Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JoshuaZ (talk | contribs) at 14:15, 23 March 2006 (Calm Down). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

I just wanted to welcome you to Misplaced Pages, and thank you for your excellent work on the Natasha Demkina article. I'm the guy who created the original two-sentence stub in February, and seeing one of the primary sources flesh out the article represents Misplaced Pages at its best. I also want to commend you for presenting alternative perspectives in your article, and including links that present those other points of view. If you've got any questions about how things work here, just let me know. --Arcadian 03:36, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Natasha Demkina

In reply to your comments: "So I'm confused: a Wiki administrator said that 'seeing one of the primary sources flesh out the article represents Misplaced Pages at its best.' Now I'm being told that this is a violation of Misplaced Pages policies. Who's right about this? And by the way, shouldn't the validity and accuracy of the information added to Misplaced Pages be more important than the authorship of that information?"

First of all, writing about subjects in which you are closely involved is not currently a violation of Misplaced Pages policy, but Misplaced Pages:Autobiography is a guideline that discourages it. My own opinion, which probably differs from that of Arcadian, is that if someone stumbles across a Misplaced Pages article for which he or she is a primary source of information, it is usually appropriate that he or she should post suggestions for additions, removals, or changes in the Talk page and draw them to the attention of others.

Secondly, of course the validity and accuracy of information is more important that the authorship of that information, but you seem to suggest that it is self-evident that the information you have contributed to the article is valid and accurate. I reject this premise, and it is apparent that JS does, too. Clearly there is a degree of subjectivity involved when someone edits an article in which they are closely involved or are a primary source of information. Edwardian 23:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

My comment was actually aimed at the problem of letting someone who repeatedly posts falsehoods -- to advance his stated "activist" agenda aimed at discrediting skeptics -- as appears to be happening. Julio Sequeira will not quit. If you give him a forum he will post one falsehood after another and when someone tries to correct them, he comes up with twelve more. His latest game with the number of test cards and his accusation that I lied when I told you that the appendix and esophagus can be viewed with the right x-ray procedures are perfect examples. I've played his game too much and too long and I'm sick of it. It's like debating with Creationists. They lie and cheat and, when doing it in front of people who don't know better, they often win the debate.

Tell you what, Edwardian, if you can find a single falsehood I ever added to the Misplaced Pages entry as Siqueria has repeatedly, I will shut up and go away.

On a more positive note, I think the changes you've already made are excellent -- with the exception of one. I think it is inappropriate for the entry to be singling out one side to be labeled as "highly respected." Brian Josephson may be highly respected by people who like him believe Uri Geller is a real psychic, not a charlatan, but he is widely lambasted by many scientists and others who know what he does. What's more, I would argue that I am highly respected. I may not have a Nobel prize but I have numerous other tokens of honor including a Pulitzer prize nomination from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Rosalyn Carter Fellowship in Mental Health Journalism, an Amnesty International "Spotlight on Media" Award, and other honors. However, I prefer that you just leave out such unnecessary and biased irrelevancies. Having won a Nobel prize 33 years ago for his discoveries in quantum tunneling phenomenon. When it comes to understanding and communicating medical science, I have many more awards then Josephson. So, I really think you should remove such references or else add a whole bunch for me and Prof. Hyman.

Likewise, I think you should remove the "Nobel Prize winner" from the reference section. That really is inappropriate. So too is that little biography added after Siqueria's name in the external links.

Thanks for your obviously high tolerance of pain and suffering...

Andrew Askolnick 01:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There are a few premises in your introductory sentence that need to be checked. The first is that it is self-evident to others that someone is repeatedly posting falsehoods. The second is that Wikipedians, of which you are now one, are "letting" that happen. I really don’t think it is reasonable for you to insist upon your own objectivity, call someone else a liar, then expect an administrator or another editor to simply take your word for it and revert his edits. If you dispute the accuracy of a particular statement or section, you do have a few other options at your disposal:

1. Do nothing.
2. Briefly explain on the Talk page why you think it is inaccurate and bring it, and suggested changes, to the attention of impartial editors.
3. As you did before, change it to what you think is accurate.

Regarding your request to “find a single falsehood”, it is not your honesty I dispute but your objectivity in contributing to this particular encyclopedia article. For example, you inserted “Demkina also made some diagnoses of one of the researchers, Andrew Skolnick, which were both incorrect and likely based on normal, non-supernatural observations” without explicitly mentioning the citation for this information... you.

Regarding your concern over my changes, please note that it was not I who added the credentials for Josephson or anyone else for that matter. Frankly, this article is supposed to be about Natasha Demkina and not the credentials of the researchers or the researchers’ skeptics. Whatever inaccuracies remain in the article are not my doing nor or they my responsibility to fix. We all have to pick and choose our battles and this is one from which I am withdrawing.

I know, and I did not mean to imply that you did. I meant my comment only as a protest that you did not take that nonsense out when you made the editing changes. We certainly agree. The article should not be about the bios and credentials of anyone but the subject of the entry.

When I found myself in an editing war with Siqueira, I ceased deleting his changes and appealed to Wiki administrators to intervene, because I saw no good that could come from an unmoderated battle and I'd prefer the decisions to remove material be made by independant parties. But, seeing that that's not going to happen in a more timely fashion, I'm going to take your advice and make the changes myself, adding a brief explanation to explain each. I just hope it's not going to bring an even bigger flame war here. Thanks very much for your help and for your advice. Wish me luck. Askolnick 16:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand your frustration, but protesting about the resolution process wasting your time was the straw that broke my back. I don’t have the time to wade through paragraph after paragraph of two people attempting to convince me that the other is a liar while they avoid discussing the article. If you are convinced of your own objectivity, I would suggest that you stand by your guns and keep changing the article to what you think is accurate. Edwardian 06:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Edwardian's theoretical principles (except perhaps his steadfastness to the WP:AUTO guideline), but not how he puts them into practice. I'd been hoping that WP:RFC would attract someone knowledgeable in the subject area. Frankly, even someone who'd seen the TGWXRE program would have been more qualified than myself.

I don't think that poring over the frustrated and sometimes caustic arguing between you and JS is fruitful. I don't know why anyone would think that. Certainly the unbridled discussion between you two was going to be heated. That should go without saying. I made it a point to avoid milling over all that, and focus on the article and the ways to resolve the dispute within WP. I've had enough experience with open communities to have learned that most people not familiar with such communities tend to be dissatisfied with the speed and/or efficacy of their methods. (This is why in the US there is such a conflict between those who want a fair, flexible process and those who want a fast, terminal process in government.)

In the end, though, I found it a lot more effective to go over both of your contributions to date and compile them with WP:NPOV as the goal (as well as maximization of noteworthy information) and generate the consensus myself. This is not what I wanted to do, as I'd only intended to be involved to aid the dispute resolution process, not become part of it.

Anyway, please review the current version of Natasha Demkina and my comments on the talk page. Note that the article is currently protected, forcing any amendments to be proposed elsewhere. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

About an IP 64.65.247.81

IP User:64.65.247.81 made a large number of stylistic edits to your comment on the village pump None of these changed the meaning of what you said, but they did fix some grammatical errors. Is that you when you weren't signed in? I have not reverted the edit. — Ambush Commander 22:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Ambush, that's the IP from my office computer. I forgot to log back in. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. (Nice to have someone watching your back :-)

Askolnick 23:13, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Mediation

Are you still willing to take mediation? Dan100 (Talk) 10:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Dan,

Let me think about this and give you an answer later this day. I'm not optimistic about the effectiveness of the Wiki way of settling disputes between those who say 2+2=4 and those that insist the sum must equal 5 because they say so. Splitting the difference and calling it 4.5 is not my idea of good scholarship.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief over the persistance of one Wiki "statistician" who is still insisting that scientists cannot use a lower P value than 0.05 for the level of statistical significance -- despite my pointing out to him that the Wiki entry for statistical significance -- which he cited in support of his opinion -- says that researchers can.

My experience here has certainly been enlightening. Not pleasant, but enlightening.

Let me consider. Andrew Askolnick 12:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Demkina

Our edits clashed: I was editing the article while you placed your new notice. Perhaps you would like to review the article now. Best regards, --BillC 22:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

TM edits

Thank for your edits on the Transcendental Meditation page. Please feel free to hang around and participate more. Sethie 21:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Sethie. However, I'm afraid if I do, a very unpleasant flame war may erupt. I fear "Lumiere" and I have a rather bitter history. She's an apologist and I'm a science journalist. Oil and water, you know -- or more like oil and an open flame...

But I will make a few little improvements re my own contributions to knowledge base of TM. Also, I may like to add something about how the TM movement claimed credit for steering Hurricane Gilbert away from Texas (sending it smashing into those poor Mexicans) by having a bunch of Yogic Flyers hop on their bums. (No kidding, the movement put out a press release making that claim.) Too bad they didn't "rise off their bums" and save New Orleans from Katrina...  :-)

Me and you, I think it is more like water and open flame :-) -Lumiere.

Troll

If you think that a party isn't arguing in good faith, or is basically making up things to support their argument, there is a point at which it no longer is valuable to respond to them. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages's no personal attacks policy: There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Do not make them. Comment on content, not on the contributor; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that you may be blocked for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thanks,

For this edit Lumière

I see you mentioned that Lumiere, etc. has used many usernames. How many, and which ones? android79 06:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Check over at the Transcendental Meditation article. She went by another name and suddenly changed it to Lumiere (confused the hell out of me). It is hardly a coincidence that she came to Misplaced Pages relatively recently to spend what appears to be a nearly full-time effort trying to rewrite the TM article and the Natasha Demkina article, with major attacks on my article on TM published in JAMA and my Demkina article in SI. She claims it's just a coincidence! But I think not. It is possible that she's an old TM apologist who I battled fiercely a decade ago on alt.meditation.transdendental and she's trying to pay me back (especially for the Judy Stein "Junkyard Dog" web site I set up on my web site to document the many viscious and crazy things she said :-) I'm not certain, but I think it may be her.

I don't think she's using multiple aliases here in Wiki. She just changes them every month or two. It is possible that she does this after she suffers a lot of abusive criticism. By changing her alias, a new or casual reader won't realize how badly she has been torn apart by others. I know it took me a while to figure that out when I first visited the TM article talk page. Earlier today/yesterday, she had the audacity to play censor and delete all of my criticisms from the talk page. You were kind enough to restore them (thank you again). Perhaps having failed that, she thought she the next best thing was a new alias. It is amazing that she started off by reposting the same crap under the new alias as if it had never been answered. Whether or not she is Judy Stein, Lumiere aka etc. is a dishonest scoundrel.

P.S. She originally went by the alias Amrit. It appears she has now used three aliases.

Demkina mediation

Please be aware that no one can be "assigned" to mediate without your acceptance. This is the very essence of mediation. Also, the mediator has no any extra power. So don't panic, just read a bit more wikipedia rules: wikipedia:Mediation.

Also, don't get mad when you have to repeat the same arguments to new people jumping into discussion, since rarely ythey browse thru huge talk pages (which are becoming useless indeed after some time). I would suggest you to summarize major objections on a separate page in a terse wording and refer new people to them. This would save you agood deal of typing. mikka (t) 07:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

More correctly: The Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal does indeed assign mediators without agreement by both parties. Nobody does have to listen to them, however, as they do not have authority. --Fasten 10:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Concerning unreadable talk pages: You can refactor talk pages. --Fasten 10:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Mediation by Rohirok

If you complain to me you are missing the point. The Mediation Cabal does not have policies and it does not have any authority. If you don't like what a Cabal mediator says tell vim to send another mediator or ignore vim if ve is unreasonable. You can also submit a complain at Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Complaints. Since Rohirok is not a regular mediator for the Mediation Cabal that seems pointless in this case. You could complain to the coordinator directly if you think that's necessary. If Rohirok violates official Misplaced Pages policies please consider the usual steps concerning user conduct. I contacted Rohirok and asked vim to read Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Suggestions_for_mediators but that's something you could do as well, I don't have any more authority in this matter than you. --Fasten 10:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Askolnick. I will not step down as mediator. Even if I did, it would not matter. Mediators of the Cabal are just regular editors asked by others to help resolve disputes. I would still watch the page, and would make suggestions or edits that I thought would improve the article. If you are looking for a more neutral, moderate treatment of the article, perhaps you could recuse yourself as an editor. You are clearly not a disinterested party, having a vested interest in portraying your research in the best possible light. Rohirok 16:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Rohirok, you watch the page as long as you want. This is what all wikipedians do. You may call yourself mediator, but you are not. You probably even don't know how mediators must act, judging from your aggressive tone. mikka (t) 16:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No, Rohirok, I am not a partisan like you. I have a vested interest in portraying my research in the most truthful light; that's all. That's why I don't agree with your view that it is "fine" to quote "disreputable" sources. You clearly have an agenda that is inconsistent with making the Natasha Demkina article as credible and as accurate as possible. You can't do that by using "disreputable" sources for information to provide "balance."

And you clearly have an agenda that makes you ineligible to be a mediator. You put on the mantel of mediator and immediately joined sides, communicating with one party while keeping the other completely in the dark. Well, at least your consistent: You utterly disregard Wiki's guidelines about serving as a mediator the way you disregard the encyclopedia's guidelines about not using disreputable sources. Askolnick

Askolnick: Users have final control over their user talk pages. They may delete any comments on their own talk pages that they like. If readers wish to muse over the debacle, they may examine the Demkina talk page, the mediation page, or if their really ambitious, look up my talk page history. Rohirok 21:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I checked and I see that I was wrong. I appologize for my mistake, which was based on Fourohfour's objection to Lumiere's deleting criticism from Lumiere's talk page, which was followed further down by a message from BillC, a Wiki administrator, directing him not to delete material from talk pages. It turns out, he wasn't talking about User-Talk pages. Sorry.Askolnick 21:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your apology. I must confess that most of your criticisms of my "mediation" were on the mark. I went into it with an editors attitude, which is exactly wrong for mediation. I foolishly dove right in without understanding the guidelines given to mediators. Rohirok 23:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In light of your sincere confession, I believe I may have assumed the worst about your motives. If so, I apologize for being overly abrasive towards you. You stumbled into a dog fight that has been going on for some time. One of these curs has been attacking me all over the Internet. With help from a TMer, he turned the Museum of Hoaxes Natasha Demkina thread into a cesspool forcing it to shut down. He then came after me on the James Randi Educational Foundation forum, where he alienated the forum administrators so much, he was permanently banned. And he came here and immediately vandalized the Natasha Demkina article, libeled me, and touted himself as a great scientist and slayer of skeptic dragons. But he's not a scientist. He's a grade school English teacher. And his "research" is nothing but self-published rants on his own web site. Unfortunately, he's supported by a TMer and a few other friends of Woo-Woo. And you stepped right into the thick of it. That will teach you to leap before you look.

I've endured 15 years of abuse from TMers. It started when some of them sued me for $194 million. The harassment suit was quickly dismissed. Even so, TMers have been claiming that I settled the suit for an "undislosed amount of money." Their campaign of disinformation and libel continues. A little over a year ago, I threatened to sue a TM group in Germany that published libeous material on their web site. They had the audacity to include a crudely forged letter from Ohio State University that supposedly discredited my JAMA article. I had to get a statement from a high ranking official of OSU denouncing the letter as a forgery before they would take it down. And now one or more TMers are using Misplaced Pages to attack and discredit my work. I hope you can understand why I'm ready to take a swing at anyone who appears to be doing their bidding.Askolnick 03:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Cool down

Let me suggest you not to waste time on general-purpose discussions with miracle lovers and deal only with article content on case-by-case basis. At times you may start beleiving in "energy vampires" :-) mikka (t) 22:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Mikkalai. Actually, I get very energized trying to drive wooden stakes through the hearts of these vampires. :-)

I guess that I'm just following my lifelong policy of not turning a cheek a second time to attackers. I grew up on the streets of New York City and I guess it shows. I'm determined to make attackers pay at least something for their attacks. I found that taking it silently often makes them think you're an easy mark.

For example, Ettinsilly aka all those other names, did not come here to contribute to Misplaced Pages. He came here to defend his TM cult and try to discredit its critics, mainly CSICOP, Skeptical Inquirer, and me. It's no coincidence that he started off trying to rewrite two Wiki articles by attacking two pubications of which I authored! I don't know Dreadlocke's situation, but it's clear that he too has an anti-skeptic agenda for which he is willing to offer the most transparent deceptions (like his current claim that "professional researchers" don't have to do and publish any research).

I don't have much confidence in the way Wiki works. Hatchetmen are allowed to work with apparent impunity. And mediation seems to be a joke -- sending in a mediator who immediately starts communicating with one side, hides the fact that he's the mediator from the other side, and begins editing the article! Hardly reassuring.

Any way, your advice is very sound. Although, I'm not likely to adhere to it closely. You know that joke about the scorpion and the frog? It's just my nature to sting back. :-o Askolnick 14:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

There is another issue: I guess you and "Ettinsilly aka all those other names" have a long history of fencing and stinging each other, so you don't notice each other's abrasive style. Please keep in mind that in wikipedia it is not customary to attack messengers; messages are fair game. Please take a look around WP:CIVILITYand the sidebar "Working with others" on this policy page. mikka (t) 22:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"Confidence in the way Wiki works": (please don't cofuse "wiki" and "wikipedia") Misplaced Pages is an amazing social experiment. Despite all scepticism expressed, in my 2.5 year of experience I happen to notice that people of good will and decent intelligence tend to prevail here eventually, although sometimes it takes some time. mikka (t) 22:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"unusual"

Actually, I saw the "unusual phenomena" term usage in one of Wiseman's pages and agreed it is a good, neutral word. The words like "paranormal", etc. is the language of kooks, so I put the "para" term in the secondary position in the sentence. In addition, Wiseman studies not only "para" His study of "luck " is exactly "unusual". mikka (t) 18:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Only in my life. Askolnick 18:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Calm Down

I'm mainly inclined to agree with you on the Demkina page, but please calm down. Insulting people(especially potential mediators) is generally unproductive and makes one lose credibility with bystanders. JoshuaZ 14:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)