User talk:MalcolmMcDonald

I've virtually abandoned editing articles because of entrenched obduracy.

I've not completely abandoned checking Wikipedia for information, since I'm still hoping for balanced views, or at least information on such topics as Global Warming. I made another attempt to learn something about GW recently, I'd come across something from "Edward R Long" who seems to be an important skeptic, hoping to find out what he really says.

As my experience primed me to expect, Wikipedia was no help whatsoever.

I've still never had an answer to my question "What is the purpose of this suite of articles on Global Warming?". I've started afresh there around 6 times looking for information, and never found anything useful. What a waste of time. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 10:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reads like an advertisement

I was not the one who originally made this comment but here are some examples that I found in a quick glance. Note that I am not questioning the truth of the statements.
'The IPCC's Working Group III is responsible for crafting reports on mitigation...' ...using only the finest ingredients.
'These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries'. ...and 9 out of 10 cats prefer it.
The paragraph that actually talks about scepticism starting: 'Some global warming skeptics in the science or political communities dispute...', is the last one in the section, essentially as a disclaimer. ...the value of your investment may go down as well as up. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We need some comments

Malcolm, have you contacted involved editors and asked them to comment here? Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine this being a slow-burning project and I'm contacting critics of the article first. If I can get a reasonable turn-out (perhaps 20 or so) then I can list and/or request that supporters of the current article show their hand. All suggestions gratefully recieved. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 16:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not canvassing

This is not a vote, it's a work in progress trying to discover whether the body of editors is "happy" with the NPOV of these articles.
I am contacting the "unhappy" first because they have more to say, need a lot longer to put it up and think about it, and because they're the only ones who can provide the feedback on what they consider the real issues to be.
I'm not even sure how many of the "happy" editors will agree to put their names here, I may end up with a note saying "I have listed for myself xx editors I consider to be happy, this compares with xx editors prepared to say in public that they are unhappy".
I am prepared to answer all questions and respond to all comments, but intend to either keep this TalkPage clean or move other material to the top. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 09:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Non-specialist visitors speak

(This non-specialist editor made 1,404 edits to 738 unique articles before commenting here).
I posted to your chart originally as an IP (69.165.150.81 (talk)). Look at my edits. I did, in effect, stumble on the AGW pages when I was looking for something. Check my edits. For two years, I never touched those pages. I wrote and copy edited historical bios, for the most part. I haven't engaged in discussion board debates or been interested in doing any more than fixing the many, many writing errors, spelling mistakes and grammatical problems I find when I surf Wikipedia.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement Chart

MASTER copy of the "Improvement Chart". Please add your name to the relevant categories, perhaps with a brief description of exactly what concerns you. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 08:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the invitation to contribute. To which article does this refer? You do realise that there is a whole series of articles, including Global warming controversy, Scientific opinion on climate change, and Politics of global warming. . . dave souza, talk 20:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The chart refers to all the GW articles and all the things they may have in commmon. It's here to document the kind of things people may think are going wrong. I've tried to avoid anything that might offend like reference to PA from some quarters. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 20:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Malcolm, we should also add to your list that when discussions occur about an issue, they must be reverted until discussion is settled in a consistent manner. Too many times an AGW activist will insist their change stays on the live page while discussion occurs, meanwhile AGW skeptic changes are immediately reverted until the editor can prove the change is relevant (which, as a side note, appears to be near impossible). See my discussion here: [1] JettaMann (talk) 15:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced it's good for a debate like this to be conducted by a self-selected clique in a bubble away from the relevant talk pages. Without the critics' responses, the conclusions will tend to polarise opinons. A straw poll on the article talk page would achieve a more balanced response.Stephen B Streater (talk) 08:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Which change?	Editors views and wish for change
The article needs to include the politics of GW. Restricting it to the science tends to mislead.	MalcolmMcDonald - "politics" is what brings most readers. No evidence of dissent (& no mention of newspaper concerns) looks like censorship or POV. The IPCC itself and it's AR4 report (referenced 26 times?) are hugely political. Martin Hogbin - politics is an essential part of this national and global issue. Spoonkymonkey, zero-involvement visitor, 1250 article edits - per MM. HistorianofScience - articles should first and foremost inform the reader about the science, politics secondarily. JettaMann - It's pretty hard to escape politics with this particular issue. If we include a section on politics we should make sure to give equal coverage to both sides. I foresee the AGW crowd wanting to highlight only criticism of what they see as the politics of "denial".
Section on "Debate and skepticism" should reflect the views of skeptics	Martin Hogbin - currently, the views of skeptics are not represented properly anywhere in the article. MalcolmMcDonald - rename section "Dissent", start it with names of prominent sceptics and fairly represent their views. Spoonkymonkey, zero-involvement visitor, 1250 article edits - per MM, article seeks to hide the fact the debate exists at all. HistorianofScience - I am a mild sceptic who would like to learn more about what the sceptical views are, and more important why the sceptics hold these view. It is impossible to get any sense of this from the current articles. Fyunck(click) - Big agree with MM. I know teachers who shy their students away from these articles because the dissent is not properly represented. JettaMann - This shouldn't even have to be stated, but the fact that we do reflects the loony-tunes nature of many AGW Wikipedia articles. Of course we should represent the skeptics views, otherwise it is a kangaroo-court.
Deletion and archiving of discussions makes cooperative editing and improvement extremely difficult	Martin Hogbin - rapid deletion and archiving of discussions from the talk page make discussion of many important and relevant issues impossible. 83.203.210.23 - no serious person would even bother for two minutes trying to help improve the article if DISCUSSION ITSELF is wildly censored. MalcolmMcDonald - while there is some trolling, the counter-measures cause much more harm HistorianofScience - the closing of discussions is certainly too abrupt. I suffered from this myself. JettaMann - When this happened to a discussion I started I reinstated it, but it was cumbersome to have to do it. A non-reply for a few days doesn't mean discussion is over. Maybe lengthen the time.
Article reads like an advertisement	83.203.210.23 - is requested to provide examples by Awickert (talk) Martin Hogbin - three examples presented above read like "using only the finest ingredients"' and "9 out of 10 cats prefer it" and "the value of your investment may go down as well as up". Spoonkymonkey, zero-involvement visitor, 1250 article edits - agree per IP 83.203 & MH. HistorianofScience - I wasn't sure about this one but ~~Malcolm~~ Martin's examples above convinced me.
Article fails to be informative	MalcolmMcDonald - one side of the much thornier evolution debate was fully documented at TalkOrigins by 2006. Making WP (better software & 1000 times more helpers) truly informative and nearly "complete" can't be hard. Martin Hogbin Spoonkymonkey, zero-involvement visitor, 1250 article edits - obviously unfair to skeptics. HistorianofScience - per my remarks above.
Add Key-words and links to aid navigation	MalcolmMcDonald - readers expect to search for key-words such as "Amazon" and "Antarctic". Ditto the names of prominent skeptics, eg Monckton on tour of Australia Jan/Feb 2010 with credible sounding objections to "the science". Spoonkymonkey, zero-involvement visitor, 1250 article edits - what possible objection?
"Global Warming" and "Anthropogenic Global Warming" are not the same thing, need clear differentiation in articles	Fyunck(click) - Multiple articles on GW, AGW, CC, etc.. with conflicting definitions of the terms. Since this happens also in the media and among peers, it should at least be standardized here to help new readers. Martin Hogbin The article has a mitigation section. This is only possible for AGW. MalcolmMcDonald - per others, confusion exists throughout suite of articles JettaMann - Agreed. Very muddied concepts right now.
No major changes needed. No popular concerns, only science. No "politics", broadly construed.	There's not much wrong with the article as it stands now since it describes the viewpoints of knowledgeable people in the field as published in peer-reviewed documents. Newspaper reports are almost never helpful. No harm comes from information being a month or even six behind the state of public debate. (Add your name here, with caveats if you have them).

Community restrictions

The article Gerry Adams, along with other articles relating to The Troubles, is currently subject to active arbitration remedies, as laid out during a previous Arbitration Enforcement case that closed in October 2007, and was amended by community consensus in October 2008. The current restrictions are:

All editors on Troubles-related articles are directed to get the advice of neutral parties via means such as outside opinions.
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O Fenian (talk) 20:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a neutral party and I think it's vandalism to take out a well-referenced view by a book reviewer, who is another neutral party.

On examining the restrictions I find you're almost the only one to have fallen foul of them for 2 years, a month ago you were blocked for edit-warring out an accurately court-reported warning at Omagh Bombing in favour of the BBC version which coyly admits to being censored. Despite this, you'd somehow managed to make your POV version stick until I noticed. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 09:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong on many counts, so many I lack the energy to correct the errors. Reject all you want, you breach that restriction at your own peril. O Fenian (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hub Gear

Merry Christmas. Nice job moving the pictures around. It is a nice improvement. I think I understand your appreciation for hub gears. I have nothing against them, and I hope you understand my efforts to keep the article as NPOV as possible. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit puzzled to see "In real-world conditions, the efficiency of derailleur gears is commonly much more seriously handicapped by poor lubrication and the mis-use of gears causing 'cross-chain' conditions" removed - when the actual reference at the WP article bicycle chain says "... in lab conditions, where there is no dirt, it makes no difference. On the road, we believe the lubricant mostly assumes the role of keeping out dirt, which could very well affect friction in the drive train". Should we not put the original phrase back? MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 18:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also very mystified to see the sentence "unsprung weight ... is an insignificant factor in street or commuter-cycle use when climbing kerbs and crossing pot-holes" removed as superfluous. Street and commuter use is the majority use of bicycles, their interests and education should not be subsumed to those of a minority.
Similarly [failures generally give plenty of warning] (unlike the situation with alternative systems) - the hub-gear user is entitled to know that, while breakdown is not unknown, his system is much better in this respect than others.
I can even see a fourth example - the ordinary user needs to know that another "disadvantage" of the hub-gear (integral part of the wheel and it is not possible to change the wheel without also changing the hub) is of almost zero relevance to his needs and he needs to see the explanation: "In sporting use, this handicaps quick-changing a damaged wheel, or using different tires on multiple wheels." MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 11:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, we have one reference that isn't perfect and suggests that lubrication and dirt matter little for efficiency and none that verify that they do matter. I'd say leave the point out.
I have no doubt that street use is in the majority, but I have no information about the relative importance of unsprung mass in this environment. I don't know why it would be insignificant.
This whole point is iffy. I get plenty of warning from my derailleur systems when they are having trouble. I don't mind saying that the same is an advantage of hub gears, but leave out the dig at other systems.
The most common wheel problem I observed at the shop where I worked was a rim bent beyond repair. With a derailleur system, the customer only has to purchase a new wheel and reuse the entire shifting mechanism. A rear wheel with a hub gear will require relacing or total replacement, at significantly greater cost. This can happen to a commuter bike hitting a pothole as easily as a mountain bike hitting a rock. It is totally independent of the type or riding done. -AndrewDressel (talk) 22:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Video of Maytag flat-twin running

Video of Maytag flat-twin running. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 03:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Horseshoe clip

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