Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:20, 10 December 2014

User talk:Robertinventor/Archive 1.

I have removed all the Mars Sample Return pages from my watch list

If anyone wants to talk to me about it any more please notify me here, as I have removed them from my watch list.

I feel I have nothing to contribute to the topic, since the AfD decision to ignore everything except Zubrin's views, including even the official NASA / ESA / PPO views on the matter.

It is time to get on with my life. I feel I have loads I can contribute on this topic, but can't contribute anything about it to wikipedia, not for as long as this current policy on MSR and contamination issues prevails.

I don't want be drawn into more debates with the opposing editor. I feel is hopeless for a single editor to contest his passionate editing in support of a "mainstream view" which closely aligns with Robert Zubrin's minority single author POV.

Instead I will find other outlets for my work.

However if another editor feels strongly about this too, and has got involved in a similar edit war, and wants a bit of moral support - do let me know!

I would come back right away with the support of other editors knowledgeable about the NASA / ESA / PPO studies who wish for more accurate treatment e.g. of the NRC and ESF studies.

I would be really keen to return to help an editor keen to cover it more fully with minority views as well (on all sides of the debate) in an accurate way. AfDs can be overturned if a new article is submitted which is substantially different from the one deleted.

It would only need two editors interested in presenting a more diverse picture to turn that all around.

A 2:1 or 2:2 edit war I think would be enough to force dispute resolution of the issues. But a 1:1 edit war with an editor who continues to do bold edits and won't stop to discuss and who hurls insults at you all the time and just keeps at it until he wins the war is impossible to do anything about, I would say from my experience of one here. Robert Walker (talk) 23:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The flaws with the current MSR section on BC

For anyone interested - I have totally given up mentioning this on the article talk page itself:

• It says that the chance of back contamination "is likely to be zero". In fact the Planetary Protection Office say that the "probability of risk is non zero". All the other official studies agree on this. In more detail the sources say that the experts are in general agreement that the probability is non zero. They also agree that there is no way they can accurately calculate the probability but that they assess it based on their own experience as probably very low.

Warren has an argument on the talk page to say that "likely to be zero" means the same as "non zero" in this context, using Bayesian probability. Whatever you think about that argument, it is certainly OR and not in any of the sources.Robert Walker (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• It says a normal biohazard 4 facility is sufficient. In fact, the studies say that it is not sufficient because it also has to double as a clean room and no facility has been built able to do both and there are major technological issues involved in combining the two technologies into a single faciility.

• It presents the risk of environmental disruption as an ICAMSR obsession. In fact, this element of the risk is extensively covered in the ESF and NRC studies, and NASA, ESA, COSPAR and the Planetary Protection Office all take it seriously.

• It doesn't mention the international nature of the risks. In fact the studies say that it needs full public debate at an international level because in the (thought to be very low probability) worst case scenarios it could impact on other countries world wide.

It looks fine if you aren't familiar with the material but in fact is deeply flawed.

It totally misrepresents the official position. The bias of this page, and almost throughout the Mars Project now, is strongly towards advocacy of colonization of the Mars surface and playing down contamination issues.

I added CN and WP:OPINON tags to it but the opposing editor removed them immediately a few minutes after I added them. So the reader of the article can't even be notified that there may be questions about its accuracy and POV.

Also he has attacked me personally so often in a totally OTT way, that I have given up in despair.

Clarity on difference between ICAMSR, and the official POV

First, the exobiologists who inform the official view on this topic are simply saying that don't have enough knowledge of potential life forms from Mars to rule it out at current levels of knowledge.

Since it is not possible currently to accurately assess the probability of an environmental disruption of Earth and adverse effects on its human inhabitants from a MSR, their recommendation is that it is wise to proceed with great caution. This is what all the published authors agree on with the exception of Zubrin.

Of course they aren't saying that it will happen or even that it is at all likely to happen. No-one is saying that. It is like - if you go to a country where there is a chance of catching malaria, even if the chance of catching it is low, still you will take your anti-malaria tablets so long as there is a chance of it at all.

The ICAMSR mainly differ in saying that we should proceed with extreme caution (you could put it) rather than great caution. They accept the same facts as everyone else but consider that even tiny probabilities of existential risk, are not acceptable and should not be taken at this stage, not before we know a bit more about the situation on Mars - what type of life there is there if any - and how it behaves, what it does on Mars, what it is like, and what it does if introduced to more typical Earth like enviroments.

Advocacy of Zubrin's views in the current version of the Mars Sample Return article

By neglecting mention of all other views on the matter, except the ICAMSR which is portrayed as putting forward an eccentric view of their own not held by anyone else, and misrepresenting the official reports, then the current article amounts to advocacy of something close to Zubrin's view. So who is it who is the advocate here?

For the wikipedia NPOV about writing for different POVs see the wikipedia article on "writing for the enemy". I did quite a bit of this in my version of the article, now deleted, see Concerns for an early Mars sample return.

For wikipedia, my wish is just to have the official POV of the PPO accurately represented along with adequate treatment of the many interesting minority views.

In my article on concerns about an early Mars sample return, I went to a lot of work to find out about Zubrin's views to add a section on him (hard to find but eventually I tracked down a transcript of an interview with him where he stated his views, also tracked down an article he wrote but sadly it is not available online and wanted to buy a copy but haven't managed that either). My section on Zubrin's view about back contamination risks of a MSR and his view Robert Zubrin's view that there is no need for a MSR before human colonization of Mars I would say more but found hardly any published material by him or about his views on these matters, and nothing at all by any other authors with his view that the environmental risks of BC have no scientific validity.

The way this section is now written it is no more than an advocacy argument for an unsourced POV that the risk of back contamination can be safely ignored if you take a few simple precautions. Of all the papers and other material I researched for the article, it is closest to Zubrin's attitude though Zubrin goes a bit further and says that the back contamination risk is scientifically invalid. I didn't come across anyone that published the stated view as given in the current version of the MSR page.

That's why I have given up. I can of course present Zubrin's POV and did so in my article. But there is no way can I contribute to the topic when the entire section is written within such a framework. Robert Walker (talk) 12:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

My own POV (not published in a citable source)

My views differ from those of the ICAMSR and also from the official mainstream view. It actually shares some elements with Zubrin's approach to MSR as well (though of course with different end goals).

None of my views were presented in my version of the wikipedia article which got deleted.

I wouldn't dream of using wikipedia for advocacy.

Actually I am not a member of ICAMSR and haven't signed their petition or encouraged anyone else to do so. Just saying that because the opposing editor has repeatedly implied that I am and can't seem to take a No as an answer to this. It is really frustrating to be told repeatedly that you are a member of an organization when you don't belong to it and have said frequently that you don't belong to it. There is nothing at all wrong with someone choosing to belong to it, but it so happens that I do not.

But that is beside the point. You can be an advocate of a POV and still write for wikipedia, either to make sure your own POV is represented or indeed for all POVs if you master the art of "writing for the opponent". I wrote many sections in that way presenting POVs such as Zubrin's without comment written as he would write it, using quotes or his own words, "writing for the opponent".

I have been completely professional throughout in my editing of wikipedia and of this article.

In the article that was deleted, I declared my POV at the start as you can see on the discussion that still remains on the MSR talk page. I asked other editors to help me with dealing with any bias that might creep into the article such as favouring one POV over another.

The article gave extensive treatment of the official view indeed by word count this was by far the main part of the article (unusually for a criticism type page) and it gave full treatment to all the POVs on the debate.

It all goes to show you can do everything right and yet have your work destroyed within a few weeks by a single vocal wikipedian who shouts loudly and ignores most of the wikipedia guidelines on etiquette.

The one thing I have learnt from this is that if you want to write an article for wikipedia that you think might get opposed in this way, be sure to find someone else to collaborate with first and not try to face it on your own. If you do, you simply don't stand a chance against someone sufficiently determined to destroy what you did. Robert Walker (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Am willing to try again if anyone else wants to join in to help create a more balanced approach

I am willing to try again if anyone else wants to join in - e.g. anyone who works for the PPO or perhaps a COSPAR representative - there are more than a thousand of them world wide, so perhaps some of you edit wikipedia? Must also be many who took part in the official NRC and ESF studies. Perhaps some of you who helped with these studies or contributed to them indirectly, may also be wikipedians?

Also in my experience many microbiologists and astrobiologists consider that it is wise to proceed with great caution in a situation that might bring unstudied and not yet directly observed alien micro-organisms from Mars back to Earth.

With even 2 editors working on the topic then it would be a different situation from a single editor. One editor with a single passionate opponent I have discovered is helpless in wikipedia. But two editors would not face the same problem and could force dispute resolution and prevent an AfD from immediately deleting your work. An article deleted in an AfD can be normally be recreated if it is substantially changed, enough to challenge the AfD decision on the grounds that it was a decision about a different article.

Also, whether or not some extensive article on this topic can be created, for sure the current section in the MSR article can definitely be challenged and changed - it just needs one other editor to join in the challenge. I will return if someone else wants to give this a go and needs some support from another editor. Robert Walker (talk) 12:53, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Recommendation, new article on the Present-Day Habitability of Mars

I highly recommend that Misplaced Pages should have an article on this subject.

This is the conference on the subject "The Present-Day Habitability of Mars 2013".

There are many papers on it every year by researchers in the US, UK, and Germany, and including scientists from JPL, DLR in Germany, and the NASA Ames Research Center. It has been a major subject in the literature since 2008 and undoubtedly passes WP:NOTABLE.

Paige is planning to create a new journal solely devoted to this subject. See UCLA holds Mars habitability conference:

At the end of the conference, Paige said he intends to publish a special journal focusing on the present-day habitability of Mars and hopes to reconvene the conference within the next five years

If another editor feels as strongly as I do that creation of this new page is a good idea, please let me know here.

I am certain that it would be immediately subject to edit warring and probably an immdediate AfD. But it is clearly notable and with two editors in support of its creation then can't imagine that this opposition could stand up for long. On my own I don't think I have a chance.

The material here could be a basis for the new article: User:Robertinventor/possibility of Mars having enough water to support life Robert Walker (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I have also posted about it to Talk:Water on Mars

You can see what we would be up against by the reply to the suggestion there. BTW this is not an attempt to recruit "meat puppets". "Meat puppets" are people outside of wikipedia which you ask to help you win a debate in wikipedia, such as an AfD.

What I am asking here is for collaborators to help with creation of an article. That is permitted. Robert Walker (talk) 22:09, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Note, in view of Warren's actions today, and with him also weighing in against me on the proposal to create this article, I am sure that the article would be immediately subject to an all out edit war with him and BatteryIncluded together. Though you can't delete an article without an AfD he would probably rewrite the whole thing to his liking, making sure that it is stated clearly that present day life on the surface of Mars is impossible and revert any edits that suggest that it is possible, no matter how well cited. Whether that can be dealt with even with two editors collaborating on the project I'm not entirely sure, especially with two editors opposing it. Robert Walker (talk) 02:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Other sections deleted by the opposing editor

This editor is on a personal campaign to remove all my contributions from the Mars section of wikipedia - including removing whole sections I contributed to. I have backed them up to my user space.

He said on the Mars sample return talk page that this is his plan:

"Your days of spamming Misplaced Pages with your contamination hysteria are over. I see you've spammed your propaganda in practically every article on Mars in the Misplaced Pages. Those "contributions" will be redacted."

So far he has deleted:

• Contamination concerns and human telerobotics sections from Manned mission to Mars

Update: another editor restored the telerobotics section. The section on Contamination Concerns remains deleted.

Update 2 telerobotics section now removed again, leaving only a brief stub mention of some of the mission plans as a possible precursor to a human landing. Contamination issues mentioned in a single sentence treating it as a minor issue Robert Walker (talk) 08:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

• Part of old concerns section from Colonization of Mars - I contributed a couple of paras to this which he has already removed, and he says on the talk page that he wants to remove the entire section. Now has no mention of contamination concerns
• He won the AfD to delete this article here: Concerns for an early Mars sample return. Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded were the two most emphatic proponents of delete and merge in this AfD.
• He has deleted my contribution on back contamination to Mars sample return, and replaced it with an inaccurate version and removed the CN and WP:OPINION tags that I added to his new version of the section - for the issues with his new version see #The flaws with the current MSR section on BC above.
• Another editor (BatteryIncluded) deleted Other surface habitats with liquid water, suitable for life section of the Life on Mars (after a series of edits to add a paragraph that proved to his satisfaction that no habitat on the surface can be suitable for life).
• BatteryIncluded has just archived the entire talk pages for Life on Mars and Water on Mars both of which had several open sections started by me disputing his revisions of these pages.
• A week or two back, this same editor (BatteryIncluded) deleted possibility of Mars having enough water to support life from Water on Mars. I only contributed a couple of sections to this, most of the material was by other editors. He replaced it by a "Habitability Assessment" section that says that present day life on the surface of Mars is impossible, due to cosmic radiation. This is an old view from the time when it was thought that only dormant life was possible on the surface. His new section is counter to all the published research on this topic since the observation of possible drops of salty brine on the legs of the Phoenix lander in 2008. See #Recommendation, new article on the Present-Day Habitability of Mars above for details.

Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded share a personal grudge against me which started about a month ago (for both of them) and involves repeated extremely OTT insults in almost every single post they make when they talk to me or talk about me on the talk pages.

It was probably some off wiki encounter with them both that sparked all this hostility. I know of one possible explanation of this nature, that Warren was involved in (though no-one by name of BatteryIncluded). It was a forum debate with about half a dozen opponents with the same propensity to insult me frequently and all opposed to my views.

I have never insulted either of them, and there is no reason at all for this behaviour to my knowledge except for my differing views on contamination issues, and my preference for telerobotic exploration of Mars by humans in orbit, rather than human landings on the surface of Mars.

The result of all this hostility is that clearly I am no longer permitted by these two editors to edit the Mars sections of wikipedia and I totally don't have the energy to try to fight against them, after the AfD which in total probably took up an entire working week of my time. I have much more productive ways to use my time than this :). Robert Walker (talk) 23:26, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I have just reverted Warren Platts's bold removal of my material on the Manned mission to Mars section. I know what will happen, he will undo my revert as soon as he notices it. So this is by way of a token protest against his behaviour - permitted under BRD, so not yet edit warring. Robert Walker (talk) 00:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

It was immediately undone again as expected. No point in attempting discussion or dispute resolution. Historically this is the first section I wrote on this material in response to a request to restore a balanced POV on this page. The other deleted material came about in response to a discussion on the Manned mission to Mars talk page where the outcome of the discussion was that I should look into options to move some of that material to other sections of wikipedia on Mars. See next section here for more about that. Robert Walker (talk) 03:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Contamination Concerns section - how it came about as a response to a request to restore balance to an article perceived by other editors as imbalanced

Backup of a section on the Manned mission to Mars talk page

I first came across this section in the Manned mission to Mars article as a short stub "Concerns" section with a request for a knowledgeable editor to expand it to help eliminate a perceived bias of the page in favour of human missions to the surface of Mars. See Criticism.

In response, I expended it and eventually created the Manned mission to Mars Contamination Concerns, and Telerobotics with a link to the Concerns section of the Colonization of Mars page which I also slightly expanded with a couple of paragraphs. This edit was welcomed by all other editors at the time, and other editors of this page such as Fatherred and others contributed to it with discussion and minor edits.

There was a bit more discussion here Neutral POV.

Then later This article is more of an essay has a discussion of a suggestion to trim down this article.

As you see I planned to do that after first moving some of the content to other relevant sections of wikipedia.

I started on this process, but have had to stop as all the material I wrote is now deleted (most of it with no discussion first) including this original section.

This other content has for the most part now been deleted by Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded, and they will re-delete it if I attempt to recreate it. My original contribution on contamination concerns to Manned mission to Mars has been deleted in its entirety too. So there is nothing left of my work on this topic except for the backups of all this material in my user space.

For a list of all my material from the Misplaced Pages Mars Project deleted by Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded deleted see Other sections deleted by the opposing editor

Details follow of what remains in wikipedia and of the bias in what remains - expand if you want to see more

The result now is an imbalance not just of this page but of all the material in the Misplaced Pages Project Mars. But after spending probably a full working week of my time attempting to save the material on back contamination issues of Mars I know how impossible it is for me to do anything about it in response to the determined opposition of these other editors, and so have given up on any attempt to edit the Misplaced Pages project on Mars to give it balance on concerns with issues of human missions to Mars.

For more about this see: Other sections deleted by the opposing editor.

For the reasons mentioned there I will not attempt to contest these edits. Just registering my protest to this final bold edit removing just about all that remains of content in Mars Project about Mars contamination issues. All the deleted content is the subject of much publication and it was all well cited with numerous inline citations to notable sources.

For the other sections of the Misplaced Pages Mars Project he deleted see #Other sections deleted by the opposing editor

In my view these actions amount to censorship. See Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not#Misplaced Pages is not censored

See also: Educate those who want to censor Misplaced Pages Robert Walker (talk) 11:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Timeline

The project to trim the Manned mission to Mars contamination section by moving and merging relevant content to other parts of wikipedia went well at first, with new material updating the Water on Mars section on possibility of surface habitats to support life, and the new back contamination section of the Mars sample return mission. But then it all went wrong with the opposition of these editors. I will collapse this, expand it if you want to read the details:

In view of what happened to date I have no hope of restoring it. My energies are better spent on other projects where I am a welcome participant.

I would return to Misplaced Pages Project Mars as part of a collaboration with another editor. It was trying to face all this almost on my own with no major collaborator that made it so impossible for me. Robert Walker (talk) 12:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Why I regard these recent edits as censorship of wikipedia

Warren Platts has totally misrepresented the official POV. All the official studies recognize the possibility of disruption of the environment of Earth as the worst case scenario. They all conclude that though the probability of this is considered low on the basis of attempts to estimate the probabilities by experts in the field, the risk can't be ruled out on the basis of current understanding of Mars and of life processes.

Don't rely on his or my word for it. It is easy to verify it for yourself. Read any of the official NRC or ESF studies of a MSR. You will also find discussions of the need for international open public debate for ethical reasons and under international treaties, and of legal liabilities, due to the potential impact for nations outside of the one responsible for the mission.

All the studies of forward contamination agree on potential seriousness of forward contamination of Mars too, and the need to sterilize all spacecraft sent to Mars - this doesn't suddenly magically become a non issue when there are humans on board those spaceships.

A good starting point for the back contamination risk of environmental disruption is to follow the links here and go to the sources to verify the quotes: View presented in the NRC and ESF study group reports and Planetary Protection Office summaries - 'this is official policy and is currently mentioned in wikipedia only as a fringe view attributed to the ICAMSR.

That's why I regard this recent wave of edits by Warren Platts as censorship of wikipedia

He is policing a personal ban on me from editing the Mars Project on this topic. He also deleted just about everything I wrote for the project, without discussion, in a single day. Which since it now removes all accurate statements of the POV in the official studies on this topic I regard as censorship of wikipedia as well as a personal ban by one editor of another editor from editing on a particular topic in wikipedia. He has taken on an administrator role in banning me and removing all this topic. He is also policing a total ban on the topic of forward contamination issues for human missions to Mars, and with assistance of BI, also a total ban on the topic of the present day habitability of the surface of Mars, and he is not an administrator but all the admins are simply standing by and letting him do this.

The wikipedia editors and admins for WikiProject Mars clearly approve this censorship

See WikiProject Mars.

For the material I wrote which has now been deleted see #Other sections deleted by the opposing editor

Clearly WikiProject Mars is not a place for an editor who wants to write about forward or backward contamination issues, or about the present day habitability of the surface of Mars.

• a near total ban on any mention of contamination issues that might impact on human colonization of Mars. - a token sentence has been added to the Manned Mission to Mars section to show it is not a total ban, plus a short section in the MSR that totally plays down the issues and is full of inaccuracies.
• a total ban on reports of the recent research on present day habitability of Mars.

The relevance there of course is that if the surface of Mars has microhabitats potentially habitable by micro-organisms then the forward contamination issues for human colonization are more severe. Indeed on current understanding, if these habitats are widespread, as some of the recent research suggests, I don't know how it can be possible at all unless or until you give up on your wish to study a pristine Mars.

It is not me that's being censored here. It is NASA, the ESA, the PPO, all those researching into the Present Day Habitability of Mars, and those who inspired the present day policies: Carl Sagan, Ledeberg, etc in the sense that any accurate statements of their views on this matter are now banned from wikipedia.

This censorship and ban is being carried out by a single user who is not an admin. There has been no banning notice or anything of that sort. It is simply a unilateral personal decision on his part.

Robert Walker (talk) 08:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Realised - that perhaps calling it censorship is a bit too strong. You tend to get caught up in material you spent a lot of time researching into and think it is more important than it is. Call it instead, almost complete removal from wikipedia of three different topics (forward, and most of backward contamination and habitabilty of surface of Mars) that are the subject of a fair amount of research and many papers, studies and some books. But most people would consider them to be minor topics all the same. Robert Walker (talk) 19:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Your Post to Help Desk

You pointed out a problem at the Help Desk, which is that Warren Platts does indeed appear to be asserting ownership of the Mars Project. However, the quotes of personal attacks were not backed up with diffs, and I can't locate them. If I can locate the personal attacks, we can act on them, whether you continue taking part in Mars or not. There are other editors who are also concerned about his efforts to own the Mars Project. Please provide diffs of the attacks. Otherwise I will have to assume that you wasted the time of the Help Desk tediously. Please provide the diffs. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I provided the urls to the pages, tried to do diffs but there was too much history to go through. Did those help? I am sorry to have wasted your time. Will help if you think it will help others although am pretty sure I will leave this project for at least a fair while now.Robert Walker (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

More quotes below

Hello Robert Walker

Can I offer some friendly advice? My thought is that you get too excited by dwelling on the injustice done to you by other Wikipedians. This sort of mental excitement can prevent someone from making logical decisions and clearly considering what things are important and ought to be addressed. A first step in achieving a calm mind could be recognizing personal limits. One cannot always make things like Misplaced Pages articles conform to one's ideas of how they ought to be. If one does not calm one's mind and take a detached nonchalant attitude, and in a fury attempts to do important work, then the likely result is one harming one's own interest. Remember that on Misplaced Pages:There is no deadline. Take a day or two to decide what is important. Edit less. Edit better. If one can make a convincing case for one's position, changing an article after a couple of days will be sufficient, and one wins the support of other editors. Read what other editors write. If there is a way to accommodate there concerns, try to do that. If they insist on being completely unreasonable, someone else will handle the situation eventually. Unreasonable editors do not last long on Misplaced Pages. It is better to have an article suffer from some other editor's unreasonable editing than to edit in anger and have one's own anger damage the article. Accept that although some other editors have done very good things that make Misplaced Pages interesting and helpful, some other editors write misleading articles and advocacy. Sometimes there is nothing one can do about it. Misplaced Pages is not perfect and never will be. I hope this helps. - Fartherred (talk) 22:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks yes those are all good points. Actually I've been discussing this over on reddit.com and someone there said he saw the previous version of the Manned mission to Mars as biased because he saw it as an advocacy piece convincing him of the need to use telepresence to explore Mars. Which I totally didnt intend but now that he puts it like that I can get what he is saying. Basically I added the telerobotics section partly because there was no mention of telerobotics , which fitted the topic of human missions to Mars, and also it followed on well from the previous section, and gave balance and meant that you end up with a positive message rather than just "anti mars colonization". But didn't realize, if you take into account the whole page and read it from the start, it reads like advocacy for telerobotics. Which is something that can of course be argued for or against with many different POVs.

So perhaps, long term, it can benefit from being re-organized and going through a phase as a human surface colonization advocacy page.

What you probably don't know is that I have been through an exhausting and very stressful edit war - well if you call it an edit war where Warren edited his version of my original article in the main space and refused to stop and discuss his bold edits - and I edited it in my own use space. Anyway so it ended in an AfD proposed by Warren, and my article was deleted. And that whole process played out over about a month now, with him repeatedly insulting me several times a day.

So anyway - yes good advice to go away from this for a few days. I probably should have done that a lot earlier and perhaps just let him win the edit war - and leave him with a drastically trimmed down and inaccurate article - but hardly anyone would read it anyway - and as you say, wikipedia isn't perfect. With hindsight that is probably what I should have done and the last few weeks would have been much more pleasant for all concerned.

Hopefully in the future I can learn to behave more like that and less like the way I have to date. And I am glad to see that there is a request for comments on the Manned mission to Mars page now. Perhaps once things calm down again I can think about contributing again, will see how it goes and will take a break. In fact plan to write some articles for science20.com based in part on the research I did for the wikipoedia pages here, already did the first, an opinion piece on mars sample return, next one is probably going to be about the habitability of surface of mars.

I know you are in favour of a coverage of concerns for manned missions to Mars surface and good that there is someone here who is. Indeed I think in the last month you are the first one I have seen on the talk pages I got involved with to speak up strongly in favour of including materials on concerns with human colonization here in Project Mars.

Thanks, it does help and thanks for taking the time to talk to me in this way, I appreciate it. I will do what I can to calm down and get on with things that I find less stressful and to get it all more in perspective. Robert Walker (talk) 23:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

It is good to see that you take this well. Let us improve Misplaced Pages for a long time. - Fartherred (talk) 06:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, nice to have a calm voice of reason amongst all this. Robert Walker (talk) 20:34, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Posting to Talk Pages

When posting to user talk pages, if adding a new section, please add it at the bottom. You posted sections to my talk page that were not at the bottom. This is confusing because I don't normally look in the middle of my talk page. Also, the fact that two users share the same viewpoint is not in itself reason to suggest that they are sockpuppets. Also, please try to find the two extremely inflammatory posts and provide me with diffs, because whoever posted them needs to be warned strongly. I don't have the time to wade through your voluminous complaints to find the quotes that you posted. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about posting to the wrong place on your page - I thought it should go before the talk page notifications, a little unfamiliar how those work. I was posting to what I thought was the "end of the page" and made a mistake. Robert Walker (talk) 00:35, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Also sorry again about my behaviour on the help desk. Saw what you just said on the MarsProject page but don't want to post there just now, sorry, just a bit scared of Warren right now I suppose is what it amounts to, and trying to calm down and take a break from it all.

I could perhaps try some kind of dispute resolution after a break from it all of maybe a week, for everyone to calm down. But if I did it, this time I think if he started insulting me again I would just withdraw from it rather than to try to keep going through it. Not as any kind of a threat, just, that that is what I would do, and let him win, is just not worth the stress plus after that starts there seems zero chance of a sensible outcome.

BTW I have never done any edit warring. I just did BRD. When after the Bold edit and my Revert and I attempted Discussion but he went on editing his version of the article so I edited my own version of it in my user space.

When the AfD began then I felt that as he was the one proposing to delete it, then surely I should be permitted to edit it again, to make it into the best article I could to try to save it, This he objected to and reverted it back, so was in the strange situation of an editor who is proposing deletion of his own version of a page and not letting the other editor create their version for the AfD.

I think I did do a second restore of my version which he reverted - but eventually it was another editor N2e who stepped in and said that discussion was needed before such a massive change as deleting most of my article, and restored my version again so I could continue editing it for the AfD. So -no edit warring on my part. Robert Walker (talk) 11:42, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

This all happened after the AfD started so the AfD for the first day or so was an AfD on his version of the page, and then for the next few days was on my version that was quite a mess for a fair while as I was told I couldn't use my user space version and had to rewrite a lot of it again from scratch, and was working hard to try to improve before the end of the AfD which ended while I was still in the process of checking the citations for my final version of the page.

Here are the diffs

I only just realized, you can get the date from the signature and find it that way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=561730149&oldid=561689953

For this one you have to scroll down to 516 in the list of diffs

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AManned_mission_to_Mars&diff=561982672&oldid=561971091

I thought you would be able to do a search of the page text to find it - that's how I found it and got it instantly. It's no problem to provide the diffs now that I know how to do it by checking the signature date. Robert Walker (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Robert Walker (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for Another Diff

I am asking for another diff, the one to the post where he said that he wanted you topic-banned from Mars. On the one hand, he has a right to request that you be topic-banned. He can do that via a user conduct Request for Comments, with resolution by consensus of administrators or arbitration by the ArbCom. On the other hand, he has no right in a project or article talk space to request that you be topic-banned. An attempt to request a formal topic-ban would be likely to boomerang, because the community of administrators or the ArbCom will consider the conduct of the requester as well as the person against whom the remedies are requested. His efforts to have you topic-banned, without invoking formal dispute resolution, appear to me (after having reviewed the policies), to be Misplaced Pages bullying. Please provide the diff to that statement on his part. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, it's at the bottom of this diff I just gave. You have to scroll right to the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=561730149&oldid=561689953

Your days of spamming Misplaced Pages with your contamination hysteria are over. I see you've spammed your propaganda in practically every article on Mars in the Misplaced Pages. Those "contributions" will be redacted

Immediately after that, over a few days, he removed all my contributions on contamination issues from Project Mars or replaced with his own versions. So though he doesn't use the word "topic ban" it's clear what he meant.

Is that what you wanted? Robert Walker (talk) 07:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

One More Request

Once you have calmed down and gotten over the hurt, can you please consider expanding the article on Interplanetary contamination and merging it with Back-contamination? I know that you can do the research to find good sources. Please don't rely primarily on ICAMSR, which is fringe. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes I can do that. What I might do is try a few test edits first, less substantial material and see if they get deleted. I have started doing a couple of test edits for Project Mars fixing obvious minor inaccuracies. That way I can build up confidence again as a wikipedia editor.

I just added a minor edit here and am happy to see it hasn't been deleted, I added the edit about the temperatures recorded by Viking and the Spirit Rover Climate of Mars - Temperture.

Please don't rely on Warren's assessment of me as an advocate of ICAMSR in wikipedia. I am not a member of it or connected with it; my only communication with them are a few emails exchanged with the director, mainly to do with correct attribution for citations.

Also please don't rely on his assessment of the article that was deleted as presenting the views of the ICAMSR. It does not. Only a couple of short sections presents their views, and most of it they would surely disagree with just as much as Zubrin would do from the other side.

It's like in politics where the middle of the road politicians seem right wing to extreme left winger voters, and left wing to extreme right wing voters.

I did a word count to check for bias, and you can see that I devoted the majority, 2989 words, to the official POV (unusual for a criticism article)

Measure of bias using word count

The article has 396 words on the ICAMSR. There are 348 words on the decadal report in favour of an early MSR, and 267 words Zubrin (the opposite POV to the ICAMSR by a noted Mars surface colonization advocate).

I would have written more on Zubrin but all I could find was a transcript of an interview with him. He wrote a paper as well but it is hard to find as it is not available online and the organization that publishes it hasn't responded to my request to purchase it.

This section describes the official POV as is easy to verify by anyone who reads the cited sources, as do the sections on the NRC and ESF reports - the concerns in those reports and the risk mitigation strategies they recommend - all of that is content from the official reports View presented in the NRC and ESF study group reports and Planetary Protection Office summaries

Then after the quotes from Sagan and Ledeberg, which gives the histroical background, all this is back to the official studies again, everything here is in the official studies National Research Council review of biohazard potential of returned samples. It is only when you get to "Dissenting views" that I present the views of the ICAMSR, briefly, before turning to the legal situation and similar issues:

I posted with the word count to the AfD as a comment, and got no reply to the comment.

The AfD endorsed Warren's overall perception of the article without discussion. The only discussion was about my competence as an editor, and general statements that the article is biased and should be deleted.

No particular fact in the article was disputed for its accuracy in the AfD. No section was singled out as one that should be shorter or deleted.

The only votes in the AfD in favour of a delete from editors of the Mars Project were by Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded, the other delete votes on that page are from editors who if you look at their contributions have never done any edits on astronomy (as far back as I checked). The only other Mars project editor in the AfD, N2e, voted with a weak keep.

None of the other editors showed any sign of having read any of the material on the subject, even the official PPO page about a MSR.

I am saying that just to show that the AfD shouldn't be taken as an accurate assessment of any bias in my presentation of the subject. IMHO the general tone of the AfD was similar to discussions I had with Mars surface colonization advocates on nasaspaceflight.com, opposed to any significant expression of contamination concerns, and close to Zubrin in their views.

Hope you understand? Robert Walker (talk) 08:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Am absolutely fine with giving due weight to the ICAMSR and also to the Mars surface colonization advocates. But if prevented from giving due weight to the NRC and ESF studies, or required to present them in a way that suggests they endorse Zubrin's views, by omitting any concerns or suggestions in the studies that don't fit with those views - that is a condition which I can't accept. Robert Walker (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Blanked out section

Wow Robert, WP:AGF much? I suggest you blank this section because I really do not see how speculating about these two accounts is productive. For the record, though, I just had a look at the two accounts. One was created six years ago; the other seven years ago. They have had no significant interactions except this family of Mars biology articles in the last couple of months. I find it implausible that a person created an extra account six years ago just to votestack an AfD. VQuakr (talk) 05:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay blanked it out. I'm not experienced in these things, what you say makes sense! Thanks for looking into it for me. I wrote that to run it past someone else for comment, not because I was sure the conclusion was true. Robert Walker (talk) 05:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment on the AfD

This is the page that was deleted: Concerns for an early Mars sample return Many references to notable sources. I don't see how anyone uninvolved can doubt its notability

This was the discussion AfD discussion No discussion of the sources at all. No questions about any particular part of the article to check if what I wrote there is true. Just a decision to delete the whole thing based apparently on Warren's assessment of it, rather than reading any of the sources or checking anything in the article against the sources.

The only ones in the debate who write regularly about Project Mars, if you look at their contributions, were BatteryIncluded and WarrenPlatts both of whom have been insulting me regularly in all their interactions with me for the last month and obviously have a personal grudge against me and great personal distaste for the subject of the article because of its implications for human colonization of the surface of Mars, that taking the precautions discussed will delay the Mars exploration program (in their view).

I know it went through due process. But still it doesn't seem fair that such a well cited carefully researched article was deleted without any discussion of the sources in the AfD, and without any attempt to check if any particular statement in the article was correctly cited and reported.

The decision to delete was done apparently solely on the basis of the subject of the article. Basically, a decision was made that an article with that subject shouldn't be included in Misplaced Pages

Really the only substantial argument against it was that it discusses the possibility of disruption of the environment of the Earth which Warren Platts portrayed as an obsession of the ICAMSR only. Just a glance at the sources cited in this section to find the quotes and read them in context in the original pages, and it is clear that it is something accepted in all the NASA / ESA / PPO sources as a matter of concern and that what Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded said about it is simply incorrect.

View presented in the NRC and ESF study group reports and Planetary Protection Office summaries

A secondary argument was that because I am personally concerned about a MSR and have written an opinion piece in my science20 column about that that therefore I can't write a balanced article. But again you just need to read the article and check the sources to see that most of it describes the official POV accurately, and that I did a lot of writing for the opponent, and nowhere do I express my own POV.

And no single instance of misrepresentation of anything in the article was given in the AfD. Just a general claim that the article as a whole was biased. No attempt to help me to correct the perceived bias or explain what it is.

All there was to explain the percecption of bias was this general remark that apparently, although environmental disruption of the Earth is extensively discussed in the source documents from the NRC, ESF, Planetary Proteciton Office etc, the general agreement in the AfD was that it should not be attributed to any of them, and should only be attributed as a fringe view of the ICAMSR.

Follow up the quotes and check for yourself if these sources discuss it as a seriously accpeted possibility or not:

View presented in the NRC and ESF study group reports and Planetary Protection Office summaries

I know that others here have problems with my behaviour, others complain that I said too much in my talk page comments I wrote to attempt to save the article. But though that is reason to censor me for saying too much, that is not a valid reason to delete the article.

Just writing this as an expression of my frustration with the whole process of AfD in this case. It went through due process and was closed by an admin who was uninvolved with the subject.

There were some irregularities in the process, particularly, that the article that was nominated for AfD originally was written by Warren Platts who for the start of the AfD did not permit me to revert to my version of the article, so for a while, it was the situation of an opposing editor who nominated his version of the article for deletion and merge, and didn't permit his opponent to edit it to make a more substantial article.

But that it seems is not enough to be of concern. Apart from that, it went through due process. I have no expectation of any change in the decision.

Robert Walker (talk) 06:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The decision of the AfD for (Concerns for an early Mars sample return) was merge to (Mars sample return mission), not delete. I see that from your point of view merge might be effectively the same as delete. This is a case of the community deciding that (Concerns for an early Mars sample return) was too much and biased according to WP:UNDUE. You do not have much choice other than to accept the judgment. I cannot make an independent evaluation of the article except to write that it is too long for me to read. I might use a full version of it that you edited for reference in the future. I can find it in the history.

As I see it, the main objection to your edits in articles, on talk pages, and at the help desk is that they are too long. No one wants to read that much. To accommodate the Misplaced Pages community I suggest that you make a concise summary of any communication in your sandbox to get it right so you do not need to make numerous changes and corrections; then post it with one edit where it belongs and not come back to it until at least 3 hours later, perhaps the next day. Become involved in other things in the intervening time so that you will not be thinking about your Misplaced Pages concerns. Somehow you must avoid annoying most editors or risk being blocked under the policy Misplaced Pages:Competence is required. Also work on maintaining the structure of any article that you edit. Avoid putting the same material in two or three locations in an article. I would like to see your work become more valuable than the trouble you cause. There is much potential. - Fartherred (talk) 16:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, good tips. Yes repetition and structure is my main problem, and part of the reason for all the edits, as well as typos, especially reversing letters and typing the wrong word, changing the meaning of the sentence. That plus sometimes omissions and mistakes. Yes, for communications as well as article pages. Good idea to work on communications in my sandbox before posting them to talk pages or elsewhere in wikipedia - never thought of that. Have done a bit of working on material for articles in my user space. Yes, I can do a lot more of that, following your advice. It is easy enough to work that way, and good to have a possible solution for this issue for the future. It might need to do a bit of extra editing if someone else has done something in between on the copy back but it's not a big deal.

If you want to use content from the AfD, it is better to use the version in my user space as I did more work on it after the AfD, to improve it further with things I didn't have time to do during the AfD. So will be a bit easier to read. Concerns for an early Mars sample return backup

In fact I have also worked on the article some more since then, converting to a more journalistic less encyclopedic tone, to use it outside of Misplaced Pages, as is permitted for deleted articles under the CC by license (e.g. as for the star wars wiki etc). I have it as an unpublished draft for my science20 column at present. I haven't decided what to do, but may publish that too. Of course, it is not suitable as a primary source, but could be useful for locating material cited in it, and is a much easier read than the version in my user space. I find the third person passive voice somewhat hampers expression and readability for my style of writing.

Thanks for your help! May make quite a difference in the future. Robert Walker (talk) 16:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Fartherred is right that the consensus was merge, not delete. The real problem was that the article was too long compared to the length of the "primary" article. Also, the closing action by Warren Platts was incorrect in redirecting from the deleted article to ICAMSR. I redirected it to the receiving article. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the redirect. I think the idea of a short section in the MSR mission page is fine, and the idea to have the more substantial material in an article about backwards contamination generally is also okay if it is permitted to include the official NASA / ESA POVs as well of course as Zubrin's and the ICAMSR views. The existing short section in the MSR article is highly biased towards the views of the Mars surface colonization advocacy IMHO. See #The flaws with the current MSR section on BC. Robert Walker (talk) 08:52, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Your errors

You asked what you did wrong. First, you used talk pages as a soapbox. Maybe you didn't mean to do that, but Warren Platts seems to be mostly right that you seemed to think that justifying your edits at great length made them right. They were partly right and partly wrong. Your talk page posts were too long, and were hard to read because of their length. Second, although you got over this, initially you wasted the time of the Help Desk. If you had felt at the time that you were too tired and frustrated to continue, you shouldn't have gone to the Help Desk until you had calmed down. Third, you seemed not to recognize that you were promoting fringe content as NPOV content. Maybe you didn't intend that, but it did come across that way. Fourth, your allegation of sock puppetry was patent nonsense. Any research would have indicated that Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded could not possibly be the same person. If you still really believe that, go to WP:SPI, and see whether they categorize you as a vexatious litigant. Is that an answer? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC) Your conduct didn't justify personal attacks, some of them blatant, let alone bullying on Misplaced Pages, but it was tendentious. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've said I'm sorry about the help desk. I'm not familiar with sock puppets. What seems obvious to you wasn't obvious to me.

Oh and I never thought he was a sock puppet created for the purposes of the AfD, that much was obvious because of his long history of contributions to wikipedia. What I wanted to know if it was possible that he created a second account at wikipedia probably for some other purpose, and then took advantage of it as a sock puppet in the AfD when it arose.

There were many strange coincidences which made it seem like the same person to me, especially the way they both started OTT insults against me here on exactly the same day, in unrelated conversations on different pages and when no other wikipedian insulted me ever. Also, the way he thought that a WP:OPINION tag by BI of his version of the page in main space was a tag of the page in my user space (especially when later BI in the AfD supported the version that he tagged against my version), and when both Warren and BI archived entire talk pages including my posts during Warren's campaign to remove my content from Project Mars, and several other coincidences like that.

I hope you can understand that to someone not familiar with sock puppets, these all came over as dramatic coincidences, and I felt I needed advice on the matter.

Please I didn't do anything like litigation, I put bold text at the start of the section saying they are probably not sock puppets. I just asked for advice from more experienced wikipedians and Mgave ore details when in your reply it seemed you thought I was just basing it on a similarity of POV.

Sorry about that, whatever it is I did wrong there. Robert Walker (talk) 06:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

On the NPOV, I believe that what I presented in the AfD was NPOV. So far also there has been no proper discussion just many comments from Warren insulting me in an OTT way for what he regards as spamming wikipedia. But OTT insults don't make an allegation true.

Warren says that what I describe isn't mainstream and claims that his personal POV is the mainstream view.

What I describe in the article however, is said as they say in the official reports, including quotes and accurate summaries of the content of the official studies. How can that be POV? How can it be POV just to include that material?

Warren's current summary in the MSR article is decidedly POV and I have given my reasons for saying that in detail. It downplays the risk e.g. saying a biohazard 4 facility is sufficient when the studies say a new type of facility must be built, and saying that the risk is probably zero when the PPO says it is not zero. He also leaves out the mention of international debate as a requiremen. This need for international debate, is in all the official reports. So also is the reason for it, because in the worst case scenarios, the consequences could be felt outside of the country that launches the mission..

He immediately removed my WP:OPINION and CN tags from that section without discussion. That doesn't make it NPOV just because he removed my tags.

I never present my own POV in the article anywhere, only the official POV and the POV of some dissenters.

The view that a MSR could (with extremely low probability) potentially lead to disruption of the environment of Earth is in all the official studies. AFAIK, the only published dissenting voice on that is from Zubrin.

Regarding the back contamination risk, the opposing view by Zubrin (and roughly approximated by Warren's view) also verges on fringe science - because he makes assumptions about transfer of life on meteorites which have been examined by the NRC in detail, which did not support his conclusions.

Personally I wouldn't characterize either Zubrin or the ICAMSR as fringe quite. Rather I'd call them both extreme advocacy groups.

It is true the ICAMSR has a notable fringe scientist member Chandra Wickramasinghe. The other most notable member, Levin, I would call minority view science rather than fringe science, since the Viking labelled release experiments are not yet fully understand and there has been no follow up experiment. Personally I'd be surprised if it turned out it was life, but without a follow up don't see how anyone can say quite what exactly happened.

Hope you understand. I accept the help desk and sock puppet mistakes and say sorry for those. Regards POV I have not engaged in POV pushing, and believe my content that I added to be NPOV especially the material on the Mars Receiving Facility where I went to considerable care and spent many hours of work on it to ensure that it was NPOV. Robert Walker (talk) 06:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

What is the difference between fringe viewpoints and extreme advocacy? In my opinion, ICAMSR is doing extreme advocacy based on fringe science. I haven't read Zubrin in the past decade, but he is a fruit with a hard shell (figure that one out yourself), who thinks that we should throw away the Earth and move to Mars. His views are not reliable except as to reporting on him. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

As to the strange timing with WP and BI, they are probably in off-wiki communication. They may be meatpuppets, but the policy on meatpuppets is weird and is not worth trying to look into. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, yes could be meatpuppets. I wondered if some of the votes for the AfD were meatpuppets too, as why would several people with no history of editing astronomy sections of wikipedia vote a delete and merge in his favour on the last day?

Anyway whether or not, okay seems there is nothing you can do, so okay.

Yes, I suppose it depends how you think of it. In the general sense of fringe science, then Levin is definitely fringe science, but not sure it is in the narrower senses of it, because it is an explanation for a result that no-one has conclusively been able to explain to everyone's satisfaction that uses valid science as far as I can tell, but doesn't have general acceptance amongst his colleagues.

The thing is, the ICAMSR charter does not depend on Levin's research. Instead it is based on the ideas of Carl Sagan. In that sense I don't think you can say it is based on fringe science, although there are fringe scientists who belong to the organisation.

However, their views go beyond those of Carl Sagan who once said, "Perhaps Martian samples can be safely returned to Earth. But I would want to be very sure before considering a returned-sample mission.”

I see their views as derived from the concerns of Carl Sagan but used as a basis for somewhat extremist advocacy, since my interest is in their views about MSR, rather than their activities outside of the ICAMSR. And same for Zubrin at the other end of the spectrum. Not sure it matters too much anyway, just because you asked. They clearly both need to be included in any discussion of back contamination issues, as both are notable according to the criteria of wikipedia. Robert Walker (talk) 21:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Why do we need more articles?

At this point I can understand some of WP's annoyance with you. I don't see why we need a new article on the Mars sample return facility. It can be covered in the Mars sample return mission article. The article is not so big that it needs to be split. Creating a separate article gives me the feeling that it is a POV WP:Fork. Do we really need more articles, rather than to expand the articles that we have? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be overweight for the MSR article, and focus too much on contamination issues for that page. I originally did try to include this material in the MSR mission page but it felt way overweight to do that, and the consensus on the talk page there was that a new article was needed, which is what lead to the creation of the article that was deleted.

Since the main reason for deleting that article was because it was perceived to be POV slanted, then by focusing on just the official POV and leaving other views to the back contamination article, then I feel that the article could be created okay. When you have an AfD then it is recognized that a new article that is substantially different from the one deleted, but that contains some of the same material, can be created.

Here the suggestion is to make an article that presents the official POV only, so no-one could consider it POV slanted towards the ICAMSR, and so no longer subject to the reason for deletion given in the AfD.

Does that make sense to you? Robert Walker (talk) 23:42, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh and BTW I see no reason why it has to be shorter than the main article. as per Misplaced Pages is not a paper encyclopedia - you just take as many or as few words as are needed to say what needs to be said. Many less important topics have more words on the page than more important topics unlike a paper encyclopedia. The studies are small books (80 pages for the NRC one), and there are several of those, and many papers oh the topics as well, so there is a lot of material to cover Robert Walker (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually I'm not sure if there is that much point in creating it. Perhaps in a way it is testing the water. If I can't write this article, then perhaps I should give up on this.

Because I can see what would happen. If I did put the article from my user space into the main space, Warren would delete most of it right away with a series of bold edits as he did with the AfD. I would reverse but he would just reverse again and not do a BRD. According to his POV probably the whole thing should just be reduced to "The risk is likely to be zero, but just in case there is a risk NASA plan to construct a biohazard 4 laboratory to contain it". Which would be his summary of all the official studies of the matter.

Unless it can be protected in some way from his bold edits, then I see no way forward if he decides he doesn't want it in wikipedia as it seems he surely would. And most of what I would want to put into the forward and backward contamination articles also would probably get trimmed down to one or two lines (a bit like Douglas Adam's "mostly harmless"). Plus I am already getting stressed out by his insults on the Project Mars page, and don't think I'll reply there when he replies again. You can tell yourself it is stupid to get worked up over something so trivial but it is hard to do anything about it even so. Robert Walker (talk) 00:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

After sleeping on it, did a new section comment about the bias of the back contamination section in the MSR article + rewrite to show what it would be like after correcting the bias as it seems to me + short post on the Project Mars talk page about that, thought it might be a good way to do it, done.

This is also a good test of whether I am still topic banned by WP and as you see from his response today, apparently I am, which will be a handicap if I try to write any other material on contamination issues in the main space of wikipedia. Robert Walker (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't see a post that says that you are topic-banned. Please direct my attention to it. If there is such a post, I will file a User Conduct RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I still don't think that we need more articles. Perhaps you think that we need more articles because he can delete content from existing articles, which would be edit-warring, but he can't delete articles without AfD. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Did you not get this diff? I posted it several times. You have to go right to the end of the page to read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=561730149&oldid=561689953

Your days of spamming Misplaced Pages with your contamination hysteria are over. I see you've spammed your propaganda in practically every article on Mars in the Misplaced Pages. Those "contributions" will be redacted

That is the post you interpreted as a topic ban, and you asked for a diff to show where he posted it. Immediately after that, over a few days, he removed all my contributions on contamination issues from Project Mars or replaced with his own versions. Though he doesn't use the word "topic ban" it's clear what he meant.

I don't feel that I can write anything on contamination issues in Project Mars at present, as he has not gone back on it, or apologised for behaving in this way, nor has he restored any of the content he deleted during his self policed topic ban of me. Instead he keeps re-iterating his view that this material should be removed and not allowed to "contaminate" Project Mars. His comment here makes it clear that he is still of the same opinion of my contributions. Talk:Mars_sample_return_mission#Discussion

As regards the article, I do feel it deserves a separate article. The material on it is extensive. It is also easily notable, and I don't see why this topic has to be left out or not treated in any detail in wikipedia.

Also is it edit warring when one of the editors attempts BRD, the other does BRR instead and the first editor then just talks in the talk pages and attempts no more edits?

If it is edit warring it is a one sided edit war where Warren's opponent makes no attempt to defend himself with a second revert. I was advised not to do that by VQuakr and have followed his advice. Robert Walker (talk) 22:07, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

That statement was made ten days ago and has not been repeated and probably will not be repeated. I thought that you meant that he had restated that statement. Either go ahead and edit, or don't, but if you continue to say that you can't write anything about contamination issues, then you are wasting my time, just as when you went to the Help Desk, and then said that you were through editing. Either go ahead and edit, or don't edit, but stop whining about how WP was mean to you in the past. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The articles on interplanetary contamination and back-contamination need expanding. Stop wasting my time whining about what WP did ten days ago. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I was just responding to your earlier requests to provide the diff, and didn't know you got it before as you never acknowledged my replies with the diffs.

As to whether it is still in place, I am sure it is. He has pretty much repeated it on the MSR talk page just now. Said

IMHO, you should be banned from WP:MARS because of lack of WP:COMPETENCE, especially bias-based incompetence. You simply cannot write without injecting your POV. Your content does not improve the encyclopedia.

(- as if he doesn't have a strong bias in his own edits of wikipedia on this topic...)

Attempt at NPOV tags on MSR mission page

I will attempt a WP:OPINION tag on the Mars sample return mission BC section. If he is still implementing the topic ban then I expect him to immediately delete it. If it stays in place for a while then at least that is some progress as it will alert readers to the bias, and I can start thinking about perhaps contributing more substantially eventually. Robert Walker (talk) 22:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Have added those tags, disputed-section and POV. The POV one particularly says it shouldn't be removed until the dispute is resolved. Last time he removed it immediately. Expect him to do the same this time but will see what happens. Robert Walker (talk) 23:14, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

He has just said he will delete them. I have warned him that you asked me if he is still topic banning me, and asked if he has any other reason for removing a POV-section tag when the discussion is still open. Robert Walker (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

He has now deleted the tags. I think that it will be impossible for me to edit the forward and backward contamination articles at present, as he clearly is still policing the topic ban on me. I can try an experimental edit on those pages - but am pretty sure what would happen if I do. Robert Walker (talk) 02:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is his commment to explain his deletion of the tags:

It has already been resolved that your propaganda must not be allowed to stand. I am merely going with the community consensus. When the consensus turns against me redacting your propaganda against a non-existent space mission, I will gladly walk away from this morass.

Diff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=563191015&oldid=563190404

Note that I warned him on the talk page that you asked me if he is still topic banning me or not. He ignored that warning.

Test edit of back contamination article

As a final test I added the very short section I proposed for the MSR article to the back contamination page.

I fully expect him to delete it or replace it with his version, and have alerted him about all this on the MSR talk page (he will find out anyway soon enough, so best to know the situation, anyway he can find out here too). Contribution to Back Contamination article

If he does this I will do a R and request discussion as in BRD and if he then does a BRR that will fully confirm his topic ban is still in place.

If he leaves it in place then I can think about contributing more to those articles. Robert Walker (talk) 09:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The material was deleted instead by VQuakr who is another editor who voted against me in the AfD. During the AfD he advised me as admin about how to proceed. Since he advised me in this way and has no history of editing on Project Mars or Astronomy as far as I can see I was surprised at the time that he came in on the last day in support of WPs POV in the AfD.

On calmer reflection, have hidden suggestion to re-examine the AfD. After the remarks before about the impropriety of allegations of sock puppetry I am concerned that perhaps it is equally improper to contest an AfD on suspicion of meatpuppetry, so take back the suggestion. Want to be sure I remain totally within wikipedia guidelines and proper conduct! Especially since there is a possibility I might be topic banned myself.

Anyway it is clear I am now topic banned completely from writing on planetary contamination issues in wikipedia, which I already suspected, and what you asked for confirmation of. By WP and now, it seems, VQuakr as well. Robert Walker (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Summary of what happened

Robert McLenon, I know you are a busy man, so you will prob. appreciate a summary as a lot has happened since we last talked.

In short, Warren Platts now proposes deletion of the page on back contamination (not merge, but just delete it so removing the content on back contamination from wikipedia).

He did that after I made a first attempt at a substantial contribution to the page.

Talk:Back-contamination#Proposal_to_delete_this_page

I feel that it is clear beyond reasonable doubt that I won't be permitted to edit wikipedia on topics of Planetary contamination. Robert Walker (talk) 17:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

VQuakr just said they are not an admin many apologies for the misunderstanding! Robert Walker (talk) 18:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is the D of the BRD where I also ask WP if he will let me continue to edit this article: Proposal to restore the content removed by VQuakr

Not too surprising WP reaffirms his proposal that the article should be speedily deleted. Robert Walker (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

How it happened

I tried adding POV-section tags to the MSR mission section on BC. WP removed them as expected, although the POV-section pointed to an open discussion on the talk page that was not resolved.

In the talk page section which the POV-section linked to, I showed by example what the objections were with a rewrite of his section to remove the pro-Mars surface colonization bias and add in missing information.

When it was clear that my suggestion would never be accepted there (as expected of course), I had the idea, that it was a good beginning for the article on BC, and a test of whether I would be permitted to edit that article.

So, I added it as a test edit to the back-contamination article.

WP proposed to delete it, as expected of course, but did not delete it right away. I then spent some time adding sentence by sentence citations to everything in the short section, including "quotes to assist readers in verification".

Then (when I was mid edit on the last section to add citations to) VQuakr stepped in and did the reversion without discussion or mentioning it to me first.

His comment was "Reverted to revision 562274233 by Beefman: rv mars addition, this was major overcoverage that dominated the article"

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Back-contamination&diff=563270969&oldid=563269804

VQuakr is an admin who advised me on proper conduct during the AfD. This though is surely not acceptable conduct from an admin, to treat an AfD as a topic ban especially since you had already asked me to write on back contamination on those pages. He doesn't write on spaceflight or astronomy topics as far as I can tell.

Mars is of course the only planet likely to be a risk for BC in the near future and on the talk page I had already said that I planned to have material on other possible sources of BC covered in the COSPAR restricted Category V.

I feel that there is no way I will be permitted to write on Planetary contamination issues at all in wikipedia by VQuakr and WP.

The whole thing played out mainly in the talk pages for back contamination and the MSR mission.

My edits were:

• POV-section and dubious tags for the BC page of MSR mission
• New section for the BC article.

These have all been removed. Due to the way they were removed I did not attempt the R stage of BRD as it was totally clear they would simply be removed again.

Any questions be sure to say. Robert Walker (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not an admin, and you are not subject to a topic ban (unless I missed something major). My revert on Back contamination was the "R" in BRD. VQuakr (talk) 18:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh many apologies! I thought you were an admin. I will go and do the R then. Robert Walker (talk) 18:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The "D" you mean? You boldly added to the article, I reverted, so you would discuss the change and come to a consensus on the talk page about what should be added. That's WP:BRD. VQuakr (talk) 19:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes of course, I realised that immediately after I replied, and have added the D here: Proposal to restore the content removed by VQuakr Robert Walker (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

Stop whining about having been topic-banned. It is getting tiresome. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Your edits were too long, and that may be one reason why they were reverted rather than changed or cut. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't always monitor your talk page. If you want to get my attention, post to my talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Sock-puppetry

It would be a good idea to read some of the Misplaced Pages policies before you start posting as if you know what they are. You wrote: "For sock puppetry, seems there are many legitimate reasons for having sock puppets, and though usually you have to disclose that you are sock puppets, there are quite a few situations where you don't need to or even shouldn't disclose that you are sock puppets." Name one legitimate reason for sock puppets. There are a few uses for legitimate alternate accounts that should normally be disclosed, but contributing to the same discussion using two user accounts is not legitimate and is sock-puppetry. Either your comments about sock-puppetry are some sort of trolling, designed to confuse, or, to assume good faith, after seven or eight years, you don't know that sock-puppetry is forbidden. Don't make unsubstantiated accusations about sock-puppetry, for which you have already been warned. Also, don't post summaries of Misplaced Pages policy that are blatant distortions. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:06, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Robert, it's here:

Legitimate uses

• Privacy: A person editing an article which is highly controversial within his/her family, social or professional circle, and whose Misplaced Pages identity is known within that circle, or traceable to their real-world identity, may wish to use an alternative account to avoid real-world consequences from their editing or other Misplaced Pages actions in that area.

In that case obviously the user doesn't disclose that they are a sock puppet, as was discussed in more detail somewhere else but that's the easiest thing to find right now. Yes, I remember it was recommended that they don't edit the same areas of wikipedia, not sure it was an absolute rule or just a guideline.

I was hardly aware of sock puppets before, except knew they existed, but researched into sock puppets because I wanted to understand what they were and whether that is what I was facing in the strange goings on here on wikipedia, and because I felt the AfD was irregular and wondered if it could be disputed.

Why are you insulting me for saying this? I had no intention to deceive, and as far as I know this is wikipedia policy, I could have misunderstood. Robert Walker (talk) 02:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Reply - No, it's not there

@RW: Robert Walker replied: "Robert, it's here:" No, it's not. The first bullet is an exact quote, but you summarized it by changing a word and thus reversing its meaning, therefore indicating that you misunderstood the policy fundamentally. It says that there are legitimate uses of alternate accounts. Legitimate alternate accounts are not sockpuppets. Sockpuppets are illegitimate alternate accounts. Read the policy again. Since sockpuppets are (by definition) not permitted, the allegation that two long-time registered users are sockpuppets was a serious allegation, rising to the nature of a personal attack, unless you had reason to think that they were sockpuppets. Looking at their histories and behaviors, I found the allegation to be absurd. Do not make serious allegations with no evidence other than that you disagree with both of them. I will take your word that you had no intention to deceive, but in that case, you deceived yourself by reading Misplaced Pages policy and twisting its meaning to indicate that sometimes sockpuppets are permitted. They never are. Legitimate alternate accounts are not sockpuppets, because sockpuppets are used to deceive. You don't owe them an apology, because you answered personal attacks with personal attacks, but you do owe Misplaced Pages an apology, as do they. I have more confidence that you will realize that you were wrong than that they will, because you apparently hadn't re-read and reviewed the policy after paraphrasing it in a way that changes its meaning. Alternate accounts have legitimate uses. Sockpuppets are illegitimate alternate accounts. That's the policy. You read it, but you mis-paraphrased it. Please read it again until you are sure what it says. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:19, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh sorry I didn't understand that a sock puppet means an illegitimate account, by definition. I understand now. What confused me was that it is listed under Sock puppetry#Legitimate_uses - I assumed the whole page was about sock puppets. If you think "Sock puppet" means the same thing as "Alternative account" which is what I thought it meant, after all the puppet imagery works just as well for alternative accounts. If you read the page again assuming that the reader thinks that "sock puppet" and "alternative account" are synonyms I think you will see how the misunderstanding arose. Robert Walker (talk) 01:41, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Also in the other pages I read I didn't come across anything that put me right on this either.

I do still think there is some connection between the two accounts and so long as I don't actually raise it as an official allegation surely I'm free to think that? There have been far too many bizarre coincidences like the things I already mentioned. Recently for instance, they simultaneously found a hard to find conversation I was having, within ten minutes of each other. If that happened just now and again, I would of course consider as a surprising coincidence but this sort of thing has been going on for weeks and sometimes really striking. And as WP had almost no edit history before the debate, I don't see why BI mightn't be his alternate account that he uses for most of his editing, and to me the way they speak seems so similar, and I've never come across anyone else who speaks in quite the same way. But they could be meat puppets who are close friends or belong to the same community of people similar in ideas and outlook. Really hard to see how there could be no connection at all.

But I am not making any allegation of sock puppetry or meat puppetry. And I fully agree I could be wrong, totally, it is striking but no way is it conclusive. Robert Walker (talk) 01:51, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

As a mathematician I know even one in a million chances can happen, even less likely things, especially in a long complex life. Perhaps 3 sigma or something observations I imagine, that there is some connection or other :). Robert Walker (talk) 01:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I asked for comments at another Misplaced Pages forum, and they agreed that I had read the policy correctly, and that sock-puppets are illegitimate alternate accounts. It is true that legitimate alternate accounts are discussed in that policy, because they are a rare exception to the rule that sock-puppets are a Very Bad Idea, and will get you blocked and banned. Read the policy a fourth time. It doesn't say that sock-puppets are occasionally permitted. It says that alternate accounts are sometimes permitted, but that, if they have the quality of sock-puppets, they are not permitted. You mis-paraphrased the policy. It was an honest error, but is was an error. Before making accusations based on policy, maybe you should read the policy three times. I do not mean to be harsh, but your accusations of sock-puppetry were harsh. That is that for now. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for checking, and I stand corrected. Robert Walker (talk) 02:30, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It is clear now I look at it afresh, the first sentence says "The use of multiple Misplaced Pages user accounts for an improper purpose is called sock puppetry. Somehow I must have missed the word "improper" there. I'm gong to suggest on the talk page that it might be an idea to emphasize improper, to help others who make the same mistake as I did. I read it as meaning something like: "The use of multiple Misplaced Pages user accounts is called sock puppetry (often abbreviated in discussion as socking). Improper purposes include ..." Robert Walker (talk) 14:46, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the policy is not as clear as it should be. I also agree that the policy on meatpuppetry is vague and hard to interpret. There is no rule in general against communication off-wiki between editors who have common interests. My interpretation is that the rule is meant to prevent the use of members of one's family who are not otherwise regular Wikipedians in electronic voting. WP and BI are both long-time Wikipedians, who have a common interest in pushing a particular POV, and their communication off-wiki is permitted. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:00, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Yes, that's a way of putting it, thanks, and I can now see better why the whole thing is so tricky. For sock puppetry I just posted to its talk page here with a couple of suggestions for a way to rephrase the first sentence to help prevent others from making the mistake I did. Wikipedia_talk:Sock_puppetry#Emphasis_of_improper Robert Walker (talk) 15:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Improper Merger

Misplaced Pages policy has been blatantly violated by completing the merger when an RFC was pending. For now, I suggest that you go ahead and make any additions to Planetary protection that you think are needed to present a balanced view. If your additions are deleted, it will provide more evidence for any further dispute resolution. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry realise I wrote rather a lot here, do you mind if I do a cot and cob and summarize?

I didn't want to get involved in the merge because I think it is not appropriate to merge the two articles. Wouldn't know where to begin. And the thing they created is a total mess of an article.

I did try to restore the section on Category IV for Mars, and definition of a special region, which they removed. My attempt to do that was reverted.

Also restored a sentence that needed a cn I thought, rather than a delete, but that is a minor matter of protesting on procedure, was not too surprising it got immediately reverted by WP.

It turns out they kept half of the material on the Category IV but removed the other half during the re-organization which as it was tightly written means they removed significant material. I have protested on the talk page that it needed discussion.

They say they were mid merge and going to include it anyway.

As for evidence of them removing what I write improperly I'd have thought that the merge which WP also did in Back-contamination during an open discussion of a proposal to restore material to the article in the D of BRD is surely improper too? After he first trimmed it to three sentences that don't mention anything post the 1970s?

But Dan Hobley has joined in too, he AFAIK is an independent editor. It really seems that the consensus here is that all this material should be removed and that they all want to follow WPs reform program for contamination issues at least the most vocal and energetic ones. Robert Walker (talk) 19:46, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if this is complicated. But your instruction to try to rewrite the article to deal with bias was one I couldn't do. The bias in my view is mainly removing all this material in the first place. If it could be included then there is room for discussion about whether it is presented correctly.

To be painted into a little 1 cm square corner and told that you have to correct bias in that tiny spot, I can't do it and the 1 cm square corner is in the wrong page anyway.Robert Walker (talk) 20:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Follow-Up

I think that it is time to file a Request for Arbitration and will appreciate your help. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay I'll do what I can. What can I do to help? Robert Walker (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I will be building the case at User:Robert McClenon/Mars Notes. Please add as many diffs concerning violations to the page as you can, clearly identifying the nature of each diff. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I had thought that dispute resolution could resolve things, but the last straw, from my standpoint, was the closure of a requested merger (which I supported and you opposed) when my Request for Comments to obtain outside opinions was still in progress. Your pessimistic statements that dispute resolution was impossible appear to be true, short of the "nuclear option", which is arbitration. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I have one diff where he said that you could agree to go away and never come back if you lost the AFD. Where did he try to obtain consensus to topic-ban you? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this what you want? I don't recall him seeking consensus, just several statements that he would remove all my contributions on contamination issues, using the AfD as his authority for it. This was at the start of it, after he won the AfD, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=561730149&oldid=561689953

4. There is a shortage of volunteers at ICAMSR. Go collaborate with DiGregorio and write a book together. Your days of spamming Misplaced Pages with your contamination hysteria are over. I see you've spammed your propaganda in practically every article on Mars in the Misplaced Pages. Those "contributions" will be redacted.

For me the biggest violation recently was the merge of the BC article when it had an open discussion on it to restore content that had just been removed by another editor.

Also repeated removal of the POV-section tags for the BC article (which he has just done once again incidentally taking "rough consensus" as his authority for it).

There are also the occasions when they archived entire talk pages with many open discussions on them, mainly by BI but WP also did it once and they are clearly working together on this. Should I include violations by BI as well? I think mainly will be just the talk page archives as rest was just loads of insults. But might remember other things. Robert Walker (talk) 22:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please include violations by BI as well, including insults. Add everything. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, the merge of Planetary protection and Interplanetary contamination was reverted. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh okay, there were some outrageous insults by BI in the discussion on Life on Mars and the attempt at a RfC there.

I'll also include the one where WI said I needed to seek mental treatment because of my slight dislexia (or whatever it is) - wasn't one of his worst insults but it is the one that hurt me most personally and they should see that from the diff if I can find it.

Glad to see the merge was reverted, can the Planetary Protection one be rolled back to the way it was before the merge as well?

It really is quite a nonsense of an article right now especially the section on "Resilience of life in space" reads like a complete non sequitor, doesn't fit anything on the page before or after it, you can tell someone just copy / pasted it from somewhere else to a random place on the page plus expanded it a bit. Robert Walker (talk) 22:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, please include the diff where someone referred to Paranoid personality disorder in the past few days. I am having difficulty finding it. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:40, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay that's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AWikiProject_Mars&diff=563271694&oldid=563269319

I'm getting some stuff together in a text document here to avoid continually re-editing your page. Will add what I've found so far soon. Robert Walker (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added some of it in. You are welcome to edit it and remove also anything not appropriate, I did quite a bit on the AfD because of its many irregularities. Will take a look at it some more tomorrow, takes a surprising long time to do it though getting more used to how you find a diff from a comment.

There has been a major development though with the MSR article back contamination section. Dan Hobley has stepped in and edited it, and he seems is accepted as an editor by the others - well will see if WP reverts what he did. But if his edits are accepted, then it is more or less accurate now. He misses a few points especially on quarantine laws and international nature of the legal situation and need for international public debate. But compared to what was there this morning, is an amazing change :). Hope it is kept. I have posted saying as much, also suggesting the things I think still need to be fixed. If he adds in a short section about Zubrin as well to balance the ICAMSR as well as international aspect it would pretty much fix that and I would be very pleased to know that at least that section, which is quite important, is now accurate. Robert Walker (talk) 02:09, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration

Please be aware that a Request for Arbitration has been opened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Mars

Robert McClenon (talk) 16:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Robert, my impression of Arbitration/Requests is that they tend to be long slow and difficult. My advice for ] was to avoid comment. I am less sure about what to do with arbitration. My guess would be to stick with the evidence that you offered at ]. Stop changing it. In the statement by party 4, (that's you), refer to McClenon's notes and write nothing else. Do not answer any criticism that WarrenPlatts or BatteryIncluded might make of you at the arbitration case if you can avoid it. Someone else might have better advice for you, but that is my best. - Fartherred (talk) 20:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Fartherred, thanks for your advice. Yes I have finished with the evidence, just fixed a couple of minor things when I got the notice from Robert McLenon, anyway whether that was right to do or not, it is all done now, no need to do any more.

Okay, right so likely to be a long process. Yes that sounds good advice, as you said before, many of my responses to their criticism tend to be flustered and not good, if I can avoid answering is best of all.

Am not sure about what to write by way of a statement, what is expected of me. I understand the whole thing is an unusual and a severe step, and so am going to step carefully. Would be expected to write something eventually I think, but won't rush into doing that. Thanks your advice is really helpful. Robert Walker (talk) 20:39, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

To Robertinventor: It is good that you are taking your time to make a statement. Careful work is more important than speed. Try something like: "I have offered a number of statements at User:Robert McClenon/Mars Notes. That is about all that I wanted to write." Good luck. - Fartherred (talk) 21:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Fartherred, thanks as usual excellent advice. Maybe I'll try the exact words you posted now. I tried it as a preview in the page to see what it looked like, and it looked good!

Tried my own draft, and yours was much better. Mine went into too much detail at this stage, tried to summarize what it was that got most in the way of contributing to wikipedia. If I say it at all should be in response to questions by the arbitors, as they can see for themselves.

Also been thinking what is my main objective?

I would say, it is to find a way forward so that I can continue to contribute on this topic if possible. As I have been doing to some extent since yesterday with Dan Hobley, he listened to what I said and corrected the article based on it. So that's a big step forward that this can happen, and I am so pleased that that particular section of that article is now reasonably accurate on these issues (if allowed to remain like that of course and still has some minor issues but presumably he will fix them).

That is what I wanted to do with my wikipedian friend with the opposite POV to me, who wants to collaborate with me on this topic.

I think also that WP has much to contribute to the project, especially on proposed and actual spaceflight missions, but he doesn't seem to know all that much about contamination issues with surprising knowledge gaps that a few minutes of a google search would fill.

He did find a few inaccuracies during the long article deletion process (mainly to do with proposed mission plans), which I fixed and was great to have corrected. Robert Walker (talk) 22:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

To Robert McClenon: You guessed write that my advice was meant for Robertinventor. I should have remembered that there are two Roberts concerned with this thread. Sorry for the confusion. - Fartherred (talk) 21:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Fartherred. Keep your statement as Party 4 straightforward. In particular, presenting too much evidence causes the arbitration to take longer, as the arbitrators have to review more evidence. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, glad to hear it, I think I'll just use what he wrote word for word as I don't think I'll improve on it, and he has always given me great advice. Robert Walker (talk) 22:57, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

- done Robert Walker (talk) 00:06, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I see one admin has asked for a summary, and wonder if I should say something? Also wonder if I should say something about the BI dispute just to show that it is not WP:CHEESE?

This is my earlier draft: " The things that most got in the way of contributions to wikipedia are:

• Frequent BRR instead of BRD by Warren Platts removing large sections fully backed up by citations.
• Archiving of talk pages and merging articles with open unresolved discussions and RfCs.
• Improper conduct in the AfD, especially, that I was not permitted to work on it continuously until nearly half way through and the AfD started on the version by Warren Platts, with almost all notable content removed.
• Personal ad hominem attacks by both of them get in the way of discussions of content and interactions with other editors, as do their warnings about me to other editors.
• Refusal by BI and WP to enter dispute resolution.

"

This is my draft reply to BI's allegation of WP:CHEESE:

"I don't want to get into details of my dispute with BatteryIncluded but it seems necessary to say enough to show that it is not obviously WP:CHEESE and that it deserves dispute resolution.

See:User:Robertinventor/Present_day_habitability_of_Mars_dispute "

What do you both think? Should I reply to WP:CHEESE? Should we attempt some kind of a summary and is what I wrote above useful? Robert Walker (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I have looked at a little of the basis of Batteryincluded's WP:CHEESE allegation. I think arbiters will not need any help to come up with their own conclusions on this point. There is a real possibility of your being topic banned. The arbitration request could also be declined. I do not think a response on the WP:CHEESE point will serve your purpose. - Fartherred (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay thanks!

Just looked at what this "someone who will not be named" said - saying that VQuakr deleted my stuff on back contanimnation - VQuakr himself said that it was the R in BRD. I started the D on that page, then WP got rid of it all with the merge while the discussion was still in progress about what to do, the D of BRD.

I never said in the notes that the R was by BI or WP, or suggested it was, but probably should have said more explicitly that it was by VQuakr though the "Proposal_to_restore_the_content_removed_by_VQuakr" section title for the D seems explicit enough, and the D could have lead to it getting restored.

All of that was of course totally proper, the improper thing was the merge while the D was in place, and only on authority of another editor who told him to "go ahead".

(removed something here that I got wrong best left out)

But feel if I say anything about any of that would probably get into worse trouble than I am in already. Which I don't really understand why I am in trouble for just trying to defend the content from deletion and keeping totally to the wikipedia rules and guidelines, and the only thing that I have really done wrong is to suspect someone of sock puppets which I never took to any official forum, just asked advice about it. Plus writing too much in talk posts. Those seem to be my crimes that may lead me to being topic banned.

While hurling insults at someone every day for weeks on end, deleting all their content on a particular topic from wikipedia, warning other editors about them, merging a page with an RfC on it, archiving another similarly, starting an AfD on the article with most of it removed etc etc is all acceptable behaviour it seems. If I did any of that I'm sure it wouldn't be :) (not that I would).

Also see that WP has said a goodbye on the admin board whatever that means. Hope I don't get topic banned, knew I would have to step very carefully. Robert Walker (talk) 20:45, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Anyway won't post there, won't do anything, will wait and see what both of you say. Robert Walker (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Could add a short summary at the top of each section of my part of User:Robert_McClenon/Mars_Notes if that's thought a good idea.Robert Walker (talk) 00:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Also just now wondered, if this is worth saying:

The statements that my opponents find alarmist are actually quotes from the official studies by the NRC and the ESF plus quotations from Carl Sagan. Most of the material that has been removed presents the official POV to the very best of my ability. Any POV slant that remains in them is totally unintentional.

I have not engaged in POV pushing. As I see it what I have tried to do is to get material included in the encyclopedia most of which is to do with the official studies. Several times, I have offered to write this material in collaboration with a wikipedian friend who takes the diametrically opposite POV to me on contamination issues, to help with balance. He is keen to do this collaboration if it were approved. This offer has not been taken up or commented on by my opponents.

Robertinventor, you have just edited your talk page 13 times in 6 hours and 6 minutes. I think you have a case of nerves concerning something that continued worrying about will not help. The someone not using his/her own name might be an arbiter or other official at WMF who is familiar with arbitration. These people have some motive for not wanting their writing on particular cases known to the community in general. They would not want organized blocks of voters voting for or against arbcom candidates based on their comments in particular cases. Do not worry about the mechanics of arbitration much. You know even less about it than I do, so worrying will not help much. Posting something at the arbitration while in an agitated state of mind is almost certain to harm your case. Just take it easy and read a book. Do not look at Misplaced Pages for another 12 hours. Get some sleep. Then calm yourself, take a few slow deep breaths and look at developments with a detached nonchalance, as if it all concerned someone else, not you. Then edit non-Mars articles. Good luck. - Fartherred (talk) 02:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes I'm sure you are right about "someone not using his/her own name" and I'll follow your advice, thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 07:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

After a break, I'll do some proposals for deletion patrolling, it's ages since I did that. Am good at finding notable citations that other editors missed, and when I've just had so much of my own content deleted, will be nice to help newbies who get content proposed for deletion just because they don't know that they need to add citations or don't know how to do it. Robert Walker (talk) 07:53, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Farthered, I've done some therapeutic WP:PROD removing. I saved an article describing a star which seemed notable enough to include and started a discussion about the WP:PROD guidelines here: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(astronomical_objects)#WP:PRODed_star_articles

I've drafted out a possible response with a calmer state of mind but will sleep on it

Responses to Request for Arbitration

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Mars

Drafting out a possible response here, want to think carefully before I do anything because of a tendency to panic. Should I reply? Is this a good reply?

Will sleep on it myself, won't respond today. Thanks!

I have a tendency towards loquaciousness and tend to write too much when I panic. For this I apologise. The volume of text was a response to sudden deletion over a period of weeks of all the material I contributed on these topics, and repeated extreme personal verbal attacks which lead to anxiety and panic.

The material deleted is notable. Sources include the European Space Foundation, the Office of Planetary Protection, and the American National Research Council.

For many exobiologists, environmental disruption seems a possible though low probability consequence of a Mars sample return. This concern was first raised by Carl Sagan in the 1970s, and confirmed by official studies. It is easy to confuse the official POV with the POV of the ICAMSR since both talk about environmental disruption of the Earth. It is natural to assume that such an idea must be WP:FRINGE.

However the difference is that the official POV is that the risk can be contained, while the ICAMSR is skeptical, mainly due to possibilities of human error, and contend that more in situ research on Mars is needed. AFIK, Zubrin is the only notable published author to state that it has no scientific validity.

I feel that this material should be included somewhere. It is impossible to discuss this rationally due to the disruptive behaviour of my opponents.

Note the citations, to notable sources:
User:Robertinventor/Mars_Sample_Receiving_Faclity
User:Robertinventor/Mars_Sample_Return_Legal_Issues_and_International_Public_Debate

In my view the matter hasn't been resolved. No reason has been given for excluding it.

I do have a bias, and declared it early on. My opponents have sympathies for Zubrin's opposing minority view.

I offered to rewrite it with the help of a friend of opposite POV (a friend of Zubrin) keen to collaborate. Dan Hobley thought this was a way forward but my main opponent rejected the idea with the comment that . That is not practically possible, as you can judge from the notes.

In my view, Project Mars is now slanted towards the POV of Mars surface colonization advocacy. There has been no response to my comment on this bias.

On socking allegations, all I did was ask more experienced editors for their advice.

I was under the mistaken impression that "sock puppet" meant the same thing as "alternative account" which added to confusion, as I talked about "legitimate use of sock puppets". Also, I didn't understand complexities of meat puppets, and acceptable off wiki communication between collaborators with shared goals.

Now that it has been cleared up, I do not wish to press allegations. I apologise to Robert McClenon for misundestandings, and thank him and Fartherred for helping to clear it up.

(460 words)

It's a bit long but fits within the 500 word limit just. Maybe it can be trimmed some more. Anyway do you think it is a good response? I'll sleep on it myself and see what I think tomorrow too. Robert Walker (talk) 22:05, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

You got good advice to stop posting so much so nervously to your talk page. It could be trimmed some more. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Someone Not Using His Real Name is not an arbitrator, and does not indicate (WMF) after his user name. He is a prolific editor who has posted on Mars topics and mostly posts about weapons. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I've trimmed it a bit more. I will take another break, and look at it again later and see if more trimming is possible. Do you have any thoughts on timescale, is it good to reply within the next day or so, or can I take a more leisurely approach and e.g. reply at the end of the week or whatever? Also do you think it would help to add a short one or two sentences summary to the head of each of my sections in your notes?

Thanks for explaining about "Someone Not Using His Real Name", so perhaps I don't need to be over concerned about his conclusions, e.g. suggestion of topic banning me, at this stage, will see what happens. Robert Walker (talk) 08:27, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Have trimmed it a bit more, though also felt some bits needed slight expansion for clarity. Is down to 460 words. Not sure if I can reduce it much further and still say everything that needs to be said, but will revisit and see. Any particular thoughts about particular things that could be trimmed or best left out or such like? Robert Walker (talk) 09:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Had a thought, another way to look at it is to state goals. User:Robertinventor/Goals_for_Arbitration

Though - don't know how I could combine that with my 460 word summary :). Maybe as a link like that, if it is worth including at all?? I could also shorten the 460 word summary by putting some if it into my user space and link to it for those who want the information., Robert Walker (talk) 11:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

This is my best attempt so far. I see that someone has already replied with a decline, and feel, I should say something what do you think?

I have a tendency to write a fair amount anyway, and then tend to write too much when I panic. I had all my contributions on this topic removed in a period of a few weeks plus many rather extreme insults from my opponents which lead to anxiety and panic. That's the reason for the volume of text and I apologise to those inconvenienced by them.

The material deleted is notable, with sources such as ESF, NRC, Office of Planetary Protection. It would be natural to assume that "environmental disruption of Earth" is WP:FRINGE. But in fact that is not the point of difference here.

The concern of possible environmental disruption was raised by Carl Sagan in 1970s and the need to take precautions against it was confirmed by all the later studies. All the sources treat it as an exceedingly low probability worst case scenario, except Zubrin.

The main differences in view are:

• Official POV - safe sample return to the Earth is possible provided suitable precautions are taken
• ICAMSR - Only possible after extensive in situ examination on Mars followed by quarantine in orbit.
• Zubrin - the risk has no scientific validity at all.
  
  

As a result it is not WP:FRINGE or POV pushing or alarmist to talk about the possibility of environmental disruption in the wikipedia article so long as it is also made clear that the official view is that the risk can be contained, and the return carried out safely. Indeed you have to talk about it to cover the topic adequately.

This may also be of interest: Goals for Arbitration

In my view the matter hasn't been resolved. No reason has been given for excluding the material, and I can't go through normal processes to create it. Dispute resolution is also impossible, the opponents are too disruptive to permit this and Battery Included refuses to talk to me at all.

I do have a bias, and declared it early on. My opponents have a bias too, in my opinion, for Zubrin's opposing minority view.

I offered to rewrite it with the help of a friend of opposite POV. My main opponent rejected the idea with the comment that . That is not practically possible, as you can judge from the notes.

To the others on Mars Project it may seem it is all over. But that is just because most of the topic has been removed, on the whole of wikipedia, just two short pages left and one section of another page, and other very short mentions.

On the socking allegations, it was due to some misunderstandings on my part plus inexperience, now cleared up with help of Robert McClenon and Farthered. I do not wish to press any such allegations, and it never got any further than asking more experienced wikipedians for their advice and help.

Is this okay? Any thoughts. Is down to 478 words. With extra material under "Goals for Arbitration". Or do I just give up and not do anything? Robert Walker (talk) 12:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Well I've replied now. They had started to give their opinions and I thought best to say something. Whether was right or not, is done now. Will see what happens. Robert Walker (talk) 01:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

It appears that the case will be declined because the arbitrators think that other dispute resolution mechanisms are still available. It also appears that Warren Platts says that he is leaving, which is, in Misplaced Pages terminology, a case of throwing his toys out of the pram. If so, go ahead and edit, bearing in mind that if you try to shift the content of any articles from promotional through neutral to anti, BatteryIncluded is still there. So go ahead and edit. If the conflict returns, I (not you or we) can resubmit. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay I can give it a go, I'll start perhaps with Planetary Protection as a high profile article and in a real mess after Warren Platt's editing. Can just try to get that in shape, and if that is allowed to be done, then can think about something more ambitious. Does that sound okay? Yes I suppose with WP gone it was prob. pretty inevitable they would decline, what I wonder is if he will just come back again as soon as the case is dropped.

With Planetary protection then I think bias won't be much of a problem. With Interplanetary Contamination, will be - would just try some test edits, if all is okay would involve the collaborator with opposite POV who is keen to join in, but wasn't a good time to invite him to date, a busy professional man. Robert Walker (talk) 02:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Planetary protection

Hi Robert. Comments for you on the talkpage of the above article. Please read. Any replies- put 'em there, though I won't see anything I don't anticipate until next week. DanHobley (talk) 03:33, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Have replied there. Since you won't see it until next week, probably I'll do some more editing of the article to try to show what I have in mind. I won't be surprised if it does all get reverted, is just to see if it is possible to edit on this topic, starting in the most POV neutral place I can think of.

Robert McClenon - as you can see I got an objection from Dan Hobley. Wouldn't be surprised if Battery Included and others also revert. If so have to give up. But was worth a try. Haven't done anything with a POV slant as far as I know. I can ask my colleague with opposite POV if he sees anything in the article with a POV slant, in case there is something I missed. Robert Walker (talk) 03:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Haven't been reverted yet. Dan Hobley just added back in the section "Resilience of life in Space". I don't see the relevance so have moved it to the end of the article with an "off topic" tag and a talk page section discussing this.

Will now add an Issues section for any who might claim that the article is unbalanced because it suggests that contamination prevention is effective. The view that it is not effective, or that contamination doens't matter, and so the regulations could be relaxed is a minority view but though most relevant to the Interplanetary contamination article could be briefly mentioned here and would help prevent allegations of POV slanting from those with strong sympathies for Zubrin.

(removed some things I wrote here mistakenly thinking Dan Hobley did a full revert) Robert Walker (talk) 09:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Your request for undeletion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that a response has been made at Misplaced Pages:Requests for undeletion regarding a submission you made. The thread is HD 133600. JohnCD (talk) 18:06, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration case request declined

Hello, this is a courtesy notice to inform you that the request for arbitration regarding Mars, in which you were named as a party, has been declined to be heard by the Arbitration Committee. The Arbitrators felt that as well as there being content aspects to this dispute that tensions are begining to ease. They suggested that if issues with individual editors can be brought to easlier steps in the dispute resolution process or to ANI. Please see the Arbitrators' comments for further suggestions. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Planetary protection

Hi Robert,

Just a quick note to say your work over at planetary protection is looking really good. I've skimmed it, and while I picked up a couple of minor things style- or wording-wise and a couple of places I might add a little more, I think your new structure looks pretty nice. I'll give you a bit longer to get it settled as you like, then maybe give it a review.

The only thing that jumps out at me clearly from a quick glance is your image in the lead. I like it a lot, but official policy (see Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Images#Forced image size) says it can't be bigger than 300px across. I'm just about to head over and reduce it to that limit (shame!) but wanted to let you know why beforehand. DanHobley (talk) 05:42, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Great, glad you like it. Yes I've got a few more days on it, doing a bit at a time, mainly got to do something with the decontamination methods, I think NASA has now approved the hydrogen peroxide method, saw a news story that mentioned it and a sterilization protocol using it, but can't seem to find the actual announcement from them. Anyway need to update that section. Then double check the page and see if I left anything out or any mistakes, & recheck all the refs. Then my work in progress will be done so can remove the {{construction}} tag.

Thanks for making the image smaller to fit the guidelines. Glad you like it, and it looks fine at the smaller size. I copied the size of the image for Mars sample return, I suppose that is one of the exceptions needs to be larger than normal?

Any other minor obvious things do fix them. Will be interested to hear what you make about it when all done. Thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 07:27, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

September 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to MIDI 1.0 may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 ""s and 1 "{}"s likely mistaking one for another. If you have, don't worry, just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• Dr. Sebastian Anthony Birch [http://www.personal.kent.edu/~sbirch/Music_Production/MP-II/MIDI/midi_physical_layer.htm#note2 The
• kent.edu/~sbirch/Music_Production/MP-II/MIDI/midi_physical_layer.htm#note2 The MIDI Physical Layer}</ref>), and the need for ] accuracy.

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Diseases from Space

The new article Diseases from Space might interest you.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, just noticed your comment. Yes, it's an interesting idea. If life is common place in the galaxy, I don't see myself why there mightn't be dessicated bacteria in interstellar space. I find Chandra Wickramasinghe's evidence Spectroscopic Evidence of Cosmic Life interesting but not conclusive.

Also it's now a reasonably respected view that life in our solar system could have been seeded by microbes from an earlier star. See for instance, Life Before Earth. Perhaps another star passed through the forming nebula of our solar system, and if so, the meteorite impacts could have transferred life from it to our solar system.

When it comes to that life existing today, in comets, I'm more skeptical myself. Read their book back in the 1970s, and didn't find the links to outbreaks of flu very convincing. But on the other hand we have made many surprising discoveries. When the book came out the idea of panspermia was thought preposterous by most scientists, and now it is generally accepted as possible though not yet proven. And you can also be right about things for the wrong reasons as with Wegener, in the early history of continental drift.

Anyway, if they are right then perhaps Philae will spot life on Comet 67P. It's the only spacecraft we've sent anywhere in the solar system able to detect life since Vikings 1 & 2. They expect to detect pre-biotic chemistry on the comet, and quite probably with a chiral signature, as meteorites on Earth often have organics with a chiral signature. So that's why they have included instruments with life detection capabilities. If they do detect life as well, most scientists would be astonished! Rosetta Now Up Close to Comet 67P – Snapping Mapping Mosaics for Momentous Philae Landing

The problem with life on a comet is that the comet is low density and thought to be porous, so is hard to see how you could have subsurface liquid as they propose. That's definitely possible with the larger Pluto sized icy moons and asteroids and the very largest giant comets, it's now thought that quite possibly many, even all of them have sub surface oceans like Europa. But if a comet is "light and fluffy" and porous right through to the centre, then any liquid water would have boiled away long ago, dehydrated by the vacuum of space. On the other hand, there are organics in comets. I have wondered myself if those could create tar like deposits which could, just possibly, contain layers of ice in water tight layers and prevent it evaporating when the ice warms up. I've searched to see if that has been suggested in any scientific papers but not found anything yet.

With Mercury, with its discovery of ice at its poles, also dark probably from organics delivered by comets - then one of the scientists speculated that there just possibly could be water beneath the surface heated by geothermal heating. http://news.discovery.com/space/organics-found-on-mercury-121129.htm. That wouldn't work in the same way for a medium sized comet as it isn't large enough for geothermal heating. But short period comets do heat up every time they come close to the sun, what is lacking is a way to trap that evaporating ice as water. Normally it will just evaporate straight into space with no intermediate liquid state. And any dessicated bacteria in free space - the most radioresistant can survive perhaps up to 300,000 years of ionizing radiation and still revive, but it seems unlikely that anything could survive millions of years. As for billions of years, then ionizing radiation reduces numbers of amino acids roughly a trillion fold every billion years (roughly a million fold every million years). So after, say, 3 billion years, then even if you started with thousands of tons of amino acids, there wouldn't be a single molecule left if exposed to cosmic radiation without several meters of overlying materials to protect them. So if those observations are of dessicated bacteria, then unless recently ejected, then most of them would be thoroughly sterilized.

So I find the idea in its original form hard to accept myself. But the general idea of Panspermia, yes, could be. And as for life in comets, it would be astonishing but not sure if it is totally ruled out yet, as for larger Pluto and Callisto sized giant comets, then quite possible that they do have life in them below the surface, depending on how easy it is for evolution to get started or for their oceans to be seeded by life from other planets and proto planets in the Late Heavy Bombardment. Robert Walker (talk) 10:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Life on Mars

This will be my only reply to your pseudo-scientific trolling behavior. Physics, and radiation in particular, have NOT changed in THIS universe since your trolling shenanigans last year. Unlike you, I do not express my hopes and desires in Misplaced Pages pages, and here, to finalize this matter, I now quote data collected in situ by the Curiosity rover and the conclusion of the 400+ Team Members of the MSL mission.

Research published in January 2014 of data collected by the RAD instrument, revealed that the actual absorbed dose measured is 76 mGy/year at the surface, and that "ionizing radiation strongly influences chemical compositions and structures, especially for water, salts, and redox-sensitive components such as organic matter." Regardless of the source of Martian organic matter (meteoritic, geological, or biological), its carbon bonds are susceptible to breaking and reconfiguration with surrounding elements by ionizing charged particle radiation. The report concludes that the in situ "surface measurements —and subsurface estimates— constrain the preservation window for Martian organic matter following exhumation and exposure to ionizing radiation in the top few meters of the Martian surface."

Paper: Hassler, Donald M. (24 January 2014). "Mars' Surface Radiation Environment Measured with the Mars ScienceLaboratory's Curiosity Rover" (PDF). Science. 343 (6169). doi:10.1126/science.1244797. Retrieved 2014-01-27. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

I don't care if you shook hands with people who disbelief the rover's in situ measurements that limit extant life (whether rolling on salty brine, silica or pizza) on Mars to a few meters below the surface. And also I don't care if you claim that this article is also outdated because it was published 2 long days ago. It is science, not democracy, so piss off and begin to read WP:Tutorial. Sincerely, BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

That's for past life. There is almost no possibility of present day life where Curiosity is because it is the driest part of Mars with not even ice, for hundreds of meters below the surface, as far as we can tell. What they are saying there is that if ancient organics are exhumed by some process (rock removed from above it for instance) then it is only going to be easy to detect for a short time - and they mean, short time in terms of geological timescales in this context. This quote is not about present day life. Robert Walker (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

I closed the ancient merge proposals that should have been closed months ago, and have restarted a new merge proposal. According to protocol, the merge should be discussed either for 30 days or until there is consensus. No attempt at a merge should be conducted while discussion is underway. Merge tags should not be removed. That is a summary for now. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:55, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 08:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Karma talk page discussion

To expand on what User:Joshua Jonathan has said on the article talk page: Here are some pointers that may help you make the conversation more productive, and more likely to result in actual change to the article:

1. Specify one change at a time that you wish to be made to the article (eg, I want to add a sentence Karma is considered... to the second paragraph of the Karma in Hinduism section of the article.)
2. Specify the exact source (incl. page number, and short quote, if possible) that supports the change. Given the topic, this almost surely needs to be a secondary scholarly work on the subject of Karma.

And some don'ts:

1. Don't cite other wikipedia articles, primary sources, religious preachers, generic/religious websites, primary religious texts etc. (To be clear, these sources are not verboten in general, but need to be used with care, and usually in conjunction with secondary sources that cite them).
2. Don't get into arguments about the supposed biases of Indian vs Western, religious vs academic sources etc. These issues are relevant only if your proposed edit to the Karma article is directly about these biases (in which case you'll need to cite a cite a scholar making these points). Barring that, such arguments only help derail the discussion. And given that Misplaced Pages aims to be encyclopedia it will inevitably regard scholarly/academic sources as superior to others, irrespective of individual editors' opinion on the biases that such an approach may introduce.
3. Keep your post as to the point as possible, and commentary to the minimum.

Remember that we all are volunteers here and have limited time to devote to subjects that interest us. Given that, we are likely to simply skip past "walls of text" posted on talk pages (as I have done at Talk:Karma), and any valid point that is made will be lost in the process . Hope this helps. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 21:44, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay well there may be not much more I can do.

The problem is - that it is not a point of detail that is easy to address in this way.

I maintain that the whole article is biased, so that's the main thing I'm objecting to. By starting off with a Western discussion before it presents the Eastern ideas that are discussed, by giving such an extensive Western discussion also (as long as the Hindu and Buddhist sections together) - and by starting with a discussion about the problem of evil and all the things that Westerners think are wrong with the idea of Karma - entirely framed using Western ideas - and based on ideas of Karma as it is re-interpreted in Western philosophy in the online conference on "Revisioning Karma" rather than the original idea - then the article has completely misrepresented how the idea is understood in the Eastern religions before the article gets underway.

So - what can you do about that? I'm not a scholar in a relevant topic area - just a practitioner who has heard teachings from many Buddhist teachers (who are themselves scholars) - so can't present numerous citations. But even if I could, that's original research to do that. But - in this whole area - the scholarship can't be relied on. The scholars themselves say contradictory things, as is common in philosophy. So to rely on one of the scholars or one group of scholars as presenting the "true view from nowhere" - that's the main thing that's wrong with the article as I see it. What do you do when secondary sources contradict each other?

Yes, that section is well cited - but it doesn't explain that all those citations are by Westerners and that their views are not universally held, indeed not held at all by those in the Eastern traditions. The article on Karma in Buddhism gives many citations that directly contradict statements made in that discussion section of the Karma article - and good academic secondary sources, both Western and Eastern. I explained that in one of my replies, going through that section point by point how it contradicts the Karma in Buddhism citations - but that didn't seem to help.

Oh dear - and this is another "wall of text" - just took me a few minutes to type. It's not that I'm obsessed, just type fast :).

Maybe someone else can sort it out. I do want to help if I can. But I don't know what to do. I think my take home message here is that some of my ways of interacting with people, especially when they involve writing a lot of text - which work fine on facebook, via email, quora, in the articles I write for Science20 etc, they just don't work here in Misplaced Pages.

And sometimes when the issue involved is a complex one, hard to present, there is no alternative that works here for me. Though in simpler situations I am able to manage fine within the wikipedia methods of discussing things.

I don't think I'm that unusual, many people give up on editing sections of wikipedia, so I think it is quite hard for many people, this wikipedia talk pages form of dialaog.

Thanks for your suggestions. I can understand.

Sadly, I just don't see how I can apply them in this case though, at least not right now, don't know what I can do next on this talk page, following your suggestions. But will bear it in mind in the future. If you have any other suggestions or thoughts do say! Robert Walker (talk) 01:12, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Have done something though. I removed the second mention of the "The law of karma operates independent of any deity or any process of divine judgment." at the end. Because- if I need to focus on one thing at a time, then it's the bias of the article that is the issue, and the ordering. As for that sentence - well it's a bit of a red herring and it actually contradicts what is said in the discussion section of the article. (the article in its current state contradicts itself).

So is a rather blatant error that will be picked up sooner or later. Perhaps it's just confusing to the reader to discuss it at this stage, as if I continue to discuss it on the talk page, means I have to carry out simultaneous discussions on the talk page of two views that contradict each other (which of course they can easily do when they are views by different groups of people, in this case Buddhists, and a minority group of Hindus) - and then it got even more confusing when Mark then claimed that a minority of Buddhists think the same way as these minority Hindus - so all that's bound to confuse a reader who hasn't got much time to follow the intricacies of the talk page debate.

The sentence does need to be fixed, of course, but maybe this is not the time to do that. Maybe that was my main error on the talk page to allow myself to get caught up in a discussion of that sentence. Robert Walker (talk) 01:59, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Please see WP:TALK. Best regards JimRenge (talk) 02:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Buddhism and scholarly sources

Hello Robert. I do understand your objections to my edits, but I sincerely would like to point out a few things:

• I do not spend twenty minutes on the fine words of eminent scholars. I've been studying Buddhism for 27 years now, reading scholarly sources which are not available in the popular new age shops, nor in the really good spiritual book shops. See User:Joshua_Jonathan/Sources. I make great efforts to find the best sources available, not just the popular publications and primary sources. And I read those sources.
• There is a lot of scholarly research on Buddhism, more than you or I are able to read. But at last we should try, and give the best we can. Walhola Rapula, in this regard, may have been a highly admired scholar and teacher in some Buddhist circles, but he's not exactly up-to-date, nor the kind of scholar I'd prefer to read. Remember, D.T. Suzuki was also a professor, just like Heinrich Dumoulin. The writings of both are regarded as primary sources nowadays.
• When I'm editing at Misplaced Pages, I always use those scholarly sources. I'm not satisfied with "just" a reference; they have to be correct. When I doubt, I search further. Take a look at User:Joshua_Jonathan/Roots_of_Hinduism to see the efforts I took to make clear that "Hinduism" is different from the Vedic religion, and is a synthesis of various traditions. This was in response to one dogged editor, who insisted on sources for everything he disapproved of. It took me half a year to work this out, and prove my point.
• The tone of your replies is not helpfull in these discussions. At least for me, you provoke a lot of irritation, no, worse, anger. I'd actually already decided to simply ignore your comments, but the above I really wanted to say, in "defense" of myself.

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:20, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Well that just makes your actions more mysterious. I assumed you couldn't know much about Buddhism just because of your actions deleting so much content for no apparent reason. Since you obviously have read widely, what was your rationale for just deleting the section on "Karma is not a judgement", just to take one example? I can't imagine that you know of any sources that contradict this, or do you? If you do have sources that contradict it, why not qualify it rather than delete it? Because, if you do have sources that contradict it, which would greatly surprise me, it is clear that at least the majority of scholars say that it is not a judgement, in Buddhism. And why didn't you discuss it on the talk page first? I don't understand.

Also - note that Dorje stopped editing wikipedia after your actions on the Four Noble Truths article. And he has been working on Karma in Buddhism since May 2013. It is just considerate of other editors here on wikipedia to talk to them first before making large scale changes, however sure you are that you are "right". And to listen to their input, not just token talk, but hear what they have to say.

As for making you irritated, well it's not me getting irritated - maybe that is a good thing if it gets you to think a bit about the consequences of your actions. I don't apologise for blunt speaking here, and I'm not angry back at you. Robert Walker (talk) 08:47, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I've re-inserted that part, without the quotes. Glad that you're not angry  :) Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:26, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay. Why not just roll the whole thing back to Dorje's version and start again? You can back up your new version to your user space so you don't lose your work. And then discuss it point by point? BTW there has been no resolution to the effect that paraphrases are better than quotes. On the 4 noble truths it's 2 for, 2 against so far, with no RfC which leads to more considered responses over a 30 day period. It would need a RfC on its talk page to resolve that for that article, and a far wider debate to resolve it for all the articles on Buddhism. I've posted to the 4 noble truths article talk page about this. Robert Walker (talk) 16:35, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Back-up

Robert, I read this message of you: "Hi Dorje, thanks, I've backed up your Four Noble Truths article also, and blogged about them both on my Quora blog "Some ideas about Buddhist teachings" here Recently Destroyed Misplaced Pages Articles on Karma in Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths by Dorje108." I don't know which policy is involved here, but this kind of behaviour is not really appreciated at Misplaced Pages. @Drmies:, what's your opinion on this? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:32, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I had never thought of that possibility. The wikipedia guidelines on user pages are quite long and they permit a wide variety of uses. However on this point, you are right, there is a note here saying that you can't back up old revisions in your user space indefinitely, which I never realised. I think it is reasonable though to back up these pages temporarily as I look for another place to host them.

Userspace is not a free web host and should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles, old revisions, or deleted content, or your preferred version of disputed content. Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion. Short-term hosting of potentially valid articles and other reasonable content under development or in active use is usually acceptable (the template {{userspace draft}} can be added to the top of the page to identify these).

So, I'll identify it as userspace draft for now, as both Dorje and I think that this material should be restored to wikipedia and you are the only editor, at least for Karma in Buddhism so far who thinks this content should be deleted.

Probably at some time in the future it should be either used in wikipedia or moved elsewhere. A backup in user space makes it far easier to copy it to an external host so is a reasonable temporary intermediate step to do before doing that. I did that for some articles for Science20 last year. S

There is nothing to stop any editor taking an old version of a wikipedia page and converting it into an article for another website, so long as they explain its origins, as the license permits re-use of any wikipedia content, with the only requirement being correct attribution. And indeed much of wikipedia is echoed elsewhere, you can even find historically interesting copies of some of the earliest articles posted to wikipedia - historical "snapshots" of the whole of wikipedia as it was in the early days.

Misplaced Pages:User_pages#What_may_I_have_in_my_user_pages.3F

Thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 00:56, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Have just added a note to the top of the two article copies explaining the situation see User:Robertinventor/Karma_In_Buddhism and User:Robertinventor/Four_Noble_Truths

Hi Robert. Personally I don't mind about making back-up copies; actually I think it's a good idea. What I do mind about is using your blog to expose Wiki-disputes, instead of trying to settle them here at Misplaced Pages. It may work as a kind of WP:CANVASSING, attracting "participants" with a one-way-mind.

It's also about phrasing: "destroyed", or: "there was a version I really liked, with a lot of quotes which provided more insight. Here's a back-up copy, for anyone interested to learn more. And here's a pretty cool website from a dude who knows what he's talking about. And here's another one, which explains karma in plain language, instead of all the scholarly details. Who cares about the details, when you want to get a bette life?!?" Something like that.

Creating your own webpage/site, to give plenty of quotes, is a good idea of course. As a matter of fact, there is a WikiQuote page on karma! And I've just created WikiQuote "Karma in Buddhism".

By the way, I'm not the only editor who's objected against the abundance of quotes.

Another by the way (the sideways are getting crowded), I've added a few words to the "Karma in Buddhism" article:

"In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to intentional (cetanā) action,) "a deed done deliberately through body, speech or mind"."

1. Gethin 1998, p. 119. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGethin1998 (help)

1. ^ zenguide.com, Karma and reincarnation

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:48, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay - don't worry about canvassing. That's just a blog, and I have of course also talked about this on my facebook page. Any dispute like this is going to have people talking about it off-wiki and you can't avoid that. But haven't had a spate of people coming here to participate in the disputes as a result :). The only guideline there is not to post off wiki with the intention to attract readers to vote in deletion disputes and so forth. My experience of talking to facebook friends and blogging is that they don't do this anyway. If it is a case of a dispute in progress or a deletion debate or such like then I take extra care and say "this is not an invite to join the debate, please don't come and vote just because you like me". And nobody ever has done that. The only facebook friend actually who has ever entered any debate I've been involved in here was someone who was diametrically opposed to me on one of the debates, and he found out about it through wikipedia rather than facebook. Robert Walker (talk) 15:53, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I've added a note to that effect to my blog. As for calling it "destroyed" - well you did destroy his content. It's just blunt speaking again. I didn't say that you did something terrible, didn't say you were a terrible person. Just that you destroyed his content. Which is a matter of fact. At least that's how I see it. http://buddhistideas.quora.com/Recently-Destroyed-Misplaced Pages-Articles-on-Karma-in-Buddhism-and-the-Four-Noble-Truths-by-Dorje108

It's not an absolute prohibition anyway

n general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it is done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus.

However, canvassing which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate. This is because it compromises the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore is generally considered disruptive behavior.

After reading that, on second thoughts, I don't think I need to say that "they must not join it". I'm not asking people to join the debate or to vote either way. I've added the wikipedia guidelines on canvassing, so they can understand the situation for themselves. If someone wants to join the debate, why not? If you have a good case, they might as easily side with you as with me and Dorje. But from my previous experience of such things, I'd be very surprised if anyone does join the debate as a result of this post. And I've added a note also at the end to say I don't think of you as a terrible person for deleting the content :). I've added a note that it is your sincere opinion that wikipedia is better with your version of the articles. Robert Walker (talk) 16:30, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh Robert, come on, take a look at WikiQuote "Karma in Buddhism". Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:53, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I've no idea what point you are making, with the wikiquotes link. I said several things, what are you responding to? I'm probably missing the obvious but sorry, I don't get it. Robert Walker (talk) 17:26, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

All the quotes are there. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:08, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay got you. I've added the quote about "This famous statement is often misunderstood." by Piya Tan and Bhikkhu Bodhi to the first section. Of course this has no relevance either way to the debate about whether quotes or paraphrasing should be use din the main article. There are many articles here with quotes, and some of their quotes may also be in wikiquotes, but of course that doesn't mean you are prohibited from also using the same quotes here :). Robert Walker (talk) 12:18, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Time for a meditative break

Robert, don't forget to take a meditative break! Just one minute may help to take you out of your flow of thoughts-and-typing, and shorten your responses. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:14, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion :). Robert Walker (talk) 17:27, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Karma in Hinduism

You made some good suggestions. Unfortunately, as far as I know, I don't know many scholars who are familiar with the specific topic of karma in hinduism. The Brahma Sutras is an authoritative post-Vedantic test regarding karma in Hinduism, but other than Swami Sivananda, I am not aware of academic sources (Swami sivananda was a respected teacher, not a professor) who is knowledgeable on the subject.

Raj2004 (talk) 01:24, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this information :). Robert Walker (talk) 04:06, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. The academic study of religion is like literature. The best in religion are popular teachers unlike academics, similarly to writers vs academics in literature. Raj2004 (talk) 12:57, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well put. After all, who truly understands the teachings, those who try to put them into practice, or those who write about them? Of course, the best scholars do both. But for some academics, it's a bit like reading extensive treatises on the culinary virtues and drawbacks of chocolate by someone who has never tasted it :).

However, the article does quote some academics when it can such as Reichenbach, Bruce R. (April 1989). "Karma, causation, and divine intervention". Philosophy East and West (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press), Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy, pg. 34, by Vraj Kumar Pandey, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Dasgupta, Surendranath, A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume V, The Southern Schools of Saivism, p. 87. and Krishnan, Yuvraj, "The Doctrine of Karma," 1997, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. It appears that the Google link for the Krishnan resource is dead due to Google's decision to stop allowing links based upon a court decision. Raj2004 (talk) 14:35, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to say, I'm happy with the article as it is myself. The reason I was asking was because of a dispute on the Karma talk page; more scholarly sources could have been useful.

But I've given up on that discussion now, and the main Karma page still says "The law of karma operates independent of any deity or any process of divine judgment."

I think it is abundantly clear that Swami Sivananda thinks Karma requires a judge to carry it out (counter to the views of most Hindus I gather) as one of his proofs of the existence of God. Also abundantly clear that he had many followers and that the Divine Light movement is historically significant and notable. Yes is more properly a primary than a secondary source, but use of primary sources is not totally prohibited in wikipedia, especially in absence of good secondary sources, which we don't have yet.

From your article, seems some other (minority) Hindu groups have this "Karma as a judgement" view. But I've given up on it now, the other editor on the Karma article talk page in this discussion did not accept my reasoning there and has kept this sentence, and nobody else has supported me there. So leaving it at that for now. I don't edit war, especially on this subject.

It is all rather weird actually, as later in the Karma page he strongly supported some Western academics who seem to treat Karma as a judgement, pretty much anyway, in their criticisms of it.

But the other editor was adamant about keeping the article in this state, with these somewhat contradictory sections, immediately reverting what I thought was a non controversial qualification of his statement there. And I had no support from anyone else on the talk page, so I have given up for now. Maybe it will be sorted out some time in the future, if more editors get attracted to wikipedia with knowledge of these topics. Robert Walker (talk) 12:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Karma as a judgment dependent on a supreme being is the view of Vedanta, the major extant school of Hinduism to which Swami sivananda belongs to. All sub-schools of Vedanta teachers of Advaita, Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita are required to comment on the Brahma Sutras, which has a major discussion on karma and is a major Vedantic commentary on the Upanishdads There are other minority schools of Hinduism, which are not really currently in existence. I wish that there were other experts on karma but it ironically is not a topic frequently studied in universities of where we can get source information.Professors focus more on customs and other theological matters. Raj2004 (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you mean Divine Life Society not Divine Light movement. thanks. Raj2004 (talk) 13:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC) N

Yes that's what I meant, sorry! Oh so you'd say that Karma as a judgment dependent on a supreme being is the majority view in Hinduism? I was just going by Kautilya3 who commented on the talk page "I would say that karma is generally understood by Hindus to be an automatic causation of action-reaction without any divine intervention" Talk:Karma_in_Hinduism#All_sources_in_the_.22The_role_of_Divine_sources.22_section_have_just_been_marked_unreliable

Kautilya is wrong and does not have any basis as he does not cite any academic sources or even teachers. You can say that it is a majority view in Hinduism as Vedanta is the dominant extant school in Hinduism. But it is safer and non-controversial to say that this view of dependence on Ishvara or God is a Vedantic view. Raj2004 (talk) 01:26, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay thanks, good to know, as point of information. I won't attempt to suggest this on the talk page for Karma as the other editor there wasn't interested to discuss it further and they say I write too much on the talk pages - but am interested to know personally, thanks for clearing that up. Robert Walker (talk) 10:30, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. You have to realize that most Hindus are versed in popular Hinduism and are not versed in intricacies of philsophy and theology so I am not surprised about Kautilya's statement. It's like asking the average Catholic about being knowledgeable about Thomas Aquinas. Raj2004 (talk) 23:51, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, yes that makes sense also. Robert Walker (talk) 18:36, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. Thanks. Raj2004 (talk) 15:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Time for a break!

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:00, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. It is good to be reminded. You are right that I do have an issue of excessive writing on wikipedia talk pages which I am working on as best I can.

However, - at least I'm not a disruptive editor. I write a lot on the talk page, and then wait for consensus. I write in the article page only when I think my edits will be uncontroversial.

I'd far prefer to be like that, write too much on the talk pages - than to do extensive edits of the articles themselves with no prior discussion on the talk pages at all as you've been doing recently. Just saying.

Thanks for the reminder. Robert Walker (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Use of talk pages

Please:

"Be concise: Long, rambling messages are difficult to understand, and are frequently either ignored or misunderstood.

Avoid posting the same thread in multiple forums. This fragments discussion of the idea. Instead, start the discussion in one location, and, if needed, advertise that in other locations using a link.

Avoid repeating your own lengthy posts: Readers can read your prior posts, and repeating them, especially lengthy posts, is strongly discouraged. In some cases, it may be interpreted as an unwillingness to let discussion progress in an orderly manner.

Keep discussions focused: Discussions naturally should finalize by agreement, not by exhaustion." WP:TPNO

Thank you JimRenge (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of this issue, am being as concise as I can. But some things, I just don't know how to say them in few words. It is not at all an attempt at winning a discussion by exhaustion. Just being thorough in my answers to people's points. The problem is, that short messages are also frequently misunderstood too.

At least I'm not a disruptive editor. The worst anyone can say about me is that I write too much on talk pages. Robert Walker (talk) 01:53, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Gelug Geshes

The Gelug school has highly unusual perspectives, which are not shared by the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. I would never read or cite Gelug Geshes.VictoriaGrayson 00:29, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay - is this for the New Kadampa Tradition - if so I totally agree, but they are not representative are they? More generally, the main thing I know about the differences of the Gelugpa's is that they deny Buddha-nature and have differing views about the subtlest stages of understanding of emptiness, and that they are especially fond of that rapid hand clapping style of debating :). While some teachers are accomplished in all the four traditions of Buddhism, such as the Dalai Lama. Who surely is not regarded as a controversial source to cite in Tibetan Buddhism. I haven't myself heard anyone say that the Gelugpas as such are controversial sources, outside of the New Kadampa Tradition.

BTW I trimmed my comments on Kelsang Gyatso right down, too much of a digression, just say now that he is also considered controversial for his methods of ordination. And left out that commment on his learning - as I understand that there are some people who question whether he got a Geshe degree or not. I've no idea of the ins and outs of that, but on the talk page of his article, they decided not to say anything either way, as nobody there knew anything about it for sure. So I thought best to use the same policy and just not mention, and have also dropped the title in my reply as I just don't know for sure if he completed his degree, nobody seemed to know. Some seem to think it is just an honorific affectionate title in his case. Robert Walker (talk) 02:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

In all this I'm a practitioner primarily, my scholarship is rather in philosophy and maths. So am familiar with scholastic discipline but never been encouraged to become a Buddhist scholar myself. And approach this as someone who reads the articles on Buddhism rather than edits them, but has enough background in the scholarly discipline that I feel qualified to be able to recognize good scholarship when I see it. Also, because I read the articles as a practitioner, it may sometimes help to spot issues that arise from fundamental misunderstandings of the teachings like confusions of a Seed with an Intention. Robert Walker (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I am talking about ANY Gelug Geshe. And the Dalai Lama. VictoriaGrayson 02:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay why, say more? I've never heard this point of view. And what's your source for it, or is this a personal opinion? Robert Walker (talk) 03:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

See HERE.VictoriaGrayson 03:04, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh interesting hadn't heard that. It may relate to what I'd learnt, that they have different ideas from the other schools on the subtler stages of emptiness that I mentioned above, but didn't know that anyone thought of that as dubious, not just, a difference of views - of course you have many such differences in the various Buddhist schools.

I'd like to hear the other side of the account. The article just has a "criticism" section. Surely the Gelugpas are aware of these criticisms, so what do they say to them? Just did a bit of a web search but it didn't turn up much, so far, lots of copies of that wikipedia page mainly. Also to know, what is it about his teachings particularly that they regard as dubious, and not just, a difference of view? And why? Does it go counter to one of the Buddha's central teachings in some way? ... I mean - when they say "inspired by a demon" - in less colourful language I think that is essentially what it means, in Buddhism - an inspiration that goes counter to the Buddha's teachings and inspiration, as to whether there are such interfering external spirits or demons as real beings, well I keep an open mind but I think myself it may be just one way of looking at things. With the Dorje Shugden controversy, is easy to see why he is regarded as a demon by the Dalai Lama, his point of view is explained clearly. But here, no explanation just a statement. Maybe the Tibetan source says more? Robert Walker (talk) 03:27, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Read Karl Brunnholzl HERE.VictoriaGrayson 03:35, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I read that thanks, when you first posted the link. But it just says things like "All critics of Tsongkhapa, including the Eighth Karmapa, agree that many features of his Centrism are novelties that are not found in any Indian sources and see this as a major flaw.". But none of those quotes say anything at all about what those novelties are. So doesn't have the information I need to understand what the issue is about. And what do the Gelugpas say in return? It just alerts the reader that there is a controversy but there is no way to know from that section of the page what that controversy is exactly as far as I can see. Except presumably something to do with teachings on emptiness. I supposed it could be a matter that is too subtle to explain easily? Robert Walker (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The Gelugs admit their views are deviant. Read Thupten Jinpa, who is a Gelug, HERE.VictoriaGrayson 03:46, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I read that also. But I was none the wiser about what the debate was about and what the issue was. Just that he was someone of that opinion. But one Gelug saying this doesn't mean all Gelugs say this. Any more than one Westerner saying something means all Westerners do.

The thing is, for a reader not involved in an ancient debate like this, then - you start from the position that either side could be at fault or neither, could be a misunderstanding. Just because one notable source says another notable source is wrong - what do you conclude? Without knowing details, I think, nothing yet. They could both be wrong. Or both right and don't understand each other. Or the one that thinks the other one is wrong could be the one that has made a mistake. Or could be that the other one is wrong. By deviant here I assume they mean "non Buddhist" as what else could it be in the context? But in what sense? Do you see, I'm just left with lots of questions, no answers. All I can say for sure from reading that page is that there is some kind of controversy, but what exactly, I have no idea. Robert Walker (talk) 03:51, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I read all of the section (am a quick reader) and re-read it. Robert Walker (talk) 03:53, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

You have to read the books cited in that section obviously.VictoriaGrayson 03:55, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay - well I don't have access to a library at present - live in a remote Scottish island, so that's not a possibility sadly. Robert Walker (talk) 03:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

If you don't have even a basic understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, how can you proclaim Dorje108 as an excellent editor?VictoriaGrayson 04:01, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Not having access to a library doesn't mean that you can't recognize scholarship. I can also follow up the citations available on the internet, and there is a lot of content available on Buddhist scholarship, and that pans out. And also I can test what he says against my own understanding. Which comes from my teachers originally, not from books. But they were scholars and the books and the sutras - they confirm what they taught me. He doesn't make mistakes such as confusing Seeds with Intentions. Clearly someone who understands what he reads, unlike Joshua who though he has read a lot, doesn't seem to understand what he read.

BTW on that section - there will be other readers in the same position as me, who don't have easy immediate access to a library. Or who don't happen to be in a library while reading the article. And in any case you are asking them to read books in order to understand what an article is about. Is it not an idea to provide them with some summary of what the controversy is about? Or is it too complex to explain? If so - some hint, about why it is controversial? E.g. - what part of the Buddha's teachings does it contradict, if that's the issue, if not in detail why? Just a thought. Robert Walker (talk) 04:10, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

And he uses the correct methods and practices of scholarship also. Accurately summarizing what the sources say and not paraphrasing into his own words, or framing articles around ideas of his own to make some eccentric point. When I follow up, he accurately represents what the sources say. Robert Walker (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Obviously you can't recognize scholarship. Dorje108 is just a beginner Tibetan Buddhist, who simply stuffs articles with junk. VictoriaGrayson 04:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Well - that's rather my impression of Joshua Jonathan. At least in the field of Karma, he made one mistake after another in the talk page conversations. This is from the Karma article, which I felt was excellent before his interference with it. I haven't been following Four Noble Truths in the same way, but his actions on Karma in Buddhism give me no confidence anyway. And why such rapid edits to the article? Giving nobody any chance to comment on them first? It doesn't give me any confidence in him as an editor, to do that.

On "junk" - if I understand you right, you have already said you think all the teachings by the Dalai Lama are "junk". If so, it's not too surprising that you'd think that his articles are also. But I've not heard anyone else say that. And whatever the controversy you brought up is about - at any rate my understanding is that the present Dalai Lama is regarded by Tibetans as gifted in the field of scholarship, and understanding the four schools of Buddhism, bright, intelligent, widely learned, and scholarly. Which of course was not true of all past Dalai Lamas. Which is why I see him as a valid source to cite. And the other sources he used in the article were similar - including notable Western sources as well, but also the Tibetan sources were ones generally regarded as reliable and good sources as far as I could tell, not the likes of e.g. the New Kadampa tradition or whatever. Robert Walker (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The Dalai Lama's perspective is Gelug, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism. This is not representative of Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. And if you did want to cite Gelug views, there are plenty of academic books available. VictoriaGrayson 04:31, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm saying, he received the teachings, and had teachers, also transmissions, in all the schools. For instance in the Nyingmapa school, the one that I am in myself, he regards Dilgo Khyentse as his principal teacher in the teachings of DzogChen and Nyingmap, see Dilgo_Khyentse#Buddhist_studies. For the likes of you and me it is highly confusing to do that, but these, they are able to do that, to fully comprehend these incompatible views and schools. So saying he is a Gelugpa doesn't mean he is not also a Nyingmapa with the transmission and understanding of the Nyingmapa lineage as well. And similarly he is also a Sakya and a Kagyupa, has received their teachings and lineages also. Which makes him especially qualified to teach about Tibetan Buddhism - as few teachers have that background and understanding and capability. Robert Walker (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Dilgo Khyentse is actually a Sakya. All Khyentses are Sakya. But this is a common error.VictoriaGrayson 04:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

What's your source there? It says in the article that he was head of the Nyingmapa school. Which was also my understanding from my teacher who had him as one of his own teachers. Robert Walker (talk) 10:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Would like to just say something about the Tsong Khapa vision of Manjushri. Probably you know this but just to say that in Tibetan Buddhism there's the idea that new teachings can arise spontaneously, just as in the Zen tradition. Also the idea of termas, hidden teachings that are uncovered, from distant past. So the idea of a teaching arising in a vision could be either of these - a hidden "mind terma" or a new spontaneous teaching as in Zen. And the vision method of description - needn't be taken as "visited by an external spirit" - it is rather - a way of indicating that it came from something outside of his ordinary self. Which is often experienced as a vision as if taught by a living being other than yourself, but understood in this way, if it is of that type, as neither your ordinary self, nor truly a separate entity. In this case would be, wisdom itself, somehow so direct and vivid that it is experienced as a living presence. So, that he saw Manjushri as a vision - that's not controversial, as I understand it. The controversy would be, that what he saw wasn't Manjushri - i.e. not direct wisdom, but a demon instead. Or - something that is a manifestation of your self, fighting back against the teachings, and corrupting the teaching of the Buddha as we might perhaps express it. That of course would invalidate the teachings and so that is controversial. Robert Walker (talk) 10:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Seeds with Intentions

I wonder what makes you think that I confused "seeds" with "intentions"? See diff, in which I changed

"Karmic actions are compared to a seed that will inevitably ripen into a result or fruition"

into

"Karma refers to the intentions (cetanā) of actions the seeds of which will inevitably ripen into a result or fruition"

As far as I know, the action itself is not the impression or seed, but leaves an impression or seed. See also John Bowker. VictoriaGrayson, am I correct here? It was your beloved Dorje who wrote "Karmic actions are compared to a seed that will inevitably ripen into a result or fruition", without giving a source diff. Apparently he relied here on Harvey, who wrote

"Karma is often likened to a seed, and the two words for a karmic result, vipaka and phala, respectively mean 'ripening' and 'fruit'." (Harvey (2012), An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, p.40).

Harvey's stement is imprecise. Compare Dennis Hirota:

"Sarvastivadins argued that there exists a dharma of “possession” (prapti), which functions with all karmic acts, so that each act or thought, though immediately passing away, creates the “possession” of that act in the continuum of instants we experience as a person. This possession itself is momentary, but continually reproduces a similar possession in the succeeding instant, even though the original act lies in the past. Through such continual regeneration, the act is “possessed” until the actualization of the result.
Such views were rejected as contrary to the Buddha’s teaching of impermanence by other schools, notably the Sautrantikas, who insisted that each act exists only in the present instant and perishes immediately. To explain causation, they taught that with each karmic act a “perfuming” occurs which, though not a dharma or existent factor itself, leaves a residual impression in the succeeding series of mental instants, causing it to undergo a process of subtle evolution eventually leading to the act’s result. Good and bad deeds performed are thus said to leave “seeds” or traces of disposition that will come to fruition." (Dennis Hirota, "Karman: Buddhist Concepts. In: Lindsay Jones (ed.)(2004), Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol.8, p.5100)

Could it also be that you misread "impressions" for "intentions"? See also diff and diff. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:20, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I assume your comment may be of interest to all readers of Talk:Karma in Buddhism. JimRenge (talk) 11:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, yes perhaps I didn't describe what you said quite accurately sorry. First of all, I'm talking of course about the version as you had it before I raised the issue on the talk page.

Reviewing it just now, you didn't say that the seeds are the volitions. You said that the volitions create seeds, just by themselves, without any need for action. And in discussion on the talk page made it clear this wasn't just a textual slip but your understanding, that volitions inevitably lead to karmic results, without need for action.

Here is the original version: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Karma_in_Buddhism&oldid=636145804#Buddhist_understanding_of_karma

""The basic ideas is that kleshas ("disturbing emotions"), cetanā ("volition"), or taṇhā ("thirst", "craving") create impressions, tendencies or "seeds" in the mind. These impressions, or "seeds", will inevitably ripen into a future result or fruition."".

But this is an equally wrong view, that the cetanā by themselves immediately create seeds - or at least an unusual view that would need to be described as such and given a source.

I.e. the view thhat just the volitions by themselves inevitably create seeds in the mind. No mention of need for them to lead to action, and for the action to complete for them to become seeds. And no mention that this idea of a seed is a later idea that only a few Buddhists accept.

You later found a source for this view, a citation by a German scholar. But it is surely a minority and unusual view, as I think you surely now agree as you later corrected the sentence after I raised the issue. Robert Walker (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The difference from Dorje's version is that he talks about Karmic actions creating seeds - i.e. completed actions, not cetanā or volitions.

Also he attributes it to a particular author, here Peter Harvey so is summarizing what Peter Harvey says, which is the scholarly way of proceeding with a statement that is not universally accepted. He says "the process of karmic action and result is often compared to a seed and its fruit", giving Peter Harvey's statement as an example. Not as a "view from nowhere" simply stating that "Karmic actions produce seeds". That is how scholars should proceed in a situation like this. Robert Walker (talk) 18:46, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

So what you have there is still non scholarly actually but I distinctly do not want to get involved in becoming an editor of this article!! So I don't want to comment in any detail about your version as my comments may get taken up as revisions of the article which I do not feel qualified to do. Robert Walker (talk) 18:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Dorje108 version: Seed and fruit

This is how Dorje108 describes it: https://en.wikipedia.org/User:Robertinventor/Karma_In_Buddhism#Seed_and_fruit

The process of karmic action and result is often compared to a seed and its fruit. For example, Peter Harvey states:

"Karma is often likened to a seed, and the two words for karmic result, vipaka and phala, respectively mean 'ripening' and 'fruit'. An action is thus like a seed which will sooner or later, as part of its natural maturation process, result in certain fruits accruing to the doer of the action.

What determines the nature of the karmic 'seed' is the will or intention behind the act: 'It is will (cetana), O monks, that I call karma; having willed, one acts through body, speech, and mind' (A.III.415). It is the psychological impulse behind an action that is 'karma', that which sets going a chain of causes culminating in karmic fruit. Actions, then, must be intentional if they are to generate karmic fruits .

Ken McLeod states:

Karma, then, describes how our actions evolve into experience, internally and externally. Each action is a seed which grows or evolves into our experience of the world. Every action either starts a new growth process or reinforces an old one as described by the four results. Small wonder that we place so much emphasis on mindfulness and attention. What we do in each moment is very important!"

1. Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen 2009, pp. 55–56. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKhenchen_Konchog_Gyaltshen2009 (help)
2. Harvey 1990, pp. 39–40. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHarvey1990 (help)

And later:

Dorje108 version: Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika

https://en.wikipedia.org/User:Robertinventor/Karma_In_Buddhism#D.C4.81r.E1.B9.A3.E1.B9.AD.C4.81ntika-Sautr.C4.81ntika

The Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika school pioneered the idea of karmic seeds (S. bija) and "the special modification of the psycho-physical series" (S. saṃtatipaṇāmaviśeṣa) to explain the workings of karma.

1. Park 2007, pp. 234–236. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPark2007 (help)

Do you see what I mean? Robert Walker (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a big deal if this was a brand new article, new articles on Misplaced Pages often have such issues. And it is okay for a wikipedia editor to start off with a partial understanding of a topic and for that understanding to develop as they edit the article and get new criticism. Something is better than nothing, as it gives material for other editors to improve.

But what makes it a big deal is that you took an existing article that was already accurate, and had been worked on for many years, including eighteen months of patient work by User:Dorje108, and had none of these issues, and turned it into an article that is basically at the condition of an early stage draft, removing most of the useful content of the previous article in the process. And did it without prior discussion on the talk page, which could have identified and corrected such issues as these before they arose in the article itself. Robert Walker (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

And not saying that I understand the topic well enough to write an article either. I understand enough to spot some obvious errors, that's all. But would be sure to make numerous mistakes of my own.

That's why I say nobody posting on the talk page is eligible to rewrite the entire article either, except Dorje108, because clearly none of us have the specialist understanding needed for this topic - one of the hardest in Buddhism to present clearly and most easily misunderstood. Though of course anyone is able to contribute extra citations and help with their understanding of particular details, or suggest better ways of organizing and presenting material which sometimes a newbie can see more easily than a specialist on a topic, etc.

The reason I say that clearly nobody watching the page apart from him has this understanding is because neither you or anyone else watching the page spotted this error before me. And it is just the first error I spotted on the page, right near the start of the article, didn't bother to check any further after that.

Dorje108 understandably has just ceased involvement in the article talk page discussion. Robert Walker (talk) 18:25, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

So, I edited the article, merged a couple a sentences, and you noticed something that could be improved. Previously, Dorje had reduced "karma" to plain action. An obvious mistake. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:49, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

See diffs for the extent of your rewrites of the articles.

For Karma in Buddhism: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Karma_in_Buddhism&diff=635624203&oldid=632340477

For Four Noble Truths: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Four_Noble_Truths&diff=635891831&oldid=629066305

Robert Walker (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't spot any errors in Dorje's version. And yours was a fundamental confusion such as you'd only get in an early stage draft, not in a mature article. If what we had there was a first draft of the article, newly written, I might feel I could mention some fundamental issues with it, perhaps, like this one. Or more likely, I think, faced with an article like this, I'd just add a template "attention needed by expert in Buddhist views of Karma". But why replace a mature article, worked on for years, by such an "early draft full of mistakes" type article. Including also that you left out the section on Karma not a Judgement, and on Karma as one of the Imponderables, and many other significant sections that are essential for understanding the topic. And stripped all the quotes from the footnotes, etc etc. And why do all that with no prior discussion on the talk page either?

Do you see the point? Perhaps see that there might be some reason behind my suggestion to roll back, and go through the issues you found with it one at a time giving Dorje108 and others time to respond and discuss them one at a time? Especially since he is a collaborative style editor, always considerate in his dealings here as you remarked yourself, and who does not engage in any disruptive editing behaviour. Robert Walker (talk) 18:56, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to be involved as an editor myself as I'd make numerous mistakes like yourself. My first act if I was asked to edit the article as i please would be to restore Dorje's version - which is not just his version incidentally - he is just the latest editor - is the version that it arrived at after editing by several editors for many years - and then ask for help. Robert Walker (talk) 14:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Forget about the Dalai Lama

Forget about the Dalai LamaVictoriaGrayson 19:45, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I think he is one of the better sources on Tibetan Buddhismmyself. But understand you don't see him this way. But I think you'll find that we continue to discuss him as he is a notable writer on Tibetan Buddhism, who you can't ignore. I've commented on the discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Buddhism#Wording_of_RFC

Thats because you don't know anything about Tibetan Buddhism.VictoriaGrayson 16:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Get over it and move on

Robert, you've been howling now for a couple of months over karma; could you please get over it and move on? See also WP:DONTGETIT. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:27, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

You are being just as rude as youre colleague, Victoria. Why? Do you think this is the best way to win disputes on WP?Andi 3ö (talk) 03:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Well if we are talking about numbers of words written I think you've written as much on the topic and done it just as strongly as i have. And what's more have totally rewritten a couple of articles also. While i haven't touched a word of the articles, just protested against your actions on the talk pages. ~

As I've said on the talk page for Karma in Buddhism I think the next step is to investigate to see if this is considered a user conduct issue - your actions rewriting these already mature articles so radically, not actions on talk pages of course. So - I plan to do that, will find out what the situation is and if we have a case for a roll back. Robert Walker (talk)

I've already alerted you to WP:BOLD. A rollback is only appropriate in case of vandalism. Be aware of WP:BOOMERANG. Your edit-history, and your talkpage, speaks against you. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:43, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

And this? Is this some kind of psychological tactic? Subtle threats of Boomerangs... not polite either!Andi 3ö (talk) 03:38, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I have asked about it here purely as a matter of information. I am not going to take any action right now. Robert McClenon has been very helpful in hte past, and an experienced wikipedian who hopefully can put us straight on this. I.e. whether or not it is a user conduct issue or we have a case for a roll back. I have worded it neutrally, just asked for advice. User_talk:Robert_McClenon#User_Conduct_issue_for_Karma_in_Buddhism_and_Four_Noble_Truths Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

December 2014

Hello, I'm Joshua Jonathan. I noticed that you made a comment on the page Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Buddhism that didn't seem very civil. Misplaced Pages needs people like you and me to collaborate, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Don't accuse me of racism: "Your only reasoning for calling these scholars primary seems to be their ethnic origin" Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:40, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't mean it like that. But how else to describe your views? I mean not as racist, but your view that academics trained in Tibetan or Thailand or Sri Lankan places of learning are primary sources and not suitable as secondary sources? Is it not because of their ethnic origin as traditional Buddhists that you object to them? Ethnic doesn't need to have anything to do with race, and I didn't mean it that way, you could be European but brought up as a Thai and then you'd be ethnically Thai I'd say. I will have a go at editing it to be clearer. But I didn't for a moment mean to accuse you of racism, sorry that it came over that way. Robert Walker (talk) 13:53, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I have just made this reply there:

Sorry, didn't mean it that way. By ethnic origin I didn't mean anything to do with their physical characteristics. All I meant there was their origins as traditional Buddhists educated in traditional Buddhist establishments of learning. As wikipedia puts it: "An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially-defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience" see Ethnic group. So, you have identified a particular ethnic group, in this sense, and said that none of them are suitable as secondary sources in articles on Buddhism - if I understand your position correctly. If this is not what you mean, do explain so I understand your views better.

Once more sorry for any offence and it was totally not intended. Robert Walker (talk) 14:04, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Apologies accepted, of course. Sorry for the hards words. Robert, once again: I love Buddhist teachers. I love Ramana Maharshi. I love Krishnamurti. I love Hakuin. They saved my soul. But I also love those critical, academic westerners, wh are not satisfied with traditional beliefs. John McRae's "Seeing through Zen" was a liberation; Bronkhorst, who noticed that the four truths are a later addition to MN36; and Tillman Vetter, who noticed that originally the Buddha's basic message & practive may have been as simple as: "Be compassionate, be mindfull, and practice meditation. It works, it brings to rest the unrest of the heart, I've really experienced this myself". So simple, so basic. And the funny thing is: this is also what all the Buddhist teachers say.
Robert, it's time to close this whole fuzz. I work hard to read, comprehend, and give back those sources, primary and secondary. I hope that removing the dust from the treasure may help people in their practice. And serious, I love those teachers. But I also love those critical academics. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

PS: I envy your remote Scottish island. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

First thanks for accepting my apology. To answer the other things you say.

So, first, the discussion is not about popular teachers. It is about Thai scholars and Sri Lankan scholars and Tibetan scholars who are recognized as erudite and knowledgeable about their subject. And there is a long tradition in Sri Lanka and Tibet - going back eventually to C6 India of critical scholarship, qestioning everything. Which they have brought into the modern age using modern methods.

I've already agreed that there are also popular teachers, just as you have in Christianity, who are not erudite and not suitable as secondary sources. Same is true for Buddhism. That's not questioned. But it doesn't mean, because there are some popular teachers of that type, that all Sri Lankan scholars for instance, educated in Sri Lanka following traditional methods of scholarship there are invalidated as secondary sources. Or in Thailand or in Tibetan traditions etc. Robert Walker (talk) 15:59, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Also - the idea that the Buddha only taught a middle way and some simple teaching about mindfulness and compassion - well some western scholars think that yes. But you need to discriminate between what are the views of a particular scholar, and what is "the truth" in some objective sense. Because someone says this, doesn't mean that "this is the truth". There are other scholars who say that the Pali Canon preserves the Buddha's teachings pretty much as he taught. And they have excellent reasons for believing that, since the monks are able to memorize the entire Pali canon and recite it, all 16,000 pages, without a word wrong. As now recognized in the Guiness book of records. So previously monks surely could do the same. And in the past when things were not written down there was a lot of emphasis on memorization. And the internal evidence in the sutras says that Buddha's disciples, that when they discovered that the leader of the Jains died and that his students disagreed about his teachings, then they started to memorize the sutras while the Buddha was still alive. And then after he died, collated and rehearsed all the teachings, deciding on a final version of each sutra after comparing their memorized versions and then reciting the selected final version in unison. And this has continued ever since, and they eventually wrote them down 450 years later, may seem a long time but with monks able to remember the entire canon word for word for 16,000 pages, is reasonably plausible that this happened.

These western scholars want to have Buddhism without nirvana, and Hinduism without moksha. Okay - let them say that, that is their view. But to say that all Eastern practitioners have to share these views - that's where it goes over the top. Misplaced Pages when describing Karma in Buddhism should talk about Karma as it is understood by the Buddhists on the ground. Not Karma as a group of Western academics have decided is the way that Buddhists should interpret it. Well that's how I see it and you haven't persuaded me otherwise. And we are currently divided three : three in the RfC so you can't say you have won your case there. Robert Walker (talk) 16:09, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

We are not interested in your personal New Age views.VictoriaGrayson 16:28, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Why are you so rude? I've read most of the recent discussions between you and JJ and Robert and Dorje on the other side and i see a recurring pattern of you being short and rude in your answers and Robert or Dorje being polite elaborate.Andi 3ö (talk) 03:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Nirvana and Moksha are hardly New Wave! These are the views of 20% of the World's population. See List of religious populations. I think they would be rather astonished to learn that a small group of Western academics consider that they should not have these views. Robert Walker (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

What is New Wave?VictoriaGrayson 23:45, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know but surely not a religion that is 2500 years old and with teachings about Nirvana going back at least over 2000 years - nobody doubts that - these academics are just challenging whether they go back another 450 years before that, I think on not very strong evidence. But whatever, how can a 2,000 year old teaching be "New Wave"? Robert Walker (talk) 23:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Posts to User talk:Robert McClenon

Too long, didn't read as to the Buddhist issues. Please summarize it, rather than providing me with a long complaint of your issues with Joshua Jonathan. On the one hand, I think that I agree as to the nonsense of dismissing Buddhist scholarship from the status of secondary sources simply because it is Buddhist scholarship. That is no different from saying that only non-Christian scholars can comment on Christianity. However, I don't know what the conduct issue is, because your post was too long. Reply on my talk page, not here, please. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want me to comment, what talk pages should I look at, anyway? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I oppose Robert McClenon as a "neutral" party.VictoriaGrayson 17:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that I am a neutral party, but I am not a knowledgeable party, and don't know why I have been canvassed. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, I didn't mean it that way, hope what I said on his talk page now makes it clearer. There is a process of third party resolution yes but that's something we would all need to agree on in advance as you rightly say. I think it is not usually used when there are many editors as there are now. Anyway I wasn't attempting this. As far as I know, the process of RfC is the way to go. If he did have other suggestions, such as third party resolution then I'd take it to the rest of you for decision as to whether to follow that up.

But I'm not asking him about the RfC or justification for Joshua Jonathan's edits. But about the rapid editing without prior consultation on the two pages. That only.

If there was some other procedure for us to follow e.g. roll back, I'd take that to Dorje first see if he wants to go ahead. All of this is just preliminary question about appropriate procedures. Is that clearer? Robert Walker (talk) 19:22, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Buddhism Issue

I don't have a clue why I have been canvassed here. I have not edited in Buddhist-related discussion and have very little knowledge of Buddhism, other than that it is one of the world's major religions and has good ethical teachings. I see that there is a content issue. I see that there is a Request for Comments open, which is a good way to resolve content issues. I see claims that there is a conduct issue, but the statement of the conduct issue, if any, is too long, difficult to read. At this time I have no plans to get involved. If you really want my involvement, other than advice to follow dispute resolution, be clear and concise, and don't rant. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:55, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I've just posted about this on your talk page. I'm not looking for a neutral party. Just for advice on user conduct and procedure because you have been helpful in the past. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 19:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Not a Conduct Issue

I was asked whether there was a conduct issue in taking a mature article and rewriting it without prior discussion on the talk page. No, there is not. See WP:BRD. Edit-warring is a conduct issue. Personal attacks are a conduct issue. Discuss the changes on the talk page, or use dispute resolution. In this case, I see that there is a Request for Comments in process. Let it run its course. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I know you've answered already but just for point of information, the problem here with WP:BRD is that nobody reverted his edits when he applied them. I noticed after he had completely rewritten the article - and it would have meant reverting several pages of edits in the edit history to get back to the original. I wasn't checking wikipedia that often at the time and hadn't thought to put this article on my watch list, just thought it was a great article but didn't think it needed watching. As for Dorje108, he spends less time on wikipedia than most, and he had stopped editing anyway as a result of the bold rewrite of the 4 noble truths article. (I'm also rather hesitant of doing the R of BRD because of several past experiences here on wikipedia where that has just lead to the other editor ignoring the D and doing another R). Robert Walker (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you think that he destroyed the article?

If you think that another editor essentially destroyed an article by boldly rewriting it and leaving out scholarly information, then my advice would be start another Request for Comments on whether to restore the stable version of the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay yes that is exactly what I think indeed my words exactly. I blogged about it here at the time:

"Recently Destroyed Misplaced Pages Articles on Karma in Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths by Dorje108"

I'll report this to User:Dorje108, thanks! As the previous main editor he is the one most affected. Any other thoughts be sure to say, Thanks!

Robert Walker (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

But on reflection - do we have any chance of success? After all it is 3 : 3 in the RfC at present and probably would be the same. If it was equally balanced, what is the outcome in a case like this? For sure Joshua Jonathan is going to vote to keep his version no matter what. Is it just a gesture? Robert Walker (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I know from previous experience that sometimes there is nothing you can do, so would also want to know if this is a situation like that. Robert Walker (talk) 19:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Robert, there's a better solution for reaching a compromise: which parts did you really like? A lot of info is still there, Djlaiton4 just reinserted some info, and I'll have to look again at the Theravada-part, if some of it should be restored, but shortened. So, what are you missing now? Also, simply reverting would also "destroy" all the work I have put into the article, trying to be as carefull as possible (and please, don't start another argument over that; stick to this proposal). Be specific; not "all the quotes", but specific parts and sections. Maybe we can work it out that way. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I have also edited both articles

I have also edited both articles.VictoriaGrayson 23:20, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, after Joshua Jonathan rewrote it. It's not your edits that are the issue here. I haven't been following what happened after he edited away most of the previous article. But if you don't roll back I think it will be several years before you get back to an article as good as the one that was there before. Robert Walker (talk) 23:55, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The article was absolutely crap before.VictoriaGrayson 00:02, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Rude again. Why? Andi 3ö (talk) 03:27, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome to your views of course. But you have said several times that the Dalai Lama's books are not valid secondary sources for articles on Buddhism, and you think that Nirvana should not be treated as a central concept in Buddhism, if I understand your comments above, regarding that as a "new age concept". So, obviously you are going to assess the article a bit differently from someone who regards the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist scholars traditionally educated in Eastern establishments as valid sources, and who considers that the four noble truths are central to the Buddhist teachings as well as the sutras.

The thing is though - that your views here are a minority view, as far as I can tell, and Misplaced Pages is not out to find out "what is the truth" as perceived by a small group of western academics. It should just present the views and findings of everyone, and with preference for the majority view beliefs, when describing Karma in Buddhism. Surely? Your views can be presented, I mean, not as "your views" but because they are the views of some academics who are notable enough to count as secondary sources on the topic - but - just because they are minority views - surely shouldn't frame the entire article and be used to exclude sources that contradict them? I don't think, surely, that the majority of Buddhists think that Gelugpas are in some way deluded and that the Dalia Lama is not a valid secondary source. So - there you are using your own personal views to shape how the articles are presented - are you not? However right you might think you might be - that's good reason to write a blog or article about it - but - to write an encyclopedia article based around those ideas? Robert Walker (talk) 00:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Your personal views on these subjects are New Age.
• All knowledgeable Tibetan Buddhists understand the uniqueness of the Gelug school. You can ask a knowledgeable Tibetan Buddhist editor @CFynn:.
• Should I quote basic Tibetan history books on the subject?VictoriaGrayson 00:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Is this because I said that Nirvana is central to Buddhism? That seems to be what started this whole conversation but that is an ancient Buddhist idea that is at least 2000 years old, and plenty of people think, probably 2500 years old. It is what several % of the world's population believes to be the Buddha's teaching.

Do you agree with that? That most Buddhists consider the four noble truths to be central teachings, and that only a few Western academics (by no means all of them) have a differing view there. Do you agree this is a minority view - whether "right" or not - that it is a minority view? Robert Walker (talk) 00:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Nirvana is not the goal of Mahayana Buddhism. The goal of Mahayana is Buddhahood. Nirvana is arhatship. This is basic Mahayana, which you seem not to be aware of.VictoriaGrayson 00:47, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

It's called Nirvana in Mahayana Buddhsim also. Nirvana_(Buddhism)#Two_levels Robert Walker (talk) 00:50, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Nirvana is not the goal of Mahayana Buddhists. This is the most basic fact.VictoriaGrayson 00:53, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Depends how it is taught perhaps. And how you understand "goal" too.

After all, Shakyamuni Buddha attained Nirvana - and then after death then he entered paranivarna. So a Buddha can attain Nirvana. To be a Buddha you have to see through the illusion of self. So have to realize Nirvana. But that may not be your aim, true. Your aim may be for all beings to be free from Samsara indeed. Not even to be a Buddha yourself, if you are on the bodhisattva path - then your aim may be to become Buddha to help all beings, or it may be, for all other beings to become Buddha first before you, and you just don't care what happens to yourself.

Still, it would happen at some point as a result of that aim. That's how I've heard it taught. But there is a difference here between the mahayana path, and the path of mahayana Buddhists. Most mahayana Buddhists are probably following mainly a hinayana type path as in their main focus, understandably, is in dealing with their own day to day problems. That's where we all start, though we may have the wish or aspiration to follow the Mahayana path. There isn't this distinction, for that matter, Therevadhan Buddhists are not "hinayana" I think is generally agreed, just an older style of teaching by the Buddha. Of course can have bodhisattva Therevadhans. Robert Walker (talk) 01:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Bodhisattva#In_Therav.C4.81da_Buddhism

At least that's how I've understood it. Robert Walker (talk) 01:55, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

From the viewpoint of Mahayana, Shakyamuni was an emanation of Vajradhara. So Shakyamuni did not attain nirvana. He was an emanation.VictoriaGrayson 03:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I think that must be some particular school or way of thinking. I've come across that. But - has the difficulty that then he isn't really showing the path to freedom from Samsara. I was taught that he was a bodhisattva but not a Buddha until he became enlightened. Though another way of looking at it, we are all Buddha already :). Buddhas see us as already enlightened if we could just link into that ourselves. So, in that sense when you become enlightened - you find out that you always have been enlightened. So that's a bit like, so in that sense he would be enlightened already, never has been unenlightened. So was taught that that is something you can link into, as well, and that there are practices to do with that. I think Zen Buddhism works a bit like that, is a practice along those lines somewhat. The so called "sudden enlightenment" school, idea you can link directly to it in every moment. Robert Walker (talk) 05:09, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

There's another difficulty also. If he was already enlightened, and always has been, how is it that we are able to interact with him - that his disciples were able to do that? How did that connection get started to permit any ordinary being to see him, if he has always been enlightened, no concepts, no illusions, never caught up in Samsara in any way? Because I was taught again - that the reason we are able to interact with Buddhas in the ordinary sense as beings in this world is because of the actions they did in the past before they became enlightened and our connections we developed with them then. Otherwise we'd only be able to relate to them in some kind of very subtle formless fashion and never meet them in ordinary bodies like ourselves. If I remember those teachings rightly - was a fair while back, that is the gist of it as best I remember it now. Robert Walker (talk) 05:13, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Two Things

First, you complained about the results of a Request for Comments which is currently at no consensus, but the RFC that you mentioned is the existing RFC, about primary and secondary sources of Buddhist scholars. I was advising you to post a different RFC about whether to restore the article to a previous stable version. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I understood that, that you meant a different RfC. I wasn't meaning to complain about the existing RfC - an RfC is an RfC. That one is currently tied and not looking likely to be resolved in the near future.

The thing was though that on reflection at least two of the editors who voted in that RfC have already said clearly that they want to keep the present form of the article. That's User:Joshua Jonathan and User:VictoriaGrayson. And then there are two editors who clearly will want the old version restored, myself and User:Dorje108.

So - we have some votes where it is already clear in advance which way they will vote even before anyone posts an RfC. It starts off with two votes against it and two in favour . Also, there is no chance of any of those votes changing. So, how is an RfC like that going to resolve the situation?

Maybe I misunderstood something there?

I do want to do something about it. But when you see as a certainty from the get go that there is no possibility of a consensus emerging, sometimes it is better not to start the process, is it not?

Second, you did it again. You are a well-meaning but very annoying requester of assistance. You asked for my help, and then, when I gave you advice, you said that maybe you can't do it, that maybe it is hopeless, that the RFC is running neutral rather than for you. You wasted my time and wouldn't even help yourself. Why? Why? Why do you ask for help and then say that you won't follow through? Do you really want other editors to hand you results on silver platters? This is a warning. In the future, if you request assistance, and I then see that you have first asked for help, and then blown off the help because you decide that you have already lost, I will ask to have you blocked as a troll. You really have pushed my patience. I am a patient man, and you have pushed my patience. Do not post to my talk page again if you will then blow off my advice by saying that other editors are working against you. Do not ever blow off my advice again. You owe me an apology. If you really think that he has destroyed the article, then post the RFC about restoring it, rather than walking off and saying that the world doesn't agree with you. Do something. Or don't do something. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I think he has destroyed it indeed. Really sad to see such a good article destroyed. But he obviously doesn't think this. Is there any way you can win an RfC against two definite opposes right from get go, and when you know they won't change? If it is possible to do that, then I will take it to Dorje who has to decide on this I think, whether to go ahead.

But if it is flat out impossible to win against two votes, which is what I thought must be the case - then why put everyone to the hassle of trying to fight a battle you can't win? That's where I'm coming from. I didn't know what you would advise so didn't know this was going to happen when I asked you the original question. Robert Walker (talk) 04:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Third, you initially asked the Help Desk for an issue that I was interested in. I responded. You then dragged me into an issue in which I have very little interest, except as to Misplaced Pages itself. Don't drag me into issues unless you are willing to champion your own cause. Don't expect me to champion your cause if you get cowardly (which appears to have happened). Don't ever ask me to come in if you get out. Don't ever do that. Do you really want me to ask to have you blocked? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about this. I misread the situation. And, you can call me coward, perhaps I am, but I am not keen on fighting battles here. Especially if there seems no hope. I was hoping for something like perhaps an automatic roll back pending outcome of the RfC or some such. And - fighting, here on Misplaced Pages, has only got me into trouble, so it is not something I'm keen to do for that reason. Last time I tried to fight my cause you told me that I came close to being banned from editing the Mars section of wikipedia. I never understood the reason for that decision.

So, there's clearly quite a risk of something like that boomeranging, in a situation where I feel I don't understand the rules and why things happen and am well out of my depth, which is why I'm very cautious about such things also and why I wanted advice before attempting anything. Robert Walker (talk) 04:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it is some flaw in me, I don't know. Don't seem to have much luck with the processes here. Though I am grateful to you for preventing the merge of Interplanetary Contamination with Planetary protection when it got to the point where that was about the only remaining material left in Misplaced Pages on planetary protection last time. Without your help they might have both gone by now, certainly interplanetary protection would be gone as that had already happened when you stepped in, and Planetary protection had already been rewritten and re-arranged and I think would soon have been reduced to a stub.

So that was a great help. But I can understand now, that this was a mistake to ask you to help on this other issue. Sorry about that. Robert Walker (talk) 04:38, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh Robert, we really have to stop now! Our calendar has a great text today: "The most important joureny you're going to make in your life is meeting people halfway." A great reminder. My Buddhist practice is worthless when we get stuck up here. Let me repeat my proposal: which parts of the "old" version did you really like, and would you like to preserve? A lot of the info from the old version is still there, but condensed; Djlaiton4 jsut reinserted some info; and I'll have to look again at the Theravada-part. Please make a list at the talkpage of "Karma in Buddhism", and let's try to wrok this out together. Take care, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh I didn't see that suggestion. But I'd want to ask Dorje on that not use my own judgement. Because - whatever you say, to my mind he has a far better understanding of all this than any of the rest of us. And I don't like to be an editor of the article myself even to the extent of proposing what to include. Because I am well aware what a very subtle and difficult subject it is to present clearly. And how very easy it is to get things wrong. You did that a couple of times. I am absolutely certain that if I tried to help as an editor that I'd get numerous things wrong. It is just way way out of my depth. But Dorje can help put you straight there. If he is interested in this proposal. He is an easy editor to work with as I remember you remarked yourself. Robert Walker (talk) 05:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

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