Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hans Adler (talk | contribs) at 02:01, 22 March 2010 (→I find your phrasing confusing ...: r). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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If I left a message on your talk page, then I will be watching it for a while. So you can simply reply there, and the discussion will be in one place. Similarly, when an experienced editor comments here I will usually respond here. I do not use "talkback" templates, and it rarely if ever makes sense to leave me such templates.

to space or not to space

Hans, I'm not canvassing or pressuring, but I'm interested to know why you think the established advice about spacing is "bad": "The present version is bad because is inconsistent with traditional typography in many cases". In fact, publishers are often messily inconsistent—en dashes spaced/unspaced or hyphens, without care; from one publisher to another, it can be just as bad. I see nothing wrong with a single line taken by WP that relates to what some style guides and internal publishers' guidelines say. This is perfectly consistent with the rule on using sentence, not title case in our headings and subheadings; indeed, mostly one finds title case in both hard copy and on the Internet—certainly in academic text. But in its wisdom WP chose one style, thank heavens, many years ago.

Do you find anything intrinsically unsatisfactory about spacing the dash to avoid the "jamming" effect with the innermost elements? Tony (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not an accident that quite a few mathematicians are interested in this topic and are on the "wrong" side: I have never seen "Seifert – van Kampen theorem". Of course it's more logical than "Seifert–van Kampen theorem". But it appears that no professional typographer ever sets it that way.

I think both are intrinsically bad. I know I needn't explain why this is true for the second version. On the other hand, the first version has way too much white space and separates any sentence where it appears into two parts. This separation happens right in the middle of a very low-level grammatical unit, where a pause makes no sense at all.

As a result, the spaced ndash is fine whenever you look at an isolated unit, e.g. where "Seifert – van Kampen theorem" appears in inverted commas, is set off from the surrounding text by italics as in Seifert – van Kampen theorem, or as a link target or title as in Seifert – van Kampen theorem. But consider this example:

We can avoid the problem by using the method of Seifert – van Kampen theorem proofs of the type we discussed earlier.

And the problem doesn't really have anything to do with whether the ndash has a disjunctive function, let alone whether it involves surnames:

I agree about the problem of New Zealand – South Africa flights making sentences notoriously hard to parse.

Can you see how this sentence can be understood in two totally different ways? In short: There is a reason why we normally don't space a disjunctive ndash. Unfortunately this reason doesn't go away just because we get an additional reason for spacing it. Hans Adler 09:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

NORAD Tracks Santa

Your excellent comments on the improvements needed to the "NORAD Tracks Santa" article

Well done, Hans, very well said. The "NORAD Tracks Santa" article is proof positive that just because an article is long doesn't make it good. I hope that the two contributors who have insisted that the artcle should say that Santa Claus is a real person and that NORAD really follows him on Christmas Eve will finally take notice and allow it to be reduced and rewritten from a real world perspective. Simon Peter Hughes (talk) 10:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

We HAVE NO CHRIST whatsoever in our secular holiday celebration of Santa Claus and in shopping to achieve the grosssest National Product on this EARTH !!!! To many of us in North Ameirca we may do some charity such as "Toys for Tots", but on this side of "the Pond" religion has for many of us a a very incidental role !!!!

with NORAD our focus is on packaging our "countdown as in a missile launch and rocket which expresses NORAD just fine" NOT as some advent of someone's birth some 2,000 years ago. So again since we separate Church from "the State" in the US of A our focus is on the secular celebrations !!! Not the religious !!! BillJohnson0003 (talk) 21:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ??? Calm down please. This is just a website and not worth getting a heart attack over.

But it's quite ridiculous to insist that your silly advent calendar isn't an advent calendar, just because you are counting down from 23 or whatever you use to 0 instead of counting up from 1 to 24. Advent calendars are probably the most secular aspect of Christmas anyway, and I am beginning to suspect that you only insist on the "countdown" nonsense because you want to continue writing the article from an in-universe POV. You can mention the "countdown" further down, but in the lead it's excessive detail. To test the hypothesis I will now replace your in-universe marketing hype sentence by a crisp encyclopedic sentence that doesn't mention advent calendars. Hans Adler 21:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually a rather short, but surprising expreses the countdown intent. I do not view the world the same as that nice easygoing guy TomSmith0002 does (he did the bulk of the work in finding out about the 157 plus 3rd party references about the NORAD Tracks Santa program to include the 1960's news article and rare video clips and music album) BillJohnson0003 (talk) 21:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

What you still don't get, apparently, is that Misplaced Pages does not want the excessive amount of detail about NORAD Tracks Santa in the first place. We used to have an excessive amount of detail about Pokémon and other stuff like that, but it was deleted. We are not providing you the free server space for you fansite. Hans Adler 21:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

COI in BillJohnson0003's editing?

Were you just advising BillJohnson0003 to familiarize himself with WP:COI, or is there evidence he actually has a COI? --Ronz (talk) 21:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The former. I have no definite, smoking-gun proof. However, we have two SPAs who are only interested in this super-obscure topic, and they have very similar user names: Tomsmith0002 and BillJohnson0003. They clearly know each other, and they have contributed a large amount of media files both on Commons and on YouTube. If BillJohnson0003 doesn't start looking at the rest of the encyclopedia soon to get an idea of what an article is supposed to look like, then dragging him to WP:COIN may be the only option left, I am afraid. Hans Adler 21:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Since the COI isn't clear, I think ANI is more appropriate if they continue. --Ronz (talk) 22:14, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

NORAD Tracks Santa article

Hans Adler - These days I only hear things second hand, since I am busy on other things in life. Understand that BillJohnson0003 was somewhat "over enthusiastic". Channeling his talents can be challenge. Myself, I am pretty easy going and if the article is small enough where your associates can do some edits to bring it up to the Misplaced Pages standards, I would greatly appreciate it. Also for the record, I am not affiliated with NORAD, nor the NORAD Tracks Program. Just someone who has seen NORAD Tracks Santa on CBS, BBC News, Sky News, the internet on the radio, in the newspapers, and on TV for several years (possibly even decades) (but then I have spent most of my time in North America with some time spent in Europe and East Asia where there is more Father Christmas and Christmas rather than Santa Claus as in the US of A and Canada). The one thing we (myself and my associates) have seen is that while the NORAD Tracks Santa website is available in December, it is not available the rest of the year. I have recently found places to take the bulk of material for use of outside of Misplaced Pages and have associates working on that. Would be interested in seeing an article on NORAD Tracks Santa similar to what I have seen on Star Trek (probably smaller), Caprica (TV series), Smallville and Stargate that each have an encyclopedic set of entries and provide access to fan Wikis such as Star Trek Wiki, Caprica and Battlestar Wiki, Smallville Wiki, Stargate Wiki. I think that approach will enable Misplaced Pages to keep its NORAD Tracks Santa article small and with a known External link in the article to an outside Wiki enable the devoted fans to go elsewhere to make their contributions on the subject. If I understand correctly is that the official Misplaced Pages approach ?? Again, I have been busy on other matters and really do not have the time to get involved in Misplaced Pages editing at this point. - Sincerely - Tomsmith0002 Tomsmith0002 (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

History of logic

It's fine from a philosophical POV. Just right. Thanks for the suggestions From the other side (talk) 22:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The sequence of events with me there is somewhat strange. Usually I just avoid FAC. Since Paul asked me, I left some detailed comments on the talk page, giving an idea of what sorts of things could be researched to fill in the modern history section. Most of my comments ended up copied, verbatim, into the article; at that point, I felt a need to clean them up. I agree it isn't clear that the extensive focus on mathematical logic really matches the overall topic of "logic" but I will defer to FTOS on that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I simply don't have an opinion about this. For obvious reasons this is, and should be, mostly a philosophy article, and mathematical logic just isn't philosophy. So it's up for philosophers to decide how much of the mathematics is relevant. I would like to help, but my ideas about what this article could/should say are simply too fuzzy. I don't see a clear narrative in the history of mathematical logic. I am not even sure it's one field in the first place. Hans Adler 11:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

history of logic

How much of the work on that article was actually done by Peter Damien? I always thought Damien's editing was of fairly low quality even in the subjects he claimed to be an expert in, but I didn't look at much of it. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea. I have completely open mind about his qualities as an editor. The kind of logic articles he usually edits just doesn't interest me enough to look. It was once claimed that he used to edit more, but then got detracted and during his temporary unban didn't actually edit properly. So if you want to research this, you will have to look at his contributions before his first ban, under whatever account that was. Hans Adler 17:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I might examine the history of that article but I remember looking at some of his other editing in the past and not being impressed. If someone is a really good editor (there are not so many of those) then it's worth tolerating a fair amount of headache dealing with them. But there is a real distinction between editing that's merely useful (that kind of editing is not in terribly short supply), and editing that's really good. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I will be interested to hear about your findings. Keep in mind that he may have worked on the article using various sockpuppets, so it may be hard to analyse. Hans Adler 18:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Tarski's definition of truth

I tried to clean up this description by Peter Damien. Could you check my version, currently in the article? Thanks. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 00:06, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I am probably not the best person to check this kind of general statements, where you have to pick out the most "important" trees from the forest. I certainly can't see anything zany in there, but I guess I wouldn't notice any weight problems anyway. I'm a bit surprised what is supposed to be what he is best known for, but it seems plausible enough. I have an impression that Tarski was a key figure in connecting logic to mathematical culture. His work on quantifier elimination (not mentioned at the moment) was motivated by that. If I am right, then it should be easy to find a source for that somewhere. Hans Adler 01:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I was mostly asking for you to check the technical correctness of my exposition of the truth definition, particularly the connection between the T-schema and interpretations. Yes, of course Tarski was very important, and most of that diff is not so bad. (The part of the diff about Gödel's incompleteness theorems is mostly pasted from the lede of that article). 66.127.52.47 (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ghost

Thanks for pitching in on this. I feel like I walked into a minefield! I had no idea the subject was so sensitive, and in hindsight should not have been so bold in my edits.

After getting interested in this area I started a few articles on traditional views in different cultures: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Tibet and Polynesia. None of them are great, but a start, with plenty of potential for expansion. There are some other existing ones like Dreamtime and Chindi, and some list-type articles like Ghosts in Malay culture and Chinese ghosts that could use expansion. What would interest me, if I don't get sidetracked, would be improving these articles and adding more to create a series on traditional ghost beliefs, each covering a different culture or religion, plus an overview article and a navbar template to link them. It would tempting to draw parallels and contrasts in the overview, but unless there are sources that should be avoided. Still, an overview would I think be interesting if it summarized information about the different beliefs in essentially the same sequence: nature of ghosts - ghostly experience - interactions with living people - miscellaneous.

The overview would ideally be part of the main ghost article, but given the passion that any change to Ghosts seems to arouse, it is probably best as a separate article that could be built out and improved in a more collaborative manner. The one big problem that if you stay involved in the main article (I will not) may be worth thinking of, is how to deal with European ghost lore. I pulled the detail on this from the main article into a sub-article on Ghosts in European folklore, leaving behind a summary, but DreamGuy changed it to a redirect back into the main article. He seems to feel quite passionately that the main article should have detail on European / British ghost lore, but not on any other cultures. So the problem would be that "Ghost" could be a parent of "Traditional ghost beliefs" which in turn could be a parent of "Ghosts in X culture" and "Ghosts in Y religion", but would have to point back to "Ghosts" for Europe. Maybe I am being too purist.

Any thoughts, comments? I am leaving this note here rather than on the talk page because I am looking for a second opinion without stirring up a hornet`s nest... Aymatth2 (talk) 16:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It makes no sense whatsoever that this subject is such a minefield. Just a bunch of maniacal pseudoscience hunters abusing the encyclopedia for their childish battles.

You can observe this in other fields of life as well: Once a person is obsessed with something, they see it everywhere. E.g. some of the idiots obsessed over obscenity even claim that public breastfeeding is obscene. Now here is an interesting thought: It's often said that those who are obsessed with fighting obscenity are actually obsessed with sex and feel guilty about it. Perhaps those obsessed with fighting against pseudoscience also get aroused by it?

Sorry for not responding to your technical questions, I am too angry for that ATM. Hans Adler 16:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Surely you are not suggesting there are closet wiccans involved in this debate? That could explain the need to keep all the detail about British ghosts, and reject information about any other types. Not that I have anything against wiccans. :~) Aymatth2 (talk) 16:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• I just noticed how many people are watching the Ghost page (276), compared to the number who are contributing. I suspect that many of the observers are simply enjoying the entertainment value. Maybe a page like this is useful, drawing the passionate but immature editors away from more important subjects. Keeps them out of mischief. Just a thought. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Come to think of it, maybe there should be a "Ghost talk challenge". The idea would be to start a new heading on Talk:Ghost with a simple assertion, such as "The comments on this page show extreme bias. There is clear scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts". Then make no further contributions to the discussion. The winner would be the one who generated the greatest volume of argument over a period of two weeks, as measured in kilobytes. Not sure what the prize would be. Maybe a framed copy of the photograph here. I would start it, but it could damage my hard-won reputation as a serious editor. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think your idea can be improved by the additional constraint that you are only allowed to start the disruption through a perfectly common sense statement taken from a scholarly source beyond reproach and with no occultist tendencies whatsoever. E.g.:

• "Unlike ghosts, angels are often overtly ambiguous in their gender." (Giving up the ghost, Wayne State University Press, p. 124; "an in-depth analysis of comedy and romantic ghost films")
• "A persistent yet somewhat ambiguous and contradictory refusal to admit the possibility that the dead might return in dreams or perhaps in conscious visions characterized the ecclesiastical culture of the early Middle Ages." (Ghosts in the Middle Ages, University of Chicago Press, p. 11)
• "Greek and Roman ghost stories, particularly as transmitters of folk belief. generally fit into the category of legends. What the ghost stories have in common as legends is that to a certain extent they are believed, or believable, within the segments of the societies in which they occur; they are set in the real world, in the recent past " (Haunted Greece and Rome, University of Texas Press, p. 2) Hans Adler 16:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Disagree. The only constraint should be a ban on use of sockpuppets, canvassing etc. to prolong the discussion, and perhaps a 20-word limit to the proposition. Of course, the winning proposition would have to be designed carefully to generate the maximum commentary. "Contributors to this discussion who deny the existence of ghosts run a serious risk of visitation by Dorje Shugden" would probably be incomprehensible to most contributors, so unlikely to win. An apparently serious middle-ground assertion such as "the proposed change violates WP:Religion" may generate more debate. But I would not impose any constraint on the assertion beyond the basic ground rules. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Lattice (order)

Hallo Hans Adler,
ich habe mich auf der Diskussionsseite zu den Hasse-Diagrammen geäußert: Talk:Lattice (order)#Which Hasse diagram? Wäre nett, wenn du verraten könntest, was an dem alten Diagramm besser sein soll. Grüße, Lipedia (talk) 17:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

In English, please. This is the English Misplaced Pages. Hans Adler 17:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Art student scam, formerly "Israeli art student scam"

This article happened to be up for WP:DYK, and I've added a credit for you, in recognition of your significant re-write rescuing it from deletion. cmadler (talk) 20:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not sure that I feel flattered to be credited for such an article, but if you need to credit someone I won't object. Hans Adler 20:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

On March 18, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Art student scam, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Mifter (talk) 12:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank God for common sense

--Malleus Fatuorum 00:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

You might be interested in the RfC at Talk:Ghost, where I first became aware of this nonsense. Hans Adler 00:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Neuschwanstein Castle

I saw this in the GAN queue. I can't review it at present, but can tell you two issues that are going to be problems there: it is insufficiently referenced (whole paras, and in one case a whole section without any inline cites), and the images are out of control. Reduce the images to a limited number that illustrate the key points of the article (I'd say about half the current number). Not sure what do do about that gallery of 19th century photocrom prints - maybe have a link to them at commons or something? Anyway, some feedback to save you a rapid fail when a reviewer finally gets to it. Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 01:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I was not aware that GA has become so strict about sourcing. I thought it was a way to get detailed feedback before making it fit for FA. Part of the article is a translation from the German featured article, and they use inline citations a lot less. (I once had to remove lots of them to get a German article through GA.) In that case I will just withdraw the nomination. Hans Adler 06:53, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

OK. The criteria state that it should provide "references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout; and (b) provide in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons..." This has additionally been interpreted that, in general, there should be at least one in-line cite per para. It does sound as though the two Wikis may have different approaches to citation. Additionally, I note you say "Part of the article is a translation from the German featured article". You might want to take a look at this discussion. The essence of it I think may be summarised as that the nominator at an English wiki article has to be able to discuss sources for the article, and a translation from another Wiki cannot rely on sourcing having been checked at that wiki. Thanks for all your work. Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 23:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I know about the problems with the article. That's why I am not taking it to FA yet. The problems are very hard to fix because I don't have one of the key sources used by the German author. Also I am not doing much work on the architecture aspect because an expert has promised to deal with that later. From my past experience with GA I thought the article would pass it. If I had been aware of the huge backlog I would not have contributed to that anyway with an article that's probably going to FA in half a year or so. So I have now withdrawn. There are other places to get peer reviews and advice on dealing with the obvious picture problems: Perhaps through a subarticle or two, but it seems a bit premature at the moment. Thanks for your very helpful comments. Hans Adler 23:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Please don't target others in your comments or edits, I don't feel I've done anything to deserve the comments you've directed at me or made about me. I'm not your enemy, and I'd like to get back to us working together. I disagree with you about a few things oh Ghost, that's not the end of the world. You have a problem with what you see as a campaign by BR, and you may be right or not that he is on a campaign - but don't get sucked into being on a campaign against BR. I have not discussed anything with him, and I'm getting bored of all the personal attacks being made. The arbcom sanctions should remain on ghost, but as to the other header added by BR I'm really not interested, but Abd's comment shouldn't be allowed to stand in the header. Please, let's just dial it all back a bit a take some time off. I'm not sure I'll be on much for the next week. I hope you're alright, and I hope this doesn't come across wrong. I think both you and BR are good editors, and sometimes you are both wrong - as am I. On some parts of this current little dispute, I think you're both wrong - or at least both too extreme. Anyway, I have to go. Thanks, Verbal chat 22:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that you are also on a campaign, not just BullRangifer. When everybody on your side returns to normal, ethical wiki editing methods, I will do the same. Perhaps even a bit earlier. So long as your side is using unethical methods in order to skew articles into an unencyclopedic state (including blatant misrepresentations of sources that suit your bias), unethical methods which unfortunately are effective, so long I will use creative methods that are effective in dealing with the problem. So long as your side is using unethical and effective methods in order to kill other editors' reputation for no worse offence than being the "wrong" kind of scientist (relaxed, open-minded, playful rather than obsessed and sectarian), so long I will do what it takes to prevent damage. To the degree that I am convinced that you guys stop, I will stop as well. Hans Adler 22:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

This is really disgusting. I have to spend more time with this absurd pushing of the meme "Everything I don't like is pseudoscience" than with dealing with actual fringers. You are not doing anybody a favour with your extremism. It reflects badly on science when it is treated as a religion. Hans Adler 22:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Declaration of war and extreme failure to AGF noted. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Everyone take a deep breath, apologize, and return to proper editing. --Ronz (talk) 22:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Hum.... that request for clarification is about Abd's restriction, not about the dispute at Ghost. I have read your statement a couple of times, and it's about 100% off-topic. How is that background relevant to Abd wading into the dispute in relation to his restriction? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Even though on the surface it always looks as if everything is being done purely on behavioural grounds, it makes a great difference whether someone is a positive factor for the encyclopedic content or not. There is a reason why Abd is under such a restriction and BullRangifer is not. There is a reason why it took so long to deal with the disruption caused by SA and that caused by Ottava Rima, while some very well-behaved people are dealt with so quickly that I can't remember any of them to present as an example.

Some journalists have expressed their sense of wonder that Misplaced Pages can function with an Arbcom that doesn't settle content questions. The answer is simple: Arbcom does settle content questions. It may not know that it does, but it does.

Abd is generally seen as someone who pushes pseudoscience, because most people think cold fusion is pseudoscience and he vehemently defends it. (I have no idea if it is, and I am not really interested in the question.) So people naturally assume that he is on the wrong side in that dispute. What they don't see is that he was responding to an extreme, irrational provocation, and did something that would have been exactly the right thing, if not for his restriction.

That's crucial because whether Abd violated his restriction may easily turn out to be undetermined, because Arbcom members didn't really think things through originally, or miscommunicated so that everybody had a different idea what the restriction meant. In such a case they will still come to a yes or no decision, and the question whether Abd was acting rationally and in an appropriate attempt to defend reason or whether he was disruptively pushing a POV, this question will ultimately decide the outcome. Of course not officially. Everybody will deny that it played a role.

You needn't agree with what I said, but this was my main motivation. If a clerk removes my comment as off-topic because officially it's not relevant, then so be it. But it is worth trying.

My secondary motivation was anger that Verbal, who has been quite disruptive recently (although much less so than BullRangifer; the problem with Verbal is mainly that he supports BR) is dealing out against an editor who is (at least currently) much less of a problem than he is himself. (At least as far as my watchlist is concerned.) Hans Adler 23:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

No, Abd is under that restriction because he makes a convoluted mess out of any dispute where someone holds an opinion he disagrees with. If you think that the problems at pseudoscience articles deserve arbitration, then I suggest you make a separate request that is centered around that topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hans. I tend to agree with Verbal and Brangifer on the pseudo-scientific nature of ghosts, as you know, although I could be persuaded and I'll accept either the broad interpretation of pseudoscience or the narrow one, whichever may achieve consensus on this article.

This is just to let you know that there is no "we". Sometimes editors happen to agree with one another, it doesn't mean they're organized in a weird conspiracy against you just because they disagree with you. A moment's search in my contributions history will show you that my path has seldom met the path of either of the other editors. This isn't about us.

It is actually about your recent conduct. Here are the relevant diffs, all from talk:Ghost. this. this (edit summary) and to a somewhat lesser extent this. That's unacceptable behavior because it's moving from comment on the issues to personal attacks on other editors.

There is a way to deal with what you regard us unacceptable conduct by other editors (I'm doing it now). It's called dispute resolution. Firstly raise the conduct with the editor, then if you don't get a satisfactory response there are various other methods including user conduct RFCs, mediation and arbitration. What you're doing is side-tracking the discussion and making it about meta-issues, and that's not going to help. --TS 23:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry. I didn't put you in a pigeon hole. E.g. I also don't have Enric Naval in a pigeon hole at all, although we often disagree. I don't exactly have Verbal in a pigeon hole either; sometimes he is quite reasonable, but not recently.

I must say I totally disagree about your diffs of my editing. They are perfectly appropriate under the circumstances. In order to support the category and the Arbcom notice, BullRangifer has misrepresented a source and spread this misrepresentation all over the encyclopedia. (I had to remove it from Ghost, Witchcraft and List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. At some time it was even at WP:NPOV. When I tried to remove it from Pseudoscience this was reverted, and even my "failed verification" tag was reverted at first. That article is now protected with the misquotation, but also with the fv-tag.) He opened an RfC that begged the question: He didn't ask if his quotation was appropriate, but whether the NSF is reliable. When he didn't manage to get his nonsense into WP:NPOV he opened another RfC there which he misrepresented in his "neutral" summary. As a result, most a lot of people replied to the summary only. When it was closed accordingly, he insisted that no, there wasn't just a consensus that the NSF is reliable; in his opinion the RfC proved there was a consensus for his policy change. Similar shenanigans with many totally unfounded claims of earlier consensus happened at ANI. There is also the character assassinations targeted primarily at Ludwigs2.

When people use such techniques it's not a good strategy to let them "win" first and try to deal with it by RfC later. First, it's an immense effort. Second, they "learn" that the strategy is efficient, so they continue to use it. They must be conditioned not to use such disruptive techniques in the first place.

The huge Arbcom notice is an example. Normally when people think of ghosts, they don't think of pseudoscience. (Unless they are obsessed with pseudoscience and read too much "skeptical" literature, of course. I have seen a lot of that literature, and it often discusses ghosts, religion and pseudoscience in close proximity, seeing it as different examples of the same phenomenon, something I agree with. They are also almost unanimous in not actually claiming that ghosts and religion do fall under pseudoscience. I agree with that as well. BullRangifer and Verbal don't agree. They are more extreme than the standard "skeptical" literature in lumping together everything they don't like, and now they are trying to push this "it's all the same" view into the encyclopedia. That's simply not OK.

Without these extremists an article such as ghost can easily be defended against the fringers. When there is an attack of many of them, we just notify a noticeboard and it's easily dealt with. (Unless it's something big like climate change.) But once they are there it all gets into a big mess because they insist on making the article incorrect to suit their POV. This prevents all progress. In the end the article contains a strange mixture of hocus pocus fringe and pseudo-pro-science fringe opinions, and the article's primary topics are hidden behind all undue weight of the fringe-antifringe stuff.

Now the huge Arbcom notices look very official, and there is no denying that they are efficient. They tell us that this is a topic where we should naturally expect pseudoscience-related disputes. This skews the discussions. This header is new at the article, there is no consensus for it, it doesn't belong there, and if Verbal insists on it then it has at least to be made clear that it isn't there by consensus or as the result of an Arbcom decision, but because an editor or two forced it through. I can't see anything wrong with that.

I don't know if you are happy with this response. I don't mind discussing this further, but if you prefer one of the other three things you are proposing I wouldn't mind that either. Haven't had any of them yet and it might be interesting. Hans Adler 00:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I have commented below about the above paragraphs by Hans. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

And yet again you resort to discussing content issues and the purported misconduct of other editors in order to justify your own. That is precisely what is unacceptable. Use dispute resolution. It isn't optional. These are the only acceptable methods of handling disputes. The way you're doing it, and the justifications you use, are extremely destructive to Misplaced Pages. Stop. --TS 00:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention that after it became clear that outside sources would not be acceptable for informing policy, he opened yet another RFC regarding NPOV policy following categories.. I mean, I think that he thinks he is being entirely reasonable, but basically it boils down to trying to influence an ongoing content dispute by changing policy. Which is generally frowned upon last time I checked, but you know, obviously I am misrepresenting his intentions and actions etc etc. Seriously and generally, it is incredibly hard for me to understand how anyone could think that this particular NSF position had any value at all apart from the giggle/facepalm factor. Unfortunately it seems that for some who purport to embrace skepticism, independent -- critical thought is sometimes not considered or not acted on. Utilitarianism is laziness. Unomi (talk) 00:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Unomi, I'm surprised you would sink to the same low level of Hans by belittling me. The third RfC doesn't change policy in any manner, not the wording or the intent. Look at the wordings in the four Guidelines. (Guidelines 3 & 4 aren't exactly the same anymore as the originals.) Try to remember the ArbCom where that wording came from and the process by which it became part of NPOV policy. The wording is very precise and refers to Category:Pseudoscience. Read it. There is no attempt to change policy, much less to gain an advantage. Please strike those comments. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

BR, I don't know how you can say that I am belittling you by assuming good faith on your part. You keep confusing the definition of Pseudoscience employed by Arbcom with the one employed by NSF, the NSF one is clearly not scholarly and they are only tenuously related. Arbcom stated clearly what they meant by pseudoscience, NSF is employing an eccentric definition. It is entirely unreasonable to expect that Misplaced Pages policy is dictated by outside sources, the recent RfC on that matter is clear, you are the only one in favor of it, and I think you should reconsider. There clearly is an attempt on your part to change policy and it clearly is due to an ongoing content dispute. You can see that blueboar disagrees with you in your last assertion, an editor who is probably more involved in NPOV and RS than any of us. I still think that you think that you are being entirely reasonable, but in fact, you are not. Please, for the umpteenth time, read demarcation problem. Unomi (talk) 03:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans, I will say though there is truth in what TS is saying, it does seem to be affecting your style a bit. I think your exasperation is completely warranted, but perhaps the energy is best directed towards a DR process instead of hoping that people just 'snap out' of it. Neuronal plasticity has likely a limited potential for many of us at this point in our lives. Unomi (talk) 00:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) OK, then let's be completely formal if you prefer. Let's pretend I am an obvious fringe POV pusher and therefore on a short leash; let's pretend I can't get away with the same kind of egregious behaviour as the self-elected protectors of the religion of science:

This is a very long diff, so I must guess what you actually object to:

• "So please explain why you took part in the edit war." – Seems appropriate when someone reverts as part of a tag team and provides a diff to the revert instead of a sensible reason for the revert. A category being potentially useful for a reader is a silly reason in this context.
• "Given the general context of some editors here trying to turn this article about a basic topic that has/had some prominence in all known human cultures throughout the ages, has been extremely influential on the arts, etc. into an article that talks almost exclusively about hocus pocus such as spiritism and "ghost hunting", this seems to fit the general pattern." – This is an accurate description of the problem as I see it. The article is not primarily about spiritism and ghost hunting, and I reject all attempts to give these topics undue weight. Whether positively or negatively. NPOV is unnegotiable.
• "The revert by Verbal was probably the most frivolous. When you push a borderline appropriate category that is already implied through the category tree into an article after it has twice been removed on the same day, 'no harm in making it explicit' is just about the most inane justification I can imagine." – Talk:Ghost was not the right place for this comment per WP:TALK. Editors do not always follow WP:TALK, because doing so can have undesirable consequences. I could have made that comment at Verbal's talk page (no effect other than delaying things); or to WP:ANI, but that would have increased the general disruption and would have led to parallel discussions. We already had parallel discussions about BullRangifer's RfCs at Talk:Ghost, WT:NPOV and WP:ANI. In the hypothetical case of me having to be very careful, I would have had to give in to Verbal's bullying because ANI would have been too dangerous for me.
• "This is transparent category pushing by a tag team that apparently tries to extend the scope of the Arbcom decision on pseudoscience to this entire article, rather than just to the small fractions to which it rightfully applies." – That's exactly what it is. The same principles as in the previous paragraph apply.
• "As a result of this ruthless warring, the article is now blocked (on the wrong version, obviously), making it harder than necessary to replace BullRangifer's misleading NSF quotation by a sane consensus version." – Perhaps I should have omitted BullRangifer's name here. By now everybody knows he is behind this misquotation anyway.

"Verbal is only putting it here because he thinks it gives him an advantage when others disagree with his extremism. (Yes, I am assuming bad faith.)" – I plead health reasons: Today I learned that my asthma spray is not available without prescription in Austria, so I will have to do without it for a few more days. I am no adrenaline instead (yes, it seems to help). Normally I wouldn't put this into an edit summary.

– There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. These comments were necessary so that the boxes would not create false authority. Hans Adler 00:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what it is, but I still don't seem to be getting through to you. Please stop launching these personal attacks on other editors. --TS 00:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

What? Could you please be more specific? You seem to be suggesting that my above comment contains personal attacks inacceptable for my own talk page. Please give a concrete example so that I have a chance to understand what you mean. Thank you. Hans Adler 00:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

PS: Please make sure not to confuse "extremely destructive to Misplaced Pages" with "threatening the modus operandi of some editors I agree with". I don't know if you are making this mistake, and I am in the process of examining whether I have been destructive to Misplaced Pages ("extremely" seems to be hyperbole), but it's certainly a mistake that we are all prone to. Hans Adler 00:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans's edits in TS's three Talk:Ghost diffs are a little bit blunt, but are within the normal range of semi-heated talkpage discussions. I don't see a persistent enough issue of contention to warrant full-scale dispute resolution, which is very burnout-inducing. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 01:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

On looking further--Hans, you had the right idea earlier: start a user conduct RFC against Bull Rangifer. Others: Hans is basically right on this issue; Bull Rangifer is wikilawyering, his content RFC's were bogus, and his anger and aggressiveness, here and elsewhere, are unhelpful. Bull, can you tone it down? Hans should probably also recognize that this has reached the point where a more formal style is appropriate. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 09:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans, above you tell some untruths, grossly exaggerate, and make some very serious personal attacks, all because your failure to AGF has turned misunderstandings into something else in your own mind, and there's no sign that you're going to stop. Here are just a few of the falsehoods you state above (and you've been doing this for some time now):

1. Untrue: "misrepresented a source and spread this misrepresentation all over the encyclopedia".

Two RfCs determined that the source and its proposed use was proper. You're fighting against the consensus in two RfCs, even after being warned to desist. Those RfCs were closed properly and the thread at AN/I was also closed in my favor to stop this disruption.

2. Repetition of a total untruth: "his policy change".

This false charge has been challenged before (see below) and he has failed to produce a shred of evidence. Instead he just repeats it. Such a charge is very damaging to my reputation. It has been repeated several times. I have numerous times clearly stated that I wasn't trying to change policy. In fact I didn't even propose to change a single word of policy! I'd like to see some proof for this false charge in the form of precise quotes and diffs. Barring that, I want an apology and a cessation of the personal attacks and gross failures to AGF.

In this section, an interesting exchange occurred, in which this untruth was told and I challenged it. Note the continual attacks by Hans Adler:

Then Brangifer started an RfC about whether the NSF is a reliable source for such a statement. Almost everybody agreed, only a few protested and said that while they agree with the RfC, the RfC had nothing to do with the original dispute. Then Brangifer decided to change policy to get an advantage, was reverted, and started this ambiguous RfC. How much more does the gaming have to see so that Brangifer's friends recognise it as such? Hans Adler 16:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Focusing on editors isn't going to help resolve the dispute. Shell 16:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The dispute has been manufactured out of thin air by a single editor. This kind of dispute is best resolved by focusing on the instigator. Hans Adler 18:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans, please AGF. This constant harping on me as a bad person just doesn't cut it. On top of assuming bad faith, you have made a serious charge that requires proof. You wrote: "...Brangifer decided to change policy to get an advantage..." Please prove that with precise diffs. That's not true. I never have tried to change policy, and it isn't my intention to do so. Nothing could be further from the truth. You made a totally false accusation, now prove it or apologize. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

3. Untrue: "When he didn't manage to get his nonsense into WP:NPOV he opened another RfC there..."

That's not only totally backwards timewise, it's false even if turned around! The sequence is important. First I started a thread on Talk:NPOV. When Ludwigs2 immediately reponded with taunting comments, I then decided to start an RfC. It was only after the RfC was closed much later (with a large consensus that accepted my proposed addition of the NSF statement as a ref) that I added it as proposed and approved. This edit was a consensus approved edit. It can't get anymore official or approved than that! There is better way to make sure that an edit will stick. In spite of that fact, it was still deleted twice by Crum375, one of the editors who !voted against the consensus. How can someone (Crum375) who loses a consensus be allowed to edit against the decision of the consensus? Crum375 was acting unbecomingly of an admin and should be desysopped for those reverts, among many other reverts of my edits. He has been edit warring against me for some time.

4. Untrue: "...not actually claiming that ghosts and religion do fall under pseudoscience. I agree with that as well. BullRangifer and Verbal don't agree."

As for my own views, that's total BS, and I suspect also for Verbal. I don't include religious beliefs under pseudoscience, except for certain ones that make directly falsifiable claims that are against the evidence in the real world. The rest of religious beliefs and claims are simply belief, and have nothing to do with pseudoscience. The List of topics characterized as pseudoscience lists some of those types of beliefs.

Hans Adler's (and Ludwigs2's) harassment has gone on for far too long. Even though Ludwigs2 has been engaging in the same behaviors, he at least was involved from the start. Hans, OTOH, jumped into the fray with an old grudge and started to attack me, and he's been at it ever since. It's got to be stopped!

Hans even admits he is not AGF: "Yes, I am assuming bad faith." That's a pretty bold and self-incriminating violation of policy. Block him for it.

The policy that requires AGF needs to be enforced. We can see that Adler's consistent violation of this policy has colored his whole perception of the issue, thus creating an unnecessary conflict. If he had bowed to the consensus, the conflicts could have been avoided and it would have been easier to deal with Ludwigs2. Misunderstandings have been blown up into exaggerations, untruths, and gross personal attacks. Gross and consistent violations of AGF and NPA are blockable offenses. This isn't about minor incivility. The time has come for a longer block and then a topic ban under the ArbCom sanctions, IOW covering all fringe topics (paranormal, alternative medicine, etc.) and their talk pages, where the disruption is worst. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Facepalm Hey, Tony Sidaway, look here: "You're fighting against the consensus in two RfCs, even after being warned to desist." That's a good example of the problem I am trying to address. A couple of statements of this nature in a public place like ANI, by several dummies who agree with each other, and you have the perfect character assassination with absolutely no basis. That happened to Ludwigs2 recently. – People tend to become more similar to the things they fight. People who fight pseudoscience often use the same kind of invalid arguments that pseudoscientists use. When I try to address BullRangifer's attacks of this type, it's hard to stay entirely on the high road.

1. Both RfCs were closed essentially as "NSF is a highly reliable source". More details on BullRangifer's talk page.
2. BullRangifer wanted to (1) add a suggestive footnote to the policy, and when it became clear there is no consensus for this, to (2) inject three links to the pseudoscience category into the policy. Obviously such things have a strong influence on how policy is interpreted. And on a purely pedantic level it's also a change of policy. It is also true that he didn't "propose to change a single word". This hair-splitting is an example of what I have called "BullRangifer's problematic relation to truth" elsewhere.
3. I have addressed the claim that the RfC as closed by Gwen Gale supported the policy change in detail on BullRangifer's talk page. The RfC was closed as "National Science Foundation is a reliable source".
4. WTF? You don't even believe the bullshit that you have quote-mined from the NSF paper? Then are you just doing it for the disruption, or what? I think WP:COMPETENCE needs to be enforced with blocks more often. I am totally assuming good faith with respect to BullRangifer at all times, by the way. See Hanlon's razor. Hans Adler 08:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding 4. ??? Of course I believe the NSF statement. I don't know what you mean. Your statement isn't AGF. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding 2. You are being deceptive by using events that happened after your statements to justify them. I started the third RfC here, on March 17. Your accusation that I tried to "change policy to get an advantage" was made on March 16. (See above.)

BTW, the third RfC doesn't change policy in any manner. It just adds a wikilink to make clear the actual meaning, which isn't a change of policy. Do you understand what that third RfC was about? Do you understand the intention of the ArbCom and the wording in the NPOV policy, when they gave the right to place things in Guidelines 1 & 2 in the Category:Pseudoscience? Maybe you don't remember that ArbCom, or the ensuing adoption of its wording in the NPOV policy. It's interesting.

The second RfC attempted to add a ref, not as a change of policy, but an example of what Guideline 2 was referring to. Guideline 2 describes a situation, and the ref demonstrated it in action, IOW a perfect example. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

PS: BullRangifer got the order of events at WP:NPOV right. He proposed the policy change in an RfC before putting it into the policy itself or discussing it on the talk page in any way. What he did earlier was introduce a helpful numbering into the description of the Arbcom decision, which was later reverted along with a few unrelated changes by others. I apologise for misreading the page history and will look for places where I made this incorrect claim so that I can strike it. I am not aware of more than one; if anyone sees another, please strike out the incorrect words in my name or point me to the page. Hans Adler 09:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for admitting that you got the order wrong, but you're repeating the false claim that I tried to "change policy". I have no interest in changing it, so why should I even think of doing so? That doesn't make any sense. I have never been attempted to "change" policy during this whole debacle. Please stop saying that. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi again. My intent wasn't to bring the dispute here, and I'm sorry for that - and I haven't time right now to read all the above. I haven't been offended by your actions - I just want everything to cool down as I think both you and BR are usually very good and very civil editors, although I realise you both had a falling out. I didn't mean to make things worse and I'm sorry if I have and that I've offended you or not helped your asthema (I had a bout a few years ago, absolutely awful). Not had time to read everything so sorry if I've got wrong end of any of the multiple sticks that are being bandied about. Best, Verbal chat 16:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking back at my start to this thread it's not as nicely worded as I thought - I'm sorry about that. It was late and I was tired, and I wanted to try and stop any further decent. I accept full responsibility for my failure there. I'm truly sorry. Verbal chat 17:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. This makes it easier for me to clarify that what I really want is everybody getting along in harmony. Unfortunately I have the impression that the pseudoscience category on an article and the Arbcom pseudoscience box on its talk page generally function as a declaration of ownership by a loose group of "skeptic" editors. Problems with fringers can occur at all articles. Usually they are either (1) ignored because nobody notices them (bad), or (2) dealt with effectively by assertiveness of mainstream editors and controlled escalation if necessary (good). At the articles labelled with pseudoscience both options (1) and (2) seem to be replaced with (3) overreaction by a number of skeptic editors that is so extreme that the mainstream editors feel it is more urgent to react to them than to the fringers. The conclusion of the skeptics is of course that the mainstream editors are siding with the fringers because they are fringers themselves. This is not at all healthy and is extremely stressful for the mainstream editors, who have to fight on two fronts.

Sorry for misleading you regarding my asthma; I now see the joke may not be easy to get, and if you don't get it it looks like a strange appeal for commiseration. I couldn't resist the temptation to pretend I abuse other people as a medical measure. The asthma was gone for the three years that I lived in Spain and UK. Now that I am living in Austria it's back and caught me by surprise, but is completely in tolerable bounds, even without treatment. Since adrenalene is a highly effective treatment, I thought I might try if high levels of endogenous adrenalene as from a lot of not too negative stress might help. From what I see on Google Scholar I guess it's actually more likely to have the opposite effect, but at least the placebo effect helped for two days. :) Sorry to year you also had it once. In case there is any chance it may come back, and assuming it was allergically induced: Make sure to treat any allergies you might have, especially hay fever. Nasal mucosa and lungs are strongly connected systems, and some study once found you can even treat asthma by applying in the nose.

Back to the original topic: I don't see you as an enemy at all, just as not at all helpful at times. Cooling down is a very good idea which I am trying to follow. I have started work on the RfC/U; that really helps because it addresses the problem constructively without causing immediate escalation. Hans Adler 18:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I have withdrawn the third RfC. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Funny SVG file

Hi Hans. I don't know if you remember, but you helped me out awhile ago when I noticed that an SVG file seemed not to be rendering properly (I can't remember where). Well, I now have the same problem with File:Massdistribution xy.svg. For some reason, the parentheses render before the letter y, so that it isn't enclosed. Do you have any recollection of how you fixed this problem? It seems to be a problem with the way the Wikimedia software packages the SVG file, since when I view it in the same browser on localhost, it looks the way it's supposed to. I'd appreciate any assistance you could offer. Thanks, Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. The bold y was implemented with nested tspan tags. I simply unnested them. Apparently whatever renders the previews, if it sees something like <tspan>text text <tspan>whatever</tspan> text text</tspan>, then it moves the inner tspan to the end of the text. Hans Adler 12:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! If I needed to fix this in the future, would I need to edit the XML file manually then? Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That's what I did. I have next to no experience with SVG editors. Doing it manually is not harder than wiki editing, except the code looks more cryptic and you have too look for the actual text like for a needle in a haystack.

Tell me if this comes up a lot. It should be easy to write a program that deals with the simpler cases. Hans Adler 12:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

To clarify my above example, this is what you have to transfer it into: <tspan>text text</tspan><tspan>whatever</tspan><tspan>text text</tspan>. The example is not entirely realistic: This happens when the tspan tags are different, e.g. because "whatever" is bold text. Otherwise you could just remove the inner tspan tags. Hans Adler 14:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that explanation is helpful. Also, miraculously the unicode θ seems to work in my browser after your correction, whereas it did not before. Did you have something to do with that too? I was right about to convert all text to path (following a suggestion of TimothyRias), but I am happy that it no longer seems to be necessary. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

In my browser at work the theta doesn't work in either version. But that's an old linux that may have font problems. In my opinion we shouldn't use workarounds for such font problems unless they are very widespread, such as ${\displaystyle \cup }$ and ${\displaystyle \cap }$ making trouble. I think at home, with the latest Firefox under Windows XP, everything was fine. The only way in which what I did could have changed something is if my text editor added a Unicode BOM at the beginning of the file, as many editors do. (In case you have any problem with text editors, I recommend trying SciTE.) Hans Adler 18:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Good to know. I converted the theta to path so that it should now display regardless of missing unicode support. Thanks again, Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Spyro02

Hans,

I have indefinitely blocked User:Spyro02 for sock puppetry. Next time, stuff like that should be reported to WP:SPI so we can take a closer look at the suspected socks, determine if rangeblocking/CU/etc. are needed. Thank you, –MuZemike 20:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. In combination with the semiprotection of the articles this seems to be perfect. Hans Adler 20:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

re that which we shall not name

The problem is that descendants are subject to restrictions and subject to low quality sources simply for having an inappropriate lineage. Worse, these restrictions are sought enforced. We have 2 cases where editors explicitly have disavowed the heritage yet are unable to escape due to interpretations regarding what such constructs imply. If we are going to have to have these discussions on individual articles anyway, why not at least let the consensus result of the discussion have a material outcome? Unomi (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Where are these restrictions other than in the brains of some pseudo-sceptics? I am trying to clean up with their disruption and you are not at all making it easier by mixing things up with an unrelated problem that is deeply rooted in the category system. If there is any rule of current relevance that says an article is treated specially because it's in a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience then I really want to know about it rather than make a fool of myself by continuing to deny it. But even then the correct solution is to get rid of that silly rule. Hans Adler 19:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Not to quibble, but if there isn't then what is the harm of removing the swath of articles which are poorly related to pseudoscience from the tree? Anyway, I will defer to your better judgement, I do fear though that the strong evidence that you are looking for will come sooner rather than later. Unomi (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess they just think that it gives them an advantage, and they like to deface articles about topics they don't like, to show it to the fringers.

Strong evidence of what? Hans Adler 19:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Of the the fact that an article is a descendant of the pseudoscience category implies that it is subject to WP:FRINGE and its related arbcom restrictions. What of editors who are barred from editing pseudoscience, broadly construed etc. Anyway :) I need to get back to work. Unomi (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Carcharoth has proposed filing an amendment request to one of the pseudoscience Arbcom cases in order to get the current disruption under control. That's a good opportunity to get a clear statement about that as well. In the 2006 WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE Arbcom case they simply used the pseudoscience category to define the minimum extent of a single editor's restriction, but that's an old case that was very sloppy overall. I think this years Arbcom will see the problem and readily clarify that the extent of restrictions has nothing to do with what our articles or our categories say. Perhaps we can even find a solution for the Arbcom banner warring, but it's less straightforward because sometimes they are used specifically to mark an article as falling under a special rule. Hans Adler 20:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussing categories in NPOV

Despite your plea to let sleeping dogs rest... it's a topic that won't stay tabled... I have had to re-open (but more focused)... see WT:NPOV#Obviously bogus ideas. Blueboar (talk) 23:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

German editors have girlfriends!?

Truly, the differences between English as a first language editors and those who speak it as another (or not at all) is even greater than I realised. Next you will be noting that those under 30 years of age do not live with their parents... ;~) LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually I don't have a girlfriend. I only have a wife from whom I am not yet divorced, and a 5-year-old daughter from whom I don't want to be divorced. I wouldn't take such photos of either of them, so neither of them is even equivalent to a girlfriend in the sense of the discussion.

I guess one thing that really sets me apart from almost all natively English-speaking editors is that I got my last name from my wife. There seems to be no accepted way in English to refer to the last name with which I was born that doesn't sound silly. (I only know maiden name and née, which are both distinctly female.) I nearly failed to get my English bank account because my bank was so confused by my case. Hans Adler 23:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Birth name - it even appears to cover your situation. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, you are right. That's exactly the word I always use, but people in the UK keep telling me it doesn't exist. Perhaps just a weird kind of humour? Hans Adler 00:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

German editors use Extension:Cite/Cite.php!?

Hans! Help! Why is there an error message picked out in red at the end of this subpage, requesting a <references/> tag? There IS a fucking tag! I've tried <references/>, and for good measure I've also tried {{reflist|2}}, but nothing gets rid of the red text. The footnotes nevertheless do show up. What's WRONG with it? (Kindly do not explain "ref name" or such horrors, I have no intention of using those.) A case for Bugzilla, or have I merely lost my mind? Bishonen | talk 01:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC).

I find your phrasing confusing ...

Regarding the Arbcom request for clarification on Abd, you state "his unhelpful intervention at Ghost was an attempt to support the mainstream against the very real danger of being marginalised and treated as fringe." I am confused about why you refer to his edit as being unhelpful when, if I understand your position on the article correctly, you are against having the article treated as fringe science. Have I misunderstood your position vis a vis the article itself? --GoRight (talk) 01:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

No. He tried to help, but he wasn't helpful. I found it appropriate to mention that he was on the right side (the middle). I did not find it appropriate to go into the details of why I got angry at him while he was on my side. I made up my mind about him. Now I can understand a bit better why he has so many enemies. And I simply don't want him as an ally. Hans Adler 02:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)