Postpostmod

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia!

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Welcome to this wonderful encyclopedia, Postpostmod! I've been an editor for a while, and I just thought I'd say hi. This is a really great project, and I hope you'll stay! To get you started off on the right foot, I have a few small suggestions of places to check out:

• The Five Pillars of Wikipedia, our most basic guidelines on how to edit and interact with other editors
• The Manual of Style, some quick pointers on the basic quality standards Wikipedia Articles have
• How to edit an article, a great starting read
• Wikilove, the easiest (and most fun) way to make friends on the 'pedia
• The Sandbox, a place to try editing without actually editing an article
• Finally, my favorite, the Ignore All Rules policy (but ignore them within reason, of course)
• Oh yes, and remember to sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~)!

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If you need any help at all with anything, don't be afraid to ask me. You can either ask me on my talkpage, or type "{{helpme}}" right onto your talkpage and then ask your question.

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Yours truly, GorillaWarfare ^talk 22:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

-- GorillaWarfare ^talk 14:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

/Archive 1

Bad science

From User talk:MastCell, have you read Doubt is Their Product? I haven't yet, but I think it would be worthwhile. Jesanj (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jesanj, no, I haven't read it. Right now I'm pursuing cases of, er, created certainty, but "manufactured doubt" is equally relevant - after all, you have to doubt all other knowledge constructions in order to embrace one as a "certainty". Let me know what you think after you've read it, I'll be interested.

By the way, I re-ordered and re-read Goldacre's Bad Science, to see what put me off it. Mostly it's the tone, which I find unpleasantly arrogant. Several Amazon reviewers felt the same way. The other thing is his concentration on gossip and talk-show experts who use science-y language. I'm sure that is, indeed, a morass of foolishness, but I feel that it doesn't qualify as science, even bad science. It's an obvious buyer-beware situation. Sort of like the right using God and Jesus to put a patina of virtue on their sleazy machinations. ;-) Goldacre does evantually get around to considering Big Pharma shenanigans, and he does it pretty well, but by the time I got there in the book I had already written him off as an intellectual light-weight rather than a reliable source.

I'm more concerned about "facts" of mainstream science, especially medicine which affects so many people, that turn out on closer inspection to be chimeras of somebody's amalgamated pet theory, incompetent science, and excellent public relation skills. Money need not be involved, although prestige usually is. I think mainstream medical beliefs have to be inspected on a case-by-case basis - it's too crude a method to simply have faith that whatever is the mainstream view, must be the synthesis of "best available evidence". Let's hope that it usually is. I'm finding that medicine is so political that it's really a buyer-beware situation too, at least for those with the education to investigate the quality of evidence behind widely-held beliefs. In those cases, doubt is a life-saver, not a money-making product.

Hope you and yours are well, so that this issue is of academic interest only. ;-) Best wishes, Postpostmod (talk) 14:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia

To learn how Wikipedia works it is often useful to try to bring a non controversial article to WP:GA. One can easily get burnt out dealing with controversial stuff. Cheers --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:37, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Doc,

Thanks for your concern and advice. I appreciate your good sense. Mostly I confine my writing to academic articles, and my leisure activity to books, art, and nature. But since Wikipedia pops up at the top of everybody's Google searches, I made an exception for this one issue where I think WP:MED grabbed the wrong end of the stick, and it will have bad consequences for readers.

I do understand that when mainstream medicine is wrong, WP is going to be wrong too.

I just think the paragraph in question is over the top, in terms of importing professional bias into WP, which most readers think is committed to NPOV.

Best wishes, hope you and yours are well, Postpostmod (talk) 17:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		Civility Award
		To Postpostmod, for maintaining a civil tone in adversity. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

All too often, I have seen minority-viewpoint editors become rude and aggressive when the consensus is clearly against them. Best wishes. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Axl, I appreciate it. Best regards, Postpostmod (talk) 01:15, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

		Best wishes for the New Year!
		Wishing you and yours a joyous, healthful, and productive 2013! Please accept a belated thank you for the well wishes upon my retirement as FAC delegate this year, and apologies for the false alarm of my first—and hopefully last—retirement; the well wishes extended me were most kind, but I decided to return, re-committed, when another blocked sock was revealed as one of the factors aggravating the FA pages this year. Maintaining standards in featured content requires vigilance, dedication and knowledge of people like you, who are needed; reviews are always welcome at FAC, FAR and TFA requests. Somehow, somehow we never ever seem to do nothin' completely nice and easy, but here's hoping that 2013 will see a peaceful road ahead and a return to the quality and comaraderie that defines the FA process, with the help of many dedicated Wikipedians! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The Teahouse Turns One!

It's been an exciting year for the Teahouse and you were a part of it. Thanks so much for visiting, asking questions, sharing answers, being friendly and helpful, and just keeping Teahouse an awesome place. You can read more about the impact we're having and the reflections of other guests and hosts like you. Please come by the Teahouse to celebrate with us, and enjoy this sparkly cupcake badge as our way of saying thank you. And, Happy Birthday!

	Teahouse First Birthday Badge
	Awarded to everyone who participated in the Wikipedia Teahouse during its first year! To celebrate the many hosts and guests we've met and the nearly 2000 questions asked and answered during this excellent first year, we're giving out this tasty cupcake badge. Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges

--Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 22:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)