User talk:Tryptofish/Archive 12

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March, 2011 – April, 2011

Finasteride

Your ongoing input at finasteride would be appreciated. Doors22 has found something else to edit war about. JFW | T@lk 10:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Will do. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration case

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 15:34, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Magnetic resonance neurography wants you

Just wanted to make sure you saw Delldot's request for help at WT:MED. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but do I want it? :-)

I'm not watchlisting WT:MED, and MRI is not my area of expertise. I've taken a quick look at the issue, and you'll see that I've had previous talk at the user talk of one of the participants. My advice is to see who else shows up from MED, because there are plenty of other editors who are well-qualified to help. If that doesn't work, a content RfC is always a good possibility, and I have a gut feeling that a user RfC may be in the future. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The Sartre atheism discussion

Don't want to unnecessarily sidetrack the atheism discussion, but was curious about your reasons for re-ordering the sources, which creates a slightly different phenomenological emphasis. What was your intention/thinking? Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 06:12, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Since there's a discussion of it at the article talk, I'll answer there, and I don't think anyone will mind discussing it there. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Deny automated recognition

Hi Tryptofish,

I wonder if you could spare some time to have a look at my user essay User:Yaris678/Deny automated recognition.

I've noticed that you seem to be one of the more sensible ones around here so any comments you have would be appreciated. Or edit it directly if you think it appropriate.

The essay is about something I feel quite strongly is an issue, but I don't feel very strongly at all about the best way to resolve the issue so if you think you have a better idea I'd be very interested to hear it!

Yaris678 (talk) 20:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the kind words—much appreciated! Yes, I'll be happy to do that. However, I'm over-swamped with other things, both on-Wiki and off, so it will likely be a couple of days before I get around to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I have responded at User talk:Yaris678/Deny automated recognition#Welcome versus warnings. Yaris678 (talk) 13:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Socializing and Wikipedia

Regarding my comments and your reply Wikipedia:Wiki_Guides/Allow_socializing View from User:s8333631, there was no misunderstanding on my part. My comment was designed specifically to prompt the editor to think again about the implications of her/his comment.

We don't live in a moral and political vacuum just because we work on Wikipedia. When we propose censorship for whatever purpose, we imply consequences, even when we are not personally aware of the scope and nature of those consequences.

The specific example of China was used in a way that legitimately poses the question whether the editor is seeking to or actually speaking on behalf of China or the Chinese people. The comment in question may well now be taken to imply a duty of care by Wikipedia to prevent anything that could be argued to resemble 'dissidence'. The Chinese government has made and pursued such arguments before.

If and when a decision is made in principle that a particular type of discussion in talk pages is to be censored, we will have huge debates about how the relevant definition of what is to be censored is to be arrived at and then refined to successively more granular levels of prohibition. That granularity will then become precedent for censorship of discussions never anticipated here and now.

The editor, and you, have the undisputed privilege of raising the matter, and of taking a position. I would argue, though, that you then also have a responsibility for the intended and the unintended consequences. Those consequences are likely to be about imposing rules on potential practices where previously those practices were open to individual consideration and rational analysis not bound in a narrow sense by rules that may never have anticipated the individual specifics.

Personally I see the impetus towards progressive regulation of human conduct as presumptively authoritarian. As a matter of personal judgement I also think it is excessively bureaucratic to seek pre-emptive regulation of a hypothetical activity. And my ultimate concern is that in between the bull and the sincerity that discussion about these issues will generate, even completely unrelated encyclopaedic efforts and articles will be sacrificed to authoritarian impulses, and perhaps also the odd instance of opportunistic malevolence.

I make this point on your talk page because I don't want to divert s8333631's comment into a debate about political censorship, and because I know you are intellectually equipped to understand the philosophical and political foundation of what I say here without feeling personally impugned. My intent is not to disparage or scandalize, but to emphasize the wider ramifications of this topic. That said, and keeping the atheism talk page example in mind, if you nevertheless believe my comment belongs on the Allow-socializing page, feel free to copy it there. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 01:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I better understand now what you meant. My principal concern in that discussion was that I didn't want to see aspersions cast on the motivations of the original poster, who seemed to me to have made a thoughtful point. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:36, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Religion 2011 meeting

Saw your comments on the talk page of the above, and certainly agree that there has been a recent problem in such topics. I do myself think that it probably deserves to be included in the main page itself, so that it might get further input more easily. But, yes, the problem has been noted. John Carter (talk) 16:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

thanks for your message and your invite to participate in a project about fish.

I hope to contribute in the project. if it is not forbidden, please add me on facebook.com www.facebook.com/everstanley21 Best Regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Everstanley (talk • contribs) 02:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

My pleasure, and welcome aboard! But I actually may be the only person in the solar system who does not have a Facebook account. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

re

Hey Tryptofish, Doing well here, thanks for asking. How about yourself? Just recently noticed the "suggestbot" thing, and hopefully that can get me focused a bit. I do have some stuff sandboxed, but not ready for prime-time yet. Hope all is well with you and yours, — Ched :  ?  11:12, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for asking. Well, I never seem to have enough time, either on-Wiki or off. There are so many pages that I've long been meaning to work on fixing up, and I keep getting sidetracked by the !crisis of the day, and never getting around to it. Best, --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the cookie!

Thanks for the cookie! It's always a pleasure editing with you, and I'm sure I'll see you around. --Noleander (talk) 20:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course, it was my pleasure, and I look forward to working with you—on topics that are completely unrelated! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Serrano, BLPs and your advice please, sir!

Hi, saw that you popped by to do a bit of cleaning up on Andres Serrano, in fact, I didn't realise that Excelsior's comments on the talk page contravened WP:BLP, so I just had a more in-depth read of the guideline, okay so no disparaging comments anywhere, talk pages etc. If you go back to the talk page, surely the first comment "would this attention whore have the "guts" to blaspheme other religions ? contravenes this, I mean it shocked me when I read it, "attention whore" is pretty insulting, right? But I figured "hey it's just a talk page" but in fact as per WP:BLP, Wikipedia is not a forum to express opinions like "Bush is a dunderhead (or not)", so what to do?

Also, could you have a look at my talk page, I was doubting the veracity of the identity of Mr. Brainwash/Thierry Guetta and had posted a couple of fairly long requests for info on the relevant talk page. Well, someone came and posted a bunch of unsolicited information concerning him on my talk page, I deleted (oops) the second paragraph as it was mainly junk, but after reading WP:BLP, I realised that maybe this info should disappear as the person has posted Thierry Guetta's supposed adress and cell phone number. Again, what to do?

Thanks in advance for your help, liked the humour on your user page, thumbs up for neuroscience. Captain Screebo (talk) 10:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Captain, and welcome to Wikipedia! And I'm glad you like my user page. Starting with the Serrano stuff, my principal concern was, indeed, with what that other editor had said, and not with what you said in response. I think it's pretty obvious why I felt it should just be deleted per BLP. And by the way, I think your subsequent edit to the page itself was an improvement on what I had done, so thanks for fixing that.

As for your talk page, it's not a big deal either way, but my advice would be to delete that post from the IP editor. No one from Wikipedia is likely to find fault with you over something that someone else wrote, but, as you note, it's a little inappropriate to post things like the person's presumed phone number online (and besides, the whole thing is unsourced, WP:OR). Plus, you have the right to delete anything you want from your own user talk page. The presumption is, you saw it, you read it, and you can delete it if you want. Most users archive old talk page comments instead of deleting them (as you can see at the top of my talk page, here), but there's no reason to keep something that really isn't helpful. So, bottom line, there's no downside to deleting it, and you might as well do so. Happy editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the reply and kind words, I know that I get carried away editing sometimes and lose sight of the overall message, I guess we all end up a bit %-) on Wikipedia from time to time. Okay for my talk page, I guess I'll go ahead and delete the info then. See you round! Captain Screebo (talk) 21:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Grey matter

Hi, take a glance at that article if you get a chance, please. Looie496 (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see what you mean. I've gone through it with a pretty serious red pen, but I chose not to remove all mention of the studies. A case can be made that it is still UNDUE to give three primary research studies such prominence. If you are concerned about that, I'd suggest raising it on the article talk page. I've put it on my watchlist. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Please note the nature of my edit. I changed "Created" to "Brought to public attention" ... Which claim do you think requires more proof? I was careful in the wording to minimize it being contested; however, apparently just the act of rephrasing to make less dubious is in itself dubious? I have changed it to a C.N. out of deference. Unfortunately, this compromise still allows a misinterpretation of history to linger. I was not looking to explicitly state he did NOT create, simply to leave that point obscured by the fog of the past as it inevitably is (given the circumstances). O.R. was being tactfully avoided, but if you insist on being wrong. 70.15.11.44 (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I insist on being wrong? What an odd argument to make, and not particularly persuasive. I will comment on the substance of your concern at the article talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Christians and money

I wonder if you could take a look at a draft article I'm working on regarding Christian views on money, wealth and business. Yes, the original motivation for this article was the articles Jews and money and Economic history of the Christians but I think you'll see that the approach is somewhat different (i.e. hopefully, there isn't quite as strong a whiff of POV that there was in those other two articles.) Your suggestions for further improvement would be appreciated. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, thanks for asking me. I'll comment at the talk page, instead of here. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, could you take another look at Christian views on money, wealth and business? I think I'm ready to move it into article mainspace but I figured I'd ask you to take one last look before I do so. Thanx. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 08:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The article doesn't really talk about "business" much. It's more like Christian views on poverty and wealth. Do you think that is a more suitable title? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 08:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Pending Changes discussion

Please allow discussion to continue without breaking into it and closing it down, thanks Off2riorob (talk) 22:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No one is shutting down the discussion. I made an observation, which is non-binding on anyone else. Take it or leave it, but please stop trying to modify what I said. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Your comment has no value in that section apart from closing down the discussion - please don't do that. Off2riorob (talk) 22:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Please take a deep breath. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

deep breath - stop disrupting and attempting to close down discussion by interested contributors. Off2riorob (talk) 22:47, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

[1]. Hardly disruptive. Sigh. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Rational disagreements

You said, "Correlations do not "increase chances"." ... but wouldn't you agree that the presence of a correlation will change the chances of some event happening if the likelihood of said event is different when those correlated items are not coinciding? The phrase was apropos, though perhaps you meant not by direct substitution. i.e. "correlation" is a relationship, "cannabis" is a drug; a relationship is not a drug. I've left your wording though, for clarity's sake. 70.15.11.44 (talk) 00:06, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

To me, not a big deal. But I think that, being very rigorous about the logic of it, a change in the chances (in the probability) can give rise to a correlation. A correlation can reflect such a change in probability, but does not cause it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:46, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Being just regularly rigorous about the logic myself, I agree completely with your most recent statement. However, I think you're still missing the point. Perhaps your confusion was with the word "to" and are ignoring the word "indicates"? I know what you're saying, but that's not what I said. Please reread the original wording "study indicates this correlation to increase chances". The correlation being (a specific catalyst) relating to (a specific response), while the lack of this relation is suggested to have lower chances, the presence of this correlation is indicated to increase chances. I'm sure you'll continue to insist on being wrong though. <- Find the rationality of that last statement supposing you weren't wrong and you'll get a cookie. (HINT: it wouldn't be petty) 70.15.11.44 (talk) 16:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, fine. A correlation can indicate that. No cookie is needed; I'd settle for either an absence of mind-reading, or better yet, an absence! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)