User talk:Instaurare/Archive 3

Susan B. Anthony

I'm not exactly sure how I "vandalized" the Susan B. Anthony abortion debate page, when all I did was correct some spelling. Anyway, I re-corrected it. I think you may be confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.98.221.234 (talk) 14:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

CPCs Sections

May I ask you to undo your change that put "false medical information" and "legal action" under "controversy and legal action"? There are several problems with the change:

1. Criticism ghettos are generally discouraged, I think (which is why we recently got rid of the "criticism" section!), and it's a NPOV issue to fill the "services" section only with favorable information and segregate the unfavorable into "controversy."
2. The legal action has generally not concerned CPCs' provision of false information, so it's just weird to stick the two together unless you are trying to section off things that might reflect badly on CPCs.

To avoid the appearance of a POV-motivated change, would you please restore the previous organization of the page?

Maybe the "false medical information = service" problem could be solved by renaming the "services" section to "activities"? That would make more sense with "advertising methods" and "religious affiliation" anyway. What do you think?

-- Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

My mistakes, I should have gone to talk before doing it unilaterally. My only concern is that false medical information is not a "service", i.e., something equivalent to sonograms and financial help. I didn't think it warranted its own section but I didn't find anything it would really fit under, so I put it there. As for your suggestions, I'll take it to talk. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 01:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

No, you're right - I agree that it isn't a service (even though they may think they're doing their clients a favor by persuading them not to have abortions). That's why I suggest "activities." Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and would you mind explaining your concerns re: the globalize tag? The section includes references from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada - it's more globally diverse than any other section! Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello. You have a new message at Roscelese's talk page.

Also, I took a look at your article about the Law and Order episode and man, it has some serious POV problems. I corrected the easiest ones (terminology) but you might want to check it out again - the problems are things like "the only quotes from the episode are anti-abortion arguments" (this may seem minor, but I'd rather see them paraphrased) and "your citations for responses are unbalanced" (your only quotes from pro-choice supporters are cited to an anti-abortion source, but you cite, at length, several anti-abortion responses). Can you improve it? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:28, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Normally I wouldn't have written the article like that, but I am using the terminology used in the actual episode (if you haven't seen it, watch it to see what I'm talking about). What's the policy on that, should we use the terminology used in the show itself or wikify it? Thanks for your help. NYyankees51 (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the best practice would be to put quotes around anything questionable, though my personal inclination would be to just paraphrase it in neutral terms and save the quotes for actual lines. (Really, though, do they use the word "abortionist"? It being L&O, surely "abortion provider" or "doctor" also comes up.) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:46, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "abortionist", I watched it a long time ago. But I was extremely surprised at the pro-life terminology and rhetoric used in the episode. It was strongly pro-life. NYyankees51 (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

In that case, yeah, quotes and/or paraphrases would be the way to go. However, those are problems I've already attempted to deal with; what do you think about the other points I raised above? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:27, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

both archives the same!

Hey! I was looking for that recent revert that you did on the anonymous, one-time IP, but I can't find it in your archives. Then I noticed that you have two archives numbered 1. --Kenatipo ^speak! 16:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, thanks! Fixed. And here's the link to the revert. NYyankees51 (talk) 22:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem! I'm glad you didn't lose anything. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:31, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Baby Joseph

Hmm, okay, I took a look, but it seems like it fails WP:NOTNEWS. Coverage goes back less than a month, and there isn't any evidence that this will be influential in the way the Schiavo case was. I'd give it time to see if anything develops, but be aware that if nothing does, it might be nominated for deletion.

Also, LifeNews isn't really a reliable source, so I recommend you find better sources for the statement about "pro-life" organizations - keep in mind that LifeNews's goal is partly to promote the "pro-life" movement, so its statements that "pro-life" organizations have been helping the family should be taken with a grain of salt. PFL's offer of a plane is probably available in their own materials, as is ACLJ's offer of legal counsel. The NCRegister would seem to have the same issue in that it exists to promote a particular point of view.

Hope that helps! Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right, I'll see how it plays out and try to find a new source. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 15:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I may jump in if this becomes politically significant. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation to participate here, yankee, but I'm going to take a break from editing, at least during Lent. Be good! --Kenatipo ^speak! 17:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Frank Buckles

With this edit you added details about the burial plans, but some of that was already in the article (a few paragraphs up). Would you be able to join in the talk page discussion, or have time to tidy that up? I would do it myself, but don't have time tonight. Carcharoth (talk) 03:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look, thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 15:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

SBA List NPOV

This deletion is a violation of WP:NPOV. Please revert yourself. Binksternet (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll be happy to, but can you explain how it's a violation? NYyankees51 (talk) 16:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

"Happy to"... yeah, I can imagine how happy. Your removal took out the "Susan B. Anthony's Abortion Position Spurs Scuffle" reference and removed the description of who opposes SBA List, which is a significant factor as it includes notable and intelligent people such as Ann D. Gordon who has studied the matter exclusively for decades. At WP:NPOV it says "Wikipedia aims to describe disputes" but in this case you have reduced it so far that only the existence of the dispute is given. Binksternet (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

And is there something wrong with that? The dispute with all the pro-choice stuff is linked to twice. The dispute is described there. No need for WP:FORK. NYyankees51 (talk) 17:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused by your guideline. What part of it are you referring to? Binksternet (talk) 17:26, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I meant WP:CFORK. In any case, a simple link is all we need, plus the ref I removed was a biased source. NYyankees51 (talk) 17:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

CFORK warns against about multiple articles saying the same thing, but this problem is not what we are talking about. There are many times where some brief descriptive text appears in two or more articles to supply continuity and relevance to the topic of the article. For instance, the articles about American Woman Suffrage Association, National Woman Suffrage Association and National American Woman Suffrage Association can't help but carry some similar information. It is not considered redundant when it helps the reader understand what is being described in the article. In our case, the story of the SBA List includes the story of opposition.

The Women's Enews article is not biased except from the POV of advocates for pro-life positions. Stevens says a lot of very neutral descriptive statements such as "Dannenfelser's Susan B. Anthony List is also playing a leading role in promoting Anthony as an opponent of abortion." What part of the article do you see Stevens putting her opinion forward?

Rough times when a neutral account is perceived as biased. :/

Binksternet (talk) 18:06, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right, I should have actually looked at WP:CFORK before I linked it. In any case, all we need is a simple link, and we have two. You can open a RfC if you want. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Userboxes

Okay, I concede that was over the line and it's not worth the argument. I do note that you undid the changes yourself.

As for the deletion - uh, wasn't it an empty page? If it wasn't, oops. DS (talk) 16:59, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't remember whether it was empty, but what user requested that you delete it as you said in the edit summary? NYyankees51 (talk) 17:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Blanking a userspace subpage, creating a second page with almost the exact same content, and then leaving the first page untouched for a month (which is what you did) is close enough to "user requests deletion of page in own userspace" most of the time. I would never delete (User X)'s userpage at the request of (User Y). DS (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Why couldn't you just ask me first? NYyankees51 (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Because that's (usually) less efficient than just deleting it, since most people don't care about the pages they blanked and ignored. Incidentally, the image on the userbox is incorrect. That's a ten-week embryo, but you're talking about three weeks. So you want one that's more like this (the earliest-stage embryo whose photo I can find on Commons) or this (a good representation of the 21-day stage, but not a photo). And the comment about "before your mother even knew she was pregnant" - how do you know when a given woman does or doesn't know that she's pregnant? So I recommend removing that, for the sake of accuracy. DS (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Still, you should ask first instead of just assuming. Given the edits to the userbox, I can only interpret the deletion as a hostile action. The image in the userbox is meant to show the heart of the baby, which is harder to see in the other images. As for the mother knowing she was pregnant, generally women don't know if they're pregnant until they miss their menstrual cycle, which generally occurs every 28 days. 21 days is a week before the menstrual cycle. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, ended up here for a different reason and can't help but jump in -- NYY, your reasoning assumes that every woman conceives within a day or two of her period ending. Also, while 28 days is an "average" cycle, it varies widely from person to person. And not for nothing, there are myriad ways of knowing you are pregnant wholly separate from menstruation. Arbor8 (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware of all that. But that is the case for most mothers. In any case, the userbox is meant to illustrate a larger point, not specific details. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

It is simply factually inaccurate to state that most (or more than a minuscule minority of) women conceive within two days of the end of menstruation, Change that to ten days and you are accurate. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I changed it. Are we all happy now? NYyankees51 (talk) 21:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm just in that part of my menstrual cycle where I get really upset by factual inaccuracies. :) Arbor8 (talk) 22:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No worries :) NYyankees51 (talk) 22:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

You don't know me, I don't know you

...we probably wouldn't even get along very well, but the whole ANI thread is one big scam. A userbox, IMO, has always been nothing but contradictory in its supposed purpose (i.e., it's supposed to tell a little bit about you but instead it just creates an "us v. them" environment). HOWEVER, it only creates a stir if it stirs to the right, specifically to the social right. How absurd is it that a userbox is only polemic in that situation? 2 wolves and 1 lamb voting on what's for dinner. You been done wrong, but that whole ANI thread is one freaking great commentary on Wikipedia and its one-sided thinking. It doesn't matter what I think about your userbox, this is bigger than that. You fight the good fight, and if they delete yours they gotta delete them all. The revolution begins...


...Now. --64.85.215.209 (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Two things. First, I have a lot of userboxes on my user page, but I've managed to select ones that I don't think could possibly create an "us v. them" environment, apart perhaps from the few that are about my opinions on Wikipedia policy. That is, unless somehow another editor actually is a fly that repeatedly attempts to enter people's ears. So I don't think appropriate userboxes are necessarily contradictory. Second, as regards your suggestion that userboxes only tend to be questioned if they are politically or socially right-wing or conservative (if I understand you correctly.) Someone observed recently that one place userboxes are often discussed is RfA - but while "humanist" userboxes (perceived as anti-religion and therefore anti-conservative) have several times been reasons for Oppose votes recently, "religion" userboxes never are. I've also seen some very odd nationalist userboxes on the userpage of an RfA candidate, but none of the voters had any qualms on that occasion. Bias may be in the eye of the beholder. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

...And the beholders are 2 wolves. "Polemic" is subjective, yes. Sometimes I agree with the wolves, but I know it's a problem when the lamb is the objective of what is subjective. UBX B DAMNED! --64.85.215.209 (talk) 19:54, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused. In this metaphor, am I a wolf or a lamb? Either way I could really go for some mutton.... Arbor8 (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

IP user, I agree with you 100%. If you want to, you should repost this at the discussion here. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, S Marshall makes some good points here. Hopefully it will be taken to WP:MfD and you can make the case there. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 02:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Re:

Oh, that's not a problem at all; I never use them anyway. :) Toa Nidhiki05 00:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you receive your filet?

In case you didn't, here is a replacement.

Kugel

Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:17, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you! I must say it looks far superior to the Filet-O-Fish I was expecting, with its fish and cheese of questionable authenticity! NYyankees51 (talk) 03:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

SBA

Per your edit summary - are you saying you don't have a WP:COI w/ SBA list? Arbor8 (talk) 16:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I did have one in the summer of 2009, but I am not associated with the SBA List anymore. I didn't start regularly editing the article until summer 2010, which is also when I came across Binksternet. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks Arbor8 (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

NYyankees51, you were the article's most frequent editor in 2009, so I don't know what you mean by "regularly" in regard to 2010's edits. Also: you have not said when it was that your association with SBA List ended. Binksternet (talk) 21:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps regularly wasn't the best word, but the vast majority of the edits were made after summer 2009, when the association ended. I made several edits at a time a few times. In 2010 I began working with it constantly. NYyankees51 (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Same-sex marriage law in the United States by state

Just wanted to say that I've just provided my first thoughts. More anon. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC) Hello. You have a new message at Roscelese#Same-sex marriage law in the United States by state's talk page. Thanks for asking for my input. I've done a little table work int he past, but nothing aggressive, so I'm not going to be much quick help on formatting. Having said that, I do have some thoughts on what I see you doing, some of which are so fundamental that I'm not going to try to edit them in, as that would be both time-consuming and disruptive to whatever's already going on:

• The whole breaking down sections based on status goes against the very title of the page - it should be by state - as well as making it less useful as a reference.
• This would be a summary page, and as such it doesn't require and shouldn't have much depth on each entry, as the individual states probably each have their own page by now.
• When using tables, you want to keep the information brief in order to keep from making it multiple lines, if possible, allowing as much as possible to be displayed within the height and width of the browser. That keeps things easier to compare, and keeps them closer to the header.
• It should reflect current status, not history on how it got there - that info is for the individual state page, not a summary page.
• The table should be in alphabetical order by state, and the columns should be:
  • State name, wikilinked to the SSM-in-the-State article for that state
  • Status, which should be one of three: granted, recognized, banned
  • Status established in constitution: simply yes or no. For the yes entries, it should be wikilinked to the article on the referendum that passed the amendment or the ruling that recognized the constitution as permitting SSM.
  • Status established in legislation: simply yes or no (and do realize that for some states, this will have the same result as the previous column, as some establish it through both, and I think there are still some states that don't explicitly establish it by either.
  • Marriage-like status offered: domestic partnership, civil unions, or none. If there is an article specifically on that status in that state, or on the passage thereof, it should be wikilinked.
  • Exceptions: This is a brief notes section, and I'm labeling it exceptions rather than notes to discourage it from becoming a random information dump. Really, the two things that come to mind are putting "Coquille Nation" in Oregon and "recognition dependent on date" for California.
• By using a color scheme for the background of the rows - a light red for "banned", yellow for "recognized", green for "performed", you'll make it easier for people to find the subset of information they want, as well as creating a quick visual summary of the general status, in a way that doesn't leave any of the information actually invisible for the color-blind.
• Your existing placement of Maine is incorrect; they do not have a constitutional ban on SSM. (They did have a referendum, but it wasn't for an amendment of the constitution.)
• The article should probably have a very brief intro explaining why such a breakdown is necessary: "In the United States, the federal government is barred by law from recognizing same-sex marriages, but that restriction does not flow down to the individual states, which may each set their own laws regarding same-sex marriage."
• The header "States prohibiting same-sex marriage in state law only" is confusing, as a state constitution is state law. But then, I think this section should be done away with.

All in all, I think if you follow my suggested table format, you'll get a tight, informative summary article which works as an effective gateway to more detail for those who wish it. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, you make several good points. I don't have time to incorporate all this now, but I started a new table and a brief intro. Feel free to work on it if you get a chance. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

COIN

Yes, I put my arguments together at WP:COIN. You will likely want to add your viewpoint. Binksternet (talk) 22:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Marriage

I don't know a whole lot about the subject but I just wanted to say I like the mock-up that you, Nat and Bmclaughlin a whole lot better than the current article. Until you replace it, could some one downsize the huge map that is up top. For some reason it is taking up half my screen. - Haymaker (talk) 01:33, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, feel free to jump in if you want. I'll see if I can downsize it in the current article. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, thanks for the correction at BB

Cheers, --joe decker^{talk to me} 17:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Article for deletion debate

The article Young Conservatives of Texas has been nominated for deletion at AfD. Your input as to whether or not this article meets Notability standards is invited. Thank you. Carrite (talk) 16:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

"a therapist is not a 'therapy provider'; 'abortionist' is the proper term and is not POV"

Would you care to compare these two search results (take care to eliminate quoted speech and unreliable sources, too) and revert yourself?

As an unrelated side note, I've realized that State amendments banning same-sex unions and its accompanying list is going to be redundant to the revised "SSM in the US by state" - when the latter is revised in mainspace, would you agree with a merge?

-- Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, too late. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You may be right, I just think of "abortion provider" as a clinic or organization, i.e. Planned Parenthood or Tiller's clinic, and "abortionist" as the person who actually performs the abortions, i.e. George Tiller. And it seems Tiller was both an abortionist and and abortion provider. I'll revert myself for the sake of discussion. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:24, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

As for the SSM article, I didn't even know about that article - there are way too many state articles on the issue. Hopefully we can find a way to combine them all. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:24, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, but I think that's an idiosyncratic interpretation - "abortion provider" is used for people all the time. "Abortionist" often has connotations of illegality or unprofessionalism, at best. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

"Abortionist" very often is used for its negative impact. "Abortion provider" is neutral. There is no parallel in "therapist". Binksternet (talk) 19:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You're both right about abortionist, but abortion provider seems to me to be the politically correct term with positive connotations, since they're providing, i.e. doing something good for someone, as opposed to something like 'performing, i.e. just doing something, no connotations. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Either way, it's the term more often used by reliable sources. "Abortion performer" isn't used. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:42, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

"Abortion performer"? Seriously? Sounds like a really messed up circus act. Regardless, I have a hard time believing that someone as involved in abortion politics as you, NYYankees, isn't fully aware of the connotations of "abortionist." Arbor8 (talk) 21:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly I didn't know there were connotations. "Abortionist" is still used in mainstream sources, and exclusively to describe Kermit Gosnell. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

We're talking about providers of legal abortions, though, right? Certainly Gosnell is a different case altogether. Arbor8 (talk) 18:27, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

With your background, these nuances have to be very familiar to you, NYyankees51. There is no need to pretend otherwise. The term abortionist has the connotation of back alley and illegality. The term abortion provider gives the impression of medical competence and accepted legal status. If you call a legal abortion provider an abortionist then you are insulting them. Binksternet (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I hadn't really thought about the term. In any case, abortion provider is probably just as POV, because nobody wants to dislike someone who "provides" for people. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, this is a case where the connotations are largely irrelevant, because reliable sources use "abortion provider" for Tiller and not "abortionist." Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

1RR

That's awfully close to a 1RR vio there.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:34, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sarek, there was an edit conflict so I hit cancel and submitted it again without checking to see if any changes had been made to the section. My mistake, I restored his edit here. NYyankees51 (talk) 13:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I saw that, thanks. However, I'm more concerned about adding the "LiveAction posted the unedited videos to their site" language twice. That first post was definitely restoring language that had been previously removed, but not recently, so I'm not going to count it as a revert. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Didn't see the other one, also restored here. NYyankees51 (talk) 13:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, good. Thanks for catching that yourself. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:42, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) NYYankees, your efforts to expand Live Action distorts the historical context of the section. Live Action is just one of a series of stings and if you want more coverage, add it to the article on the topic. I will add that removing the the 2005 Bush study that was brought up in the context of past sting activities also removes a relevant and official counterpoint to past stings that predated the most recent Live Action video. I would ask you to reconsider your efforts here. You may also want to use the talk page since there was already a long discussion about balance relating past history. The section is not 2011 stings. It's all stings including the history.Mattnad (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right Mattnad, I restored it but moved it so it doesn't look like the 2005 investigation was in response to the 2011 videos. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Also, I'm wondering whether we want work on expanding the Live Action article together. It's a bit.... underwhelming. It also seems to be competing with the Lila Rose article. Really, aren't they synonymous?Mattnad (talk) 16:28, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Definitely, the article is in desperate need of expansion. Once we do that, we can work on Rose. NYyankees51 (talk) 22:54, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

AFA

No worries. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

A.J.

Nice! Should she be added to Live A & PP ?Lionel (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

April 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Defense of Marriage Act, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. A520 | Talk me away! 19:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Maine Question 1

*sigh* I hate articles that are named after specific legislative designations that change from year to year... (as I previously argued at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 January 4#HR 676)--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

1RR notice on Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute

Please revert yourself at Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute where you warred over the same wording twice in 24 hours. The article has been under general abortion-topic sanctions, restricting editors to 1RR since February 26, 2011. Binksternet (talk) 17:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's a violation, but I'll revert for the sake of discussion. NYyankees51 (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Maine referendum

Please don't "move" articles by cutting and pasting. If an article cannot be moved, you must use the WP:RM process. Regardless, the article is already at the correct location (i.e. Maine same-sex marriage referendum, 2009, as this is the standard naming format for elections and referendums. Cheers, Number 57 22:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Modest Barnstar
		Thanks for your recent contributions! -Mike Restivo (talk) 20:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Summarizing sources

In this edit you removed general information from the pro-life article. In your edit summary you wrote "Source doesn't say that". Did you read the source? It says that. Here we have the long version in the original source:

• "A sizable majority of pro-life groups work within the Republican Party, hoping to influence the selection of Supreme Court justices and to nominate and elect more Republicans to enact whatever legislation the Court will permit. Since 1980, when pro-life activists gained control of the Republican platform committee, Republican platforms have called for a human life amendment."[1]

Here is the short summary I wrote in the lead section:

• "The pro-life movement in the U.S. is composed largely of Republican Party members, and seeks to enact restrictive legislation such as a Human Life Amendment."

Later, in the article body, I wrote another summary, with slightly more detail:

• "That same year [1980], the pro-life movement gained control of the Republican Party's platform committee, adding pro-life planks to the Republican position, and calling for a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning abortion."

If your problem is with the Republican part, there are a lot of sources which back it up:

• "Over time, Republicans have become more identified with the pro-life position and Democrats with the pro-choice position. Southern Republicans have gained more support as pro-lifers entering the electorate identify with the GOP."
• "...the pro-life movement is closely allied with the Republican Party."
• "...a large contingent of pro-lifers into Republican politics."
• "Almost by default, the Republican Party became home to pro-lifers, many of whom drifted into it from other parties."
• "Among the Two-Party groupings, the Republicans were the most pro-life..."
• "...the pro-life movement is closely allied with the Republican Party." Also: "Pro-life groups, such as the National Right to Life Committee, want a constitutional amendment banning all abortions."

What parts of my summaries are untrue to the source? Please be specific. Binksternet (talk) 21:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

None of those sources say that the movement is composed largely of Republicans. You could stretch them to say that, but that would be an unprovable generalization. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If your opposition to the bit is simply about wording, how would you word it? Binksternet (talk) 22:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I would say that the Republican Party allies with the pro-life movement, not the other way around. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:30, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Why? Binksternet (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Because the movement is independent of the party. The Republican platform says they are pro-life; there is no universal pro-life platform that says they are Republicans. There is a sizable group of pro-lifers who don't give a doggone about politics. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

There are also unrepentant pro-choice Republicans, in the spirit of pre-1980 Republicans who were more pro-choice than Democrats. "Pro-choice" satisfied the Libertarian streak of Republicanism, the group which did not want more laws restricting people's actions. I say pro-life forces allied with the Republican party because that is the formulation used by the reliable sources. Binksternet (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Conservatism Collaboration

NYY I'd like to personally invite you to nominate an article for the first ever Conservatism Collaboration! I thought of you because on 2/15/11 you put Dan Benishek on the Todo list, later you listed National Right to Life Committee. Either of those would make a great nom. The Conservatism Collaboration is a phenomenal opportunity to meet other editors, learn new editing techniques and even enlist aid for some of your own projects. Nominate your article here. Lionel (talk) 04:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

SBA Museum

I'm puzzled by your removal of the information that the museum does not display the other quotes we discuss. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm puzzled too. I was thinking that since the sentence was written before we added the "rue the day" quote that I was updating it. I'll restore it, I didn't think anything of it. Sorry about that. NYyankees51 (talk) 01:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

No need to apologize - I just thought that there must be a reason for the removal of the information, and was interested in hearing what that reason was. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:31, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you sir!

Excellent userbox! --GBVrallyCI (talk) 18:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

1RR violation on Susan B. Anthony List

You have broken the 1RR sanction on Susan B. Anthony List. I have filed an entry about it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Binksternet (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Notification of WP:AN/EW report

Hello NYyankees51,

This is an automated friendly notification to inform you that you have been reported for Violation of the Edit warring policy at the Administrators' noticeboard.
If you feel that this report has been made in error, please reply as soon as possible on the noticeboard. However, before contesting an Edit warring report, please review the respective policies to ensure you are not in violation of them. ~ NekoBot (MeowTalk) 14:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC) (False positive? Report it!)

Regarding WP:SAY

You have used WP:SAY several times over several articles to put the word "say" in place of a stronger word. The guideline at SAY allows the stronger words when appropriate, such as when one side of a debate or dispute is composed of scholars and the other side has only lay researchers. In that case, the stronger word is merited; the truth of the point being made is stronger from the scholars than from the lay people. Binksternet (talk) 14:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the latest statement wasn't really worth fighting over since nobody really disagrees that she didn't actively work against it, but I am tired of seeing stuff like "pro-lifers claim..." where the word claim really means "this is ridiculous", while "pro-choicers point out" where "point out" really means "this is the truth, believe it". And I'm not just talking about abortion articles, I'm talking about in general. Too often your intention when using these words to avoid at least seems to be to discredit the pro-lifers. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for edit warring. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.

Because abortion articles are under 1RR restrictions, reverting twice on Susan B. Anthony List is a violation of our edit warring policy. Nyttend (talk) 16:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Instaurare (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

I have always been confused about 1RR. I changed the wording of something and was reverted, so I reverted the reversion. That counts as two reversions? If I am in violation I'll accept the block, just seeking clarification on the policy for the future. Thanks!

Decline reason:

A simple visit to WP:EW was all that was needed (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

From WP:EW "A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material". Your first edit reversed recent actions of other editors through an edit, and was technically your first R. When you reverted someone's change, it became your second. Besides, you don't even need to break 1RR to be edit-warring. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

{{unblock|reason=My block expired a little while ago, but now I am blocked again because my IP was somehow autoblocked for longer than my username was blocked. It's set to expire in a couple hours so it's not a big deal if no one gets to this request, but I would like to do some editing if someone gets this in time. If there's something else going on please let me know. Thanks!}}

Got it. There's a separate unblock template for autoblocks, so try to use that one next time, please. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:12, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, many thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Sanction Repeal

It may be time to seriously look into making a motion to repeal the abortion article sanctions completely. Their repeated use as an intimidation technique and as way of circumventing the BRD cycle has to end. Putting something together may be a good use of your time during your block. PeRshGo (talk) 15:59, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that you reverted at Susan B. Anthony List without discussing any new reasoning. The 1RR sanction is not the problem if even you do not follow WP:BRD as a guideline. Whether or not 1RR remains in place, BRD will. Binksternet (talk) 16:24, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

As did you, in fact the only difference between your actions and those of NYyankees51 is that you didn’t make the mistake of reverting twice in the same day. The problem removing the sanctions will solve is to help curtail the massive abuses of the administrator’s noticeboard going on. Sanctions shouldn’t be used as an intimidation tactic, and shouldn’t be used as often as possible in order to punish those who don’t share the same POV. A part of acting in good faith is not waiting for an editor you oppose to screw up in order to tattle and see them punished. PeRshGo (talk) 17:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything "massive" or abusive regarding AN/I. Also, I do not predict better behavior in abortion topics if all the parties are restored to 3RR. There will just be 3x the rate of reversions. Discussion is the key, not changing 1RR. Binksternet (talk) 18:46, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Then why didn't you take this issue to discussion rather than edit war over it? Arzel (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Good question. I guess I thought it was part of the discussion about scholars, whether we should say there was one or more than one scholar, whether the scholars should be acknowledged as a better source than lay researchers and activists, whether their input should be treated as truth because no scholar has opposed them. Certainly, I started a thread here yesterday to discuss the specific issue. Perhaps after NYyankees51 is unblocked I can move that discussion to the SBA List talk page. Binksternet (talk) 20:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This was of course on a user's talk page, after you had made your edits, and after you had already reported the user for "edit warring" to AN/I. Nothing builds consensus like “Hey I’m trying to get you blocked. By the way, what to talk about the issue?” PeRshGo (talk) 20:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, PeRshGo. The direct cause of the 1RR was the conduct of User:WikiManOne, who antagonized others such as myself and caused others to edit war. WikiMan, Haymaker, me, and a new user are the only people blocked under the rule. Now WikiMan is a sock, Haymaker hasn't been violated it in two months, I fully understand the rule, and the new user was new. I don't think it's needed anymore. Once it's not needed, it becomes a weapon in disputes. NYyankees51 (talk) 23:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It's pretty bold to declare 1RR not needed and that you "fully understand the rule" one day after you violate it. Binksternet (talk) 23:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

See the section above. I didn't understand the technicalities of it. NYyankees51 (talk) 00:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK nom?

FYI this became DYK eligible here Lionel (talk) 22:09, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to do that so if you want to please do! NYyankees51 (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Tilting at windmills

Pro-Herman Cain userbox? Good luck with the campaign. Don't bet the farm. :/ Binksternet (talk) 00:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about that. He comes across as very genuine, he's very articulate, and his message is resonating. Considering that Newt has imploded, Romney's going nowhere, and Huckabee's not running, the door is wide open. And that benefits Cain, Bachmann, etc. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Barring some major scandal or crisis, though, it's going to be difficult for any Republican to win the general in 2012. Cain might indeed win the primary (though then again, he might not, given the racism of a substantial section of the party), but losing the general is entirely likely to kill his future presidential hopes - the really serious challengers are thinking about '16.

...Although I was actually here to tell you that I'm working on your draft on SSM legislation. ;) Hopefully sooner or later it will be ready to put in mainspace. In the meantime, you/me/NatGertler/someone should check that all the information in the current version of the article is represented in the articles on individual statutes before we remove it. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:39, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Whatever racism once existed vanished at the time it vanished from the Democratic Party - Cain is the tea party favorite and he's placing towards the top in the polls. Yes, 2016 is going to be a very big year.

Thanks for working on it, I haven't been able to do anything with it recently. I'll take a look at what you've done and hopefully I can get back on it soon and we can finish it off. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I wish it were true that racism was gone! Certainly there's less than there was, at least. But it's still alive and well in both parties, the Republican Party more than the Democratic, going based on the incident after incident from Tea Partiers and non-, and from polls like this one. It would be nice if Cain motivated white voters to change their racist views of black people - however, if he wins the primary, his campaign in the general is going to be seen (perhaps already is seen) as a ploy to win black voters from the Democratic Party, by assuming that they will vote for a black candidate rather than for a candidate who supports policies in the interests of black people. (I sometimes see people cite the percentage of blacks that voted for Obama, as if to prove that it was race-based voting, but Kerry, Gore, and Clinton had similar numbers.) Compare the Clarence Thomas nomination.

I haven't yet saved the edit (it's largely aesthetic, combining a few of the redundant tables) but are you watching the subpage, or should I let you know when it's saved? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Any political analyst who thinks that voters will leave their Democratic choice to vote for the black candidate would seem to be forgetting who the Democratic candidate will be.

My time is tending to come in smaller chunks these days, fine for drive-by editing and kibbitzing, but I'm juggling too many work projects to do a big editing push on anything at the moment. --Nat Gertler (talk) 07:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry Nat, I'll keep a close eye on your LGBT articles for ya. My dream ticket: Palin+Bachmann! See Ros, I'm no sexist. You betcha. Lionel (talk) 08:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Palin-Bachmann is also the Demo's GOP dream ticket. :P

Binksternet (talk) 09:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Yup. It'll never happen, though. Even the Dems wouldn't run a ticket with two minorities on it, and they don't have the problems the Republican Party has with racism and sexism - this is regardless of whether either of them can actually get on the ticket independent of the other, which is also, to make an understatement, less than a given. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

That poll was forced stereotyping. And the party is not sexist either. I am watching the subpage so go ahead when you're ready. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Could you clarify what you mean by "forced stereotyping"? Obviously wording the poll the way they did is going to influence the responses - it's the power of suggestion, you'll get more people answering "I think black people are lazy" if you ask "do you think black people are lazy" than if you ask "what do you think of black people" - but I don't see anything that would have led greater numbers of Republicans to respond negatively and Democrats to answer positively, as opposed to the same skew in each group. I'll see if I can finish up the edit this evening! Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Everybody was forced to answer whether they think an entire race is one adjective or another. That's forced stereotyping regardless of whether they respond positively or negatively. In any case, if your racism/sexism theory is true, then all the racists and sexists will vote for Tim Pawlenty as the nonoffensive white male Protestant (Romney is a Mormon, Gingrich has been divorced two or three times, Cain is black, Bachmann and Palin are women, Ron Paul is Ron Paul, and Santorum is Catholic. NYyankees51 (talk) 19:06, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Yank here. My response to that poll would have been to snort, insult the pollster, and walk away. And, how about them Red Sox? PhGustaf (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I like that reaction.

Psh, it's only June...A couple years ago I think the Red Sox took the first nine games of the season and the Yankees took the last nine when it counts! NYyankees51 (talk) 20:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean about the poll. I think that, based on what you say, such a poll would have under-measured the amount of non-racists, exactly because, as you say, one doesn't lump all people of one race together. (To quote a wise fictional Catholic, "I have the greatest esteem for Jews, so far as anyone can speak of a heterogenous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way.") However, this doesn't undermine my point, which was that racism is not over and that it's more prevalent among Republicans; I wouldn't cite that poll for its numbers, but rather for its demonstration of the existence and lesser-or-greater of racism. (As for the primary, people are willing to swallow their biases for the sake of their policies all the time, particularly if it lets them pretend they don't have those biases or if the candidate supports restrictive policies against their own group; witness Palin, among a host of others. I certainly wouldn't put money on Pawlenty winning! Nor on Cain losing. It'll be interesting to watch - though, as I said, 2016 and the lead-up will be the most interesting.) PhGustaf, now I'm very much wondering the percentage of non-respondents! Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Racism is certainly not over, and it's certainly correlated with political conservatism, regardless of party. Until 1964 (which I'm old enough to remember) southern Democrats still hadn't forgiven Lincoln for freeing the slaves. After Johnson (who was a pretty good president except for that Viet Nam thing) pushed through civil rights legislation all those Democrats suddenly became Republicans, and their children did too. It's ludicrous to imagine that racism isn't still a prime motivator for many Republicans, especially the Tea Party loons. PhGustaf (talk) 07:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Give me a break. What a bunch of liberal BS. Arzel (talk) 16:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

"The Tea Party is not a racist movement, period! If it were, why would the straw polls keep showing that the black guy is winning? That's a rhetorical question. Let me state it: The black guy keeps winning." -- Herman Cain NYyankees51 (talk) 20:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There's more to racism than "will they vote for a black guy." The Republican ticket for president in the last election, for example, opposed legislation that would make it easier for women illegally denied equal pay to sue for that pay. It's an attempt to rectify the pay gap where a woman is paid less than a man for the exact same work - a practice prohibited by the Constitution - and which is part of the reason why poor people in the USA are disproportionately female. Is the sexism of this policy canceled out by the fact that one supports it by voting for a woman? Hardly. Would it also be sexist not to vote for her only because she's a woman? Yup, but there's more to sexism than that. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

More liberal BS. They opposed legislation that would have no statute of limitations. The particualar lady related to that situation did get a raw deal, but the law which was proposed to resolve her situation will have unintended consequences that will make things worse for everyone. I liken the approach to Robocop. When they added thousands of directives on what he could or could not do he was a walking contridiction. Forced to protect everything, but unable to do anything, much like the liberal approach to government today. Arzel (talk) 14:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I haven't seen the film, so your analogy is lost on me. What you're saying about the law is also flatly false, which is obvious if you'd bother to read about it - it didn't extend the statute of limitations indefinitely, rather, it made the statute of limitations relative to every violation of the Constitution rather than only to the first one, without changing in any way the duration of said statute of limitations (180 days). Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess I should have said no effective statute of limitations. Arzel (talk) 17:44, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

The statute of limitations resets back to zero for every new offense. This is not a radical concept - it's how statutes of limitations work. You're asking that offenses against women be treated more leniently than other offenses. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I see you've dropped the Herman Cain box. Was the debate last night unsatisfying? (I saved that edit, by the way, tell me what you think.) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

He was the only one last night, aside from Ron Paul, to say gay marriage should be left up to the states as opposed to a federal constitutional amendment...That adds to my concern that he won't focus on social issues. I'm leaning towards Bachmann as of right now, but Rick Perry could change things. The edit looks great. Do you think we can add the margins by which the referenda passed? It's not a huge deal, but I find it very interesting to see how the margins vary by region, i.e. barely passing in CA and parts of the north and landslides in the South and Midwest. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:07, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

What people say in debates is always going to be a political decision, though, and doesn't necessarily reflect what their priorities will be in office. Cain presumably thinks that registered Republicans want to hear about the economy. (Which would probably help him among independents in the general, but I don't know about among Republicans - after all, the House made anti-abortion laws their priority upon taking over - though then again perhaps Republican voters are discontented with the failure to address economic problems.) What he says presumably represents his actual positions (ie. he probably won't push for a federal amendment, having said he wouldn't), but the weight given to the various issues might be different in the campaign and in office (ie. he might soft-pedal abortion during the campaign but go all-out for anti-abortion laws in office).

I don't think it's necessary to add the margins in an overview of current state-by-state status, since List of U.S. state constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions by type exists and could be linked. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

You make good points. I'm just a little uncertain because I heard him speak last week at the Faith and Freedom Conference and he only made two or three passing references to life and marriage while Huntsman, Pawlenty, and Bachmann made strong life and marriage-focused speeches.

I'll take a look at that page. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 01:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess it's possible that he's being forward-thinking and trying to limit his focus on social policy for the general; though - you yourself are a prime example - it might hurt him among Republicans such that he never makes it to the general. Primaries are fascinating that way - see Sestak and Specter in Pennsylvania, Perry and Hutchinson in Texas... (And primary campaigns are such interesting creatures - because you want to slag off your opponents enough that you win the nomination, but not so much that you damage them in the general election if they beat you. Are you speculating yet on who will drop out first?) Heh, I don't even have to think about anything in this election cycle.

Yeah...I'm always worried that there's lurking redundancy that I can't see to correct. But that page exists and is well-formatted and everything, so it's not necessary to repeat the information. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Beauty & brains--a bad guy's worst nightmare

When Sarah is elected she can bring Pam Bondi on board as Attorney General.

Discussion at Talk:Charmaine Yoest

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Charmaine Yoest. Lionel (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}}) Lionel (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Faith and Freedom Coalition

The DYK project (nominate) 18:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Abortion lede

I invite you to take a look at abortion.71.3.237.145 (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey did you know...?

Same-sex marriage is now legal in New York state, and that fact must be mentioned 15 places in each SSM-related article! Apparently, the editors of Wikipedia forgot to do that! ;) --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry Nat, I'm on top of it. I've got this NY thing under control--you can count on me. You can go back to real-life. You haven't forgotten I'm watching your lgbt articles for you... – Lionel ^(talk) 00:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Bachmann Campaign

Glad to see that we could come to an agreement without any edit warring on the Bachmann Campaign page. Thanks! --Ender The Xenocide | ( Talk | Contribs) 21:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem, sorry about the confusion with the edit conflicts. NYyankees51 (talk) 22:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Abby Johnson (activist)

The article Abby Johnson (activist) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Notable only for publishing a non-notable book.

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

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. PhGustaf (talk) 09:14, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Abby Johnson (activist) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Abby Johnson (activist) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abby Johnson (activist) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. PhGustaf (talk) 16:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

John Lennon

Have you not heard of bold/revert/discuss? I clearly didn't revert your addition of this information because I don't believe it but because--as I stated in the edit summary--that it is WP:UNDUE. Yes, this is a dubious bit of fluff making the rounds right now but it doesn't belong in the article because of its exaggerated significance. Since I reverted your edit, the civil thing to do would have been to initiate a discussion on the talk page rather than simply reverting. As the person who has added the contested information, the onus is on you to justify its inclusion. Please discuss it on the talk page. freshacconci talktalk 18:46, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Completely new abortion proposal and mediation

In light of the seemingly endless disputes over their respective titles, a neutral mediator has crafted a proposal to rename the two major abortion articles (pro-life/anti-abortion movement, and pro-choice/abortion rights movement) to completely new names. The idea, which is located here, is currently open for opinions. As you have been a contributor in the past to at least one of the articles, your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

The hope is that, if a consensus can be reached on the article titles, the energy that has been spent debating the titles of the articles here and here can be better spent giving both articles some much needed improvement to their content. Please take some time to read the proposal and weigh in on the matter. Even if your opinion is simple indifference, that opinion would be valuable to have posted.

To avoid accusations that this posting violates WP:CANVASS, this posting is being made to every non-anon editor who has edited either page since 1 July 2010, irrespective of possible previous participation at the mediation page. HuskyHuskie (talk) 19:46, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

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

Quick question

NYY, some of Bello's pals and I were reminiscing at my talk, and I remembered a hilarious incident where you and WikiManOne got into it at an abortion article. He said he was pro-life when it came to animals, and you wrote back that he preferred killing babies or something like that. Do you recall which article? Or better--have a diff? Thanks – Lionel ^(talk) 05:30, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It's at the bottom of this subsection. [2] NYyankees51 (talk) 17:19, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh man I cracked up allover again. The best off the cuff retort on wiki ever! Thanks!– Lionel ^(talk) 19:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Rude outburst at Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-06-22/Abortion-rights movement

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
FYI - I have removed the uncivil comments you posted where you told me that I "don't have a clue" and that I should "shut up and go find something better to do". They were quite uncalled for, and I think you should make a sincere effort to be more civil and remain calm in the future. —SW— spill the beans 23:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC) I was using your own admission - "I have no interest because the last time I took part in a related discussion was probably well over a year ago". As for finding something better to do, I stand by that - Husky took two hours of his time in an earnest and sincere effort to ensure that this long and complex dispute is resolved. But you march in complaining that you got notified. It took you ten times as long to go to the discussion and whine than it would have to delete the notifications. So perhaps I was uncivil, but I have no tolerance for whining, especially from someone who has "no interest" in the topic. NYyankees51 (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC) I thought it was rather careless for someone to mass-post a notice to hundreds of users, many of whom had already gotten a notice about the same thing a few days prior. I also thought it was rather careless to mass-post a notice to any user who had ever edited the two articles in question or their talk pages, ever. So, even users who made a minor edit 6 years ago and never edited it since still got a notice about this. My goal was to point out these two careless decisions, in the hopes that the editor who made them would put more care into such decisions in the future. My goal was not to selfishly whine that I had gotten duplicate notices on my talk page for something I'm not interested in, but rather to speak for the other 300 editors who were probably somewhat annoyed by the same thing. As for it taking over 2 hours of work to post the notices, that's Husky's problem. There are plenty of bots out there that would allow you to do the same thing in a few minutes. Just because someone took a long time to do something doesn't mean that it was a good idea or well-executed. —SW— confer 18:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC) Excuse me, only the editors who had edited either article since July 2010 were notified. And even if all 300 editors were "annoyed", it takes 20 seconds to remove the notice(s) from their talk pages. You could have just done that instead of spending 50 times as long complaining on the mediation page and now on my page. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:56, 7 July 2011 (UTC) If it takes 20 seconds for each of 300 users to remove an annoying notice from their talk page, then that is nearly two man-hours wasted unnecessarily. If you don't like my whining and complaining, then why don't you "shut up and go find something better to do" than whining and complaining about my whining and complaining? You could have read my complaint and ignored it in 20 seconds instead of spending 50 times as long complaining on the mediation page and now on your talk page. But, I realize that it is unreasonable to expect you to understand the irony, judging from the "I support George W. Bush" userbox (among others) on your user page. Anyway, the only reason I posted something on my talk page was to encourage you to be more civil, but that is clearly not going to happen so I guess I'll just have to hope that I never run into you again. Good luck pushing your tea party POV at the abortion mediation, I hope it all works out for you. Have a nice life. —SW— speak 21:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Jewish one-state solution

Hi. I see you are a supporter of Israel.

Have you seen this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIEeiDjdUuU

It is not exactly serious (the one-state proposal is satire), but it is funny and makes some good points. (this has little to do with Wikipedia, but I wanted to show you) Jorge Peixoto (talk) 01:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response, I messed up my talk page so I couldn't see this. I've seen that - it's a great one, hopefully more people will see it. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Abortion page protection

I don't know how I didn't notice your report when I filed mine. :O Sigh... Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, no problem. And thanks for fixing the section collapse. NYyankees51 (talk) 16:01, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, NYyankees51,

but, you may be inviting a seemingly interminable retribution on yourself (I call it logorrhea [3]). Don't forget to duck! --Kenatipo ^speak! 22:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

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I always forget if you like people to use these or not - I know you leave them when you reply to people, but I don't know if you prefer to receive them or not. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

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The worse offense

Relativism, overpopulation myth fail
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In discussions it is far worse to shut someone up by deleting what they say, than to shut someone up by proving what they do say isn't worth saying. The former is an act of cowardice, practiced by book-burners throughout history, who were afraid that a differing opinion would result in less control over other people. Truth always hurts liars and the deluded, but only those groups. Honorable people have nothing to fear from Truth. If you believe that a "pro-life" stand incorporates more Truth than a pro-abortion-rights stand, then you should be able to back it up in a Debate. If you can't back it up, then your so-called "truths" aren't necessarily what you think they are --that's a real Truth. You've thrown down the gauntlet by, apparently, not wanting others to see my willingness to directly Debate any "pro-lifer" into a kind of speechlessness on that topic (because just about anything you say can be used against you). Do you have the integrity to follow through? We shall see! V (talk) 09:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC) By the way, after writing the above I went over to the Mediation page and looked at your reversion, and noticed the comment about a "personal attack". Perhaps you missed the original now-deleted discussion about a Malthusian Catastrophe? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AMediation_Cabal%2FCases%2F2011-06-22%2FAbortion-rights_movement&action=historysubmit&diff=440217353&oldid=440198919 ) Kenatipo was first to say that I spoke nonsense, after which I showed that it was Kenatipo who was spouting nonsense. And nobody complained about either comment being a personal attack! So, when I wrote the text you reverted, I was referring-back to the deleted discussion, and nothing more. It is not an "attack" to state a simple Truth (that is, if you prove someone is lying, it is not an attack --it is an Objectively accurate description!-- to call that person a liar). But when such a statement is taken out of context, which apparently you did with respect to my text you reverted, the perception of the statement can be different. I'll be happy to edit that text, to include the above link for reference, if you unrevert it. V (talk) 15:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Your post was an aggressive taunt and it was off topic; I think most editors would back me up in deleting it. And I'm more than willing to debate you on the abortion issue any time - but only on our talk pages, not the articles. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I will agree that it was an aggressive taunt, so long as you accept I wasn't making a personal attack. We could do all the debating right here, if that's OK with you. We could also start with the observation that the phrase "pro-life" is valid only in the short term, since the evidence points to it helping a Malthusian Catastrophe to happen in the long term. The evidence I'll pick first is that Issac Asimov essay, "Is Anyone Listening", which I linked in the original deleted discussion on the mediation page ( http://www.koransky.com/Trackers/Other/IsAnyoneListening.html ). The description "penny-wise and pound-foolish" seems appropriate for pro-lifers (if not "unwittingly pro-genocide"), when a long-enough view is considered, as Asimov points out in mathematical detail. What evidence can you offer, that increasing the numbers of births (by banning elective abortions) is not a bad idea in the long run? (Do recall the overall relevance, because Wikipedia wants a suitable long-term title for the article devoted to your side of the abortion debate.) (I need to say that due to other committments I can only work on this Debate at oddball intervals.) V (talk) 19:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I really have no familiarity with the "Malthusian catastrophe", but if I understand it correctly as being about overpopulation - the essay you link to was written in the 1990s with 1990s logic. Overpopulation is a myth. It's not that people started having more children, it's that the medical/technological advances of the past 100-200 years caused people to stop dropping like flies. Even if banning abortion did cause dire overpopulation, it wouldn't be any better than the alternative - with today's increased life expectancies and below-replacement fertility rates, there will be a disproportionate number of elderly who will have to be supported by the depleted ranks of workers. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Newsflash! Someone else --an astrophysicist-- has followed in Asimov's footsteps, writing a blog titled "Do the Math". ( http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ ) and ( http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/ ) Even if population does not increase, there are Genuine Physical Limits to how much certain other things can be increased. Enjoy! V (talk) 07:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC) A simple definition of overpopulation is, "If a given place doesn't have the resources to sustain the population, then that place is overpopulated". A few centuries ago Easter Island provided a nearly perfect test-case of a Malthusian Catastrophe (proving humans are not immune). The people living there cut down the last tree (their primary resource, which mostly went to build fishing boats), after which the island experienced at least an 80% population drop, due to starvation and/or fighting and/or cannibalism. About a century later the place was discovered by Europeans, still treeless. Since then the population has interacted sufficiently with the rest of the world to not need to cut down imported/planted trees, to make fishing boats. Thomas Malthus didn't know about Easter Island's history when he wrote his famous Essay on Population ( http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1798malthus.html )--the Catastrophe that happened there was documented by archaeologists only a few decades ago. Overpopulation has been and will again be FACT, not "myth". V (talk) 15:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Next, almost the entire history of humanity can be described in terms of population growth to levels where at least some people had to move to other places to obtain fresh resources, or starve. And, after the world filled up, warfare began getting practiced seriously (the goal being to capture the resources of others--a classic example being the invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews, killing everyone they met). In general it's very simple: Peace causes overpopulation, which then causes war or worse, until the population can be sustained again. Modern technologies have allowed an unusually long period of "peace" (as compared to, say, the first two World Wars --did you know that one of the reasons specifically given by Hitler for German expansion into neighboring territories was the need for "Lebensraum" because of its population increase?). The global population growth associated with the last 65 years of global relative-peace is well known. In the animal kingdom a Malthusian Catastrophe will be almost entirely the result of starvation (a 99% population drop is typical); humans have more options --and so for us, World War Three is a likely way for most of humanity to die (maybe even more than 99% --how is that "better" than only-older-people-who-need-support not getting it?). But the root cause of WW3 will almost certainly be overpopulation, the way things are progressing in this era (do I need to copy the other links from that deleted discussion on the mediation page, regarding global resource depletion?). V (talk) 14:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Your focus on just some of the world (where population is growing slowly or even declining) is misplaced. Total numbers matter more, and it remains true that the total human population of Island Earth ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M ) is growing by more than 80 million each year (much like what Asimov wrote about twenty years ago), and this is happening in spite of this data: http://www.care2.com/causes/global-health-200-million-starving-children.html The quarter-million who lost their lives in the December 2004 Indian-Ocean tsunami were replaced in less than two days. So, try again. Please provide some global data indicating that a Malthusian Catastrophe is not in humanity's future, if the total population keeps growing as currently is the case. V (talk) 07:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Below, you stated that you are unable to argue the finer points about overpopulation. Does this mean you are willing to never again say that "overpopulation is a myth", as if the statement was something you could back up with evidence? And, if you still cannot accept the idea that overpopulation is a Real Threat to the future of humanity, what evidence can you offer, to support a refusal to accept that idea? Thanks in advance! V (talk) 07:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC) As I've said, I can't argue the finer points, and now, I won't "never again say that 'overpopulation is a myth'", because it doesn't take an expert to see that the logic is flawed. Killing a defenseless human being is morally wrong, period. There is no room for argument. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:20, 8 August 2011 (UTC) Please restate the first part of that more clearly? And then...what logic is flawed? The "logic" that equates a mindless or animal-minded human body (including any brain-dead adult human on full-life-support, or, with perfected Regeneration technology, also including any chopped-off segment of a human body, down to and including a single white blood cell) with a Person? What about the outright lie that an unborn human is defenseless? Very often the pregnant woman hosting it is its first two lines of defense! Please stop spouting utter nonsense, so that we can continue with a proper Debate! V (talk) 01:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC) I'm not the one spouting nonsense here. We can debate when your fantasy "Malthusian Catastrophe" actually happens. For now, I'm not going to debate you when you rant and rave about killing humans and the supposed subjectivity of personhood. NYyankees51 (talk) 00:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC) You are indeed spouting nonsense if you think that the human population can keep adding to the world the equivalent of 10 New York Cities every year, indefinitely. You have provided no data indicating how you expect everyone to have enough food to eat, when farmland is being covered with housing, and the oceans are running out of fish. You claim that "it doesn't take an expert to see that the logic is flawed" with respect to long-term consequences of a growing world population, yet you have not presented anything that might hint at the existence of such a flaw! And you seem to have no idea of the True Fact (despite it being known since Herodotus that "custom is king") that morals are arbitrary depending on the culture. What makes your morals superior to those of a cannibal who believes that is the right-and-proper way to honor a fallen foe? So far, nothing at all! Tell me, did you also subscribe to the fantasy that "human activities were not contributing to global warming"? It only took about 20 years for those idiots to start to realize that they were wrong. Well, if we wait 20 more years to realize that The Population Bomb is indeed going to explode someday, it might have already happened. Go ahead! Tell me some facts that indicate it won't/can't happen! Finally, do not put lies into my mouth. I have not once either directly advocated killing humans nor claimed that personhood was subjective. Indeed, regarding the latter, I specifically mentioned such things as "(I've seen evidence suggesting they begin to qualify about 18 months after birth)" and "If traits of person-ness begin to be appear about 18 months after a human's birth, then it likely happens at an equivalent stage of brain-growth for the "R"-strategist." --which means I was talking about something that should be Objectively Measurable. Meanwhile, all you have are worthless unsupported claims that mere existence automatically equals personhood, for humans. It wasn't true for the Founding Fathers of the United States ("Unborn humans have never been counted [as persons] in any Census ( http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/ )"), and it still isn't true today ("including the most recent [census] of 2010!"). Tsk, tsk. No wonder it is completely valid for me to say that you are spouting nonsense! V (talk) 04:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC) UPDATE: I've copied ALL our Abortion Debate stuff (plus stuff from two other pages) to my own talk page. I did that partly because I noticed how a huge chunk of your User Talk page was recently archived. Feel free to continue the Debate on my talk page, so that you become free to archive this, also. V (talk) 11:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC) Person subsection Honestly, I don't know enough about overpopulation to argue the finer points with you. Can I ask whether or not you deny that the unborn child is a human person? NYyankees51 (talk) 19:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC) You can ask, heh. I'm going to take my time working up to an answer, though.... Let's start with the fact that lots of people believe things that other people don't. For example, do children believe in Santa Claus? What about Santa's elves? And, are elves "people"??? Would a child who believes in Santa's elves bother to claim that only a human can be a person? How about someone who greatly enjoys science fiction and fantasy? The imaginations of a great many people have had no difficulty whatsoever accepting the notion that lots of Beings can be nonhuman but also People, despite, so far, their complete and utter fictionality ( http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/moseisleycantina/ ). (And to really understand the flavor of this concept, consider God, Who doesn't have a physical body at all, and therefore is nonhuman, but still has many characteristics that most adult humans would probably associate with the concept of "Person".) Do you see where the preceding leads, though? There is a Very Important Question that Must Be Answered. "What is, precisely, the difference between a generic Person/Being, and a mere animal?" The Answer to that Question needs to be Universally Applicable. It would likely not be Right for us to someday travel to some distant planet and start eating the local life-forms, only to find out later that some of them qualified as People! ( http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?80686-Dolphins-Have-Language-Including-Names-Researchers-Say ) So, we need a Definition of Person such that every imaginable (to say nothing of actual) sort of Person fits the definition, while every imaginable/actual sort of animal fails to fit the definition. And after that definition has been devised, all you have to do is apply it to any unborn human you choose. So far as I know, they will all only qualify as "mere animals"; they are human bodies that lack the generic thing that would qualify an organism as a Person. (Consider fully-adult humans that have dead brains and are on full artificial life-support. Those human bodies have lost the thing that would qualify an organism as a Person, which is why they can be legally unplugged from that life-support.) By the way, this next thing is United-States-specific, because it is about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. I think you will agree that they were a fairly religious group? When they wrote the Constitution, they used the word "person" throughout. In the Constitution is a requirement to take a Census of all Persons every decade. The first Census was in 1790, and the Founding Fathers were still very-much "there" to decide what should and what should not be counted as a Person. (They counted a slave as 3/5 of a Person, back then.) Unborn humans have never been counted in any Census ( http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/ ), including the most recent one of 2010! (Likely reason: "Don't count your chickens before they hatch!" --about 1/6 of all pregnancies miscarry or result in stillbirth, and of course some result in twins, or triplets, or....) But perhaps you have some information on unborn humans and the concept of "person" that I lack. Let me know! V (talk) 05:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC) You're looking at it more philosophically; I look at it scientifically as well. The way I see it there are three options for when life begins - birth, viability, conception. 1) It wouldn't make sense for life to begin at birth because the baby is no different outside the mother's body than it was inside; all that has changed is its location (for example, getting in our out of a car does not change you). Another problem with life beginning at birth is that if the baby is halfway through the birth canal, is it half human? No, because that is biologically impossible. 2) It wouldn't make sense for life to begin at viability because viability is subjective. With the advance of medical technology, babies born earlier and earlier can survive and even thrive outside the womb. Viability was 28 weeks a decade or two ago; now it is 22-24 weeks, and that number will only get smaller and smaller as time goes on. 3) The only option left (and if there's another, tell me) is conception. The single cell formed at conception contains all the information ever needed for that unique being. From conception, nothing is added to the being but oxygen, nutrition, and time. The same is the case with born persons. Therefore, the unborn baby is indeed a person. At least scientifically; hopefully philosophy will adhere to science. And it is very hard to find a credible scientist who will deny that life begins at conception these days. NYyankees51 (talk) 14:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC) You seem to be confusing "life" with "person" --they are two different things. You certainly know that vast numbers of ordinary animals (and plants! --and bacteria!) are completely alive, while none of them are considered to be "persons". For humans to be an exception to that General Observation means that humans must have something that other ordinary life-forms lack. Furthermore, because of the stuff I wrote at the start of this subsection, it is important to accept that various other organisms, including entirely non-physical types like God, can also have that special distinguishing characteristic, which separates people from mere animals. I completely agree that the life of any human organism begins when egg-fertilization occurs, but I also have no reason to think that just because it is alive, it must also automatically qualify as a "person". To clarify this, consider that modern medical technology has almost reached the point where it would be possible to cut someone's head off, and keep both head and body alive separately, indefinitely, afterward. Let us now imagine med-tech gets appropriately better, so a super-fast Emergency Response Team could someday be called to save someone when an accidental decapitation happens. Should they rescue the head or the body, to save the life of the person who was decapitated? I think you will agree that they must save the head, despite it weighing only maybe three kilograms, while the rest of the body might easily weigh more than fifty kilograms --and despite the fact that both parts are completely human and completely alive at the moment decapitation occurs. (Remember it takes about 4 minutes of lack-of-oxygen to kill the brain, and I specified that this imaginary Emergency Response Team was super-fast.) Well, it is a Scientific Fact that a just-fertilized human ovum has no significant brain. It has molecular/biological hardware that can process DNA instructions like it was computer code, but that's all. However, every living cell has that much, so why should only that human cell be called a person, again? Here is another piece of medical information that can lead to an even bigger problem with the idea that a just-fertilized human ovum should be called a "person". There is a goal of figuring out how various animals can re-grow ("regenerate") lost limbs. Obviously every paraplegic and quadriplegic could benefit from such a medical breakthrough, and progress has been getting made ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article559955.ece ). Well, imagine Ultimate Success, and the consequences of that.... If you lost a finger, you could re-grow it. But you could also take that finger and grow a whole new body from it! Every time you bleed, you lose white blood cells that are fully human and fully alive and, with regeneration technology, fully able to grow into new human bodies. Well, there is no requirement that just because something is possible, it must be required to happen. It is absurd to think that a just-fertilized human ovum is any more significant, with respect to "person-ness", than one of those lost white blood cells. There is something more that I want to say, that properly should have been added to my previous post here. In Biology, it is recognized that there are two major/fundamental strategies pursued by various organisms, with respect to reproduction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory --humans are "K" strategists; we care greatly about our offspring (and, of course, anything that can be done can also be over-done, as proved by the existence of abortion opponents). In the realm of science fiction, speculations exist about intelligent beings whose biology is based on "R" strategy. The best-known such work is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land , with fictional Person-class Martians. Lesser-known, but involving the same fictional Martians, is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(novel). A feature of this story is the misunderstanding of "R" strategy by the humans who were colonizing Mars. See, an "R" strategist can have hundreds or even thousands of offspring at a time. Most of those offspring must be allowed to die while growing up (else human "overpopulation" would be as nothing compared to what those nonhumans would experience!!!). A relevant Question is this: "At what stage during growth should the offspring of Person-class 'R'-strategists themselves be called 'persons'?" The book "Red Planet" tries to get the reader to understand that Question. But I happen to think it is relevant to humans, too, despite our being "K" strategists. Because it is so easy for us to make more unborn humans (so easy that most types of birth-control fail now and then), that there is no need to assign to them as much value as, say, actually-born-alive humans. V (talk) 16:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC) I'm not a philosopher, so I'm not equipped to respond to the route you're taking. I just go with what science and common sense tell me. But in response to "I completely agree that the life of any human organism begins when egg-fertilization occurs, but I also have no reason to think that just because it is alive, it must also automatically qualify as a 'person'," what else is it? Bad things happen when human beings are not treated as persons. NYyankees51 (talk) 16:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC) More exactly yet also more generically, "Bad things happen when persons are not treated as persons." Are dolphins people? http://www.eurocbc.org/page909.html (If I could find something about how dolphins are likely to mostly die off because we are eating all their food, I'd link that, too. Here's a start, though: http://overfishing.org/ ) It is extremely important to know --not guess, not claim, know-- whether or not some organism not yourself is a person! So, again, just because an unborn human is perfectly human and perfectly alive, what evidence can you offer to convince anyone that it qualifies as "perfectly a person", also??? Have you given any thought yet, to the generic problem of how to recognize a person? Here's my best-so-far stab at it. "A person is able to consciously compromise its inherent/Natural selfish desires." The word "consciously" is important, because a certain amount of altruistic behavior can actually be instinctive (Altruism_in_animals). And "compromise" is important, too, because compromise usually involves interaction with another entity, which will have its own set of inherent/Natural selfish desires. Most animals interact with others (especially others of other species) competitively only, as if their selfish desires are somehow inherently so important they don't need to be compromised. (BUT: http://travel-for-love.com/2011/07/18/the-dolphin-and-the-fishermen/ ) I could now argue that humans who enslaved other humans did not at that time qualify as persons(!), because they put their own selfish desires ahead of others, uncompromisingly. Ditto with those who caused the Holocaust. But that would be a rather extreme argument, since it is reasonable to think that at other times those same humans were able to compromise their selfishness. (Just like a sleeping person is unable at that time to do much, but can be quite capable after waking up.) It is assumed that God does compromise, also, because we are allowed to have "free will". And even in fiction our treatment of non-human alien Beings is closely related to the manner in which they they are willing to interact with us (Compare the movies Alien Nation (film) and Independence Day (film) --and, since many humans are bigoted xenophobes, we can still fail to Do The Right--or best--Thing: District 9). Meanwhile, unborn humans (and brain-dead humans on full-life-support) utterly and totally cannot participate in conscious compromise; therefore, by this philosophical analysis, they are mere animal bodies only. Simple! V (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC) So can newborns and toddlers be killed too because they cannot "consciously compromise" their desires and are therefore not persons? NYyankees51 (talk) 19:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Tsk, tsk, trying to confuse the Subject (this is a Debate about abortion) is a waste of time. Even if we Scientifically Proved that newborns and toddlers could not qualify as persons (I've seen evidence suggesting they begin to qualify about 18 months after birth), there is a whole History of Precedents and "grandfather clauses" and such-like which would prevent any changes in laws regarding their treatment. Nor do I have any desire to change those existing laws. I do, however, desire to point out how short-sighted and narrow-minded and founded-on-bad-data and poorly-thought-through are the arguments to change also-existing laws that currently allow abortion. For example, if it was proved that even recently born humans are merely animals, then what would be the rationale for opposing abortion? Animal-cruelty laws? Read on (after the next paragraph)! It could be noted that this Question I presented earlier: "At what stage during growth should the offspring of Person-class 'R'-strategists themselves be called 'persons'?" --that Question can be compared somewhat to early human growth. The main difference is that a human needs a womb during that period, while "R"-strategist offspring are able to fend for themselves in the outside world (where most would get eaten by other life-forms). But both start from a single cell (recall that Regeneration technology means "It is absurd to think that a just-fertilized human ovum is any more significant, with respect to 'person-ness', than one of those lost white blood cells"), and eventually both types of offspring could become adult organisms. And both become qualified as Persons somewhere along the way. That's the comparison I'm writing this paragraph about; "birth" doesn't have to have anything to do with person-ness. If traits of person-ness begin to be appear about 18 months after a human's birth, then it likely happens at an equivalent stage of brain-growth for the "R"-strategist. There is no room for bigotry or hypocrisy or unproved claims in Science (plenty of room for speculations, though!). I will now proceed to specify the exact difference that "birth" makes, with respect to the descriptions "newborn" and "unborn". Some opponents of abortion do question, after all, how there can be any significant difference, when the birthing process might take just a few hours. We all know, of course, that part of the difference is the simple fact that the umbilical cord is no longer relevant to that human's survival. However, what of the larger picture? Think in terms of the phrase modus operandi. For every moment of its existence while attached to a womb, the survival mode of that human involves pure selfishness. It takes oxygen and nutrients without regard to the health of the woman (as bad as a fictional Person-class "vampire", which is, typically in fiction --and despite qualifying as a Person!-- to-be-executed-immediately-upon-discovery-by-any-means-possible). It also dumps biowaste into the woman's system, also without regard to her health, and sends her a mildly psychoactive hormone (HCG) to make her feel good about it (worse than even a fictional vampire!). Those are Scientific Facts about unborn humans. After birth, however, it can't do any such things! Its survival depends utterly on receiving gifts --including the gift of having its biowaste voluntarily removed. That's the BIG difference birth makes! And so, because of its uncompromising (even uncompromisable!) selfishness right up to the moment of first breath, it is entirely reasonable to think that an unborn human is entirely equivalent to just --and only!-- a mere animal. However, I'll also note that we have laws regarding treatment of animals. If a late-term abortion is to be done, when it is possible for the unborn human to feel pain (the brain isn't even connected to the rest of the body during the first two trimesters), then an appropriately painless or fast method should be used. Fairly standard stuff, that, when "putting down" an animal! V (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Religion/Responsibility subsection Most scientists would say that life begins well before conception. However, that only barely scratches the surface on the subject of abortion. Here's a fascinating article on the subject by Druyan and her late husband, Sagan, titled "Abortion: Is it Possible to be both “Pro-life” and “Pro-Choice”?" -- AzureCitizen (talk) 15:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC) tl;dr I'll read it soon. But skimming over it, the claims that the Catholic Church didn't oppose abortion until recent times is false; the Didache condemned it. NYyankees51 (talk) 17:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC) There used to be a perfectly valid reason for a Religion of any stripe to ban abortion, masturbation, Onanism, homosexuality, or any other thing that might reduce the birth rate. Well, "valid" in the sense of "good for the Religion", if not for anyone else. I refer you to what I wrote earlier about overpopulation and how warfare began to be practiced seriously, to obtain resources from others. Any group that could cause enough warriors to be born would obviously enhance its ability to conquer the neighbors. And Religions directly benefit in the form of "tithes". As a result, at one time the Roman Catholic Church was the wealthiest organization on the planet. Then the Reformation happened, as its greed was exposed, along with the Thirty Years War. Nowadays we have "separation of Church and State" specifically to prevent Religions' greed for money and power from causing more wars. Unfortunately, the Middle East didn't learn that lesson like Europe did. And so one of the "hot spots" of the present era's global population explosion is the Middle East, thanks to the political powers that their Religions have seized.... Because its self-interest is involved, that's an excellent reason why one should be very suspicious of any claims made about unborn humans by any Religion. Also note that because of the current world population situation, all the old religion-started bans need to be rescinded; we need as many harmless-to-civilization ways as possible to reduce the global birth rate! It's been a while since you last posted to this Debate. Did I really post a "taunt" when I indicated on the mediation page that I was willing to render speechless any other pro-lifer? Or was I stating a Truth? No matter. I'm utterly confident that there is exactly one valid argument that pro-lifers can raise to oppose elective abortions. But that argument depends on the total population of humanity being so small it risks extinction if the gene pool isn't kept shuffling. Nothing like that has been true for about 75,000 years (see Toba catastrophe theory), so that particular argument is irrelevant to today's world. All other anti-abortion arguments are inherently invalid, because they are all based on faulty data --such as the unproved claim that an unborn human qualifies as a "person"-- at the very least. Other faulty data is the claim of "right to life". In the Natural World there is no such thing! Where was the "right to life" for the giant dinosaurs when that big meteor arrived? Where was the "right to life" for all those people in the capital of Haiti when that earthquake recently hit? And so on. Nature cares not one whit about humanity's "right to life". All that it really is is a convenient tool to help Persons to get along better with each other! And, as we are slowly beginning to recognize, we need to get along with various non-Person elements of the Natural World, also, lest we destroy the biosphere and make ourselves extinct. The Law of Cause and Effect cannot be ignored, and Religions have been pushing awareness of that Rule for millennia. Well, so they do occasionally get something right! --Although, of course, they still fail to accept that the long-term consequences of a "pro-life" anti-abortion stand will most certainly be a Malthusian Catastrophe! One result of the Law of Cause and Effect is an anti-abortion argument involving the fact that sexual intercourse is linked to pregnancy. "You caused it, so you need to take responsibility for it!" is the gist of the argument. The problem with that argument is that it overlooks the actual details of what happens in-between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. The first intermediate thing is that sperm must encounter an egg. Does sexual intercourse control sperm??? Of course not; they are independent cells/organisms acting independently of either participant in sexual intercourse. Conception is utterly and purely the fault of the sperm and egg, interacting --did you know the egg is as active a participant as the sperm? ( http://discovermagazine.com/1992/jun/theaggressiveegg55 ). It seems possible that, at least on rare occasions, an egg might reject every sperm it encounters. All sex does is give sperm and egg an opportunity to interact. They are not required to do so, and of course sometimes the egg isn't even there, to be a participant. Another key intermediate step, between sexual intercourse and pregnancy, is the implantation in the womb by a blastocyst, several days after conception. Again, the blastocyst is an independent organism, doing its own thing completely independently of the sex act. It is well-known that blastocysts sometimes fail to implant. Nor is there anything in Nature that requires them to do so, as a result of the sex act. If the claim that "sex causes pregnancy" was literally true, then pregnancy would result from every act of sexual intercourse! All sex actually does is increase the probability that pregnancy can occur. And even then, something like 1/7 of all couples are Naturally unable to reproduce! (Also, please recall that sex is actually not required for pregnancy, due to the actual existence of "artificial insemination", and is claimed to not be required, due to the claimed existence of "Virgin births". It is not known if parthenogenesis can happen in humans, but it is known that if it does, the offspring must be female.) V (talk) 12:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC) So, exactly where does the Responsibility lie, when pregnancy happens? Most of it is the fault of the blastocyst, especially if someone wants to claim that it is a Person-class organism!!! There is no evidence that it qualifies as such, though. SOME of the responsibility can be assigned to the participants of the sex act, since sex can, after all, increase the probability that pregnancy can occur. This is crucial. If the participants were entirely responsible, then huge consequences might legitimately be associated with it (e.g., "The pregnancy must be carried to term and the offspring must be raised to adulthood"). But since the sex-participants are in fact only partially responsible, lesser consequences can be associated with it (e.g., "Deal with it one way or another; it's your problem!"). Here is an analogy: Suppose you decided to walk near a marsh, and some mosquitoes flew out and tried to bite you. Must you let them? Surely you knew in advance, when you decided to take that walk, that the risk was there! However, since mosquitoes are independent organisms and are not Person-class, it is entirely acceptable to swat them. "How dare they desire to suck my blood!" This is actually a pretty good analogy, because a blastocyst is an independent organism, and is not Person-class, and its goal is to implant in a womb in order to suck blood. Therefore it should be entirely acceptable to swat/abort it! (Not to mention that if it is considered acceptable to execute a fully-Person-class fictional vampire for taking blood against the will of a potential donor, the "person-ness" of a blastocyst --or embryo, or fetus-- shouldn't matter in the slightest, if a woman wants an abortion!) V (talk) 18:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hey, Yankees!

Are you having fun yet? Hang in there, ol' buddy! --Kenatipo ^speak! 14:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Ranting and raving
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The point remains true that neither of you (nor any other pro-lifer) has any valid data showing how a "pro life" force-more-mouths-to-feed-to-be-born policy cannot cause a Malthusian Catastrophe in the long term, that it is not in the long term in-essence a "pro-genocide" policy that will cause the death of most of humanity, including most of those mouths that were forced to be born! Therefore, since Wikipedia wants an article title that can be appropriate for the long term, all of you should logically accept that "pro life" cannot be in that title. When will you folks learn that "too much of any good thing is always, ALWAYS a bad thing"? V (talk) 15:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC) Your line of thinking is so bizarre that I find it impossible to argue with (not because it's correct, but because it's bizarre). You acknowledge that an unborn baby is a human being, yet you don't think it becomes a person until long after it's born, and you advocate the slaughter of those human beings because they are a burden to the world. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC) Even "bizarre" can be correct if there are no factual or logical errors. If you (or any other pro-lifer; all are invited to check what I've written!) cannot find any such errors, then why not simply admit the conclusions I've reached are entirely valid? Meanwhile, you are using weasel words when you use the phrase "human being" for an unborn human. Here's why... First, you might search the text I wrote above to see how I used the word "being". (Ignore any usages where the word has meaning similar to this example: "Being late for work increases the risk of getting fired".) I most specifically did not once use the phrase "human being" when talking about unborn humans. You should see that I did use "being" as a synonym for "person". That's because, all through common/everyday use of the English Language, while we might say "human being" or (occasionally) "alien being", we almost never say "dog being" or "worm being" or "donkey being" ... (exceptions tend to occur in science fiction, where it is a handy way to describe the appearance of an intelligent or Person-class alien --so, again, "being" is synonymous with "person"). The relevance of the preceding is simply this: How often do you say "zygote being" or "blastocyst being" or "embryo being" or "fetus being"? If you and other pro-lifers really thought that humans qualified as Persons from conception, you would use those descriptions as casually as you use the phrase "human being", when describing unborn humans. So, the point I'm making is that while at any unborn state a particular organism can be perfectly human, it is not a Being unless it also qualifies as a Person. Therefore, by calling it a "human being" you are weasel-word propagandizing your totally unproved PointOfView --and it will be remain both unproved and unprovable so long as the facts and logic I've presented earlier are valid, about, say, the need for a Universally Applicable definition of "Person", or, perhaps, the fact that the 1790 Census Questions show that the very religious Founding Fathers of the United States did not consider unborn humans to be persons; have fun trying to find a flaw in what I wrote! Which means that I did most certainly not "acknowledge that an unborn baby is a human being" --I never even used the phrase "unborn baby" (which are more POV-specific weasel words --check your dictionary for the definition of "baby")! And therefore I most certainly have not advocated the slaughter of any "human Beings"! Nor have I actually "advocated" the slaughter of mere animal-class unborn human bodies --I'm simply advocating that such slaughter should remain legal where it currently is legal, and become legal where it isn't --and that all pro-genocide activities disguised as "pro-life" cease forthwith! Look; bizarre or not, much of my argument is designed to open your thinking to more possibilities than are normally considered by pro-lifers. Only by being "close-minded" (pretending they have all the relevant data) can they think their arguments make sense. But, hey, anyone who believes in God (most pro-lifers!) automatically also believes in a non-human intelligent Being (by definition, if God created the Physical Universe, then God can't have a physical body, human or otherwise!). So, with God and humans as examples of different varieties of intelligent Beings or Persons, what do they have in common? And why should the Universe be limited to only those two examples? "Just because Religions claim it" is not good enough! Which means it is necessary to consider what all intelligent Beings must have in common, to be describable as Persons, and not as "mere animals". So far, a major part of the most sensible answer appears to be "a mind that has certain minimal capabilities". So, when I wrote the paragraph about an imaginary decapitation accident and a super-fast Emergency Response Team, the point of that was to force recognition that the head is where the mind is located; the body matters not at all, with respect to Person-ness (especially if an entity like God can exist with no physical body at all!). And when I mentioned how brain-dead humans on full-life-support can be unplugged, I was being consistent; their minds are gone and all that remains are mere animal bodies. Which directly leads us to the abortion debate and the mental capabilities of unborn humans. For the first several months they have no mind at all (brain is under construction). For the last months their brains are functional at an animal level of mental ability; they don't have the "certain minimal capabilities" associated with the Person-class level. Those are Scientific Facts. You did earlier say something about paying attention to what Science and Common Sense tells you? Well, I do the same! I'm merely using more data than you were using. V (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring at Pro-life movement

Do not put disputed text back into the article at Pro-life movement without gaining a consensus for its inclusion. You have not participated in discussion so your actions are tendentious and disruptive, and you may be blocked as a result.

There is no consensus for including the text about the man convicted of making threats, appended to the other descriptions of actual murders. The bit is undue emphasis on something that is not as important. At any rate, stop edit warring and start trying to form a consensus for inclusion. Binksternet (talk) 19:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Abortion". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by May 16, 2011.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 19:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

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

For the Mediation Committee, AGK [•] 14:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

"Dignity" and Abortion

It should be pretty trivial to source this; could you please do so (and link Tiller as well)? NW (Talk) 17:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)