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COI

Just a note. Brangifer is very quick to cry COI. See here He has a clear history of trying to eliminate "fringe" editors via wikilaw rather than negotiating edits. By his definition, I would be COI for virtually all "fringe" topics. Tom Butler (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but there's a balance here. I'm more interested in correcting the problem than in punishing editors, so I'm trying not to overindulge on pointed evidence. BRangifer has his issues (as do I), but BRangifer does seem to have the best interests of the project at heart, and does have a certain flexibility. I'm ok with editors I disagree with so long as the disagreement is open to rational discussion. --Ludwigs2 05:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Tom, you say that I would think you have a "COI for virtually all "fringe" topics." That's not at all true. You fail to understand me. You have a COI on Electronic voice phenomena, and for very obvious reasons. (Are you denying you don't?) The same would apply to your wife. Everyone here knows you have a strong COI on that article/subject. That doesn't mean you can't edit it, but you need to be very careful since you have a financial interest in it. There is nothing in my attitude (here expressed very clearly so as not to be misunderstood again) that is in the least bit questionable, and if you understood the COI guideline you'd know that. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it is public knowledge via IRS documents that no one has made money via the association except the vendors--printers, servers and such. In fact, I understand the need for a stable article and know better than to make one biased. All of the problems I had with the EVP article were with you, SA and his minions who insisted on using phrases intended to discredit the subject rather than settling for a balanced article. My interests here were public service at first but I have learned that Misplaced Pages is really a Skeptical propaganda tool for subjects Skeptics think mainstream science does not support. People trying to volunteer genuine support for the project do not stand a chance if they run into Skeptical editors. Look at how many you all have run off.

My best interest now is for the article to be as bad as possible. I am perfectly capable of telling the association side at its website.

You are speaking from assumptions about me ... again. Of everyone I have watched edit, you are the fastest to contest edits by charging COI or some other wikilaw that might help you prevail. Tom Butler (talk) 17:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

BR - I don't remember if we've had this discussion, but just for your information COI accusations should be reserved for cases where people are overtly trying to advocate for their own business interests. Using it loosely just waters it down and makes it difficult to use it when it needs to be used. I am (personally) not in the habit of checking up on people's off-wiki activities, and I have not seen Tom do anything on-wiki which would clue me in to what his offline activities are, and so COI seems like a real stretch of the imagination. Best not to put the cart before the horse: If there's nothing he does on the project that that would lead one to think he might be advocating for his personal business interests, then we probably shouldn't go looking off line to make the case that he's doing it anyway.

In other words, it's not a good idea to go off-project looking for things that editors might have a COI on. if they are not bringing it on-project in a reasonably obvious way, there are no COI issues.

Tom, word of advice. don't legitimize these kinds of arguments by bringing even more of your personal life on-wiki. If you don't have a COI, you can safely ignore spurious accusations. --Ludwigs2 18:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Examples

Would love to hear the examples you mentioned. No hurry if you have to do other stuff though, ArbComs are stressful. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 17:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The three quick ones I can think of:

• QuackGuru, who has spent a lot of time trying to modify wp:V, wp:NOR, wp:RS and wp:MEDRS to institute his particular brand of literalism as policy
• BRangifer, who tried to support a fairly bizarre misreading of an NSF document at the Ghost article by pushing it into policy at NPOV
• Several editors at wp:FRINGE, who have tried to institute some very unscholarly ideas into the guideline (I'm thinking explicitly of the 'particular attribution' clause, which basically said that any author who had any kind of academic credentials was not only qualified as a source for critical perspectives on any fringe article, but should be taken as the most qualified source in all cases)

people are nuts, sometimes... --Ludwigs2 22:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Ludwigs, there are all shades in this picture, and lumping BR in with QG is a bit of nonsense. Everyone makes an occasional mistake or picks a pet interpretation which is ill-advised, but good editors stop doing that, and BR certainly speaks from a reasonable place these days. I don't see what you gain from lumping him in with others who are consistently biased and far more tendentious. That's how things look to me from 2010 onward, at least. Ocaasi 22:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Look, these are just examples. I have no problem with BR - he did do this, but he seems to have changed his way of viewing things, so all's right with the world. I'd have no problem with QG if QG stopped doing things like this too.

I understand that there's a strong tendency on wikipedia to personalize everything (if only because I have my own bevy of people following me around trying to take everything I do personally). However, I make a strong distinction between what people do and who they are, and I am more than willing to overlook anything that people have done if I can get around to a place where I can work with them. Don't assume that I mean insult when I say things like this, because usually I am just presenting a factual situation for what it is. --Ludwigs2 23:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I thought we were talking about what happened not editors, but it's hard to separate sometimes. Which is the "particular attribution" clause? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Things don't happen unless editors do them, but IMO everyone deserves a certain measure of grace, if they show a willingness to good faith. As I've said, despite my past differences with BR, I'm currently willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in most any dispute, because he's demonstrated that that kind of willingness. I still don't necessarily agree with him, but I don't need to agree with people (or have them agree with me) to give them their due.

For the PA clause, you'll have to look back a year or so in the archives. But really, it did pretty much what I said it did - basically they wanted to allow anyone with any sort of scientific credential to be quoted on Fringe articles without attribution (as though their opinion represented the entirety of the scientific community). This is where people like Stephen Barrett and Martin Gardner came into play: One could supposedly find a quote from a Barrett (a retired psychologist) or a Gardner (a mathematician with a lot of non-academic writing) that dissed some fringe topic - both have umpteen quotes in which they call this fringe topic or that fringe topic stupid and unscientific, though many of Barrett's are self-published and most of Gardner's are published in non-peer-reviewed contexts - and then add that quote to articles as representative of the mainstream scientific opinion without specifically attributing it or justifying it further. silliness. --Ludwigs2 00:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That does seem silly. I do understand that sourcing mainstream opinion in these areas might be difficult, but the thought occurs that if these authors are the only sources which can be found to represent mainstream opinion, maybe the mainstream just hasn't noticed. These authors should be good enough sources to put in the article though. Self publication would be bad of course. Question: have the problems with sourcing in this area ever been put to the larger community, or is it just something being fought about by interested parties? It should have been widely discussed and some general consensus formed, before the pillars of WP were broken for FRINGE articles. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 18:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Because of my tendency to avoid anywhere that QG is editing, the particular attribution issue isn't one I'm totally informed about, yet it's been hard to avoid seeing its mention. If I understand it correctly, it's been a pet peeve of QG. From what I've seen, I pretty much totally disagree with him. I believe that "when in doubt, attribute". Rather once too many times than too few. I don't see it as a negative to attribute an opinion to the author. Please inform me if I'm totally off on this or have misunderstood the issues. (BTW, I just noticed something minor above. Barrett is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.) -- Brangifer (talk) 16:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

PA was actual ScienceApologist's baby (he and I had some wonderfully colorful discussions over it back in 2008), though I daresay it's something QG would have an opinion on. I mean, I understand the problem with attribution: presenting something with too wide or too narrow an attribution puts a psychological spin on it. We want to say "The Theory of Gravity" rather than "Newton's Theory of Gravity" because the attribution in the latter case might make it sound like someone else has a different theory of gravity that's in the running. Of course, PA wanted to work that the other way (remove attribution to make opinion seem more universal). There was a problem on this over at Astrology just recently - someone tried to change (roughly) "Astrology is a pseudoscience" (no attribution) to "Astrology is generally considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community" (attribution, but broadly) and stirred up a beehive of trouble - a number of people got blocked/banned over it. crazy stuff. sorry about the fubar on Barrett. --Ludwigs2 16:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah! So QG is just continuing to push SA's idea? I can see what you say about it having its place, but for matters where opinions differ, I prefer attribution. Take Barrett, for example. While most of what he says is written from an EBM and consumer protection perspective that is shared by the mainstream science and legal communities, it's still his opinion and I think attribution would often be in order. In many cases where I have cited him, I go a step further and cite non-Quackwatch sources that cite him, IOW a secondary source. That has the advantage of showing that he doesn't stand alone, but is considered an authority on the subject by other sources. I feel that is generally a wise course to follow. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Isn't astrology the uber-pseudoscience? LOL... Ludwigs, you mean like maybe... Einstein? Anyways, it seems quite strange that the general community didn't stand up and enforce the pillars of WP in these cases? As it seems, there has grown up a separate culture where the general rules of WP are openly and routinely violated when editors feel it's necessary to create a balance in articles which is not actually supported by good sourcing. There doesn't seem to be much dispute that this did and does happen. The state on the ground should be instituted in general policy if it's really kosher. Yet, I have a feeling that if I went and edited the major policies to include the exceptions which you two have described, I would be immediately shot down if not reported. Why is it still the case when everyone knows about it? And if it's necessary, why can't we just say "In an article on a FRINGE subject, you can violate RS rules if necessary to explicate the scientific viewpoint" and have that be policy? Is it because no one has been able to come up with a formulation which doesn't adulterate the pillars? Yet the community in general supports the practice? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 07:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you correctly. You seem to be saying that the FRINGE guideline is a violation of other policies ("the pillars of WP were broken for FRINGE articles", "the general rules of WP are openly and routinely violated", and "adulterate the pillars"). Is that really what you mean?

The goal of Misplaced Pages (to document the sum total of human knowledge) requires that we cover fringe subjects, but since they are often so nonsensical, pseudoscientific, illegal, unethical, etc.., they are largely ignored by scientific research and academia, but they are not completely ignored. Many scientists and physicians (including Nobel laureates) who are active skeptics still deal with the subjects, but on their own time, not in their jobs. They do it in books, on websites, in skeptical journals, on blogs, in newspaper and magazine columns, etc.. To provide an NPOV coverage of the fringe subjects, we are allowed to use such sources because they are the only ones which provide the mainstream POV on the subjects. Otherwise we'd have fringe articles, written exclusively from the fringe POV, IOW we'd have sales brochures advocating nonsense as fact. Since we're trying to produce a serious encyclopedia, we can't let that happen. Misplaced Pages's reputation would be totally shot.

The FRINGE guideline was put to the community and developed in full sight of the community. It's a further development in the application of V, RS, and UNDUE, IIRC. We were constantly running into problems with finding academic and scholarly sources for fringe subjects. For example, to find a national body of science that openly condemns astrology (or any other pseudoscientific or quackery related belief) is nearly impossible, but the National Science Foundation does call belief in astrology a pseudoscientific belief. That's pretty good and is better than any other lesser-than-academic source, but we still use the others because they give a more complete picture of how astrology is received by scientists and skeptics.

Do you still see a problem with the FRINGE guideline, or do you see it now as an extension and further application of existing policies when dealing with special situations where better sources hardly exist?.....or have I totally misunderstood you? -- Brangifer (talk) 07:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You might have problems defining the academic community. Did you know you can get degrees in astrology in India? Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

LOL! Yes, I knew that. India is a rather interesting case. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

@ Brangifer: You've unknowingly highlighted the real problem here, where you said: "Otherwise we'd have fringe articles, written exclusively from the fringe POV, IOW we'd have sales brochures advocating nonsense as fact." Writing a fringe article from a fringe perspective is not by any means advertising: it's simply description. when I tell you (for instance) that many cultures offer small coins to statuettes in order to increase the prosperity of their families, I am not advertising for the practice or trying to sell people small states - I'm simply saying what people do. When I get accused of advertising merely for describing practices, it's actually an effort by others to advertise the opposite point of view (i.e., by people who think it's silly to offer coins in that way and are trying to convince everyone that it's silly). It's not wikipedia's job to advertise for scientific rationalism, and while we need to keep scientific rationalism in view to keep actual fringe advertising from happening, going overboard with it is counterproductive.

@ BC: Einstein didn't challenge Newton; Einstein revised Newton. or better put, Einstein pointed out that Newton presented the limit case of relativity, where relative speed can be ignored completely.

With respect to the rest - this is standard politics in a tribal society,where you get a conflict between unconstrained individualism and rigid dogmatism. Nothing much to do about it until the society grows up. --Ludwigs2 15:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

"....unknowingly highlighted the real problem...." Not "unknowing" at all because I agree with you! A neutral description of fringe beliefs and practices is perfectly fine with me. That's what we want! We agree. You've just failed to notice my important qualifier "exclusively" (therefore not "unknowing"). That applies to the article as a whole, not to the neutral description. Articles aren't supposed to be written from only one POV. That violates NPOV. It's when any opposing views are excluded that we have a problem. That makes the neutral description seem like advocacy, although discerning readers (a minority!) will realize it's just a description. NPOV requires inclusion of opposing POV, and coverage of the subject from all angles. That's where the rub is. That is sadly lacking in some cases. Can we agree on that?

A fringe article can be advocacy in (at least) two ways: (a) "Sin of commission" by openly favorable descriptions of nonsense as reality; (b) "Sin of omission" by leaving out criticism that states plainly that it is considered nonsense. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

@Brangifer, "who are active skeptics still deal with the subjects, but on their own time, not in their jobs." That is a violation of our sourcing policy, since it would use personal websites etc. Maybe proponents are also being quoted, but just because there is one violation doesn't mean there should be another. As far as I know, there's nothing in the basic policies that says that you can use bad sources when there aren't good ones available. And BTW... how do you really know it's the WP:MAINSTREAM POV if it hasn't actually been vetted by the relevant scholarly community? The whole point of MAINSTREAM is to say that the academic mainstream is the mainstream of Misplaced Pages, but if there is no mainstream in that sense, there is nothing in WP rules that says we violate sourcing. If a thing is Notable, it should have mainstream sources, which we should use, and exclude non-RS sources. To put it simply: there is no exception to the sourcing rules which has been acknowledged by the community at large. What you seem to be saying is that we have to use bad sources to describe fringe subjects. Why is that? Why can't we stick to the RS, and not allow bad sources from either side of a fringe subject? If it were up to me, I would simply eliminate all non-RS sources, and let the chips fall where they may: if it means the article is biased toward FRINGE, toward MAINSTREAM (the usual case), or that we don't have enough sources for a fully developed article, so what? We should choose reliability first, over any other concerns. And we determine reliability by referring to our sourcing policy. NPOV by definition is a neutral description of RS, and has no meaning separate from RS. It seems to me that FRINGE is taking into consideration things which Misplaced Pages editors have no business taking into consideration- such as how articles turn out once you've described the RS. We should not care if an article is biased or underdeveloped. That's none of our business per WP:MAINSTREAM. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 18:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

??? Actual "bad" sources would never be allowed. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea. They are writing in books, on websites, in skeptical journals, on blogs, in newspaper and magazine columns, etc.. Those are perfectly good sources. They are often considered experts on the specific subject, or on consumer protection (and can address the subject from that angle), or on science in general (and can thus point out where the fringe idea deviates from known science). There are even private websites and blogs that are so recognized for their accuracy and by the fame of the author(s) that they are considered RS here for such matters. I suspect you need to broaden your understanding of what is considered a RS. It's not just peer-reviewed literature.

As to "notability", many fringe ideas are very notable, but are so crazy that scientists don't give them the time of day. They are pretty much ignored, but are given much press on other fringe websites. It is only scientists who are active skeptics who use their free time to fight on the frontlines in the battle between science and pseudoscience, and there really is such a battle. In the alternative medicine area a war is being waged against mainstream medicine that's pretty wild. If you've ever gotten involved with the anti-vaccination area, you'll see some of the most grotesque lies being told and people actually allowing their own children to die, not just to catch a disease, but then to suffer for long periods and die, when treatment is simple and easily available. Then the rest of the antivax crowd cheers them for "standing on principle" by not allowing those evil MDs to touch them with their "dangerous drugs".

Have you really read WP:FRINGE#Parity of sources carefully?

Another problematic area is the amount of coverage (literally, in amount of bytes). An article on a fringe subject shouldn't contain more coverage of the subject than is given in independent (often mainstream) sources per WP:FRINGE#Independent sources. That is constantly violated. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I believe I've read it well enough: "In an article on a fringe topic, if a notable fringe theory is primarily described by amateurs and self-published texts, verifiable and reliable criticism of the fringe theory need not be published in a peer reviewed journal." Translation: if you use bad sourcing on one side, you can use it on the other. The mentions of "peer review" seem to be largely a red herring: you wouldn't think much of peer review in an article such as the example, because you'd be dealing with news reports or sociological texts or government documents etc. However, the sources you describe are already spoken of as acceptable in RS: "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I doubt that we should include any sources which don't meet those criteria... do you?

I'm wondering if I'm reading into what you say. I get the impression you feel that, first, Wikipedians have to think about how an article comes out (we don't, we just follow the RS we have), and two, that the "wars" of science and pseudoscience are relevant to Misplaced Pages (they aren't, we just follow the RS we have). I'm serious: if RS say something, and there's no "other side" presented in RS, then that is that, and it really doesn't matter if the RS are saying that the moon is made of green cheese. Do you really disagree with this? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 21:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You gave me a good chuckle there In a certain sense you're right about using "bad sources", at least on the fringe side. To then call the opposing POV, which is scientifically accurate, "bad" is up to debate, but at least they are more accurate sources because they are closer to the scientific "truth" (although I don't like to use that word in connection with science). The main goal of Misplaced Pages is still what drives the whole thing, and if that means using lesser quality sources to document some aspects of human knowledge, then we do it. It's not so much "how an article comes out" that's the determining factor, but that NPOV and the main goal of Misplaced Pages is fulfilled. That's why we even have some fringe articles, even though none of their sources are "reliable" in the strict sense of the word. (Our "RS" doesn't mean the source is "true", just verifiable and it's there tomorrow.) The fringe theories don't even qualify for the strict meaning of "knowledge" (which is just like "science" - that which is proven to be true), but they do qualify for "experience" or "impression" or "belief". In that sense they are still a part of human experience and we cover it.

NPOV then requires that we cover it from all angles, even if we are forced to use lesser quality sources. Since the fringe beliefs are unproven "opinions" not based in science, then the countering sources can also be "opinions", although they are informed by scientific knowledge, so they aren't unproven and thus are not only better quality, but aren't "bad". They are just of a different quality than we'd allow for MEDRS type information. We document opinions all the time in many articles, including political, sociological and alternative medicine articles, and that's all done in the service of describing the "sum total of human knowledge". Now if you want to describe all sources we use to document opinions as "bad" sources, that's an option.

As to "the "wars" of science and pseudoscience", they are VERY relevant to Misplaced Pages because they are part of reality, and if we ignore them, we are violating NPOV and not fulfilling our main goal. We document controversies here all the time. Controversy happens to be one of the many human activities which we document, and they are often pretty much ONLY "opinion". Unfortunately those wars can sometimes spill over to talk pages and actual edit warring and sockpuppet attacks, just like in politics where paid sockpuppets whitewash articles on political figures. The Koch brothers socking scandal at Misplaced Pages is a recent example, where even admins helped them. (See an SPI here). It's one thing to just add or delete material. Anyone can do that. It's another to understand and even be involved in the real world conflicts and then try to maintain NPOV in writing articles, but it can be done. Lots of editors here do it. They are actually the ones who understand the issues best and know where the sources are, and as long as they can control their tempers and write according to policy, we value them as contributors here. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I agree with BR (and L2, I think), that it's okay to use less-than-ideal fringe sources under the following conditions: 1) the sources are specific to the expertise/field, and would be considered noteworthy within that field (even if it's Science); 2) they are only used in the article where that expertise or inside knowledge is being presented directly, and less in unrelated or overview sections; 3) they are given attribution in-text if necessary, but either way it is clear that they are 'inside' sources not 'neutral ones'; 4) The issue is properly framed, as Ludwigs says (is framing OR? or CS, common sense). I'm sure there are nuances I'm missing, but my general sentiment is with BR that we should document all aspects, with Ludwigs that we should document the inside-(of the now infamous gorilla cage)-details, and with harder skeptics that we should make note of the mainstream Scientific position on the subject. Ocaasi 03:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is the exception about "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves." I bet this has been stretched beyond the limits sometimes though. More later, I'm very busy right now in RL but didn't want to abandon the discussion (; I'm not sure where the "sum total of human knowledge" thing comes from? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 04:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

@ Ocaasi, you're right on the money. ....and of course, keep in mind that fringe sources are always "less-than-ideal" from a scientific reality standpoint , but as "sources of information about themselves" (and their weird ideas) they are okay, just not about scientific matters. We are forced to use them if we are to document and describe what they believe. The alternative would be for Misplaced Pages to adopt the SPOV (scientific POV) as policy for the whole encyclopedia, a concept which I have never supported. (Right now MEDRS and FRINGE serve us fine.) It would mean we never even touched fringe subjects (thus failing to document the sum total of human knowledge), or we'd do an overkill on such articles which would just be debunking sessions. (Hey, I can do that on my website!) That wouldn't be encyclopedic. I think NPOV serves us just fine because it guarantees that each article has it all. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Golden Gate Bridge

Thanks for the update. As you say, the "collapse" aspect is a little ambiguous - and was probably inferred later by people who noted the flattening out - but there's clearly more to this than just being a reworking of the "sinking library" urban legend I had mentioned. The first link you gave looks to be a reliable source; do you think something should get added to the article? Matt Deres (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you want a really reliable source, here's the New York Times report on the event. I guess we could add it in down in the bottom section - I'll do that now. --Ludwigs2 00:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Peace

The thought of you sitting quietly in contemplative worship, made me chuckle out loud. Not that you couldn't. Ocaasi 21:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Lol... it's highly doubtful you (or anyone) would recognize me from my on-project persona if we met in person. In fact, half the reason I get as frustrated as I do at times is because I have to adopt a brutally hard-nosed attitude that's very unnatural for me. It's an unfortunate necessity: the articles I work on project are places where calm, reasonable, thoughtful opinions are either ignored or met with hysterical outbursts and blatant political manipulations. In the real world I can chill those kinds of things out with a raised eyebrow and a surprised, thoughtful comment, but non-verbal cues don't work here, and thoughtful commentary usually just compounds the hysteria. As often as not I'm reduced to the old insano-rationalist paradigm (making sure that people know that I can hold my own in a monkey-style crap fight, so that they might think twice before tossing crap at me). That works about as well as it does in the real world - i.e., not very, but better than doing nothing.

I actually like Quakerism a lot, and went to a lot of meetings when I lived on the east coast. I used to have a regular meditation practice (no particular style or sect, just quiet sitting - an hour or two on the cushion is a great curative for intellectual burnout over some theoretical piece), but I've fallen off on that in the last few years. ought to get back to that sooner or later, but... to every thing its season. --Ludwigs2 22:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

AE Sanction Case

I am going to ask you to stay off of the AE sanction case for at least the next twenty-four hours while I confer with other clerks on what action will be appropriate to take to settle this thing between you and Mathsci. NW (Talk) 00:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really a problem, since there's not much more to be said on this case, barring questions from the arbs (the discussion with brangifer and tom - not all that much on point to begin with - is petering off into senseless griping) and RL has some necessities that need attending to. let me know when and what you figure out. As I said, at this point Mathsci has nothing pleasant to say to or about me, and I have no respect for him as an editor or a human being. I will happily disengage from him entirely (as I have generally been trying to do) and count that as a blessing, if something can be arranged to keep him from trying to stir up fights with me. thanks. --Ludwigs2 08:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Ludwig, I’m not sure where the best place is to mention this, but I guess I’ll mention it here because I’d like to make sure you see it. I would really prefer that you not request for Mathsci to be banned from interacting with you. Not because I don’t think Mathsci’s behavior warrants it, or because I don’t think such a ban would be beneficial to you, but because I think this benefit might come at the expense of a lot of other people.

It’s important for you to remember that you’re only one of at least ten people who have been the targets of Mathsci’s desire for Wiki-vengeance, and the incivility and hounding that tend to go along with that. You’ve probably had to deal with more of this than anyone else has, but I also think you’re more resilient about it than a lot of the rest of us. At least three of Mathsci’s past targets have quit Misplaced Pages entirely, and specifically mentioned Mathsci’s behavior towards them as a reason for doing that. But I don’t think there’s a danger of him having that effect on you, and more importantly, as long as his attention is focused on you he generally isn’t attacking anyone else.

Basically, I’ve come to think of you as the antidote to Mathsci’s battleground behavior. The way a lot of antidotes work is by causing a poison to chemically bind with them, instead of attacking what they would normally attack in someone’s body. That’s more or less the effect I’ve noticed you having on Mathsci. If there isn’t a way to change Mathsci’s battleground attitude, and I don’t think there is, the best way I can think of to limit its effects is for it to stay focused on someone who seems more able to tolerate it than most of the people he’d be attacking otherwise.

I really appreciate this about you, by the way, so thanks. I think of Mathsci’s recent vendetta towards you as being the biggest reason why he’s pretty much left me alone since February, along with Ferahgo, Vecrumba, and all the rest of his past targets. I also know this is unpleasant for you, and I feel bad for you about what you have to put up with in this respect. But I hope you can still understand what a benefit this has been for the rest of us, and why I’m kind of concerned about possibly losing that benefit. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I wish I knew the right way to phonetically write the sound a cat makes when it's coughing up a hairball, because that would be really appropriate here.

You seem to be suggesting that I am doing the community a service to the extent that Mathsci gets so hung up on his less-than-successful attempts to crawl up my ass that it distracts him from trying to crawl up the asses of other editors where he would generally be more successful. While I can't help but think that there's a certain truth to that, and can't help but note that Mathsci is not the only editor on project apparently intent on crawling up my ass at the moment - what's one more in the such a crowd; I should sell tickets - I do need to point out that I'd rather not have anyone at all trying to crawl up my ass on project, ever. I put up with it because I really do believe in fairness for both editors and topics, and recognize that fairness is a lightning-rod for people with righteousness issues (people who believe they are right in an absolute sense cannot tolerate fairness, because fairness hamstrings the whole complex of cognitive identifications about the relationship between ideology and personal character that righteousness depends on). However, I don't want to put up with it more than I have to, because putting up with it makes me angry and frustrated and interferes extensively with my ability to do even minor constructive editing. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't like conflict. I mean, I have the moral and philosophical high grounds for the most part, and am not at all shy about using that position for tactical advantage where I need to, but I don't like it.

I'm still looking for a general solution to this kind of problem (well, that's not quite true: I know the general solution, but the issue as always is getting the project reactionaries to see the bigger picture rather than lash out blindly against changes they perceive as threatening). The specific tussle with Mathsci is not relevant to solving that issue or that problem; It's nothing more than an aggravating annoyance that I would like to be rid of. I'd ask you to trust in the bigger picture, but I know per some of our previous discussions that the bigger picture isn't really your thing either (a good part of the reason you're in the boat you're in now is that you don't let go of the little things when you ought to). But I'll ask you to try anyway. --Ludwigs2 19:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know Ludwigs, I think Occam's onto something. You can be our troll-magnet, our martyr, our wiki-jesus. All hail Ludwigs, binder to evil, distractor of heathens, black-hole of injustice. Ocaasi 20:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I totally understand how you feel about this. I figured you might be bothered by my mentioning this, but it really is something I’m worried about: that as soon as Mathsci gets banned from interacting with you, if he does, he’ll immediately be back at Ferahgo’s and my throats again, and maybe also the throats of a few of his other perennial targets.

I also would like there to be a long-term solution to this general sort of problem, but I think I’m a lot more cynical than you are about things like this on Misplaced Pages in general. I think you’ve seen what I had to say about this in my letter to the Economist, about how the people who are in positions of power here tend to support one another even if it’s at the expense of everyone else. I’m very pessimistic about that changing anytime soon. And as long as this problem isn’t changing, I think the most we can hope for is to just be pragmatic, and find ways for problems like these to do as little harm to the project as possible. So in this case if Mathsci is always going to be up someone’s ass, as you put it, from a pragmatic perspective I think it does less harm to the project if that person isn’t someone who will quit the project because of him, rather than it being someone who will.

But anyway, now that I’ve expressed this concern to you, I won’t try to stop you from requesting an interaction ban. It’s certainly reasonable for you to want to avoid this as much as possible, and an interaction ban is probably justified in this case. But if you’re going to request one, I’d appreciate you considering whether there’s anything else you could request that would address the root problem of Mathsci’s behavior towards everyone he hates, and as much as possible avoids the risk of just pushing this problem off onto all the rest of us. You suggested something along these lines here when Mathsci tried to get me site-banned two months ago—if you think something like your proposal there has any chance of being implemented, it would be a much better way to address the entirety of the problem. Do you think there would be any value in considering a proposal like that in this case? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)