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I used your definition of pseudoscience as the only proposed definition for the science section in the bad faith article

I used the modified version of your definition of pseudoscience as the ONLY proposed definition for the pseudoscience section in the bad faith article. I seem to be the only one making positive edits to that article. If you still like the definition, please WP:bold it in to the bad faith article from the talk page here. Your additional positive contributions to that article would be appreciated. Be WP:Bold! HkFnsNGA (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for help

I noticed you made a substantial comment to my section at pseudoscience. I will not get to it until tomorrow, since your lengthy articles are usually full of substantive content, and require me to make a POV shift to finally get it, so they take me time to absorb and process and respond to. In the meantime, could you do a quick read of edits I made on bad faith, which are intended for typical lay people, and tell me if they are clear and easy to read and understand, so I can shift writing styles if I am being too technical? HkFnsNGA (talk) 02:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Letter to The Economist January 29th–February 4th 2011

The ArbCom case on Race and intelligence is mentioned in a letter to The Economist. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

<sigh...> I wish I could say he wasn't right. I also wish it could be phrased better. And I also wish a supermodel would stop by my house tonight, just on a whim. And most sad of all, the last seems like the most probable of the three. --Ludwigs2 01:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for taking the time to wade through the TM talk page discussion and to then to post your informed opinions on my AE appeal.(olive (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC))

No problem. I've been on that particular railroad before, and I hate seeing others subjected to it. --Ludwigs2 02:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Which railroad is that? As far as WP:AE goes, could you please put future comments in your own section? You've written more in "my section" than I have. ;)   Will Beback  talk  05:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll answer the first question if you really want to hear it (I can't decide whether you would or not - you seem like a decent sort, all things considered). As to the other, I think I've made my point clear, so unless the discussion starts to progress in a fruitful direction I don't know that I'll have all that much more to say. Mostly I'm waiting for NuclearWarfare to chime in - he's the one I really should be having this discussion with. but somehow I don't think he'll say anything more.

If he doesn't, than I'll ask for someone else to lift the ban as senseless, and what happens after that is what happens. --Ludwigs2 06:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am curious about your railroading, as it seems to be related to your involvement in this appeal.

Feel free to keep commenting. But I think it'd be better if "my section" was mostly my postings.   Will Beback  talk  06:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead an made my own section for further responses.

With respect to railroading... Ok, I've had at least seven or eight distinct editors do the exact same routine to me over the years - almost always skeptics. The first few times I didn't understand it, and I ended up with a number of blocks; then I learned.

The heart of the routine is to craft the impression that the target (being me or whomever) is being uncivil and violating policy, regardless of actual behavior. There are a few variants, but mostly it involves the following:

• one or two editors working on the article, where almost every talk page comment or edit summary contains some claim that the target is doing something against policy, or some warning to that effect. The claims don't need to have any basis in fact: they are made so that when administrator attention arrives at some later point they can make long lists of diffs to show people (on the assumption no one will really look into them too much). Common ones are:
  • A hypersensitivity to anything that can in any way be morphed into an insult, which are then loudly and repeatedly claimed to be uncivil
  • Loud and frequent accusations of POV-pushing
  • Alphabet soup policy bombs, with no clear referent and an overtly threatening tone (e.g. "That edit was against wp:OR, wp:SYN, wp:V; continued violations of that sort will result in being blocked.")
• a couple of editors who appear out of nowhere to make random, stupid, or contentious edits in order to try to goad the target into an edit war. It might be on that page, or on pages worked on in the past. my favorite example is a dispute I had once with one editor: about four days after it started (and all within about 12 hours of each other), I had one unrelated editor co-opt an ANI thread to start attacking me, and three other pages I'd worked on in the past - all of which had been dormant for months - suddenly had different editors pop in to make contentious changes that I had specifically argued against.
• A consistent string of mild insults, supercilious comments, or straight out whines about how they are being disrespected (none of which for some reason never attract admin attention or action), usually combined with proclamations of their own prowess as editors. This is a simple tactic to gain sympathy as embattled victims.

The overall effect is to try to build and sell an emotional argument that the target is a bad, aggressive editor who needs to be controlled immediately so that good but harassed editors can get on with decent editing. Generally the goal is to find some admin who either sympathizes already or who is naive enough to be convinced that rapid action actually is needed, so that the target will get sanctioned quickly and without too much reflection. Further, the whole process is designed to destroy the target's reputation on-project so that they have no real way of talking themselves back into good graces - they are forever branded as a bad editor. the net result is that the target begins getting progressively more unfair treatment from admins (as Olive is - I think - getting now). That's the railroad I'm talking about.

Now, I think this kind of tactic has a lot of tacit acceptance because it was originally used to fight real fringe advocates and drive them off-project. I'm not saying I approve of it as a tactic even for that purpose, but I can understand. But now it's used on editors such as myself and Olive to clear out people who try to moderate skeptical POV editing, and that's not good. I've learned how to cope with it, mostly (though I'll admit that some of my ways of coping with it are not pleasant for anyone involved), but it pisses me off to see it happen to others. It pisses me off doubly because I suspect half of the people involved with the process are unaware that they are complicit in giving someone the shaft - they're just random participants who happen to play into the gambit, or who have been accidentally trained into believing that this is appropriate wikipedia behavior. We've set up an unconscious double-standard on the project; I don't like that double-standard, and I'm inclined to poke holes in it every place I see it. So now do you see why I'm involving myself with this?

I'll be curious to see what you make of this. --Ludwigs2 09:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for recounting that history. I can understand why you've felt frustrated. As regards to this TM case, I think I'd be safe to say that many of the bothersome behaviors you list above have been seen there but have been exhibited by the "pro-" side more than any other. The "alphabet soup" is just a factor of time at Misplaced Pages, I'm afraid.

Olive has been warned amply. Some folks are what they are, and it doesn't matter how much you tell them to act differently they will stay true to form. That's admirable in some respects, but it may mean that they don't fit into a collegial project.

As for the rest, it's not necessary to get into the details or re-fight past battles. Let's just try to keep our aim on improving the encyclopedia.   Will Beback  talk  10:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - that's actually part of a theory of knowledge, and worth plugging through Santayana's original tome to understand the context. I'm more than happy to move forward, but I suspect I will be back at these crossroads sooner or later because it's in my nature to remember and remind people of where things have gone wrong before. As I've said, I have no bones with anyone in this matter, but I am uncomfortably aware of the evident selective memory process that fuels it. --Ludwigs2 17:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Subsection for fladrif

Everything you requested in terms of links and diffs concerning the TM ArbCom and prior related AE sanctions is readily available at the TM ArbCom Archive including at the Evidence and Workshop pages and their associated talk pages. Fladrif (talk) 18:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Fladrif, first off, you should have posted this over at the enforcement page. It's probably best you didn't, though, because I just spent 10 minutes skimming through those pages, and found them very unhelpful.

• There was no proof of COI or statements by Olive that she worked for TM that I could find - only a rather extensive effort by several editors to assert that she had a COI.
• There were no specific sanctions or admonishments given to Olive before NW's actions, just the general assertions of the arbitration, which apply equally to everyone.
• There's nothing there that applies to any of my other questions or points at all.

Really, what I need you to give me are specific diffs that show these sanctions, admonishments, or COI admissions/rulings as they apply to Olive. Just generally pointing at the page is useful in a broad sense, but doesn't serve to support your claims. --Ludwigs2 18:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

You might like this

I don't have access to this, but I thought you might be interested in it. PPdd (talk) 06:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

RFC

Agree with you, I should not have put the analysis in the statement. I have changed it two simple sentences. If you are not satisfied, pls edit my RFC statement. --TheMandarin (talk) 04:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Idea

Lovely idea. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 05:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Olive's topic ban

I withdrew from following the Olive AE appeal because I was confused about whether she ought to be banned. I think the ban needs more exhaustively revisited, but I now see that the thread has been closed. I wonder if you would be interested in reopening it, perhaps in a few weeks or alternatively very soon? I was disappointed that your cogent arguments received little attention. AGK 15:47, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I would have (I was annoyed that that the thread was closed on procedural grounds without discussing the merits of the ban) but I'm not familiar enough with arb-level conventions to know whether it's acceptable to do that, or if it should be moved to a different noticeboard (such as clarification), or whether I should just email my concerns directly to the committee. It's a bit uncomfortable facing down a handful of admins whom I have good reason to believe are wrong and suspect are acting out of bias. would the correct move be to reopen it there? --Ludwigs2 18:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration amendment

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests#Requests_for_amendment and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for Arbitration;
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, --Captain Occam (talk) 21:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)