User talk:76.70.95.2

July 22
Please read WP:NOTDUMB, we do not make edits in order to get money out of people. Slatersteven (talk) 17:13, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

(?) Heaven help the information commons if such evasive, adolescent posturing is now the default for those who presume to speak for Wikipedia. Consider giving the public a break, Mr. Slatersteven... go home and insult the intelligence of the wife and kids, if they haven't already left you, and leave information science to responsible, responsive adults with a grasp, not just of issues, but of basic logical relevance. Wikipedia and those consulting it will benefit from your unaccustomed act of maturity--and you supply grounds for suspecting your colleagues will as well.

If, hopefully, you aren't in any respect a Wikipedia representative, please mind your own business. Wikipedia loses when trolls arrogate to themselves the unearned privilege of using "we" on its behalf.
 * Please read wp:npa. Slatersteven (talk) 10:41, 17 July 2022 (UTC)


 * (??) Look both ways before you cross the street.  Brush your teeth after meals.  Don't litter (er, that's when you carelessly drop stuff on the ground that others have to pick up).  And remember to wipe your behind.  You're welcome; glad to be of service.  Now off you go for your afternoon nap.  Meantime, the grownups will be addressing substantive issues, a collaborative endeavour for which the basic prerequisites include rationality, civility, a sense of logical relevance, and something called reading comprehension.  You'll understand when you're older.  Or maybe you won't...
 * My expectations of receiving a meaningful response from Wikipedia weren't high, but you've managed to come in below the bar all the same. I'm indebted to you for helping to make clear why Wikipedia's credibility is now in tatters, not just with information specialists like myself but with the general public (it doesn't require special expertise to recognize patronizing incompetence, or identify public nuisances).  The noble experiment is under merciless assault by ideologues, cranks and trolls, and the editors themselves manifestly check every box (who needs the unwashed public to provoke you when you've become self-provoking parodies of yourselves?).  My respondent's self-insight is sufficiently challenged that he spies threats to decorum and civility everywhere but when he looks in a mirror.  "We have met the enemy and he is us" is a truism he's unlikely ever to understand.
 * By all means, then, go back to attacking the personal targets of your choice (Bret Weinstein, for example) with hypocritical impunity, and retaliate against me as well. Business as usual, yes? Incidentally, not that it's logically relevant, I've always voted left; but I'm no more anxious to consume propaganda that supposedly speaks for me than against me.  The antidote to propaganda isn't counter-propaganda but anti-propaganda, a guiding ethic Wikipedia has either lost sight of... or perhaps never clearly grasped. 76.70.95.2 (talk) 04:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If you wanted a "meaningful response" it might have been a good idea to not threaten us with withholding funds unless we do as you demand. We have policies (such as wp:not and wp:soap) that your only contribution here violated (you might need to read wp:spa as well). This will now be a warning, make any more accusations of "irrationality", "incivility", or any other attmepotd to dismiss someos viewpoint using ad hominem's I will report you. Slatersteven (talk) 10:27, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Please stop pretending that either you or Wikipedia's financial well-being have been threatened by me in any way, or that my reaction to Wikipedia's latest solicitation for funding is anything other than a logical expression of exasperation at the encyclopedia's betrayal of its own stated mission--specifically its failure to provide reliable information that is unbiased and politically neutral. You aren't that stupid or ill-informed (you can't possibly not know that one of Wikipedia's own founders has acknowledged the justness of the criticism and shares the public's disappointment), but you definitely are behaving that dishonestly and evasively.  Report away (speaking of threats): it's better that your colleagues witness first hand both the insufferable smugness of your refusal to engage, and the frustration your ideological posturing is provoking among people who previously had every reason to admire and trust Wikipedia.
 * By the way, since you seem addicted to the phrase you might consider taking the trouble to inform yourself just when 'ad hominem' remarks are inappropriate (when they're substituted for relevant premises in a syllogism, for example, thus committing a logical fallacy), and when they're not only perfectly okay but called for (as they are when accurately drawing attention to someone's neglect of his responsibilities, and that person's casual disdain for anyone who has the nerve to notice and mention the neglect). Hopefully, you have at least one colleague smart enough to awaken you to the fact that your "warning" and threat to "report" qualify as ad hominem locutions, as both are directed to me, personally ('ad hominem' means literally 'to the man').  To have a problem with ad hominems when others utter them, but not when uttering them oneself, is a very familiar form of hypocrisy; but then, of course, one has to have sufficient self-insight to realize that one is engaging in it.
 * Rest assured that my criticisms of Wikipedia and your own retreat behind the presumed safety of policy walls owe nothing to ad hominem argumentation. You know quite well what your biases are, and they're what threaten your credibility, and possibly (it wouldn't be surprising) your funding, not me. 76.70.95.2 (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, since you seem addicted to the phrase you might consider taking the trouble to inform yourself just when 'ad hominem' remarks are inappropriate (when they're substituted for relevant premises in a syllogism, for example, thus committing a logical fallacy), and when they're not only perfectly okay but called for (as they are when accurately drawing attention to someone's neglect of his responsibilities, and that person's casual disdain for anyone who has the nerve to notice and mention the neglect). Hopefully, you have at least one colleague smart enough to awaken you to the fact that your "warning" and threat to "report" qualify as ad hominem locutions, as both are directed to me, personally ('ad hominem' means literally 'to the man').  To have a problem with ad hominems when others utter them, but not when uttering them oneself, is a very familiar form of hypocrisy; but then, of course, one has to have sufficient self-insight to realize that one is engaging in it.
 * Rest assured that my criticisms of Wikipedia and your own retreat behind the presumed safety of policy walls owe nothing to ad hominem argumentation. You know quite well what your biases are, and they're what threaten your credibility, and possibly (it wouldn't be surprising) your funding, not me. 76.70.95.2 (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Rest assured that my criticisms of Wikipedia and your own retreat behind the presumed safety of policy walls owe nothing to ad hominem argumentation. You know quite well what your biases are, and they're what threaten your credibility, and possibly (it wouldn't be surprising) your funding, not me. 76.70.95.2 (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Rest assured that my criticisms of Wikipedia and your own retreat behind the presumed safety of policy walls owe nothing to ad hominem argumentation. You know quite well what your biases are, and they're what threaten your credibility, and possibly (it wouldn't be surprising) your funding, not me. 76.70.95.2 (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)