User talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions about User:WhatamIdoing. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Quote Parameter in citations

You contributed to a discussion either here or here. I'm attempting to summarize and move the discussion forward here. You may well have this page watchlisted, but as I am trying to carny on in a slightly different place, I'm letting everyone know who contributed.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 17:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Help setting up translation task force

Hey WAID wondering if you know how to format some of this stuff for the translation task force [1] It has been a few days and no bot has come along to fill in the assessment data.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Did you follow all the set-up directions? I don't see any evidence of the relevant categories there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No, thanks for the advice. Will see if I can figure it out.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hum, looks rather complicated. Who at Wikipedia medicine has set up one of these projects before? I may need some help. Have posted here [2]--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks more complicated than it is. I think the list of instructions at WP:MEDTF is easier to follow. If you can't figure it out, then ping me tomorrow. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes that is definitely easier. I have tried to follow the instructions. Not sure if it will work though.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems like it works a little but not completely.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Following the steps exactly as indicated at WP:MEDTF#Task force creation guidelines will do the trick (you did not create any of the necessary categories), but I wonder if there is a better way to create this project. I just posed a bunch of questions at WT:MEDTF#Translation. I can lend a hand, but need to know more about your goals. Creating all of the categories is extremely tedious, and they might not even be necessary to accomplish your objective. --Scott Alter (talk) 04:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you created the cats for WP:WikiProject Translation. I believe that the cats need to be named Category:Translation task force articles by quality for it to work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Scanning speech

Thanks for reviewing this article. It's the first article I've created, and as I'm new to this I was just wondering if you had any pointers? Good stuff and stuff I can do better next time? Thanks Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 23:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

For a first article, I think it was really pretty good, and you should be pleased with your success.

Are you familiar with WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS? The first is about identifying the best sources for medicine-related information, and the second sometimes has useful suggestions about what to include or how to say things.

Also, if you haven't met the folks at WP:MED yet, they're a great bunch, and I recommend keeping an eye on the talk page. It's a good place to get help and to find out what's going on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Wiki problems

You've received a reply on user tabby talk page. Tabby (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use

Just a note to say I liked 2 of your changes for s.10, and incorporated them into mine. The effect is both of us have suggested almost identical versions to Geoff.

I also proposed the remaining edits to s.12 which you said would be needed but hadn't written up. If you want to, go take a look and see what you think.

(The IP editor in that section appears to be listed on the SPI page for this banned user.)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It may take me a while to get over there today. I was partly building on your earlier comments in that draft, which explains the similarities.

One thing I've been particularly happy about in this discussion is knowing that Geoff will ignore or improve my suggestions if they're not good enough. It's a delight to deal with an intelligent, committed, well-informed professional.

It's amazing how certain people just can't believe that they've been banned, isn't it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

U must be a snake (chinese horoscope). Always looking for mischief. I was delighted to talk to an intelligent, commited and well-informed professional at the above mentioned discussion site too.--Angel54 5 (talk) 03:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Reminder — What the phrase means

Hi. Just a reminder re my last question[3] in our discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#What_the_phrase_means. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I have replied there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab).
Message added 18:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

causa sui (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

One more, at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical) :-) causa sui (talk) 21:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Brain picking

I think I recall you mentioning a year or two ago that, when a policy and a guideline are found to conflict, the policy doesn't automatically trump the guideline, but the correct response is for a wide community discussion to reconcile the two. (Maybe it was SlimVirgin or SandyGeorgia; it wasn't a bloke.) If I'm right, is there anywhere I could go on project to confirm that that is the usual practice? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Conflicts_between_advice_pages. NB that WP:V explicitly states that it trumps all sourcing guidelines; I have the (possibly erroneous) belief that this unusual provision is SlimVirgin's work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Never die. Never leave. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Help with Edits to Internationals Schools Services

OpenMinds2010 (talk) 19:55, 13 January 2012 (UTC)I wonder if you could help again with this article. You helped when I first wrote it. Someone has targeted it for deletion. I am not an advanced wiki writer but would like to keep my article and eventually make it better. The person who marked it for deletion looks a little sketchy but may still have the power to delete. Thanks for any help you can offer.

I have removed the tag. The user in question does not have the "power" to delete articles; that's why he tagged it rather than deleting it. Deleting it would have required an admin [the only users with a 'delete article' button on their screens] to decide whether deletion under WP:CSD#G11 was appropriate.

It appears that the user who tagged the article had a rather expansive understanding of "spam". However, it could still be deleted through the normal WP:AFD process. The best thing you can do to prevent that is to WP:CITE as many WP:Independent sources about the school as possible. It is rare for an article about a school to end up deleted if it cites a dozen sources (not counting the school's website or other sources with a close connection to the school). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Spam G11

G11 spam doesn't have to be "try my product" written inside the article type of nature. Db-spam does include articles that is promotional in nature, such as nothing but highly postive reviews, what features it does and such, mainly written by a COI. I'm very conservative when it comes with CSD, usually following the example of other administrators, and being a former administrator for over four years myself. What I tag is with accordance with that. Thanks Secret ^account 21:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To qualify for G11, the articles must be exclusively promotional in nature, not just partly promotional, and a list of major features isn't "promotional": it's descriptive. (Think about it: how the heck would you describe (a very encyclopedic activity) a piece of software without listing its features?) I'm sensitive to spam problems, since I've been the most active editor at the External links guideline and noticeboard for years; I know what it looks like.

Additionally, I know a good deal about notability requirements for organizations, since I've written most of WP:ORG. Both Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Speedy_deletion and WP:CSD plainly state that no page, no matter what, should be sent for speedy deletion unless it has "no chance of surviving discussion" at AFD. Notable organizations always have a practical "chance of surviving discussion", by definition.

Don't confuse "positive content" for "promotional". The fact is that "nothing but positive" is pretty typical of the reliable sources for some smaller organizations (just like "nothing but negative" is what you get for certain scandal-prone organizations). A 100% positive article may accurately reflect the reliable sources, and in those cases, only a 100% positive article complies with NPOV. Even if you think the balance is off, deletion is not a form of clean up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I replied back on my talk page. I know your work (I personally don't understand why you never did an RFA). I fully agree with you, except for the PHPmotion article. I just had my health issue right before I said my comment above so I didn't made sense here. Sorry about that. Now wikibreak. Thanks 184.33.223.182 (talk) 22:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mistakes happen; don't worry about it. I hope you feel better soon. I'll go take a closer look at the PHPMotion article. In fact, since it's been tagged for notability for a while, perhaps it should just go to PROD or AFD if I can't find any independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Good article help?

Hi. If you have time I would like your opinion on an idea I had for helping new good article reviewers. A first draft can be found here. It started off as an upgrade to the mentor page, but has now turned more into a help desk/noticeboard. I decided to get the advice of some GA regulars before announcing it at GAN. As you wrote much of the "what is not a good article essay" and answer questions regularly at the talk pages I thought you might have some ideas on the validity of this GA subpage and hopefully ways to improve it (plus would be willing to watch it if it is used). I would appreciate any comments you, or any of your interested talk page watchers, might have towards it either here or on the talk page. AIRcorn (talk) 10:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Boldly substituting a dictionary equivalency

Hi. Just to let you know that I responded[4] to a message of yours at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Boldly_substituting_a_dictionary_equivalency. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for the delay in answering; I've been mostly off wiki for a couple of days. I do appreciate your note here to make sure I saw your good suggestion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Second paragraph of lead

Hi. Just to let you know that I responded[5] to a message of yours at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Second_paragraph_of_lead. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, overall I recognize that your comments have been useful in developing the possible version. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Templatify

Can you please add the 2.0s into the respective templates, please, per the discussions here. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me) 03:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't really understand what you want. The alternative images to be added to the templates? The alternatives to be listed at Wikipedia:Barnstars 2.0? (You could do either of these things just as easily as I could. They do not require special privileges.) Something else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Really, I am struggling to add the alt parameters in these templates, help. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me) 18:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me like you made one single effort a week ago, and then gave up—which is too bad, because what you did actually worked.

The only thing you got wrong was the documentation, which requires |alt=yes, not just |alt=. If you'll go look at Template:The Press Barnstar, you'll see what I did to fix the documentation. Also (unfortunately), you have to purge the cache to see the correct results. The easiest way to do this is to go to Special:Preferences, then to Gadgets, and tick the second item under "Appearance", which is "Add a clock in the personal toolbar that displays the current time in UTC (which also provides a link to purge the current page)." Whenever you need to purge a page, you just click the clock and wait a few seconds.

So your process is to do what you did originally for each of the files, except to add the =yes, save the page (which will definitely display wrong), and then click the clock to purge the page (and maybe reload the page a time or two). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

DID Page

It's nice to see you there in the talk section. :) I hope you take some time and work on the article as well. We do need more people there and you seem more than capable.~ty (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, WhatamIdoing. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

SarahStierch (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Abortion exceptionalism

The article Abortion exceptionalism has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not seeing this concept described by reliable sources; seems like original research.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Accounts

Is it possible that SlimVirgin has been using Dreadstar's account at WT:V? --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Slide-rule". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 6 February 2012.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 23:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Slide-rule, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, WGFinley (talk) 23:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Thanks

For fixing that again. I think I had fixed it once before but someone reverted because I was involved in the Muhammad arbitration. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 23:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Ongoing dispute clause?

Please direct me to the Rm stale POV tag per "ongoing dispute" clause you have been refering to. -- Cdw ♥'s ♪ ♫(talk) 00:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Second bullet point at the top of Template:POV/doc: "The editor placing this template in an article should promptly begin a discussion on the article's talk page. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant, then this tag may be removed by any editor." If you have noticed, I've been pulling tags that have been dated as far back as 2008. It is not even remotely plausible that discussions from several years ago are still active in 2012. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks I didn't know that. I learn something new every day. -- Cdw ♥'s ♪ ♫(talk) 14:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome! Wikipedia is such a sprawling, complex place that it's just impossible to know everything. I believe that the only way to make it work is by sharing the little bits we happen to know like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

External link request

Hello, you replied to my request for a link on the dementia wikipage Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard I have replied to your reply but basically it's to say that you were right, I should request a link to be placed on the "caregiving and dementia" wikipage rather than the "dementia" wikipage and the link to be directed to the "care" category on the www.dementia.co.uk webpage rather than the homepage. I would be greatful if you could help resolve this matter. Thanks again for taking the time to read.John cordingly (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC).

Induced abortion at TNBC

Hi, I believe this is your specialty? Richiez (talk) 16:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for the late reply. Actually, I generally try to avoid abortion-related issues, because the ratio of good editors to true believers (on both sides) is so bad. But I think you were right to revert it: the paper in question gives the same odds ratio of 1.4 for both triple-negative and all other forms of breast cancer, so it doesn't really seem to be a risk factor specifically for TNBC. (I wonder how much of that effect disappears when you control for the risk factors for having an abortion, like getting drunk frequently [alcohol being a known and pretty direct cause of breast cancer].) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I found it indeed rather surprising that those factors were not compensated for as it appears that young afro-american women of low socioeconomic status are at particular risk for TNBC, with predictable implications for abortion incidence. Unless some very solid evidence emerges I think it is better when abortion and breast cancer are discussed on the dedicated page. Richiez (talk) 18:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Would you mind when I reshuffle the sections again - I believe it is necessary to have classification above treatment because treatment is done based on classification (and I am trying to update/expand both). Btw metastatic breast cancer could use a radical sweep, getting the impression there is somehow way too many articles to keep in sync. Richiez (talk) 10:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, first of all, what's currently in the classification section is really histology/path information, not properly classification information. "Classification" is generally supposed to be something more like what is done under Hypertension#Classification or Diabetes mellitus#Classification, not a list of things like "Sometimes TNBC cells overexpress this protein" or "We can identify this disease by looking for this histopathology pattern".

I also don't currently see any connection between the information in the classification section and the treatment section, so from the readers' perspective, they've been made to wade through highly technical (=confusing) information for apparently no purpose.

That said, I don't actually feel strongly about it one way or the other. If you think it's better this way, then I'm okay with that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I hope to fix treatment to take pathology into account sometimes soon so the connection will be more obvious. Yes, it is not real classification, but some things have already turned out to be fairly important and others need to be added. Richiez (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we re-name the section to be a little more accurate? We could have a ==Histopathology== section, or something like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Would be fine for now. I am gathering lots of information on classification and no idea what the section will look like when it is done. Richiez (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Or we can wait until you've had a chance to finish reading things. There's no deadline, and a couple of days isn't going to make much difference. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Recognizability poll

WhatamIdoing, since you participated in a previous poll on the wording of the "recognizability" provision in WT:TITLE, your perspective would be valued in this new poll that asks a somewhat different question: WT:TITLE#Poll to plan for future discussion on Recognizability. – Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ask, and ye shall receive: one candid opinion has been delivered. But you won't like it. WhatamIdoing (talk)

Counters

You have helped me in the past, so I thought you may be able to help me again. I used to use two counters. One, a global counter, that counted the number of edits I made. The other was more fine-grained. It counted the edits I made per Wikipedia entry and category of entry (e.g., the pages themselves, templates, the discussion of the page, etc.). The tools, however, expired. You can see my Wikipedia page to find those tools (I didn't delete them). Can you direct me to other counters I could use. Thanks. Iss246 (talk) 11:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Try http://toolserver.org/~tparis/pcount/index.php?name=Iss246&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia It appears to be the successor for Soxred's account. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.Iss246 (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

More help with counters

Hello again. I used to consult an application site that counted how many hits per month a Wikipedia entry received. The site was http://stats.grok.se/, but is not longer operating. I wondered if you could direct me to another site that could do the same thing. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 19:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That's the only one I've ever used for page view statistics. It's possible that an inquiry (or a search through the recent archives; surely we're not the only people who used it?) at Village Pump (technical) would be produce an alternative, or at least some information about what happened to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I took your advice, and asked at the Village Pump (technical) entry. Iss246 (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Recent WP:MEDRS change

Hello, I made a comment on a month old discussion [6] which you may not have noticed. It concerns the guidelines which now strongly imply that tertiary sources cannot be used to determine balance/due weight. I'd appreciate you taking a look. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mindjuicer (talk • contribs) 18:51, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Thank you so much for your help at the sources page. I have been rather floundering, for lack of a better word, in the insecticide articles regarding the use of good, solid primary studies in articles. Your advice is very encouraging. xxxooo (I'm a gurl too, so we can hug and kiss) Gandydancer (talk) 21:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your note

Not that I don't believe you, but regarding ref styles, it seems odd to me, that the MLA article does not itself use refs with the URLs exposed. Nor did I see a sample containing a URL on the page, just as a visual example, as on other pages about ref styles. Marrante (talk) 06:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the article about MLA style actually uses the MLA citation style (they might be, but at least the third one looks not quite right to me); there's no requirement that it do so. You can see their approach here. URLs aren't required (at all), but when they're included, the MLA style makes them visible and encloses them in angle brackets. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Request for participation

Dear WhatamIdoing: Hello. This is just to let you know that you've been mentioned in the following request at the Mediation Cabal, which is a Wikipedia dispute resolution initiative that resolves disputes by informal mediation.

The request can be found at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/27 February 2012/Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Just so you know, it is entirely your choice whether or not you participate. If you wish to do so, and we'll see what we can do about getting this sorted out. At MedCab we aim to help all involved parties reach a solution and hope you will join in this effort.

If you have any questions relating to this or any other issue needing mediation, you can ask on the case talk page, the MedCab talk page, or you can ask the mediator, Mr. Stradivarius, at their talk page. MedcabBot (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Article restructuring at the Beatles

There is a straw poll taking place here, and your input would be appreciated. — GabeMc (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the subject and do not understand why you have invited me to share an opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Image placement issue

I may have misunderstood the edit history, but I think this thread at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Image placement: Reason? concerns an edit you made to the guidelines back in October. Just in case you miss it on your watchlist. All the best.--SabreBD (talk) 00:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Rhodium and Platinum

I picked your name out randomly from the edit history for Service Awards - congratulations! The metals for Senior and Master are mixed up between the descriptions and files names. Slight Smile 18:10, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I put that issue where I should have in the first place, Wikipedia talk:Service awards so never mind the above. Regards and good to meet you.. Slight Smile 19:12, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Please remember to list at WP:CP

When tagging a page witgh {{copyvio}} please remember to also list it at WP:CP as described in the instructions in the template. The copyvio at Victor Anomah Ngu has only just been dealt with as those that deal with copyvios at WP:CP were unaware of it. A bot would normally automatically list anything that was not listed but this was down for several months and it's best it is not relied upon. Please also notify the user who inserted the text. Again instructions are provided in the template. Dpmuk (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Pregnancy trans-inclusivity

I'd enjoy you chipping in on the trans-inclusivity section of the pregnancy page. Triacylglyceride (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, no, you probably won't enjoy it, but I have added my two cents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Project Help Request

Hey! Dylan, a Wikipedia Campus Ambassador here. We are working in an undergrad Theatre course at Louisiana State University and are creating four new articles on the plays we are studying. We have drafted them in our sandboxes and hope to move to live in the next week or so. The students are all first-time WP contributors and are looking for someone to give us feedback on their articles. We know they are not Good-Article status, but our objective is to get solid information up so these plays have a place on WP. Would you be interested in helping? You can find the articles here. We hope you can help! Dylanstaley (talk) 15:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but as it says at the top of the page, I'm busy in real life for at least the next few weeks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:02, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Cancer

Thanks for you swift responses on the cancer page. --Zaurus (talk) 16:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

AlexNewArtBot etc

Hiya. Fixed I think. See my talk for details (if interested). fredgandt 01:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Otis Redding/GA3

I left a question for you on Talk:Otis Redding/GA3 . Thanks.--Ishtar456 (talk) 14:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for pinging my talk page. I have replied there to confirm. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Your and There

Are there boxes for "Your vs You're" and "Their vs There vs They're" you can add to your userpage? Your/You're misuse is one of my peeves.512bits (talk) 02:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention why so many know "a few" is two words but not "a lot".512bits (talk) 02:28, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

You're probably looking for {{user theretheir}} and {{user youryou're}}. I haven't seen one for alot, but I agree that it's a particularly irritating error. There are many more at Category:Grammar user templates. Please let me know if you spot any particularly good ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:13, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

about serial extraction

Thanks for ur help with references. I really appreciate. Inline citations are something i hv been trying but cudnt get the hang of it. So if u cud help me with that, it wud be great. thanks again. Dr.neha sharma (talk) 11:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I've set it up, which is the first half, and now you have to tell the software which reference belongs to which paragraph, which is the second half. In between now and then, we've got the software confused with the half-done state of the citations, which is why it's throwing that ugly red error message on the page.

Here's what you do:

I named the five references by the author's last name (with dates for the two Graber books so we can tell them apart). The five magic codes are these:

So any place that you want a little blue number that links to the Proffit book, you just paste <ref name=Proffit /> right at the end of that sentence or paragraph.

I made a guess that the Kjellgren source is supposed to be connected to the first sentence in the history, so I added that the magic code for Kjellgren to that sentence, so you can see exactly what I typed here. Try to do the same thing for as many places in the article as you can. Feel free to leave me another note if you get stuck. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

hey thanx a lot. i hv made the necessary changes in the article w.r.t. references. u wr a great help. this is the first time ever in my life that i m using dis sort of computer language. i really hv no idea bout hw it works. trust me when i say it ws very tough and time consuming for me to hv written this article in wiki format. i hope i'll hv u around for my upcoming articles. hv a gd day. Dr.neha sharma (talk) 07:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome.

You've made a good start, but I think you want to keep going, so that most of the information is associated with a source. You can re-use the "magic codes" as many times as you want, so if several different paragraphs in Serial extraction came from the same book, just paste that code in every time the source was used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Immunology

I see you have edited some of the pages within the scope of immunology. Please have a look at the proposal for a WikiProject Immunology WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Immunology and give your opinion (support or oppose). Thank you for your attention. Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 09:41, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite

Hello WhatamIdoing. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.

Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.

You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 11:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Note ANI mention

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Correct place to issue a dare? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:18, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Please be kind

You may or may not have noticed some edits I made earlier today. I added this one beginning with the words "I certainly agree" because I noticed that I hadn't fully replied to all the points you'd raised. I also added this post to clarify my position and highlight that "I have worked to resolve a concern ... raised by WhatamIdoing." I also made it clear that I was sorry that I'd previously used some inappropriate words (now mainly struck out by me). Another example of how I've been trying to collaborate: before leaving for London yesterday morning I found the time to set out my proposal in a way that it would be comprehensible to anyone (and I've even raised a couple of critical points about it). So we have different opinions about what to do? Nothing unusual on Wikipedia! I invited "support/oppose or comment" for my proposal, but instead your reply subtly accuses me of not collaborating. Maybe you haven't realized that I regard this matter as a chore, and the only reason I've continued addressing the question thus far is a sense of duty not to drop a task I'd taken on. Sincerely, —MistyMorn (talk) 19:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your note.

I know that you're trying to collaborate with the folks at WPMED, and I, too, see this as simply one more chore to be done. But were you really trying to collaborate with the people who originally added all of that information to the article? They added verifiable information, albeit information that is less important than what you added. Does blanking their contribution seem like collaborating to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for replying and acknowledging my gf. Perhaps we are both finding this frustrating because we're experiencing it as an annoying chore which is dragging on?
Yes, I was genuinely trying to collaborate and I even took the time to present the list you inserted in full sentences in a way that seemed to me to make it clearer to readers that these items were not just "other examples" of biotherapy, but were related to an alternative usage of the word. I then went back to the Med Project Talk page to discuss the matter (albeit rather clumsily at first). While discussing, I realized that my view that the two sets of material did not belong in the same article became even stronger, and so I went back to remove the sentences I'd patiently added, justify my thinking on the Talk page (at some length), and develop an alternative proposal intended to resolve the question without loss of content on Wikipedia. As I've explained, I believe that creation of the separate page is in keeping with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but I really don't know what would be the most suitable title for the page (Biotherapy (animal-assisted)??) I also think that separation of the two pages would actually facilitate article building. —MistyMorn (talk) 12:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Before I forget about this again, I've been trying to decide whether Fecal bacteriotherapy should be included on that page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Academic/Doctor Notability Question

Hey WhatamIdoing. I'm looking into an article on a prominent, well-published Llaryngologist. I'm not sure exactly about the precedents for articles on noted doctors, so I was hoping you could take a quick look at my draftpage and see if I'm in the ballpark. Great if you can, no problem if you can't. Cheers! Ocaasi^{t | c} 15:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing organized for physicians. WP:PROF is probably the most relevant guideline, and her achievements make her sound notable to me, but let me say that a quick glance at the very generous length of your ref list makes me confident that it will withstand any deletion challenge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for responding. I was hesitant at first, but seeing that she has started and worked at leading voice centers, is on the editorial board of the leading publication, and is very well published in the field, I also think it would withstand a challenge. I'm being particularly careful here because I know this individual personally. I'm going to run it through AfC just to be on the safe side, and let someone else move it live when it's ready. Thanks again! Ocaasi^{t | c} 19:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Your HighBeam account is ready!

Good news! You now have access to 80 million articles in 6500 publications through HighBeam Research. Here's what you need to know:

Your account activation code has been emailed to your Wikipedia email address.
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- If you did not receive a code but were on the approved list, add your name to this section and we'll try again.
The 1-year, free period begins when you enter the code.
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Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi^{t | c} 21:06, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Donald J. Cohen

Would you mind assessing? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Done B/Low. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks (that was fast :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's another: James F. Leckman. Not quite as much material there, or maybe I'm just pooped out! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:37, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Done C/Low. (As far as I know, there's no rule against you assessing your own, but I don't mind, if you'd rather not. BTW, all people are "Low" for WPMED; it's not a reflection on their inherent worth, etc.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I feel better if I don't do that-- it never looks right ... thanks again! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

ELN

I have responded to your comments about www.doollee.com on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ELN. Thanks for your interest. Julianoddy (talk) 13:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Chemotherapy

Hi, WhatamIdoing. Have you seen my comments at Talk:Chemotherapy? Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've been off wiki for a couple of days. I'll take a look. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

Invitation to diacritics guideline discussion at WT:BLP

Hi, you were one of 100+ Users who has commented on a living person Requested Move featuring diacritics (e.g. the é in Beyoncé Knowles) in the last 30 days. Following closure of Talk:Stephane Huet RM, a tightening of BLP guidelines is proposed. Your contribution is invited to WT:BLP to discuss drafting a proposal for tightening BLP accuracy guidelines for names. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to duplicate this invite on the pages of others who have commented, for or against. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Stories Project

Hi!

My name is Victor and I'm a storyteller with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that supports Wikipedia. I'm chronicling the inspiring stories of the Wikipedia community around the world, including those from readers, editors, and donors. Stories are absolutely essential for any non-profit to persuade people to support the cause, and we know the vast network of people who make and use Wikipedia have so much to share.

I'd very much like the opportunity to interview you to tell your story, with the possibility of using it in our materials, on our community websites, or as part of this year’s fundraiser to encourage others to support Wikipedia. Please let me know if you're inclined to take part in the Wikipedia Stories Project, or if you know anyone with whom I should speak.

Thank you for your time,

Victor Grigas

user:Victorgrigas

vgrigas@wikimedia.org

Victor Grigas (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

suggestion to merge essays

WAID, there is a discussion at WT:Verifiability on whether to merge the essays WP:Truth, WP:Inaccuracy and WP:Verifiability, not truth (as they appear to cover very similar topics). Since you were a major contributor to one of these essays, I thought you should be informed of the suggestion... and have a chance to share your thoughts. Please join the conversation at WT:Verifiability#How many essays are there on related topics? Blueboar (talk) 12:10, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible navbox placement proposal

I would appreciate your comments and suggestions regarding this draft proposal: User_talk:Butwhatdoiknow/Sandbox Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the primary objection to having navboxes in the ==See also== section is this: a long, colored bar effectively draws a line across the article and signals to the viewer that nothing beyond it is worth reading.

Having you considered a {{Side box}} at the top of ==See also== that directs the reader to the usual location for the navboxes? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Is this what you have in mind: User:Butwhatdoiknow/Sandbox1? I like it. Any suggestions for improvement (for example, better text to put into the sidebox)? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Perhaps starting with "See more articles..." (a complete sentence) and maybe a small icon would make it look nicer? Or a larger font? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I've made the text change but the sad reality is that adding an icon and changing the type size is beyond the limits of my knowledge. Would you be willing to make those improvements? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't know how to do it, either. I'd probably look at {{sister}} or some other template that uses {side box} and see if I could copy from it. Alternatively, I believe there is a WP:WikiProject Templates, and they would know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

F.Y.I., your idea is taking root: {{Navbox link}} Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

That looks nice. I hope that it works out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:41, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Strange WikiProject proposal

I have come across a strange Wikiproject proposal: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/The 39 Clues. I cannot tell what this one is supposed to be about. It almost seems to be that the guy wants 2 separate wiki projects: one completely on him/herself (User:Alejandro Cambronero Albaladejo) and one on a book series that does not have very many articles about it. I want to say something yet there is no "Discussion" area. Could someone please help me with this. Personally I would take down the proposition, yet I don't have the authority to. Bloope (talk) 18:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've fixed the format. Probably he just couldn't figure out how to set it up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That would be redundant wouldn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bloope (talk • contribs) 21:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems that way to me. Of course, redundant projects are allowed... just not usually the wisest choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS

I am hoping to alter WP:MEDRS. Please comment here. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I'll let other people have a chance to respond first, but, fundamentally, the problem with your proposal is Hoyle's law: Whatever the game, whatever the rules, the rules are the same for both sides. That is, whatever we let you do in assessing a source, we must also permit POV pushers and undereducated people to do.

So you are unhappy with the source we're using as an example in this discussion (in part) because you disagree with its inclusion criteria (e.g., excluding hematological malignancies from their definition of cancer). Are you sure that you want to propose that, say, the folks promoting transcendental meditation be permitted to exclude peer-reviewed meta-analyses of TM on the grounds that they disagree with critical reports' inclusion criteria? Would you want a true believer in homeopathy to be able to reject apparently good sources for this reason? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

In the case of homeopathy and other "fringe" theories, multiple independent sources would trump a single rogue source. In every case, consensus would always apply. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be relevant if we were talking about what to include in an article, rather than ways to remove information that the POV pusher disagrees with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

If the consensus says "Source X is unreliable and shouldn't be used", that's what should happen. Axl ¤ [Talk] 21:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

That's basically my point: a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS doesn't override the community-wide consensus, which is that editors shouldn't be rejecting sources based on what the editors think would have been a better list of inclusion criteria, or whether they think that people faced with the facts about the small benefits of {chemotherapy | transcendental meditation | whatever} will choose not to undertake that program, even if they call that cherry-picking "deciding whether the peer-reviewed meta-analysis is a reliable source".

To put it another way, I don't believe that it is possible to have a valid consensus to reject a source on the grounds that you disagree with it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Hatnote#Trivial_hatnote_links

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Hatnote#Trivial_hatnote_links. KarlB (talk) 18:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Improving Immunology Articles

Hi WhatamIdoing, If you'd put your mind back a month or so, there was a discussion on the medicine talk pages about the proposal of a WikiProject Immunology. I have been having exams since then and so have not been active here, but now I am back. It seems the proposal do not have enough people to be a project, so now I am just happy getting an informal group of editors to improve articles in theImmunology category. If you are interested, please visit here and just start editing, and tell other people about this. I will do my best because I think there really are a lot of gaps in these articles. If you require any assistance please don't hesitate to contact me and all comments for improvement are welcomed. I hope you are interested and hope to be working with you soon. Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 00:30, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Dead link in article 'Chagas disease'

Hi. The article 'Chagas disease' has a dead link that could not be repaired automatically. Can you help fix it?

Dead: http://www.who.int/tdrold/publications/tdrnews/news65/chagas.htm

You added this in May 2010.
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This link is marked with {{Dead link}} in the article. Please take a look at that article and fix what you can. Thank you!

PS- you can opt-out of these notifications by adding {{Bots|deny=BlevintronBot}} to your user page or user talk page. BlevintronBot (talk) 03:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist

"Watchlist bankruptcy" - excellent phrase, I know the feeling well. (I didn't want anything, I was just passing through your page.) Spinning Spark 23:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:EDITORS

I noticed you did some changes to the the page, WP:EDITORS in the demographics section. I have did some extra revisions, one way an extension of your edit. May I request you your feedbacks on my edits? e^xtra999 (talk) 09:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your color change.

I think that the items you added would be better handled as pie charts because there are multiple values. On the other hand, our pie charts are pretty bulky. (See Wikipedia:Graphs#Pie_chart). WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

So you mean, I should make pie/bar graphs of them? OK. e^xtra999 (talk) 10:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

	Helpful Hero!
	Hello, and thank you to contributing to my Village Pump post. Even though we had conflicting thoughts, possibly a misunderstanding, thank you for contributing! THX, Ax1om77 05:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks

Many thanks for your calm and helpful intervention in the recent discussions on my talk page. Dahliarose (talk) 20:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome! WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you on my part too. I've learned from the best ... --Bobjgalindo (talk) 16:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Help with accessing a jpg file

You have helped me in the past, and daresay thought you could help me again. I would like to download a photo from among the files stored in Wikipedia. The photo I would like to download is a shot of a horseshoe crab: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horseshoe_crab_female.jpg#filelinks

I would like to use it in a story I am writing about saving a bunch of horseshoe crabs that washed up on a beach. They were on their backs, and unable to crawl back into the water. I tossed them back in. I would like to download the photo but I'm not sure how I can do that. I thought you would know. Thanks.Iss246 (talk) 05:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

It depends on what software you're using. Click here and then try right-clicking or ctrl-clicking on the image to save it ti your computer. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.Iss246 (talk) 21:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Reply re COI/N

Hello. You have COI/N at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Workers' Youth League (Norway)‎‎'s talk page. --Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 09:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll try to look in later today. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I've left another comment, should you have the time and inclination to look into the issue once more. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 17:54, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I do, however, not agree with you and have left another comment. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 19:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for sticking up for me in the COI discussion!

I'm very grateful for your defending me in the COI discussion. The state of Wikipedia pages related to Norwegian politics are unfortunately very lacking. The few who do take an interest in them, seem to have their own strong views and a very limited interest in any definition of neutrality outside of their political world-view.

I realise my own behaviour both in edits, summaries and discussions have been less than perfect, but I hope that you can sympathise when I say they are a result of a barrage of these sorts of unsubstantiated accusations. I actually had to give up contributing to no.wp full-stop since they do not have a good definition of what constitutes a COI. I will do my best to follow the example of constructiveness you set in these discussions. toresbe (talk) 11:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. My main purpose is to stick up for the limits of this particular guideline.

I hope that you will keep making an effort to be constructive and to make sure that the voices of the critics are heard as plainly in the article as the voices of the supporters. Good luck with the complex task of finding a good balance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania?

Hey!

Are you coming to Wikimania 2012 in DC? If so, please let me know.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

No, wrong coast. But thanks for asking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, crap. Do you ever attend any west-coast meetups, then? I have a physical barnstar I want to give you. --Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

edits

Those (not unbiased) reversions of *yours* were reversions of my *own* edits,so I have the right of way so to speak in objecting to them (ie by reverting them) You may take it to the talk section, it can their be discussed *prior* to any further revisions. I admit that my editing skills are sketchy but I am new. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.101.102.233 (talk) 01:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I see that you've been blocked for edit warring. If you come back later, then perhaps we'll be able to talk about why it's a problem to do things like changing the words in a direct quotation or describing dysfunctional nerves as "healthy".

As for the "right of way": your right of way and my right of way are equal. Both of us made changes. Changes that add, remove, or change information are equal. It's not a case of first come, first served. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:You don't own Wikipedia

Congratulations, WhatamIdoing! This was the most demoralizing essay I have ever read on Wikipedia! Makes me realize how much a worm a mere editor is considered by the WMF, and your patronizing and self-righteous speech did its own part. Brought me one step closer to giving up contributing all together. Nageh (talk) 21:22, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that different people will find different ideas demoralizing. IMO the most demoralizing essay is probably one of the ones about how we treat subject-matter experts.

(It sounds like you might want to consider a wikibreak to recharge.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)If you're up for it, I wouldn't mind taking a crack at some editing for trimming and tone. I could see how many users would see the essay as overly aggressive in making its point, with language like "delusion" and "egotistical power users." We're sort of name calling the essay's readers by default. It seems heavily editorialized, while taking an article-like stance on NPOV would make it crisper and more informative. My take. User:King4057 07:49, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this suggestion. I'm not actually trying to create a page that dispassionately outlines the formal and legal situation concerning control of the WMF websites. My focus is on the WP:DIVAs and other drama-causing attitude problems that we encounter. This particular attitude problem—the overly entitled, narcissistic power user who believes that everything ought to be done his way—is not unique to the WMF projects. It has been documented on similar websites, such as Flickr, and the field of change management exists (in the web world) partly because of the problems this particular group of users causes.

I doubt that its readers take it personally. I suspect, in fact, that altogether too many of them instead think, "Wow, she's nailed the description of my opponent perfectly".

So perhaps what you'd really like to do is to expand Wikipedia:Administration#Human and Legal Administration, which seems to be intended for a more official description. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:10, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't intend to re-focus the essay on strictly legal issues, but I think even the drama itself can be described in a neutral manner that doesn't invite more drama. We can communicate that power users feel a false sense of entitlement from privileges merely temporally granted to them to create a sense of community - pointing out a significant emotional and psychological event, without attacking users that fall victim to it. Where I was going anyway. I am not all that familiar with this topic anyway. User:King4057 21:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Cancer pain/GA2

Thanks for your comments there. Much appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Notability of academics

There are new posts on talk page for the notability of academics regarding the need for publicly available documents. NJ Wine (talk) 02:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Fringe, established facts and synthesis

In this discussion at WT:NOR it's not clear if you are aware that the point is whether we can use a source that doesn't mention a book to refute something in the book. I apologise if you were clear about this point, but I know that somehow I am not being clear enough myself to explain it, given some of the responses. Dougweller (talk) 14:38, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Authority Control Integration

Hi, I've been researching the intersection of Wikipedia and Authority Control, and have just recently made a Village Pump Proposal to create a bot to expand the usage of a template. I've identified you as someone in the sphere of interest to this project and would appreciate your input at the Village Pump. Thanks, Maximiliankleinoclc (talk) 18:37, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Pyrotec (talk) 08:25, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Whatwereyoudoing

...here? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:34, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Screwing up, from the looks of it. Thanks for cleaning up the mess I made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Redrose, I bet you enjoyed that. JFW | T@lk 22:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Invitation

Seeing as you responded to ConcernedVancouverite inquiry at the RSN, I invite you to my own at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#A question:. I do wish to clarify on three things: 1) the journalist in question has the credentials and background establishing him AS an expert in the field, 2) a "financial interest" in the Shawn welling projects of which he wrote is minimal at best, and may not even exist at all. He has a much greater fianacial interest in the regular paychecks he gets as a jornalist, and 3) his reliability is worth consideration for more than just as sourcing awards from a film festival, as his writing about Shawn Welling's projects also brings the consideration of Welling being notable per WP:GNG and WP:FILMMAKER. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Lamia (D&D)

Hello, as you took part in the 1st AFD for Lamia (Dungeons & Dragons), which closed on "no consensus", I'm bringing to your attention that after a second AFD with the same result, a discussion on whether to merge or not has opened on the article talk page. BOZ (talk) 11:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

May I have your help with article naming, please?

Hello WAID. Not sure if I've ever stopped by to thank you for all your help with the project. My memory is getting fuzzy. So I will just say thank you for all your help with Wikipedia's operations over the years, especially your help with policies and guidelines. Anyhoo, a user is asking if we have a specific guideline that discusses the process for best determining an article's title. An article for an "apple" is easy, but other article titles are not so clear cut. Could you please chime in at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Research guidelines/tutorials for new editors? Thanks very much and thanks for your dedication to the projects. All the best. 64.40.54.184 (talk) 05:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. 64.40.54.55 (talk) 05:28, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Your opinion?

Hi WhatamIdoing. Would you mind dropping a quick note at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Weasel punctuation stating your opinion regarding the possibility to include a paragraph addressing misuse of punctuation in the guideline? Thanks, Waldir ^talk 19:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:village pump (miscellaneous)#Renaming categories of ex-Project that are now task forces

Ping, you have replies. --George Ho (talk) 06:24, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of interest guideline

I've been really busy writing an op-ed for the Signpost, contributing to a new COI essay, looking at duplicating the AfC process for request edits (though that may be beyond my technical abilities) and having some pretty lengthy conversations with users interested in the subject of COI, where I feel we're all learning from each other and finding good compromises.

At the end of the day though, the COI guideline is the front and center quarterback and the RfC was unproductive. I actually thought the guideline was fine, until I started hearing all the questions from PR people and realized just how confusing it is. I thought I would poke around and see what the chances are of us organizing a posse to go through it line-by-line and just improve/clarify (not drastically change, but just improve). I'd be happy to help out as a sort of representative of the dark side. Am I just shooting for the moon here in thinking we can organize and mobilize? ;-)

See my similar suggestion to round up a posse with Ryan here User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

If you tell everyone that you intend to go line by line, I wouldn't expect it to work. If you identify one problem and solve it (especially if that one problem is not in the lead), and then, after a pause, "just happen to" identify a second problem and solve it, and so forth, moving very slowly, then you might succeed, but it might take about a year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

A year might be a good timeline. What do you think about going through it one problem at a time? ;-) I noticed a couple people tried to re-write the whole guideline - didn't work. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 02:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Trying to blow up everything won't work. One problem at a time is good.

One challenge with writing policies and guidelines is that specific phrases sometimes exist for particular purposes. Unless you've been hanging out with the page for a long while, you won't know which phrases are just words and which phrases are essentially magic anti-problem-user incantations. You might start at COI by trying to add something that's missing, rather than trying to remove or replace something. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:49, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually thinking the COI guideline is intended to say that a person has a COI. It says "Editors who may have a COI... are allowed to make certain kinds of non-controversial edits..." This would seem to suggest that the editor that removes vandalism still has a COI, but their edits are permitted.

In any case, our ideas are pretty far flung in that the represent substantial changes, when there was consensus merely to improve the explanation of current policy, like you mentioned. I'm stumped on ideas on how to improve the clarity without changing it. Any thoughts? I've explained the loopholes and self-rationalization I don't like about the current definition. Do you find that these are problems as well? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. At some level, even if I thought a perfect guideline were possible (and I don't), I'm not sure it would be worth it, because WP:Nobody reads the directions anyway.

"Editors who may have a conflict of interests" could be read as meaning "editors who want to advance their own real-life interests", or even an actual conflict in their own interests: as a member of this community who joined because of my interest in sharing knowledge, I'm interested in NPOV and MEDRS and encouraging newbies and collaborating with other editors; as (to give a common issue) an employee of _____, my interests might be in promoting my employer's image or making them seem like a good investment target or something like that, which might make me more interested in, say, providing potentially UNDUE details about their price/earnings ratio or whatever metric. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

RE: Eyes

Now on my watchlist. Good job BTW. Cresix (talk) 01:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

VP proposals

I found your neither your ES nor the comment about your personal feelings to be particularly helpful. Perhaps if you could explain the relevance (if any) of your message to the proposal statement, I may be able to address your concerns. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:57, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Your proposal is: every time someone tags an article with a cleanup template, your bot spams a welcome-and-cleanup-notice message to the author's user talk page.

My concerns with your proposal include, but are not limited to:

How do I keep your bot from pestering me?
How does your bot figure out who is inexperienced (and thus might benefit from such a message)?
How will you handle tagbombing? That is, if someone tag-bombs an article with six different cleanup tags, are you going to have your bot spam six separate welcome-and-cleanup-messages on the poor user's talk page? Only provide notice of the tag at the top of the list? Use a vague "hey, there are some tags" notice? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

The bots won't pester you if you will take the trouble to read the rules and create proper pages to start with - you've been around long enough to know how to create pages that won't be tagged, otherwise I fail to see how or why you merited a CEO's barnstar. Secondly - please read the proposal correctly before raising questions about solutions that are looking for a problem; sidetracking doesn't help the already flawed system of Wiki-style discussions. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:35, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't: I do not know how to create a page that will never be tagged by any wandering idiot. Do you?

I did read your proposal. I do not support it, but my lack of support and my list of concerns about its potential for being disruptive does not mean that my concerns are irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

That

Another one for you. "He that is down needs fear no fall..." John Bunyan. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent example. I've added it. Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Note minor edit to your comment

I removed part of your comment, for what should be obvious reasons. It's your comment so if you take umbrage you are free to replace it and I won't object. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I never replied to your comment here. Feel free if you're still interested, and you never have to ask to improve my prose, consider this a universal, standing invitation. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Wikiquette Assistance discussion

Hello, WhatamIdoing. This message is being sent to inform you that a discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

HighBeam data

Hi, I saw your great tip on the HighBeam talk page about using the special:linksearch. You suggested someone with Toolserver access could do a retrospective search for March 20th to get data from before the accounts were given out. Do you know how I would go about that or who I would ask? Also, do you know how people are you getting the cumulative numbers from the special:linksearch, i.e. the 16,000? Thanks so much! p.s. missed you at Wikimania! maybe next year... Ocaasi^{t | c} 15:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that they're doing the linksearch (e.g., [7]) and simply paging through to the end. On the huge searches, it's faster to manually edit the URL: change the offset=500 to offset=15000 to start displaying at link number 15,000.

I'd have asked Δ (talk · contribs), who has Toolserver access, but he's banned, and I'm not sure how to reach him. Perhaps a request at WP:VPT would be fruitful? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the offset tip! I asked at VPT, too. Cheers! Ocaasi^{t | c} 17:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:CHILD

Re your revert here, I beg to differ. What legal implications are there? Be specific. By adding that tag, you are stating that there is a law applicable to this issue: so what is it? I'm pretty hardline about this because we should not give the impression that we're legally obligated to take these steps, when in fact we are not. Risker (talk) 18:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As I said on the talk page, we are legally obligated not to slander people by failing to "use neutral block summaries". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That means the block policy is a legal policy, then. If that's the standard you're going to use, almost half our policies would fall into the "legal policy" category. This is the template equivalent of "something someone made up in school one day" because the "official policy" template got deleted when this was the last policy in the category. If anything, this is a behavioural policy. Risker (talk) 19:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It does not seem likely to me that we are going to come to any agreement. Perhaps, though, if you want to continue the discussion, it should happen at the policy's talk page? You could start by explaining there why you believe that there are no legal considerations associated with blocking alleged pedophiles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello

The BitterGrey situation has been escalated to ANI. Just to let you know that I mentioned you in a post about the situation. You can find it here.[8]. Slp1 (talk) 13:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Follow up to your input at WP:RSN

Hey there, thank you for your reply at this RSN discussion. I think you might have missed the subtlety of what the issue is, it's probably my fault for not explaining properly in the first place. Could you please check back in there and take a look at my reply? (Not sure you have it watchlisted.) Appreciate it. Cheers... Zad68 02:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Updated refimprove documentation

Template:Refimprove/doc#Differences_from_.7B.7BUnreferenced.7D.7D_and_.7B.7BCitation_needed.7D.7D. Now we can add in AWB the feature to change the date stamp after changing the tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That's all good news. Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Would love your feedback...

Hey WAID, I saw your discussion above with King and thought you might take a look at this draft proposal: WP:COICERT. It's an attempt to actually get COI editors to read the directions, by promoting them through their trade organizations. Very curious what you think and if you have any suggestions. Cheers! Ocaasi^{t | c} 23:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I've read the page. I think that some of the requirements, like a special sig, are a bit much. I think others are irrelevant in many situations, like spamming OTRS every time you want to make a change and can't get a response any other way. But basically I don't think it will work. You're clearly starting from the perspective that the community doesn't AGF, and you're hoping that by taking a bunch of steps, wearing four badges of shame, and sacrificing a chicken under a full moon, that editors will suddenly AGF... and I just don't think that's realistic.

Think of it this way: the "benefit" you're offering to a PR person for, say, Vector Marketing, is no different from the benefit that anyone could get by saying that they have no connection to the company and just happened to stumble across the page and thought that it sounded unfairly biased against the company. I think what the PR folks want is actual help, i.e., a way to convince the OWNers of that article that the article should not be dominated by criticism of business practices that were publicly discontinued several years ago, and whose criticism basically amounts to "wow, direct selling is a difficult, demanding, skilled job, and when they hand over a sample kit worth hundreds of dollars, they expected you to put down a refundable deposit, so that you would turn it back in instead of stealing it when you quit".

I don't believe that any of the proposals here will solve the problems that the PR editors at that article have encountered, so I don't see any incentive for them to engage in this process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:14, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I came to you for honest feedback and you didn't disappoint ;)

Special sig requirements were just to make the COI disclosure unmissable.
Contacting OTRS is sometimes irrelevant, I agree, but it is just a fallback if other forums fail.
I take your 'won't work' criticism seriously and agree that some may view the protocol as 'badges of shame'; however, my hope was that in taking some constructive steps forward they could expect meaningful responses and good faith in return.
You're right that PR folks want actual help, but I think what they want even more than that is to be treated with respect.
Engagement is the key question, and my hope was somewhat top-down, that if I could get the major PR associations (PRSA, IABC, CIPR, WOMMA) to endorse the protocol that adoption would take care of itself. Hopefully, at the least, the protocol will enshrine a series of best practices and offer several members of the COI editing group as 'model citizens'. That won't change the root problem, but it will give others something to aspire to and hopefully ease some of the worst fears of the community by serving up examples of truly constructive and productive and ethical COI editors. In truth, no proposal can solve the 'bad actor' problem, and COI certification isn't really geared towards that group anyway. It's more of a lead from the front approach that will hopefully appeal to the grey area of editors who are interested but just uninformed. It would also give editors something to point to, as in 'hey, I see you're a COI editor; would you be willing to follow this list of best practices?' I hope that the protocol's mere existence will lead to improved behavior, but that might be wishful thinking.
Anyway, thanks for your feedback. If you have any other suggestions, or even completely new ideas you think would be more effective, please let me know. Cheers! Ocaasi^{t | c} 15:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I wish that taking these steps, or any steps, would actually result in them being able to realistically "expect meaningful responses and good faith in return". But I think that we are bad at this, that the problem that needs to be solved is us, and our willingness to accept POV pushers and cowboys and people who don't understand that even-Steven isn't always neutral as being better than professionals. No amount of change on the part of the PR people is going to make us be competent, thoughtful, respectful, and well-informed about our own guidelines.

I suspect that the people most likely to be willing to follow this sort of advice are the ones least likely to cause us problems now, and I am not convinced that following this process will give them any actual benefit.

It might help if you could tell me what problem you're trying to solve.

The problem on my mind right now is the sizable fraction of our POV pushers who see COI as an effective `bludgeon for silencing people who disagree with them. By and large we let them get away with it. When you're talking about individuals, even an accusation can be hurtful. Consider, for example, an internet activist who was recently indef'd: he repeatedly accused two Wikipedians of conspiring together (on a question of sourcing) because supporting the mainstream POV on Wikipedia was somehow going to make one of them (an academic researcher in the field) wealthier. That's the kind of nasty environment we're dealing with, and nothing here even begins to address the problem.

So what problem do you want to see solved? Can you give me an example? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi WAID! Sorry for the delayed response. I've been thinking about your question. First of all, the COI+ protocol is not a panacea. The good editors don't need it and the bad editors won't follow it. There is a huge middle ground, however, of people who are well meaning but ignorant or scared of Wikipedia. There is tremendous skepticism and even hostility among many experienced editors of the motives and behaviors of paid/PR/COI editors.

The primary purpose of the COI + agreements is to change the tone from mutual skepticism to opportunistic collaboration. The second purpose of the documents is to give both 'sides' a set of reasonable, practical steps they can simultaneously take to become better informed and better equipped to respond to situations that commonly arise. On the COI side, that involves first committing to our core content and behavior policies; it involves educating themselves about WP:PSCOI best practices; it involves clear and visible disclosure of their COI; and, it involves familiarizing themselves with the existing forums where their complaints can be raised. On the Wikipedia side, it involves treating COI editors with basic civility and not judging all COI editors by the actions of the worst. It opens the door to Wikipedians receiving constructive contributions from COI editors, but without doing so blindly.

The centerpiece of finding a middleground between 'Brightline' strictness and WP:COI vagueness is the Response Timeline. It sets out three tiers of engagement that should be pursued by COI editors. First 48 hours for talk page messages, edit requests, or help pages. Then 1 week for noticeboards or AfC. Then 1 month for OTRS. If, after that period a COI editor has still received no response, then they can make an edit directly, provided they leave a note on the talk page and at the COI noticeboard. This solves multiple problems. The first is it transforms ignorance and fear into knowledge and opportunity. The second is it moves COI editors and Wikipedia editors closer to working from the same set of agreements. The third is it encourages mutual respect and dialogue. The fourth is it leverages our existing forums for resolving COI issues. The fifth is it sets a clear timeline for action which is more constructive than WP:COI and less restrictive that 'Brightline'.

I hope I'm not sounding vague. This is indeed a big picture approach and it will not eliminate the worst case scenarios. It's not perfect, but I think it's more clear and practical better than our existing guidance. It will hopefully bridge a huge gap that exists between paid editors and Wikipedians who are fearful or skeptical of them.

My big concern at the moment is that PR organizations--major, influential national groups--are expressing serious interest in COI+. Before they start publicly promoting and endorsing the document, I want to make sure it has been thoroughly exposed to community comment, scrutiny, suggestions, etc. The question I just raised on the COI+ talk page is what question would an RfC be designed to answer. I would love your suggestions for how to structure that discussion. Cheers!

I'll think about the RFC question.

Have you directly contacted the OTRS folks and asked them if they're willing to be your fallback position? Last I heard, they were barely keeping up with their workload, so I am concerned that they might be very irritated to be unilaterally "volunteered" to have their scope expanded. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a great question, and just the kind I need to make this document more sound. I am an OTRS volunteer with access to the english queues. We very frequently receive questions from paid editors, as does the en-help channel or irc, as does AfC, as do {edit requests}. OTRS would not supplant those options, it would actually run concurrently with them. I know from my experience in OTRS, that unless there is an explicit libel/defamation claim, the issues are typically just kicked back down to the community with some links to the appropriate forums. So I agree that making OTRS seem like the final option is sub-optimal, but it is sometimes the only way people can get a response. If talk pages, help pages, edit requests, and noticeboards all fail, then OTRS is an appropriate option, I think. I will be happy to email the OTRS mailing list and request feedback about this. I'm glad you raised the concern. Ocaasi^{t | c} 16:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

bstar

		The Special Barnstar
		Thanks for the advice! Obtund^Talk 04:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. I hope that my vague comment at WT:GAN has pointed you in a helpful direction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Your beaches might be better than ours..

But our beer is far superior :). Sucks that we're not going to run into each other! Ironholds (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

FAC/Cancer pain

Hi WhatamIdoing. Just letting you know I've nominated Cancer pain: Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Cancer_pain/archive1. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:26, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Good luck! WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:53, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I pulled it because Axl and I turned up a lot of missing stuff. But I thoroughly enjoyed the process and will be taking it back once I've plundered a few more textbooks. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Add teahouse to welcome template?

As you were involved in a previous discussion regarding this issue, I am informing you of a new discussion proposing that the Teahouse be linked from the Welcome template(s). The discussion can be found here. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:03, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Susan G. Komen for the Cure

I notice in Susan G. Komen for the Cure you've removed all mention of Karen Handel. Seems to me her role in the Planned Parenthood debacle is significant enough to warrant inclusion. I'm no expert on the topic and am happy to defer, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on this. --JaGa^talk 03:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that we're giving this one-week media frenzy too much attention as it is. Many recent news articles like this don't even mention her. (The ones about Handel's book deal do, but not the ones about Komen and PP providing mammograms.) A decade from now, I expect this trivial incident will just be one short paragraph in this article (and whatever new scandal will get a long section). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Bigger picture

Hi. I hope you're considering board membership of WM:MED. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I am not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a pity. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:53, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Chuckle

[9] NTox · talk 05:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that we probably didn't want people thinking "User:Booze" or "User:Porn" when they read that policy. With any luck, my "undiscussed change" won't be reverted over my failure to obtain written permission before changing that "core policy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Ping

Hi. In case you're not watching meta: m:Talk:Wikimedia Medicine#Conference call. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:31, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Outside editors telling a WikiProject what they can't include within their scope

Hi, WhatamIdoing. You have stated more than once that it is up to a WikiProject to determine what is and what isn't within their scope. Well, take a look at what is happening at Talk:Tom Cruise#LGBT Project. Outside editors, some who regularly hang out at the WP:BLP noticeboard, where this discussion is also taking place, are telling the editors of Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies that they can't tag the Tom Cruise talk page with their LGBT banner. They are misusing WP:BLPCAT and the whole thing has gotten ridiculous. Care to weigh in, since you are good at explaining this type of thing? 134.255.247.88 (talk) 07:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I've WP:CLOSEd the discussion. Naturally, you should expect anyone who doesn't know WP:How to lose to revert it and pitch a fit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:12, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. And, yep, I see what you're talking about on the latter part.[10][11] Good grief. 134.255.247.88 (talk) 17:40, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reverting page

If you aren't still watching this page, you might want to know that an editor has been making changes to it. It would be best if you or others could look over any changes this editor makes to the page to ensure that there are no drastic changes to it without discussion. The editor has only taken an interest in editing the page after a dispute with another editor about wholesale reverting. I've already reverted the editor once. The editor has added this back, which I feel is inappropriate because the editor is telling others that they need to make sure that they are not reverting any constructive edits while reverting a mess. 109.123.82.246 (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

In this issue:

Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
Research: The most recent DR data
Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:37, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

{{you've got mail}} and suchness. :) —Quiddity (talk) 03:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Coatrack

Please read/join in the discussion at Talk:Rod Zimmer, a new voice would be much appreciated. I know there's a lot there but it's pretty much the same two people going back and forth. --208.38.59.161 (talk) 23:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions.
Message added 06:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Calm As Midnight 06:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear

... since I've probably come across as trying to offer resistance ... this makes perfect sense. We need to have tools so that this isn't an annoying waste of time. It's not up to me which tools those are, but we need tools. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

A wild barnstar appears...

		The Socratic Barnstar
		Hello, WhatamIdoing. I just felt compelled to leave a barnstar, after I read this comment you made. Cheers. Chickenmonkey 23:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm a little frustrated with the WikiProject wars right now. Between people trotting out BLP as a justification for censoring WikiProject LGBT studies' (and only WikiProject LGBT studies) support of some articles, and then someone reviving the infobox war, it's been a week. (Maybe it's not just a persecutory delusion. Maybe there really is a conspiracy and they really are out to get me...

) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I just read the Tom Cruise/WikiProject LGBT studies discussion(s), and two things: it's ridiculous, and you deserve several more barnstars. Chickenmonkey 01:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the sympathetic comment. It made my day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Mail!

A moment of your time...

I've made a suggestion at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#libertarian_perspectives_on_abortion - given that we've got an experienced editor under the accusation it would be great to a) sensible opinion from other experienced editors and b) let this be a shining example of consensus-building on the COI board (we've had a good run recently...) Fayedizard (talk) 21:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

ygm

MathewTownsend (talk) 22:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation newsletter

Hey WhatamIdoing. I'm dropping you a note because you used to (or still do!) patrol new pages. This is just to let you know that we've deployed and developed Page Curation, which augments and supersedes Special:NewPages - there are a lot of interesting new features :). There's some help documentation here if you want to familiarise yourself with the system and start using it. If you find any bugs or have requests for new features, let us know here. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hot Cat discussion at VPP

Thank you for your interest in the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_enable_HotCat_for_all_editors_by_default. Please note that I have now proposed 5 different, more nuanced versions of the original suggestion, to better gauge to what level (if any) we are willing to make Hot Cat more accessible. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:39, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

hey i've never had a wikipedia account do u think that i could talk with u on here if i need help?

sexitay;*p 17:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

PC RfC

Thanks for your efforts to improve my draft. We've actually moved on: some elements of my draft have already been incorporated into the main RfC page itself, where all changes are now taking place. Sorry for the confusion. (I'll mark my draft historical or something.) Please do take a look at the main RfC page, and if you see something egregious please fix it. If it's a major substantive change, we can still discuss it, but I'm sort of hoping to get the RfC started this weekend. (I should probably say right up front that I wouldn't be thrilled with something along these lines but would be more than happy to talk about it.) Rivertorch (talk) 07:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Ping2

Hi. In case you miss my note at WT:MED, we're discussing, among other things, COI and Wikimedia Medicine at User talk:Iridescent. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Modification to May PC be applied to pages to protect against violations of the policy on biographies of living persons (WP:BLP)?

Hello. Because the "Yes" section was split between one group in favor of applying protection to all articles and one group in favor of applying protection to articles only when there has been a problem, I have split the section to reflect this difference. Please go back to that page and make sure that your vote is still in the section that most closely reflects your views. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Imdb website

One of my biographical articles had a statement from a wikipedian that the imdb website was an inadequate one to use as a reference. The actress in question, Nancy Everhard, has never given an interview of any kind and has no fan-site, so has no other suitable refs, yet she featured as a guest character on innumerable TV series of the 80s and 90s and was already featured on the German wikipedia before I started her English wikipedia page, so is, imo, notable. What's your own stance re imdb? Thanks.

If she has never given an interview or had any independent reliable source publish anything about her, then she does not qualify for an article on the English Wikipedia, no matter how many television shows she was in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I may be able to use some other refs on the german wikipedia entry, we'll see. Vorlon19

Good luck. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's Collaborative

WikiWomen Unite!
	Hi WhatamIdoing! Women around the world who edit and contribute to Wikipedia are coming together to celebrate each other's work, support one another, and engage new women to also join in on the empowering experience of shaping the sum of all the world's knowledge - through the WikiWomen's Collaborative. As a WikiWoman, we'd love to have you involved! You can do this by: Liking the WikiWomen's Collaborative on Facebook and share your tips, projects, and connect with other WikiWomen Join the conversation on our Twitter feed Reading and writing for our blog channel We can't wait to have you involved, and feel free to drop by our meta page (under construction) to see how else you can get involved! Can't wait to have you involved! SarahStierch (talk) 18:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC) (UTC)

WikiWomen Unite!

Hi WhatamIdoing! Women around the world who edit and contribute to Wikipedia are coming together to celebrate each other's work, support one another, and engage new women to also join in on the empowering experience of shaping the sum of all the world's knowledge - through the WikiWomen's Collaborative.

As a WikiWoman, we'd love to have you involved! You can do this by:

Liking the WikiWomen's Collaborative on Facebook and share your tips, projects, and connect with other WikiWomen
Join the conversation on our Twitter feed
Reading and writing for our blog channel

We can't wait to have you involved, and feel free to drop by our meta page (under construction) to see how else you can get involved!

Can't wait to have you involved! SarahStierch (talk) 18:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC) (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing, I removed a see also link

Hi WhatamIdoing, I removed a see also link. I guess I didn't mention that in the edcit summary. Sorry about that. --Malerooster (talk) 17:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

My question is really why you removed it. Komen is one of the most important promoters of this symbol, so it seems quite relevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:seealso, it is already linked above, so there is no need to duplicate it in that section. Ideally, there should be no see also section. I hope that helps. --Malerooster (talk) 20:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't realize that it was already linked above. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I should have mentioned that in my edit summary. --Malerooster (talk) 01:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

GA review

Hello WhatamIgoing, Thank you for taking the time to do a GA review on maternal sensitivity. Your suggestions have been taken into consideration and changes have been made. Please take a look at the article at your convenience and let us know if any further edits are necessary. Thanks again! R-Bot6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:35, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey

This may interest you. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback about new page patrol script problem

I've answered you on my talk page :-) fredgandt 20:31, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It's that time again

... that time of year when I come to your page and ask you to run for the Arbitration Committee. I know it's a crap job, and fully understand you don't want to do it but, well, how about it? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Advice?

If this interests you I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Solving the civility problem is both very difficult and something that a sizable proportion of experienced editors don't actually want accomplished. See Rudeness#Utility: people are rude because it works. In the case of Wikipdia, people are rude because the cost to me of being civil outweighs the cost to me (NB: not "to the project") of the consequences (e.g., losing a potentially valuable editor, which costs me practically nothing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not trying to solve the civility problem, per se. I know it's on the civility RfC page but that's an accident. I'm trying to address the quality of argument on (here I meant to say "article talk pages") talk pages, and (article) talk pages only. I think it's doable, and important. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Clarified 02:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The first challenge to implementing that is for editors to know what an ad hominem actually is. Based on ANI and WQA comments I've seen over the years, I suspect that >80% of them don't. So let me give you an example: We have an editor who (1) was one of the activists involved in a campaign to get a BLP fired and ideally put in jail for, essentially, espousing a mainstream academic/scientific POV rather than the more flattering, activist-approved POV on the area of his professional expertise, (2) as part of this campaign publicly insulted his minor kids online, saying things like "There are two kinds of kids in his house, the kind that have been raped by their father and the kind that haven't", and (3) wrote the Wikipedia article on the BLP. The resulting article could be considered neutral only if you limited yourself to FRINGE sources.

After a series of discussions that took months and months of pain, the editor eventually did agree not to edit that article directly in the future, but still keeps a careful eye on the talk page to oppose anything that might sound favorable and encourage things that are critical. (It's at least honest: we shouldn't expect people to hypocritically say positive things about BLPs whom they sincerely hate, no matter what the sources say.) Now: What can be said about this editor on the talk page? "You really have no business trying to influence an article about a guy you and your friends tried to destroy"? I expect that we'd be told that "you and your friends tried to destroy this guy" is an ad hominem attack rather than a relevant comment about reasonable procedures for working on a BLP. "We know you believe that, but frankly the judgment of a person who attacks someone's minor kids online over an academic debate isn't to be trusted"? That's an ad hominem, too. So is "Of course you hate that reliable source: the author filed a police report when you started making threats against her family" (or what the source perceived as threats, anyway). But is it actually unreasonable? I suspect that if you showed a hundred randomly selected Wikipedians a few examples from the online attack pages, that a striking proportion would be wondering why we haven't implemented a serious topic ban, if not gathering pitchforks and torches. The personal connection is truly relevant. But it sounds like you wouldn't want any of that mentioned on the article's talk page. How would you handle this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd take it off the article talk page - to his talk page or a board. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:40, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

But the editors at that article need to know that this person has real-world issues with this subject, and to take any suggestions or objections in light of that verifiable bias. How does burying it on some other page help the people who are working on the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Maternal Sensitivity - GA review

Hello again! I have made some more changes and left you a message on the Maternal sensitivity talk page. Once again thanks for all your help! Carina1205 (talk) 01:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll plan to look at it tomorrow. If you don't get a reply in 24 hours or less, then feel free to ping me again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Followup RFC to WP:RFC/AAT now in community feedback phase

Hello. As a participant in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles, you may wish to register an opinion on its followup RFC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage, which is now in its community feedback phase. Please note that WP:RFC/AAMC is not simply a repeat of WP:RFC/AAT, and is attempting to achieve better results by asking a more narrowly-focused, policy-based question of the community. Assumptions based on the previous RFC should be discarded before participation, particularly the assumption that Wikipedia has or inherently needs to have articles covering generalized perspective on each side of abortion advocacy, and that what we are trying to do is come up with labels for that. Thanks! —chaos5023 20:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012

Hi WhatamIdoing. I wanted to let you know I undid you're edit to Breast cancer awareness because it was identified as vandalism.

KazLabz (talk) 23:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you want to tell me how removing this kind of garbage:

For the public's sake, it is necessary to disclaim the content of this article from the beginning. The vast majority of this article is very biased and one-sided. The interpretation and analysis of each section consists of severe criticism from a radical feminist's perspective. It is not limited to just the criticism section. All sections are fueled by vengeful resentment. Very little information in this article is informative. An illusion of authority is created through the use of 105 citations. 91 of these citations (87%) come from the same four sources. People are advised to keep this in mind and read this article with caution that this information is not a fair representation of the views of the majority of people. When using this article for any purpose, note that this information is one-sided and do not take any of it to be an accurate depiction of reality. This bias is fueled by the resentment and personal agenda of certain small groups of people. Do not take any of it to be the truth. Additionally, critics are advised to take advantage of the opportunity channel their anger to the criticism section. Please provide the public with the opportunity to read a fair and impartial article without the illusion of authority maintained through the unwarranted use of 105 citations.

which violates every content policy we have, is "vandalism"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing. I wanted to take a moment to consider your edit again. Thank you for telling me about this matter. Please undo my...undo. I am sorry for this inconvenience. Thank you.

KazLabz (talk) 23:16, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It's easy to make a mistake. I'm glad that it's all taken care of now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Will you please help with the article "Breast Cancer Awareness"

I'm "Ms" WhatamIdoing.

I don't think the article is a promotion of Sulik's book. There are at least a dozen sources named in that article, not just Sulik's book, and all of them agree that fundraising organizations are exploiting women's fears. Most of them are doing some good, yes. But they're still exploiting women's fears.

How much have you read about this in the serious literature (not in the fundraisers' websites)? Every source I've seen that addresses the social issues agrees that the breast cancer culture is a one-size-fits-none kind of conformist style, in which all "good" breast cancer patients look and feel and act the same way. Nobody except the fundraising organizations thinks this is a good thing. Nobody except the fundraising organizations tries to pretend that wearing a pink ribbon and buying a cup of yogurt that makes a donation to cover just 0.02% (up to a very low maximum) of a screening mammogram is the same as killing cancer cells.

I'm sure that the same thing is said about AIDS organizations, although in that instance the "good" AIDS patient is probably supposed to be white, handsome, politically progressive, and gay, and his small donations involve more clothing and less food. It would be interesting to see whether as many sources have been written about AIDS awareness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Page semi protected

I've taken some emergency action by reverting the POV (whether it is relevant or not, editor comments are not allowed in mainspace), by reverting and semi protecting for a short period. This article is of dubious notability, but not being an expert on the subject and with no access to the hardcopy sources I cannot unfortunately undertake a systematic clean up. Could regular editors of this article please take a good look at it without predjudice to stubbing, CSDing, PRODing, or sending it to AfD. Many thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out. It's "Pinktober", which attracts attention.

There are multiple scholarly books solely on that subject. There is no chance of the subject not being notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

You might want to read the encyclopedia article on Godwin's Law. I regret to say that Godwinning in just three messages does not set a record on the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Hah, point taken. Sorry for the heat, it's just.... this is a really, really, really, really! serious topic. I don't think people understand the gravity and the massive impact this article could have on even a single woman's life. I don't think it's okay to let people die because you (I don't mean you, exclusively, I mean anybody) like your opinion. 8 million in the Holocaust; [10.8 million each year] from cancer. So in a little less than 9 months, the same amount of people will die from cancer as the amount of people who died in the Holocaust. It only makes sense that people throw his name around. It's the biggest, most ridiculous, and most preventable massacre that has ever occurred, so it's best thing to compare other massacres to (no matter how small or how subtle - you should know all about that, being (I assume) a sociologist/other social scientist). Plus he legitimately thought he was doing the right thing. I see where you're coming from, and think that feminism does make a good and important point. It's something that should certainly be considered, as well as other sociological discourse, but it has it's place, which is not that big on a breast cancer awareness article. It really should be its own article, with a link maybe, because it is a point of concern in (I estimate to be maybe) ~20 different articles on wikipedia.

I don't think that all of them 1 - exploit, 2 - intentionally exploit - and 3 - even provoke - fear in women. And I also do not think that all scholars agree that that is happening, and probably few of them to this extent. You even said - most of them are doing some good - well that "some good" deserves at least a few sentences in the article. It's surely more good than bad, so probably at the very least, more than 50% of the article, which is 49% more than it currently has. The article is 95% feminist criticism, 4% informative, and, at most, 1% support. Personally, I've never read a fundraiser's website; I've never read anything coming from a fundraiser; I don't even remember if I've ever been to a fundraiser (though I probably have). I've read about it, both in school and outside. Clearly not as much as you, but enough to grasp the issue. If every source you've ever read about the issue is saying that, then you should a more diverse selection. Obviously, if you're reading social critiques, then all of it will clearly be, well, social. critiques. People don't typically publish manifestos about their infatuation with breast cancer awareness. Maybe the medical literature might have something else to say?

To call it a one-size-fits-all culture is way over-simplifying an extremely complex issue. You can't some up any culture with a sentence, or a 'size,' not even the culture of chimps in your local zoo. I can't even begin to go there. Nobody except the feminists think this is a bad thing. See, I really don't venture into the world of social criticism too often, so I can tell you from the perspective of the people, I've only heard, well... nobody, talk about how terrible it is. Maybe a couple comments here and there from strangers in passing, but that's about it. And pretty much everyone knows that each penny makes a difference. That's not just in this particular issue, that's everywhere. Each penny literally does make a difference. Each vote makes a difference. From your logic, nobody should vote! Each mammogram makes a difference. And it's not like that's the only thing fundraisers cover. Additionally, the original purpose in the first place of awareness is to simply make people aware. For example, maybe it would inspire some people to donate? I bet that's not a part of your .02%. There are millions of trickle down effects that you just can never calculate no matter how hard you try - it's impossible, in our current day in age. That's why I said you are over-simplifying a (relatively) not even that complex of an issue.

I mean, I guess people are probably saying that about AIDS too. But for each of those people, there's 50 people who just smile about it. They don't deserve a voice? And just because people are saying that about AIDS doesn't mean that it's true. Actually, I'm sure they are true to a certain extent, but billions of dynamics at play, and the vast majority of them are not detrimental, or things to be concerned over. It's just WAY too simplistic. That doesn't make it a BAD thing, it just makes it a thing (you know as well as I that sociology denounces moral absolutism). I'm sure it would be very interesting to read that. Like I said, this stuff is neat when you think about it, and it does make sense, but that doesn't change the fact that it's impossible to empirically study, and on the grand scale of wikipedia, taking over (probably not just one) breast cancer article which at least 80% of its readers will not even know what you're talking about and, in some cases, might even take your implicit advice - to not go to a doctor... Where was I? Oh, on the grand scale of wikipedia, doing that is simply, wrong.

What I said on the talk page still makes a decent point:

...you forgot the part where you tell me what I should do instead. Your 'debunking' of mainstream medicine means nothing if you don't offer a viable alternative solution.

Tell me, if you had breast cancer, would you refuse to go to a doctor because it is against your principles? What would you do instead? Would you take advantage of other sources of treatment, such as herbalism and shamanism? Astrology? Scientology? Witchcraft? Can you promise me that, if I find the right witch, she will be able to help? Sorcery? Would you pursue treatment through diet and exercise? Do you think that might help? What about relaxation or breathing exercises? Do those work? Acupuncture? Ah, and I almost forgot - what do you think of home remedies? You know - snake oil, shark cartilage, crystal healing, even urine therapy? Do you suggest I look into those instead?

If you have any recommendations of good witches in my area, please let me know :) Again, my apologies for the heat, that really wasn't fair, at all.

Charles35 (talk) 05:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia.

I'm of two minds about this conversation: The first is to tell you that Wikipedia really doesn't care what you and I happen to think is logical or reasonable or likely. (Really: there's a major policy at WP:No original research on that point.) It's all about the published, reliable sources.

The other is to explain that you're wrong. I'm not a sociologist, for example. What soft "sciences" (scare quotes intentional) I've learned are mostly in the field of economics, which leads me to point out a strangely apt error: you said that "Each vote makes a difference." There's actually serious scholarly work explaining why voting is a waste of time, because almost none of the votes make any difference at all in the outcome. (Quick description.)

The article at Breast cancer awareness doesn't debunk mainstream medicine. It is about social issues. It's about money. It's about rude, unsympathetic responses from breast cancer patients towards other breast cancer patients. It's about women in the grieving process being told that if they're angry about having breast cancer (a natural, normal, involuntary response to a traumatic diagnosis, or any other form of loss, for that matter), then they are essentially committing suicide, because being pleasant and sweet is what determines who lives and who dies. I'm not kidding: real women have been told things like this. Do you think that's a good thing? Do you think those women are being helped by being told that their emotional state is what determines whether or not they're going to live? That's happening right now. Right now, women are told that their anger is killing them. They're told—right now, in Breast Cancer Awareness Month especially—that all good and loyal cancer patients engage in fundraising. What does the money go to? "For the cure!" No, where does the money really go to? For pink-colored advertising. For "research" into whether cancer patients are able to keep up with child care, housework, and paid work when they're so anemic that they can barely climb a flight of stairs. For "research" into whether nurses know the latest recommendations, and what subjects oncologists discuss with their patients, and whether people find massive medical expenses to be financially challenging. For screening programs that have been scientifically proven to result in overdiagnosis and overtreatment of healthy women. Very little of it actually goes to something that could be said to be "for the cure", if by "cure" you mean "something that will kill all the cancer cells in the patient's body".

Do you think that real women are best served by programs that tout "early detection" as a panacea, as if (1) being diagnosed "late", which actually means with an aggressively growing breast cancer, was purely due to the patient's willful negligence, and (2) as if "early detection" actually made any difference at all to 80% of the women whose cancer was detected "early"? (Only 20% of women whose breast cancers are detected while still asymptomatic receive any benefit at all from the early detection. The other 80% live or die exactly the same as if the cancer had been detected late. The only difference is that they don't know that their early detection was worthless.) Do you think that blaming the patient for not having an easily treated breast cancer helps these women? That's what's happening. That's what all of the scholarly sources are talking about.

Which I suppose brings us full circle: the English Wikipedia cares about opinions that are WP:Verifiable in published, reliable sources. So if you think that there are WP:Independent sources out there that have carefully analyzed this subject and concluded that wearing a pink ribbon kills cancer cells, even through the indirect method of prompting donations that can be used to buy more pink ribbons, which presumably will prompt donations to buy even more pink ribbons, then by all means, do let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, the reason I originally stumbled across this page was because I was searching for something about how awareness has gone somewhat overboard. But then when I saw that article, I couldn't believe what I was reading. This opinion has a place on wikipedia, but so do other opinions. You should respect other people and what they have to say and stop censoring what you don't want to hear. Since you commented on my personal opinion, I'll let you know what it actually is - I don't think there should be any breast cancer awareness. I think it should just be "cancer awareness." Put everything together and distribute the money evenly; either equal portions or portions proportional to the incidence and death rates. But I believe this not because of the evil inner circle's cunning manipulation, the horrors of the mammogram, etc. I believe it because the lives of breast cancer victims are equally important to victims of other cancers. Tell me, how much do you really care about cancer when the point isn't to expose the inner circle? I find it disturbing that 20% of those people don't matter to you. FYI - 20% of 10.8 million is 2.16 million deaths. And that's only in a single year. In 3 years and 8 months, you've Godwon. Not good.

I give up on this. Go ahead, continue to censor the world and stop anyone else from having a say against your opinion. But just because nobody's trying doesn't mean they agree. I will make the point one last time but after that I'm done, because I see that there are no words that will let you see another perspective:

Just because Sulik's book is technically a reputable a 'source,' and she probably has a PhD, doesn’t make it correct, or anyone but her’s opinion, or worthy of being heard. If you used every reputable source in the world, wikpedia would be a mess of articles containing loads of misinformation and contradictions. Who made the rule that this is strictly about social pathology and financial corruption? Why are those the only points being made here? What about just 'social' and just 'financial?' Why does everything have to be negative? And why is no alternative opinion allowed?

And I'll tell you exactly why feminism hurts women:

NOBODY is being told that cancer is their fault, they caused it, they are responsible for its outcome, etc. People are just trying to help each other be optimistic and happy with the life they've got. Sure, there are probably a couple sensitive individuals who will feel uncomfortable by this, but they number less than you think. Now, I know you'd like to jump on the word 'sensitive,' but let me state for the record, that sensitivity isn't a bad thing and there’s nothing wrong with it! People are sensitive about all types of things, and everyone has their own thing they are sensitive about. If you keep denying it and making a fuss that the rest of the world is singling out women in these situations and oppressively stereotyping them as sensitive, people will continue to see feminists (and by association, women) as sensitive! Because, from the non-feminist perspective (ie most people), responding to optimism and support in such a manner ‘’is’’ sensitive. AND, more to the point, the never-ending discourse on how society oppressively stereotypes women as sensitive, is, well, sensitive! Maybe they'd stop calling women sensitive if they didn’t respond so sensitively.

Think about it - there are all sorts of stereotypes in our society that are just as strong, and, in many cases, stronger than the 'sensitive woman' - the illegal Hispanic immigrant, the Arab terrorist, the greedy Jewish person, the pedophile priest, etc. The 'sensitive women' is NOTHING compared to those. Do you see hispanicism? Arabism? Pedophilism? Jewishism? Sure, there are Islamic studies, Jewish studies, etc, but those are NOTHING compared to feminism. So, when you think about it, getting so worked up on this and not about other homologous, yet more serious, issues, appears very sensitive! Feminists say these stereotypes aren't true (and personally, I totally agree with them), but that isn't how it looks to everyone else.

Finally, the most important reason why feminism harms women - imagine a world identical to ours. Out of nowhere, feminism suddenly dies. Nobody says a word about it. Everything else is still the exact same; women have the same stereotypes. When some time has passed, people will slowly forget about them. Each generation will remember less and less, and after a few generations, nobody will remember. Why shouldn't this happen? It's happening with racism, which was much more pervasive. And it's happening with non-pathological things (people need to stop focusing on the bad) - people are forgetting about religion, for instance, and its entire moral system. They forgot about monarchs, empires and armies, classical music, and disco. They will forget about these stereotypes. It's what people do. They forget. Things happen, and then they end. It's a natural progression.

But feminism is stopping that progression. When they keep saying women aren't this and that, it keeps those notions alive. Feminism is just propagating the issue. It doesn't let people forget. All stereotypes eventually end. Why shouldn't women's? Guess what, men are sensitive too! But feminists take all of the attention and put it on women. People will never see men as sensitive because they are too busy being told that women AREN'T sensitive. It keeps the idea alive. Although the wording probably sounds similar, this is a different point from before because it doesn't involve the actions of feminists, only the things they are talking about. This point is actually much stronger. If feminists truly care about women, which I hope they do, they should tone down the movement. Feminism has its place, but too much of anything is a bad thing. Moderation is key.

Charles35 (talk) 07:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

This opinion has a place on wikipedia, but so do other opinions. No problem: just show me an independent reliable source that has developed another opinion on this issue. I haven't found any, but perhaps you have. Or perhaps not: you started off thinking that BCA had gone overboard. It turns out that all the reliable sources (that I know of) agree with you.
FYI - 20% of 10.8 million is 2.16 million deaths. And that's only in a single year. Your stats are wrong. Worldwide, fewer than half a million women die from breast cancer each year. And you've wrongly assumed that all breast cancers are detected via mammogram. Most aren't.
- yep. I was talking about all cancers. My b! But you're still giving medical advice to not go to a dr, so it is still true, in a way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)
I'm not giving any advice to anyone, and neither is the article at Breast cancer awareness. Reporting actual facts, like mammography has been oversold to the general public, is neither medical advice nor an instruction not to see a qualified health professional. In fact, the article's emphasis on the need for women to become educated and make a personalized medicine decision instead of mindlessly following a one-size-fits-some guideline amounts to an encouragement to make an appointment and make a thoughtful decision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll give you it just because I'm sick of you diverting this from the actual point. I'm going to take your response to one of the most trivial points on this page while refusing to acknowledge the other 2,500 words I just wrote as approval to rewrite the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs) 02:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

When I've responded to more than one or two points at a time, you refuse to read it.
You don't need my permission. You need a WP:Consensus at the article for the changes you want to make and directly relevant sources to support your changes, neither of which you have at this time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Sources mostly about mammography instead of awareness (disputable)

NOBODY is being told that cancer is their fault, they caused it, they are responsible for its outcome, etc. Sorry, that's just not true. Ask any tobacco user with lung cancer. Ask any overweight cancer patient. Go look through cancer support boards and see how many cancer patients are preaching about the need for everyone to radically restructure their diets to prevent cancer. I've personally read cancer patients touting paleo, Atkins, Fuhrman, macrobiotic, and anti-inflammatory diets on these boards, just in the last year or so. Cancer patients look for sources of control, and diet is controllable. I've seen patients blame their cancer on eating too much sugar, on eating artificial sweeteners to avoid sugar, and on drinking diet soda; on too much and too little sunlight; on putting gasoline in their cars; on living next to a highway; on having dental fillings, and many even less plausible things. Every one of those things is a claim that it is "my fault": this happened because of something I did, and if I stop doing it, the cancer will go away.
I don't understand your point about emotional sensitivity and feminism. I've not seen claims that mainstream feminism refuses to admit men to the ranks od sensitive people. (I rather thought that's what that whole fad about "getting in touch with your emotions" was back in the 70s, but I'm betting that was before your time.) Perhaps you have feminism in general confused with a weird offshoot. However, it's not a case of being "oversensitive" to interpret studies like "Women who don't exercise enough are dramatically more likely to develop breast cancer" as meaning "If you didn't exercise enough, then it's probably your fault that you have breast cancer." See here for one patient's interpretation of a long list of risk-factor research. And that's just from the neutral, evidence-based research. That's before we get to the quacks, like the Simontons and their "you only have cancer because you subconsciously wanted it" Cancer Counseling and Research Center in Fort Worth, Texas, or terminally selfish relatives, who think that their little hangnails represent national crises, but your cancer shouldn't be permitted to inconvenience them in any way, and are thus predisposed to blame you for everything. Go read the sources: This stuff isn't being made up. Perhaps you're too young to have encountered it, but that doesn't mean it isn't real.
If feminists truly care about women, which I hope they do, they should tone down the movement. It's my impression that this is exactly what's going on: Feminists have determined (just like you did) that the breast cancer awareness movement had gotten out of control, and they're criticizing BCA in an effort to tone it down. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Feminists should tone down their movement, not breast cancer. Although, I understand your point which is that breast cancer awareness is, itself, a feminist movement; perhaps I should have been more clear - I don't have feminism confused with a weird off-shoot. I use the word 'feminism' to refer to that weird off-shoot. I once heard someone say "for anyone who opposes feminism, if you believe women have the right to vote, you are a feminist." I embrace feminism in that regard - earlier feminism and non-radical views. The offshoot you speak of is what I see as harmful to women, and I believe that it is that feminism which influences (and pretty much wrote) that article. This is why I showed you how that strain of feminism is harmful to women - in order to explain why it shouldn't be used in that article, because it effectively makes that article harmful to women.

Again, these facts you're counting on for your point are a diversion from the actual issue and are irrelevant as this discussion is not about facts, it is about the appropriate way to make an encyclopedia entry, but I will address them nonetheless. Both people who claim victims 'sub(un?)-consciously wanted it' or 'have it because of lack of exercise' are quacks (and that is implying a social construct, which is what I was talking about earlier). That is not mainstream medical opinion; or at least it isn't now. If it was so bad (which I doubt), as you say, back then (not sure when you're referring to), then that material belongs in the History section or a critical section, with the disclaimer either that this is what was previously thought or that this is the opinion of quacks. It should not be explicitly stated or even implied that this is mainstream medical opinion, because, in reality, it isn't. I don't think you're making it up, but I do think that you are representing it unfairly (due to your personal opinion on the matter). Feel free to quote sources about the (crazy) people in Texas in the (single, consolidated) Criticism section. That isn't representative of mainstream medicine and it is unethical to mislead people into believing that. However, it is mainstream medical opinion that smoking tobacco causes cancer, so I recommend that you do not write that on any articles, as one - it is bad implicit medical advice, and two - it makes the rest of your info/arguments look bad. And more about the reliable source thing - one, it still stands that you won't find a (scholarly) source praising breast cancer because of the nature of a scholarly source. I'm not the best person to ask where to get sources. I don't read journals, I attend lectures. That doesn't mean the view doesn't exist (that would be ad hominem). And, lastly, the 'sensitive' thing was just an example. The same paradigm works for the rest of the 'overboard' beliefs.

According to Wikipedia's advice pages, "The best approach to incorporating negative criticism into the encyclopedia is to integrate it into the article, in a way that does not disrupt the article's flow." That's why we didn't create a single, unified ghetto for critics' perspectives.

I keep asking you for sources, because Wikipedia requires them. I can't find any non-scholarly sources that praise the breast cancer awareness groups or the "pink ribbon culture" unreservedly. As far as I can tell, everyone (except the fundraisers) is worried about this movement having gone overboard. This is turning up in regular old newspapers, which are certainly not scholarly sources. This is turning up in regular old magazines, which are certainly not scholarly sources. Here, read this. It's a plain old magazine article, written by a regular old breast cancer patient, in a plain old general-interest American magazine, which you could have it delivered to your door on regular old paper once a month, if you want to send them $17 a year. It's not the least bit scholarly. Read that. That's what plain old magazine articles are saying about the state of the movement today. Don't bother posting again until you have either read this source, or found a good source on your own. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

A ghetto of criticisms? There is only one criticism here, and it is Gayle Sulik's criticism. The rest of the negative content is factual. It does not need to be in a criticism section because it is a fact; a statement on the world. It is not a paraphrasing of somebody's unfalsifiable opinion, manifesto, or grand theory. It would not be a messy section at all. You could line it all up nicely in the order that she uses; that would make a lot of sense.

At the very least, in front of every criticism she gives, put "Gayle Sulik believes..." and, if you won't put all of her theory in one spot, at least put it in a spot that makes some sense. I pointed out how almost half of that info has nothing to do with the section that it's in. And, objectively rephrase all of those content that I gave solid reasons for why they are biased. This is not cutting it out, it is just rephrasing. And it has absolutely nothing to do with an opposing view or an additional source. It has to do with the fact that it is phrased in a misleading, biased way. You have no reason for being against this. It is not cutting any material out. I would be happy to rephrase them myself, and then send them to you for 'approval'. Why do I even need to ask for your permission?

In the meantime, I'll find for you as many links as I can praising breast cancer awareness. You can incorporate them since you asked for them. I thought I should again mention that obviously all of the pro-awareness literature will be written by people involved. After all, they are the ones that care about it. Conflict of interest you might say. In the same exact way, the authors of anti-awareness literature have an analogous conflict of interest - it fits their thesis/article. If they didn't care about it, they wouldn't be writing about it. You are going to have a hard time finding lit for awareness by somebody who is against, or doesn't even care about awareness. Almost all of it will be by people involved. Does that make it biased? If so, then the people writing theses and articles are equally biased for the same reason. Not all pro-awareness organizations are funded by drug companies.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/ct-tl-elgin-ecc-cancer-20121030,0,3528642.story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/breast-cancer-research-findings_n_1936326.html -> discoveries credited (partly) by awareness? Or would that undermine your argument?
https://www.facebook.com/breastcancerawarenessmonth
https://www.facebook.com/cureLauncher
http://www.jaxnews.com/view/full_story/20658892/article-Town---Gown--Ambitious-JSU-students-stage-fashion-show-in-support-of-Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Month?instance=opinion_main - don't try to say this has nothing on the social issue: “I want people to know that you don’t have to be in an organization to do something. You can plan it on your own and still be known as a leader. Everyone thinks you have to be in this organization or need to be in that organization. No. It’s not the organization you need to be in but what you can bring to the table. If you want to do it, go ahead and do it and prove them wrong,” said Ledford. “I’m including everybody and I want people to be involved. To unite everybody in one cause, that’s a great thing to do,” she said."
http://www.breastcancerawareness.com/education.php - you won't find an explanation of the reasons for awareness by someone who is against awareness. Does that mean you shouldn't include them? No. Do you have explanations against awareness by people who are for awareness? I doubt it. Gayle Sulik certainly doesn't count there.
http://adventured.com/culture-2/greatest-breast-cancer-awareness/
http://www.breastcancerwatch.com/journals.htm - "If you are looking for true scientific information, medical journals on breast cancer are the authoritative source."
http://www.ncsf.org/enew/articles/articles-breastcancerawareness.aspx
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/breast-cancer/DS00328 - "After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States (this is social, *diagnosis in US* - social reasons for that). Breast cancer can occur in both men and women, but it's far more common in women. Public support for breast cancer awareness and research funding has helped improve the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Breast cancer survival rates have increased and the number of deaths has been declining, thanks to a number of factors such as earlier detection, new treatments and a better understanding of the disease."
https://development-comm.mayoclinic.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=295&mc_id=comlinkpilot&placement=bottom - Maybe, mayoclinic is raising awareness for a campaign to make "grueling chemotherapy a thing of the past."
http://www.mayoclinic.org/breast-cancer/?mc_id=comlinkpilot&placement=bottom - Maybe not explicitly social, but you can certainly say something along the lines of "Mayoclinic is using funds to raise awareness and provide treatment for breast cancer in men."
http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2012-rst/7118.html
http://store.mayoclinic.com/products/bookDetails.cfm?mpid=141&trkid=22785S509718620 - awareness helped fund this book.

- differences in AZ, FL, & MN

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mayo-clinic-breast-cancer-book/MY02244 - go read her book, or let me edit the article.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/atypical-hyperplasia/DS01018 - social: For this reason, doctors sometimes recommend more frequent breast cancer screening and careful consideration of medications and other strategies to reduce breast cancer risk. You will not find opinions on why breast cancer is good, but you need to put them in the article, so you have to put them together yourself. - same principle for:

Read these especially Scholarly, published, reliable, articles & studies, all about awareness:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/468 - section about awareness in other countries (Korea)?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/11010345?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn - media
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18021402
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19076664 - constructive criticism, but not against, awareness - solid content
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12648249 - The women in this study demonstrated little ambivalence in their desire for mammography screening prior to age 50. They reported minimal communication with their medical providers about the risks and benefits of screening. Better information flow regarding mammography screening is necessary. Given the lack of uncertainty among women's perceptions regarding screening mammography, shared decision making in this area may be difficult to achieve. - why we need more awareness. Exact same concept as yours, but a different opinion/approach.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20881154
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20407841
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20594093
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17562638 - "The next step is developing..."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9426494 - thus, interventions should address beliefs and knowledge of risk targeted to all low-income women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17319236
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16618951
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19514831 - A review.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18162138
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15770008
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18990731
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571588 - Egypt and other Arab countries - awareness gone global?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17319238 - prostate cancer in SC (again). Good to compare with breast.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22339890 - Jordan.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21978144 - Lebanon/Armenia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15292724 - Turkey.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19037556 - Malaysia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12755251 - controversies
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8105098 - intl workshop
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7563167 - Sweden
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16434585
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17404352 - false +'s in mammograms (objective)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15069115 - decreasing those anxieties!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11722693
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17652282
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15900044 - Dutch
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8935470 - More Dutch (name a country, I got 'em)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19401569 - UK
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1732929 - Review.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10209861 - Germany
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2691492
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2504094 - Review. I hope Duke University is reliable.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7999470 - Review. Young women
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7603143 - policy. calling for new perspectives
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9143316 - Nordic countries
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18780864 - Developing countries / India
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18789566
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17607668 - China
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19144138 - MRIs vs mammograms

Charles35 (talk) 20:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The first source is all about one woman, a local, human-interest story, and it says nothing about the breast cancer movement. "One woman decided to wear a pink ribbon" isn't a useful source for an article about breast cancer awareness.

The second source also says nothing about breast cancer awareness. The words don't even appear in it. "Some researchers learned some stuff about the biological aspects of breast cancer" isn't a useful source for an article about breast cancer awareness. Awareness is a social issue. It is not a biological issue. We have a dozen or so articles about the biology of breast cancer. Breast cancer awareness is not one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The first article is an example of something about the movement. If somebody is bothering to take the time out of their life to write a scholarly, social-critical, article on breast cancer awareness, they will not be praising it, they will be against it. Does that mean you shouldn't explain the position of these people? No. Just because you can't find someone explicitly rebutting Sulik's claims does not mean that you shouldn't include a rebuttal on wikipedia. And say, hypothetically, that every source in the world that is for awareness IS indeed funded by a pharmaceutical company. Then, should you not include any of their claims? No. It means that you should say, "This is what organizations for breast cancer awareness (that are also funded by pharmaceutical company):...). Additionally, not everything that is funded by a pharma company is automatically biased. They are not 'evil' bad guys who deviously plot with the 'inner circle' to take over the world like you think they are.

The second article....has a large pink ribbon at the top. The first sentence reads: October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- and we're taking the time to look at some of the biggest research findings revealed so far this year. The article is about things learned through research - a social issue as it is funded by awareness.

I'm just giving you links and quickly scanning the content. If it were up to me (which, ironically it is...but it isn't), I would be rephrasing, moving, and removing.

So? The words do not appear in the text of the article. - not sure what you mean. "Breast cancer awareness" starts the first sentence.

Facebook, BTW, is not a WP:Reliable source. - I'm just throwing you links here. All you're going to find is anecdotal evidence. Perhaps you could write, "users on the facebook group, "xxxxx" say, "xxxxx?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC) Charles35 (talk) 05:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

And, I am sure that the sources you approved have some pro-awareness info, like a description of what they are critiquing in the first place. How could they critique without saying what they are even critiquing? That isn't mentioned on the page. The author shouldn't look at the world in black-and-white. Things can be just informative; not everything is "PRO" or "ANTI." The material considered anti might very well have pro info in it as well.

Why do I need to pass all of my info through you? Give me a rationale for ALL of the info you put there, or I will rewrite the article (fairly, objectively, not biased) MYSELF. You can of course have input.

You will find very little lit for awareness. AND YET, MOST people in this world are pro-awareness. Their opinion doesn't matter because it's not written in manifestos?

Charles35 (talk) 21:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Sources have to be considered in light of what we could actually write. The "local patient wears a pink ribbon" article can really only support a statement like "One local breast cancer survivor wore a pink ribbon"—and then it's going to get axed per WP:DUE, because the fashion choices of a single cancer survivor are really not worth mentioning.

Consider the one about "you don't need a big-name organization": what could you actually write? "Some promoters don't choose to work with established organizations" isn't really encyclopedic content. It's just filler. It tells you nothing at all about breast cancer awareness. It tells you (indirectly) something about the US rules for fundraising (anybody can start a group or run a fundraiser on their own), but it doesn't tell you anything about awareness.

We can't use anecdotal evidence. We can't say "Gee, people are doing this, so it must be valuable". Even if we didn't believe that people sometimes do and believe the stupidest, most time-wasting things, we'll get sent up to WP:NORN and yelled at. If we want to say something like "Breast cancer awareness is a valuable contribution to women's health", then we absolutely must have a published, reliable source that actually says that, in so many words. We can't "infer" or "guess" or "assume". We have to have a source that directly says it.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Check out the rest of them, especially the scholarly published study. You need to add these opinions whether you like it or not. "In light of what we could actually write," I will repeat that I will gladly rewrite the article. I would use the same foundation and most of the same content as the original. I will keep Sulik's content. You can even read it over first if you would like. But I am not going to write an article if it will end up being a waste of time.

"Some promoters don't choose to work with established organizations" isn't really encyclopedic content. It's just filler. - That is absolutely encyclopedic content. It is pretty much the same thing as your "all organizations are funded by drug companies," except it's saying the exact opposite thing! Maybe that's why you don't like it... We can't say "Gee, people are doing this, so it must be valuable". - Yet you can say, "Gee, Gayle Sulik thinks these radical ideas, so it must be valuable."

Charles35 (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

As it happens, I'm familiar with the basic literature on breast cancer. You're not really getting it.

Consider PMID 19076664, which you describe as "constructive criticism, but not against, awareness". Actually, it has absolutely nothing at all to do with pink ribbons or fundraising or "awareness". That survey has everything to do with provider–patient communication and with a desire for women to be informed medical consumers (good things, and supported by everyone).

Pink ribbons and fundraising events do not provide information. You could spend your entire day, every day, for a year, being "aware" of breast cancer and still have none of the information that this study is talking about. "Breast cancer is treatable! See your doctor if you feel a lump! Get a mammogram!" (at ages and rates that the rest of the world has sensibly rejected based on solid evidence)—the typical "awareness" messages—do not tell the woman about the (limited but very real) benefits, the significant uncertainties, or the (limited but real) harms.

Think of it this way: If you had a mother or sister dying of breast cancer right now, you would be plenty aware of the disease. But despite that awareness, you could easily be one of those underinformed people in that survey, who said they didn't know about the uncertainties or harms (except, of course, that you appear to be male, so you wouldn't have been surveyed in the first place). Knowing that breast cancer exists, or even what some of the signs are, does not magically make you know about the risks and benefits of screening mammography. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

...as it happens, I'm familiar with the basic literature on breast cancer. - Good for you. That makes no difference to my capabilities with this article. It says nothing about me, and I don't doubt your qualifications.

You're not really getting it. - that is not true. I am offended by you saying that. That is the most basic possible argument I can imagine.

Consider PMID 19076664, which you describe as "constructive criticism, but not against, awareness". - First of all: again the actual point (rephrasing, removing, and moving, not adding more content, although I'm happy to do both) of this discussion is being diverted. In any case, for each of these articles. I read the first sentence of the conclusion, and wrote 3 words about it. I scanned that article in 5 seconds. But that, again, makes no difference to my capability to write a wiki article. I would thoroughly read each article if I were to do that. As for that article though, I said it's a criticism based on this: "There appears to be little indication that information about the benefits and harms decreases women's intentions to undergo screening." Now that I read the article thoroughly, I see that it is calling for more (efficient) / better awareness. I originally thought that it was saying that awareness is pointless.

Pink ribbons and fundraising events do not provide information. You could spend your entire day, every day, for a year, being "aware" of breast cancer and still have none of the information that this study is talking about. "Breast cancer is treatable! See your doctor if you feel a lump! Get a mammogram!" (at ages and rates that the rest of the world has sensibly rejected based on solid evidence)—the typical "awareness" messages—do not tell the woman about the (limited but very real) benefits, the significant uncertainties, or the (limited but real) harms.

You honestly think that I don't understand that? This is the most basic argument you could ever make on this issue. I am actually very insulted that you think that I don't understand that. A 6 year old could understand that. You're talking about making an implicit learning leap. Yes, obviously 'pink ribbons' do not provide info; they are pieces of polyester. I don't know why you keep saying things like that. But you are, again, over-simplifying a ginormous issue. You can't just lump all fundraisers into one group - ones that just tell you to do those 3 things. First of all, is straight up false. Most fundraisers do more than that; people aren't stupid; and each fundraiser is different. Lastly, they do mention things like that. They talk about the bad side. Maybe it's not on the brochure that you'd like to take as their gospel, but they do talk about it amongst themselves on a more private level. People, in general, are not stupid, they are rational.

That argument is so incredibly basic that, if this is the reason you've been denouncing BCA, I am shocked right now. That isn't even an objection to BCA, it's an objection to awareness in general, awareness for any disease. Actually, awareness for anything at all; doesn't need to be a disease. In fact, it doesn't even have to be awareness either. It can be any type of communication. This is a joke. You think these people have all teamed up and decided to lie to everyone? Are you crazy? And you think you're exposing them? Show some faith and reason! Give them the benefit of the doubt - good will. You can't make any statement about each and every one of them.

If you think that that argument right there sums up 'Breast Cancer Awareness' thick and through, then... There is sooooo much more to this issue. There are plenty of other arguments, and more importantly plenty of non-aligned information that needs to be included as well. Maybe you don't agree, but >99% of the world disagrees with you, and you know that too. Please stop thinking that you understand the world and everyone else is stupid. Everyone understands your argument right there, and it is a very valid one, and certainly deserves to be on the page, but other things deserve to be as well. It doesn't matter if you disagree. You can't blur and manipulate the rules and the sources to fix the world the way you like it. Show some respect to the rest of the people on this world and let this article be fair. You will have your turn to make your point. But that's what it is - a turn. You are not the sole authority on this (none of us are). You don't get to make all the decisions like a dictator. This is a collaborative effort in the spirit of community consensus. If you won't work with me to fix this article, and let me make my mark (on behalf of the other 99%), I will not stop. I don't know who you think you are. You need to respect other people. Never before have I seen a dictator of a wikipedia article. This severely breaks both the neutral point of view and possibly the conflict of interest rule as well.

Charles35 (talk) 03:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Finally, we are getting somewhere

Whatamidoing: You don't need my permission. You need a WP:Consensus at the article for the changes you want to make and directly relevant sources to support your changes, neither of which you have at this time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic. How do we go about making a consensus? Not quite sure what you meant about relevant sources. Care to clarify?

If you're saying each source I gave you is irrelevant... Almost all of those sources have the words "breast cancer awareness" in the article. Thought I'd get that out of the way as you said that about one of them earlier. Second, for those that don't - they clearly are talking about 1, breast cancer, and 2, social, demographic, etc common knowledge? (ie awareness). It's obvious that the phenomenon of 'breast cancer awareness' is at play. Last, if a source doesn't directly, explicitly, use the words "Breast cancer awareness" in it, that doesn't mean it is out of the question. Many sources on wiki are like that. In that source, the info is not directly related to the issue, but it can be logically deduced and/or used in a rational way which makes it relevant. They are used to make a particular point. Many sources on wiki are only used for a single sentence. I have seen that all over wikipedia. If you say that is 'technically' not allowed, then you must be being idealistic, because I've seen that all over wikipedia. I wouldn't doubt it's already here too.

Charles35 (talk) 03:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

To make a claim about BCA in general, you need a secondary source that has already synthesized things together. So if we want to say that BCA fundraisers promote fear of breast cancer (fear is a very effective motivator for women to get mammograms, and people probably ought to be at least a little afraid of things that could kill them; don't get trapped in the "unpleasant emotions == bad" idea), then we need a source that says BCA fundraisers in general are doing this.

In this example, it turns out that we could name multiple independent, secondary sources to support this claim—the claim that BCA fundraisers, taken as a whole, do use fear as a marketing approach—and thus we included this information in the article. (This is perhaps a little surprising to most readers, but marketing experts know that there are very few effective levers to get people to act. Fear and greed are two of the biggest, and greed isn't really applicable. It's fundamentally no different from an advertisement that promotes smoke detectors by showing a house on fire.)

We have (so far as I know) zero reliable sources that say any BCA organization promotes fearlessness, unconcernedness, recklessness, or whatever you want to call the opposite of being afraid of a life-threatening disease. So we therefore don't say anything about that.

But imagine that you found a source that says Komen is promoting the fear of breast cancer. It doesn't say anything about the other organizations. We could certainly use that at the article about Komen, but not really at the BCA article. If we did use it, then the most we could say is that this one source says that Komen does it. We aren't permitted to generalize from there that if Komen does this, then all of them/most of them/some of them/any of them except Komen do this. If the source says "Komen promotes fear", then we can only make a claim about fear-mongering specifically about Komen.

That's the category that most of your sources fall into: An Egyptian physician says that he believes that greater BCA would result in breast cancers being diagnosed earlier in Egypt. That's not really useful. We've already got a well-supported sentence saying that BCA does achieve this—as a proven fact, not as one person's speculation for a specific country. What could we add with this source? Well, we could take our sentence about BCA resulting in breast cancers being diagnosed earlier, and tack on "And Dr Big thinks it would work in Egypt, too", but that's not really adding value to the article. In fact, it weakens the claim by making it sound rather speculative, rather than going with the plain, strong statement that "Increased awareness has....shifted the stage at which breast cancers are detected, so that more tumors are discovered in an earlier, more treatable stage."

When you get used to Wikipedia, you'll find that you automatically start evaluating sources in terms of what sentences you could properly support. It's hard to figure out which ones are really useful in the beginning, but it gets easier as you go. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Added this at the end - the more important issue is not being discussed here, as usual; this is a diversion (intentional or not). The original problems here:

(1) Sulik's content is biased, misleading, not objective, questionable, and inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Examples: "(The she-ro) also feels guilty: She may conceive of herself as an inadequate she-ro, or she may believe that her previous choices caused her breast cancer, or she may feel that she is doing too little to care for others, especially her family and other women with breast cancer" - this is just not appropriate for an encyclopedia. It is appropriate for an essay, but not an encyclopedia. Remember: the audience for this is the general population. They don't expect to be reading about some 'she-ro' when they go on wikipedia (especially when that she-ro takes up 90-95% of the page; not just limited to her sections). And they shouldn't be given that content. They should be given content that is typical of an encyclopedia. It can still be critical, but must be objective, like: "Most events are well-received, but some, like the unauthorized painting of the Pink Bridge in Huntington, West Virginia, are controversial." Critical, but objective and appropriate. Not only is this material inappropriate for these readers, but much of it is flat out wrong, unethical, and certainly questionable: "they are committed to evidence-based medicine rather than conventional wisdom." "willing submission to the current mainstream medical opinion." "...businesses, politicians, and organizations use pink ribbons and other trappings of breast cancer awareness to signal their support for women, health, and mainstream medicine."

Now, Ms. whatamidoing, when you and I read this, we understand that this is a feminist critique and is speculative, rhetorical, etc. The audience for wikipedia, again, is the gen pop. They do not expect to be reading an essay. They expect to just be reading facts and general info, and maybe some arguments, but fairly weighted ones. Many people would take this info, believe it as fact (since nowhere is it identified as ~fact), and apply it to their life. In the extreme case, after reading this, somebody with breast cancer may decide that they do not want to go to a dr. It is unacceptable to have this content on wiki, period. If it must be on here (this is not to say that it's acceptable, because it's not), then it should at least be identified (see 5).

(2) Much of Sulik's content is taken as truth in this article. It is not questioned because she has a PhD. Her source is taken as the gospel. She makes claims that are simply speculation/fiction. Examples: "Women who choose not to conform to the culture feel excluded and isolated..." "A type of have-it-all superwoman, the she-ro tries to present a normal appearance and activity level and minimize the disruption that breast cancer causes to people around her."

(1 & 2, (and 3 really)) Another eg which is misleading, extremely un-objective, biased, unethical, ridiculous, unfalsifiable, and everything else I've said all in one is: "Breast cancer culture values and honors suffering, selecting its she-roes by a "misery quotient". Elizabeth Edwards, for example, personifies the breast cancer she-ro. Women whose treatment requires less suffering feel excluded and devalued. The suffering, particularly the extended suffering of months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, forms a type of ordeal that initiates women into the inner circle of the breast cancer culture." This is just straight up bizarre. It doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. It is very inappropriate for the general pop (and the ~gen pop, might I add). It's an embarrassment to wikipedia.

(3) Conversely, much of Sulik's content is not murky, blurry, and unfalsifiable. Again this is overlooked by the fact that she has a PhD. It allows her to take no accountability because it uses phrases like the following: "some people believe..." "it has been said that..." "in many cases..." "some women feel..."

(2 & 3) Or, both: "...screening mammography is promoted by the breast cancer industry as the sole possible approach to public health for breast cancer." Did 'the breast cancer industry' get together and decide to 'promote' mammographies as their 'public health' policy ('approach')? Is there a body called 'the breast cancer industry'? Did they ever explicitly decide this? Is it the 'sole' policy of theirs? Did they specify that nothing else can be used as a public health policy? Only mammograms? It's just non-sense.

(4) The article is weighted unevenly. This is one view on the matter, and it is an argument against BCA. Arguments against should take up a small portion of the article, due to the inherent fact that they are against the topic. It is a minority opinion because BCA exists and, in general, most people do not have a problem with it. If they did, it wouldn't exist. It's just by definition that her content should have a relatively small place in the article. The article should reflect the general beliefs of the people, not the beliefs of Sulik, whatamIdoing, et some al; they make up, to be safe, no more than 5% of the population. So, theoretically, this view should make up no more than 5% of the article. Now, since it is a scholarly view and is accepted by a higher portion of the educated, academic population, it deserves more than 5%. But even still, it, again to be safe (and very safe), is shared by less than 35% of people (I'd guess around 10-20%). Yet, as shown in the talk page, more than half of the article is solely feminist critique. We (not I, we) estimated it to be around 60%. The other 40%, I (just me, but there was no objection) identified as being over half (safe) critique (all the same view). So this single opinion, which makes up no more than 5% of general pop., and no more than 35% of the ed. pop., takes up, at the least, 75% of the article, and realistically, probably around 90-95%. This is justified because whatamidoing says that, not only is there no reliable, scholarly source that expresses this view, there is not a single source (scholarly, reliable, or otherwise) which qualifies her requirements and expresses the view of 95% of the gen pop.

(Still on weighted unevenly) - furthermore, it not only makes up a disproportionate amount of the article, but it also is distributed wrongly (which is, in itself, misleading and biased, especially when it is her opinion; ie when it's in the wrong section, it is perceived as something that it really isn't). For example, the "Independence of breast cancer organizations" is 100% critique. Much of the content is either in the wrong section, or more often, a partly wrong section, which means that the content is certainly related to the section, but really belongs in another section, which, in all cases, is a section called "Criticism," or something similar. Examples: in "Environmental breast cancer movement," the first whole paragraph is:

Most of the money raised by advocates is spent on advertising, increased awareness, cancer screening, and existing treatments (Ave 2006). Only a small fraction of the funds is spent on research, and most of that funding is spent on research to improve diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. To the dismay of advocates like Breast Cancer Action and women's health issues scholar Samantha King, relatively little money or attention is devoted to identifying the non-genetic causes of breast cancer or taking steps to prevent breast cancer from occurring (Ave 2006). The mainstream breast cancer culture is focused on a cure for existing breast cancer cases, rather than on preventing future cases.

What does this have to do with the environment? Sulik would answer, 'Look at the next paragraph! It says: "As a result, screening mammography is promoted by the breast cancer industry as the sole possible approach to public health for breast cancer (Sulik 2010, page 204). Alternatives, such as pollution prevention, are largely ignored." Yes, it does indeed. But just because you said the word "pollution" doesn't make any of it actually about the environment. You could have said anything in the world, and then said, "as a result, they ignore the environment." It's just non-sense. And, more importantly, this content is inappropriate for this section, not because it's simply unrelated, but because it is a critique. It is saying something wrong about the movement. This belongs in the 'criticism' section. When people come to wikipedia, they expect to generally (outside of the criticism section) be reading neutral or sometimes positive info. This is only negative. If you want to make an article that is 100% a critique of BCA, don't call it "BCA," call it "Criticism of BCA."

(5) Sulik's content, which is simply an opinion, is questionable, is not objective, biased, inappropriate, unfalsifiable, and in some cases unethical, is disclaimed as her content. It is passed of as the truth. Not once do you see "Sulik claims..." This is unacceptable. All of her content should be identified as hers.

Okay but again this is all very questionable. What I mean is that just because you are saying this does not mean it is true, in several ways. I'm not accusing you of outright lying, but I just think that you could very easily use wikipedia jargon for whatever you want and blur the lines and makes claims that aren't exactly false, but aren't necessarily and absolutely true either. Examples (the 'several ways'):

(1) what you're essentially saying is that no content from sources can be used unless the topic of that content in that source is the exact same topic that the wiki article is on. If I take your words absolutely literally, the only thing you are really allowed to do on wikipedia is quote sources. If the content is on a slightly different topic (ie BCA in Egypt, not just BCA), you can't use it. So the only thing we can really use is a source where the person is writing about BCA, exclusively and limited-ly(? can't think of a word for that). If you take that as a general rule, there are hardly any sources that you can actually use. Take this article for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/92 - the year 92 AD. You will probably never find a source that is exclusively and limited-ly on that topic (and it looks like they haven't). That hasn't stopped them from putting content in there. None of that content is cited, at all. Now, say hypothetically that it was (because we easily could). The sources for that content are certainly not on the year 92 AD; they are on the content, and happen to be relevant to the year 92 AD. But again, that doesn't stop us from putting content there. Content, especially varied content, is needed to make it an effective article. If there are no scholarly sources, then non-scholarly sources must be used. If there are neither directly on that topic, then other sources (scholarly or non-scholarly) must be consulted. The same holds true for BCA. You won't find many sources directly on BCA, and not on something slightly different. It's a somewhat popular topic, but you won't find many. And there's an inherent bias in the fact that the only sources that will realistically exist for that (exact) topic are social critiques.

(Still 1) So consider the article 'Racism,' or 'Slavery' (not to compare BCA to those, but this is the extreme case). You will absolutely not find any sources (real sources) that are in favor of slavery or racism. Everything that is exclusively and limited-ly on those topics is a critique (I use critique in a general sense to mean critical, argumentative, disagreeing, etc). But it's silly to imagine an article that is exclusively and limited-ly on arguments against racism. You need to include the original reasons that people were racist in the first place (especially if you're going to argue against them). It's just how an encyclopedia is made.

(2) So anybody can just write a book that is technically reliable and scholarly, and it's automatically fine for wiki? Why can't we question Sulik? What puts her above all else? Many of her claims are ridiculous and in some cases outright bizarre. Why are the other people's sources held to a higher standard than hers.

(3) 'Just because you say so' is not a fair reason. I don't really care if you've said this. There is no reason to take your word as the truth. I'm not saying you're lying, but you could be wrong, and you could be lying to yourself.\

(4) There's more, I might add it later. Charles35 (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You say above, "Sulik's content is biased, misleading, not objective, questionable, and inappropriate for an encyclopedia" because Sulik dares to say that women with breast cancer feel guilty.

Who are you to say that they don't? Cancer.gov says that this is very common. It's in the news frequently. There's even research on it: PMID 18621628 (breast cancer patients feel as guilty as lung cancer patients, but less stigmatized); PMID 20922314 ("The results indicate...feelings of guilt about the disorder generated in the family") and more.

Against that, we've got one guy on the internet who says that since the sentence happens to be supported by Sulik's book, and maybe that he believes women with breast cancer shouldn't feel guilty, that it must be wrong and in practice all those thousands of women who say they do feel guilty, even while recognizing that their emotions are irrational, are just liars.

Don't tell me that you don't believe women feel guilty. Show me a properly published reliable source that says women don't feel guilty. Then we can talk abut adjusting the article to reflect facts, rather than to reflect your underinformed bias. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yet again.....

I don't think that no women feel guilty. What I do think is that the article makes a claim that is impossible to back up. You can't just say "women feel guilty." When you do, you are, through omitting any sort of limitation on how many women feel guilty, essentially implying that ALL women feel guilty. This is, one, not true (I'm sure there's at least a single woman out there that does not feel guilty), and two, you can't back that claim up - it is misleading and poorly worded. I'm sure there are women out there that do feel guilty, and, I'll say it for the millionth time - this opinion does indeed deserve to be here, but it doesn't deserve such a big slice of the pie. As usual, you ignored all of the important stuff that I said above, and chose to address a single, trivial issue that diverts the discussion.

Then we can talk abut adjusting the article to reflect facts, rather than to reflect your underinformed bias. -> I cannot believe your total refusal to look at the bigger picture. I do not care about this single trivial matter. Get that through your head! Nothing I said in that last edit had anything to do with the guilt issue. I don't know why you think this is so important. Adjusting the article has little to do with these facts. I was not interested in that. You know very well what I am interested in. There's no reason for me to say it again.

So, Ms. WhatamIdoing, what's the verdict here? I think you are starting to understand what I am saying and the issues with this article, since I gave those examples and spelled it all out. I am going to give you a list of the things I'd like to do with this article, from greatest to least. Please, tell me which ones I have your 'permission' to do.

1) Most importantly - I'd like to add something like "Sulik believes..." "Sulik claims..." "Sulik writes..." "Sulik has said..." to the parts of the article written by her.

2) Clean up the non-encyclopedic nonsense, get rid or reword the essay part, get rid of some of the more ridiculous claims (inner circle conspiracy).

3) Reword her content (the non-essay parts) to hold it more accountable, less misleading/biased, less black/white (ie what you were saying above - "some women feel guilty" instead of "women feel guilty"), etc. Does she know what % of women feel guilty? No. If she did, she would have written it. So, all you can do is say "some."

4) Balance the content correctly. Less Sulik, more everyone else. Sulik can still stay, but she's either got to decrease, or the rest has to increase, to make it more proportional.

5) revise the sections - put the content where it belongs, decreasing misleading aspect.

6) LASTLY, AND LEAST IMPORTANTLY (to me), SO DON'T FOCUS YOU'RE ENTIRE ANSWER ON THIS In order to do 4, it seems that new info must be added. This was not something I had set out to do originally. But if it is necessary, I will try. I can't promise I will be able to cover the entire article in a week, but with some time, I will probably be able to do it. Of course, everything I'd write will go through you, Ms. WhatamIdoing. Believe me, I have no intention of putting content on there that is as bad as Sulik's or even worse. I respect your knowledge and experience in editing wikipedia, and I am not just asking for your input because you own the article, but also because I would like for your input. I have no interest in adding faulty content to wikipedia.

BUT - it's not like adding new content is necessary to revise the article. IT ISN'T necessary. There are 5 things I'd like to do before adding new content. None of those things require a source. They ALL have to do with making the info proper for an encyclopedia.

Please let me know what I have permission to do.

Charles35 (talk) 20:34, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, I have only answered one point, because if I respond to more than one thing, you refuse to read what I write.

Please read this: Even though Sulik's book is cited repeatedly, Sulik is not the only reliable source that holds these views. So "Sulik believes that..." would be misleading, because it would actually have to be "Sulik and Olsen and Ehrenreich and King and a dozen other reliable sources all agree that...".

It appears that it would, on the other hand, be perfectly accurate to say, "Although some guy on the internet disagrees with the experts, all the experts agree that..." We don't say, "Gee, I'm sure I personally know more about this than several major researchers in the field, so I say that we're putting in too much criticism of fundraising, then of course I'm right, and we need to balance it with... well, my own beliefs." If you've got WP:Reliable sources that directly say something that contradicts the content in the article, then please share them. We have, for example, many sources that say "people with cancer usually feel guilty". They do not say that 100.0% of cancer patients feel guilty—but the article doesn't say that, either. We're saying what our reliable sources directly and explicitly say, which is that the archetype of a breast cancer patient definitely feels guilty. (Do you understand the difference between an archetypal patient and every single patient? The "she-ro" is an archetype, not the universal experience of every single breast cancer patient in the world.)

Let me be more direct: Do not remove the existing, sourced information or add any new information unless and until you can actually produce reliable sources that directly say something else. And if you can't actually produce such sources, then please don't waste my time with further replies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That is not true. I respond to everything that I see you write. You continue responding to the same point because it diverts the discussion to the point that you want it to be about. Yes, other people do believe some of Sulik's views, but the majority of them are her alone. So go ahead and don't write "Sulik believes..." for the ones that other people have written about, but still write "some believe...". And if you can't find me a specific page number where the work by the other authors says the same exact thing, then put "Sulik believes..." (you needed a source that said the exact same thing about BCA). This would not misleading; what is there now is misleading.

No, that isn't true either. I am not some guy on the internet. I gave you 100 sources of people that disagree. I'm done arguing with you. I'm requesting mediation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs) 20:25, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

No, you didn't give me 100 sources that disagree. You gave me a long list of URLs to sources that said nothing directly about the subject at hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

If I may so presume

Hi, I'm a bit new here, but since things seem at an impasse between you and Charles35 over at Breast cancer awareness, and since the dispute is now playing out on four separate talk pages, I was wondering if it would be helpful for you if I were to spearhead some informal moderation. For obvious reasons, you're both considering each other as editing in bad faith, and in my opinion, neither of you actually is. You both have good points to make. I feel that I can be wholly impartial and help the two of you work together to create a better article (something I feel that both of you are wholly capable of on your own, of course, but something that I doubt you'll be able to do if you maintain the status quo). If you're okay with this, then, I'd like to create a new section of Talk:Breast cancer awareness for this moderation, and collapse all previous arguments on the subject, since this resolution should not be about what either of you has said to the other, but about your views of what the article should or should not be, which have not changed since the start of this disupte. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 02:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I saw you're almost "watchlist bankrupt," so I could leave a message at your page following any updates to the mediation, if you'd like. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 02:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I think what Charles needs is not mediation, per se, but someone to explain to him that he really does have to follow the sources. It would be a good idea to start by reading some of the sources that are already listed in the article, like this magazine article. Wikipedia is all about the real-world sources. So far, Charles seems to believe that when all the published, independent reliable sources disagree with him, then it's the sources that are wrong and biased, not himself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:27, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not about what the respective POVs say; it's about the fact that this article represents one of them. I agree that Charles has made the error of trying to argue for the opposing viewpoint, but that does not change the fact that he is essentially correct in his evaluation of the article as biased at some points. That more pertinent dispute is what I think demands mediation, not the much less constructive disagreement the two of you have been having. I really have no interest in telling either of you that you are categorically in the wrong; I just think that neither of you will succeed in improving this article the way things are going. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 02:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think his "evaluation of the article as biased at some points" is wrong. If the article accurately and fully reflects the independent reliable sources, then it is actually unbiased, by definition, even if it does not accurately and fully reflect conventional wisdom and/or the views of people whose knowledge of the subject largely comes from paid advertisements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

But it doesn't reflect all of the sources I provided. And it isn't the sources, it's the way it's written. Charles35 (talk) 04:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I fully understand, and oddly enough, I have sources (for the billionth time). All of the published, independent reliable sources do not disagree with me. I found you 100 sources that agree! I take no issue with the sources. Again, you are putting false words in my mouth. I think that the article itself is biased. The translation of the info from the sources to the article is what is biased, which is why, the whole time, I've been saying this has nothing to do with the sources. Charles35 (talk) 03:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I've responded to this incivility at Charles's user page. I feel, nonetheless, that this is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. Charles is doing (if I may be frank) a very bad job at making a pretty good point. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 03:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you might understand if you've been arguing about this for 2 weeks and written almost 100,000 words (that's 10x the actual article) about it, only to keep hearing "you need reliable sources" "you need reliable sources" "you need reliable sources" "you need reliable sources", when I've been writing about things unrelated to 'reliable sources' and provided 100 reliable sources.

Charles, the fact of the matter is that you do need reliable sources. My very point here is that you two are getting bogged down in the minutiae of your own argument. Furthermore, I am offering to mediate some sort of resolution between the two of you because at this point it is a simple perennial re-hashing of the same argument; now you're doing exactly that in the space that I provided for that very reason. I believe that you have some good points here, but if you continue to repeat the same accusations against WhatamIdoing, I don't think anyone will be able to fault her for not wanting informal mediation. And if you don't apologize to her, I don't know if mediation would make much progress in the first place. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 03:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Franc&Andro - I have provided dozens of reliable sources. I'm sorry but can you understand why I am getting so frustrated? I have repeated over & over & over & over again that I do have dozens of sources. Yet, I still get people saying that I need reliable sources. I'm sorry but I've said this at least 50 times.Charles35 (talk) 03:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

And I have also apologized to her. So I'm not sure why you keep repeating this. And I don't really know what you want me to apologize about, or why that is necessary, but nonetheless, I have no problem apologizing, and I have done so. I can see that since I have 'yelled,' that that tone carries over into my other words. I can't do anything but just tell you that most of what I write isn't yelling or isn't in a sarcastic tone or anything like that. Sorry if it comes off that way. I've made the impression that I'm yelling and now that impression isn't going away. I assure you that I mean it differently (95% of the time) than the way you're reading it. Charles35 (talk) 03:57, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I created this space to try to resolve the conflict between the two of you. You took it as a space to once again repeat your complaints against WhatamIdoing. You can apologize for that, as well as for using a repeated and persistent uncivil tone in your communications with and about WhatamIdoing. Pending that, I'm afraid I have to withdraw my offer to mediate, as you are contributing in bad faith. I might also suggest that you leave the article alone for now. You will be unable to convince WhatamIdoing or anyone else that you have valuable things to contribute if you continue to be uncivil. — further, Francophonie&Androphilie sayeth naught (Je vous invite à me parler) 04:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry for using this space as a continuation of the rest. I felt insulted by the text that I took as condescending (I think what Charles needs...) so I just responded quickly without realizing this space had a different purpose. I will happily erase my comments if you want. I can't say much about the uncivility. Most of my writing wasn't meant to be in that sort of tone. Some of it was, and I'm sorry about it. But most of it wasn't. I'm sorry it came across that way. And I continued because I didn't understand what you were talking about. I'm sorry about that too. It was probably because I didn't take the time to sit and think about it. I appreciate your effort to work with us. It is desperately needed because we aren't getting anywhere with this. That's partly my fault.Charles35 (talk) 04:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No, Charles, you haven't provided sources. You provided a list of links that don't say much, and in some cases, anything, about breast cancer awareness as a thing. You then say, "See, they think BCA is a good thing, so the article needs to be completely re-written!"

What you need to do is to pick one source (any source) and figure out a sentence that you could actually put into the article based on that source (or, alternatively, a sentence currently in the article that should be changed based on that source).

Try it. Find a source that says something directly about BCA (NB: not "I like it" or "I want more of it" or "I'm a fundraising volunteer" or anything else about the author's personal opinion). Figure out a sentence that could be supported by that source. Post it here, and let us look it over. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

All of my sources were from one of the most respected medical journals in the world. To be honest nothing is ever going to cut it for you. I can keep going on and on with your orders but there will always be more. I'm not going to take my efforts to the next level if I am not confident that there is some chance they won't be futile. And there's nothing more I can say - much of the problem here has nothing to do with more sources, like the symbolic thing we were talking about earlier. That is just misleading. It doesn't need more sources. You won't find a source saying "Symbolic actions do...." It just isn't realistic. It's just misleading. That's all there is to it. And there's a lot more just like it. Charles35 (talk) 04:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Totally flat tone* - Everyone I consulted with has told me that the article has serious issues and is in desperate need of help. They have all encouraged me to do something about it and were happy to see that somebody cares. Many of them gave me the knowledge to do things about it and I didn't know I could do, like change the citations, add ^{[citation needed]}'s request mediation, and a bunch of other things. It's not 'just me.' Charles35 (talk) 04:40, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16434585 - "After adjusting for self-selection bias, there still was a significant 43% reduction in incidence-based breast cancer mortality associated with screening."

That's a decent, albeit primary, source on whether screening mammography works. It is not a good source on breast cancer awareness. The sentence you quote isn't about the subject at hand. And the overall subject matter is already present in the article, in sentences like "Increased awareness has increased the number of women receiving mammograms" and getting diagnosed earlier. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

If you're okay with this, then, I'd like to create a new section of Talk:Breast cancer awareness for this moderation, and collapse all previous arguments on the subject -> I completely agree and I hope you do this. This issue is just overflowing with words. It would be nice to have it neater and easier to understand. And we can always look back and consult info if need be. Charles35 (talk) 03:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

To whatamidoing & franc&andro - I hope you saw what I said. During the whole debacle, I didn't see a lot of what you were posting. I didn't understand what you were saying, why you wanted me to apologize, etc. I just now saw f&a said "whatamidoing needs to have reason to believe that youre in good faith." I'm sorry I have portrayed myself 'in bad faith'. That isn't/wasn't my intention. My point is that it's not like I was refusing to apologize or anything like that. I didn't know I needed to, and I thought you kept repeating that because you were talking about something else. I thought you were talking about something that wasn't really a part of the situation and, not that you were incorrect, but that you just didn't have the situation straight. I was wrong. My bad. Charles35 (talk) 08:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

REFB feedback

Thanks for your message, to which i've replied, on my talk page. --Jerome Potts (talk) 05:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Counting visits to a Wikipedia entry

Hello. You have helped me in the past. I thought you may be able to help identify a link to a site (http://stats-classic.grok.se/) that would count the number of visits to any Wikipedia entry. The site I have used is not working. Thanks. Iss246 (talk) 14:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It works for me. Perhaps it was just a temporary problem? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. You are right. I use it infrequently. Yesterday I had come to use it again; I must used it at time when it was down for maintenance.Iss246 (talk) 04:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

General sourcing question

If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your input at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Assertion_vs_silence. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've scanned the questions, but don't have much time today. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:01, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

"Tech ambassadors" mailing list

Hi! I noticed your remarks in VP:T about communication and collaboration among Wikimedia editors and Wikimedia developers. I thought you might be interested in joining the low-traffic wikitech-ambassadors mailing list. On that list, technical folks disseminate information regarding large-scale tech changes in Wikimedia projects, and editors and users let the developers know if something's a concern onwiki, and ask folks from other wikis whether it's a concern there too. Anyone can sign up to be a "wikitech ambassador" in order to help with this process. (More info.)

Thanks and best wishes. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 14:58, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Idiopathic Postprandial Syndrome

Thanks for your input in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Idiopathic_postprandial_syndrome . It seems I have this syndrome. My symptoms are hunger 3 hours after evey meal and extreme fatigue all day long. Diet change (no refined sugars, high fiber, high protein, etc.) didn’t help. Do you have any idea what causes the symptoms or did you even find a therapy? I was unable to find ANYTHING (apart from the studies cited in the wiki article) about this syndrome, so I hope to get some personal experiences.

To reduce the fatigue I’m planning to try drugs that were postively tested to reduce symtpoms in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. If you wish, I can inform you about the effects of the drugs once I tried them. I think sufferers of the syndrome should cooperate better. I consider starting a special web forum. There we could share e. g. medical parameters, that are apparently NOT linked to the syndrome thus approaching the real causes. Do you think, that‘s a good idea?

Thanks a bunch

kayron — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cayron (talk • contribs) 12:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Cayron. I don't actually know much about this condition, and I'm not a doctor or any kind of medical professional. I've edited thousands of medicine-related pages over the years. I think that if I had those sorts of symptoms, and dietary change had no effect, then I'd probably start wondering if I had something like chronic postural orthostatic hypotension or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome instead of an allegedly blood sugar-related problem. (A substantial number of supposedly CFS people actually have this.) In POH (which has about a dozen names), people often have extreme fatigue, head rush if they stand up too fast, a tendency to feel worse or even faint if they stand still for very long (all those soldiers who faint while standing at parade rest), usually feel worse on hot days and a while after eating (like all your blood leaves your brain to go digest your food). I understand that the homemade test is to stand, relaxed but straight, for ten minutes and see whether you faint, but the official test, a Tilt-table test, is probably safer. But these are things you should talk to your own doctor about. Good luck to you, WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to let you know

I noticed that the tag for wikiproject medicine on Talk:Salmonellosis is marked:

supported by the Dermatology task force.

Not sure if this is correct so thought I would run it by you. Ottawahitech (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

It was added by the main derm editor, so it presumably is. I don't know anything about the condition, but perhaps it can cause a rash? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

GA reviewing process

I'm asking for your opinion on this because you seem like a goodhearted person who really cares about Wikipedia. I'm concerned that the GA reviewing process is becoming too lax. This strikes me as one area where the editor really does need a body of knowledge: if you don't know the subject matter, how can you evaluate whether or not it's adequately covered in the article? How do you know whether there are significant gaps of coverage, or whether major views are represented? And yet other editors tend to become huffy when this is pointed out. A GA rating on an article that is no such thing erodes our credibility, especially among teachers. So I'm asking a few editors to recommend a venue for discussing how to come up with a stronger, more reliable GA procedure. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a bit of a pendulum issue: we're too lax, then we're too tight. It depends on the reviews that you're looking at. (I've got to get back to mine, but I've been unexpectedly busy this week.) We've had a significant problem in the last couple of years with people using GA as a mini-FAC, and that's not okay. The goal is a good article, not a great one.

As for how one properly reviews an article without domain knowledge, you check similar articles and subject-matter advice pages (e.g., WP:MEDMOS#Sections). Also, I'm not sure that it happens very often (except with new reviewers, who one hopes will improve over time and who are usually welcoming when nudged in the right direction by comments at their reviews), since most noms are handled by people who are particularly interested in the given area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

After getting some input (and I very much appreciate yours!) I'm thinking that by chance I've just happened to encounter a few poor examples that aren't typical, since I normally don't participate in the GA or FA processes. Again, thanks so much for your always helpful views. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Polling apparently is a substitute for discussion

Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC_3 Gigs (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Yup. I've had a busy week, and I'm in a time-consuming dispute with a newbie who can't figure out what "you need proper reliable sources" means. He complains about sentences like "These symbolic actions do not prevent cancer, improve treatments, or save lives" by saying "this is flat out false. These have saved many lives and improved treatments", but of course he can't produce a source that says that a symbolic action saves lives (you know, because they don't, or they wouldn't be symbolic actions any longer!), because no reliable source would ever make such a silly claim. I don't seem to be getting through to him. I think he wants me to just accept his say-so that symbolic actions cure cancer. (All those researchers must be feeling pretty stupid to think that it was their hard work, when symbolism was all that we needed.)

Anyway, thanks for the note, and I hope to find time to look it over later today or tomorrow. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

BCA issues

Dear Ms. WhatamIdoing,

Per WP:3RR, I must ask you not to revert any more edits on the page "Breast Cancer Awareness." Please do not violate WP:CITEVAR.

Thanks for your cooperation. If you would like to change the citation style, please prove a community consensus for the change. Charles35 (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No dice, Charles. That style has been in use from the beginning, and you have to produce a consensus to change it. That's what CITEVAR says: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style...without first seeking consensus for the change.....As with spelling differences, if there is disagreement about which style is best, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes dice. There is a consensus. Repeating "there is no consensus for change" when there is a consensus and using that as a reason for reverting edits is against the rules. I will also reiterate WP:3RR. Thanks for your cooperation. Charles35 (talk) 23:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No, Charles, there isn't a consensus. I reject the proposal, and you are the only person currently favoring it. You are not a consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Correct, I am not consensus. All of the other users that have chimed are are though. Sorry. Please do not try to illegally revert it or use WP:IAR because of your personal preference for parenthetical citations. They are not the norm on wikipedia for a reason - they make ownership easier. Because of the pending WP:OOA & WP:NPOV concerns about you and that article, I have to ask you not to be involved in something that has a strong impact on those concerns.

There is no reason for me to repeat this again. If you respond to it, please take the above paragraph as my response to your response. Thank you. Charles35 (talk) 23:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

What "other users"? The ones like Shearonik, who said that the long-standing style was "perfectly acceptable"? Nobody except you is in favor of your change to the citation style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of people on that page have said it, before this all even started. I don't remember who. If you're so confident, I'm wondering if you know something that I don't... Has their content been removed? Charles35 (talk) 00:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

No, a couple of people have asked about it in the past, but that's not the same thing as them thinking that it should change. Generally, after an explanation, they have agreed that it's fine to use one of Wikipedia's oldest citation styles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed vs autoconfirmed

Hi WhatamIdoing. Thanks for leaving feedback at my admin review. I'm sorry to trouble you with this, but would you be able to point to a specific instance where I've confirmed an autoconfirmed used, or advised someone incorrectly regarding confirmation? I was fairly sure I understood the difference between the two (I've always regarded them exactly as you've described); now I'm concerned that I've cocked up somewhere without realising it. Cheers, and thanks again for the critique. Yunshui 雲‍水 07:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC) footnote: I've just checked my logs, and the only user I've confirmed to date was Francophonie&Androphilie - he had only been here for three days at the time, and so wasn't yet A/C'd. What am I missing here? Yunshui 雲‍水 07:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, dear, you're right. I made a fencepost error and counted four days between the 3rd and the 6th. I'll strike the comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Phew, that's a relief. Thanks for clearing that up. Yunshui 雲‍水 09:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Pending changes RfC reopened

Hi. You had previously commented on the pending changes RfC that was placed on hold. Your comments have been transplanted to Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC_3 and additional questions have been added. You may want to review your comments since some of the wording of the questions has changed slightly, and consider the new questions. Gigs (talk) 00:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at Francophonie&Androphilie's talk page.
Message added 22:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Good edit!

Thank you for a really good edit at Mental retardation! Lova Falk talk 18:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you approve. It's sometimes difficult for parents and advocates to believe that the medical establishment still persists in using a term that has long since been corrupted into a playground taunt, but perhaps this will be clearer to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Pain stimulus

Hi there,

thanks for looking at Pain stimulus, but I was wondering what the reson was for marking it as stub on the quality scale? That doesn't look anything like the definitions on the scale as given, as a stub wouldn't be referenced and would be incomplete. Even start class wouldn't be appropriate as that is 'little more than a dictionary definition'.

Many thanks

OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 09:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I was wrong, and I apologize for the mistake. (I remember the page ending just one sentence after the bulleted list, which either means that it didn't load completely, or that I didn't scroll down to the end—and I'm betting on human error).

Now that I've looked it over with my eyes open, I think it's just over the line into C-class (so far) and have fixed the rating. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What the Good article criteria are not

Hi! I am a big fan of your Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not essay. I was wondering if you'd consider writing a similar article for other, lower classes such as B or even C class. They need not be as exhaustive as the GA one, but I think they would help with assessing articles more objectively. Please consider my request. Thank you. --Odie5533 (talk) 17:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Those classes are a bit harder, because the definitions vary by WikiProject, especially for B class. I have no time free for the next week or so, but I'll keep it in mind for the future. If you have specific suggestions for the content of such a page, I'd be happy to hear your ideas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Most projects seem to use the standard Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. I can help write a draft, but I'd definitely want you to look over it in case I am not understanding the criteria or misrepresenting them. I wasn't sure if the article can be worked on directly in the Wikipedia namespace, so I created the beginnings of it at User:Odie5533/What the B-Class article criteria are not. Please consider the page like your own and add or delete as much as you want. I've added some notes to the page, but since I'm not really clear on anything, none of it is really part of an essay yet. --Odie5533 (talk) 07:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Breast cancer awareness again

Hi there,

The BCA page is still stumbling along. A specific issue about a specific source has come up, if you would care to comment; here. Thanks, WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:00, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for dropping out of sight. Between the holiday and the real world, I'm mostly off wiki right now. Next week should be better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

she-ro

Hey, WhatamIdoing. It was wrong of me to ever assume that the she-ro passage was your work. I'm sorry. :) Charles35 (talk) 06:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

FYI: Curb Chain again

I have started a new SPI on him. I suspect he socked recently as User:Shaz0t. Since you are familiar with Curb Chain, perhaps you should comment in the SPI. Tijfo098 (talk) 10:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks like that's been resolved already. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:16, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:AN/I discussion notice

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. But you probably already knew that. It's here. --Shirt58 (talk) 08:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Charles is an inexperienced editor, and he's not been permitted to re-write that strongly sourced article to match his POV, so it's unsurprising that he ended up at ANI. He'll probably take the advice to try DRN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:53, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Yep, my apologies for the bother. --Shirt58 (talk) 11:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Fairy Cakes Vs Cupcakes

The quote for Fairy Cakes being smaller versions are supported by the section - Quote

"When I first encountered an American style muffin in an English cafe many decades later, I was confused. It looked just like a giant fairy cake to me"

If it was "Giant" by comparison then the fairy Cake must have been significantly smaller! I am from the UK and Fairy Cakes are sold in bags and are significantly smaller than a standard American Cupcake — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firebuild (talk • contribs) 08:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Also I'm adding a BBC guide which clearly states that Fairy Cakes are 1/2 the size of cupcakes http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/how_to_make_fairy_cakes_45428

"Makes 12 small fairy cakes, or 6 deep cupcakes" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firebuild (talk • contribs) 09:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Another support for this is the recipe in the "Great British Kitchen" a site run by The British Food Trust. The recipe calls for 110 grams of flour to make 18 Fairy cakes. Anyone who has baked any cake would immediately know the size of the individual cake would be much smaller than the standard cupcake — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firebuild (talk • contribs) 09:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Firebuild, an "American style muffin" is not a cupcake. The fact that a muffin looks "giant" compared to a fairy cake doesn't tell us anything about how a cupcake looks compared to a fairy cake.

Similarly, the difference between a "small fairy cake" and a "deep cupcake" doesn't tell us anything about how a normal fairy cake compares to a normal cupcake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Cupcakes and muffins are usually made in the same tin as per many recipe books so are equitable in approximate size. (My Canadian wife is a prodigious baker) Also you have ignored my other two references on your talk page from the BBC and The British Food Trust which I am happy to add to my entry. Being British I am aware what Fairy cakes are as they were common when I was young and having found 3 references I am not sure why you are challenging so vociferously about this detail from many British and Irish childhoods! Firebuild —Preceding undated comment added 22:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I pointed out the major flaw in your BBC source, namely that it's talking about the difference between a "small fairy cake" and a "deep cupcake", not the difference (if any) between a normal fairy cake and normal cupcake.

You have provided no link to the third source. Do you have one? But as a person who has baked many cakes, I can tell you that the amount of flour varies dramatically. I've baked normal-sized cakes that have less than 20 grams of flour, or even no flour at all, so the fact that this one recipe has 110 grams and makes 18 ~cakes is proof of nothing.

ISBN 9781602397422 pg 42 says they're the same things. So does this book. This book uses the words interchangeably in the same paragraphs. This one talks about "British-traditional cupcakes" under the heading of "Fairy cakes".

As for your wife's personal experience, I have about a dozen tins in four different sizes (30mm, 45mm, 50mm, and "giant"), and I have used all of them interchangeably for both muffin and cupcake recipes, and most of them for yeast breads, too. Paper cases are available from commercial sources in just about any size you want, including some that are the size of a dinner plate. A small change in the size of the tin or the paper case doesn't mean that the name of the cake changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You make an assumption that the descriptor is arbitrary from "small" and "deep" and interpret an unlikely reason for using them. If they were the same thing then one would say "small fairy cake and deep fairy cake" no one would use the two different names unless there was a difference. as for your books one by Nigella Lawson is a descriptor for American readers (where she sells as many as her books as in the UK) rachel Lane is an American, and is likely not to be an expert in historic British cuisine names.

Here is a cook book that explicitly sizes fairy cakes http://books.google.ca/books?id=QogJdUsoUbQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=fairy+cakes&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Jdu9UMzqHYWfiALesIAg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=fairy%20&f=false as using a mixture for a 6 x 6 inch cake divided into fifteen Another here http://books.google.ca/books?id=V3f_zJVoOMsC&pg=RA1-PT60&lpg=RA1-PT56&dq=fairy+cakes#v=onepage&q&f=false with pictures clearly showing the size.. I could go on. Authors of cookbooks do not have to reference things in an academic way and one can search them to justify both arguments. The last reference which you deleted on the cupcake page is from the British Food Trust, a far more respected source than any cookbook. They are the guardians of traditional British cooking and recipes as well as their project to catalogue these recipes gathered from traditional and historic sources (Great British Kitchen)- here is the link http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipebook/index.php?option=com_rapidrecipe&page=viewrecipe&recipe_id=444 The weights used for 18 Fairy cakes (i have made this recipe) as well as the pictures show the size of the Fairy cake quite clearly due to the cherry on top.

I am not stating that they are totally different as you have argued that i have, but feel it is fit to state within the Cupcake page that they are a Variant of the cupcake which is where the entry was located, not a separate page, at least as pertinent/valid as "cake in a mug" "Gourmet cupcake" or the fairly irrelevant "cake ball" that manages its own page as well as being a variant of a cupcake. I would appreciate that with these references especially from the British Food Trust if you could let my small addition remain in the article. Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firebuild (talk • contribs) 11:48, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The picture at the Great British Kitchens site looks like normal cupcake size to me.

If you'll look on the article's talk page, you'll see that I have provided sources (specialized dictionaries on the differences between American and British English, not cookbooks that you have to guess about the sizes) that directly and explicitly say that a fairy cake is the UK term for a cupcake. Given that the best sources say they're the same, we can't really use your personal interpretation of the recipes to contradict them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not guessing sizes, You are guessing from a bunch of un referenced cookbooks, i was merely quoting others here to make a point that cookbooks are not references in themselves and can support anything. Just because an author writes it it in a book doesn't make it an absolute. These are not academic studies. I feel that entries like this where entries are specifically not from the US seem to be arbitrated by by people googling the internet for all their information. I have cited a blog of a renowned British food historian Ivan Day. This is not a blog of a random person on the internet. He is a published writer on historic recipes and broadcaster on BBC2 as well as a lecturer on the subject with the Open University. I feel that you do not like having articles that you have contributed to heavily questioned in any way. Th spirit of Wikipedia is of contributions from around the world not a US centric viewpoint. The Recipe from The British food Trust is not guesswork it is specific in its sizing as per the core ingredients (18 cakes from 110 grams of flour) Short of them giving the dimensions of each Fairy cake it is plain for anyone to see.

Just because you have no experience of traditional British food does not mean they don't exist and you can't just ignore references because some American cookbooks don't agree, it is unfair on other Anglophone cultures to only see things from that point of view. Wikipedia is by all for all, not a pet project of a few who stand as self appointed arbiters (Firebuild) —Preceding undated comment added 21:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, help me out here. Here's my source:

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. 2008-05. ISBN 9783125179882. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Now, which part of Cambridge University Press says "American cookbook" to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Your sources previously where cookbooks! I guess even though I can quote sources that mean that Fairy cakes can be smaller (i.e. a variant) I will lose. A cupcake is the size of a cup (according to the Wiki article) a fairy cake does not necessarily conform to this sizing. But as this (English Language Wikipedia) is primarily run by American editors the rest of us will have to shrug it off, and let a major knowledge base be inconsistent at best and inaccurate at worst, after all no University paper or academic study is allowed to quote it as a reliable source. Firebuild 14:24, 17 December 2012 (PST)

Which part of Cambridge University Press says "American editors" to you?

Really, it's not just an American conspiracy. If you wanted to improve the article, you might go look up the actual size of a typical UK fairy cake/cupcake, as measured in centimeters, and add that, rather than just asserting that you somehow know that it's smaller.

A cupcake derives its name from being baked in cups, so it is the size of a cup. However, there are many sizes of cups. When I was a little girl, I had cups for my dolls that my finger tip wouldn't even fit inside now. My kitchen currently contains "cups" that range from 2 ounces to 2 liters. Even tea cups intended for adults come in different sizes. I have tea cups now that are much larger than standard-size cupcakes, some that are about the same size, and demitasse cups that are much smaller. So, yes, your (allegedly) small fairy cake is still the size of a cup. In fact, no matter what size it is, it is probably the size of at least one cup in my own kitchen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Links to Recipes

Hi,

You recently reverted an edit where I added an external link to a recipe. Based on the comments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recipes_proposal and the numerous other well maintained pages that have links to recipes such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_pizza it would appear to me that it is appropriate.

Please review and let me know your thoughts.

Thank you

Jasonbook99 (talk) 03:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles do not normally contain links to recipes, and especially not to minor variants. So we might sometimes choose to link to "101 Muffin Recipes", but never to just one recipe for one non-standard version.

Also, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:ELCOI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Article importance question

I have been told by another editor here that we no longer use Category:Wikipedia articles by importance category tree for any Wikiprojects, and that my adding importance ratings is "strange" (in combination with judgement calls on importance that are questioned by them). I cannot find a policy page anywhere that says we have officially abandoned the importance rating. i note you commented here, with an answer which seems to support continued use of this parameter. Do you know whether i should abandon my efforts to keep the Wikipedia:WikiProject California/San Francisco Bay Area task force assessments free of Category:Unknown-importance San Francisco Bay Area articles? I dont want to be disruptive, but i just finished coding over 1000 articles with an importance rating, and i hate to think i just wasted all that time just cause i didnt get the memo.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:45, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

That message means that you should not have changed the WikiProject Film template ({{Film|American-task-force=yes|class=Start}}) to include the |importance=low parameter. That message says nothing about WikiProject California or any other WikiProject. Importance (also called priority) ratings are optional. If a given WikiProject doesn't want to use it, then it should be omitted on that WikiProject's banner. Also, it's important to remember that what's important to WikiProject #1 might be unimportant to WikiProject #2, and vice versa, so the importance rating is frequently different for all the WikiProjects on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. i thought this might be the case, but its reassuring to hear it from someone who can state it as categorically true. My intent now is to not add modifiers to Wikiproject templates before checking to see what the guidelines are for that project. I may assume that C, Start and Stub are used, of course, but priority may not. If i have any doubts, but i do think an article belongs to a given project, ill just use the plain template.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Some groups don't use C-class, and MILHIST doesn't use List-class. BIO doesn't use "importance", because it sounds insulting to say a person is low-importance. (They use priority.) Most use all the normal things, though. Do your best, and remember that if anyone complains, it's easy to fix it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we are requesting your participation to help find a resolution. The thread is ""Breast Cancer Awareness" article and talk page".

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If you wish to open a DR/N filing, click the "Request dispute resolution" button below this guide or go to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/request for an easy to follow, step by step request form.

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It is an early step to resolve content disputes after talk page discussions have stalled. If it's something we can't help you with, or is too complex to resolve here, our volunteers will point you in the right direction.

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If you ever need any help, ask one of our volunteers, who will help you as best as they can. You may also wish to read through the FAQ page located here and on the DR/N talkpage.

Please take a moment to review the simple guide and join the discussion. Thank you! EarwigBot ^{operator / talk} 20:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Please do not reinstantiate removed personal attacks.

Any user has right to remove the content of this kind, especially if added from the single purpose account. First, it is not possible to judge who is right and who is wrong without proper analysis of the history. Second, ad hominem would not be appropriate argument in any discussion anyway. Finally we kind of agreed that this history has nothing to do with the essay. Hence its analysis probably should not be done it the talk page of the essay. I have nothing against to discuss it in details somewhere else if you really see necessary. Audriusa (talk) 10:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

IMO it's not a personal attack. Here's what he wrote:

I assure you it is exactly the same in Lithuanian wikipedia. Mr. Audriusa knows it first hand since he recently dramatically left Lithuanian Wikipedia (banning himself, no less) over a small disagreement. Since then he started to truncate this article aggressively, removing everything that he disagrees with or anything that "he does not understand"

Now, let's review the text you removed.

Tell me, what is a 'personal attack' about "it is exactly the same in Lithuanian wikipedia"?
How about "he recently dramatically left Lithuanian Wikipedia"? Is that a 'personal attack' in your mind?
Don't you think that "he started to truncate this article aggressively" is a reasonable description of your major blanking at that page?
Then you deleted a section with an edit summary of "I do not understand this chapter at all". Don't you think that "removing...anything that "he does not understand"" is a fair description of your decision to remove an entire section because you did not understand it at all?

You have plainly removed acceptable text and falsely accused another editor of personal attacks. I strongly suggest that you restore that text ASAP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, keep, I do not see this as a serious issue and we both probably have no time for it. I am way more interested in algae. Let's do something more useful for the project instead of flaming on that old SPA message, seems restored already as you prefer. Audriusa (talk) 20:22, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing

Hi. If this interests you, your thoughts would be welcome: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#How do we determine which paleontology theories to report? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know much about the subject, and I don't have a lot of time. I haven't been able to look into RSN or even ELN for a couple of weeks now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Casliber is looking at it and he's got a bit of taxonomy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at KakCheshtha's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Edit draft RFC just before publication.

I am a little disappointed that you modified the RFC draft just before you published it. No doubt you thought the changes were not substantive. But, as you may note from my edits, I thought a couple of them could alter the responses. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I have no objection to your changes, although if people do want to take a neutral point of view, we really are going to have to figure out what to say on that guideline. I'm not too worried about it, because I don't really think that's the likely outcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

ANEW

Please review my final comment at WP:ANEW and consider it a cautionary warning for the future. Whatever you do, please do not edit the topic; as you can see, it is closed. However, if you wish to respond to what I said or, within reason, to what Charles said, you can do so here, and I will respond if appropriate. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that you need to explain to Charles the difference between reverting multiple things and reverting the same thing multiple times. We're not likely to see him figure out this distinction on his own. He says that I reverted his changes three times in three minutes, which is true, but they involved removing three separate errors (including basic grammar errors) that he introduced into three separate sections. I could have done it all in a single click, except that would have limited my ability to use the edit summary to explain the problems. By contrast, his reversions are the same disputed sentences over and over (and then talk-page assertions that if he's not reverted promptly, then that proves everyone agrees with him). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you should focus on your conduct, not on Charles's (just as I think Charles should focus on his conduct). Ths issue is not what Charles said, but what I concluded, which is that you were indeed edit-warring on the article, that you could have been blocked for doing so, and that you need to exercise more care in the future.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:28, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I had thought you were interested in helping an inexperienced editor learn how Wikipedia works so that he would neither end up at ANEW again nor file false claims that using three edits to remove three unrelated problems once constitutes 3RR. My mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Not to but in here but, have you had a look at WP:3RR lately? I was surprised to see my understanding of the policy appeared to be different from what I remembered. It is no longer "reverting the same change", it is now "undoing any change by another editor". When did that happen? I was surprised.

I still don't think Charles understands that it's still a revert even if he really wants it, and if two different editors revert the same edit it's more serious than just one (i.e. there is still, in my opinion, an editor conduct and comprehension problem) but the 3RR is now unfamiliar to me. Just noticed this today. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks like that policy has changed dramatically, but it still says that "A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert." Charles was complaining about a series of three back-to-back reversions, which still don't count, even under the newly expansive policy there.

And we still have the problem that if his (strongly contested, as the talk page proves) changes aren't promptly reverted, then he believes that restraint is proof that everyone agrees with him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing. It strikes me odd that of all the things I said, you took the part where you made 3 reverts in 3 minutes to be the crux of my argument. That was one very, very minor detail. The main point was the 6 reverts that you made the day I was "restricted". Yes, 3 of those reverts were of other sentences, but 3 were also of the same sentence. And those 3 were reverts of my edits. Since I reverted 2 of your edits, and you reverted 3 of mine, and since edit warring does not require the 3RR rule, it is not farfetched to say that you were edit warring just as much as I was. However, since 3 is indeed > 2... whatever.

Anyway, I'm getting mad sick of the condescending way you talk about me. And there's in reality no need for it. Since the overwhelming majority of my argument had almost nothing to do with your "3 reverts in 3 minutes", the fact that I didn't understand that rule is really not all that relevant. Yet you still act like it "makes or breaks" the case. This is what annoys me. It's a way of shining the light onto someone else without facing up to the real problems. Not to mention it isn't all that polite. Stop referring to me as an "inexperienced editor". I don't like it. If you want to help me, I'm not interested. However, I doubt that's why you keep saying "inexperienced". Either way, please drop it. More likely though, I think this is a way of shifting the conversation to "oh, Charles, you need to understand this rule that you already know yet we don't think you do because you've never pointlessly taken the time to recite to us". Not only does the light shine elsewhere, but the actual substance of the arguments (ie the BCA stuff, not this trivial wikidrama) gets lost in the confusion.

and then talk-page assertions that if he's not reverted promptly, then that proves everyone agrees with him - not once have I ever assumed that you've agreed with me, at least that I know of. Maybe it came off that way, but honestly, if I were to ever assume that, I wouldn't say anything more, so I doubt you've actually never seen a comment of mine where I suggest that. If you have, please show me an example.

See your comments at DRN as one example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, if you're talking about the comment under section "Resolution" - Okay so since no one has anything to say, I guess we should go ahead with deleting inner circle as undue weight and changing alcohol to linked to???? - Yeah, I guess my tone didn't come across through the internet. I was basically saying that as a way to get people to say something. I didn't actually think that. Notice the 4 question marks at the end... Charles35 (talk) 05:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

WLU, let's get serious with - I still don't think Charles understands that it's still a revert even if he really wants it. What in the world are you talking about? I've never thought that anything "isn't a revert" if it is in fact a revert. Reverts are reverts are reverts. What I have thought is that you can revert if you aren't blatantly edit warring (my idea of "warring" was somewhat off) as long as it's part of the BRD cycle. I thought that because I've watched certain individuals do this for the past month and a half. So as Bbb23 would put it, my understanding of the spirit of the law was off. Either way, I'm sorry. I get it now. The spirit does not trump the letter, ever. I don't get why you think I've ever made a revert because "I really want to". I always give thorough justifications on the talk page and edit summaries. Often, I don't see any justifications from you, which are the times I usually revert. Sometimes, however, I have missed some things you have said. My bad. It's a huge talk page and stuff does tend to get swallowed up in the drama.

Edits WLU has made based entirely on preference with no justifications:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=527364252&oldid=527312026

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=527216154&oldid=527195500

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=525688035&oldid=525666776

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=524795377&oldid=524753072

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=524664638&oldid=524653949 (he doesn't need to give reasons or to convince anyone. its we that have to convince him)

It's much more apparent on the talk page:

I prefer the quote, as I've said. I do not think it is undue weight, I think it is, as I have said, illustrative and evocative. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the inclusion of three specific examples by three individuals is bad writing and I don't think the quote really helps the page. I may remove. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The idea is there, I don't see the quote as enhancing it and I don't want to play horse trading over quotes. I'll see if it grows on me. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Charles35 (talk) 04:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Your edits to Help:Infobox

In this edit, you provided the summary "Images requested per feedback by people who don't know what this page is about".

Do you have a wikilink to the feedback that you mention?
You only moved one image—are there supposed to be more? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 10:52, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Special:ArticleFeedbackv5/Help:Infobox/651919
I'm hoping that one will be enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I still have to ask: Why must the infobox example image displace the longstanding navigation box at the top of the help page? There's nothing in the article feedback that would lead me to believe that the original commenter suggested that, and even if he or she had, I don't believe it would have been feedback that should be blindly followed. Help:Infobox now looks more like an article on the Norwegian Elkhound than it does a help page on infoboxes. Why did you not place it further down in the article, say near text that describes what an infobox contains, and call it out as an example? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 00:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Images are normally placed at the top of the lead, so that's what I did. But if you want to move it lower in the article, then that's okay with me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

People seem to be editing past each other here. The image that was readded is of an ancient revision of {{infobox dog breed}} and is likely to confuse readers because it doesn't look anything like what's presently shown in that article. After I updated that image, DanielPenfield moved it down the page and that seems to have resulted in the old image being reinstated due to the new one being missed. I really don't think there's a compelling reason to have the sidebar at the top: typically, sidebars go below initial images and infoboxes, as they are not directly relevant to the page the reader is on. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Continued at Help talk:Infobox#Is this a help page or an article about Norwegian dogs? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Hand-coding

Hey all :).

I'm dropping you a note because you've been involved in dealing with feedback from the Article Feedback Tool. To get a better handle on the overall quality of comments now that the tool has become a more established part of the reader experience, we're undertaking a round of hand coding - basically, taking a sample of feedback and marking each piece as inappropriate, helpful, so on - and would like anyone interested in improving the tool to participate :).

You can code as many or as few pieces of feedback as you want: this page should explain how to use the system, and there is a demo here. Once you're comfortable with the task, just drop me an email at okeyeswikimedia.org and I'll set you up with an account :).

If you'd like to chat with us about the research, or want live tutoring on the software, there will be an office hours session on Monday 17 December at 23:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office ^connect. Hope to see some of you there! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

my personal opinion

WhatamIdoing. Stop commenting on my personal opinion. My personal opinion is that BCA is getting out of hand, a bit ridiculous, and that people are BCA-ing for the sake of BCA-ing and losing sight of the actual purpose of BCA-ing. That's my personal opinion. Understand? The sources cited in the article agree with my personal opinion (and then some). Other sources might or might not agree. I don't know. But either way, we will cite them.

They will often misrepresent others or other discussions in an attempt to incriminate or belittle others opinions. They will attempt to label others or otherwise discredit their opinion based on that person's associations rather than the core of their argument.

Charles35 (talk) 01:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

When you start reading and following the sources and stop editing the article based on your personal beliefs, then I'll be very happy to stop reminding you to follow the sources instead of your personal opinions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I only make edits that are with reference to the sources, so I don't really understand what you mean by that. Charles35 (talk) 06:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I mean that you aren't reading the sources. Reading, as in getting the books (not just a limited online preview), picking up the books one by one, starting at the first page, and reading one page after another until you come to the end of the book, for the purpose of finding out what the authors have to say about the subject in toto, not for the purpose of judging the authors or the Wikipedia article.

You are instead reading the Wikipedia article, and whenever you come to a sentence that you personally believe is "wrong" or "biased", you search a couple of pages in one source and decide whether every single word of that individual sentence is unquestionably supported solely by the precise pages listed after that sentence, given strong desire to find a reason to change the sentence to what he thought previously (before he even knew that Wikipedia had an article on this subject) was reality, even if this means what employing what other people will think is either deliberate obtuseness or surprisingly poor reading comprehension skills in interpreting the text (e.g., insisting that information about how society wants the ideal patient to behave is irrelevant to the she-ro, a term defined as society's ideal patient), and making very sure to conveniently "forget" all facts that he dislikes but couldn't remove from earlier parts of the article because when they were previously discussed, he discovered that they were, in fact, amply supported by the sources (e.g., trying to suppress the fact that the culture promotes the fear of breast cancer).

Again: you need to read the sources. With an open mind. Without imposing your beliefs on them. Simply seeing what they have to say. While believing that what the experts on our culture's response to breast cancer have to say is far, far, far more important than what you (or I) believe about our culture's response to breast cancer. I learned a lot by taking that approach. The article does not reflect what I "just happened to know" about breast cancer. What I wrote reflects the sources, not me. You can learn enough to do the same, too. But you have to actually get the sources and read them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You're just wrong. I don't know what makes you think I don't own the book. I didn't read all that though, so that's all I'm gonna say. I never look for exact wording. What I do try to eradicate is material that uses the ideas in the source but then adds its own personal spin or original ideas, which I have found running rampant in the article. That said, there have been plenty of times where I have let unsourced or poorly sourced material slide. I'm not that unreasonable. If it's something that I think might be somewhat contentious but isn't that big of a deal or is something that I know is true regardless of whether or not it's "in the source", I won't object to it. If I do, my bad. Just let me know. If you were to tell me "hey listen there's no reason to make a big deal out of this. use some common sense," then chances are I will agree. I don't mind if you keep me honest. But when you say "stop searching for the word shero" or "if you would just get the book, then..." then I won't respond very well. And if you do tell me your alternative perspective, and I still disagree, I'm not trying to be frivolous or tendentious (so please AGF). I mainly have little to no personal beliefs about the material going in. I do have personal beliefs about how encyclopedias should be written, but I don't feel particularly biased either way about BCA (in fact, if anything, I probably agree with you). Charles35 (talk) 17:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

On second thought - you really need to assume good faith. I didn't "conveniently forget" anything. You pointed out the thing about BSEs, and I got rid of the tag. What's the big deal? I don't dislike that fact. I feel pretty indifferent about it. And with the fear/hope/goodness (FHG) thing, that was one of several issues that was in fact supported by the source. I guess I got a little bit ahead of myself because I checked the citation from maybe the 3rd or 4th mention of FHG in the article. I believe it was in shero section, which is where I started checking the source, so I didn't consider (or even know about) the FHG citation from earlier in the article. My bad! Jeez you gotta relax. Charles35 (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Where books are concerned, "reading" and "owning" are famously unrelated concepts. You need to read these books, not just skim over selected pages in an effort to debunk material that you believe is contentious. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

How do you know I'm not reading it? Charles35 (talk) 23:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You might have started, for all I know. However, you haven't finished it, because if you had gotten very far into it, then you wouldn't be making these erroneous claims about the material in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think they're erroneous but whatever we aren't going to get anywhere just going back and forth like this. I want to ask you a legit question. No stupid wikidrama, just a plain and simple question. I don't want to incite any reactions so please know that is not my intention. I want to ask you about the citations. I still don't understand your view. Why don't you want to use footnotes? I seriously do not know what the reason is. Can you tell me? I respect the fact that you don't want them, and I just want to understand why. I may very well agree with you, who knows? Charles35 (talk) 02:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The main reason is that it makes clear to the reader (whether the reader wants to know this or not) how much of the material is cited to Sulik's book. It's not that the material is unique to Sulik (as you read the book, you'll see how much of "her" ideas are credited to other people, and of course half the article is sourced to ten or twelve other sources), but I think the reader should know where I got the material.

There are other reasons: WP:HARVARD is the citation method preferred by the most relevant academic fields. In science articles, I use scientific citation styles (if I'm the person picking the citation style); in sociology articles, I use sociology citation styles. Anybody can figure out how to cite something in with parenthetical citations, without knowing anything at all about Mediawiki's complicated formatting systems, so it's accessible to new editors. Compared to ref tags, parenthetical citations more clearly tells the reader that there are only about a dozen sources being cited (and most of them only two or three times). There are almost a hundred separate citations in the article, and very few are identical. If we switch to numbered footnotes, the average reader is going to believe that we've cited 50 different sources, rather than fifty different sets of pages from the same book. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to WikiProject Brands

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You are invited to join WikiProject Brands, a WikiProject and resource dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of brands and brand-related topics. To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000^(talk) 12:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas5}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thanks. Christmas-related things in the real-world are keeping me mostly away from Wikipedia this week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Hyperphoria

Hi By the time I saw your note, the page had already been deleted. You had rightly pointed out that the text had directly been copied from the referenced source. But, I would have soon worked upon it to improve it and to add information to it so that the page could have looked a lot different. I do not understand why the topic needed to be speedily deleted. I insist that the page be recreated. Other members may be requested to contribute to the page. Diptanshu^Talk 15:57, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

When an entire page is directly copied from a source, it must be deleted according to Wikipedia's legal policies about copyright violations. (If you have copied directly from other sources, and you don't want this to happen to other pages you've worked on, then I suggest that you clean up your other copyright violations ASAP.)

You may create a new article on that subject whenever you want, so long as there are no copyright violations at all in the new version of the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at User talk:Drmies#neutrality

You are invited to join the discussion at User talk:Drmies#neutrality. Would Breast cancer awareness benefit from the addition of Klawiter 2008? Senra (talk) 11:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources/FAQ

Hello: Last year you created this FAQ page, which I find quite helpful. But it seems buried in the RS archives. This makes me wonder -- what is it for? It's not listed as guidance or as an essay. Can I cite it with any authority? I raise the question because I've seen editors waive the "US Government stuff is WP:SPS" bloody shirt as justification for removing USG produced citations. The USG as RS topic has popped up in the archives and I see it listed on the RS index. But what confounds me is why doesn't guidance come out and say USG stuff is RS. As you produced such a wonderful, marvelous, stupendous FAQ page, I figure you can help. (I'll look for your answer here.) Thanks. --S. Rich (talk) 02:39, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been off wiki for most of this week. You can cite the FAQ, although it's not an "official" guideline. It appears at the top of WT:RS and WT:V.

Wikipedia has a... unique definition for SPS. Government websites do not fall under the wikidefinition of self-publishing. It's possible that the half-finished WP:USINGSPS page would be helpful to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Duh! I always appreciate being shown what is right under my eyes!! Most helpful. Many thanks. Many, many thanks.--S. Rich (talk) 01:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a happy new year

A bit late, sorry. Thank you for your wisdom and oversight of this place - its policy and content - over the last year. Have a wonderful 2013. (A little something for you ) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)