User talk:Middle 8/Archive 1

Note: For now I manually archive my talk page (infrequently), and tend to leave threads up for at least a month (with occasional exceptions, e.g. disruption). Some threads that I feel are useful I may leave on the page indefinitely.

Santorum vs santorum
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Santorum vs santorum". Thank you. --The Gnome (talk) 07:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Middle 8 (talk) 10:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, that was quick. And I agree with the result. Consensus on this issue isn't going to change. Continuing to push the issue not only won't work, it will (justifiably) annoy other users because it is tendentious, and will lead to tendentious editors getting blocked or otherwise sanctioned.  It's happened plenty of times before; just browse ARBCOM decisions and AN/I activity. Suggest giving it a rest.  --Middle 8 (talk) 11:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your Update tag...
...on List of characters in The Killing. Here's a thought: Try helping with the updating, rather than "tagging" the article? — WylieCoyote (talk) 03:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I did make a couple edits before tagging, it needs a lot more work than I have time to do, and I guarantee that it took me less time to tag it than it took you to complain here. --Middle 8 (talk) 06:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Handling disruptive "skeptic" editors
At Talk:Acupuncture, Herbxue asked whether User:SkepticalRaptor should be topic-banned because of repeated, unexplained reversions of RS material amounting to vandalism. My response, which I'll echo and expand upon here, is that he might already have been banned: I have good "radar" for socks, and I think SR is likely a sock of indef-blocked User:Orangemarlin. (I just asked him about that .) The similarities between the two accounts are extensive:  compare the user pages with their petty "rules", topic areas edited, reverting style and ES's, choice of words, and general hostility and ignoring WP:DR.

Anyway, sock or not, SR should have been subject to escalating blocks a long time ago. The probable reason he hasn't is that he's a "skeptic" (although he's so careless that he sometimes removes material that skeptics would like   --  IIRC, OrangeMarlin did that too.)  A lot of admins will tolerate all kinds of editorial bullshit if they think it holds the hordes of pseudoscientists at bay -- witness how long OrangeMarlin himself was tolerated, let alone the absurdly over-the-top ScienceApologist. But the only times the end justifies the means -- maybe -- is when there are no better means available, and in this case of course there are: there are plenty of editors able to bring scientific literacy to WP without being disruptive jihadists.

But admins have to be more willing to block disruptive editors from both sides of the equation: (1) Courteously but swiftly block tendentious editors, whether they're promoting pseudoscience or anything else, even if they're relatively new. (2) Block editors who fail to engage in WP:DR, especially the "rational discussion" part, especially if they're turning the project into a battleground. If you (1) weed out the supply of anti-science editors, then (2) there won't be any excuse for people who just want to fight to get their jollies on WP. In other words, stop handling everybody with kid gloves and don't let people edit unless they do so calmly, rationally and with social competence. --Middle 8 (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty convinced about the OM-SR link. It could just be a coincidence but there are some specifics that are just a bit too telling. SPI?  S Æ don talk  06:07, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Saedon, yep, agree re evidence, and I think an SPI is a good idea. I've got some diffs and can dig up more.  How can I help make this go forward?  It might be better if someone else initiated it and I added some evidence, since I've never done this before.  (P.S. - Although I'm generally busy IRL, I'd make time to watch an SPI pretty closely if I were involved.) --Middle 8 (talk) 20:20, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I hate filing SPIs. I like almost all other administrative functions but two things I hate are SPIs and 3RR reports.  Mostly what I can offer is moral support :).  It's not that difficult though, there should be a full page of instructions at WP:SPI.   S Æ don talk  20:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, that's cool, I'm sure I can figure it out, and it does need to be done. Thanks for the support, and I'll keep you advised. --Middle 8 (talk) 08:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Sham acupuncture and "gateway woo"
Here is some material copied from Talk:Acupuncture: question: has anyone seen Ernst comment on which controls might be better than others in attempts to blind acu patients? I'm curious as to what he thinks. regards, Middle 8 (talk) 07:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Trick or Treatment made the point that when retracting needles were used, which allowed double-blinding, the evidence base for acupuncture eroded considerably.
 * Part of the issue is what are you controlling for? Your options are needle placement, needle penetration, depth of penetration, manipulation, diagnosis technique, disease/disorder/symptom addressed and practitioner characteristics as a minimum starting point.  ... (snip) ... -- WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 19:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * @WLU - ... (snip) ... Thanks for the heads-up re Ernst. I do need to read ToT. I am skeptical of the value of retracting needles for a couple of reasons. First, TCM acupuncture emphasizes needle manipulation, without which the treatment will be less active.*  Second, acupoints are sensitive, so even the control group's nonpenetrating poke could have some effect. I think GERAC, at least sometimes, used such a design.
 * Good summary of the variables for which to control. It's complicated.  ... [more on] my usertalk page. --Middle 8 (talk) 21:22, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * * See Cheng Dan-An, probably the single most important teaching text in the US.

Adding some more where my comments left off: Although I'm an acupuncturist, I don't fear or deny that acupuncture may be proven to be somewhat or completely ineffective (although some of it works a lot like massage does, including trigger points, so there's that: e.g., needling can release trigger points that a therapist's fingers can't reach). The thing that I hope everyone will guard against is being too hasty in any direction. It's facile to say "the controls are too complicated, so it can't be proven wrong (or let's not even try)", but it's just as facile to call it "gateway woo", assert that the prior probability is really small, and call the existing studies "well-designed" and write it off as useless.

"Gateway woo" is, of course, is an allusion to the term "gateway drug", usually connoting marijuana. But the comparison is telling: the idea that smoking pot causes users to go on to harder drugs is unsupported, and pot itself is quite safe as long as a few basic precautions are followed (e.g., avoid smoke by vaporizing, and, maybe, don't be schizophrenic). For most people, the greatest risk about smoking pot is because it's illegal, not because of anything intrinsic about it. Need I point out the obvious? Studying or trying acupuncture is not going to make someone fall for flat-earthism or climate change denial, and acupuncture is extremely safe as long as a few basic precautions are followed (no dirty needles, no impaling major organs). Probably the biggest risk of acupuncture is to use it in place of, rather than as a complement to, standard medical care. (In other words, the worst harms associated with acupuncture and pot are not intrinsic, but arise when they are put in the wrong category -- alternative vs. complementary and illegal vs. legal, respectively.)

I think it was Feynman who said that anything that contained the word "science" probably wasn't science -- e.g., "Christian science", "the science of yoga", "political science" (and, in his time, the "social sciences"). Maybe the same goes for anything called a "gateway"-something. --Middle 8 (talk) 23:15, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe acupuncture is a valid "science", provided you define what "science" is. If the process works according to the methods prescribed, it is a valid "science" which contains hypothesis, observation and experiment, but the methods may be different. Materialistic scientists think that anything that doesn't fit into their purview of material science, is just not scientific, which is absurd. I define "science" as "Knowing things exactly as they are". The "science" of God and the soul, is the most important and significant "science" if you think well.-59.95.20.182 (talk) 08:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I define science the way scientists define it, and that involves empircal evidence, not the subjectivity of religious experience. There are a lot of opinions about what God is, and to paraphrase J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, "they can't all be right, but they can sure as hell be wrong".  I think "science of yoga" and "science of God" are prime examples of what Feynman was talking about. But this doesn't have to do with any article, and WP isn't social media, so... let's not extend this.  I wish you well.  --Middle 8 (talk) 04:04, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Indiatimes
(Note: I moved this from above to a new section -- Middle 8 (talk) 03:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC))

Once you know how to tackle ruthless deleters, you can keep the statements. But here in India, Indiatimes shopping is running a huge fraud racket since 2004 or 2005 till date. Pl. see your talk page. Can you help me? User:Deli nk deleted some information on the Indiatimes shopping page. Please see the history -59.95.15.38 (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I don't understand this, and I don't know what it has to do with me: I've never edited any article about Indiatimes or, AFAIK, any related article. And I'm afraid I don't have time to get involved in articles I don't already follow.  I wish you good luck finding help elsewhere. regards, Middle 8 (talk) 03:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for bothering you. I think I can't use Wikipedia to fulfil my means, im not a vandalizer-59.95.20.182 (talk) 08:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

FYI
The NPOV tag was removed by a bot. I'm fine with restoring it. Instaurare (talk) 05:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool... I think it was a person, not a bot (cf. below), but all is well; I never assumed it was you who removed it. regards, Middle 8 (talk) 01:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

NPOV Terry McAuliffe
Per NPOVD:

"This label is meant to indicate that a discussion is still going on.... In the absence of an ongoing discussion on the article's talk page, any editor may remove this tag at any time. [emphasis mine]"

My quick perusal indicated the last discussion was five months ago. I see now that I was incorrect -- ongoing discussions to improve the article are in fact recently occurring. Thanks for the revert! SmallRepair (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool, no worries! :-) --Middle 8 (talk) 01:41, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Acupuncturist
Hi Middle 8,

As an acupuncturist, you are certainly conflicted when it comes to a skeptical view of your beliefs. As such, you should not be editing on the acupuncture or the Traditional Chinese medicine articles. I think, however, your input would be most welcome at the talk pages of those articles. I will be reporting this discussion to WP:FTN as well.

jps (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * False reading of WP:COI, not to mention unwarranted assumptions re my beliefs. --Middle 8 (talk) 01:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * If you're supporting what II said on TCM, then you are plainly in support of the pseudoscientific claim that acupuncture is better than a placebo. . jps (talk) 02:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * That's your opinion, unsupported by MEDRS's at acupuncture. Why are you beating the same dead horses as before?  Consensus didn't support your claims then either. --Middle 8 (talk) 02:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Hiding your poor sourcing and cherry-picking of third-rate articles as "MEDRS" is just more evidence of your conflicted position. And, additionally, consensus among alt-med supporters is not what consensus was intended to mean, and I think you should know that after seeing what happened to the homeopaths and the chiropractors here. The fact is that the horse is not "dead". The horse is just very sick and in need of being put down. jps (talk) 02:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * How is Vickers ('12) (which you want to remove from the article body) a poor MEDRS, especially compared to Sampson (at Quackwatch.org, '05) and McCarthy's editorial in The Lancet ('05 also), which you want to cite in the lede?


 * Your take on consensus sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy given the diversity of editors at acupuncture, something you'd know if you read Talk before doing quick and dirty edits to the lede. Your take on pseudoscience generally sounds like that fallacy... I mean, the National Health Service is pseudoscientific with their statement on acu?  Because some skeptical bloggers and ToT disagree?


 * I actually agree that it's possible that acu will -- despite the blinding issues -- eventually be recognized by sci consensus to be all or nearly all placebo. But your attempts to depict the literature as such are premature.  If you were right you wouldn't have to prevaricate about sources (and editors) that disagree. --Middle 8 (talk) 04:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Your personal beliefs about acupuncture are really not at issue here. You may be promoting your own bias without even realizing it, after all. The problem is that you are conflicted and are using a source which has been roundly impeached with no effective rejoinder. Vickers' interpretation is off and parroting that interpretation is irresponsible for Wikipedia. Attempting to claim that somehow we should be blind to these matters and give a kind of equal validity to bad sources as well as good ones is the heart of the issue and why I think you shouldn't be acting in mainspace especially as all your edits fall firmly on one side of this problem and you appear rather plainly to be promoting results that typically those in your profession trumpet even while they are rather poorly considered. jps (talk) 12:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Why all this drama simply over WP:WEIGHT? Nobody's claiming that we shouldn't give due weight to sources, or otherwise abandon NPOV.  Well, except for you, since you seem to be saying that giving due weight to a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of RCT's, like Vickers, means ignoring it because of Ernst and science bloggers disagreeing with it.  You keep asserting Vickers is abysmal, but based on what?  So far, you barely have the sources to balance it, let alone trash it.  You know very well that blogs aren't acceptable on WP (unless they're quoting a published expert like Ernst, and even then, expert opinion on a blog goes only so far).  So find better sources; otherwise, simply propose wording on talk that fits what we have, and give the drama a rest.  (Unfortunately, when you can't find better sources, your tendency is to harass the editors who point out that fact -- but I think that's pretty transparent.)  --Middle 8 (talk) 15:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The sources are there, we just need to get rid of the shoddy interpretations and organizations being promoted by you. It's not possible to do this when you revert in articlespace and canvass others to come join your righteous crusade to protect the slanted articles in Wikipedia that promote your profession. jps (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Enough with the silly, disruptive attack-drama. As if, with two mainspace edits to acu in the last six months (prior to which I don't think I even knew about the Vickers ref for which you say I'm POV-pushing) I am the guy promoting teh awful sources (and canards like: "systematic reviews are stronger sources than expert opinion").  The mainspace diff you cite still hasn't gotten a response from you on Talk:Acu regarding the inadequacy of Sampson/Lancet/ToT as rebuttals to NHS; meanwhile you've edit-warred and disrupted the talk page.  Your "righteous crusade" characterization of my note to Mallexicon is more silly hyperbole and WP:KETTLE (your history here being little short of a personal jihad).  And you're just playing fast and loose with the truth by generalizing off one diff without looking deeper.  Try doing something constructive: go to Talk:Acupuncture and propose a sensible edit that sticks close to sources.
 * There is one other thing. AFAIK, you haven't explained the circumstances of your return to the WP community.  You left under siteban a year or two ago amidst much drama.  What happened?  Did the siteban run out or did someone lift it, and if so, who?  Given how profoundly you disrupted WP last time, not to mention your evident lack of course change, you owe us an explanation.   --Middle 8 (talk) 18:28, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Stay out of article space and we won't have a problem with your conflict of interest. It's that simple. I'll even tolerate a little bit of canvassing. Why not? jps (talk) 18:54, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * What is this, Breaking Bad, "stay out of my territory"? Sorry, I'll be in article space even if you're feeling OWN-y.  Or to put it as you would: "now you are making shocking claims of ownership, among the worst I've ever seen!  It's appalling."  Teh Dramaz!  Speaking of, what was the deal with your ban/return?
 * In all seriousness, you wasted countless hours of the community's time with your ever-escalating disruption and should explain yourself. Why should you be trusted now?  In ANY WP space?  Really.  What changed?  What did you learn?  How are you putting into practice what you learned.  We have every right to know this stuff in light of your -- truly and no kidding -- appalling conduct.  --Middle 8 (talk) 19:07, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess I don't have anything more to say to you. It's all rhetorical flourish now with no content. You clearly don't want to try to put in place a conversation where we can come to understand each other, so what's the point of continuing? This is absolutely toxic. You can go do your own research into my story if you'd like. It's all in the archives. There's even a WP page about this: WP:RTA. jps (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The response by Vickers
Hi Middle 8. QuackGuru interpreted your remark to mean that you oppose citing Vickers's response to Ernst in the article. Is that accurate? Thanks. TimidGuy (talk) 11:41, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I do support citing Vickers' response to Ernst; sounds like QG misunderstood my comment. thanks, Middle 8 (talk) 16:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Shoot me an email if there are any PDFs you'd like to have in hand. TimidGuy (talk) 16:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Done! Thanks so much! --Middle 8 (talk) 06:15, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for engaging in reasoned and reasonable discussion on the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 15:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * To you the same, MB3. I think the overall trend is pretty good.  We may even make a "good article" out of it one day.  That would be pretty cool.  regards, Middle 8 (talk) 14:55, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Purported MEDRS violation
A 2004 cumulative review should not be used to replace the 2011 meta-review. See WP:MEDDATE.

Current text: "The incidence of serious adverse events was 5 per one million, which included children and adults.[166]"

The numbers are now in the article using a newer source. The older source did not did not specify if the estimate included adults and children, but the newer source did. The newer source gives a better explanation about the numbers. QuackGuru ( talk ) 21:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)


 * As I already pointed out at Talk:Acupuncture, that 5-in-one-million number comes from White 2004. The newer source simply quotes White.  Standard practice is to cite the original.  That's not controversial and it appears other editors are on board, so if you don't want to join consensus in this case, fine, but your objections to this source are now well past the WP:IDHT threshold.  (See Talk:Acupuncture.)  --Middle 8 (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Your edit was original research. I object to replacing the 2011 meta-review with dated source. I don't see a rationale explanation to replace the newer 2011 meta-review with the dated source. I don't understand how your edit improved the article. The 2011 meta-review does not cover the 5 in 1 million number yet you continue to insist to delete the newer source. I recently updated the article with the numbers using another source.  QuackGuru  ( talk ) 03:54, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You're misunderstanding/misrepresenting multiple things, and I'm not the only editor to notice this. It's disruptive.  And there's no reason to discuss this here when Talk:Acupuncture will do. --Middle 8 (talk) 04:02, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Your proposal has too many problems. For example, I explained on the talk page that your proposal is tantamount to original research. The newer source explicitly states the 5-in-1 million numbers.  QuackGuru  ( talk ) 04:34, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * If you're going to just repeat yourself and ignore what other editors say (aka WP:IDHT, why should we respond at all? You're losing the trust of other editors.  --Middle 8 (talk) 06:46, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You are unable to give a reasonable explanation for using the older source when the older source does not explicitly state the 5-in-1 million numbers and it does not specify whether the estimate included adults and children. See WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.  QuackGuru  ( talk ) 18:58, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * White 2004 indeed states 5 in one million. Well, actually 0.05 per 10,000 (treatments).  Which I think we can agree is that same thing as 5 in one million.  That's a fact, not a matter of opinion.  Why do you dispute it?  As for adults and children, it doesn't specify, so we can just report the result; there's no reason to think children were excluded.  (Same logic applies to any such review.) There is no IDHT on my part here -- but as before on Talk:Acu, you're repeating simple misunderstandings of fact.  --Middle 8 (talk) 04:50, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And you'd actually have us believe that converting from 0.05/10,000 to 5/1,000,000 is too confusing. Right.  We're done here. --Middle 8 (talk) 07:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Purported violation of Identifying reliable sources
You restored the disputed primary sources against WP:SECONDARY and you restored excessive details against WP:WEIGHT. Your edit violated the WP:RS guideline. Editors at the talk page disagree with you. See WP:CON.

Ideal sources for biomedical assertions include general or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published sources, such as reputable medical journals, widely recognised standard textbooks written by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from nationally or internationally reputable expert bodies. Being a "medical source" is not an intrinsic property of the source itself; a source becomes a medical source only when it is used to support a medical claim. It is "vital" that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge. See Identifying reliable sources. Please be more careful next time. QuackGuru ( talk ) 18:02, 1 December 2013 (UTC)


 * First: Under MEDRS, as you well know, primary sourcs are acceptable in some situations.  My edit was per the discussion at Reliable_sources/Noticeboard, where multiple editors agreed that the sourcing was fine.  The article is not intended to be about current medical consensus, but rather a notable experiment; to whatever degree it's been superseded, the article can and should say so.


 * Second, your comments could as easily have been at Talk:German Acupuncture Trials. I watch article pages regularly and don't need to be reminded.  I'm going to copy and paste your remarks there.  In general, I prefer to discuss articles at their talkpages.  Your comments are not particularly welcome on my talk page given your poor reciprocal communication:  you IDHT at article talk and above, and you simply delete comments at your own talk page.  Therefore, I'm going to copy and paste your comments and my reply to Talk:GERAC.


 * QG, please do not use this page in the future, except to tell me about discussions elsewhere that involve me, e.g. at noticeboards. Thanks, --Middle 8 (talk) 02:20, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

User conduct: QuackGuru
Moving this to User:Middle_8/sandbox/conduct and hopefully not having to revisit it. --Middle 8 (talk) 07:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

FYI
Sorry, Middle 8, there is a talk page you recently created that you miscategorized with R to talk page. That Rcat should only be used on redirects that are not talk pages and that link to (target) talk pages. Please see  for more information. Also, it would help a great deal if you would not create talk pages when there are no discussions and therefore no need for the talk page. Thank you very much! Joys! –  Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 05:26, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your correction -- I missed the part about Rcat being for cross-namespace redirects, and will make a note of the correct template you used. But I don't get your comment about there being "no discussion" .... there is indeed an active page at Talk:German Acupuncture Trials, and I created Talk:GERAC to redirect to that, because GERAC already redirects to German Acupuncture Trials.  How is that bad form?  I can't find anything at WP:TPG or WP:REDIRECT suggesting that we shouldn't create redirects in talk space to other talk space articles, and this instance seemed quite logical.  Thanks again for helping to clue me in!  regards, Middle 8 (talk) 07:21, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Middle 8! Fact is, there is no policy nor guideline against creating any redirects you think are needed.  Redirects are not actual "pages" and are very "cheap", as they say, which just means that they take up only minuscule server space.  It was not the redirect that concerned me so much as the possibility that you might be creating discussion "pages" (not just redirected talk pages) where none were needed.  I am happy to be wrong in that respect.  Best to you! –   Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 17:34, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Talk:German acupuncture trials
I have changed several section headers on this talk page to focus on editing as opposed to editors. Appropriate processes have been implemented and can and should be used as needed. I am not contending that individual editors don't make working on an article difficult. I think comments directed to such editors on the talk pages of the articles being worked on is appropriate. I just thought section headers consisting of a UserName are not consistent with WP policy and may escalate contention rather than help build consensus. Hopefully the mediation taking place can help editing move forward constructively. Best. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's cool, no problemo -- I certainly appreciate your endeavoring to keep the temperature from flaring up. It is grating when editors engage in extreme IDHT and apparent obtuseness and so on, and those are the times when it's especially important to stay cool.  Thanks!  best regards Middle 8 (talk) 09:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your mail
Hey,... Yes, I wasn't prepared to meet so little response at AN/I - I should have presented a much stronger case. But it's water under the bridge now... TCM/acupuncture is not very mainstream here in Shanghai (anymore?). I guess the efficiency is just not good enough to make it very popular... although defending TCM seems to be kind of a national pride. They'll all tell you how great TCM is, but most people will still go to a Western clinic if they have a problem... Even regarding Western medicine, though, superstition is going strong. A lot of people swear on getting i.v. antibiotics when they have a simple cold (and the health care system is rotten up enough for the doctors actually prescribing it)... This country is a mess. Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 10:56, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Good Lord... i.v. antibiotics for a cold.... now there's a genuine public health need for docs to start prescribing placebos! For colds and sinusitis I actually use Chinese herbs; they help a lot.  Shanghai sounds crazy, interesting as well.  Happy (Gregorian) New Year, --Middle 8 (talk) 15:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Would you certify this RfC/U?
Hey. I need a 2nd certifier for this. And if you want to add anything, be my guest. Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 10:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'll join it. See also here.  (GMTA?) cheers, Middle 8 (talk) 07:09, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Alright. I filed the RfC/U; it's at Requests for comment/QuackGuru2. You'd need to certify within 48 hours from now. Thanks! --Mallexikon (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

If you want me to I will refrain from editing Acupuncture and German acupuncture trials for a very long time. QuackGuru ( talk ) 19:04, 12 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Up to you -- personally I think a topic wikibreak might be a good idea for you; I've taken them from time to time too, including a really long one for much of last year. best regards, Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 19:11, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Middle 8, please revert ALL the edits I made to German acupuncture trials article. If you want me to I can strike whatever comment I made at the German acupuncture trials. Whatever issue you have at Acupuncture or related articles I can fix it if you want me to. There was not enough discussion and no compromise was reached. I think we can start at the last stable version. QuackGuru  ( talk ) 19:16, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess I can do that if you like, and then work with other editors on restoring any material that was lost. I might post on talk page first just to see if no objections.... is your request time-sensitive?  Re acupuncture (and other articles for that matter), don't worry about changing your past edits, it's a wiki after all and anything can be changed if editors want to.  In fact I think we can do the same with GERAC, right?  Reverting to a much older version runs the risk of losing other edits.  Maybe it would be better to just let consensus work out where to go from here, rather than going to an earlier version?  regards Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 21:21, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I feel sick to my stomach. I think we can start from real stable version and anything that lost can be restored only if there is consensus. Please help. QuackGuru  ( talk ) 21:37, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Acupoint P6 may help for nausea... ;-) ... Seriously, dude ... don't stress.  It's just a wiki, it can always be changed, tomorrow or next week or month no one will care.  I have a motto that's only half-joking: "Wikipedia ruins lives".  I think of it whenever I waste time editing obsessively (and I am pretty obsessive) and then fall behind on something essential, like e.g. sleep or work.  Don't worry, I'll handle the revert if you want; relax, take a break and enjoy your favorite food/entertainment.  take care, Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 23:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Using Category:Pseudoscience
(refactoring) The below is in response to this section of my user page:


 * That acupuncture bit is a load of bollocks. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 19:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * "That's apparent when peer-reviewed meta-analyses and mainstream bodies find ..." ← not apparent at all: we call this "original research". We need to know what experts on pseudoscience think, not editors of Wikipedia. Alexbrn talk 19:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * @RtD, the depth of your critical analysis never ceases to amaze. @Alexbrn:  we need to know what the scientific community thinks.   (...) anyway, I'm obviously happy to consider the issue along the RS lines you'd prefer... --Middle 8 (talk) 11:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Acupuncture and COI
(Note: My earlier comments on COI mentioned the example of a podiatrist (DPM) who could have COI because of the potential for pushing to make their profession look better in some ways -- not that it should need to, but podiatrists don't always get the respect that they should given that their training is as rigourous as MD's and DO's, albeit more limited/specialized in scope.  There is, for example, debate over their scope of practice:  how much of the lower leg or ankle should be included, and should the upper extremity be included too, since the anatomy is quite similar.  Hence the thread-starter's mention of podiatry.)

Podiatrists focus on a particular part of the body, and will select their treatment option and sell it depending on what they judge will work best (if they are behaving correctly). Acupuncturists have pre-decided their treatment option. That's a big distinction. If however a podiatrist was on commission from (say) Wongo Nail Juice and used that as a treatment, and decided to edit the Wikipedia article on Wongo Nail Juice, then that would be comparable to an acupuncturist editing the acupuncture article. Alexbrn talk 16:12, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * , you raise two distinct issues (in the context of an acu'ist purportedly having a COI): profiting from the treatment one prescribes, and (pre-)selection of treatment option. The former is simple:  we get paid for doing procedures, just as dentists, podiatrists, etc., do.  There's nothing "generally considered" ethically wrong with that (although sometimes the consultation and treatment are done by separate parties, as with Rx drugs).  Your example is more like (e.g.) docs getting junkets from pharmaceutical companies.


 * The latter boils down to ethics: i.e. ensuring that there's alignment among one's scope of practice, what one claims to treat, and the evidence base.  That confluence is obviously limited for acupuncturists, but it's limited to two of the most common afflictions: pain and stress.  These fit the evidence, and are what I focused on before going on leave, and those things certainly fit acupuncturists' scope of practice well, since the main things we do are acupuncture per se and electrical muscle stimulation, along with some Asian bodywork techniques.  Obviously, if I were overpromoting acupuncture, I'd be violating generally-accepted ethical guidelines, and if I were pushing that same overpromotion on WP I'd be in violation of several policies.  And I know many acupuncturists do overpromote, and that this is common in alt-med, though neither the rule in alt-med nor a terribly rare exception in medical and allied health professions.


 * I still don't see COI emanating from any of this, nor do I see its adumbrations being unique in kind to acupuncture, though obviously greater in degree if scope of practice is a factor. Are you arguing that anybody who gets paid for performing a given procedure shouldn't be editing that topic?  Or only if they only perform a small number of such procedures?  Or if a lot of their colleagues are known to be bad actors?


 * Over to you, then... time for a nightcap of some juju juice. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 12:53, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Somebody heavily invested in a single procedure probably shouldn't be writing about it; and if that procedure became the subject of controversy, where the outcome of the controversy might bear on their interests, they almost certainly shouldn't. Personally, I now keep clear of editing around anything I'm closely involved in (even if I'm not paid for it): one of the reasons I edit altmed topics is precisely because it has no "real life" crossover with me. Alexbrn talk 16:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * We're writing an encyclopedia, and our standards should reflect that, and be pragmatic, and not try to fix what isn't broken. People heavily invested in single procedures are also known as "specialists" and should be writing about it, assuming topic expertise matters.  (Who else will be able to evaluate certain sources? Etc.)  It would be disastrous if Wikipedia followed that standard.


 * In cases where that procedure becomes controversial, where the outcome of the controversy might bear on their interests, you may be right about COI, or at least potential for it (if that's not redundant). But this may still cast too broad a net, and has to be weighed against the benefits of subject expertise.  Discouraging editing from specialist expert editors is a big deal, and may damage the project severely.  We should do something to draw out the best in such editors, and it shouldn't be all stick.  Of course, declaring a COI doesn't necessarily mean a person shouldn't write about a topic, only that certain checks and balances be involved, e.g. perhaps 0RR, or just using talk pages.  And that could be done in cases where controversies might bear on an editor's interest.  What we've done so far, for all professionals irrespective of specialty or controversies, is to caution against tendentiousness, and otherwise hold them to the same standards as everyone else; where is the evidence of this not working?  (Diffs, please, if citing specific editors.) --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 21:23, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Community input
I opened a thread on myself at WP:COIN, but it got hijacked. Will revisit at a later time. May have to do this in user space (or some carefully-moderated venue) to prevent hijacking again. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 08:11, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Update -- thread closed with no finding of COI, which isn't surprising, because global consensus at WP has long been that profession alone does not constitute a COI (see WP:COI). The thread also noted the importance of following WP:MEDRS and basic content policies carefully.  It's worth noting that in real life, practicing acupuncturists write about acupuncture (including about its efficacy, etc.) all the time in peer-reviewed literature, and are not generally considered to have a COI.  So, that's where the issue stands.  Name any WP policy or guideline and there's bound to be someone who disagrees with global consensus; this area is no different. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 16:29, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Synthesis - OR
For you to make up stuff about me is rather underhand. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 17:17, 13 February 2014 (UTC)


 * All I know about you is from your comments, which I cited in the post I assume you're referring to. Did I depict them fairly?  I think so:


 * This certainly sounds like a disparagement of the two sources in question. An Ernst review of Cochrane reviews of acu for pain is indeed a gold-standard source, as is a Cochrane review for nausea.  Both find efficacy of acupuncture for these conditions.  Your comment on these was, quote: When you boil it down to basics, those "gold-standard" sources say it is good for a bit of placebo induced pain relief. That is all. (unquote) From that, a reasonable person would infer that you don't think the sources are gold-standard, and you don't think they say what they say.


 * This likewise sounds like a disparagement of the sources posted in the thread-starter. (See here on article talk page.)  I posted sources about acupuncture and demarcation that said it was neither science nor pseudoscience, but somewhere in between.  (Like WP:FRINGE/PS's "questionable science".)  These sources included a very prominent skeptic's book chapter in a book edited by another another very prominent skeptic.  Your comment on these and ensuing discussion was that WP:FRINGE's category of "obvious pseudoscience" "still trumps any of the Acuapologists in this talk page".  That sounds like you believe these sources either are irrelevant to demarcation, or perhaps that they themselves are "acuapologists".  (I was surprised by your comment and said so a couple of weeks ago.)


 * There's no basis for feeling offended here. My depiction of what you said is fair, but it's possible you meant something different.  I don't assume bad faith.  I think that in your comments above, you're either oversimplifying, and ignoring evidence to the contrary, and/or speaking hastily and unclearly.  Either way, please take my feedback in a constructive spirit, and consider a bit of a course change in this topic area.  Happy editing... --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 08:07, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Note
It's no issue, regards, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

FYI about COI for healthcare professionals (mainstream and alternative)
Hey Middle8; Are you aware that there is an essay that supplements WP:COI that broaches the subject of healthcare professionals, both mainstream and alternative? If you haven't already, have a look at WP:MEDCOI. It may be helpful. Puhlaa (talk) 02:41, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Puhlaa, this looks very helpful! --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 07:26, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * But be sure to remember that many people do not consider you guys to be health care professionals. -Roxy the dog (resonate) 07:07, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I will be sure to remember that. Thank you. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 07:23, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * On another note, Middle8, have you seen this systematic review? Puhlaa (talk) 02:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Null results for acu with double-blind studies
Re a discussion generalizing discussion of this study to all of acupuncture: Not true. In that link Novella cites one study, but it's frequently not the case in others, for pain. (It is, however, true that most studies show that acu isn't good for too many other things: lots and lots of meta-analyses have been done showing it's a placebo for the large majority of conditions for which it's often promoted.) Which why some meta-analyses do find efficacy beyond placebo with double-blind studies. Small, but statistically significant: perhaps enough to reject the null hypothesis, for the conditions studied, although this has to be balanced with the results of other meta-analyses. Cochrane's PONV (post-op nausea & vomiting) review, for example, and Cochrane reviews are unsurpassed as MEDRS's. And that is why acu is truly controversial. It's a mixed bag, in the "borderlands" between science and pseudoscience -- this per Michael Shermer (link to google books). Unlike homeopathy or faith healing, it has mainstream acceptance: NHS, American Cancer Society, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. And how is this POV-pushing, btw? It's simply presenting strong RS's whose conclusions differ from others. Sure, the balance may change in the future, and I suspect it may well, but for now, WP:FLAT: we shouldn't stick a fork in it till it's done. Wanting to exclude or minimize strong sources is tendentious. Be careful of making unwarranted POV-pushing allegations and of oversimplifying demarcation; this is not a matter of black-and-white, per RS's. At Talk:Acupuncture issues like this come up not infrequently. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 02:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

RfC User
I read through the RfC User GC and found no evidence. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You are being discussed at AN here  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for alerting me to the fact that the diff used in the RfC/U didn't match its description; it's been struck and editors notified: Errors in evidence corrected. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 18:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I've moved the section to statement of the dispute, since it is more relevant in that section than in a section on views which is for "statements or opinions written by users not directly involved with this dispute". Second Quantization (talk) 22:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, but as long as Doc James's statement remains as it is (i.e. suggesting this might have been intentional), editors need to be able to make an informed decision, so I'm leaving it there for now. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 02:11, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Middle 8, the diff has been correct all the time. Doc James just didn't get it. QG didn't skew the facts by something he wrote - he skewed them by what he knowingly omitted. Could you please delete the Requests for comment/QuackGuru2 section? Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * What?!? I was certain that this was an error on your part.  Simply adding a good source is never, in itself, a problem, and I thought for sure that you knew that one can't use such a thing as evidence.  You can't just put in a diff showing QG adding something and assume it will be apparent that he knowingly omitted something.  You needed to, and should now, put in the diffs showing QG removing, or objecting to, balancing evidence, and explain the  diff in question.


 * I overlooked this insufficient evidence when I certified the RfC, and that was my first mistake. My second mistake was assuming (with good reason and in good faith) that you had made a mistake with the evidence.  Our mistakes, compounded, have helped create a perception -- unjustified by the bulk of evidence -- that tend to undermine a perfectly justifiable RfC (as shown by the observations of other editors, most of whom don't have any potential COI with articles QG has been involved with). Doc James's reaction is overdone and POINT-y, but he is certainly correct that the diff, on its own, is (a) insufficient evidence, and (b) actually a good edit.


 * I've done my best to clarify matters, and will do as you requested, and strike the section, and explain the situation at WP:AN. It's up to you to present the evidence properly, including providing explanation/context for the diff. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 06:17, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. Adding a good source can also be a problem. QG knew the facts: that GERAC resulted in acupuncture becoming reimbursable. He chose to present it in a way that implied that GERAC simply resulted in "some health insurers" stopping reimbursement. He skewed the facts by using selective information. Very plainly. --Mallexikon (talk) 07:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I know, but it's not plain to others (especially uninvolved editors) unless you can show them some diffs, or at a minimum, a talk page thread (which AFAIK needs diffs too... this is what I'm trying to do with the "IDHT thread from hell" that's currently at the top of Talk:Acu. The burden is on those making the allegation, as it should be.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me) 07:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. QuackGuru ( talk ) 17:07, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Twice now
That's twice now you've used the outside views section inappropriately despite berating me for much less than what you are doing now. Why is it one rule for everyone else, a different for you? You are involved, you are going to have strong views, that is why you should keep it to the talk pages, Second Quantization (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Briefly, some discussion on the main page seemed to make sense to a few editors, and now that it's run its course, another editor moved it to talk.  My doing the same earlier didn't seem to bother you at the time,  and I regret if it does now, because I had no such intention.  Do you feel like I have something against you?  I sure don't, and would like to nip any such impression in the bud.   Happy editing, --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 00:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's no bother to me to follow the guideline, nor is it a bother to me to allow IAR where appropriate. It's a bother to me that you have excused yourself from the same requirements for no obvious need, despite clearly insisting on them on others. There is no reason at all for your comments to have been there. Not a single bit. Second Quantization (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * (re-)read the diffs above, and WP:IAD. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 01:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

howdy
Thanks for replying here and there. Just wanted to say a few things. First, I hope you didn't take my advice to 'step back' as, "participate less"; I just meant "take a breath and check your head." That's all. I think you are a great contributor. Secondly, I have had to deal with some really horrible fellow editors who carried axes and made me their enemy when I opposed them; I brought a badly framed ANI against one of them which got me no where. I am very sympathetic to the place you ended up with the RfC. Lastly, after having spent some time on the relevant pages, I have experienced what drove you up the wall. I am sorry for that happening, and am doing what I can to create a better environment for reaching consensus. Jytdog (talk) 22:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Hey, great stuff, and I really appreciate the helpful feedback and encouragement. Things are so polarized in "fringe/skeptic" topics that one doesn't hear too much of that. I did take your advice mostly in the "get some perspective" spirit; I also thought you were suggesting disengaging a bit from some of the more contentious stuff going on, particularly the RfC.  IAD is always a good idea.


 * It's great that you're editing some of these articles. They seriously need some informed, fresh eyes.  Some of the editors there, as you've seen, appear to pushing back too hard against perceived CPUSH, and (sometimes consciously, imo) moving the Overton window way past rational skepticism into hand-wavey pretzel logic.


 * Just posted some new replies at COIN related to your comments: .  The former was something of an epiphany.  Per both prevailing academic standards and WP:COI, guess what, looks like I don't have COI.... would like to hear your take.  Loved your points about "reason is a whore"; imo, WP:ADVOCACY is the thing I need to watch for, not COI.


 * Along those lines, and some of your conversations at Talk:GERAC, I think that the "independent sources" part of WP:FRINGE has been too-broadly construed. See Independent sources & refs therein.  Dependence has to do with the same factors that create a true COI, not the quasi-dependence of acu'ists reviewing acu articles.  I think the latter interpretation is more hand-waving.  Acupuncture In Medicine is very likely not a fringe journal, unless I'm missing something; it fulfills the other tests.


 * OK, WP as time-sink is again messing with real life. So cool to have a good conversation on WP no less!  Thanks!  cheers --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 09:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. you might enjoy this, at your leisure -- originally posted at Alexbrn's talk; more thoughts about acu as grey area and "hyperskepticism":

Acupuncture isn't the same as faith healing, and lots of acu'ists don't believe in a literal qi. We're smart enough to see that the map isn't the territory. Primitive cultures that believed a dragon periodically swallows the sun or moon could still predict eclipses. We use acu for pain and stress, applications that are obviously (per RS) accepted by a great many in the mainstream. The global dismissal of TCM by some editors, and hostility towards editors involved with it, reminds me of the responses to the guy posting as "Skeptical Acupuncturist" (with many of whose expressed views I agree) in this thread, which were knee-jerk, dickish and ultimately non-productive in promoting rational thought. See his comment #22:


 * "I’m clearly open to criticism, or I wouldn’t be posting here. But to dismiss my world as “total and utter nonsense” is unlikely to encourage me to consider finer points of persuasive argument. There are something like 28,000 acupuncturists in the USA now, and there are perhaps 10 who have spoken out critically and skeptically about the delusions and dangers in the TCM world, including Ben Kavoussi, George Ulett, Sabio Lantz, Felix Mann, and me. That’s about 0.03%. You may insult and dismiss me if it helps you avoid cognitive dissonance, but if you help me refine my critical thinking skills, make new observations about science-based medicine, or show some support for my attempts to expose the worst frauds and fallacies in The TCM/CAM world, it will probably reach more people who are making important decisions about their healthcare and sway them in the direction of science and skepticism."

When I end up opposing skeptic editors, it's usually because they're tending to take black-and-white positions like the people who responded to that guy. Which can be a result of thinking that just because of the qi thing, acu is as useless as crystal healing.


 * --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 09:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to comment
You may wish to comment at User talk:Mallexikon --Guy Macon (talk) 12:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I just read it; most if it sounds correct, and Mallexikon should be able to confirm since they are fluent in German. The thing about the fringe source:  not sure about this; it's well known among people who follow acu research that GERAC's results initially led to the recommendation that acu for back pain be reimbursible.  But, and this is key, I don't know whether QG resisted including that information because (a) it was from a fringe source and that was all he knew about, (b) he knew about other sources but used the excuse that the one source was fringe, or (c) something else. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 14:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I will look into that, looking into what exactly he wrote about on the topic and how quickly someone responded with a better source. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:42, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

re Problems with edits?
Hi, a question re Requests for comment/QuackGuru2: You endorsed jps' outside view, which said, among other things, that Wikipedia "would be better off if the two editors endorsing the RfC were banned from these topics" (said topics, I assume, being the areas where QG's conduct is indicted in the RfC; it's unclear). AFAIK, I've had virtually no interaction with you, but assume you must have reviewed my edits (and block log etc.), and those of (the other RfC endorser), or you wouldn't have endorsed such a strong statement. Apart from whatever objections you have to the RfC itself, can you explain why you believe Mallexikon and myself deserve to be topic-banned, and from which topics particularly? What have we done that's that bad? Maybe you can show me a couple diffs that are representative of whatever ongoing problems there are. I'd appreciate the feedback; I'm pretty sure Mallexikon would too! Thanks. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 10:00, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I'd rather not get into it more than what's already been said there. These days I'm more focused on quality improvement projects getting articles to WP:FA. I wish you all the best of luck in resolving your disputes with each other. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 10:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

re: re Problems with edits?

 * (only asking again because... per below. -- Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 12:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC) )

Hi, a question re Requests for comment/QuackGuru2: You endorsed jps' outside view, which said, among other things, that Wikipedia "would be better off if the two editors endorsing the RfC were banned from these topics" (said topics, I assume, being the areas where QG's conduct is indicted in the RfC; it's unclear). AFAIK, I've had virtually no interaction with you, but assume you must have reviewed my edits (and block log etc.), and those of (the other RfC endorser), or you wouldn't have endorsed such a strong statement. Apart from whatever objections you have to the RfC itself, can you explain why you believe Mallexikon and myself deserve to be topic-banned, and from which topics particularly? What have we done that's that bad? Maybe you can show me a couple diffs that are representative of whatever ongoing problems there are. I'd appreciate the feedback; I'm pretty sure Mallexikon would too! Thanks. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 10:00, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I'd rather not get into it more than what's already been said there. These days I'm more focused on quality improvement projects getting articles to WP:FA. I wish you all the best of luck in resolving your disputes with each other. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 10:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Cirt, I'm not posting again frivolously; I very much respect WP:TPG.  But your answer isn't clear at all: You referred to the RfC, but my questions simply aren't addressed there or at its talk page.  So I have no idea what your reasoning was, and I think I (and Mallexikon) deserve to know.  A topic ban (and I still don't know which topic) is a serious matter.
 * If, by chance -- and I'm just guessing -- you support other aspects of jps's comment but can't really justify the the topic ban part, I (a) understand, and (b) would ask that you revise your support. It's easy:  just write another outside view duplicating only the parts of jps's that you agree with.  Thanks! --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 15:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I also agree with all of the comments by, here, and at the RFC, itself. That is all. I wish you the best if you are genuinely interested in quality improvement projects on Wikipedia to bring articles to WP:GA and WP:FA. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Doc James's comments here, and at the RFC itself, only go to his complaints about the RfC.  Doc James didn't answer the questions I asked, and neither have you.  The uncomfortable truth, I suspect, is that you have no answers.  Perhaps someone else will. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI) 16:49, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I respectfully and strongly disagree with your opinions about the comments by . Please let me know if you have ideas to work on an article for a quality improvement project to WP:GA or WP:FA, and I'd love to help advise you on it. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Struck non-AGF-ish sentence above., thanks for your kind offer; I hope those of us editing acupuncture can get it to near-GA status!  Re thread-starter, I hope you can see my point of view.  I see those endorses to jps's outside-view comment and wonder, "what the heck did I do besides certify a malformed RfC/U"?  I don't get it, but I don't intend to hassle you about it either. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 23:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Concerns
The majority of people supported your ban at WP:AN and the single most supported view at the RfC/U is one that supports your ban.. Going around to everyones talk page pushing the points is not a good idea. I personally am not interested. The reason why you did not get banned is that User:Mallexikon was apologetic and appeared to have moved on. I was hoping that you would do the same. Thus I did not request a closing admin and let it auto archive. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:03, 15 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Like I said above to Cirt, I see those endorses and wonder, "what did I do besides bring a malformed RfC/U"? That's not usually something people are banned for, and it bugged me, but I don't intend to (further) bug anyone else about it.  If something's truly important, I'll find out about it without having to dig.


 * Re your topic ban proposal, I commented elsewhere; we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that. I've ignored it until now because I thought it was obviously silly and not worth the oxyegn.  But I want to add that I think you seem to be "taking yourself too seriously" here and showing something of a tin ear.  Multiple editors told you it was silly and POINT-y; it just wasted time and added drama.  You didn't specify which topic area, but that didn't seem to matter, which kinda shows how silly the whole thing is.  And very few people cared:  a lot of editors commented in the AN thread on chiro and QG, but most of them ignored your proposal.  The few who did comment were almost evenly split:  what, 4+, 3-, not counting Mallexikon's oppose?  To frame that situation as "majority support" is a real stretch, let alone to say now that "The reason why you did not get banned is that User:Mallexikon was apologetic and appeared to have moved on".  Seriously?  Based on what?  Especially given that QG tried to resurrect it and nobody commented, except you, to suggest he drop it!  Dude, almost nobody cared; a ban was not imminent, and adding the thing about Mallexikon's contrition just pushes your comments into bluster.  Honestly, all this sounds like you're more interested in "winning" than in being objective.  I hope you don't carry that approach elsewhere, let alone into mainspace.  FWIW.


 * Speaking of disagreement, I'm starting to think that nothing I say (on your talk page) is going to get you to acknowledge that the QG RfC/U has any merit. We'll see where that goes, but it doesn't really matter; there's always a distribution of viewpoints and everybody has to be somewhere. But we do agree it's past time to move on!  Time's too precious to waste any more of it.  I'd prefer to trash this QG RfC/U, jettison the baggage, and then see if another one, free of flaws, can or should be created.  Anyway, you're a sharp guy, hopefully fair-minded too, and I hope to work with you sometime on something good.  regards, Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 01:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Collaboration and Disruptive editing
Hi Middle 8!

I too practice acupuncture, or dry needling or medical acupuncture, moreso anatomy based than TCM do have some expertise in the area. I noticed that we have a common disruptive editor, who is also displaying poor editing practices at chiropractic and its sister articles, asides from acupuncture. Rather than individually deal with this individual, it might be better to work in conjunction to help prevent in what I see is sociopathic behaviour which ruins the experience of helping WP achieve its goal of being a reliable and credible source for medically related topics. Perhaps we can collaborate to not only improve acu and chiro articles (by constructively criticizing or helping find better sources). Perhaps a suggestion is that we delineate TCM acu from other styles. Whereas you call it LI-4, I would refer it to 1st dorsal interossei which is a spot where the radial, ulnar and median nerves intersect. A lot of the 'traditional' points are areas of dense neurovascular bundles, hence a strong autonomic effect. Regards. DVMt (talk) 22:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, it's great to meet another acu'ist, especially a science-literate one. Your anatomy-based treatment style is fascinating and I am curious how you trained in it and how it has evolved; you don't have to tell me of course, or you can tell me here or email me.


 * Yes we do have a disruptive editor in QG, who was the subject of an RfC/U recently that was poorly-supported with recent evidence of his misbehavior, and partly for that reason resulted in something of a WP:BOOMERANG against the people who brought it, of whom I was one. The other reason for the boomerang is that it was easy to say that as an acupuncturist, I must be biased and a shitty editor, even though most of the editors who agreed with this know diddly-squat about my editing.  Additionally, in that RfC/U, the other person who certified it was unfairly accused of also profiting off TCM, despite no evidence for that fact allegation that the accuser was willing to reveal, so said other RfC/U-certifier was in effect saddled with "guilt by association" with me.  What got lost in this is that QG is in fact a disruptive editor; some of his mainspace edits are fine, others are biased; but the biggest problems are those Guy articulated (i.e. owning articles, extreme resistance to collaborating, rudeness, etc.).  If he continues as he has he will be subject to another RfC/U, and good & recent evidence will be used, and it will be certified by non-alt-med-affiliated editors, preferably one or two with strong "skeptic" cred.


 * I have to warn you that if you are to get anywhere on WP you have to accept WP:MEDRS and acknowledge that that reviews in mainstream journals are the best sources including Cochrane ones. There was a recent discussion of a TCM journal that turned out to have "fake" peer review, i.e. reviewers not from other areas of science, but excluisively alt-med'ers; no intellectual endeavor advances without rigorous criticism.  If there is bias from one's critics, address it, but one has to engage them in order to answer their valid criticisms.  I believe this and so do the better "skeptic" editors (in quotes because not all scientists and science-literate editors identify with the skeptic movement, even though they're just as skeptical).  Whether you agree with this or not, you're going to have to accept that MEDRS is global consensus or else your WP experience will be poor.  Of course there are also poor "skeptic" editors, and we see them a lot.  But there are poor editors in every area.


 * Also, I should note that I have to confine myself to an hour or less of WP editing per day, and since I am verbose, perfectionist and inefficient, I may not reply to stuff right away. :-) Again, great to see you here.  best regards, Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 19:15, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That is a very Wikipedian comment, and I applaud you for it. I must find Uncle Ed's essay on "writing for the enemy" some time, I think you'd like it. Guy (Help!) 19:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks; if you and I can work together we will cut a swath of fucking awesomeness through Wikipedia. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 19:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:ANI on alternative medicine articles
Hello there Middle 8! I hope you have time to look at these two boards: User:Jayaguru-Shishya is not moving on and he is continuing his battleground behaviour and Sockpuppetry at article Traditional Chinese medicine. It seems that QuackGuru is now publicly accusing me of "following him from article to another", along with a punch of other accusations. In the first one he took me to WP:ANI, and in the second one he is making these accusations in front of an administrator, Jmh649 (weirdly enough, he just came out of the blue to Jmh649's Talk page even my post there had nothing to do with him). Anyway, as you have been involved in editing the same article(s), I'd appreciate if you had the time to take a closer look! Cheers! :) Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:17, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm glad to see your posts as Talk:Acu and look forward to collaborating. As far as QG's complaints, ignore them.  He has a history of posting barely-comprehensible stuff to ANI and is generally ignored there.  Silly, disruptive complaints look even sillier if nobody replies.  You'll have more fun and less stress on WP if you take that to heart. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 10:54, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Heh, thanks for your advice! Actually, the issue has recently moved to WP:AN3 due to QuackGuru's violation of WP:3RR on alt-med articles. Do you have few minutes to take a look at it? =P Thanks! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:14, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Boards like ANI and AN3 are not the way to deal with the pundit-duck. Because the major venue for his disruption is alt-med articles, and he takes a "skeptic" stance (albeit one characterized by his insistence than even skeptics who disagree with him are wrong), some other skeptic editors reflexively rush to his defense.  Almost inevitably these are editors who have only glanced at the articles, noticed which "side" he's on, and decided he's awesome without knowing what it's like to actually edit a page he's editing.  No:  the way to deal with him is not by attempting to get him sanctioned for particular incidents (or small clusters of them), but by first gathering diffs of his disruptive behavior, including the 3RR stuff.  Eventually, such good and recent evidence can be used in a well-presented RfC/U on QG (as opposed to the recent and poorly-presented one I was involved with).  And it can't be brought be people perceived to be alt-med-ers.  Please see my comment above to DVMt, the para beginning with "Yes we do have a disruptive editor...".  It will take time to deal with this situation and it has to be done properly, in a pragmatic way that takes into account how WP actually functions (even when it's dysfunctional).
 * In all honesty, I think that reporting him on ANI (etc.) is not only unlikely to help, it may actually do harm, insofar as it solidifies other skeptic editors' well-intended but uninformed attitudes that QG is a righteous skeptic warrior. Don't expend energy and get frustrated.  Just gather diffs and in the meantime try as best you can to collaborate with other editors; it's a given that QG won't join consensus so don't bother engaging him much.  best regards, Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 17:39, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

ANI
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. QuackGuru ( talk ) 04:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

 * The use of this particular template is required as a condition to arbitration enforcement. Text cannot be used in its place.  Robert McClenon (talk) 14:30, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I meant why template a regular, not why template a regular. But let's keep further discussion on your page if you don't mind -- much easier for me to keep track of it that way. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 22:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Slow edit war

 * 1) 11:55, 12 May 2014
 * 2) 5:40, 25 June 2014
 * 3) 01:09, 4 July 2014
 * 4) 23:57, 4 July 2014

It's readily apparent that you don't have consensus for this change. Don't keep inserting it. The next time you change that sentence without having sought and gained a consensus on the article talk page, you will be blocked from editing.&mdash;Kww(talk) 05:18, 5 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Kww, thanks for the feedback. (I was in fact going to seek some for the issues QuackGuru posted yesterday at ANI, and I'll probably follow that up with you or somebody later. QG omitted a detail or two, but I may have covered them in my comments.)


 * Anyway, looking at the these edits:


 * 1) 11:55, 12 May 2014:
 * This was about WP:ASSERT, i.e. whether to assert something as fact or attribute it. Hence "TCM is "fraught with pseudoscience"..." ==> "TCM has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience."  Lots and lots of discussion about this happened at the TCM article and some at Acupuncture.  I posted a detailed argument for the edit here:
 * Talk:Acupuncture/Archive_13
 * There was no response and no reversion, so WP:SILENCE was a fair inference. The edit stuck, and attribution wording persisted to edit #2 below, and remains in the current version of the article. (I don't remember why I also deleted the "with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments", but as you can see, somebody else restored it, which I didn't contest.)


 * 2) 5:40, 25 June 2014:
 * Like the ES says, better prose - "characterized" as opposed to usual fallback "stated. Start of a WP:BRD cycle.  Stuck until (I just discovered) QuackGuru's edit of 03:06, 29 June 2014.  I don't think anyone discussed either my edit #2 or QuackGuru's reversion of it on talk; we were occupied with other matters.


 * 3) 01:09, 4 July 2014:
 * Rebooted BRD cycle from #2, having seen no objection on talk. Had no idea when or why it had disappeared at the time.  I don't think this was disruptive in the least.


 * At this point the "revert" part of the BRD cycle does kick in, with from Roxy the dog.  He leaves a vague ES (basically, "because NPOV"), and since he typically responds minimally if at all on talk, I go to his talk page.  His ES is vague (basically, "because NPOV"), and he reveals nothing more when asked.  I then go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch to get some idea about WP:WTA (which discussion I later move to Talk:Acupuncture, and then....


 * 4) 23:57, 4 July 2014:
 * I make my best guess at a second round of BRD. Discussion continues apace at Talk:Acupuncture.


 * I am not without clue, Kww. All this is good, proper stuff...


 * Wikiquette suggestion: Instead of saying what you said (which was curt to the point of rudeness as an introduction), say something like:  "These look like persistent low-level edit warring.  This is exactly the kind of thing that editors get banned for per discretionary sanctions.  Please don't make further such edits without making sure you have consensus."  We're all mature, reasonably intelligent adults until proven otherwise, and FWIW (not to advocate ageism, just a bit of perspective), I'm about your age, with a good level of education and life experience.  I would never speak this way to someone in real life, nor online unless I were having a bad day.  Which I realize you may be having, in which case don't worry about it. :-) --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 16:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I do not need a lecture on Wikiquette. From experience, I have found that polite warnings can be misconstrued as suggestions. I was making a warning. I will repeat it: if you change that sentence again without having sought and gained consensus on the talk page for your change, I will block you from editing.&mdash;Kww(talk) 19:33, 5 July 2014 (UTC)


 * You're right, you don't need a lecture, you need a seminar and a wikibreak to get your attitude back into a collegial space. What's worse, a warning getting misconstrued as a suggestion (once), or undermining with incivility what could be a good collaboration?  Try politeness the first time, and save coming on all stern if that doesn't work the first time around.  You're speaking as if to an errant child; it's ridiculous, especially if you've made a mistake on the substance.


 * I understand your warning and will heed it. But since you went to the trouble of gathering those diffs, it shouldn't be that hard to tell, without my walking you through it, that only #3 was even questionable.  #1 is different from the following three and didn't change with the succeeding edits.  And #2 and 4 are legitimate first and second rounds of BRD cycles.  And #3 I thought at the time might have with your reversion of Klocek's edits  (it was actually a couple hours later ).  So, doubling down on the authoritarian thing, come on, it's gratuitous.  Please, for your own sake, take a break, release the wikistress.  All the good stuff I'm sure you're doing around here isn't worth it.


 * What you could be doing -- a better strategy -- is trying to enlist the help of expert editors in improving the topic area. I'm one of very few around here who has dual expertise (graduate degrees) in both science and a CAM area.  I can help.  Just ask nicely.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 13:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

BRD cycle above
refactored into new section

Also note that my edit summary was far from vague, it was crystal clear. Why are you telling untruths about this? -Roxy the dog (resonate) 00:36, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Your ES said "Reverted non neutral change characterised as neutral." That's not much to go on.  A BRD cycle needs some D and you weren't giving any.  Later, though, you did elaborate when responding to someone else:
 * "My reasons for reverting were clear in the edit summary. The difference between "stated" and "characterised" is not insignificant, the source did not characterise, it stated. The result, before my revert, allowed a little more wiggle room in the meaning of the sentence."
 * Which is basically what I figured out after discussing with Alexbrn. "Hedging."  "Wiggle room."  Same idea.  That would have been helpful to know at the outset. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 09:18, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Note to self re refs
Some stuff from to follow up. An ICON Overview on Physical Modalities for Neck Pain and Associated Disorders

And, from Puhlaa's post to TriumvirateProtean's talk page:
 * If you feel so inclined, here are some secondary sources that could be used to add relevant text to this section of body of the article:

--Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 20:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Electrical PropertiesofAcupuncture Points and Meridians: A Systematic Review
 * Electrical Characterization of Acupuncture Points: Technical Issues and Challenges Ahn 2007
 * Characterizing Acupuncture Stimuli Using Brain Imaging with fMRI - A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Literature Huang et al 2012
 * How do acupuncture and moxibustion act? - Focusing on the progress in Japanese acupuncture research Kawakita et al. 2006
 * Neuroanatomical basis of acupuncture treatment for some common illnesses Cheng 2009
 * Hi Middle8, I think that you would also be interested in the Evidence Map of Acupuncture that was recently published by the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development Service. Best regards Puhlaa (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Very interesting; it's a first-rate MEDRS and some if its findings diverge considerably from Cochrane's, usually but not always in the (+) direction, but also with more detail: they chart evidence according to both magnitude of effect and strength of evidence.  Naively, I guess the different conclusions are no more and no less than results of different approaches to meta-analysis; I see no reason to suspect bias from this group (as opposed to, e.g., the NCCAM).  Surprising.  I'm sure some of the anti-acu POV-pushers will freak (yes, POV-pushing occurs from more than one side with alt-med, imagine that), but we follow the sources, wherever they take us.  Thanks, this is a really good and interesting source.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 08:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There were several reviews I posted last year at acupuncture and DJ was blocking any attempt at including reviews that showed efficacy with QG being the henchman. This source is authoritative and excellent presents the data.   While considering the sources, we should also consider if there are 'outlier' findings, i.e. conclusions that haven't been reproduced elsewhere.  Ernst, Colqhoun, Novella and other sources come to mind.  I'll add a few reviews to your list when i have some time.  I agree, we should follow the sources, but we also need to discern the noise from the signal.  DVMt (talk) 02:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Notability of authors
I see that one of the arguments against Wang is that he's not notable, and that Colquhoun and Novella are. But if one searches Google Scholar, there are very few results for SP Novella. There are many for D Colquhoun and for Shu-Ming Wang. By that measure, Wang is as notable as Colquhoun and Novella. But as you say, MEDRS doesn't say anything about notability but does give guidance regarding editorials. TimidGuy (talk) 10:50, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Good catch. And MEDRS also says "experts in the relevant field", and that's the crux of it; one can be very much an expert but not at all well-known.  QG may be confusing expertise with notability.  The skeptics will hate this, but notability in the skeptic world doesn't (necessarily) confer academic expertise.  Peer review exists for a reason.... that said, I think Novella is fine here; it's just that Wang is more than fine.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 11:11, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for being a voice of calm and reason over at Talk:Acupuncture. It is always a pleasure to edit with you. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:25, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Likewise, 100%. I feel much more inclined to edit knowing you're around (the same for Jytdog and Brangifer).  I've had to take breaks from the article now and again .... some extended ones over the last year or two to recalibrate my own NPOV (I could get pretty CPUSH, in retrospect, a reputation that's hard to shake), and sometimes because the hyperbole and obtuseness become intolerable.  But when there is level-headedness, editing can be pretty fun.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 20:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)  edited: CPUSH, not CPOV 16:40, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Fields Medal
Hello there,I'm that user who's been the victim of editing the Fields Medal page(i.e.I got blocked with charge of Vandalism.).I've got three question:1)When the current protected status of that page ends,Does the page current contents remain in place or they are replaced with the old version? 2)I've prepared a new and somehow comprehensive table about Fields medalists.I posted this table on the discussion section of the Fields Medal page,and I request for comments about this(If You come there and see my that table I will be really glad,and don't forget to put your comment about it down there!;-)),but so far,just one person did so.Is it normal? 3)Should I submit a request for edit to replace the new table with current one?Or should I wait for reaching a consensus?Thank You. Rezameyqani (talk) 07:50, 19 August 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rezameyqani (talk • contribs)
 * Hi, I wish I could help, but I've only edited that page once or twice and am not familiar with the background, and can't help you. If I were you I'd ask at the talk page of whoever blocked you, or at WP:HELPDESK.  Best of luck to you. --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 08:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

A small point.
Your COI essay starts: "Do practicing acupuncturists have a conflict of interest (COI) when editing acu-related articles? The short answer is no."

This answer may be short, it is also wrong. You are dependent for your living on the validity of a subject the scientific community views as questionable at best, and largely bogus (e.g. meridians, qi). This is a COI for Wikipedia, because this is a reality-based encyclopaedia. A homoeopath has a COI on articles on homeopathy, an acupuncturist has one in articles on acupuncture, a pharmaceutical exec has one on articles on drugs, a doctor has none, in theory, because medicine develops by assessing therapies and discarding the invalid - something no alternative therapy can do, because the core doctrines are never up for negotiation.

You may believe you have no COI, but you are wrong. Just so we are clear on that. Guy (Help!) 19:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Dude, did you read the rest of the essay, which explains that per WP:COI profession is not, ipso facto, determinative of COI? Yes, I make a living (or would if I were able to practice full-time) from acu, and stand to benefit from its positive depiction.  The situation is the same for tort lawyers, podiatrists, nurse practitioners vs. physician assistants and so on.  A difference of degree, very likely, given the controversy over acu's efficacy, but not one of kind.  Additionally, in the "real world", practicing acu'ists do contribute to the MEDRS's we use, and are not generally considered to have COI.  I understand that your considered opinion, or Ernst's or Gorski's, differs, but in fact the general consensus in the real world  -- and the global consensus on WP per WP:COI -- is that an acu'ist does not have COI just because they're an acu'ist.  Rather, COI arises from external... oh, read the essay, if you haven't already.  --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 20:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * respectfully, I don't agree. I do hear your opinion. I also find the blanket condemnation of all acupuncturists as some kind of religious nuts with "core doctrines" to be kind of ... prejudicial. Now - there for sure are acu-advocates who say acu is good for everything - for sure there are! -  but in my experience middle8 makes only mainstream claims about what acu can and cannot do. (i'm also really surprised that you would make such a broad statement as "a pharmaceutical exec has one on articles on drugs".  That doesn't seem very thoughtful.  CEO of a biotech company developing a new monoclonal antibody against say, leukemia, would have a COI for our article on acetaminophen? You can't mean that.) anyway, two last thoughts: 1) IMO, the danger with Middle8 is more WP:ADVOCACY than COI, and the advocacy is generally restrained (which is more than i can say for some of the quack-fighters, who distort things much more strongly the other way and regularly display key characteristics in WP:TENDENTIOUS). 2) In any case Middle's disclosure, putting it right there in his/her signature, leads others to his/her page where there is a clear disclosure that Middle8 is an acu... which is our bottom line for any potential COI disclosure, in any case. Jytdog (talk) 20:36, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

In light of the above and other feedback, and reconsideration of arguments presented at my COI/N and elsewhere, here is my new essay/declaration of COI (also, as always, in my sig): User:Middle_8/COI. More than a little bit different than previously. --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 08:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * My new essay
 * That being said, WP has a LOT of problems, and whatever I might be introducing with my degree of COI are among the least of them. I concur with Jytdog's comment above about quack-fighters, among whom I've at times seen remarkable obtuseness, disingenuousness, POV-pushing and propagation of outright factual error.  Not infrequently it's the non-scientist skeptics who are screwing up, an observation that accords with PZ Myers' criticism of the skeptic movement as a "crippled, buggered version of science".  Some of the comments at the bottom (of that linked page) are also good critiques that the more self-aware "skeptic" types might profitably consider.  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 13:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Explanation
Wondering what is with this edit ? What what the summary "double standard" means? Best Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The comment is asking why the editor's desired summary of the article doesn't appear in the source's abstract or conclusion, given that that editor has demanded such (not wholly unreasonably) in the past from others' edits.


 * Additionally find it troublesome that the editor has been pushing for this sentence ever since its original source was removed. He seems to be trying to force the source to fit his desired wording, rather than crafting the wording to fit the source.  Hence my recent message on your talk page:  the wording ("real acupuncture was no better than sham") is not a conclusion of the source (PMID 21440191).  Guy is asking the author, Ernst, about this. --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 09:21, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Middle8, I am sure that DocJames is asking why you over-wrote QG's comments, which is completely out of bounds. You should apologize here and on Talk. I am hoping it was an accident but if it wasn't you should never do that again.Jytdog (talk) 09:45, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, the over-write was a complete accident! I use a trackball whose buttons are sticky, so sometimes I select text that I don't intend to.  Start typing, and whoops, whatever I selected is gone.  I will make amends immediately.  I am not known for doing things like that and never would intentionally. --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 11:57, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Have been editing a lot today, and am somewhat spaced out, and didn't read the diff properly either. Jytdog, thanks so much for cluing me in.  Yikes... --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 12:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Chatting about tags on talk
That was me. The section was more about the tag itself than the article associated with that talkpage, but if you think it is worthwhile to have there then that is good enough for me. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Cool, sounds good. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 19:05, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Natural Science Article

 * @ -- Thanks for the coffee! Yes, it's interesting, the way the border between "pure" and applied research blurs. That reminds me of an anecdote I read (I think in one of those popular science books written by or about an eminent physicist) recounting a conversation between two graduate students.  One said that he was switching from physics to math because the former was too "messy" and an insufficiently fundamental approach to studying reality.  The other replied that he was switching from math to physics for the very same reasons.  :-)  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 14:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikibreak
Pity. I was looking forward to a few days less stress. Nevermind. ;) -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 15:07, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, just had some loose ends to tie up, you'll get your break. ;-) BTW, still waiting for your answer to this.
 * I also want to say that, if it isn't apparent, most/all of this "jousting" is meant in good fun. I generally like and respect anyone who's intelligent and applies their gifts toward something useful, which much of WP is.  I only get annoyed when people who know better get obtuse/disingenuous.  That would not be you or most editors I've encountered.  That would be QuackGuru.  You have to admit -- nobody who can read a journal article can be so stupid as to say that Cherkin's toothpick study found for anything but the null.  And yet.  Rubbish. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 15:23, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Happy New Year Middle 8!


Happy New Year! Middle 8, Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. LesVegas (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.
 * Hey,, thanks, and to you the same! You do great work here; don't let anyone (cf. recent events) discourage you. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 10:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No discouragement whatsoever. Stuff like that strengthens my resolve, to be honest. LesVegas (talk) 00:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

About your AE filing, about scientific consensus
You do understand that consensus ≠ unanimity I take it? The view that w.r.t. acupuncture the "consensus view that the weak positive results are fully consistent with the null hypothesis" is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. One which I know you are bound to disagree with mind you. To launch an AE about this view expressed in an Arbcom case seems - extraordinary. It is not as if mainspace article text was being edited. You, on the other hand ... Alexbrn talk 13:59, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * -- Sure I understand that consensus ≠ unanimity, and I never meant to suggest otherwise. I meant to say that there's no evidence for any single consensus; thanks, I'm going to clarify that.  And we both know that the article has been edited multiple times with the view in mind that there is a single consensus that says what Guy and Kww say it does.  Actually, I agree it's a perfectly reasonable stance (and I also believe that it's reasonable to disagree with that view, as some sources do), but that has nothing to do with meeting the burden of proof that it's the consensus view.  And yes, I know you think that I shouldn't be editing the article except under WP:COIU, but that's not a consensus view on WP. :-)  (Or at least isn't demonstrably so -- Jytdog and Guy Macon don't agree, for example.)  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI)
 * hello?, anybody in? ... Echo... echo... echo. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 15:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * @ - Would you like dressing with that salad?  (No neurological judgement passed, just grammatical -- should go without saying; said anyway.) --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 17:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

See RSN or Mediation Committee
The right venue for that dispute is either reliable sources noticeboard or the Mediation Committee. If you haven't gone to the former I suggest you bring up the issue there. If you want to notify any editors make sure to follow the guidelines for appropriate notifications. --RAN1 (talk) 08:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * @ : Thank, those are good. Maybe WT:MEDRS over RSN (and look, they've been having a meta-level discussion there about sources for scientific consensus).  I'm also thinking RfC/A.  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 14:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding your COI talk post
Per here: The problem with your case as you presented it is that you conflate having a potential COI with definite COI editing. Having a profession in CAM may not necessarily signify COI editing, however you do have a potential COI. That information is relevant in an AE case where user conduct is being examined, but you won't find me using that argument in the article talkspace. When I said WP's aims differ from Cochrane's, I meant Wikipedia is about as reliable as its sources, as is Cochrane, but the difference from Cochrane is that reliability is discussed in public and can be brought up as many times as needed to ensure an accurate encyclopedia article. Wikipedia makes it clear that all source reliability should be heavily scrutinized to ensure verifiability - this goes for all considerations of MEDRS's, regardless of what conclusions they find, As such, COIs are viewed like tigers just as much as strong opinions because they can lead to breakdown in that scrutiny. This goes for proponents and skeptics alike, so ultimately the important part is to focus on the content and what the arguments say about it, not the contributor and what the arguments say about that contributor to come to some sort of compromise. As a corollary, I don't really care for categorizing editors and I don't buy into your young male stereotype, and even then less so for the idea that they are more skeptical than other demographics. That doesn't lend itself to content-focused discussions. I hope this clarifies my opinion for you. --RAN1 (talk) 00:23, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks! --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 00:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture case request closed by motion
The Arbitration Committee has closed a case request by motion with the following remedy being enacted:

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Acupuncture and Biomedical Correlate

 * Review request for a review on the acupuncture page, first paragraph. See the Talk page, "Physical correlates of acupoints" section and "Physical correlates of acupoints, Part Two." I am concerned that an ethnocentric bias on the part of editors has prevented a simple edit. The editors stand by some very shaky references and will not accept references from the most prestigious universities in the world, including those in China. At issue, the current article reads inaccurately, "Scientific investigation has not found any histological or physiological correlates for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians and acupuncture points," and yet I have sourced numerous peer reviewed studies from reputable sources showing MRI brain activity, hemodynamic and oxygen pressure correlates. Please review, I think you will find the research interesting. TriumvirateProtean (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note; I've been very busy and only read it just now. I will have a look, but can't get into anything very intense for another week or so.  But I will have a close look.  This is an important area and we need to get it right.  --Middle 8 (talk) 16:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Note to self and aka TriumvirateProtean:  believe it or not, I haven't forgotten about this, which is why I didn't archive it.  Besides being occupied elsewhere, I've been waiting for good sources:  not just studies, but reviews (per MEDRS).  Looks like we have some now.  --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 20:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

YEAH SCIENCE!!

 * WOW! Thanks man, that made my day! Truly appreciated... YEAH BITCH !!! ... cheers! --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 07:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

AE request closed
The result of this AE request, which you filed against JzG, is that both parties are to be warned. Accordingly, you are hereby warned not to file frivolous or vexatious AE requests or to use Wikipedia's conduct enforcement mechanisms in an attempt to remove an opponent with whom you are engaged in a content dispute. You are also warned to respect Wikipedia policies on neutrality, consensus, and verifiability as well as all other applicable policies. Should you fail to adhere to this warning, there is a high probability that you will face substantive sanctions in the future. This warning will be logged as a discretionary sanction at the appropriate page, as will the warning to JzG. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  01:12, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see far more serious sanctions against those such as you who disrupt the project. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 12:08, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Roxy, I'm sure that's mutual, and unless you have something really constructive (or at least interesting or amusing) to say on this page, please don't bother doing so again. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 15:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Given that JzG was warned, it's not clear in what sense this was a frivolous request. The warning suggests that there was indeed a behavioral problem. TimidGuy (talk) 12:25, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , what they warned him for had nothing to do with why I filed the complaint. It turned into a "gotcha" fest, as these things do (I'd forgotten...). I thought AE would be better than that, but it still tends toward the same old B.S. -- a zero-tolerance witch-hunt -- find whatever looks bad, cherry-pick it, and depict it as a "pattern".  At least the warning they gave me was justified; I should've inquired about whether such a posting was appropriate, but I was annoyed when I posted it, and had forgotten Bill Murray's advice to the groundhog ("don't drive angry"). ... OTOH, I suppose Guy deserved, in the bigger scheme of things, to get dinged for incivility, because he does do it too much, and unlike me, some people are truly bothered by it.  (Gee, maybe that's part of why civility is one of WP:5P, ya think?)  It can set a bad example and seems like bullying.
 * The thing that does bother me is the IDHT in the face of MEDRS's that disprove skeptics' assumptions about scientific opinion. It sometimes seem like they can't imagine  that the consensus in the skeptical blogosphere could possibly be different from the consensus in the scientific community.  It doesn't compute.  They think the burden is on other editors to prove there isn't a consensus that, say, acupuncture is as discredited as homeopathy.  It's pervasive, and nowhere more apparent in Kww's Arbcom filing, where an imaginary "consensus" is simply asserted.  Same thing in Kww's and others' initial comments at Talk:Acupuncture here.... but to Kww's credit, he seemed to back off his more extreme comments (which were that we should exclude any reviews with positive findings, including Cochrane-level reviews). --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 15:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * fwiw, I think Roxy's post was infelicitous piling on. But I also think, Middle 8, that the AE posting was poor judgement.  Not sure what drove you to do that but there was no chance that was going to fly, and that, along with the ill-formed RfC/U on QuackGuru, are establishing a pattern that is going to stick to you; you have pooped in your own back yard twice now.   I'm sorry to see that. Jytdog (talk) 16:12, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It was bad judgement... like Bill Murray said. And I apologized to Guy (but your comment is still accurate, unfortunately -- part of it's my fault, but there are also double standards on Wikipedia).  Re consensus, see my comment at Kww's ArbCom request (which is a response mainly to his comment), or read the last few posts between me and Kww at the bottom of talk:Acu to get an idea what I'm talking about.  Briefly:  If what you're saying is consensus extended to all conditions, that would be reflected in reviews.  But there's real disagreement over whether or not it works for pain and nausea -- and I recognize that that pool of possibility may also dry up, but that's where we are now.  In a few years maybe the literature will be like homeopathy, but as long as there are invited pro-and con editorials, and an IPD meta-analysis, there is obviously mainstream debate -- see NHS etc., which reflect that. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 22:14, 11 January 2015 (UTC) edited 23:26, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, what I said in the first place was that we shouldn't include a laundry-list of individual reviews, because there's always a pressure from people to include the ones that are slightly positive and that distorts the perspective of the article. Similarly, we shouldn't list the few that find acupuncture is harmful, because those are also clearly false negatives. Include the scientific consensus, which is that acupuncture has no substantial effect beyond the placebo effect, and leave it at that. There's no doubt in my mind that there is a scientific consensus that acupuncture is a placebo, and you have even agreed with that stance: "The benefit (if it is real and not an artifact of bias) is small or modest ... nobody who is reality-based disputes that". So why do you argue that there is not a scientific consensus? Why doesn't a phrasing like "the benefits of acupuncture are non-existent or trivial" sum it up adequately?&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:18, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

fwiw,, in my view this is messier than most people will actually acknowledge and deal with. One reason I appreciate Middle 8's perspective on Acu is that he actually deals with that. There are a set of difficult, hard facts here that there is no room in the acu article for, due to POV-pushing on both sides, namely: I believe that Middle 8 gets all that, which is rare around here. A reasonable article about acu would be anchored on those facts and I think if Middle 8 had the article to himself, it would look that way. But you get acu-proponents constantly making insane claims about acu and the quack-fighters pushing back way too hard. The article is a wasteland, and there is no way to make the extremes step away. So I stepped away. That's my view, again, fwiw. (and none of this excuses Middle 8's poor judgement in bringing the AE) Jytdog (talk) 16:36, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * acu is indeed based on pre-scientific principles.  If anybody claims today that "qi" and "merdians" have any reality, they are doing pseudoscience
 * conventional medicine fails to help people sometimes, especially with regard to pain, which we still do not understand very well on basic scientific levels and even today we lack drugs and devices that effectively help some people who are in pain
 * clinical studies have shown benefit of acu in some populations of people who are still in pain when doctors have done their best with conventional medicine.  the placebo issues don't matter, clinically.  the risk is tiny and compared to actually doing nothing extra, some people who are otherwise in pain are helped by this extra procedure.  that is what matters.
 * the use of acu as a complementary medicine in the situations mentioned above is discussed in medical textbooks (it doesn't get more mainstream than that) and is widely practiced.  some of that is driven by market demand but medical centers wouldn't offer it if there wasn't some rationale (the clinical evidence) for it
 * I agree that the social issue of whether a placebo is worth paying for confounds the issue, but it doesn't confound it much in my eye. If someone with chronic hives is helped by a sugar pill, I'm not about to endorse putting any statements that say that sugar is effective for the treatment of hives into sugar. Similarly, if the placebo effects of acupuncture help someone with chronic nausea, that doesn't make me inclined to put any statements into the article that says it helps with nausea.&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I hear what you are saying. Part of why I emphasized that the placebo issues don't matter is that I was talking to you, and you are pretty solidly in the quack-fighter camp, and the placebo thing is what you reflexively reach for when talking about indications where acu has shown benefit over doing nothing extra.   (btw I have the greatest respect for the work quack-fighters do, and I do a lot of that myself).  In my view  the quack-fighter camp way, way overplays the placebo thing - the data about placebo  in indications where acu has shown benefit over doing nothing extra are messier than you all acknowledge.  But anyway, thanks for reading what I wrote.  Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

- re your above comment beginning with "Actually, what I said...": time out, I call IDHT. You didn't quote the second part of what I said that differentiates our positions: "What is debated is whether it is clinically relevant...". To answer your question, why not say instead that some scientists conclude (insert your quote), and that others agree with the possible exception of pain and nausea? That's how the NHS did it: see the evidence page, archived 2012 version (scroll down to "Positive evidence", penultimate paragraph). Also note that in the archived page, it says the NICE found acu to be effective for lower back pain only, while today they add tension headache and migraine. It may be that acu really is a mild analgesic above placebo: I tend to suspect not, to be honest, but the evidence is consistent with that. When groups like the NICE say so, we have to reflect that. Don't we? --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 22:38, 11 January 2015 (UTC) 23:40, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The people that you've quoted as believing that acupuncture's effects are clinically relevant are including the placebo effect. Whether recommending a placebo is ethical is a question for another day. Who is arguing that there is a substantial effect above and beyond the placebo effect?&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all sure of your premise; how do you know this? Pretty sure the NHS is going off Cochrane reviews and the like, and they all use sham as a control.  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 00:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Vickers is pretty clear about it: I'm not aware of any reliable review that indicates a substantial delta between sham and actual, while there are certainly studies that show substantial deltas between doing nothing and performing acupuncture. That's why it's quite possible to have people concerned with financial value recommend its use while people that are concerned primarily with whether it has any actual physical effect say that it has little to none.&mdash;Kww(talk) 01:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * just popping in here to comment on the above, where you seem to think there are two kinds of people in the world (the battleground mentality us/them) - those who love money (?) and those who love evidence. The group I tried to point out above is completely left out; namely those who want reasonable options for people still in pain after conventional medicine has done all it can.  And what I hear from you is a big whopping "who cares".  Maybe you think that is unfair, but I don't see you thinking like a doctor who has patients that need help. Can you please, pretty please, think orthogonally to the battle for just a bit, and see that it matters that acu does something for those patients, compared to doing nothing extra? Jytdog (talk) 00:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter to how an encyclopedia describes it, Jytdog. We don't plant information into articles about placebos so that it is easier to deceive people receiving placebo treatment into thinking that they will be helped. That path would lead to an incredibly strange article on sugar, for example, describing all the maladies that sugar pills are effective for.&mdash;Kww(talk) 01:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * mmmm no. first of all it is not mainstream medical practice to give people sugar pills.  as i noted above, acu has become mainstream as complementary (not alternative) medicine in some pain indications.  But the deeper thing in what you write, really goes to what the editors working on any given article decide the scope will be, and specifically with regard to MEDRS, whether they choose to emphasize consensus practice or EBM, which are sometimes quite different. (i am not saying that they are different for these pain indications, btw)   You can see how the difference between EBM and consensus practice, played out on the tamiflu article for example.  It was insanely weighted toward a Cochrane review (where the lead Cochrane person is a notorious crank) -- see here and after I and some others pushed back it looked like it does now, which is Oseltamivir, with more weight on what is mainstream medical practice. (there is an RfC on it here and you can see where the consensus is going) As it stands now the acu article is (in my view) the ugly result of a battle, that gives no information on how acu is actually used. The clinical perspective is entirely absent and it is not very useful for anybody as an encyclopedia article.  If the editors involved could agree to end the battle and just focus the scope on mainstream medical practice, the article would look very different. But that would require the pro-acu "lunatic charlatans" to back way the hell off things like using acu to actually treat cancer (oy), and would require the quack-fighters to put away their EBM swords.  I don't see the pro-acu gang doing that anytime soon (they are if anything pushing harder lately) so I completely understand that the quack-fighters cannot walk away from an EBM focus which is their best weapon.  So the article will remain as it is for the forseeable future. But focusing it on what is mainstream medical practice would probably be as useful a weapon... as it is, there is enough quackademic medicine via clinical trialling to give the pro-acu people some ground on which to fight; focusing on what is actual mainstream practice would take that ground away altogether.  Anyway, good luck to you! Jytdog (talk) 01:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh man, I didn't notice this AE request at all. I haven't ever had dealings with Guy, so I probably wouldn't have had much pertinent to offer anyway. But I have seen editors claim something is "X, Y or Z" and when you point out reliable sources that say it's actually "A, B or C" they ignore it and not only repeat their original claims but edit accordingly. That can be a problem on the encyclopedia, and it would be nice to get a ruling on IDHT conduct like that. Do you think Arbcom handle something like that? LesVegas (talk) 00:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you
That was a nice thing you did, and I do appreciate it. Guy (Help!) 22:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

New meta-analysis
Found that acupuncture is better than a placebo. TimidGuy (talk) 12:28, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * (very belatedly, sorry) @ -- of interest:  Ernst's comments on his blog  (and Colquhoun's comments there criticizing the paper) --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 12:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Disability
Well said on your point about doubting someone talking about their disability. As a disabled person I have felt reluctant to reveal that fact here in fear of the sort of persons one of whom you spoke out about(damn that is an awkward sentence)--— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht Talk/Stalk 14:46, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Tumadoireacht, I wouldn't have that fear. Wikipedia has a lot of Aspies, for example, and I don't think that there a lot of anti-Aspie bias.  It's just a matter of continuing to raise awareness.  As you can see from the comments at ANI, virtually nobody defended this; it's just that many of them didn't understand that "disability policing" is an especially bad way to accuse someone (implicitly or not) of lying.  So people tend to get it; it's just a matter of helping them get it more.  (And we need to keep the issue clear-cut, FWIW; for example, I revised my recent comments to make sure that it was clear that my comments were really about disability and not some ulterior motive.... the person who made the offensive comment is also one with whom I've had disagreements in the past.)  Maybe we need some sort of meta-Wikiproject for disability awareness -- or more likely, there must be something like that that I don't know about.  Let's keep in touch and keep our eyes open for something like that, and/or get it going.  Best regards, Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 08:12, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. (a) Forgot to mention re your awkward sentence -- I like the ironic instruction "never use a preposition to end a sentence with". :-) (b) "Tumadoireacht" sounds sort of Celtic; is that the case? --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 16:33, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi M8, How are you doing?
I notice you altered the section about Hans Adler on your userpage, and wanted to say that Hans was fantastic. I used to come across him on teh internetz years ago, before I had any interest in wikipedia. He was a superb example of fighting the polite fight against the forces of Alt-Med, and would have eaten you for a little snack. I was really pleased when I discovered he edited here. He'd have seen right through you. Best. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 10:16, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Roxy the dog, I'm good, thanks. I remember editing some articles that Hans was also working on, and I 'member he was quite critical of WP:TE editors of any persuasion.  We usually agreed, both content-wise and in terms of appropriate parameters for editorial conduct.  (I'm tempted to post examples, but that might involve outing myself, cf. User:Middle_8/Privacy.)  I think he would have found you boring.  He's still editing WP, BTW.  Happy editing. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI)
 * Good answer ! -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 10:39, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * @ Roxy the dog -- here ya go, --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 10:45, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I learn a great deal from looking at diffs. It always surprises me that apparently eds store particularly telling examples of behaviour in the form of diffs. They do this presumably to use against fellow editors. I don't do it at all, it strips all the fun out of improving wikipedia. As regards outing, I will always be 100% behind you on your stance on that one. I don't use the Roxy name anywhere else. I can't believe we have something in common. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 10:57, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Rtd - Yeah, I'm of two minds on whether it's a good idea to discuss conduct in article talk space. On the one hand, it doesn't directly go to WP:ENC, and as you say, it is kinda humorless.  OTOH, if an editor is really misbehaving and harming the project, flagging that fact and thereby holding 'em accountable does (indirectly) go to WP:ENC... but agree, it shouldn't be overdone.  Kewl re privacy, yep, better that way; promotes candor.  peace out. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 13:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

thank you and question
thank you for your passionate defense of User:AlbinoFerret, which I read at ANI. I did not know you were an acupuncturist. Just by accident, it so happened, that CFCF deleted a link under the German healthcare system See also section  called German acupuncture trials. He called it completely irrelevant. I didnt agree, reverted teh bold edit, and he reverted me stating the same in the discussion page. What is your opinion?--Wuerzele (talk) 07:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Wuerzele - I think it's relevant, yes; see comment. Happy editing. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 20:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Summary bloat at Better Call Saul
Hi Middle 8, sorry to revert one of your recent good-faith edits at Better Call Saul. The additions you made I didn't quite see as crucial information, rather as details that can easily be enjoyed by watching the episode. Removing blindfolds isn't crucial knowledge, but freeing the captives is. The back-and-forth that Jimmy goes through, admitting to being a lawyer, then an FBI agent, then a laywer, isn't crucial to the plot. What is crucial is that Nacho learns that Saul is a lawyer, and that seems (for the purpose of this summary) to go smoother when we hear that he claims to be an FBI agent first, then admits to being a lawyer. The nugget about Jimmy driving the twins to the emergency room and them calling him "the worst lawyer in the world", could probably be cut entirely, without expanding it, as this is not a crucial plot detail. And again, the other subtleties can be enjoyed by watching the episode. Per WP:TVPLOT, we're striving to keep these summaries between 150-200 words. The changes you made brought it to around 225, but needlessly so. No disrespect intended. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Cyphoidbomb, no worries at all; I think you're right on the merits, and that's all that counts... although your gracious and patient explanation is very much appreciated. :-) That last edit of mine did feel dubious, and I'm glad you fixed it.  It's an enjoyable challenge trying to get short summaries right, one I'm still learning.  Good points all around in your ES; I will try and get them < 200 words.  And (of course) please do feel free to modify my edits anytime, both on general principles and because your instincts are good.  Best regards + happy editing, Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 06:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC) copyedit 06:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't say I've had a more pleasurable experience correcting someone. Thanks for being open minded and interested in (what I had hoped was) constructive criticism. And yes, I agree it is a challenge to sift through and pick out only the most important details. Getting the summary down to that length took a lot of noodling, but I cut 104 words out of the previous version. Regards, and again, thanks for being a good egg. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Cool, likewise. Yes, I think it's often easier to add very good prose than to do a solid job of pruning.  The latter is both an art and a science of sorts.  Cheers. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 06:37, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Kickstarter project you may like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Kickstarter_Wikipedia_health_book.21

(You are welcome)

-Roxy the Viking dog™ (resonate) 14:54, 7 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Meh. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 22:43, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC on COI?
I noticed you making more arguments about COI on your userpage. Are you ready for a community RfC on this question? I am thinking it is about time. Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi (<== did you get pinged by that?)... Yes, was just talking about COI with JzG.  I think it's better to do it than not to, especially given that you mentioned you know how to publicize such things widely; we need to get input from people outside as well as inside the "alt-med wars".  Can you be the one to take the initiative?  I can't at this time (obligations IRL), and probably shouldn't, but I'm certainly happy to help, if such is useful.  Cheers. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 16:18, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * done. see RfC on COI for alt-med practitioners Jytdog (talk) 16:40, 10 May 2015 (UTC) (updated link to archived page, wl for appearance --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 08:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC))
 * and yes that did ping me. Jytdog (talk) 17:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * well, that went no where. we have yet another confirmation that there is no consensus on this issue.  My takeaway is here, for what that is worth. Jytdog (talk) 12:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * @ - Thanks for doing it, though -- actually, it's by far the best confirmation we have yet of the community's division, so it was useful to do, in the same way null results in sci research are useful albeit nonsexy.  A thankless task, always the kind of thing people should be thanked for more.  I certainly don't agree (as some did) that doing it was a bad idea or somehow risky, although I'd think carefully before cue-ing something up as a two-parter again.  BTW if you didn't catch it, .  Happy (a) editing (b) Memorial Day. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 07:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Wanted you to know
Hi M8. I saw your ping to acu, but I've been out since I started that topic, and I'd rather wait till tomorrow before even reading any responses. I hope you don't mind. -Roxy the Mainstream dog™ (resonate) 22:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * 'Saul good, man. cheers Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 22:57, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

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Disambiguation link notification for December 26
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Anthem (Black Uhuru album), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Michael Rose. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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 * Thanks, kindly bot! Fixed --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 20:08, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Middle 8!


Happy New Year! Middle 8, Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. LesVegas (talk) 15:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Biden Rule
Could you please be somewhat collegial and discuss or at least leave a talk page message instead of just doing the redirect with no comment? -- Fuzheado &#124; Talk 16:47, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I did, within perhaps a minute of redirecting. I probably should've done so first though, sorry. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 16:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Your notice at the top of the page
I like your notice (at the top of the page) and I copied it on my talk page. I hope you do not mind. Otherwise, I will erase it.

Sorry for this mistake too... (=_=)

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca   (Talk)  22:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * @ - Cool, go for it!  I've seen many variations on that notice; most editors I've talked with seem to prefer keeping conversations in the same place, but many of them don't explicitly say so.  BTW I like your "mistake" and may add it back.... :-)


 * Happy editing; it looks like you're contributing a lot of good stuff, for which docs and scientists always deserve a special thanks! best regards, Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 08:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! You're very kind. Happy editing for you too!
 * P.S.: I'm not sure I understood, sorry for my poor English. Do you want I readd this? I do not want to screw up. (=_=)
 * Best regards. --BallenaBlanca [[Image:BallenaBlanca.jpg|25px]] [[Image:Mars symbol (bold blue).svg|12px]] (Talk)  09:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Everything's totally fine! And your written English is fine, probably better than your understanding of other people's written English.  It's the same way for me with my Spanish, which is rudimentary at best ... cuando hablo con otros, siempre tengo que decir "despacio, por favor!"


 * What I meant about your edit is that I like the "Thank you very much for your understanding!" part that you accidentally and temporarily added to this page, and I might just add it back! In fact, I did, here, and I'll keep it there if you don't mind.  It's so nice to see Wikipedians being so ...nice. :-) Cheers! --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • COI) 18:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

THANK YOU
Thank you VERY much for your message about suicides at Harvard! I appreciate your help. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 01:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

COI
I know you assert you have no COI, but that is troublesome view. Your livelihood depends at least in part on the acceptance of acupuncture, so adding content to the article which gives the appearance of validity is absolutely a conflict of interest. You have a vested interest in the content of the article, in a way a medical doctor would not. A doctor generally has no especial interest in whether treatment A or treatment B works, as long as she can choose either, so has no direct dependence on the validity of treatment A when writing about it. A provider of any specific alt-med treatment, by contrast, absolutely does have a vested financial interest in the content of the article. Guy (Help!) 10:43, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to your view and it has merit, but of course there are big arguments against it too that we've been over (and over and over). You might recall that the pertinent RfC found no consensus that a COI exists for CAM practitioners (and FWIW opinion ran close to 2:1 against).  --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:00, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Regardless, you have a vested interest in the legitimacy of acupuncture whic goes against the trajectory of evidence, so, regardless of any consensus re editing the article at all, you should not edit content relating to legitimacy. Guy (Help!) 12:26, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (a) (the subtext above you didn't catch) Since there's no consensus, why should I follow your preference? (b) (the forest people keep missing for the trees) If only there were a way for editors to modify/undo edits that they don't like.... --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:29, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Because WP:COI is pretty explicit: you should not edit where you have a direct vested interest in the content. Your livelihood literally depends on downplaying the fact that acupuncture is superstitious nonsense. Guy (Help!) 00:19, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Read the RfC. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 01:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

You have a COI, by your own admission. --Ronz (talk) 19:51, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I also have a pet Siberian Husky, which people keep mistaking for a wolf. If and when I no longer have it, that should moot the question of whether I have a pet wolf. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 21:58, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what that has to do with anything.
 * You have a definite COI.
 * Please work from edit summaries for anything remotely related to acupuncture.
 * If you make any further controversial edits to any acupuncture-related articles, I think a ban is in order. A wider ban may be warranted. --Ronz (talk) 23:46, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If I "have a definite COI", why is that obvious only to a minority of respondents at the first RfC and, so far, the current one? --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 00:09, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You aren't all alt med practitioners. --Ronz (talk) 00:15, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, we're even, because I'm not catching any logic in that reply either. In any case, the fact remains: your position is not "obvious" to a majority, most of whom are not (or cannot reasonably be claimed to be, based on evidence) CAM practitioners or pro-CAM partisans. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 00:36, 5 January 2019 (UTC); add to cmt 00:39, 5 January 2019 (UTC), 00:40, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * But that's part of the problem. You fail to see far too much to be able to edit the topic in a way that doesn't violate COI and related policy. --Ronz (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Recent diffs? --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 01:11, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Pretty much everything here. It's all IDHT while avoiding personal responsibility. Please just use edit requests, and listen to others rather than arguing. If you honestly don't understand something, ask questions and demonstrate interest in perspectives other than your own. --Ronz (talk) 02:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing your views and concerns. I will continue to edit mainspace judiciously, per PAG.  If and when we collaborate, I look forward to doing so at the highest possible levels of Graham's hierarchy.  Happy editing.  --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?)
 * update: latest RfC --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 04:54, 31 March 2019 (UTC); fix wl 13:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Hatting
Hatting your own content and then adding comments before the hat is disingenuous. It makes it look like I commented after your final comment. Do not do that again.AlmostFrancis (talk) 04:40, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * @ User:AlmostFrancis: You're referring to this two successive edits. I certainly didn't mean to imply that you commented after my final comment.  Nor, FWIW, did I believe I was collapsing the text over anyone's objections, since I was changing my mind and conceding your point.  No disingenuousness intended whatsoever -- I do not play such games -- just trying to thread it readably (and I thought the dates and my comment being right at the top of the collapsed section made it obvious).  Anyway, more than fine to put the comment in chron order.  You're also of course free to de-collapse it as well, although I don't think it adds anything useful to the page at all.  I regret my role in this mini-drama, and again, my edit wasn't meant to cast your edits in a bad light at all, and I hope nobody took them that way.


 * While on the subject of article talk: Several of your comments go too far in commenting on the contributor (e.g.,, ), which, like our little side discussion, isn't generally helpful, especially on article talk.  Making too big a deal of one's objections to another editor's edits, and trying to spin that into a general narrative that they're a bad editor, is an old game (WP:SANCTIONGAME, #1), and while sometimes effective is likely to be seen through and can boomerang on the accuser.  Plus it's just low class.  My point is that some of your comments, whether you mean them that way or not (I take no position on that, at this time), could be taken that way, so, word to the wise.


 * Also, read WP:IAD if you haven't, good stuff.


 * BTW, don't forget to sign this comment. (Note that I avoided any personal criticism when pointing out this mistake)


 * Happy editing, --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:16, 11 January 2019 (UTC); ce, 20:52, 11 January 2019 (UTC); fmt & fix diff, 20:59, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
Thank you ... for being persistent and continuing to edit in the face of hostility. I don't endorse your views or your edits, but Wikipedia needs more expert editors, not fewer. You at least deserve basic respect.

feminist (talk) 00:07, 21 January 2019 (UTC) 


 * Thank you for your kind words! Fortuitous choice too since I've been a happy ownee of numerous cats. :-)  --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 03:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion from Talk:Acupuncture
I have no idea why the two comments below were posted under Talk:Acupuncture § Popularity in Europe, but am reposting & replying here.




 * First, I think a good way to avoid drama would be to avoid starting it, and I think both of you could take a lesson in that regard. Second, it's not my responsibility to quell drama that you start.  Third, I'm not going to act as if I have a COI just because you want me to, much less because one of you has been making improper reverts of my mainspace edits based on supposed COI.  You've asked (repeatedly), and I've respectfully declined; instead, absent an official finding, I will continue to edit judiciously, and expect to have my edits judged on their content, not the contributor.


 * Finally, I refer you both to my final comment in the improper reverts thread at JzG's user talk, archived minutes after I pointed out the uncomfortable fact that he -- actually, both of you -- made comments critical of one of my edits when it was pretty clear you hadn't even read it ( see my replies to comments by GM, JzG, JzG, JzG ). That should be a wake-up call regarding "commenting on content, not the contributor" (which I'm amazed isn't a more dominant stance among some editors who say they embrace fact and reason).  Happy editing. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 21:28, 29 January 2019 (UTC); clarify 23:24, 29 January 2019 (UTC); 23:31, 29 January 2019 (UTC); 06:49, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Belated update: Per this RfC, practitioners of alternative medicine do not have a conflict of interest with regard to content describing their field of practice [edit] (i.e., not simply by virtue of being practitioners; COI can and does arise in other ways) [/edit]. --Middle 8 (t • c &#124; privacy • acupuncture COI?) 04:13, 31 March 2019 (UTC); edit for clarity 22:08, 15 April 2019 (UTC); fix wl 13:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

ANI Notice
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Acupuncture: not sure what to do here. Guy Macon (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * GM: Next time, before escalating straight to a noticeboard as soon as I say something on a user talk page, please talk to me first so we can at least attempt to get clear about exactly what we disagree about.  Unless -- cf. "You didn't build that" -- you just want to pick the least-effective way I might've made my point, and try to portray that as my general stance.  Which is bad for collaboration, and bad for how other editors will perceive not just me, but you too, as some of the comments there have already shown.  I am trying to AGF.  Please do not make it hard for me to do that.  --Middle 8 (t • c • privacy) 17:13, 8 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Regarding this, I think AE is the right venue for it. The ANI was asking what the proper venue is for evidence presentation, and AE probably is it, because the topic area is subject to WP:AC/DS.  This can be a good thing, in that AE doesn't tolerate vague hand-waving, or ranting, or endless back-and-forth.  People put up the evidence and counter-evidence and it's examined quickly without a whole lot of "peanut gallery" blathering.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish -- Thanks for reaching out about that. Yeah, ANI is awful.  Way too easy (for me anyway) to be misunderstood there.  AE, with its clear boundaries, actually sounds much better, and it'd be a relief to get a definitive answer (read: one that will cause the stick to be put down).  --Middle 8 (s)talk • privacy 10:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia:ABOUTSAND


Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice that Wikipedia:ABOUTSAND, a page that you created, has been tagged for deletion. This has been done under two or more of the criteria for speedy deletion, by which pages can be deleted at any time, without discussion. If the page meets any of these strictly-defined criteria, then it may soon be deleted by an administrator. The reasons it has been tagged are:
 * It appears to be a test page. (See section G2 of the criteria for speedy deletion.) Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
 * It seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service, person, or point of view and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. (See section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion.) Please read the guidelines on spam and FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Oshawott 12 ==== Talk to me!  04:29, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Oshawott 12, are you sure I created it? I have no memory of doing so (and it's already been deleted anyway), so it's probably not important to me.  Curious tho; maybe I've been hacked. Is there a diff of me creating it? Thanks, Middle 8 (s)talk • privacy 07:17, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello, and thanks for the reply. I’m not sure if you’re lying here, but my CSD log says that the creator is you. If you really think it’s a Twinkle problem (I used Twinkle to tag CSD), then we could ping the sysop that deleted to ask if the creator was someone else. ‘Hacking’ is nearly impossible, but you never know, right? *wink*   Oshawott 12  ==== Talk to me!  07:45, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oshawott 12: Please ask the sysop, thanks. I assume it was a redirect, but to what?  This is weird.  --Middle 8 (s)talk • privacy 08:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It wasn’t a redirect. It was a in-progress article about an Indian guy. Eh, weird. i agree with you.   Oshawott 12  ==== Talk to me!  09:01, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Pinging .   Oshawott 12  ==== Talk to me!  09:01, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Obviously shouldn't be in Wikipedia space anyway. Entire content was AYUSH Kumar Singh born (24 September 2006) is an Indian actor. One of the country's highest-paid celebrities., you created it with the content  #REDIRECT About the sandbox  in May 2014, but about 20 subsequent editors since Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  09:12, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Middle 8 does not do this sort of thing. Ever. This is a misunderstanding or a misclick, nothing more. I've known him a long time. He's really annoying. -Roxy, the dog . wooF 22:40, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * (e/c)   Thanks, that makes sense that I created such a redirect.  Sounds like it didn't really need to be deleted, just reverted, and that the intervening editor(s) probably needed to be educated on article/draft creation.  If no one objects, I'll recreate the page as it was. (@RtD: heh.) --Middle 8 (s)talk • privacy 22:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)