User:Mr-Natural-Health/archive

I noticed on Requests for mediation that Theresa Knott has requested mediation between you and her as a proxy for the wider wikipedian community. I also noted that you have declined assent to that measure. I urge you to reconsider. Assenting to mediation can only serve to enchance both your case in possible further proceedings, and your reputation on wikipedia in general. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 09:58, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)

Please consider participating in mediation and post your reponse on Requests for mediation Fred Bauder 06:48, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I noticed that you have assented to mediation. Do you feel that your problems are with the wikipedia as a community, and if you so feel, would you accept Theresa Knott to represent their concerns within the mediation process? Or would you prefer to engage in mediation with her as a person, and possibly initiate individual mediations with other wikipedia contributors you have problems with? -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 07:08, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

==Your mediation with Theresa Knott== I am enquiring you both on the behalf of Wikipedias mediation committee that you indicate which mediators would you would prefer to mediate between you. You may indicate a strict order of preference, or list those mediators acceptable to you, or those which are unacceptable to you; or any combination of the above. Do note however that Ed Poor has indicated that he shall be unavailable in this particular mediation. You might also consider the fact that if there is no mediator that is at the very least acceptable to both, mediation is untenable, which would be very unfortunate, and may (although not automatically) even possibly lead the dispute to move directly into binding arbitration without a mediation phase. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 01:09, Jan 23, 2004 (UTC)

==Mediation and arbitration==

As per your request, I have informed the arbitration committee that the dispute that Theresa Knott has brought on behalf of the wikipedia community shall be bypassed the mediation phase, and they may consider whether they accept it as a cause for arbitration.

You have indicated that you have a specific matter regarding alternative medicine about which you wish to enter into mediation. Who would you designate as the person, or persons against whom you have the conflict in that case?

(on behalf of the mediation committee)
 * Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 01:58, Jan 23, 2004 (UTC)

==Request for Arbitration==
 * The arbitration committee is not able to arbitrate disputes until an appropriate process has been created and approved. Please pursue other avenues in the meantime. Sorry to have disturbed you. Fred Bauder 19:02, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

==Commencing with mediation==

I have been appointed your mediator. If you mail me an acknowledgement to my e-mail address (jheiskan "at" welho.com), we may commence with mediation. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 04:14, Jan 27, 2004 (UTC)

- === Case of Theresa Knott and Mr. Natural Health ===

Case referred to the arbitration committee by Jimbo Wales on 6 Feb 2004, 15:15 UTC. Four arbitrators voted to accept this case: Fred Bauder, Martin Harper, Sean Barrett, and UninvitedCompany. The case is thus accepted for arbitration on 6 Feb 2004, 19:43. The arbitration committee will make a final decision no later than 13 Feb 2004, 19:43. Martin 19:50, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Brief statements by User:Theresa knott and User:Mr-Natural-Health and links to evidence relevant to this matter may be placed at Matter of Theresa knott and Mr-Natural-Health. Fred Bauder 01:16, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin and the committee. MNH may have brought some knowledge on natural and alternative health, but his writing was too often non-encyclopedic. Much of his final talk page comments were incoherent; not quite gibberish, but not to the point at all.

His assertion that "POV" should not be in the Wikipedia shows either an utter lack of understanding or a determined attempt to subvert our neutrality goals. All important points of view (POV) are to be incorporated into articles on controversial subjects. To say that reasons people favor or oppose alternative medicine are irrelevant to the article is a clear sign of a refusal to cooperate with this project. --Uncle Ed 21:19, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Criticisms, and their value...

From your "polemic: You certainly never publicly advertise that your work on articles is subject to immediate deletion, and that your person can be subjected to very public lynchings and personal attacks by the Wikipedian Thought police.

Mr-Natural Health, I must point out that this is patently untrue. The notice below every edit window on Wikipedia clearly reads: "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it." Furthermore, Wikipedia advertises itself as an open projet, and it is: open to submission from everybody, open to comments from anybody on its talk pages, and open for anyone to make incendiary edits or comments. That's the nature of the internet, and someone were to believe that Wikipedia was otherwise, that would illustrate their profound naievete regard human society in general. It's also, however, Wikipedia's strength, in that it doesn't require perfection in the first iteration; all articles and policies are works in progress, and all need improvement. Nothing is perfect here yet. Far from it.

I think that some Wikipedians haven't been as kind to you as they could have, and I wish that weren't the case. However, Wikipedia is the product of individuals in loose association, and it's still relatively young. Like all new communities, it takes a while for customs and rules to get ironed out (recall that it took the United States 13 years to adopt a workable constitution, and even then they had to amend a Bill of Rights in order to get all the states to ratify). Policies are not set in stone (with the exception, possibly, of NPOV), they're intepreted differently by different individuals; keep in mind that Wikipedia is not yet mature and it's actually healthy for a system to be "perturbed" a few times in order for it finally to reach a stable and workable equlibrium. (I think we're still years from this goal, if we are ever to reach it).

I think that it would be more useful if, instead of leveling vague criticisms of "the system," you could offer specific alternatives that people could comment on -- that way you can help the community adapt to the concerns of users like you, instead of simply raising the ire of a few. The community could then debate these suggestions and come to a consensus about what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, and how we can make things better. Articles and policies can only improve with calm discussion and deliberation, not hasty action, accusations, or inspecific and emotinally charged polemics.

I sincerely hope that you'll be able to integrate with the community, because you can bring valuable new perspectives on some topics -- and because Wikipedia's strength (in the end) will come out of the diversity of the individuals in the worldwide Wikipedia community. -- Seth Ilys 17:19, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Your point about the "real articles" is well taken, and there's a good deal of similar sentiment around. I try not to pay too much attention to numerical milestones and just add content. Just for kicks, you might be interested in checking out (if you haven't seen it already) Wikipedia at the Wayback archive -- page captures from when the project was only about 4 months old. It's astonishing how far the project has come since from its thorougly unimpressive beginnings. Three years from now -- who knows? Minamidaito, Okinawa may be 30k long with five subpages. ;) -- Seth Ilys 01:39, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The Ed Poor protection of Alternative medicine is nothing to do with me, I assure you. I agree with you that I felt we were reaching agreement, and making good progress in improving the article. - MykReeve 16:09, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * In response to your message on my talk page, you're perfectly correct - there are no current edit wars, and I would be happy for the page to be reverted to how it was before its protection today. I will state this more explicitly on Talk:Alternative medicine for confirmation. - MykReeve 16:20, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I note that you have been the target of some personal attacks. I have put notes on the user pages of the users who made the attacks I have noticed reminding them of our policies against personal attacks. I strongly suggest you avoid getting carried away with righteousness to the point you react too strongly against these attacks. Please do not mis-interpret my interest in this matter. I argued on the arbitration committee for your permanent ban. However you are a Wikipedia user in good standing and deserving of the same respect extended to all users. Fred Bauder 13:39, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

Casting me as a troll
Well, I've been called many things in my time: handsome, suave, witty, for example, are just a few of the ones I'm still waiting on. Troll, however, was not one I was expecting. This saddens me. I would like to try and clarify. - Lee (talk)  12:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Your accusation seems to be based on this sentence - "Where exactly have you seen the phrase used in the context you are using it?" which I admit was a slightly sly reference to MediaWiki custom messages. However, my edit of that page wasn't to try and obfuscate or alter the original meaning of the Project namespace section away from the manner you chose to use it, but to reaffirm it's actual original meaning which had become occluded by the inclusion of a couple of inappropriately placed elements (two elements - yours and one other). If you do not believe me, please observe this edit made only last month, in which User:Bensaccount changed the header from "Wikipedia namespace" to "Project namespace". The phrase "Project namespace" has never been used in the context in which you were using it, at least not on that page. If you mistakenly thought it was being used in that context on that page, then fair enough, but please don't accuse me of attempting to alter it's meaning. - Lee (talk)  12:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The other "troll-like" behaviour you ascribed to me was from my use of this phrase "Give me a weekend and a shovel, and I'll happily bury them all." which I made in response to "...but it would probably require a strikt policy to get rid of those already existing." [sic]. I was merely indicating my willingness to swiftly and ruthlessly enforce policy, were it to become policy. Your promise to engage in a revert war over this was inappropriate. - Lee (talk)  12:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I know that you've worked hard on trying to NPOV the articles on CAM, and are trying to draw all the related articles together under your wikiproject, and that this has created some opposition towards you from people who have a bias against all things CAM. I am not one of these people. Our zones of interest are so far apart that it is quite likely we'll never edit the same article (although if you ever create an album page, make sure those song titles are in quotes!). It seems to me we both got a little caught up on what, I agree with you, is currently rather a minor non-issue. - Lee (talk)  12:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)