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Religious modernism

I didn't notice your followup comment at the An/I I had been blocked for another misstep! At any rate, I wasn't sure what you meant by "misconceived", but don't want to dwell on that concept of dualism. I did want to introduce you to this paper though The Enemy within: Religion, Science, and Modernism, Ernestine van derWall, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2007. I think I'll do a little editing at the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy article using that paper as a source when I have the time. In the meantime, I've managed to hear your advice about editing articles as opposed to simply getting embroiled in talk page discussions.--Ubikwit (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the article; I'll have a read of it tomorrow. As regards misconceived ... well, probably best not to revisit as you probably have a topic ban (I removed almost all of my watched pages recently and I may have missed the final outcome). Topic bans are difficult to manage if people actively want to remove you from here. Glad to see you're editing articles. Occasionally I'm drawn to controversial topics myself but it's rare that anything productive comes out of it. Have a look at Mass killings under Communist regimes if you want to find an example of perverse tenacity ... FiachraByrne (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it is increasingly apparent to me that such may be the case with respect to the "affinity group" I mentioned in the ANI. See this discussion User_talk:Ubikwit#interaction_ban_violation.3F.

My gut reaction is of course to file an incident report regarding harassment by Mathsci, but I have the presence of mind to understand that a methodological approach to dealing with such an affinity group is necessary, given the fact that they are acting on the basis of an "affinity", not necessarily in collusion. I've introduced the scenario to a heretofore uninvolved admin here User_talk:KillerChihuahua#Opinion.

This is further complicated by the fact that the topic ban I am under does not cover my Talk page or Sandbox, in the same manner as the proposed topic ban here Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#topic-ban.3F.

By the way, how did you like that paper? She introduces people from Judaism and Islam with respect to similar developments, and that article needs to be expanded along those lines, but I don't have the time to go through other references to do that, and relying solely on that paper would probably involve some copyright issue. I did post one quote from the paper in the lead, making that paper readily available to people interested in the topic. --Ubikwit (talk) 15:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not knowledgeable about the history of the modernist/fundamentalist split in modern American Christianity, but, in my opinion, the van der Wall lecture seems ok as a source for that wp article. TBH, I'm not mad about the paper, although I've only read it superficially, but I think the treatment modernist/fundamentalist is too schematic and it's a kind of disembodied intellectual history.

Never mind about "affinity groups" or the precise terms of the iban – just don't edit on any pages where evildoer has been recently editing. Don't pick a fight with Mathsci. Don't start preparing ANI reports. You need to move away from this kind of stuff for the foreseeable otherwise a ban is coming. FiachraByrne (talk) 17:02, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Also the quote shouldn't be in the lead in that article; the lead should just summarise the body of the article - you could move it into the body of the text (perhaps in a quote box?. FiachraByrne (talk) 17:10, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your candor, but dignity is more important to my life than Misplaced Pages. Frankly, the affinity group is exhibiting a certain degree of sociopathic behavior, and I won't let that pass. If I get banned from Misplaced Pages I'll simply start a new blog about my experiences here, after running the scenario by ArbCom. If Misplaced Pages is tolerant of such affinity group type behavior, I won't be wasting my time here.

The paper is indeed schematic, but you have to recognize that in the context of its scope. It does lay the framework for a more extensive treatment of the topic, incorporating figures from other traditions, which is important. --Ubikwit (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

As I said my reading of the paper was superficial and I'm not informed of the literature or wider issues in this topic. Superficially, it did seem a bit decontextualised, a bit idealised, and lacking in purchase. Grand themes may require that but I wonder if too much has been sacrificed to such an end.

As regards the other, well, do what you feel you must. I doubt that there's much in the line of dignity to be salvaged from such strategies, however (and why would you really give a shit about what a phalanx of mostly anonymous "editors" tied 24/7 to their LCD screens actually thinks of you?). Personally, in this environment, I respect those who are knowledgeable, write well, and add good content. I edit here myself to the extent that I enjoy writing in what is only semi-serious environment (in the sense that, while I try and do a half-decent job there's little at stake if I mess up) and when I wish to avoid real writing that I should be doing; I don't really do it for any abstract "reader" or to get some message out - it's for my own pleasure. Governance here is basically fucked and the endless resolution processes – which police everything barring content – should be shunned unless absolutely necessary. FiachraByrne (talk) 17:40, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The dignity part relates more to having been subjected to humiliating inchoate administrative processes conducted by individuals whose lives in cyber space would seem to be more meaningful than their lives in the real world and who are generally 20 years or more younger than me and, though utterly uninformed in relation to the topics, are preoccupied with their self-perceived status on the website.

I am, in fact, here to write for the sake of the public, as that is where I feel the value of a website like Misplaced Pages lies. I only started editing the site because I found inconsistencies on articles with respect to which I had initially accessed to expand my knowledge on the topic. Misplaced Pages is nothing if not a portal providing viable information to the public.

It's not a question of me giving shit about what the members of the sociopathic affinity group thinks of me that matters, it is the fact of their ability to prosecute their agenda here through various illegitimate means that is at issue.

Incidentally, the most recent agent provocateur has been proven to be a sockpuppet Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#topic-ban.3F. --Ubikwit (talk) 18:07, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Rape and pregnancy controversies in US elections 2012

Thanks for starting a peer review on Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012. I look forward to your comments. Casprings (talk) 01:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

No problem. I'm mostly ignorant of the controversy (at least its detail) which may both help and hinder the review. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Really good work on the peer review. I know you aren't done, but integrating your comments into the article will improve 10 fold. Casprings (talk) 08:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! The changes you made to the background section were reverted and this also wiped out some of your minor edits. I subsequently rewrote the background section and noted in the edit summary that the content was not WP:OR or WP:SYNTH (I also added a quote box but I'm not sure that that quote should be included - something shorter would be more appropriate). I'm not going to get into an edit war over the issue, however. It's up to you but it might be wise to post on the talk page that the article is currently undergoing peer review. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:29, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, just did that. I hope me working on parts of the article you have peer reviewed doesn't interfere with your work. If you perfer me to stop, I will certainly do that. Casprings (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and started a WP:ORN discussion on the WP:OR statement. I want to come to consensus as soon as possible. I want to keep developing the article and make it the first WP:FA I have worked on, so I am trying to get consensus on any issue as fast as possible. I do think you are right. Casprings (talk) 00:28, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

You asked for the last time the other controversy section was organized differently. Here it is http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rape_and_pregnancy_controversies_in_United_States_elections,_2012&oldid=525773169 . It's basically the same section without the headings. Not sure if that is a conclusion, but I think you are right that the structure of that section needs some work. Casprings (talk) 17:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Casprings. I'm a bit ill at the moment but I'll get back to you about this later. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think it looks better now. FiachraByrne (talk) 20:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

One comment from the fog of others at alt med talk

Please comment at that talk page, but so it does not get lost among the mass of recent edits at the talk page, I draw your attention to this, as importnt to monitor so that the main general article content does not end up lost in a fog of detail on theory and NonPlainaenglish esoteric terms of specific alt meds. For example, all a general reader need know about qi is that it is a supernatural energy, not real energy, and details of Chinese Astrology and Chinese numerology can be left for the theory section of the TCM article if anyone cares beyond the fact that it is not an energy in physics. 64.134.225.194 (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I will comment when I get a chance but I disagree with you fundamentally here. I would seek to give a summary of say the main tenets of a notable alt med, something about the practice (as an aside, did you know that ayurvedic practitioners in India, advised by pharmacists, mostly distribute antibiotics) and then enter detail about dangers, lack of scientific validity etc. The topic is alt med and not the failings of alt med (i.e. the latter topic is pertinent to the article but does not define its scope). FiachraByrne (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

A clear, perceptive and lucid analysis. I certainly hope you don't peer review one of my papers ! I've become despondent from reading excellent review articles that are clear, readable and describe the topic beautifully and then comparing them to mess i've been trying to edit. I think I've more than paid for my initial naivety and subsequent reluctance to leave a greater mess than i'd found. I'm almost sorry for my carelessness that led to 64's bizarre analysis above. I've left a parting shot on the ANI noticeboard but suppose that the cry of "Why doesn't someone do something" is the silent prayer of every wiki editor. Lovely piece of work on history of alt med by the way.Aspheric (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, you're getting some support on ANI so that might help. Personally, I've vowed to avoid those boards unless absolutely necessary and, honestly, I don't generally have a problem with IP editing – although, if the ostensible purpose of IP editing is to keep the focus on the content rather than the editors, I can't say that the IP editors have stuck to that very rigorously. Thanks for the kind words on the very unfinished article on the history of alt med (the latter sections after mesmerism are not my work and I'll hopefully rewrite them). Normally I avoid problematic pages like Alternative medicine as its very unlikely that even a half-decent article might emerge. For that to happen you'd really need some kind of editorial board made up of knowledgeable (ideally expert) content editors that would oversee content decisions. All we get now is oversight of editor behaviour which is quite inadequate. On less controversial articles you have a better chance of writing a half-decent article.FiachraByrne (talk) 23:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

One might also observe that the article consensus - reflected by the ip editor above - is that the history of alternative medicine commences only in the 1990s. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh - in case it's misunderstood, by peer review I mean that I'm supposed to be peer reviewing a wikipedia article - not an actual journal article. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I've quoted you (not by name) in Alt med talk. I hope you don't mind. If you do, feel free to remove it Aspheric (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Given the information in History of alternative medicine, the above confirms what I had begun to see. What may be required is letting that article be, as it is, coolly descriptive of the historical background from which the current debate about "alternative medicine" emerged, and re-presenting the current AM article as a description of the current controversy if it is still a notably live issue in USA or possibly elsewhere, and if there are accessible sources from which such an article could be derived and editors willing to start over. It may be thought too frivolous to add treacle well to the History, but in my view, as a teaching and communicating aid, that could be more quadrivia than trivia. Qexigator (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Um, what had you begun to see? Could you clarify what you mean by adding "treacle well" to the history? FiachraByrne (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

...begun to see that What may be required is letting the current AM article be represented as a description of the current controversy. Treacle alludes to 1_remark to Aspheric (5 Jan) that AM is one of the topics which have made attempts over a longish period to improve an article make wading in treacle seem like a walk in the park. 2_ The notable don, mathematician, photographer and humourist Lewis Carroll author of The Hunting of the Snark and the lines "Nor in this was he mistaken, / As the picture failed completely" from Hiawatha's Photographing. According to the source for the treacle well at Oxford "In mediæval times the term 'treacle' meant an antidote to poison, so a treacle well was a healing well." Qexigator (talk) 09:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

On an unrelated matter, I note that Park has been indef blocked for socking User talk:ParkSehJik#January 2013. I disagreed with almost all his edits but I liked Park. FiachraByrne (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Zotero

Thanks for invite to Zotero. I would like to collaborate, but doubt whether I have much to offer. I have googled and looks good, the sort of thing I would like to use. However, I am averse to signing up to any website. Wp is the one exception. Cheers! Qexigator (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks anyway.FiachraByrne (talk) 17:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I have looked at the bibliography you have put in the sandbox. Is that kinda in lieu of Z.? Would like to help with this, please say in what way. Qexigator (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Kind of. I'm half thinking of just drafting an article or perhaps just some article sections but ... I'd really like to finish Bethlem Royal Hospital first; then History of alternative medicine; I'm only at Alternative medicine out of some perverted sense of obligation (to what I know not). FiachraByrne (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Bethlem- that's quite an opus you have there. Alt.m.- while you take a break I could look at the bibli. and make some notes but not meddle. Qexigator (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Bethlem is a clear example of pathological editing. Feel free to meddle in the alt med draft. I can recreate that bibliography if needs be - it's pretty much automated once I've collected it in the reference software. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Original research and synthesis at alternative medicine article?

Please consider that your good faith efforts at alternative medicine may be original research. No source says there is any inconsistency in definitions from one authority to another. The fictional “conflict in definitions”, or “alternative definition”, is entirely invented by Misplaced Pages editors. You might consider that you may be doing original research and synthesis to try to “establish” this invention of a “political definition”, and separately, to establish that it is inconsistent with the definition used in the science and medical community in any way, when it is not.

Evidence of this is that your original research concluded that the description (not essential definition), “a broad domain of healing resources”, is the most pervasive "definition", when it is not a definition at all, but merely a corralary description. “A broad domain of healing practices” also describes evidence based cancer therapies. So it cannot define alternative medicine. Similarly, not being “mainstream or conventional” may temporarily describe altrnative medicine, but it does not define it in any essential way, e.g., TCM may become mainstream or conventional somewhere (e.g. China), and lose the description "not mainstream or conventional", yet it would retain being categorized as alternative medicine since it is not purported to be based on science.

Doing Google searches for expressions to establish that there is a discrepancy, when no source says that there is one, is original research. You wrote - “The definition of CAM as ’a broad domain of healing resources’ is evidently the most pervasive in the literature as shown in a simple Google scholar search”. Your research conclusion is that this exact expression is the most pervasive "definition" in the scholarly literature, which is not accurate. From WP:OR, "This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources." The position advanced is that there is a conflict in definitoins, when no source says there is such a conflict, and at best there is a different emphasis on nonessential corralary desriptions. No source shares the position trying to be advanced, that there is an "alternative definition". Your search for an exact expression, rather than fully reading the various articles for the content, not a shared expression, discounts that most do not use the same wording to define what is essentially the same thing. None of the first ten sources contain identical wording, so all would count as next to nothing in your research style of Google search without reading. But they all contain the same essential definition, just with different wording. Please consider that a Google scholar search for an expression is original research to estblish that the expression is a definition.

(Please also consider the seaparate point that there is a difference between a corralary description, not mainstream right now, and an essential definitoin, efficacy claim not initally based on science. So doing Google seraches for expressions "mainstream", "Dominant", "widely varying", etc., are all descriptions and do not well define anything.) 75.61.66.237 (talk) 21:56, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Can this really be such a prob.? There seems to be nothing there which some copyediting of the wording about definitions would not resolve. Is there a risk that such copyedit violates SYN, OR et.al.? Qexigator (talk) 23:22, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Park. It's nice to see you still taking an interest in the article; discussion is suffering due to a lack of diverse perspectives.

There are many sources that state that there are different definitions of alt med, inadequate definitions, conflicting definitions, and which discuss the implications of those different definitions for the object of study. That's easy to substantiate. In any case, one could only evaluate your objection with reference to an actual article edit. Such objections really have no purchase whatsoever for talk page discussions.

Similarly, I think it's quite reasonable to refer to Google Scholar search results for talk page discussions and I'd be happy to take that to WP:OR/N or any other relevant venue. It would fall within the remit of WP:OR if I cited the Google Scholar results in the article to support a statement such as: "this is the most pervasive definition"; for that kind of statement I'd obviously need a decent source, which I haven't gone looking for specifically as of yet. There are, of course, other reasons to favour the introduction of the 1995 OAM expert panel definition before others, not least its historical importance and, as indicated by the Google Scholar results, the frequency with which it is referenced (but by no means universally endorsed or adopted) by scholarly sources (of mixed pedigree admittedly) and typically at the introduction to a section dealing with the problem of definitions. WP:OR would arise if a statement was made in the article that this is the most referenced definition based upon a Google Scholar search. When looking at the policy WP:WEIGHT you'll see that editors are actually enjoined to do this type of analysis of secondary sources. As to the nature of the definition – and the sources refer to it pretty much unanimously as a definition rather than a description – that's of no specific concern other than the fact that definitions are so contested, inadequate and almost always politically conceived, that it precludes a simple statement of the type, "Alternative medicine is ...". The ability to critique that particular definition will depend upon the nature of the sources which attack it.

There is no essential definition of Alternative Medicine and there never will be: it is not a natural kind, has no essence and its meaning is entirely relational and contextual.

By the way if you want to email me that 1995 Wallace Sampson article it would be very much appreciated. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Lobotomy etc.

It's probably best that you be aware of this. I am on a trip for awhile and had planned to spend part of the time going through your comments on the Gage article, but so far it hasn't worked out that way. I still have another week, though! EEng (talk) 10:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Problematic but good faith, I think; I'll engage unless there's a block. FiachraByrne (talk) 10:53, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, not good faith, actually. Ever since an argument over whether the pt who shot Moniz had or had not been lobotomized (sloppy sources say he was -- it's a great story! -- but careful sources, with cites, say no) he's been running around randomly reverting my edits all over the place -- see

• Special:Contributions/87.67.21.139 (see esp. edit summaries for Jan. 21)
• Special:Contributions/87.67.18.206

-- and leaving messages like this [ here and there.

EEng (talk) 12:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Oh yes, before I forget, I'm hiring you to be on my personal revenge squad ] too. Same deal Looie gets.

P.P.S. I really like your comments re uses of lobotomy at ANI re uses of lobtomy see below. It's a terrible mistake to think the lesson of lobotomy is, "Look at the terrible things those evil, evil people did! We of course, so ethical and knowing, would never do such a thing!" The correct lesson is, "Let us always remember that well-meaning people, including ourselves, can make horrible mistakes."

P.P.P.S. I've modified my P.P.S. just above to remove the unfortunate phrasing uses of lobotomy at ANI which, I think you will agree, might lead people to alarming conclusions. Hmmmm.... Though now that I think about it, adding lobotomy to the toolbox of ANI rememdies might not be such a bad thing. Shall we propose it?