/Archive 1

An article that you have been involved in editing, Nightingale Research Foundation, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nightingale Research Foundation. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 15:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi RetroS1mone, I started editing Lyme Disease in the 10 minutes between your article edit and your talk page edit, so I did not see your talk page edit, otherwise I would have responded to it before making my change. Personally, I try to commit talk page & main page edits almost simultaneously, a habit I got into on high-traffic, contentious pages I've worked on in the past. In any case, I'm happy that we're making progress on the article, and I hope you agree it's looking better, too. I don't have any time right now to look at your most recent edits, but will certainly take a look later. Pro crast in a tor (talk) 06:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to email you a document. Could you either activate your email facility or send me a message that I can respond to? JFW | T@lk 18:39, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thank you, I put on my email!! RetroS1mone talk 00:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, RetroS1mone. You have new messages at Jock Boy's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I made a few changes to Allen Steere's biography page. My own opinion is that the original form was rather slanted towards being something of a hagiography of Steere, and I was trying to make it more neural. It is important to mention the Blumenthal controversy as this is certainly an event which had media coverage in relation to Steere's life and views, and I am sure that those around him would regard it as a significant event. Is it permissible to mentiontion the Blumenthal report on the Steere biography page?

Hi. Please do not delete other peoples' posts from Talk Pages, as you did here. The entire point of such pages is for editors to discuss ways to improve the article, and this sometimes includes discussing the points on which they disagree. If you feel that 80.237.191.141's assertions were false, then the proper thing to do is to ask him/her for sources to support them, or provide sources yourself that supports the opposite, or both, as User:Verbal did subsequent to 80.237.191.141's post. "Libel" is a legal term that is adjudicated between the person making the statement and the person about whom they've spoken. We do not possess the legal authority to make this determination, nor delete posts for that reason. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 06:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is a violation of WP:TALK though, and the WP:BLP policy. Verbal chat 06:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK Nightscream "potential libel" there is a tag at top of Robert Gallo talk page, it says unsourced or poorly sourced potentially libellous material will be removed, also true for other times wp:blp is coming up. That section from ip should be blanked, wp:talk and wp:blp and also wp:soapbox. Take a sec and read those policies pls. Thx, RetroS1mone talk 16:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The banner at the top of that page refers indeed to that article: The Robert Gallo article. That's an article, and a BLP one. It does not, however, pertain to Talk Pages. Talk: AIDS denialism is neither a BLP nor an article. Beyond this, I'm not sure what you mean by "other times WP:BLP comes up" or "section from ip", or the rest of that section. I assure you I am familiar with the relevant policies. Thanks. :-) User:Nightscream 03:28, 6 November 2008

WP:BLP says in the lead "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space." That is what I did. RetroS1mone wtalk 02:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion in which the poster and dissenter present evidence/arguments and counterarguments regarding whether material is reliably sourced is the proper way to respond to contentious material, and not censorshop or re-editing of another editor's posts. How else is a determination made of a source's reliability? Does one editor get to make that call unilaterally, with all other editors not allowed to review the matter so that they can discuss it as part of WP:Consensus? Who gets to make that call? If the topic of the article is AIDS denialism (and not Robert Gallo), and that article must present, among other things, the views of the most prominent denialists, then how can we simply delete a post if that editor is pointing to a book that contains denialist assertions? Indeed, look at all those posts that followed the (now-deleted) post by that anonymous editor, in which they refute his/her post. How can you have the refutation if you don't have the original post that it's made in response to? How are readers supposed to understand the context of that discussion? Wikipedia, after all is not censored, and WP:Censor states that "content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed." To my knowledge, the post in question was not so judged, in Florida, or elsewhere.

As for your statement: "Pls don't make accusings of people until you read policies" Putting aside the fact that I don't know what you mean by "Pl", and I'm not sure why you use the word "accusings", you really should not presume to accuse others of not reading policies. It's one thing to point out policies; it's another thing to sarcastically imply that others are not familiar with them, as it may be seen as a violation of WP:Civility. You might also want to check out WP:CENSOR and WP:Ignore all rules, since those also apply. Emphasizing one policy to the exclusion of all others, and acting on that policy without discussion, and accusing other editors of not being familiar with policies because you get into a conflict with them, isn't exactly civil.

As far as signatures, everyone at one point or another may forget to sign their posts, and while placing a template message to that effect is not a bad idea for new or unregistered users, it really isn't necessary to so for an admin who's been editing for almost four years if they neglected to do so in one instance. I've been told that using template messages in this manner can be seen by some as uncivil. It's one thing to admonish such people if it's habitual; it's not necessary for one isolated instance, which you didn't even bother to identify for me. (Where was the unsigned post?) Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 03:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You just said in your unsigned comment up there, poorly sourced remarks about Robert Gallo are only blp violation on a biography article. That is not what blp says, so you were not familiar with what blp says, I was not being sarcastic I was observing. Blp it applies on namespace, talk, user, everything. You can't say, Robert Gallo forged notebooks, Gallo is a fraud, that is not valid discussion of article, that is blp violation. You can't say that stuff and use a self published book or personal website as your source like the ip adress there did. BLP says that stuff gets deleted right away w/o explanation. I don't care if you are here four years or four minutes, blp is not some minor thing to wikilawyer about. I see a violation, I delete it. That is not censorship, just like wp:censor says. When you delete blp that is not censorship. Thats all i am saying i am sorry when you disagree with policy RetroS1mone talk 04:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"That is not what blp says, so you were not familiar with what blp says." Not knowing every single line of every single policy page is not the same thing as not being familiar with a policy. Can you recite every line of every policy and guideline from memory? Dismissing another editor in this manner because they do not have every WP page memorized word for word by claiming that this somehow means that they do not know policy is not civil. I concede that I missed that portion of the policy, as prescribing removing such material from Talk Pages presents some problems, for which I've started a discussion on Jimbo Wales' Talk Page.

"You can't say, Robert Gallo forged notebooks, Gallo is a fraud, that is not valid discussion of article, that is blp violation." BLP refers to an article that is a Biography of a Living Person. AIDS denialism is not a biography of a living person. It is, however, a controversial topic, and it is not appropriate for one editor to declare unilaterally what is "valid" or "not valid" if there is room for discussion. Do you plan on removing everyone else's posts in that thread in which they responded to User: 80.237.191.141? If not, then how does that thread make sense without the context of the original post they were responding to? How will future readers make sense of that thread?

"That is not censorship, just like wp:censor says." As I pointed out to you, WP:Censor does not say that one editor can unilaterally make a declaration of libel, which was your original assertion in your Edit Summary. That requires a legal determination, which WP:Censor touches upon this when it mentions that such material that violates Florida law.

"Thats all i am saying i am sorry when you disagree with policy" Please do not presume that anything and everything you do as an editor is the one and only proper fulfillment of Wikipedia policy, and that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow "disagreeing with policy". The truth is that policy, and the proper interpretation of it, is something that editors disagree about all the time, and such disagreements must be resolved using the proper procedures. It is my position that deleting someone's post as you did is 'not appropriate, and is itself a violation of policy. You disagree, and I understand that. That means a determination must be made, if not for this particular situation, then certainly for a future one. It does not mean, that one editor can dogmatically declare that he is right, the other one is wrong, and that will be the end of it. Acting in this way is not in keeping with the spirit of collaboration and consensus.

"You did not sign your comment at my talk page where you said you were familiar with blp policy but you said it only was for actual article namespace of biographies. I am sorry I did not look at how long you are contribuing I was giving you a frinedly reminder." Sorry about that. And thank you. I've now fixed it. :-)

"Pls do not accuse me of incivility as you have now done a few times in last post." The issue is whether certain behavior is perceived to be incivil. If it is, then it is reasonable to warn editors of that. Speaking as if anyone who does not share your interpretation of policy doesn't "know" it is not civil. That the material in question is a BLP violation is your opinion, and remains a matter to be discussed. Nightscream (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nightscream I am very sorry when you think I am incivil I am not trying to be. I was thinking you did not know blp because the part about applying on articles, talk page etc is at the top and it is repeated later. Now I know you know more about policies then I do and I did not know how long your contributing and I did not know you are administrator. I apologize i was not trying to be incivil, please forgive me for that.

A person says, "Nightscream is a fraud and forged documents" and gives a personal website, my interpretation of blp is, that should get deleted and we can ask questions later like is the webcite a reliable source. May be I am wrong I responded at Jimbo talk page and I will learn from what he says.

Thank you for the advise, I will try to worry more about how my sayings are percieved by other people and try not to be incivil. Thank you RetroS1mone talk 05:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the deleted material, you did not establish that the material was "libelous" or "potentially libelous", nor that any personal website was cited in that post. The only url I see in that post is a dead link, but the user also cited a book and an interview, and there is no obvious clue that they were self-published. If it was libelous, then it should've been determined to be libelous. In citing those sources, that user met the burden of proof, at least apparently. If another user sees that those sources were self-published, then the burden then falls to that other user to point this out, and give at least a cursory explanation as to how they know this. Merely saying it's libelous in an edit summary doesn't do this. If it were, then I could theoretically delete all of your posts by merely claiming libel in my Edit Summaries, without elaborating further right? :-)

As for your admonishment regarding Jimbo's Talk Page, well, if you feel this way, then why have you continued to speak there yourself?

As far as the incivility thing, I was going to respond by saying, "Don't sweat it; water under the bridge", but while composing this post, I see that you couldn't resist editing your own post by adding yet another personal accusation, this time about my being "tendentious", and about "how I look", etc. You could've kept it civil by leaving your post the way it was, but I now see that it's pointless to keep going over this point with you, and will not continue this dialogue with you. Take care. Nightscream (talk) 01:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - thanks for your message. I am not very familiar with the dispute, and I have declined to take sides in it. I do encourage everyone involved to engage in discussion on the talk page of the article. Please note that I have fully protected the article, which is currently only editable by administrators, so anonymous users are at no disadvantage here. Warofdreams talk 03:04, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(reply to retro) I'm well aware of 3RR and haven't broken it so kindly lay off the false accusations. Per the guidelines, terrorist can be mentioned provided it is sourced and attributed - this is in accordance with numerous wikipedia policies including Consensus, NPOV and RS. The only people changing to terrorist are a series of IPs who may well be the same person. The lead is already in accordance with those policies although I'm open to a change from "armed" to whatever you suggest. Valenciano (talk) 06:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the message. Despite the tone of previous messages I think we largely agree on the article - we just approach it from different angles. I hope no offence was taken and you'll continue to give input there. Regards, Valenciano (talk) 00:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at your email one of these days... just a bit o' information for you. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]