User talk:Sotuman/Archive 1

The primary function of this page is to reposit Sotuman's thoughts and feelings about various mainstream Wikipedia articles. Portions of this article may or may not be exerpted to the talk page of the related mainstream article.

Introduction

To those dear readers who endeavour to also leave a comment here and later can't find it, it is not deleted, and should still be available in the View history tab on this page.

Edit/Revert wars

Sometimes a user will edit an article, only to find out that their work is reverted a short time later. In this case, it is important for both editor and reverter to keep the summary of their changes as brief and concise as possible, and to discuss the reason for the edit and its revert on the article's talk page. Sometimes an article is of a contentious nature. It may have been categorized a certain way that discourages discussion. There may be a small group of users who do not see the need for change to the article or the way its categorized, and who may even view efforts at discussion as an annoying waste of their time. In this case, such a collaborative approach will not work. Concensus will not be reached by any number of edits, or any amount of discussion by such an editor on the talk page. The editor may attempt to discuss the desired changes at length, but a lack of response from the other users is not indicative of their agreement or concensus, as any edits to the article will be reverted by a rotation of the same users. The edits may even be labeled as "not un-reasonable" by different users who happen to comment on the talk page, but this will not be taken into account by the group who wish to keep the page as it is. The article, however ugly it may be, is reverred as a piece of art which must not be altered. No single editor is great enough to convince the group guarding the article that it is rubbish. Efforts to do so will certainly be viewed as hostile, and through various channels of complaint, will result in the editor being blocked or banned before the matter has been allowed to conclude. The more ingrained the arbitrary reversion and blocking behaviour becomes, the less value Wikipedia will have as an encyclopedia. It will lose financial support to the point of unsustainability, because the articles proper will have become less relevant than the talk pages.

What views are there, if not personal ones? Credentialed academics especially have personal views which should not be kowtowed to any more than anyone else who knows how to research a topic. What is Wikipedia, if not an odd collection of personal views which as a whole carries about the same weight as any scientifically-minded individual who consistently does their own digging on whatever the topic is, in order to understand and explain it accurately?

Flood Geology Article

The article on flood geology, as an example, is written without taking into account the enormous erosive power and stratification that result from any diluvial event. Flood geology is poorly-written and non-neutral from the first sentence. For instance, qualifying an interpretation of the earth's present geology as only an "attempt to interpret and reconcile" implies inadequacy or lack of validity of such an interpretation. It's a bad judgment call on flood geology rather than explaining what flood geology is, which is somewhat anti-encyclopediac. Essays such as the one about academic bias are duly noted as the advice or opinions they are, and potential conflicts of logic with others such as the one on truth and verifiability or various issues with Wikipedia are also noted.

One may argue that the article is fine the way it is because Wikipedia is biased towards science, and Sotuman is in wholehearted agreement that such a bias is good and helpful. One would be preaching to the choir, so to speak. One may even have the wryness as to direct Sotuman towards a different website in order to ensure that "fringe" views are properly shown there. But that is beside the point, and there is no need as it has already been done by others. Sotuman is concerned with maintaining the quality of Wikipedia articles.

Validity of Models

Interpretation of the earth's geology using a flood model is at least as valid as attempts to interpret it using other models, first because no one alive today was around to observe the formation of the entire earth's geology. So all scientists are forced to investigate backwards from the observed data, i.e. the aftermath of the cause, and may even come up with extraneous presuppositions, such as how much of a particular isotope of carbon there was present in a rock when it was first formed. Secondly, the current observations we have of the earth being formed are thanks to cataclysmic events such as volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the flooding associated with them. A model that extrapolates from such data of these relatively small cataclysms to say that a global flood event could cause the aftermath we observe worldwide is simply put, smarter. It is obtuse to emphasize that the flood model is just an "attempt to interpret" how the earth formed, unless everything else is then also an "attempt" that is as equally or more absurd.

There is similarly no reason to label a particular model as mere "attempt to reconcile" observations with a "literal belief", since everyone attempts to reconcile what they are convinced is literally true, from the day they are born. Sure, everyone has experienced cognitive dissonance at some point, yet the global flood model is as complete as any other geological model. There is certainly no reason to categorize flood geology as "fringe" or "pseudoscience", because the effect of flooding on geology is a legitimate and important topic. This mis-categorization has hindered neutral discourse and totally ignores a whole swathe of reliable sources, i.e. credentialled scientists who do hold to a global flood geological model. The categorization as pseudoscience is done on the hypocritical, simplistic and patently anti-religious grounds that the Bible is a book of fairy tales, not on grounds of any scholarly or scientific concensus.

Examination of Bias

We all look at the world around us and interpret it using our own limited biases, testing ideas in an attempt to understand and gain scientific knowlege. There is always something more to learn, and mistakes that will be made. The history of human knowlege, i.e. science, shows that entire societies can be grossly mistaken about something that now seems fairly basic or well-established, primarily because the door was repeatedly slammed shut by people who thought they knew best, on important topics that were similarly albeit mistakenly considered by some in positions of authority as already being settled at the time. This was the case with ideas about gravity, and germ theory, two items of significance. It seems that the theory of flood geology is as unsettling to so-called "modern" geology as germ theory was to the idea of miasma. It is pointedly un-scientific to label an idea as a fringe idea apparently not worth consideration when there has not even been a proper, i.e disclaimer-free explanation of what the idea actually is, which is the situation with the article on flood geology.

The article as it stands is sloppy and not intellectually satisfying at all. Even if one were to read an article about something obviously ficticious, like the Marvel character Thanos, one wouldn't find opinions about how much Thanos sucks, and Darkseid is better, to be as useful as an un-biased explanation of his lust for death and other such details. For the many other articles that are about non-fictional topics with opposing but equally valid viewpoints, the point of view should rest on the good-faith assumption that the proponent is correct, even though others disagree. If one wants to know how Muslims think, or how atheists or creationists or evolutionists think, the best way to do it is to let them explain. It creates a polarizing sort of tediousness when the opposing point of view is the only one that is allowed to speak or appear reasonable. Wikipedia has erred by catering to points of view that are definitely not neutral, nor are they as mainstream as some editors might think.

The fact remains that large flows of water, i.e. floods, move large quantities of earth in a short amount of time, completely re-arranging the earth. This is directly related to what geology is, if the Greek etymology is any indicator:

γῆ, gē "earth" -λoγία, -logia, "study of", "discourse"

Some uninformed individual may come along a hundred years from now state that the rocks and landscape resulting from recently observed sedimentary flood deposits is "millions of years old," unless they had a basic understanding of flood geology, and supposing there was no historical documentation. To be fair, it seems like the article is about blasting the credulity of a global flood model as opposed to non-global flood models. However, people do not search for things on Wikipedia because they want to learn about how stupid or how un-scientific other editors, i.e. equally fallible people, might think they are; they search for things because they want to learn what they are actually about. It is therefore incorrect for an article on the topic of flood geology to interpret flood geology itself as a false interpretation of all the observable data, and this from the first sentence of the article. It is not the job of article authors to make these kinds of judgments. It would be fine if it was an advertisement, but this unrestrained bias is totally unacceptable in the environment of a reputable encyclopedia such as Wikipedia.

When good editor such as Sotuman comes along who actually wants to learn what an idea is about, it can be quite frustrating and exhausting to have to cut through all the bias against whatever the idea is. People want to read an article to learn what it's about. The way the article on flood geology was written, the words eat themselves and leave a disgusting mess for everyone to sort through.

Limits of Science

Some people use a global flood narrative similar to that outlined in the singularly-notable ancient book collection, i.e. the Bible, to explain the observed geology, while others come up with really large numbers of years to explain it. The debate is lively anywhere the topic is brought up, though most people, Sotuman included, cannot keep up with all the developments in it. It is definitely not a settled issue, not in mainstream science, not anywhere.

The totality of all human knowlege is infinitesimal compared to all that may be discovered or known, that is to say, even a hypothetical polysavant wouldn't know it all. So it is incorrect to treat one view for which there remains considerable gaps in knowlege, i.e. geology with regards to the manner of the earth's formation, as the only valid view, and furthermore to hinder exposition of other views. No editor of Wikipedia observed how the earth was formed. We only get to observe the earth as it is now, though sometimes even in our short lifetimes we can glipse clues to how quickly the earth's geology can change, as with the island of Surtsey.

Without mentioning further the defficiencies of a completely uniformitarian model, there should be equal weight given to different but complementary views regardless of how many people hold to one view or the other, especially since Wikipedia has no way to accurately assess such quantities. Even if Wikipedia could determine the number of people who do or do not believe in the historicity of an event such as a past global flood, what exactly happened to shape the earth's geology may still only be guessed at with varying degrees of accuracy by those of us who are restricted to our fairly limited senses in the present time.

The reliance on a plurality of such guesses to determine the Wikipedia version of "truth" about a topic with large knowlege gaps, such as the formation of the earth, is the Wikipedia way. It is weak, but a better alternative for such a public project does not come to mind. Wikipedia is just a limited tool, it is categorically not a be-all end-all of human science. It doesn't remove the responsibility of each individual to do and verify their own independent research. It is evidently not the job of Wikipedia to advocate for what is absolutely right or true, only to follow the prevailing wisdom of the day. Such is the nature of fallibility. Those who wish to satiate their hunger for absolute truth had best look elsewhere besides Wikipedia.

God, is that you?

If one were to acknowlege that an omniscient, infallible Being ensured that there would be a reliable record of what happened, this would change the entire discussion. But what is flood geology about? The question of God is really a more fundamental item that is definitely worth considering. One thing is evident: scientists of any calibre are not nearly so infallible as some people like to think, which is to say they are not God, regardless of how much peer review takes place. They can and do commit the same types of logical fallacies that we are all so fond of pointing out, such as circular reasoning, ad hominem, etc. But when a scientist effectively claims that the Bible is a book of fairytales, at least where it speaks about the Great Flood, one is left to wonder, who then is the ultimate authority on matters of right and wrong? Was the Flood not a judgment by God of human error? Does the Bible not stand or fall by the truth of one verse, be it truly the Divine Word? Must we be degraded to referring only to a "truth" as set by Wikipedia? There are therefore deep assumptions that everyone is forced to make in order to make meaningful assertions concerning the truth of the global flood model of geology.

Prophecy

One day, human knowlege, gained by observation and experimentation, will indeed achieve a way to definitively dictate to people what is right and wrong, perhaps by an interface of the human brain with a suffienty advanced AI. But until then, we must do our own research, exercising a healthy skepticism on topics where there is evidently incomplete knowlege or science, especially the ones where there is promotion of a false concensus, as is the case with flood geology. We must all make our own decisions, and though they are necessarily based on incomplete info, may they be based upon the relevant info and not noise.

Conclusion

The point of the article about flood geology is to explain what exactly is flood geology, regardless of whether or not everyone agrees 100% with it. If something is not so self-evident that it requires the constant disclaimer of "...just a note to you un-discerning readers, this is not how it really happened...", then maybe one should also consider that alternate viewpoints, such as pure uniformitarianism, are purely speculative. Anyone who actually studies the earth, phD geologists included, will acknowlege that moving water is the main force that shapes the earth. Of course there are other ways that sediment is laid down or erosion happens, but water is overwhelmingly the main one. It is not absurd at all to assume that there was a global flood at some point in the past, given that the earth is mostly covered with large volumes of water already, and to use this assumption as a solid basis for geological discourse, especially given that any other discourse is also based on assumptions that are at least as absurd.

When someone reads an article about uniformitarianism, they expect to learn about that viewpoint, and not have to wade through a whole bunch of cataclysmic bias, and the same consistency of courtesy should be applied to articles that are theories about how a global flood may have affected the earth's geology. This constant lambasting of those editors who find and attempt to eliminate such bias, while justifying the bias as more scientific when there is nothing but speculation from the opposing viewpoint, is unhelpful and is not in line with the impartial knowlege sharing goal of Wikipedia.

References

Wikipedia Essays, Info, Guidelines, and Policy

WP:FIXBIAS - essay, advice or opinions
WP:FREESPEECH - information page, partial description
WP:TENDENTIOUS - information supplement to WP:DE, a generally accepted behavioural guideline
WP:HERE - explanatory supplement to behavioral and content guidelines and policies
WP:OWNTALK - behavioural guideline, generally accepted
WP:POINT - behavioural guideline, generally accepted
WP:DR - policy, widely accepted
WP:WEIGHT - policy, widely accepted
WP:CONSENSUS - policy, widely accepted
WP:FRINGE - content guideline, generally accepted
WP:SOAPBOXING - policy, widely accepted (part of WP:NOT)
WP:NOTFORUM - policy, widely accepted (part of WP:NOT)
WP:NOTSOCIAL - policy, widely accepted (part of WP:NOT)

WP:ANI - noticeboard
WP:SANDBOX - sandbox page

Input to Incorporate

User:Theroadislong

Please do not add or change content, as you did at Surface-water hydrology, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you.Theroadislong (talk) 18:39, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Check back and please use the talk page of that article if unsure as to whether the cited source is in line with the relevant guidelines. Thank-you!Sotuman (talk) 19:00, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Flood geology; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.Theroadislong (talk) 19:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the boilerplate notice, which is not necessary. If you look at the edit history of that page in detail, you will see from the information in other users' comments that Sotuman did in fact gain concensus and did not repeatedly restore his edits in their original state, but incorporated the concensus. Therefore the behaviour does not constitute an "edit war" but is a genuine, good-faith effort to improve the article and prevent confusion of knowlege-seeking Wikipedians.Sotuman (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

User:PaleoNeonate

Hello Sotuman. I have noticed that you appear to use this user talk page for soapboxing. I would like to suggest reading WP:SOAPBOXING and WP:OWNTALK. Wikipedia is neither for promotion, nor for advocacy of fringe ideas. Article improvement discussion is expected to occur at relevant article talk pages, although also subject to WP:NOTFORUM. The WP:FIXBIAS essay be be useful about addressing perceived bias. —PaleoNeonate – 19:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate:Yes, Hello. As this is the talk page for user:Sotuman, and I am Sotuman, it follows that this talk page is for the improvement of Sotuman, which is exactly what Sotuman is using it for. There is no violation, so back up off me already. Now I'm going to take a little break, and when I get back I'd like to see a little more constructive input.Sotuman (talk) 19:57, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Also consider whether it is in your best interest to use my talk page as your soapbox. I'm not going on mainstream articles and soapboxing. Instead, think of user talk pages as staging areas for developing and polishing ideas to the point where they can enter an article's talk page, and from there through the collaborative process, to the mainstream article itself. User talk pages are really not something for other users to attempt to regulate. Think of other users more as colleagues and less as people who need to be constantly schooled in Wikipedia policy everytime you find something personally disagreeable. Why not directly address whatever it is you don't like with a substantive logical argument rather than resorting to an argument from authority? This is a safe space. If there is any place to do it, the user talk pages are a good place for it, it's not something that should be expected to happen in some magical far away place where people always listen to each other with perfect courtesy, because such a place doesn't exist.Sotuman (talk) 00:43, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Just a few things I have noticed...Sotuman (talk) 00:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that everyone deserves respect and that we in a way are collegues in editing. The project has policies and guidelines however, which everyone are expected to take in consideration, to help make the encyclopedia reliable, to increase its quality, etc. The project is not a free speech venue, the main goal is to be a mainstream and useful encyclopedia. It is also policy that Wikipedia is not the place to debate topics themselves, only content based on sources (WP:NOTSOCIAL). This avoids time consuming, unproductive and repetitive disputes.

Legitimate consensus forming on source selection and their representation in due weight, already take time, of course. I also think that you did right to participate to talk page discussions rather than pursuing an edit war. Once a consensus exists, or is against our proposal we should then try to move on, for everyone's time, including yours.

In relation to this talk page, users don't own their talk page (WP:OWNTALK), but those pages indeed allow more freedom of expression including discussing user behavior (ultimately, administration noticeboards can be used for the latter, like WP:ANI). Sandbox pages may also be created as needed. Lastly, there also are more public venues to bring the attention of editors to an article or discussion (noticeboards, dispute resolution). In any case, my intention is not to scold you, but I think that it's part of our work as editors to attempt to share our understanding of how Wikipedia works and that every editor has the right to be informed before getting in trouble (this is also consistent with how Wikipedia should work).

The flood geology article is about early geology and related persisting pseudoscience. Once realizing this, I could be mistaken, but it appears that you moved on to another article in order to make a point. Article and user contributions history are public. Other indications are claims of insufficient scientific evidence and a conspiracy theory about fake scientific consensus on this talk page (I already mentioned the advocacy issue). On Wikipedia this may be construed as tendentious editing. For the same reasons I mentioned, despite the argument from authority complaint, I will not take the bait and begin lengthy debates about those topics here (there are other online venues for this, but also mainstream scientific journals). If my impressions were wrong, I'm sorry and it is hopefully now easy to understand their basis and to just move on... Editors all have their background and beliefs but clear processes is how we can achieve to work together to build the encyclopedia.

To avoid repeating myself or to abuse your patience, I don't have more to add; you are however welcome to reply and/or contact me for assistance. —PaleoNeonate – 05:20, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I actually really appreciate such a thoughtful and informative input. I'm not sure what the sandbox feature is, though it seems to be more about testing superficial editing formats. For testing content, something as simple as MS Notepad prior to posting on a talk page works for me: type it all out, imagine how it looks to the target audience, re-type, etc. I think we all like to make good points, because we care about what is right more than being right, most of the time.

But using Wikipedia is like the man who woke up in the morning and just wanted a cup of coffee. But his coffee maker was broken. No problem, so he went to get his tools, but couldn't find the proper screwdriver. Eventually he does get the coffee he wants, but one is left to wonder, should he just throw the broken coffee maker out and get a new one? Maybe he can buy a fresh cup from a convenience store instead. What about the coffee grounds he had? What about the missing screwdriver? So when a user on Wikipediea sees something they think could be better, there is usually a lot of more fundamental intermediate things to be done first, because concepts and ideas are not stand-alone things, but built on each other like matter is built of chemicals, elements, atoms, and tiny little things that are basically perturbations of empty space. Wikipedia articles are linked together and co-dependent the same way. It's impossible to edit just one article.

If you do have input on the latest article I've moved on to, please have a look: Surface-water hydrology. It may be of interest to you with the connection between fluvial sediments and Paleontontolgy. The flood geology article has seen about as much of my input as I can give it right now. Maybe fresh input from other users will be able to stimulate it and its talk page out of stagnation, we can only watch for it.

Most of Wikipedia, if comparison were made of the amount of server gigabytes of pure encyclopedia article space to all the gigabytes of talk pages and all the edit histories, is a functional space for human users to argue and debate. So all the pretty little policy and information pages such as

(List moved here, also see below for additional input.)

are nice idealistic theories, however they are in contradiction to the concept that Wikipedia's overarching function is to portray the currently prevailing mainstream thought of society. For every highly-polished page of good article that pops out on top of Wikipedia, there are thousands of pages of messiness beneath, like what is on this and every other talk page that is used, so those links are effectively a pile of so many big dumb bricks. What shall I build with them, a castle? They are clunky when plopped into sentences, pretending to carry all the nuance of a single well-placed word but "slicing like a goddamn hammer". They are good for a loose guidelines only, light pleasure reading for the training of eager budding editors.Sotuman (talk) 07:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Are nice idealistic theories Basic principles are necessary to build the encyclopedia as a community, to improve quality and maintain neutrality (WP:NEUTRALITY has a specific meaning here and does not forbid academic bias). Editors should also try to run the process instead of only contemplating on how it should work. Those policies and guidelines were also built and improved by consensus over time (on relevant project-space talk pages and at WP:VPP for instance). Policies are therefore not only idealistic theories, they have practical value and must be enforced when necessary. —PaleoNeonate – 02:42, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller

Comments about editors such as "brutish thuggery" or "a vicious cyclic gang of people who don't know what basic words mean" don't improve discourse.

I suggest you read WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Maybe even Wikipedia:Advocacy. I don't care if you delete this, when that happens we assume you read it. I don't even care if you ignore my advice, your fate here is in your own hands. Doug Weller talk 11:11, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@Doug Weller:Well thanks for the input and suggestions, I guess. I am the sort of person who likes to call it how I see it, and I greatly appreciate it when those with whom I interact also adopt this sort of directness, because it is absolutely essential for meaningful discourse. For example, I purposely do not direct people to any number of Wikipedia policies, guidelines, or supplements, because that would leave the other person guessing at what I'm thinking: Hmmm, does this guy think I was being rude? Like, why would he think that? He clearly referred me to articles about civility, assuming good faith, and advocacy, does this mean he thinks I need correction in those areas? How so? It's a passive-agressive assemblage of words that is worse than useless, it's a study in laziness and non-communication. It's weak and completely infuriating because it's like the other person doesn't even believe I'm worthy or able to handle whatever it is they maybe wanted to say. Why even bother leaving a comment if you're not even going to share what's on your own mind? Isn't that what communication is? It's a great honour to be on the receiving end of any honest communication, but especially the passionate, colourful, illustrative kind. Respect is great, but it certainly doesn't mean an enforcement of etiquette to the point of choking the life and spirit out of everything. We're not robots that should be crammed into neat little scripts or protocols, because every human interaction has the capacity to be singularly unique, to forge the course of human civilization itself, or at least shift a paradigm or two.

The article on "flood geology" should be about how mass flows of water on the surface of the earth affect the earth's geology. But it's not, and that is criminal. The people who are obsessed that the Biblical narrative is totally unnacceptable because it mentions about how a global flood reshaped the earth, and who stand about patting themselves on the back endlessly for their ability to persist in defending whatever it is they're trying to defend, are vicious cyclic gang of brutish thugs and miscreants, in a strictly intellectual sense. Maybe they do know what a flood is. Maybe they do know about how floods are the main mechanism of sedimentary geological formations. But their behaviour is downright thuggish, and this label is not applied without due consideration.

It is necessary to label these things accurately so that the problem can be addressed. People whose bad behaviour has been left unchecked for too long do listen to others who only have good things to say. I call that enabling. Imagine how silly it would be if a kid whose teeth have mostly rotted out went to the dentist, and the dentist smiled at the kid and said, "You know, Kid, you're all right, you've still got three teeth left. Here, have a lollypop."

If you think my labels are innaccurate, pointing out why you think that would be a wonderful way to start a discourse. Otherwise, thugs do exist, and based on my observations, are active on topics such as flood geology. If they want to keep the category of that article as pseudoscience and see to it that no one can change it, good riddance. But this here is my little corner of Wikipedia, and things work a little differently here than you may be accustomed to.Sotuman (talk) 06:32, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

How can I be of any help to people if the only effect of my efforts is to alienate them?Sotuman (talk) 06:48, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

"Maybe they do know about how floods are the main mechanism of sedimentary geological formations." Quite some geological formations contain mass flooding evidence, but most of the geologic record is quite the opposite; quiet deposition for hundreds of thousands of years. Even in the recent geologic record there are few of these mass deposits, the Storegga Slide is a quite recent example of one. I realize this "mudflood theme" is a running meme on YouTube et al., but unless someone creates a comprehensive, scientific (i.e. following the scientific method) and unequivocal case for it, it remains a nice story, but with just cherrypicked examples to push an old story, wouldn't you agree? Tisquesusa (talk) 21:23, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Sedimentary geology deals with deposits that were laid down by floods. That this happens to somewhat agree with the biblical model should be of no consequence to honest, unbiased science. And yet the article on flood geology appears to be the carefully-constructed and maintained straw man of people who are scared that some of the Bible may be accurate, rather than an exposition of how 75% of the earth's crust formed. Some people call it mainstream science to focus on refuting or ridiculing whatever the Bible says happened, but it would be more productive, and a greater service to humanity, for such scientists to simply observe and report on the world around them. If their reports happen to agree with the Bible, so what? This extreme prejudice against the Bible is nauseating, and un-scientific. If the Bible is so obviously a fake old story book of fairy tales, how does it end up at the forefront of discussions on which it happens to assert something?Sotuman (talk) 22:05, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

explanation of WP:Cool as requested by Sotuman

For the record, there's no way that ""LOL, like why is this guy even here? He's like a little Gollum, waiting for my demise or something, and he has nothing to add to the discussion - how sad."" isn't a personal attack. User:Hob Gadling went to some length to explain the context of the discussion, your response was hardly fruitful and ironically some might see it as passive-aggressive, and when he responded (negatively which is no surprise) you attacked him. Note I'm only here in response to your posts on my talk page and to set the record straight. Doug Weller talk 21:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The discussion about User:Hob Gadling and my assesment of him can also be continued there, if you wish. You seem to disagree with the nature of my assessment of User:Hob Gadling, when he shows no interest in answering for himself or in dialogue with me. Is this because he also has an affinity for the "one's fate is in one's own hands" style of naked pithiness? To this I can only respond, "Indeed, Carpe diem!". Hob's dialogue was at some length, that much is true, but none of it had to do with the discussion of flood geology, it was a baseless ad-hominem attack, and divorced from anything I said. I did not merely respond in kind either, I thought carefully about the reasons for what I said prior to putting it out there, as I always do, and I deserve some credit for that.Sotuman (talk) 23:26, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Sotuman, with all due respect, I never said anything about chivalry and you've refactored your talk page to make it appear that I did. I say "your talk page", but it's really a Wikipedia page that you can use to communicate with others within certain bounds. You are free to delete my posts, that's certainly allowed, but not to change them around to make it look like the discussion was about something else. I've trimmed my original section heading and hope you find it satisfactory. Doug Weller talk 19:43, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Doug Weller: As you say, this is a talk page and its purpose is communication: which leads me to question whether §§1–2.6 are actually conducive? It took me some moments to realise that this was actually a talk page; per OWNTALK, While the purpose of article talk pages is to discuss the content of articles, the purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user...only half the page seems to be doing that! :D ——SerialNumber54129 19:54, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: Please notice the new notice at the top of the page. Sotuman (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, as was explicit when you first commented, Sotuman is sometimed blocked from editing parts of Wikipedia, which precludes Sotuman's discussion of an article from ocurring anywhere except on this talk page. The first half of this page is a staging area for possible future edits. It is a synthesis of Sotuman's responses to comments such as your own. Sotuman (talk) 03:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: I agree, if all of that should be anywhere it should be on their User page or a subpage. I've seen other new editors confused about the use of their talk page, one of them has a notice on it saying anyone who wants to communicate with them should use their user page, not their talk page! Doug Weller talk 20:03, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Please see WP:UPYES for more information. Also, there was no intention earlier to mis-represent you, as is clear in the edit history. It was organizing the comment under your name with a less wordy heading so I could find it easily. Thank-you, Sotuman (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

User:Tgeorgescu

(comment made with regard to the Wikipedia informational and supplementary essays)

These aren't "idealistic theories". Violate them repeatedly and you will get blocked and then site banned. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:28, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

No, because they are not set in stone like the Ten Commandments, and they don't claim to be. To be fair, some of them are classed as guidelines or "widely accepted policies", and I have re-ordered and relocated the list above to show what categories they are in. I could have been more selective in my critique, but even then, there are others that define the spirit that is meant to prevail so that rigid application of the guidelines and policies will not be used to prevent the growth of Wikipedia: WP:IAR and WP:IARMEANS. So what I said remains a legitimate criticism of the specific way the many essays, information pages, information supplements, guidelines, and policies are often applied in many diverse and unique situations on the talk pages to conserve Wikipedia beyond what is allowed by their generalizations.Sotuman (talk) 01:38, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

User:Serial Number 54129

Dear Serial Number 54129: Thank-you for your recent interest in the flood geology article. Any improvements you can make to Wikipedia are always welcome. Sotuman (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

User:Bishonen

Dear Bishonen: I did not see anything about a sanction concerning Sotuman or Flood geology in the log. Regarding concensus, there is concensus among the users participating in the discussion on the talk page of the article. This is because even users who put "There is definitely no concensus." without giving a reason that accounts for all the facts on the table either for or against the edit, cannot participate in an informed concensus. It is effectively a null vote because it does not follow the discussion:

McSly last input was to ask whether I was joking = null vote
PaleoNeonate acknowleges that the article title is consistent with search engine results, but no comment on the abiguity of the title as per WP:DAB = null vote
Gråbergs Gråa Sång sees the reasonableness of Sotuman's edit, or more precisely, does not see the unreasonableness of it = 1 vote in favour of
User:Sjö also does not see the unreasonableness of adding an about template at the top of the article = 1 vote in favour of
Mikenorton argues against, but also does not take into account the inherent ambiguity of the two separate terms composing "Flood Geology", neither of which the article is about. = null vote

So that is 3 null votes and 3 in favour, which demonstrates good-faith concensus. Sotuman (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)