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Revision as of 14:21, 28 March 2007

Template:ParanormalAnteniSmile Template:ReallyRational Skepticism-Member

at the bottom of the page

I live/work here in Monument Valley Utah. It is wilderness, and I have a lot of time to study, especially Parapsychology.

I'd be very happy to hear from you.

Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 06:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		I award you this barnstar for your many excellent contributions to the parapsychology article as well as your many contributions to the area as a whole. - Solar 23:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		I award you this barnstar for your many outstanding contributions to paranormal articles. - Dreadlocke ☥ 22:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

So long and thanks for all the fish

I just wanted to let you know I am taking a break from Misplaced Pages indefinitely. It seems like it's mostly about disputes and not enough about pure info. I don't really have time for that in my life. Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know. I might be back some time, but I have no idea when that might be. --Nealparr 02:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to see you go )=. I will be doing the same thing, to an extent, as soon as the parapsychology article is straightened out. And for the same reason. You're one of the best editors on here- maybe the best. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

That's kind of part of it. I don't think that article will ever be squared away. Every time I think about working on it, I get to thinking that in about a month, I'll be arguing the same points all over again, and I just don't want to bother with it : ) I guess that's the drawback to a constantly edited article. You can never really call it finished. I'll still be lurking around, just not actively editing more than typos, etc.

--Nealparr 03:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Damn! I hate seeing two great editors leave wikipedia because of the pseudoskeptics and their incessant arguments and destruction of paranormal articles! Hopefully you'll come back soon! Keep an eye on things here, they may be changing for the better within the next six months or less... Dreadlocke ☥ 18:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Pseudoscience catagorization

According to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Obvious pseudoscience it is not wrong to categorize obvious pseudoscience (which the subjects we are dealing with obviously are) as such. --ScienceApologist 08:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

That ruleing was applied to Time cube. Not to things covered in a scientific field such as parapsychology. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 19:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It also applied to astrology. See any parallels? --ScienceApologist 20:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

None. And you're wrong: that is not in the category of "obvious" pseudoscience. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 20:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Righto, it's just "generally considered pseudoscience". --ScienceApologist 13:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It's all greek to me

Every book or article I've ever read says it's Greek. Does this edit have a ref? How does the current one look?--Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Please use edit summaries judiciously. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No problemo! (=

Over haul

On my user pager, where I have freedom, I have deeply revised Extrasensory Perception. I would be interested in your comments. User:Kazuba 20 Mar 2007

Martin phi, I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. Sandbox? Sandbox link? Sandbox Link to user page? Let's just forget it. Like I said I am no computer whiz. This thing is very uncomfortable for me. I know very little about how to use a computer. On Misplaced Pages I am totally lost in space. It takes me hours to construct just the smallest amount of text. Computers scare me. I feel like I am tied up, bound with rope. I see people using all sorts of computer terms that I know absolutely nothing about. Let's just forget it. User: Kazuba 20 Mar 2007

Science Cat

Martin, have you noticed the main header in the Science cat, the one that says "This category requires continual maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should list very few—if any—article pages directly, and contain primarily sub-categories". Feel free to put the various "science" people under the pertinent sub-category and if there isn't one, feel free to create them (ie "Biology" would be appropriate for Sheldrake). Pseudoscience as a category for people is valid mainly as there is a lot of disputed evidence out there and the people who are notable (ie/ in WP) should be listed....to appear in the category. After all, there isn't that many of them compared to say those who would clutter up the science cat. This is a normal function of WP but it seems that you think that pseudoscience = bad and should be "balanced". I am just pointing out basic WPism. I agree that it's application to JE is incorrect, because he isn't trying to advance any pseudoscience he just "is" a psychic. However Sheldrake is famous for being somebody who writes heavily on the subject. He isn't notable for being a biologist...ie/ a scientist...he is notable as advancing many pseudosciences as discussed in the article's lead. Shot info 07:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Psionics

I did revert it, both because I think the term does have some notability outside parapsychology, and because there was already a previous decision to keep/undelete it. Noclevername 18:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Just because proper sources/citations are hard to find, doesn't mean they aren't there (hmm, does that sound like a certain other phenomenon?) I think those who have worked on the article (myself included) would disagree that "no one cares" about it; sure it may take some time and effort to fix it up, but what that's worth doing doesn't? Noclevername 20:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

True compliment

Hey, you know, this actually is a true compliment! But, if they keep up the compliments, they'll find themselves blocked for NPA... :)Dreadlocke ☥ 18:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Just couldn't break the habit

Good to have you back Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 23:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm just lurking. Not really actively editing right now. Though I'd love to re-write the psychic article because I really think it's just all wrong : ) There's a squabble over the definition being "A psychic is a person who has psychic abilities" and "A psychic is a person who allegedly has psychic abilities". Both take the wrong approach when you consider that the article hasn't really explained what psychic abilities are in theory. It's like saying "An apple is an object that has appleness" or "An apple is an object that allegedly has appleness." Talking about appleness would say that an apple is a red fruit that is juicy and eaten by people.

I still maintain that parapsychology should not be the focus of the article.

What I would like to do is start from scratch and talk about the term psychic being the idea that thoughts aren't confined to one's brain. Flesh that out before ever talking about nouns and adjective meanings. Explain the prevailing idea that thoughts are biochemical processes in the brain, borrow from consciousness articles to show the controversy and theories that suggest that thoughts aren't bi-products of the brain, then present the theory that thoughts aren't confined to the brain, and THEN mention that there are people who believe they can access other people's thoughts. All the while keeping the tone that this is not a mainstream theory because it really isn't. By doing it this way, there's no neutrality issues because it's just reporting on the theory of psychic abilities.

--Nealparr 00:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

???

What would you do if I started a paranormal wiki? Cause, for example, there was a pretty good intro, which got deleted for whatever reason- in other words, it was too good to stand. Editors like you are totally wasted on here. I don't want to start something which is POV, but something where the rules allow good information to stand. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a couple of those out there if you're interested. Some even use MediaWiki. MediaWiki is extremely simple to install if you have a basic understanding of PHP and MySQL. I installed it a few months back on a RP gaming site I manage because there's was a great deal of background stories to cover. But the reason I come to Misplaced Pages is because everyone else is here : ) Otherwise I'd participate in some of the ones that are already out there. Still, if you go and create a really popular paranormal wiki, I'll definitely show up. Thanks for the invitation!

--Nealparr 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in seeing your RPing link if you wouldn't mind posting it here (or you can email it to me). Shot info 22:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind Shot info. It's a Neverwinter Nights 2 Persistent World called Luskan. You can check it out here: http://www.luskan.com/wiki

It's not all that active right now, but that's it, such as it is. The main site / forums are at: http://www.luskan.com

--Nealparr 23:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Which paranormal wikis do you know of? Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any specific ones off the top of my head, but if you do a search on Google for "paranormal MediaWiki" , a number of them show up. It returns the keyword MediaWiki (which will show up on any MediaWiki powered site) along with the keyword paranormal. Poking through the results, I see quite a few though I have no idea how good they are.

--Nealparr 02:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing like what you're describing, nope. Most are pretty crappy from what I saw. For all its faults, Misplaced Pages has one thing going for it -- everyone's here! : )

--Nealparr 03:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Maintaining it isn't that bad. If you don't have any familiarity with MySQL and PHP, installing it might be a pain. If you know what your doing, though, nothing easier.

--Nealparr 04:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yet another 3RR violation

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Martinphi reported by User:Minderbinder (Result:) --Minderbinder 15:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked for violating the three-revert rule on List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts. Please be careful to discuss controversial changes or seek dispute resolution rather than engaging in an edit war. The duration of the block is 8 hours. Seraphimblade 17:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I was really careful not to go over the 3RR rule. I counted very carefully. The only reason I did revert was because I had tried everything short of asking for mediation. The "1st revert" was not a real revert -as acknowledged by the admin-, but a duplicate edit to those on March 9. Also, the edits were obviously justified within the rules, as they were merely deleting material which was controversial and unsourced, which had been marked with a citation request for weeks, and which was deleterious. Here is what I did, and you will see I tried to follow the rules:

1. delete unsourced material- that was way back in Feb, I think
2. have the edit reverted by others
3. insert citation requests for the material
4. wait a long time.
5. take out the uncited material again
6. have it reverted again
7. talk about it on the talk page
8. leave the citation requests in for a couple weeks more (this is from memory)
9. Ask on the talk page how long people thought I should wait, before taking out the uncited material
10. Recieve no response on that question
11. Wait another week or so
12. take out the material again
13. "edit war," with only 3 reverts- I was so careful.

I don't think it was fair that I was blocked after all the care I took to follow the rules, and to not go over the 3RR. I've used reverting, but I have always tried not to cross the line. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: I may not be able to respond because we are having power outages. Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You're not supposed to revert war at all, and the rule isn't an entitlement to revert three times each day. It's very telling that in your thirteen steps of making excuses, you never once mention consensus.

You need to make edits that have consensus. If your edits don't have consensus (or disagree with the consensus), you shouldn't make them, and if your edits are reverted you should try and build consensus instead of revert warring. It's not good enough to just talk about it on the talk page, you actually have to get other editors to agree with you. --Minderbinder 00:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm also very troubled by the fact that you seem to think "following the rule closely" makes edit-warring acceptable. 3RR doesn't mean "it's okay to revert a lot if you do it only three times per day." If there's a dispute that can't be settled on the talk page, seek dispute resolution. Get a mediator, or file an article RFC to involve more members of the community to try to reach consensus. If it's only between two editors, a third opinion also can be a good quick way to help. Thus far, I have not once seen resolution of a dispute come out of an edit war, only disruption to articles and protection/blocks resulting. If you find yourself in a dispute you can't get solved on your own, request the help of the community in it, and do accept that sometimes, consensus will not be for the version you prefer. Seraphimblade 01:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)