Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 09:01, 4 August 2009

Welcome

It doesn't look like you ever got a proper welcome to Misplaced Pages, so I'm taking the liberty of posting one here, right on top. I think you already know a lot of this stuff, but I appreciated getting welcomed, so I'm passing on the welcome letter I received:

Hello, and welcome to Misplaced Pages. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• How to edit a page
• Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
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• The Five Pillars of Misplaced Pages
• Merging, redirecting, and renaming pages
• If you're ready for the complete list of Misplaced Pages documentation, there's also Misplaced Pages:Topical index.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) will produce your name and the current date. You should always sign talk pages, but not articles. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!

Sorry if some of that is too elementary for you by now. Btw, I really liked your proposal for the Happiness article. Be bold in editing! Also, you might want to add something (here's one possibility) to your userpage; it may give your edits more weight. (For some people, a redlinked userpage says "Newbie! Don't take his comments as seriously as you would otherwise!") -DoctorW 04:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much! And thanks for the advice about the user page - I'll plan on doing that as soon as I get a chance. EastTN (talk) 13:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

March 2008

Just a note to say thank you for your many excellent contributions to health care articles, and for being the voice of reason in discussions that can be somewhat contentious. Too many people on Misplaced Pages only use talk pages to criticize, warn, or complain about something, so I just wanted you to know that your good work is noticed and appreciated. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! (Really, thank you - I've taken you as something of a role model.)EastTN (talk) 16:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Universal health care debate section

Please have a look at the poll section in Single-payer health care. While it's great that you are adding reliable sources to the cons in the universal health care article, it appears that more recent polls (2007) may show stronger support for tax increases and for single-payer than the 2005 research you pulled from. --Sfmammamia (talk) 23:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You may be right. I wanted to bring in the 2005 Bodenheimer article because it was one, written by a liberal who has an unusually clear understanding of other points of view, and who talks pretty explicitly about the limitations of polling data on the issue. The polling data he quotes "76 percent agreeing that access to health care should be a right," "72 percent of U.S. adults, including 51 percent of Republicans, agreed that the government should provide universal health care even if it meant repealing most of the Bush administration’s tax cuts," and "Sixty-one percent of those who supported health care as a right viewed it as a moral as well as a political issue." I think those are reasonably comparable with the results in the poll section in Single-payer health care. He goes on to say:

"One caveat concerns the impact of taxes on public opinion. A 1994 survey found that fewer than half of respondents would pay more taxes to finance universal health insurance. A 1993 survey found that 64 percent were willing to pay more taxes for that purpose. Many respondents balked at paying even the tiny sum of $100 per year. Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Shapiro contend that when respondents were informed of the benefits the taxes would finance, support for tax increases of $40 per month reached 41 percent. If respondents were told that increased taxes reduce out-of-pocket health care payments, more than half were willing to pay an additional $1,000 a year."

That's what I was trying to characterize with the sentence "There is, however, much more limited support for tax increases to support health care reform." There may be a better way to say it, and we may need to bring in more sources. One critical point here is that most polling doesn't get at the magnitude of the taxes that would be required, and the way the question is structured and the magnitude suggested for the taxes (if any) can dramatically affect the results. Unless there's a crystal clear connection between higher taxes and a net, overall reduction in spending, people quickly change their minds when the taxes suggested get larger.

I wanted to bring in the 2001 Blendon & Benson article because it has a nice historical overview of polling data going back, in some cases, to the 1960s. Some of the things that caught my eye were:

In the twenty-two years the first question has been asked, more than 80 percent of Americans have reported that they are satisfied with their last visit to a physician (Exhibit 7). Also, confidence in ability to pay for a major illness has improved over the years. Despite the increase in the number of uninsured Americans nationally, the proportion reporting such confidence has risen from 50 percent in 1978 to 67 percent in 2000. This improvement in financial confidence may be related to more comprehensive insurance and increased benefit coverage for the insured population, or it may reflect the effects of increased family incomes and assets that could be drawn upon in case of large medical bills.

In 1964, the year before Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, only one-fourth of Americans expressed distrust in the federal government (Exhibit 8). When the Clinton health plan ultimately failed in Congress in 1994, distrust of the federal government had risen fifty-four percentage points. These same years have also seen a decline in public support for government regulation of the private sector. In 1964 only 43 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that the government has gone too far in regulating business and the free enterprise system. This figure rose to 60 percent in 2000. Americans are clearly less willing today to see expanded government regulation in general than they were during the 1960s. Similarly, in 1961 only 46 percent of Americans thought that their federal taxes were too high. This figure rose to 69 percent in 1969 and stood at 63 percent in 2000.

Americans hold many beliefs that are consistent with a general view of what is right or wrong about health care in the United States. However, it is striking to see how many conflicting views the public holds on health policy issues. On the one hand, Americans report substantial dissatisfaction with our mixed private/public health care system and with the private health insurance and managed care industries. A majority of Americans indicate general support for a national health plan financed by taxpayers, as well as increased national health spending. On the other hand, these surveys portray a public that is satisfied with their current medical arrangements, in many years does not see health care as a top priority for government action, does not trust the federal government to do what is right, sees their federal taxes as already too high, and does not favor a single-payer (government) type of national health plan.

Because Americans do hold many conflicting values and beliefs that affect their views on health care policy, it is important to be cautious in interpreting the public mood based on single, isolated public opinion questions. To be a useful guidepost for policymakers, opinion surveys require enough depth in their question wordings so that respondents can work their way through their conflicting values and beliefs to come to judgment on the issue.

I may have done a terrible job of summarizing all this (and may have tried to over-condense it), but I think there are some important insights here. It's easy to be baffled by the apparent disconnect between high poll numbers supporting some form of health care reform, and the lack of any political momentum towards the kind of national health system we see in other countries. I don't 'think' any of this is inconsistent with the other polling data we have in these articles, and if we can get it described right, it may help people understand what those poll results mean a bit better.

I really don't want to mis-characterize the polling data. Do you see a better way to handle this? I just think it's misleading to have polling data that suggests the vast majority of Americans want a national health system, and leave readers wondering why that doesn't have more impact on our political system. EastTN (talk) 13:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup of Criticism of atheism

Thanks for your delete of the merge template on Criticism of atheism. It had passed its use-by date and it just needed someone to be bold and remove it. -- Jmc (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It was my pleasure! EastTN (talk) 21:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Churches of Christ efforts

		The Christianity Barnstar
		For your efforts to properly source contentious doctrinal materials within Churches of Christ and related articles, braving the hornets' nest of potential criticism, and thereby improving the article substantially. Jclemens (talk) 20:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! EastTN (talk) 20:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I also applaud your work. I have watched your massive edits. now I need to read the entire article, again. Great Job! John Park (talk) 14:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! EastTN (talk) 15:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The whole principle of the Restoration Movement was to move away from "secondary sources" written by men and going back to the Bible. While I, too, commend your efforts to move the article in a more scholarly direction, I cannot respect your idea and practice of deleting accurate information simply because it's backed by the Bible and nothing else (2 Tim. 3:16-17). When it comes to church doctrine and beliefs, secondary sources are just that: secondary. Especially when compared to the only true source, the Bible. As a member who studies and knows the Bible well enough to have written material myself, and who is active in teaching others, I didn't feel an overwhelming need to cite secondary sources in order to educate inquirers on what the Lord's church believes and practices (2 Tim. 4:2-5).--Slim Jim (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The relevant principle here isn't that of the Restoration Movement, but WP:V. That is, Misplaced Pages is not a Church of Christ website, and it Misplaced Pages expects secondary sources for every article. Jclemens (talk) 22:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Slim Jim, I'm sympathetic to your concern, but we do need to work within the established rules for Misplaced Pages. And honestly, I don't think they're inappropriate here. This article isn't trying to teach the Bible - it's trying to explain what members of the churches of Christ teach about the Bible. We have to go to secondary sources to document that. To be very blunt, you can tell us what you teach, but how do we document that what you say about a particular verse is representative of what members of other churches of Christ would say about it?

To your more direct point, I do think there's a way to bring in scripture references and stay within the bounds of Misplaced Pages - what we need to do is find good secondary sources that say "churches of Christ generally teach X, based on their understanding of verse Y." Of course, if we do too much of that, it may make the article too detailed for the general reader. Also, I think you'll find that if you chase down the sources we cite, they do include all of the scripture references. Look at the Baxter articles Who are the churches of Christ and what do they believe in? and Neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jew for instance. Links to on-line versions of both are provided in the footnotes. Bottom line, we're going to get an article that people take more seriously if we provide solid citations to prove that we're accurately reporting what most churches of Christ do and say. EastTN (talk) 15:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of atheism and Sam Harris

J/w if you thought that Harris' comments about it being ethical to kill some believers would fit on his article as well.--CyberGhostface (talk) 22:45, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. There is a Criticism and debate section on that page where it would seem to fit. The other place where it might fit would be the article on The End of Faith. The Bunting quote is already in that article in the Response section, but not the Catherine Keller quote. What do you think? EastTN (talk) 14:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I added the quotes to both pages. Thanks for the response.--CyberGhostface (talk) 15:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

GBN in Churches of Christ

Muaahahaha... you beat me to doing ALMOST THE EXACT SAME EDIT: move to the bottom of see also, trim verbiage. :-) Great minds think alike and whatnot. I did a double take trying to figure out the edit conflict. Jclemens (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That is weird! EastTN (talk) 17:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Conservatism#Remove the entire psychological section

You may want to comment on Talk:Conservatism#Remove the entire psychological section. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! EastTN (talk) 14:22, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that several editors wish to delete the "Psychological research" section of Conservatism without discussion. As you had been involved in this discussion I would welcome your comments at Talk:Conservatism#Psychological Research? The Four Deuces (talk) 21:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks For you great spirit and hard work

I just want to affirm my appreciation for all you have done to improve the Campbell / Stone family of articles. It is an honor to collaborate with you. I respect your work and your gracious spirit. You balance my partisan POV and I hope perhaps that my POV contributes to a collaboration the will give us a balanced NPOV by the time we are finished. I would love to see all 4 of the main articles become Feature Articles of about 30KB each. I really do appreciate that your energy on the CoC article ended the Edit war there. (I'd like to think my challenging some arrogant Wiki purist types help set the tone.) Perhaps it did. I wish I had more time to edit, but professional responsibilities and family responsibilities greatly limit me. John Park (talk) 12:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much - I have greatly enjoyed working with you as well. You have definitely helped strike a positive tone, and I appreciate that. It's a pleasure working with someone who combines strong opinions with a respect for other people. Iron sharpens iron; we all need each other. EastTN (talk) 20:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of atheism

Some anons are rearranging the counterarguments as well as adding POV and OR. Maybe you could give it a look if they revert it again and tell me if what they are doing helps or detracts from the article? Thanks.--CyberGhostface (talk) 01:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Churches of Christ Article -- more use of Scriptures

I had an inquiry on my talk page that might be of interest to you. I am not sure if the editor who raised it will bring it to Talk:Churches of Christ or not. He is not very experienced with wiki environments but seems to love the church. I want to encourage him to be involved. When he edited before, he entered the fray amid a big edit war. John Park (talk) 19:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. How would you suggest I might be best able to help? EastTN (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response to Mark. It is a good explaination. Let's see how he responds. John Park (talk) 11:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Single_payer health care

I did not think that you had cropped that section deliberately. I hope you didn't think that.

I grant that some sections are without reference but these days it is hard to get references for things that are as uncontroversial as taxation paying for health care, as is the case in most European countries. Decisions to use taxation (or earnings related compulsory contributions to non-profit sickness funds) were taken 50-60 years ago in most countries in Europe and though they were no doubt commonly discussed in newspapers of the time, little survives in print and there is very little on the internet these days (and none of that is of course original source material). Britain went thru the arguments that the US is going thru now in the twenties and thirties (i.e. 80-90 years ago) but did not act on the issue until after the war in the late 40s. I can recommend to you the book "In place of fear" by Aneurin Bevan which I borrowed from the library recently (as an example of how the Brits dealt with health care reform after the second world war) and the A J Cronin book about shocking medical practices in the twenties and thirties (not dissimilar to those in the US today) in England and Wales (the name of the book escapes me, but it was very influential and led to a great wave of feeling for reform).--Hauskalainen (talk) 22:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I didn't think that, but I did want to explain what had happened. (But thanks for taking the time to make that clear.)

I understand the desire to add content even if we don't have the sources readily at hand. I do believe the sources are available, though. This is not the first time the U.S. has gone through a major health care reform debate - we went through the same fire drill in the mid-1990s. I spent several months studying the various European systems at that time, and there was an extensive literature discussing not only how the systems worked, but goals, advantages and disadvantages of each.

It doesn't seem obvious to me that the conclusions drawn the the U.K. 50 years ago are necessarily correct for the U.S. today, or even that all of the arguments are still applicable. There have been very significant changes in the economy, society and medical technology over that period of time, to say nothing of the different political systems involved. At the very least, the nuances of the debate are going to be very different in the U.S. in 2009 than they would have been in Europe in the late 1940s. That's one reason I believe it's critical that we source what we say - it's a way of keeping ourselves honest, so that we don't simply write what we personally believe to be true (and please understand, I'm not directing this at you personally - I'm trying to apply the same sourcing standards to what I write).

Don't get me wrong - I do believe there are lessons the U.S. can learn from Europe, Japan, Canada, etc. But at the end of the day, they may not be the same lessons a European, Japanese or Canadian might draw - and the solution ultimately adopted will of necessity be shaped by our political system and society.

I'll try to run down the sources you mention - they do sound interesting. EastTN (talk) 22:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

You may wish to be aware of a recent article renaming

You have previously contributed to this article United States National Health Insurance Act which was renamed on Misplaced Pages recently as United States National Health Care Act.

Your watchlist has been automatically updated to point to the new title without your knowledge.

You may not have been aware of the article rename that took place recently because the rename was not discussed in advance.

A discussion is ongoing at the moved talk page as to whether the article should be renamed back as it was. You may wish to make your opinion known.--Hauskalainen (talk) 12:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! I'm afraid this one may be above my pay grade, though. Proposed legislation, when it's introduced, includes a formal title that usually ends in "Act". On the other hand, until it is enacted, it is a proposed act or a "bill". In the news you see the usage the "proposed . . . act" and the "Republican/Democratic . . . bill". I'm honestly not sure which usage would be better for Misplaced Pages. EastTN (talk) 14:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Please be aware of this CfD

Please be aware of this CfD to rename Category:Universities and colleges by affiliated with the Stone-Campbell movement to either

• Category:Universities and colleges affiliated with the Stone-Campbell movement or
• Category:Universities and colleges affiliated with the Restoration Movement and read and comment there if you wish. 16:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for assistance

I am currently trying to help the editors in the Falun Gong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) topic area move away from POV pushing and personal commentary. (Please note: Talk:Falun Gong#Topic area review.) You are an editor that I believe can help facilitate this change. I am looking for some uninvolved people with experience and savvy to become involved in the editorial process. A review of the article and associated discussion, in a style similar to a good article review or broad RfC response, would be a good first step and very helpful. However, some leadership in discussion and editing as a whole would be invaluable and sincerely appreciated. This can cover a very broad range including (but not limited to) identifying article flaws, keeping conversation focused on content, reporting disruptive editors, making proposed compromises, boldly correcting errors, and so forth. If you are willing to help out, please look things over and provide your feedback on the Falun Gong talk page. Essentially, we need some experienced editors to put things on track. Any assistance in this regard is gratefully welcomed. Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 09:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)