User talk:Mickeyklein

Welcome!

Hello Mickeyklein, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! RJFJR 14:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your edits

Hello. Regarding your edits to passive smoking, please discuss these sort of major changes in content and how it's presented on the article talk page before instituting them. I understand that you feel that the scientific consensus on passive smoking is incorrect, but Wikipedia's policies on undue weight mandate that we present information and conclusions in proportion and in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. At present, most experts and essentially all health organizations agree on the effects of passive smoking; changing the Wikipedia article to downplay this would violate the undue weight policy. MastCell ^Talk 19:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Julye 2007

As MastCell has pointed out above, and I pointed in my edit summary, you should really discuss drastic changes, like the ones you are making to passive smoking, on the talk page before you make them, especially for articles like passive smoking that have been subject to many controversies and edit wars. Also, you should always include an edit summary when you make your changes.

Your new section entitled World Health Organization Report clearly violates WP:WEIGHT. Also note that the study you cite is from 1998, and both its author, the IARC, and its parent organization, the WHO have since issued reports and statements that confirm/corroborate the scientific consensus on passive smoking.

Your new section entitled The "Noise" Critique violates WP:OR.

I hope we can avoid an edit war over this. Please be take a look at WP:3RR if you haven't already, and please discuss your rationale for including this material on the talk page and consider leaving edit summaries. Yilloslime 21:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with Yilloslime here. It's fine to be bold and alter the article, but if you meet with significant concerns from other editors, the best approach is to talk them through on the article talk page. Wikipedia functions by consensus; trying to force the content in without discussing it often leads to edit wars, which are a bad thing. Policy limits us to three reverts on a given page in 24 hours, though even this is really too many - we should discuss this on the article talk page instead of going back and forth editing the article. Editors who violate the 3-revert rule may be blocked from editing temporarily. MastCell ^Talk 21:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note

Please stop placing bogus and/or malformed Requests for Mediation boxes everywhere (user talk pages, article talk pages, and especially the article pages themselves). It is extremely disruptive. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sorry didnt get it right, gonna try again...

Use the preview button. If it doesn't appear correct, then don't save. Also, don't try putting the URL into the field, just the article's name. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User Pages

Please do not edit other users' user pages as you did with mine and JQ's. I realize you are simply trying to notify us of the Requests for Mediation that you started, but the proper place to do this is on our talk pages, not our user pages. Yilloslime 17:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation

Yep, I'm along for the ride! Should be interesting... Chido6d 03:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Logging in

Mickey, though it's not strictly required, I'd like to encourage you to log into wikipedia everytime you make changes. It's hard to keep straight who is saying what on the passive smoking talk page when there is a mixture of user names and anonymous IP addresses. Plus, you are opening yourself up to allegations of sockpuppetry. If you check the "remember me" box when you log-in, then everytime you point your browser to wikipedia you'll automatically be logged in. (You need to be accepting cookies for this to work, and if you delete all your cookies you'll need to re-log in.) Anyways, just some friendly advice. Yilloslime 23:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation

FYI: I noticed that you missed one question over at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation/Passive_smoking: "What are the general points being made that are in dispute? Please be as brief as possible."Maybe that was intentional on your part, but I thought I'd leave you this message just in case it actually was an oversight on your part. Yilloslime 02:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

p-Values

You made the following post over at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation/Passive_smoking#Proposal_from_mediator:

AIDS has been proven by the scientific method. For instance, if I were to ask you the evidence of why AIDS exists you could give me reams of studies showing statistically significant and strong RR factors between HIV infection and CDT-4 blood cell counts. This is very different from the matter of second hand smoke. Unlike with HIV, there is no statistically significant or strong evidence, on the basis of the scientific method, that second hand smoke causes lung cancer or heart disease. The difference between these two cases revolves around a reasonable interpretation of the scientific method that seeks to judge data based upon rules of evidence and logic. AIDS actually does exist, and thats why it is easy to prove with technical information. The health effects of second hand smoke, on the other hand, don't exist, and thats why you see the frequent and profound violations of the scientific method by the public health advocacy movement when they try to shout down everyone about passive smoke.

I'll reply here, since this type of argument is not what the mediation page is for.

Anyways, the comparison between HIV causing AIDS and ETS causing causing cancer is not a good one. HIV causes AIDS as surely as dropping a rock into puddle will cause a splash. On the other hand, active, primary smoking doesn't always cause cancer, it only increases the risk of getting cancer, so passive smoking is only going to increase the risk of cancer by--at most--lesser degree than active smoking does. Therefore you're going to see p-values that are not as tiny. In other words, on one hand you've got a cause-effect phenomenon that happens with nearly absolute certainty. You set up an experiment to test it, run a few trials, and lo and behold your calculate an excedingly small p-value. On the other hand, consider an effect that happens only 1 in 20 times the cause happens. Again, you set up an experiment to test it, run an equal number of trials, and boom: you calculate a larger (less significant) p-value. It's going to be a lot harder to get "iron clad" results in this case, but that doesn't mean the relationship doesn't exist. Small effects are much harder to measure that large ones. Furthermore, testing the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS is relatively easy: you find a bunch of people who test positive for HIV and wait and see if they get AIDS. ETS/cancer is totally different. It's hard to characterize people's exposure to ETS and there is longer lag-time between exposure (cause) and cancer (effect). This makes the hypothesis that ETS causes cancer harder (more costly and time consuming) to test and results in smaller sample sizes and lower p-values. This is why it is wrong to argue that since these p-values aren't as small as those for AIDS/HIV the hypothesis is any less proven. That the AIDS/HIV p-values are so small has everything to do with the ease of testing that hypothesis and the direct cause and effect relationship between HIV and AIDS. It has nothing to do with the passive smoking question.Yilloslime (t) 00:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And actually, many of the approaches used in the argument against passive smoking are very similar to those used by AIDS denialists, p values notwithstanding. An interesting comparison is here; though it focuses on active smoking, many of the rhetorical approaches are similar. MastCell ^Talk 22:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration

I have made a request for arbitration regarding the passive smoking article. You are listed as a party in this request. Thanks. Chido6d 04:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey...there's a link to the arbitration request on the article talk page. I don't think the Wiki adminiatrators are going to accept the request. Believe it or not, one of them rejecting the case (not recusing himself) based on his own biases. I thought Wikipedia was not supposed to take a position; I guess I was wrong. Chido6d 11:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]