User talk:RTLdan

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The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! clpo13(talk) 04:52, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

January 2016
Thank you for your contributions. Please mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Flood myth, as "minor" only if they are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Thank you. clpo13(talk) 04:52, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * And I've undone the edit pending the edit pending discussion on the talk page. Changing "incompatible with modern understanding of the natural history and especially geology and paleontology" to "debated among researchers" is a very major change. Meters (talk) 05:01, 3 January 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 07:40, January 3, 2016‎
 * "Researchers" is meaningless. Take it to the talk page with evidence of peer reviewed sources. I can point to other academics who have lost the plot and veered into fringe stuff. 07:40, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I would most certainly agree that inclusion of all fringe beliefs would be neither profitable, nor possible. In my edit to the aforementioned page, I did not attempt to include any such beliefs in any way. Instead, I corrected a factual error, and one that clearly intended to discredit a minority view without considering any of the very views it tries to discredit. There is no field wide consensus on this topic. In fact, there will be no field wide consensus on most topics that stray from the most rudimentary studies. Statements that try to assert consensus among "modern" or "real" scientists within a particular paradigm have no basis in logic without providing names and affidavits from the entire catalog of scientists in these fields. It is this kind of self promotion of populous academia that leads to a model in which "popular belief" is considered truth, and minority views are held as illogical, fringe, or dangerous. It is statements such as these, which make Wikipedia useful for cursory research, and useless for objective research. I encourage you to embrace more objectivity, analyze more closely the assumptions required when generalizing beliefs of an entire field, and be honest about the intentions of such statements. For my part, life as contributor to Wikipedia has been brief and fruitless. I'll leave the Wikipedia editing to those who have so much idle time on their hands, that they can immediately strangle out edits that attempt to return articles to factual content only -- edits like mine. For on Wikipedia, he who edits most frequently controls the information. Best, RTLdan — Preceding unsigned comment added by RTLdan (talk • contribs) 00:15, January 5, 2016‎
 * You made a contentious edit and marked it as minor. It was undone and you were politely asked to discuss it on the article's talk page (per WP:BRD), and notified that it was not a minor edit. That certainly does not warrant your edit summary calling it "War of the Editors," or the description of this as strangling edits.


 * The consensus needed on Wikipedia is not consensus of sources, but rather consensus of editors as to what the Wikipedia article should say. As editors it's up to us to be neutral and to give a balanced overview of what reliable sources have to say about the subject. If you think the statement in question should be replaced or modified, then please make a case on the article's talk page so that it can be discussed. If not, the existing statement will stand. Meters (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Meters, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. In regards to the "minor" edit designation, I readily admit the error was on my part, but found that Wikipedia does not allow for a simple way of removing that status. Instead, the documentation told me to re-edit the article, and add a double space, then mention the reason in the edit summary. I attempted to do that, but my edit had already been reverted, only minutes after being published. The point was already moot. Secondly, I can appreciate that Wikipedia is a place in which multiple editors must agree on "what the Wikipedia article should say". However, in this particular case, I believe my edit simply fixed a glaring erroneous claim of field-wide consensus, and served to achieve the "neutral and balanced overview" that you refer to. Finally, The meaning behind the title "War of the Editors" was not an attack on character, but rather an observation that the editor who spends the most time building his "consensus" on what the page should say, and the editor who spends the most time ensuring his edit stands, is the one who controls the content of Wikipedia. Unfortunately, consensus does NOT mean neutrality or balance. And that, I fear, is the case here. In my humble opinion there should be no need for a talk page consensus when an edit simply corrects a single erroneous statement. That was what I attempted, and that was what was reverted. Clearly Wikipedia's method of content generation is at odds with my own sensibilities regarding objectivity, and for that reason alone did I write the previous comment on leaving Wikipedia to those with more idle time. I simply don't have the resources to debate and get consensus for removing single self-refuting statements. That being said, Wikipedia is still a valuable resource to me, just not one I can trust in complete objectivity. Thanks for your time. RTLdan (talk) 04:01, 6 January 2016 (UTC)RTLDan