User talk:Captain Occam/Archive 5

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AN/I[edit]

Hello. 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.--Crossmr (talk) 00:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warning[edit]

You are edit warring. Please self revert and read the comment I made on the mediation page. I think that including material on this subject is fine; I have requested you to write something shorter. You seem to be editing too hastily and not waiting for others to comment. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 13:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Both of you (Occam and Mathsci) are editing tendentiously. Point 5 of the Mediation rules state "Do not make edits to the page that would contravene these discussions", which I am taking to apply to uncontrolled reverting in article space. please take it to talk or the mediation page, where you can work out a compromise through discussion. --Ludwigs2 15:00, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Contact[edit]

Hi. I would like to contact you off-Wiki. Can you e-mail me at dave at kanecap.com? David.Kane (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done, but you'll need to let me know what it is you want to discuss there. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

talk back[edit]

Hello, Captain Occam. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Ludwigs2 01:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

R&I talk page[edit]

Occam: I know I'm not the mediator anymore, but it would be a good thing if you held on to some of the mediation principles. I'm thinking specifically of where you said (to Mathsci) "If you still don’t understand this, there’s nothing I can do to explain it any more clearly"... Again, mild as those words are, they are 'fighting words'. I know you didn't mean them that way, but it is the kind of phrasing that's likely to raise ire and call out an unpleasant response. As I mentioned to David, the best approach on an article as contentious as this is to be slow, and moderate, and maybe even a bit self-effacing. That will encourage everyone else in the debate to do the same, if they are inclined that way; and it will encourage those who are not so inclined to make more excessive and egregious actions in order to try to get your ego involved (and the more excessive, egregious their acts, the more likely it will attract the attention of annoyed admins).

look at wp:Meditation Cabal. --Ludwigs2 17:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

“As I mentioned to David, the best approach on an article as contentious as this is to be slow, and moderate, and maybe even a bit self-effacing.”
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but something you need to keep in mind is that when I posted these comments, there was an edit war underway to try and force this section into the article despite the fact that it obviously didn’t have consensus. In the past (that is, before the mediation case) what’s ended up in the article as a result of edit wars like this has often ended up staying there on a long-term basis. While this was happening again, it seems like being slow and moderate would have basically just amounted to letting the people who wanted to override consensus via edit wars and filibusters have their way about what goes in the article, and the article would have suffered as a result. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what to tell you... Edit wars run on bile and steam: an editor gets amped up and starts doing edits that (in a better frame of mind) s/he would not normally do. If you are slow, moderate, and persistent, things tend to settle out over time. people who are angry will cool off and start being reasonable, while people who are jerks will eventually get bored and frustrated and wander off (jerks need you to feed their fire - if they can't get you to defend yourself in an energetic way then they start to lose interest). it may take weeks, but if you do it well it's like they are trying to pick a fight with a glacier: sooner or later even the worst-tempered person will get that there's just no point in it. The problem most people have is they burn out too quickly because they are trying too hard, or give up too quickly because they personalize the silliness. just my way of seeing it. --Ludwigs2 22:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring[edit]

I did not violate 3RR. It is you who are edit warring. You know little about science, yet come to this article just to push your racist point of view. Fortunately, there are many other editors who will put science above your racist ideology. Slrubenstein | Talk 08:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm one of those editors (and scientists), and the science so clearly supports the genetic hypothesis that I think you don't actually believe otherwise but are merely pushing your PC mandatory opinion. No, rubenstein, it is you and mathsci who are edit warring. Occam has only been reasonable, but you call him a "racist" and mathsci is much, much worse. The first thing you did to Bryan was barrage him with simpleminded, disingenuous objections until he said "fuck it" and went away for a long time. And wanaponda charged me with being "racist" but was blown off and laughed at by six admins before finding one who would post even a mild note on my talk page.
Your "I did not violate 3RR" is system-gaming. Ever since I became so disgusted with your and mathsci's bullying that I left, I've been gathering evidence for a formal action, and the above is just more of it. I want objective eyes to see what kind of hostility, POV pushing, personal attacks, and grossly unreasonable demands have been going on.
You should be ashamed of yourselves for your shocking behaviour. That you're compromising both science and the integerity of wikipedia too makes it even worse.
And to ludwig (who said "...the more likely it will attract the attention of annoyed admins"): I WANT admins and dispute specialists and wiki-judges to come in. I WANT them to see this spectacle, and because that hasn't happened yet, I'm taking it to them as soon as your ugly performance is played out.
Yeah I know the both of you are wiki-bigshots with wikipolitical "friends" like the head of ANI who will wink and likely render an equally-shocking decision in your favor.
The emperor's court may know he has no clothes and still suppress those who say so, but it doesn't matter. As a wikipedian, I cannot let this appalling article- and editor-abuse go unnoticed, and as a scientist, I can't let this abuse against truth go unprotested. TechnoFaye Kane 09:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks[edit]

For your response, saying "Epeefleche: If Slrubenstein apologizes to me and mikemikev for being uncivil towards us, and agrees to make an effort to avoid this problem in the future, I would be happy for this thread to be closed." I had worded my suggested language slightly differently, but imagine that you won't be troubled by the difference. I'll discuss the difference here, and presume that it may well be seen by SLR, as he has posted above. I gather from the comments at that thread that there are various views as to whether SLR was uncivil, and if so how much. There is also a strain of thinking that wiki cannot require apologies. To thread the needle, I suggested that he apologize not for being uncivil, but for its impact on you -- which I believe we can all agree with.

Streacher makes a suggestion for you as well at that thread, which you may wish to consider adopting. It can't hurt, and could help lower the heat of the ongoing future discussion, as well as demonstrate good faith on your part.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In order for me to be satisfied with an apology from Slrubenstein as the resolution to this issue (rather than a warning for him from another admin, or some other solution), I think I’d need him to admit specifically that he was inappropriately uncivil. For him to apologize only for offending me and Mikemikev implies that part of the problem was on our own part for taking offense at his comments. I don’t think that’s accurate—I think that virtually any user, even the most reasonable of users, would have taken offense at what he was saying to us if it were directed at them. I also think that if the resolution to this issue does not involve SLR admitting that his choice of words was inappropriate, or another admin pointing this out to him, there’s more of a danger that this same problem will arise again in the future; and preventing it in the future is the main thing I was trying to accomplish with my AN/I report.
I agree that Stephen B Streater’s suggestion would be a good idea for us to follow in principle, but in practice it might be pretty difficult. In the situation that he described, his comment that he mentioned was buried in the middle of the lengthy and heated disagreement between Slrubenstein and Mikemikev. If I had replied only to Stephen’s suggestion about how this material could be reworded to make it clearer, without responding to Slrubenstein’s vehement opposition to the material being included at all, I probably would have been accused of ignoring Slrubenstein’s argument about this.
That’s the way is usually goes in situations like this: it doesn’t accomplish much for a single user to try and discuss matters in a non-confrontational manner, if everyone else isn’t willing to do the same. There currently are a few editors who take this non-confrontational approach, such as user:David.Kane, but when they aren’t being ignored entirely they tend to get attacked for editing the article without responding to everyone else’s arguments against their edits. I linked to one such attack against David.Kane in the AN/I thread, but I can provide a few others if necessary.
While the article was under mediation, which it was until a little under a week ago, our mediator (Ludwigs2) monitored all of the discussions in order to make sure that they were proceeding in a constructive manner. Now that mediation is over, though, this sort of antagonistic behavior seems to be what everyone both expects from others and engages in themselves. As nice as it would be for this to change, I have a difficult time imagining that it would be possible to get everyone involved in the article to agree to act differently in this respect—which is what I think would be necessary for this to improve, since it doesn’t seem to accomplish anything when some users do this but not others. I’m not suggesting that the article should re-enter mediation, but would there be any way for an admin who doesn’t have a personal stake in this topic to monitor the discussion there on a long-term basis, in order to try and keep it civil and constructive the same way that Ludwig did during the mediation case? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I tried. Look -- I dealt w/a sysop who I thought was uncivil. Telling people things like "you can go fuck yourself". See here. Note, as well, the circle-the-wagons support-my-friend comments. What you cited some think contains uncivil language, though even those tend not to think that most of the diffs rise to the warning level. Also, wiki is quite clear (I had reason to look this up in the past) that we can't require people to apologize in any sense. So, I understand you feel upset (as does he), but I don't see you getting anything better than what I proposed (at best). Judging from the comments at the AN/I, and my indicated experience. Your choice, but wikidrama just eats up time you could spend editing, especially if you have no reason your complaint will go anywhere.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know we can’t require him to apologize, but if someone could still persuade him to do so just for the sake of moving forward with the article, that’s something I would appreciate a lot. (And I’m sure Mikemikev would also.) I don’t think that’s so much to ask for. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Best of luck. I do think that at this point all points have been made, and focus on -- as you put it -- moving forward is the best approach.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assumptions[edit]

I added in the new Assumptions section, per your request. My initial plan was to wait the full week and hope that Muntuwandi would provide more feedback. But I also understand why you would want to have that section stable before starting your own changes, so that is why I went ahead now. Good luck! David.Kane (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per Slrubenstein’s request, I’ll probably be waiting a couple days before I go about my proposed revisions, assuming that nobody raises a problem with my proposal during that time.
In the mean time, I’d suggest that we work some more on improving the history of the race and intelligence controversy article. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tomorrow[edit]

I appreciate your waiting. I think tomorrow is reasonable, gives everyone plenty of time to comment. I Do believe there is good material from the original that can be fit into the new draft. It would be easier on all of us if Muntuwandi provided specifics about what he is thinking. But if you don't mind my suggestion - in any passage that provides views you are sympathetic with, may I ask that you look at the pre-mediation version to see if there is any comparable material you are not symathetic to (either that criticises views you like, or provides alternatives)? Then, if you agree that the sources are reliable, could you incorporate them into the article. I am not asking you to do this as a gesture of good will. I think it is efficient. If it is YOU adding summaries of views you do not like, we can assume that virtually every editor involved in the article would consider it a fair edit. Just a thought. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion, but for the material that I add from the pre-mediation version of the article, I wasn’t intending to pay attention to whether I’m sympathetic to it or not. I was just going to add back material about whatever possible causes of the IQ gap receive significant coverage in the source material but aren’t discussed in the article. I’ll be presenting arguments both for and against each of these factors as a possible cause, so which of them I’m sympathetic to shouldn’t make a difference. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:33, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, cool. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Flynn Effect and Rats[edit]

Hi, Occam. I just finished reading Rupert Sheldrake's The Presence of the Past (which I highly recommend), and though you might appreciate something I ran across - something that made me laugh out loud when I read it.

In the 1920's, Robert C. Tryon of the University of California set out to discover whether one could demonstrate the heritability of intelligence by breeding "intelligent" rats - with "intelligence" being measured by performance in running a particular maze. Each generation was divided into those which performed well on the maze (termed "bright") and those which performed poorly (termed "dull"), and breeding was only allowed within each group. As Tryon expected, the discrepancy in the level of performance between the two groups increased with each generation, with the chances of "bright" behaviour appearing in the "bright" group increasing with time. However, something else happened which Tryon did not expect: the "dull" group, though it always remained behind its "bright" counterpart, also increased in overall performance with each generation. In other words, both the "bright" rats and the "dull" rats were improving in terms of overall performance despite the fact that the chances of both "brightness" in the "bright" group and "dullness" in the "dull" group were also increasing with each generation respectively.

Granted, Sheldrake's purpose in discussing this experiment is not to debunk the common interpretation of the Flynn Effect (to understand his point, as well as his incredibly clever solution, you'd have to read the book), but I found myself wondering what environmentalists would say to Tryon's results. Maybe the "dull" rats were the victims of stereotype threat? :) --Aryaman (talk) 21:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another one of Aryaman's veiled bigoted analogies. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ANI[edit]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Tag_team_editing_on_History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy that mentions you as an involved party. You may want to respond there to the allegations against you. Soap 15:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re: RFC/U[edit]

I think it might be better to wait for the latest ANI charade to blow over, then put something together. mikemikev (talk) 09:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ANI complaints about Mathsci[edit]

I have looked through the ANI archives and found some of the previous complaints about User:Mathsci: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. --120 Volt monkey (talk) 19:34, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious[edit]

I accidentally happened upon a quote by you of a comment of mine, which (happily) you were agreeing with, and noticed that you referred to me as a "she". Was just curious as to what I've said or done to give you a sense as to my gender. (Maybe it is that you are a she, and since you thought my comment worthy you figured I must be one as well ...). Best.  ;)--Epeefleche (talk) 07:43, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When a person here doesn't offer any obvious indicators as to their gender, I often just make the best guess that I can at it. I'm male myself, so it wasn't based on thinking that you're similar to me.
In your case, it just was based on your writing style. In the past, I've been able to guess people's genders based on their writing styles with around 80% accuracy. If you belong to the other 20% and I was wrong in your case, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you; that wasn’t my intention. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No offense at all. I really was just curious. Actually, I used to guess myself, when reading articles in the NYT. I found that I was accurate at what I think was a higher rate. Though of course I might have subconsciously seen their name, though not noted it consciously, when I started the article. It would be a curious thing to determine what it is that tips us off. I imagine you've noticed the same w/handwriting.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:43, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Advice[edit]

Please do not vandalise History of the race and intelligence controversy by removing multiply sourced edits. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 11:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warning[edit]

You are edit warring without discussing content properly. Eysenck, Jensen and Gottfredson are obviously too biased have been used as commentators in the recepttion section. It suited their case to use the Snyderman and Rothman study, However, outside their small circle no other eminent psycohometricians seems to have agreed with their point of view. So the edits of Varoon Arya (talk · contribs) were POV-pushing, non-neutral and undue as described in the edit summaries. I would advise not to edit war by reverting in this way and attempt to have some kind of normal discussion of the sources. You appear to be adopting yet agian a battleground spirit. Mathsci (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Race and intelligence[edit]

Hi, Captain Occam, thank you for your message. I wrote back at Talk:Race and intelligence of my reasons why the figures should not be removed. Thank you. --roc (talk) 03:22, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

False claims of consensus[edit]

There is no consensus for that paragraph which is fatcually incorrect and I removed. I will remove it again and you can carefully explain why Lewontin is a researcher on race and intelligence. Or why Nisbett is. These are BLP violations, Mathsci (talk) 04:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More edit warring[edit]

Instead of edit warring on this article - you have a reputation for that with 3 increasingly long blocks so far - you should justify why Nisbett and Lewontin are described as researchers in "race nd intelligence". This is a BLP violation, because that is not their area of research. Nor is Nisbett an enviromentalist. Another BLP violation. Nisbett has written a popular book about intelligence, but that is not his main research interest. You should give some kind of intellectual justification for these BLP violations, which can be remove on sight, indepedently of 3RR, as I'm sure you're aware. Without using "consensus during mediation" as justification, please explain on the Talk:Race and intelligence why you have retsored these BLP violaations into the article Mathsci (talk) 04:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Race and intelligence[edit]

Hi,

unfortunately, I do not currently have the time to get more deeply involved in this controversy. In the past, I have edited some related articles, but often it has led to bitter, time-consuming disputes and edit wars, and I want to avoid that. However, I will look into some of the questionable changes by Mathsci, e.g. the criticism section in the Mainstream Science article. Keep up the good fight!--Victor Chmara (talk) 15:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warning[edit]

I have just added completely new material to the article History of the race and intelligence controversy, including new references, new quotes from Jensen and 2 different secondary sources. You reverted all of these edits at once. Your edit summary said that "I added back content" but that is entirely false. All the content was new and different from anything that had been there before. If you are now removing of the new content that is just edit warring irrespective of how many have attempted and cna easily result in a block if you're blinding rolling back a whole series of edits. Mathsci (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI all the material is completely new. You simply reverted without checking a thing. What precisely was your problem with these new edits. Please discuss them on the talk page. Did you not like the new reference Concepts and theories of human development (1972) by Richard M. Lerner. Is he a Marxist historian or something? Mathsci (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI[edit]

Hello. 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. Mathsci (talk) 07:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Occam, I haven't dug very deeply into the content dispute—you know my view that there's a philosophical problem about whether Wikipedia should be allowed to echo cultural zeitgeist as fact. What is clear is that edit-warring, talk page discussion, BLPN debate, and ANI reports have all failed to make any progress on this, and that no administrator feels comfortable stepping in to settle it (apparently largely out of fear of offending a major contributor they don't want to lose). I suggest you write an ArbCom case addressing both the policy issue of otherwise reliable secondary sources which perform potentially problematic synthesis, as well as the personal attacks of MathSci (admins must be reminded that "editors in good standing" are not allowed derail content disputes with ad-hominem) and others who seem to have embraced the WP:CPUSH essay as justification for dismissing editors with whom they disagree and excusing incivility. If you list me as an involved party I will provide a statement. Rvcx (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve had other people suggest ArbCom a few times over the issues that Mathsci is causing, and it’s always been something I had a preference against. I already feel that issues like these are causing Wikipedia to take up more of my time than I’d like it to, and as a result they’re also preventing me from getting involved in articles about other topics, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for some time now. However, if you want to start an ArbCom case over this yourself, you’re welcome to list me as an involved party, and I’ll provide a statement. If you want to do that, I can also tell you who I think the rest of the involved parties are. (Some of them were heavily involved in this issue during the first few months of it, but aren’t as active nowadays.) --Captain Occam (talk) 14:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Serious concern about your editing[edit]

I have a serious concern about your editing. It appears that nearly 100% of your edits recently have been reverts. Participating in wikipedia only to revert one side of a content dispute is highly problematic behavior - if it continues, I will be forced to escalate my concerns about your behavior. Hipocrite (talk) 16:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outing and edit warring[edit]

There are clear procedures for dealing with situations where you think you're being outed (WP:OUTING). Edit warring is not one of them. Please avail yourself if you think this is something that needs to be blanked. A.Prock (talk) 19:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you were to remove your post denying that there was evidence in your Wikipedia edits that you are a holocaust denier, I'd accept the deletion of the reply. It's not "outing" to point out current links in Wikipedia to your past transgressions which you presently deny. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Guys, however you feel about the content dispute, this is so far over the line it's not funny. If he doesn't want his account linked to real life, then he is advised to neither confirm nor deny whether that's his blog, and he is entitled to remove the attempted out. But beyond that, just take a step back: what on earth does accusing him of holocaust denial have to do with the thread the attack was posted to? There are a lot of things reasonable people can disagree about; this isn't one of them. Rvcx (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As Arthur said, Captain Occam was the one who opened the discussion of holocaust denial. Redacting both edits, and going to WP:OS to have it scrubbed is the sensible way to proceed. A.Prock (talk) 19:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue that mentioning a previous outing is not an excuse to re-out someone, but I will agree that removing the comment that was being used as an excuse (which Captain Occam has now done) should be more than sufficient to end this nonsense. Rvcx (talk) 19:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There’s an important distinction here, which none of you seem to be making. All that I was stating was what’s already been stated on Wikipedia, by both myself and other users: what the blog post in question was about, and how it didn’t support the claim Mathsci was making about me. For example, an administrator has already pointed this out on Mathsci’s userpage. What Muntuwandi was doing, however, was posting information on Wikipedia that had never been posted or linked to here, as well as selectively quoting it in order to obscure its meaning. (I’d explain exactly how he was obscuring its meaning, but that would involve going into detail about this post, which would defeat the whole purpose of it being removed.) By doing this and using it to support a false claim about me, Muntuwandi was repeating the exact same behavior for which Mathsci had already received a warning.
Every administrator I’ve discussed this with has agreed with me that Mathsci’s claiming this about me was unacceptable, and the only reason Oversight hasn’t permanently removed his comment is because doing that apparently isn’t possible in AN/I threads. I’ve discussed this via e-mail with the Functionaries group (via Keegan), and all of the users in this group who’ve expressed an opinion about it appeared to agree with me. Given the opinion of Wikipedia’s administrators about this, as well as the fact that no action has yet been taken against Mathsci because of it, I think it’s completely reasonable for me to bring this up in the context of discussions about Mathsci’s recent violations of WP:NPA. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The simplest way to prevent these sorts of things from occurring in the future is to refrain from mentioning them yourself. A.Prock (talk) 20:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Redacting both edits, and going to WP:OS to have it scrubbed would have been the sensible way to proceed. Scrubbing is now impossible. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Would it ever have been possible? When I contacted Oversight because of Mathsci doing this, I was told that suppression isn't possible in AN/I threads. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's difficult, but not necessarily impossible, if you had deleted the comments which pointed to your identity after the reply which corrected your pointing your identity. There are now probably over 250 versions with the material which you consider "outing". If there were only 4 or 5 revisions with the disputed material, it might have been possible to recredit the editors whose revisions would have been oversighted. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by “corrected your pointing your identity”? Are you telling me that Mathsci’s and Muntuwandi’s claims about me have actually had the intended effect on you; that you now believe that I’m a holocaust denier?
Have you read the original discussion about this, or any of the comments in which administrators were admonishing Mathsci about the fact that the blog post he’d found did not support the claim he was making about me? Have you read the entire blog post itself, rather than just the sentence from it that Muntuwandi quoted out of context? (I’m not going to link to it, but it’s been linked to by others.) It’s difficult enough to deal with these sorts of claims about me without them actually influencing others’ opinions. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, this issue is over. But Captain Occam, please do not accuse me of "selectively quoting". I would have in fact preferred to post the whole blog, so that nothing is out of context. But I chose not to, only because that would be gratuitous and would clog up the noticeboard. Since you do not want to discuss your blog, I won't, but if you were I would be very happy to go through it line by line. If you see this post above, User_talk:Captain_Occam#Blog_postings, I have been suggesting since October 2009 that if you don't like what is on your blog, then don't bring it to Wikipedia. In your post on ANI, you mentioned the domain of your blog and the subject of holocaust denial, pretty much outing yourself. As I have mentioned before, if there is any editor trying to "out" Captain Occam, it is Captain Occam himself. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I mentioned that Mathsci made a false claim about this, which was a blatant violation of WP:NPA, because we were discussing similar examples of the same thing involving other users. And what I stated is only what’s been stated by most of the users who commented on this when it happened, including the administrator who warned Mathsci about it on his userpage.
Do you really not understand how that doesn’t justify what you did? If this makes it any more obvious, imagine that you had posted your comment directly in response to the administrators who were admonishing Mathsci about his accusation when he’d first made it, rather than just in response to my summary of what they’d said about this. Everything you’re saying to justify your own comment would have applied in that situation also: in the process of explaining why Mathsci’s comment had been unacceptable, they were also mentioning the topic of the blog post and what website it had been at, which according to you is enough to qualify as outing me also and make your own comment acceptable. When they were all pointing out how it was inadmissable for Mathsci to bring up this blog post of mine and use it to claim that I’m a holocaust denier, would you have considered it acceptable to quote the same post, and argue from it that Mathsci was right that I really am one? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From WP:OUTING If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. It's hard for me to understand why you insist on talking about this stuff if you are concerned about outing issues. Better to not discuss it at all. A.Prock (talk) 01:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
“If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information”
This is what I tried to do at first, but those instructions are written under the assumption that this situation would go differently from how it’s gone in my case. The way this is supposed to go is that when the offending information gets removed by the user being outed, nobody attempts to add it back, and then the information gets suppressed and it’s as though it had never been posted at all. In my case, they way it’s usually gone is that other users (yourself included) won’t allow the information to be removed; since it’s in AN/I threads suppressing it isn’t possible; and (in the case of Mathsci’s initial accusation that I’m a holocaust denier) several admins end up commenting on it shortly after it’s been posted. Trying to make as though the accusation had never been posted, which is the purpose of the policy you quoted, seems completely futile in cases like these. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@ Occam, I have at no point accused you of being anything. You have accused Mathsci of making a false claim about you. In response, I added an unadulterated quote, apparently your own words so that readers could make up their own minds instead of having only one side of the story. You do mention in your blog that it is not the first time someone has come to that conclusion, so it really shouldn't be a surprise. I am in two minds on this, on one hand I would like to discuss your post because I see it as directly relevant to POV pushing of fringe and minority views on Wikipedia, OTOH I empathize with your need for privacy. So I will leave it up to you to prioritize, if your privacy is more important then I won't discuss your blog, however if you choose to defend your blog on Wikipedia, I will be more than pleased to comment. Wapondaponda (talk) 01:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Muntuwandi, something you need to realize here is that what I stated was not an “accusation” against Mathsci per se. It was only a re-stating of the conclusion the administrators had reached about his comment, and as such, it was not something that was really subject to debate. (Unless you would have wanted to get in contact with the administrators who came to this decision originally, and see if you could change their minds about it.) The fact that you still want to discuss this here indicates that you still aren’t getting it: the issue was resolved, Mathsci was warned and asked to retract his comment, and the only thing that there is to discuss about it at this point is the fact that the admins determined that Mathsci was violating WP:NPA with this comment.
I mentioned this in my last reply to you, and you haven’t responded to it. But you need to listen to it, and take it to heart if this issue ever comes up again.
Let me ask you something else, that I asked you in the AN/I thread but that you didn’t respond to: why do you feel compelled to defend Mathsci about issues that have nothing to do with you? Your argument for why you posted what you did is that if I say something about Mathsci, you need to respond to it, but you haven’t explained why you think issues involving me and Mathsci require your involvement also. As far as I can tell, you don’t have any justification for this attitude. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Considering your old user page wikilinks or the labelling of this kind of file File:Populations.png on wikipedia/wikimedia, I don't quite see why you are accusing wikipedia editors of trying to out you. You seem to have done it yourself about two or three times, undoubtedly accidentally of course. Mathsci (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC) Mathsci (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci, the problems with this aspect of your behavior have been explained to you by so many people, including several administrators, that I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by my trying to explain it to you again. I think by this point you probably understand anyway why my willingness to use my real name here does not make your behavior any more acceptable, any more than David.Kane using his real name as his username justifies you saying whatever you want about him, and that at this point you’re just making excuses for yourself.
Either way, if you aren’t willing to admit that there’s anything wrong with the aspects of your behavior that I and others have been complaining about at AN/I, all I can say is that you may as well just continue with it. Judging by the comments there, the balance of other users’ opinion about you is starting to shift: the complaints that you’ve posted about me and David.Kane are being completely disregarded except by two or three of your supporters, none of whom are admininstrators; and some of the admins who’ve expressed blanket support for you in the past are now acknowledging the problems with your behavior. It probably won’t be possible to obtain a consensus for blocking or topic-banning you this time around, but as long as your behavior continues unchanged and keeps coming up at AN/I, we’ll continue gradually getting closer to that.
So really, it’s up to you whether you want to continue engaging in this behavior and denying that there’s anything wrong with it. It has more of a long-term effect on you than it does on any of us, and it certainly doesn’t affect what ends up going in the articles. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Case[edit]

I'm hoping this can get things moving in the right direction:

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Race and Intelligence and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rvcx (talkcontribs) 13:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that uninvolved editors who put a stop to an edit-war, or tell involved editors to fix their approach, are not considered as involved parties in community discussions or arbitration. Should you wish to prove a frivolous accusation that I am in someway involved in the Race and intelligence topic, please provide diffs. Thanks, Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I made the best judgment I could about this, based on your participation in the BLP and AN/I threads about these articles. If you think I made a mistake by adding you to the list of involved users, feel free to remove yourself from it. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You edit-warred to suggest that my removal was incorrect - so either please self-revert, or back up your claim. Thanks, Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where did I edit war over this? When I saw that your name wasn’t on the list, I thought you should be included there also, so I added you. I only did that once. If someone added it multiple times, it wasn't me. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:49, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect this is just a mis-understanding. I originally had Ncmvocalist on the list, but he immediately removed his name, and I'd guess that you added it without realizing it had already been there. I should also remind you that you need to notify any involved parties that you add. Rvcx (talk) 13:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rvcx did [11] and I removed the name [12] saying I am not involved. As has been pointed out on my talk page, you re-added my name after I removed it [13]. In other words, Captain Occam, you are indicating that my edit was incorrect and that I am lying about my position in this dispute. To cut it short, this will end badly if you are neither going to self revert, nor provide diffs to substantiate the frivolous claim you made (because it was you who added my name to this request as if I am involved in this topic, immediately after I explicitly denied being involved). Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What Rvcx said here is right. When I added your name along with two other users, I hadn’t realized that it had been there before and that you’d removed it. If you really don’t want to be listed there, I’ll remove you. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oregon?[edit]

TheGoodLocust (talk) 16:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RFAR Race and intelligence[edit]

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 12:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a message on your talk page will get your attention[edit]

Hi Occam. You said, "WavePart hasn't responded to these comments", when my comments are waiting right there for your response with encouragement. I can see plainly there has been a lot of destructive and counter-productive editing going on at that page, but you should understand that I have no interest in being a part of it, and I can be an ally in helping you get your edits in, if you can discuss them with me there. As it is, I do not yet know what you want the page to say, because you have not replied to my request. WavePart (talk) 10:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring[edit]

Please remember WP:3RR and that WP:CCC. Rather than insisting on disputed text in a FAQ, why not demonstrate that it has consensus. Verbal chat 17:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I already have, in my comment on the talk page to which nobody has replied thus far. Are you going to make any effort to actually dispute this part of the FAQ, or just keep removing it? --Captain Occam (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My reading of what you wrote seems vastly different to what you think it shows. Verbal chat 18:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]