Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 16:44, 15 July 2009

Earl J

Hello

You recently left me a message which I've deleted largely unread, because you're banned. If you're interested in discussing these matters, we first need to discuss your socking, and the reasons for your ban, and the possibility of reversal William M. Connolley (talk) 08:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I am pleased that you are at least open to a discussion. Which talk page would be most appropriate.

Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 19:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Pick any one of your many socks, they are all equivalent. Perhaps this one? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Naturally, I would love to come back as a normal editor and not use socks. However, I don't exactly have a stellar record, especially with my numerous accounts. So I don't know whether a reversal of my ban is possible. Anything is possible though. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if a reversal is possible either. Certainly, you would first have to give up using socks - until that happens you will get nowhere William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in but even as you make this appeal to an admin to solve problems caused by these socks, those socks are still out there, every day. It is a bit ironic to try to make admins feel guilty! You are still pushing on with these actions which are just creating excuses for POV editing from all sides, on articles which were already difficult.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Are there any new socks since this conversation began? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think Andrew is speaking in general terms rather than in the present. I have not had any socking activity since the creation of this account. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 02:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

OK. You will have to accept a fair degree of hostility due to your past activities. Should you wish to become a reformed character, then you'll need to just ignnore any such comments William M. Connolley (talk) 07:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

So. It appears to me that you were indef'd a while ago: 2008-07-08T17:25:09 MastCell (talk | contribs | block) blocked Muntuwandi (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Has used at least 5 checkuser-confirmed socks to evade his latest block; long history of disruption). To get that overturned you'll need to (a) give up socks and (b) promise to avoid disruption. That would likely include a 1RR parole (probably indefinitely) and very likely avoiding stuff like AErc for a while William M. Connolley (talk) 07:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that is standard practice. I can give up socks.

I would also like to give my side of the story. This controversy started two years ago, when I created an article Origin of religion. This article was deleted by the AFD Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Origin of religion. Basically some users felt that the application of evolutionary theory to religion was original research so the article was deleted. I had done significant research on the topic, and I felt the decision to delete the article was a poor one. Specifically, the people who wanted to delete the article hadn't seemed to have read a single one of the references cited. So I recreated the article, several times for which I was deemed to have been disruptive. I was eventually blocked for recreating it several times. However since then, the application of evolutionary theory to religious behavior is now becoming an established scientific field. For example, this project Evolutionary religious studies, was recently established by David Sloan Wilson. So the AFD decision to delete the article has in retrospect, proved to be wrong. This obviously highlights a disturbing trend of anti-intellectualism on wikipedia. Many editors often voice strong opinions but they never do any research, they never read any books or journals on the topics they voice their opinions on. Users who do research are shoved into a corner if they are not part of the Misplaced Pages's elite.

Rather than dealing with the politics, I decided to create an alternate account and work in the shadows. The articles I created, such as Evolutionary origin of religions and Timeline of religion seem to be doing pretty well and have attracted the significant attention from other users, they even appear here. Basically, I am questioning the conventional wisdom that I am disruptive editor, because the actual evidence shows this to not be the case.

Just to clarify certain misconceptions, my block had nothing to do with Ancient Egyptian race controversy. I was not a party involved in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Dbachmann and I am not mentioned there at all. I had been interested in the topic a couple of years ago, but I took the page off my watchlist because the debates were too acrimonious. I only recently started editing this article this year. I have no prior blocks or bans related to Ancient Egyptian race controversy. My block is almost entirely related to Origin of religion.

If I were ever to come back as a normal editor, I would urge you to consider an unconditional return. I may be looking a gift horse in the mouth. But the reality is I've been blocked simply for adding useful information to Misplaced Pages. It may seem absurd, but strange things happen on Misplaced Pages. From a utilitarian perspective, unconditional return would be great for wikipedia. I spend a lot of time researching topics, and like other contributors, I offer the fruits of my labor for free. Though, I edit war frequently, it is simply that edit warring has unfortunately become a necessary evil. There are far too many irrational, anti-intellectuals and POV pushers. Such types aren't responsive to polite talk page postings. Andrew has been trying the polite approach with the likes of Sophian and Small victory, but they are completely irrational. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 16:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you'll get an unconditional return. I'll talk to your blocking admin. I strongly urge you to put aside talk such as "edit warring has become a necessary evil". That is the quickest way to get your ban reconfirmed William M. Connolley (talk) 18:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate that. I agree that it is not appropriate to say that edit warring has become a necessary evil. If no edit warring is a condition attached to a possible return, I would abide by that condition. I have only had limited interaction with Mastcell, in fact my only interaction with him has been the block. I wouldn't be surprised if doesn't remember issuing the block. Here are the links to the ANI threads Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive445#Proposed_indef_block_of_User:Muntuwandi and Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive444#Heavier_Sanctions_needed. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 19:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Redneck, your socking has been disruptive and it's also complicated the appeals of the other editors trying to work on the Egyptian article. I understand your frustrations, but Misplaced Pages works by consensus. So if the consensus on a particular issue is idiotic, that's the way it goes. But usually people are fairly reasonable and if you're willing to play by the rules it can be fun. Edit warring isn't a successful approach, so you'll need to just drop it. If you can't win an argument you can bring the issue up on a 3rd opinion board, maybe the article content noticeboard or the request for comment board. But basically, there are sometimes frustrations and people making edits that are disagreeeable and sometimes wrong. But there will undoubtedly be others who think your edits are wrong. And so it goes. Good luck. I hope you'll take up WMC on his generous offer as you seem to have a lot of good sense and expertise to offer. I also suggest broadening out your editing interests. Those who edit articles of very personal and emotional interest are the ones who get the most frustrated. There's just no way to take ownership of an article. That is unless you have a lot of very powerful admin buddies, and that takes time to achieve. :) Take care. Only kidding with that last bit... ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware that all the other editors are being treated as potential socks on account of my actions. So there is atmosphere of paranoia regarding socks, but it is only me who is a sock and only used one account up until my discovery. I've been following the article for a while, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the editors involved here are socks. One of the problems with Misplaced Pages right now is that the dispute resolution process, is almost non-existent. I remember one editor making fun of me for not getting any responses to a dispute resolution request I filed. 3O, RFCs, and dispute resolution now have low traffic. So one has no one to turn to in a dispute. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 19:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Auton et al

Since I should not post this to Talk:Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe, posting here is a small consolation. The following section was added by Small Victory here and it states

A similar study by Auton et al. 2009, which also contains an admixture analysis chart but no cluster membership coefficients, shows little to no sub-Saharan African influence in a wide array of European samples, i.e. Albanians, Austrians, Belgians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Czechs, Danes, Finns, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Irish, Italians, Kosovars, Latvians, Macedonians, Netherlanders, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Russians, Scots, Serbians, Slovakians, Slovenians, Spaniards, Swedes, Swiss (German, French and Italian), Ukrainians, United Kingdom and Yugoslavians.

The information is allegedly sourced from the supplementary material of a study by Auton et al 2009. I raised concerns about this content , stating that above statement was not supported by the supplementary material. I further stated that it is original research for wikipedians to interpret and analyze charts from articles in ways that the publishers of the chart have not done. I even stated that this was textbook case of original research. For stating this, Small Victory rewarded me with the following statement.

You've got a lot of nerve accusing others of OR given your track record. It's not a question of what the Auton study says, it's what it shows (or rather, doesn't show). Do you know what an admixture analysis is? Have you heard of the STRUCTURE program? I suggest you familiarize yourself with these things before making outrageous and idiotic accusations. Start with the Pritchard and Rosenberg papers referenced in this article.

Anyway I finally got a hold of the actual article, not the supplementary materials, and this is what it says.

Our analyses also have direct relevance to current debates in human population genetics regarding the extent of historical gene flow among Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Our observation of a north–south gradient in diversity with the highest estimates of diversity in the southern part of the continent is consistent with the initial founding of Europe from the Middle East, the influence of Neolithic farmers within the last 10,000 yr, or migrations south followed by a recolonization of Europe after the last glacial maximum. The unusually high number of haplotypes in South Western Europe is indicative of recurrent gene flow into these regions. Furthermore, when we considered the extent of haplotype sharing with the HapMap YRI population in Europe, we found that the South and South-Western subpopulations showed the highest proportion of shared haplotypes. If gene flow had occurred solely through the Middle East, we would expect the South-Eastern subpopulations to have the highest haplotype diversity and sharing of YRI haplotypes. These two results therefore suggest that while the initial migrations into Europe came via the Middle East, at least some degree of subsequent gene flow has occurred directly from Africa. A potential concern is that the HapMap YRI are not representative of diversity in North Africa, and the levels of haplotype sharing must be interpreted with this in mind. It is currently unclear how patterns of genetic diversity in the Yoruba are representative of the wider region, although genetic similarity appears to decline with distance. Nonetheless, the haplotype sharing between Europe and the YRI are suggestive of gene flow from Africa, albeit from West Africa and not necessarily North Africa. Future studies will hopefully be able to better resolve this question by comparing haplotypes from further populations around the Mediterranean.

This statement is a 180 degree contradiction of what Small Victory has written. For expressing concern about this I was called "idiotic". I am a sock, but I think Small Victory owes me an apology, though he will most likely ignore this important information or try squirm around it somehow. What is clearly apparent is Small Victory has written that Auton et al state that there is little to no sub-saharan influence in a wide array of European samples. Whereas Auton et al suggest direct gene flow from Sub-saharan Africa.

Shriver et al

This is another interesting study by, Halder et al A panel of ancestry informative markers for estimating individual biogeographical ancestry and admixture from four continents: utility and applications. The study states,

We observed patterns of apportionment similar to those described previously using sex and autosomal markers, such as European admixture for African Americans (14.3%) and Mexicans (43.2%), European (65.5%) and East Asian affiliation (27%) for South Asians, and low levels of African admixture (2.8-10.8%) mirroring the distribution of Y E3b haplogroups among various Eurasian populations.

In Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations, African admixture increases proportionately farther south into North Africa and Southeast into Asia. This distribution appeared to mirror that for the ‘‘African’’ Y chromosome E3b haplogroup .

The Supporting information on page 16 clearly illustrates that they are referring to West African admixture. The study used 176 Ancestry informative markers to determine admixture. The markers selected where highly discriminating, so we expect that these admixture levels are in fact minimums. So what we have is an unambiguous association between e3b and autosomal Sub-saharan admixture in Europe. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 16:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Unlock possible

OK, having checked, I'm willing to try an unblock. This is subject to a promise to use only one account, and agreement to a WP:1RR restriction at least initially. Basically that means you lose all revert wars so you shouldn't bother get into any. If that means your views get crushed, well you'll just have to be patient and use talk. In addition, be aware that your contributions will inevitably be heavily scrutinised so be on your best behaviour. You'll need to nominate one account as your sole account from now on. And for the sake of clarity, the chain of "is-a-sock-of" templates will have to stay William M. Connolley (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your efforts. If there is no problem with using my original account User:Muntuwandi, then I think I would nominate my original account Muntuwandi, just so that there is no confusion. I agree to WP:1RR restriction and I also understand that my activities will be heavily scrutinized. Earl J. Redneck III (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, done William M. Connolley (talk) 16:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)