User talk:Hodja Nasreddin/Archive 1

Thank you
Hi, Hodja Nasreddin!

Thank you for very useful comments in ANI; I really was unaware of some important events of a local history. Meanwhile, I was privately advised not to write in English any more without somebody's professional assistance. It's true: English is not my first language :) hovever one of my articles // Zimniy Stadion (Saint Petersburg), I intentionally don't make a wiki-link // has already been moved to a DYK nomination which IMHO may be considered as a minor indirect confirmation, that it's not so catastrophically bad with my English :))) and I shall continue writing here anyway. Looking forward for your professional assistance in English (of course, if you can afford spending time and efforts on it). Best regards, Cherurbino (talk) 13:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No, I do not have time for that. Beyond_My_Ken is wrong about this. You do what you can. Every version is wrong version. Others will fix your mistakes. If Beyond_My_Ken thinks your articles are so bad they should be outright deleted, he must nominate them for deletion. But result will be "keep". Biophys (talk) 16:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the "copyedit" template; I didn't come across it in other wikies. On my behalf, I see that at least sometimes BMK was right about the language: a certain portion of the text fell out of my sight. Translation was really awkward, and now I see the reasons for his misunderstanding of the significance of some fragments. I still continue to work under the text, trying to reply to all claims… Cherurbino (talk) 18:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Main point: this is a collaborative project. Everyone does what he can. Biophys (talk) 18:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you again :). Cherurbino (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC).

Codes of nomenclature
Hi Nasreddin (great signon, there are so many stories about you!). About your change to subspecies that I reverted, that was in response to "more distinct than the differences between breeds or races that are not official taxonomy units". The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature recognizes varieties and formae and other infraspecific ranks as official taxonomic units. It's only the zoological code that limits the "breed" or race like units to subspecies. And then there's the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants which recognizes cultivars as official taxonomic units. I've just added an example of a variety to Botanical name, to help clarify that. The subspecies-only hegemony of the zoological code is one of the big differences between codes that helped to sink the BioCode when it was last proposed (The BioCode parts of Wikipedia urgently need updating, because it is coming back to life for the International Botanical Congress later this year). Nadiatalent (talk) 13:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I see. That would be something like Pinus nigra var. pallasiana.Biophys (talk) 19:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and the autonym ''Pinus nigra subsp. nigra'' doesn't exist until someone creates another subspecies, so varieties don't always have it specified that the author considers them to be subordinate to the autonymous subspecies. (Sheesh, what a lot of jargon.) Nadiatalent (talk) 20:31, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

For your assessment
Hi, Hodja Nasreddin! Yesterday I found out that a problem with the article about Dumbadze aggravated again. Without waiting for for my answers, an opponent interrupted the debate and resumed his attack on the article.

I have prepared a new application to AnI. I know that verbosity is my main drawback, so what I ask you, please is to revise this project. Please edit it just here, and notify me, when I may look here again. Deletions of unnecessary junk are highly appreciated — it's not the case of WP:OWN. Also, if you find other solution that posting all that of AnI, please let me know. Thanks in advance Cherurbino (talk) 13:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ultimatum instead of dispute

On February 21 I informed here about an unappropriate approach of towards the solution of problems he sees in the article Ivan Dumbadze. This day his first series of 18 subsequent edits were not motivated at all. Having warned him for the second time, in my search of consensus, I proposed, in particular, to return to the normal way of dispute, i.e. to post his claims on the article talk page and to wait for reply of other participants.

Instead of waiting for these replies, on 15:36, February 21, 2011 came with another 21 series of edits.

Only after third parties warned that at least such set of diffs (diff 1, diff 2, diff 3) during 24 hours look like WP:EDITWARRING,  finally promised here: "Now I will not make any big changes to the article, without discussing it first at the talk page."

On 11:35, 2011-2-22 finished posted a list of 8 his objections. I replied each 8 of them.

I also added a general objection to of all the claims of, having warned him against the WP:NPOV bias as the ground of his objections, all of which are based upon a single memoir book of one Russian emigrant (and its derivatives) while the whole compilation was based upon encyclopedic sources before 1917 and the books of modern American researchers.

Actually answered only one minor point ("whether the two references shall be considered as the same source") of eight, and another was a repeated insistence upon including of a questionable data, without any new arguments for ot.

Instead of a discussing other points showed his refusal to search for a compromise in an improperly ultimative manner: "I'm not going to discuss my interpretations of sources, concepts of honor, legality etc. This would be WP:Original research. Just remove edeverything in the article text that is your original work and not supported by sources. Or I will remove it." In violation of ethics rules, as well as his promise "I will not make any big changes to the article, without discussing it first at the talk page" which he had publicly given at AnI board before, immediately resumed his POV-attack on the article.

I must separately note, that no warning about it was given by in the initial topic at ANI where the whole problem was discussed before, and where he gave that promise.

Here I must remind that this is not the first time when is engaged in WP:EDITWARRING here, that he has been placed on 1RR restriction  (which he now violated), engaged in sockpuppetry and twice blocked indefinitely. Whatever elements of WP:GOODFAITH may be found in his present series of edits, I have to draw community's attention to what I consider to be the main driving force for here.

Most of the edits of at the article Ivan Dumbadze are aimed at one goal.

Rejecting a comprehensive review of encyclopedic sources and modern American scientists upon the subject of the so-called Black Hundreds and their main supporters in Russia (and such was an article before his interference), tends to replaced it with unilateral, biased view taken from a memoir written by an emigrant, apart from archive documents. The style of this memoir leaves no doubt about an open sympathy of its author to Black Hundreds and General Dumbadze (a member of the strongest party within this group) in particular.

Among the first deletions of in the article was the removal on 15:53 2011-2-21 removal of the two following links to the books of modern U. S. scientisis: ""Black hundreds" is derogative term. Such terms should be avoided per WP:NPOV" In his claims sets his personal political estimates of the sources to the forefront:"was extremely hostile to Dumbadze, because of his party affiliation" "forgetting" that the a critical view upon Dumbadze's activities has been already documented in 1913 in such a reliable encyclopedic source, as «Brockhaus», the Russian counterpart to the 1911 Britannica.
 * Having wiped these references out of the article, on a talk page posted an unreasonable and unfounded statement that allegedly
 * Having wiped these references out of the article, on a talk page posted an unreasonable and unfounded statement that allegedly

Opposing all these encyclopedic and modern American sources, imposes the above biased memoirs, a 1908 note from Black-Hundred newspaper and its reprint in NYT of the same time, and the modern derivative publication on a Russian websource "An Orthodox News agency «Russian line»" (Православное информационное агентство "Русская линия").

I don't consider this approach to conform to the rules of Wikipedia. All points of view, all sources, and all estimates, not excluding marginal and doubtful (I wrote about it on a talkpage) have already been mentioned in the article Ivan Dumbadze before the interference of which I hence treat as close to destructive.

Thus I am forced to revert all previous edits of since all of them bypassed the procedure of dispute and search of compromise. Insisting that by the nature of all these edits imposes his biased WP:NPOV I would have considered it appropriate to block for some time his editing capabilities in these theme in order to allow our participants and me to return this article to a normal, unbiased state. Cherurbino (talk) 13:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "Black hundreds" can be a derogatory term if applied in a personal context to someone who edits in wikipedia (e.g. "you are black-hundredist!"). However, this is perfectly normal term (see WP:Common name) for describing history of these organizations. Other than that I can not provide any advice because I do not want to be involved in this. Thank you for asking. As a matter of general policy, such requests should not be filed to WP:ANI (as you did), but might be filed to WP:AE under WP:DIGWUREN sanctions. But I do not recommend this. And no, do not revert all edits by DD as you suggest, because in that case you may be sanctioned. Biophys (talk) 15:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Frankly, do not ask me. Ask uninvolved administrators like Sandstein or Future Perfect. Biophys (talk) 15:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Delete it :) Cherurbino (talk) 13:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's all right. I responded at your talk page . I collapsed your comment.Biophys (talk) 16:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Preamble
Hi, Biophys. I noted that you participated in the discussion on the Talk:Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Could you add the article Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union to your watchlist and look for a source to the first sentence (“In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), psychiatry was sometimes used for punitive purposes”) or ponder over how to reword it? The phrase appears to sound not very good and does not cite any source. However, the article needs a good preamble to nominate it on the good article nominations page. I hope the article still is of your interest. Therefore, I ask for your help. Psychiatrick (talk) 15:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's great to see you around! You are doing terrific work. Yes, I noticed your edits long time ago, and I would like to contribute. But unfortunately I have a topic ban on the Soviet-Union related subjects. If and when it is lifted, I would be very happy to help. Generally, I am interested in human rights related subjects, and this is one of them. I also strongly agree with your comments, such as medicating kids in the US. Good luck with your nomination! Biophys (talk) 16:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In the Russian Wikipedia, the corresponding article “Использование психиатрии в политических целях в СССР” was the subject of endless heated disputes and conflicts between users, some of whom I supposed were the employees of state services and institutions involved in the Soviet practices of punitive psychiatry. It is strange for me to see such a lull in the English version of the article now. This lull allowed me to write the elaborated article here. The only thing left over to complete the article is to solve how to formulate its preamble. Even topic banned, you may always offer me your advice on the talk page of yours or mine. Thank you in advance. Psychiatrick (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I quickly looked at things in ruwiki. My best suggestions at the moment. 1. Whatever had happened in ruwiki is irrelevant here. This is an independent project. 2. You are doing just fine here. If you have any problems or specific questions to me, you are very welcome at my talk page, except I can not help with editing SU-related subjects right now. Happy editing! Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 05:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that was not the best decision I made, but I considered it reasonable to move the article and set forth my arguments on Talk:Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Psychiatrick (talk) 08:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Only after the article had been moved into Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, I managed to fix its preamble by adding sources. It seemed to me to be the only way to solve the problem of the unsourced statement in the preamble, and this way turned out right. Psychiatrick (talk) 23:31, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This is good title for something you are trying to emphasize in the article. But this is simply a less general title than would be "Punitive psychiatry". Good work! Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 03:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

IRC invitation
Because I have noticed you commenting at the current RfC regarding Pending Changes, I wanted to invite you to the IRC channel for pending changes. If you are not customarily logged into the IRC, use this link. This under used resource can allow real time discussion at this particularly timely venture of the trial known as Pending Changes. Even if nothing can come from debating points there, at least this invitation is delivered with the best of intentions and good faith expectations. Kind regards.  My 76 Strat  08:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

PDB links
Sorry to bring this topic up again, but a new discussion has started concerning external links to the PDB. In particular the PDB3 template currently points to PDBsum and not to the PDB and therefore the name of the template is misleading. In addition, the Infobox protein family template contains a heading to "Available PDB structures", yet the links are to PDBsum. You previously noted that the PDB did not contain critical information such as UniProt links. Please note that there have been many enhancements recently made to the PDB. Most importantly, links to UniProt are now included and Pfam and InterPro domain assignments can now be displayed over the sequence graphics.

At a minimum the PDB3 template should be renamed to PDBsum since the link is not to the PDB but rather to the derivative PDBsum database. In addition, given the recent enhancements made to the PDB, would you object if PDB3 templates within Infobox protein family templates were replaced with PDB2 templates? Or if you still prefer that the PDB3 templates are retained, would you object if the "Links to PDB" heading in the pfam infobox is replaced with "Links to PDBsum"? Cheers. Boghog (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to know opinion of Alex. I nave a slight COI here in favor of PDB in US. But if we think about wikipedia users, this should be PDBsum or PDB in Europe. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 03:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. I agree that Alex's opinion would be useful. Concerning which site should be better for en.wikipedia users, I do not understand why the European site would necessarily be better than the US or Japanese sites. You state that it should, but you don't explain why.
 * The RCSB PDB (US), along with PDBe (Europe) and PDBj (Japan) are all members of the wwPDB.   According to the wwPDB Charter,  all members distribute the PDB with  with identical mirror contents (Section 4.1) while the RCSB PDB acts as the "archive keeper" (Sections 4.2 and 5.1).  In terms of raw content, the three sites are identical, however there are significant differences in the search and analysis tools provided.  It would appear that the RCSB PDB has the most developed search tools and polished user interface, so the RCSB PDB site is arguably the best for en.wikipedia users. Concerning PDB vs PDBsum, to reiterate, the former is the official site while the later is a derivative site.  Furthermore the PDB has undergone extensive recent improvements and now includes many of the same features that were previously only available from PDBsum.  Finally the structure coordinates are available from the PDB and not from PDBsum. Boghog (talk) 06:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I responded here. Frankly, the original issue was about impoving PDB web traffic by using wikipedia. It has nothing to do with Pfam or PDB3 templates. I am not really a supporter of this idea, but let's discuss it when I come back from a conference in a week. Thanks, Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 23:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi. The original issue of the thread was not how to increase PDB web traffic but rather why it had decreased.  Furthermore Andreas' comments were not directed toward increasing the number of links from Wikipedia to the PDB but rather external links should properly be identified (the most straight forward way of fixing this is to change the wiki link in the pfam infobox from PDB to  PDBsum).  In any case, I have have a suggestion that hopefully will address everyone's concerns.  The idea is to replace the static list of PDB links with query links to Pfam, RCSB PDB, PDBe, and PDBsum that would each return the structures from that database that contain the relevant pfam domain. I have made a mockup of how the new structure links might look in the pfam infobox here.  This solution would have the additional advantage of not having to manually update the PDB links in each of the pfam infoboxes as new structures become available.  The external databases would do this. Links to Pfam and PDBe have already been added to Infobox protein family/sandbox and a suboptimal link to the RCSB PDB has also been added (I have asked Andreas for a better solution).  The only thing missing is a corresponding link to PDBsum.  Do you know how to construct such a link?  Boghog (talk) 09:36, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * He said he wants to replace all links as "wrongly attributed to PDB", but they are correctly attributed to PDB files. No, I do not know how to constuct the query. I suggest to add link to PDB RCSB site, exactly as you did (good work!), but leave links to PDBsum files as they are right know. Otherwise, you replaces PDBsum links by links to RCSB, exactly as was suggested by the PDB man if I understood him correctly (but you tell I did not). Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 22:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I do believe there is a misunderstanding. I did not say or intend to replace all links. My proposal was to rename the section to "Links to PDBsum"  as the current title is misleading. I could imagine that you have been involved into similar discussions in the past, that's why you were immediately alerted by this topic. Let me assure you that simply rewriting all links was never my intention (see also Talk:SH2_domain which I posted before I knew about the MCB forum).  I am well aware that these topics are very sensitive and am glad to see that Boghog's new template now also contains links to PDBe. Looking forward to the new template getting rolled out soon.  --Andreas (talk) 03:43, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As a temporary solution, we can leave the PDBsum links as they are. However I would like to replace these individual links with a single query link to the PDBsum database as soon as possible for the following reasons:
 * These lists have not been updated to include the latest structures. A bot could be used to update these lists, but this is in my opinion unnecessary work that is better left to the external databases.
 * Lists of structure links for some Pfam domains are very long (hundreds or even thousands of entries). In these cases, providing a long list of links that have not been annotated is not very useful.  The external databases do a better job of presenting these lists in a way that is useful to the user.
 * Most of the Pfam infoboxes use PDB3 templates, but some use PDB2 templates.
 * To reiterate, PDBsum ≠ PDB. Furthermore the link to PDB describes the database and only briefly mentions the file format. Finally the PDB file format contains coordinates that are not stored in PDBsum.
 * To bring this issue to a close, I propose the following:
 * Redirect the PDB3 template to PDBsum
 * Replace the parameter in the Pfam infobox with  and replace the "place holder for PDBsum link" with
 * Have BogBot replace all occurrences of PDB2 and PDB3 in transcluded Infobox protein family templates with PDBsum and replace the parameter with the  parameter
 * Contact PDBsum to see whether a direct query link is possible and if not, request that this functionality be added to PDBsum.
 * Does this sound reasonable? Boghog (talk) 07:17, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have updated the Infobox protein family/sandbox template according to the above proposal and an example of how it would look may be seen here. Boghog (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I will look more carefully later, but just as a quick note, "PDB structures" in Pfam template does not tell "PDB RCSB web site". "PDB" only means PDB format of files, as in any molecular modeling program. Hence this is not misleading. It can provide links to PDBsum, PDBe, or other resources that provide PDB files. There is no any serious reason to delete or move "PDB3" template.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 03:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A quick reply: The current (labeled "old") infobox is displayed to the left, the proposed "new" sandbox infobox is on the right. The heading "Available PDB structures" in the old template is replaced with "Available protein structures" in the new template. Please note that the Protein Data Bank (PDB) ≠ Protein Data Bank (file format). The PDB is composed of three members, the RCSB PDB, PDBe, and PDBj. Hence the RCSB PDB and PDBe links are properly labeled as PDB in the new template.  The Pfam structures and PDBsum links are also properly labeled.
 * Concerning the proposed PDB3 → PDBsum template change, this is simply to avoid any future confusion and to give proper attribution to each of the databases. At least three separate editors have commented that the current naming of the templates is confusing. This needs to be fixed. Boghog (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

We should discuss it at template talk page. I made a few comments there. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 02:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. I think you already fixed it by telling "Available protein structures". When I created this template, I thought about "available PDB files" meaning "available protein structures". Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 03:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI
Just as an FYI, I initiated a thread at BN, which refers to your recent request as an example. – xeno talk 20:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I did not know about this limitation too. Main point: I would be very hesitant to create any more trouble. So, let's keep everything as it is right now. There are no any serious issues here.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 23:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Personal question
I edited away what you've called a personal question. I regret it if you felt it veered off topic. It's just that I've read the BLP policy, and I can't for the life of me figure out how you've come to believe it has any application to the section of Orlando Figes on the Amazon reviews. WP:BLPREMOVE says the criterion to avoid being "poorly sourced" is WP:V, and I don't believe you've shown us that anything there fails to meet WP:V. And perhaps you can see why it seems that your objection is hard to pin down to any one clear rationale but just persists. "Not encyclopedic" is the only thing that keeps coming back, and this is really not a BLP issue at all. I'm sure browsing the Wikipedia you realize that every single topic that is discussed back and forth in the major periodicals of the English-language chattering classes is "encyclopedic," and even much that exists far below that threshold e.g. Pokemon minutiae... But perhaps my curiosity faced with motives and arguments on your part which I couldn't explain got the better of me; I take you at your word on the COI question. Wareh (talk) 01:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, no problem. Please keep in mind that personal matters should not be discussed at article talk pages. That was your question, and that was my reply. I am a researcher in field of Molecular Biophysics. I enjoy reading interesting books on history subjects, and I respect authors of these books and BLP policy. This is all my "conflict of interest". Happy editing, Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 04:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, I accept that and regret injecting any questions that aren't really relevant. Sometimes respect for the author may recommend outcomes that aren't really recommended by our BLP policy, but I don't want to bother you any more about that here. Wareh (talk) 14:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!
Hi Hodja, I'd like to tank you for input on AE on my behalf. Best wishes.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I do believe that no one should ban good content contributors (and you are one of them) for a period longer than a few months . This is partly based on my personal experience of being topic banned. I can admit that first six months of my topic ban were well deserved and even helped me to relax and to spend my time in the project more productively. I was banned to allow other more neutral people to contribute. A year has passed, and two or three new good content contributors came to this area, but I would never had any serious disputes with them. All others are exactly the same, including a couple of probable sockpuppets. Now I am looking with disbelief at ridiculous disputes of "neutral" editors and happy not to be a part of their struggle ever again, even if I resume editing in this area. You placed a quote from Vladimir Vysotsky at your user page. Then listen this. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for sharing your experience with me and for the link to Vysotsky's lyric. Do you speak Russian by any chance? Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, that's my native language. I left the country in 1990s. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 19:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Me too.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I still belong to Russian culture and therefore edited a lot in the Soviet Union-related area. I used to listen Russian songs (there is a program by Boltyanskaya at Echo of Moscow), read history and literature non-fiction and watch new movies. Some of them are really interesting including Cargo 200 and "Kochegar" by Balabanov, "Do not think about white monkey" by Yuri Mamin, "Volchok" and some others.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 19:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What part of Russia are you from, if I may ask please?--Mbz1 (talk) 20:17, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * From Moscow. But I visited many other parts of the country, especially during hiking/mountaineering trips, from Teletskoye and Iskanderkul lakes to my favorite Caucasus Mountains. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 20:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I see we have lot's of similar interests. I have been to Caucasus Mountains many times both in summers and winters. I did down hill skiing at Elbrus, Cheget, Dombai, I went over many passes.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, those are wonderful places. I had fantastic time and know the area from Krasnaya Polyana to Shkhara. Dombai was the first place where I ever saw the mountains as a kid, and Elbrus was a place of adventure. We did a two-day traverse through ice fields from Malka to Priut of 11, and I managed to fell into a big snow-covered crevice. Although I was on a rope, it took an effort and some luck to get myself out with a couple of prusiks, because my friends had no experience in using the equipment. Now I am mostly hiking here, in US, last lime here. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 02:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

(intend)It is great you are able to continue in US what you liked to do in Russia. Thanks for sharing your stories.--Mbz1 (talk) 06:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. Of course you do not think that Roscelese was interested in the subject of Dickshooter. She is interested in homophobia and you do not (just as I am not interested in political career of Putin or Russian foreign affairs). That is what I would advise you to do: (1) do not tell her anything at her talk page, no matte if you are right or wrong; (2) do not argue a lot about Dickshooter and edit another article about another Dickshooter (and yet another article, and so on.) She will soon leave you alone because you do not have a lot of common interests. The situation would be more complicated if you had common interests with her. Then, you would really had to learn how to coexist with users who hold an opposite POV, as I did with Altenmann. In fact, this is not such a bad thing if someone is watching after your edits.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What a great advise - edit article about another Dickshooter :-) Yes, you are right, it was silly of me to appeal to her. I should have reviewed Do not feed trolls. When would I learn? Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That was an irony, but yes, as long as you edit something no one cares about, you suppose to be "safe" (Wikipedia is a desert, unless someone follows you personally). But if you edit a high-profile article, which is already in a state of editorial war, that will certainly bring you a trouble. Once I tried to place a standard "terrorism" definition, but was immediately reverted by editors on the both sides of the dispute. Surprisingly, they all agreed that there is no such thing as terrorism. Some did not like freedom fighters to be labeled as "terrorists". Others did not like "state terrorism" accusations, so they all would rather discredit the entire concept. This will never be a good encyclopedia on political subjects without editorial boards.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Kraepelin

 * Hi, Hodja Nasreddin. Please take a look at our discussion. Its subject is psychiatry. As far as I understand, FiachraByrne is going to delete my edit confirmed by sources but this deletion will not be good for the discussed article Emil Kraepelin. For its preservation, please add it to your watchlist. P.S. By chance I have read what is written above. Psychiatrick (talk) 19:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, please read. I think this all boils down to a simple point: having editorial conflicts is something one can not afford. This takes all your time and energy as soon as you became immersed in a subject and ... conflicts. And you have nothing but a trouble in return. I would rather not edit anything at all. That's the message.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I set myself an aim of preserving information added to articles and confirmed by sources rather than avoiding troubles. If information is deleted from the articles, my and your work on them will be worthless. Psychiatrick (talk) 12:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Try to compromise. You do not have serious disagreements with him. As about keeping important information in articles, yes, that is what I thought a couple of years ago. Yes, this is usually not a problem with Biology and Chemistry articles. But it is already a problem in Physics: some users aggressively object to explaining important but unpopular views (even those by Einstein) and occasionally create informal groups to stalk a user they do not like. As about history and politics (including things like "race" and "pseudoscience"), there are no any working mechanisms to keep good content in articles. Administrators do not know much (and do not care) about the content, and only rule on behavior of users. Imagine that you placed any well sourced information that really affects interests of powerful living people. Of course it was already printed in multiple RS, but combining and summarizing information in a multiple articles, which are freely available all over the internet, may be considered a serious damage. Then you will probably encounter several people who will remove this information, make a mess from articles you edited, and get you banned. There are several examples. So, do not even try. I would not. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Whose troubles these are I think I know. His page is not attended though; He will not see us talking here About how the troubles grow. Psychiatrick (talk) 22:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It tells: "about half of 1,200 lapsed editors said they stopped editing due to personal reasons. About a quarter said they stopped contributing because of issues with the community, including interactions with other editors they found stubborn or biased or bullying." A typical lapsed editor would be someone like him. He knew what he was doing; he contributed, and he is gone to do something more important. A good example for others. We are wasting our time here.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring clarification - a month later (let's finish what we've started)
We had a useful discussion at WP:ER, but it seems it died out just as we were about to reach a consensus on implementation. Please see my restart here, it would be a shame to let good ideas go to waste when we are so close to actually making something good out of all that talking. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I do not think we need any policy changes, but there are two important lessons: (a) one must be extremely careful with reverts, even one revert; and (b) do not edit any articles in the state of active editorial war between multiple parties. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

personal info
Did you want your email revealed in that comment you left? I will ask for someone to oversight it if you didn't. Crazymonkey1123 (Jacob) T or M/Sign mine 03:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Please do. Sorry, I made it by mistake. There was a form that I thought was an email form, but it was not. Thank you! Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Linnaeus and Watson
I don't know about Linnaeus, and while Watson did hold some pretty nasty views, the difference is that neither dedicated their professional lives to "proving" that blacks are inferior to whites. So while a source here or there may mention in passing that one of these two guys held some racist views, most sources on them don't mention that fact. On the other hand, Rushton's "work" is exclusively dedicated to "proving" the intellectual superiority of whites and many many unbiased sources which talk about him describe him as racist. BLP and NPOV does not mean hiding important facts from the readers. You state I think that bringing politics to science is an extremely bad idea and this may be true (I'm not so sure - it depends), but this isn't "science" here, it's "scientific racism" (with the word "scientific" in there not being meant literally).Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I never even heard about him before. However, after looking at his fund, I realize that you may me right and changed my comment . But I know a little more about others. Claiming that Carl Linnaeus was a scientific racist is ridiculous. As about Watson, well, one could reasonably argue that he stole his Nobel Prize from Franklin, but "racist"? No, I do not think so. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, with Linnaues, I think it's just strange to talk about "racism" among 18th century people. As for Watson, I think he just made some ill-thought out statements probably reflecting some subconscious old-man's racism. That's way different than dedicating one's life to "proving" blacks are inferior to whites, as with Rushton.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue on this article has never been over whether or not it should mention the Pioneer Fund at all, I think everyone agrees that it should. The issue has been whether this should take up as much space of the lead section as it currently does (around 1/4 of the lead), and whether it's appropriate for information that's being presented as criticism of Rushton to be cited to sources which don't actually criticize him. I made a proposal here for how I think this section should be changed, but nobody replied to it. For some reason all of the people commenting in the RFC have been under the impression that I wanted to remove the PF reference entirely, and none of them commented on the actual change I was proposing. Your opinion about my proposal would be welcome.

I also think that if you're going to form an opinion about the PF based on the article about it, it should be based on the article as it existed before Volunteer Marek or Miradre started editing it. Miradre edited from a pro-fund point of view and Marek from an anti-fund point of view, but Marek was involved more recently than Miradre, so the article now largely reflects his point of view. this was the state of the article before either Miradre or Marek became involved in it, which had been stable for over two years, and I think this version was considerably more neutral than the current one.Boothello (talk) 04:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you talking about the Race and Intelligence article or the PR article? Either way I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about - The issue has been whether this should take up as much space of the lead section as it currently does (around 1/4 of the lead). On R&I, before I made my addition there was no mention of the PF in the lede what so ever . My addition was a couple words. Likewise in the Phillipe Rushton article, it's just a single sentence. The version of the PF article you link to  was a straight up whitewash of a particularly nasty organization. Even in the the part on Draper, a very disgusting fellow, the criticisms is hidden away and weaseled ("He is said to ..." etc.)Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Rushton article. The lead section of that article is 161 words long, and it devotes 41 words to information about the Pioneer Fund, so this is taking up around a quarter of the lead. Several of the sources for it also don't mention Rushton. Every other time I tried to explain what's wrong with this you either ignored me entirely (as in the comment that I linked to) or said that you didn't know what I was talking about (as you are doing here), so I'm not really interested in trying to have this conversation with you again. However, I would like to get Hodja Nasreddin's opinion.Boothello (talk) 05:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I do not have time for that. I think the intro can be easily rephrased as follows per our WP:BLP policy. But I would suggest to continue this discussion (if you wish) at the article talk page, rather than here, so other people could also take part in this. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 15:36, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek undid part of your change to this article. I changed one aspect of his new wording, which was stating an opinion as a fact, but I'm also unsure about it in other ways. As I mentioned here, several of the sources that it's citing are sources that don't mention Rushton at all, but in the past when I've tried to replace these with sources that criticize him directly, I was immediately reverted. Would you mind taking a look at the current wording, and whether you think it's acceptable in a BLP article?Boothello (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You probably do not know it, but I was already sanctioned by Arbcom, although in a different case. Hence I follow several self-imposed rules: #1 Do not edit any articles in a state of active editorial dispute between multiple parties (this is waste of time, although commenting or making a single compromise edit may be acceptable). #2 Never revert other editors back if they reverted your edits. Start talking to clarify the situation if it is not already clear. Go edit other articles if consensus can not be found after brief discussion. #3. Never report other users at AE/ANI. If others started something, comment in a reasonable and neutral fashion. Based on that, there is nothing I can do in this case. Please report BLP concerns at Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard unless you already did. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 23:04, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But it was at BLP already. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh ok, I didn't know you were following this self-imposed rule. Even though this article was at the BLP noticeboard recently, the thread you linked to is about a different question from the one I have, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to post a new thread there about this.Boothello (talk) 01:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

FYI
I mentioned you here. Regards.--Mbz1 (talk) 00:46, 14 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Please take it easy. Nothing happened. I voted. That's OK. She made this comment. I think she misread my intentions and tried to explain this to her in the most civilized fashion . She deleted my explanation because she does not want to continue this discussion. That's fine. She read it. I personally feel very comfortable talking with you, with her, or anyone else. But it seems that you guys do not feel comfortable talking with each other. So, I think you should not talk or comment about each other. But if you really want to comment about someone, please comment about me. I honestly do not care, beyond politely explaining my intentions. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 02:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are really taking it easy, aren't you? It is probably the way to go.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, everything is cool. If someone does not want to talk, this is fine too. In such cases, one should not try to continue conversation or interpret refusal to talk as a sign of bad faith. I can see only one problem: the inappropriate use of project talk pages by several people (I do not mean you). If they want to discuss policy changes or DYK nominations of specific articles, that's fine, but do not criticize anyone personally. There are user talk pages and AE page to discuss behavior problems. But they already criticized that person at AE page and even get her topic banned, did not they? Why do not they just drop the stick? Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. Good songs by Kochetkov, Egorov and others I am listening right now. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 14:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Hodja, as one of your friendly talk-page readers, I went back and tried to improve the discussion at TDYK saying "I also urge that we discuss policy proposals without pointing to individual editors whose behavior would have been forbidden if a new policy A or B had been in force. The point is not to embarrass individual editors who were acting in good faith to create and nominate articles they thought would benefit DYK, and we should avoid hurting the feelings of other editors if we can." On the other hand, I think one should WP:AGF that GatoClass used names in his examples of DYK behavior that should be forbidden to demonstrate that such behavior is, in fact, occurring. In response to a challenge to document tag-team endorsements at DYK, I documented quite a few similar patterns but did not post any of them publicly except one small fraction at GatoClass's talk page. I am glad you raised your concern here on your talk page, and I'm glad I saw it. By the way, you can easily send me email via my talk page. Nobody's goal was to be hurtful, IMO,  and anyone who did want to pick up sticks would take them to AE, RFCU, or WQA. betsythedevine (talk) 16:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I can not agree. Such problems must be resolved not by focusing on contributors ("a challenge to document tag-team endorsements"), but on improvement of content. Simply look at an article and evaluate if it was appropriate for a DYK and never ever mention contributors at this page. That is exactly what I did . And that was a response to my comment. Grossly inappropriate as focusing on contributors, to tell it softly. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The "challenge to document tag-team endorsements" is here; my earlier statement (which was being challenged) tried to make the point that the problem is not one contributor behaving badly but many different contributors behaving in a way that gives examples why our policy needs a change. You disagree that our policy needs a change, and so the final consensus, whatever it may be, will not be unanimous. betsythedevine (talk) 20:35, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I still believe that looking for "tag-teams" everywhere is extremely damaging for this project and sometimes amounts to witch-hunt. And I also believe that almost all problems can be resolved by focusing on the content rather than on criticizing contributors. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 21:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to concur, about "but many different contributors behaving...", that is merely escalating talking about editors as opposed to content. I am tired of editors calling more than one editor who disagrees with them a tag team, meat puppets, etc. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 21:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. "Tag-team" are any two like-minded editors who work in the same area. Or maybe they even work in different areas, but sometimes have a friendly conversation and occasionally watch each other to tell: "hey, I agree/disagree with something you are doing". If this is treated as crime, no wonder why people are leaving this project. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 21:36, 14 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Almost all problems can be resolved by focusing on content rather than contributors; not ALL problems can. There is at the moment great disharmony over some issues at DYK that could be solved either by a policy change, or by all the people who are upset suddenly not being upset any more, or by some other method I haven't thought of. The point of improving policy is to end the fighting at article after article with some impersonal rules. I agree that "tag-team", a commonly used shorthand way to describe editors who share a POV and work on the same article, is not the best way to talk about editors who share a POV and whose participation at DYK includes praising or confirming one another's articles.  betsythedevine (talk) 21:47, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not have any particular POV about Nazi Pilots (the DYK I commented about), and I did not know any of the people involved just a couple of months ago. But I now have a strong POV about DYK noticeboard as a place that needs to be avoided. Could we please stop this discussion as something hardly productive? Thanks, Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 22:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

<--Bowing and exiting, but let me just say that I absolutely did not consider Hodja Nasreddin to have any POV about Nazi pilots, nor did I take any part in incidents that led to this thread. I was purely responding to your comments about several people proposing policy changes. betsythedevine (talk) 22:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sure. I just think that discussing questions like "who was guilty" is extremely counterproductive and one must always follow WP:FORGIVE. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 23:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)