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Thanks,

Are you open to collaborating with me to improve the following article: Peter_Wilmshurst? Atsme^📞📧 22:49, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure! I'm unfamiliar with him so I'll need to do some research, but I'd be happy to work with you to improve the article. Just one thing: if we disagree on something, can we both agree to try to see where the other is coming from and to work to find some way forward? Ca2james (talk) 16:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would have been agreeable and was actually looking forward to such a collaboration but your behavior on Kombucha has given me a change of heart. Can't say I didn't try. And please spare me the BS about over and over and over because it works both ways. I wouldn't have to repeat myself if others would simply WP:HEAR. Atsme^📞📧 14:10, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed the statements you made at Kombucha several times but you continue dismiss my explanations as if I'd said nothing; instead of refuting mine or others' responses, you keep repeating your statrements (which is pretty much the definition of WP:IDHT). I asked above that we agree to try to see each other's viewpoints when we disagree, and since it appears that you're unwilling to do that, I'm not open to working with you on Peter Wilmshurst. Good luck with the article. Ca2james (talk) 16:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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I suggest picking an article and starting on that. I'm starting on List of oldest living people as I imagine that would be the center of the firestorm (pending cases must be removed and merging the "other cases" with other reliable sources that aren't verified by the GRG is everything at once). Most of those editors won't care about what RSN or anything here says and I suspect this won't be resolved until we go back to ARBCOM and get serious procedures to work with, and the ability to sanction with teeth as every discussion and report at ANI and other places ends up a madhouse of arguments about how amazing the GRG is. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:34, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ricky8168, thanks for making those changes. I've reverted one of the editors who reverted your changes and will keep an eye on the page. I'd like to avoid a fight on this issue but sadly, I don't think that's going to happen. I wish ArbCom hadn't rescinded the discretionary sanctions in this project area. I'm going to start work on List of supercentenarians who died in 2015. Ca2james (talk) 01:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted. Admins agree that you're wrong — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.171.121.17 (talk) 19:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

James,

I feel that a more organised discussion about the issues surrounding the WOP project and the solutions to them is needed. Currently it's a manic free-for-all which has lead to edit-warring and people being potentially topic banned. I also feel the need to clear up a few misconceptions that other editors have about the goal that I and others have when it comes to editing these articles. I'm not pro-GRG, I'm pro-age validation. There's a difference. I think it's important that a scientific subject is treated with a high level of consideration for factual accuracy. Some of the current proposals - such as to create lists of the oldest people with a mixture of verified and unverified cases - is like mixing information about evolution and creationism.

I understand that your viewpoints are different, so I think the best thing is to try and form compromises which are in-line with Wiki policy. For example, I think List of oldest living people, as it currently is, is fine even if the "pending" and "unverified" cases are mixed because then it's at least clear to the reader that "these cases are considered genuine by a major international body" and "these cases are only claims and have not been verified". I don't think that's much to ask.

I'm also going to propose that we remove some rather unnecessary list articles like List of supercentenarians who died in 2015 and trim down certain other lists to "top 100 oldest" or whatever.

In the meantime, I think everyone should take a brief "cool down period" and resume discussing these issues in a more organised manner.

--Ollie231213 (talk) 00:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ollie231213, did you really just say that mixing GRG-verified and GRG-unverified cases in a table is the same as mixing creationism and evolution? Seriously? I think you have an inflated view of the GRG and its place in this world. Mixing verified and unverified (which includes what the GRG calls "pending") is totally appropriate because these are lists of the oldest people, and keeping the tables separate makes it difficult for readers to get information out of the tables. If the purpose of these tables was for the GRG to keep track of which entries are verified and which aren't, then it would make sense to keep them separate - but that's not the purpose of these tables.

I'm not seeing a manic free-for-all. However, you're welcome to start new discussions on WT:WOP so that each issue is discussed in the organized manner you desire. I think lists like List of the verified oldest people, List of the verified oldest men, and List of the verified oldest women need to be merged, renamed, or deleted because "verified" is being used in a GRG-specific way (ie as a webhost) and this is not the GRG. Moreover, I suspect that the suite of articles needs to be assessed with a critical eye with a goal towards making them less a reflection of the GRG and its tables and more encyclopaedic.

Finally, pinging Ricky81682 so that he is aware of this discussion. Ca2james (talk) 17:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Ollie231213, did you really just say that mixing GRG-verified and GRG-unverified cases in a table is the same as mixing creationism and evolution?" ---> NO, I DID NOT SAY THAT. I just said "verified and unverified", I made no mention whatsoever of the GRG and in fact made it quite clear as such. The message is not getting through to you: THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE GRG. It's about treating information which is proven to be true as if it's the same thing as information which is not, hence the comparison between evolution/creationism. Tell me: should Methuselah and Jeanne Calment be on the same list? Ask Guinness World Records who the oldest person ever was and they will say that the oldest authenticated age reached by anyone was by Jeanne Calment. If I ask you... well I don't know, tell me? "134 year old" Tuti Yusupova? "160 year old" Dhaqabo Ebba? "256 year old" Li Ching-Yuen?

You need to realise that the GRG isn't the only organisation that keeps databases of verified supercentenarians. The International Database on Longevity (IDL) also does this, and Guinness World Records verify the ages of record holders. Read the IDL's statement on why age validation is important. "Because most reports of reputed supercentenarians are erroneous, age validation is essential to compilation of accurate data."

The real question here is: why do you not seem to care about separating fact from fiction on Wikipedia? Ollie231213 (talk) 19:32, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You said Some of the current proposals - such as to create lists of the oldest people with a mixture of verified and unverified cases - is like mixing information about evolution and creationism. This is the first time you've suggested that anyone but GRG can validate ages. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that you were referring to GRG-verified and GRG-unverified ages.

This brings up a question: if there are other organizations not associated with the GRG that keep track of supercentenarians, why are their databases not referenced in any of the WP:WOP articles? Why do all WP:WOP articles refer only to GRG verified and pending cases and to the GRG itself? Either those organizations aren't considered reliable (which appears to be what the community thinks of Oldest People in Britain, which is associated with the GRG anyways), or this really is all about the GRG.

Either way - whether this is all about the GRG or it's about age validation - there's no reason not to include both validated and not validated entries in these articles, provided the name of the validating organization is included. Moreover, it looks like consensus in the community will be that it's perfectly ok to use family-written obituaries for birth and death dates provided that it's shown that the birth date is unconfirmed.

I care about providing verifiable, reliably-sourced, neutral information in Wikipedia articles, and I put Wikipedia's policies and guidelines first. I would like to think that you and other members of WP:WOP care about and do the same thing. Ca2james (talk) 20:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The GRG just so happens to be the organisation which is most widely recognised. But if another similar organisation establishes itself as a reputable competitor then I have absolutely no quibbles whatsoever with using it as a source on Wikipedia.
• "Either way - whether this is all about the GRG or it's about age validation - there's no reason not to include both validated and not validated entries in these articles, provided the name of the validating organization is included." ---> Well that's a start. All I ask is that for every person listed in these articles it is made clear if any reliable source has verified their age.
• Of course I care about verifiability, reliable sourcing, and neutrality, that's EXACTLY why I'm having these discussions. I want readers to be able to know if the information they are reading is accurate. And I want to make clear that just because a newspaper or obituary reports someone as being age X, it doesn't necessarily mean that the age claim is genuine, hence why I've brought up the discussion at RSN. But I'm getting an incredibly negative response from Ricky who seems to think I'm being disruptive when I'm actually trying to cause as little disruption as possible by having these discussions WITHOUT EDIT WARRING.
• Also, regarding this issue of neutrality, please read WP:VALID, namely this sentence: "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity." Ollie231213 (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So now you're saying that no other group should be included in Wikipedia articles because they're not regarded as highly as the GRG (by ... the GRG?)? Please don't try wikilawyering here. Ca2james (talk) 01:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I DID NOT SAY THAT. All I'm saying is that any source that is used needs to be reliable and reputable, obviously. Now what am I doing that's wikilawyering? Ollie231213 (talk) 12:11, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My summarization was based on your bringing up WP:VALID when the reliability of the GRG and other organizations are under discussion. By saying that the GRG is the only reliable source and pairing that with a statement about excluding minority viewpoints, the message I got was that these minority viewpoints are organizations that are not the GRG. The reason I said that this was wikilawyering is because WP:VALID is about content, not reliable sources, and it looked like you were trying to apply it to reliable sourcing. Ca2james (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity" ---> My point is simply that, if a man claims to be 150 but his claim cannot be proven (and hence is not considered "verified" by any reliable source dealing with age validation) then he should not be included alongside Jeanne Calment whose age has been verified. It needs to be made clear that one is validated, and the other is not. But I fear that some of the proposals being put forward would end up with something like that happening. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 15:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ollie, did the ANI discussion teach you nothing? Waenceslaus's views about what's going on are not remotely close to what objective, neutral outside observers here see and it got him topic-banned because people decided that his involvement was more disruptive than useful to the whole project. We don't need more discussions, we need to move on. We've had numerous discussions about this issue. Ollie's views have been made but consensus does not support them. There are very few people who agree with everything around here so either the WOP members are interested in following the community consensus around here and the project exists as a project should (namely to get the articles in compliance with the Wikipedia practices around here and moving towards GA and FA status and the like) or that project will be disbanded and members topic if not outright banned because nobody else really cares. It's a matter of respect: either you respect everyone's views around here or the rest of the populace here will stop you so they can deal with the vast, vast majority of the work that's being done here. If there's a particular source at a particular article that's questionable, then we can discuss it. Hand-wringing that the world will end because we can't just quote the GRG table and have to actually think and discuss sources here is getting us nowhere.

As for List of oldest living people I removed all the pending and "other" cases in full. So, I'll go the opposite way: namely, see if anything there has a reliable source behind it (I doubt it) and ask for those to be included. For that, the fact that the GRG hasn't likely verified them is something to consider but it's not the be-all-end-all of discussing the sources. Every other article gets edited, protected, fought over and we do the same argument again and again. At each step, the most disruptive editors will either move on or find themselves blocked while the people will to talk and work things out will get work done. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:49, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The ANI discussion was NOT about me. I am not Waenceslaus, and his views and actions are not the same as mine. I'm quite fed up of you accusing me of being disruptive when 1. I'm not edit warring, only trying to discuss issues on talk pages before making significant changes 2. I'm clearly just trying to make sure that information in Wikipedia articles is as accurate as possible. Opposing changes doesn't make me disruptive, and making the changes doesn't make your actions CONSTRUCTIVE. Now please tell me on which issues there is consensus. Ollie231213 (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Being disruptive isn't necessarily just about edit-warring. Posting long comments repeating the same thing without a clear attempt to work towards consensus can also be considered disruptive even when done civilly. You're posting a lot but saying the same thing: the GRG is super-awesome, important, and all science-y, and it's reliable, and there's nothing wrong with the WOP articles the way they are, so please just leave WOP alone and don't change anything. And you're saying that multiple times in multiple places... and when you personally aren't saying it, other members of WOP have been saying it for a decade. Dealing with this gets tiresome, especially since it's not clear that anyone from WP:WOP actually understands - or wants to understand - how Wikipedia works or why the way the WP:WOP members want to do things doesn't conform to policies and guidelines.

What you and the rest of WP:WOP are not seeing is that many of the articles associated with that project are just displays of GRG data without sufficient references, as if this were the GRG, and that the use of colour in many articles is against MOS:COLOUR; in other words, the awesomeness of the GRG isn't particularly relevant on Wikipedia and there is a lot wrong with the articles. Ca2james (talk) 01:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Maybe I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself if you actually stop misrepresenting my views. I AM NOT saying "the GRG is super-awesome", I'm saying that age verification is important. I AM NOT saying there is nothing wrong with these articles as they are - I made clear in my first post that I think some articles could be proposed for deletion and others changed. Ollie231213 (talk) 12:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I admit that my comment included posts not just from this discussion on this page but also the discussions on RSN. I also admit that when I characterized your statements about the reliability of the GRG as "the GRG is super-awesome," I was too flippant. I apologize for being flippant and unclear. I appreciate that you do recognize that the articles are problematic. Ca2james (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I appreciate you saying so. I think we now need to turn the attention away from the GRG and realise that it's not being used as a WP:WEBHOST (see the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of the verified oldest people) and instead focus on age verification. It should be pointed out that many of the excessive list articles like List of supercentenarians from the Nordic countries were created by amateur "fans" and not by the GRG. Does the GRG really care about who the 29th oldest person from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden? Not really, the primary use for their databases are for studying mortality rates, observing changes in supercentenarian populations over time, etc... in other words, things of scientific interest, rather than trivia. I'm not bothered if these kind of articles are deleted, as I think they're better being hosted at Wikia since they're of greater interest to "fans" rather than the general public. Ollie231213 (talk) 15:18, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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