User talk:Robertinventor/Archive 4

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DRN#2

Hi Robert. These edits pretty much summarized your point:

"I propose that the articles continue to include details of certain topics in Buddhism that are hard for Westerners brought up in an Abrahamic religion based society to understand? (It would be the same the other way around for some of the topics in Christianity for someone who has never encountered the religion in detail before.) His versions of the articles are easier for Westerners to read, because they remove these details, but easier to read doesn't necessarily mean better."

Let me paraphrase and complement:

"Joshua Jonathan removed a lot of detail and quotes from the Karma in Buddhism article. I think that the article should include these details and quotes, because they make the topic easier to understand for western readers."

http://www.wordcounter.net/ counts 37 words. Now we first have to wait till the two RfC's and the ANI-thread are closed, and then we can post it. Sigh... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Robert, this is the clue! "Westerners brought up in an Abrahamic religion" I already figured that predestination atc are typical western cocnerns. There must WP:RS on this! Ha, now you got me working! Cheers, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You know this term "Protestant Buddhism", for Sri Lankese Theravada Buddhism? Christianity must have had an influence on Buddhism, and many Asian Buddhist teachers in the USA will be confronted with concepts as "predestination". So naturally, some will have responded to it. I don't know what it's like in England and Schotland, but in Holland the church is passe. Predestination simply is not a mainstream issue. So, that makes it something that for some, like you, will be a topic you respond to, while for me it goes by unnoticed - until now. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:27, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Your rewrite of my post removes the main point I was making. But was helpful because I realized I probably need to say a little more, and have done so. I think not an excessively long comment - your sequence of three comments here suggesting that I rewrite my post are similar length. Robert Walker (talk) 14:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I think a helpful distinction to make is between sutra based Buddhism and non sutra based Buddhism. Nearly all contemporary Buddhists are sutra based. And you can't say that they are wrong in their interpretation of Buddhism in some absolute sense because, the teachings identified by some Western academics as the Buddha's teachings could as easily be teachings that predate the Buddha that got incorporated into the Pali Canon during the first great council after the Buddha's death, as Prayudh Payutto suggested. Robert Walker (talk) 14:33, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah... So... But...

• What's the realtion with karma, and next, with "karma and predestination"?
• What are concrete examples of "non sutra based Buddhism"?
• "the teachings identified by some Western academics as the Buddha's teachings could as easily be teachings that predate the Buddha that got incorporated into the Pali Canon" - yeas, that could be; it could also not be. Scondary question: who's to determine? primary question: what does this have to do with karma, and with "karma and predestination"?

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:46, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

* Simple. Buddhists do not believe in predestination. See this section of the article you deleted: Karma does not imply predestination, Robert Walker (talk) 15:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

* As for non sutra based Buddhism, well Stephen Batchelor, in his attempts to go back to the original teachings of the Buddha, I think rejects some of the things in the Pali sutras as he doesn't believe in karma or rebirth. I may be wrong on that. Maybe some of the more extreme pure land sects. Not many I don't think. Robert Walker (talk) 15:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

* As for the earlier teachings - whether they predate the Buddha - nobody determines that. In a wikipedia or other encyclopedic article you just put forward all the views, along with their criticisms, without any slanting or reinterpretation, exactly as presented in the sources. And then that is the job of the editor done. The relevance of course is that this is the motivation you gave for your rewrite. Since just about all contemporary Buddhism is sutra based - that's what most readers of Wikipedia want to know about - and should be the main focus of the articles. And with 16,000 pages of Pali sutras, there is then a lot of detail on Karma to cover, then two millennia of later developments and commentaries on it. And one source that says this is wrong does not make it wrong, and is not a reason to remove the content. It just makes it an extra POV to present. Robert Walker (talk) 15:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, just a suggestion, but if you want to understand Buddhist ideas as they are understood by contemporary Buddhists, have you thought of finding a good teacher? The ideas are hard to understand from books. The problem is, that we come with various pre-conceptions, and especially so if brought up in the West, concepts that are so ingrained we can't even see them easily. If you find a teacher, a good one, authorized to teach in a recognized lineage, so that his teacher has recognized him as someone who has understood the Buddhist teachings sufficiently well to teach them - then he will challenge you in many ways. Will be able to pick out things you may need to look into more carefully. There are many traditions and ways of teaching of course, and some practitioners don't need an intellectual approach - but for you, as for me, you would need to find a good Buddhist scholar / teacher who is able to explain the detailed teachings on a refined and intellectual level. But there are many such. And doesn't mean you have to believe what they say of course, that's not the aim at all, but to help you to work through the ideas yourself, but with the extra perspective and challenges that come from having someone else teaching you.

And of course, can also be many teachers, e.g. a teacher in each of the main schools of Buddhism if you have the capability to do such.

Just a thought. Maybe you have already considered it, or maybe you already have such a teacher? Robert Walker (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I have, and he's as critical as I am. Thanks for considering. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

What tradition is he in? I'm surprised to hear about a teacher in a living Buddhist tradition, who doesn't teach the four noble truths, and says that the Buddha was not a person, etc etc. I mean any teacher would of course say that one should be open to new discoveries. But if teaching Buddhism, then they would normally teach it based on the sutras as one of the three refuges, would they not? And so based on the four noble truths? No? Robert Walker (talk) 12:27, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Karma and predestination

Robert wrote:

"such as some details of karma, non self, nirvana etc, which are not part of our culture? (It would be the same the other way around for some of the topics in Christianity, e.g. Resurrection, or transubstantiation, or the ideas of the Trinity"

Aren't those topics for Buddhism and Christianity? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

So, this is the full quote of yours:

" I propose that the articles continue to include details of certain topics in Buddhism that are hard for Westerners brought up in an Abrahamic religion based society to understand, such as some details of karma, non self, nirvana etc, which are not part of our culture? (It would be the same the other way around for some of the topics in Christianity, e.g. Resurrection, or transubstantiation, or the ideas of the Trinity, for someone who has never encountered the religion in detail before.) His versions of the articles are easier for Westerners to read, because they remove these details, but easier to read doesn't necessarily mean better."

Are we on to something here? For nonself and nirvana, there are separate articles. But for "karma and predestination", I'm sure there must be very good literature on it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:34, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Gotcha! That's one:

• A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration, University of California Press

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes! This one's cool:

• Vanguard of the New Age: The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891-1945

"For some Protestants, who by the nineteenth century were turning away from the theory of predestination taught by John Calvin, the ideas of reincarnation and karma supplied a parallel, yet more satisfactory, explanation of evil in the world."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Have no idea what you are saying here, Buddhists don't believe in Resurrection of Christ, or Transubstantiation, or the Trinity. Not that they deny those particularly either, just not a path they are following. And Christians don't believe in Karma or follow teachings on non self, and don't have any ideas of Nirvana. And none of this is a reason for removing many important details of Buddhist ideas of these topics from those articles and presenting only the views of Anderson on what were the original teachings of the Buddha.

And - this is not a great time to try to win me over to your views when you are in the middle of trying to stop me from posting more than 1500 characters a day. You have just posted 6449 characters in 22 minutes, to my talk page to try to win me over. That would be more than four days worth of posts with your suggested limit for me. Robert Walker (talk) 14:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Robert, I'm trying to understand your point, so i can write a new section int he article, on "karma and predestination" or so. It's dawning on me that those "western misinterpretations" are important to you; now I'm trying to understand more, so I can find scholarly sources on the topic. If these are relevant topics for Buddhist-interested westerners with a heavy Christian background, then it may be relevant. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:49, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Joshua, please, another time. Thanks! My problem with your article is as listed in the draft notice. Removing topics of central interest to contemporary Buddhists is one of many issues. But discussion of that would depend on me being able to do the notice in the first place. In the circumstances, even if your resolution doesn't go ahead, I'll need to take a break and regroup before thinking about what to do next. This action you just took has been scary and intimidating for me. Robert Walker (talk) 15:25, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

But the answer is quite simple. Buddhists don't believe in predestination and believe that it is possible to do things about ones own situation and about others, and eventually also, to free oneself from Samsara. The old article already had a section "Karma does not imply predestination" which you removed: [1]. Robert Walker (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Concrete propsal for talkpage-restrictions

I've made a concrete proposal for talkpage-restrictions: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposal: max 1,500 bytes a day for Robert Walker. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Well if this goes through, my opinion of wikipedia arbitration procedures goes to rock bottom! Robert Walker (talk) 16:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

This isn't arbitration, but community enforcement. I don't have a high degree of confidence in community enforcement in general, but the subject editor has brought this on himself over a long period of time in various places, and in this case, I support the idea that the community can act without the need for formal arbitration. Many of us tried asking the subject to keep the length of his talk page posts to a length where other editors could actually review them. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

But it's not even your subject area - you said yourself earlier in this page that you know very little about Buddhism, and no reason why you should. Why expect my posts there to make sense to you? When I am discussing technical details of the article with other editors? Any more than say a discussion on a maths article by mathematicians?

And I've been doing short talk page posts, recently, see Talk:Nirvana_(Buddhism). And I've said I'll endeavour to be more concise.

And Joshua Jonathan is often verbose. Today he posted over 6000 characters in 22 minutes to try to persuade me to his views. That's four days worth of posts according to his proposed limit for me. It is a bit one sided for such a verbose editor to propose such a restriction on me, especially at a time when he knows I was on the point of submitting a notice to DRN.

I can tell you that after this experience I am going to be very very very cautious about ever attempting to do anything about issues I find in wikipedia in the future. It is dead scary and intimidating. You never know what an opposing editor might do next. Or even what they can do. Robert Walker (talk) 13:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Specific Wikipedia Guidelines violated by Joshua Jonathan's Rewrites

A friend on facebook has just suggested I go through the draft notice and say what specific guidelines each of the issues listed violates. So here it is:

User_talk:Dorje108#Dispute_overview

May make it clearer why it is that we wanted to take the case to the DRN and ask for more advice.

I don't want to spend so much time arguing details of the articles. The aim is to protect NPOV and the core policies of wikipedia.

If we had a roll back and discussion with the other editors then that could take its course and I would then be happy to step back at that point, and see the outcome, whatever it was, of considered debate by experienced editors, and consensus decisions about the articles. I never felt any need at all to get involved in any of these articles before his rewrites, as they were in good hands. Robert Walker (talk) 17:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Robertinventor/talk page post drafts

Good! By the way, I still love the photograph of you. It's great. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Robertinventor/Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments: even better! My compliments. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:10, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you withdraw the ANI action then? As for my appearance or whether we'd like each other in real life - that's neither here nor there, this is a content dispute not a personality contest. And, I'm neither a hermit nor an actor nor Dutch, so please don't be fooled by visual resemblances and if I shaved my beard off, as I have done sometimes, there would be no resemblance at all.

It wasn't a friendly thing to do, to take this action against me in the circumstances - no prior discussion or warning at all in the case of the second more restrictive proposal - and only one warning immediately before the first. From the timing, hardly seems likely that you did it to help Dorje and me communicate more effectively in our upcoming DRN notice about your edits. Also the whole thing was very scary for me as you could have anticipated. I have never done anything to hurt you. This is all about the content, and nothing else, for me. Robert Walker (talk) 11:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Ideas for shortening my talk page comments

Hi, I've just been working on some ideas for shortening my comments. Have put a draft into my user space. If anyone is interested click here.

Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments

I am pleased that you are trying to find work arounds your lengthy posts but unless you address the lengthy posts in the first place, these proposals are just band-aids. Looking over your Talk page posts, the biggest problem I see is that you're posting general discussions of the article topic without suggesting any actual edits. For example, consider the following quotes from these 31(!) edits from Talk:Water on Mars:

• "Many well known scientists such as Nilton Remmo have become optimistic for prospects of life on the surface of Mars very recently, over the last few years (from 2008 onwards) as a result of models, experiments replicating Mars conditions on the Earth, and observations that all point towards the possibility of liquid water that forms on the surface of Mars occasionally. Just a few droplets of cold salty water on ice salt interfaces, or cold brine flows just a mm or so thick, but that's enough for microbial life. As Nilton Remmo said about his team's experiments that created droplets of water in Mars analogue conditions, a tiny droplet of water is like a swimming pool for a microbe."
• "Life that revives from time to tine - if radioresistant, can repair all DNA damage for up to several hundred thousand years of dormancy in a few hours."
• "They are talking here about sparse populations similar to the microbes that are able to survive in the hyperarid core of the Atacama desert - even with an extensive search it is hard to find it, but if you look, for instance in the micropores of certain salt pillars you find small populations of a few microbes, slowly metabolizing."

Each of these quotes (and most of the rest of that long comment) is general discussion of the topic, which is not an allowable use of talk pages according to WP:TALKNO (Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic. The talk page is for discussing how to improve the article) because Wikipedia is not a forum.

If you were to stop posting general discussions about article subjects on Wikipedia, your posts would be much shorter and they would be much less disruptive. Ca2james (talk) 18:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand this, my post is entirely to do with trying to improve the article. First of all though - that was a long comment before the ANI and before I worked out this idea for shortening my posts. Latest version is much shorter, and links to: User:Robertinventor/OR_In_Water_on_Mars_Habitability_Assessment

Then, to give an example, I quote Nilton Renno because he knows as much about conditions on the surface of Mars as almost anyone, lead the team that discovered this new potential habitat on salt / ice boundaries, and states clearly that he thinks there is a good chance of finding life in this habitat on Mars. And he is also expert on cosmic radiation conditions on Mars - responsible for managing the REMS weather station on Curiosity, which gave us the most up to date measurements.

Extended content

It doesn't mean that you put all that into the article itself. All the article needs to say is that some scientists are optimistic about finding present day life on Mars in these temporary micro habitats of liquid water, like the Britannica quote. And cite Nilton Renno as a source there, along with others who say similar things. One short sentence would do. The rest is all supporting information - why I think his views deserve to be cited here. At any rate, why can't I propose that the article says this in a talk page post for editors to discuss politely? Other editors can say that in their view it won't improve the article. That's fine. But I am acting in good faith in my own belief that this will improve the article. So it is not forum or spam. And many talk page posts go into far more background information than this to try to support, sometimes just a tiny change in an article. BTW the article used to have a really long section on this topic in 2011, but it was deleted by BI, who replaced it by this short section saying that life on the surface of Mars is impossible. You can read the original version before he deleted it here - I contributed only a couple of sentences to it. Possibility of Mars having enough water to support life It was not deleted as a result of a RfC or any such, just as a personal decision by BI.

(I hope this post is not too long for you. If it is, do say and I'll do even shorter posts - I have spent a fair bit of time trimming it, not sure I can do much more there, but can make it shorter by leaving things out. Yes I do many edits, and understand the issues for page histories - have tried many methods to work around that but nothing really works, except doing a draft in my user space sub pages first - I could do more of that - I have used the collapse solution here). Robert Walker (talk) 18:52, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

At that page and again in your very long comments above you weren't suggesting a specific edit or suggestion to improve the article: you were going on at length about your point of view, and yes, that is considered disruptive even if you mean well. Talk pages aren't there for editors discuss the topic in general or to reiterate the history they've had with other editors or to repeat what they've already said - they're there to discuss ways to improve the article. Generally, those "ways" are "specific ways", as in "I think 'this section' needs 'this sentence' from 'this reference'."

Please note that it trimming your posts after someone has replied to them is generally considered a no-no per the talk page guidelines. You might be better off writing a draft reply and then going over each sentence to be sure that you're not repeating what you've said before or engaging in general discussion. Ca2james (talk) 02:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, okay, I can put the proposed edit very simply. It is to remove the sentence "Even at a depth of 2 meters beneath the surface, any microbes would likely be dormant" which is out of date. And to add a sentence such as "Some scientists such as Nilton Renno think that there is an excellent chance of discovering present day life in micro habitats that form briefly for a few hours per day or year", and then add all, or many, of the citations I give in User:Robertinventor/OR_In_Water_on_Mars_Habitability_Assessment to back up that sentence (as well as others I'm sure I could find with a search of the literature). The rest of what I say is to counter BI's previous many talk page arguments - in which he said that what these scientists suggest is impossible because of cosmic radiation - which I regard as OR. Robert Walker (talk) 13:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the information about not trimming your posts after someone has replied. I didn't know that and will avoid it in future. Robert Walker (talk) 13:20, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Update, I have just removed all the content I added to the talk page - I think I can do that because nobody replied. Perhaps later today or tomorrow I will make a new section with this short version. As suggested, I am working on a draft in my user space first, so I can post it into the talk page without need to do further minor edits. See User:Robertinventor/draft_for_water_on_mars_post. Robert Walker (talk) 11:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Have just posted it as Talk:Water_on_Mars#Proposed_changes_in_the_Habitability_assessment_section - this is the very best I can do, good faith, and put a lot of work into the new post to keep it concise, to the point, no repetition etc etc. Robert Walker (talk) 13:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Simple is definitely better! The revised shorter changes are clearer and I appreciate your efforts to reduce the length of your posts. I hope that, going forward, it'll become second nature. Thanks! Ca2james (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, glad it helps. Yes, that's the hope, that after taking a lot of effort with my posts at first, that I'll get the hang of it and it will get easier. These things take time, and I'm sure we can all change. Thanks for your help! Robert Walker (talk) 19:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI action concluded without an outcome

Result was no outcome and as mentioned above, I've developed some Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments which should help in the future. Robert Walker (talk) 20:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft for article on Present day habitability of Mars

I'm working on a draft for the article here: Present day habitability of Mars. Should make it clearer what the proposal is. When it is in a more complete state I can submit it for review. Robert Walker (talk) 12:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2015

Please be careful about what you say to people. Some remarks, such as your addition to Talk:Anatta can easily be misinterpreted. Wikipedia is a supportive environment, where contributors should feel comfortable and safe while editing. Thank you. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Joshua, I've reverted your edit where you just removed my latest post from Talk:Anatta. It is not harrassment as I am in the process of preparing a DRN notice about your edits - and it is legitimate to investigate other edits by an editor in that context. I found out about this through his post to your talk page. I have edited my post with great care to make sure that what I say is neutral in tone. Please don't remove my talk page post to that article again. It is not of excessive length. Robert Walker (talk) 11:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It is, and it's not appreciated. Stop using Wikipedia as your personal playground. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Robert, you're crossing the line further. Please stop it! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Translations are primary sources

Translations are primary sources. There is no doubt about it. This has nothing to do with the Rfc.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 18:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2015

Stop harassing me. I already warned you three times today diff diff diff; one more time, and you're back at ANI. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Robert is stalking you a bit, isn't he?VictoriaGrayson^Talk 19:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! That's a nice formulation :) Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not harassment. I was working on the DRN notice and in the process of doing that naturally came across your edits of Anatta and in my view the way you are treating User:ScientificQuest on that talk page and article is appalling!

He is a newbie editor making his first major edits of a wikipedia article.

He did good faith edits, on a topic he could reasonably consider himself knowledgeable about as he is doing a masters in the topic. And you treat him like a spammer, revert 47 edits within 24 hours of him attempting them - not giving him time to work on his text to add more citations to it. And you did that without a single word of encouragement or support or anything positive to say about any of the text he contributed with his 47 edits. Told him he needs to add more citations and try again - that is not at all a requirement of wikipedia that edits have to be fully cited on the day that they are added to wikipedia.

So I felt the need to say something in his support. If my first major edits of wikipedia I had encountered someone like you I think I'd have given up in despair! Robert Walker (talk) 20:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI - topic-ban proposal

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Topic-ban proposal for Robert Walker Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Out-of-India Hypothesis

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding India, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is WP:ARBIPA.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

Tendentious editing about the ancient history of India is subject to discretionary sanctions just like tendentious editing about the modern history of India. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:07, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I have not edited any articles on this topic. I took part in a discussion, that's all, and the discussion was open for all interested editors to participate in, and in a context where one could have reasonable expectations that opinions of uninvolved editors would be welcomed. Robert Walker (talk) 00:47, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI Topic Ban proposal auto archived by a bot

The proposal has been auto archived by a bot due to 36 hours of inactivity, which apparently means that nobody can comment on it or act on it. See [2].

This means we are once more a "go" for the DRN notice (it is not permitted to do it when there is any outstanding related action on other notice boards).

However, I think that as a precaution, it's probably best for the time being (until the DRN notice), if I avoid the pages for the proposed ban (all pages on India, Buddhism and Hinduism), as far as possible.

Also since they proposed an interaction ban with JJ, I think it is a sensible precaution to avoid all conversations where he has taken part, and to avoid pages he has posted to as well, as far as possible.

Of course, I can't avoid posting to my own talk page but won't respond to any of his posts here, or threads he takes part in, for the time being.

Nothing personal. Just seems a sensible precaution to make sure I provide no cause for future ANI actions that might delay the notice further, or any cause to restart the archived ANI action.

I thought best to post a brief message about this so that the situation is clear. And if necessary will post similar brief messages to explain why I am no longer taking part in other conversations. Robert Walker (talk) 12:00, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I've just added a summary to my reply - making clear that the summary was added after the proposal was archived: Summary (added after the topic ban proposal was archived) Robert Walker (talk) 09:24, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Site_ban

I really don't like to propose this, but there is a lot of unease about a one-way interaction ban, and the stalking of his edits is clear from the way that you showed up out of nowhere in a discussion that you had not been involved in. My advice would be either that you could voluntarily agree to accept all of the inconvenience on yourself of a one-way interaction ban in order to avoid a site ban, or that you could actually explain concisely and plausibly how you showed up at a thread in which you had previously had no interest. That would permit you to continue to edit articles on space exploration, where User:Joshua Jonathan is not involved. On the other hand, what will probably happen is that you will choose to say nothing for now and hope that the proposal gets archived quietly, and then pop up again in about a month and complain about something else. Your call. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:28, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't stalking him. I was given that link by someone else off wiki. And I joined the discussion with good faith as an uninvolved editor as I have no opinion on the matter. It has no religious significance for Buddhists. But I am interested to know why India didn't have writing at the time of the Buddha. I'm writing a blog post about that. See Origins of the Buddhist Sutras - were they the Teachings of the Buddha?. So the history of India is of interest to me - to understand the culture when the Buddha was born especially - and this is part of that. But not in the sense that I have a bias there. If there was a mass migration at the time proposed, I'd be interested to know why they didn't bring writing to India since they had it in the middle East at the time. Robert Walker (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Your DRN Notice doesn't make sense

Your DRN Notice doesn't make sense. Before Dorje108 edited the article, the editors were trying to get featured article status. Then Dorje108 came along and deleted academic material. You can compare the version before he started editing to his last revision. Dorje108 himself admits that his complaint is that Joshua Jonathan reversed his edits. So to refer to Dorje108's version as the "mature article" reeks of ownership behavior, not to mention being utter nonsense. Basically you and Dorje108 exhibit ownership behavior. In your minds you can edit an article all you want, but noone else is allowed to. This is problematic since you stuff Buddhism articles with nonacademic contemporary Buddhist teachers and even other Wikis, which mirrors your nonunderstanding of Buddhism and Wikipedia policy. Also Dorje108 might not be aware that I strongly complained about his edits long before any of these disputes. VictoriaGrayson^Talk 19:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Robert, it also seems that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what DRN is for and what you can get from it. DRN is only for content disputes, which in this case would be something like "Dorje and I like this old version and JJ, VG, and others like the new version." DRN is specifically not for conduct issues (like BRDR or fast editing or brief edit summaries). All that stuff about how JJ behaves this way or that way and all that discussion of the details of how the ANIs went is conduct-related, off-topic, and doesn't belong at DRN. At DRN you can expect to discuss those content issues; it isn't for trying to get the article rolled back. Finally, DRN statements should be concise and your draft is decidedly not that. Last time I checked, your multi-page document clocked in at around 65Kb and that is much, much, much, much too long. Asking a volunteer to wade through all of that, epescially when so much is irrelevant to DRN because it focuses on conduct, is unrealistic.

If you want your DRN to not be rejected out of hand, you would do well to remove most of what you've written. Sum up the issue regarding just one page in one or two sentences. Don't bring up BRD or fast editing or describe the ANIs against you or any of that other stuff. Keep your personal statement to less than 2000 bytes. Be prepared to discuss specific content that you want changed. If your case is accepted, let the volunteer guide the discussion and keep your answers concise and focused on content, not the contributors. Ca2james (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Ca2James, thanks for your comments.

• It seems essential to potential moderators to present the complete picture - and that has to include the previous ANI actions. It's also the main reason the notice was delayed. Indeed I feel the notice might well be thrown out if we don't mention them, on the basis that we shouldn't leave out such important details from the dispute.
• The edit issues of BRDR and the rapid edits are an essential point to be mentioned as are the main issues concerning interpretation of the wikipedia guidelines on NPOV, major edits, etc, and the two main differences of opinion, as they are the core issues in the dispute. A rollback need not involve disciplinary action if done voluntarily, so it seems something that could be discussed on the DRN.
• The "how can we help" section starts: "First, does anyone here have experience of a previous case like this, where one group of editors has made large scale changes to many articles and other editors question those changes? If so has it been resolved, and how was it resolved? Can a DRN resolve a situation like this?". We may be redirected elsewhere. But it seems this is our starting point - at any rate nobody has made any other suggestions to date.

I feel I have to choose my words with care here. Please see Delay in submitting this notice "It is also due to these previous ANI actions that I (Robert Walker) have stopped posting comments to the talk pages about JJ's edits, as I don't want to do anything that could lead to yet another ANI action."

You, JJ, VG and RM have just tried to get me banned from wikipedia completely. See Site ban. So, I hope you can understand my caution right now. This is due to the ANI actions, and the wish to avoid further delays to the DRN notice or any possibility of anyone taking me back to ANI first - and for no other reason. I hope we can discuss things in a more relaxed way once this is all over, thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I have just done some more edits of the dispute overview which hopefully helps clarify these points and the reason for taking it to DRN first, and our hope that it could be resolved in some way on the DRN, see Dispute overview Robert Walker (talk) 21:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Have you tried studying how WP:DRN works? Apparently not, since you apparently think that it is important for the moderator to understand the background beyond the content dispute, presumably so that the moderator will take "your side". One of the rules at DRN is "Comment on content, not on contributors". You seem to think that the mediation of Battle of Nanking is typical of how DRN threads work, so that you need to go in with an extremely long agenda. In case you didn't notice, that thread was eventually failed, largely because there were too many details. In any case, any potential volunteer moderator is going to start off with no knowledge and to expect the participants to work things out. The moderator isn't going to start off on "your side" or "JJ's side" (and if the moderator did start off on "your side", JJ and VG would have the right to ask TransporterMan or BiblioWorm to find a different moderator). You seem to think that the moderator is going to decide the content dispute. That isn't how DRN works. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

If you want to avoid being taken to ANI again, you can simply avoid doing the things that got you taken to ANI. Don't flood article talk pages with walls of text. Don't stalk another editor's edits into areas in which you previously had no editing experience. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Robert W, it seems to me that you're not hearing what I'm saying about DRN, its purpose, or its limitations. DRN is for content disputes only. At DRN, a neutral editor helps involved editors come to an agreement about a content issues. As Robert M says - and he should know, being a DRN volunteer himself - the DRN volunteer does not decide the content disputes for the other editors. The DRN volunteers also aren't there to tell editors what their next steps should be, nor would they tell you to roll back the edits you don't like. DRN volunteers are facilitators: they help editors resolve content issues by asking questions and focusing the discussion.

Therefore, it is not at all essential, necessary, or even desired to present a complete picture. This is because a complete picture necessarily includes conduct disputes and since DRN is for content disputes only, anything that isn't about the content issues should be excluded. You will need to link to the ANI discussions (and possibly even say that they were about conduct issues) in the "Have you tried to resolve this previously?" section but anything more than that link and a short, one-sentence note is irrelevant to a content discussion. The volunteer can read what happened if they want to do that; you don't need to summarize or interpret those discussions for them.

Please study DRN to understand what it can help you achieve and also read WP:DR to see what other options are available. If you do file a DRN, I strongly recommend rewriting your draft so that you comment only on content issues, not conduct or contributor issues, and so that you are concise.

As far as ANI goes, as Robert M says, don't do the things you did before and that won't be a problem. Since you've said that you won't interact with JJ, I do not foresee having to take you back to ANI. Ca2james (talk) 05:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I also wanted to add that my comments here aren't to stop you from editing or to intimidate you or anything like that. I'm here because your current DRN draft will likely not be accepted as it's much too long and much of it is off-topic. I'm trying to explain why this is the case and give you ideas about how to modify your draft. My motivation is that this DRN has been in process for more than two months and it would be good to see a resolution to it one way or another. Ca2james (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Checking my edits

Robert, it's very kind of you to check my edits on close paraphrasing, but serious: isn't there anything else you can do here at Wikipedia? Your latest 2,000+ edits are concerned with me, except for an intermezzo on Mars. I know you're following me around, but this is weird. FYI: I've also informed Robert McClenon and Drmies on this. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:13, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I find your table very usefull! Thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:26, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

		The Half Barnstar
		You deserve half-a Barnstar for this! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:27, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

This is not edit stalking. I didn't look at your edit history. Simply went through Bladesmulti's table and checked his information about breaches of WP:COPYVIO. As someone with an academic background this seems a serious matter that has to be stopped, which I didn't know about before.

I checked about a dozen out of more than 50 examples he gave, a few at a time. Compare User:Robertinventor/JJ Copyrights with User:Bladesmulti/Copyrights. Done in connection with the ARE case Joshua Jonathan.

As for numbers of edits you know I find I need to do numerous minor edits of my post, nowadays mostly in my user space. Then on top of that, you have taken me to ANI twice, and been taken to ARE yourself, and also had several weeks of discussion on the Karma in Buddhism talk page, and other areas about your major edits - and a long running RfC about your views on secondary sources. Of course that required a lot of edits, over a period of several months now. It's not my fault I think that your activities here have taken up a lot of valuable time that I could have used in other ways.

I continue to work on the DRN notice which has to be done with great care for obvious reasons including your warnings of WP:BOOMERANG and the two ANI actions you took against me while working on it.

I normally edit many areas of wikipedia, including especially, microtonality (music), rhythms (music), astronomy, logic (maths) and general science,. However in the second ANI, one of the two main reasons for action against me that I alerted User:ScientificQuest to the then on-going tied RfC and put forward my own views on Buddhist scholars such as Bikkhu Boddhi on the Anatta talk page. With that given as reason to take me to ANI - I felt that there was a chance that almost any edit I did might lead to action taken against me. Especially since several of you also supported a site ban in that action.

I don't want another such delay, so have made a decision to voluntarily stop editing wikipedia or commenting on any of the talk pages until this dispute is resolved, in one way or another. You also supported a one way interaction ban to prevent me commenting on any talk page you post t, in that ANI action. So - I thought I should do this one post to assure you that I didn't do any edit stalking. I don't see how this single post can get me taken back to ANI. But after this I think it is probably a wise precaution once more to not reply to your posts on my talk page or elsewhere until after the notice. Robert Walker (talk) 13:14, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry to upset you, but I also was realy surprised to see that you copied that table. And yet, on the other hand, it also proved to be usefull, so I've got mixed feelings about it. Maybe I should copy the table to my userspace, and in case you find more paraphrasing-problems add them there, so I can remedy them. You see, mixed feelings. Sorry again to upset you; I was upset too. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology. I copied it because for me, with my background, it is a serious matter. Once more, I haven't examined your edit history, and don't want to. Only that time way back when it was a focused search with a purpose - I was searching only for major edits in the Buddhism topic area, deleting lots of material, -1000s of chars.

What you did doesn't count as paraphrasing. It is paraphrasing when you say "So and so said ..." and then paraphrase what they say in their work. That is okay so long as the paraphrase is not too close. Though what you did was far too close, word for word, so it was not acceptable on those grounds either.

It is WP:COPYVIO, far more serious, when you copy their text into an article, or paraphrase it - and you don't prefix it with "So and so said..." or put it in quotes. That was the case with all the examples I checked in Bladesmulti's table.

It does not make it okay to add the author as a citation, as that doesn't make it clear at all that the text itself comes from them. It's basically a form of plagiarism. To fix it you would need to:

* Go back and put all of them in quotes, or if you do a paraphrase make it totally clear that you are paraphrasing, introduce the text with "So and so says ..." or similar - and avoid close paraphrasing, see WP:PARAPHRASE

* With the pure quotefarm articles then rewrite them so that the quotes are introduced properly with at least a sentence or two of substantial content first. You can use Dorje's version of Karma in Buddhism as an example.

* Make sure you don't use lots of quotes all from the same page or site

and you'd be okay on this particular issue. Though as you know we have many other issues to discuss in the DRN debate, which I hope may help clear many things up if it can go ahead.

At least, that's my understanding of this. In my view, with my background the admins treated it too lightly. And if this is endemic in the India topic area, as someone said, it doesn't make it right but rather means that the whole area needs to be cleaned up.

BTW I might point out something that surely is obvious to anyone reading this. Since you just counted the number of edits I did in my edit history that are connected with you - then it is clear that you look at my edit history. It goes both ways - if you think that I shouldn't look at your edit history (which I don't) - surely you shouldn't look at mine? Robert Walker (talk) 18:33, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

As multiple experienced editors pointed out on several pages, you have a poor understanding of Wikipedia policies.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 20:25, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:POLEMIC

From User:Robertinventor/Short alert, I see that you are abandoning your DRN and RFC dispute resolution attempts for the Buddhist-related articles. Per WP:POLEMIC, [t]he compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner. Since you will not be pursuing dispute resolution, your DRN and RFC sub-pages must therefore all be deleted. To do this, simply put {{Db-u1}} (this is a tag requesting speedy deletion of a page in user space at the request of that user; see WP:U1) at the top of each page to be deleted and they will be speedily deleted a short time later. If you do not delete them yourself then any editor may nominate them for deletion but of course it's better that you do this. It would be a good idea to delete the alerts as well since posting them could be considered harassment and keeping them is also a violation of WP:POLEMIC. Good luck! Ca2james (talk) 21:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Please understand that this page you have just found is a draft in my user space intended for private discussion only and not an announcement. I was not aware of this guideline, and thanks for drawing attention to it. I can understand the reason for it now that it is explained in the page you link to.

We are still considering what to do. It is a difficult situation for us as you can surely appreciate given the events of the last few months. Our motivation is that we care deeply about the topic area and consider the articles in their current form are inaccurate in many ways as well as omitting important material that was included in the earlier versions of the articles.

We have not decided to abandon all attempts to do something about it yet. I drafted that in my user space to help with discussion with fellow editors via email, as a suggestion for something we could post if we decide that we can't take it any further at all.

As far as I know, it is not linked to from any other page on wikipedia, except of course now when you linked to it. It is not linked to from any of the other pages in my user space either. I know that because I posted it only three days ago on March 24th [3] - and haven't yet linked to it from anywhere else.

AFAIK, the only way to get to it would be through examining my edit history, or the list of sub pages for my user space.

How did you find it?

I have just added a note to the top of the draft, making it clear that it is a draft and not an announcement and not intended for anyone else's attention or comments at this stage. And have done the same with the other materials as well to avoid any possibility of other future confusions like this. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The point of POLEMIC is that you can only keep diff's about another editor's behaviour for the purposes of dispute resolution and only then if the pages will be used in a timely manner. You've had those pages and the threat of taking the whole thing to dispute resolution for three (!!) months now. Arbitration disputes take less time than you've spent on these pages. This dispute is not nearly so complicated, and it's becoming stale.

Whether the alerts pages are drafts is irrelevant as they're part of a broader attack on another editor, and they're dangerously close to (I'd actually say over) the POLEMIC line. In fact, tagging the pages as drafts doesn't prevent POLEMIC from applying. The page does say that you're giving up dispute resolution so it's quite reasonable to think that this is what you've decided to do. BTW, I came across the page because I look at your contributions once in a while to see whether you've filed for dispute resolution.

If you're going to take the issue to dispute resolution, then do it very soon. Otherwise, tag the pages for deletion and let the whole thing go. Ca2james (talk) 00:57, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Much of that three months was taken up by the ANI actions of the opposing editors. I don't see how a draft in user space is an attack on another editor when it is not linked to from anywhere else, and it doesn't mention any editor by name. It does link to the DRN Notice Draft and the RfC draft - but those already existed and weren't created for the purpose of that draft.

Also I don't see how it is an attack either if we can ensure that it is neutrally worded. It is a draft, and the aim is to make it as neutrally worded as possible. Especially if we also remove the RfC and DRN Notice if we went that way - how would that then be polemic at all?

Anyone looking at this talk page and the ANI actions and the many talk page comments can see that we don't have anyone else to help and advise us in this action so we are feeling our way as newbies to this whole process. Especially also with other editors taking us to ANI and warning us that our actions can be seen as Canvassing and Polemic - for instance your very post just now warning me that something that we thought was neutrally worded is polemic - that's the very sort of thing that is the reason why we have to be extremely cautious and proceed carefully. In this case we didn't see it that way, and it is useful information that you do see it as polemic. We might have gone ahead with that idea and then presumably taken back to ANI whic we would not have expected. Robert Walker (talk) 10:08, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether the pages are linked to from anywhere else as it's the existence of the pages that is the problem, not whether they're linked. It doesn't matter whether the editor is mentioned by name when it's obvious who the editor is based on the diffs included and your past interactions with the editor. It doesn't matter if the pages are neutrally worded when they're collections of diffs about another editor and/or lists of what that editor has done wrong in your eyes. The alerts you've written are violations of POLEMIC and if you were to post them anywhere on Wikipedia they would also be violations of wikihounding.

Your DRN and RFC drafts are not being used in a timely manner and your excuse that you were taken to ANI and that you're trying to be cautious is not a justification for the continued existence of those pages. The last ANI action involving you ended well over a month ago and thus you have had plenty of time to pursue dispute resolution. If you're not going to pursue dispute resolution in a timely manner, then those pages are also violations of POLEMIC.

To say that you have no one to help you stretches the truth. Both myself and Robert McClenon have tried to help you and give you advicebut you have ignored us. Honestly, it seems to me that you're more interested in complaining than you are in resolving anything - and Wikipedia is not the place for you to store your litany of complaints. Ca2james (talk) 16:14, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon has told me several times in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want to help me when I went to him for advice right at the beginning of this all. And as someone who is clearly friends and in private communication with the opposing editor from his talk page posts, and who has also voted to topic ban me and site ban me, I feel he isn't in a position to give us impartial advice also. He is too personally involved.

But we haven't had advice and moral support by people who are uninvolved and impartial and willing to listen to us and discuss our situation with us in a friendly way and explain things to us and so on. At least it doesn't seem like that to me. When we do get advice, from him, and from you just now, it is of such a nature as to make us even more cautious about doing anything at all. For instance you just said the alerts if we posted them anywhere would be violations of wikihounding. Which is of course not our intention at all. But you haven't given any positive constructive suggestion of something we could legitimately do, in their place. So that's another reason to be more cautious.

Similarly Robert McClenon warned us against submitting the DRN notice in its present form but he gave no alternative suggestion place that would address our concerns. So again that is going to make us more cautious about submitting the notice. The solution he suggested, to remove all mention of JJ's conduct (such as BRDR etc) was just not acceptable to us as that was the main reason we ask for a rollback in the first place. None of the other issues would have arisen if he had accepted Dorje's BRD and returned to discussion on the talk page before doing the rewrite. So what could we do if the draft we prepared is not acceptable for a DRN notice - and if making it acceptable would mean it no longer reflects our concerns? We have had lots of advice of that sort indeed, but all that advice has the I hope understandable effect, especially combined with the ANI actions of giving the impression to us that there is less and less chance of doing anything about it at all.

I'm not saying that as a criticism of either of you. Just that people who are friends with an editor wouldn't be expected to be the ones best suited to give moral support and constructive advice to those who have an opposite position in a debate. And I understand your point that we can't keep the materials here if we decide not to use them. That makes sense. And - perhaps it is true that nothing can be done in a situation like this on wikipedia. Or perhaps we are the wrong editors to do anything about it for some reason. That is the thing we are trying to decide right now.

And just to reassure you again, our only purpose throughout is to resolve a content issue. There is no other reason for any of this. Robert Walker (talk) 16:22, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Ca2james - I have just blanked out this draft alert and marked it for deletion Robert Walker (talk) 20:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

If your only purpose is indeed to resolve a content issue, then you don't have a clue as to how to resolve a content issue in Wikipedia and have for whatever reason completely failed to listen to advice about content issues. Complaining at length about the conduct of other parties is not constructive to resolving a content issue. The reason that I said not to submit the DRN notice in its current or previous form is that content issues are resolved by discussing content. You were advised not to discuss editor history, and you insisted that it was important to discuss editor history. You say that I gave no alternative suggestion. I gave you the alternative suggestion earlier of using WP:DRN rather than complaining or rather than asking whether major edits were a conduct issue. You didn't ask for Yet Another Alternative and I wouldn't have provided one. As to having no one to advise or help you, that is true, but is entirely self-inflicted. You blew away all of the efforts that I made to help you, and it appears that you have done that with others. I advised you as to what to do more than once. I tried being patient with you, and you exhausted my patience. You really appear to have isolated yourself because it really appears that what you want to do is to complain. You apparently don't have a clue about content disputes, and you apparently don't have a clue about how you have pushed away every effort to advise you. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:12, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The main thing is that it is JJ's use of BRDR that caused the issue originally. It's because we can't reverse his edits and go through normal methods of discussion that the issue arose. So that's why the issue of BRDR has to be covered. The other points raised in our draft notice are his POV sections based on Carol Anderson's book, only a single view at one end of the spectrum in a complex debate, and many individual issues with the edits which other editors would not have agreed to if they had gone through normal processes of discussion on the talk page first, such as deleting many sections of the previous articles without discussion. So - if you remove all mention of BRDR and remove all mention of his actions of deleting sections of the previous articles and the ways that his edits violate the guidelines in our view - there is nothing left to submit, it is to just accept his edits as a "fait accomplis" from the get go. That's why I feel we have to discuss editor history - I don't understand how it could be possible to do it any other way. And after all the wikipedia guidelines on major edits are clear enough, that they should be discussed first with other editors to check for consensus before proceeding.

For one reason or another, and I totally accept that it may be that the fault is entirely with me, but I just don't feel that you are an editor I can work with to help see the way forward for resolving this issue. I found you helpful with the Mars dispute earlier. But though I appreciate your offer to help, I feel we don't have the easy relaxed dialog that is needed in a situation like this. And you have also voted to both site ban and topic ban me also, and in both cases you didn't attempt a discussion of the issues with me personally either privately or on the talk pages, or ask me for my side of the story. I just don't feel you are neutral and uninvolved, or if you were, after voting to topic ban and site ban me in an ANI action, I don't see how you can still be considered a neutral uninvolved party who is in a position to give us impartial advice. And if you are, still, it doesn't seem we can work together on this for whatever reason. I agree that we don't seem to have much of an idea of how to resolve the issue yet. I appreciate the good intentions behind your offer to help us. Robert Walker (talk) 11:54, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I did not recently say that I was an editor who was willing to work with you to help you. On the contrary, I have recently said that I cannot and will not work with you to help you. But that is, as I have said, entirely of your making, because you disrespected all of my efforts to help you. As to how to deal with JJ's edits, you could have and still can use RFC, offering either the old version or the very different new version, or can even use DRN, if you will play by its rules, which is to comment only on content, that is, the two versions, and not on contributors and not on process. You have until now ignored and disrespected all efforts to give you helpful advice, and you complain that there is no one to help or advise you. That is true, because you won't accept advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:15, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Okay but what you see as disrespect was just me asking what I thought were natural questions. Totally not my intention to show disrespect to you by asking that question about how a rollback RfC could get us anywhere when clearly the other three editors would vote against it. I couldn't see an answer to that myself, but it seems it caused upset and offence to ask the question, at least the way I asked it, for whatever reason.

I wanted to understand the process better and to understand how it would work first. Because I didn't want to do something that had no chance of success or might boomerang back on me. And for me, the two ANI actions against me also seem to confirm the need for caution to me though I understand that you of course think otherwise since you voted to site ban and topic ban me in those actions.

Also, I haven't ignored any of your advice. I didn't feel I could act on it right away but gave it a lot of thought. As you see I drafted out both a rollback RfC recently, as well as a DRN Notice. I still can't see how they are going to work quite yet. But I gave your advice a lot of thought I assure you. Robert Walker (talk) 18:43, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe that you're trying to avoid your complaint boomeranging on you; if that were true, you'd have listened to what others have told you about focusing only on content. I also don't believe that you are most interested in the content because if you were, you wouldn't be focusing on the conduct of other editors. That conduct happened months ago and there's nothing to be done about it because that behaviour is stale. Even if conduct issues happened yesterday, neither DRN nor RFC require the behavioural context you keep insisting on including in your pages. If you file or post anything that focuses on the other editor's conduct, it will boomerang on you. As it is, the other editor's behaviour is irrelevant and only the content as it stands right now matters.

Quite frankly, it looks to me like you didn't like what another editor did and instead of working with them to change the articles to both your satisfaction, you're trying to put the article back the way you liked it and have that editor punished. That is not OK.

You say you want a rollback so that each part can be considered separately but there's no reason why you can't consider each section without rolling it back. If I remember rightly, the editor offered to discuss the issues with you and you refused.

Finally, thank you for deleting those two alerts. There was a third one, however: User:Robertinventor/Major Changes in Core Articles on Buddhism. Ca2james (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Okay I'll delete that one also. Note that Andi tried to roll back the deleted sections on Karma in Buddhism for discussion but his attempt was immediately reverted [4] - and for his discussion of this attempt see Bold,revert,discuss - conclusions from the past days of discussion.

In our idea for a Rollback RfC we have the idea of a partial rollback of the deleted sections together with the ledes and any sections that are considered to be POV or OR in their new format (i.e. the ones putting forward the POV of Carol Anderson). And in the DRN Notice the idea is to put forward request for a full rollback as that is what we think is best, but then it would of course be followed by discussion of course of other possibilities as that is the format of a DRN debate. Our latest version of the notice gives a list of Rollback Priorities in case a full rollback is not acceptable.

With major edits, then as I understand the guidelines, then they say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing#Major_edits

1. A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors ( Help:Editing#Major_edits) and
2. Boldness should not mean trying to impose edits against existing consensus or in violation of core policies, such as Neutral point of view and Verifiability. Fait accompli actions, where actions are justified by their having already been carried out, are inappropriate. Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Talking_and_editing

That's the main basis on which we ask for a rollback as far as the guidelines are concerned. That his main justification for keeping his versions is as a "Fait accompli" which we feel is inappropriate. And as far as practicality also I feel that the old versions are so much better than the new ones, in terms of completeness and NPOV and not having any OR content, that it is easier to fix the old versions and add in any good new changes in the new version than to try to fix the new versions - so that is why I prefer a full rollback even after the amount of time elapsed. But of course that is the sort of thing that would be covered in a moderated discussion if we had one.

When JJ suggested discussing the changes and I refused, there is a context there. We'd had a discussion on one of the talk pages where I tried to argue for a rollback, but he took all that discussion as reason to add a single sentence summary of the section to his version of the article and then try to get me involved in working out the best way of phrasing that sentence (though of course I don't think it could be summarized in a single sentence). And he also uses that sentence as a reason for not restoring the previous section. So I read it that way, that he would be asking me to help him rewrite his article using single sentence summaries of previous sections. I don't want to do that. I don't want to edit them at all. Just to restore the deleted content, restore the ledes, restore the NPOV sections and then let experienced editors sort out all the issues by discussion properly. No way do I want to be a co-editor of JJ's versions of the articles. By accepting that proposal I would be agreeing to be a co-editor especially as he didn't include User:Dorje108 in his suggestion. Robert Walker (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you're understanding this fundamental point: it doesn't matter how the article came to be in the state it's in. You're upset about how it happened, and that's fine, but complain about that somewhere else as the time for dealing with that behaviour on Wikipedia is long past. The other editor rightfully tried to work with you; that's the appropriate response when another editor objects to recent edits - and if you had issues with his behaviour at that point, then that was the time to try to resolve what you see as conduct issues, not now. Instead of assuming good faith and trying to work things out with the other editor, you refused to do that because you didn't like the way the other editor did things or tried to work with you (when you were the one who was making the most comments). You're trying to force things to happen your way and that isn't how Wikipedia works. I understand that you don't like the state of the articles but focusing on how the other editor wronged you is unproductive and bordering on harassment. File a DRN or RFC if you must, but leave the conduct issues completely out of it. Ca2james (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say I was upset. Just that his offer there was one I couldn't accept. Because he wanted me to be the one to work on the article with him, not Dorje, when Dorje was the editor he clearly would need to work with. And because he was repeating an offer he had already made on the Karma in Buddhism talk page - where I had already told him I don't want to work on the articles myself as an editor. And because it was after a long discussion about the Karma not a judgement section which ended with him putting a one sentence summary into his version and claiming that that was it fixed.

So it was pretty clear what my response was going to be when he asked me the same question on my talk page. And his response to Andi's actions show that he was not interested in restoring the deleted sections and that he sees his one sentence summaries of them as all that is needed. That can't be sorted out just by talk page discussion with him - I had already attempted this for weeks at the time he made this offer and so knew it was not possible. Is that clearer? I wasn't upset. Just couldn't accept his offer because of that context. I could have done a better job of explaining this at the time but if you look at my response I do make these points. I only started to explore other avenues when it became clear that the discussions were getting us nowhere. And if you look at them, from my side those discussions are entirely content based.

Something that might help you to see our side here. Do you know any Buddhist scholars? Say doing graduate studies. Or any traditional Buddhists? Can be in any tradition: Zen Buddhism, Therevadhan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, sutra based Buddhists.

Try showing them Four Noble Truths 14th October 2014, compare with Four Noble Truths

Or Karma in Buddhism 3rd November 2014 compare with Karma in Buddhism

Ask them which is the most accurate, complete and NPOV of those two articles. You could for instance ask Kstigarbha (am being careful not to link to him here so as not to alert him so you can see there is no intention of canvassing by mentioning his name here)

- all I know about him is that he says he is doing a PhD in Zen Buddhism, only one on the Buddhism project page to say that he is doing a PhD. But Zen Buddhists like all traditional Buddhists regard the Four Noble Truths as central. I'm sure he'd say that the old version is more accurate and more complete in both cases, and the new version, especially the lede, is OR for Four Noble Truths, that Critical Historical Analysis is a very POV section compared with Pali Canon#Origins and that the new version of Karma in Buddhism is missing many important sections from the old version and has some OR and POV content in it. Robert Walker (talk) 12:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert, I'm into Zen for 25 years now, and I have never heard a zennie say that the FNT are central. Never. Insight into Buddha-nature is central to Zen; zazen is central to Zen; compassion is central to Zen. But the FNT? See for example Kiew Wit Wong (2002), The Complete Book of Zen, p.43:"The basic teaching of Theravada Buddhism, which both Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism accept but regard as only the preliminary teaching, may be summarized in the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Doctrine of Dependent Origination."

You've also made clear, again, what is the basic problem with your demands: you want a complete rollback, but you don't want to work on those articles. Other people have to do the work. Well, if you want anything changed, you either reinsert the information you want to be reinserted; and when there are objections, you discuss them at the talkpage. Or you first discuss your issues, concretely. Either way, you'll have to work. There's no way you can simply request a roll-back and then run away.

There is also no way that sourced info from reliable sources is going to be removed en toto because you want to reinsert overly long quotes with WP:UNDUE information. Removing sourced info from reliable sources is one thing; reinserting a mass of quotes is another thing. Both are not supported by Wiki-policies.

Many editors have explained that for the past half year (Half a year! More than enough time to find out who Bronkhorst anbd Schmitthausen are!), but you still ignore the concerns of others. Basically, you should try to work together with other editors, instead of simply repeating over and over again that you want your preferred versions to be restored. We've heard you, a long long time ago already. Please move on, and try to aid in building an encyclopedia.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:52, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert, I can't speak to the content in the articles. I can say that, as a reader, the new versions are MUCH easier to read and understand than your preferred versions. The new layout and structure is clearer and easier to follow. If there's information missing then that information can be added. It doesn't make sense to me that you would refuse to work on those articles although you clearly think you're justified in that refusal.

I haven't told JJ to leave off making comments about your conduct because he hasn't been making them.

As far as why JJ could take you to ANI about your conduct, he could do that because he a) did it right after you displayed the behaviours he was complaining about, and b) he took it to the right venue. ANI is the correct venue for dealing with conduct issues whereas DRN and RfC are not venues for conduct issues - they're for content disputes only.

Why can't you talk about JJ's conduct now? Because you didn't do anything about it at the time it happened, and because your refusal to let it go months later is bordering on harassment. If you had wanted to deal with JJ's conduct, you would have had to take him to ANI when that conduct occurred. If the behaviour had continued after the ANI you then could have taken him to ArbCom. However, since you didn't deal with the conduct at the right time and place (at ANI when it happened), there's nothing you can do now.

I just realized that you deleted the questions I answered in the above three paragraphs were from a previous version of this talk page that I read before. I think you actually didn't know the answers to those questions which is why I'm answering them.

It seems to me that you're caught up in your vision of how things "should" work on Wikipedia and so you're misunderstanding how things actually work. I urge you to (re-)read WP:DR, which explains how to resolve disputes on Wikipedia: conduct issues are resolved separately from content issues, and what you're calling context isn't required or desired when resolving a content issue. You appear to be treating this situation as something you can "win" if you just provide enough context to support your "side" - but Wikipedia is not about winning and the only "side" that matters is that of the encyclopaedia. Ca2james (talk) 14:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Ca2James, I deleted those questions on reflection because I thought they might be taken as harassment, not intended but was concerned they would be understood that way so removed them right away. How then are we to present our case - that we want to reinstate deleted sections and restore the rewritten ledes and so forth if we are not permmitted to say that another editor removed them? I just don't understand how it could be presented without mentioning JJs editing practices, his use of BRDR and the failure of attempts to reinsert deleted content. There would be no reason to take it to DRN at all then - seems you are saying we must leave out all mention of the things that are the reason for the dispute in the first place. And I'm sure that other notices taken to DRN mention the conduct of other editors and there is nothing on the page as far as I say to say that you must not mention user conduct by other editors. I just don't get why you all say that we mustn't mention his previous actions on the articles.

Joshua Jonathan, On FNT in Zen Buddhism: The Zen philosophy is based on ‘The Four Noble Truths’ as formulated by Buddha:, Zen Basics according to International Zen Association UK.

It's been my experience in Tibetan Buddhism also that many teachers in the West don't use the FNT as a basis in the way they present the teachings. You can study Tibetan Buddhism here for years as a practitioner before it is even mentioned. Lots of teachings on compassion, on dealing with negative emotions etc, on emptiness, on how to meditate, but rare to talk about the FNT. It is of course fundamental to all the other teachings but it is rarely mentioned for some reason. I'm not sure why that is.

But that doesn't make them any less central to Tibetan Buddhism.

Also the Zen tradition - I've not been to many teachings, just a couple or so on Korean Zen - but understand it is strongly sutra based as all the traditions - the sutras ground their approach and make it legitimate - but as I understand it - don't use the sutras as a basis for teaching in the way the others do, with a strong focus on zazen and direct experience.

But the FNT are still fundamental to their approach - as I understand it and as surely someone like Kstigarbha would confirm.

We never said that the material on Anderson's work has to be removed, but that it has to be balanced by material on all the other views as well as criticisms of it. As to whether the sections you removed should be quotes or paraphrases that was a matter of discussion. But you frequently use large numbers of quotes in your versions of the articles also - I've seen articles by you that are almost entirely quotes with hardly any text at all. Quotes have their place. We gave many reasons why this was a suitable place to use quotes. Mainly that they are matters not easy to summarize and to present, and that often the carefully chosen words of an expert who has spent their life on the topic, presented as a quote, is better than a paraphrase of the same words by a wikipedia editor. So long as you follow the guidelines on quotes to make sure that the quote is introduced properly and the section is not just a quote and nothing else.

At any rate whatever the decision there, as Andi said -Bold,revert,discuss - conclusions from the past days of discussion.

"Also, from the extensive discussions of the past few days here and there and here and on this very page, it should be clear that there is at least no consensus justifying your mass deletion of content on the grounds of WP:RS or the classification of quotes as primary sources.

Also the overuse of quotes in general cannot be a justification for this massive deletion of well-sourced content. As i said earlier: In any case, a good quote on an important subject is way better than leaving out the subject altogether."

Ca2James, I understand your point about the new versions being easier to read, but unfortunately they achieve that through over simplification and also in some cases especially the FNT, through OR content presented as the teachings of the Buddha. Robert Walker (talk) 15:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

If the problem is OR, then you don't need a rollback to deal with that. As for your question, How then are we to present our case - that we want to reinstate deleted sections and restore the rewritten ledes and so forth if we are not permmitted to say that another editor removed them? Of course you can say that the material was removed. But for the DRN, you don't need to say more than, "this article was rewritten (here) and a group of us consider the changes to be OR. After some back and forth between us and the other editor and his supporters, it became clear that we all need help reaching a compromise. Ideally we want the changes to be rolled back." Note the complete lack of discussion about anyone's conduct there. For an RfC, in an ideal world, you and JJ would be able to work out neutral wording the asks whatever you want it to ask. You could ask "Should this article be rolled back to (previous version)?" Then with your !vote you could briefly say that you think the current version is OR. Again, you can say that someone rewrote the article but you must not delve into brdr or any of the things you consider to be JJs conduct issues because RfCis about content, not conduct.

You're going to be hampered in this by the fact that you don't actually want to do any work, that you've left the issue for so long, that your pages are unreasonably lengthy, and that you're unwilling to compromise. And there's the problem that you refuse to focus on content only - I do hope that if you file you'll let that go. Either way, if you're going to file for dispute resolution, do it soon. Ca2james (talk) 23:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

OR is one of many problems. There's also POV, the short lede, the deleted sections, his assumption of consensus on his views about use of quotes in the body of the article and on what count as permitted sources and many other issues, all these issues listed here Main issues.

If it was just a single case of OR then it would be easy to settle by an RfC, and could indeed do it as you suggested. That basically was why we want a rollback as our preferred solution. That is our list of main issues, there are eleven of them altogether, that we think violate the wikipedia guidelines. Then in addition two differences of opinion where he has taken his own view on a dispute as the consensus. He has rewritten the articles according to his vision for them, ignoring what other editors think, and we think, also ignoring many wikipedia guidelines as well.

That's one of the problems in our discussions also - and why it is hard to keep a focus in any RfC since the discussion moves from one to another of these many issues and nothing gets resolved. A rollback would solve it all because then you go back to an earlier version that was agreed on by consensus amongst all the editors involved - then can go through these points one at a time and see which of his many changes are also accepted by consensus.. Robert Walker (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The main reason we haven't done anything is, first the ANI actions of course, but then the advice we got, as a result of which we simply couldn't see any clear way ahead, and also frequent warnings that if we get our draft or alerts or RfC etc wrong we will be disciplined for that and and all the warnings that it may boomerang and other editors saying we are approaching it all the wrong way. So of course we are going to be increasingly careful in what we do here. We have discussed many ideas. But however long it takes, the problem itself doesn't go away, as far as we are concerned, until someone does another major rewrite of the articles or a revert. Because the content of the new versions of the articles is the issue for us, not the editor or his actions. So elapsing time doesn't change that. Nobody is a perfect wikipedia editor. But generally our various editing excesses are moderated by the requirements for consensus based editing. Robert Walker (talk) 00:05, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Anyway so, I think I understand what you are saying. For instance, that this would not be permitted in an RfC [| Why editors haven't been able to resist his edits]. I didn't realize that. I was trying to model that on the RfC here, another recent RfC also involving JJ which I was told about by an off wiki friend: Hinduism RfC]. I thought that my RfC draft was similar. But now that I know what to look out for, I see that the Hinduism RfC doesn't mention any editors by name in the statement of the RfC or any particular actions that they did. Robert Walker (talk) 00:18, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Hinduism RFC is a good model but you're right that it doesn't mention editor's names or how the edits violated this or that guideline or essay. And no, you can't include the part about why others couldn't resist his edits.

On a similar but related topic, your pages talk about how JJ "violated" WP:BRD and other essays. I'm not sure you know, but BRD is an essay, not a policy or guideline, and "violating" BRD isn't sanctionable unless it's part of edit warring or other bad behaviour. Policies, guidelines, and essays are not the same thing; while essays like BRD are useful, following them isn't necessarily required. In particular, the essay on BRD describes one way editors can work together to develop consensus but there are other ways to do that. Ca2james (talk) 01:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay thanks. That's good to know. I don't know what action we will do if any, and any action would depend on Dorje108's agreement also as I wouldn't want to do it on my own, and he is someone with much less time for working on wikipedia than I have. But it is good to understand these things better, to understand how an RfC works better for instance if that is what we do. Then we can make better decisions.

Perhaps that's partly a matter of the language, maybe I need a better word. I do understand that BRD is a guideline and not actionable. By "violating" I didn't mean a sanctionable offence as we are not attempting sanctions. It is just meant as motivation for the rollback.

In this case the BRD and Andi's attempted revert were not accompanied by edit warring just because Dorje and Andi are both people who are not inclined to edit war. Nor me also. They didn't even do a 2RR but stopped right away, in effect following a 1RR rule. Which didn't mean at all that they agreed with the edit, just that they are editors who are not inclined at all to edit war. And - it was a BRD done to try to stop a major rewrite of the entire article, not on a minor point of detail. So I think that is significant. Perhaps a better word but it is going directly against the guidelines on major edits and BRD.

Would it help to say throughout: "Going against the guidelines" rather than "violating the guidelines"? It is the same as far as I am concerned. That in our view he the way he has rewritten these articles goes against the wikipedia guidelines on WP:POV, on WP:OR, on WP:MOSINTRO, on major edits, BRD, consensus based editing, and so on. And that the main reason for wanting a rollback, partial or full, is because his actions have departed from consensus based editing, taking it from an article that reflected the consensus of all the editors, to an article that reflects the views of a small group of two or three editors with similar vision for wikipedia who have edited many wikipedia articles on Buddhism (and other India related topics) to match their vision in the period 2014 - 2015. Robert Walker (talk) 01:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

That's for the DRN notice draft of course - I understand your point on RfCs. Though for an RfC, it seems you can say something about these points also if you word it carefully

The Hinduism RfC says: " It looks like that these editors have seen problems with many parts of the article that were introduced during mid 2013-14, there was no consensus for them and still there isn't."

We could say similarly that there was no consensus for the rewrites and still isn't, presumably. I'm feeling around this, trying to understand how the RfC process works better than I did before, and what you can and can't do. And BTW that was an RfC about changes that were introduced, some of them over a year previously to the RfC, because a year later there was still no consensus for the edits. Robert Walker (talk) 04:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

You keep saying things like "he has rewritten these articles" and "his actions" which indicate a focus on the editor, not the content, and is considered personal attack territory. Comment only on the content, not the contributor. Stop talking about who has violated things and how things have been "violated": say only that certain parts of the article are WP:OR in your opinion. See WP:AVOIDYOU for ways to avoid even the appearance of personal attacks.

About consensus: consensus can change, and just because you think there was consensus for you preferred version doesn't mean that a new consensus can't be formed. Since there were criticisms about the article before it was rewritten, there clearly wasn't consensus (let along full consensus) for that version. Also, since the debate has stopped on the article and you've let this go for so long, it could be said that there is consensus for the current version. See WP:CONSENSUS. And before you say that JJ didn't do this or that and "violated consensus", look at your own behaviour. Did you try to form a new consensus? Did you suggest changes? Or did you just complain because it was different and you didn't like it? Before accusing others of going against consensus, you need to try to reach it yourself.

From the outside, it looks like you didn't like the changes, argued that they should be reverted wholesale, left when you didn't get your way, and then made up arguments against the changes in a never-ending, unreasonably-long document. All while focusing on the editor instead of content. To me it looks like you're trying to do this RFC/DRN not in a good-faith attempt to improve the article but just to get your own way (especially due to your insistence that "context" is required). That's not collaborative or the way things work on Wikipedia. Collaboration is required.

If you don't actually want to edit the article, then consider leaving it to others to figure out. Wikipedia is a work in process and no article is ever finished. Ca2james (talk) 17:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. The reasons against the changes are mainly ones that arise right away on looking at the article. It all started when I saw that the Karma in Buddhism article had been rewritten and I immediately saw that it had deleted the sections on Karma as not a judgment, not predestination, impossible to predict with precision[5] - essential characteristics of the way that Karma is understood in Buddhism (and distinctive from ways it is understood in Hinduism also). And the old sections there had plenty of citations to support them and sutra support. For me that was the first thing I noticed when I saw the rewritten article when I looked at it after the edits - it wasn't on my watch list because it seemed like a mature article. Then - since he deleted those sections, then the obvious way to fix it is to restore them again as Andi tried. At least originally there was no content on those matters at all in his new article. He eventually added one sentence summaries. But that again - you can't fix a one sentence summary by suggesting a change of wording, when in your view there should be a whole section on it. Obviously we have to suggest reinstating the old sections to fix it.

Another thing that is immediately obvious is the much shorter and less informative lead in the new version. And I think in case of the Four Noble Truths most Buddhists would notice the OR reformulation of the Four Noble Truths as a striking change in the article that you'd notice right away. And deletion of all treatment of contemporary interpretations and various other things would be immediately noticeable. And if you have read up about the various views on the origins of the Pali Canon, then the historical section would strike you immediately as WP:POV in the FNT article.

Does that make more sense? And I did extensive discussion for some weeks on the talk pages, not just me, Andi also. As for the idea that a new consensus has been achieved - there is a much slower pace of editing of these articles than many areas of wikipedia, normally - which is one of the issues. Dorje108 edited the Karma in Buddhism article pretty much on his own for over a year. If you look at the history of Karma in Buddhism, and especially if you ignore the minor edits, you can see that the picture is much more one of a change of editor from Dorje108 to Joshua Jonathan than a new consensus: [6]

As for what we plan to do, well we are still discussing that. We have taken into account your points. I don't know what the decision will be. Not had much communication with Dorje108 since the start of this conversation as he is most available for discussion at weekends. Robert Walker (talk) 18:13, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

.

Scottish Fairground Culture Editathon, May 2015

Hey there! As a Wikipedian in Scotland I thought you might be interested in the Scottish Fairground Culture editathon taking place on 7 May at the Riverside Museum - drop me a line if you'd like to know more, or if you'd be interested in taking part remotely! Lirazelf (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh dear, linkfail! Here's the correct one... Scottish Fairground Culture Editathon Lirazelf (talk) 09:54, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

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Clarification of "Could be created"

User:Stefan2, I've posted on the talk page for the guidelines on non free use suggesting clarification of the guidelines. Because it wasn't at all clear to me that photographs of rare hard to access geological phenomena and species included with permission from the author are not permitted here. See Clarification of "Could be created". And it seems that many people are uploading photographs that get deleted, so it may save everyone some time if the guidelines were clearer, if this is indeed what is intended.

As I say there, I don't understand the reasoning. What is the benefit to wikipedia of deleting non free photographs included with permission of the photographer, and which can't be replaced by free images by the uploader? Nobody is going to sue wikipedia for including them, and the result is a net loss to the reader as the articles can't be illustrated.

But if this is the guideline, and it has been established over extensive debate here, then I suggest someone should add a line to the guideline saying so. I of course wouldn't have uploaded these pictures if there was a clear guideline saying that they are not acceptable here. Robert Walker (talk) 09:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Just to say I got a really nice response there and I now understand the situation much better, that this is the guideline, and why it is. And some discussion there of possibility of clarification of the text on the page by adding "by any person" or some such. Robert Walker (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Morgellons

I have spent the better part of the evening trying to sort discussion at Talk:Morgellons, and am finding that your talk page habits there impede normal discussion and make it impossible to decipher what is being said by whom. You don't sign posts, you use excessive markup, you change posts long after you've made them, you introduce wonky spacing and sections and don't follow normal indentation, and the whole talk page interaction is such a wreck because of this that I can't even decipher what discussions have been had and what has been concluded.

Further, I find that although you first came to the topic in April (only six weeks ago), there is NO ONE who has been active on that talk page for TWO YEARS who has the number of posts you have there. That is, you say "Please note, I'm not at all an advocate for this hypothesis", and yet you quickly came to dominate the talk page to an extreme degree, complicated by the lack of understanding of how to use talk, and apparently without having a minimal grasp on relevant policies and guidelines. That is not the appearance of someone who is not there to advocate for a position.

In other words, your input on that page is making article development very difficult. I can't use the word "disruption" (yet), because the talk page is such a mess I can't tell who has said what, and if all the problem is coming from you, but based on one evening of posting, I suspect most of this issue is coming from your posts.

I came to your talk to suggest that, if you are still learning talk page protocol and sourcing of medical articles, it might be easier if you picked a benign, completely uncontroversial topic. And to remember that if you can't make a point in a paragraph, it's unlikely you're going to get anyone to listen to you by filling pages with excess markup and long rants.

Yes, the page is NPOV. It looks like you created that whole section, even though your signature is no where on it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:40, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Sandy, I'll archive that section manually. At the time it was part of a long page with a lot of debate going on. Now for some reason the archiving bot has archived everything except that section. And if you look in the archives, then during that debate I discussed this idea of writing a new article as a fringe science article, but that also is now archived. Leaving this section which I think was not archived because I didn't sign the subsection or the lede of the section and had at least another subsection which I did sign. Robert Walker (talk) 10:38, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I've done it now, so you can see that section in context as it was originally, and as part of what was, at that time, a very long page with a lot of discussion. It was soon after the Joni Mitchell story hit the headlines and many editors came to this article as a result. I was one of them. See Archive 12#Is this article WP:NPOV? Robert Walker (talk) 10:45, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

There you can also see our discussion of my suggestion to start a new article on the Lyme disease connection as fringe science. Robert Walker (talk) 10:46, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion which lead to me creating the new fringe science article starts here: | You forgot the part... Robert Walker (talk) 10:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I've now added a reply to the talk page. Hope it is okay. I can see after writing it that it may be overlong. It is hard to be both thorough and succint in a reply and I wanted to answer the points you asked about. It's an on going issue that I am working on, it only seems to be an issue here in wikipedia and not in any of the other places where I take part in discussions including quora, facebook, my Science20 blog comments thread, forum comment threads, discussions of articles online - in all those places my careful replies are appreciated but here they are often treated as walls of text. It is my nature to be careful and thorough and I am not at present good at the "rapier wit" type reply that seems to be favoured here on wikipedia in many discussions. My replies are always to the point, and address the issues asked, and they are not at all walls of text in the sense of attempting to impede discussion. I never do that. They are just scholarly in nature, but they are sometimes considered overlong here. Robert Walker (talk) 11:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Just to say, the article has now been merged away. I'm not going to challenge this, as I have never found that challenging these sorts of things helps here in wikipedia, as I can imagine anyone who has followed my talk page would understand from my other recent experiences here on wikipedia.

Did my best. It seems that my talk page habits - the issues I have with incorrect levels of indentation of my posts, forgetting to sign my posts and signing them later, needing to edit and correct my posts for typos and repetition after I do them, and writing too much, have got in the way and derailed the conversation. I forgot to do a draft of my posts in user space first, which was the solution I came up with earlier this year. If only - but then the outcome might well have been the same even if I'd remembered to do that.

Anyway - it seems that the solution I came up with earlier this year to do this as a fringe science article isn't going to work. So - well I haven't got any other thoughts on the matter. I'm now going to proceed with the plan to write about it as a science blog outside of wikipedia. This is the article as it was just before it was merged away: | Morgellons Lyme Hypothesis.

And just to say this was all done with good intentions, trying to improve wikipedia. And I'm not in any way an advocate of this hypothesis or trying to promote anything, don't know the researchers. I don't have Morgellons or know anyone with the condition, and came to this as a neutral party with no preconceptions on it at all.

Just think that it is an interesting line of scientific research - which is of course preliminary and could be refuted or confirmed, and is undoubtedly considered fringe science at present - in the first sense of valid science following the scientific method but not accepted as mainstream. But seemed to be notable enough for a mention in wikipedia.

It is not a biggy that others think it is not notable for mention here. And I learnt a lot while attempting to write a wikipedia article in this topic area. Thanks also to Ca2james for patiently discussing the issues of this article with me on the article's talk page, and for helping to clear up my various misunderstandings of the wikipedia guidelines, and helping me to get it into shape. Your work will help with my blog post at least and also help with my understanding of the guidelines for future wikipedia articles on other topics. Robert Walker (talk) 10:04, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Present day habitability of Mars (July 2)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Tokyogirl79 was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Present day habitability of Mars and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also get Wikipedia's Live Help real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello! Robertinventor, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering or curious about why your article submission was declined please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I've replied to the comments at the top of the draft here: Draft_talk:Present_day_habitability_of_Mars#Reply_to_comments. I think the way forward might be to post about it to some of the project pages suggesting that other editors might find some of the sections a useful source of material. I will continue to work on it to improve it, and I'll also look for other wikis or suchlike to submit it to. If anyone else wants to try adding material from here to the Life on Mars habitability section, then that's great. But for reasons of past encounters with one of the main editors of that article, and because I don't feel I can write on this topic if I can only mention the point of view that Mars surface is uninhabitable for present day life, then I don't feel I can do that myself. (I'll just add this as a summary comment to the talk page). Robert Walker (talk) 11:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

When other experienced Wikipedia editors deem your assays not worth of publication -even without my input- it reinforces the fact that you, Robert, have a handicap understanding 1) biological science, 2) biology articles and, 3) the 5 Pillars of Wikipedia. BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

They said, not suitable for wikipedia in its present form, mainly because it was too detailed - not "not worthy of publication" :).

I posted it to my Science20 blog and have also had many appreciative comments on it from astrobiologists and others off wiki. As you'll see from the comments on its talk page I'm interested to hear any suggestions about other places where I can submit it - perhaps more specialized wikis or some such, where it might be welcome. And meanwhile keep it here as a potential resource for authors of wikipedia to use in their articles. I can't rewrite it in the way I'm sure you would like it to be written, but if you find useful material in it for the articles on Life on Mars or Water on Mars etc you are welcome to use it as a resource yourself! It was of course written in good faith with aim to improve wikipedia. I replied to the reviewer's comments on its talk page. Thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 02:17, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Robertinventor/Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation

User:Robertinventor/Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Robertinventor/Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Robertinventor/Charles E. Holman Morgellons Disease Foundation during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Guy (Help!) 14:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

(deleted on my own request) Robert Walker (talk) 02:57, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Robertinventor/deleted sections from Manned mission to Mars

User:Robertinventor/deleted sections from Manned mission to Mars, a page which created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Robertinventor/deleted sections from Manned mission to Mars and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Robertinventor/deleted sections from Manned mission to Mars during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ricky81682 (talk) 08:37, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Present day habitability of Mars concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Present day habitability of Mars, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:32, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Present day habitability of Mars has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Present day habitability of Mars. Thanks! Robert McClenon (talk) 02:52, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

AN-notice: topic-ban proposal for Four Noble Truths

This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Sorry to inform you, but I've proposed a topic-ban for you on Four Noble Truths. See Administrators Noticeboard#Topic ban requested. I'm sure your intentions are good, but the way you are trying to implement your ideas is unworkable. All the best, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:30, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion has been closed and a community ban has been enacted. You are banned for six months from making any edits about the Four Noble Truths on all pages of Wikipedia, including talk and noticeboards. The ban expires on 27 November 2016. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 14:25, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

EdJohnston, does the restriction apply to the editor or just this user ID? I ask because Robert has created an alternate account, Robert C. Walker, and I expect but am not certain that the restriction applies to that account also. Thanks. Ca2james (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

The topic ban applies to the person, no matter which account he uses to log in to Wikipedia. EdJohnston (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

If you look at the user page of my alternative account, you'll see that I say

"So I logged out of wikipedia for a week, just to forget about it. Logging back in, I find that the ANI is still in progress, logged out again and I've created this account just so I can do editing in other areas of wikipedia as a non anonymous editor until the ANI is over. I will not use this account to edit the Buddhism topic area talk pages while the ANI is in progress and will not use it to comment on the ANI. I expect to use this account mainly for editing articles in the topic areas of astronomy, physics,space science, and perhaps other areas like music and maths."

Robert Walker (talk) 23:06, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Your recent edit

This edit is skirting the boundaries of, if not actually violating, your topic ban. You're not allowed to discuss the topic from which you are banned - or edits to the topic, or the behaviour of editors on that topic - anywhere on Wikipedia, even if you don't mention the topic by name. The point of a topic ban is to get you out of the problematic topic area and editing productively elsewhere. Attempting to "set the record straight" on another editor's changes in the problematic area is not getting out of that topic area. The fact is that while you are under a topic ban, you cannot set the record straight; you must let the topic go completely on Wikipedia. I strongly advise you to revert that edit and to not make any further similar ones. If you reply to this note, do not bring up specific edits or attempt to justify why you left that message. Any further mention of or alluding to the topic from which you are banned could result in you being taken back to ANI for violating your topic ban. Thanks. Ca2james (talk) 23:57, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay thanks, reverted. I didn't know this. Robert Walker (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

It's OK; I figured you didn't know before, and everyone makes mistakes. Now you know about what a topic ban means and I know you'll adjust your behaviour accordingly. Good luck. Ca2james (talk) 03:07, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks for noticing it and helping me by explaining wikipedia policy that I didn't know, and keeping me out of trouble.Robert Walker (talk) 10:06, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Topic ban from the Four Noble Truths

The following sanction has been imposed on you:

You are banned for six months from the topic of the Four Noble Truths on all pages of Wikipedia including talk

You have been sanctioned per a discussion at WP:AN

This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator as authorised by the community's decision at [[7]], and the procedure described by the general sanctions guidelines. This sanction has been recorded in the log of sanctions for that decision. If the sanction includes a ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.

You may appeal this sanction at the administrators' noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. EdJohnston (talk) 17:50, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

When notifying you before, I didn't include the official template. Here it is now for completeness, and so that other admins are aware. The ban expires on 27 November, 2016. EdJohnston (talk) 17:50, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Notice re Morgellons

As others have noted, your comments at Talk:Morgellons are becoming disruptive.

This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

Jytdog (talk) 14:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the warning. I have no intent to cause disruption of wikipedia. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 14:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)