Notashrink

February 2010

Welcome to Wikipedia. The recent edit that you made to the page Chronic fatigue syndrome has been reverted, as it appears to be unconstructive. If you believe the edit was constructive, please ensure that you provide an informative edit summary. You may also wish to read the introduction to editing for further information. Thank you. --Technopat (talk) 01:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

guess my comments and observations count for nothing then - "not relevent" and now "unconstructive" - you guys kill me.

Please accept my apologies for the seemingly terse note above. It is the standard template and procedure for dealing with editors who repeatedly modify pages in what appears to be an attempt at vandalising an article - it happens a lot. After reverting your edit, I went to check out the file number you mentioned at The National Archives. Please see the following link Talk:Chronic_fatigue_syndrome#UK_Freedom_of_Information.--Technopat (talk) 01:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Notashrink. Please realize there are any number of people that want to comment about their observations for many different reasons on Wikipedia. To have an article where someone plunks down their opinions would quickly make it an un-useable article. A number or policies and guidelines have been developed that allow previously published information to be edited into articles. Here is the Simplified ruleset. I believe the policy you are having trouble with is Verifiability. Editors need to verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. This gets pretty complicated sometimes. Read some of the basics and if you need help ask on your talkpage or on an article talkpage. Here is a belated welcome message for you. Ward20 (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome

Hello, Notashrink, and welcome to the 'pedia! I'm Ward20, one of the many editors here at Wikipedia. I hope you like the place and decide to stay.

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Welcome

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, ask here, ask me on my talk page, or type {{helpme}} here on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. I'm looking forward to your contributions! Ward20 (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on chronic fatigue syndrome. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. sciencewatcher (talk) 02:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be a newbe and it doesn't look like you have broken any guidelines yet. I am sure that the editors that watchlist the ME/CFS articles have seen your apology. Get some rest and when you feel better maybe you will want to discuss on the talkpage and edit again. I try to remember that WP is just a webpage and not worth tying yourself up in knots over. Ward20 (talk) 04:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

+1 to Ward's comments. Not everyone will bite your head off. Sciencewatcher is being a little harsh offering both barrels to a newbie, but you do need to learn the rules before you jump into editing articles. We all have to start somewhere. Basically in this case you can only include solid reference material from reliable sources and not stuff that you've researched yourself. It's not about "truth" because one man's truth is another man's heresy. It's about working within a set of rules. Otherwise articles like the CFS one would become a hobby-horse for everyone with a personal view on it and it would therefore become totally unusable by Joe Blow public. A good piece of advice is as Ward says: if you are unsure, add new section to the talk page and ask if your content is OK there first. You should get friendly constructive feedback. -- TerryE (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You've got to realise that some of the older hand are very intolerant of new joiners. Just watch and learn. Always keep calm and polite. :-) -- TerryE (talk) 05:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Notashrink, you made a comment on the CFS talk page that "all you did was to state a fact" viz "The UK Government currently holds secret files (ref FD 23/4553/1) concerning this illness - the files were to be released in 2023, however, this has recently been changed by imposing a further 50 years to a release date in 2073.". Let's pick this statement and its source apart. I assume that the primary source is the statement on the UK's National Archive [1] which refers to "FD 23/4553 Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/postviral fatigue syndrome (PFS) : papers and journal articles; correspondence and enquiries with MRC replies" which if you drill down are described as "Public Record(s) covering dates 1988-1997", the reason for closure was stated as "Personal information where the applicant is a 3rd party"+"Information provided in confidence" with the caveat "These extracts contain information supplied in confidence by named individuals to the Medical Research Council in relation to applications for research grants and confidential discussions on the selection of candidates. It also contains medical information on named members of the public. The youngest person was aged at least 27 by 1997. The entire piece was previously closed for 50 years." Actually this is a usual and standard reason for witholding info. How would you like your personal medical history disclosed. It isn't "secret files". This is not a "fact"; it is your interpretation. Yes there is a blog on About ME/CFS which has the title 'Cause of ME a "state secret" in UK?' and a couple of other blogs. This is rumour in the blogsphere, not fact as Wikipedia acknowledges it. Sorry -- TerryE (talk) 23:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I spent 15 mins of time to explain how the other editors would and have sentenced your arguments. I didn't have to. I was trying to help. If you want your edits to persist then you have to understand and follow the rules. You can clearly choose not to, but your edits won't last more than a few hours on a controversial article like this if you don't. Having a rant at the messenger, and someone who is trying to help you is a good way to end that offer of help. -- TerryE (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia, especially when it comes to WP:MED articles is a bit like an old gentlemen's club, or some Ivy League frat society, they have these somewhat odd rules and if you want your content to stick then you have to work within them. At first I thought that they were quaint or bizarre, but over time -- if you stick around as I have done -- then you will realise that they are there for a reason; they provide a framework to make a huge system workable. This framework has to scale to support the tens of thousands of active editors and the hundred of thousands of pop-in ones. It has to stop the content descending into anarchy. You might feel that the current CFS article and its companion ones such the one on CFS controversies are behind the times, but they are a lot more current and accurate the the traditional paper published encyclopaedias. Strong emotion and sense of injustice doesn't help here, in fact some of the experienced editors can turn it to their advantage if they so wish. Use the history feature to compare the article today to what it was a year or two ago.

Take all this interest in XMRV: OK public opinion might be swayed by sensational reporting in the newspapers, patients fired up over ME/CFS community support blogs and forums who attack Wessely, the antis by some young blogger in Oklahoma who feels that she is an expert because she is on her way to a related PhD and this gives her the right to use the foulest obscenities to describe Mikovits, the lead scientist involved. But none of this matters, because for the first time in decades there are dozens of research teams looking into the possible association of an ERV in CFS, and it is the science that will ultimate determine the truth. And when that science is publish and reviewed then we will report it accurately here.

If you feel that there is something to your content then decide where best to target it. I would suggest that the controversy article is a better place as it is less constrained by MEDRS and this is an issue of controversy. You need to find a reliable secondary source such as a piece in the Guardian which explains it. In general the ME/CFS patient support site would not be accepted as such for something so controversial (I don't make up the rules). You need to frame it in such a way as not to fall foul of the WP:OR rules, and then you might stand a fighting chance to include if enough editors support you. But above all keep your cool. -- TerryE (talk) 04:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)