Talk:Wesley R. Elsberry

Vandalism
This article was vandalized early in the morning July 1st. I deleted most of the junk that was inserted, but it still needs to be restored to what it was.-anon, 1 July 2007


 * My, what a class act the antievolutionists are putting on. --Wesley R. Elsberry 15:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW, could someone please revert this to a pre-July 1st version? There was nothing "attempted" about my Ph.D. program; you can verify my success via pulling up my dissertation record at the Thesis Office of Texas A&M University. --Wesley R. Elsberry 17:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have also sent email setting up an abuse report with Verizon. If anyone wishes to communicate with Verizon about it, the email is abuse@verizon.net and you should refer to case "[AB-C3117683A] Wikipedia vandalism incident". If anyone has suggestions for getting an actual identity of the libelous vandal, please contact me. --Wesley R. Elsberry 17:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC) (UTC)
 * I have reverted back to my version from earlier today, and have protected the article for 5 days against anonymous and newly registered users. I suggest you might want to take any issues about the article to Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard where administrators with experience in these matters could help out. SGGH speak! 18:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you kindly. --Wesley R. Elsberry 19:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It is likely that the libelous vandal here impersonated a California officer of the court in making a confession concerning his computer being used for the Wikipedia editing. The Riverside County DPSS is investigating the incident since it was one of their personnel that the vandal impersonated. I'll note more about this when I learn more. --Wesley R. Elsberry 19:21, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

AfD
I proposed deletion for this article. It was one of the early things I edited, before I had read up on various Wikipedia policies. A WP:AUTO problem is nonetheless no less bad due to my ignorance then.

There are also the WP:BIO criteria to consider. Do I merit a Wikipedia article? That can't be my decision. IIRC, I was filling in a blank article due to my name being used elsewhere, but I don't recall which article that might have been.

So this will have to be hashed out by the rest of Wikipedia. I can provide links for verification of things on request. --Wesley R. Elsberry 21:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Should the article on Wesley R. Elsberry's blog called The Austringer be merged as a sub-section of this article? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge. Although the comparison seems a bit outrageous, the precedent of the Perez Hilton celebrity blog is to tie it into the bio of the blog's author. So, I support a merge. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 16:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge. The blog is notable only within the context of Elsberry, so the content should be on here. &mdash;  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 04:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge. Not notable on its own. I see this proposal was initiated almost two months ago; has the instigator lost interest? Tualha (Talk) 14:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Discovery Institute complaint
Discovery Institute blog complaint about the Wikipedia entry on me This is pretty meta, but the Discovery Institute is aggrieved that media noticed that I opposed them and other religious antievolution efforts and was actually a marine biologist, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wesley R. Elsberry (talk • contribs) 17:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Boo hoo. See here for the pretty good reasons for the deletion of the Günter Bechly article: "lack of secondary sources", and "article was almost entirely created by the subject himself". This article does not have those weaknesses. For some reason, Klinghoffer forgot to mention that when comparing the two. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:25, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Wesley, there has been excessive deletion recently of unsourced content, so I've undone that and will do some work on sources. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated! . dave souza, talk 21:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

December 2019 rewrite
December 2019

I'm going to attempt a rewrite of this page so please let me know if you're going to make any changes. Thanks! Jonwnz (talk) 05:48, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I've added all required citations previously flagged and edited the page extensively. I've removed the 2 flags: citations and notability as new citations included should cover both issues. Please drop me a line if you've got any issues Jonwnz (talk) 04:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Hey Jonwnz. Why after your rewrite is the article now not notable? Have you been told why? It was not considered not-notable between its beginning in 2007 to 2019. CatCafe (talk) 00:18, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi It did have notability issues previously but the Austringer page being merged in with it and the additional citations added in rewrite should have taken care of that. No other information was provided except the tag added - nothing was posted in here or my Talk page Jonwnz (talk) 20:08, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * This has been a really good job at expending the article and adding further references. The problem is that what is needed are sources discussing Elsberry, rather than primary sources. Articles and papers by Elsberry, his CV, and his PhD all help with sourcing claims and expanding the article, but don't address notability, which needs to be indpendent, about the subject and non-trivial. - Bilby (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That is incorrect, and a selective interpretation of the notability guidelines. Jonwnz, in lieu of the tagger’s requirement for 'reliable sources that discuss the topic with significant coverage', on this and other pages, the following are acceptable or equivalent alternatives which give notability. They are; 1. “Does the article contain a credible claim of importance or significance?” (wikipedia guidelines specifically note this an alternative to above) [] and/or 2. "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability", thus producing what wikipedia guidelines consider "low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion".[]. It seems the article establishes notability these ways (1 & 2), and the recently added notability tag should be removed. If anything, the tagger has used the incorrect tag, wiki guidelines do not advise using the {notability} tag, rather to use the {more references} tag in these situations,[] if someone happens to be so compelled. CatCafe (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * There are valid sources (valid as in could be included in citations, not valid as valid content) that attack Elsberry personally with Nazi and Communist (!) name calling as, though a religious person, Elsberry rejected Intelligent Design being taught in schools. Elsberry was a vocal advocate and did a lot of blogging in the infancy of the internet and was a bastion for this subject. I did not think this was appropriate to include in a WP article and don't even think it should be in here but even a rudimentary search brings up all sort of unpleasantness that Elsberry was personally subjected to as he was a notable person on this subjectJonwnz (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * There's a couple of different issues there. In regard to "credible claim of importance", that doesn't relate to notability, but more to speedy deletion. If a biography doesn't make a credible claim of importance it can be deleted immediately without discussion. If it does, and if it doesn't meet one of the other speedy deletion critiera, it requires a longer process - at least a prod or a deletion discussion. But the claim doesn't mean that it is notable or it will survive that process.
 * In regard to depth of coverage, that is possible, yes, but you need to show a lot of sources, and it has to be about the subject. The problem here is that almost all of the new sources added have been primary sources, so they don't help here, and other sources are mostly trivial coverage. The exception is The Skeptical Inquirer, but a skeptics magazine commenting on a presentation by a skeptic at a skeptic's conference may not be enough.
 * Ultimately, there is enough to show borderline notability, but I'm leaning on the wrong side of that border. If we remove the tag and it goes to AfD we'll have 7 days to prove that the sources we need exist. If we retain the tag we have typically several months of to show it with other editors aware of the problem, and may never need to go to AfD. - Bilby (talk) 22:43, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * CatCafe, per this edit, we didn't agree to remove the tag. Keep in mind that if this does end up at AfD in the future, we will only have the seven days to find the sources we need, and people will not be aware of the issue prior to AfD. The problem hasn't been fixed - just hidden. - Bilby (talk) 22:54, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * CatCafe, and you give a link to where a "credible claim of importance" is listed as an alternativc to notability? I'm not aware of where that claim occurs. - Bilby (talk) 00:02, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify this, then, what the guideline says is that a credible claim of importance only relates to speed deletion, not notability, which needs to be addressed thorugh an AfD. It says "If the article makes a credible claim of importance or significance, so that A7 does not apply, but you believe the subject of the article may not be notable ... you might add the tag notability to the article." Importance isn't the same as notability. - Bilby (talk) 03:10, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Seriously Bilby here you are again tagging for notability a page that has sat on Wikipedia for years and years and now completely rewritten for the better and you suddenly seem to be aware of this rewrite? How did you even come across this rewrite as this is a brand new editor posting his first big rewrite. Are you following anti-creationists scientists from Florida pages? The only thing I can think of is that you tagged this page right after I posted on my Facebook page that the page was rewritten. Just like many other pages you suddenly show up on and tag. Hounding is creepy behavior. The argument from you is always the same, you are not satisfied, relate your interpretation of notability rules, all citations added aren't worthy. Sgerbic (talk) 00:11, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * If I wanted these gone I'd nominate them for AfD. I don't. I want to see them kept, but to do that I need to highlight issues such as notability. That we can can find the sources and keep them. Tagging does not mean they need to be deleted - tagging is a way of keeping the articles and fixing them. The problem we have is that you want articles about skeptics, but confuse trivial coverage with notability. People can be significant to a movement but we still can't write an article about them without the correct type of coverage. However, if we can find that coverage we're good. - Bilby (talk) 00:22, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Incorrect - we don't write only about skeptics - we write about all things science. And I like how you just glossed over your stalking behavior. Sgerbic (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that you don't write things about other subjects - just that the issue I have is with some of your writing on BLPs. And given that your organisation has, apparantly, over 100 editors, doesn't go through AfC, runs as a closed private group off-wiki to develop their own articles, and publicly post about everything they do - including telling those that they've written a negative BLP about that they've done so - a form of indepndent checking is warranted. - Bilby (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * OK Sgerbic, on the pattern of them targetting pages mentioned or liked by you off-wiki, that's hounding as I see it. As with other pages where this seems to have happened, I am not keen to put effort in fixing here if the notability tag was inspired by some type of off-wiki trolling. CatCafe (talk) 00:43, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah so you Bilby have decided that YOU are the one to stalk our work and be that force. You have so little confidence in the Wikipedia process I see. There is nothing wrong with working on a page as a group (closed or open) and making it the best it can be before making it live on Wikipedia. Once it is live it is open to all editors to make changes. I feel that you have some sort of agenda that isn't so much proving notability but needling. This is apparent because you tag first and then engage in these seemly endless talk conversations instead of seeing something that needs improvement and fixing it. Sgerbic (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I tag if there is an issue. Then rather than addressin the actual problem (sources about the subject), I get this team of people from GSoW all turning up to argue that I'm wrong, without really understanding the policy. But when I poltely try to explain what the policy is I'm accused of needling and endless talking. We need to fix the problems so we can keep these articles, rather than ignoring the issues and having tag-teams argue that the problems don't exist. - Bilby (talk) 00:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey I just posted a rewrite on Demonic possession - I'll save you the trouble of going over to my Facebook page to see what else is new. Also the page for H4K91ac which follows H4K12ac. You know what? Lots of the people on these talk pages are NOT GSoW, they are normal Wikipedia editors who are helping to improve a Wikipedia page. Trust the system Bilby you do not have to be responsible for everything GSoW writes. Sgerbic (talk) 01:07, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I do trust the system - but I'm also part of it. That said, so far the only people other than me in this thread are all GSoW.
 * I have a lot of respect for what GSoW does. The problem I tend to find is that advocacy groups - skeptic, pseudoscientific, or otherwise - tend to have trouble when it comes to BLPs, because there is so much baggage attached (both good and bad). Taylor Winterstein was a good example of where that happens - from the use of sexist language to describe her in the lead, thorugh to BLP issues within the body. With BLPs of skeptics the subjects can be borderline as to notability, but more needs to be done to establish that notbility under the guidelines. Being connected to the subjects - even just loosely - can make it hard to distinguish between sources that show that someone matters and sources that relate to notability requirements. - Bilby (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Hey Sgerbic, just to be clear to you, I am not connected to any of the subjects even loosely, as is being inferred. And it seems to me that my social-media is not being stalked, so it must be yours. So you are not out of line by taking it personally. I only see this one editor taking offense to the pages identified, no other critics have come here by their own accord. That speaks volumes to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CatCafe (talk • contribs) 01:49, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that you were connected to the subject, just explaining the general issue. And I'm not following your's or Sgerbic's social media accounts. But I will ask - why did you turn up here, given that you had never edited this article? - Bilby (talk) 01:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking to you, but note your 180 degree deflection. I think what Sgerbic is suggesting is that you ask that question of yourself first. As trolling or stalking has been identified here, it is inapproriate, and the general rule is not to engage, and therefore I have nothing more to add. CatCafe (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I answered that questionz. You didn't. Nor did you answer my other questions above regarding notability. But so be it. - Bilby (talk) 02:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 1.Your edit history shows where you have put {notability} tags on the pages Sgerbic refers to regards fb stalking, including this page here. 2.The link is provided above regards my statement. So your questions are futile to even ask, so no need to further engage me. CatCafe (talk) 03:01, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I will note that I started an AFD for this page back in 2006, and there's a note on that from me in this talk page. I don't know how extensive discussion on requirements was back then, and I didn't participate, but if there is information from that it likely would be relevant to the discussion now. Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Since we usually put a tag on the talk page for deletion discussions, I looked but didn't find the AfD. I however noticed a proposed deletion (made here), so have added an (optional) tag for it.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 04:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Creation–evolution controversy
Just a note as I see this article uses it a lot: the article's name is now rejection of evolution by religious groups because there is no real scientific debate about if evolution occurs. It may be possible to reword these instances (or some of them) to avoid supporting an impression of false balance. There of course are political and religious debates about it however, especially in the United-States in relation to teaching creationism and biology in schools... — Paleo Neonate  – 04:49, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I made an attempt. May need grooming. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for picking that up, have made a couple of modifications. . . dave souza, talk 09:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I had no idea this would be so fast and done by familiar editors. It's already much better, many thanks,Face-smile.svg  — Paleo  Neonate  – 10:30, 13 September 2020 (UTC)