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Have you considered getting an a'okay from a CheckUser or the ArbCom? Such a possibility is mentioned here: [[WP:ALTACCN]]. --[[User:Pudeo|Pudeo]] ([[User talk:Pudeo|talk]]) 11:33, 27 March 2020 (UTC) |
Have you considered getting an a'okay from a CheckUser or the ArbCom? Such a possibility is mentioned here: [[WP:ALTACCN]]. --[[User:Pudeo|Pudeo]] ([[User talk:Pudeo|talk]]) 11:33, 27 March 2020 (UTC) |
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:{{u|Pudeo}}: As I say on my user-page, my real-name account is used only for edits related to my professional area of knowledge and this has no overlap with the areas edited under NightHeron. The reason for the NightHeron account is covered in [[WP:VALIDALT]]: {{tq|editors who contribute using their real name may wish to use a pseudonym for contributions with which they do not want their real name to be associated}}. The t-ban had nothing to do with accusations of sockpuppetry, but rather was related to disputes over alt-med and an article I started that went through AfD and DRV. Since I started editing 2 years ago, I made many edits on abortion-related topics, and thought that off-wiki harassment would result if I did not use a pseudonym. That was probably unnecessary, but my edits on race are another matter. Earlier this year a vandal threatened violence on [[Talk:White privilege]], and when I immediately reverted their two threatening edits, they came to my user-page and left another threatening message there. (I notified an admin who removed all three from view.) So because I edit on both abortion and race and have gotten several IP-editors angry at me (for example, when I voted and argued in favor of a proposal by another editor to ban IP-edits from [[Talk:Race and intelligence]]) and have been threatened once, it makes sense to use a pseudonym and to resist any attempt at [[WP:OUTING|outing]]. [[User:NightHeron|NightHeron]] ([[User talk:NightHeron#top|talk]]) 11:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC) |
Revision as of 11:59, 27 March 2020
Welcome! (We can't say that loudly enough!)
Hello, NightHeron, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:
- Be Bold!
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- Contribute, Contribute, Contribute!
- Tell us a bit about yourself
- Our great guide to Wikipedia
If you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page. Or, please come to the new contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{Help me}}
on your user talk page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.
Please sign your name on talk pages and votes by typing four tildes (~~~~); our software automatically converts it to your username and the date.
We're so glad you're here! Meatsgains(talk) 01:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Welcome
Welcome to Wikipedia! We have compiled some guidance for new healthcare editors:
- Please keep the mission of Wikipedia in mind. We provide the public with accepted knowledge, working in a community.
- We do that by finding high quality secondary sources and summarizing what they say, giving WP:WEIGHT as they do. Please do not try to build content by synthesizing content based on primary sources. (For the difference between primary and secondary sources, see WP:MEDDEF.)
- Please use high-quality, recent, secondary sources for medical content (see WP:MEDRS). High-quality sources include review articles (which are not the same as peer-reviewed), position statements from nationally and internationally recognized bodies (like CDC, WHO, FDA), and major medical textbooks. Lower-quality sources are typically removed. Please beware of predatory publishers – check the publishers of articles (especially open source articles) at Beall's list.
- The ordering of sections typically follows the instructions at WP:MEDMOS. The section above the table of contents is called the WP:LEAD. It summarizes the body. Do not add anything to the lead that is not in the body. Style is covered in MEDMOS as well; we avoid the word "patient" for example.
- More generally see WP:MEDHOW
- Reference tags generally go after punctuation, not before; there is no preceding space.
- We use very few capital letters and very little bolding. Only the first word of a heading is usually capitalized.
- Common terms are not usually wikilinked; nor are years, dates, or names of countries and major cities.
- Do not use URLs from your university library's internal net: the rest of the world cannot see them.
- Please include page numbers when referencing a book or long journal article.
- Please format citations consistently within an article and be sure to cite the PMID for journal articles and ISBN for books; see WP:MEDHOW for how to format citations.
- Never copy and paste from sources; we run detection software on new edits.
- Talk to us! Wikipedia works by collaboration at articles and user talkpages.
Once again, welcome, and thank you for joining us! Please share these guidelines with other new editors.
– the WikiProject Medicine team Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:12, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Ann Hibner Koblitz
Sure, it's my pleasure. The article looks great - all I really needed to do is a little work on categories. Nothing major at all.
Keep up the good work, and happy editing! --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 16:46, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Recent sources
Sources should generally be from the last 10 years. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:52, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Two notes
Hi and thanks for your contributions.
Would you please stop adding content like "it should be noted that..." to articles? Please see WP:EDITORIALIZING.
Would you please not use terms like "today" or "now" and the like, per WP:RELTIME? Wikipedia articles have no datelines, so everything must be anchored in time.
Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Formatting citations
Everything comes down to sources in Wikipedia, and it is very important to provide complete citations, so that other people can use them. Other editors use them to verify the content and to build more content, and readers use them to dive deeper into the subject matter. (some readers use Wikipedia only to get quick access to the sources and pretty much ignore the content!)
There are templates for citations that are very useful. If you look at them and try to create them manually, this looks like a nightmare. I avoided templates for years and just did simple ones like this:
- Begley CG, Ellis LM. (2012-03-28) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature 483: 7391. 531–533 doi:10.1038/483531a PMID 22460880
- which looks like this in wikicode: Begley CG, Ellis LM. (2012-03-28) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature 483: 7391. 531–533 {{doi|10.1038/483531a}} {{pmid|22460880}}
But then I learned that there are automated tools that will create templated citations for you super fast and this is how I work now... and it is good for you and everybody if you use them. Below is a description first of how to autoformat refs in the "Visual editor" interface, which many new users use, and then in the older Wikitext editor. In either editor, if you are writing about health, the part of the citation we care about the most is the pmid. Please be sure to use it.
We really value references that are available free-full text, so if there is free full text version please be sure to include the pmc field for biomedical refs or a URL to a free full-text if it exists elsewhere (but don't link to a version that someone has posted online in violation of copyright - see WP:ELNEVER).
- Wikitext editor
If you are working in the older Wikitext editor, in the toolbar at the top you will find near the right-hand side, the word "Cite" with is a little triangle next to it. If you click the triangle, another menu appears below. On the left side of the new menu bar, you will see "Templates". If you select (for example) "Cite journal", you can fill in the "doi" or the "PMID" field, and then if you click the little magnifying glass next to the field, the whole thing will auto-fill. If there is a pmc version of the article, this tool does not pick that up. You have to expand the "additional fields" at the bottom of the citation-creator -- you will see the "pmc" field down there, to the right. There are auto-fill fields in the templates for news, websites, and books, too.
The resulting citation will look like this:
- Begley, C. Glenn; Ellis, Lee M. (2012-03-28). "Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research". Nature. 483 (7391): 531–533. doi:10.1038/483531a. PMID 22460880.
- the underlying wikicode looks like this (a nightmare right? Thank goodness you don't have to generate this by hand):
- {{Cite journal|last=Begley|first=C. Glenn|last2=Ellis|first2=Lee M.|date=2012-03-28|title=Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research|journal=Nature|volume=483|issue=7391|pages=531–533|doi=10.1038/483531a|pmid=22460880}}
- Visual editor
If you are working in the Visual Editor, as many new editors do, there is a similar function.
Please note if you use the "Re-use" function of the Cite tool in VisualEditor, it will create a "reference name" for the original instance of the citation and the subsequent ones, that looks something like this: <ref name=":0"/> Please know that this is a software bug that the editing community has tried to get the developers to fix for a long time now because those reference names are not useful, for a bunch of reasons. (see note below for why) When you are done, please go back and change them to something that is unique and meaningful.
So if the VisualEditor did this to the original citation when you Re-used:
- <ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Begley|first=C. Glenn|last2=Ellis|first2=Lee M.|date=2012-03-28|title=Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research|journal=Nature|volume=483|issue=7391|pages=531–533|doi=10.1038/483531a|pmid=22460880}}</ref>
- and did this for subsequent instances: <ref name=":0"/>
please go back and change both ref names to something like <ref name=Begley2012> for the first one and <ref name=Begley2012/> for the subsequent ones. You can just search the source text for ":0" etc to find them. The VisualEditor just counts up in the reference names, so you may find ":0", ":1", ":2", etc, depending on how many references you re-used.
I hope you find that useful Jytdog (talk) 17:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
New article?
I see you're running into trouble on the Alternative medicine article. While there are overlaps between some of the legitimate criticisms of mainstream medicine and alt med, I think we'd be better served with a separate article, which would get a section in the alt med article and a link to the new article. Give it some thought. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC) BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: I could do that, but the article would just be a stub, which hopefully other people would add to. I could title it "Shortcomings of mainstream medicine". But I'd be worried that some editors would see it as hostile to the medical community or to Wikipedia's medical project (which of course is not my intent) and would immediately propose it for removal. My experience so far suggests that some people are hyper-sensitive about even legitimate criticisms of mainstream medicine and their "trigger finger" is at the ready to revert content that includes criticism (an example is the repeated removal of the Ernst quote on CAM as a critique of mainstream doctors' therapeutic relations with patients). But you've been editing much, much longer than I, so if you think it would be worthwhile for me to create a short article on "Shortcomings of mainstream medicine", I'll do that.NightHeron (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- You may not know much about me, but I have two health care educations and am a very firm skeptic against alternative medicine, but I also realize that mainstream medicine has its shortcomings, some of which make people seek alternative medicine and feed into their skepticism of mainstream medicine.
- BUT, none of that has anything to do with whether there should be an article. What counts is if the subject is notable (it is), and is mentioned and discussed in multiple RS (it is). So start collecting your sources. I'll be happy to provide some advice and tips. I think the article is needed here.
- I understand your concerns about deletion and possible AfD. Most new articles on controversial subjects have to survive such an ordeal, and it can be stressful. So before you move anything from your userspace, it must be as bulletproof as possible. I can also help with tips about that.
- I suggest you use a sandbox, for example User:NightHeron/Shortcomings of mainstream medicine. You can also change that. Right now it's a redlink, but once you start writing there, it turns blue. I will watchlist it and may check in from time to time. So collect RS, then spread them "out on the floor", so to speak, and see what type of picture they form, then write your article using that as your outline. Make sure the RS, not your POV, dictate the article's form. Your job is not to document your POV, but to document the main major and minor POV found in RS on the subject. To satisfy NPOV and Due weight, it must also include criticisms and debunking, so it will consist of point and counterpoint.
- A big caution: Most such content is found in alternative medicine, fringe, quackish, fraudulent, and other unreliable sources. You can't use them, BUT you can get cues and objections from them. Then find those objections in mainstream RS.
- Feel free to ping me or use my talk page. I'll be rooting for you. I have written a number of articles. If you succeed, this will be a real feather in your cap. You will have improved Wikipedia and the world. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: Thanks a lot, I appreciate the suggestions. I'll put together a short article in the next few days. In the meantime I made another attempt at a very short section on "Shortcomings" in the CAM article, hopefully this time avoiding the OR problem.NightHeron (talk) 04:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: I have a draft of a "Shortcomings" article at User:NightHeron/sandbox. When you get a chance to look at it, I'd welcome your suggestions.NightHeron (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Okay, I have watchlisted it, and un-watchlisted my suggestion above. I'll take a look at it and now I'll notice it whenever you make changes. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: I have a draft of a "Shortcomings" article at User:NightHeron/sandbox. When you get a chance to look at it, I'd welcome your suggestions.NightHeron (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: Thanks a lot, I appreciate the suggestions. I'll put together a short article in the next few days. In the meantime I made another attempt at a very short section on "Shortcomings" in the CAM article, hopefully this time avoiding the OR problem.NightHeron (talk) 04:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Shortcomings of mainstream medicine
I have changed the name of this article to Criticisms of mainstream medicine to make it more encyclopedic. I suggest that you tweak the wording to make it clear that the article does not itself claim these deficiencies, only that others have claimed them. In other words, less opinion, more neutral. ... discospinster talk 22:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Nomination of Criticisms of medicine for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Criticisms of medicine is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticisms of medicine until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I would note that the closing editor, while recommending the article be deleted, suggested it might be "userfied", which I take to mean putting it into your user space, so content from it may be used elsewhere.--agr (talk) 22:10, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
- @ArnoldReinhold: Thank you for pointing that out. I'd wondered what that meant. I'll ask for that if/when my appeal of the deletion ruling is turned down. In that case I'll work on improving it and eventually try again to get an article on Criticism of mainstream medicine (I don't think the word "mainstream" should have been removed earlier).NightHeron (talk) 23:08, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
CAM article
What, are you nuts or what??? I first came across you at the abortion article where you made some excellent posts, so I know how good you are. But to attempt to work on the alt med stuff, how can it be that after all this time you have not yet figured out that is a total waste of your talent and your energy? There will be no improvements at the CAM article. I note that even the Tag you added was removed for some sort of weird reason. I tried to improve the article years ago when I complained that a Southern Dr. that actually turned out (as I did research) to be a Doctor of English writing on the folklore of his state, was the author of the lead sentence in the article. That did not disturb those that held rein over the article, pretty much the same editors as now, in the least. Here is how I handle the misinformation in the article: Anyone with enough brainpower to check out the WP article is going to immediately see how biased the WP article is. So I figure that the worse it is, the better it is...and it's pretty bad - to say the least. This is not ideal but it's the best we can do for now... Gandydancer (talk) 19:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Thank you for the kind words about my abortion edits. My biggest surprise since beginning to edit Wikipedia is that it's been harder (more stubborn resistance) to edit alt med than to edit abortion articles. My first exposure to arrogant and illogical veteran editors came not in the form of an anti-abortion zealot, but rather in the form of an administrator who's very active in WikiProject Medicine who admonished me that I should not use sources that are more than 10 years old (erroneously citing WP:MEDRS). Misinforming a newcomer about Wikipedia policy is not what an administrator is supposed to do. If he were correct, I couldn't cite Eve's Herbs by Riddle (who's a leading authority on the history of contraceptive and abortifacient herbs) because the book predates 2008. Then when I started working on the alt med article and later wrote an article Criticisms of medicine (the deletion of which is currently under appeal), I kept encountering more and more arrogance, illogicality, and accusations against me (of being an "altmedist", being "disruptive", having a "problematic agenda", being "anti-science"). But for me, a heated debate can be enjoyable (in line with the quote from Jimmy Wales at the top of your userpage) even when the other side sometimes resorts to insults. However, I also believe that the immature behavior of many veteran editors is partly responsible for the low number of editors who are women, U.S. minorities, or from the Global South. I made a comment to that effect on the recent WP:Signpost article about systemic bias. BTW I much liked your essay on your userpage.NightHeron (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Sure, I've been following your edits here and I know about the delete of the article and Doc's 10 years comment. Well, if you really enjoy endless arguments that get you nowhere, this is the place for you to be, that is for sure. I don't enjoy that. I predict that you will wear out after not too much longer when the fun of the fight dims and leave... I've seen it happen before. Gandydancer (talk) 21:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Your prediction may come true. I'm awaiting the outcome of my appeal of the deletion of Criticisms of medicine; also on both Talk:Alternative medicine and the NPOV noticeboard I've proposed that the discussion be moved to mediation. I haven't given up quite yet. I also posted a related comment on Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-06/Blog#Query: Have any surveys tried to get at the reasons for the gaps?NightHeron (talk) 17:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not holding my breath... As you have already seen, to speak out for any alt med automatically connects you to Dr. Oz and...what's his name, the Indian guy (both of whom are more interested in money than in health, IMO). It is frustrating but it is the way things are here on WP. Gandydancer (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think of you frequently as I follow your edits. It should be plain by now that the way to meet this WP problem is not head-on or even sideways (like your excellent probs with med article). I'd sure hate to see WP lose such a good editor. Have you considered joining a group so that you too could call on your "friends" to take a look at certain issues just the way that the med group does without having it be called canvassing? What do you care about? If you care about "family" there is a new group forming that you may have an interest in. If I remember correctly it seems to me that you made some excellent observations about the reasons that more women don't edit WP, is that correct or do I have you mixed up with someone else? I recently watched an interview on PBS regarding this new book [ http://theconfidencecode.com/] and was just glued to everything that was said because they were "killing me softly" with the story of my life. But if your interest still lies mainly with altmed, keep in mind that it is the women who mainly are in charge of the families medical choices, not the men. But on WP it is the men who are in charge of the WP altmed article, not the women. Gandydancer (talk) 21:08, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Thank you very much for your kind words and support, which I especially appreciate on a day at the receiving end of a form of "cyberbullying." Sorry if I repeat what you already know. After the initial deletion closing of the AfD, the appeal process went smoothly. The vote (as I recall) was 6 to 4 for overturning the deletion and restoring Criticisms of medicine, with the 5 participating administrators voting 4 to 1. After an uninvolved admin restored the article, within minutes the original nominator of deletion made 18 quick deletion edits, vandalized the article (reducing it to an incoherent stub), and then immediately proposed it for deletion a second time. Within hours a bunch of like-minded users all called for deletion, in a few cases apparently citing the stub and in a few cases the restored version. There were garbled explanations of why it should be deleted -- some utterly ridiculous claims that it lacked sources (there were 44 sources in a short article) -- and many allegations that it was really a pro-CAM article.
- When I started editing and chose to do so strictly anonymously, other than a few miscellaneous articles my main interest at first was abortion-related articles. I expected that that's where I'd encounter viciousness, illogicality, disregard for WP policies, and cyberbullying. But not so -- that was relatively easy. Sure, the zealots would vandalize on a regular basis (one of them deleted an edit of mine with the explanation "Deleted kike lesbian sources"), but the vandalism would be reverted within minutes by someone. The medical editing wasn't my original intention, but came from looking into what Wikipedia had on abortifacient herbs (leading to the alt med article). Then, irony of ironies, it was some WikiProject Med folks and fellow travelers who behaved in exactly the manner I would have expected of the anti-abortion zealots.
- I made a complaint yesterday at ANI, but I doubt that anything positive will come of that. Trying to reign in a clique of arrogant cyberbullies would be a difficult and thankless task for an administrator, and it would undoubtedly take a whole group of administrators with real clout to do it. I simply don't know enough about Wikipedia to make a guess about whether this will happen internally. Perhaps some off-wiki criticism (such as the one on Slashdot that led to the NPOV noticeboard discussion of the alt med article) would help. I assume that the higher-ups in Wikipedia are sincerely interested in solving these sorts of problems, and don't want Wikipedia to get the reputation that the gaming subculture has. But as a newcomer, I don't really know what's going on in the WP subculture. All I know is that anyone off-wiki whom I tell about my experiences with the alt med article and my "Criticisms of medicine" article will have a much-diminished opinion of Wikipedia (that's an understatement). A friend who knows of my interactions with Alexbrn, CFCF & Co said to me "What, Wikipedia editors aren't adults?"NightHeron (talk) 06:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not holding my breath... As you have already seen, to speak out for any alt med automatically connects you to Dr. Oz and...what's his name, the Indian guy (both of whom are more interested in money than in health, IMO). It is frustrating but it is the way things are here on WP. Gandydancer (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Your prediction may come true. I'm awaiting the outcome of my appeal of the deletion of Criticisms of medicine; also on both Talk:Alternative medicine and the NPOV noticeboard I've proposed that the discussion be moved to mediation. I haven't given up quite yet. I also posted a related comment on Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-06/Blog#Query: Have any surveys tried to get at the reasons for the gaps?NightHeron (talk) 17:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Sure, I've been following your edits here and I know about the delete of the article and Doc's 10 years comment. Well, if you really enjoy endless arguments that get you nowhere, this is the place for you to be, that is for sure. I don't enjoy that. I predict that you will wear out after not too much longer when the fun of the fight dims and leave... I've seen it happen before. Gandydancer (talk) 21:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
@Gandydancer: If you've been following my woes and don't need this update, please forgive me. I wanted to let you know that our little discussion right here is now being used (by an admin) to justify an escalation of the retaliation against me to an indefinite site ban. Actually, the admin who suggested the escalation referred to two things as proof of how terrible I am -- the discussion itself of a 6-month med-topic-ban against me, in which I'm defending myself rather than accepting the charges and pleading guilty, and my user talk page, where the only item that could possibly have offended him is this discussion. The retaliation started when the editor I'd complained about for disruptive editing went to Abortifacient to delete an edit I'd made there two months ago. I put it back with an explanation of why RS rather than MEDRS should apply to a statement about effects of herbs on animals and a second edit inserting a clarification, at which point I got the two warnings below (one for "edit-warring" on Abortifacient, i.e., my two edits). Then a guy who'd just sworn at me using profanities and all-caps nominated me for rather draconian sanctions on AN/I. When finally one editor entered the discussion to suggest that maybe draconian sanctions weren't called for, one of the supporters of the sanctions (an admin) answered that the milder punishment suggested by that editor (a 1-week block) "feels punitive," and so the "logical" thing would be to ban me from Wikipedia altogether. On AN/I there's little point in my continuing to defend myself, since the very fact of my defending myself is used as evidence of my disruptiveness (see the last comment with all-caps and obscenities just above the beginning of the subsection about banning me). So I'm reduced to venting my frustration to you. Anyway, thanks.
BTW, when I went to WP:IDHT, prompted by the editor who suggested only a 1-week block, I saw that the only picture in the whole article was of a woman saying "I can't hear you." I went to the talk page to suggest that, in view of all the on- and off-wiki comment there's been about systemic bias against women on Wikipedia, maybe that photo should be deleted or replaced by a photo of a man.NightHeron (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I have not recently been following your WP experience. Please provide the diff re our conversations on your talk page. I will check the picture/article you mention. Gandydancer (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
and
"(clarification)".NightHeron (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Nomination of Criticisms of medicine for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Criticisms of medicine is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticisms of medicine (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 17:55, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Criticism of medicine AFD
Hi, it was very unfortunate your article was deleted like that, mine was threatened with a CSD within 3 minutes for no sources when I haven't have time to put sources (no draft space then) and taken nearly to AFD within 4 hours. I give you my full moral support, and I suggest using AFC for any articles. However, as far as policies go, I can't defend that article anymore, so sorry . --Quek157 (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Nightheron, I started to write this to you over at that AfD but once I re-read it, I realized it was a bit of a derail from the topic at hand, so I've posted it here instead.
- Thanks for continuing to thoughtfully engage, NightHeron. I don't think w're going to wind up on the same side of the line this time, but maybe next time we will.
- I hope you don't think this is condescending (it's certainly not intended to be such) but you're casting this debate in quite dramatic terms: censorship, travesty, illegitimate. Nobody wins every debate on Wikipedia. What makes Wikipedia work is when people lose a debate, then pick their tools back up and get on with something else. For experienced Wikipedia editors, this is just another debate of the many thousands happening here today. Trying to win people over to your side with thoughtful engagement and a good attitude will get you a lot farther than trying to grab some non-existant moral high ground and declaring the discussion itself to be immoral.
- To get to your points on the merits: hoping that external criticism will swing the debate in your favour is unlikely to happen or to win sympathy from your fellow editors. Wikipedia has been around a long time and seen controversies a lot hotter than this one, which is about as warm as yesterday's pot roast. Wikipedia is home to a lot of different viewpoints, but there's some that we simply don't allow: racism and hate speech, for example. And definitely not psuedoscience. This is not censorship, anymore than it would be if you stopped someone from using your personal Twitter account to run a scam. We have a responsibility to not allow Wikipedia's platform to be used to lead people down paths that are indefensibly wrong.
- This debate probably isn't going to go your way, but that's not the end of the world. There's plenty of other work to be done around here. You've got moxie and that's a good thing. You just need to pick a better hill to die on.
- PS -- It's strange to hear that "social justice warrior" is a "common pejorative". That sounds like a fine thing to be. A Traintalk 23:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
- @A Train: I'm happy to discuss this with you, especially since you're taking a respectful tone. I don't think you're being condescending, but I think your analysis is wrong. First, the only reason I'm using strong language is that there was a violation of process, namely, refusal to accept consensus. As you correctly point out, it is important on Wikipedia to be able to accept losing an argument. Alexbrn lost his argument for deletion when the consensus of the appeal discussion was that there had been no consensus to delete after 2 weeks of AfD, and therefore the article should be restored and subjected to normal editing. Instead of accepting that, he engaged in disruptive editing and immediately renominated the article for deletion. That is obviously a refusal to accept consensus (meaning the 4-to-1 vote among admins for restoration, followed by the decision of the closing admin). He's refusing to accept the result of the proper Wikipedia process, and other editors who participate in this illegitimate AfD are effectively (though not intentionally, that is, not thinking of it this way) abetting a refusal to accept consensus.
- I've had edits discussed on discussion pages and rejected by consensus. I accepted that, and did not complain or use strong language after that occurred. You're completely correct that that's a normal process of Wikipedia. But this AfD2 is not.
- I agree completely that Wikipedia must never condone fraud or pseudoscience. Please show me one place in Criticisms of medicine that does that. The fact is, there is none.
- I'd like to clarify what I mean by external non-wiki pressure. I certainly didn't mean for the purpose of saving my article from censorship. Nor did I mean that I would personally try to create external pressure. What I meant was that there has already been external commentary about the refusal of a group of editors to permit fixing the NPOV problem of Alternative medicine, and I would welcome more. I raised the procedural issue on AN/I, but I doubt that'll lead to anything. The Alternative medicine article is an embarrassment and an obvious attack point for anyone who wants to criticize Wikipedia. It also plays into CAM's hands, because, as I mentioned in a different venue, a reader who loses interest in the Wikipedia article because of its polemical and unscientific tone will probably go to a source such as WebMD, and just look what they have there on "alternative medicine." I don't think you'll like it; I certainly didn't.
- I gather that you're probably not in the U.S., and I really apologize for inadvertently assuming familiarity with something that's very common now in U.S. political discourse, but probably not elsewhere. Conservatives have popularized the term "Social Justice Warriors" as a sarcastic reference to people on the left (especially on college campuses) who consider themselves morally righteous and try to prevent speeches or publications that they find offensive. I prefer the term "pseudo-leftist" for them. I made up the term "Anti-CAM Warriors" as a similar pejorative for people who seem to think that opposition to CAM is such a worthy cause that their Wikipedia article doesn't have to comply with WP:NPOV and that the Criticisms of medicine article should be blocked at all costs because it allegedly will make CAM promoters happy.NightHeron (talk) 00:47, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am sorry to disappoint you but you are not the first to posit vast conspiracies on this topic. Lots of people come here, edit badly on alt med topics, get reverted, make a stink, get blocked or banned or leave angry, and go out onto the internet and Explain How Wikipedia Is Secretly Controlled by A Conspiracy, Nay An Evil Cabal, That Hates Alt Med. It is very easy to find their rantings - GIYF. (hint - search for skeptic Wikipedia). I am sure they will welcome you.
- Please do read WP:Lunatic charlatans. Jytdog (talk) 16:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Jytdog: I am sorry that I have not made myself clear enough. They would not welcome me. I oppose them. My comments on the alt med article have had only one purpose, that of contributing to making it a credible source for the public that they'll perceive as unbiased and that will be effective in educating people about pseudoscience. There's one last thing I wanted to do on the subject of alt med, which I'd postponed, but I'd better do it now in anticipation of being banned.NightHeron (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- What you don't seem to understand, is that there is nothing new under the sun in WP. If a person is here for a while and observant, one can see typical trajectories and behaviors that humans in WP follow and do (some such observations are here for example).
- This is so clear here because everything here is a) written and b) saved forever, and because how people behavior here matters, and when problems arise people actually go look at the record of what people have done. So unlike pretty much any other place you go - everyone else can see everything you do.
- There is no hiding here. And it doesn't matter what you say about what you have done, because everyone can see what you actually have done.
- One human behavior that is clear even outside WP, is that people often perceive themselves and describe themselves, in ways that don't reflect what they actually do. We see this all the time and this is how WP:BOOMERANG came into existence. If you read a bunch of ANIs you will see so many cases where person X shows up very upset with person Y, and when the community looks at what has happened, person X is has acted terribly and their behavior gets dealt with, and person X protests more and more and more as the thing progresses.
- This sort of thing happens over and over.
- The things you are actually saying and doing are exactly like the alt med advocates who come here and self destruct and go complain about it on the internet. This diff is almost a perfect expression of it. You don't describe or see yourself that way, but that is what you are actually doing. Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I understand what your viewpoint is. There's been a listen-but-not-hear problem behind the acrimony and insults that have come my way. At the very beginning of my participation on the alt med talk page and several times since, I made it clear (I thought I did anyway) that I fully support the objective of WikiProject Medicine of combating fraud, pseudoscience, and quackery, and I thought it important for scientists (medical or otherwise) to safeguard their credibility if they want to be listened to by the public. That's all. I had no other motive. You're free to think I'm hiding something or lying, but there's no evidence that that's the case. From early on, several editors assumed bad faith on my part, a "problematic agenda" of promoting fraud and quackery. This assumption of bad faith put me on the defensive, and predisposed those editors to think the worst of anything I said. Since I'm not an experienced editor, I frankly did not know how to handle that well. My impression is that on Wikipedia the presumption of bad faith often leads to acrimony. I guess that's the reason for WP:GF.NightHeron (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think much at all about what people say their motivations or real world qualifications are, and nobody else who is experienced does either. (We learned to ignore self-representations through the WP:ESSJAY thing, if you care about background there). When there are problems, we look at each other's edits and how people interact with others, including how well their arguments and behavior are grounded in the policies and guidelines -- not just their letter but their spirit (see WP:CLUE). Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- Of course. As I said, there is no evidence based on my article or talk page edits that I'm an altmedist. What I was trying to say, and what another editor said recently on the NPOV notice board better than I could, is that a polemical article on alt med plays to the advantage of altmedists, because it lacks credibility with the people who need to be convinced (the potential customers of the altmedists) and makes the altmedists' false accusations against the medical profession appear more credible.NightHeron (talk) 21:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- Facepalm. I tried here, I tried below, to have a discussion about what you are have actually done here, to help you see it, so you can change and edit better. I will not be replying further. Jytdog (talk) 01:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- You started this thread by telling me to read WP:Lunatic charlatans, which I did (I think I'd already read it a while ago). You implied that I was in the ACEP camp, which is ridiculous. No, I agree with Jimmy Wales. In the thread I've tried unsuccessfully to convince you of that. You seem to think I'm lying. Because I'm refusing to accept your view that my participation in discussions is promoting fraud and quackery, you say I won't "change and edit better." No, I'm eager to "change and edit better," and I think I understand the process much better than when I started in March. All that's moot, of course, if I get banned from virtually all the editing I'd wanted to do (e.g., on abortion-related articles). You're punishing someone for refusing to accept your opinions, not for refusing to accept help with editing better.NightHeron (talk) 01:37, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- There was no statement at AN/I saying what I'm accused of, so I have to guess based on the negative comments about me. It seems to be based not on article edits, but on my participation in the alt med talk page and later in the AfD and AfD2 for Criticisms of medicine. The main problem seems to be my persisting in arguing against the notion that my suggestions for the alt med article (these weren't edits, just suggestions on the talk page) as well as my work on the Criticisms of medicine article were promoting CAM. I repeatedly asked for evidence, such as sources that I was using in either case that were pro-CAM, but it seems that that wasn't the point. Rather, many people thought that the very idea that there should be a change in tone and balance in the alt med article and the very idea that there should be an article on criticisms of medicine are pro-CAM ideas. I argued against that, but ultimately the majority disagreed, so there's no Criticism of medicine article and the alt med article is as before. Fine. That's how it goes. Then there's a rush to ban me because I argued on these issues. That has nothing to do with the quality of my edits.NightHeron (talk) 04:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- Facepalm. I tried here, I tried below, to have a discussion about what you are have actually done here, to help you see it, so you can change and edit better. I will not be replying further. Jytdog (talk) 01:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- Of course. As I said, there is no evidence based on my article or talk page edits that I'm an altmedist. What I was trying to say, and what another editor said recently on the NPOV notice board better than I could, is that a polemical article on alt med plays to the advantage of altmedists, because it lacks credibility with the people who need to be convinced (the potential customers of the altmedists) and makes the altmedists' false accusations against the medical profession appear more credible.NightHeron (talk) 21:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think much at all about what people say their motivations or real world qualifications are, and nobody else who is experienced does either. (We learned to ignore self-representations through the WP:ESSJAY thing, if you care about background there). When there are problems, we look at each other's edits and how people interact with others, including how well their arguments and behavior are grounded in the policies and guidelines -- not just their letter but their spirit (see WP:CLUE). Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I understand what your viewpoint is. There's been a listen-but-not-hear problem behind the acrimony and insults that have come my way. At the very beginning of my participation on the alt med talk page and several times since, I made it clear (I thought I did anyway) that I fully support the objective of WikiProject Medicine of combating fraud, pseudoscience, and quackery, and I thought it important for scientists (medical or otherwise) to safeguard their credibility if they want to be listened to by the public. That's all. I had no other motive. You're free to think I'm hiding something or lying, but there's no evidence that that's the case. From early on, several editors assumed bad faith on my part, a "problematic agenda" of promoting fraud and quackery. This assumption of bad faith put me on the defensive, and predisposed those editors to think the worst of anything I said. Since I'm not an experienced editor, I frankly did not know how to handle that well. My impression is that on Wikipedia the presumption of bad faith often leads to acrimony. I guess that's the reason for WP:GF.NightHeron (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Jytdog: I am sorry that I have not made myself clear enough. They would not welcome me. I oppose them. My comments on the alt med article have had only one purpose, that of contributing to making it a credible source for the public that they'll perceive as unbiased and that will be effective in educating people about pseudoscience. There's one last thing I wanted to do on the subject of alt med, which I'd postponed, but I'd better do it now in anticipation of being banned.NightHeron (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
- I gather that you're probably not in the U.S., and I really apologize for inadvertently assuming familiarity with something that's very common now in U.S. political discourse, but probably not elsewhere. Conservatives have popularized the term "Social Justice Warriors" as a sarcastic reference to people on the left (especially on college campuses) who consider themselves morally righteous and try to prevent speeches or publications that they find offensive. I prefer the term "pseudo-leftist" for them. I made up the term "Anti-CAM Warriors" as a similar pejorative for people who seem to think that opposition to CAM is such a worthy cause that their Wikipedia article doesn't have to comply with WP:NPOV and that the Criticisms of medicine article should be blocked at all costs because it allegedly will make CAM promoters happy.NightHeron (talk) 00:47, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
May 2018
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be repeatedly reverting or undoing other editors' contributions at Abortifacient. Although this may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is known as "edit warring" and is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, as it often creates animosity between editors. Instead of reverting, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.
If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to be blocked from editing Wikipedia. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a block. Thank you. Alexbrn (talk) 06:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Sourcing
Hi NightHeron. So - a bunch of us have tried to call your attention to MEDRS - the sourcing guideline for content about health.
This guideline has broad and deep consensus in the community, and you don't seem to be engaging with it.
I do understand there is a lot that you want to do, content-wise, and those may be difficult things to do no matter what. But if you start with poor sources, you are going to be dead in the water.
Everything here depends on sources, for content about health, we look for recent literature reviews published in good journals, or statements by major medical or scientific bodies. Textbooks can be useful too.
If you don't understand something about that, please ask. Really, I will be happy to help you understand this. It will save everybody trouble. Jytdog (talk) 06:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
June 2018
This message is to inform you that you are now banned from making any edits related to the topic of medicine, broadly construed, until December 3rd, 2018. This editing restriction has been logged at WP:EDRC. Please note that this restriction applies to you as a person, so it does extend to your alternate account. Topic ban violations are generally considered minor offenses that are handled with short blocks, but if you are suspected to be editing in the subject area with your undisclosed alternate account, you will be subject to significantly harsher penalties for sockpuppetry and ban evasion, with the most likely result being an indefinite block. (And in case it's unclear, yes, this encompasses the topic of abortion.) Swarm ♠ 21:47, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Swarm: Could you give me some guidance as to what "broadly construed" means? For example, right now I have been involved in discussions about retitling United States pro-life movement (pro-life --> anti-abortion) and United States pro-choice movement (pro-choice --> abortion rights). Am I now banned from continued participation in those discussions? Also, today I thanked an admin for the review and edits made to Frederick J. Taussig (who was a gynecologist/obstetrician in the early 20th century); that was a new article I contributed a while ago. Would thanking the admin have been a violation of the ban if it had occurred during the next 6 months? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Swarm: Also, is psychology included? I might want to contribute edits to articles or talk pages related to IQ. Also, I recently contributed a subsection Microaggression#Mindreading to a psychology-related article. Would that also have been prohibited?NightHeron (talk) 22:19, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- "Broadly construed" basically means that borderline cases or "grey areas" will be considered violations. Pro-life/pro-choice are great examples, actually. Articles about the abortion debate are not directly about the subject of medicine, but they're an aspect of a medical topic, thus, the ban would encompass that area. It's best just treated with common sense, and usually if it's unclear, it's best just to assume that if something could possibly be considered a violation, then it will be. Psychology is not inseparable from the subject of medicine, so it's not included by default, but any edits that could be reasonably construed as being related to medicine in any sense would be. Swarm ♠ 23:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Swarm: That helps, but could you answer two yes-or-no questions about whether the following would have been a violation if I'd done them during the ban period? (1) Putting in the section Microaggression#Mind reading (I made a typo above, leaving out the space); (2) clicking the "thank" button on the admin's review and edits on the Frederick J. Taussig article. Thanks.NightHeron (talk) 23:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
- Broadly construed means, If you have to ask, then don't do it. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- That is exactly spot on. Swarm ♠ 19:24, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- @RoySmith:@Swarm: Okay, thanks. Because I'm nervous about the nebulous nature of the banning order, to be safe there'll be no more NightHeron edits until December. My true name account will remain active, because it is only for a professional area unrelated to medicine, and interactions there with other editors have been respectful and collegial on all sides, without exception.NightHeron (talk) 19:51, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- That is exactly spot on. Swarm ♠ 19:24, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- Broadly construed means, If you have to ask, then don't do it. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Swarm: That helps, but could you answer two yes-or-no questions about whether the following would have been a violation if I'd done them during the ban period? (1) Putting in the section Microaggression#Mind reading (I made a typo above, leaving out the space); (2) clicking the "thank" button on the admin's review and edits on the Frederick J. Taussig article. Thanks.NightHeron (talk) 23:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Since both you and the sanctioning administrator gave me a very broad interpretation of the sanctions against me, it was clear that to be safe NightHeron should become inactive for 6 months to avoid violating the ban. So the effect is quite draconian and punitive. After learning more about Wikipedia policy and guidelines, I see that the sanction procedure against me seems to have involved two violations of policy:
(1) The sanctioning admin was not uninvolved (see WP:UNINVOLVED); he had argued extensively against my initial AN/I complaint that started the process that eventually led to sanctions against me.
{2} I had received only 1 formal warning (above on my user page). That "edit-warring" warning for my 2 recent edits to Abortifacient was not only unjustified, but was put there by an editor who himself had just made two reverts in 10 hours (29-30 May 2018), in violation of the 1RR policy on that page (see the first item in WP:General sanctions#Arbitration Committee-authorised sanctions).
What I want to ask your advice about is: If I were to appeal the sanctions in some way (I haven't yet looked into how that could be done), would that be perceived as further proof of my "wikilawyering" or "refusal to accept consensus" or "refusal to hear what others are saying," which seem to have been the accusations against me? In other words, is it socially acceptable in the Wikipedia community to appeal sanctions?
The purpose of an appeal, if I decide on that, would be to ask for (1) a reduction of the sanctions and (2) a clear explanation by an uninvolved admin of exactly what I did wrong. Thanks.
Some WP excerpts that prompt my question about a possible appeal:
From WP:DSAN#Nature of disruption:
Creating controversy by raising reasonable concerns about content or making bold edits that comply with policy may fit the dictionary definition of disruption by having a tumultuous effect on editors and content, but are only disruptive to improving content if they come with other problematic acts such as a refusal to pursue consensus when editors object to changes. Bold editing and detailed discussion of any concerns about an article are strongly encouraged, even when it is contentious.
When sanctions are pursued against an editor, care must be taken to ensure that an editor's actions are actually having the effect of disrupting active efforts to improve content. Editors in a discussion may become frustrated when faced with spirited disagreement, rapid altering of an article, or rejection of their edits and react by accusing other editors of misconduct. Being a cause of annoyance to other editors is not itself disruptive and sanctions should not be implemented without indication that an editor's contributions are having the effect of preventing improvement of an article.
Even where an editor's conduct has been disruptive there may be mitigating circumstances or positive attributes to that editor's contributions that may make sanctions more harmful to the goal of improving content. Carefully-considered sanctions are expected to create a demonstrative improvement in the editing environment on Wikipedia with any detrimental results being minimal. When a sanction impedes productive content work in a manner more significant than whatever benefit the sanction has on the same, it becomes disruptive to the goal of improving content.
From WP:DSAN#Community discussions:
Community discussions aimed at passing sanctions can often become plagued by bias where argumentation from editors with personal biases against a specific editor or group of editors, possibly due to previous interactions or perceptions about that editor's views on a dispute, can lead uninvolved editors to support their arguments due to a perception that multiple editors raising the same concerns is ipso facto evidence of misconduct. Editors can be railroaded by community discussions about conduct and given excessive or unnecessary restrictions that have an even more damaging effect on an editor's willingness to contribute than administrative misconduct as there is often a feeling of futility and persecution.
From WP:NOTPENAL:
Some editors, even some administrators on Wikipedia forget why we are here and begin to adopt a punitive model for Wikipedia politics. They support blocks, bans, and enforcement of Arbitration Committee sanctions in order to exact retribution on "bad users" rather than helping to create and improve encyclopedic content. This is regrettable and problematic, not to mention contrary to the reason for blocks, bans, and enforcements as stated in the Wikipedia guidelines and policies linked in the previous sentence. When proposing or supporting an action that could easily be interpreted to be punishment, ask yourself, "Will this action help make the content on Wikipedia better?" If the answer is not an unequivocal "yes" and you still end up supporting the action, you may be an adherent to the punitive model of Wikipedia.
From WP:BOOMERANG#Responders: Investigate fully:
When you encounter a reporter who wasn't blameless in the incident, or who posts a report in the heat of the moment, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the reporter is the sole problem without looking at the context. Don't ignore Bob's bad behavior while rushing to be the first to tell to Alice that her angry response to Bob's provocation is going to boomerang on her.
NightHeron (talk) 00:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Point of advice
NightHeron — Be very well advised that if you choose to return to editing only on these two issues without any substantial edits elsewhere you will likely be topic banned again, or indefinately blocked, whereupon you can not access your alternative account either. The idea of the time limited topic ban is to allow you to edit less controversial articles during a period and so learn to better collaborate.
Your conclusion that you will not edit using this account because you may inadvertantly defy your topic ban is in violation of WP:VALIDALT and WP:SOCK. The topic ban applies to all your accounts, and violation on any of them may result in a permanent block to all accounts. I would suggest Swarm and RoySmith look into this and see if WP:VALIDALT at all applies in this case.
Further, to return to these topics from which you were banned without expressing a desire to better understand the process of Wikipedia is WP:NOTHERE. Your expressed solution to wait until the 3rd of December to return to full editing on these topics again implies you do not understand the purpose or reason for the topic ban, and makes me feel obliged to ask for an extension to an indefinite topic ban. That would not be an unusual result, even though it would be regretable. Depending on the responses here I may bring this back to AN/I for clarification. Carl Fredrik talk 10:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Before sending your message, I wish you would have read the thread above, where I once again said very clearly: "My true name account will remain active, because it is only for a professional area unrelated to medicine." If you followed the discussion leading up to sanctions[1], you'd know that some of the editors voting to ban me were well aware that doing so would largely silence NightHeron for 6 months, because most of that editing has been directly or indirectly related to abortion. A few topics (see my questions near the beginning of this thread) could be considered non-med related (such as my recent successful proposal to retitle United States pro-life movement and United States pro-choice movement to NPOV titles), but it's clear from the responses to my queries that I'm required to avoid such very, very indirectly related topics as well. Thus, the safest thing for the NightHeron account would be not to edit any article or discussion pages (except my user page).
- I wish you would not indulge in threats and false accusations against me. To be fair, you're not the worst -- at least you haven't used obscenities when addressing me, as has, for example, the user who nominated me for sanctions.NightHeron (talk) 13:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
References
- I am still watching this page, so seeing this I am bound to say it's weird. "NightHeron" is not some autonomous agent; YOU have control, just as you do of other accounts you have. It is YOU as a person (not the account) who is topic banned. You may however use any of your accounts to edit in non-med areas. If you want to start building some goodwill for the NightHeron account, you must use it to do something beneficial for the project. My tip is, whining about the ban is not going to help in that. Alexbrn (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry I seem "weird" to you. Of course I understand perfectly well that my other account is also subject to the topic ban, but that account would not be used for such topics, ban or no ban. As I've said several times (and is on my user page) that account has never been used and will never be used for anything outside my professional area, which is unrelated to medicine. Since you ask about why I would suspend all editing by NightHeron, the answer is that almost all of the topics that have attracted my interest could possibly result in a violation of the ban if I'm not very careful. Some examples: a small edit to an article about a woman in science (what if it turns out that she spent some of her career in an area related to medicine?); an edit to an article about a historian of science (what if s/he published some works about the history of medicine?); thanking an admin for his review and clean-up of the article I created about Frederick J. Taussig (what if pushing the "thank" button counts as an edit of a page about a medical person?). I might have thought that participating in a discussion of title changes for articles on the advocacy movements for and against legalization of abortion would not be classified as med-related, but User:Swarm said that it definitely is included (my proposals to change those titles for NPOV reasons concluded yesterday, and of course I did not participate in those discussions once the ban started). So I'm not being weird, just practical.NightHeron (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I am still watching this page, so seeing this I am bound to say it's weird. "NightHeron" is not some autonomous agent; YOU have control, just as you do of other accounts you have. It is YOU as a person (not the account) who is topic banned. You may however use any of your accounts to edit in non-med areas. If you want to start building some goodwill for the NightHeron account, you must use it to do something beneficial for the project. My tip is, whining about the ban is not going to help in that. Alexbrn (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Mini-essay: Harm to Wikipedia from Abuse of Process
When I asked whether or not appealing a ban is socially acceptable, I had hoped for an answer to my query from an unbiased admin. But I'll accept the answer from a biased non-admin who said that any appeal of my 6-month ban would be viewed as "whining." So I won't appeal.
Nevertheless, I think that a reasonable person (say, an off-wiki person) who examines my article edits in the 3 months that I've been an editor and my participation in various discussions would be mystified as to what I did to deserve this punishment. The excerpt quoted above from WP:Disruptive sanctions warns that under these circumstances the target of the sanctions might have a "feeling of futility and persecution." However, in my case there's no reason to feel persecuted, because in the course of discussions on Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents other editors explained to me that I was not being singled out and that what I was experiencing is quite common. If a novice editor complains on the noticeboard about disruptive editing by a veteran editor, the typical result is not a warning to the veteran editor, but rather a retaliatory "boomerang" and severe sanctions for the novice editor. That's just the way it goes on Wikipedia.
I intend to resume NightHeron editing after the 6-month ban ends. I still have a strong belief in the importance of improving Wikipedia, time-consuming though that may be. In addition, compared to most people I know, I have a much thicker skin in the face of insults and abusive language. So I won't quit.
The damage to Wikipedia from my treatment -- which, since I was told that it is typical, should be multiplied by thousands -- is more indirect and is far-reaching. In the naive period after I opened my account, I got the usual welcome messages, read WP:GFand WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE, and expected collegiality. I intended to tell people I know about my experiences, and encourage them also to become editors. Now, three months later, when they hear about what I've been through, I don't really think that any of my acquaintances (female or male) will be inclined to become an editor.
In particular, let me give an example of the type of sexist conduct on Wikipedia that apparently is acceptable and does not result in sanctions. First look at the last editor comment on the AN/I discussion of the proposal to sanction me, right before the discussion was closed and the sanctions were imposed."Proposal to ban NightHeron".[n 1] His comment pointed editors to a talk page discussion I had started about sexist use of a woman's image (the only picture in all of WP:DISRUPT) to illustrate a disruptive person. Now see what this editor contributed to the talk page for WP:DISRUPT. After a woman editor removed the sexist image, he reverted her edit with a mocking edit summary (see "diff1".); he and another editor then inserted adolescent-male-style sexual banter (see "diff2". and "diff3".); and finally he told the editor who'd tried to remove the sexism that instead of Wikipedia she should be editing "Victimpedia" (see "diff4".). Apparently this type of mocking is what women editors on Wikipedia are expected to accept. In this connection please see "Gender bias on Wikipedia". and "Sue Gardner's Blog: Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia"..NightHeron (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
- Yes I agree that the "Victimpedia" statement was highly improper and problematic. On the other hand, I discussed the controversy with another editor that I consider "brilliant" when it comes to women's issues. That is not to say that I have always agreed with her, I most definely have not. But in this situation I was willing to bend to her estimation of the photo. Perhaps I need to post this at the article and will when time permits. Gandydancer (talk) 20:20, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: As I see it, the problem with having the only picture on WP:Disruptive editing being the picture of a woman is that it conveys the subliminal message to a typical editor (which studies of the demographics of Wikipedia show is a young white American male) that he should assume that women editors are likely to be disruptive, incapable of hearing what other editors are telling them, and deserving of mockery.NightHeron (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Criticism of medicine
Hi, I liked your article on criticism of medicine but felt it needed some adjustments while at the same time, I did not know whether you were serious or testing conduct of editors on controversial issues. As a returnee from a ban who will most likely end up being indef, Wiki will always have some sort of controversy, disagreements and actions that piss people off because some of its policies are based on exactly that. A lot of newbies do not know many of this policies or where they stand, it becomes a sink or swim situation for new editors.Alexplaugh12 (talk) 21:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
- @Alexplaugh12: Thank you for your comments. I fully expected that my article (which as a draft had help from two much more experienced editors) would need additional editing and improvement. But the ferocity of the drive to entirely delete it took me completely by surprise. So did the assumption that the "Anti-CAM Warriors" made that any criticism of the alt med article or any attempt to write an article on criticisms of mainstream medicine must be by someone who's shilling for quackery. This assumption is insulting and ridiculous, but I think it goes a long way toward explaining the hostility I encountered.
- I was serious about the article, and certainly not "testing" anyone. But criticism of mainstream medicine is not a big interest of mine, and I wouldn't have written it if it weren't that a veteran editor in WikiProject Medicine suggested to me that I should.NightHeron (talk) 00:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Limited appeal
NightHeron — I'm not entirely sure where you asked about an appeal, but I would be willing to support you in a limited repeal, keeping only the restriction on alternative medicine. I reviewed some of your other work, and for the most part it is fine. The primary concerns was use of a 1966 source regarding abortifacients, however this falls under the umbrella of "alternative treatment".
I would be even more willing to support you in an appeal, and I think others would too, if you agreed to a voluntary extension of the topic ban on alternative medicine to 1 year. In the vein of WP:PENAL I think this would be for the best, and the most likely to result in better understanding of consensus-building and policies. It is a shame to lose useful contributions simply because of a single problematic area. Carl Fredrik talk 20:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
- @CFCF: Thank you for coming up with a constructive suggestion. A narrow voluntary ban (applying to the alt med article and its talk page) would be reasonable, even for 1 year. However, the issue would be whether this would be "broadly construed" so as to prevent me from making well-sourced edits to abortion-related articles. Let me give an example. Please understand that this example is not a "med-related edit broadly construed" (which would violate the ban) but rather a query to you about something that I prepared for a future edit (when my ban ends in December) to the article Abortifacient. Here's what I prepared so you can examine it:
- Certain herbs are known to cause abortion in cattle[1]: 45–46 and in sheep and goats.[1]: 77–80 Historically, a number of plants reputed to possess abortifacient properties have been used in folk medicine in different time periods and different parts of the world. The most commonly used plants have included tansy, pennyroyal, black cohosh, and the now-extinct silphium.[2][3]: 44–47, 62–63, 154–155, 230–231 According to Koblitz,[4]: 4, 9, 120 folk belief in the abortifacient properties of these herbs most likely originated from observation of their effects on domesticated animals.
- However, modern users of these plants often lack knowledge of the proper use and dosage. The historian of medicine John Riddle has spoken of the "broken chain of knowledge,"[3]: 167–205 . Because the indiscriminant or ill-informed use of herbs as abortifacients can cause serious—even lethal—side effects, such as multiple organ failure,[5] such use is dangerous and is not recommended by physicians.[6]NightHeron (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
- I believe that this information relates to folk practices and not to modern medicine, and so should not be classified as an "alt med" contribution.
- If you and others agree, and simply want me to stay away from the alt med article and talk page for at least a year, then that would not unduly restrict the editing I could do.
- By the way, I know nothing about how an appeal or limited appeal would work.NightHeron (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
References
- ^ a b Njaa, Bradley L., editor (2011). Kirkbride's Diagnosis of Abortion and Neonatal Loss in Animals. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780470958520.
{{cite book}}
:|first=
has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Riddle, John M. (1992). Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 25–26, 28–29, 33, 35–37, 58, 59, 66, 70, 78, 94–97, 101–103, 116–117, 127. ISBN 0-674-16876-3.
- ^ a b Riddle, John M. (1997). Eve's herbs: a history of contraception and abortion in the West. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-27024-4. OCLC 36126503.
- ^ Koblitz, Ann Hibner (2014). Sex and Herbs and Birth Control: Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages. Kovalevskaia Fund. ISBN 978-0989665506.
- ^ Ciganda C, Laborde A (2003). "Herbal infusions used for induced abortion". Journal of Toxicology: Clinical Toxicology. 41 (3): 235–239. doi:10.1081/CLT-120021104. PMID 12807304.
- ^ Kutner, Jenny (6 January 2016). "Women Are Learning about Herbal Abortion Online -- Here's Why That's a Problem".
- @CFCF: I'd oppose any such appeal unless NightHeron shows some acceptance and understanding of the issues which made Criticism of medicine so bad: especially WP:SYN, WP:OR, WP:POVFORK, WP:COATRACK and WP:CRITS. Without such acceptance and understanding we could just see this kind of content roaring back, which would be a huge time sink for all. AIUI, NightHeron's stance is still that (e.g.) that article had no synthesis problem. Alexbrn (talk) 11:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
- @CFCF:@Alexbrn: Concerning the "criticism of medicine" article, it was not my original intention to write such an article. Rather, User:BullRangifer, a veteran editor who belongs to WikiProject Medicine and is a strong opponent of quackery (as am I), suggested to me that I write it and helped me with it (see "New Article" section above). He (and others) expressed the opinion that there should be such an article on Wikipedia. I'd be happy if someone else userfies the deleted article and improves it. I'd also agree not to do any edits on any "criticism of medicine" article for at least a year (along with agreeing not to edit the alt med article or talk page). As I said from the very beginning, I fully support the goals of WikiProject Medicine, including a strong stand against quackery, and I have no desire to be in a contentious debate with members of that group.NightHeron (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
- NightHeron, you're comments above have made me slightly hesitant because I find it should be clear that herbal abortifacients and traditional treatments that have not been proven effective in clinical trials on humans — fall squarely under "alternative medicine", even narrowly defined.
- I think it would also be good to accept that the Criticism of medicine article will not be recreated, and that while criticism of meaningful, any single article is more likely to become a hodgepodge of legitimate and illegitimate criticism and Wikipedia is better without it.
- I think your edits on abortion have been useful, and I am still open to assuming good faith, and that you are willing to edit according to policies and guidelines, but I think Alexbrn is on point, especially regarding the need to understand WP:SYN and WP:OR.
- It is also very important to understand the following section: WP:MEDANIMAL (a part of MEDRS). I would posit that the mere mention of drug effects in cattle, sheep and goats, when not performed with the clear intent of identifying drug candidates for human use — is overemphasis outside a research section on articles on the drug (not plant) in question.
- There is also a need to use up-to-date evidence in medicine, and I suggest you read WP:MEDDATE (also a part of MEDRS), so that the use of sources from the 1960s, or even 1990s (as you did above) is avoided.
- The last point of advice I would like to give here is that this is putting myself on the line for you, because I think you can be a positive influence on Wikipedia. However, any successful appeal will likely mean your edits will be under scrutiny, and a failure to follow Wikipedias policies and guidelines, as well as the guidance of experienced editors — may result in a longer and even broader topic ban that you originally received, or even a block, which will also impact your other account.
- So, to sum up,
- 1. If you accept that any herbal or traditional treatment fall under the topic of alternative medicine — and express an intent to learn from experienced editors and to edit in line with: WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:MEDDATE, and WP:MEDANIMAL
- and
- 2. You understand the risks of increased scrutiny post appeal
- – I would be willing to support you.
- Carl Fredrik talk 21:40, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
- @CFCF: Thank you for your effort to think of a constructive alternative to my 6-month ban. I much appreciate your positive comment about my abortion edits, and your willingness to assume good faith. However, what you propose would entail micromanaging my editing for a whole year, and would require me to accept an assumption that I do not accept, namely, that only MEDRS sources should be used in discussions of traditional use of herbs in historical periods or in present-day communities that have no access to modern medicine. Such a restriction clashes with the scholarly consensus among historians of medicine, and would mean that Wikipedia cannot fairly reflect the scholarship of eminent historians of medicine such as John Riddle and Monica Green.
- So I'll just stick with my 6-month ban, and start with a clean slate in December. I'll make use of the time away from editing to learn more about what forums are available on Wikipedia for discussing serious issues without being singled out for punishment for one's views. I'll also be interested in what discussions are going on concerning the toxic subculture that I was exposed to. (I'm not talking about the medical people -- I'm thinking of editors like the guy who nominated me on AN/I for the 6-month ban after first swearing at me with profanities and all-caps, in obvious violation of many WP policies about civility.) I'll also be interested in any discussions of why "Some animals are more equal than others" (apologies to George Orwell) -- for example, why it's okay for a veteran editor to engage in edit-warring by making 2 reverts in 10 hours on a 1RR-protected abortion article, and then to put an edit-warring warning on the user page of a novice editor who never did anything that meets the definition of edit-warring. There's clearly a lot about the Wikipedia subculture that I wasn't ready for.
- Concerning OR, the most blatant example of OR that I have seen on Wikipedia (except for edits that were rapidly reverted) is the sentence in Alternative medicine that claims that "The scientific consensus is that alternative therapies either do not, or cannot, work." At the beginning of my comments on the alt med talk page, I said that there could not possibly be a scientific consensus that 100 percent of those therapies do not or cannot work. It might be the case that the consensus among the most active editors in WikiProject Medicine is that 100 percent of those therapies do not or cannot work. But it's OR to state as a fact that the consensus of a group of Wikipedia editors is the same as consensus of off-wiki scientists.
- I recently read the Wikipedia article about Edzard Ernst, which I much liked. In addition to being a prominent researcher, he has true courage. He tangled with none other than Prince Charles, and suffered reprisals for that. His viewpoint on alternative treatments is, of course, overwhelmingly negative. But not 100 percent. Here's his view, as reported in the Wikipedia article:
- He has said that about five percent of alternative medicine is backed by evidence,[1] with the remainder being either insufficiently studied or backed by evidence showing lack of efficacy.... In a 2008 publication in the British Journal of General Practice, his listed treatments that "demonstrably generate more good than harm" was limited to acupuncture for nausea and osteoarthritis; aromatherapy as a palliative treatment for cancer; hypnosis for labour pain; massage, music therapy, relaxation therapy for anxiety and insomnia; and some plant extracts such as St John's wort for depression; hawthorn for congestive heart failure; guar gum for diabetes.[2]
- I recently read the Wikipedia article about Edzard Ernst, which I much liked. In addition to being a prominent researcher, he has true courage. He tangled with none other than Prince Charles, and suffered reprisals for that. His viewpoint on alternative treatments is, of course, overwhelmingly negative. But not 100 percent. Here's his view, as reported in the Wikipedia article:
References
- ^ Interview: The complementary medicine detective - Michael Bond, New Scientist, 26 April 2008 Magazine issue 2653.
- ^ "Complementary therapies: The big con? – The Independent". London. 2008-04-22. Archived from the original on 27 April 2009. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
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- I would think that the views of Edzard Ernst, which seem similar to those of the 6 prominent authors of Harrison's Internal Medicine, come as close as anything to reflecting scientific consensus.NightHeron (talk) 23:29, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
Misrepresenting sources
Saying you didn't misrepresent a cited source because what you wanted to say is in some other source, is taking the piss. At Abortifacient you have been very quick to reprise the behaviour that led to your TBAN. I urge you to be much more careful, not least because unpicking source misrepesentation is a huge time sink for editors. Alexbrn (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
False statement
At WP:FT/N you have written: "The OP has expressed his strong dislike for Riddle". This is not true (and it is not true that strongly dislike Riddle - I have no opoinion of the man). Please correct this. You are also quite wrong about your reading of "ruddy", but this is understandable since this is an English idiom, the sense of which was that I didn't appreciate having to read a complete, long book chapter just to verify a few words. Alexbrn (talk) 06:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- @Alexbrn: It is clear from the context that "dislike for Riddle" means dislike of his work, not of the man. I was not trying to personalize the issue by suggesting that you know him personally. You referred to his work (not the man) as "the ruddy thing". I have no direct knowledge of British slang, but asked a friend who reads a lot of British novels and also looked in dictionary.com, which says that it means the same as "the damned thing". I guess one reason why slang is usually not used in international settings is that meaning can vary widely between regions and time periods, and especially between different countries. On the subject of British slang, if you insist on repeatedly scolding me on my userpage, at least please use language I can understand. Above you use the expression "taking the piss". According to dictionary.com, "take the piss -- to tease or make fun of someone or something" and this doesn't seem to fit. Please clarify. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 13:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I don't "dislike" his work either. I did not refer to "his work" as "the ruddy thing", I referred to a chapter, in the light of having to read it - a large piece of text. We have an article on Taking the piss - for you it meant I thought your editing "not in line with a recognised agreement". Alexbrn (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I'm still confused. So you say you're using the expression in the following sense (from Taking the piss): In colloquial usage, "taking the piss" is also used to refer to someone or something that makes a claim which is not in line with a recognised agreement e.g. an invoice that is double the quoted price with no explanation for the added charge could be said to "take the piss", or likewise if something consistently misses a deadline. How does this relate to anything I've done? NightHeron (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- By insisting something was in a source you cited, when by any reasonable measure it was not. Alexbrn (talk) 13:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I was remiss in citing only Chapter 8 of Eve's Herbs and not p. 259, which explicitly discusses modern women's lack of knowledge of herbal abortifacients. I've repeatedly said that I agreed that Chapter 8 did not contain what I misremembered it as containing. No disagreement there. What we seem to disagree about is the meaning of "same source" vs "different sources". Let's suppose I made a statement about herbal abortifacients and claimed to have "at least five different sources" to support the statement. Then suppose you challenged me to produce those five sources, and I gave you five different page numbers in Eve's Herbs. You'd laugh at me, wouldn't you? And rightfully so. Those "five sources" are really one source. NightHeron (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- We don't disagree about what "source" means. What concerns me is the misrepresentation of the source you cited: a specific chapter. On top of that is the problem that your actual text isn't WP:Verifiable by any source anywhere (not p. 259 either). You could have said "I was wrong" and left it at that - but instead we have this huge waste of time. In future please remember text must be DIRECTLY supported by citations which must be PRECISE (usually with page number), and that WP:SYNTHESIS is forbidden. Alexbrn (talk) 14:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I was remiss in citing only Chapter 8 of Eve's Herbs and not p. 259, which explicitly discusses modern women's lack of knowledge of herbal abortifacients. I've repeatedly said that I agreed that Chapter 8 did not contain what I misremembered it as containing. No disagreement there. What we seem to disagree about is the meaning of "same source" vs "different sources". Let's suppose I made a statement about herbal abortifacients and claimed to have "at least five different sources" to support the statement. Then suppose you challenged me to produce those five sources, and I gave you five different page numbers in Eve's Herbs. You'd laugh at me, wouldn't you? And rightfully so. Those "five sources" are really one source. NightHeron (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- By insisting something was in a source you cited, when by any reasonable measure it was not. Alexbrn (talk) 13:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I'm still confused. So you say you're using the expression in the following sense (from Taking the piss): In colloquial usage, "taking the piss" is also used to refer to someone or something that makes a claim which is not in line with a recognised agreement e.g. an invoice that is double the quoted price with no explanation for the added charge could be said to "take the piss", or likewise if something consistently misses a deadline. How does this relate to anything I've done? NightHeron (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I don't "dislike" his work either. I did not refer to "his work" as "the ruddy thing", I referred to a chapter, in the light of having to read it - a large piece of text. We have an article on Taking the piss - for you it meant I thought your editing "not in line with a recognised agreement". Alexbrn (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: One thing I strongly agree with you about is that it would be good to find a way to avoid a "huge waste of time". Both of us have spent a lot of time arguing with one another that could have been better spent improving Wikipedia. When I resumed editing a few days ago, my purpose was to improve articles of interest to me, especially related to abortion, and it was not to enter into quarrels with anybody. So I'd like to have some sort of reconciliation with you, or at least peaceful coexistence, and would like to suggest something we can perhaps agree on in connection with the Abortifacient article. I think we both agree that information on Wikipedia should alert readers about the danger of relying on alt med sources for medical advice. That was my reason for putting a (slightly expanded and retitled) section on the dangers as the concluding section of the article. Do you agree that this was an improvement? Okay, I know you disagreed with my using Riddle in that section, so let me explain my motivation so that hopefully you'll accept that my edits were in good faith. In Riddle's two books he explains clearly that the oral transmission of folk knowledge and beliefs amounted to more than saying "pennyroyal will give you an abortion" or "St. John's Wort will restore menses". Rather, the oral transmission included specific information about modes of use (such as doses, parts of plant, etc.) that earlier generations had found perhaps to be effective or at least not to be lethal. Thus, when Riddle speaks of the "broken chain of knowledge", he means not just that modern women don't know which plants were once used for abortifacient purposes but also that, if they do hear that some plant can be used for an abortion -- say, from an online alt-med source -- they are likely to misuse it with possibly deadly results. In his other book Riddle mentions the woman who died in Colorado, for example.
This is probably not a big issue in the U.K., but in the U.S. and other countries where religious fundamentalists are very powerful, safe and legal abortion is becoming more and more restricted. Women are likely to turn to sources outside the medical profession, and that could be tragic. That's my motive for bringing up the "broken chain of knowledge". Since you think that I did it badly, I'm certainly open to suggestions about how to restore that with much improved sourcing. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- I do no doubt good faith and it's good to add good sources. And I agree it would be good to improve the articles. However I think your reading of Riddle with regard to the "broken chain" is imprecise and wrong. In general, Riddle's work seems to have been dismissed by historians, demographers and medics so I would not want to source any facts from it. Alexbrn (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for saying that you don't doubt my good faith. I also assume good faith in your edits and reverts, no matter how strongly I might disagree with a particular one. I also am aware that you have many years of experience on Wikipedia and have a huge number of edits to your credit. By the way, a belated apology for saying (earlier) that RfC is a common first step in dispute resolution when two editors are at an impasse. You were right to refer me back to WP:Dispute resolution, which I hadn't looked at in over 6 months. I was confusing RfC with Third Opinion.
- I will continue to oppose any effort to have Riddle's work classified as fringe and to portray him as a poor scholar on his Wikipedia page. But the place to discuss that is at WP:FT/N, where you raised the issue, and not here on my userpage.
- Could you be more specific about in what way my "reading of Riddle with regard to the 'broken chain' is imprecise and wrong"? What would you regard as a correct reading? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 18:24, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Nobody is saying Riddle is a "poor scholar". Advancing novel/adventurous ideas can be an aspect of admirable scholarship! But these ideas may be rejected; that is to be expected in the great tide of scholarly progress. And it does not mean his work is not on the fringe. Relatedly, do you have any WP:COI to declare here? Specifically, any personal connection to the people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history? I'm sure that from an ethical perspective you'd agree transparency is important. Alexbrn (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Could you be more specific about in what way my "reading of Riddle with regard to the 'broken chain' is imprecise and wrong"? What would you regard as a correct reading? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 18:24, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Let's not kid ourselves, fringe as used on Wikipedia is very negative. Just look at the list of typical examples at the top of this noticeboard -- fools, quacks, poor scholars. Correct me if I'm wrong (you were and I wasn't a Wikipedean at the time), this noticeboard and the whole idea of the fringe classification dates to Jimmy Wales' famous statement about "lunatic charlatans." No respected scholar who's devoted his or her life to an area of research would regard being classified by Wikipedia as fringe as anything other than a slur. Related to your question, even though it might seem that I have strong personal feelings about defending Riddle, in fact I have no personal connection with him at all, and all I know about him is from his work and his Wikipedia page. What I have strong feelings about is not Riddle as an individual, but rather the whole idea of a mainstream eminent scholar being tarred with the insulting label fringe.
- Since you've asked about COI, let me ask you if you have any personal reason to dislike Riddle? I wouldn't have thought so, but your edits could be perceived as indicating a personal need to disparage him. NightHeron (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- No I have ZERO connection/interest whatsoever with any of the people cited in this discussion, including Riddle: pretty much everything about me is apparent from my user page (and I do not use a pseudonym). But my question about COI to YOU was not limited to Riddle, but to "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history". Not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. As I have done, give a clear answer please! Alexbrn (talk) 21:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Your request for information about who I do and don't know among "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history" is clearly an attempt at outing, which is contrary to WP:OUTING. I've explained on my userpage and elsewhere that I use a pseudonym (which I'm sorry that you seem not to approve of, but it is permissible by Wikipedia) to edit articles related to abortion and, secondarily, to edit other articles I find interesting that are not related to my profession. NightHeron (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- What!!? I have no interest in your identity and do not want it. I am asking a question specifically about COI (much as you asked me). As I am sure you know, COI is an important issue here. To repeat: do you have a WP:COI in relation to people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history, not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. I am _not_ asking you to out yourself (so do not do that). I _am_ asking for a plain statement about COI. Alexbrn (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Please don't feign surprise. As I'm sure you know, your assurance is irrelevant. Suppose I tell you which (presumably just a few) of the many authors I've cited I have a personal connection with. That might be enough information for a clever editor to determine my identity. Then of course you'll want to know the precise nature of my connection to each of them so that you can judge whether or not you think there's COI. At that point even a not-so-clever editor will be able to determine my identity. You or anyone else will then easily be able to out me. I do not agree to reveal personal information that can be used to out me. NightHeron (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
- What an extraordinary response. The question needs just a simple "yes" or "no", and it is impossible to determine anything from that. The question is "do you have a WP:COI in relation to people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history, not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite?". If the answer is "yes" then please be aware of whatever applies of out WP:COI, WP:AB, WP:SELFCITE and so on, and ensure the guidance is followed carefully. And per WP:DISCLOSE: "If you become involved in an article where you have any COI, you should always let other editors know about it, whenever and where ever you discuss the topic." Alexbrn (talk) 10:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
- Please don't feign surprise. As I'm sure you know, your assurance is irrelevant. Suppose I tell you which (presumably just a few) of the many authors I've cited I have a personal connection with. That might be enough information for a clever editor to determine my identity. Then of course you'll want to know the precise nature of my connection to each of them so that you can judge whether or not you think there's COI. At that point even a not-so-clever editor will be able to determine my identity. You or anyone else will then easily be able to out me. I do not agree to reveal personal information that can be used to out me. NightHeron (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
- What!!? I have no interest in your identity and do not want it. I am asking a question specifically about COI (much as you asked me). As I am sure you know, COI is an important issue here. To repeat: do you have a WP:COI in relation to people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history, not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. I am _not_ asking you to out yourself (so do not do that). I _am_ asking for a plain statement about COI. Alexbrn (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- Your request for information about who I do and don't know among "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history" is clearly an attempt at outing, which is contrary to WP:OUTING. I've explained on my userpage and elsewhere that I use a pseudonym (which I'm sorry that you seem not to approve of, but it is permissible by Wikipedia) to edit articles related to abortion and, secondarily, to edit other articles I find interesting that are not related to my profession. NightHeron (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
- No I have ZERO connection/interest whatsoever with any of the people cited in this discussion, including Riddle: pretty much everything about me is apparent from my user page (and I do not use a pseudonym). But my question about COI to YOU was not limited to Riddle, but to "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history". Not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. As I have done, give a clear answer please! Alexbrn (talk) 21:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
I give up!
A consensus (in the Wikipedia sense of the word) of Wikipedia's fringe noticeboard WP:FT/N has condemned the work of the distinguished historian John M. Riddle. Among the eight editors who participated in the discussion, only one besides me dissented from this judgment; this editor said that a scholar's work should not be tagged with the pejorative "fringe" unless there were no reasonable doubt and that "NightHeron's explanation has produced reasonable doubt." The other six editors, which included one administrator, are happy with classifying the historian's work as fringe.
On Wikipedia fringe is indeed a strong pejorative, meaning something akin to crackpot or quack. The efforts to identify fringe and the fringe noticeboard itself date to shortly after Jimmy Wales' famous statement that Wikipedia will not pretend that "lunatic charlatans" deserve the same coverage as scientists. Entries on WP:FT/N give many examples of fringe: flat-earthers, creationists, astrologers, quack cure promoters, Holocaust deniers, etc. To classify a distinguished scholar as fringe just because some of his theories are very controversial is outrageous.
At this point I give up! I'd like to explain the background before signing off.
Last May, Wikipedia was a huge time sink for me, as I had to defend my edits (especially on two successive AfDs for the same article) and then myself (in a process that, to someone unaccustomed to the ways of AN/I, would seem to resemble a kangaroo court). This was tremendously unpleasant as well as time-consuming, and it resulted in my being banned for 6 months from any editing related to medicine or abortion in a very broad, vaguely defined sense. So I was largely inactive for 6 months.
Despite the many hours of wasted time, I still felt that some of my participation on Wikipedia had been productive. For example, I initiated discussions that led to consensus to change the titles of two important abortion-related articles to neutral ones (changing the words pro-life in one title and pro-choice in another title to neutral, descriptive terms).
When I returned to active editing earlier this month, I hoped that, if I were careful -- for example, making small edits, explaining edits on talk pages, and writing no new articles -- I could avoid unpleasantness and waste of time. Such was not to be.
This time my problems started when I made a small edit to Abortifacient. I cited a chapter in a book by the prominent historian of pharmacology John M. Riddle titled "The Broken Chain of Knowledge". One of the central themes of Riddle's two books published by Harvard University Press is that women in earlier times often transmitted folk knowledge of herbal abortifacients from generation to generation -- knowledge about which plants might be used to terminate a pregnancy and how to use them safely and effectively. According to Riddle, this transmission did not continue to modern women, who are generally unaware of which herbs have abortifacient properties and, if they do try to use an abortifacient herb, risk injury and even death because of lack of information on safe usage.
The edit in question was a single sentence about this, citing Riddle's chapter. My edit was reverted, and it was pointed out that the chapter I cited did not actually discuss modern women -- I had misremembered the chapter. I quickly found three page references in Riddle's books that did explicitly discuss the "broken chain" as it applied to modern women. Meanwhile, the editor who had reverted the edit put warning messages on my userpage with false accusations of having misrepresented the Riddle source, along with the threat of taking me to AN/I again, presumably to be banned for another 6 months or longer.
After I defended my edit from the charge of misrepresentation, this editor switched tactics and went to WP:FT/N to propose that Riddle's theories be labeled as fringe, meaning that he's an unreliable source that should not be cited without identifying him as a fringe source. He also went to Riddle's Wikipedia page and added text that strung together negative comments out of context from three critical book reviews in order to give the impression that Riddle is a poor scholar. (More recently another editor has made this part of the article read less like a string of insults and more like criticisms -- but it is still entirely negative.)
At this point I thought that I should adhere to WP:BLP by reverting the negative edits on Riddle's page. (Concerned about possible lawsuits, Wikipedia has a strict policy that biased or unbalanced negative content on biographies of living people or recently deceased people must be removed immediately.)
I also tried to defend Riddle on the fringe noticeboard. When I did so, I was insulted by other editors. One said my reference to WP:BLP was "grossly idiotic" because apparently it's okay to string together negative things on someone's Wikipedia page if he or she is under discussion on Wikipedia's fringe noticeboard and is likely to end up categorized as "fringe." My idiocy consisted in not understanding that there's no need for balance on someone's Wikipedia page if he or she is about to be classified as what Jimmy Wales calls a "lunatic charlatan." When I tried to explain why Riddle's views on demography (one of the themes of his second book) are so controversial, an editor mocked me for creating a "wall of text," i.e., for being long-winded. Sorry -- the complicated context of disputes on demography cannot be explained in a tweet.
I could have gone on to list prominent scholars who share Riddle's overall perspective on the abundance of knowledge of herbal abortifacients among women in pre-scientific societies -- for example, Londa Schiebinger of Stanford University and Angus McLaren of the University of Victoria. However, I would have just encountered more mockery and derision if I wrote in such detail. In any case, by now the whole matter was becoming very time-consuming, as well as unpleasant because of the assault not only on my integrity as an editor accused of misrepresentation, but also on the reputation of a scholar I much respect.
My involvement in Wikipedia has become counterproductive. If it weren't for me, Riddle would not have ended up on Wikipedia's fringe list. I put in a lot of time, and the net result was negative. Like other newcomers to Wikipedia, my purpose in opening an account was to improve Wikipedia. What I caused to happen was the trashing of a distinguished scholar on the fringe noticeboard.
I will not close out my account or become 100% inactive. However, I will do very little editing. That might change if circumstances change -- for example, if I develop a masochistic streak and decide that abuse is good for the soul.
It's no mystery why Wikipedia suffers from declining numbers of active editors, declining numbers of admins, and a high attrition rate. Nor is it a mystery why the proportion of women active editors remains low, with no discernible improvement despite significant efforts to encourage women to start editing.
On the subject of systemic bias, take a look at WP:Disruptive editing, where, as of this writing, the only illustrative picture is a mocking one of a woman. The subliminal message is that women are the most likely source of disruptive behavior on Wikipedia, an absurd notion that, unfortunately, might reinforce the prejudices of many male editors. Right before I was banned last June, I tried on the talk page to get that picture deleted or replaced by one of a man. I also lost that battle. NightHeron (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
- There is no such thing as a "fringe list" and Riddle would not be on it. What is of concern is specifically _one_ of his hypotheses. All the relevant content has now been straightened-out (in large part because of another editor). I note you have not responded to the COI question. Alexbrn (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Karolinska, cadaver tracheas and killer hype
See my comment re yours here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karolinska_Institute#/talk/8 Zezen (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Curious
I have spent some 2 hrs going through your edit and admin history. I will not comment it here or elsewhere.
As a (passive) advocatus diaboli, I am curious about your original article deleted as per
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Criticisms_of_medicine
Is its draft still somewhere in your user space? Zezen (talk) 08:44, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
@Zezen: No. I was told by an admin that, if I wanted, I could "userfy" it after my TBAN was over. But I decided not to. It was that article that led to my banning, because some editors assumed that any article about criticisms of medicine would help the alt-medists, and there's a powerful group of experienced editors who know how to make wikipedia very unpleasant for any editor they perceive as in any way in league with the "lunatic charlatans". NightHeron (talk) 13:20, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
By the way, the article that was deleted did not cite any alt-med sources, but rather cited and quoted highly respected mainstream medical people, such as Marcia Angell. NightHeron (talk) 13:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Abortion and Christianity
Thank you for the correction: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abortion_and_Christianity&type=revision&diff=907290452&oldid=907259263
I am trying to fix a problem with this article -- currently the quoting of a minority of paragraph 2270 is an example of taking something out of context -- what do you think of my next idea to fix this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abortion_and_Christianity&oldid=907374176
Mebden (talk) 13:19, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
@Mebden: Thank you for your support of my edit, and for your efforts to improve the article about Abortion and Christianity. I can see two possible objections to your formulation about "non-innocent human life in certain wars". First, the human life that's destroyed (without opposition by the Catholic Church) is sometimes innocent. For example, for many years during the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Catholic Church did not officially oppose that war (in which the U.S. was supporting a Catholic-dominated government in the south of Vietnam), and did not object to U.S. actions that killed plenty of civilians, including children. Second, the Catholic Church forbids abortion even in cases when the woman will likely die if the pregnancy is continued (for example, in an ectopic pregnancy). Advocates of abortion rights would argue that when the law forbids abortion in such a case, the state is essentially killing an innocent woman (and is not necessarily saving the fetus, since, as far as I'm aware, an ectopic pregnancy cannot result in a successful birth). NightHeron (talk) 13:43, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
@NightHeron: I agree with both points. My goal was to add the necessary context to clarify this word "absolutely", since it's currently misleading. Two more options come to mind:
- We can remove what I added and include the full catechism paragraph, which mentions "innocent".
- We can change the sentence to read as follows:
The Catholic Church teaches that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception"[1] with few exceptions: the Church has always allowed war in particular circumstances[2], has always disallowed abortion for ectopic pregnancy, and has for most of its existence (until August 2018) allowed the execution of some criminals (the church ceased these executions in 1826).
What do you think? Mebden (talk) 19:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
@Mebden: Personally, I like your revised sentence (except for one factual point: the Catholic prohibition on abortion to save the life of the mother, such as in an ectopic pregnancy, only dates to the 1930 encyclical Casti connubii). However, it occurred to me that other editors might find that your version involves too much interpretation and claim that it violates WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. This isn't something that bothers me so much, but it might bother some editors. Before I saw your message, I put a proposal on the article's talk page that would change only two sentences of the lead paragraph of the section in such a way that Wikipedia is only reporting what the Catholic Church states rather than putting such statements in Wikipedia's voice. Please let me know what you think, preferably on the talk page rather than here so that other editors who are watchlisting the article might participate. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 19:57, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
References
- ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2270 Archived October 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2308".
{{cite web}}
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(help)
WP:BLP
Hi, just wanted to let you know you might want to re-read what WP:BLP actually says and how it works. You don't need an RFC to put in content, and putting in negative information is allowed especially if it is well sourced. You should know that since this is apparently not your main account. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
- Hello Sir Joseph. I'm quite familiar with WP:BLP, but apparently I don't read it the same way you do. For example, I don't think it really says that "putting in negative information is allowed especially if it is well sourced". Rather, putting in negative information is allowed only if it is well sourced. What constitutes "well sourced" should be discussed by editors (I didn't say it had to necessarily be an RfC). For example, if allegations of criminal conduct come from sources that are extremely hostile to the subject of the biography, does that constitute "well sourced"? Also, according to WP:BLP there needs to be balanced coverage and a neutral tone. If a consensus of editors agrees that the negative allegations belong in the article, then fine. NightHeron (talk) 21:16, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
DS Alert Climate Change
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in climate change. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.
Template:Z33 NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
custom message
Hi... if you don't know, that template is strictly FYI. It is part of the procedures for "DS", and is fully explained by clicking on the links in the template itself. I placed the same thing on my own page, and will try to make sure recent Climate crisis editors all have one. No biggie. Just a procedural thing. But be sure to read about DS if you don't already know. Carry on! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
- NewsAndEventsGuy, good idea! NightHeron (talk) 23:27, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
- Glad you understand! I think everyone has one. I passed a number out last summer. It made little impression on certain editors, alas. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Please review
Hi, at Talk:Climate change, I boldly eliminated a lot of subsection headings that appeared in the middle of Femke's comment. I replaced them with large bold font. The reason is that Femke put up a long comment and then the survey& discuss section. It was my understanding the whole idea was to try to keep an organized discussion, but the mid point subsection formatting invited midpoint commenting, such as you did. And why wouldn't you, with it formatted that way? I've boldly done the conversion to format the way I think Femke intended.... its the middle of hte night in Europe now, or I'd try to verify my guess with her. So I boldly acted. That includes moving your own midpoint comments to the "discussion" section. Please consider adding a line under the "NotVote" section, and changing, if necessary, your moved comments so they're clear in their new location. (I just did copy paste) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Please update your NotVote answers to the Climate change survey
Hi, at Talk:Climate_change#Survey_(not_voting) you answered before a list of (so far) 4 specific questions had been formulated. Please consider updating the bold part of your NOTVOTE to address each number question, so the closer will have an easier time making sense of the replies. Thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Summary table for Renaming Climate change article
Hi, in my own userspace I have started a table in which I am trying to super-succinctly summarize the Not-Votes and perspectives that have been raised. This is a work in progress, but I have at least finished my initial data-entry for what you've said. If you would like to me change anything, please use the talk page attached the table. Thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Discretionary sanctions alert
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.
Template:Z33 Jonathunder (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
- Well I don't care how many people think that this is a wonderful and kindly idea, it would piss me off to get one myself in a similar situation. There was no reason for it what-so-ever, IMO. It is threatening and gives one an impression that if you are not already, you are apparently likely to become a BAD EDITOR who breaks WP RULES. I have a great deal of respect for your work and I hope that this has not scared you away from that article. Anything MUSLIM acts as a lightening rod for extremists and it takes a lot of work to keep their articles in reasonable shape. You have experience at the abortion article and I can tell you that that is comparatively an easy one to deal with due to the quality of editors who watch it, MastCell for example who is, I'd say, one of our top five best editors. Gandydancer (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Thank you for your supportiveness in connection with the Ilhan Omar editing and on other occasions. What I found unsettling about this discretionary sanctions alert is that the editor who put it there was one of the editors who seemed determined to trash Omar on her BLP and who has administrator powers. In contrast, just above you can see I received a similar alert from a friendly editor (with whom I'd never had major disagreements) accompanied by the assurance that it was being sent to all editors involved in the discussions of the Climate crisis article. So that was entirely non-threatening. Context matters.
- Thanks also for your kind comments on my abortion-related editing. Although the opponents of reproductive rights can be annoyingly persistent in repeatedly raising issues (like the definition of "abortion") that have already been decided by consensus long ago, to my surprise they have never (in ny experience) been hostile or threatening. Literally the only time I have encountered toxic behavior on Wikipedia was in connection with my attempt to argue for NPOV-compliance of the alt-med article and my appeal of an AfD for an article on criticisms of mainstream medicine. That resulted in my being pilloried on AN/I (including insults, profanity, and childish mockery) and then banned for 6 months. When I returned in December, I made the mistake of making edits related to herbal abortifacients (which, according to the anti-alt-med warriors don't exist), and came close to being banned again. After the fiasco on the fringe noticeboard site where largely the same editors trashed the eminent historian of pharmacology John Riddle, I left almost all Wikipedia editing for a while. Then I came back gingerly, determined to avoid anything remotely related to alt-med. I'm continuing to watch the Ilhan Omar article, and will, if occasion arises, return to editing it after about a week. NightHeron (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- OK, well...after I posted my note for you I read our previous conversations - which I had pretty much long forgotten. So now, I can clearly see that you very much well know how this place works. Presently I totally ignore all alt-med and do so without even a tad or concern because they have, comparable to Trumpian truths, become laughable. I bounce present-day questions about issues off my daughters who well-represent today's mature women/mothers positions on alt-med - positions which their children, my grandchildren, have adopted - and they, all well-educated women, just roll their eyes and laugh at the WP alt-med articles. You know, looking at the broader picture, our WP altmed articles very clearly foretold of things to come when you think about it: Narrow your perspective way down, allow only "facts" that fit into it, and twist anything else to appear to be from an unacceptable source. Gandydancer (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Well, I was certainly naive when I started editing about a year-and-a-half ago. Taking seriously the claim that what mattered to the editors who controlled the alt-med article was using reliable sources, I proposed that the lede feature a quote from Harrison's Internal Medicine.[1] They rebuffed my suggestion. Now Harrison's Internal Medicine is certainly a MEDRS source if there ever was one. But they prefer Tim Minchin, an Australian comic who isn't exactly a MEDRS source, because he says what they like to hear ("the very idea of 'alternative' treatments is paradoxical because any treatment proven to work is by definition 'medicine'"). When I argued that some home remedies are safe and effective -- using the example of a moist teabag to sooth eye irritation caused by dust or pollution -- I was warned (by a medical student in WikiProject Medicine) that I was risking eye infection by using a teabag. I'd be better off going to the pharmacy and buying an expensive little bottle of Visine. I feel sorry for the future patients of that medical student. NightHeron (talk) 22:22, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- OK, well...after I posted my note for you I read our previous conversations - which I had pretty much long forgotten. So now, I can clearly see that you very much well know how this place works. Presently I totally ignore all alt-med and do so without even a tad or concern because they have, comparable to Trumpian truths, become laughable. I bounce present-day questions about issues off my daughters who well-represent today's mature women/mothers positions on alt-med - positions which their children, my grandchildren, have adopted - and they, all well-educated women, just roll their eyes and laugh at the WP alt-med articles. You know, looking at the broader picture, our WP altmed articles very clearly foretold of things to come when you think about it: Narrow your perspective way down, allow only "facts" that fit into it, and twist anything else to appear to be from an unacceptable source. Gandydancer (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks also for your kind comments on my abortion-related editing. Although the opponents of reproductive rights can be annoyingly persistent in repeatedly raising issues (like the definition of "abortion") that have already been decided by consensus long ago, to my surprise they have never (in ny experience) been hostile or threatening. Literally the only time I have encountered toxic behavior on Wikipedia was in connection with my attempt to argue for NPOV-compliance of the alt-med article and my appeal of an AfD for an article on criticisms of mainstream medicine. That resulted in my being pilloried on AN/I (including insults, profanity, and childish mockery) and then banned for 6 months. When I returned in December, I made the mistake of making edits related to herbal abortifacients (which, according to the anti-alt-med warriors don't exist), and came close to being banned again. After the fiasco on the fringe noticeboard site where largely the same editors trashed the eminent historian of pharmacology John Riddle, I left almost all Wikipedia editing for a while. Then I came back gingerly, determined to avoid anything remotely related to alt-med. I'm continuing to watch the Ilhan Omar article, and will, if occasion arises, return to editing it after about a week. NightHeron (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
References
- ^ "The phrase complementary and alternative medicine is used to describe a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that have historic origins outside mainstream medicine. Most of these practices are used together with conventional therapies and therefore have been called complementary to distinguish them from alternative practices, those used as a substitute for standard care. ... Until a decade ago or so, "complementary and alternative medicine" could be defined as practices that are neither taught in medical schools nor reimbursed, but this definition is no longer workable, since medical students increasingly seek and receive some instruction about complementary health practices, and some practices are reimbursed by third-party payers. Another definition, practices that lack an evidence base, is also not useful, since there is a growing body of research on some of these modalities, and some aspects of standard care do not have a strong evidence base."
ArbCom 2019 election voter message
re talk:Ilhan Omar
I don't much follow U.S. politics. I think I saw the comments that Ilhan Omar made. Could you quote the problematic comment that Ilhan Omar said? I tried to search in Google and I didn't find the comment that mentions another group of people. AFAIK, all she said was criticizing the Israel lobby in the US. Is there a comment of her that I am not aware of? --SharabSalam (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
- SharabSalam: Here is an excerpt from a National Public Radio discussion by their reporter Susan Davis:
SUSAN DAVIS: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar remained silent during a House Democratic meeting today, but she is the cause of much debate. It's about this comment she made at an event at a Washington D.C. coffee shop last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ILHAN OMAR: I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.
DAVIS: That country is Israel. And for many, her words smacked of the dual loyalty smear that has been used to persecute Jews throughout history. Democrats like California's Juan Vargas are deeply offended by Omar's words.
JUAN VARGAS: This dual loyalty charge has led to the mass murder of millions of Jews in history. I'm not sure that everyone understands how grave this issue is.
DAVIS: Top Jewish Democrats in Congress, like House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel and House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, are asking for an apology that Omar is refusing to give this time. Last month, Omar did apologize for a couple of tweets that also played on anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish money and influence in American politics. She's also privately reached out to Jewish colleagues like Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.
JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Personally, for example, embraced me and expressed her apology for that. To me as a Jew, I accept that apology. I do not believe that she is an anti-Semite.
- There's a discussion of the tropes about "dual loyalty" and "Jewish money and influence in American politics" in the articles Antisemitic canard and Antisemitism in the United States#Stereotypes. By the way, many American Jews strongly oppose the tendency among supporters of Israel of labeling any expression of strong opposition to Israeli policies (such as advocacy of BDS) as anti-semitic, because they believe that the term anti-semitic should be reserved for words and actions that are truly anti-semitic.
- The "dual loyalty" trope is, of course, used against other groups besides Jews, such as Muslims and even Catholics. In the 1960 US presidential election, many Republicans claimed that the Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy couldn't be trusted because, as a Catholic, he might take orders from the Vatican.
- By the way, just yesterday I reverted an edit on Talk:White privilege that was clearly anti-semitic. It stated that the notion of white privilege described in that article was a concoction of Jews. There's a long history in the US of anti-semitic attacks on Jews who support people of color. Many Jews are political progressives/leftists, and historically many supported the Civil Rights movement in the South. The Ku Klux Klan, in addition to being anti-Black was also anti-semitic. Of the three young civil rights workers they murdered in Mississippi in 1964, two were Jews from New York and one was an African American from Mississippi, see Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
- But my impression is that there's very little antisemitism on Wikipedia. Only once before did I encounter anti-semitic vandalism in an article, and of course promptly reverted it. NightHeron (talk) 19:27, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
I was not alone in support for the changes.
Elizirum agreed that I had a point about the paragraph in the lead. He said; "I think Edit5001 is on to something as regards this passage. It is, as it stands, rather a misrepresentation of the survey findings in the multiple reliable sources (although 100% of those sources have a demonstrable WP:BIAS for abortion, making their very interpretation suspect)."
So someone did agree with me about that paragraph. That makes things two to two in support vs opposition. Edit5001 (talk) 01:33, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
DS alert per request I give you one at Talk:Race and intelligence
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.
Template:Z33 Doug Weller talk 10:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
About the Pro-Life Movement
User:NightHeron, I realize that perhaps my first reason for undoing the edit before was a little bit of sophistry, and I apologize. But to be perfectly frank, if I may be bold, the movement, to my knowledge, has always been called the pro-life movement. The March in Washington, D.C. is called the March for Life officially, and the marchers themselves are called, and call themselves, pro-life. Now I understand that it makes sense that it would seem more a compromise to call them anti-abortion as they are indeed against abortion. But with all due respect that would mean calling those on the other end of the spectrum pro-abortion. It would be the fair thing to do. Of course Wikipedia has renamed them abortion rights activists. But with all due respect that seems like perfect sophistry and paints those who have one argument look good and the ones with another argument look bad. And if Wikipedia is to be unbiased, it should, in all seriousness, really think of more unbiased terms to describe each side. The way I see it, and I could be wrong, just saying, is the following: if those against abortion cannot be called pro-life more often than anti-abortion, then those for abortion, or the choice of abortion, cannot be called abortion rights activists more than pro-choice. If my argument is flawed, please tell me. Thanks User:Milomit —Preceding undated comment added 17:36, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Milomit: This was discussed at length in June 2018, when the titles of both articles were changed to neutral titles: pro-life movement --> anti-abortion movement and pro-choice movement --> abortion-rights movement. As you say, the former group of people is unambiguously opposed to abortion, so there's nothing misleading about the name. It's a neutral name, which should not offend anyone who truly believes that abortion is wrong. The term pro-life is a political spin term that does not reflect reality. For example, the Catholic Church is anti-abortion even in cases (such as ectopic pregnancy or pregnancy of a child victim of rape or pregnancy of a woman with very high blood pressure) where continuation of the pregnancy would risk the death of the woman.
Similarly, pro-choice is political spin, because it disguises the fact that people are talking about abortion. They are not talking about your right to vote in an election. The most neutral term (according to consensus in 2018) is the abortion-rights movement, because its advocates unambiguously believe that a woman has a right to have an abortion, subject only to the usual restrictions based on trimester. It would be wrong to call it a pro-abortion movement, since typically the spokespeople for the movement strongly advocate for better availability of inexpensive contraceptives, along with sex education, in large part in order to reduce the number of abortions. Generally, abortion-rights people want to discourage women from using abortion as a routine method of birth control.
The fact that the two sides officially call themselves "pro-life" and "pro-choice" is not a reason for Wikipedia to prefer those terms, since neither is neutral. If you want to discuss this further, please use the article talk-page, so that other editors can participate, rather than my talk page. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 01:36, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Oct13
Hmm I remember of various of their previous creations that often only cited primary biblical verses and of the lack of response when I pointed this out. I've not had time to follow their recent work, but maybe their editing history deserves some scrutiny, thanks for noticing the article you just AfD, —PaleoNeonate – 02:17, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Help please
Hi there Night Heron, I'm looking for another pair of eyes to look at an article that I have become involved with. I've followed your edits at the abortion article and I've been impressed with your knowledge and willingness to spend time countering false information suggested by editors, mostly new and single issue editors, to keep our abortion article accurate and free of bias. Just now reading your user page, I too have long stayed far away from all of "alt med" articles after soon learning that it was a total waste of my time to expect a fair and knowledgeable discussion of article improvements. Not that I actually use any alt meds, though I have no doubt that there are some useful ones out there, but due to the lack of oversight one has no idea what may or may not be in those little bottles labeled this or that ingredient. Not to mention the fact that without a profit incentive there is next to no recent research being done making it impossible to obtain current info. Etc.
OK, here's the problem. A few weeks ago the topic of Siddha medicine came up saying "watch out!!!", the WHO has OK'd it as useful, or however it was put. I chuckled to myself and just out of curiosity looked at the article. After a quick read I just rolled my eyes and thought oh perfect, now our quack medicine experts are calling the medicine that is fully licensed and accepted by government officials and practiced by the majority of Indians as fake quackery. But I couldn't get it off my mind because it reminded me so much of how Trumpian a good part of thinking in our country has become, and here it was right on WP as well. IMO. (For example, I no longer watch the alt med articles but out of curiosity looked at the acupuncture talk page and found editors bragging that WP is more of an expert than the NIH.)
What I'm asking is would you have the time and the interest in reading the Siddha article lead, especially the final para, and the sources that it provides. The decision has been made on the talk page that the lead is accurate and I'm wondering who I should believe, my own eyes or the group consensus. If you take an interest in this matter this article will give you a great deal of background information [1] which is helpful if you (like me) are new to Indian med. Let me know... Thanks for reading. Gandydancer (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Thank you for your message and your kind comment on my abortion edits. I'm very sympathetic to your predicament running up against the group of editors who are determined to make sure that Wikipedia denies any validity to any form of folk/traditional medicine. Never mind that Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize for having, as a result of her systematic study of traditional Chinese medicine,
discovered artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, a breakthrough in twentieth-century tropical medicine, saving millions of lives in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America
(from the Wikipedia article).
- I'm not the one to help on alt med, however, since I was badly burnt when I tried to improve alt-med related articles. After 6 months of being t-banned from anything remotely related to medicine, I tried to argue for keeping some material on herbal abortifacients that was well-sourced. I not only failed to do that, but was also threatened with a renewed ban by one of the same experienced editors who had gotten me banned before. When he went out of his way to trash John Riddle (one of the main authors I'd cited on herbal abortifacients) and I was unsuccessful in defending Riddle's reputation on the fringe page, out of frustration I became inactive on Wikipedia for a few months. Ultimately I decided to return to editing but self-ban from any alt-med-related topic. That has worked. I've been editing contentious articles. I was even threatened on this user talk-page by an extremist whose vandalism of Talk:White privilege I'd reverted (his vandalism involved implicit threats of violence, and records of it were removed by an admin). But the nice thing about a pseudonym is that the racist vandal does not know my true identity. In any case, since I've returned to regular editing, whatever my disagreements with other editors have been, I've never been in danger of being banned because of my efforts to improve articles. That happened only in connection with alt med. So at this point I feel that I have to avoid that topic entirely. But thank you for asking. NightHeron (talk) 19:36, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- I understand why you would rather not become involved and I was not expecting you to enter into the TP discussion. I was thinking that considering your interests in alt med that you may be willing to take a look at the discussion and do a quick assessment and give me an opinion about whether or not I am somehow just not seeing things properly... You could take a glance at the numerous links offered that supposedly back up the lead "quackery" position but I can tell you that none of them do - they rather all discuss unlicensed practitioners of any sort of medicine. I've actually learned a lot of interesting stuff in researching. India has many thousands of unlicensed "doctors" that have been trained in their family through information/skills/etc. being passed down, etc... They see themselves as every bit as qualified to practice as those licensed in Indian medicine (and they are the ones that the Indian gov't. are calling quacks). Add to that, India would like to let their licensed Indian traditional doctors prescribe 70 medications (after a three month course) and the Indian Medical Association (like our AMA) is adamant about refusing that... So I've learned all that... Gandydancer (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: I know very little about medicine in India, but your summary sounds accurate to me. There are many countries where forms of alt med have to some extent been incorporated into government approved medical systems. Even the Wikipedia alt med article admits that
alternative medicine is taught in more than half of US medical schools and US health insurers are increasingly willing to provide reimbursement for alternative therapies
; as you point out, the NIH has a fairly flexible viewpoint on it; and the widely used textbook Harrison's Internal Medicine summarizes alt med in a surprisingly positive way. The German and British medical services also incorporate alternative treatments. Cuba is an interesting case. There they've long had a shortage of pharmaceuticals because of the US embargo; meanwhile, in the general population alternative approaches have long been popular. The government decided to train the licensed doctors in alternative healing modalities so that they would better be able to monitor their patients' use, to combat the methods that are clearly fraudulent, and to use the alternative methods when more modern ones aren't available and when the folk treatments are deemed to be better than nothing.
- @Gandydancer: I know very little about medicine in India, but your summary sounds accurate to me. There are many countries where forms of alt med have to some extent been incorporated into government approved medical systems. Even the Wikipedia alt med article admits that
- I understand why you would rather not become involved and I was not expecting you to enter into the TP discussion. I was thinking that considering your interests in alt med that you may be willing to take a look at the discussion and do a quick assessment and give me an opinion about whether or not I am somehow just not seeing things properly... You could take a glance at the numerous links offered that supposedly back up the lead "quackery" position but I can tell you that none of them do - they rather all discuss unlicensed practitioners of any sort of medicine. I've actually learned a lot of interesting stuff in researching. India has many thousands of unlicensed "doctors" that have been trained in their family through information/skills/etc. being passed down, etc... They see themselves as every bit as qualified to practice as those licensed in Indian medicine (and they are the ones that the Indian gov't. are calling quacks). Add to that, India would like to let their licensed Indian traditional doctors prescribe 70 medications (after a three month course) and the Indian Medical Association (like our AMA) is adamant about refusing that... So I've learned all that... Gandydancer (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Personally, I've never used alt med -- unless you count tiger balm on a cut or a moist teabag for an eye irritation -- and I'm generally a skeptic. However, I have good medical coverage, and most people in the world (even in the US) do not. Even though modern medicine is usually much better than the alternatives, it's a bit arrogant for privileged Wikipedia editors to decide that much of the world's population are gullible fools because when they are deprived of access to anything better, they resort to alt med. NightHeron (talk) 21:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks. NightHeron, something about that article that really bothers me is that in the medical profession we learned what Flo said about if we can't help at least do no harm... I see that article as doing harm and it bothers me. In my learning I learned that India actually trains thousands of doctors in modern medicine but they almost all leave to earn more money. It leaves around 75% of the people with Indian traditional caregivers. Again, from what I learned they can do a pretty good job and a lot of what they do is teach healthy living practices, which we know are the cause of a lot of disease in the first place, diabetes and heart disease for example. And while I understand that the IMA is fighting allowing them to prescribe meds, it would be a helpful way to meet India's dire need for health professionals. At any rate, the lead ref they are using with the IMA statement does not call India traditional med quackery either. And then to have our article call anyone but those caregivers that are giving allopathic treatments quacks seems to be doing the harm that Flo said we should not do...to me..and it disturbs me to do nothing about it. Our words can cause harm and we need to take them seriously. I'm thinking I could ask WAID's help. As you might imagine, I'm hesitant about bringing it up with any of the editors that write our med articles and I don't want to waste my time and emotional energy on issues that are beyond my control. Gandydancer (talk) 22:24, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: I remember in mid-2018, when I was a newbie on Wikipedia, you advised me that trying to improve the alt med articles would be a waste of time. I didn't listen to you, and I ended up banned for 6 months. But now you seem to be considering ignoring your own advice, and getting into a conflict with the anti-alt-med warriors yourself. Your goal is laudable, but you'll likely find little support among other editors, just as I got virtually no support when they came after me on ANI.
- On the subject of do no harm, Wikipedia, what bothers me more than the distortions on alt med is the article Race and intelligence, which I and several other editors have been trying to get either deleted or radically improved. The title already suggests the POV of the article, which is that some races are genetically more or less intelligent than others. That's a fringe theory, advanced by people like Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Gottfredson, and Piffer, supported generously by the white supremacist Pioneer Fund. The article quotes Jensen/Rushton/Lynn positively several dozen times, and provides a FALSEBALANCE between the fringe theory and the consensus view of scientists that there is no evidence for any race being mentally inferior to another. The article gets over a thousand pageviews per day, and it was cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an example of the influence of the alt-right on Wikipedia. The article has been proposed for deletion 4 times, most recently this month. But the deletion failed (reversed on DRV, although a committee of admins has been appointed to reassess the original deletion discussion). The lack of diversity among Wikipedia editors clearly has a big effect on content. NightHeron (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
The difference in this India altmed article is that it touches on one of my core personality traits: my need to stick up for the underdog. In this case it is the lower class Indians who face such a struggle to survive that I feel I need to speak for them. Call it nuts but we all work as a hobby here so we need to feel some sort of fulfillment. OK, on that intelligence article. First off, I had no idea that it was still in question--I thought it was settled years ago that tests tend to be biased, etc. I am surprised that you are finding bias in the editors at that article - in the (many) political articles that I work on it is generally possible to work with others to keep them free of bias. Or, for instance our medical articles such as abortion, breastfeeding, etc., - they are just remarkably good (in no small measure due to the excellent lead taken by Doc James, even though he pisses me off to no end plenty of times). At the IQ article I read only the section re diet and IQ and it seemed like good information to me. I will read the article as time permits but I can't understand why you would want to remove it outright if there are misconceptions that need to be aired. I looked at the editors that work on the article and I've never worked with any of them. Is the larger WP med community aware of the article bias problems? Gandydancer (talk) 01:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Oh, OK, I'm reading the SPLC article for starters and I can see how dumb I was. It's hard for me to read that sort of crap. I've never been involved with truly evil people though I know they are out there. To be forced to deal with that sort is a very difficult task indeed. This little battle that I am working with at the India article involves good people who disagree with me in this certain area. But they are good, decent people. But that article seems to be quite a different sort of thing - nasty and dirty. Just sickening. Now I can see why reason to delete it, perhaps. I'll keep reading. Gandydancer (talk) 02:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you for looking at it. The recent AfD is at [2]. NightHeron (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Interlocutor here and perhaps an erstwhile member of the "quack medicine experts" brigade here. I want to first say that I have appreciated NightHeron's excellent work on R&I, but I fear that there is something you two are missing in your approach to alternative medicine in this discussion. Namely, there is a difference between the way alternative medicine is expounded upon and promoted in the West and the way folk medicine and indigenous knowledge occurs in other contexts. The problem is that these two things can and do clash in general. Alternative medicine (which includes Siddha medicine) is a distinctly modern treatment of particular ideas that have been either co-opted, reinvented, or bastardized by promoting certain claims of traditional or folk medicines over others. Unfortunately, what has happened in a lot of these alt med contexts is that there has been an unholy mixture of arguments that says things like acupuncture, ayurveda and the like are "traditional knowledge" when, in fact, they are repackaged for capitalist consumption in a fairly goopy fashion, or as nationalist propaganda (if you care, take a gander at this article on "traditional Chinese medicine"). It would be great if Wikipedia could disentangle the indigenous knowledge and serious investigative work done by the likes of Tu Youyou from the co-opted stuff, but this is a difficult task. In India, the entire endeavor is not only an issue of poverty and access, it is also extremely politicized at the moment as the Hindu nationalists are promoting the repackaged versions as being chauvinistically ascendent. This is not just in medicine. Hindu astrology is essentially warmed-over literalist interpretations of the Vedas, but managed to win court judgements and government approval as a "science".
- What I think Wikipedia could do a better job with is disentangling alternative medicine from indigenous medicine (unfortunately, "traditional medicine" as a term has been co-opted). This is a worthy goal. I would start not at the level of Siddha but instead at places which are being ignored by our WP:Systemic bias. We need more work done documenting indigenous knowledge and less hand-wringing over whether the multi-billion-dollar alt med industry is being given a fair shake, IMHO.
- Happy to continue the conversation.
- jps (talk) 21:54, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you, jps, for assuming good faith on our part. My own personal view on alt med is quite skeptical; I'm an admirer of Edzard Ernst and Marcia Angell; and I even did a small amount of anti-alt-med editing on the WebMD page (adding sourced criticism of WebMD for promoting dubious practices). I also am aware of the danger of the anti-science pro-pseudoscience alt-right, which we're seeing at the Race and intelligence TP/AfD/DRV.
- Thank you for looking at it. The recent AfD is at [2]. NightHeron (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- But I don't think editors should be on a crusade against all forms of alt-med. The alt-med article cites Ernst as follows:
in 2011 published his estimate that about 7.4% were based on "sound evidence", although he believes that may be an overestimate.
That sounds reasonable to me. 7.4% is not 0%. IMHO Wikipedia should acknowledge the good side as well as the bad side, and should recognize, in line with WP:GLOBAL, that most people in the world have severely limited access to modern medicine, and many of them undoubtedly are being helped by certain forms of alt med.
- But I don't think editors should be on a crusade against all forms of alt-med. The alt-med article cites Ernst as follows:
- Also, as Harrison's Internal Medicine points out, parts of modern medical practice have a very weak evidentiary basis. I believe that two clear examples are psychiatry, and the longstanding practice (especially in the US) of over-prescribing psychotropics for children and opioids for adults.
- You're right that often alt-med just serves the interests of capitalist profiteers and right-wing nationalists. But not always. Cuba, for example, decided to incorporate some forms of alt med into their medical system -- or at least ensure that their physicians are well-informed about it and can properly advise patients who use it -- in large part because of the scarcities caused by the US embargo. Throughout much of history, folk knowledge about herbal medicines, most likely derived from informal experimentation and observation of animals, achieved certain health objectives. The evidence for this is not double-blind clinical studies, but rather the fact that cultures in different parts of the world and different time periods were often using the same herbals for the same purposes. For example, Queen Anne's Lace, rue, parsley/apiol, and juniper/sabin were used as abortifacients by women in different centuries and different places. That's not pseudoscience or superstition.
- I know next to nothing about Siddha or most other non-Western belief systems. My impression is that the correct answer to the question: "Is it quackery or is it not quackery?" is: Yes to both. Large parts are quackery and large parts deserve respect. The same question can be asked about other belief systems, such as Catholicism, for example. Catholicism officially continues to support exorcisms and to "confirm miracles" in preparation for beatification. Definitely fringe. But another side of Catholicism is the declaration at the 1968 Catholic Bishops Conference in Medellin about preferential option for the poor, which inspired thousands of nuns and priests throughout the Americas to follow liberation theology, some of them sacrificing their lives in the struggle against the exploiters and death squads. So it would be misleading to say in the lede to Catholicism that the belief system and practice are just a bunch of quackery.
- Another example is hula dancing, described in the article's lede as
a complex art form
, which it was traditionally. Later the article explains what happened in the 20th century, when it was drastically changed, corrupted and exploited for profit. Wikipedia can cover these things in a balanced manner, explaining the value of different parts of indigenous or traditional culture and also, when necessary, how they have become corrupted or misused in our day. NightHeron (talk) 23:21, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- Another example is hula dancing, described in the article's lede as
Good stuff here. I think that the problem is, and I think there is a clear reading of Ernst that confirms this, that the 7.4% you reference is not easily identified (WP:CRYSTAL) when the ideas are embedded within the alternative medicine framework, essentially by definition. I don't think we're really empowered to make the case one way or another then. This does not mean we should argue for an ignorance of alternative medicine, and your point about the importance of at least documenting practice, as in your Cuba example, is well-taken. I still worry that you haven't quite made the distinction here which I think is important: there is a difference between indigenous knowledge and folk remedies and alternative medicine. I see this as being a very big difference, in fact, which I argue does align very closely with profiteering, chauvinism, and other overtly ideological approaches (whether they be explicitly religious, anti-mainstream, etc.). People who are struggling to provide medical care in places where there is scarcity are not involved in this juggernaut (how can they be?). Figuring out how to distinguish this in practice, however, can be hard because (a) there is systemic bias within research medicine, (b) there are charlatans who co-opt the situation to the point where it is hard to report on it accurately without bias, and (c) the research that exists is often not of high enough quality for us to say much of anything. Part of the problem I think Wikipedia has is that it is ill-equipped to deal with real pressing points of inquiry that have not been fully investigated. After all, Wikipedia has this strict WP:NOR rule. If the sources are of uneven quality for documenting which herbs are abortifacients and which are not, I think that Wikipedia simply is not set-up to expound upon this in any reasonable detail. It is why I think sometimes the best thing we can do is excise, even as this may perpetuate the inherent bias. What to do? I think in situations where this is a problem, the answer really is outside of this website: we should be encouraging the production of high-quality sources that can eventually be used in Wikipedia. jps (talk) 00:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- But it seems to me that in two respects the Wikipedia editors who apparently see themselves as anti-alt-med warriors (and display the banner "This user resists the POV pushing of lunatic charlatans" on their userpage -- which I was glad to see is not on yours) are not in keeping with core policies. First, they are quick to assume bad faith (and label as alt-medists) anyone who wants to see some recognition of the complexity of the alt med issue. This attitude is partly the fault of Wikipedia's guru Jimbo Wales, whose famous statement on the subject was interpreted by some as a license to embark on a crusade.
- Secondly, those editors insist on MEDRS sources when writing about indigenous and traditional medicine. But as you say, those treatments have almost never been subjected to high-quality double-blind clinical trials. In many cases it would be almost impossible to do that. Herbs vary in potency and effectiveness. In a given locality knowledge about an appropriate dosage or means of use might be passed on from one generation to another through the informal healers (usually women). For example, Queen Anne's Lace (an emmenagogue or early abortifacient) can be made into a tea (in Appalachia) or its seeds are chewed (in Rajasthan). The types of scholars who write about this are not usually medical researchers, but rather historians and anthropologists. There is no justification in Wikipedia policy for rejecting the work of those scholars. Their work is RS, but not MEDRS.
- Even in the US certain alternatives to pharmaceuticals called "home remedies" might work well and cost a lot less. I got into a long debate about this with CFCF in 2018. I said that I'd rather use a moist teabag for an eye irritation than go to the drugstore and buy an overpriced bottle of Visine. He warned me that the teabag might give me an eye infection! My use of a moist teabag does not support the multi-billion dollar alt-med industry, and it works.
- A fallacy in the extreme anti-alt-med position is that it's ahistorical. Even Steven Novella acknowledges that certain treatments that were considered alt-med 20 or 30 years ago (he was referring to the use of physical therapy rather than surgery for severe back pain) are now routinely recommended by doctors and covered by insurance (and physical therapy is cheaper than surgery). It stands to reason that some of today's alt-med (part of Ernst's 7.4%) will likely be tomorrow's accepted mainstream medical practice. Perhaps in 10 or 20 years doctors will tell parents with hyperactive children, "No, I won't prescribe psychotropics for him, but I will give you a referral to a yoga class or rhythmic dancing for him, and it will be covered by insurance." In the future people might look back on the medical practice for hyperactivity in the early 21st century as primitive and dangerous, compared to a much better approach that was considered hokey and alternative. NightHeron (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- I believe there is more that we agree upon than disagree, so I'll just highlight a few things where we may be politely at a difference of opinion:
- It can both be true that teabags can reduce eye irritation and could also possibly give you an infection. It could also be true that eye drops have fewer side effects and might be overhyped by certain manufacturers. That's not going to be something we're going to disentangle without some excellent sourcing (which is why external solutions to this website are so important).
- Documenting what people are doing is different from documenting the efficacy of what people are doing.
- I agree that there are these few things that slither out of alternative medicine (as an enterprise), but to know what they are going to be before they do so is not possible.
- The case of back pain illustrates another issue with these subjects: It's not so much that physical therapy is more effective than back surgery. It's more-or-less similarly effective, but surgery has far more complications and expenses than physical therapy. The best literature admits we don't really have any treatment for back pain, but that doing nothing for it seems to be worse than doing something for it.
- jps (talk) 10:16, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- I believe there is more that we agree upon than disagree, so I'll just highlight a few things where we may be politely at a difference of opinion:
- Those are not areas of disagreement; I largely agree with all four points. I only differ about a couple of things: I've never heard of any side effect from dabbing one's eyes with a moist teabag. Also, in some cases we have evidence not only that people have used the folk treatments for centuries, but also that their use is based on accumulated knowledge, not superstition or pseudoscience. As I said, there's strong reason to think that Queen Anne's Lace does act as an emmenagogue and early-stage abortifacient, but the academic sourcing for that comes from historians and anthropologists, not (as far as I know) from the Western medical literature. (There's a medical source from India, but I believe it not regarded, at least by Wikipedia editors, as reliable.)
- I totally agree with the gist of your four points, which is that much is either unknown or inadequately sourced, and weighing and comparing different proposed treatments is a complex matter. That's exactly what's wrong with the alt-med article -- and also with Jimbo Wales' statement. Both give a false impression that Wikipedia knows a simple answer to the question: Is any of it any good? As always, the most important part of the article is the beginning, which summarizes the topic:
Alternative medicine describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective... Alternative therapies share in common that they reside outside medical science, and rely on pseudoscience.
It's simply false that all alternative practices "lack biological plausibility" and "rely on pseudoscience." Most do, but many (7.4%?) do not lack plausibility or rely on pseudoscience.
- I totally agree with the gist of your four points, which is that much is either unknown or inadequately sourced, and weighing and comparing different proposed treatments is a complex matter. That's exactly what's wrong with the alt-med article -- and also with Jimbo Wales' statement. Both give a false impression that Wikipedia knows a simple answer to the question: Is any of it any good? As always, the most important part of the article is the beginning, which summarizes the topic:
- The editors who write these things and get angry at any editor who wants to change them claim to be defending science against pseudoscience. But that's not how science works. It does not work by pretending to have certain knowledge and simple theories for things that are complex, multifaceted, and often unsettled. In my view a key ingredient in the scientific method is humility. Let the ad-men and politicians feign certainty -- exaggerating, misleading, and over-simplifying. A scientist -- or an encyclopedia -- should not do that. NightHeron (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Not to belabor the point too much but point any non-sterile water in/near your eye increases the risk of infection of, for example, acanthamoeba. I think also the context with which Jimmy Wales issues his statement is important. There has been a coordinated campaign on the part of industry alt med practitioners to get Wikipedia to allow them to have free reign over article subjects. There is even a petition (forgive me if I do not link to it) on change.org. Wales was responding directly to that set of complaints and if he did so in a less than gracious manner, well, I don't begrudge him that necessarily. In any case, I think we also judge the 7.4% proportion in a slightly different way. I judge it as the level to which modalities accepted in alternative medicine but not accepted in mainstream medicine eventually find their way into the mainstream. I do not see it as contradicting the point that alternative therapies lacking biological plausibility or relying on pseudoscience. As with any attempt to summarize, there may be issues with precise wording so as to be accurate and succinct as possible, but in these cases a failure rate of 7.4% in demarcation is pretty remarkable. Perhaps it's worth comparing to an article like scientific consensus on climate change where the failure rate of consensus is similarly below 10%, but is essentially in the noise in a similar fashion. jps (talk) 14:41, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- Like any treatment, standard or alt, proper use is crucial. If you use a teabag on your eyes that has fallen on the floor, that's a bad idea. Otherwise the water is pretty sterile, since it's been boiled. It's not a valid analogy to compare alt med in its totality to climate change denial, Holocaust denial, moon landing denial, anti-vaccine, etc. Those fringe views are rejecting science and history. Not all alt med rejects modern medicine. Rejecting well-supported science is fringe. It is not fringe to use or to recommend a non-standard treatment because (1) you don't have access to the standard treatment, or (2) you can't afford the standard treatment, or (3) for a mild condition (e.g., eye irritation) there are informal sources that say that a non-standard treatment works. Actually, a 7.4% success rate is pretty high, in the sense that parts of alt med are helping millions of people and could be a source of improvement in standard medicine (other parts, of course, are harming millions of people and have nothing to contribute). Even in the modern history of medicine there have been a large proportion of failures (though it would be hard to give a percent). You point out that many Siddha practitioners prescribe mercury, which can be very harmful. In the US, doctors prescribed mercury for many things, notably syphilus, until into the 20th century. In the more recent past, some leading medical writers, such as Marcia Angell, have sharply criticized the over-prescription of psychotropics as having a terrible effect on the development of children's brains. She has also criticized the quality of much current medical research, which she relates to the COI of industry-funded research. NightHeron (talk) 16:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think that the whataboutism of modern medicine really is a good defense here. We are both in agreement that modern medicine has its problems. Where I think we differ is in our general outlook of how alternative medicine behaves in an epistemic sense. The alternative medicine movement, inasmuch as there is such a thing, is decidedly anti-scientific in ways that look very similar to me to the litany you named. However, it may be best to stop the discussion here as I suspect in practice our approaches on articles where we overlap may not diverge all that substantially. Good talk! jps (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'm just arguing for not lumping together all alt med as equally bad. We probably differ on how alt med related articles should be edited, but since I'm keeping away from all such articles (a self-t-ban), I agree with you that on articles we'd both be editing we'd almost certainly be in agreement. And thanks again for assuming good faith. NightHeron (talk) 20:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think that the whataboutism of modern medicine really is a good defense here. We are both in agreement that modern medicine has its problems. Where I think we differ is in our general outlook of how alternative medicine behaves in an epistemic sense. The alternative medicine movement, inasmuch as there is such a thing, is decidedly anti-scientific in ways that look very similar to me to the litany you named. However, it may be best to stop the discussion here as I suspect in practice our approaches on articles where we overlap may not diverge all that substantially. Good talk! jps (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Could I interest you in this...?
I have just recently begun to work on the 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States article. I am ready to start to find information on the U.S. (rather pathetic) work on testing kits. See this link for example [3] So I next plan to break out a "Testing" section but first need to find the WHO info on kits and the CDC info as well. And then work the present info into that. The last time I worked on a pandemic article was with Template:U-Ozzie and I can say for sure that it takes a minimum of two dedicated editors to handle such a large task. As you know I admire your work, could I interest you to help at that article? If you are interested I will get Ozzie's correct sig and ping him. Gandydancer (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you, Gandydancer, for your kind words about my editing. I'm not generally knowledgeable about medical sources, with the partial exception of abortion. And I know nothing about testing kits. However, a role I could play, if it would be useful, would be to style-edit for greater accessibility. I did that once with another editor in the medical field who put very good material into a medical article, but it had medical terms and jargon and did not conform to the wikipedia notion of being readable by a teenager. I did my best to fix that. I don't mean to say that your style won't be readable. It's just that you're in the medical field, and I'm not, so I could probably help with a limited type of editing (and maybe asking for clarification if something that is obvious to you might not be obvious to the average reader). Or maybe that wouldn't be necessary? It's up to you. NightHeron (talk) 00:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- No, the article requires no medical knowledge. What it needs is a mature person able to investigate and organize. This article will grow like crazy and will become long and sprawled with needs to decide what to add/delete, etc. I've worked on similar articles and it can be fun and exciting but it's important to get in on the article as it is being put together so one feels in control. But I'm a Nancy Drew at heart and you would need to be a Dick Tracy to enjoy that sort of article. One very nice thing is that in my experience there is little to no need to do endless arguing with outraged editors that are concerned about your POV, etc. Gandydancer (talk) 01:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'm willing to try it out with guidance from you. The most interesting news article I've read on coronavirus was not about the kits, but rather an interview in the New York Times with someone who's an expert in statistics with advice about how to be careful in interpreting statistics about rate of infection, mortality, etc. It was quite a level-headed article, I thought. NightHeron (talk) 01:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- That would be a good addition. I was an editor of that last flu, was it in 2009?, so I do know a little how these things go when panic sets in, as it may in this case only much worse due to not only the higher death rate but the strange way it can be spread by people without symptoms. And of course, that one was artificially hyped for profit while there was an attempt to cover this one up. What a crazy world we live in. We need to cover the problem of how are poor people supposed to pay for their tests, health care, unemployment, etc., costs. Add to that a president that will without question get more nuts by the hour if the stocks get even worse. That can go in the article as well. This Atlantic article is bewildering and I hardly know where to start...[4] Gandydancer (talk) 18:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Thanks for the link to the Atlantic article. I see now that a big issue that needs to be emphasized in the Wikipedia article is the US failure to adequately prepare for testing large numbers of people, even though it should have been clear for the last 2 months that that needed to be done. A consequence is that there isn't yet reliable data on ease of transmission or fatality rate, at least not for the US. The NY Times article I mentioned interviews Adam Kucharski, a mathematician at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who discusses data mainly from China. In the absence of US data right now, data from other countries would probably be worth including in the article, along with the information on how to interpret data carefully. For example, Kucharski mentions that the mortality rate has to be based on deaths compared to number of sick as of two weeks earlier (because in such cases the time from infection to death is 14 days on average). He also emphasizes that the mortality rate is much higher for the old than for the young, and of course much higher for people with serious prior medical conditions. But what I've found frustrating is that I can't find mortality rates for healthy people. For example, in any particular age group (especially the older age groups) the mortality rate for a healthy non-smoker is probably much lower than the overall rate, because the overall rate includes people who are much more vulnerable. The figure for the healthy population is what most readers would want to know, but I can't find it. Kucharski states that the fatality rate among people over 70 is probably about 5 or 10%. But he doesn't say what it is among people over 70 who have no serious prior medical condition. Almost all of the early fatalities in the US were people who were already sick. I also don't see statistics broken down by gender, although the NY Times reported that fatalities among men were higher than among women, both because women often have stronger immune systems and because in China most smokers are men. The average reader probably wants to know, "What's going on? How much risk is there for me and my family? To what extent should I curtail normal activities?" It would be good if the Wikipedia article could give reliable information to answer those questions, or at least information based on China's experience that is useful insofar as the disease has the same profile in the US as in China. It's a complicated and rapidly changing situation, and at this point I'm not sure what edits should be made about this. NightHeron (talk) 22:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- That would be a good addition. I was an editor of that last flu, was it in 2009?, so I do know a little how these things go when panic sets in, as it may in this case only much worse due to not only the higher death rate but the strange way it can be spread by people without symptoms. And of course, that one was artificially hyped for profit while there was an attempt to cover this one up. What a crazy world we live in. We need to cover the problem of how are poor people supposed to pay for their tests, health care, unemployment, etc., costs. Add to that a president that will without question get more nuts by the hour if the stocks get even worse. That can go in the article as well. This Atlantic article is bewildering and I hardly know where to start...[4] Gandydancer (talk) 18:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'm willing to try it out with guidance from you. The most interesting news article I've read on coronavirus was not about the kits, but rather an interview in the New York Times with someone who's an expert in statistics with advice about how to be careful in interpreting statistics about rate of infection, mortality, etc. It was quite a level-headed article, I thought. NightHeron (talk) 01:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- No, the article requires no medical knowledge. What it needs is a mature person able to investigate and organize. This article will grow like crazy and will become long and sprawled with needs to decide what to add/delete, etc. I've worked on similar articles and it can be fun and exciting but it's important to get in on the article as it is being put together so one feels in control. But I'm a Nancy Drew at heart and you would need to be a Dick Tracy to enjoy that sort of article. One very nice thing is that in my experience there is little to no need to do endless arguing with outraged editors that are concerned about your POV, etc. Gandydancer (talk) 01:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
At this point since this article is about the U.S. disease I think you need to not get into age, male/female stuff, etc., (that would go into the main virus article) but more into how it has and will effect our country differently from other nations, for instance the fact that we have barely started testing and we may have thousands of people with undetected disease infecting others. Another problem we have is that unlike many countries we don't have universal free health care. Even if the gov't does pay for the kits with so many people that barely make it from paycheck to paycheck, how many of them are too afraid to get tested? As for room to fit it into the article, most of those detailed number charts that are bloating the article will need to be deleted or moved. Our medical articles all have "Fatality rate" sections. For this one it could be called U.S. fatality rate and (perhaps) show/explain why it may differ from other nations? And, keep in mind that you will be opening a section that will be added to as time goes along. Gandydancer (talk) 23:26, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, but it's far too early to write anything about fatality rates in the US, because, as the Atlantic article says, we have no idea of the total number infected, and the deaths so far were mainly in a cluster in a single nursing home in Washington State. Unless I'm mistaken, almost all the epidemiological data we have that has any reliability at all comes from China. NightHeron (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was distracted and not thinking properly--a little too soon to be thinking of that! This article is helpful: [5] Gandydancer (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for the link. We'll see how fast the testing goes. Even if they manage to determine the correct number of infected within a couple of weeks, we'll have to wait at least two more weeks after that before anyone has an accurate mortality rate for the US, since, as Kucharski says, the mortality rate has to be based on the total number of infected people as of about two weeks earlier. NightHeron (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was distracted and not thinking properly--a little too soon to be thinking of that! This article is helpful: [5] Gandydancer (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- You said, "I see now that a big issue that needs to be emphasized in the Wikipedia article is the US failure to adequately prepare for testing large numbers of people, even though it should have been clear for the last 2 months that that needed to be done. A consequence is that there isn't yet reliable data on ease of transmission or fatality rate..." That is exactly where my thoughts are headed. I'm thinking of opening a section "Mismanagement" (or whatever). See this article as well [6] If I do open it feel free to change any and every thing I write as I'm not one of those editors that minds that when I'm aware of how capable the other editor is. Gandydancer (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- There's already some information on the page at [7], but it's not complete. That might be a place to put information about the serious consequences of mismanagement of testing. I'd be happy to look carefully at your edits and make or suggest changes. NightHeron (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- You said, "I see now that a big issue that needs to be emphasized in the Wikipedia article is the US failure to adequately prepare for testing large numbers of people, even though it should have been clear for the last 2 months that that needed to be done. A consequence is that there isn't yet reliable data on ease of transmission or fatality rate..." That is exactly where my thoughts are headed. I'm thinking of opening a section "Mismanagement" (or whatever). See this article as well [6] If I do open it feel free to change any and every thing I write as I'm not one of those editors that minds that when I'm aware of how capable the other editor is. Gandydancer (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm aware of all that and the repeated information. When I came to the article a few days ago all of the info was grouped under "Federal" and I began to split it into sections rather than all lumped together. It still needs more refinement and additions/subtractions for improvement. BTW, I went through similar problems at the family separation at the Mexico border article where from day to day you never knew what lie Trump and his administration would be propagating to make Trump look good -- including the lies of Alex Azar, though that just barely skims the surface of those that were (and presently are) brown nosing. Gandydancer (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- @Gandydancer: Today there was an interesting podcast from the NY Times about the testing failure: [8]. NightHeron (talk) 20:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts
Your userpage states that I have a second account under my true name that is compliant with WP:VALIDALT
. While using an alternative account may indeed be allowed for privacy reasons if editing certain articles could cause real-life consequences, please also note WP:SCRUTINY:
Using alternative accounts that are not fully and openly disclosed to split your editing history means that other editors may not be able to detect patterns in your contributions. While this is permitted in certain circumstances (see legitimate uses), it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.
Given that you've had 6-month topic ban on this account and edit several discretionary topic areas (atleast abortion, race and intelligence, American politics 32-), I think you're very close to what's meant as an inappropriate use.
Have you considered getting an a'okay from a CheckUser or the ArbCom? Such a possibility is mentioned here: WP:ALTACCN. --Pudeo (talk) 11:33, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
- Pudeo: As I say on my user-page, my real-name account is used only for edits related to my professional area of knowledge and this has no overlap with the areas edited under NightHeron. The reason for the NightHeron account is covered in WP:VALIDALT:
editors who contribute using their real name may wish to use a pseudonym for contributions with which they do not want their real name to be associated
. The t-ban had nothing to do with accusations of sockpuppetry, but rather was related to disputes over alt-med and an article I started that went through AfD and DRV. Since I started editing 2 years ago, I made many edits on abortion-related topics, and thought that off-wiki harassment would result if I did not use a pseudonym. That was probably unnecessary, but my edits on race are another matter. Earlier this year a vandal threatened violence on Talk:White privilege, and when I immediately reverted their two threatening edits, they came to my user-page and left another threatening message there. (I notified an admin who removed all three from view.) So because I edit on both abortion and race and have gotten several IP-editors angry at me (for example, when I voted and argued in favor of a proposal by another editor to ban IP-edits from Talk:Race and intelligence) and have been threatened once, it makes sense to use a pseudonym and to resist any attempt at outing. NightHeron (talk) 11:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)