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ID lead rewrite

Hi. I looked at your edits (I'm confining myself to the lead section at this point). While I think you've made some improvements, and I certainly admire the attempt, my conclusion is that your changes don't go nearly far enough in addressing the problems with the lead. The existing version is a mess--in terms of pov, ordering, quality of info and, in my view, absolutely terrible prose. It needs to be rebuilt, which probably means being rewritten almost entirely. For example, I think that the current lead puts far too much emphasis on the specifics of the Kitzmiller decision. It states--I'll use your draft--"Intelligent design arguments were first formulated by certain United States creationists in the 1980s in the wake of court decisions barring the teaching of creationism as an alternative theory to biological evolution in the public schools.." But is this really true? On one hand, we could point to William Paley as having formulated an intelligent design argument. On another hand, if I recall correctly the Discovery institute cites some 1984 precedent, before the anti-creationism decisions. And many sources point to Philip Johnson's book Darwin on Trial (1991 or 92) as the galvanizing document of the modern ID concept. What I'm saying is that it seems an oversimplification to equate ID as a whole with "Pandas and People" and the Dover school board's attempts to promote it in their public schools. A landmark case in the history of ID, surely, but not the whole subject. So we need to finess the question of origins as well as making decisions about what info is key enough to merit inclusion in the lead's overview of the topic, plus dealing with the NPOV issues that have been a sticking point. I think that my own proposed opening paragraph and SDY's proposed outline of the lead provide a place to start developing the lead without inheriting a bunch of pernicious traits from its ancestor. What do you think? -- BTfromLA (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I agree with you. I was working on the assumption that any attempt at outright rewriting would generate such a tremendous head-to-head conflict that actual progress would be impossible. tell you what, though... if you really want to rewrite, I'm willing to work with you and follow your lead. let's start creating something on the talk page (or on the article itself, if you think that would be feasible) and see what happens. --Ludwigs2 20:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I'm not going to be able to follow through on this--my work and travel schedule is about to ramp up, and even if that weren't the case, swimming against the current here is pretty unrewarding. I'll be around the next day or two and I'll respond to comments on my proposed intro, but then I'll make myself scarce. I'll still log on to wikipedia from time to time, though, so if you come up with a draft that you'd like me to give an editorial once-over, let me know. BTfromLA (talk) 23:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, that's too bad. I figured a little cooperative effort might break through the negativeness on that page (it's a tactic, you know - breaking up the people who want to make changes into isolated individuals, and then drowning them in unconstructive criticism). but I understand; it sucks having to deal with this much passive resistance. I'll see what I can do before you leave.

...and if your travels take you down San Diego way, send me an email. I'll buy you a cup of coffee.  :-) --Ludwigs2 18:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, guys. My involvement has fallen off for reasons similar to BT's, but I'll probably jump back in again at some point (weeks, months?). I just wanted to praise your efforts to write a new lead, and your continued discussions on the talk page. Writing a lead from scratch is tough work, but I suspect it's the best way to get past the resistance. Discussions about alternatives seem much more productive than criticisms of the existing lead. Your conversations with Neal and Dave do seem to be clarifying various things. Anyway, more power to you.... Gnixon (talk) 13:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Quackwatch

When reverifying a source, would it be a good idea to update the access date parameter? An argument for the old date is that should we ever need to use a web archive, the older date will be available in the archive sooner. An argument for the newer date would be that it helps other editors know that the current content still supports the claims. I'm not sure if there is any real guidance on this point. GRBerry 23:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, sorry, I'll do that now. I'd assumed that stable online resources (like newspaper archives) wouldn't need to be dated in quite the same way, but I can see your point. --Ludwigs2 23:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

My point? I tried to ask a question. I don't pretend to know the right answer to my question. GRBerry 03:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, sorry - I misread (and then flew off on my own little head trip - lol). for anything retrieved from the web, it's a good idea to update the access date. that's because webpages can shift, move, disappear, or transform their content very quickly, and what's there when you read it may not be there when the next person goes by to look (the date helps explain the difference to them, and helps them track down the version you read, if they care to). it's not as important with things like newspaper or journal articles (since newspapers and journals are usually quite diligent about keeping their archives preserved), but it's always a good idea. --Ludwigs2 03:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Please do not violate the conditions of editing and make a revert or you may be banned. QuackGuru 18:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that adding a lot of criticism is a WP:WEIGHT violation. QuackGuru 18:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, please do not take the bait. Just continue editing the article in good faith. As for comments at the talkpage, I would appreciate if you would go back and refactor or delete anything which is a comment about an editor, as opposed to a comment about the article. Thanks, Elonka 19:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

harumph. alright, that's probably for the best. --Ludwigs2 19:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Being able to remove comments like that, is a good sign of emotional maturity, and can have a powerful effect in de-escalating a situation. I'd recommend doing the same thing at Talk:Alternative medicine, since saying whether you "like" or "dislike" an editor really isn't relevant to the editing of the article. --Elonka 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

SS7

Hi,I changed the headers and footers in line with your request - they are smaller and text has been changed. Please add your approval to SS7 article discussion page. Thanks! (www.ss7-training.net was the external link, I removed the subdomain) Leedryburgh (talk) 11:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

User_talk:Dgtsyb keeps removing the sanitised links, can you please ask him to stop this behaviour once and for all? Again he is vandalising my talk page. Leedryburgh (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi - could you indulge me (either on the SS7 talk page or on my talk page) and explain what your problem with the links are? I'm having trouble discerning the issue and as an observer of the page I was hoping for some sort of speedy mediation of this issue rather than the edit war which was going on most of today Beardybloke (talk) 00:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your information on my talk page, but could you let me know if you find anything in particular offensive about the current version of the page - I dont see any of the issues you were worried about. I'm going to have one last attempt to discuss this like normal people before I give up on both Leedryburgh & User_talk:Dgtsyb .... Beardybloke (talk) 11:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

— Dgtsyb (talk) 06:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this edit of yours here, please see this edit of mine here. I encourage you to continue working on this article. --A. B. 13:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thankyou for helping with Talk:Signaling_System_7. I see user User_talk:Dgtsyb was blocked. Thanks for your time. Leedryburgh (talk) 23:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Leedryburgh (talk) 23:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Head spinning

Just stumbled in to say that I'm glad to see I'm not the only one made woozy by some of the assertions around here... BTfromLA (talk) 01:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

yeah, I know; it's a veritable Six Flags of opinion-mongering, sometimes. I just need to keep reminding myself to have a sense of humor about it, otherwise it makes me crazy.  :-) --Ludwigs2 01:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

User:136.152.179.179

Sorry; that was me! Thanks though. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (talk) 03:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

no problem. what are you doing there, actually - it doesn't look like actual genome sequencing (too may letters in the mix?)... --Ludwigs2 03:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Issuing warnings now?

You're not an admin. Why are you giving warnings like one? Odd nature (talk) 23:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

errr... that's a standard warning template for multiple vandalisms. you don't need to be an admin to place it on a vandal's page, it's readily available via Twinkle, and it's a necessary step in the process of dealing with vandalism. if you'll check the Template:Center history, here, you'll see that RGaikowski was committing obvious vandalism.

in short: what are you talking about? --Ludwigs2 23:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, beat me to it. The template is {{uw-vandalism4}}, and is perfectly appropriate for any editor to issue in good faith before a report to WP:AIV. - Eldereft (cont.) 23:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

ON, I think you're out of line here. If Ludwigs2 gave a level 4 warning as the first warning (unless it's some egregious behavior issue), then he'd be out of line. But it was an escalating level of warnings. For a user to be blocked for vandalism (or some other violation of Misplaced Pages), there has to be a final warning. I'm not in agreement with everything Ludwigs does, but in this case, I think he's fine. If you look at my contributions, I probably give one level 4 warning a day, on average. OrangeMarlin 00:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Sexual orientation

Thank you so much for weighing in and seeking compromise. I think what's needed is a broader consensus, which hopefully the RfC will bring. I've stepped back from engaging Cooljuno directly because I didn't want it to be a debate between "my" version of the template against "his". I'm really pretty open to any consensus version -- but as it stands now we essentially have one guy's revert-defended POV.

Dybryd (talk) 18:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)