User talk:NightHeron/Archive 1

Welcome! (We can't say that loudly enough!) ''' Hello, NightHeron, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:
 * Be Bold!
 * Learn from others
 * Be kind to others
 * Contribute, Contribute, Contribute!
 * Tell us a bit about yourself
 * Our great guide to Wikipedia

If you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page. Or, please come to the new contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type  on your user talk page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.

Please sign your name on talk pages and votes by typing four tildes ( ~ ); our software automatically converts it to your username and the date. We're so glad you're here! Meatsgains (talk) 01:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Welcome
Welcome to Wikipedia! We have compiled some guidance for new healthcare editors:
 * 1) Please keep the mission of Wikipedia in mind. We provide the public with accepted knowledge, working in a community.
 * 2) We do that by finding high quality secondary sources and summarizing what they say, giving WP:WEIGHT as they do.  Please do not try to build content by synthesizing content based on primary sources.  (For the difference between primary and secondary sources, see WP:MEDDEF.)
 * 3) Please use high-quality, recent, secondary sources for medical content (see WP:MEDRS). High-quality sources include review articles (which are not the same as peer-reviewed), position statements from nationally and internationally recognized bodies (like CDC, WHO, FDA), and major medical textbooks. Lower-quality sources are typically removed. Please beware of predatory publishers – check the publishers of articles (especially open source articles) at Beall's list.
 * 4) The ordering of sections typically follows the instructions at WP:MEDMOS. The section above the table of contents is called the WP:LEAD. It summarizes the body. Do not add anything to the lead that is not in the body. Style is covered in MEDMOS as well; we avoid the word "patient" for example.
 * 5) More generally see WP:MEDHOW
 * 6) Reference tags generally go after punctuation, not before; there is no preceding space.
 * 7) We use very few capital letters and very little bolding. Only the first word of a heading is usually capitalized.
 * 8) Common terms are not usually wikilinked; nor are years, dates, or names of countries and major cities.
 * 9) Do not use URLs from your university library's internal net: the rest of the world cannot see them.
 * 10) Please include page numbers when referencing a book or long journal article.
 * 11) Please format citations consistently within an article and be sure to cite the PMID for journal articles and ISBN for books; see WP:MEDHOW for how to format citations.
 * 12) Never copy and paste from sources; we run detection software on new edits.
 * 13) Talk to us! Wikipedia works by collaboration at articles and user talkpages.

Once again, welcome, and thank you for joining us! Please share these guidelines with other new editors.

– the WikiProject Medicine team Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:12, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Had started discussion on the talk page.
 * There are concerns with the sourcing. One of the books used is self published it appears.
 * Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Ann Hibner Koblitz
Sure, it's my pleasure. The article looks great - all I really needed to do is a little work on categories. Nothing major at all.

Keep up the good work, and happy editing! -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 16:46, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Recent sources
Sources should generally be from the last 10 years. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:52, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Two notes
Hi and thanks for your contributions.

Would you please stop adding content like "it should be noted that..." to articles? Please see WP:EDITORIALIZING.

Would you please not use terms like "today" or "now" and the like, per WP:RELTIME? Wikipedia articles have no datelines, so everything must be anchored in time.

Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Formatting citations
Everything comes down to sources in Wikipedia, and it is very important to provide complete citations, so that other people can use them. Other editors use them to verify the content and to build more content, and readers use them to dive deeper into the subject matter. (some readers use Wikipedia only to get quick access to the sources and pretty much ignore the content!)

There are templates for citations that are very useful. If you look at them and try to create them manually, this looks like a nightmare. I avoided templates for years and just did simple ones like this:


 * Begley CG, Ellis LM. (2012-03-28) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature 483: 7391. 531–533
 * which looks like this in wikicode: Begley CG, Ellis LM. (2012-03-28) Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature 483: 7391. 531–533

But then I learned that there are automated tools that will create templated citations for you super fast and this is how I work now... and it is good for you and everybody if you use them. Below is a description first of how to autoformat refs in the "Visual editor" interface, which many new users use, and then in the older Wikitext editor. In either editor, if you are writing about health, the part of the citation we care about the most is the pmid. Please be sure to use it.

We really value references that are available free-full text, so if there is free full text version please be sure to include the pmc field for biomedical refs or a URL to a free full-text if it exists elsewhere (but don't link to a version that someone has posted online in violation of copyright - see WP:ELNEVER).

If you are working in the older Wikitext editor, in the toolbar at the top you will find near the right-hand side, the word "Cite" with is a little triangle next to it. If you click the triangle, another menu appears below. On the left side of the new menu bar, you will see "Templates". If you select (for example) "Cite journal", you can fill in the "doi" or the "PMID" field, and then if you click the little magnifying glass next to the field, the whole thing will auto-fill. If there is a pmc version of the article, this tool does not pick that up. You have to expand the "additional fields" at the bottom of the citation-creator -- you will see the "pmc" field down there, to the right. There are auto-fill fields in the templates for news, websites, and books, too.
 * Wikitext editor

The resulting citation will look like this:
 * the underlying wikicode looks like this (a nightmare right? Thank goodness you don't have to generate this by hand):
 * the underlying wikicode looks like this (a nightmare right? Thank goodness you don't have to generate this by hand):

If you are working in the Visual Editor, as many new editors do, there is a similar function.
 * Visual editor

Please note if you use the "Re-use" function of the Cite tool in VisualEditor, it will create a "reference name" for the original instance of the citation and the subsequent ones, that looks something like this: Please know that this is a software bug that the editing community has tried to get the developers to fix for a long time now because those reference names are not useful, for a bunch of reasons. (see note below for why) When you are done, please go back and change them to something that is unique and meaningful.

So if the VisualEditor did this to the original citation when you Re-used:




 * and did this for subsequent instances:

please go back and change both ref names to something like  for the first one and for the subsequent ones. You can just search the source text for ":0" etc to find them. The VisualEditor just counts up in the reference names, so you may find ":0", ":1", ":2", etc, depending on how many references you re-used.

I hope you find that useful Jytdog (talk) 17:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

New article?
I see you're running into trouble on the Alternative medicine article. While there are overlaps between some of the legitimate criticisms of mainstream medicine and alt med, I think we'd be better served with a separate article, which would get a section in the alt med article and a link to the new article. Give it some thought. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC) BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I could do that, but the article would just be a stub, which hopefully other people would add to. I could title it "Shortcomings of mainstream medicine".  But I'd be worried that some editors would see it as hostile to the medical community or to Wikipedia's medical project (which of course is not my intent) and would immediately propose it for removal. My experience so far suggests that some people are hyper-sensitive about even legitimate criticisms of mainstream medicine and their "trigger finger" is at the ready to revert content that includes criticism (an example is the repeated removal of the Ernst quote on CAM as a critique of mainstream doctors' therapeutic relations with patients).  But you've been editing much, much longer than I, so if you think it would be worthwhile for me to create a short article on "Shortcomings of mainstream medicine", I'll do that.NightHeron (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * You may not know much about me, but I have two health care educations and am a very firm skeptic against alternative medicine, but I also realize that mainstream medicine has its shortcomings, some of which make people seek alternative medicine and feed into their skepticism of mainstream medicine.
 * BUT, none of that has anything to do with whether there should be an article. What counts is if the subject is notable (it is), and is mentioned and discussed in multiple RS (it is). So start collecting your sources. I'll be happy to provide some advice and tips. I think the article is needed here.
 * I understand your concerns about deletion and possible AfD. Most new articles on controversial subjects have to survive such an ordeal, and it can be stressful. So before you move anything from your userspace, it must be as bulletproof as possible. I can also help with tips about that.
 * I suggest you use a sandbox, for example User:NightHeron/Shortcomings of mainstream medicine. You can also change that. Right now it's a redlink, but once you start writing there, it turns blue. I will watchlist it and may check in from time to time. So collect RS, then spread them "out on the floor", so to speak, and see what type of picture they form, then write your article using that as your outline. Make sure the RS, not your POV, dictate the article's form. Your job is not to document your POV, but to document the main major and minor POV found in RS on the subject. To satisfy NPOV and Due weight, it must also include criticisms and debunking, so it will consist of point and counterpoint.
 * A big caution: Most such content is found in alternative medicine, fringe, quackish, fraudulent, and other unreliable sources. You can't use them, BUT you can get cues and objections from them. Then find those objections in mainstream RS.
 * Feel free to ping me or use my talk page. I'll be rooting for you. I have written a number of articles. If you succeed, this will be a real feather in your cap. You will have improved Wikipedia and the world. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, I appreciate the suggestions. I'll put together a short article in the next few days.  In the meantime I made another attempt at a very short section on "Shortcomings" in the CAM article, hopefully this time avoiding the OR problem.NightHeron (talk) 04:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have a draft of a "Shortcomings" article at User:NightHeron/sandbox. When you get a chance to look at it, I'd welcome your suggestions.NightHeron (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have watchlisted it, and un-watchlisted my suggestion above. I'll take a look at it and now I'll notice it whenever you make changes. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Shortcomings of mainstream medicine
I have changed the name of this article to Criticisms of mainstream medicine to make it more encyclopedic. I suggest that you tweak the wording to make it clear that the article does not itself claim these deficiencies, only that others have claimed them. In other words, less opinion, more neutral. ... disco spinster   talk  22:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Criticisms of medicine for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Criticisms of medicine is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Criticisms of medicine until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I would note that the closing editor, while recommending the article be deleted, suggested it might be "userfied", which I take to mean putting it into your user space, so content from it may be used elsewhere.--agr (talk) 22:10, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for pointing that out. I'd wondered what that meant.  I'll ask for that if/when my appeal of the deletion ruling is turned down.  In that case I'll work on improving it and eventually try again to get an article on Criticism of mainstream medicine (I don't think the word "mainstream" should have been removed earlier).NightHeron (talk) 23:08, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

CAM article
What, are you nuts or what??? I first came across you at the abortion article where you made some excellent posts, so I know how good you are. But to attempt to work on the alt med stuff, how can it be that after all this time you have not yet figured out that is a total waste of your talent and your energy? There will be no improvements at the CAM article. I note that even the Tag you added was removed for some sort of weird reason. I tried to improve the article years ago when I complained that a Southern Dr. that actually turned out (as I did research) to be a Doctor of English writing on the folklore of his state, was the author of the lead sentence in the article. That did not disturb those that held rein over the article, pretty much the same editors as now, in the least. Here is how I handle the misinformation in the article: Anyone with enough brainpower to check out the WP article is going to immediately see how biased the WP article is. So I figure that the worse it is, the better it is...and it's pretty bad - to say the least. This is not ideal but it's the best we can do for now... Gandydancer (talk) 19:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the kind words about my abortion edits. My biggest surprise since beginning to edit Wikipedia is that it's been harder (more stubborn resistance) to edit alt med than to edit abortion articles.  My first exposure to arrogant and illogical veteran editors came not in the form of an anti-abortion zealot, but rather in the form of an administrator who's very active in WikiProject Medicine who admonished me that I should not use sources that are more than 10 years old (erroneously citing WP:MEDRS).  Misinforming a newcomer about Wikipedia policy is not what an administrator is supposed to do.  If he were correct, I couldn't cite Eve's Herbs by Riddle (who's a leading authority on the history of contraceptive and abortifacient herbs) because the book predates 2008.  Then when I started working on the alt med article and later wrote an article Criticisms of medicine (the deletion of which is currently under appeal), I kept encountering more and more arrogance, illogicality, and accusations against me (of being an "altmedist", being "disruptive", having a "problematic agenda", being "anti-science").  But for me, a heated debate can be enjoyable (in line with the quote from Jimmy Wales at the top of your userpage) even when the other side sometimes resorts to insults.  However, I also believe that the immature behavior of many veteran editors is partly responsible for the low number of editors who are women, U.S. minorities, or from the Global South.  I made a comment to that effect on the recent WP:Signpost article about systemic bias.  BTW I much liked your essay on your userpage.NightHeron (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, I've been following your edits here and I know about the delete of the article and Doc's 10 years comment. Well, if you really enjoy endless arguments that get you nowhere, this is the place for you to be, that is for sure.  I don't enjoy that.  I predict that you will wear out after not too much longer when the fun of the fight dims and leave...  I've seen it happen before.  Gandydancer (talk) 21:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Your prediction may come true. I'm awaiting the outcome of my appeal of the deletion of Criticisms of medicine; also on both Talk:Alternative medicine and the NPOV noticeboard I've proposed that the discussion be moved to mediation.  I haven't given up quite yet.  I also posted a related comment on Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-06/BlogNightHeron (talk) 17:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not holding my breath... As you have already seen, to speak out for any alt med automatically connects you to Dr. Oz and...what's his name, the Indian guy (both of whom are more interested in money than in health, IMO).  It is frustrating but it is the way things are here on WP. Gandydancer (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think of you frequently as I follow your edits. It should be plain by now that the way to meet this WP problem is not head-on or even sideways (like your excellent probs with med article).  I'd sure hate to see WP lose such a good editor.  Have you considered joining a group so that you too could call on your "friends" to take a look at certain issues just the way that the med group does without having it be called canvassing?  What do you care about?  If you care about "family" there is a new group forming that you may have an interest in.  If I remember correctly it seems to me that you made some excellent observations about the reasons that more women don't edit WP, is that correct or do I have you mixed up with someone else?  I recently watched an interview on PBS regarding this new book [ http://theconfidencecode.com/] and was just glued to everything that was said because they were "killing me softly" with the story of my life.  But if your interest still lies mainly with altmed, keep in mind that it is the women who mainly are in charge of the families medical choices, not the men.  But on WP it is the men who are in charge of the WP altmed article, not the women.  Gandydancer (talk) 21:08, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your kind words and support, which I especially appreciate on a day at the receiving end of a form of "cyberbullying." Sorry if I repeat what you already know.  After the initial deletion closing of the AfD, the appeal process went smoothly.  The vote (as I recall) was 6 to 4 for overturning the deletion and restoring Criticisms of medicine, with the 5 participating administrators voting 4 to 1. After an uninvolved admin restored the article, within minutes the original nominator of deletion made 18 quick deletion edits, vandalized the article (reducing it to an incoherent stub), and then immediately proposed it for deletion a second time.  Within hours a bunch of like-minded users all called for deletion, in a few cases apparently citing the stub and in a few cases the restored version.  There were garbled explanations of why it should be deleted -- some utterly ridiculous claims that it lacked sources (there were 44 sources in a short article) -- and many allegations that it was really a pro-CAM article.
 * When I started editing and chose to do so strictly anonymously, other than a few miscellaneous articles my main interest at first was abortion-related articles. I expected that that's where I'd encounter viciousness, illogicality, disregard for WP policies, and cyberbullying.  But not so -- that was relatively easy.  Sure, the zealots would vandalize on a regular basis (one of them deleted an edit of mine with the explanation "Deleted kike lesbian sources"), but the vandalism would be reverted within minutes by someone.  The medical editing wasn't my original intention, but came from looking into what Wikipedia had on abortifacient herbs (leading to the alt med article).  Then, irony of ironies, it was some WikiProject Med folks and fellow travelers who behaved in exactly the manner I would have expected of the anti-abortion zealots.
 * I made a complaint yesterday at ANI, but I doubt that anything positive will come of that. Trying to reign in a clique of arrogant cyberbullies would be a difficult and thankless task for an administrator, and it would undoubtedly take a whole group of administrators with real clout to do it.  I simply don't know enough about Wikipedia to make a guess about whether this will happen internally.  Perhaps some off-wiki criticism (such as the one on Slashdot that led to the NPOV noticeboard discussion of the alt med article) would help.  I assume that the higher-ups in Wikipedia are sincerely interested in solving these sorts of problems, and don't want Wikipedia to get the reputation that the gaming subculture has.  But as a newcomer, I don't really know what's going on in the WP subculture.  All I know is that anyone off-wiki whom I tell about my experiences with the alt med article and my "Criticisms of medicine" article will have a much-diminished opinion of Wikipedia (that's an understatement). A friend who knows of my interactions with Alexbrn, CFCF & Co said to me "What, Wikipedia editors aren't adults?"NightHeron (talk) 06:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

If you've been following my woes and don't need this update, please forgive me. I wanted to let you know that our little discussion right here is now being used (by an admin) to justify an escalation of the retaliation against me to an indefinite site ban. Actually, the admin who suggested the escalation referred to two things as proof of how terrible I am -- the discussion itself of a 6-month med-topic-ban against me, in which I'm defending myself rather than accepting the charges and pleading guilty, and my user talk page, where the only item that could possibly have offended him is this discussion. The retaliation started when the editor I'd complained about for disruptive editing went to Abortifacient to delete an edit I'd made there two months ago. I put it back with an explanation of why RS rather than MEDRS should apply to a statement about effects of herbs on animals and a second edit inserting a clarification, at which point I got the two warnings below (one for "edit-warring" on Abortifacient, i.e., my two edits). Then a guy who'd just sworn at me using profanities and all-caps nominated me for rather draconian sanctions on AN/I. When finally one editor entered the discussion to suggest that maybe draconian sanctions weren't called for, one of the supporters of the sanctions (an admin) answered that the milder punishment suggested by that editor (a 1-week block) "feels punitive," and so the "logical" thing would be to ban me from Wikipedia altogether. On AN/I there's little point in my continuing to defend myself, since the very fact of my defending myself is used as evidence of my disruptiveness (see the last comment with all-caps and obscenities just above the beginning of the subsection about banning me). So I'm reduced to venting my frustration to you. Anyway, thanks.

BTW, when I went to WP:IDHT, prompted by the editor who suggested only a 1-week block, I saw that the only picture in the whole article was of a woman saying "I can't hear you." I went to the talk page to suggest that, in view of all the on- and off-wiki comment there's been about systemic bias against women on Wikipedia, maybe that photo should be deleted or replaced by a photo of a man.NightHeron (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have not recently been following your WP experience. Please provide the diff re our conversations on your talk page.  I will check the picture/article you mention.  Gandydancer (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2018 (UTC)



and

NightHeron (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Criticisms of medicine for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Criticisms of medicine is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Criticisms of medicine& until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 17:55, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Criticism of medicine AFD
Hi, it was very unfortunate your article was deleted like that, mine was threatened with a CSD within 3 minutes for no sources when I haven't have time to put sources (no draft space then) and taken nearly to AFD within 4 hours. I give you my full moral support, and I suggest using AFC for any articles. However, as far as policies go, I can't defend that article anymore, so sorry. --Quek157 (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Nightheron, I started to write this to you over at that AfD but once I re-read it, I realized it was a bit of a derail from the topic at hand, so I've posted it here instead.
 * Thanks for continuing to thoughtfully engage, NightHeron. I don't think w're going to wind up on the same side of the line this time, but maybe next time we will.
 * I hope you don't think this is condescending (it's certainly not intended to be such) but you're casting this debate in quite dramatic terms: censorship, travesty, illegitimate. Nobody wins every debate on Wikipedia. What makes Wikipedia work is when people lose a debate, then pick their tools back up and get on with something else. For experienced Wikipedia editors, this is just another debate of the many thousands happening here today. Trying to win people over to your side with thoughtful engagement and a good attitude will get you a lot farther than trying to grab some non-existant moral high ground and declaring the discussion itself to be immoral.
 * To get to your points on the merits: hoping that external criticism will swing the debate in your favour is unlikely to happen or to win sympathy from your fellow editors. Wikipedia has been around a long time and seen controversies a lot hotter than this one, which is about as warm as yesterday's pot roast. Wikipedia is home to a lot of different viewpoints, but there's some that we simply don't allow: racism and hate speech, for example. And definitely not psuedoscience. This is not censorship, anymore than it would be if you stopped someone from using your personal Twitter account to run a scam. We have a responsibility to not allow Wikipedia's platform to be used to lead people down paths that are indefensibly wrong.
 * This debate probably isn't going to go your way, but that's not the end of the world. There's plenty of other work to be done around here. You've got moxie and that's a good thing. You just need to pick a better hill to die on.
 * PS -- It's strange to hear that "social justice warrior" is a "common pejorative". That sounds like a fine thing to be.  A  Train talk 23:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to discuss this with you, especially since you're taking a respectful tone. I don't think you're being condescending, but I think your analysis is wrong.  First, the only reason I'm using strong language is that there was a violation of process, namely, refusal to accept consensus.  As you correctly point out, it is important on Wikipedia to be able to accept losing an argument.  Alexbrn lost his argument for deletion when the consensus of the appeal discussion was that there had been no consensus to delete after 2 weeks of AfD, and therefore the article should be restored and subjected to normal editing.  Instead of accepting that, he engaged in disruptive editing and immediately renominated the article for deletion.  That is obviously a refusal to accept consensus (meaning the 4-to-1 vote among admins for restoration, followed by the decision of the closing admin).  He's refusing to accept the result of the proper Wikipedia process, and other editors who participate in this illegitimate AfD are effectively (though not intentionally, that is, not thinking of it this way) abetting a refusal to accept consensus.


 * I've had edits discussed on discussion pages and rejected by consensus. I accepted that, and did not complain or use strong language after that occurred.  You're completely correct that that's a normal process of Wikipedia.  But this AfD2 is not.


 * I agree completely that Wikipedia must never condone fraud or pseudoscience. Please show me one place in Criticisms of medicine that does that.  The fact is, there is none.


 * I'd like to clarify what I mean by external non-wiki pressure. I certainly didn't mean for the purpose of saving my article from censorship.  Nor did I mean that I would personally try to create external pressure.  What I meant was that there has already been external commentary about the refusal of a group of editors to permit fixing the NPOV problem of Alternative medicine, and I would welcome more.  I raised the procedural issue on AN/I, but I doubt that'll lead to anything.  The Alternative medicine article is an embarrassment and an obvious attack point for anyone who wants to criticize Wikipedia.  It also plays into CAM's hands, because, as I mentioned in a different venue, a reader who loses interest in the Wikipedia article because of its polemical and unscientific tone will probably go to a source such as WebMD, and just look what they have there on "alternative medicine." I don't think you'll like it; I certainly didn't.


 * I gather that you're probably not in the U.S., and I really apologize for inadvertently assuming familiarity with something that's very common now in U.S. political discourse, but probably not elsewhere. Conservatives have popularized the term "Social Justice Warriors" as a sarcastic reference to people on the left (especially on college campuses) who consider themselves morally righteous and try to prevent speeches or publications that they find offensive.  I prefer the term "pseudo-leftist" for them.  I made up the term "Anti-CAM Warriors" as a similar pejorative for people who seem to think that opposition to CAM is such a worthy cause that their Wikipedia article doesn't have to comply with WP:NPOV and that the Criticisms of medicine article should be blocked at all costs because it allegedly will make CAM promoters happy.NightHeron (talk) 00:47, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I am sorry to disappoint you but you are not the first to posit vast conspiracies on this topic. Lots of people come here, edit badly on alt med topics, get reverted, make a stink, get blocked or banned or leave angry, and go out onto the internet and Explain How Wikipedia Is Secretly Controlled by A Conspiracy, Nay An Evil Cabal, That Hates Alt Med.  It is very easy to find their rantings  - GIYF. (hint - search for skeptic Wikipedia). I am sure they will welcome you.
 * Please do read WP:Lunatic charlatans. Jytdog (talk) 16:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I am sorry that I have not made myself clear enough. They would not welcome me.  I oppose them.  My comments on the alt med article have had only one purpose, that of contributing to making it a credible source for the public that they'll perceive as unbiased and that will be effective in educating people about pseudoscience. There's one last thing I wanted to do on the subject of alt med, which I'd postponed, but I'd better do it now in anticipation of being banned.NightHeron (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What you don't seem to understand, is that there is nothing new under the sun in WP. If a person is here for a while and observant, one can see typical trajectories and behaviors that humans in WP follow and do (some such observations are here for example).
 * This is so clear here because everything here is a) written and b) saved forever, and because how people behavior here matters, and when problems arise people actually go look at the record of what people have done. So unlike pretty much any other place you go - everyone else can see everything you do.
 * There is no hiding here. And it doesn't matter what you say about what you have done, because everyone can see what you actually have done.
 * One human behavior that is clear even outside WP, is that people often perceive themselves and describe themselves, in ways that don't reflect what they actually do.  We see this all the time and this is how WP:BOOMERANG came into existence.  If you read a bunch of ANIs you will see so many cases where person X shows up very upset with person Y, and when the community looks at what has happened, person X is has acted terribly and their behavior gets dealt with, and person X protests more and more and more as the thing progresses.
 * This sort of thing happens over and over.
 * The things you are actually saying and doing are exactly like the alt med advocates who come here and self destruct and go complain about it on the internet. This diff is almost a perfect expression of it. You don't describe or see yourself that way, but that is what you are actually doing. Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand what your viewpoint is. There's been a listen-but-not-hear problem behind the acrimony and insults that have come my way.  At the very beginning of my participation on the alt med talk page and several times since, I made it clear (I thought I did anyway) that I fully support the objective of WikiProject Medicine of combating fraud, pseudoscience, and quackery, and I thought it important for scientists (medical or otherwise) to safeguard their credibility if they want to be listened to by the public.  That's all.  I had no other motive.  You're free to think I'm hiding something or lying, but there's no evidence that that's the case.  From early on, several editors assumed bad faith on my part, a "problematic agenda" of promoting fraud and quackery.  This assumption of bad faith put me on the defensive, and predisposed those editors to think the worst of anything I said.  Since I'm not an experienced editor, I frankly did not know how to handle that well.  My impression is that on Wikipedia the presumption of bad faith often leads to acrimony. I guess that's the reason for WP:GF.NightHeron (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think much at all about what people say their motivations or real world qualifications are, and nobody else who is experienced does either. (We learned to ignore self-representations through the WP:ESSJAY thing, if you care about background there). When there are problems, we look at each other's edits and how people interact with others, including how well their arguments and behavior are grounded in the policies and guidelines -- not just their letter but their spirit (see WP:CLUE). Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course. As I said, there is no evidence based on my article or talk page edits that I'm an altmedist. What I was trying to say, and what another editor said recently on the NPOV notice board better than I could, is that a polemical article on alt med plays to the advantage of altmedists, because it lacks credibility with the people who need to be convinced (the potential customers of the altmedists) and makes the altmedists' false accusations against the medical profession appear more credible.NightHeron (talk) 21:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * . I tried here, I tried below, to have a discussion about what you are have actually done here, to help you see it, so you can change and edit better. I will not be replying further. Jytdog (talk) 01:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * You started this thread by telling me to read WP:Lunatic charlatans, which I did (I think I'd already read it a while ago). You implied that I was in the ACEP camp, which is ridiculous.  No, I agree with Jimmy Wales.  In the thread I've tried unsuccessfully to convince you of that.  You seem to think I'm lying.  Because I'm refusing to accept your view that my participation in discussions is promoting fraud and quackery, you say I won't "change and edit better."  No, I'm eager to "change and edit better," and I think I understand the process much better than when I started in March.  All that's moot, of course, if I get banned from virtually all the editing I'd wanted to do (e.g., on abortion-related articles).  You're punishing someone for refusing to accept your opinions, not for refusing to accept help with editing better.NightHeron (talk) 01:37, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There was no statement at AN/I saying what I'm accused of, so I have to guess based on the negative comments about me. It seems to be based not on article edits, but on my participation in the alt med talk page and later in the AfD and AfD2 for Criticisms of medicine.  The main problem seems to be my persisting in arguing against the notion that my suggestions for the alt med article (these weren't edits, just suggestions on the talk page) as well as my work on the Criticisms of medicine article were promoting CAM.  I repeatedly asked for evidence, such as sources that I was using in either case that were pro-CAM, but it seems that that wasn't the point.  Rather, many people thought that the very idea that there should be a change in tone and balance in the alt med article and the very idea that there should be an article on criticisms of medicine are pro-CAM ideas.  I argued against that, but ultimately the majority disagreed, so there's no Criticism of medicine article and the alt med article is as before.  Fine.  That's how it goes.  Then there's a rush to ban me because I argued on these issues.  That has nothing to do with the quality of my edits.NightHeron (talk) 04:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

May 2018
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be repeatedly reverting or undoing other editors' contributions at Abortifacient. Although this may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is known as "edit warring" and is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, as it often creates animosity between editors. Instead of reverting, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to be blocked from editing Wikipedia. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a block. Thank you. Alexbrn (talk) 06:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Sourcing
Hi NightHeron. So - a bunch of us have tried to call your attention to MEDRS - the sourcing guideline for content about health.

This guideline has broad and deep consensus in the community, and you don't seem to be engaging with it.

I do understand there is a lot that you want to do, content-wise, and those may be difficult things to do no matter what. But if you start with poor sources, you are going to be dead in the water.

Everything here depends on sources, for content about health, we look for recent literature reviews published in good journals, or statements by major medical or scientific bodies. Textbooks can be useful too.

If you don't understand something about that, please ask. Really, I will be happy to help you understand this. It will save everybody trouble. Jytdog (talk) 06:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

June 2018
This message is to inform you that you are now banned from making any edits related to the topic of medicine, broadly construed, until December 3rd, 2018. This editing restriction has been logged at WP:EDRC. Please note that this restriction applies to you as a person, so it does extend to your alternate account. Topic ban violations are generally considered minor offenses that are handled with short blocks, but if you are suspected to be editing in the subject area with your undisclosed alternate account, you will be subject to significantly harsher penalties for sockpuppetry and ban evasion, with the most likely result being an indefinite block. (And in case it's unclear, yes, this encompasses the topic of abortion.) S warm   ♠  21:47, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Could you give me some guidance as to what "broadly construed" means? For example, right now I have been involved in discussions about retitling United States pro-life movement (pro-life --> anti-abortion) and United States pro-choice movement (pro-choice --> abortion rights).  Am I now banned from continued participation in those discussions?  Also, today I thanked an admin for the review and edits made to Frederick J. Taussig (who was a gynecologist/obstetrician in the early 20th century); that was a new article I contributed a while ago.  Would thanking the admin have been a violation of the ban if it had occurred during the next 6 months?  Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, is psychology included? I might want to contribute edits to articles or talk pages related to IQ.  Also, I recently contributed a subsection Microaggression to a psychology-related article.  Would that also have been prohibited?NightHeron (talk) 22:19, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * "Broadly construed" basically means that borderline cases or "grey areas" will be considered violations. Pro-life/pro-choice are great examples, actually. Articles about the abortion debate are not directly about the subject of medicine, but they're an aspect of a medical topic, thus, the ban would encompass that area. It's best just treated with common sense, and usually if it's unclear, it's best just to assume that if something could possibly be considered a violation, then it will be. Psychology is not inseparable from the subject of medicine, so it's not included by default, but any edits that could be reasonably construed as being related to medicine in any sense would be. S warm   ♠  23:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That helps, but could you answer two yes-or-no questions about whether the following would have been a violation if I'd done them during the ban period? (1) Putting in the section Microaggression (I made a typo above, leaving out the space); (2) clicking the "thank" button on the admin's review and edits on the Frederick J. Taussig article. Thanks.NightHeron (talk) 23:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Broadly construed means, If you have to ask, then don't do it. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That is exactly spot on. S warm   ♠  19:24, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Because I'm nervous about the nebulous nature of the banning order, to be safe there'll be no more NightHeron edits until December.  My true name account will remain active, because it is only for a professional area unrelated to medicine, and interactions there with other editors have been respectful and collegial on all sides, without exception.NightHeron (talk) 19:51, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Since both you and the sanctioning administrator gave me a very broad interpretation of the sanctions against me, it was clear that to be safe NightHeron should become inactive for 6 months to avoid violating the ban. So the effect is quite draconian and punitive. After learning more about Wikipedia policy and guidelines, I see that the sanction procedure against me seems to have involved two violations of policy:

(1) The sanctioning admin was not uninvolved (see WP:UNINVOLVED); he had argued extensively against my initial AN/I complaint that started the process that eventually led to sanctions against me.

{2} I had received only 1 formal warning (above on my user page). That "edit-warring" warning for my 2 recent edits to Abortifacient was not only unjustified, but was put there by an editor who himself had just made two reverts in 10 hours (29-30 May 2018), in violation of the 1RR policy on that page (see the first item in WP:General sanctions).

What I want to ask your advice about is: If I were to appeal the sanctions in some way (I haven't yet looked into how that could be done), would that be perceived as further proof of my "wikilawyering" or "refusal to accept consensus" or "refusal to hear what others are saying," which seem to have been the accusations against me? In other words, is it socially acceptable in the Wikipedia community to appeal sanctions?

The purpose of an appeal, if I decide on that, would be to ask for (1) a reduction of the sanctions and (2) a clear explanation by an uninvolved admin of exactly what I did wrong. Thanks.

Some WP excerpts that prompt my question about a possible appeal:

From WP:DSAN: "Creating controversy by raising reasonable concerns about content or making bold edits that comply with policy may fit the dictionary definition of disruption by having a tumultuous effect on editors and content, but are only disruptive to improving content if they come with other problematic acts such as a refusal to pursue consensus when editors object to changes. Bold editing and detailed discussion of any concerns about an article are strongly encouraged, even when it is contentious.

When sanctions are pursued against an editor, care must be taken to ensure that an editor's actions are actually having the effect of disrupting active efforts to improve content. Editors in a discussion may become frustrated when faced with spirited disagreement, rapid altering of an article, or rejection of their edits and react by accusing other editors of misconduct. Being a cause of annoyance to other editors is not itself disruptive and sanctions should not be implemented without indication that an editor's contributions are having the effect of preventing improvement of an article.

Even where an editor's conduct has been disruptive there may be mitigating circumstances or positive attributes to that editor's contributions that may make sanctions more harmful to the goal of improving content. Carefully-considered sanctions are expected to create a demonstrative improvement in the editing environment on Wikipedia with any detrimental results being minimal. When a sanction impedes productive content work in a manner more significant than whatever benefit the sanction has on the same, it becomes disruptive to the goal of improving content."

From WP:DSAN:

"Community discussions aimed at passing sanctions can often become plagued by bias where argumentation from editors with personal biases against a specific editor or group of editors, possibly due to previous interactions or perceptions about that editor's views on a dispute, can lead uninvolved editors to support their arguments due to a perception that multiple editors raising the same concerns is ipso facto evidence of misconduct. Editors can be railroaded by community discussions about conduct and given excessive or unnecessary restrictions that have an even more damaging effect on an editor's willingness to contribute than administrative misconduct as there is often a feeling of futility and persecution."

From WP:NOTPENAL:

"Some editors, even some administrators on Wikipedia forget why we are here and begin to adopt a punitive model for Wikipedia politics. They support blocks, bans, and enforcement of Arbitration Committee sanctions in order to exact retribution on "bad users" rather than helping to create and improve encyclopedic content. This is regrettable and problematic, not to mention contrary to the reason for blocks, bans, and enforcements as stated in the Wikipedia guidelines and policies linked in the previous sentence. When proposing or supporting an action that could easily be interpreted to be punishment, ask yourself, "Will this action help make the content on Wikipedia better?" If the answer is not an unequivocal "yes" and you still end up supporting the action, you may be an adherent to the punitive model of Wikipedia."

From WP:BOOMERANG:

"When you encounter a reporter who wasn't blameless in the incident, or who posts a report in the heat of the moment, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the reporter is the sole problem without looking at the context. Don't ignore Bob's bad behavior while rushing to be the first to tell to Alice that her angry response to Bob's provocation is going to boomerang on her."

NightHeron (talk) 00:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Point of advice
— Be very well advised that if you choose to return to editing only on these two issues without any substantial edits elsewhere you will likely be topic banned again, or indefinately blocked, whereupon you can not access your alternative account either. The idea of the time limited topic ban is to allow you to edit less controversial articles during a period and so learn to better collaborate. Your conclusion that you will not edit using this account because you may inadvertantly defy your topic ban is in violation of WP:VALIDALT and WP:SOCK. The topic ban applies to all your accounts, and violation on any of them may result in a permanent block to all accounts. I would suggest and  look into this and see if WP:VALIDALT at all applies in this case. Further, to return to these topics from which you were banned without expressing a desire to better understand the process of Wikipedia is WP:NOTHERE. Your expressed solution to wait until the 3rd of December to return to full editing on these topics again implies you do not understand the purpose or reason for the topic ban, and makes me feel obliged to ask for an extension to an indefinite topic ban. That would not be an unusual result, even though it would be regretable. Depending on the responses here I may bring this back to AN/I for clarification. Carl Fredrik talk 10:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Before sending your message, I wish you would have read the thread above, where I once again said very clearly: "My true name account will remain active, because it is only for a professional area unrelated to medicine." If you followed the discussion leading up to sanctions, you'd know that some of the editors voting to ban me were well aware that doing so would largely silence NightHeron for 6 months, because most of that editing has been directly or indirectly related to abortion.  A few topics (see my questions near the beginning of this thread) could be considered non-med related (such as my recent successful proposal to retitle United States pro-life movement and United States pro-choice movement to NPOV titles), but it's clear from the responses to my queries that I'm required to avoid such very, very indirectly related topics as well.  Thus, the safest thing for the NightHeron account would be not to edit any article or discussion pages (except my user page).


 * I wish you would not indulge in threats and false accusations against me. To be fair, you're not the worst -- at least you haven't used obscenities when addressing me, as has, for example, the user who nominated me for sanctions.NightHeron (talk) 13:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I am still watching this page, so seeing this I am bound to say it's weird. "NightHeron" is not some autonomous agent; YOU have control, just as you do of other accounts you have. It is YOU as a person (not the account) who is topic banned. You may however use any of your accounts to edit in non-med areas. If you want to start building some goodwill for the NightHeron account, you must use it to do something beneficial for the project. My tip is, whining about the ban is not going to help in that. Alexbrn (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry I seem "weird" to you. Of course I understand perfectly well that my other account is also subject to the topic ban, but that account would not be used for such topics, ban or no ban.  As I've said several times (and is on my user page) that account has never been used and will never be used for anything outside my professional area, which is unrelated to medicine.  Since you ask about why I would suspend all editing by NightHeron, the answer is that almost all of the topics that have attracted my interest could possibly result in a violation of the ban if I'm not very careful.  Some examples: a small edit to an article about a woman in science (what if it turns out that she spent some of her career in an area related to medicine?); an edit to an article about a historian of science (what if s/he published some works about the history of medicine?); thanking an admin for his review and clean-up of the article I created about Frederick J. Taussig (what if pushing the "thank" button counts as an edit of a page about a medical person?).  I might have thought that participating in a discussion of title changes for articles on the advocacy movements for and against legalization of abortion would not be classified as med-related, but User:Swarm said that it definitely is included (my proposals to change those titles for NPOV reasons concluded yesterday, and of course I did not participate in those discussions once the ban started).  So I'm not being weird, just practical.NightHeron (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Mini-essay: Harm to Wikipedia from Abuse of Process
When I asked whether or not appealing a ban is socially acceptable, I had hoped for an answer to my query from an unbiased admin. But I'll accept the answer from a biased non-admin who said that any appeal of my 6-month ban would be viewed as "whining." So I won't appeal.

Nevertheless, I think that a reasonable person (say, an off-wiki person) who examines my article edits in the 3 months that I've been an editor and my participation in various discussions would be mystified as to what I did to deserve this punishment. The excerpt quoted above from WP:Disruptive sanctions warns that under these circumstances the target of the sanctions might have a "feeling of futility and persecution." However, in my case there's no reason to feel persecuted, because in the course of discussions on Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents other editors explained to me that I was not being singled out and that what I was experiencing is quite common. If a novice editor complains on the noticeboard about disruptive editing by a veteran editor, the typical result is not a warning to the veteran editor, but rather a retaliatory "boomerang" and severe sanctions for the novice editor. That's just the way it goes on Wikipedia.

I intend to resume NightHeron editing after the 6-month ban ends. I still have a strong belief in the importance of improving Wikipedia, time-consuming though that may be. In addition, compared to most people I know, I have a much thicker skin in the face of insults and abusive language. So I won't quit.

The damage to Wikipedia from my treatment -- which, since I was told that it is typical, should be multiplied by thousands -- is more indirect and is far-reaching. In the naive period after I opened my account, I got the usual welcome messages, read WP:GFand WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE, and expected collegiality. I intended to tell people I know about my experiences, and encourage them also to become editors. Now, three months later, when they hear about what I've been through, I don't really think that any of my acquaintances (female or male) will be inclined to become an editor.

In particular, let me give an example of the type of sexist conduct on Wikipedia that apparently is acceptable and does not result in sanctions. First look at the last editor comment on the AN/I discussion of the proposal to sanction me, right before the discussion was closed and the sanctions were imposed. His comment pointed editors to a talk page discussion I had started about sexist use of a woman's image (the only picture in all of WP:DISRUPT) to illustrate a disruptive person. Now see what this editor contributed to the talk page for WP:DISRUPT. After a woman editor removed the sexist image, he reverted her edit with a mocking edit summary (see ); he and another editor then inserted adolescent-male-style sexual banter (see and ); and finally he told the editor who'd tried to remove the sexism that instead of Wikipedia she should be editing "Victimpedia" (see ). Apparently this type of mocking is what women editors on Wikipedia are expected to accept. In this connection please see and .NightHeron (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree that the "Victimpedia" statement was highly improper and problematic. On the other hand, I discussed the controversy with another editor that I consider "brilliant" when it comes to women's issues.  That is not to say that I have always agreed with her, I most definely have not.  But in this situation I was willing to bend to her estimation of the photo.  Perhaps I need to post this at the article and will when time permits.  Gandydancer (talk) 20:20, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As I see it, the problem with having the only picture on WP:Disruptive editing being the picture of a woman is that it conveys the subliminal message to a typical editor (which studies of the demographics of Wikipedia show is a young white American male) that he should assume that women editors are likely to be disruptive, incapable of hearing what other editors are telling them, and deserving of mockery.NightHeron (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Criticism of medicine
Hi, I liked your article on criticism of medicine but felt it needed some adjustments while at the same time, I did not know whether you were serious or testing conduct of editors on controversial issues. As a returnee from a ban who will most likely end up being indef, Wiki will always have some sort of controversy, disagreements and actions that piss people off because some of its policies are based on exactly that. A lot of newbies do not know many of this policies or where they stand, it becomes a sink or swim situation for new editors.Alexplaugh12 (talk) 21:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments. I fully expected that my article (which as a draft had help from two much more experienced editors) would need additional editing and improvement. But the ferocity of the drive to entirely delete it took me completely by surprise.  So did the assumption that the "Anti-CAM Warriors" made that any criticism of the alt med article or any attempt to write an article on criticisms of mainstream medicine must be by someone who's shilling for quackery.  This assumption is insulting and ridiculous, but I think it goes a long way toward explaining the hostility I encountered.


 * I was serious about the article, and certainly not "testing" anyone. But criticism of mainstream medicine is not a big interest of mine, and I wouldn't have written it if it weren't that a veteran editor in WikiProject Medicine suggested to me that I should.NightHeron (talk) 00:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Limited appeal
— I'm not entirely sure where you asked about an appeal, but I would be willing to support you in a limited repeal, keeping only the restriction on alternative medicine. I reviewed some of your other work, and for the most part it is fine. The primary concerns was use of a 1966 source regarding abortifacients, however this falls under the umbrella of "alternative treatment".

I would be even more willing to support you in an appeal, and I think others would too, if you agreed to a voluntary extension of the topic ban on alternative medicine to 1 year. In the vein of WP:PENAL I think this would be for the best, and the most likely to result in better understanding of consensus-building and policies. It is a shame to lose useful contributions simply because of a single problematic area. Carl Fredrik talk 20:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for coming up with a constructive suggestion. A narrow voluntary ban (applying to the alt med article and its talk page) would be reasonable, even for 1 year.  However, the issue would be whether this would be "broadly construed" so as to prevent me from making well-sourced edits to abortion-related articles.  Let me give an example.  Please understand that this example is not a "med-related edit broadly construed" (which would violate the ban) but rather a query to you about something that I prepared for a future edit (when my ban ends in December) to the article Abortifacient.  Here's what I prepared so you can examine it:
 * Certain herbs are known to cause abortion in cattle and in sheep and goats.   Historically, a number of plants reputed to possess abortifacient properties have been used in folk medicine in different time periods and different parts of the world. The most commonly used plants have included tansy, pennyroyal, black cohosh, and the now-extinct silphium.   According to Koblitz,  folk belief in the abortifacient properties of these herbs most likely originated from observation of their effects on domesticated animals.
 * However, modern users of these plants often lack knowledge of the proper use and dosage. The historian of medicine John Riddle has spoken of the "broken chain of knowledge," . Because the indiscriminant or ill-informed use of herbs as abortifacients can cause serious—even lethal—side effects, such as multiple organ failure, such use is dangerous and is not recommended by physicians. NightHeron (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I believe that this information relates to folk practices and not to modern medicine, and so should not be classified as an "alt med" contribution.
 * If you and others agree, and simply want me to stay away from the alt med article and talk page for at least a year, then that would not unduly restrict the editing I could do.
 * By the way, I know nothing about how an appeal or limited appeal would work.NightHeron (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd oppose any such appeal unless NightHeron shows some acceptance and understanding of the issues which made Criticism of medicine so bad: especially WP:SYN, WP:OR, WP:POVFORK, WP:COATRACK and WP:CRITS. Without such acceptance and understanding we could just see this kind of content roaring back, which would be a huge time sink for all. AIUI, NightHeron's stance is still that (e.g.) that article had no synthesis problem. Alexbrn (talk) 11:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Concerning the "criticism of medicine" article, it was not my original intention to write such an article. Rather, User:BullRangifer, a veteran editor who belongs to WikiProject Medicine and is a strong opponent of quackery (as am I), suggested to me that I write it and helped me with it (see "New Article" section above).  He (and others) expressed the opinion that there should be such an article on Wikipedia.  I'd be happy if someone else userfies the deleted article and improves it.  I'd also agree not to do any edits on any "criticism of medicine" article for at least a year (along with agreeing not to edit the alt med article or talk page).  As I said from the very beginning, I fully support the goals of WikiProject Medicine, including a strong stand against quackery, and I have no desire to be in a contentious debate with members of that group.NightHeron (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * NightHeron, you're comments above have made me slightly hesitant because I find it should be clear that herbal abortifacients and traditional treatments that have not been proven effective in clinical trials on humans — fall squarely under "alternative medicine", even narrowly defined.
 * I think it would also be good to accept that the Criticism of medicine article will not be recreated, and that while criticism of meaningful, any single article is more likely to become a hodgepodge of legitimate and illegitimate criticism and Wikipedia is better without it.
 * I think your edits on abortion have been useful, and I am still open to assuming good faith, and that you are willing to edit according to policies and guidelines, but I think Alexbrn is on point, especially regarding the need to understand WP:SYN and WP:OR.
 * It is also very important to understand the following section: WP:MEDANIMAL (a part of MEDRS). I would posit that the mere mention of drug effects in cattle, sheep and goats, when not performed with the clear intent of identifying drug candidates for human use — is overemphasis outside a research section on articles on the drug (not plant) in question.
 * There is also a need to use up-to-date evidence in medicine, and I suggest you read WP:MEDDATE (also a part of MEDRS), so that the use of sources from the 1960s, or even 1990s (as you did above) is avoided.
 * The last point of advice I would like to give here is that this is putting myself on the line for you, because I think you can be a positive influence on Wikipedia. However, any successful appeal will likely mean your edits will be under scrutiny, and a failure to follow Wikipedias policies and guidelines, as well as the guidance of experienced editors — may result in a longer and even broader topic ban that you originally received, or even a block, which will also impact your other account.
 * So, to sum up,
 * 1. If you accept that any herbal or traditional treatment fall under the topic of alternative medicine — and express an intent to learn from experienced editors and to edit in line with: WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:MEDDATE, and WP:MEDANIMAL
 * and
 * 2. You understand the risks of increased scrutiny post appeal
 * – I would be willing to support you.
 * Carl Fredrik talk 21:40, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your effort to think of a constructive alternative to my 6-month ban. I much appreciate your positive comment about my abortion edits, and your willingness to assume good faith.  However, what you propose would entail micromanaging my editing for a whole year, and would require me to accept an assumption that I do not accept, namely, that only MEDRS sources should be used in discussions of traditional use of herbs in historical periods or in present-day communities that have no access to modern medicine.  Such a restriction clashes with the scholarly consensus among historians of medicine, and would mean that Wikipedia cannot fairly reflect the scholarship of eminent historians of medicine such as John Riddle and Monica Green.


 * So I'll just stick with my 6-month ban, and start with a clean slate in December. I'll make use of the time away from editing to learn more about what forums are available on Wikipedia for discussing serious issues without being singled out for punishment for one's views.  I'll also be interested in what discussions are going on concerning the toxic subculture that I was exposed to.  (I'm not talking about the medical people -- I'm thinking of editors like the guy who nominated me on AN/I for the 6-month ban after first swearing at me with profanities and all-caps, in obvious violation of many WP policies about civility.)  I'll also be interested in any discussions of why "Some animals are more equal than others" (apologies to George Orwell) -- for example, why it's okay for a veteran editor to engage in edit-warring by making 2 reverts in 10 hours on a 1RR-protected abortion article, and then to put an edit-warring warning on the user page of a novice editor who never did anything that meets the definition of edit-warring.  There's clearly a lot about the Wikipedia subculture that I wasn't ready for.


 * Concerning OR, the most blatant example of OR that I have seen on Wikipedia (except for edits that were rapidly reverted) is the sentence in Alternative medicine that claims that "The scientific consensus is that alternative therapies either do not, or cannot, work." At the beginning of my comments on the alt med talk page, I said that there could not possibly be a scientific consensus that 100 percent of those therapies do not or cannot work.  It might be the case that the consensus among the most active editors in WikiProject Medicine is that 100 percent of those therapies do not or cannot work.  But it's OR to state as a fact that the consensus of a group of Wikipedia editors is the same as consensus of off-wiki scientists.


 * I recently read the Wikipedia article about Edzard Ernst, which I much liked. In addition to being a prominent researcher, he has true courage.  He tangled with none other than Prince Charles, and suffered reprisals for that.  His viewpoint on alternative treatments is, of course, overwhelmingly negative.  But not 100 percent.  Here's his view, as reported in the Wikipedia article:
 * He has said that about five percent of alternative medicine is backed by evidence, with the remainder being either insufficiently studied or backed by evidence showing lack of efficacy.... In a 2008 publication in the British Journal of General Practice, his listed treatments that "demonstrably generate more good than harm" was limited to acupuncture for nausea and osteoarthritis; aromatherapy as a palliative treatment for cancer; hypnosis for labour pain; massage, music therapy, relaxation therapy for anxiety and insomnia; and some plant extracts such as St John's wort for depression; hawthorn for congestive heart failure; guar gum for diabetes.


 * I would think that the views of Edzard Ernst, which seem similar to those of the 6 prominent authors of Harrison's Internal Medicine, come as close as anything to reflecting scientific consensus.NightHeron (talk) 23:29, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Misrepresenting sources
Saying you didn't misrepresent a cited source because what you wanted to say is in some other source, is taking the piss. At Abortifacient you have been very quick to reprise the behaviour that led to your TBAN. I urge you to be much more careful, not least because unpicking source misrepesentation is a huge time sink for editors. Alexbrn (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

False statement
At WP:FT/N you have written: "The OP has expressed his strong dislike for Riddle". This is not true (and it is not true that strongly dislike Riddle - I have no opoinion of the man). Please correct this. You are also quite wrong about your reading of "ruddy", but this is understandable since this is an English idiom, the sense of which was that I didn't appreciate having to read a complete, long book chapter just to verify a few words. Alexbrn (talk) 06:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * It is clear from the context that "dislike for Riddle" means dislike of his work, not of the man. I was not trying to personalize the issue by suggesting that you know him personally.  You referred to his work (not the man) as "the ruddy thing".  I have no direct knowledge of British slang, but asked a friend who reads a lot of British novels and also looked in dictionary.com, which says that it means the same as "the damned thing".  I guess one reason why slang is usually not used in international settings is that meaning can vary widely between regions and time periods, and especially between different countries.  On the subject of British slang, if you insist on repeatedly scolding me on my userpage, at least please use language I can understand.  Above you use the expression "taking the piss".  According to dictionary.com, "take the piss -- to tease or make fun of someone or something" and this doesn't seem to fit.  Please clarify.  Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 13:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't "dislike" his work either. I did not refer to "his work" as "the ruddy thing", I referred to a chapter, in the light of having to read it - a large piece of text. We have an article on Taking the piss - for you it meant I thought your editing "not in line with a recognised agreement". Alexbrn (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm still confused. So you say you're using the expression in the following sense (from Taking the piss): In colloquial usage, "taking the piss" is also used to refer to someone or something that makes a claim which is not in line with a recognised agreement e.g. an invoice that is double the quoted price with no explanation for the added charge could be said to "take the piss", or likewise if something consistently misses a deadline.  How does this relate to anything I've done? NightHeron (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * By insisting something was in a source you cited, when by any reasonable measure it was not. Alexbrn (talk) 13:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I was remiss in citing only Chapter 8 of Eve's Herbs and not p. 259, which explicitly discusses modern women's lack of knowledge of herbal abortifacients. I've repeatedly said that I agreed that Chapter 8 did not contain what I misremembered it as containing.  No disagreement there.  What we seem to disagree about is the meaning of "same source" vs "different sources".  Let's suppose I made a statement about herbal abortifacients and claimed to have "at least five different sources" to support the statement.  Then suppose you challenged me to produce those five sources, and I gave you five different page numbers in Eve's Herbs.  You'd laugh at me, wouldn't you?  And rightfully so.  Those "five sources" are really one source. NightHeron (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * We don't disagree about what "source" means. What concerns me is the misrepresentation of the source you cited: a specific chapter. On top of that is the problem that your actual text isn't WP:Verifiable by any source anywhere (not p. 259 either). You could have said "I was wrong" and left it at that - but instead we have this huge waste of time. In future please remember text must be DIRECTLY supported by citations which must be PRECISE (usually with page number), and that WP:SYNTHESIS is forbidden. Alexbrn (talk) 14:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

One thing I strongly agree with you about is that it would be good to find a way to avoid a "huge waste of time". Both of us have spent a lot of time arguing with one another that could have been better spent improving Wikipedia. When I resumed editing a few days ago, my purpose was to improve articles of interest to me, especially related to abortion, and it was not to enter into quarrels with anybody. So I'd like to have some sort of reconciliation with you, or at least peaceful coexistence, and would like to suggest something we can perhaps agree on in connection with the Abortifacient article. I think we both agree that information on Wikipedia should alert readers about the danger of relying on alt med sources for medical advice. That was my reason for putting a (slightly expanded and retitled) section on the dangers as the concluding section of the article. Do you agree that this was an improvement? Okay, I know you disagreed with my using Riddle in that section, so let me explain my motivation so that hopefully you'll accept that my edits were in good faith. In Riddle's two books he explains clearly that the oral transmission of folk knowledge and beliefs amounted to more than saying "pennyroyal will give you an abortion" or "St. John's Wort will restore menses". Rather, the oral transmission included specific information about modes of use (such as doses, parts of plant, etc.) that earlier generations had found perhaps to be effective or at least not to be lethal. Thus, when Riddle speaks of the "broken chain of knowledge", he means not just that modern women don't know which plants were once used for abortifacient purposes but also that, if they do hear that some plant can be used for an abortion -- say, from an online alt-med source -- they are likely to misuse it with possibly deadly results. In his other book Riddle mentions the woman who died in Colorado, for example.

This is probably not a big issue in the U.K., but in the U.S. and other countries where religious fundamentalists are very powerful, safe and legal abortion is becoming more and more restricted. Women are likely to turn to sources outside the medical profession, and that could be tragic. That's my motive for bringing up the "broken chain of knowledge". Since you think that I did it badly, I'm certainly open to suggestions about how to restore that with much improved sourcing. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I do no doubt good faith and it's good to add good sources. And I agree it would be good to improve the articles. However I think your reading of Riddle with regard to the "broken chain" is imprecise and wrong. In general, Riddle's work seems to have been dismissed by historians, demographers and medics so I would not want to source any facts from it. Alexbrn (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for saying that you don't doubt my good faith. I also assume good faith in your edits and reverts, no matter how strongly I might disagree with a particular one.  I also am aware that you have many years of experience on Wikipedia and have a huge number of edits to your credit.  By the way, a belated apology for saying (earlier) that RfC is a common first step in dispute resolution when two editors are at an impasse.  You were right to refer me back to WP:Dispute resolution, which I hadn't looked at in over 6 months.  I was confusing RfC with Third Opinion.


 * I will continue to oppose any effort to have Riddle's work classified as fringe and to portray him as a poor scholar on his Wikipedia page. But the place to discuss that is at WP:FT/N, where you raised the issue, and not here on my userpage.


 * Could you be more specific about in what way my "reading of Riddle with regard to the 'broken chain' is imprecise and wrong"? What would you regard as a correct reading?  Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 18:24, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Nobody is saying Riddle is a "poor scholar". Advancing novel/adventurous ideas can be an aspect of admirable scholarship! But these ideas may be rejected; that is to be expected in the great tide of scholarly progress. And it does not mean his work is not on the fringe. Relatedly, do you have any WP:COI to declare here? Specifically, any personal connection to the people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history? I'm sure that from an ethical perspective you'd agree transparency is important. Alexbrn (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Let's not kid ourselves, fringe as used on Wikipedia is very negative. Just look at the list of typical examples at the top of this noticeboard -- fools, quacks, poor scholars.  Correct me if I'm wrong (you were and I wasn't a Wikipedean at the time), this noticeboard and the whole idea of the fringe classification dates to Jimmy Wales' famous statement about "lunatic charlatans."  No respected scholar who's devoted his or her life to an area of research would regard being classified by Wikipedia as fringe as anything other than a slur.  Related to your question, even though it might seem that I have strong personal feelings about defending Riddle, in fact I have no personal connection with him at all, and all I know about him is from his work and his Wikipedia page.  What I have strong feelings about is not Riddle as an individual, but rather the whole idea of a mainstream eminent scholar being tarred with the insulting label fringe.
 * Since you've asked about COI, let me ask you if you have any personal reason to dislike Riddle? I wouldn't have thought so, but your edits could be perceived as indicating a personal need to disparage him. NightHeron (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No I have ZERO connection/interest whatsoever with any of the people cited in this discussion, including Riddle: pretty much everything about me is apparent from my user page (and I do not use a pseudonym). But my question about COI to YOU was not limited to Riddle, but to "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history". Not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. As I have done, give a clear answer please! Alexbrn (talk) 21:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Your request for information about who I do and don't know among "people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history" is clearly an attempt at outing, which is contrary to WP:OUTING. I've explained on my userpage and elsewhere that I use a pseudonym (which I'm sorry that you seem not to approve of, but it is permissible by Wikipedia) to edit articles related to abortion and, secondarily, to edit other articles I find interesting that are not related to my profession. NightHeron (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * What!!? I have no interest in your identity and do not want it. I am asking a question specifically about COI (much as you asked me). As I am sure you know, COI is an important issue here. To repeat: do you have a WP:COI in relation to people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history, not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite. I am _not_ asking you to out yourself (so do not do that). I _am_ asking for a plain statement about COI. Alexbrn (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Please don't feign surprise. As I'm sure you know, your assurance is irrelevant.  Suppose I tell you which (presumably just a few) of the many authors I've cited I have a personal connection with.  That might be enough information for a clever editor to determine my identity.  Then of course you'll want to know the precise nature of my connection to each of them so that you can judge whether or not you think there's COI.  At that point even a not-so-clever editor will be able to determine my identity.  You or anyone else will then easily be able to out me. I do not agree to reveal personal information that can be used to out me. NightHeron (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * What an extraordinary response. The question needs just a simple "yes" or "no", and it is impossible to determine anything from that. The question is "do you have a WP:COI in relation to people whose work you have been citing throughout your editing history, not just Riddle, but also Koblitz, Ramakrishnan and others you write of & cite?". If the answer is "yes" then please be aware of whatever applies of out WP:COI, WP:AB, WP:SELFCITE and so on, and ensure the guidance is followed carefully. And per WP:DISCLOSE: "If you become involved in an article where you have any COI, you should always let other editors know about it, whenever and where ever you discuss the topic." Alexbrn (talk) 10:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I give up!
A consensus (in the Wikipedia sense of the word) of Wikipedia's fringe noticeboard WP:FT/N has condemned the work of the distinguished historian John M. Riddle. Among the eight editors who participated in the discussion, only one besides me dissented from this judgment; this editor said that a scholar's work should not be tagged with the pejorative "fringe" unless there were no reasonable doubt and that "NightHeron's explanation has produced reasonable doubt." The other six editors, which included one administrator, are happy with classifying the historian's work as fringe.

On Wikipedia fringe is indeed a strong pejorative, meaning something akin to crackpot or quack. The efforts to identify fringe and the fringe noticeboard itself date to shortly after Jimmy Wales' famous statement that Wikipedia will not pretend that "lunatic charlatans" deserve the same coverage as scientists. Entries on WP:FT/N give many examples of fringe: flat-earthers, creationists, astrologers, quack cure promoters, Holocaust deniers, etc. To classify a distinguished scholar as fringe just because some of his theories are very controversial is outrageous.

At this point I give up! I'd like to explain the background before signing off.

Last May, Wikipedia was a huge time sink for me, as I had to defend my edits (especially on two successive AfDs for the same article) and then myself (in a process that, to someone unaccustomed to the ways of AN/I, would seem to resemble a kangaroo court). This was tremendously unpleasant as well as time-consuming, and it resulted in my being banned for 6 months from any editing related to medicine or abortion in a very broad, vaguely defined sense. So I was largely inactive for 6 months.

Despite the many hours of wasted time, I still felt that some of my participation on Wikipedia had been productive. For example, I initiated discussions that led to consensus to change the titles of two important abortion-related articles to neutral ones (changing the words pro-life in one title and pro-choice in another title to neutral, descriptive terms).

When I returned to active editing earlier this month, I hoped that, if I were careful -- for example, making small edits, explaining edits on talk pages, and writing no new articles -- I could avoid unpleasantness and waste of time. Such was not to be.

This time my problems started when I made a small edit to Abortifacient. I cited a chapter in a book by the prominent historian of pharmacology John M. Riddle titled "The Broken Chain of Knowledge". One of the central themes of Riddle's two books published by Harvard University Press is that women in earlier times often transmitted folk knowledge of herbal abortifacients from generation to generation -- knowledge about which plants might be used to terminate a pregnancy and how to use them safely and effectively. According to Riddle, this transmission did not continue to modern women, who are generally unaware of which herbs have abortifacient properties and, if they do try to use an abortifacient herb, risk injury and even death because of lack of information on safe usage.

The edit in question was a single sentence about this, citing Riddle's chapter. My edit was reverted, and it was pointed out that the chapter I cited did not actually discuss modern women -- I had misremembered the chapter. I quickly found three page references in Riddle's books that did explicitly discuss the "broken chain" as it applied to modern women. Meanwhile, the editor who had reverted the edit put warning messages on my userpage with false accusations of having misrepresented the Riddle source, along with the threat of taking me to AN/I again, presumably to be banned for another 6 months or longer.

After I defended my edit from the charge of misrepresentation, this editor switched tactics and went to WP:FT/N to propose that Riddle's theories be labeled as fringe, meaning that he's an unreliable source that should not be cited without identifying him as a fringe source. He also went to Riddle's Wikipedia page and added text that strung together negative comments out of context from three critical book reviews in order to give the impression that Riddle is a poor scholar. (More recently another editor has made this part of the article read less like a string of insults and more like criticisms -- but it is still entirely negative.)

At this point I thought that I should adhere to WP:BLP by reverting the negative edits on Riddle's page. (Concerned about possible lawsuits, Wikipedia has a strict policy that biased or unbalanced negative content on biographies of living people or recently deceased people must be removed immediately.)

I also tried to defend Riddle on the fringe noticeboard. When I did so, I was insulted by other editors. One said my reference to WP:BLP was "grossly idiotic" because apparently it's okay to string together negative things on someone's Wikipedia page if he or she is under discussion on Wikipedia's fringe noticeboard and is likely to end up categorized as "fringe." My idiocy consisted in not understanding that there's no need for balance on someone's Wikipedia page if he or she is about to be classified as what Jimmy Wales calls a "lunatic charlatan." When I tried to explain why Riddle's views on demography (one of the themes of his second book) are so controversial, an editor mocked me for creating a "wall of text," i.e., for being long-winded. Sorry -- the complicated context of disputes on demography cannot be explained in a tweet.

I could have gone on to list prominent scholars who share Riddle's overall perspective on the abundance of knowledge of herbal abortifacients among women in pre-scientific societies -- for example, Londa Schiebinger of Stanford University and Angus McLaren of the University of Victoria. However, I would have just encountered more mockery and derision if I wrote in such detail. In any case, by now the whole matter was becoming very time-consuming, as well as unpleasant because of the assault not only on my integrity as an editor accused of misrepresentation, but also on the reputation of a scholar I much respect.

My involvement in Wikipedia has become counterproductive. If it weren't for me, Riddle would not have ended up on Wikipedia's fringe list. I put in a lot of time, and the net result was negative. Like other newcomers to Wikipedia, my purpose in opening an account was to improve Wikipedia. What I caused to happen was the trashing of a distinguished scholar on the fringe noticeboard.

I will not close out my account or become 100% inactive. However, I will do very little editing. That might change if circumstances change -- for example, if I develop a masochistic streak and decide that abuse is good for the soul.

It's no mystery why Wikipedia suffers from declining numbers of active editors, declining numbers of admins, and a high attrition rate. Nor is it a mystery why the proportion of women active editors remains low, with no discernible improvement despite significant efforts to encourage women to start editing.

On the subject of systemic bias, take a look at WP:Disruptive editing, where, as of this writing, the only illustrative picture is a mocking one of a woman. The subliminal message is that women are the most likely source of disruptive behavior on Wikipedia, an absurd notion that, unfortunately, might reinforce the prejudices of many male editors. Right before I was banned last June, I tried on the talk page to get that picture deleted or replaced by one of a man. I also lost that battle. NightHeron (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as a "fringe list" and Riddle would not be on it. What is of concern is specifically _one_ of his hypotheses. All the relevant content has now been straightened-out (in large part because of another editor). I note you have not responded to the COI question. Alexbrn (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Karolinska, cadaver tracheas and killer hype
See my comment re yours here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karolinska_Institute#/talk/8 Zezen (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Curious
I have spent some 2 hrs going through your edit and admin history. I will not comment it here or elsewhere.

As a (passive) advocatus diaboli, I am curious about your original article deleted as per

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Criticisms_of_medicine

Is its draft still somewhere in your user space? Zezen (talk) 08:44, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

No. I was told by an admin that, if I wanted, I could "userfy" it after my TBAN was over. But I decided not to. It was that article that led to my banning, because some editors assumed that any article about criticisms of medicine would help the alt-medists, and there's a powerful group of experienced editors who know how to make wikipedia very unpleasant for any editor they perceive as in any way in league with the "lunatic charlatans". NightHeron (talk) 13:20, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

By the way, the article that was deleted did not cite any alt-med sources, but rather cited and quoted highly respected mainstream medical people, such as Marcia Angell. NightHeron (talk) 13:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Abortion and Christianity
Thank you for the correction: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abortion_and_Christianity&type=revision&diff=907290452&oldid=907259263

I am trying to fix a problem with this article -- currently the quoting of a minority of paragraph 2270 is an example of taking something out of context -- what do you think of my next idea to fix this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abortion_and_Christianity&oldid=907374176

Mebden (talk) 13:19, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your support of my edit, and for your efforts to improve the article about Abortion and Christianity. I can see two possible objections to your formulation about "non-innocent human life in certain wars". First, the human life that's destroyed (without opposition by the Catholic Church) is sometimes innocent. For example, for many years during the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Catholic Church did not officially oppose that war (in which the U.S. was supporting a Catholic-dominated government in the south of Vietnam), and did not object to U.S. actions that killed plenty of civilians, including children. Second, the Catholic Church forbids abortion even in cases when the woman will likely die if the pregnancy is continued (for example, in an ectopic pregnancy). Advocates of abortion rights would argue that when the law forbids abortion in such a case, the state is essentially killing an innocent woman (and is not necessarily saving the fetus, since, as far as I'm aware, an ectopic pregnancy cannot result in a successful birth). NightHeron (talk) 13:43, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree with both points. My goal was to add the necessary context to clarify this word "absolutely", since it's currently misleading. Two more options come to mind: 1. We can remove what I added and include the full catechism paragraph, which mentions "innocent".

2. We can change the sentence to read as follows: "The Catholic Church teaches that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception" with few exceptions: the Church has always allowed war in particular circumstances, has always disallowed abortion for ectopic pregnancy, and has for most of its existence (until August 2018) allowed the execution of some criminals (the church ceased these executions in 1826)." What do you think? Mebden (talk) 19:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Personally, I like your revised sentence (except for one factual point: the Catholic prohibition on abortion to save the life of the mother, such as in an ectopic pregnancy, only dates to the 1930 encyclical Casti connubii). However, it occurred to me that other editors might find that your version involves too much interpretation and claim that it violates WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. This isn't something that bothers me so much, but it might bother some editors. Before I saw your message, I put a proposal on the article's talk page that would change only two sentences of the lead paragraph of the section in such a way that Wikipedia is only reporting what the Catholic Church states rather than putting such statements in Wikipedia's voice. Please let me know what you think, preferably on the talk page rather than here so that other editors who are watchlisting the article might participate. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 19:57, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:BLP
Hi, just wanted to let you know you might want to re-read what WP:BLP actually says and how it works. You don't need an RFC to put in content, and putting in negative information is allowed especially if it is well sourced. You should know that since this is apparently not your main account. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello Sir Joseph. I'm quite familiar with WP:BLP, but apparently I don't read it the same way you do.  For example, I don't think it really says that "putting in negative information is allowed especially if it is well sourced".  Rather, putting in negative information is allowed only if it is well sourced.  What constitutes "well sourced" should be discussed by editors (I didn't say it had to necessarily be an RfC).  For example, if allegations of criminal conduct come from sources that are extremely hostile to the subject of the biography, does that constitute "well sourced"?  Also, according to WP:BLP there needs to be balanced coverage and a neutral tone.  If a consensus of editors agrees that the negative allegations belong in the article, then fine. NightHeron (talk) 21:16, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

DS Alert Climate Change
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

custom message
Hi... if you don't know, that template is strictly FYI. It is part of the procedures for "DS", and is fully explained by clicking on the links in the template itself. I placed the same thing on my own page, and will try to make sure recent Climate crisis editors all have one. No biggie. Just a procedural thing. But be sure to read about DS if you don't already know. Carry on! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * , good idea! NightHeron (talk) 23:27, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Glad you understand! I think everyone has one.  I passed a number out last summer.   It made little impression on certain editors, alas.   NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Please review
Hi, at Talk:Climate change, I boldly eliminated a lot of subsection headings that appeared in the middle of Femke's comment. I replaced them with large bold font. The reason is that Femke put up a long comment and then the survey& discuss section. It was my understanding the whole idea was to try to keep an organized discussion, but the mid point subsection formatting invited midpoint commenting, such as you did. And why wouldn't you, with it formatted that way? I've boldly done the conversion to format the way I think Femke intended.... its the middle of hte night in Europe now, or I'd try to verify my guess with her. So I boldly acted. That includes moving your own midpoint comments to the "discussion" section. Please consider adding a line under the "NotVote" section, and changing, if necessary, your moved comments so they're clear in their new location. (I just did copy paste) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Please update your NotVote answers to the Climate change survey
Hi, at Talk:Climate_change you answered before a list of (so far) 4 specific questions had been formulated. Please consider updating the bold part of your NOTVOTE to address each number question, so the closer will have an easier time making sense of the replies. Thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Summary table for Renaming Climate change article
Hi, in my own userspace I have started a table in which I am trying to super-succinctly summarize the Not-Votes and perspectives that have been raised. This is a work in progress, but I have at least finished my initial data-entry for what you've said. If you would like to me change anything, please use the talk page attached the table. Thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions alert
Jonathunder (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Well I don't care how many people think that this is a wonderful and kindly idea, it would piss me off to get one myself in a similar situation. There was no reason for it what-so-ever, IMO.  It is threatening and gives one an impression that if you are not already, you are apparently likely to become a BAD EDITOR who breaks WP RULES.  I have a great deal of respect for your work and I hope that this  has not scared you away from that article.  Anything MUSLIM acts as a lightening rod for extremists and it takes a lot of work to keep their articles in reasonable shape.  You have experience at the abortion article and I can tell you that that is comparatively an easy one to deal with due to the quality of editors who watch it, MastCell for example who is, I'd say, one of our top five best editors. Gandydancer (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your supportiveness in connection with the Ilhan Omar editing and on other occasions. What I found unsettling about this discretionary sanctions alert is that the editor who put it there was one of the editors who seemed determined to trash Omar on her BLP and who has administrator powers. In contrast, just above you can see I received a similar alert from a friendly editor (with whom I'd never had major disagreements) accompanied by the assurance that it was being sent to all editors involved in the discussions of the Climate crisis article.  So that was entirely non-threatening.  Context matters.


 * Thanks also for your kind comments on my abortion-related editing. Although the opponents of reproductive rights can be annoyingly persistent in repeatedly raising issues (like the definition of "abortion") that have already been decided by consensus long ago, to my surprise they have never (in my experience) been hostile or threatening.  Literally the only time I have encountered toxic behavior on Wikipedia was in connection with my attempt to argue for NPOV-compliance of the alt-med article and my appeal of an AfD for an article on criticisms of mainstream medicine.  That resulted in my being pilloried on AN/I (including insults, profanity, and childish mockery) and then banned for 6 months.  When I returned in December, I made the mistake of making edits related to herbal abortifacients (which, according to the anti-alt-med warriors don't exist), and came close to being banned again.  After the fiasco on the fringe noticeboard site where largely the same editors trashed the eminent historian of pharmacology John Riddle, I left almost all Wikipedia editing for a while.  Then I came back gingerly, determined to avoid anything remotely related to alt-med.  I'm continuing to watch the Ilhan Omar article, and will, if occasion arises, return to editing it after about a week. NightHeron (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, well...after I posted my note for you I read our previous conversations - which I had pretty much long forgotten. So now, I can clearly see that you very much well know how this place works.  Presently I totally ignore all alt-med and do so without even a tad or concern because they have, comparable to Trumpian truths, become laughable.  I bounce present-day questions about issues off my daughters who well-represent  today's mature women/mothers positions on alt-med - positions which their children, my grandchildren, have adopted - and they, all well-educated women, just roll their eyes and laugh at the WP alt-med articles. You know, looking at the broader picture, our WP altmed articles very clearly foretold of things to come when you think about it: Narrow your perspective way down, allow only "facts" that fit into it, and twist anything else to appear to be from an unacceptable source. Gandydancer (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I was certainly naive when I started editing about a year-and-a-half ago. Taking seriously the claim that what mattered to the editors who controlled the alt-med article was using reliable sources, I proposed that the lede feature a quote from Harrison's Internal Medicine. They rebuffed my suggestion.  Now Harrison's Internal Medicine is certainly a MEDRS source if there ever was one.  But they prefer Tim Minchin, an Australian comic who isn't exactly a MEDRS source, because he says what they like to hear ("the very idea of 'alternative' treatments is paradoxical because any treatment proven to work is by definition 'medicine'").  When I argued that some home remedies are safe and effective -- using the example of a moist teabag to sooth eye irritation caused by dust or pollution -- I was warned (by a medical student in WikiProject Medicine) that I was risking eye infection by using a teabag.  I'd be better off going to the pharmacy and buying an expensive little bottle of Visine.  I feel sorry for the future patients of that medical student. NightHeron (talk) 22:22, 3 November 2019 (UTC)