Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:35, 23 March 2016

Unbanned

Peter, per the clear community consensus at the administrators noticeboard, you are now unbanned. I've unblocked this account and removed the protection on the pages. Worm(talk) 13:20, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Just an FYI—I've restored the original anti-vandal semiprotection on his userpage, since IPs seemed to enjoy screwing with it in the past. Let me know if you want it removed. As an aside, out of curiosity, what does "οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη: εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω" mean? "Not good/useful many???: that I be (a) ???." My Greek is terrible and I don't know that word. :\ Anyways, cheers, and good luck! Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:09, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Ouk (not) agathon (good) polykoirania (multiple leadership) , eis (one) koiranos (king, leader) let there be (esto). Hence "the rule of many is not good, let there one ruler be", quoted by Aristotle at the end of book 12 of the Metaphysics, where he 'proves' the existence of God. It's from Homer I think. Peter Damian (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes Homer.Peter Damian (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! The verb "to be" always gave me trouble with its many inflected forms. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Congrats on being let out of the pokey.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Back in the salt mines Peter Damian (talk) 07:21, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Congratulations William M. Connolley (talk) 10:19, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome

Ha, I'm the first to welcome you back, cool! After all that has gone down, I'm almost surprised you still want to edit this site, but I'm very glad you do, you're a great asset. Bishonen | talk 13:28, 16 April 2015 (UTC).

A warm welcome from me, too. Very glad to see you back! Huldra (talk) 20:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

And from me, Peter. It's nice to see your name on my watchlist again. Sarah (SV) 01:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you :) Peter Damian (talk) 06:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Resilient Barnstar
	Congratulations, mate. Along with your first barnstar in your new wikilife. :)) And thanks to all those who spoke up for "Peter Damian". Andreas JN466 14:20, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

		The BLP Barnstar
		For commitment to the truth in relation to the Contribsx ArbCom case.Vordrak (talk) 20:04, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Surely you're just the kind of person who needs more kittens. William M. Connolley (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks...

... to everyone who participated, for better or worse. (Perhaps a bit more thanks to those who voted for the unban, but whatever, I am sure everyone had their reasons). Peter Damian (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back

Thanks for hanging in there, Peter, it was a long and bitter wait, I'm sure. Just remember to do your venting at the other place and to dodge conflict here. It's really not worth getting worked up over in the final analysis, there is always plenty of work remaining to be done on some other topic if someone gets in your face about something else. All the best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 20:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back.

Here. They are ALL yours. Bonaventure, Anselm of Canterbury, Lanfranc, Robert Grosseteste, John Peckham, Robert of Melun (and any other medieval English bishop who also was a philosopher or theologian...). Oh, sooooo glad to see someone who actually likes philosophy to hand the upkeep and upgrading of those guys to... Ealdgyth - Talk 23:19, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi! I am working on a paper on Grosseteste at the moment. How are you doing? Peter Damian (talk) 05:31, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Glad you're back. Glad someone is glad to work on philosophers. I've been working on filling in obscure nobles and clerks that were in the DNB and are in the ODNB but aren't here yet. When I have the time to work on wiki. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:20, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Glad to see you back and able to edit. For what little it might be worth, to the degree that I can help, which probably ain't much, just ask. Also, you might find the WP:RX helpful, particularly for reference works and articles or whole books. I know that I have found it, and some of the contributors there, particularly useful for getting items I don't have ready access to myself. John Carter (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back from me too. The unban discussion closed too quickly for me to be able to participate in that (I had assumed it would stay open longer). If you ever get round to looking at Robert Boyle (still on my to do list), let me know, though I'm sure you have more than enough to do in other articles. Carcharoth (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I will be in touch some time. Peter Damian (talk) 08:19, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Congrats

Due to byzantine Arbcom retardation I was unable to post to the WP:AN thread. The handful of opposes were an amusing stroll down Grudge-Holding Lane. Good luck, maybe Kohs can be the next one back into the fold. Tarc (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Good to see you and thanks for popping by! Peter Damian (talk) 05:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back encyclopedist

If I can help with anything, just ask. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:28, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Honi soit qui mal y pense

While patrolling today, I came across a stub which may be of interest: structural evil. I've given it a quick wash and brush up but I suppose that there's a lot more to say on the subject. I'm not sure if you are especially interested in ethics but your experiences might add some spice to the work. Andrew D. (talk) 18:46, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I have little competence in ethics. Clearly the subject exists, however the title does not appear to. Thanks for letting me know. Peter Damian (talk) 21:10, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Circularity in references

I came across something today that might interest you. I recently returned to an old draft in my userspace: User:Carcharoth/Article incubator/Selig Brodetsky Memorial Lecture. I first started this back in 2010 when my interest was piqued after writing Leon Mestel and noting the existence of the lecture. I then tried (and failed) to list the initial lecture series between 1960 and 1989. The lecture series was discontinued after 1989 and revived in 2002. I then constructed a list from 2002 to 2012 using a (now dead) source from the philosophy department at Leeds (this is where I remind myself I really need to learn how to archive web pages). This dead link is the first of the two external links currently at the bottom of the userspace draft. The second link there is one I found by Googling to try and find details of the latest two lectures.

Initially, I was pleased to find that second link (this page). On closer examination, I was less pleased to find that it appears to be a direct copy of the list I had made. This is somewhat ironic. It is not the issue of licensing and copyright (as simple lists are not copyrightable), but the issues of attribution and circularity in references. If they had not copied the information direct from my userspace draft (the links to redlinks are still there!), I would not have realised. It seems the information went from the Leeds Philosophy website to my userspace to the Centre for Jewish Studies website (also at Leeds). You would have thought they would have got the information from their own records? Or am I reading all this wrong? Maybe the British Society for the History of Science will have independent records? Or even the Leeds University main site here? It make me wonder how many 'reliable' sources are copying Misplaced Pages... According to this search, the page in question was posted on July 28, 2013.

The other thing I noticed is that 'Charles Burnett' is a redlink - he is this bloke here (Professor of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute). He seems to easily meet WP:PROF and seems to write on philosophical and medieval subjects at times. Do you think a Misplaced Pages article on Burnett would be useful, or, as I suspect you will say, should the attention be more on the articles on the subjects he writes about? Carcharoth (talk) 13:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

(1) This is citogenesis right? (2) Charles Burnett yes I know him, he is at the Warburg. He is a specialist in Arabic influence on medieval West. I hesitate to put him onto Misplaced Pages unless a clear criterion has been developed around this (that said, I will look at WP:PROF). Peter Damian (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

OK I had a look at PROF. The problem is that the criteria are easy to meet, since you only have to meet "any one of the following conditions", yet I imagine most of the eligible candidates are not on Misplaced Pages. E.g. my co-writer Jack Zupko, eligible on three counts ("An extremely significant contribution to the study of Scotus", chair at Alberta, editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy), has no article about him. I think most of the articles are probably written by the professors themselves. My view would be to make the criteria much tighter, and weed out 'Professor Cruft'. Peter Damian (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Some more, and these are not mere professors, but giants in their field: Sten Ebbesen, Simo Knuuttila , Alain de Libera , Paul Vincent Spade, Lambertus Marie de Rijk, William Courtenay (medievalist), Egbert Bos etc. Some have articles in the foreign language Wikipedias. So, where does one start? Peter Damian (talk) 13:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Good points and good examples. I really favour not having a biography article at all until after the subject is dead (and at that point, if needed, the historical assessment process starts, or in some cases concludes) and up until that point you either have no article, or a strictly word-limited article (plus picture if available) with a link to an official website or other resources, if they exist. The reason for limiting the word count is to make it easier to maintain BLP articles as short informative stubs (I mean really short!). On the other hand, if you don't couple that with a tightening of the notability criteria, you end up with a Who's Who directory. But that might still be better than the current situation. Not all the bios are written by the subjects themselves. If you look around the history of John Ebling, you should be able to see what happened there. Among the other drafts I have are one for the Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture (only one redlink there) and working on ones for the Fleming Memorial Lecture (John Ambrose Fleming) and the Shoenberg Memorial Lecture (Isaac Shoenberg). One of the links on the Fleming Memorial Lecture list is a 'Samir Shah' who is this person. But Samir Shah currently redirects to some Indian comedy TV programme where there is an actor of that name. Going back to the Selig Brodetsky Memorial Lecture list, do you recognise many of the names there? Carcharoth (talk) 14:01, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Only Burnett, on a cursory reading, and because of his work on the transmission of the classics.Peter Damian (talk) 14:27, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting that John_Ambrose_Fleming was involved in creation science.Peter Damian (talk) 17:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

There was a celebration of Fleming's centenary in 2004 . Yeah, the ones from the Brodetsky 'new series' don't seem that prominent (yet, at least). From the earlier series, I think Wheeler is the most famous, though Ginsberg was known in his time as well. Sometimes the prestigiousness of an award or lecture can slide downhill, though this one seems to have always been a bit of a mixed bunch. It is easy to end up going a long way down a rabbit hole with some of these lists of links - the contrast with the modern presenters is fascinating, though.

In the television lecture list (which took far longer than I thought it would - it is now here for what it is worth, not much, I fear), there is a mix of famous BBC grandees, government broadcasting regulators, television executives, and as you go further back, some moderately obscure scientists and some very obscure BBC engineers who did lots of the pioneering work on early TV engineering (I had to laugh, though, when I came across Talk:Barclay Knapp).

The missing article that stands out immediately from the crowd is James Dwyer McGee, who was elected FRS. The usual slips are present in the sources. The Royal Television Society page insists that the 1963 lecture Television Signals - from Transmission to Receiver was given by a professor 'J.D.E. Ingram'. That should in fact be 'D.J.E. Ingram' (the name below him in the list is the aforementioned J.D. McGee, which may explain the typo). While trying to find out who D.J.E Ingram was (Professor and physicist David John Edward Ingram of Keele and later Kent University, in the NPG here), I came across this article about a university rare book collection unceremoniously sold off (but I digress). It is no surprise that there are four David Ingrams on Misplaced Pages, none of which are the one I was looking for (David S. Ingram is a more famous academic). In a similar vein (with a name almost as common), you have at least 11 people named George Russell, none of which are the Sir George Russell of Newcastle University (see here) who was at the time Chairman of the ITC.

I don't think it is so much a case of 'Professor Cruft' as 'People Cruft'. The trouble with people is that there are a lot of them... (Gordon Cook, Ronald King, Thomas Scott, and William Wright being more examples of common names - invariably, some sportsperson has taken the name first; I'm interested in the optical lens designer Gordon H. Cook and the Royal Institution professor Ronald King and the radio engineer Thomas Robertson Scott and the professor William David Wright, but there will be many other people with a similar name that have (or may one dau have) articles under the current notability guidelines). Carcharoth (talk) 19:46, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sockpuppet investigation block opened

You were recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sockpuppet investigation block. Given the legal, privacy and BLP implications of holding the case in public the Committee has decided to run the case completely in camera, to that effect there will be no public evidence submission or workshop. Editors with direct knowledge of the events and related evidence are requested to email their to arbcom-en-blists.wikimedia.org by May 7, 2015 which is when evidence submission will close. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:02, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Surely you're just the kind of person who needs more kittens.

William M. Connolley (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
Lie, sorry 'like' Peter Damian (talk) 10:44, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC on Talk:Free will

Peter:

You might be interested to participate in this Request for Comment. Brews ohare (talk) 01:24, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Phantom time hypothesis

Thanks for your edits there, but I don't agree with the use of sources that don't discuss the subject of the article. Usually I'm telling this to people pushing a fringe position, which of course you certainly aren't trying to do. Dougweller (talk) 15:50, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi - can you clarify that please? The hypothesis is that the years between AD 614 and 911 didn't exist, so I added some facts about manuscripts which can be dated to that period. Or is the objection that the sources (e.g. Book of Kells) don't mention the hypothesis (which they wouldn't) so it's a form of original research? I guess that would be true. Peter Damian (talk) 16:26, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. If the sources don't mention the hypothesis, it's OR. That's in the first paragraph of WP:NOR, then below under the section "Reliable sources" it says " Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to reach or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research; see below." And 'below' links to WP:SYN. It can be a real bind in some articles, as in the Phantom Time one, where few reliable sources have bothered to tackle something that is so obviously wrong. But that also keeps out some fringe stuff as some falls below our notability threshold because of that. Dougweller (talk) 17:50, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

OK well shall I delete it? I can see it would be a problem if I was arguing for something that was obviously dodgy. However, it might help our readers to understand same basic problems with the hypothesis. Peter Damian (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Difficult for me to actually tell you to leave it in given what I've said to other people. I wouldn't have added it, but I'm pretty keen on keeping with our NOR policy as my experience is that although it's a pain at times, as I've said, it benefits the encyclopedia. Dougweller (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough (sob). Peter Damian (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

It is sad, I agree, Peter. I remember one time I tried to add a textbook on quantum mechanics to What the bleep do we know!? article and had my hand slapped for original research. However, I have grown accustomed to the rule and actually now think that it lends itself to a kind of rigidity in Misplaced Pages that allows us to remove a lot of fringe claims and nonsense that gets added with ostensible sourcing. One of my favorite things to appeal to is WP:FRIND which basically says that we are free to remove any content in Misplaced Pages that hasn't been substantively dealt with by reliable sources that are independent of the fringe proponents. This allows for a lot of terrible content to simply be removed rather than rebutted with original research. You might also find that WP:FTN might be a good place to hang out if you're so inclined. jps (talk) 13:55, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

It's OK I understand. I might do some research on the subject for my own website Peter Damian (talk) 13:58, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to that interesting paper. Have you seen New Chronology (Fomenko)? Dougweller (talk) 15:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes I have, and there are a few others in that 'family', but none so interesting IMO as Phantom Time. Perhaps it's because Phantom Time involves some of the periods I study as part of my own work. Peter Damian (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

"However, I have grown accustomed to the rule". Another approach could be to ban those inserting fringe claims wherever you find them and remove the claims where they have inserted them. The real issue is that people writing in an encyclopaedia find themselves arguing with fringe proponents. Arguably interest in wikipedia would not have been maintained to current levels without the competitive element though. Second Quantization (talk) 00:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This would not be in the "spirit of Misplaced Pages" of course.Peter Damian (talk) 06:30, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be quite happy reinstating "evidence against" or even changing it to "evidence disproving." It is well-known in the skeptical community that there isn't clear and unambiguous scholarship refuting some of the more insane theories that are advanced, because they are sufficiently absurd on their face that no serious scholar will devote a chunk of his or her career to dealing with them. This is such a case, and the idea that Misplaced Pages policy requires us to treat the "Phantom time hypothesis" as a serious piece of historiography is a mistake. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment :) Or (as I now think) a section on the time period itself, suggesting, without explicitly stating, that there are sources a lot of things in the phantom period. I wrote an essay (WP:FLAT) a while ago, exploring the problem that there isn't much academic attention paid to the really eccentric theories, and so it is hard to find reliable sources. One area where Misplaced Pages really comes into its own is in the debunking of this kind of stuff. Peter Damian (talk) 18:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Gordon Pask

As long as we are trading tales of dark spaces of Misplaced Pages, perhaps you might look at Gordon Pask and the related articles?

jps (talk) 20:39, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. This copy of a Britannica article by Pask seems genuine, but the article is horribly written and ungrammatical. The related articles lack merit. I will take a look at the weekend. Peter Damian (talk) 21:26, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

He was a pioneer of cybernetics, but I really cannot make any sense out of Gordon Pask#Interactions of Actors Theory or Gordon Pask#No Doppelgangers. This is a problem that extends back years. You can read the talkpage if you want to get a headache. jps (talk) 01:07, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes the talk page quite something. Peter Damian (talk) 06:41, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment requested on Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Bob_Doyle_(inventor)

If you wish. GangofOne (talk) 00:13, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

History of Misplaced Pages

The refs No. 59 and 61 (<ref name="am 2006 p91"/>) are broken . There are more sources discussing this at G-Books but I can't identify "am 2006 p91". In the meantime, User:Francis Schonken reverts. It would be maybe better to develop History_of_Wikipedia#Formulation_of_the_concept or History_of_Wikipedia#Founding_of_Wikipedia, which briefly touches this part of the story. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 12:03, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks - I didn't follow his logic but his reversion was noted. Hope you are well! Peter Damian (talk) 18:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I was wrong, and I apologize...

... for calling you a troll (by using WP:DNFTT) and for referring to WP:DENY in my rationale to close the discussion at Jimbotalk. Furthermore, I admit to making a bad assumption about your motives based on things I read off-wiki - which is not only against policy, but none of my business.

I do think the discussion was no longer going to generate value at the time I recommended closure, and was becoming a drama-fest. I do think closing such discussions is not only allowed but is a good thing, for numerous reasons. Nonetheless, I reiterate my sincere apology for all of my bad actions noted here. To avoid further drama, I suggest I not bother to strike my offensive words there. Say the word, however, and I will, or link to this comment. Best regards, JoeSperrazza (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

That's OK. By the way, the discussion on WO was merely about time stamps, if you read it. I made one comment about 'extraordinary', and that was it. I appreciate your apology. Peter Damian (talk) 19:04, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Quality measurement project

So, what would one of these look like? I suppose it would have to involve expert review - if we're measuring more than just prose and formatting. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 23:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Working on this. First step is precise guidelines for article writers. Reviewers could then use the same guidelines for reviewing. More later. Peter Damian (talk) 20:36, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipediocracy blog post

Hi. I was considering (if allowed) writing a guest blog post for your Wikipediocracy blog regarding The Misplaced Pages Adventure and the "research" done to support it. Would this be allowed? Cheers! Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi I am not in WO any more, but if you would care to email me there is something else I would like to discuss. Sorry to be mysterious. Peter Damian (talk) 15:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to The Misplaced Pages Adventure!

Hi Peter Damian! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Misplaced Pages Adventure Start Page
• The Misplaced Pages Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Misplaced Pages Help pages

-- 15:59, Friday, June 12, 2015 (UTC)

Begone, creature of darkness Peter Damian (talk) 19:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Go ask Alice

Is it just me, but I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole. Discussions on Misplaced Pages appear to be about as logical and intelligent as the talk at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party or the courtroom of the King and Queen of Hearts. Or maybe somehow I've boarded an "Ark Ship" full of Golgafrinchans on their way to start a new planet.

I see that you've recently returned from a block. You don't seem like a very confrontational personality - more like a calm and quiet voice of reason. You should wear your block as a huge badge of hono(u)r.

The culture of throwing around unmerited threats in this place seems to come right from the top ... "if you disagree with me/revert my edit/do this or that again I'll ban you from my Talk page/block you from editing this article/block you indefinitely/boil you in oil" ... it all seems so puerile.

Is having no or poor self-esteem a prerequisite for participating at Misplaced Pages that nobody told me about?

Take care. — not really here discuss 11:21, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello! I am a bit puzzled that you contributed to WP for some time as an IP but never realized this obvious fact. 'Calm and quiet voice of reason' is how I like to be most times, but I occasionally get excitable when it gets too Mad Hatterish, and that's what earned me a ban. Peter Damian (talk) 18:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of answering your question in some detail I should instead have thrown your question right back at you. As I stated below, my only mistake is perhaps hoping that things might have improved somewhat by returning a few months later (the first time) or some five or more years later (this time around). My recent experiences lead me to believe that the cultural problems with Misplaced Pages emanate right from the top. I didn't have that perspective in previous involvements ... I just assumed that I had run into (or had observed; most of my bad impressions came from watching others being badly treated rather than from any personal conflicts) some editors that were particularly belligerent or boorish and that after a few months or years they would be spreading their malice and stupidity elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, or hopefully by then they would have been kicked off (indefinitely blocked). My departures were in some manner my refusal to feed the trolls in addition to my own real life needs at those times not to waste so much of my online time here.

So I am much more puzzled that you continue to stick around, particularly after having been blocked (meaning, most rational people will not return to where they are not welcome). As I stated in my OP to you, you seem like a rational and reasonable fellow, but much of what you post simply gets ignored ... intentionally so IMO (because people living lies tend to avoid having to deal with the truth), not because it makes no sense and is best ignored. What keeps you motivated? You appear to be in academia - why would you spend time here opting to be a sort of lone voice in the wilderness, or editing articles to the sound of crickets, rather than, say, spending it in philosophical discussion with your university peers? Most intelligent people do not have access to such opportunities after graduating college and so have to make do with sloppy seconds - such as burying our heads in books and surfing the web, etc. Trying to edit Misplaced Pages probably comes way down that list. — not really here discuss 21:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Good question. Most academics ignore Misplaced Pages, true. My concern is that it’s a sort of knowledge pollution. There are good sites (such as Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) which deal in my subject area, but they are of a level of complexity that doesn't suit the average reader. I'm thinking here of the average reader as being someone who is smart and interested but doesn't have the technical background required to understand some of the SEP articles. So the average reader is more likely to turn to WP, and gets misinformed. That concerns me, just as a factory spilling out pollution would concern me. On the fact that my posts are ignored, well if you went to the people who ran the factory and told them about the pollution, what would happen? Some of them might be rude. I got banned from one of the WP mailing lists simply for suggesting that there were problems with articles. Others might be polite and reasonable, but their 'reason' would have some underlying element of denial. Hope that explains things. Peter Damian (talk) 07:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I hear you. Continuing and expounding on your own analogy of pollution, there are many different types and levels of environmental pollution. For instance, the exhaust emissions from automobiles that pollute our atmosphere and environment on a daily basis is a world wide problem. However, you cannot eliminate or reduce that sort of pollution by attempting to stop the whole world from buying and driving cars or trucks, nor can you cut the supply off at the source and close down all the auto manufacturing plants, because there are too many of them and the auto industry in most countries is too critical to the economic prosperity and GNP of those nations, not to mention being too well connected politically. To address that kind of pollution you have to lobby international governments and oversight agencies and try to get them to put into place legal limits and control measures that will cap or reduce the exhaust emissions to "acceptable thresholds", which in turn will cause the auto industries in each nation to innovate technology (such as catalytic converters) that will allow them to manufacture cars that meet the newly mandated emisssion levels.

OTOH, if a single factory was found to be heavily polluting all the water supplies of the local environment with mercury, the huge uproar and backlash in the local community would almost certainly cause it to be immediately shut down, and the pollution problem resolved in that more direct manner. There are other approaches for addressing pollution that probably fall somewhere between these two methodologies, or combine aspects of both. But I have yet to hear of an approach to battling pollution that consisted of taking a job in the polluting factory or corporation and working directly on their production line helping to increase the output that was considered to be polluting the environment. Which, if you edit and expand WP philosophy articles, is exactly what you are doing. I just don't see your actions as being in any way effective in stemming the continued flow of toxic information and pollution of the overall human knowledge base.

OK, I guess you would argue that unlike the factory that polluted the local water supplies with by-products that contained mercury toxins, while the products it actually created were something that were relatively harmless to the environment, Misplaced Pages is the complete opposite situation, and it is the main product that WP produces that is toxic and so damaging to the human knowledge base. Thus what you are doing by improving some philosophy articles is the equivalent of managing to guarantee that one in every thousand cars that come off a Chevrolet production line is more environmentally friendly than the other 999 cars produced. Nevertheless, it still seems like a case of pissing in the wind to me. Not to mention the possibility that three weeks after you have just spent a month's worth of effort modifying and expanding a WP philosophy article such that it would be worthy of inclusion in the SEP or the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, some jerk could revert most of what you have written and introduce new levels of nonsense and absurdity (not to mention spelling typos and grammar gaffes) back into the article, thus rendering all your hard effort redundant.

Wouldn't a better plan of action be to cause Misplaced Pages to somehow go away so that your average reader is then forced to access the superior quality SEP (or some other equivalent) site should he still wish to pursue his lay interest in philosophy? That would be one approach, at least, and it would be the parallel of the closing down of the single polluting plant, whereas Misplaced Pages's current situation is more akin to that of the world wide auto industry - i.e., most of us are now addicted / reliant to some extent on its output so it is not possible to simply make it go away (although it might possibly self-destruct and implode if WMF funding was no longer forthcoming). Maybe some sort of external regulation and monitoring of its pollution levels are required instead? I'm not really sure what the real life (WP-applicable) version of that regulation and monitoring scenario would be, nor am I advocating anything here - I'm just following through on your pollution analogy to see if it leads anywhere useful. Plus I'm still trying to work out exactly how I feel about Misplaced Pages myself. Did I really see Jimbo tell Neil that his reading comprehension may not be quite copacetic re his interpretation of the news article about Greta Scacchi? I'm so glad he spotted that before I did. :) — not really here discuss 08:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Just back from holiday, I will catch up at some point. Peter Damian (talk) 09:36, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's hello and goodbye really. The clueless smart-ass culture in this place is enough to get Job a permanent ban. Re "this obvious fact" (not sure if this referred to only one of my observations or the whole kit and kaboodle) ... when you edit away in your own little neck of the wood (meaning whichever articles you may happen to be invested in for whatever reasons) Misplaced Pages works very well. It's only if and when someone obstreperous shows up to create confrontation there that the seedier side of Misplaced Pages may rear its face. Depending on where and what they edit, many editors might never experience any such interactions and their time on Misplaced Pages may consequently be all roses. The other way to encounter the seedier illogical and/or confrontational side of Misplaced Pages is to go seek it yourself (not intentionally, of course) by, say, posting on Jimbo's (or even someone else's) Talk page, because this ensures you will interact with others by means other than just ES.

This is not my first spell on Misplaced Pages; it's probably my third incarnation. If one counts my editing as an IP as a separate spell, then it will be my fourth. Each time I leave in exasperation. Not because I get blocked or anything ... both my previous accounts are in good standing, just dormant. (I don't know if those accounts would be classed under editors who have exited in all these studies done on the demise of Misplaced Pages, nor whether my IP address and current user accounts are treated as one or two new accounts.) I first started editing around 2006/7 so all I've experienced of WP is its decline. None of the possibly early heady days. Each time I return it is worse. The whole culture of the place is too juvenile. Nobody knows how to discuss anything in a logical discourse as in a debating society or a philosophical discussion; it's all about scoring points off each other. It brings to mind the Monty Python argument sketch ... "An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. It's not just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says. No it isn't! Yes it is!" That's pretty well how things go here, and also how you get dragged into it.

Re your puzzlement over why someone editing anonymously might not see all the warts associated with Misplaced Pages (it doesn't apply to me because my IP phase was my third phase) it will depend on what sort of edits they do anonymously. If all they do is make minor corrective typo and grammar edits then that sort of editing will be relatively hassle free. If you try and make wholesale changes to an article that is "owned" by a group of editors then they will probably rise up in unison against you, and even use your anonymous status against you, trying to make out that you are vandalizing "their article", so you will then most certainly see the seedier side of Misplaced Pages. I actually found anonymous editing much less confrontational (as per my response to JBL) despite the fact I made some fairly big changes to some articles.

My only mistake was to expect things to be improved each time I returned. My editing under this moniker is really only a continuation of my anonymous editing due to losing my static IP address, so there has really only been three phases of editing, thus only two returns from time away, so it's not quite a case of repeatedly shooting myself in the foot that it may appear at first glance. Because my frustration has been greater in each editing spell, that is the reason I became interested in discovering if others perceived Misplaced Pages the same way as I did, or was it just me? Looking for articles from external sources about a possible demise of Misplaced Pages is why I developed over the last few months the views I expressed in my first posting in that "Is WP getting better?" section of Jimbo's Talk page, and also why I can find RS to back them up.

IMO Misplaced Pages is a bit of a freak of nature. Everything would lead you to believe it cannot possibly work. Surely an encyclopedia that can be edited by anybody would fall victim to the vandals and spammers, etc. All the core concepts on which it is based are corruptions of real concepts - "consensus" on WP means two or more editors ganging up against another one (that's "mob rule" not "consensus"); "verifiability" is hardly anything Karl Popper would put his name to; despite the fact that the TL;DR guidelines/essay states up front that using it inappropriately is actually abusive it never gets called that way; and when Jimbo can't even adhere to AGF himself you really have to despair.

I'm now convinced that the toxic environment comes right from the top. Jimbo sets the low tone. I thought his Gamergate remark was out of order per AGF, and he directly lied about saying he was discussing "quality" - he never used the word. No retraction; no apology; no class. There was a source reference I was going to post (but I can't be bothered now) that described the resulting exclusion of more varied contributions from exiting editors as shifting "the balance of power on Misplaced Pages to those fewer active editors, and in turn could make Misplaced Pages more like a fraternity than a community-driven social encyclopedia." That was back in 2009 and I think it was a very astute / prescient observation because I'm beginning to believe that is exactly what has happened. Also, the more editors leave, the more the remaining mediocre ones make the environment more hostile to new blood because that keeps them as a big fish in an ever shrinking pond. Thus WP has become / is becoming an encyclopedia that is only editable by an "anti-elitist elite". "Elite" because those editors have been here the longest or made the most edits and are now part of the inner sanctum (not necessarily because they are the editors most fit for purpose), and "anti-elitist" because you can see how they clearly despise any sort of rival traditional publications (such as Encyclopedia Britannica) produced by peer-reviewed subject-matter experts rather than "by the people for the people" (which is how many view Misplaced Pages).

Anyway, this place can ungratefully suck the soul out of you if you allow it to, so I think it may be time I go on yet another hiatus lest that happens. Apologies for the wall of text. — not really here discuss 23:27, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Category:Songs featuring Mellotron

Category:Songs featuring Mellotron, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Richhoncho (talk) 14:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Your voter guide

Hello. When I transclude your voter guide (and the others) into a single page (to facilitate reading and comparisons), the resulting page becomes a member of the ]. To correct that, the Category in your page should be protected by a pair of <noinclude>...</noinclude>. In the Main space, I would have done that by myself. In your Userspace, I think it is polite to ask your permission. Pldx1 (talk) 17:58, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes please, and thanks for asking. I will have a go. Peter Damian (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah not, that didn't work. Perhaps you could help?Peter Damian (talk) 18:51, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I will try and ask for confirmation. Pldx1 (talk) 19:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I took out the nowiki - try it now. Peter Damian (talk) 19:53, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I see what went wrong. I copied the 'nowiki' bit as well. It should work now. Peter Damian (talk) 19:54, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Everything seems OK now (I have changed for the long addresses of your macros, since they are transcluded too...). Thanks again. Pldx1 (talk) 20:00, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes I saw. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Long names are also required for the icons, since they are transcluded. I have double checked to be sure I have not messed your votes. But please, check again, for being sure ! Pldx1 (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 6

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Misplaced Pages appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Aylmer Hall, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page London Transport (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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It's that season again...

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:28, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

And to you. Peter Damian (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Best wishes for the holidays...

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Adoration of the Shepherds (Poussin) is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

ϢereSpielChequers is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec15c}} to your friends' talk pages.

And to you all.Peter Damian (talk) 19:28, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Details

Here Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:35, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Peter Damian (talk) 09:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Note(s) to self

https://meta.wikimedia.org/Talk:WMF_Transparency_Gap
https://meta.wikimedia.org/Requests_for_comment/Vote_of_no_confidence_on_Arnnon_Geshuri

Temporal finitism?

You look like the sort of person who might be interested in temporal finitism, at least in its mediaeval aspects William M. Connolley (talk) 15:20, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - I can see a problem with "Modern cosmology accepts finitism, in the form of the big bang, but on physical rather than philosophical grounds". Aquinas argued that there were no philosophical grounds one way or another. This looks an awful lot of work. Peter Damian (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, potentially a lot of work, but I hope it could be interesting work. I wrote the sentence you quote, just recently :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 17:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Ha ha. Well it's not wrong, but could be misleading. Peter Damian (talk) 18:13, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Re: Your comment at Jimbotalk

You say you find it "hard to believe" that Gayle Young is stating she has no trust in Tretikov. Sounds like you haven't been reading the Signpost, or William Beutler's blog. Note the comment by "WMF Staffer" at the blog. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. It was a rhetorical "hard to believe" - I have indeed read those articles. Although I still find it hard to believe. Peter Damian (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

What is going on?

I am appalled by what is passing for philosophical explication at . It's a jaunt through some pretty awful nonsense that is none the less surprising because this, apparently is the writer of the article.

Wow. How does SEP tolerate such awfulness? Do you know?

jps (talk) 04:04, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. First, leaving any philosophical nonsense aside, is there any scientific nonsense? I am not an expert on the quantum stuff, as you know. Second, in reply to your question, this kind of thing can happen in a project like SEP, if the walled garden is large enough. I had a similar debate with the editors of IEP regarding 'Objectivism'. Peter Damian (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

There is a lot of "out on a limb" kind of stuff. I would say that most scientists who know about quantum mechanics would find the arguments being proffered to be more than far-fetched and the article seems to dwell quite a bit on ideas that are removed from actual quantum mechanics calculations. Interesting comparison to objectivism. I'll have to think on this. jps (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I know some of the editors at SEP. If you can identify some specific passages, and explain to me what is wrong, I will take it up. But as you know, I am not an expert in quantum anything. I have skimmed through 2. Philosophical Background Assumptions and it is broadly philosophically OK (not that it is saying anything new). Peter Damian (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

It would be better if I got some other physicists to have a look and provide their critique. I'll collect some of our thoughts and get back to you. jps (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Doc James's Removal

Hi. Thanks for your edits to the above mentioned section. I am so surprised that editors were being called by their first names in such a controversial matter. What would really help the narrative is if those who are talked about were identified as to whether they are/were on the Board at the time of the incident, if they are staff, if they are editors, just friends, etc., so we know how seriously to take their emails and the context of the emails. Editors like me don't spend much of our time studying what WMF is up to and who the big players are. So, I don't know who all was on the board at the time, or who for example "Pete" is. Basic facts like that are frequently missing from these narratives. It would be pretty simple to identify the players. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I will do my best. Probably needs a 'cast of characters' introduction? Peter Damian (talk) 14:03, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Indeed.  :) --David Tornheim (talk) 14:14, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I made a start here. Let me know what else I should add! Peter Damian (talk) 14:16, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I would use something more NPOV than "cast list" though. I thought you were joking about using that name for the list. Something like "Participants", "Identification of Editors", "List of Commentators", "Authors of Emails", "Parties" or something like that. Of course, some people might not be "participants" but more like observers/commentators. --David Tornheim (talk) 15:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I thought of another one, not so NPOV: "Players". --David Tornheim (talk) 15:43, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

This gives some context as to who Pete is. Obviously he worked on some grants, so he is not just another editor who was friends with James. And SlimVirgin is an admin. who I believe has been with the project for a while. Those kinds of details are helpful too. I don't feel comfortable editing Doc James's page directly, or I would make the changes myself. --David Tornheim (talk) 15:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

User:Peter Damian/logic

Just letting you know per a request by Chalst on my talk page, I've restored User:Renamed user 4/logic and placed it at User:Peter Damian/logic just so it wouldn't get U2'ed. If you don't want it there, I'll be happy to find some other home for it. Courcelles (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

looks good. Many thanks Peter Damian (talk) 14:57, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

James

Hi Peter, re: your comments about James on Jimbo talk: my understanding is that there were board meetings on 7–9 November last year, followed by a meeting between certain trustees and the staff. The meetings were held to discuss staff discontent with the ED. The secrecy around the Knowledge Engine was one reason for the discontent. (These meetings have been discussed in various places, including most recently here from c. 00:54:00 mins.)

During one of the meetings, according to James, Jimbo said something about removing certain trustees. This made James feel under pressure not to rock the boat any further, especially as he was in the minority and was therefore rocking it without effect, in his view. He therefore not only supported accepting the Knight grant, but proposed doing so after someone suggested that he propose it. So clearly the word "following" was used in the causal sense.

If we knew exactly what was said, things might be clearer. I asked Pundit and didn't get a clear answer. I've lost track as to whether anyone has asked Jimbo. SarahSV 18:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Sarah - my difficulty is that James at one point explicitly denied using "following" in the causal sense. There are also other inconsistencies in his story. It is hard to judge whether this is connected with his evident difficulty in expressing himself clearly, or whether he is being deliberately misleading. I agree that it is difficult without knowing exactly what was said. Peter Damian (talk) 18:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I think James is trying to explain by offering the minimum amount of information necessary to do so, which means we're missing important details. Apparent inconsistencies are arising because of the repetition of that same information from slightly different angles but without fluffing it out. Then people get annoyed with each other (e.g. "that wasn't what you said last time" or "why are you still going on about this?") SarahSV 18:35, 23 March 2016 (UTC)