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Odds & ends...

Brain-computer interface

Hi -- can I suggest that my experience is that in cases like this the most effective response is to refuse to engage? If the edits were to the article itself that wouldn't be possible, but I don't see why messing around with the talk page can't just be ignored. We can always clean it up once the editor gets bored and goes away. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 06:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah - you are probably right. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Shaahin Cheyene Please do not repost Removed inaccurate information. Please see new blog post from Cheyene on http://www.darkzess.com/2012/04/reality-tv-gone-wrong-and-who-i-am-not-married-to/

Removed inaccurate information. Cheyene has posted on his personal blog regarding this issue. It is false information. Please do not repost it. Please see new blog post from Cheyene on http://www.darkzess.com/2012/04/reality-tv-gone-wrong-and-who-i-am-not-married-to/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.60.43.184 (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

You can see a further retraction here from the writer:http://www.mikehughes.tv/content/golden-california-persian-perspective Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). The reason it is important is because wiki should have factual information and not rumors that you think should be on there. It is the job of all editors to maintain the integrity of Wiki which is what I assume you want Herbaldoctorz (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Just-so stories

...a vague collection of observations, clustered around a just-so story....

Interesting observation. The same could be said about the evolution of the theory of evolution. John Crawfurd held polygenist views and his just-so story goes, "...separate creations by God in specific regional zones, with separate origins for languages, and possibly as different species. His story gets some support, albeit without just-so-help-me-God, in the EDGE Conversation on rethinking out-of-Africa].

Alfred Russel Wallace thought some mechanism acted to control evolution, and his just-so-story goes, "The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow. He got away with that, it being the Steam Age and all, but when he rejected the philosophy of Mechanism and began to explore that of Spiritualism, he was relegated to the lunatic-fringe, possibly because his interlocutors would not take the trouble to disambiguate Spiritualism. He remarks:

I thus learnt my first great lesson in the inquiry into these obscure fields of knowledge, never to accept the disbelief of great men or their accusations of imposture or of imbecility, as of any weight when opposed to the repeated observation of facts by other men, admittedly sane and honest. The whole history of science shows us that whenever the educated and scientific men of any age have denied the facts of other investigators on a priori grounds of absurdity or impossibility, the deniers have always been wrong.

Grumpy Joseph Hooker responds:

Wallace has lost caste considerably, not only by his adhesion to Spiritualism, but by the fact of his having deliberately and against the whole voice of the committee of his section of the British Association, brought about a discussion of on Spiritualism at one of its sectional meetings. That he is said to have done so in an underhanded manner, and I well remember the indignation it gave rise to in the B.A. Council.

No one knows to this day what self-correcting mechanism controls and directs evolution of viruses, but immunologists dare not stray into spiritualism, nor whisper Gaia.--Pawyilee (talk) 05:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"...immunologists dare not stray into spiritualism, nor whisper Gaia". True enough. Neither spiritualism nor Gaia have been useful in the study of the subject - for the same reason that aerodynamicists dare not (or at least don't) stray into the historiography of medieval French poetry when designing aircraft. Off-topic... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. It wasn't a historiographer of medieval French poetry, but historiographer of the English language, immunologist researcher and essayist Lewis Thomas who strayed; only he wasn't done in by a grump but a cancer caused by rare and fast-acting virus. Nor did he whisper Gaia, but likened the biosphere to a single cell, albeit without credit to Wallace's spirt.

As for aerodynamicists, they could profitably investigate the historiography of the Vimanas and the Mercury Vortex Engine. I suggest it might profit you to check the spiritualism disambiguation page, as well as what latter-day apologists for Wallace had to say. And, of course, to read some of Thomas's essays. Goodnight! --Pawyilee (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Reverting unsourced editions on the article of Ayurveda

I just saw that my editions were removed as they were not sourced. It may be right act according to guidelines. I agree to that and I respect that. But I due to that, I have lost interest in further editing it. I felt like telling you so I am writing it. Thanks. Abhijeet Safai (talk) 02:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

That is how Misplaced Pages works. If you edit something, and you don't provide a source, another editor can remove it. If you aren't prepared to provide sources, you shouldn't edit articles. Particularly ones that make claims about 'medicine', or 'health'. Such articles can't be based on the unsourced opinions of contributors, if Misplaced Pages is to retain any credibility. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I liked your answer. It is logical and balanced. :)Abhijeet Safai (talk) 15:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

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I stand corrected

Thanks Andy. I stand corrected. ProfJustice (talk) 20:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

April 2012

See User_talk:Tiptoety#Block_of_ATG - I'm a bit confused as to why you've been blocked. SmartSE (talk) 17:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Yup, ridiculous: AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

This block is grossly inappropriate, as any consideration of the context makes clear. We have had multiple SPAs removing reliably-sourced negative content from an article on a 'multi-level-marketing' company of dubious repute which promotes vastly-overpriced fruit juices for 'health and wellness' despite a complete lack of evidence for any meaningful benefits, and several editors, including myself, have made consistent efforts to ensure the article complies with policy. If this is considered to be 'edit-warring' according to Misplaced Pages policy, then frankly we may as well hand content over to the hucksters, woo-merchants, and snake-oil salesmen. I shall of course be asking for an explanation of this precipitous and questionable block from Tiptoety, and a clarification as to whether this block (which came without prior warning) is considered by him/her to be within policy, and if so, whether other contributors also consider it so. If it is, policy clearly needs revision. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Accept reason:

Par the discussion below. General consensus seems to be that a block was not warranted in this case. Excirial 19:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to note, Andy - you've been blocked before for edit warring. At the point where that happens, it's presumed that you know it's a policy and don't need to be told "oh hey, we have a policy prohibiting edit warring" every time it happens in the future. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

If I had been edit warring, what you say might be relevant. I wasn't, so it isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I will add that blocks are supposed to be preventative, and I am certain that an admonishment would have served as a sufficient deterrence in this case, especially as this 'edit-warring' was questionable and probably inadvertent.
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 17:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Inadvertent? Non-existent... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

My sympathies. Your last three edits on this article were at 17:18, 19 April 2012‎, 17:41, 11 April 2012 and 22:17, 1 March 2012‎. I see no semblance of edit-warring and am equally perplexed as to this decision. You appear to have been lumped together with the other miscreants in a most unfortunate manner.
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 17:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

←Hi all. Let me take a second to explain what I saw and why I took the action I did. If it is judged that I acted in error, I trust my fellow administrators to act in a manner that will correct it. What I saw was a long term edit war taking place on the above mentioned page. As I began to examine the page history more closely, it appeared that there were a few key players who were continually reverting one another. Dealing with slow moving edit wars is hard, because, as is stated above there is no "great urgency." Unfortunately, because of this, disruption of this caliber goes 1) unreported and 2) left to continue. While I agree that there was no clear breach of 3RR, Misplaced Pages:Edit warring states clearly : "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion. Edit warring is unconstructive and creates animosity between editors, making it harder to reach a consensus. Users who engage in edit wars risk being blocked or even banned." It does not mention the amount of edits, or how often they are made. I'll note the following reverts made by AndyTheGrump (talk · contribs): , , , , . Instead of continuing to revert, why not report them? As for a warning, AndyTheGrump has been blocked for edit warring before. I'm not going to insult his intelligence in pretending he does not know the rules regarding continually reverting. Tiptoety 17:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

If you consider those diffs as legitimate evidence to justify a block for edit-warring, I have to question your understanding of Misplaced Pages policy, and your fitness as an administrator. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Personal attacks in an unblock request? That's always a great tactic. tedder (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Questioning whether someone has the necessary understanding of Misplaced Pages policy to be qualified to act as an admin isn't a personal attack: or if it is, Misplaced Pages has bigger problems than edit-warring. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:01, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Eh, lets not go down this road. (perceived) Personal attacks followed by comments or accusations regarding them them tend to result in those neat spirals towards the floor that never end well. Besides that, i question that "having been blocked before" or "knowing the rules" really counts as a fair warning when overstepping the bounds for some rule. I don't see any malice in the linked edits, and it is quite possible (for example) to accidentally overstep 3RR; a simple "be carefull there" talkpage nudge should have been more then sufficient to deal with this case, as far as i'm concerned. Excirial 18:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Which rule is it that I'm supposed to have 'overstepped the bounds of'? Given that the only person making multiple reverts since my last attempt to discuss the issue on the talk page (11th April ), were another editors (see revision history of MonaVie: ), I cannot see how any rule was broken at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

My comments was more a general purpose then situation specific. My point was that if you intend to block an editor for edit warring a day after their last edit, it should be a common courtesy to at least give the person a warning before doing so. Especially considering that i don't exactly see a heated edit war in the first place. Excirial 18:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Tiptoety, do you believe that if Andy had reported this at AN/EW or AN/I, it would have resulted in an immediate block for all involved? Your decision to jump immediately to blocking seems to be far from the usual Misplaced Pages practice. Making multiple reverts over a course of several months can be a warning sign, but it is not an open-and-shut case for edit warring.

This is a standard problem in all articles related medicine, particularly the 'fringier' topics. We get it at thiomersal controversy, we get it at psoriasis, we get it at Johanna Budwig, and I'm not at all surprised that we get it on an article about an MLM-sold health drink. New, single-purpose editors show up and insert either laudatory anecdotes and low-quality primary sources with 'positive' outcomes, or attempt to erase negative comments and sources regarding dubious alternative therapies. There is a relatively small pool of experienced editors who are familiar with WP:RSMED who tend to revert these inappropriate edits, generally offering reasonable explanations. In my experience, those editors can and will seek administrative assistance when necessary, but usually the level of disruption/persistence by the SPAs needs to be higher than this to attact administrator attention and intervention. If five reverts in three months now rises to the level of immediately-blockable edit warring, then we might as well close up shop on our medical articles, because no experienced editor will want to risk a snap block like this one. Here are the five reverts you're citing as justification for the assertion of edit warring:

1. 19 April - restored a critical comment about the product's nutritional value
2. 11 April - undid a whitewash that deleted well-referenced mention of the company CEO's legal troubles related to a previous health drink
3. 1 March - removed an unsourced description of a critic as a 'competitor'
4. 27 February - removed the same unsourced description (this is the only revert which Andy repeated, and the only time Andy reverted twice within a seven-day period)
5. 7 February - removed the addition of what amounted to an advertising blurb for a new product.

In the same period of time, Andy has posted five times to the article talk page, relating to the edits that he has made. Where is the fire that your block is putting out, Tiptoety? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

And, just out of curiosity, what brought the 'fire' to your attention in the first place? There seems to be precious little smoke... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I also agree that those edits are not worthy of a block - I'd have made all of those edits myself. Whilst Tiptoety is right to point out that WP:EW doesn't mention any specific number of reverts, or a time in which they are made, I've never seen a group of edits such as Andy's being described as warring. There appear to be three admins who agree it wasn't a good block, but I assume that we all feel too involved to unblock ourselves. Can someone else take a look? SmartSE (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Yet another example of a 3RR block which was purely punitive. To think that any admin could cull through and editors history find reverts that they have made in the last six months to one article and pull the block trigger without discussing the situation with the editor in question or other admins - well all I can say is that the effect of this would be extremely chilling on the community indeed. The fact that this hasn't hit ANI or AN is extraordinary and it would be nice if the block was reversed before it does. MarnetteD | Talk 19:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I see the block has now been reversed - thank you Excirial. In response to MarnetteD's comment, I shall certainly be raising this issue at ANI, as soon as I have gathered my thoughts - and the required evidence - to do so. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

One other thing. Tiptoety also blocked User:Rhode Island Red and User:Ed.Valdez. Can I ask an uninvolved admin to look into these blocks too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:40, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Andy, please excuse the intrusion. That's all a bit shocking, and disappointing. Simple questions - is the 3RR rule a sacrosanct one? or should an admin (always) also consider (a) who the parties are, (b) what the subject matter is, or (c) other things? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:47, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Rather off-topic, I'd say, given that WP:3RR doesn't even come into the equation, unless it has recently been revised to three reverts in a year (not that I've actually made three reverts of the same material anyway) AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I hope that you don't think that I was saying that this situation shouldn't be reported. It certainly should. As I said the line of reasoning used for this block means that we might as well all pack up, move on and leave WikiP to the vandals and POV pushers. You will now have to spend time to deal with this rather than edit articles but if we can prevent this sort of thing in the future it will be time well spent. MarnetteD | Talk 19:59, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Then I suppose, "edit waring" is a little more vague and open to interpretation. In which case all relevant factors should be take account of first? I do wish that blocking of genuine and long established editors would be used as a very last resort, afer all other methods have failed (or even one other method!) Martinevans123 (talk) 20:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I've unblocked both User:Rhode Island Red and User:Ed.Valdez - we seem to agree here that Andy's block was more punishing than preventative and I think the same applies to these two as well. Ed.Valdez's edits looks problematic, but not worthy of a block, so I'll leave them a note. SmartSE (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

So...what strategy do we intend to use to make sure that these four editors don't spend the next four months slowly reverting each other over and over, as they spent the last four months? Andy & company - what can I say to you that will convince you to use noticeboards and other dispute resolution processes to deal with an editor you believe is acting inappropriately, rather than simply letting things go on as they have been? Clearly just reverting what you perceive as spin/whitewashing/etc isn't working at this point, and really never did - which is the whole reason why we have policies like WP:EW. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I have no interest in getting this discussion sidetracked by discussions over what strategy Misplaced Pages contributors in general should be using in such cases - I suggest you raise the issue at a more appropriate place. Meanwhile, I was self-evidently inappropriately blocked, and consider the circumstances sufficiently questionable as to have raised the matter here: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#What are legitimate grounds for a precipitate block for edit warring? I would of course welcome comments from others there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First and foremost i would very much like to suggest that the entire above issue could be seen as a mistake, or a bad call without intended malice if possible. That would be (in my humble opinion) vastly preferable over the usual "negative ANI spiral" these issues spark with its requests for recall, de-adminship, blocks and who knows what else - those rarely produce anything usefull but a whole lot of text, enmity and general unpleasantness. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of it, but if you do please consider if the end result is worth the hassle.

More to the point to the question above - the medical article's and slow edit wars. In any case it would be vastly preferable if the noticeboards or resolution processes were used as they are more binding then reverting back and forth. It is much easier to deal with these issues if there is some form of consensus that an editor is going over the line with these type of article's. Excirial 20:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Andy, I'm not speaking in generalities. I'm asking what we can do, in this case to get the article stabilized and stop the reverting. What do you need to hear, or need done, to help you utilize Misplaced Pages's standard processes to deal with this matter? What can we do, collectively, to handle this matter in a way that's more solid than the piecemeal approach you guys have been taking, which has rendered the article remarkably unstable? You're all unblocked now, and the immediate edit warring is stopped, but it will almost certainly re-start if the underlying disputes on the article aren't resolved in some constructive way. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

If you wish to address the issues regarding that particular article, I suggest you do it on the relevant talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:48, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Done so. I very much hope you'll choose to engage with the other editors there. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Well for starters I'm watching the article and have left Ed.Valdez my thoughts. If any editor is in the wrong it is them and any editor would likely have reverted them. I've warned them that if their blatant conflicted editing continues (including copying of a press release) then I will indef block them as a promotional only account. If socks appear then semi-protection and SPI can take care of it. SmartSE (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

←Sorry I was delayed in responding. I see the users have been unblocked, which is fine, like I said before I trust my fellow admins to act appropriately, and correct my mistakes if I make them. It appears I have made a mistake, and I apologize. As I said before, I called it as I saw it. It was even mentioned above that the two other users were editing disruptively, so I do not think I was that far off the mark. Tiptoety 01:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Er no, it wasn't "mentioned above that the two other users were editing disruptively" - however, I suggest you respond at ANI. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2012 (UTC)