User talk:Yilloslime/Archive 4

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biomonitoring

i just made Biomonitoring (chemistry). do you think a disambig page would be helpful? any other ideas? thanks. -Shootbamboo (talk) 03:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

List of water fuel inventions

I'm concerned that you've deleted two large sections of introductory material from this, without any attempt at discussion beforehand. There's scope for discussion as to whether the broad categorizations need this introduction or not: previously the article had nothing and it was accordingly such a poor article that it was tagged for deletion. These sections were added in a strictly NPOV attempt to provide categorization and context between the different broad types of invention listed, without being overly judgemental.

If any of these sections was mis-worded, technically inaccurate or biased, then they should of course be fixed by editing. However your immediate deletions give no time for any consensus to develop as to how best the article should be structured. Nothing about them was problematic for bias etc. to the level where they _must_ be deleted immediately. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The article is meant to be a list, as such it shouldn't need large blocks of explanatory text. On top of that, much of what you added was inaccurate and/or poorly worded and/or largely duplicative of material already available at Water-fueled car, Electrolysis of water, and oxyhydrogen. As for deleting without prior discussion: you made a WP:BOLD a addition, which was subsequently (mostly) reverted back to the prior, long-standing version of the article. That's just way things go--don't take it personally. The burden is on you, the editor trying to add material to a the article, to show that it should be included, not on me for returning the article to its long-standing, consensus version. Yilloslime (t) 16:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Add/revert isn't a consensus though, it's an edit war. If consensus is to keep this as a strict list of gasoline pills and nothing else, then I'm happy with that - but consensus arrives through discussion, not reversion. It's also not a good article in that state (it recently attracted an AfD) and my point is that the introductory and explanatory material is necessary to make it comprehensible. In its totally bare state it's simply unnecesary, as the existing articles would presumably be all that was required! Nor do the electrolysis inventions fit under water-fuelled car. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

A little bit of explanatory text is certainly beneficial for any list-type article. But when the explanatory/introductory text takes up more space than the list itself, then that's a good indication that it's a bit too extensive. W/r/t to my comment about consensus, I think you have misunderstood me, and I probably could have been clearer. What I meant was: When you have an article that's been around for at least a little while (i.e. it wasn't just created) and is relatively stable (i.e. not currently or recently subject to edit warring) and has been worked on by several different editors (i.e. it's not the pet project of one or a group of like-minded editors) then the current version of the article can be said to enjoy consensus. I.E.: it's been around for a while, several editors have looked at it and have had the chance to make significant changes, and none have. Sure, it's probably seen lots of minor changes, and lots of additions, deletions, re-writes, and tweaks, but the general tone and focus of the article have remained unaltered, and thus the general tone and focus of the article enjoy consensus. If someone then comes along and wants to make significant changes to the article, effecting the perspective and scope of the article, then that person will need to find a new a consensus. Sometimes thats as easy as making the edits, and seeing what happens. If no one objects, then great: silence implies consent. But if you do meet with resistance, then the burden is on you to convince others that your changes are warranted, not on the editor(s) who reverted back the consensus version. And edit war would be if you simply restored your edits that others had reverted.Yilloslime (t) 17:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Media Matters for America

Um, you reverted my changes based on a 3RR violation, but clearly you did not look at the last edits. I am working on a compromise, so please look more carefully. Thanks. Bytebear (talk) 23:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Um, call it whatever you want, but you're pushing up against 3RR, which is what my message was about. Yilloslime (t) 00:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but who appointed you the official maintenance person for the Media Matters page? You deleted my addition with no explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.2.209.2 (talk) 22:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:TE

Thanks for explaining further on the talk page. I was hoping my last comments might get you to look at it again. Yes, I'd been waiting for others to join in. --Ronz (talk) 23:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

DDT section

I appreciate the fact that you patrol the DDT page and quickly make changes to additions to the page. However, the information that I posted was true and peer reviewed. While the comments appeared in a book written by a man some consider controversial, the science is valid and so is the information I posted.

If you follow this link, it will take you to the article that I am citing from "Saving the World with Pesticides and Plastic". http://www.mediafire.com/?jkztj2wmt5i I'm sure you have read this article because I see that you have done extensive work in this area and you should be commended. Please read this and explain to me any discrepancy that you think I should be aware of. I would appreciate your time on helping me.

I am a very familiar with the use of insecticides. I am studying the molecular interactions of imidacloprid and spinosad at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors as my PhD thesis at Cornell. I have taken and taught courses on this material and I am familiar with the literature.

Frankp450 (talk) 02:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)FrankFrankp450 (talk) 02:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There is broad scientific consensus that DDT and its metabolites cause eggshell thinning in certain birds species and that it contributed to the decline of raptor populations—Avery is simply wrong. (And even if he turns out to be right, Wikipedia is NOT the place to right great wrongs). There are plenty of government or intergovernmental assessments of DDT that support this concensus, including:

• CDC's Toxicological profile of DDT, DDE, and DDD from 2000. See especially §3.4.
• ExToxNet's DDT profile from 1996.
• any number of EPA webpages and documents
• WHO's Environmental Health Criteria on DDT, last updated in 1989. See especially §1.8.
• UNEP's recent (Oct 2008) assessment of DDT's use in vector control. See §2.5.

And there are ton of primary sources that provide direct evidence and for eggshell thinning. Start with this 2006 paper from Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Also the fact that recent news articles in Science[1] and Nature[2] take for granted that DDT thins eggshells would suggest that this is no longer seriously debated by scientists. The only people arguing otherwise are folks like Avery, Steven Milloy, and J. Gordon Edwards, and these guys aren't publishing their ideas in the scientific venues.

Wikipedia's policy on undue weight prohibits us from writing articles in such way as to make it appear that there is controversy when in fact there is none. There is simply no parity between the official positions of WHO, UNEP, CDC, EPA, on the one hand, and a chapter in a book published by a conservative thinktank or OpEds in the Wall Street Journal on the other. Hope this makes sense. Yilloslime (t) 05:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring

I've warned him again. If it happens I'll block the account and IPs used. Thanks for telling me! Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 03:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for dealing with it. Oh, and I'm very opening trout slapping if you think i'm out of line, unreasonable, dick-ish, etc. Please let me know! Yilloslime (t) 03:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Nay, don't worry about it! If anything, I deserve the trout for being so easy on this kind of stuff. Anyway, I've protected the page for a week; hopefully that helps. Come back if something else goes wrong, you need mediation on the talk page, etc. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 03:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Yilloslime (t) 03:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Passive smoking

See the section I added to the Talk page of the Passive smoking article, Why "causes" is better than "can cause". I just wanted to say that, in my humble opinion, a compromise here does not seem a good option, in particular under the threat of repeated POV tag insertion. The risk is that this may be seen as rewarding an aggressive editing practice. Furthermore, the compromise is between the viewpoint of an individual and the faithful expression of what is said in highly reliable sources - i.e. there is not much room for a compromise. My suspicion is that such a compromise may motivate editors to use the POV tag threat to obtain further compromises. The compromise has actually not stopped the POV tag to appear again.

--Dessources (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Your AIV report on 169.244.46.130

Thank you for your report on 169.244.46.130 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Reporting and removing vandalism is vital to the functioning of Wikipedia and you are encouraged to revert, warn and report inappropriate conduct. I have however declined to act on this report for the following reason:

Appears to be a shared IP address, used by multiple users. There is not enough recent activity to justify a block at the moment. Moreover, the user probably walked away already after his 2 tests edits.

The Guide to administrator intervention against vandalism might be a helpful read if you wish to improve your future reports. If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page. Cheers! -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Oxyhydrogen

Re-read your last edit here. The information you removed is correct (it had been revised to read the opposite from the last time you removed this paragraph). In sort, I think you just removed a paragraph with which you would agree. That is - there's no free lunch (with alternators). Rklawton (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

You're right--I read it quickly and was sifting (backwards) through diffs and got confused, thinking it said the opposite of what it does. Still, I think the article is better off without this paragraph. In it's current form it isn't written very well; the first two sentences are sourced to www.straightdope.com, which I'm not sure is a reliable source (it might be, i'm just unfamiliar with it), and the linked article doesn't actually mention "oxyhydrogen;" and the last sentence--though presumably true--is unsourced and reads like original research. So I think the article is better off without this particular paragraph, though I think a paragraph with better writing and better sourcing that says the essentially same thing would be an improvement to the article. Yilloslime (t) 17:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your take on this. Rklawton (talk) 17:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you and reasons to defend for my article

Dear Yilloslime,

I am new to the editing and contribution to Wikipedia. Thank you for giving me the idea of minor edit.

There were some factual errors in your earlier article thats why I have edited it. Please look into the same.

Please see that the "Organochlorine of cyclodiene group familiy" is categorised by IUPAC. It has been used by all these countries currently. The product is neurotoxic to insects but not in human and US-EPA has proved the same in developmental neurotoxicity.

Please quote authentic sources and not like PAN.

WHO also classifies it as moderately hazardous and not highly toxic. Please look into WHO.

In Padre, village in Kerela it was not the only pesticide. It was one among many. Not a single people has died from this also. Please use right to information act in India to check for the authenticity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pseudomonas8250 (talk • contribs) 04:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's go point by point.

1. The version of the article before you began editing it (see here for the old version) already noted that it is a cyclodiene insecticide, so your change was redundant.
2. It is also acutely neurotoxic to both insects and mammals, as any number sources including the ATSDR, EPA, and WHO attest. The article never claimed it was a developmental neurotoxin.
3. I'm not sure what you mean by "authentic sources", but here at wikipedia, we are required to use reliable sources. All of the sources cited are reliable (by the wikipedia definition).
4. The article already contained the sentence "The US EPA classifies it as Category I: 'Highly Acutely Toxic' based on a LD50 value of 30 mg/kg for female rats,[8] while the World Health Organization classifies it as Class II 'Moderately Hazardous' based on a rat LD50 of 80 mg/kg.[23]" so I'm not sure what your point is.
5. Finally, with regard to the Kerala situation: per the wikipedia policies of verifiability and no original research we have to stick to what the sources say, and the source we have says that only endosulfan was used. If you could point us to the "right to information act in India" we could incorporate it into the article, assuming it meets wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources.

Also, please explain how your introduction:

Endosulfanis a non-systemic Organochlorine of cyclodiene group familiy. The insecticide has acaricdal properties that has been in used extensively in several agriculturally important countries such as China, India, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Israel, Nigeria, Sudan etc. These countries account for more than 50% of world’s area under agriculture. Endosulfan is either restricted or phased out in few countries including European Union, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Benin, South Africa and New Zealand. It is made by Bayer crop science, Makhteshim-Agan, Excel Crop Care, Coromandel Fertilisers Limited and a Government of India Owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited and sold under the brand names of Thiodan, Endocel, Hildan, Parrysulfan, Thionex, Phaser and Benzoepin.

WHO classifies the molecule as Moderately hazardous pesticide. It is quite safe pesticides for pollinators like Honey bees and other parasites and predators unlike the neo-nicotinoids which causes major colony collapse in France. It is highly toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms. It is recommended and used for control of insects pests and mites on fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea, spices, flowers, forage crops and non food crops such as cotton & tobacco. In addition to its agricultural use, Endosulfan has recently been allowed in USA as a veterinary insecticide for use as ear tag in both lactating and beef cattle for control of insect parasites. Endosulfan is under review by Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Conventions.

is an improvement to the old intro:

Endosulfan is a neurotoxic organochlorine insecticide. It is an endocrine disruptor and is highly acutely toxic. Banned in more than 50 countries, including the European Union and several Asian and West African nations, it is still used extensively in many other countries including India, Brazil, and Australia. It is produced by Bayer CropScience, Makhteshim Agan, and government-of-India-owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited among others, and sold under the tradenames Thionex, Endocil, Phaser, and Benzoepin. Because of its high toxicity and high potential for bioaccumulation and environmental contamination, a global ban on the use and manufacture of endosulfan is being considered under the Stockholm Convention.

Your edits have introduced spelling and grammatical errors, poor formatting (e.g. it lacks wikilinks), redundant info (e.g. WHO classification), uncited accusations (e.g. neonicotinoids cause CCD; endosulfan is "safe" for honeybees), and what appears to be original research (e.g. that China, India, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Israel, Nigeria, Sudan, etc. account for more than 50% of world’s area under agriculture.) So, I fail to see how your new intro is any improvement.Yilloslime (t) 06:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

www.stewardshipcommunity.com

Hi

I am interested to know why you undid my edit to the page on pesticides?

Best wishes a;sldkfj2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.139.47 (talk) 12:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The link you added to several pages looked like spam and not did appear particularly relevant to any of the pages. See WP:EL, the relevant guideline for external external links. Point #13 under "Links normally to be avoided" is particularly relevant, and, as the link is associated with Syngenta, point #14 may be relevant as well. Yilloslime ^T_C 16:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I will look at the points you mention and if appropriate will create a more relevant link.-84.13.139.47 (talk)

I've gone ahead and removed the link from all the pages to which you/a;sldkfsljgh2 added it, except Pesticide misuse and Pesticide application. I don't think stweardshipcommunity.com is topical enough for any of the articles it was added to with the possible exception of those two. I added a link to James Shikwati's blog on that site to James Shikwati as that the does seem like an appropriate external link for that article. Yilloslime ^T_C 05:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Your reference to the Fovean Chronicles

As the writer of the Fovean Chronicles, I was kind of surprised to find that (a) my books were listed on Wikipedia and (b) you led some kind of effort then to remove them.

I don't know who 'Fovean Author' is or what your beef with him might be or have been, however right now, when you do a look up for the books on Yahoo or Google, you get directed to this website and your page where you take credit for deleting them.

Personally, I consider Wikipedia more of a 'For Dummies' thing, however a lot of people use it, and I would appreciate your removing any reference to my books from your personality page, or whatever it is. It seems to me that you didn't like the books anyway, so the less reference to them, the better

Thank you in advance for your cooperation,

Bob Brady fovea@intwiz.com

This represents a private communication between two individuals and is NOT intended for public audience. Please do not redistribute, post, forward or mirror this communique by any means, written or electronic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.124.14.13 (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to politely decline. I haven't read your books, so I have no opinion of them. However, I do (or did) have an opinion on how notable they were, i.e. I did not think they were notable enough to warrant a wikipedia article on them, which is why I nominated the article for deletion. Other editors agreed with me, and the page was deleted. I'm keeping a record of my "votes" in deletion discussions and similar debates so that I, and other interested editors, can see how my judgement aligns with that of other wikipedians. As such, including reference to the deletion discussion of Fovean Chronicles serves a useful to me, and potentially the project as a whole. So I'd really like to keep it in there. But if you can articulate a compelling explanation of how its inclusion hurts you or anyone/thing else, I'll consider removing it. Yilloslime ^T_C 22:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Bisphenol A

Hey Yilloslime, I've noticed that you've been fairly active in trying to keep this article under control. As alluded to by yourself and Smokefoot, the article has become swamped with BPA controversy. Between the average concerned editor and the usual array of scaremongering fruitloops, the info about the comnpound itself seems fairly minor in comparison. Is it about time to split this into two, namely bisphenol A and bisphenol A poisoning, or similar? Cheers, Freestyle-69 (talk) 03:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree the article is in need being updated, reworked, and trimmed, though I don't think I've got the time (or motivation) to do it, at least right now. W/r/t to splitting, I'm generally opposed to splitting out "controversy" articles, though there are certainly times when it is warranted. I mainly worry that the controversy article becomes a POV fork/playground for editors with an axe to grind. I also think we do a disservice to our readers when we stuff highly sought after content into sub articles. In other words, most people visiting Bisphenol A are probably more interested in its health effects and the recent controversy than they are about it's physical properties and chemical reactions. Therefore it seems to me that the former should be covered in Bisphenol A and the latter could be covered in Chemistry of bisphenol A or something like that, if we do split the article. But as I said already, I'm not sure that splitting is in necessary at this point. That's my 2¢; I'm often in the minority when it comes to split-proposals, though. Yilloslime ^T_C 01:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, fair call- I take your point about the general public and why they would hit the article. No biggie either way. Cheers Freestyle-69 (talk) 21:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks and my update

Dear Yilloslime,

Points well taken. Let me put my points and hope that we will come to an consensus and with your expertise in wikipedia this changes will come in place.

Please note the following points for and against what you have communicated.

Let's go point by point. 1. The version of the article before you began editing it (see here for the old version) already noted that it is a cyclodiene insecticide, so your change was redundant.

  The version does not denote that it is a cyclodience insecticide at the first place. It just says that it is an organochlorine. Thus this is an improvement.

2. It is also acutely neurotoxic to both insects and mammals, as any number sources including the ATSDR, EPA, and WHO attest. The article never claimed it was a developmental neurotoxin.

  Thanks for the insight. I belive this insecticide was suppose to work as a neurotoxic agent to insects. As for the mammals i do not think that sufficient literature has been developed.

3. I'm not sure what you mean by "authentic sources", but here at wikipedia, we are required to use reliable sources. All of the sources cited are reliable (by the wikipedia definition).

   Thanks for the insight.

4. The article already contained the sentence "The US EPA classifies it as Category I: 'Highly Acutely Toxic' based on a LD50 value of 30 mg/kg for female rats,[8] while the World Health Organization classifies it as Class II 'Moderately Hazardous' based on a rat LD50 of 80 mg/kg.[23]" so I'm not sure what your point is.

        This point is well taken.

5. Finally, with regard to the Kerala situation: per the wikipedia policies of verifiability and no original research we have to stick to what the sources say, and the source we have says that only endosulfan was used. If you could point us to the "right to information act in India" we could incorporate it into the article, assuming it meets wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources.

For kerela please look into http://www.cibrc.nic.in/250rc.doc. It is self explanatory.

YOUR INTRODUCTION:-

Endosulfan is a neurotoxic organochlorine insecticide. It is an endocrine disruptor and is highly acutely toxic. Banned in more than 50 countries, including the European Union and several Asian and West African nations,[1] it is still used extensively in many other countries including India, Brazil, and Australia. It is produced by Bayer CropScience, Makhteshim Agan, and government-of-India-owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited among others, and sold under the tradenames Thionex, Endocil, Phaser, and Benzoepin. Because of its high toxicity and high potential for bioaccumulation and environmental contamination, a global ban on the use and manufacture of endosulfan is being considered under the Stockholm Convention.[2] Your edits have introduced spelling and grammatical errors, poor formatting (e.g. it lacks wikilinks), redundant info (e.g. WHO classification), uncited accusations (e.g. neonicotinoids cause CCD; endosulfan is "relatively less toxic to honeybees) , and what appears to be original research (e.g. that China, India, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Israel, Nigeria, Sudan, etc. account for more than 50% of world’s area under agriculture.) So, I fail to see how your new intro is any improvement.Yilloslime (t) 06:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note below.

“It is concluded from the APVMA re-examination of possible endocrine disruption caused by endosulfan that, from a public health perspective, there are no compelling reasons to change the conclusions of the APVMA interim report on the endocrine disrupting potential of endosulfan. While the effects seen in wildlife indicate that endosulfan may have endocrine disrupting potential in some species, the overall weight of evidence is that endosulfan has limited endocrine disrupting potential in mammals. Furthermore, while endosulfan may be relatively persistent in the environment and is capable of long-range transfer, it does not appear to bioaccumulate. The endocrine disrupting potential of endosulfan is not a significant risk to public health under the risk management controls and health standards established by the recent review.”

Australian Pesticides & Veterinary Medicines Authority Canberra Australia FINAL REVIEW REPORT AND REGULATORY DECISION, The reconsideration of approval of the active constituent Endosulfan, registrations of products containing Endosulfan and their associated labels, Review Series 2 June 2005, page 57-59

Please read this part from APVMA report on endosulfan. Thus to iterate that it is an endocrine disruptor has also many implications. I hope that these changes will be taken as you are the administrator also.

Please read APVMA and please look into the comparison APVMA has with EPA. It also details that Endosulfan does not bio-accumulate.

USEPA itself has rated that endosulfan is less toxic to honeybees.

“……Compared to those that are registered, including the organophosphates, malathion and dimethoate, endosulfan is less toxic to honey bees, which are crucial to the pollination of the alfalfa crop. Lygus bugs can also migrate to other crops, including dry beans. The Agency considers this use to be beneficial to both seed alfalfa and cotton growers in California, and minimizes resistance issues that would arise from sole reliance on pyrethroids……” (RED-Re registration Eligibility Document of EPA).Pseudomonas8250: Pseudomonas8250 (talk) 08:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I've copied your post to Talk:Endosulfan and I'll respond over there. Let's continue this conversation over on that page, rather here. OK? Yilloslime ^T_C 16:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Bisphenol A link

Hello. Regarding your deletion, the link in question is directly relevant to the topic of the article and is published in a reliable source. I'm not sure why you think it "doesn't add anything of value"; I just read it and think it provides a rather clear and concise overview of the health concerns and how regulatory authorities in several countries are dealing with it. Anyway, I intend to revert but thought I'd drop you a note here since you're a regular. Rivertorch (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly relevant and on topic, and it might even be a reliable source, but that's not the standard for deciding what goes into an external links section. The relevant policy is WP:EL, which says that external links "should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article." Also, per WP:NOTLINK: "Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files... There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." The article already has too many external links, and I just don't see what's gained by adding this particular one. In my opinion, the whole section needs to be weeded out, which I don't have time to do. In other words, the particular link in question might a good candidate for an EL, but we can't include every single candidate. There are already plenty of links, in my judgement this one doesn't add anything not already in the article or the other links and references, so I deleted it. If you want to trim the section down and then include this link, that might work. But I also think we can probably do better than an article from the Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania--I'm not sure that source qualifies as reliable (it's not indexed by PudMed or Web of Science), and even if it does qualify there are much more authoritative sources that we should probably use in preference to the JBDT. Yilloslime ^T_C 19:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. We may end up agreeing to disagree on some of the particulars here, but I don't doubt we can find common ground. Regardless of the scholarly status of the journal, it seems to be perfectly adequate as a secondary source; the piece in question isn't presenting research, just providing an overview of its topic (and doing so in a highly coherent and readable form, I'd say). In any case, I'm sure you misspoke about WP:EL being a policy; it is a guideline and, as such, leaves plenty of leeway. I do agree with you that there may be too many external links, and I'll see if I can help trim them down a bit sometime over the next several days, time allowing. I'll also take a look and see if the link can be incorporated as a reference rather than merely a link. (I doubt it.) The page is in desperate need of a thorough copyedit, which has been on my ever-growing list of chores for a while. Rivertorch (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Ireland-Zambia

In short, every country pair where anyone spends a bit of time searching for sources to establish notability, they turn up without much difficulty. Several AFDs have gone up for various such pairings before (both more and less significant) and the outcome has been keep if anyone's bothered to look for sources, and delete if nobody bother's to examine closely. WilyD 10:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Other viewpoints

I do not mean to attack you in any way, but I find your protection of the Bispenol-A article to be biased. Most of the edits on the page are yours, and you have reverted almost every edit that does not support BPA's toxicity. I understand that there are many viewpoints to this issue, but I think you should allow all viewpoints on the subject. For instance, you deleted a paragraph on a refutation of the Lang study based on the fact that the refutation was reponded to. All I am asking is that you remember that other opinions still need to be heard, so do not shoot down all opinions contrary to yours, especially when they are as well cited. Angryapathy (talk) 20:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all, most of the edits to BPA are actually not mine, though I have made a good deal of the recent addition. Second, it's not true that I've "reverted almost every edit that does not support BPA's toxicity". And note that I've added most of the content about what bisphenol A is useful for. Thirdly, with regard my deletion of the "refutation" of the Lang study, let me put it this way: When the Lang study came out it received a lot of coverage—it was accompanied by editorial in the same issue of JAMA, it received substantial coverage in the mainstream media, one of its authors presented the findings to an FDA panel, etc. So clearly the publication of the Lang study is a notable event in the (unfolding) story Bisphenol A and worthy of discussing in the WP article. (As an aside, if you go thru the history, you'll see that I'm not the one who first put in the discussion of Lang, and in fact I led the charge to scale back the article's coverage of Lang. So, I think I've handled this a lot more neutrally than you give me credit for.) The "refutation", Young & Yu, which I removed was a letter to the editor of JAMA—not anything peer reviewed—which raised concerns about the Lang study. This letter did not receive any coverage in the media (save for a few verbatim reprints of a press release sent out by the letter's authors [3][4] and some blog coverage) and is not notable in the same way the original Lang study is. Of course, whether or not a study—or, in this case, a letter—received media attention upon it's release is not the sole determinant of whether we mention it in a wikipedia article; I'm just saying it's not shoo-in. And if for some reason we did include mention of the Young & Yu critique, we would be negligent to not also mention Lang & Melzer's reply published in the very same issue. And then we'd have an article that says, "The Lang study, published September 2008 said bla bla... Young & Yu criticized the study for XYZ.... Lang et al dismissed this critique noting A, B, & C," and that would create the impression that there is a significant controversy/debate in the scientific community about the Lang study. And since there isn't, at least for now, this would violate WP:NPOV, specifically WP:WEIGHT. So in short, putting Lang and Young on equal footing would violate WP:WEIGHT, and since the article only has 4 sentences on Lang, it seems to me like even mentioning Young gives it too much weight. If WP had a whole article on just the Lang study, then I could see including a discussion of Young, or if others echo Young's concerns or if the media starts paying attention to this, then I'd be all for mentioning this in Bisphenol A. (Likewise if a peer reviewed study appears that tries to replicate Lang's results and failes, then we should mention that.) But for now I think Lang deserves a footnote at most.

But I'm not the arbiter of what goes into this article: If think the article needs a discussion of Young, bring it up on the talk page. Yilloslime ^T_C 03:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

No one will know that the Lang study, which brought most of the recent attention to BPA, has holes in it because you will not allow anyone to point out its flaws. People should know that not the entire scientific community agrees with the study. Everyone responds to critiques. There is no need to say that Lang and Melzer replied to Young and Yu's critique. The Young and Yu critique shows that the Lang study has its detractors. But you deleted it without even discussing it, or modifying it, which should have been the proper channel.Angryapathy (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Your comments are not grounded in wikipolicy. Yilloslime ^T_C 17:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Chile-Estonia relations

Hi,

I'm not sure which way to go on this one. On one hand, the countries are wide apart from each other. On another, this pairing is not entirely random -- there's nontrivial amount of foreign trade; Chile being among the largest foreign trade partners of Estonia on its continent; and there's ongoing IT coöperation in public sector, with a treaty being prepared to further this coöperation. Unless enlightenment should hit me, I may sit this one out. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 04:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Do what you will—I was just notifying you as a courtesy. As I'm sure you've noticed, there are ton of these X-Y relations articles out there, and they run gamut from totally contentless pairings for which there is nothing to say to pairing of countries with rich histories of relations. On one end of this spectrum are the patently non-notable topics and on the are the obviously important ones. In between it's tough to say, but I think a consensus on where to draw the line is emerging. For sure this article is in the middle, but my sense is that it doesn't make the cut. For me it comes down to the definition of notability: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. I've searched and I haven't found a single independent secondary source that discusses the topic of Chile-Estonia relations. Sure, there are some mentions of Chilean diplomatic visits to Estonia or vice-versa in some independent sources but nothing non-trivial. This may just be my own (incorrect?) interpretation of WP:N, but before I'd be incline to !keep, I'd need to see a media or journal article that's actually on the topic of Chilean-Estonian relations, or a few media articles that each spend a paragraph or two on the topic of their relations, not merely mentioning that relations exists or that some official made a visit somewhere. Yilloslime ^T_C 05:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see my comment at [5]. The relationship is not as trivial as your examples. It's unfortunate that such things are not mainstream media coverage, but then this is an encyclopedia, not a homage to popular culture, no? PetersV       TALK 05:34, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, wikipedia's has rules about which topics are suitable for stand-alone articles, and which are not—and for good reason. And I just don't see evidence that this topic satisfies those those rules, and I've done a some research. They be out there, but so far I haven't seen the requisite independent secondary sources that would establish notability, and no, the official Government of Estonia website doesn't count. Yilloslime ^T_C 08:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm still pondering on what the good criteria for deciding articles like this are, but Mandsford's argument seems good. Unless something cardinally new comes up, I'll be inclined to vote for keeping this article. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 19:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well since you asked, check out: User:Yilloslime/Sandbox#Draft. This a very much a draft --basically me collecting my thoughts. Maybe at some point I'll turn it into a guideline proposal, but I think that's a ways off. Anyways, I'd be curious to know what you think. Feel free to comment on it here or there. Yilloslime ^T_C 20:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Addendum--my main problem with Mandsford's line of argument is that--to me--it doesn't seem reconcilable with the general notability requirements. Zimbabwe and Albania may have several bilateral trade agreements (I don't know, I'm making this example up), but if no one other than the governments themselves have written about them, then wikipedia can't in a stand alone article. At least that's my understanding of WP:N. Yilloslime ^T_C 20:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Are not bilateral trade agreements in of themselves sufficiently notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia? Where else would a user find information on such things. If so, would not a xxx-yyyy relations article be useful for a starting point in discovering what bilateral trade agreements exist between two countries? 03:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that bilateral trade (or non-trade) agreements are sufficiently notable for inclusion somewhere in an encyclopedia, and that includes wikipedia. The question is where stuff such information--in a stand-alone article or in an article on with broader scope, e.g. list of treaties of country XXX or foreign relations of XXX. As I've been stressing over and over again, the standard for a stand alone article is coverage in independent secondary sources. If that standard is not met (and I still don't any evidence that it's been met for Chile-Estonia relations), then the information can still exist somewhere on wikipedia, just not in stand alone article. I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that this is an accurate distillation of WP:N. I'm willing also to admit that independent secondary sources on the topic of Chile-Estonia relations may exist, even though I looked (unsuccessfully). And if they do show up, I would not hesitate to withdraw the AfD. Yilloslime ^T_C 03:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Considering the technical limitations of MediaWiki, how about we mention such things not in the articles but in templates? The template could then explain the whole topic, and be included in all relevant articles. In this case, we would have a single template that would state the basic facts about treaties, embassies and so on that are in effect between Chile and Estonia, and instead of having it as a full article, we'd just transclude it into Foreign relations of Chile and Foreign relations of Estonia. Wouldn't that be a more sensible approach? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 06:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

hmm. Let me sleep on it :-). It sounds like a lot of work to make all those templates, but does keep side step the issue of non-notability. But maybe I'm missing something--I need to sleep on it. Yilloslime ^T_C 06:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that would be a way to incorporate this type of information into wikipedia without running afoul of WP:N, but not necessary the best way. I suspect the easiest way--and a totally adequate way--to do incorporate this would be to have articles like, List of diplomatic missions in County X and List of diplomatic missions of Country X which would list where a country has missions and which missions the country hosts, and in what cities. Foreign relations of Country X could have a table listing dates of formal recognition of and by various countries, and perhaps any relevant bilateral treaties and agreements. And of course if there is enough material to write a particular X-Y relations then it could exist, and could repeat this same info (embassies and agreements). This approach makes sense to me.Yilloslime ^T_C 04:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chile-Whatever relations

Answered on my talk page. Tell me if the new format is better. Please feel free to alter the format yourself, I have run out of ideas to make it clearer. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Replied in my talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Replied to yours in my talk page. PetersV       TALK 18:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Contested prods

Chile–Romania relations and Armenia–Chile relations have been restored after their proposed deletion was contested. Hiding T 11:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Civility

It is not uncivil to refer to tags as bad (unless perhaps the code for the tags has registered an account?). It's exactly the kind of thing WP:CIVIL asks. Please familiarise yourself with the policy before trying to enforce it. WilyD 10:27, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You were warned about this kind of thing previously. That's all I'll say. Yilloslime ^T_C 21:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

bilateral AfDs

many thanks for your comments posted at these discussion. they are good reasons. you'll notice many people just say "keep, it's notable" "keep don't want to see this deleted" etc etc. LibStar (talk) 01:15, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey thanks. It's nice to know someone appreciates it. I'm just coming off 6-week hiatus largely precipitated by my annoyance with these bilateral relations AfDs. Too many irrational arguments, and--even more frustrating --too many bad closes. Things closed as "keep" when they should have been "no consensus" or even "delete". Still not sure I'm back yet, though.
By the way, I made this template {{User:Yilloslime/G|X|Y}} which might be useful for researching bilateral relations articles. Replace X & Y with the countries in question and you get

"Countrystan-Nationia relations" OR "Nationia-Countrystan relations" OR "relations between Countrystan and Nationia" OR "relations between Nationia and Countrystan" Countrystan Nationia relations -China

I generally use the top line for google searches and the bottom one for news.google searches. Yilloslime ^T_C 02:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

3 Reversion Rule

You have made three recent reversions in Passive Smoking. If you make a fourth I will report the violation. For the record, I don't know how anyone fails to see the simple logic that a disbanded organization cannot manage a study. This is fact, no matter what Kessler may say.SonofFeanor (talk) 16:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Come on now. Studies take years from conception to publication - they don't spring into being fully formed on the date of publication. Enstrom's study was conceived as early as 1997, when he asked Philip Morris for money to combat the mountain of evidence on the harms of secondhand smoke. CIAR was, I believe, active at that time. Enstrom and Kabat themselves credited CIAR with partly funding the study, which should be the end of the story. The insistence that you know better than the study authors themselves, the District Court, and so forth is verging on the ridiculous, and it's definitely inappropriate for Wikipedia. Please re-read our policies on verifiability, appropriate sourcing, and original research by editors. MastCell ^Talk 16:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not insist I know better than the authors. I left in "partially funded by the CIAR" just as they and you say. In fact, my argument is exactly Enstrom's own argument, which is cited. As far as the timing, no - studies don't spring into being at publication, but neither do they sit idly by for three years without being published. They cannot be "managed" by groups that disappear three years prior to publication.SonofFeanor (talk) 17:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting how two new accounts and an IP address pop up to out of nowhere to edit war on this point, and then minutes after I revert SonofFeanor comes back online after a 14 hour break and leaves me this 3RR warning. What a fascinating coincidence. Yilloslime ^T_C 17:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Just as interesting as the timing that you and Dessources and your other friend seem to have. I will not say that I am not in contact with PCPoliceman or NappyJohnson. But I am not them (feel free to trace the IPs) and they have formed their own opinions. I'd like Chido to ring on this matter as well, and hope he does.SonofFeanor (talk) 17:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No its not really that interesting at all actually. Dessources' and my edits are at least 9 hours apart, and even a cursory examination of our edit histories will show that that we have mostly divergent interests which only happen to intersect at this one article. In contrast, Pcpoliceman (talk · contribs), NappyJohnson (talk · contribs), and you all edited either Passive smoking or my talkpage here within 35 minutes. Pcpoliceman's only previous edits where almost 5 months ago, and in a strange coincidence include edits to Fëanor‎, and NappyJohnson has no previous edits at all. But given your admission of meat puppetry (above) it's not quite as remarkable of a coincidence as I had thought. Yilloslime ^T_C 04:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Atrazine

Hi Yilloslime,

I believe there is obvious controversy about whether there is any effect at all on amphibians because of atrazine, thus the distinction of "possible" effects is an unbiased way to acknowledge that in the introduction. Furthermore, "in the wild" is the only relevent senario for effects on amphibians from a pesticide.

As I mentioned earier, the EPA ruled after given recommendation from an independent panel going over all the data that there are no certain gender effects on amphibians from atrazine. However because there are still other effects on the ecosystem that indirectly effects the frogs (i.e. snails and their immune system), I believe the sentence mentioning the controversy is very important and should still remail in the intro. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EngrGirl (talk • contribs) 20:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Mentioned a comment by you in a ANI about another user

As a courtesy, I referred to one of your comments in regard to an ANI about another user. LibStar (talk) 02:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Bate

Thanks for pointing me to this. I was going to post about it, but Tim Lambert already covered it. I hope to do an update soon, drawing largely on Tim's posts. Might be something useful for WP.JQ (talk) 09:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

more barrel scraping in bilateral articles

take a look at this: Talk:Azerbaijan–Spain relations. LibStar (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

and this one: Talk:Belgium–Malaysia relations LibStar (talk) 16:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Given such comments as this, why are you asking others with sympathetic views to your own to essentially comment in such discussions when you warned Turkish Flame about doing so? Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

ridiculous, I'm not canvassing for votes for an AfD like TurkishFlame, in fact Belgium-Malaysia isn't even up for AfD. LibStar (talk) 16:17, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference? Asking for support in any discussion with such biased language as "barrel scraping" from someone who does typically agree with you in these discussions while at the same time warning another user for seeking sympathetic input is pretty much the same. You do not see me posting on Richard Arthur Norton's talk page if he can come comment there, because we should not give off any appearance of canvassing. I think most of us participating in these discussions will happen upon them anyway, so no real need to notify the regular participants in the bilateral discussions threads. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

clear difference with wanting to vote stack. I've seen people before blocked for canvassing if AfDs but not for what you're suggesting above. do you enjoy following me around? LibStar (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what's clear here, because whether it's "vote stacking" in an AfD or trying to create an impression of one viewpoint on a talk page discussion, really, it's the same concept. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

that's purely your opinion. you didn't answer my last question? LibStar (talk) 16:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hardly just my opinion. It is either not okay to seek input from others who we hope will agree with us or it is always okay. If you see fit to caution others, you should heed your own advice. Take care! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

you're avoiding my question. LibStar (talk) 16:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

there are several applicable concepts: tag-teaming, where several editors combine to force through changes they would not be able to otherwise because of 3RR; piling on, adding identical votes because someone else has voted, whether or not you have specifically been requested to; meat-puppetry, acting essentially as a proxy for another editor whether by explicit or implicit agreement; and also of course canvassing, whether during an AfD or in preparation for one. All 4 are considered disruptive. The technicalities are not important, the effect is what attention is paid to. Incidentally, I will say right out that I watchlist this talk page, and also that of LibStar and A Nobody--and over a hundred other people also. I think a comparable number of people might watchlist mine, for that matter. DGG (talk) 23:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm finally on the score board! Thanks to everyone who helped me get this far! Yilloslime ^T_C 22:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/France – Papua New Guinea relations

This AfD debate which you participated in, with 9 arguments in favor of deletion and 4 in favor of retention, was just closed by an admin as keep. I've opened a DRV on the matter here [6].Bali ultimate (talk) 20:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Estonia–Luxembourg relations

Hello, I've recently tried to restore this page to a version which can be improved upon (a non-protected, non-disambiguation page) and I wondered if I could get your opinion about whether it is currently up to the quality which we expect of every Wikipedia article. I would appreciate your comments on the article at User:Cdogsimmons/Estonia–Luxembourg relations on the talk page there, and further improvements that would get it closer to inclusion status are always welcome. Thanks.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 23:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've relied here Yilloslime ^T_C 01:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Further comment/suggestion. You've clearly put a lot of work into this article, and I comment you for the effort. It's not you're fault that there's not really anything written about this topic. Why not turn those research skills loose on a topic that is more likely to have suitable sources, like Andorra–France relations. These countries share a border, so I would be shocked if there weren't sources meeting WP:N. Or North Korea–Switzerland relations. This source would be a good starting place. Yilloslime ^T_C 16:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Tendentious editing

Please see Wikipedia talk:Tendentious editing where I've asked for the paragraph on threading to be restored. --Kleinzach 23:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you should just WP:BOLDly put it back in. I'm already on record on the talkpage as being for it. If it gets reverted and an active discussion starts on the talkpage, then I'll weigh in, but for now I think the easiest thing would be to add it and see what happens. Months ago, there was a wee edit war on that page that resulted in a few things being removed, including the threading point. But that was collateral damage in some wider dispute. As best I could tell, it was mainly a content dispute between editors, and one tried wanted to change the essay to reflect the behavior of an enemy of his, and then that turned WP:TE into a front in their war. But hopefully that drama has passed now. Yilloslime ^T_C 15:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:BIAS

The arguments in that essay are, by and large, made of straw. That people writing in English tend to be English speakers is a tad tautological. WP as far as I can tell has over 1/3 of its editors identified as women, so the claim that edotors are overwhelmingly men is faulty. That people who use computers are "technically inclined" is also tautological in a very limited sense, but the percentage of WP active editors who have a tech background is well under 25% right now (a huge number have legal backgrounds, or are on WP because of specific personal interests).

There are wikis for other languages -- and I would amazed if the French Wikipedia, for example, was not primarily edited by French speakers.

As to the claim that WP was based on public domain material -- a huge percentage of such material has been removed, as a matter of fact. That assetion is now pretty much irrelevant.

From that point on, the essay falls further and further from reality. While there is "bias" on WP, it is primarily due not to being "technical" but due to involving matters of religion, sex and politics. Contrary to the assertion in the essay, most of the "active" editors, in fact, are more anti-religion, anti-traditional sex roles and pro-socialism than anything else.

Now as to your question as to my opinion on "non-English sources." First -- WP does say that where information is available in English, that such should be preferred, but it does not say that if information is only available in a foreign language it can not be used. It is true, unfortunately, that foreign language sources have often been deliberately misused, figuring that no one will check up on the content. This results in a bit of suspicion about foreign language sources not confirmable on the Internet at all. "Notability issues" are clearly more easily proven if sources clearly establish notability in English. As a deeper problem, it is also true that is a topic is "non-notable" to any reasonable group of English speakers, that it will likely not be written about in English Wikipedia. Conversely, I suggest a Chinese Wikipedia will miss out many topics of interest to English speakers. This is not "bias" it is fact -- if no one will ever read an article, should the article be there anyway? If you have an answer for that conundrum, I'd like to hear it. Collect (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

So I take it that you share my skepticism of the argument that non-English sources can be used to demonstrate notability? Yilloslime ^T_C 16:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

your thoughts on this

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_International_relations/Bilateral_relations_task_force#Use_of_pictures_of_people_in_bilateral_articles. LibStar (talk) 03:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Armenia–Spain relations

I have taken the issue of your repeated removal of information from a page you nominated for deletion to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Repeated_removal_of_info_by_an_editor_who_has_nommed_the_page_for_deletion.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 21:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I have responded there. I propose we confine the content discussion to at Talk:Armenia–Spain relations and the alleged behavior issue to the WP:AN/I thread if possible. Yilloslime ^T_C 21:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 21:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

proposed guideline

take a look Wikipedia:Notability (bilateral relationships) LibStar (talk) 07:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)