Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jimmuldrow

Hi Jim. Thanks for your recent additions to this page. It would be easier to respond to your comments, though, if you could include diffs which illustrate the behavior to which you refer. Best wishes,  Hydriotaphia 00:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jim. I'm sorry if my edits to Morrison angered you (for what it's worth, I think the current article is quite good on the state action issue, due in good part to your edits). But, Jim, you never said any of this at the time; you merely reverted. And this is the whole point of this RfC, after all; it's not about any one edit, it's about a particular style of editing. Apropos of this observation, If I may make one suggestion: it does appear that you have a tendency to take criticism of an article as personal criticism. I certainly haven't meant my criticism that way and sincerely apologize if it's come across as personal criticism. Editing these articles is a constantly ongoing process and the best way to participate in it, in my experience, is to engage in as much discussion about the process as possible. Some of the discussion in which you engaged on talk pages was less than helpful, for a variety of reasons (reasons which are summarized on this RfC page). Perhaps if, going forward, you approached editing with a slightly different mindset, things might go a bit smoother. Best wishes, Hydriotaphia 05:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Something else has just occurred to me. The odd irony is that my edits to Morrison were actually intended as a compromise version between your version and Ferrylodge's. That's to say, I entered those edits in order to avoid conflict. I agree that they were suboptimal, but then the entire situation was suboptimal. Hydriotaphia 14:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you see a need to continue this dispute? Let me know. I personally don't want to fight with you.Jimmuldrow 17:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I really don't want to fight either. I see no need to continue the dispute, but I hope you will try to mollify some of the tendencies which are discussed in this RfC. I filed this RfC not because I enjoy fighting but because I (and Ferrylodge, for that matter) had tried other ways of resolving the differences between us and felt I needed outside help. Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 17:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If you still feel that outside help is needed, remember the following Wikipedia guideline:
 * An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors, and can lead to binding arbitration. Filing an RfC is therefore not a step to be taken lightly or in haste.Jimmuldrow 16:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't appreciate the implied threat, but the threat would be effective only if I felt I've done something wrong. But I've done absolutely nothing wrong.

As for the new material you've added to this page, I suggest, once again, that diffs would be helpful. Diffs, after all, allow third parties to see the edits for themselves. The edit to Kimel, for example, where I supposedly called a fact "inflammatory," never happened. Rather, I believed an edit summary in which you accused me of stalking was inflammatory. (Was I wrong to think that such an accusation was inflammatory?) See this, which is referred to as an inflammatory comment here. Hydriotaphia 18:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I misunderstood you on that point. As for the Wikipedia policy, it's Wikipedia's policy. As for threats, this Rfc was started by you and FerryLodge. As for whether you did anything wrong, you made your share of incorrect assumptions .Jimmuldrow 20:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Garrett
On this RfC page, Jimmuldrow writes: In the Garrett article, Hydriotaphia rephrased one line to read, "Even in cases of racial discrimination, where the courts scrutinize government action much more searchingly than they do in rational basis review..." I added statistics from "An Empirical Analysis of Strict Scrutiny in the Federal Courts" by Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law with a reference to add some facts to the comparison made by Hydriotaphia. Hydriotaphia removed what I added and said I was making a "comparison" between rational basis review and strict scrutiny when the comparison was clearly made by Hydriotaphia. All I did was add some facts with a reference to Hydriotaphia's comparison. Maybe Hydriotaphia thought facts were too "inflammatory" again? My response on the Garrett talk page reads: Hi Jim. I'm going to eliminate your recent addition to the article, for the following reasons. Thus my erasure. Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 21:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC) Let me respond to each point you make in your comment. I'm not sure exactly what "with a reference to add some facts to the comparison" means, but I think that you're saying that Winkler's article was relevant to a comparison between strict scrutiny and rational basis. Yet, as my response on the Garrett talk page shows, the Winkler article was irrelevant to such a comparison. Winkler was writing solely about strict scrutiny, and (as my comment said) "makes no comparison between the likelihood that rational basis scrutiny will result in an invalidation of a law and the likelihood that strict scrutiny will result in an invalidation." First, I never said you were making the comparison. Rather, I said that your citation to the Winkler article was in support of a comparison between strict scrutiny and rational basis. Second, why does it matter who was making the comparison? What matters is whether the Winkler article was relevant to such a comparison. Yet, as we've seen, it was irrelevant to that comparison. This is a needlessly snarky comment, Jim, and I regret that you felt it was appropriate. Hydriotaphia 21:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) The relevance of the Winkler article, even in the abstract, is not clear to me. Garrett was not a case that applied strict scrutiny to any legal classification.
 * 2) More specifically, having just read the Winkler article, I can say that the article says very, very little – and indeed, purports to say little – about the relative "strictness" of rational basis and strict scrutiny. Rather, the article concerns strict scrutiny alone, and makes no comparison between the likelihood that rational basis scrutiny will result in an invalidation of a law and the likelihood that strict scrutiny will result in an invalidation. Your addition cited to the Winkler article in support of a comparison between strict scrutiny and rational basis. (Your addition stated that strict scrutiny was stricter "in theory" than rational basis.) Because the Winkler article says nothing that is relevant to such a comparison, the article is irrelevant here.
 * I added statistics from "An Empirical Analysis of Strict Scrutiny in the Federal Courts" by Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law with a reference to add some facts to the comparison made by Hydriotaphia.
 * Hydriotaphia ... said I was making a "comparison" between rational basis review and strict scrutiny when the comparison was clearly made by Hydriotaphia.
 * Maybe Hydriotaphia thought facts were too "inflammatory" again?

Jim, I'm sorry, but your latest addition still doesn't comprehend the point I'm making. The point is whether the comparison which the Winkler article was cited to support really was supported by the article. Hydriotaphia 00:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This is really neither here nor there, but I should point out, as I've pointed out to you in the past, that the figures you're using are wrong. The Winkler article stated that lawsuits in which the classification was subjected to strict scrutiny were successful 60% of the time in the early 1990s and 80% of the time in the early 2000s. (When a law "survives" strict scrutiny, the lawsuit challenging that law is unsuccessful, needless to say.) I ask this not as a rhetoric question, but sincerely: have you actually read the article? Hydriotaphia 01:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The point of this RfC
The point of this RfC, Jim, was to try to get outside help, because at the time this RfC was filed you seemed to be profoundly uninterested in engaging in productive discussion. All of the additions which you have made to the "Response" section of this RfC have to do with the substance of the articles. (In contrast, the objections which I've raised during the course of this RfC have had to do with the process of editing these articles.) Why not simply bring this discussion to the talk pages of the articles in question, and continue the discussion there? I'm glad that you seem more interested in engaging in dialogue. Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 03:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)