User talk:Professor Pelagic

Welcome!
Hello, Professor Pelagic, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
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IP address
Hi Professor Pelagic. Please could you tell me the IP address you were editing from previously. Thanks. DrChrissy (talk) 14:20, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * For anyone that might be following this thread, Professor Pelagic indicated he was the IP involved, as indicated by the diff here.

Conflict of interest
Greeting Professor Pelagic. Would you please state whether or not you have a conflict of interest when editing Pain in fish. It is fine if you do have a COI, but if you have you should disclose what it is. Thanks. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:40, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * No, no COI, my only interest in this page is that I am very familiar with the literature surrounding the subject from 25 years working as a fish biologist, and I was keeping the page up to date for a number of years with new literature as it was being published. The page was reasonably well balanced for a number of years until recently I noticed some rather major changes to the page that, based on my understanding of the literature, were not done in an even-handed way - erasing some information and de-emphasising other information that people need to know when they want to learn about this subject.  The additions I made to redress balance were undone by others, something that has never happened to me before - this raised a red flag - so I am now interested in seeing this through to learn more as to why all of a sudden achieving a balanced fish pain page that represents both sides of the scientific debate about the issue has become so hard.....Professor Pelagic (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Well hang in there and don't back off. I'm sure, if your arguments are sound, we can bring it to a place you find more congenial. But there needs to be more clarification in a number of areas, and unlike you, I'm not so sure that the literature to date provides real clarification. Please look at the source code and note how the colon is used to indent comments. This makes it easier for other people to follow what you have to say. --Epipelagic (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure we can get to where is needed - I've only been a casual contributor to wikipedia for around 5 years - don't know the finer points of editing but decided I'm going to have to learn - but because this fish welfare stuff comes through local committees and meetings I have to attend, I have a pretty good grasp of the history of the research on the subject, even reviewed some of the papers themselves, which should help. In the past I was just sitting in the background updating the page when new research came along, but with recent developments I became concerned that there seems to be no history of my edits as an IP between 2010 and 2014, so the only option seemed to be to bite the bullet, finally listen to wikipedia's suggestions and become a registered member, so that things can be done transparently. Sounds like we can just do it bit by bit, which will eventually make the fish pain page a much better/more informative resource for people, then I might even contribute to other pages, but I want to learn the ropes properly first so thanks for the tips and olive branch. Not sure whether you do two colons for a double indent following an indented paragraph, or just indent every alternative paragraph, I am assuming the latter.Professor Pelagic (talk) 20:53, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not entirely sure how you have got through at least 5 years of editing without learning threading, but WP:THREAD should help. DrChrissy (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks - that is the difference between my former "casual editing" and otherwise, I guess.Professor Pelagic (talk) 04:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Do you want a decent article or not?
You would make faster progress if you assume good faith with other editors instead of indulging in inaccurate personal observations, and if you propose specific edits you want to see (as you have been repeatedly asked) instead of posting walls of text that do not address the central point. Though we have been discussing issues for only a short time, you have acknowledged yourself that we have already made progress. A process like this needs needs patience, and if you trust the process and hang in there you will probably be very satisfied with the final result. However you seem to be seeking a dramafest instead. On Wikipedia that often just brings busybodies with no background in the content area to the table, and things will go downhill. Is that what you want? --Epipelagic (talk) 22:55, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I am repeatedly posting the edits I would like to see to regain scientific balance in the article, but in most cases getting replies that simply state " we do not agree". However, when you ask for evidence to support my edit suggestions, I supply it.  So I am sorry if this appears to be walls of text, but when you ask for evidence I will supply it and quote the references.  As for asking for assistance to attain neutrality, I think a third opinion would be very useful on some of the issues raised here.  I have had the unfortunate experience at work dealing with animal rights activists on this topic who only choose to quote from "pro fish pain science" that has been identified by many scientists as having many potentially serious flaws in technique and interpretation.  This is why I pick up when the literature on this topic is being selectively referenced.  All I ask is that both sides of the science are presented so that readers can decide for themselves.  When I am repeatedly blocked from doing so by users exploiting their superior knowledge of wikipedias rules and regulations, to regain neutrality, I will ask questions of third parties as to why it is happening. Professor Pelagic (talk) 23:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Where have I "blocked" you? Everything so far seems to me to still be in process. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:17, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I have not said anywhere that you have blocked my edits, other parties (whom it seems I now cannot mention) have been doing that in certain sections.Professor Pelagic (talk) 20:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Because there are only three of us editing the page, it is clear you think I am the other editor that is "blocking" you. I am not blocking you.  I might be reverting you and asking to discuss the material on the Talk page, but this is simply the way that Wikipedia functions when content is disputed.  Why on Earth would you think you can not mention me - or is this perhaps just another approach to generating dramah?  This is not a rhetorical question and I would appreciate an answer. DrChrissy (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * As I said, it works both ways. I would not be so worried about reverting  of my material except that it seems others are quite willing to post up new tables, for example, while they are still under discussion in the talk page.  I do not want to take other peoples stuff down for fear of accusation of "edit warring", but such inconsistencies are what made me seek third party advice about procedure.  There is a dispute about neutrality that is trying to be sorted, yet some parties are continuing to put up new material while blocking other parties putting up material at the same time.  It seems the only edits allowed are by some parties, not others.  This doesn't look like a level playing field to me so I was interested in what experience and perspective third parties might be able to bring to the situation.  Professor Pelagic (talk) 22:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Well it seems you are not willing to assume good faith and discuss your issues here. I'm tired of your insinuations that DrChrissy and I have biased agendas and are too stupid to assess literature in this area. My own position was that the work of Rose and Key should be fully represented in the article, and by the end of the day I would have made sure that was the case. Your personal attacks are way off the mark.

However I was puzzled when, shortly after I posted this overview you seemed to spit the dummy and made this dramatic appeal for outside intervention. I would have thought you would be interested in the overview if you had a genuine interest in the topic. Particularly as my opening comment was: "Influential philosophers like Dennett and Caruthers argue it is likely that animals lack the phenomenal consciousness necessary to experience pain". I would have thought that was exactly the sort of thing you were looking for. But then I noticed my final comment: "If, for example, fish feel pain, then there are ethical and welfare consequences running across huge commercial enterprises. But that is really the main point to make here. Details of just what the ethical and welfare issues are don't belong in the pain articles". And the penny dropped.

You disclosed elsewhere that you work on animal welfare committees and that you were "basically forced to know the literature on this topic". This suggests that you are involved with the topic, not because you are interested in it, but because you are paid to take a position on it. As you say above, you have "the unfortunate experience at work dealing with animal rights activists on this topic". No wonder you got upset at my final comment above, and decided to see if you could seek muscle elsewhere. It also explains why you are so unconvincing arguing your case, why your discussion of methodology lacks any nuance, and why you throw up dust instead by posting walls of text. You can't argue your case eloquently because it doesn't really interest you.

I asked you above if you have a conflict of interest because other circumstances indicate that you might well have. You assured me that you don't. I find that hard to square with your subsequent behaviour. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * My position on welfare committees are always invited, and voluntary, and unpaid, so your accusations of conflict of interest are baseless and way off the mark. I am asked to assess the literature on this topic for various research proposals so I must provide a balanced view in order to assess the research even handedly. There are interest groups who continuously deliberately choose not to consider the very valid points of concern raised by Rose et al., and, more lately, Key, in their opposition to research. We are constantly balancing these issues now for each research proposal and it is frustrating to see the same issues now creeping into online resources such as wikipedia, which I think should remain neutral and represent both sides of the topic in an evenhanded manner.  If you interpret discussion backed up by scientific reference as "walls of text", that is a problem here because many of the issues cannot be explained away using pithy one liners. The question remains, do you truly believe the Wikipedia fish pain page was neutrally balanced the way you had it  ?  Your response that "the work of Rose and Key should be fully represented in the article, and by the end of the day I would have made sure that was the case." suggests I am right and that it was not.  The fact that we have a large amount of twoing and froing to get simple self evident messages such as "no scientific concensus" into the opening paragraph is the sort of stuff I am talking about - I was simply following Wikipedia guidelines for new reviewers which suggest seeking third party guidance on such topics.  Why would you be so against my seeking of a third party opinion here on points of procedure ? PS. As an aside, this was a mere 296 word paragraph in response to a 395 word post from you.  Note I did not complain about a "wall of words", I am perfectly capable of reading the information you provide and welcome detailed discussion of a topic that I am indeed very interested in from an academic as well as philosophical perspective.     Professor Pelagic (talk) 20:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What you really, really need to understand is that we are here as editors, not scientists. It is not up to us to argue the relative merits of methods, statistical analysis, Type I and Type II errors, interpretations, etc - we simply report on what the experts have stated in RS sources. As a scientist, I sometimes find this very frustrating, and I am sure you do - but that is the way that Wikipedia works.  Play the game. DrChrissy (talk) 20:46, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to follow up from this with an example you raised above. You seem to be getting upset that I am asking you for an RS stating that there is no scientific consensus.  The reason for requiring a verifiable source should be immediately apparent to you.  My opinion is that there is scientific consensus that fish feel pain.  Your opinion appears to be that there is no consensus. So whose opinion should be stated? Yours or mine?  The answer is neither - we are editors so we look for external verifiable RS sources for such statements. DrChrissy (talk) 20:56, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how you can have that opinion when it is clear in the scientific literature that there is, in fact, no concensus at this time. The EU documents that sometimes get cited as evidence of consensus within that community are outdated as they do not take into consideration the relevant issues posed by Rose et al. (2014) and Key (2015).  There has also never been equivalent documents published outside the EU at any time claiming consensus on this topic.  Professor Pelagic (talk) 21:10, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The point is that my opinion is totally and completely irrelevant. So is yours.  We make edits based on what others have said, not our own opinions. DrChrissy (talk) 21:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, you mean like the opinion of the American Fisheries Society in their guidelines for use of fish in research ?  http://fisheries.org/guide-for-the-use-of-fishes-in-research#4.3, section 4.3, Nociception and Pain, end of first paragraph "Overall, the weight of evidence in the fish species studied indicates that the experience of pain in mammals is not experienced in fish." Professor Pelagic (talk) 00:28, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have indicated why this is not a suitable RS at the Talk page, which is where this discussion should be happening. DrChrissy (talk) 12:39, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

An article to read
Please read WP:tendentious. DrChrissy (talk) 21:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, a good word, exactly what Browman and Skiftesvik (2011) and Rose et al. are talking about in regard to research in the fish pain field.    Professor Pelagic (talk) 22:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to be perfectly clear, I was referring to your editing behaviour here on Wikipedia. Please read this article with your editing in mind. DrChrissy (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Your editing experience
I am a little confused about your editing experience. You claim here that you have been editing for several years, but here you state "I was simply following Wikipedia guidelines for new reviewers which suggest seeking third party guidance on such topics" (my emphasis). Furthermore, your history of editing as User:124.170.97.78 (prior to you becoming Professor Pelagic) seems to only go back to Oct 13th, 2015. Would you care to explain these apparent discrepancies? DrChrissy (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Exactly. I also wondered why there is only such a recent history of editing. I have provided a few minor updates in the past to the fish pain page and several others (probably mainly on fish biology, and engineering topics) dating back to around 2010-2011 I reckon.  For the fish pain page I included new references and tidied up several sections, but on a casual basis as an IP.  I did not post in the talk pages as it was only occasional minor edits (about once per year) and, to be honest, I probably didn't know what the talk pages were for. So I guess you'll have to trawl through the page versions for the earlier edits. I have only "fully joined" recently based on the need to spend more time on the issues I have raised here, and so that there is a permanent record of doing that to maintain transparency as I am not happy about the missing edit history either.  Professor Pelagic (talk) 22:16, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Did you change IP address? DrChrissy (talk) 22:31, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Not sure, we have changed computers and internet service providers recently, so if that changes IP addresses, I guess that might be why. Professor Pelagic (talk) 00:25, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Concerning the difficulty you've been having
Dear Professor Pelagic,

Hello.

I read your message on my talk page. It is an interesting problem you have with fish pain.

You have been engaged in what us Wikipedians call a "content dispute".

I can see that you have been quite frustrated in dealing with other editors in this matter. Perhaps I can be of assistance by guiding you through our relevant policies and guidelines, and providing some advice acquired through experience.

Speaking of experience, I have been editing Wikipedia since 2005. I have contributed over 600 articles, and I've made over 100,000 edits across thousands of pages.

The first thing you should keep in mind when you feel like others are slowing you down, was summed up perfectly in a grook by Piet Hein:

T.T.T. Put up in a place where it's easy to see the cryptic admonishment T.T.T. When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it's well to remember that Things Take Time.

From the outside looking in, it is easy to see that the contention between you and the others is due to not operating under the same set of assumptions. For example, the way you contacted me violates our canvassing guideline, and was rather shocking. Canvassing for input is allowed, but there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of doing it. Understanding what works and doesn't work around here is called "the clue", which includes knowing that canvassing usually isn't necessary when patient conscientious discussion takes place to reach consensus.

The clue is the essence of the Wikipedia Community, which is a cluocracy. Wikipedia should never become a battlefield. But acquiring the clue takes time.

Sometimes, in order to speed up, you first need to slow down. You could shorten your learning curve considerably by spending some time studying the assumptions under which we operate: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

Disputes can be over content issues, but don't forget that disputing itself is a not very pleasant behavior. Therefore, we have policies and guidelines concerning content and behaviors aimed at producing an accurate representation of the facts in a cordial manner.

The easiest way to prevent content disputes is to understand and follow Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines, starting with Wikipedia's core content policies. The breaking of one or more of these is usually at the heart of a dispute.

The easiest way to avoid stressful confrontations and get along with other editors is to understand and follow Wikipedia's code of conduct.

Don't worry, the encyclopedia won't disappear while you are studying. The subjects you wish to work on will still exist when you have mastered our policies. And then...

After you have bent over backwards to comply with Wikipedia's main policies, and you still find yourself at odds with other editors, then it is time for dispute resolution and canvassing.

I hope you find this advice helpful.

If you have any questions about Wikipedia's rules or how Wikipedia operates, please feel free to ask.

Sincerely, The Transhumanist 10:37, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for some very useful advice. It indeed appears the Wikipedia way of doing things is a little different to what I am used to, but I can see why it has evolved the way it has.  Professor Pelagic (talk) 20:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)