User talk:John Carter/Archives/2014/June

Intelligent design start

re your wondering "I don't know exactly which sources would be free of such potential bias", and suggested sources ... responding here since what I've to say isn't on the threads topic... I've got two thoughts on bias

1. We don't need to -- just use the cites. I think defining ID should not be our creatively editing, nor taking from a outside source, but rather should present just cite to fact of what the origination/definition was/is without worrying over if they are right, wrong or motives -- otherwise we've not presented that position in way that can avoid adding color, and have no basis cite that seems defensible..

2. I think the article is unrecoverably biased, but meh -- since it's fairly obvious that it is so mitigates the issue. It is also a bit better yet if a statement is cited -- if the source is clearly one side or the other then makes things clearer to the reader. . Markbassett (talk) 17:42, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, a few responses.

1) We don't need to do anything around here actually, but we are, as per policies and guidelines, supposed to present material we do present in as NPOV a way possible, and that takes into account matters of possible systemic bias.

2) Regarding your latter point, there have been a lot of recent discussions around here, including one about what seems to be a fairly obvious case of homosexual relationship whose exact nature has not been categorically stated, and also other cases dealing with whether people who might see themselves as "forced conversions" of some sort or other, where it has become clear that definition of a topic, and thus an article, is extremely important.

In general, the best way to proceed in questions where there is an obvious possibility of bias in potential sources is to find whatever sources are most likely to be neutral, and/or described as being neutral by other outsiders, and using what information they supply. John Carter (talk) 18:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 23, 2014)

The Amazon Basin, pictured in yellow, holds the largest rainforest in the world. Hello, John Carter. The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Amazon Basin Previous selections: Film criticism • French Revolutionary Wars Get involved with the TAFI project! You can... Nominate an article Review nominations Have your say in future selections Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC) •

This week's article for improvement (week 24, 2014)

File:Elmo-cockpit xltn.jpg The Tickle Me Elmo toy was based on the Sesame Street character Elmo Hello, John Carter. The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Tickle Me Elmo Previous selections: Amazon Basin • Film criticism Get involved with the TAFI project! You can... Nominate an article Review nominations Have your say in future selections Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC) •

Semi retired?

I am not quite sure that what you mean.. Though I have seen you active on a number of pages. How are you doing? OccultZone (Talk) 16:48, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone:: In terms of health, as good as can be expected. Basically, the semi-retired means I am in general only really active here when I am coming here for other purposes than most. Right now, I am still going through a list of articles I gathered together from one encyclopedia and finding if we have analogous ones here already, and if we do, their titles. That list is taking a while though. Otherwise, I am at least hoping to spend more time on wikisource, where I have something along the lines of 200 finished pages ready to put there, and some of the other WF sites. When I finish the article list comparison though I expect to be more or less comparatively inactive until I finish the next listing of articles from a reference book, whenever that is. But lists like that, and wikisource, are more or less my top priority now, and activity here basically relates directly to time spent on developing lists like some I've already put here. John Carter (talk) 18:19, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I had seen your edit on one of the pages that I have watchlisted, so I thought you probably responded me on your talk page. It is surprising once again that I received no ping from you. It is great thing that you are doing. Honestly, I checked if you are active or not because I wanted some opinion on this page, Ynsa. Have good time there. OccultZone (Talk) 18:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: The "ping" didn't work? I thought I did that right above. I have downloaded the article and have a copy now. I can see where some of the problems might be. There isn't much available to me off the few databanks I have easy access to (I just checked). What kind of help were you specifically thinking of? John Carter (talk) 19:18, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

You did it correctly, but there is some error with that template that it wouldn't work sometimes. Happened a few times before too. I think that there's something interesting about this article, especially after so many tags. Till now, I was unaware of 'too technical' as well, but that one was interesting. Do you check email? I wanted to write one. OccultZone (Talk) 19:29, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Feel free to send one. I figure to be online only a few hours today, and my three day, 12-hour-a-day work week starts tomorrow, so it might be a day or two till I can respond in any useful fashion. John Carter (talk) 19:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Email sent. OccultZone (Talk) 15:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Minor edit to clarification request comment

Hi, I have taken the liberty of repairing a link in one of your comments here. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

Hi John,

I read your post at the arbcom and I think we're crossing signals a bit. You had asked for a reference, a reliable source that states whether or not chiropractic was scientific, pseudoscientific, etc. Please read this artlce (204) and see if that addresses your concern. [1] Thank you in advance, Neuraxis (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

User:Neuraxis, wasn't that a primary source you were trying to restore without consensus into the chiropractic page? QuackGuru (talk) 18:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I read your post at the arbcom and you've made a minor, but significant error: from the paper: First, although the response rate was good at 68%, it remains unclear what practice perspectives and behaviours are associated with non-participants. Also, although the sample was randomly selected and stratified according to the number of licensed practitioners in each province, the sample represented only approximately 12 percent of practitioners from each province. As always, there is the possibility that despite the randomization scheme, a unique sample was selected, and generalizability is a possible concern. Both concerns seem unlikely, however, given the consistency of the number of dissidents calculated in other investigations of chiropractic [3,22,36].. The authors did not have concerns re: the generalizability, because similar surveys found the same responses in the US, South Africa, etc. So, no, it is not specific to Canada. Secondly, the article is rather clear in it's conclusions. Despite continued concerns by mainstream medicine [25], a minority of the chiropractic profession has retained a perspective unorthodox to current orthodox scientific views.. Your conclusions aren't in agreement with the paper itself. We really aren't allowed to interpret the source per se, just to present the facts. Labelling the whole profession as pseudoscientific is not only factually incorrect, but bizarre. Feel free to post my comment (or paraphrase) at Arbcom. Neuraxis (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

First, your first comment seems to me to be itself specifically interpreting the text, as it explicitly says generalization was a "possible concern, although it seems unlikely." The operative word there seems to me to be "seems", as you yourself seem to be interpreting the statements of the authors, rather than just presenting the facts. You seem to me to be doing exactly what you criticized me for. Regarding your second point, once again you seem to be drawing conclusions on the text, rather than taking the text itself, because the word "perspective" is itself at best ambiguous. Please read your own proof texts again, because, honestly, it seems to me that you are doing more interpretation than I am. John Carter (talk) 23:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Reading and reviewing research is part of my real-life job. The qualifying terms 'seems' is what all good researchers do. That being said, it does not negate the generalizability. You asserted that it's 'only' from Canada and the authors specifically cited other studies that this was not an outlier, but a common finding'. That was the purpose of my clarification. Regarding the word perspective, it must be used in the the context of the paper. Also, the word isn't ambiguous, it's definition is precise: a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.. So, it's a synonym for POV. What am I noticing at ArbCom is the majority of comments seem to be from users who have no expertise in research or methods and thus appraising the literature. If ArbCom commentary does not require one to bring sources and facts and relies on opinions on the topic then the process is flawed. Even in this case, where the statement in the conclusions are so clear, the 'personal interpretation' of the editors are completely irrelevant. If I am factually wrong about the process, then please tell me how I am misinformed. I do not want to waste your time or mine. If my tone is curt, I apologize in advance. What I am noticing that true skepticism will revise opinions based on new facts and data. Despite the multitude evidence of new facts that suggest that the majority of practice internationally is within scientific norms, there seems to be cynicism on the topic. I really don't know what evidence you or anyone would require. I am all ears (eyes!). . Be well. Neuraxis (talk) 00:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe how a professional researcher would not be capable of understanding that a direct quote from the source about how the profession is coming closer to respectability is a clear statement that it is to date not respectable. It really isn't a violation of OR to say that a loation on one side of a border is in the obvious country. Also, unfortunately, you seem to in the above comment be acting out of accord with WP:RECENTISM. It may well be possible that, today, some or many areas of chiropractic are broadly scientific. However, that does not change the fact that earlier eras of chiropractic rather obviously weren't. As SFAIK most of the history of chiropractic, including the dubious doctrines, was before the current possible scientific reliability, it would still be reasonable to call that era of chiropractic pseudoscience, and there doesn't seem to be to me as an outsider a clear bright point of distinction in terminology between "new chiropractic" and "old chiropractic," like there is between say alchemy and physics. It may make no sense to call all of a profession pseudoscience, but neither does it make sense to call someting that apparently clearly was pseudoscience as science because it has subsequently become perhaps more scientific. John Carter (talk) 00:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

The source does not say 'respectability'. The studies that were quoted (which discusses the 'dissidents') were as earlier as 2003. You can state that this study in fact 'reviewed' them. So, the recentism argument doesn't really apply. We agree that earlier areas and 'historically' that was the case. And these, of course should be noted. There is no distinction, between new or old, but it is clear that in 1895 medical physicians were using leeching therapy and in 1895 chiropractors were treating systemic conditions. In 2014, the medical profession has evolved where leeching isn't a primary or common therapy and in 2014 the chiropractic profession has evovled where it has focused on neuromusculoskeletal disorders. I don't see a distinction between old and new medicine, just 'eras' and I think we were are disagreeing on one key point: but neither does it make sense to call someting that apparently clearly was pseudoscience as science because it has subsequently become perhaps more scientific.. This is a false dichotomy analogy. It is either 100% scientific or it is not. That's not the case. Do you realize that 'mainstream' or conventional medicine is not in fact completely scientific or evidence-based? This may be a bit hard to grasp, but there is an excellent discussion here [2] where we discuss this topic precisely. It, IMHO, is fundamental reading about understanding 'mainstream' vs. 'fringe' with respect to health care. I would suggest this: scientific chiropractic is confined to NMSK diagnosis and treatment. Outside those boundaries, all bets are off. Nonetheless, I don't see this as 'all or none' but differentiating between the shades of grey. I hope I've explained myself well. I will post my own comment at ArbCom, you can post your reply, for transparency purposes. Thanks for the collegial discussion thus far. Neuraxis (talk) 01:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

"I don't see this as 'all or none,' but differentiating between the shades of grey." Regarding which, I believe that you would be well advised to read our guidelines regarding how editors who have personal self-declared points of view, as you have rather unequivocally demonstrated you have above, are perhaps not the best people to determine content. To date, so far as I have seen in this discussion, engaged in applels to personal authority, what might be called attempts to overwhelm others with perhaps less than completely relevant information to perhaps confuse them on the real issue, attempts to rephrase issues in a prejudicial manner, apparently indicating above that you believe your personal opinion should be considered relevant, as opposed to policies and guidelines, and so far as I can tell almost absolute disregard for the evidence to the contray presented, including the rather unequivocal fact of chircopractic being included in an encyclopedia of pseudoscience. I believe that it would probably be in the best interests of everybody involved if you perhaps continued this "discussion", which you perhaps believe should be ongoing, on the appropriate page, which in this case is the arbitration page, as they will decide the issue of whether this discussion. So far as I can tell, as per the comment above, this matter appears to at least in part relate to your apparently attempting to restore a primary source without discussion or consensus on an article which apparently is within the scope of chiropractic. Apparently, you may be facing some form of sanctions for such editing. I regret to say that no amount of "discussion" on other points will actually effectively be able to cause the arbitrators to miss that point. So, as apparently your conduct is one of the issues involved in the matter which caused this subject to presented to arbitration, I believe it is in everyone's best interests if you confine your discussion of this matter to that page, so that the arbitrators can more readily reach a conclusion on that matter, if they consider it relevant, and thus I ask you to refrain from any further discussion of that matter here. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Your input is requested at WikiProject Maine!

	Hello fellow WikiProject Maine members!
I'm trying to breathe a little new life into WP:WP ME and as such I have posted a few questions on the project's talk page that I would like to get some feedback from all of the project's members on! There are apparently a lot of inactive members on our participants list (and even a user that has been blocked for years). What do we as a project want to do about inactive or blocked users? I have some ideas on the issue, but would love feedback from others. Remove blocked users that appear to be no longer interested in participating in developing Wikipedia. Users with zero activity at all in three years are unlikely to come back. I suggest that we remove them from the mailing list and deactivate any categorizing feature of a userbox on their page. When doing this, we must make sure to leave a note on their talk page explaining that since they have been off-wiki for three years that they have been removed from the list as a purely technical measure and they are more than welcome to add themselves back to the list if they choose to start editing again. Users with zero activity on wiki for 18 months may come back, despite it being unlikely. I would suggest that we mark those users as inactive on our mailing list, and stop sending them messages like this one to prevent their user talk page from filling up with irrelevant notices. Users with zero activity on wiki for at least six months should be marked as inactive in the mailing list template, but should still receive mailings. I'm also trying to gauge some interest in there being a Great American Wikinic in Maine! If you are interested, possible locations might include Portland, Augusta, and or Bangor, please make a note in the appropriate section on our talk page! We should create a template to use for mass mailings from this wikiproject so all we need to do is enter our message and signature and the general format of the box and image and title and stuff will stay familiar. What is your opinion on this idea? Do you have any preferences to what that may look like (because I think this looks horrible compared to some I've seen from other projects)?
This message was sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) at 17:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC). To remove yourself from this list, please remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiProject Maine/members, remove the WikiProject's userbox/category from your user page (rarely used for mass mailings), or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page.

This week's article for improvement (week 25, 2014)

The old buildings of the National Library of China house historical and ancient books, documents and manuscripts Hello, John Carter. The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: National Library of China Previous selections: Tickle Me Elmo • Amazon Basin Get involved with the TAFI project! You can... Nominate an article Review nominations Have your say in future selections Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC) •

Rather surprised at warning

Prasangika37 is the one who deleted academic material without discussion on the talk page.VictoriaGrayson (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. Did you notice Prasangika37 deleted two whole paragraphs of the introduction?VictoriaGrayson (talk) 18:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

A custom barnstar for you!

		The Editor Retention Barnstar
		For pitching in and helping make a difference at WikiProject Editor Retention, in particular, the Editor of the Week program. So far, two admins have come of it, and I think a lot of people have benefited from knowing their efforts are noticed by both the reader, and their peers. Thanks! Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 17:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you @Dennis Brown:. I did not know that the EotW had actually helped get more people willing to take on the difficult role of admin and I am very happy to think that I may have helped lessen the burden of the other admins in that regard. I acknowledge I myself am a lot less active here than I used to be because I want to try to get some wikisource books finished there to maybe make it easier on those of you who have the guts and temperment to really deal with some of the problems here that can only be dealt with effectively by good admins such as yourself. John Carter (talk) 18:45, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Well, Anna Frodesiak and Anne Delong both became admin shortly thereafter. I'm not saying the award pushed them towards service, but maybe the award made people aware that these were people that have taken lead roles and should be talked into it. Who knows. But I think it is a good program, and your decision to spend some of the precious time you have available at Wikipedia working with this program is greatly appreciated. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 18:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Duck

Here is the evidence. That is all the information I am going to present. QuackGuru (talk) 18:42, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 26, 2014)

Anubis, the jackal headed god of ancient Egypt Hello, John Carter. The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Anubis Previous selections: National Library of China • Tickle Me Elmo Get involved with the TAFI project! You can... Nominate an article Review nominations Have your say in future selections Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC) •

Got them - thanks. Looks like a lot to read. --Daveler16 (talk) 19:30, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Would love sources you mentioned

Hi, you mentioned on June 6 that you had collected many references re: the Dorje Shugden Controversy and that youd email them to people.I would love this. How should I email you? Or do you just want me to give you my email? Prasangika37 (talk) 01:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I would also appreciate copies of the same as, being marooned in a far away kingdom, I have no access to JSTOR or a good reference library (except for Tibetan language sources). Cheers. Chris Fynn (talk) (e-mail) 11:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Prasangika37: and @CFynn:: go to the "tools" section which is generally on the left-hand side Then go to my user page and hit the link to "email this user" and send me an email saying whatever you want. When I have your e-mai. address I will then be able to forward to you the documents I have collected to date. I should mention up front that a lot of them are from news sources, as opposed to academic sources, but they will still contain some good information relevant to an encyclopedic article particularly material from ProQuest and some of the other databanks which relate to sort of "academic" news. I hope to go through it all and have material available to send out by this weekend. John Carter (talk) 14:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see the articles you mentioned from the Princeton and McMillan disctionaries of Bddhism. fowlerdm@outlook.com is my email. Thanks.--Daveler16 (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Daveler16: I'm in the process of transcribing them onto Word. Depending on how many other things come up, I should have them and maybe a few others finished by this weekend. John Carter (talk) 14:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

So sorry @John Carter: I am having trouble finding the point regarding email this user. Is it under the tools section? I don't see it.. Sorry still trying to learn how to drive this thing. :) Any possibility you could email me? I'll keep looking though.

@Prasangika37:I went to your user page and apparently you don't have email enabled here so I can't emaily you without you giving me an email address visibly. In the standard skin I use the under "Tools" are in order "What links here" "Related changes" "User contributions" "Logs" and finally "Email this user." If you go to my user page or user talk page and check the "Tools" section of the skin you should see it. But you can probably only find it while at my user or user talk page Drop me another message if you can't and we'll see what can be done. John Carter (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. The problem was that I had not enabled my email. Sent the mail! Thanks for the patience. Prasangika37 (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Got them - thanks. --Daveler16 (talk) 19:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Category:Somalia articles by quality

Category:Somalia articles by quality, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Ricky81682 (talk) 08:47, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Dorje Shugden articles

Hey, John! Did you get my emails? I got both of yours, but didn't know if you had seen my reply with the attachments. Emptymountains (talk) 18:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Emptymountains: I don't see anything yet I'm afraid John Carter (talk) 19:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I just re-sent the 20 attachments to your w...@h... email address. Emptymountains (talk) 16:54, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

@Emptymountains: Got them thanx John Carter (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Cool! Feel free to share with others. You might also be interested in this essay I wrote earlier this Spring; I'm working on a follow-up as well, which deals with the issue at the level of the Catuṣkoṭi, which is hinted at on page 8 of the PDF. Here's the link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/211869110/A-New-Perspective-on-Life-changing-Wisdom-Emptiness-the-Two-Truths-and-Making-Sense-of-It-All Emptymountains (talk) 19:23, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi there John, hope you are well. Thank you for the message on my talk page the other week. I was away on retreat for a little while, but I'm back now. Would you be so kind as to email me the articles you received from Emptymountains? kelsangjangdom@gmail.com . Thanks very much :) Kjangdom (talk) 02:15, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 27, 2014)

Reconstruction of the head of Java Man Hello, John Carter. The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Java Man Previous selections: Anubis • National Library of China Get involved with the TAFI project! You can... Nominate an article Review nominations Have your say in future selections Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 01:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC) •

Demographics of Bangladesh

I have seen some of your user subpages listing possible references, and I believe that you can probably contribute something of value to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bangladesh#Demographics (version of 12:20, 30 June 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 June newsletter

After an extremely close race, Round 3 is over. 244 points secured a place in Round 4, which is comparable to previous years- 321 was required in 2013, while 243 points were needed in 2012. Pool C's Godot13 (submissions) was the round's highest scorer, mostly due to a 32 featured pictures, including both scans and photographs. Also from Pool C, Casliber (submissions) finished second overall, claiming three featured articles, including the high-importance Grus (constellation). Third place was Pool B's , whose contributions included featured articles Russian battleship Poltava (1894) and Russian battleship Peresvet. Pool C saw the highest number of participants advance, with six out of eight making it to the next round.

The round saw this year's first featured portal, with Sven Manguard (submissions) taking Portal:Literature to featured status. The round also saw the first good topic points, thanks to 12george1 (submissions) and the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. This means that all content types have been claimed this year. Other contributions of note this round include a featured topic on Maya Angelou's autobiographies from Figureskatingfan (submissions), a good article on the noted Czech footballer Tomáš Rosický from Cloudz679 (submissions) and a now-featured video game screenshot, freely released due to the efforts of Sven Manguard (submissions).

The judges would like to remind participants to update submission pages promptly. This means that content can be checked, and allows those following the competition (including those participating) to keep track of scores effectively. This round has seen discussion about various aspects of the WikiCup's rules and procedures. Those interested in the competition can be assured that formal discussions about how next year's competition will work will be opened shortly, and all are welcome to voice their views then. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 18:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)