User talk:Captain Occam/Archive 2

3RR

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Race and Intelligence. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. I think you are pretty close, I suggest taking it easy otherwise there may be administrative intervention. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I see that you have made *ten* edits to Race and intelligence in a 24-hour period. An editor has complained at the 3RR noticeboard that you have violated WP:3RR. If you disagree, can you explain which of your October 11 edits are not reverts? Four reverts would be enough to violate the 3RR policy. If you will promise to stop edit-warring on this article, you may be able to avoid a block. EdJohnston (talk) 20:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a completely accurate understanding of what constitutes a violation of this policy, so I may have violated it without realizing it, but I’ll explain the way that I understand this as well as I can.

I only consider three of them to be reverts in the sense that I think it's prohibited to have more than three of in 24 hours: this one, this one, and this one. This one was to correct drive-by-tagging which was accompanied by no explanation on the talk page; I figured that would be allowed, but perhaps it wasn’t.

I would appreciate you looking into this issue in greater depth, because the problem here involves a lot more than just me, even though I may have contributed to it. It seems to be a fairly clear example of WP:TAG_TEAM, as I pointed out on the reliable sources noticeboard.

As can be seen from the last third or so of the Race and Intelligence talk page, a few other editors of this article seem determined to remove a certain New York Times citation from the article, which I added several months ago but which hadn’t received much attention until the past few days. However, their desire to remove it doesn’t seem to be based on any specific Wikipedia policy, because each time that they’ve tried to remove it they cited a different policy that they were claiming it violated. Each time that they’ve done this, I’ve carefully explained why it’s not in violation of that policy, and they’ve abandoned their argument for removing it based on that policy. But when I do this, within a few hours they try to remove it again based on an entirely different policy, and I have to do the exact same thing again. We’re now at the point where they’re beginning recycle their earlier arguments for its removal, which they had previously abandoned after the first time I refuted them.

The point here doesn’t seem to be to provide any actual justification for this removal based on Wikipedia’s policies, but just to keep coming up with excuses for continuing to remove this citation. There are several of them who want to remove it and only one of me, so they can keep removing this reference without violating 3RR. On the other hand, each time they do this I can’t easily put it back without edit warring, which I may be gulty of in this case. I’ve been thinking of requesting the involvement of another editor in this issue, but this has already been tried once on the reliable sources noticeboard, and it wasn’t helpful. The only effect this had was for them to begin their endless cycle of arguments there, and eventually the editors who had originally responded to their request no longer had the time or energy to keep up with it, even though they had initially agreed with me about the citation being admissible.

This whole situation is a problem, and I think Ramdrake in particular has most likely violated the 3RR by this point also. If you think I’m contributing to this problem, it’s all right if you block me from editing the article for 24 hours, but please, please do something about the rest of the situation also. If you can find a way to stop the tag-teaming on this article, I promise to not edit war about it anymore either. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

A few points, TAGTEAM is an essay that enjoys no consensus, and the removal of tags is a revert. The list of exceptions is given in WP:3RR, and doesn't include removing tags. Cheers, Verbal chat 22:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Captain Occam. Being well-intentioned does not exempt you from following WP:3RR. If you join the discussion at WP:AN3 and promise to stop reverting the article, you may be able to avoid a block. It is not wise to refer to tag-teaming in your defence. Nobody is compelled to violate 3RR, regardless of what the other editors may be up to. You can start a WP:Request for comment if you want to attract the attention of more regular editors to a disputed point. EdJohnston (talk) 02:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I just read through a good part of the post on WP:RSN, and I agree with Ed that an RFC may help in this situation. It seems like the crux of the issue now is NPOV as opposed to whether or not the NYTimes source is reliable as well as its inclusion thereof. Do I understand that correctly?

Anyways, what I will go to the talk page and try to get something going here as far an RFC is concerned. That's the best way we can go at this point. MuZemike 18:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"It seems like the crux of the issue now is NPOV as opposed to whether or not the NYTimes source is reliable as well as its inclusion thereof. Do I understand that correctly?"

Yeah, that's about right. I'm not actually convinced that Wikipedia's policies disallow the NYT article being cited for this, but at this point I think the larger NPOV issues deserve more attention that the inclusion or exclusion of a single citation.

Also, at the suggestion of the admin Dbachmann, I've brought up this issue at the administrators' noticeboard. There's also an issue of one particular user trolling this and similar topics, and while Dbachmann appears to think that blocking this user would be justified (the discussion about this is here), he also thinks he shouldn't do this himself, because Dbachmann occasionally edits these topics. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Recruiting help

slrubenstein's recruitment of help (as if there weren't enough help already):

1. 23:59, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Mathsci ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section) (top)
2. 23:58, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Moreschi ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section)
3. 23:56, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:MastCell ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section)

He is not going to give up, nor are the other editors. Nobody else seems to care about this article, but if you know any editors you may want to let them know. Getting blocked isn't going to help the article. They will do anything they can to get the blocks. They just want to censor the material. It's an "important" article and they know very well how it might affect people's thinking. I believe they want to remove/censor the statistical data entirely. That in particular is probably the motivating factor, that someone might look at the article and realize that X group really does have low IQs - the scientific, causation etc arguments are probably a secondary problem to these guys. Just my impression. Fixentries (talk) 23:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

October 2009

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours to prevent further disruption caused by your engagement in an edit war at Race and intelligence. 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.

per this complaint at WP:AN3. EdJohnston (talk) 14:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

*sigh* --Aryaman (talk) 14:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I know you're looking for my advice about the race and intelligence article, so I should let you know that even though it was a 24-hour block and it's been more than 24 hours since I received it, I'm still not allowed to edit pages again yet (other than in my userspace). I'll give you my input there as soon as I'm able to. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Have they given you any kind of time regarding this? --Aryaman (talk) 19:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It turned out to actually be around 30 hours. I think it's expired now, though, so I'll take a look at the discussion. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Award

		The Cluestick
		Captain Occam, despite the many dangers involved, has ably demonstrated that he, in fact, has a clue. Thus, I award him this cluestick. May its ample weight add to the swagger of his strut and the trepidation of his foes! —Aryaman (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocked

Following a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring I have examined the edit history Race and intelligence (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) from the time of the expiry of your previous block. Because you have continued to edit-war against multiple users over the same material, I have decided to block you from editing. Given your recent block in very similar circumstances, I have set the duration of the block to 72 hours. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} CIreland (talk) 14:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This is as a counterpoint to this user's statemement that his edits were "generally regarded as constructive".--Ramdrake (talk) 16:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That comment was about one of the first two edits that T34CH reported me for, while my statement here was quite clear that it was the third and fourth edit which were regarded by consensus as being constructive, not the first and second.

This was a clever trick on your part, by the way. Even though the information you brought up was irrelevant to what I’d said, you were still able to influence the admin’s decision before it was made, because I wasn’t online to point out its irrelevancy until after it was already too late. If I ever want to learn how to game the system here, observing this type of conduct would certainly be an effective way to learn it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Still, as pointed out by Verbal and Hiberniantears, two successive reverts which the majority of editors oppose is still edit-warring. This wouldn't have changed the outcome of this regarding whether or not you were edit-warring. You still were. You were asked to stop reverting, but couldn't help changing the section in question (twice more, at least) when in fact you were basically asked to leave it alone until an adequate consensus emerged (which still has to happen, although we're probably closer to it now). In short, please don't blame me; you brought this block upon yourself, irrespective of my intervention.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I don't think coming here to rub Occam's nose in anything is very productive. Anyone of us could have pointed to the following series of edits:

• 16:22, October 11, 2009 [1]
• 16:36, October 11, 2009 [2]
• 17:46, October 11, 2009 [3]
• 19:34, October 11, 2009 [4]

That's 4 edits to the same sentence in 3 hours, which, if the same standards apply, would have earned you a block. Like someone else mentioned, it takes two to edit war, and you were on the other side of that one. --Aryaman (talk) 10:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

And I got a warning for that. My reply to Capt. Occam was to his insinuation that I acted maliciously in pointing out that editors had asked him to stop reverting without discussing, and nothing else. No use to keep throwing mud here. Also, you seem to forget that I self-reverted one of those edits.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:30, 21 October 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).

Captain Occam (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:

Although my previous block was justified, in this case my four edits were more than 24 hours apart. I know I came close to violating 3RR here, but this was not an instance of deliberately obeying the letter of the rule while disobeying its spirit. In this case, both the third and fourth edits were supported by community consensus, as can be seen from this section of the article talk page. After I had made both of these edits, other users thanked me for doing so and/or stated that they approved of them, while no users expressed disagreement with either of them. Blocking editors for coming close to violating 3RR when they haven't actually violated it is generally reserved for disruptive edits, while these last two edits from me were generally regarded as constructive.

Decline reason:

You were blocked for edit warring this time, rather than a 3RR violation. You were in fact edit warring, and even admit that you were pushing the 3RR limit to disobey its spirit. The block is not a judgement on the veracity of your content contributions, but the manner in which you are going about these contributions. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:54, 18 October 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.

I'm glad to see the stringency of the RfA process is finally paying dividends. Another fine analysis! :P --Aryaman (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If consensus is with you, then there is no need to rush. Hold back and let someone else revert. In an area such as this holding back from reverting more than once would be a good thing for all involved, and notifying relevant boards of any ongoing problem. Verbal chat 21:44, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

VA: I notice it was T34CH again who reported this, the same user who gave you his "would you like a cookie?" response when you pointed out how he was violating NPOV. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's a sockpuppet, as he's also an SPA that suddenly began editing this topic two months ago. As can be seen here, I'm not the only person who suspects this about him; Fixentries appears to suspect it also.

Although I obviously can't do anything about this at the moment, you might want to try doing something about it if you suspect the same thing.

Incidentally, since nobody has objected to what I proposed in the "overall balance" section of the R&I talk page, over the next two and a half days I'll probably begin writing a revision to the "evidence for genetic factors" section, so that it'll be ready for me to add to the article after my block expires. You can let me know on my userpage if you have any comments about my doing this. I think it's particularly important for this section to be revised given the current structure of the article, in which the "Criticisms of hereditarian positions" section includes criticisms of arguments for the hereditarian perspective that aren't even mentioned in the "evidence" section. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see you be the victim of wiki-gaming editors and heavy-fingered admins. I tried to get the blocking administrator to reconsider his/her decision (here), but to no avail. In my opinion, T34CH is one of if not the most problematic editor involved in that article, and it could benefit simply if s/he would leave it alone. On a positive note, it seems Distributive Justice, Aprock and I are starting to form some backing for a consensus on the "Overview" section - which desperately needs to be replaced. I was also able to get a big chunk of text moved down to where it belongs - getting everything in its proper place seems the best way to start - we can work on balance after that. If you'd like to work on the Evidence for genetic factors, then I say go for it. Most of that article needs a solid rewrite as it is. Also, there needs to be some solid criticism of the environmental position (which will probably revolve around the high regard in which twin studies are held, as well as the fact that the hereditarian position is the only one that has provided a testable hypothesis - which is exactly why a great deal of the "support" for the environmental position is really an attempt to refute the evidence advanced by the hereditarian position - as though disproving the one equals proving the other). On the whole, however, I'd like to see the whole thing become far less polarized. If we take Neisser et al. as a guide on the overview, then we should be able to start presenting these views as variations on one theme, i.e. "In what proportions do the environment and genetics play in the development of intelligence?" That's the approach I would really like to see this article take. Well, I hope you are able to relax and enjoy your few days free of wiki-drama. See you on the other side! :) --Aryaman (talk) 01:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but if it were up to me I’d probably want to discus this with CIreland a little more. If for no other reason, I still don’t understand what I should have done differently in this case. When community consensus determines that a sentence should be changed, someone will need to edit it; and when someone has made an edit to the article that everyone agrees is a violation of consensus and NPOV, someone will need to revert that edit. If I hadn’t been doing these things, it would have been someone else’s job to do them, and in that case it might have been them who was reported for edit warring rather than me. Should users be afraid to frequently make these kinds of edits, even if they don’t violate 3RR and the community agrees that they’re constructive? --Captain Occam (talk) 07:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If you still don't understand this, you should look at CIreland's response to Aryaman before you asked this question.[5] CIreland claims my statements were never even evaluated. Only your actions. Even after my report had been made, you continued to edit war. I reported you because you were editing emotionally rather than logically (which was disrupting the discussion), and for no other reason. I do not think you are trolling or a sock. I do think that you are misjudging consensus, NPOV, and the arguments put forth by others. To both you and Aryaman, the "cookie" statement was made out of frustration that NPOV/UNDUE has been explained to the two of you without sinking in so many times that I didn't see a point in attempting again. T34CH (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It'd pay to learn from those clowns... Fixentries (talk) 07:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Try WP:1RR out for a week and see if it doesn't improve your editing experience. Yesterday, you removed the Overview section and reverted to keep it out while editors were still talking about that section. Obviously things like that would meet some disagreement. Since your block, a multi-editor consensus is building to rewrite the Overview section with a number of solid improvements. That's the benefit of patience. You get a better article out of it with a whole lot less stress. Just try it out for a week once you are unblocked and see if it's better. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

In a perfect world, reverting wouldn't even be an option other than to eliminate vandalism. Speaking of perfect worlds, it would have been ideal in that whole dispute to have an uninvolved admin willing to follow the discussion and monitor changes. T34CH would have been eliminated long ago as making more trouble with his/her edits than positively contributing to the article. Is T34CH a sock of some other user? I don't know. I do think I have a sock over at Race and crime, as s/he seems to pop up at the most convenient moments, but I'm not really interested enough in these kinds of users to investigate and document their behavior patterns. Either they make positive contributions or they don't. Thankfully, more neutral editors are becoming involved at Race and intelligence, and things are starting to look up. But, Nealparr is right: just stop reverting. Instead, bring it up on the talkpage - if necessary, message other editors on their userpages - and let them change it. One man standing up against a small group of editors sharing a bias is pretty much destined to lose if it goes to the noticeboards. That's Wikipedia. --Aryaman (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There’s a reason why I’ve been so impatient about reverting obviously biased edits to this article, but it’s kind of difficult to explain without giving a background on this article’s history. To help understand this, I’d like you to look at the version of this article as of December 2006, last edited by Quizkajer. Although this version of the article has some issues related to organization, I think it’s hard to argue with the fact that it’s overall more informative, more balanced, and better-written than the current version. It also contains links to several sub-articles related to this topic, which have since been merged into the main article, and then subsequently had all of the merged content deleted. Despite the efforts of people like us, which can sometimes improve the article for a few months at a time, there has been a gradual but very steady decline in Wikipedia’s coverage of this topic over the past three years.

So what’s caused this decline? There are a few reasons it’s happened, but they all relate to the same basic cause, which is a group of editors who’ve been involved in this article for most or all of this time. I’m not going to name names, but you’re probably aware of who most of them are by this point. When people like us aren’t paying attention to the article, these editors can and do make whatever changes they want to it. When people like us are paying attention to it, they still make changes such as T34CH’s description of the hereditarian viewpoint as “fundamentally flawed”, and refuse to allow this information to be removed without a lengthy discussion resulting in consensus. More often or not, by working together they can prevent a consensus about this from being reached. When that happens, whatever changes they’ve made to the article become permanent.

In this case, if there are enough people who agree with us about this, we may be able to undo this change. This sort of thing has happened in the past also, and there have been temporary improvements in the article’s quality at several points during the past three years. But sooner or later, one of two things has usually happened. The first is that this group of editors has made a new round of changes, prevented there from being a consensus to undo them, and the people trying to undo these changes eventually gave up. (I know this is what eventually happened in Quizkajer’s case, and it appears to have been the same for Legalleft’s also.) The less common result is that people such as Quizkajer or Legalleft were able to obtain consensus to keep the article to a state where they were somewhat happy with, and then gradually forgot about it. In that case, the editors who wanted to make these changes simply waited a few months until the people wanting to prevent them were no longer active, and then went ahead and made the same changes they’d wanted to make originally, despite the fact that doing so went against the earlier consensus. We saw a little of that recently, when I was reverting a sentence that some of these editors were intent on changing, even though it had been previously established by a hard-won earlier consensus, and a new consensus for changing it had not been reached.

The bottom line here is that the article becoming less balanced and less informative is something that tends to essentially happen on its own, and has happened on its own for the past three years. As we saw in T34CH’s case most recently, doing this generally doesn’t require consensus. On the other hand making the article better, or even just undoing the changes that made it worse, tends to require so much effort from so many editors that it often isn’t possible. Considering the long-term effect that this trend has had on the article’s quality, I’m not able to easily tolerate letting one person’s biased edit become semi-permanent while we wait for consensus to remove it. Even if we might be able to obtain consensus to remove it in this case, most of the time doing this isn’t possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Let me just say that I sympathize with this perspective, and might even be for reverting to the 2006 version you display here as a basis for improvement. The current article is a cluster-mess of blech. Aprock (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

My block is set to expire in around 12 hours, but in the meantime I'd appreciate you (or Varoon Arya or Fixentries) doing something about the changes that T34CH is continuing to make. Along with several other POV edits, he's now removed any mention of IQ's social and functional significance. How to deal with the changes he made on October 17th has not been resolved yet, but now that everyone is busy dealing with his newest round of edits, it's becoming less likely that his earlier changes will receive the attention that's necessary for them to be fixed.

T34CH's edits during the past several days are a good example of the sort of thing that's happened repeatedly over the past three years to cause this article's steady decline. I think it's important to understand his edits as the likely next step in that process, if we don't find a way to prevent this from continuing. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

While some of his edits are over the line, most of them are in line. I just reviewed his last set, and for the most part they looked fine. But I do think reviewing previous "good" versions of the article would be very helpful. Aprock (talk) 04:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not touching that article. Problem is not enough help editing it. Also their general tactics as described below. This really requires a change in strategy. Fixentries (talk) 09:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I got involved and "interrupted" another of T34CH's editing runs, requesting that s/he explain what s/he's doing. S/He reported it at ANI. (If you'd like to see the results, look here.) Now s/he wants me to explain things in "excruciating detail". T34CH had admitted to not seeing the distinction between POV and non-POV edits. Would anyone care to explain to him/her the fine art of remaining neutral without insulting your reader's intelligence? --Aryaman (talk) 10:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I’ll help you as soon as I can, but my block hasn’t expired yet. This block also may end up being like the previous one, which lasted for several hours longer than it was supposed to.

Whether T34CH is a sockpuppet or not, I think we really need to do something about his conduct here. At this point, I’m no longer able to assume good faith about him; under what circumstances does a person ordinarily ever say that they demand something be explained to them in “excruciating detail”?

In addition to a possible sockpuppet investigation, you also might want to try bringing up this user’s behavior with an uninvolved administrator. The type of POV-pushing he’s engaged in is obvious enough that it seems like most administrators should be able to recognize it. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

There are so many amusing, funny, educational things about all this. There's no point in throwing yourself against a brick wall. See how these guys operate. See how they are so abusive, trolling, POV pushing, lying, enlisting help, etc. and that it works. Look at t34ch's edit history, and the boldness with which he has the audacity to accuse someone else of being a sock puppet. Whatever it is they do, you should learn how to do, or learn a countermeasure to. Fixentries (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Research is ongoing. By the way, is it normal for a new user to create a personal monobook.js file within 9 minutes of having made his first edit? Just curious... --Aryaman (talk) 04:22, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Occam, I'd suggest you take a deep look into the editing history of the editors involved at Race and intelligence, particularly T34CH, Ramdrake, Slrubenstein and Mathsci. While T34CH started his/her account on August 19, the other three provide hours of interesting and informative reading. Comparisons between the editing histories of these users are also quite illuminating. You'd be surprised how much a few of them have in common. ;) You might also be surprised to see how little they've actually contributed to the encyclopedia: for the last few months (and probably longer if you want to dig deeper), at least one editor has reverted and deleted nearly 6 times more information than he has added to the mainspace. But, surely, it was vandalism, right? No. One of the above-mentioned users removed 40,562 bytes of well-written, sourced material without batting an eye, with the edit summary "This is a controversial article; pls bring your changes to the talk page and gain consensus there before reintroducing." Of course, the IP editor never came back to discuss, so this just remained deleted.

From the little research I've done, I've convinced myself that there is practically nothing which can be done to stop these users, as they're not pushing any old POV, they are pushing the POV which Wikipedia wants pushed. While I stuck to editing topics with little to no controversy surrounding them, I was able to make some solid contributions to the project, and one article which I created and wrote even got listed as a "good" article, and remains so today. Naive and ignorant as I was, I did not realize that people would be allowed to commit and even be commended for the kind of behavior we see from these users on a regular basis.

I received an invitation to go on a camping trip starting this coming Friday, so I will be taking a short break from Wikipedia. Whether I come back to active editing depends on several things, but I probably won't be editing anything related to controversial topics such as this one again. I find that doing the grunt work of creating good articles is far more rewarding than dealing with this ultimately pointless bickering. My hat's off to you for being a stand-up guy, however. Wikipedia needs hoards more like you. :) --Aryaman (talk) 21:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Aryaman, you are heading down a fruitless path. You accuse Ramdrake of having a POV problem, then reprimand him for removing material that upholds that POV.[6] (and by the way: [7][8]) You complain that the removed material was so well written, but ignore that it is from a copyrighted source.[9][10] You accuse me of having a POV, but can't justify why you think that with diffs. Please please please overlook your emotional responses. They are clouding your judgment. T34CH (talk) 22:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Why are you here defending Ramdrake, T34CH? And why are you concerned enough to search for the reference I made, when I was quite particular about leaving it unknown as to whom I was referring? Or are you that familiar with Ramdrake's editing history? Oh, wait. Maybe it's because you made the exact same edit shortly thereafter. You even warned the contributing IP using WP:TW. By the way, I think that you, being a new user and all, deserve some kind of recognition for having learned to use Twinkle 10 days and 12 edits after creating your account. That has to be some kind of record. Maybe there's a barnstar for that kind of thing. I'll have to look it up.

While I'm at it, you should also be commended on your swift action regarding the numerous sockpuppets of Jagz, particularly when it is taken into consideration that Jagz was identified as a puppetmaster nearly a full year prior to your appearing on Wikipedia. Some around here would call that ancient history. Were it not for your outstanding research skills, Fixentries might not have been bothered by having a sockpuppet warning placed on his userpage. Well, in all honesty, you did have a little help in that from Slrubenstein and Ramdrake, as noted on your userpage. Regardless, I have to admit that I'm baffled as to how you, a new user with a little over a month's experience, understood Slrubenstein's rather cryptic message. (But isn't that a rather kind note from Ramdrake made in response to Slrubenstein's message? And he must have taken the words right out of your mouth. Why, in all my time here, I've never seen him smile to any... Wait, is that Ramdrake? There's no timestamp. But, of course it must be Ramdrake, as the diff shows. Somebody should remind him to sign his comments. Things could get confusing regarding identities and all.) Hell, I don't even understand why Slrubenstein was sending this message to you in the first place. But I guess that's what separates the mediocre editors from the pros.

As for your edits, you've said yourself that you can't see the difference, and you'd like me to explain it to you in excruciating detail. Unfortunately, this is not an adventure in experimental education. As I've indicated above, I'm rather tired of trying to explain things to you. Thus, why the show of concern? I'd think you, of all people, would be tickled pink to see me leave Race and intelligence well alone. ;) --Aryaman (talk) 01:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Aryaman, Ramdrake's edit which you are still going after was identical to one by your favorite admin (which I pointed out above). It was also a copyright violation. I didn't have to search for it because I remembered it. I made the exact same edit as well (as I pointed out above). The IP was repeatedly posting the same copyrighted material, but you've now proved to us twice that you don't really pay attention to other people's edits... you just jerk your knee. How heinous of us to remove it--regardless of the good reasons! You're grasping at straws, and encouraging Occam to do the same. Your description of the Jagz case also shows you didn't read the write-up (and that you are unclear about how sock investigations work). I don't care if you edit the article or not. What I do care about is that despite the evidence in front of your face that you're misreading the situation. Happy editing elsewhere.

Occam, I'm sorry this is playing out on your talk page. I've said before I thought you weren't malicious, you were mislead. This to me is more of the same. If you or anyone else have serious questions about some specific issue, I welcome them. But only by those who are reasonable. As for my former identity (and there are many many wikipedians with former identities... you might be quite surprised), I'm willing to email Aryaman's favorite administrator (dab)[11] about that, as he will be able to personally vouch for the fact that the accusations occurring here are fruitless. T34CH (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You're missing the point - again - T34CH. You're defending Ramdrake's removal of the information. Fine. What you're ignoring is: Ramdrake's edit summary. (Hint: this was the point.) Ramdrake did not remove that information as a copy/vio. He edited it out on the grounds that the article is "controversial", using his standard procedure of WP:BRD. As can be surmised by his edit summary, he's simply reverting a huge block of well-written, sourced text. No mention of a copy/vio. He even suggests that the author bring it up for discussion on the talk page. Have I not made it painfully clear that it is the motivation behind these edits that I find so disagreeable? Perhaps I did not explain things in the "excruciating detail" you apparently require. Oh well. --Aryaman (talk) 03:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point. I was merely pointing out that you were wrong. The IP's edits were bad (enough that 3 other editors agreed) and previously reverted for reasons already given by another editor (upon which Ramdrakes reasons were simply expanding). Ramdrake's motivation is far from what you're suggesting (especially given that he was reverting a POV similar to what you have repeatedly assumed to be his own). You're assumption that you have a clue what Ramdrake's (or anyone else's) motivation is has become detrimental to your reasoning. Take it to wp:COIN if you really believe it, but since you can't point to anything to back up your assumption you'd serve the project best by re-evaluating your opinion. T34CH (talk) 04:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) although I’m unblocked now, I guess I’ll continue discussing this here so the discussion can all stay in one place.

VA, what I was hoping would eventually happen with this article was that if enough people are involved in it who share our perspective, we’d be able to prevent people like T34CH from continuing to remove the information they don’t like. In addition to you and me, other people who appear to feel this way are Distributivejustice, David.Kane, Fixentries, and possibly Aprock. That makes six of us, and there are also six people who’ve been trying to censor the article. (In addition to the four you mentioned, there are also Alun and Muntuwandi.) As long as they don’t have the advantage of numbers, I would expect that at least in theory, the six of us should be capable of everything that the six of them can do.

If you decide to give up on this, though, I don’t think the remaining five of us will be able to accomplish very much, and not just because your absence would tip the numerical balance in their favor. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve taken on something of a leadership role with improving both this article and the Race and crime one, and I think the main reason for that is your apparent skill in researching these topics. You’ve impressed me a lot with this: I’ve been learning about topics related to race and intelligence for two years, ever since James Watson was forced into retirement because of his comments about this, but within the space of less than a month you appear to have learned close to the amount that I know about it.

The next thing I’ll probably want to pursue with this article is what Aprock suggested above: reverting the article to the version of it that existed in fall of 2006, while updating the things that need to be updated after three years. In addition to this being considerably better than the article’s current version, doing so would also satisfy another of the article’s needs, which is to have the attention of an expert in the relevant topics. The main person responsible for this article’s content in fall of 2006 was Quizkajer, who’s a professional geneticist with a Ph.D in that field. He was subsequently chased away by the people who want to censor the article, but even if he won’t be able to help us directly anymore, following his lead about the article’s structure would be the next best thing.

I probably won’t want to attempt this without your help, though, because the other four people who appear to agree with us don’t seem to be quite as diligent about improving this article as you are. On the plus side, though, there’s not really any hurry with this—if we’re going to revert the article to its 2006 version, whatever of POV-pushing changes they make before that won’t make a difference in the long run, and the 2006 version of the article obviously isn’t going anywhere. So it’s fine if you want to take a break, and I will also. I’m turning 26 on Saturday, and I ought to spend some time with my family on my birthday.

I hope you enjoy your trip. I would like you to let me know when you get back, though, and when and if you’ll be ready to work with me on returning the article to its 2006 state. When you get back I’d also like to open a sockpuppet investigation about T34CH, since you seem to have a greater familiarity with the evidence for him being one than I do. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Some perspective

Occy, it is a pity that some have to resort to censorship (pushing for blocks & deleting information). It is a tactic of desperation, and fear.

Consider that this page does not even have to be perfect for it to lead people to the correct information. Teach the controversy. All that people need to know is that an academic controversy exists. Any detail on top of that is gravy.

Curious people will then search off wiki where they can make up their own minds with the latest theories and research - in complete detail. It matters little what the 'social-contructers' state here. Intelligent people already recognise their stories as lies.

Intelligent people reading this live in the real world - they already *know* that the social-contruct alibis do not add up. In fact, they are so off base from reality as to be insulting.

I think that the actual scientific research should be published on here in full, *as well* as every behaviouralist alibi that is in fashion at the time. Let people make up their own minds. Eventually, this will be the case.

Best, anon 202.6.155.198 (talk) 10:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If you have a strong opinion about this, I would appreciate you getting involved in trying to improve the article. One of the reasons why people who want to censor the article have been able to do so successfully is because most of the time they have the advantage of numbers. The more people there are who disagree with this, and who are actively involved in the article, the easier it’ll be to improve it. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I will help on the article but I haven't been watching it closely; I've got other (very) important stuff going on. The idea here is censorship. If we just match their edits with reverts, I think we will still get blocked. I'd say let any questionable content go till the end of the day and fix it all at once, that sort of thing. One edit a day is a good policy. If something in particular comes up feel free to drop me a note on my talk page. I will try to watch the article but again I have other more important things to focus on off-wikipedia. Good luck and thanks for your work. Fixentries (talk) 06:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate both you and the anonymous IP giving me your opinions about what Aprock suggested, which I think is a good idea: reverting the article to the version of it that existed three years ago. As I said in my reply to VA, I think most people would probably agree that the 2006 version of the article is considerably better than the current one, and this method would probably have a greater chance of success than trying to reinsert the censored pieces of information one at a time. However, before I try to make such a large change to the article, I’d like to make sure I’m supported by the consensus of a large group of editors. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to point out, Captain Occam, that it is you who suggested to revert the article to the Dec 2006 version, and that Aprock merely said it might be a good idea (or at least it might be a good idea to look at all the past versions). Your own suggestion is even on this very page!!! I would also strongly advise against edit-warring tactics such as suggested by Fixentries above: these will in all likelihood only resutl in the article betting protected, editors being blocked, or both. Discussion of issues is still the best avenue for resolving our differences of opinion.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

“I'd like to point out, Captain Occam, that it is you who suggested to revert the article to the Dec 2006 version, and that Aprock merely said it might be a good idea (or at least it might be a good idea to look at all the past versions). Your own suggestion is even on this very page!!!”

If that’s what you think, then you haven’t been reading very carefully. This was what I said about the December 2006 version when I first brought it up:

“To help understand this, I’d like you to look at the version of this article as of December 2006, last edited by Quizkajer. Although this version of the article has some issues related to organization, I think it’s hard to argue with the fact that it’s overall more informative, more balanced, and better-written than the current version.”

That’s pointing out how the 2006 version is better than the current one, but I didn’t suggest we should actually revert back to it. Now, here was Aprock’s reply:

“Let me just say that I sympathize with this perspective, and might even be for reverting to the 2006 version you display here as a basis for improvement.”

After he suggested this, I repeated his suggestion in a subsequent comment because I approved of it. But if you look at the times of his comments and mine, you’ll see that Aprock suggested it before I did. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, it's very hard not to take your initial intervention as an unvoiced suggestion to revert to the Dec 2006 version. Aprock just said he might back the revert. He didn't make the original suggestion even if it was understood rather than overtly stated. I'm not playing that game of semantics.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Even though reverting to the 2006 version was an idea that I’d been privately considering ever since I saw how much better that version was than the current one, until Aprock’s comment I was avoiding mentioning this idea, because I assumed that nobody else would approve of it. I thought I knew how people like Aprock would react if I were to suggest this—“it’s 2009 now, so the content of the 2006 version is obsolete”, or something along those lines—so I thought that the 2006 version was only worth mentioning as a general example of the sort of structure the article ought to have. I didn’t realize this idea was something that other people would consider until I saw Aprock express his approval of it. I’ve known that the 2006 version of the article was better than the current one ever since I first became involved in this article, so if reverting to that version had been my goal all along, I would’ve suggested this a lot sooner than I did. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to gather consensus around this proposal on the article's talk page.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I’ll keep this discussion on my user page for the moment. Wherever I end up discussing this, I’ll also need to link other people to my userpage in any discussion about it, since this is where it’s been discussed up to this point. This will be easier if I don’t have to link people to more than one discussion, and everything about it can be discussed in the same place. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Captain, just to make sure you're aware: the discussion for the rollback you have in mind must take place on the article's talk page so that all editors who follow the article and its discussion may have a chance to participate.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

What rule is that? Like the nasty underclasses table - what's to discuss. Why not just remove it, it's wrong. It's more a question of how many editors will hop in on it, isn't it? Fixentries (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I'll be bringing it up there eventually, and won't attempt to make this change until after it's been discussed there. But when I'm first explaining my proposal to other editors, I'd like to keep the discussion about it in one place if possible.

Fixentries, do you have an opinion about what I'm proposing? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

My honest opinion is that I think the article has no value. If I were to write it, it would of course be very different. I would probably call the article Race and Soul. Fixentries (talk) 06:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, but that’s not very helpful. I agree that the article in its current state isn’t very good, but the important question is, how can it be improved? What I’d like to know is whether you agree that the December 2006 version of the article is better than the current one, and that reverting to this version would be useful as a step towards improving it. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent lest we fall off the page!) As long as the discussion to attain consensus occurs on the article's talk page, I have no issue. But then, this is just Wiki-policy.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Your "proposal for the Race and intelligence article" is excellent. That old page is much better. David.Kane (talk) 02:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's definitely worth considering. The currently article has a large number of deficiencies. Perhaps a different starting point would help. --Distributivejustice (talk) 06:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)