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AfD's

I've just nominated American Freedom Coalition and World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations for deletion. Steve Dufour (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

"Notability" on Irving Hexham article?

I believe that the actual "notability" of this scholar is hardly the issue here is it? A quick search of Wikipedia easily turns up a number of some of his obvious colleagues, none of whose articles are challenged for appropriateness on that basis:

Eileen Barker, David Bromley, Douglas Cowan, Jeffrey K. Hadden, Reender Kranenborg, J. Gordon Melton, Anson Shupe,

In fact, I obtained those names from a list in an article that originally contained Hexham as well. Also, despite the fact that the recent edits were authored by an editor who chose to use "IrvingHexham" as his account name, I've not seen any direct evidence that in fact that editor actually is Irving Hexham, if [you have] concrete evidence of that, I'd like to request that [you] present it here for other editors to examine. I'm going to leave the "compiled" template in place for the moment, but without sufficient supporting evidence (especially on the "notability" issue), I intend on removing it as inappropriate, to be replaced with the templates that were already in place. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Irving Hexham for reply. HrafnTalkStalk 17:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Contact

Dear Hrafn,

Once again, before you change any more or my edits, I invite you to contact me directly through my emial which I sent you and express your concerns in a civilized way. What you are doing constitutes vandalism and is unreasonable. So why not have the courage to identify yourself. If my comments are really in violation of the spirit of Wikipeadia I am prepared to change them. As it is you make charges as a way of censoring other people's work.

Sincerely,

Irving Hexham

  • Professor


  1. The appropriate forum for discussing edits is the article talk page. The reversion of edits which other editors do not consider to meet wikipedia standards is routine, per WP:BRD, which suggests that the most appropriate next step is for you to discuss the change you wish to make on article talk and gain a consensus for that change before attempting to reimpose it.
  2. Such reversions do not constitute "vandalism" or 'censorship', and it is a violation of WP:AGF to states otherwise.

HrafnTalkStalk 06:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

False credentials

When you get a chance check out Category:Creationist museums. A whole batch has popped up with some making crazy claims. One in particular, that I point out here, is pretty annoying. A guy just up and decided he was a scientists and the wikipedia article echoed it. We66er (talk) 00:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Irving Hexham writes: to be honest I do not know if this post was intended as a response to something I said or not, but I am assuming it was. Since personal web pages may be unreliable you can check the credentials of myself and my wife (Karla Poewe) on the website of the Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. This will confirm that we are who we say we are. The relevant URL's are:

http://cmss.ucalgary.ca/fellows/hexham http://cmss.ucalgary.ca/fellows/poewe

Perhaps I should also add that the CMSS also discusses things like "Peace Studies", so it is not quite as militaristic as it sounds. Irving Hexham (talk) 13:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, unless you are the proprietor of a creationist museum I don't know about, then no, We66er's message has nothing to do with you. HrafnTalkStalk 14:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Conflict of Interest Irving Hexham

You may wish to comment here Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard Teapotgeorge (talk) 09:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Irving Hexham writes: Thank you George, I have added a comment which I hope explains things. Irving Hexham (talk) 13:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Irving Hexham

I removed the notability tag because of WorldCat's list of publications, which show over 3,000 library holdings, which means at least one widely notable academic book. I think that the CoI can be removed as Irvin now knows not to directly edit his own page like that, as it could cause problems. I will try to work with him and make sure he can put together properly sourced information. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Mary Douglas and Victor Turner

[Moved to Talk:Christian apologetics HrafnTalkStalk 15:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)]

Claims of bad grammar

Can you please point to the rules of grammar that you claim are being broken by me in Relationship between science and religion#The attitudes of scientists towards religion? I'm pretty the sentences are in fact quite grammatical. My writing mostly reflects my attempts to consciously avoid copying sources. --Firefly322 (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC) I've placed this on WP:3.

What this piece of 'writing' "avoids" is any mention of any of the scientists' actual opinions on the topic. As such it serves no purpose whatsoever -- which is why I originally deleted it. HrafnTalkStalk 16:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Karla Poewe

Since User Hrafn finds the following passage and its citation problematic may I suggest that in the spirit of consensus and collaboration he or she rewords it to remove the material he or she finds objectionable. The passage in question says:

"An important discovery made during research for this book was the unexpected and close relationship between Protestant Liberal Christianity[16][unreliable source?]"

The footnote reads:

[16] "Chalcedon Foundation Book Reviews, February 21, 2006. found on the Internet at: http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=254"

Incidentally, Newsweek (Feb. 2, 1981), described the Chalcedon Foundation as the leading Think Tank of the American Right. More recently Time had an article that said something similar - sorry I cannot give you the citation. Additionally, they get a lot of coverage in various books on American Religion. All this proves is that they may not be to a lot of people's taste, nevertheless they are influential. Therefore, as a source they are significant whatever one may think of their political and social views.Irving Hexham (talk) 00:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Third Party Citations for Poewe page

[Moved to Talk:Karla Poewe -- Irving Hexham please cease continuously leaving messages here that are more appropriately discussed there (or other article talk pages). HrafnTalkStalk 03:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC) ]

I apologize for this. I did not realize I was spamming your user page and will not do it again. Irving Hexham (talk) 03:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I put dispute on WP:3 that concerns you. --Firefly322 (talk) 22:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I put another dispute on WP:3 that may concern you. --Firefly322 (talk) 20:08, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Please stop

Hrafn, I have read the third opinion on Talk:The Christian Virtuoso and am aware of what User:Admiral Norton said. The tag added by you to the main article in the expectation of me apparently doing the work seems to be a clear WP:OWNERSHIP issue (which are discouraged on wikipedia). Unless you are planning to do some work on the article, please stop re-adding the tag. I want to remind you of our interaction at[1], which I do interpret as characteristic of your problematic behavior towards me. --Firefly322 (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Please Stop This, Too

Hrafn, please stop insulting other editors who are working in the area of New Thought and Self Help books. Both madman and i have been treated shabbily by you, and i, for one, don't understand your high level of hostility. You have claimed that people have insulted you, but you do not accept their calm statements that they meant no such thing, and now you are accusing people of thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that they are not, to the point that you are creating deprecating fantasies about them. I have been as patient as i can with you, trying courtesy, formality, and mild sarcasm as reproofs to your anger, but to no avail. I do not want this situation to escalate to the level of an Incivility review, and i hope that you too would wish to avoid that. Please, again, i am asking you to back off, assume good faith, stop trying to hurt people emotionally, and get used to the fact that you are not the only person editing these pages, and that for those of us who are interested in these topics, your repetitious and pointless fact-tagging of articles and your mass deletions of information from Wikipedia do not appear to be the best method of showcasing your own opinions in the global marketplace of ideas. catherine yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 23:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Civility

Please be more courteous to other editors. This edit is inappropriate. If someone has made what looks like a copyright violation, you should not jump to the conclusion that it was deliberate and make a post of that nature. Fred Talk 00:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Hrafn can make life here a chore. In this edit, he refers casually accuses two editors (one of them me) of "whining" in a curt sarcastic manner. Madman (talk) 01:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In this edit you assume the material was copied from the external website to Wikipedia when it is as possible that the material from Wikipedia was copied to the external website, as it was in this instance. Note the [1] and [2] footnotes which mark it as a copy made from the Wikipedia page. The source is cited, St. Louis: History of the Fourth City (1909). On what basis do you presume that the information is not in that source? Fred Talk 14:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact that some of the material cited to it explicitly occured after 1909. It later turned out that both the addition and the external website were copied from an ealier, wholly unsourced, version of the article. HrafnTalkStalk 15:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes here they are. 3 versions, all deleted as copyright violations. Fred Talk 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Some of the confusion over this is my fault. Placing the citation to the 1909 book on events that took place after 1909 was a cut-and-paste error that i made due to having low vision -- i just picked up the wrong ref tag. Ths has been fixed, and cheerfully so, despite hrafn's nasty commentary. The real issue is that i was falsely accused of plagiarism by hrafn merely because i use a 65-character line-length text editing window to help me cope with my visual disabilty, and i forgot to unwrap the old Wikipedia text when i replaced it in Wikipedia. That is shabby and uncalled for. I have asked for an apology, but none has been forthcoming. I have asked the Oversight reviewers to delete the accusation, but they have not. So i will continue to carry my concerns to every place that hrafn has made this accusation against me and ask him to delete it or to apologize. catherine yronwode a.k.a. 64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 20:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Fred:

Catherine:

  1. The material in fact remains unsourced and, in my opinion illegitimately so:
    1. The date at which 'The Master Key System' was "published" is open to interpretation. Two dates are given in the bibliography: 1912 for the "mail order course" and 1917 for the "book format" -- with "published" generally taken to be the latter.
    2. Your "subtraction" is WP:SYNTH, and most probably erroneous -- given Haanel's date of birth, he was 45 for nearly 11/12 of 1912.
    3. The statement that "The book was heavily promoted in the pages of Elizabeth Towne's New Thought magazine The Nautilus, and by 1933 it had sold over 200,000 copies worldwide." still remains unsourced.
  2. The introduced material showed strong signs of being copied from somewhere, your edit gave no indication that it was copied from an earlier version of the article, and it existed elsewhere on the internet. This was reasonable (if not conclusive) evidence of WP:COPYVIO (an accusation I've since sticken). I have never accused you of "plagarism", nor does this policy contain such an accusation. As I did not make that accusation, I'm not in a position to withdraw it.
  3. If you were not attempting to WP:BAIT a hostile response out of me, then why did you make the immediately-preceding edit with an edit summary "it's easy to add sources. Why not do it, hrafn, instead of playing the lousy, stinking game of hostile cite-tagging? Huh? Cmon, it's fun to imrove Wikipedia." -- to which my response is that it's really easy Catherine, if you don't give a toss if the citations you give don't verify the information. Some of us have slightly higher standards.

HrafnTalkStalk 04:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Since Catherine has made an explicit legal threat (amplifying on what might be taken as a vague legal threat by stating "The legal threat is real"). I am ceasing all communication with her, per WP:NLT. HrafnTalkStalk 04:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I see no legal threats. A legal threat is threatening to take an editor here or something here into a legal forum. Saying someone here may have committed a copyright violation is a statement that goes here routinely. At threat to prosecute or sue them for making a copyright violation is a legal threat. Saying that "you have accused me of X, and X is something that other people think illegal, and this i a real legal threat to me" is not a legal threat either. We need to have some way of talking about whether something is or is not a copyright violation. Admins and other editors at Wikipedia tell people that what they've written may be -- or sometimes even "unquestionably is" a copyright violation hundreds of times a day, as they delete articles or give warnings in that connection. It helps to always word things so they don't get escalated. Hrafn, you do very well to step back from this. DGG (talk) 19:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

J. Laurence Kulp

Thank you for your suggestions here. You may be right, maybe it is best if only the ASA is mentioned. They appear to be a very credible organisation.--Another berean (talk) 07:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the ASA should be fine as (i) Kulp was a member (giving relevance) (ii) it's a notable organisation & (iii) their range of views on the issue encompassed Kulp's own. HrafnTalkStalk 07:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your assistance on Kulp's entry and shedding further light. --Another berean (talk) 08:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

More drama

Just giving you a head's up to some bullshit. Boring. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't say that I'm surprised -- she's part of a small group of editors, largely overlapping each other in Category:New Thought movement, that object strenuously, repetitively and at tedious length to WP:V, and to any attempt to give more than lip-service to it. She mainly edits under the IP 64.142.90.33. Her husband, User:Self-ref is the creator of Category:Pseudoskeptic Target, and they're both of them objecting strenuously to its impending deletion. She's now moving into the field of Creationism, having just attempted to reverse my efforts to turn Michael Dowd‎ from an WP:AUTOBIO into a balanced, well-sourced stub. HrafnTalkStalk 03:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
FYI, your favorite editor has found your prod of Daylight Origins Society and reverted it. Aunt Entropy (talk) 00:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Yeh, I saw that. I've put it up for AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daylight Origins Society. HrafnTalkStalk 04:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey, you need to Assume Good Faith. I'm sure she's fixed up tons of PRODs before this one. Tons. Really. Besides, I'm the one who's your stalker. How else would I have found such an obscure page as that one? ;) Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
It's only WP:WIKISTALKing if you "follow[] an editor to another article to continue disruption" -- so hand in your Secret Wikistalker Decoder Ring™ -- you ain't disruptive enough. :P HrafnTalkStalk 05:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read my recent edits ...

and attack me, again. I dare you. I double dare you. MsTopeka (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, as far as I can make out from your edit history, we've never crossed paths. I therefore don't have a clue as to who you are, and so have no immediate intention of attacking you even a first time, let alone "again". HrafnTalkStalk 04:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
It's Nukeh/Doug Youvan. He/she has filed an AN/I against you. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Oooooo -- I now am (or control -- it's a bit hard to work out from this & previous rantings) a "hierarchy of consortial editors". You better treat me with respect now Auntie. and when did "Doug" get a sex change to being a "Ms"? Inquiring minds want to know. HrafnTalkStalk 05:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I hope no beauty queens were harmed in the making of that sock. Why can't I be a hierarchal consortium? I guess you are right; I'm just not evil enough. *sigh* Aunt Entropy (talk) 06:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you have to be "evil" so much as to (generally unintentionally) provoke a conspiracy theorist to create a conspiracy theory around you and obsess over it. I am apparently "a consortium of editors from Kansas Citizens for Science" "who illegaly use Kansas state funds (state salaries and facilities) to try to influence the Kansas School Board elections." Impressive huh? :D HrafnTalkStalk 07:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
No fair! We are supposed to be the consortium of evil editors, not you. I'm sorry to see all the crap that's getting lobbed your way these days. Guettarda (talk) 12:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Bah! Go find your own conspiracy theory -- this one's taken. Nukeh at least is low-maintenance -- very little work is involved when a sockpuppet is kind enough to announce the fact on WP:AN. Would that all stalkers were so obliging. HrafnTalkStalk 13:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Latest updates: here & here. Can anybody match this? I think not! ROFLMAO HrafnTalkStalk 14:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems that somebody can: "Using basic confirmation holism, the article itself asserts that it meets WP:ORG. This AFD should be closed as speedy keep. --Firefly322 (talk) 14:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)"[2] -- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daylight Origins Society HrafnTalkStalk 14:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, that certainly meets the standards for Woopedia policy :-/ dave souza, talk 14:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
It isn't a full moon somewhere? Alas MsTopeka has won her last beauty pageant and he been returned to the sock-drawer. HrafnTalkStalk 15:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if you caught this one...

Your stalker, again. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

She made a similar pitch on some article talk. I told her that I thought the proposal was unworkable but that she was welcome to seek a policy change. It looks like Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) agreed with me. HrafnTalkStalk 06:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Scientific Consensus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I have heard you argue this point before, so I just wanted to know. What kind of definitive evidence do we have that the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly that life came about through an unguided process? EMSPhydeaux (talk) 16:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

<edit conflict> Eh? We don't know how life came about, though research into abiogenesis explores some possibilities. If it's evolution you're thinking about, successful descent of variations is continuously guided by natural selection. Why not look at the articles? . . dave souza, talk 16:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
In a town near you, you'll find something called a university, this university will have a library, and this library will have a science section, which will contain books and journals on subjects such as evolutionary biology, population genetics, comparative anatomy, biogeography, palaeontology, etc, etc, etc, that provide such evidence. The total weight of all this interlocking evidence (at least in paper form) could sink a battleship. If you want a short summary, then read evidence of common descent. HrafnTalkStalk 16:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey, we gots a few o' dose things here.  ;) In any case, EMS, who said evolution is "unguided"? Oh, you mean not guided by a deity. Or space aliens. Or a time traveler (the ultimate in parodoxical regress). &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;dissera! 17:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was talking about evolution. I guess I should have been a little more specific. In any case I am not asking for evidence for evolution. I know about evolution already. My question is how do we know that the majority of scientists agree that all life evolved from a common ancestor without the help of an intelligence? The fact that there are books on evolution, or that there is evidence for evolution doesn't necessarily relate to the idea that the scientific consensus is 99% to 1% in favor of evolution without some kind of intelligence. By one poll I have seen 45% of scientist agreed that "God guided" the evolutionary process, so is it really the overwhelming landslide in favor of evolution that you claim it to be, or should we rethink our positions here? I wouldn't mind a new poll myself. EMSPhydeaux (talk) 22:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The primary evidence is the books and journals I mentioned above -- and the shear volume of them (and the findings and interlocking explanations they contain). Scientific societies have, on occasion, summarised all this evidence in general statements on the topic -- List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design‎ can probably lead you to some of these. Science cannot disprove that an intelligence was involved somewhere, sometime, somehow, in some subtle way, any more than it can disprove the existence of Russell's teapot, but it can state that there is no evidence for this proposition. You are misinterpreting the poll -- it is stating the personal beliefs of these scientists, not their scientific evidence-based opinions. HrafnTalkStalk 05:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
There are a lot of books that support evolution. That is definitely a point of evidence in your favor, but this does not necessarily give us a clear picture of how many scientists actually believe that life could have evolved from a common ancestor without an intelligent designer. It is clear that some major organizations do endorse evolution, and that is probably a big reason for the support for evolution in many books, but does this give us the big picture, or does it just give us a picture of the powerful organizations? Some of these organizations are like 80% atheists. Surely 80% of scientists are not atheists.
The personal beliefs of scientists is irrelevant. There are scientists who believe in alien abduction, that Elvis is still alive and all sorts of other weird things. What matters is the scientific evidence and the scientific consensus -- which is established through peer-reviewed research, not by polling. HrafnTalkStalk 03:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
You wrote that, "Science cannot disprove that an intelligence was involved somewhere, sometime, somehow, in some subtle way." I don't know what that is supposed to mean, but the scientists who took the poll also agreed that God was involved in "man's creation." This was not some subtle intelligence.
See Russell's teapot. Also see What is wrong with intelligent design?. HrafnTalkStalk 03:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
You also wrote, "You are misinterpreting the poll -- it is stating the personal beliefs of these scientists, not their scientific evidence-based opinions." They believe it because they think there is a problem with believing everything evolved, and they intern believe that an intelligence makes more sense. If someone is willing to believe that evolution happened, surely they are willing to believe that it happened without God guiding the process when they see the evidence pointing in that direction. I guess you could be right, but we really don't know. EMSPhydeaux (talk) 21:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Your interpretation of why they "believe it" is simply unsubstantiated WP:OR -- and thus of no probative value. HrafnTalkStalk 03:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This thread has been closed as being unproductive. HrafnTalkStalk 03:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ANI

Well, Jeremy disagrees with my opinion,[3] and Firefly's started an ANI complaint about Eldereft which names you.[4] The joys of Wikicommunications. . . dave souza, talk 19:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefly322 on AN/I

A heads-up for anybody concerned that may be watchlisting this page: Firefly322 has launched a rambling complaint on WP:AN/I#User:Eldereft Engaged in negative WP:OWNERSHIP/edit war WP:TROLL activities. It is principally against User:Eldereft, but concerns Relationship between religion and science and a number of other loosely-related articles that have been discussed recently. Giving Firefly322 enough rope to hang himself on this may be a good idea, but (if I may mix my metaphors) keeping an eye to limiting any fallout, should it escalate, may also be also be a priority. HrafnTalkStalk 19:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Hanging and the detritus resulting from the discharge of a nuclear weapon in one sentence?  ;) Firefly seems just a bit distubed to me. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;dissera! 19:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you look at Hugh Ross (creationist)?

Have an edit warrior there...he's also the IP editor who first made the original edit. He's violated 3RR already. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:V

As you may see from this edit, User:Catherineyronwode‎ doesn't like WP:V, and considers any attempt to impose it to be 'hegemonic' interference. Her dislike extends to completely ignoring it on her talkpage as well, for example:

  1. claiming that "Not everything he deleted does deserve to be on its own page -- but, to give just one example, there was material on Affirmative Prayer (in the religious New Thought sense of the term) that he effaced without merging when he blanked the Affirmative Prayer page and redirected it to Prayer -- and i think that the material should be looked at with an eye to having it form one of the co-equal sub-sections on the Prayer page."
  2. "Likewise, it was okay with hrafn that Wikipedia claims that Pythagoras taught that human contact with beans was a Bad Idea. The sentence "The Pythagorean code further restricted the diet of its followers, prohibiting the consumption or even touching any sort of bean" is unsourced, makes a remarkable claim of possibly religious or pseudoscientific import -- and is completely devoid of a "verify!" tag."
    • Even putting aside the fact that I don't think I'd ever previously read Pythagoras, so had no knowledge as to his purported claims about beans, it is in fact not a "remarkable claim", but can, for example, be found in The Human Potential: An Essay on Its Cultivation, A History of Greek Philosophy and numerous other books on Google Books. While it would be infinitely preferable for all articles on wikipedia to have good inline citation, there is little point (and much WP:POINT) in starting with articles for which I know that vast (probably whole libraries, in Pythagoras' case) volumes of solid secondary sourcing exists.

TTFN, HrafnTalkStalk 08:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Hrafn, talking to yourself? ;) I've responded to her with a few suggestions,[5] perhaps the Pythagorus thing is a reference to triangles – with me as the Go Between – or maybe WP:BEANS. Anyway, my feeling is that if you can both take care with civility and work to improve Wikipedia, she can provide useful enthusiasm in working to find proper sources and expand articles. She'll have to come to terms with sourcing policies, but that should be possible. I trust you'll continue to take great care to follow policies, and perhaps go the extra mile in giving more time for improvement of articles before prodding them. Many thanks for your work in this difficult area of tackling cruft, dave souza, talk 15:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

Mediation is about finding common ground, about getting both parties in an argument to listen to one-another. That's all is it. All you need to say is "this is what I want Firefly to hear and understand", and "what is it that Firefly wants me to change in my behaviour?" The mediator's job is to try to get you to understand any valid concerns that Firefly might have, and to get him/her to understand your concerns. That's all. Don't let mediation turn into an argument. Mediation is about finding common ground, not about airing grievances.

If Firefly can clearly articulate an answer to the question "what would you have me do differently?", then you can decide upon what you would be willing to do, what you wouldn't be willing to do, and what you might be willing to do in exchange for a commitment from Firefly to do things differently. If you don't understand something, then it's Jeremy's job to try to get Firefly to clarify the request, or to try to re-phrase it. Then finally, once Firefly acknowledges and understands your concerns, you can negotiate on the "I'd do X if s/he does Y".

Mediation tends to be a black hole. Mediation tends to be a waste of time. Mediation tends to be a venue for cranks to appear legitimate. But if you insist that it stays focused on the things its supposed to focus on, you can reduce the burden and maybe, just maybe, get a useful outcome. Guettarda (talk) 15:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

A response to Catherineyronwode's repeated and fallacious accusations

[A response to this. ]

When I asked Dave for advice on whether to have User_talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal WP:SPEEDYed as a WP:ATTACKPAGE, he suggested that he try to reason with her. I did not think that this would be productive, as I saw little indication that she would even listen to anybody in any way associated with me, but gave him the go-ahead to try. This attempt at reason has clearly failed, so I am offering this blunt rebuttal to her latest baseless personal attacks. As this is her user talk page, she of course has the option to simply revert this material, but I will be posting it to my own user talk as well.

Worthless research

I'm going to be unkind and select the most ludicrously inaccurate example from her attackpage:

Example
Affirmations

Affirmatons are a form of self-talk used by secular and religious New Thought adherents, and other groups as well. (Basic Venn-diagram explanation for those unfamiliar with New Thought belefs: Affirmations is the name of one of two super-sets of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set. The other super-set of which Affirmative prayer is a sub-set is Prayer.)

The Affirmations page was said to have been deleted by hrafn without discussion. I know Affirmations one contained a mention of, and a link to, Affirmative prayer, because i once did some edits on it. The dab page Affirmation now contains no mention the meaning assoicated with Affirmations in New Thought religion or secular new Thought. Here is where the deletion occured: 

# 16:03, 30 April 2008 Low Sea (Talk | contribs)    (1,113 bytes) 
(removed terminology implying negative biases and 
removed erroneous use of supplicatory (which is 
contrary to affirmation))[an editor simply tried to 
remove the negative word hrafn had added]

["supplicatory" was a term added added by hrafn]
# 16:05, 21 April 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs)       (1,142 bytes) 
(rm self-link)  
[it became a "self-link" because hrafn had redirected 
the [[Affirmative prayer]] page out of existance]

# 22:40, 19 February 2008 Vernon39 (Talk | contribs) (1,146 bytes) 
(add link to "Affirmation" article) 
[Affirmative prayer article existed at this point, 
hence the shrt defining sentence and the link from 
the dab page]

The problem is that Affirmations was never anything other than a redirect, as can be seen by anybody with the basic research skills to inspect its history.

While none of the other examples are quite so absurd (although Affirmative prayer comes close), the almost complete lack of difs means that that page has absolutely no probative value, and would be worthless in any WP:Dispute resolution. The page therefore serves no purpose other than as a WP:ATTACKPAGE.

Catherineyronwode's specific accusations

  1. Redirection
    1. I DID NOT redirect Affirmative prayer. PhilKnight did. Catherineyronwode has been informed of this, but still insists on repeating this falsehood over and over.
    2. WP:REDIRECT is neither WP:BLANK nor WP:DELETION. Let's get the terminology straight.
    3. Redirection is accepted practice as an eventual resolution for articles that are chronically unsourced (or lack sufficient sources to establish WP:NOTABILITY). WP:PROD is also accepted practice.
    4. The reason articles get redirected/prodded is twofold:
      1. The editors who create them cannot be bothered sourcing them.
      2. These self-same editors likewise cannot be bothered watchlisting them to ensure that tags get responded to, and improvements made, before the article is eventually redirected or prodded.
    5. Her reference to WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS on articles, many of which I've never even read, is a ludicrous non sequitor.
  2. Purported 'POV'
    1. I do redirect and remove unsourced material on a range of topics.
    2. People tend to write about people and causes they disagree with, not 'efface' (to use Catherine's much-loved verb) them. If I care enough to disagree, I find reliable sources and write articles that will pass muster on WP:V, WP:NOTE & WP:NPOV on these topics. Examples include George McCready Price and Academic Freedom bills. If I had replaced the unsourced WP:FANCRUFT on these articles with unsourced WP:ATTACKPAGEs, she would have a genuine POV complaint. As things stand, she doesn't have a leg to stand upon.
    3. As it happens, I had never even heard of New Thought until I encountered a couple of articles on the subject nominated for deletion while browsing AfDs. I did a bit of digging and found a large array of articles with bad (and generally nonexistent) sourcing and unclear notability. This is what engendered my clean-up drive.
    • The enemy of a an article's existence is not antipathy, but apathy — people can't be bothered writing about the topic -- so WP:RSs don't exist and WP:NOTE can't be established, people can't be bothered sourcing the articles, so they don't meet WP:V, people can't be bothered watchlisting them so nobody opposes WP:REDIRECT, WP:PROD or WP:AFD.
  3. Incivility: this accusation is ludicrously WP:POT given:
    1. Her first comment to me contained the clear implicit accusation that I was a "DESTROYER", "lazy" and a "bully".
    2. Her repeated WP:BAITing of me (e.g. this edit summary).
  4. "Impeding"
    1. The 'value' of these volunteers efforts can be seen from her own example Affirmative prayer, which she edited nine times in Sept/Oct-07 but failed to add even a single source to this wholly unsourced article (as can be seen from its state as of her last edit here).
    2. The authority is not mine but that of WP:V & Jimmy Wales: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."
  5. I am completely unsurprised that she has "found no evidence of 'good faith' in hrafn's edits" -- as she demonstrates a complete and blinkered immunity to any facts or logic that does not match her preconceptions.

HrafnTalkStalk 06:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Hrafn, sorry I was offline last night and couldn't answer Catherine's response earlier. That's a good response to her allegations, and I've added my own reply to her talk page.[6] My current thinking is that she should be able to get the drift of what we're trying to communicate, and it's pointless going further in arguing about specific allegations at this stage. Obviously all concerned have to follow AGF and CIV, and that means we have to go out of our way to be polite and accept that she and her allies have good motives in trying to preserve information that's difficult to verify. That she got things so wrong suggests that she's simply too careless or too trusting, or perhaps had roughed the thing up and made it public before checking it. I'm hopeful that with a bit of good faith all round this can lead to useful cooperation rather than conflict. . . dave souza, talk 08:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
As you've noticed she's responded,[7] and is apparently very calm and a bit sleepy. She may review things once she's slept on it, but anyway I'd let her get on with it now and will not make any further replies to her unless requested. . . dave souza, talk 12:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. But I doubt if any force on this Earth will change her mind now that it's made up. I don't intend to attempt any further replies -- though I did embed a couple of links into my initial reply that demonstrate that her reply to it was woefully inaccurate on a couple of points (my information on Affirmations was based on the latest, and at time of me writing this still current version of her attack page, and that she had in fact been previously informed as to her erroneous claims about Affirmative prayer). HrafnTalkStalk 12:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I noticed. No doubt she'll do some housekeeping when she wakes up. . . dave souza, talk 13:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Stop

Hrafn, please stop tagging articles I work on (e.g., Jasper Cortenus Massee). There are serious WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF faith issues between us such as WP:TROLL as on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McDonald's Menu Song. Because of our past dealings, your tags are not impartial. --Firefly322 (talk) 08:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC) I have placed an incident report on [8] about this. --Firefly322 (talk) 08:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[Sctratchpad

[Please excuse the mess HrafnTalkStalk 12:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC) ]

Posted a civility complaint, Hrafn

Hrafn, I have posted a complaint at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Hrafn to open a discussion concerning your ongoing lack of civility. Thanks, Madman (talk) 15:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

My, that was quick! [9] I've commented there, and remind you that you should be very polite in dealing with these people. Of course WP:SPADE is still appropriate when applied with care. . . dave souza, talk 16:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Dave, how come every time someone mentions hrafn, you immediately post and defend hrafn or criticise the one who criticizes him? Are the two of you friends outside of Wikipedia? As an admin, are you being neutral here? cat yronwode

Hi, Hrafn, just came by to say that my efforts seem to have fallen on stony ground, and in my opinion you both need to read No angry mastodons and relax a bit.... oh, look who's here! Cat, we have this super secret system called watchlists. In my opinion Hrafn is a very useful contributor and editor, I've less of an opinion about you but you really need to cut down on stalking people and creating arguments. This is entirely on-Wiki, and I don't even know what country Hrafn's editing from. As an admin I feel obliged to try to assist in situations like this, as a friend of Hrafn I'm not using any admin tools in this dispute. At least I hope we're friends. Seeya, dave souza, talk 21:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

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