly, with a lot of discussion and careful parsing of individual sources. And if anyone calls you a vandal, laugh at them. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually very pleased to see you here, and hope you achieve the aim we all share for the article. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks AC. PPdd (talk) 17:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

WLU, given the nature of your comments, I believe that if anyone understands WP:Civil and WP:GF, its you. After my experiences at alt med articles, I have come to a POV that NPOV, GF, and CIVIL are life projects to carry out inside WP and outside of it. If anyone calls me a vandal, I now will either look at myself and try to see if it is a correct accusation, or try to make friends with them and modify my edit style to try to change their mind if it is not. PPdd (talk) 17:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Ha, I laugh at your assessment given the number of people I've sworn at in the past year alone. Actually, you're probably never going to be a vandal on wikipedia. Vandalism is defined as a deliberate attempt to worsen wikipedia. People who think they're improving wikipedia by pushing a POV are not vandals, but they are misguided. They become problematic if they continue to push their POV despite the appropriate P&G being pointed out to them.

I will note that civility begets civility. There's an account I'm arguing with over at AIDS denailism who is extremely civil, extremely wrong, and extremely aggravating because if they were a giant dick we could simply block them for civility violations and not have to deal with their bullshit. Giant dickery is much easier to deal with civil POV pushing. Instead there is the great kraken of WP:ANI to wrestle into a clear consensus on a page ban. If you want truly civil accounts, talk to user:TimVickers or User:SandyGeorgia - I've never, ever seen the latter lose her cool. But my original point that I lost track of was despite the douchebaggy POV pushing, despite really really wanting to use profanity, I'm extraordinarily polite because the account is. I want to start a flame war, but that superficial politeness is some lovely wallpaper covering up the rot in the wall. Still makes living with the rot slightly more pleasant. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I recall backing the second real president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, who then turned around and denied HIV as the cause of AIDS; giant dick?

Giant dicks I have met [15], [16], and [17]. PPdd (talk) 18:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Acupuncture

This indicates that there is no need to mention this study since it didn't work better than other method. What's the actual wording from the study that you're looking at? -- Brangifer (talk) 01:24, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

"We included 40 trials involving 4858 participants… Compared with sham treatment P6 acupoint stimulation significantly reduced: nausea (RR 0.71, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.83); vomiting (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.83), and the need for rescue antiemetics (RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.83)… There was no clear difference in the effectiveness of P6 acupoint stimulation… for invasive and noninvasive acupoint stimulation. There was no evidence of difference between P6 acupoint stimulation and antiemetic drugs in the risk of nausea (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.60 to 1.13), vomiting (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.31), or the need for rescue antiemetics (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.59 to 1.13). The side effects associated with P6 acupoint stimulation were minor. There was no evidence of publication bias from contour-enhanced funnel plots."[18]. That included a funnel plot analysis. So it looks like there is something near one point; the aqnalysis indicates that something would be found near P6 in an anatomic study. But I make often make mistakes, so maybe I misread this. I put more deatail here[19]. PPdd (talk) 01:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

There can be confounders and maybe one could have gotten the same effect with sham acupuncture or needles placed nearby. We don't know. There's nothing to indicate that there might be any anatomical difference in the tissue. Whatever. I'll let others object if they feel like it. On another point, devoting a whole section header to one point is a bit much. It should be included, at best, in a paragraph of similar material, not by itself. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I already suggested some possible confounders on the talk page, "I have not yet read the systematic reviews of acupuncture studies on this, but I wonder at the outset if in some of the reviewed studies, how there could not be a confounding of side effets of pain meds and nausea meds. To do a proper study withou such confounding, a post-op antiemetic would have to be given to a patient deprived of pain meds, which would be unethical. Similarly, acupuncture might have been given for pain control and nausea control at the same time, so there was no nausea from pain meds, and then this was compared with pain and nausea meds given at the same time. I cannot think of an ethical study being done in another way, but I may be wrong. "[20], but my speculation is OR and just a speculation, and I am trying to stricly stick to the sources.

Right now I can't think of any possibilities other than confounders or some kooky actual anatomical body part where "the hand bone is connected to the... stomach bone". If the article was my own web page, I would put the criticism section first, and put my rational speculations about confounders in it. PPdd (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

There's an even more fundamental reason not to use that source...it's a primary source! We're supposed to use reviews of many primary MEDRS on a single matter (for example many primary studies of just this one precise acupuncture point) in medical articles, and for non-medical subjects we still use secondary sources. Primary sources are rarely allowed, so please just revert yourself.If we allowed primary sources the article would have thousands of refs, often conflicting. The one place where primary sources are allowed are for documenting the opinions of a person in their own article, otherwise we use sources independent of the person ("secondary") who report on their views, quote them, and tell about them. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a secondary source, the Cochrane Collective itself, which is why I think there is something to it, as Cochrane usually takes into account and reports possible confounders. It is a secondary source systematic review of 40 primary source studies... unless I am getting tired. PPdd (talk) 03:08, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

You're right! I'm the one who is tired. Somehow I got confused. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Watch out, as I am very competitive when it comes to making the most tired mistakes. When I was a statistician at stanf, I would make a big public boo-boo, and say "errors are my fortè". I also loudly yell out incorrect "corrections" of lecturers at lectures, and walk into door jambs and things (as I put it, "a mathmatician always misses the door"). One of my boo-boos almost made someone's eyes roll so hard that I almost had to loan him my sharpened pencil to pry them back down. :) PPdd (talk) 03:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Correcting my error above, "errors are my fortè" should be errors are my fortė". Don't say I didn't warn you. PPdd (talk) 22:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

(I swear I am not doing this on purpose) - now " errors are my fortė' " should be " 'errors are my fortė' ". I forgot the scare quote in the biginning fixing my first error. PPdd (talk) 22:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

TB lessons from WLU

WLU, did I use TB correctly this time? PPdd (talk) 19:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Who are you asking and where should one look? Please provide more info and some links. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to make an orange box pop up on WLU's pages he is viewing. He said not to put such notice for posts on his own page, but only for posts on my own or other talk pages, but you can answer. When I put TB in a lower section of your talk page, did you get an orange box at the top of whatever page you were viewing? PPdd (talk) 20:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not the TB that makes the orange bar appear, but the fact that you make an edit to the user's talk page. That immediately notifies the editor that someone's left a message for them. It will appear the next time they update any page at Wikipedia. It won't appear as long as they are just editing or looking at a page, but the moment they update the page or change pages it will appear. It's not necessary to use the TB unless you need to quickly draw their attention to an edit on your own talk page. Since that involves an edit on their talk page, you can use the TB or just leave a note. Either will work. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks again. PPdd (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I have two more "experienced wikipedian" suggestions for you (i.e. two things I've done which I found pretty handy). First, spend some time checking out the options available to you in "My preferences". The appearance and location varies depending on your skin, but mine (which is still on the default setting I think) appears as blue link saying "My preferences" at the top-right part of the page after I log in. Clicking on it brings you to a set of 10 tabs, the 6th one in (for me) is "Watchlist" and one of the options is "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" - just click it and every page you edit you will automatically watch (and the talk page as well). Second, I highly recommend exploring the tools available to you. I use Popups, which works on every platform I've tried it with (including IE 6 which I am often forced to use). There's lots of them, I wish I could run Twinkle 'cause it seems pretty handy, but I've found at least popups to be really useful. If I've never directed you to User:WLU/Generic sandbox, you may want to give it a read. With 4K worth of edits, you've probably got enough experience to recognize a lot of it but you still might learn something new (and it's good exposure to the less formal aspects of wikipedia). Plus, I think it's funny and I mock Jimmy Wales a couple times. I'm always looking for feedback on it too, so if you have any comments or suggestions feel free to drop me a note. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I have one more suggestion - archiving your talk page. If you want some easy fun, you could try installing and configuring MiszaBot. Apparently you're supposed to use MiszaIII for user talk pages. I recommend it! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again. Pages I edit to watchlist checked. Popups checked. About to read gen sand and miszabot. PPdd (talk) 02:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

If you do add Misza to your talk page, note that it won't kick in right away so if you have any errors in the config, it may take a couple days to fix it. Honestly, when I'm adding it to a new page I simply copy and paste what's on my talk page (it's invisible, to see it you have to edit the very top section of my talk page and it'll be right at the top of the edit pane. Also note - there is an option in preferences that lets you edit the lead in the same way you can edit a section below. INCREDIBLY handy, you don't have to edit the whole page just to tweak the lead. For me the option appears in the "Gadgets" tab of "My preferences" but I don't know what you may or may not have to have enabled for it to appear as an option. The option itself is "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page".) WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:18, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I checked the edit the lede box but it is not working. Do I need to clear the cache, or wait a few days for it to kick in? (still working on your other suggestions.) PPdd (talk) 06:13, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Did you click save at the bottom of the screen? Otherwise I'm not sure, that should kick in right away and (on my screen) an edit button appears on the right hand side of the screen across from the page title. I turned it off then back on, so long as I click save there's not much more to it I'm aware of. If you have any more problems, it may be due to the gadgets you have installed. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Its clicked and saved, but there is no "[[edit]]" at the right of the lede section, but there is for each other section and subsection. PPdd (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC) I cleared cache and it started working. PPdd (talk) 14:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Ocaasi hat at pseudoscience

Ocaasi, I am raising this here because it is not worth having pseudoscience warriors start an endless debate. I put the {{See|Junk science|Pathological science|Voodoo science}} WP:HAT on pseudoscience becuase per WP:HAT, "Hatnotes are... laced at the top of an article... to help readers locate a different article they might be looking for when they arrived at the article in which the hatnote is placed". The articles I put in the hat are frequently used as synonyms for pseudoscience. (So is Hoodoo science, an expression used by right wingers about some pseudoscientific methods used in race reltion debates.) The "See also" section is for related articles. PPdd (talk) 05:41, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Please put talkback headers in their own talk section rather than at the top of page. Don't have a great reason why, it's just less intrusive, and others will probably expect that too. Also, try Template:Whisperback, which is extra classy.

No problem discussing this away from the article, although we can't claim it as a consensus either way. The problem with the hatnotes is that the sub-articles you linked to are extremely similar to the psuedoscience article; I would argue (as Ludwigs has) that they're either synonyms, or that they are mere subsets of pseudoscience. Either way, that makes them in my mind, lower on the tier and 'related' rather than 'replacement'. They are also very uncommonly used terms, so the value of having them prominently linked at the top of the page seems slight to me. And I do think they read like a few extra pot-shots, listing synonyms or anti-scientific epithets at the top of what is otherwise trying to be an academic page. List them in the lead, put them in See Also, but I'd prefer to avoid a hatnote where I think few readers would actually, in practice, be mistaken. (As in, literally, Oh, i was looking for voodoo science but instead I found pseudoscience. darn.") I don't think that will happen, pretty much ever.

P.S. Why are you calling it hoo doo not voo doo? Ocaasi (talk) 17:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• I came to pseudoscience with an intent to make an edit about a Colorado national keynote address by the president of the Association of Engineering & Environmental Geologists using pathological science and pseudoscience in engineering geology and in the courts, which was not called "junk science", but rather "pseudoscience" there, so WP:HAT, "Hatnotes are... laced at the top of an article... to help readers locate a different article they might be looking for when they arrived at the article in which the hatnote is placed", directly applied to my case.
• In my circles, which include this[21], pseudoscience is either a subset of pathological science, as in the linke, or a synonym. I disagree with Nicholas Turro (a very smart guy), however, who uses[22] the Black's Law Dictionary legal definition of "bad faith" to subsume pseudoscience under as always just fraud, which lead to my re-writing the bad faith article.
• "Hoodoo science" is used interchangeably with "pseudoscience" in right wing intellectual discussions of the science of sociology, as here[23].
• I accidentally left out "Voodoo science" from the hat, which is a synonym used most often regarding the science of economics, popularized by George Bush's lambasting or Reaganomics, which Busch later adopted.
• I also wanted to do an edit about this[24] kind of pseudoscience, but I don't know which article to put it in.
• Since in the (fairly conventional) circles I travel in, all these terms are used interchangeably, I think all the articles should be merged, to avoid almost certain redundancy at WP. PPdd (talk) 18:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that if they are used interchangably they should be merged. If I was a new reader, I wouldn't even know enough to understand the difference between the terms, and it would likely confuse me. Also, though you consider your circles (fairly conventional), somehow I highly doubt that ;p Ocaasi (talk) 18:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Ocaasi that putting them in the See also section is best. Hatnotes are usually used for linking to nearly (visually/spelling) identical terms or to disambiguation pages. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Re- "Also, though you consider your circles (fairly conventional), somehow I highly doubt that", if you could only read the email I sent earlier this morning to the founder and chief editor of SEP, regarding our last meeting with the wife of a guy who owned his own country, the substantial donation I made, my unusual proposal for SEP, and the even more bizzarre collection of celebrities I asembled as potential donors to SEP, you would not "highly doubt that", you would instead say "certainly not". LOL. :) PPdd (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

SEP is great. If only Wikipedia's philosophy articles had that kind of breadth and authority. They are different in mission, though, slightly. You seem to have met a lot of interesting folks through Standford. Seems like a particularly eclectic community. Ocaasi (talk) 19:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Surprisingly, I disagree. I was just about to send SEP another email about how the Wiki rules on ledes should be adopted by SEP to improve their articles. I was also about to propose a jr. SEP for young math/genius philoisophers in their early to mid teens, both to encourage entry into the financially strapped field of philosophy, and about to send another to garner donations for SEP from the many gifted youth phlianthropist donors around the world, and model it on Wiki rules, but with teen "peer review", not SEP standards. But my proposal in this morning's email was donwright surreal (but rational). PPdd (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

PPdd, feel free to tell me to leave you alone for a while. I'm leaving a lot of messages in an effort to turn a very promising new editor (you) into a great editor, and spare you a lot of heartache, frustration and ultimately avoid you leaving in disgust. Unfortunately that can sometimes feel like wikistalking or nit-picking and it's hard to tell when you're typing and not talking. Though my efforts may be successful at steepening your learning curve, it may do so at the expense of your sanity. On the other hand, I may spare you from creating a lot of pages and content that ultimately gets deleted. Please, let me know if you'd prefer more time and space to learn on your own - these notes are only helpful if they're helpful, otherwise they're just annoying. That being said, I've got an opinion on this - something like Hoodoo science you could easily fold into either sociology or pseudoscience with the latter being more appropriate in my mind since it's a subset of pseudoscience and only a minor footnote at best in sociology. Not every topic or word needs its own page, sometimes it's better to incorporate it as a subsection of another topic and use a redirect to that subsection. Junk science, voodoo science, pathological science and pseudoscience should all refer to each other, and Park's book would be a great way of doing so (in the form of "Robert L. Park has distinguished between..." with a brief, parenthetical definition of each). Were I to have my druthers, I'd actually turn Voodoo science into a page about the book since really it doesn't have much legs beyond a reference to Park.

My not so humble opinion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Whisperback

Hello. You have a new message at Ocaasi's talk page. Put it in a level 2 heading and it's perfect. Note: there's no message at my page. Ocaasi (talk) 19:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Check. PPdd (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Warning about copying other editors' comments

Moving or copying other editors' comments from one talk page to another while leaving the signature intact is rarely considered acceptable behaviour unless it happens with explicit content of all editors concerned. It was not necessary to move a trivial exchange of words from WT:RS to WT:MEDRS just to start a new section there. There was no need for Blueboar's post to appear on that page, and unless I missed some communication that happened outside WT:RS, Blueboar had no reason to expect that you would move it there and certainly did not authorise doing so. I saw the section at WT:MEDRS first, of course I missed the tiny (and inadequate) line about having moved the section, and so I was surprised that Blueboar should have made the blunder of telling you on WT:MEDRS to go to WT:MEDRS. I only investigated further, rather than thinking that Blueboar made a fool of himself, because you were involved and I recently learned about your cavalier attitude to other editors' communications.

This behaviour must stop. Wikipedia is a cooperative project. Most of us are good at presenting ourselves as complete fools on occasion. We don't need someone who goes to the trouble of secretly helping us with that, and you are not going to make many friends with that behaviour. Hans Adler 17:30, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• I put Blueboar's comment at MEDRS (with a note that I had done so) because he suggested moving the discussion to MEDRS, and I did not want the discussion dismissed as not being appropriate for MEDRS (which happened anyway, even though it was a proposal for MEDRS changes).
• I tried to indicate what I had done with a small print note before and after the copy. I was trying to help, not misquote. I was just about to post a notice at your talk page that I had just posted about this discussion at talk pages which might be dramatically affected by this discussion, but saw your talkback before I did so. PPdd (talk) 17:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
• How did Blueboard (or my copy of his comment) make a fool of himself in any way? I fully agreed with his suggestions to centralize the discussion, and post notice at WP:Fringe and WP:NPOV.
• Regarding your "tiny" comment, I learned the use of small notes heading a block from you. PPdd (talk) 17:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

PPdd, this was harmless and well-intended, but, generally, mussing with others comments causes more trouble than its worth. If people want to move a discussion, they'll generally just do it themselves. If you want some talk page guidance, WP:TALKO is helpful, I think. Ocaasi (talk) 21:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I will try to just link rather than copy in the future. PPdd (talk) 21:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

And by "link", it's best to link to the diff itself, not just to the pagge or section. A "diff" is the URL in the edit history to the actual first occasion when the content was created. That tells who did it and when. That diff link will never expire, be erased, or moved to an archive, as the actual page content will. Diffs are the gold standard for linking in such situations. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both. My Wikipractices are now corrected. PPdd (talk) 18:55, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Help request for moving Ridiculous article to Ridiculous (album)

Bkonrad, the ridiculous article is only about an obscure album by a band, not about "ridiculous", e.g., as famously compared to the sublime by Napoleon. I tried to meve the content to Ridiculous (album), but I did it wrong, and have never done this before. Can you help? PPdd (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

See the instructions at WP:RM. Although, in general articles about words face a pretty high standard for existing as standalone articles. older ≠ wiser 21:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I will read it. I heard it is tricky on another talk page, but it can't hurt to try. Its not just a word, but a concept in the philosophy of humor, and in existential philosophy about the sublime. The article I started was a stub, but intended to be the beginning of an article about the concept. (I used to be a substiture teacher for the cirque du solei clown class.) Here is 32,000 hits at google scholar for "ridiculuos" AND "sublime", and lots more in scholarly literature about humor theory. PPdd (talk) 21:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

PPdd, this would be another situation where I would suggest you draft the page first on a subpage and then look into moving it into mainspace. As Bkonrad says, wikipedia is not a dictionary and to that I will add that google hits are not helpful in indicating notability. I assume you're talking about Ridiculous (general use) - which is itself a poor choice of a name since the page isn't about the general use of the term (which would be to say an absurdity, something unusual and silly) but in the actual text is somewhere between a dictionary definition (particularly the lead), a Wikiquotes page (Napoleon's statement - and by the way, you are misusing the primary sources for that section since they are not about the difference between the two concepts, they are merely examples of their use) and a disambiguation page with the theory of humour section. If there is an extensive philosophical discussion of the concept, then you should create the page Ridiculous (philosophy) and provide sources for that discussion - see as an example Sublime (philosophy). In this case I would suggest keeping the album as the main page entitled "ridiculous" and having a hatnote, or moving the album page to Ridiculous (album) and using ridiculous as the disambiguation page. However, I can't find a separate section for the concept in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or a quick search with google books. Napoleon's concept really seems like a throwaway quote rather than an effort to express something coherent and powerful, and he didn't seem to be summarizing or referencing an extensive body of thought on the difference between the two. There may be a separate entry for the theory of comedy [25], but you'd need to get more sources to demonstrate this first. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:16, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I should have started it in user space (I will read up on how to do this), but there is enough now for a stub. I did not intend either of these articles to be restricted to philosophy, or a single branch of philosophy, but this should be a section in both articles. While sometimes used as synonyms in general usage (or as briefly stated in some imprecise dictionaries), absurdity has more to do more with illogic and reasoning, and in a particular use in existential (but not other branches of) philosophy with the condition of life as attempting to find meaning when there is none (enough has been written about absurdism that it has its own article). "Ridiculous" has to do more with incongruity, or in one specialized use with a condition of the miserableness of one's existence, which is very different than absurdism in existentialism (although it is thematically similar to existentialism. The "ridiculous" article is intended to be much more general than just limited to use in philosophy (or one branch of philosophy), although a section about the sublime might be called philosophical in tone, though not recognized as a branch of philosophy. Since "ridiculous" occurs in many Wikipedia articles, sometimes in a use that is different than "absurdity", I do not think an obscure album should be where the link for it takes a reader... Wait a minute, I am getting a communication from the spirit realm regarding starting articles outside of user space... Ok, Sir Francis Bacon has just sent me a message from the spirit realm and let me know he wants to weigh in on both absurdity and WP:Bold starting a stub Ridiculous (general use) article... "For if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.". Well, then, I must reply to him that communication from the spirit realm from the father of empirical method is an incongruity so is absoultely "ridiculous, but not ridiculous", and "ridiculous but not ridiculous" is a Moore-ean absurdity, though not illogic, and not nonsense according to Wittgenstein, which uses both "ridiculous (general use)" and absurdity humorously to make a point ala Lewis Carroll (which is only marginally categorizeable as philosophy). If you don't get what I just said, and "see nothing", then as the Cheshire cat would say, "My, you must have good eyes", meaning "You don't have good eyes". What I just wrote is an absurdity, but not necessarily ridiculous (general use). Am I making myself clear as to why I did not use userspace, why I started separate articles for absurdity and Ridiculous (general use), and why Ridiculous (general use) is much more broad than ridiculous (philosphy)? PPdd (talk) 14:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

To start something in user space (i.e. create a subpage) the easiest way is to simply create a link to it (User:PPdd/Drafts or User:PPdd/Sandbox, most people save a copy of the link on their user page) and edit that link. Adding a front slash (/) to any existing page name will create a subpage of that page, and the subpage can have any name you want. Even profanity! You can link to it just like any other page, and a related talk page will also be created (but it will stay red until you edit it). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I created User:PPdd/WLU reply. PPdd (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

As for the page itself, you're still bridging three different types of pages, and only one of them is appropriate. You've created a dictionary definition (the lead) but wikipedia is not a dictionary. You've created essentially a list of examples where the ridiculous and the sublime have been compared (Ridiculous (general use)#Ridiculous and the sublime) but Wikipedia is not a directory and as I say above, those examples are in my opinion inappropriate uses of original research that don't actually support your point. They aren't a philosophical discussion of the ridiculous versus the sublime, they are three different examples of Napoleon's famous quotation being used as titles. None are examples of philosophical explorations of "ridiculous" versus "sublime" published in journals or books on philosophy. Essentially that section really comes down to "once Napoleon said 'there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous' and it has been used since then." That's far, far closer to Wikiquote's purpose than wikipedia's. You've created an example of where the term appears in a theory of humour (Ridiculous#Ridiculous in theory of humor) and wikipedia does allow for disambiguation but the theories of humor page doesn't actually mention this link or research. You are also essentially the creator of absurdity, which bears the same flaws, because before your edit last week it was a redirect page for nearly five years. Even if your discussion of the differences between ridiculousness and absurdity are true, the lack of explicit sources making this point for you makes this original research. If there is a genuine use of "ridiculous" as a coherent philosophical entity, then we should have one page on that use, and a disambiguation page for all other uses (note that most disambiguation pages also bear a brief definition). And note that your link to clarity is what I would consider an appropriate use of a page like ridiculous, absurdity, and clarity - a DAB page for real uses. It is normally very, very difficult to have a separate page for an adjective simply because there's not normally enough discussion in the greater world to integrate it. Indeed, see the sixth bullet of WP:ADJECTIVE.

If this sort of thing really interests you, you may want to look into creating accounts at Wiktionary or Wikiquote as well since those sites are much closer to what you are trying to do with these pages. The reality of wikipedia in 2011 is that most of the pages for notable ideas have been created - now it's filling in the gaps for small towns in North America, states and provinces elsewhere, and new items appearing in pop culture or the news. There's a reason why terms like that are either redlinks or redirects, it's because the pages haven't needed to be created. If you really want to know if this is merely my idiosyncratic opinion on the matter or a genuine reflection of the policies of wikipedia, I can nominate it for deletion. AFD is a very interesting place to participate (I think you'd like it a lot) and a great way to come up to speed on a lot of policies, guidelines and community standards. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• I fixed the 1st lede sentence definition to be from the article body, not from a dictionary, and based the lede on the article body, not any dictionary. I now only used a dictionary as a source for etymology, especially as the etymology directly relates to the content of the article body.
• I added RS content in the body that is not in any dictionary, which generally flushes out general use and special uses.
• I removed anything that might be OR comparing and contrasting ridiculous and absurdity. In the absurdity article, ridiculous is not even mentioned.
• I will now go and fix the "ridiculous and sublime" section so it is no longer a list, first by deleting the refs that really are just a list, as you point out, and adding RS content that explains why this is such a common expression, add RS explainatoin of the terms, add RS content as to why the terms are so frequently associated, and especially add RS content on explanations as to the "one step" nature of the association of the terms.
• My interest in these concepts comes from a study of the mathematics and logic of humor (I built an AI software to logically analyze a joke structure (with some human help), then do a dictionary search to replace words reated by their logical structure with others in the same relation, to come up with a new joke. It came out like an alien telling a joke. You could tell it had the structure of a joke, and understodd why some alien culture might find it funny, but it was very strange. I collect antique clowns, and had the large wooden clown from San Francisco's funland, before it burned down in 1906 (little girls would look up at it and say, "He's scary". I was going to use to put the AI package in it, but it ended up urning down in the 2007 Santa Cruz fire.
• My interest also lies in my having left Stanford after 11 years, to join a circus. I ended briefly teaching (by sleight of hand) "Native American Clown" for Cirque du Solei. Through this association, I met Circus Ridiculous.
• I was also invited to perform at Dada fest, which is a story in itself on absurdity (though not the ridiculous).
• A final interest came when I was asked to submit essays to James Joyce's Bandersnatch, a special edition of a university humor magazine, for a special edition on Absurdity. My PhD thesis advisor at Stanford was noted not only for being the most famous Statistician in the world, and for having written one of only two or three mathematics articles ever to be in Scientific American, but also for having been kicked out of Stanford as an undergrad, as the editor for Stanfords humor magazine, at which point he left to Caltech. Being very competitive in my Oedipal complex, I submitted 8 essays, under different nom de guerres (nom de plumes), which were all peer reviewed and accepted ahead of all other submissions. But a problem arose in that the magazine was only large enough for seven articles... and then they found out that one person had really written them all. PPdd (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

User drafts

Getting started creating new articles on Wikipedia can be tricky, and you might like to try creating a draft version first, which you can then ask for feedback on if necessary, without the risk of speedy deletion. Thanks Fæ (talk) 15:22, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I will read your links. Although I have now done 5,000 edits (many of some substance) and have started many articles, as you can tell, I am still effectively a newbie. PPdd (talk) 15:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Excellent advice. You can avoid these articles getting deleted if you create a draft on a subpage and get other editors' input before "going public". -- Brangifer (talk) 18:54, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

A draft on a user page seems good for still another reason, editors form opinions based on a work in progress even with a construction tag. The downside of the user page approach is that I learn alot from negative feedback from a wide spectrum of editors at the outset of development. PPdd (talk) 02:44, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit count is never a great measure of experience or merit. I've got a reasonably high edit count, but much of my own edit history is corrections of errors I myself made and didn't bother previewing. Sadly, there is no quick-and-dirty way of evaluating substantive edits. Obviously I think there is merit to both opinions ventured here - PPdd, the mistakes I think you are making are made by many new editors (and almost have to be made to become a good editor) but you can minimize the impact on mainspace (in the form of administrator actions and AFD discussions) by using a subpage. That being said, WP:BOLD is also important. As long as your intentions are good and you abide by the decisions of the community, there's no irreparable harm done. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

To evalutate my own real count, I take the number of article edits and subtract the non-article edits like talk page edits (a rough measure of mistakes), and use this final number as the approximate number of real edits. With 49% of my edits in article space, this means that my total real edits is approximately a negative number. :) PPdd (talk) 02:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Could be worse than that, depending on the number of "real" edits that result in the creation of errors that require further edits to fix. You could be facing an asymptotically negative edit count. But you respond to suggestions so his lordship may spare you. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding in fixing my own errors leves me with a negative number as an upper bound. And re "respond to suggestions", I got notice of your comment just as I was about to post at WP talk:POLICY a suggestion to add the Doctrine of absurdity to WP:POLICY (I really was). PPdd (talk) 03:29, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Panglssian

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A tag has been placed on Panglssian requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hang on}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion, or "db", tag; if no such tag exists, then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hang-on tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Prestonmag (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I already blanked it as my own spelling error. PPdd (talk) 17:12, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

One shouldn't blank pages. There is a special criteria for speedy deletion by the author of a page, {{db-g7}} (author requests deletion) but in that case I would simply redirect it to the proper spelling. It's not really a big deal either way, I'm not even aware of any guidance on redirects from common spelling errors. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:30, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Check. PPdd (talk) 02:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Absurdity and Ridiculousness

WLU and PamD, you both commented on my initial version of the absurdity and ridiculous (general use) articles, in that they were a dictionary definition with a list of uses, either noncogently put together (i.e., absurd), or so apparently unrelated incongruently yet juxtaposed next to each other (i.e., ridiculous). I have substantially modified both articles per your comments. If you have time, could you glance at the articles and comment if I am on the right track in bringing them in compliance with Wiki standards? (Aside - "Putting a '-ness' at the end of 'ridiculous' creates a ridiculous sonic incongruity in 'Ridiculousness'"; I wish I had RS to include that in the article. PPdd (talk) 17:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Seriousness

The article Seriousness has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This article is a series of dictionary definitions of a word which has different senses in different fields: no evidence that "seriousness" exists as a general concept capable of having an encylopedia article.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

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I know it's still got an "Under construction" template, but I can't see this article going anywhere useful. PamD (talk) 21:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you might have made a mistake in saying it is a string of dictionary definitions, since the first reference was about the development of a sense of levels of seriousness in developmental psychology, and titled "Variation in Seriousness of Transgressions and Children's Moral and Conventional Concepts" appearing in Developmental Psychology. The second source was about levels of criminal punshment related to measuring the seriousness of a crime", an issue that comes up many times daily. See [[WP talk:Seriousness]. PPdd (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

If Seriousness somehow transgresses policy, what about moving it to Seriousness (social science) or similar? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it is OK now. I did not understand the initial problem (except that the article then only had three sentences, so it might have not made sense to PamD then). PPdd (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed construction tag from Seriousness article

PamD, I removed the construction tag from the Seriousness article, and I won't be editing much more on it in the near future, unless you still have a complaint about it. Thanks. PPdd (talk) 14:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Note

I liked your edits to the pseudoscience article. They seemed geared towards presenting a tighter and more coherent overview.

I have to say that I really have no idea what is going on at Bad Faith. There is a very common usage related to behavior and agreements, in which acting in bad faith means acting with the intent to deceive or mislead. That is very different from the kind of theological bad faith, which you seem to take as a 'poor' faith, literally, a faulty belief. One relates to our behavior towards others, but the latter is about how we relate in our own convictions. I think it is confusing at the least to mix the two together, at least with out very clear differentiation between them. Maybe we just need two separate articles (Bad faith/theology and philosophy vs. Bad faith/behavior and legality).

Glad you picked up the userpage boxes. Have you tried using STiki yet? Really neat tool. Ocaasi (talk) 13:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

1. What is STiki?
2. Re bad faith - I'm not sure that bad faith is "acting", but actions can be a product of a bad faith belief ("faith" is a strong "belief", not and "action"; and "act of faith" is an action based on a faith). The "common folks" usage includes both cases of intentional and unintentional (at least not "knowingly intentional"). In one case, the belief is "pretended" (so intentional), as when an insurer's lawyer cites convoluted policy exclusions to deny a claim. In the other case it is not (directly) intentional, as when a creationist, racist euginicist, or acupuncturist argues their position, and really believes what they are saying, no matter what the other side argues, but simply cannot see that they are ignoring facts and logic, so it is not an intent to decieve at all, but is behaviorally identical with a person who is pretending to have that belief. Is the bad faith belief of an acupunturist intentional? Most would say "no".
3. The multi-academic department use (which is more common than ordinary folks usage, as bad faith is kind of an obscure expression except at WP, where the expression is misused because of an ambiguous definition at WP:GF) is not really different than the "common folks" use. Bad faith is usually accused, not when a person pretends to believe something when they do not, but when cases where "you are just kidding yourself" or "you cant be serious about believing that" would be a common language retort. It is not used in cases where one would say, "you are lying". An example is when Anderson Cooper slipped and called Mubarek a liar, when he had no sources for this. Mubarek could be living in a self imposed bubble to such a great extent that he actually believed the false things he was saying, which is classic bad faith, but not lying. That's why the law puts you in jail for fraud, but not for bad faith.
4. The article is based on consistent structure in various lectures on the topic that I have attended, so it should not read like an essay, and if it does, I made an error. I pretty much wrote it from memory of lectures, then put things in the article one by one as I found RS for each line in my original summary, which is an awkward way of doing things, but seemed to be required under a no OR and no Synth policy.
5. Bad faith is such a difficult topic, that entire philosophy texts have been written about it, birthing entire new fields, and instead of clarifying it, it is as difficult as ever.
6. Intentionality and the related intensionality are about the most dificult topics I have come across, and intention is the central problem of the fundamental problem about how bad faith is possible. PPdd
7. There seems to be interesting ideas about all this related to the realism debates in, of all places, phil of math, as User:Logicalgregory wrote in a section, but I am having a hard time understanding either side.
8. PS - Do you mind if I copy this section to the talk page at bad faith, in case others might have thoughts on this stuff? PPdd (talk) 14:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

1. Stiki is a machine-assisted vandalism fighting tool. It uses a learning algorithm to present edits that are likely unconstructive in a human review interface, and then users can confirm or deny (or pass) as to whether it is vandalism. It's part of how we keep things clean around here. Click the link the in the userbox for more info. You can download the software if you want. Free, open to any users. Neat stuff.
2. I think you are still misusing 'bad faith'. It is not subject-oriented, as in whether or not a person believes correctly or incorrectly. It is agreement-oriented, and a bad-faith action is one which knowingly violates an agreement. That is the very broad common usage. I frankly have no idea what philosophers talk about regarding bad faith, but it's clear to me that the usages are different and that it needs to be thoroughly disambiguated, if included at all. It may be the case that cutting edge philosophers of ethics have taken on the 'internal' side of bad faith, whether or not people are consciously aware of their agreement-breaching, but that discussion should be a subset of the conventional term, not the overarching structure.
3. The way we have it set up now misrepresents an esoteric philosophical debate as the core rather than a layer outside the core. We may be having a debate here over common vs/ academic perspectives, but I think since we write for general readers, unless you want to create a separate article or section about the philosophy component that my approach is consistent with other similar articles. Please consider whether the world of academia is being put forth here in a way that is not consistent with 'what encyclopedias do', namely report old stuff. I don't think that we situate ourselves in the middle of complex philosophical discussions and represent common topics as such. That is a great idea for a philosophical reader, but that is not what we are. Please get some outside opinions on this, possibly from somone at WikiProject:Philosophy.
4. Again, it's not about what ideas are 'current' in philosophy, which is mainly a primary source debate, but about which ideas have been properly synthesized so that we can summarize them further for general readers to reference.
5. It's easy to have a sub-section on how bad faith is determined: is it only something that is perceived from the outside, or does it reflect internal motivation? Is it always intentional, or can it be subconscious? Can a person unknowingly do something in bad faith? Those are interesting questions, but they are not the center of the issues. Maybe for you they are, and for academics, but in an encyclopedia they are at the lower rung due to their originality, recentism, and esoteric-ness.
6. I also think the difference between bad faith and lying is 'not' well represented by Anderson Cooper's statement. If he called Mubarak a liar, then he either had evidence for it or he did not. If he spoke against contradictory evidence, then it is lying as well as bad faith. If he spoke against equal evidence, but only used the negative parts, then it is bad faith but maybe not lying. If he spoke with negative evidence that happened to be incorrect, then he is neither lying nor in bad faith, but he is still factually wrong.
7. You can absolutely copy this discussion wherever you'd like. Ocaasi (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

PSS - Another example has just come up in which I commented here[26] at pseudoscience talk. I worked with celebrities in Hollywood who were considered at the top of their profession in abilities. Then I discovered their belief in the pseudoscience of Dianetics, at which point they seemed to turn into real life (or death) zombies. Normally, they appeared highly intelligent, sincere, thoughtful, and no one would ever say they "intentionally" were trying to "deceive or mislead" anyone, regarding their pseudoscience beliefs. This is very clear cut example of the fundamental problem of bad faith belief, and the self deception that leads to it. PPdd (talk) 15:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you are correct about some everyday use involving intentional deceipt, although bad faith seems in that usage case to be more than simple intentional deceipt. I the example you give about breaking agreements, while acting like one is not, is also a good one of intention, but where to find RS for this? I may have a problem of over-living in an academic bubble, so what I call "common use" (including outside philosophy, as in discussing pseudoscicne or feminism) may not be considered "common" by all. I rarely hear the expression come up outside academia, but it is very common there. I am having a hard time coming up with "real world" RS in which it is intentional, especially when there is an intentionally faked belief to decieve or mislead.

• Per your OK, I am copying this section to talk at bad faith PPdd (talk) 15:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think 'bad faith belief' is not what is meant by the term in nearly anyone in the non-academic world's usage. Which to me means we need either a separate section or a separate article to describe that aspect. When people are just idiots, when they are mislead into doing something, when they practice pseudoscience ignorantly--none of that is bad faith. It's incorrect, but it's not bad faith. Again, I'm using the term per its common definition. Please check dictionary.com or OED for standard usage. The problem with writing from personal experience and memory, is that while we are often well-read, we are sometimes overly focused in a specific area and may not be aware of its biases. Ocaasi (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I replied here. PPdd (talk) 15:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Copyright

This is too close a paraphrase of this. In fact it is a clear copyright violation. Would you mind rewriting it or deleting it? Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously (seriously). I haven't checked any other sources on that article, or any of your other work here, for copyright violations. If you are aware of any other instances where your wording is virtually identical to the source, it would be best if you were to find them and rewrite them. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:01, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

You're right. I must have copied from an early draft and not a later one. I will check the rest of the article tonight and tomorrow morning. I am going to soon do a complete rewrite anyway, to harmonize the parts of the article. Thanks. PPdd (talk) 23:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:46, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Your blanking of Sonopuncture

Please note that the policies you have cited (WP:NRS and WP:ADVERT) for justification to blank the page are not appropriate. Being that this article has existed for over 3 years I tend to think the CSD criteria window has passed. In addition blanking the page by a non-author during a AfD discussion is typically (in my experience) marked as vandalism. Please do not blank the article, I understand that you have a strong feeling about the article, but let us discuss it at AfD. Should you continue to blank the page I will seek an uninvolved editor/administrator's opinion and/or pursue avenues of intervention to keep the page's content stable during the duration of the AfD. Hasteur (talk) 16:06, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You are correct, ingeneral, but maybe not for blanking under MEDRS, which is a very serious guideline for medical, not editorial reasons. I blanked the page under MEDRS and ADVERT in part because, for some reason, my nomination for AfD for sonopuncture, Accupressure, and Acupuncture point did not show up on the AfD list.

• Do you know what I did wrong so that the nominations did not show?
• What should be done about the strict WP:MEDRS guideline regarding NOT EVER keeping medical claims up at Wiki, which seems to outweigh an argument for having easy access to see how MEDRS is being violated during an AfD discussion. A user of WP might read the article and forego real medical care based on it being kept up for an AfD discussion. That is unlikely in this case, but still possible and serious. PPdd (talk) 16:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
  • What nominations? You never tagged either Acupuncture point or Acupressure for deletion on the pages themselves, nor did you create Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Acupuncture point or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Acupressure. You just added the nonexistent AfDs to the daily log page. If you want these pages deleted, please see WP:AFDHOWTO. Just doing Step III won't work. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will read what you suggest. PPdd (talk) 17:06, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

SBM

Much as I enjoy SBM and Blake's little plexiglas box of insolence, we should minimize blog sourcing. Where they are prominent commentators on a particular issue (Atwood on naturopathy, for instance), it can be okay to cite the person's comments on their blog, but even then stronger sourcing is better. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would call all skeptic sites "blogs", in that when the site's editor writes an article, it might be considered more akin to an "editorial opinion" than a blog. It is difficult to find critical opinion summed up nicley in a secondary source, as it is usually in blogish form. The way I sourced it, it was more like a secondary source, since you might notice that I deliberately did not cite the primary source useage of "quackademic research" (which was linked to) for this reason. I put it in because, if my ears are correct, there is "word on the street" (pun) that "quackademic research" is becoming a commonly used expression, and quite rapidly. "Quackademic research" is far less misleading than "complimentary alternative medicine". In any case, I am going to put the content of the criticism back in, as criticism, since it well characterizes much criticism, but do so without the expression "quackademic research". PPdd (talk) 04:43, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

PS- Do you know the difference between 2over0 and 3over0? It has to do with why I ended up becoming a mathematician instead of a theoretical physicist. PPdd (talk) 04:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

(It's "complementary" (with an E).) As to using a blog, blogs are generally frowned on, but not forbidden, especially if written by experts. When dealing with fringe subjects, the fringe guidelines allow for using mainstream sources that would often not be allowed in other situations. That's because mainstream RS and MEDRS usually don't mention fringe subjects, so scientific and skeptical websites and blogs "may" (but with caution) be used if they are written by experts. Generally be cautious. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The only time I would use a blog would be when the topic has no mainstream coverage in critical sources - and in that case, attribute it to the blog's author. Much as I love sciencebasedmedicine, it's not an appropriate source for most things. There is a post on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy that I could use that lines up with my POV, but I'm not using it because it's a blog. And whenever a mainstream source exists, it should be used to replace the blog immediately. They are the lowest tier of sourcing and must be used judiciously. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Rollback

It appears you need to get rollback rights. The edits made by Bravewell here amounted to vandalism and it would have been easier and more accurate to do a rollback (or complete undo of BOTH edits) before making more edits. Now it's harder to fix but needs to be done, assuming it's worth doing more on that article. It really needs to be pared down and then the redirect restored, but pending an end to the merge discussuon. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I will read rollback. PPdd (talk) 17:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Good move

[27] I was getting a little irritated, and hadn't noticed his turn-around on the talk page at that point. Would you mind sorting out the Palestine-Israel problem for the UN when you've finished with Acupuncture at Wikipedia? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I won the Ambassador for Peace Award from the government of South Korea, and the Meritorious Service Medal from Korean Veterans, re North Korea stuff (no kidding). But I have also gotten beat up a few times for what I call "my ascerbic wit", but the other side of the fist had a different name for it. PPdd (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Two comments

Note that your configuration of Miszabot would archive your talk page in Ocassi's archive. I've fixed it. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thnx. I just copied it from Ocaaswi w/o reading it. PPdd (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Second, I have tremendous respect for WhatamIdoing. If WAID says you are doing something wrong, I would seriously, seriously consider her advice (she is a she, she has a userbox saying so). Her comment regarding this article is appropriate in my mind - this is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that is a secondary source, discussing (apparently) specifically acupuncture points. There are so many pages that are becoming messes because of your contribution style - which is bold, heavily annotated on the talk page, prolific and extremely hard to follow - that I'm not only having trouble keeping up, I'm not really bothering anymore. I'm more inclined at this point, as I said at talk:acupuncture, to simply walk away, read for a couple months, then come back and do a substantial rewrite. note - A complete NPOV rewrite is always welcome. PPdd (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC) Though it is clear your intentions are good, that you are doing your best, that you adapt to criticism and listen to other editors, I still think you are running well before you can walk on an article like acupuncture, which combines history, medicine and science, thus requiring at least three different sourcing standards for three different scholarly domains, in addition to being a borderline-fringe topic, thus requiring a very careful parsing of sources and extreme caution in interpretation and summary. Being bold in articles like these, particularly when it requires a lot of nuanced understanding and careful editing, can ultimately result in a worse page - I still think the version before your extensive rewrites, though perhaps flawed, still offered a more neutral presentation. But there's also a lot of good done - removal of shoddy sources, unsourced material, a careful re-reading and general review.

Regards your comment on my talk page - merely being a CAM journal doesn't make it unreliable, and it's rather POV to claim this. Alt med journals don't need to be peer reviewed by scientists or doctors, they merely need peer review. note - I just claimed that it was NRS for reporting bio-medical claims, as it is not peer reviewed by doctors or scientists. It's akin to saying history journals aren't reliable because they aren't peer reviewed by anthropologists. CAM occupies a bizarre netherworld where respect from science is desired, but not obtained because of shoddy research that helps few to none. But still, a peer-reviewed, pubmed-indexed journal is still a reliable source and can be used. Sometimes we have to accept sources and statements that are obviously, glaringly stupid, because the rules apply even if we don't like them. WP:IAR only gets applied based on consensus, and rarely. This isn't rationalwiki, it's wikipedia, which means we may get stuck with stupid statements remaining in the article if they are supported by the appropriate source - remember, this is an encyclopedia that endeavors to portray the sum of human knowledge, not merely the sum of scientific knowledge. Claims made by acupuncturists, even of nonsense on the face of it, still get to stay up if appropriately sourced.

If you really think you've got good points to make at talk:acupuncture points, then try to convince editors on the talk page first, then edit the article. You build consensus that way, and you'll get a better reading of the policies and the page.

That being said, I've just essentially redone most of your edits methinks... What a friggin' mess. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Another note - you've demanded an apology from WAID. That has two results - it gets people's backs up, making them less likely to apologize, and makes any apology you do get extremely suspect. I know if someone demands an apology from me, the best they would get would be sarcasm and I might tell them to go fuck themselves. If I may suggest, start from the assumption that WAID didn't understand your edits, or thought you were being to hasty, and try explaining them on her talk page instead. Having reviewed your edits, they do indeed seem defensible. You know what's better than an apology? Having an editor go from violently disagreeing with you, to admitting you have a point. You've gone from having an enemy who will object to your edits out of a reaction to your name, to someone who will now spend more time pondering their merits and questioning their own assumptions. But the only way that can work out is if time is spent discussing rather than demanding. I'm not saying WAID's actions or posts were right, I'm saying the potential for misunderstanding is great when your edits are that sweeping. Well thought out and supported in my mind, but still sweeping. It's something to think about it, it's certainly not gospel. And you might even get a sincere apology - I know I have in the past when someone clearly and neutrally showed me where I've effed up. (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thnx. I actually expect this to end w WAID and I friends, as the exact same thing happened yesterday and that's how it ended with user:Nageh, who struck his/her vote and changed it in the end, which caused me to put him/her on my own user page list of helpful editors. I could not get a reasoned response from WAID, or a User:Colonel who made comments about me that I was a "butcher". PPdd (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you could not get a reasoned response because you are demanding changes you feel are appropriate, but other editors do not. AFD is not a rules-based game, it's a judgement call by the closing admin. You're normally not going to get absolute answers that are clearly right or wrong.

Regarding that list of helpful editors - it's normally OK to have that sort of thing. You'll get into trouble if you start listing "unhelpful" ones. It's not a good practice, and it's not a good sign when an editor starts making an enemies list. Keep in mind that "helpful" editors aren't necessarily the ones that agree with you - they're the ones that teach you something. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't recall ever having an enemy in my life. Typically editors I listed as helpful were ones who disagreed with me, in cases where I ended changing my mind, or in cases where their disagreement ended with a substantial improvement of an article. Also I listed people like you, who spends time teaching me both the ins-and-outs of WP, and diplomacy. PPdd (talk) 18:51, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Meh, the "enemies" comment wasn't really aimed at you, it's just something to watch for because a lot of people who keep a "respected editors" list also keep a "evil destroyers of wikipedia list". It's one of the steps necessary before a POV-pusher inevitably appeals to Jimbo. Funny when it happens but I'm not too concerned about it in your case. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Absurdity constants

"Absurdity constant" certainly seems to be a real term. As I've also said on the mathematics project talk page, there certainly appear to be a number of Google hits for "absurdity constant" in the literature. See, for example, Gabbay, Dov (2004). Handbook of the History of Logic. Amsterdam: Elsevier. p. 191. ISBN 9780444516237., in the chapter "Paraconsistency and Dialetheism":

"For example, in both classical and intuitionist logic there is an absurdity constant, ⊥, such that for all β, ⊥ → β is a logical truth."

-- The Anome (talk) 20:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yup, and an "absurdity rule". And I was Suppes' student in grad school, but still[28]. (Like sic. "exercise" and sic. "Puffenstuff", not the only LOL in the article, but the others are much better subtly hidden in the article. :) PPdd (talk) 20:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

No

I see you're once again proposing a compromise when none is necessary and your alternative would create enormous disruption and controversy. The situation is unchanged from the last time you made this proposition. Right now we've even got likely socks (I'm about to file another WP:SPI) stacking the votes. If an opposer has legitimate arguments, then a compromise may be advisable, but not one that makes things more complicated and not less complicated. It should be a solution, not a nightmare. So far no legitimate arguments have been proposed, so no need for a compromise. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I remembered someone had pointed out the historic mud fight aspect of the proposal, but I forgot it was you. I will defer to you (bad) past experience, and delete my proposal once more (or you have permission to do so, if you get back there before I do), before someone reads it and I will have done the equivalent of "cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war". I like the "argument by my father is bigger than your father" slant this discussion is taking, but maybe its because its the first time I have seen it, and I will quickly grow irritated by having to respond to it. PPdd (talk) 22:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Acupuncture points

Whatamidoing's and Colin's explanations about RS are a good clarification of consensus. If you hang around WP:RSN or WT:RS you'll see the point being made ad nauseam. We don't brand any source as reliable or unreliable, nor do we prescribe what kind of content they're reliable/not reliable for. It is certainly the mantra, and mostly true. Medical hypotheses may be an exception. It may be proscribed somewhere as a source for medical facts.

Whether we should start prescribing appropriate usage of particular journals or classes of journal is another matter and the appropriate place for that deep policy discussion would be WP:RSN or WT:RS.

WLU has essentially endorsed your gutting of Acupuncture point, but has left some redundant content there in the hope that it will grow into a worthwhile daughter. That's fair enough, in my opinion. There is plenty to say about the points themselves that would be too much for Acupuncture. I (and probably everyone following the discussion) am aware it could become a trough for unencyclopedic balderdash, but lots of people now have it on their watchlist so that probably won't happen.

For a while I was embroiled in Jesus myth theory and we found a trough of stuff rejected from that page at Historical Jesus. (That whole realm is a bag of polecats.) All you can do is clean them up and put these daughters on your watchlist. A prescriptive FAQ has been tried at some pages (it was tried at Jesus myth theory) but ultimately, only watching and arguing for policy is what works. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, another alt med article to watch, but thanks for helping try to consolidate the articles to avoid this. I will go to the discussions at RSN and RS as you suggest.

• Here is a good real life "jesus myth" story. I was with actor Leonardo DiCaprio's dad, and some other wealthy Hollywood folks on easter. We all went down to the easter-for-athiests movie screening at center for inqruiry west, the local skeptics hang out, and the move was to be about the jesus myth. As we were entering, I noticed a very hungry looking homeless person asking for food. He was ignored. He was right outside the side door theater exit. After the film, there was a discussion, and the old rationalist "there is no heaven" argument brought up - "How can you ever be in heaven, when all the people in hell and earth are suffering, and you would feel bad for them for all eternity, so could not really be in heaven?" Everyone was having a jolly good time, unitl I raised my hadn and pointed out the hyocricy of the argument, as everyone was able to be happy in the theater, ignoring the starving person just on the other side of the wall, so why would they not be able to do the same in heaven. I ruined the jolly mood. An early happy easter to you. I have another even more extreme real life good friday to easter crucifiction story involving when I was called in to help out in an emergency at Glendale psychiatric hospital, for next time if you want. :) PPdd (talk) 23:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I look forward to it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

On good faith

Hi PPdd,

I have something between a suggestion and an exercise for you. I suggest that you voluntarily revert the page to this version, the version before your first edit, and don't touch it until the AFD is closed. Further, I would suggest you don't touch the AFD page anymore until the AFD closes. I suggest this for a couple reasons.

First, wikipedia has a process for resolving things. If you are going to keep editing over the long haul and not burn out or get kicked off, you need to trust the process and accept its results even if you don't agree. The world won't end. The servers won't crash. People won't die. It's just a wiki.

Second, it shows other editors in the community, and we are a community, that you aren't a POV warrior out to wikilawyer every single page and edit until you "win". The best pages are supported by a wide variety of editors through (sometimes grudging) consensus achieved through compromise. It's always gratifying to see someone you completely disagree with revert an edit that they 100% agree with, because the consensus didn't support it. I've seen it happen, and it's a precious thing. But it only happens if you accept that other people can have points and you should concede that you might be wrong.

Third, you'll be giving time for the process to unfold naturally. You are constantly kicking the anthill. Ever page you edit is peppered with suggestions, arguments, 10 new sections per day, multiple threaded responses to yourself as a new thought hits you and arguments arguments arguments. I don't think you've ever seen what a page normally looks like because you're constantly racing the engine when everyone else is sitting back and thinking. I doubt experienced editors are even bothering to read the talk pages because they're so messy and hard to follow - I know I'm not. There's tremendous value in making a few changes, then sitting back and seeing what people say. The great advantage to wikipedia is (for editors) immediate gratification and (for readers) the latest information, but the best pages are produced by a more thoughtful process where the reading, digestion and discussion of sources occurs, where the relatively stable parts of the page will endure over time and inform newer changes rather than constantly being rewritten. I shudder to think about the poor bastard trying to follow any of the pages you are currently active on through any means except a contribution-by-contribution tracking of your edits across a dozen different domain spaces. Your original thought occurs on one page, which informs the edit of another, which you cross-post to a third, fourth and fifth, and then revisit the first in a new section. Oy vay, it may make sense to you but to everyone else it's like being hit by an airsoft minigun.

Though it's hard to do, you need to have good faith in your fellow editors and the processes that have been established in general. Otherwise, I see you either burning out, being banned, being blocked, or becoming mired in an endless string of acrimonious disputes. What I don't see is a lot of time taken to reflect and absorb. You're obviously a clever type, but you can't assume you're the only one, or that you're the right one. There is no "right" on wikipedia, only an accurate summation of knowledge, and the policy that backs this is a subtle beast, not a bright and shining line.

Those are my thoughts, you can ignore them if you like. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. I'm not really knowlegable about the AfD process, and one background reason for bringing it there, when I would normally have just redirected, was to learn by experience. Re- "People won't die" from an AfD discussion, if you have time, you might want to read my personal ancecdote here[29]. I assume it in no way applies to this circumstance, but it would be really bad if I turned out to be wrong. PPdd (talk) 15:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

As per talking to myself, I will admit that my mirror has asked me to buy it ear plugs, and your comment likely explains why. And how about this at talk acupuncture? PPdd (talk) 16:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge

Per this discussion, want to go about starting the merge? I have no idea how.--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I can help integrate content. After that the page can be blanked and redirected. But I do not know if some kind of official consensus decision is needed to blank RS content and redirect. I don't want to do the work if it will just get undone under some policy or guideline. It seems to me that the silence on the merge indicates no one else cares. PPdd (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Another potential problem I see is that Nietz's views on Keirk is so marginal a topic, and Nietz is so nonmarginal, I anticipate all info as possibly being being considered WP:UNDUE for Neitz's page. PPdd (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, fair points. But then again, if the merge is performed and then that info is subsequently removed from the philosophy page, so be it. I wouldn't be too upset if this non-information doesn't end up anywhere.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I will read the Schopenhur article for context, then the Neitzche, the the Kierk, then work the material in. PPdd (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Are your ears burning?

You're being talked about. In a nice way. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed your comment on WAID's talk page - after I posted the above. I'm not sure what my usual talk page practice is with regard to talking about others. I tend to point a thread out to its subject when it feels appropriate. That moment arrived this morning. Though, if you'd noticed it earlier, your input would have been very welcome. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, my logic at that post showed how to conclude that "PPdd should not have been notified", as well as that I am illogical. What I failed to point out is that if I am illogical, then my logic cannot be used to demonstrate anything, so one cannot conclude that I should not have been notified. Therefore, (one can conclude that (one can conclude that (PPdd should not have been notified)) and that (one cannot conclude that PPdd should not have been notified), an apparent paradox. :) PPdd (talk) 04:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

You're rubbing my nose in the fact that I failed critical thinking. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

If you failed, so got the lowest grade possible, then since I came up with the above preposterous reasoning, that would mean my reasoning would get a grade lower than the lowest possible, which is another contradiction. Therefore, you could not have failed. Now if you will excuse me, I think the cheshire cat has just stopped by for tea. PPdd (talk) 04:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Apologising; and PPdd

Note: section moved from WAID talk page at request of WAID I like you too, Whatamidoing, and agree with most of what you say and do. PPdd is the salient example of what I'm talking about above, though not the only one. He went to Acupuncture point and deleted most of it because it was simply wrong. After that was done there was no content left that wasn't better covered (or at least should be covered) in Acupuncture, so he nominated it for deletion as a fork. Several regulars at AfD thought they recognized that behaviour. "Aah. The old strip-it-to-a-stub-so-it-fails-at-AfD technique." On that basis, these editors restored the pre-PPdd content for "transparency." When it was explained to them that every edit PPdd had made was good-faith removal of dubious or just-made-up material (you may argue the merits of some of the edits if you wish, I guarantee you won't argue against many of them) these editors withdrew their objections.

You then came to the AfD and made the same shallow assessment of PPdd's behaviour and motives. That's fine. Geniuses are as prone to that kind of thing as anybody. I do it occasionally. My problem is that, after PPdd patiently and lucidly explained that each edit was a good faith edit with valid (and mostly sound) reasoning behind it, after WLU went through the article and gutted it to almost the same extent as PPdd, I haven't seen an acknowledgment from you that PPdd was acting in good faith (though much too fast for anybody's liking).

As for "I know that you're upset that I'm not one of PPdd's fans." You don't. Because I'm not. I couldn't care less. Really.

The "drama" PPdd "is creating" The drama PPdd is creating is all because he works too fast for mortal editors. He's out of step with Wikipedia's more glacial pace, and has a dozen discussions happening at any given moment on non-trivial subjects. People concerned with those subjects can't keep up, and resent having to put aside what they're doing to deal with his avalanche. I think you've accused him of being tendentious (forgive me if I'm wrong) . His behaviour is unintentionally disruptive for the reasons I've just stated, but not tendentious. (Interpolation: I got it wrong. He is tendentious wrt alt med sources) WLU is de facto mentoring him in the most delightful way, and has recently explained to him what I've just touched on, so I expect to see some kind of adaptive behaviour from now on. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC) Updated

On at least one point, we disagree: PPdd is creating drama because he works too slowly for other editors. One day, he removes (poorly) sourced content. Several days later, and surrounded by drama, he finally adds good content.

A better editor would have done this in a single step: Replace bad information with good, right now, in the same window, as single transaction or as two back-to-back transactions, with no 'save page and wait until people have screamed for several days' in between.

I don't know why PPdd takes this approach. Perhaps he likes the drama? Perhaps he hasn't thought about how much that needless drama hurts Wikipedia? Perhaps he hates AltMed puffery so much that he has to kill it now, regardless of the consequences? I don't know. I don't even really care. But I do believe that it needs to stop. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. Slow in that sense. He had early success with that method at a pseudoscience article (which surprised me when I saw it) so is probably wondering what all the drama is about when he tries it elsewhere. WLU, if you're lurking, do you know if the impropriety of this method has been pointed out to PPdd in these explicit terms? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:29, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

This should have been done before, but WAID, we're talking about you here. It's mostly polite. Gushy even. Borderline love-fest.

Let's not forget PPdd is relatively new, 7K worth of edits but, given his editing pattern only maybe a third of those are mainspace and a lot are probably multiple edits to reach an end point that an experienced editor would get to in one. I see PPdd like I saw myself at around that time - enthusiastic and clueless. Probably why I'm putting in so much time. I didn't realize there was a difference between policies and guidelines until I'd been editing for over a year. The point is to make PPdd a better editor, and for that he needs feedback. And let's not forget his good points - no edit warring, no blocks, takes (at least my) suggestions and criticism, defends his points substantively (as he understands it) and really, really tries to be open and transparent in his edits with other editors. I see a future Hrafn, or even a future me. I think overall PPdd's never seen what a "normal" editing process and page looks like, and I made this very point yesterday (User talk:PPdd#On good faith). So yes, I do think the impropriety of the method has been pointed out (by me) and even if he did make the cringe inducing statement that he made the change without reading my rationale, he still made my suggested change [30]. And his edit count seems a little down today [31].

Anyone know how to get a better graph on contribution history? I'd like something with more than a couple days on it.

Anyway, he's tackling challenging subjects but trying to do so with sources and policies. He's bungling the more subtle ones, missing out on nuances, and trying to change the policies (gah!) but he's not tripping over the two biggest signs of an unredeemable editor - edit warring and sockpuppeting. I return to my metaphor of a puppy - sometimes cute, often annoying, way to energetic, and eventually grows up to be a dog. And you can eat a dog.

Obviously, that's the signal that I'm done. Thank you, you're beautiful! Thank you! (applause, and fade out). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sweet Jebus, I got the answer to my question (it's the "analyze all edits" option [32]). 80% of 7,000 edits occurred in the past two months. Talk about raw number of edits being no measure of value. So don't think of PPdd as a 3 year contributor with 7K worth of edits, think of him as a 2-month-old noob. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Soxred's counter, which is linked on Special:Contributions, shows the monthly edit counts by default.

I hope that your rehab project stops all of this needless drama. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

You're not the only one. I also find it aggravating, particularly on pages where I'm an active editor. I haven't looked at homeopathy in a while, and at this point simply don't want to. But if new editors don't come along, who will do the work when the old ones leave? Particularly when contributions and new accounts have been leveling-off. I was trying the same thing with BitterGrey but the only thing that seemed to work was nuking the page back to zero. That, however, did seem to work. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

PPdd, Logic, and formal ettiquette

I was not watching these pages, and under common etiquette it is “good form” to notify an editor if they are being discussed. But being good form does not mean one should so notify. Here the proof - I was accused of increasing drama. If the accusation is true, then I should shut up. If the accusation is not true and I respond, then I have increased drama, so I should not respond and shut up. As Mr. Spock would say, thus “logic dictates that PPdd should shut up”. But since I just responded, so did not shut up, this proves that I am illogical, and incidentally shows, that I should not have been notified. :) PPdd (talk) 02:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Have I mentioned I find your humour inscrutable?

Yes, you're correct, it's common courtesy to notify an editor they are being discussed and it was our lapse in courtesy to not do so. If this were AN or ANI, it would be a grievous breach of etiquette to not alert you, individual talk pages are considerably looser. But still, but still, and you have my apologies for that. I will venture that (in my mind anyway) we were more discussing our individual reactions to and understanding of your editing than specifically identifying absolute problems, and given the amount of feedback you're getting across multiple pages, I don't know how much more helpful this rather inchoate section would be. If a coherent conclusion were being reached or an action being planned, I would certainly have made a point of mentioning it. Thank you for taking the discussion with obvious good humour, and I hope you see that much of the conversation was an effort to sell your merits with all the attendant implied compliments.

That being said (there is always a "that being said" when I'm involved), I do urge you to take WAID's advice and slow down, at least for a while. You're in probably the most contested pages you'll find in the medicine section of Wikipedia (though I would advise you to stay away from chronic fatigue syndrome, for at least a couple more months). Probably the only pages that would be more troublesome would be the ones related to ethnic identity, land occupation disputes and probably sports teams. There is tremendous merit to developing a nuanced understanding of the trickier policies, and I think the only way you get that by focusing on one controversial article at a time rather than six.

Sweet Dog, I should charge for this advice, it's gold! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

• (1) Re my humor. I lectured on film at stanford for 8 years, and was often in the campus press. I was described as "the guy who does standup before the films".
• (2) Re my humor and my causing disruption and drama - What is it that mathematicians are always trying to prove, but physicists believe because there is such overwhelming evidence? ... That mathematicians are funnier than physicists. That almost caused a food fight when I came up with it at my first dinner at caltech, at a table that was half mathematicians and half physicists. I then said that the mathematicians are caltech are a bunch of closet physicists, to take care of the other half of the table, but I still did not get a food fight... what did I do wrong? I seem to be having much better success at WP.
• (3)Re my inscrutable humor - I once came up with a measure of quality of a joke that has to do with inscrutability. You know your joke is good when you are giving a lecture to a general crowd, and when you tell a joke, the logician in the front row rolls their eyes and slaps their forehead and says, "that's the dumbest joke I ever heard", but the rest of the audience is still performing the calculation.
• (4)An even stronger measure is when that logician rolls their eyes so hard I need a sharp pencil to get them back down again. :) PPdd (talk) 04:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I regret not having a sense of humor as refined as PPdds. Because of this, I'll get straight to the point. I've suggested[33] that WLU to remove his comment involving me in this conversation[34]. He has chosen to ignore this advice[35]. For PPdd's benefit, here is a discussion concluding with a play-by-play[36] of what WLU thought necessary to bring up here. The highlights of the play-by-play include two points where WhatamIdoing could have avoided causing a conflict by practicing what she herself added to the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle essay, and that only one editor, WLU, supported WhatamIdoing's "consensus," based on the argument that the essay (which was in wiki space) was in user space. This detailed contrast with established practices seems to have been what triggered WLU's "nuking" of the talk page, disrupting all ongoing conversations.

Persisting in re-opening this issue in other places suggests that the goal of the "nuking" wasn't a fresh start, but suppression of one side of the story. Those wishing me not to continue in this conversation should start by deleting the text including me in it.

Now back to the topic of this conversation: PPdd is absolutely correct that the marginalized editor, once accused of causing "drama," has no non-dramatic option other ceasing to edit Wikipedia. My advice is to continue improving Wikipedia, hold to all policies and practices, and expect that unhappy editors will convene privately regarding your "drama." Most of these unhappy editors have the viewpoint that everyone outside their circle are mere redshirts anyway. BitterGrey (talk) 15:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

“Refined” sense of humor????!!!!?? I beg to differ, as the following demonstrates. Bittersweetgrey (Grey Wolfe was my childhood Native American name, but we redskins can’t spell, so it was really "Gray Wolfe". And Marah macrocarpus is my favorite plant, being a xerophytic field botanist as I am and all. "Marah" means "bitter", from the bible or something, as in "her love made the bitter waters sweet" or whatever, and I am the person who donated the central display specimen plant, Marah macrocarpus to Huntington Gardens' Children's garden, which is really a conceptual art botanical sub garden put together by the brilliant and flamboyant puppeteer and past president of the cactus and succulent society of america, Jeff Karsner. Hi Jeff, if you unlikely ever read this, I am being sincere.)... (Its a miracle I ever come back off of those tangents)...

... Bittergreay, BEFORE I go and read what you wrote and follow the links, please

• take a deep breath,
• hold it,
• count to ten,
• touch your nose,
• stand on your head, and
• do this all BEFORE you read the next sentence.

If you followed my instructions, please note that I did not say “Simon says...”, so you lose. In fact, since no one ever said “Simon says stop playing ‘Simon says’.”, every time you failed to do anything anyone suggested you do, without prefacing it with a “Simon says…” you are fully justified in ignoring it. This applying to any suggestions WLU might have made, you are fully justified in ignoring his suggestions. Do you not now regret still more WLU involved you here? Still want to use the adjective “refined” on me? Now I will read what you wrote with seriousness, but don’t expect a response that does not at least appear to be either absurdity or ridiculousness. PPdd (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I read it all (I was the kid shown reading on the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading commercials (really), but I was just faking it, as was everyone there. Our test book was Hiroshima (book), by John Hersey, a very odd choice for speed reading.) As the author of WP:Just do it! all I can say about the linked interchange is either “Duck!”, or “Cry Havoc, and let loose the dogs of edit war” then “Damn the torpedos full speed ahead”, then “Food fight!”. (Note that the Wikipedia article misspells “torpedoes”, reminiscent of that Mr. Potato Head, Dan Quayle’s “potatoe”. PPdd (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict - odd that our simultaneous comments both mentioned food fights...)

Fair enough, and a response isn't required. My main goal was to make it clear that they won't get an exclusive stage by asking me to make a "fresh start" while dredging up old issues themselves wherever they choose. I'm partially hoping they change their minds about inviting me here and accept my suggestion. My secondary goal was to weaken the cycle of marginalization: The power of marginalization comes when some group singles out one user. As long as all those single users are isolated, that group can continue doing so unchecked. However, once those singled-out users become aware of all the other singled-out users, they are suddenly no longer singled out.

By the way, are you planning on telling those math vs. physics jokes at the presentation on quantum physics and cryptography in April? Stanford hosts some great presentations, but they are usually limited to cookies in the foyer, so the potential for instigating a decent food fight isn't good. I don't remember that display from Huntington Gardens, but haven't been there in a while. Did you ever eat at "Continental Burgers" just upwind of Caltec? (The best time to get there was at 4PM, when they were closing down the lunch buffet. ) Hope they haven't shut down. BitterGrey (talk) 20:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

• I haven't eaten anywhere near caltech except some iffy indian and sushi restaurants. I either have little time, and eat the cafeteria next to the red door on campus, or preferably eat at Huntington Gardens, surrounded by the beauty. They give me special rights there, so I even get to eat the growing edibles that no one even knows are edible. If you are a huntington gardens fan (which usually is equivalent to having been there a single time, as that's all it takes to "have to get back there soon"), as you walk in to the garden, just before the desert garden begins, there is a row of Arbutus unedo (strawberry tree), related to the madrone in the stanford area, Arbutus menziesii, and related to Arctostaphylos (manzanitas, or "little apples"), all with edible fruit, but madrone berries are pretty high up and an acquired taste like cranberries, and manzanita fruits are marginal as far as tasty. But the somehow unnoticed Arbutus unedo fruit tastes great, and is usually present most seasons. You probably won’t get yelled at for sampling these, as they are pretty much not recognized. An interesting OR SYNTH story I came up with is that Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, the standard surrealist depiction of hell, has a strawberry tree in the middle, and was originally categorized under the name "The Strawberry Tree" for the collection of the King of Spain, or some european king. Now at Christmas time in LA, you may note that there is a holly leaved plant with red holly wreath like berries growing all over the Hollywood hills, commonly called "Toyon", but whose binomial name is Heteromeles arbutifolia. If you hike up to the top of mt. hollywood in Griffith Park from the Greek Theater side, I run to the top of Mt. Hollywood barefoot at sunrise each morning, and as I walk back down, I put green survey tape tags with botanical info on a specimen of each plant, hidden on all the plants , so you will find Toyon labeled as such, and also as "False Holly" a common name I made up. Toyon's binomial name is Heteromeles arbutifolia, "hetero" referring to the "many" little "apples" (meles), and "arbutifolia" to the holly like leaves looking like Arbutus unedo. The plant is in the rose-apple family Rosaceae, and the berries are quite tasty when roasted. I common named the plant "false holly" because I was tagging plants on trails along on Mulholland Drive, took a branch for decorating my mom's xmas tree (before I thought about the environmental effects, the plant has later become protected for this very reason) and a homeless person encamped nearby said Hollywood was named after the plant because when people saw it, they thought it at xmas, they thought it was holly, and used it for xmas tree decoration. I then put the story on the tags way back then as a joke, and apparently so many people read it that it is in field botany guides such as Flowering Plants of the Santa Monica Mountains as a "fact". LOL. Anyway, now to tie all this rambling together in a package. Since people thought it was holly, and named the town hollywood(land), but it is really false holly, the city should really be called "False Hollywood". And it is fitting for its relation to Bosch's depiction of hell. I made up this joke to actor Leonardo Dicaprio's dad, George, while hiking there one sunrise, and it was the only time he ever failed to at least pretend to smile at one of my inanities. If you are in the hollywood area at xmas time, try roasting the berries, but not too many as they are protected. If you are in the stanford area in about november, Madrone berries are way up high in the trees in the santa cruz mountains, but if you wait for the winter winds, they will blow down very small branches, and you can eat them off the ground.
• Now the important stuff, not the deservedly "marginalized", to use your words, if you have not seen that Marah macrocarpus specimen at Huntington Gardens, you must. It is about the second best smaller plants there. (My favorite is director of desert gardens Gary Lyons' specimen Dioscorea elephantipes, hidden bind other plants, so you need to ask him to show you.) The Marah is in the greenhouse of the children's garden, and it is a caudiciform, so is a two foot beautiful bulbous mass at ground level (a common name is "man root"), protected from sunburn by being under the shelf, and its vines are being trellised up and around as a canopy for the entire greenhouse. Another specimen of the root, though not alive, is the only nonplastic duplicate plant at the LA Museum of Natural History, in an obscrure corner called Chaparral. But that is only one of the reasons it is my favorite plant. If you take the spiny dehiscent dried fruiting body, there are seeds inside that were used by Chumash indians for jewelry. But that is not why it is my favorite plant. The spiny body can be held in one's hands and juggled slightly to make an electronic sounding musical effect (as can plucking the spines of the showy Echinocactus grusonii (golden barrel cacti) and Ferocactus acanthodes in the desert garden. But that it not why they are my favorite plant. The reason is that I discovered that if you soak the dried dehiscent body just the right length of time, and peel off the spines, you are left with a double layered reticulated four chamber shell that looks just like the Geiger's set of Aliens, and makes the perfect "I'll bet your don't have one of these" xmas gift.
• As to stanford, I happen to be up here right now, to discuss a super dooper donation I proposed making to SEP with Ed Zalta, but now I am worrying that an unexpected side effect will be a conflict of interest when I cite SEP as a source when I edit philosophy articles. I am a Singularitarian, so will likely drop by the conference you mention, but I did not know about it until you did. And I have much better joke I made up for mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and cyberneticist/computer scientists. If you have not plugged your ears yet, I will preview it on you.
• Finally, if you got this far, although everything I just wrote is true, and appears at best only marginally related to being a reply to you, it was actually a set up. Because after reading all of my diarrhea of the mouth, you are supposed to wish you were back to being "totally marginalized so you wouldn't have had to read all this. And in a similar vein as to your still being here, I used similar anthropic principle reasoning in my first WP:essay, which I wrote this morning, (plugging) WP:Essjayism. ! :) PPdd (talk) 21:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

(Whops, guess I'll reply here instead: How rude, after inviting us both by name to their own private talk page, they wanted us to go. You are going to put a full link there, right?)

I will have to get back to Huntington Gardens some day, although I'm hoping that there won't be a quiz on the botany. Perhaps I'll bring a printout as a guide. Last time, I was there with a classic TV and film buff, who pointed out what parts had appeared in what TV shows. Not sure if I'd prefer to read your new joke here or hear it at the presentation. How dependent it was on timing would be a factor. Too bad you haven't made it to that oddly-named Greek place, "Continental Burgers." Did you at least make it to "Clearman's Galley" back when it was still "the boat?" ( I'm hoping those other people are done discussing whatever they wanted to discuss. Well, not really. It seems they've passed on their last opportunity at containing this. I hope they realize that the more places they invite me to go or ask me to go to, the weaker additional accusations of "wikihounding"[37] will be. ) BitterGrey (talk) 21:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

.......... timing?......... Rude, or grouchy and rude? I like rude and grouches, because they provide for good viewing entertainment while watching others blow their stacks reacting to them. Is it real Greek or Americanized Greek? There are isolated good middle eastern resaurants around, but I have yet to ever find a descent Greek restaruant. Never heard of "Clearman's Galley" or "the boat?". My main "Academic" association at caltech was teaching "ethics of hacking", and working with students there to realize my oddball mathematical toy inventions, like programming a theoretical infinitely speeding up sound structure, figuring out whether a double Fibonocci series in the double spiral on the top of a cactus was the only logical possibility or derived from some empirical process and applying this to perception, building a pogo stick that could jump over cars, a complex cat's cradle that opens and closes for a door, etc. I was also dating a prof there after she broke up with her husband, who was chair of math and physics, and who subsequently committed suicide. Not my fault but I still feel guilty. PPdd (talk) 22:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It is probably Americanized Greek, since they serve Americanized pizza as well. Can't say I've had dolmas different enough to distinguish between Americanized and real Greek. I forget whether their giros were steak and lamb or some less authentic mix. As for grouches, they are only fun when canned. How did the double Fibonocci cactus top turn out? The pogo stick would require a spring large enough to contain the energy needed, and a controller close enough to resonance, but it could be done. Might be lots of fun too. The cat's cradle's been done by the Scooby gang, I think. Sorry to hear about the suicide. Caltec has secured a unique position in at least one sense; it is the movie scientific gizmo go-to place. If the characters in some movie need a whatever, and there is only one whatever in the world big enough to do the job, it always seems to be at that one small campus. Have a good weekend. BitterGrey (talk) 22:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

There were two aspects of the double fibonocci spiral. If you look at a cactus like Mamillaria from the top, you will notice two spirals of nipples emanating from the top, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise. When the cross, if you count the number the other direction, you get the next fib sequence number. If you look very carefully at almost any botanical form, like a pine cone, it has the same double fib spiral, though harder to see. The question is, can a double spiral situation ever be avoided. It remains unsolved as far as I know, or even posed as aproblem anywhere that I have seen. I just came across it by chance, and I could not figure it out, so hired some math grad students to try, with some guidance and things I had done so far. The second more "fun" and easy visual idea, was to be for Huntington's "children's" garden. when you watch a sprial spin, it appears to either go in, or out, like a barber's shop pole. since there is a clear double spiral on mammilaria, by placing it on an LP turntable, it goes in forever, and out forever, at the same time. One can play with the contrast of each set of colockwise spirals, vs. counterclockwise spirals, and create fun visual things, a la Oppenheimer's exploritotirum stuff in SF, but using a cactus, it best belonged at Huntigton. Where can I see the scooby doo cat's creadle door. We cam up with some pretty far out doors, that allowed entry with one configuration, and blocked entry with another. An air spring works for the pogo stick. This avoids the problem I found using a pogo stick for transportation in SF, where it would twist in the opposite direction of the metal spring coils. Unfortunately, I usually go barefoot, so when I first jumped on it, I went up about ten feet in a concrete lined courtyard, came off the pogo stick, and landed on my bare heel, severely bruising it for months, and maybe fracturing it, but I did not get xrays. :) PPdd (talk) 23:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

February 2011

Please do not delete or edit legitimate talk page comments, as you did at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Colonel_Warden. Such edits are disruptive. Thank you. You were previously asked not to do this [[38]]. Please use diffs, do not copy/paste other user's comments/signatures from one place to another. Gerardw (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC) Gerardw (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

How do I show a diff for comments with intervening comments between them? Please show me how it should have looked in this specfic case, so I can learn what I should have done. I was asked by one editor not to copy regarding another editor, but that other editor I copied said it was not a problem. So that I can avoid this kind of mistake, what is the policy or guideline that I could read that shows me what I should do or not do? PPdd (talk) 03:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:TALKO. Not totally sure I understand 'show a diff for comments with intervening comments between them', but the answer is probably, use multiple diffs, narrating their connection if necessary. Ocaasi (talk) 16:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I'd (also) like to help you with this, but I don't know what you're asking. Normally you link to single edits, unless you want to capture a series in a row. In that case, in the history tab lists each edit individually. Next to each edit is two columns of radio buttons. The default is to compare the most recent, and immediately-next-most-recent edits to each other (see #6 in the accompanying image, and WP:PAGE might be useful). You can select multiple comparisons by selecting a lower left-hand button. This will by default compare the earliest diff you select (i.e. whatever line the left-hand button falls on) to the current page (where the right-hand button at the top is). Hit "compare selected versions" and it will show a line-by-line comparison of each database entry, and indicate the number of edits in between (i.e. for this comparison it is one - "One intermediate revision by one user not shown"). To compare to a link other than the current version, move the right-hand radio button down. If you want to show multiple edits, you'll have to do multiple diffs. You can speed this up by having popups or similar preview-enabled tools installed, and by right-clicking the "cur|prev" hyperlinks and copying the link down (in my experience, it's loading up the diffs that takes the most time). This is the closest I could come to reproducing the chunk of text you pasted in to WEQ as highlighted above, starting with this edit by CW and finishing with this edit by ACH. Obviously less than optimal because of the 26 intervening edits by 5 different editors, in this case I would use different individual or chunks of diffs to get at the guts of the dispute. Does that help?

Incidentally, Gerardw's point about using diffs rather than quotes is very propos, and CW's comments, though very firmly worded, are within the limits of civility set by the community as I understand them - though I could be wrong. This is also evidence of why I believe WEQ isn't a great venue, particularly for experienced editors. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:54, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Please don't be a peewee

Edit descs like "per WLU's recommendation, though I haven't yet read his rationale"[39] make me feel concerned.

In the US, drug dealers use minors for delivery, permitting the dealer to avoid exposing him or herself to risk. Maybe these edits are OK, or maybe admins will extend AGP to include misplaced faith, but please be careful when making edits based on the advice of others. This is especially true for editors with a spotty history. (E.g [40]. He's currently venting his unhappiness about last weekend's exchange on an article I've contributed to. The reference count is already down by a third. ) Please be careful of the risks you take.

Congratulations on the barnstar, although I think you deserve better. Given the context, it is a lot like getting a humanitarian award from Chemical Ali. BitterGrey (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL. WLU recommended holding off on massive numbers of edits during AfD for community's sake, especially as many had misinterpreted my large deletions, with an intent to either reword or source, and then build everything back in. When I finished going through it all, line by line, I found nothing really that I had not seen in acupuncture, or expected to see put there, so I went AfD, thinking this would be better than a bold redirect. WLU put on the talk page that he was coming back with better RS and new wording per it. WLU was the only one who (at least partially) responded to my request for an example of something that would be in acupoint and not in acupuncture so as to avoid CFork. (He did not give an actual example, but he indicated he had been reading and had potential things in mind, which mostly shut up my active opposition to keeping, rather than merging and redirecting.) And, moreover, a "peewee" is where PP comes from. dd has to use the back door. :) PPdd (talk) 02:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ummm... that's a different essay... Just please be careful, OK? BitterGrey (talk) 02:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't understand [[[41] this link]] that you cited (e.g., what's a "block" or an "autoblock"? Where is the article you refer to? What is the dispute?) PPdd (talk) 02:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, if a user violates the wp:3RR policy and gets reported, they might get blocked so they can't edit for a day or so. Some of these entries are because they were having problems with the system. Some are because he was edit-warring and violated 3RR. Violating 3RR actually takes four reverts. I used to think it was a hard-and-fast policy because four reverts in 24 hours is so easy to check. However, that isn't the case. One frustrating incident included an editor who gave me a 3RR warning on my third revert and then proceeded to make his fourth revert, violating 3RR.BitterGrey (talk) 02:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

As for "dicks", if not for them, my tolerance muscle would atrophy, and might even become vestigial when the next of my personalities emerges (I moved my birthday to February 29th in hopes of getting a new astrological sign and, teleologicaly, thus a new personality... and also in the hope that with the resulting less birthdays per solar revolution, I could lower my monthly Rogaine costs.) More seriously (?), I had recently edited about "tiger's penis", then met "Dicklyon" over at Wiki ettiquette alerts, a fun place to make new friends! PPdd (talk) 02:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You moved your birthday to February 29th? Wouldn't you then only get to blow out the candles every fourth year, and not be able to retire until 260 years? BitterGrey (talk) 02:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Retirement? Here I go again. I am a retired mathematician. Too young? A mathematician is like a fashion model, over the hill by age 30. Unlike a theoretical physicist, a mathematician is not connected to reality... and a retired mathematician is less than not connected. PPdd (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The link you asked about is my block log, a list of times (and durations) from which I was blocked from editing any page but my own talk page by the wikimedia software. A spotty block log is indeed a reason to question an editor. Most editors, especially those with strong opinions, tend to accumulate at least one block. I've got three legit blocks (05:12, October 1, 2006 by William M. Connolley for 3rr on Terry Goodkind; 12:16, July 9, 2007 by Isotope23 for 5 reverts at Bodybuilding and 17:49, July 6, 2010 by HJ Mitchell for 3RR on Medroxyprogesterone) and five rather spurious ones (four by Isotope23 who messed up my block and tried four times to fix it, and one by WilyD for me melodramatically demanding punishment for breaking the spirit of my arbcom hearing, which I can give you links to if you're interested but frankly it's a lot of work and you'd probably be reading for days). Considering I've got over 44K worth of edits, I don't think my history is too bad but it certainly could be better and the last one was just the result of losing my temper. You can check anyone's block log by going to their talk page, hovering over the third down arrow, hovering over "Blocks >" and clicking on "Block log". Yours is clean (the option is greyed out) as is Bittergrey's. Having blocks isn't great, but it's not something to be outrageously ashamed of. I'm proud to say I've learned from all three of mine (though the lesson for the third was, "don't be an idiot"). You should be very cautious of taking advice from editors with a large number of blocks in rapid succession, particularly for 3RR on the same page. I'm a bit surprised you've not been blocked, but given you've never actually edit warred (mostly you argue endlessly on talk pages, which is better if frustrating at times) it's not surprising. And ideally, it's something to be maintained. If you find yourself undoing the same edit of another editor, or removing the same bit of text or source repeatedly, that's probably edit warring and it's something to be very, very wary of. Blocks are great educational tools, but they're also a spot on your permanent record. It's very easy and satisfying to keep reverting the same person over and over, but it's ultimately self-destructive, creates needless activity for the servers and is very, very pointless - because anything you undo can be undone by someone else (and inevitably, the version that's protected or you are blocked on is always the wrong version). If you are ever blocked, you can use {{unblock}} to request unblocking, but have a damned good reason (i.e. "But I'm right and the other guy is wrong" is not a good reason. "Um...I think you meant to block PPPd" is). You still have full read access to all pages, you just don't get to save anything so you can still review history pages, diffs, section links, etc. I think you can still use the e-mail option (though that too can be blocked if you abuse it). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm… thinking… as a vaccination against being accused of being on a “high horse” or of being “boy scouts” in 2011, you and me and Bittergray can play rock paper scissors on one of our own edits by forming a circle where we each revert the last one’s edit four times, report each other, and each get a 24 hour block. It might also help build camaraderie between Bittergray and you. :) PPdd (talk) 04:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'm quite fond of my clean block record, as you should be, PPdd. While I've dealt with a number of difficult editors, I have always done so within Wikipedia policy. Of course, this often meant that I was taken advantage of. BitterGrey (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Aw, that's no fun. I thought this section was about me not being a peewee. :) PPdd (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)