User talk:6324xxxx

Tom Van Flandern

I am not an editor of that article, but an administrator who came there to look at an edit war which you're involved to. I do strongly suggest you refrain from reverting other editors and discuss the issue at the talk pages. Materialscientist (talk) 04:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for a short time to prevent further disruption caused by your engagement in an edit war. During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

I have specifically and kindly asked you to refrain from reverting edits without discussing them first. Materialscientist (talk) 04:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

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).

6324xxxx (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 made an edit to a page, actually just restoring a page to what it had been for many months, and I gave the justification for it in the Discussion page, pointing out that the issue had been discussed in detail a year ago, and the current wording in the article was the consensus result of that discussion. I think recerived a message from Materialscientist warning me not to edit wikipedia articles without discussing on the discussion page. I answered that I HAD justified my edit on the discussion page - whereas the editor who reverted my edit (and lodged a complaint about me) had not. I then re-iterated the justification for the consensus wording on the Discussion page and restored it again. Then I was blocked. Still the editor who is trying to promote crackpot pseudoscience has not given any justification for his edit, but I have been blocked for not justifying my edits. This seems bizarre to me. I don't think blocking me was in any way justified. I have carefully and patiently exlained each of my edits. I have violated no rules. To the contrary, I have simply been working to ensure that Wiki standards of verifiability, no original research, and no promotion of person web sites or personal POVs.

Decline reason:

When I checked the history of your contributions to this article, I was not impressed. It looks to me like long-term edit warring. I note that you have made personal attacks against other editors like User:Akuvar on your own talk page during the very time that you were appealing this block. When this 24-hour block expires, I suggest you take a break from editing Tom Van Flandern, which lately seems to be your sole interest on Wikipedia. Your understanding of our policy on verifiability and reliable sources leaves much to be desired, and your hostility to the subject of the article makes us wonder how you can write about him neutrally. EdJohnston (talk) 04:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

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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.

Regarding the link name. As I mentioned at the talk page of the article, I have no slightest interest in this topic, but as long as organization calls themselves XXX, wikipedia has to respect that and quote XXX as their name. Unless one has strong evidence supported by third-party reliable sources that XXX is YYY (and even then it would be questionable), one should not change this as you did. This is not a matter of WP:CONSENSUS (which I don't see by the way), but a matter of WP:OR. Materialscientist (talk) 05:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello. You keep referring "they" and "their" and "themselves" (plural), but the point is that the "Meta Research" organization only consisted of a single individual, namely, Tom Van Flandern. He was a a pseudo-science crackpot who PRETENDED to belong to an "organization", but it was a fantasy. Now, since you agree that you don't have the slightest interest in this topic, and you know nothing about the merits of the argument, I'm not sure why you have interjected yourself, by blocking the editor (me) who is trying to uphold Wikipedia standards for verifiability, while allowing the crackpots like Akuvar to have free reign over the article. You seem to completely misunderstand the principle of verifiability on which Wikipedia is based. If I Tom Van Flandern called himself The Emperor of the Universe, would you favor referring to him in the article as "The Emperor of the Universe"? Of course not, because there is no verifiable source that supports this. It is not my responsibility to prove that he was NOT the Emperor of the Universe, it is the responsibility of anyone who wants to call him that in the article to give a verifiable and REPUTABLE source for that title. Likewise, if Van Flandern called himself the president and CEO of Meta Research, but if the public records of incorporation show that "Meta Research" was nothing but Van Flandern's vanity title, and it did not exist other than himself, and his web site was purely set up by himself, then would you favor dignifying his web site as anything other than a personal web site? I hope the answer is no.

I really suggest you consult with some scientifically literate people on the subject of Tam Van Flandern, and ask them if they believe there is any verifiable evidence that "Meta Research" consisted of anything other than Tom Van Flandern himself. If you're truly not interested, then maybe you should ask someone else, who is at least slightly interested, to look into the matter.6324xxxx (talk) 05:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

A short answer is WP is about verifiable data, not about truth. Whatever company XXX was in "reality", its XXX name was officially approved by corresponding authorities, and wherever our emotions are, we have to reflect that. After all, we are talking here merely about naming an external link; if you managed to get into a dispute with a neutral administrator over this petty issue, I can only imagine your arguments with the involved editors of this article. Materialscientist (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand your comments. The verifiable data that has been documented on the Discussion page is that Van Flandern's web site is a purely personal web site, not an institutional web site. Wikipedia has a well-known policy against using personal web sites as reputable sources of information. If someone makes a personal web site, but calls it an institutional web site, this does not make it an instutitional web site. Now, you say that the name XXX of Van Flandern's web site was "officially approved by corresponding authorities", but it isn't clear what you mean. Anyone can call their web site anything they want. You could make a personal web site and call it "The American Institute for Advanced Studies in Theoretical Research", but this doesn't confer on your website the status of an instutitional website. It is still your personal web site.

Look, if someone wants to edit the article to note that Van Flandern called his personal web site "Meta Research", that would be okay. What I consider objectionable is the suggestion that it was an institutional web site, or that Meta Research was anything other than what the verifiable data shows it was, which is a fantasy research organization, fabricated by Van Flandern to pretend that he was backed by some reputable instutition. I believe all my edits have been quite consistent with Wikipedia policy, whereas your edits have been contrary to Wikipedia policy.

I should also mention that your "justification" for blocking me was that I had made an edit without explaining my edit on the discussion page, but the record plainly shows that I carefully and patiently explained each of my edits on the Discussion page, pointing to the verifiable documentation that supports my edit (which is really just restoring the consensus version of the article as it has existed for the past year). In contrast, the editor you are supporting (Akuvar) has been attempting to change the article from its consensus version without giving any justification on the Discussion page. Your actions here have been misguided and unwarranted and contrary to Wikipedia policy.6324xxxx (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

May I ask you to (i) focus your writing; (ii) provide factual evidence for your statements (such as diffs of the edits and direct links) (iii) avoid editing the Tom Van Flandern article after your current block expires. This is a routine and polite administrative measure to avoid you being blocked from editing other WP pages; please respect that. It is my obligation to be neutral, and I must note the evidence I have read by now disproves many statements you've made. Materialscientist (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

You say "many" of my statements have been disproven, but you decline to state even one such disproven statement. Could you cite just one? In contrast, I've explicitly given the documented evidence disproving your substantative assertions. For example, you asserted that I was engaged in an "edit war" when in fact the record shows that I made a grand total of three edits in the course of three days, each of which simply restored the article to the consensus version that had been painstakingly arrived at over a year ago, and in each instance I wrote a explanation of the edit, pointing back to the archived discussion (which includes the verifiable evidence in public records). Please note that after the FIRST of these three edits, your friend Akuvar accused me of "vandalism", and began searching for some administrator who he could enlist to get me banned. Now, I think it's fair to say that ONE reversion of an article, back to a consensus version that had existed for over year, and that had been arrived at by consensus of muyltiple editors based on verifiable documentary evidence, is certainly not "vandalism". Then you said you blocked me for not discussing edits on the discussion page, which was false. Then you said I had not given verifiable data to support my edits, which was false. Then you claimed that my preferred version was not the result of consensus, which was false. Then when all these falsehoods were exposed, you ended up saying the justification for blocking me was "if you managed to get into a dispute with a neutral administrator over this petty issue, I can only imagine your arguments with the involved editors of this article." In other words, now my offense that justifies being blocked is simply that you blocked me!

You clearly are not a neutral observer. and your actions have been arbitrary and capricious (at best). Wikipedia editing is supposed to be based on the rules and policies of Wikipedia, not on the personal whims of some individual administrator. All my edits have been fully consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The edits of you and Akuvar have been inconsistent with those policies. How does one go about lodging a formal complaint against an administrator?6324xxxx (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

You are invited to comment on this proposed update of the Tom Van Flandern. Please reply here, focus your comments, do avoid any personal statements regarding WP editors, but comment on the article content (if you wish to do so). Your help in improving the WP content would be appreciated, comments in line of the above reply would be not. Thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 01:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

After I wrote this, I noted that your last edit, apart from personal attack on other wikipedia users, contained outing of personal information. Please refrain from such behavior as it is inconsistent with the basic WP policies and may result in immediate and indefinite block of your account. Materialscientist (talk) 05:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Tom Van Flandern

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Tom Van Flandern. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Van Flandern (2nd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)