Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:55, 11 July 2008

I have a simple two to three step process for refactoring comments that seem to anyone to be uncivil:

Once you provide at least information relating to the first two steps, I will usually immediately refactor. The third step is optional.

ScienceApologist (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Belladonna

I was just getting rid of the unsourced stuff in that first edit. I've changed it just now to "traditional treatment", because that much is a fact, and without uncontroversial terms such as foobaropathy. Sceptre 19:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Palaeontology

Hi SA, Although you have recieved several blocks, I am impressed by your science-related/dominated edits. So, I was wondering if your interests project as far as palaeontology? If so, you would be most welcome to join the project. Best, Mark t young (talk) 19:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Archiving assistance

SA, your talkpage is currently at 130K, and some people's browsers start having trouble with anything over 32K. If you'd like, I could set up an archivebot for you? Then it would automatically archive any threads that had been inactive for a certain amount of time (30 days?) and you wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. --Elonka 21:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I used to have an archivebot set-up, but I've found that I prefer to simply delete my talkpage stuff since there is often things I don't want easily searchable being said about me. I'll do a cleanup now. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Nash Equilibrium

SA, since you are one of our best WP:NOR defenders, I was hoping you might have a look at Nash equilibrium. Do you think original research is being used there? I'm troubled by the lack of cited sources in such a lengthy and technical article. Apparently they were told last year to do something about it, but nothing has been done. I know that fighting the paranormal fans and the homeopaths is a full-time ordeal, but we can not allow our more technical articles fall prey to obscurity opportunists. --Dragon695 (talk) 03:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Where in particular do you think original research is occurring? Nash Equilibrium is a subject I've seen discussed in many different places. E.g. , . One issue might be someone hawking some investment scheme that pretended to use the concept but really didn't. I don't see that showing up in the article, though.

A problem you might be facing is that for very famous subjects like the Nash Equilbrium there are literally so many sources to choose from, choosing one or even a dozen can be a nightmare for people who are experts in the subject. They'd prefer just to amalgamate them all up into one. When you see really good review articles written for professionals (or even amateurs), it is rare that there are in-line citations. This is a known problem for the whole WP:CITE game. A while back, we had an awful row at WP:GA over this very issue. In basic science and math articles such as Nash Equilibrium it is very difficult to get a citation down for uncontroversial facts when statements are actually amalgamated from a variety of sources to make things more clear for the reader. In the case of Nash Equilbrium, it might be a good idea to just get one good standard game theory text and then reference all the paragraphs to that. This was the technique I employed at force. Do you know how hard it is to reference F=ma?

The problem with WP:NOR is that it really should be used only to put the kibosh on truly original research subjects. That is to say, subjects that are not yet accepted by a wide community consensus (in academia, for example). Some people like to apply WP:NOR in mathematics articles to make arguments that editors should avoid cleaner proofs. This is clearly not what NOR is supposed to be used for.

Ultimately, what this must come down to is an issue of editorial debates over wording versus referencing. I see the issue at Nash Equilbrium right now to be that the article writers are interested in how best to write the article, but the article readers want to have references; that is, someone who knows nothing about game theory will not be very successful in verifying the article from the two references given. Nevertheless, much of what is written in the article is very good: there just needs to be some incentive for someone to list some sources.

The citation template is ugly, but it gets the job done. At LEAST a bibliography should be added.

ScienceApologist (talk) 03:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look and the timely reply. I never thought about it from the expert's perspective, so I am grateful that you have given me this valuable insight. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Big Bang-Biogenesis "proof"

(Sorry if this is in the wrong place, I'm fairly new to Misplaced Pages so I copied & pasted from my talk page) I'm not sure what you're talking about, whether it is creation science, or some other variant, but there certainly is no proof using biogenesis that the Big Bang is wrong. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that biogenesis is disproof once and for all of the Big Bang. Biogenesis, as the proof of how life cannot spontaneously generate from non-living material (proved by Louis Pasteur in I've forgotten what year) would mean that at the very beginning there must have been something living when the BB theory suggests that in the first few minutes all there was were hydrogen and helium atoms. Actually, I've changed my mind, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Big Bang never happened, but if it didn't then it's proof that there is indeed a God. It is either proof for one or the other, I just chose to say it's disproof of the BB because of the two scenarios that's the one that's probably more likely to be accepted by the wider scientific community. Some Atheists may have trouble accepting that there is a God and will believe anything as an alternative.

Therefore, the Big Bang may actually have happened. But if it DID, there must be a God. See the logic? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Welsh-girl-Lowri (talk • contribs)

Your logic is a bit shaky. But what is more important, you have been lied to about "biogenesis". What Pasteur dispelled was the particular notion of "spontaneous generation", i.e. the idea that life would, in a short time frame, form e.g. in rotten meat. Some people who are interested in misrepresenting science misuse the imprecise nature of human language and claim that Pasteur proved that life can never be created from non-living material, even given billions of years, one planet worth of reagents, and an effectively inexhaustible energy source. This is of course wrong - what Pasteur showed is that sterile chicken broth would stay clear over a time of hours unless microorganisms were introduced ("spontaneous generation" predicted that those would form spontaneously in the broth). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:55, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

That's nice, but you cannot include your idea on Misplaced Pages pages because you are not a reliable source. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC) Oh, sorry about that, that is my research (if a bit on the vague/inaccurate/unscienific side) but I have reason to believe that someone hacked my account for a joke and started distributing what they believed to be my research in ways I wouldn't have chosen. I mean, if you'd done a load of research would you first publish it to a science journal or leak it to Misplaced Pages? (It's exactly the kind of cruel prank someone would play on me) so I'll try to find these things that were written from my account and delete them. Those morons have gone too far this time. Lowri (talk) 21:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Please cool it

Starting an edit war on ani would be a really bad idea. Cardamon (talk) 22:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Spacetime

Could you have a look at Spacetime for me? What're your thoughts on that article? Vassyana (talk) 01:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A bit of a heavy read for first-timers, but it's pretty good. Do you have specific concerns? ScienceApologist (talk) 15:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Spacetime#Basic concepts seems kind of half-hearted and its subsections seem a little confusing. The subsections of Spacetime#Mathematics of space-times don't seem to explain things very well or completely. It was just an article I came across randomly browsing around. It seemed more or less accurate from my very amateur view, but the two sections mentioned above seemed kind of off and murky. It could just be my lay perspective, but we should write for a general educated audience (though obviously some technical and mathematical details are unavoidably well, technical). I thought you would be a good person to ask to look over it. Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 18:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at it soon. We can definitely do a better job than what currently is passing for an article there. The big issue is that the metric is completely missing and that probably leaves people feeling confused. Also not discussed are spacetime diagrams. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! If you come across a religion or philosophy article that needs some love and/or clarification, let me know and I'll return the favor. Vassyana (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience RfC still not appearing over on CF page

Unfortunately, the 'Should the article be placed in the category of "pseudoscience"' question for Cold Fusion is still not showing up on the Template:RFCsci_list. It looks like the bot stops at one RfC per talk page. I don't know what the 'right' way to get the question to appear on the list is in this case- would manually inserting it mess up the bot automation? Is the one-RfC-per-page bot limit intentional, indicating that this should wait until the first RfC closes? It might be a good idea for you to unstrikethrough your warning until this question appears on the official RfC list. --Noren (talk) 05:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• • The bot limit is intentional, but I was WP:BOLD and listed the second RfC anyway. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• • • Thanks for the clarification and effort. I had listed it earlier (and removed your comment since it was related to that), but it didn't show up as I had expected. Looks like you got to it before I :) seicer | talk | contribs 16:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Quackwatch

SA, I am really concerned by this kind of action. The article had been protected for a week, then when protection expired, within hours you went in and reverted to your own last version from several days ago, and launched another set of revert wars which caused protection to be replaced within a day. Per your request, I do not want to just impose another ban, but would you be willing to submit to a voluntary 30-day 0RR (no revert) restriction on the article? Meaning no reverts except for obvious vandalism? --Elonka 00:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)