Talk:John Lott/Archive 2
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Criticism in wrong section?
Can anyone explain why the following is in the More Guns, Less Crime section?
- This book and the research and academic papers associated with it are frequently referred to as "statistical one-upmanship", probably because
- "He demands that anyone who wants to challenge his arguments become immersed in a very complex statistical debate, based on computations so difficult that they cannot be done with ordinary desktop computers. He challenges anyone who disagrees with him to download his data set and redo his calculations, but most social scientists do not think it worth their while to replicate studies using methods that have repeatedly failed." (Myths of Murder and Multiple Regression, Ted Goertzel, The Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 26, No 1, January/February 2002).
I think that this rticle would be better if we consolidated the factual information about Lott and his works, and then consolidated the criticism into respective sections. Dick Clark 21:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
- Good idea. I started that yesterday by moving the media bias section out of the criticism section.Gzuckier 00:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
- Bad idea. Putting all of the critical comments about Lott's work in the criticism area is not NPOV. Criticizm is for entire topics of criticism - like Mary Rosh. Saying things about his book that are negative apply to the book, not to criticism. Please see the last paragraph of "Undue Weight" in the NPOV policy. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, Hip, I am going to have to contest your interpretation of the NPOV as it applies here. You seem to be making the claim that the NPOV discussion of "Undue weight" would require that the criticism of the book be in the book sectiom, rather than the criticism section. I think that this is clearly wrong. The article is about John Lott, and should, in its intitial sections, enlighten the reader as to who Lott is, and, to a certain extent, what his books claim. The criticism section is perfectly suited for objections to Lott's methodolgy, as well as defenses of it. These are ancillary bits compared to the representation of Lott's views as one can see them via his published works. I am not in any way objecting to the criticism of Lott and his works being included in the article. On the contrary, I think that their inclusion is very important. They are just not of primary importance. The reader should be able to read the article and, in this order, discover who Lott is, the positions that he promotes, and then criticisms of his person and body of work. Inserting the criticisms throughout the article, especially when there is an section called "Criticism," only works against overall clarity. Additionally, the style of the Goertzel quote and its lead-in are non-NPOV.
- This book and the research and academic papers associated with it are frequently referred to as "statistical one-upmanship", probably because
- "He demands that anyone who wants to challenge his arguments become immersed in a very complex statistical debate, based on computations so difficult that they cannot be done with ordinary desktop computers..." (snip)
This quote, while perhaps notable (I will take no position on its notability one way or the other), should not be cited as fact, and should certainly not flow directly out of the introductory language of the article itself in such a way as to unflinchingly uphold the view as unchallenged. This criticism is just that, a criticism, and it should be treated thusly. Dick Clark 15:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
- At last, some sanity is returning. Sorry I've been away, had some personal things to take care of. Although I see that in my absence, I've been replaced by person or persons more able than I am. Al Lowe 04:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- I do not contest the removal or edit of the quote. I will revert any edit that includes CAPITALIZED words to ENFORCE how IMPORTANT this INFORMATION is. My interpretation of the NPOV policy is the right one. Criticizm related to other sections cannot be put in the critizcsm section. Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Timewarps version:
I cannot agree to the removal of a description as to what AEI is. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Are you going to say that all the universities that he has worked at are “Liberal” institutions? Note in addition that none of your responses deal with the main issues that 66.190.73.64, myself and others have raised. See the discussion in the "protected" discussion below.Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- And dealing with trivial typos and other things while ignoring the main responses that were all highlighted before. I would guess that all the universities mentioned have significantly more liberals than conservatives on the faculty. If you want to say that all of them but U of C are very liberal, I can live with that. You appear to just want to continuing connect Lott with conservative institutions and research to discredit him as biased. Are you seriously going to argue that all those colleges are unbiased politically. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This seems biased to label institutions that you regard as conservative but not ones that people regard as liberal. Fine, but you are not flexible on one single point below. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I will happily agree to a reasonable change top the description of what Lott does. Timewarp's version is not gramatical. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Apparently, there is not one change that you agree to, but then again you were a person who won’t even let the POV warning stay up. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I have read Al Lowe’s posts and some of the other ones and I can’t believe that you refused to accept that there were constant disputes before. Al keep on trying to discuss things with you and everyone kept on taking down anything that he wrote. Just because you and others kept on taking down Al’s attempts to correct this garbage more than he was willing to always put them back up doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a dispute, and you knew that. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- My guess is that Al Lowe, Watchdog, and others who have tried correcting these things felt that this was biased and it is amazing that you are unwilling to acknowledge this. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I will never agree to a version that has a sentance fragement along the lines of "Many academics who have studied his data." Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Fine, cut the word “who.” Leave it in with the links to the research that has done this. Put the critic stuff in the critic section. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I will never agree to a version that has a sentance "Many academics have studied his data" followed by a list of only publications that agree with him.
- Your tone indicates no desire to be reasonable or compromise on any of this. You make one claim, I answer it, you make another and make it equally strong. Fine, have all the papers referenced that actually use his data, though don’t redo the critiques again later. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Simply saying “no” is not a helpful response. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to include a quote twice in the piece. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Cut the second one. Put in the earlier quote to Lott’s other book and cut the irrelevant quote to the More Guns book from page 2. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is fine. Really a shame you never did it.
- That is in fact exactly what I did in the post I was putting up, though part of these changes were from another poster. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is amazing. As noted below, you basically admit that you didn’t even read through the postings. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- The quote from page 2 is not irrelevant -- this is what Lott's 98% number was supposed to support. Lott's claims that the 98% number was to excuse media bias is pure revisionism. --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- The number is only to one sentence on one page in the book -- page 3 -- and that entire discussion is over what the media finds newsworthy. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- From the article: In addition to both editions of More Guns, Less Crime, searches of print and online media have found Lott himself to have referred to this 98%/2% result at least 25 times, citing various sources. (Does Allowing Law-Abiding Citizens to Carry Concealed Handguns Save Lives?, Valparaiso University Law Review, 31(2): 355-63, Spring, 1997; Gun-Lock Proposal Bound to Misfire, Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1998; Hardball, CNBC, August 18, 1999; Gun Locks: Bound to Misfire, online publication of the Independence Institute, Feb. 9, 2000; reply to Otis Duncan's article, The Criminologist, vol. 25, no. 5, September/October 2000, page 6[9]; Others Fear Being Placed at the Mercy of Criminals Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2001) ... Despite this well documented result, however, Lott continued to cite the controversial 2% figure on televised publicity tours for his new book (Book TV, CSPAN-2, May 15, 2004). Gzuckier 16:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
218 stories as opposed to 28 reporters is deceptive. The vast majority of "stories" are word-for-word duplicates of the AP reporters work. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Al Lowe already goes through this. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I need to look into this much more, but Lott and Lambert seem to have used different data sources. Lott used Nexi and Lambert Factiva. Lott’s website goes and provides all the stories in the 218 cases and there are a lot more than 28 reporters involved. I stopped counting at 32, but feel free to count them. Lott claims that Nexi is a much more comprehensive source than Factiva, and just from the number of stories that seems undeniable. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This applies then to Lambert’s postings? All I am doing is looking at the claim made about Lott’s work and counting the number to see if it is true. This is less “original” than Lambert so let’s cut all references to Lambert. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- The count of 28 different reporters is from my Factiva search but the number is similar if you use Lott's Nexis search. You are not supposed to do original research on the wikipedia page but you can cite other's research. Timewarp, maybe you could, umm, send Lott an email and have him post a count on his blog that you could then reference. --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to strengthening the NAS conclusions. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Much of Lott’s work has the same conclusions as the NAS. But you keep on stipping out the fact that Lott looks at many gun laws. What is wrong with saying he did work on the Brady Act, Assault Weapons, waiting periods, and on and on and on. That the Lott says there is not evidence that these laws reduce crime. Isn’t this the same as the NAS or do you want to cut it out because Lott was right years before the NAS panel said so? Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- What exactly is wrong with what I had. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- What is wrong is that you made a substantal and huge pov push in the early AM hours of 14 October 2004, modifing almost every section of the article. You don't get to do that, and then demand that I go through and scour your mostly bad changes for the few good bits. Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- This seems biased to label institutions that you regard as conservative but not ones that people regard as liberal. Fine, but you are not flexible on one single point below. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to the removal of the paragraph on coding errors and systematic sources of bias. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is so biased. Where are the coding errors in what Lott has published. This is from a paper published by others and doesn’t deal with the data that Lott used in More Guns, Less Crime. The other paper’s authors claim on Lott’s website that the basic finding for the regressions that they say are correct does not change. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- The errors were in the Plassmann and Whitley paper and Plassmann has a response where he says that the results that they said weren’t biased towards zero were essentially unchanged.
Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- In the cited links Plassmann concedes that the coding errors make a difference to the results that used clustering. Lott was the primary author on Plassmann and Whitley paper. --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Read the link to what Plassmann wrote: "The piece that John Whitley and I prepared for the Stanford Law Review (and that John Lott helped us out on) can be divided into two parts."[3] "Lott helped us" is what he said! I think they say the same thing on the bottom of their Stanford Law Review paper. By the way, if you want fun reading, see what Plassmann and Whitley have to say about Ayres and Donohue making things up.[4] Timewarp 1:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- A draft of the paper is available on SSRN with Lott as first author. Lott removed his name from the paper in a fit of pique over a one word correction to Ayres and Donohue's paper. --TimLambert 16:20, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- He “helped” them with the paper, but it is their paper. That much is clear. Lott also apparently did not want to publish the paper in the Stanford Law Review.[ http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/6-9-03.html] Beyond that I am not sure what the name on the earlier version of the paper tells us. I am not sure what inside knowledge that you have about the authorship. If you have some, you might want to share it with us. Timewarp 23:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to describing the number of surveys that did not find 98% to be "2 in 20." That is not accurate. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- I don’t even know what you are talking about. If it is “2 in 20”, it must obviously be a typo and should be “1 in 20.” Can’t you even remotely try to be reasonable? Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- You mean “surveys.” Possibly you might want to actually read Lott’s response to some of these attacks. The only ones that apparently were done more recently were both supposedly designed by Kleck. (http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/topic-mysurveys.html ) Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Simply dismissing the fact is not enough. If you actually read the piece, he has the dates. He claims that Lambert’s dates are from when someone cited the surveys not when they were conducted. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- All other published surveys disagree with Lott. There is no reason to not to mention the ones from before 1985. There are have been more than 2 since then in any event. --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Lott separates out the government surveys from the university and private ones. I don’t see more than two of the later type. Could you name the two that you are talking about? What about Lott’s discussion that the two kleck surveys ask people about events over five years and his survey asks people about events over one year. Lott claims that can explain some of the difference between his two surveys and the two that he says that Kleck did. Timewarp 23:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to the removal of the paragraph on quoting a destroyed poll from memory Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Can’t you even see how biased you are? What about you cutting out listing the number of surveys that Lott says that are different and when they were done? Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- You want the date the surveys are done. Not when they are cited by someone else. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to the disortion of the timeline regarding when Lott redid his survey. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- You are so biased. What you want is just assertions. Do you know when Lott started planning to do the survey? Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- What I want is something that is necessary for you to make the claim that you are wanting to be made. Even if this could be set up instantly with the students who were hired to do it, this all seems to have been done before the real controversy started. Add a couple or a few months to it and you get a significant safety margin. I agree though that this is unknowable unless there are other people to ask such as those who worked for Lott. Elsewhere in this discussion Al seems to have dealt with James Knowles. Possibly he can answer it. Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Well you are doing the original research by claiming a fact for which you have no evidence. The change that had been proposed eliminated the unsubstantiated claim. If you can’t justify it, it must be cut. You can’t make up something and then not have to provide a justification because you say original research is not allowed. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- The 2002 survey was done after the controversy started. See Lindgren's report. --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not agree to the bulk deletion of Mary Rosh as a section. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- I wasn’t the one who cut this, but this goes well beyond the Rosh stuff and much of it is from one questionable source. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Be serious. Read Al Lowe’s discussions about Lambert. Lambert doesn’t come across as a straightshooter. Lowe isn’t the only one who has made this point. I was sent this link yesterday (http://xrlq.com/2005/05/11/lottsa-personalities/#comment-15728) Timewarp 16:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I'm curious, Timewarp, who sent you the link to xlrq? --TimLambert 04:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Finally, Timewarp, are you John Lott, a relative or employee of his, or in any way related or employed by an interested party to this debate? I am not. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- No, are you Lambert? Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Hip, I found your stances on various aspects of the article to be enlightening, and I think it is great that you are itemizing your objections. That is certainly the most civil way to proceed in an article like this that is ripe for revert wars. Nonetheless, I do not see why the last comment above (inquiring as to Timewarp's identity/affiliations) is germane to this editing process. It looks to be an attempt to halt Timewarp's involvement with this page. There is no reason why Timewarp, if he were John Lott, could not assist in the refining of this article. Certainly the subject of an article is not afforded special privilege with regards to such editing, but he or she should not be ostracized for involvement either. So long as Lott didn't create the article himself, his assistance could easily be a valuable addition, rather than detrimental. Dick Clark 19:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Timewarp is unwilling or unable to enter into negotiations on the talk page. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:48, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- Look, friend, I am well aware of the Wikipedia guideline about autobiographies. Violation of that guideline is not necessarily bad faith. You need to read the very same guideline carefully. Unless you are asserting that John Lott created the article in question, this is not germane to our discussion. The article history shows that "Ed Poor" was the user who created the article. Do you mean to suggest that that user was another sock puppet? Bad taste (like editing your own article) does not equal bad faith, even according to WP:AUTO. My point is that this is a lead-in for an ad hominem attack against Timewarp, not a substantive effort to improve the article. Your list of remarks about various aspects of the article can stand alone without your attempting to bait other editors. Dick Clark 22:26, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- WP:AUTO reads in part "In general, creating or editing an article about yourself, your business, your publications, or any of your own achievements is strongly discouraged." John Lott has done things very similar to what "Timewarp" is doing to the article now. I am merely asking if Timewarp is John Lott, or under his employ or control. If the answer is no, the answer is no. He should feel free to answer as many of the questions as he sees fit. I don't make ad hominem attacks. If you think asking someone if they are John Lott is an attack, I think the article is far too positive. One would hope he would take it as a compliment. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is untrue. If you had checked, I certainly have put up a couple of changes on Wayne LaPierre’s discussion and I did it before you raised this point. Can’t you be a little honest? I use AOL so it is pretty much impossible to know where computers on that system are located, but possibly “Watchdog’s” IP address can be tracked. Wouldn’t it be funny if it were not near where Lott lives? Timewarp 23:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- The call of "Sock puppet" is the typical response here by those who would maintain the biased POV that has been prevalent on this article about John Lott. It happens almost every time that someone else shows up and starts trying to balance the heavy anti POV on the article. Even though the pro Lott edits are based on fact, and not on opinion, as a good amount of the anti Lott edits are.
- A fine example, is the Applachian law school attack. Mention is continuously made that only 28 stories of the 218 published were original stories. Yet, from Mr. Lamberts site we get 85 stories ("not counting duplicates") published on the 17th of January, 2002, the day after the attack. Of those 85 listed on Mr. Lambert's site, only 4 cited the defensive use of a gun. This was in a version of Prof. Lott's article that has since been edited out. (past edit) The 85 story count is for ONE DAY. Prof. Lott's count of 218 is for the ENTIRE period that stories were published about the incident.
- Al, you don't seem to have read the article very carefully -- it says that there were stories written by 28 different reporters, not that there were only 28 original stories. Lott's 218 stories includes stories about things like funerals of the victims -- why would you expect those to mention DGUs? --TimLambert 14:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
- I've had to fight tooth and nail for almost every edit I've tried to put in. In most cases, I do not remove anything, except maybe, something I put in that was in error. Yet I am continually accused of vandaling Wikipedia. Frankly I'm sick and tired of it. I'm tired of the continual harrasment, and accusation that I'm either a sock puppet, or Lott's dupe. These people, who continually harp on Dr. Lott, continually express their opinions. Yet, if I try to express mine, they want some sort of concrete evidence. I ask, where is their evidence? All they have is opinions. Yet, they seem to think their opinions carry more weight than mine, or Timewarp's. Where does this air of superiority come from? Frankly, I'm just glad that someone with more education than I has taken up the cause of reverting this to NPOV status. I've got too much strife going on in my real life to devot much time to this.
- Perhaps you could tell us which part of the article you think is unsupported opinion? --TimLambert 14:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
- But I am watching. And when my thoughts are clear enough, I'll stick my unwanted two cents worth in. While I think the idea behind Wikipedia is great in theory, it's very obvious from this article alone that it can be seriously flawed in practice. As someone else has mentioned elsewhere, there's more balance on Adolf Hitler's article than there is here. Of course, that's just my opinion. Al Lowe 14:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Protected
This biffing too and fro isn't getting anywhere. Talk it out. --Tony Sidaway<;sup>Talk 17:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- You see? If one of the debaters had a gun, this could all be settled easily. Gzuckier 16:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Despite Lambert's question here and Hippocrites notes after his reposts, I and others have specifically noted many, many problems in our posts and the response is to completely ignore these points. Why is Lott's research viewed so narrowly? The claim is that he just does deregulation and that it is just "conservative," but go through the papers at SSRN and see that the deregulation is clearly wrong and as to the only conservative assertion I found one paper where he defends large criminal penalties on firms on the environment. Wow, that is conservative right!!!!!! Why can't the criticism discussions be in the criticism section?! I made a very few of the changes that should have been made on this issue and explained it in my note, but it was ignored. Explain! What peer-reviewed research came to the opposite conclusion of Lott? Isn't this contradicted by the national academy discussion that is already made here? Some apparently find no effect but that doesn't appear to be the same. Another person tried: "Making statement discussing Wilson agree with the quote from Wilson." Or that the Appalachian school case was Lott's best known case, but another poster states "Lott has examples involving public school shootings that have gotten much attention." Does Lott have a famous oped years ago on public school shooting cases that might have been in the LA Times or the Wall Street Journal. Where is the proof for the claim that the Appalachian case is his best known. These are just typical of the bias in this discussion. But I am just copying these points from what others have recently tried to correct and the people who blindly hate Lott won't respond to other than eliminating them and everything else. There are more minor points. Two books are mentioned in one section and then the quotes are only presented from one and one paragraph is not even one that directly uses the survey use to make the claim. Timewarp 13:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Moving forward
- You have noted nothing. You did not participate in talk after I listed a comprehensive statement of my opinions regarding your edit. Propose a single change in a short paragraph, or a list of changes in a number of sentances as I did above and we can hash over them. The giant scattershot paragraph of accusations with demands for proof is not going to move us forward. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I agree that this is the way forward. We can't really deal with all of Timewarp's complaints at once, so let's see if he can advance one of them, and if it's valid then we can agree an appropriate change to the text. That way we'll be moving forward by eliminating one difference instead of just diverging by listing them all in one big undigestible lump. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:04, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- (I put this in before, but it seems to have disappeared.) Saying that I have done "nothing" (either here or in the posting section) is not a serious response. You continue to refuse to address any of these issues in anyway, but just say that they are in a form that you are unable to consider. Let me try for about the fifth time:
- Why not allow the list of other research that Lott has done?
- "Although Lott has published in academic journals regarding education, voting behavior of politicians, industrial organization, labor markets, judicial confirmations, and crime, his research is hard to consistently tag as liberal or conservative. For example, some research argues for environmental penalties on firms.[1]" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=747824Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- In the intro to the paper, the following is stated as axiomatic:
- Optimal penalty theory, as discussed by Gary Becker, requires that the expected total penalty for an illegal activity equals the activity's total social cost. The total penalty consists of explicit legal sanctions imposed through regulatory, civil, and criminal proceedings, plus reputational penalties. If reputational penalties are large, then legal penalties optimally should be small. Conversely, small reputational penalties imply a more important role for legal penalties in an optimal framework. (Gary S. Becker, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, 76 J. Pol. Econ. 169 (March/April 1968).
- This is obviously the position of the Law and Economics Movement. The title of the reference ought also to be a clue. Of course, Lott is well known as being part of the Law and Economics Movement. If there is any lingering doubt in anyone's mind, his funding as Law and Economics Fellow at Chicago (home of the Law and Economics Movement) and at Yale, as well as his publishing in Law and Economics journals, both documented in his CV, should help convince. Hopefully, this will not be a point of debate.
- In fact, this very Lott article here once upon a time contained the following:
- Law and economics movement
- The Law and economics school of thought holds that all laws should be derived in a utilitarian manner, based on what produces the greatest good for the greatest number, rather than abstract notions of human rights or justice. In practice, this leads to a pronounced philosophical bias against government regulation in general, and has produced many of the policymakers (e.g. Robert Bork) and much of the policy of the US Republican party since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
- For whatever reasons, by whichever "side", this was removed, leaving the oversimplified depiction of Lott as conservative and antiregulatory. If anyone wants to replace that depiction by a connection to Law and Economics and a simplified description of what that means politically, I would say by all means do so, it can only help. Gzuckier 16:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- "Although Lott has published in academic journals regarding education, voting behavior of politicians, industrial organization, labor markets, judicial confirmations, and crime, his research is hard to consistently tag as liberal or conservative. For example, some research argues for environmental penalties on firms.[1]" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=747824Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- "Lott has published in academic journals regarding education, voting behavior of politicians, industrial organization, labor markets, judicial confirmations, and crime."
- Why call Lott's research as being just on deregulation? That it is purely conservative? I took the time to go through the SSRN a little and was easily able to see both claims were false. I put in a reference to a paper show the support for environmental penalties. What have you done on this? Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- See previous response.Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Do you concede this? Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- Why can't the criticism discussions be in the criticism section?
- Not only is most of the piece critical, but there can't even be an unbiased set up?Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- What peer-reviewed research came to the opposite conclusion of Lott? The write up you want claims that is true.
- You should read things more carefully. "Some of Lott's academic rebuttals to subsequent peer-reviewed work which reached conclusions opposite to his have been demonstrated to have coding errors and other systematic sources of bias." Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I don’t understand what your “no” was referring to because there is no request here to repeat anything, but I guess that it doesn’t matter too much. Is what I wrote acceptable? Timewarp 18:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is not helpful. I have tried to respond and when I tell you I don’t understand what you are saying you become even less helpful. How does the word “no” clear this up? What is being repeated? Timewarp 23:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This segment was on the claim that there are no peer-reviewed studies that claim the “opposite>” You have never answered that point. I assume that you have no answer. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- I have searched through the entire discussion page and I can not find one place where you provide even one example of a peer-reviewed research producing a result that is the opposite of Lott. Don’t be so difficult. Either point to where you made these statements or simply write them down here. Right now I think that you are blowing a lot of smoke. Your statements are vague and purposefully not helpful. Timewarp 20:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
- THe other person's correction regarding "Making statement discussing Wilson agree with the quote from Wilson" was very clear.
- This is what the other person wrote: "Despite this controversy over the positive effects of gun ownership on reducing crime, the body of work reviewed by the NAS demonstrates that deregulation of concealed carry does not lead to an increase in violent crime." and it coincides with the quote that is shown from Wilson. Just look at the change from what it was before.
- This was the exact quote that was in the text of the posting that 66.190.73.64 put up. Timewarp 18:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This vague note is not a helpful response. You are just making a lot of extra work without providing helpful details. You give an incorrect response and then a very vague one. Timewarp 23:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This segment was on Wilson’s claim. You have wondered off onto something else and never addressed the issue involving Wilson. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- What are you smoking? Here is the statement being discussed: "Making statement discussing Wilson agree with the quote from Wilson.” The change that was made and the change that I wanted to make was to make the discussion of what Wilson wrote agree with what was being quoted by Wilson. You are being deliberately difficult to deal with. What NAS statement is relevant to me wanting to making the discussion of Wilson agree with the quote that was used by Wilson? Instead you just keep on repeating twice the vague claim that “What you wrote is not what the NAS determined.” Why is the NAS relevant for explaining Wilson’s statement? In any case, what NAS statement regarding what will wrote are you referring to? Timewarp 20:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- The statement was not a discussion of Wilson, but a statement of the NAS panel's findings. --TimLambert 14:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
- Appalachian school case was Lott's best known case of media bias? But another poster states "Lott has examples involving public school shootings that have gotten much attention." I believe that his discussions of public school shootings got a lot of attention. Where is the proof for the claim that the Appalachian case is his best known?Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- OK, here is what I suggested:
- "Lott claims that selective reporting by U.S. media fails to report instances of people defending themselves (or others) via legal use of guns. In one example, a school shooting at the Appalachian School of Law on January 16 ,2002 , Lott cites Tracy Bridges who says he pointed his gun at the killer, who then dropped his weapon and was subsequently tackled. [10] . However, Ted Besen contradicted this viewpoint on the January 17 ,2002 edition of The Early Show , saying that the killer put his (empty) gun down before Bridges intervened. The true sequence of events remains unresolved.
- 218 different news stories about the incident. Only three actually mentioned that the guns were used by the students to stop the attack. [11] Lott interviewed both the students who used their guns to stop the attack, including Mikael Gross. [12]
Of the reporters who did not mention Bridge's story, Maria Glod of the Washington Post cited "space constraints" for not including it. ( The Bias Against Guns , p.26).
- No. The number of stories is NOT relevent, as the vast majority of them are duplicates of the AP story. Three is NOT accurate. The current paragraph is more accurate, and is verifiable. If you want to put Lott said all over the paragraph you just wrote, we can have a paragraph about "Lott said, but actually." Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
The preliminary hearing had the prosecutor using Gross as his witness and confirmed Tracey Bridges’ version of events. [13] The amazing thing was how few news stories even mentioned anything about the students using guns to stop the attack. "Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Are we on board on this one? Timewarp 18:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- OK, how about “Very few news stories . . .” and then keep the rest. Timewarp 23:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I will compromise to “few,” which is literally the number of stories involved. Agreed? Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- You have raised two objections and I have compromised 100 percent your way both times. This is one of the few times that you have even clearly stated your concerns and when I offer to make the changes you come back and say “No.” I do not believe that this is what is meant by “discussing” these issues. Do you? Timewarp 20:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- Two books are mentioned in one section and then the quotes are only presented from one and one paragraph is not even one that directly uses the survey use to make the claim. THese are the long quoted section from More Guns, Less Crime. An earlier person wants to make some point regarding police, but it is not for that Lott is citing his evidence. It is obviously inappropriate. The response above to you comment about repeating quotes is also relevant.Timewarp 14:42, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- "Lott argues that in both More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns he was trying to explain why media coverage of defensive gun use is rare. In both books he noted that only shootings that end in fatalities are likely to result in news stories. Since Lott was arguing that there is media bias, Lott argues that using this data instead of data that showed lower brandishing rates was biased against his conclusions. He wrote:
- "If national surveys are correct, 98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack. Such stories are not hard to find; pizza deliverymen defend themselves against robbers, carjackings are thwarted, robberies at automatic teller machines are prevented, and numerous armed robberies on the streets and in the stores are foiled, though these do not receive the national coverage of other gun crimes. Yet the cases covered by the news media are hardly typical; most of the encounters reported involve a shooting that ends in a fatality.." [Several such stories follow] (More Guns, Less Crime p.3)
- "... Even though the survey I conducted during the fall 2002 indicates that simply brandishing a gun successfully stops crimes 95 percent of the time that guns are used defensively and other surveys have also found high rates, it is very rare to see such a story. No conspiracy explanation is really needed to explain why an editor finds a dead body on the ground very newsworthy (particularly if it is a sympathetic person like a victim). By contrast, take a story in where a woman brandishes a gun and a criminal flees, with no shots are fired, no crime is committed, and one isn’tno one is even sure what crime would have been committed had a weapon not been drawn. Nothing bad actually happened. It is not emotionally gripping enough to make the story “newsworthy.” (“Bias Against Guns”)
- Lott claims that selective reporting by U.S. media fails to report instances of people defending themselves (or others) via legal use of guns. In one example, a school shooting at the Appalachian School of Law on January 16, 2002, Lott cites Tracy Bridges who says he pointed his gun at the killer, who then dropped his weapon and was subsequently tackled. [10]. However, Ted Besen contradicted this viewpoint on the January 17, 2002 edition of The Early Show, saying that the killer put his (empty) gun down before Bridges intervened. The true sequence of events remains unresolved.
- 218 different news stories about the incident. Only three actually mentioned that the guns were used by the students to stop the attack. [11] Lott interviewed both the students who used their guns to stop the attack, including Mikael Gross. [12]
- Of the reporters who did not mention Bridge's story, Maria Glod of the Washington Post cited "space constraints" for not including it. (The Bias Against Guns, p.26).
- The preliminary hearing had the prosecutor using Gross as his witness and confirmed Tracey Bridges’ version of events.[13] The amazing thing was how few news stories even mentioned anything about the students using guns to stop the attack."
- These changes were in the original posting. Timewarp 16:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is shorter than what was there before, but puts in the changes that we had talked about before. The quote from page two of More Guns is replaced with a quote from The Bias book. The police discussion is removed because it isn’t relevant. Timewarp 18:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Please be at least a tiny bit reasonable. The changes are made in various different places and large parts were already in the write up, but it reads a lot better if it is all put together. Your comments indicate that you didn’t read the original posts when small changes were being made and it would be easy for you to check them. Instead it appears as if you saw that several people were making changes and rather than actually read the changes you just put things back the way they were. This combined with you not helpful comments above are going to convince others that you are not interested in trying to work this out. Please be somewhat responsive on this. Timewarp 23:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- I am not paid for my time here. You will not win this argument by obfuciation. Post a concrete change to a single paragraph, and I will consider it. You write that "several people were making changes." This is not remotely accurate. All of the changes you refer to were made by you in the span of approximately 3 hours in the early am of 14 October 2005. [5]Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:43, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- This information has been provided to you in multiple different ways. On this page I have provided you with short changes as well as long. You have consistently said "no" to all of them. (The original postings were done by me were in small easily identified segments, but you simply did a global change.) I have asked for clarifications and you have continued to just say "no" or to give vague responses. Rather than providing your objections at once, when I make a change to try to deal with an objection (some as I have shown are unfounded with direct quotes) you concede nothing and do not suggest a response of your own. Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is not accurate. I proposed a change above, and accepted one of your changes (which you promptly expanded into another change). That I'm opposing your POV push is just how it's going to be. Doing lots of edits over a short time is the same as doing just one. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
(Whoever is cutting out my responses and editing what is here stop it!) Here is what I asked before that was cut out. Could you tell me where I expanded this one change into another one? (My other question now removed.) Again here are some short responses: Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- I reviewed the history of this talk page. No one has edited a word you have written or cut out any of your responses. Your stubborn insistance on not proposing individual concrete changes is what makes this impossible to follow. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:56, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
- "Lott argues that in both More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns he was trying to explain why media coverage of defensive gun use is rare. In both books he noted that only shootings that end in fatalities are likely to result in news stories. Since Lott was arguing that there is media bias, Lott argues that using this data instead of data that showed lower brandishing rates was biased against his conclusions. He wrote:
- "If national surveys are correct, 98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack. Such stories are not hard to find; pizza deliverymen defend themselves against robbers, carjackings are thwarted, robberies at automatic teller machines are prevented, and numerous armed robberies on the streets and in the stores are foiled, though these do not receive the national coverage of other gun crimes. Yet the cases covered by the news media are hardly typical; most of the encounters reported involve a shooting that ends in a fatality.." (More Guns, Less Crime p.3)
- This is misleading. The claim that Lott was making in More Guns, Less Crime was that “underreporting of defensive gun use is large”. The extraordinarily high brandishing rates that Lott claims his surveys found are biased TOWARDS this claim. The lack of news coverage can be explained if defensive gun use is not as frequent as Lott claims and as the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates. --TimLambert 14:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- Can you read and understand either the quote above or below? Deaths get covered, if no one is hurt they don’t. Lott says that it is understandable and not bias. If you believe brandishing make up most defensive uses, you don’t need bias to explain why most defensive stories are not covered. No bias in not covered most stories. Lott believes there is bias, right? So using the high brandishing rate makes it harder to claim that few stories on defensive gun uses prove bias. Timewarp 17:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- We can look at all the times you made the 98% claim and see that you weren't talking about media bias. --TimLambert 04:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- "... Even though the survey I conducted during the fall 2002 indicates that simply brandishing a gun successfully stops crimes 95 percent of the time that guns are used defensively and other surveys have also found high rates, it is very rare to see such a story. No conspiracy explanation is really needed to explain why an editor finds a dead body on the ground very newsworthy (particularly if it is a sympathetic person like a victim). By contrast, take a story in where a woman brandishes a gun and a criminal flees, with no shots are fired, no crime is committed, and one isn’tno one is even sure what crime would have been committed had a weapon not been drawn. Nothing bad actually happened. It is not emotionally gripping enough to make the story “newsworthy.” (“Bias Against Guns”)
- Next change: "The true sequence of events remains unresolved." should be changed to "The preliminary hearing had the prosecutor using Gross as his witness and confirmed Tracey Bridges’ version of events.[13]" [6] Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- This isn't true. Gross was a witness but did not confirm Bridges' version.--TimLambert 14:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- Next change: "The true sequence of events remains unresolved." should be changed to "The preliminary hearing had the prosecutor using Gross as his witness and confirmed Tracey Bridges’ version of events.[13]" [6] Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- Which does not prove that Odighizuwa dropped his gun after Bridges pointed his own gun at him. --TimLambert 14:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- I had thought that you were somewhat familiar with this case. Didn't you know that it was both Bridges and Gross who stopped the attack by pointing their guns at the attacker? So since the prosecutors are using the statements from Gross on the stand, the only student who was asked to testify in the preliminary hearing, to get your conclusion you would have to assume that Gross changed his story on the stand. If that were true, if there were conflicts with earlier public claims by Gross, I am shocked that somehow did not get brought up at the hearing. My guess that if you have only one eye witness, you would put up someone who was very solid. Gross was also interviewed by Lott. Gross made a statement that confirmed Bridges' statements. [8] Timewarp 10:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- The point of contention is whether Odighizuwa put down his gun before Bridges arrived on the scene. Gross statements and testimony don't speak to this point. --TimLambert 04:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- LOL. This is really good. Gross’s statements clearly support Bridges and he is explaining why Besen did not understand what was happening. [9] If the guns were irrelevant, why did the liberal Washington Post write “Odighizuwa was subdued without incident by armed students”?[10] If you were correct, why even mention the guns since they would have been irrelevant? In any case, Al Lowe was arguing that at its very simplest the bias is this: the reporters were told about the students using guns and virtually none of them even mentioned it in their stories.Timewarp 12:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Well then, if the WaPo quote proves your case, then we can resolve this by putting it in the article without any editoralizing about what it means. Fair enough? --TimLambert 16:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- OK, I will give it a try, but I am disappointed that you won't just concede this one. How about this?
- Mikael Gross was one of the two students who claims to have used a gun to stop the Appalachian Law School attack. After the preliminary hearing where the prosecutor put Gross on the stand and Odighizuwa had to made a public statement for his plea bargain a Washington Post news story noted: “Odighizuwa was subdued without incident by armed students”?[11]. Gross was also interviewed by Lott and provided a discussion of how he claimed the attack was stopped. He also explains why Ted Besen did not see what Bridges and Gross were doing.[12]Timewarp 10:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- I made the changes that Lambert asked for. The facts are very clear here. If you disagree with the facts, state why. Otherwise what you have to add to this discussion is not relevant. All you can say to defend you position over and over again is “no,” “no,” “no.” I think that your lack of arguments are being made clear to everyone. Timewarp 20:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- You have not made the changes I asked for. Instead of using a quote from Gross you state that he said something he did not. If the Wapo and Gross prove Bridges' version to be correct you should be able to make your case with just a quote from each and no editorializing.
- Next change: Despite this controversy over the positive effects of gun ownership on reducing crime, the body of work reviewed by the NAS demonstrates that deregulation of concealed carry does not lead to an increase in violent crime. As Wilson wrote:
In addition, with only a few exceptions, the studies cited in Chapter 6, including those by Lott’s critics, do not show that the passage of RTC laws drives the crime rates up (as might be the case if one supposed that newly armed people went about looking for someone to shoot). The direct evidence that such shooting sprees occur is nonexistent. Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- Note you claim above that this first paragraph does not describe Wilson's quote, but you do not explain why.Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- These are some of the most trivial changes that I could suggest.Timewarp 8:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- What do you say now? What suggested changes will you be willing to let in? Just as Al Lowe has done, I have tried hard to compromise. You all have been very difficult providing vague reasons and requiring that suggestions be put in particular formats. I have done that despite it being a lot more work for me. Timewarp 18:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
- You have really said anything concrete for me to respond to. When you have specifically objected to terms such as The amazing thing” or “few,” I have offered to cut them out. When Lambert raised objections, I responded and rewrote things along the lines that he seemed to be suggesting. When you said that you didn’t want the proposed changes in more than two paragraph segments, I spent time and broke it down into parts. Your response to everything that I have tried to do is “no,” “no,” “no,” and you are not offering specific comments for me to respond to. Timewarp 20:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Just an FYI, as much as I would love to contribute to this discussion, a serious financial situation has forced me to take drastic measures. For the next 3 to 5 months, I'll be working as armed security in New Orleans during the rebuilding process. I seriously doubt I'll have much time to access this site, as well, I'll be surprised if I have access to the Internet at all. What I ask though, is that you please try to come to some sort of understanding on this matter. Try to cut through the rhetoric and innuendo, and see if we can get the facts published, not just someone's opinion. Assuming nothing bad happens to me, I should be back in 3-5 months. I would really like to see some changes here for the better.Al Lowe 22:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks, Al, and good luck. I am sure that people appreciate your efforts to bring some balance to this debate. Timewarp 10:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- I tried showing the changes as a whole. You said you wanted it broken down in parts. I broke it down into parts. In any case, you have rejected every single thing that I have written even when I have come to compromises with others and you have not offered one concrete suggestion in these last round of posts. You just say “no.” Useless you start to give me specific discussions or start to tell me things like the “peer-reviewed” research that you point to but refuse to what they are everyone will see that you are not being serious. Timewarp 20:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
New Section
Do not include anything but things in the following format in this new section:
Old Passage:
Biased, POV old stuff
New Passage:
Unbiased, NPOV new stuff
Comments
This is a good change. Hipocrite - «Talk»
Old Passage:
New Passage:
Comments:
Errors of timewarp
The following is not to be considered a complete list by me, I haven't even considered the media bias section, this is just stuff that jumped out at me instantly
"Before the controversy arose, Lott had repeated his survey for a book that he had written in 2002" (changed from "Lott resolved to settle the matter by repeating his survey in 2002 before the publication of his most recent book")
- The controversy began soon after the second edition of the book in 1998:
- > Also ignored is that 98% of the time when
- > people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the
- > weapon is sufficient to stop an attack. In less than
- > 1% of the cases is a gun even fired directly at the at-
- > tacker.
- This is wrong. There is some contention over whether the NCVS or
- Kleck's survey gives a more accurate estimate of the number of
- defensive gun uses, but they do both agree that the gun is fired
- between 24 and 40 per cent of the time. (Talk.politics.guns, Nov. 20, 1998, by none other than Tim Lambert[13])
- The "second" survey was done in 2002 ("As for the 2002 survey",[14])
- The book was published in 2003.
- This is not very productive because you do not even try to deal with the earlier debate on this Tim. Pretending to be someone else citing it doesn’t make it any more convincing. You have two surveys, two surveys that Lott points out may involve much more error because they are asking people to recall events over five times longer period of time. [15] Of course, the bottom line is that if you do believe that brandishings are so rare, then the media is more biased. Lott picked a number that was biased against showing the media was biased. Timewarp 22:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- You are projecting, Mr Lott. My edits here appear my own name. You might like to try following my example instead of using a sock puppet. There are seven surveys, not two. The NCVS uses a six month recall -- shorter than Lott's one year. The NSPOF survey uses one year, same as Lott, Kleck's survey uses five years, but if you restrict the sample to just those people reporting a DGU within a year, you get exactly the same brandishing number. And Lott's original reason for citing the number was argue that DGUs were more than were reported, not to excuse media bias. --TimLambert 14:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
"In fact, Lott's 98%/2% figure contradicts the other two surveys over the last twenty years that estimated this rate." (changed from "contradicts all other published studies of the question")
| Survey | Percent firing | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Kleck | 24 | Kleck 1995 |
| NSPOF | 27 | Duncan 2000 |
| NCVS 1987-1990 | 28 | Duncan 2000 |
| NCVS 1987-1992 | 38 | Rand 1994 |
| NCVS 1992-2001 | 21 | NCVS online analysis system |
| Field | 34 | Kleck 1995 |
| Cambridge Reports | 67 | Kleck 1995 |
| DMIa | 40 | Kleck 1995 |
| Ohio | 40 | Kleck 1995 |
(lambert's work from years ago, again[16])
- This is ridiculous. Author and year of publication is the Harvard style for citation and is completely standard.
"the body of work reviewed by the NAS demonstrates that deregulation of concealed carry does not lead to an increase in violent crime" (changed from "a large increase").
- this shows a misunderstanding of the whole point of the NAS review (perhaps deliberate). The NAS review says that the totality of the studies on the subject does not give a very precise estimate of the effect; no effect, increase or decrease, large enough to break through the noise is evident. This is most definitely NOT a statement that there is no increase. It is, however, a statement that there is no LARGE increase.
Deleted "Even if Lott actually did the survey, used a novel (or even mistaken) mathematical method to generate the results he quotes, and is the victim of the worst luck ever in losing all records of it, even his colleagues who oppose gun control consider it extremely unprofessional to continue to quote from memory a result for which the raw data are no longer available and the methodology is no longer remembered, particularly when that result is wildly at variance with every other study of the same subject, appears to be mathematically impossible from the design of the survey, and very well could be an error. Nevertheless, the 2% figure for the percentage of defensive gun uses which involve firing the gun has been adopted by the many firearms rights supporters and has become a fixture in their canon of argument, including continuing references by Lott himself.", despite its being a relevant statement of fact supported by a link.
"Besides statements by someone who took the survey and contemporaneous statements by others," unsupported assertion, contradicts all known sources.
- "Assuming the survey data was lost in a computer crash, it is still remarkable that Lott could not produce a single, contemporaneous scrap of paper proving the survey’s existence, such as the research protocol or survey instrument. After Lindgren's report was published, a Minnesota gun rights activist named David Gross came forward, claiming he was surveyed in 1997. Some have said that Gross’s account proves that the survey was done. I think skepticism is warranted."[Assuming the survey data was lost in a computer crash, it is still remarkable that Lott could not produce a single, contemporaneous scrap of paper proving the survey’s existence, such as the research protocol or survey instrument. After Lindgren's report was published, a Minnesota gun rights activist named David Gross came forward, claiming he was surveyed in 1997. Some have said that Gross’s account proves that the survey was done. I think skepticism is warranted. [18]
Deleted "generally considered to be a right-wing think tank." which is both true and relevant.
Deleted "Why should Lott bother responding to a nothing like Lambert who isn't in the area and who isn't particularly honest? I don't even know why he responded to him once. In any case, if Lambert really cared about the truth he would acknowledge that Lott has dealt extensively with this discussion in his book. All I have done here is parrot what Lott wrote." - In fact, while Lott was posting as Rosh, he would normally decline requests to engage in such Usenet discussions of his work under his own name, stating: - :"I have not participated in the firearms discussion group nor in the apparent online newsgroup discussions" - on the grounds that he was attracting hostile reaction which upset his wife. Yet, despite this statement, the Usenet archives at Google show that Lott did continue to post occasionally under his own name from the various email addresses of the different institutions where he worked throughout the entire period when he was posting as "Mary Rosh", without apparent worry about attracting hostile attention, but avoiding the detailed professional discussions of his work that he left to Rosh. Furthermore, among the replies to these posts, there is no evidence of any hostility to Lott, at least publicly." which is relevant to the section, factual, and supported by citations.
Deleted "Lott's op-eds and other popular works have been found to contain some errors of fact. Lott has tended to blame faulty editing on the part of the media, though the errors are subsequently repeated elsewhere." though supported by the following, which he/she/it also deleted.
Deleted "At one point, Rosh engaged in a lengthy discussion of errors of fact in a newspaper op-ed piece Lott had written (regarding the disarming of the shooter in the school shooting mentioned above), which when corrected would have reduced support for Lott's slogan of "More guns. less crime". After Rosh was finally forced to admit that the original piece did indeed omit some important facts, Lott then published a corrected version in a different newspaper, which Rosh then cited as evidence that the errors in the original piece must have been due to bad editing by the newspaper, rather than Lott's fault. To prove her case, Rosh suggested that her opponent telephone Lott to discuss it; he did so, and, despite Rosh having been discussing it online for over a week, Lott claimed no knowledge of the controversy, and even not to have seen how the original newspaper had edited his work, implying that it was indeed the editors' fault, and that he had not in fact made an error then subsequently corrected it. Two months later, however, Lott published another article on the same subject, again omitting the same crucial facts which would have disproved his position, clearly demonstrating that not only was it not bad editing that was the source of the errors in the first place, but that Lott was willing to knowingly repeat the error to add false support to his argument, using Rosh to give himself the appearance of a "plausible deniability"." which is factual, supported by citations, and supports the above.
Deleted entire section regarding Mary Rosh: "Use of an anonymous posting identity can also be abused to make it appear that there is independent confirmation of one's views, or praise and approval from third parties. In fact, Rosh claimed to be one of Lott's former students, and had many good things to say about him; for instance his teaching style: - :"I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention, and I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had. You wouldn't know that he was a 'right-wing' ideologue from the class. He argued both sides of different issues. He tore apart empirical work whether you thought that it might be right-wing or left-wing. At least at Wharton for graduate school or Stanford for undergraduate, Lott taught me more about analysis than any other professor that I had and I was not alone. There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material." - While this statement would be considered amusing ego-boost were it posted about oneself, posting it under an assumed name attempts to give it some credibility, while the revelation that it was posted about oneself anonymously makes it appear ludicrously self-serving. Similarly, the Rosh identity was also used to post several five star reviews of his books on Amazon.com, in violation of Amazon.com's clear policy, and at Barnes and Noble.com, as well as bad reviews of books by his rivals; Lott states that his son and wife wrote them. Rosh also urged people to download copies of Lott's papers: - :"The papers that get downloaded the most get noticed the most by other academics. It is very important that people download this paper as frequently as possible." (Emphasis in the original) - Again, this would be amusing if one posted it about one's own work, but trying to push one's own work under an assumed name is considered academically unethical and unprofessional. - Lott's critics maintain that the whole 'Mary Rosh' incident, together with the questions about his unsupported survey, call into question Lott's trustworthiness, and therefore cast doubt on his entire body of work, even where no evidence of deception is found. His defenders reject such claims as ad hominem attacks, and point out that in Lott's main body of work, where all the data, reasoning, and mathematical analysis are quite properly completely presented, there is no apparent room for dissembling, as proved by the fact that others have indeed reworked the same data to come to different conclusions and identified where Lott had made errors (as described above). "
- Gzuckier 18:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- I agree wuth the persom who cut this out. I only wish that I had been the person to do it. Hippocrite has argued that we are not allowed to report our own research here. Lambert’s work surely counts as his own research, even if it could be trusted. In any case, basing these claims on Lambert when Al Lowe shows how he has misstated things and XRLQ has caught Lambert selectively editing things to completely change their meanings make it impossible to rely on him as an objective source.[19] Timewarp 22:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- That's nice, but what does it have to do with all the errors, and what appear to be Shit you just made up which you posted that I list above? Gzuckier 03:14, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
- It is directly relevant because for these posts by Lambert you only have his word to go on. XRLQ and Lowe have pointed to him doctoring documents to alter their meaning.[20] When you don't have a primary source and you have to rely on something that someone who has doctored documents is putting forth, that is not enough to hang anything on.Timewarp 21:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
- Once again, how does your statement that Lott did the second survey before the controversy over the first, fit in with the documented dates of the controversy over the firs tsurvey, and the documented dates of the second survey, and what does that have to do with any hypothetical altered documents? Where do Lott's tax records show his payments to students for the first survey, given that everyone who has actually seen them states that they don't? What does that have to do with any hypothetical altered documents? And so on, ad infinitum. Gzuckier 14:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
- Of course I haven't doctored any documents to alter their meaning. I quoted from Lott's review of Freakonomics with a link to the full review. Apparently Timewarp beleives that any quote of less than 100% of a document is "doctoring" it. Nor, in any case, it is necessary to take my word on anything since I have linked to supporting sources for everything I have written. And how about admitting that you are Lott instead of pretending that you are not him? --TimLambert 04:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
- Much of this posting is based upon your word and as noted above people have shown that you have doctored documents. XRLQ caught you: "No one disputes that John R. Lott was the original author of the Freakonomics review, which first ran in the April 21, 2005 Wall Street Journal, and was later posted on his web site. All that proves is that Economist123 copied and pasted John Lott’s book review. It doesn’t say a f’n thing about who Economist123 is. It only looked that way when Lambert dishonestly snipped the review to make the name “John R. Lott” look like a signature to the Economist123 review, rather than the tail end of what he had copied and pasted from Lott’s web site." [22] See also the discussions by Al Lowe.Timewarp 1:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
- No, you are not allowed to do original research here. If you want to report your own research, post it to your blog and then you can refer to it from here. Xlrq's claims are dealt with in this post.--TimLambert 14:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
- XRLQ claims that you selectively edit things to create the opposite impression from what otherwise would be seen. Your discussion here goes on and on without as far as I can tell dealing with XRLQ's evidence that you have distorted evidence.[23] Unless you can respond to that, I don't see how any one can take anything in this post based upon your word. Timewarp 22:28, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Good try moving the ball and pretending like the earlier discussions never took place. Timewarp 22:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Sockpuppetry
TL claimed that 66.93.100.155, Alt37 and Timewarp are all sockpuppets belonging to Lott. This seems quite plausible: Lotts use of scokpuppets elsewhere is documented. But Timewarp then muddied the waters with Kindly provide ANY real evidence that Alt37, Watchdog, 66.93.100.155, 66.190.73.64, 128.239.177.196, Al Lowe, or 206.165.74.6 are sockpuppets. Is TW proposing that Al Lowe is a sockpuppet? Who is Watchdog? William M. Connolley 12:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC).
- No muddying the waters here, though if you go through the list Lambert has accused some of these others of being sockpuppets also. Al Lowe says that he was even initially accused of being one. In reading XRLQ's site, it is mentioned that he was accused of being one. My statement was a rhetorical one, since none of them are likely to be sockpuppets. There are lots of people who have tried to correct this page, and without any evidence Lambert just asserts that everyone is a sockpuppet. I looked up the IP addresses for some of these people and they seem to be from all over the US. Also remember Lambert's demonstrated willingness to manufacture evidence.[24]Timewarp 9:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
- Your link appears to demonstrate Lotts use of scok puppets, not TL's manufacturing of evidence. TL has done a good job of digging up various sockpuppets, so I think he is likely to be correct. I'm still unclear why you are muddying things by dragging AL into this, though. William M. Connolley 15:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC).
- This evidence depends upon us believing Lambert. Not a very believable proposition given that Lambert is engaged in the sockpuppetry that he seems to accuse everyone else of doing. Lambert has also been caught doctoring and editing evidence. In addition, Lambert has set up a mirror of Micheal Fumento's website and done the same thing to John Lott's website Finally, Lambert has accused many other people of creating sock puppets fromMichael Fumento to Ann Coulter.
- "No one disputes that John R. Lott was the original author of the Freakonomics review, which first ran in the April 21, 2005 Wall Street Journal, and was later posted on his web site. All that proves is that Economist123 copied and pasted John Lott’s book review. It doesn’t say a f’n thing about who Economist123 is. It only looked that way when Lambert dishonestly snipped the review to make the name “John R. Lott” look like a signature to the Economist123 review, rather than the tail end of what he had copied and pasted from Lott’s web site." [25]Timewarp 9:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
- Of course, I never said xlrq or Al Lowe or most of the people on Timewarp's were sockpuppets. What is interesting is that he leaves off 69.141.3.180. Are you admitting that one is you, Timewarp? --TimLambert 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- From the posts by 69.141.3.180, I can't tell what side they were on so I didn't include them. It was a neutral edit just trying to correct a date. Why does a very minor neutral edit make you think of a sock doing it? If you want to assume that anyone trying to get dates right is on the same side that I am fine. Timewarp 22:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
- This one is not a neutral edit. --TimLambert 02:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- Not neutral? 69.141.3.180 just changed a couple of words. He basically changed "Lott went on to work at other institutions" to "Lott has also worked at other institutions." Timewarp 1:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- nonarchival edit but i couldn't let it go unchallenged even at this late date.... "just changed a couple of words." Wow, what a whopper! Anyone inclined to believe that on timewarp's sayso, please be advised to click on the link. I get eight screenfuls of "diff", amounting to a massive rewrite of the article. Gzuckier 20:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- Not neutral? 69.141.3.180 just changed a couple of words. He basically changed "Lott went on to work at other institutions" to "Lott has also worked at other institutions." Timewarp 1:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Alt37 claims there are unanswered questions here... for someone with so few edits, all reverts here (apart from the POV tag), she appears very sure of things. And is pretty obviously someones sockpuppet. Err, and which way is she reverting? Seems fairly clear. William M. Connolley 18:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC).
Also: I now see that Alt37 added the POV tag. Socks shouldn't do that. I'm not sure who wants it, so I'm removing it. Then we can see who does want it. William M. Connolley 18:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC).
- And your evidence of Alt37 being a sock is what? Look at some of the others who have tried to correct things over the last week or so: 206.165.74.6 (Phoenix, AZ), 128.239.177.196 (William and Mary, williamsburg, Va.), 66.190.73.64 (Charter Communications, Ft. Worth, Texas), 66.93.100.155 (Speakeasy, Washington, DC), and I saw one from California. Timewarp 16:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC) revised
- And the only one of these I said was Lott was 66.93.100.155 in DC, which just happens to be where Lott works. --TimLambert 02:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- OK, so one of these is from the same city where he works. And from that we have proof that he did it? Timewarp 1:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- Have any admins investigated the claims of sockpuppetry rasied in this
articlediscussion page? If not, a request should be posted in the relevant forum. --- Charles Stewart 20:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Alt37 only has edits to this page. His very first edit was to add a POV header. This is sock behaviour. William M. Connolley 09:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC).
- Sometimes legitimate users exhibit behaviour that is characteristic of sockpuppets. WP does have a process for investigating sockpuppetry allegations, see WP:SOCK. It looks like the answer to my question is no. Do In understand that Alt37 is claimed to be a sock of Timewarp? The right thing to do would be to put "{{sockpuppet|Timewarp|evidence=claims of [[User:TimLambert]] at [[Talk:John Lott]]}}" on Alt37's user page. If Alt37 has been used to get around 3RR, then the claim should be listed on the admin's log as well. --- Charles Stewart 19:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- I think that TL has listed Alt37 on the 3RR page, and put a note on Tim Starlings page requesting he take a look. William M. Connolley 20:08, 31 October 2005 (UTC).
- The fact that someone believes that what you are constantly putting up is inaccurate is evidence of nothing more than they think it is inaccurate. Timewarp 5:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I am but the sockpuppet of The Lord. Gzuckier 15:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
3RR
I make that Timewarps 4th rv (or 5th...?). Anyway, I'm off to report him. Ah... TL has beat me to it. Jolly good. William M. Connolley 12:02, 28 October 2005 (UTC).
Repeatin things over and over despite evidence that would lead most people to not be repeating it, at least without some changes..... Gzuckier 15:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- It is too bad that you are unwilling to actually debate the issues. Al Lowe and myself have tried repeatedly to discuss the various claims. If you are right, then defend your claims. Simply saying "no" is not a defense. We will repeat these points until you explain why they are wrong.Timewarp 12:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, let's go one at a time. You claim the second book was written before the controversy over the existence of the first survey. The controversy had already started in 1998. The book was written in 2002. Kindly give us some evidence the book was written before 1998, or that 1998 is after 2002. Gzuckier 02:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- You aren't trying to be serious, and you obviously didn't read the discussion above, or at least didn't care. Out of all the points raised above you raise one and do so incorrectly. My understanding is that this discussion got serious in the beginning of 2003 and that to set up a survey and get all the people to participate in doing it probably took some time before the survey was even done. That probably puts us in the middle of 2002.Timewarp 19:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
- Your various attempts to cast aspersions on my motives, competency, or level of effort in no way alleviate you from the need to justify your contrafactual mass of edits, which you appear to believe represent one single large and lumpy fact.
- What part of "OK, let's go one at a time." confuses you?
- Who are we to believe, your understanding or the record of Usenet debate as freely searchable? Would you prefer it to read "the second book was written after the debate on the survey, but before the date which Timewarp says he understands to be when the debate got serious"?
- Gzuckier 16:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
As for when the discussion got serious, does this email from John Lott on Sep 21,2002, ring a bell?
I am extremely busy so please save up what you want to send me for a week or so, but this sounds like an excellent test. If they do any type of search, Nexis/Lexis or google or check the transcripts of my testimony, I am willing to bet that I don't start mentioning this figure until the spring of 1997. If I use it before I said that I did the survey, I will say that they nailed me. But if I only started using it about the time that I said that I did the survey, I think that it would be strong evidence the other way. Let's see what they find.
--TimLambert 17:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Since Timewarp seem eager to move on on multiple fronts, let's go to point two, in my limited list. This in no way is to be construed that the debate over the assertions regarding his personal hunch as to when the debate over survey #1 got serious are convincing regarding when the debate over the survey actually began.
- In fact, Lott's 98%/2% figure contradicts the other two surveys over the last twenty years that estimated this rate.
| Survey | Percent firing | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Kleck | 24 | Kleck 1995 |
| NSPOF | 27 | Duncan 2000 |
| NCVS 1987-1990 | 28 | Duncan 2000 |
| NCVS 1987-1992 | 38 | Rand 1994 |
| NCVS 1992-2001 | 21 | NCVS online analysis system |
| Field | 34 | Kleck 1995 |
| Cambridge Reports | 67 | Kleck 1995 |
| DMIa | 40 | Kleck 1995 |
| Ohio | 40 | Kleck 1995 |
- :AS you know and even if you did not it was pointed out in the previous discussion, these data here are when these surveys were cited, not when they took place. It is just an example of the misediting that people such as XRLQ have pointed to [26] Timewarp 22:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- The date of these surveys is irrelevant to the fact that Lott's estimate is wildly divergent from any and all of them, in terms of the question of whether the survey was done at all. Or are you suggesting that he can only be expected to tailor the reported results of his survey to match the data known at the time, and cannot be faulted for not matching results which only came in later?
- The fact remains that his 98%/2% statement "if national surveys are correct" is false, based even on only the two surveys which you deign to accept.
- The allegation that the dates in the table reflect the publication date of the surveys, not when they were done, is not any sort of support for your assertion that there were only two surveys over the previous twenty years, given that six of the surveys have publication dates in 1994 and 1995. Or are you assuming that they were published before they were done? Switching sides on the debate?
- If you don't mind, I'll hold up on points 3, 4, 5, 6, ..... N until the community has reached some sort of consensus with these two, as the constant vague references to this all having been discussed previously keep things from making any progress.Gzuckier 17:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Complete NPOV failure and misrepresented facts
This is apparently difficult for many to understand:
Articles should be written without bias, representing all views fairly. This is the neutral point of view policy. The policy is easily misunderstood: It doesn't assume that writing an article from a single, unbiased, objective point of view is possible. Instead it says to fairly represent all sides of a dispute by not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct. Crucially, a great merit of Wikipedia is that Wikipedians work together to make articles unbiased.
As Al Lowe noted above: "The article on John Lott clearly fails the NPOV test." Lambert, Pierremenard, and Connolley seem determined to remove any warning that there are disagreements. Without defending the version that they insist on putting up,[27][28][29][30] it is bizarre that they won't even recognize that people disagree with them. It is enough that Lambert has been repeatedly caught creatively editing evidence to create false impressions.[31][32]Timewarp 12:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
- The NPOV tag should be used to indicate there is a discussion on the talk page about how to improve the article to achieve NPOV. You can't just slap it on and not discuss the matter in talk. If you want to help here, pick just one chnage you think should be made and discuss it here. You will never get agreement if you keep trying to make a huge number of contentious changes all at once. It is not true that I have been caught "creatively editing evidence". I refuted this claim further up this page and repeating a baseless charge does not make it true. --TimLambert 00:39, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- This is an amazingly bold lie. All anyone has to do is read the discussions above.[33][34][35][36] Do you assume that people will read this and not see all the point by point attempts to discuss these issues in the talk sections above? What does someone have to do on the talk page to indicated to you that there is a disagreement. Your stategy is obviously to make people spend a lot of time discussing these issues and then pretend that there has been no attempt to discuss them. I should have realized that AL Lowe has already proven that you don't care about what anyone actually writes here. If you can't even admit that there is a disagreement here and that multiple people have tried hard to discuss this on the talk page, no one should take anything that you have to say seriously.Timewarp 19:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
- The problem with the "multiple people" bit is your apparent use of sock pupptets. Indeed, it seems likely that you are JL. In which case you fall under the "no autobiography" rule, which applies especially in controversial cases. William M. Connolley 09:43, 31 October 2005 (UTC).
- Mr. Connolley, may I respectfully submit that you should perhaps "remove the log from your own eye", sir. You are not acting in accordance with the "assume good faith" policy, which is of greater weight than the guideline on autobiography. If you have a compelling reason to believe that Timewarp is in fact John Lott, please, by all means, enlighten us. Otherwise, please assume good faith and stick to the facts of the case and the appertaining arguments. Dick Clark 20:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- Its Dr Connolley to you, old fruit. And you have your policies mixed: they don't override each other: if this is Lott, then the no autobiography applies. If its not, the rule doesn't. I think it probably is Lott, and he has Form, as I'm sure you're aware. William M. Connolley 20:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC).
- I suppose I could have checked up a bit before applying the default title, "Mr." "Dr. Connelley" it is. I did not mean to indicate that I felt that the policy rendered the guideline moot. I was simply expressing that violation of "assume good faith" ought not be excused simply because the violation was somehow intended to assist in ferreting out violators of the autobiography guideline. I agree that, given the pitched struggle between some editors here, it would be unseemly for John Lott to edit this article (at least, the sections pertaining to some controversial topic; it seems acceptable for Lott to weigh in with, say, a change in strictly biographical information, i.e. a Date of Birth correction, etc.). Even with this common ground between us sir, I still have not seen any evidence presented that Timewarp is John Lott. Thus, any accusations along such lines must be considered to consist of conclusions drawn from assuming bad faith, unless, of course, you have evidence of your claim. To Timewarp: Please state on this page whether or not you are John Lott. If you say you are not, then we are back to a simple struggle for consensus. If you say you are, I would ask that you state as much on this page, and then limit any edits of yours to strictly factual contributions as described above. Dick Clark 21:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- It doesn't matter, but this was asked and answered on this page earlier, and the answer was clearly stated as "no." As to the other ones such as 66.93.100.155 (Speakeasy, Washington, DC) or ALT37 or for that matter any of the other ones involved with this over the last few weeks (including: 206.165.74.6 (Phoenix, AZ), 128.239.177.196 (William and Mary, williamsburg, Va.), 66.190.73.64 (Charter Communications, Ft. Worth, Texas), 69.141.3.180 (NJ comcast), or one in California), they will have to answer for themselves.Timewarp 23:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Timewarp is John Lott's sockpuppet
- The strongest evidence that Timewarp is John Lott is the hardest for third parties to appreciate. Timewarp's writing style is the same as Lott's. Compare his comments on this page with Mary Rosh's postings.
- Lott has made extensive use of sock puppets in many places besides Wikipedia. His socks include: Mary Rosh, Washingtonian, Bob H, Tom H, Sam, Kevin H, Too bad Tim is not very accurate, Gregg, maximcl and economist123.
- On wikipedia he first started editing the page as 38.118.12.78, making similar changes to Timewarp's. He admitted to being Lott and discovered that autobiography was frowned on. He tried again in July, using some different IP addresses. However, these were all from Washington/Swarthmore where he works/lives. Furthermore some of those IP numbers were already known to belong to Lott because of other postings.
- After being exposed on previous occasions he is now using named accounts (Timewarp and Alt37) to make it harder to prove that he is Lott, but I'm sure that if we the IP adresses for Timewarp, they would be similar to the other ones Lott has used.
--TimLambert 06:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- This evidence depends upon us believing Lambert. Not a very believable proposition given that Lambert is engaged in the sockpuppetry that he seems to accuse everyone else of doing. Lambert has also been caught doctoring and editing evidence. In addition, Lambert has Lambert has set up a mirror of Micheal Fumento's website and done the same thing to John Lott's website Finally, Lambert has accused many other people of creating sock puppets fromMichael Fumento to Ann Coulter.
- Timlambert has assembled convincing evidence. The subject's previous, acknowledged instance of sock puppeting, Mary Rosh, is an additional reason to believe that the subject may be editing under an assumed name. There is no absolute rule against autobiography and if he wants to edit the article we can't stop him, minus an ArbCom ruling (or disruptive behavior). Probably the simplest thing is to assume that Timewarp is the subject and treat him with the same respect due any Wikipedia editor along with an awareness of his particular POV. Though autobiography is discouraged, sock puppetry is forbidden. If an editor is using multiple accounts then the extra accounts should be blocked. -Willmcw 07:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- I concur with Willmcw, at least on his conclusion. Autobiography is not necessarily sufficient cause to revert an edit. I also agree that using sock puppets is totally unacceptable. What I am not convinced of, however, is that I should, on the weight TimLambert's say-so and largely unrelated evidence, accept that Timewarp is John Lott. TL, if you are in the mood, perhaps you could analyze this further, but I am not willing to accept your summary judgment based on speculation. This article should still be about finding consensus. (Oh yeah, TimLambert, make sure to tell Neville to be careful that both of his hands pass over his head on a throw-in--in older age groups a violation of this will definitely result in a call-back for the other team. Part of the fun is learning, though, right?) Dick Clark 17:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- Timewarp: my defense of your involvement notwithstanding, I believe your revert of my edit to the description of AEI was unwarranted. I changed the previous decription, "right-wing" to read "center-right" as per the wikipedia article about AEI, which decribes AEI: "AEI, along with The Heritage Foundation, is sometimes seen as a conservative counterpart to the center-left Brookings Institution." If you disagree with this characterization of AEI, you should attempt to remedy it in that article. Until then, please present a cogent argument for your changes when they entail a simple revert of someone's work. Dick Clark 17:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
This is not a WP:SOCK claim
AnoPseudonymous editing is perfectly acceptable here on WP. The claim that Timewarp and Alt37 are operated by the same person is the claim you should be pursuing, if you want your allegation to be investigated. --- Charles Stewart 17:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- I don't think anyone is interested in sockhunting for the purposes of Wikipedia editing. There certainly appear to be enough people who don't believe that the wholesale changes that Timewarp and friends are reverting to are appropriate without discussion that we don't need to be fretting too much about sockpuppetry. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- Exactly. If the edits had any validity either in content or in the way they were carried out, we'd not be wondering whether they were sockpuppets. As it is, even if they are not sockpuppets, they are still shitty edits, conducted in shitty fashion. Gzuckier 07:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
- In light of the strong appearance of Alt37 being the same editor as Timewarp, and the participation of that account in revert warring, I've blocked Alt37's account. Wikipedia:Account suspensions#Alt37. Any further discussion of these accounts should best be held there or in a user talk page. Our comments here should focus on the article. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
- Good. The reason for saying the other claim should be pursued is that WP does have the facility to perform background checks on users, although inline with the WP IP policy these are conducted only onder severe provacation and with care. If new JL pupsocks appear, we should use the WP process straight away: it means more judgements of this clandestine activity are out in the open. Note that no investigation has yet concluded other than on the face of it that there is any connection beyond coordination between Timewarp and Alt37, nor have either yet been conclusively traced back to JL. The evidence to that end may still some to light. --- Charles Stewart 16:14, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
- In light of the strong appearance of Alt37 being the same editor as Timewarp, and the participation of that account in revert warring, I've blocked Alt37's account. Wikipedia:Account suspensions#Alt37. Any further discussion of these accounts should best be held there or in a user talk page. Our comments here should focus on the article. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
- Exactly. If the edits had any validity either in content or in the way they were carried out, we'd not be wondering whether they were sockpuppets. As it is, even if they are not sockpuppets, they are still shitty edits, conducted in shitty fashion. Gzuckier 07:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
There have been a variety of new accounts used to revert the page to Timewarp's favoured version. All of these accounts have basically just been used to revert the page, so are mostly likely the same person as Timewarp. I'm listing them here for convenience: Purtilo, Sniper1, Serinity, Henry1776 --TimLambert 11:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. More sock accounts: Stotts Gordinier --TimLambert 02:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I can't prove that any of these accounts that keep reverting the page belong to John Lott. One thing is clear: there is a SINGLE person who keeps creating accounts whose entire contribution to wikipedia is the reversion of this page to a pro-Lott version. This seems to be done in order to create the appearance that more than a few people are dissatisfied with the current version. But, of course, no one is fooled. --Pieremenard
Lambert's Got His Own Sockpuppet Controversy
For those who, like me, were accused of being a fake person less than two hours after they first joined the discussion by Tim Lambert, this reading pertains very much to the discussions and accusations here put upon anyone who attempts to post a more balanced article.
http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/2005/12/tim_lamberts_ve.html http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/2005/12/update_on_ips_a.html
Like I've been saying - the entire effort here by Lott detractors is clearly focused on wrapping people interested in fairness up in endless debate on proving their identities until they finally give up fighting the trolls and leave. Detractors have now been put on notice - it is THEIR legitimacy that also deserves to be questioned here. They do not have any more right to claim to be the "wikipedia community" as a defense for their rejections of attempts at posting a slightly more balanced article. --Cbaus - December 6, 2005 11:23 a.m. EDST USA
- Obviously not Lambert's which is more than I can say for others here. Really, is this the best you've got? --Cbaus - December 6, 2005 12:06 p.m. EDST USA
- Yes. "Therefore assuming Lambert got two identical IPs from my name and that of another person, he must take into account the possibility the someone else who shares my address and knows me wants to post in support of me anonymously." What, Fumento has a typing dog? And the prior post, where someone accuses Tim of being someone else? Unlike John Lott (Who I accuse you of being, or working in cahoots with), Tim Lambert does not have a history of dishonesty. John Lott Does. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Tired accusation goes to my point in an above post:
- "2) Is it really so impossible for you to believe that there are people in this world who would care enough to stand up for fairness over this hack job you all have been trying to shove down everyone's throat? Can you seriously believe that every person who speaks up here, perhaps for the very first time, is John Lott using a pseudonym? I mean, if you all are nuts enough to spend this much time hating a man who lives on the other side of the world from you, certainly it would stand to reason that there would be others in the world who would think he is worth speaking out on behalf of."
- The same may be said for Saddam Hussein. This isn't a debating society, it's more of a skeptic society. If you wish to support your mixed bag of edits, which are mysteriously close to the same bag of edits which others whom I hasten to assert you are not a sock puppet of, have been trying to mass transfer here, you will need to do more than vague handwaving in the direction of the talk page, where the support for "controversial" assertions (to be polite) such as the 2% survey controversy first beginning 2003 are solely supported by generally insulting the character of those who disagree. Gzuckier 15:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- I've only been here a few days, and already I can see this appears to be all you guys really have in terms of defending your biased articles...--Cbaus - December 6, 2005 5:27 p.m. EDST USA
- Yes, I realize that is your goal, and that it has worked many times before. I predicted in my first post that all the things that you are now doing to me, just from having read the history. Again, balance isn't your goal, it's dominating this article and throwing baseless accusations against those who come here earnestly wanting to see a balanced piece at wiki. --Cbaus - December 7, 2005 1:00 p.m. EDST USA
Earlier in this discussion, Hipocrite asserted that the several dominating Lott detractors here do not deserve to be suspected as sockpuppets of Tim Lambert because "Tim Lambert does not have a history of dishonesty." Ahem.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/ethical_academic/
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/mr_popularity/
Maybe there needs to be a new section on his wiki page to discuss Lambert's own ethical controversies, and every one of you who comes there to try and strike a balance can be accused of being his puppets...--Cbaus - December 8, 2005 12:20 p.m. EDST USA
- Doesn't this require something even slightly resembling evidence, to be considered? Perhaps this is why we are having such disagreements regarding this article.
- Accusation containing evidence: merits at least consideration.
- Accusation not containing evidence: merits no consideration.
- Gzuckier 18:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
- See the next two subject headers - I AM talking about the article, Hip. And you guys aren't answering either. We can't even get a real discussion the opening header with you three, if in fact there ARE three of you. --Cbaus - December 9, 2005 9:15 p.m. EDST USA
- Something positive does come out of Cbaus's trolling -- Lott uses his sock puppets to write about how great Lott and his work is, not to troll, so Cbaus most probably isn't one of Lott's socks, but just a random troll. --TimLambert 01:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Well isn't this interesting. Two hours after my very first post here Lambert edited my profile saying he had "evidence" I was a Lott sockpuppet. And now I'm elevated to random troll. Is this what you consider an apology Tim?
This might give some hope to the many other people who have come here with an honest hope that they could provide more balance to this article, only to have been vilified as socks, had their work erased by one or more domineering people who are obsessed with a man who lives on the other side of the world from him/them. --Cbaus - December 9, 2005 9:15 p.m. EDST USA
Lambert's behavior as above is entertaining at some level: When I tried to get involved in the 'wikipedia way', every one of my edits was knee-jerk blasted over by Lambert, with an immediate assertion that I am some sort of "sock puppet" for Lott. (Feel free to check the history of Purtilo for details.) While normally I would appreciate being confused for someone of Lott's caliber, I consider it defamation for someone to assert that as a professor at this university don't perform my own research before speaking for myself. And now to find out that Lambert is the one playing this game of which he falsely accuses others? Now that's rich! --Purtilo - December 20, 2005 4:20 p.m. EDST USA
You people make me sick. I come here as a legitimate contributor, concerned about what was immediately obvious to me is a hack-job designed to hurt John Lott. Within two hours of my arrival, I was accused of not being a real person by Tim Lambert. Any suggestion I make to create a more balanced, encyclopedia-style article is stymied by what is clearly a Lambert cartel who ar enot interested at all in balance or fairness. And when I pointed out that there is as much reason to suspect the members of this cartel of being sockpuppets for Tim Lambert as there is of me not being me, my comments get deleted entirely. What's the matter, folks, medicine a little bit bitter in your own mouth?
Your tactic of bullying people until they leave is well established:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Purtilo&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Stotts&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cbaus&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sniper1
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gordinier&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Henry1776&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Serinity&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alt37
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Timewarp&action=history
Look at what a guy named AlLowe wrote last summer about this:
- The article on John Lott clearly fails the NPOV test. And of course, if anyone tries to put in anything that responds to the opposing viewpoint, it is removed, and the poster labeled a sock puppet or accused of Wikipedia:Vandalism. This happens regardless the accuracy of the edits, which do NOT take away from the opposing views, but instead attempt to respond to them, in a balancing act.Al Lowe 15:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
You people are making a mockery of wikipedia.---Cbaus - December 21, 2005 4:01 p.m. EDST USA
Ready made section to discuss a PoV problem.
(Problem)
Why can't this article be written from a neutral POV? I've seen somebody use a gun to save lives, and I've seen other case where private citizens with guns prevented crimes (all without firing the gun, Lott's 98%), so my view is probably more pro-gun than some. Lott's methods look good to me, but he does reach the conclusion that agrees with (my) reality, so I might not be looking as hard as most. All of the sock-puppetry claims can be discussed (or not), but they don't serve to show anything wrong with his actual work.If you have points that you disagree on, list them, but leave the POV flag until it's resolved. And don't just claim I'm a "sock puppet" and remove the tag! [unsigned comment by 137.216.209.23]
- In what way isn't this article NPOV, and what needs to be resolved? If you feel anything is worded in biased fashion, let me know by writing about it here and I'll take a look at it. Your personal experience or "looks good to me" are of no relevance whatsoever, especially when "you" are an IP address with edits only of this article. -- Danny Yee 00:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Lott has used so many sock puppets to push his POV that edits by anons are suspect. It is not clear that anyone other than Lott dislikes this page. 137.216.209.23 only has edits here to her name. If you (137.216.209.23) want to be taken seriously, get an account, demonstrate good faith by making some useful edits, and come back here to the discussion. William M. Connolley 15:13, 19 November 2005 (UTC).
Observations from a newbie
(So new I don't even know how to add my user name, which is cbaus)
I stumbled across this website for the first time a week or so ago via search engine when checking out Ramsey Clark, who had just made news for joining Saddam's defense team.
It took me a while (and a search of a few other controversial names) before I realized what is being represented here as an encyclopedia is really a giant unauthorized biography machine. That's fine, I suppose, but to a casual visitor like me it comes off as very misleading to have a group of partisans trying to record someone's history this way. Maybe that's not what the designers had in mind, but in the case of John Lott, it is certainly what has transpired.
So last night I attempted to change the article on Lott back to one more recent that seemed at least a little bit more balanced (although still focused far too heavily on the controvery over his research, IMO). Having not much time and this being my first time, I decided to make a few small changes to that one, and made my very first post to this website.
Less than an hour later, the article was changed back to the heavily biased one. Less than two hours later, I was accused of not being me! Up to today, I didn't even know what the term "sockpuppet" was referring to, so I started looking around...
I've gone back and read the history, read the discussion on this page, etc. I have a few questions for the gang (mainly Tim Lambert and his other Aussie buddy Danny Yee) who have been dominating any attempts here to make this article the least bit balanced:
1) How do people like you have the time to focus solely on one American academic, and more importantly, why the heck do you care? Are you getting paid to do it or something? Because outside of that, I can't even begin to imagine a motive for your obsession.
2) Is it really so impossible for you to believe that there are people in this world who would care enough to stand up for fairness over this hack job you all have been trying to shove down everyone's throat? Can you seriously believe that every person who speaks up here, perhaps for the very first time, is John Lott using a pseudonym? I mean, if you all are nuts enough to spend this much time hating a man who lives on the other side of the world from you, certainly it would stand to reason that there would be others in the world who would think he is worth speaking out on behalf of.
3) Why has there been no question of how many of the users here are Tim Lambert or Danny Yee sock puppets? It seems awfully suspect that whenever a more balanced article is offered, it usually takes less than an hour before one of the haters to respond. Yet the Lott haters are never swarmed by skeptics, libelously labeled as a sockpuppet, asked to prove their identities, ridiculed as posers, and forced finally to quit the discussion with people who are behaving like a bunch of trolls.
What you (especially the out-of-country) guys seem not to realize is that regardless of your attempts to destroy the reputation of any one person who makes the observation that American crime is going down since more Americans can carry guns for self-defense, or that the American media ignores self-defense stories and plays up nut with a gun stories, we're all over here living it. We don't need someone to make the observation for it to be real.
So let the inevitable firestorm being - accuse me of not being me, ignore the questions and points I make because I'm just a gun nut. In a way, it'll make me happy - while you're doing that you'll have less time to spending trying to ruin someone else in the name of your anti-gun religion.
This article is not about what gun laws should be, or what each one of us thinks of the media. It is about John Lott, and it is about John Lott's research into these topics. Some of us edit this page repeatedly because we think it is important that wikipedia present an accurate, unbiased, assesement of John Lott.
John Lott has repeatedly used socks to make updates to this page. For this reason, accounts like yours - little or no history of wikipedia editorship, seem to be created for the only purpose of reverting this page to a version preferred by Lott and his supporters - are automatically suspect.
You won't win any fans by making wholesale changes to a different version. If you feel this article is not NPOV, make one change, and put the reason for it on the talk page. Once consensus on that item has been achieved, make another change, and so on.--Pierremenard
I'm really not trying to "win any fans". But why should I have to go back and start from scratch if others have done good work that I agree with?
As I pointed out in my comments earlier, my presence here should be no more suspect that all of those detractors here who seem to be dedicated to something far and way from "an accurrate, unbiased assesment [sic] of John Lott." As I said, I just found this website last week. I was only prompted to get involved when I saw what a job was being done on Lott here. My guess would be that others have done same - only gotten motivated to get involved after seeing the detractors pile on. No one who is truly objective can say that event the reverted it back to is even CLOSE to balanced - it still spends far more time on controversy than on his research. Yet the detractor(s) swarm in to make it even MORE unbalanced less than an hour later. There has been NO effort on their part to create "an accurrate, unbiased assesment [sic] of John Lott", and I find THAT highly suspect. --Cbaus
- Well, you could start by continuing the discussion re these two questions I posed over a month ago, for which the answere given seem particularly feeble:
- Yes, I realize you would prefer to keep the focus of discussion here and in the article on controversy. The more time someone like me spends debating stuff you swallowed other people up in debate over, the less they have time to spend reworking the imbalanced article. --Cbaus
- In other words, you'd prefer to just change the article to the way you'd like it to be, without ever having to face the fact that a half a dozen random people from all over the world agree that your version of things is factually inaccurate. Well, you could maybe start your own wiki and disallow all who disagree with you; or alternately, wish real hard. Until either of those work out for you, you'll have to refrain from posting stuff that clashes with established reality, like the rest of us have to. Gzuckier 07:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, let's go one at a time. You claim the second book was written before the controversy over the existence of the first survey. The controversy had already started in 1998. The book was written in 2002. Kindly give us some evidence the book was written before 1998, or that 1998 is after 2002. Gzuckier 02:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC) You aren't trying to be serious, and you obviously didn't read the discussion above, or at least didn't care. Out of all the points raised above you raise one and do so incorrectly. My understanding is that this discussion got serious in the beginning of 2003 and that to set up a survey and get all the people to participate in doing it probably took some time before the survey was even done. That probably puts us in the middle of 2002.Timewarp 19:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC) Your various attempts to cast aspersions on my motives, competency, or level of effort in no way alleviate you from the need to justify your contrafactual mass of edits, which you appear to believe represent one single large and lumpy fact. What part of "OK, let's go one at a time." confuses you? Who are we to believe, your understanding or the record of Usenet debate as freely searchable? Would you prefer it to read "the second book was written after the debate on the survey, but before the date which Timewarp says he understands to be when the debate got serious"? Gzuckier 16:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC) As for when the discussion got serious, does this email from John Lott on Sep 21,2002, ring a bell? I am extremely busy so please save up what you want to send me for a week or so, but this sounds like an excellent test. If they do any type of search, Nexis/Lexis or google or check the transcripts of my testimony, I am willing to bet that I don't start mentioning this figure until the spring of 1997. If I use it before I said that I did the survey, I will say that they nailed me. But if I only started using it about the time that I said that I did the survey, I think that it would be strong evidence the other way. Let's see what they find. --TimLambert 17:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC) Since Timewarp seem eager to move on on multiple fronts, let's go to point two, in my limited list. This in no way is to be construed that the debate over the assertions regarding his personal hunch as to when the debate over survey #1 got serious are convincing regarding when the debate over the survey actually began. In fact, Lott's 98%/2% figure contradicts the other two surveys over the last twenty years that estimated this rate. Survey Percent firing Source Kleck 24 Kleck 1995 NSPOF 27 Duncan 2000 NCVS 1987-1990 28 Duncan 2000 NCVS 1987-1992 38 Rand 1994 NCVS 1992-2001 21 NCVS online analysis system Field 34 Kleck 1995 Cambridge Reports 67 Kleck 1995 DMIa 40 Kleck 1995 Ohio 40 Kleck 1995 :AS you know and even if you did not it was pointed out in the previous discussion, these data here are when these surveys were cited, not when they took place. It is just an example of the misediting that people such as XRLQ have pointed to [26] Timewarp 22:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC) The date of these surveys is irrelevant to the fact that Lott's estimate is wildly divergent from any and all of them, in terms of the question of whether the survey was done at all. Or are you suggesting that he can only be expected to tailor the reported results of his survey to match the data known at the time, and cannot be faulted for not matching results which only came in later? The fact remains that his 98%/2% statement "if national surveys are correct" is false, based even on only the two surveys which you deign to accept. The allegation that the dates in the table reflect the publication date of the surveys, not when they were done, is not any sort of support for your assertion that there were only two surveys over the previous twenty years, given that six of the surveys have publication dates in 1994 and 1995. Or are you assuming that they were published before they were done? Switching sides on the debate? If you don't mind, I'll hold up on points 3, 4, 5, 6, ..... N until the community has reached some sort of consensus with these two, as the constant vague references to this all having been discussed previously keep things from making any progress.Gzuckier 17:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- If you don't have good answers to these objections, perhaps you should not be reposting the objectionable material as a part of a wholesale overhaul, under the guise of "being nonpartisan". Gzuckier 01:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not interested in Lott at all, just the wholesale deletion of critical material without explanation, to a version which is known to be a violation of the "no autobiography" rule. If you can point me at specifici individual items you consider factually incorrect or biased in wording, I will look at them. It'll make a nice change from trying to clean up the Shivaji entry. -- Danny Yee 22:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
- P.S. If you consider an article biased, often a good approach to improving it is to add new material - the editors involved with an article are often attached to particular sections, but will be less upset with the addition of new material. And addition of positive material is a better way to balance a biographical entry than deletion of critical material. Just make sure your additions are solidly referenced and in good encyclopedia style. -- Danny Yee 23:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
- "why should I have to go back and start from scratch if others have done good work that I agree with?" That "work" has been rejected by the wikipedia community as biased - which is why that is not the page you see when you search wikipedia for john lott. If you are serious about improving the page, you will try to convince the others one point at a time. If you are a John Lott puppet, you will engage in pointless revert wars which will only serve to waste everyones time.
- From what I've seen, the "wikipedia community" doing the rejecting seems to consist of what may for all we know be Tim Lambert sockpuppets. I thought this page was supposed to be "an accurrate, unbiased assesment [sic] of John Lott." Yet it is clear you so-called "community" wants no such thing. I've read the history - users here who seem more interested in a balanced article have done all the concession. Detractors/ Lambertsocks(?) are only interested in endless debate here while making sure their focus of the article remains right where they want it - on the controversies - this continues no matter how many points others concede. And as for wasting someone's time, it seems clear Lambert has plenty of it, all to focus his obsession on one man from a completely other country on the other side of the globe. THAT behavior is what is highly suspect to me.
- "my presence here should be no more suspect that all of those detractors "
- Except that your account seems to be created mostly for the purpose of editing this page. You may not be John Lott, or you may be, but for this reason, you are more suspect.
- And what was Tim Lambert's account created for? More suspect in the minds of whom? As I said, I think it highly plausible that others like myself have come here, seen the hit-job detractors are trying to perpetrate and gotten interested/ angry enough to join in. And I think you all make yourselves laughingstocks to accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being a sock within minutes of joining in here.
- article "still spends far more time on controversy than on his research"
- This does not mean that the article is not NPOV. John Lott is primarily known for the 2% problem, Mary Rosh persona, coding errors, etc. Any results that he has obtained that have NOT been the center of ethical controversies are much less widely known. --Pierremenard
- John Lott is known primarily how, and you have what evidence to back this absurd claim up? I would agree you Lambert clones would prefer that Lott be known primarily for same - and that it is entirely what the purpose for this article currently is, but you are in fantasy-land if you think your efforts have been anywhere close to this successful. --Cbaus
- The users who revert back to the consensus version all have substantial editing histories or contributions outside of wikipedia that makes them extremely unlikely to be sockpuppets. The users who revert back to the John Lott approved version never have substantial editing histories or contributions outside of wikipedia, making them extremely likley to be either sock or meat puppets of someone. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- The users who sing Tim Lambert's song and use heavy-handed, dominating, biased tactics to ensure focus remains on controversy make them equally suspect to me. When I came here and saw what several were up to, I couldn't stay silent. Suspect me all you want - I know who I am. And it is increasingly obvious to me who you all are as well.--Cbaus
- M. Menard, et al: Where is your sourcing for making the claim that Lott is primarily known for his methodological controversies? I had to study More Guns, Less Crime as part of a class in Public Policy Rhetoric (where we also read Carson's Silent Spring, Gore's Earth in the Balance, etc.). I went to Auburn University, which I think is a fairly reputable school, and the class never once discussed the topics that you cite as Lott's "claim to fame." Lott is known for the impact of his books and other research, and I have never read about the controversies until I started looking at this article. Does that mean that these topics aren't notable? No, of course not. I think that it does make these claims about Lott's primary notability a bit more questionable, though. We need citation for such claims. Personally, I don't really see how one could demonstrate that these issues are more notable than Lott's books. It is possible, but it would be very difficult to demonstrate in a rigorous manner. How do you propose to support this claim with evidence? Dick Clark 16:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- No, the claim is made here to justify those of you who refuse to support a more balanced article. Either way, it's a joke. --Cbaus
- Dick Clark, when the NAS published its report critical of Lott's errors, most major newspapers noted it. This is the most press anything Lott did has ever received. This is what I based my claim on.
- M. Menard: Do you expect wiki readers to just take your word for this fact? I am asking for citations, not affirmations that you said what you said. What does it mean to say, "This is the most press anything Lott did has ever received"? The language that you use seems to indicate that you are privy to some data about the number of mentions of this controversy in the media as compared to every other media mention of Lott in every other context. Do you have this information? If not, then your claim is not warranted by your evidence. I'm not saying that you are necessarily incorrect (although I think you are), but I am saying that you have no notable source for your position, thus rendering it original research and not appropriate for wikipedia. Dick Clark 16:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- DickClark, the claim that Lott's scandals have received the most press of anything Lott has done is NOT
in wikipedia. You are quite right that its not an appropriate thing to put in the article, which is why there has been no attempt to put it there.
- It is useful to remember why I made this statement on the talk page in the
first place: I was responding to a claim that Lott is a researcher, therefore the article should talk more about the research than the controversy. I was pointing out that this is a non-starter. --Pierremenard
- I'm not sure that your experience demonstrates that JL's research is notable. After all, your class was in rhetoric, and a series of false statements can be perfectly persuasive and worth studying in such a class. Don't rhetoric classes emphasize persuasion rather than accuracy?
- M. Menard: Wikipedia is not the place for you to trumpet your belief that Lott's research was misleading, even if you really feel that is true in your heart of hearts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. This is not the place for your personal feelings, as is noted in Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not. You can make the claim that Lott's "research" is non-notable, but his book certainly is notable (listed as a bestseller of 2001--#45 on Amazon [37]). If you want to really make the claim that Lott's research is non-notable anyway, I think you are shooting yourself in the foot. After all, if his research is non-notable, that would leave his critics in quite a spot as well. M. Menard, do you think that we ought to remove all mentions of Lott's research and its criticism? I don't think you do, which means that either (a)You actually do believe that his research is notable, or (b)You are trying to intentionally include non-notable information in WP. I am assuming good faith, and therefore assuming that (a) is the case. Dick Clark 16:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- DickClark, I haven't used wikipedia to trumpet my belief in anything. My entire
contribution to the writing of this article was the correction of spelling mistakes, and reverts of repeated attempts to convert this article into one which is plainly not NPOV.
- If you must know my personal opinions, which have in no way been been the reason for any of my edits here, I will be glad to tell them to you on this talk page. I think that Lott's research WAS notable for its conclusions in the mid-to-late ninetees, before the scandal broke. I don't think this is the case any longer. Anyway, in your response to me, you posit a dichotomy that is incorrect:either Lott is not-notable or he is notable as a researcher. Lott IS notable - and he does deserve a wikipedia page - but not because he is a notable researcher. He used to be a notable researcher; nowadays, he is a notable example of academic fraud. --Pierremenard
- Well, that's his uniquitudinousness. The article really does have to include enough info to demonstrate how both apply to Lott.Gzuckier 20:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- M. Menard: Please do not understand me to be claiming that you have engaged in any sort of bad-faith behavior with regards to the John Lott article itself. I was simply arguing that your arguments weren't compelling to me. As for your claim that Lott hasn't been notable for his research since the "mid-to-late ninetees," that may be (insofar as your opinion of his research can be used as a benchmark). Lott is a notable popular author who has authored two books which have been on bestseller lists. He is a notable author. If he had written books about poetry, and sold the same number of copies, he would still be notable because, like it or not, he has a sizable audience. Claiming that Lott is a "notable example of academic fraud" seems to me to be jumping the gun on a debate that is in progress. Dick Clark 19:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- If you must know my personal opinions, which have in no way been been the reason for any of my edits here, I will be glad to tell them to you on this talk page. I think that Lott's research WAS notable for its conclusions in the mid-to-late ninetees, before the scandal broke. I don't think this is the case any longer. Anyway, in your response to me, you posit a dichotomy that is incorrect:either Lott is not-notable or he is notable as a researcher. Lott IS notable - and he does deserve a wikipedia page - but not because he is a notable researcher. He used to be a notable researcher; nowadays, he is a notable example of academic fraud. --Pierremenard
- I agree. Lott is a notable author. He is a notable academic. But is claiming that Lott is a notable example of academic fraud really jumping the gun?
It is a fact that Lott had written lies under the Mary Rosh pen name (for example, see here; it is a fact that the NAS concluded that Lott's conclusions don't follow from the data; it is a fact that on the 2% problem, as this article states,
"Lott was unable to provide any evidence for his survey. He stated that the data, methodology, and intermediate work and results were all lost in a computer crash; no paper records were kept, the work was done by volunteer students who were recruited personally and paid in cash out of his pocket, so no advertisements, pay records or cancelled checks exist. There are similarly no records of his having claimed any of this as a business expense or of the institutional Committee on Human Experimentation having reviewed the study, as required by law. Lott cannot reconstruct how he generated the sample of telephone numbers to be surveyed or the methodology used to calculate the final results from the raw data (which is particularly unfortunate, given the apparent mathematical impossibility of achieving these results from a sample of that size, as detailed above)."
which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that such a survey was never performed (is it possible for such a survey to be performed and all the records to be lost? all the people who worked on it to vanish?). Anyway, even if Lotts version is true, as this very paragraph concludes, this would mean that Lott broke the law.
In short, after three publicized scandals, can it reasonably be claimed that the debate is on progress? If so, what criterion are you using to make this determination?
Note that it is not enough to say that some people disagree. Wikipedia evolution articles do not include the viewpoint of intelligent design critics and the ones on the solar system do not include the point of flat-earthers. --Pierremenard
- Now that doubt has been cast on so many of Lott's findings (for example, the same NAS report, repeated ethical controversies), I'm don't think his work remains notable for its conclusions (which are now automatically suspect), rather than for being at the center of a controversy --Pierremenard
- There are plenty of folks who do not take the NAS to be some magnanimous, highly-respected organization. Their criticisms are notable, in my opinion, but that doesn't make them right or wrong. Please note these (general and specific) criticisms of the NAS: [38], ("Unsurprisingly, almost half of this NAS panel is openly pro-gun control with a third of the panel’s funding contributed by three pro-gun control foundations.") [39], [40]. While these sources do not render the NAS non-notable, they do cast doubt on the organization's credibility. Regardless of what your position is on Lott, you cannot draw the NAS as a trump card to beat all comers. Dick Clark 16:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- If you look at the source of the claim that "almost half of this NAS panel is openly pro-gun control", you'll find that it is none other than John Lott. And the claim is not true [41]. --TimLambert 16:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- TimLambert: You are correct that Lott is cited for that quote in the linked article (which is a review of Lott's The Bias Against Guns). This does not counter my point, which is that the NAS is an oft-criticized organization that ought have no special privilege to just end a debate on "Because we said so" grounds. Dick Clark 17:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, lots of people do criticize the NAS. Intelligent design types, flat-earthers, oil industry executives, and John Lott have their issues with it. Nevertheless, no body is better suited to act as a neutral arbiter in such matters. Certainly, it can make mistakes, and no one suggests that this ends the debate, but its reports can be extremely strong evidence for one side or the other --Pierremenard
Sourcing Issues
Original Text: (From the section entitled "Criticism") "Some aspects of his model of the causes of violent crime appear counter-intuitive to some; for instance, his model shows a large dependency of the crime rate on the number of middle-aged African-American women, and very little dependency on the number of young African-American men, which goes against well-defined reliable statistics on both perpetrators and victims of violent crime."
- Question: Does this passage seem to any other editors to be original research? (1)I am not knowledgable enough about the statistics in question to dispute them conclusively, but it would be nice if the above passage had some citation that would allow me to investigate further. (2)Even with such statistics cited, the (admittedly narrow) claim that "some" feel that Lott's suppositions are "counter-intuitive" would be left without an origin. From whence is this claim drawn? If it is original research it ought to be removed.
- Follow-up Question: I have not read the above source, so could you elaborate on how the above passage makes use of the source, so that we can include this information in the article so that readers can easily attribute certain criticisms to their authors? An example of such attribution might go as follows: "Daniel Webster, Jon Vernick, and others, in a June 1997 article published in the American Journal of Public Health challenged Lott's methodology in the More Guns, Less Crime study, claiming that some aspects of Lott's statistical model of violent crime appear counter-intuitive to some...(snip)." I do believe it is important that the "encyclopedic voice" not be perceived as endorsing one side of this controversy. With attributions similar to the one I offer above, where contentious claims are clearly denoted as the work of a party involved in the scholarly debate, I think that the criticism and Lott's work will be considered more seriously, and, perhaps most importantly, it will cut down on the noise produced by trolls/vandals/etc. I want this article to actually be useful to folks who want to learn about who Lott is. I do not see that as precluding the inclusion of critical material whatsoever, but it certainly does preclude wikipedians from drawing conclusions about a debate that is still ongoing, with people of good faith on both sides. Dick Clark 23:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
- Wow, Hip. Since you are particpating in this discussion, I thought you might have a substantive contribution to make, but I suppose that you are more interested in throwing your two bits in on the flame war. I am going to remove/heavily edit the text in question if no one can substantiate the claims made above. Dick Clark 15:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well, now we're verging dangerously close to constructive criticism, therefore I shall attack the section referred to. Gzuckier 18:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- Wow, Hip. Since you are particpating in this discussion, I thought you might have a substantive contribution to make, but I suppose that you are more interested in throwing your two bits in on the flame war. I am going to remove/heavily edit the text in question if no one can substantiate the claims made above. Dick Clark 15:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Original Text: (Also from the "Criticism" section) "Similarly, critics argue that his model requires that the percentage of crimes in which the criminal is convicted remains constant, no matter what the crime rate, which is not actually the case. If this number is allowed to vary, then the deterrent effect of deregulated concealed carry of weapons does not disappear, but instead becomes unbelievably huge. Most tellingly, when the scale of the deterrent effect is allowed to vary from place to place instead of being a single overall factor, the model shows that deregulation of concealed weapons carrying in Florida was followed by a very large drop in violent crime, but in other locations was followed by only small changes in the crime rate, sometimes an increase and sometimes a decrease. Therefore his critics argue that he has merely shown that the data can be interpreted as suggesting 'More guns, less crime', but that this is by no means the best interpretation, and that some other factors are probably at work specific to Florida in the time period covered."
- Question: Again, after reading the above passage, I am left with many questions about how to further investigate the claims made. What "critics" argue this about Lott's model requiring conviction rates to remain constant? Wher can I find their paper(s)? This attempted refutation seems technical, and must be detailed somewhere in a paper or article, right?
- Please see my above "follow-up question." I have the same questions here. Dick Clark 23:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The remainder of the "Criticism" section (up until the "2% Problem" subsection) seems well-sourced, although IMHO the text could be cleaned up a bit for style/clarity. Now... back to the ole grindstone for my paying job. Dick Clark 19:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Survey now Accepted?
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2003_01_19_archive.html#87785579
The Lott (John Lott) Controversy Has Been Resolved The 1997 survey on defensive gun use that some people have been saying was a fraud, and never took place? The matter has been resolved. Someone (an attorney) came forward who was surveyed in the right period of time, with the right sort of questions. Professor James Lindgren, who had clearly become very skeptical of Dr. Lott's claims that the survey did happen, and a hard disk crash destroyed all his data, has interviewed the attorney who was surveyed, and Professor Lindgren finds him credible. Best of all, even Tim Lambert, a gun control advocate who has been Dr. Lott's chief inquisitor on this matter, seems to have accepted the validity of this evidence. I've seen the email on this from the attorney in question--a former assistant district attorney who was fired for defending himself from a criminal attack using a gun. (No charges were filed; his employer, I guess, figured it was better for him to be dead than alive.) I am very happy to hear that this is resolved; Dr. Lott and I have been talking almost nightly about this matter for the last week, and I doubt that it has been good for his blood pressure. posted by Clayton at 8:28 AM
I stumbled across the above while looking at one of the sources cited in the article. This seems to render obsolete the claims about possible fabrication by Lott (with regards to the survey in question). TimLambert, what say you? I didn't read your essay for which the above blogger provides a link. Dick Clark 20:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't sock puppet for Tim, but given the time difference to the land down unda I'll just fill in the gap by briefly posting this link [43] which shows a return to skepticism after TL's initially optimistic hope that everything was behind us thanks to Mr. Gross.
- What the Lottophiles fail to understand is that by and large, statistical types don't want to argue on this level, they choose their job because they like to argue data and inferential logic, and are presumably good at it. To find out that your opponent is cheating is like winning a gold medal at the Olympics because your opponent fell down the stairs and broke a leg. There's no real satisfaction in it. My superficial assessment is that the Lottophiles, gun nuts (as distinct from sane gunowners, I hasten to say) and in fact the ranting right in general tend to be innumerate and their pleasure comes more from winning at all costs. Not to imply that there aren't rabid contentfree lefties as well; but, as the righties tend to argue all the time, the universities and academic institutions and journals tend to be hotbeds of "commie fervor" (i.e. anti-gun and pro gay marriage). Normally, of course, you'd think this would be a point in favor of leftist thought, rather than a black mark against education and the demonstrated ability to reason. Gzuckier 21:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Lambert's Got His Own Sockpuppet Controversy
For those who, like me, were accused of being a fake person less than two hours after they first joined the discussion by Tim Lambert, this reading pertains very much to the discussions and accusations here put upon anyone who attempts to post a more balanced article.
http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/2005/12/tim_lamberts_ve.html http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/2005/12/update_on_ips_a.html
Like I've been saying - the entire effort here by Lott detractors is clearly focused on wrapping people interested in fairness up in endless debate on proving their identities until they finally give up fighting the trolls and leave. Detractors have now been put on notice - it is THEIR legitimacy that also deserves to be questioned here. They do not have any more right to claim to be the "wikipedia community" as a defense for their rejections of attempts at posting a slightly more balanced article. --Cbaus - December 6, 2005 11:23 a.m. EDST USA
- Obviously not Lambert's which is more than I can say for others here. Really, is this the best you've got? --Cbaus - December 6, 2005 12:06 p.m. EDST USA
- Yes. "Therefore assuming Lambert got two identical IPs from my name and that of another person, he must take into account the possibility the someone else who shares my address and knows me wants to post in support of me anonymously." What, Fumento has a typing dog? And the prior post, where someone accuses Tim of being someone else? Unlike John Lott (Who I accuse you of being, or working in cahoots with), Tim Lambert does not have a history of dishonesty. John Lott Does. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Tired accusation goes to my point in an above post:
- "2) Is it really so impossible for you to believe that there are people in this world who would care enough to stand up for fairness over this hack job you all have been trying to shove down everyone's throat? Can you seriously believe that every person who speaks up here, perhaps for the very first time, is John Lott using a pseudonym? I mean, if you all are nuts enough to spend this much time hating a man who lives on the other side of the world from you, certainly it would stand to reason that there would be others in the world who would think he is worth speaking out on behalf of."
- The same may be said for Saddam Hussein. This isn't a debating society, it's more of a skeptic society. If you wish to support your mixed bag of edits, which are mysteriously close to the same bag of edits which others whom I hasten to assert you are not a sock puppet of, have been trying to mass transfer here, you will need to do more than vague handwaving in the direction of the talk page, where the support for "controversial" assertions (to be polite) such as the 2% survey controversy first beginning 2003 are solely supported by generally insulting the character of those who disagree. Gzuckier 15:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- I've only been here a few days, and already I can see this appears to be all you guys really have in terms of defending your biased articles...--Cbaus - December 6, 2005 5:27 p.m. EDST USA
- Yes, I realize that is your goal, and that it has worked many times before. I predicted in my first post that all the things that you are now doing to me, just from having read the history. Again, balance isn't your goal, it's dominating this article and throwing baseless accusations against those who come here earnestly wanting to see a balanced piece at wiki. --Cbaus - December 7, 2005 1:00 p.m. EDST USA
Earlier in this discussion, Hipocrite asserted that the several dominating Lott detractors here do not deserve to be suspected as sockpuppets of Tim Lambert because "Tim Lambert does not have a history of dishonesty." Ahem.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/ethical_academic/
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/mr_popularity/
Maybe there needs to be a new section on his wiki page to discuss Lambert's own ethical controversies, and every one of you who comes there to try and strike a balance can be accused of being his puppets...--Cbaus - December 8, 2005 12:20 p.m. EDST USA
- Doesn't this require something even slightly resembling evidence, to be considered? Perhaps this is why we are having such disagreements regarding this article.
- Accusation containing evidence: merits at least consideration.
- Accusation not containing evidence: merits no consideration.
- Gzuckier 18:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
- See the next two subject headers - I AM talking about the article, Hip. And you guys aren't answering either. We can't even get a real discussion the opening header with you three, if in fact there ARE three of you. --Cbaus - December 9, 2005 9:15 p.m. EDST USA
- Something positive does come out of Cbaus's trolling -- Lott uses his sock puppets to write about how great Lott and his work is, not to troll, so Cbaus most probably isn't one of Lott's socks, but just a random troll. --TimLambert 01:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Well isn't this interesting. Two hours after my very first post here Lambert edited my profile saying he had "evidence" I was a Lott sockpuppet. And now I'm elevated to random troll. Is this what you consider an apology Tim?
This might give some hope to the many other people who have come here with an honest hope that they could provide more balance to this article, only to have been vilified as socks, had their work erased by one or more domineering people who are obsessed with a man who lives on the other side of the world from him/them. --Cbaus - December 9, 2005 9:15 p.m. EDST USA
Lambert's behavior as above is entertaining at some level: When I tried to get involved in the 'wikipedia way', every one of my edits was knee-jerk blasted over by Lambert, with an immediate assertion that I am some sort of "sock puppet" for Lott. (Feel free to check the history of Purtilo for details.) While normally I would appreciate being confused for someone of Lott's caliber, I consider it defamation for someone to assert that as a professor at this university don't perform my own research before speaking for myself. And now to find out that Lambert is the one playing this game of which he falsely accuses others? Now that's rich! --Purtilo - December 20, 2005 4:20 p.m. EDST USA
You people make me sick. I come here as a legitimate contributor, concerned about what was immediately obvious to me is a hack-job designed to hurt John Lott. Within two hours of my arrival, I was accused of not being a real person by Tim Lambert. Any suggestion I make to create a more balanced, encyclopedia-style article is stymied by what is clearly a Lambert cartel who ar enot interested at all in balance or fairness. And when I pointed out that there is as much reason to suspect the members of this cartel of being sockpuppets for Tim Lambert as there is of me not being me, my comments get deleted entirely. What's the matter, folks, medicine a little bit bitter in your own mouth?
Your tactic of bullying people until they leave is well established:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Purtilo&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Stotts&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cbaus&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sniper1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gordinier&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Henry1776&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Serinity&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alt37 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Timewarp&action=history
Look at what a guy named AlLowe wrote last summer about this:
- The article on John Lott clearly fails the NPOV test. And of course, if anyone tries to put in anything that responds to the opposing viewpoint, it is removed, and the poster labeled a sock puppet or accused of Wikipedia:Vandalism. This happens regardless the accuracy of the edits, which do NOT take away from the opposing views, but instead attempt to respond to them, in a balancing act.Al Lowe 15:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
You people are making a mockery of wikipedia.---Cbaus - December 21, 2005 4:01 p.m. EDST USA
Change discussion
Since it is clearly noted that Lott believes he did the 2% survey and lost the data, and since everyone seems to agree that this plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory" I see no reason to include the below section listing how many times he refers to his 2% survey. OF COURSE he's going to refer to it if he believes he is right.
It has been noted by other firearms rights advocates
[http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/guns/files/duncan3.html] that this
particular figure never really mattered in the gun law debate until 'Lott made it matter'.
In addition to both editions of ''[[More Guns, Less Crime]]'', searches of print and
online media have found Lott himself to have referred to this 98% / 2% result at least
25 times, citing various sources. (''Does Allowing Law-Abiding Citizens to Carry Concealed
Handguns Save Lives?'', Valparaiso University Law Review, 31(2): 355-63, Spring, 1997;
''Gun-Lock Proposal Bound to Misfire'', Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1998; ''Hardball'',
CNBC, August 18, 1999; ''Gun Locks: Bound to Misfire'', online publication of the
Independence Institute, Feb. 9, 2000; reply to Otis Duncan's article, The Criminologist,
vol. 25, no. 5, September/October 2000, page 6 [http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lottduncan.html];
''Others Fear Being Placed at the Mercy of Criminals'' Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2001)
In addition to both editions of ''[[More Guns, Less Crime]]'', searches of print and online
media have found Lott himself to have referred to this 98%/2% result at least 25 times (though
many of these are the same publications being republished). (''Does Allowing Law-Abiding
Citizens to Carry Concealed Handguns Save Lives?'', Valparaiso University Law Review, 31(2):
355-63, Spring, 1997; ''Gun-Lock Proposal Bound to Misfire'', Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1998;
''Hardball'', CNBC, August 18, 1999; ''Gun Locks: Bound to Misfire'', online publication of the
Independence Institute, Feb. 9, 2000; reply to Otis Duncan's article, The Criminologist, vol. 25,
no. 5, September/October 2000, page 6; ''Others Fear Being Placed at the Mercy of Criminals'' Los
Angeles Times, March 30, 2001)
- What is your proposed change? Please provide a before and after such that we can evaluate. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC) The comment above mine was substantially edited post my comment. I cannot agree to removing sourced material from the article. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Hip, are you serious? Look at the history! I added nothing to the above comment, and simply reformatted it so that the scroll bar wouldn't be necessary. No text was added or deleted. Did you not notice the text before? Again, look at the history please. Dick Clark 17:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- "Lott believes he did the 2% survey and lost the data" Are you suggesting that Lott is insane? That should not be put into the article without genuine medical diagnoses from someone who examined him. Gzuckier 17:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory" Boy, things have certainly become unclear. The postulated lapse of memory refers to the possibility of Lott's having misremembered Kleck's 2% as the percentage shooting, not to it having slipped his mind that he did not actually do a survey. I repeat, you should not attempt to impugn Lott's sanity in this fashion without better documentation. And obviously, the section on this 2% problem is insufficiently discussed, if you couldn't follow the reasoning; we should explain it more clearly, in simple logical steps so as to not confuse any other readers. Gzuckier 18:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- The quote that the 2% controvery plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory" is from the last post made by...you...and Lambert...and Hipcrite and the rest of your friends. So since we agree it's "minor", and since it's established Lott's stance is he did the research, why is it of any interest to encyclopedia readers how many times he repeated it? Why spend so much time in the article on so "minor" an issue?--Cbaus - December 6, 2005 5:44 p.m. EDST USA
- Because sticking to an indefensible point which at best proves a person to be unreliable and unprofessional, and in all reasonable probability a liar, and repeating it again and again and again and again and again.... rather than not even admitting the possibility of an error, just shutting up and letting a minor point die down by itself, calls into question not only one's honesty, but also one's competence and one's emotional stability and cognitive clarity, all of which have a direct impact on the reliability of one's larger work...
- because by repeating it over and over and over and over and over, often under oath as testimony before legislative bodies deliberating firearms legislation, he is perpetrating a falsehood, whether the falsehood is that the number is the well supported result of a transparent process of research, or that the number is the product of any research at all; and one purpose of a reference text, Wikipedia included, is to be a place where the evidence pro and con questionable assertions can be assembled, particularly when they are, as I said, used as input to decide the laws under which we have to live.
- Now my turn: why are you so hot to remove the reference? Why do you wish to whitewash what is an unfortunate, but clearly true, flaw in this man's professional, not personal, character? What possible reason could Wikipedia have for failing to report this information? Gzuckier 04:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- Not everyone in the world takes his point as "indefensible" - mostly just gun haters who want to destroy him, and them will move on to the many other researchers whose information has mirrored his.
- Perhaps then you would be so kind as to show us any other place in any academic research, not just firearm related, where the researcher has put forth a result completely from his memory without supporting data or methodology, even where there is ample evidence of the work being done, and expected it to be taken seriously? Indefensible here means exactly that, literally. How can you possibly defend this 2% assertion when there are no data nor methodology to support it? What possible argument do you have against the suggestion that it was Lott's misrecollection of Kleck's work? Please, show us how it is not indefensible by defending it effectively. Gzuckier 22:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- Not everyone in the world takes his point as "indefensible" - mostly just gun haters who want to destroy him, and them will move on to the many other researchers whose information has mirrored his.
- If you were the least bit interested in making this article read like an encylopedia instead of an op-ed by Sarah Brady, you'd understand how ridiculous it looks to say it plays"only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory" and then spend so much time on it.--Cbaus - December 7, 2005 1:05 p.m. EDST USA
- You can stop quoting that quote out of context whenever you want to be taken seriously. Everyone can go to the article and look it up. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- Like so:
- It has been noted by other firearms rights advocates [44] that this particular figure never really mattered in the gun law debate until 'Lott made it matter'.
- Is it postulated that repeating the same rejected argument over and over will make it more compelling? Gzuckier 22:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- You can stop quoting that quote out of context whenever you want to be taken seriously. Everyone can go to the article and look it up. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
And just ahead of this, in two separate places, this subject is cited as "minor", and neither is in the context of a reference to an opinion by any one side.
- Although this finding represents only a minor side-issue from Lott's main work and gets only a single sentence in his first book...
- Despite its playing only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory...
Either your writing is that poor, and no one else has bothered to correct you, or more likely you meant it as it is written - it IS a "minor" issue. If we can all stil agree that it is, then I maintain that is a starting point for determining how much space the "controversy" deserves verses his research/ books/ etc., which ARE what he is principly know for, and which is so poorly under-represented.--Cbaus - December 7, 2005 5:35 p.m. EDST USA
- see discussion section for all the points involved here. Gzuckier 03:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
DickClark wrote "Since it is clearly noted that Lott believes he did the 2% survey and lost the data, and since everyone seems to agree that this plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory"
What is the source for your statement that everyone agrees with this? I do not agree with it. If you want to argue that the 2% bit is blown out of proportion in the article, then we can discuss that; but you should not assume agreement here. --Pierremenard
- I know I've made this point several times that it seems everyone agrees - because even those here who are obviously completely obsessed with Lott's controversies instead of on doing an accurrate article have included that exact phrase ("only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory") in their biased version of the article time and again. And yes, I want to argue that the 2% bit is blown out of proportation in the article, and the repeated use of this phrase in the various articles posted seems to suggest the posters know it. ---Cbaus - December 11, 2005 5:34 p.m. EDST USA
- Your assertion that: a figure whom you would characterize as a major reliable source of research regarding the sociological effects of gun laws, a cause apparently of great interest to you, having been caught fabricating a survey according to the vast preponderance of evidence, and, further, not letting the issue die, but continuing to put forth this fabricated figure in dozens of venues even after he did a survey which produced a different figure, and that this is a minor issue and should be more subordinated to his "work" as an arbitor of what constituties neutral point of view. If you disagree, please provide a parallel situation with another researcher here on Wikipedia.
- Gzuckier 04:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
We must share a "great interest" in research regarding the sociological effects of gun laws, or you wouldn't be here every day making sure that one of the most-well-known researchers who have proven that putting guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens doesn't result in anarchy has a biased article that no one is allowed to try and balance. I notice your interest in holding researchers accountable hasn't brought you to create a John Donohue page to highlight all the problems with his research.
Even your contention that the work was "fabricated" is biased in an of itself. Evidence has been given to support Lott's claim that the work was lost, but it is clear that some of you are so dedicated to the belief that Lott is dishonest that no amount of evidence or testimony from fellow researchers will be enough for you.
All of the recent versions of article from you detractors contain the phrase that the 2% problem plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory". If you were capable of being intellectually honest on this subject, you'd have to admit that it is no surprise that a person would continue to quote a study one knows one did, even if he was not able to prove to his detractors' satisfaction that he had done so. Yet your own "great interest" in research regarding the sociological effects of gun laws dictates that you steadfastly refuse to allow the content noted above be removed so that the article remains heavily imbalanced on what a dispute about what plays "only a minor role in his work".
Oh, and no, I am not aware of another researcher on Wiki that has at least one person with such large amounts of time to dedicate to nothing but attempting to question another man's every move in life.---Cbaus - December 11, 2005 5:34 p.m. EDST USA
- Well, don't take this the wrong way, but you've now achieved the coveted status of WikiCrank. Of course, that's just my point of view. Gzuckier 04:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I move for striking the phrase that the 2% debacle is " very possibly just a trivial error of memory"
from the article. Reasons: the very paragraph where this phrase is used contradicts it. Lott has cited doing that survey so
many times. And conducting a survey of this type is not something one can forget about: there are lots of people to be hired,
money to be obtained, and phone calls to be made. So unless Lott is insane, I don't see how it can be an error of memory.
It seems to me that DickClark was right in pointing out that this phrase conflicts with the rest of the paragraph in which it
is located. But the
right solution is to remove this phrase, which suggests the impossible, rather than deleting the rest of the paragraph. --Pierremenard
Never mind - I was basing this comment on an outdated version. I note that the new version merely says that some have suggested this, which sounds just about what a wikipedia article should be saying. --Pierremenard
- Tried to clarify it anyway. Gzuckier 17:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Gee, I don't recall the "wiki community" agreeing to this change.
I see how it works with you. I make a valid point about content that you all have had no problem with up to now (that the 2% "problem" plays "only a minor role in his work and being very possibly just a trivial error of memory", and instead of rearranging the article to reflect the truth of the comment, you just delete the comment. And in doing so, provide even more evidence that you are not interested in a balanced article, but in protecting your biased one.---Cbaus - December 15, 2005 6:04 p.m. EDST USA
- Well, the section in question clearly had a problem, as it could not be understood by you. In fact, weren't you suggesting that Lott had deluded himself into believing he had done the survey? That was certainly not the intent. Of course now that you seem to not understand the point even now, I begin to suspect it is not a problem with the article alone. Gzuckier 03:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
- You should not assume that everyone you disagree with has no problems with the article. Problems escape peoples notice; and sometimes you put off making changes to the article until later, depending on what your to-do-list or your schedule looks like. Bringing up the issue of the 2% survey highlighted some changes that needed to be made to the article. --Pierremenard
Warning message
So you detractors want me to start at the top and discuss changes. Fine.
Since it is very clear from this discussion page that the neutrality of this article is disputed, can we get the anti-Lott mafia here to at least agree that a header saying same would be more appropriate than the one you all keep posting?--Cbaus - December 7, 2005 1:12 p.m. EDST USA
- Do you really want to open a formal POV dispute? And tell everybody why you feel the point of view that 7 surveys = 2 surveys is unfairly being suppressed? I'd been hoping those of us who have other things in our lives than this article could be spared that waste of time, but if it gets the Lott Squad to go away, maybe it's worth it. Gzuckier 18:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- PS, starting out with "anti-Lott mafia" doesn't advance your case. Gzuckier 18:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
- PPS just in the interests of getting some headway, wouldn't it make sense to begin with individual data elements, then go for the legal wrangle at the end over the remaining unreseolved issues? Gzuckier 18:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
So does this mean you're not even willing to allow a neutrality/ dispute message to appear at the top of the article that is otherwise exactly as you want it posted? However can we hope to debate over more substantial issues if you refuse to agree to something as simple and substantiable as that statement? --Cbaus - December 7, 2005 5:22 p.m. EDST USA
The end all be all of this debate is that anti-gunners can't dispute that while gun ownership has increased in the United States gun crime and gun accidents have decreased so they try to bog us down in the minutia of what might, possibly, maybe turn out to be an oversight in Lott's theories. Gval
- Yes. That's it. Exactly. You've caught us. Your work here is done. Your efforts can now be put to better use elsewhere. Good work, my son. We are vanquished. You are better then we; leave us here with our petty concerns while you go on to defend the Republic in higher and mightier venues. Gzuckier 02:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Congrats Gval - at least they didn't accuse you of not being you after your very first post.
Gzuckier - you're still dodging the question - are you not willing to allow a neutrality/ dispute message to appear at the top of the article that is otherwise exactly as you want it posted? --Cbaus - December 9, 2005 5:22 p.m. EDST USA
- ) it's not exactly as i want it. it's in fact a compromise between a few points of view of various people. we've pretty much agreed to not push our individual points of view, however.
- ) as I see it, the issue is not "neutral point of view". for the nth time, as N becomes very large, just on my little set of critiques, the statement that 1998 > 2003 is not a point of view issue. the statement that 7 studies = 2 studies is not a point of view issue. I don't see most of this as a point of view issue. I see this as an issue of dispute, searching for a point of view on which to take a stand.
- ) in an ideal world, individual disputes of fact would be cleared up; then individual disputes of interpretation; then the result would be labeled with the appropriate caveat, if necessary. I would tend to be against labeling it as NPOV, then editing it to fit. And as it stands, see point 2.
Gzuckier 22:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
- Interesting - so who are the people who "agreed" to the "compromise" message that is there now?
- Of course you don't see it as a point of view issue - YOUR point of view is being forced to remain in the article despite a large number of people who have come here to try and provide some balance. But how can we ever expect to see agreement on the rest of the content in an article that focuses so heavily on controversies that detractors have tried to attack Lott with if you won't even agree that despite the evidence on this discussion page that the neutrality of the article clearly IS disputed, and that the message should reflect same until we can work through the rest?
- I still contend that what we're seeing here is a deliberate effort to drag down anyone who tries to devote some time to balancing this article with research vs. controvery into a debate proving their identity until they get tired of fighting the trolls and move on. In fact, wasn't I invited to do so not long ago? --Cbaus - December 11, 2005 5:48 p.m. EDST USA
- The fact that your "large number of people who have come here to try and provide some balance" puts forth a single mass revision again and again and again and again without discussion other than random ad hominems in lockstep to the point that you are suspected of being sock puppets, should tell you something. Of course, the fact that you refer to random ad hominem assertions on fringe blogs as evidence that tim lambert is a sock puppeteer shatters all hope that you have the ability to understand that fact. Gzuckier 05:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- As far as making mass-changes, I can speak for myself in saying that unlike Tim Lambert I don't have unlimited time (and perhaps money from some anti-gun, anti-American entity) to allow me to go back and redo my very own Wiki article into my own words, then fight with you here over it point by point. I saw a recent post I liked, I made a few changes of my own, and I posted it. As I've explained, I'm new here, but it sure made sense to me to do that with the limited time I had.
- But no, like others before me I was accused by Tim Lambert of being a sockpuppet less than two hours later. When I protested, I was told that I deserve to be suspected of being Lott's puppet, but that you all do not deserve to be suspected of being Lambert's, because Lambert doesn't have a history of dishonesty. So I offered evidence that he DOES have his own history. I shouldn't think you would have a problem with evidence coming from fringe blogs - you link to Lambert's quite frequently in the article itself.
- So are you still refusing to even allow a simple "neutrality is disputed" message up again until we have time to discuss the rest of this terribly imbalanced article? ---Cbaus - December 12, 2005 10:43 p.m. EDST USA
You can be sarcastic to your heart’s content. Fact is, you simply can’t explain how as concealed-carry laws have proliferated gun violence and gun accidents have dropped or how Chicago and Washington D.C. have so much gun violence despite their current condition as a disarmed utopia.
Although your sarcasm is telling, because you didn’t, and can’t, answer my original question - Gval
- In fact, I can't even explain why the discussion page of an article on john lott would be an appropriate page to get into the question. Gzuckier 16:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)