User talk:MastCell

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Personal question about medication

In annoying times like these, do you prefer scotch, red wine, or perhaps even rum? (Careful; if you answer Malibu Rum, I will leave the project.) As an aside, I have a wonderful photograph from a Wal-Mart where there is an aisle that offers "Soda | Cold Beer | Warm Beer." Warm beer?! Antelan 21:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm a gin drinker, mixed with tonic, Rose's Lime, or a few drops of vermouth depending on the ambient temperature and my motivation for drinking. As second choices, I have a soft spot for certain tequilas (currently Don Julio) as well as Maker's Mark. Red wine gives me a headache and rum is too sweet. Scotch is just too puzzling: too many variables, and the more expensive ones taste like you're drinking barbecue smoke. While I'm not a big fan of Malibu (the town and the rum), you shouldn't knock the latter till you've tried it with half-and-half cranberry and orange juice. It's not bad on a hot day. MastCell ^Talk 18:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

You know, good dark rums taste an awful lot like scotch... and some tequilas, for that matter. Damn it all, hand me the bottle of 151. At least that has a distinctive taste (like burning) and mouthfeel (like burning). Antelan 02:19, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I try not to drink anything inflammable. MastCell ^Talk 03:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Warm Beer - Perhaps there is a sizable contingent of UK folks in the area. My UK friends all prefer their beer / stout / whatever warm. JimScott (talk) 06:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks (2)

Ha, I came upon this and thought "here is someone wise in the way of the Wiki", then I saw you were taking an admin break. Good on you, and enjoy it. You'll be all the fresher when you return. Best wishes, --John (talk) 01:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm trying to actually take my own advice. It's harder than I thought. :) MastCell ^Talk 18:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Be gentle with yourself - every so often I get fried and only edit the fun pages but usually come back. I used to check every single page on my watchlist every time I came to wikipedia, now I only skim the top 50 or so. Done wonders for my blood pressure though my edit count has been fatally wounded. Above all, don't leave us! Wikipedia needs dedicated admins. WLU (talk) 19:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not thinking about leaving entirely at this point. But I've been around long enough to notice that, among admins who put themselves on the front lines of thorny issues here, there are two possible endings to their career arcs. Either they get more and more fed up, irascible, and trigger-happy until they screw up, at which point their legion of detractors pounce and they are hobbled or desysopped. Alternately, they get more and more fed up until they scramble their passwords and leave in frustration. I'm trying to find a third way. MastCell ^Talk 19:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Third way: Scramble the passwords of your legion of detractors. Antelan 19:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Or a way that won't get you desysopped - reserve the right to contribute when you feel like it, quit when you don't, and do all the things that made wikipedia fun. If I get in to a particular funk, I like to pick a redlink and create a page de novo. But I consider that fun, and I can't argue with a straight face that my approach is normal. I found if I set myself rules, I ended up breaking them but if I just said "fuck it - I'm reading webcomics" I always came back after a day or two. But what works for me won't necessarily work for anyone else. Sometimes I spend a whole day just correcting disambiguation pages.

Sweet monkey jesus when you type it out it just sounds so unsexy. Which is why I contribute naked. WLU (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I'm a rarity on the AN/I boards, which probably helps. WLU (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Not true... I report you there all the time. I just don't do you the courtesy of leaving a notice on your talk page. o_O Antelan 02:20, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

"why I contribute naked." - you too? I thought it was just me! Is there a userbox for this? Tim Vickers (talk) 02:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

You could do worse than take WLU's advice, not the contributing naked, to which I express no opinion, but to avoiding the boards and other controversial areas for a while. There are lots of other admin tasks that need done, and, for the other things remember there are lots of other people out there who will carry on while you recharge. Tim, I can work on the userbox if you like; would you be willing to upload a photo of you editing in the nude? It could be great on the userbox if done right. --John (talk) 08:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry John, there's already one. It's on Tim's talk page. WLU (talk) 11:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by MastCell

I wish I'd said that. Thank you for speaking my mind. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

MastCell, you might be interested in a discussion at User talk:Antelan#MastCell's comment in response to your RfC comment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Very well put, MastCell. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Any opinion on this?

[1]. Avruch ^T 14:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I have opinions on everything. I'm making an effort not to share them quite so often, though :) I haven't been very successful so far. MastCell ^Talk 18:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This is the worst fucking wiki-break I've ever seen. LOL. You may as well just edit the articles. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha! Indeed it is, and thank goodness for that. If MastCell left too, that would be. . .highly discouraging. R. Baley (talk) 18:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm still upset that Raymond Arritt left. He had the same droll sense of humor as Mast Cell. Unfortunately, begging by me has not gotten RA back here. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I miss Ray-Ray's presence too, though he has a cleverly disguised sockpuppet who contributes occasionally.

You know, it was not intended to be a complete break, but just a refocusing. Just recently, I was "outed" and attacked on a high-profile website associated with a person whose article I've edited. What struck me most was that the site presented a laundry list of dozens of articles I'd edited or started in my early days on Wikipedia - everything from dasatinib to exchange transfusion to ischemic colitis, not to mention acute myeloid leukemia and cholangiocarcinoma, which I brought from stubbiness to featured-article status.

The point they were trying to make, I think, was that I'm beholden to the pharmaceutical industry or something. The point I took away, though, was this: I used to actually write articles. There was a time when content was my major contribution, rather than dealing with depressingly circular and predictable water-cooler politics and abuses of the encyclopedia. I'm thinking about how to get back to writing articles, and taking a break from the other stuff. MastCell ^Talk 18:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ray-Ray's sockpuppet can't be that clever, considering you and I figured it out. You do realize that "a pawn of the pharmaceutical industry" is just a method to dismiss a rational discussion. Once someone uses that term, it sounds like "neener neener" in the rank ordering of logical arguments. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Good thought

At WP:AE, you said, "Move past the idea that civility is a "law" that, if "broken", results in "punishment" from an authority figure.". There's an awful lot of sense in that. The absence of civility as a "law" results in rampant individualist assholism. The presence of civility as a "law" results in rampant authoritarian assholism. I'm coming to the conclusion that civility can't be a law: it must be a goal. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

We seem to have managed both an excess of individualist assholism and an excess of authoritarian assholism. :) In all seriousness, civility can be encouraged, rewarded, and (most importantly) modeled. It can't be mandated-or-else. Even if WP:CIVIL disappeared tomorrow, or had never existed, people would still instinctively value and respond to civil discourse. If someone is chronically rude, people will instinctively consider them an asshole and extend less credibility to them.

Instead of this natural, self-enforcing and self-sustaining form of civility, we have "civility paroles" and "WP:CIVIL violations" and "WP:CIVIL blocks". Every time I open the drop-down block menu, I see "Incivility" staring me in the face as a pre-made, one-click block rationale. That's fucked up. But I've been beating this particular drum for awhile without much effect, so I've resorted to a work stoppage, conscientious objection, or whatever you want to call it. I just won't enforce any block-based civility remedies, and I don't block people for incivility. When someone is rude to me, I try to practice what I preach rather than demanding satisfaction. But I digress. MastCell ^Talk 18:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

What a jerk. Piss off, MastCell. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ray, I am tempted to block you, but only to force you to get your admin bit back, unblock yourself, and resume full participation here. :) MastCell ^Talk 21:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Interrupting conversation rudely. Ray ray. Get your ass back here. The barbarians are at the gate again. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Why should I hang around here when Antelan is trying to make me drink Ketone Light?[2] Actually my professional life has taken some turns this summer so that I couldn't be involved regularly in the foreseeable future even if I wanted to. And with Team Drama intimating that they'll sooner or later be going after global warming cabal -- you know, those nasty folks who insist on literature references, proper weight, and so on -- who needs it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

When you say global warming cabal I assume you mean the the rational skepticism meatpuppet team? Antelan 05:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I stole MC's userbox for the RSMT. It's nice. Anyways, without RayRay, Will Connelly has to fight the good fight by himself, and they're going after him left and right. Of course, I do consider myself unconvinced of human causes of global warming. When someone explains to me why Greenland was warmer in 1150 than it is today, I might be swayed.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

If a patient's cardiovascular disease was mostly attributable to heredity, would you tell him it's OK to take up smoking? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:10, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Whenever I need my spirits lifted, I come here and you guys never fail to give me a good laugh. Bartender, another round for everyone, on me, and especially that incivil Short Brigade Boris guy. You are missed. Woonpton (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Uncivil? I thought it was blunt but fair. It's all so... subjective. :) MastCell ^Talk 21:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Please, I didn't say "uncivil" I said "incivil;" let's get it "right."  :) But you're right, it's all so....subjective... Woonpton (talk) 22:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that civility shouldn't be a law. People in Wikipedia should just toughen up. The most obvious insults are meaningless, and the most hurtful "insults" are usually accurate. Compare "you're a tendentious idiotic SOB with a stick up your a**" (or, as I was called recently, "a wackjob conspiracy theorist lunatic") to "you're a dramawhore who spends all her time on talkpages, carefully calculating what small edits you do make to articles to increase conflict and waste people's time". Of course, I raised an Arbitration Enforcement note recently on SA which included civility concerns, but the disruptive editing and battleground behavior seem much more significant. II | (t - c) 21:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

The bullshit about SA is getting out of hand. I believe every week I get to read a new whiny accusation against SA. They are amusing. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned SA only because it might have seemed hypocritical of me to say that incivility isn't a big deal, but at the same time have raised a "civility notice". I wasn't exactly targeting him with my "accurate incivility". II | (t - c) 20:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

SA does yeoman's duty in a bad neighborhood. And it doesn't help that he has to deal with admins and established editors who instinctively side with the fringies as the underdogs fighting the big bad scientific establishment. That said, it wouldn't cost him anything to be a little nicer in the way he goes about things, and it would help him get the job done more easily. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

(to Imperfectly...): I don't like "toughen up" as a strategy for community. It fails to allow for the broad range of contributors we want and need on Wikipedia. Incivility which causes disruption, of course, we need to avoid. However, incivility as a reaction to disruption is sometimes quite understandable. I'm thinking in this case of a particular editor who was the subject of some pretty serious racist horseshit, and responded to it in strong words on her user and talk pages -- at which point people whined about her incivility. There is such a thing as righteous anger, and considering that the sole currency in this marketplace is words, anger at such mistreatment should not be reacted to with condemnation of the expression. If someone uses a thousand words to say "fuck you" to me, I'm going to answer back "fuck you", because I'm terse and impatient. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 02:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the latter type of incivility is relatively rare. I suppose the question when it comes to the rule against incivility is: does it have a deterrence effect? Why or why not? I believe that incivility could be controlled if we raised the expected value of punishment higher, with the exceptions of those people who are just don't give a fuck, but I don't know if it would be worth it. (I disagree with MastCell and others above that "incivility is too subjective" – it is almost always obvious.) Anyway, I'm rambling. It's hard for people to act on the truism that politeness is an "an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy" (Schopenhauer). II | (t - c) 20:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

II, I'm not sure how you can judge uncivil comments. I live in Southern California, and we are much more laid back. I'm always appalled when I travel to New York with the way everyone treats everyone else, especially on the road. So New York's standards of civility are different than California's. That's one country with two coasts of opposite levels of civility. If we take the world, our English editors say things differently than American ones. And so it goes. I'm with jpgordon. If you're going to tell me to fuck off, do so in two words. The bullshit diplomacy bores me, and I frankly don't read it. Honestly, I read only the first sentence or two of any posting--the rest I ignore. SA has no patience to explain himself, as do I. The only reason I'm marginally nicer than SA (and that's just my opinion), is that...never mind, what I wrote would definitely get me blocked. Anyways, I don't think civility is all that clear. Passive-aggressive, but polite, comments are actually psychologically more harmful, and the person doing it is frankly mentally ill. I'd rather see a fuck you, be done with it, and move on. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "not having the patience to explain yourself" puts you in a good position in Wikipedia. We're not mindreaders. I get the feeling that I pick up on almost all incivility, but I suppose that it is subjective to some extent. Like I said earlier, the most hurtful things are often the most accurate -- does that mean they're uncivil? I don't think so, but that can be avoided by taking a show, rather than tell, approach. By the way, feel free to email me the things you don't want to say, for fear of blocking. Insults don't affect me much, and I can keep things private. II | (t - c) 23:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

IP query

I'm not very good at identifying stable IPs. Do you think 69.143.248.172 (talk · contribs) is a stable IP? (You flagged their comment at an AFD as repeated trouble.) Whois just says Comcast... but I don't know how they rotate. I'm also thinking this might be a particular editor, whose edits don't look great - but who doesn't meet my block standards absent the connection. GRBerry 19:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not particularly technically adept either, and I'm not sure how Comcast handles things. I just clicked out of curiosity, as I sometimes do when an IP leaves a snarky comment, and the threat jumped out at me. I probably shouldn't have bothered leaving my own snarky comment, but I did. I don't think there's anything blockworthy there, at least not at present. The account you mentioned isn't active, and absent more prolonged disruption by the IP a block is probably overkill. By the way, good work picking up and posting the ABC News source - it certainly led me to withdraw my objection at the AfD. MastCell ^Talk 19:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Even if an ISP rotates its pools, some IPs in those pools might be stable. My home router is attached to a UPS, so the only time it should reset IP is when I power it down for a vacation or we get a major power outage. So I prefer to identify stable IPs on behavior rather than technicals. But there just aren't enough edits for me to be confident.

With most of the related articles on my watchlist, when the source popped up on both of them and a talk page, I thought it was worth reading. Having read it, it got me off the fence I'd very strongly been trying to stay on regarding the AFD, so I knew that it was worth mentioning there. GRBerry 20:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

On that topic, I found this piece from Wired very interesting, and very good coverage of the issue as it relates to Wikipedia. I did have to smile when it quoted a blogger fulminating that the page protection was the work of "liberal Nazi admins". I suppose to a stridently conservative blogger, "liberal" and "Nazi" are the two worst epithets imaginable (in no particular order). On that basis, it's perhaps understandable to combine them, though of course the Nazis were famously illiberal and one might regard "liberal Nazi" as a ridiculously hyperbolic oxymoron. But I digress.

It just reminds me why I don't read blogs. If I want to hear someone on a soapbox self-righteously trying to out-shout everyone who disagrees with him, I'd just go to... Wikipedia. :) MastCell ^Talk 20:25, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

There are very few blogs that I read. My wifes. And personal finance blogs, as those bloggers are genuinely trying to help their readers, and keeping that sort of stuff in my mind is a good idea. My default google serach includes "-wiki -blog" to help filter the crud. GRBerry 20:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

For no other purpose than to be a completely annoying troll, I hereby recommend this blog to you both. :P -- Noroton (talk) 20:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Based on the New York Times Bestseller, of course. ;) Noroton (talk) 20:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I remember seeing Jonah Goldberg on The Daily Show promoting that book. Oops, I just revealed that I watch the Daily Show. Cat's out of the bag. :) MastCell ^Talk 21:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Surprised you don't check out DC Science or Respectful Insolence. II | (t - c) 21:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Never heard of the former. I'm a fan of Respectful Insolence, though. MastCell ^Talk 21:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

MEDRS once more

MEDMOS & MEDRS are catching fire again. JFW | T@lk 13:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Pushing

Nil carborundum ani, and all that. We need more rationalists such as yourself.

An interesting point is that, as shown here, many of the quacks feel that WP is insufficiently respectful of them, and thus they are starting their own wiki. Keep up the good work! DS (talk) 04:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, exercising the right to fork off a more sympathetic wiki is probably the most constructive approach these folks can take. Conservapedia is one of the best things to happen to the editing environment here, because it skims off the hardest core of agenda pushers. By the way, when I first started contributing to Wikipedia, you were one of the first Wikipedians I actually interacted with. Your note of encouragement, from exactly 2 years ago, was one of the major reasons I bothered to stick around and keep contributing. I don't know if I ever thanked you, but I try to keep that example and its impact in mind when I get frustrated and assume the worst of brand-new users. MastCell ^Talk 04:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

NLP

I am proposing deletion of the entire set of articles on Neurolinguistic programming. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neuro-linguistic programming. NLP is an extraordinary pseudoscience that is so successful at disguising itself as real science that it had many people fooled for a long time. I'm amazed this has gone on for so long but enough is enough. I would appreciate any help on this as there is bound to be a bitter fight - there are a number of commercial interests involved and there is evidence of some inside support in Wikipedia itself. I have a separate file of information if you are interested, but for obvious reasons that cannot go on-wiki. Best. Peter Damian (talk) 10:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Gaby De Wilde.

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Gdewilde Thanks for you attention.

Guyonthesubway (talk) 14:10, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Mastcell,

Guy on the subway seem to be looking for a reason to get rid of me.

Please see his talk page for details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Guyonthesubway&oldid=231261094#Challenge_users_to_assume_bad_faith

Gdewilde (talk) 16:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Per the banner at the top of my page, I'm going to ask both of you to pursue this dispute elsewhere. Thanks. MastCell ^Talk 17:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) A (perhaps not so quick) review of Gdewilde's deleted talk page warnings, block log, alternate accounts (User:Gaby de wilde, User:Go-here.nl, User:GO-HERE), and this thread User talk:Prodego#Lets attack user Gewilde on the page of the admin who last let off the hook—if you care to review all that (and given your latest banner atop this page, I'm guessing you won't care to, which is 100% understandable)—but if your care to check this out, I think you will see that this user is LONG overdue to be re-indef blocked or at least topic banned. Yilloslime (t) 17:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

My instinct is that you're right, though I haven't looked into it in detail as I'm trying to live up to the banner at the top of the page. Would you like to borrow my admin bit for awhile? :) I don't want it to get rusty. MastCell ^Talk 17:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your notice. I'm sure there's another admin that can help out. Cheers! Guyonthesubway (talk) 17:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Good luck in resolving this dispute. MastCell ^Talk 17:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Elonka

Hi, I think you have really brought a lot of clarity to the recall/rfc for Elonka. I am writing to ask a favor. Between the rfc and recall the discussion is a mess, which is not helping any constructive progress in any direction. I unfortunately am in transit with very infrequent and brief access to the internet. Would you be willing to use this template: {{subst:RfA|User=Elonka|Description=}} and refactor the discussion from the RfC and recall so that there is some logical order to it? I will be off-line for a few days but feel free to cut and paste anything I wrote concerning the rfc or recall, if you think it is worth it. I hope you do not mind my asking. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 17:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it might be worthwhile to rearrange the RfC for readability, but I confess that I'm completely lost in exactly what's happening and where things are. I'm probably not the one to do this since a) I've expressed an official View, and b) I don't have the time to do a really good job of rearranging and refactoring it. Sorry to punt on this, but perhaps someone else can do a better job than I would. MastCell ^Talk 19:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. But I hope you will keeep an eye on things - there are several editors who have made very reasonable and thoughtful comments but I especially appreciate the clarity you bring to the discussion. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk page Royal Rife

The contribution that I made moments ago was removed by you.

What was the nature of the "violation?" I am honestly interested in your opinion / POV so that in future a proper discussion can be conducted. Oldspammer (talk) 22:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I see that such discussion is more aptly done on user talk pages now? Is this correct? Oldspammer (talk) 22:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The talk page guidelines have been brought up with you numerous times. For the record, again: article talk pages exist to discuss specific, concrete improvements to the associated article. They are not forums for general discussion and debate, nor for off-topic rambling or material which is patently and obviously unsuitable for inclusion in a serious encyclopedia. The talk page guidelines state in their lead, in bold type: Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views.

I'm sure you're aware that there was serious discussion in the past of blocking your account because of your incorrigible abuse of article talk pages as a soapbox for various conspiracy theories. Please consider whether Wikipedia is an appropriate venue for the goals you have in mind. I believe it is not, and if you are continually unwilling to respect the talk page guidelines and the purpose and policies of this project, then I will probably ask that your account be blocked from contributing. MastCell ^Talk 22:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

In that case I was careful not to give a particular family's name. To this end, persons wanting more information would be inspired to do their own investigation into historical records.

It is true that I have not studied all of the numerous WP guidelines in minute detail. Other contributors are probably similarly predisposed to not become wiki lawyers with a full awareness of all of the paragraphs of these guidelines. I suggest that in dealings with users such as myself who are not interested in reading and committing to memory all of the WP guidelines that the specific guideline snippet of the violation be delineated to the offending contributor so that they do not have to wade through the numerous sections and paragraphs of a guideline to guess what specific item is being violated, and determine from that the suggested workaround to avoid such violations in future.

For me, it would have been more suitable to have deleted my contributions immediately, and said that this information should go onto a given set of user's or a group's talk page so that established guideline such and such is not violated by your contribution here. What I'm saying is that the guidelines that have evolved are quite numerous and lengthy. As such they constitute a huge learning curve that some users want to avoid having to undertake. My aptitudes are not in the social sciences of politics, law, manners, and such, and so I tend not to have a keen interest in these dry subject areas.

I am more interested in logic, intent, motivation, reason, and scientific understanding why and how.

A year or so ago, I wanted to try to understand why science and medicine have encountered certain seemingly political road blocks. I searched the Internet, read WP articles, Google videos and so on. When a talk page comment asks the same or similar question to this, I often feel obligated to inform the editor of my findings in this regard. My ideas are formulated by examining various sides presented in historical accounts of things--questioning everything told to me. What makes sense of these historical accounts? I'm sure that you know that I am not the first person to have opened up to the possibilities of similar perspective understandings of these historical accounts? I'm sure that some who have not invested time to investigate, confirm, and reason, jump to the conclusion that persons having unusual openness to beliefs have also jumped to conclusions without at least some logical considerations.

I have found that well-educated people tend to entirely reject a presentation as soon as one single reported item seems to conflict with their belief system. They then throw out the baby with the bath water by concluding the entire presentation is without any merit what so ever. In my view this is short sighted because if even one important fact is overlooked, it is regrettable, and may come to haunt one in future. What if one's belief system is slightly flawed? Historically it has been identified that man's beliefs have changed radically from one century to the next. Would it not be naive to think that current day accepted beliefs would not change once we are dead and buried?

I am interested in your experiences that have made your approach to investigation of things in general so completely different to mine. Do you ever question your schooling? Have you ever questioned the motivations of colleagues? Have you ever discovered something that was taught to you was inadequate, wrong, or oversimplified? Oldspammer (talk) 23:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The answers to all three of those questions are yes, as I suspect they would be for any thinking person. I am provisionally willing to discuss this further with you here so long as you will respect the guidelines for article talk pages.

One need not be a "wikilawyer" or seasoned Wikipedian to grasp the fundamental point from which all policies and guidelines flow: this is a project aiming to build a serious, respectable, and freely accessible reference work. Activity which serves that goal is appropriate. Activity which works counter to that goal is inappropriate. It's not my intention to be mean to you, but your goals (as manifest by your edits) seem to be at odds with the project's goals. MastCell ^Talk 23:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

babesiosis

The contributions I made to the babesiosis page have been removed by you. This page could use more information about up to date tests and references to some of the best treating doctors in the country. However you removed the sources saying there were questionable?? Did you not look at the source? And why have you said it's uncommon once again, you're getting some very opinionated information from somewhere rather than clinical statistics. I ask you to look at the source you removed for yourself and consider reading the test on babesiosis by James Schaller which is the only book ever written so it makes absolutely no sense to removed anything from that book. Please make the adjustments yourself or I will need to find a way to escalate this to give people proper information. Pryorka82 (talk) 11:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's the edit you insist on restoring: [3]. It relies on questionable sources and it incorporates much unsourced and incorrect information (for example, FISH is not a "new kind of blood smear"). Why don't you find a source first and then edit-war over the information? What is the source for the FISH test? What is the source for claiming that most infections are "likely latent asymptomatic infections"? Are these all sourced to ILADS?

I'll go a bit further and say that edits like [4] this indicate that you need to review Wikipedia's basic principles, including verifiability, appropriate sourcing, and neutrality, before jumping into a battle which, coincidentally, a long series of "new" agenda accounts have wanted to bring to Wikipedia. MastCell ^Talk 14:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The FISH test for babesia is new, not fish test in general. You can read about it at www.igenex.com, I think neuroscience labs is also working on one too. I posted a number of references including the patent(which is good info and even incorporates the information you've posted on maltese cross formations) on the babesiosis discussion page. The sources for babesia being a latent infection are described in "The Diagnosis and Treatment of Babesia" by Dr. James Schaller. He has many doctors post research articles on his website for free at www.personalconsult.com you can then find the full articles elsewhere (sometimes they cost money) or you can contact the researchers (or someone working with them) and they'll send you them for free.

I am fully aware of wikipedias basic principles and I ask that you do the same rather than simply write narrow sited opinions like "babesia is uncommon" and that it somehow resolves on its own when so much research and published clinical experience proves otherwise.

Be careful reading resources that may all reference one single source. Know where the information comes from or you may think you're getting information from multiple sources when in reality it's all from one source that may have a serious conflict of interest on the subject you've investigated. Pryorka82 (talk) 18:56, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've realized you're a fan of pubmed and you trust them so I wanted to point to articles that you would agree to using to update the babesiosis page. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=107933 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16725142 http://cmr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/15/3/365

Pryorka82 (talk) 18:19, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

tag teams

Elonka drafted an essay on tag teams, [5] - as you know she has claimed that you, Matchsci, Alun Ramdrake I and others tag-teamed against Jagz. It seems to me that if there is to be an essay on tag teams, we had better make sure it is carefully worded to help identify true tag teams and not well-informed editors who have reached consensus. I hope you will check this out and see if you can improve it, Slrubenstein | Talk 03:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I tried to edit it, but Martinphi is ensuring that the essay remains as friendly as possible to those who would take up the noble crusade against the wicked scientific establishment. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmph. It's just an essay. It should probably be in userspace. It should definitely have a section on distinguishing "tag-teaming" from legitimate consensus in action, especially as the ability to make this crucial distinction on the part of involved parties has been a topic of discussion. The way it's currently written, it's going to be a porch light to the POV-pushing mosquitos. But it's just an essay. Not worth losing sleep or edit-warring over. MastCell ^Talk 05:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

"Note that some behaviors described as "tag team" characteristics may not be negative, or even evidence of tag teaming. For example, it might be reasonable for the same editors to show up on the same pages, since they have a common interest in the subject matter. Similarly, it should be no surprise to find that on any give article many editors adhere to the academic or scientific consensus. "Tag team", however, describes a kind of coordinated activity that becomes disruptive, such as happens when members of a tag team collectively push a POV (especially one that is counter to the prevailing view in reliable sources), circumvent normal consensus-seeking methods, evade dispute resolution mechanisms, claim ownership of an article, or act in other ways which are disruptive to the project."

What's the beef? ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The irony... Shot info (talk) 05:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I stand corrected; the essay does make a distinction between "tag-teaming" and more innocuous alternatives. I do think this essay, no matter how well-crafted, is bound to be cited by every agenda account that finds themselves on the wrong end of a consensus, but perhaps I'm overly cynical. I guess my main point was the last one; not worth arguing about. MastCell ^Talk 05:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

No doubt on both counts (-: That's why I quit it. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:01, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi MastCell, one last plea to reconsider. As long as Wikipedia emphasizes collaboraion and consensus based editing, "tag tem" will be the epithet of choice for POV warriors. That is why i think we need a good, clear, essay on tag teaming that is constructive. I just did some editing in my own attampt to move it away from specific conflicts involving me and Elonka and to try to turn it into a meaningful essay. I sure would be grateful if you looked over it and improved it as you saw fit. Best, Slrubenstein | Talk 07:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, as predicted WP:Tag team gets thrown around by (now banned) POV pusher: User_talk:Gdewilde#WP:Tag_team_attack I don't doubt that this is just the beginning.... Yilloslime (t) 16:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Please help me

Can you review this thread? How can I have handled this better? More importantly, how can I repair the damage? GRBerry 20:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, here's the thread before it was abridged. I noticed this discussion taking place (I still have Kelly's talk page on my watchlist, apparently), but since I'd recently taken issue with other actions of his, I figured any commentary from me on his talkpage would be unproductive.

I think part of it was templating him - I understand your rationale, but for an experienced editor, being templated nearly always pisses them off. I certainly make this mistake from time to time, but when possible, even a short personalized note usually goes over better than a template for established users.

I don't think this was about you so much as about Kelly's frustration with the Edwards articles and surrounding circus. You happened to be the one to push the last of his buttons. I think your attempts to deescalate the situation were appropriate, though in the end I think Kelly probably needed to vent regardless. Querulous demands that people retract perceived slights almost never work out well on Wikipedia, and your suggestion that he simply remove the template was appropriate.

In terms of hindsight, I think the don't-template-the-regulars thing is probably the only thing to do differently. In terms of repairing the damage, I think the best thing is to give Kelly some time and space - it sounds like he hit the boiling point in terms of frustration and responded (properly) by taking a break. I think you've said what you can say - any further notes on his talk page right now will probably just make things worse regardless of their content. Let him calm down and resume editing - I think he will be back soon - and then approach him about smoothing things over. I think he'll be more receptive once he's blown off a bit of steam. Hope that's helpful. MastCell ^Talk 23:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Peace process: pseudoscience

See my message on FT2's talk page and suggesting of mediation process. I think there are some important lessons to be learned from recent incidents, and would value your input. Let me know on my talk page. See also the points I discussed with Guy. Peter Damian (talk) 06:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

trying to avoid deletion.

I'm really trying to write an "encyclopedic" article on The International House of Reiki. I've pared down anything that *I* think sounds like an ad. I'm waiting to hear from the institute's founders for the medical articles in which they were show-cased. They are trying to bring back the "spiritual practice" aspects of Reiki and wrest it away from new-agers... and they've really done a lot of good solid research on Mikao Usui.

So, I want this to be real, how much time to I have before you "ax" me? It's not physics-type-notable, I agree. It's more 'Zen'-type notable. I'll admit to being a newbie. Help is appreciated!

If you think the article is really beyond hope, how can I delete it myself?

Thanks trishi (talk) 22:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi - I've responded on your usertalk page. MastCell ^Talk 22:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

My article

Hey thanks so much for the response. I took it down since it seemed to be irritating others as well, and will work on the 3rd party coverage. They've actually had quite a bit - and it was my bad for not digging it up first, so I'll work on that. I had based what I was doing on articles like bandwidth.com and Deepak Chopra. Live and learn! Thanks loads! trishi (talk) 04:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem; sorry that your initial experience was a bit rough. If you need help or advice, feel free to ask me. The third-party coverage will be key. Just remember there's no deadline here, and decisions about notability, deletions, etc can always be reconsidered. MastCell ^Talk 05:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I am working on it! FYI, per another user's advice, have changed my user name. I'm now KyoukiGirl... just so you know! Is there a way to float an article to you for commentary 'before' setting it live? Reiki tends to get lumped with alternative healing and new age stuff, but it is really more like Qigong or yoga in many ways. Research and coverage is just starting to happen. I want to make sure that what I think is a good reference for notablility really fits the bill.KyoukiGirl (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the name change was a good idea. Just leave me a note here on my talk page if you want me to look something over. I know essentially nothing about reiki, but I can give you feedback about the Wikipedia nuts and bolts if you like. MastCell ^Talk 05:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Identifying reliable sources

I've left a note on the NLP talk page describing the problem of identifying reliable sources for possible pseudoscience. Any help appreciated. Peter Damian (talk) 15:06, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

boogeyman

From an OMM perspective, the FDA, its power grabs on supplements, proposed legislations and the armed raiders for minor vitamins, have probably been the big federal boogeyman. NIH certainly has a checkered history in OMM, some +, mostly 0 or - , but it still seems the current best hope in the US government system to me.--TheNautilus (talk) 08:29, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, the FDA is always wildly popular. The libertarians are mad because they think the free market should decide which drugs are effective and which are dangerous (not "scientists" and "randomized controlled trials"). The supplement folks are mad because the FDA exercises even a miniscule amount of oversight of their marketing operations. The health-freedom folks view the FDA as a paramilitary organization of jackbooted thugs with submachine guns and a sadistic desire to rip lifesaving vitamins from the hands of the elderly while chortling malevolently. The public is mad because of things like Vioxx and tainted heparin. The administration has systematically de-funded them and created a leadership where decisions like emergency contraception are ideological rather than scientific. Things should get really interesting when they're given oversight of the tobacco industry - any day now. MastCell ^Talk 18:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

There are others who just think that the FDA seems incompetent and often politically motivated, like all the other government agencies. The websites of just about every government organization are disorganized, most likely reflecting reflecting a lack of logical structure inside the organization (BLS and FTC have decent websites). Navigation is one thing, but others, like a lack of permanently linked pages in important spots (the Andy's take URL is not stable) are just obvious. Similarly, PubMed's lack of updating its URL for a search is absurd. They make you write your own. I've sent email after email about these sorts things, and they never get fixed.

At least the FDA is headed by a scientist, although judging by their last choice, Lester Crawford, and their position thus far, I'm not hopeful. Their decision on Bisphenol A deserves a little more ink, for example, when you've got reviews like this one. We are not so fortunate with the EPA. Christine_Todd_Whitman should go to prison for her involvment in the Health_effects_arising_from_the_September_11,_2001_attacks#Political_controversies. If wiki is correct, then the first scientist to head the EPA, Stephen L. Johnson, has only a Master's degree in pathology. The head of the energy information is an oil and gas man. The head of Health and Human services guy is a Mormon politician. The list could continue. II | (t - c) 19:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the last 8 years have seen an interesting take on environmental protection. I could go on and on about the FDA, but not feeling moved to do so at this point. The websites should be better, yes. MastCell ^Talk 21:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine Featured Topic Task Force proposal

Hey MastCell, I've just set up a proposal for a new task force in the WikiProject Medicine called FTTF, or the Featured Topic Task Force. We aim to create a featured topic for medicine, most likely to do with an infectious disease of some form (the proposals so far include polio and bacterial infections in general) and become the first medical featured topic. The proposal can be found here and further discussion can be found at the bottom of the WikiProject Medicine talk page. I've very much appreciate your comments and possibly support of such a proposal, if you'd be willing to take part! —Cyclonenim^T@lk? 13:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

"Grossly NPOV"

Go back to making edits that are "grossly NPOV"

That was too funny. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

please do this

Please remove the page protection from this page....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Neptun88 and see this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Giovanni33 This RFCU shows that he is not related. Rather than become stubborn and try to justify something, note that I am not asking for unblock, merely removal of page protection so that I can ask a question. By doing so, you become the good guy and any misbehaviour would be that of Neptune. This makes Wikipedia look good instead of being insecure and heavy handed. You can be assured that if Neptune is incivil to me, I will report it.

I am interested in Chile and wish to discuss this with him. If there is controversy about Chile, I am interested in trying to mend fences. 903M (talk) 05:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, no. This user has been banned. That means that, as a result of various abuses of this site, his input is no longer welcome under any account name. It's not a matter of civility, or incorporating Giovanni33's viewpoint about Chile, any longer. MastCell ^Talk 05:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

You are blocking my access. Please don't be so stubborn. Please end page protection of the page. Please, please, please. According to Wikipedia policy, page protection of this page is not allowed as the criteria have not been met. You may hate the guy, maybe he deserves it, but WP policies and guidelines should be followed. The fact that the person is banned doesn't give anyone the right to do anything to him...page protecting that page is not right. Neither is going to his house and stabbing him. (same analogy, overreacting). 903M (talk) 05:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't hate Giovanni33 - I don't even dislike him. In our one or two interactions, he seemed polite. But he has been banned, and it falls to various administrators to enforce that ban. In that respect, Wikipedia's policies are being followed. If you're comparing being asked not to contribute to a specific website with being stabbed or assaulted, then I'm hardly the one overreacting.

But in the interest of addressing your primary concern, which I take to be a desire to communicate with Giovanni33, I have a suggestion. Email Giovanni33. Go to User:Giovanni33 and click on the link in the toolbox entitled "Email this user" (or just use this link). You can ask him whatever questions you like. I would strongly encourage you not to act as a proxy on Wikipedia for his agenda, but you're completely free to communicate with him by email. MastCell ^Talk 18:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The Fall and Rise Of Kilmer McCully

No doubt you've heard this story, but in the context of our discussions over the medical mainstream's position towards alternative research, it's worth noting. You probably know more about the current context than I do; perhaps the press perspective is misleading (I did glance at the homocysteine article). I'll summarize: In 1969, McCully first published a paper noting a compelling relationship between homocysteine and heart disease. "He soon expanded his theory to include a probable cause of elevated levels of homocysteine: a deficiency of vitamins B6, B12 and folic acid. When these vitamins were administered to animals with high homocysteine levels, those levels plummeted, often within hours. Once McCully started extrapolating from his cellular-tissue and animal studies to the human situation, he says, 'it all began to fit together.'" By 1979, McCully was fired, and he was more than just fired -- he was blacklisted, or at least that's what he thinks. In 1990, someone finally got around to pulling up the data and he was vindicated.

One has to wonder what effect the vitamin factor in his research had on the medical community. I can't imagine it was positive. In any case, it is a good case of what Imre Lakatos called research programmes irrationally defending its "hardcore" against competing theories, rather than investigating these theories with an open mind. II | (t - c) 07:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting story. I'm not sure what you'd like me to take away from it. That it's hard to go against mainstream opinion? No question. That petty, bigoted interpersonal disputes and narrow-mindedness play a significant role in academic medicine? You can't possibly think that would be news to me. :) If your funding dries up, these places will kick you to the curb with a quickness (Mass General quicker than most). Funding decisions are made by human beings trying to predict the future - in other words, they're prone to prejudices, mistakes, oversights, and often they prove wrong in the fullness of time. That's life. It's a shame that McCully was treated so badly, since he had good data. I guess one moral is that the system is self-correcting in the long run - other groups got interested and proved his initial ideas about homocystine as an atherogenic and prothrombotic molecule to be correct.

The vitamin angle is interesting, though. One might conclude that if folate lowers homocystine levels, then folate supplementation should reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. A Natural Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About, in other words. Interestingly, most if not all major studies of folate supplementation have not found any efficacy in preventing heart attack or stroke (though I suppose you could argue that agents of Pfizer and the AMA ensured that the trials used the wrong isomer or something. :) Of course, it may be that our grains are folate-supplemented now, and so the incremental benefit of additional folate supplementation is minimal. Open question. Anyhow, thanks for the link - it's an interesting story. MastCell ^Talk 19:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Can we be slightly more precise? First, folate isn't the only vitamin related to high homocysteine levels. Perhaps it is the major one -- I don't know -- but B6 and B12 are also related. How many major studies have there been? On the homocysteine page, there seems to be just 3. One was performed on 5000 people who had survived a heart attack. Another had just 315 subjects with chronic renal failure, and used only folate. Another dealt with 3700 people who "had an acute myocardial infarction within seven days before randomization". II | (t - c) 20:02, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the studies have generally looked at secondary prevention - that is, they've enrolled people with documented cardiovascular disease or at extremely high risk for it (as people with chronic renal failure are). That's because the effectiveness of a preventive agent should be most apparent in a high-risk group. If you take a general population with a relatively low baseline risk of cardiovascular events, you'd have to enroll a zillion people to achieve any kind of statistical power. Though I know certain advocates like to paint this process as "poisoning the well" by only studying "sick" people, it's actually a basic aspect of clinical trial design. Trials of folate/B6/B12 supplementation with a clinical endpoint include:

• PMID 14762035 (VISP) was really low-dose vs high-dose supplementation, in 3,680 people with recent but non-disabling strokes. They showed a greater reduction in homocystine at the higher vitamin dose, but no effect on clinical outcomes (reucrrent stroke, heart attack, or death) in 2 years of follow-up. They did see an association between baseline homocystine level and outcomes, suggesting that while homocystine is a risk factor, it may not be a meaningfully modifiable one. Alternately, 2 years of follow-up may not have been sufficient to detect any difference that existed.
• PMID 16531614 (NORVIT) looked at 3,749 people with an MI in the prior seven days, and assigned them to one of 4 arms: folate/B6/B12, folate/B12, B6, or placebo. Again, they observed lowering of homocystine levels but no effect on clinical endpoints. This was the trial that observed a potential harmful effect of folate/B6/B12 supplementation.
• PMID 16531613 (HOPE-2) was 5,522 patients with cardiovascular disease or diabetes (the most "general" population of these 3 studies). They got folate/B6/B12 with about 5 years of follow-up. And again, they saw homocystine levels decline, but they saw no effect on their primary clinical outcomes of the lower homocystine level. They did report a lower risk of stroke in the vitamin group, but a higher risk of unstable angina/acute coronary syndrome. I think this is most likely the result of multiple statistical comparisons rather than a real effect, since it's inconsistent, but your mileage may vary.
• PMID 12821232 was a randomized trial of relatively low-dose folate-only supplementation in 593 patients. Again, folate lowered homocystine levels but did not affect clinical endpoints. Obviously, this was a smaller trial with lower-dose folate and no B6/B12, but interestingly they still managed to lower homocystine levels - it just didn't translate into clinical benefit.
• PMID 16545638 (ASFAST): This was 315 patients with chronic renal failure (an extremely high-risk group for cardiovascular events and deaths) who got megadose folate (15 mg/d) vs placebo. They actually used a surrogate endpoint - change in carotid-artery intima-media thickness, a marker of atherosclerotic burden - and failed to observe any improvement despite, once again, a clear lowering of plasma homocystine levels with folate.
• PMID 17848650: A VA trial enrolling 2,056 people with chronic renal failure and high baseline homocystine levels. They got folate/B6/B12 vs. placebo for about 3+ years of follow-up. And again, vitamins did lower plasma homocystine levels, but had no effect on clinical outcomes.
• PMID 18460663: 5,422 people with either existing cardiovascular disease or multiple risk factors were randomized to folate/B6/B12 vs. placebo. With 7 years of follow-up, there was no significant difference in clinical outcomes between the vitamin and placebo groups.
• PMID 17164458: A meta-analysis of 12 randomized, controlled trials studying folate for prevention of cardiovascular disease. Even when pooling these trial datasets, totalling nearly 17,000 patients, the authors were unable to find any effect of folate/vitamin supplementation on cardiovascular outcomes or mortality.
• PMID 17544768: This was a meta-analysis of 8 RCT's reporting stroke as an endpoint. They found a possible preventive effect of folate supplementation on stroke, though the 95% confidence interval crossed 1.0 so it was a fairly weak effect statistically speaking. Interestingly, they found a large effect in populations without grain fortification, which suggests that we may already be getting whatever benefit folate provides as a result of fortified bread, and that extra supplementation may not add much benefit.

So there you have it (at least, those are the major trials and meta-analyses that I'm aware of and have looked at recently). There is a remarkably consistent body of high-quality literature, in the form of numerous large randomized controlled trials, which indicate that folate (and B6/B12) supplementation can effectively lower plasma homocystine levels, but does not have an appreciable effect on real, clinical outcomes. That's quite a body of evidence arguing against folate supplementation. I don't need to tell you that if, say, statins had even one large negative trial like these, we'd hear an endless drumbeat about how useless they are. Actually, we hear that drumbeat regardless. :)

Let me play devil's advocate: with the current shoestring budget for medical research, how much more money do you think should be spent investigating this aspect of vitamin supplementation as opposed to some more novel or promising approach to cardiovascular disease prevention? If you think more study is warranted, how would you design a clinical trial to ask and answer questions that the above studies have not? MastCell ^Talk 16:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for such an in-depth reply. Hopefully you didn't feel pressured into it. I agree that the evidence you've presented is quite compelling -- I would have agreed to that earlier as well. I also don't think there's a shoestring budget for medical research, although there could always be more. I'm concerned that many of these trials were redundant, and avoid going to directly to the next relevant question. Since the first large trial, we can be fairly certain that folate/b6/b12 don't do much for random people with cardiovascular disease. An existing question is what they do for regular people in the low-normal range of these nutrients, or normal people with high homocysteine. Maybe a zillion people would have be enrolled, or maybe just 30k. My impression is that studies which replicate other high-powered studies which came to a conclusive answer are a waste of money. It's called "declining marginal returns". Instead of hitting one question over and over, it is best to move onto another question which has received less attention, even if you have to spend extra money to do it.

I don't think your question is a devil's advocate one though. For you, playing devil's advocate require would imply trying to argue the flaws in these studies. One obvious potential flaw is that if you start lowering homocysteine when the damage is already apparent, then the damage has already been done. Possibly a sharp shift in something which the body has accustomed itself to (high homocysteine) disrupts the body's equilibrium in a harmful way. Are there any methodological critiques of some of these studies? Usually there is. If there isn't, then it is probably a dead end right now. I don't know that I'd do any more clinical trials until more low-level biochemical research has been done in clarifying what exactly is going on. Another idea is to try the diet mentioned in that article which "would include many natural sources of B-vitamins like fresh fruits and vegetables and would limit animal protein". Of course, the opens up a lot of confounding variables.

You note on the first there that baseline homocysteine was correlated, and that that suggests that it might not be modifiable. Do you mean by baseline "initial homocysteine"? Because if you do ... well, there's nothing about "initial baseline" that seems non-modifiable. Some people could have taken vitamin supplements right before the trial, and their homocysteine levels would have been modified. Anyway, it certainly seems mysterious. II | (t - c) 20:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

No, no pressure - I actually find it useful to revisit the primary literature from time to time. As to the budget for medical research in this country, it's stagnated dramatically since, oh, let's say 21 January 2001. I've seen a number of promising ideas go uninvestigated for lack of funding, and more concerning is that the next generation of researchers is being hit pretty hard. Promising investigators who don't get that first career-development grant end up in private practice or driven into the waiting arms of the drug industry, which is happy to step in with funding the government can no longer supply. Of course, then you get research that serves the ends of the pharmaceutical industry, which do not always overlap with those of the general public. If the government abdicates a role in funding medical research, which it absolutely has done over the past 8 years, then other players will step up, but it will come with a price.

It's an interesting academic question whether folate has any benefit for "normal", healthy people. It would take me a while to dig up actual numbers to calculate statistical power, but the absolute rate of MI/stroke in the general population at age 50 or so is not that high. Even a relatively large benefit from folate would be hard to detect without a huge sample size. What do you think it costs to screen, enroll, register, and follow "only" 30,000 patients for 5 or 10 years? What sort of infrastructure does that require? How about data analysis? That's a major undertaking. Any responsible funding agency has to consider whether that money might be better spent elsewhere.

Sure, maybe the problem with the studies is that "the damage has been done". Of course, the statin studies show pretty convincingly that existing cardiovascular disease can be stabilized or reversed, and that clinical outcomes can be improved, and they're most effective in secondary prevention (i.e. in people with existing cardiovascular disease). But maybe folate/homocystine is different. There are any number of possible holes you can poke in these studies - you've seen the orthomolecular medicine talk page - they used the wrong dose, or the wrong combination of vitamins, or the wrong study population, or the wrong follow-up period, etc. The reason I asked you how you'd design a trial is to underscore the fact that every clinical trial is a compromise between the ideal scientific study and the ideally feasible study. A study which asks all the right questions is no use to anyone if it doesn't accrue or if it proves too complex to adequately conduct. MastCell ^Talk 23:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Many of the hyperhomocysteine patients have problems that make them resistant to lowering by the B6-B9-B12 therapy and require something stronger, e.g. grams of trimethyglycine (betaine, not betaine hydrochloride, the stomach acidulant) to reach the desirable homocysteine levels e.g. under 10 or even 7 mmol/L. Also, more recently, the Am J of Clinical Nutrition (Feb 2008) published research that having lower levels of choline and betaine, is linked with higher blood levels of inflammation markers. This is an area that is probably still not well researched yet, having lost 1-2 decades in the research scrum at Harvard (where therapeutic nutrition a la OMM was likely a forbidden phrase for all those tens of millions of dollars of grants from the processed food industry, see another OMM/Pauling bete noir). Undersaturated fatty acid phosphatidyl cholines (e.g. lecithin) seem to have some common agreement in both OMM and the mainstream (Charles Lieber in the 1990s, Lester B Morrison in the 1950s).

Concerning ...into the waiting arms of the drug industry, I don't know that it is that uncommon for bright, charming, even underage, kids to be dusted with a few thousand pharma dollars and/or perks before the parents even suspect there is a potential career in science, medicine or pharma sales.

As for OMM and the "excusitis", there are a lot of tests that appear to be either *very poorly* researched and planned, by not identifying clearly known special groups (including indications for stronger treatments or contraindications) in the literature and properly designing for significant subgroups, or exclusion. Other tests appear to be flat out designed for (negative, adversarial) competitive purposes. It is the overlooking of these types of tests and improperly represented analyses, all too common with nutrient tests and reporting purported to be relevant to the OMM protocols, that breed suspicion, distrust or outright rejection by the more experienced segments of the non-medical technical population. (e.g. those familiar with even more subtle technical cheating & biases in other sectors for much lower stakes)--TheNautilus (talk) 04:21, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not making excuses. I'm saying that it's very easy to criticize a clinical trial and very hard to design one. There are an infinite number of abstract scientific questions and a very finite amount of resources, time, and eligible patients. I appreciate your viewpoint, but I don't think you appreciate the practical aspects of clinical research. At the very least, you're very quick to cite malevolence as a motivation for what are actually quite rational trial-design decisions. MastCell ^Talk 04:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments on my edits

You are very much mistaken with your allegations of promotional material. I assume you speak of the articles I intend to create, because I haven't yet edited any articles. All pharmaceutical companies have their own wikipedia articles for educational purposes, and they tend to list exclusive products the pharmaceutical company developed. As it is, the pharmaceutical company I intend to create an article for has been shut down for 8 years. It's a very important research and development company that produced 2 break threw substances. The information is vital and should be available to the public. As it is, one of the substances is no longer available and the other could not be easily found after looking at the article. I truly do not see how you could allege promotion, perhaps for GHI/MRI. But I intend to create that article when the non-profit organization becomes well-known and the public starts trying to find information about it. Do you now agree that there is no promotional material? Jason1170 (talk) 07:45, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking about this? I'm afraid I still get the sense that you're here to promote a specific line of unproven remedies. Actually, that's not the real problem - please take a look at Wikipedia's policy on verifiability as well as its guidelines on notability. I get it - you want to spread the word about a substance you think is important - but that's not what Wikipedia is for. If no reliable, independent sources have covered this material, then it's not right for the encyclopedia. There are plenty of other venues on the Internet for what you seem to be trying to accomplish. MastCell ^Talk 22:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"when the non-profit organization becomes well-known and the public starts trying to find information about it"? That's a variant of the ever-futile WP:UPANDCOMING "they're gonna be famous someday" argument. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Any idea where medical reliable sources discussion is?

I thought I saw QuackGuru link to it, but I'm probably mistaken. It's from one of the projects where they discuss not cherry-picking research papers and similar topics related to RS, NPOV and OR . Thanks for your help! --Ronz (talk) 16:00, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Found it: WP:MEDRS. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

How's that Wiki-break going?

LOL. You may as well remove the template on the top of this page. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 19:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's valid. On the other hand, I have refrained from commenting on various wikipolitical blowups since putting the template up, and it's a useful reminder. I think the crap I deal with from here on will be more narrowly focused to articles I actually care about, and I'm not going to involve myself in the Wikipedia Drama Of The Week. That's really the point. On the other hand, I should probably take a real wikibreak; I've got one more manuscript that I'd like to get published before the year is out. MastCell ^Talk 20:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Northwestgnome at User talk:Raymond arritt

He's upset about what he perceives to be an attack in the article on Robert M. Carter. He threw templates down on nine of us, if I'm not mistaken. Some of who haven't edited since 2007. AniMate 20:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah. MastCell ^Talk 20:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I think he meant well. Chalk it up to the "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" approach. By the way, I seem to have caused a bit of an incident] (unintentional, for once). Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 04:24, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

So you take an obscure Python name and don't know what it meant? I knew that back when I was 15 watching Monty Python. RayRay, enough with the socks. Get your ass back here. MC is nearly ready to quit. And I didn't have your support during the oh so touching secret hearing episode (the drama of the quarter award winner). OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 08:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Autism

Why did you locked the pages of discussion on autism? In general is strongly discouraged from Wikipedia block pages of discussion--Doctorfrancoverzella (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Complainant blocked as a sockpuppet in the relevant mess. The talk page was semi-protected due to sockfarm activity. GRBerry 21:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that saved me a few keystrokes. :) MastCell ^Talk 21:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Why I was blocked? Ends When my block? It is not true that I abused multiple identities is the first time that I come subjunctive. I await your reply on this page. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.35.115 (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh good... you have a dynamic IP. MastCell ^Talk 21:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You were blocked for violating the three-revert rule (it:Wikipedia:Regola dei tre ripristini di pagina) and for using sockpuppet accounts (it:Wikipedia:Utenze multiple) to engage in an edit war (it:Wikipedia:Edit war).

If you are Franco Verzella, you have a conflict of interest due to your personal involvement with DAN!, and you shouldn't be making multiple attempts to insert information about your organization. (See also it:Wikipedia:Pagine promozionali o celebrative.) Be aware that I do not speak Italian; I am only following interlanguage links. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:MEDRS#Should_we_make_this_a_guideline.3F

Hi MastCell, I'm not a WP:MED member, but I heard about this RfC thru the grapevine. From the brief description I read, it seems like a good idea, but I can't seem to find the actual proposed guideline! Can you point it out for me? I'd like to review it, and possibly vote (though, I'm not sure how much weight my opinion will be given since I'm not a member.) Thanks. Yilloslime (t) 20:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be at WP:MEDRS... does that work? MastCell ^Talk 20:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Nevermind, I figured it out. Yilloslime (t) 20:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The gift that keeps on giving

Happy to make your acquaintance - it's amazing how many friends this guy gives me... anyone who blocks him, anyone who removes his edits, anyone who dares to mention that he is who we all know he is. You'd think he'd be tired of it all by now, but.... Cheers! Tvoz/talk 22:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Lynn Margulis - HIV/AIDS

What do you mean? I mentioned the list and referenced the list. She's in the list, this is an interesting fact and I didn't say anything more than that. So..? Sadunkal (talk) 20:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look at the guideline on reliable sources. Material must be sourced not just to a website somewhere, but to a reliable source. That requirement is all the more important on a biography of a living person. There is no way that a random, self-published AIDS-denialist website is a suitable source for controversial material about a living person. MastCell ^Talk 20:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The material IS the source. The text was that she's on the list, not that she has doubts. It's not any different than pointing out that someone was listed among the top terrorists, it's irrelevant if they really committed terrorist acts. The fact is they're listed as one, this alone is a very interesting information and worth mentioning. HIV/AIDS is one of the most well established theories and it's about the worst diesease in history after all. Sadunkal (talk) 21:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not following your line of reasoning. If someone was listed as a "top terrorist" by the U.S. Department of State, that would be notable for inclusion on Wikipedia. If they're listed as a "top terrorist" by a self-published website which coincidentally happens to argue that the Earth is flat, then that may be "interesting", but it's not appropriate for inclusion in a serious encyclopedia. It's a simple matter of the reliability of the source. MastCell ^Talk 21:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me put it like this: If al-Qaida members would claim that she is also one of them and list her name on their website as one of the members, and claim that she also wrote reviews for their publications, then I think this would be some very important and serious information. Add to that the fact that she doesn't even bother to sue them for smearing her name or anything like that. And don't you think that AIDS denialists are more comparable to terrorists instead of naive flat earthers!? So I think that this tells a lot and should be included. Sadunkal (talk) 21:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The argument that "she hasn't bothered to sue them, so it must be true" is extraordinarily wrongheaded. It's simple: provide a reliable source (as Wikipedia defines the term), or the material cannot be added. You're welcome to seek further input on the article talk page or the biographical noticeboard if you like. MastCell ^Talk 21:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about it being true, it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. It's the information in itself what makes it interesting. If Al-Qaida would publish a video tomorrow in which they claim that Lynn Margulis is one of them, wouldn't you add that information by referencing the video? I'm sure you would, why ressist when it's the denialists? Sadunkal (talk) 21:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If Al-Qaida were to claim Lynn Margulis as one of their own, the news would certainly be covered by independent, reliable sources with fact-checkers, and thus there would be no problem with citing those sources on Wikipedia. But really; that's enough hypotheticals, as we're going around in circles. MastCell ^Talk 21:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

But what if the media doesn't want to cover any story related to Al-Qaida because they're afraid that its connections to CIA or some other dirty secret will be revealed? Would it be still not worthy publishing here? Isn't WikiPedia capable of publishing anything which isn't accepted by authorities? Sadunkal (talk) 21:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The answers to these hypotheticals can be found in Wikipedia's fundamental policies on verifiability and original research. MastCell ^Talk 22:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

May I add something like "Some AIDS denialists claim without any real proof that she has also doubts about the HIV/AIDS theory." ? Now this sounds alright doesn't it? Sadunkal (talk) 22:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If there is "no real proof" of something, and no reliable sources even supporting the claim, then it has no place in a Wikipedia article, much less in a biography of a living person. MastCell ^Talk 22:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not true. If you go to Hugo Chavez's WikiPedia entry, there you can read about accusations without "real proof" and without any reliable sources supporting the claims, under 5.4. "Foreign Policy". I think this information about Lynn Margulis is really fit to be a part of Wikipedia, it's a very interesting information and might be of use to the visitors. Sadunkal (talk) 23:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

So may I add that unproven but important and serious claim to Lynn Margulis' entry now? Sadunkal (talk) 00:21, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is down the hall, to the left. And drop by WP:TE while you're in the neighborhood. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 01:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Was that supposed to be directed at me or MastCell? Because it doesn't really apply to my position as far as I can see, or least not more than it applies to MastCell... Sadunkal (talk) 03:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. Rubber and glue. It's been a pleasure. I'd suggest seeking outside input in the venues listed above if you feel your addition complies with Wikipedia's policies, since further discussion here seems unlikely to be persuasive to either of us. MastCell ^Talk 03:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You can at least show the courtesy to tell me why you exactly object to my addition. Do you also object to the entries in Hugo Chavez's page or is that different? Then how is that different? Why the ressistance? Sadunkal (talk) 03:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I think I've shown you a reasonable amount of courtesy, and I've also explained my objection at least 6 times in this thread alone. Perhaps you could point out where the Chavez article cites poor-quality self-published websites as the sole source for a controversial claim. Please do it on the Hugo Chavez talk page, where the poor sourcing (if any) can be corrected. Let's assume there are some sub-par sources on the Chavez article: the solution is to fix them, not to use them as justification to use even more bad sources. MastCell ^Talk 03:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess I didn't make myself clear, it's about Chavez calling Bush an asshole and Bush calling him a Dictator without any proof, they don't even have "poor-quality self-published websites", they have absolutely nothing to back it up! And they don't need it either, because the claims alone are interesting. They show that there is something going on. Sadunkal (talk) 03:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

← That material should be removed from the Hugo Chavez article as unsourced. Feel free to do it if you like, or I will. I'm going to ask that we cease this discussion, as it appears non-productive. If you have reliable sources supporting the material you'd like to add, I'll be happy to listen. If you don't, then it will be removed, particularly from a biographical article. I'm not going to respond further than I already have to these same lines of argument, though, as I don't find this productive. I am only one editor, and you are as always welcome to pursue dispute resolution or seek outside input if you think I've been unreasonable. MastCell ^Talk 03:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• I think you don't want to understand, your argument doesn't make any sense(strawman). So you try removing it from Chavez's entry then, I don't think it should be removed, doesn't make any sense to me. You're almost like a reality denialist or something like that... Sadunkal (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
• The part with Condy Rice and Devil Bush is also unsourced, why didn't you remove them, too? There is no reliable source suuporting the claim the he is the Devil. So...? Sadunkal (talk) 13:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

And why not

Now why would you remove what appears to be the coolest game ever here. LOL. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I figured it wouldn't be worth the time to come up with drinking triggers that a) were funny and b) wouldn't piss people off. Perhaps I need to abandon one or the other criterion. MastCell ^Talk 22:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

How about a drink every time someone adds an edit to Evolution that says, "it's only a theory." Or that you, me, JDF, etc are "on the payroll of Big Pharm." Ray Ray, of course, is on the payroll of "Big Farm." I think I could be solidly drunk 24/7. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking along the lines of:

• Mentions "BADSITES".
• Invokes censorship to explain why Wikipedia doesn't include the "alternate view" that 2+2=5.
• Insists that "balanced" or "neutral" treatment of a fringe subject consists of equal amounts positive and negative coverage.
• Makes any sort of reference to 1984 (I think these are actually much more pervasively misused than Nazi analogies on Wikipedia).
• Any time a person demands you assume good faith and spectacularly fails to assume it themselves in the same sentence.
• Any time someone ascribes the lack of reliable sources supporting their pet idea to an obvious, but entirely undocumented, conspiracy.
• Any time [REDACTED FAMILIAR NAME FROM PROJECTSPACE] actually makes an edit to an article.
• Any time an editor with a permutation of the word "Truth" in their username turns out to be a tendentious agenda account.

But I'm open to more suggestions. MastCell ^Talk 22:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Plenty more at Raul's Laws and Antandrus's Observations. My offering would be "Creates or argues against deletion of article entitled '[UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED OR REJECTED SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLE] Controversy.'" (talk) Basil "Basil" Fawlty 23:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Now I don't know whether to call you "Bay Bay" or "Ray Ray". Can't you just pick a sock and stick with it? Or pick two, heck - just let me know. It is getting so every time someone I don't know says something witty, I check their userpage to make sure it isn't another incarnation of you. I'm much too old a puppy to be doing this. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Something half-witty would be more typical. Haven't been able to settle on a name I really like yet. I did like this one, but there were, shall we say, unforeseen complications. I'm thinking of Sheriff Luger Axehandle. Before I create an account, is there anything obscene or objectionable about that? Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 00:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Ray Ray, errrrr Basil. First of all, anyone under the age of about 40 would be clueless about Harry. I think it was humorous. I like the Boris one. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 02:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Boris was my favorite too, but he met an untimely demise related to changing a password. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 02:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Ray Ray. It's not the difficult to have a new password emailed to you. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 02:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It's extraordinarily difficult if you haven't set up email before losing the password. Ray, I think you should go for something straightforward and classic, like User:WarriorForClimateTruth. Or perhaps User:ID Cabal Member #23. MastCell ^Talk 03:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should all have socks with Cabal Numbers. May as well give the anti-Cabal group something to write about. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

User:ID Cabal Member #23 would be perfect but I'm certain someone would wax indignant about it being divisive. (And besides I should be #1.) One of the more discouraging things I've learned here is that there are lots of people who take themselves way too seriously. So, you two meat-mechanics, what genetic defect causes a person to lose their sense of humor? Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 02:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The sense of humor is encoded on the short arm of chromosome 9. But you're talking about acquired loss, not congenital absence. It's probably a matter of nurture, not nature. Or epigenetic silencing; that's very hot these days. MastCell ^Talk 04:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) - a DSM IV diagnosis definitely, or loss of frontal lobe Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:33, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

PS: I remember years ago stumbling over a football (soccer) hooligan website, which was very funny, with lots of firms yelling abuse etc, there was one character called 'Cunty McFuck'...I couldn't stop laughing every time I saw it, but it was completely decerbrate humor and I wasn't even drunk. Proably couldn't use it here though...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

(long uncomfortable pause)..well that was a conversation killer wasn't it? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't be too hard on yourself; it's Labor Day weekend in the US, so people may just be on vacation. They'll probably have something to say about Cunty McFuck by Tuesday. MastCell ^Talk 04:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect things will all cahnge in the future when we all get sooper dooper fast wireless on our really slim laptops...great for taking to boring family gatherings...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no clue what you guys have in Oz, but I have a super-slim Macbook Air with USB 3G Wireless, surfing proudly at speeds in excess of 3 mbps. I do not go on family picnics however. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 06:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Wireless coverage still patchy (like in my house :( ) - you can get attachments etc. I am not too au fait with modern technology, so other aussies may have a better idea. Not generally an issue as hospitals have loads of 'puters everywhere to log on to, and otherwise I try to read books etc. on pub transport..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:54, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

please do no such thing

I am eating lunch using public wifi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.176.20.2 (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. OK, but I think registering an account will save you a lot of grief in the long run if you intend to edit controversial biographies of active political candidates - they will almost certainly be semiprotected for most of the remainder of election season. MastCell ^Talk 17:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I eat my lunch using a fork or spoon, typically. Wifi just makes my lunch drip everywhere. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Scottf43

Please keep an eye on this guy, I just had to remove a further talk page comment of his, he suggested that she was an alcoholic. I'm actively removing crap like that from the talk page. — Realist² 20:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that comment was the last straw. I've seen enough. MastCell ^Talk 20:15, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheers. — Realist² 20:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Weight

Poor baby )== But seriously, if we agree on the general principle, with you to help it could happen. Imagine being able to tell a fringe or debunking POV pusher that Weight is relative to the artcle's subject. Imagine being able to point to where it says so. This is what people fight about most. It could help greatly: what fringe debate doesn't basically revolve around this? But someone with power needs to push it into view for general editors. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, there are a few reasons I'm not getting deeply involved. For one thing, I'm not sure we're totally in agreement. I think weight is relative to the sources available on a subject. WP:PARITY already sort of covers this. But more to the point, I think the underlying problem here is not going to be fixed by any alteration to policy. Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive, so changing policy to change behavior is back-asswards. The effort is probably better spent trying to change editing behavior and the culture here, and when that changes policy will follow. Even if WP:NPOV suddenly said that "weight is relative to the article subject", I believe the same arguments would continue in the same places involving the same people.

At bottom, I'm at the point where I need to be thoughtful about how I spend my time and energy here. I no longer have a lot of patience for the repetitive idiocy and pettiness of this site, so I'm limiting my exposure to it. There are articles and subjects I care deeply about - the reason I started editing in the first place was because I was seeing the end results of crappy medical information and the promotion of quackery on Wikipedia - and I'm trying to focus there. I'm not always successful, but I'm trying. MastCell ^Talk 04:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You are the only admin that seems to be awake

and this guy is getting out of hand.Kww (talk) 04:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not really that awake, but I will handle it. MastCell ^Talk 04:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

BLP situation on Sarah Palin

BLP situation on Sarah Palin is really getting out of hand with accounts like User:Cookiecaper constantly posting to the talk page [6] and more rarely to the article [7]. We need an admin ruling on whether the talk page threads constantly reinstated violate BLP by unsourced or poorly sourced rumor mongering. Hobartimus (talk) 18:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, here's my take on the situation. We're more or less where the John Edwards scandal started out: there's a salacious, extremely hurtful allegation being bandied about by patently unreliable sources. Reliable sources have noted that a rumor exists but have clearly declined to substantiate its truthfulness in any way. Some people want to run with the existence of a rumor. I feel the same way I did about Edwards: poorly sourced, hurtful rumors have no place on Wikipedia. This will be either confirmed or repudiated by reliable sources soon enough, and we should prioritize getting it right over getting something in the article right now.

That argument fell on largely deaf ears with Edwards. It was just a big pain in the ass for me; people erroneously concluded that because the rumor subsequently turned out to be true, their pushing for crappy sourcing in a BLP was retroactively justified. I am a connossieur of irony, so I appreciate the fact that some of the same people agitating to use the National Enquirer as a "reliable source" on John Edwards have metamorphosed overnight into BLP hardliners when it comes to Daily Kos and Sarah Palin. Beyond that, I've decided I'm not going to get involved. There are >1,500 other admins, and this is their problem. I'm going to spend my time here on things I actually personally care about. I'm sorry I can't be of assistance. MastCell ^Talk 04:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

See, that didn't take long. MastCell ^Talk 17:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm suspicious here

Maybe you should delete the question. I'm guessing someone doing research in chemical analysis for a forensics program would have much better resources than Wikipedia. And from what I know, this is not something that should be made public. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 02:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hell, I'm tempted to tell him how to make meth out of Sudafed for good measure... but you're probably right. I can pretty much guarantee that no college lab project involves converting a Schedule III controlled substance into a Schedule II controlled substance. It sounds extracurricular. But that's why I stay away from the Reference Desk. MastCell ^Talk 03:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In fact the answer is widely available. It's amazing how lazy "students" can be. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 05:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The refdesk editors are buzzkills, and clearly have not looked into our pharmacology articles. Wikipedia, for example, has fairly detailed information on how to make crunk juice, down to the proper dosage, as well as a short treatise on MDMA synthesis. I doubt, however, that someone who has to ask the refdesk how to perform a cold water extraction can pull off a reductive amination. Skinwalker (talk) 22:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You know, I've taken codeine/Phenergan - not recreationally, but for a recognized indication - and it made me feel simultaneously overwhelmingly sleepy and overwhelmingly nauseated, with a side of akathisia - not an experience I would seek to replicate. 'Course, I didn't mix it with Sprite, so maybe that was the problem. People will do anything for a buzz - our article notes at least 3 prominent deaths-by-purple drank. MastCell ^Talk 23:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

War Machine (disambiguation)

I made another protection request at WP:RFP. Don't know what is the anon's deal here. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Wide World of Sports edits

Thank you for your commentary on the edit war. Since the issue is, for now, solved, I'm going to review the files you mention and see how this can be handled better in the future. --McDoobAU93 (talk) 23:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

talk:Abortion

Are you familiar enough with whats been going on to do a talk page archive?--Tznkai (talk) 17:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I could try. MastCell ^Talk 17:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

RFAR alert

One of the arbitrators has asked that every admin who is arguably involved in the events at Sarah Palin be notified of an arbitration case covering it. I therefore draw your attention to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#MZMcBride. In your case, you are, like me, one of those who made an edit to the article while it was full protected. GRBerry 18:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up - I actually already left a comment there. In light of current events, I'm quite happy with my earlier decision not to make myself the WP:BLPBAN test case. MastCell ^Talk 18:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Ha!

You're fine. I think people have sensed the gravity of the situation now. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Good... my block log is ugly enough as it is. MastCell ^Talk 20:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for reverting my talk page and Bristol Bay. Cheers! --Tom 20:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure... I don't think I've edited Bristol Bay, but for some reason I can't recall your talk page is on my watchlist, and I noticed that fellow repeatedly restoring posts you'd removed. Anyhow, hopefully he'll follow your lead and disengage. MastCell ^Talk 20:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was about to remove the part about you editing Bristol Bay, that was my mistake. I will try not to edit war and get others involved. As far as this "fellow" disengaging, I wouldn't count on it. He/She has used up their allotment of my good faith and I have none remaining for them. Anyways, cheers :) --Tom 20:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The feeling is 100% mutual. Dems on the move (talk) 06:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

CorticoSpinal (talk · contribs) sockpuppets

208.101.118.33 (talk · contribs) and Soyuz113 (talk · contribs). The IP address is from Ontario Canada, and is back putting in POV edits to Chiropractic. Soyuz is maybe a bit less certain. You've deal with this individual, so maybe you can utilize those admin powers to good use. I'd ask Ray Ray, but so far, I'm getting whiny responses about this and that to not use his powers in a useful manner. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well, obviously not a new editor. I will try to look into it, but it may be faster to submit a checkuser request on the basis of shared interests and possible block evasion. MastCell ^Talk 23:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I got bitch slapped by the secret tribunal (well, it was more of a secret bitch slap) for various infractions of checkuser. So, even though I have about a 95% success rate in identifying abusive socks, I figured I'd bring it to you. I'll bring it up with jpgordon too. He's a Checkuser, of course. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime, is it proper for an editor to continually remove innocuous comments from a user who is only suspected of being a sock puppet. [8] [9] [10] Please note that on this suspect sock's user page, admin AGK extended the user a second chance. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a misleading comment by Levine2112. AGK has defered to any uninvolved admin. See also: Wikipedia:RFCU#CorticoSpinal. QuackGuru 02:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

AGK also confirmed that it was CorticoSpinal, but refuses to do anything. Instead he is giving him a second chance! (This thrice indef banned user got plenty of "second chances", to no avail.) This action of protecting a thrice indef banned user who is evading a block is unheard of and should have serious consequences for AGK's admin status. He is openly protecting (and thus advocating) someone who is violating our standards of conduct here. He is violating our trust. As an admin he is duty bound to uphold and enforce the rules here. -- Fyslee / talk 04:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is solid evidence CorticoSpinal has returned to Wikipedia. It seems like he forgot to log in. Any uninvovled admin can block CorticoSpinal per WP:QUACK. QuackGuru 02:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

This edit may be of interest. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 02:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Please move this discussion and all its useful tidbits to either WP:SSP or WP:RFCU(if there is enough evidence to get a report). Jehochman ^Talk 04:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/CorticoSpinal -- Fyslee / talk 06:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

My bet is that CorticoSpinal is gaming the system, so RFCU is not going to work. We'll have to use SSP. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, can you please do that? I don't have the time for the next couple days. -- Fyslee / talk 22:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, but only if someone around here stands up for me if and when certain individuals by the name of FT2 decide to start secret hearings against me for abusing the SSP process. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:21, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I contacted an admin by e-mail. Give it a few days to let Wikipedia's process to work. QuackGuru 22:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Begin Friday afternoon silliness

The funniest damn thing I've read all week. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 18:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

... and given this week's events, that's saying something. MastCell ^Talk 20:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You're missing User talk:Keeper76. It has destroyed my watchlist. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You guys need to get out more. And I mean that with love. MastCell ^Talk 20:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It's very true that I'm rather pasty-skinned. Comes with the territory though. Keeper ǀ 76 20:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, how was the convention? MastCell ^Talk 21:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Several, important roads and freeway exits were closed. Lots of out-of-towners were clogging up the roads that weren't closed. Some windows at some St. Paul department stores were broken by masked anarchists. What else would you like to know? Glad it's over. Keeper ǀ 76 21:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

And the Twinkies return home. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:06, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank God. Or Thank Science. Your choice. Keeper ǀ 76 21:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Please note the next section. It's a Sarah Palin thread.  :) OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for drawing my attention to it - I'd almost missed it as it's a whole 0.65 inches below this thread. MastCell ^Talk 21:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Inches?????? It measures 1.47 cm on my screen. Metric dude. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Why do you hate America? MastCell ^Talk 22:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I hate America because the food is not as good as France, the music is not as good as Cuba, and the skiing is not as good as Switzerland. I love America because the food is better than Cuba, the music is better than Switzerland, and the skiing is better than Cuba. Wikidemon (talk) 22:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops. I messed that up. You get the idea. This was harder than it seems so I will not try again.Wikidemon (talk) 22:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Cause I'm a Liberal Democrat/Darwinist/Evolutionist/Atheistic/Pot-Smoking/Hybrid-driving/Over-educated/Pinko elitist. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that those adjectives are entirely redundant? MastCell ^Talk 22:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you're wrong here

The quote was accurate, and the grammar....well, not so much. But she did say "that that". And there are grammatical reasons for using it. So, I can't revert (which would have made my year), because someone, thinking that there's some interest in a Republican Governor from Alaska, who isn't as cute as some think, has locked the fucking headache-inducing article. So, please use your vast admin powers to revert yourself and give me the appropriate credit. Meh. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, someone was kind enough to post the entire quote, and I realized that that "that" was actually reasonable, if infelicitous. I reverted myself. MastCell ^Talk 21:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

MastCell you are edit warring with yourself on a protected article (which means you are actually wheel warring with yourself). I'm telling TimVickers on you. I'd leave a cute blocked template, but I'd hate to freak out Sandy again. --barneca (talk) 21:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not edit-warring. I've discussed it with myself on the talk page and reached a consensus with myself. As long as I don't start tendentiously edit-warring against my consensus with myself, I don't see a problem. I will admit to being afraid of Tim, though. MastCell ^Talk 21:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see any discussion on-wiki. Wait... don't tell me... you discussed this with yourself on IRC, didn't you??!!. --barneca (talk) 21:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and then I threatened to release the logs, which led me to consider blocking myself. MastCell ^Talk 21:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've got a headache. Don't do that to me. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as you don't unblock yourself. You've already wheel-warred with yourself once[11]--don't do that again, mmmkay? Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 22:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

But if I don't unblock myself, who will? MastCell ^Talk 22:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well don't count on that admin by the name of Raymond Arritt (talk · contribs) to help out. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm too busy munching popcorn while watching a sitcom. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 22:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That's reality TV, kid. MastCell ^Talk 22:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm watching Keeper76's page. It's funnier. As for Ray Ray? He's been inhaling corn pollen too long in Iowa. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:AN

FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Unnecessary_protection_at_Political_positions_of_Sarah_Palin ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have commented there. MastCell ^Talk 21:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)