User talk:Coppertwig/Archive 2

Your efforts at maintaining neutrality

		The Original Barnstar
		For keeping a calm demeanor, a neutral outlook, and engaging all sides of the debate at Circumcision with impartiality and aplomb. Avi 17:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Letters

I'm glad you found the quotes interesting. You might also be interested in this and this. Jakew 13:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Interesting reading. (about the importance of letters to the editor in scientific journals). Not all journals have short limits like that on the time in which you can send in comments on an article. --Coppertwig 22:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Your quote at jossi's page

I just love the quote by you at the top of jossi's user page: The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work. --Coppertwig 21:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

It's marvellous, isn't it? Concise, insightful and hilarious. It's also not mine, but the Zeroeth Law of Wikipedia from Raul's laws. After I quoted it in a New York Times interview in April *basks in glow of own vanity for a moment*, it's been occasionally attributed to me, but the true author is unknown. I've dropped jossi a note, but she doesn't seem to have caught it. Don't feel embarassed - you couldn't know - but do check out the list, if for some reason you weren't aware of it. --Kizor 21:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, a New York Times article -- that's cool. If jossi's a "she", why does she have a picture of a man on her userpage? Anyway, it was clever of you to think of mentioning that quote at such an opportune time. Family members I told it to laughed as soon as I finished the first sentence. --Coppertwig 22:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Bah! I laugh on your English and its puny gender-specific pronouns.
Also, that's nice to hear. You're quite welcome. --Kizor 16:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL! --Coppertwig 16:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't resist

I couldn't resist mentioning that in this edit you also forgot to close your parentheses. Sorry! :-) Jakew 13:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha! No, I didn't! Note the double closing parentheses after "UTC" in the time stamp! :-) --Coppertwig 16:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although we invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Medical analysis of circumcision, was not constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. --Hirohisat ^Talk 22:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC) Sorry bout that --Hirohisat ^Talk 22:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. I like getting that orange "you have messages" bar, and it's always nice to see that I'm not the only one who makes mistakes. --Coppertwig 00:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have made a mistake on that and I'm sorry I didn't rv what I rollbacked. I'll watch out on that. --Hirohisat ^Talk 03:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Pitfight team Article

This will be difficult because ESPN doesn't cover MMA directly but through Sherdog.com. That is why I added the link for the ESPN page, to show that they were affiliated. Thank you and I will find something. Unak78 16:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• I have only sent notices to people involved in the discussion. What should I have done? It says that I can notify the MMA project. Does that mean individually or the group as a whole? Unak78 16:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• New sources are listed from CBS, ESPN, and SI.com, please consider them, Thank You for your advice. Unak78 16:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Links: Pitfight Team -- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pitfight Team. --Coppertwig 17:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• • I should have named it "The Pit" but they're interchangeable. All three articles mention John Hackleman as Liddell's coach. Liddell is a member of the Pit. If you notice along the bottom of the article, there are links to other fight teams relevant to MMA that were made before this one. The only reason this one is up for deletion is because I posted the statbox before the article. It is hard to educate numerous editors unfamiliar with MMA or the Mixed Martial Arts project of the relevance of this team unless they take a crash course in MMA and really get involved with what we are doing. Those three articles should provide a sufficient link between John Hackleman, Chuck Liddell, and the Pit. MMA is a growing sport and the purpose of the article is to be informative. Many people, as I am learning quickly, don't realize that MMA is like NASCAR and thier team affiliations are very important. Please, if you have any more advice I will hear it, but right now I am backing up my article and trying to contact members of my project. Thank you. Unak78 17:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• • • I appreciate your advice. You saved me from potentially breaking rules. I'll try to work with this a bit longer and I hope that I will have enough time to work on this. Barring that I will work on what I can save. Thanks Unak78 17:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Vitamin C megadosage

Thanks for the interest. The research on intravenous Vitamin C looks promising. Let's hope.Thomas Paine1776 20:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you believe it will be the miracle cure?Thomas Paine1776 20:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean, "will be"? See for example the chapter on cancer in Linus Pauling's "How to Live Longer and Feel Better". Lives have already been saved. Of course, no one thing will stop all cancer. Still, there's a reason guinea pigs rather than some other animal have been frequently used as a model for a variety of human diseases.

Let's put it this way: there's an optimal amount of vitamin C for any given person. The optimal amount for people with cancer is apparently much higher than the optimal amount for other people, and of course taking less than the optimal amount produces worse health. --Coppertwig 17:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

French

Are you fluent in French? Thomas Paine1776 20:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Kindof. I'd say "advanced". I can certainly carry on conversations and often feel as if I'm just talking, though I grope for words more often in French than in my native English. I'm better at reading and writing French than at speaking it. I'm currently translating Safavid art from the French Wikipedia. (I use various dictionaries for the harder words.) --Coppertwig 20:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Would appreciate french translations or approximations for the Detroit subarticles Architecture of metropolitan Detroit, Tourism in metropolitan Detroit, and Economy of metropolitan Detroit. On the French side, it looks like someone started tourism and architecture, but not economy. Or would appreciate if you could encourage others to help. Thanks. Thomas Paine1776 20:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I decline, sorry. I'm already in the middle of doing a translation, and the subject matter of these articles doesn't appeal to me. Besides, I'm better at translating from French into English than the other way around. You might try listing your request at fr:Projet:Traduction. In spite of my claims in ability in French, computer programming and parserfunctions, unfortunately I don't understand their instructions about how to list an article for translation, though. Maybe I'll re-read it later and "get" it. (celui-ci means "this one", but does it mean the page you're reading or the page you want created?) I'm happy to help you try to get them listed, though you'll have to take the lead as the requestor. --Coppertwig 22:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(celui-ci can also mean "the latter".) --Coppertwig 20:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You appear biased

Because it takes two sides to revert war, and you sent a semi-official-sounding warning only to the party you apparently disagree with. I should note that the present wording was discussed on the talk page, and furthermore that it is never the intent of policy pages to be self-contradictory or contain falsehood. As this is an encyclopedia, facts trump opinions ten times out of nine. >Radiant< 13:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone has their biases; the trick is to avoid letting them control one's actions at times when one is supposed to be impartial. I seriously considered sending a message to Philip Baird Shearer too but couldn't bring myself to criticize someone for not using the talk page when the user has posted a relevant message on the talk page around the time of the user's second-last revert and has urged the use of the talk page in the user's last revert, while the party with whom they should be carrying on a discussion is not using the talk page. It's hard to carry on a one-sided discussion. If you think User:Philip Baird Shearer needs a user talk page message you can send one yourself. There's no requirement that an individual criticizing one Wikipedian must criticize all Wikipedians. If repeated reverting is happening, that's a sign that further talk page discussion is required. Please take the opinions about the policy page that you've expressed in edit summary and here and repeat them on the policy talk page where they can be most conveniently replied to. --Coppertwig 13:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Background

Re your edit summary here, that quote was actually added to their statement this year. As I understand, it was agreed at the AUA conference (in May, I think) as a result of John Krieger's presentation re the HIV RCTs. Jakew 20:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

OK. In any case, putting today's date as the access date is accurate, as the quote was present there today when I looked. --Coppertwig 20:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Jakew 20:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, disambiguation was what I was suggesting

Thanks for reminding me of that word. As usual I'll mostly lay out and watch as others do the real work of wikipedia. Thanks for your efforts to that end! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zandrous (talk • contribs) 09:18, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Logicus contra Coppertwig on Bayesian probability

On 21 August you commented in 'Bayesian probability Talk':

It is not at all obvious that a bet on a universal hypothesis can never be won; some can be proven one way or the other, e.g. "All prime numbers are divisible by themselves" or "All prime numbers have exactly 7 divisors". There could conceivably be a way to prove that all ravens are black (by definition, perhaps, or by viewing all ravens on Earth.) --Coppertwig 22:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I comment on your User Talk page because this is Wiki-original research.

First, my apologies if it was insufficiently clear to you that is is a bet on the TRUTH of a universal hypothesis that can never be won but only lost that is at issue here. But this would seem to be because although it was implicit, you lost sight of the fact that subjective Bayesianism defines ' probability' as 'degree of belief in the TRUTH of hypotheses', not as degree of belief in their FALSITY. So the possibility of negative decidability of universal hypotheses you suggest is logically irrelevant here. It is only their positive undecidability that poses the problem here. And in general, when trying to establish theorems about Bayesian probability, as an important heuristic rule in all mathematical theorem proving, remember first go back to the definitions of concepts and investigate their logical consequences. It is Jefferys' failure to do so that prevents him from understanding why his belief that all scientific theories are false is apparently fatal to Bayesian methodology and philosophy of science because on that belief one must assign prior probabilty zero to all hypotheses.

Secondly, on your mathematical examples, without challenging your apparent infallibilist philosophy of maths with fallibilist philosophy of maths (according to which the TRUTH of math theorems is never proven because at best they are only proven to be logical consequences of some axioms and/or definitions that are themselves never proven true [for which philosophy see 'Quasi-empiricism' in Philosophy of mathematics and especially Lakatos's 1978 'Infinite Regress and the Foundations of Mathematics'] ), they are irrelevant at least because the only relevant hypotheses here for Bayesian philosophy of science are empirical hypotheses about the material world of empirical science, not the hypotheses of maths. Thirdly, even if SOME empirical universal hypotheses could possibly be proven true as you suggest, nevertheless the problem remains unless ALL universal hypotheses are positively proven. Fourthly, with respect to your conceiving a way of proving some empirical universal hypothesis such as 'all ravens are black' is true, you apparently overlook it is SPATIO-TEMPORALLY universal hypotheses at issue here and thus your suggested proof-method overlooks the fallacies that (i) 'all ravens on Earth' puts an illegitimate SPATIAL bound on the hypothesis, thus ruling out such as ravens that might be bred on spaceships travelling to colonise distant planets possibly discovered by maverick Texan 'Bayesian' astronomer Bill Jefferys, for example, and also that (ii) the class of all ravens is also unbounded in TIME, and so you cannot possibly view all ravens on Earth, that is, all past and future ravens on Earth so long as ravens are not extinct on Earth, nor even all past ravens if they have not all been fully preserved feathers and all for viewing (note dinsosaur feathers are lost). Finally, is it not anyway false that all ravens are black at least by virtue of albino ravens ?

But the main point to be made on your comments is that you are practicing original research here, albeit patently only research at the level of a beginners' fallacious forays into the elements of A-level Logic. May I advise you to reflect on the dubious legitimacy of regaling the Talk page with your personal beginners' research opinions on solutions to recognised problems in the field when a main concern here, inter alia, is registering recognised fundamental problems in the Bayesian philosophy of probability in this article to dilute its current notably pro-Bayesian biassed uncritical viewpoint. Denying recognised problems are problems or endorsing or disputing proposed solutions in the literature is surely Wiki-original research. I personally have no objection to it. But it then opens up the possibility of articles containing endless personal opinions of Wikipedia editors on issues and Talk pages filled with maverick personal opinions, such as those of Bill Jefferys on his personal 'Bayesian' conception of probability on these pages, still struggling with whether subjective Bayesianism probability is degree of belief in the TRUTH of a proposition as normally conceived in the literature or not, or rather degree of belief in the likely USEFULNESS of a proposition for PREDICTING NOVEL FACTS as he and his maverick Texan colleagues are said to conceive it.

But for the rest of us, in Wiki rules articles are supposed to reflect the opinion of 'the literature', a criterion that requires a very considerable amount of scholarly research as opposed to immediate self-introspection into one's own opinions and those of one's colleagues. And from the current article we learn that "...well known proponents of Bayesian probability have included...many philosophers of the 20th century." Hence that suggests the Wiki article researcher will need some basic background and competence in philosophy - specifically in Logic and Epistemology and Scientific Method - to understand and represent the Bayesian probability literature. But such competence is hardly likely to be forthcoming from such apparently anti-philosophical Wikipedia editors as yourself and Jefferys, who writes:

"As a physical scientist (astronomer) and a Bayesian, I find most of the ramblings of philosophers of science way off the point. They do not, in general, reflect how I and my colleagues think. Bill Jefferys 12:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC) "

The traditional riposte of philosophers of science is of course that scientists' opinions about scientific practice are about as intelligent and useful as those of fish on hydrodynamics are to the hydrodynamicist. The historically classic example of this is of course Newton's expressed opinion that he had deduced his theory of universal gravitation from phenomena.

This brings me to your other mistaken comments of 23 August as follows:

"In response to Logicus: I consider this article to be primarily a mathematics article and also partially a philosophical one. I see no reason to give prominence to philosophical definitions here. Logicus says it's clear but has not made a convincing case. Probability is fundamental to the mathematics of statistics, and writing definitions is a common activity of mathematicians. --Coppertwig 00:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC) "

But see Talk of 30 August for their refutation: 'Logicus contra Coppertwig'

Finally, with reference to your comment of 22 August:

"Re this edit: [2] especially this bit: "whose expressions of his American pragmatist 'red-neck' attitudes ": please carefully re-read WP:NPA. I don't want to see this kind of remark about a Wikipedian editor. --Coppertwig 18:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC) "

In the first instance you notably omit the vital point of the full quotation, which was, with my italics emphasis:

"But qua philosophers, of course the learned Professor Jefferys has nothing but contempt for such people on the evidence of his personal railings against philosophers of 14 August and his joke that philosophers are not self-critical and regard their work as infallible, whose expressions of his American pragmatist 'red-neck' attitudes are surely a serious breach of Wikipedia etiquette. "

You should also consider Jefferys' other breaches of etiquette I did not cite here, such as his mistaken insults that Logicus is dogmatist that misrepresented Logicus's pointing out an "APPARENTLY fatal problem" as dogmatically asserting it definitely was a fatal problem;

"Obviously, many scientists would disagree with such A DOGMATIC ASSERTION" 18 Aug

"You might ask yourself whether the size and DOGMATIC ATTITUDE of your original edit is not ultimately the source of the objections that it occasioned, and whether anyone would have objected had your original edit been more modest..." 18 Aug

In the light of Jefferys comments and your own arrogant headmasterly instruction to Logicus posted on his User Talk page, you should perhaps reflect upon whether Logicus's comment you object to here was possibly bait set to catch a prejudiced rat, and whether or not it caught one. Note there is no advice from you to Jefferys on breaches of etiquette on his User Talk page. --Logicus 18:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the phrase "a prejudiced rat" is intended to refer to some specific Wikipedian. I ask you again to please review WP:NPA. Also please review Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks. Please do not put those sorts of remarks about any Wikipedian on my talk page. Please don't put them anywhere on Wikipedia. I ask you again not to put long messages on my talk page. I ask you again not to use capital letters for emphasis due to the emotional tone such usage tends to generate.

If you want to discuss article content, please discuss it in an appropriate manner at the article talk page, not here, Logicus. If you want to discuss math, philosophy etc., I'm sorry I'm not interested in discussing that with you at this time. I might at some future time after a period of time has passed after you've started complying with my reasonable requests. --Coppertwig 23:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for giving me some things to think about in terms of how to improve my own behaviour.

If the reason for your earlier comment is as you suggest it might be, then it could be a violation of WP:POINT. --Coppertwig 16:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Labels

Thank you. I must admit that I jumped (or, perhaps, was gently pushed) in at the deep end: I haven't really edited templates before, and had to learn rather fast.

I use popups myself. Unfortunately, as far as I know, we don't have a specific page about Wikipedians who speak English, so that seems to have been the choice. If you have a better idea, please let me know and I'll change it.

Nice idea about language levels... Jakew 20:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

I am trying to be helpful. It appears that the different definitions of "primary source" may be the root of a lot of the trouble.

I also suspect that there's so much about sources in NOR because that's a policy and the ones who are most adamant don't want choice-of-source discussion in a mere guideline. I would hope they think that works, but I have my doubts. I'd pretty much ignore all their source categorization stuff and play it as it develops.

Minasbeede 00:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty pointless to argue about how to use primary sources when there is no agreement about whether such common sources as newspaper articles and peer-reviewed scientific literature are in that category or not. We can't even understand what each other are saying on that policy talk page (Wikipedia talk:No original research).--Coppertwig 00:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

My experience on the internet is that some people like it that way. Years ago I was a frequent participant in the group news.admin.net-abuse.email. There were people with set views there and there was no way to break through. Fortunately I learned that I was basically just like them and then was able to change. A little.

I did manage to get my main idea across, and adopted by some.

My alias comes from my anti-spam days. I post there rarely, and now do it as "hdgoldtoe." That's "Howdy Doody Goldtoe," a sock-puppet name. It's my little joke, but if they notice nobody mentions it.

Minasbeede 00:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Changes to NOR re: sources

I didn't look all the way back in the history but it looks like sources were being discussed as far back as June. --Minasbeede 23:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Moving a page

I'm thinking of moving the page Talk:Circumcision/Summary style to User:Coppertwig/Sandbox6. Can you think of any technical or procedural problems I might run into moving from Talk: to User: space? I'm the sole contributor to the page, and it's no longer needed now that I've pasted its content into Circumcision; I thought I would make it a sandbox and possibly use it for other purposes but the edit history would still be there on the off-chance I or someone else wanted it. Thanks. --Coppertwig 16:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it should be an issue. Thanks. -- Avi 17:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

All users different than main article authors are entitled to remove speedy deletion tags. I was wrong, unfortunately I pushed the Enter button before I realized what I wrote. Forgive me and my mistake. :) --Angelo 01:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Thank you very much for your kind reply. We're all learning how things work around here. --Coppertwig 01:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

20-20-20-20 club

Thanks for your message regarding this page that I created. Personally, I would prefer to see it deleted. I created it because someone kept adding some relatively irrelevent information to the 20-20-20 Club page. It was turning into an edit war (see the talk page for 20-20-20), and I thought that I would give them something to work on. Frankly, I can't defend its presence. I think it is a relatively minor mark in baseball that was starting the process of branching an article off of the subject. Unfortunately, it has not really violated the three revisions in 24 hours rule yet, so I haven't thought it proper to report the problem yet.TeganX7 21:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want to recommend deletion of the article, and if you are the main author as well as the creator, you can write {{db-author}} in the article (without the nowiki tags) and it will probably be speedily deleted.

I don't have much time now, but it may be better to get some kind of help even if 3RR is not being violated. Constant edit wars are a problem even if they never go over 3RR. I'm not sure what to do about it exactly. It appears that there is some disagreement about what is "relevant" to that article or not. Maybe more people could be brought into the discussion. Without violating WP:CANVASS, though. Possibly a request for comment on article content or something. Or you could post a message at a relevant wikiproject maybe or something. Anyway, better to discuss on the talk page and try to reach consensus than repeatedly reverting. --Coppertwig 02:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Edit war and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution but especially Wikipedia:Consensus, and try to engage the other user in productive discussion on the talk page (instead of reverting). You're not supposed to just keep on edit-warring until the other person slips up and violates 3RR at which time you get to report them. What good would that do? Maybe they'd get a 24-hour block, after which you'd be back where you started. You need to somehow work together with whatever other editors are involved with the page and form a consensus. --Coppertwig 23:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Also please see WP:OWN. --Coppertwig 23:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, thanks for hte advice on this. I did read the Dispute resolution page, and I'm just trying to stay away for awhile to let things cool down. I appreciate that you are busy. TeganX7 01:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, letting things cool down. By the way, I'm not an admin or anything; and I'm sorry that I may have given you too many policy pages to read all at once. --Coppertwig 22:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment on your discussion with Italiavivi

I made this comment in your discussion with Italiavivi, but s/he deleted it, so I'm putting it here so you can see it:

I'm afraid Italiavivi is confabulating again. The only edits s/he could be talking about are this and this, both of which were added after the bottom of the archived discussion. That makes it different from this, this, this, this, and this, 5 attempts to make the same comment inside an archived section (that's 4 reverts, btw). Neither Swatjester nor anybody else did that; and that's why Italiavivi was threatened with a block for it and nobody else was. -- Zsero 02:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

In other news, Italiavivi's reaction to my making this comment was to attempt to "ban" me from ever commenting on that page again. AFAIK no such right exists on WP; editors do not own their talk pages, and can't ban legitimate comment, however much they dislike the commenters. -- Zsero 03:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for copying that message here for me! Well, I think people can exert some control or influence over their talk page, or at least try to with perhaps sometimes a certain degree of success. I think people can try to keep out too many repetitive messages or messages that are too long or irrelevant etc.; but not things like that -- not just comments they disagree with. At least, that's my opinion. --Coppertwig 22:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I see at the AN/I discussion that it's complicated. Perhaps that has to be left as a gray area. --Coppertwig 00:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

And actually, I think you went too far by using the word "confabulating". --Coppertwig 12:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

promfeminist men RFc

Hi Coppertwig thanks for responding to the RFC at TalK:Pro-feminist men. I just responded to your comment in order to clarify a few points. Namely the book in question and my reference to what exactly is unsourced. Thanks for taking the time to comment on this--Cailil ^talk 00:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for mediation

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:No original research, and indicate whether you agree or disagree to mediation. If you are unfamiliar with mediation on Wikipedia, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. Please note there is a seven-day time limit on all parties responding to the request with their agreement or disagreement to mediation.

For the Mediation Committee, Daniel 07:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to find time to look into this and respond within a few days. --Coppertwig 12:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg

Thanks for the heads up - I did not know. In any event, I have already put part of what I wrote up on the NOR talk page for anyone to comment on ... I wasn't really paying attention to who is and is not around. When the NOR page was protected I left message on maybe ten or twelve editors' pages - people who I knew had experience with major conflicts and edit wars, but who were also committed editors, and who I thought might have interesting views to share. I think Tim Vickers was the only one to get involved in the discussion. I was hoping for a larger group with more diverse experience but, as you know, people have different levels of interest and also are not always around. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Perhaps I went too far in trying to figure out the state of mind of the editor who wants to use the primary material (to show that the editor isn't pulling any trick, he's actually trying to comply with the policies.) All I really want is to use my example as an illustration (if it is that) of the type of editing that created the motivation to put the source-typing language in the NOR policy. I can accept for the sake of argument that citing the primary source that says John Doe was not hairy is original research - it's not important to me to argue that. All I want is to know if this is a good example to illustrate what the entire issue is about. If it is I'd hope it could be useful in the discussion - and I don't really care to argue whether or not it is or isn't original research. It perhaps could be used to argue that source typing doesn't go to the heart of the real issue.

If it's not a good example perhaps someone who favors source typing could provide an improved example. I just want a solid example. I don't know precisely where we are in the 24 (7 + 7 + 10) days of locking of the NOR policy article but this has gone on a long time, just counting recently. (The locking doesn't matter to me: I'd always seek consensus in talk and let someone else do the editing of the policy. If nobody will do the editing then the consensus actually must be pretty weak.) --Minasbeede 22:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If the primary source states that he is not hairy, I think that could be quoted. The problem comes in when the primary source states something else that could be interpreted as evidence that he is not hairy; for example, the if primary source says "Of course he had no need of razors or combs."

Perhaps it is not relevant what the state of mind of the editor is. --Coppertwig 22:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That is a good answer and I think a productive answer.

The state of mind of the editor isn't really relevant to the issue. I was going beyond what was needed to explain - needlessly - that the editor could believe he was following all the policies. Well, on reflection, I guess it may be significant that, seeing the NPOV policy, an editor could fairly straight-forwardly believe that evidence for a point of view different from that featured and favored in an article belonged in the article because of the NPOV policy. --Minasbeede 02:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

An editor could believe that, but I think it would probably be a misinterpretation of the NPOV policy. At first I thought NPOV meant the views of Wikipedian editors had to be taken into account. Actually, it means the views expressed in the various reliable sources have to be taken into account. One could argue about whether or not various things in various sources are actually "expressing" certain views. Merely being evidence, which would have to be collected or interpreted in an OR-ish way, is not "expressing" a view. One could argue, I suppose, about whether someone making that remark about razors and combs is intending to express a view on the issue or not. --Coppertwig 20:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Johann Hari

Hi Sam. This is a quick note about the editing of the Johann hari page, which I know you've taken an interest in.

As reading though the page's history will show, the user Felix-Felix has described Hari as "a self-publicising careerist, and an especially unpleasant one at that", accused him of being in favour of "the destruction of Untermenschen" (when in fact he is an Amnesty International award-winner), inserted fictitious claims he went to the most exclusive public school in Britain when in fact his father is a bus driver, and, most crucially, inserted poorly sourced claims that he "fabricated" a story he wrote about.

This is a pattern of falsehood and animus that really worries me. This user is now insisting on his right to reinsert the claims that hari farbricated a story, sourcing them to a magazine that wiki administrators have already said is not reliable. What can I do in this situation? - DavidR 81.129.156.202 12:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the above. Dave r has been smearing me with these accusations, one of which is false, the other taken out of context, and utterly irrelevant. He has also posted this defamatory message on multiple other user talk pages; [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. This is starting to feel a little like harassment, and not in a good way. FelixFelix ^talk 14:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

David R.: You seem to have placed this message on my page by mistake. Also, please read WP:CANVASS. --Coppertwig 22:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

eyewitness accounts and NOR

It depends on what you are citing...

• "I saw it happen, there were lots of smashed cars" <ref>account of Joe Witness</ref> cites to primary material in a primary source...
• "Joe Witness commented: 'I saw it happen, there were lots of smashed cars.'" <ref>"Traffic Accident Kills Hundreds", by Roger Reporter, The New York Times, Sept. 23, 1992, p.5</ref> cites to a secondary source, which seems to contain at least part of the primary material.

See the difference? Blueboar 22:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the distinction I'm trying to make. Just now I looked back through previous versions of the policy and didn't find any that say it the way I thought it said it, so maybe I was imagining that. However, my reading of the policy is that an eyewitness report of a traffic accident, quoted in a newspaper article, is a primary source, and that a journalist's comments about that same accident, written in the same article, is a secondary source. What you recently said on the talk page seems to imply a different interpretation (what? That if one were to take the quote of the eyewitness account from the newspaper article one would be using a secondary source?) --Coppertwig 22:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is that since you are citing the journalist, you are "using" the secondary source. By the way, I don't think either of my examples above relate to NOR (since neither of them contain a conclusion or anything). So both could be cited for the raw statement that Joe witness said he saw it happen and that there were lots of smashed cars. But the "account of Joe Witness" should not be used further than citing the raw statement... the NYT report by Roger Reporter might acceptable for something further (as he probably included some analysis and interpetation of the accident in his report... and that interpretation or analysis can be cited). Blueboar 22:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Possible copyvio's

• Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone
• Oswego Recreational Trail

Good one

I think.

Oops.

--Minasbeede 18:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

... therefore I am.  :-) --Coppertwig 13:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought, therefore I was. --Minasbeede 17:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Violations

Hi. I got your note on my talk page. :) The article at Oswego Recreational Trail does seem to violate the copyright of the letter referenced, and your response to the author on the article's talk page seems perfectly appropriate. There is a tag that may be useful to you in those situations--{{subst:copypaste}} will expand to say "This appears to have been copied and pasted from a source, possibly in violation of a copyright. Please edit this article to remove any copyrighted text and to be an original source, following the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. Remove this template after editing." I'd probably place such a tag with a direction to the talk page in the edit summary, to specify where the problem is. As far as "Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone" is concerned, fair use allows quoting some lyrics for illustration, but that chunk seems a bit extensive. I'm going to take the liberty of addressing that one at the article. :) Please let me know at my page if you'd like to discuss it further. --Moonriddengirl 18:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Glad if I was able to help. :) --Moonriddengirl 16:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

And cheers to you for putting notices on contributors' pages. :) Administrators are supposed to ensure that the article's creators are advised of policy before speedily deleting infringement. You make it easy. Keep up the good work! --Moonriddengirl 17:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio

Well, that depends on how strong your suspicions are. You can do some preliminary research by taking some sentences from the article and googling them; if they turn up identical copies (except from mirror sites) you´ve got yourself a copyvio. Some documents are plausibly copyvio from their writing style even if you can´t find the source. For these, PROD or the CP page may be appropriate. HTH! >Radiant< 12:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation

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NOR draft

When I suggested youmake edits to the draft, it was because I thought you were responding to the draft that is under discussion on the talk pages. I believe your comments were actually in the section for dicsussing the proposed draft. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Diabetes link

Re milk protein and diabetes: [10] --Coppertwig 17:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Verifying sources

Thanks for notice! Would you perhaps be able to answer the query (User talk:Jayjg#Verifying source (Yad Vashem))? Else, do you know where I could ask for confirmation for this source here on Wikipedia? Cheers! Tazmaniacs 17:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't definitively answer whether or not it's a reliable source for Wikipedia, but I can say that yes, it does appear to be from Yad Vashem. You can verify this as follows: Go to the Wikipedia page Yad Vashem, and under External Links follow the link to the Yad Vashem web site. Click "search the site", and enter "Eva Fleischner Memory of Goodness" and choose search method "all the words". Click "Search". It gives two results. Click on the first one, "Marcia Spies". Under "Research" at the lower right click on "Historian Eva Fleischner about the Memory of Goodness". You then get to the page you were asking about -- so yes, it does appear to be on their website.

As to whether it's a reliable source for Wikipedia, you might want to post a question at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. --Coppertwig 21:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and trouble. If it is indeed genuinely from Yad Vashem, I'll take it is reliable enough for the issue at stake. Cheers! Tazmaniacs 00:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Pages I've marked for speedy-delete etc.

Speedy

Genevieve Bryant (Dangereux) -- Pashia -- Susedia -- Striped blister beetles (copyvio) -- Snowbunny -- Wave Systems (db-spam; page created twice; user deleted speedy-delete tag) -- Event spectacle -- Yolci (db-bio) -- Craig Norman Rossell (db-bio) -- Donview MS (db-blank) -- Globalpeaceexchange (copyvio) -- Techtalk (blank) -- Austin Taylor (db-nonsense) -- Kate Ballin (db-nonsense) Evan Cebula (db-bio) DJ A.D. (db-bio)(twice!) Bling H2O (db-advert)Johai Zblinski War (Vampire War) (db-nonsense) Alaa Hassouna (3rd King of Canada) Caroline and elena (3rd time or so) -- Christopher Nuttall -- Erick oduor -- Nathan D Miller -- Frees Hall(db-copyvio, but rescued by Moonriddengirl?) -- Smith Hall (db-copyvio) Mr. Lankin (db-bio) -- [[Image:Manakin.gif]] (Remember to notify the creator.)

OK now

Admiral Seymour Elementary School (copyvio, and was re-created; now has been rewritten and is OK) -- Superman x(empty) -- Hope for the Flowers -- Won't Let You Down (Texas Takeover Remix) (blank) --WCEF-FM(blanked) --

Prod

NikeSB.org (Dec. 1 2007) Gt xpress (Dec 1 2007) -- Evil Yamato Man (Shadow Yamato X) (Dec. 2) -- Hemamotus Yamato (Shadow Yamato X) and Hemamotos Yamato (Shadow Yamato X) (Dec. 2) Growth accelerator (Dec. 2) The Cry and the Covenant (Dec. 2) Popular music artists from Atlanta (Dec. 2) The Land Leviathan (Dec. 2; see also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cornelius Quartet) The Steel Tsar (Dec. 2) A Nomad of the Time Streams (Dec. 2) Morlock Night (Dec. 2) Liolani Clan, and see also Kambari (Dec. 2) To Visit the Queen (Dec. 2) Les Sales Majestés (Dec. 2) Private hybrid incubator (Dec. 2) (See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Collegiate entrepreneur -- I Stand Here Ironing (non-notable) -- Plc.4 Mie Haed(song, non-notable) -- Intuitive Games -- Brohl model -- Moparscape.org (Remember to notify the creator)

AfD

NikeSB.org (was speedied at AfD) -- Manakin (DSpace) -- List of oxymora (not AfD-ing yet.)

Misc.

Uniform electric field(merge, not speedy) -- Inner family archetypes (talk page re copyvio) -- Harriet Farley (copypaste) -- Ben chenery(talk page comment re context etc.) -- IPVS (suggested db-ad on talk) Princeton Media Group (notability tag; put speedy and took it off, oops) Myfinpro (I was going to db-bio, but someone db-spammed it first) Uno (game) (just need to delete certain material contributed by Mrpatriot9369)

Copyvio

Richard Quiller Couch(but was really OK) -- Backbeat Beatles(db) -- Sunnyvale Public Library (I only warned the user, didn't tag it; need to follow up) -- Nikolay Solovtsov(db) -- James hergott -- Relief From Joint and Several Liability on Joint Returns (I only warned the user, didn't tag it; may be in public domain; need to follow up) Frees Hall (db, 2nd time) [11] -- Smith Hall (db, 2nd time) [12] see User talk:Nancy.weyers Porter Memorial Bridge (db) [13] Brandt Memorial Bridge (db) [14] -- Cassel Open Air Theatre (db) [15] -- Dean Memorial Pergola (db) [16] -- Fiske Lodge (db) [17] -- Todd siler (db) [18] Margi (db) [19] -- Nathan Stoltzfus is Florida State Historian (db) [20] -- Lighthouse Furniture: too many quotes, did not tag yet. Just warned user. [21] and associated image Image:Lighthouse Furniture Logo.jpg

Merge proposals

Silvana (Last Exile) (I set up links for the merge proposed by someone else)

Advert

Telemedical ECGs -- Tenant acquisition -- WordTravels

I contested speedy-deletion

Nanjing No.1 Middle School (is it a high school?)

For improvement

The Steel Tsar (see Talk:The Steel Tsar

Thanks

Thanks for your note. Regarding the discussion, I think it's best if I don't comment. -- Jakew (talk) 21:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

the noob

I see that you just made an edit to the noob, I was wondering if you would care to vote "keep" in the current AFD? Timmccloud (talk) 20:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

V

(Yes, it was accidental, especially as I agree with you on the point. I see you have restored it. I added an apology.)22:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Request

May I email you? Jakew (talk) 21:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course, no need to ask. Anyone can. (Unless you're trying to sell me something or other inappropriate use of email.) Just use the link at the left, "E-mail this user". --Coppertwig (talk) 22:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Excellent post re NPA

[22] by User:GTBacchus at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks. --Coppertwig (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

sculpture

List of basic sculpture topics -- should this be merged or something? --Coppertwig (talk) 17:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Hope for the Flowers

The page was deleted within four minutes of your notifying me! How the hell was I supposed to get any comments in before you deleted it? Jesus. The least you could have done was wait a minute for me to go find a source. The Audient Void (talk) 00:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology, and sorry if I was brusque. It's a significant 70s picture book, but, being so old, online sources aren't the best for it. I certainly know I've seen the book around a bunch, but I'm not even sure where I'd go looking for published sources. Hopefully the two I added about two million copies and the review cited by Amazon are enough. /sigh. The Audient Void (talk) 00:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Princeton Media Group

if you think this page should be deleted, i'll re-mark it fo you. cheers,Ryan shell (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Richard Quiller Couch

Hi, I see you tagged Richard Quiller Couch as a possible copy-vio. The text is from the DNB a publication which is now in the public domain, as I indicated in the article by use of the appropriate DNB template in the source section. DuncanHill (talk) 01:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I apologize. I didn't see the note in the sources section. I did wonder whether the book was in the public domain but I guess I hadn't found an answer. (Was that the book that Google Books only showed a partial preview of? I figured, if it was in the public domain they would show the whole book. Maybe not -- or maybe I'm confused and thinking of another book I looked at in the past few minutes.) What now? I'm not sure whether I can take a copyvio template off once I've put it on -- we may have to wait for an admin to look at it. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I'm not sure either if you can take the notice off! Yes, it is on a partial preview on Google books. I think the reason the whole book isn't on Google books is probably that no-one has had the whole text scanned & uploaded yet. Do you want to ask for an admins advice at WP:AN? Best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 02:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I may have sounded a bit grumpy in my message at the article's talk page - if so I apologise, copy-vio spotting is an important activity on Wikipedia. DuncanHill (talk) 02:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I apologize again for the ugly template on the article you just created, but I think it's best to wait for an admin to handle it along with the other pages on the copyright vio page. I wouldn't take up their time at AN. You can if you think it's appropriate (I don't know if it is or isn't) -- or ask an admin you know. I won't revert if you remove the template, though I think it is probably improper to do so. I think the listing at the copyvio problems page should stay, though, for various reasons. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. No, I didn't think you sounded grumpy at all -- at least no more than anyone would under the circumstances. Your message was simply factual. I appreciate the recognition of copyvio spotting activity. OK, I won't throw in the towel and quit over this incident :-) (not that I was about to) --Coppertwig (talk) 02:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, just to let you know the copyvio tag has been removed, and I've been told by an admin that if the person putting the tag on agrees, and it's clear cut, then it would be ok for either of us to take it off. Thanks again for your help and co-operation, best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 16:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

sorry a friend of mine told me about wikipedia and that you can create your own articles and stuff, i didn't know about the sandbox —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingalaa (talk • contribs) 01:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:ATT

Hi, I will indeed join the discussion on the WP:ATT talk page, but it will take me a couple of days to but my views into some logical order and accurately summarize them. At the moment the page is protected, so its probably a better to take advantage of that. Thanks, Brimba (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Great. Looking forward to reading your comments. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

New pages

Checked 26 Nov 07:52 to 27 Nov 15:08 skipping: CB Ciudad de Huelva -- Slowdime Records -- Commissioner v. boylston market association (User talk:John254#Guidance needed on articles on legal cases) Fabulesque! -- Matthew Nixon -- Randy Royal -- Megan Sullivan -- Paris in Jail: The Music Video created 27 Nov 20:54 ... . --Coppertwig 13:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Now up to 27 Nov 19:46.

5000 -- 6000 -- 7000 -- 8000 -- 9000 -- 10000

limit=100:

5000 -- 6000 -- 7000 -- 8000 -- 9000 -- 10000

Your note

Just to let you know, in case you haven't watchlisted me, that I have replied to your note here. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you (2)

Thanks Coppertwig! I appreciate you taking the time to point out my mistakes. I didn't think about the disamb. page and clearly I didn't see the note about him not editing since August. Phyesalis 04:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig. I really appreciate the input. When you suggested that I review the contested edits, had you read Talk:Female genital cutting#Blackworm's objections? I spent a lot of time going over the most recent spate of "contested edits" in detail. I gave before and after quotes and diffs, I went over the sources I used. If this isn't what you meant, would you mind suggesting how I could improve the way I frame this? And yes, you are correct about commenting on the editor, however, I feel as if the real problem was his behavior. Specifically, he failed to provide anything to back up his particular view of the situation. It hardly seems fair to cry "OR" without providing sources to support that contention, especially when I went through the trouble to provide multiple citations that contradict the POV of OR. This seemed to suggest that the problem was him being disruptive. For the time being it seems as if we have come to an uneasy truce (and that's a huge improvement). But again, your critique of my review of the issues would be most appreciated, not just for future interactions with Blackworm, but for other pages as well. Again, thanks for your time. Phyesalis 02:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I started to read the "Blackworm's objections" section but did not read the whole thing because there was very little interesting (i.e. article-content-oriented) information in what I did read. (I.e. it lists a number of objections by Blackworm, but doesn't say what it is he's objecting to.) If the good information is in there, you might possibly be able to help people find it by inserting article subsection headings in well-chosen spots. (As I haven't read it, I don't know whether this is feasible or not.) If you want comments on a user's behaviour, inviting people to an article talk page for that purpose is inappropriate. I assume what you really want is to resolve the content disputes. By the way, when someone says something is OR, the best way to counter that argument is to provide published sources for the information. The one saying OR doesn't have to provide any sources -- their claim is that there is no published source for the information. If the person doesn't have a valid argument, you can simply continue talking about article content and convince people that your arguments are more valid. There's no need to criticize the other user. If you want to bring other people in to support the edits supported more strongly by valid policy-based and source-based arguments, stick to relevant comments so as to keep their attention; there are lots of other things to do on Wikipedia, so reading through a debate with no clearly stated point doesn't tend to look appealing. By the way, when I propose edits I tend to use italics to quote current article content and proposed content -- that way it stands out and is easier to find in among all the complicated discussion. You might try that.

I just glanced at the "Blackworm's objections" section again. I read/skimmed several paragraphs and did not see any edits proposed by you (or by anyone else). Apparently perhaps both you and Blackworm agree that a phrase about hadith needs to be deleted but the dispute is about which person originally put it in there. Not interesting, sorry. But I would like to get involved in the discussion if I can find out in a convenient format what the proposed edits are. --Coppertwig 02:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't invite anyone to comment on Blackworm's behavior, I invited people in a neutral manner to comment on the dispute. Like I said, for the time being, it seems like we may have come to a workable arrangement. Phyesalis 04:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Trump: The Game

I would like to know what is wrong with "my" article Trump: The Game. It is a boardgame very deserving of recognition on wikipedia. It actually exists (no, I didn't just make it up for a hobby) and is manufactured by Parker Brothers. Deleting this article would be like deleting the Monopoly game page. I happen to own a set of the rules (indeed the whole game) and Wikipedia did not previously happen to have any article concerning this notable and fun game, so I decided to start one up.

Sincerely, Sutjo Sutjo-18005 (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you very much for contributing to Wikipedia, and I'm sorry if the article that you put time and effort into might eventually get deleted. There are something like one new Wikipedia page per minute (or maybe it's several per minute) being written by people all over the world, which is wonderful. Some of us go through the new pages and try to figure out which ones are appropriate to keep in Wikipedia. The notability guideline helps keep the number and type of articles within what is reasonable for Wikipedians to maintain up to a good standard. I put a {{notability}} tag on Trump: The Game, and on many other new pages. The game's rule book is presumably a reliable source for determining what the rules of the game are, but to establish that the game is a notable topic, it's necessary to have third-party sources, i.e. published sources independent of the game itself which talk about the game. If you look on the Monopoly (game) page, at the bottom you see a list of books and other published sources that talk about the Monopoly game. If you can find independent sources (magazine articles, etc.) that talk about the Trump game, then listing them on the page could demonstrate that the notability requirement has been met.

Wait, here's one: One Trumped-Up Board Game The Donald Launches New Game Based On Success, Greed NEW YORK, August 19, 2004 accessed 2007-12-08 If I have time later I might format this and add it to the page. Here's another one: Donald Trump game set for shops. BBC News Last Updated: Thursday, 19 August, 2004, 11:34 GMT 12:34 UK accessed 2007-12-08. And another one: USA Today Posted 8/19/2004 11:12 AM Trump board game out by Parker Brothers accessed 2007-12-08 So, I guess maybe I shouldn't have put the notability tag on. --Coppertwig (talk) 16:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: comment on talk

Hi, Coppertwig. Thanks for taking the time to get involved. I thought your comments on Reproductive rights were helpful and productive. Regarding your comment on my talk page, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I have now tried three times to discuss this on Blackworm's talk page. Unfortunately he keeps deleting it. I also recognize that the situation is inappropriate for the article talk page but, from my perspective, Blackworm's behavior has consistently shown a lack of good faith to my edits on Reproductive rights and Female genital cutting. I consider his behavior to be disruptive and don't really know what to do - he considers my attempts to discuss his behavior as "harassment". If you noticed, I stepped away from the article after my third attempt on his talk page. Personally, I find his objections over the UN material to be mendacious (as in he can't understand how a UN document from a UN conference relates to the UN? Come on.) at best. Perhaps you could offer some suggestion as to how we could move forward with this. The time I have had to spend defending a basic and well-known fact has really cut in to the time I would have had to expand the article. I, for one, would really like to get back to constructive development. Again, I really appreciate your contributions in this matter. Thank you. Phyesalis (talk) 16:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's something to try: choose one to three edits you want to make to the article and show me where the discussion of them is or start a new discussion of them, and I'll (probably) get involved and hopefully help resolve the issue; but probably only if you stick to only article content discussion in that context. If those get resolved successfully maybe we can move on to other ones too. I don't know, for example, what edit you're referring to above.) Before doing that, though, it would probably be a good idea to take a break for 24 hours if you haven't already, take a few deep breaths, and then look carefully at your own behaviour for anything that could possibly be felt as intimidating or harassing, and try to avoid those behaviours in future. For example, posting something on someone's talk page when they've recently deleted a previous message from you without reply is often not a good idea. My understanding is that people have a right to delete stuff from their talk page and that you can take that as an indication that they've seen your message. Remember that often, from each person's perspective the other person's behaviour is much worse than their own; and to be successful, an attempt to lead the way in the direction of civility probably requires avoiding even small incivilities. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. You make a good point. I have made several attempts with Blackworm to de-escalate the tension, but he doesn't seem to have any interest in discussion beyond his acknowledged desire to teach me a lesson - this seems rather authoritarian and contrary to WP policy. Isn't it reasonable to ask him to offer sources to support his claims? I thought WP was about verifiability not opinion.

I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me. Let's start with the biggest issue - do you agree with the statement "Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights relating to sexual reproduction and reproductive health," as cited by Cook, Freedman and now, Amnesty International? Does this need to be "attributed" as Blackworm seems to think? If so, why? It's the opening line of the article, well-cited with reliable sources, and about as basic and neutral a statement as one can get. Furthermore, Blackworm has been asked to provide sources to support his position (that there is any generally recognized contradiction of this statement) and has failed to provide even one source. If we could start here and proceed to other issues, I think this would be a huge improvement. Phyesalis (talk) 19:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your compliment further above, and thanks to you to for taking the time to discuss this with me. What I'm recommending is that (at least within a certain context, i.e. on the article talk page, or including here too if that's where you choose to discuss article content with me) you refrain from making any comments about editors or editor behaviour etc. but only discuss sources and article content. It may be difficult at first to do this, as perhaps some behaviours that feel natural and habitual you don't realize can be seen as being comments about an editor. For example, I suggest, when trying to avoid or de-escalate conflict, avoiding applying any adjectives to an editor or an editor's behaviour (e.g. "authoritarian" as you say above). However, if you can manage this for several days straight, (being constantly polite, avoiding making remarks about other editors and focussing only on article content), I think there's a good possibility that you might be surprised at the improvement in others' behaviour towards you.

I also suggest that you try to make things easier for the readers of your comments. You certainly don't have to do this, but I think you can increase the chances that someone will support your arguments if you make your arguments easy to follow. The way I suggest doing this is joining together, in a concise context, preferably a single paragraph, or within a few paragraphs in a talk page section that doesn't have extraneous stuff like personal comments: the change you want to make, and your arguments in favour of it, and if relevant and possible, a link to the source you're basing your argument on, and the page number and maybe even where on the page in the source the relevant part is; and/or a quote from the source. If you collect stuff together like that, then people can follow your argument and quickly check the source without having to search around on the article talk page, the article page and the source to find out what source you're talking about and what page the stuff is on.

For example, there's no need to make any remarks about whether an editor has read a source or not. Just say, "Actually, on page 3 it says ..." and provide a calm, factual, short, convincing argument, naming what source you're talking about and providing a convenient link to it.

Asking someone for sources to support their claims is quite reasonable, but I recommend avoiding saying things about editors like "he doesn't seem to have any interest in discussion beyond his acknowledged desire to teach me a lesson - this seems rather authoritarian and contrary to WP policy." as you say above. You can ask for sources without saying anything about an editor. E.g. "Please provide a source to support that statement."

Re "Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights relating to sexual reproduction and reproductive health," This seems to me to be a POV statement which, in its present form, should not be anywhere in the article, especially not in the leadin. Do you agree that there are people who believe that people should not have the right to have an abortion (at all, or under certain circumstances)? This statement seems to me to be saying that humans have a right to reproductive rights -- that reproductive rights are human rights. That's a POV statement that many people would not agree with. Saying that something is a human right can be easily read as meaning that it is a right, i.e. that people should have a right to it. It can be in the article with a prose attribution, (e.g. as a quote), in which case perhaps the leadin is not the place for it; or it may be possible to reword it, e.g. maybe something like "Discussion of reproductive rights concerns discussion of rights of humans that relate to sexual reproduction and reproductive health." or "Reproductive rights are considered by reproductive rights advocates to be a subset of human rights ..."

By the way: in your messages to a variety of people, the link Talk:FGC didn't go to a disambiguation page; it went to the talk page about a notable person with those initials, which was rather confusing. I usually/often check the links in my messages to make sure they work. I click "preview" and then click on each of the links and click "back" to get back to the preview page before clicking "save". I just have to remember not to navigate too far and forget to save my edits. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 13:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry -- maybe I'm criticizing you too much. It can be hard -- either to receive criticism, or to refrain from giving it. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, thank you for the time and the calm comments. First, let's take abortion out of it. Most people agree that the general concept of reproductive rights are a subset of human rights. While abortion is one aspect of reproductive rights, it is but one small aspect and the contesting of abortion in a few contexts does not equal contesting reproductive rights as a whole. As reproductive rights are human rights established by the UN General Assembly, CEDAW, Beijing platform, etc., I'm having a really hard time buying the POV assertion on the basic statement of RR as human rights. Reproductive rights are ratified human rights. If this is POV than everything in WP is POV. Perhaps since BW hasn't (and I have asked him to provide some on multiple occasions), maybe you could provide a source that discusses RR in an international context which states that they are not human rights and explains so in the face of international ratification? I'm sorry but it seems that assertions of POV, in the face of documentation and factual ratification, without a single source to support the contrary are, well, POV themselves. I don't see why unsourced POV should be given any weight.

Now, as for abortion, I have tried, in my expansion of the stub, to create a space for the specific abortion debate. A good section would discuss how abortion is treated in RR and contextualize the pro-life objections and politics of this one aspect of RR. It is inaccurate to characterize the whole of RR discourses in accordance with the minority pro-life view on abortion. In international RR discourses, the pro-life position is an extreme minority and should be weighted as such. I have no problems with the inclusion of such material and I believe the appropriate place for these issues is in the second paragraph of the leadin as the article currently has it. If there needs to be rewording, it should be done there (IMO).

I generally play well with others. I manage to edit a number of controversial subjects without running into this kind of extended multi-page conflict. This leads me to believe that the conflict is personal for BW, which would seem to make comments about his behavior relevant (since as I see it - his behavior is the overall problem). As previously noted I have tried to talk to him on his talk page but he has refused to discuss it. He has chosen not assume good faith from the beginning. He reverted the page 5 times in one day. When he asked for sources, I provided them. When he reverted my citations, I added quotes. When he reverted them again, I added more citations. Now he's saying that if I don't attribute them in accordance with his POV, he has the right to remove them. When I suggested that he attribute them, he told me that he was trying to teach me a lesson. This kind of attitude is not appropriate for editors, nor is it healthy or productive in an egalitarian community based project. WP policy clearly frowns on this kind of behavior (reverting is a serious action, don't remove citations, work out issues on talk page first, if you see something wrong, fix it, etc.). When I repeatedly asked for sources he gave me nothing. As an example of his bad faith, he asserted that one of my sources was invalid because it didn't contain the phrase "reproductive rights". His assertion was easily disproved by checking the first page of the stable link.

I appreciate your qualifying comment from the 14th. I am open to criticism, I would have never asked for your opinion if I weren't. If nothing else, your contributions have helped me switch focus away from BW and back toward the article. I acknowledge that I should have done some things differently, but I'm not sure how much. I went above and beyond the requirements of good faith to address BW's objections. He did not read the ref'd articles, he did not provide sources to back up his arguments, he did not make any attempt to improve the article, even when expressly invited to do so, and has made unreasonable demands of another editor in an inappropriate authoritarian fashion. I'm thinking that he is out of line and my calling him out is appropriate. It should have been addressed earlier on his talk page, but I don't see how my failure to address this on the right page absolves him of responsibility. He tells me I am harassing him and you tell me I shouldn't try to discuss his behavior with another editor on user talk pages, well then, where does one discuss the in/appropriateness of another user's alleged disruptive behavior? RfC User? I mean, am I reading your post correctly? Do you think I shouldn't try to discuss personal conflicts with another editor in a GF attempt to move an article forward? Do you think BW's behavior is appropriate? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, if you think my (clarified) attempt is inappropriate, I'll stop discussing this aspect of the issues on your talk page. Your continued participation in this discussion would be much appreciated. Phyesalis (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, there are some things to think about here. First, let me try to see if I can understand your position. If I get it wrong, please correct me. I think what you seem to mean is that as you see it, there is an international consensus, expressed by organizations such as the UN, that reproductive rights are human rights, and therefore it's correct and neutral to say something like "reproductive rights are human rights" in the introductory sentence. I think you also seem to mean that to change that to something else, such as changing it to one of the alternative sentences I proposed, would be to express a pro-life view in the introductory sentence, and since you believe that people with pro-life views are a small minority, then to do so would be to give them undue weight. To support your view that pro-life is a small minority, not worthy of any weight at all in the introductory sentence, you point to the (apparent) lack of any international consensus documents stating that reproductive rights are not human rights, etc.

Here's the way I see it. I don't know what the percentage of people with pro-life views is, but I think it's a substantial number of people. Perhaps a minority, but not a very tiny minority. If it's generally a minority worldwide, then it would not be surprising if international consensus statements tend to say things like "reproductive rights are human rights" and never say things like "being born is a human right" or "reproductive rights are not human rights" etc. So, a lack of international documents saying things like that does not establish that pro-life are a tiny minority.

International organizations such as the UN make declarations along the lines of "every human being has the right to ...(drinking water, education, etc.)". (I'm just making up examples -- that's not a quote.) A statement like that means "every human being should have access to ...(whatever)." Wikipedia does not make declarations like that in its articles. Wikipedia reports facts in a neutral manner. Wikipedia does not express opinions or sentences with the word "should" in them in its articles. This is according to the neutral point of view policy. Statements in Wikipedia should be verifiable; they should not be things that some people agree with and others disagree with. Even statements that a majority, or the vast majority, of people agree with are not acceptable if they are opinions and not verifiable facts.

To me, the statement "reproductive rights are human rights" seems to mean "human beings should have the freedoms and opportunities represented by the words 'reproductive rights'." In other words, "reproductive rights are human rights" does not appear to me to be merely establishing a definition. Rather, it appears to me to be making a declaration about how the world ought to be arranged. Again, the UN and such organizations make that kind of declaration. Wikipedia, in its articles, does not.

You said "reproductive rights are ratified human rights". This suggests to me a compromise: it seems more acceptable to me (though not necessarily quite acceptable) to state in the article "reproductive rights are ratified human rights" than to state "reproductive rights are human rights". This is because "are ratified human rights" looks somewhat more as if it's saying that the UN and such organizations have ratified reproductive rights (which I assume is verifiable fact, and therefore fine to report). It doesn't look 100% clear to me that it is not a declaration of what rights ought to exist, but it seems to me to be an improvement.

You said "Most people agree that the general concept of reproductive rights are a subset of human rights." That may be. However, the first sentence of an article should be uncontroversial. It should be something that every knowledgeable person can read and nod their head and think "yes, that's what it is." It should not be written in such a way that merely "most people" can do that. In particular, pro-life people often feel very strongly about these things, and I see a danger that a significant minority of people might read that introductory sentence and feel quite incensed, thinking "but that's wrong!!". Wikipedia articles should be written in such a way that those types of reactions are not elicited -- especially the first sentence, which should be a plain uncontroversial definition.

You said "In international RR discourses, the pro-life position is an extreme minority and should be weighted as such." I think the international discourses you're talking about are carried on by organizations such as governments, which generally represent the majority view of each country. Therefore, pro-life positions might be rare there. I don't think it follows that Wikipedia has to treat pro-life positions as a tiny minority. I think there are other reliable sources besides international consensus documents. Perhaps declarations by the heads of some religions, or something along those lines.

In any case, whether or not pro-life even is a tiny minority, Wikipedia should not make "should" statements in its articles. Wikipedia, unlike the UN, is descriptive, not prescriptive.

I'm not asking (at this time) for inclusion of pro-life material in the introductory section. I'm asking for wording, throughout the introductory section and in fact throughout the article, which can be accepted by people from all significant POV's, including pro-life, to satisfy WP:NPOV.

You said "This leads me to believe that the conflict is personal for BW, which would seem to make comments about his behavior relevant (since as I see it - his behavior is the overall problem)." I'm sorry, I don't really follow what you're getting at here. Perhaps this is intended as an argument to support a position that you believe it's OK to post comments on an article talk page about a user's behaviour. If that's what you mean, I disagree and I think you might run into trouble trying to reconcile that position with Wikipedia policies and guidelines and with what generally works or doesn't work when trying to get along with other Wikipedians. If you're interested, I can expand further on why I think that.

What you seem to be telling me in more than one way is that you have a problem with Blackworm's behaviour. I think I understood this already, although I see that there are also other aspects to the situation, such as conflict over article content. I have the impression that you're asking me for help, and I'm trying to help you with advice that I believe is in your interests as well as Wikipedia's. I'm willing to give help/advice to Blackworm too if he wants. (I think we all have the same ultimate goal of creating the best possible article, so we can work together.) If you ask someone else, you may well get different advice. You don't have to follow my suggestions, and you don't have to explain to me why you don't choose to. If you're interested, I can explain further the reasons I recommend certain behaviours.

I've gotten the message from you that Blackworm has done certain things which you consider inappropriate. I'm not quite sure why you're telling me this again. I've given you advice, which you may not agree with. I'm not planning to act as a judge and say that I do or do not consider the user's behaviour to be sppropriate, and I think you indicated above that you're not expecting me to. I'm wondering whether there's some other message you're trying to get across to me, some other reason why you're repeating the descriptions of what you see as problem behaviour. You say something about comments about his behaviour being relevant. Could you please explain: relevant to what? Relevant to the content of reproductive rights? Relevant to my talk page? Relevant to this discussion you and I are having? And in what way do you think it's relevant?

You said, "As previously noted I have tried to talk to him on his talk page but he has refused to discuss it." If you're interested, I can coach you on how to approach Blackworm in a way that I think would have a much higher probability of a friendly and/or constructive response than this would.

I don't understand why you're telling me what Blackworm did and why you think it's inappropriate. I can give you advice on what to do (i.e. what I think I would do under the circumstances, or what I think is most likely to have the most positive outcome) but I'm not sure that advice is what you're looking for.

I certainly don't mean that it's never appropriate to complain. For example, I complained to you and Blackworm. What I do mean is that in the present situation, my advice to you is not to complain. Situations where a complaint is likely to lead to better results than not-complaining will are not as frequent as I thought they were when I first started on Wikipedia.

You said "well then, where does one discuss the in/appropriateness of another user's alleged disruptive behavior? RfC User? I mean, am I reading your post correctly? Do you think I shouldn't try to discuss personal conflicts with another editor in a GF attempt to move an article forward?" I feel your frustration here. I have also been very frustrated for somewhat similar reasons in the past. Unfortunately I'm running out of time so can't answer properly right now. No, I'm not implying you should go to RfC now. I would advise not to in the current situation. I can explain more later. Sorry. I hope there's nothing undiplomatic in the above that I would have deleted if I'd had time to edit this comment properly!! --Coppertwig (talk) 02:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. Thank you, again and again, for taking the time to discuss this with me. Let's just get the Blackworm stuff out of the way - I have already acknowledged that the article talk page is not the appropriate place for issues with him (or any user). I would love some advice on how to deal with him more productively. I am not perfect, but I try to compensate by appreciating good advice. I do not want to go to the extreme of an RfC:User. To answer your question, I think BW's behavior is relevant in this discussion because, if examined, it shows an extended pattern of unreasonable demands and harassment. I'm not asking you to judge BW, instead I'm trying to point out that my issue isn't just one of a set of editing particulars but one of a personal conflict with another user who has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of good faith. This is relevant because I am trying to determine, among other things:

• What is the reciprocity for requests for sources? Example: I have provided additional source info 99% of the time User A asks for it. User A has yet to produce a single source. If (I'm phrasing this as a hypothetical so that your response need not constitute judgment) a user constantly demands citations (and gets them) but refuses to provide any in return all the while arguing POV, how do I deal with this?
• How does this hypothetical example demonstrate good faith, or the lack thereof? If a user has demonstrated an extended lack of good faith, what are my responsibilities in dealing with bad faith or unreciprocated demands?

As for the discussion of Reproductive rights, this is the way I see it: until someone provides an equally reliable peer-review source which contradicts the multiple sources I have provided that clearly define Reproductive rights as human rights relating to reproductive health, I don't see much of a reason to change anything (except for the NCM info under men's issues, but I figure that can wait). To me, WP is about reliable documentation, not unsupported POVs. Respectfully, I disagree with your interpretation of the opening statement as having an illegitimate POV of "should". You infer "should", the statement does not imply it. "Should" is superfluous given that reproductive rights are human rights. It's not that they should be, they are. If we compare the opening of RR to the opening of Human rights, by your logic, HR is committing the same kind of violation. The opening sentence on HR does not include language about ratification. It's not necessary. The concepts, movements and activism all existed prior to ratification. Ratification did not bring them into being. While ratification is an important aspect, it is still one aspect and not part of the integral definition.

Pro-life advocates do not dispute the fact that reproductive rights are a set of human rights (evident in the fact that pro-life factions ratified various reproductive rights as human rights in numerous treaties and platforms - not too controversial), they dispute the fact that abortion is a reproductive right - totally different issue. Can we agree on this? It certainly deserves weighted treatment within the article (if and when sources are provided), but does not have the weight or relevance to alter the basic fact that reproductive rights are a subset of human rights. Seriously, without a source, discussion of this issue seems kind of pointless. Under "Relative emphasis" in WP:LEAD it states "In general, the relative emphasis given to material in the lead should reflect its relative importance to the subject according to reliable sources." There are no sources to the contrary provided, therefore no emphasis or mention is necessary. Right? All I'm asking for, with respect to the article, is one appropriately contextualized peer-reviewed source to support the contention that the def I have provided is POV and not fact. Given the level of documentation I've had to provide, I don't think this is unreasonable. I think it is a matter of WP policy. If this is such significant minority view in international reproductive rights discourses, it shouldn't be that difficult.

If you don't want to answer the bulleted questions, that's fine. But I think we need to address my last two questions in order to continue moving forward in our discussion. Can we agree that the opening sentence is not controversial, given that pro-life factions have ratified RR as HR, and that pro-life factions dispute abortion as a RR, not the categorization of RR as HR (though I'm still going to want reliable sources for treatment in the article)? And can we agree that per LEAD, no sources means no treatment in lead? Phyesalis (talk) 06:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

See my replies in the subsections below.

Conflict resolution

I'm dividing my reply into two subsections. I hope you will reply in the appropriate subsections, especially keeping any discussion of user behaviour out of the article content section.

Re advice on dealing with a user more productively: Following my advice in the current situation will not be easy. It will take a lot of patience, soul-searching and tolerance/thick skin/water off a duck's back or whatever the expression is. But, I believe it will probably be more satisfying for you in the long run than actions that are more likely to be met with larger amounts of behaviours that bothers you in response.

Basically, it goes like this. My understanding of the Wikipedia conflict resolution process is that the first step when someone behaves inappropriately is to ignore it. (Except perhaps for certain things including 3RR, which have other easily-defined responses.) Maybe they realize the behaviour is inappropriate and will correct themselves on their own, or maybe they disagree about whether it's inappropriate and trying to call them on it might just start a big argument or something. Anyway, regardless of what Wikipedia policy recommends, what I recommend to you at the current time and in the current situation is to refrain from making any remarks, anywhere on Wikipedia, about Blackworm's behaviour, for at least four consecutive days and over a time period during which you're also interacting with Blackworm over article content. This means that even if Blackworm makes remarks about user conduct or does things you think are inappropriate, you don't take the bait. (If there doesn't happen to be any interaction over article content, then I would encourage you to tell yourself that there's no problem at that time so no action is needed anyway.) At the same time, also keeping everything you say to Blackworm or about Blackworm's edits polite and friendly -- even if Blackworm is not. During that time also making efforts to heal bad feelings and restore good relations between yourself and Blackworm. Also trying to calm down yourself and develop a calm, friendly attitude towards Blackworm.

Later, there may be an appropriate time and manner for politely and gently complaining directly to Blackworm about his behaviour, but to get a good chance of a positive, cooperative response you first have to do a lot of work on getting everything out of your own posts that might tend to irritate Blackworm (and keep the irritants out for several days steadily before, during and after making one gentle, friendly complaint). You might not like my advice but that's what it is.

In order to do this effectively, you need to be able to predict how Blackworm will react to what you say. To do that, you need to put yourself in Blackworm's shoes: as nearly as you can, (which must be more than trivially near to be of much use, so you might have to work on it,) you need to think Blackworm's thoughts and feel Blackworm's feelings. You need to read your posts imagining that you're Blackworm and they're directed at you, and feel with some accuracy how those posts feel to Blackworm. This is not at all easy when you're emotionally involved yourself. You might practice first by reading things other people have written to each other in conflicts, imagining that you are on first one side and then the other of the conflict and trying to feel what they felt. If you can imagine yourself reacting by writing what they wrote in response, then you're succeeding. See if you can feel the feelings that motivated Blackworm to respond as he did and imagine yourself reacting as he did.

(By the way, in addition to advising you for what I believe is your own benefit to refrain from making user-conduct remarks on article talk pages, I'm also requesting for my own benefit that you do so. It will be easier for me to join into talk page discussions if they don't take up space with user-conduct arguments. If at some time I think our interests don't coincide on something like that I might just tell you I can't advise you one way or another on something -- or I might say something like that if I feel uncertainty about what is the best course. You of course can also decide whether you think my advice is worth following.)

I suggest that before making any complaints to Blackworm, you first run the wording by me here on my talk page and let me help you formulate it as gently and politely as the two of us working together are able to make it. It's not time for that, though. First you need to work on healing the broken working relationship. Another aspect of healing the relationship is apologizing. Now, maybe you believe that everything you've done is appropriate and within Wikipedia policies and guidelines. No, wait, you've admitted above to not being perfect. Anyway, even if you believe your behaviour was appropriate, I hope you can see that things you did and said almost certainly induced negative feelings in Blackworm. For example, being criticized tends to lead to the person feeling bad, even if the criticism is accurate. Also, I hope you can see that almost certainly Blackworm believes that some of what you did was inappropriate. Therefore, an apology, worded well, could go a long way towards helping to improve things. You can go on a long walk, think it over, sleep on it, maybe read over things you wrote and see if you see things that might have bothered Blackworm or maybe even things you can admit could be seen as inappropriate, and see what kind of apology you can bring yourself to make. Be careful, though. It might be best to run the wording of an apology by me, too. If it has if's and's or but's attached (or any of a bunch of other things) or if it's seen by Blackworm as far too weak, apologizing for something trivial when he feels you've done something far worse that you should be aware of, or if it also contains excuses etc. then it might possibly do more harm than good.

Also, before making any complaint, even the gentlest possible one, I suggest waiting for some sign from Blackworm that relations have improved in response to your attempts to improve things as recommended above. (Unless maybe Blackworm does something far worse meanwhile, but I advise you not to trust yourself to judge that with regard to Blackworm these days but to ask me or others for opinions before reacting. Better just to assume that possibility isn't in the picture.) And then only one complaint at a time, and using Active listening to show understanding towards Blackworm about his reaction to your complaint, even if that reaction is rather defensive as reactions to complaints often are. And not repeating a complaint. I advise that in general (with perhaps some exceptions) when someone does something you believe is inappropriate that you complain either zero or one time -- not more than once. If the person doesn't seem to "get it" don't repeat it. They may just not be open to taking in that message -- maybe it gives them bad feelings -- and trying to force it in by repeating it is not going to help. Choose the timing, place and wording carefully the first time, and then just leave it (or rather, switch to active listening -- if you show understanding of another's position, they're more likely to be open to your message.)

You say you had already acknowledged that article talk pages are not the place to discuss user conduct. I wonder when you acknowledged that, because this comment by you seems pretty recent to me. This is the type of comment that I'm advising you not to post, most importantly not anywhere and as a less important point, not on an article talk page. I could go into detail about the things about it that I advise against. If relations between you and Blackworm were not already broken down, I might have advised instead of this post a much shorter, much gentler message to him, on his talk page, containing only one complaint stated once as politely as possible. Under the current circumstances, where friendly communication has broken down, I would have advised not complaining at all. In general, it's best not to put several complaining sentences in the same post. Just one complaint in one sentence. Piling them up makes it hard for the person to remain calm when reading the complaint. If you're going to complain about something, you can choose the one thing that bothers you most, complain gently about that, and ignore the other behaviours. (By avoiding building up too much negative emotion in the other person, this approach increases the probability of a positive response.) But to repeat myself (sorry, just what I'm advising you not to do!) in this circumstance, i.e. at least for the next 4 days, I'd advise against posting any complaint against Blackworm at all. Maybe not even 3RR. :-)

You said in that post, "Your edit is a de facto accusation of lying." Human nature is that we tend to see insults against ourselves more often than other people see them. Before making an accusation like this (i.e. accusing someone of accusing you of lying), it's a good idea to check whether it's something that merely feels to you like an accusation of lying, or something that seems to most people to be such an accusation. It doesn't look to me like an accusation of lying, and apparently it doesn't to Blackworm either. I see that you took less than an hour before responding like that. It's better, with something that bothers you like that, to take 24 hours to calm down first so you can think more clearly. Then maybe you could look at it again and see that it's the type of thing that might not clearly look to everyone like an accusation of lying. Or at least you might be able to word your response a little more calmly. (Except that to repeat myself again, just for clarification, that's what I would advise when relations are generally better. In the current situation I would advise simply not responding at all.) It's just not useful or effective to tell someone they've accused you of lying if what they said looks to most people like it's not an accusation of lying. Just as it's human nature that an insult against oneself tends to look clearly like an insult even if others don't tend to see it that way, so also the person who wrote something tends to see it as much more unexceptionable than how others see it. So there's not much point trying to convince someone that what they wrote is wrong if most other people don't see it that way -- you're just not likely to convince them, and the effort to do so only makes relations worse. (I haven't taken a survey about how most people see that particular exchange.) If you're going to complain about something, wait until there's a clear case. I also don't see any reason for your asking Blackworm to assume good faith in that context. (Please don't explain it. I'm advising you not to say things like that in that context -- I'm not asking you to explain why you said it. Explaining that here would only add fuel to the fire.)

So, there's some advice for you, for what it's worth. Re reciprocity for requests for sources: My opinion is that there is no such reciprocity. Finding sources is something that is much-needed by Wikipedia and much appreciated when it's done. Thank you for finding some sources for the reproductive rights article, for example. However, in my opinion nobody has to find sources if they don't want to (or can't, or can't easily for any of a myriad of reasons), just as nobody has to edit a particular article at a particular time. People can choose how they want to contribute. If you ask for sources and the other person doesn't provide them, then two things happen: (1) you may have a strong case for removing some sentences from the article as being unsourced, and (2) you (and others) are probably not convinced by the other editor's argument. However, just because you are not convinced does not mean you can assume that they are convinced by your argument. There may still be a disagreement requiring discussion and finding a mutually acceptable solution or best possible compromise according to WP:CONSENSUS. I don't mean an argument about whether to include unsourced statements; rather, I mean an argument about whether to include sourced statements A or sourced statements B when there is a lack of a source C establishing a point that would make it clear that A is better than B.

Also, in my opinion, not providing any sources is not a sign of bad faith, regardless of how many sources the other person provided. I can see how you might think it could be bad faith if you believe that there is a responsibility to reciprocate in finding sources, but if the other person, like me, doesn't think there is that responsibility (or, like me, it never even occurred to them that someone would think there was,) then it isn't actually bad faith. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for all the time you have put into this. There's some really good advice in there. And thanks for noting my contributions to the article. I appreciate that. I'm going to abstain from addressing BW for a few days. I am not going to apologize, I've already tried that and gotten nothing out it of it but increased frustration. I think he should apologize to me (of course - right?). While I still appreciate the offer, I hope you'll understand when I decline your offer to submit my comments for your approval, particularly given your editing history with Blackworm. If not for your possible vested interest in Circumcision and Reproductive rights, I might have taken you up on it. Maybe not, as it strikes me as just a wee bit paternalistic. I hope you don't take offense at this. I'm not accusing you of anything untoward.

But I'm unclear on something, you don't think that repeatedly accusing someone of POV violations without providing any sources to support the accusations is a lack of good faith? Maybe good faith isn't it - maybe this is just a violation of civility? Is this really acceptable? As always, thanks for the effort and advice. Phyesalis (talk) 05:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't mind at all. No obligation to take up my offer, and you save me from getting into areas where conflict-of-interest could get more complicated. Alternatively, you can have someone else help you edit your more critical (in two senses) posts, or leave them for a few hours or overnight and re-edit them yourself before posting. I'm pleased that you're listening to and considering my advice and don't expect you to follow all of it necessarily.

I've already said a lot so I hope you don't mind if I add a couple more things. One is that I suggest you work on receiving Blackworm's complaints in the same gracious manner that you would hope Blackworm would receive yours. You don't necessarily have to agree with them, but you can take them seriously, think them over and reply in a way that makes it clear you're doing that. Reverts can be considered a type of criticism and also responded to in the same way.

You said you'd made efforts to de-escalate tension, so I wonder whether you don't realize how some of your posts to Blackworm come across. You might not get very far making efforts to de-escalate tension if, within the same period of several days, you also say things to the person that tend to raise the emotional temperature. If you're interested, I can describe how I think I would react to some of your posts if they were directed at me.

One more thing: you might want to think about how you're formulating the problem. A clear description of what the problem is and what you're trying to accomplish can help a lot. A good description of a problem should help make it clear when the solution has been achieved. It's best focussed more in areas where you have some control/influence, e.g. the future rather than the past. And it can help to be fairly specific, perhaps dividing it into subproblems to be addressed separately.

Re POV violations: The way I tend to think of it, an article can violate the WP:NPOV policy. I don't tend to think of individual editors as violating the NPOV policy. In my opinion, normally an accusation that someone's edit violates NPOV is not uncivil but is just normal Wikipedia editing, to be discussed if there is disagreement about it. However, the way it's worded could very easily slip into being uncivil. Again, I don't think there's any requirement to provide sources to support such an accusation. Failure to provide sources simply means that fewer editors are likely to agree with you and approve the way you want to edit. Sources are not always required to establish violation of NPOV, in my opinion. For example, if I'm patrolling new pages and I run across one that says "... is a leading sompany in the field of ..., providing excellent services to the customer ..." I might just delete the phrase "providing excellent services to the customer" because it's obviously (to me) a violation of NPOV, even though I have no source to support that. If someone asks me to support that type of edit with a source, I almost certainly would not go looking for any. I don't see anything inappropriate or uncivil about that. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I could go on, but I have a feeling that this section of this discussion may be drawing to a close, so I'll quiet down pending signs of further interest from you.

One mistake I made in the above was making assumptions, including assuming I understood well enough what you thought the problem was. I was wrong on that. I should have asked at an earlier stage for you to clarify what the problem was.

I salute your openness in being willing to listen to advice from a non-neutral party, and thinking deeply and being willing to change your perspective. As I said, it's not easy! --Coppertwig (talk) 12:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way: I don't know what you mean by "your possible vested interest in Circumcision and Reproductive rights". I've edited those articles and am proud of the hard work I did at Circumcision, but the phrase "vested interest" seems misplaced to me. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Content of Reproductive rights

"Pro-life advocates do not dispute the fact that reproductive rights are a set of human rights (evident in the fact that pro-life factions ratified various reproductive rights as human rights in numerous treaties and platforms - not too controversial), they dispute the fact that abortion is a reproductive right - totally different issue. Can we agree on this?" No, I think that's the sort of thing that would be practically impossible to prove. Nobody's going to take a survey of all 6 billion or however many people there are in the world now asking each of them "Are you a pro-life advocate who disputes whether reproductive rights are human rights?" In the absence of such a survey, we only have speculation that there are no such people. Even if a source is found stating that there are no such people, I would question the reliability and neutrality of that source. Besides, I think different people would interpret the words of the question differently, especially when it's translated into multiple languages.

You "don't see much of a reason to change anything". Can we agree on the fact that I and Blackworm do see a reason to change something, even if you don't see it (yet) or don't agree with it?

Re the opening sentence of human rights: "Human rights refers to "the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law." " Actually, that sentence looks reasonably neutral to me. Note that it's a definition from a dictionary, not from a UN declaration. Note also that it contains the phrase "often held to include," which acknowledges the existence of a variety of opinions. Also, I'm not aware of any significant vocal minority that's likely to object to that statement, in contrast to the reproductive rights one where I can think of at least one, maybe more ... there are likely people who strongly object to the idea that the government should pay for expensive fertility services, for example. I find it harder to imagine anyone who feels very strongly that there should be no human rights recognized at all, and i think only those (if they exist) would have reason to complain about the human rights opening sentence, and possibly even they would find it acceptable as written. Those who believe there should be no human rights at all (if there are such people) must necessarily be a smaller minority than those who believe that certain reproductive rights, or all reproductive rights, should be excluded from the set of human rights. I may reply more another day if I have time. This is an interesting discussion. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be really helpful if you would answer my last question: And can we agree that per LEAD, no sources means no treatment in lead? I certainly acknowledge that the two of you see a need to change things. By all means, please, get a source and change them! If you want to introduce the phrase "often held to include", I have no objections. If that will ameliorate the dispute - done. Again, I have actively requested suggestions and outright edits. This is why. I'm all for a good compromise. Phyesalis (talk) 05:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No sources means no treatment in lead, OK. In fact, same goes for the whole article, according to WP:V. However, I don't think any additional source is necessarily needed in order to change the wording. The sources do not say "If you're going to quote from or summarize this source, you must quote only the following sentence in its entirety and no other." There are different ways to summarize the same source. I've already suggested several alternative wordings above and I'm not sure that you've addressed why you think those wouldn't work.

"often held to include" are good words but I'm not sure how they would fit into the reproductive rights sentence. "Human rights are often held to include reproductive rights"? I don't think that's what you want to say.

I'm not sure I can view the first source online. Maybe you could provide a relevant quote from it, here on my talk page or at Talk:Reproductive rights, or tell me where it is if you've already done so. Or tell me where to click to view the source online. However, based on the second source plus weaseling a bit, here's another draft first sentence: "International organizations such as Amnesty International consider reproductive rights to be human rights." Actually, I don't much like it because it has the nature of a statement, while usually first sentences are more like definitions. I think first sentences don't have to necessarily be definitions. Actually, maybe it's not NPOV because there might be other organizations (not necessarily international organizations) that don't agree with that. The first sentence should be solidly neutral, not something that's quite likely to be found non-neutral later on when more sources are found. That one might be better as a second sentence, with something like a definition as the first sentence. However, as a first sentence I find it better than the current one. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little short on time right now, so I'll address the other things you brought up in the near future. For now, the stable link to the first source is in the citation. Even if you can't access JSTOR, you should be able to read the first page (it's a start). If this isn't it, let me know. But I think all the sources that I contributed have the stable link in the citation. Again, without a source, I'm not seeing how the first sentence isn't neutral. Without a source that documents a contradiction of those sources present, I'm afraid I just can't see a reason to change it. You assert that some may disagree. I say, I'm pretty sure no significant or reliable source in RR discourses disagree. I provided sources, neither you nor BW have provided sources to back up the claim that the ref'd statement isn't neutral. Just one reliable source and this whole thing would be so much easier. I don't think this is a lot to ask. I say this because I'd really be interested in finding a peer-review source that disputes any part of the statement "Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights relating to sexual reproduction and reproductive health". I thought I addressed your other suggestions but when I have more than a moment, I'll sit down and reread the posts to see what I have missed. Thanks again. Phyesalis (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't feel you have to look back through my comments for those suggestions unless you want to. Recent edits at reproductive rights may have made some of them moot. I'll re-state (sooner or later) any suggestions that I still want to discuss. I don't have much time now either but I'll probably discuss this more on the article talk page when I have time. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the kind words on my talk page. It's taken me a while to respond because I've had a family emergency, however, it was really nice to get back and read your notes. Thanks for taking the time to fix my links. As for the revert issue, please don't give it another thought. I actively requested edits, you made an edit and invited me to revert and discuss, I did revert, but modified it in response to your edit and discussed it. To me, that's the epitome of WP process. It was civil and productive. Edits after that are not your responsibility. I think Andrew's comment was less about 3RR and more about a sustained pattern. Either way, I appreciate you pointing out the self-revert box. I'm not going to have a ton of time over the next few days, so, here's to resuming substantive discussion in the near future. Phyesalis (talk) 17:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow -- you're still not mad at me about anything? This is great. :-) I'm sorry about your family emergency and hope all goes well. I've really enjoyed our discussions and hope to continue when you have time. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

NOR Request for arbitration

Because of your participation in discussions relating to the "PSTS" model in the No original research article, I am notifying you that a request for arbitration has been opened here. I invite you to provide a statement encouraging the Arbcom to review this matter, so that we can settle it once and for all. COGDEN 23:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)