Criticism of two of Wikipedia’s editors (part 2)
Their lies, damned lies, and statistics, and their rule breaking practices, bad manners, and content manipulation
The Sly and Toxic writer of policies
At 2:38 on 28 March 2010 my main critic wrote an instant and massive change to a minor page called “Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays”.
Since then that person has linked back to it and created the false impression that it has been gradually developed and accepted by a consensus of hundreds of editors over many years.
If you look carefully you can see how that extremely sly individual was writing an instruction sheet, outside of the official policy pages, about how the rules should be interpreted, and essentially overlaid them with loopholes that will enable any editor to do anything they want under any circumstances.
Some exact quotes from the new version
WP:Ignore all rules is a major policy”.
“The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays on Wikipedia is obscure.”
There are a remarkable number of exceptions and limitations embedded within Wikipedia’s policies”
“violating . . . of policies, such as WP:Verifiability, is done constantly, by thousands of editors each year, without anyone getting blocked.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_difference_between_policies,_guidelines_and
_essays&diff=352454420&oldid=150159849
How they used those policies
During the twelve months that I was in Wikipedia, I described many of the instances in which my two critics were violating policies, but each and every time they found an exception in the rules, and when they ran out of ideas they arranged for another editor to ignore all the rules and ban me. They could do that to any new contributor, for any reason that suited any hidden agenda.
See examples of their spin here
(These were the previous words . . . “The difference between policies, guidelines and essays are: You must follow policies (except for the common exception); You should follow guidelines: It’s a good idea to follow essays; Don’t ignore guidelines and essays just because they aren’t policy.”) here and here
The outlaw halo award
A few months after I was banned my main critic gave the person responsible an Outlaw Halo award for being the only admin who was prepared to ignore all the rules to ban me. It is a badge of shame.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=288770661
Anyone, or any group inside or outside of Wikipedia, who assists me in any way to get that editor permanently banned from Wikipedia and the internet can give themselves a badge of honor called . . .
The law enforcer award
and my sincere gratitude.
Some clues about how to achieve that objective are described here
“Normal society” versus the infiltrators of Wikipedia
Normal society has principles and rules that need to be complied with, and one of the major principles is freedom of speech. By stark contrast some of the worst elements of society have infiltrated Wikipedia to undermine those principles. They have written policies to restrict which information the public gets to see, and an ignore all rules policy that allows them to do it with consumate ease. The respectable editors of Wikipedia need to solve that problem.
See also here
The Five Evils of Wikipedia
If you join Wikipedia you may soon be directed to a page called the “Five pillars” which explains the fundamental principles required. In particular, that you don’t need to be deterred by a lot of rules, because the main requirements are that you contribute to discussions politely and provide factual information that is independently verifiable.
However I spent 12 months contributing so I am in a position to define the ‘Five evils” of Wikipedia.
1. There is a page in Wikipedia which advises that the truth does not matter, with these words . . . “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia already has been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=388243179
2. There is an “Ignore all rules” policy which is a magnet for all types of individuals who would like to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for advertising and propaganda. They can be anonymous, covert, volunteer or highly paid professionals who seed the encyclopedia with bias while pretending that it is “neutral” and “objective” information.
3. I had two critics who were prolific liars, and who cheated, violated the rules, and “falsified history”. When I reported their behaviour to experienced editors none of them did anything about it.
4. Those same two individuals, but one in particular, would participate in policy discussions to influence, or actually rewrite them, and there are now hundreds, if not thousands of pages of policies, guidelines, and essays that are riddled with exceptions or loopholes that enable the experienced editors to ignore the spirit of those policies. The absence of a policy on double standards is related to that problem
5. When I wrote an essay that described the tactics used by my two critics, and provided links to evidence and proof of their behaviour, they called it an “attack essay” and arranged for it to be deleted. However, Wikipedia already had an attack essay which has been kept on the devious grounds that it is obvious satire and humor, but it essentially defines, or brands “newbies” as “bastards”, “jerks”, “little shits”, and “easy prey”. When the experienced editor favors a person they call them a “new contributor” or politely use their ID, but when they oppose them they refer to them as a “newbie”. There are now thousands of insults that have been embedded in the brand name of “newbie”. For example, “newbies” are portrayed as being “inexperienced” and “immature”, and so contemptibly “stupid” that they don’t understand simple concepts such as the ‘placebo’ effect, and so ignoratnt that they don’t know that stress makes the heart rate increase, and so incompetent in their ability to assess evidence that they don’t take into account the difference between one off pesonal experiences and reproducible experimental facts, and that they are so emotional that they incapable of objectivity. That label is obvious ad hominem and can be, and is applied to anyone new regardless of their age, qualifications or experience.
For more information about bad manners see here
For more deltails see here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#FinalSay
There is an existing page in Wikipedia called “Wikipedia:Five pillars of evil” which has a slightly different critical view.
For example, the actual policies advise that everyone is considered equal, and that all contributors should assume good faith in everyone else and be polite. However that Wikipedia page advises that it applies to new contributors only, but administrators can assume bad faith and be as ill-mannered as they want.”
It has these words at the top to justify the fact that it hasn’t been deleted . . . “This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w”/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Five_pillars_of_evil&diff=335596936&oldid=296375797
Only on a Sunday
I can honestly tell you that I knew about Wikipedia before I joined, and only did so with the genuine, and perfectly normal intention of having a new hobby of casually adding about a paragraph of useful information to one topic per week, and possibly assist with the development and improvement of a few hundred articles with the passage of time. During that process I found that editors were not supposed to write about their own ideas, which I thought was a reasonable policy, and then a woman who I have never met, sent me an email telling me that she thought my theory was brilliant, so I asked her to write about it with my assistance for Wikipedia. When that article was deleted I didn’t complain or ask for the decision to be reviewed, but simply searched through the topic pages for articles about chest pains, or backache, or kidney pains, or corsets and health etc. when I found an article about Da Costa’s syndrome with a request to help improve it.
I was soon confronted by two extremely arrogant editors who were ‘full of their own importance’, and argued that there was nothing about my ideas in the ‘real’ medical literature, so it wasn’t ‘notable’ enough for Wikipedia. They followed me to every page where I had made contributions and made sure that every word I wrote was deleted, and tried to block me from adding more by asking questions that they thought I couldn’t answer. I would think about it and prepare a response and post it on Sundays with a comment like this . . . “Here are the answers you require, please feel free to ask more questions and I will respond next Sunday.”
Their other tactic was to ask me to provide references to prove that every word I wrote was true, and were hoping that such references did not actually exist, or that I wouldn’t be familiar enough with the research literature to find them. I would casually look for those references during the week and post them on Sunday (and occasionally on a Tuesday or Wednesday if they asked ten questions in one sentence) and I would use words like this . . . “here are ten references, if you want any more please let me know what type and I will provide them next Sunday”.
After about six months they were both so frustrated by their inability to ask questions that I couldn’t answer that they were using foul language and resorting to extreme measures, and like misguided crystal ball readers, or delusional mind readers, they were telling all of the other editors that I joined Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting my own ideas. They called that POV pushing (pushing my own point of view), and told the other editors that I was a SPA – a single purpose account.
They would then set up about a dozen discussion pages in quick succession one after the other like this . . . ‘We the two super heroes and champions of Wikipedia are having trouble with a disruptive edit warring newbie – please help us block the sucker, please – we are at our wits end.’ They would describe my request for contributing only on Sundays as ‘delaying tactics’, and would tell all new groups of editors that I was just jerking them around to waste their time.
Ultimately, after they failed to get me blocked in ten discussions they set up an arbitration page which is the equivalent of a court case in Wikpedia.
I told the arbitrators that my two critics were rather predictable and boring with the type of tactics they used, and that they were unlikely to change, and that I would be happy to give my final response to their massive onslaught of criticisms on the following Sunday.
Surprise, surprise – My two critics ignored all the rules, and ignored the twelve arbitrators, and bribed a friend of theirs to rush in and ban me on Thursday., and later rewarded him with a barnstar.
Of course, they thought that they were being ‘clever’, and that I would never find out.
See my description of how they banned me by ignoring all the rules here
Double standards and fairy tales in Wikipedia science articles
When I joined Wikipedia it was on the understanding that all people from all walks of life were invited to contribute all information from all sources, but I soon discovered that some of the established editors appeared be sabotaging that goal by rewriting the policies to ensure that only a very narrow range of contributors and ideas – the ones that they favored – were being accepted.
For example, when I was writing about all of the main theories for Da Costa’s syndrome two nitwits tried to delete everything about all ideas except the one about it being an anxiety disorder.
I then told them that Harvard professor Oglesby Paul was the author of one of the very small number of references which they had provided, and that I was familiar with it, and so had reviewed it for them. I reported that he had discussed about ten of the major ideas of the past 150 years, and that for every one of them there was scientific evidence in favor, and against, so that none of them were conclusive, and that the only sensible conclusion was that the cause was unknown.
However to be fair to their bias I suggested that, if they thought there was enough evidence to write a separate article about it being an anxiety disorder, then they should set up another page about that topic, and basically recommended that anyone could set up a separate page on any one of the ten ideas, and let the readers see them and judge for themselves.
My main critic presented a childish argument that the idea was stupid, and ‘quaintly’ and ‘quirkily’ linked the word ‘stupid’ to a page about ‘intelligence’ to imply that I had inferior intelligence.
Needles to say that those two ‘nitwits’ eventually managed to get their way, so now the only page that the readers get to see, is the one that they twisted and turned into a ‘story’ with the interpretation that they prefer. They supported it by using their prettiest ‘hatnote ‘ policy to include a children’s fiction yarn called “Soldier’s heart” on the top line. It is about a nineteenth century hillbilly who didn’t have any of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome.
In the process of arguing with those two bloody fools i told them that they should try their hardest to provide references that were as good as mine, and not to waste my time, or anyone else’s by finding policy excuses for adding worthless and childish crap to the article.
I also suggested that there should be a policy on double standards which stated that they would not be tolerated, so that if somebody asked me to disclose my real name, and any conflicts of interest, then they had to do the same, and if I was not permitted to use references from fifty years ago, then neither was anyone else, and if policy ‘demanded’ that I had to comply with the rules, then it applied to all editors.
They argued that there wasn’t an official policy about ‘double standards’, and that they were never going to write one, and that neither was anyone else.
The net result is that they can fill Wikipedia full of crap and get away with it, and that I can be banned for providing top quality references which they don’t like.
If the same situation existed in the Olympic hundred yard sprint I would be put at the starting line, and they would be given a ninety yard handicap and be awarded the gold medal for beating me by one second.
The net result for Wikipedia is that the best of the best will be beaten by the best of the worst in all disputes, and the cheats who rig the policies will end up controlling the impressive looking, but worthless show.
The only thing that is going to save Wikipedia from degrading into an intellectual crap factory is a responsible adult who writes a policy about ‘double standards’ which advises that they will not be tolerated, and that all contributors have to comply with the same policies and the same standards at all time. Of course, that also means that somebody also has to delete the ‘ignore all rules’ policy (WP:IAR) that my main critic wants to turn into the “major” policy so that it can become the catch cry for all of the cheats who need it because of the complete and utter lack of merit in their arguments.
See my report on WP:IAR here
The two nitwits of Wikipedia
Part of a conversation between myself and the two uniform nitwits
I provided evidence that tight clothing contributed to the development and aggravation of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome, but my two critics argued about it for several months. The following quotes come from part of those discussions.
WhatamIdoing wrote . . . ” I’m familiar with your argument that tight clothing triggers DCS symptoms. The idea was presented by Maclean and Meyer well before Da Costa’s paper.” WhatamIdoing 17:43, 14 June 2008
I then gave this response . . . “WhatamIdoing; I am also familiar with the causes of Da Costa syndrome, according to Da Costa himself, as I have previously provided the statistics for wikipedia here [2] which somebody else has since deleted. I am also familiar with the affects of tight clothing on health.” Posturewriter 00:56, 16 June 2008
WhatamIdoing replied with these words . . . “nobody here is claiming that tight clothing is good for people. We’re just saying that the existing evidence strongly indicates that it doesn’t cause DCS. We can support this: e.g., Da Costa specifically considered and rejected this early guess at a cause.” WhatamIdoing 17:31, 25 June 2008
More of my main critics bullshit – much more – can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266789799&oldid=266722358#Clothing
* * *
Here are some facts . . . Page 38 of Da Costa’s research paper of 1871, clearly indicates that he was not ‘guessing’ when he wrote . . . “Undoubtedly the waist belt, but particularly the knapsack, may have had something to do with aggravating the trouble, but I could find no proof that they had produced it”(end of quote) . . . Also page 52 of that article states . . . “In bringing this inquire to an end . . . from a military point of view, further, it enforces the lessons, how important it is not to send back soldier’s just convalescent from fevers or other maladies, too soon to active work; It suggests that their equipments be such as will not unnecessarily constrict, and thus retard or prevent recovery”(end of Da Costa’s quote)
In a stupid attempt to prove me wrong my main critic was actually silly enough to provide a reference which states this . . . “Since ‘irritable heart’, as Da Costa termed the disorder, was not confined to the infantry but affected the cavalry and artillery, he argued that the webbing and packs, which varied between these arms, could not have been the primary cause.” (end of quote) – As everyone can see, Da Costa was obviously saying that it is actually one of the causes, but not the main one.
Also, it doesn’t matter what anyone else has or has not said since, the fact is that Da Costa considered tight clothing to be part of the problem, and anyone who says or implies that he didn’t, or that he changed his mind, is a liar, and is messing around with the evidence and is being a pest by making it impossible for intelligent people to properly understand, prevent, or solve the problem.
See here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569621
Don’t get your advice from nitwits
For the benefit of intelligent people who read my website I would like to point out that the grubby fork tongued troll called WhatamIdoing will just keep on telling lies, but you should consider these facts.
My version of the article contained these words in the treatment section “Other treatments evident from the previous studies were . . . wearing loose clothing about the waist” . . . and the history section included these words “Da Costa’s syndrome involves a set of symptoms which include left-sided chest pains, palpitations, breathlessness, and fatigue in response to exertion. Earl de Grey who presented four reports on British soldiers with these symptoms between 1864 and 1868, and attributed them to the heavy weight of military equipment being carried in knapsacks which were tightly strapped to the chest in a manner which constricted the action of the heart.” (end of quotes)
If you have a look at the inferior and much smaller version that was provided by the two nitwits you can see that they have copied those exact words which are still in the article unchanged until the current time, December 2010, so they have been accepted as correct, top quality, verifiable facts by the consensus of every editor who has seen the page for two years.
See where they deleted my version and replaced it with theirs here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750#Treatment
See the same words on the article two years later here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=389110449&oldid=372953802
Of course, if those two flea brained nitwits were put in charge of military uniforms Whatamidoing would design them with the tightest choker collars, the narrowest of all military corsets, and the trimmest of all tunics, and the most colorful of all leg garters, and of course, Gordonofcartoon would chip his silly beak in and say ‘Yup, yup, yup that is very, very, very good, are we all agreed then, yup , yup, yup, then we have consensus.’
Unfortunately almost all of the soldiers would faint and fall out of line while marching to the battlefield, and those who got there would not have enough energy to fight their way out of a wet paper bag, and if any of them got out of that hopeless situation alive they would return to the hospitals suffering from Da Costa’s syndrome, haemorrhoids and varicose veins.
The army of well dressed dandies
with uniforms designed by general WaWa’s and captain Goofy
it was typical for the two nitwits to make errors and then convince the other editors that I was wrong and they were right, and they would lose arguments and keep writing bullshit to convince the other editors that I lost and they won. They would then use the supposedly wrong information that I provided in their supposedly perfect article. The main reason that they eventually got me banned was because they wrote bullshit and lies at such an astonishing speed that I couldn’t get in my right of reply before the decision to ban me was made. They actually had the capacity to write ten lies in the one sentence, so I would find myself tossing a coin to determine which lie to countereact first. They should be permanently banned for exceeding the bullshit speed limit.
After my main critic wrote a long essay of lies and bullshit on the arbitration page they included this sentence at the end . . . “I think that a broad topic ban (including Da Costa’s syndrome, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to human posture, fitness, or fatigue) is an appropriate outcome. WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009
If you extrapolated the editing pattern of those two nitwits you would see that if I fixed a spelling error on a pge about pimples one week, then the next day they would recommend . . . “a broad topic ban (including Da Costa’s syndrome, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to human posture, fitness, or fatigue) and pimples, is an appropriate outcome.”
How stupid can they get?
I started contributing to the Da Costa’s syndrome page at 7:39 on 9-12-2007 and noticed that none of the other editors of that topic, which included my main critic, had bothered to support the very small article with references, so I supplied three immediately, including Da Costa’s original research paper of 1871, which I used as a reference number 1. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=176729513&oldid=165216444
About two months later, at 8:29 on 1-2-2008, I added the following statistics about causes which can be seen in Da Costa’s original research paper on page 37. . . ” Da Costa came to the conclusion that many factors seemed to overlap, but close study revealed that it was “Fevers” 17%, “Diarrhoea” 30.5%, “Hard field service, particularly excessive marching” 34.5%, and finally, “Wounds, injuries, rheumatism, scurvy, ordinary duties of soldier life, and doubtful causes” 18%. (end of quotes)” However, my main critic deleted them at 21:112 on 10-2-2008 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=190379699
(there is a small discrepancy with the figure of 34.5 % which should be 38.5% that pedantic nitwits might quibble about without regard for the major issues in dispute.)
Four months later, at 17:43 on 14-6-2008, that same stupid editor then tried to act intelligent and knowledgeable by writing this question to me about the same statistics from a different reference by Charles Wooley in 1982 . . . “I invite you to consider this:”Jacob Da Costa (1833–1900), who had studied the phenomenon during the American Civil War (Wooley 1982), concluded that there was no clear-cut cause, though his analysis of 200 cases (selection criteria were not stated) showed that 38.5% had been subject to ‘hard field service and excessive marching’, and a further 30.5% had previously suffered from diarrhoea (Da Costa 1871, p. 37; Wooley 2002)”
My main critic was trying to argue that because Da Costa didn’t mention tight chest and waist straps as a cause in his statistics that therefore it wasn’t a cause.
That person continued to argue by writing these words . . . “Since ‘irritable heart’, as Da Costa termed the disorder, was not confined to the infantry but affected the cavalry and artillery, he [Da Costa] argued that the webbing and packs, which varied between these arms, could not have been the primary cause. Although this was widely regarded as a disorder suffered by soldiers in wartime, Da Costa made the important observation that the same cluster of symptoms could also be seen in civilians.”[1] . . . Furthermore, when the British War Office redesigned the gear to prevent constriction, the men using the new gear had just as many problems as the men using the old gear. Therefore, everyone dropped this “tight clothing” idea: data trumped theory. I just don’t think that we can present this as anything other than the first hypothesis, which was quickly discarded. WhatamIdoing 17:43, 14 June 2008 WhatamIdoing 17:43, 14 June 2008″ See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266789799&oldid=266722358#Clothing
My readers need to understand that I already told the two nitwits that Da Costa’s syndrome was common in civilians, but they deleted that fact from the article because they want their readers to believe that it is a post war syndrome cause by the stresses of war.
Also, Da Costa’s comment was not a theory, but was just a straight forward statement of the obvious, and nobody trumped anything, and while some authors tried to discredit the effect of tight clothing, not everyone was that stupid. In fact, there were major debates in the general community about corsets being the cause of major health problems and it was, and still is widely known that tight corsets made women feel weak and easily exhausted, and to get palpitations and breathlessness and feel faint in response to the slightest exertion. Their condition was called neurasthenia which was an alternative label for Da Costa’s syndrome, and the manufacturers of whalebone corsets, who argued that tight clothing was not a cause of health problems, lost the debate, which is why those garments went out of fashion and are rarely used nowadays. The fact that Da Costa’s syndrome was related to neurasthenia was added to the Da Costa’s page “Related” section on the 18th May 2006, and was edited by my main critic who saw it on the 16th August and added the label of “soldier’s heart” to the same section, and on the 17th October 2007 added the words “Orthostatic intolerance”. Of course that editor didn’t delete “neurasthenia” because it was actually relevant. As you can see it was on the Da Costa’s page before I started contributing to it on the 9th December 2007, but my main critic would still be stupid enough to quibble about it by writing this sort of tripe . . . “we’ve told posturewriter that just because something is in the related section doesn’t mean that it is actually related” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=165216444&oldid=151708868
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=53388563
The interpretation of the facts by the two nitwits is biased and twisted bullshit.
As a final note – it was typical for the two nitwits to delete information or references that I provided one month, and then later see some relevance to their own argument and say ‘bye the way has everyone got access to this important paper – we want to discuss it.’
e.g. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Oglesby_Paul
(I started this window in December 2010) For the previous two years, since I was banned, I have been generally matter-of-fact and objective in my evidence based criticisms, but more recently I have read their pages about “The Last Word”, where new contributors are described as “newbies”, “bastards” and “prey”, and I have read their essays about “instrumental rudeness” in which they argue that indirect insults are an intelligent way of achieving power, and of course, I have become very familiar with how they used their “ignore all rules” policy and were encouraging other editors to regard it as their “major policy”. I have also previously documented many examples of their arrogant and rude behaviour and foul language, and I have shown how they used “attitude readjustment tools” and have systematically incited other editors to call me a troll, which is an ugly hairy monster who lives in caves, so I have decided to start referring to my two critics as the two nitwits of Wikipedia, and to drown them in their own bullshit. Given their past behaviour they do not have any basis for complaining.
***When I joined Wikipedia I saw a general warning to be prepared for merciless editing, however, I didn’t quite expect the type of unscrupulous practices that I encountered. It would be in your best interests to familiarise yourself with them before you join, otherwise you might find yourself banned before you learn just how extreme those methods are. For example, you can be as insulting and offensive as you wish, and as long as you are ‘indirect’, you may be regarded as ‘smart’ or ‘clever’ or ‘funny”, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of rules or sub-rules, but you can ignore them all to suit any purpose as long as you can get a few other editors (or anonymous paid or voluntary friends or associates) to agree that it is for the good of Wikipedia.
The following lists give a brief introduction to the methods used by my two critics
| Anonymous editing | WP:Tag teaming | W:Cabal | |
| WP:Sockpuppets | WP:Forum shopping | WP:IAR (ignore all rules) | |
| WP:meatpuppets | WP:Gaming the system | WP: The Last Word |
| Instrumental rudeness See also Their bad manners | Deletion editing | Lies | |
| Attitude readjustment tools See also LART | Double standards | Stereotyping | |
| WP:Moving the goal posts | Brown nosing and appeals to prejudice | bandwagon effect |
 |
 |
 |
The advantage of good manners
My two critics deliberately took advantage of double meanings to abbreviate my ID of Posturewriter to the derogatory PW, in an attempt to incite other editors to do the same and drum up a chant of ‘lets gang up on PW and nuke the sucker’. Therefore on several occasions I politely requested that they refrain from using abbreviations but they would reply (which I paraphrase to make it obvious) ‘what’s wrong with that PW, we often abbreviate ID’s – take Neutral Point of View for example – it is much easier to type NPOV than to type out the full words”. They obviously think that their own cheeky double talk is ‘clever’ but if I had abbreviated their ID’s of WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon to WaWa’s and Goon the two silly sooks would have thrown a temper tantrum and banned me for violating Wikipedia’s civility policy
Here are some quotes . . .
On 14th June 2008 WhatamIdoing wrote . . . “PW, I’m familiar with your argument that tight clothing triggers DCS symptoms.” WhatamIdoing 17:43, 14 June 2008
I then gave this response . . . “WhatamIdoing; I don’t think that it is appropriate to abbreviate code ID’s” Posturewriter 00:56, 16 June 2008
That editor replied with these words . . . “PW, I’m not sure what the “abbreviating code IDs” refers to.” WhatamIdoing 17:31, 25 June 2008
The use of that abbreviation continued, and six months later I asked that editor this question . . . “what gives you the authority to make excuses for disregarding Wikipedia discussion policy” Posturewriter 03:55, 1 January 2009
WhatamIdoing replied with these words . . . “I have not violated WP:CIVIL: I have not called you names, I have not taunted you” WhatamIdoing 21:34, 1 January 2009
Two days later that editor wrote these words . . . “PW, we keep telling you things about basic Wikipedia conventions, and you don’t seem to grasp them.” WhatamIdoing 00:01, 3 January 2009
I then gave this advice to that editor . . . “You are also violating wiki discussion policy by abbreviating ID’s, as it is likely to foster familiarity” Posturewriter 01:21, 3 January 2009
That editor then gave this insolent excuse and spun it around their grubby little fingers to make it look atas if I was at fault. . . “PW, would you please provide me with a link to the the “discussion policy” that bans all abbreviation of IDs, such as (for example) using initialisms like NPOV, which I note that you have done twice in the same paragraph that accuses me of breaking this rule?” WhatamIdoing 01:23, 11 January 2009
Other editors tried to teach both of them the importance of good manners but they simply found excuses for continuing to be foul mouthed or offensive.
I can give an example but they wrote so much bullshit that I will need to give a brief introduction.
Gordonofcartoon would habitually start arguments and lose, and then rush off to an administrator and try to get me blocked for disruptive editing. On one occasion an administrator named Moreschi believed his bullshit, but when I joined the discussion and provided my side of the story it ended immediately. Six months later Moreschi barged in on the arbitration page and acted like a heroic authority on everything and banned me.
This is a quote from his decision . . . “Frankly Posturewriter, the worst type of troll, has shown nothing but contempt for basic Wikipedia polices such as WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, and WP:DE/TE. Under such circumstances a one-year ban would have been the only result to have come out of an arbitration case. I, however, unlike you chaps, am fortunately not limited in block length. Moreschi 20:39, 29 January 2009
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Comment_from_Moreschi
The following words are a quote from a discussion in which an editor named Elonka tried to politely teach Gordonofcartoon and Moreschi the importance of good manners but, as you can see, it was a hopeless waste of time. For example, the word troll is used to describe a disruptive editor, and has the double meaning of a large ugly hairy monster, and administrators know that the use of the word troll is unnecessary and deliberately offensive, and a violation of the civility policy.
This is the quote . . . Gordonofcartoon wrote . . . “Re PW “Sincere thanks! No blame attached to anyone; it’s a niche topic – a historical curiosity even – and as it wasn’t affecting many editors, it’s understandable the dispute slipped though the net.” Gordonofcartoon 15:50, 28 January 2009
Moreschi replied . . . “Aye, although after the ANI thread I should have probably kept tabs on this guy. Still, it’s all over now.” Moreschi 20:46, 29 January 2009
Elonka gave this advice . . . “Troll . . . Moreschi, this is pretty strong language, and I am not agreeing with your assessment.[4] Could you please consider ratcheting back the rhetoric?” –Elonka 21:22, 28 January 2009
Moreschi ignored that advice with these words . . . “Nope. Tundrabuggy is currently number 2 on my list of people who should be banned, but aren’t. A more harmful partisan in the I/P articles it is hard to think of. I have never seen him take one reasonable position, be open to any form of compromise, do anything other than flame and stoke tension on talkpages, and, well, yes, be a troll. Even Jaak and PR on their worst days weren’t as bad as this guy. Moreschi” 20:46, 29 January 2009
Carcharoth made these comments . . . “RFAR follow-up Not sure if you are still following the RFAR on posturewriter, so letting you know here. Would you have time to respond to this? Several points there, but the one about leaving block notices on talk pages is one that I think should be done, especially as posturewriter has said they only edit at weekends (roughly) and they might confuse your block with the earlier one from WMC.” Carcharoth 08:04, 29 January 2009
Moreschi replied with these words . . . “Dealt with.” Moreschi 20:46, 29 January 2009
Guettarda gave this comment . . . “Haven’t followed this until now, don’t know enough background, but given the indef block, should this page be deleted, or at least blanked?” Guettarda 21:50, 29 January 2009
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=267274316#Re_PW
When you read the quotes above you will note how Gordonofcartoon was rudely ignoring my request to refrain from abbreviating my ID, and deliberately put “Re PW” in bold print as the new section heading, and Moreschi said that he ‘should’ have followed the dispute – but he didn’t. He only participated in one small discussion so was simply believing Gordonofcartoon’s bullshit.
Elonka used the word “Troll” as a section heading and told them to stop being offensive by using it, but Moreschi rudely snubbed that editor with the word “Nope”.
Note also that my two critics were doing ten thousand edits a year between them, and spending much of their time tag-teaming against me and telling the other editors that I was being constantly disruptive, and yet Carcharoth acknowledged that I only edited once a week on weekends, and then Guettarda says that he hasn’t read enough about the dispute but asks if the page be deleted or blanked anyway.
You will note that my two critics were in an extreme hurry to get me banned, so that I didn’t get the opportunity to provide the arbitrators with evidence and proof that they were telling lies and writing bullshit. They knew that I preferred to edit once a week and that I was preparing the evidence and would be posting it on Sunday the 1st of February so they made sure that they got me banned before then – on Thursday the 29th January 2009.
If you follow the links you will also see that Wizardman gave me permission to deny him the opportunity to be an arbitrator. He did that due to his conflicts of interest because 1. he had been misled into closing a previous RFC discussion in violation of the closing policy, and 2. he had been rewarded with a barnstar by my main critic. Despite the fact that his decision was a violation of policy, my two critics used it as evidence against me on the arbitration page??? In a real court their behaviour would be called perjury and corruption, and obstruction of justice.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests&diff=prev&oldid=266889633
and the first two comments here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests&diff=prev&oldid=266889633
You can see how my two critics whipped up a frenzy of contempt against me, ignored all advice to obey their own policies, and to be polite, and gained the support of people who didn’t know anything about the topic or the dispute. Even those who did read the discussions would be so drowned in their massive floods of bullshit that they wouldn’t be able to see any sense. For example, Carcharoth did a spiel about me being focused on one topic, but was not aware that I joined Wikipedia to add about one paragraph of interesting information per week on hundreds of different topics. However when I was a new contributor I added information to six different pages but WhatamIdoing followed me around like a blood hound with mad cow disease and criticised every word I wrote. I wasn’t going to let a bloody fool like that push me around and force me to fix spelling errors on pages about cupcakes and muffins, so I stayed where I had the advantage of superior knowledge. See here
My main critic has the practice of routinely telling lies to me, and other editors, administrators, and even an entire group of abitration editors in order to win disputes, but then gives them advice to be honest, with words such as these . . . “Adminship (etc) is a position of trust, and. . . if the community feels you deceived them . . . then you’re very likely to lose that trust.“ That persons Wikipedia ID is “WhatamIdoing”, and they made that comment at 17:02, 3 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Sock_puppetry&diff=prev&oldid=376966359
Their Biggest Lie
In order to avoid the never ending criticism of almost every word I wrote, I took up the suggestion of a neutral editor to write an essay about Da Costa’s syndrome outside of Wikipedia. I completed it within a few weeks without fuss, and posted it back onto a subpage and began co-operating with him to improve it. Neither of my two critics took up that offer.
However, almost immediately my main critic copied my essay onto one of their pages and bombarded it with more than 80 critical comments, which I described as blitz krieg editing.
At the same time, that same editor began arguing with the neutral editor about everything I wrote.
Ultimately they twisted everything about and told another discussion group of arbitrators that I was complaining about every single point . . . This is an extract from their words . . .
“Every single correction or discussion is met with a hostile litany of complaints. The article’s talk page and his own talk page is filled with endless arguments about every single point.” WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009<
My essay was copied and ransacked with 80 hostile comments here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
The discussion where I described that as blitz krieg editing can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Disruptive_editing&diff=prev&oldid=263142552
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Disruptive_editing&diff=263289335&oldid=263221218#WhatamIdoing.E2.80.99s_
Blitz_Krieg_-_Disruptive_Editing.3F
The page where my main critic argued relentlessly with the neutral editor is here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:
Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
And the quote above is from the arbitration page here
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
Note that other editors have recommended that it is not sensible to fill pages with a large number of templates of critical comments, or to ask for references to verify every single statement, and especially not to ask for citations to verify obvious facts, because it can be annoying and is a form of trolling. However, my main critic completely ignored such advice. Also, when I added a single reference for each request for a citation that person would say . . . ‘Oh yes, but it’s out-of date, so I would add a modern one, and then I would be told ‘yes, but it’s not a review‘, so I would add a review, and I would get a response ‘yes but he’s not an expert‘, so I would give each request for a citation, one from a Harvard professor, another from a top modern journal, and one from a reference that my critics provided!!! etc. Nevertheless, then my critic had the cheek to give other editors the general advice that it was stupid to put multiple references on the end of every sentence because it makes the article unreadable. If that individuals attempts to annoy me weren’t so obvious, I may have become annoyed, but I found them ridiculous.The article that I wrote, with all of the citations added as requested, can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266713530&oldid=266577085#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
Their lies continued
They tried to give the false impression that a common condition is a rare disease????
By way of introduction J.M.Da Costa first observed a set of symptoms amongst soldiers during the American Civil War, and then entered general practice where he noticed that the same problem was common among civilians. By 1920 that was common knowledge amongst the researchers, and eventually there were estimates that it affected from 2-15% of the population. However, in 1987 Harvard professor Oglesby Paul reviewed the history of the condition, and concluded that it was still common and effected between 2-4% of the population, which equates with 2-4 in 100, or 4 to 8 million people in the U.S. alone, in today’s terms. My two critics obviously didn’t want the readers to know that so they invented a reason for deleting the statistic, and to add to their misleading deception they included a reference to a website called “NORD National Organization for Rare Disorders” which had a search box on it’s “Rare Disease Database”, which mentioned Da Costa’s syndrome as a synonym of neurasthenia. Nevertheless, according to that site a rare disease is one which effects fewer than 200,000 people in the United States, which is the equivalent of 1 in 1000 or 0.1%, so Da Costa’s syndrome should not be on it.
See the first paragraph of Oglesby Pauls actual paper which describes the conditon as “widely recognised” and “common” here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277260/?page=1
and the misleading reference number 4, provided by my main critic, to the Rare Diseases Data Base here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750#References
The definition of a rare disease on that data base can be seen here http://www.rarediseases.org/info/about.html
At 4:59 on 11 Aughust 2010 WhatamIdoing edited a paragraph which contained the following information . . . The European Commission on Public Health defines rare diseases as those of such “low prevalence” that generally means 1 in 2000 – or 0.05% See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rare_disease&diff=prev&oldid=378308921
More of their lies
In 1951 Paul Dudley White was the world authority on the topic of Da Costa’s syndrome which he preferred to call neurocirculatory asthenia. He described it as a type of fatigue syndrome which was more or less chronic. He was obviously saying that it was a type of ‘chronic fatigue syndrome‘. My two critics argued relentlessly that it wasn’t, because it did not fit the exact description provided by their favorite modern researcher or organisation. However, it is still an easily diagnosed condition, and, as it is still common, it is a major type of CFS, regardless of what anyone calls it.
It is generally said that the modern chronic fatigue syndrome was first defined in the 1980’s (although the term was used before then), and that there is no scientific evidence of a physical cause. When my main critic deleted the information which shows that CFS is essentially the same as Da Costa’s syndrome they were interfering with the ability of readers to trace the history of the ailment back along that line of research and find that the physical basis of the condition has been known since the 1920’s, and has been scientifically proven since the 1950’s, and that there is a lot of other scienific evidence available for those who look.
My main critic wrote so many manipulative lies when discussing Da Costa’s syndrome and CFS that it would be impossible to cover them all in one paragraph, so I have provided a fuller description of their elaborately devious arguements here
If you look at the article that they provided, it mentions several labels, and the chronic fatigue syndrome, and appears to be reasonable, but you won’t notice that some of it is the same text that I wrote, but important and relevant information has been deleted, and you won’t know the reason. Their version can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750
This is one of the many ridiculous lies that my main critic told . . . “we keep telling you things about basic Wikipedia conventions, and you don’t seem to grasp them. For example, the mere fact that some editor lists CFS under ==See also== (formerly titled “Related articles“) on the Da Costa’s page does not make these condition the same. It doesn’t even make them actually related . . . The sources you use to “prove” that DCS and CFS are the same disorder are unbelievably weak”. signed WhatamIdoing 01:23, 11 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
(note that I wasn’t trying to ‘prove’ anything but was simply providing information from a book by a world authority on the topic).
This is what the same critic told another editor four months after I was banned . . . “Some people think that Da Costa’s was one of the original (19th century) descriptions of what we now call CFS. . . Some fraction of the 19th century and early 20th century cases very probably were the dominant form of modern CFS . . . I therefore think it quite reasonable to include it in the general category of CFS-related articles on Wikipedia.” signed WhatamIdoing 02:17, 22 May 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=prev&oldid=291530590
Notice that in January my main critic was trying to give the impression that I was a fool for mentioning that DCS and CFS were related, and yet four months later, was acting like a pompous autority on the subject who was graciously giving another editor permission to say exactly the same thing.
Another one of their Lies
I provided Wikipedia with an essay for the topic of Da Costa’s syndrome which included a section that included these words . . .
“Physiological Abnormalities related to exertion . . . Da Costa’s patients have a poor aerobic capacity or low level of fitness which is not related to the lack of exercise[1], and they have breathing patterns and other symptoms which are not the normal response to effort[32][4][3][12][5]. They have poor diaphragm movement and reduced chest expansion at rest[29][12], and during exercise training such as walking, jogging, or running “they have an easily induced oxygen debt”[4], their breathing become disproportionately shallow, oxygen consumption is lower, and blood lactate levels are higher than normal[32][36], in some cases more than double[14], and as the intensity and duration of the exercise increases the physiological abnormalities increase[14]. There is also an abnormal pooling of blood in the abdominal and peripheral veins[23][16][38], and a slow return of pulse rate to normal after exertion[33].”
They deleted most of the essay, including that section, and left these misleading words in the opening sentence . . . “Da Costa’s syndrome, which was colloquially known as soldier’s heart, is a syndrome with a set of symptoms that are similar to those of heart disease, though a physical examination does not reveal any physiological abnormalities.”
As you can see, my two critics had to remove all of that secton because it made their opening sentence look ridiculous. The statements that I made were verifiable by 17 numbered links to top quality references which included research papers or books by Sir James MacKenzie who was knighted for his contributions to medicine, Sir Thomas Lewis who was knighted for his research on that condition, Paul Wood who was Britain’s top authority on the subject, and Paul Dudley White who was the top authority in the U.S.
See that section here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266514750&oldid=266506092#Physiological_
Abnormalities_related_to_exertion
and their opening sentence by scrolling down the page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=26651475
See the references here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266514750&oldid=266506092#References
See another relevant section here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266514750&oldid=266506092#General_Physical_Characteristics
(Note: The statement that “physical examination does not reveal any physiological abnormalities'” is misleading because simply looking at the patient won’t reveal abnormalities in the blood. At the very least, blood tests are required.)
One of the sets of Lies that my two critics told to get me banned
In 1976 I was looking for some information about a medical condition called Da Costa’s syndrome so I went to the medical section of the library at the University of Adelaide. I soon found the latest edition of a research journal called ‘Cirlculation’ which included an article called ‘Where are the Diseases of Yesteryear.’ The subtitle included the words ‘Da Costa’s syndrome’ and ‘Mitral valve prolapse syndrome’ (which is sometimes abbreviated as MVP), and the entire article was less than two and a half pages long, and a photocopy of it is still in my filing cabinet.
More than thirty years later, on December 9, 2007, I saw an article about Da Costa’s syndrome in Wikipedia which had only four lines of text and an invitation to improve it, so I started. Within a few days, at 5:34 on 20 December, another editor named Gordonofcatoon made a change to his own User page where he described his reasons for joining Wikipedia, and his objectives, (he “rejoined under fresh name to concentrate on art topics, which are under-represented in Wikipedia” and ‘dabbles’ in other topics), and there was a section at the end called his “to do list” which had three entries where he added the words “Diseases of Yesteryear’ . I recognised it immediately, and by clicking on the link that he provided I could see it on my computer screen within a few seconds and read it in five minutes. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gordonofcartoon&diff=next&oldid=177181935
It was not long before that person teamed up with another editor who had the peculiar name of ‘WhatamIdoing’ and began criticising and deleting every word I wrote, and telling lies and trying to disrupt or block my contributions or get me banned.
They were still teaming up against me almost continuously for more than six months, and then twelve months later when the following typical series of discussions occurred in order to get me banned.
At 20:35 on 29 July 2008 WhatamIdoing wrote the following words addressed to me. . . “Now can you find a WP:MEDRS-compliant source that says that in the last half century, and has excluded those misdiagnosed “DCS” patients that actually have mitral valve prolapse? (WP:MEDRS strongly prefers sources that were published in the last five years, so please don’t feel like I’m being picky by asking for something published in the last fifty years.)” WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 29 July 2008
At 4:24 on 30 July 2008 I replied . . . “I am familiar with Charles Wooley’s 1976 essay Diseases of Yesteryear, which discusses the Mitral Valve Prolapse aspect, and have my own copy of it, and it has a University of Adelaide date stamp for July 1976, only two months after it was published in the U.S.), and it has also been on Gordonofcartoon’s talk page here [30] at the end of his to do list for 6 months, and I have previously asked him to comment on it, but he hasn’t.” Posturewriter 04:24, 30 July 2008
At 6:44 on 30 July 2008 WhatamIdoing wrote . . . “No editor is under obligation to comment on a study just because you ask him to“. WhatamIdoing 06:44, 30 July 2008 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#The_Physical_and_Physiological_Evidence_for_the_Symptoms (note that WhatamIdoing was telling me that Gordonofcartoon did not have to respond to my request for him to review a paper about MVP, but at the same time was telling other editors that I was being deliberately negligent for not reviewing papers on that subject.????? M.B.)
I later produced an essay for Da Costa’s syndrome and posted it onto a Wikipedia subpage with some comments about MPV and soon after that I began co-operating with a neutral editor named Avnjay to make it ‘neutral’ and comply with ALL other policies. WhatamIdoing ‘cut and pasted’ a ‘copy’ of it and put it on a ‘personal’ ‘sandbox’ page, and then included some comments about the 1976 paragraph as part of 80 criticisms that were aimed at convincing him that everything was wrong with it. My essay included these words . . . “In 1976 Charles Wooley presented an article in Circulation entitled ‘Where are the diseases of Yesteryear, in which Da Costa’s syndrome was the topic which he described as having similar signs and symptoms to those seen in the emerging field of study called the mitral valve prolapse syndrome.[16]”.
At 21:21 on 5 October 2008 WhatamIdoing wrote this about at the top of the 1950-1999 section . . . “Why does this section essentially ignore the single most important development in the mid-century, which was the ability to separate out mitral valve prolapse from other “DCS” patients”? WhatamIdoing 21:21 5 Oct 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880#1950-1999
Again, on an RFC page, at 17:27 on 6 October WhatamIdoing wrote the following words addressed to a group of editors. . . “And he’s chosen the 1950s with care, because mitral valve prolapse was finally figured out in the 1960s.”WhatamIdoing 17:27, 6 October 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:Requests_
for_comment.2FPosturewriter
At 19:14 on 26 January 2009 WhatamIdoing wrote these criticisms of that essay . . . ” Do we need three entire paragraphs on a medical textbook from 1951? (Note that a 1950s textbook has been selected because Mitral valve prolapse wasn’t identified until the next decade.) WhatamIdoing 19:14, 26 January 2009 (note that WhatamIdoing was telling lies by inventing the idea that I was using a 1951 book ‘because’ Mitral valve prolapse wasn’t identified until the next decade’. I actually used it because it was written by Harvard professor Paul Dudley White who was a world authority on that topic. I also used 65 other references, and about 30 of them were from 1950-2009 M.B.)
At 9:04 on 27 January 2009 I wrote these words on the Da Costa’s talk page to explain my reasons for transferring my essay to the topic page . . . “I have replaced the existing page a text that has been described by NPOV Avnjay as “a lot better and far more detailed than the one that is currently up and I can’t find anything which is COI, unsourced (97 different sources quoted!!), or biased” here[40]” Posturewriter 09:04, 27 January 2009 (see the page that I added here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266713530&oldid=266577085#1950-1979
At 9:04 on 27 January 2009 I wrote . . . “WhatamIdoing; regarding your continuing suggestion that I am ignoring MVP, I have added a paragraph and 6 references on it, four from Charles Wooley up until 2004 here[41], whose 1976 paper here[42] has been on User:Gordonofcartoon’s User page for 12 months, since 20-12-07 here[43] without being discussed by him despite me asking him and you to review it. Note that it has Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome as a synonym in the title” Posturewriter 09:04, 27 January 2009
At 9:28 on 27 January 2009 Gordonofcartoon gave this reply . . . “Wikipedia:Assume good faith. I noted it there to read, and haven’t yet got around to it. I can’t read everything and can’t attend to everything, especially amid the general excess of verbiage. Unlike you, I am not interested in this sole topic, and can’t be expected to notice every single detail of it (particularly given your failure to follow the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines to be concise and keep discussion focused). Gordonofcartoon 09:28, 27 January 2009 (note that Gordonofcartoon had found the time to read and relentlessly criticise every detail that I wrote for 12 months but was expecting me and other editors to have good faith in him and believe his obvious lie that he couldn’t get around to spending five minutes reading a two and a half page research paper??? that he had added a link to on his own Userpage ‘to do’ list here, and that was instantly available on the internet. M.B.) see that article by downloading it from here http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/53/5/749
At 10:08 on 27 January 2009. I gave this response . . . “Gordonofcartoon if you haven’t been able to read something about Da Costa’s syndrome that has been on your “to do” list for more than 12 months then you shouldn’t be editing the page, and you definitely should not be criticising my 60 references.
Also note that WhatamIdoings qualifications are self-described here[44] in particular WhatamIdoing is not a healthcare professional and has no plans to become one” . . . and is “typically useless in cardiology” and “can contribute at a very basic level, such as copy editing or reviewing sources” Posturewriter 10:08 27 January 2008. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=247115577&oldid=247067496
Confirmation that Gordonofcartoons excuse and general behaviour are not acceptable in Wikipedia can be seen with the following example of what not to say, from the policy page called WP:OWN . . . “I haven’t had time to confirm what you wrote. I have other obligations besides wikipedia, you know.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles&diff=359170450&oldid=359170040#Examples_of_ownership_behavior
In fact they violated most of the behavioural guidelines in that section of the policy.
At 18:27 on 27 January 2009, my two critics got their way reagardless, as can be seen in the words that WhatamIdoing wrote on that day. . . “Posturewriter has been blocked for COI violations and edit warring. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 27 January 2009
At 15:45 on 28 January 2009 a non-medical administrator named Moreshci wrote . . . “Posturewriter is banned. Apologies for not getting round to this sooner. Moreschi 15:45, 28 January 2009 See those discussions from January 27-29 in 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Da_Costa_Article_page_text_replaced_with_the_text_from_the
_Posturewriter.2FDaCostaDraft
Their motives for telling those lies
My two critics deleted all information about my Posture Theory within the first month of me including it on the Wikipedia page about Da Costa’s syndrome, and then they relentlessly continued to spend the next 12 months trying to convince all of the other editors that it was worthless nonsense and crap. They obviously didn’t want to add any information that supported that theory, which included the two and a half page research paper on the ‘to do list’ at the end of Gordonofcartoons own User page. It takes only five minutes to read, and at the top of page two it states . . . “in some cases the chest is long and narrow and associated with a kyphotic curve”. – The word ‘kyphotic’ means hunchbacked or slouched, so it is excellent verification of the relevance of the Posture theory, and for the physique related information that I added to the topic.
They also spent much of their time trying to convince the other editors that my research for a modified exercise programme was non-notable nonsense and rubbish. However, If you have a look at the second paragraph on the first page it states that the symptoms were ‘most readily excited by exertion‘, and could then be so violent ‘that the patient would fall to the ground insensible’, and the author reported the findings of a previous researcher named Lewis who wrote. . . ‘it is because these symptoms and signs are largely, in some case wholly the exaggerated physiological response to exercise . . . that I term the whole ‘the effort syndrome.’ As you can see, that evidence is excellent verification of the relevance and appropriatelness of my modified, and reduced level, and graduated exercise research.
My two critics also provided an alternative version of the Da Costa’s page in which they gave the misleading statement that there was no physical evidence of physiological abnormalities’, however, on page one of the 1976 research article the author reported this about Lewis . . . ‘He discussed the breathlessness, noted that vital capacity to be only a little below normal, and suspected an alteration in the character of the blood (acidosis as produced by CO2 or lactic acid) as a causative factor‘ – end of quote. You can see how that information contradicts and therefore discredits the opinion of my two critics.
They also tried to convince all of the other editors that the most important alternative label for Da Costa’s syndrome was “Soldier Heart’, so they mentioned it on the top line, and the second line, and referred to post-war syndromes soon after that, and even mentioned cowardice in the notes to one of their references, in order to promote their ‘opinion’ that the ailment was an anxiety disorder cause by the fear of battle. However, here are some quotes from the top of the second page of the 1976 research paper . . . ‘Most of the soldier’s came from sedentary occupations and a large percentage of the patients was affected by the condition in civil life many years before joining the Army‘, and later down the page wrote ‘the syndrome is not peculiarly . . . a soldiers (sic) malady, or an athletes (sci) malady. It is one of the commonest chronic affections of sedetary town dwellers . . . and was commoner in women‘.
As you can clearly and unambiguously see Gordonofcartoon had plenty of time to write thousands of words of criticism for 12 months, and was telling obvious lies when he argued that he did not have the time to spend looking at a two and a half page research paper which took only five minutes to read.
His real motive was that he did not want to use a reference that made my theory and research look relevant and reliable, and which made his preferred version of the Wikipedia article look extremely biased and ridiculous.
Many months after I was banned Gordonofcartoon stealthily removed that research paper from the ‘to do list’ at the end of his User page, and obviously hopes that no-one would notice that is had previously been there, or why he never used it as a reference, or why he deleted it.
Gordonofcartoon added a link to a 1976 research paper called ‘Where are the Diseases of Yesteryear’ at the end of his own Userpage, on his ‘to do list’, here, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gordonofcartoon&diff=next&oldid177181935
and that it was instantly available on the internet. You can read that article by downloading it from here http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/53/5/749.
You can also see his ridiculous excuse about not having time to read it by scrolling down to the relevant date here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Da_Costa_Article_page_text_replaced_with_the
_text_from_the_Posturewriter.2FDaCostaDraft
and their version of the Da Costa’s article by scrolling down here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266506092&oldid=266482273
and the notes at the end of reference number 13 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266506092&oldid=266482273#References
For their relentless attempts at giving undue weight to the label of Soldier’s Heart see a fuller descritption by scrolling down to view several windows of evidence here
The version of the article that my two critics used as a replacement
The editor named WhatamIdoing had previously been arguing relentlessly with words like this . . . “Why does this section essentially ignore the single most important development in the mid-century, which was the ability to separate out mitral valve prolapse from other “DCS” patients”? WhatamIdoing 21:21 5 Oct 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880#1950-1999
However when that same editor deleted my whole essay they replaced it with their preferred version. In that process they deleted two paragraphs of information about the 1976 paper, and six of my references about MVP, and replaced it with only one sentence which mentioned it. See the edit where that editor made a change at 18:12 on January 27 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214
The entire sentence in their version was this . . . “The orthostatic intolerance observed by Da Costa has since also been found in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and mitral valve prolapse syndrome.[11]” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim/604715
You will also notice that I used that same reference as number 44 on my list, on the page that they deleted here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266713530&oldid=266577085#References
If you click on that link you will see that it is a part of the OMIM website (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man), and the topic page is MIM #604715 “Orthostatic Intolerance”. You won’t notice that the text has changed over the past two years, but currently, as of 1-May 2010, it confirms everything I said about the history of Da Costa’s syndrome (J.M.Da Costa’s name was mentioned), and pooling of blood in the abdominal and leg veins, (which is now called ‘orthostatic intolerance’), and MVP, and the fact that some people are born with it (it can be genetic), and is most common in women, and is similar to ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’. It is a modern reference which confirms everything that I was saying. However, when I wrote exactly the same thing my two critics said that I was writing rubbish and crap and that my references were unreliable.
A year later at 19:25 on 10 January 2010 the sentence on the Da Costa’s page about orthostatic intolerance had one minor change, but nothing additional about MVP and I quote from it . . . “The orthostatic intolerance observed by Da Costa has since also been found in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) [11]. and mitral valve prolapse syndrome.[12” (end of quote), and that page can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=337045882&oldid=337045468
Note that in the fifteen months since I was banned only minor edits have been made to the page, and in particular, nothing at all has been added by my two critics, and nothing has been added to the topic of MVP. That page as at 19:25 on 10 January 2010 can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=337045882&oldid=337045468#Diagnosis.
TEAM LIAR LIAR
A typical example of the way my two critics argued is where I would provide evidence that they had violated a policy, and they would spin it 180 degrees and make it look as if I had done something seriously wrong.
For example, I would provide proof that they had told lies about me, and they would accuse me of making a personal attack on them, and then give me pompous instructions about how most important it was that I assume good faith in them?
In fact, Wikipedia has a policy called “Assume Good Faith” which is abbreviated as WP:AGF, and another policy called “No Personal Attacks” WP:AGF, so they would set up a discussion page about me, and accuse me of violating those two policies and a dozen others??? that would go something like this . . . Posturewriter has violated WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:TE, WP:DE, WP:Civil etc. There are other pages such as “WP:The Truth”, where the truth doesn’t matter, and WP:IAR where the rules can be ignored, and my two critics exploited all of them.
This is an extract from one discussion . . . “Gordonofcartoon; Please stop telling lies. You were fully aware of the subpage suggestion by Avnjay in the seventh paragraph here[37] and another recommendation by SmokeyJoe at 11:18 on 8-8-08 who wrote “If you want to create a userspace version of an article (such as Da Costa’s syndrome), get it perfected, and then seek to replace the existing article, then go for it” here[38]. and you did comment on it at 16:30 on the same day when you wrote “No. I’m fed up with this” here[39]Posturewriter 07:21, 26 January 2009
This was his reply . . . Please assume good faith. I had no recollection of any general invitation, and certainly wouldn’t have supported the idea unless it were a generally open draft (not a private sandbox only open to you and friendly editors). I don’t read everything – especially with disputes spread over multiple pages – and by that time it looks as if my attention was drifting with the deluge of obfuscation. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 18:34, 26 January
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Da_Costa_Article_page_text_replaced_with_
the_text_from_the_Posturewriter.2FDaCostaDraft 9
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Applicable_policies_and_guidelines
In that example Gordonofcartoon was complaining about not being able to read all of the discussions spread over multiple pages, which sounds reasonable until you know that he was the person who started most of them, and I just went there to defend myself.
This is what my other critic wrote . . . “Posturewriter has been blocked for COI violations and editwarring . . . I’ve reverted to the previous version. I note that Posturewriter declined to remove the unreliable source after being informed that (despite his arguments) every editor at RSN opposed the use of a personal webpage in this article” WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 27 January 2009.
That also sounds reasonable until you know all of the facts. For example, I provided 61 top quality referneces, and my second critic had been incessantly complaining to other editors about one of them, and, the decision to ban me was made by one editor, and, my second critic gave him an “outlaw halo award’ for being the only individual to do it by ‘ignoring all the rules’ WP:IAR. See here and here and here
Leopards don’t change their spots
Note that I pride myself on my ability to win arguments by using superior facts and evidence, but it relies on other people having the ability to recognise the truth!!!
By contrast my two critics seem to take pride in their ability to tell lies and fool other people. I have provided evidence and proof that they have told lies about me, the references, and the topic of Da Costa’s syndrome, and they have set up discussion page after discussion page, and told lies to the other editors, administrators, and readers of Wikipedia. They can’t fool me because I know the facts, but they may or may not be able to fool others. They may even have convinced some people that their motives for telling lies were honorable, or somehow justifiable. However, I can say for certain that if they were honest they should have tried to win their disputes against me by telling the truth, one way or another, but they couldn’t, which is something that you need to think about – Why did they tell so many blatant lies, and if they told so many lies, why would you believe anything that they wrote about anything, and do you think that they were telling lies about me, but would suddenly change their ways if they got into a dispute with you?????? Here is a friendly tip – Figure that out for yourself.
Another one of the many lies that my two critics told to get me banned
I provided Wikipedia with 61 top quality references about Da Costa’s syndrome, one of which was J.M.Da Costa’s original study of 300 soldiers published in 1871. I also referred to Sir James MacKenzie who studied 200 cases and reported his findings to a meeting in 1916, where other researchers had completed similar studies and agreed with his conclusions. Another reference was Edmund Wheelers 20 year follow -up study of 173 patients that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1950, and I included several other reviews and follow-up studies.
My two critics kept the first two references but deleted or reverted most of the information from the topic section, and then told the arbitration editors this . . .
“other editors explain that Wikipedia relies on properly published materials — assuming in good faith, that he’s trying to find useful information, and that we don’t need to spell out every single possible characteristic of a good source over one mistake. So he then cites, say, a case study involving a single patient, to make sweeping statements about the condition. No, we say: major statements like that need to be supported by a secondary source. So he chooses a properly published secondary source — but from nearly a century ago, and which is known to disagree entirely with current scientific consensus. No, we say: it needs to be a properly published, secondary source that is reasonably current. The goalposts haven’t moved during this time: I just didn’t post complete explanations of all of the relevant standards in the first message. I also didn’t tell him not to shove beans up his nose, and I doubtless excluded other important instructions in my first message.” signed WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009
As you can see, that editor was not only telling lies about my references, but was being extremely ridiculous in the process. There were so many lies in that one extract that you will need to read my other summaries to identify all of them. For example, the Wikipedia sourcing policy specifically allows for older references to be used when writing the history section of a subject.
See my list of 61 references here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266514750&oldid=266506092#References
See the policy about the use of older references for history sections here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources_(medicine-related_articles)&diff=265781494&oldid=
265776969#Use_up-to-date_evidence
See the lies about my references here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
They kept telling lies until I was banned: here is another example
When I wrote the history of Da Costa’s syndrome I mentioned that there had been many heated arguments about it’s cause, and provided the relevant references, and added more than 10 good quality medical articles which used at least four or five different labels in their introduction. To further illustrate the differences of opinion, I decided to use a medical consumers web page as a reference because it had a list of 80. However, one my two critics obviously didn’t want readers to know that so they told lies which they used as their excuse to delete that information. The information that they deleted included the following words with links to numbered references . . .
“Alternative names for Da Costa’s syndrom: The name of Da Costa’s syndrome has changed so often from one specialist[3][14][36], or from one country[35][43][10], or one year to another[14][43][10] that it has created confusion in the study and diagnosis of the condition,[34] as is evident from many research articles which mention four or five in their introduction,[29][32][14][4][33][36][34][58][56][2][44][10] [9] and from a recent website which lists what it claims are more than eighty synonyms.[15]”
The following sentence includes the lie that they told on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to give the false impression that I had only used that one reference . . .
“Posturewriter, this source does not meet Wikipedia’s standards. All sources must meet the requirements of the basic policy. This one does not. If you can provide a reliable source that includes this information, then the information may be included. But this source itself may not. WhatamIdoing 18:26, 27 January 2009
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_27#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
See also the first section here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266273949&oldid=262846727#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266273949&oldid=262846727#Alternative_
names_for_Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_syndrome
and the references can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=
266273949&oldid=262846727#References
My two critics should be permanently banned for telling lies
I want the owners and administrators of Wikipedia to permanently ban my two critics for violating the Wikipedia Civility policy which gives the following examples of unacceptable behaviour . . .
“1. Direct rudeness
(a) Rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross profanity;
(b) personal attacks, including derogatory references to groups;
(c) ill-considered accusations of impropriety;
(d) belittling a fellow editor, including the use of judgmental edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. “snipped rambling crap”, “that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen”);
2. Other uncivil behaviors
(a) Taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility;
(b) harassment, including Wikihounding, personal threats, posting of personal information, user space postings;
(c) lying to mislead, including deliberately asserting false information;
(d) quoting another editor out of context to give the impression they hold views they do not hold, or to malign them.”
Those words are extracts from the ‘Wikipedia:Civility policy at 4:16 on 1 May 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility#Identifying_incivility
A final note
As you can see, my two critics told lies at any time, to suit any purpose, but particularly to win disputes, so they don’t have the credibility to lecture others on the importance of honesty. However, one of them made the following comments . . .
“The recent changes to WP:PAYWALL are encouraging people to include sources that they have not actually used. IMO this is borderline dishonest: editors need to cite their real sources, not “pretend” sources that they found later.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a bibliography or cheat-sheet for college students who aren’t allowed to cite Wikipedia on their papers. We need to name the actual sources that we actually used. If the fact is easily verifiable through other sources, then that’s great — but our readers are smart enough to ask their favorite web search engines for alternative sources; we don’t need to spoonfeed them”. WhatamIdoing 20:39, 20 August 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=380023542
Note that if other editors are as dishonest as my two critics it is no wonder that college students aren’t allowed to cite it. First of all, a student should be taught to think for themselves, and do their own research, rather than believe everything that any one source states without checking it.
Secondly, Wikipedia does not need to spoonfeed readers but it should give priority to providing information that is readily accessible, rather than linking to journal articles that people have to pay to read.
My two critics should also take their own advice, and not link to anything until they have read past the title of children’s books, or the first paragraph of research papers.
A silly Question?
This was a question asked by an editor named WhatamIdoing . . . “I’m also not sure why you are bothering to leave messages for me here” signed WhatamIdoing, 6:55 on 2nd January 2009
This was my reply about four hours later . . . “because I found this section on your talk page with the title of “Requests for comment/Posturewriter” signed Posturewiter, 11:34 on 2nd January
A lot of WhatamIdoing’s questions were meant to be deliberately stupid and annoying, such as (in paraphrase) . . . ‘Why does Posturewriter want to leave comments on a discussion called Request for Comment/ Posturewriter? . . .
or . . . “Why does Posturewritere want to come here and defend himself from 1500 words of hostile insults and criticism????? . . . Answer????? Maybe I just thought it was a good idea at the time?
Here is another silly question: There is an editor in Wikipedia who has chosen the name “WhatamIdoing”??? For the answer see here
The WP:OWN policy (the control and ownership of articles in Wikipedia)
There is a policy in Wikipedia that advises contributors that it is a collaborative project where everyone can contribute to making good articles, and that anything you add can be edited and changed by other editors. You should not have the attitude that you own the article, and that no-one can alter it without your approval. If you wish to do that you should submit your article elsewhere.
I have had many articles published in a wide variety of sources (more than 100), so I thought it was a good idea to be able to discuss things and produce a better article than I could write myself, and when I first started on the Da Costa page I was quite pleased with the co-operation I was getting, and it was actually making the article much better than I could do on my own.
Unfortunately two arrogant and self-opinionated editors came along and made it perfectly clear that anything that was put on the page would have to meet with their approval, and if it didn’t it would be immediately or soon deleted.
In any discussions one of them would say “do we think this”, and the other would typically reply “yup” then “we” “all” agree then”, and they would nitter and natter like that as if I wasn’t there, or as if my opinion didn’t matter.
When I gave them the opportunity to contribute to the modern section of the history they told the other editors that I was deliberately avoiding modern references because they discredited the older ones. They would then delete my references without adding modern ones, and then they would link to a childrens novel and a few websites with a paragraph of information and tell me that their contributions met all of the policy requirements. They would even use some of the older references that I provided, and add some from their own choice, but never criticise themselves for using ‘old’ references.
When I tried to get co-operation by discussing issues of content and policy with neutral editors, the same two critics would typically barge in on the discussion and interrupt it by saying such things as . . . ‘NO! we are fed up with this, nobody is interested in your opinion’. Also, when I found neutral editors who were willing to co-operate with me they told them that I was ‘not a valuable editor’, or that my references were ‘not reliable’ because they were ‘old’ and not ‘modern’, and they would relentlessly insult me until the editors who supported me were banned, or gave up, or turned against me.
They acted as if they owned Wikipedia, and owned all of the policies, and owned the article, and owned the other editors and administrators, and anyone who challenged them would meet with the same relentless criticism, and anyone who agreed with them would be rewarded with a barnstar.
If you have a look at the article that I wrote, it actually contains some information and references that were provided by other editors, but most of it was written by me. That is not because I was unwilling to co-operate with other editors, but because my two critics absolutely refused to co-operate with me, and made it impossible for me to co-operate with anyone else.
For an accurate description of their tactics see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&diff=prev&oldid=352474419
For information that describes the type of behaviur that is not acceptable in Wikipedia you can have a look at the article called WP:OWN. It describes the genreal attitude and editing behaviour of my two critics quite accurately. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles&diff=359170450&oldid=359170040#Examples_of_ownership_behavior
The ID of WhatamIdoing is a question – That editor is trying to takeover Wikipedia by stealth
Both of my critics were trying to exert control of information in Wikipedia by using various dirty tricks about policy. The most obvious now, is how they were telling me to abide by policies or essays as if they were rules carved in stone, while at the same time ‘ignoring all the rules’ themselves with WP:IAR as their excuse.
However, they were also going to policy discussion pages and making suggestions about changes. For example, they tag-teamed to get loopholes put into the policy about tag-teams.
Also, Gordonofcartoon wrote a brand new page called “Only Martians should edit” and that same individual has made a total of 13 edits between 18th December 2009 and 26th Ariil 2010. Nobody else has bothered to edit it, or participate in any discussions about it, so it really is “just one guys essay”, and yet, during that period Gordonofcartoon has misrepresented it as a source of supposedly ‘independent’ policy advice for another editor.
See the history of edits for that page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Only_Martians_should_edit&action=history
A more ‘interesting’ observation is that the other critic is masquerading as an ordinary volunteer who has no ambitions for being promoted to ‘administrator’, while actually doing as much as possible to control and manipulate all of the other editors and administrators. For example, the most important essay in Wikipedia would probably be, by majority consensus, “Wikipedia:Five pillars”, which describes the five main principles upon which the encyclopedia has been built. It has been around for many years and thousands of editors have seen it and discussed it. However my main critic has been ridiculing it by describing it as being ‘just one guys essay’ that is no more important than any other ‘simple’ essay, which has no more value than ‘a grain of salt’.
There is no mention of the fact that there is another page called “The difference between policies, guidelines and essays” which was just a small item until very recently when WhatamIdoing made one massive change that tripled it’s size and made it look like an important essay that has been gradually constructed over many years by thousands of independent contributors.
It essentially is just that ‘one’ editors essay, and is full of loopholes, and that ‘one’ editor would like to get the WP:Five pillars essay deleted so that the new ‘one’ persons edit became the main essay controlling all other policies, interpretations, and editors.
My main critic wants everyone to change the fundamental principles of Wikipedia
(which would also mean changing the welcome pages and the introduction pages that have been in Wikipedia for many years)
If you join Wikipedia and look for information about how to contribute in a constructive and collaborative way you will most likely find the pages that welcome you, and provide you with links to an introduction, and more links to pages that give more details that are relevant to your questions. However my main critic, who ignores all the rules, has recently been trying to change the basic principles.
The following quotes are from a Welcoming page, and introduction pages 1 and 2, the five pillars and the Wikipedia help page for WP:P followed by my main critics typical attitude toward Wikipedia’s rules and principles.
Welcome to Wikipedia . . . Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia – “Our Rules” 1. Five pillars (a summary of our fundamental principles) 2. Policies and guidelines – Help page/Overview 3. List of policies 4. List of guidelines
Be sure to read the above pages! they are very important, and they will help you — even if you’re not perfect the first second tenth seventeenth 32nd time!
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee/Welcome_to_Wikipedia&diff=378873724&oldid=371444292
Wikipedia:Introduction . . . “What is Wikipedia? . . . For a more detailed account of the project, see About Wikipedia”.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Introduction&diff=379386519&oldid=379343751
Wikipedia:About . . . “The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates are the Five pillars”.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:About&diff=388039872&oldid=387451206
Wikipedia:Introduction 2 . . . “Find out more . . . Discover the Five pillars that define Wikipedia’s character”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Introduction_2&diff=18218229&oldid=18217860
Wikipedia Help:Five pillars . . . “The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates have been summarized by editors in the form of five “pillars . . . In fact if one had to build Wikipedia again, they would be the only page one would need to seed the whole project!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Five_pillars&diff=prev&oldid=343568641
Wikipedia:Five pillars . . . “The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates have been summarized by editors in the form of five” pillars”.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Five_pillars&diff=prev&oldid=387339266
My main critics argument that the “Five pillars” is just one persons view
The following words are typical of what my main critic has been arguing about recently, as of 22:09 on 1-10-10.They are a response to an editor named Gigs, at the end of a multi-editor discussion . . .
“Gigs, this page was basically written by one editor (User:Neutrality, self-identifying as the author in 2008) as a means of expressing his own view and ideally helping new editors connect the dots. The fact that you are holding it up as “our fundamental principles” is a simple example of the practical problem. This page was written four years after Wikipedia was launched, so it’s “not really foundational”, and these principles aren’t the “unchangeable pillars” that the original author said they were. This page is no better/more important/morevaluable/less essay-like, than any of the other pages about our principles including the essay-tagged pages that it was derived from. From the very beginning, editors have been saying, right here on this page, that this page is “just description”, “not policy” and “not meant to be. It’s like Wikipedia:Introduction”, a “simple, general introduction”. A trip through the archives shows a remarkable number of explanations about why this isn’t a policy, or a guideline, or anything else. That we’re still having to explain this, after all of these years, indicates that we’ve got a communication problem — and one that IMO could largely be solved by listing the page in Category:Wikipedia essays.” WhatamIdoing 22:08, 1 October 2010
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Five_pillars&diff=prev&oldid=388174333#This_page_is_an_essay
My comment: Several million people joined Wikipedia and began adding information to it because they agreed with the fundamental principles upon which is was claimed to be based upon. That editor certainly does have a communication problem, and it relates to the failure to understand the difference between fundamental principles and the policies that are derived from them.
If that editor doesn’t like the principles of Wikipedia then the thing to do is to go somewhere which has a different set of principles, and not mess around by trying to ignore, misinterpret, or change Wikipedia’s fundamentals.
In fact that editor should set up their own encyclopedia with a different set of basic principles, and anyone who agrees with those fundamentals can go there. I could make some suggestions about that individuals choice of new principles but I would rather refrain from sarcasm.
(My main critic typically chooses wording to create false impressions. For example, in the argument above that editor has tried to trivialise the “five pillars” by implying that it was first written by one person in 2008 – only two years ago, when in fact, it first appeared at 4:45 on 4-5-2005 – five years ago, and has been the first advice that all new contributors have been told by consensus of all members of the welcoming committee, and in the introduction etc. The misreprentation of facts is a good example of my main critics deliberately devious, calculatng, and offensively deceitful pattern of behaviour)
See the first 2005 edit of the Five pillars page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Five_pillars&diff=prev&oldid=13207659
See how my main critic ignores all the rules of Wikipedia here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#anchor297379
User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles
Here is another quote from the Statement of principles which was written by the founder Jimbo Wales, and that my main critic treats with utter contempt
“8. Diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness. Both are objectively valuable moral principles.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of_principles
Verifiable evidence of my main critics prolific lies can be seen here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#liestheytold
How my two critics faked consensus
by creating the illusion that there were large numbers of editors against me – i.e. the illusion of numbers
The following quote comes from the Wikipedia policy on consensus when my main critic made minor change to it eighteen months after I was banned. However, as you can see later, that is definitely not the way it was used in practice..
“Sometimes voluntary agreement of all interested editors proves impossible to achieve, and a majority decision must be taken. More than a simple numerical majority is generally required for major changes” signed WhatamIdoing 18:16, 22 July 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&diff=prev&oldid=374891498 and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&diff=prev&oldid=374891498#What_consensus_is
A 6 to 1 “majority” “is” the “justification” for consensus
An example of that editors use of a “simple majority” as justification for a consensus decision can be seen in the following word by my main critic . . . “I also think that this is forum-shopping, and WP:GAMEing the system by trying to change the policies to ‘win’ an active dispute. The RFC linked in the previous section is currently running about Crum’s passionately defended position, and Crum has been argduing with nealy every editor who posted a comment. IMO this discussion should be postponed at least until the RFC closes. WhatamIdoing 23:57, 30 July 2010
However, you can see the type of tactics that they actually use in the following example. First of all there was always only ONE of them called WhatamIdoing, and only ONE of them called Gordonofcartoon, working as A TEAM OF ONE, while PRETENDING TO BE TWO ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT PEOPLE who did not know each other, and have never collaborated before, and who would arrive at talk pages with words such as “by the way, I am as innocent as a new born lamb, and was just passing by after a brief holiday when I noticed this discussion about Posturewriter; does anyone here mind if innocent little old me adds my two cents worth” (which was usually about ten paragraphs of RABID INSULTS), and THEY WOULD SAY “WE” THINK THIS to impose the illusion that a whole group of their personal colleagues were against me, but when I asked, they would not give me their names, and they would tell the other editors that there was a CONSENSUS of many who disagreed with me, or then use words such as the COMMUNITY was losing it’s patience with me, to convey the impression that much larger numbers of editors were involved, when in fact they were the only two who were losing their tempers. They would continue to set up new discussion pages after losing each debate, and were FORUM SHOPPING for what the policy guidelines call “pack dogs” in the hope that they would collect enough of their friends along the way to eventually ban me. To make that more likely they set up pages, or archived the page with the topic being left at the top where all of their FRIENDS, or SUPPORTERS, or PEOPLE WHO SHARED THEIR SAME PREJUDICE AND BIAS would see it e.g. here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
That tactic was a form of campaigning, or canvassing for support which is a violation of various policies.
I eventually decided to defend myself against their devious methods by writing an essay about their tactics on my UserTalk page. A few months later, on the POV/Pushing page Gorodonofcartoon tried to create the false impression that HE WAS DEFENDING TWO OTHER EDITORS from criticism, which also conveys the illusion that FOUR critics were arguing against me. These were Gordonofcartoon’s words . . . “the user hasn’t been remotely civil. For six months, he has openly flouted WP:AGF and WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, with an extended userspace attack on TWO EDITORS” . . . (WHO WERE THEMSELVES, so they were trying to DOUBLE the INFLUENCE of their own argument without needing any support from anyone else at all)
When Gordonofcartoon was describing how I was banned he used these words about the arbitration editors . . . “They were cautiously moving toward accepting before the CAVALRY arrived in the form of ADMINS who were prepared to bring blocks”. Note that only one of their friends named Moreschi rushed into the page and told the other twelve editors that he was banning me on his own so their opinion wouldn’t be necessary any more. i.e. only one admin banned me, but Gordonofcartoon deliberately chose to use the word CAVALRY to create the illusion that a whole group of editors rushed in to ban me, and then added the plural word “ADMINS”here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=302592402&oldid=302555878#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome. see also an example of them using the word ‘community’ in discussion herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive469#Disruptive_editor_.2F_RFC_failing_to_resolve
Another look at the issue of numbers
I am a reasonable person with a highly developed sense of humor, and am very confident and very good at arguing, but only if and when I choose to argue, and I have common sense and believe in fair play. On many occasions in the past I have taken on whole rooms full of people in arguments for the sheer fun of it, and the topics have covered everything that is typically controversial, so it is quite ridiculous for someone whe loses an argument against me to say that I have only one interest.
When I was in Wikipedia and my contributions were criticised for not complying with policy, I wasn’t concerned because I found it easy to provide contributions that met the policy requirements. For example If I added references that they called “old” (in the history section????), then I found “modern” ones, and I had critics, of course, but there “WERE ONLY TWO OF THEM”, and they were always trying to get help, and trying to create the illusion that they were many. They were essentially trying to drag other people into their mess because if two people are wrong, and fifty people join them, then it is just as easy to beat 52 people in an argument
When they started an arbitration process to get me banned from the topic, I thought, as a person with common sense, that I would get to present my side of the story to, say?, twelve independent editors???, and that after reading their remarks I would be able to present my response and then a decision would be made???? I assumed that it would go like this – each of them would speak for themselves, and only themselves, and each of them would have one vote, and only one vote, and if, at the end of a day or so, the vote was six for and six against, I would NOT be blocked. However, if, after reading my response to their comments, the vote was two for, and ten against, then I would be blocked from the topic???? which would be perfectly
Here is what actually happened – Gordonofcartoon described me as a hostile person who was exhausting the patience of the whole “community” (actually there were only two losers, losing their patience? and they were always making hostile statements about me!!!!!), and WhatamIdoing misrepresented a lot of facts in his argument against me, and in the last paragraph wrote “we” say this or “we” told him that three times to create the illusion that a lot of people were criticisng me, when if fact there was only one named WhatamIdoiing who had previously lost most of those arguments. They were trying to inflate the situation to get other editors to come rushing in and join the attack, because of a feature of human nature where individuals who would not make decisions alone, will join in if they think that “everyone” else says something because they must be right. However, it was just two editors
They were trying to get me to argue with the whole of Wikipedia, so that other editors would be offended and come to THEIR RESCUE, but I NEVER wanted to do that, or fall into their childish ‘garden variety’ trap. However, I will mention two other editors, without wanting to bring them into this.
In fair play, each person gets one vote, and only one vote, and speaks for themselves, and only themselves. For example, on a jury, twelve people have only one vote each, and one person cannot say that he represents, or speaks on behalf of ten, or fifty, or a hundred. However, on the arbitration page another editor named Mast Cell wrote this “I’m as guilty as the other 1,600 admins who didn’t handle this sooner. I don’t know if Mast cell was just doing that thoughtlessly or deliberately, but it is the sort of exaggeration that a political lobbyist would use to whip up a frenzy of support. Regardless of that possibility, it is highly inappropriate to say something like that when less than a dozen people contributed to the Da Costa’s page, and most of them had nothing to do with the content, and when I only had two critics. Mast Cell only gets ONE vote, and only warrants the INFLUENCE of ONE person in the arbitration page and NOT 1600 unnamed and anonymous individuals who haven’t herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267262664#Comment_by_MastCell
To highlight the inappropriatenss of such inflation of influence I can recall WhatamIdoing saying that ai could not refer to Oglesby Paul as a Harvard professor, because the only thing that is important are the facts in his article. Also of course, an outsider could comment on my two critics by representing themselves as the general public and say “we the five billion . . . think you are liars”. I’m sure they <
The second issue is this. Another editor named Moreschi was involved in a secret discussion arranged by my two critics six months earlier, and when I found it and joined it, the discussion ceased, so I assumed Moreschi agreed with me, because he completely disappeared for six months and then came rushing into the arbitration page as if he had authoritatively criticised me in the past?, and he was only ONE editor, who told the other 11 that they weren’t needed, and he banned me before I had time to respond to the comments of the other 11. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Comment_from_Moreschi herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive469#Disruptive_editor_.2F_RFC_failing_to_resolve
This is what another editor named Wolfkeeper said about WhatamIdoing’s inappropriate exaggerations . . . “You think you speak for everyone else in the Wikipedia, and get to decide what they think and get to state it on these pages as fact? Don’t you think that it might be proper to describe that as ”very” arrogant of you?“Wolfkeeper” 06:40, 27 July 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Policies_and_guidelines&diff=prev&oldid=375687809
A Quote from the Wikipedia policy for Consensus about ‘numbers’
“Consensus is not in number\s. . . Editors can easily create the appearance of a changing consensus by “forum shopping“: asking again and hoping that a different and more sympathetic group of people discusses the issue. This is a poor example of changing consensus, and is antithetical to the way that Wikipedia works. Wikipedia does not base its decisions on the number of people who show up and vote; we work on a system of good reasons.
At the same time it is normal to invite more people into the discussion, in order to obtain new insights and arguments. However the invitations must be phrased in a neutral way and addressed to a reasonably neutral group of people, e.g., sent to all active editors of the subject or posted at the message boards of the relevant wikiprojects” . . . from here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&diff=307515264&oldid=307435465#Consensus_is_not_in_numbers
Consensus – in practice it is always majority by numbers
My main critic likes to write and interpret policies so that there are so many ambiguities (double meanings), and so many different ways of interpreting them that they can twist the policy around their grubby little fingers and do anything they want. In practice it works like this – Supposing I had six people agreeing with me and none opposed, which clealy meant that I had a consensus by majority – my main critic would argue that Wikipedia policies are much, much, much more complicated than that – we don’t use simple numbers to decide outcomes. However, if my main critic had only one person agreeing with them, and none against, then the the argdument would become – we have an obvious majority consensus here so you have to do what we tell you to do.
The following quote comes from a discussion in which that editor contributed . . . . Thesub- title is “Headcount”. The editor named Shooterwalker lists six in favor, two against, and three in the middle. The comment was “There isn’t quite consensus”.
My main critic then chipped in with some comments but they were based on “widely supported content policies”, regardless of what “one or two” editors think.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=404781559#Headcount
Leadership decisions
That editor thinks that they are the custodian of all wisdom on the fine details about the difference between majority consensus and a reasoned argument, but in fact I studied group behaviour at tertiary level for four years, and most people are intelligent enough to understand the practical issues involved in consensus. Every delusional fool who dreams of utopia would like to believe that a group of people should be able to sit in a meeting and politely present reasoned arguments to come to a decision that everyone agrees with, but in practice there will always be dissent, and the only practical way to proceed is to accept the best sensible idea that the majority are happy with. Generally speaking, most groups have a leader, called a chairman or president, and he makes the final decision. Leadership training requires an education in leadership, which is primarily about goal setting. A good leader will make the best decision at the time based on consensus because he needs to get the majorities support to assist in the achievement of the goal. A poor leader will be too fussy about details and won’t be able to make a decision so nothing gets done. If he goes against consensus the task will be impeded by constant squabbles and the group will break up and will fail to achieve its goals.
In other words, regardless of how precious, or fussy, or pedantic that editor is, in practice, and in fact, group decisions will always come down to consensus by numbers – majority.
Nevertheless, superimposed on that sensible group scenario, my main critic undermines all of the principles of normal consensus, and acts like a fox in the henhouse looking for lunch – a dictator sneaking around in a democracy and making the decisions regardless of evidence, reason, or numbers. The technique involves treating the policies as if they are hanging on a coatrack, and deciding which one to pick or choose to win which argument.
Here are some examples . . .
Your 1956 reference is too old, so we are replacing it with one by the same author from from 1941.
Your review paper from the Journal of the American Medical Association is just an op-ed which isn’t written by an expert, and isn’t peer reviewed like normal reviews, so it doesn’t meet our MEDRS policy standards which require reliable review articles from top quality peer reviewed journals. We are replacing it with our favorite childrens story because our hatnote policy demands it.
Your reference by Sir James MacKenzie, is not a reliable source of information because he was just an ordinary doctor who attended an ordinary meeting where the minutes were routinely published in a journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, but we will use it in our version of the article anyway. We have added a website called whonamedit.com which has a paragraph of information provided by volunteer amateurs, and meets our requirements for up-to-date evidence which insists on using references from the most recent five years.
Consensus Decisions???
If you read an article in Wikipedia that said that your favorite football player was a cheat, you could register with them and edit that page to say that he wasn’t. If an argument started another editor might say that you were just an ordinary person who didn’t know enough about the subject to change anything, and that, as a member of the same football club, you were too closely involved to give and objective opinion. If the argument continued the other editor could set up a “Conflict of interest” discussion to get you blocked.
Ten or twenty editors could then see that page and leave their comments, and if fifteen agreed with you, and five disagreed, then a neutral editor would make a decision in your favor. If, however, fifteen disagreed and only five agreed, then the deciding editor would probably tell you that you have been banned from writing about football, and any form of sport, including horse racing, the Olympic games, swimming, ski-ing, or anything even remotely related to physical activity, but you would be welcome to add useful information to pages about other totally unrelated subjects such as flower arrangement and poetry.
In my case the topic was Da Costa’s syndrome, and because I have a knowledge of that subject, two editors kept losing arguments against me, so one of them set up a ‘Conflict of interest’ discussion to prevent me from editing that page. Their first attempt failed, so after they lost some more arguments they set up Conflict of interest number 2. More than 3000 words of discussion followed, and then an editor named EdJohnston made a decision that I should not write about that subject anymore or I would be violating COI policy, and be banned.
I would like you to spend a few seconds guessing how many uninvolved editors contributed to the second discussion prior to that decision being made, so please stop and do that now. Please think about it and form an honest opinion. For example, would it be none, five, ten, twenty or fifty, or some other number. After you have made an estimate you can start reading again because I will tell you the answer shortly. First of all, I was the person being discussed, and the decision was made before I presented my side of the story, so I wasn’t even one of them.
Now that you have had time to make a guess to compare with, I can tell you that there were only four editors in the discussion. Most of the words were written by my two critics. The third editor was Guido den Broeder who told them that there was no evidence that my contributions were being affected by a conflict of interest. The only other editor was EdJohnston who eventually made the decision after the relentless barrage of criticism from my two critics. In other words there was only one neutral editor who agreed with me, and only one who eventually agreed with them. The outcome was actually one for, and one against.
Although EdJohnston was only one editor, he made the decision about the topic ban, and therefore unwittingly left the false impression that it represented the consensus of opinion of dozens of neutral editors, and that the majority of them were involved in the decision against me.
After that discussion was over other editors would take a quick look at the decision and agree with the closing admin without reading all of the details. My two critics then continued to lose more content disputes on the DCS talk page, so they set up more discussion pages and always started with words like this . . . ‘we have a disruptive editor with a ‘conflict of interest’ which has been discussed by many editors who have told him this repeatedly in COI 1. and COI 2. etc., and the entire Wikipedia community is thoroughly disgusted by his behavior and we are all losing our patience with him so we want him blocked. They continued relentlessly and always exaggerated the outcome in their favor, and even when I won by a clear consensus, and they lost, they would never concede defeat, but would tell the other editors that the discussion failed. It was part of their general strategy to look for, and invent faults in me, and exaggerate them out of all proportion, and to understate any major faults that I found in them.
Have another guess
Now that you know how my two critics exaggerate everything I would like you to have another ‘educated’ guess. Here are your clues. I started adding to the Da Costa’s topic on December 9th 2007, and continued throughout a period which spanned twelve full months plus fifty days until January 28th 2009. At that time I was banned on the basis of their allegation that I had a conflict of interest and was using Wikipedia to promote my theory with every word that I added. I was actually adding information from 65 independent sources, including direct quotes from people who did their research on a dozen other theories before I was born, and Harvard professors who wrote the history of the topic decades ago, and whose findings were reported in international research journals. Here is your question: Was all mention of my own research and theories deleted from the topic page in January 2008, or January 2009????? Stop and guess now, without reading any further, because I am about to give you the answer. It was January 2008.
Have a third guess
Most authorities on Da Costa’s syndrome would say that if the patient does not have the typical type of breathlessness which involves abnormally deep and frequent sighing, then they do not have DCS. In fact, in 1956 Paul Wood was the top authority in the U.K. and he provided statistics that it affected 93% of DCS patients and was the most common symptom. The cause was a complete mystery for seventy years until researchers such as S.Wolf, and Cohen and White etc, found and reported, in the late 1940’s, that it was due to an abnormal function of the respiratory muscles. Why did my two critics delete all of that information????? Was it (a) because it was wrong, or (b) because it wasn’t scientifically proven, or (c) because the references were old, or (d) because the other four main symptoms are more important, or (e) because the authors weren’t reliable, or (f) because they weren’t published in top quality peer reviewed medical journals, or (g) because, in their contrived opinion, I was using those references to support my theory about posture and breathing.
If you guessed a, b, c, d, e, or f, you would be wrong. They deleted it because they argued that I deliberately cherry – picked those references to support my own theory about posture, chest shape, and breathing, and they expected me to rewrite the article on Da Costa’s syndrome without mentioning anything about respiratory research. These were Gordonofcartoon’s words . . . “but as I’ve said . . . everything you add spins the subject toward a focus on breathing, breathlessness, the diaphragm etc – funnily co-inciding with the Banfield theory” signed Gordonofcartoon at 13:17 on 23-3-08.
Have a fourth guess
How did the information that I gave Wikipedia end up on my own website. Was it (a) because I thought it was a good idea at the time, or (b) because I wanted to use Wikipedia to promote my own theory, or (c) because one of my two hostile critics asked me to????? Please guess now, and then read on.
Here were WhatamIdoing’s words . . . “Posturewriter, why don’t you put all of this specialised material on your own website? It would be a more appropriate place for such specialized material”. signed WhatamIdoing 20:34 on 8-2-08 (end of quote) . . . Less than 20 minutes later Gordonofcartoon gave this typically ill-mannered advice to keep things brief in the future . . . “It’s meant to be an encyclopedia article for the general reader. Liposuction time?” signed Gordonofcatoon 20:51, 8-2-08.
I took their advice but it didn’t stop them from criticising. For example, I started by putting all deleted material on my own website. I also started a reference section, and added more references. I then began writing full reviews on my website, and then selected information on the basis of what complied with ALL policies, and then abbreviated it before putting it into Wikipedia.
This is what Gordonofcartoon wrote about me on the Conflict of Interest number 2 page three months later, when he was playing dumb and pretending not to remember the original request to be brief. . . “he’s adding large verbatim dumps of material from his own website: not neutral stuff, but Summaries of papers selectively collated and commented to support Posture Theory. He’s turning Wikipedia into an annexe of his own reference section, and it needs to stop.” signed Gordonofcartoon 10:55
Summary of their spin: When I put all information on my own website because they asked me to, and then when I reviewed and abbreviated it so that it complied with all of their requests for neutrality and conciseness, they spun it around to make me look disruptive by saying that I was dumping stuff from my website onto Wikipedia.
Have a fifth guess
I made contributions to the Da Costa’s article for about fourteen months between December 9th 2007 and January 29th, 2009, during which time I had two critics who would take turns at finding reasons for deleting everything I wrote. i.e. I would add something on a Sunday, and on Monday Gordonofcartoon would say that it violated a policy, and on Tuesday WhatamIdoing would delete it. I would add another paragraph on the following Sunday, and then WhatamIdoing would say that it violated another policy, and Gordonofcartoon would say ‘Yup, I agree – therefore ‘we’ have consensus”, and then delete it. They then tried to create the impression that dozens of other contributors were complaining about me being constantly disruptive every day of the year by using such words as . . . ‘”we” can understand why “all” of the other respectable editors on that page are becoming “thoroughly disgusted” with this disruptive editor.’
Here is your question: How many editors were arguing with me on the Da Costa’s page. Was it more than a million, five thousand, several hundred. ten, or less than five?????
Answer, There was a grand total of approximately 206 edits made to the page while I was there. Of those, 27 editors made one edit each, and were mainly routine spelling corrections etc. There were 8 editors who made 2 edits each, and one editor made three. Four editors made four edits each. One editor made 6 edits in 1 week in early June 2008, and another person made 11 edits in 3 days during December 2007.
An editor named Guido den Broeder came to the topic page and made 33 edits in ten days, and also made other edits on the DCS talk page, mainly agreeing with me, and supporting me, and arguing with my two critics by telling them that I was not violating COI policy. This was one of his comments . . . “ I don’t care what he may have done half a year ago. He does not need to be stopped, since he is not promoting anything or adding any original research to the article now”. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:29: 20 May 2008. (end of quote). However my two critics then started arguing with him and insulting him, and accusing him of violating various policies, and then one of them came to my User talk page and left these sarcastic remarks . . . “Guido’s been blocked for a week over edit warring, and claims he is going to be off wiki for a month, so the talk page should return to normal for awhile” signed WhatamIdoing 00:52, 30-5-2008. (The name Guido den Broeder has since been changed to Roadcreature on the edit history).
The topic page had an associated talk page with the following edits. The grand total was about 260. Ten individuals made one edit each, four made two each, one editor made five, and a auto edit made 9. Guido den Broeder made 51 edits in three weeks starting in July. There were only three other editors. WhatamIdoing made 69 edits and Gordonofcartoon made 60, and most of their 129 edits were aimed at criticising me or trying to convince other editors that I should be blocked. I defended myself only 49 times because they would find fault with every word I wrote anyway, something like this . . . WhatamIdoing would say . . . ‘Oh yes, you have complied with policy a, b, and c, but you have violated policy d’, and then Gordonofcartoon would reply . . . ‘Yup, we have consensus on that’.
In essence there were only three people editing that page throughout most of the year. I made 40 contributions (less than one a week), and WhatamIdoing did most of the arguing with 30 edits, and Gordonofcartoon collaborated with 24 criticisms (i.e. a total of 54 between them). They criticised me more times than I made contributions.
When the topic page, and the discussion page were combined, the total number of edits was 470, and of those I made 90 edits, and my two critics together made 190, and they set up and continued to argue on at least ten other pages to block me. The majority of their 190 comments, even with other editors, were critical of my editing.
Did you guess right????? (less than five – in fact, only two) Perhaps you might like to answer this question? Would you be able to defend yourself from a relentless onslaught of 190 criticisms, with only 90 replies???? Here is a tip. If I replied to their criticisms every five minutes, they would have “predictably” criticised me fifty times a day, so I tried to keep it down to one contribution per week, and they would keep arguing until they deleted everything, or until they had talked another editor into blocking me or banning me, generally in a hurry, before I had time to respond. They would then build up a tally and say ‘look at all of the other editors who agree with us‘.
Have a sixth guess
On the conflict of interest page (number two), EdJohnston wrote these words of advice to WhatamIdoing . . . “There are several other editors active in this COI report who should be able to review any changes. If you have any ideas for improvement of the article, just start making them and see what happens”. signed EdJohnston 19:06 17th May 2007.
Here are your questions: EdJohnston said their were “several” other active editors on the COI page. How many were “several”; was it ten, five, three, one, or none??? . . . Also why didn’t WhatamIdoing like that advice?????
Answer: Gordonofcartoon set up the COI page to block me, and WhatamIdoing wrote the largest volume of criticism to convinceEdJohnston that there were vast numbers of other editors arguing against me so that he would block me. EdJohnston actually did believe that there were “several” “other” editors involved in the COI discussion. However, at that time (17-5-08), there were only three editors on the page besides EdJohnston, namely WhatamIdoing, Gordonofcartoon, and Guido den Broeder. i.e. besides my two critics there was only one “other” editor. The decision was made before I gave my side of the story, so I wasn’t even there.
The reason that my two critics didn’t want to let “several” “other” editors review their additions, was because there was actually only “one” “other” editor, named Guido den Broeder, and he was telling them that they were both wrong, so they arranged for him to be banned.
Here is a quote from another editor named Father Goose on the Consensus policy talk page . . . “When it’s a close split like 3 to 2 or something, that’s ‘no consensus'” signed Father Goose 5:25, 14th February 2010 . . . which means that my two critics were repeatedly claiming consensus on COI when they knew that they didn’t actually have it.
Have a seventh guess
There were about fifteen editors discussing whether to ban me or not on the arbitration page. How many of them influenced the decision???? . . . Was it one, five, ten, or fifteen.
Answer: It was one, named Moreschi, who had lost one brief argument against me five months earlier; on an ANI page that was started by one of my two critics at 11:29 on 25-8-08. The only other editor in that discussion was anonymous, and he agreed with me.
This was a section heading in bold print at the end of the arbitration page . . . “Arbitrators opinion on hearing this matter” . These were the first words in that section . . . “Awaiting statement from Posturewriter” signed Carcharoth at 22:08 on 26-1-09. Twelve other arbitrators then left their opinions and were aware that I was preparing a response to their comments, and would be presenting it on Sunday 1st of February 2009.
Moreschi barged in on the discussion and wrote these words four days before I was due to make that final statement . . . “I’ve banned Posturewriter, as I should have done yonks ago. Apologies for not getting to this sooner. This will save you a case I think” signed Moreschi at 00:24 28th January 2009. (i.e. Moreschi took the case away from the twelve independent arbitrators and made the decision to ban me on his own). On the next day he threatened to argue with anyone who challenged his decision. Here were his words” . . . “I would take extreme issue with the overturning of” (the ban). signed Moreschi 20:39, 29-1-09. A few months later WhatamIdoing rewarded him with an Outlaw Halo award for being the only administrator who was willing to break the rules and ban me.
In the Wikipedia guidelines on consensus there was a discussion about what was required and at 3:29 on 14th February 2010 WhatamIdoing made this comment “If you want a practical answer . . . you need a four to one ratio to enforce any proposed change”. coi
Their idea of consensus
Two independent editors recommended that the question of bias could be resolved if each of the three current editors of the DCS page wrote a version independently so that the neutral editors could merge them to ensure that the eventual text complied with ALL policy requirements, including “neutral point of view”. I responded by spending several weeks writing a draft, but Gordonofcartoon blatantly refused when he wrote “No. I’m fed up with this”, and WhatamIdoing cut and pasted my essay and subjected it to more than 80 points of criticism. One of the neutral editors wrote that my essay was “a lot better” than the existing one, and when I used it to replace the text that had been controlled by my two critics, they reverted it four times, and at 18:57 on 26 January 2009 WhatamIdoing gave this reason . . . “Restore version from a few days ago to rm (remove) unreliable sources and unbalanced POV pushing. Posturewriter, you must get CONSENSUS before making this massive change” (end of quote). Note that most of the time their idea of consensus was two to one when in fact they were only one tag-team, not two individuals, which is a violation of the Wikipedia editing guidelines, and that they did absolutely everything they could to interfere with any chance of getting a real consensus. However, WhatamIdoing wrote those words to create the false impression, in uninvolved editors minds, that the change was not expected, and that they were trying to give polite and helfpful advice and had a “proper” reason for reverting.
Their method of banning me
At 5:50 on 30-1-09 on my UserTalk page I explained that my two critics had arranged for a ‘requests for comments’ page to be closed in violation of RFC closing policy, and then they subverted the normal arbitration process to get me banned, and I later learned that they had thanked another editor and awarded him with an outlaw halo award for being the only administrator in Wikipedia to break the rules and ban me. I was banned on 27-1-09 and this was WhatamIdoings reply a few days later at 21:55 on 1-2-09 . . . “in your comments here you seem to be confusing Requests for Comments about user conduct with Requests for Arbitration. The rules about closing RFCs do not apply to ArbComm. actions, (In this case, by the way, the Arbcomm case was tentatively declined on the grounds that you have been blocked indefinitely by an independent administrator: It was never officially opened and never officially closed.) Note also that you weren’t blocked solely for abusing your conflict of interest. WhatamIdoing 21:55 on 1-2-09 (end of quote).
Note that I was not confused about anything, but WhatamIdoing was trying to give everyone else that impression. Also note that I was banned by an editor who WhatamIdoing described as independent???? but Gordonofcartoon attempted to have a private discussion with him on an ANI page and influence his attitude six months earlier (at 11:29 on 25-8-08), and the discussion, involving only one small sentence by Moreshi, stopped immediately after I joined the page, and that every word that Gordonofcartoon wrote was carefully chosen to create prejudice against me, and to provide excuses for avoiding the rules of evidence, breaking the rules of RFC’s, and ignoring the rules of Arbitration.
This is the essence of their argument; The violation of RFC closing policy didn’t matter, the arbitration process never happened, and one of their personal friends broke the rules to ban me because they couldn’t do it within the rules of Wikipedia.
The words of the editor who banned me
The name of the editor who banned me was Moreschi, and here are the words that he wrote on the arbitration page . . . “”I’ve banned Posturewriter, as I should have done yonks ago. Apologies for not getting to this sooner. That will save you a case, I think”.
He then responded to one of the arbitrators questions with these words . . . “Actually, no, I meant an indefinite block. As in a block that is intended to be permanent, a block that came with no conditions to be fulfilled, and a block that I would take extreme issues with the overturning of. Frankly Posturewriter, the worst type of troll, has shown nothing but contempt for basic Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, and WP:DE/TE. Under such circumstances a one-year ban would have been the only result to have come out of an arbitration case. I, however, unlike you chaps, am fortunately not limited to block length”. Moreschi 20:39. 29 January 2009
You would get the impression from the words used by Moreschi that he had tried to get some sort of neutral point of view on this issue and that I had been unco-operative, but he had never made even the slightest attempt at resolving any issues at all????? Furthermore he did not discuss anything with the fifteen independent arbitrators, but simply told them that if they overturned his decision he would “take extreme issues” with them. In other words he was threatening them with an extremely hostile argument if they didn’t agree with him, and yet he wanted me banned for being argumentative when I had never had an argument with him or the arbitrators.
As I have mentioned before, my two critics spent 12 months following me around like a couple of blood hounds criticisng and deleting every word I wrote and going to ten or more discussions to find editors to block me, and were using edit warring methods of deliberately insulting and goading me to drive me out of Wikipedia or make me respond in an ill-mannered way so that they could ban me for being uncivil, and they eventually gave an outlaw halo award to the the only editor who was prepared to break the rules to ban me.
These were Gordonofcartoons exact words at 6:57 on 3-2-09, a few days after I was banned . . . “Finally I raised it at Requests for Arbitration. They were cautiously moving toward accepting before the cavalry arrived in the form of admins who were prepared to bring blocks, ultimately an indefinite one for disruptive conduct”. (end of quote)
At 23:08 on 26 November 2009, ten months after I was banned, Moreschi complained about other editors getting away with such practices with these words relating to different topics . . . “Remember how long it took to ban VK, for all his meatmpuppetry, sockpuppetry, edit-warring,mentorship, personal attacks, dozens of blocks, you name it? For how long have Domer and Dunc got away with flagrant tag-teaming? Or now Sarah777 is allowed to get away with not-so-subtle attacks like this and nobody bats and eyelid?” Moreschi 23:08, November 2009..
If Moreschi was consistent with his editing he would ban my two critics permanently.
Moreschi’s idea of junk
Wikipedia’s policy about Civility has been compiled by hundreds of well meaning editors over a period of several years, and these words are a direct quote from the page of 30-11-09 . . . “The civility policy is a standard of conduct that sets out how Wikipedia editors should interact: editors should always endeavor to treat each other with consideration and respect”.
However, at 11:29 on 15 August 2008, Gordonofcartoon copied a sample of the Da Costa’s page that I was trying to develop, and that he and WhatamIdoing were continually trying to disrupt and block with criticsim, deletions and alternations. He then added the following words to the top of the incompleted page “This is an old version of this page as edited by Posturewriter as of :45, 23 March 2008” (end of quote). Note that it is ill-mannered to misrepresent the page that way. He then showed it to Moreschi who wrote these words at 13:36 on the 25th of August 2008 “take a look at this junk” (end of quote).
This is one of the three sentences that Moreschi wrote on his User page to introduce himself to Wikipedia, and it was still there on 30-11-09 . . . “I also have an alternative civility policy – I hope this will become the real one some day, as the current one is sheer junk.” (end of quote). Needless to say that Moreschi is being disrspecful to hundreds of other editors who obviously have a superior understanding of what civility actually means.
If Moreschi thinks that the existing policy page for civility is “JUNK” then he should “be bold”, and replace it with his version and see what happens.
My two critics attitude toward consensus and the arbitration process
On 2:25 on 18th May 2008 WhatamIdoing was complaining because the majority of other editors were saying . . . “Y’all play nice now. It’s a content dispute and they were giving WhatamIdoing the following advice . . . “you should work for consensus”
At 17:48 on 26 January Gordonofcartoon told the arbitrators this . . .”The material added is disputed, but Posturewriter’s attitude to discourse has made it impossible to achieve consensus bythe normal collaborative process” (end of quote). Note that the “material added” refers to “content”, and only two critics were disputing the content 95%, if not 100% of the time. Their idea of consensus was two to one majority, and they refused to co-operate with the normal collaborative process in almost every discussion of content, and particularly when the opportunity was specifically available at RFC.
Less than a day later, at 10:47 on 27 January 2009, the day before I was banned, Gordonofcartoon responded to a question by one of the arbitrators named Wizardman, and wrote these words . . . “This is emphatically not about content . . . Posturewriter has repeatedly stated the central bad faith assumption that all critical responses – to content and conduct – are ‘tactics’ motivated by a hostile agenda to suppress what he’s advocating”. (end of quote). Note that the fact is that their dispute was always over content, and that they were using every trick in the policy book to say that it wasn’t. I was writing the history of Da Costa’s syndrome based on independent reliable sources, and my two critics were using policy as their excuse for removing any verifiable aspect that they didn’t like, and they expected me to “assume good faith” in them, when they were secretly arranging for a friend of theirs to break the rules to get me banned – and later rewarded him for it.
At 19:08 on 12 November 2009 WhatamIdoing wrote these words . . . “What would ArbCom do? . . .it is nearly worthless for content issues” (end of quote). Note that Arbcom refers to the Arbitration Committee.
My two critics are obviously too arrogant for their own good.
Lynch Mob Justice
As a relatively new contributor to Wikipedia I was not aware that I could be put on some sort of trial, but when Gordonofcartoon set up an arbitration page to discuss the topic, I expected that it would have some similarity to “normal” justice where 12 good men would be selected and examined to ensure that they had no previous involvement in the case, and no relationship or contact with either side, and that they wouldn’t be pre-influenced (made prejudiced) in anyway. I also thought that the contributor would be given ample opportunity to defend themselves from any accusation of policy violations before any decision was made. Hence I was surprised when Moreschi barged in on the page and banned me – on his own, and he did it on a Wednesday, when I had advised the other editors that I would be giving my final response to criticism on the following Sunday.
This is what Moreschi wrote at 21:49 on 3-12-09, about another situation . . . “Disingenuous, as you then repeated the lynch mob accusation at (link), this time quite clearly aiming it at the admins who imposed the bans specifically the one on Zeq. That would be myself, as I extended the initial block of a week to 1 year” (end of quote) signed Moreschi.
Moreschi was being accused of interfering with “normal” justice by another editor who said that he was acting as if he was part of a lynch mob. Here is a quote from Wikipedia about lynching . . . “It is extrajudicial punishment carried out by a mob, usually by hanging . . . Lynchings were more frequent in times of social and economic tension, and were often means by the politically dominant population to oppress social challenges” (end of quote), and it gives the example of white’s lynching Negroes.
Here is another example of Moreschi appearing to plan against a different “normal” arbitration decision . . . “It would be good to see roughly what line arbcom is going to take so Ottava, and everyone else, can prepare themselves for it” (end of quote). In other words Moreschi wants to give plenty of time and opportunity for contributors to defend themselves, but only if he agrees with their views, whereas he deliberately prevented me from defending myself.
Here is another example, where at 16.25 on 1-12-09 another editor named Sulmues reported his observation that his critics gave “banning stars” to other editors to promote their own views, and at 20:29 on 1-12-09 wrote “The block, as proposed by athenean and CinemaC is part of the plan of keeping out of the Albanians from the Albanian related issues. I did not even have a chance to defend myself. These guys keep calling their friends to ban me, and the admins are too busy to read carefully what they write”. In responding to that criticism at 22:14 on 4-12-09 Moreschi acknowledges that “gang editing groups have existed” and “doubtless still do”, and they control content in Wikipedia by blocking anyone who has different views to their own.
The evidence is that the experienced editors know all about edit wars, and how to conduct them to control content on any subject, and that denying contributors the opportunity to defend themselves, and giving gang members barn stars for blocking them is a standard hallmark of the process.
Regardless of all other issues, I was a new contributor, and I thought that I was going into a “normal” arbitration situation, while WhatamIdoing, Gordonofcartoon, and Moreschi were experienced editors who knew exactly how to plot and scheme to get me banned regardless of the arbcom decision. I knew that I wasn’t the first person to be dealt with that way, because they did it with the level of skill that could only be achieved by a vast amount of practice.
The Outlaw Halo award given to Moreschi
Some editors in Wikipedia are rewarded for their contributions by giving them barnstars which are generally illustrations of a star that is placed on their Userpage. However at 23:41 on 8-5-09 WhatamIdoing rewarded Moreschi for banning me by presenting him with the Outlaw Halo award. The opening words were . . . “I saw this just now and thought of you” (end of quote). It was an illustration of the standard Wikipedia symbol of a globe covered in the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, and it was modified to look like a head with horns on either side at the top, and a halo between them????? – with ample ambiguity to allow for interpretation as the devil causing confusion by wearing the costume of a saint????
Forum shopping and related behaviours
The following quote comes from the Wikipedia policy page on “Consensus” – WP:Consensus
“Forum shopping means repeatedly raising the same issue at different discussion forums (e.g. the village pump, article talk page, admin noticeboard, deletion discussions, etc.) until you get a result you like.” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&diff=379103410&oldid=379098361#Forum_shopping_and_related_behaviors
Another editor named Wolfkeeper accused WhatamIdoing of gaming the system to turn consensus on it’s head” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:External_links&diff=378753604&oldid=378735065
Also, my two critics have seen other editors contrive or fake consensus and know how to do it themselves, as can be see in the advice that WhatamIdoing gives to another contributor with the following words . . .
“It’s pretty much like any other social endeavor: beg your friends to watchlist the page (hit the Village Pump to find some people currently fired up about this issue, and maybe post a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Lists), post messages on the project’s talk page about any relevant work you’re doing — and hope that others will respond in kind.” WhatamIdoing 18:38, 21 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council&diff=prev&oldid=380189351
e.g. see the first topic at the top of a list of 100 discussions that are visited by hundreds of other editors on my main critics talk page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
Placing that discussion at the top of the page and leaving it there while 100 other discussions proceeded was essentially the way that individual brought it the attention of their friends and recruited them to get me blocked.
Cavassing
My two critics spent twelve months setting up more than ten discussion pages one after another in an attempt to get other editors to block me, and continued relentlessly until they achieved their objective. In the process they also obviously sent emails to other editors, and left messages on the talk pages of several, and where hundreds more of their own supporters would see them. Wikipedia has a guidelines page called “canvassing” which describes their behaviour. The following quotes are from that page.
“Canvassing on Wikipedia refers to the sending of messages to Wikipedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion . . . canvassing which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate because it could serve to compromise the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore may be considered disruptive behaviour. . . For other types of action which are inappropriate in the consensus-building process, see the policy on Consensus. Apart from canvassing, these include forum shopping (raising an issue on successive discussion pages until you get the result you want), sock puppetry and meat puppetry (bringing real or fictional outside participants into the discussion to create a false impression of support for your viewpoint), and tendentious editing. (end of quote)
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Canvassing&diff=384892780&oldid=384891733
I recently added a small section to my website requesting the assitance of respectable editors and members of the public to get them banned, and about 2 days later my main critic wrote these words . . .
“The updated proposal is to cover all forms of canvassing on one page, ie merge WP:MEAT into WP:CANVASS. CANVASS would then cover the community’s view on all canvassing activity (both internal and external), regardless of origin and type. Should CANVASS be merged with MEAT? Should CANVASS then be promoted as an official policy?” (end of quote written by WhatamIdoing at 16:54, 15 October 2010) here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Sock_puppetry&diff=prev&oldid=392682259
My response – people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
See also PUPPETS here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#puppets
They were experts at creating illusions
My two critics have been in Wikipedia for more than four years, and learnt all of the tricks that had been used by rogues, and became experts at using them before I joined.
One of them was how to create the impression of consensus when they didn’t have it.
Their grubby box of magic tricks included . . .
1. Always work as a tag-team of two
2. Say “we”: think this as often as possible
3. Claiming consenus immediately after getting one person to agree with them.
4. Using the bandwagon effect to drum up additional support on the basis that they need more editors to join in the consensus which never actually existed in the first place.
The fact that some editors create illusions is revealed in the following quote from an editor named Ludwigs2 who was discussing another method which involves sockpuppets, and meatpuppets.
“Socking and ‘meating’ are the same problem – Trying to manipulate or circumven consensus decisions by giving the ‘appearance’ of uninvolved support.” Ludwigs2 02:49, 21 September
see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=386033738&oldid=386030805
So many labels??
My two critics want readers to believe that the history of Da Costa’s syndrome research has proceeded harmoniously with all of the experts always co-operatively agreeing with each other and that ideas have evolved from objective disuucssions of facts and evidence. That is as naive as arguing that the history of the world consists of one nation and that there have never been any wars).
In the version of the Da Costa’s syndrome article that I wrote for Wikipedia I mentioned that the cause was unknown and that there had been many heated arguments, controversies, disputes, and labels used throughout the 140 years of it’s research history. As evidence I provided more than a dozen references with five or more labels in their introduction, and one medical consumers website which listed 80.
My two critics argued that I was making sweeping statements based on one unreliable source and deleted all of that information.
However if you have a look at my critics version on 27 January 2009 there are 11 different labels in the first two sentences, and more in the text and reference list, and the top right side of the page has links to ICD-9 and ICD-10 entries associating it with many other labels.
If you go back to the four lines of text that existed on 27 Oct. 2007, before I started, you can see a “Related” section which has five labels and two were put there by my main critic, and two were the subject of relentless arguments by them, and a third has since been removed. If you also go to the bottom left side of that page there is a ‘category’ link to ‘Diseases’, and another link to ‘Anxiety Disorders’, and soon after I deleted the link to ‘Anxiety Disorders’, WhatamIdoing put it back and deliberately left the entire link window open so that a list of more than 50 different psychiatric labels occupied half the entire page, and Da Costa’s syndrome was two small words somewhere in the middle. (that window was left open for many weeks, and was a deliberate violation of policies relating to neutral point of view, undue weight, and window display, that could only be contrived by an experienced editor).
Their final version included these words Da Costa’s syndrome, Soldier’s heart, anxiety disorder, ‘no physiological abnormalities’, cardiac neurosis, chronic asthenia, effort syndrome, functional cardiovascular disease, neurocirculatory asthenia, primary neurasthenia, subacute asthenia and irritable heart, Somatoform autonomic dysfunction, psychosomatic disorder, ‘non-psychotic mental disorder’, ‘psychiatric or non-psychiatric complaint’, ‘imprecisely characterized postwar syndrome’, orthostatic intolerance, chronic fatigue syndrome, mitral valve prolapse syndrome, ‘neurological condition’, exercise intolerance, organic disease, postural and orthostatic hypotension, it had a ‘physiological explanation’, ‘a form of neurosis’, ‘somatoform disorder of the heart and cardiovascular system’, ‘a variety of similar or partly similar conditions’, a ‘physiological malfunction arising from mental disorders’, depression, neurasthenia, ‘functional cardiac disorder’, posttraumatic stress disorder, mental and behavioral disorder and ,’neurology’ disorder.,
As you can appreciate, the average patient who was born with this condition and lived to the age of 80 would have been to dozens of doctors and psychiatrists and been prescribed countless different medications and treatments, and been given more than 100 different psychiatric labels during their lifetime, but none of them made any significant difference to the course of the illness, as has been evident by numerous studies, including Edmund Wheelers 20 year follow-up of 173 patients in 1950, but, of course, my two critics deleted that reference as well.
See their preferred version at 18:27 on 27 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214
The version at 17:08 on 17 Oct. 2007 can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=165216444&oldid=151708868
See where WhatamIdoing replaced the link to ‘Anxiety Disorders’ at 21:33 on 18 Dec. 2007 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=178801481
My version at 7:46 on 25 January 2009, showing more than a dozen articles wih more than five labels, see the full link here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266273949&oldid=262846727#
Alternative_names_for_Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_syndrome
To show how easy it is to add labels and categories to people and topic pages see Pre-trichtillomania here
Fortress Wikipedia
When I stared contributing to the Da Costa’s syndrome page I was hounded by two editors who would delete every word I wrote, especially about the independent scientific proof of physical cause and they set up about 10 different discussion pages to get me blocked and then went to my own User talk page to harass me with insults.
I responded by writing an essay on their devious tactics and placed it at the top of the page so that it would be the first thing that independent editors saw. They would then be able to judge the criticism in the proper context.
My two critics immediately set about the task of getting that item deleted by describing it as an ‘attack essay’, but it is no different to the Wikipedia page called “Wikipedia criticism” which is number one on the Google search engine for “Wikipedia criticism”, and the first thing that the rest of the world sees. It is essentially a defence of Wikipedia by Wikipedia editors, not a criticism by unbiased independent members of the public.
However my two critics managed to get me banned on the basis of my defence, which was the first thing that readers saw on my User page.
If you have a look at the progress of the Da Costa’s syndrome topic since I was accused of disrupting the contributions of the ‘entire Wikipedia community’ you can see that virtually nothing has changed in the text, indicating that essentially no-one, except my two critics, had any real interest in it.
However they put a slant of psychiatric disorders on the entire topic and were hell-bent on keeping it that way even if no-one else cared.
Since I was banned, they, or their email friends with similar bias, have managed to get that topic’s discussion page fortified so that there is no hope of anyone ever shedding doubt on their loaded opinion, or of doing edits that even remotely resemble a neutral point of view.
If you have a look at the articles of 20:30 on the 10-12-2009, about a year after I was banned, you can see that there is no further information or evidence, but the same bias has been cemented in a conformity of concrete with three windows or ‘templates of advice’ at the top of the page – before anyone decides to add anything. The first template states . . .
“This discussion page about the topic “is not a forum for general discussion about the topic“?
and . . . “click here to start a new topic”
and then . . . “Welcome – ask questions, get answers”? which essentially means ‘if you don’t agree with the existing article, don’t bother.’
The second window says “This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks”.
It is suggesting that the page is now a page for psychologists to collaborate in keeping it a psychology article where none of the previous contributors were psychologists. You have to leave the neutral discussion page about Da Costa’s syndrome and go to a discussion page where every editor is a psychologist with a professional and financial conflict of interest in proving that it is a mental disorder.
The third window states this . . . “This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that this article follows the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine”
Eventually, if any ordinary normal person gets to read past those three windows of instruction, there is the actual discussion.
Of course, there is something that is deliberately missing which should be something like this . . . “bye the way, if anyone else has something to add there is a quaint little insignificant thing called ‘neutral point of view” policy, with a link to the ‘endangered species list’ which includes the truth, and the print media, and the extinct category which includes ‘neutral point of view’ and dinosaurs – we just thought we’d mention that in case any deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid person didn’t notice the bloody obvious”.
I conclude that Wikipedia has already been infiltrated by highly paid anonymous editors who have hidden agendas and that there is no hope of ordinary people doing anything except for fixing spelling errors.
If you don’t believe my conclusions then just try adding scientific evidence of a physical cause from top quality independent peer-reviewed medical journals, and watch what happens
See the instructions at 8:37 on 29 July 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=228565696
See the three windows of instruction at the top of the page at 20:30 on 10-12-2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=330928531&oldid=266982962
Talk pages are not for discussing the topic?
The window which has been put at the top of the Da Costa’s talk page includes these words
“This discussion page about the topic “is not a forum for general discussion about the topic”
Apart from the fact that it is contradictory to say that you can’t discuss the general topic on the discussion page attached to the topic, there is the fact, that in practice, virtually every discussion page in Wikipedia is a forum for discussing the topic.
If you have a look at the Da Costa’s syndrome talk page you can see that my two critics were using it as a forum. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=330928531
The varicose veins talk page is typical of all others, where all of the editors are treating it as a general discussion about every aspect of the topic. Notice that nobody has put a window at the top with advice that they shouldn’t use it as a general forum. . . see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Varicose_veins&diff=prev&oldid=348915702
The great floods of criticism that I was expected to deal with precisely?
Gordoonofcartoon made the ridiculous accusation that I was adding large volumes of text to confuse the other editors. He also made the ridiculous accusation that I was not being precise in responding to discussions.
Nobody on earth could be precise in responding to the massive onlslaughts of criticism that he and his tag-teamer relentlessly flooded the pages with. One of the many examples can be seen in the history of edits where he set up one discussion about me with fifteen edits in one day.
The fifteen edits that Gordonofcartoon made to start the RFC page to get me topic banned
(cur) (prev) 12:19, 21 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,601 bytes) (ÆStatement of the dispute: tidy intro) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 23:38, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,578 bytes) (ÆApplicable policies and guidelines) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 23:35, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,519 bytes) (ÆDesired outcome) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 21:54, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,486 bytes) (ÆDescription: expand WP:DE area) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 21:51, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,417 bytes) (ÆDesired outcome: expand) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 21:46, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,328 bytes) (ÆDescription) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 21:45, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,310 bytes) (ÆDescription) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 21:43, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,294 bytes) (ÆEvidence of disputed behavior: corrected descr.) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:48, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,252 bytes) (ÆEvidence of disputed behavior) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:46, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,227 bytes) (ÆDesired outcome: expand) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:40, 20 July 2008 EdJohnston (talk | contribs) (14,132 bytes) (ÆUsers certifying the basis for this dispute: Adding my name, due to my discussions with this editor at WP:COIN and a warning I left on his Talk in May 2008) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:35, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (14,043 bytes) (ÆEvidence of disputed behavior: add PA) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:31, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (13,569 bytes) (ÆEvidence of failing to resolve the dispute) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:26, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (13,469 bytes) (ÆDescription: expand WP:DE) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 19:11, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) m (13,088 bytes) (ÆEvidence of disputed behavior: typography) (undo)
* (cur) (prev) 18:16, 20 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon (talk | contribs) (13,091 bytes) (create Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Posturewriter)
to see that edit history you can scroll down the list herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&limit=500&action=history
The only other editor to comment in that 24 hour period had previously made a decision about COI after reading massive floods of criticism from the same two critics, and before reading my defense. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_24#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome_take_.232
The two editors who I had to deal with did hundreds of edits per day.
Gordonofcartoon always worked together with WhatamIdoing, and at one stage I saw a statement that Gordonofcartoon had made four thousand edits in four years, and WhatamIdoing had made eighteen thousand in the same time, with a combined total of twenty two thousand. I also observed on many occasions that WhatamIdoing would do more than 100 edits per day, and would drop by my single edit to add six paragraphs or six separate edits of criticism. I realised that they could win arguments by being complete fools who wrote so much nonsense in their six edits that other editors wouldn’t be able to see the sense in the first edit that I did. (they simly wouldn’t go to the trouble of reading back that far). An example of WhatamIdoing doing more than 180 edits in one day occurred on 29 June 2010 in seven hours between 15:49 and 22:46. On a previous occasion I saw that editor do 300 edits over a period of 16 hours in the one day, and when I asked them if they had a conflict of interest, or who was paying them to edit Wikipedia they told me that I was violating the ‘assume good faith’ policy and wasn’t allowed to ask the question???
The first of the 180 edits on 29 June 2010 can be seen and followed from here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special_education&diff=prev&oldid=370805518
If they wanted to fill Wikipedia full of lies nobody could stop them, so there should be a policy that restricts each individual to a maximum of 20 per week (1000 per year), which would make Wikipedia a publy compiled encyclopedia instead of a dictatorship by the few (an oligarchy)
See also here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#anchor114336
They rarely did anything precisely
and were often deliberately vague, and tossed their own personal opinions about as if they were muck in a pigsty, without bothering to provide verification from ‘reliable’ independent references.
I had two critics in Wikipedia and I will later describe how they argued, but to introduce the issues I will give two typical examples.
Fact 1. I provided information for an article about Da Costa’s syndrome from 60 top quality research papers and medical books, including some that were written by the most knowledgeable experts in it’s history including J.M.Da Costa, Sir James MacKenzie, Sir Thomas Lewis, Paul Wood O.B.E., and Harvard professors Paul Dudley White and Oglesby Paul.
This was what one of my critics told the arbitrators to get me banned . . . “Posturewriter’s use of references frequently, perhaps even usually, does not meet Wikipedia’s basic standards” signed WhatamIdoing 4:42, 28 January 2009.
Fact 2.One of my critics added the name of a “novel” at the end of the page, and the other one moved it to the top line at 19:07 on 29th May 2008 where it was the first words the readers would see, so I read it. The title was Soldier’s heart” which is one of a hundred different labels that have been used as an alternative name for Da Costa’s syndrome. It was a 128 page children’s fiction book and after I finished reading it I could see that there was no mention of any of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome. I then realised that neither of my two critics had even bothered to read it, but had used it on the basis of their assumptom that it must be relevant because of the title on the cover. I then said as politely as possible, in paraphrase . . . ‘I can’t see any evidence that it is relevant to a medical topic, so if you can’t give me some precise page numbers where the symptoms are mentioned can you please delete the link‘.
They argued about it with other editors, including myself, and six months later, on 22nd December 2008 another editor deleted it because it was wrong to use it. They would have seen that explanation because they have reverted the topic page twice each between 25th and 27th January 2009, and would have had at least two opportunities to see that it had been removed from the top line. i.e. they would have known that it was deleted because they were wrong.
However, these are the words that WhatamIdoing wrote on the arbitration page the next day, on 28th January, to give the ridiculous impression that I lost the arguement . . . “There’s a novel named Soldier’s heart, so we provided a link to the article about the book. PER WP:LAYOUT, this link should be in a hatnote instead of a See also section. Posturewriter complained at length and repeatedly about the disambiguation link being “in the lead” and a “reference”. Posturewriter never seemed to grasp the point, and ultimately, it was resolved only because Soldier’s heart became a regular disambiguation page.” signed WhatamIdoing 4:42, 28 January 2009.
Summary: I used top quality medical journals and books as references but my two critics continued to describe them as unreliable sources of information, but they put a link to an irrelevent children’s fiction novel on the top line of the page and found a way of justifying it, and WhatamIdoing used both ridiculous arguments in the same section of the arbitration page at 4:42 on 28th January 2009, a day before one of their friends banned me.
Note that their attempt to make the disambiguation page “appear” regular by adding poems, plays and movies with the same title (Soldier’s heart) did not solve the problem that they created. It was solved because another editor deleted the link and nobody has put it back in the 12 months since. Note that they also put the word ‘Soldier’s heart’ in the first line of the first sentence, and it was highlighted in blue color to indicate that they had added a link (to the children’s novel), but four days after I was banned another editor deleted that link as well. More information can be seen on this website.
Would you call anything my critics said “accurate” or “precise”?
Da Costa’s syndrome has been studied and commented on for 135 years since 1871, and during that time there have been thousands, if not tens of thousands of research papers about it. When I started contributing to the article it had only four lines of text and no references but within three months I had two critics who were trying to criticise and delete everything I wrote and replace it with their opinions and references when, by 12:04 on 4th February 2008, the page contained 18 references, of which only 8 of mine remained. One of the references was Paul Wood O.B.E. whose 1956 text book reported that breathlessness affected 93% of patients which was more than any other symptom.
This is what my main critic wrote . . . “I’m unconvinced that Wikipedia benefits from a blow-by-blow account of nearly every paper that mentions it.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=190030514
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=189009579&oldid=188986150
Needless to say if my two critics think that I quoted nearly every research paper about Da Costa’s syndrome, or the breathlessness, then they have obviously spent too much of their time reading children’s fiction, and not enough time reading factual information about this topic.
Another quote from their version of the article
“The syndrome is also frequently interpreted as one of a number of imprecisely characterized “postwar syndromes”.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750#Classification
I don’t think that I need to discuss how many of the comments in that small quote are obviously ambiguous and imprecise.
Manual of Style
Another example of the hypocrisy and double standards of one of my critics
The general advice given to new contributors is that there are many policies and essays about how to do things, but also, that they are not rules carved in rock, so just use common sense and make sure that the information is reliable and can be supported by independent references.
When my two critics deleted everything about my own research I didn’t particularly care but they tried to give everyone else the idea that I did. They also thought that I didn’t know anything else about the subject so in their foolish attempt to be disruptive by acting helpful one of them said that they appreciated my other efforts.
My other contributions were about the history of the subject, and the other critic had given that section of the page a sub-heading called “History”, so I proceeded to complete it by going back to 1871, when Da Costa did his original study, and letting my two critics, or any other editor do the section from 1987 to 2001 if they wanted to. In order to make it easy for me and everyone else to contribute I provided the information in date order, and put the dates in bold print, and added sub-heading for the main periods. For example the period leading up to Da Costa, and soon after was 1863 to 1900, the period up to and Thomas Lewis renaming it effort syndrome was 1900-1919, and the period when the cause of symptoms was determined from 1919 to 1949 etc.
However it became obvious that my two critics had absolutely no intentions of being useful and co-operative, and did everything to make complete and utter pests of themselves by nitpicking everything I did and deleting every word I wrote. In Wikipedia that type of disruptive editing is called Trolling.
When a neutral editor described my version of Da Costa’s syndrome as ‘a lot better’ than theirs, my main critic became hostile and vindictive and started picking fault with it by writing these words . . .
“I tried marking things that need repaired, but it’s basically a disaster. The history section is much, much, much too detailed . . . The style is horrible. Medicine-related articles do not obsessively name the year, publisher, and authors when discussing research work. That’s what your citation is for. He doesn’t even have complete names for some of these people. We don’t blather on about “In 1987 prominent Harvard researcher Oglesby Paul presented a ten page history of Da Costa’s syndrome in the British Heart Journal”
On another page, set up for the sole purpose of nitpicking my essay to bits that editor wrote the words “Formatting wrong” alongside every date printed in bold. In another instance that same individual wrote ‘we can’t even stop him bolding the dates’. I didn’t have any particular objection to removing the bold print, because it wouldn’t make any difference, but the person who was complaining was a serial nitpicker who was doing it for the purpose of being a disruptive pest, and was making a big fuss about it to give everyone else the false impression that I was the problem?
It is very easy to argue with hypocrites like that because all you have to do is wait for them to reveal the truth about their actual opinions – and that can be seen when that individual was giving advice to another editor 18 months after I was banned – note that MoS is the abbreviation for Manual of Style. . .
“Reviews that “enforce the entire MoS” or “require my favorite citation style” and such waste time, annoy editors, and convince the less-experienced editors that they aren’t capable of reviewing articles, since you apparently need to know far more than what the criteria say you need to know — so they won’t even try“. WhatamIdoing 02:05, 9 October 2010
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880
and see the comment about wasting other editors time here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations&diff=prev&oldid=389631521
An essay that accurat6tely discribes my main critics disruptive style can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&diff=258569892&oldid=258565657
Hidden Agenda’s
My main critic is a disgusting two faced hypocrite who pretends to be open, honest, and respectable, and yet keeps their own personal identity a closely guarded secret, but recently had the cheek to advise another editor to reveal their involvement in any topic that might pose a conflict of interest and wrote . . . “you should certainly not tell lies” about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest&diff=prev&oldid=404783257
Of course, I have previously answered questions of that sort honestly because I have nothing to hide, but I was later accused of having a conflict of interest and blocked. However, my main critic, who is definitely not an honest person, and who slyly hides their motives, and therefore doesn’t want anyone to know who they are or why they edit, refused to tell everyone else their real name. That type of devious behavior is called ‘deceit by omission’, and is an indirect form of lying which allows that editor to make contributions to any topic in Wikipedia, including ones related to their own studies or interests, without being blocked.
Despite those denials it is obvious from that editors pattern of edits that they make contributions to articles where they obviously have a very strong bias and are passionate or angry or dictatorial style of bossing other editors around to get their way – like a spoilt little rich brat who throws a tempers tantrum if they don’t get what they want
That editor also has university qualifications but will not reveal what they are, and yet contributes mainly to medical topics, and particularly to adding psychological interpretations to articles, and tries to control their content, supposedly as an independent uninvolved dispassionate and objective volunteer? Needless to say a dispassionate person would not get so arrogant, and rude, and hostile, and bitter as that fool.
In real life everybody has interests which may be golf, or cricket, or football, or engineering, or science, or surfing, or travel, and they may be interested in the history of sport, or the history of science, or the history of England, and one editor in Wikipedia is interested in the history of baseball, and is writing biographies in Wikipedia for every player who hit more than one home run in the past 150 years, but no-one describes them as non-notable, or not important enough for an article, or not valuable to Wikipedia, or not of interest to the broader community, or that it is a waste of space, and nobody says that they should delete every baseball player who hit less than fifty home runs, or played for less than ten years, and no-one has argued that they should only include players who were top scorers, or captains or coaches whose teams had won important games which had been reported in major international newspapers in the most recent five years. There is the biography of a player who hit only one home run about 120 years ago and nobody complains.
I am not an arrogant person but I have written a theory which took me five years to develop, and in the process had fifteen essays published in a nurses journal, and I have been involved in formal medical research for about two years, which solved a problem that no-one else at that time was able to solve, and I developed an exercise programme which has obviously been copied by many international researchers since, and it was reported in local, state, and interstate newspapers for a couple of years, and I have written a thousand page book on health that has been purchased by hundreds of libraries where some had up to six different editions.
However I had two critics who argued that my book wasn’t notable or not good enough, or took up too much space, and that my essays weren’t published in the ‘real’ medical literature, etc.
I don’t care about such things because if I did I would, like most people, become discouraged and would have stopped twenty years ago, or ten years ago or at any time, but criticism is something that I have come to expect and if flows off me like water off a ducks back. However, while I was in Wikipedia I had two critics who were ignorant, arrogant, rude, and bloody stupid, and were insulting me in the most offensive way by describing me as non-notable, worthless, and fringy, and I don’t have to put up with bullshit like that from a couple of nitwits who appear to be tossing their weight around in Wikipedia because they haven’t had the courage or the brains to accomplish anything of any significance in real life.
One of my interests is the history of medicine, and particularly a medical condition called Da Costa’s syndrome. That does no mean that I am not able to write objectively about it, but it does mean that I know enough about the topic to see when someone is telling lies about it, and my two critics were liars.
My study of the subject revealed that the physical basis for all of the symptoms has been found and scientifically proven, mainly between 1916 and 1985.
I therefore wrote the history of the topic from the time of Da Costa in 1871 to 2008.
My two critics are arrogant and think that the readers are ignorant and stupid and easily misled, and treats the other editors and administrators (experts on sport and mathematics etc) – as if they are just sheep and cattle.
They told them that they were making changes to the Da Costa’s page for policy reasons such as making additions because of information in a reliable dictionary or data base, and they would make deletions because of conflict of interest or because the information was old.
However, their hidden agenda was to turn the article into a topic about an imaginary or anxiety disorder. They achieved their objective by filling the page with psychiatric labels in the text, and their choice of references, and their links to outside sources, and their categories of anxiety and somatoform (imaginary) disorders.
They then kept the history that I wrote from 1871 to 1876, which was mainly about the soldiers who were affected in the American Civil war, and they removed the major part of the history from 1876 to 2009 where I described the civilian studies and the scientific discovery of the physical causes.
The general reader and the other editors will read their version of the article and think that it represents the complete history and gives an accurate account of all the main facts.They might not care, or think that it matters much, but if the patients who suffered from that ailment knew how my two critics were distorting the facts about them and the disorder they would describe them as a couple of lying arseholes.
Their sly editing style could be summed up like this . . .
Typical reasons for additions of psychological interpretations
By the way does anyone mind if we remove the words ‘unknown cause’ from the top line, and replace it with ‘considered to be’, an anxiety disorder – Nope didn’t think so.
By the way does anyone object to me adding a link to a children’s story called Soldiers heart at the top of the page – nope – so we have consensus then.
By the way I’ve just improved the article by adding some alternative labels and classifications – post war syndrome – that sort of thing.
Oh, while we are at it does anyone mind if I add a reference about military compensation and pensions and toss in the word ‘cowardice’. from the middle of one of the pages of a 200 page book.
Bye the way does anyone mind if we add a little reference with ‘depression’ in the title
AND
Typical reasons for deleting scientific evidence of physical causes
By the way I am removing the article by S.Wolf which shows the spasm of the diaphragm which proves that the breathlessness is not imaginary – it is a violation of our original research policy – I will be telling posturewriter that he must, must, must only use ‘reviews’ of articles which we experienced editors keep telling him are called secondary sources.
By the way I just noticed that the Volkov reference shows scientific measurements of the severity of DCS that is much, much, much too much detail for an encyclopedia – I am telling posturewriter that we must, must, must be precise.
By the way has anyone noticed that this comment about Da Costa’s syndrome being a chronic fatigue syndrome is from a 1951 book. We keep telling posturewriter that he cannot fill Wikipedia with all of these old trashy books that have out of date information and that it must, must , must come from books published in the past two years – our policy demands it.
By the way this review from the Journal of the American Medical Association is not a normal review but just an op-ed, that’s not good enough for Wikipedia so I’ve just trashed it .
By the way has anyone seen Postuewriters review of the 20 year follow up study of 173 patients published in JAMA – I’m deleting it because the self reports of patients aren’t reliable.
By the way I have just deleted that information about Da Costa’s syndrome being common in civilian society and more common in women, along with a lot of other rubbish – it’s much much, much, too much detail.
By the way it is much too much trouble for us busy editors to rewrite the history properly so we will just delete everything from 1876 onwards and replaced it with these words . . . “Since then, a variety of similar or partly similar conditions have been described.”
(end of examples)
Final comment: If you have a look at their version article you can see the distorted result of all of their additions and deletions here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750
The ridiculous Conflict of Interest argument presented by my two critics
When another person provided an article about my theory to Wikipedia, everything was accepted until 28-11-07 when, within eight hours, seven editors recommended that it be deleted on the grounds of breech of copyright or non-notability. When I found out about it I responded the next day by informing them that I was the author of the book and had given that person permission to use the material. On 30-11-07 an editor named Someguy1221 wrote these words . . . “Did anyone who isn’t you and didn’t collaborate with you, ever publish on this theory”(end of quote). I then spent a few days providing information about where my theory and research had been presented and reported on, and then on 1-12-07 the same editor said . . . “We just need dates, titles (and most preferably online versions of all of this) so that it can actually be verified that everything you said is true. I can only verify that which is available online” (end of quote). I then provided them with the names of some of the publications, and the dates and page numbers where my theory had been reviewed. I also contacted the newspapers where reports of my research had been published but they told me that items published thirty years ago were not available online and that I would need to go to the various state libraries and get the actual newspapers from their crypts. I then explained those facts to the editors of Wikipedia but on 5-12-09 an editor named Fang Ali deleted the article with this explanation . . . “The result was delete“.
I then found that anyone was welcome to set up a new discussion if they wanted to, and that they could provide evidence of notability at any time in the future, and then ask for a review of the decision. However, I had already discussed the issue for about a week, and didn’t see any urgency in it, and I knew that I had copies of articles that were published in several local newspapers, and about four major interstate newspapers, somewhere in my records, so I decided to look for them and add the information in the next few weeks.
In the meantime I looked through the pages of Wikipedia for topics where I knew that I had factual information from old books that most authors would not be aware of, and which I could add to improve the encyclopedias range of knowledge. I then found a page about Da Costa’s syndrome so I started contributing to it on 9-12-07 and about a week later, on 18-12-07, I added some information about my own theory and research. An editor named WhatamIdoing then added information to it on the same day, and three days later, on 21-12-07, set up a talk page to criticise me. To my surprise my real name was placed at the top of the page in bold print. The opening words were “No copyright material this time“, and the first words describing my contributions were by WhatamIdoing who said that it was just about garden variety orthostatic intolerance and hyperventilation syndrome”. The second comment was by Gordonofcartoon who wrote “Nothing I can find in real medical literature sugests it merits such undue space.” (note the spelling of the word “suggests” was wrong and has never been corrected). See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Remade
I then offered to abbreviate that section so that it took up less space, but WhatamIdoing responded by using my own personal first name?? and these words . . . “Max, I apologise if my previous comments weren’t clear. I don’t want your made-up theory shortened: I want it removed entirely from this article” signed WhatamIdoing 18:42, 27th December 2008, and then Gordonofcartoon wrote these words . . . “I agree, and am removing it . . . I’ve also posted it to WP:COI/N” (the Conflict of interest noticeboard) signed Gordonofcartoon at 1:05, 29th December 2007.
At 1:56 on the same day I addressed the following words to WhatamIdoing . . . “I understand that Wikipedia policy allows for a person to present a reasonably arranged set of facts, so long as each of them can be independently verified from multiple quality sources”.
I then went through my old records to find a copy of a newspaper article from 1982, and scanned it onto my computer. However, I couldn’t find a postal address for Wikipedia, and although I knew how to add text to articles, I didn’t know how to add images, so I placed the copy of the newspaper article on my own website.
I also explained to Gordonofcartoon how aspects of my own research were similar to the findings of many others since, which had been favorably reviewed, and I included these words . . . “I have added a scanned copy of one of the newspaper article jpegs to my website ref.16 for verification of the project”. signed Posturewriter 00:41, 14th January 2008. (I also included that reference to show other editors where to find a copy of the article to verify that I actually was involved in a research project, and that it was reported in at least one major interstate newspaper, to fulfill the only outstanding requirement for notability). See the last paragraph at the end of the section here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Banfield
Within less than an hour WhatamIdoing deleted the information anyway with these words . . . “Posturewriter, did you ‘forget’ that promoting your own non-notable research ideas constitutes a conflict of interest, or were you just hoping that no one would notice when you added the information again” signed WhatamIdoing 1:34, 14th January 2008. (Note that I didn’t ‘forget’ anything, and if fact, I made it obvious by clearly explaining what I was doing, and why I was doing it. !!! Also I have got no doubt that WhatamIdoing made th0se comments so that future readers would get the false impression that I hadn’t already explained my actions).
As a result of that criticism I haven’t added any information about my theory or research since that day, but proceeded to write the history of the subject., so I only actually added it once in full, and once in an abbeviated form, and it was then deleted for the second and final time on 14th January 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=184167516&oldid=184167421
Nevertheless the same two critics kept complaining about it and tried to convince the other editors that I was adding it every week for the next twelve months.
For example, four months later, at 21:13 on 13th May 2008 Gordonofcartoon set up a “Conflict of interest” number 2 discussion after COI number one failed. WhatamIdoing then added a few thousand words including these . . . “I think we can all agree that describing your own clinical research in an article, complete with reference to a newspaper article about yourself is a clear cut violation of WP:COI. Of course the first time could have been an innocent mistake, but sticking it back in there after it’s been deleted according to the agreement of every independent editor who has looked at his additions cannot be construed as an unknowing mistake, especially since he’s been repeatedly warned on his talk page and elsewhere about WP:OR, WP:COI, and WP:COPYVIO concerns” signed WhatamIdoing 1:39, 18th May 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_24#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome_take_.232
(Note how my two critics were being extremely calculating and deceitful about my reasons for adding the newspaper report).
As a matter of interest, that newspaper article was published twenty five years earlier, in 1982, and I have had more than 180 letters and articles published in newspapers, journals, or magazines, and no other editor has ever asked for a copy of it, and I haven’t seen any reason to put it on my own website before, and as such, if the Wikipedia editors didn’t ask me to provide it online, I wouldn’t have put it there.
One of the conflict of interest arguments
On December 9th 2007 I started adding information to the Da Costa’s syndrome page, and increased the number of references from nil to six, and then at 05:58 on 18-12-07 I mentioned my own research and theory. Sixteen hours later, at 21:33 another editor named WhatamIdoing added the statement that the ailment was a type of anxiety disorder, but did not provide a reference. However, two hours later the same editor added another sentence after it, and supported it with a reference to a 1987 research review by Oglesby Paul. That reference was added without the proper coding and had to be corrected by another editor the next day. By January there were fifteen references, and WhatamIdoing and another editor named Gordonofcartoon had become two constant critics who would find fault with almost every word I wrote, and they had deleted information about my own research twice, on the grounds of a conflict of interest policy that says a person should avoid adding information about their own ideas. All information about my research was deleted for the second time by WhatamIdoing at 1:34 on 14-1-08. That did no bother me, so I started adding information from other researchers in other decades and other countries. However, when I added information about respiratory research from the 1940’s they said that I had chosen it to support my own theory, and deleted it on the grounds of a policy called ‘Synthesis”. I continued to add references but it didn’t matter where I got them from, the same two critics would find some reason for deleting them. At that stage, I decided to look at the references provided by other editors, and noticed the article by Oglesby Paul, and I found that it was put there by WhatamIdoing. That particular editor was claiming to be a strict rule-abiding expert on Wikipedia policy who only used top quality references that complied with all guidelines, so I assumed that I could review it for Wikipedia without someone telling me that it was ‘nonsense’ or crap’ (their words). When I read the ten page article I noticed that it discussed at least ten different ideas, and concluded that the cause was unknown because for every scientific study which showed a particular cause there were others which showed it couldn’t be. For example, If one study showed a virus as the cause, another researcher would find patients who didn’t have a virus at the time of contracting the ailment. However, it also showed that for each study that showed anxiety as the cause, there were other researchers who found patients who were not anxious, and didn’t develop any of the other ‘so-called’ anxiety diseases. That, of course, meant that WhatamIdoing had deliberately misrepresented the article. However, when I mentioned that DCS was a disorder of unknown cause, my two critics would delete it and replace it with the words “Da Costa’s syndrome is considered to be an anxiety disorder”, and use Oglesby Paul as a reference. When I told them that they were misrepresenting his article they started a hostile argument with me and other editors. Of course, WhatamIdoing was the person who added Paul’s research paper to the reference list, but obviously forgot (or thought that I wouldn’t be able to find out), and tried to convince the other editors that I had “cherry-picked”, or carefully gone through many research papers and specifically chose only those studies which supported my ideas????? – Note, it was WhatamIdoing’s choice, and my research wasn’t mentioned in it.
Here are the exact words that WhatamIdoing wrote on the Conflict of interest number 2 page to get me blocked . . . “As for cherry-picking: He lists a BMJ (Heart) paper that discusses the history of the syndrome, but skips the letter published in response that says it’s all a bunch of garbage . . . I’m at the “give up” level with this editor. I do not think that Posturewriter has an interest in contributing anything other than his original research” signed WhatamIdoing, at 19:20 on 15-5-2008.
Two months later, when I criticised them on an RFC page for misrepresenting Oglesby Paul’s article again, I wrote these words . . . “Oglesby Paul was a Harvard researcher whose history of all of the important research controversies of Da Costa’s syndrome was presented in the British Heart Journal . . . and another editor had placed it as a reference number 1 . . . before I reviewed it” signed Posturewriter 10:39 27-July 2008
WhatamIdoing gave the following response . . . “Oglesby Paul’s paper is a review . . . .BTW (by the way) I added it“. signed WhatamIdoing 00:50, 28 July 2008 (note that WhatamIdoing acknowledged adding it to the reference list which means that they knew all the time that it was not put there by me, and that my use of it had absolutely nothing to do with cherry-picking, original research, or conflict of interest. WhatamIdoing also knew that the reference was no ‘garbage’.
Here is a quote from the Wikipedia page on Civility (good manners when dealing with others) “Editors should always endeavor to treat each other with consideration and respect” . . . and it gives some examples of uncivil behavior . . .
“Lying to mislead, including deliberately asserting false information“.
Incidentally, when an editor makes a comment, especially a harsh one, they are supposed to verify it, but WhatamIdoing did not provide a citation to support the statement that someone else called Oglesby Paul’s article garbage. However, in a later edition of the British Heart Journal, Volume 59, p.727-8 Jenny C. King and P.G.F. Nixon wrote a letter in the Correspondence section, that was critical of his article, but did not use the words “all a bunch of garbage”.
The Conflict of Interest allegation (COI)
My two critics repeatedly accused me of conflict of interest related to my own theory despite the fact that there has been no mention of it, or link to it by me since it was deleted about a year ago, during which time I have been adding to the history of the topic.
e.g. on the Requests for arbitration page where I was banned e.g.
The user conduct RFC concluded that he should find other editing interests and avoid editing articles where a COI applied”Gordonofcartoon 17:48, 26 January 2009” . . . those words can be seen herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_Gordonofcartoon
On the next day, on the same arbitration page, WhatamIdoing states “So Posturewriter cites his own self-published book (He stopped using the DCS article as a coatrack to publicize his own theory on Wikipedia when an admin promised to block him if he does it again) . . . WhatamIdoing 20:25,27 January 2009” . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
On 27 March 2008, ten months earlier, on the COI number 1 page Gordonofcartoon wrote the following words about me . . . “In December/January he was warned about the COI of having inserted a self-reference into the article – see Talk:Da Costa’s syndrome#Banfield – and it was removed by consensus. However, his subsequent edits invariably add material relating to breathing-related studies, which comes across as WP:SYNTH supporting his own theory (even though it’s no longer explictly mentioned). Gordonofcartoon 12:09, 27 March 2008 herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_23#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome . . .
Note Gordonofcartoon’s ridiculous attempt at disrupting my contributions by suggesting that a reference about breathlessness was synthesis of my theory, when it is the main symptom of the ailment in 93% of cases according to Paul Wood O.B.E. – No-one could write about Da Costa’s syndrome without mentioning breathlessness, and one of my critcs favorite modern label’s was hyperventilation syndrome????
Note these words of another editor on the COI number 2 page . . . “I don’t care what he may have done half a year ago. He does not need to be stopped, since he is not promoting anything or adding any original research to the article now”. Guido den Broeder 17:29: 20 May 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_24#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome_take_.232
Interest in a subject does not equate with Conflict of Interest
The fact that someone is interested in a subject, and that they have extensive knowledge of it does not justify accusations of Conflict of Interest. If it did doctors would not be able to add content to medical topics, and historians would not be able to add to history articles. In fact, no expert would be able to contribute to Wikipedia because they virtually all favor their own personal or group views. It is extremely offensive to say that because they have knowledge of the subject they are incapable of discussing it objectively. My critics are implying that they themselves are objective, but that is brought into question as evident from them resorting to foul language and rule-breaking practices to get their way. However, when they deleted the small number of references to my own theory, I started supplying information from verifiable, independent, peer-reviewed sources, and that is essentially all that I am required to do according to an objective assessment of policy. The fact that my two critics choose to nitpick finer policy details to disrupt that process is evidence of their lack of objectivity, not mine. Re: they may try to convince every one else that my ideas are wrong. That is their petulant choice. However, if they try to discredit the facts that I provided from Paul Dudley White etc. they are just making fools of themselves.
They are also implying that I need Wikipedia to promote my own ideas and that rejection from Wikipedia is something that I am supposed to attach great importance to. Whilst it may be an advantage, I don’t need to do that because I have been commenting for 30 years, and on average one in three of my essays and one in four of my letters to the editor section of newspapers have been published, so acceptance is common for me, and so is rejection. Just par for the course. I am also accustomed to people who matter of fact, or courteously, and often agreeably comment on my essays, and those who are argumentative and hostile. Again, it is just the way it is. Nothing special or new. I have also been a critic of my own critics and I actually feel confident in situations which many people would find difficult to deal with, so it is a matter of horses for courses. Some people are good at criticsing others, and some are good at dealing with criticism. I am good at both.
The following quote comes from an editor named Atama on the Conflict of Interest policy talk page 18 months after I was banned . . . “Nobody has ever been blocked for violating WP:COI and I don’t think there’s any reason they should be. Having a conflict of interest in and of itself isn’t against any “rule” on Wikipedia . . . We have plenty of perfectly productive accounts who operate without any problems on Wikipedia despite having a COI. — Atama? 18:27, 27 August 2010
This was my main critics two-faced response . . . “I agree that the problem is abusing a conflict of interest, not merely having a conflict of interest. It would be unfortunate indeed if well-intentioned, non-disruptive editors were blocked over merely having a conflict of interest. We’d lose most of our subject matter experts (and semi-experts).” WhatamIdoing 19:23, 27 August 2010
See Atama’s comment, and WhatamIdoiong’s reply here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest&diff=next&oldid=381354370
Criticism of me promoting my own theory???
I added a few paragraphs of information about my own theory and research to the Da Costa’s syndrome page, and abbreviated it between December 2007 and January 2008, and didn’t mention it again because of the generally ill-mannered criticism by my two critics. I also added a sentence or a paragraph of information to five other pages. Since then I have added more than 60 references about the history of Da Costa’s syndrome from top quality independent sources that comply with Wikipedia policy. However, the criticism continued and never ceased. Here is a brief example of WhatamIdoing’s attempt to argue with an editor who said that my contributions were very good quality. The typically hostile comments are from an MFD page on 27-7-08, six months later) . . .
“All of his contributions outside of Da Costa’s syndrome have been reverted. Here’s the complete list . . . Human position — add his own website (where you can order his self-published book). It’s removed as spam. (March 2007) . . . Chest pain — add his personal theory. It’s removed. (Nov 2007) . . . Chronic fatigue syndrome — add his personal theory. It’s removed within minutes. Repeat. (Nov 2007) . . . Varicose veins — add, and claim non-existent “ref.26”. It’s removed. (Dec 2007) . . . Kyphosis — add his personal theory. It’s removed. (Dec 2007) . . . Da Costa’s syndrome — Add his personal theory. Cite self. It’s removed. Add personal website. It’s removed. Add some history and parts of his personal theory. Cite favorite primary sources. It’s heavily edited. Complain. Add exhaustive catalog of every single primary source that might support personal POV. It’s deleted. Complain. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat ” WhatamIdoing 23:50, 27 July 2008
I continued to add information from top quality ‘secondary’ sources for the next six months but the more reliable they were, and the more independent they were, and the more modern they were, the more hostile my two critics became until they wanted me blocked from every topic and then banned from Wikipedia.
Note that WhatamIdoing tried to create and inflate the illusion that I was causing trouble for many other editors continuously for six months by mentioning all five articles that I had added a sentence of paragraph to six months earlier, and then wrote “It’s deleted. Complain. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat”.
However, in fact, tI only contributed to five other pages, and only made one more comment on one of them in the recent six months, and most of the newer references on the Da Costa’s page were secondary sources, not primary sources.
They wanted me banned for being a ‘single purpose account’, a SPA, with a ‘conflict of interest’ COI?
My thousand page book discussed dozens of different illnesses, not just one, and while I was in Wikipedia I contributed to six different topic pages. One of them was the varicose veins page where I added information about tight leg garters being a cause. It was deleted on the grounds of me not adding the reference properly. However, I was new to Wikipedia, and experienced editors are supposed to assist me in that aspect of editing, and they were violating another policy by deleting an “OBVIOUS” cause without discussing it first. Nevertheless, I didn’t criticise them, but I did provide another source which was a university and general practitioners reference book from 1951, and another editor deleted it for being ‘unreliable’????. I could have gone back to the page and explained that garters had gone out of fashion, and that there was not likely to be anything in modern text books about it, but I came to the conclusion that the editors who deleted the information were friends of my two critics or had the same attitude, and would find a reason for deleting everything I added just because I wrote it.
My two critics started telling me that I couldn’t contribute to the Da Costa’s page but could still discuss their contributions on the talk page but each time they lost arguments about the topic they became more resentful and more determined to block me, and more restrictive about the limitations. Eventually, twelve months after all reference to my own research had been deleted they told the arbitrators that I was a ‘single purpose account‘????? and that they wanted a “broad???? topic ban” on me on pages about 1. Da Costa’s syndrome, 2. chronic fatigue syndrome, 3. varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to????? 4. human posture, “.
See the last sentence in WhatamIdoings statement here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
At that time I thought that they were being extremely petulant and childish. They were telling the arbitrators that they wanted a broad topic ban, but their implied message to me was that they were powerful and influential editors and they were never going to let me contribute to any pages.
SPA policy
Here are some relevant quotes from the Wikipedia polilcy pages about ‘Single Purpose Accounts’ . . .”New users will commence editing on topics that interest them. Such accounts will warrant particularly gentle scrutiny before accusing them of something they canot have known previously” . . . “they may also have found the article in a bad state with a deletion notice and think they can improve it instead of simply wiping the knowledge. Labelling a user with ‘single-purpose account’ in such a discussion is not done without some concern as to either their knowledge of wikipedia policies, or their edits.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Single-purpose_account&diff=prev&oldid=187624421
Their COI argument and the Travelling Topic Ban
After he lost several content disputes against me, and failed to win arguments on several other discussion pages that he set up, Gordonofcartoon responded with spite and revenge by setting up an RFC with his repeatedly failed objective written near the top of the page in these words . . .
“Desired outcome: a topic ban on Da Costa’s syndrome” signed Gordonofcartoon 18:16 on 20-7-08
I had two critics who always tag teamed together, and often made it easy for me to win arguments by contradicting themselves and defeating each other.
These are the words from the policy page that the other one edited . . . “The Rfc process cannot impose involuntary sanctions on a user, such as WP:Blocking or a topic ban; it is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information.” Signed WhatamIdoing 20:55 on 22-12-09
Here are some more words from the same page . . . “RFC’s brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary are not permitted”(end of quote)
Their Conflict of interest argument, and their traveling topic ban
I wrote a theory about posture and Da Costa’s syndrome more than thirty years ago, and later wrote a thousand page book about posture and health at the rate of about 150 pages per year for about eight years, and during that time I documented how postural factors influenced more than 100 different ailments from back and chest pains, to stomach and kidney pains, to breathlessness, faintness, and fatigue etc. The text was supported by 130 references from all sources, including journals and books from most medical specialties, and from public sources about health and society, and from each decade for the previous hundred years, and then selective books from previous centuries.
While I was in Wikipedia I had two critics who were trying to pretend that they wanted me blocked from the Da Costa’s syndrome page because I had a conflict of interest and was using it to promote my own theory. However, my own theory was deleted from the Da Costa’s page between December 2007 and January 2008 and I didn’t put it back again because of their COI arguments, which I didn’t think were valid, because they were insulting me by suggesting that I was incapable of editing objectively, but it was a part of policy, and I didn’t want to waste my time arguing with them about it.
Nevertheless Gordonofcartoon set up their first Conflict of interest discussion against me which consisted as a 1250 word discussion which involved him and me and only one other editor named EdJohnston, and was closed without a decision. After losing some more arguments Gordonofcartoon set up their second Conflict of interest page which proceeded as a three thousand word discussion where he and WhatamIdoing were the only ones criticising me, and were trying their hardest and arguing as fast as possible to get someone to ban me before I got there to defend myself. There were only two other editors involved and they included Guido Den Broeder who spent 90% of his time supporting me before my two critics accused him of having a Conflict of interest and threatened to block and ban him. The only other editor was again EdJohnson who made a decision to block me before I arrived at the page. I then joined the discussion and tried to defend myself but essentially I knew that once a person makes a decision they will not upset their own pride by admitting that they were wrong.
Hence my only two critics were Gordonofcartoon and WhatamIdoing, and the only admin who supported their COI argument after about 4000 words of hostile lies and criticism was EdJohnston.
My two critics constantly and repeatedly used that decision to create the false impression in all future discussions that I was starting the arguments which they called edit wars, and they used these words . . . “Every single correction or discussion was met with a hostile litany of complaints“, and that I was “exhausting the patience” of dozens or hundreds of rule-abiding editors from the entire Wikipedia community, and they would write words like this which I paraphrase . . . “‘we’ve tried COI number 1 and 2 but “all editors” concerned were getting fed up with his constantly disruptive behavior and personal attacks on respectable editors’.
They had been arguing that I should not add information about my own theory, and then proceeded to argue something like this . . . when I said OK here is some information from the 1940’s and 50’s about the history they said that I should not add information about breathlessness because it supports my theory, so I said OK here are some references of a general nature by Paul Dudley White from 1951 etc., and then they said that my references were out-of-date and unreliable, so I said politely OK, one of the references that you provided was by Oglesby Paul from 1987, so it must comply with policy, and I have reviewed it, and they said Oglesby Paul was just some guy who wrote an ordinary review which ‘we’ don’t blather on about, and we need references published in the last five years, so I said politely, OK here’s ten, and then they set up an arbitration page. They told those editors that I was an uncivil, tendentious and disruptive editor who never takes advice and that . . . “every single discussion is met with a hostile litany of complaints. The article’s talk page and his own talk page is filled with endless arguments about every single point. The article is full of edit wars as he tries to force unreliable and misrepresented sources into it.”(end of quote).
WhatamIdoing ends by by telling the arbitrators this . . . “I think that a broad topic ban (including Da Costa’s syndrome, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to human posture, fitness, or fatigue) is an appropriate outcome.” signed WhatamIdoing 20:25 27-1-09.
They were trying to give the ridiculous impression that they would accept my contributions if they were not about those topics. However, if I then added something about another subject they would say predictably . . . “by the way we also want him banned from adding everything about medical topics, and then . . . by the way we want him to be banned from adding everything about everything”.
You would need to have a highly developed sense of humor to see how ridiculous they were.
You would also need to read everything from the start to see how they followed me around to ensure that everything that I wrote was deleted, and how they were selecting and interpreting dozens of different policies to use as their excuses.
Age and Experience, and their ‘trumped up’ COI arguments
(the issue that my two critics didn’t want to talk about)
WhatamIdoing had been pretending to use policy reasons to get other editors to badger me for information about myself, but it was actually for the real purpose of stitching up a long list of replies that could be used to falsely accuse me of repeated “Conflict of interest”, and repeated “Self-promotion”.
I provided information about a research programme that I designed about thirty years ago, in 1982, which WhatamIdoing has read often, and repeatedly pestered me about. Therefore, at an early stage, I became interested in how old that person was, so I had a look at their UserPage which included the following statement . . . “This user is a member of Generation X“.
Generation X refers to people born between 1961 and 1981.
WhatamIdoing was also very “skilled” and “experienced” at misrepresenting things, and at 17:20 on 17-1-09 came to my User page to insult me with these words . . . “Please quit leaving nasty comments on my User talk page” (end of quote),
Note that my two critics often used childish expressions “such as “oops” – to indicate a mistake, and “yup” – to state agreement, and “Aaaargh” to show anger, and “nasty” to show offence?
I therefore gave the following reply . . . “You are younger than me, but you are stil an adult, so please stop using childish expressions such as “nasty”on my talk page”.
At 20:31 on 2-2-09 WhatamIdoing misrepresented some more information about me and ended with the signature – “WhatamIdoing”, followed by these words . . . “who is distinctly middle-aged by the way”.
That individual knew that I had been banned on 28-1-09 and would not be able to reply, and thought that it was safe to give other editors the ridiculous impression that I was not aware of that obvious fact.
Directly opposing Conflicts of interest
Apart from all other considerations, and from an entirely neutral point of view, there are two obvious opposing conflicts of interest for the information about health that is likely to be put in Wikipedia, or deleted from it.
For example, in any controversial or obscure health topics there will be patients who would add information which confirmed or proved that there was a scientific basis for their symptoms because it would bring an end to them being ridiculed as having trivial or imaginary ailments, and as having to deal with the indignity of having a mental disorder. That information would also make it a lot easier for them to claim compensation, insurance payouts, or pensions etc.
By stark contrast there would be many organizations who were responsible for making financial payments to such patients, and they would be motivated to hide or delete such information, and then argue that there is no scientific basis for the patients ‘subjective’ symptoms or their ‘self-reports’ of health problems. They would also want people to believe that they had ‘honorable’ or ‘respectable’ reasons for deleting such information, so they would argue that it might make the patients worry, or make their mental disorder worse. They would then place the burden of proof on the patient without mentioning that the proof had been hidden.
If you now have another look at what happened while I was in Wikipedia you will see that my two critics were arguing that I had to be blocked or banned for having a conflict of interest, so they would ignore the fact that the information that I provided was from independently verifiable sources. They would also tell all of the other editors where they could find personal information about me, but when I asked them to reveal their own personal identity, and disclose their conflict of interest, they acted with feigned indignation and argued that they were very respectable and experienced editors who had established trust and didn’t need to. They also failed to mention that they told an enormous amount of lies – which is not a respectable or trustworthy thing to do.
At the same time they were systematically deleting almost all scientific evidence of a physical causes such as the research of Cohen and White which reported that all of the main symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome were not just the ‘subjective’ complaints of patients but actually did have a scientifically proven physical of physiological basis. They also argued that Edmund Wheeler’s independent 20 year follow up study of 173 patients, which showed the chronic nature of the ailment, was just the ‘self-reports’ of patients and that it was therefore unreliable so they deleted it.
While they were deleting all scientific evidence of a physical cause they seeded the article with psychiatric labels and inferences and added a link to the category of ‘somatoform disorders’. This is a quote from the Wikipedia page about “Somatoform disorder” . . . “a mental disorder characterized by physical symptoms that mimic physical disease or injury for which there is no identifiable physical cause.” (end of quote) See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Somatoform_disorder&diff=391273557&oldid=388834097
What they want the other editors to believe is that I was being evil and disruptive for adding scientific evidence of physical cause, and that they were being honorable and respectable for deleting it and hiding it from the Wikipedia readers.
In my observation most patients are honest and trusting individuals who are waiting for someone in authority to accept the existing level of scientific evidence of cause, or to find it soon, and they are not aware of the opposing influences.
However the organizations who are trying to hide that knowledge have enormous financial resources and could easily fund highly paid agents to control the type of information that the public gets to see.
This brings up a third group with a conflict of interest, namely the paid agents of those organisations, and those who see some sort of social advantage in assisting them.
To some extent those agents could use Wikipedia to suppress knowledge, and to keep it suppressed by denying the human right to freedom of speech, and oppress entire classes of people.
I gave personal information when asked – they refused
On the 8th August 2008, a neutral editor named SmokeyJoe wrote these words addressed to me. . .
“I’ll agree with you with you that all editors editing in areas related to their professional interests should explicitly declare their interests.
An hour later Gordonofcartoon gave this reply . . . “Nobody else is obliged to demonstrate a thing”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=prev&oldid=230597203On the 8th August 2008, a neutral editor named SmokeyJoe wrote these words addressed to me. . .
Conflict of Interest in my two critics continued
At one stage I learned that my two critics had been in Wikipedia for about four years and had accrued 20000 edits between them, so I had a closer look. I noticed an example when WhatamIdoing did more than 300 edits in one day that spanned 16 hours, and that it was not uncommon for that person to do more than 100 edits in one day. I therefore considered the possibility that such a person would be highly paid to do that, or have a staff of three to six people to assist them with that volume of edits.
Also, on 20-7-08 Gordonofcartoon added 15 edits in five and a half hours to set up an RFC page against me.
I think that it is extremely doubtful that anyone would spend that amount of time editing for free so I asked them to tell me their conflict of interest but they argued that I was violating the policy that says I have to assume good faith in them.
I think that anyone who assumed good faith under those circumstances would have to be called naive, unless of course there was some independent investigation to verify it.
Note that they were quite liberal in their questions to me about who I was, and my research and publications, and they even asked me to tell ‘more’ about myself on several occasions, and I answered them politely, only to be told over and over again that I had a conflict of interest. They even used my personal Sir name in the title of sections where they criticised me, and they kept telling all of the other editors those personal details to build prejudice against me.
However when I asked questions about who they were and what conflict of interest they had they acted with hostility as if I was being deliberately offensive??? Their double standards were extreme and offensively ridiculous.
Here are some examples of that individual doing large numbers of edits per day
Several hundred edits in a few days starting at 18:18 on 2 April 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Johnny_Weir&diff=prev&oldid=353585775
Starting at 00:05 on 28 September 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Drphilharmonic&diff=prev&oldid=387427940
Starting at 18:09 on 7 October 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ibandronic_acid&diff=prev&oldid=395968606
Starting at 17:37 on 10 Novermber 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ibandronic_acid&diff=prev&oldid=395968606
Starting at 29 November 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=prev&oldid=399447929
Starting at 18:09 on 7 October 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ibandronic_acid&diff=prev&oldid=395968606
One of their ridiculous COI arguments
I only had two editors making a lot of fuss to promote their own point of view on the topic of Da Costa’s syndrome, and they would issue a lot of threats and warnings and try to get someone to agree with them, and use it as an excuse to delete perfectly valid and verifiable facts provided by me.
This was one of Gordonofcartoon’s ridiculous rants about me . . . “In December/January he was warned about the COI of having inserted a self-reference into the article – see Talk:Da Costa’s syndrome#Banfield – and it was removed by consensus. However, his subsequent edits invariably add material relating to breathing-related studies, which comes across as WP:SYNTH supporting his own theory (even though it’s no longer explicitly mentioned). Is this sufficiently close a COI to expect that he shouldn’t edit the article directly?” Gordonofcartoon 12:09, 27 March 2008
Here a a few facts . . . In their very first pompous comments of the talk page they said that Da Costa’s was just ‘garden variety’ hyperventilation syndrome, and later that it was text-book perfect hyperventilation syndrome, and later that they favored the ‘opinions’ of Jenny Craig who wrote a research paper about hyperventilation syndrome, and they said that all of the symptoms could be explained by hyperventilation.
At one stage one of them used a link to a book called “Behavioral and psychological approaches to breathing disorders”
This was their words . . . “New source . . . ISBN 0306444461 has information about how the disease has been reinterpreted over time. Table 1 on page 127 may be particularly useful . . . Much of the relevant chapter is accessible via Google Books: see Psychiatric and Respiratory Aspects of Functional Cardiovascular Syndromes.” WhatamIdoing 00:58, 28 July 2008
I found it via the Google search engine, but noticed that it was from 1994, and if I used something from that period it would have been deleted as being old and out-of-date. it is for sale at $80 so someone is making money out of it, which violated the conflict of interest guidelines. It contains over 300 pages with the first 160 pages free to read, and the remaining 140 pages are blank. It is not available in Australia so the only way to read the whole book is to buy it, which makes it difficult for neutral editors to check and verify.
Page 127 has a list of alternative labels for Da Costa’s syndrome, however most people may not be able to see it because I have noticed some changes on the number of pages which are free to view. I did however notice, before some changes were made, that the table of contents included Posture for page 169. and Clothing for page 170.
My two critics were pests who told me to delete information about my theory so I abbreviated it and they deleted it again so I couldn’t be bothered putting it back, but they kept on telling other editors that I was promoting it anyway, and they tried to stop me from writing about the cause of breathlessness, which is the main symptom. They chose reference and selected page numbers or details that pushed their own point of view, and childishly deleted or failed to mention, or hid anything which verified my theory.
They were so stupid that even when I wasn’t trying to promote my own theory they were selecting references that did it for me.
(There is the posibility that other authors have copied aspects of The Posture Theory without acknowledging the source. It was published as an essay in 1980, and the first three editions of my book were published between January and October 1994, and included chapters and illustrations about tight waisted corsets and breathing disorders)
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_23#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Banfield
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Physical_v_psychosomatic
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#New_source
Here is a comment by my main critic
My main critic had the odd Wikipedia ID of WhatamIdoing. That editor wrote this about me at 00:54 on 21 July 2009. . .
“I’m not prepared to quite being anonymous. See [https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/ this page] (and others on the same site, e.g., [https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/]) by a permanently banned editor for one reason: Would any rational person want to make their identity available to a person like this? . . . I edit Wikipedia to get away from my real world commitments.” (end of quote)
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine&diff=303248221&oldid=303244894#WP:MED_on_Wikivoices.3F
This is my comment . . . If that editor wants to cravenly hide behind the mask of an anonymous ID, while demanding that new contributors reveal their true identity, and or, while directing other editors to that information at every opportunity, then this is what I suggest – If they don’t have the courage of their convictions then they are not in a position to have any credibility when judging the character of other individuals.
Here is another response . . . “Would any rational person want to make their identity available to Wikipedia if they were given advance knowledge that some of the established editors treat it as an internet video game, and think that it is humorous to refer to other contributors, as “newbies”, “bastards”, “jerks”, “”little shits”, and “easy prey”.
See the Wikipedia page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&diff=384119054&oldid=357876417
The existence of that page is justified on the grounds that it is obvious satire and humour. However, it is equally obvious that any experienced editor who has come across it could use it as an ‘instruction sheet’, and that WhatamIdoing has made a minor edit on it, and used it to perfection.
See the discussion about that page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:The_Last_Word&diff=356132331&oldid=356130646
This is the opinion of another contributor named LeadSongDog. . . “As pseudonymous editors, we have no independent credibility. The reader can only trust the article if it can be verified in reliable sources. Sometimes we get so caught up in details we forget that. LeadSongDog come howl! 02:26, 3 November 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:LeadSongDog&diff=394507025&oldid=394447899
The control of content in Wikipedia using puppets???
After I started adding information to the Da Costa’s syndrome page it soon became apparent that I had two critics who were trying to control the content by deleting everything that I added and replacing it with their own biased opinions. About six months later two neutral editors offered me the opportunity of writing the entire essay a second time on a subpage where they would assist me in making it comply with all policies. I therefore spent several weeks rewriting the article, and posted it to the subpage. One of the neutral editors was intelligent, articulate, co-operative, constructive, and genuine, and described it as “a lot better” than the existing one, and the process of improving it continued harmoniously until the first section had been satisfactorily rewritten by him, but then he asked me to slim down and rewrite the remaining history, and transfer some of the information to other sections. Essentially, he asked me to rewrite most of the article for a third time. During those discussions I was responding to a lot of his questions and became suspicious that one of my earlier critics had suggested the ideas to annoy me and waste my time. I soon found that the editor called WhatamIdoing had cut and pasted my whole essay onto another page and invented more than 80 faults in it, and was then using their own talk page as the venue for telling Avnjay that everything I wrote was ‘a disaster’.
I then knew that WhatamIdoing was trying to control content by using the neutral editor as a puppet. In other words, WhatamIdoing had a track record of inventing a never ending series of objections to my contributions, and by later providing a page of 80 things to change, and another page of relentless criticisms, Avnjay would read them and then ask me to rewrite everything, without knowing that the intention was to annoy me and ensure that my article was never finished or accepted.
In an earlier discussion with my two critics an anonymous editor deleted the whole page of text and replaced it with the words “I love cheeseburgers”. I suspected that one of them had gone to their local library and deleted the article without using their Wikipedia ID. However, when I mentioned it they both denied it, and made various plausible excuses. I later found out that such anonymous editing by one person trying to hide their ID is a common problem in Wikipedia, and is called sock puppetry. Also, they could have sent private emails to their interstate or international friends and asked them to do the deletions anonymously, or with a different ID, in which case the recruited editors are called Meatpuppets. Another example is where one person is having difficulty controlling content on a topic page, so they will go to six of their local libraries and register six different ID’s and then edit the same page to create the illusion that there is a consensus of seven people who think that their opponent is wrong, and then use that consensus as an excuse to make deletions. When groups of ‘experienced’ editors or administrators do that they are called cabals. The whole purpose of using puppets is to hide what is actually going on behind the scenes, but as they say ‘if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck’.
***
Another example would be where other websites are used as internet puppets to make their content look consistent with the descriptions on a particular topic page in Wikipedia so that it could be used as a reference. Such websites invite anyone to help them improve their content, so they could be influenced, or directly edited by my two critics who often do more than twenty edits a day in Wikipedia, and could easily do an extra few edits on other sites. One such website that they used as a reference was ‘whonamedit.com’. This is a quote from it’s home page . . . “We need your help . . . Many biographical entries are incomplete . . . We are grateful for any help in filling in the gaps and getting things right. You will reach the editor through the Contact function on the left side of this page” (end of quote). Of course the editors on that site may not be aware of the motives behind the people who are ‘helping’ them.
COI contradictions: volunteers or paid editors?
This is a quote from a guideline that WhatamIdoing added to the page called “Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not” at 05:29 on 5th July 2010 . . .
“Wikipedia is a volunteer community, and does not require its users to give any more time and effort than they wish”. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=371799440&oldid=371796587
The following words come from an earlier discussion between an editor named Will Beback and WhatamIoing on 30th October 2009 . It was about people who have a paid job with a company or government, which involves spending some of their working hours editing Wikipedia.
WhatamIdoing gave “a personal opinion” with these words . . . “Except, of course, that they are getting paid for doing a job, and that job (at least in their own interpretation) results in Wikipedia being edited. Some people will consider this ‘paid editing’, others won’t” 01:43, 30 October 2009 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_(guideline)&diff=prev&oldid=322846768#Request_for_Comment
Here is a quote from the official “Wikipedia:Paid editing (guideline)” . . . “Paid editing, broadly construed, is any editing where an editor is being compensated in some way, e.g. employees and contractors for money”. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Paid_editing_(guideline)&diff=381630175&oldid=373333742#What_is_paid_editing.3F
This is a quote from another page called “Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)” which WhatamIdoing added at 5:00 on 29th August 2010.
“We do not have a complete ban on paid editing” See WP:PAID for links to the two (currently unapproved) proposals, both of which would permit some kinds of paid editing. See [[WP:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project]] for one example of paid editors that the community is—far from “completely banning them”—grateful to have helping us.” WhatamIdoing 05:00, 29-8-10 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=381631950
WhatamIdoing made some amendments to the following section of a page called “Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project” at 4:54 on 19th August 2010.
“Initiated at Google.org and then announced at the doctors’ mess, this collaboration is intended as an exploration of active cooperation between professional medical editors (hired by the Google Foundation) and any interested Wikipedians to further improve the quality of articles selected by the Google Foundation. Work began with the identification of a short list of articles for review, selected as a cross-section of medicine-related topics. Each article on the list now has an assessed “Class” and “Importance”, harvested from its talk-page banner, reflecting Wikipedians’ initial assessment of their state. Google reviewers review the articles, identify problems, and make suggestions for improving the articles.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Google_Project&diff=381631238&oldid=377674838
At 22:55 on 3rd October 2010. WhatamIdoing wrote another comment on a page called Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard . . . “The fact that the website is for-profit is absolutely irrelevant. We want the best experience for the readers, regardless of whether someone’s making money”. WhatamIdoing 22:55, 3 October 2010″
You can see how insidious and nitwitted my man critic is in this contradictory quote from 06:02 on 2-10-10 during a discussion on the Verifiability talk page . . . “The classic “third party” in a dispute is the judge before whom a lawsuit is being presented. Wikipedia doesn’t want to be written from the perspective of either the “plaintiff” or the “defendant”. e.g., we don’t want to write “Microsoft, according Microsoft’s marketing department”, or “Algebra textbooks, according to textbook publishers”. We want Microsoft and Textbook according to people who aren’t getting paid (or some other benefit) for promoting (or denigrating ) these things.” WhatamIdoing 06:02, 2 October 2010
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=388232959
This is another editors comments about paid editing from the page called “Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)”
“NOOOOOOOO Wikipedia is not supposed to be based on financial gain, this proposal runs against the very core ideas of what it is we are doing here. There should never be a profit motive involved, I can only imagine the terrible mess this would make of this entire project. Wikipedia is not even remotely the same thing as YouTube, thankfully. Beeblebrox 20:32, 23 August 2010″ See here
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=381631950#Why_not
_allow_Wikipedia_editors_to_share_in_revenue_for_their_efforts.3F
For more information related to who would pay people to edit Wikipedia See here
The Conflict of Interest in Political elections
Here is a discussion between an intelligent editor named Stevenmitchell and My duplicitous critic who is using an anonymous ID to conceal their hidden agenda. . .
Stevenmithcell wrote this . . . “Isn’t it an obvious Conflict of Interest to have someone from a political candidate’s office . . . who make . . . changes to his article. In particular, Isn’t the removal of referenced material directly by the candidate’s office (using the geolocate tool), a clear Conflict of Interest? Even without the Conflict of Interest, removing legitimately sourced information that reflects the content of what is said in the article(s) is in itself, anti-collaborative. However, coupled with the existing Conflict of Interest that all political candidates have (or actually their staff members which in this case are most likely paid – particularly with the exorbitant sums of money . . . why isn’t there a prohibition or strong warning against political candidates or their offices (obviously supporters or opposition supporters would still be enabled to contribute) editing Wikipedia. I cannot think of a clearer Conflict of Interest, since they only get paid if they win (this Wiki article references the earnings incentive), and more importantly, there is an deeper incentive for those that will achieve power (the classic corrupter) that far exceeds remuneration. Shouldn’t political candidates and their machines be singled out in this article as having a Conflict of Interest? Stevenmitchell 02:02, 5 November 2010
My main critic then gave this reply which is obviously self-serving double talk. . . First, the policy does not actually prohibit people with conflicts of interest from editing articles. It recommends against it, for a variety of real world reasons plus our own concerns about producing balanced articles, but sometimes the person with the COI is the best-informed editor. You would not, for example, want the article to contain inaccurate information simply because the person who corrected the name, birthdate, or other simple information was (or appeared to be) the subject of the article.
We want good, verifiable, balanced articles. If a person with a COI is able to help us achieve that goal, then we’re okay with that. As a general rule, people with COIs aren’t reliably helpful on that point (which is why we discourage it), but when the individual is, then they are permitted to be one of the “anyones” at “the encyclopedia that anyone can edit”.
Second, do you think that our editors need to be explicitly told that politicians have a conflict of interest with respect to their own elections, or do you think that the typical editor could probably figure that out for himself? If you think the community is smart enough to identify that issue, then we don’t really need to name it here.” WhatamIdoing 02:17, 5 November 2010
see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest&diff=prev&oldid=394908560#Aren.27t_Political_
Candidates_.26_Their_Offices_An_Obvious_Conflict_of_Interest.3F
My response: My main critic is deliberately avoiding the real issues with COI. The only effective way of solving the conflict of interest problem is to make it compulsory for everyone to reveal their real life identity so that that no-one can hide behind a mask. The wearing of masks is the stereotypical behaviour of burglars and bank robbers who don’t want to be identified for obvious reasons, and when they get caught they all say ‘it wasn’t me behind the mask, honest’. Also, it isn’t appropriate for one group of editors to have “geolocate tools” while the other group is obsessively and compulsively defensive about their own precious privacy.
A situation in which my main critic can demand that an editor reveals their real life ID, and then tell every other editor where to find that personal information, while refusing to reveal their own is an offensive joke. It should be a case of reveal one, reveal all. Also, the conflict of interest policy violates the civility policy which requires editors to discuss content and not the person.
To put it more plainly – neutral point of view should be based on content, not on who writes it. i.e. not on the basis of prejudice.
Of course “the typical editor could probably figure that out for himself” but my main critic is too busy pushing the prejudice bandwagon down a one way track.
Linking to websites that charge a fee to view their articles
I made much of the important information from my 1000 page book available on my website for free so that people who couldn’t afford iti could still benefit from it.
However, my two critics tried to put a grubby spin on that by saying that I was using it to advertise my book and therefore had a conflict of interest which prohibited me from adding the information to Wikipedia.
This is a comment from my main critic who endorses linking to pages that require a fee for each topic that the Wikipedia editors and readers need to read in order to check that the facts are verifiable . . .
“Editors should use the best sources available to them, regardless of cost or format. The content policies require that it be possible for someone to verify a given statement—not that it be quick, eaasy, and free to verify it.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals&diff=prev&oldid=391592359
Needless to say that some of those website are journals that would make millions of dollars in profit annually, and would carry advertising that would involve bias and conflicts of interest of all sorts at multiple levels. Also, of course most academics are promoted on the basis of the principle of ‘publish or perish’, and many of them would produce articles that were aimed at pleasing their superiors rather than challenging them for fear of risking retaliation and their future carreers in science.
This is a quote from the discussions which resulted in a page about my theory being deleted. . .
“Comments. We just need dates, titles (and most preferably links to online vesions of all this) so it can actually be verified that everything you said is true. I can only verify that which is available online. If these verifying materials are not available online, I suggest taking the same information I have just requested to either Wikipedi:WikiProject Medicine or Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia to request assistance. Someguy1221 00:02, 1 December 2007
see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_posture_theory&diff=next&oldid=174946920
A quote about content control from another website
There is an organisation called the “National Alliance for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis” – NAME U.S. – which is having difficulty getting information into Wikipedia. Their website has a link to another site which states . . .
“A new data-mining service launched Monday traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources, and for the first time puts comprehensive data behind longstanding suspicions of manipulation, which until now have surfaced only piecemeal in investigations of specific allegations.
Another statement from that website is . . .
“CalTech graduate student Virgil Grifftiht built a search tool that traces IP addresses of those who make Wikipedia changes”.
See here http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerightsnews/2007/08/wiki_tracker?showAllComments=true
and here http://www.name-us.org/index.html
It is obvious that there would be many companies etc, who would employ individuals, or entire teams of individuals, to work in offices or from home computers. Some of them would be paid to act respectably, and others would be trained in the skills of twisting the truth until it became unrecognisable to the public. Many of them would be paid enormous salaries to do thousands of edits anonymously, or to use Wikipedia ID’s and refuse to give their real identity. They would also influence the policies to allow for paid editing, and to defend the idea that the ‘ignore all rules’ was a most important one.
They could organise their efforts so that they appeared to be independent, but one could be paid to become an independent administrator, the other could be assigned the task of acting like an ‘ordinary volunteer’, and another could be appointed the role of influencing or changing the policies to suit the teams purposes, and another to use those policies as an excuse in their roles as deletionist, and another to trace the origin of a ‘newbie’ and ensure that any future contributions from that persons computer was blocked. They could also be paid to transfer any suitable information to other website to gain ‘global control of public opinion’.
Regardless of being paid or not, any group of individuals could organise themselves in that way, or come together coincidentally, and then act as a team because they share the same prejudices in the topic.
They would typically chant these words . . .
“We are having trouble with this disruptive newbie – could we have YOUR an independent opinion on this one please” and . . .
“We the honest, experienced and most respected rule-abiding editors are going to use our DIRTY TRICKS common sense and good judgment to ban anothe SUCKER “newbie”, and are going to do it by using the ‘ignore all rules’ policy for the good of UNIDENTIFIED CORPORATION Wikipedia”.
See also here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#stakeholders
The Great Firewall of Wikipedia
Throughout history individuals and social groups in positions of power have always tried to control the information that the general public gets to see but also want them to believe that they are getting the full truth. Members of the public who believe the spin about freedom of speech and don’t bother to look for the information independently are called naive or gullible.
In earlier centuries books were written one at a time by pen, and the scribes who wrote them could be easily controlled. Since then printing presses have been invented but it was not long before powerful groups and governments regulated what the print industry could or could not publish, and more recently corporations, advertising and government agencies have found it very easy to control the media of radio and television. However, the advent of the Internet, supposedly providing the world’s best opportunity for freedom of speech, has been seen as a threat, and has been infiltrated, taken over, and controlled with astonishing speed by the individuals or agents of powerful groups who disguise themselves with anonymous ID’s and hide the fact that they are being paid, and or deny having ‘hidden agendas’. They essentially play the role of ‘gate-keepers’ who let the information that they approve of onto the internet, and keep information that they don’t want the readers to see outside, or push it out soon after it gets in, and then close the gate behind. They then stop that information from entering again by using various automated or individually monitored watchlists.
The following words are from the Wikipedia articles about internet censorship. The second quote was about “The Great Firewall of China”, and gave examples of how the Chinese government was using agents to control information in China. I have substituted the words “The Great Firewall of Wikipedia” to show now easy it is for that source of information to be controlled by the few.
Quote 1 “Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_censorship&diff=prev&oldid=399758965
Quote 2 “A widely publicised example of internet censorship is the “Great Firewall of China Wikipedia” (in reference both to its role as a network firewall and to the ancient Great Wall of China). The system blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the Internet gateways. The system also selectively engages in DNS poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.[47] Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, and censorship systems are vigorously implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, business companies, and organizations.[48][49]”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freedom_of_speech&diff=400893198&oldid=400892680#Internet_censorship
It probably isn’t possible to make Wikipedia a reliable source of information but a good start would be for the owners and administrators to ban anonymous editing, and require every contributor to declare their conflicts of interest, and to permanently ban anyone who is paid to edit, and any organisation who offers payment to it’s staff or agents for that purpose.
A very good idea for improving the reliabliity of information would be to permanently ban my two critics who told a massive number of blantant and provable lies without bothering to care if they are being paid to lie or not.
WP:Notability
The Reliability of references about my own involvement in a research programme
Several reports about the research programmes were written by a medical journalist for the Adelaide “News” where the articles were part of the process of the request for volunteers, and after the third programme was completed a freelance journalist wrote a summary which was sent to, and, published by at least three major state newspapers, which included ‘The West Australian‘, The ‘Sydney Morning Herald‘ and ‘The Courier Mail‘ in Brisbane. I also understand that he, like all freelance journalists, routinely sent items like that to major overseas newspapers, but I didn’t have any means of finding them. All of the journalists asked me to provide the phone number of the research institute because the editors of major newspapers require them to verify the accuracy of all reports before they will publish them.
Here is a statement by one of my two critics . . . “Wikipedia uses secondary sources, but ones that are reliable as defined by WP:RS: ones with known reputation as sources (e.g. quality newspapers where there’s known editorial oversight and fact-checking)” signed Gordonofcartoon 23:50, 17 February 2010
Here is a statement by my other critic about notability requirements . . . WP:ORG clearly requires the existence of one non-local reliable source . . . Wikipedia explicitly defines itself as a worldwide encyclopedia . . . If no reader outside of a tiny geographic area is likely to be interested in the subject, then it is probably not appropriate for a worldwide encyclopedia” signed WhatamIdoing 8:16 17 February 2010
Here is another statement by the same person about the requirements for meeting the notability guidelines . . . If something . . . “has received attention outside of it’s local area, then that’s enough“. signed WhatamIdoing 00:27, 17th February 2010
Here is part of an argument presented by WhatamIdoing to an editor named MASEM at 1:23 on 15 March 2010 . . . “I can assure you that anyone who has worked his (or her) way up to national desk editor would be very unhappy to have their professional skills dismissed as ‘trivial distribution’ or not really editor-level work . . . and . . . the action that suggests notability is the action of the person choosing to distribute the content.”
Here are the words in the introduction to the journal where more than ten of my essays were published between 1978 and 1983 . . . “The Australasian Nurses Journal; 11 issues per annum listed in ‘Cumulative Index to Nursing Literature and Allied Health Literature‘ and the ‘International Nursing Index, Author’s Guide to Journals in Nursing and Related Fields’: An outstanding journal in studies, research and professional education in nursing. A journal of futuristic views: Circulating throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and every quarter of the globe.
News magazines are sometimes more reliable than journals according to my main critic
The following words are a quote from my main critic . . . “A feature-length story in the Times might well be a better source than speculation in Medical Hypotheses or a letter to the editor in any academic journal.” WhatamIdoing 03:08, 25 October 2010
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=392717787#Scholarly_and_media_sources_redux
Here is a selection my illustrated feature articles that have been published in a broadsheet newspaper that was distributed throughout South Australia . . .
December1994 Posture and illness, Statewide newspaper, 8-12-1994, page 13.
March 1995 – 17th century medical theory: An interpretation, Statewide Newspaper. An illustrated feature article in a broadsheet newspaper occupying 3/4 of the page and distributed throughout South Australia.
April 1995 – Comments on a medical mystery, Statewide newspaper, page 5
Here are extracts from some of the articles
Letter to the editor: /B>from The Australasian Nurses Journal,August 1982, page 15
“Enrolments for this course are sought from persons who occasionally experience feelings of weakness within the chest, dizziness and faintness. Such persons may feel comfortable when walking, but be reluctant to run fast, or lift heavy objects . . . The course involves specially designed exercises and medical testing to rule out persons with heart disease, and to provide valuable scientific information. Sessions are twice a week for 12 weeks” signed Max Banfield, Programme Coordinator
“Fitness helps in therapy”: from the Adelaide News dated August 5, 1982, page 5
“SA could have a world first with a fitness research programme into a medical complaint that causes abnormal tiredness and depression . . . Soviet research assessed the fitness level of people suffering the complaint, and in Sweden experimental courses were held for sufferers. But neither assessed the physical effect of exercises comprehensively . . . Programme coordinator Max Banfield said the condition was difficult to diagnose”
“Research Matches Russian Results”: from the Adelaide News dated December 20, 1982, page 18.
“Research into a complaint which causes abnormal tiredness and depression is matching results of a similar Russian programme. In both countries, sufferers of neurasthenia have experienced breathlessness, faintness, dizziness and heart palpitations, although tests show no heart problems . . . the non-competitive course would enable individuals to exercise at their own level. The programme aimed at relieving the chest pain, fatigue and depression of sufferers while researching the effects of exercise. ”
Study lifts fitness levels: from the Adelaide News dated August 11, 1983. page 13.
“The pilot study at the SA Institute for Fitness Research and Training may be a world first . . . Mr. Banfield said Soviet and Swedish research into the complaint matched initial findings in SA. . . . the fitness course was an extension of initial research . . . The majority of people who undertook fitness training at the Centre gained measurable benefits.”
If you’re tired join the course: was the title of another article published the Adelaide News dated November 18,1983, page 11.
Note that the medical journalist who wrote the articles for the ‘News’ actually attended at least one of the committee meetings where the results of previous trials, and plans for the future were being discussed.
Eight years earlier: This is a quote from a 1974 book called The Heart, by J.W.Hurst . . . “Attempts by Cohen and his associated to alter these abnormalities by physical training were unsuccessful since the patients could not or would not follow the prescribed training programme“.
To solve that problem I designed a training programme, in 1982, that some patients could and did follow. M.B.
I had also previously arranged for a medical student from Flinders University to translate a Russian research paper into English and this was the summary that I added to Wikipedia at 5:58 on 18 December 2007, which was later deleted by my two critics . . . .”In 1980 Soviet researcher V.S.Volkov presented his report on a comparative study of the exertional capacity of 228 patients with three stages of the effort syndrome (which he referred to as neurocirculatory dystony – NCD). For healthy men the average was 1176 kgm/min, and the three stages of NCD were 1161, 940 & 591 respectively, and for healthy women was 834, and the stages of NCD were 854, 621 & 420 kgm/min, indicating that the severity of the condition was related to circulatory efficiency and exertional capacity. 87.2% tolerated levels of 600 kgm/min or more, and 14 of the others had to stop because of overwhelming radiating chest pain, fatigue, and “fear for their hearts”, and another 14 stopped their test prematurely because of changes in their heart rates which reached sub-maximal levels.” Reference number (6) Volkov V.S. (1980) Psychosomatic Interrelations and their clinical importance in patients with cardiac type NCD, Soviet Medicine (11) p.9-15 English Abstract (and a translation) here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=178668081
*******
I suggested the possibility that the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome may be related to a disorder of aerobic metabolism, and that aerobic exercise, such as walking or slow jogging, and gradually increasing the pace over a period of several months may improve the aerobic capacity, and thereby relieve symptoms in some cases. I did not include weight lifting in the exercise programme that I designed because it is the wrong type of exercise. Here is a statement from page 27-28 of J.M.Da Costa’s original research paper of 1871, about a man who had mostly recovered from the syndrome . . . “He was a printer before joining the army in 1862, and had minor symptoms that didn’t interfere with his duties until he contracted a fever in August 1864, and then he was treated with some success and discharged in good health near the end of the war. When seen again in civilian practice in 1866 he said that he had been employed as a conductor on a street car, and suffered no inconvenience excepting if he ran or lifted heavy weights“.
These are the words that I used in a recruitment letter for the fitness programme that I designed in 1982 . . . ‘Letter to the editor, The Australasian Nurses Journal, August 1982, page 15 . . . “Enrolments for this course are sought from persons who occasionally experience feelings of weakness within the chest, dizziness and faintness. Such persons may feel comfortable when walking, but be reluctant to run fast, or lift heavy objects . . . The course involves specially designed exercises and medical testing to rule out persons with heart disease, and to provide valuable scientific information. Sessions are twice a week for 12 weeks.” signed Max Banfield, Programme Coordinator. Here are the words that I wrote as part of that fitness programme design . . . “no heavy lifting”. A copy of the programmed design is here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/cfs-research-ifrt/#anchor130031
The reason for that specification are as follows; If people are required, or forced to do the type of exercise that brings on their symptoms they will not have any confidence in the advice of the instructors and will most probably refuse to participate, but if they did, and experienced the symptoms, they would definitely not go back for the second week. That is why all forced, non-graduated exercise programmes were failing, and why nobody else was able to get scientific data on the effects of exercise programmes.
Furthermore, if you set a programme where the person is told to achieve a level of improvement each week they will reach a level where they get the symptoms and drop out of the course before the three month period was over, and before meaningful scientific measurements could be made, so it needs to be designed to suit each individual patient, and they should determine how fast they walk or run, and when to improve that rate based on the response. i.e. they should progress at their own rate, not at a predetermined rate.
Also, Da Costa’s syndrome is a chronic condition, so there is no known cure, and I have never said that exercise of any sort was a reliable way of ‘fixing’ it, but there have been reports that many patients gain improvements in their general health, and some cases do return to normal health after participating in properly designed exercise programmes. That is a well known fact amongst researchers who have a lot more knowledge of this topic than my critics.
*******
In the programme that I collected data for three periods of three months, the position of walking or jogging on the 400 yard oval was directly related to the persons aerobic capacity i.e. the person with the lowest capacity was running last, the person with the second lowest capacity was running second last, etc., and the one with the highest capacity was in front of the others. The aerobic capacity was measured by research cardiologists, and the position on the field was reported by the instructor. i.e.The severity of the condition was scientifically and accurately measurable in a manner that was independent of the patients knowledge.
The trial proved many other things such as (a) the severity of the ailment was measurable and therefore it was a real condition with a physical basis, and was not imaginary (b) the previously reported reluctance to exercise was due to the inappropriateness of previous course designs, and was not due to a fear of exercise (c) the patients had not been refusing to participate in previous programmes because they were fond of illness and did not want to get well. They were, in fact, willing to exercise for 2 hours per night, twice per week for more than six months if the programme was designed properly, because they actually wanted to improve their health.
Reliability of sources
When I left the research programme one of the things I did was to contact a freelance journalist to outline the findings so that he could prepare an article and send it off to various interstate and international newspapers. However, as you can see, when that happens, the editors of each newspaper give exactly the same item a different title, and they alter the text slightly to reflect their own interpretation, or bias, or whatever they thought might attract interest from their readers. The editor of the ‘Courier Mail’ in Brisbane Queensland gave it the title “Researchers solve mystery“, and the editor of the “West Australian” newspaper gave it the title of “Cause of mystery disease found“, and the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ carried the title of “Illness traced to emotional trauma“.
The South Australian “News”who gained the information directly from me gave it the title “Study lifts Fitness levels“.
If you only looked at the title ‘Illness traced to emotional trauma‘ you might get the wrong impression that a study of about 100 people showed that they all became chronically fatigued due to emotional factors, but if you looked at all of the facts you could see that 80 people were involved in the study (to that point in time), about 60 were available to be interviewed, and 48 were actually interviewed about their views on cause and lifestyle, and only about one third to one half could be traced to a stressful or emotional event. Another third were due to unknown or doubtful causes, and a another third were due to other factors such as a viral infection, pregnancy, the strain of physical endurance, or the long term lack of rest in their history or lifestyle. A more detailed account of those interviews can be seen here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/cfs-research-ifrt/#anchor24413
If you looked at my theory closely you would soon appreciate that poor posture may be a cause, but it is more of a predisposing factor that makes the problem more likely to occur in sedentary workers who compress their abdomens repeatedly as they lean toward desks all day, or to any other factor that has a similar effect, such as the enlarging womb of pregnancy, and that poor posture makes the other factors more likely to cause the problem. It also explains why fatigue is more likely to affect sedentary workers than manual laborers or athletes.
One of the reasons that I preferred to publish my own book was because I could add all of the relevant information and give my interpretation, and also let other people see ‘all’ of the information and decide for themselves if they wanted to. However, when I was in Wikipedia, I had two critics who would delete important facts to make their own opinions an interpretations look credible. They were hoping that I couldn’t notice what they were doing, but it was obvious.
Note also, that I did the research in the early 1980’s. All I knew at the time was that the studies in the recent research literature were reporting that the patients with persistent fatigue, ‘would not or could not’ train, and that I aimed to design a programme that patients ‘could and would’ follow, and it was successful. Since then there have been many studies of graduated exercise programmes (GET), and ‘pacing’ and the chronic fatigue syndrome’. Similar studies were also conducted 60 years earlier by Sir Thomas Lewis.
Some Reviews of The Posture Theory
The editor, Nov/Dec 1980 Are you sitting comfortably, Probe p.17 (South Australia)
Banfield M.A. Jan/March 1984 The Posture Theory, Australasian Health and Healing p.13 (published in Queensland and distributed Australia wide)
Banfield M.A. April 1984 The Posture Theory Revisited, Natural Health p.11 (Sydney)
The editor May 9,1993 Posture Theory Sunday Mail, (published in Adelaide South Australia)
The editor, December 8, 1994, Posture and Illness, Statewide Newspaper p.13 (South Australia)
Alison Linn winter 1997 The Posture Theory, Australian Journal of Osteopathy Vol.19,The No.1 p.23 (published in Sydney Australia)
Laurie Eddy November 1998 The Posture Theory, The Investigator Vol.63 (the same review was later published in the Australian Skeptic)
Laurie Eddy, Autumn 2000 Problems with Posture, The Skeptic (the Australian Skeptics magazine) Vol 20 No.1
Banfield M.A. Summer 2001 Response to Posture, (my reply to the criticism) The Skeptic,Vol 21 No.4 p.63-64
More than 500 copies of my book called The Posture Theory were sold to Australian libraries between 1994 and 2000 and some purchased five editions or more, based on the usage of the book by their readers. The 11th edition contained about 1000 pages of information based on 3000 years of history because the modern sources were not sufficient for my requirements, yet my two critics tried to argue that everything in Wikipedia must come from modern sources published in the past 2 years, or it was unreliable and out-of-date.
I have also given talks about the theory to various public meetings and on one occasion at the Adelaide Writers Festival.
Other reports of The Posture Theory
Over the past 30 years I have occasionally come across the uses or comments on my research and theories interstate or overseas by accident.
There have been many websites that linked to mine at some stage during that period, and there have been many that have used the material. A three page article called “Muscle Stress and Strain” by Osteopath Andrew Wilson included “The Posture Theory” diagram and was published
in a New Zealand magazine called Healthy Options in the May 1997 edition on 10. I have had more than 100 letters and article published in newspapers and magazines, mainly between 1980 and 1990. Several them received best letter awards.
Internet notability
My website called ‘The Posture Theory’ has been on the internet since the early 1990’s, and a hit counter was established many years later, and for much of that time it has been number 1, and or in the top ten list for several categories. It was on the internet before Wikipedia started, and, in fact, I didn’t even know that Wikipedia existed until someone else told me, because, as far as I was aware, it wasn’t in the top few million for those categories, until I joined and started contributing, in which case it went to number one, and fluctuated with my site as number one. Without my contributions the Wikipedia articles would still be non-notable. For much of that time my website was also above all of the internet and journal articles that my two critics used as ‘top quality’ scientific references????? Apparently my two critics, who haven’t got any common sense, think that second, third, fourth, fifth and ten thousandth position etc, are more widely seen or used than my website?
Currently, as at 19 April 2010, The posture theory website is the number 1 entry in the Google search engine for ‘posture‘. The fourth entry contains image results for posture, and includes ‘The Posture Theory Diagram‘ here http://www.google.com.au/images?hl=en&q=posture&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=ZabLS7bzNI7o7AOQ8syHAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCQQsAQwAw
The ninth entry is The Posture Page which has been in the top rankings of that topic, and had a link to The Posture Theory for many years, and the Posture Theory is currently number 2 on their link list here http://posturepage.com/posturelinks/index.html
It is also included in the following website which provides links about The Alexander Technique here http://www.alexandertechnique.com/links/fitness.htm
Over the past fifteen years I have seen many articles and websites which have used the diagram or mentioned the theory.
This is another site that recommends good posture for good voice production here http://www.vocalist.org.uk/posture_exercises.html
The posture theory is link number 16 on the website here http://art.ridne.net/dir/node-100488.html
For more information see here
Note that in the text above I stated that my website was number 1 on the Google search engine for the topic of ‘Posture” as at 19 April 2010. I posted the information on the internet on 21 April 2010. When I checked again, the next day, on 21 April 2010, it was on the third page, and the Wikipedia article on posture became number 1 instead. You can draw your own conclusions about that!!!!!! See also here
Note also that I have never been concerned about my own notability as evident from the fact that my photo has never appeared in my books or articles, however, my two critics were telling me that it was required for inclusion in Wikipedia so I wrote an essay on that aspect some months ago. I didn’t post it here because my two critics have a track record of sabotaging everything I do, and I expected, that if I mentioned that my website was number 1 on the Google search engine they would find a way of getting it pushed down the list. Recently, however, I decided to add some information, and within a day my website went from number 1 on the first page, and eventually to somewhere on the fifth page and fluctuating?????? I don’t know if it is a coincidence or how they would do that, but it is very typical of their methods.
Comparative Notability
The biographies of virtually every player who hit a home run for an American baseball team in the past 150 years is being systematically added to Wikipedia. If the same standards of notability were applied as there are for medical articles my main critic would write something like this . . . ‘We here in Wikipedia are trying to produce a serious encyclopedia so we don’t blather on about some guy who flapped his arms about or ran around in circles on some little oval in 1926. If you want to add anything then only the captains and coaches, and the very, very, very best players for the past two years will be accepted. We do not want any of your seriously out-dated, old, obsolete and long forgotten nonsense here.” see here
That editor recently wrote these exact words of advice to other editors . . . “”the inclusion of every gas station or mom-and-pop restaurant that can be verified to exist in a small town being pretty much the canonical example of what editors mean when they deplore indiscriminate information? WhatamIdoing 22:04, 23 May 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)&diff=prev&oldid=363807630
However, there is a biography of an American baseball player named George Wilson Scott who is considered notable enough to have a page in Wikipedia.This is the entire text from that page . . . “George Wilson Scott was a Major League Baseball pitcher. His major league career consisted of two games in 1920 for the St. Louis Cardinals, spaced nearly a month apart“. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Scott_(pitcher)&diff=285827024&oldid=285683979
Obviously there are vast discrepancies between editors about how to interpret notability policy.
Interpreting and Inventing Notability Policy
You may think that the discrepancies are all coincidence, but I started with the ordinary idea that my theory would be of interest to a lot of readers, and if the Wikipedia editors didn’t agree, then it wouldn’t particularly matter or make any difference to me, but they gave me the opportunity to prove that I actually did the research etc, and then said ‘all we need is dates’ (of publications etc), but deleted an article about my theory anyway. I also found that contributors were actually invited to provide evidence of notability later if they wanted to, but I wasn’t particularly interested, or in any hurry to do that. When I found the page about Da Costa’s syndrome it was the result of me looking for other opportunities to add useful information to Wikipedia, and naturally, it was relevant to my knowledge, but I soon found two editors who were trying to convince other editors that I was looking for it deliberately as a substitute for my theory, and they started accusing me of violating every policy in Wikipedia. They said that comments on my theory took up too much space on the page, and then, that even the abbreviated version wasn’t wanted, because it wasn’t notable, but they kept on deleting everything until they had an excuse to ban me and delete all of the verifiable information from top quality independent sources. Since then my main critic has been watching my website and my criticism of them and has been making a lot of edits on the policy pages about notability and verifiability. That editor wanted to keep me blocked and if a policy didn’t exist for that purpose they were going to find or invent one. As of 26 May 2010 that editor had made 176 comments on the notability policy discussion page Here http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Wikipedia_talk:Notability
and 104 comments on the Verifiability policy discussion page here http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability
That editor has made only 6 changes to the actual policy page for Verifiability, but they are all from 10 October 2008 to 31 March 2010 here
That editor has also made only 13 changes to the actual policy page for Notability, but nine of them have been made the past 2 months to May 2010, since I started adding information about publications relating to my research on my website. See here http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Wikipedia:Notability
Off the planet editing
It is obvious that my main critic is making suggestions on the “Notability” policy talk page, and actually writing some of the “Notability” policies to be an excuse for deleting someone who they disapprove of rather than for ‘honest’ or ‘genuine’ reasons’. For example, if a hillbilly hit a home run in one baseball game 100 years ago in Backwater Village, his ‘notability’ won’t be questioned, because nobody would bother, but if the world’s most famous athlete was not a personal friend of that editor then they would argue that he may be ‘notable’ on this planet, but not on any other planet, so the article has to be deleted because he is not mentioned in the official independent peer reviewed sports journal outside of his LOCAL galaxy.
My main critics contradictory interpretation of Notability and bias
My main critic posted the following words on the arbitration page to get me banned . . . “Statement by WhatamIdoing . . . Posturewriter ‘discovered’ Da Costa’s syndrome in December 2007, a few days after the article he wrote on his novel medical idea and his self-published book was deleted as being non-notable. Initially, I didn’t know much about Da Costa’s syndrome (DCS) and had some hope that we might have a good editor involved.” see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
This is the advice that same individual gave to several other editors eighteen months later . . .
“To the editors who are treading close to “I don’t understand what the subject is, so subject is clearly not notable”: If you don’t know what the subject of the page is, you will not be able to determine notability. You simply cannot evaluate the notability of a subject if you do not know what the subject is . . . Before then, any declarations about its status are likely to reveal more about the speakers’ biases than about the page in question.” WhatamIdoing 03:55, 17 August 2010.here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=379337957
Imitation is the best form of flattery
In the past many people who have referred to my ideas have had the decency to acknowledge the source. However, my two critics are by far the most unscrupulous and prolific copyright violators and plagiarists of my ideas that I have ever come across.
Much of the information that I provided to the Wikipedia page about Da Costa’s syndrome was deleted by two editors who described it as rubbish and nonsense. However, during that time, and since I was banned, it seems to have been transferred by anonymous editors to the page about Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. One of my critics, named WhatamIdoing, who has an edit pattern of deviousness, was regularly editing both pages, but was not accusing the anonymous editors of having a conflict of interest, or deleting very similar (paraphrased) information as rubbish. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=355396430&oldid=355393877
Also, when Gordonofcartoon labeled my contributions and references as rubbish by placing a ‘cruft’ template at the top of the Da Costa’s page here, he didn’t mention that one of the references that I added on 9 December 2007 was J.M.Da Costa’s original research paper. He also didn’t mention that he had been to the biography page about Jacob Mendez Da Costa a few days later on 20 December 2007, and added a link to Da Costa’s syndrome.here
Another one of my references was a book by Sir Thomas Lewis, but within a half an hour of Gordonofcartoon referring to my contributions as rubbish another editor started a brand new biography page on him here. Apart from any consideration that it was started because his name was first seen on my text and reference list, there is the obvious fact that Sir Thomas Lewis was a notable, highly respected, and very reliable author of medical articles according to a consensus of the entire Wikipedia community who have not deleted that page since.
Other references that I used were by Sir James MacKenzie, Sir William Osler, and Paul Dudley White, and Wikipedia has separate biography pages on each of them. My two critics are the only editors in the entire Wikipedia community who have described them like this . . . ‘Posturewriter’s use of references frequently, perhaps even usually, does not meet Wikipedia’s basic standard” WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
See more information here
(Wikipedia is not the only website that invites members of the public to contribute).
Of course, I want to make it perfectly clear that it just looks that way to me, as I have been regularly watching changes there since I started in Wikipedia, but I am commenting on the circumstances and not accusing them of anything. I also wish to clarify that I have no objection to individuals who have had ideas similar to mine, from long standing concepts such as yoga (and several others), or from the Alexander technique, for example, or, from their own initiative. I have a lot of respect for them, and assume that they don’t want or need my support. I only object to individuals who are essentially stealing my ideas and falsely arguing that my contributions are nonsense, and then rewriting them and claiming them to be their own .
How Wikipedia is getting ahead of websites which have previously been number 1
This is an extract from a website called ‘Buzzle.com Intelligent Life on the Web‘ . . .
“Wikipedia & Search Engine Optimisation – #2 Is The New #1
If you have tried searching for a topic using Google lately, you may have noticed that Wikipedia entries are ranking higher and higher, many times ranking in the number one and number two positions . . .
*Wikipedia has thousands of pages that are keyword rich and have high Page Rank
* Wikipedia has excellent internal linking structure, with every page on Wikipedia linking to many other Wikipedia pages
* Most of the internal links in Wikipedia are contextual, meaning that they are located within the content, rather than through menus
* Many other websites link to Wikipedia pages as a reference source, passing PageRank” See more information here http://www.buzzle.com/articles/wikipedia–search-engine-optimisation-2-is-the-new-1.html
My two critics were experienced enough to manipulate those aspects to get their version of any particular topic ahead of anyone else’s.
The information that I provided being transferred to other websites
The ICD-9 Code
Introduction: According to Wikipedia of 15-1-10 the term ICD is a code for the “International Classification of Diseases and Related Health problems”. It provides classifications for the signs, symptoms and other aspects of diseases etc. and . . . “The ICD-9 was published by the WHO in 1977. According to the World Health Organization Department of Knowledge Management and Sharing, the WHO no longer publishes or distributes the ICD-9 which is now public domain”.
There is a website is called “icd-9/health information”, and the sub title is “Index 0-9” and the next words are “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”.
***
I started adding information to the existing four lines of text on Wikipedia’s page about Da Costa’s syndrome on 9th December 2007.
At 6:20 on 19th December 2007 an editor named Arcadian added an information box to the top right corner which included the codes ICD-10 F45.3, and ICD-9 306.2 with links to the lists.
During that time two editors named Gordonofcartoon and WhatamIdoing started criticising almost every word I wrote, and at 00:54 on 29-12-07 Gordonofcartoon deleted everything about my own research and theory and left an article of about 1409 words. There were 225 words in the introduction and overview that had been significantly altered from the way I wrote them, but the remaining 1184 words were almost exactly as I wrote them in the sections of history from 1861 to the end of the page.
Since that time the same two editors criticised and hounded me relentlessly to ensure that every word I added which hadn’t been deleted by someone else, was deleted by themselves, and then they told all of the other editors that I was an “uncivil” and “disruptive” editor with a conflict of interest” who was filling Wikipedia with “nonsense” and “crap” from “unreliable sources”. They continued in the same way for a year until they eventually managed to get one of their friends to ban me on 29-1-2009, and then they deleted everything that I wrote on the final page except for some of the information in the much smaller “Treatment” and “history” sections. In fact they removed the description of 135 years of research history from 1876 to 2009 and replaced it with the following ridiculous sentence. . . “Since then a variety of similar or partly similar conditions have been described” . . . They also deleted my subpage which contained an improved version of the essay from a year earlier, and they deleted my UserPage and my UserTalk page.
However, shortly after Gordonofcartoon deleted information on 29-12-07, which is two years ago now, I checked the ICD records and found that someone had copied the information from Wikipedia and placed it on the ICD-9 website for Da Costa’s syndrome. That article is slightly modified with at total of 1409 words, but the history sections from “1861 to 1950”, and “After 1950”, and the sections called “Related to”, and “Treatment” contain a total of 1184 words that I wrote for Wikipedia, and they haven’t been changed.
The end of the ICD-9 page states this . . . “This article is based on an article from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia and is available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License. In Wikipedia there is a list with all authors of this article available”.
If you want to find that list you can go to the Da Costa’s syndrome page and click on the history tab at the top of the page. It will take you to a page called Revision history of Da Costa’s syndrome. About five lines from the top you will see numbers 20, 50, 100, 250, and 500. If you click on the 500 link it will open a page that has all the edit history of the topic, and you can go back to December 9th 2007 where I began editing it with the ID of Posturewriter.
If you go to 00:54 on 29th December 2007 and click on the (prev) link you can see the page and text that Gordonofcartoon deleted and left behind. You can also see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=180714637&oldid=180703608
The ICD-9 article can be seen here http://www.lumrix.net/health/Da_Costa’s_syndrome.html
wikia education: The Psychology Wiki
After I was banned from Wikipedia I was searching the internet when I found that the article preferred by my two critics in Wikipedia had been copied and placed in a website called “wikia education” on a page called “The Psychology Wiki” which is promoted as a resource for psychologists. It may have been put their by one of my critics who is probably editing multiple open source sites on the internet. At the end of the article there is a comment that it is from Wikipedia and gives a link to the authors of the article. My Wikipedia ID of Posturewriter is on that list and I contributed almost all of the text of the treatment and history section. However, three quarters of that history, which included the most important discoveries, had been deleted by my two critics before it was copied, so that section on the wiki education site is incomplete.
see here http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Da_Costa’s_syndrome
WikiDoc
The same text as in Wikia education was posted onto a website called “Wiki Doc”. Although the entire text comes from Wikipedia, the acknowledgment at the end of the page includes these words . . . “Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia etc.”
The Wiki Doc page was started by my main critic from Wikipedia, named WhatamIdoing, at 23:42 on 16 August 2007, and had four lines of text. It was put there before I started on the Da Costa page in Wikipedia on the 9th December 2007. I subsequently added most of the information to the page, including the “treatment” and the “history” sections by 6:43 on 12 May 2008.
The first significant increase to the Wiki Doc page was made by an editor named Zorkun at 15:13 on 15 October 2008, and was another copy of the abbreviated article item preferred by my two critics – with two thirds of the history missing.
See my main critics original four lines of text here http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=130554
and the text that I had almost completed in Wikipedia by 12th May 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=211817271&oldid=211269450
and the first time the improved Wikipedia text was added to the Wiki Doc site here http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=373959
and the current article virtually unchanged in August 2010 here http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Da_costa’s_syndrome
Cardioneuroses.com
The same text as in Wikia education was posted onto a website called “Cardioneuroses” on July 27, 2010 by someone who identified themselves only as “marcus” which may or may not be a pseudonym of one of my two critics in Wikipedia. It was “Proudly powered by WordPress”, but there is no attribution to Wikipedia, or a link to the editors who originally produced it.
See here http://cardioneurosis.com
My own website
I had spent 12 months contributing most of the information to an article in Wikipedia, so when my two critics deleted most of it and had me banned, I rewrote the introduction and posted it on my website here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#anchor415583
Wikisage
I also placed a copy on the website called “Wikisage” under the ID of Ubiquitous. It has been there without change for more than 18 months, although now that I have mentioned it on 17-8-10, I would not be surprised if someone? went there anonymously, or with a pseudonym, to suddenly object to it or sabotage it with the same sort of trollish nitpicking that I had to deal with in Wikipedia. The WikIsage article can be seen here http://en.wikisage.org/wiki/Da_Costa%27s_syndrome
The Free Dictionary by Farlex
On 3-11-10 I discovered another copy of the Wikipedia page on Da Costa’s syndrome on the Free Dictionary by Farlex. It contained these words at the end . . .
“This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia® – the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the Wikipedia® encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.”
here http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Da+Costa’s+syndrome
As you can appreciate the Wikpedia item that I first saw on 9-12-07, which had been edited by my main critic, had only four lines of text and was insignificant, worthless and useless. Nobody would have wasted their time copying it. However since I started many people have copied the information that my two critics described as non-notable nonsense.
The information about treatment, and the history has been kept by Wikipedia, and copied by the Free Dictionary word for word (or given to them by my main critic) but no-one would ever know that I provided it, so the Wikipedia policy for acknowledging the source is not exactly ‘genuine’ or ‘practical’.
If my name was mentioned every time someone copied my ideas or text I would be one of the most notable people on the internet, but while the two ‘grubby intellectual thieves’ , or the two GITS of Wikipedia steal it they are keeping me ‘non – notable’ and making Wikipedia more notable than it otherwise would be.
An analogy
To give an analogy – Supposing someone wrote a song and put it in Wikipedia. If my two critics musically incompetent critics saw it, they would describe it as non-notable nonsense and crap, and sift through their policies to find an excuse for banning them. They would then secretly transfer the words of the song to other pages in Wikipedia, or to other websites on the internet where the owners could make massive profits by selling the lyrics, or by getting advertising revenue from the visits to their website. My two critics would take great pride in the theft, and Wikipedia and the other websites could make all the profits and the person who wrote the lyrics would never be told, and would remain unknown.
The only problem would be that people would stop sending their songs to Wikipedia, so the editors would have to write their own music, and the outside would would be calling it trash.
If the administrators are going to keep the information that I provide they should show a bit of gratitude, and ban plagiarists.
That does not mean deleting the item from Wikipedia to ‘hide’ this issue. It does mean that they should take responsibility for this problem and fix it.
| My two critics are sabotaging the original purpose of Wikipedia My two critics, and others have been writing and changing policies to undermine the original objectives of Wikipedia which are expressed in the following words of it’s founder Jimmy Wales . . . “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” — Jimmy Wales, July 2004 and . . . “I’d be happy to have, in theory, a good, neutral biography on every single person on the planet,” he says. “I mean, why not, right?” — Jimmy Wales in The Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2008 See here http://www.wikipedia-watch.org |
| Introduction: An account of The Posture Theory was deleted from Wikipedia despite the fact that I provided the evidence that was requested (dates of publications etc). I also saw an invitation to challenge the decision to delete if I wanted to, but I wasn’t that interested. Some time later I added some comments about my theory to a page called Da Costa’s syndrome, but two editors arrogantly argued that there was nothing about it that they could find in the ‘real’ medical literature, and deleted it on the grounds of being a ‘pet’ theory of mine that took up too much space for something that was non notable. They continued to delete almost everything else I wrote for 12 months until they managed to get me banned. About six months later I started this section of my website to describe the ‘notability’ of my theory which is so important to those two editors, and soon after that one of them started a series of 218 comments on the discussion page about that aspect, and actually made 18 changes to the Notability guidelines between 11-12-09 and 12-10-10. Essentially those changes were made to achieve these objectives – It doesn’t matter how many ‘notability’ criteria a topic meets because, if you can get six or more of your friends, puppets, or meatheads to agree with you, then you can delete the item by ‘ignoring’ the guidelines on the grounds of consensus. That, of course, means that the existing editors can determine what articles get into Wikipedia on the basis of their own personal opinion regardless of notability. In fact, a person who hits a home run in a baseball match 100 years ago can be deemed to be more important than any major event of today. The group of editors who initially deleted my theory requested me to make the evidence of it available online, but at that time I wasn’t able to do it so I provided them with the names of libraries, and the phone numbers of newspapers where the information could be found. However, this is what my main critic wrote into the Notability guidelines at 20:53 on 18-10-10, eighteen months after I was banned . . . “Sources are “not” required to be available online, and they are ”not” required to be in English”. This is what the same editor wrote on a discussion page called “What Wikipedia is Not” at 21:39 on 13 October 2010 . . . “Editors at an AFD are permitted to WP:IGNORE notability guidelines whenever they choose to, and closers may choose consensus according to policy and guidelines, or the more limited (but perhaps more appropriate) consensus at AFD.” (AFD is an abbreviation of “Article for Deletion”) See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Notability&diff=prev&oldid=390367389 and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=prev&oldid=390580482#Back_on_track |
Winning Arguments
I present the facts, and let other people argue against them. It started as an amusing thing to do and became a useful skill. In Wikipedia I was using plain English and evidence to deal with jargon and spin M.B.
History repeats itself
One of the first arguments that I participated in many years ago was when someone claimed to know a friend of a friend who could predict the future by looking at the pattern of tea leaves in the bottom of an empty tea cup, so I asked them to find out the winner of the next Melbourne cup and give me a thousand dollars to fund my trip to Melbourne where I could place a bet on the horse and give them half the winnings. They were very confident in their idea when it was my money, but when their own money was at stake they came up with all sorts of weird and wonderful ways of explaining why they couldn’t do it. If you want to test the reliability of someone who claims that they can determine the location of underground water with a divining rod, then bury a bottle of water in your own backyard and ask them to find it, and wait for all of their bizarre explanations as to why they can’t do that. In the meantime consider this: When I was in Wikipedia I had two critics who would come up with all sorts or policy reasons for deleting my contributions so I asked them to apply the same policy requirements to other editors on similar topic pages, but they couldn’t do that because they knew that they would find themselves being accused of disruptive editing by every editor on every page they went to, so they came up with some ‘predictable’ reasons for not doing that, such as they didn’t have time?????
My sense of humor is often effective in arguments
One of the ridiculous statements made by my main critic in several discussions, including the arbitration page, was this . . . “I see that he “forgot” to mention that DCS appeared in cavalry (with their non-restrictive clothing and gear) just as much as infantry (who complained about their belts), and that the British Army did a massive redesign of their gear specifically to prevent DCS — and that it did not work” signed WhatamIdoing 17:27 6 Oct. 2008 . . . and this . . . “Posturewriter dedicates an inordinate amount of attention to concepts that were rapidly discarded (restrictive clothing causes DCS; rejected by J.M. Da Costa himself and not seriously entertained by anyone except Posturewriter himself for a century now)” signed WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27-1-09.
Here are the facts to replace WhatamIdoings lies. The tight uniform debates were an important part of military history, and I only mentioned it as about 1% of the text that I provided for Wikipedia, which is not ‘inordinate’. Also, J.M. Da Costa did not reject the idea of the tight waist belt being implicated, but suggested that it ‘undoubtedly’ aggravated the problem, rather than being a cause. Also, many nineteenth century soldiers were required to wear uniforms that looked ‘neat and trim’, so their clothing was typically tight. In fact, the tight tunics prevented the expansion of the chest, so the soldiers drew in less air with each breath, which is why the became breathless and exhausted more easily, and the heavy knapsacks were held to their bodies with straps that squeezed the abdomen and, or, the chest, and made breathing even more difficult, and some soldiers wore ‘military corsets’ which made the problem even worse. Also, some people told jokes about soldiers fainting on the way to battle because of their tight collars, called ‘chokers’, which reduced the blood supply to their brains. It was obvious to some military doctors that the tight clothing was causing chest pains, breathlessness, dizziness, faintness, and fatigue on long marches and in man to man combat which required extreme effort. The same problems effected women who wore corsets where garments with 14 inch diameter waists were available of the rack as a standard size in London dress shops. They relieved their palpitations, breathlessness, faintness and fatigue by unlacing their corsets.
Here is a challenge for my two critics (who read this website), I would like them to phone their local fitness club tomorrow morning and ask to speak to the person in charge to organise a race between two groups of 100 men of equal age, weight, and fitness level, over a five mile cross county obstacle course. The first group will put on a 14 inch diameter corset, and then add tight collars, tight tunics, and have tight straps around their chests attached to 60 pound knapsacks on their backs, and tight garters on their legs. The second group will be wearing loose clothing. I will give my two critics seven days to organise this, and I want them to tell me the results. I will not tolerate any excuses whatsoever, and will expect nothing short of an admission that they were wrong (i.e. even over such a short distance the group wearing tight garments will become abnormally dizzy, faint, and exhausted, while the other group is still sprinting off into the distance). I also demand an apology. Here are my final words of advice – Remember you have seven days to do this – Ready, set , go.
*****
For another take on the theme, I would like to organise a race between myself and my two critics: Here are the rules; each person must have their legs tied tightly together at the ankles with sturdy ropes, and their arms tied behind their backs at the wrists. They must then carry an egg on the end of a spoon while holding the other end in their mouth and then hop along a course for a distance of 100 yards to the finish line. They MUST OBEY all of those rules AT ALL TIMES or THEY WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. Meanwhile, I will be using their favorite rule from Wikipedia, the WP: Ignore all rules policy, so I will not be tying my legs and arms together, and will carry the egg in my shirt pocket. Place your bets ladies and gentlemen, we are about to start; “
Up to date evidence
The article about my humorous approach to arguments was written several months ago, or possibly up to a year ago. However, I just saw this ridiculous comment by one of the most obvious two-faced sore losers I have ever come across . . .
“Missing humor line: I think that Wikipedia needs an essay (or sentence in an existing essay), along the lines of WP:YOULOSE, to encourage sore losers to dispute meta-issues at RFCs, e.g., whether a straw poll should be invalidated because the losers are losing. (“It’s absolutely impossible for three-quarters of the community to disagree with a person as reasonable as me, so the fact that I’m ‘losing’ clearly proves the poll is biased!”) But it seems to me that such a thing must surely exist. Does anyone know where it is? WhatamIdoing 18:24, 6 September 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&diff=prev&oldid=383292195
This is my response – Try looking under a rock.
Here is a more serious response – Why would any sensible person want to dispute something in an RFC, when editors like that can arrange for it to be ended in violation of RFC closing policy, and no-one else does anything about it.
You can’t fool everyone all the time
“I’m bald and my beard is grey, so as they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and I’ve seen it all before.
I have seen the advantage of experience many times, and when I started adding information to Wikipedia I came across two editors who had been there for four years, and they started treating me as a ‘newbie’ to give the more general false impression that they were older, more experienced, and more knowledgeable than me. Of course, they were aware that I began researching a topic thirty years ago when I was already an adult, and I knew that they were ‘generation x’ – 35-45 years old, because one of them mentioned it on their own Userpage.
However, they wanted to use the fact that first and last impressions are the ones that people remember, especially in long pages of text, so they set up a discussion with my real life personal Sir name at the top in bold print and then tried to give the impression that they had superior knowledge by describing my plain English statements as references to ‘garden variety ‘orthostatic intolerance’ and ‘hyperventilation syndrome’. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1
The same editor who started that page, later archived it so that the very last statement gave the impression that they were older, respectable, and helpful, and that I was young, immature, and stupid, and that was achieved by deliberately writing in the manner of a silly old mother goose addressing a young duckling, with words that I paraphrase. . . ‘we are very sorry we made you read a children’s book about the nasty war, it must have upset you horribly, and we think that it is unfortunate that it is recommended as reading material for school children’ here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Comments_on_the_novel_.E2.80.9CSoldier.E2.80.99s_Heart.E2.80.9D
If you read that full discussion you will then be able to see that they actually lost their argument as indicated by the edit summary at the very top of the page herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=268043151&oldid=266976152
My general response is a quote from Abraham Lincoln (1869-1865). . . “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time” . . . and this is an example of me lowering myself to the level of my two critics . . . There are five billion people on the planet, and you will never have enough brains to fool ‘this little black duck’.
The same editor also boasts about having an ‘annoyingly high IQ’, and is fond of colloquialisms, so I’ll use this one . . . ‘Get off your very tall ladder, before this monkey gives it a very tiny shove’.
Why my two critics can never win a fair argument
I have been involved in arguments for the sheer entertainment value of it for as long as I can remember, but I essentially stopped many years ago because it was sometimes anti-social, so I became more amiable in my general approach to conversations.
However, when I went into Wikipedia I had two critics, which is “only” two, and they started arguments and thought that they could easily beat me with jargon or policies. They were soon getting frustrated, losing their tempers, lying. cheating, and breaking all the rules to beat me, and describing me as angry, upset, and hostile????, when I was simply responding to their arguments and being amused by their word play.
They were also trying their hardest to delete evidence, and misrepresent the facts about the topic, and in that regard they were the instigators of argument, and I decided to respond politely. However, they tried to escalate the discussions into a heated argument at every opportunity, in the hope that I would respond in an uncivil manner so that they could ban me for violating WP:CIVIL.
Their problem was that the basis of all my arguments is knowledge of the topic, so they couldn’t say anything without me noticing the difference between what they said, and what the facts were. i.e. they could very easily deceive people who were not familiar with the topic, but they couldn’t deceive me.
There are other methods that I use but I won’t discuss them because my opponents would try to spin everything in their favor, and what they don’t know, they can’t spin.
The heated debates about Da Costa’s syndrome are nothing new
Da Costa’s syndrome has been the subject of heated debates for 140 years, ever since it started, about whether the symptoms were real or imagined, physical or mental, or due to heart disease or not, or due to 100 other causes. However, my two critics tried to create the impression that the history of research has always been an objective and harmonious pursuit. In fact the controversies are still evident today, and a good example is where my two critics have revealed their strong personal views on this topic, which was only exceeded by their extremely hostile prejudices which motivated them to start arguments with me, and to lose their patience, use foul language, and break their own rules.
They tried to justify losing their tempers by inventing the idea that I was a disruptive contributor who was using unreliable sources of information and writing nonsense in Wikipedia. Needless to say, confident editors would not lose their tempers, or use foul language, or need to break the rules.
Also, they should have been able to write an article about DaCosta’s syndrome by finding all of their own references instead of cherrypicking from my sixty which included ten modern ones. One of my references was J.M. Da Costa (1871). The most frequently used arguments by my two critics was that all references must be from top quality, independent peer reviewed medical journals that were published in the past five years????, and that everything else was old and needed to be deleted for policy reasons????. They were quite incapable of wrtiting a version of the Da Costa’s article based on their own personal interpretaton of policy. i.e. they completely failed to match the standards that they set for me. Their very small list of 17 cherrypicked references included seven that were more than fifteen years old.
They were overheated and out of their depth
My two critics tried to insult me at every opportunity but denied it. The following quotes give some brief examples. On 15-5-08 on the DCS talk page WhatamIdoing described one of my suggestions as stupid and gratuitously linked the word stupid to the Wikipedia page about levels of intelligence, and then a few days later, on 18-5-08 set up the Civil/POV/pushing page and described my contributions as nonsense and cruft (which means rubbish), and said that the “attitude readjustment tools” had “left me unscathed”. Two months later, on 15-7-08 WhatamIdoing followed me to my own Usertalk page to insult me repeatedly and then responded to one of my criticisms with these words . . . “I am not by nature a sarcastic person, and I have never written anything on this talk page, or in any other conversation with you, that I intended to be sarcastic.” (end of quote). However that was typical of the offensive double talk that I had to deal with all the time, and five months late on 1-1-2009 WhatamIdoing made the following ridiculous statement . . . “I have not violated WP:CIVIL: I have not called you names, I have not taunted you, I have not used profanity, I have not impugned your race, religion or other personal characteristics, I have not improperly accused your of impropriety. You may have confused CIVIL with WP:WikiLove and wiki:friendless”. (end of quote)
WhatamIdoing called me names by referring to “attitude readjustment tools” which are applied to “Lusers” to deliberately “taunt”, bait, goad, inflame, and provoke them, and was being sarcastic by playing dumb and pretending not to understand that it is being sarcastic to refer to their own snide remarks as wikifriendliness.
The insults continued on the CIVIL/POV/pushing page on 3-2-09, after I was banned, with Gordonofcartoon describing my contributions as “continual griping” . . . “procedural nitpicking, obfuscation, lying by misquotation” and saying that other editors described it as “crap” . . . “and so on and on and f***ing on”. (end of quote)
I have had thirty years of experience at dealing with controversies so their ridiculous ill-mannered twaddle flowed over me as easily as water flows off a ducks back.
The Ceiling of knowledge
My interest in medicine started thirty years ago as an attempt to solve a problem, and within the next five years I had identified it’s nature and had a good look at a variety of ideas on the subject. I then searched through the relevant literature until I had reached the total breadth and depth of knowledge, but there were still no satisfactory explanations so I had to continue expanding those boundaries myself. About ten years later I became interested in the history of medicine and started looking for clues there. Another twenty years went by when I joined Wikipedia and started writing about it, and was confronted by two editors. They tried to argue that the only people in the world who could understand all of the mysteries of such a complicated topic were people like themselves who had annoyingly high IQ’s and University qualifications, and that the knowledge could only be found in modern mainstream medical journals that had been published in the past two years???? They can only succeed with a silly argument like that against uneducated people who don’t know about the ceilings and boundaries of current knowledge.
Their Unreliable and sub-standard article
The Da Costa’s article provided by my two critics can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214
It is so unreliable and sub-standard that you will not be able to find the answers to the simplest and most basic of questions. For example, what is the cause of the chest pains, and what is the cause of the breathlessness. Also, what is the cause of the fatigue, and when was it first known, and can it’s severity be measured, and what was the result of long term follow up studies. Also, when were exercise programmes first used to treat the condition and what type of programmes were involved. When you have failed to find the answers to those obvious questions then see if you can determine if the condition is a civilian or military ailment, and then if it is more common in men, or women. When you have come to the conclusion that their article is a sub-standard, and almost completely useless, and worthless source of information then you can find the answers to all of those questions and 100 more in the article that I prepared here, but they deleted.
The Argument that my two critics started in Wikipedia
Here is the basic question: was I being disruptive by adding verifiable information to the history section of the Da Costa’s page, or were my two critics being disruptive by selectively deleting some of it to justify their own interpretation. i.e. why were they removing a complete balanced account of all of the history, and replacing it with their own narrow, and biased view.
Their methods
My two critics had a complete and utter lack of confidence in their ability to win any arguments against me, so they tried their hardest to get decisions made in my absence, or before I arrived at the page to discuss my side of the story. For example, they lost the arguments that they started about Rosen’s research paper, and about the naming of the Da Costa’s page, and they wrote great volumes of criticism in a hurry to get a decision made before I presented my side of the story on their ‘conflict of interest’ number 2 attempt, after their first attempt failed. They also lost their case on the Wikiquette Alerts page, and on the Miscellany for Deletion page, and they lost their argument about the appropriateness of their link to a children’s fiction novel. They were conducting a discussion with Moreschi on an Administrative noticeboard incidents page, and it ceased almost immediately when I found out about it and went there to give a response, and they left comments on a Civil?POV/Pushing page without inviting me to defend myself, and they left criticisms on the Reliable sources noticeboard where my final comments were excluded. They also arranged for a decision to be made on the RFC page before I completed my subpage, and they started the Arbitration page and arranged for one of their friends to ban me before the other 12 editors had a chance to make a decision, and they did that a few days before I was to present my final statement. They went to other editors for help and acted as if I was a disruptive editor who had started the arguments, and as if they had won most of the time, and that the previous discussions had failed because they were the wrong forum. In fact, they were so hopeless that they ultimately had to tell the arbitrators lies, and knew that I would be able to prove that, so they urgently arranged for one of their friends to break the rules to get me banned.
Their Ad hominem method
Their are two distinct ways of arguing. I use facts and evidence as the basis, and my two critics use ad hominem, which essentially means that they try to create so much prejudice against me that no-one watching the disputes will notice the facts, or assess the evidence properly. For example, if a man has a clean white hat, a white shirt, and white trousers he will appear to be the good guy, and if someone has a dirty black hat, a scruffy black shirt and torn black trousers he will appear to be the bad guy. “Image” determines the way strangers are judged, so if I am new to Wikipedia, and my two critics don’t like the top quality verifiable information that I am providing they will try to clothe me and the information in black. Hence when I use a reference from one of the most reliable sources of information in the history of the topic, they will describe me as an ignorant and stupid person who doesn’t understand the MEDRS policy for up-to-date evidence, and as being deliberately disruptive for using an out-of-date 1951 text book. Their objective is to lead other busy editors to the conclusion that I am an unworthy contributor who doesn’t deserve consideration, so that they won’t bother to read chapter 22 in Harvard professor Paul Dudley White’s internationally distributed university reference book.
They were devious deletionists
In 1987 a researcher named Oglesby Paul reviewed the history of Da Costa’s syndrome and concluded that the cause was unknown, and described about ten unproven ideas on cause such as tight straps about the chest, thyrotoxicosis, anxiety, hyperventilation, and abnormal function of the autonomic nervous system, etc. However, my two critics showed their obvious bias by deleting everything (about nine of the ideas) and replacing it with a statement such as . . . ‘Oglesby Paul said the cause was anxiety”. They then gave an excuse which I paraphrase as . . . ‘we did this for the purest of pure reasons to tidy up the page and remove posturewriters rubbish’. (they were actually violating policy by deliberately misrepresenting a reliable source).
My two critics were trying to argue that the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome did not have a physiological basis so when I added some comments about Sir James MacKenzie from 1919 I predicted that they would invent some devious reason for deleting it. MacKenzie essentially said that the fatigue was due to a reduced supply of blood and oxygen to the brain caused by the abnormal pooling of blood in the abdominal and leg veins. My two critics did not want to make it obvious that they were deleting that comment specifically so they removed it with a batch of other information, and then left the following impression . . . ‘we did this for the purest of pure reasons, to separate the history into big round numbers from 1871 to 1900, and we then very briefly summarised everything from 1900 to 2009, to tidy up the page and remove posturewriters rubbish’.
I knew exactly what the were doing, but they were trying their hardest to hide it form everyone else. Their removal of verifiable information to prop up their own version was a violation of several policies including the neutral point of view policy WP:NPOV, and POV/Pushing, which they accused me of to divert attention away from their own culpability.
The Policies of Wikipedia
Wikipedia has some very sensible and flexible guidelines about how to make it become a reliable source of information, and their policies are not rock solid rules, but general comments to be interpreted with common sense. All people are allowed to add anything they want, but if there is some dispute about a conflict of interest it is best to accept it. However you are allowed to provide information about the reliability of information, or about notablily, and to put it on line to make it easy for other editors to verify, and you are also invited to supply information from reliable independent sources. You also have a responsibility to report on other editors who are violating the spirit of Wikipedia and removing reliable information and making it narrow and biased, and less accurate. However, when I added information, or provided evidence of notability, or gave information that was written by other authors, my two critics treated it as a crime to be punished, and when I told them that they were destroying the spirit and objectives of Wikipedia by deleting verifiable information they wanted me punished and banned for being disruptive?????? They were interpreting policy to suit their own best interests instead of Wikipedia’s basic principles.
My contributions to Wikipedia
When I started adding to Wikipedia all I knew was that anyone was invited to add useful information to help the online encyclopedia become a bigger and broader source of knowledge than printed versions, so I scanned through some pages until I found a topic that I was familiar with and then stopped to take a look at it. I soon noticed that a page called ‘Human position‘ had a ‘See also’ section which mentioned the Alexander Technique that I discussed in some detail in my book, and that it had an external link to a website called ‘The Posture Page’ where the owner had exchanged links to my website many years earlier, so I added an external link to my website. I later noticed that the page on ‘chest pain‘ did not have anything about postural compression disposing to occasional stabbing and cramping pains in the chest so I added it with a link to my website for more information. I then found a page about the chronic fatigue syndrome and gave a one paragraph summary of my theory on cause. I also found a page about ‘kyphosis‘ (stooped spine) which did not have anything about nutritional cause so I mentioned that vitamin D deficiency in childhood could cause the deformity and linked it to my own website where I have more information on that aspect. I later noticed that a page about ‘varicose veins‘ did not have anything about tight garters blocking the veins to cause varicose veins below the garter line, so I added it. I then started contributing to a page about Da Costa’s syndrome which I have studied, researched, and written about, so I added information about my own theory etc, and when I was told that it took up too much space (WP:Undue Weight) I abbreviated it, and when that was deleted in January 2008 I didn’t put it back, and started adding information about the history of research on that topic based on independent verifiable sources.
I was simply adding useful information that had not been provided by anyone else because Wikipedia invited people from all walks of life to do that, but I later found that my two critics had gone to all of the pages with my ID and ensured that every word I wrote was deleted, and then they told all of the other editors that I was a disruptive editor who was causing the entire community of Wikipedia to lose their patience and become disgusted by my never ending self-promoting nonsense??????
They started arguing with me and they provided a link to an irrelevant children’s fiction novel and expected me to take them seriously????
They were rule-making, rule-abiding, tag-teaming rule-breakers??????
When I was in Wikipedia for twelve months there were two editors who would criticise almost every word that I wrote, often within a few minutes of me adding them, and I had no hope of ever keeping up with their constantly changing objections, so I generally settled back to consider their multi-faceted arguments, and contributed once a week. They claimed that they didn’t own Wikipedia, but acted as if they did, and did not want to be administrators, but acted as if they were. They said that they didn’t write the rules, but they must have spent at least 10% of their time editing, modifying, rewording, or changing the rules to suit their own issues, and they criticised anyone who didn’t agree with them. They repeatedly told me that I must obey all of the rules of Wikipedia like all of the other respectable rule-abiding editors such as themselves. In fact, they must have told me about every rule in Wikipedia except the “ignore all rules” policy???? which they were using themselves, and which they were encouraging and rewarding other editors to use to get me banned. Here is how they teamed up to change the guidelines about tag teaming, and denied it. Note that whenever I responded to their criticism of me they referred to it as an example of me “blaming”, or “attacking” them?????, and most of the time their idea of consensus was two against one?????
At 20:36 on 1-8-08 WhatamIdoing wrote the following words on my UserTalk page . . . “I’d feel a lot less attacked if you quit blaming me for policies that I did not create and do not control. Every editor is required to comply with all policies and guidelines at Wikipedia. It is not a matter of me, or any other editor, changing the requirements on you”.
(Regardless of it being a matter of creating the actual rules, it was nevertheless, a matter of WhatamIdoing deliberately and precisely creating and controlling the interpretation of policies to change the requirements on me).
At 15:44 on 4-2-09, six months later, and only a few days after I was banned, Gordonofcartoon added a note to the Wikipedia policy page about tag-teaming to change it, with the following quote from a section headed “False accusations of tag-teaming” . . .”It is often difficult to tell the difference between tag-teaming and consensus-based editing. This makes “tag-team” inherently usable as an accusation by editors who are failing to alter an article against a consensus” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Tag_team&diff=268486470&oldid=263995921
At 5:54 on 11-9-09, seven months later, WhatamIdoing made the following amendment to the same sentence in the same paragraph of the same policy page . . . “False accusations of tag-teaming” . . . It is often difficult to tell the difference between tag-teaming and consensus-based editing.Consequently, some editors that are failing to gain consensus for their preferred changes will inappropriately accuse every editor that opposes them of being part of a “tag team”. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Tag_team&diff=prev&oldid=313141652
see more about their teaming practices here
At 21:36 on 29-10-09you can also see how much influence WhatamIdoing actually tries to exert on some other policies from the following extract. These were WhatamIdoing’s exact words of advice to another editor . . . “Since Born2cycle . . . effort to imply that I don’t know what I’m talking about,I’d like to remind him that I was one the participants in the very long discussions about re-writing this policy, and that I’m accurately reporting what I — and he — was told” [[WhatamIdoing|talk]] 21:36, 29 October 2009 herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions&diff=prev&oldid=322806257
At 2:09 on 31-10-09 WhatamIdoing made this statement in response to the same editor. . . “I also want to say, as the person that originally wrote nearly everything on this page about procedures for new proposals and substantial changes to existing policies, that it’s kind of odd that I am being accused of never wanting anyone to change policy and guidelines pages (while minimizing complaints from other editors). If it were true that I opposed changes to these pages, I wouldn’t have wasted a week here last year in telling people just how to go about it. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 02:09, 31 October 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Policies_and_guidelines&diff=prev&oldid=323031972
At 1:04 on 16-12-09′;. WhatamIdoing wrote these wordsin response to an editor named SatuSuro . . . “It happens that I wrote most of the relevant sections in the WikiProject Council Guide”.
At 02:35 on 16th January 2010 WhatamIdoing wrote these words of advice to an editor named StormRider about Wikipedia “Naming conventions” . . .“Much of what I have written over the past couple of years at WP:External links, for example is focused on reducing confusions by more fully explaining what’s already on the page, rather than changing how the ‘rules’ operate”.
At 18:35 on 18th January 2010 WhatamIdoinggave these words of advice to another editor named Squideshi about “Naming conventions” . . . “Please consider the advantages (to you) of accepting the defeat of your proposal with a litte grace, and stop trying to re-write the rules to gain an advantage in a dispute”.
At 7:12 on 20th January 2010 WhatamIdoing gave these words of advice to an editor named Masem . . . “the written guidelines should primarily describe and reflect the communities already existing-view of an issue: they should not invent new rules for the purpose of changing the communities practices”.
At 2:19 on 13th February 2010 WhatamIdoingwrote these words about another editors attempt to change the style guidelines . . . “It is a quotation of a section that appears to have been changed very, very recently to say essentially the opposite of what it has said for years, which makes one suspiciousthat someone changed it for the purpose of affecting his discussion“.
At 2:38 on 28 March 2010 WhatamIdoing made some changes to an essay that hadn’t been edited for two and a half years. It’s title was “Wikipedia: The differences between policies, guidelines and essays”, and it previously had only 46 words of text spread across six very small lines. The gist of it was “You must follow policies, except for the “IGNORE ALL RULES” policy which is THECOMMON EXCEPTION, and you should follow guidelines, and it is a good idea to follow essays, and don’t ignore guidelines just because they aren’t policies.’
WhatamIdoing slab deleted that entire essay and completely rewrote it in the same edit with 409 words of text (almost 900% larger in a single edit), with these typical and ‘telling’ remarks . . . “There are remarkable numbers of exceptions and limitations embedded within Wikipedia policies, and all policies need to be applied with common sense . . . Furthermore WP:ignore all rules is a major policy<“.
In other words the rules and guidelines were initially written to be followed and complied with, but since then, editors like my two critics have been rewriting exceptions into every policy so that they don’t have to comply with anything(because they can now find exceptions (or excuses) for everything they do), and if they still fail to get their own way in disputes, they just ‘ignore’ every policy, guideline, or essay written in the past eight years”.
According to the Wikipedia revision history statistics for the period 3-9-2008 and 11-11-2009, WhatamIdoing was the sixth highest contributor to the policies and guidelines talk page, and gave 91 opinions about how they should be rewritten, and wrote 8 changes to the actual policies page between 22-10-2008 and 17-10-2009.
It looks like an example of the person who wants to be the power behind the throne, but doesn’t want anyone to notice who is pulling the strings. Also, WhatamIdoing was intelligent enough to manipulate the rules, but was not intelligent enough to match the newer standards. The method can be summarised like this; if my two critics were not good enough to win within the rules, then they would try to change the rules, and if someone else wanted to change them they would argue relentlessly to stop them, and if that failed, then they would use WP:IAR . . . the Wikipedia policy called . . . “Ignore all rules”.
The average new contributor would not stand a chance against that type of labyrinth of argument.
Competence and skill in Disputes
For a further example of WhatamIdoing’s extremely arrogant attitude, I have seen that editor link several times to the ‘Dunning-Kruger effect‘ which refers to the idea that some incompetent people overestimate their skills and have the illusion of superiority.
Here is a quote from WhatamIdoing’s advice to an editor named Tenmel at 6:48 on 15-12-09 . . . “Arbcom-imposed mentorships are essentially useless. Speaking very generally, without saying a single word either for or against yourself, when editors get as far as ArbCom in a dispute, especially one involving patently idiotic choices like persistent edit warring, then the problem is almost always bigger than WP:Mentorship can handle, and has a lot more to do with an unrecognized lack of WP:COMPETENCE on the part of at least one of the editors. Incompetent people are sincerely unaware of their incompetence; a personal belief in one’s own competence is as unlikely to be a useful measure of one’s real skill level as a drunk’s decision to drive a car is likely to indicate whether he’s actually a safe driver.”
WhatamIdoing was responding to Tenmel, who, at 22:07 on 14-12-09, added a link to an essay on mentorship which explained that the most obvious answer to a question is not always the best, and that the first idea that inexperienced and impulsive people think of for solving their own problems can get them into more trouble in the longer term with people who have had more experience, and have seen all the tricks before.
Their incompetence and inferior skills in arguments
I have had much more experience in controversy than my two critics, and although one of them claims to have an “annoyingly high IQ” and university qualifications, and although the two of them combined have added more than 20,000 edits, they still have very “poor” “skills” in an argument. For example, at one stage they linked a “novel” to the DCS page, so I borrowed it from my local library and found that the main character did not have any of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome, and it was apparent to me that neither of my critics had read past the title of the book. When I asked them to remove the link because it was irrelevant I anticipated their response with “curiosity”. Gordonofcartoon replied five hours later, at 12:07 on 26-6-08, by “inventing” a “simple” “diversion”, and twisting my words about, and arguing that my “diagnosis” of the main character was a violation of original research policy (WP:OR). A day and a half later, at 0:29 on 28-6-08, WhatamIdoing “invented” another “simple” “diversion” by arguing that the “children’s fiction novel” did not have to be relevant to the “medical” topic because of “hatnote policy” (WP:HATNOTE). Soon after that, at 1:56 on the same day, I made a more direct suggestion to Gordonofcartoon with these words . . . “If you wish to question my interpretation, you will need to read it yourself and give me chapter and page numbers to assess” (end of quote). It was easy for me to find a copy of that popular book and it only contained about 100 pages of text, so it would also be easy for Gordonofcartoon to find it and give me a list of the page numbers where the symptoms were described, if those pages existed. Of course, they didn’t, so the only honest responses for Gordonofcartoon to make would be to admit that he had never read the book, or that he had read it, but was wrong in thinking that it was relevant. However, predictably, he and WhatamIdoing just continued to argue with the same type of diversionary tactics for several weeks. About six months later, at 13:08 on 22-12-08, the hatnote was deleted for several policy reasons by an independent editor named El imp, and then about a month later, at 20:25 on 27-1-09, WhatamIdoing left the following words about me on the Arbitration page . . . “The other problems that we’ve encountered generally involve a failure to grasp Wikipedia’s conventions. For example, at one time, Soldier’s heart redirected to the DCS article. There’s a novel named Soldier’s heart, so we provided a link to the article about the book. Per WP:LAYOUT, this link should be in a hatnote instead of in a See also section. Posturewriter complained at length and repeatedly about the disambiguation link being “in the lead” and a “reference”. Posturewrtier never seemed to grasp the point, and ultimately, it was resolved only because Soldier’s Heart became a regular disambiguation page” (end of quote). WhatamIdoing was again demonstrating “poor” “skills” by either not bothering to read the history of edits and seeing that the hatnote had been deleted, or by telling the arbitrators deliberate lies.
WhatamIdoing also used hatnote policy to put the label of Soldier’s heart in the lead (at the top of the page) so that it would be a more effective venue for promoting the false idea that Da Costa’s syndrome was exclusively, or mainly a military ailment, and then created a diversion by “inventing” the argument that I didn’t get the point???? I did understand the conventions, and the hatnote policy, and how my two critics were misusing them. They made sure that I was banned by one of their friends before I had the time to explain such things to the arbitrators.
I could always predict that they would use their experience with policy to produce diversions in the many content disputes that they started and lost. Their predictable ‘trickery’, or diversions, which were ‘acts of deception’, were tedious, and their method of getting me banned by using the “ignore all rules policy” may have been more surprising, if it wasn’t so “typically” ‘devious’.
More OBVIOUS examples of their lack of maturity, experience, and skill in disputes.
During disputes my two critics tended to respond impulsively by deleting some of my contributions within minutes of me adding them, and then they would rush to give an immediately made up policy reason, without thinking about the fact that they were breaking the same policies. They frequently showed evidence of losing their patience, and their tempers, and resorting to foul language and they ignored simple rules on the basis of ‘selective’ interpretation rather than on the true meaning of them, and they were so childish that they made, such as ‘everyone’ has a ‘right’ to lose their temper? when they are obviously out-of-their-own-depth in a dispute.
Another obvious example of the almost totally naive approach to argument is where they acknowledged that they had lost their patienceand were on the verge of tearing their hair out, which gives everyone, even their critics, the advantage of knowing that they have poorly developed, or under developed coping skills in disputes. They have won many arguments against new contributors, but those individuals probably lacked the skills to see the ‘obvious’ signs of them being ‘out-of-their depth’, and many new contributors probably left Wikipedia in disgust at their pathetic opponents and their shameless and blatant ‘cheating’.
****
When I used the benefit of my experience I was aware that I needed to spend some time preparing my responses to their criticism so that I could cover all of their ‘devious’ angles, so I asked the other neutral editors how long I had available to produce a proper reply. Gordonofcartoon would come along like a typical fool and say in paraphrase . . . ‘told ya so, this is another example of Posturewriter’s delaying tactics’.
Gordonofcartoon obviously doesn’t know how important it is to actually think about something before you write it.
*****
My two critics were both impatient, impulsive, and temperamental, but 12 months after I was banned WhatamIdoing wrote these words about another????editor who was involved in a dispute . . . “the problem must be ‘much’ bigger than the example, and much more about relationships/emotions/behavior than about content in the mainspace.” signed WhatamIdoing 5:30, 2nd February 2010.
*****
They were a very amusing tag team who often defeated each others arguments. For example, one of them would lose their temper and refuse to co-operate with neutral editors on an RFC page, and soon after that the other one would accuse me of being angry??? on a page where I provided clear evidence that they were being disruptive?
The Obvious Lack of confidence shown by my two critics
My two critics were treating disputes as a sort of horse race, as if I had won all previous races , and they had lost all of theirs, so they needed to make things difficult for me in order to give themselves a chance of winning. For example, they always worked as a team of two, and they told me to obey all the rules while they were ignoring all the rules, and they kept on moving the finish line each time I won 9 of the 10 distances (or disputes), from 1000 yards, to 1100, 1200, and 2000 yards, and in the last instance when I asked the judges where the real finish was (thinking that it was 2100 metres), the two ponies ran past and one of their friends told the judges to go home and declared them to be the winners at the 2050 mark.
They were incompetent in arguments
My two critics tried to win arguments against me without bothering to read past the first paragraph of research papers or the title of a book. They also knew that the only way they could beat me was if no-one else had a chance to see my side of the evidence, so typically, if I gave some advance notice that I would be away for awhile, they would rush around in a frenzy and try to get me blocked before I returned.
Their method for getting me banned was also typical. Gordonofcartoon set up the discussion on the arbitration page with a 190 word introduction, and followed it with a 270 word statement, and then a 173 word response to questions from an editor called Wizardman, and a 62 word response to Vassyana, and a 90 word response to Carcharoth, with the total being 792 words.
My other critic named WhatamIdoing gave a continuous and desperate rant of lies amounting to 1074 words, plus a 72 word response to Horologium, making the total of 1146 words.
I wrote 659 words of defence at 08:32 on 27 January 2009, and told the arbitrators that I would let them discuss everything and give my response at the end of the week, and asked them to let me know if they wanted an earlier reply.
WhatamIdoing rushed into the discussion on the same day, and all of Gordonofcartoons responses to other editors comments were made between 27 and 29 January when one of their friends rushed in and banned me, and threatened to argue with anyone who disputed his personal decision.
The combined number of words used against me by those two editors was 1938, and my total defence was 659, and I didn’t have the opportunity to respond to WhatamIdoings accusations, or any of the other editors comments.
They were disgusting and offensive cheats.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#User:Posturewriter
Their complete lack of competence in the subject
My main critics lack of qualifications to edit the Da Costa’s syndrome topic can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=247115577&oldid=247067496
and that editors admission of not knowing much about the subject until I started writing about it for Wikipedia can be seen in the first sentence here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
and the virtually worthless four line article that the editor contributed to before I started can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=165216444&oldid=151708868
The article that I wrote and they called crap and deleted can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266514750&oldid=266506092#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
The Cambridge online dictionary definition of an ingrate can be seen here http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/ingrate
It means ‘a person who is not grateful’
It generally refers to a person who is ill-mannered and offensively disrespectful to the person to whom they owe gratitude.
Their No Win Trickery
I spent twelve months in Wikipedia where I had two critics who were trying to block me by using every trick in the book. One of their methods was to produce ‘no-win’ situations. For example, when I added information about my own research to the Da Costa page they said it took up too much space, so I abbreviated it, and when they said that I was violating the ‘conflict of interest’ policy, I didn’t agree with their interpretation of policy, but I stopped adding the information for ‘polite’ reasons, ‘obviously’ to ‘keep the peace’. However, they deliberately misrepresented that by telling the other editors that I had “given up” adding my own research?????
I then started writing the history of the topic, but they continued to criticise and delete every word and every independent reference that I added. For example, when they criticised my references for being written by one person, I provided the same information from a ‘review’ paper, and when they criticised the references for being ‘old’ I provided ‘modern’ ones. However, they described that response as being ‘disruptive’ or ‘edit warring’.
In other words, if I complied with policy by not adding information, they said that I was ‘giving up’, as if I had ‘caved in’ to their pretentiously’ ‘powerful’??? ‘authority’????, and if I provided information that met the appropriate requirements, they said that I was being ‘disruptive’. i.e. According to them, everything I did, regardless of whether I did what they wanted or not, had something wrong with it.
I have had thirty years of experience at dealing with disputes and there are many ways of dealing with ‘simple’ ‘no-win’ ‘stunts’. One way is to describe the trick, so that ‘everyone’, without that experience, can ‘easily’ ‘recognise’ it.
They were sore losers
My two critics were incompetent at winning content disputes, so they couldn’t win by limiting themselves to arguing within the boundaries of the rules, so they lied and cheated, and would generally be referred to as sore losers.
However one of them presented this comment on 6-9-10 . . . Wikipedia needs an essay (or sentence in an existing essay), along the lines of WP:YOULOSE, to encourage sore losers to dispute meta-issues at RFCs, e.g., whether a straw poll should be invalidated because the losers are losing. (“It’s absolutely impossible for three-quarters of the community to disagree with a person as reasonable as me, so the fact that I’m ‘losing’ clearly proves the poll is biased!”) But it seems to me that such a thing must surely exist. Does anyone know where it is? WhatamIdoing 18:24, 6 September 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&diff=prev&oldid=383292195
This is a brief summary and proof of the arguments that they lost, but won’t admit to . . .
They argued that Da Costa’s syndrome was ‘garden variety, and ‘text book perfect’ ‘hyperventilation syndrome‘, but they contradicted each other, and their version of the article does not include that label.
They argued that I was deliberately neglecting the topic of mitral valve prolapse syndrome, yet I did discuss it, and improve upon it (because they didn’t), and when I asked Gordonofcartoon to read a relevant small three page article on his own ‘to do list’, and asked him to review it himself, he said he didn’t have time. Also their version only mentions it once, in one small sentence.
I told them that Paul Dudley White had described Da Costa’s syndrome as a fatigue syndrome that was chronic, and that many modern authors regarded it as the same, or very similar condition, but they said it couldn’t be because CFS was a diagnosis by exclusion.
They argued that the symptoms described by MacKenzie in 1916 were not the same as orthostatic intolerance, but their version of the article states that the orthostatic intolerance described by Da Costa was found in patients diagnosed with CFS.
They argued that my use of references by Wood, and White from the 1940’s and 1950′ were unreliable and unacceptable for use in Wikipedia because they were more than fifty years old. However they used references by the same two authors for the same period.
They argued that a reference by Sir James MacKenzie was unreliable because he was just an ordinary doctor who walked in off the street, joined a society, and spoke at an ordinary meeting that had nothing to do with the subject, but they used the same reference from 1916.
Their version of the article provides all of the evidence and proof that lost all of those arguments, but are sore losers who got the best information from me but won’t admit it.
You can read their version of the article, including their reference list by scrolling up and down here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266577085&oldid=266514750#Classification
They were very prolific liars and very sore losers.
So many rules – policies, guidelines, and essays
As the colloquial expression goes . . . ‘rules, rules, rules, they tried to stifle me with a million rules.’
When I added my own research it was deleted for violating COI policy, and when I added independent research it was deleted for being a violation of OR (original research policy), and when I added reviews they were deleted for being old, and when I added more recent ones they were deleted for being op-eds etc. It became obvious and PREDICTABLE that I had two critics who were going to find or invent a policy reason for deleting every word I wrote, so I described their tactics as a ‘wild goose chase’, which has it’s equivalent in Wikipedia of ‘moving the goal posts’ so that it would NEVER be possible for me to add anything acceptable because they would just keep inventing more reasons for deletion.
Here are WhatamIdoing’s words at 21:35, 10th March 2010 . . . “IMO Wikipedia has so many rules that nobody can really be expected to know them all “.
Also at 2:38 on 28 March 2010 WhatamIdoing “There are remarkable numbers of exceptions and limitations embedded within Wikipedia policies”
This is a comment given to another editor by WhatamIdoing at 4:28 on 20 April 2010 . . . “Wikipedia has hundreds of guidelines and dozens of policies; is there a particular concern that you have?” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines&diff=prev&oldid=357142534
This is the advice that WhatamIdoing gave to another editor at 20:19 on 11-11-10 . . . “I realize that it’s confusing, but the purpose of the Village Pump policy page isn’t to get advice on how to apply existing policies to articles: its purpose is to get comments on changing policies . . . But the good news is that people at least won’t be yelling at you for posting a honest question . . . (Now if you and I think Wikipedia is complicated, just imagine what a brand-new editor is thinking”)” – end of quote. WhatamIdoing 20:19, 11 November 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=prev&oldid=396188326
This is another comment by a different editor on the length of pages in some Wikipedia policies . . . “I think repeating material in one policy in another makes both of them prone to becoming nonsense when one policy is edited and the other isn’t. Also, both policies become so long that people overlook the provision that applies to the case they are interested in, because it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Jc3s5h 00:41, 15 May 2010
Note that I was a new contributor, and my two critics falsely and frequently accused me of deliberately ignoring hundreds of rules that ‘nobody’ can be expected to know, and even if they did, there are a ‘remarkable number of exceptions and limitations’.
This is what I did know; my two critics were deliberately manipulating the rules to block me, because they couldn’t win any content based arguments. This is an example of how they used the rules, and I paraphrase their arguments . . . ‘Posturewriter, you can’t use Harvard professors Paul Dudley White’s internationally distributed 1951 reference book because it is ‘old’, and you can’t mention that he was a professor from Harvard, but we can use a ‘novel’ because of ‘hatnote’ policy, and we don’t have to tell the readers that it is irrelvant, or that it is a children’s fiction story’, or that they will be wasting their time if they read it. You also can’t use an internationally respected text book by Paul Wood O.B.E. from 1956 becaue it does not meet our requirements for references from the most recent five years, but we can use one of his 1941 research papers as a reference because he was the head of the Effort Syndrome Unit of a hospital that specialised in the treatment of the ailment.
***
This is what I told the arbitrators before I was banned. . . “Please note that you can see the pattern of WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon changing the jargon, and changing the policy, and changing the forums each time I comply, which is a type of disruptive editing called ‘moving the goalposts'” signed Posturewriter 8:32, 27 January 2009
This is TYPICAL of the excuses that WhatamIdoing used to justify that OBVIOUSLY DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOUR . . .
“The goalposts haven’t moved during this time: I just didn’t post complete explanations of all of the relevant standards in the first message: I also didn’t tell him not to shove beans up his nose, and I doubtless excluded other important instructions in my first message.” signed WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009.
Note that Wikipedia has a page called WP: Don’t stuff beans up your nose. It basically gives advice not the give other editors ideas. For example don’t tell people how to crash Wikipedia or someone might do it.
It relates to the fact that my two critics were incapable of winning content arguments against me, and didn’t want to tell me about all of their policies because they knew that I would then start winning all of the policy arguments. Their own ability to win arguments was pitiful. re; they couldn’t win a chook raffle if one of them bought the only ticket and the other one drew the prize. Their control and dictatorship of policy
These are the words at the top of the page called “Wikipedia:Five pillars” . . . “The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates have been summarized by editors in the form of five “pillars” see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Five_pillars&diff=next&oldid=366437244.
Here is a quote from a page called – Wikipedia:What “Ignore all rules” means.
“The principle of the rules is more important than the letter.”
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_%22Ignore_all_rules%22_means&diff=
383225082&oldid=383224304#Use_common_sense
This was WhatamIdoing’s advice to an editor named Erachima . . . “Erachima, are you aware that 5P has no authority whatsoever, and therefore nothing can derive any authority from it? WP:5P is just as ‘official’ as as WP:SIMPLE, WP:TRIFECTA, etc. NOT is a policy; 5P is just an essay (a useful one, but still just an essay). WhatamIdoing 00:48, 20 July 2010. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not&diff=prev&oldid=374404659
Another example of that arrogant editors contempt for the main principles can be see with these words . . .
“The five pillars are equally just some editors making up stuff. WP:5P is no more authoritative than WP:TRIFECTA or any of the other several essays that editors like” WhatamIdoing 21:21, 17 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=379471837
You can see how my main critic could and did use the very flexible guidelines to win disputes like this . . . ‘we don’t have to comply with the principles and rules of Wikipedia, but everyone else does.
This is a quote from WhatamIdong at 19:03 on 9-9-10
“WP:Five pillars is (just) an essay, and no more important than any similar essay” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:List_of_policies_and_guidelines&diff=prev&oldid=383885184
This is another editors comment . . . “any claims that there are principles with which all WMF projects ”must” comply need to be taken with a large grain of salt” Kotnisk08:58, 14 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=378848350&oldid=378837182
As you can see, all new contributors are at a disadvantage in any dispute because they will be politely assuming good faith in everyone else complying with the rules, but many experienced editors completely ignore them , as if they have no more value than a grain of salt.
At 22:42 on 16-9-10 WhatamIdoing edited a page called “User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles” and changed it from the category of “Policies and guidelines”, to “Basic information”. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of_principles&diff=385251483&oldid=374900812
It looks like that editor is trying to water down the original principles and take control of Wikipedia policies without anyone else noticing.
There are many contradictions in Wikipedia policies
When I started contributing to Wikipedia it was for the purpose of adding useful information, and I soon found that there were some policies and guidelines that had instructions about how to do that. One of them is the Wikipedia ‘policy’ that advises against making personal attacks on other editors (WP:NPA) which includes the following words on the top lines at 21:41 on 31 March 2010 . . . “This page in a nutshell . . . Comment on content, not on the contributor”.
However, an editor named WhatamIdoing, who admitted to not knowing much about the subject of Da Costa’s syndrome until I started, decided to argue with me, and consistently lost, and then started focusing on me, instead of the content, by setting up a discussion on a ‘Talk’ page about that topic, and put my real name in bold print at the top of the page???. Another example occurred when that same individual started a section called “Requests for comment/Posturewriter”, and moved it to the top of their own User talk page and left it there to criticise me until I was banned.
They demanded that I provide more information about myself, and then argued that I had a conflict of interest, and that I was not writing objectively, and that I was being disruptive, and that I was tendencious etc???
I continued to spend most of my time trying to focus on content and adding information, and they spent almost all of their time focusing the discussion on me, and I had to comply with policy by remaining polite even while they were being deliberately annoying. At one stage, after politely disregarding their arrogant and extremely offensive attitude for many months, I decided to tell them to stop “beating their chests like a couple of apes swinging through the wiki trees’ and they set up several discussion pages and quoted it, and told dozens of other editors that it was an example of my ‘incivility’, and then relentlessly attacked me with criticism.
Here is a quote from the Civility policy at 23:50 on 24 January 2008 . . . “Some editors deliberately push others to the point of breaching civility, without seeming to commit such a breach themselves. This may constitute a form of trolling, and is certainly not a civil way to interact”.
The point I am making is that there is a ‘policy’ that advised editors to focus on content, and not the person, and yet my two critics were doing the exact opposite.
When another editor named Reisio argued that most policies contradict each other he was stating the obvious.
However at 19:05 2 April 2010 WhatamIdoing wrote . . . “Conflicting advice isn’t the same as direct contradiction”.
Nevertheless, the fact is that one policy recommended that editors should focus on content, and not the person, and yet there are dozens of policies (etc) which directly contradict it by focusing on the person. For example, the ‘conflict of interest’ policy (COI) which advises that the ‘person’ must tell other editors what their interests are in real life’, and then says that such ‘persons’ can’t contribute to related topics. There is also a “Civil POV pushing” ‘essay’, which is used to accuse another ‘person’ of pushing their point of view, and a tendencious editing ‘essay’ (TE), and there is a disruptive editing ‘guideline’, which all discuss the person, and not the topic, and were all used by my two critics . . . ‘as if’ they were all ‘rules carved in rock’.
WhatamIdoing, of course, uses all of the policies, the interpretations, the ‘remarkable numbers of exceptions’, and the contradictions’ to accuse other editors such as Reisio, of going against consensus, or edit warring etc., and then WhatamIdoing uses all of the same ‘exceptions’ as an excuse for hounding, harassing, insulting, making personal attacks, arguing, and edit warring with anyone who questions their interpretation of the ‘exceptions’.
WhatamIdoing style of argument has the characteristics of sophistry which is defined in Wiktionary as . . . “An argument that seems plausible but is fallacious and misleading, especially one devised deliberately to do so; The art of using deceptive speech or writing; Cunning or trickery.” (end of quote)
That editor argued that there were problems with the style of article that I presented, as if there is some standard that must be followed to the finest detail, but then had the cheek to say this later . . . “many of these so-called “style guides” are nothing more than essays, and I oppose any wholesale re-naming efforts that would seem to canonize them”. WhatamIdoing 22:50, 24 May 2010
The result of that deceptive type of argument is this . . . ‘None of the rules really mean anything, so the only way that anything can be done in Wikipedia, is the way that editor says it should be done, at any particular time, on any particular article, and everything else is wrong..
This is another contradiction – Civility policy advises editors to focus on content, not the person, but this is WhatamIdoing’s statement to Reisio at 6:32 on 4 April 2010 . . . “violating behavioral pages will get you blocked; violating stylistic pages will not”.(end of quote)
However, the fact is that discussing another persons ‘behaviour’ is a comment on that person, not the content.
Censorship Contradictions
Wikipedia was set up with the objective of gaining all information from all sources to reflect all points of view and to be superior to the old print versions that were compiled by a small number of editors who would obviously have a bias. That bias would produce a type of censorship which affected what type of content that went in, and what was left out, and would therefore give the readers a less than neutral point of view of various topics, particularly those involving controversy. Censorship was therefore frowned upon in Wikipedia, especially censorship of content. It is equally obvious that any editor who deletes any information for any reason, is favoring the opinion that remains, which means that Wikipedia would soon ‘fill’ with bias.
In addition to those considerations there are features in Wikipedia such as the ‘watchlist’ which could easily be used for the purpose of censorship while creating the illusion that it was a neutral procedure being used for other reasons.
Therefore, the fact that Wikipedia frowns on censorship sounds meritworthy, but any large company could pay an individual to use the watchlist for the purpose of controlling content, so that the good things about the company get into Wikipedia, and all negative information about their products is filtered out.
For example, the controlling editor could regularly scan pages, and if he found anything that wasn’t wanted, he could put the provider of that content on a watchlist, and check their contributions on a regular basis to ensure that any more was deleted within a few minutes, and the provider would be blocked if necessary. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Watching_pages&diff=363108779&oldid=363107351 Also, when I went into Wikipedia I had the understanding that everything was open for all readers to see, but some of the filtering practices can be determined or planned on hidden pages, or in private emails, or amongst colleagues outside of Wikipedia.
An extract for the policy about censorship is as follows . . “The issue of censorship on Wikipedia continues to be debated, although for the most part, the concept that Wikipedia is not censored holds strong dominance. . . “Note that the term “censorship” varies by usage and is debated by differing factions. In fact “censorship,” as it is typically used, is a pejorative, carrying with it a connotation of suppression, totalitarianism, and the imposition of point-of-view on others. Suppression represents the denial of freedom of speech for the messenger, and the denial of the “right to know” for the audience” (end of quote) here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Censorship&diff=269650954&oldid=269206992.
Examples of how one of my critics managed to block me can be seen with these words . . . “I’d like to point out as well that this article is on my daily watchlist, and I suspect that it’s on several other editors’ lists for the same reason. I think you can rely on me promptly noticing future attempts to use this article to promote your theory. (I do appreciate your other efforts, but you need to quit adding your own research theories to this article.) WhatamIdoing 01:49, 14 January 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#I.27m_going_
to_go_read_WP:CIVIL_now
(note that that particular editor has a habit of telling lies and exaggerating. Only two editors (always the same two),were likely to have me on their watchlist; o-one else was interested. The same editor went to six different topic pages to make sure that everything I wrote was deleted. In the example above they used the excuse that it was about my own theory, but throughout the year they invented countless excuses for deleting content and sixty five independent sources of factual and verifiable information. See here)
Notablity policy nonsense
The following contradictory advice was given by my main critic to other editors . . . “Now add one more, absolutely critical fact: Complying with GNG is not a guarantee that your subject is notable. It’s a rebuttable presumption, which means that you can show up with your sources, and editors can and do reject the notability claim, for any reason or no reason” WhatamIdoing 22:51, 24 May 2010
Policy Blindness-and-double standards
Here is one of my main critics responses to a question from another editor . . . “I’m still waiting for evidence to support your claim that “90% of Wikipedia” violates the policies. I have not seen the slightest evidence that even 10% violates these pages” WhatamIdoing 05:20, 17 May 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research&diff=prev&oldid=362564707
However, the page that editor used to replace the version that I presented has violations of ‘original research’ policy that involved the cherrypicking of ‘old’ references (their words) here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214#References
and the same editor was making comments and changes to the page about Varicose veins, but refused to remove all ‘old’ references or ‘original research’ from that page when I requested them to here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Varicose_veins&diff=253841433&oldid=253612090#References
and the same editor has been making amendments to pages about Chagas Disease which has original research here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chagas_disease&diff=361928078&oldid=361924298#References
and, the Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome which have references that would be interpreted as ‘primary’, or original research, and or ‘old’ , and or, extensive ‘anonymous’ editing here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=355396430&oldid=355393877#References
It is very easy to find pages that violate the policies, but it all depends if you want to impose the rules with the iron fist of a power drunk megalomaniac, or look at them as if you are as blind as a bat.
Devious Dictatorship by ambiguity
Here are some more words of advice from the same editor which can be interpreted this way . . . The rules aren’t perfect so they can be overridden by any group of editors – and those groups are controlled and persuaded or told what to do by the most dominant editor who wants to control, or who is paid to control topics in Wikipedia. The actual words are . . .
“I believe every notability page to be, at best, an imperfect description of the community’s real views — but editors must use their best judgment in applying it to specific articles. The community retains the right to delete (or merge) even well-sourced articles at its discretion; nothing we put on this page can delete an article the community chooses to keep, or keep an article the community chooses to delete“.WhatamIdoing 01:43, 24 May 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)&diff=prev&oldid=363839626
i.e. In reality, the policies that have been written by hundreds of editors to ensure that Wikipedia is a good encyclopedia, and which are used to advise all new and existing editors what to do mean ‘nothing‘.
If the same rules applied to normal society there would be chaos on the streets and chaos on the roads.
An example of the contradictory ways that policy can be ‘twisted’
After being criticised by two nitpicking editors for 12 months I became familiar with most of the Wikipedia policies, so when I wrote a subpage essay I took them all into consideration. For example, policy prefers that you don’t mention your own theories or research, and that every statement can be verified from references to top quality authors who have had their articles published in independent peer reviewed journals. I also found that when writing the history of topics it is perfectly acceptable to use older references for ‘obvious’ reasons. One of the references was used by my critics so, you would think that they would only use reliable sources????, and I was familiar with it. The article was a ten page review of the history of Da Costa’s syndrome written by Harvard professor Oglesby Paul, and was published in the 1987 edition of one of the world’s most respected medical journals called ‘The British Heart Journal‘. When I used it as a source of information I sat back and thought to myself . . . ‘I wonder what my two critics will find (or invent) to nitpick about this?’. You can see the result below. The first comment is by Gordonofcartoon and was made more than a year after I was banned. He was giving advice to another editor that Wikipedia prefers ‘reviews’, and then you can see the nitpicking nonsense and drivel that my other critic wrote about the essay that I provided.”
These are Gordonofcartoons words . . . “WP:MEDRS guidelines are that medical articles should be sourced as far as possible from secondary sources such as review papers.” Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Speech_and_language_pathology&diff=prev&oldid=368858640#A_source_
of_potential_useful_references
This is a small part of WhatamIdoing’s ridiculous nitpicking criticism of my essay . . . “The style is horrible. Medicine-related articles do not obsessively name the year, publisher, and authors when discussing research work. That’s what your citation is for. He doesn’t even have complete names for some of these people. We don’t blather on about “In 1987 prominent Harvard researcher Oglesby Paul presented a ten page history of Da Costa’s syndrome in the British Heart Journal…” This is an effort to tell the reader “You have to believe everything I say that this guy said. He’s important. You should know his name. He published in a decent journal.” Paul’s paper was a routine review paper.” WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 6 October 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:Requests
_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
You can appreciate that I wrote the essay, so I am the only one who knows why I did things a particular way, and that what my critic said was a deliberately offensive misrepresentation of the facts. For example . . .
I was writing the history in date order, so that I, or anyone else, could fill in any gaps later if they wished, and to make the sequence of discoveries clear to readers. Also, most histories are written in chronological order. However, my critic spun that around and implied that I was ‘obsessively’ naming the year??????? As another example, I described Oglesby Paul as a Harvard professor to stop my two critics from telling other editors that he was just and an ordinary and insignificant guy, and my critic said ‘we don’t blather on’ about the fact that the author was ‘a Harvard professor’. For a third example, I was writing about Oglesby Pauls ten page history of Da Costa’s syndrome to show some of the relevant information from it, such as, the many theories, and differenct opinions about cause, and a lot of contradictory findings, but my critic spun that around and said that I mentioned his qualifications in order to make people think that he was important, and that they should believe everything he said???? In actual fact, his history article was very accurate, and most of what he wrote can be easily checked from many other sources.
The version of the article that my two critics provided is an unreliable source of information because it is a classic example of ‘deceit by omission’.
The ridiculous attempts to deny that policy contradictions exist
by the editor who tries to control policy by writing exceptions and loopholes
“There aren’t actually very many direct conflicts in the main policy/guideline pages (e.g., excluding essays and unapproved advice pages). The more common issue is that page X recommends X in X situation, and page Y recommends Y in Y situation, and the article is about X+Y, but you can’t do both X and Y (and so which do you follow?)::Did you have a particular problem in mind?” :WhatamIdoing 21:27, 31 July 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Policies_and_guidelines&diff=prev&oldid=376486924
Policy extremes and Policy Freaks
I went into Wikipedia for genuine purposes to add useful information but found myself in arguments with two editors who fit the description of ‘policy freaks’ or ‘control freaks”. Every time I added something they would find a policy reason for deleting it, and, although I knew that they were telling lies and being deliberately ill-mannered, biased, and disruptive, I was not familiar with the policies, or of how to set up pages to get them blocked, and I didn’t go into Wikipedia for that purpose, so they eventually managed to get their way, and satisfy the hollow sense of pride they get from that rather petty accomplishment.
However, an example of a hostile dispute in which each of the opposing editors knew the policies can be seen when one editor accuses another of using unreliable sources of information which violates WP:MEDRS policy, and the other one accuses the first of going against consensus which is violating WP:Consensus policy here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chronic_fatigue_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=360649070#POV_edits_from_SPA_COI_editors
This is a small extract from that discussion . . . “Ward20 and ME mafia editors control this article, it is not acceptable. When you are a patient activist or you get money from CFS patients, causes pls declare your interest and STOP messing w Wiki. CBT is the only treatment w evidence in controlled trials, XMRV is total BS and nonMEDRS, pls stop and go write your blogs people, WP is a serious encyclopedia”. RetroS1mone talk 05:15, 5 May 2010. . .
and this was one of the replies . . .
“Please refrain from repeating baseless accusations that have already been addressed, and editing against consensus. – Tekaphor 10:24, 5 May 2010 (end of extracts)
To get some background information on those two editors and the controversy – See also here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tekaphor&diff=360653902&oldid=348660520
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RetroS1mone&diff=360656124&oldid=325922875
Anyone who goes into Wikipedia to comment on anything controversial will need to understand that there are established editors who know what they want to add, and who know how to use the policies to their advantage – However there are also POLICY FREAKS WHO KNOW HOW TO WIN even if they are the ones at fault.
For example, this is what one of my two critics said about my contributions in May 2008 . . . “Yes, of course all of this violates a variety of policies, guidelines, and cultural conventions — notably WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, WP:RS, WP:TRUTH and WP:COPYVIO, in this case. But my existing attitude readjustment tools apparently don’t reach as far as Australia, and the editor remains unscathed” signed WhatamIdoing 2:25, 18 May 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=prev&oldid=268277856#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
If you have a good look at that text your will see that they are violating virtually all of the policies that they were falsely accusing me of. For example they were failing to assume good faith in me, they are using the tag-teaming practices and the jargon of edit wars with their ‘attitude readjustment tools’, and making personal attacks on me but failing to ‘scathe’ me, and are being rude, and going against the consensus of the ‘broader community’ of editors who describe me as polite, and they are not inviting me to that page to put my side of the story, and they are telling lies, and they are not providing links for their accusations to verify that what they say is true, and they are playing games, wikilawyering, and filling the page full of arguments and turning it into a battleground when I am not even there.
The other editor said that I was violating the following policies in July 2008 . . . “WP:DE, WP:AGF, WP:COI:, WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, WP:PRIMARY, WP:MEDRS, WP:NPA, WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND, WP:UP#NOT, WP:CIVIL, WP:GAME, WP:OWN, WP:SOAP, WP:TALK,WP:SOUP, Wikipedia:Wikilawyereing.” signed Gordonofcartoon 18:16, 20 July 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Applicable_policies_and_guidelines
They actually managed to convince one editor that I was violating virtually every policy in Wikipedia, and to recommend ‘a much harsher solution‘ for dealing with me, for a policy where the circumstancial evidence was against them. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Outside_View_by_user:Arbiteroftruth
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Comment_on_outside_view_by_user:Arbiteroftruth
The editor named Gorodonofcartoon, who created that misunderstanding, then pretended to be helpful by endorsing my request for an apology in endorsement No. “2” here.
Would you like to argue with my two critics??? or just not bother, and let them fill Wikipedia with their own version of everything
Contradictions in guideline and policy interpretation
Wikipedia has a page called “The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays”. Just before it was edited by my main critic it contained thee words on the left, and just after the words on the right.
|
The “ignore all rules” policy of Wikipedia WP:IAR
“The Ignore all rules” policy was introduced by Larry Sanger who was one of Wikipedia’s co-founders, and was the very first rule to consider when the encyclopedia was new and, as he said . . . “we needed participants more than we needed rules” . . . He also made the following statements . . “As the project grew” and the requirements of its success became increasingly obvious, I became ambivalent about this particular ‘rule’ and then rejected it altogether” . . . “As one participant later commented ‘this rule is the essence of Wikipedia’. This was certainly never my view. I always thought of the rule as being a temporary and humorous injunction to participants to add content rather than be distracted by (then) relatively inconsequential issues about how exactly articles should be formatted etc. In a similar spirit, I proposed that contributors be bold in updating pages”. signed Larry Sanger 20:24, 19 Apr 2005
“The Outlaw Halo Award is given for whatever reason you may have, to whomever you feel like presenting it to.
This award may also be given to those who Ignore All Rules in an audacious way that protects the ‘pedia.
It was introduced by Kathryn NicDhàna, illegally, on March 15, 2007, after Sue Rangell [citation needed] Climbed the Reichstag to present her with a Wikihalo award, illegally, without even asking anyone to vote on it” Current revision as of 16:43 1st August 2007 (edit) Kathryn NicDhàna (keep having to refine this, apparently…) see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Kathryn_NicDhàna/Outlaw_Halo&diff=next&oldid=148509630
One of my critics named WhatamIdoing gave an administrator named Moreschi an Outlaw Halo Award for being the only editor in Wikipedia who was prepared to ignore all the rules in order to ban me here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=288770661
When I first saw the “ignore all rules” policy I thought that it would be a magnet for all sorts of liars, schemers, rogues, and scoundrels who would see it as an opportunity to embed themselves amongst the honest and genuine editors and achieve social status, power, and influence in Wikipedia and use it to serve their own purposes. It would make Wikipedia attractive to advertising departments, political campaign offices, and propaganda agencies, where individuals or groups could be employed to control content by adding information that was favorable to their products and to delete information that was negative, and by doing the reverse to their opposition.
They could edit widely and do a lot of routine tasks to establish the image of altruism and neutrality, and only come together when issues related to their own cause. They could then pretend to be completely independent, uninvolved, and objective individuals, when in fact, their sole purpose was to get rid of new editors by falsely accusing them of adding disruptive content that was against consensus, and therefore needed to be blocked.
Such editors would be very resistant to the idea of deleting that policy, because without it they would lose most of their power.
Some time after Larry Sanger made his comments another editor added a section called “Ignore all rules: serve all gangsters” and included these words . . . “it is absurd to enshrine the principle of civil disobedience as a rule itself. This promotes, in the most literal sense, anarchy” . . . “In practice anarchy is a chaotic mess” . . . “If the gangsters are successful, they often grant themselves titles, and through sheer tenure, assume the mask of respectability and order”. singed Xiong 11:01, August 20, 2005
The “Petition against IAR abuse”
here http://stats.grok.se/en/201001/Wikipedia:Petition_against_IAR_abuse
On the 20th January 2010 I wrote some brief information about how to copy the edit warring methods and “ignore all rule” practices of my two critics and posted it near the top of one of my webpages. In the next day or so, at 19:59 on 21st January 2010, a Wikipedia editor named MickMacNee set up a “Petitions against IAR abuse”, and over the next ten days more than 100 editors signed it and left comments and almost 2000 people visited the page. On the following day (22nd January) another editor set up a “Miscellany for deletion” discussion to get the petition deleted, and about a dozen editors left their comments with the result being to keep the petition. There was no indication about that petition being a response to my comments, or a coincidence of timing.
*****
The petition states that : “We the undersigned, condemn in the strongest possible terms, any administrator that invokes IAR as an excuse for using their tools as a form of militancy or activism in Wikipedia”.
Some of the editors were arguing that the IAR should be kept, but only used in special circumstances, or when there is a consensus to use it.
However, other editors believe that the IAR policy is inappropriate and should be deleted in it’s entirety and never used under any circumstances, so there could be a separate petition for that purpose, and I understand that the “ignore all rules” policy only exists in the English language version of Wikipedia, so the project should be able to continue without it.
My two critics arranged for one of their friends, who they referred to as the cavalry, to use that rule to barge in on an orderly consensus based arbitration page and ban me on his own, which means that they ignored all of the rules, and consensus, for the purpose of militancy.
Criticising a policy like that may offend some genuine editors, which is not my intention so I apologise for any problems that my comments create. Also, where there were 120 comments on that petition, mine is just one comment from an outsider, not a violation of policy, not anarchy, not militancy, not activism, not disruptive, not uncivil, not anything but one comment. However, as long as the IAR rule exists anyone can find it, and anyone can copy it, and anyone can use it and claim that they are doing so in good faith.
*******
At 15:57 on 12th February 2010 Gordonofcartoon edited a page about Blackguards which refers to the dictionary definition of Blackguard as “an archaic term for scoundrel”. He added these amusing words . . . “Black Guards, armed anarchist groups formed after the Russian revolution”.
What other editors think of ‘ignoring the rules’ policy
Here is a selection of what other editors of Wikipedia have said in the petition against the ‘ignore all rules policy”
7. “Because Power corrupts” (by an editor whose ID is Power.corrupts) 21:43, 21 January 2010
8. I do not see the point of having any policies or procedures at all if this kind of ‘wikianarchism’ is allowed to continue.” DuncanHill 21:55, 21 January 2010.
10. IAR was never supposed to mean ‘Screw you suckers. I’m the one with the big stick'”. Apoc2400 22:04 21 January 2010
13. Invoking IAR to justify large numbers of actions is always a bad idea. This is especially true of administrative actions Hut 8.6 22:38, 21 January 2010
18. Per Duncanhill especially, and because if IAR is justifiable on more than one side of a debate, it becomes justifiable on no side. Resolute 1:01 22 January 2010.
20. Admins are subject to policy too. At least I keep hoping that’s the case JohnWBarber 3:10, 22 January 2010
23. Per Apoc2300. Falconian 3:43, 22 January 2010
33. Per Apoc2400 and DuncanHill. GRuban 13:09 22 January 2010
34. Hell in A Bucket (the editors ID was Hell in a Bucket) 16:17, 22 January 2010
35. Sole Soul (the editors ID was Sole Soul) 17:23 22 January 2010
36. I think it’s a bad and poorly written policy, contributing to all manner of problems Zaereth .17:39 22 January 2010
48. If you push against anything it will push back, this is not very conducive to a colloquial atmosphere. If it is your way or the highway then the highway starts to look very inviting. Off2riorob 21:57 23 January 2010
60. Sounds like a no brainer to me the way its stated. I’ve seen people use IAR as an excuse to not AGF, or even to go so far as to have sockpuppets. Luminifer 7:19, 24 January 2010
67. The abuse of IAR has been taken not only by admins, but by many editors in general. bahamut0013 19:15 24 January 2010
68. Further there are enough ‘rules’ in place . . . that an abusive Administrator can find an excuse to look like their actions are justifiable. And deeper still, Administrators will support their own kind. Everybody thinks their own opinion is right, but someone with power is more right. Remember the Cold War. ‘Might is right’. Trackinto 19:55, 24 January 2010
70. Democracy rules. Let’s end the Wiki-Fascism Coldplay Expert 4:01, 25 January 2010
85. The unruly militant rabble needs to watch their ignorance of rule abidance. Jack Merridrew 23:35, 26 January 2010
92. I have not really come across the same type of admin behaviour in other language versions. I find it extremely divisive, and if you clearly demonstrate an attitude as admin that you’re above the rules that apply to other editors, my opinion is that you have shown yourself undeserving of admin status. Tomas 21:30, 27 January 2010
93. Certainly. In 1.5 years of editing Wikipedia, the recent abuse of IAR – and arbcom endorsement of it – is by far the most upsetting thing I’ve witnessed. ThaddeusB 22:17, 27 January 2010
96. I’m sick of people using IAR to get their own way. Steven Zang 8:31, 28 January 2010
100. I do certainly feel that IAR isn’t a license to crush, kill, maim, and destroy Frank 1 2:47, 29 January 2010
117. Support. Like any human organization, Wikipedia is in constant danger of becoming ruled by those editors who enjoy ruling more than editing. Administrators need to be reminded that their powers are not earned rights or badges of superiority, but merely tools that will be ended only as long as they are properly used. Jorge Stolfi 18:28 5 F3bruay 2010
How ‘ignoring the rules’ became policy
Only six editors were needed
There are thousands of regular editors in Wikipedia, so you would expect that there were many weeks of thorough discussions involving hundreds of editors when determining each of their five major policies. However, the ‘ignore all rules’ idea was presented early in it’s history when there weren’t many rules and common sense would be needed to determine some issues, but since then hundreds of pages of essays, guidelines, and policies have been written, so it shouldn’t be necessary any more. Nevertheless, between 8 and 10 April 2008 only six editors discussed it with only four supporting it, one abstaining, and one strongly opposing it, when another editor wrote these words . . . “Made official policy – clear consensus” –A101, 11:08, 13 April 2008. After that decision was made another three editors supported it and one strongly opposed it but retracted his statement. However, it would only require four editors to revert the original decision. see here http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_talk:Ignore_all_rules
There are some editors who were arguing that some ‘newbies’ don’t understand the fact that the rules can only be ignored if it is for the best of Wikipedia and if common sense and consensus are included in the decision, as well as the general idea of not needing to stick to them blindly or rigidly. However, just because someone is new to Wikipedia does not mean that they are ‘young’, or that they are criticising that policy because they are ignorant of those facts. It is because they have had enough experience to see how easily it can be used by unscrupulous editors as an ‘excuse’ for ignoring the rules. They would argue that they did something because there is an exception to every rule, or because they were being rude because the other person deserved it, or because they have common sense and the other person doesn’t, or because they have consensus from a biased group of editors who all agree with them so the rules don’t matter etc etc.
A better policy would be this -you may use common sense when applying the rules, but you should never ‘ignore them’ to get the outcome you want. Always remember that Wikipedia was set up to get all knowledge from all people, not just your opinions that are supported by your sources, or your best friends, even authority groups. In the past, knowledge would have been more accurate if Negroes were able to dispute the white scientists mainstream claim that blacks should be slaves, and if women were able to dispute the claims that they were intellectually inferior because their brains were smaller than mens.
If any editor wants to dispute that suggestion then they should argue with negroes and women.
Summary: Abuse of the ignore all rules policy
The basic justification for the ignore all rules policy is that it can be used to solve disputes when all other methods within the rules have been tried, and failed. Therefore anyone who ignores the rules for the sole purpose of winning disputes, while other ‘rule abiding’ processes are active, is considered to be an abuse of the ignore all rules policy.
My two critics set up an arbitration discussion to get me blocked, but I noticed that they had told many lies there so I advised about a dozen independent arbitrators that I would give them my final response at the end of the week.
My two critics knew that I would be preparing the links as evidence to prove that they were lying, so they deliberately disrupted the orderly, rule compliant procedure, by getting one of their friends to disregard the rules and rush in and ban me before I could give that evidence.
Their behaviour use of the “ignore all rules” policy to disrupt an orderly arbitration discussion was therefore an abuse of the ignore all rules policy.
Proof that one editor ignored all the rules to ban me can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=28877066
Take some responsibility and Permanently Ban the hypocrite
Here is an example of my main critic trying to act respectably by suggesting a change to the fundamental principles of Wikipedia which are called the five pillars, or WP:5P . . .
“Wikipedia does not have firm rules: Rules on Wikipedia are not fixed in stone, and the spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule. WhatamIdoing 03:38, 27 September 2010
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Five_pillars&diff=prev&oldid=387246996#Related_to_above_thread_but_different-
Note the extreme hypocrisy of that editor who has previously had the cheek to describe the five pillars page as “just and essay”, that has no more value than “a grain of salt”, and who actually uses the ‘ignore all rules’ policy to ignore every principle and policy of Wikipedia
Somebody in Wikipedia needs to take some responsibility and ban that individual permanently
The Ignore all Rules policy as it is actually used in practice
The Ignore all Rules policy appears to have been written with good intentions such as this . . . ‘Anyone can ignore all of the rules at any time, to suit any purpose, as long as they honestly believe that it is for the good of Wikipedia, and they can get a consensus of other editors to agree.
However, in actual practice it is a magnet for double talking rogues who will simply use as an excuse to cheat when they haven’t got enough brains to win a dispute on the basis of merit.
It provides a massive advantage to editors who have been involved for several years and have established a network of friends and allies who share the same objectives or prejudices, and who keep WP:IAR a closely guarded secret from new contributors, and use it to ambush or sabotage the proper arbitration process if it isn’t going to get the outcome they want.
The Criticised becomes the Critic
If you want to know what to expect when you join Wikipedia I can give you my experience as an example. When I started contributing to one of the topic pages, one of the editors put me on a watchlist, and then followed me around like a bloodthirsty bloodhound and deleted every word I wrote. That same individual argued that I was a SPA (a single purpose account with only one interest), but I have had hundreds of interests, and had contributed to six pages already. They also argued that my sole purpose in Wikipedia was to promote my own theory, but they deleted it and continued with that same accusation for the next twelve months. The same individual always acted as part of a two person tag-team and together they did 95% of the criticising, and then had the cheek to argue that I was going against consensus. Those two were going from page to page telling everyone else such things as “we” have here a “self-identified” “SPA” with a “COI” (conflict of interest), using Wikpedia to promote his own theory, and being “disruptive” by ignoring the “consensus” of the entire Wikipedia “community” etc. The same two individuals eventually managed to get one administrator to rush in on an arbitration discussion and ban me on the false basis that I was constantly arguing with hundreds of other editors. Their general complaint was that I was being disruptive to the development of a page that many contributors were keenly interested in? However, in the fifteen months since then, only a few minor edits have been made, but no-one, not even my main critic, has added any actual content to the text.
To give you some examples of their ‘disruptive behaviour’, (they like using the word “behaviour”), they put my real life personal Sir name at the top of the topics’ discussion page here, and then proceeded to insult me and find a countless number of policies to use as their excuse for more deletions.
My response to that indiscriminate criticism was to write an essay about their tactics, and place it at the top of my Userpage so that neutral editors could see it first and judge the it in the proper context. However, that same editor went to many other discussion pages and described it as an ‘attack essay’ and demanded that it be deleted. Those complaints continued on pages called Wikiquette Alerts, MFD, Request for comment, Administrators Noticeboard, and Arbitration etc, until they achieved their objective, so I have pasted the text on my own webpage here.
That editor was obviously not going to stop until I was banned, and I did not join up to have to respond to incessant criticism up to six times a day, so I just waited until then, with the intention of becoming a critic of my critic outside of Wikipedia.
The Motivations, Strategies, and Tactics of my Critics
(an essay written several months before I was banned)
After I added this section to the top of my Usertalk page my two critics set up a separate talk page where other editors discussed whether to . . .
keep it or delete it
Note that it is an essay written in plain English that actually describes eleven different policies that my two critics violated, with links to the discussions that provide the evidence and proof of those violations.
(Note also that the links to other pages are not available in this cut and pasted version, but nevertheless, the context still describes the tactics)
The Deletion of Significant Scientific Evidence of Physical Cause . . . In my assessment the main objective of my critics is to prevent, erase, or delete any of the significant scientific evidence of the physical or physiological basis for the symptoms of Da Costa’s Syndrome, to support their own views of the condition. i.e. if they delete it, and no-one can see it, they can argue that it doesn’t exist, and has never existed. The significant evidence being deleted includes the comments of Sir James MacKenzie in 1916 that the fatigue is related to the abnormal pooling of blood in the abdominal and peripheral veins, and the findings of S.Wolf in 1947 that the breathlessness is related to the abnormal spasm of the thoracic diaphragm, which is the primary muscle involved in inhaling and exhaling, and which explains some of the biochemical abnormalities. Thirdly, in 1980, V.S.Volkov of Russia referred to the scientific measurability of various degrees of severity of the physical limitations for exertion. An example is here [1]
Insulting the Contributor as a Diversion When there are differences of opinion about something, the standard method of discussion involves comparing facts and evidence, but when one individual has weak evidence to support their idea they often write disparagingly, or insultingly about the other person to divert attention away from the weak argument, and simultaneously hope that the readers will think that the opposing idea is not worth considering. e.g. here [2]
Using Policy as Red Herrings The purpose of contributing to wikipedia is to add information to article pages, but if that information is not agreed with by some editors they will give a policy reason for objecting, which seems reasonable. However if, each time you meet the criticisms they add another policy, or variations thereof, they are using policies as red herrings which they want you to follow, so that they succeed in keeping you away from adding information to the article page so that readers can see it. Examples can be noted by scrolling down the Da Costa discussion page here [3] which show that I am supposedly violating every policy in the wikibook, e.g. copyright violation, conflict of interest, synthesis, cruft, adding original research, soapbox etc. and each time my critics add policies they argue that I am doing everything wrong, and when I criticise them they always argue that their usage is justifiable on 26-6-08 here [4]
The Double Bind Tactics, Including the Friendly Trojan Horse This tactic involves the request to answer a question, or two questions in the one paragraph, where the answer will be used to provide evidence for a second accusation. For example, where the person asks for more information about my real identity to prove that I am not breaching my own copyright. If I provide the proof another editor will join the discussion and use it as evidence of an accusation of “conflict of interest” . The question is designed to create a simple “double bind”. It becomes more devious when the person couches their words in sincerity, which have the style of ‘please, if only you could answer our question, we will be happy to withdraw our accusation’. In such cases it is designed to appear as a kindness, as friendly persuasion to answer the question, and then the trap is set, and the second accusation is made with rigor and zeal with words which have the style of “see, we told you he was violating conflict of interest policy’. It is like the Trojan Horse, presented as a gift, with an army inside. For example here [5]
Flooding, Drowning, and Smoke Screen Tactics (High Volume opinionated, Low Substance Criticism) This tactic involves a large number and volume of arguments to divert attention away from the deletion of important evidence on the article page. It acts as a smokescreen because the volume of criticism is so large, that when observers look back they can’t see where the issue started. Also there is no actual relevant or valid substance to the argument, so if a small volume of words doesn’t convince someone that the argument is valid, the critic will continue relentlessly (ignoring a request for a break) until the observer (an independent editor) is not only flooded with information, but is actually drowned in it, and becomes convinced, that there must be something wrong somewhere. For example after a flood of criticism was lodged against me on the “CONFLICT OF INTEREST NOTICEBOARD” as item number 65 here [[6], Edjonston, the referee, came to my User Talk Page, accusing me of a slightly different policy violation, namely “DISRUPTIVE EDITING” here [7]. and when, after 5000 words of criticism in one week, I present a 2500 word response, I am asked to “cut this readable length” here [8]. The sole purpose of the flood of criticism was to divert attention away from evidence on the article page, and the fact that it had been removed. My critics then had to stop me from adding more evidence, and they didn’t care how, so they just kept up the flood of criticism, resorting to any policy, or any way of discrediting me that the thought of at the time, until they achieved their objective of having me suspended if I added any more information to the article page.
The Wild Goose Chase A wild goose chase is a strategy which involves the laying of a trail which promises to lead somewhere, but which, in fact, deliberately leads to something unattainable. For example, when I am told that I will be suspended if I contribute facts and evidence directly onto the article page, a critic will say ‘I can still influence the information which is provided on the article page, because all I have to do is discuss things on the discussion page with other ‘neutral editors’ who will be more than happy to consider it when they add their information to the article page. For example, on 19-16-08 here [9] However, when I do discuss the relevance of a reference on 26-06-08 here [10], it is dismissed because of another policy here [11], and here [12], and again, relentlessly, e.g. here [13]. The objective of the ‘wild goose chase’ is to give novice readers the idea that the process is fair, when, in fact, my critics are trying to make it impossible for me to influence the article page.
Blatant Anonymous Vandalism – with a Clue After I added comments to the article page on 28-4-08 here [14], Gordonofcartoon added a cruft template recommending the removal of excessive detail five hours later, with a broom symbol implying a dual meaning that it was rubbish that needed to be swept away, here [15]. I then abbreviated and integrated the information during the following week and amended the page on 5-5-08 here [16], but 5 hours later almost all of the text was deleted by anonymous editors, who made it a clear case of vandalism with the remark “I love cheeseburgers” starting at 14:55 on 9-5-08 here [17], however, note that they left a clue at the top of the page to their preference for the terms “* Exercise intolerance *Chronic fatigue syndrome *Soldier’s Heart (novel)”. The vandalism deletions continued an additional 3 times in 12 minutes until 15:07 on the same day here [18]. Also note that six weeks later, on 26-6-08, when I started commenting on the irrelevance of Gary Paulsen’s novel “Soldier’s Heart” on the discussion page here [19] there was a considerable response by editors with Gordonofcartoon starting on 28-6-08, and continuing through 3 sections until 3 -7-08. That could be just coincidence, or perhaps another example of the information being accurate but unpopular, with a different person who doesn’t want wikipedia readers to see it, and who doesn’t want their identity, and their COI revealed, and achieves their objective by deleting the material by using blatant anonymous vandalism. Posturewriter (talk) 02:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)posturewriter
Sweeping the Tracks, and Making Forks in the Road (Side Tracks) to Hide the Trail of Evidence in History; Sweeping the tracks to hide a trail, and setting up side tracks as diversions are common strategies which are used to evade detection. That basic methodology appears to have been used by my critics on the Da Costa pages re; I found that the modern term of Da Costa’s syndrome referred to a set of symptoms like those of heart disease where there is no evidence of heart disease, and therefore, it had previously been argued that it must have been trivial, imaginary, or anxiety related. However, I followed the history back to Da Costa in 1871, and found the heated controversies (is it real or imaginary, physical or psychological, etc) and traced the evidence of physical cause which has been improving for 100 years. In December last year, 2007, I began describing the discoveries in chronological order for wikipedia from 1871 to 1997, (the main track). However, within a month, most of it was deleted, and when I presented it again, shown in the left side here [20], 75% of it, from 1900 to 1997, was swept away again as shown on the right side here [21] on the grounds that it contained excessive, unnecessary detail. Soon after that I was threatened with suspension if I added the evidence again. In the meantime, Naming Guidelines were used by my critics in an attempt to add a trail to the left (side track A) so that the Da Costa page could be abbreviated to almost nothing and moved into a brand new one called Somatoform Autonomic Dysfunction here [22], and again here [23], and mixed with several other ailments and labels (to bury it in jargon). Also, the information and clues that I provided to wikipedia for the full Da Costa page previously, in addition to the information on the left here [24], appear to have been used by other individuals in the series of 33 edits to the previously small ‘Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome’ page (side track B), to make it larger and much more detailed and comprehensive. Note that 31 of the 33 contributions were conveniently anonymous and started on January 1st, 2008 here [25] I then added information to the Da Costa page again, with more references at 00:06 on 14-1-08 here [26] but it was deleted almost immediately by WhatamIdoing at 1:34 on 14-1-08 here [27] Ten days later, on the 23 January the anonymous contributions to the Postural Tachycardia page resumed here [28], and can be seen by clicking on the ‘newer edit’ links. The anonymous contributions continued for almost 3 months until 21:15 on 9-4-08, and included references to autonomic dysfunction and chronic fatigue syndrome. Also note that the very next minor contribution was made by my main critic, WhatamIdoing a half hour later at 21:45 here [29] . . . , who was perhaps one of the anonymous contributors, or collaborating with a nameless critic, who mixed the information with other material from other sources to hide the true source. Presumably the plan would be to wait until I became bored and left wikipedia because all of my suggestions on the Da Costa discussion page were being systematically dismissed for dubious policy reasons. They could then suddenly report that the symptoms of the modern and scientifically esoteric term Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome are the close equivalent of the old, rarely used, Da Costa’s syndrome label which should be removed because it was ‘obsolete’ (their word for evidence from history). Alternatively if I answered the question on my talk page here [30], and observed that the symptoms were features of Da Costa’s syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia etc. etc. my critics could argue something such as ‘Has anyone noticed that they are both (near enough) to the same as’ here on 7-8-08 [31]; and ask; ‘Should we delete the Da Costa page because it isn’t necessary?’ It would then be removed, thereby achieving their original objective. i.e. The trail of history and controversy will be gone. The ultimate result is that Da Costa’s syndrome, which is one of many different types of chronic fatigue syndrome, will continue to be clouded in doubt about it’s previous or current existence. It is a fact that the trail of research evidence has been disrupted, and one side track has been attempted, and another now exists. The only question is whether or not it is coincidental. In either case, the Da Costa material should be put back (Also note that the words ‘Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia’ describe a type of tachycardia, which is a symptom, whereas Da Costa’s syndrome describes a set of symptoms which may include postural tachycardia, without emphasising it . In summary, in the 8 months since December 2007 I have added a lot of information to the Da Costa syndrome page which has been deleted on the policy grounds of having excess detail, and anonymous contributors have added a lot of detail to the previous small Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia page, and it is still there.
Policy Tactics The use of wikipedia policies, policy fine print, or policy interpretations to block a contributor from adding information that is contrary to an editor’s point of view Posturewriter (talk) 07:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)posturewriter
Victory by Deletion The process of using policy to delete evidence from history, or evidence from different sources, that makes a favoured opinion look the best of those available – because the actual best evidence can’t be seen by those making the decision.
The Final Say – a pathetically fallacious strategy This is where the critic will keep adding comments to every argument which they started so that their comment is always the last, to create the impression that they have won, when in fact, for example, the opponent has won 49 previous discussions, and will win the next one, if and when he arrives, making the actual result 50 to zero, instead of their critics temporary and illusory victory of one to nil. Posturewriter 08:56, 20 July 2008
This was the consensus from one of the previous discussion pages about the keeping or deleting of the section above
“The result of the debate was keep”
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User_talk:Posturewriter
Sixteen months after ignoring and snubbing the consensus in the case described above, WhatamIdoing pretended to be prim an proper about such things with these words . . . “Any editor can write whatever essays s/he wants. If there are problems (i.e., it is a strongly anti-consensus viewpoint), then you’ll hear about either a proposal to move it into your userspace (where editors are given even broader discretion), or to have it deleted at [[WP:MFD]] (usual rules apply; most editors argue from common sense for essays).” WhatamIdoing 05:08, 19 May 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research&diff=prev&oldid=362952389
They ignored Consensus decisions about that essay
One of their first attempts to get that essay deleted was made on a Wikiquette alerts page where I asked another editor named Jaysweet for some time to consider the request to remove it, and also wrote . . . “Jaysweet . . . If you wish, could you please take out any of the comments in that section which may have been interpreted as personal attacks on specific identified other editors, and take it to another page, and inform me of it’s location. I will then consider my response in due course (in the next two to four weeks preferably). In the meantime please note my assessment that it is my critics objective to have it archived so that a description of their tactics disappears so that they can continue their policy attacks with my responses stymied. I don’t think that is the proper way of using policy” signed Posturewriter 08:21, 16 July 2008. see also item two on the list here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=prev&oldid=226845230#Evidence_
of_failing_to_resolve_the_dispute
Note that I was being criticised on four or more pages that had been set up by my two critics at the same time, and I didn’t want to watch the computer all day and respond to all of their policy interpretations all of the time,I asked politely if I could respond in the following two to four weeks. However, whenever I made such requests they would deliberately and falsely try to convince everyone else that I was using delaying tactics. Note that none of the experienced editors ever answered my questions such as “how long have I got to respond”. . . they just left me guessing!!! If any of them had given me a time frame, I could have organised a response to meet the deadline, but that “never” happened in the entire twelve months of arguments against me.
I found out later that the discussion was closed by an editor named Ncmvocalist on 20-7-08 and Jaysweet hadn’t removed the “motivations and tactics section”. A further editor removed the comment at the top of my page linking to the dispute, so I assumed that it ended in my favor. The Wikiquette discussion can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts/archive48#User:Posturewriter
On 24-7-08 Jaysweet wrote the following words on another discussion page called MFD . . . “The user was asked to remove or revise this section, but refused . . . Jaysweet 17:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC) here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User_talk:Posturewriter
I gave the following reply . . . “On a previous discussion page called Wikiquette Alert, I saw your comments, and as I came here as a contributor, and was having critics using policy against me, I asked you to assist me with determining, and removing anything which was deemed as inappropriate in “The Motivations, Strategies, and Tactics of my Critics” on my User talk with the following words . . . “I am also requesting that you move the information to the appropriate page so that Gordonofcartoon can’t say that I did it wrong in relation to one policy or another.I also prefer the way things are on my Usertalk page at the moment, so if you don’t wish to change it I will leave it there. I am happy for you to decide what to remove and don’t see any reason to take it any further.” Posturewriter 08:26, 26 July 2008
On the following day at 12:43 on the 27-7-08 another editor named SmokeyJoe suggested that Jaysweet should determine the parts of the essay to be removed and do so. These words his words . . . “Could the nominator remove the specific sections he wants removed, and provide the diffs for easier assessment please?”
Despite those polite requests Jaysweet didn’t delete anything???. However, he continued to criticise me in the MFD discussion???? and on 29-7-08 implied that I was “talking shit” about my critics. That is an example of Jaysweet not being co-operative, and using foul language which is a violation of WP:CIVIL, although he did apologise and retract those remarks a few hours later.
I don’t know why Jaysweet did not remove the section as I and SmokeyJoe suggested??? and can only assume that he wrote his criticisms without first reading the discussion properly.
Here is what Jaysweet wrote at 16:01 on 29-7-08> . . . “I really do want to get community consensus on whether this section is acceptable or not”.
Note that I wrote the section, and myself and SmokeyJoegave Jaysweet permission to remove any part of it, so it wasn’t necessary for him to get consensus from anyone else.
Here is another comment by SmokeyJoe . . . “I do not find the section in question to be nearly problematic enough for deletion, even if it were alone on its own page. It is clearly the users opinion, it is to his credit that accurate diffs are cited (I followed a few), and I am not left with the impression that the user does not believe that his efforts are for the good of the project “SmokeyJoe12:33, 29th July 2008.
He also made the following comments a few days later . . . “He is contributing to wikipedia. The fact that his contributions are contentious only means it is more important that his talk page contributions remain accessible. If we delete (not just blank) them, then we open ourselves up to accusations of editorial censorship“. —SmokeyJoe 10:13, 1 August 2008
Here is the comment of another editor on the same page . . . “Keep I see no basis for deleting the page, or even forcing the removal of the section–it is not an attack on specific named editors, and one is welcome to criticize Wikipedia policies as one likes if one doesn’t violate npa.” DGG
Most of the NPOV editors agreed that there was nothing about that section which was inappropriate so the “debate“closed with the consensus in my favor. The closing admin wrote the following conclusion . . .
“The result of the debate was keep“
signed by PeterSymonds 10:16, 6 August 2008 . . . The MFD discussion can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User_talk:Posturewriter
****
Of course, throughout that process Gordonofcartoon was continually trying to mislead the other editors. For example, at 18:16 on 20-7-08 he accused me of creating confusion and delaying the process by not deleting it myself???
>Furthermore, he and WhatamIdoing, just kept starting new pages such as RFC Request for comment on 20-7-08 where an editor named Wizardman closed it on 18-7-08 while it was still active, which is a violation of RFC closing guidelines, and on the following day of 19-7-08 WhatamIdoing awarded him with a barnstar for help with closing RFC’s.
I spent some time away from those pages preparing a subpage of replacement text. I then asked NPOV editors to apply it as a replacement for the existing page but received no comments in favor or against so I added it four times myself between 26 and 27-12-08. It was reverted twice by Gordonofcartoon and twice by WhatamIdoing. The Arbitration page was set up a month later by Gordonofcartoon on Monday 26-1-09. These were some of his words . . “I’m asking for Arbitration attention – ideally a topic ban, covering disruption/harassment on Talk and dispute resolution pages – on grounds of Posturewriter exhausting community patience: this involves a classic example of the behaviours described in Wikipedia:Tendentious editing and Wikipedia:Disruptive editing“.
I gave the arbitrators a brief response on Tuesday 27-1-09 with advance notice that I would be presenting a full defence on the following Sunday, and WhatamIdoing responded with a large section of criticism 12 hours later, and then, at 15:36 on Wednesday 28th the editor named Moreschi suddenly interrupted the process and banned me. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397.
Gordonofcartoon thanked him on his talk page fourteen minutes later at 15:50 on 28-1-09 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=266983945&oldid=266390145
Three days later, on 3-2-09 Gordonofcartoon wrote the following words on the CivilPOVpushing page . . . “They were cautiously moving toward accepting before the cavalry arrived in the form of admins who were prepared to bring blocks, ultimately an indefinite one for disruptive conduct.” Note that the admin or CAVALRY on the arbitration page was Moreschi. The words can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing
On 4-2-09, a week after I was banned, Gordonofcartoon left the following comment on the tag team page . . . “What should you do if accused of being a member of a tag team?The accusation may be a form of baiting that attempts to provoke you into reacting in an uncivil or otherwise undesirable way” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Tag_team&diff=268486470&oldid=263995921#False_accusations_of_tag-teaming . . . Note that I had provided evidence of Gordonofcartoon and WhatamIdoing‘s tag teaming five months earlier on 19-8-08 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#More_Evidence_of_Disruptive_Dual_Editing_-_Wikipedia:Tag_teaming_Used_by_my_Critics . . . and that it would have been seen by Moreschi on 25-8-08 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive469#Disruptive_editor_.2F_RFC_failing_to_resolve . . . where he apparently accepted my response, and didn’t comment again until the day he banned me.
Also, after I was banned, another editor deleted the “motivations and tactics” section, and everything else on my UserTalk page has since been blanked. here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Posturewriter.
Another editor ignored all the rules, including a seven month ‘consensus’, and any decisions made by the arbitration committee?
The motivations essay provided evidence and proof that my two critics were violating many Wikipedia policies but an editor named Horologic wrote these words on the arbitration page. When you read them note that WP:IAR is the ‘ignore all rules’ policy – This is the quote . . . “Comment by Horologium – if the arbitration committee declines to take this case, I will (as a previously uninvolved admin) step in and stop some of the blatant PoV pushing I am seeing from Posturewriter. Addtionally, somebody needs to nuke that long screed on his talk page, which has been there for SEVEN MONTHS, in which two editors are repeatedly attacked, and which absolutely screams a total lack of WP:AGF. It’s appalling.” Horologium 22:54, 27 January 2009
Those comments were followed by these words “Comment to Whatamidoing – Since Moreschi went ahead and indef-blocked Posturewriter (and kudos to him for the block), I went ahead and deleted the screed on the talk page. I generally tend to avoid being rouge, but I think that this, at last, is an appropriate use of WP:IAR. Horologium 00:24, 29 January 2009
Horologium completely ignores the fact that I had previously won the argument because other uninvolved editors agreed by consensus to keep the motivations essay in its entirety, even though, on two occasions, I gave them permission to delete any parts of it they wanted. He was not only ignoring the previous consensus, but says that he was also prepared to ignore the arbitration committee if they decided that there wasn’t a case to be answered. He was violating the policy that says he has to ‘assume good faith’ in the consensus of other editors and the decision of the fifteen arbitrators, and not just ignore everyone else as if they don’t exist. He ‘ignored all the rules” to push his own point of view, and deleted the essay just because of his own personal opinion based on a brief superficial assessment. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Comment_by_Horologium
The Final Say
I wrote the ‘Motivations and strategy essay’ as a series of paragraphs and posted them onto Wikipedia between June and July 2008. I was banned in late January 2009 and It was deleted shortly after that, so I posted the complete article on my own website so that anyone who was interested in my side of the arguments could still see it.
The tactic that I placed at the end of that essay was called “The Final Say”, and it describes how my two critics tried to have the last word on every topic to leave a misleading final impression that would do as much damage to my credibility as possible.
I was upgrading my website about 20 months later, and made some improvements to the introduction on the morning of 11-9-10 Australian time..
Within a few hours, at 00:53 on 11-9-10, international time, my main critic went to a well established Wikipedia page called “The Last Word”, and amended the abbreviation in several paragraphs. Some of the comments on that page are as follows . . .
“This page is an essay attempting to critique certain actions. It is intended to show a serious opinion about editorial concepts — by means of a style that may or may not be described as humorous . . . In Wikipedia, sometimes debates get heated . . . even more than in real life, getting the Last Word in a debate is crucial, as it is the only proof of your argumentative success over competing editors . . . getting the last word means that you win the debate. . . This . . . will certainly impress your fellow Wikipedians . . . and . . . brings the advantage that you may subsequently point to your success in this debate as the clinching argument in future debates . . .
We recommend the following tried and tested tactics . . . Often, your opponent will not understand the importance of the last word . . .and will readily concede the ground to you (in which case it’s nevertheless mandatory to rub it in his face on all relevant talk pages) . . . Debates are like boxing matches. Try to make your opponent do the footwork so they get exhausted while you preserve your energy for the final blow . . . If they bring any arguments you cannot immediately refute, play dumb and ask for clarification . . . Ask for more sources and better source (ideally in that order). If they insolently keep providing answers . . . Be sure to post on their user talk page, so they have additional opportunities for frustration thoughtful response . . . Cheat, if you think you can get away with it. Call in your friends uninvolved users to keep the other party busy and distract from the original debate. Exploit the headstart you have over impudent newbies. Most of them walk into debates like knifers into a gunfight: Easy prey . . . This clever technique allows you to simultaneously regain the last word for yourself while making any sort of reply from your opponent seem in bad faith . . . Remind the little shits your opponents that they should abide by Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. If you are, why shouldn’t they? . . . Block the jerk or get him blocked . . . and protect his talk page — then post your comment“. (end of quotes)
That page can be seen by scrolling up and down here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&diff=next&oldid=357876417#Reasons_for_getting_the_last_word
The editors who contributed to it can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&action=history
The term TLWTM appears to include a trade mark symbol that was added by my critic, so I have acknowledged that fact and the source.
Note that when I provided evidence that my two critics were using “The final say” as a strategy, it was seen as objectionable, but there was, and still iis a standard essay on the same strategy which has been in Wikipedia since 6th September 2006. My two critics obviously knew about it and were using those techniques in manner that could be called text-book perfect.
You can therefore appreciate that my previous assessment of their tactics was very accurate.
They were using them to deceive all of the other editors such as EdJohnston, SmokeyJoe, and Moreschi, and were attempting to deceive me, the readers, and 200 million people with the chronic fatigue syndrome.
They were also systematically discrediting all new contributors and opponents by referring to them as “newbies”, “jerks”, “little shits”, and “easy prey”, which is a violation of so many policies that it is superfluous to name them.
Note also that the words “final blow” was struck out but still visible, and was replaced with “Last Word”, and “your friends” was replaced with “uninvolved users” and “little shits” was replaced with “your opponents”, In other sentences the word “bastard” was replaced with “user”, and the opportunity to “frustrate opponents” was replaced with giving them an opportunity for making a “thoughtful response”.
That page is riddled with ridicule and double meanings, and apart from being something to amuse small minds, it is also an instruction sheet for such individuals.
I suggest that all of the new contributors, experienced editors, and readers who have been deceived by those two individuals should use the same techniques of “gaming the system”, and make sure that they are never allowed to deceive anyone else by having the final say inside or outside of Wikipedia in the future.
I am only the messenger here, and I can’t stop people from being fooled if they don’t want me to.
An example of Gordonofcartoon using the final say tactic
In May 2008 I was watching my two critics write thousands of words of criticism so quickly that new ones were coming faster than I could reply so I decided to sit back and wait until they stopped ranting. To my surprise an administrator finally agreed with them without seeing any response from me, and threatened to block me if I added any more information to the topic.
They were involved in 5000 words of discussion spread throughout several discussion pages in twelve days, and when I provided a 2500 word response one of them wrote this . . .
“Please cut this readable length”. Gordonofcartoon 12:21, 24 May 2008
My response, with Gordonofcartoon’s impudent quip at the end can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Response_to_5000_words_of_criticism_in_the_twelve_days_between_12-5-08_and_22-5-08
Counter measures
At the end of that page it advises that any attempt by your opponent to change the outcome should be resisted at all costs by accusing them of violating other policies such as civility, and when experienced editors are deliberately acting like annoying trolls, they should accuse the new contributor of trolling.
As you can appreciate that is a simple example of the two-edged sword. The way to deal with that inane tactic is to just do what you have to do, because the outcome is going to be judged against you by fools, regardless of what you do.
There are five billion people outside of Wikipedia, and I only had two critics who were using all of the tricks on that page as if it was their instruction sheet for a video game, but there was nothing humorous about their intentions. They were being hostile and vindictive.
If you decide to join Wikipedia to do something about that, remember that you may be immediately targeted, and referred to, and treated as a ‘newbie’, a ‘bastard’, a ‘jerk’, a ‘little shit’, and ‘easy prey’, regardless of your age, intelligence, and experience.
As was made known to me early in the process. . . . Don’t join Wikipedia unless you are prepared for ‘merciless editing’.
Have fun, and good luck.
* * *
For more information about their tactics you can read another Wikipedia page which explains how to win arguments. It states at the top that it is intended to be humorous, but that is not necessarily how it will be used by individuals such as my two critics who relentlessly lied, ignored the rules, and cheated.
The page can be seen by scrolling down here http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=How_to_win_an_argument&diff=1739378&oldid=1340913
The difference between myself and my two critics
The following three small essays were written about a year before I saw the page called WP: The Last Word. As you can see, my assessment was highly accurate.
I was more than happy for my two critics to add whatever information they wanted to be on the Da Costa’s syndrome page as long as they didn’t delete the verifiable scientific material that I provided, and I was very agreeable to neutral editors asking for each of us to produce a version of the text for them to decide in terms of neutral point of view and the reliability of sources, and to remove any influence of conflict of interest. However, the sole purpose of my two critics was to maintain absolute control of every word that went onto the page, and they arrogantly and blatantly refused to co-operate with the neutral editors, and were never going to be satisfied with any outcome except to get me banned so that they could delete all of my criticisms of them, so that no-one would ever see it again.
I was also more than happy to discuss the topic with sensible editors but my two critics did everything they could to interfere with that possibility. They didn’t want a neutral point of view in the article and specifically prohibited the input of medical consumers, and yet they had the bald-faced cheek to say that I was violating NPOV policy.
If you want to know how easy it is for them to control content then have a look at the page which they cut and pasted from my subpage and subjected to more than 80 nitpicking criticisms here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880
and the relentless nitpicking of the same subpage in the discussions here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=269715826&oldid=269639173#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewrite
More differences: I kept adding references to the Da Costa topic until there were a total of 61 to cover all points of view, and my two critics kept on deleting references until only 18 remained which agreed withtheir own point of view. I want people to read the full history but they want to hide most of it.they were deletionists. There should be policies such as WP:DVE which prohibits the ‘deletion of verifiable evidence’, and WP:DEH which prevents editors from ‘deliberately erasing history’ as a part of “WP:DEH/POV pushing” where they try to make their own ideas look good by deliberately removing information that sheds doubt on them. I provided information about myself when requested, and was accused of having a ‘conflict of interest’. My two critics refused to reveal information about themselves and expected everyone to blindly believe that they don’t have a conflict of interest. I was willing to co-operate with the neutral editors in providing a replacement text for the page. My two critics refused. I took all of the policies into consideration and frequently made changes when necessary. My two critics ignored all of the policies by using WP:IAR as their excuse.
There is a guideline in Wikipedia which states that it is not a crystal ball where people can predict the future verifiability of something; There should be another policy that says it is not a pencil eraser that can be used to rub out 100 years of history.
My “Last Word”
My two critics are arrogant, and think that their ‘annoyingly’ high I Q, and their four years of knowledge of Wikipedia policy, and their ability to do up to three hundred edits a day makes them unassailable in a dispute. They think that they can lose up to fifty arguments and convince everyone else that they have gained the ascendancy by winning the last dispute. They didn’t beat me – they cheated.
They also think that all of the other editors and readers are empty headed puppets, or meatheads who will believe their lies and can be fooled into doing their dirty work by criticising me.
What I want intelligent readers to do is look at their pattern of edits, and compare it with the actual evidence, and see that every criticism of me was just one of a mounting pile of twaddle aimed at diverting attention away from the fact that they were falsifying history.
I don’t care what their meatheads and puppets think, I only care what intelligent readers think.
Intelligent people don’t believe anything they are told without checking the facts first.
This is a starting list of the 60 intelligent people who I based my article on – J.M.Da Costa, Sir James MacKenzie, Sir Thomas Lewis, emeritus professor of Harvard Medical School Paul Dudley White, Paul Wood O.B.E, and Harvard professor Oglesby Paul. My critics used all five on their small list of 18, and they got four of them from me after telling the other editors that they were unreliable sources of information.
This is what my main critic wrote about James MacKenzie who was knighted for his contributions to medicine in the same year that he chaired an important meeting on the topic . . “it was just another normal meeting of the Therapeutics subsection of the Royal Society of Medicine. MacKenzie read a paper. (Back in the day, that’s how all scientific papers were published: you joined a society, showed up at a meeting, read your paper to the assembled members, and answered their questions. If you did this, your paper was then printed in the society’s Proceedings”
More of that editors tirade of lies can be seen on the arbitration page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=267259599#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
| How to copy their edit war tactics The principle of Wikipedia is to have flexible guidelines which are applied with courtesy and common sense, but my two critics treated them as if the were rules carved in rock that had to be obeyed. To convey the illusion of power and authority they would tell everyone that the were highly respected editors with many years of experience, and would refer to the actions of anyone who opposed them as disruptive “behavior”, as if they were a couple of mother geese addressing little children. You can do exactly the same to them. Remind them of the rules relating to good manners and tell them to behave themselves when in the company of other adults etc. As the colloquial expressions go – knock the chip of their shoulders and put them in their place. If you want to copy their methods then all you have to do is join Wikipedia and find a policy fault for ever word they write, and if they try to comply with policy then tell them that they got it wrong, and just keep telling them that they are wrong, ten times a day, on ten different discussion pages where 100 other editors can see it if necessary, until they leave Wikipedia or are banned. If they complain about you being unreasonable then just tell them that they have to assume good faith in your motives or you will have them banned for violating WP:AGF (assume good faith policy). If they still question your motives then tell them to stop making personal attacks on you which violate WP:NPA policy, and to stop edit warring, and that, in your honest opinion, you are criticising them for the good of Wikipedia. You are allowed to do anything you want if you think it is for the good of Wikipedia. You can also ignore all the rules by citing the “ignore all rules” policy WP:IAR, but read those policies first so that they can’t argue with you about the details. For more information about how to copy their edit war methods see here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#EditWarJargon and their satirical essay called “The Last Word” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:The_Last_Word&diff=next&oldid=357876417#Reasons_for_getting_the_last_word and their “How to win an argument” essay here http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=How_to_win_an_argument&diff=prev&oldid=707676 and WP:Sock puppetry here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry&diff=376964754&oldid=375985382 and WP:Meat puppetry here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Meat_puppetry&diff=386033992&oldid=386025125 and the use of sock-puppetry against me here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#anchor132811 and the tag-teaming tactics used against me here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#tagteam and have another look at my description of their editing tactics here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/da-costa_ssynd-wikiwebpa2/#anchor5667 |
THE DISRUPTIVE EDITING ACCUSATION
(Verifiable evidence that my two critics have been telling blatant lies and refusing to co-operate with uninvolved editors to produce an article free from bias)
After failing to get me blocked on the Wikiquette alerts and MFD pages Gordonofcartoon started an RFC (request for comments page) on 20-7-08, to get a topic ban preventing me from contributing to the Da Costa’s page on the grounds of a dozen or so policies here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Statement_of_the_dispute
“At 20:36 on 3-8-08 on my talk page, and a few minutes later at 20:43 on the RFC talk page an editor name Avnjay wrote these words . . . As far as the article is concerned here is what I suggest. While everyone is not editing it directly they can put their idea of the perfect article on a user sub-page. Someone with knowledge of Wiki policy but not the article’s subject (I am happy to take the time to do this if you want) can then read the articles and check the references and combine the articles. After a bit of discussion on the talk page we would have a perfect article! Yes I’m optimistic but why not!!!” . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Comment_re_Outside_view_by_User:Avnjay
Gordonofcartoon’s response the following day at 11:31 on 4-8-08 was “Short answer: no” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=next&oldid=229752771
At 13:02 the same day 4-8-08 Avnjay made the following suggestions . . .
“Posturewriter agrees not to edit related articles for a while (which he has already agreed to)
Posturewriter writes a version of Da Costa’s on a sub-pagedemonstrating his understanding of WP:MEDRS and WP:COI
I’ll combine Posturewriter’s article with the current one according to WP:MEDRS
Any substantive changes to the combined article (by any editor) are discussed first although hopefully there won’t need to be any!”
At 8:42 on 8-8-08 I replied with these words . . . “Avnjay; I endorse your solution. . . . and . . . I am willing to prepare a sub-page on the range of research related to a balanced view of Da Costa’s syndrome and have you ensure that it is presented as an article page which is consistent with all relevant wiki policies, as fairly and equitably determined by you — Posturewriter 08:42, 8 August 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=230574769&oldid=230384573
At 11:18 on 8-8-08 SmokeyJoe wrote these words ” Posturewriter – If you want to create a userspace version of an article (such as Da Costa’s syndrome), get it perfected, and then seek to replace the existing article, then go for it.
At 16:30 on the same day 8-8-08 Gordonfocartoon’s response was “No. I’m fed up with this. We deal with it now” here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Regarding_Posturewriter.E2.80.99s_comments
_of_08:42.2C_8_August_2008_.28UTC.29.
At 1:43 on 23-8-08 I wrote the following words on the RFC talk page . . . “Avnjay; In response to your suggested solution to this dispute, I would like you to set up a sub-page for the placement of the full range of reliably sourced NPOV information about Da Costa syndrome, and would be happy for you to edit it to ensure that the page complies with wikipedia policy and guidelines. I would be agreeable for Smokeyjoe providing some additional constructive input as NPOV” Posturewriter 01:43, 23 August 2008 . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=235145436&oldid=234570222#An_NPOV_Solution
_to_the_Wikipedia:Tag_teaming_Dictatorship_of_page_Content
Also in August 2008 I wrote the following words on the RFC talk page . . . “SmokeyJoe; You suggested setting up a userspace page for Da Costa syndrome here [95]. I have courteously accepted yours and Avnjays offer [96] to edit it for NPOV purposes. Please compare my willingness to co-operate with the characteristic snubbing, no-compromise, attitude of my critics” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=235145436&oldid=234570222#
An_NPOV_Solution_to_the_Wikipedia:Tag_teamin
g_Dictatorship_of_page_Content
At 7:57 on 30-8-08 I made the following request on the RFC page. . . “Avnjay; Please set up the user sub-page and I will start adding information to it next Sunday. If you wish to have WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon contributing to the discussion I would have no objection. However, in order to ensure NPOV I think it is essential that you and SmokeyJoe, or any other NPOV editors make all the decisions about what is or is not compliant with policy” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=235145436&oldid=234570222#An__
NPOV_Solution_to_Content_Dictatorship_by_Elitist_.28arrogant.29_Editors
On 21-9-08 I wrote these words on Avnjay’s talk page. . . “Thankyou for setting up the Da Costa’s syndrome subpage here [[2]]. I am in the process of providing the text and will be checking it during the week ready to post it on wikipedia next Sunday. Could you please set up a reference section at the end of the page so that the citations will be added to the list automatically. Could you also set up an associated talk page so that you and SmokeyJoe can make any comments related to improving it to encyclopedic style and compliance with sourcing and other policy. You could make your comments at any time, but I would like to consider them and respond once a week, on Sundays, and would hope to complete the task to a satisfactory format in about a month. When we have reached a consensus about it’s suitability you and SmokeyJoe could start the process of merging it with the existing Da Costa page, or any other Da Costa subpage via a different discussion process where the discussion would involve all interested parties. I hope this plan is acceptable, and if you wish to make any suggestions or alterations to the timeframe or process I will respond next Sunday. Thankyou again for your interest and assistance and for reviewing the discussion pages related to this topic here [[3]]Posturewriter 02:33, 21 September 2008 ”
On 26-9-08 Avnjay replied . . . “Hello Posturewriter, sorry for slow reply I have been away. I have added a references section to the sub-page (for more info on this see Help:footnotes). The talk page can be started by clicking on the discussion tab at the top of the page or by clicking here. I will look in on the page from time to time and look forward to reading your work! No trouble about the help – I am glad to see you haven’t been blocked. Avnjay 20:05, 26 September 2008 ”
On 28-9-08 I responded with these words “Avnjay; “Thankyou for providing the subpage and adding the reference window code to it. I have provided the text for an article on Da Costa’s Syndrome today here [[4]] and would appreciate your comments.” Posturewriter 08:07, 28 September 2008
On 2-10-08 Gordonofcartoon wrote these words about me on Wizardman’s talk page . . .
“he’s being encouraged to write a fresh draft of it destined to be incorporated into the main article”
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wizardman/Archive19#Re_Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
I subsequently continued to get some useful and constructive co-operation from Avnjay until I was told that he would be busy on other tasks for a while, so I eventually completed the page on my own and later used it to replace the existing one at 7:46 on 25-1-09 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266273949&oldid=262846727 .
Gordonofcartoon then reverted it eight hours later at 15:50 on 25-1-09 with these words of explanation added to the Da Costa’s talk page . . .
“There was no general invitation to write separate drafts: Posturewriter chose to do so unilaterally, without guidance from medical editors, and making it abundantly clear that some existing editors were unwelcome”???
here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266328147&oldid=266274724
Note how Gordonofcartoon has deliberately misrepresented the facts in many ways, in particular, by saying that there was no guidance from medical editors when he knew that the objective of the previous discussions was never aimed at getting anything from “MEDICAL” editors specifically, but from NPOV editors (with a neutral point of view), and that it was ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that their role was to ensure policy compliance. Note also how he says that “SOME” existing editors were unwelcome, to avoid mentioning that there were only two causing problems and it was himself and WhatamIdoing. Also nobody said anything about being unwelcome, but that those two could contribute if they wanted to. However, because of their extreme topic BIAS, and strong POV about policy, all decisions about whether or not my essay was policy compliant were to be made by NPOV editors who I have never met, and who were chosen for their NPOV, and not because of their SUPPOSEDLY – FRIENDLY attitude????? The word “friendly” was Gordonofcartoon’s entirely trumped up spin to deliberately mislead people about the actual nature of those editors – They were actually neutral – not friendly!!!
At 7:21 on 26-1-09 I criticised Gordonofcartoon with these words . . .
“Please stop telling lies. You were fully aware of the subpage suggestion . . .
by Avnjay . . . and . . . SmokeyJoe“. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266479771&oldid=266440743
At 18:34 on 26-1-09 Gordonofcartoon replied with these words . . .
“Please [[WP:AGF|assume good faith]]. I had no recollection of any general invitation,
. . . and certainly wouldn’t have supported the idea unless it were a generally open draft (not a private sandbox only open to you and friendly editors). I don’t read everything – especially with disputes spread over multiple pages – and by that time it looks as if my attention was drifting with the deluge of obfuscation: Gordonofcartoon 18:34, 26 January 2009” . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266572159&oldid=266529986
At 15:36 on 28-1-09 an editor named Moreschi interrupted the arbitration process and banned me here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397
A few days later, at 21:47 on 1-2-09 Gordonofcartoon thanked him on his UserTalk page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_
talk:Moreschi&diff=267979022&oldid=267906089
***
Here is the extent of my other critic, WhatamIdoing’s knowledge and ability to comment on, and criticise every detail of the subpage and related discussions, and to criticise every attempt that Avnjay made to co-operate with me . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880 . . . and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
****
Note that I was doing everything I could to co-operate with the neutral editors to get a combined neutral point of view article that complied with policy, and my critics refused to do a sub-page and did everything they could to stop the process and continued to criticise almost every word I wrote on the subpage, and continued to comment and set up more pages until they got me banned. All that remains is content which suits their bias. I was the contributor, and they were the disruptive editors. see also here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_posturewriter
***
Follow WhatamIdoing’s example??? . . . “Don’t do what I do, just do what I tell you to do”
Two neutral editors named Avnjay and SmokeyJoe came up with the suggestion independently that all three of the editors involved in the dispute should do their own version of the article to be merged by them later to ensure neutral point of view. I agreed to do that but Gordonofcartoon said . . . ‘no, I’m fed up with this’ , . . . and WhatamIdoing did nothing except cut and paste my essay and nitpick it.
Here is some advice given by WhatamIdoing to another editor named TerryE . . . “As always, my first response to anyone proposing that other volunteers be pushed into doing something unpleasant is: Lead by example . . . and do what you’ve proposed that others be told to do” signed WhatamIdoing 19:47 22 February 2010.
Classically, WhatamIdoing uses the ‘ignore all rules’ policy while advising other editors to comply with them.
Notes on the Disruptive Editing Accusation against me???
1. Gordonofcartoon set up several different pages in the attempt to block me.
2. He said that he didn’t read everything on the discussion pages that he set up.
3. He said that he could not remember the invitations to set up a subpage which were discussed by several editors, including himself, on several pages. He also forgot his blatant refusal to accept the same invitation to do a subpage of his own, which I would not be involved in.
4. He implied that I was deliberately trying to confuse him by responding to “disputes spread over multiple pages” . . . which were disputes that he started on the many pages that he set up.
5. He seems to have very a precise ‘selective memory’ of the discussions, where he says that he had no recollection of the invitation to set up a sub-page, but he can remember that it was “abundantly clear that some existing editors were unwelcome”???
6. He misrepresented neutral and unbiased editors friendly” editors.
Disruptive editing – three days to go???
After being in Wikipedia for a few months it became obvious that I had two critics who were following me around like a couple of bloodhounds and finding fault with every word I wrote, and using every policy trick in the book to interfere with the information that I was adding.
I did several things to deal with their disruptive behavior, such as writing an essay to describe their tactics so that other editors could easily identify them, but of course they objected to that essay and eventually managed to get it deleted by breaking almost every rule in Wikipedia themselves.
One of the problems that I had was that they appeared to be full time Wikipedians who were sitting at their computer for eight hours every day and doing more than 100 edits per day on some occasions, whereas I was initially only interested in doing one edit a week. Therefore when they criticised any one of my edits at the rate of ten times an hour I decided to just sit back and watch and prepare some notes and comment on the following Sunday.
There were at least three examples where they tried to take advantage of that. The first was on the Wikiquette Alerts page where they first tried to get my essay about their tactics deleted. I told the other editors that I would be happy to respond to any questions they had, but politely asked for a time frame of a day or a week or a fortnight so that I could prepare my replies in an orderly manner. Gordonofcartoon deliberately put a negative spin on that by telling the other editors that my question was a ‘delaying tactic’, and none of the editors gave me advice on how long such discussions usually lasted before decisions were made, so I still didn’t know what they required.
A second example is when Gordonofcartoon set up an RFC page and two independent editors suggested that all three interested parties, namely WhatamIdoing, Gordonofcartoon, and myself should write their own subpage about Da Costa’s syndrome so that the two neutral editors could later combine them to produce one good “neutral point of view” article that complied with all policies and was free of bias.
I knew that I could do a much better article, and that my two critics would try to disrupt that process, and, predictably, Gordonofcartoon stubbornly, and rudely refused, and WhatamIdoing did nothing. However I decided that it was a very good idea, but, of course I knew that if I told the other editors that I would be away for a few weeks preparing the essay my two critics would find a way of blocking me before I returned. I did not know what to do about that, but while reading the page about RFC policy I saw that the discussion could not be closed while it was still active. As some of the editors were still presenting possible solutions to the problem it hadn’t been closed. I therefore placed some comments on the RFC page to inform all of them about my intentions, and an editor named Avnjay set up the blank sub-page for me to start writing the article. While I was doing that WhatamIdoing had apparently sent an editor named Wizardman a private email and requested him to close the page and put a virtual topic ban on me without telling him that it was still active. The page was therefore closed in violation of RFC closing policy, and the day after WhatamIdoing gave Wizardman a barnstar.the same individual cut and pasted my subpage text and subjected it to more than 80 points of criticism.
The third occasion was when Gordonofcartoon set up a Requests for Arbitration page to get me blocked. I decided that I had better give a quick and brief response to offset any nonsense that my two critics wrote about me, and advised the other editors that I would prepare a full response later with these words . . .
“My solution is for you to put a topic ban on them, and to stop them from commenting on anything I add to Wikipedia in future, and if they are truly neutral they can simply go and edit several million other Wikipedia articles, and let other NPOV editors discuss what should and should not be on the Da Costa’s syndrome page. Also note that this has been going on for 12 months and I prefer to contribute on Sundays only so if that is a problem please let me know, but I don’t think any thing I say will change the way they do things.” Posturewriter” 08:32, 27 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_posturewriter
WhatamIdoing responded 12 hours later with a massive essay of lies and criticism, and another editor named Moreschi interrupted the conversation between the arbitrators and banned me the next day, which meant that I was banned by the decision of only one individual.
It eventually became obvious that WhatamIdoing had arranged that by sending private emails to several friends, and one of them, named Moreschi, responded, and was later given an Outlaw Halo award for being the only one prepared to break the rules to ban me, WhatamIdoing had made sure that I was banned before the other arbitrators has the opportunity to see my response. I was banned on Wednesday the 28th of January, and my defence was due on Sunday the 1st of February.
***
Here is a later example of WhatamIdoing trying to give the impression of being a polite and rule abiding editor who was giving contributors a friendly reminder of the fact that they should get their comments in soon because there were only three days to go.
“Three more days to go: There’s still plenty of time for any other interested editors to share their opinions at [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of diseases and conditions with unusual features]]. For those that haven’t noticed it before, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Medicine]] is a manually created list of AfDs that might interest members of this project. It’s watched by many editors, including some from related projects. If you start or see an AfD that is at all related to medicine, please feel free to add it to the list. [[WP:PROD]]s and [[WP:MFD]]s and the like can also be listed at the bottom of the page.” WhatamIdoing19:26, 24 August 200 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine&diff=prev&oldid=309833932
Here is some advice that the same person gave to an editor named Diabtot at 5:22 on 17 August 2010. . . “We have the bot pull the RFC tags after 30 days because most people forget to turn off the RFC after the dispute has been resolved, not because 30 days is a magic amount of time that leads to best resolutions. If the RFC process is tending to resolve the dispute and more time is wanted, then it can be extended. Editors at a given page are also perfectly free to continue discussions even when the RFC is no longer listed at the centralized advertising points. WhatamIdoing 05:22, 17 August 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment&diff=prev&oldid=379346669
The double standards in WhatamIdoing’s editing practices are an obvious violation of the requirement to treat all contributors with courtesy and respect.>
My contribution to the Da Costa’s page, and my two critics attempt to disrupt it
(The following information supports a previous essay here
While I contributing to the Da Costa page content, my two critics were using a never ending series of arguments and policies to disrupt the process. However, they were accusing me of being disruptive, and they set up a Requests for Comments page to discuss putting a topic ban on me. During that process two neutral editors suggested that it was in part, or fully, a content dispute that could be settled by each party writing their own version on subpages so that neutral editors could later merge them and ensure that the Wikipedia article was unbiased
I agreed to do that, but my two critics tried to disrupt that sensible method. Extracts from those discussions are shown below/ . . .
A comment on the suggested solution for providing an unbiased article, and the result
On 4-8-08Avnjay made the following suggestion about what I should do . . . “instead of an essay on COI (which sounds a little patronising to me) he writes a version of Da Costa’s demonstrating his understanding of WP:COI, WP:MEDRS, WP:NOR“ . . . Avnjay 13:06, 4 August 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=229769192&oldid=229760697
Note that NPOV refers to ‘Neutral point of view’, COI refers to ‘Conflict of interest’, MEDRS refers to ‘Medically reliable sources’ – and ‘sources’ means ‘references’, and NOR means ‘No original research’ and I was not having any difficulty understanding those basic and perfectly reasonable concepts.
I started writing the essay soon after that and when it was finished I posted it onto a Wikipedia subpage, and then Avnjay (a neutral editor) read it and wrote these words on 5-10-08 . . . (two months later)
“To be honest, in my opinion, it’s actually a lot better and far more detailed than the one that is currently up and I can’t find anything which is COI, unsourced (97 different sources quoted!!), or biased“ . . . Avnjay 10:51, 5 October 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter ..
Evidence of Gordonofcartoon’s uncooperative attitude and disruptive conduct
“At 20:36 on 3-8-08 on my talk page, and a few minutes later at 20:43 on the RFC talk page the editor name Avnjay wrote these words . . . As far as the article is concerned here is what I suggest. While everyone is not editing it directly they can put their idea of the perfect article on a user sub-page. Someone with knowledge of Wiki policy but not the article’s subject (I am happy to take the time to do this if you want) can then read the articles and check the references and combine the articles. After a bit of discussion on the talk page we would have a perfect article! Yes I’m optimistic but why not!!” . . . here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Comment_re_Outside_view_by_User:Avnjay
Gordonofcartoon’s response the following day at 11:31 on 4-8-08 was “Short answer: no” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=next&oldid=229752771
At 11:18 on 8-8-08 SmokeyJoe wrote these words ” Posturewriter – If you want to create a userspace version of an article (such as Da Costa’s syndrome), get it perfected, and then seek to replace the existing article, then go for it.
At 16:30 on the same day 8-8-08 Gordonofcartoon’s response was “No. I’m fed up with this. We deal with it now” here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter#Regarding_Posturewriter.E2.80.99s_
comments_of_08:42.2C_8_August_2008_.28UTC.29
At 07:15 on 15-8-09 I wrote these words on the RFC page . . . “I think that your recent suggestion of the 8th August was a good idea re; “If you want to create a userspace version of an article (such as Da Costa’s syndrome), get it perfected, and then seek to replace the existing article, then go for it” here [56]. It relates to my endorsement of Avnjays suggestion first, and yours second. You could edit the page with Avnjay if you wish although you have not previously offered to, and ensure it was complete, NPOV, and in compliance with policy.” . . . Posturewriter (talk) 07:51, 15 August 2008 posturewriter
A few hours later, at 15:30 on 15-8-09 Gordonofcartoon gave this typically deceitful, uncompromising, and disruptive response to my offer to write a subpage essay . . . “Discussion over: no-one’s interested in seeing further essays from you here“. Gordonofcartoon 15:30, 15 August 2008. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Posturewriter&diff=next&oldid=232096020
The situation was that there were uninvolved and independent editors who were interested in providing a solution to the dispute about bias, but Gordonofcartoon was refusing to co-operate and spending all of his time trying to be as disruptive as possible by trying to talk them out of it.
Just like Gordonofcartoon, his tag-team mate WhatamIdoing was doing everything possible to be uncooperative in finding an independent solution to the dispute about bias.
The section of WhatamIdoing’s own UserTalk page where WhatamIdoing was being insulting and argumentative, provocative, and annoying, and doing everything to disrupt the process is here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
These are some extracts to exemplify it
At 10:51 on 5-10-08 Avnjay had read my essay and wrote . . . “Hello WhatamIdoing! . . . To be honest, in my opinion, it’s actually a lot better and far more detailed than the one that is currently up and I can’t find anything which is COI, unsourced (97 different sources quoted!!), or biased. . . . could I ask you to have a look at it and gently, gently, comment on it? Thanks! Hope you’re well”, Avnjay 10:51, 5 October 2008
WhatamIdoing replied; “Avnjay, I realize that you’re not competent in the subject matter, but an editor of your experience should have noticed that he doesn’t use 97 different sources. For example, he lists the same thoroughly outdated (1951!) textbook eighteen separate times. There are in fact only 24 references, assuming you count the two “references” to Wikipedia articles (one to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and another to Posturewriter’s own work at Da Costa syndrome. You might also have noticed that he selectively quotes very short phrases from some of them. The most recent source is eleven years old (see WP:MEDRS#Use_up-to-date_evidence — and it is about Chronic fatigue syndrome, not Da Costa’s.
Would you like a detailed response?” WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 5 October 2008
Note that I was not familiar with all of the Wikipedia codes on how to add references to an automated reference list so Avnjay made some constructive amendments to those codes to remove duplication and reduce the list of 97 links down to 24 references that had been cited multiple times. By contrast WhatamIdoing was (a) not being useful or constructive, and (b) trying to imply that I was ONLY using 24 references, and not 97 – without telling Avnjay that there were NONE when I first saw the article.
Avnjay then wrote these words to WhatamIdoing . . . “Ouch! I went back and added the 97 bit some time after I had written my post (but not saved it) which just goes to show you should never add in anything at the last minute! So, quickly sweeping my foolishness under the carpet, I’ve been through and collated all the sources now and changed a fair bit to better reflect the manual of style. A large part of his article is on the history of the syndrome hence all the old sources (an exception in WP:MEDRS#Use_up-to-date_evidence). There is one current source in the Merriam Webster Medical Dictionary and I have added two recent (2004) ones from the current article and the Dorland’s dictionary. I will let Posturewriter know he needs to add some more. As far as short quotes go, they do seem to be referenced and do make for easier reading than lots of long quotes. I shall, however, suggest he lengthen them. Do you know of any which are quoted out of context? By all means, if you have the time and inclination, give me as much detail as you can muster, but I can fully understand if you are sick of this by now! I am really keen though to keep working with Posturewriter as I do believe a better article can be produced here. Plus I think Wikipedia should be a place of unending optimism! 🙂 Have a good day!!” Avnjay 15:26, 6 October 2008
WhatamIdoing replied; “I tried marking things that need repaired, but it’s basically a disaster. The history section is much, much, much too detailed. It inappropriately blends in symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment” . . . etc. etc.
Note that WhatamIdoing did absolutely nothing useful, but just kept finding fault with everything I wrote, or added, and the criticism went on relentlessly for months. Those discussions can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880#Da_Costa.E2.80.99s_Syndrome
WhatamIdoing also set up another page called a sandbox and cut and pasted the entire subpage text that I produced, for the sole purpose of criticising as many comments or references as possible (more than 80) see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
Summary
If you read the full discussions you can see that I was doing everything possible to find a way of providing an unbiased article, but my two critics were doing everything possible to disrupt the process and ensure that they had complete control of content.
Soldier’s Heart – the hatnote?
Their response to my criticism of one of their references
(an example of my two critics making a mistake, and trying to convince other editor that I was wrong)
Part 1
At one stage I saw a link to a novel called “Soldier’s Heart” in the “See Also” section of the page. “Soldier’s Heart” was one of the more commonly used alternative names for Da Costa’s syndrome so it belonged there. However it was mainly used by some authors prior to the first world war because it became a problem for the military, but it has since been discovered that it is more common in civilian life, and more common in women, and is more common in soldier’s who already had mild symptoms before enlisting, and hence there have been more than a hundred different labels for it. Nevertheless, I was casually curious about why someone would put a link to a NOVEL (a book of fiction???) on a medical page that is supposed to only contain references to top quality medical research journals, but I thought nothing more of it until one of my critics moved it to the top of the page to give it prominence. I therefore read it to see if it was relevant but found it to be a children’s fiction novel, written by children’s fiction author, and published by a children’s fiction publisher, with no mention of any of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome anywhere in it’s 100 pages of text.
I thought that I should let them know that it was irrelevant and that it should be removed so that Wikipedia users would not waste their time reading it. It was also inappropriate for them to use a children’s fiction novel on a medical page, but when I said that they started complaining and here are some of their edit warring arguments
1. That it was not moved to the top of the page to give it prominence
2. That it was not a reference, but just a hatnote
3. That hatnote policy ‘demanded’ that they put it there.
4. That they could put a flowering plant at the top of the page if they wanted to.
5. One of them added some poems, plays, and telemovies to the page because they had the same title of “Soldier’s Heart”. The other editor later argued that the problem had been solved because it had become a ‘regular’ disambiguation page, which means a page that it has words which have multiple uses for the same thing.
6. They argued that I was a stupid person for not understanding their deliberately esoteric mincing of words.
8. When I asked them for page numbers where the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome were supposed to be they changed the subject so I assumed that they had never even bothered to read the book.
9. They argued that I was violating AGF policy which states that I should ‘assume good faith’ in their motives and editing practices.
10. That I was being tendencious (argumentative)
11. That I was being disruptive for wanting to get the irrelevant children’s book removed from the top line of the medical topic which requires top quality peer reviewed references.
They just kept arguing like that for weeks
see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Comments_on_the_novel_.E2.80.9CSoldier.E2.80.99s_Heart.E2.80.9D
and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266789799&oldid=266722358#Wikipedia.3B_A_
Democratically_Compiled_On-line_Publication.3F.3F.3F
27-1-09 . . . Here is a direct quote from WhatamIoing’s argument on the arbitration page where I was banned.
“The other problems that we’ve encountered generally involve a failure to grasp Wikipedia’s conventions. For example, at one time, Soldier’s heart redirected to the DCS article. There’s a novel named Soldier’s Heart, so we provided a link to the article about the book. Per WP:LAYOUT, this link should be in a hatnote instead of in a See also section Posturewriter complained at length and repeatedly about the disambiguation link being “in the lead” and a “reference”. Posturewriter never seemed to grasp the point, and ultimately, it was resolved only because Soldier’s heart became a regular disambiguation page. “ . . . WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009 herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
28-1-09 . . . Here is a quote from an editor named Moreschi who came to the arbitration page and interrupted
“I’ve banned Posturewriter, as I should have done yonks ago. Apologies for not getting to this sooner. That will save you a case, I think”. Moresch 15:36, 28 January 2009
Note that Moreschi was only involved in one brief discussion with WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon six months earlier, on a page that I was not told about. When I became aware of it and joined the discussion it ceased immediately and I had not heard of Moreschi since, hence I thought he agreed with me. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive469#Disruptive_editor_.2F_RFC_failing_to_resolve
2-2-09 . . . A few days after I was banned AN INDEPENDENT EDITOR named Paul Barlow deleted the link and gave the following reason . . .
“no point in linking to a disamb page that points back here and lists unrelated usages”
here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=268043151&oldid=266976152
However, because I had been banned from Wikipedia my two critics did not complain, and the hatnote hasn’t been put back since.
They were the most argumentative and disruptive individuals I have ever come across.
Their idea is to start an argument with me by telling lies and talking nonsense, and then tell everyone else that anything I say in defence is edit warring?
Summary: My two critics moved the words “Soldier’s Heart (novel)” to the top of the Da Costa’s page. When I read it and informed them that it was a children’s fiction book that was not appropriate for a medical topic, and therefore needed to be deleted, they argued with me. They later used that discussion as an example of me being a tendencious editor who should be banned from the topic. After I was banned another editor deleted the novel and the link because, in his opinion, it was inappropriate.
As a final note, there are a lot of people who are not experienced in controversial topics who would fall into the trap of being passive in the face of criticism, rather than respond to it. If they don’t respond then my two critics will control content, and if they do they will be blocked for being argumentative, and my critics will regain complete control of content, which was there objective. They were essentially creating a VERY SIMPLE no-win situation and expecting me to fall for it. They had done that before, and made it too obvious through repetition. For example, they were telling lies, but I had to trust them and remain silent, or be accused of violating WP:AGF
Part 2
Some months after I criticised my two critics for linking a children’s fiction novel to a medical page they started an argument that focussed on ONE of my references, and misrepresented it, and used it to give the fasle impression that all of my references were unreliable,
They had been demanding that I could only use references that were from verifiable, top quality peer-reviewed medical journals etc., so I that met those standards, and only one to a medical consumers.
The webpage was about Myalgic Encephalitis, which is a common synonym for the chronic fatigue syndrome, with Da Costa’s syndrome mentioned in it’s list of 80 other synonyms, and it was compiled in collaboration with four doctors. The medical consumer was interested in iguana lizards and she had a website about them, and included a webpage about CFS on the same website. My two critics deliberately failed to mention the collaboration with four doctors, and went to many discussion pages and misrepresented it by telling all of the other editors that it was a link to a medical consumers website about iguana lizards, and that she was a patient, who was not a medical expert, and that it was not compliant with Wikipedia’s policy that requires references from reliable peer-reviewed sources. They argued that It represented all of my other references and that I was too stupid to find reliable sources of information, and that I was being disruptive
I started removing the links to the medical consumers page but was banned by one of WhatamIdoing’s friends anyway. See discussion 23 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_27#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
. . . WhatamIdoing also used that one reference as an excuse to delete all of the text, including the 60 other references with these words . . . “Rv POV version by COI-blocked editor using RSN-banned sources such as the personal webpage of a patient” . . . which can be seen herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214 . . . The text and the full list of references can be seen by scrolling down that page, and can also be seen here
WhatamIdoing’s repeatedly misrepresented my use of that reference in as many places as possible .e.g. in item number 52 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive506#Personal_attacks
Summary:Wikipedia requires editors to use top quality peer-reviewed medical books and journals as sources of information for it’s medical articles. My two critics only provided twelve references in the twelve months that I was there. I criticised them for linking to a children’s fiction novel and moving it to the top of the page where it will mislead people about the nature of the condition. All links to that novel have since been removed by two independent editors who obviously agreed with me.
I provided Wikipedia with 64 top quality references that met the policy requirements and one to a medical consumer’s webpage that was compiled in collaboration with four doctors and supported by about ten other references in the paragraph where I used it, and my two critics persuaded the arbitrators to ban me by telling them that I was an ignorant, argumentative, and disruptive contributor who was constantly ignoring policy advice and using unreliable sources of information such as a website about iguana lizards.
The actual facts were that they were linking to a children’s fiction novel, probably because they didn’t read it and didn’t know that it was irrelevant until I told them, and I was using a medical consumer’s webpage to bring a neutral point of view into the article knowing that it was compiled with the collaboration of four doctors, and I supported it with other medical references.
I criticised them for linking an irrelevant children’s ficiton novel to a medical page, and they responded later by finding a way to convince the other editors that I should be banned for providing unreliable references ????
Another essay on the same topic using quotes from five independent editors
WhatamIdoing’s Deceitful Account of the Hatnote Discussions
(I have explained this aspect in the section above, but in this instance have chosen to give some exact quotes of the various participants to show that the majority of independent contributors to the discussions were agreeing with me)
Gordonofcartoon added the words “Soldier’s Heart (novel)” to the “See also” section at the end of the DaCosta’s syndrome page. It was later moved to the top of the page by WhatamIdoing, so I read it, to check it’s relevance. I found it to be a children’s fiction novel that had nothing to do with the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome so I requested that WhatamIdoing delete it because it was not a reliable source of medical information according to Wikipedia sourcing policy. However, WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon started arguing relentlessly about it which you can see in the following extracts.
At 22:14 on20-12-2007 Gordonofcartoon added the following words to the “See also” section at the end of the Da Costa’s page . . . “Soldier’s Heart (novel)” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=179268306&oldid=179126578
At 19:09 on 29-5-08 WhatamIdoing moved those words from the “See also”section up to the top of the pagewith an amended comment . . . “For the novel, see Soldier’s Heart (novel)“ here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=215793876&oldid=215793297
At 7:60 on 26-6-08 I wrote these words . . . WhatamIdoing; In the past you have repeatedly required me to only provide material for the Da Costa article page which is supported by references from “reliable”, independent, peer reviewed, medical and scientific research journals of the highest quality. For example here [81]. I would therefore like you to remove the reference to the children’s fiction novel called “Soldier’s Heart” which was presented as the lead on the first line of the article page by editor WLU on 31-5-08 here “. . . posturewriter(talk) 07:00, 26 June 2008
>Note that I have since found that the link was moved to the top of the page by WhatmIdong on 29-5-08, not by WLU on 31-5-08.
At 12:07 on 26-6-08 Gordonofcartoon wrote . . . “Your personal diagnosis for Charley Goddard is quite irrelevant (WP:NOR). The novel is not a medical reference for the article; it’s another topic with the name “Soldier’s heart”, and a disambiguation link is perfectly normal.
However, the disambiguation page Soldier’s heart does need expanding to include, at least, the 2008 Brian Delate movie ([84], [85]), so if that’s done, the disambiguation at the top could be changed to the more generic “For other uses, see”. Gordonofcartoon
At 02:41 on 28-6-08 WhatamIdoing wrote these words and many more . . . “If you search for soldier’s heart, you might end up at Da Costa’s syndrome instead of Soldier’s Heart (novel). Do you want a kid whose looking for the book to read through the whole DCS page in total confusion, just so “your” article looks the way you want it to?”
At 23:41 on 29-6-09 Gordonofcartoon wrote these words . . . “For the purposes of the hatnote, it doesn’t matter what the book says; for all I care, it could say soldier’s heart is a kind of small flowering plant. A hatnote is not a reference. It is purely for disambiguation of topics with the same name, and conveys no implication of relative importance or ‘framing’.
If you interested yourself in other articles on Wikipedia, you might develop some better knowledge of the conventions here. Do you believe that The Vampire Bat is a reference for Vampire bat or, as cited in WP:HATNOTE#Examples of proper use, Dunwich (Lovecraft) is a reference for Dunwich?
As WhatamIdoing said, if you don’t like the way it works, take it to Wikipedia talk:Hatnote – but you won’t get a different answer.
Those discussions can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Comments_on_the_novel_.E2.80.9CSoldier.E2.80.99s_Heart.E2.80.9D
At 14:37 on 3-7-08 an independent editor named Dan Dank55 wrote this . . . “This seems more like a content dispute than a discussion about style guidelines to me, but I can confirm that hatnotes are not references“. – Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:27, 3 July 2008) see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Wikipedia.3B_A_Democratically_Compiled_On-line_Publication.3F.3F.3F At 15:59 on 3-7-08 Gordonofcartooon wrote these words . . . I’ve expanded the Soldier’s heart disambigation page – it’s a popular title – which makes the single-article disambiguation hatnote redundant. Problem solved? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:59, 3 July 2008 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Disambiguated
At 1:29 on 16-7-09 NapoliRoma wrote these words . . . “(<-zing!) OK,I knew I was stepping in it . . . >Re “people might search”: try it; I did. If you search for soldier’s heart on Google, Yahoo, or MSN, you do not get this page in the first tier of results. Putting a hatnote up because maybe this someday might change is not reasonable. Re “Gotta be at the top or nowhere, or millions of handicapped people will die”: I think this overstates the case. By this argument, all links must be at the top. This would be difficult. My take, and understand I have no horse in this race: having a link to the “soldier’s heart” dab page is not vital, but not a bad thing. But because there is little if any chance anyone will stumble on this page when looking for any other meaning of “soldier’s heart”, the one place it should not be is as a hatnote.It distracts the reader from the actual topic at hand for no defensible reason. Logically, the appropriate place for it would then be under “See also”, with perhaps a bit of an explanation as to why
At 02:29 on 16-7-08 L’Aquatique wrote these words . . . “I see no reason why it should be here, since following the guideline does not result in any loss of usability to non-disabled [review] 02:29, 16 July 2008
At 15:38 on 16-7-08 NapoliRoma wrote . . . “The name of this page is not “soldier’s heart”, and there is no redirect to this page that resembles “soldier’s heart”. Thus, a link from this pageto another page named “soldier’s heart”does not perform a disambiguating function. What’s being discussed here, then, is a link. It is no different than a link to “fatigue” or “sweating”. As such, WP:ACCESS does not appear to me to apply. Just as I would not include a link to “fatigue” as a hatnote on this page, I would not include a hatnote pointing to “soldier’s heart”.–NapoliRoma
At 07:23 on 17-7-08 I wrote these words . . . “NapoliRoma and L’Aquatique; thankyou for your comments; . . . Do you understand why I think it is going to mislead readers who will end up in the children’s section of their local library reading irrelevant fiction – like I did – and I am an adult interested in Da Costa’s syndrome, with no interest in wasting my time – If your policy solves that problem then we are in agreement. posturewriter – Preceding
At 15:38 on1 7 July 2008 NapoliRoma gave this reply . . . “It’s pretty much an example of my general point: superfluous hatnotes are distracting at best, and in your case actually took you off on a completely fruitless tangent. This is the opposite of improving usability (including accessibility).–NapoliRoma
At 07:54 on 18-7-08 L’Aquatique wrote these words . . . “Disambiguation is designed to provide alternate articles where there might be confusion regarding which article is about what, and this is one of those circumstances. If you think the template is inappropriate for the article, just remove it.But if it’s going to be in the article, it needs to be at the top. There’s really not a lot more to say. L’Aquatique[review] 07:54, 18 July 2008
Those discussions can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome#Colloquial_term_.E2.80.98Soldier.E2.80.99s_Heart.27.3F
At 13:08 on 22-12-08 El imp deleted the hatnote from the top of the Da Costa’s page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=259521516&oldid=258182319
At 15:13 on 2-2-09 in the history edits Paul Barlow deleted the link to the children’s fiction novel and other poems and plays called “Soldier’s heart” and gave these words “(no point in linking to a disamb page that points back here and lists unrelated usages)” herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=268043151&oldid=266976152
Result: As you can see my two critics provided a link to a Children’s fiction novel called “Soldier’s Heart” in the “See also” section at the end of the Da Costa’s page, and later decided to move it to the top of the page to give prominence to their preferred label which was also “Soldier’s Heart”. When I read the novel and found that it had no mention of the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome I recommended that it be removed. They then invented the argument that it was put there as a hatnote to help readers navigate to it from other topic pages which included the words “Soldier’s heart”.
There were five independent editors who contributed to the discussion
Dan Dank55, NapoliRoma, L’Aquatique, Elimp, and Paul Barlow
Dan Dank55 confirmed that hatnotes were not references, but that was never a significant issue because the ACTUAL problem created by putting the link at the top of the page was that it would prompt people to read it and then learn that it was a complete waste of their time, which was the reason for me saying that it shouldn’t be put at the top of the page. L’Aquatique agreed with me with these words . . . “I see no reason why it should be here”. NapoliRoma also agreed with me, and became involved in a discussion with L’Aquatique about the technical details of hatnote usage, but they both agreed with my suggestion about removing unnecessary links to irrelevent information. Elimp agreed with me and removed Paul Barlow agreed with me and deleted the link.
However, WhatamIdoing completely ignored all of those facts, and wrote the opposite, by telling the arbitrators that I didn’t understand Wikipedia policy, and was being disruptive by going against consensus?
These are the words that WhatamIdoing added to the arbitration page . . .
At 20:25 on 27-1-09 WhatamaIdoing wrote . . . “The other problems that we’ve encountered generally involve a failure to grasp Wikipedia’s conventions. For example, at one time, Soldier’s heart redirected to the DCS article. There’s a novel named Soldier’s Heart, so we provided a link to the article about the book. Per WP:LAYOUT, this link should be in a hatnote instead of in a See also section. Posturewriter complained at length and repeatedly about the disambiguation link being “in the lead” and a “reference”. Posturewriter never seemed to grasp the point, and ultimately, it was resolved only because Soldier’s heart became a regular disambiguation page . . . .WhatamaIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009″
here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
Note how that editor misrepresented a lot of things in that one paragraph, but I will focus on one
WhatamIdoing was telling the arbitrators that consensus was against me, and implied that that hatnote was kept at the top of the page, and that the issue had been resolved because it was linked to a page which became a regular
The actual facts were that I had consensus, and the hatnote and link were removed by two independent editors.
Another example of my main critic deliberately deceiving a different group of editors
Note that my two critics lost their argument about their link to the novel called ‘Soldier’s Heart’ when two neutral editors deleted it early in 2009, but here is a previous calculated attempt to deceive newer groups of editors . . .
At 19:09 on 29-5-08 WhatamIdoing moved those words from the “See also” section up to the top of the pagewith an “For the novel, see Soldier’s Heart (novel)“herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=215793876&oldid=215793297
At 22:30 on 6-5-10 that same editor changed the word ‘neurological’ to ‘medical’ in this wording . . . “This article is about the medical condition also known as soldier’s heart. For the novella by Gary Paulsen , see Soldier’s Heart (novel) See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=217632308
At 15:57 on 3 July 2008 Gordonofcartoon changed the wording to this . . . “This article is about the medical condition also known as ‘soldier’s heart’. For other uses of the term see Soldier’s heart” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=223324877
At 01:11 on 16 July 2008 WhatamIdoing wrote . . . “Aaargh: An editor with very limited experience outside of his single topic area has been giving me fits over an issue of accessibility. He’s unhappy that there’s a disambiguation link at the top of Da Costa’s syndrome. He wants it buried at the end of the (not short) article, despite several explanations about accessibility, inconvenience to users of screen readers, etc.
Basically, the disambiguation page links to a novel (as in, a work of fiction) that doesn’t agree with his WP:FRINGEy POV about the medical condition, so he wants it buried. He asserts that putting the disamb link before the article gives “undue weight” to the novel. (The disamb link doesn’t even mention the novel. It just says “This article is about the medical condition also known as “soldiers heart”. For other uses of the term, see Soldier’s heart.”)
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Accessibility#Aaargh
Notice how that individual was trying to deceive an entirely new group of editors by telling the that the hatnote at the top of the page did not mention the novel, and didn’t mention that the previous criticism was also because their link led d to a childrens story which had no information about the symptoms of the medical condition. You can ultimately see how much calculation and teamwork those two editors were putting into progressively manipulating the text at the top of the page, and the arguments in the discussions, to deceive newer groups of editors.
They were ‘obviously’ wrong, and I was justified in criticism them, but they tried to argue the opposite???
The “neutral point of view” discussions
How they tried to change the topic by changing the emphasis or the title of the page
While I was in Wikipedia I was adding small amounts of information to various pages when I found Da Costa’s syndrome, which I knew a lot about. After making some contributions to it and then being told that I couldn’t mention my own research, I started writing the history of the topic. The condition has been around for thousands of years, but was not easily recognized until a physician named J.M.Da Costa saw it in soldier’s during the American Civil War. He then went back to general practice where he noticed that it was common in civilians, and 8 years later, in 1871, wrote a research paper on it. Obviously he couldn’t call it “Soldier’s Heart” because that implied that it was exclusively a soldier’s ailment, so he called his article “On Irritable Heart”. Since then more than a hundred different labels have been applied to the condition. The main alternative labels throughout that time were the “effort syndrome” in the U.K., and “neurocirculotory asthenia”, particularly in the United States.
My two critics claim that I was looking for an article about Da Costa’s syndrome to use for the purpose of promoting my own theory, but I wasn’t. It was just there as I was going through the encyclopedia looking for pages where I had useful information to offer (somebody else started that topic long before I joined Wikipedia). They also tried to convince the other editors that I was getting upset about them removing that information, but again, I wasn’t. I could send my ideas to a hundred other places if I wanted to, and over the years many newspaper, magazine, or journal editors have reviewed it, and accepted, or rejected, or criticised it, and that happens to all authors. If it was never accepted, I would not bother to write about it, but many of my letters, articles, or books were accepted, bought or read. However my two critics tried to create the impression that I was desperate to push my point of view when they knew that I wasn’t. They were, however, pushing their own point of view, by starting arguments with me, and in that attempt they were losing, getting frustrated, using foul language, and on the verge of tearing their hair out. It was OBVIOUS to me that they have had much less experience at dealing with controversy.
One of them said that a research paper written by Rosen was a text-book perfect description of the ‘hyperventilation syndrome’, and the other said that it wasn’t. They therefore contradicted each other and defeated themselves without me having to do anything, but it was obvious that Gordonofcartoon hadn’t read past the first paragraph of the article, so I criticised him for that.
However, they didn’t stop arguing, but started three more disputes where WhatamIdoing first sought assistance from medical editors, and also wanted to set up a new page with a different name, and move the Da Costa’s text there where it would become lost amongst dozens of other items. They failed to get agreement from the medical editors, and they failed to change the name to Somatoform Autonomic Dysfunction because it went against the use of plain English and avoid jargon policy.
Gordonofcartoon then set up the conflict of interest page for the second time to create another diversion, and WhatamIdoing went there to give assistance until they got another editor to threaten me with a topic ban.
I suggested that they should set up a new topic page, using the label of their choice, and write about that label and it’s history, without deleting the Da Costa page, but they told me that it was a stupid idea.
Some months later they were trying to enforce a topic ban so they set up a Request for Comment page. Two neutral editors recognised that it was in part, if not fully a content dispute, and suggested that each of the participants write their own version so that they could merge them later to independently ensure that all bias was removed. My two critics refused to do that, but of course, when I wrote another version they both combined to criticise it relentlessly, and when I transferred it to the Da Costa’s page they were the only ones to revert it and they did it four times.
My text included the full history from 1871 to 2009, and covered many of the research findings from all specialities, including the fact that it was common in civilian life, and more common in women than men, and that most soldier’s who developed the severe symptoms in war time, already had indications of milder symptoms before enlisting etc.
However, my two critics deleted it and rewrote it to push their point of view and turned the article into a different topic – their preference – Soldier’s heart, but they did it by stealth.
If you have a close look at the article that they provided it reads something like this – Da Costa’s syndrome was colloquially called Soldier’s heart. (Soldier’s heart was mentioned on the top line and in the top paragraph and printed in bold and given links) They then said that it was caused by anxiety and is now regarded as a post-war syndrome.
To push that point of view further they erased all of the history except the first thirty years which was all about war studies and had nothing about 130 years of civilian studies. They had failed to change the name of the page, but they essentially changed the title by adding the label of Soldier’s heart in the top line, and in the first sentence, and then writing the whole article as if it was exclusively about a war syndrome.
In another topic another editor made the comment that some people were using the “See also” section as a “venue” for promoting their own point of view, and in the case of my two critics they moved the “venue” for their POV to the top line of the page.
I will show their bias by providing a a few quotes from their preferred version of the Da Costa’s page.
Some extracts from the page that my two critics preferred
1. The top line of the page, above the article, and the first words that the reader will see are . . . ” This article is about the medical condition also known as “soldier’s heart”.
2. The following words occur next, and are still on the top line . . . ” For other uses of the term, see Soldier’s heart ” (this had been changed from the previous words “For the novella by Gary Paulsen see Soldier’s heart (novel)” end of quote – a novella is a very small book of fiction.
3. The word on that line has a link which makes it appear in a blue color “Soldier’s heart”
4. That link led to a page which originally had a children’s fiction book linked to it, and Gordonofcartoon provided that link, and later added poems, plays, and movies with the title of “soldier’s heart”.
5. The first line of the introduction to the topic contains these words . . . “”Da Costa’s syndrome, which was colloquially known as “soldier’s heart”.
6. The term “soldier’s heart” on the first line was presented in BOLD print to highlight it.
7. The next section is called “Classification” and it contains these words . . . ” The syndrome is also frequently interpreted as one of a number of “imprecisely” characterized “postwar syndromes”.
(Note that If I added the statement that a label was imprecisely characterised my two critics would find a policy reason for deleting it, such as cruft – rubbish that is too vague to bother with).
8. It also contains these words about Da Costa’s article . . . “the term soldier’s heart was in common use both before and after his paper”
9. The first words in the history section were . . . “Da Costa’s syndrome is named for the surgeon Jacob Mendes Da Costa,[12] who first observed it in soldiers during the American Civil War. At the time it was proposed, Da Costa’s syndrome was seen as a very desirable[13]physiological explanation for soldier’s heart.
10. The remaining history only covers the war studies for the first thirty years. All of the 130 years of “civilian studies were deleted.
Those extracts can be seen within the text from the Da Costa topic page of 16:58 on 25 July 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=228033527&oldid=225579710
********
There have been more than a hundred labels used as alternatives for Da Costa’s syndrome. Neurocirculatory asthenia, effort syndrome, anxiety neuroses, and “Soldier’s heart, were some of the many, and the modern equivalents are obviously the subject of interpretation, but in general terms it is common in civilian life and more common in women than men, so many authors have preferred Da Costa’s syndrome because it didn’t focus any emphasis on particular circumstances or unproven causes. I was writing the history of Da Costa’s syndrome because that was the title of the page, and I was presenting it all in chronological order, but my two critics wanted to turn it into their point of view (POV) by removing anything they didn’t want and filling the page with their preferences
Gordonofcartoon gave his own personal opinion with the following words . . .
“I’ve altered the intro to focus on the main synonym
. . . We’ve got so obsessed with the multiple possibilities that the chief one has become buried. Gordonofcartoon 01:15, 7 June 2008
. . . and as always, WhatamIdoing agreed with these words . . .
“That looks good to me. The initialism (DCS) isn’t commonly used; could we lose that as well? Also, do you think that we should put the synonyms in bold face at their first appearance? I have ambitions of creating redirects for each of them I have ambitions of creating redirects for each of them”. WhatamIdoing 05:33, 7 June 2008
(note that DCS is an abbreviation for Da Costa’s syndrome, and WhatamIdoing was the first to use it, and then tried to appear helpful by asking if it could be removed for the benefit of others?????? here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Names_in_the_lead
As you can see I was writing everything about Da Costa’s syndrome and covering the full length and breadth of the history, but my two critics were constantly deleting and altering my contributions to push THEIR point of view. However, WhatamIdoing always tried to convince the other editors that I should be banned for pushing my POV???, and wrote the following words on the arbitration page . . .
“In the end, Posturewriter . . . requires an enormous amount of other editors’ time to prevent the article from turning into objects promoting his POV. I am running short on the patience to continually explain basic issues . . . because the actual scientific views disagree with his personal POV. His interactions with anyone that doesn’t agree with him rapidly devolve into hostile sniping . . . I’m tired of the POV-pushing and the edit wars (which he’s currently blocked for). This editor is apparently not capable of editing without pushing his POV. . . I think that a broad topic ban (including Da Costa’s syndrome, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to human posture, fitness, or fatigue) is an appropriate outcome”. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
Summary
Articles in Wikipedia are supposed to contain comments that are independently verifiable from top quality peer-reviewed medical books or journals, and they are supposed to be free of the personal opinions, prejudices, or interpretations of authors or editors. If you check the article you may consider these facts which show my critics pushing their extremely biased point of view on readers. Note that if they used proper links to proper research papers, instead of children’s fiction novels and selective references, and if they mentioned the term ‘Soldier’s heart’ in the proper context there would not be a problem, but they were OBVIOUSLY being highly selective with their references and interpretation, and giving the article an unbalanced emphasis, focus, or view.
1. Gordonofcartoon added a link to an irrelevant children’s fiction novel called “Soldier’s heart” at the end of the page in the See Also section. (if you read that book you will not learn anything about Da Costa’s syndrome)
2. WhatamIdoing later moved the label to the top of the page to give it prominence, and argued about it for months, but since then two other editors have removed all links to the children’s fiction novel.
3. WhatamIdoing then proceeded to add that label to the text at every opportunity, and edited the history section so that 130 years of civilian studies were deleted and only the first 30 years of war related research remained.
The page that I saw in Wikipedia was called Da Costa’s syndrome, so I wrote about Da Costa’s syndrome which is common in civilian life. When it occurred during war time some authors called Soldier’s heart. My two critics were disrupting the content to turn it into an article about Soldier’s heart, regardless of the fact that the vast majority of patients have never been involved in wars
.
A final comment
The following quote is from the top line of the Da Costa’s syndrome page of 6-6-08 . . .
“This article is about the medical condition also known as soldier’s heart. For the novella by Gary Paulsen, see Soldier’s Heart (novel)”
end of quote. e.g. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=217632472&oldid=217632308
My two critics had the cheek to argue that they were not misleading readers into thinking that the children’s fiction novel was about this condition.
Reliable Neutral points of view
My two critics criticise all of my references in the hope of discrediting me, but they argue that they are policy experts and ONLY ever use reliable sources of information themselves, and they used one of Paul Wood’s research papers, so I will provide a quote from a different paper by the same author, in the same year (1941). He wrote these words in The British Medical Journal in May 19th 1941 page 763 to 772.
The title of the article was “Da Costa’s syndrome (or Effort Syndrome)”
These words were on his first page . . . “Terminology – It is recognized that no satisfactory name has been given to the condition which has been variously known as “the irritable heart of the soldier”(Da Costa 1871), effort syndrome (Lewis 1917), neurocirculatory asthenia (Oppenheimer et al 1918), and autonomic imbalance (Kessel and Hyman 1923). I urge the rejection of all these terms for reasons which will become apparent; nor do I feel morally bound to suggest a substitute, for I believe that the recognition of this syndrome, as such, will die. Further, if it is, at times convenient to speak of these physical signs and symptoms there can be no better name than Da Costa’s syndome. This not only avoids reference to the heart, to the circulation, to effort, or to false or unproven mechanisms, but it has the unrivaled merit of making Da Costa responsible for it’s recognition as a distinct clinical entity, and is especially fitting if the syndrome is to become of historical interest only; moreover, it is not just another new name, for the conditon always has been Da Costa’s syndrome, and might have been called so from the start”.
On page 545 of the April 12th, 1941 edition of the British Medical Journal, in an article called “Effort Syndrome in Soldiers”, British researcher John Parkinson wrote . . .
“we are well rid of the terms ‘Soldier’s Heart'”
“and D.A.H” . . . “An expression of this idea is seen in the term ‘neurocirculatory asthenia’ (N.C.A.) applied in the United States to the term we call effort syndrome.”
“Our term is not ideal, for it might suggest in effort lies the origin of the disability, whereas effort merely reveals it”. . . “Tentatively I would define effort syndrome as a functional circulatory disease, most evident on exertion, unmasked or produced by war service”
Forty six years later
Oglesby Paul wrote a review of the history of Da Costa’s syndrome. The first words in his paper were . . .
“SUMMARY The syndrome
variously known as Da Costa’s syndrome, effort syndrome, neurocirculatory asthenia, etc.
has been
studied for more than 100 years
by many distinguished physicians. Originally identified in men in wartime, it has been
widely recognised as a common chronic conditon in both sexes in civilian life.
Although the symptoms may seem to appear after infections and various physical and psychological stresses, neurocirculatory asthenia is most often encountered as a familial disorder that is unrelated to those factors, although they may aggravate an existing tendency.”
and included these words on page 308 . .
.“A vague waste basket term ‘disordered action of the heart'” . . .
“had also been used in the British Army, and” . . .
“the equally unsatisfactory term ‘soldier’s heart'”
“was used . . . but in his series Lewis reported that 161 of 277 patients should be reclassified as “effort syndrome”
There have been more than a hundred different labels used as alternatives for Da Costa’s syndrome, including “Soldier’s heart, but many authors preferred Da Costa’s syndrome because it didn’t focus any emphasis on particular circumstances or unproven causes. Furthermore, the condition is common in civilian life and can occur in children, and is more common in women than men, so the label of Soldier’s heart was generally criticised and abandoned as being misleading because it was not exclusive to “Soldiers”, and was not a disease of the “heart”.
Wikipedia’s . . . Neutral Point of View policy . . . WP:NPOV
“Neutral point of view (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors
Bias
Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view)-what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. Unbiased writing is the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence
Article naming
Wikipedia is governed by the principle of impartiality
A Wikipedia article must have one definitive name
[4] The general restriction against POV forks applies to article names as well. If a genuine naming controversy exists, and is relevant to the subject matter of the article, the controversy should be covered in the article text and substantiated with reliable sources. Otherwise,
alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes
among Wikipedia contributors . . .
Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each . . .
Point of view (POV) and content forks . . .
A point of view fork is an attempt to evade the neutrality policy by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. This is generally considered unacceptable. . .
The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject are treated in one article except in the case of a content fork.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such should cover the entire range of notable discussions on a topic.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&diff=315998349&oldid=314477724
My two critics were deleting other evidence at the same time as they were adding information that favored their own opinion
In 1871 J.M. Da Costa presented an article about the health problems of soldiers in the American Civil War. He described how some of them would contract fevers, and march for 20 miles while wearing tight waist belts, and carrying 60 lbs. of equipment on their backs in knapsacks that were tightly strapped to their chests. They would have to stop because of breathlessness, faintness, and fatigue, and several months later would recover from the fever but still be prone to the other symptoms. However, he wrote his paper 8 years after the war, and knew that it was common in civilian practice.
In fact, those symptoms were well known to effect women who wore tight waisted corsets which permanently altered the shape of the chest from being a broad rib cage with a wide base, to being a funnel shaped rib cage with a narrow base. The breathing muscle is dome shaped and attached to the base of the ribs, so it normally moves up and down smoothly so that air moves in and out of the lungs in a regular way. However, the narrow base of the funnel chest restricted and cramped the breathing muscle, especially when the woman inhaled, so they would often feel breathless, faint, and exhausted by the slightest exertion, and would get some relief by unlacing their corset. Their condition was diagnosed as neurasthenia, which was subsequently used by many authors as an alternative label for Da Costa’s syndrome. When I added information about corsets to the DCS page and linked it to a corset article in Wikipedia that was provided by someone else, my two critics deleted the information and the link. I also added information about studies which showed that many of the Da Costa’s patients had a thin physique, and long, narrow chests, but my two critics deleted that as well.
I also added some information about a nineteenth century research study which provided the scientific measurements of the pressure inside of the chest of women who were wearing corsets, and those who were leaning towards desks to write, and those who were leaning toward sewing machines to make clothes. Of course, my two critics deleted that information, and the link to the text of that research paper that was also on another page in Wikipedia, and that was provided by someone else.
There were many public debates about corsets being a cause of health problems or not, but the subject was settled with majority agreement in 1904 with a conclusion that they were extremely harmful, and, as a result, corsets gradually went out of fashion. About forty years later, a researcher named S.Wolf was trying to find the cause of the breathlessness of Da Costa’s patients by observing x-rays of the chest, and he noticed that as the person breathed in and the diaphragm descended down toward the abdomen it would begin to spasm. That resulted in abnormal and inefficient breathing, and was sometimes accompanied by other symptoms, so it was concluded by himself, and many other authors who reported on his study, that it was the cause of the breathlessness. Of course my two critics deleted that information, and the reference, and rewrote their own interpretation of the findings.
Here are some quotes from S.Wolf’s paper . . . The title was “Sustained Contraction of the Diaphragm, the Mechanism of a Common Type of Dyspnea and Precordial Pain”. . . and here are the first words in his article . . . “Complaints of respiratory distress characterised by inability to get a full breath were found to occur commonly among anxious individuals and among those who did not obviously display anxiety. By discussing situational conflicts, attacks were induced in 17 subjects during fluroscopic observation.” . . . Note that those are the symptoms of Da Costa’s syndrome, and that Wolf’s study has been referred to and supported by respiratory research in other Da Costa studies, and that there is additional evidence that the abnormal breathing alters the amount of oxygen in the blood and that the symptom of breathlessness (frequent sighing etc) occurs occasionally at rest, and is more noticeable during exercise, and that the degree of abnormalities are out of proportion as the level of exercise increases.
As you can see, I spent 12 months in Wikipedia adding useful information, and my two critics were trying to control the content by deleting any information that they didn’t like, and keeping only the small amount that they wanted, and repeating it throughout the page to emphasise their own point of view.
However, they wanted to stop me from adding any more so they tried to get me banned from the topic, and to do that they told the arbitrators that their request had nothing to do with the content, and falsely accused me of being a disruptive editor who was violating a lot of policies.
Here are the words that they posted on the arbitration page
At 17:46 on 26-1-09 Gordonofcartoon wrote . . . “I’m asking for Arbitration attention – ideally a topic ban, covering disruption/harassment on Talk and dispute resolution pages Gordonofcartoon 17:48, 26 January 2009 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_Gordonofcartoon
At 10:47 on 27-1-09 Gordonofcartoon wrote . . . This is emphatically not about content. Gordonofcartoon 10:47, 27 January 2009
At 20:25 on 27-1-09, of course, WhatamIdoing joined in with a large essay of criticism which included these comments . . .
“I think that a broad topic ban (including Da Costa’s syndrome, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Varicose veins, and any articles even slightly related to human posture, fitness, or fatigue) is an appropriate outcome. WhatamIdoing 20:25, 27 January 2009 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
I was banned the next day by an editor named Moreschi, and a few days later Gordonofcartoon left a thank you not on his talk page, and a few months later WhatamIdoing rewarded him with an Outlaw Halo Award for being the only editor who was prepared to break all the rules in order to get me banned. e.g. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Comment_from_Moreschi and herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=288770661 and here etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moreschi&diff=prev&oldid=288770661#A_long_overdue_thanks
Note that almost every word that WhatamIdoing wrote in those comments to Moreschi and others were carefully chosen to create and incite prejudice against me to draw attention away from the real issue which was them disrupting the content and their deletion of verifiable information.
My two Critics and their Selective use of policies
When my two critics mentioned that they were deleting each of my contributions because of policies, they were being very selective about their choice, and which paragraph of the policy they were using as their excuse, and if they agreed with it they could have easily found a different policy reason for declaring it to be an excellent contribution, or they could have just let it stay without comment on the grounds of “obvious common sense”. More importantly, they were not applying the same standards to other articles in Wikipedia where they agreed with “new contributors”, completely “anonymous” editors, or other editors or employees of organisations who obviously had strong conflicts of interest. For example, when they asked me to reveal my real identity I did so to comply with the request, and to comply with policy, and then they said I can’t add anything because of COI, but when I directed them to some anonymous editors and asked them to reveal their true identity and write an essay on their COI, my two critics gave the excuse that they didn’t have time to check every editor of every page??? (I mentioned one page in particular, and they didn’t even bother to check on one anonymous editor???) Also, when I asked them to reveal their true identity and the obvious conflict of interest which made them so hostile and passionate about the topic they responded with indignation, as if I had no right to ask, and that I was being uncivil, and that I should assume good faith in them, so they accused me of violating WP:CIVIL, and WP:AGF policies
Also, of course, when they deleted information on policy grounds I generally did not replace it. For example, I added my theory once, and they argued that it took up too much space on the page, so I abbreviated it, and they deleted it again, in about January 2008, and I haven’t mentioned it since. Similarly, when they deleted the information on corsets etc. I didn’t put it back, but for the next twelve months they just kept going to every discussion page in Wikipedia trying to get me banned by relentlessly chanting . . . “We have here a “self-identified”, “conflict of interest”, “Single purpose account “editor filling Wikipedia full of “self-promotional” ‘nonsense’, COI, COI, COI, SPA, SPA, SPA etc”. Gordonofcartoon was so single minded about blocking me that he even changed the essay on his UserTalk page to give the impression that his main aim In Wikipedia was to deal with SPA’s (single purpose accounts). All of their ridiculous nittering and nattering was just hyperbolic drivel. They were prancing about like power drunk dictators claiming to represent an entire Wikipedia community, when, in fact, only two editors were doing 99% of the criticism, and stirring up contempt against me by using deliberately inflammatory language. For example, I was just adding reasonable, and verifiable information to Wikipedia and responding to their policy requirements for more references, and then newer references, etc, or whatever their whimsy was at the time, and they would say something like this . . .”We two critics of Posturewriter must protect ‘all’ of the other? ‘thoroughly disgusted’ members of the respectable Wikipedia community by punishing him for his ‘disruptive’ ‘behavior’. We know how “you” must “all” be just as ‘frustrated’ as us, and “we” too? are “losing our patience”, and “we” the truly respectable’ rule-abiding’ editors want to help ‘you’ other rule-abiding editors deal with all of this. “Our” ‘solution’ to “all” of this is for ‘you’ to put a “broad topic ban” covering ‘everything’ that he knows ‘anything’ about until he has ‘proven’ that he is ‘capable’ of editing ‘co-operatively’ with other ‘respectable’ editors on pages about ‘cupcakes’ and ‘muffins’.
If I gave them an appropriate “monkey see-monkey do” response I would be accused of violating WP:civil, or WP:Battleground, so I will let you, the respectable, neutral, independent, and unbiased reader, provide an appropriate response.
Another example of the way that they manipulate policies to suit their own “opinion”
Paul Dudley White studied Da Costa’s syndrome for fifty years and wrote an internationally respected reference book for cardiologists in 1951, so I used it as a reference for the history section. My two critics told all of the other editors that it was an unreliable reference because it was an “out-of-date book”.
However, when I criticised them for using a children’s fiction novel they told the other editors that I was stupid for not understanding that it was a hatnote, not a reference. They then argued that it didn’t have to be relevant because of that policy. When I also mentioned that Gordonofcartoon was the individual who originally added it to the “See also” section of the page, which had since been changed to the “Related to” section, they argued that just because something was previously in the “Related to” section didn’t mean that it was actually related to anything, and that they could put a flowering plant at the top of the page if they wanted to.
The following words are extracts from the Arbitration page where I was banned. Note that that WhatamIdoing didn’t tell the arbitrators that the novel was a children’s fiction story. These were WhatamIdoing’s words about me . . .
“By “cherry-picking”, I mean, for example, that Posturewriter dedicates an inordinate amount of attention to concepts that were rapidly discarded (restrictive clothing causes DCS: rejected by J.M. Da Costa himself and not seriously entertained by anyone except Posturewriter himself for a century now) and to seriously outdated materials (a 1951 textbook is cited thirty-four times in his preferred draft; a text from the 1950s is chosen because texts even as recent as the 1960s don’t support his view) . . .The other problems that we’ve encountered generally involve a failure to grasp Wikipedia’s conventions. For example, at one time, Soldier’s heart redirected to the DCS article. There’s a novel named Soldier’s Heart, so we provided a link to the article about the book. Per WP:LAYOUT, this link should be in a hatnote instead of in a See also section. Posturewriter complained at length and repeatedly about the disambiguation link being “in the lead” and a “reference”. Posturewriter never seemed to grasp the point, and ultimately, it was resolved only because Soldier’s heart became a regular disambiguation page”. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2009
see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing
Note that the dispute was actually resolved because two other editors deleted their hatnote, and the link to their children’s fiction novel.
In general terms when I provided good references that complied with policy my two critics argued that I did it wrong, or they invented a new policy argument, and when they deliberately violated policies they argued that they were complying with a different policy or that there was something wrong with the policy.
Note also that I was banned before I had time to present my full defence which was due on the following Sunday.
How they contradict each other when they interpret which references are reliable: regarding The New York Times
When Gordonofcartoon linked to a children’s fiction novel on the Da Costa’s page I told him that it was an unreliable source for medical articles, but he argued incessantly about it. One of his many attempt at justifying it’s use can be seen by these words . . .
“Incidentally, a reliable source – The New York Times review cited from Soldier’s Heart (novel), [86] (you’ll need a
Bugmenot login) – says of the book that Goddard’s … life is shattered by what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder and what was then known as soldier’s heart”. Gordonofcartoon 14:10, 28 June 2008. See those words by scrolling down to the date here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Comments_on_the_novel_.E2.80.9CSoldier.E2.80.99s_Heart.E2.80.9D
That article may have been a good review of a children’s story, but it was not relevant material for a medical article.
Furthermore, two years later, his tag-team mate wrote the following words of advice to another editor about the reliability of a review in The New York Times. . .
“Some areas have real problems with sources that are trivially available online . . . One of today’s problems is is due to “The New York Times . . . (IMO this source shouldn’t be used at all“ WhatamIdoing 17:47, 24 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=380751684#reboot
The same editor made these comments shortly after . . . “This is how it works, out there in the “real” wikiworld: I (temporarily mislay my editorial judgment and) cite the primary paper. You come along and can’t get to the source, but you look around and discover the ”NYT” story about the article, and you double-cite it per your proposal. (You are unfortunately unaware that the “NYT” screwed up in this instance, but it’s an honest mistake.)” WhatamIdoing 18:12, 24 August 2010 see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=380756109
That editor continued with these condescending words. . . “And in my scenario, how exactly do you magically discover that that the ”NYT” article misrepresents the journal article? I have specified that “You are unfortuntely unaware that the “NYT” screwed up. I don’t cite the ”NYT” article because it’s wrong: you — not having advanced mind-reading skills, apparently — cite ”NYT” because you are trying to “helpfully” comply with this proposed rule for double-citations. Consequently, we ”are” talking about (accidentally) citing sources that misrepresent the original paper.” WhatamIdoing 18:48, 24 August 2010 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability&diff=prev&oldid=380763426
You can see that the way WhatamIdoing interprets the reliability of an article is this . . . If another editor used a review in the New York Times they would delete it because it was just a newspaper, and newspapers are full of innocent mistakes. However, if they used it themselves, they would argue that it was written by a highly respected author in one of the most prestigioous newspapers in the world. They can always find a plausible reason for deleting information that they don’t personally approve of, and an entirely different excuse for including information that suits their own extreme bias.
Another comment on the same issue
If you look closely at the following extract you can see how my two critics made a mistake.
WhatamIdoing wrote these words during a discussion with another editor . . . “”This is how it works, out there in the “real” wikiworld . . . You come along and can’t get to the source, but you look around and discover the ”NYT” story about the article, and you double-cite it per your proposal. (You are unfortunately unaware that the “NYT” screwed up in this instance, but it’s an honest mistake.)” WhatamIdoing 18:12, 24 August 2010
In their case, two years earlier, they were trying to argue with me, so they did a quick scan through the Google Search Engine, but couldn’t find any top quality medical references, so when they saw the article about ‘Soldiers Heart’ in the New York Times they thought it would be good enough. Unfortunately for them I read the book and found it to be an irrelevant children’s story, and when I told them they immediately realized that they had screwed up. However, they didn’t want to admit it, so they grabbed their bag of tricks and pulled out a few policies to use as their excuse, and made even bigger fools of themselves.
Ignorant versus informative history re WP:Undue Weight
Here is the Wikipedia guideline for Undue Weight at 3:13 on 26th January, shortly before I was banned . . .
“Neutrality requires that the articles should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each.”
One of the important aspects of history is that names and dates are not as important as the facts that accompany them, simply because the facts also change, especially in context. For example, in 1871 the largest group of soldier’s were deemed to collapse with fatigue because of long marches without proper food etc. It is important to know those details because nowadays soldiers don’t have to march for 20 miles, or hundreds or thousands of miles, because trucks, ships, and planes carry them and their heavy equipment to the region of battle.
Similarly the women in the nineteenth century were deemed to be the weaker sex because they would feel dizzy and faint in response to the slightest change in the weather, or the slightest exertion, or the slightest emotion. People who described them as the weaker sex failed to consider all of the facts, namely that those women were all from the Western world and wore whalebone corsets which restricted their breathing and circulation. However, other studies have shown that women from native tribes were loosely clothed and didn’t have the same health problems.
My two critics have obviously read too many modern references to know what was actually happening in previous decades. These are the facts . . . 1. the conditions of modern war are totally different to those of the past, and 2. Da Costa’s syndrome is common in civilians. Those two editors expected me to agree that Soldier’s heart was the main alternative label for Da Costa’s syndrome????, and that it is a post-war syndrome because their favorite cherry-picked modern newspaper or journal says so.?
My two critics then have the gall to act as if I am giving undue weight to old ideas that are not accepted in journals published in the past two years.
However, here is my advice to those two “modernians”
If Da Costa said that long marches caused the ailment then he said it, so nobody can say that he didn’t, and nobody can delete the fact that he said it, and if the condition was found in civilians, it was, and nobody can say it wasn’t or isn’t, and if somebody found evidence of the cause of the symptoms in the 1940’s, they found it, and nobody can say they didn’t, or argue that because it was discovered seventy years ago it is too old to mention.
My two critics seem to have a contempt for history and don’t seem to be intelligent enough to know that something may be said to have undue weight in a modern newspaper, but that doesn’t equate with undue weight in the history section of an article.
Also, Wikipedia invites people from all parts of society to contribute all information, not just from the favorite modern newspapers or journals that were read by my two critics yesterday morning while they were having breakfast.
Their attempts to manipulate “Article titles” policy
While I was in Wikipedia for 12 months they made several failed attempts to change the title of the “Da Costa’s syndrome” page so that they could stop me or anyone else from writing the real history of the topic. For example they tried their hardest to merge or change the title to “somatoform autonoimic dysfunction”, “anxiety disorder”, and “Soldier’s heart”. Since then WhatamIdoing has made 117 contributions to the discussion page about “Article titles” policy between June 2009 and June 2010. I have got no doubt that it is for the sole purpose of one day saying ‘by the way, this is just a sheer co-incidence, but has anyone noticed the topic of Da Costa’s Syndrome is not acceptable because of the many, many, many recent changes to our naming guidelines. Does anyone object to changing it or merging it with another article.’ (end of paraphrase>
See here http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped
=on&page=Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles
| The facts | My two critics ridiculous idea of neutral point of view |
| Da Costa wrote his article in 1871, and the label of Da Costa’s syndrome was in common use for 100 years, so I covered that period | Their version retained my description from just before then (1864) to 1876 – a period of 12 years, or about 10% of the history |
| Since 1876 there have been more than a hundred different labels for Da Costa’s syndrome. The main one in the U.K. was ‘effort syndrome’, and in the U.S. was ‘neurocirculatory asthenia’. Soldier’s heart was a popular label in World War one, but soon after that period most experts said that it was inappropriate and obsolete when they discovered that it was common in civilians. | My two critics argued that ‘we should focus of the main label’ – Soldier’s heart, and then put that label on the first line despite me telling them that it was wrong. |
| Da Costa’s syndrome is common in civilian life. It affects some children and is more common in Women than men. | They wrote the article with emphasis on military history, and focussed on the labels of ‘Soldier’s heart’, and ‘post-war syndromes’. |
| I summarised ten different theories in Oglesby Pauls history of the topic. He concluded that the cause was unknown. | They deleted nine of them and said that he described it as an anxiety disorder. |
| I reported on the scientific discoveries of the physical cause of the five main symptoms and provided the references from top quality, independent and verifiable research journals or books | The deleted all of those discoveries and all of those references, and replaced them with articles about psychiatric cause. |
More on th neutral point of view issus
Soon after I started contributing information to the Da Costa’s syndrome page in Wikipedia it was becoming apparent that two of the editors had something against me personally, and that they were going to use any and every policy as their excuse for deleting every word I wrote.
For example, they were arguing that every reference I used for verification was inappropriate, unreliable, or biased.
At one stage I decided to check THEIR references, and one was by a former Harvard professor named Oglesby Paul that had been published in the British Medical Journal. I was familiar with his article, so I read it again and presented a review of it in the history section where it was appropriate according to all of the relevant medical sourcing policies.
Paul essentially described about ten popular explanations for the cause that had been suggested and reviewed between1863 to 1987, where all of the ideas had their supporters, but that all had been assessed by independent studies, and were all found to have evidence in favor and against, and that nothing was proven. I therefore reduced the ten page article to about one page of text, and added it to the Da Costa page in chronological order in the history section. It was my intention that the review would be sufficient to cover most of the history for the time being, and that I could, in the near future, review the histories provided by other authors such as Sir James MacKenzie (1916), and Sir Thomas Lewis (1919), who gave a more contemporary and therefore more accurate account of the history from 1863-1919. I could later add other reviews to more accurately cover the period 1919 to 1950 etc, and then eventually reduce Paul’s review to one paragraph to cover anything omitted. I also gave my two critics the opportunity to do the history from 1987 to 2009 since they were essentially professing to be authorities on the topic?????
Five hours later, one of my critics, named Gordonofcartoon, deleted my review of Paul’s paper before I got around to making any improvements to the section, and in the process, he completely destroyed all hope of the readers seeing any type of neutral article, by replacing it with one sentence about anxiety, and even that was a misrepresentation of Paul’s paper. It also gave A CLEAR INDICATION OF HIS OWN EXTREME BIAS. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=190379699&oldid=190352656
My two critics have since repeatedly accused me of being disruptive, and argued that I was filling the page with too much detail, or cruft (with their clear inference that they considered it to be rubbish to be swept away by a broom as soon as possible), and they have since continued to have the same offensive attitude by describing everything I add as argumentative, uncivil, unreliable, out-of-date, and biased. They even established a specific section on a POV/Civil/Pushing page to accuse me of pushing my own point of view to the exclusion of every reliable source of information in history???
(regarding my review of Oglesby Paul’s paper, they were essentially arguing that my description of at least ten theories that he described was biased, and their deletion of nine of them, and leaving only their favorite one on the page, represented neutral point of view???
You can read the POV/Pushing page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=272385511&oldid=271706431#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
If you have a look at the discussions objectively you will be able to see that it is my two critics who were refusing to be co-operative, and who were destroying the neutrality of the article by being argumentative, disruptive, and biased, and that they dominated the content while I was involved, and dictated what remained at the time I was banned, and that virtually every word that I wrote on all pages has been deleted.
The first paragraph of the history from 1863 to 1900 was written by me using secondary sources (which is the way it is supposed to be done), and another editor named Avnjay rewrote it. Essentially, Avnjay checked the information from sources that were independent of mine, and verified that my original description of that period was accurate and unbiased. If I wrote those words they would have been deleted, but because they were rewritten by someone else they were kept.
My critics didn’t care about the fact that the information that I provided was accurate, they just wanted to make sure that I was not the person who put it there.
The methods they used to completely destroy the neutral poiint of view requirement
During the twelve months that I was contributing to Wikipedia, my two main critics always worked as a team against me to rig the outcome of discussions and completely undermine the whole purpose of neutral point of view, by using words such as “we” think this or that, which means that “we” have consensus, so you have to agree.
They have the cheek to imply that they were unfairly accused of tag-teaming, but the first two comments on the Da Costa’s talk page, which was SET UP BY ONE OF THEM, were made by them, and the RFC page where they wanted to get a “topic ban” on me was set up by ONE of them, and they set up the arbitration page where I was banned by ONE OF THEIR FRIENDS. All of the many other pages related to these matters were set up by ONE of them including the POV/Civil Pushing page which is typical of the way they completely destroy any hope of any sort of neutrality.
From the very start of the first talk page they were both arrogant in their tone by referring to Da Costa’s syndrome as “GARDEN VARIETY” orthostatic intolerance (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Banfield ), and five months later when they set up the POV page they were putting “Da Costa’s syndrome” at the top in bold and then saying that their dispute about it was a “MINOR” issue. They included a picture of a CATTLE at the top of the page with the sub-title of PC CTL, and regardless of the meaning they were conveying their attitude that anyone other than themselves, including members of the public, new contributors, Wikipedia readers, or journalists etc, were just ignorant fools who could be easily led like sheep or cattle, or kept in the dark like mushrooms etc. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=302592402&oldid=302555878
The reason that they called my contributions POV/CIVIL was because I had generally remained courteous to them despite their offensive remarks, but they were still arguing that I was violating another policy by pushing some sort of point of view. Note that they were insulting me and describing my contributions as “nonsense” or “crap”, which is an example of them violating discussion policy, and being generally ill-mannered.
They were also plotting and scheming to ensure that their point of view was the only one that the other editors saw, by not inviting me to the page to add my side of the story, AND, in fact, by not even telling me about it, AND by keeping it a close secret as the discussion proceeded, AND by breaking the rules to get me banned, AND, by adding comments after I was banned so that I could not defend myself against their lies and misrepresentations even if I found the page, AND by exclusively pushing their own biased, one-sided point of view.
They were arguing that I was pushing a particular point of view even when I supplied a list of 80 synonyms by a medical consumer, and my ideas were not included on the list, and they argued that a medical consumers webpage was not reliable, EVEN THOUGH it was compiled from the work of FOUR DOCTORS, and despite that fact that I supported it with A DOZEN TOP QUALITY MEDICAL REFERENCES, and they said that I was violating original research policy EVEN WHEN I REVIEWED THE REFERENCES THAT THEY PROVIDED.
If you have a look at the POV/Civiil/Pushing page you can see that the first essay was added by WhatamIdoing in May 2008, and the second one was added by Gordonofcartoon SEVEN MONTHS LATER (which was also a couple of days after I was banned), and he commented again six months later in July 2009. i.e. they were pushing their own point of view for 12 months WHEN I WASN’T EVEN THERE, and I was never there to give my point of view. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=302592402&oldid=302555878
THEY DON’T GIVE A DAM ABOUT NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW, but want to use, write, OR AMEND policies that enable them to rule Wikipedia with an iron fist in future, AND EXCLUDE EVERYONE WHO PROVIDES VERIFIABLE REFERENCES THAT DISAGREE WITH THEIR FAVORITE SELECTION.
MY TWO CRITICS KEPT PUSHING THEIR OWN POV RELENTLESSLY UNTIL THEY GOT THEIR WAY
My two critics had been insulting me and taking my words out of context, and telling lies for several months so I decided to write an essay about their tactics and put it at the top of my UserTalk page so that other editors would recognise their methods. The team of two were fond of criticising me, but resented me defending myself, and misrepresented my essay as a personal attack on them, which, according to their POV, was not warranted, or allowable. They therefore set up a WikiquetteAlerts page to get it removed. I then advised one of the editors on that page that they had my permission to remove anything that was deemed to be unacceptable according to policy, but they did not remove it, and another editor closed the discussion, and a third editor removed the related template from my talk page. My two critics then set up an MFD page to get it deleted, but failed again, so they set up an RFC page etc. They kept ignoring the general consensus, and continued relentlessly, and ultimately set up a discussion on the arbitration page where they arranged for one of their friends (named Moreschi) to barge in on the discussion and ban me on his own. The essay on my UserTalk page was deleted soon after, and the whole page was then removed.
Here are the words which WhatamIdoing wrote to an editor named Horologium on the arbitration page . . .
To Horologium . . . We’ve already attempted to address The Motivations, Strategies, and Tactics of my Critics. Repeatedly. We were told that it has to go to MfD — that MfD can’t deal with partial pages — that an RfC/U could address it — that an RfC/U can’t force the editor to delete offensive text — and so forth. There’s plenty of passing the buck, and we need a solution. The buck has to stop somewhere. WhatamIdoing 04:42, 28 January 2009 here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=266981397#Statement_by_WhatamIdoing . . . see also the MFD page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User_talk:Posturewriter
Note that MY TWO CRITICS HAD PREVIOUSLY ARGUED THAT THEY HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE IN WIKIPEDIA, AND THAT THEY HAD AN AUTHORATIVE KNOWLEDGE OF POLICY. However, you can see above that they were complaining about the fact that OTHER EDITORS REPEATEDLY TOLD THEM THAT THEY HAD SET UP THE WRONG DISCUSSION PAGES, and that were many other editors who REPEATEDLY told them that they did not agree with their interpretation of policy.
The methods that they used may “SEEM” intelligent and complicated but are quite astonishingly SIMPLE. They put a negative spin on every word I wrote, and every thing I did, and hoped that some of the mud would stick. e.g. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests
_for_comment.2FPosturewriter
POV/Civil/Pushing ???
In order to discredit the verifiable information that I provided to the Da Costa page my two critics accused me of pushing my own opinion. However I provided 60 references from a wide variety of independent sources, including Da Costa’s original research paper, and my critics only supplied 12 of the remaining 18 references from a very narrow range of sources
Here are a few relevant facts: Da Costa’s objective in 1871 was to replace confusion with clarity about chest symptoms that did not appear to be due to heart disease, and later, the best doctors in England were appointed to study the problem.
They determined that Da Costa had described several different conditions in his original report, but found that a set of symptoms, which became known as Da Costa’s syndrome, was common in civilian life amongst men and women, and was, in fact, more common in women. The condition was made worse by war, and generally affected soldier’s who had evidence of it prior to enlisting. It was also called the effort syndrome because it only affected some soldier’s during exercise, and reduced the capacity for exertion. They were also able to determine the physical and physiological basis for those symptoms.
My critics accused me of POV/Civil/Pushing because I presented those facts, and they don’t want that information in Wikipedia.
They want to shove those facts out of the way to shore up their point of view (opinion) by describing it as “a vague nineteenth century ailment, generally considered a psychosomatic anxiety disorder“. Their 12 references include an online rare diseases data base, a medical dictionary, a “Who Named it?” website that has a couple of paragraphs and a medical disclaimer, a link to an irrelevant children’s fiction novel that was reviewed in the New York Times, links to poems, plays, and telemovies, articles based on military studies, and references filled with psychiatric jargon in the title, text, and notes, and websites that include the label somewhere in the middle of their enormous lists e.g. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Da_Costa%27s_syndrome&diff=266787024&oldid=266755214#References
My critics should be accused of POV/Arrogant/Shoving Everything Else Out of the Way
Here is some more of their POV/Arrogant/Shoving . . . ” It’s overall an unimportant article for Wikipedia, so we can’t justify investing several editors’ time and energy into turning it into a little gem of an article and discrediting his personal views. Considering the basic priorities, the goal for this article is to have it not actually be actively wrong while we deal with more important articles, like Meningitis or Mental health. here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Civil_POV_pushing&diff=272385511&oldid=271706431#Da_Costa.27s_syndrome
About Da Costa’s syndrome – which they called “a vague 19th century syndrome”????
Here is a quote from a research paper in The New York Academy of Medicine, April 1930, Vol.V1., No.4, p.223-242 . . . The term neurocirculatory asthenia was coined during the World War to designate a symptom complex which had been well known. . . Da Costa during the Civil War wrote a masterly description of this condition and termed it ‘Irritable Heart’ . . . Lewis, in his admirable report suggested the name ‘Effort Syndrome’. Before 1918, despite a rather extensive literature on this condition, the medical profession was rather lacking in their appreciation of the frequency and importance of this syndrome . . . It is especially interesting that even though Da Costa and others pointed out that neurocirculatory asthenia was not a condition peculiar to military life, and that the symptoms in most of the cases, long antedate military service, this fact attracted little attention . . . This lecture tonight emphasized the profession’s interest and the importance of this condition.”
Their selective view of history
Da Costa’s syndrome History – Stage 1
When Da Costa described a set of symptoms that appeared to occur in the absence of heart disease he, and subsequent authors, started looking for the cause. By the mid 20th century the physical cause of all of the main symptoms had been found. The left-sided chest pain was associated with tenderness of the muscles between the ribs, the breathlessness was due to spasm of the breathing muscles, and the remaining symptoms of fatigue and faintness etc. were identified as being due to the abnormal pooling of blood in the abdominal and peripheral veins.
Da Costa’s syndrome History Stage 2
However, as is commonly known, the answers to some questions lead to more questions, so a new chapter of study began. For example, what causes the tenderness of the muscles between the ribs? Some suggested that it was due to anxiety induced muscle tension, and others said it could be due to the strain of frequently lifting heavy objects at awkward angles etc. Also what causes the spasm of the diaphram? Some suggested anxiety induced hyperventilation – HVS (even though the symptoms of the anxiety type are different), and others thought it may have been due to poor breathing practices that lead to habitual hyperventilation etc. Finally, what caused the blood to pool in the abdominal veins. The fact that it occurs when a person moved from the laying to the standing position had it relabeled as orthostatic hypotension (which is modern jargon for blood pooling in the lower part of the body). There are many ideas of cause which lead to other labels such as neurally mediated hypotension (NMH), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), delayed orthostatic hypotension, or orthostatic intolerance (OI) etc.The reduced capacity for exertion is related to that, so it has a similar modern label of exercise intolerance.
In the process of changing the labels the link to Da Costa’s original observations have become absorbed into modern concepts, but according to Oglesby Paul in 1987 the basic syndrome still existed and was the same, well defined, and easy to recognise.
WhatamIdoing has used trumped up policy reasons to delete all information about the original discoveries, which is “deceit by deletion” c.f. deceit by omission.
The general advice that I was given can be summed up like this. My two critics didn’t know much about this topic before I started contributing to it, but they then claimed to have seen that it is “considered to be” an anxiety disorder in a reliable modern dictionary, and therefore I am only allowed to discuss the history of all of the anxiety theories. I was not permitted to mention any of the 100 other ideas, and if I provided any information about the discovery of the physical causes it would be immediately deleted and I would be permanently banned.
The editor who banned me, wrote these words about another topic . . .
“On Wikipedia, this translates to rewriting history, and tampering with facts and verified information” here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Moreschi/The_Plague&diff=252382144&oldid=237936534
|
Introduction Like most people I prefer privacy, so when I joined Wikipedia with the opportunity of using an ID I chose something that I could remember, which was Posturewriter, but was soon required to provide online proof of my real ID, and details of all of my publications. I have absolutely nothing to hide, so I gave that information without fuss. However, it was not long before two editors started telling everyone else about it, and prompting them to demand more and more details, and used the information as a weapon against me at every opportunity, and continued relentlessly for twelve months when the eventually used it to get me banned. Eighteen months after I was banned one of them made the following comments on a discussion page about “conflict of interest”, and then had the cheek to act prim and proper and make the next change to the actual policy. This is part of WhatamIdoings remarks on the discussion page . . . “The latest comments there indicate that the voluntary nature of COI disclosure is not evident to some editors. Specifically, the link is opposed supposedly on the grounds that the disclosure on the editor’s user page and article talk page wasn’t “enough” (failed to mention absolutely every person or organization he’d ever worked for I think). This is beyond silly for something that we “encourage”, but have never absolutely required. ” WhatamIdoing19:20, 27 September 2010 See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest&diff=prev&oldid=387376019 These are the words which that editor added to the actual “Conflict of interest” policy . . . “When someone voluntarily discloses a conflict of interest, other editors should always assume the editor is trying to do the right thing. Do not use a voluntarily disclosed conflict of interest as a weapon against the editor.” See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest&diff=prev&oldid=387373649 I described in some detail how that two-faced individual used the information against me in the essays below which have been written in the past 18 months. |
Miscellaneous essays
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A TEST FOR STUDEDNTS OF “MEDIA STUDIES”, “APPLIED HISTORY”, SOCIOLOGY, AND “INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM”.
No.1
The term ‘in-depth’ journalism implies the quality and reliability of an article, but, as you can appreciate, some people will be given ‘one-sided’ reports of an event, and will then be shown ‘supposedly’ ‘independent’ and ‘reliable’ evidence, and a photo or video etc, which convinces them of it’s truth within a few minutes. The shallow journalist won’t bother to go any further, but the thorough journalist will look at, and consider all of the evidence from all angles. I have looked at all angles of Da Costa’s syndrome (for example), which is why I was confident at dealing with all arguments – I’ve looked at the evidence, and I’ve considered the opinions, and mentioned most of them, but my critics removed all of the information that I ‘know’, and left behind only the bits and pieces that make their motives, and their ideas look good. They want you to ‘believe’ them, but I want you to assess the facts from an ‘in depth’ perspective.
My two critics in Wikipedia were trying to convince all of the other editors that my contributions to the Da Costa’s syndrome page were based on references that were trivial and poor quality, and in that process they argued that one of them had supposedly been written by ‘Sir James MacKenzie’ who, in their opinion, was just an ordinary doctor who joined a society,”showed up at a meeting“, and read his paper, which was then printed in the society’s Proceedings. In another example they were referring to a book written by Harvard professor Paul Dudley White, which they described as an outdated “1951 textbook“, and with a further reference they said that I was blathering on about Harvard professor Oglesby Paul, who they described as “this guy” who just wrote a routine review. e.g. see here and here, and here and here and here.
Your test will be to write an essay on those comments, and you can mark it out of 100 yourself, in the following manner. 20 points for reading references 1, 2, 9, and 23 in full, and naming those three authors and doing brief summaries of their information. Add 20 points for researching and summarising the qualifications, relevance, and significance of the authors. Add 20 points for reading references 7 and 24. Add 20 points for writing your assessment of the quality of those references, and another 20 points for assessing why my critics would want to misrepresent them and their information. The references can be found in the list here
Media studies students test no. 2
1. Look at the small volume of information on the Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome page that was available before I started on the Da Costa’s Syndrome page in December 2007 and note that there were only five references and that none of them were numbered or linked to the text for verificaton. The article had been there for 3 years. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=175682466&oldid=175647909
See also here
AND here where, at 22:05, 15 May 2008, WhatamIdoing gave this opinion . . . “the “cardiac” DCS symptoms look strikingly like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Da_Costa%27s_syndrome/Archive_1#Physical_v_psychosomatic
2. How many times did anonymous editors contribute to the Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome page between December 2007 and December 2008. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&limit=500&action=history
3. How many times did WhatamIdoing edit it during that period. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&limit=500&action=history
4. Comment on this question; Should the anonymous contributors be blocked from the topic until they have provided a proper Wikipedia ID, and discussed any COI issues.
5. What was the photo of several dozen colorful tablets put there for, or left there for??? – write your own assesment of the reasons . . . see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=268159600 . . . and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=next&oldid=268160372 . . . and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=286159089&oldid=286158866#Medications . . . and here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:WhatamIdoing&diff=266425204&oldid=266219728
6. What is the relationship between the two syndromes. Note that one of the most common names for Da Costa’s syndrome was neurocirculatory asthenia, and then read reference numbers 18, 37, and 38 here
7. According to my critics; references for medical articles should not be original research by the contributor, and should not be original research by one author, and should only be “reviews” of multiple articles by independent experts, and should only be from top quality peer reviewed journals, and non-neutral sources, or should not be older than 5 years or written by medical consumers etc., and none of the statements in the text should be be there unless they have been properly linked to verifiable references according to Wikipedia style guidelines. According to my critics they should only contain summaries of mainstream generally accepted and proven ideas from modern text books and encyclopeidas or journals. Count the number of references that fit all of those requirements on the Varicose veins page here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Varicose_veins&diff=285836582&oldid=285835992, and on any two other medical pages of your choice, and compare them to the references that I provided here
8. How would you assess the value of the history section here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=286159089&oldid=286158866#History
9. Comment on the fact that section headings are supposed to be standard to all medical articles, but there are several on this page that are specific to the topic here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome&diff=286159089&oldid=286158866 . . . Check 3 other medical pages at random and comment on the variety of tailor made section headings and include those in your comment.
10.Give yourself ten points for reading the links and answering each question, and 10 points for writing an account on the EXTREME DOUBLE STANDARDS applied to the criticism of the Da Costa’s page and this one, and two other medical articles of your choice and make similar comparisons. An example of the type of criticism of the DaCosta’s page can be seen by scrolling down to the page text here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=243268880 . . . and by reading the discussions here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive_2#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment.2FPosture
For more information see here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#POTSinfoTransfer
and here https://theposturetheory.twebexponent.co.uk/dacostas-synd-wikiwebpagel/#PlateOfPills
|
Dilemma skill development Some CFS patients develop skills at dealing with dilemmas because they often find themselves in situations where, no matter what they do, they will still be faced with problems. For example, if they are inexperienced at dealing with the symptoms and therefore always exhausted, they will be diagnosed as having fatigue caused by anxiety, but if they develop methods of managing their lifestyle so that they are relatively free of fatigue, and therefore appear to be healthy, they are likely to be told that their symptoms are ‘trivial, or are ‘imaginary’, or that they are ‘faking’ etc. They are essentially trapped because they have a health problem that no-one can cure, so they have to tolerate all of the different, and contradictory interpretations of their actions, and they have to deal with all of the criticism in a calm and orderly way. As the saying goes, double edged arguments ‘are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem’. Doing nothing about a problem is not a practical option because nothing will change – but it sounds like a sensible idea to people who don’t have the problem. |
|
|
|
|