User talk:NCdave: Difference between revisions

Welcome, newcomer!

Here are some useful tips to ease you into the Wikipedia experience:

• First, take a look at the Wikipedia Tutorial, and perhaps dabble a bit in the test area.
• When you have some free time, take a look at the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can come in very handy!
• Remember to use a neutral point of view!
• If you need any help, feel free to post a question at the Help Desk
• Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Also, here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:

• Wikipedia:Policy Library
• Wikipedia:Utilities
• Wikipedia:Cite your sources
• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:Wikiquette
• Wikipedia:Civility
• Wikipedia:Conflict resolution
• Wikipedia:Brilliant prose
• Wikipedia:Pages needing attention
• Wikipedia:Peer review
• Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
• Wikipedia:Village pump
• Wikipedia:Boilerplate text

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

You can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes, likes this: ~~~~.

Best of luck, and have fun!

ClockworkSoul 06:12, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You have broken the 3 revert rule. Any further breaches will result in a block. If you find yourself in a simular situation in future the wikipedia disspute resolution process may prove useful.Geni 05:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dave,

I am writing you this message in order to try to find some common ground on the Terri Schiavo affair. I respect that you have your point of view, and I respect and commend you for being so dedicated and committed to what you believe to be right. At the same time, I would like to apologise for perhaps saying a few harsh things which I might not have said had I had time to think about them properly first.

However, your recent changes to the article perplex me, and make me question whether you are indeed interested in writing a quality encyclopaedia, as you claim, or whether you just want to put forward a particular point of view. My complaints can be boiled down to:

• A complete lack of regard for WikiStyle conventions. Your contributions look messy, straggled, and plain ugly. This particularly applies to the "External Links" section, which looks like a dog's breakfast after you've finished with it, covered in seemingly random links, chunks of italicised text, and grammatical abuse.

• A refusal to accept community consensus with regards to bias. If you read the talk page, there is clear acceptance that the article has too much of a "pro-life" slant, and that slant has no place within an encyclopaedia. Yet, you continue to rail against this, filling the article with great masses of the Schindler family's claims, none of which have been backed up or proven.

• I find your editing fo the Wikiquette page interesting. Might I ask with whom you conferred on the matter, before stating that talk pages are a place for deciding truth or falsehood, and altering longstanding Wikipolicy thusly? I don't doubt that this was a widely discussed consensus move, but I would be in your debt if you could point me towards the discussion.

That's all for now. I hope that we can get along and ensure that the Terri Schiavo article is a quality article without any significant POV.

Lankiveil 07:47, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC).

Sorry about the style issues -- I have no sense of style. The "grammatical abuse" is in your imagination, though.

When "community consensus with regards to bias" is that the article should be a Felos propaganda piece, riddled with false statements and blatant bias, then you are correct, I refuse to accept it.

When I see something that is poorly written or ambiguous, I try to help out by fixing it. My Wikequette edit was just that, as you can see: a clarification of ambiguity, in conformance with the obviously intended original meaning. You're welcome. NCdave 20:53, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Oh well, she's dead now. Go pray or something, just as long as you stop fagging up wikipedia. Yes I know this is a blatant personal attack, but I don't care because you have contributed nothing to this online encyclopedia. I cannot continue civil discussion with an individual such as yourself. Your blatant hypocrisy under the pretense of neutrality makes something inside me object, and I'm almost completely amoral. You are worse than a troll; at least trolls don't honestly believe the bullshit they spew. You reported TCOL for the 3RR violation only because he threatened to do the same to you. You make up facts and cite spurious sources such as the National Review or random "Save Terri" sites, then claim they are infallible mountains of truth. Your behavior has been nothing but immature, ignorant, and close-minded. In conclusion, go fuck yourself. AngryParsley 15:45, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you for summing up what everybody was thinking. Personally I think you went easy on him. --Teknic 16:13, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I think you could have gone a little more extreme on him. Regardless, you've won a free internet. Thanks for summing up our feelings. Look at it this way, Dave. You still got hope hanging on a big toe. Ghost Freeman 16:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Dave obviously has strong and passionate feelings about this matter. Despite the fact that he's gotten a lot of "rough treatment" and dished some of it out himself, for the most part he's been a

constructive editor and has contributed some interesting information along the way. I may take issue with some of what he posts, but I do admire his tenacity. Wjbean 03:22, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)

Hi Dave, I noticed that you've been making some edits to articles (such as Wikipedia:Wikiquette) to support your arguments on the Terri Schiavo talk page... It's always great to see more people getting involed in the wikipedia process, but it isn't approiate to go making edits just to support your position in an a debate, or at least it's not a great idea to go redefining chunks of wikipedia when you're a fairly new user involved in a hotly contested issue. ... It just doesn't give people the right impression of your intentions. I've reverted the changes that I thought were troublesome.Gmaxwell 09:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• For those who are curious: [NCDave's Wikiquette Edits] --AStanhope 03:06, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sheesh. Gmaxwell, you know perfectly well that my edit was merely a clarification of an ambiguity, not a change of the intended meaning. The "before" uses the words "right and wrong" which can be interpreted in two ways: as value judgements (which was the intended meaning), and as synonyms for "true and false" (which was an obviously unintended interpretation). I edited it to make clear which meaning was intended, as you can see. NCdave 20:43, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BTW, here's an up to date link to NCdave's Wikiquette edits. NCdave 20:55, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Cvaneg, for reverting 66.52.193.147's "call dave at work, here's the number" addition to my user profile. That explains why I got a harrassing anonymous phone call at work today (well, yesterday, now). (I also got a similar email.) This is the work of one of the partisans for Michael Schiavo, who don't like what I have to say on the Talk:Terri_Schiavo page. Sweet folks, eh? Unfortunately, he also put it in the history comments, which is unremovable. NCdave 09:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Someone vandalized your user page and I rolled it back for you. Mike H 05:28, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Vandalism is such a loaded term. I prefer to call what I did embellishment. --AStanhope 05:33, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• • Whatever you call it, it was not your place to edit his user page with what you edited. Mike H 05:38, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Your right, comedy is much more important than accuracy. I like NCdave's original page. Fucking hilarious. Teknic 15:42, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I already heard most of your comments from legitimate news sources, thanks for the input. Your comments, mostly insinuation and hypotheticals, were much too wordy so I really didn't read it word for word. Regardless of what type of bastard Michael Schiavo was, he was Terry's bastard, to her great fortune. I pray to God that my husband takes care of me in the same fashion as Terry, has the courage that maybe my parents wouldn't, if I am ever in her situation. Game over baby.... If I were a vegetable, I would be glad my husband would get on with his life and have many kids with any woman he wanted in my stead. If my life was over, his shouldn't be. Revmachine21 13:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• She's right! --AStanhope 21:29, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Revmachine21, do you hope that if you are disabled your husband will kill your pets so that he will not be encumbered by responsibility for caring for them when he wants to move in with his girlfriend? NCdave 04:53, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that on the talk page of Terri Schiavo you seem to think that the fact that Schiavo was given painkillers is proof that Terri really wasn't in a persistent vegetative state. I think you are missing something very important here.

Let me restate your argument:

1. The hospice said Terri was in a PVS
2. People in a PVS don't feel pain
3. Therefore, rationally, Terri should not have been given painkillers if what the hospice said was true.
4. Therefore, the hospice is lying.

But statement four needs another qualifier: "If the hospice is perfectly rational, then the hospice is lying." And that qualifier is obviously not true. Doctors and nurses are people, not robots. Most people (including myself) can't help but feel empathy for other humans. That means that people will instinctively perceive another human in a situation that would be uncomfortable to themself as "uncomfortable", "in pain", "suffering".

One thing to note is that many of the visible responses to pain are reflexive. So someone can react to pain without being aware of it. (Even amoebas are capable of reacting to stimuli, and only panpsychists would claim that microscopic organisms are conscious.)

As you said, Terri was given drugs to "quiet her". But that does not mean that she was conscious, or that the hospice thought she was conscious. It merely means that, despite their knowledge, the staff of the hospice could not (nor would they want to) throw off their empathy. So they made an effort to "make Terri comfortable", even though they knew it was more for the benefit of themselves (and anybody else in the room) than Terri.

Why do we "make comfortable" comatose patients? Why do we try to not be cruel to animals that we don't view as self-aware? Why do we lay the dead on cushions? We do so because we are human, not because we assume consciousness.

Now, some people might bring up the hard problem of consciousness in response to these actions. (How do we know if Terri is conscious or not? We medicate her on the off-chance that she is suffering even though we know that is impossible.) But I think that is merely because people have an easier time admitting the fallibility of their knowledge than the irrationality of their emotions.

Not that I'm saying that irrationality is bad. Perfect rationality leads to a world that is devoid of meaning (although excessive irrationality does the same thing). I certainly felt empathy for Terri Schiavo, even though I knew Schiavo felt nothing.

I hope we can discuss this in a calm and reasonable manner. --L33tminion | (talk) 22:55, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

For most of 15 years Terri Schiavo had a standing order for analgesics to relieve menstrual pain. There's no way that her caregivers believed that she did not experience pain. She behaved as if she experienced pain, which is all, existentially speaking, we know for certain about anyone else's experience of pain. When someone behaves as if they are experiencing pain, the only rational conclusion is that they are experiencing pain, even though you can't prove it in an absolute sense.

Also, take at look at the Exit Protocol that her hospice doctor wrote up for her in 2001. Take special note of the instructions to use analgesics for symptoms of pain and discomfort: "Monitor symptoms of pain/discomfort. If noted, medicate with Naproxen rectal suppository 375 mg. Q8 prn." If you tell me that you don't think that means that he thought she could experience pain, I won't believe you. NCdave 04:32, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's standard procedure even for the comatose. Such procedures are not for the comfort of the unconscious, but for the comfort of those around them. One of the things it does is make the patient seem more comfortable. Even the unconscious can seem to be in pain. "Making them comfortable" makes them seem more comfortable, which comforts the families and loved ones of the patients (as well as the other patients and hospital staff).

It is intuitive to believe that someone who seems to be in pain is suffering. But sometimes intuition can run counter to fact. If, for example, that person is missing most of their brain.

I am new to this, and am not sure I am adding a comment in the correct or useful place, so excuse me if not. Pain is an extremely primal function. It isn't an intellectual activity. I don't think it can be assumed that Terri Shiavo could not experience pain. If a creature seems to be in pain, it probably is. The comment above "Even the unconscious can seem to be in pain." is interesting. I recall reading that even under general anaesthesia, the administration of local pain killers to suppress pain in an operation will significantly improve the outcome. I think it is inhumane to assume pain is not experienced just because a mentally damaged person, or any animal, is unable to verbalize it. Tropix 00:23, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

If you want to make some sort of panpsychic argument that the removal of the area of the brain responsible for consciousness might not have removed consciousness, then why would dying remove Terri's consciousness? (Certainly that's the religious belief...)

Why don't you call up a local hospice or hospital and ask them if is standard procedure to medicate terminal patients who are known to be comatose or in a persistent vegetative state? --L33tminion | (talk) 05:27, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

L33minion, somebody has been lying to you. A patient who is unconscious does not react to pain stimulus, and so there are no "symptoms of pain/discomfort," and therefore no analgesics can be given in response to such symptoms. Nor are analgesics customarily given to comatose patients, simply because they cannot feel pain or react to pain. For example, see [1] which is a reference to a study of the use of analgesics and sedatives in terminal patients from whom life support has been withdrawn. The abstract notes that, "Patients who did not receive medication were comatose and considered incapable of benefiting from sedation and analgesia." In fact, sedation to unconsciousness is commonly used instead of analgesics, to give peace to patients who cannot be made comfortable with analgesics.

Also, the claim that Terri was missing most of her brain is untrue. Two of the neurologists that George Felos selected testified that that was the case, based on examination of her CT scans, but the two Felos-selected neurologists contradicted each other. One said that most of her brain had been replaced by "spinal fluid." The other said that most of her brain was "scar tissue." Obviously, at least one of them was talking nonsense: scar tissue and spinal fluid do not look remotely similar on a CT scan.[2]

In fact, neurologists aren't qualified to interpret CT scans, anyhow. That's a job for radiologists. The two radiologists three radiologists that I know of who looked at Terri's CT scans both all concluded that her brain was significantly atrophied, but not nearly as bad as Felos's handpicked neurologists claimed, and doubted that she was in a PVS. Radiologist Thomas Boyle, M.D. (host of the award-winning CodeBlueBlog web site), who has interpreted over 10,000 brain CT scans, wrote, "I have seen many walking, talking, fairly coherent people with worse cerebral/cortical atrophy. Therefore, this is in no way prima facie evidence that Terri Schiavo's mental abilities or/or capabilities are completely eradicated. I cannot believe such testimony has been given on the basis of this scan." NCdave 21:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The guy who first nominated you hasn't bothered to inform you (not really good etiquette), but you have been put up for RFC. The page is here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/NCdave. Proto 11:49, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I actually would have. I had other things to do at the moment, and it's not good etiquette to pass judgment on others' etiquette skills, really. Mike H 11:51, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

You're right, and I apologise. Would it be poor etiquette to point out that your etiquette in complaining about my etiquette on judging your etiquette was not good etiquette either? Really? ;) Proto 12:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Now my head is just spinning :) Mike H 12:40, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

I noticed you flagged these edits: [3] [4] and as minor. In reality, only the 2nd one was minor, as it was tweaking a typo from the first edit. I personally have no opinion on the article and this is not about whether or not the article deserves those tags, and as you can see I have never editted it. Please see Wikipedia:Minor edits for further clarification. Cheers. Burgundavia 09:40, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I'm willing to make a compromise with you because I don't particularly feel like running you off wikipedia, which some others feel this rfc may do. And, despite what you might think, I don't particularly want you as an enemy either. If you come back to the Terri Schiavo page, and if you make a collaborative effort with the other editors, I will withdraw my support for rfc. -Professor Ninja

That's what I've been doing all along, Ninja. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The amount of evidence against you is lengthy enormous, ... -Ninja

It is non-existant. I'll tell you what, you pick one or two of what you think are the strongest examples of my supposed misconduct, from that list of over 100 at [5], and I'll rebut them. I don't have time to go through the entire list.

I've already pointed out that the 1st item in that list of supposed examples of my misconduct is actually an example of me working with someone of a different POV, to try to reach a concensus, by accepting a strong argument and politely rebutting a weak one. The supposed example of misconduct was given as simply this link, with no indication of what I was accused of doing wrong: POV warning.

I asked what can be the complaint about that? At that section I wrote only two short notes. This comment was one of them:

The only way to make a NPOV article about a controversial topic is to include factual information supporting all the POVs. If information that is cited by adherents to one POV as supportive of their POV is systematically deleted from the article, then the article becomes biased. That is why I have consistently ADDED missing information to the article, rather than deleting information that other people have contributed. Several of those here who support killing Terri take the opposite approach: they just DELETE the information that is inconsistent with their bias. NCdave 12:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What could possibly be wrong with that??

And this comment was the other:

Agreed that "world renowned" reflects POV; I've deleted it. The evidence for battery, however, is compelling. I've added much of it, with lots of supporting links. NCdave 12:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's it. That's all there is that I wrote in that section.

One of the doctors supporting the Schindlers was described in the article (by someone else, I think) as "world renowned." In my comment I noted the evidence that Terri had been battered, and I agreed with Fox1 that describing a Schindler doctor as "world renowned" reflected POV, and told him (Fox1) I had deleted that phrase from the article, because it was POV-biased in favor of the Schindler family. How could anyone supporting the M.Schiavo POV object to that? But some folks are sure that anyone who disagrees with them is not merely wrong, but evil. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

...and I suspect that that's only because in two months you've never had a disciplinary action taken against you; they're a slap in the face and they can serve to smarten anybody up. Consider this a peer disciplinary action. You have undoubtedly made excellent contributions in the past. However, that doesn't excuse your other behaviour, and you need to understand this. You've made everybody jumpy with your edits to the talk page and articles. Work with people to achieve consent; that's all anybody's ever asked. -Ninja

When I have carefully and laboriously discussed in advance what needs to be done to the article to make it accurate and npov, the result is that my edits are STILL instantly reverted, generally without comment, by people who did not bother to participate in the Talk page discussion. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

People call you out because of your history. Take it, and prove them wrong. I'm frankly tired of wading through the diffs to see what you've done, and I'd rather just achieve a compromise with you. -Ninja

I would love to achieve compromise. How about, as a first step, we agree to leave the "disputed" tags in the article, until some compromising actually happens? After all, there can't be any honest dispute about the fact that the accuracy and neutrality of the are article are disputed. Right? NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Try to remember a few things:

1. People aren't here to kill Terri or support her death. We're here to make a relevant article concerning her life.

I wish I could believe that. I understand that you have a very strong POV, and that you think the Schindlers and the doctors and nurses and priests who supported them are untrustworthy, and that Michael Schiavo just wanted what was best for his wife, and that Judge Greer was fair and impartial. But if the article is going to be accurate and npov, it must reflect BOTH sides of the dispute. Where the facts are disputed, it should tell BOTH the Schindlers' version and M.Schiavo's version. Otherwise it is biased at best, and as often as not just plain untruthful.

Ninja, you were not among those who simply deleted my comments from the Talk:Terri_Schiavo page, without even archiving them. But you are among those here who have repeatedly reverted my attempts to bring balance and accuracy to the article, and often posted comments on the Talk pabe about my dishonesty and/or evil intent.

If you are sincere about wanting to work together to reach concensus, then I'm willing to just let bygones be bygones, and work with you. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

2. Recognize your own bias; you undoubtedly have your beliefs and that's fine. But beliefs and facts don't always mix, neither do speculation and facts. The speculation might be true, but it has to pass an evidence test. If you feel a conflict of interest coming on, ask another editor to look at the section and see what needs to be done.

That's why I include so many references, to support the information that I have contributed. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

3. Two wrongs don't make a right, or two POVs don't make an NPOV. When it comes to speculation and criticism, give everybody a fair share. When it comes to hard facts, deal only with the facts. Don't couch your own criticism in weasel words. If you feel there's valid criticism, cite it concisely and include it. -Ninja

I very much agree, except that an article which is about a contentious issue must fairly include both sides. Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent all views[6]. The current Terri_Schiavo article does not. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

4. Apologize. People take being slighted amazingly well when a person admits they overstepped their bounds. They'll usually agree they helped escalate it. Only the most asinine of people really believe somebody's beyond redemption.

I agree.

5. Relax, don't jump around the talk page so much. State something cogently and move on. Acknowledge rebuttals. Offer up pieces of evidence or documents as such, not as absolutes that must be obeyed. Acknowledge conflict of interest even if it comes from a POV you agree with. It comes from all sides.

Please understand what a conflict of interest is. "Conflict of interest" is not the same thing as "prejudice" or "predisposition." A conflict of interest occurs when someone's own interests run counter to his obligations.[7]

Familial or comradely affection is not conflict of interest. There is no conflict of interest inherent in a person making medical decisions on behalf of a patient that he or she loves.

Nor is there a conflict of interest if, for example, an outspoken "right to die" advocate is the lawyer hired to argue for ending Terri's life, nor if an outspoken "right to life" advocate organizes protests in defense of her life, nor if a physician who is a practicing Christian gives a medical diagnosis, nor if a physician who is a new age spiritualist gives a medical diagnosis.

None of those are conflicts of interest. An example of a conflict of interest is when someone is responsible for medical decisions on behalf of a patient, but stands to realize a financial (or other) gain if the patient dies.

6. Don't misquote people or misattribute statements they've made. Be charitable; if somebody says something that can mean two things, take it the polite way instead of the condescending way.

To the best of my knowledge, I never have and never will misquote anyone here or misattribute any quotes. I have repeatedly been accused of misquoting or inaccurately paraphrasing, but every one of those accusations were false.

Contrast that with complaint #11 against me on the RFC page, about the edit I made in Wikiquette. That's CustomOfLife/Mike H.'s (unsigned) complaint. He accused me of editing Wikiquette to justify my POV, and said, "Only after much reverting and discussion on the talk [8] did he edit in something compliant with what Wikipedia is."

That's just plain untrue. What actually happened is that I read Wikiquette for the first time, and noticed an ambiguity. I could see what it was intended to say, but I also saw that it could be misinterpreted. So I fixed it, to make it clear and unambiguous, without changing the original intended meaning one whit. It was a very small change, just a clarification.

I was just trying to help. Some thanks I got.  :-(

Here's the history: [9], and here's the Talk page commentary: [10]

This was my first attempt (March 20) to fix it: [11]

It was reverted without comment by Gmaxwell.

Just for the record here: I left a message on your talk page at the same time I reverted it... so much for truth and accuracy. But I guess we shouldn't be shocked to see you trying to rewrite the history of rewriting policy. :) --Gmaxwell 00:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, you reverted it without any comment on the Wikiquette Talk page, and your Edit summary said simply "rv." What you posted to my talk page was just a false accusation:[12] NCdave 18:36, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On March 28 I tried again, with almost the same wording, but this time with an "edit summary" comment that said what the purpose of my edit was: "clarify: right & wrong can mean good & bad, or can mean true & false. True v. false is, of course, entirely appropriate topic for discussion on Talk pgs"

TheCustomOfLife/Mike H. immediately re-reverted it.

So on March 29 I tried a different wording, hoping to achieve concensus: [13]

It was reverted, without comment, by an anon, and the next day TheCustomeOfLife/Mike put a comment on the Talk page wrongly accusing me of changing wikiquette to support my edits elsewhere, by making the wikiquette say that "you can talk on the talk page about things that are morally right or wrong without trying to link it to the article..."

Since Mike H.'s comment inverted the meaning of what I wrote, it seemed to me that he must have misread it. So on March 31 I replied on the Talk page, saying: "You completely reversed the meaning. ... The disambiguated version that I created said, 'The Talk pages are not a place to debate value judgements...' Did you overlook the word 'not'?"

Then I waited for his response. I was hoping he'd say, "oh, yeah, I misread it, sorry." But he didn't reply.

On April 4, SlimVirgin restored my version, but 11 minutes later TheCustomeOfLife/Mike reverted it again, still with no comment.

On April 6, I tried yet another wording: [14].

I also put a comment on the Talk page that said, TheCustomOfLife/Mike H. reverted it again. So here's a version that perhaps will meet with his approval."

Half an hour later Mike H. replied, "That version works just fine." And that's the wording that is there now.

Now some might say that my 4th version (which Mike accepted) was better than the others. But surely everyone can see that all four were clearer than the original text, and that none of them deviated from the original intended meaning. Making a tiny improvement to the wording really shouldn't have required all that trouble, and incurred all that abuse -- abuse that continues to this day, in the form of that false complaint on the RFC page. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

7. Don't rag on people for things like "Pearson" when they clearly mean "Pearse". It's a simple little typo that anybody can make, and it makes you come off really condescending. -Ninja

It isn't a typo when he does it three times in a row, but I'd have let it go if it were not for the fact that he claimed that I'd been citing "Pearson." That was in a paragraph in which he falsely and outragously accused me "quoting out of context." After an accusation like that, I could have blasted him back. But, in spite of his attack, my reply just said, "Huh? Who's "Pearson?" I never said anything about anybody named Pearson." Really, I thought that was very restrained. I just left it to the reader to infer whatever they wished from the fact that he didn't even get the GAL's name right. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

8. You don't have to repeat the same things over and over, it makes people not listen to you. Keep sections on topic, tangents really annoy people. Having a conversation about one thing when somebody jumps in the middle of it spouting off is annoying as hell.

If the points didn't keep getting deleted or archived, I wouldn't have to keep making them.

We still have people around here who don't know that Terri could swallow Jell-O and flavored slurries, and who don't know that it took Michael aproximately 8 years to "remember" what he now says Terri told him, and who don't know that for years Michael claimed that she had NOT told him that, and who don't know that when Michael first "remembered" what she had supposedly told him he stood to inherit 3/4 $million upon her death, and who don't know that that four dozen neurologists and numerous other doctors dispute the PVS diagnosis, and who don't know that the judge's final orders were not to remove Terri's feeding tube but rather to deprive her of food and water by any means, and who don't know that Florida statutes did not permit him to deprive her of food and water by natural means, etc..

When someone states, for example, that Terri "couldn't swallow," simple respect for the truth requires that it be corrected. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

9. Don't go at things with such bombast, because it gets everybody in the mood. A guy walks into a gun store full of customers with a .45 drawn demanding cash, and pretty soon the whole place is riddle with bullet holes and blood. Make your points with gentle persuasion, not outbursts. -Ninja

I'm working on it. Really, I am. See, for example, my gentle rejoinder to FuelWagon about "Pearson" (above), after he accused me of quoting out of context.

But, Ninja, you have not been exactly gentle, yourself. I haven't called anyone here any names, ever. You've called me all kinds of terrible things. Let's call a truce, okay? NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

10. Take a deep breath, walk away. It's hard as hell, especially when you have a point to make. Fire up a random page and do a style or copy edit. Come back. Think about editing the article. Edit the article for style instead of POV. Let somebody else handle it.

etc...

I've never gotten anybody banned in my life, or deleted, suspended, or disciplined. Ever, because I don't believe in it, and I don't feel like starting now. You're already teetering dangerously close with your edit history, and most of that is from me, and I'd feel very responsible if a more drastic action was taken against you. Prove your worth in collaborations, not by turning wikipedia into a pulpit. Professor Ninja 18:57, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

My purpose is simply an accurate, balanced, npov article. The current article is a wreck. If folks here won't permit it to be accurate and npov/balanced, then at least I can keep disputing the accuracy and neutrality, so that unwary visitors to Wikipedia won't be misled into thinking that they are reading the undisputed truth.

Professor Ninja, just 18 hours before you posted this "potential compromise" item on my User_talk page, over on the Talk:Terri_Schiavo page you falsely accused me of "misquoting," "vandalism," "name-calling," a "campaign of misinformation," "outright lies," and of being "a troll" -- all in just one paragraph![15]

I truly hope that this olive leaf means that in that 18 hour interval you have had a true change of heart. Those attacks were both false and vicious, and (unfortunately) typical. I may be annoying, but I do not misquote, I do not vandalize, I do not engage in name-calling, and I do not lie.

I do sometimes make mistakes, but when I discover them I correct them (unlike Judge Greer).

For example, last month I dug around on the Nobel web site, and I found the page that describes who is qualified to nominate for the Prize in Medicine, and Congressmen aren't. So I wrote to Dr. Hammesfahr and informed him of that fact, and included a link to that web page in my email to him, to prove it, and on March 27-28 I posted comments on the Talk:Terri_Schiavo page[16] stating what I then believed to be the proven fact that Hammesfahr could not have been validly nominated:

Agreed, and Bilirakis is qualified to nominate for the Peace Prize -- but not the Prize for Medicine. So it was probably an honest mistake on both their parts. OTOH, that was six years ago, so Hammesfahr should have have figured it out and corrected his web site by now. NCdave 04:32, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, his web site says "Medicine," not "Peace." He probably didn't pay close enough attention to what Hannity said. Anyhow, I've emailed him and politely pointed out that the fellow who nominated him wasn't qualified to do so, and I included the link to prove it [17], and asked him to correct the erroneous information on his web site. I'll consider it a test of his integrity to see whether or not he does so. ... NCdave 23:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But then I got a reply email from Dr. Hammesfahr, with a plausible explanation (he said that the Nobel nomination rules had changed). So I posted a correction:

Oops, my bad. It appears that Hammesfahr's Nobel nomination was vaild. See below. NCdave 20:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Update: I've just received an email reply from Dr. Hammesfahr; here it is: ...

So, it appears that Dr. Hammesfahr's Nobel nomination was legitimate, after all. NCdave 20:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is at least certainly plausible. I've asked him for the documentation. Let's see what he comes up with.

I've also emailed the Nobel Foundation, and asked them what the nomination process was and who the qualified nominators were back in January, 1999. NCdave 21:43, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm still seeking documentation. NCdave 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The documentation for the Nobel Foundation is available directly at its website. [18] The process has remained unchanged since 1901. Despite whatever else Hammesfahr might or might not have accomplished, his Nobel Nomination is most invalid. As for the evidence, okay, I'll pick three of what I feel are your biggest breaches. 1) Comparing TCassedy to a Holocaust denier: [19] and 2) Asking the extremely loaded attack question about thinking it's okay to kill six month olds [20] in reference to somebody pointing out that, because the Schindlers agreed that Terri had the mental faculties of a six month old (I am not here to debate the veracity of this) her "ahhhhhhhhh waaaaaa" outburst (I am also not debating the veracity of this) cannot mean "I want to live" because 6-mo.-olds do not have the faculties to make such statements. Essentially, you dogded the argument offered up, and attacked him with a loaded question. 3) And, to be fair, I will give you a weak argument to defend against, a POV edit to the Terri Schiavo article; [21] citing this article [22]. That is one cardinal, not the Vatican. I similarly quoted a Jesuit bioethicist that had taken an oppossing stance in Newsweek which you dismissed because it was, of all things, in Newsweek. That's a fairly large characterization of the entire Vatican (I'm well aware of Catholic policies, too).

I can't comment on the other articles of evidence; they were not added by me and they are thus beyond my purview to argue for.

You understand that the factual accuracy of the article, too, is not disputed. The factual accuracy of all articles here can be taken to be lacking, or inaccurate. What is important is that, in the case of Tropix, Jdavidb, and Patsw, they are working towards improving the factual accuracy of the article instead of merely attempting to throw it into doubt. You undoubtedly have access to a lot of information, and this is important. But bits of evidence do not prove themselves one way or another. For example you offered the Encarta definition of PVS earlier; if this is to be considered accurate than we must assume that Dr. Cheshire's affidavit is inaccurate, since he comments:

There are many behaviors typical for patients in PVS that... could easily [be mistaken] as voluntary.... It is quite common for dedicated and caring family members, hoping desperately for a sing from their loved one, to misinterpret these reflexes as evidence of communication. Such behaviors can include involuntary arousal, eye opening, random eye movements (nystagmus and horizontal scanning), brief eye contact, reflexive withdrawal from a noxious stimulus, movement of the lips or mouth or turning of the head in response to oral stimulation (suck and rooting reflexes which also occur in newborn infants), spontaneous grimmacing [sic] orsmiling or displays of emotion (affective release, usually a momentary gesture), and certain other nonsustained behaviors...)

Both the encarta definition and Cheshire's definition cannot be true, either one is true or the other is. If the Encarta definition is true, then Cheshire is inherently wrong about PVS, and thus his diagnosis is flawed and incredible. If Cheshire's affidavit is true, then the Encarta definition is incorrect and too short. I would more than likely assume that the Encarta definition is untrue and Cheshire (as well as other neurologists) have given a consistent definition of the peculiarities of a persistent vegetative state. Today, however, you have offered the Encarta definition as proof that Michael is lying about pain, or swallowing (all defined as being "felt" or able to being responded to by the patient in a PVS by Cheshire and others). You see the problem? This is not the proper tack to take. Even if you get your way, you have essentially shot yourself in the foot. Imagine if you had all the other editors leave, and you subsequently edit the article to your definition. Another editor subsequently comes along and uses your Encarta definition of PVS, for example, to put in the article that Dr. Cheshire was lying on his affidavit. You see the problem that comes from attacking a position from all possible sides? You end up frequently attacking your own position, as well. All of this subsequent evidence cannot be true, they are in conflict with each other. Since the evidence is primarily being offered up with the Schindlers, they, not Michael, must resolve this conflict as to why evidence x says a but evidence y says b; Michael does not have to defend against this. Please keep that in mind. Professor Ninja 18:05, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

I blocked you for three days. I don't relish it and I regret that I was forced to do it, but it was necessary. Dave, look at your contribs. Every single one has been to Terri Schiavo or to its talk page, or to the RfC on you. Your edits are very clearly POV, and have come into unanimous opposition on talk. Reverting, talk page rants, and disruption—even in the face of dozens of users telling you otherwise—is unacceptable at Wikipedia. Take three days off and come back. With warmest regards --Neutrality^talk 20:32, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality, the ruthlessness of your POV-pushing astounds me. You mock Wikipedia NPOV standards.

As you well know, my edits to the Terri Schiavo article have been carefully and consistently npov, improving accuracy and balance, in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. You, however, consistently work to make that article a propaganda piece for your POV, reverting attempts by me and other honest editors[23][24] to add balance, even to the extent of abusing your administrator privilages to block those with whom you disagree. You and your allied POV warriors won't even allow a "neutrality disputed" or "accuracy disputed" warning tag, even though you know perfectly well that the accuracy and neutrality of the article are certainly disputed.

For example, the fact is that Terri Schiavo's diagnosis was and is a source of enormous controversy The court ruled that she was in a vegetative state, but most of the doctors who weighed in on the issue said that diagnosis was questionable or incorrect (see[25] & [26] & [27]). You know that to be true, yet when I inserted balanced language evenhandledly noting the two competing diagnoses[28], and who supported each of them, you blocked me for three days.

Neutrality, you should be ashamed. NCdave 09:38, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terri_Schiavo&diff=13643269&oldid=13642978

where we say:

[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo&diff=13629402&oldid=13629325)

NCdave's version is described as the 'less POV version'. now THAT is whacky. FuelWagon 03:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The vandal has been reported here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress#Current_alerts) FuelWagon 04:01, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

You did not document your claim on that page as well as you did here; I clarified and affirmed some of your claim and overturned other of it here: [12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress#Current_alerts) --GordonWattsDotCom_In_Florida 04:44, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

and: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress&diff=0&oldid=13644183

where we say:

209.170.130.127 209.170.130.127 (talk · contributions) vandalizing the Terri Schiavo page multiple times. FuelWagon 03:30, 13 May 2005 (UTC) Fuel Wagon did not list the diff to back up his accusation; here is it: [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo&diff=13629402&oldid=13629325) --comments: While I believe it was NC Dave who did the "vandalism," as shown in this diff [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terri_Schiavo&diff=13641661&oldid=13641611) by the author of the above, this may amount to less than vandalism. Closer analysis of (apparently) NCdave's edit shows that he got a little talkative -and may have inserted either repetitive or slightly biased comments. (Mention of MCS initially may not be necessary, hence it may be repetitive; also, the breaking of the marriage vows by Mike Schiavo may not have relevance and be slightly distractive or biased.) However, since both sides of the court-appointed doctors were mentioned (those for and against the PVS diagnosis), it would not be fair to only list some "Pro-PVS" doctors that were not court-appointed. In this sense, it would only be fair that some Anti-PVS doctors who were not court-appointed be mentioned to balance those that Mike Schiavo is said to have hired. In that sense, Dave's edit is more stylistic and less vandalism. --GordonWattsDotCom_In_Florida 04:40, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Sincerely, --GordonWattsDotCom_In_Florida 05:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to participate in the Mediation regarding the Terry Schiavo article. Initial discussion is beginning at Talk:Terri Schiavo/Mediation. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:28, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Please stop deleting content from Talk:Terri Schiavo. --Viriditas | Talk 05:51, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It was accidental, caused by a Wikipedia glitch, as I explained on Talk:Terri Schiavo as soon as I saw FuelWagon's message. I'd have restored the deleted material if I'd discovered it, but Fuelwagon got there first. NCdave 06:19, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, neither of you restored my content. --Viriditas | Talk 07:01, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, somebody got there first. Yes, I see that he restored some of it and you restored the rest. Less than five minutes after I noticed Fuelwagon's message (and about 30 minutes after my original accidental revert), I did version compares to see what was going on, and what needed to be restored. I could see where I had accidentally reverted messages from three people, including you; but all were restored by then. If they had not been already restored, then I would have restored them.

I've had my Talk page contributions intentionally deleted by M.Schiavo partisans (on a massive scale). However I don't believe in censorship (except of obscenity), and I don't do that sort of thing (not intentionally, anyhow). NCdave 18:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I feel that I should invite you to respond to this:

I have asked for disciplinary measures against NCDave on Talk:Terri Schiavo/Mediation#It's time to deal with the bully. I ask for your support.--ghost 20:20, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vote - I am tiring of mediation, and hope we fix the problem soon: This may work'

• Generic Updates Message to other participants: I have imitated Uncle Ed's Q & A method and tried to augment it, and I have declared a tentative (minor) success on the first of seven questions I've presented, thanks to teamwork of many of you in the past, some named in that question. Most of all of other six "Vote on these" items are valid concerns, shared by all, even if we don't agree to the answers. So, I'm asking you all to review and vote on the lingering issues. Also, Wagon has suggested we get both guidelines and examples (role model was the term he used). We all know the rules, but I found one example of a controversial topic that simply shared the facts in a cold, dry method: The Slavery article neither supports nor opposes slavery: It is "just the facts." Thus, I hope the answers I gave to the questions I proposed were correct and just the facts, without an appearance of POV. "Have faith in me," I say (imitating Uncle Ed's similar claim), and I haven't failed yet -the one time I tried: In the http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion and http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abortion, I brought peace, so I expect my method will work here too. So, get on over to The Mediation Voting Center, and vote, for Gordon's sake: I have voted, and so can you.--GordonWattsDotCom 04:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok so there's non signing red users requiring eternal arguments - but even if it went by another name - the article does look poorer for the fact that the earlier stages of its life (under whatever name) is lacking ...SatuSuro 01:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--Theblog 02:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the smile, Theblog, and thanks for your careful and thoughtful work as an editor. NCdave 06:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote some comments on the HPV vaccine talk page. Gynecology isn't really my thing-- so, I didn't really have that much to say. Any case, I hope the comments were of some use. Feel free to leave me other messages/questions on my talk-- and/or post to the doctor's mess. Nephron  T|C 05:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Nephron! NCdave 10:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have been temporarily blocked from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for repeated abuse of editing privileges. Please stop. You're welcome to make useful contributions after the block expires. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

If you believe another editor has violated 3RR, file a complaint here. 1 was a revert as it reintroduced the tag you added at 23:16 (see "previous version"). And switching to a different tag (3: "totally disputed" instead of "disputed") does not change matters. Tags also come under the scope of the 3RR rule. Basically, it's clear that you believe this article to be inaccurate, and that's fine. However, edit warring by spamming the page with various tags isn't. I hope you understand, yandman 11:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now how do you expect me to file a complaint here, Yandman, when you have blocked me from editing? NCdave 14:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

NCdave (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I have not violated 3RR! I have been repeatedly reverted by other editors (esp. MastCell, JQ, and Yilloslime) on the Steven Milloy article, but have only done two reverts myself in the last week or more. Please unblock me. NCdave 09:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Referring to the 3RR Noticeboard...

• rv #1 was NOT a revert, it was an original edit, most of which had been extensively discussed on the Talk page.

My mistake, you are correct, I had that one mixed up with my other un-revert, 23:16. (Those are the only two reverts that I've done in the last week or more.)

• rv #2 WAS a revert (really, an un-revert), after my original edit was summarily reverted. I accompanied it by a plea asking, "If you have issue w/ something, please discuss it on the Talk page. These edits have been extensively discussed, & consensus achieved on at least most." (My plea was ignored.)

• rv #3 was NOT a revert. It did not undo the referenced edit, nor any other. I tagged the article with a different tag, to reflect the fact that the article had been made much, much more inaccurate and POV-biased than when I had last seen it. It also amounted to an attempt at compromise, since my attempt to correct the inaccuracies in the article had been reverted. I have read the 3RR rule, and it does not support your interpretation, that inserting one tag is equivalent to inserting another. I read it carefully, and strove to conform with this rule and every other that I am aware of. The fact is that the article needs tags warning that the accuracy is disputed, and there really can be no honest argument about that fact that the accuracy is disputed. Really, yandman, according to WP:BLP, I should have just deleted the controversial sections, but I've been trying to edit conservatively and seek consensus.

• rv #4 was NOT a revert. It did not undo the referenced edit, nor any other. It was another attempt to tag the article, but with a different tag. The article is full of inaccurate and controversial material about a living person, material which is in some cases poorly sourced, and in others entirely unsourced. Wikipedia WP:BLP rules require that such material be corrected or removed immediately, but MastCell, JQ et al immediately revert all such corrections. Several editors have noted the extreme inaccuracy and bias of this article, so it clearly deserves at least a warning tag. Again, this was NOT a revert.

• rv #5 was NOT a revert. It did not undo the referenced edit, nor any other. It was another attempt to tag a blatantly inaccurate section of the article, with a DIFFERENT warning tag, after very thorough discussion on the Talk page. Again, this was NOT a revert.

My one and only 3RR violation was over two years ago, when I was new to Wikipedia and did not know the rules. OTOH, MastCell (the complainer in this case) was guilty of a 3RR violation on this same article just a few weeks ago -- June 18, to be precise -- and went unpunished.

The claim that I was warned is incorrect, too. JQ posted on the Talk page, "Note that a further reversion by you will violate WP:3RR." But that was incorrect, so I replied, "Actually, I've only done two reverts," a fact which was not contested. In fact, I've only done two reverts in the past week, anywhere on Wikipedia, and both of those were actually un-reverts. Moreover, I did no other reverts after that. I am not a revert warrior! There are very few occasions on Wikipedia when I have reverted someone else's work, and not without thorough discussion on the Talk page. The two reverts that I did yesterday were both un-reverts, accompanied by Talk page comments, in response to total, massive reverts of work in which I had invested a lot of time.

A majority of the corrections that I tried to make had been very thoroughly discussed on the Talk page. In the case of the DDT section, we'd gone through a very lengthy discussion, and I'd incorporated changes in the proposed section to address every issue raised, and weeks had without disagreement. I noted on the Talk page that it appeared we had finally achieved consensus on it, and then I put it in the article. Six minutes later MastCell reverted it, with no Talk page discussion at all.

Reflexive deleting of material he doesn't agree with is a pattern of behavior for MastCell. Not only did he commit a 3RR violation on June 18, 2007, just two days later, on June 20, he archived numerous "long-inactive threads" (his words) from the Steven Milloy talk page, quite a few of which had had activity as recently as 16 June or later. Typing "Ctrl-F" on the archive page and searching for "June 2007" finds eight comments. Some of them were less than 48 hours old. In each case, the most recent comments were comments that I had made.

The claim that "there is consensus against his [my] proposed edits" is false, as well. I am certainly not the only one to have noticed how awful this article is, and to have tried to fix it. Peroxisome, "Uncle Ed" Poor, Theblog, 66.75.3.244, 88.105.242.190, 202.61.229.85, 147.114.226.172, and others have all remarked that this article is either biased or inaccurate or both. Sections on the Talk page (which I did not create) were entitled things like, "Article is biased against Milloy"[29], "This article is awful"[30], and "NPOV"[31], etc..

What's more, MastCell's fellow revert-warrior, Yilloslime, just DID commit a 3RR violation, today. Each of his four edits were exact reverts, not questionable cases, and that's all he did, just revert:

• rv #1: [32] exactly and entirely reverted this immediately preceding edit: [33]

• rv #2: [34] exactly and entirely reverted the combination of these two preceding edits: [35] and [36]

• rv #3: [37] exactly and entirely reverted this immediately preceding edit: [38]

• rv #4: [39] exactly and entirely reverted this immediately preceding edit: [40]

Thanks to MastCell, Yilloslime, JQ, and a few others, the Steven Milloy article is an extreme example of violation of WP:BLP, and Wikipedia policy demands that it not be left in that condition. Here's a quote from an editorial critical of Milloy which is reproduced in the Steven Milloy article. I copy it here to show you how blatant the WP:BLP violations are in this biography:

"In the world according to Milloy, any scientific study that does not support the world view where all chemicals are safe is 'junk science', all environmentalists are alarmist, and pollution and second hand smoke are harmless."

Now that is obviously not an accurate, NPOV summary of Milloy's views. It is a vicious caricature, a straw man, and possibly defamatory. It has no place in a Wikipedia biography. Milloy is a respected journalist for FoxNews.com, with advanced degrees in biostatistics and law, who has made a career out of puncturing faulty scientific reports. He does not deserve to have this sort of falsehood told about him in Wikipedia. Nobody does.

JQ (who chimed in on my false 3RR charge) defended that vicious caricature, by pointing out that it was an accurate quote of someone else. That's the main source of all that criticism in the article: quotes and paraphrases from unsupported statements by Milloy's most virulent critics. Here's another example:

The American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation says Milloy's campaign against what he calls "junk science" is a carefully-crafted facade on behalf of the tobacco industry and other elements of big business to mislead the public in order to protect their profits...

Here's another example:

Milloy has been accused by his critics of making misleading and false claims, and of misrepresenting himself as an impartial journalist on health and environmental matters while accepting funding and editorial input from tobacco and oil companies. Critics claim that, in practice, Milloy regularly criticises research suggesting that corporate activities harm the environment or public health as "junk science," while praising scientific analysis that supports his preferred positions.

(the citation for that one is the same editorial that falsely claimed Milloy thins "all chemicals are safe" and "pollution is harmless.")

I can give you many, many other examples of WP:BLP violations and inaccuracies in the Steven Milloy article, but I think you get the idea.

There was, at one time, a "praise" section and a "criticism" section, though there was also a lot of criticism outside the criticism section. The praise section (before it was banished to a footnote in the "books" section) was less than 1/15 the length of the criticism section. I'm not kidding. (I copy-pasted them each and used a character-counter.) Yet, even so, another editor asked, pointedly, "Why is there a criticism section here? The whole article is critical."[41] Which is true.

I've tried my best to help clean up this mess, and I've been very careful not to violate any WP rules (at least, any that I am aware of), but for my trouble all I got was instant reverts, a false 3RR charge, and a 1 week ban. Tanj.
Please unblock me.
NCdave 12:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Decline reason:

You have consistently been caught revert warring and POV pushing. You should use this time to read up on WP:EW and WP:3rr — GDonato (talk) 12:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GDonato, THAT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE! I have never been a POV-pusher. Never! Rather I have consistently pushed to make Wikipedia articles NPOV, factual, and balanced. I rarely revert -- only twice anywhere in the last week or two, and both were just restoring reverted/deleted material that someone else had reverted. I am by no stretch of the imagination a "revert warrior." In my two years on Wikipedia, with 500 contributions to 75 articles, I have always striven for balance, accuracy, and NPOV. (And I am not silly enough to start a revert war with 4 or 5 reflexive reverters who are pushing their POV in an article and only 2 or 3 trying, like me, to make the article balanced and NPOV.) If you don't believe me, just look at my edits, and the copious documentation that I gave on the Talk page to justify them.

Moreover, the simple fact is that I have only done two reverts, in total, in the last week. "A revert... means undoing, in whole or in part, the actions of another editor or of other editors." I have only done that twice (and both were just undoing other editors' reverts). Adding a tag that has never before appeared at the top of a section to that section is certainly not "undoing the actions of another editor," unless you consider that any change to an article is undoing the actions of another editor -- which, of course, is not what the definition is intended to be. The tags that I added were not reverts, because they did not undo other editors' changes. That's the definition of "revert." The accusation that I violated 3RR is false.

Please unblock me! NCdave 14:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Are there any Wiki administrators out there who actually care about following Wikipedia's rules??

It is a fact that I did not violate 3RR. I did only two reverts, not four.

It is also a fact that MastCell, the editor who filed the false 3RR complaint, has repeatedly inserted WP:BLP violations into the article, and that he violated 3RR on this same article a few weeks ago. The complaint noted that:

"MastCell has a long history of reverting on the steven_milloy page; this includes acting in concert with others to suppress cited information, put in wrong information, all with perfunctory attention to giving reason in edits. See the discussion page for numerous examples of MastCell refusing to communicate. MastCell has made at least 6 reverts on the 18th [June, 2007]... Peroxisome 01:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MastCell's reverts were for the purpose of maintaining poorly-sourced, controversial attacks on the subject of the biography in the article. The "remedy" applied by admistrator jossi was that the article was frozen for a week, with MastCell's reverts intact, and the WP:BLP violations still in the article.

MastCell also blatantly lied in his false 3RR complaint against me, by saying that there was Talk page consensus against my edits. In fact, there was not consensus against any of the changes I made to the article, and the major part of the material I added had been previously proposed and discussed and had achieved apparent consensus w/o any objection raised for two weeks on the talk page! Before putting that material in the article, I noted on the Talk page that there was apparent consensus, and said that I intended to ahead and put the material in the article.[42] MastCell did not respond to that (and still has not). He not only failed to get consensus on the talk page against any of my edits, he reverted them all after just 6 minutes, without any Talk page comment at all.

Please unblock me! NCdave 16:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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I wish to contest this block. Adding a tag that has never before appeared at the top of a section to that section is certainly not "undoing the actions of another editor," which means that I did not violate 3RR. Please unblock me! NCdave 20:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I will address only the WP:BLP issue, which has been opportunistically raised here by NCdave to justify his edit-warring. The BLP issue was raised here, and I responded to it at length, the bottom line being that reliably sourced criticism of a public figure acting in his public role does not violate BLP. As no one else shared NCdave's BLP concerns, I suggested he go to the BLP noticeboard to solicit outside opinions if he still felt that violations were being ignored. He chose, instead, to drop the BLP line in favor of other lines of attack (e.g. accusing other editors of vandalism during what was clearly a content dispute). I'm not going to respond further here or be drawn into an argument, but as the BLP issue has suddenly been re-raised to justify edit-warring, I've addressed it. MastCell ^Talk 18:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shame on you, MastCell, for saying what you know perfectly well is untrue. As I and several other editors have repeatedly pointed out, the Steven Milloy article is riddled controversial, poorly sourced and unsourced attacks on Mr. Milloy. Some of the allegations against him are provably false, some are just unsupported or poorly supported. I quoted three examples above, of obvious WP:BLP violations. You can't possibly believe, for instance, that blatantly dishonest editorials, utterly lacking in any supporting citations, and written by political extremists with axes to grind, are "reliable sources" for telling Wikipedia readers what Mr. Milloy truly believes, in contrast to what he says he believes. You know perfectly well that such content is impermissible per WP:BLP. Yet you persist in inserting it into the article. NCdave 22:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think MastCell's point was that 1) you think the article violates WP:BLP. 2) You couldn't get other editors to take up your side, so 3) your next step should have been either a) to drop it or b) to take the issue to BLP noticeboard and have fresh eyes take a look. You chose neither. Yilloslime 22:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, as you know, many other editors have expressed similar concerns. The fact that this article contains WP:BLP violations is not a matter of mere opinion, because some of the violations are so blatant that nobody could honestly contest them (such as the claim that Milloy believes "all chemicals are safe" and "pollution [is] harmless.")

As for me, thanks to the impositions of the real world, I was away for 13 days. Upon my return, I noticed that some of the content I'd proposed on the Talk page and which had been thoroughly vetted, appeared to have no further objections from any other editors, so I went ahead and put it into the article, along with a few other minor changes and organizational improvements. Six minutes later MastCell reverted the whole thing, and within 10 hours I had been falsely accused of 3RR violation and then blocked for a week. So I obviously cannot take up the issue of the BLP violations at the BLP noticeboard or anywhere else. NCdave 23:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to continue arguing with you here. I merely wanted to address the BLP issue, as it was being raised as an ex post facto justification. I won't be posting further here. MastCell ^Talk 23:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think NCdave has some valid WP:BLP points regarding the article, I've expressed them in talk as well, but apparently I don't count. The problem is, even things he is right about and has decent sources backing him up, he has to constantly fight for due to the heavy bias at the article in question. I do not think I've seen him POV pushing, he has been more responsive to the requests of other editors regarding their comments than most other. The ban seems excessive, especially since most of it was NPOV tags that were removed without discussion on the talk page, in fact, he didn't even get time enough to create the discussion on talk before they were reverted. --Theblog 03:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Theblog. Peroxisome, "Uncle Ed" Poor, 66.75.3.244, 88.105.242.190, 202.61.229.85, and 147.114.226.172 apparently don't count, either. NCdave 16:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Y	Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s): I forgot that I had declined a previous unblock request, so I have unblocked you since it posed a COI. Don't do it again. Request handled by: GDonato (talk) 11:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note, too, that:

• I and several other fair-minded editors have extensively documented the problems in this article on the Talk page. Some of the needed corrections to the article which I and other fair-minded editors have attempted were accepted, but many more have been reverted, often without discussion, by MastCell and his buddies. Yet each of my attempts to flag this article as "disputed" was immediately reverted by those who insist on making this biography a "hit piece" overflowing with (often false) criticism of the subject of the biography.

• Some of the falsehoods in the article are very fundamental. The subject of this biography, Mr. Steven Milloy, is a man who has dedicated his career to (according to no less than National Medal of Science winner and longtime editor of Science Magazine Philip Abelson) "the defense of the truth of science." Yet this outrageously biased Wikipedia article repeatedly and falsely claims that Milloy attacks science. Actually what Milloy attacks is faulty science.

• What's more, contrary to Wikipedia guidelines, none of the four reverts of my attempts to tag the article were discussed first on the Talk page, and two of them were accompanied by disingenuous and hypocritical edit summary comments asking that I discuss the article's problems on the Talk page, as if I had not already very extensively done just that. (If you don't believe me, just go to Talk:Steven Milloy, type ctrl-F, and search for NCdave.)

• What's more, MastCell is a persistent revert warrior who was recently (June 18) caught violating 3RR on this very article, but received full forgiveness. Having himself just been forgiven for a clear 3RR violation, he now demands draconian punishment for much less clearcut violations. I am reminded of Matthew 18:23-33.

Please unblock me. NCdave 11:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

note http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GDonato

Peroxisome 22:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have proposed that you be banned from the Steven Milloy article for long-term tendentious editing. The relevant thread is on the community sanction noticeboard. MastCell ^Talk 22:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have accepted your request to be mentored. Please see my talk page. --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, JodyB! I've never had a mentor before!  :-) NCdave 17:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dave, first of all let me say that I am impressed that you are going down the mentorship path. It shows moral courage. I'm going to reply to your last email here so that your mentor can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong about anything. (Apologies in advance for the long post) You asked me to to explain what behaviour was unacceptable and why here are a few of the diffs and links to relevant policy:

First of all, let me say that I am humbled and grateful that you took so much time to put this together for my benefit, Cailil. You are very generous with your time, and I thank you for it. NCdave 23:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1. [43] - here you speculated on the reasons behind other editors' contributions - this is a breach of "assume good faith". This sounds minor but it is in fact the single largest problem on Wikipedia, unless it can be cogently and comprehensively shown that an editor is behaving in bad faith (rather than following policies such as the biographies of living persons or policy about verification, reliable sources, notability, no original research or [[WP:NPOV|neutral point of view) then you must assume that other editors are working to improve the encyclopedia.

   You are right, Cailil. All I can say in my defense is that it was 2.5 years ago, and I'd only been on Wikipedia for just over a week, and was still learning the ropes. NCdave 23:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
   Hmmm... the above comment   [when inserted with a "::" prefix]   messed up the numbering of Cailil's nicely numbered list. How does one go about inserting an indented comment in a numbered list, without resetting the number counter? NCdave 23:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

   I guess by using the <blockquote></blockquote> HTML constructs? I've changed my "::"-prefixed and ":::"-prefixed comments to use nested <blockquote></blockquote> tags. That restored the numbering, but it seems less than ideal, because it causes successive comments to be rendered in successively smaller fonts. Is there a better way? NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

2. [44] - this is last wordiness. I'm going to own-up to a major personal dislike of this behaviour. In other parts of the internet it could be called thread necromancy and is just bad internet-etiquette. Sometimes its best to let sleeping conversations lie - especially ones over a year old. Otherwise it seems that the necromancer "has to have the last word" - this isn't a policy violation but again people find it irritating
3. Here you called this edit by Raymond arritt "vandalism" - it is not vandalism. Raymond is correctly removing synthesized material. What is synthesized material? An essay, a piece of original research, a group of points reference to primary sources that are linked together to form an argument. Wikipedia's rules on original research mean that you need to find a secondary source, one independent of the subject (i.e the biography of WB Yeats by RF Forster) and summarize a notable point from that source about the subject. What Raymond removed was a synethsis of points backed-up by primary sources (the junk science website). What he did is in fact the opposite of vandalism. I am an expert in dealing with complex vandalism and Raymond's edit isn't vandalism.

   Cailil, would you please identify what you think is WP:SYN in that section?
   Raymond Arritt was repeatedly asked that question, by multiple editors, but declined to answer. I truly would like to know. I can't see anything there that looks like synthesis to me. Raymond blanked the section just 10 minutes after I added it, and his edit summary was just "(rm WP:SYN, WP:OR per Talk)." Yet (despite his "per Talk" reference) he did not attempt to justify doing so on the Talk page. In fact, he never did. Immediately after he blanked the section, he was asked by multiple editors what was the alleged SYN and OR.[45][46][47] But he refused to answer, saying, "There was no point in adding to what was plainly stated in my edit summary". I pointed out the great lengths to which I had gone before adding the section, to answer all objections and achieve consensus. Another editor asked what was the supposed SYN and OR. I agreed and asked again, "where is the WP:OR and WP:SYN ... Please be specific."[48][49]. No answer. A week later I asked again. Finally, after two weeks w/ no answer, I gave up. So I really would like to know what you think was WP:SYN in that section. NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

4. [50] This diff shows two things, first you didn't understand WP:3RR and second you were wiki-lawyering (something I personally detest and something that very quickly annoys the community).
   1. First. 3RR means that if you alter a page tendentiously (it doesn't have to be 3 times in 24 hours) you will be blocked. "Tendentious reverts" are any changes (not just pressing revert) that bring the page back to what is (or what looks like) your preferred version of it, in the face of other editors who dispute this version of the page.
   2. Second wiki-lawyering is an attempt to game the system using legalistic argument. It doesn't work. It annoys people. And it wastes time.

      I agree, but I wasn't wiki-lawyering. I just read the rules and tried to follow them. A straightforward reading of the rules indicates that I was not in violation of 3RR, since I did not bring the page back to what it looked like 4 (or even 3) times in a 24-hour period. NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

5. Talk:Steven_Milloy#Archiving_active_threads - this is tendentious. For instance in this diff it shows a conversation that took place in Jan 06 and ended in July 2006 which you commented on in June 2007. You should have left that comment alone if the topic is that interesting you could have started a new conversation at the bottom of the page. But if you commented just to rebut or argue with the other editor don't bother - the conversation is over.

   That diff just shows a punctuation improvement. It was not a rebuttal or argument with someone. NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

6. With respect to your own beliefs and perspective I have to say that comments like this are unconstructive - wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a forum. we are NOT here to debate the rights and wrongs of any issue or subject but to record the "mainstream" reliably sourced and verified points about subjects. - This is hard because it requires editors to be cold, and maybe cold-hearted about edits. There is an essay called WP:TIGERS and it summarizes wikipedia's attitude to strong held points of view. In its terms we admire editors with strong opinions in the way curator's admire stuffed Tigers.

   We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. [...] But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem.

   If you feel passionate about a subject its probably best to stay far away from its Wikipedia article. Passion for subject is a wonderful thing but wikipedia requires editors to be dispassionate about the subjects they edit.
7. [51] - Never, ever add new comments to an archived discussion. These discussions are closed and preserved "as is" for record.

   Why not? Is there a policy somewhere on this?
   And do you truly mean to say that a temporarily blocked user should never be permitted to answer accusations made against him? That's the result of forbidding comments in archives, when (as in this case) the accused is blocked before he learns of the complaint, and the discussion is archived before the block ends. That doesn't seem right, to me. Does it to you? NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

8. [52] You say that Mastcell made "defamatory" edits - as yet and I've look through a few months I can find none. It is also a quasi-legal threat to call edits defamatory and legal threats are an indef blocking offence. Site policy is clear on this - don't make legal threats, don't make veiled legal threats, don't make any threats. That said, your remarks are only slightly threatening but in future make sure they have zero threat in them.
9. [53] This diff shows incivility. Ask yourself what does "Please cease your hateful POV-pushing." add to the conversation? For others it adds nothing constructive and besides being incivil it doesn't help improve the article.
10. A last point. There are editors on Steven Milloy who are not working constructively on wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a battleground any one working to create a group that fight another one is being disruptive. My advice is stay away from them. There are also those like Raul654 who knows exactly what wikipedia is about. Have a look at Raul's laws - esp. No. 13: "An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie. An article is not neutral if, after reading it, you can tell where the author's sympathies lie." I know you feel angry at Raul but you should try to get passed this, his is most often a good example.

    That's interesting. I'd not seen Raul's laws. Does No. 13 seem as ironic to you as it does to me, since Raul (who banned me) certainly left no doubt where his sympathies lie? NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Consider these points Dave. But please don't rush to rebut what I'm saying here. I've been careful in considering the diffs MastCell provided and what I found in your contribs. I'm what Durova calls a wikisleuth, I track down the most difficult to catch vandals. I never consider a WP:CSN case on face value, I've as often refused to support action as I have supported it because I try to conduct as thorough an investigation as possible into the situation.

Dave, you could make valuable contributions to wikipedia when you get to grips with these problems, take a look at the 5 pillars of WikiPedia or WP:EQ to gain a fuller understanding of the site's code of conduct. It is my most sincere hope that you can become a great wikipedian, but I must place this caveat, if you don't turn away from the above sort of bad behaviour more sanctions will come and they would be justified. This is your second chance, grab it with both hands--Cailil ^talk 22:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Afterword: just so you know, I think the way you have behaved at Talk:HPV vaccine is an example of constructive editing.--Cailil ^talk 00:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think Cailil has done a pretty good job in summing up the issues that have brought us to this point. The only point that I differ with is the comment about passion. Passion can be a great asset to an editor. In theory you will be have a greater knowledge about the things you are most passionate about. The problem is that our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses. When passion moves beyond knowledge of a subject and enters the realm of emotion only trouble can follow. So I would simply say to use extreme caution when editing something you feel strongly about and be particularly aware of any reverts, challenges or edits that seem to offend you. That could be a sign that you are too involved emotionally.

JodyB, I want to thank you for volunteering so generously to take your time mentoring me on Wikipedia. Even though I've been here for 2.5 years, and have edited many articles, I still get surprised at times by the rules and expectations. For example, I was very surprised when I was blocked for a week for a supposed 3RR violation, when the obvious reading of the Wikipedia rules and definitions would indicate that (most of) the reverts in question were not reverts at all, not even partial reverts. Likewise, I was surprised to read Calil's objection to editing archived material, since I've never seen a policy against that. NCdave 23:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now, let's talk about a couple of hard and fast rules I suggest you adopt. This is only a suggestion and it is designed to avoid any trouble at all. I don't expect you to agree with all of them but I can assure you that if you follow them you will have less friction in the future.

1. It doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. You are now topic banned and there is nothing to be done about it. Let it alone and move on. While there may have been some issues involving other people; their conduct does not absolve you of any wrongdoing. In other words, the cry "He did it first" does not work here. As a practical matter there is no way to undo the ban except by spending the next several months compiling a strong record of good and solid work. Only then can we ask that the ban be lifted. It will also appear in your history; but time will cause it to fade.

   Why? Note that the editor who banned me had a clear conflict of interest. Should that not be grounds for lifting the ban which he imposed? NCdave 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

2. Stay away from those who angered you. I noticed this morning that you commented on a checkuser case filed by User:MastCell. Your comments there may not be a violation of the CSN topic ban but it does represent a spillover of that case onto other areas. It's pretty clear to me that a big chunk of what you had to say there was an effort to stick it to Mastcell. Don't do that. When you go after the people who angered you in other forums you show that the topic ban isn't working, that you remain troublesome and you invite further sanction. I would strongly recommend that you discuss with me any interaction you might have with any of the editors you were in conflict with.
3. Avoid controversial articles for now. There's a certain excitement about editing articles that are controversial - we all know that. It's more fun to talk about the Nazi's and Kluxers than a small town near your home or some State or National park/monument/museum. But for now, I would take a break from controversy and work on polishing your writing skills with less explosive articles.
4. Be Gentle. There is an administrator here name Phaedriel who is a picture of gentle conduct and behavior. She still blocks, deletes, warns and discusses but she does so with a demeanor that is difficult to oppose. She uses kindness in all her interactions and finds great success in dealing with people because of it. I am sure she gets frustrated and angry but she controls what she says and how she says it. WP:CIVIL is an important document here and I would encourage you to read it slowly and carefully.
5. Walk Away from trouble. As singer Kenny Rogers sang, "Now it don't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek..." Sometimes it is best to walk away from an argument that is getting too hot. Any idiot can argue - but it takes a wise man to know when to leave the discussion. You need to be aware of your own feelings and know when someone is pushing your buttons. There is no value in pressing beyond reasoned discourse. Rise above and do not feel like you must respond to every little comment that is made.
6. Talk to me. I am here to assist you in regaining the respect of the community. Please talk with me anytime there is a tiny question in your mind about whether something is wise or appropriate. I cannot help you if you do not let me. I will watchlist your page here and I will be checking your contributions from time to time.

Now, these things are suggestions. I have no power to force you to do anything. I will enforce our policies here and work to make this the best encyclopedia possible. Work with me and you will soon be back in better or good standing. Good luck! --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC) [[Category:]][reply]

You are most kind, Jody, and I am most grateful. NCdave 23:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As your mentor, I would suggest you cease any contact with User:MastCell. That includes the checkuser case and your CSN discussion. That's over lets move on ok? --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blaylock's Wellness Report and his website [54] are published by NewsMax Media Inc. [55].

According to [56] the website blaylockreport.com was created 26 May 2004. The website material was probably written by a NewsMax HTML editor from a bunch of papers supplied by Blaylock's secretary and not written by Blaylock himself.

If you were to read my "latest" Resume written in the 1980's it would seem to claim that I am now working at my old Seattle job, which I have not had for many years after I retired. When Dr. Blaylock retired in 2003, he probably did not update his CV.

Yes, that hurts his credibility and he should correct this problem. I don't want to spend any more time on it, but if you want to ask him for more credible information, you could write to:

Advanced Nutritional Concepts

9 Lakeland Sq

Flowood, MS 39232

(601) 982-1175

I got those from a blog dated Sept 25, 2004 and may no longer be his current address. Greensburger 18:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blaylock's Lakeland Square address seems to have changed to (or from ?) 1000 Lakeland Square Extension in Flowood, MS 39232-7650. This address is shared by several companies and individuals including Lakeland Family Clinic, Specialty Pharmacy, Cahoots Party World, etc.

Here are two web pages that gives his middle name as Lane and the year 1971 that he received his MD degree: [57] [58] The second page gives his PO Box address in Ridgeland, MS.

I suggest that we avoid giving his full middle name in the Wiki article so that we can continue to distinguish secondary sources from primary sources.

Here is a chatty note from Blaylock (scroll down to "71") that gives his email address. http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/alumni_affairs/tigerlines I am not going to email him. Greensburger 00:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the web site for the Louisiana State University School of Medicine there is this page: http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/alumni_affairs

that invites graduated students to order copies of their transcripts. "Requests cannot be made by 2nd parties." But maybe they will verify Russell L. Blaylock's claim to have received an MD degree from the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans in 1971. I have not asked them. Greensburger 13:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe my edit to the article Talk page addressed your concerns. Greensburger 18:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for tracking down all this information!

On Sept. 7th I wrote to him at the email address which you found (and at another email address, but that one bounced). I asked, "Dear Dr. Blaylock, I understand from your vita that you were a practicing neurosurgeon for about 25 years, prior to your retirement from neurosurgery. May I ask at what institution you practiced neurosurgery most recently?" So far I've not received a reply, but if I do I'll note it on the Talk:Russell Blaylock page. NCdave 11:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the critical comments regarding that block. First thing, I want to draw your attention to WP:LINKSPAM: Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed. What this means is that links that are not "spam" (noun) in the sense of blatant advertising can still be "spammed" (verb) across wikipedia. Christopher russo clearly was "spamming" the single link, in violation of these guidelines. Next, a third party had warned the user using standard warning templates up to the final warning. This was an unambiguous case of a user being in violation of a blockable offense. The purpose of blocks is not to punish, but to prevent disruptive editing from occurring. In retrospect, I could have kept my nose clean by asking for another admin to do the deed. However, at the time, I felt that I was not blocking due to a content dispute or 3RR or something that I was personally involved with. The spam warnings all came from another user, and Christopher russo was unambiguously in violation. However, in the future, I may want to avoid blocking anyone I have argued with to avoid the public shame of the warning you left on my user page ;) -Andrew c ^[talk] 15:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Andrew. I agree with your advice to Christopher Russo, to discuss his edits on the article Talk page. However, the link that he added does not appear to be "for the purpose of promoting a website or a product," and it was pertinent to the article. So it wasn't spam, and he shouldn't have been blocked for adding it, even repeatedly.

But that was not my point. My point was that, as an active editor of the article, you have a conflict of interest when it comes to administrative oversight of the article. What's more, you had been "tag-team" reverting Mr. Russo along with that "third party" that you referred to, just before you imposed the block. So, regardless of whether or not he committed an offense, you, of all people, should not have blocked him.

Ironically, it appears that you also twice[59][60] reverted Mr. Russo without discussion on the article Talk page, even though you put multiple requests on his talk page asking for him to discuss his edits on the article Talk page. Am I mistaken? I've not been involved in this article, so perhaps I missed it. But I see no mention by you on the Talk page of Mr. Russo's edits, which you reverted.

My momma used to tell me, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Your advice to Mr. Russo, to discuss his edits on the Talk page, was good, and you've often followed that advice yourself w/r/t other parts of the article -- but not w/r/t Mr. Russo's edits. You would do well to reinforce your excellent advice to him by setting the example of following that advice, yourself, w/r/t your disagreements with his edits. NCdave 16:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think your point about the block from two weeks ago is made and Andrew c received your comments quite nicely. Perhaps we should move along don't you think? --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 17:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How did you reach the conclusion that "the result was delete," for List of conductors? At the time you declared the result, the head count 5-4, which sounds like "no consensus" to me. The 9th person voted "delete." If you'd waited a little less time it would have been a 4-4 tie. If you'd waited a little more time it might have been a 5-5 tie. NCdave 01:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Counting the nominator it was 6-4 at closing, and the delete arguments were more convincing than the keep arguments. AFD isn't a vote. Also, if I'd waited a little more time it might have been a 10-4 result; that argument goes both ways. You're welcome to refer the matter to Wikipedia:Deletion review if you disagree with my call on the debate. Stifle (talk) 18:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sen. Helms instances of Bigotry are well documented during his tenure in office. Read the article under controversies and that alone is enough to warrant a label of Bigot. Stop writing half-truths and covering it with the title of encyclopedic literature.

Alvin Harris Grandextrav —Preceding unsigned comment added by GRANDEXTRAV (talk • contribs) 19:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alvin, the fact that he was accused of bigotry is undisputed. However, I've lived in NC for nearly a quarter century, and I've never observed bigoted behavior by Sen. Helms. The allegations of bigoted behavior in the "controversies" section of the article are all unsourced or poorly sourced, from unreliable leftist sources. NCdave (talk) 19:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dave,

Common sense should tell you that just because Sen. Helms racist policies did not directly affect you personally, does not mean his racist rhetoric and actions toward others were non- exsistant.

Alvin A. Harris —Preceding unsigned comment added by GRANDEXTRAV (talk • contribs) 19:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alvin, I have been a careful observer of NC politics for over 24 years, and I'm never observed any racist rhetoric or actions from Sen. Helms. If you think he's such a racist, then why do you suppose he led the effort in Congress to drastically increase the United States' efforts to combat AIDS in Africa? Clinton had no interest, but Helms & Bush made it a high priority.

Also, I see that you have violated WP:3RR to re-insert your "bigotry" charge into the article yet again. Please undo it immediately.

Also, please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). NCdave (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dave,

Increasing efforts to combat AIDS in Africa??? Serouisly Dave, if you think that single effort on the part of Sen. Helms outwheighs his blatant racist rhetoric and lopsided policies towards minorities in his own country during his tenure then you are delusional and i do not care to conversate with you any further on this point.

Alvin A. Harris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.232.153.118 (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alvin, I do indeed think that the fact of his crusade to save millions of African babies from AIDS greatly outweighs the slanders against him, the imaginary racist rhetoric & policies of which you wrongly attribute to him. NCdave (talk) 05:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In your support of not telling people the entire truth of Sen. Jesse Helms instances of Bigotry , I seriously question your desire for truth and accuracy. Unless of course you share the same racist veiws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GRANDEXTRAV (talk • contribs) 19:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1.In columns, commentaries and pronouncements from the Senate floor, Helms sowed hatred and called names: The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

2.Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963)

3.He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)

4.when a caller to CNN's Larry King Live show praised guest Jesse Helms for "everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," Helms' response was to salute the camera and say, "Well, thank you, I think." (Wilmington Star-News, 9/16/95)

Dave,

those examples alone warrant the label of Bigot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.232.153.118 (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the examples were truthful they would be. They aren't. Just repeating every bit of undocumented slander you can find doesn't prove a thing. If there were provable examples of bigotry on his part, why do you suppose that Hunt & Gantt didn't trot out some examples during their multi-million dollar campaigns against him?

If you want to rail against a real bigot, instead of smearing a decent gentleman with false charges, why don't you pick on the Senate's very own Klan recruiter? Oh, well that's awkward, isn't it... because he's a Democrat. NCdave (talk) 04:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1.Helms opposed the Martin Luther King holiday bill in 1983

2.After a protest during his 1986 visit to Mexico, Sen. Helms was quoted: "All Latins are volatile people": end quote

and lastly, i write in disgust!

3.As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Sen. Helms helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent Frank Graham, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." :end quote

Dave,

is this enough? or should i continue to post more?

Alvin A. Harris 144.232.153.118 (talk) 22:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)  : )[reply]

1. I, too, opposed the MLK Jr. holiday bill. I am no racist. The irony of MLK day is that if MLK Jr. & Washington were judged by the standard that MLK Jr. himself advocated -- i.e., by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin -- then there would be no question about the fact that President Washington was more deserving of a holiday than was MLK Jr.

2. Helms was quoted saying many things that he never said.

3. In 1950 Helms was a 28 year old Democrat. Now, don't you feel a little bit embarrassed? When you just ingest every bit of unproven slander you find, to stoke the fires of your hatred, you end up believing (and repeating) silly nonsense. NCdave (talk) 04:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for pointing that out for me, I didn't see the reference there. I removed the no references temp and fixed up the reference link so it appears in a reference list at the bottom of the page. Happy editing! Icestorm815 (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! NCdave (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Dave - This is going to be a controversial topic, and I hope and expect we'll find common ground quickly. It would be, I think, appropriate for that link or something like it to be somewhere in Wikipedia. I do appreciate your support! Simesa (talk) 11:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am contacting you here because I don't want to take up and more space on the article talk page with interpersonal issues. I have admitted to making 1 edit without an accompanying talk page discussion. That would be the 21:21, 18 February 2008 edit. However, like I explained, I thought this was a case of link spam. And editor had gone to 4 or so articles and added the exact same external link, and I also left a message for the editor on the first article I encountered the link. My next edit was roughly 14 hours later. Within 30 minutes of this edit, I posted my talk page explanation. I had started typing it right after I made the edit. But the delay in the post was due to me scouring the internet for sources. I was trying to find information to advance the position that CPCs offer adoption grants and only found that one source in my search. This is explained in that edit. I did receive an edit conflict when I hit "save page" because you had posted your two word "Good call" reply while I was composing my post. Immediately after that, I started writing a response to your post explaining my edit. This was posted minutes after my first reply. After I had finished explaining why I made my edit, I looked at the article to see that you had already reverted some of my changes without having read my replies and this is why I posted my "ACK!" comment (and I can see now that the reason was because you did your reverting while I was still typing up my reply). So I can see your perspective. You were impatient and were unaware that a talk page explanation was forthcoming. Now, can you see my perspective that my first edit of today DID in fact have not one, but two accompanying talk page explanations directed to the corresponding editors whose edits I modified. I apologize that research takes time and that I didn't type faster, but I do take offense at your claims that I edited without discussing. So hopefully we can clear up this stuff, and focus on the meat of the article! -Andrew c ^[talk] 21:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the message, Andrew. I see how it happened.

But my momma used to say, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Please recall that YOU were the one who complained that I edited without discussing, not vice-versa. My complaint to which you take offense was a paraphrase of yours: you complained ("ACK!") that I edited without discussing, when I'd actually been discussing for hours, and YOU were the one who had edited without (yet) discussing.

You complain that I was "impatient and unaware that a talk page explanation was forthcoming." But your "ACK!" complaint came just 5 minutes after my 2nd edit, while I was typing ANOTHER addition to the discussion page. My 2nd edit was 19 minutes after your edit, when you had yet to type your FIRST comment about it on the discussion page -- and you call me "impatient" for that, because I'd not waited long enough for your Talk page comment. How is it that 19 minutes is "impatient" for me, but 5 minutes is not for you?

In fact, I'd been discussing my edit of the mischaracterized and repetiously summarized Waxman report for hours BEFORE doing any edits to the article, and you just hadn't noticed it.

Here's a suggestion. You might have noticed that in some cases my Talk page comments have been almost simultaneous with the corresponding article edits, which say "see Talk" in the edit comment. That's to (try to) prevent someone from missing the Talk page discussion, or jumping in before I get a chance to finish typing. I do it by editing both at the same time, in two browser windows. Rather than editing the article and then posting comments on the Talk page article explaining it a half hour later, why not post them at the same time? NCdave (talk) 15:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for participating in the discussion at abortion and mental health. I have added additional notes on the discussion page regarding materials that have consistently been purged. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.--Strider12 (talk) 02:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note of encouragement. You may be interested that MastCell has developed a list of complaints against me and has opened a request for comments against me.--Strider12 (talk) 20:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, NCdave. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. MastCell ^Talk 23:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]