Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:51, 31 October 2019

this is a test message from JR to JR to see if it's working

October 2019

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Sunrise (talk) 23:31, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Notice of edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Misplaced Pages's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Sunrise (talk) 05:38, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

rude

This was rude and (I would say) a PA .Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I have asked you, I am now warning you, if you make ant more disparaging comments about edds I will report you. Slatersteven (talk) 17:21, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven, I never said anything rude about persons, only about the comments of this small band of missionaries, to which you apparently belong. Apparently what got your goat was my quotation of Schiller :

"Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain."

A PA you say? Well, as the old saying goes: if the shoe fits, wear it.

Joseph Rowe (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

You should not move comments after they have been replied to. Slatersteven (talk) 17:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Joseph Rowe, knock it off and stop insulting people or there is a good chance that you will end up blocked from editing Misplaced Pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I insult only bad arguments, not the people who make them. So knock it off yourself with your aggressive threats. To me, they're proof that you're not seriously interested in defending anyone who has been insulted — you just want to shut me up, because you're uncomfortable with my exposure of the nature of your little clique's mission, which, I repeat, is to convince people that ALL conspiracy theories are discredited or deluded; and to do this by means of an Orwellian newspeak, which aims to change the dictionary meaning of the term "conspiracy theory". Joseph Rowe (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Not quite enough so far for a slam dunk indefinite block at ANI, but I will be watching. I have seen disruptive editors rage on about how they intend to keep doing what they have been doing in order to save face and then quietly stopping the actual behavior in order to avoid being blocked. One can only hope that Joseph Rowe is one of them. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, of course it's not enough for a slam dunk, when you're not even on the court. There's no way I'm going to "quietly stop" what I've never been doing in the first place! And I'm not going to stop exposing the ... well, to be very polite, the misguided mission of the little minority clique, of which you seem to be a member. On further reflection, and glancing over the history of this discussion, I realize that I'm a late-comer, and that plenty of others have tried to speak reason to you. But you seem to have more time on your hands that most of us do, to learn the complicated protocols of Misplaced Pages, which has enabled you to capture this page. So I come to the question of your motivation(s). Your arguments in defense of this newspeak are so transparently flawed, and so extraordinarily easy to refute, for anyone who has an ounce of logic and common sense, that I ask myself: "What motivates these people in such an extreme and manipulative endeavor?" And a possible answer is this: that you are all so alarmed about the proliferation of bogus, deluded, and false conspiracy theories (the current "deep-state" absurdity of Trump supporters is a ready example), that you want to combat this by convincing people that the meaning of "conspiracy theory" itself is automatically suspect and pejorative. Well, you may be surprised to hear that I'm also alarmed about the prevalence of crazy conspiracy theories, many of which are obvious political tools, like Trump's "deep state." But folks, the way to oppose this kind of madness is not by Orwellian manipulation of language, and trying to discredit ALL conspiracy theories. Instead, the way to combat the cancerous proliferation of conspiracy theories is to encourage people to see how fascination with conspiracy theories — even the ones that ARE probable — are almost always facile, simple-minded substitutes for serious institutional analysis and criticism (cf Noam Chomsky on this subject). In other words, give people some credit for being able to see through the madness and the bullshit, instead of trying to manipulate their language. Well that's my best effort at speaking reason to this group. Those who have ears, let them hear. Joseph Rowe (talk) 08:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

You appear to have written the above while logged out. That revealed what city you are in and what ISP you are using. To protect your privacy, I suggest that you delete the IP address, add your normal signature, and delete this comment. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I did that. Joseph Rowe (talk) 08:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Re: "I'm not going to stop exposing the ... well, to be very polite, the misguided mission of the little minority clique"...

Misplaced Pages being open to all, if you work on building the encyclopedia for any length of time, you have the possibility of attracting someone who considers pretty much anything you do a personal affront, and who considers it their sacred duty to "expose" the person they fixate on. It's really quite pathetic, but for some reason they just can't quite seem to figure out why no one else sees their actions as heroic. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, what you say in this paragraph seems eminently reasonable to me. But what does it have to do me, or with my post? I haven't fixated on anyone. I'm just opposing what I believe to be an affront to both common sense, and Misplaced Pages policy on the part of this clique. Or are you warning me about someone fixating on me? In other words, security in my logins? If so, thanks again. But if the phrase "no one else sees their actions as heroic," is supposed to apply to me... well, for one thing I don't do this in order to seem heroic, but as a simple public service... and actually I did get a couple of unsolicited, spontaneous emails from other editors thanking me for my efforts, so I'm not as alone in this as you might like to think. In fact, I'm convinced that a sizeable majority of editors would agree with me, and find a way to either bring this clique to reason, or over-rule them, and restore my edits ... IF I knew how to get them together.. and the much-bigger IF we all had the time to master all this complicated Misplaced Pages protocol. If I've "fixated" on anything, it's this: the main reason Misplaced Pages has become a notoriously unreliable source of information on any controversial subject is that it has a built-in bias that favors editors who have no particular qualifications except for 1) plenty of time on their hands, for mastering the cumbersome and over-complicated Misplaced Pages protocols, acronyms, and jargon; and 2) a strong motivation, not to provide information or enlightenment, but to influence and manipulate public opinion. This is well illustrated by the conspiracy theory page, as I see it.Joseph Rowe (talk) 09:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

wp:rfc then a post just linking to the RFC at WP:NPOVN, WP:FTN, WP:VP.Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Wait...what? Actually ask the Misplaced Pages community what they think instead of claiming that a bunch of people agree with you but for some strange reason refuse to say so? Now now. We can't have that. -Guy Macon (talk) 15:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Re: "what does it have to do me, or with my post?", did someone hack your account and post the words "I'm not going to stop exposing the misguided mission of the little minority clique" without your permission? Should we shut down your account per WP:COMPACC? Or are you just pretending that you don't understand the connection between your posting "I'm not going to stop exposing..." and my replying with "...who considers it their sacred duty to "expose" the person..."? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

No, Guy Macon, I meant that your arch and plaintive little homily about Misplaced Pages troll-like figures (which I don't disagree with in principle) was so absurdly unrelated to anything I've done or said, that I was humorously willing to consider the possibility that you were warning me about such people, instead of accusing me of being one of them, which of course you were. And your disingenuous suggestion above about asking the "Misplaced Pages community" (whatever that means) is so vague as to be meaningless. As I said before, the majority whom I believe are in agreement with me seem implicit in the history of this discussion, and they have said so in different ways ... Why can't I produce them, and why aren't they showing up now, you ask? Probably because, like me, they long ago got tired of dealing with a tiny band of edit-protocol adepts with a lot of time on their hands, and a mission to discredit all conspiracy theories — by using a technique of nullifying even my mildest and most commonsense edits by starting an edit war, instead of trying to negotiate the matter with me, and then accusing ME of edit-warring — which one must admit is quite clever, and perfectly plausible, since I'm only one person dealing with a group of about 9 or 10 who take turns reverting my edits without serious discussion or negotiation ... a group ruled by a kind of intellectual mob-mentality (which at one point someone attempted to dignify by calling it "overwhelming consensus"). Perhaps someday an authentic consensus will appear and bring reason to this subject. If so, I'll be there to help, if I can. But in the meantime, you'll probably be relieved to hear that I'm fed up with trying to argue with folks who have gone so far out on a limb of denial of logic, semantics, and common sense that they can no longer see the way back, or even admit that they're out on a limb. Again, those who have ears, let them hear. Over and out. Joseph Rowe (talk) 21:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

If you wish to learn more about how Misplaced Pages as a community makes decisions, see WP:CONSENSUS and WP:RfC. And yes, the Misplaced Pages community exists and we do make decisions whether you accept that fact or not.

If you wish to learn more about what is and is not edit warring, see WP:EW. You may also wish to look over some recent cases at WP:ANEW and see what happens when editors edit war.

Regarding your comment "a group of about 9 or 10 who take turns reverting my edits without serious discussion or negotiation", without commenting on whether this is happening in your case, we know that this can happen and we have policies designed to prevent it. We have a couple of essays that, while not policies or guidelines, may help you to recognize when this is happening and to recognize when you only think it is happening. The essays are at WP:TAGTEAM and WP:1AM. (In a nutshell, WP:RfC is the antidote to WP:TAGTEAM.)

close discussions

You should not really add new comments to a closed discussion as you did here ], adding it back just makes this worse.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. We are biased.

Regarding the words "the main reason Misplaced Pages has become a notoriously unreliable source of information on any controversial subject is that it has a built-in bias...":
(posted by Joseph Rowe on 09:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC) -- just so he doesn't pretend he didn't write that)

Jimmy Wales, founder of Misplaced Pages, once wrote:

"Misplaced Pages’s policies... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Misplaced Pages will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t."

So yes, we are biased.

We are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards actual conspiracies and biased against conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards vaccination, and biased against vaccine hesitancy.
We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against facilitated communication.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards holocaust studies, and biased against holocaust denial.
We are biased towards the scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against global warming conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards mendelism, and biased against lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change.

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories

I'm sorry I didn't notice the discussion that was going on Conspiracy theory talk page before it closed. I was busy defending my own new page, "Philosophy of conspiracy theories" against a call for deletion. I agree with many of your points (although do also think that the comment at the end, distinguishing words from concepts, is worth considering). I can tell that you find this frustrating, and I can certainly understand. You may find support for much of you want to say in the philosophical literature, so do check out my page, and the links there, for sources. I appreciate what you are trying to do, and, as I said, I substantially agree with much of what you say. So I do hope you remain involved. It is in that spirit that I urge you to make every effort remain as polite as possible, even when you find other people's ideas to be inane. Sometimes they are. But it is best for us to just make the best case for our position as we can, while being as generous to others as possible. I find it helps to write a response, and then wait, come back later and take out anything that may be taken badly, and only then submit it. You might take a look at the conversation regarding the proposal for deletion of my page for a (perhaps imperfect) illustration. Best wishes. Knuteson (talk) 20:51, 31 October 2019 (UTC)