User talk:David Cochrane

Some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article David Cochrane may not be sufficiently well-known to merit articles of their own. The Wikipedia community welcomes newcomers, and encourages them to become Wikipedians. On Wikipedia, all users are entitled to a user page in which they can describe themselves, and this article's content may be incorporated into that page. However, to merit inclusion in the encyclopedia proper, a subject must be notable. We encourage you to write or improve articles on notable subjects. -Fsotrain09 19:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Stifle (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
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The article you created
The article you created at David Cochrane was listed for deletion as An article about a real person that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject, criterion 7 in the criteria for speedy deletion, Articles section. Since it appears to be about you I've moved it to your user space instead, which was probably what you intended in the first place (a common mistake among newcomers!).

If you really did mean to create an article about yourself please be aware that this is often considered a bad idea, even if you do meet the guidelines for inclusion of biographies.

I know Wikipedia can be confusing for new editors, so you are welcome to ask for help at the help desk or on my talk page. Stifle (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. If you can provide verifiability for your article and the claims of wide recognition, in the form of reliable sources, then go ahead and recreate it. Stifle (talk) 22:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The Astrology Article
Hello Mr. Cochrane,

My name is Chris Brennan. I'm a Kepler student from Denver who currently resides in Maryland at Project Hindsight. I think that I met you last year at ISAR, but it was very briefly. I just wanted to let you know that you came into Wikipedia at an awkward time right now because there have been some major issues over the past few months with the astrology article. Basically you walked right into the middle of a major dispute that is a few months old at this point and I thought that you should be aware of some of the issues that have already come up and where every one stands so that you are able to understand why you might meet a certain degree of hostility from certain editors. Most of the arguments that you need to know about are in an archive of the astrology talk page which you can find here. I would suggest that you look over that talk page before you do any further editing so that you have some perspective on what you have walked into. To make a long story short, there are a couple of astrologers here who are making things difficult on the astrology page because they have been pushing an overly biased viewpoint, which they defend even when they are saying something that is partially or entirely incorrect even from another astrologers standpoint. Even though I am myself an astrologer, I ended up siding with the skeptics on this issue because of the way that the astrologers were handling the situation and the arguments that they were making were largely inaccurate. My purpose in telling you this is so that you enter this full knowledge of what is going on instead of automatically siding with the astrologers as one might be inclined to do in most circumstances given your background. I am glad that you are here though, and I hope that many more people such as yourself begin to take an active interest in improving the astrological content on Wikipedia. I started a Wikiproject a few months ago in order to coordinate these efforts that you might want to check out eventually WikiProject_Astrology. I'll talk to you later. --Chris Brennan 16:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Chris,

Thank you for the heads up!!! I had not realized I was walking into a hornet's nest. Glad to hear that you are involved with Kepler College and Project Hindsight, two of the best resources we have now for education in astrology. Keep up the good work and I wish you all the best. I look forward ot meeting up you again at an astrology conference or seminar some time. DavidCochrane 18:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

David Cochrane listed for deletion
Please don't take this personaly, but I have listed your page for deletion. Generally writting pages about yourself is a huge no-no, and (without meaning any malice to youself) you do not appear to be a notable individual. Jefffire 16:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you know ANYTHING about what is going on in contemporary astrology? Do you recognize the names Ray Merriman, Nick Campion, Liz Greene, John Frawley, or Demtetra George, just to name a few? Are these people not notable? Who is notable and what makes a person notable? Sorry, but it appears that you have no knowledge of the field of astrology. I won't argue the point further. It's not important for me personally to be listed, but it is unfortunate that much of the control of the information on astrology is being done by people who are unfamilair with the field. It is OK to have skeptics and unbelievers editing the astrology section but not people who are uninformed. Sorry for being so blunt but I want to be honest. DavidCochrane 18:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Please do not make personal attacks. Please also see Wikipedia's notability guidelines. This is an encyclopedia, after all. Thanks. -Fsotrain09 18:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for the tone, which has a flavor of personal attack. Thanks for pointing this out. The point, however, remains valid: an evaluation of who is notable in a field is best made by a person deeply involved in the field. Otherwise, Neils Bohr would be elminated as a physicist as non-physicists are not likely to recognize his name. On the other hand, the entry was about myself and this is generally a no-no. We can drop the topic at this point. It is not personally important to me to have the entry of myself and I will not attempt to add it again. DavidCochrane 18:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It takes a strong man to apologize, and I respect that. It is regretable that your article cannot stay but I want very much for Wikipedia to become an encyclopedia of great repute. Jefffire 13:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Extreme Minority View
Mr Cochrane, The paragrapgh as it stood then, included the quotes of individual astrologers, such as yourself. Unless we can verify that this view is also shared by a significant number of other astrologers, this is an extreme minority view. In wikipedia, we work to present an article so that it is verifiable (see WP:V).

Secondly, regarding the majority view, WP:NPOV policy says that we must represent the majority view as the view of the majority of the scientific community, which is that astrology is pseudoscience. In this regards, we can also mention the minority view, but we should represent it as such. Within the scientific community there is a clear, overwhelming consensus that astrology is not a science, but is a pseudoscience. This is the majority view. Thus other research to ascertain what astrology is, is outside the mainstream, and hence a minority view.

In summary, the relevant section from policy(WP:NPOV) I quote "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." It is of my opinion, and certain other editors in the page, that none of the claims in the para I deleted belong in the article, as that viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority.

Regards Vorpal Blade  snicker-snack  04:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Re
Well said! I now fully agree with what you say, that we need to do our best to present the minority point of view (i.e. point of view of astrologers) as accurately as possible. As a new contributor, you may have not known this, but since the past few weeks, there's been an edit war in the astrology page. Two contributors in particular, seemed obsessed with misrepresenting information, and removing the neutrality of the article. In particular, the two contributors are trying to represent the point of view of the astrologers as the majority view.

If you think the paragraph was deleted in hast, I apologise, and please feel free to restore relevant portions on the relationship of astrology to science, from a NPOV. It's nice to know that an expert in the subject has joined to contribute to the article. Regards Vorpal Blade  snicker-snack  10:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

David Cochrane entry added again
Thank you for the helpful information. I removed the more subjective statements from bio and kept it to the facts. I think it is appropriately written now. Let me know if there are still problems. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Cochrane (talk • contribs) 16:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC).
 * Thanks for your message. Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing ~ at the end.
 * I looked at the article and unfortunately you don't seem to have included any references to reliable sources. Your article has verifiability problems and has been listed for deletion. You can make a comment here. Stifle (talk) 13:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

External links on Astrology page
David,

The link in question was removed by BorgQueen on July 10:. Justification was: remove "www.AstroSoftware.com" as commercial site. All three AstroSoftware links were removed.

WP:EL governs external links on WP. Relevant points that I can see are:
 * What should be linked to:
 * 5. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article.


 * Links normally to be avoided:
 * 3. A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to.
 * 4. Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising, or that that require payment to view the relevant content.

So according to the above, the link to the free chart service can be and should be added, but not by yourself.

What may also be relevant in terms of adding links to your site and articles about yourself, Kepler or Cosmic Patterns, is the How not to be a spammer section of WP:SPAM. As you may have noticed, the community doesn't take lightly to perceived spam even if that was not the intention. Aquirata 11:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * David, You're welcome, hope it was useful. Thank you for your offer regarding mediation. I'm not entirely convinced that it can go ahead given how the current list of participants is tilted towards achieving the originator's end. The action also has a personal flavour mixed with astrology page issues, which is not healthy. At any rate, thanks again, and we'll see what transpires. Aquirata 12:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Proof of astrology
David, I have sent you an email. Aquirata 23:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)