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Revision as of 18:57, 8 November 2012 editNewyorkbrad (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators45,486 edits restore "corrollary" since it appears that is actually part of "Collect's Law"← Previous edit Revision as of 17:03, 11 November 2012 edit undoPaul Siebert (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers26,740 edits Removed corollary. Not useful for Misplaced PagesNext edit →
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::*''"The person who posts the greatest amount of repeated verbiage to a discussion, is least likely to be correct."'' <!-- (verbatim quote from ]) --> ::*''"The person who posts the greatest amount of repeated verbiage to a discussion, is least likely to be correct."'' <!-- (verbatim quote from ]) -->

::*''"The person who is most insistent on specific sources is least likely to have found the best sources."''


This is substantially related to ] where an argument or proposition is repeated until challenges to it "dry up", creating a ]. Another term is ], that is, an act of perseverance by repeating the same thing again and again. This is also called a ''Bellman's proof, ''after Lewis Carroll's usage.. In each case, the act of repetition has nothing to do with the real strength of an argument. This is substantially related to ] where an argument or proposition is repeated until challenges to it "dry up", creating a ]. Another term is ], that is, an act of perseverance by repeating the same thing again and again. This is also called a ''Bellman's proof, ''after Lewis Carroll's usage.. In each case, the act of repetition has nothing to do with the real strength of an argument.

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Essay on editing Misplaced Pages
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  • "The person who posts the greatest amount of repeated verbiage to a discussion, is least likely to be correct."

This is substantially related to Proof by assertion where an argument or proposition is repeated until challenges to it "dry up", creating a logical fallacy. Another term is Perseveration, that is, an act of perseverance by repeating the same thing again and again. This is also called a Bellman's proof, after Lewis Carroll's usage.. In each case, the act of repetition has nothing to do with the real strength of an argument.

On Misplaced Pages, one may find single editors who so dominate an article or article talk page as to render this a valid concept. The posting of up to a quarter or more of the total posts on a well-discussed topic, and comprising more than a third of the total verbiage on a topic, may indicate a problem with perseveration.

Misplaced Pages also has a long-estalished essay on the Internet abbreviation "TL;DR" at WP:Too long; didn't read about the phenomenon of a person making a single post with too much stuff in it. This is not the same as "proof by repetition" but has the same related problem - other editors do not have the patience to deal with it, and a sufficiently loquacious editor may feel their points were not contraverted simply because other editors do not wish to deal with such iterated verbiage.

In each case, the advice remains - trying to "prove by repetition" is invalid, and drowning talk pages in repeated words is not a valid means of obtaining consensus.

Hint: Provide a link to this essay when you run out of reasonable arguments, and/or as a strategy to denigrate someone else's when they run to more than a couple of lines and thereby outstrip your limited comprehension skills.

See also: WP:CONSENSUS

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