Talk:HIV/AIDS denialism

"Erroneous belief" discussion
I am opening this discussion after the recent series of back-and-forth reverts that started as a result of my addition of the word "erroneous" into the first sentence of this article. Per the scientific consensus on the HIV pathogen, it does indeed cause AIDS if left untreated, and denying said fact is by definition erroneous, since denialists do not have any factual or scientific basis at all for their claims and are repeating incorrect statements, which I have clarified in my edit summaries. The definition of "erroneous" is also clear according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

"Wrong; incorrect."

So why were my edits still reverted in spite of my explanation and the fact it didn't damage the article? Even when I cited WP:DONTREVERT to hopefully end this edit war, Antandrus swiftly came in and rolled it back with the same reasoning of "no improvement", even though the very page I have cited contradicts said reasoning, as it states:

"Do not revert an edit because that edit is unnecessary, i.e. the edit does not improve the article. For a reversion to be appropriate, the reverted edit must actually make the article worse. Wikipedia does not have a bias toward the status quo (except in cases of fully developed disputes, while they are being resolved). In fact, Wikipedia has a bias toward change, as a means of maximizing quality by maximizing participation." Kaltionis (talk) 00:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The proposed edit makes the article worse. Good revert. VQuakr (talk) 01:02, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The first proposed edit, which only adds in "erroneous" to the first sentence while leaving everything else unchanged, does not make the article worse (As in compromising the factual accuracy of information, violating Wikipedia policy, or disrupting its tone), especially since the word "erroneous" is describing statements or beliefs that are false, misleading, or incorrect, which denialism of scientific facts represents. A clarification as to why would said edit worsen the quality of this article would be appropriate in this case. Kaltionis (talk) 01:10, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The status quo phrasing, "HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, contradicted by conclusive evidence..." adequately communicates the status of HIV denialism. Additional negative modifiers are unnecessarily repetitive. Unnecessary repetition makes the article worse. VQuakr (talk) 01:15, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, your addition made the article worse, as I explained twice in my edit summaries, Kaltionis: "'Erroneous' and 'contradicted by conclusive evidence' is the same thing. No need for tautology" and "it does make the prose style less encyclopedic and less grownup". Yet you simply continued to revert, referring (with I suppose unintentional humor) to WP:DONTREVERT. I don't really see how I can "clarify" it further than I already did, but I'll try one more time: making the style less grownup damages the article. Bishonen &#124; talk 11:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC).


 * "I am opening this discussion after the recent series of back-and-forth reverts that started as a result of my addition of the word "erroneous" into the first sentence of this article. Per the scientific consensus on the HIV pathogen, it does indeed cause AIDS if left untreated, and denying said fact is by definition erroneous, since denialists do not have any factual or scientific basis at all for their claims and are repeating incorrect statements, which I have clarified in my edit summaries." The problem with that unsourced statement, is that it erroneously presumes that 'denialists' (an emotive word) only believe that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The problem is that there are many more problems with the orthodox view of HIV/AIDS. First, the prosaic origin story of the 'Bush Meat' origin of the epidemic and the subsequent building epidemic escaping from the jungle; or the gay flight attendant Gaetan Dugas being 'patient zero', while in fact it was Merck's (hepatitis B) vaccine Interview with prof. dr. Maurice Hilleman which was the origin of SIV in the gay communities of New York, LA and San Francisco; IV drug users; prostitutes and Haitian immigrants exposed to bad water. Then, there is the extent of the epidemic, also known as 'AIDS in Africa', which is completely based on modeling, and is not supported by predictions made about population growth or mortality. 83.84.100.133 (talk) 08:21, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that denialists believe other loony crap does not make their erroneous belief that HIV does not cause AIDS less erroneous, so this is irrelevant. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:07, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent IP vandalism and 2018 sock
Hi Ezequiel, ¿cómo sos vos? ¿Todo bien? , fyi and for the record: the recent IP vandalism at the article is highly reminiscent of indeffed (sock: ) and a slew of IP addresses, many of which are enumerated at User talk:191.85.20.46. See also: User talk:190.173.150.216, User talk:190.173.138.153, User talk:190.173.161.2, and User talk:191.85.20.46. I tried my best to bring Ezequiel (in 2018, a minor child) back into the fold, but was unable to. Sad to see he's still at it. was heavily involved and may want a ping; as was who was very helpful; so were a lot of other admins, notably  Huon, Kudpung, Yamla, 331dot, and others. Mathglot (talk) 22:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Appreciate the history, Mathglot. I remembered there was an LTA who focused on this page, though it was escaping me who it was — I don't have a great memory for those things. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's absolutely him. I've followed for a while. FYI he also typically simultaneously vandalizes Simple and the Spanish wikis. Antandrus (talk) 22:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks for that. Convenience links:
 * Negacionismo del VIH/sida ( historia, discusión) – some vandalism
 * HIV ( history, talk) – clean so far
 * AIDS ( history, talk) – some vandalism
 * also includes (here) this wmflabs guc link for cross-wiki vandalism, showing him vandalizing Basque, French, Dutch, German, and Portuguese (pt-talk) wikis. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * could you run the guc tool run on the IP ranges indicated? There may be more than one range; see above. Mathglot (talk) 23:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)