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Another good article to read

I was reading the Science NYTimes section yesterday and came across a short essay, The Widening World of Hand-Picked Truths (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/science/the-widening-world-of-hand-picked-truths.html) that made me think a lot about several long-lasting disputes on the project that concern science vs. beliefs based in a person or group's experience and the "truth" they see. Here is one of the ending paragraphs:

• "Altruism and compassion toward the feelings of others represent the best of human impulses. And it is good to continually challenge rigid categories and entrenched beliefs. But that comes at a sacrifice when the subjective is elevated over the assumption that lurking out there is some kind of real world."
  

I think articles like this are helpful in understanding these are not just content battles on Misplaced Pages but larger cultural shifts in accepting subjective reality over mainstream objective arguments. Liz 20:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Holy crap Liz...you summed that up pretty freaking well! Mahalo!--Mark Miller (talk) 05:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

It is an excellent read, but in my chosen role as an encyclopedist, I will stick with "the assumption that lurking out there is some kind of real world", and will continue to rely on mainstream science as the best tool to understand the things within its realm. Cullen Let's discuss it 06:12, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

The article was well-written but for me thoroughly depressing, suggesting that an extremely large proportion of people as a whole are detached from reality; this will probably always be the case. Misplaced Pages will no doubt continue to be widely criticised for presenting scientific fact as scientific fact. Rubbish computer 17:07, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a tool against these types of thing - by which I primarily mean pseudoscience, and those attacking the science as oppressive, because it doesn't play into their desired narrative. It makes it much harder for people to support these various conspiracy theories, when the hard evidence is only a click away. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 04:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC).

With my background in engineering, I tend to prefer the real world also. Just because I believe that I won't get hit by a bus if step in front of it, does not mean I won't. Not exactly the definition of objectivism but some people have to get hit by the bus to see the truth, (and sometimes not even then). Nyth63 16:37, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think the dilemma is interesting because it is really a battle between empiricisms, contrasting the "lived knowledge" or experience of individuals vs. the empiricism of scientific experiments. It's part of an ongoing public skepticism towards mainstream forms of authority and knowledge that has its origins in the 1960s if not before.

I remember I was part of a team in the 1980s that was preparing individuals for media interviews they might be called on to do and one overriding guideline that was impressed upon the individuals was to talk from their personal experience. Personal experience is, of course, quite limited but aside from psychological treatment, is typically not challenged or invalidated by others. Meaning, one person can generally not tell another person that they didn't feel what they believe they felt, that they didn't understand what they believe they understood. Most people make sense of information that comes to them via the news, TV, classes, conversations, etc. by how it fits into their understanding and life experience.

In the process of Western societies empowering individuals to question traditional forms of authority, it has had the byproduct of some people elevating their experience as being their "truth" which other information is measured against. People become experts on their own lives. I assume this will be an ongoing dynamic on Misplaced Pages for the foreseeable future as it's impossible to reverse cultural or societal changes, they just go through further modification and that's over a long period of time. Liz 22:31, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting stuff. This has strong connections to the "different ways of knowing" so prevalent among believers in quackery, pseudoscience and sundry other bullshit. Guy (Help!) 23:12, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Who's bored?

Here's a biographical article in dire need of improvement with copious available sourcing out there: William Lawrence Scott. Carrite (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

This brings up a question I have had for a while: Is it a valid use of an article's talk page to post links to sources until such time that the information gets added to the article and properly referenced? Nyth63 19:23, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't see the problem with posting sources on talk. The talk pages are for helping to improve the article. Valenciano (talk) 19:28, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

OK. I have actually been doing this on some of my userspace drafts for a while and currently have one article-space page with some. Carrite, perhaps if you could create a section on the talk page there named something like Additional sources, hopefully someone could pick it up for you. Nyth63 21:55, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Handling bad information in "reliable" sources

Would you allow me to pick your brain on an issue that has arisen with the War in Donbass article? Recently, a site called bs-life.ru (which has been claimed to be a "respected" news site based in Moscow) removed a section from a piece that suggested over 2,000 Russian soldiers had died fighting in Ukraine, a figure that wildly contrasts with much more modest estimates from Western experts. This was reported on by some Ukrainian outlets as the Russian government censoring an accidental leak of their long-denied involvement in that war and this was repeated in a Forbes contributor piece, prompting it to spread to numerous "reliable sources" such as The International Business Times and The Independent. Subsequently it was added as fact to the Misplaced Pages article on the ongoing conflict. Though it has since been modified to put it at the top of a range, Misplaced Pages still lends credence to the figure by including it in the article's infobox.

I feel it is crucial that here on Misplaced Pages we take care in how we handle this kind of information, especially as it concerns an ongoing conflict. One problem is the original source, bs-life.ru, is highly dubious. An Associated Press correspondent in Moscow dismissed the site as fake as did Bloomberg contributor Leonid Bershidsky, who previously ran several major business news outlets in Russia. None of the "reliable sources" reporting this claim have been able to independently verify the original claims made on the site, in part because the site is not providing its alleged sources. It appears the site's design is using a readily available site template unaltered and the site does not list any contact information, staff, or address, but instead has a contact form that has been answered by a single person via e-mail claiming to be a representative of the site. No outlet appears to have found any more details about the operators of the site, including any details about the "representative" of the site. StopFake.org, a site devoted to exposing false reporting on the conflict in Ukraine and typically biased against Russia, has done a detailed work-up declaring the site a fraud and stating the information is fake.

Despite all the above being pointed out in an ongoing discussion on the article's talk page, established editors have insisted that because the casualty figures have been reported by reliable sources they can only be removed if other reliable sources cast the same doubts on these figures. They have also declared criticism of the reliability of this information on the talk page as engaging in "original research" and thus prohibited. For me the reliability of the sources reporting it does not negate the questionable nature of the original source given that its claims have not been independently verified and thus I believe the figures should be removed. Is it your opinion that these other editors are correct and, despite the original source's dubious reliability, the mere fact that reliable sources have repeated the figures means they should be given credence in a prominent part of the article on an ongoing conflict until other reliable sources rebut the claims?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:00, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

This is a potential problem in many cases. We witnessed a similar problem (albeit on a much more inconsequential article) in connection to the Ashley Madison hack. Just because the New York time repeats information from an unreliable source, does not make the original information any more reliable. Numerous editors spent much time banging their heads against the brick wall of RELIABLE SOURCE. Nyth63 21:41, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I think we have to report what the reliable sources say. If you think the Independent is a reliable source, we have to trust that they had enough confidence in the numbers to print them. Now if V.V. Putin says that Russian casualties in Ukraine are zero, because there are no Russian troops in Ukraine, I don't think we should take Putin as a reliable source, but if reliable sources want to report those numbers, then we could use them. Or if there are other reliable sources with different estimates and we think these are the mainstream estimates then we should print those estimate. But having an editor simply say, "I don't like those estimates, we have to remove them." is just nonsense.

One passge that struck me in the Independent was

"This webpage will presumably be claimed to have been forged," suggests Nixey, who is an expert on the conflict, "as has been the case with dog tags, passports, satellite imagery, prisoners confessing and other evidence seen. They argue it is Western propaganda."

Sound like a fairly good prediction to me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@Smallbones: There is no obligation that we "have to" include or report what a reliable source says. We should double check, triangulate on what is verifiable, and possibly disregard what an RS says in favor of accuracy. We recently had a situation at the Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward page where the venerable Washington Post reported that the father of the gunman, "at one point was a dean at San Francisco State University," according to a neighbor of the shooter. A Google search indicated this was not true. Instead what I found was that Vester Flanagan Sr. was with the director of operations at the City College of San Francisco, and not a dean at SFSU. That erroneous info was left out of the WP entry. A reliable source is necessary but not sufficient - the RS is just one part of a critical set of conditions that need to be met before facts are included in an article. -- Fuzheado | Talk 05:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Worth remembering is that no source is 100% reliable, and that the reliability of every assertion we add to the encyclopedia needs to be assessed in context, using our restrained and informed editorial judgment. I have cited articles in the New York Times hundreds of times, but would never cite one of their articles written by Jayson Blair or anything about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Judith Miller. Journalism in 2015 is rife with problems that obligate us to be cautious and conservative. Not "conservative" politically but in the old fashioned sense of being very, very careful about the reliability of sources we use about contentious claims. No one contests the sad news that Oliver Sacks has died but there are far more controversial assertions that require the highest quality sourcing. Newspapers commonly considered "reliable" all too often, these days, regurgitate "click bait" content from far less reliable sources. That reposting, as opposed to independent reporting, does not transfer reliability to a dubious source. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:48, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with everyone who is advocating for what I would call "editorial judgment" - holistically taking into account all available sources of information and making a reasoned judgment. I do not agree with the view that we simply write down what is in reliable sources, removing all judgment or opinion from the process - that's a naive and simplistic approach which would lead to us slavishly repeating errors. I sometimes think we still have a bit of a hangover from the days when "verifiability, not truth" was an oft-repeated mantra.

Now, it has to be said that encouraging thoughtful editorial judgment does not endorse us simply making up whatever we like, or excluding reliable sources just based on not liking what they say. Often there will be cases where editors can constructively disagree about what to do about conflicting reliable sources. Fuzheado's example is a good one, mainly because it's not filled with emotional peril. I would say that in that case, the proper resolution could be either to leave the information out completely (as he says we did) or to put in the correct information (from the primary source) despite it conflicting with the Washington Post. In that latter case, perhaps a footnote could note the discrepancy for future editors to ponder in case this bit of information does become more important someday.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I think in this particular instance there is some confusion over the correct status of the sources being discussed. The OP, TDA, is claiming that the site bs-life.ru has a reputation for being unreliable - that claim in itself requires some proof, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that to indeed be the case. His argument is that because the site is unreliable it cannot be considered to be an RS, and we must therefore treat anything it reports with an appropriate amount of skepticism, even if normally reliable secondary sources such as Forbes magazine repeated the story, and normally reliable tertiary sources such as The Independent repeated and reported on the original Forbes piece, as well as adding their own secondary source reporting of the actual primary source material on the bs-life.ru site.

However, to my way of thinking, the bs-life.ru site isn't the primary source in this sourcing chain. The putting up and taking down of the so-called "censored story" that had been "accidentally leaked" is simply an event that is being reported, just like a serious auto accident might be reported by a local newspaper. The primary sources of this story are the Ukrainian media outlets that claimed to have cached the posting and tearing down of this "censored piece" and which then made the decision to report this event to the rest of the world as a case of Russian censorship trying to cover up its involvement in the Dombass war. In which case, the reliability of the bs-life.ru site is as irrelevant here as the reliability of the Ford Fiesta involved in the auto accident reported by the local newspaper. Surely what matters in this instance is the reliability of the Ukrainian outlets that created the story being reported down the line by the secondary and tertiary sources. Because these outlets were not just passively reporting on the event as first hand eye-witnesses, they were also editorializing the event into something it possibly wasn't (i.e., a botched case of Russian leakage and subsequent censorship).

In fact, in the case of this particular story, the past unreliability of the bs-life.ru web site possibly adds to the credibility of this story rather than detracts from it as TDA claims. Because its past unreliability plays right into the hands of the Ukrainian outlets that are the true sources of this particular story. IMO, the credibility of the casualty numbers that have been included in the Misplaced Pages article is dependent more on the reliability of the Ukrainian outlets than it is on the bs-life.ru web site in this instance. At no point has TDA considered the true origins of this story and how reliable the true primary sources are that sit at the top of the primary-secondary-tertiary source chain. Is it possible that the primary sources were motivated in some way to doctor the cached images (including the casualty numbers) they reproduced in reporting this event for a political aim of their own? In other words, do they have a possible COI regarding this story and how they reported it? The answer, since they are Ukrainian, is unfortunately yes. I'm not claiming they did; like everyone else I have no idea what went on since I wasn't there, so I am completely reliant on my sources. Thus I, like every other reader and potential Misplaced Pages editor, need to apply healthy skepticism to ALL of the sources involved in this story and not just tacitly assume that some or all of them are correct, particularly the primary ones.

Mention has been made, in the earlier comments above, how respected western newspapers such as the New York Times sometimes "regurgitate 'click bait' content from far less reliable sources" thus raising doubts regarding the trustworthiness of the secondary and tertiary sources involved in reporting this story, and TDA commenced his OP by questioning the reliability of the bs-life.ru web site. Yet he doesn't question the potential COI of any of the Ukrainian outlet sources for this story; he also appears to tacitly accept without question the analysis of events as reported by the Ukrainian blog site StopFake.org which also clearly has a vested interest in putting an anti-Russian spin on this story; and he lumps the normally very reliable British newspaper The Independent alongside the normally very flaky IBT when he questions the reliability of both of these media sources by ironically referring to them as "reliable sources" in quotes. All of these actions are questionable IMO if TDA wishes to approach the information content of this story from an NPOV perspective. The first step to achieving NPOV is not to have preconceived ideas about the reliability of your sources (e.g., western and Ukrainian sources OK, but Russian sources dubious) especially in a war situation where propaganda and counter-propaganda is likely to be used by both sides. Identifying conflicts of interest regarding the trustworthiness of sources and properly identifying the true source of a story are also both essential to pursuing an NPOV approach. And all of this before you have even written a word. — not really here discuss 12:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

That is some neat mental ju jitsu! "Your history of being unreliable means that we should think that you are reliable now!" With that type of approach, the Weekly World News becomes our Bible!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Short of Wikimedia creating peer reviewed journals on political topics like this so that we can use really reliable sources, little can be done. Misplaced Pages does have good policies that can filter out some fraction of garbage, but if the sources are too contaminated we'll suffer from the garbage in ---> garbage out effect. Count Iblis (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Why should we include material from a source such as the Independent? It's obvious that we have to have some limits on what we accept as a reliable source. The key is that they have a reputation for fact checking and for "getting it right." I believe that the Independent does have such a reputation, so if they present 2,000 as an estimate of deaths of the Russian military in Ukraine then it is acceptable for Misplaced Pages to do so as well. No, we are not required to do so, but according to WP:NPOV we should if it is one of several widely accepted POVs. Given the Russian military's obvious presence in a fairly hot shooting war, and given a fairly wide acceptance of numbers such as 400-500 as a lower bound, the 2,000 figure seems acceptable as an estimate of the upper bound of a range (as it was presented on Misplaced Pages).

But why shouldn't we question whether the Independent in this case is reliable? To a small extent, I think we can - if equally reliable sources question the number, then I think we don't need to include it. I haven't seen any such questioning from an equally reliable source. We don't need to include it if it sounds total unreasonable and nobody else seems to accept it, but I don't think this applies in this case. What we can't do is put ourselves in the journalist's shoes and say "what would I report if I had the information that he has?" Misplaced Pages editors are not professional journalists hired by reliable sources. To ask yourself how would you report this information at least borders on WP:OR. The reliable source has gained it's reputation because it knows how to do fact-checking and how to write up the information. A Misplaced Pages editor should not try to put himself in that place. Also reliable sources often have additional facts, based on additional checking that back up the story, but are not included in the write up. We have no way to evaluate this material.

Didn't StopFake.org debunk this article? Actually, I don't think of StopFake as a reliable source - having never heard of it before. And their article is presented as the opinion of a single author, not of the website itself. "This article represents personal opinions of the author."

Shouldn't we accept the estimates given by Russian sources? Sure, if they presented these estimates, especially if the Russian government presented official figures. But Russian sources do not present any such estimates, it is illegal (since May) for them to do so. In short any such estimates are censored. The Russian government refuses to provide official figures. In this case the Russian government is at fault if the estimates are one-sided, and we cannot considered censored sources as reliable.

So stick with what the reliable sources say please.

BTW I have never edited the War in Donbass article, but it did bring back unpleasant memories of the Assassination of Boris Nemtsov. If you remember back to February he was shot and killed the day before a big anti-war-in-Ukraine protest, after reporting that he was afraid that President Putin would order his death, and Nemtsov was investigating Russian troop strength in Ukraine. BBC Reuters

There is clearly an information war going on as well as a hot shooting war between Russia and Ukraine. It is very important that we evaluate what is a reliable source and what is not. It's very important that we not remove reliable sources simply because somebody "doesn't like it." It would be Pollyannaish for us to believe that the information war cannot spill over to Misplaced Pages. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:22, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

It's very important that we not remove reliable sources simply because somebody "doesn't like it." — This is unfortunately happening and it is happening en masse. - . Wikipeda does in fact work for a lot of topics, just not these politically sensitive topics. I think the same applies to the "respected western newspapers". The Assassination of Oles Buzina is a good example of whitewashing (You've probably never heard of him). - , -- Tobby72 (talk) 20:26, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree in general with Jimbo's statement. As a general rule, the policy requiring multiple sources for extraordinary claims should suffice. If a columnist or reporter lacks objectivity, such as Robert Fisk of The Independent, that too is a reason to omit. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 19:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually claims of Russian casualties in Ukraine are not all that extraordinary. They are involved in a shooting war in Ukraine - so soldiers do get killed. A Financial Times blogger reported an estimate of 4,000 as of last year . The Telegraph reports 120 Russian military deaths in a single attack .

What is extraordinary is claiming that Robert Fisk is not objective. Our article states "Fisk holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent and has been voted British International Journalist of the Year award seven times."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Another factor apart from the veracity of the reported facts is the editorial choice in what to write about. Who decides what is news? If we assume for argument's sake that there are reliable sources that get the facts rights, then there is still the problem that these sources may decide to write only about certain aspects of some topic. What is written must have some appeal to the public, why else would people buy newspapers? This has the effect of skewing news reports toward popular perceptions. Especially the prospect of danger will create its own news stories, that's why the WMD issue w.r.t. Iraq dominated the news. Also, the same can be said about Iran's nuclear program, this was always construed in the Western press as a potential weapons program, it only ever entered the news that way. For Iranians this is not their reality, which explains the decades long standoff. But here in the West the Iranian claim that their program is only for peaceful purposes is/was never considered seriously, it only got mentioned in a small footnote saying that the Iranians claim that "their program is only for peaceful purposes" if at all. That's like covering a crime story from only the perspective of the prosecutor, and then saying that the defendant claims he didn't commit the crime. It may all be 100% factually correct, but it may totally misrepresent the story. Count Iblis (talk) 02:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

"Reliable" sources being wrong

Here's another scenario I've come across before. The source of the reports in the reliable sources has one fact wrong, and the author or connected person contacts us (through OTRS or other channels) to tell us that there is a mistake, and all our sources are actually wrong. What should we do then? Mdann52 (talk) 21:06, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

In general, we should have deep respect for the subjects of articles and take such concerns very seriously. Again I think it is about examining, in a holistic way, all of the evidence. There are many factors to consider, such as: (1) if the detail is pretty trivial or meaningless in the subject's life, chances are they are just trying to be helpful, to us and to the world, by setting straight some minor point - whereas if the detail is a major point of their biography, their desired edit may be more contentious (2) if our sourcing is already pretty thin, and the sourcing for what they want us to say is even lower, then often we should simply remove the information until such time as we get better evidence (3) often times we should reflect on the quality of the sourcing not just for factuality, but also for salaciousness, and consider whether some story about someone that's been covered in tabloids extensively, but only getting a brief mention in more serious press, is actually encyclopedic (4) sometimes, a very thoughtful and kind further inquiry will result in someone who is initially simply insisting the sources are wrong learning enough about how we operate to realize that there actually is a source which they can either send to OTRS if it is of a more private nature (documentation of date of birth is the kind of thing I have in mind) or just give us the link (if we had overlooked an accurate source somehow).

My overall point is that there have been very unfortunate cases - far too many that I have heard about personally from people who find us frustrating - where we have not been as respectful as we should be, and we have not been as responsive as we should be. Here's the thing - I think cases were BLP subjects are simply POV pushing or trying to con us are actually pretty rare. They do happen, of course, but when we hear of a new problem, our first instinct should be: respect. Assume good faith. All those classic Misplaced Pages values that have served us so well over the years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

In short - Misplaced Pages has been abused by a handful of editors who seize upon (a person) as someone to have every snippet of derogatory innuendo placed in their biographies on the basis that if it were actually a libel, the person would sue, so by not suing they 'prove the editor was correct' in insisting on the derogatory material. Misplaced Pages has a Catch-22 reputation, alas. We should strongly encourage the careful writing of biographies, which we have allowed to get out of hand too often in the past. Collect (talk) 23:10, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Collect and Jimbo. Rubbish computer 23:22, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

A few years have passed...

A few years have passed.... Count Iblis (talk) 15:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you provide more details? I'm afraid I'm not sure what this is about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

We had this user Linas around here, who made good contributions to math articles and was active on the Ref Desk. But he had a problem with staying civil in case of disputes. While this was not anywhere near the level of the notorious problem editors that we've seen here over the years, he did end up getting booted out of here. While I'm not saying that uncivil behavior should be tolerated more, I do think that in the escalation between the notorious problem editors and those who want to take strong measures against them (but fail to do so because the supporters of the notorious problem editors prevent a consensus for that), editors like Linas who are less invested in Misplaced Pages who don't have many editors who will vouch for them, end up leaving.

So, I think we need to rethink this whole civility issue more, there are obviously two sides to it. If I behave in an uncivil way, I create a bad atmosphere and I may chase away other editors. On the other hand, applying zero tolerance rules inconsistently where the worst offenders typically end up staying with a minor slaps on the wrists while lesser offenders in some cases end up getting kicked out, is not a good system. It's similar to how in the US poor people who make mistakes end up getting very long prison sentences while richer people who can afford better lawyers will often end up getting a far better deal. This undermines the system, you end up with bad results, the crime rate in the US is worse than in most other Western countries. Count Iblis (talk) 18:16, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Has Linas asked to be unblocked? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:34, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think he asks once every year. We have to keep in mind here that not everyone is the typical regular who can't stay away from Misplaced Pages for more than a day. We are used a lot more with dealing with the latter type of editors, our policies have evolved to dealing with them. So, they'll tend to beg for mercy while editors like User:Linas, User:Likebox etc. may just do other things, come back 3 years later ask for unblocking, be denied again because the haven't been begging hard enough, forget about it, come back 5 years later again etc. etc. Count Iblis (talk) 20:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that he asks every year? As far as I can tell he filed three unblock requests immediately after being blocked in 2012, which were declined because they were full of personal attacks (the same problem that led to the block), and has not filed an unblock request since then. His talk page is open for editing, so nothing prevents him. And nothing prevents you from asking what his attitude is, rather than making assumptions. Looie496 (talk) 02:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

WikSearch

WikSearch (at http://wiksearch.com) "is an experimental interface for finding Misplaced Pages articles".
—Wavelength (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Nicely done. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Wavelength: this appears useful and much faster and more thorough than using articles such as Outline of the United States, or categories, to do so. Rubbish computer 23:18, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Is supply side trickle down any more reputable than homeopathy?

Hi Jimbo,

I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and while I sincerely and deeply appreciate you taking a firm stand against misogyny, I wonder if you can imagine how your words ring hollow when so many more women are harmed by supply side trickle down economics. Do you have any evidence that supply side economics are more reputable than homeopathy? Because it is my considered opinion that, firstly, they are identically reputable, and secondly, that your refusal to repudiate supply side economics damages far more women in far more pernicious ways. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to say the same things about supply side trickle down as you have said about homeopathy. EllenCT (talk) 06:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)