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possible highjacked barnstar
I noticed a barnstar from you at User:Katarighe/Awards. Since you were familiar with the account this person is claiming to be it may be helpful if you would weighh in at the discussion of this matter on my talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
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The Signpost: 09 January 2012
- Technological roadmap: 2011's technological achievements in review, and what 2012 may hold
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On conflicts of interest
Out of curiosity: if an editor has professional training in medicine and works in health care, would you consider him/her to have a conflict of interest (in any meaningful sense) when editing medical articles? What about when editing articles on alternative medicine? MastCell 04:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, it's certainly arguable in the general sense that a medical professional is likely to support the medical status quo and likely to be sceptical about heterodoxy. Against that, any conclusions based on stereotypes are bound to be both speculative and inaccurate. (As an example, my company sent me to see a well-known Harley Street consultant a few years ago and when I was waiting I noticed from his literature that in parallel to his conventional medical practice he ran a homeopathic one.) I suppose the underlying point too is that the Misplaced Pages model is very poorly equipped to investigate individuals and their belief systems and, when we can form opinions based on edits alone and whether or not they are disruptive, it is wholly unnecessary to delve into editors' private/professional lives. Roger Davies 05:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages supports (and indeed, attempts to recruit) MDs, PhDs, JDs, and other working professionals precisely because they have a long term history in the field. In all honesty, which would you prefer to read...no scratch that. Which do you think the general reader expects to read: Burzynski Clinic written by a practicing oncologist, Burzynski Clinic written by a member of the lay public who has read newspaper reports about the matter, or Burzynski Clinic written by Marc Stephens? Somehow, I expect that most people's answer is going to be a combination of the first and second choices, and not the last one.
But moreover: The Misplaced Pages dispute resolution model has as its underlying foundation an assumption that every editor is working in good faith to produce what is in their mind a neutral, well-sourced encyclopedia. Now, we can quibble over what neutral and well-sourced truly mean and if they can even ever have a common meaning (I'm sure the postmodernists would have a field day with that). But at the end of the day, I think it should be obvious that someone who is motivated by something besides those principles is going to have a difficult time editing on Misplaced Pages how we would like to them to edit. If that person already have a history of poor behavior as documented by warnings and sanctions from multiple administrators and the Committee...well I'm just astonished that the Committee is still even considering this appeal. NW (Talk) 20:29, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
- If an article is comprehensive, well-written and neutral, I don't suppose anyone cares for a moment who worked on it. This is why longstanding policy is to scrutinise the edits, not the editor. It is impossible to accurately determine what someone's motivation is attempts to do so, via speculation, innuendo and coatracking, introduce a host of new problems, of disproportionate intensity and complexity to any they might solve. Roger Davies 06:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages supports (and indeed, attempts to recruit) MDs, PhDs, JDs, and other working professionals precisely because they have a long term history in the field. In all honesty, which would you prefer to read...no scratch that. Which do you think the general reader expects to read: Burzynski Clinic written by a practicing oncologist, Burzynski Clinic written by a member of the lay public who has read newspaper reports about the matter, or Burzynski Clinic written by Marc Stephens? Somehow, I expect that most people's answer is going to be a combination of the first and second choices, and not the last one.