User talk:Tryptofish

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Adminship?

Hi there Tryptofish. I just had this crazy idea that you might want to think about. I was wondering if you'd ever be interested in being an admin. You seem experienced and clueful enough. Unless you've got any hidden skeletons, I'd be happy to nominate you if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. AD 23:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Aiken, and thank you so very much! I am very flattered by what you said. I'm going to say "no thank you", for the time being, while leaving the door open for later on, like maybe a year from now. In brief, I personally do not feel ready for it yet, and I'm at a stage in real life when I temporarily cannot offer the project the additional time that this would take. I can explain all of that at greater length if you'd like, but that's the WP:KISS version. But sometime later: who knows. Thank you again for the very kind words. Best, --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Even though I've archived subsequent talk threads, I'm intentionally leaving this thread at the top of my talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

So, it's been two years since you were last asked... how about running for adminship now? It's really about time you went for it. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree (if you are interested). North8000 (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

That's awfully nice of you both, thanks. Actually, I've been asked a couple of times since then, so by now I'm starting to feel guilty about saying no. I still pretty much feel the same way, but I'll continue to think about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Even though I've archived subsequent talk threads, I'm intentionally leaving this thread at the top of my talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:52, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Now another year has passed since this request, and you are the strongest non-administrative candidate on Wikipedia in my opinion. Let me know if you are still interested in a RFA. Thanks Secret ^account 17:23, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

EEng blocked by Tryptofish, immediately following RfA.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
T-fish: I'll tell you what I've told others tempted by this siren song: Don't do it! It's a trap! That so-called "mop" they give you is a transneuroscintillator! And re the compliment paid you above: Learned Hand has been called "The greatest judge never to be appointed to the Supreme Court" (American judge, anyway -- you might remember that Solomon's nomination went into the toilet once the Senate Judiciary Committee got wind of the plural marriage/multiple wives thing). Anyway, there's something special about being the best editor who never "went Admin" (or "crossed over to the Dark Side", as we pleb-eds call it when we're sure the "Oversighters" aren't listening). EEng (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC) P.S. Who came up with the Orwellian job title Oversighter, anyway? Sounds like the menacing enforcement androids from a Star Trek episode: Old Man: You must not speak of such things, Kirk-from-the-sky! [Points to sky] The Oversighters of Revdel – they are everywhere! [gesticulates in add directions] – they hear everything! [Points to own ear.] – they have the power to erase history! [Pokes self in the eye] Ow! Crowd: [wailing in terrified supplication] The Oversighters! The Oversighters! Kirk: Erase history? How is that possible??? Spock: Captain, on Vulcan there is a legend of a lost civilization which... Kirk: Will you put a sock in it with the lost Vulcan races again, Spock? Dr. McCoy: He's dead, Jim! [hiccups] Kirk [to Scotty]: Search the sick bay again when we get off this crappy planet – McCoy must have more of that Saurian brandy hidden somewhere. Kirk [to Old Man]: But surely this, uh, ArbCom... of which you spoke – surely they can challenge the Oversighters! Old Man: No! Only the CheckUsers dare challenge the Oversighters. And they answer to Jimbo! Crowd [their terror suddenly becoming ecstatic rapture]: Jimbo! Jiiiimmbo! [Some fall to the ground, shaking their limbs and speaking in tongues] And there, children, the scroll was torn off...' EEng (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Although you've violated the one unfortunate defacto criteria in the current broken RFA process (which is to have avoided ever trying to help on difficult situations and articles) :-) You would be the best! North8000 (talk) 18:07, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Ironically, this comes just hours after I got rather annoyed at an actual mopper at WP:ANI. Truly, both of you, I'm immensely flattered by your kind words. For now, my feelings remain the same. For the future, who knows. But again, thanks for asking! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Molecular Neuroscience Article Edits

Hi, I noticed that you put a cleanup tag on the "Molecular Neuroscience" article after I offered my contributions to it. I'm just wondering whether you could give me an example as to one of the specific problems on the page so where I know where to start with some corrections? --Ksuraj3 (talk) 00:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for asking me. Let me point you to MOS:CAPS. Please give that a read, and then look at how you capitalized the name of the subject of the page, in the opening sentence, and how you capitalized the headers (titles) of each sub-section of the page. It's a matter of adhering to the format that Wikipedia requires for our articles. (If you are part of the class project that I think you are part of, I know that your class ambassador actually pointed out the issue of capitalization to the class as a whole a while back, so it's important to pay attention there.) Another thing I noticed is that there should not be a space before the inline citations of references, or between them. I haven't gone through the entire page, but there may be other things about style and format as well. It's important that you make an effort to correct these kinds of things, because other editors might come along and not want to bother to correct them for you, and instead revert all of your edits to the way the page was before you moved the content there from your sandbox. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

ASSIGN thoughts

Thank you for the kind comments on my thoughts on WP:ASSIGN; I appreciate it. I thought I'd add a couple more notes here, rather than at the ENB, as that page is a bit of a zoo at the moment.

I see Sandy is working on improving the text of WP:ASSIGN, and I've no doubt it will become better for it. However, I think what's needed most is a delivery mechanism, not improved text. As a professor, what approach would give you the most faith in the validity and importance of a sheet of paper full of advice? I can think of several ways a professor could hear this sort of information -- a colleague who is expert on Wikipedia, giving direct advice; an employee of a related group such as the WEF, with a suitable title, doing outreach; another academic in the professor's field, writing a paper or blog post about the issue. None of those satisfy all three requirements that I'd like: cheap, in our control, convincing.

I think a natural tendency when one is not being heard is to shout louder; but shouts are, if anything, ignored even more than quiet comments. So I don't think strengthening the language in ASSIGN is going to do much. Imagine you were trying to convince a colleague how to work on Wikipedia. What would you say to them? What answer can you give that can lead us to a repeatable and effective way of communicating with professors? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 05:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and +1 about the noticeboard being a zoo. I've got to say that my thoughts on what you ask are still a work in progress (and some real life demands are unfortunately getting in the way of me spending as much time on-Wiki as I would like – so I'm hearing you about colleague outreach, but I'm going to be unresponsive about it). So I'll think out loud here, for the time being, and maybe get some feedback that will help me figure things out.

Part of what I'm trying to think through comes down to carrot versus stick. The stick is relatively easy. I put some language into ASSIGN a long time ago about how an assignment that goes wrong can lead to headaches for the instructor right at the time when grades are about to go in. I know what I'm talking about there. When I was teaching, the thought of a hassle at the end of a semester was like an electric shock to Pavlov's dogs. A warning about that would definitely get my attention.

But the carrot part is tricky. How do you get someone to pay attention when they think they know more than you do, and you are just wasting their time? I'm thinking about ways to describe established editors as including people who are highly credentialed, and about ways to describe how successful class projects can look good within academia, but I find it more difficult than threatening someone about what can go wrong. Saying that editors are academic equals invites a cite needed tag, and anything about looking good in their profession invites a response of "tell me something I don't already know". (And what they really know is that scholarship, not teaching, is what will advance one's career, so there's a huge carrot for them in dumping their students and TAs on us, and not putting much thought into class assignments.) Maybe there's a limit to what an "information page" can accomplish. In the end, I think we may just end up with a guideline that leads to sanctions against classes that don't comply.

You've said how ASSIGN is something you would point an instructor towards after they had already bought in to working with the community, but not before, and I think you are right. Maybe the kinds of first-contact materials that Sage is working on could be a better place to make the initial outreach to instructors, that they would do well to work within our system. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:36, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Not being an instructor myself, I don't think I can add much that is helpful, unfortunately, though your comments all sound spot on to me. I think the very best approach would be to have someone who the professor *already* trusts talk to them; that might mean that campus ambassadors could be a key element in any communications strategy. I'll keep watching this, and if you start a conversation about this elsewhere (other than at WT:ASSIGN or the ENB, which I already watch) please let me know. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:59, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This conversation is still very helpful to me, so thanks. Yes, perhaps at some point we should ask all ambassadors to suggest personally to each instructor that they read ASSIGN. Also – and this is something I just commented on near the bottom of the Ed Noticeboard – Wikipedia:Training/core/Medical topics 3 strikes me as exactly the right kind of message to be giving all instructors, up front. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Another thought that occurs to me is that in a personal interaction with a professor, you would tailor your response to best suit that person -- if they expressed scepticism that there are any experts on Wikipedia you could give examples; if they said they planned to have students rewrite articles in a sandbox you could explain what pitfalls that entails. In a document like ASSIGN, the tendency is to address every possible fork in that conversational path. That makes it a great reference, of course, but a human conversing with the professor can provide useful answers quickly to whatever the first questions are, and hence get the professor's respect as an expert. Then they're in a position to have influence, including recommending ASSIGN.

What prompted this thought was a line in Wikipedia:Training/core/Medical topics 3: You are also strongly encouraged to discuss your plans with experienced medical editors. Some percentage will skip that step because they won't believe it's necessary; some will post but not engage much with the responses; some will engage but disagree with or misunderstand what they read. Perhaps all I'm really saying is that the power that a professor has to cause student editing means that the acculturation process by which Wikipedia trains new editors has to have more resources put in up front -- the online, policy based approach, with feedback from co-editors, just won't work in a timely way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:08, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can lead a horse to water, and all that. It's true. If we had a bottomless supply of professor-editors who had the time and inclination to serve as ambassadors, that would help a lot. But, as you say, "some will engage but disagree with or misunderstand", and when that disagreement comes from "I know better", it's going to be pretty hard to avoid a bad outcome. I don't believe that the community will tolerate it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Shameful self-promotion

Whatever you do, don't read User:Tryptofish/ACE2013! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 14:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

A more personal response on the Gage matter

All of my changes were reverted previously by EEng. I have removed EEng's advocacy in this post.[1] With all the code and broke references made by his "hack of hacks" and use of over a thousand templates and lengthy html markups I couldn't really parse the actual text properly. I have a feeling he will not react well, but I've begun doing what is necessary. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:49, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Chris. I took a look at the diff you provided here, and at the subsequent edit history. As of this time (your edit in the diff was just today), neither EEng nor anyone else has reverted you. As best as I understand, your earlier edits that were reverted by EEng, were reverted, at least in part, over disagreements about formatting, and thus, were not purely reverts about POV. As I hope you understand by now, what I'm looking for is where you or anyone else makes an edit such as the one in your diff, and that particular edit gets reverted in such a way as to indicate POV-pushing. Maybe there's a separate issue about OWN-ership pertaining to how the page is formatted, and it's an issue that needs to be taken seriously, but it's a different issue than conflict-of-interest. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Well on your suggestion I have started addressing the issues with the content, but are you sure that EEng's editorial and personal appear to readers, also promoting Macmillan, doesn't indicate it as well? [2] Or not only citing yourself with a reference, but making it more apparent even before the end of the sentence?[3] While little things like this are promotional, there are still many issues with even the most basic of notes have major problems, aside from being misused. A-G all cite Macmillan and many more of the other column also cite Macmillan and Lena. Though you might see a pattern here including the prominence of the self-citation and that according to WP:COI that the mere act of doing so is of major concern - so much so that the edit requests should have been done. But if the personal appeal cited above isn't going to convince you, than I'm about out, because that was only the tip of the iceberg, yet was the most prevalent I noticed in reading the article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again. I'm going to reply at WP:COIN with a link there to the discussion here. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:20, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Acknowledgement

Hi Tryptofish,

I'm not one for delivering kittens or stars, but I'd just like to acknowledge that I think you've done an excellent job in your interventions on the Phineas Gage article at the COI noticeboard. FiachraByrne (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so very much! I really appreciate that! --Tryptofish (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

RFC at BP About Too Much Negative Content

An RFC has been posted at Talk: BP on the subject of whether the article has too much negative content. As the de facto mediator of a recent dispute, I would ask you to respond to the RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:30, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your confidence in me, and for asking me to do this. I've decided that I'm going to stay out of it, however. There is simply a limit to how much "drama" I'm willing to volunteer for. I did take a quick look at it, and I think it's likely that, if I were to look more carefully, I would end up agreeing, or partially agreeing, with what looks like the emerging consensus that there is not too much negative content, at least not at an overwhelming level (maybe there are some specific things that could be modified, I don't know). What I just said would probably come as a surprise to some of the editors I see responding there, because they are largely the same editors I've seen in other disputes, and that's all the more reason why I think it better that I stay out of it. In the interests of transparency, however, I'm going to note this discussion between you and me, there. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for your reply and suggestion. I put some comments on the talk page of my topic. Do you have any suggestion something that a newcomer can do? Thanks!=] Fu Hung Shiu (talk) 14:39, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Excellent! I replied there, about the merge. If you would like to, I think a great place to start would be to start moving the content into the target page yourself. Beyond that, I suggest watchlisting other articles that interest you, and jumping in and making edits there, as you see fit. Wikipedia:Teahouse is also a very good place for new editors to get answers to questions. Again, I'm very happy that you would like to stick around Wikipedia after your class is over, and I'll be happy to help with anything where you have questions. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello. I have edited some of the information inside to the Temporal lobe epilepsy. What do you think about it? if you think it is okay, I will just delete my previous page. Fu Hung Shiu (talk) 03:02, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I think it's coming along well. The thing to do first is to wait and see what the other editor working on it thinks. Once she is satisfied with it, we will not actually delete the other page, but instead make it a redirect to Temporal lobe epilepsy#Neuronal loss. I can do that quite easily, if that would help. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Second opinion?

Hey Tryptofish,

I was wondering if you could take a look at the discussion going on at Talk:Schizophrenia#Another, and let me know what you think. Really, I want to know whether or not what I posted is accurate, in your opinion, because if it's not, I have no good reason to keep trying to make the point. If I'm wrong, I'd really like to know. Thanks! Rob Hurt (talk) 18:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I just commented there, and I do agree with you that you are correct. The thing to do is to spend some time on PubMed, and come up with a high-quality review article that complies with WP:MEDRS. If there isn't anything recent that focuses only on hypofrontality, then find a review within the last few years that at least mentions it, and states that it continues to be considered plausible, and cite that along with an earlier, more in-depth source. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I understand. That's what I'll do. Thanks! Rob Hurt (talk) 23:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

wikilink at Christian terrorism

The guy, named at the page "Christian terrorism", might be needing wikilink at India section, cause people usually jumps to India's section. I hadn't even saw that you edited the page, I saw it much after I made a new section. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm just following Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking. The convention for all Wikipedia articles is to link to another page only once in the main text of each page, at the first time it comes up. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:58, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Correct, this page is certainly undergoing some investigation by 2-3 users right now, except Drmies's edits I don't agree with the edits by Collect and Capitalismojo, May take sometime. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. It's been on my watchlist for a long time, and I'm continuing to pay close attention to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Nice. And then we just had this user called "Rahul Jain", basically claiming that whoever criticizes not only Jainism but also Buddhism has no right to have a word.. Sometimes think that wikipedia gets funnier than imagined. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

In my experience, religion-related editing is often very subject to editors who just know that they are right and everyone else is wrong. I guess I've been seeing it long enough that it really doesn't surprise or bother me at all. The best approach, as with any POV pushing, is to stick strictly to policies and guidelines, and never respond in anger. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

True. BTW, from the template of Criticism of Religion. I had removed "India", because it's not actually a religion, but a region. Like you know. It's probably like, we couldn't create the article for every country's violence, so people just made them about religion, adding "islam and violence", and then adding a region. Persecutions can be added instead? Bladesmulti (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Where you been? Have a look at recent changes of Criticism of Jainism. I have removed the BBC link, and replaced with other just now. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:17, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of pantheists, share your opinion if you want. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:11, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Good outcome with the criticism page. Thanks for your very helpful revisions there. I've disagreed with you at the list page. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Please share your opinion here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slavic Vedism, the filer of this issue is probably suspicious user in my opinion, filed a sock investigation against him, as he seems one. Bladesmulti (talk) 15:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for asking for my opinion, but I'm going to decline to get involved this time, for a couple of reasons. One is that I just don't feel like it, and I can see that you have already filed the proper SPI request so that other users will look into it. Another is that I'm getting concerned that my continuing to respond would be getting close to going along with canvassing. And finally, although I'm generally happy to help with content disputes, I'm not an administrator. But I wish you good luck in it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyways, will keep you informed about this and related issues. :) Bladesmulti (talk) 16:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

That's fine, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:13, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal message

Fiddle Faddleis wishing you a Merry Christmas (quite possibly a White Christmas.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.

Spread the Christmas spirit by adding {{subst:User:Matty.007/template/Christmas}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message. If everyone who got this put it on two talk pages, we would have... lots of Christmas spirit! Have fun finding links in this message!

Thanks, Tim! Much appreciated, and the same to you! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Good wishes of the season

— Keithbob • Talk • is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 14:37, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

	Merry Christmas
	Best wishes for Christmas (or any other observance you make at this time of year) and the New Year 220 of Borg 18:01, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:30, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Student Project

Hi Tryptofish, thank you very much for your welcome student message and kind guidance on the talk page! Yes, we are a group of students from China working on a class assignment of a course, learning to efficiently contribute knowledge to Wiki, and we wholeheartedly wish to make contributions while being good Wikipedians. We have talked with our course professor, who would like to communicate about the details of the assignment with you (or any of the admins that you think is proper), so may I know if it is convenient for you to give me an email address for further contacts? Thank you in advance, and Happy New Year! --Whisoseryus (talk) 08:45, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello, I am going to reply at your user talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:48, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

To Tryptofish

Many Thanks for the infomation.

The Link provided links to a developing tool. No copyright violation or mal-content is contained within. Checking referenced material in wiki, many pages link to sites informing the browser of the existence. The order really doesn't matter.

Sincerely

Robert

Robert.crayton (talk) 22:17, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Good, I'm glad it helped, and welcome to Wikipedia! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:ELNO #6 requires payment. WP:ADVERT. Possible WP:COI because editor's only activity has been adding a link to recently created (too recent for broad acceptance) $0.99 app on iTunes. Glrx (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

You should probably be telling him, not me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I did. In 4 places. Glrx (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Inquiring minds (and brains) want to know

Hey T-fish -- You may remember my making a funny some time ago about whether Tryptofish crosses the blood-brain barrier. Well, right now the issue is the brain-brain barrier, because your brain and my brain are just not connecting today. So please help me here -- I just want to be sure I understand what you meant earlier. The phrase Macmillan (PGIP) -- is that the "self-reference" you were talking about, as in the idea that an editor shouldn't use his own published work (or in this case, I guess, the published work of the editor's coauthor) as a citation, or should do so with caution, or whatever?

Again, please just tell me if this is what you were talking about, even though it seems you don't want to make an issue of it. Thanks. EEng (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi, and before getting directly to the matter at hand, I want to say that I'm glad that you came to my talk page about this, in large part because elsewhere really isn't the right place for me to talk about what has been my discomfort at disagreeing with you and criticizing you so much of late. I don't need to remind you that we have had numerous happy and cordial interactions in the past. I really like you personally. I enjoy talking and joking with you. We have a lot of shared interests under the bridge. So I've been sorry about how, after stumbling across the COIN post while looking at something else, and having decided to try to step in and help resolve it (thinking, frankly, that I was going to end up taking your "side"), I came to the inescapable and unpleasant conclusion that, so long as I was going to do what I think is best for the project, I was going to have to take you to task. I'm not enjoying this. And I want you to know that.

OK, then, to the matter at hand. Yes, that's what I had been talking about. Yes. (And I don't even know what "PGIP" stands for.) We've had that COIN kerfuffle, and its aftermath. So it becomes important in my opinion to move the page away from presenting material from the perspective of the Macmillan and collaborators sources, in part to decrease the appearance of COI, in part to broaden the page's perspectives. I'm also interested in making the page read more like most Wikipedia pages, stylistically. All those things made me want to change the wording of that sentence as I proposed on the article talk page. At the time, I used the phrase "self-reference", that I subsequently redacted. I regret that it can be construed as meaning that you might have intended it as a self-reference, and I regret the extent to which it ended up being about the editor and not the edit, and maybe a little out-y to boot. All of those unintended consequences, and they really are unintended, seem to me now to have diverted our discussion away from where it should have been all along: fixing a needlessly complicated sentence, by making it simple.

• Existing sentence: "Macmillan (PGIP)^[1] gives the text of the inscription, which was commissioned by Bigelow^{[citation needed]} in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum."
• What I suggested instead in talk: "The inscription was commissioned by Bigelow in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum.^[1]"

What I think about what's right or wrong practice is that one has to be careful about citing sources written either by oneself or one's collaborators. (I've twisted myself in knots over not editing Causes of schizophrenia for that reason, by the way. The last time I paid close attention to that page, it gave undue weight to sources written by someone who was a competitor of me and some of my collaborators. The page would have been improved by deleting a lot of bad content attributed to that competitor, and replacing it with content sourced to my collaborators. But I merely commented about it on the talk page, and then walked away.) I'm not going to go so far as to say that it's wrong to cite one's collaborators in your case. But I'll go so far as to say that it's a good idea to rewrite the sentence in question, so that the citation is an inline citation at the end of the sentence, without also devoting a phrase within the sentence talking about Macmillan by name. Under the circumstances, not only is it better practice procedurally to use the shorter version of the sentence, but it is also better writing style. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Analysis of rev 587530784

Now and then you see someone say, "Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive reply" but your reply above makes those other thoughtful, constructive posts look thoughtless and downright vandalistic by comparison.

Having said that, I will tell you straight out that you have rushed to judgment in this matter, hypnotized by CG's Being There-like mixture of nonsense word salad, offtopic edit summaries, and facile claims about things he can't possibly know anything about. It's very easy to throw out a hundred accusations of COI, promotionalism, POV, etc., hoping that one or two of them incur the wrath of the peanut gallery at COIN, but to judge the truth of the matter requires understanding what's really going on. So if you will indulge me, please follow along with this representative exercise, which I could easily repeat for almost every one of CG's edits to the article.

This post is long and sort of bossy ("Read this! Examine that!") but out of respect for my six years of stewardship of this article, and in recognition of the possibility (which I know you will not deny) that you might be mistaken in your condemnation of me, please bear with me -- and really, actually follow the links and look at the stuff I'm referring to.

First, go to the "Skull and iron" section of this version. (Except where noted this whole discussion refers to this version, which is from Dec 5. Notice that e.g. the cite refers to item 29 in the Sources and further reading of that version.) Skip down to the block quote (just to remind yourself of the note's context) then follow the link to note [B], which reads:

B. Macmillan (PGIP) gives the text of the inscription, which was commissioned by Bigelow in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum. The Jan 6 1850 following Gage's "signature" corresponds to the latter part of the period during which Gage was in Boston under Bigelow's observation."

Filling in the CNs we have:

B. Macmillan (PGIP) gives the text of the inscription, which was commissioned by Bigelow in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum. The Jan 6 1850 following Gage's "signature" corresponds to the latter part of the period during which Gage was in Boston under Bigelow's observation.

Now, one of the most infuriating things CG has done (and there are many) is to point hysterically to every appearance of a cite such as Macmillan (2000) as "promotionalism". I'm sorry, but that's just another example of his myopia. Look at the other notes. In general almost all the citations in the notes are in this so-called "Harvard style", because the notes typically...

• Comment on statements by various sources: "Smith (1890) said X, but Jones (1895) said Y." ([Z], [AA], [AH] are good examples.)
• Point the reader to (or quote from) sources giving additional detail: "Barker (1993) gives detailed discussion of Harlow's and Bigelow's views on phrenology." ([I] is a good example.)

Some notes on the Harvard style as I used it:

• I included the year e.g. Macmillan (2000) only if that particular author has more than one entry in the Sources list; otherwise I just said e.g. Johnson stated..., with no year. In either case the superscript callout takes the reader directly to the right entry in the Sources list.
• "PGIP" is Macmillan's "Phineas Gage Information Page". As a webpage it doesn't really have a publication date, so in desperation I just cited it as Macmillan (PGIP). It's item 2 in the Sources list. (And before you jump on me, per WP:SELFPUBLISH, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert...")
• I attended Harvard myself but no one there uses the term "Harvard style" -- we called it "Princeton style". I understand that at Princeton they call it "Yale style", and at Yale they call it "Cambridge style" -- unless the Oxford comma is in use, in which case it's called "Oxbridge style". At Oxford they call it "Continental style"...  ;)

You want such notes rewritten to avoid naming the source's author, but there's no way that I can see to do that, unless you want to say

The text of the inscriptions is given by . It was commissioned by Bigelow...

And -- sorry -- PGIP is the only source I know of for the text of the inscription. So you tell me: Is this promotionalism, or is it absolutely natural -- perhaps unavoidable? And by the way, by taking the notes and dumping them into random points of the article body, CG actually increased the visibility of Macmillan's name -- there were previously seven appearances, but are now fifteen.

Here's what CG achieved by removing this note:

• He eliminated the citation for the text of the inscription
• He left the reader puzzled as to what Jan 6 1850 meant. (Actually, thinking this over now, I'd move that explanation into the main article, right after the inscription quote.)
• He removed the explanation of how the inscription got there.

I am infuriated by CG's arrogance in blithely removing this absolutely appropriate content, using the edit summary two cns and no clarity -- whatever "no clarity" means. As to the CNs, as I'm sure you know the test for removal of unsourced material is that you genuinely believe that the material is unsourceable. Unless BLP is in play, WP:BURDEN is not an entitlement to slash and burn uncontroversial material that common sense implies is likely sourcable.

Did CG think these were unsourceable statements I just made up? Those CNs were put there by me, because I'm scrupulous (there are 200+ cites in the article, and six CNs) and it's infuriating (to use that word again) to find them used by CG to rack up more points on his nonsense scoreboard of my sins. What CG should have done is posted a query on the talk page. I could have answered in one sentence, and filled in the two CNs. Wouldn't that have made far more sense?

In isolation, of course, this one edit wouldn't justify my fury. But (as I will demonstrate for you in as many cases as you wish) essentially every one of CG's content removals is just like this -- excepting the ones which represent only his imposition of arbitrary and unexplained personal opinion (e.g. this edit -- especially inappropriate since a discussion was underway about that at that very moment). But we'll take that up later, along with other points raised by your post. I've given you enough homework for tonight. Please let me know if any of the above isn't clear.

EEng (talk) 10:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Just a placeholder for now, to assure you that I'm not ignoring this, because it will take me a very long time to study and understand the issues. But I'm not ignoring it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:26, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Take your time -- I appreciate it. The better you understand the sooner this travesty can be set right. EEng (talk) 18:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

My advice

EEng and ChrisGualtieri: I've carefully read EEng's comments above and analyzed the related edits as best as I could. And clearly, I've taken my time, so that I could do it without rushing to a hasty decision. This is my advice.

I won't say that I agree entirely with Chris, but I agree mostly with Chris. And no EEng, I'm not hypnotized or anything. First of all, I consider Chris' edit summary in the diff linked above: "two cns and no clarity", as EEng directly quoted it here. On that basis, Chris was not really arguing that the material was promotional of Macmillan, in this specific edit. Rather, it was removal of a rather verbose footnote that centered on two uncited assertions. I don't think that it was improper to remove it on the basis of the two cns. Under the complexities of WP:BURDEN, there were other alternatives to removal, but removal was certainly a plausible choice, and certainly not disruptive. As for "no clarity", I can quibble with Chris over the hyperbole. Maybe "not enough clarity" would have been more civil, but that's an insignificant quibble.

There's a potentially lengthy discussion to be had here, about how to handle footnotes. Where I'm coming from is my not inconsiderable experience with a lot of other Wikipedia pages. (I have a huge watchlist.) I cannot remember another page with the complexities of formatting that I see at this page, and obviously other editors have raised the same concern. There is one question, as to calling a source "Macmillan (PGIP)". I've carefully read what EEng said here. I have very low enthusiasm for expecting our readers, the general public, to have to figure out what PGIP stands for. I don't think that the name Macmillan, as it is right there, is inherently promotional, but I think that the page as a whole has too many appearances of that name and others, and the cumulative effect can give the appearance of COI, even when it is not intended. I see the page now simply cites S. Twomey, and that's a lot simpler. I will still have to examine subsequent edits and discussions to evaluate whether or not Twomey is a better source for that spot, but it certainly looks better stylistically.

Let's say, for discussion, that consensus later goes to citing Macmillan (PGIP) instead. There are alternatives available to us. As I start responding on the article talk page, you are going to see me argue for making the writing less like the narrative of an investigation, and more like, well, an encyclopedia article. So we could, for example, revise: "B. Macmillan (PGIP) gives the text of the inscription, which was commissioned by Bigelow in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum." to instead read: "The inscription was commissioned by Bigelow in preparation for the iron's deposit in the Warren Anatomical Museum.". In other words, we don't have to say in the text of the footnote who gives the text. We cite the text to an inline citation, and that's enough. It results in a crisper, cleaner sentence, and I think that's much better. Overall, I think we are going to have to move the whole page in that direction, and EEng is just going to have to get used to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

EEng's comments

My opinion was asked, and I gave it. That doesn't mean that you can keep asking until you get the answer that you wanted me to give. See also WP:IDHT, consider how calling other editor opinions "bullshit" looks to other editors, and remember that there is such a thing as a topic ban. I've read all the comments contained herein, and I'm very open to replacing the Twomey source with a better source. As for the other bullet points, I already answered them to some extent, and will address them further in discussion at the article talk page, as discussion continues in the future. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Twomey doesn't give the full text of the inscription; only PGIP does. You say, I have very low enthusiasm for expecting our readers, the general public, to have to figure out what PGIP stands for. They don't have to figure it out. They can click the superscript link to be taken straight that entry in the Sources. Can you suggest a better way to list this group of webpages in the Sources list, other than Macmillan (PGIP) (since there's no publication year)? If you think saying Macmillan (Phineas Gage Information Page) each time would be better, that would be fine. You still haven't explained how Notes material like this would be expressed without Harvard cites: Early authors attempting to estimate the extent of damage include: Harlow (1848); Bigelow (1850); Harlow (1868); Dupuy (1877); Ferrier (1878). See also Bramwell (1888); Tyler & Tyler (1982); Cobb (1940, 1943). Here reproduced from Jackson (1870), these images were commissioned by Harlow from photographer Samuel Webster Wyman and were the basis for the woodcuts seen in Harlow (1868).​ Accounts of Gage are compared to one another, and against the known facts, at Macmillan (PGIP) and in Macmillan 2000. According to Macmillan & Lena (2010, and see also Macmillan 2000)​ available sources which offer detailed information on Gage, and for which there is evidence (if merely the source's own claim) of contact with him or with his family, were limited (until 2008) to Harlow (1848, 1849, 1868); Bigelow (1850); Jackson (1870);; Jackson (1849). As to his own role in Gage's survival, Harlow merely averred, "I can only say ... with good old Ambro[i]se Paré, I dressed him, God healed him" —​an assessment Macmillan (2000) calls far too modest. See Macmillan (2008), Macmillan (2001) and Barker (1995) for further discusssion of Harlow's management of the case. According to Macmillan & Lena (2010), and see also Macmillan (2000)​ available sources which offer detailed information on Gage, and for which there is evidence (if merely the source's own claim) of contact with him or with his family, were limited (until 2008) to Harlow (1848, 1849, 1868); Bigelow (1850); Jackson (1870);; Jackson (1849). As already explained, most of the Notes' cites pretty much can't be any other way than (Harvard cite + superscript link to Sources entry), so for consistency all the cites in the notes are in this form. I can't believe we're spending so much time on such a trivial point. Let's say BURDEN "entitles" CG to remove the two (completely uncontroversial) CN-tagged statements in the note. But CG removed the entire note, including the citation supporting the main article's quotation of the inscription. So now two CN-tagged statements (that were in a Note) have been removed, and an important fact in the main article has become completely uncited (without even a CN) -- yeah, that improved the article. Please, be honest. CG wasn't carefully excising unverifiable material. He was ripping out stuff left and right without paying attention to what he was doing. He took out dozens of notes like this (and no, they didn't have CNs -- there were only six in the article to begin with), coverting scores of points in the main article from cited to uncited. And again, he didn't even bother to add CNs. That improves the article? What did he think he was doing? As noted recently on the Talk page, he later called the Cavendish map OR for being uncited, when he was the one who had earlier removed the cite that was on the map. It's insane. Let's do this next. CG said at DRN that the article carried "40 false sources" before he embarked on his mission of correction. Oh yeah? Let him list 10 of them and we'll go through them to check this bullshit claim. EEng (talk) 06:54, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I am aware of the issue of promising to bring more sources, and not having done so. I have intended all along to address that, in due course. I recommend giving some thought to what I said, above, about writing the page less like an investigation; that goes a long way towards better ways of handling the notes. I think it best that the discussion move to the article talk now, where I will go point-by-point through the section that lists a large number of specific edits. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:38, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
CG has been saying for months that other sources and views should be included, but never, ever has offered even one, other than the notorious children's book. Calling that bullshit is not a comment on his opinions, but on his behavior -- and you are (unintentionally, I have no doubt) enabling that bullshit behavior. And no, you didn't address any of the other bullet points at all -- you didn't explain how the notes could be rewritten without Harvard-style cites, you didn't explain how removing citations from content (but leaving the content) makes sense, and you didn't explain how you'd prefer the Phineas Gage Information Page to be cited, other than the way it is. But please, let's go back to article Talk page, and as plenty of charges have been made I think I should be able to demand that CG, as I've said before, put up or shut up: either he should list the "40 false sources", or apologize. Then we'll see which is bad behavior: an editor blatantly making stuff up for months and refusing to explain, or another editor calling that bullshit. EEng (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Question

Bali ultimate states that 28bytes identified himself [4]. Could you please explain to me how so. I was not able to find the place where he posted his real name. 24.6.41.1 (talk) 23:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Please read: User talk:28bytes/Archive 43#Not outing. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

To Wikipediocracy

First, please let me make it clear that, unlike many other people, I do not regard you as a monolith. Like Wikipedia, you are a collection of people, and not everyone is the same. It's obvious to me that there are plenty of thoughtful, intelligent people there, who sincerely want to make Wikipedia a better place. Indeed, I recently saw someone there tell other users not to hate on anybody, that no one had died. That was a very good thing to say, and I respect it.

Those of you who are trying to accomplish some good might want to give some thought to the graphic interface of your discussion sections. The heavy use of avatars and other graphics tends to get in the way of intelligent conversation. It reminds me of Something Awful.

But: at the same time, some users at that site are mostly there for the trolling. And some of you seem to have taken a recent interest in me. Thanks! The page view statistics on my talk page here have soared! Some of you expressed an interest in finding out who I am, so you can out me. (I'm looking directly at you, Randy from Boise.) Go for it. I dare you. You know you want to. (Or you could just take a deep breath and calm down, up to you.) Look for the bread crumbs (here??). I'll be watching, with popcorn. (Well, actually, I won't be watching that closely, because I don't really care, but I'll look in from time to time, for the laughs.) While you're at it, take a look at something I said earlier in my editing experience, when my fan club really was at Something Awful. Especially the last paragraph. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Where did I say I wanted to out you? Don't flatter yourself. Carrite (talk) 02:20, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Should I be calling 911? EEng (talk) 06:20, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it is 999 in the UK... Carrite (talk) 09:23, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

At the Vatican, if something evil happens you call 666. Or so I'm told. EEng (talk) 13:28, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

EENg, happy new year, and no phone calls needed (well, actually, I'd be curious who answers the phone at 666). This is fun: I even got some 14 year old white boy so emotional that he created User:Dare me, Tryptofish!, now reverted and blocked. Carrite, you are really too smart a guy and too talented an editor to be spending so much thought and energy being hung up on me, as you are, but I'll note that you recently said this: [5]. In that context, you were correct, and I agree with you. But in this context, I'm turning it around and saying the exact same thing to you. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:48, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Telephone 666

Beeeep. Hello, you have reached 666. For fire and brimstone, press 1. For a river of ice, press 2. To chew endlessly on someone else's head, press 3. For someone else to chew endlessly on your head, press 4. For the endless hell of telephone trees, please stay on the line. To speak with a customer service representative, press 0. If you meant to call purgatory, please hang up and dial 777.

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

"The Engineer in Hell" (A tenuously apropos tale)

An engineer dies and goes to hell. Disappointed at first, he soon determines to make the best of the situation by embarking on a program of improvements: escalators, air conditioning, energy-efficient lighting, a wet bar for Satan -- all the things engineers do so well.

Seeing all this, God calls in St. Peter. "Pete," he says, "That engineer -- any possibility of a bookkeeping error?" St. Peter checks his laptop. "Remember last year we changed the discount on sins of omission? Well, under the old rule he would have qualified. I suppose we could grandfather him in"

God calls in Gabriel. "Get me Satan." Gabriel dials 666 on the hotline and when Satan answers puts him on speakerphone.

God: "That engineer we sent you... there's been a mistake. Send him up here."

Satan: "With all that great stuff he's doing? You must be joking."

God: "I told you not to talk to me that way in front of the angels. Now listen. I'm still the Lord thy God, Creator of the Universe Visible and Invisible, all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. You to send him here now."

Satan: "We've got him, we're keeping him. Sorry."

God (exasperated): "Listen. If you don't send that guy up here in fifteen minutes, I'm gonna sue you!"

Satan leans back in his chair and takes a puff from his cigar.

punchline
"I see. And just where are you gonna find a lawyer?"

EEng (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Oddly enough, that story puts me in mind of my relationship with my former employer. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Would you be God, Satan, the engineer, the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker? Doctor - lawyer - beggarman - priest Indian chief? EEng (talk) 06:58, 3 January 2014 (UTC) P.S. Sounds like there's some stress elsewhere, but please don't forget that placeholder wanting attention. It's important.

I'm pretty sure that's going to depend upon whom you ask (with a sizable constituency arguing that I'm Satan). I haven't forgotten, please be patient. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I AM being patient! Who says I'm not patient?!? And I'm not being defensive! I hate it when people say that. "You're being defensive," they say. It's not defensiveness. Defensiveness is when... EEng (talk) 14:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Now I know who Satan really is! FYI, I'm soon going to be on airplanes for a very long time, so don't expect anything soon. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I recall a newspaper TV listing from 20 or 30 years ago: "8:00 Satan Never Sleeps (1962) William Holden. He will if he sees this one." EEng (talk)

OK, but I'm counting on you. I'm guessing you haven't actually read the article in its bizarre new state -- see this section for one of the better strings of non-sequitur sentence fragments -- but it can't stay this way much longer. I've held off because I want you to understand what's going on first.

To be honest what I'm looking for, from the example set out above, is for you to realize that you've fooled yourself about your "close scrutiny" of CG's edits -- sorry, but you can't possibly have verified the edit summary Borderline OR because no reliable source comes to this conclusion (multiple sources were cited right there -- and quoted! -- in the material removed), and I assume you didn't realize that what remove lengthy quote did was remove the single most essential quote in the entire article i.e. Harlow's "He is fitful, irreverent, indulging..." description.

Once the scales have fallen from your eyes we can discuss what to do. EEng (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not my eyes have scales, and whether or not I'm a fish, I've just spent a hellish amount of time in airports and on airplanes, and I've got a life outside of Wikipedia. WP:There is no deadline. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I forget who said, "If you don't miss one or two flights each year you're spending too much time waiting around in airports." I doubt that's much comfort for you just now but at least it's amusing. Wisely insightful, too. We do seem to have piled up some unusually tangled imagery, what with the fish, the scales, Satan, the hell of airports, and so on.

Actually, there is a kind of deadline because important parts of the article have been unreadable since about Christmas, and that has to end. But at this point you're not convinced of that, and it makes me uncomfortable to proceed until you're on board (you being the only participant, it seems, other than you-know-who).

Sorry if you felt rushed, which wasn't my intent. I see your post here was about your only edit today -- thanks for taking the trouble. Get rest where you can, keep your seatback and traytable in their upright and locked positions, do not sit in the exit row if you are unable or unwilling to carry out these instructions, and be careful when opening overhead bins as contents may have shifted during takeoff, landing, and turbulence. While waiting I'll try to stick to edits that either are most necessary and/or carry the least potential for controversy. EEng (talk) 01:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration request

The arbitration request involving you has been declined by the Committee. The comments made by arbitrators may be helpful in proceeding further. For the Arbitration Committee, Rschen7754 21:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

COI Marian Dawkins

Hi, I replied your comments on the TP of pain in animals, but Johnuniq violates talk page policy removed it. This is what I said 124.149.39.62 (talk) 05:54, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know. I'm not bothered by Epipelagic calling the suggestion I made about resolving the dispute a waste of time. It's no big deal to me, and I understand where it comes from. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Gage matter

I think it'd be best for me to drop out, there is clearly no good of getting into a conflict with the editor. I think the Gage article needs a thorough cleaning and I do not like the fact that there seems to be a substantial amount of OR and that EEng's matter of being the author of numerous citations represents a problem. It's WP:OWN and WP:SOAPBOXing, but I think the prominence and other matters represent a COI because EEng's academic work is self-inserted and goes against WP:SELFCITE and this goes with WP:SELFPROMOTE and WP:COIU portions of WP:COI. The COI reading I've always stated was not one of direct self-promotion, but the non-neutral status elevation and hinges on the undue promotion of the work and the manner upon which the information and discussion is presented. I've gotten Macmillan's work and I'll just start by saying that I am really disappointed in EEng's recent battleground, ownership and attitude. There are numerous matters which need to be addressed and EEng has been pushing a strong non-neutral POV with editorializing for quite some time. I don't know what to do, so I'll just leave. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Without taking a "side", I want to say that it always saddens me when any editor feels the need to drop out of editing a particular page. As I'm sure you can see, EEng has asked me to closely examine some things, just a little way above on my talk page, and I'm still going to do it when I have enough time to do it properly. (Lately, I simply have not had that time.) All and all, I find the whole business rather unpleasant, and I somewhat regret finding myself in the position of being the third opinion. I have never doubted that you have been acting in good faith, Chris. Perhaps you may want to keep an eye out for whatever I end up concluding, when I get around to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I've spent quite a few hours researching the material, but if all my effort will lead to an equal number of hours "bickering" then its not worth it. I could just sandbox a version and try to implement it later, but that will spell more issues upon eventual integration. I just don't like to be lead on and have my sourced statements ignored and responded with only abrasive comments. I belief EEng should not be editing the article directly as a result of the matter and the "shy template" matter shows that EEng simply does not understand, and is not listening to other editors. If such small matters result in that level of drama, the actual content matter will and is shaping up to be quite ugly. Sorry to make you an unwilling 3O, but as much as I like someone watching and engaging in actual discussion (EEng does mean well) the atmosphere is just not welcoming. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand. Perhaps the best thing for the moment is for you to adopt a position of observing for a while. There's no need for you to abandon all the work you have already done, but maybe my eventual 3O will help, one way or another. Or maybe not. But you should consider continuing to watch, even if you find it best to refrain from editing or commenting for a while. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:28, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll do that. Thanks. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Jimi Hendrix mugshot image

As you commented in a previous deletion nomination of this image, you may be interested to comment on its renomination. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 21:04, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. That was quite a long time ago, when I was actively monitoring FFD, and I'm not likely to have a strong opinion now. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Changes to Bloodfin tetra

When you reverted changes, you ignored other changes besides the blanking out of uncited how-to parts. The link to aquarium care was dead, so I could not rewrite it effectively. Feel free to rewrite if you like.Gigemag76 (talk) 20:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

To keep the conversation in one place, I will reply at your talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive editing of DrChrissy

You may be interested in the recent case between DrChrissy and CYl7EPTEMA777.124.170.234.133 (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Based on a quick look, I rather doubt that User:DrChrissy has done anything wrong. I would prefer that, instead of contacting editors individually as you have done in contacting me here, you bring any matters that concern you to the proper dispute resolution venue, keeping WP:BOOMERANG in mind. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Duck Attack!

Move Like This
by 28bytes

Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:11, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks (although, usually, fish have to be careful around ducks)! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Be very careful, everybody should when ducks lay plutonium eggs. I am looking for a good translation of "awesomely weird" to German, - the Google translator offers something awesomely weird, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't swim on the German Main page: a blue duck attacks there, right now, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:03, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

back ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:35, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Pending changes 2014 RfC Proposal 12

Hello! As a result of discussion with other editors regarding Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2014, I have made a slight change to Proposal 12 to remove the so-called "exclusivity clause". For the change, see this diff. I am posting this notice on your talk page because you have already inserted comments on the original proposal, and I want to make sure you are aware of the change so that you may revise your comments if you wish to do so.

I apologize for the confusion. If you wish, you may slap me. Ivanvector (talk) 03:09, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. For me, it's not an issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

New Animal Welfare templates

Hi Tryptofish. I'm working on new templates for animal welfare - I'd really appreciate you having a look at Template Talk:Animal welfare and leaving feedback. Come and join my gang  ;-) __DrChrissy (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for asking me. I knew that this was going on, because that template is on my watchlist. Lately, between some things going on for me off-Wiki and a rather large number of things here where editors have been asking me to help with various things, I've been falling WAY behind in the editing that I would like to do. You are now on my list of things to do, please rest assured, but please also don't expect me to be anything remotely resembling prompt. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Cheers. That's fine. See you when you get there.__DrChrissy (talk) 23:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Need attention on Voltaire

If you are interested in these philosophies. Bladesmulti (talk) 20:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. Please see what I said in the section just above this one. You can always open an RfC if you need more editors to look in. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:15, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

There's an easier way

== stop the daily AN posts already... ==

Please remove [6] when the RFC closes. NE Ent 20:17, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm surprised that this would be an issue to anyone. It's not like I'm spamming anybody. It's not like there is anything unhelpful about what I have listed there. I have to say that I am disappointed and annoyed by the tone of your message to me here. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Typtofish, I've noticed that you've been tagging the RFC post on AN to keep it active. There's an easier way to do that -- you can just use the {{DNAU}} template to set it not to archive until some future date. I don't know how long you want it to stay, so I've used the default "forever" setting. Please adjust as necessary. NE Ent 20:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry; I don't take myself seriously and sometimes forget other people do. NE Ent 20:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I've slept on it, and I figured you probably didn't mean it that way. It's a perfectly understandable misunderstanding (was that an oxymoron?), and I thank you for educating me about an easier way of setting the archiving. All the best, --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Tryptofish. You have new messages at Bananasoldier's talk page.
Message added 03:38, 28 January 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Bananasoldier (talk) 03:38, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Saw it. Good! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Criticism of Jainism.

Good job. Actually, TheRahulJain keeps a watch on those pages, once he find that active editors are no more active or able to edit due to block or irrelevance. He would remove the edits.

BTW. I assure you, i don't make disruptive editing. Kindly check my reply on that same noticeboard. Bladesmulti (talk) 09:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

You can see what I said at ANI. I want you to understand something: although I'm defending you up to a point, I'm also somewhat sympathetic to some of the editors who are criticizing you. It looks like you are going to get some advice from some other editors, in the form of "mentorship". If you really follow their advice, then good. But if you just respond to them by insisting that you "don't make disruptive editing" and refuse to acknowledge that you have room for improvement, I'm going to end up supporting you being blocked. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

True. Reminds me, when elders say that "If you don't admit you are wrong, you will never be correct." Bladesmulti (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Good. I hope that it works out well for you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

So far, so good.  :-)   Question... I have exempted Bladesmulti's own talkpage from the 5-per-day limit, so they can learn the ropes, and also they can post on my talkpage without limit, as their co-mentor of the moment. Tryptofish, for your own talkpage, do you want the edit above (at 22:16) to count towards the five-per-day limitation? And going forward, during the mentorship period, do you want edits to your talkpage to count towards the five-per-day limitation? Totally up to you, I don't think it will hurt the mentorship-project no matter what answers you give. I note above you have tried to stay a bit aloof, and if you wish to continue that, it can be with or without the five-per-day enforcement, whatever you decide is best. Thanks for improving wikipedia; I've seen you around, but not gotten the chance to speak with you before. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you too, both for your kind words to me and for your very helpful work on this issue. Let's say, going forward (not retroactively) from right now, that the same 5-per limit applies to my talk page as to most pages, on the theory that it's good practice and keeps things simpler. I'm perfectly happy to help, but I think this might be the most practical approach. But I'm happy to have questions to me here from you or other mentors, however you see fit. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, danke. 22:16 therefore does not count as edit-three-of-five for 2014-01-28, so Bladesmulti can have three additional edits. At the moment, they are reading policy pages. I have given them lesson number three on wp:rs and wp:n , plus lesson four on wp:puppet and wp:canvassing. Do you think there are other lessons, besides the five pillars (wp:notbattleground / wp:npov / ((wp:copyvio ... any troubles with that one that you know of?)) / wp:nice) ... which we should be especially trying to teach Bladesmulti during this mentorvention? And is there an article that you would suggest, as a good place to try out the lessons in practice? I have effectively zero knowledge of Hinduvista(sp?), and don't know which articles/topics are the most controversial and which are the least, or which ones Bladesmulti will find interesting, and which ones boring. I can always let them make the choices of which articles we tackle, but at least for the *first* one, I'd like it to be reasonably uncontroversial, if possible. ;-)   Danke por improv' das 'pedia. — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:24, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Those are challenging questions, and I enjoyed thinking about them. The only thing I can think of to add would be WP:NPA, with respect to commenting on content and not on contributors. You asked about copyvio: I'm not sure who contributed what, but there were some issues with somebody's edits at Criticism of Jainism, material copied from the BBC, so you could look at the edit history there. As for a safe-ish article to work on, I also have a near-zero knowledge of the subject area, but here is an idea that occurred to me: Hindu art. It's a page that deals with the general area of interest, but without contentious issues (that I know of – I'll probably turn out to be unaware of something hideous), and it needs some clean-up. I hope that helps. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:46, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Genetically modified food controversies

Thanks, Tryptofish, for correcting me--you are right, I should not have checked "minor edit". I had just realized my error and was about to reverse it, but you beat me to it :) Dcm32 (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

No problem, you are very welcome! As for the more substantive content issues, I hope that we can agree about those too. A few months back, there was a huge RfC about the "scientific consensus" issue, and the language that I restored reflects the consensus of that RfC. Happy editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Gage again

I don't think anyone can call it canvassing that I'm asking you to look into this. This behavior is outrageous. Talk:Phineas_Gage#Tags_are_back EEng (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It's fine that you are asking me, and I apologize for having been so slow to look into it. I really have been thinking about it, but I just haven't had the time to do the careful and in-depth examination that it requires. As you can see from my talk page here, I have a long line of requests to me, but you are at the front of the line. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:04, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find it won't take as long as you think. In the meantime he's adding back the COI tag using you as justification. Follow the link above if that intrigues you. EEng (talk) 09:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find it's not as urgent a problem as you think. I'm traveling, and the person whose computer I'm using is having problems with their Internet connection. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:27, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I took it to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. A COI is a conflict of interest, it does not mean the article is about you. The fact EEng works for and with Macmillan and is self-citing is a problem - EEng is personally, academically and likely financially invested in this page. A COI can be made on the grounds that it raises the prominence of his and Macmillan's work and has been used to further their research. Why else was a personal appeal made? I acknowledged you were aware of the issue, Tryptofish, but Mark Miller and Binksternet noted the COI. John wanted EEng to step back from the article. EEng has reverted sourced additions and is so invested in the article - so I placed the tags back and EEng has begun edit warring to remove it - something that is prohibited and serves to show that EEng's COI is a critical problem. EEng does not respond to my inquiries and data - he's actually gone and deliberately avoided sources from other authors and is carrying the vendetta against other researchers and denounce their work and POV at every opportunity if not by outright omission. I find it positively disturbing that he'd rail against a school because of a single sentence repeating an oft noted claim. Going as far to attack Tulane University School of Medicine for mere mentioning of it. This is inherently NPOV and is a clear attack: ", curricu­lar materials at one medical school[51] go so far as to present Gage as having been "accused of sexually molesting young children"." Which is a gross misrepresentation because the document notes the accusation, not originates or teaches it. EEng should not be editing the article with such a POV and COI issue. The more I looked into it, the more it becomes apparent that the article is not NPOV. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:30, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry that the dispute has escalated in this way. I am going to follow it, and see if I can help. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

EEng and ChrisGualtieri: Thank you both for having been patient with me while I have tried to carefully review the issues that are of concern to you both. I have now looked carefully at the tags and the subsequent discussion. That is what I am going to comment on now. Next (on my own time scale, not anyone else's), I will give my reply at #Inquiring minds (and brains) want to know, above. Then, I will make comments at Talk:Phineas Gage#WP:BRD, followed by comments in various other sections of the talk page. I'm just another editor, no more, and everything I say is just one editor's opinion, but I have tried, and will continue to try, to evaluate everything as thoughtfully as I can.

About the tags: I believe that the recent placement of the tags by Chris was WP:POINTy and unhelpful. That is in spite of the fact that many of the underlying issues are real and are going to need to be dealt with. Given the discussion at Talk:Phineas Gage#Tag at top of the page, the consensus was to remove the tags and to discuss the issues. Although I realize that Chris was concerned that things were moving slowly, WP:There is no deadline and there were plenty of other ways of getting the discussion going again. (I will also say that Chris' characterization of my previous statements, in the resulting talk page debate, was not quite accurate.)

About the subsequent edit war and discussion: Both of you handled it very badly. You both violated WP:EW in removing and restoring the tags. Once the tags were there, EEng should not have attempted to revert them. Just state your objection to them on the talk page, and stating it once would have been sufficient. Now that the tags are there, I oppose removing them until all the issues have been worked out. Until then, please don't attempt to remove the tags. And the subsequent talk page discussion became an unproductive wall-of-text, in which both of you come off rather badly. You even edit warred with each other in talk, a little bit, after I left a note on the talk page warning against it. You each need to realize that it is unlikely that either one of you will convince the other. Instead, please think in terms of convincing third parties, whether those parties are me, or anyone else. Don't create walls of text, and don't do WP:The last word.

About the tone of the discussion: EEng, you need to dial it down. Whatever else happens, things like Talk:Phineas Gage#Meanwhile, back on Earth... are inappropriate in a dispute. This isn't a college dining hall, and if you were trying your hand at comedy, don't give up your day job. There are things you can safely say to me, that you should not say to Chris. If that kind of thing continues, I'm going to support having you topic banned from that article. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

See also: § My advice

Tryptofish, there seems to be some confusion here. EEng knows he has a COI and a consensus was made at COIN - which you knew of. That's what I stated, I didn't re-add the tag using you as a justification, but the fact the attempts to go by YOUR suggestion failed to go smoothly and three other editors noted the COI. My attempts to rectify it were met with abuse, walls of text and later EEng's edit warring with his own self-disclosed issues. Because the issues remain, the tags should remain. It wasn't POINTy, but I don't own those books - those were Inter-library Loaned and I had to return them. I stated way before that I was on a time-table. As I was unable to complete the work, stalled out by EEng, the tags need to be replaced until the issues can be rectified and EEng is unable of doing it. I don't think its a small matter when 483 Shy templates are the subject of the same level of abuse as the previous edit that got the "MOS Nazi" comment. I don't know how you know each other, but thank you for remaining objective. I want Gage to be GA-level and EEng probably does as well - I think it would be in everyone's best interest to ask for John and Eric Corbett to take another crack at it, knowing full well that EEng can comment and guide corrections as necessary. Those two editors are far better writers than I, and Eric could school me on it all day long, but I don't think he does that for free! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I have several things I want to say in reply. First, I want to make it very clear that, although I'm happy to discuss things and to have any mistakes I make brought to my attention, I'm going to be very strict about using my talk page as a venue to escalate the dispute, or to disagree with my advice after I have been asked to give my advice. OK, now on to the issues that you raise. Yes, I was referring to where you attributed to me, at the article talk page, the view that EEng has a WP:COI (and I was not saying that you used me as a justification for the tags). Although I did say at the now-archived COIN discussion that I didn't like a lot of the writing, and that some of it gave some appearance of COI, I have largely rejected the accusations that there is a COI. I stand by what I said about POINT, and suggest that you take it to heart. Yes, there was abusive language from EEng, and I have called him out on it. But the wall-of-text and the edit warring are equally your fault and his. EEng has been asking me about why you had indicated in earlier talk that you were going to track down some source material, and yet you did not appear to have it in hand at the time of the tags, and I have been wondering about that myself. I see now that this was due to what you said about the library loans. Thank you for explaining it, because it clears some things up. I would still suggest that you find a way to bring whatever you might have read into the discussion, although there is no deadline. I do not know EEng personally. He has worked with me in the past on other pages, and has been very helpful to me there. I also take it from some talk here that the two of us went to the same college, but at different times, and we have a cordial and humorous interaction on-wiki, outside of the present dispute. As for bringing other experienced editors into the discussion, I would welcome that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:24, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to start hatting this, because I'm not going to host complaints about one another, at that level. My advice to everyone is to work together. As for the specifics of the source material, thanks, and I appreciate the effort you put into it. My advice to you is to make use of what you have read, at the article talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I had Fleischmann's source, its how I quoted the exact pages. This one is easy to get and is local. As for Macmillan 2000, it was ILL. I made substantial notes, but I tapered off after page 150. The book had to be returned at the end of January and I was quite upset that EEng had been withholding information he knows about. This is particularly upsetting because Gage's name is repeatedly mis-spelled and the details about his life that I've read are at odds with EEng's POV. Though I believe it is fair to be upset when your posts are altered, refactored, and your own self-stricken frustration repeatedly reinserted to mock you. Not only violating 3 different guidelines, but making the conflict much worse by pouring gasoline on it. This is why I am not dealing with EEng anymore. Of the several ways in which the issue can be resolved, me and EEng working together on it is not going to happen, he burned that bridge and has no intention of working with me. I don't need an apology or anything so petty, but I expect better from a scholar. I'll gladly keep my credentials and identity out of this; I wanted the article to be GA - but 30 hours of work sometimes is a loss. You live and you learn. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

OMG!

OMG! You posted the wrong thing on ANI!! You might have wasted a sum total of seconds of wiki / admin time! Don't you know that ANI is very very important; far more important than your concern that we treat ensure respectful treatment of a recently deceased real life person!!!

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about the criticism for trying to do the right thing. NE Ent 22:15, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate your saying that! That's very nice of you. What a jerk that other person was. (I have to admit, when I saw the orange notice of a talk message, I came here expecting something else.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Well haven't you caused a load of fuss! Be more careful next time you invest your valuable time and effort to improve Wikipedia. ;-) Now go and write 100 times "I must always do 100% the correct thing on Wikipedia - there is no room for error". Sorry you got treated that way.__DrChrissy (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I saw mention of somebody using a carrot. Still trying to figure that one out. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:40, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Me too! I assumed that because I am British it was an Americanism I didn't understand__DrChrissy (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Either: carrot-and-stick, a double-entendre, or a Vitamin A deficiency on the part of the person who said it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

And who is Brad?__DrChrissy (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

OMG, you are new around here! He's our longest-serving Arbitrator. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - only started 3 years ago! Mind you, I have lived in my village in North Somerset (near to all the floods) for 24 years and I am still considered a newcomer!__DrChrissy (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

ANI is so serious and chaotic but I'm only the latter. Cheers!

...William 23:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, understood! I really wasn't troubled by what you said, so much as what someone else said. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:36, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Avatars and Flow

Moronic avatar

As you said at WT:Flow#Custom signature, inappropriate avatars will send the wrong message to potential contributors. I did wait a while for you to produce something "moronic" as an example, and then boldly created one to illustrate your post. It looks pretty dreadful to me, and I hope you will accept it as a contribution to the debate! Cheers - Pointillist (talk) 22:33, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Like, which seems like the first thing I should say in reply. Given my own userpage, I think the allusion to Eduard Munch's Scream is particularly apt. What can I say? I am suitably disgusted! And here's a smiley to boot: --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Taxonomy help

Hey Tryptofish! Thanks for welcoming me to the Aquarium Fishes WikiProject. I was wondering if you could help me with a small taxonomy dilemma I'm having. I am writing Draft:Doryrhamphus excisus, and sources contradict one another about who named which subspecies. Even FishBase seems a little iffy. Do you think you could help me sort it out? Thank you very much, --Bananasoldier (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I've made a few edits and watchlisted it. I think that all you can do with the taxonomy is to cite each of the conflicting sources, and say "this source says this, while that source says that". Two other suggestions I can think of are: if there isn't anything to say about predation, maybe leave it out. And try to change the direct quote about mating into a paraphrase, but not WP:Close paraphrase. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:46, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you for the edits and the advice! Bananasoldier (talk) 15:39, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

You are very welcome! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and one quick question please: Do you enjoy collaborations, or do you prefer going solo? Thanks, --Bananasoldier (talk) 08:08, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Oddly, I've never really thought of it that way. I guess everything here is a collaboration, sooner or later. I'm a little allergic to someone else telling me what to edit, or when, but otherwise I don't have a strong opinion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Aquaria

Hi. I noticed the sections deleted, they were copied to Wikiversity. They may stay here as well, no argue for their removal from me. I think the editor thought it was a howto, out of Wikipedia's mission (of course some can be reworded to make it a not how to). It was good faith, and the editor doesn't appear to be a deletionist either. Just clearing it up. Everyone is open to discussion. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 20:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Normally, I would see it that way too, but please look at the user talk page of the editor, as well as of his not-logged-in IP. I fully understand WP:NOTHOWTO, and, after consultation with other editors at WT:WikiProject Aquarium Fishes, I created WP:AQUAHOWTO. It's not like we're talking about medical or legal advice, after all, and there is a local consensus within a WikiProject about this content. Earlier, I went to pages where he deleted the stuff, and I carefully rewrote it all to reflect encyclopedic writing style, and gave him diffs to see what I did. I have a feeling that (based on the sheer quantity of edits in such short periods of time) this may be an editor who is not, well, neurotypical, so I want to show some sensitivity here, but I have limits to my patience. It wastes a huge amount of my limited wiki-time cleaning up after this person, and I don't have the time or energy to carefully rewrite every section that he deletes. Yes, we are all open to discussion, including me, but I have already discussed it with this person, plenty. I fully stand by my invocation of WP:IDHT (perhaps it is also WP:COMPETENCE) in my edit summaries, and if this stuff continues, I'm going to seek a topic ban. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Lemon tetra

Did you not see the wikiversity page? A project has been started called "Aquaria" with species such as this. That's where how-to belongs and the style is much more open. Also, you again ignored other edits not related to "aquarium".

Also, you should be careful calling edits disruptive; you might walk past a mirror. Gigemag76 (talk) 21:50, 9 February 2014 (UTC)