Talk:Confrontation analysis

The worked example
It is possible that the worked example from the 1990s should be put in a sub-article, as it is very long and just an example.--Toddy1 (talk) 08:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Article name
Should this article be called Confrontation Analysis or Drama Theory?--Toddy1 (talk) 08:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Italicisation of drama theory jargon
WP:ITALIC says "Italics may also be used where, in the course of using a term in an article, that term is being defined, introduced or distinguished in meaning." I think this is the reason for some of the jargon being italicised. Please could you add a glossary of the jargon. Note that in the glossary you should use bold - see WP:MOSBOLD.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Article written by Expert and not enough secondary sources
I must admit to being an expert on the subject of confrontation analysis. This is why people asked me to write the article, and why I wrote it. Obviously being an expert on a subject should not disqualify you from writing on Wikipedia, rather it should be a reason why you should contribute. Wikipedia is now very comprehensive, and it is difficult to write a new article on anything without being an expert.

I think I understand what the COI header is about, as I believe it is designed to prevent partisan sources editing in controversial subjects. However I do not think that a mathematical process (such as confrontation analysis) can be considered controversial in the same way as a political, religious, or conspiracy theory article could be. . We do not say “2+2 =4 except in some areas of Somalia where it is 7” 2+2 is always 4. One of the elegancies of Mathematics is that it does not produce “controversial” outcome in the same way politics or religion does. Perhaps you could you point me to (say 3) other articles about mathematical processes that have warnings that that are not written neutrally.

Please could you tell me where you think I have not been neutral in what I have written so I can correct it.

However, I was advised by veteran Wikipedia editor not to edit using my real name, but to use a pseudonym. This I didn’t do, perhaps on principle, as I believe in openness. He did warn that using my real name would just cause trouble, and didn’t believe this to be the case. It now looks as if my advisors were right. I should have edited anonymously, so as to avoid the hassle of explaining myself here.

I will start a new user and edit and write future articles under a pseudonym. However I will continue to edit this article under my real name.

As for notability, at the moment I have links to eight sources, only one of which is written by me. Please could you make it clear what the minimum number of articles I need to link to is. Please tell me and I will add the extra links. I must also admit to being very confused about what you mean by secondary articles. I fully understand the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in historical articles. I do not understand how an article describing a mathematical process can be considered primary or secondary in the same way that history can be.

So let’s not get into a revert war about this. If you would like to discuss, please do underneath and when you do so could you please be polite enough to immediately send me an email to say you have commented. I am contactable via my user page. Mike Young (talk) 18:40, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Will give a couple of weeks before changing the template (was told that was the way to do it) Mike Young (talk) 21:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I have also just listened to a podcast about Wikipedia asking why more academics don't contribute to Wikipedia.... Is the reason that academics are discouraged by notices such as this? Mike Young (talk) 09:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Removed the comments... No response Mike Young (talk) 11:38, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * If you are the person mentioned in the Financial Times and the British House of Commons report on Libya, then you are a world expert on this mathematical technique. Nevertheless it is wrong for you to remove the COI tag from the article.  Only a neutral third party can do this.


 * I do not know whether you have a conflict of interest of not.


 * It is a pity that the editor who added the COI tag did not explain properly why he/she tagged the article.


 * I think the explanation is something like this. If a great scientist like Lysenko or a great engineer like Smirnov wrote an article for Wikipedia on a subject he was a world expert on, quoting his own works, then some people might think that he had a conflict of interest.  They would think that, even though the article was written from a neutral point of view as your article is written from.


 * I have therefore reverted you. If you dispute the conflict of interest tag, please either be patient and wait for a neutral third party to remove it, or use the Dispute resolution noticeboard--Toddy1 (talk) 12:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I am a confrontation analysis practitioner and this article contains links to works from a variety of key researchers/practitioners in this area - so there's no indication that it's a self serving article. The author is an active practitioner, but the article covers the major sources and elements of the process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.3.76.3 (talk) 19:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Example pictures
Unless I'm misreading it, the text of the example in the article doesn't fit with the accompanying pictures. It refers to 'rows' when it should refer to 'columns'. Either that or the pictures need to be changed. Robofish (talk) 19:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep that's right. Article corrected Mike Young (talk) 12:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The text and the images disagree in at least two other respects: WildGardener (talk) 16:58, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) The text indicates that the "take hostages" option belongs to the Bosnian Serbs, while the image shows it belonging to the UN.
 * 2) Possibly related to #1, the text indicates that the UN faces three persuasion dilemmas, but the image only shows two.

Thanks, my fault for uploading too fast and making mistakes. Diagrams now corrected Mike Young (talk) 11:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)