User talk:Leifern/Accusations by Midgley

Results of MFD

This miscellaneous page was nominated for deletion on 14 March 2006. The result of the discussion was set aside in the hope some form of dispute resolution will take place. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

Moving and blanking

Moving is not blanking, Leifern! If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to make people think he was engaging in vandalism when it's perfectly obvious he was trying to improve the encyclopedia by moving things to where he thought they belonged. You should really stop phrasing it like that. Michael Ralston 01:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I am certainly not convinced that Midgley was trying to improve the encyclopedia. Whether or not such actions are vandalism - I think they are - is a something honest people can disagree about, but I characterized it this way here because that's how I characterized it back then. Anything else would be dishonest. --Leifern 03:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

AGF, Leifern. He certainly didn't blank it - he moved it. And you keep calling this blanking, when it wasn't, and you have even accused him of vandalism by that move - which it was most certainly not. It may have been bad for the encyclopedia, but it was not *vandalism*. Yes, admitting you declared it as such then would be one thing, but you're STILL calling it blanking. Michael Ralston 03:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Michael, imagine the following scenario: let's say someone went into the article on Jack Abramoff, removed anything related to charges made against him of criminal activity and put it into an article called "liberal media elite" under the header "witch hunt." Maybe you wouldn't think of that as vandalism, but I would. We can disagree about this one, but just as I see your point you might want to see mine. --Leifern 12:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

And maybe you shouldn't assume anything about my political stances, hmm? And I'd agree with you if he'd opposed it being moved out to the Thimerosal Controversy article - which didn't exist at the time, remember... but he didn't. He acted boldly, and that lead to an improvement of the encyclopedia. That is good, and is not vandalism, any more than me taking objection to attempts, in an RfC, to poison the well was the subtle vandalism it was reported as.

At *worst* it was POV-pushing, but it really does help to try assuming good faith once in a while, and to keep in mind results. Michael Ralston 17:10, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually didn't assume anything about your views on Abramoff - I know nothing about them. It was intended as an illustrative example only. If it appeared otherwise, you have my apologies. There's a thin line between acting boldly and acting destructively; I don't think that any action can claim virtue by being "bold." Leifern

Google results

Also, why don't you include the results of a google for "anti-vaccination" and "antivaccination" for the sake of completeness? Michael Ralston 01:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for one because a term "anti-vaccination" does not describe individuals, which is one of the main objections I have to the title of the article. I am not sure how good an title Anti-vaccination would be. I have never disputed that there is opposition to vaccine policy, but this opposition is multifaceted - some are categorically against vaccines as part of a broader platform, some are against only certain aspect of vaccination (e.g., thimerosal) but supportive of vaccination in general; others believe that vaccinations are a good thing but are overdone. To label all these as "anti-vaccinationists" and make them equivalent to movements that existed a long time ago is a huge stretch. --Leifern 03:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but that's entirely irrelevant to the Google test, which is for notability - you can question the propriety of having an article titled as indicating people, but using the google test to try to "prove" that the position as named doesn't exist is at best misleading if you leave out the various alternative forms of the word. Michael Ralston 03:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Notability has to be for a topic, not a term, and certainly not for a euphemism derived from a political movement that no longer exists. --Leifern 12:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for agreeing with me, Leifern. I was stating that the topic IS notable, and that your lack of inclusion of other forms of the word in the title in your google tests was misleading. I'm glad to see you're aware that the specific grammatical form of a word is not very important, in establishing notability. Michael Ralston 17:10, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we agree. The term "anti-vaccinationist," whether in singular or plural is intended to describe people. I have attempted to recast the article in terms of "organization opposition to vaccination" to sidestep this issue, but Midgley says that's not what it's about, and he has elsewhere stated that he is less interested in what people say than in what motivates them. I certainly think that opposition to vaccination - in the many forms it takes - is something that Wikipedia should cover. What I take exception to is the premise that they're all the same. --Leifern 23:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Job Collins document

Midgleyis using WP:RS to delete a link to an ACTUAL Collins document [1] [2]. He is just pushing his POV using [[WP:RS]. It is OKO for him to put in links to Quackwatch. Also he is stalking me, he will post a comment to this one in due course. john 07:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

A repeated assertiono which is incorrect

" any opposition to any aspect of vaccination is equivalent to categorical opposition to all vaccination." Is a Leifernism. Midgley 21:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)