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Clarice E. Phelps

What do you think, Jimmy Wales? How about, in instances wherein the community determines that a blp subject's notability to be a borderline /"too soon" case, Misplaced Pages allows a draft remain, for WP's 'coverage' for that individual, pending developments as can easily be anticipated with regard the person in question? As a case in point, whereas both the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/it-matters-who-we-champion-in-science/2019/04/12/50a1781a-5d3d-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html and Everipedia has inaccurate information(!) within its article foe scientist Clarice Phelps (saying she co-discovered tennessine; hat tip-->), WPdian-in-residence @ the NYPublicLibraryforthePerformingArts user:DGG believes her notable, due I believe an award she's received and stuff within her community for which she'd received coverage. Without space being in place at Draft:Clarice E. Phelps, how can information most practically accrete regarding this scientist? Any thoughts?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2019 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:12, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

WaPo is an oped, with one of the authors of the oped being the author of the Misplaced Pages article. Our article (the first version) had a number of, umm, very novel claims on Phelps - including that she is a dr. (PhD) when she holds a b.sc (per a primary source - studying as of 2019 for a m.sc). We were also claiming she was the first African American woman to discover an element - which possibly WP:CITOGENed elsewhere (though RSes, published after Misplaced Pages, have caged this with an "as far as we know..."). Phelps at the time tennessine was discovered was a new ORNL hire with the job title "Nuclear Operations Technician" and she was "on the team tasked with purifying the berkelium-249 used to confirm the discovery of element 117, tennessine." per ORNL. The bio on Phelps illustrated why bios should not be built of primary sources and PR. Everipedia.org reads similar to one of the versions that was on Misplaced Pages (after the doctorate was removed - but she still has a master's there while the cited sources do not state completion).21:38, 28 April 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icewhiz (talk • contribs)

The real conflicts of interest here are apparently no-name PhDs(?) editing Misplaced Pages anonymously who troll multi-authored scholarly journal articles to comment on Misplaced Pages that one or another of the articles' coauthors don't have as impressive of alphabet soup after their names as these   deletionistsconscientious Misplaced Pages contributors do.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 14:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 14:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

AFAICT - google scholar - Phelps has not authored journal articles. She is a co-author on 5 pieces in google scholar - technical reports and conference papers. Icewhiz (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that we have a problematic lack of coverage of female scientists, and that this in part reflects longstanding problems in academia with citations, tenure, and promotions (which is hard but not impossible for us to take into account) and that in part reflects even worse problems in popular media and the wider culture (which we can do a lot about, given that popular media isn't the best sourcing for serious science articles in the first place). I think it is absolutely never ok to misstate someone's actual degrees since that's generally a matter of quite easy research and part of the public record. (Not always, but generally it is.) Everything I've just said is about the general principles, not about this particular case - I haven't read the Washington Post piece as it seems to harder-paywalled than normal today, and I'm not a subscriber. (Usually incognito mode works when I've exceeded my monthly free quota, but not today.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

FYI a number of news sites have implemented incognito mode detection so it's likely WaPo has caught up on that. 199.247.44.170 (talk) 06:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

fwiw, I did not say that I believed her notable, but rather that having an article on her that stated precisely her accomplishments was a meaningful compromise to allow some coverage. In past years--even just 50 years ago when I began my own career as a molecular biologist--there were many instances of women who worked under the title of "technician" when nowadays they would have been appointed to a faculty rank. I don't think that's usually the case now. As Jimbo says., the general press is noted for a very expansive use of "scientist". DGG ( talk ) 17:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I think also, if you're quick enough on the draw, sometimes you can do a select-all and then copy before the WaPo paywall kicks in, and paste the article into, e.g., an email to yourself.

So do we not have the ability to get free WaPo access granted to Wikipedians, like what's available with some of the academic journals? Зенитная Самоходная Установка (talk) 08:50, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Зенитная Самоходная Установка: You can suggest new resources to be added to the Misplaced Pages Library here: https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/ Regards SoWhy 09:08, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

BTW, in follow thru re e.g. user:DGG's suggestion to ascertain Clarice Phelps' s "druthers" Ms.Phelps's response was in the affirmative. She's apparently ok with "our" joining mirrors e.g. EverybodyWiki.com - even Sangerian Evripdia. (Maybe u dont go for much meta commentary here'bouts, still, perhaps Sanger's concerns concerning deletionism may now be seen to have proved true?)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:03, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Hodgdon's secret garden, where are you getting Sanger's concerns concerning deletionism from? Sanger has consistently, right back to Nupedia days, complained that Misplaced Pages is far too inclusive and should instead be focused on what he considers important topics. (To the best of my recollection Nupedia didn't contain any biographies of women.) FWIW, if you want to see what he's practicing rather than what he's preaching, on his website the article on Pornography is roughly 10 times the length of the artcle on Woman. ‑ Iridescent 14:23, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Iridescent, maybe you are much more up on whatever are the details here than I am. As it were, I just judged the matter via the posture Sanger's adopted via blogpost here, tweet/blog thread comment (in which he self-describes as "largely inclusionist") there.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:49, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been using Firefox with NoScript and did not know that there was a paywall at the first link above. But if I enable the two scripts I see it. I don't get why sites make a fetish out of "securing" their content by relying on the user's browser to be uncontrollable rather than simply not serving the content. I'll figure that out around when I figure out why the 1950s method of putting ads in the copy doesn't work and they think they have to serve them from another site using some kind of script. Wnt (talk) 02:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

... and just like that Firefox made NoScript stop working by surprise this morning. Note that, surprisingly enough, even the Tor Browser has immediately disabled it (despite relying on it to protect against script attacks) so presumably some folks going to their favorite sites today are going to get a very nasty surprise. For the past couple of months I've noticed that my setting to "delete all cookies" doesn't stop at least one site (The Intercept) from remembering cookie data unless I do it manually with at least one cookie displayed on the menu. I think Mozilla is getting infiltrated by hostile interests -- just like Misplaced Pages is, and Ecuador for that matter -- and that Brendan Eich was attacked for more than being spotted supporting the wrong side in a ballot referendum. Yet if I can't trust them, who can I trust -- the Microsoft or Google empire? The mysterious Chinese owners of Opera who have terms and conditions to access user data? On the paywalls I suppose we can still try to come up with a way to use the "developer interface" to view individual components for now, until that gets people thrown in jail for hacking. Wnt (talk) 12:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@Wnt, Firefox has currently disabled every add-on until they sort out some bug affecting certificate timestamps. I have no idea what the timescale for fixing it is. ‑ Iridescent 14:29, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, "Wall Street Market", one of the oldest black markets on Tor hidden services, was shut down at the same day Tor's dependency stopped being dependable. Gee, what a coincidence... Wnt (talk) 03:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what this has to do with Clarice Phelps, but google "wall street market exit scam". Nothing to do with Tor. Bitter Oil (talk) 23:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Fix here works: specifically, if you go to about:config, set app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled = true, set app.normandy.run_interval_seconds = 1, check extensions, undo changes to settings. Of course, I have no idea how much info is given away in even a moment of not opting out of studies ... nor do I feel confident about anything digital going forward. Wnt (talk) 13:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, you should probably stay of the internet all together. And smash your mobile phone while you're at it. We'll all be better off. Bitter Oil (talk) 23:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Is fentanyl "payback"?

Jimbo, not sure if you're interested in this nexus, but just in case you are, here it is:

The Economist has a way of being suggestive in a subtle fashion, sometimes. Our Opium Wars article says; "China was the largest economy in the world" (before UK and American opium traffickers flooded the country with opium)...."Within a decade after the end of the Second Opium War, China's share of global GDP had fallen by half" It is suspicious, imo, that China, which has such tough drug laws, allowed fentanyl to be produced in country for so long "China's production of the drug has long been a source of tension between the two countries." and now that the whole world knows how to make it, the ruination of Western countries can continue with or without Chinese government acquiescence. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It is suspicious, imo, that the US, which has such tough drug laws, allowed methamphetamine to be produced in country for so long. Probably the work of the Chinese. Or the CIA. I am sure Assange and/or QAnon have a theory you can quote. Bitter Oil (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I doubt methamphetamine production has been legal in the USA or else "Breaking Bad" would never have been produced. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Meth could famously be bought over the counter in the US until the 1970s; one of the key early scenes in Breaking Bad makes precisely that point. It's still both manufactured and sold in the US on prescription, although doctors call it Desoxyn owing to the negative connotations of the name. If only there were some website you could look things like this up… ‑ Iridescent 16:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: Do you think it is legal to make fentanyl in China? It isn't. You would know that if you read the articles you linked. And just like the US laws involving meth changed over a couple of decades to include meth precursor chemicals, China's laws are also changing. When illegal fentanyl production in China drops off, it will pick up somewhere else. This is about money, not secret government plans to destabilize other countries. Bitter Oil (talk) 21:37, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Fentanyl was legal for export in China up until recently, not outlawed in the 70s, but the main difference is I don't think meth has been exported into China in great quantities. The Economist article pointed out the irony and the reality. The reasons for what's been happening or going to happen are not nearly as interesting to me as the reality of what's been happening and what's going to happen, whatever that is. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I was going to gently explain all the things you misunderstood, but that last sentence suggests it would have been a waste of effort. Bitter Oil (talk) 04:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Have another go, see if you can beat the record for the most nonsense in a 3-line Jimbotalk paragraph (you probably aren't the current holder, to be fair). Black Kite (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

60 Minutes last Sunday exposed China as the primary source, by far, and the NY Times is sounding the alarm about the explosive use of fentanyl in the USA: "The data also show that the increased deaths correspond strongly with the use of synthetic opioids known as fentanyls. Since 2013, the number of overdose deaths associated with fentanyls and similar drugs has grown to more than 28,000, from 3,000. Deaths involving fentanyls increased more than 45 percent in 2017 alone." Its a serious reality. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:24, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Just out of interest, has anything ever happened that you don't believe was the result of a global conspiracy? ‑ Iridescent 06:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Iridescent, there's a sad disclaimer which seems to be quite apt, except that I will strike off the too. ∯WBG 12:57, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but the Pentagon Papers proved, imo, that a few intellectually brilliant, well educated and upper class positioned people, who have unlimited time on their hands to design and perpetuate evil and usually profiteering activities, and what could be more evil than the Vietnam War, are able to fool almost all of the people almost all of the time. And as you likely know, the Vietnam War was not a "global" conspiracy. Also, this particular issue has nothing to do with global or even conspiratorial matters from what I've said. All I really am saying is have a look at the Economist article, the 60 Minutes info and the NY Times article and think about it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:21, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Carfentanil "Carfentanil or carfentanyl is a structural analog of the synthetic opioid analgesic fentanyl. Short acting and with fast onset, it has, weight for weight, around hundred times stronger effects than fentanyl and thousands of times stronger than heroin." "According to an Associated Press article from 2016, "Chemical weapon for sale: China's unregulated narcotic", fentanyl, carfentanil and other highly potent derivatives of fentanyl are actively marketed by several Chinese chemical companies. Carfentanil was not a controlled substance in China until 1 March 2017, and until then was manufactured legally and sold openly over the Internet." Count Iblis (talk) 11:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Amphetamines were widely used by the war effort during WWII in the US and other nations. Not just in the military but the entire defense industry. No sinister forces behind their usage. Collect (talk) 13:47, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

One of my all-time favourite YouTube videos is LSD Testing (British Troops) which shows the effect of giving LSD to soldiers. This was done as an experiment in 1964 to see what would happen (yes, really). Without spoiling the fun of watching how the video progresses as the soldiers get stoned, the moral turns out to be that getting ripped does not lead to good soldiering.--♦IanMacM♦ 15:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• I think the point about the opium war is odd. There was a conspiracy conviction two-days ago in the US concerning pushing drugs, and while the convicted actions are reprehensible, the profit motive is prosaic. At any rate, if someone would look into updating the RICO article, that would actually be a good use of time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Fentanyl is getting 4 times as many page views as RICO, not to mention that 28,466 dead Americans in 1 year is a lot more important and encyclopedic than just another arcane, vague and arbitrary USA crime category with a silly/cute acronym. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

RICO has been making the news because some people are complaining that they've been sent to jail for extraordinarily long periods of time for crimes they didn't commit. Which should not be so shocking, since the point of the law was to send people to jail for crimes they didn't commit. See Wnt (talk) 02:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Administrators must secure their accounts The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised. Use strong, unique passwords for your Misplaced Pages account and associated email Change your password now if your Misplaced Pages account password or email password is reused on another website, exposed, or weak Enable two-factor authentication now for improved security

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Template:Z152

Great... all the NSA has to do is have a direct crack, back door or man in the middle attack with an HTTPS certificate and they can purge legacy admins to clear out room for their own. Watch the community try to do that. Anything done on a computer is controlled by whoever has the biggest computer, the rest is wishful thinking. Wnt (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC) (struck per their correction below)

My computer is either much bigger, or much more confusing, than any supposed attacker thinks. As well as not being an admin, ... MPS1992 (talk) 03:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Template:Z83

Hancock's half hour

Hi Jimmy Wales, I heard on the internet something to do with "Web giants slammed for failing to tackle self-harm online as Misplaced Pages snubs government summit".

I was not quite sure what that meant but apparently it is something to do with a tabloid newspaper in the UK?

Anyway I wondered if you wanted to comment. The original story is here and it totally fails to link Misplaced Pages to anyone self-harming. MPS1992 (talk) 02:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

About that closure image, it is totally fake. Sincerely, Masum Reza 03:44, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Worth noting: The Sun was deprecated as a source on Misplaced Pages in a 2019 RfC. From the closer's statement: "There exists a broad consensus ... that the Sun is quite unreliable as a source for a variety of reasons including outright fabrication ... More or less, it is a flag-bearer of sensationalist tabloid-journalism." As usual, this article misses the mark in several aspects. Misplaced Pages is not comparable to Facebook and co. For starters, it's an encyclopedia, not a social network. Day-to-day moderation is done by volunteers, not professionals, and its owner, the Wikimedia Foundation, will only intervene rarely in exceptional circumstances. Although Misplaced Pages is not censored, it isn't offensive just for the sake of being offensive; any descriptions will be neutral, not glorifying or advocating, and only as detailed as necessary in order to be informative. If these is content that violates these policies, it can be taken down in seconds by anyone who deems it necessary. There is no indication that our current policies are failing in this regard or otherwise inadequate. – Teratix ₵ 10:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The story is not in the same league as "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" and other Sun classics, but says "ministers were left fuming with Misplaced Pages for snubbing an invite to attend the major Whitehall summit for the second time this year. It comes despite concerns their site breaches ethical codes by including detailed descriptions of suicide." I had a look at Suicide by hanging and couldn't find anything against Misplaced Pages guidelines or likely to encourage suicide. An article like this would be monitored for WP:NOTHOWTO problems. Knowing how the British government works, it would probably try to get Misplaced Pages to sign up to a deal where a quango had control over what could or could not be published on Misplaced Pages. Suggestions like this are traditionally rejected by Misplaced Pages; it was a demand of this kind that led to Misplaced Pages being taken offline in Turkey.--♦IanMacM♦ 11:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Can anybody tell me more about the Samaritans (charity) group, which is presumably the quango mentioned in the Sun? I'd be interested in knowing what they want Misplaced Pages to do and who they have contacted. If everything is as appears on the surface, then we shouldn't reject those folks without listening to them. But my guess is that they have been in contact with us already and something reasonable was said or done. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I would just leave this link to WikiBooks' Suicide topic but it would be negligent to omit mention of white supremacist and self-described rapist Nathan Larson (politician)'s work on both WikiBooks and Wikiversity to include content from his now defunct SuicideWiki. Bitter Oil (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

This article says "In a move which raises questions about government attempts to bypass consultative scrutiny, the health secretary Matt Hancock has announced the appointment of the Samaritans as the private regulator to define and evaluate online harms, despite the government's white paper on online harms, and its regulatory structure, still being open for consultation... Reports indicate that the social media companies in attendance have been compelled to contribute several hundreds of thousands of pounds in research funding to the Samaritans, the suicide-prevention charity. These funds will enable them to develop an online-harms equivalent of its well-known guidelines for the media on the reporting of suicide. The eating disorder charity Beat will be tapped in a similar role for pro-anorexia and -bulimia material. Social media companies, in turn, will be expected to adopt the ensuing codes in their terms of service as part of their “duty of care” to users." It's easy to see why Misplaced Pages would be reluctant to go down this road, because a) it is not a social media site and b) material that meets the WP:FIVEPILLARS and is legal under US law will not be removed simply because a desk jockey asks for it to be removed. --♦IanMacM♦ 18:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The UK is not welcome to come here and tell us what to censor, even if they ask nicely. Their "Samaritans" are not chosen for "independence" but for lack of independence -- it is obvious that any two censors would disagree about what to ban, since there are so many facetious and common-sense statements to be made about suicide and foolish actions tantamount to suicide. With the EU preparing draconian copyright censorship to crack down on all discussions about news -- in general -- the nations subject to them are no longer going to be comfortable with a very broad range of the content on Misplaced Pages. Meanwhile, given the Assange prosecution, it seems like Misplaced Pages censors will be too busy trying to keep up with American censorship to deal with foreign quasi-non-NGOs. If the British want to have a say in Misplaced Pages, first they have to tell their EU representatives to arrange to kowtow before Xi Jinping the emperor and leading philosopher of the world, humbly beg that most independent of all organizations, the Great Firewall, to include their criteria, and then, when the U.S. is finished giving up its traditions and submits to Chinese monitoring of its social communications, they can get their way. Call it a long view. Wnt (talk) 21:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)