User talk:CatDamon

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Hello, CatDamon! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking

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Embedded links

Hi, I noticed that in one of your recent contributions [1], you have added a HTML link as a source. I just wanted to tell you that this is not good practice according to WP:CS:EMBED: it would be good if you could familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:Citing sources and provide complete citations of the material your are sourcing your contributions to. This is not only better for readers, but allows other contributors to check the reliability of your sources more rapidly. Cheers. JBchrch talk 21:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, thank you! Should be fixed now, I appreciate the heads up! CatDamon (talk) 22:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom/Covid

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Origins of COVID-19 and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:01, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Re. sourcing standards (cause this is a complicated issue): there are some issues within the topic which are clearly, if not strictly biomedical, then scientific. I don't think it's too much, to ask for scientific sources on scientific matters (for the same reason you wouldn't cite, say, an newspaper article about something complex like orbital mechanics - the newspaper might be unnecessarily dumbed down, or might contain some oversimplifications, or might be reporting matters which appear correct to its writer but are, if you ask an expert, incorrect). In my opinion, WP:RS already points in this direction, without having to ask for WP:MEDRS - in fact, an understanding of the purpose of Wikipedia (an encyclopedia, not a newspaper) and of the reliable sources policies already suggests that we should be using scholarly sources. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. Additional guidelines on reporting the information neutrally suggest that articles should rely on secondary, peer-reviewed sources (such as reviews, literature reviews, ...) whenever possible - at the very least, this makes sure that we are not engaging in inappropriate interpretation of primary sources. So no, I don't think MEDRS are required. I think that sources which meet the above criteria are most likely to be the best sources we have, and that we should give them precedence, especially in reporting controversial matters. That does not exclude reputable newspapers and the like, but they should be used with caution, especially when we have better sources for the specific topic. Of course, this is complicated by having to deal with material that falls under WP:FRINGE (it's both possible for something to be 'plausible' and for it to be a fringe theory or be rejected by the scientific community - it's even possible for something to be true and be a fringe theory [we have historical examples for this, like heliocentrism or plate tectonics]... - none of that excuses us from reporting what the relevant sources are saying about it).

Obviously, other issues are not readily covered by academic journals, at least as of this time. These are, indeed, often, matters of politics, calls for investigations, and recent news events. I entirely agree that these efforts are notable, and should be reported. Of course, newspapers and the like are often the best sources we have for this matter. I think, in fact, that the coverage of this might be a bit lacking in some places, because efforts to include this often coincide with efforts to include more questionable material; or even attempts to use these recent developments in the news to question or outright reject scientific matters.

The problem, and the reason why I went to ArbCom (besides some blatantly inappropriate behaviour, which doesn't need more mention), is that there seems to be persistent disruption. Some of it is due to, as I say, confusion between the two topics, as I describe on the post on Tobias' talk page. Some of it is due to a rotating cast of persistent, single-purpose accounts attempting to use Wikipedia as a platform for advertising and promoting their own views; and finally because I'm running out of patience having to repeat the same things: as I said many, many times, if sources are presented to substantiate changes in content, I will be the first one to accept them. Many of the sources used by (if you'll allow me the expression) lab-leakers have already been addressed multiple times (including based on rather strong scientific sources), found to be unsuitable for the claims they were making (non-peer-reviewed papers making exceptional claims significantly at odds with what scientists say, ...), and despite that, still being pushed without any attempt at actual collaboration to improve the encyclopedia (comments like this can be simply ignored, me thinks) - including with outright dismissal of reputable sources when they don't match with the opinions of those supporting minority views (these are common tactics of people arguing for fringe theories - I can't help but feel that much effort and patience is being wasted because of tactics described at WP:FLAT: things like "[The flat Earth theory] has been marginalised by the scientific establishment in order to protect its interests." [it's a metaphor...]).

In short, to your direct question, "do we need MEDRS for this topic", it's "we don't need them, but we prefer them if available". The rest is hopefully my explanation behind this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:29, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@RandomCanadian: Thank you for this explanation- I think I get where you're coming from a bit better now. I'd agree with quite a bit of this. Sincerely appreciated! Cat Damon 17:21, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Previous accounts

What previous accounts have you used to edit Wikipedia? Thanks, —Paleo Neonate – 06:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @PaleoNeonate:, this is my first and only account used to edit Wikipedia. Thanks! CatDamon (talk) 16:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

June 2021

Hello, I'm JPxG. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions—specifically this edit to 808Melo—because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Help desk. Thanks. jp×g 01:18, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could you elaborate? @JPxG: 808Melo didn’t produce all of the songs on this album, just those listed. That does differ from Pop Smoke’s first two mixtapes, in which he did and are listed properly. Thanks in advance! Cat Damon 01:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC) Cat Damon 01:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

COVID-19 accepted and resolved by motion

The ‎Origins of COVID-19 case request you are a party to has been accepted under the name COVID-19 and resolved by motion with one remedy which supersedes the community authorized general sanctions with discretionary sanctions. Sanctions made under the previous community general sanctions are now discretionary sanctions and alerts made under the community GS are now DS alerts. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 23:48, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]