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Revision as of 05:09, 6 August 2010

I prefer to keep discussions unfragmented. If you leave a comment for me here, I will most likely respond to it on this same page–my talk page–as an effort to keep the entire conversation in one place. By the same token, if I leave a comment on your talk page, please respond to it there. Remember, we can use our watchlist to keep track of when responses are made. At the same time, feel free to send an alert to me on this page about a comment you have left elsewhere.

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Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin

I noticed you did a bit of work on Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. I recently reverted some vandalism from a year ago, but the resulting section doesn't integrate that well with what is there. I've noted this here, but am looking for someone who might have time to fix this (if I can't find anyone, I'll move the rescued section to the talk page). Would you be interested in having a look? Carcharoth (talk) 11:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Carcharoth, I've looked at the history, and your changes in particular. I saw only one line of vandalism and the deletion of some text. Your changes look perfect to me. Please be more specific about "...needs work to reintegrate it into the article," because I have no idea what the problem is. The original text (which was restored by your changes) looks fine to me. I agree that many of the statements need sourcing, but I don't have the requisite knowledge to know what the sources might be. In this case, I wouldn't trust Web searches to turn up good sources. Physical books would more likely contain reliable information. I'm sure the article as it stands contains minor errors and is incomplete, but that's the nature of WP--it's always improving. David Spector (talk) 15:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure at least one other person thought it was OK, as it felt a bit strange to be restoring a section from a year ago. Thanks for looking. Carcharoth (talk) 16:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Since I wrote that section, and the deletion was apparently done with no discussion, and you have some reservation about the section as it stands, someone else should be asked to review it. I don't know the WP mechanism for doing this. David Spector (talk) 16:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You wrote that section? We might be misunderstanding each other here. The wording of parts of that section is present in very early versions of the article, dating back 7 years. See here for example (that is the fifth edit to the article, in 2003). My concern is that the section was removed by a vandal and was missing for a year. The article was extensively edited during that year, so re-adding the section as I have done felt wrong, so I was hoping someone could take the missing section and integrate with the work done over the past year (which seems to have been a mixture of people). Still, I'll copy this to the article talk page and ask someone else to look at it (the editor from 2003 is still here, for example) if you think that is best. Apologies for any misunderstandings. Carcharoth (talk) 20:34, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, the misunderstanding was mine. I probably didn't look closely enough at the edits. Since my time is currently limited, go ahead and ask someone else. Thanks for your attention to this. David Spector (talk) 23:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

TM and Hinduism

• One minor correction to "It is so clear that the current editors (the majority of them anyway) have the fixed agenda to present TM as a pseudo science..." I believe only two of the current editors have this POV (judging from this Talk page; the others left months ago). Their relatively uninformed POV, relying as it does on sources (like the otherwise wonderful Carl Sagan) who express authoritative-sounding opinions that are not based on a deep understanding of the subject matter, irritates me as well.

I assume you include me in the unnamed "current editors" you refer to in that comment. I have argued to retain the very short comment by Sagan because it's a significant point of view. However I've searched the archives of the talk page and cannot find any occasion in which I've expressed an opinion on the matter itself. If I've overlooked some place where I've said something directly about the connection of TM and Hinduism then I can't find it. Can you? Which of us is wrong?   Will Beback  talk  23:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm wrong. I'm so used to you opposing anything the pro-TMers do that I assumed you'd agree that TM is Hinduism and pseudoscience (as if anything can be both!). WP works, but it is quite counterintuitive as to how, since it so firmly prefers ad hominem (famous people as reliable sources outside of their specialty--as if!) over truth. David Spector (talk) 01:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Primus Telecommunications

I only know what I read, and what I read is that Primus is a TMM-associated company. Here's its offices in Fairfield. Google "Primus Telecommunications" and "Maharishi" or "Transcendental Meditation" if you want more sources. There's lots of them. Fladrif (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there's more than one company with the same name? This one's in Canada. But it does seem a strange coincidence, being that this person seems to have TMM expertise. David Spector (talk) 01:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the same company. They bought out Telegroup, which was co-founded by Fred Gratzon, and apparently still have strong ties to Fairfield.   Will Beback  talk  01:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In which case, it may be one of the current pro-TM editors, which could mean that the person is too cowardly to stand behind their statements. But then that already applies to the majority of editors, whose accounts are not in their names and whose User pages do not contain their names. It is unclear why anonymity would create a better encyclopedia. I would think it fosters contention, trolling, argumentation, and certainly vandalism. WP is too big and too good to tolerate its current difficult editing environment. I hope this changes someday. David Spector (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd advise against reading too much into this. It could mean something or it could mean nothing. There are probably over a million Primus subscribers (there were that many 10 years ago) so it's possibly just a coincidence. More of a concern is the actual behavior of the editor.   Will Beback  talk  22:40, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I partially agree, primarily because of the anonymity, but the actual criticism of that part of the article was excellent. I don't at all mind POVs or cogent analysis on Talk pages. In any case, all the current and past editors share blame for producing such a confusing (although certainly well-sourced) set of articles. The permitted inclusion of ad hominem statements by people who are experts in other fields is a particularly egregious failing of WP itself. David Spector (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Apologies

I feel it necessary to apologize for TreasuryTag's behavior in this thread. He's a ... "toxic personality" who has been giving more and more indications that he needs to be re-banned. His behavior in that thread was absolutely unacceptable. The topic of e-mail notifications has come up previously and it was ripe for a fresh look. I added my support to your proposal and I hope to see the feature enabled in the near future. (Though, on that note, I wouldn't hold my breath. Wikimedia development has slowed to a crawl in most areas.) --MZMcBride (talk) 15:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. Great suggestion. Anthony (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, that is so kind to apologize for the bad behavior of an editor. We need more kindness here at WP. Thank you both for agreeing with the value of change notifications for those of us who are not on WP all the time, and for seeing that it is optional (I guess people don't read carefully; that might interfere with composing their well-written complaints). I've found it impossible to get any WP programming changes. I think WP management feels that the WP software is good enough at this point, so there is no reason to adopt any suggestions that require spending money for programming. David Spector (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Editors

David, don't you see any irony in commenting about how rude someone is and discussing their psychological problems in the same passage? Would you like us to discuss our opinions of your psychological conditions? My guess is that doing so would not further the project to any degree.

As for Edith Sirius Lee, there was a very similar editor here who went by a succession of names.User:Lumiere/User:Étincelle/user:-Lumière. The latter account was the subject of Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/-Lumière. However, ESL denies being that particular editor. WP:SOCK says: "Misusing a clean start: Repeatedly switching accounts is seen as a way of avoiding scrutiny and is considered a breach of this policy." Like you, other editors are also wondering what the old account of the new editor was.   Will Beback  talk  05:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)