User:Valjean/Leftcolumn

My tenure here
I started editing as an IP in 2003, before the English Wikipedia had 200,000 articles. My fingerprints are still in our most important policies and guidelines.

Articles and other stuff
A few of the articles I have entirely written, started, or added significant content:


 * Consciousness of guilt (legal)
 * Topics of the Mueller special counsel investigation
 * Strategies and skills of Jeopardy! champions
 * Hunter Biden laptop controversy
 * Timelines related to Donald Trump and Russian interference in United States elections
 * List of Trump–Russia dossier allegations (now merged into Steele dossier)
 * Charlotte's Web (cannabis)
 * Reindeer hunting in Greenland
 * Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations
 * Spinal disc herniation - Together with Dematt
 * Joint manipulation
 * Flora and fauna of Greenland
 * WikiProject Greenland/Greenland nature galleries
 * List of osteopathic colleges
 * Chiropractic treatment techniques
 * Matchbox sign
 * Template:ArbComPseudoscience
 * Category:Vitalism
 * Category:Alternative medical diagnostic methods
 * Wikiproject User Rehab
 * X Femmes
 * The Girl on the Bridge (1951 film)
 * List of Cannes Film Festival juries (Feature films)
 * Wee Kirk o' the Heather (My parents were married at the one in Glendale.)
 * Ancestral Quest
 * Canadian Family Physician
 * Manipulation
 * Lucilia (wife of Lucretius)
 * Hair analysis (alternative medicine)
 * Vis medicatrix naturae
 * Chiropractic education
 * Talk:Quackwatch/Use of Quackwatch as a source
 * Template:Talk abuse
 * Template:Trump–Russia relations

Essays

 * My media diet (personal essay)
 * How to create and manage a good lead section (how-to guide)
 * NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content (essay)
 * Factors that influence article size (essay)
 * Why Wikipedia documents opinions and nonsense (personal essay)
 * How to increase Wikipedia's credibility (personal essay)
 * WikiPurpose (personal essay)
 * Short BRD (essay)
 * Thoughts on sources (personal essay)
 * The essence of Wikipedia (essay)
 * Reliable sources, Trump, and his editors here (personal essay)
 * Conspiracy theory accusations (essay)
 * An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing (substantial contributions to this essay)
 * Unidentified Flying Reindeer (humor, not essay)

A basic citation template I like to use

 * This is good practice indeed. I also like that you use some breathing space between parameters, that makes citations much easier to read and update. Let me suggest an improvement: when you cite a newspaper, replace cite web by cite news, and use newspaper=The Guardian instead of website=The Guardian. There are handy substitutes for "newspaper": you may equivalently use "magazine" or the generic "work" (which I tend to use because it's shorter and always valid). It's also nice to link to the article of the cited newspaper, such as The Guardian. Be careful that piped links in citations need to be made explicit, so that you need to type work=Time, not just . Finally, ISO date is better practice because of the confusion that often arises between US and British ordering of months and days. Hope this helps; feel free to discard this message. — JFG talk 06:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Discard it? Heck no! I'm keeping this great message. Thanks. -- Valjean (talk) PingMe 14:48, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

What's in a name? Valjean, the hero of Les Misérables
""So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use." -- Victor Hugo, preface"

""To love another person is to see the face of God." -- Victor Hugo"

""It is either Valjean or Javert." Grace versus the law."

Heroes
Jean Valjean used several pseudonyms: Monsieur Madeleine, Iltime Fauchelevent, Monsieur Leblanc, Urbain Fabre, or 24601 and 9430 prisoner numbers.

Obviously, social justice lies close to my heart. John Rawls is a renowned exponent of the principle of Justice as Fairness.

Other heroes of mine: Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo, D. H. Lawrence, Douglas MacArthur, Adlai Stevenson, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama

Username change
On 14:30, March 23, 2020‎, Turkmen moved User:BullRangifer to User:Valjean.

I have desired a username change for some time, and after some waiting, it has finally happened. Jean Valjean is the hero of Les Misérables, my favorite book, which I have read in several languages. His virtuous character is worthy of much admiration and emulation. He is portrayed as a remarkable man combining incredible physical strength with remarkable virtue. I'm also a fan of the 1980 musical. I also considered a username associated with Atticus Finch, another hero of mine, but Atticus Finch and Jean Valjean were already taken. Valjean was available, so I chose that one.

I know that this is offensive to some very religious people, but if I had to choose a book to give someone, and I had to choose between the Bible and Les Misérables, I'd give them Les Misérables. The principles of honesty, integrity, humility, generosity, kindness, selflessness, simplicity, heroism, and social justice found in the Bible are portrayed in a much clearer manner in Les Misérables. Jean Valjean was completely transformed from a hardened criminal into a virtuous man by the kindness and grace of Bishop Myriel. After his fateful meeting with Myriel, Valjean modeled his own life after the character of Myriel. We all need heroes, and they should be chosen wisely.

I used to own the book, CDs, and DVDs of the movie and musical in several languages. I even found an ancient 12-volume leather-bound set of Les Misérables (De Ulykkelige) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in Copenhagen, a great city for old books and cultural events, where we also saw the musical in the round Østre Gasværk Teater, with its revolving stage. A great experience. My wife and I especially loved the 2019, six-part Masterpiece Theatre adaptation:

I especially loved the DVDs for the 10th Anniversary "Dream Cast" concert at the Royal Albert Hall and the 25th Anniversary concert in The O2 Arena, but lost them, along with everything else, in the 2018 Camp Fire. After the fire, my dear daughter, who knew how much that book meant to me, gifted me a nice copy of the book.

A home without any books is a sad place, so that book started my now-limited and budding collection of favorite books. All my medical textbooks, in at least five languages, are gone. I have no plans for resuming any large-scale collecting of books. I used to lug over forty, very heavy, banana boxes of books around the world whenever we moved. No more of that! Now I am picking very carefully, and Amazon, eBay, and local thrift stores and used book stores love me.

My old name

 * BullRangifer: What's in a name? (old name)

Valjean:What's in a name?

Rangifer = Reindeer, and a bull reindeer is a noble stag.(*)

The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as the caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous across the northern Holarctic.

A bull reindeer is a truly majestic animal, and reindeer/caribou "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting":
 * "In North America and Eurasia the species has long been an important resource--in many areas the most important resource--for peoples inhabiting the northern boreal forest and tundra regions. Known human dependence on caribou/wild reindeer has a long history, beginning in the Middle Pleistocene (Banfield 1961:170; Kurtén 1968:170) and continuing to the present....The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years.... It may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting." Ernest S. Burch, Jr. The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource. American Antiquity, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 339-368.

Please read Reindeer hunting in Greenland, which I authored.
 * Reindeer hunting

I have personally harvested 16 reindeer. Excellent flavor and very lean.

Firearm: SAKO cal. .30-06. Shortest distance to target: under 7 meters (two deer were curious and approached to stare at me while I gutted another deer). Longest distance: 150+ meters. Most deer in one day: four. I have had the pleasure of having my wife accompany me on one hunt, and sharing in all the details of the hunt, IOW sweat, lots of climbing and hiking, nerves, caution, patience, excitement, blood and guts, carrying, etc..


 * (*)The Noble Stag Is A Majestic creature.


 * A noble stag saved the king's life.
 * The Stags Leap district AVA (American Viticultural Area) — so named, Native American legend has it, because a noble stag, pursued by hunters, once leaped to safety across a massive chasm. The "legend" was actually created by a winemaker

Concerts

 * Les Misérables: The Dream Cast in Concert (1995)
 * Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary (2010)
 * Les Misérables: The All-Star Staged Concert (2019)

Links

 * Adaptations of Les Misérables
 * Les Misérables (musical) 1980
 * Hugo, Inc. Les Misérables was born of one of the riskiest—and shrewdest—deals in publishing history., Nina Martyris March 23, 2017
 * Les Misérables: Plot Overview - SparkNotes
 * Jean Valjean: SparkNotes
 * Jean Valjean from Les Miserables
 * Jean Valjean: Character Analysis
 * Why Couldn't Jean Valjean Have Been More Creative?
 * The Influence of Conflicts to Jean Valjean's Character Development in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, thesis by Herin Uhailiyatul Jannah
 * A Hero: Jean Valjean, by William Alfred Quayle
 * The Lesson of Jean Valjean: Lolita and Les Miserables
 * Jean Valjean's Nightmare: Rehabilitation and Redemption in Les Miserables
 * Leadership Smackdown: The Donald Vs. Jean Valjean
 * Dominic West On Becoming Jean Valjean
 * Les Miserables and the many faces of Jean Valjean

Actors who have played Jean Valjean in movies
Valjean was born in 1769 and died in 1833 (aged 64)

Full name: Jean Valjean

Aliases: Monsieur Leblanc, Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, Urbain Fabre, Prisoner 24601, Prisoner 9430


 * Maurice Costello, Les Misérables (1909 film)
 * William Farnum, Les Misérables (1917 film)
 * Gabriel Gabrio, Les Misérables (1925 film)
 * Walter Huston, The Bishop's Candlesticks 1929
 * Harry Baur, Les Misérables (1934 film)
 * Fredric March, Les Misérables (1935 film)
 * Gino Cervi, Les Misérables (1948 film)
 * Michael Rennie, Les Misérables (1952 film)
 * Jean Gabin, Les Misérables (1958 film)
 * Richard Jordan, Les Misérables (1978 film)
 * Lino Ventura, Les Misérables (1982 film)
 * Jean-Paul Belmondo, Les Misérables (1995 film), recast 100 years later in Nazi-occupied France
 * Liam Neeson, Les Misérables (1998 film)
 * Gérard Depardieu, Les Misérables (2000 miniseries), 6-hour French TV miniseries
 * Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables (2012 film)
 * Dominic West, Les Misérables (British TV series), 2018–2019, 6-part TV Mini-Series

Actors who have played Jean Valjean in the 1980 musical

 * Les Misérables (musical) 1980
 * Colm Wilkinson
 * Gary Morris
 * Alfie Boe
 * John Owen-Jones
 * Ramin Karimloo
 * Alexander Gemignani
 * Drew Sarich

Things that "Led to the Rise of English Wikipedia’s Credibility"
Fascinating stuff! Well worth the read.


 * How Conflicts and Population Loss Led to the Rise of English Wikipedia’s Credibility

The Four Freedoms
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:


 * 1) Freedom of speech
 * 2) Freedom of worship
 * 3) Freedom from want
 * 4) Freedom from fear

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings.

Notable quotes

 * "When opinions are clearly factual, and the opposing views are fringe ones pushed mostly by unreliable sources, we state the facts and ignore the fringe by giving the fringe the weight it deserves, in some cases no mention at all. Framing factual opinions as mere "opinions" poisons the well and serves to undermine the factual nature of the content. It would serve to frame facts as mere opinion which can be ignored, and frame debunked conspiracy theories as factual." -- Valjean


 * "Wikipedia is not to be used to un-brainwash the masses.... We inform the masses about...attempts to brainwash them, using RS." -- Valjean


 * "Claims made with misleading evidence or no evidence whatsoever--especially in political contexts--should always be referred to as 'false' when they are utterly unfounded. If any evidence ever emerges for Seth Rich's involvement--or for any captive koalas--then another term should be considered." -- FatGandhi 15:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)


 * "For the 'whataboutism' thing to work, you need an actual 'about' to 'what'." -- Calton 21:05, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "Fox News is no longer the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the legislative arm of Fox News." -- David Atkins


 * "My 'attitude', and that of Wikipedia (arrived at through consensus) is that we don't write about bullcrap except in articles on the subject of bullcrap - and when we do we say 'this is bullcrap' in big shiny letters..." -- AndyTheGrump


 * "The root cause of the problem is the false equivalence given to the views of anti-fluoridationists and the scientific community. The scientific consensus, by definition, incorporates all significant valid viewpoints. It develops over time in response to new data. In maters of science, the scientific consensus view is inherently the neutral point of view for Wikipedia purposes. To "balance" that with anti- views is to compromise fundamental policy." -- Guy


 * "The Mueller report makes unmistakably clear that Americans were attacked by foreign military units: specifically Russian “Military Units 26165 and 74455.” And it reminds us that the president and members of his campaign invited and welcomed those attacks, even if it did not arrange them, and that they were eager to profit from the proceeds of those attacks. That should be of immense concern. If the attack were a bombing rather than a hacking, perhaps the magnitude of the problem would be clearer. The hack was no less an attack than something more literally explosive." -- Justin Levitt is an associate dean at Loyola Law School and was a deputy assistant U.S. attorney general from 2015 to 2017.


 * "I think this idea that there is no truth is the thread that will run through the rest of the Trump presidency, as it has his entire candidacy and his presidency so far." -- Nicolle Wallace


 * "The president is possibly the single most unreliable source for any claim of fact ever to grace the pages of WP." -- MPants 04:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward." -- David Zurawik


 * Anyone who uncritically believes Trump is a fool, or, maybe they should believe him because he knows more than all the experts, and "No one has suffered as many fools as Trump has. But this is to be expected when a 'very stable genius' leads a 'stupid country'." -- Valjean


 * "Trump's latest Hannity interview shows how Fox News's Russia coverage is disconnected from reality. They want you to believe Clinton colluded with Russia to defeat herself." -- Aaron Rupar


 * "At Wikipedia, one cannot support RS and Trump at the same time." -- Valjean 22:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

User:MastCell/Quotes
User:MastCell/Quotes Awesome! -- Valjean (talk) PingMe 22:56, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Trump's dubious relationship to truth
We should just follow what RS say, and that will usually be "anti-Trump" and factual. That's just the way it works. At other times and with other presidents it might be otherwise. He just happens to be on the wrong side of facts much of the time, and since RS document that, it appears they are being "anti-Trump", when they are just defending facts.

Here are just a few of the myriad RS (I have saved literally hundreds of very RS on the subject) which document Trump's dubious relationship to truth (completely off-the-charts, beyond anything fact checkers have ever encountered):


 * "I think this idea that there is no truth is the thread that will run through the rest of the Trump presidency, as it has his entire candidacy and his presidency so far." -- Nicolle Wallace


 * "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward."


 * President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims.


 * Time to stop counting Trump's lies. We've hit the total for 'compulsive liar.'
 * "...what's even more amazing than a President who is averaging -- repeat: averaging -- more than eight untruths a day is this: Trump's penchant for saying false things is exponentially increasing as his presidency wears on."


 * "[W]hat we have never had is a president of the United States who uses lying and untruth as a basic method to promote his policies, his beliefs and his way of approaching the American people and engaging in the world.... Uniquely, we have a president who does not believe in truth." -- Carl Bernstein

Trump's falsehoods
As president, Trump has frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks,    and experience teaches that, quoting David Zurawik, we should "just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backwards" because he's a "habitual liar". In general, news organizations have been hesitant to label these statements as "lies".

Fact checkers have kept a close tally of his falsehoods, and, according to one study, the rate of false statements has increased, with the percentage of his words that are part of a false claim rising over the course of his presidency. According to The New York Times, Trump uttered "at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days" in office, 1,318 total in his first 263 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" political analysis column of The Washington Post, and 1,628 total in his first 298 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" analysis of The Washington Post, or an average of 5.5 per day. After 558 days in office, the tally was at 4,229 false or misleading claims, and it had risen to an average of 7.6 per day from 4.9 during Trump's first 100 days in office.

Glenn Kessler, a fact checker for The Washington Post, told Dana Milbank that, in his six years on the job, "'there's no comparison' between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians' statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent." Kessler also wrote: "President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered ... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."

Maria Konnikova, writing in Politico Magazine, wrote: "All Presidents lie.... But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent.... Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true."

Senior administration officials have also regularly given false, misleading or tortured statements to the media. By May 2017, Politico reported that the repeated untruths by senior officials made it difficult for the media to take official statements seriously.

Trump's presidency started out with a series of falsehoods initiated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he proceeded to exaggerate the size, and Sean Spicer backed up his claims. When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures,  Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts". Todd responded by saying "alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."

Author, social scientist, and researcher Bella DePaulo, an expert on the psychology of lying, stated: "I study liars. I've never seen one like President Trump." Trump outpaced "even the biggest liars in our research." She compared the research on lying with his lies, finding that his lies differed from those told by others in several ways: Trump's total rate of lying is higher than for others; He tells 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies, whereas ordinary people tell 2 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies. 50% of Trump's lies are cruel lies, while it's 1-2% for others. 10% of Trump's lies are kind lies, while it's 25% for others. His lies often "served several purposes simultaneously", and he doesn't "seem to care whether he can defend his lies as truthful".

In a Scientific American article, Jeremy Adam Smith sought to answer the question of how Trump could get away with making so many false statements and still maintain support among his followers. He proposed that "Trump is telling 'blue' lies—a psychologist's term for falsehoods, told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen the bonds among the members of that group.... From this perspective, lying is a feature, not a bug, of Trump's campaign and presidency."

David Fahrenthold has investigated Trump's claims about his charitable giving and found little evidence the claims are true. Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the Attorney General of New York opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York. The Foundation had to admit it engaged in self-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses. Fahrenthold won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his coverage of Trump's claimed charitable giving and casting "doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."

Here are a few of Trump's notable claims which fact checkers have rated false: that Obama wasn't born in the United States and that Hillary Clinton started the Obama "birther" movement; that his electoral college victory was a "landslide";   that Hillary Clinton received 3-5 million illegal votes;  and that he was "totally against the war in Iraq".

A poll in May 2018 found that "just 13 percent of Americans consider Trump honest and trustworthy".

The Editorial Board of The New York Times took this telling sideswipe at Trump when commenting on the unfitness of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court: "A perfect nominee for a president with no clear relation to the truth."


 * Other sources


 * "The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team's Flurry Of Falsehoods. The president and his aides succeeded in reaching the mark in just 36 days." Igor Bobic


 * "The unbearable stench of Trump's B.S." Fareed Zakaria


 * "Killing the Truth: How Trump's Attack on the Free Press Endangers Democracy" Philip Kotler


 * The New Yorker has published a series of 14 essays entitled "Trump and the Truth". They "examine the untruths that have fueled Donald Trump's Presidential campaign."


 * The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board wrote a seven-part series about Trump's dishonesty, starting with the article "Our Dishonest President".

Fact checking Trump
Trump's incessant attacks on the media, reliable sources, and truth have kept an army of fact checkers busy, the latter having never encountered a more deceptive public person. Tony Burman wrote: "The falsehoods and distortions uttered by Trump and his senior officials have particularly inflamed journalists and have been challenged — resulting in a growing prominence of 'fact-checkers' and investigative reporting."

Professor Robert Prentice summarized the views of many fact checkers:


 * PolitiFact


 * "Comparing Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump on the Truth-O-Meter"


 * "Donald Trump's file"


 * "PolitiFact designates the many campaign misstatements of Donald Trump as our 2015 Lie of the Year."


 * "Fact-checking Trump's TIME interview on truths and falsehoods."


 * "7 whoppers from President Trump's first 100 days in office."


 * FactCheck.org


 * Donald Trump's file


 * "100 Days of Whoppers. Donald Trump, the candidate we dubbed the 'King of Whoppers' in 2015, has held true to form as president."


 * "The Whoppers of 2017. President Trump monopolizes our list of the year's worst falsehoods and bogus claims."


 * The Washington Post


 * "Throughout President Trump's first 100 days, the Fact Checker team will be tracking false and misleading claims made by the president since Jan. 20. In the 33 days so far, we've counted 132 false or misleading claims."


 * "Fact-checking President Trump's claims on the Paris climate change deal"


 * President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims


 * Toronto Star

The Star's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump's campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods:


 * "Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things."


 * "Confessions of a Trump Fact-Checker"


 * "The Star's running tally of the straight-up lies, exaggerations and deceptions the president of the United States of America has said, so far."


 * The Guardian


 * "How does Donald Trump lie? A fact checker's final guide."


 * "Smoke and mirrors: how Trump manipulates the media and opponents."

NOTE: Many of the sources above are older. The situation has not improved, but is rapidly getting much worse, as described by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Ashley Parker: "President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren't true."

As Trump rapidly accelerates the rate of his false statements, one suspects he is following the advice of his friend and advisor, Steve Bannon:


 * "The Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."

Fox News should be deprecated
See the excellent information here: User:François Robere/sandbox/Fox News

Comment about PRESERVE
In keeping with our purpose to build (add), rather than break down (delete), the encyclopedia, we have an editing policy to follow. It's called PRESERVE. Basically it means that content and sources should be moved or tweaked, rather than deleted. Don't trash the work of editors who have, in good faith, worked hard to build Wikipedia. Find a way to use that content and the sources somewhere at Wikipedia. At the very least, park that content on the talk page where other editors might find a good way to use it.

Opinion: How Wikipedia is misused to censor real world information
Censorship in the real world isn't just about images or pornography, but often about suppression of political POV (think China, North Korea, USA, and Iran), and that's the type we are seeing here. It's extremely unwikipedian and undemocratic. In this instance it is an extension of the Koch brothers' well known fetish for secrecy, in which they use shadow groups and dark money to carry out their political activities. Since Fox News is on their side, mainstream coverage is limited, because they are successful at hiding and manipulating any coverage of their activities. Therefore any reliable sources from the opposing side (usually activists) are fair game for use as sources (per WP:PARITY) and should be used here. Why PARITY? Because when mainstream sources fail to deal with a subject because of successful censorship, we must use other sources, usually partisan activist organizations whose POV can be cited as their opinion.

The same thing which applies to pseudoscience and other fringe subjects applies here. If we don't do this, their abuses extend to Wikipedia, and their real world political activities, much of which they seek to hide, are not covered at all. Arzel and others continually harp about our need to cover their charitable activities, but we already mention that and their charity balls and support of the arts. It's minimal and mostly directed at things which benefit other wealthy. Big deal. Their political activities do exist and need coverage. They learned long ago that democracy (one vote per man) does not work in their favor, so they are all about using their money to subvert it, and some editors wittingly or unwittingly aid them.

My attitude toward quackery and fringe articles
I can hardly put it any better than David Goodman (DGG) does on his userpage:


 * [I have a] "distaste for quack anything: medicine, science, psychology, social science ... I often vote to keep articles on these subjects, because the advocates of orthodoxy here sometimes seem to be even less reasonable than the quacks--and because I think the best way to expose quacks is to let them state their views plainly." Source

The attempts one sometimes sees by certain skeptics to AfD quack articles are often attempts at deletionism which violate the principles of the NPOV (which does not allow censorship) and notability (if a subject can establish notability, it has a right to exist here). Since fringe topics are required to give prominence to the mainstream POV, the basic POV of the quack view should be stated succinctly, without promotion or advocacy, and the mainstream skeptical view should be stated very clearly so as to make it clear that the subject is deprecated by the mainstream.

Vindicated regarding AE case and Quackwatch!
Quackwatch and I have been vindicated by the Arbitration Committee:


 * As a result of this "Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Barrett v. Rosenthal": The amendment removed the false charge against me of having used "unreliable" sources (QW), and it vindicated QW by removing the description of it as being "unreliable". Justice was finally done after two years! Note that only the second motion (1.1) passed.


 * RS/N: Usage of Quackwatch as RS in medical quackery: The consensus is that it may be used as a source under the same rules and precautions that govern the use of any other RS. It is an obviously notable source that is highly regarded by the mainstream (no criticisms) and villified by the fringe/alternative side, which is to be expected -- it exposes their unscientific practices, scams, and other illegal activities.

Do I have a COI with regard to Quackwatch and Stephen Barrett? No. A shared POV is not a COI. Having sent a few emails to Barrett and received no or unpleasant responses does not create a COI. I have never had anything to do with the website, and it's been over 12 years since I had anything to do with, or any contact with, a healthfraud discussion group or Barrett.

My short block log explained
My short block log has some history that should be connected with it. Unfortunately it isn't possible to attach notes to a block log, so I do it here.

Thoughts on liberty, freedom and democracy

 * It's The Soldier

It's the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us
 * Freedom of the Press.

It's the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
 * Freedom of Speech.

It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
 * Freedom to Demonstrate.

It's the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the
 * Right to a Fair Trial.

It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag and
 * whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who gives the protestor the right to burn the flag.

-- Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC, Marine Corps chaplain


 * "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -– Patrick Henry


 * "No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." -- Douglas MacArthur


 * "Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people" -- Abraham Lincoln


 * "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson


 * "To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom." -- Thomas Jefferson


 * "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin


 * "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.


 * "If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will Lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too." -- William Somerset Maugham


 * "Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain." -- John F. Kennedy


 * "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy


 * "Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves." -- D. H. Lawrence
 * "If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." -- Thomas Paine
 * "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." -- Thomas Paine


 * "In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt


 * "America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality." -- Adlai Stevenson


 * "What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from'." -- Marilyn vos Savant

Spinal manipulation research collection
Spinal manipulation research

A collection of spinal manipulation research abstracts, news reports and other commentaries, with special emphasis on risks, plus some other interesting sources. Some sources on the related subjects of Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Osteopathic medicine, and Osteopathy are also included. Some are of purely historical interest and others present the latest evidence. They are kept here as a resource for editing articles. This list is far from exhaustive. It is currently organized by year, for lack of a better system, which has the immediate benefit of helping to avoid duplication.

If you have any additional sources, suggestions for improvement or personal comments, please use the talk page. Thanks. -- Valjean / talk

Hope for Wikipedia as a reliable source
The following comment points out something that needs to be taken care of before Wikipedia can ever hope to be considered a reliable source by its own and other's standards:


 * Look, the fact is that advocates of fringe or minoritarian viewpoints have a tough road to hoe on Wikipedia. This is supposed to be a serious encyclopedia. Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work. WP:WEIGHT codifies this. Of course minority or fringe viewpoints can be represented and covered, but advocates who relentlessly push for favorable treatment of widely discredited fringe viewpoints and refuse to bow to any sort of consensus or Wikipedia policy don't last long (or rather, they shouldn't but often do). MastCell Talk 00:08, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

What Wikipedia needs
Here's another interesting comment I found by chance. Note the significant wikilinks:


 * As far as Wikipedia goes, we need reliable, verifiable sources that are not unduly synthesized by fringe proponents with obvious agendas. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Some wise words: The problem with that ... (anecdotes are not evidence)
.. is you don't provide any sources. Anecdotes, like yours, are not evidence, nor is anything you said. Wikipedia is not about trying to determine the truth, but putting together an encyclopedia of stuff that other sources have amassed. Those who try to promote their agenda, their view, are against the NPOV which is the standard for Wikipedia articles. This is why original research is prohibited.

If all the information is available, from all the credible sources, then that is the knowledge on a subject. Those who want to edit out sources, and decide what is true, rather than let the reader have all the facts, are trying to promote their view, not help build a free encyclopedia. You know who you are.

Those who fight to restrict information, are the enemy of knowledge. Those who want to spin things their way, are the opposite of a NPOV.

If CBS or CNN or any real News outlet does a story, and you think they are wrong, you don't get to delete the story reference. If another credible source disagrees, you put that in as a counter. I know, some idiots think they should be the arbitrators of what is allowed to be read on the Internet. They are not only stupid, they are small minded. To them, I always say, you are not the authority. You don't get to decide. Get a clue and quit trying to control information. It is not your job to censor the Internet.

FX (talk) 03:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It should be easy to include reality here
It shouldn't be difficult to include facts about proven reality, and it should be difficult to include fringe POV as if they were reality. If fringe POV pushers want to edit here, they should have a hard row to hoe, and shouldn't be allowed to make life difficult for pushers of reality. "Advocacy" of nonsense is forbidden here, while advocacy of reality isn't forbidden. The push may look the same, but it's allowable to push for reality, but not allowable to push for nonsense. That type of "advocacy" is forbidden. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. No one is entitled to their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan. We don't allow OR here, and opinions need to be sourced and attributed, but undeniable facts don't. Those who are so far out in left field as to not understand reality or to consider nonsense to be reality should have a hard time here. -- Valjean (talk) 19:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

An interesting compliment
Reading a comment like this makes me feel very humble and appreciative:


 * I retract the bit about "every person I'm in conflict with". A lot of conflict is good and I'm happy for it. I just had a conflict with User:BullRangifer and I don't want to see him blocked or banned ever. While I recognize that the joy of Wikipedia is always taking comments out of context I will say this: there are a number of editors who are currently active on Wikipedia with whom I have come in contact whom I believe should be shown the door. I will also unabashedly say that I intend to help showing them that door. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC) -- Source

Science & EBM versus so-Called "Alternative" Medicine (sCAM)
According to notable skeptics and physicians like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, James Randi, Marcia Angell, Phil B. Fontanarosa, George D. Lundberg, and Stephen Barrett, the concept of "alternative" is often being misused in a misleading form of marketing, implying something that is far from the case:


 * "Alternative has two possible meanings. Correctly employed, it refers to methods that have equal value for a particular purpose. (An example would be two antibiotics capable of killing a particular organism.) When applied to unproven methods, however, the term can be misleading because methods that are unsafe or ineffective are not reasonable alternatives to proven treatment. To emphasize this fact, we place the word "alternative" in quotation marks throughout this book whenever it is applied to methods that are not based on established scientific knowledge." - Stephen Barrett, MD


 * "There is no alternative medicine. There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking. Whether a therapeutic practice is 'Eastern' or 'Western,' is unconventional or mainstream, or involves mind-body techniques or molecular genetics is largely irrelevant except for historical purposes and cultural interest. As believers in science and evidence, we must focus on fundamental issues-namely, the patient, the target disease or condition, the proposed or practiced treatment, and the need for convincing data on safety and therapeutic efficacy." - Fontanarosa P.B., and Lundberg G.D. "Alternative medicine meets science" JAMA. 1998; 280: 1618-1619.


 * "There cannot be two kinds of medicine - conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted." - Angell M, Kassirer JP, "Alternative medicine--the risks of untested and unregulated remedies." N Engl J Med 1998;339:839.

Other quotes:


 * Evidence-based methods are effective, and effective methods should be evidence-based. If a method appears to be effective, then it should be possible to prove it. If the research has not been done yet, it should be. We must remember that "Absence of proof is not the same as the absence of fact; it simply demonstrates the lack of adequate research." - Robert Sydenham. "Lack of evidence in the literature is not evidence of lack of effectiveness." Until that research is done, claims of effectiveness are uncertain, unusual claims of effectiveness doubly so, and consequently the marketing of products and practicing of methods based on such uncertain, unusual, and undocumented claims may be unethical, possibly dangerous, and often illegal. -- Valjean


 * "In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of  proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes  on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But  if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due  to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden  of proof." - Marcello Truzzi, Zetetic Scholar,  #12-13, 1987.


 * "Not knowing everything is not evidence that, in the absence of knowledge, any available appealing explanation is true. Sometimes the truth is unappealing." - Steve Zeitzew, MD


 * "Science is a way of thinking, much more than it is a body of facts." - Carl Sagan


 * "Science is not a body of information. Science is a method of investigation."


 * "The medicine that I use has two things that distinguish it from some other forms of "medicine:"


 * 1. It appears to work anywhere on the planet.


 * 2. I don't have to believe in it for it to work." - David Ramey, DVM


 * "Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves." - physicist Richard Feynman


 * "Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work. Science cannot solve everything, but the alternatives really solve nothing." - James Randi


 * "Scientific thinking might be defined as learning to distinguish the exception from the rule. I'd have a hard time entrusting my health to someone who didn't know the difference." - Stan Polanski


 * "Science makes a lousy religion and religion makes a lousy science." - Linda Rosa


 * "Faith and Reason inhabit different worlds--and so far there is no space travel between them." - Erika Wilson


 * "Entire vocabularies of esoteric jargon, based on circular reasoning and ignorance, have been invented by true believers to describe their imagined version of reality." -- Valjean


 * "We certainly shouldn't abandon the field to the quacks by not turning up to play." - Peter Moran


 * "Deciding not to act is still a decision. If it results in death, it is a decision that led to death." - Graeme Kennedy

Skepticism, logic, and critical thinking

 * "Mundus vult decipi." (The world wants to be deceived.)


 * "Mankind's capacity for deception and self-deception knows no limits." -- Valjean


 * "The worst thing that bad people can do is make us doubt good people". - Jacinto Benavente (1866-1954); Spanish dramatist.


 * "Skepticism is the first step toward truth." - Denis Diderot


 * "The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact." - John Tyndall (1820-1893), physicist


 * "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." - William Kingdon Clifford


 * "A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which this world is suffering." - Bertrand Russell


 * "Test everything; hold fast what is good." - 1 Thess. 5:21


 * "Scholars are trained to scrutinize, to insist on adequate evidence, to ferret out logical inconsistencies and weak arguments. We are naturally suspicious of claims that go beyond our experience. Scholars are trained skeptics. Our professional motto is 'show me'. Where's your evidence? If you can't prove it, you shouldn't believe it!...If trust is the natural disposition of childhood, doubt is our disposition as adults. Academic training cultivates an ethic of suspicion, if not unbelief....we've learned to put every aspect of life through the fire of critical reflection....[But] the fact we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know anything." - Richard Rice. "Nothing I learned in kindergarten makes any sense." Spectrum, 2000, 28:1, 36-40


 * "Everybody is entitled to his own opinions but not his own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan


 * "Don't confuse ignorance with a point of view." - Dilbert


 * "The plural of anecdote is not data." - Roger Brinner


 * "Humans have brains that are built to work on anecdote rather than real data." - Jeffrey P. Utz, MD


 * "Anecdotes are useless precisely because they may point to idiosyncratic responses." - Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, 1999 Nov;10(4) 226-234

My POV on NPOV
Wikipedia's NPOV policy must not be misused so it becomes synonymous with revisionism, censorship, whitewashing, or political correctness. Editors must present both sides of any controversy. To leave out one side amounts to promoting the other side's POV. Wikipedia should include more information than other encyclopedias, not less.

One must:


 * Present the facts about each side's POV.
 * Not sell each side's POV as facts.

IOW, just tell the story without taking sides.

When editing articles, it is improper to fight for one's own POV at the expense of another POV. One should simply ensure that both POV are presented (not preached) accurately.

One should:


 * Present the facts (objective & documented) about the POV.
 * Not sell the truth (subjective & personal) about the subject.

This may well include documenting what each side thinks of the other side's POV.

NB: The reason that I have just labeled "truth" as "subjective & personal," is not because I don't believe some truths are objective facts, but because in controversial issues, both sides believe that their opinion is based on objectively true facts. Since "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth," and Wikipedia must not be used as a soapbox to "sell" various POV, then editors must stick to telling the "facts about both POV." Let the reader take sides after reading all viewpoints on the subject. In the end, readers will end up making their own decision as to what is the "truth" of the matter, and just like editors from various POV, those opinions will likely be at odds with each other.

The following comment has been allowed to remain on my talk page because I think it's good:


 * Personally I like the principle of "writing for the enemy", in the sense of trying to argue the strongest case that's possible for something you may not believe. If you don't face up squarely and honestly to facts that are uncomfortable, you're not engaging in an argument but avoiding it. Wish we could lighten some of these controversies with more of a sense of fun though. Maybe I'll try that somewhere, and see how it sits. Being relentlessly NPOV can get horribly worthy.Gleng 11:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The good doctor brings up a good point, because editors who are unwilling to "write for the enemy" are not capable of understanding or abiding by Wikipedia's NPOV policy. As such they will always cause problems. Writing for the enemy is an important mark of a good editor.

There is no reason why an editor cannot contribute in a NPOV fashion just because they have a POV in real life. And everyone has a POV, now don’t they? But just as


 * "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle


 * It is also the mark of a good Wikipedia editor, to be able to understand and present various POV, including those he finds distasteful.

My goal here (especially regarding chiropractic) is to contribute to the best article about chiropractic ever written. Most articles suffer from being one-sided. Skeptical articles write only from the skeptical viewpoint, and articles written by most chiropractors and associations naturally write from a promotional viewpoint. There is nothing wrong with that, but Wikipedia deserves and requires much more. There is much to write about this fascinating subject, and readers should feel that they have been well-informed by the finished product.

Wikipedia editors should consider it scandalous if a reader, after reading an article here, discovers totally new or unfamiliar significant information on the subject outside of Wikipedia. They should become so familiar with the subject here that they will not be surprised by, unprepared for, or unfamiliar with any issues or information outside of Wikipedia. They should be able to respond with "Duh! Didn't you know that already? I knew that because I always read Wikipedia first!"

Another editor has commented:


 * "It is known by psychologists, public-relations consultants, marketing directors, political spin-doctors and propagandists that a collection of "objective and documented" facts can be sculpted and molded to support just about any conclusion at all. In our society, such sculpting is pervasive. I hold Wikipedia to a higher standard, that of attempting to tell the truth. There may be special cases where the truth is so hard to come by that one must resort to documenting points-of-view; but this should be the exception, not the norm. Please note that the WP policy WP:V is the setting of a bar for inclusion, and not a guideline for general article structure."

Which inspired me to reply:


 * "I see we basically agree, except for the part about general article structure. I too expect Wikipedia to tell the truth, but un fortunately(?) (or not....others with greater wisdom have seen fit to make the rules) the NPOV policy requires that all significant POV be presented, which automatically means that what one person considers to be the truth will be presented, and what that same person believes to be error, will also be presented. Naturally the other side sees it exactly the same way, but from their POV. This policy ensures that a subject is covered from all angles, and that readers not only hear "the truth,", but also learn about dissenting viewpoints. That's what makes this an encyclopedia, rather than a sales brochure. As you may have noted, I still think it's fine to write from one POV outside of Wikipedia. There is certainly a place for that."

What can we conclude from all this? That the NPOV policy is not about preserving or protecting my POV, but about presenting all significant POV, which is what's required for making a great encyclopedia!

Criticism and undue weight
An interesting discussion found here:

There is alot of debate in talk pages about handling a criticism section. I feel it is important to address this issue specifficaly. I think there needs to be a policy on how you address sections like this. --Zonerocks 20:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Isn't that WP:NPOV? Specifically the "Undue weight" section. I've seen articles where criticism makes up 80% of the word count of the article. Obviously 80% is too high, but there's no magic number, how much criticism really can or should be included will vary from article to article. A criticism policy would probably be redundant to NPOV, but there's an essay at Criticism. It doesn't appear very active, but I suppose a guideline on this topic could be explored. --W.marsh 20:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see why valid critical arguments must be deleted because they're overwhelming. Come up with more information to balance them out, don't delete valid information. Ed Ropple - Blacke<b style="color: #DD3333">n</b> - (Talk) 21:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Blacken's sentiment. While too much criticism makes my eyes squint while reading any article, I could not be crass enough to go and edit 30% of it out just to balance the article.  In this case building up arguments in favor rather than demolishing down negative arguments is a good solution to the problem.<b style="font-family:comic sans ms; color:purple;">¤~Persian Poet Gal</b> <sup style="color:purple;">(talk)  21:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

This form of "undue weight" is an inevitable result of the "notability" policy for inclusion. Some people and subjects are notable because they are notorious. This automatically results in a large amount of negative information, since most of the verifiable information from reliable sources is negative. Other information would be original research or from unacceptable sources. That's life. As long as the information is properly sourced and worded in an NPOV manner (simply presenting the POV, without advocating or attacking it), then there's no problem.

For controversial subjects, with editors on both sides of the issue, this can still end up with an unbalanced article. In scientific and medical matters this is because the scientists usually have better sources and are better at presenting their arguments than the quacks, pseudoscientists, and true believers, who don't have very good sources (just anecdotes or hate sites), and whose arguments are often filled with logical fallacies.

The way forward in such cases is as suggested -- to build up what's lacking, not to exercise bad faith towards other editors by deleting their hard work. Bad people or subjects should not be whitewashed by deleting valid and well-sourced information. Suppression of opposing POV is a very unwikipedian thing to do.

Wikipedia's NPOV policy must not be misused so it becomes synonymous with revisionism, censorship, whitewashing, or political correctness. One must allow presentation of both sides of any controversy. To leave out or suppress one side amounts to promoting the other side's POV. Wikipedia should include more information than other encyclopedias, not less. -- Valjean

Alternative medicine critics
Alternative medicine critics

Please help develop this. Use the talk page there and notify me.

My Wikipedia Library
The Wikipedia Library

How to edit a page
How to edit a page. Excellent tips and tricks.

Wikipedia:Five pillars
Five pillars

All of Wikipedia's official policies and guidelines can be reduced to these five pillars that define Wikipedia's character:

Note

This page describes Wikipedia's fundamental principles. These principles predate the creation of this page. It is sometimes said that all or most policy is based upon this page, but most policy also predates the creation of this page.

Wikipedia's principles
How to: Help, Cite sources, Manual of Style, Style and How-to Directory, Wiki Markup, TeX, Utilities, Picture tutorial, Extended image syntax, Tables, Table help.

Policies and guidelines: Policies and guidelines, verifiability, Neutral point of view, No original research, Assume good faith, What Wikipedia is not, Banning policy, Three revert rule. .

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